JANUARY 23, 2024
A senior member of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says the Israel is collapsing at all levels as the regime is committing the most egregious crimes against humanity.
Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, made the statement on Sunday as he pointed to the latest developments regarding Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“The Zionist regime is collapsing by committing the biggest crimes against humanity at the internal, social, military and political levels and, today, has been brought to international courts,” Hamad said, referring to lawsuits lodged by South Africa and Indonesia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the regime’s rights violations in the Gaza war.
“Now, this opportunity has been provided for all Palestinian groups to adopt a firm stance and force the international community to reclaim the rights of our nation.”
Hamad also praised South Africa for its “great” position at the Hague-based tribunal and said the move will “go down in history.”
Stressing that the Israeli regime aims to impose a political solution on Palestinians, the Hamas official said the resistance movement has robust means to confront the occupying entity.
“We will not accept that they once again lie to the Palestinian people, the Zionist regime cannot impose a political solution on us,” Hamad said, adding, “We have very strong pressure levers and the facilities to deal with the enemy. Anyone who follows the Zionist enemy’s news will see that there is confusion and disputes among the heads of the Israeli regime.”
The Israeli regime president is handed war criminal charges in Switzerland over the Zionist forces ongoing genocidal war against Gazan Palestinians.
Isaac Herzog, the Israeli regime’s president, was targeted by Swiss prosecutors on Friday over the Zionist forces’ genocidal war on the defenseless Palestinians in the besieged territory.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office (BA) said Herzog was handed criminal charges during his visit to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance groups of Hamas and Islamic Jihad conducted the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
More than 100 days into the campaign, the regime has achieved no objectives despite killing more than 24,900 people, mostly women and children.
The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
https://orinocotribune.com/israel-colla ... esistance/
Is a Huge War Coming? US Bombs Yemen, Iraq & Syria. Israel Bombs Gaza & Lebanon. Both Threaten Iran
JANUARY 23, 2024
By Ben Norton – Jan 18, 2024
The US military is attacking Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, while Israel bombs Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. Both are threatening Iran. Is a large Middle East (West Asia) war coming?
The brutal war that Israel is waging on Gaza is increasingly becoming a regional conflict.
Since October, the United States and Israel have bombed not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Now, the U.S. government is even threatening Iran with war. President Joe Biden sent the Iranian government a private message while the U.S. military was bombing Yemen on January 13. He said threateningly, “We’re confident, we’re well prepared”.
While this is happening, South Africa has introduced a case in the International Court of Justice, the top United Nations judicial authority, which accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
South Africa’s case has garnered support from dozens of countries across the Global South.
This case has frightened Israel and its sponsors in Washington. They are apparently seeking to expand the conflict into a regional war, to try to win more sympathy and to turn attention away from what South Africa and many countries have referred to as a genocide in Gaza.
In fact, top UN experts have been warning precisely this for months: that the Palestinian people face “the risk of genocide in Gaza”, and that there has been a “failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide”.
The Financial Times reported in December that, in just two months of Israeli bombing, Gaza had become one of the most heavily bombed areas in human history.
Now that Israel faces formal charges of genocide at the Hague, many officials in Washington are concerned, because the U.S. is directly complicit in the war crimes that Israel is committing.
The Joe Biden administration has sent billions of dollars of weapons and military aid to Israel.
In fact, the US State Department has bypassed Congress two times, using emergency measures to send weapons to Israel. This is rather strange, because Congress is full of people who strongly support Israel, and would without a doubt have approved these arms shipments.
This appears to indicate that the US government does not even want a debate about these arms shipments. Washington is concerned about people focusing their attention on its complicity in arming Israel. So it is simply choosing to do so quietly, without Congress’ approval.
And the U.S. is involved in these conflicts in many other ways, not simply by arming Israel.
In fact, the U.S. military has 57,000 personnel stationed all across the so-called Middle East, or more accurately, West Asia.
These are just the U.S. military personnel that are publicly disclosed. It is likely that the U.S. also has covert special operations forces that are not accounted for among this 57,000.
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The U.S. has more than 57,000 personnel in the Middle East.
Eastern Mediterranean: 12.500
Jordan: 3.500
Egypt: 500
Syria: 900
Iraq: 2.000
Israel: 100
Saudi Arabia: 2.500
Kuwait: 10.000
Bahrain: 4.500
Qatar: 10.000
UAE: 5.000
Red Sea: 4.500
Source: FT
In just a few months, the U.S. has bombed Yemen, Iraq, and Syria.
On January 11, the United States launched airstrikes against dozens of targets in Yemen.
The New York Times referred to these as US attacks on the so-called “Houthi militia” in Yemen. But this is very misleading.
The “Houthis”, which are officially known as Ansarullah, represent the government for the majority of the Yemeni population.
This was acknowledged even by the mainstream Washington, DC-based think tank the Brookings Institution. It published an article in 2023 by a former CIA analyst, Bruce Riedel, who admitted that “the Houthis have created a functioning government”, one that “includes representatives of other groups”.
“Some 70 to 80% of Yemenis live under the Houthis’ control”, Riedel wrote.
He conceded that Ansarullah had its origins in the grassroots in Yemen, opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Washington’s subsequent wars and interventionist policies across West Asia.
At Brookings, the former CIA analyst likewise confessed that the United States had spent six years supporting a scorched-earth “war led by a neighbor most Yemenis hate”, that is to say, Saudi Arabia. He added, “Air strikes, blockades, and intentional mass starvation are the characteristics of a war the United States has supported”.
The United Nations estimated that this U.S.-Saudi war killed at least 377,000 Yemenis from 2015 to the end of 2021.
So when the United States launched dozens of attacks inside Yemen this January, Washington was continuing a war that it has waged against the de facto Yemeni government for nearly nine years. The so-called “Houthis” are not just a “militia”; they are leading the government.
And while it was previously Saudi Arabia that was relentlessly bombing civilian areas in Yemen (using U.S.-made planes and bombs, with intelligence and targeting assistance from the Pentagon), now it is the United States that is cutting out the middle man and attacking Yemen directly.
Moreover, the New York Times acknowledged in its report on the Biden administration’s airstrikes that Ansarullah has “greeted the prospect of war with the United States with open delight”.
One of Ansarullah’s most important leaders said in a televised speech, “We, the Yemeni people, are not among those who are afraid of America. We are comfortable with a direct confrontation with the Americans”.
As if that weren’t enough, after this prominent Yemeni leader said publicly that his country is prepared to fight against the United States, a day later, on January 12, the U.S. again launched airstrikes against Yemen.
Reporting on the second US attack, the New York Times commented, “The strikes come amid fears of a wider escalation of the conflict in the Middle East”.
This description is quite euphemistic. In reality, the U.S. is creating a wider conflict in the region by expanding the war, and attacking not only Yemen, but also Iraq and Syria.
US attacks Iraq
On January 4, the Biden administration carried out an act of war against Iraq.
The New York Times reported that the U.S. launched a drone strike in the capital Baghdad. An Iraqi government spokesman referred to this as a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and security of Iraq”. He characterized the U.S. attack as “no different from a terrorist act”.
The U.S. targeted an Iraqi militia known as Harakat al-Nujaba. This organization is part of the Iraqi government, the New York Times conceded, writing that “it remains part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a security organization that is in turn part of the government’s broader security forces”.
So the U.S. was attacking Iraq’s security forces.
However, in 2019, the Donald Trump administration had declared this Iraqi state institution to be a so-called “terrorist” organization. And now the Biden administration is continuing Trump’s policy of attacking the Iraqi government.
In response to Washington’s assault on his country, Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, publicly called for the U.S.-led foreign troops in his country to leave.
U.S. troops have consistently occupied Iraq since the illegal invasion of 2003. The U.S. war has gone through phases, but it has basically never ended.
It should be emphasized that al-Sudani is by no means an anti-U.S. leader. In Iraqi politics, there are many anti-U.S. figures; he is not one of them. But even he is now publicly stating that Washington needs to stop occupying and attacking his country, and that its troops need to leave.
Nevertheless, the website Breaking Defense, which is close to the Pentagon, responded to al-Sudani’s comments reporting: “Despite Iraqi PM’s call, US troops won’t likely leave Iraq anytime soon”. It cited U.S. analysts with internal access.
So this is essentially acknowledgment that the U.S. maintains a neo-colonial occupation of Iraq.
This is not the first time that this has happened. Back in January 2020, Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the senior Iraqi security official Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. The latter was a commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are officially part of the Iraqi government, and which were absolutely instrumental in the war against ISIS.
These leaders, Soleimani and al-Muhandis, were two of the most important people in the fight to defeat ISIS. Trump assassinated both of them in a blatant act of war, not only against Iran, but also against Iraq.
In response to this U.S. act of war, Iraq’s democratically elected parliament (which was ironically created by the United States) voted to expel the U.S. troops occupying the country.
Trump say no, refusing to leave. The far-right U.S. president then threatened to impose sanctions on Iraq.
Misleading media propaganda on ‘Iran-backed’ groups
Despite the U.S. government’s flagrantly neo-colonial policies, the Western media’s coverage of Iraq essentially portrays the situation as if Iran were secretly in control of the country.
When the U.S. carries out acts of war against Iraq, killing Iraqi officials who are part of the Iraqi state’s security apparatus, the Western media misleadingly describes these murdered Iraqi officials as “pro-Iran military commanders”.
This propagandistic rhetoric is reminiscent of how the Western media invariably refers to Yemen’s so-called Houthis, Ansarullah, as “Iran- backed”, trying to depict them as Iranian proxies. The same is true for Lebanon’s indigenous resistance group Hezbollah.
This is part and parcel of a Western media propaganda narrative that seeks to justify U.S. acts of war and neo-colonial policies against sovereign governments across West Asia.
US attacks Syria
Another clear example of this is recent U.S. attacks in Syria.
In November, the U.S. military launched airstrikes in sovereign Syrian territory. The BBC reported on this illegal U.S. act of war writing, “US airstrikes target more Iran-backed bases in Syria”.
The double standard is quite clear when one considers how these same Western media outlets would never dare to refer to attacks by Palestinian groups on Israeli military forces as strikes on “pro-U.S. forces” in “U.S.-backed bases”.
In fact, as Geopolitical Economy Report has documented, the U.S. is maintaining an illegal military occupation of Syria, and in particular of the nation’s oil-rich territory, where much of its wheat is also produced.
The stated policy of U.S. officials is to starve the Syrian government of revenue that it needs to rebuild after a decade of war fueled by the United States devastated the country.
In December, there was a resolution introduced in the Senate calling to withdraw the U.S. troops occupying Syria’s oil fields. It failed to pass in a vote of 13 to 84.
Israel attacks Syria
While the U.S. is bombing Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, Israel is also attacking multiple countries in the region.
In October, Israel repeatedly bombed airports in Syria, in both Aleppo and Damascus, killing Syrian troops.
In January, Israel launched many more attacks on Syria. And once again, the Western media misleadingly portrayed these Israeli acts of war as “strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria”.
The Western media seeks to make everything about Iran, implying that Tehran controls all of these governments, when in reality it is the U.S. and Israel that are at war with many sovereign states in the region.
Israel attacks Lebanon
Israel has also been repeatedly assaulting its neighbor, Lebanon.
Amnesty International acknowledged that Israel has attacked southern Lebanon with white phosphorus, a horrific weapon that is banned by many countries.
Amnesty International emphasized that Israel has been killing Lebanese civilians in illegal, “indiscriminate” attacks.
But Israel is not only attacking southern Lebanon; it has also carried out drone strikes inside Beirut, the capital of the country.
Lebanon’s resistance group Hezbollah has long defended the country’s sovereignty, expelling Israel in 2000 after the colonial regime carried out an illegal military occupation of Lebanon for 15 years.
Hezbollah has said Israel’s attacks in the capital Beirut cross a red line and are risking a wider regional war.
U.S. and Israel threaten Iran with war
While the Western media warns that U.S. and Israeli attacks on countries in the region “raise the specter of a wider regional war”, the reality is that Washington and Tel Aviv are already at war with Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
It is obvious that the main target of U.S. and Israeli neo-colonial wars in West Asia is Iran.
This was confirmed by a former top U.S. military general and NATO commander, Wesley Clark, who revealed back in 2007 that, after the attacks on September 11, 2001, Washington made plans to overthrow the governments of seven countries in the region in five years.
In an interview with Democracy Now host Amy Goodman, Clark said that the U.S. had plans “to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.
In late 2023 and early 2024, the U.S. government has made this link clearly in public statements. Washington publicly blamed Iran for Ansarullah in Yemen launching attacks on ships in the Red Sea that are traveling to Israel, that are providing support to Tel Aviv as it carries out war crimes and faces charges of genocide at the Hague.
A top U.S. official claimed, “Iran is a primary, if not the primary enabler or supporter or sponsor of the Houthis”, and the U.S. government claimed that Iran is “involved in every phase” of what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called “illegal, dangerous and destabilizing attacks against U.S. and international vessels and commercial vessels”.
War hawks in Washington are using this as an opportunity to openly call for a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
John Bolton, the neoconservative extremist who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser and was an architect of the Iraq War under former President George W Bush, published an article in the conservative British newspaper The Telegraph titled “The West may now have no option but to attack Iran”.
Bolton released that call for war on Iran on December 28. He likely coordinated it with Israel’s former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who on the same day published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “The U.S. and Israel Need to Take Iran on Directly”.
In his article, Bennett boasted that when he was prime minister, Israel carried out numerous attacks on Iranian soil. He also admitted that Tel Aviv assassinated Iranian officials.
Bennett called to “empower domestic opposition [in Iran], ensure internet continuity during riots against the regime, strengthen its enemies, increase sanctions and economic pressures”.
In his last paragraph, Naftali Bennett said in no uncertain terms, “The U.S. and Israel must set the clear goal of bringing down Iran’s evil regime”.
Using colonial language, the former Israeli prime minister declared that the so-called “civilized world” must overthrow Iran’s government.
This is clearly what all of this is heading toward: Some bellicose officials in the U.S. and Israeli governments want not only a wider regional war, but more specifically a full-out war against Iran.
Many of these hard-line imperialists in Washington have salivated for many years at the idea of war with Tehran. Back in 2015, Bolton wrote an article for the New York Times straightforwardly titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”.
In fact, Michael Freund, a former spokesman for Israel’s current far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, published an op-ed this January in the Jerusalem Post titled “Iran is already at war with Israel and the US”. In this piece, he insisted that “Israel and America must act now”, calling for war with Tehran.
Freund’s bio conspicuously noted that he was previously “deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”. It is quite possible that he coordinated this article with Netanyahu himself.
On January 3, there was a terror attack on civilians in the Iranian city of Kerman. More than 90 Iranians were killed, at an event that was commemorating the anniversary of the Trump administration’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general.
Western media outlets claimed that “ISIS” carried out this attack. Iranian intelligence officials said one of the terrorists who planted the bombs that killed at least 94 civilians had Israeli nationality.
(Geopolitical Economy)
https://orinocotribune.com/is-a-huge-wa ... aten-iran/
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How Gaza is impacting the Great Power standoff
While China-led multipolarity has accelerated the decline of the American era, the war in Gaza may end it altogether.
Mohamad Hasan Sweidan
JAN 24, 2024
Photo Credit: The Cradle
What is unfolding today in West Asia — the Gaza war and its regional expansion — cannot be viewed separately from the international transformations that have grown in momentum over the past few years. Today, the transition to multipolarity is the underlying factor shaping the decisions and policies of most countries, particularly those of the great powers.
The timing of Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza coincides with heightened US attention on its great power competition for Washington, this conflict has much wider geopolitical significance beyond West Asia. In this context, the US has assumed, and will continue to play, a pivotal role in Gaza and its environs, unlike its powerful peers in China and Russia.
According to statistics published by the China Society for Human Rights Studies, the US initiated 201 of the 248 armed conflicts that took place since the end of World War II, often engaging in these wars via US-led alliances and/or proxies.
The most prominent wars led or supported by the United States in West Asia since 1990
For decades, Washington has led these conflicts by very ably forming, then leading, and directing broad alliances to achieve its political and military objectives. But that ability notably shifted in December 2023, signaling a sharp decline in this capability.
In response to Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned armed forces' Red Sea blockade of Israeli-linked vessels, the US Department of Defense announced the formation of "Operation Guardian of Prosperity … to uphold the foundational principle of freedom of navigation” in those waters, initially consisting of a coalition of ten countries, most of them insignificant partners.
Protecting Israel or maintaining maritime dominance?
The coalition proved shaky from the get-go, with only the US and Britain actively involved in military strikes on Yemen. The reluctance of key European countries France, Spain, and Italy to join the naval alliance indicated a growing skepticism among the US's traditional partners — both western and West Asian — about Washington’s commitment and capability to defend its allies in any impactful way.
Interestingly, more than eight further countries reportedly joined the coalition, but demanded anonymity, given the potential political fallout from associating with Washington and Tel Aviv.
Crucially, the Pentagon's stated purpose of securing navigation in the Red Sea does not align with the actual threat presented, revealing ulterior motives behind US actions. The Yemenis have repeatedly confirmed that they only intend to inhibit the passage of Israeli-owned or destined vessels — and that all other ships are free to pass.
In short, the US/UK-led coalition is acting as a naval arm for Israeli military forces, seeking specifically to ensure unimpeded access for ships heading to Israeli ports via the Bab al-Mandab Strait. That's not a position many other states will get behind if they want to maintain freedom of transport for their own shipping vessels.
Ultimately, the American show of force in these waterways seeks to consolidate US naval dominance, which war-torn Yemen, West Asia's poorest country, has contested.
As outlined in the National Security Strategy for 2022:
The US “will not allow foreign or regional powers to jeopardize freedom of navigation through the Middle East’s (West Asia) waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al Mandab, nor tolerate efforts by any country to dominate another — or the region — through military buildups, incursions, or threats.”
According to media reports following massive US airstrikes against Iraqi targets on 23 January, Iraqi resistance factions will now also follow Yemen's suit by implementing a blockade of Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea.
Current events are spiraling out of Washington's control as onlookers increasingly question the utility and competence of US naval leadership in the world's important waterways. Equally, there is recognition that other formidable forces and states have emerged, challenging US control over key global straits. In the words of British politician and writer Walter Raleigh, "Who rules the seas rules the world." Under Sanaa’s watch, the US no longer can claim rule over the Red Sea or even its adjacent waterways.
Great power competition amid the Gaza war
The current scenario in West Asia, particularly post-Al-Aqsa Flood and the Gaza war that followed, coincides with a shift in Washington's focus toward competition with China and its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. As outlined in the US intelligence community's annual threat assessment last year, this transition has already affected strategic goals, leading to a sharp decline in western support, especially from the US, for Ukraine. The Biden administration faced challenges in securing Congressional approval for a new aid package for Kiev, which directly competed for dollars against Tel Aviv’s military campaign in Gaza.
Aid paid to Ukraine in 2023 under presidential withdrawal powers
Despite assurances from western leaders during visits to Ukraine in October, their statements came without tangible material support, leaving President Volodymyr Zelensky in the proverbial dust. Quite unexpectedly, China has emerged as a potential peacemaker in this European conflict, with Kiev openly requesting Beijing's involvement in mediation talks, and the US itself open to Chinese mediation to mitigate the escalation in West Asia.
The Chinese are well aware that there are no simple, face-saving exits for the US from the Gaza war it has championed and that the conflict's metamorphosis into a regional one mires the US deeper into West Asia — and away from the Asia-Pacific.
Although China seeks to increase its presence in West Asia, it is very careful not to bog itself down in the region's many issues. But Washington's request that Beijing use its influence to sway Iran from conflict escalation makes clear that the US is no longer “the biggest power” in the region.
Why Israel opposes multipolarity
Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, US financial and military support for Israel has reached a critical stage, presenting two options for Washington. The first involves imposing some control on Israeli actions, given that the war's timing has been unfavorable to US strategic interests, particularly in a critical election year. The second option, favored by the Washington elite, is to continue its unwavering support to Tel Aviv, even at the risk of damage to its global image.
Sustained global outrage over the Gaza war, coupled with the landmark genocide case filed against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), shows that Washington's ability to cover for Israel is diminishing rapidly. Again, this reflects the global shift in the balance of power toward multipolarity, which is marked by the widespread decline of American influence.
But the US support for the Gaza genocide has had dramatic domestic repercussions, too. Polls show a major shift in the attitudes of young Americans, especially university youth, who will make up the ranks of America's future leaders.
A Harvard-Harris poll published on 17 January reveals that 46 percent of respondents aged 18-24 believe that Hamas' actions on 7 October can be justified because of the injustice to which the Palestinians are subjected. The same poll shows that 43 percent of the same group support Hamas in this war, and that 57 percent believe that Israel is carrying out massacres in Gaza. The most staggering poll result of all, though, has to be the one in December (conducted by the same pollsters) in which 51 percent of young Americans believe a final solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is for Israel to end and be given to Hamas and the Palestinians.
While Israel remains a direct US interest in West Asia, Washington's commitment to Tel Aviv's security has already become a growing burden and increasingly difficult to justify. As the region's Axis of Resistance expands its battle with Israel on new, multiple frontlines, the US will need to reallocate ever-expanding resources and focus on matching its international rivals in further-flung geographies.
Ukraine was a test run compared to this Gaza war and the immense, direct toll it is taking on US alliances, domestic politics, and the American image globally. For Israel, this presents an existential crisis beyond measure, as Washington is forced to compete with other great powers, none of whom are ideologically driven to support Zionism as part of their foreign policies.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/how-g ... r-standoff
Israeli army, police repeat false claims of Hamas atrocities
Israeli officials continue to recycle false stories blaming Hamas for committing horrific atrocities on 7 October
News Desk
JAN 23, 2024
Remains of destruction on Kibbutz Be'eri seen on October 11, 2023. (Photo credit: Lazar Berman / Times of Israel)
Recent claims made by a senior Israeli army officer and police spokesperson regarding alleged atrocities committed by Hamas during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood are false, Haaretz newspaper reported on 21 January.
On 20 January, Lt. Col. Guy Basson, deputy commander of the Israeli army's Kfir Brigade, claimed in an interview with Channel 14 that fighters from Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, murdered eight infants and a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp on 7 October.
Speaking to Channel 14, Basson claimed: "We get to Kibbutz Be'eri, and I'm confronted with two main scenarios. One was from the children's nursery… where [the eight infants] were simply slaughtered and murdered." When the interviewer asked him in response," Did you see the children inside…?" Basson responded: "A house. Eight babies, eight dead babies."
Basson later added: "Another image that stuck with me is Genia, of blessed memory, an elderly woman from Kibbutz Be'eri. I see the number engraved on her arm, and you say to yourself, she went through the Holocaust in Auschwitz and ended up dying on Kibbutz Be'eri."
However, Haaretz reported that the incidents described in the interview never took place.
Haaretz reported there is no survivor of Germany’s World War II concentration camps named Genia in Be'eri.
The liberal Israeli daily noted that “Regarding the claim that eight babies were murdered in a kibbutz nursery, to this day there is no known case in any of the surrounding communities where children from several families were murdered together.”
In Kibbutz Be'eri, one baby, Mila Cohen, 10 months old, was killed on 7 October, along with her father, Ohad, when Qassam fighters shot through the door of the safe room in their home, hitting both Ohad and Mila on the other side, in an apparent bid to take them captive to Gaza.
A Kibbutz Be'eri spokesperson rejected Lt. Col. Basson’s claims, stating, "Nearly one hundred people were murdered on Kibbutz Be'eri, and the community suffered hundreds of heartbreaking incidents on that Black Saturday and over the past months, especially regarding the hostages. However, incidents such as eight murdered babies and a murdered Holocaust survivor named Genia – did not happen."
An Israeli army spokesperson said, "The events in question will be investigated and examined. There was no intention to describe a reality that didn't happen, and we apologize if anyone was offended. We will set the record straight and clarify to all commanders involved in the media effort."
Channel 14 declined to respond to an inquiry by Haaretz, and the interview still appears on the channel’s social media accounts.
Haaretz notes that in another recent incident, the Israel Police spokesman for foreign media, Sgt. Dean Elsdunne, made an incorrect claim that "pregnant women were sliced open" by Qassam fighters on 7 October. The police spokesman was echoing a previous incorrect claim made by a member of the Zaka rescue organization that collected bodies for burial according to Jewish custom.
A police source said that "after the matter was checked, the incident was clarified to the police officer."
Following the 7 October Hamas attack, Israeli army soldiers and spokespersons made numerous false claims to portray Hamas as carrying out a massacre against Israeli civilians rather than a military operation to liberate Gaza from decades of Israeli siege, blockade, and bombardment.
The army has sought to hide its own role in killing many Israeli civilians when they responded to the Hamas attack with overwhelming firepower, including from Apache attack helicopters, Merkava tanks, and armed Zik drones. In some cases, Israeli civilians were killed by the army deliberately to prevent them being taken captive to Gaza by Hamas, per the controversial Israeli military doctrine known as the Hannibal Directive.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/israe ... atrocities
Damascus protests Jordanian strikes in southern Syria
Jordan carried out airstrikes last week against alleged drug smugglers in Suwayda, killing ten civilians, including women and children
News Desk
JAN 23, 2024
Rubble from a destroyed building lies in the aftermath of a suspected Jordanian airstrike on what is given as Sweida, Syria, in this picture obtained from social media released January 18, 2024. (Photo credit: Suwayda 24 via REUTERS/File Photo)
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on 23 January expressing its deep regret at Jordan for launching air strikes inside Syrian territory.
The Jordanian army has intensified its campaign against what it claims are Iran-linked drug smugglers active on its border with Syria in the past few weeks.
Reuters reported that a Jordanian airstrike in Syria’s southern Suwayda governorate on 18 January killed ten civilians, including women and children, citing regional intelligence sources and local residents and witnesses.
The ministry added that “there is no justification for such military operations inside Syrian territory” and that the recent political, media, and military escalation “is not consistent with what was agreed upon between the joint committees of the two countries.”
The Syrian Foreign Ministry stressed that Damascus continues to “confront all practices and crimes related to drug smuggling.”
On Tuesday, the Syrian Ministry of Defense reported that border guard forces shot down a drone near the border with Jordan.
The ministry added on its Facebook page that the Syrian Armed Forces succeeded in dismantling several explosive devices on the side of a road in the countryside of Daraa Governorate.
The Jordanian army says it has repeatedly clashed with criminal gangs in southern Syria seeking to transport weapons, drugs, and explosives across the border.
Jordan claims Syria has become a hub for the production of illicit drugs as a result of the security vacuum and economic crisis that resulted from the decade-long Syria war that began in 2011.
During the war, Amman became a base for foreign intelligence agencies, including from the US, UK, and Saudi Arabia, seeking to support an Al-Qaeda-led insurgency against Damascus.
The two countries reestablished ties earlier this year as part of the broader normalization of relations between Syria and the regional Arab states, which had sought to destabilize it.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/damas ... hern-syria
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KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA – OCTOBER 16: A man cries because his home was bombed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on October 16, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Gazans are evacuating to the south following warnings to do so from the Israeli government, ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive. Israel has sealed off Gaza and launched sustained retaliatory air strikes, which have killed at least 2,500 people with more than 400,000 displaced, after a large-scale attack by Hamas. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza by land, sea, and air, killing over 1,300 people and wounding around 2,800. Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been taken hostage by Hamas and moved into Gaza. The attack prompted a declaration of war by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the announcement of an emergency wartime government. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images/TheNewArab)
Western feminism and the dehumanization of Palestinian men
Originally published: The New Arab on January 18, 2024 by Hebh Jamal (more by The New Arab) | (Posted Jan 24, 2024)
Earlier this month, TalkTV host, Julia Hartley-Brewer, interviewed Palestinian parliamentarian Dr Mustafa Barghouti.
Throughout the segment, Hartley-Brewer continuously shouted at Barghouti as he spoke about Israel’s relentless war on Gaza.
As Barghouti tried to respond, Hartley-Brewer angrily shouted at him:
Maybe you are not used to women talking, I don’t know!
While Hartley-Brewer wrongly accused her guest of misogyny, Barghouti was calm albeit visibly uncomfortable. She goes on to end her segment again saying:
Sorry to have been a woman speaking to you.
Hartley-Brewer’s outburst perfectly illustrates the moral bankruptcy of Western mainstream attitudes, and Western feminism, towards Palestinian men that routinely dehumanise even the most respected among us.
So much so that it is seldom the mainstream media even sees Palestinian men as worthy enough to be victims of Israeli violence.
Take the interview of Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq who lost 21 members of his family in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike on 22nd October. While at first Good Morning Britain allowed Alnaouq to tell his story and express his grief, it quickly turned into a conversation of the “horrors committed by Hamas, a terrorist organisation.”
Alnaouq was not allowed to express anger, and had to quickly defend himself when stating that there is a clear double standard being perpetuated by the mainstream media.
Nearly 10 years ago, academic and co-founder of Jadaliyya, Maya Mikdashi, wrote a crucial piece titled Can Palestinian Men be Victims?
In it Mikdashi explains that in Western based mass media, there is an emphasis on civilian deaths that are “disproportionately women and children.” She explains that the reiteration of these disturbing facts shows a clear lack of “public mourning of Palestinian men killed by Israel’s war machine.”
[youtube]
Through these 104 days of genocide, Israel has systematically abducted, tortured, and executed, Palestinian men while also bombing them with their families.
Quickly, images of these men in what can only be described as concentration camps, are instead depicted as Hamas fighters without any evidence. In fact, many have identified their loved ones from the Israeli propaganda images and videos, confirming they are in fact civilians.
Since 7th October, pro-Israel advocates have described systematic rape committed by Hamas fighters against Israeli women.
While Palestinian outlets have already pointed to massive flaws with this categorisation, the seeming success of this propaganda has not only created a justification for the genocide unfolding against Gazans, but also has created a predatory view of Palestinian men as violent misogynists at best and dangerous predatory rapists at worst.
On CNN, Representative Pramila Jayapal said that we “have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians,” CNN correspondent Dana Bash replies:
you don’t see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women.
The absurdity of Bash’s comment is of course not met with any real substance or truth. In Gaza, there have been horrifying testimonies of women being forced to strip all their clothes while evacuating with their families, and some reporting they were assaulted and then threatened with rape, including a pregnant woman.
It is not only Palestinian women who are experiencing sexual violence during this war, but multiple reports of it taking place against Palestinian men and boys.
The Palestinian Return Centre found that “reports of sexual abuse have increasingly emerged after more than 100 Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces have been stripped to their underwear, blindfolded and made to kneel on a street in northern Gaza, according to images and videos widely circulated on social media and confirmed by the Israeli army.”
Meanwhile in Israeli prisons, there have been many accounts of Palestinian men and boys experiencing torture and abuse since 7th October.
One particularly shocking account came from former U.S. State Department director, Josh Paul, about the rape of a Palestinian teen in an Israeli prison in 2021, reported by a Palestinian children’s rights organisation Defence for Children International Palestine to the U.S. state department.
When the U.S. state department inquired about such a case, the human rights group was described shortly after as a terrorist organisation along with 5 other social justice groups.
A study conducted by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel collected thousands of testimonies of Palestinian men tortured by Israeli authorities, including sexual torture. The report shows “sexual ill-treatment is systemic”.
Of course, this type of systematic sexual violence does not meet the mainstream. Palestinian men are not seen as victims of war, conflict and unjust imprisonment. Their abuse is often followed by the question,
what did they do to deserve it?
Going back to Hartley-Brewer’s interview with Dr Mustafa Barghouti, her accusation of him “not being used to speaking with women,” is not a new phenomenon. We have seen many times how Western feminism is weaponised to silence and dehumanise Arab and Muslim men.
What the interview also reveals is what Mikdashi describes as the gendering of this horrific war.
“The massifying of women and children into an undistinguishable group brought together by the ‘sameness’ of gender and sex, and the reproduction of the male Palestinian body (and the male Arab body more generally) as always already dangerous.” The status of Palestinian men as victims, she pointed, always remains circumspect.
The gendering of the Palestinian genocide will mean Palestinian men will most likely not have their stories heard, their pain will go unrecognised, and their torture will be categorized as routine practice.
It is up to people of the free world to remind each other that this war is not just a “war against women and children,” it is a war against all and every Palestinian body who has lived under a blockade and brutal siege for over 16 years, and more broadly against Palestinians demanding their liberation since 1948.
https://mronline.org/2024/01/24/western ... inian-men/
SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER
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30 DAYS: ICJ WHAT’S NEXT?
Now, in this scenario it could be referred back to the general assembly, where the UN starts creating mandatory orders for enforcement, like sanctions on Israel.
Jacob
@ejmalrai - 19:36 UTC · Jan 27, 2024
#Gaza have reported inadequate food consumption.
United States: $223 million
Germany: $127.3 million
Canada: $76.8 million
Australia: $20 million
Netherlands: $19 million
United Kingdom: $12.2 million
Italy: $3.27 million
Finland: $5.45 million
Switzerland: $3.3 million
