The situation in Gaza is more than catastrophic as Israel’s genocidal attacks continue. We hope the start of South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice today will add to the building international pressure to stop Israel’s attacks and lift the brutal siege.
We urge you to watch the powerful testimonies building a case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and to join some of the Bay Area actions for Palestine this weekend or the National March on Washington for Gaza on January 13 (see below).
We also wanted to share this new video from MECA’s team in Gaza. Wafaa El-Derawi shares some of the challenges we face, the work we are still doing with your support, and the need for international solidarity with Palestinians now more than ever.
In solidarity,
All of us at MECA
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TAKE ACTION FOR GAZA!
Bay Area Solidarity with Gaza Events
Visit AROC’s website for full listing of Bay Area events
Jan 13: Port Shutdown for Palestine
Jan 14: West Coast March for Gaza
& much more!
March on Washington for Gaza
On January 13th, 2024, the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine* in partnership with the ANSWER Coalition, will host the March On Washington for Gaza. We call on all our supporters to join us for this monumental event and make sure their demands for justice are met.
Date: Saturday, January 13th, 2024 | 1:00 PM
Location: Freedom Plaza | 1325 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004
Details march4gaza.org
SF Gig for Gaza: Irish Musicians host a benefit concert for the children of Gaza
Saturday, January 13, 4-8pm
To be held in the Emerald Pub at the UICC; all ages welcome. It’s for the kids, so bring the kids!
Musicians: Shay Black, Eamonn Flynn, Darcy Noonan, Hector Bragado, Ben Hunter, Christy O’Connell, Stacy Samuels Erica & Friends, Ceol Na Mná (Iseult Jordan, Marla Fibish & Susan Spurlock), Colm O’Riain, Erin Ruth, The Gas Men, Rory McNamara, Matt Lacques, Sean Kelly, Neill O’Neill, and more…
Suggested Donation $20 (All Donations accepted)
Details: https://irishcentersf.org/event/irish-musicians-host-a-gig-for-the-children-of-gaza/
SOUND THE ALARM!
Over 22,000 Palestinian people have been killed by the Israeli military and over 2 million Palestinian people trapped in Gaza under the heaviest bombardment yet. WE ARE WITNESSING GENOCIDE.
We are not helpless in this moment. We need everyone to TAKE ACTION.
The people of Gaza have a number one demand: KEEP UP THE PRESSURE & CALL FOR A CEASEFIRE NOW.
Use your power and influence to hold our U.S. government accountable.
Emergency Aid for Gaza
Make a donation to support MECA & our local partners in Gaza providing emergency aid to thousands of displaced families
Set up a personalized fundraising page to help raise funds for MECA’s emergency aid work
Ceasefire NOW
Join more than 800 organizations and 1 million people in calling for a #CeasefireNOW to ensure the protection of civilians.
This campaign aims to reach 2.2 million signatories – 1 for each of the Palestinians living in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
Signs at Madison-Rafah and oil at Playgrounds for Palestine Madison.
January 13, 2024
Webinar: What Would MLK Do?
Israel is starving Gaza
“There are no greens, fruit and dairy products here like I had before. Prices are very high because of the food shortage in the markets, so instead of three meals a day, we’ve gone down to one or two. My four-year-old has osteoporosis and needs to drink milk every day, but now I can’t get it for her.”
— Wisal Abu ‘Odeh, 34, a pregnant mother of two from Beit Hanoun, is a displaced person currently sheltering in the Khan Yunis area
Everyone in Gaza is going hungry. About 2.2 million people are surviving day by day on almost nothing, routinely going without meals. The desperate search for food is relentless, and usually unsuccessful, leaving the entire population – including babies, children, pregnant or nursing women and the elderly – hungry.
The Gaza Strip was already in the throes of a humanitarian crisis before the war, mainly due to Israel’s 17-year blockade. About 80% of the population relied on humanitarian aid. Some 44% of households were food insecure and another 16% were at risk of food insecurity. Given this starting point, it is clear why Gaza plummeted into a full-blown catastrophe so quickly.
On 21 December 2023, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) published a report on the situation in Gaza. The FRC, which consists of independent experts, uses the internationally accepted classification of food insecurity levels, the most severe being Phase 5 – Catastrophe/Famine. According to this method, urgent intervention is needed as of Phase 3 (Crisis or worse) in order to protect the population.
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The FRC report is based on information collected in the Gaza Strip from 24 November 2023 to 7 December 2023. The committee found that during this time, in four of five households in northern Gaza and in half of IDP households in the south, residents went days without any food and many skipped meals to feed their children. About 93% of the population in Gaza – some 2.08 million people – were suffering from acute food insecurity at Phase 3 or higher, with over 15% – 378,000 people – already at Phase 5.
The report also forecasts that by 7 February 2024, the entire population of the Gaza Strip will reach Phase 3 or worse. At least one in four residents – more than 500,000 people – is expected to be at Phase 5, facing extreme food shortages, hunger and exhaustion. According to the report, if current conditions persist, there is a significant risk that famine will be declared throughout the entire Gaza Strip within six months. Such a declaration is made when 20% of households reach Phase 5, when 30% of children suffer from severe malnutrition, and when two adults or four children out of 10,000 die of hunger every day.
Similarly, a UNICEF survey from 26 December 2023 found that an increasing number of children are not receiving their basic nutritional needs. About 90% of children under age two in Gaza consume food from two or fewer food groups. In a survey conducted two weeks earlier, the figure was 80%. The nutrition of pregnant and nursing women has also been severely compromised, with 25% consuming only one type of food, and almost 65% only two types.
This reality is not a byproduct of war, but a direct result of Israel’s declared policy. Residents now depend entirely on food supplies from outside Gaza, as they can no longer produce almost any food themselves. Most cultivated fields have been destroyed, and accessing open areas during the war is dangerous in any case. Bakeries, factories and food warehouses have been bombed or shut down due to lack of basic supplies, fuel and electricity. Stockpiles in private homes, stores and warehouses have long since run out. In these conditions, the family and social support networks that helped residents at the beginning of the war collapsed, too.
Yet Israel is deliberately denying the entry of enough food into Gaza to meet the population’s needs. Only a fraction of the amount of food entering before the war is allowed in, with limitations on the types of goods, how they are brought in and how they are distributed within Gaza.
For example, almost all goods enter through Rafah Crossing, a passenger crossing that is not equipped for massive commercial transports, limiting the number of truckloads getting through and creating a bottleneck. Although Israel recently allowed trucks in through Kerem Shalom Crossing, too, which is designed for commercial transports, this was merely a token addition that has failed to alleviate the hardship. Additionally, Israel forces aid organizations to purchase food from Egypt and prevents them from buying it in Israel, which would allow for a more efficient and rapid transfer of goods. Israel also prohibits the private sector in Gaza from purchasing food, which could significantly increase supply.
Aid organizations are struggling to operate under current conditions, and most of the limited aid allowed in remains in Rafah instead of reaching residents throughout the Strip. Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, listed several reasons why aid cannot be efficiently distributed. Among other things, he noted that trucks are inspected several times before Israel allows them into Gaza, and even then, long lines form due to the conditions at Rafah Crossing. The little food that does get in is very difficult to distribute due to the constant bombings, destroyed roads, frequent communication blackouts, and shelters overflowing with of hundreds of thousands of IDPs crowding into smaller and smaller areas.
Israel can, if it so chooses, change this reality. The images of children begging for food, people waiting in long lines for paltry handouts and hungry residents charging at aid trucks are already inconceivable. The horror is growing by the minute, and the danger of famine is real. Still, Israel persists in its policy.
Changing this policy is not just a moral obligation. Allowing food into the Gaza Strip is not an act of kindness but a positive obligation under international humanitarian law: starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited, and when a civilian population lacks what it needs to survive, parties to the conflict have a positive obligation to allow rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid – including food. These two rules are considered customary law and violating them constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
January 13, 2024
National March on Washington for Gaza
This call has now been endorsed by over 100 organizations. More information.
- Bus from Milwaukee information: reservations are due by Thursday, Jan. 4.
- Bus from Chicago information.
January 11, 2024
Josh Ruebner: “Palestinian Nakbas: from Truman to Biden”
Indiana Center for Middle East Peace, Inc.
Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM EST
5:30 PM to 7:30 PM CST
Livestream
Josh Ruebner is a leading US Middle East policy analyst. He has worked at the Congressional Research Service, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and American Muslims for Palestine. Presently a PhD candidate at University of Exeter’s European Centre for Palestine Studies. Also a Fellow, Middle East Institute. Author: Israel: Democracy or Apartheid State? and Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace.
This event is free and open to the public.
This program will be livestreamed on our Indiana Center for Middle East Peace public group Facebook page, open to anyone on or off Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/190616978180112
This program will also be recorded and posted on our ICMEP YouTube channel shortly after the event.
January 11, 2024
South Africa presents its case against Israel
South Africa’s oral argument in the ICJ will take place on Thursday, January 11 from 10am-12pm (Central European Standard Time) which is 3 – 5 am CT, and Israel’s oral argument will take place on Friday January 12 from 10am-12pm (Central European Standard Time). The hearings will be streaming live on the ICJ’s website and on UN Web TV.
January 8, 2024
Lights Up for Palestine! McKee & Maple Grove
January 8, 2024
USCPR Phone Zap ⚡
12 noon CT
Atlanta Cop City activists push to abolish GILEE program
Amid the Palestinian genocide activists spread awareness about Cop City and Israeli police training
In a striking convergence of international policing efforts, the occupation State of Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) may become a component of Atlanta’s Cop City, thanks to the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, a university-based police exchange program that focuses on “enhancing homeland security efforts through international cooperation and training programs.”
Advocates who have spoken out against plans for the 85-acre police training facility in South DeKalb—known colloquially as Cop City—say the recent presence of Israel’s military in Atlanta is emblematic of a decades-long partnership between the U.S. and Israel in sharing strategies of control through violence. Activists have underscored the importance of shutting down the GILEE program for years, but at this most recent juncture of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and ongoing genocide in Gaza, the calls have reached a fever pitch.
Activists’ perspective of GILEE
On Oct. 7, in response to the apartheid State of Israel’s ongoing occupation and escalating violence in occupied Palestinian territories, the military arm of Hamas launched an unprecedented attack in Israel, killing hundreds of military personnel and civilians and taking at least 200 hostages in exchange for imprisoned Palestinians. In the 38 days since, Israel has been waging a genocide on Gaza, killing more than 11,000 Palestinians.
On Oct. 19, the Atlanta Community Press Collective published open records on X, formerly known as Twitter, revealing that the Atlanta Police Department and Fulton County SWAT teams had conducted training exercises in an abandoned hotel to remove “Hamas terrorists.”
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Attempts made by Atlanta University students and faculty to raise awareness about the relationship between GILEE and the Stop Cop City movement have been met with admonishment by university administration and increased patrolling by campus police.
“Students at GSU and folks around Atlanta are going to continue to organize to shut down the GILEE program,” said Ari Bee, a Jewish organizer who has been active with Jewish Voices for Peace and Atlanta Jews Against Genocide. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, members of Bee’s organization have rallied outside of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, supported events led by students on college campuses, participated in interfaith press conferences, and organized rallies. “As horrific as the genocide unfolding in Gaza is, I’m hopeful that it’s reinvigorating our communities here to step up our responsibility to end this law-enforcement exchange that only creates more violence in the world.”
Musa Springer, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace in Atlanta, explained the direct connections between the GILEE program and Cop City.
“The GILEE program is actually based out of Georgia State University, the Atlanta Police Department, and the Atlanta Police Foundation. People might recognize that name, Atlanta Police Foundation, because they’re also the ones behind Cop City,” they said.
“Corporations like Cox, Chick-fil-A, and Coca-Cola are giving the APF multimillion-dollar donations to make [GILEE] better,” Springer added. “You have private capital essentially invested in supporting this program. Politicians at every level in Georgia support this program, to the point where hundreds of police trainees are sent from Georgia and across the U.S. to train with Israeli occupation forces in Palestine. They’re learning these advanced tactics that the Israeli Occupation Force uses because they’re known for being innovative and repressive.”
The Black Alliance for Peace published a statement on June 4 calling to abolish the GILEE program and end the construction of Cop City.
The statement reads, “Designed to refine the tactics of urban warfare and repression, Cop City epitomizes the connections between white supremacy-fueled genocide, militarism and oppression. It threatens to expand the cycle of state-sanctioned violence and political repression upon working-class African/Black and Indigenous communities, and would further expand the GILEE program’s resources and capabilities.”
Since Oct. 7, Atlanta criminal justice activists have been gathering around high-publicity areas like City Hall, Woodruff Park in Midtown, City Springs complex, and several university campuses to communicate their desire for one outcome: a ceasefire.
The historical collaboration between the U.S. and Israel
The U.S. sends approximately $3.8 billion a year to Israel. In 2022, Israel received the second-largest amount of U.S. funding, after Ukraine, which received about $76.8 billion.
American police departments have increasingly looked to Israel for “anti-terrorism” models since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the decades following, more than 1,000 U.S. law enforcement officers and first responders have been sent to Israel for joint training exercises with their Israeli counterparts.
The Police Unity Tour, a group of law enforcement officers from multiple U.S. states, has periodically visited Israel and participated in joint training sessions with their Israeli counterparts since 1997. The Oakland Police Department participated in a joint training exercise with Israeli and Bahraini police forces in 2011, and the Anti-Defamation League has facilitated trainings for “100% of major U.S. metropolitan police departments,” according to its own 2016 report. In 2012, the New York Police Department opened a branch in Israel at the Sharon District Police Headquarters in Kfar Saba. The following year, a team of bomb squad members from cities on the U.S.-Mexico border traveled to Israel to learn tactics to suppress and punish “illegal immigration.” As recently as June, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Michael Register, 12 Georgia police chiefs, and command staff participated in two weeks of extensive training with Israeli police executives.
The American-Israeli Alliance, in partnership with Jewish Voice for Peace, published a 2018 report that further details the extent of deadly force facilitated by the cooperation between the FBI, CIA, and ICE and sponsored by Israel and the U.S.
“It’s been very well documented that the Israelis often test out weapons for the first time against Palestinians, that we will then a year later see used here in the U.S. against Black people who are protesting certain variations,” said Josie Felt, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace.
“For example, there’s something called skunk water that they spray across Palestinians when they want them to disperse; it’s a putrid, stomach-turning liquid. We are now starting to slowly see it be used in different police forces across the world.”
On Jan. 24, the Atlanta Community Press Collective released documents confirming that 43% of trainees of the proposed training site would come from outside of Georgia. At the same time, police departments and news agencies have accused opponents against the construction of Cop City, including those who are residentsof the city of Atlanta, of being “outside agitators.”
The impact of the U.S.-Israeli military partnership extends to other parts of the world. “There is a [similar] program called Africa Command,” Springer said. “And what they do is set up different military bases to train the local forces. In every single area where there is a training program in Africa, we see increased violence and instability. The numbers are staggering before and after US presence enters and trains these locals. And so, we call them deadly exchange programs. Because that’s essentially what it is.”
CodePink & South Africa Charge Israel with Genocide
If you live overseas, share our petition to the ICJ on social media:
Over 30,000 people have signed our petition to charge Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Africa responded by bringing the initial charge against Israel — so we took action to make sure other countries heard your demands.
This week we took historic action for Palestine as we delivered our petition to consulates and embassies in every major city in the United States demanding the world hold Israel accountable for genocide! We were able to speak directly with consular generals and senior staff at embassies to get your message across. And the day after we visited, Jordan joined South Africa in its case against Israel! Our advocacy is working.
We kicked off the deliveries on Wednesday in Chicago with deliveries to the consulates of Pakistan and Bosnia!
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In Washington DC, we delivered the petition to 16 embassies!
In New York City, we delivered the petition to 30 consulates and embassies!
In Los Angeles, we visited 9 consulates!
In Miami, we visited 9 consulates!
We also visited consulates in Orlando, Houston, Boston, and more!
👉 Check out more photos and videos of CODEPINK supporters delivering the petitions all across the country here as well as our video on Instagram here!
South Africa’s oral argument in the ICJ will take place on Thursday, January 11 from 10am-12pm (Central European Standard Time), and Israel’s oral argument will take place on Friday January 12 from 10am-12pm (Central European Standard Time). The hearings will be streaming live on the ICJ’s websiteand on the UN Web TV.
In the days leading up to the ICJ hearings and afterwards, we need to stay engaged for Palestine. Here’s what you can do:
- Join us Jan 8 as we resume our weekly community call “The Missing Peace”
- Join us for a march on Washington on January 13th!
- Visit our guide on how to support the march on Washington!
- If you’re in the U.S.: Tell the Senate to hold Israel accountable!
- Read and share the FAQ on Palestine!
- Sign up for our Palestine solidarity ListServ to get the most up-to-date information!
You’ve done a great job keeping up the momentum, we can’t stop until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea!
Towards Peace,
Nour and the whole CODEPINK Team
Watch Israelism Indefinitely
Tikkun Olam Productions is making Israelism available online indefinitely
We are honored that our film is being used as a resource in these devastating times, and because of the moment we are in, we’ve decided to make Israelism available to watch online for the foreseeable future. Please tell your friends, family, and community.
We’ll be announcing our next round of North American in-person screenings in around a week, and we’ll also be bringing Israelism all across the globe in 2024.
Israelism was also just featured in the Washington Post and the top Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, and we’ll be announcing more press and updates shortly.
If it’s within your means to donate to help us keep Israelism going, donate here.
In Solidarity,
The Israelism Team
January 6, 2024
Bike Ride Fundraiser
They’re Calling Ethnic Cleansing “Voluntary Migration” Now
Violently coercing someone to do something and killing them if they don’t is the opposite of “voluntary”
Caitlin Johnstone, January 2, 2024
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Israeli officials are now openly admitting that they’re working on “encouraging” the migration of Palestinians from Gaza, ridiculously claiming that this migration would be “voluntary” despite their having deliberately made the enclave uninhabitable over the last three months.
The Times of Israel reports:
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“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s two senior far-right partners endorsed the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip and the encouraging of “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians on Monday, while hawkish opposition MK Avigdor Liberman called for Israel to reoccupy southern Lebanon.
“Speaking during their parties’ respective faction meetings in the Knesset, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich presented the migration of Palestinian civilians as a solution to the long-running conflict and as a prerequisite for securing the stability necessary to allow residents of southern Israel to return to their homes.
“The war presents an ‘opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,’ Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, calling such a policy ‘a correct, just, moral and humane solution.’
“‘We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing,’ he said.
“The ‘correct solution’ to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ‘to encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees,’ Smotrich told members of his Religious Zionism party, predicting that ‘Israel will permanently control the territory of the Gaza Strip,’ including through the establishment of settlements.”
The repeated use of the word “encourage” stands out in these remarks, given that encouraging Gaza’s inhabitants to flee their homeland is exactly what Israel’s actions since October have been doing. Once you’ve made 90 percent of Gaza’s inhabitants homeless with internal displacement, forced half the population into starvation via siege warfare, destroyed the enclave’s entire healthcare system to the point where disease is now running rampant, all while raining death and destruction from above in a wildly unpredictable manner with airstrikes routinely hitting designated safe zones, you’re offering the population some very strong “encouragement” indeed to vacate the region as soon as possible.
This obviously makes the argument for the “voluntary migration” of Gazans completely nonsensical, since violently coercing someone into doing something and ensuring that they’ll die if they don’t do it is the exact opposite of what the word “voluntary” means.
But that’s the slogan we’re seeing pop up again and again as Israel draws closer to its final solution to the Palestinian problem in Gaza. Netanyahu and his cohorts have been repeatedly uttering phrases like “voluntary resettlement” and “voluntary migration” to describe the plan for Gaza’s Palestinian inhabitants to either move to refugee camps set up in the adjacent Sinai Peninsula in Egypt or to be taken in by other nationsaround the world.
Netanyahu has said that a team must be established to “ensure that those who want to leave Gaza to a third country can do so.” Iraq invader Tony Blair was reportedly being eyed as a potential leader of such a team by Israeli officials, though Blair has denied this.
Benjamin Netanyahu announced his endgame in Gaza: the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians forced to choose between leaving or dying by bombardment and starvation. His goal is to end the Palestinians as a people and as a national movement.https://t.co/RDrm36aE0O
— Mondoweiss (@Mondoweiss) December 28, 2023
Mitchell Plitnick wrote the following on the absurdity of the “voluntary migration” talking point in an article for Mondoweiss last month:
“The term ‘voluntary emigration’ is likely to be heard quite a lot in the coming weeks and months, and it is one of the most cynical, dishonest terms one can imagine. There is, of course, nothing voluntary about people leaving Gaza. Israel has made the place unlivable, and that was before the current bombardment.
“Now, they are essentially being forced to leave under the threat of imminent death. The people of Gaza did not suddenly lose their attachment to Palestine. They will die if they stay, as will their children. If you cut off water, electricity, food, and medical care, destroy all the shelter, and then ask a person, ‘Would you still like to stay?’ their decision to leave is obviously not voluntary.”
But that’s the narrative they’re going with apparently.
And it’s nothing new; Israel has been falsely claiming for generations that its violent forced expulsion of Palestinians known as the Nakba was voluntary as well. In 2000 Palestinian academic Ghada Karmi wrote that “The Israeli version of history — that the Palestinians left voluntarily or under orders from their leaders and that Israelis had no responsibility, material or moral, for their plight — has been successfully marketed to the world community for decades.”
The plot to relocate Palestinians from territories desired by Israel is also far from new. In a 2002 article for The Guardian titled “A new exodus for the Middle East?”, Israeli historian Benny Morris writes that the agenda to “transfer” Palestinians to other countries has existed for as long as modern Zionism:
“The idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century. And driving it was an iron logic: There could be no viable Jewish state in all or part of Palestine unless there was a mass displacement of Arab inhabitants, who opposed its emergence and would constitute an active or potential fifth column in its midst. This logic was understood, and enunciated, before and during 1948, by Zionist, Arab and British leaders and officials.
“As early as 1895, Theodor Herzl, the prophet and founder of Zionism, wrote in his diary in anticipation of the establishment of the Jewish state: ‘We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country … The removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.’”
This is a very, very old agenda, being presented as something brand new that is only just occurring to Israeli officials just now. They didn’t just come up with this. It’s been fantasized about for as long as Israel was a twinkle in its founding fathers’ eyes.
This is the real objective in Gaza. Not the “elimination of Hamas” (whatever the hell you want to pretend that would look like in practice), but the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is not the target in Gaza. Hamas is just the excuse.
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
How Israel Got an Endless Supply of U.S.-Made Smart Bombs
Nearly three years ago, Congress gave Israel a pass to stockpile precision-guided bombs “without regard to annual limits.” An inside source confirms that even more have been transferred since October 7.
The United States has had the authority to quietly transfer precision-guided munitions, or PGMs, to Israel for the past three years through a little-noticed provision passed by Congress in January 2021.
Section 1275 of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allows a limitless transfer of PGMs from U.S. reserve stocks to Israel’s stockpile without normal congressional notifications, as long as U.S “combat readiness” isn’t compromised.
PGMs — which include any guided missile designed to hit an extremely precise target — have been an Israeli weapon of choice in the massive and deadly bombardment that has destroyed an estimated 98,000 buildings in Gaza and reportedly killed more than 15,000 Palestinians. Satellite-guided bombs (a type of PGM) of between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds made up about 90% of the weapons the Israeli military used in the first two weeks after October 7.
While PGM’s advanced targeting is billed as a way to avoid civilian harm, they have been linked to many strikes by Israel and other U.S. allies on densely populated areas, including homes in central Gaza and the Jabalia refugee camp. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that they struck the camp knowing the area was crowded with civilians.
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President Joe Biden says that the United States has been “surging additional military assistance” to Israel since October 7. But government reporting on the details of that assistance has been sporadic and opaque.
Now, a source in the State Department confirms to In These Times and Women for Weapons Trade Transparency that Section 1275 has been invoked since October 7 to rush more PGMs to Israel.
An endless stockpile
Israel lobbied the United States for greater access to PGMs in the wake of its 2014 assault on Gaza that left some 2,200 Palestinians dead. The Israeli government argued that it needed more smart bombs to use against Hamas and Hezbollah in case of emergency. Section 1275 of the 2021 NDAA was seemingly meant to fulfill that request, enabling the president to bypass normal weapons spending caps on transfers of PGMs already stored in U.S. reserves.
“Although it is almost impossible for independent experts to trace due to a lack of basic transparency, there is little doubt that Israel and the U.S. took advantage of the provision,” says William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “The whole purpose of doing it in this fashion is to hide the extent of these deadly transfers — and the mechanisms used to carry them out — from public view.”
The Jerusalem Post reported in 2021 that the United States quickly replenished the hundreds of PGMs dropped on the Gaza Strip in May 2021 and that Israel planned to purchase “far more” by 2024.
Hartung says that the common-sense logic in Washington D.C. is that U.S. weapons transfers should “increase stability” or “bolster the ability of allies to defend themselves.”
“While this may be true in some cases, in many others — such as U.S. arms supplies to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen or for Israel’s war on Gaza — pouring in arms to regions of tension enables human rights abuses, entrenches authoritarian regimes and fuels deadly conflict,” he says.
A New York Times investigation found that Israel used JDAMs — a type of PGM — in May 2021 attacks on a Gaza apartment complex that killed civilian families.
Civilian killings, precisely targeted
The Biden administration argues that guided weapons are a valuable tool to reduce civilian casualties by enabling more precise targeting. But U.S. policy decisions have tacitly admitted that sometimes the opposite is true. In 2016, President Barack Obama’s administration suspended PGM sales to Saudi Arabia due to “systemic, endemic” concerns that the advanced weaponry was deployed against civilian targets.
Supplying these attack munitions to Israel, a government with a history of striking civilian infrastructure with PGMs — and which has publicly stated that the emphasis of its bombing of Gaza is “damage and not accuracy” — has been particularly controversial.
When the State Department notified Congress on October 31 that it planned to transfer $320 million in kits to convert unguided bombs into precision munitions, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced a resolution of disapproval in a move applauded by peace and arms control civil society groups, including Women for Weapons Trade Transparency.
There is ample evidence that PGMs have been used in the current Israeli campaign in strikes against civilian infrastructure. Marc Garlasco, a military advisor at the Dutch peace organization PAX, says that “photos of weapon remnants, craters, and reporting out of Israel and Gaza indicate strikes carried out in Gaza City, including strikes at multiple refugee camps, were conducted with GBU-31’s and other [PGMs].” Analysts believe Israel used a Boeing-manufactured guided bomb unit, a kind of PGM, during its Oct. 31-Nov. 2 airstrikes on Jabalia Refugee Camp, which reportedly killed 195people.
An Amnesty International investigation released December 5 traced the killing of 43 civilians in Gaza — including 19 children — back to Boeing-made JDAMs (a type of PGM) supplied by the United States. After ordering residents of Northern Gaza to relocate south, the Israeli military struck family homes in Deir al-Balah, below the evacuation line, without warning. The strikes killed 24 people on October 10 and 19 people on October 22. (This story has been updated to include the Amnesty report.)
Less and less transparency
In its request for $14.5 billion in military aid to Israel, the Biden administration is following the precedent set by Section 1275 and other NDAA amendments by further undercutting transparency in all stockpile transfers, not just for PGMs. The President’s requested supplemental bill would waive the annual cap on transfers to the U.S. stockpile within Israel. With no limit on those transfers and Israel’s ability to draw from that stockpile at will, the U.S. would supply Israel with a virtually endless supply of weaponry without congressional authorization or oversight.
The Senate is currently working to pass the supplemental, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) saying the bill could be up for a vote as early as this week.
The White House’s supplemental request also contained another transparency waiver, first reported by Women for Weapons Trade Transparency and In These Times last month, which would let the White House unilaterally blanket-approve future sales of military equipment and weapons to Israel without notifying Congress.
In response, some Democrats want stronger assurances that U.S. weapons will be used consistently with U.S. law and called for greater transparency in transfers.
Several high-ranking Democrats have already come out against giving Biden increased powers to transfer weapons to Israel without scrutiny. “We should not make exceptions to this practice — it’s our duty to review these funds and ensure their use is in the best interests of the American people and in alignment with U.S. policy,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement to the Washington Post.
Sen. Schumer’s office did not respond by deadline to an inquiry about whether the two transparency waivers will be included in the bill.
ARI TOLANY is a research consultant with Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, where her research focuses on the arms trade, civilian harm, and state fragility. Previously, Ari was the U.S. program manager at Center for Civilians in Conflict and a Scoville Peace Fellow at the Stimson Center.
LILLIAN MAULDIN is a Founding Board Member of Women for Weapons Trade Transparency and a Research Fellow at the Center for International Policy. Her work focuses on political strategy and legislative and grassroots advocacy.
JANET ABOU-ELIAS is a Founding Board Member of Women for Weapons Trade Transparency and a Research Fellow at the Center for International Policy. Her research focuses on international arms trade policy, U.S. foreign policy, and sustainability initiatives.
WOMEN FOR WEAPONS TRADE TRANSPARENCY is a nonprofit committed to producing high-quality research on the international weapons trade and advocating for humane and sustainable global demilitarization policies.
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Solidarity Speaks: Videos Of All Emergency Webinars!
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our 11th & Final Emergency Webinar!
Thank you to everyone who joined our Solidarity Speaks emergency webinars since October 7th.
We are proud that over 3800 people responded to this series in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders calling for a permanent ceasefire, a release of all the hostages, and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Together these webinars constitute an incredible archive of this last period, with testimonies from human rights defenders from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Aida Refugee Camp, Jericho, Jenin, Masafer Yatta, Jaffa, Haifa, and over a dozen justice initiatives. We hope they can be a valuable resource for all those looking to more fully understand the current reality and work for a better future.
We end this series like we began, determined to insist particularly in this moment that occupation can only bring despair and that only freedom, equality, solidarity, and an end to ongoing displacement can bring a future of dignity for all.
The video recording of our final webinar, along with all the prior webinars of this emergency series, can be found below or on the Green Olive YouTube channel for those who weren’t able to attend or would like to refer to them in the future.
Click this link for a video recording of the webinar.
Warmly,
Erez Bleicher
Communications and Advocacy Director
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Tenth Emergency Webinar!
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We joined together on Wednesday, December 13th of 2023 for Solidarity Speaks, the tenth session of our emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinian human rights defenders calling for an permanent ceasefire, a release of all the hostages, and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
We were joined by Basman Derawi of We Are Not Numbers, a Palestinian youth-led project that provides the world with direct access to Gazan narratives without any restrictions and without foreign intermediaries speaking on their behalf. In their own words, they “share and celebrate the stories, daily personal struggles and triumphs, the tears and the laughter, and the aspirations of Palestinians that are so universal that if it were not for the context, they would immediately resonate with everyone.”
Basman Derawi is a physiotherapist who was not able to return to his home in the al-Remal neighborhood of Gaza City since October 7th. He was attending a course in physiotherapy in Egypt with the Palestinian Ministry of Health when aggressions began. He believes in writing as a remedy and a tool for change and is inspired by music, movies, and the stories of people with special needs. We were honored to speak with him about the events of the last weeks and about the ways the ongoing violence was impacting him, his family, and his community.
Click this link for a video recording of the webinar.
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Ninth Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Sunday, December 10th of 2023 for Solidarity Speaks, the ninth session of our emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians and Israelis calling for an permanent ceasefire, a release of all the hostages, and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
We were joined by Itamar Shapira of the Green Olive Collective for an emergency briefing about the status of Masafer Yatta in Area C of the occupied West Bank. Itamar was completing his thesis about Masafer Yatta at Haifa University and was currently participating in direct solidarity, emergency response, overnight shifts, and protective presence efforts in Masafer Yatta, where settler militias were threatening communities with imminent displacement, villages were under military lockdown, and residents were facing mass eviction in Firing Zone 918.
He provided geopolitical perspective about Area C, a chronology of diplomatic and grassroots activity in the region since the war began, and personal reflections based in his work and years of experience in Combatants for Peace, Breaking The Silence, Green Olive Tours, and other justice initiatives.
Click this link for a video recording of the webinar.
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Eighth Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Wednesday, December 6th of 2023 for Solidarity Speaks, the eighth session of our emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians and Israelis calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
We were joined by Ahmed Helou of Combatants for Peace, a grassroots movement of former Palestinian and Israeli combatants working together to end the occupation through civil resistance, education, and other means of creative nonviolence.
Ahmed Helou is a second generation refugee whose great-grandparents left Gaza for Bir-Saba before being displaced to Jericho, and much of his family lives in Gaza now. He is a current resident of Jericho, a former political detainee, a former parliamentary aid in the Palestinian Authority, and worked as an ambulance volunteer with the Palestine Red Crescent during the 1996 clashes in Jerusalem. Since 2013 he has been active in Combatants for Peace promoting a future of collective dignity, freedom, and equality for all.
We were honored to speak with him about the events of the last weeks and about the ways the ongoing violence was impacting him, his family, and his community.
Click this link for a video recording of the webinar.
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Seventh Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Tuesday, November 28th of 2023 for Solidarity Speaks, the seventh session of our emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians and Israelis calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in the Gaza Strip.
We were joined by Sapir-Sluzker Amran of Breaking Walls and Naama Cohen of Culture of Solidarity, two long standing community organizers who have worked to develop an intersectional movement for economic and racial justice working with underprivileged communities in Israel including Ethiopian Israelis, Eritrean asylum seekers, Palestinian citizens, unrecognized Bedouin villages, senior citizens, domestic violence survivors, and many others.
They spoke with us about the mutual aid, emergency response, and direct solidarity efforts that activists organized in the weeks before with the families of the hostages, with unrecognized Bedouin villages, and with human rights defenders facing legal censure for speaking against the assault in the Gaza Strip.
Sapir Sluzker-Amran is the founder of Breaking Walls, a grassroots movement that promotes civic, feminist, and community activism. She is a human rights lawyer and works to archive the unwritten history of social movements.
Na’ama Cohen is a community organizer and member of Culture of Solidarity, a community center and gathering space that works to develop justice initiatives, food programs, political education, mutual aid, and relationships across borders.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Sixth Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Sunday, November 12th of 2023 for the sixth webinar of Solidarity Speaks, our emergency series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians and Israelis calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
We were joined by Ahmed Muna of the Educational Bookshop and Izzeldin Bukhari of Sacred Cuisine to hear about the ways Palestinian Jerusalemites and cultural workers were being impacted by escalating violence.
Ahmad Muna is joint manager of the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem. Since 1984 the bookshop has functioned as a cultural, political, and literary center of Palestinian life. The bookshop presents a wide variety of Palestinian scholarly titles and frequently hosts workshops, lectures, and educational events.
Izzeldin Bukhari is the founder of Sacred Cuisine. This unique platform is dedicated to the ongoing preservation of Palestinian foodways, cuisine, and heritage. The project highlights the importance of maintaining Palestinian culture through food tours, catering, education, and interactive workshops.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Fifth Emergency Webinar!
We joined on Wednesday, November 8th of 2023 for the fifth webinarof Solidarity Speaks, our emergency series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians and Israelis calling for an immediate ceasefire, a release of the hostages, and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Life had become nearly impossible for Palestinian communities in Area C. They were experiencing dramatic escalations of settler violence, severe military lockdowns, and frightening threats to forcibly expel them from their homes.
Settlers had taken up arms, given to them by Israeli state officials, and were dressed in army uniforms, making it almost impossible to distinguish between settlers and soldiers. All aspects of life had effectively been shut down for these communities. Under this unlivable reality, many Palestinian families had already been forced to flee. We joined together for an emergency fundraiser to materially support communities facing one of the largest mass expulsions since 1948.
We were joined by Ali Awad and Awdah Hathaleen, two long standing advocates against the expropriation of Palestinian land in Masafer Yatta and for the collective rights of their communities in Area C.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
Palestine Speaks: Recording Of Our Fourth Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Sunday, November 5th of 2023 for Solidarity Speaks, the fourth session of our emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians and Israelis calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The occupation regime does all it can to fracture Palestinian society and isolate them from each other and the world. We joined with Abed Abu-Shehade to hear about the ways Palestinian citizens of Israel were being impacted by the escalating violence and how the social contract between Jewish and Palestinian communities was being rewritten. Abed is a city council member in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality, and an advocate for Palestinian collective rights and the rectification of historical injustices in Jaffa.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
Solidarity Speaks: Recording Of Our Third Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Sunday, October 29th of 2023 for Solidarity Speaks, the third session of our emergency webinar series highlighting Palestinian and Israeli voices of solidarity calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The occupation regime does all it can to segregate Palestinians and Israelis. We were honored to join with three longstanding Israeli activists who have worked to build solidarity across checkpoints, border walls, and closed military zones for many years. They each shed light on the current moment and discussed the urgent need to build empathy and common cause against the limits of the dominant discourse set by Biden and Netanyahu.
Noam Shuster-Eliassi is a comedian, creator, and unique cultural voice who uses humour to satirize and lampoon systems of racial inequality. She has gained global recognition for her uncompromising commitment to justice and her ability to challenge dominant narratives with hilarity and biting wit. Her comedy show Coexistence My A** is a groundbreaking work commenting on the absurdities of identity and power in Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East.
Sahar Vardi is a prolific activist who began her solidarity work as a member of Anarchists Against The Wall supporting the popular struggle of Palestinians in Area C against land expropriation. Since then she is known for her participation in weekly demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah and a variety of organizations including the Refuser Solidarity Network, Free Jerusalem, American Friends Service Committee, and others challenging unbridled militarism in Israeli society.
Yossef Mekyton is an animal liberation, environmental, queer, and decolonial activist. During the Great March of Return in 2018 he helped organize Israeli solidarity demonstrations across the fence from the Gazan returnees. He is working with Zochrot to promote Israeli accountability for the Nakba of 1948 and a future beyond partitions.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
Palestine Speaks: Recording Of Our Second Emergency Webinar!
We joined together on Sunday, October 22nd for the second webinar of Palestine Speaks, an emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank about the ways their communities were impacted by recent events and the escalating violence they were experiencing.
The occupation regime does all it can to fracture Palestinian society and isolate them from each other and the world. We came together to hear Palestinians speak in their own words, express our solidarity, and demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in Gaza and the West Bank. We were joined by:
Mustafa Sheta is the General Director of the Jenin Freedom Theater, a lauded institution that offers drama and performance art education in the heart of the Jenin Refugee Camp.
Sameeha Hureini is the founder of the Mothers of Sumud Garden in Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills, a women lead project which resists settler expropriation of land in Area C.
Mohammed Barakat is a Green Olive Senior Partner and second generation refugee whose family was expelled from their home outside Jerusalem in 1948. He worked in Palestinian labor unions, hospitality, and tourism for many decades.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
Palestine Speaks: Recording Of Our First Emergency Webinar!
On Wednesday, October 18th of 2023 we joined together for the first webinar of Palestine Speaks, an emergency webinar series giving people around the world a forum to hear directly from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank about the ways their communities were impacted by recent events and about the escalating violence they experienced.
The occupation regime does all it can to fracture Palestinian society and isolate them from each other and the world. We came together to hear Palestinians speak in their own words, express our solidarity, and demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to collective punishment in Gaza and the West Bank.
We were joined by Khalil Abu Yahia in the Gaza Strip, Mustafa Alarag from Aida Refugee Camp, and Awdah Hathaleen from Umm Il-Kheir. Each shed light on the moment and its implications for the future.
Click this link for a recording of the webinar.
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Israel-Palestine Scholar Norman Finkelstein’s Long Crusade
Norman Finkelstein is crouched on the floor of his apartment, running his fingers along a bookshelf so overcrowded that it’s bending into a U-shape. “It has a green cover,” he assures me before landing on the spine of his tenth book, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance With Israel Is Coming to an End. The subtitle stands as a summation of Finkelstein’s career, which has been devoted to proclaiming to his fellow Jews and others his disenchantment with the Jewish state. But right now, he’s thumbing through the book for proof that Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was a guard at Israel’s biggest prison camp during the early 1990s, when many Palestinians were tortured there.
I already know about this story (it’s in Goldberg’s memoir), but Finkelstein, 69, is not used to a world in which people are inclined to believe him. As America’s most divisive Israel-Palestine scholar, he spent the past 40 years being ostracized by the media and academia. Then the October 7 Hamas attack propelled him into the spotlight and his 13th book, Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom, into the top-selling spot in Amazon’s Middle Eastern History category. True, there aren’t many books about Gaza (“That’s like being the tallest building in Wichita,” Finkelstein says), but its success is being seen as a vindication by both his longtime and newfound followers.
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He hasn’t held a steady academic job since DePaul University denied him tenure under political pressure in 2007. Now, after years of sporadic work and low pay as an adjunct, Finkelstein is suddenly spending ten hours a day fielding emails from people clamoring for his insights. “It’s become a complete nightmare,” he says, scrolling through hundreds of new messages in his inbox. His heavily trafficked X account (380,000 followers) and Substack (over 15,000 subscribers) — both run by a three-person technical staff that is paid from subscription revenue — are a torrent of grim facts and sardonic quips about the Israel-Hamas war. (“IDF ‘Searching’ for Hamas Command-and-Control Center Under Al-Shifa Hospital,” reads a typical caption alongside a video of the Seven Dwarfs singing “Heigh-Ho.”)
Finkelstein is five-foot-ten and fit with the angular jawline of a retired drill sergeant. He has short white hair and dark eyebrows and speaks in unhurried paragraphs even when he’s debating Piers Morgan on television — a man unafraid to be long-winded. His warbling Brooklyn accent is a relic from the days when he roamed the halls of James Madison High School, which counts Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer among its alumni. He takes regular five-mile jogs along Coney Island Beach and keeps a desktop folder of photos of himself posing in front of the sunset.
Finkelstein is reflective and slightly melancholic in private conversation, but his public reputation is as someone who will browbeat you into submission. (An X user recently observed that he “comes off super radical on basically the strength of being very rude.”) One YouTube video shows him at a 2003 talk at the University of Waterloo. He’s berating an audience member over her “crocodile tears” for Israel, declaring, “My late father was in Auschwitz. My late mother was in Majdanek concentration camp” — he pauses to bark at a heckler to “please shut up” before continuing — “and it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians.”
When he was a child, Finkelstein’s mother would have visceral reactions to injustice, especially to TV reports about violent conflict, which she’d experienced firsthand growing up in wartime Poland. “She physically could not watch it,” Finkelstein says. He inherited her indignation, and as a student inspired by the civil-rights movement, he dived into protests against the Vietnam War. He became too involved, his mother concluded. “She thought I was destroying my life, and there was a feeling that she was responsible for it,” he says.
He wouldn’t actually destroy his life until several years later. In 1984, when he was a doctoral student at Princeton, Finkelstein investigated the sourcing of a celebrated new book by the journalist Joan Peters called From Time Immemorial. Peters argued that Palestinians didn’t actually exist and that Zionist colonization had lured non-native Arabs into the region, where they started waging war on the Israelis. It was mostly a fabrication, Finkelstein discovered, based on fudged demographic data, but a consensus had already formed that this was a monumental work; it was gushed over by the likes of Saul Bellow and Elie Wiesel. Initially, no U.S. publication would touch Finkelstein’s findings (In These Times eventually published them), nor would any American academic except for Noam Chomsky, who became his mentor. “You’re going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it,” Chomsky warned his protégé. “And they’re going to destroy you.”
It was a frosty introduction to a profession that still seems intent on freezing Finkelstein out, even decades after Peters’s work was widely discredited. He kept writing books and papers that made people angry — his most controversial work, 2000’s The Holocaust Industry, argued that the memory of Jewish genocide was being politically exploited by Israel — but landed a full-time job teaching political science at DePaul in Chicago. “DePaul wanted to get rid of me from the get-go,” Finkelstein says matter-of-factly. In 2003, he accused the lawyer Alan Dershowitz of plagiarism for lifting citations from Peters’s book for his own polemic, The Case for Israel. Thus began one of academia’s all-time bitter feuds: Dershowitz even lobbied California’s then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stop the publication of one of Finkelstein’s books. (Schwarzenegger declined to intervene.) Finkelstein denounced Dershowitz’s work — “If Dershowitz’s book were made of cloth, I wouldn’t even use it as a schmatta,” he said — and dedicated himself to debunking it until he went up for tenure in 2007. His department and college at DePaul voted to grant it, but the university-level tenure board rejected him following a high-profile campaign by Dershowitz. (The university’s president denied that outside pressure had anything to do with the decision.)
“I live a very simple life,” Finkelstein says of how he survived the intervening years, during which his annual income was sometimes less than $5,000. His apartment is rent-stabilized — he took it over from his father, who died, along with his mother, in 1995 — and it doesn’t look like he’s bought any new furniture since moving in. Hunter and Brooklyn Colleges throw him a teaching gig every so often. He admits that he was so deep in the weeds on Israel-Palestine that “even a specialist wouldn’t have been interested” in what he was writing. He learned that his 2019 book — a granular indictment of the International Criminal Court’s head prosecutor — had sold just a few hundred copies. “Why am I doing this?” he asked himself. “Nobody cares.”
But caring about this conflict — stubbornly and single-mindedly, like so many others devoted to this issue, and not without errors of judgment — is the rare constant in Finkelstein’s turbulent life. After three years of saying relatively little about Israel-Palestine, he resurfaced on October 7 singing the praises of Gaza’s “heroic resistance,” only to be sobered later by the extent of the carnage Hamas had wreaked. “Of course they changed,” he says of his initial feelings, but not enough to alter his unyielding beliefs about the root of the conflict’s dynamics. “What,” he asked days later, “were the people of Gaza supposed to do?”
Norman Finkelstein’s ‘The Holocaust Industry’ and the Fight To Make All Suffering Count
Norman Finkelstein’s ‘The Holocaust Industry’ and the Fight To Make All Suffering Count
Finkelstein’s book is a call for Jewish suffering to be seen as part of the larger history of suffering under colonialism.
MAX AJL, IN THESE TIMES, MAY 17, 2016
In the summer of 2014, Ta-Nahesi Coates, in an essay for The Atlantic, argued for reparations for the crimes inflicted on the Black population in the making of the United States. Coates crafted a compelling case for compensation for slavery, Jim Crow and ongoing oppression.
Césaire noted that “there is room for all at the rendezvous of victory.” He was right. But in order to achieve that victory, we have to expose the lies about history of those who seek to exclude others from that rendezvous by writing them out of history.
Coates did not discuss other crimes which might deserve reparations. He did, however, refer to what he called a successful case of reparations: the money which went from post-war Germany to post-independence Israel. Coates claims these funds, to a country which had just finished expelling most of the native Palestinians, “perhaps provided a road map for how a great civilization might make itself worthy of the name.”
In addition to around $7 billion to the Israeli state, the self-appointed representative of global Jewry, “Individual reparations claims followed — for psychological trauma, for offense to Jewish honor, for halting law careers, for life insurance, for time spent in concentration camps.”
It is too bad that Coates did not check these claims against those in Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry, recently reissued by pure coincidence as the debate on reparations ripped through national political discourse.
Before proceeding, perhaps it is necessary to clear up a few things. First, I do not agree with Finkelstein’s advocacy of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Two, I do not agree with his remarks on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Is that out of the way? Good. Let us discuss the book under review.
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First, recall the moment. This book originally appeared in the 1990s, when state and federal governments were pressuring and suing Swiss banks, launching commissions of inquiry, calling for internal audits of 1940s-era banking records, canvassing dormant accounts, and laboriously tracing trails of money long-since gone cold.
Recall also the individual. Finkelstein’s parents were survivors of the Nazi death camps. And then recall some of the recipients of these extracted funds: Jewish “leaders,” “communal institutions” and lawyers jostling to grab a cut of the proceeds. Survivors often died waiting for their share of the reparations.
It is against this tableau that Finkelstein aims to restore “the integrity of the historical record and the sanctity of the Jewish people’s martyrdom.”
After expertly demolishing the notion that these “reparations” actually benefited very many actual survivors of the Nazi atrocities — most went to various community institutions and leaders with no plausible connection to those crimes except for shared religious identification — Finkelstein makes a series of broader arguments. The main one is that post-1967 U.S. political culture has produced The Holocaust, an “ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust.”
The latter was a brutal mass murder, targeting gypsies, Communists, the disabled, Jews and others. The former is real enough but has only a tenuous relationship to historical truth. Instead, “its central dogmas sustain significant political class interests.”
Finkelstein was aware that the Nazi holocaust was scarcely discussed in the postwar United States. As he writes, “American Jewish elites ‘forgot’ the Nazi holocaust because Germany — West Germany by 1949 — became a crucial postwar American ally.” Furthermore, amidst the postwar anti-Communism that suffused U.S. culture, “Remembrance of the Nazi holocaust was tagged as a Communist cause.”
It was only in 1967, after the military defeat of the core Arab nationalist states, that Israel’s military élan “pointed in the right direction — against Israel’s enemies.” Against the suggestion that a militarized Sparta stuck smack in the middle of the Arab world was a danger to U.S. interests, he argues that “[o]nly an Israeli Sparta beholden to American power would do, because only then could U.S. Jewish leaders act as the spokesmen for American imperial ambitions.”
He says this happened through the ideological construction of The Holocaust. It is built on two foundation stones: one, that “The Holocaust marks a categorically unique historical event,” having nothing to do with the crimes of colonialism. And two, “The Holocaust marks the climax of an irrational, eternal Gentile hatred of Jews.”
This unique status long shielded Israel, especially within those states that never “did enough” to defend the Jews during World War II. As he notes, “Holocaust uniqueness — this ‘claim’ upon others, this ‘moral capital’ — serves as Israel’s prize alibi.” Of course, those who make this claim make it selectively. Such crimes suddenly stop being so unique amidst attempts to link Arab leaders to Nazism, from Nasser to Nasrallah.
Finkelstein then raises several questions about this uniqueness. The first is the role of The Holocaust in U.S. intellectual and political culture. Does it crowd out or cover up other crimes? Where, he asks, is the museum dedicated to the crime which was the colonial settlement? Who else suffered at Nazi hands?
In raising such questions, he means to establish that Jews were part of the shared historical experience of victimhood. He refuses to let Jewish victimhood displace the suffering of others. Nazi genocidal brutality did not exclusively target Jews, as the museum implies — “Communists were the first political victims, and not Jews but the handicapped were the first genocidal victims, of Nazism.”
A second move is comparison. Finkelstein first summarizes Germany’s record, having paid out $60 billion. Then, he “[c]ompare[s] first the American record.” After Vietnam, where the United States napalmed and otherwise murdered perhaps 3.8 million people, President Jimmy Carter insisted that “the destruction was mutual.” (About 58,000 U.S. troops died during the war.) He also repeatedly discusses what David Stannard calls the American Holocaust, the destruction of this country’s native peoples. As Finkelstein writes, “Manifest Destiny anticipated nearly all the ideological and programmatic elements of Hitler’s Lebensraum policy. In fact, Hitler modeled his conquest of the East on the American conquest of the West.”
Finkelstein’s coda brings the story back to the United States: “In June 1996 the Native American Rights Fund filed the largest class action lawsuit in U.S. history on behalf of Elouise Pepion Cobell of Montana’s Blackfeet tribe, and 300,000 – 500,000 other Native Americans.” U.S. responsibility for death and material loss during the settler-colonial expansion dwarfs U.S. responsibility for the Nazi crimes. Yet their wholesale slaughter has little place in U.S. historical memory.
Finkelstein highlights how the U.S. colonial settlement ought to be brought within the same frame as Israel. When the book was initially published, such a comparison was not common. And even contemporary discussions of U.S. settler-colonialism seldom raise up First Nations’ political struggles, including for material reparations.
His method is mostly comparative, juxtaposing one crime against another in a forensic deconstruction of U.S. hypocrisy. Perhaps for this reason, one latent point is how the uniqueness dogma walls off the Nazi holocaust from the myriad crimes of the post-1492 European expansion, including its looting of Latin America, Africa and Asia, and their common taproot in European accumulation. After all, concentration camps first emerged as components of colonial counter-insurgency in the Philippines, Cuba, South Africa and Namibia — a lineage which imperial apologists have been eager to erase.
The great Martiniquean poet Aime Césaire saw quickly and presciently the uses and misuses to which Europe and the U.S. were putting the acts of the Nazis. In 1950, Césaire argued in A Discourse on Colonialism that those crimes were “colonialist procedures” visited upon Europe. But it was the location and not the act that was the transgression. The issue was that the Nazis had broken the shop-window of European humanism and laid bare what lay behind it. Césaire suggested that to build a mausoleum only big enough for the memory of Jewish suffering and of Nazi crimes did not represent a real reckoning with European history. To set up a memorial only for Jewish victims could suggest that only Jews had been victims. It represented one more colonial procedure of refusing to solve “the problems it creates,” and of choosing to “close its eyes to its most crucial problems,” branding Europe, as Césaire did, “decadent” and “stricken.”
As he continued, “So-called European civilization … as it has been shaped by two centuries of bourgeois rule, is incapable of solving the two major problems to which its existence has given rise: the problem of the proletariat and the colonial problem.” The colonial problem, of course, was a problem of racism.
Finkelstein is clear that the Nazi holocaust belongs to the same family of crimes as the U.S. crimes against the Vietnamese and Native Americans. In raising reparations of many kinds within the same frame, he brings together Black suffering, indigenous genocide, Nazi crimes and U.S. war-making abroad. He does not explicitly raises questions of reordering society. The book is forensic scholarship, not a manifesto.
Césaire, on the other hand, did write a manifesto. He called for a “policy of nationalities,” or a policy of substantive decolonization. To carry it through, he wrote, was “a matter of the Revolution.” Some may differ on what they call the pragmatism of this proposal. Be that as it may — and has any revolution been the making of pragmatists? — the national debate on reparations, and how great civilizations might make themselves worthy of the name, could use a bit more inclusiveness, especially these days when “political revolution” is on everyone’s tongue.
Such a debate could also touch on how reparations must be material to be substantive — the position of groups like Black Youth Project 100 and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. It should not be caught in sterile book chat that sets reparations against social democracy, the colonized or enslaved subject against the proletarian. It is about, in the words of the recently dead biologist Richard Levins, keeping “the long view” in mind and “discovering the common ground between different struggles for justice when they seem to conflict because each asks too little.” BYP 100, for example, demands “reparations for chattel slavery,” while also calling for “a guaranteed income for all.” And even if they did not call for the latter, the demand for reparations is plainly just.
So if we are to have a national discussion on reparations — and we should — such a discussion would benefit from keeping in mind that calls for reparations need not be seen as part of an imaginary zero-sum games. It is not as though if Blacks get reparations for slavery, suddenly the supply of justice runs out for the white worker.
But such a conversation should also not strengthen false narratives of German reparations to the Nazis’ victims — especially when the cacophony of those stories overwhelms Palestinians’ anti-colonial claims. Césaire noted that “there is room for all at the rendezvous of victory.” He was right. But in order to achieve that victory, we have to expose the lies about history of those who seek to exclude others from that rendezvous by writing them out of history — claiming for one or another reason that they do not count, a familiar procedure of those who seek to exclude, repress, murder and eliminate. And it is in this task, in fighting against the warping of history that justifies the exclusion of the Palestinians and so many others, that creates worthy and unworthy victims, that The Holocaust Industry truly excels.
MAX AJL is a doctoral student in development sociology at Cornell University and an editor at Jadaliyyah.
Shawn Fain: “We Cannot Bomb Our Way to Peace”
At a press conference in D.C. on December 14, UAW president Shawn Fain called for a cease-fire, alongside Democratic lawmakers and other labor leaders.
SHAWN FAIN, IN THESE TIMES, DECEMBER 26, 2023
This past summer and fall, unions leveraged their power to win better contracts for U.S. workers across industries. Now, an increasing number of unionsare leveraging that same power to demand a cease-fire in Gaza and call for more international solidarity with Palestinian people.
United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain called for a cease-fire during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, December 14, alongside Democratic lawmakers and representatives from other unions, such as the American Postal Workers Union and United Electrical workers. The event was organized by Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who in October introduced the cease-fire resolution urging President Biden to support an immediate end to the violence and send aid to Palestine. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. In These Times has obtained the exclusive text of Fain’s remarks.
Fain, elected in March, has emerged as one of labor’s most prominent voices after leading some 145,000 autoworkers on a six-week strike this fall to secure a historic contract. When the UAW announced its support of a cease-fire on December 1, it became one of the largest unions to do so.
In his comments, printed below, Fain calls on other members of the labor community to join the growing number of organizations calling for peace.
The following speech has been edited for clarity.
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Thank you for having me and our UAW members represented here today.
As trade unionists, and as a labor movement, it’s up to us to stand up and fight for the best of what humanity is and can be.
The UAW is proud to stand here with our fellow union family and Congresswomen Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib — who are a couple of the most badass leaders we have in Congress — calling for peace, calling for a cease-fire.
It is a product of our belief in humanity that innocent civilians must be protected. We cannot bomb our way to peace.
The only path forward to build peace and social justice is a cease-fire. As the UAW, we take pride in our history of standing up for justice at home and around the world.
Throughout our history, we are a union that has always spoken out for civil rights and human rights, time and time again.
That said, I want to be clear, what we’re calling for today — a cease-fire — is what the global community is standing together for.
At the United Nations, it’s what the vast majority of nations have called for! It’s what the majority of citizens in our country want.
The world has seen enough slaughter and devastation. Peace is the only path forward.
While we call for a cease-fire, we also condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. All of these are growing in our nation at this moment and must be stopped.
We know unions are the best bridge toward fighting all forms of hatred and phobias: racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia and more. As union members, we know we must fight for all workers and people suffering around the world.
That means we must restore people’s basic rights and allow water, fuel, food and humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
We must also call for the release of all hostages. I thank our UAW members for speaking out and pushing us to come out in support of a cease-fire.
It was the right thing to do.
Now, it’s time for the rest of our elected officials to step up and do what it takes to end the violence.
And I call on the rest of the labor movement to join us in the mission for peace and social justice for all of humanity!
Thank you.
SHAWN FAIN is the President of the United Automobile Workers.
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Labor union march for Gaza
Democratic Socialists of America brings democratized unions out in support of a ceasefire in Gaza, and an end to settler colonial apartheid while we’re at it. 2,000 march to the offices of AIPAC, captain of the Israel lobby that bribes and coerces politicians to support any genocide of Israel’s choosing. Midtown Manhattan, 12-21-23.
Palestinian residents of West Bank being driven out by Jewish settlers
In the village of At-Tuwani in the West Bank, residents say Jewish settlers have become far more aggressive since Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks in their long campaign to drive Palestinians from this land. NBC News’ Richard Engel visited the area and reports on the high tensions among the two groups.
Who Is Funding Canary Mission?
Inside the Doxxing Operation Targeting Anti-Zionist Students and Professors
Americans who give money to Canary Mission are potentially committing a serious crime by acting as agents of a foreign power.
It was a scene reminiscent of the Red Scare days, of grainy black-and-white television images of political witch hunts by the old House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). But rather than hunting for disloyal communist sympathizers, committee members at early December’s hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce were instead hunting for university presidents disloyal to Israel. “Are you now, or have you ever been, an anti-Zionist?” quipped New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. “You can see the trap.”
What is missing from Congress are hearings into the decades of illegal anti-Palestinian espionage, covert action, and blacklisting of Americans within the United States by the Israeli government and its domestic collaborators—actions far more serious and damaging than campus semantics. As noted in my earlier articles for The Nation, they range from dispatching a secret agent to interfere in a presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump; to launching a covert operation within the US targeting academics and others who support a boycott of Israel; to conducting a massive operation to spy on and “crush” pro-Palestinian students throughout the country; to establishing a secret Israeli-run troll farm across the US to harass anyone critical of Israel; to hiring Americans to secretly spy on American students and report back to Israeli intelligence. And then there is Canary Mission, a massive blacklisting and doxxing operation directed from Israel that targets students and professors critical of Israeli policies, and then launches slanderous charges against them—charges designed to embarrass and humiliate them and damage their future employability. All secretly fundedby wealthy Jewish Americans and Jewish American foundations.
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Following the October 7 Hamas attack and the launch of Israel’s war in Gaza, members of Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee (HPSC) sponsored a letter addressing the conflict. “Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” it said. “For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.” The letter was cosigned by 33 other student organizations and published in The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper. Almost immediately, Canary Mission created online profiles for members of the Crimson’s editorial board (though a few likely already had one from when the Crimson endorsed divestment), along with profiles of the leaders of the HPSC and other campus clubs that cosigned the letter. The goal of the blacklist was to dox those named, encourage their harassment, and limit their future employment prospects.
“The Mission didn’t stop at creating profiles for student leaders,” notes Owen Ray in the Massachusetts Daily Collegian.
They doxxed anybody even remotely involved in the publication of the letter. One listed student was a member of the Pakistani Students Association, a club which had co-signed the PSC statement. They were indirectly involved at best, but their membership with a cultural club was enough for the Mission to brand them as hateful antisemites.
Another student was a member of the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA), which also co-signed the controversial letter. They were placed on the website for no reason besides their SALSA membership.
And once on the blacklist, it is nearly impossible to get off. “They’re publishing personal information and holding it over people’s heads,” writes Ray. “It’s political extortion, it’s dystopian and it discourages political discourse.”
Not content with online slander and blacklisting, Canary Mission agents have also been involved in physical intimidation. At George Washington University in 2018, on the eve of a vote on a student-government resolution calling on the university to divest from companies profiting from Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, two powerful men in yellow canary outfits suddenly turned up in the lobby of the building in which the vote was to take place. They then engaged in a strange and frightening dance. Their purpose was to dramatically reinforce Canary Mission flyers that had been posted around campus advising students to vote against the resolution and attacking the student activists. “THERE ARE NO SECRETS. WE WILL KNOW YOUR VOTE AND WILL ACT ACCORDINGLY,” said one threatening Canary Mission message. Abby Brook, a Jewish student at the school who was active in pro-Palestinian groups on campus, found the event “pretty unbelievably terrifying.… These two fully grown, muscular men in these bird costumes, strutting.” On the walk home that night, she said, she was careful to watch her back. In‑your-face intimidation of students is the objective.
Like its campus spy operation, Israel on Campus Coalition, Canary Mission acts as a key intelligence asset for the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a highly secretive intelligence organization that is largely focused on the United States, and the Shin Bet security service. Not only is it intended to silence anti-Israel dissent; its list of names is also used to prevent those individuals from entering Israel and attempting to visit family, including both Jews and Palestinians, and professors as well as students. Among them was Lara Alqasem, a 22-year-old Palestinian American student who was planning to study in a master’s program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Although she had a valid visa, she was dragged in for interrogation shortly after landing at Tel Aviv’s airport.
During the process, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs sent over a document marked “Sensitive.” It contained a profile from Canary Mission that listed her crime: She had served as a local chapter president of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida. Even worse, her chapter had called for a boycott of some Israeli hummus. Afterward, she was placed in detention for weeks pending deportation procedures. But following a protest letter signed by over 300 professors and other academics from the US and around the world “who reject all forms of racial profiling,” an Israeli court granted her appeal to enter the country.
Another victim was Columbia University Law School professor Katherine Franke, who at one time sat on the academic advisory council steering committee for Jewish Voice for Peace. Upon her landing in Tel Aviv, an official at the airport showed her what appeared to be her Canary Mission profile. After being kept in detention for 14 hours, she was deported and informed that she would be permanently banned from the country.
Like all of Israel’s espionage and covert operations in the United States, Canary Mission’s links to Israeli intelligence—and the Mission’s American financiers—are well hidden. But as a result of a slipup on a tax form a few years ago, those links began to be revealed. And in the process was exposed the role played by one of the wealthiest families in California, headed by publicity-shy billionaire Sanford Diller, a major Trump backer who had donated $6 million to a pro-Trump political committee. Diller was also a pro-Israel extremist, supporting a long list of right-wing Islamophobic organizations. They included the American Freedom Law Center, founded by a man who even the Anti-Defamation League said has a “record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry,” and Stop Islamization of America, which “has sought to rouse public fears about a vast Islamic conspiracy to destroy American values,” according to the ADL.
For donations to a variety of causes, the Diller family maintains the Helen Diller Family Foundation. But in order to get a tax break, they turn the funds over to a much larger trust, the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, which then channels the Diller family donations. According to The Forward (formerly The Jewish Daily Forward), in 2016 the Diller Foundation donated $100,000 through the Jewish Community Federation to an obscure Israeli nonprofit called Megamot Shalom. Untraceable, off the grid, unheard of, Megamot Shalom was actually the front for Canary Mission.
Confident that their dark donations would never be revealed, other donors around the country poured cash into Megamot Shalom via similar charities, among them the Jewish Community Foundation (JCF) of Los Angeles. There, a contributor, whose name remains legally hidden by the foundation’s rules, donated another quarter of a milliondollars to Canary Mission’s front. The JCF of Los Angeles manages assets of more than $1.3 billion and, like San Francisco’s Jewish Federation, has distributed millions to right-wing pro-occupation groups. Yet at the same time, it turns down donations to human rights groups opposed to the occupation, as foundation board member Lisa Greer discovered. When she attempted to donate $5,000 to IfNotNow, a Jewish group against the occupation, the foundation rejected her contribution. “I’d never heard of this happening before,” she said. “I was beyond shocked. I really did start shaking.”
There was a key reason for so much secrecy. Those Americans who were financially supporting Canary Mission were potentially committing a serious crime, acting as agents of a foreign power. They were financing a clandestine foreign organization with ties to Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, an Israeli intelligence agency—which was using Canary Mission to identify, detain and deport Americans entering the country, like Lara Alqasem and Professor Katherine Franke.
Not content to secretly fund Canary Mission to carry out its spying and intimidation on American college campuses, many of the wealthy donors also wanted generous federal tax breaks for their donations. The problem was that tax breaks are not allowed for donations to foreign charities, just those in the United States, and Megamot Shalom’s being in Israel would rule out the deduction. To solve the problem, years ago a family living in Israel’s illegal settlements came to the United States and set up shop in New York City as a nonprofit “charity,” calling itself the Central Fund of Israel. Therefore, the Diller family, through San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation, actually “donated” their money to the Central Fund in New York, and in return received a substantial tax rebate. And then the Central Fund simply transferred the money to Megamot Shalom’s bank account in Israel. Under the scheme, billionaires and their foundations got richer while American taxpayers subsidized the blacklisting and terrorizing of their own children in college.
In addition to Canary Mission, the Central Fund also directs millions of donations to a wide range of racist and extremist settler groups. Among them is Lehava, a far-right Jewish supremacist group based in Israel that has staged marches chanting “Death to Arabs.” Last year, a group of 19 rabbis signed a letter to one of the Central Fund’s key supporters, the New York–based Jewish Communal Fund, with assets of more than $2.4 billion, protesting the donations. “Incitement and violence are not legitimate political positions,” they wrote, and requested a meeting. But officials from the Jewish Communal Fund simply rebuffed the rabbis and declined to meet with them.
Nearly invisible, the Central Fund for Israel was hidden in the back room of a fabric company in midtown Manhattan. It has since moved into a back room of J. Mark Interiors on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, Long Island. The family business is run by Jay Marcus, a gray-haired settler with a kippah on his head and a second home in Efrat, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. From the textile company, the Diller family’s $100,000 was wired to the Israeli bank account of Canary Mission’s front organization, Megamot Shalom. Unsurprisingly, the actual physical address for Megamot Shalom appeared to be a run-down abandoned building in Beit Shemesh, a city west of Jerusalem. Near a few broken chairs and a scattering of pigeon droppings—or perhaps those of a canary—was a heavily scuffed powder-blue door from which hung a rusty padlock.
Hidden deep in the shadows, the man behind both Megamot Shalom and Canary Mission was a smiling, pleasant-looking, middle-aged rabbi with receding dark brown hair beneath a black felt fedora, Jonathan Jack Ian Bash. Although he has denied involvement, Bash signed the 2016 financial reports for Megamot Shalom, and two people separately confirmed to The Forward that he was in charge of Canary Mission. Megamot Shalom is what is known in Israel as a “public benefit corporation,” and documents seem to clearly describe its work: to “ensure the national image and strength of the state of Israel via the use of information disseminated by technological means.”
While Bash has long run Canary Mission’s operations, the man with the money pulling the strings appears to be multimillionaire Adam Milstein, a convicted felon and close associate of the late multibillionaire Israel supporter Sheldon Adelson. In 2016, during an investigation by Al Jazeera television, Tony Kleinfeld, an undercover investigator, discussed Milstein with his then “boss,” Eric Gallagher, fundraising director for the Israel Project, a Washington-based pro-Israel media organization. At the time, Gallagher believed that Kleinfeld was a like-minded pro-Israel advocate. Asked about Canary Mission on Kleinfeld’s hidden camera, Gallagher said, “It’s him, it’s him,” to which Kleinfeld asked, “Adam Milstein?” Gallagher replied, “Yeah, I don’t know who he hired to oversee it. Adam Milstein’s the guy who funds it.” Milstein has denied funding the organization, and Gallagher reportedly told Milstein that Al Jazeera had selectively edited his quote to make it appear that he was saying Milstein backed the operation.
But it should not be up to a foreign television program to investigate secret Israeli intelligence and covert operations in the US, along with their clandestine American funders. That is what the FBI is paid to do. And rather than drag university presidents up to Capitol Hill for a replay of the Red Scare/HUAC hearings, it’s time for the White House and Congress to at last rip the cover off Israel’s vast network of spies, collaborators, and funders in this country. Even if it means giving up millions in donations and political support from AIPAC—the key reason Israel remains immune from any investigation.
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December 31, 2023
New Year’s Eve Resolution: Ceasefire Now!
South Africa seeks International Court of Justice genocide order against Israel
Court application the latest move by South Africa, a vociferous critic of Israel’s war, to ratchet up pressure on Netanyahu’s government
South Africa asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its ongoing crackdown against Hamas in Gaza.
In the latest development in Israel’s war against Hamas, tens of thousands of newly displaced Gazans sought refuge in the centre of the Palestinian enclave on Friday after fleeing an Israeli tank offensive, while warplanes attacking the south flattened homes and buried families as they slept.
The court application is the latest move by South Africa, a vociferous critic of Israel’s war, to ratchet up pressure after its lawmakers last month voted in favour of closing down the Israeli embassy in Pretoria and suspending all diplomatic relations until a ceasefire was agreed in Israel’s war with Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
In a statement from South Africa’s department of international relations and co-operation, the government said the application against Israel had been filed.
Republic of South Africa ICJ proceedings against Israel
[pdf-embedder url=”http://madisonrafah.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/192-20231229-pre-01-00-en.pdf”]
At a megachurch Christmas Eve service outside Atlanta, a call for a ceasefire
On Christmas Eve, congregants gathered at the New Birth Missionary Baptist church for a service unlike any other: the church choir wore keffiyehs, Palestinians shared stories of the Nakba, and the pastor’s call was clear: a ceasefire in Gaza.
Editor’s Note: The following story first appeared in 285 South, a news publication centering the stories and perspectives of immigrant and refugee communities in metro Atlanta – the heart of the New South. Learn more and subscribe here.
On Christmas Eve morning, hundreds of congregants gathered at the New Birth Missionary Baptist church, which has been described as the largest land-owning Black church in America.
The 10,000-member megachurch in Stonecrest, GA, about 20 miles due east of Atlanta, was lit with brightly colored spotlights, huge screens broadcasting the service, and booming music filled the space.
Yesterday’s service though, was unlike any other. Images of the Palestinian flag were on the stage and on the screens. Church choir members wore keffiyehs. And the call from the pastor was clear: a ceasefire in Gaza.
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“We cannot ignore that up to this moment, 20,000 lives have been senselessly killed in Palestine,” said senior pastor Jamal Bryant, opening up the service. “If Jesus were born today he would have been found under rubble…because of bombs that this nation paid for and provided.”
Bryant said he had had conversations about “Christmas being canceled,” because of the war.
He ended up taking New Birth on another route. “Today we are calling for America, we are calling for the world to insist that a ceasefire take place immediately. That’s what we want for Christmas.”
His call echoes hundreds of black spiritual leaders across the country.
Among the attendees were a number of Palestinians, seated together. Bryant welcomed them, and congregants raised their hands in prayer.
“I have family still in Gaza…I come from a long line of Christians in Gaza,” said Lydia El-Sayegh, to the crowd of congregants from the stage.
Father George Makhoul read scripture from the Bible in Arabic. Later, Reverend Fahed Abu-Akel gave congregants historical context of the conflict. “American television tells us that everything started October 7,” Abu-Akel said as he spoke about his memories of him and his family being expelled from their home in Palestine in 1948, when he was four years old. “When I see the kids in Gaza, I see myself, leaving my home.”
He was inspired, he said, by Martin Luther King as a child, from 10,000 miles away. “We want American Christians to know that Palestinian Christians are in existence in Gaza and all over Palestine.”
“Embarrasingly there has been a silence from the church. The Christian church has really not echoed and amplified its voice to this genocide that is happening in broad daylight,” said Bryant. But on this Christmas at this sprawling megachurch in Dekalb County, Georgia there was anything but silence.
Sophia Qureshi
Sophia Qureshi is the founder and editor of 285 South, the first news publication dedicated solely to reporting on Metro Atlanta’s fast growing and diverse communities. Before launching 285 South, she worked for over 15 years in media and communications, including at Al Jazeera Media Network, The Center for Public Integrity, the United Nations Development Programme, CNN, and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).
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Meet Aida Touma-Sliman, Palestinian Knesset Member
Suspended for Criticizing War on Gaza
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Aida Touma-Sliman
Palestinian member of the Knesset suspended last month for criticizing the Israeli military assault on Gaza.
As Israel threatens to continue its assault on Gaza for “many months,” we look at growing Israeli civil opposition to the war. This week, 18-year-old Israeli Tal Mitnick became the first conscientious objector since October 7. We speak with Aida Touma-Sliman, an Palestinian Arab member of the left-wing party Hadash who was suspended from the Knesset last month for criticizing Israel’s assault. She was punished for a social media post she made condemning Israel’s attack on al-Shifa Hospital, and decries the “extreme right-wing government” and its suppression of critical voices in Israel.
Transcript
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As Israel is threatening to continue its assault on Gaza for “many months,” we begin today’s show looking at resistance to the war inside Israel. On Tuesday, an 18-year-old Israeli teenager named Tal Mitnick was sentenced to 30 days in prison after he refused to enlist in the Israeli army. He spoke out against Israel’s assault on Gaza before his sentencing on Tuesday.
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TAL MITNICK: [translated] I am standing today in Tel HaShomer base, and I am refusing to enlist. I believe that slaughter cannot solve slaughter. The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed. Violence won’t solve violence. And that is why I refuse.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Last week, Tal Mitnick spoke to Novara Media about why he decided to become a conscientious objector.
TAL MITNICK: What led me was the realization that it’s not just a couple soldiers that are bad soldiers or that enact a violent occupation on Palestinians, but it’s actually a whole system, system of violence, of pulling people into the army and making them work for the occupation and for oppressing Palestinians. …
A lot of my friends are serving and right now are in military service. And when I tell them my opinions, because I am their friend, they see the humanity in my positions, and they see that my only — I only want further to be good in this place. I want security, and I want peace for everyone. And when people get to know me, when people hear this opinion, they — this opinion is very humanistic and very normal.
So this is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make more teens, make more young people hear this position that there is an alternative to the massacre that is happening right now in Gaza and to the massacre that Hamas committed on October 7th. There is an alternative in peace, of peace and nonviolence.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Tal Mitnick speaking to Ash Sarkar, the British journalist. He has now been sentenced to 30 days in prison for refusing to enlist. Israel is facing growing criticism for stifling antiwar voices.
We’re joined by Aida Touma-Sliman. She’s a Palestinian member of the Knesset from the progressive Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, known as the Hadash party. She was suspended from the Knesset last month for criticizing the Israeli military assault on Gaza. She is joining us now from Akko in northern Israel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Aida Touma-Sliman. If you can start off by talking about the significance of Tal’s resistance, but then go on to talk about the situation in Gaza today and why you were suspended? I mean, you’re an elected leader of the Knesset. Who gets to suspend you?
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Well, hi. Thank you for hosting me.
Actually, those who suspended me are the same people who are putting Tal now in prison because he has refused to enlist himself to the army. Those are those who are ruling Israel, this government, very extreme right-wing government, who is refusing to hear any voice, antiwar voice, anybody who is opposing this bloody war. There are massive pressure used by the government in order to silence the voices who refuse to believe that military actions and wars and killing innocent people might get us anywhere or can be a way to solve the problem.
I think it has been already a month since I was suspended by the so-called ethics committee, parliamentarian ethics committee, who punished me for quoting testimonies from physicians from al-Shifa Hospital, which were published in the international media. And for that, I’ve been punished and not allowed to speak out in the Knesset or to participate in the committees for two months — one has passed already.
Of course, this is not democratic. But when you see that the same government, the same Knesset is supporting a war that is killing more than 21,000 people, 70% of them children and women in Gaza, you understand that it’s ridiculous to speak about democracy in such situation, because launching such a war was as if a reaction to Hamas’s attack on the 7th of October, which also we don’t — I don’t see it as in any way legitimized to kidnap civilians, including children, but it, of course, do not legitimize also this crazy war that has been going on in the last more than two months. It’s already 80 — more than 80 days.
So, you can understand that when Tal refused to enlist himself, he is a unique voice in the Israeli society, for a young man to stand up against all the mainstream — and not only mainstream, but kind of consensus. Today the situation in Israel is almost 90% of the society is in consensus of supporting the war. To stand up and to say that he will not take part in this war, he is not willing to be part of this military forces that are attacking, bombing in Gaza, it’s a very brave position to take. It is not easy. I’m sure he will not be embraced or tolerated inside the military prison. But we have to also remember that he is the first one to do it during this war. We hopefully think that there are — might be some young women and men who are finding other ways to avoid enlisting themselves, but at least they are not going publicly about it or turning it to a political issue. But he’s still a unique voice and not the majority voice, for my regret.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, MK Aida, if you could also talk about — you’ve mentioned the fact that, you know, 90% of Israeli society is supporting the war, but there is a minority that is opposed to it. And you’ve mentioned that this number, the number that is critical of the war, has increased in recent weeks. If you could explain where that resistance is most prominent and what you think has led to an increase in this opposition?
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Well, from day one, we understood that the forces that — democratic forces, the antiwar, anti-occupation forces that existed before the 7th of October will — with no regard to the shock that happened on the 7th of October, will still continue to believe in peace, will still continue to believe that occupation should be ended and the war should be ended. In the beginning, there were, as I mentioned to you also, a lot of anger and fear of people that avoided having clear activities against this war. Most of the activities were to put pressure to release the kidnapped Israelis in Hamas — at Hamas in Gaza.
But more and more people started to understand that, first of all, even this war, if they thought the war — the Israeli government had persuaded them in the beginning that this war is needed also to release the kidnapped Israelis. Today they understand, especially with the testimonies of the released hostages telling how dangerous it was to stay under the shelling and the bombardment of Israel. So, they understand that this war, first of all, is risking the security of the hostages who are still — 109 people are still in Gaza. And second, they started to understand that what really released part of the hostages was the negotiation and the contacts and the diplomatic path, and not the military path. So, more and more people are understanding that this war is not bringing them anywhere. Of course, 20% of the population in Israel, which is the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel, are against this war. But we need more from the Jewish side also to be against the war.
Lately, we managed to put together a big demonstration in Tel Aviv, which was the first demonstration against the war that was challenging the silencing policy that was led against especially the Palestinian citizens of Israel. You know, we were under a crackdown on — not only on the citizens, the Arab citizens, but also the leadership. If me silenced in the Knesset, there were also former MKs and the head of the High Follow-Up Committee who were arrested just because they were on their way to have a small protest against the war. Many students were dismissed from school, from university. And people were dismissed from their jobs, only because they published something that expressed sympathy to what’s happening to the people in Gaza, to our people in Gaza.
But today, for example, we challenged this silencing policy again, and we had a protest in Nazareth. Despite the warnings of the police and the fact that they wanted to avoid this protest, we insisted, and we had this protest. Tomorrow we will have a big meeting of different groups and organizations, anti-occupation, antiwar. And we are going to establish a big coalition against this war. We are not intending to bend for this silencing policy and terrorizing people who are against the war. We understand very clearly that crimes are committed and civilians are killed and that the amount of destruction is huge. And if the international community choose to be silent, that’s their problem. We are not going to be silent, and we want to stand up against this war.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, MK Aida, there are places where you still see in Israel criticism of the war, including Haaretz and +972 Magazine, journalists who have also appeared from there on our show. In addition, of course, to the concern about the hostages in Israel, now over 150 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza. If you could talk about the impact of that, as people in Israel see the costs to Israeli lives as this war goes on? Is there a sense within Israel of what it is that is being fought for?
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Yeah. Well, as I mentioned before, gradually more and more people are understanding that the war is not going to bring any security or any peace for both sides, including and mainly the Israeli side. More and more people understand that they cannot continue forever with this war, because there are implications of that war not only in the meaning of losing lives. There are also injured soldiers. More than 5,000 soldiers have been injured. Some of them will stay handicapped for all of their lives. Families are seeing how their sons, the soldiers, are coming back from war traumatized and need psychological treatment. There are implications on the economy. We are going to face — there’s a raise — just yesterday, there was the poverty report that shows there is a raise in the percentages of people who are dropping down of the poverty line. And we are expecting a very difficult economic year to come because of this war. And people are starting to ask the hard questions: why we need to continue this war if we are going to pay such a high price and still not reach any security?
You have to understand also that people in the north of Israel, near my house, and in the south of Israel are not living in their homes because of this war. Still, we are not saying that this is the most difficult situation. Of course the war is horrific in what’s happening in Gaza. But to make the Israeli society stand up against the war only because of the suffering of the Palestinians, as much as it is moral, I’m afraid it’s not enough to make the people in Israel, especially after the 7th October — it’s not going to make them stand up against the war. But what is happening in the Israeli society, the fact that more than 150 soldiers have been killed, the fact that the families are receiving their sons, their soldiers injured and handicapped, it might be more — sorry — sufficient in convincing the people to go out against the war.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask specifically about the power of the voices of the hostages or their loved ones who are speaking out for them. This is Sharon Kalderon speaking last week, sister-in-law of Ofer Kalderon, who’s being held hostage in Gaza.
SHARON KALDERON: We just want them to sit, all the cabinet, will sit and will find a way to negotiate and to bring our people home. We want them home, but no one is doing nothing right now except fighting. And fighting is not the answer right now. We want our people here, back home with us. And if we fight, we cannot bring them alive. And we don’t want to get bags. We want to get them alive. So this is why we’re here, every day, until we hear from the government that they are sitting, talking.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is a powerful voice, the families of the hostages. You have, on Monday, them screaming, shouting in the Knesset as Netanyahu was addressing the Israeli parliament, ”Achshav! Achshav!” — “Now! Now!” — demanding that the hostages be released. Already it’s clear that a number of them, not just the three men who were killed by Israeli soldiers, the young hostages, but a number of others were killed in the Israeli bombing in Gaza. The significance of this voice, and if it’s being amplified by others? Did you expect the hostages to play this kind of role — the hostage families?
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Well, of course. I mean, no one can imagine the suffering of people who don’t know what is happening with their family members. If I was in their place, I will also be not quiet, and I will do whatever I can in order to change and to bring them back. So, yes, I think it is expected, although they are showing very high, really, effect — they are very effective in how they organize themselves and how they are very vocal and speaking out and demanding to bring their families.
This is also happening, I think, as a counter to the fact that this government, the Israeli government, is not giving this issue much attention, if you compare it to the other targets or goals that Netanyahu put for this war. And that’s why they’ve felt neglected. That’s why they’ve felt that they don’t have enough backup from the government, and they needed to organize themselves and to be so vocal about the issue.
AMY GOODMAN: Aida Touma-Sliman, we only have less than a minute, but you are a Palestinian journalist, as well as an MK, a member of the parliament. I wanted to get your response to — it’s believed over a hundred journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza. The headlines today, TV journalist Mohammad Khair al-Din and Ahmed Khair al-Din, the journalist and cameraman, also died in a bombing in Gaza. Your response to the demand, for example, by Al Jazeera for the International Criminal Court to take on the issue of the targeting of journalists?
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Well, there are 105 journalists who has been killed since the beginning of this war. If you remember, it started also by other journalists before who were killed, including Shireen Abu Akleh, who was targeted and killed, from Al Jazeera. We have the feeling that the journalists are targeted in order to silence the voices who are coming out from Gaza and exposing the reality of what is happening.
AMY GOODMAN: Because Western journalists are not allowed in by Israel.
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Of course, I think that there should be an investigation. Of course, there should be an investigation, and it should be a clear out that there is no possibility to continue to be quiet about this targeting.
AMY GOODMAN: Aida Touma-Sliman, we want to thank you so much for being with us, a member —
AIDA TOUMA–SLIMAN: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — of the Israeli Knesset, a MK — that’s a member of the Knesset — Palestinian member, suspended last month for criticizing the Israeli military assault on Gaza, joining us from Akko in northern Israel.
War on Gaza: Why is Israel losing the public relations war?
As Israel faces numerous military setbacks in Gaza, it is also struggling to inspire global support for its indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinians
Mohamad Elmasry, Middle East Eye, 27 December 2023
In its current war on Gaza, Israel has been unable to make significant progress on its primary military objective: to eliminate Hamas.
After more than 80 days of fighting, Hamas remains largely intact, continuing to launch rockets into Israel and inflict heavy casualties on Israeli military personnel inside Gaza.
Israel has further failed to make good on its secondary military objective: to free all Israeli hostages taken by Hamas as part of its 7 October attack.
Judged purely against its own stated objectives, things aren’t going as well as planned for the Israeli army. While the outcome of Israel’s military campaign remains to be seen, there is little doubt that Israel is decisively losing the public relations war.
Israel’s PR losses are being acknowledged even by Israeli analysts writing in the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel, as well as by Israeli sympathisers at the Washington Post and White House, among others.
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And it isn’t just people in the Arab and Muslim worlds, or more broadly in the Global South, who are turning on Israel. Increasingly, citizens in western societies, especially younger people, are becoming more critical of Israel.
Live-streaming genocide
Public opinion polling from Western Europe is illuminating. Polls have found that only 35 percent of Germans support their government’s pro-Israel stance, people in Spain are more likely to support Palestine than Israel, and an overwhelming majority of the Irish oppose Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
In the West, mainstream media, which have historically supported Israel, no longer have a monopoly on information dissemination
Britons are effectively divided on Israel-Palestine, a reality that represents a departure from prior, overwhelming British public support for Israel.
Polling data from the United States tell a similar story. For example, a recent Harvard-Harris poll showed that Americans in the 18 to 24 age bracket are split evenly between supporting Hamas and supporting Israel.
More tellingly, perhaps, about 60 percent of American youth aged 18 to 24 feel Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel was justified, with nearly half of those in the 25 to 34 age bracket and 40 percent of those aged 35 to 44 feeling the same way.
There is likely a correlation between media consumption and public opinion. In the West, mainstream media, which have historically overwhelmingly supported Israel, no longer have a monopoly on information.
Hundreds of millions of westerners, and especially western youth, are plugged into social media sites such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter). These social media users have seen, often in graphic detail, the carnage inflicted by Israel on innocent civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank.
This kind of social media imagery has become so widespread and is so damning of Israel that the Israeli government complained to TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, asking for thousands of posts to be removed.
Israeli censorship efforts have apparently borne fruit, with systematic censorshipof pro-Palestinian content now becoming pervasive.
For at least two reasons, however, censorship efforts will be of little avail, at least in the short term.
First, the proverbial damage has already been done – graphic posts shared millions of times can be removed, but not unseen. Second, and more importantly, pro-Israel censorship is likely to trigger even more anti-Israel anger among precisely the demographics that Israel wants to win over.
Why is Israel losing the PR war?
There are at least three primary causes of Israel’s PR troubles. First, there are basic difficulties associated with doing PR for an occupying apartheid state actively carrying out genocide. Second, some Israelis have gone rogue and delivered messaging harmful to their country’s PR efforts. Third, official Israeli PR efforts have suffered from basic incompetence. I’ll discuss each of these causes in turn.
Cause 1: PR can’t work miracles
Organisations, including governments, have damage control plans in place but hope to never have to use them. One useful PR guideline advises the avoidance of negative behaviours that will necessitate damage control.
For more than 80 days, Israel has indiscriminately bombed densely populated civilian areas and killed more than 21,000 people, 70 percent of them children and women.
In many instances, Israel has directly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, shelters, schools, homes and so-called “safe routes”.
More than 100 United Nations workers have been killed, the most of any conflict in UN history, in addition to nearly 70 journalists killed in what the Committee to Protect Journalists described as the “deadliest period for journalists” since the watchdog began gathering data in 1992.
What makes PR matters worse for Israel is that its military bombardment was preceded by numerous statements by top officials suggesting genocidal intent.
For example, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he ordered a “full siege” of Gaza, blocking all food, water, and fuel from reaching the Strip; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his intent to turn Gaza into a “deserted island”; and President Isaac Herzog indicated Israel made no distinction between Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters.
Gallant also said Israel would “eliminate everything”, while military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel’s military emphasis would be on “damage and not on accuracy”.
Israel has also prevented medicine from entering Gaza, and the very few medical facilities left operational have been forced to carry out surgical procedures, including amputations, without anaesthesia.
A recent World Food Programme report says Gazans are now suffering from “catastrophic hunger”.
Numerous international humanitarian law experts have said Israel’s destruction of Gaza, combined with official statements showing genocidal intent, suggests Israel is carrying out a genocide according to international law. Raz Segal, an Israeli associate professor of holocaust and genocide studies, has said Israel is carrying out a “textbook case of genocide”.
Even the best PR professionals would find it difficult to polish a genocide. As the old adage says: “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.”
Cause 2: Rogue communication
Immediately after the 7 October attack, a journalist for Israel’s i24 News channel reported that Hamas militants had beheaded Israeli babies. In her report, she sourced an Israeli commander.
The story was picked up widely by mainstream western news outlets and was even mentioned multiple times by US President Joe Biden, who said he had “seen” the images himself. Both the Israeli government and the White House were forced to walk back this claim, which was demonstrably false.
In November, a video purporting to show a Palestinian nurse denouncing Hamas went viral. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs retweeted the video.
The Israeli government was later forced to delete the video, however, because it was found to be staged by an Israeli actress pretending to be a Palestinian.
Throughout the war on Gaza, Israeli soldiers have filmed and circulated videos of themselves committing grotesque human rights violations against Palestinians. These videos, as well as similar videos posted by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, have further damaged Israel’s image.
Human rights activists have posted the videos as evidence of Israeli atrocities. In recent days, the videos have also generated critical media coverage.
Cause 3: Incompetence
At least some of Israel’s PR woes can be blamed on sheer incompetence. Two weeks ago, the Israeli military staged an alleged mass arrest of Hamas fighters, who had been stripped down to their underwear, blindfolded, and video-recorded surrendering themselves to Israel.
Israel lost further PR points when investigations concluded that Hamas was not using al-Shifa as a command centre or for any other military purpose
The event was seemingly intended to show the Israeli public that the military was making progress in apprehending “terrorists”.
Investigations quickly revealed two important details, however. First, the men were ordinary Palestinians, not fighters. Second, the event was staged, with Israeli soldiers ordering the Palestinian captives to perform multiple takes of an apparent weapon surrender. Due to widespread outrage, Israel was ultimately forced to distance itself from the video.
In another incident, the Israeli military provided a video-guided tour of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, which it had attacked and ransacked. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari starred in the video, intending to show evidence that Hamas had been using the hospital as a “command and control centre”.
At one point, Hagari pointed to an Arabic calendar, claiming it showed a terrorist shift schedule. Pointing to the calendar, Hagari said: “This is a guardians’ list, where every terrorist writes his name and every terrorist has his own shift.” As Arabic viewers quickly noted, the calendar was a simple wall calendar containing only the days of the week. The video went viral on social media, with thousands of posts and memes mocking the failed PR stunt.
Israel lost further PR points when investigations, including one by the Washington Post, concluded that Hamas was not using al-Shifa as a command centre or for any other military purpose.
Does failed PR matter?
Israel realises it is losing ground in the battle for public opinion, especially among young people. This is likely why the Israeli government is flooding social media with paid advertisements and is going heavy on TikTok, Instagram and other social media sites.
If Israel were a corporation, celebrity, or a country not allied with the US, there would be serious consequences for such miserable image management.
Over the long term, there is a real risk that Israel will lose whatever standing it has left, something that could impact on-the-ground political realities.
In the short term, though, Israel can be reassured that it is convincing the only people that matter – US officials. As long as the US continues to use its weight to shield Israel and promote its narrative, Israel can afford to fumble its image.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
Israel is not targeting “terrorists” hiding behind “human shields.”
On the contrary, it’s targeting the “human shields” themselves.
Media performer Sam Harris recently appeared on Piers Morgan’s program. Effecting a flat affect—cool, rational—he used this platform to weigh in on irrational, fanatical Muslims. A clip was first shown of a Muslim (he is identified as the offspring of a Hamas leader) who expostulates that all Muslims are evil. This apparently deranged (or highly remunerated) fellow is a throwback to the days when Peter Lorre, eyes screwed up, was a stand-in for the wily, sinister Other. Mr. Harris seizes on this Archetypal Muslim as proof positive that “It should be obvious to everyone that we have a vast number of people in the Muslim community worldwide … who are powerfully deranged.” His evidence for this sweepingly “obvious” fact? Except for the hapless (or, if he’s generously compensated, very happy) Muslim exhibited on the program, and the fact that Mr. Harris is introduced as “one of the world’s great thinkers” (he’s Jewish, so the praise is redundant), the only proof adduced by Mr. Harris is that the Muslim world produces a prodigious number of suicide bombers—not least, children whose parents have been “rigging them to explode.” He cites no numbers or statistics. Indeed, he cites nothing. There is, of course, by now a vast scholarly corpus on suicide bombers—their origins, motivations, the support they garner. But Mr. Harris doesn’t engage it. Instead: here’s a clip of an apparently deranged Muslim saying Muslims are deranged; Mr. Harris is a genius (he’s Jewish, isn’t he?); ergo it’s “obvious” that he’s right.
To be sure, it’s clearly possible that a large swath of a population can be unhinged; at any rate, temporarily. Witness Germany and Japan from the peak to denouement of World War 2. Or, to consider an example closer at hand: Israel. The Jewish state has launched a war of annihilation against the people of Gaza. The number of genocidal statements uttered by prominent Israelis at every level of the state and civil society since October 7 can by now fill a hefty chunk of cyberspace. But Mr. Harris is not in the least perturbed. Why is that?
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First, as a pop secular prophet, indiscriminate mass killing only outrages Mr. Harris’s moral sensibility if it springs from religion. But the protagonists on all sides in the unprecedented bloodlettings of WW1 and WW2—and for that matter the Vietnam War, presided over by “the best and the brightest”—were secular or in thrall to secular ideologies. Was that really better? Indeed, it’s gone over Mr. Harris’s bigoted skull that the most lethal ideologies in the modern epoch have sprung not from religious but secular fanaticism. Hitler, Stalin, Kissinger: they can rightly be accused of many things but pathological religiosity is not one of them. In any event, the animating ideology in Israel is a heady brew of terrestrial calculation and super-terrestrial frenzy. Just a “tiny minority of Jews in Israel,” Harris caveats, “are motivated by their religious fanaticism.” Even were that so (which is most doubtful), it’s hard to figure why maniacal laicism isn’t also odious. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly gestured to the Old Testament as he avows that Israel is waging a war against “Amalek”—i.e., every man, woman, and child in Gaza—“a war between the children of light and the children of darkness.” Does it really matter whether the register of this genocidal invocation is secular or theocratic?
Short of wiping out the entire population in one fell swoop—not easy with the social media at high alert—Israel’s repeatedly stated next-best objective has been to make Gaza uninhabitable. “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth,” a senior Israeli official in Gaza projected. “No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.” Israel implemented a total blockade of Gaza barring entry of any food, water, fuel or electricity; in other words, it’s relying not on prayers exhorting the Almighty’s wrath but on a resolutely secular recipe for genocide that passes Mr. Harris’s taste-test. Unsurprisingly, mass starvation and the spread of lethal diseases have ensued. Israel simultaneously unleashed a biblically indiscriminate (but also targeted) campaign of death and destruction that, by every metric—intensity of bombing and payload size; pace and level of devastation; total civilian casualties as well as women and children versus men killed—puts the hecatomb Israel has inflicted on Gaza in a category all its own in the 21st century; and, by some measures, it occupies a unique category going as far back as World War 2 (if compared, e.g., to the Allied terror bombing of German cities). “Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” a U.S. military historian observes.
The U.N. relief chief describes the humanitarian situation in Gaza as the “worst ever” in his long career, while the European Union foreign affairs chief calls the situation “catastrophic, apocalyptic.” Israel has killed at least 20,000 Gazans, seventy percent of them women and children. The proportion of men, women and children killed roughly approximates the distribution of men, women, and children in Gaza’s total population—which shouldn’t surprise if the massive bombing and artillery fire is largely indiscriminate. On average, Israel has killed 160 children per day in Gaza; the next highest number among conflict zones in the world is seven (in Syria), while as many children have already been killed in Gaza as in all conflict zones for the three years 2020, 2021, 2022 combined. In order to make Gaza uninhabitable, Israel has reduced to rubble Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The Financial Times reports that Israel has already achieved half its objective: “Israel’s incursion has left northern Gaza virtually uninhabitable.” Its methodical targeting of Gaza’s hospitals has breached, in the annals of modern warfare, a negative threshold of barbarism.
Notwithstanding this ghastly record, nearly 60 percent of Israeli Jews believed a month into the assault that Israel had deployed too little force in Gaza, while less than two percent believed that Israel used too much force. Israel has a citizen army. Its combatants executing singly and en masse this genocide are broadly representative of Israeli Jewish society. In other words, overwhelmingly, Israeli Jews are either by their actions or vicariously war criminals. But there’s more. Consider the Jewish diaspora. As the genocide proceeds apace, fully 81 percent of American Jews oppose and just 12 percent support a ceasefire. (I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to the deeply inspiring Jewish youth who have stood in the forefront of the resistance to Israel’s genocide.) Based on these salient data points, it would appear “obvious that a vast number of people in the Jewish community worldwide … are powerfully deranged.” Mr. Harris kvells that “There are 15 million Jews on Earth, most of them are impressively secular.” It happens that they are also in the grip of an impressively genocidal rage. “Most of them,” he reassures, “believe very little that would motivate them to die for their religious identity.” But they manifestly do believe enough to kill with abandon the people of Gaza on account of their religious (or is it secular—for the love of Yahweh, what difference does it make?!) identity.
It has been purported in extenuation of ordinary Germans that the Nazis installed a totalitarian state that repressed all dissent and concealed the genocide in the fog of war. Of course, ordinary Germans who wanted to know did know that if not exactly a genocide then still something monstrous was unfolding on the Eastern front. But later on, Germans could still cling to the alibi—in varying degrees disingenuous—that they didn’t know (or fell victim to ubiquitous Nazi propaganda about a “Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy”), and wouldn’t have approved if they did know (or couldn’t but obey coercive orders). Israeli (as well as diasporan) Jews don’t have these excuses. Israel was no doubt traumatized by October 7. But the facts remain that they democratically elected the government and overwhelmingly support the government’s prosecution of a genocide; that they have ready access to information about the genocide in a free and open media both inside and via the Web outside Israel. The genocide in Gaza is unfolding in real time in broad daylight before the eyes of Israeli (and diasporan) Jews and 60 percent literally can’t get enough of it.
But, lo!, we mustn’t miss the forest from the trees. Not the Jews, counsels our cool, rational Jewish genius (redundancy duly noted) but, on the contrary, it’s the Muslims who “it is obvious … are powerfully deranged.”
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Second, if there are “so many casualties” in Gaza, Mr. Harris explains—parroting with consummate insipidness every other apologist—that’s because Israel
is fighting a terrorist organization … that is using its own population as human shields. It has strategically embedded itself among civilians…. It put its headquarters under a hospital. It prevents civilians from leaving to safer areas…. This is the issue: we are dealing with a suicidal death cult.
But stepping outside this secular jihadi’s tent, isn’t it—dare I say—obvious that, if Israel has inflicted unprecedented death and destruction on Gaza, that’s because that’s its objective? It is not “fighting a terrorist organization,” it is fighting the people—the existence—of Gaza. The media reflexively declare that this is an “Israel-Hamas War.” But that is already swallowing the Big Lie of Israeli propaganda. Israel is not targeting “terrorists” supposedly hiding behind “human shields.” On the contrary, it’s targeting the “human shields” themselves.
Of course, Israel wants to liquidate Hamas, but it rightly apprehends that another, more deadly Hamas will emerge in its place. If Hamas were eliminated, it would still be a Pyrrhic victory. Gaza itself must be destroyed. Indeed, that speck of land has always been a thorn at Israel’s side as Gazans stubbornly resisted Israeli repression. Israel eventually alit on the objective of subjugating Gaza by reducing it—in the words of Amira Hass—to a “giant concentration camp.” In large part it succeeded. Head of Israel’s National Security Council Giora Eiland in 2004 himself pronounced Gaza a “huge concentration camp.” But when Hamas won democratic elections in 2006 and consolidated its hold over Gaza, Israel confronted a new dilemma. Hamas was feeling its way towards a comprehensive settlement with Israel on the consensus basis of international law and U.N. resolutions. In other words, Hamas was engaging in another of those dastardly “peace offensives” that have always filled Israeli leaders with holy terror. They will only accept a victor’s peace; not one among equals under the law. So Israel imposed a suffocating economic blockade on Gaza and periodically “mowed the lawn” in order to rupture the spine of any resistance to its rule.
But on October 7, the reality lit up that Israel’s strategy had failed. The people of Gaza refused to languish and die in a concentration camp. The slaves had gone into revolt. And like our own homegrown Nat Turner revolt, they (in part) struck out indiscriminately at their oppressors. It created a crisis for Israeli society but also—to recycle the old cliché—presented an opportunity. To once and for all rid Israel of the Gaza thorn. To free itself not just of this generation of “terrorists” but as well the more than one million children in Gaza representing the next “terrorist” generation. Israel initially set its sights on dumping Gaza’s inhabitants in the Sinai desert but Egypt nixed the ethnic cleansing. Israel next proceeded to repurpose Gaza concentration camp as a death camp. (The Nazis turned to genocide when the advent of world war preempted the deportation of Jews.) It did scrape against the limits imposed by the formally genocide-intolerant international community. But that factor, critical as it was, bore on the genocide’s efficiency quotient (Israel couldn’t outright nuke Gaza), not on the genocidal intent. And Israel could always count on useful idiots abroad to disguise and defend its genocide by endlessly reciting the incantation: “Israel is fighting a terrorist organization … that is using its own population as human shields.”
If Human Rights Watch reports that Israel is systematically targeting hospitals without military justification, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” (Memo to Mr. Harris: a detailed investigation by the Washington Post has debunked the agitprop that Hamas “put its headquarters” under al-Shifa hospital.) If the U.N. reports that the number of its staff killed by Israel in Gaza is unprecedented in the organization’s history, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that Israel not only killed more journalists in Gaza during the first 10 weeks than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year, but that it has also targeted the families of journalists, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If Israel has killed more healthcare workers in Gaza than the total number killed across all conflict zones every year in recent memory, that’s because it is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If Israel murders in broad daylight bare-chested civilians hoisting a white flag, that’s because it is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If Israeli snipers assassinate Christian women seeking refuge in a church, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If CNN reports that “Israeli soldiers raiding a hospital … desecrated the bodies of dead patients with bulldozers, let a military dog maul a man in a wheelchair, and shot multiple doctors even after vetting them for terror links,” that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If Human Rights Watch reports that Israel is “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” that’s because it is fighting “a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” If the New York Times reports that Israel dropped 2,000-pound bombs on areas that Israel itself designated safe havens, that’s because it is “fighting a terrorist organization … using its own population as human shields.” (Memo to Mr. Harris: There are no “safer areas” in Gaza.) And on and on. However incongruous, however absurd, however ludicrous, however preposterous—however utterly divorced from and irrelevant to unfolding reality the recitation of this mantra has become, it still doesn’t faze these crazed cult members as they keep repeating it day in and day out. Om. Hari Krishna. Hara Kiri….
But Mr. Harris doesn’t just extenuate the genocide. He implicitly endows it with a positive content. Every Muslim—including every Muslim child—he enlightens listeners, is an actual or potential suicide bomber imperiling Western civilization. Isn’t it only a flea’s hop to infer that Israel is doing the (secular) Lord’s work in Gaza as it wages a civilizational war against “deranged” Muslim culture and even if one million children—pardon me: children who have been “rigged to explode”—might die? Mr. Harris somehow construes that it takes enormous moral courage to expose this Muslim peril on Piers Morgan’s program. Indeed, it takes as much courage as the German professor in the midst of the Nazi holocaust who sounded the alarm that “parasitic” Jewish culture was imperiling Aryan civilization.
Mr Harris proclaims that “This is the issue: we are dealing with a suicidal death cult.” I’m afraid, however, that the real issue is this: We are dealing with a Ziontology murder cult; and Mr. Harris is one of its gurus.
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December 25, 2023
Virtual Event on Christmas Day
We are in the Christmas season when bells are ringing and Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
But not in Palestine, the birthplace of Jesus.
The Israeli onslaught against Gaza has killed upwards of 20,000 including 8,000 children. At least 300, including 72 children, have been killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank since October 7.
Palestinian Christians are united in their condemnation of Israeli atrocities. In Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth, a scene representing “Christ in the Rubble” lies inside the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Pastor Munther Isaac explains, “It is impossible to celebrate when there is a massacre, a genocide, taking place in Gaza to our people. The idea was to send a message to the world that this is what Christmas looks in Palestine… Children being pulled from under the rubble, their homes destroyed while the world is celebrating.”
Join us on Christmas Day at 12 noon ET/7 pm Palestine to keep Palestine in our hearts during the Christmas season, hear from Palestinian Christians and US clergy about what they believe Jesus would do for Palestine, and learn how to keep taking action for a ceasefire during the holidays.
With sorrow and determination,
Sandra Tamari
Executive Director, Adalah Justice Project
December 23, 2023
Update: Christmas is Cancelled – Sing for Palestine!
Madison and Milwaukee
Madison: Plaza Corner at Monroe Street and West Lawn Avenue, 12:30 P.M.
Free hot cocoa, coloring sheets for children, and caroling for Gaza.
CAROLS THAT WILL BE SUNG
Free hot coca, Coloring sheets for children and Caroling.
Art Builds for these Events will be on 12/22/23 from 6-8 P.M. (Milwaukee at Zao MKE Church) (Madison at Piney Branch Library)
Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine
wiscoforpali@gmail.com
Medieval to Modern
Project Immigration Justice for Palestinians (Project IJP)
In response to the devastating and horrific humanitarian crisis and genocide in Gaza, the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) — in collaboration with organizations and attorneys across the country — has launched Project Immigration Justice for Palestinians (Project IJP). Project IJP seeks to provide humanitarian immigration support and assistance to Palestinians here and abroad.
A few weeks ago, Project IJP hosted a virtual community forum where over 160 community members attended to learn more about the humanitarian immigration options available to community members.
Project IJP has already matched over 50 Palestinian families with volunteer immigration attorneys and continues to receive case inquiries from community members on a daily basis. While Project IJP endeavors to match all of our Palestinian community members to an attorney to receive free immigration services, we need your support.
To achieve some of our humanitarian immigration objectives, our Palestinian community members may be required to pay fees to USCIS and other agencies. We ask that you please help us support the humanitarian immigration needs of our Palestinian community members by donating to ease the burden of fee payments and other legal expenses incurred. Please visit bit.ly/projectijp to learn more and donate to support our Palestinian community.
Freedom Dance
Catastrophic Shortage of Food in Gaza
Starvation as a Weapon of War
Thalif Deen, IPS UN Bureau, December 22, 2023
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2023 (IPS) — As the killings of civilians in Gaza rose to over 20,000, the besieged city—which has been virtually reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardments—is also being ravaged by hunger and starvation.
In new estimates released on December 21, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership that includes the World Health Organization (WHO), said Gaza is facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” with the risk of famine “increasing each day.”
An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food, and high levels of malnutrition.
At least 1 in 4 households are facing “catastrophic conditions”: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.
The World Food Programme warns that these levels of acute food insecurity are unprecedented in recent history and that Gaza risks famine.
Shaza Moghraby, Spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said: “I have been exposed to many IPC reports on various countries throughout my time at WFP and I have never seen anything like this before. The levels of acute food insecurity are unprecedented in terms of seriousness, speed of deterioration and complexity.”
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Gaza risks famine. The population falling into the “catastrophe” classification of food security in Gaza or IPC Level 5 is more than four times higher than the total number of people currently facing similar conditions worldwide (577,000 compared to 129,000 respectively).
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the opening of all border crossings and the resumption of commercial cargo to provide relief, put an end to the suffering and avert the very serious threat of famine. We cannot wait for famine to be declared before we act,” she said.
On recent missions to north Gaza, WHO staff say that every single person they spoke to in Gaza is hungry. Wherever they went, including hospitals and emergency wards, people asked them for food.
“We move around Gaza delivering medical supplies and people rush to our trucks hoping it’s food,” they said, calling it “an indicator of the desperation.”
Meanwhile, in a new report released this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Israeli government of using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”
“Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival”.
Since Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, high-ranking Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Energy Minister Israel Kat have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel – statements reflecting a policy being carried out by Israeli forces, HRW said.
Other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza would be conditioned either on the release of hostages unlawfully held by Hamas or Hamas’ destruction.
“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
“World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 displaced Palestinians in Gaza between November 24 and December 4. They described their profound hardships in securing basic necessities. “We had no food, no electricity, no internet, nothing at all,” said one man who had left northern Gaza. “We don’t know how we survived.”
Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America said the shocking figures describing the high levels of starvation in Gaza are a direct, damning, and predictable consequence of Israel’s policy choices – and President Biden’s unconditional support and diplomatic approach.
“Anyone paying attention cannot be surprised by these figures after more than two months of complete siege, denial of humanitarian aid, and destruction of residential neighborhoods, bakeries, mills, farms, and other infrastructure essential for food and water production,” she said.
“Israel has the right to defend its people from attacks, but it does not have the right to use starvation as a weapon of war to collectively punish an entire civilian population in reprisal. That is a war crime.”
“The US government has repeatedly given Israel diplomatic cover, but now must urgently change course and put politics aside to prioritize the lives of civilians”, said Maxman.
“ As humanitarians, we know no amount of aid can meaningfully address this spiraling crisis without an end to the bombing and siege, but it is unconscionable to deny it to Palestinian families who are starving”.
She argued the Biden administration must use all of its influence to achieve an immediate ceasefire to stop the bloodshed, allow for the safe return of hostages to Israel, and allow aid and commercial goods in, “so we can save lives now.”
“The US cannot continue to stand by and allow Palestinians to be starved to death.”
According to WHO, Gaza is also experiencing soaring rates of infectious diseases. Over 100, 000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported since mid-October. Half of these are among young children under the age of 5 years, case numbers that are 25 times what was reported before the conflict.
Over 150 000 cases of upper respiratory infection, and numerous cases of meningitis, skin rashes, scabies, lice and chickenpox have been reported. Hepatitis is also suspected as many people present with the tell-tale signs of jaundice.
“While a healthy body can more easily fight off these diseases, a wasted and weakened body will struggle. Hunger weakens the body’s defences and opens the door to disease,” WHO warned.
Meanwhile, HRW said international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.
Criminal intent does not require the attacker’s admission but can also be inferred from the totality of the circumstances of the military campaign.
In addition, Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza, as well as its more than 16-year closure, amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, a war crime. As the occupying power in Gaza under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel has the duty to ensure that the civilian population gets food and medical supplies.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Milwaukee call for Gaza ceasefire
Vow to defeat Biden
Pro-Palestinian protesters assembled near the site of President Joe Biden’s visit to Milwaukee Wednesday and demanded that the United States support a ceasefire in Gaza to end the Israel-Hamas conflict.
And they vowed to take their case to the ballot box in next year’s presidential election to work to defeat the president.
The protest was organized by the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, which represents more than 60 organizations.
“What is happening in Gaza is genocide and he is complicit with that genocide, so he has blood on his hands,” attorney Munjed Ahmad said. “We still expect him to call for a ceasefire and not have the U.S. stand alone on the wrong side of history.”
Ahmad noted that Wisconsin is a swing state that Biden narrowly won over former President Donald Trump in 2020.
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“He won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes only,” Ahmad said. “We are a voting bloc that is way more than 20,000. He will not win Wisconsin without our votes. And at this point, he doesn’t have them. It is our intention to abandon him because of his complicity with the genocide.”
Later, during a news conference at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee Community Center, speakers criticized the president over the Israel-Hamas war.
The group said the goal of an effort called “Abandon Biden” is to guarantee the president’s loss, with campaigns launched by Muslim community leaders in Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
Othman Atta, an attorney and activist, said the situation in Gaza is “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
“We’re giving a very clear signal to the Democratic Party, if you continue to support Joe Biden as the presidential candidate and he continues to support the Israeli onslaught against Gaza, we will not support him,” Atta said. “We will abandon him.”
Special End-of-Year Appeal
As the end of the year approaches, we wanted to highlight some opportunities to support Palestine.
First, our Madison-Masafer Yatta Olive Grove has raised money to plant 271 of our goal of 500 olive trees in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank. The purpose of this project is to help these farmers remain on their land by keeping it cultivated in the face of settler and army attacks.
We have been told by our Dutch partner group Plant een Olijfboom that they plan to plant trees sponsored before January 1 during the January through March planting season. Please consider sponsoring one or more trees at $22 each before the end of the year. Donations after January 1 will be planted the following year.
Second, the local high school exchange student whose family of 6 is trapped in Gaza is still short in her GoFundMe campaign to get her parents and four sisters to safety in Egypt.
Nationally, both the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) are appealing for your help to provide emergency relief to Gaza.
We highly recommend these groups. We have worked with them in the past and will likely again in the coming year. Both are still able to provide aid in Gaza despite the terrible conditions.
Finally, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is in desperate need of donations for Gaza emergency relief. They recently wrote, “UNRWA staff continue to distribute the limited aid available to them, but they are hanging on by a thread. If UNRWA collapses, humanitarian assistance in Gaza will also collapse.”
As always, thank you for your support.
Silencing Palestine: a message from Ahmed Abu Artema
“This is the call of all the Palestinian families, the thousands of children who were killed, including my son Abdullah. Our call is to all free people across the world. Please stop this genocide.”
I am an Israeli anti-zionist peace activist. Ahmed Abu Artema and I met on different sides of the fence that besieges the Gaza Strip and have been friends ever since. A few weeks ago, we were drafting an opinion piece together. I was preparing to send him my draft when I received news that Israeli warplanes had shelled his home in Rafah in southern Gaza. I panicked and called his phone. It was off.
Ahmed is a Palestinian poet and a journalist. In 2018, he posted a poem on social media:
“I looked up at the birds in the sky, flying through the trees on both sides of the barbed wire fence without being stopped. ‘Why do we complicate simple matters? Is it not the right of people to move freely like birds as they wish?’ What is simpler than this? The birds decide to fly, so they fly.”
In his post, Ahmed asked: What would happen if hundreds of thousands of Palestinians walked peacefully and crossed the fence that separates them from the lands that they had been expelled from in 1948? Ahmed believed nonviolent popular action could help his people regain their rights and free themselves from the world’s largest open-air prison.
His poem inspired the Great March of Return, in which unarmed Palestinians marched daily to the heavily militarised fence for over a year.
Our group of anti-Zionist Israelis would go as close as we could to Gaza to welcome the refugees home. But we were only able to wave at our friends from a distance or speak over the phone. The fence that separated us also separated the Palestinian protesters from their basic rights, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Resolution 194.
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The question that Ahmed posed in his post was soon answered: the unarmed protesters were branded as “terrorists” and were met with sniper bullets. The world watched as 214 Palestinians, including children, journalists, medics, and protestors with disabilities, were killed and over 36,100 wounded. UN agencies and human rights organizations reported and denounced this, but nothing was done to stop the killing. No arrest warrants were issued for the killers and those who gave the orders.
In response to the slaughter of demonstrators, Ahmed explained, “Our will for life is stronger than despair. We struggle to live…Palestinians continue to protest every week because we have no other choice, but to escape towards life.”
In the first weeks of the current Israeli assault, Ahmed recorded a video explaining that Israel was clearly targeting civilians.
In Ahmed’s last voice message to me before his house was bombed, he wanted our article to remind people that the history of this genocide did not begin on October 7, but in 1948 — that the world ignored the suffering of Palestinians and only paid attention when it affected Israelis. He said that this is a political, not a military problem, rooted in deep injustice and oppression suffered by Palestinians. He wanted to cite Smotrich’s Plan, an Israeli strategy to effectively complete the expulsion of Palestinians that began with the 1948 Nakba.
The day after Ahmed’s house was targeted, I got an automated message that his mobile phone had been turned on. This meant he was alive! But I soon learned that though Ahmed suffered second-degree burns and was in stable condition, the Israeli Occupation Forces had killed his 12-year-old son Abdullah, his 9-year-old niece Jude, his stepmother, and two of his aunts.
After this, I didn’t hear from Ahmed for a while. At times, I didn’t know if he — or any of my friends in Gaza, for that matter — were alive. Another mutual friend of ours, Khalil Abu Yehye, was killed, together with his wife, two daughters, mother, and brother; their entire family, like so many others, is now entirely wiped out.
Nowadays in Israel, all it takes to be fired, arrested, charged with “supporting terrorism,” and deported is to express sorrow and pain over the killing of childrenover the bombing of Gaza or expressing any dissent and refusing to be complicit in this genocide. Palestinians with Israeli IDs and in the West Bank are arrested and experience far worse. In the Gaza Strip, a journalist, activist, or influencer accused of “supporting Hamas” may expect to be targeted, like Ahmed was, and have their family destroyed by a missile from an Israeli warplane. Thousands of bodies are still trapped under the rubble in Gaza, but according to current data, we know that at least 68 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the airstrikes since October 7, many of them in their homes with their families.
When I managed to talk to Ahmed again, he sent me a recording for people outside of Gaza, in which he said:
“It is very clear now that Israel is working to displace the Palestinians from their land…Why has Israel killed so far 5500 Palestinian children? Simply because Israel has impunity and will not face accountability. Because Israel is completely backed by the U.S. administration and Western governments. We are not only under Israeli attack only. We are under Israeli and American attacks. We cannot face this horrible Israeli and American genocide campaign alone.
This is the call of all the Palestinian families. The call of thousands of Palestinian children who were killed, including my son Abdullah. Our call is to all free people across the world. Please stop this genocide…stand on the right side of history. Stand with the oppressed and say loudly, ‘No to regimes which are based on ethnic cleansing and massacres’.”
Gaza is being silenced. We must continue to amplify their voices and demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unhindered access to aid, and an agreement for the release of all the Israeli hostages and all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. These are dark times, but we cannot afford to give in to despair. We must follow the example of Palestinians and, in Ahmed’s words, “escape towards life.”
Before you go – We need your help. Mainstream media’s wilful complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people is a reminder of just how vital our work at Mondoweiss is. This article and our extensive coverage since October 7 have been made possible by readers like you who donate to keep our reporting free and independent.
With your support, we will continue covering the ongoing events in Gaza and across Palestine, as well as amplifying the Palestine movement worldwide. Together, we will make sure to keep reporting Palestinian stories, even when the rest of the world looks away.
December 21, 2023
Lights Up for Palestine Watts & Gammon
December 21, 2023
Journalist JEREMY SCAHILL on WORT
“A Public Affair”: Journalist JEREMY SCAHILL and the war on Gaza
Noon to 1:00 pm Central
WORT 89.9 FM
Thursday’s guest on WORT’s “A Public Affair” will be the investigative reporter, war correspondent, and co-founding editor of The Intercept e-magazine JEREMY SCAHILL. He’ll be drawing from his recent Intercept piece “This Is Not a War Against Hamas.”
Listen online, live and archived.
Santa in Gaza
How Israeli settler violence is forcing Palestinians to flee their homes
Bethan McKernan, Kyri Evangelou, Mariam Dwedar and Temujin Doran, The Guardian, 14 Dec 2023
Masafer Yatta, the most rural and desolate area in the West Bank, is home to about 1,000 Palestinians. The community are mostly herders who raise goats and sheep, and have steadfastly refused to leave their homes despite the mounting difficulties posed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers on the one hand and radical Israeli settlers on the other.
But after weeks of intense settler violence in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October – and despite the decades-long fight to remain in their homes – these communities are now being forced off their land. Some have described it as “a new Nakba.”
The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan travelled to Masafer Yatta and heard from Palestinian families how armed settlers – some in reservist uniforms, others covering their faces – have begun breaking into their homes at night, beating up adults, destroying and stealing belongings, and terrifying children. These West Bank settlements are illegal under international law.
Click here for the latest on the Israel-Gaza war
Simone Zimmerman and Israelism with Mehdi Hasan
Rent Israelism through Jan 1, 2024: https://bit.ly/rentisraelism
About the film
When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the brutal way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns. They join a movement of young American Jews battling the old guard to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.
December 20, 2023
Rally and March to Protest Biden’s Visit to Milwaukee
December 20, 2023
Potluck for Gaza and Phonebank for Humanity
POTLUCK FOR GAZA | PHONEBANK FOR HUMANITY
Wednesday, December 20, 6-8 p.m. at Pasture & Plenty, 2433 University Ave.
It’s a phonebank potluck! Let food bring us together in collective action. Bring a Palestinian dish or dessert to pass, and join us in contacting our reps to bring an end to the humanitarian atrocities happening daily in Gaza for the last 2+ months. We will not let Palestine be erased.
We’re calling for CEASEFIRE NOW as the first step on the road to ending the occupation of Palestine. Bring stamps & a writing utensil, a cell phone or computer. Paper, envelopes, contact info for reps, & scripts will be provided.
PLEASE SHARE. NO RSVP NECESSARY (if you have questions or you’d like to let us know you’re coming so we can get a headcount, send a message to @emmawaldinger 🍉🍉
December 19, 2023
🕯️Candlelight Vigil at Senator Tammy Baldwin’s Office
We will host this vigil between 4:30 pm and 5:30 pm on Tuesday, December 19th in front of Senator Tammy Baldwin’s Madison office (State St. corner of the Capitol Square.) The vigil will provide community leaders of faith and/or conscience the opportunity to speak out for the need for an immediate ceasefire.
60 lawmakers have called for a ceasefire, but Senator Baldwin has not yet joined them. We are hopeful that with the extra pressure from thousands of her constituents, she will soon join the growing global outcry calling for a ceasefire.
Please invite others to join you, promote this candlelight vigil on Facebook (https://fb.me/e/6AKE3g6eh), and don’t hesitate to call us if you have any questions.
If a member of your community is interested in being one of the people speaking at this vigil, please call 608-630-3633 to discuss that possibility.
Tim Cordon, Building Unity Coalition – (608) 630-3633
Jane Kavaloski, Chair of Interfaith Peace Working Group
Israel Says 3 Hostages Bore White Flag Before Being Killed by Troops
What this means for Palestinian civilians
Akram Attaallah, a columnist for Al-Ayyam, a Palestinian newspaper in the West Bank, said that the episode was a “condemnation of the Israeli army” and showed that Israeli forces were fighting the war with little regard for civilian life.
“Israel kills even those who surrender and raise the white flag,” said Mr. Attaallah, who is from Gaza.
Aaron Boxerman, Ben Hubbard and
Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem, Ben Hubbard from Istanbul and Thomas Fuller from San Francisco.
The Israeli military on Saturday said three hostages mistakenly killed by Israeli troops had been shirtless, unarmed and bearing a makeshift white flag. The troubling details of how they died have created widespread anguish and prompted renewed calls for a pause in the fighting to allow more hostages to be released.
The military, which acknowledged that the killings violated its rules of engagement, announced the deaths on Friday, hours after saying it had recovered the bodies of three other Israeli hostages in Gaza.
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Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevy, the Israeli military chief of staff, said on Saturday that the three hostages had done “everything so that we would understand” that they were harmless, including removing their shirts to show they bore no explosives.
“The shooting of the hostages was carried out contrary to the open-fire regulations,” he said. “It is forbidden to shoot at those who raise a white flag and seek to surrender.”
As the death toll of Palestinians killed in 70 days of war soared to nearly 20,000, according to Gazan health officials, the shootings of the Israeli hostages underlined the continuing risks for the more than 120 people who Israel says are still captive and raised questions about Israel’s prosecution of the war.
Some families of the hostages seized on the shootings to urge the government to make securing the captives’ freedom its highest priority.
Itzik Horn, whose children Eitan, 37, and Yair, 45, were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, said the killings reinforced his belief that Israel must immediately reach a deal to free all the captives, even if it means releasing Palestinians being held in Israeli jails on terrorism charges.
“Let them free all the Palestinian prisoners we have here, all the terrorists — what do I care,” Mr. Horn said in an interview. “The most important thing isn’t to defeat Hamas. The only victory here is to bring back all the hostages.”
As Israelis took to the streets to demand the return of the hostages, David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy service, met with Qatari officials on Friday in Europe to discuss the possibility of a renewed pause in the fighting and further exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The meeting had been planned before the death of the hostages.
Describing the results of a preliminary inquiry, the Israeli military said on Saturday that its soldiers had been operating in Shejaiya, an area of Gaza City that had seen intense fighting. The soldiers were on alert for attempts by Hamas to ambush Israeli forces, possibly in civilian clothes, the military said.
The three hostages emerged without shirts from a building tens of yards away from the Israeli soldiers, bearing a stick with a white cloth, the military said. One soldier, believing the men posed a threat, opened fire, killing two of them and wounding the third, the early investigation found.
The third hostage fled into the building, from which a cry in Hebrew for help could be heard, the military said. The battalion commander ordered the forces to hold their fire. But the wounded hostage later re-emerged, after which he was shot and killed, the military statement said.
The hostages may have escaped or had been abandoned by their captors, said an Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under military protocol.
All three men killed — identified by the military as Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka — were kidnapped on Oct. 7 from two kibbutzim in southern Israel near the Gaza border.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents those kidnapped on Oct. 7 and their relatives, said Mr. Talalka, a member of Israel’s Bedouin minority, had been working at a chicken hatchery when he was abducted. Mr. Haim was a drummer who had been set to perform at a heavy-metal music festival in Tel Aviv on the night of the Hamas attacks. Mr. Shamriz was about to start college courses in computer engineering.
Mr. Talalka’s monthslong captivity and sudden killing were like “a bad dream that I keep trying to wake up from,” Alaa Talalka, his cousin, said in an interview on Saturday.
On Friday, the family was celebrating the birthday of Samer Talalka’s mother, a small point of light amid the crisis prompted by his abduction. Then came the news he had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
“He was so sociable and friendly; he loved to laugh and make people happy,” said Alaa Talalka, 37, a psychologist from the Arab town of Hura in the southern Negev desert. “I can’t fathom what’s happened.”
As Israelis mourned their deaths on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the news of their killing “broke my heart.” He added: “It broke the entire country’s heart. Our heart goes out to the families in their time of deep mourning.”
But he stressed: “At this difficult time, it is important for me to stand by our soldiers. They are giving their lives to achieve a crushing victory over our enemies and return our hostages. We are doing — and will do — everything to safeguard the lives of our soldiers, each and every one of them.”
The Israeli military has come under widespread international criticism for what President Biden described last week as indiscriminate bombing. In 10 weeks of war, Israel has struck more than 22,000 targets in the Gaza Strip, a barrage that has killed thousands of civilians, prompting the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, last month to describe Gaza as a “graveyard for children.”
Palestinians and critics of how Israel has been fighting in Gaza have called Friday’s shootings a small example of the Israeli military’s disregard for civilians in Gaza.
“Under the laws of war, people are presumed to be civilians,” said Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch. “There needs to be strong information to suggest they are not before you can kill them.”
In this case, she said, “nobody batted an eye before killing them.” She added that the investigation came only because the men were Israelis.
Akram Attaallah, a columnist for Al-Ayyam, a Palestinian newspaper in the West Bank, said that the episode was a “condemnation of the Israeli army” and showed that Israeli forces were fighting the war with little regard for civilian life.
“Israel kills even those who surrender and raise the white flag,” said Mr. Attaallah, who is from Gaza.
Israel says it seeks to limit civilian casualties and places blame for the high death totals in Gaza on Hamas, which it says puts military installations in civilian areas as well as in schools, mosques and hospitals.
The Israeli military has said that approximately 20 percent of Israeli soldiers who have died in the war have been killed by its own forces in airstrikes, shelling, gunfire and accidents, many because of mistaken identification. As of Saturday, 119 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza.
Yagil Levy, a civil-military relations expert at the Open University of Israel, described the 20-percent rate of so-called friendly-fire mistakes as “unprecedented” for the Israeli military.
Also killed in the war have been 135 staff members of the United Nations and 64 journalists and news media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in New York.
Over the past week, the Israeli military has described intense urban warfare in Gaza; nine Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday while trying to rescue wounded troops in Shejaiya, the same neighborhood of Gaza City where the three hostages were killed on Friday.
Alongside the fighting, United Nations officials have described scenes of chaos, starvation and utter despair in Gaza among the territory’s 2.2 million people, most of whom have been forced to flee their homes.
Philippe Lazzarini, who leads the U.N. agency charged with aiding Palestinians, traveled to Gaza last week. He described the territory as a “living hell.”
James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, also visited northern and southern Gaza during a weeklong cease-fire late last month. He wrote this week of chaotic hospitals inundated by the wounded and surrounded by piles of rotting garbage.
“In my 20 years with UNICEF, traveling from one humanitarian crisis to the next — from famines to floods and war zones to refugee camps — I’ve simply never seen such devastation and despair as is happening in Gaza,” he said.
Global concern also grew on Saturday about tensions spilling over from the war and disrupting crucial shipping lanes in the Red Sea, where the Houthis, an armed group that controls much of northern Yemen, have been staging drone and missile assaults.
The Egyptian state media reported that the forces had shot down a drone off the coast of Dahab, a beach town on the Gulf of Aqaba. The report did not say where the drone had come from.
The Houthi militia claimed to have launched a number of attack drones toward the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat. Nir Dinar, an Israeli military spokesman, said he could not confirm that claim.
In recent weeks, the United States has been in discussions with its allies to establish a naval task force to protect maritime traffic through the region, an initiative that became more urgent this past week after the Houthis hit a Norwegian tanker bound for Italy with a cruise missile.
Reporting was contributed by Ronen Bergman, Liam Stack, Mike Ives and Gaya Gupta.
Ben Hubbard is the Istanbul bureau chief. He has spent more than a dozen years in the Arab world, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. He is the author of “MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman.” More about Ben Hubbard
Thomas Fuller, a Page One Correspondent for The Times, writes and rewrites stories for the front page. More about Thomas Fuller.
‘Hellfire’ and chaos in Rafah tests Biden’s opposition to displacement
Biden administration pushes for ‘low intensity’ conflict as displacement out of desperation becomes a greater reality for Palestinians
Sean Mathews, Middle East Eye, 15 December 2023
Biden’s public pledge to oppose the forced displacement of Palestinians from the besieged enclave is looking increasingly tenuous amid a humanitarian crisis brewing in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
Stark warnings that social order is breaking down in southern Gaza, with the potential to send hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians across the border to Egypt, is testing one of US President Joe Biden’s clearest red lines on Israel’s offensive, current and former US officials told Middle East Eye.
“We seem to be on the glide path to displacement by desperation,” William Usher, a former senior Middle East analyst at the CIA, told MEE. “That would be an embarrassment for the Biden administration, which is clearly growing more frustrated with Israel.”
Roughly 90 percent of Gaza’s population – 1.9 million Palestinians – are internally displaced as a result of Israel’s offensive, with about one million of those now boxed into tiny Rafah, where they are living in squalid conditions under Israeli bombardment.
Palestinians in Rafah have been forced to sleep on the street and in makeshift tents. The UN has documented the outbreak of chicken pox, meningitis, jaundice, and respiratory infections because of severe overcrowding, and says Palestinians are now defecating outside due to a lack of latrines. Poor sanitation is causing diarrhea.
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On Wednesday, UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini warned that “civil order was breaking down” in Rafah.
“The sight of a truck carrying humanitarian assistance now provokes chaos,” he said. “People are hungry. They stop the truck and ask for food, and they eat it on the street. I witnessed this first-hand.”
‘What the administration would like to see is the kind of counter-insurgency the US conducted in Afghanistan’
– Abbas Dahouk, Fmr Senior US military advisor
“It is unrealistic to think that people will remain resilient in the face of unlivable conditions of such magnitude,” he said, “especially when the border is so close.”
His comments follow a warning from UN chief Antonio Guterres on Sunday that there was “increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt”.
‘Tipping point’
Just as thousands more Palestinians stream into Rafah to escape Israel’s southern offensive, the packed border town is in the Israeli military’s cross-hairs. At least twenty-six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on Rafah this week, according to Palestinian health officials in Gaza.
“You put everything together and it’s not haphazard or accidental. It’s impossible not to draw the conclusion that Israel’s ultimate goal is to force people over the border,” Khaled Elgindy, director of the Middle East Insitute’s programme on Israeli-Palestinian affairs, told MEE.
The UN’s warnings come as the US increases its public criticism of Israel, exposing a new unease with its ally’s offensive.
US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Israel was losing support globally because it was carrying out an “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza. He later said Israel should focus on saving civilian lives.