Israel #10

Jim Sciutto {CNN} @jimsciutto | 1:49 PM · May 6, 2024:
Breaking: Hamas agrees to ceasefire proposal from Egypt and Qatar.
Israel has received Hamas response

Jim Sciutto {CNN} @jimsciutto | 4:06 PM · May 6, 2024:
Latest: The Israeli Prime Minister's Office has issued a statement saying that the military operation in Rafah will continue. Multiple explosions now reported in Rafah area.

Gershon Baskin🟣 جرشون باسكين גרשון בסקין @gershonbaskin | 3:55 PM · May 6, 2024 {X}:
Middle East Director, Int'l Communities Organization -ICO, Author, Negotiator, Award winning Times of Israel Columnist and Al Quds Newspaper

It seems that Netanyahu may be trying to sabotage the deal even before the cabinet gets the details and votes on it. The Israeli military operation going on right now (almost 11:00 pm Israel time) is clearly aimed at pushing Hamas to withdraw its agreement for a ceasefire. Netanyahu, it appears, is once again putting his own political self interests ahead of the country and ahead of the Israeli hostages. If this is true, Netanyahu is dangerous to Israel and Netanyahu must go!

Benjamin needs this war to stay in power.....his right wing allies will pull the rug from out under him if he tries to stop it but I don't think he's ever really wanted to anyway. They're in sync with each other even if sometimes his allies might feel the need to warn him. The United States helps him by continuing to send war material to murder and maim what are mostly civilians......children, women, men, the elderly etc. Watching this from afar is beyond grotesque. I have to wonder what kind of bubble Biden is living in not to see this mass murder campaign for what it is.

Just a note in passing. Yes, the timing is probably political (in the face of major protests). But it's refreshing to be outside whatever bubble Biden inhabits.

Colombia to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over Gaza war, Petro says
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/colombia-to-cut-diplomatic-ties-with-isr...

>2 lriley: By "right wing allies", I assume you're referring to Hamas?

US pauses shipment of bombs Israel could use in Rafah
Lara Seligman | 05/07/2024

The decision comes amid international outrage over civilian deaths.

...The weapons shipment in question contains 1,800 2,000-lb bombs and 1,700 500-lb bombs, the official said. The administration has not made a final decision on whether to proceed with the shipment...

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/07/us-pauses-shipment-of-bombs-israel-coul...
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Israeli military appears to play down US arms shipment hold-up
Reuters | 8 May 2024

Chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari described coordination between Israel and the United States as reaching 'a scope without precedent, I think, in history'.

...The Israeli military appeared ... to play down an arms shipment hold-up by a US administration troubled at this week's operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, saying the allies resolve any disagreements "behind closed doors...

https://www.deccanherald.com/world/israeli-military-appears-to-play-down-us-arms...

{margd: Reuters photo of a field of military vehicles reminded me of Dad's observation from Sinai posting in mid-20th c. He described Palestinian as little guy with a donkey and Israelis as Europeans in jeeps. Now Israelis in military vehicles and Gazans in Rafah in tents? :( }

Sure hope Israeli operation in Rafah is nothing more than pressuring Hamas in negotiations and will soon end--not just smashing the last buildings still standing. Gazans looked so happy in that brief moment when ceasefire was announced ... especially cruel to then send them scrambling once again...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus @DrTedros | 9:07 AM · May 8, 2024 {X}:
Director-General of the World Health Organization.

One of the three hospitals in Rafah, Al-Najjar, is no longer functioning due to the ongoing hostilities in its vicinity and the military operation in Rafah.

The closure of the border crossing continues to prevent the UN from bringing fuel. Without fuel all humanitarian operations will stop. Border closures are also impeding delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Hospitals in the south of #Gaza only have three days of fuel left, which means services may soon come to a halt.

At a time when fragile humanitarian operations urgently require expansion, the Rafah military operation is further limiting our ability to reach thousands of people who have been living in dire conditions without adequate food, sanitation, health services and security. This must stop now.

>6 margd: What I'm expecting is another bloodbath.

There are some noises that the Biden Administration is holding up some of some of the arms shipments such as the 2000 lb. bombs. Hopefully but honestly for me it's like we've been here before numerous times. The 35,000 dead Palestinian numbers have been stable for some time but what Israel would call Hamas numbers.....well Hamas would get those numbers from Gaza's civil authority particularly from the hospital system and that's all destroyed. If there's nobody to count deaths and casualties they don't get counted. They were undercounts anyway in that those who disappeared under rubble weren't counted before and they're still under and they're dead....some buried alive, kids and little children too.....as well the IDF's recent assaults on hospitals left hundreds dead and missing. Mass graves then found later of doctors, nurses, patients some still attached to hospital lines like they were taken right off their beds, many also with their hands bound behind......pretty much mass executions. There's been nothing humane about the world's most moral army and any claim of supporting human rights by those supporting this genocide are just lies.

FWIW I'm a boomer and might not be around 10/15/20 years from now when this will be looked back upon with universal condemnation (in most of the world it already is looked at that way) and eventually it's going to get there. There is a point to at least try to be on the right side of things.

Trinity College Dublin agrees to divest from Israeli firms after student protest (Guardian)

Five-day encampment in university grounds that caused the college major loss of income ended in victory for campaigners...

Biden PANICS Over Israel's Genocide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIxkI6HREHA
Owen Jones is particularly trenchant in this one.

The New York Times @nytimes | 1:10 AM · May 9, 2024 {X}:

New satellite imagery taken after Israeli forces pushed into Rafah shows widespread damage to the southern Gaza city — including large areas of flattened structures — and clusters of Israeli armored vehicles.

Satellite photo (https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1788436267694223494)
From nytimes.com

Just a bit of hypocrisy. The Israeli govt. is destroying Bedouin homes in the Negev desert. Ben Gvir claiming they are 'illegal constructions'. The law is the law. 'The police will fight anyone who seizes land and tries to build another reality on the ground' he says. No reason to worry though......illegal settlements and the stealing of parts of the West Bank by Jewish settlers is still totally fine.

>5 margd: contd.

"Israeli officials have slammed the United States and have descended into a bout of infighting over US President Joe Biden’s remarks that he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel if a full-scale ground operation is launched into the city of Rafah...The announcement has also exposed the deep divisions between Israel’s various political parties. "

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/09/middleeast/biden-weapons-deliveries-israel-reacti...

Closure of Rafah crossing imperils humanitarian aid in Gaza
Copy link
Mariano Zafra and Jon McClure | 9 May 2024

After Israel began ground operations in Rafah, a move staunchly opposed by most Western allies, the flow of critical aid into Gaza has ground to a near halt...

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/MAPS/movajdladpa/#closure-o...
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First shipment of aid to the US-built floating pier in Gaza departs from Cyprus

MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS and SAM MEDNICK
Updated 9:38 AM EDT, May 9, 2024

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A shipment of humanitarian aid left a port in Cyprus on Thursday morning and was on its way to the U.S-built pier in Gaza, the first delivery to the newly built ramp, Cyprus’ foreign minister said...

https://apnews.com/article/cyprus-aid-shipment-gaza-c2f2545739b7c9499476e6b4cfa9...
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World Central Kitchen Resuming Gaza Operations
April 28, 2024

...We will continue to get as much food into Gaza, including northern Gaza, as possible—by land, air, or sea. We have 276 trucks, with the equivalent of almost 8 million meals, ready to enter through the Rafah Crossing. We’ll also send trucks from Jordan. We’re exploring the maritime corridor and utilizing the Ashdod Port. In addition to 68 community kitchens, we’re building a third high production kitchen in Mawasi (the other two are in Rafah and Deir al-Balah). The Mawasi Kitchen is affectionately known as Damian’s* Kitchen, being built to his favorite saying, "No Problems, Only Solutions."...

https://wck.org/news/chefs-for-gaza

* one of 7 WCK staff killed by IDF

A couple days ago Biden was slamming college protestors (a large % of whom are Jewish and also Arabic....another Semitic group, just saying) as anti-semitic. Then he goes on TV and says he's going to pause weapons shipments to Israel if the IDF invades Rafah which they already were doing that. What to make of that other than that there's quite a lot of cognitive dissonance I would say here though by this point I'm used to all these unheeded warnings from us to them. Politicos on both sides---particularly the Republican side coming out against Biden on this. Just to say something about our political representatives and their dual loyalties. So the declared Zionist Joe is an anti-semite now? Meanwhile Ben Gvir comes out with a twitter post.....Biden loves Hamas. So there you go. You bend over backwards for these right wing fascists and they kick you in the ass. And all your 'friends' on the other side of the aisle and some of those on your own are there to cheer you getting your ass handed to you.

.....and then we get the following......'Senior Israeli officials warning the U.S. (that's our govt.) that the Biden Administration's decision to pause a (that's one single) weapons shipment could jeopardize hostage negotiations'. Parsing through that I conclude that they need the weapons to continue the war to get their hostages back because they've never really seemed interested in negotiating about anything. Their ambition is to destroy Hamas and take the territory....not negotiate with them.....that's pretty clear and that they'll kill or displace the entire population to accomplish that. Even if the remaining hostages are all released they intend to resume their war. As for the hostages. It's 7 months----they've been bombed no doubt multiple times like the rest of the population in the Strip. Food, water, sanitation, hospitals, medicine are all severely compromised if not wiped out and some of the hostages are middle aged or older. How many of them are still alive is one question.....another question is how much the ruling govt. of Israel really wants them back?---because they've been useful to whip up the Israeli population throughout to keep the war going and the hostages they got back earlier made it clear they weren't too happy about being bombed by the IDF and were more often than not negative on Netanyahu and gang.

Unrwa Jerusalem HQ closed after ‘Israeli extremist’ arson attack (Guardian)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has temporarily closed its East Jerusalem headquarters after “Israeli extremists” set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks. “This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the Unrwa headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,” the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days. He said: “A crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting ‘Burn down the United Nations’.” Unrwa and staff from other UN agencies were on the compound, which has on its grounds petrol and diesel stations for a fleet of UN cars. “While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage to the outdoor areas,” Lazzaroni said, adding that Unrwa staff had put out the fire themselves. The attack came after two months of “Israeli extremists staging protests outside the Unrwa compound”, he said. One protest earlier this week “became violent when demonstrators threw stones at UN staff and at the buildings of the compound”, he said. Thursday’s arson attempts marked “an outrageous development”, Lazzarini said. “Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk”... The Unrwa chief said that “over the past months, UN staff have regularly been subjected to harassment and intimidation”. “Our compound has been seriously vandalised and damaged. On several occasions, Israeli extremists threatened our staff with guns”...

UN general assembly calls on Security Council to admit Palestine as member (BBC)

The United Nations General Assembly has enhanced Palestine's rights within the organisation and called for it to be accepted as a member. Palestine has had non-member observer state status since 2012, which allows some rights short of a full member. Membership can only be decided upon by the UN Security Council. The US recently vetoed a bid for full membership, but Friday's vote can be seen as a gesture of support for the Palestinians... several European countries plan to recognise a Palestinian state... Friday's UN resolution confers additional rights on Palestine at the world body, allowing it to take part fully in debates, propose agenda items and have its representatives elected to committees. It will still not, however, have the right to cast a vote - something the General Assembly does not have the power to grant and would have to be backed by the Security Council... According to the Reuters news agency, Palestinian statehood has been recognised by 139 out of 193 UN member states - although this is largely seen as symbolic... Security Council resolutions are legally binding, whereas General Assembly resolutions are not.

UN general assembly votes to back Palestinian bid for membership (Guardian)

Assembly votes 143 to nine, with 25 abstentions, signalling Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage...

US finds Israel’s use of weapons in Gaza ‘inconsistent’ with human rights law, but will not cut flow of arms (Guardian)

The US says it is “reasonable to assess” that the weapons it has provided to Israel have been used in ways that are “inconsistent” with international human rights law, but that there is not enough concrete evidence to link specific US-supplied weapons to violations or warrant cutting the supply of arms... In Israel’s case, the report expresses deep misgivings about Israeli compliance but says the US does not have sufficient evidence about individual cases to recommend that US arms supplies be suspended...

The students protesting in Dublin are on the right side of history – and they know it (Guardian)

With their success in persuading their university to divest from Israeli companies, they join a rich tradition of student activists...

#16--It took 7 months for the United States to decide that weapons that we've been sending to Israel have been used inconsistently with human rights laws? Really? 7 months......watching one horror after another day after day. Holding up one arms shipment now. Holding it up.....not meaning the IDF won't get it. Holding this shipment up and saying not enough evidence to link the dropping of 2000 lb. bombs on civilian homes and living structures? when it's been all over the internet from any number of sources for months and months. When pretty much half or more of the standing buildings in the Gaza are not fit for living in now if they're not altogether reduced to rubble. Hospitals all destroyed or severely damaged. Schools all destroyed or severely damaged. The Israeli govt. demanding more and more weapons from us to continue this assault. What the United States is saying here is coming out both sides of its mouth......'reasonable to assess' but we're not sure. The ICC was pretty sure.....they have all kinds of evidence and warnings to nations who won't stop supporting a genocide. At the same we're refusing to budge on Palestine statehood at the UN.

It's interesting our congress too. Some republicans want to impeach because of this one holdup of weapons. Lawmakers on both sides are mad though and demanding more bloodshed. What's happened isn't enough for them. But it's also the more bloodshed means more help from the Israeli state for their elections. That's what really matters most for any number of our lawmakers. My guess is Biden is somewhat worried now though about all the possible voters he might lose. He's absurdly referenced many young voters protesting this genocide as anti-semites, more or less saying those arrested are haters and deserve it. Our younger people here, lots and lots of them, of all faiths including the Jewish faith in large numbers.....the same young people who are the backbone that have been driving the get out the vote campaigns for the democrats for decades. But now some of the pro-Israel democratic voters are upset too over this one shipment and among them are many of Biden's largest donors. So there we go. I wonder why this administration couldn't have seen the Israeli response all the way back in October was way out of hand and took charge and put the Israelis in their place because someone needed to. They depend on us for support and not the other way around. We don't need weapons or financial help from them.

Song of the now.
MACKLEMORE - HIND'S HALL (AUDIO ONLY)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmg6vbt04TY

At least eight Israeli strikes on Gaza aid groups since October, says report (Guardian)

Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on humanitarian convoys and their facilities in Gaza since October, even after aid organisations provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. HRW said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not issue warnings to the aid organisations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 people...

Israeli public opinion is shifting on the Gaza war – but this may make Netanyahu even more reckless (Guardian)

At 7.40pm on Monday 6 May, Hamas issued a statement saying that it had accepted a ceasefire proposal offered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Spontaneous demonstrations, led by the relatives of Israelis who were kidnapped on 7 October, broke out in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel, calling for the government to accept the deal. At 10pm on the same night came the first reports from Rafah indicating that the long awaited and feared Israeli attack had begun. In a nutshell, this sequence of events reflects the contradictory situation in which Israel finds itself: on the one hand, growing voices saying that the only way to bring back the hostages is to end the war, a demand that was almost a taboo until just a few weeks ago; and on the other, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reluctant to accept any end to the war, claiming that the only way to bring back the hostages is through military pressure, in Rafah and elsewhere...

>19 John5918:

Earlier, UNWRA was attacked in E Jerusalem while Israeli authorities stood by. UNWRA staff extinguished flames themselves. Note passive voice in DW's tweet:

DW News @dwnews | 5:49 AM · May 14, 2024
A UN staff member was killed and another injured in Rafah on Monday when their UN-marked vehicle was struck on its way to a hospital in the area. UN chief Guterres called for a "full investigation."
Photo of UN-marked vehicle (https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1790318419427938594/photo/1)

david🔻roser @5th_davidroser | 5:50 AM · May 14, 2024:
Who struck them, DW, you cowards!

Concerned Jewish Faculty Against Antisemitism

The Statement* from Concerned Jewish Faculty against Antisemitism was written on Friday, May 3rd, 2024, two days after the House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act. The Statement drew more than 1000 signatures in its first week.

...The signatories are scholars of different generations and hold a variety of political views. They represent the diversity of U.S. higher education from community colleges to the Ivy League. They include numerous winners of Macarthur, Pulitzer, and Guggenheim fellowships and prizes.

You can read the full statement here.*
https://concernedjewishfaculty.org/
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* We accordingly urge our political leaders to reject any effort to codify into federal law a definition of antisemitism that conflates antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel. This includes ongoing efforts to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been internationally criticized for conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel.

We hold varied opinions on Israel. Whatever our differences, we oppose the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. If imported into federal law, the IHRA definition will delegitimize and silence Jewish Americans–among others–who advocate for Palestinian human rights or otherwise criticize Israeli policies. By stifling criticism of Israel, the IHRA definition hardens the dangerous notion that Jewish identity is inextricably linked to every decision of Israel’s government. Far from combating antisemitism, this dynamic promises to amplify the real threats Jewish Americans already face.

If our leaders are earnestly concerned with antisemitism, they should join hundreds of Jewish scholars from across the globe who have endorsed alternative definitions of antisemitism–such as those contained in the Nexus Document or Jerusalem Declaration. Unlike the IHRA definition, these documents offer meaningful tools to combat antisemitism without undermining Jewish safety and civil rights by insulating Israel from legitimate criticism.

{Signatories}
https://concernedjewishfaculty.org/

National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability With Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services
White House | February 08, 2024
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/02/08/nationa...
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Report to Congress under Section 2 of the National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services (NSM-20)
{Unclassified Version. 46 p}

{Israel, pp 18-32}

https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Report-to-Congress-under...
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US report finds possible Israeli violations of international law in Gaza
Aljazeera | 10 May 2024

A report from the administration of President Joe Biden has found that Israeli forces likely used United States-supplied weapons in a manner “inconsistent” with international law, but it stopped short of identifying violations that would put an end to the ongoing military aid.

In the report, released on Friday after a delay, the US State Department indicated Israel did not provide adequate information to verify whether US weapons were used in possible violations of international law during its war in Gaza.

...Overall, the report said that US intelligence agencies have “no direct indication of Israel intentionally targeting civilians”, but they assessed that “Israel could do more to avoid civilian harm”.

In addition, the State Department pledged to continue to monitor the situation in Gaza, particularly with regards to the delivery of aid.

“This is an ongoing assessment and we will continue to monitor and respond to any challenges to the delivery of aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza moving forward.”...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/10/us-report-punts-on-possible-israeli-vio...
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Bernie Sanders says Israel shouldn't receive 'another nickel' in US military aid after State Dept. report
Danielle Wallace | May 12, 2024

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders claims Israel becoming 'pariah nation,' broke international law

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bernie-sanders-israel-shouldnt-receive-another-...

Egypt joins ICJ case against Israel as one official warns Rafah op puts peace at risk
Lazar Berman and AP |12 May 2024|

As IDF deepens action in city, Cairo escalates pressure on Jerusalem to pull back troops; at the same time, country’s FM insists peace treaty {1978 Camp David Accord} is ‘core pillar of regional stability’

...Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry...“The peace agreement with Israel has been Egypt’s strategic choice for 40 years, and it represents a core pillar of peace in the region for peace and stability,” he said, adding that there are mechanisms for adjudicating violations of the agreement.

...the decision (to support South Africa’s ongoing lawsuit in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza) “comes in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the continued perpetration of systematic practices against the Palestinian people, including direct targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in the Strip, and pushing Palestinians to flee.”

...Egypt has said it would not open its borders to allow large numbers of Gazans to escape the fighting...

...The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Egyptian officials had warned the decades-long peace treaty between Egypt and Israel could be suspended if Israel Defense Forces’ troops were to enter Rafah, or if any of Rafah’s refugees are forced southward into the Sinai Peninsula.

In an effort to forestall a massive influx of refugees, Egypt has stationed tanks near its border with Gaza, after reinforcing the border wall since the beginning of the war, both structurally and with surveillance equipment...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-warns-rafah-op-puts-peace-treaty-at-risk-joi...
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Egypt deals ‘diplomatic blow’ to Israel by joining ICJ genocide case (1:21)
Aljazeera | 12 May 2024

...Israel’s former foreign minister tells Al Jazeera it represents an ‘unbelievable diplomatic blow to Israel’.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/5/12/egypt-deals-diplomatic-blow...

DW News @dwnews | 4:29 PM · May 15, 2024:

Israeli activists said "Jewish terrorists" threw away aid meant for Gaza after witnessing far-right settlers attack a humanitarian convoy.

1:23 (https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1790841934723870956)

Barak Ravid @BarakRavid | 2:40 PM · May 18, 2024:
Political reporter for Axios covering foreign policy & the 2024 election. CNN analyst. Washington correspondent for Walla. Author of Trump's Peace.

BREAKING: Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz gives an ultimatum to Netanyahu and says his party will leave the government if the cabinet doesn't approve a strategy for the war in Gaza by June 8

Netanyahu rejects Gantz's ultimatum. In his statement Netanyahu made clear he is against a Palestinian state as part of normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia

The apex of the event came when the pope embraced Maoz Inon, an Israeli whose parents were killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, and Aziz Sarah, a Palestinian, whose brother was killed in the war. Calling them “brothers,” Francis proceeded to hug each, calling the embrace “a project for the future.” This was met by a thunderous standing vocation, but followed by a moment of silence for the victims of the war.

(link)

>25 margd: contd.

Israel has no plan for Gaza after Hamas rule, the Israeli defense chief says
Daniel Estrin | May 16, 2024

How the controversy began
Israel's far-right dream: settlements in Gaza
Netanyahu's political bind

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/16/1251564884/israel-gaza-day-after-gallant-netanyah...
-----------------------------------

"...In his speech and in a letter to Netanyahu on Saturday {5/1/2024}, Gantz presented a six-point plan he demanded the prime minister adopt by June 8:
1. Prioritizing the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza;
2. returning Israeli civilians displaced by fighting near the restive Lebanon border to their homes by September;
3. advancing a normalization deal for diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia;
4. creating a governing body, overseen by the U.S., European and Arab parties, and unspecified Palestinians, to manage Gaza's civilian affairs after the war; and
5. agreeing to a law for equal military and national service including ultra-Orthodox Jews who have long been exempt..."
{6?? ending Hamas's rule??}

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/18/1252325103/member-of-israeli-war-cabinet-threaten...
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{margd: With Israel manning crossing points on the Gaza side, Egypt must fear 2,000 lb bombs opening up the border so that thousands of traumatized, hungry Gazans can pour through. Could that be what Israel has in mind?}

Uh oh? Did Israel chose this time and place? Threat of wider war would save Nethanyahu's skin--once again... No plausible denial, if, for example, Russia did it, say, to distract US??

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 9:14 AM · May 19, 2024:

⚡️A helicopter carrying the Iranian president Ibrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, crashed. The president and minister were returning from a visit to Azerbaijan, media report.

No information on their condition yet. Rescue services trying to reach them.

Photos (https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1792181960187555893/photo/1)
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Gantz says Israel will respond to Iran ‘in the place, time and manner it chooses’
Sam Sokol | 16 April 2024
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/gantz-says-israel-will-respond-to-i...
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ETA
DW News tweeted: One of the helicopters in the convoy carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi made a "hard landing" on Sunday. It is unclear whether Raisi was on board.

Iran: Helicopter in presidential convoy in 'hard landing'
DW | {5/19/2024} 43 minutes ago

...helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was involved in an "accident" in the north of the country...

Jolfa is located about 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran, on the border with Azerbaijan.

The helicopter was carrying (President) Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, East Azarbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati and several other passengers, state media reported.

...rescue and relief teams have been dispatched to the area and search operations are continuing. However, foggy weather and the inaccessibility of the area have hampered search efforts.

...Raisi was in Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with the neighboring country's president, Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third built by the two nations on the Aras River...

https://www.dw.com/en/iran-helicopter-in-presidential-convoy-in-hard-landing/a-6...
-------------------------------------------
ETA: Could crash have been weather-related?

Faytuks News @Faytuks | 9:54 AM · May 19, 2024:

IRNA has released footage of rescue workers trying to locate the helicopter carrying Iran's president after it suffered an accident

0:21 (https://x.com/Faytuks/status/1792192211834286292)
https://t.me/irna_1313/283983

>28 margd: It could be Israel but it also could be just what it appears on face---a helicopter going down in bad weather. Either way I don't think it serves a good purpose. Politicos and a lot of people in the West and in Israel/Saudi Arabia have a thing about Iran and lots of pols and media are always at work trying to stoke the fire---keep their populations enraged while not talking or doing the diplomacy that they should be doing to bring the temperature down. It's like we need other countries and their peoples to hate. We've also the nonsense idea that just by being us we're the good guys and all of our perceived/manufactured enemies are the bad ones.

>29 lriley: Maybe...Iranian president lives? Fingers so crossed that it was demonstrably an accident!

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 9:53 AM · May 19, 2024:
Media reports appeared that president of Iran is fine and is continuing his travel by vehicle.

ETA:
The New York Times tweeted at 10:21 AM · May 19, 2024:
Breaking News: A helicopter carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister crashed, but is yet to be found, state media said. Their status is unknown.
President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran, who was with the country’s foreign minister on a helicopter that crashed on Sunday, according to Iran’s state media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcPrjc7YVM

I found this and thought it interesting to watch what life in Gaza was like before Oct. 7. For anyone who does watch you will see ordinary people going about their daily lives pretty much like ordinary people in any large city around the globe. It starts off in a shopping district and there are lots of women and young people/children along the way. Knowing that some of them are dead, injured or maimed now....that at least mostly all of what we see here is now empty, destroyed or rubble. Do we pass someone from Hamas along the way? (how can we tell?) probably a few but anyone who thinks that everyone in this 40 minutes worth of a Gaza tour is Hamas is not completely right in their head. I think watching this puts into perspective how things are now and maybe will give a viewer an idea of what a tragedy (man made and evil) has befallen this place and its people.

>30 margd: Al-Jazeera just ran the Raisi obit.
Iran helicopter crash live news: President Raisi, FM Amirabdollahian die
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/19/iran-helicopter-accident-live-...

I'm with you. This had damned well better be generally acknowledged as accidental, or there will be no end to the repercussions.

>32 davidgn: "he was part of a committee of judges who oversaw executions of political prisoners."

POLITICAL prisoners... One of these was a young biologist educated at McGill U, who worked as an undergrad on the St Lawrence River, Niloufar Bayani, thankfully pardoned in April of this year after serving six of a ten year sentence. Her crime? Working for a conservation group with US and UK connections, she studied the highly endangered Asiatic Cheetah, which involved using FIELD CAMERAS (="espionage") in Iran's back country: https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/final-cheetah-conservationists-freed-in-iran-b...

No doubt Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has innocent blood of his countrymen on his hands. Sure hope his passing does not result in many more deaths.

JFK Said 'Palestine Was Hardly Britain's to Give Away'?
Kennedy was largely pro-Israel when in politics.
Nur Ibrahim | May 19, 2024

Claim: Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy wrote in a 1939 letter to his father, "Palestine was hardly Britain's to give away."

Rating: Correct Attribution

Context: The quote does not fully encapsulate Kennedy's views. He wrote in the same letter he had become "more pro-British" during his visit to Jerusalem as "the men on the spot are doing a good job here." He called the British proposed solution at the time theoretically "just and fair" but did not think it would work. On the Israel-Palestine crisis, he wrote: "I have never seen two groups more unwilling to try and work out a solution … than these two groups."...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jfk-palestine-britain/

>34 margd:

It's a little known fact that the British also offered Uganda, another country which was not theirs to give away, to the Jewish community, as an alternative to Palestine. Fortunately for Africa, the British colonial officers who were delegated to show the Jewish delegation around Uganda secretly sympathised with the Ugandans, and it is said that they deliberately made the trip as uncomfortable and uninviting as possible, so it was no suprise that the offer was turned down. Uganda is, of course, a beautiful country, which Winston Churchill described as "the pearl of Africa".

>35 John5918: Hmm, so there were alternatives. After serving as UN Peacekeeper in Suez and Cyprus, my dad (jokingly?) said UN should have sent Greeks and Turks home and given Cyprus to the Jews.

The Iranian leadership certainly aren't good guys either. All the actors---even taking Biden and Trump into consideration, the Brits Sunak and Starmer, the Germans, the Turks are not good guys either. Certainly not the Israelis or Hamas's leaders. One of the issues though with Raisi's death if there's evidence that the Israelis had something to do with his death (which considering past actions of theirs killing another nation's head of state seems well within their wheelhouse which is why something like this event automatically grabs our attention) the likelihood of a full blown regional war seems like an inevitability and other than their air war against a Gaza that has no air defense at all the IDF hasn't exactly impressed anyone for anything apart from they can kill unarmed civilians in great numbers so it's likely if they get in a for real war with Iran etc. it won't be long before they're looking for us to be fighting besides them.

On JFK's comments 85 years ago I really don't look at that as very relevant now though Britain didn't have a right to give away either Palestine or Uganda then or ever. Calling himself pro-British isn't something anyone who trades on their Irishness as much as the Kennedy's did should ever do. I find lots to criticize about that. It's like our friendships and alliances have always spoken to our empirical ambitions. To be in the club of political movers and shakers like the Kennedy family wanted I guess they felt they had to make some compromises.

ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders (BBC)

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas's leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. Karim Khan is also seeking the arrest warrants of Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed al-Masri, and Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. Khan says he has "reasonable grounds to believe" the men bear responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity...

What ICC arrest warrants mean for Israel and Hamas (BBC)

pages of carefully chosen legal language in a statement issued by Mr Khan, the ICC chief prosecutor who is a British King’s Counsel. Word by word, line by line, they add up to a devastating series of allegations against the three most prominent leaders of Hamas as well as Israel’s prime minister and defence minister. A determination to apply international law and the laws of armed conflict to all parties, no matter who they are, lies at the heart of Mr Khan’s statement in which he lays out his justification for requesting arrest warrants. "No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader - no one - can act with impunity." The law, he says, cannot be applied selectively. If that happens, "we will be creating conditions for its collapse"... Mr Khan does not make direct comparisons between the two sides, except to lay out his claim that they have both committed a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He also emphasises that this latest war comes in the context of "an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas". The court treats Palestine as a state as it has observer status at the United Nations, which meant it was able to sign up to the Rome Statute which created the ICC... human rights groups have applauded the way that the ICC prosecutor is seeking to apply the law to both sides. Btselm, a leading Israeli human rights organisation, said the warrants marked "Israel’s rapid decline into a moral abyss". "The international community is signalling to Israel that it can no longer maintain its policy of violence, killing and destruction without accountability," it added. Human rights campaigners have complained for many years that powerful Western countries, led by the US, turn a blind eye to Israeli violations of international law, even as they condemn and sanction other states who are not in their camp. The actions being taken by Mr Khan and his team are, they believe, long overdue... Mr Khan says that the three main leaders of Hamas committed war crimes that include extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape and torture... He said Hamas had assaulted fundamental human values: "the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness". Israel, Mr Khan said, does have the right to defend itself. But "unconscionable crimes" did not "absolve Israel of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law". The failure to do that, he said, justified issuing warrants for the arrest of Mr Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes including starvation of civilians as a weapon of war, murder, extermination, and intentional attacks on civilians...

I would again highlight that "Israel... does have the right to defend itself. But 'unconscionable crimes' did not 'absolve Israel of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law'".

Ireland, Spain and Norway to recognize Palestine as a state on May 28.

Jim Sciutto {CNN} @jimsciutto | 10:34 AM · May 22, 2024:
Pay attention to this - part of a long rightward shift in the Israel govt that goes beyond Netanyahu:

Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday rescinded orders barring Israelis from parts of the northern West Bank, paving the way for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements there that were evacuated and demolished in 2005.

Gallant’s move, which he hailed as “historic,” follows through on the Israeli parliament’s repeal last year of a 2005 disengagement law, which barred Israelis from entering the area of four former settlements in the northern West Bank. Israelis can now enter the area of all four former settlements without military restrictions.

Netanyahu's Warning to US Leaders: 'You're Next'
https://www.newsweek.com/netanyahu-warning-us-leaders-youre-next-icc-arrest-warr...

Good.

>41 davidgn: There was a clip on 'Rising' with Lindsey Graham aghast that the ICC might charge him with a war crime. The conservative guy on that show was laughing at Graham. Even he liked the idea of no more Lindsey. Some of these people have an illusion of their own self importance. Graham forgets how he was booed through an airport just a couple years ago. There's not a conservative/right winger I know that likes him.

Graham, like all US politicians, has nothing to worry about, since

The United States is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute), which founded the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002.

(wikipedia)

Which is why Netanyahu did not actually say that US leaders were "next", as you can read in this article

(he does say that Britain is "next", but I think technically the US is no longer part of Britain)

>43 kiparsky: Assuming they stay in the U.S., you are correct.

Gaza war: What does victory look like for the US and Israel?
Ali Harb | 22 May 2024

After more than seven months of war, analysts say Israel’s aims may be to destroy Gaza and displace its population.

...In the US, meanwhile, the administration of President Joe Biden has articulated a complex vision for the war and its outcome.

Washington says it backs Israel’s push to eliminate Hamas’s military capabilities. It is also seeking a ceasefire deal that would see a temporary halt in the fighting, the release of Israeli captives and a surge in humanitarian aid to Gaza.

At the same time, Biden officials have pursued an agreement to establish diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which they say would boost the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As for Gaza, the US says the territory should ultimately be under the governance of a “reformed” Palestinian Authority (PA)...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/22/gaza-war-what-does-victory-look-like-fo...

>44 davidgn: Yes, A country which has signed the agreement is obligated to arrest anyone with a warrant from the ICC out on them. It does cut down on the number of places someone can visit and if a plane is diverted and a warranted fugitive is found out there's a decent likelihood he/she will be arrested at the airport.

DW News @dwnews | 10:04 PM · May 22, 2024:

"Nobody deserves to starve."

These Israeli activists are trying to stop attacks by settlers on Gaza-bound aid convoys, calling this a fight "for our own humanity."

3:04 (https://x.com/dwnews/status/1793462855196414434)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-2s_fTcR6g

The pier is up. Nothing is being delivered to Palestinians because there is no entity to deliver food, medicine, whatever. That was what UNWRA would do and apparently whoever dreamed up this brilliant idea didn't plan distribution.

>48 lriley: whoever dreamed up this brilliant idea didn't plan distribution

Which was pointed out by many people months ago when the pier plan was mooted - but those with the power to do something about it either didn't listen or else deliberately ignored it.

>49 John5918: .....and Palestinian worries that this pier might be used to force them into exile. Whether the Israelis think anymore that they can get away with that is a question. The longer this has gone on the more other nations of the world are pressuring Israel to stop.....it's just not the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. But it is getting closer and closer to isolation beyond those three countries.

For now we can just call the pier performance art that accomplished nothing but maybe made some people think the Biden administration was trying to actually do something positive. Putting the pressure on Israel to open up the border crossings would have been something that actually helped and not jumping the gun on Israel's completely unsubstantiated allegations on UNWRA. Since this thing reared up again Biden's early unconditional support took away any chance he could have reined in the excesses of Congress and he's pretty much even lost control of his own Democratic caucus many of whom either don't care enough whether he's reelected or are so delusional they don't think that it could cost him said reelection. So we see Jefferies the Democratic House leader leading the charge to save the Republican speaker Johnson and Democrats and Republicans coming together regularly (for the first time in about 20 some years) holding hands on draconian legislation (such as against free speech rights) to support Israel when they haven't agreed on almost anything else in forever and Johnson sharpening his knives to stab his saviors in the back is almost certainly planning to use his invitation to Netanyahu to speak before congress to shit all over Biden in particular and claim the Republicans are Israel's real friends because that's about the most important thing of all. And some Democrats in Congress are on board with even that because they do take loads of money from Israeli lobbyists and there is such a thing as having loyalties beyond the loyalty to your own country.

If Biden had taken a firm hand early and stopped the weapons shipments when he saw Israel's uncontrolled response to the events of Oct. 7 I don't think he'd be in the dire predicament he is in now. He couldn't look any weaker.

UN’s top court orders Israel to immediately halt Rafah offensive (Guardian)

The UN’s top court has ordered Israel to halt its assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah in a ruling that will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country. The president of the international court of justice, Nawaf Salam, said the humanitarian situation in Rafah had deteriorated further and was now classified as “disastrous”, meaning the ICJ’s previously issued provisional measures were insufficient. He said the court had voted by a majority of 13 votes to two that “Israel shall, in conformity with its obligations under the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by civilians in Rafah governorate … immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that would bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. The order by the ICJ is not enforceable, and Israeli ministers indicated that they would not comply with it...

Irish Lawmaker: Recognizing Palestine as a State Is Rooted in Our History of Colonization & Famine
Bravo to TD Catherine Connolly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNQKZR-obKk

>52 davidgn:

Ireland is usually on the right side on international political, developmental and human rights issues, precisely because their own history and experience makes them one of the few Global North countries to understand those dynamics. They also value their neutrality.

Call to prosecute Netanyahu for war crimes exposes the west’s moral doublethink (Guardian)

US and Britain condemn Hamas and Putin, yet balk at attempts to hold Israel’s leaders to account. But no one should be above the law... Indignant protests by Israeli and US leaders over last week’s decision by the prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) to seek Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest for alleged war crimes shone new light on an old reality: for those at the top who wield decisive political power, all people are equal – but some are more equal than others... Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and the US president, Joe Biden, insist that arraigning Israeli and Hamas leaders at the same time implies “moral equivalence”. This is nonsense. There are “reasonable grounds to believe,” as Khan and his expert advisers state, that both sides have committed grave criminal offences. All those responsible must answer equally, whoever and whatever they may be. Netanyahu and his co-defendant, the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, may think they are above the law, especially international law, which they contemptuously flout. Perhaps they believe, while enforcing the occupation of Palestinian areas, that Israel is, too. That is certainly the impression given by their army’s reckless conduct in Gaza. If so, they are not alone. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is accused of overseeing numerous crimes in Ukraine. The ICC issued an arrest warrant last year. Does this suggest “moral equivalence” with Hamas terrorists – or Netanyahu? No. It simply means that Putin, like any other individual, must answer for his alleged actions. Like them, his assumption of impunity is – and must be shown to be – false. It’s surprising how difficult western leaders find this concept of equality before the law, even as they prate about upholding the democratic, international rules-based order...

>54 John5918: It's not a comparison of Hamas leaders to Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant that is going on here. The Israelis and Biden and loads of American politicians are just trying to muddy the waters with their bs. The charges are about people who have committed war crimes and those criminal charges are based on specific action taken by the actors in questions. For instance the Hamas leaders are charged with planning and enacting the events that took place on Oct. 7. The two Israeli leaders are charged with promoting and enabling the genocide of the Palestinian people to happen. All these governmental leaders in Israel and in the West that are supporting Israel see themselves as above the crimes they commit and FWIW it's been par for the course in Israel and the United States and even the UK for a long time. Examples in the US go back into the Nixon years for sure but Reagan, Bush1, Clinton, Bush 2, Trump (who certainly believes he's above the law) and now Biden. They've all done things IMO that deserve investigation on criminal charges whether domestic, foreign or both. We could go further into government agencies---particularly secret services. There's not a whole lot of difference between the Russian, the United States, the British, the Israelis etc. etc.---they're all past masters in dirty tricks and they borrow from each other when one of them comes up with anything new.

Biden’s Response to Israel’s ICC Prosecution Is an Attack on International Law (truthout)

On Monday, a prestigious team of international jurists and legal scholars released a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) recommending the indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (along with three Hamas leaders) for war crimes. The angry reactions from President Joe Biden’s administration and Congressional leaders are not simply another defense of Israel’s war crimes, but an attack on international humanitarian law itself. Biden denounced the report as “outrageous,” marking the first time in U.S. history that a sitting president has openly sided with suspected war criminals against the ICC...

Biden Continues to Provide Israel Billions for War Crimes (truthout)

Despite Friday’s near-unanimous ruling by the International Court of Justice for Israel to halt its devastating attacks on the Gazan city of Rafah and Biden’s previous pledge to halt offensive military aid if they did so, U.S. arms continue to flow...

>56 John5918: The problem for Biden now is he's implicated in Israel's war crimes. If Trump were POTUS he for sure would be implicated too.....but he's not. That though is from Trump's own statements about this mass murder campaign. He's full on for it and there wouldn't be any of the hand wringing. Not being an elected politician though he can say whatever he wants pretty much. For members of the House and Senate whether of either party.....at least those voting to send bombs and bullets they are implicated too. Whether that will ever amount to much.....probably not but Biden and members of his administration particularly State Dept. and Defense their asses are the most on the line. We could look at Bush 2 and Iraq/Afghanistan and see war crimes too but genocide was never on the table for them. It is for Biden and even though the ICC has not charged Biden he's reacting pretty much the same way as Netanyahu and Gallant like what's going on is a legit war and not a mass murder of civilians ethnic cleansing. The United States as superpower with the most bombs might blow the fuck out of the world if anyone came after whoever was our POTUS.

Some people here do not like when I call Biden a criminal. If what a person sees going on in Gaza are war crimes though it is our bombs that the Israelis are dropping and that's been clear for months and there has been more than enough chance for us to stop supplying Israel these weapons but Biden and Congress have continued again and again to ship more. I think the death toll is well past 35,000 but even taking that amount of mostly civilians including thousands of children is about as appalling a thing to see going on day after day for months. It's almost incredible to me that our political leaders continue to make excuses over this. It's clear as day what is going on. But it ties into the corrupting influence of the wealthy and the lobbying groups that fund political campaigns. It also says something about the political system of the United States and how citizens here look at global politics and the use of military force....the propaganda/lies of the mainstream media who aid and abet.

At this point, anyone who would believe Netanyahu, would let Lucy hold their football...

Natasha Bertrand (CNN) @NatashaBertrand | 8:28 AM · May 28, 2024:

Israel has told the US that it used a precision munition to hit a target in Rafah on Sunday, but that shrapnel from the explosion ignited a fuel tank nearby and started a fire that engulfed a camp for displaced Palestinians and led to dozens of deaths, a US official told CNN.

The US has not been able to independently confirm the Israeli explanation, the official said.

It is not clear whether the US will conduct its own assessment— throughout the course of the war, the Biden admin has typically relied on Israel to investigate itself and share its findings with US officials.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/middleeast
Here's some of the international reactions:
"Horror must stop": UN chief Antònio Guterres issued a blistering condemnation. "There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop," he said. The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the strike on Tuesday, according to a UN diplomat.

"Abomination": UN relief chief Martin Griffiths criticized Netanyahu's response to the attack. "Whether the attack was a war crime or a 'tragic mistake' for the people of Gaza, there is no debate. What happened last night was the latest – and possibly most cruel – abomination," Griffiths said.

"Unbearable": French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "outraged" by the strikes and called for a ceasefire. Germany described the "images of charred bodies, including children, from the airstrike" as "unbearable."

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Israel must implement the ICJ ruling.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the strike a "massacre" and said his country “will do everything” in its power to hold Israeli officials accountable.

"Heartbreaking": A US National Security Council spokesperson said the strike was “heartbreaking," adding that the United States was “actively engaging” with officials in Israel to determine what happened. The spokesperson also said "Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians."

"Complete disregard for the lives of civilians": Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) strongly denounced the strike and called for an "immediate and sustained ceasefire" in Gaza. MSF said the airstrike on the camp "shows the complete disregard for the lives of civilians." MSF nurse activity manager Gaia Giletta said from Gaza that "we are shocked by the continuous attacks on civilians, and we have no word to describe the horror of what we've seen here."

"Hell on earth": “The images from last night are a testament to how Rafah has turned into hell on earth," said Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The scenes from Rafah last night are harrowing, Lazzarini said, and some victims “were reportedly burnt to death."

Strike could “hinder” negotiations: Qatar said Israel’s strike on the Rafah camp could “hinder” negotiations aiming for the release of hostages and reaching a ceasefire in Gaza. The Qatari foreign ministry said the strike is a “serious violation of international laws” and expressed concern that it “would complicate the ongoing mediation efforts.”

Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed (Guardian)

Exclusive: Investigation reveals how intelligence agencies tried to derail war crimes prosecution, with Netanyahu ‘obsessed’ with intercepts... Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries. Israeli intelligence captured the communications of numerous ICC officials, including Khan and his predecessor as prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, intercepting phone calls, messages, emails and documents. The surveillance was ongoing in recent months, providing Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, with advance knowledge of the prosecutor’s intentions...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciVYC2pNo14

Gaza pier falling apart already. Of course we couldn't ask our Israeli friends to open up the border from Egypt to all the trucks have been sitting there for months.

>58 margd: Israel's Rafah Massacre: They Think They Can Get Away With Anything (Owen Jones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TwbPewyzPI

The New York Times @nytimes | 12:05 PM · May 29, 2024:

Israel’s national security adviser said that he expected military operations in Gaza to continue through the year’s end. Here are the latest updates. https://nyti.ms/3X1xT7H
--------------------------------------

Inspired Lunatic @Cyclingaddict
At this point, the Gaza operation has no purpose except to keep Netanyahu in power and to elect Trump.
Of course they’re going to continue through November.

Laabidi Raissi @laabidi_raissi
And he counts on your {NYT's} cooperation for cover

elmo's complete lack of accountability @joshuarsnyder
what the hell will be left by then? seriously.

Three separate articles in the Guardian today concerning Israel's campaign to undermine the International Criminal Court.

Israeli campaign against ICC may be ‘crimes against justice’, say legal experts

Efforts by Israel’s intelligence agencies to undermine and influence the international criminal court (ICC) could amount to “offences against the administration of justice” and should be investigated by its chief prosecutor, legal experts have said. Responding to revelations about Israeli surveillance and espionage operations against the ICC, multiple leading international law experts said the conduct of Israeli intelligence services could amount to criminal offences...

The ICC spying revelations show the Israeli government to be a lawless regime

I should not be surprised at the lawlessness of a government that bombs and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but I was still shocked by the shamelessness of Israel’s efforts to subvert the international criminal court’s investigation of its war crimes. As exposed by the Guardian along with the Israeli media outlets +972 and Local Call, the Israeli government over the course of nine years “deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries”...

By attacking and undermining the ICC, Israel has proved again it is a state gone rogue

Israel’s international isolation, triggered by revulsion over the large-scale illegal killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, will only deepen following new, detailed and credible allegations that leading politicians and intelligence agencies conspired – with help from Donald Trump’s administration – to spy on, undermine, “improperly influence” and threaten the work and officials of the international criminal court (ICC). Those allegedly targeted include the court’s former chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and the present incumbent, Karim Khan, possibly still the subject of covert operations. If so, this must cease immediately. Once again, the world is confronted by dismaying evidence that the state of Israel under the destructive leadership of its rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has gone rogue...

US State Department official resigns, says US report on Gaza inaccurate
Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk | May 30, 2024

...In contrast to the published version, the last draft she saw stated that Israel was blocking humanitarian assistance, {Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, was a subject matter expert working on the report} said.

...The State Department submitted the 46-page unclassified report earlier this month to Congress as required under a new National Security Memorandum that Biden issued in early February.

Among other conclusions, the report said that in the period after Oct. 7 Israel “did not fully cooperate” with U.S. and other efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. But it said this did not amount to a breach of a U.S law that blocks the provision of arms to countries that restrict U.S. humanitarian aid.

...Officials who resigned prior to Gilbert include Arabic language spokesperson Hala Rharrit and Annelle Sheline of the human rights bureau...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-state-department-official-resigns-210626006.html

delete

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Vwkpl6lvM

I thought that this was pretty interesting. Jewish appointee in the Interior Department Lily Greenberg Call on why she quit the Biden administration.

Etan Nechin @Etanetan23 | 2:26 PM · Jun 1, 2024:
Writer in New York || Books, culture, politics @haaretzcom @nytimes guardian || Working on a book about the legacy of conscientiousness objection and dissent

Hundred thousand in Tel Aviv and tens of thousands across Israel calling to accept Biden's deal to stop the war and hostage deal

Photo (https://x.com/Etanetan23/status/1796971626652721159/photo/1)

Lebanese report: London warns Beirut that Israel will launch offensive in mid-June
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/lebanese-report-london-warns-beirut...

cf.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/war-cabinet-set-to-huddle-as-blazes-sparked-by-hez...

Biden: ‘every reason’ to believe Netanyahu is prolonging Gaza war for political gain (Guardian)

Joe Biden has said that there is “every reason” to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation...

>69 John5918: Well water is wet. A politician pursuing his own personal agenda. Who would have thought? As if he's not bending to his own ideological and empirical and christian zionist idiocies + congressional pressure including from his own party and also his billionaire donors......and it hasn't been a secret even well before Oct. 7 2023 that Netanyahu would much much rather have Trump in the White House than Mr. Biden. That if Joe loses in November that this guy Benjamin that he's gone well overboard to go to bat for well have deliberately helped to undermine his chance to be reelected. That if Joe loses in November who would be surprised if Trump won't go after him with his Justice Dept. That Mr. Biden will just walk away into the sunset. Well maybe that happens. There is a level of political naiveté endemic to most American politicians thinking that whatever they do will be looked on by the public as for the good or at least if the public doesn't look hard. That they're admired as people.....adored even. So many of these people including Biden and Trump are not politically astute. They're not even socially astute. So could be said about the majority of our politicians on both sides. Many of them are just very ambitious mediocrities....that's all Trump ever was and that's all that Biden really is.

42 House democrats voted for a Republican bill to sanction the ICC because of genocide charges against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Which is to say that every one of them is fine with Israel's murder of some 40,000 mostly civilian Palestinians in Gaza along with the complete destruction of the Strip's cities and infrastructure. They are led almost without a doubt by Josh Gottheimer (NJ5) with some of the usual suspects like Wasserman Schultz, Ritchie Torres and Jared Moskowitz. All these people were fine with the sanctions made by the ICC against Russia when it invaded Ukraine. Now the ICC is some rogue foreign entity. Not too far into the future I suspect almost the entire world is going to look at what's been going on in Gaza since last October as genocide and the people who voted for this as on the wrong side of history.

>71 lriley:

When a crime is alleged, attacking the court rather than defending the alleged perpetrator in court shows a worrying disregard by the USA for the rule of law. Mind you, we're also seeing the same dynamic domestically in the USA with regard to the trial of Donald Trump. As I say, a worrying trend.

>72 John5918: FWIW it still has to go through the Senate and apparently it's very questionable that it will make it.....and Biden has said if it does pass he may veto it.....so these 42 House democrats might even be to the right of him. Speaking of the Senate I would expect both Fetterman and Manchin to vote for it and if the entire republican Senate caucus does vote for it like the republican house it will end up on Biden's desk so we might see.

During the GW Bush presidency--with Iraq and Afghanistan going on legislation was passed that if a US official or solider ended up on trial in the Hague that we could go rescue them by force.

As for Trump he is an elite and elites in the United States pretty much have get out of jail free cards. Anyone else who had been charged with some of the crimes he has---for instance possession of top secret documents would be held under lock and key until trial. Fame and celebrity---position can put someone above the law. He said so himself when he was running for POTUS the first time. He could shoot someone dead in Times Square and no one would touch him. It wasn't just a boast.....he's proven to be well aware. Justice in the United States is kind of a charade. Cops set up people all the time---particularly black and brown and if you can't afford to pay for a good lawyer the likelihood is you're going to get screwed whether innocent or not. There is a lot more to worry about justice in the United States than just what Donald Trump gets away with. Just looking at the recent protests over Gaza---cops are just provoking, arresting and beating the shit out of protesters and if there's any concern about an arrest or a thumping they charge that person with resisting and it's pretty much a done deal as protection for them just doing that. Saying that it wouldn't shock me that if Donald gets back in Joe Biden and members of his administration end up being imprisoned and my guess is they won't see it coming and partly it's because they feel beyond the reach of the justice system too.

Understanding the Means and the Ends by Dr. Stephen Zunes (Tikkun)

A reflection on the work of Rabbi Michael Lerner which is certainly relevant to the current situation in Israel.

Guess this taxpayer needs to contact her reps again:

Israel strike on UN school that left dozens dead used US munitions, CNN analysis finds
Abeer Salman, Rob Picheta and Allegra Goodwin | June 6, 2024

... The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the airstrike, which it said targeted a Hamas compound operating inside the school. Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner later told journalists the military was not “aware of any civilian casualties.”

...A CNN analysis of video from the scene and a review by an explosive weapons expert found that US-made munitions were used in the strike on the school. CNN identified fragments of at least two US-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs (SDB) in video filmed at the scene by a journalist working for CNN.

It marks the second time in two weeks that CNN has been able to verify the use of US-manufactured munitions in deadly Israeli attacks on displaced Palestinians, the first being a deadly IDF strike on a displacement camp in Rafah on May 26...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/06/middleeast/israel-airstrike-un-school-gaza-intl-h...

>75 margd: The kind of war the Israelis have gotten themselves into is almost impossible to win and their army hasn't proven to be very good. The IDF has for some years been a glorified police force use to brutalizing and bullying unarmed civilians and the soldiers they called up after Oct. 7 were reservists with jobs in the economy and lots of them weren't very young.

What they've proven at is killing unarmed civilians----but they don't go down in the tunnels because that's seriously dangerous, they don't like to protect and patrol outside their armored tanks, troop carriers and bulldozers because they get picked off by snipers and bombing the living shit out of the cities has turned those cities into nightmares to control. The IDF keeps going back into places they've already cleared again and again. Because of the rubble ambushes can pop up anytime, anyplace from above and below and street level and their tanks and troop carriers do not have maneuverability through lots of areas because of the same rubble making it easy to figure out the direction they're going in. The resistance in Gaza has also it seems spent who knows how many years building up their own home grown arms manufacturing industry and they've been getting fresh supplies from all the unexploded ordinance lying around from Israel's overkill extermination project. And Hamas and other groups don't have a problem finding replacements for the personnel they've been losing and those groups are getting more and more battle smart and battle hardened because they're out there running operations every day.

As we've seen for ourselves in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq insurgencies just don't go away and eventually they tend to destroy the will of their would be colonizers through attrition. The IDF is being bled a lot. Crazy though as it seems Israeli leaders are on the verge of another war in Southern Lebanon with Hezbollah who have a lot more wherewithal than the Gaza resistance.

The New York Times @nytimes | 9:10 AM · Jun 7, 2024

Since Israel invaded Gaza, the Sde Teiman military base, an army base in southern Israel, has filled with blindfolded, handcuffed detainees, held without charge or legal representation.
The New York Times visited part of the Sde Teiman base, which has become synonymous with the detention of Gazans, in May.

From nytimes.com
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-detention-base.h...

------------------------------------------------

OT? Short list of mammals that don't war against other groups of their kind: bonobos, Atlantic spotted dolphins...

Dolphins make peace and love -- not war -- when they encounter strangers
"Fascinating" study is a rare example of a smooth merger of different groups in the animal kingdom
Virginia Morrell | 2 August 2022

https://www.karunanews.org/story/8660/dolphins-make-peace-not-war-when-they-enco...
https://www.science.org/content/article/dolphins-make-peace-and-love-not-war-whe...

A Gaza Ceasefire (International Crisis Group)

Efforts by Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediators to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have reached a decisive juncture. The proposal on the table comes closer than its predecessors to getting past the main sticking point regarding a permanent ceasefire, which Hamas demands and to which Israel refuses to commit. Though the deal on offer fully satisfies neither side, no better one is likely to emerge any time soon that can both end the fighting that has devastated Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages held in the strip. Moreover, the longer the war continues, the graver the risk that tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border, or between the U.S. and Iran-backed groups elsewhere, set off a regional escalation that could further draw in Washington and Tehran...

UN adds Israel to list of states committing violations against children (Guardian)

The United Nations has added Israel to the global list of states and armed groups who have committed violations against children, according to the country’s UN envoy, Gilad Erdan. News of Israel’s inclusion on the list follows eight months of war on Gaza, in which more than 13,000 children are estimated to be among the 36,500 killed, and comes a day after the Israeli bombing of a UN school in central Gaza, which killed more than 40 Palestinians, some of them children. According to human rights officials, Hamas is also named in the report for its killing and kidnapping of children in its 7 October attack on Israel, in which nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed...

The Hill’s ‘Rising’ FIRES Host Briahna Joy Gray Following Her Critiques Of The Israeli Government

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8GesNCMqQ

Moderate politician Benny Gantz resigns from Israeli war cabinet (Guardian)

Move does not immediately pose a threat to Benjamin Netanyahu, but PM will now be more reliant on far-right allies...

The international criminal court should investigate Israel’s hostage rescue raid (Guardian)

If it’s true that more than 100 women and children died in the IDF’s rescue of four hostages, Israel violated international law...

Chris Hedges' latest. Delivered at a campaign event for Amb. Craig Murray (who, having satisfied himself that the British authorities do not at present intend to detain him on unspecified terrorism charges, is standing for MP in Blackburn.)
Chris Hedges: Nero's Guests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjgFyvxv1QAJ

Text:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/neros-guests

Absolutely devastating, and necessary.

-----------------

On Murray's candidacy, cf. Andrew Marr
Craig Murray's extraordinary election campaign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZV67y2cDTI

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
- Wizard of Oz

Experts: ICC, UN blamed Israel for a famine that never happened in Gaza - exclusive
Columbia University professors: "We found that the food supply entering Gaza is more than sufficient to feed all 2.2 million Gazans."
SETH J. FRANTZMAN | JUNE 18, 2024

...Professor Awi Federgruen is the Chair of Columbia University Business School’s Decision, Risk and Operations Division. He is an expert in supply chains, logistics, and data science. Ran Kivetz is the Philip H. Geier Professor at Columbia University Business School. He is an expert in decision making, including the intersection between behavioral economics and political science... “demonstrate that 250 truckloads suffice to feed the entire Gazan population, in accordance with a normal diet in North America.”

...Professors point to reports that suggest the fact food is not distributed inside Gaza is due to sabotage and theft by Hamas... {margd: difficult to maneuver between rubble, aerial bombardment, live fire. Not to mention dismantling of UNWRA and targeting of workers, e.g., WCK}...

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-806735

>83 margd: Also, the Irish starved themselves.
https://globalartscollective.org/James_Mullin.htm#History_as_Propaganda

>84 davidgn:

Funnily enough so are the Sudanese at this very moment...

UN report raises 'serious concerns' over Israeli bombings and civilian death toll
DW | 19 June 2024

A new report published by the United Nations (UN) human rights office has raised "serious concerns under the laws of war" regarding the Israeli military's use of heavy bombs in Gaza and the high numbers of civilian deaths.

The assessment highlighted six attacks carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) which involved "the suspected use" of bombs ranging from 250 lbs to 2,000 lbs and which took place from October 9 to December 2, 2023.

...218 deaths ... "residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market."

"The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimize to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign" ... "the IDF may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war." ... Israel's "choices of methods and means of conducting hostilities in Gaza, including through the extensive use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas, have failed to ensure that they effectively distinguish between civilians and fighters." ... the bombs deployed "are mostly used to penetrate through several floors of concrete and can completely collapse tall structures" and that considering the dense population of the areas targeted, "the use of an explosive weapon with such wide area effects is highly likely to amount to a prohibited indiscriminate attack."

https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-updates-serious-concerns-over-israels-bombs/li...

People don't usually leave the country or the lives they've known since birth to go somewhere else where they have no roots because they want to. Sure there are some purely adventurous souls but more often than not even those very few people have the wherewithal and the connections that will make assimilation much easier wherever they decide to land.

It's more than obvious that people in Gaza are starving and it's not just a lack of food and clean water but sanitation, medicines and medical supplies. Some there are lucky at this point to have a tent over their heads. As someone treated for multiple myeloma if I were living in Gaza and was a cancer patient I'd be a dead duck before very long. Cancer is not the only deadly disease that requires treatment and with destroyed hospitals and lack of other health resources with women, children and men in need of medical health for catastrophic injuries in great numbers the Israelis have destroyed the Gaza health care system......and the thing is it's not even that they don't give a fuck but they intended to do exactly that as they've intended to starve the population, to allow diseases to run rampant throughout the Gaza Strip. They want to kill people and not just Hamas or resistance fighters.....men, women, children, the elderly, the already sick etc. etc. It's what a genocide is and the state of Israel is a genocidal state.

Empathy includes an ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. One might wonder if you were born or raised in Gaza (or Sudan) how your life might be right now.....and shit like that is possible for just about anyone. For Federgruen and Kivetz and any number of American politicians their eyes are not on that but how they can further their careers/ambitions. To be on the right side of the powerful of the world empathy doesn't pay.

>87 lriley: if you were born or raised in Gaza (or Sudan) how your life might be right now

or Ukraine...
e.g., villages near Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kakhovka Dam, Mariupol, Bucha ...

>88 margd: Or Sudan.

>89 John5918: Iriley mentioned Sudan (and Gaza) in #87. I added Ukraine in #88 as I am sure no one wishes to overlook their suffering at the hands of a particularly nasty neighbour.

>88 margd: yep.

Israeli Official Describes Secret Government Bid to Cement Control of West Bank
Natan Odenheimer, Ronen Bergman and Patrick Kingsley | 21 June 2024

Israeli judges have long ruled that Israel’s control of the territory is a temporary military occupation and complies with international law. A powerful minister’s recent speech, caught on tape, suggested the government is trying to change that.

...Bezalel Smotrich ... told settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that the government is engaged in a stealthy effort to irreversibly change the way the territory is governed, to cement Israel’s control over it without being accused of formally annexing it... he outlined a carefully orchestrated program to take authority over the West Bank out of the hands of the Israeli military and turn it over to civilians working for Mr. Smotrich in the defense ministry. Parts of the plan have already been incrementally introduced over the past 18 months, and some authorities have already been transferred to civilians...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/world/middleeast/israel-west-bank-netanyahu-b...

via https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1dl7yfn/israeli_official_describes_s...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-offers-assurances-israel-week-233531454.html

CNN reporting that the Biden administration has told Israel that in the event of a full scale war with Hezbollah we will give them our full support. Whatever that means but Hezbollah is a far stronger adversary for Israel than Hamas is. The IDF has pretty much all it can handle with Hamas. The IDF is great at killing civilians but they're getting their asses handed to them fighting an insurgent force. Our giving them full support---does it mean our troops, Air Force or Navy into battle? because I don't think the Israeli Army can handle Hezbollah in the field. I think they're going to get smoked if they try. Biden involving our troops in something like this will definitely not help get him re-elected. Bibi we know is fine with that.

>93 lriley: What that means? Most likely, in that event: 1. The IDF get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah. 2. U.S. forces are called in for missile defense and airstrikes at first, with progressive mission creep to be expected. 3. After a certain point, the Iranians feel compelled to intervene. 4. We go to war with Iran. The bastards finally get their way.

cf.
US signals to Hezbollah it will back Israeli offensive, as frustration with Gaza ceasefire grows
Amos Hochstein's 'blunt' message to Lebanese mediators may be a move to get Hezbollah to sway Hamas on Gaza ceasefire, analysts say
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-signals-hezbollah-it-will-back-israeli-off...

and:
Col Douglas Macgregor: Israel Prepares for All Out War in Lebanon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXD8t7gYpTo
Potential collateral damage: Cyprus (potentially from multiple vectors).

>94 davidgn: If the Israeli economy doesn't collapse in the meantime and we then don't decide to prop it up. That almost seems on the verge of happening too.

It's really hard to understand the Biden administration at all through this entire atrocity. From stupid move to stupid move and absolutely gambling with their reelection chances. It's been clear for most of the world for a long while now that Israel is an apartheid state. That since Hamas kicked this newest series of atrocities off on Oct. 7 it's just been one long murder campaign of civilians including thousands upon thousands of women and children. It's not justifiable and yet the Biden administration chooses not to see what's apparent for anyone to see. We wake up pretty much to some mass murder event perpetrated by the IDF with weapons they get from us every day.

Israeli military official says Hamas cannot be destroyed, as rift with Netanyahu widens (CNN)

Israel’s top military spokesman has said Hamas cannot be made to “disappear,” casting doubt about whether the government’s war aim of defeating the militant group can be achieved and drawing a sharp rebuke from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Wednesday in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13... Despite the IDF’s attempt to soften Hagari’s remarks, cracks appear to be deepening between the Israeli government and its military. Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure from members of his government and Israel’s allies, including the United States, to devise a strategy for the post-war governance of Gaza after Israel’s devastating bombardment of the isolated enclave... But after eight months of war, and with the prospect of many more to come, Hagari’s comments echoed the growing fears that Israel’s military campaign may be unable to achieve those aims and that the group could remain a potent ideological force...

Gaza's water system, destroyed by war, is sickening its children (BBC)

With their homes destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Gazans are now displaced, living under canvas in makeshift camps with little protection from the scorching sun. Getting water, whether it is clean or not, is a daily struggle. Long queues form at distribution centres. With the sewage system badly damaged and with few toilets, what water there is is easily contaminated. "It is no secret that the biggest cause of intestinal infections currently occurring in the Gaza Strip is the contamination of the water supplied to these children," says Dr Ahmed al-Fari, head of the children's departments at Nasser Hospital. "The first problem is intestinal infections with vomiting and diarrhoea which causes dehydration," he says. "The second problem is hepatitis C or A, which are no less dangerous than intestinal infections, if not more so." The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 67% of Gaza's water and sanitation system, poor at the best of times, has now been destroyed. "We need a tremendous international effort to re-establish water and sewage networks," says Salaam Sharab, who's a water engineer in the Khan Younis municipality...

>96 John5918: The human catastrophe that the Israelis have created in Gaza has also made it much much easier for the Palestinian resistance to resist. They can attack from street level, below street level, above street level and from all sides almost at will. They are a maneuverable force.....their tunnels make that easier and all the wrecked buildings make that easier as they can travel between them. The destroyed buildings hamper the movement of the IDF's tanks, troop carriers and bulldozers as well. A tank can't just go over rubble....depending on what it's moving over it can lose its track and then it sits there until it's rescued or destroyed. That also means that sometimes it can't reverse and go back....that they have to follow a path making them easy to ambush. The Palestinian resistance after 8 months doesn't seem to be running out of explosive material......that includes an ability to repurpose unexploded ordinance that the IDF has dropped on them. The only obvious way of defeating the Palestinian resistance is to take the tunnels away and the only way to do that is to go down and clear them out and that might cost the IDF thousands of soldiers or even a full scale mutiny of the Army......certainly a much much nastier backlash from Israeli society who might not have a problem murdering Palestinian civilians but do have a lot of issues with their own sons coming back crippled or in body bags.

For Palestinian civilians the future is harsh. The Israelis even if they wanted to won't be able to rebuild what they destroyed. They're going to have their own hands out for help but they've been collapsing their own economy. Israeli's allies aren't likely to either if it means this murder campaign ends in defeat. I think whatever help they get rebuilding is going to come from Arab and friendlier African and European states. I don't see the United States lifting a finger if the Palestinians defeat its Middle East aircraft carrier.....or Germany, or the UK. After all this not Biden if he somehow manages reelection and certainly not Trump if he wins. I also can see us trying to block or delay other nations from helping Palestinians rebuild.

West Bank ... the wounded man must have suffered burns being strapped to hood of jeep in Middle East in June?

Israeli forces strap wounded Palestinian to jeep during raid
Reuters | June 22, 2024

...Israeli army forces strapped a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of a military jeep during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday.

A video circulating on social media and verified by Reuters showed a Palestinian resident of Jenin, Mujahed Azmi, on the jeep that passes through two ambulances...

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-strap-wounded-palestini...
-------------------------------------------

B.M. @ireallyhateyou | 4:32 AM · Jun 22, 2024 {X}:
Anti-Zionist Hebrew

Palestinian youth Mujahid Blas was abducted in Jenin by Israeli forces, who abused him, tied him to the front of a military jeep and paraded him around.
He was later handed over by the army to the Red Crescent.

0:22 (https://x.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1804432195999637658)

Unable to back down, Israel and Hezbollah move closer to all-out war (BBC)

Full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah would be "a catastrophe", the UN Secretary-General says... Tough talk has long been part of a mutual strategy of deterrence, with both sides seen as wary of all-out war. But as the tit-for-tat conflict grinds on, and more than 60,000 Israelis remain evacuated from their homes in the north, there are signs that both Israel’s leaders and its citizens are prepared to support military options to push Hezbollah back from the border by force... The dangerous stalemate here hinges largely on the war Israel is fighting more than 100 miles (160km) to the south in Gaza. A ceasefire there would help calm tensions in the north too, but Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keeping both conflicts going, mortgaged by his promise to far-right government allies to destroy Hamas before ending the Gaza War. Earlier this week even the Israeli military spokesman said this goal may not be realistic. "The idea that we can destroy Hamas or make Hamas disappear is misleading to the public," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Israeli TV...

Labour would comply with ICC arrest order for Netanyahu, Lammy reiterates (Guardian)

David Lammy has reiterated that Labour would seek to implement an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu if one was issued by the international criminal court. Speaking to CNN, the shadow foreign secretary said a Labour government would comply if an order was issued for the arrest of the Israeli prime minister, adding that he expected the response to be the same all over Europe... Labour has faced criticism from Israeli groups for making the commitment, which was previously made before the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, called a general election. Explaining his rationale, Lammy said: “The architecture that was created after the second world war, the rules-based order that we believe so much in, the international legal structure – one of the big architects of that was Churchill in our country. “It’s something that has been a guiding light for the United Kingdom over many years, and that’s why we are signatories to the statute of Rome. We believe in the ICC and the ICJ. Now I’ve seen what the chief prosecutor has said about his desire for warrants. “There is a process, a court process, that will determine whether they will be granted. But we have been very clear that in the Labour party we believe in the rules-based order. We believe in international law. We also believe in the separation of powers.” Lammy added: “It is not for me, as a politician, to start quizzing or debating the determinations that are made by senior judges, whether domestically or internationally.” Pressed by Zakaria on whether Labour would comply, he said: “Here in the UK we will comply, and that will be the same across Europe. I know that the United States is not a signatory to the statute. So there will be a different debate in the United States about these issues. I recognise that”...

The word chutzpah derives from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpāh, meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". (Wikipedia)

Netanyahu says US arms supplies fell away 4 months ago; he went public as last resort
Lazar Berman and Jacob Magid | 23 June 2024

At cabinet meeting, PM alleges ‘dramatic drop’ in weapons shipments, says he only spoke out after months of quiet efforts failed to solve problem; hopes it will be resolved soon

...Netanyahu alleged that four months ago, there was a “dramatic drop” in the weapons pipeline to Israel.

“For many weeks,” said Netanyahu, “we appealed to our American friends to speed up the shipments. We did it time and time again. We did this at the senior echelons, and at all levels, and I want to emphasize — we did it in private chambers. We got all kinds of explanations, but we didn’t get one thing: The basic situation didn’t change.”

According to the premier, “certain items trickled in, but the bulk of armaments were left behind.”...

The White House has repeatedly rejected Netanyahu’s claim, insisting that it only has withheld one shipment of heavy bombs it was concerned Israel would use in the densely-populated southern Gaza city of Rafah, while all other transfers have continued at a normal pace...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-he-only-complained-about-us-arms-de...

From the AP:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/netanyahu-says-wont-agree-deal-073031923.html

The Biden Administration and pretty much the entirety of our MSM have been going on for weeks now how it's been Hamas that's been the roadblock to any kind of peace deal and that the current peace deal to end the conflict is an Israeli one and it's never really passed the smell test but it's a narrative that's been repeated over and over again. And despite the fact that Hamas has engaged with the plan and seems on board we've heard ad nauseam 'if only Hamas would agree this thing could be all over' and meanwhile a curious silence all along from Netanyahu's govt. and now finally I guess we have the Israeli answer which not a surprise at all in that they have no interest in anything but a temporary pause and if they get some or all of their hostages back they intend to resume their murder campaign in Gaza. This peace deal proposal has always seemed to me like something that our State Dept. cooked up maybe at best with some Israeli official(s) somewhat down the ladder of any real power and was always more than less bullshit but more importantly more cover to grant more time for the Israelis to continue their onslaught against the Palestinians in Gaza while also trying to make Netanyahu and his right wing supporters seem like better people than they are.

Israeli far-right minister speaks of effort to annex West Bank (Guardian)

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has described in explicit terms his active effort to annex the West Bank to Israel, days after the Guardian revealed how the pro-settlement politician and his allies had quietly gained significant new legal powers to that end. Speaking at a meeting of his Religious Zionism party, Smotrich told colleagues that he was “establish{ing} facts on the ground in order to make Judea and Samaria {an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank} an integral part of the state of Israel”. “We will establish sovereignty … first on the ground and then through legislation. I intend to legalise the young settlements {illegal outposts},” Smotrich said in comments reported by Haaretz. “My life’s mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state”...

The starvation of Gaza is a perverse repudiation of Judaism’s values (Guardian)

Hunger’s role in Jewish philosophy and history makes it all the more horrifying that civilians in Gaza are eating garbage...

DW News @dwnews | 7:19 AM · Jun 29, 2024:

Israeli authorities have stepped up demolitions of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, while facilitating the expansion of Israeli settlements.

4:26 (https://x.com/dwnews/status/1807010876316348568)

Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof | 7:12 PM · Jun 29, 2024

in 2015 I met this Palestinian farmer, Abdel-Majeed, on the West Bank. Israeli settlers were attacking him and stealing his land, and I thought the situation was about as bad as it could get.

No, it has gotten much worse. I revisited him last week, during a week-long trip through Israel and the West Bank, and I found that settlers have burned his cars and destroyed his tractor. They have cut down his olive trees and set his sheep shed on fire. They tried to break into his house when his granddaughter was home. Now his wife is arguing that they should give up their home, for fear of being burned alive by settlers.

This is life on the West Bank today. It doesn't get as much attention as Gaza, but the situation is desperate. And the US is largely AWOL. I know it feels a long way away, but this is central to the Middle East crisis and is one reason I fear the crisis will get worse. Here's my report:
https://nyti.ms/3ROOfNs

Photo (https://x.com/NickKristof/status/1807190343760355498/photo/1)

Freed Gaza hospital head accuses Israel of repeated torture (Guardian)

The head of the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital has accused Israel of torturing him and other detainees, following his release after seven months in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, was among dozens of Palestinians freed and returned to Gaza on Monday, according to Israeli authorities. The doctor, who had been held by Israel without charge since arrest at his workplace in November, said he and other prisoners were subjected to “almost daily torture” while in detention in Israel. Mistreatment included assaults with batons and dogs, deprivation of food and medicine, as well as physical and psychological humiliation, Abu Salmiya said. Other detainees released alongside Abu Salmiya also alleged abuse... Abu Salmiya also said the medical staff at different facilities where he was held had taken part in the abuse “in violation of all laws” and that some detainees had limbs amputated because of poor medical care...

>106 John5918: On the surface of Israeli society you have sunny days and smiling faces from the residents of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the settlements and Kibbutzes. It's the way they advertise their country to Jewish people around the world to come and live. But underneath it all is political repression, theft of land, murder and torture of the Palestinians and other undesirable ethnic groups they're continually trying to purge either with a mix of modern day bombs and technology to medieval prisons more like torture dungeons and the jailers doing the torturing so violent and bigoted they could easily fit into a nazi prison camp or some death house from centuries past.

Israel has approved ‘largest West Bank land grab in 30 years’, watchdog says (Guardian)

Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades, according to a report released by an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, a move that will exacerbate the escalating tensions surrounding the conflict in Gaza. Peace Now said authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 sq km (nearly 5 sq miles) of land in the Jordan valley, indicating it was “the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords”, referring to the start of the peace process. Settlement monitors say the recent land acquisition links Israeli settlements along a crucial corridor adjacent to Jordan, a development they say threatens the formation of a future Palestinian state. Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive governments have made efforts to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring large swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership...

Press Release – Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Jerusalem 07 July 2024

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is monitoring, with grave concern, the news of the raids, apparently launched by the Israeli army against the Sacred Family School in Gaza this morning. Footage and media reports from the place include scenes of civilian casualties and of destruction in the compound.

While property of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Sacred Family School has, since the beginning of the war, been a place of refuge for hundreds of civilians. No religious personnel reside in the school.

The Latin Patriarchate condemns in the strongest terms the targeting of civilians or any belligerent actions that fall short of ensuring that civilians remain outside the combat scene.

We continue to pray for the Lord’s mercy and hope that the Parties will reach an agreement that would put an immediate end to the horrifying bloodbath and humanitarian catastrophe in the region.

The Lancet---the peer reviewed medical journal is estimating that the IDF has killed 186,000 and possibly more people in Gaza since Oct. 7.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PllS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fullt...

sorry that the link isn't working (I've checked it again) but it's not hard to google.

>110 lriley: Found it:

Rasha Khatib et al. 2024. Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential (Correspondence). The Lancet, Online First. Published:July 05, 2024. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01169-3 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fullt...

US officials have confirmed that a makeshift dock built off the coast of the Gaza Strip will be used to deliver some aid over the coming days before being torn down for good.

Middle East updates: US to dismantle Gaza aid pier
DW | 10 July 2024

...Efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza have been repeatedly hampered by bad weather and airstrikes, despite UN calls for humanitarian supplies to reach Palestinians.

Stormy weather and sea conditions have required the US to move the dock several times since it was constructed two months ago...

https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-updates-us-to-dismantle-gaza-aid-pier/live-696...

>112 margd: the Biden administration has bent over backwards time and again for the Netanyahu regime. We could have stopped sending war material to Israel and forced them to back down and open peace negotiations a long time ago. It would have been not just for the Gazans but also for the Israelis own good. They are dependent on us to keep them in bombs but this atrocity is ruining Israel's economy and the reason they're going to start drafting their orthodox now is because they're running out of healthy soldiers all the while they're thinking of starting another war. We've watched and supported them in destroying their own economy while they actively commit a genocide. Our aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Turned our own global standing upside fucking down. Our AIPAC funded congressmen and Senators both parties here and no one not Biden nor his Generals or advisers has the sense to see that this catastrophe gets worse and worse and has dragged us into the mud.

The dock was always stupid. Too weak to stand up to his own party let alone the fascist right wingers running Israel's govt. and instead of forcing the issue to open up the border crossings to real aid.....basically what this absurdity is about which never worked and just made him look more like a clown. Wanted people to see that he cared when it's been obvious all along that he doesn't really give a shit about dead Palestinians---women, children or otherwise. The only time he or his party or the media showed any real anger was when the IDF zapped the World Kitchen workers. Willing also to tank his own reelection chances and it looks like unless Trump drops dead in the meantime that's what is going to happen in November. Well we could wish for that I guess.

Hamas and other groups committed war crimes on 7 October, says HRW (BBC)

Hamas and at least four other Palestinian armed groups committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians during the 7 October attack on southern Israel, the campaign group Human Rights Watch says. A new report accuses the hundreds of gunmen who breached the Gaza border fence of violations including deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, wilful killing of persons in custody, sexual and gender-based violence, hostage-taking, mutilation of bodies and looting. It also found the killing of civilians and hostage-taking were “central aims of the planned attack” and not an “afterthought”...

Top UN court {Internaitional Court of Justice} says Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and should end
MIKE CORDER | July 19, 2024

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — ...policies, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians, all of which ... violated international law.

...Israel had no right to sovereignty in the territories, was violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and was impeding Palestinians’ right to self-determination. ... other nations were obliged not to “render aid or assistance in maintaining” Israel’s presence in the territories... Israel must end settlement construction immediately and ... existing settlements must be removed...

https://apnews.com/article/icj-court-israel-palestinians-settlements-2d5178500c0...

Polio detected in Gaza sewage water, threatening new health disaster
Ibrahim Dahman, Caitlin Danaher and Christian Edwards | July 19, 2024

...Gaza’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) both said they had carried out tests and found samples of the virus in sewage water.

“Poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2) had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected on 23 June from Khan Younis and Deir al Balah”...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/middleeast/israel-gaza-polio-detected-water-sewag...

Why ICJ ruling against Israel’s settlement policies will be hard to ignore (Guardian)

Thorough, detailed and all encompassing, the international court of justice’s advisory ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and settlement building represents a stark refutation of Israel’s claims, and will have a profound impact for years to come. The ICJ declared Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory “unlawful” and said it amounted to de facto annexation. The court called for Israel to rapidly quit the occupied territories and ruled Palestinians were due reparations for the harm of 57 years of an occupation that systematically discriminates against them. And in its many parts, the judgment represents a devastating defeat for Israel in the world court. While numerous UN reports and resolutions in the general assembly have made the same point, the ICJ ruling, by virtue of being made in reference to treaty and individual laws, represents a judgment that will be hard to ignore... the court asserted that international law applies regardless of the decades of failed political efforts to reach a lasting peace agreement, not least as Israel has continued with its settlement-building. Taking half an hour to read, the ruling gathered together multiple strands of international law from the Geneva conventions to the Hague convention to make a case that has been obvious to Palestinians and to critics of Israeli policy in the international community for years... taken in its entirety the ruling offers a profound challenge to governments, including the UK and US, that had for years soft-pedalled on Israel’s occupation policies, criticising settlement building but until recently doing little practical about it...

Houthis Launch Deadly Drone Strike on Tel Aviv, Evading Israel’s Defenses
{NYT} | 19 July 2024

At least one person was killed and eight others injured in a predawn attack on Friday. The Israeli military said it was investigating why it “did not identify it, attack it and intercept it.”

{Paywall} https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/world/middleeast/houthis-drone-strike-tel-avi...
-----------------------------------------

Israel investigates security failures around deadly Tel Aviv drone strike
Eugenia Yosef, Jennifer Hansler, Eyad Kourdi and Kathleen Magramo | July 19, 2024
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/middleeast/israel-tel-aviv-explosion-us-embassy-i...

>117 John5918: I think you would know better than me but my take of what was going on in South Africa was that during apartheid black people lived in Bantustan like communities that the White oppressive regime weren't really that interested in taking away from them. They'd go in with the army and police sometimes and oppress the populations from time to time even more but basically that land was theirs. Because of agreements the Israelis ceded the West Bank to Palestinians and since have been taking pieces of it away and when they do they further restrict the territory and movement of Palestinians. These settlements are quite often like huge gated communities and the people in them by and large racist and quite often very violent. I don't think this ICJ ruling is going to mean much to the likes of the Likud party and even to other less virulent Israeli parties. While the ICJ were ruling the Israeli Knesset was also passing a bill never ever ever to give Palestinians a state of any kind......and as long as they have the support of allies such as the United States, Britain and Germany the Israeli govt. is going to continue to lend support to settler organizations to move in on more land and push more Palestinians out. Previous ICJ rulings on genocide have not stopped their momentum at all. Israel is becoming more and more a global pariah state but with the continued support of their main allies they might string this situation out for a long time.

Israeli settlers court Republican religious right after Hamas attacks
Jonathan Saul and Simon Lewis | July 20, 2024

Settlers, evangelicals lobby Trump GOP to reject two-state plan
US House speaker Johnson has visited West Bank settlements
Trump has suggested US policy could change if he wins election

...Israeli Rabbi Pesach Wolicki has long advocated for cooperation between Israel's religious right and what he calls America's Christian Zionists, evangelicals who see prophecy being fulfilled with the return of Jews to the biblical Judea and Samaria, much of which lies in the West Bank and was captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war...

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-settlers-court-republican-reli...

Wait-- *the* Judith Miller?

The Lebanon War Is Coming
Whose side will America be on?
BY
JUDITH MILLER

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/lebanon-war-comin...

The ICJ has demolished Israel’s claims that it is not occupying Palestinian territories (Guardian)

As has been widely noted, the court’s ruling is only “advisory”, not binding, because it was requested by the UN general assembly rather than the product of a lawsuit between two states. Moreover, the Israeli government is already ignoring prior ICJ decisions. Israel has not moved the separation barrier, which the court held in a 2004 advisory opinion to be illegal because, under the guise of security, Israel has incorporated large swathes of Palestinian land on the Israeli side of the barrier. Nor has Israel discernibly mitigated its offensive in Gaza despite court orders in the case brought by South Africa requiring steps to protect Palestinian rights under the genocide convention. Yet the ICJ has demolished Israel’s claim that the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are not occupied, merely “disputed”. The Israeli government has long stressed that there was no “Palestine” whose land it could occupy because, until the six-day war of June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem had been held by Jordan, which has since relinquished any claims to them, and the Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt, which certainly doesn’t want it back. But the court held that for legal purposes, occupation is the product of a military takeover of land, regardless of its status. Even Gaza has long been occupied, the court found, despite Israel’s 2005 disengagement, because Israel maintained authority over various aspects of life in Gaza that could be exercised when it wished. That occupation brings into force the fourth geneva convention of 1949 on military occupation, which Israel has ratified. Article 49 renders it illegal – a war crime – for an occupying power to transfer its population to occupied territory, as the court found that Israel has done with its settlements...

>122 John5918: Apart from claiming victimhood I fully expect Israel to ignore any and all ICJ rulings. The way around it is trade bans. Enough countries and that might have some real effect. Their war effort is trashing their economy and even as they try to sell plots in Gaza there really is a question of how they could rebuild the damage done to their own economy let alone rebuild the infrastructure in Gaza that they've absolutely destroyed. Watching the Electronic Intifada today they were saying that the IOF had delayed a women's only armored project of theirs because they've pretty much run out of Merkava tanks for them to go into battle with. Considering they've turned Gaza's cities to rubble......they've also turned them into death traps for their own armor. The last 9 months of watching video I think I've watched a 100(?), 200 (?) of their tanks destroyed or towed off the battlefield. They have a defense activation system built into them but it doesn't activate if someone's hitting them with an armored piercing rocket from 100 yards away. When it's over the question isn't just who's going to rebuild Gaza but also about all the self inflicted damage the Netanyahu regime has done to its own economy. Israel down the line is heading either for a one/two state solution with the Palestinians or into some kind of pariah-hood and how much a few nations like the United States, Britain and Germany can keep their head above water if almost everyone else is boycotting trade. Their dream of a religious ethnostate is going to cause them much self inflicted damage but for the near future anyway they're going to ignore, ignore, ignore.

Emma Vigeland @EmmaVigeland | 10:54 AM · Jul 23, 2024:
@majorityfm co-host. Live daily at 12pm ET. @ESVNShow ost. Live Mondays at 4pm ET. New York sports fan who tweets about it. Free Palestine 🇵🇸

WSJ {Wall Street Journal}:
-Harris will meet 1v1 w/ Bibi, then skip his address. She's expected to tell him {Israel should be secure, hostages released and}to stop the "war" & the "suffering of Palestinian civilians"
-She likely won't keep Sullivan, Blinken, or Austin
-Jim Zogby {Founder of the Arab American Institute} says she's shown "'far greater empathy' for Palestinians than Biden"

WSJ text w excerpts highlighted:
https://x.com/EmmaVigeland/status/1815762420398247952/photo/1
https://x.com/EmmaVigeland/status/1815762420398247952/photo/2
https://x.com/EmmaVigeland/status/1815762420398247952/photo/3

>124 margd: She does all that and I'll probably be with her.

Mind you I'm not a great fan. That said I'm not a great fan of anyone currently that includes people I really liked previously.

Bernie Sanders condemns speech to Congress by ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu (Guardian)

The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the US Congress, calling him a “war criminal” presiding over a “rightwing extremist government”... “Tomorrow will be unique in bringing Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress,” said Sanders on Tuesday. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor.” Sanders said of Netanyahu: “He should not be welcome in the United States Congress”...

Palestinian factions agree to end division in pact brokered by China
Leaders of 14 factions sign Beijing Declaration calling for unity after talks in the Chinese capital
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3271553/palestinian-factions-a...

Well, ain't that somethin'.

The virus that causes polio has been found in Gaza. Here’s why that is grim news
Leslie Roberts | 22 Jul 2024

Fighting and health system’s collapse will complicate emergency vaccination campaign

On 16 July, the Ministry of Health of Gaza announced poliovirus had been detected in six wastewater samples collected in late June at sites in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah ... Tens of thousands of children under age 5 are now at risk of contracting polio, and the possibility of international spread beyond Gaza cannot be ruled out...

How far has the virus spread?
Why did the virus take off in Gaza now?

What do we know about the poliovirus circulating in Gaza? ... vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 is every bit as dangerous as the wild virus ... emerge in areas where vaccination rates are low, allowing the live, weakened virus used in the oral polio vaccine (OPV) to pass from child to child and regain its ability to spread and paralyze ... polio immunization rates in Gaza were “optimal” before October 2023... Since then, routine immunization for all diseases has been badly disrupted.

What is being done to respond to the outbreak?
The Gaza Ministry of Health ... and its international partners are searching for ways to vaccinate many thousands of children amid an unrelenting war. “Speed and high coverage” with a vaccine specifically targeted against poliovirus type 2 {novel OPV2} will be essential to stop the outbreak...

Is a vaccination campaign even possible while the war rages on?

https://www.science.org/content/article/virus-causes-polio-has-been-found-gaza-h...
_________________________________

IDF launches polio vaccination drive for troops in Gaza amid outbreak fears
Adir Yanko | 07.21.24

...Following the discovery of poliovirus traces in Gaza Strip sewage and a request from the Health Ministry, the IDF Medical Corps began vaccinating combat soldiers and support staff Sunday. Medical teams stationed with IDF forces have also been instructed to be vigilant for flu-like symptoms that could indicate polio infection...

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/skjgup9dr

>127 davidgn:

One can't help but think of this satirical clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian. It's unfortunate that so many liberation movements throughout the world are so divided.

>128 margd: The reason there's a budding polio epidemic in Gaza is the complete destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure. As well there are no medications to treat.....not even antibiotics to deal with infection or disease, no vaccines or pain killers. There's nothing which is in part how the The Lancet came to its lowball conservative estimate of 186,000+ civilians killed by Israel since Oct. 7. People die because they don't have cancer meds or insulin. They die when even simple wounds get infected because there are no antibiotics. There are burn victims too and disease. There has been cholera.....now there's polio. They die because of bad water or starvation. And then there's the bombs, the tanks, the murderous soldiers of the Israeli military.

Meanwhile Netanyahu is feted by the US congress. He gets to speak before the House and Senate. To say of the protesters outside that they're useful idiot tools of Iran. 186,000+ are not enough dead for him. If people remember this is about Amelek. It's about killing everyone and everything. That includes not just humans but all animal and plant life. It's ultimate destruction. He wants to 'finish the job'. He wants more bombs from the United States even as he's destroying his own economy and turning Israel into a pariah state for at least most of the world. He wants us to help him achieve his goal. As he's condemned by the same international courts set up post WWII with the goal of making sure there would never be another holocaust.....and this goal of the current Israeli state today is to create a religious ethnostate over the dead bodies of Palestinians. For much of the world the holocaust is no longer a shield that Israel can use to cover up its crimes. They've used that currency up. They're the perpetrators of genocide now.

Harris tells Netanyahu 'it is time' to end war in Gaza (BBC)

Striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden, Ms Harris said she made clear her "serious concerns" about casualties in Gaza, telling Mr Netanyahu how Israel defended itself mattered. "It is time for this war to end," she said after their face-to-face talks at the White House. Ms Harris also stressed the need for a path to a two-state solution, while calling on Americans to be aware of "nuance" on the conflict...

Netanyahu is presiding over a sharp decline in the US’s pro-Israel consensus (Guardian)

A staggering 72% of Israelis want him to resign over failures that permitted the 7 October attacks by Hamas to succeed. And 72% of Israelis also support a deal to release hostages over the destruction of Hamas... While the speech was Netanyahu’s fourth address to Congress, the political landscape in Washington has shifted beneath his feet, creating a far less welcoming American public than the applause might suggest. Around half of House and Senate Democrats boycotted the speech while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside the Capitol building, revealing the steep drop in support for Israel’s war on Gaza over the past nine months. Before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, 38% of voters said they were less likely to vote for him due to his handling of the war on Gaza... The election wins of the senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, and the representative Thomas Massie, also a Republican from Kentucky (and both critics of US aid to Israel), suggest an appetite, or at least an acceptance, of a more balanced US-Israel relationship within Republican voters...

US medics who volunteered in Gaza demand arms embargo over ‘unbearable cruelty’ inflicted by Israel (Guardian)

Dozens of US doctors and nurses who worked in Gaza have written to Joe Biden claiming that the true death toll from Israel’s months-long assault is much higher than previously reported, demanding the US withdraw diplomatic and military support for Israel until there is a ceasefire. The eight-page letter, delivered on Thursday and addressed to Biden, the first lady, Jill Biden, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the medics saw evidence of widespread violations of laws governing the use of US weapons supplied to Israel, and of international humanitarian law...

>131 John5918: a lot to unpack here. First off though practically every clip I saw of Netanyahu speaking to congress he was blatantly telling a lie and yet standing ovation after standing ovation. It's true there was much less enthusiasm from the democratic side of the aisle. Fetterman's wearing a suit instead of his sweatpants. Sinema and Manchin standing by him---all of them cheering Benjamin on.

Combining the BBC story with the second Guardian story---whether Biden has enough brainpower left to be able to sift through all the evidence that Israel has committed war crime after war crime and that the death numbers to civilian casualties is much higher than the 40,000 the media keep reporting. Those numbers weren't all that different several months ago when the Gaza Health Care system was still capable of reporting anything at all. All that's been down for a while with the IDF targeting hospitals, doctors, nurses, hospital staff. The Lancet's recent lowball estimate was 186,000 but their high estimate was much much higher. There are people buried under rubble, mass grave sites have been found, much evidence of battlefield executions of civilians, people dying from starvation, disease, lack of medical attention, lack of life sustaining medicines, from infections because there are no antibiotics and really there's no entity available and no real ability for anyone or anything to count it all. And this is what the US doctors and nurses are saying. There are any number of online interviews and a plethora of different interviewees of medical people who have worked in Gaza since Oct. 7 describing all kinds of horrors inflicted on the population by the IDF.

It's interesting with Massie because he is a true believer right winger. Very much a fiscal conservative though who does not like foreign aid expenditures across the board and that's where his conflict with the Israeli lobby pretty much starts. His lone vote against Israeli aid among the Republican caucus in the House was too much for the AIPAC umbrella to accept and they went after him. You don't have to like someone to understand when someone has the courage of his/her convictions and he's a case in point and whether you like him or not I can respect that and quite a bit more than someone whose viewpoints I do agree with who caves under pressure when things get rough. Massie went and told his constituents exactly why he did what he did and what the Israeli lobby was trying to do. He wasn't lying or obfuscating and they returned him in kind of a big fuck you to his opponents. AIPAC went after Jamaal Bowman who wasn't quite as courageous and he's gone. People at Justice Democrats kind of went quiet with the exceptions of Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee and maybe Cori Bush. The Democratic Socialists of American have pulled their endorsement of member (former member?) AOC.

>132 lriley: Fetterman's wearing a suit instead of his sweatpants

I believe this is because they passed a law requiring "business attire" on the Senate floor.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/27/politics/senate-passes-formal-dress-code/index.ht...

The Democratic Socialists of American have pulled their endorsement of member (former member?) AOC.

Yep. If you can't beat your enemies, at least you can beat up on your friends. Can't think of any ways that could cause any problems!

By the way by virtue of being a tax cheat Donald Trump is arguably less culpable for Israel's genocide than I am for being a taxpayer. Not that that's his reason for not paying his taxes.

>134 lriley: You're aware that Israel buys weapons from the US, right?

>135 kiparsky: Yes, and partially with US taxpayer aid money.

Britain drops its challenge to ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders (Guardian)

The UK has dropped its opposition to an international arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, removing a key hurdle to one being issued and underlining the tougher stance being taken towards Israel by the new Labour government. Downing Street confirmed on Friday that the government would not submit a challenge to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court, whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is seeking a warrant against the Israeli prime minister. The move, first reported by the Guardian, makes it more likely that the ICC will grant Khan’s request, in what would be a stunning international rebuke for Israel over the way it has conducted the war in Gaza and put Netanyahu at risk of arrest if he travels abroad...

Will Kamala Break With Biden on Israel? (The Progressive Magazine)

There are some signs that, despite her hawkish record as a U.S. Senator and some of her statements as Vice President, Kamala Harris would be tougher on Israel than President Joe Biden. But don’t expect any dramatic break with the current administration’s policies in the course of the campaign... Regarding Israel-Palestine, in the words of those who know her, “Harris is going to try to emphasize her independence from Biden without breaking with him.” But it’s also true that, as The Washington Post reported, Harris “has pushed the rest of the Biden Administration to more heavily consider Palestinian suffering in its response to Israel’s war in Gaza, lambasting the civilian death toll, calling on Israel to allow more aid into the territory, and speaking more forcefully and empathetically than President Biden about the Palestinian plight.” Following her meeting with Netanyahu on July 25, which she described as “frank,” Harris underscored her middle ground by reiterating support for Israel’s right to self-defense and the imperative of releasing the hostages while also highlighting the massive civilian casualties and ongoing suffering in Gaza and the urgency of ending the war soon. From near the start of Israel’s bombing campaign, she has often been the first high-ranking Biden Administration official to speak out against the high civilian death toll and challenge how Israel has prosecuted the war. She was the first to publicly call for a ceasefire and insist that Israel limit civilian casualties. In June, while other administration officials were unconditionally praising an Israeli raid that freed four hostages, she highlighted the more than 270 Palestinians that were “tragically killed” during the attack. Along with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and C.I.A. Director Bill Burns, Harris has been among those within Biden’s inner circle who has tried, unsuccessfully, to push him to get tougher on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

As Israel Refuses to End Genocide in Gaza, Threat of War With Hezbollah Looms (truthout)

Experts examine Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calculations and the politics of risking wider war...

Israelis want Netanyahu to resign. Why did Congress invite him to speak? (Guardian)

A staggering 72% of Israelis want Netanyahu to step down. Netanyahu doesn’t represent us and it’s shameful that Congress invited him... To put it bluntly - Benjamin Netanyahu is the enemy of the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and of every person on this earth who values human life. He is also personally responsible for October 7. The fact that he spoke in Congress, with tens of thousands dead in Gaza and no hostage deal in sight, is an embarrassment to Congress and to every single representative who attended...

American pols like to talk about a two state solution. It's not realistic. When Israel granted semi-automony to the West Bank and Gaza Strip that was a two state solution. It didn't really work for Palestinians because they were still treated as 2nd/3rd class citizens even within these ceded territories and because Israel almost from the beginning allowed settlers to move into the West Bank and steal land and have control over the movement of Palestinians meanwhile turning Gaza into an open air prison....fencing the population in and hardly ever allowing anyone out even in dire emergency. A one state solution is the way forward and can come in different ways but since the West Bank and Gaza don't adjoin I don't think the creation of a new country is very likely. The recent ICJ ruling is for all settlers to get out of the West Bank. They simply have no business being there. The Israeli pursuit of a Jewish ethnostate flies in the face of equal rights to all citizens, the right to vote, fairness under the law, fair employment etc. etc. and it has over a long period of time created expectations from these communities that will have to be resolved much more to the pain of those who've exercised power than to those who have suffered through it if there is going to be a real solution. Making Palestinians equal citizens in every way......giving back the West Bank, freeing Gaza and allowing Palestinians to live where they choose throughout greater Israel.....reparations are all part of it.

What the ICJ ruling also does is put more global pressure on Israel. If countries starting sanctioning or blocking trade en masse it's all over. The Israeli economy is already struggling a lot.

>139 lriley: I have to say, I agree with almost all of that, and it's exactly what I've been saying all along: there will only be peace in the failed state currently known as "Israel" when it has a functioning government and laws that respect the rights of all of its citizens, and when all of its citizens abide by the spirit of those laws. Israel needs a Civil Rights movement.

The only potential quibble I have is that this approach means that there isn't a way to fit in "give back the West Bank" into that model. Just as Palestinians would have the right to live in all of Israel, by virtue of being Israeli citizens, so would all Israeli citizens have the right to live in all of Israel. So if that phrase means that the West Bank becomes a sort of reservation or walled garden for Palestinians, I don't see a way to make that work, as it denies the very premise that leads to peace.
However, if that phrase means "give back the land taken by settlers", including restoring untenanted land to its previous status, that seems like it could be done. I think it would be reasonable to demand, as part of the peace process, a restoration of land claimed by settlers, and I think that this could be a workable demand, iff the majority of Israeli citizens were on board with it. Which is something that I think could happen, but not while Palestinians are supporting armed groups like Hamas. As long as there are Palestinian organizations threatening violence against Israel - however pathetically and toothlessly - Jewish Israeli citizens will side with the worst elements of Zionism, by which I mean the elements of Zionism which use it as an excuse to seize land by violence. If the Palestinians kick those parasitical and ineffectual groups to the curb, if they have the courage and the vision to adopt nonviolence, then I think the mindset of the average Israeli shifts from "these people are killing people like me, I don't care what happens to them" to "those settlers are getting free land, and I'm not getting free land, I don't care what happens to them". And when that happens, Palestinians will have won the support of the average Israeli citizen.

Yesterday someone missiled a soccer game in the Golan Heights village mostly inhabited by the Druze. The Druze are kind of a unique people--an offshoot of the Shia Muslim sect....their main language is Arabic (a Semitic language) and they've had a somewhat antagonistic relationship with other Muslims and have been an Israeli ally at least going back into the 1950's. A large % of those in greater Israel consider themselves as Syrians though Israel has long granted those who wished Israeli citizenship with full rights something they've never done for Palestinians Muslims or Christians. They're not Jews though. They can't be drafted but numbers of them have joined the IDF in the past.

Israel claims that Hezbollah are the culprits for the missile at the the soccer game in the Golan Heights. Hezbollah which in the past has never really not taken credit for what they do deny that they did this but it might serve as the excuse the Israel govt. is looking for for a full bore attack on Lebanon. It does seem strange to me that Hezbollah would rocket the Druze in the Golan Hts. when they've already proven they can reach all over Israel. For sure it could be them but I wouldn't rule out the Israelis either.

In the meanwhile something that Erdogan was just saying to his own party members:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-says-turkey-might-enter-201117666.html

That's interesting. From both the Republican and Democratic Party perspectives and their so far all out support of Israel.....here is Turkey, key NATO partner and largest importer of US military hardware or at least until recently. NATO really wouldn't work nearly as well without them or maybe hardly at all and Erdogan is talking about entering Israel to defend Palestinians. And even Trump if he were to get back into power....in his first term he was so friendly to Erdogan even supporting Turkey against our Kurdish allies in Northern Iraq and Southern Turkey. But which is also to say that the Biden administration as well as the majorities of both parties in the House and Senate have let things get so out of hand that the potential is there for them to blow up their NATO alliance and also have to choose between one close ally over another.

>141 lriley: Sounds about right.

>142 davidgn: FWIW Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons and there are 20 nuclear warheads stored at the Incirlik airbase in Turkey. They're from us and technically ours but Turkish pilots and military people are trained in how to use them. The question of extracting them has come up before but whether Turkey would allow that to happen is a ? It also would be a hell of a coup for Vladimir you know who if Erdogan decided to switch sides as far as his alliances. The Turkish military is already armed to the eyeballs. It's a large land mass and location, location, location it kind of would fuck with US geopolitics like probably no other country could.

Erdogan is definitely not amongst the world's nicest guys. That said he's voiced displeasure over Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza numerous times since Oct. 7. Until a few months ago Israel got much of its oil from Turkey which has taken that away and sanctioned trade to Israel. One way countries declare war (without actually coming out and declaring war in more vocal ways) is through sanctioning trade. Let's call it economic warfare. Looking back in history Japan attacks Pearl Harbor after the United States halts steel exports to the Japanese. It was a big part of the why. Turkey cripples Israel's ability to keep the lights running and the tanks rolling. Doing this shows the importance this has to Erdogan's mind. He's fucking pissed. His country which is very much a Muslim country is pissed. He also very much understands the key nature of Turkey's importance to the NATO project and it seems to me he's suggesting that he's willing to leverage that importance if Israel continues much further down the path that they're on.

>141 lriley: Like Oct 7, this attack seems designed to prompt Israeli counter-attack?

Israeli political officials are currently weighing their response to this attack amid mounting domestic pressure to address Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, vowing to respond "harshly".
Maps
https://x.com/criticalthreats/status/1817907141568540774/photo/1
https://x.com/criticalthreats/status/1817907141568540774/photo/2

Two unspecified security sources told Reuters that Hezbollah is on “high alert” and had cleared out some key sites in both Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa Valley anticipating a retaliatory Israeli attack.

Read the update from CTP and @TheStudyofWar:
https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-update-july-28-2024

- Critical Threats @criticalthreats 8:56 AM · Jul 29, 2024

>144 margd: When it comes to placing responsibility I wonder about the targeted population here. The Druze within greater Israel have long allied with the Israeli government but they are not Jewish....they are a Shia Muslim sect. I don't think that Druze children being killed by a missile strike really is something that a high % of Israeli Jews would care about at all.....and that they would definitely see as expendable or better this happens to them than somewhere in Tel Aviv or even to a settler community in the West Bank. If the Israelis were to do a black op to gin up a conflict this seems like something they might do. Not to say it couldn't be Hezbollah either but they've never really been reticent about claiming what they do.

.....it's also not like shit such as this never happens. The incident with the Maine that precipitated the Spanish American war for instance. All the bs about the dangerous Saddam regime and their mostly fictitious WMD---along with insinuating shit about 9-11 involvement. The Israelis also have been lying all along throughout the Gaza genocide. Nothing is really beyond them.

Alastair Crooke highlights that the Druze involved were Syrian citizens with the "wrong" politics, despite the Israeli occupation of the Golan having been "recognized" under Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDERjMb3ZIs

>146 davidgn:
Amb. Chas Freeman also essential viewing today.
AMB Charles Freeman : How Precarious are NATO and Israel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxiXesu8kTg

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/idf-canada-well-rachel-corrie-rafah-water

The IDF Just Destroyed a Key Rafah Water Facility Rachel Corrie Spent Her Last Month of Life Defending
“I was shocked when I saw the video. It’s not just that they targeted this water facility; it’s the fact that they planted explosives, celebrated the act on Instagram.... It's deeply cruel."

YOUNIS TIRAWI
JUL 28, 2024

>148 davidgn: Before congress the other day Netanyahu lamented that Palestinians needed to drop their 'hate' and be open to living in peace with Israelis but the fact is it's the other way around. So many Israelis have this habit of projecting their own hatred and fears onto Palestinians. Zionism aim is a society wide propaganda project that the Israeli state has been on for decades. They see Palestinians as inferiors and brutes and it was on show right after Oct. 7 with references to Palestinians as animals and with talk of depriving of food, water, electricity etc an already deprived and imprisoned population. The 9 month + assault on a civilian population not just with bombs and bullets but the destruction of basic necessities for life, with starvation and disease.....the idea that they can steal possessions from homes or sell the land out from under those living in Gaza all speaks to the Israelis close to society wide hatred of Palestinians.

>149 lriley: It's like that joke John Dolan liked to retell.

An Irishman has been bayoneted by a British soldier, and as the Mick dies slowly in a ditch the Brit kicks him over and over, cursing him and wishing him a painful, slow death. With his last breath the Irishman asks, “Why are you so angry at us?” The Brit leans down, whispers, “You swine, we will NEVER forgive you for what we’ve done to you.”

>150 davidgn: yeah, pretty much.

By the way the Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz is now on record urging NATO to expel Turkey.

Choosing what side we want to be on. It wasn't so bad when it was Israel vs. the Palestinians. Ignoring all the genocide accusations were a piece of cake. I suspect this one though would be a little bit harder. I'm not even sure Donald would want to handle that. There is Adelson's widow though. She's kind of been bankrolling his campaign and he doesn't like NATO so I'm guessing he'd go with Israel but if Turkey crossed the border? and still were hanging on to our nukes? Biden--the zionist Irish-American (really he's more a German---that's more like stolen identification kind of like Warren claiming she's a Native American) I don't think his brain could handle that kind of a problem. I suspect his administrations strategy would be do nothing until something happens and it's too late.

>149 lriley: >150 davidgn: How many Israelis have you actually spoken to? This claim that most* ordinary Israelis despise Palestinians does not match up with my experience, having known and worked with a number of Israelis. There are certainly some zealots (I suppose it's an apt word) who want Israel only for Jews, but as far as I can tell they are no more representative of Israel than, say, Klan members are of America. There is certainly some degree of concern about the violence committed by Hamas and Fatah, but again, the Palestinians committing atrocities do not represent the Palestinian people, and most Israelis that I've talked to understand that - better, I'd say, than most Americans, particularly most Americans taking part in "pro-Palestinian" demonstrations. There are, sadly, those who are willing to accept the actions of their government on the grounds that "they know best", just as there are those who accepted the US government's claims that the war on Vietnam was necessary without giving it a lot of thought.

Obviously, any society is too complex to be reduced to a single set of beliefs, and I'm not claiming that all Israelis are monolithically benign towards Palestinians, but it's certainly not the case that there is a society-wide hatred of Palestinians or willingness to swallow a government line. In fact, if there's one trait that is shared by all of the Israelis I've known, it's a deep and darkly funny cynicism about official claims. I don't believe I've ever spoken with an Israeli who would take a government statement at face value, even if it were a government they supported. The only people I've known who share this trait as deeply are Argentines, who of course also have good reasons for their jaundiced view of the state.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's probably a mistake to assume that the statements of Netanyahu and his cabinet represent the views of the Israeli people, just as someone from outside the US would have got a very wrong understanding if they assumed that the statements of Donald Trump (or Joe Biden, for that matter) represented the views of Americans generally.

* most? many? not obvious what actually you're asserting here, feel free to clarify if you like, I don't want to misstate your position

Israeli inquest into alleged abuse of Palestinian detainees sparks far-right fury (Guardian)

An investigation by the Israeli military into the alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee at a notorious military detention camp for prisoners captured in Gaza has sparked protests from members of Israel’s far right. The Israeli military said on Monday the office of its advocate general ordered an inquiry “following suspected substantial abuse of a detainee” at the Sde Teiman facility, which holds Palestinian detainees, including alleged members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces involved in the 7 October attack... Nine soldiers were detained, accused of “serious abuse of a detainee”, according to Israel’s army radio, while the 10th was expected to be arrested later as he was not at the base when the police arrived. But the operation triggered an angry confrontation between the military police and IDF soldiers at Sde Teiman... The detentions also prompted outcry from members of Israel’s far right, including a coalition of extreme-right members of parliament and their supporters who attempted to storm the military base in protest. Late on Monday, protesters also targeted a second base where the soldiers were being questioned, with violent confrontations continuing into the evening...

Israeli protesters enter army base after soldiers held over Gaza detainee abuse (BBC)

Israeli far-right protesters have broken into an army base in a show of support for soldiers accused of severely mistreating a Palestinian prisoner there. Large crowds gathered outside the Sde Teiman compound after Israeli military police entered it to detain the reservists, who are now subject to an official investigation. Sde Teiman near Beersheba in southern Israel has for months been at the centre of reports of serious abuses against Gazan detainees. On Monday dozens of protesters, including far-right MPs from Israel's governing coalition, burst through the base's gate as others tried to scale the fence, chanting “we will not abandon our friends, certainly not for terrorists”. Some soldiers at the base reportedly used pepper spray against the military police personnel who arrived to detain the reservists. Demonstrators also entered the Beit Lid military base in central Israel where the accused reservists have been taken for questioning...

>151 lriley: I'm afraid you've let a bit of Republican propaganda slip past your defenses. Warren did not claim she was a Native American. That was a lie that does not deserve repetition.
It's been a while, so I may not remember the details exactly, but my understanding is that she filled out a form (in college, I think, so quite a while back) asking about ethnic background and demographics, and based on what her family had told her, she checked a box claiming to have some trace of Native American ancestry, which, although it may have turned out to not be true, was apparently what she had grown up believing. So we're talking about the difference between ancestry and tribal status, which is pretty significant. For example, I have a Jewish ancestor - my maternal grandfather - but I was not raised identifying as a Jew, practicing Judaism, attending a synagogue, celebrating Jewish holidays, etc, etc. So I'm in a similar situation to Warren in this regard: I have Jewish ancestry, but culturally speaking I'm not Jewish.

I know Warren has denied ever claiming to be Native American, and as far as I know nobody has ever produced anything to contradict that claim.

It's not a huge deal now, of course, but I wanted to mention it because if these lying liars are going to tell lies, I figure we should probably make them do the work for themselves, and we should not help them out. And also, one of the purveyors of that lie, a particularly unsavory local Nazi sympathizer, is currently trying to gather signatures to get on the Massachusetts ballot as a Presidential candidate, and his people have been hanging around in front of the coffee shop I like to go to, so I'm getting reminded of this episode more often than I'd like, and that pisses me off a little bit.

‘Deep moral deterioration’ being normalised in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Guardian)

Ministers and mobs protesting at arrests for torture of Palestinians shows diminishing respect for rule of law and human dignity...

>155 John5918: ......and an argument in the Israeli Knesset on whether or not it's okay for Israeli guards to rape captured insurgents/inmates with a (very hot) metal stick. At least some thinking yes. The military prison at Sde Teimen being the hotbed for tortured prisoners and angry mobs trying to free arrested guards.

I've read a lot in the past about the Pinochet and Argentine dictatorships. The United States at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning trained a lot of the torturer interrogators throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's. Many of these torturers became so inured in their evil that they end up having the psychologies of serial killers. They crossed a rubicon and so far gone afterwards that they could never re-cross. It's very possible to throw away your humanity as in 'deep moral deterioration'. I'm sure many of the same stories are all over Africa as well.

Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine (Pax Christi International)

Incidentally Unarmed Civilian Protection has proved effective in many parts of the world, including South Sudan.

From Reuters today:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-used-dogs-waterboarding-palestinian-060411508....

How Israel treats Palestinian detainees has been an ongoing issue long before Oct. 7. For one thing they arrest Palestinian children as adults.....throw them in men's prisons where they are abused--often sexually abused by prison staff. The above article is sadly also typical of much that I've read before and it has eerie echoes to WWII Nazi era work/deathcamps. Perhaps we'll find out eventually but I've also seen rumored at least a couple times that the Israelis have been harvesting organs out of captured Palestinians to transplant them into their own citizens/soldiers and then disappearing the victim. We'll see in time. These things usually don't stay hidden forever.

There was another article about destruction of community water wells in Gaza---the mention of 30 of them just this month. Already suffering greatly from a lack of clean water and sanitation the Israelis deliberately strive to make it worse.

To speak to Kiparsky's concerns whether I actually know any Israelis. I'm not sure what difference that would make. I've read a bit over the years books, articles by an assortment of authors. I've watched hundreds and hundreds of videos from an assortment of people/organizations as well. I've been interested for a long time and though I think Kiparsky is a very astute commentator on American politics on the subject of Israel/Palestine it seems he has a lot of catching up to do. I get that it's almost impossible to keep up on every subject and everything and one has to choose. It's probably not healthy to do what Norman Finkelstein (one of Israel's greatest critics) does.....a kind of unrelenting year after year critique. One needs to take a break at times. What's been happening for years and years though is a systematic assault on the Palestinians by the Israeli govt. which includes teaching Israelis from an early age that they are chosen and the Palestinians are dirt.

>158 lriley: The reason I asked about your personal experience with individual Israelis is because I understood you to be asserting that Israelis in general despise Palestinians and support their government's actions in Gaza, a claim which does not line up with the views of Israelis I've known (or indeed of American Jews I've known). I would certainly not say that I've met any Israelis who believe that they are "chosen" or that Palestinians are "dirt", or anything even remotely similar. Again, I believe that such people exist, but that they are a minority.

But my experience, like anyone's, is limited, so I'm interested in knowing whether your views are based on any personal experience, or, if not, where they come from, since if they are well-founded then I would want to update my beliefs.

Amb. Chas Freeman: Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh - New Devastating Escalations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1exlWPj6fA

"If you are serious about negotiating a hostage release and a ceasefire, you don't murder your opposite number at the negotiating table."

>160 davidgn: Turning point for my dad was the night in 58/59 when Israelis invited UN Peacekeeper officers to a lovely dinner party. Israelis used dinner as cover for attack (on Palestinians).

Gideon Levy interviewed.

Netanyahu's end game: Why Israel assassinated Hamas chief in Iran | Gideon Levy | The Big Picture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9JB8jMu3lk

Haniyeh was the guy they were negotiating a ceasefire/hostage deal with. He was the same they reached a deal with months ago that got them back about half of their hostages. What this says to me is they're not interested in any more ceasefire/hostage deals. Why would you want to make a deal with somebody intent on murdering you afterwards. Noted that Biden's spokesperson Admiral Kirby saying it's still possible. That guy says all kinds of shit though and strikes me as a complete tool. By murdering Haniyeh Netanyahu may have signed the death warrants of whatever living hostages Hamas is still holding. I don't believe Hamas will murder them but if we're talking months more of captivity their succumbing to a bomb strike, starvation or a medical emergency for which there is no treatment because of lack of medication or even medical personnel or hospital facilities to treat them increases exponentially more with more time. The hostages are closing in on a year now and the situation is dire on many fronts in Gaza. I don't know if there is much hope left for them at this point and Netanyahu just doesn't to care at all.

My take as well is killing off Hamas leaders does not really damage Hamas' ability to continue fighting on. More or less it's just a news headline to try to show the Israeli public that Israel is winning the war and it's not. Haniyeh was not a battlefield guy but in any case if he were other people would be already in place to step up. Paramilitary forces are constructed with the premise that if you belong you understand from the beginning that unless and until victory comes your chances of dying or going to prison are about 100%. They are committed to that. The idea of the Viet Cong for instance was to outlast their oppressors no matter how many of their people died. They were willing to grind it out for 20 years or however long it took and they've been a model for irregular paramilitary groups ever since. Hamas is not going away unless Israel drops a nuke on Gaza. The same is going to be the case with Hezbollah and also the Houthis.

Something also to keep in mind about Haniyeh. He lived in Qatar for some years and the Israelis could have easily tracked and killed him there including since last October. They instead decide to murder him when he goes to the event in Tehran for the new elected head of Iran bringing the Iranians into this and they didn't have to do that....Israel chose to do it. They want a war with Iran as long as they can bring the United States military into the conflict on their side......and it makes sense in that if there is a nation that seems like it might fight their battles for them and help save their tanking economy it's ours. It also makes sense doing it now in that if Biden comes in with our military on their side against Iran it kind of puts Harris (if she wins against Trump) already in the battle when she's sworn in in January and if Trump wins in November they're already counting on him anyway.

Somehow I don't think Burns can orchestrate another face-saving offramp. Not this time. Too many spinning plates.

Hold on, everyone. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/netanyahu-defiant-appears-gone-rogue-181538517.html

Article appearing in The NY Times (very definitely the mainstream media) today under the byline of a two time Pulitzer Prize winner and someone who Wikipedia describes as The NY Times chief diplomatic correspondent for Europe. Pretty negative article on Bibi just one week or so away from his 58 standing ovations speaking to congress in Washington DC. If the Times is turning on him I don't think it's going to be that long before other mainstream media in the United States do as well and whatever Bibi told Biden administration officials last week apparently he didn't tell them he was planning on murdering the chief negotiator for Hamas in Tehran....perhaps kickstarting a regional war. It basically pulled the rug out from under the US State Dept. and whatever diplomatic moves they were involved in to get a ceasefire and calm tensions in the region. I don't think it's farfetched at all to say that this was a gambit by Bibi to provoke a war with Iran and get us and our military in on his side. This guy and his allies in the Knesset pretty much are very much in the running for biggest assholes on the planet. We don't really need them. They don't really do anything for us that we really need. Time to cut bait.