Palestine

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Oct 22, 2023 2:43 pm

MEMO ON THE FINAL SOLUTION FOR ONE STATE – ISRAEL OR PALESTINE

Image

By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Preamble
1. Since 1943 the US and its European allies, including Germany (Olaf Scholz’s government, not Adolf Hitler’s), have aimed to liquidate the secular nationalist Arab leadership capable of co-existence with the West and a state for the Jewish people.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1 ... 0x600.jpeg
2. In Palestine Hamas has studied seventy-five years of lessons on the impossibility of coordinating Arab state war in the defence of the Palestine part of the two-state solution.

3. For more than a year, therefore, Hamas has prepared in well-kept secret an offensive against Israel to achieve five objectives – the first to demonstrate how inferior the Israeli military is, how vulnerable, how incompetent their intelligence on the Arab world. This has been achieved by the initial attack of October 7.

4. The second Hamas objective has been to demonstrate the Israeli plan of ethnic cleansing of Gaza, genocide against the Arabs, and incorporation of all Israeli-occupied territories in a single theocratic Zionist state — Quod erat demonstrandum. The third objective is to hold out against the expected Israeli counterattack for long enough to activate the Hezbollah forces on the northern Lebanon front; Syrian and Iranian forces on the eastern Golan front; and the West Bank Palestinians, including the Jordanian Palestinians; the latter’s targets will be US air and armoured land force bases in Jordan. So far, so good.

5. The final Hamas objectives are to compel the vacillating sheikhdoms to resist US pressure; limit oil and gas supplies to the enemy markets; prevent regional land base and air transit rights being activated in support of Israel — so far, so good. And lastly, the fifth objective, to engage the friendly nuclear powers – Russia, China – to deter, and if necessary combat US forces in the region and Israel’s threat to fire its nuclear weapons.

Image
Left: the new history of the 80-year US protectorate in the Arab world. Right: Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas. On October 8, he announced: “We say to all countries, including our Arab brothers, that this entity, which cannot protect itself in the face of resistors, cannot provide you with any protection.”

The rules of war
6. These aren’t in the code of secular international humanitarian law referred to in the western media and by UN officials in support of Israel. Those rules were eliminated by the destruction of two generations of Arab leaders willing to abide by them. The war doctrine of Hamas does not concede that international law may dictate to or supersede Islamic law. In parallel, the war doctrine of Israel is that Jewish and Israeli law supersedes every other.

Image

This report is the most comprehensive record in English to date of the official Israel statements of genocide against the Gaza Palestinians in intention, policy and practice. Source: https://ccrjustice.org/
In 1948, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide expressly included in Article II “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Forty years later, in 1988, the US Congress added two qualifiers to the provision in the US criminal code which defines genocide as a crime to be prosecuted if Americans commit it. This new US law declared genocide is “the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group”. “Substantial part,” the statute now said, meant “a part of a group of such numerical significance that the destruction or loss of that part would cause the destruction of the group as a viable entity within the nation of which such group is a part.” So long as the genocidal Arab killer isn’t “specific” in intention and the part of the people attacked isn’t “substantial”, the killer is off the hook in the US criminal code. This was a calculated US change to the crime of genocide. The US senator who drafted it and promoted it into law was Joseph Biden. For more, read The Jackals’ Wedding – page 14-18.

7. The Hamas offensive of October 7, OPERATION AL AQSA FLOOD ( عملية طوفان الأقصى, amaliyyat ṭūfān al-ʾAqṣā), is, as its code name indicates and in the interpretation of Islamic law, lawful self-defence, and the killing of Israelis, including civilians, lawful according to the retribution doctrine of Qisas. It’s clear there is a Koranic injunction against killing non-combatants, particularly children, the infirm, the old, and women. When women are combatants, as they are in the kibbutzim, they lose their exemption; also children, if they are armed and trained. So, the evidence question is — how many children under the age of arms-bearing were killed at the border settlements on October 7? And how did they die – by Hamas directly, or in crossfire between Hamas and IDF? The Israelis say one thing; Hamas says nothing.

8. It is clear the Israeli rules of war allow indiscriminate killing of children in offensive and defensive operations, in retribution and in collective punishment. No Palestinian Arab or Iranian is in any doubt that this has been Israeli policy from the beginning; that it has always been US policy to support it; and that the destruction of Gaza is the current episode of the long laid plan.

The two-state solution
9. Zionist ideology and Israel’s constitution have ruled out the two-state solution.

Image
Incident map on the northern front between October 12 and 17; source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/

15. US forces on the Jordan front. The Israeli press has been reporting some details of USAF reinforcements at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in the northeastern corner of Jordan and possible Marine deployments in Jordan. Whether the Marines will be moved to defend the Al-Tanf base on the Syrian side of the border, 230 kilometres northeast of Muwaffaq Salti, isn’t known.

Image
Top, right – the US airbase at Muwaffaq Salti; source: https://twitter.com/
According to an Israeli report, “a squadron of U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle bombers based in Britain was deployed over the weekend at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base east of the Jordanian capital of Amman. Another squadron of A-10 attack aircraft has also been deployed there.” Bottom, the location of Al-Tanf in Syria across the Jordanian and Iraqi borders.
Image

16. Russian and Chinese navy deployments. The Russian fleet based at Tartous, Syria, is at sea, as reported here. At the moment, there are as many, possibly more Chinese vessels of the 44th Naval Escort Task Force in the Persian Gulf. The anti-surface, anti-submarine, and anti-air missile capabilities of the Type-052D destroyer can be followed here, and of the Type-054A frigate here. For the time being, the significance of this Chinese screen to deter a US-Israeli missile and aircraft attack on Iran has been missed in the western press and by Russian military reporters.

Image
Image
Top: https://russianfleetanalysis.blogspot.com/
Bottom: the Chinese Defense Ministry announcement of the arrival of the destroyer Zibo and frigate Jingzhou at Kuwait on October 19.

Armageddon strategy
17. US Afghanistan War veteran: “Suppose Israel and the US understand they are facing an existential survival future in which they must combat swarm attacks on three or four fronts — Gaza/Hamas, North/Hezbollah, Golan/Syria/Iran, and West Bank/Jordan, and they calculate the Arabs have at least a 30 to 60–day arms supply in stock, do they calculate they can withstand a multi-front offensive for enough time, resupplied by air from the US? If they calculate that they can withstand a 30-day multi-directional swarm, they must understand that, at a minimum, Israel’s infrastructure and economy will be ruined. In a scenario like that, even if they ‘win’, they lose. In terms of airlifting and shipping supplies, we’ve already seen that the Arabs can hit Israeli military and civilian airfields, airports and seaports. Defending Israeli infrastructure with their air defence capability is the main mission of the strike groups the US is deploying in the eastern Mediterranean and in the Red Sea.

Image
According to the Pentagon on October 19, the USS Carney, a part of the USS Gerald Ford group, had transited into the Red Sea through the Suez Canal the day before and was in the northern Red Sea when it intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones.

Western societies like Israel cannot function without solid, reliable, electrical power and communications services. We can be certain that power generation, transmission and distribution will be targeted by the Arabs non-stop. The cell towers and central communications centres will be too.”

18. Moscow source. “When does the threat to Israel become so dire, they go nuclear, and when they do, against what targets will they fire – Hamas, Beirut, Damascus, Teheran?* The US won’t accept a Palestinian state so the only option left for the Palestinians, Arabs, Iranians, possibly Turks is to fight with this new kind of warfare whose objective is to cut into the flesh and bones of the Israeli adversary, and make life in that state unviable. Without a Palestinian homeland, all of Israel and the Arab territories become a battlefield. The IDF options then shrink to two – carpet bombing and mass killing of the civilian population centres on all fronts at once. If that isn’t sustainable or effective for the Israeli-American purpose, then option 2 is to attack Lebanon, Syria and Iran to stop the flow of reinforcements. But that’s regional war, and it can only be conducted by the Israelis with full US military participation. This becomes nuclear very quickly because President Putin has already placed the Kinzhal missiles in range of the US carrier fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, and the Chinese have installed their screen to protect Iran. It’s obvious that the race hatred policies of Biden and Netanyahu, and their belief that God has chosen them both as destroyers for their people, lead to the final, nuclear weapons solution. The Russians and Chinese can maximise their limited military projection by deterring, or if need be pre-empting a nuclear attack on the Arab cities or Teheran. For this to work, the Russians and the Chinese need to say more – loudly so there’s no mistaking what they mean.”

[*] In 1983, in conversation with his General Staff, Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein said: “the Iraqis would be able to withstand three years of fighting in a war. However, the Israelis cannot withstand one year of fighting in a war.” In April 1990 Hussein was hosting Yasser Arafat of the PLO in Baghdad. “[Israel] has 240 nuclear warheads, 12 out of them for each Arab capital,” Arafat said. Saddam replied: “I say this and I am very calm and wearing a civilian suit [everyone laughs]. But I say this so that we can get ready at this level.” Quoted in The Jackals’ Wedding, page 16.

https://johnhelmer.net/memo-on-the-fina ... more-88712

******

Netanyahoo's Strategic Dilemma
Israel is a colonial settler state in permanent conflict with the suppressed natives.

It thought it could survive in that state, or even extend its settlements, by deterring opposing forces with its superior military.

Hamas has breached that deterrence myth by inflicting, in one day, more casualties in Israel than it had experienced in any previous wars.

Natanyahoo is under pressure to restore the deterrence, to again provide the Zionists with a feeling of superiority.

He can not do that.

Any land attack in Gaza means urban warfare in an already destroyed city with large underground facilities. During the taking of Bakhmut the Wagener forces had in total some 40,000 casualties (dead and wounded). The other side had more than 70,000. What price would the IDF have to pay to 'destroy Hamas'?

The other factor is of course Hizbullah and other resistance groups, which may well attack Israel from the north and various other directions. Hizbullah has loudly said it would do so should the IDF enter Gaza. It has some 100,000 missiles - more than enough to exhaust Israel's air defenses. Its longest reach missiles can attack any major city within Israel. There have already been daily fire exchanges at the norther border.

The 2006 war in Lebanon has shown that Hizbullah is dug in and very able to defend itself. It has since gained more experience by fighting ISIS in Syria. Neither U.S. air force attacks nor a land force invasion can hinder Hizbullah from firing its missiles.

(Syria, as well as Iran, will not intervene in the war unless they are directly attacked.)

Netanyahoo must attack Gaza to restore deterrence. He can not attack Gaza because the urban warfare would cause large Israeli casualties. He can not attack Gaza because Hizbullah would then destroy the myth of the superior settler state even more than Hamas has done so far.

Israel, with the help of the U.S., has tried to push the population of Gaza into Egypt. From Egypt's standpoint that would be a humanitarian solution, at least as long as others pay for it. But it would cause a serious strategic problem. Resistance by Hamas and others against Israel would continue indefinitely, but Egypt would be held responsible for it. It can not and will not take on that burden.

Netanyahoo's next idea was to starve Gaza. But the world will not let him do that. At least not beyond a certain point. Even the UN Secretary General has visited the Rafah crossing. Other global organizations, like the WHO and ASEAN, have spoken up. Pictures of starving people will make it impossible for the west to support that 'solution'.

Meanwhile Hamas fighters will continue to sit in their tunnels, ready to defend their land, and likely with enough provisions to hold out for months.

Israeli settlers, with the support of the IDF, are rampaging through the West Bank. They are killing more Palestinians and further enrage the global public against their deeds. This will escalate.

Israel's decision making is paralyzed. It will for now continue to talk of a ground invasion but will not launch one. It will also continue to starve Gaza.

But something will soon break. At any minute there might be a new large atrocity in Gaza or a pogrom in the West Bank. Any miscalculation in the north could launch that front into a hot war. Hizbullah could start to 'preemptively' invade Israeli proper.

But Israel's Jewish public is still demanding a war of revenge. It still needs the restoration of its deterrence and superiority.

But what if that turns out to be impossible to achieve?

Well. Then something else must change.

As Adam Shatz summarizes in the London Review of Books:

Vengeful Pathologies (archived)

The inescapable truth is that Israel cannot extinguish Palestinian resistance by violence, any more than the Palestinians can win an Algerian-style liberation war: Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are stuck with each other, unless Israel, the far stronger party, drives the Palestinians into exile for good. The only thing that can save the people of Israel and Palestine, and prevent another Nakba – a real possibility, while another Holocaust remains a traumatic hallucination – is a political solution that recognises both as equal citizens, and allows them to live in peace and freedom, whether in a single democratic state, two states, or a federation. So long as this solution is avoided, a continuing degradation, and an even greater catastrophe, are all but guaranteed.

Posted by b at 14:52 UTC | Comments (382)

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/n ... l#comments

*******

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 21, 2023
October 21, 2023
Rybar

Mutual strikes and shelling continue along the Israeli-Lebanese border. And, if Hezbollah attacks military targets in the form of field camps and other IDF positions from anti-tank systems, using migrating crews, then the IDF burns out the Lebanese border area with retaliatory strikes. A similar situation occurred in the area of ​​the Dovev base , where, in response to several ATGM missiles, IDF artillery burned the village of Yaron .

Protests by Palestinian youth continued in the West Bank ; in several refugee camps they escalated into violent clashes with security forces and even battles. In general, the intensity of the protests is somewhat subsiding due to the active work of the Israeli security forces, who detained about a thousand active participants in the clashes.

Massive Israeli air and artillery strikes on the Gaza Strip continue . The IDF regularly reports targets hit, while the Palestinians release images of destruction and dozens of dead and wounded civilians. According to the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera, in the enclave in just one day, 195 people were killed and 439 were injured, excluding those remaining under the rubble.

In addition, an agreement was reached on the opening of the Rafah checkpoint . 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, including body bags, supplies of which Palestinian medical facilities said were depleted. However, the Israeli authorities did not allow fuel into the enclave, which was also necessary for hospitals. In addition, shortly after opening, the checkpoint was closed again due to the work of IDF aviation.

Image

Progress of hostilities
Northern direction

Palestinian factions carried out several strikes in Ashkelon and Sderot , damaging houses and cars. Footage of fires occurring at the scene was published online. In addition, shelling was reported at Tel Aviv , as well as neighboring Gush Dana , where out of five missiles, three were intercepted, one fell into the sea, and the last hit open ground.

Eastern and southern directions

A similar situation has developed in this area. Hamas fired at nearby settlements: two shells landed in a vacant lot in Netivot , and Kibbutz Nirim also came under mortar fire .

Gaza Strip

Israeli troops continue to massively shell the Gaza Strip, including using incendiary ammunition. In addition to Gaza itself , Jabaliya , Al - Shati , Tal - al - Hawa and other settlements were under fire . In addition, attacks were again carried out on the south of the enclave: despite the opening of the Rafah checkpoint , a series of explosions were reported in the vicinity of the city of Rafah itself , as well as in neighboring Tal al - Sultan .


At the same time, the Israel Defense Forces published another compilation of night strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip. The footage shows the collapse and destruction of high-rise apartment buildings. The press release emphasizes that they destroyed firing points, headquarters, command posts and other objects. Just a couple of years ago we could observe filigree strikes on individual floors where fire targets were located. They were usually preceded by "roof knocks" - the dropping of empty blanks on the roof of a house a few minutes before the impact, in order to warn civilians and force them to evacuate. Now - judging, again, from footage on the Internet and official reports - the Israel Defense Forces have stopped bothering with such things.

Border with Lebanon

Israeli shelling of the outskirts of Yaron

Hezbollah continues to maintain tension by firing at Israel from Lebanon . The Israelis fire back. If previously this was observed in the area of ​​the Shebaa farms near Mount Har Dov and in the Syrian part of the Golan Heights, now the geography has changed slightly and the intensity has increased. So, during the day, the group’s fighters fired at Hanita , Dovev , Margaliot , Menara and the area near Baram . In turn, the IDF's targets included Hezbollah's alleged positions near Alma al - Shaab , Yaron , Ait al - Shaab and Maroun al - Rasa . In addition, footage of Israeli Hermes family drones conducting reconnaissance along the entire contact line was distributed online.

Both sides continue to suffer losses. Today, the Israel Defense Forces announced the death of 22-year-old reservist sergeant Omer Balawa (killed as a result of being hit by Israeli equipment from a Lebanese ATGM). Nevertheless, Hezbollah never fully intervenes in the conflict. And in this context, the statement of Brigadier General Tamir Heyman, head of the National Security Research Center (former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate in 2018-2021) is quite interesting. He says that if Hezbollah increased pressure in the north, Israel would be forced to delay the clearing of the Gaza Strip and focus on the war with the Lebanese.

And an extremely interesting picture emerges: Hezbollah will intervene when the escalation reaches a new level (the start of a ground operation), but Israel will, apparently, be forced to abandon the cleansing of the Gaza Strip if Hezbollah intervenes. And while the parties are busy maintaining the desired level of conflict.

West Bank

Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians do not subside: according to the latest data, more than a thousand local residents have been detained during the conflict. In Ramallah , the IDF occupied the house of the deputy head of the Hamas Politburo, Saleh al - Arouri , who has not lived there for more than ten years. In addition, protests continued in the Beit area , Rantis , Hebron , Deir Samet , Al Hadar and other localities.

Political-diplomatic background
On the opening of the Rafah checkpoint


The American Embassy in Israel announced the resumption of work at the Rafah border crossing on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Apparently, the opening of the humanitarian corridor is indeed the result of the release of two American hostages, 59-year-old Judith Ranaan and 17-year-old Natalie Ranaan . In the American segment, they were promoting with all their might the case of the successful rescue of ordinary American women: a call to Joe Biden with thanks, and a speech by the father of the family, and stories about an ordinary family that was taken care of by the American government. From the point of view of media promotion of the image of the United States as a peacemaker and protector of its own citizens, it turned out really well. Is it true. nothing is known about the fate of the other 200+ hostages. But so far, against the backdrop of successful operation extraction, everyone has somehow forgotten about them.


At 10.00 am, the Rafah checkpoint was opened, through which 20 trucks with humanitarian aid were able to pass. The Israeli side, however, did not allow the import of fuel, which is necessary, among other things, for the operation of hospitals. According to media reports, after a short time, the work of the checkpoint was stopped again, presumably due to Israeli strikes on the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Egyptian trucks brought humanitarian aid to the border, and vehicles from the Red Crescent and relevant UN agencies arrived from the Palestinian side. It is humanitarian organizations that are engaged in its subsequent delivery and distribution in the Gaza Strip.

On the difficulties of the IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip and the delay in its start

The Washington Post decided to simulate the situation: what would happen if a decision was made to launch a ground operation by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip. In general, there is nothing surprising in such approaches. Even during the war with the “Islamic State” and urban battles in Iraqi Mosul, where the militants did not have several decades to prepare the infrastructure that the troops of the International Coalition and local security forces faced the same typical problems.

The Gaza Strip has been turned into one continuous fortified area - adjusted for destruction and mountains of garbage on the surface, of course. And after large-scale bombings and tens of thousands of broken destinies, the human reserve of the Palestinian groups in the person of desperate Gazans became much larger than a month ago. If we ignore the factor of interference in the conflict by third countries, the Israel Defense Forces will take a long time to clean up Gaza on their own. And there will be many casualties among military personnel. This fact cannot be ignored in Lebanon and Iran (it would be strange if they did not take advantage of such an opportunity there). Even now, even in the United States, they are calling on the nationalist government of Israel to at least postpone the operation, explaining this by the need to rescue captive foreign citizens. And it seems that so far in Israel they have listened to this.

At the same time, today the IDF said that it will enter Gaza under the best and most suitable circumstances for them, while as of today it has decided to double its air attacks on the enclave.

About the summit on the Palestinian issue in Cairo

The Cairo summit was attended by leaders and foreign ministers of over 30 states, as well as representatives of international and regional organizations. Representatives of Israel , the United States and Iran were not present at the meeting . The summit participants called to prevent the expansion of the conflict, to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip and condemned the use of violence against civilians on both sides. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the Hamas attack on Israel cannot justify the actions of the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. While the heads of Egypt and Jordan called for international protection of the Palestinians and an immediate ceasefire.

About the protests in Tel Aviv


Hundreds of families of missing and kidnapped citizens protested in front of Kiriya's office in Tel Aviv . In addition, photographs of missing Israelis were posted on the streets of the city. Earlier, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the number of hostages held in the Gaza Strip was at least 210 people.

About the action in support of Palestine in the UK


Despite the rainy weather, one of the largest mass protests in recent years took place in London : more than 100 thousand people took to the streets of the city in support of the Palestinians. A variety of people, some with entire families, came to the demonstration. They mainly called for respect for the rights of Palestinians. It is significant that there were virtually no anti-Semitic posters at the demonstration. Similar actions also take place in almost all Arab and Muslim countries of the Middle East.

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

*******

Russia Isn’t Expected To Stop Israel’s Strikes In Syria

Image

ANDREW KORYBKO
OCT 22, 2023

From Russia’s perspective, Syria has the right to militarily cooperate with Iran, but Israel also has the right to prevent the opening of a second front too.

It was earlier assessed that “Russia Is Unlikely To Let Syria Get Involved In The Latest Israeli-Hamas War” because it doesn’t want the conflict to expand, but it also doesn’t control Syria so there’s only so much that it can do in this regard. That’s why the preceding analysis also predicted that “In the event that Damascus still does so in defiance of Moscow and the latter is unable to stop it in time, then the Kremlin will likely let Israel respond however it deems necessary to defend itself and the Jewish people.”

This forecast was confirmed several times thus far after Israel bombed Syrian airports on the pretext of impeding Iranian arms shipments without Russia intervening to stop it despite Moscow later protesting that these attacks violate international law and destabilize the region. The Kremlin is expected to retain this position since it’s the most pragmatic one possible. From its perspective, Syria has the right to militarily cooperate with Iran, but Israel also has the right to prevent the opening of a second front too.

That’s why Russia protests Israel’s violation of international law but never does anything to prevent its recurrence since it tacitly regards these attacks as the so-called “lesser evil” when compared to the scenario of Iran opening up a second front against the self-professed Jewish State in Syria. Such a front could still be opened from Lebanon, however, which could prompt a large-scale joint Israeli-American bombing campaign at the very least and is precisely what Russia wants to avoid having happen to Syria.

All of its anti-terrorist successes there since 2015 could be reversed in an instant should that happen since it would create space for the revival of ISIS and other groups, thus restoring the security threats that they posed to Russia back then and which triggered its intervention in the first place. To be sure, any large-scale bombing of Lebanon could lead to similar such threats, but they could be managed a bit better since that country’s neighbors – Israel and Syria – wouldn’t let foreign fighters enter the fray.

Another reason why Russia is so strongly against Syria opening up a second front in the Israeli-Hamas war is because of the political pressure that this would place upon it. The Mainstream Media would claim that Moscow had a hand in this, thus extending false credence to Zelensky’s debunked conspiracy theory that it helped orchestrate Hamas’ infamous terrorist attack in early October, while Russia also knows how bad it would look in the Global South’s eyes if it stands aside as Israel destroys Syria.

It's not going to risk World War III with Israel’s American ally just for the sake of protecting its security interests in Syria, which is why there’s no credible chance that Russia would militarily intervene to stop this scenario, hence the aforesaid assessment of the soft power consequences that it wants to avoid. Accordingly, Russia is expected to continue letting Israel bomb Iranian assets in Syria with impunity since these attacks aim to prevent the opening of a second front, which is against its interests as explained.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/russia-i ... op-israels

Dunno about this, basically makes sense, but I dunno how much damage to Syria Russia will stand for. Then there is the matter of the Golan Heights, if Israel is forced to draw units away from there to make up for the serious shortcomings of it's reservists that could prove a very tempting target for Syria.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Oct 22, 2023 10:55 pm

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 22, 2023
October 22, 2023
Rybar

The most striking event of today in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the strike of an Israeli Defense Forces tank on the positions of Egyptian troops near the Kerem Shalom checkpoint . It is noteworthy that shortly before this, Israeli drones were operating in the sky in the area. As a result of the incident, 9 Egyptians were injured; IDF representatives apologized for the incident.

Clashes continue along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Hezbollah fighters again attacked Israeli positions near Margaliot, Avivim and other IDF strongholds. The Israeli Air Force responds to the group's targeted strikes with artillery and air fire in southern Lebanon .

Palestinian militants actively shelled Israeli military positions along the border with the Gaza Strip . The Palestinians launched an incursion near Kibbutz Kisufim , firing ATGMs at IDF positions. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force continues to level the Palestinian enclave.

In the West Bank of Jordan, Israeli security forces are carrying out mass detentions of Palestinians. Tonight, the IDF again used aircraft to strike a building in Jenin , where, in their opinion, militants were located, a local mosque was damaged.

In the evening, the Israeli Air Force once again attacked Syrian airfields in Damascus and Aleppo . Shortly before this, Israeli authorities announced that responsibility for attacks on Syrian territory would lie with Iran .

Image

Progress of hostilities
Northern direction
Attacks on Israeli cities continue: for example, Hamas militants again launched rockets at Ashkelon, Beit Shemesh and Tel Aviv .

Eastern and southern directions
In the southern direction, an incident occurred at the Kerem Shalom checkpoint in the evening . An IDF tank "accidentally fired" and hit an Egyptian position near the border in the Kerem Shalom area. The checkpoint is located 3.5 km from the Rafah checkpoint, from where there were earlier reports of an explosion and ambulance sirens. It is noteworthy that shortly before the event, Israeli drones were operating in the sky. As a result of the attack, according to media reports, 9 Egyptian soldiers were injured. Later, the IDF leadership apologized for the incident.

In addition, militants infiltrated the border at Kissufim and attacked IDF positions with ATGMs. Artillery duels continued all day along the border area with the Gaza Strip: Palestinian groups fired at Israeli positions near the Reim base, Beeri, Nirima, Sufa and Netivot.

Gaza Strip

At the same time, the IDF continued to carry out massive attacks on residential areas in the Gaza Strip: footage of destroyed houses and casualties is actively spreading online. The shelling of the south of the enclave does not stop: a series of explosions occurred in Khan Yunis and Rafah . However, during the day, 17 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for residents and civilian institutions of the Gaza Strip passed through the Rafah checkpoint.

Image
A before/after comparison video of satellite images of the Az-Zahra area southwest of Gaza City has appeared on the Internet. Massive attacks began on the residential area last Thursday. Before, as the locals say, it was one of the most beautiful areas, where three and a half thousand people lived. What it has become can be seen in satellite images.

Considering that Israel has decided to close the issue with the Gaza Strip once and for all, the approaches are clear. The time for selective and targeted strikes has passed, so the Israelis are leveling all residential buildings to the ground. True, a fair question arises: will this help destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad ? Or will only civilians lose from this? Taking into account the developed network of underground communications and buried headquarters in the catacombs of the Gaza Strip, this is a rhetorical question.

Border with Lebanon

Clashes continue along the entire border: for example, Hezbollah fighters also attacked an IDF post in the area of ​​Tel al-Abyad and Margaliot . Israeli troops attacked Odaisa, Taiba, Ad-Dahira, Zarit and Avivim , from the areas of which shelling was also carried out on Israel’s northern border.

The network also circulates information that the Israeli authorities plan to resettle 60 thousand citizens from the border with Lebanon .

Border with Syria
By evening, Israeli F-15 and F-16 aircraft again launched missile attacks on airfields in Syria and Damascus . It is noteworthy that earlier in the day, Israeli authorities said that Iran was responsible for the attacks on Syrian territory .

West Bank

In the West Bank, clashes between the Arab population and security forces continue: in Jenin, Israeli troops carried out an airstrike on a residential building where one of the protest leaders was supposedly located. Clashes also took place in the areas of Tamune , Kabatiya , Askar , Tulkarm , Nablus and other localities. Detentions of identified radicals continue throughout the region: a series of raids took place in Beit Liki and Al-Ram .

Political-diplomatic background
Statements regarding ground operations in the Gaza Strip

Senior Israeli Defense Ministry correspondent Alon Ben-David said that the IDF had completed preparations for the ground operation, but the political leadership had allegedly not yet approved it. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the planned operation would be the last for Hamas . Against this background, the statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel does not plan to take full control of the Gaza Strip is noteworthy.

Comments on the entry of third forces into the conflict

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the American army is ready to act if new participants enter the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , in turn, threatened Lebanon, saying that if Hezbollah enters the conflict , it will lead to devastating consequences for the country.

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

*******

Cairo summit exposes deep rifts over Israel's war on Gaza

The summit is the first international gathering to be held at such a scale since Israel unleashed a ferocious military campaign in Gaza

Image
International and regional leaders pose for a group photo during the Cairo International Summit for peace in the Middle East on 21 October 2023.
AMR EMAM

LAST UPDATE ON 22 OCT 2023
The failure of the Cairo Summit for Peace, held on Saturday in Egypt at the invitation of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to produce a unified message about an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is indicative of deep rifts between Arab and Western countries on the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinian territory.


A closed meeting of the leaders and country representatives attending the summit in the New Administrative Capital, a megacity constructed in the vast Egyptian desert, was expected to produce a communiqué that would have stressed the importance of stopping the war and strongly denounced the killing of civilians on both sides.

Instead, the Egyptian presidency released a statement, saying that by calling for the summit, Egypt sought to build an international consensus that transcends cultures, races, religions, and political stances.

It added that Cairo sought to build unanimity that calls for ending the current war that has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians on both sides so far.

"Egypt looked forward for the participants to launch a global call for peace, in which they agree on the importance of reassessing the international strategy for addressing the Palestinian issue over the past decades," the Egyptian presidency said in the statement.

The Egyptian statement warned of the serious consequences if the conflict expanded to other areas in the region and criticised the approach of "managing" the Palestinian-Israeli conflict rather than finding a "just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue."

Image
Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, speaks to the press after attending the International Peace Summit in Cairo on October 21, 2023.

Deep divisions
The emergency summit brought together dozens of world leaders and top government officials.

It is the first international gathering to be held at such a scale since Israel unleashed a ferocious military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

Nonetheless, some leaders and country representatives speaking in the event's general session had seen things differently, even as all speakers agreed on the need for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter
Get the best of Majalla, straight to your inbox.

Your newsletter subscriptions are subject to Al Majalla privacy policy and terms and conditions.

The Egyptian statement warned of the serious consequences if the conflict expanded to other areas in the region and criticised the approach of "managing" the Palestinian-Israeli conflict rather than finding a "just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue."

Image
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi greets United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during the Cairo international summit for peace in the Middle East in Cairo on 21 October, 2023.

Arab leaders and country representatives were, however, more focused on the toll Israeli attacks were having on the enclave's civilian population, the need to offer international protection to the people of Gaza and the requirement of establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital, as well as they were keen to lambast attacks on civilians on both sides.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani spotlighted these rifts succinctly by saying when it comes to Israel's actions "they are viewed as self-defence".

"Nonetheless, when it comes to Palestinian actions, the whole thing is viewed as terrorism," Al-Sudani said.

Main protagonists absent
Several influential regional players were present at the Cairo Summit for Peace, especially Egypt and Jordan, the two countries that abut Israel and the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip.

Other countries with influence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were also attending or being represented, such as Qatar, which hosts senior Hamas leaders.

Nevertheless, observers and former peace negotiators say the two warring parties — Israel and Hamas — were conspicous by their abscense.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was present, but whether he wields any influence in Gaza or over Hamas is questionable.

The way the summit attendees were seated looked like an incomplete circle, indicating that something was missing and showing that the same attendees needed to be joined in by other players to complete the circle.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad appeared at the main reception ahead of the summit, shook hands with his host, and attended the photo session before the general session. He later left the summit and didn't deliver a speech.

The US was not represented by senior officials at the summit.

US Chargé d'Affaires Ambassador Beth Jones condemned Hamas at her speech, saying the movement's actions on October 7 "demonstrated Hamas' disregard for the safety and wellbeing of the Palestinian people, whom it placed in harm's way and in the crosshairs of Israel's efforts to defend itself and its citizens."

"Palestinian civilians are not to blame and should not suffer for Hamas' horrific terrorism. President Biden cautioned Israel not to become blinded by rage. Civilian lives must be protected, and assistance must urgently reach those in need," she added.

Arab leaders were focused on the toll Israeli attacks were having on the enclave's civilian population, the need to offer international protection to the people of Gaza and the requirement of establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.

The summit kicked off only two hours after humanitarian aid started to trickle into the Gaza Strip, having been stuck at the Egyptian side of the border for days before that.

Egypt made an effort in the past days to deliver the aid, with Gaza's population of over 2.3 million deprived of all essential supplies and the health system in the blockaded territory facing total collapse. In recent days, the Egyptian authorities stated that Israel was not cooperating with delivery of aid into Gaza and evacuations of foreign passport holders via the only entry it does not wholly control, leaving the much needed supplies stuck.

Image
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian NGOs for Palestinians wait for the reopening of the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian side, to enter Gaza.

Apart from the hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian aid that have already arrived in Arish, a few kilometres away from the Rafah crossing point on the border with Gaza, observers say the Cairo summit succeeded in putting the need for aiding Gaza in sharp focus.

Even with Israel's stringent conditions, the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza is a national security issue for Egypt, which strongly rejects potential plans to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza to Sinai.

El-Sisi's assertion that his country would not allow the "killing of the Palestinian issue" and the "destruction of Palestinian statehood dreams "at the expense of neighbouring countries was the mainstay of his address.

"I want to state it clearly and unequivocally to the world and articulate in sincere terms the will of all the Egyptian people, every single Egyptian, that the liquidation of the Palestinian cause without a just solution is beyond the realm of possibility," el-Sisi said.

"In all cases, this will never happen at the expense of Egypt, absolutely not," he added affirmatively.

Image
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi greets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the Cairo International Summit for peace in the Middle East on 21 October 2023.

PA President Abbas was most expressive of the Palestinians' steadfastness and their rejection of leaving their land when he repeated, "The Palestinians will not leave their land" three times at the end of his speech.

Reviving statehood dream
PA President Abbas was most expressive of the Palestinians' steadfastness and their rejection of leaving their land when he repeated, "The Palestinians will not leave their land" three times at the end of his speech.

King Abdullah II of Jordan echoed this call. The Jordanian monarch also joined the list of leaders highlighting the need to sustainably end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, namely by establishing an independent Palestinian state that lives side by side with Israel.

Image
Seen on a large screen, the King of Jordan, Abdullah II arrives to attend the International Peace Summit hosted by the Egyptian president in Cairo on October 21, 2023..

This was almost the first time in many months that the two-state solution was underscored by such a large number of politicians and decision-makers despite the poignancy surrounding the summit.

Despite the summit's failure to produce a unified message on the need to stop the war, protect the Palestinians, the calls made for a resumption of pursuing a two-state solution, dropped a stone in the still waters of Palestinian-Israeli peace.

https://en.majalla.com/node/302576/poli ... s-war-gaza

******

When does a regional war become a global war? What are the dangers of the present conflict in the Middle East for Europe?
October 22, 2023

When I got notification early this morning that I was being invited to discuss on air the risks of a second front opening and the Palestine conflict becoming a regional conflict, I was obliged to think through the developments of the past 48 hours, meaning both the genuinely encouraging and also the disheartening news from the region. For this nudge to do my job as public intellectual properly, I am as indebted to WION, India’s premier English-language global broadcaster.

The link to the posting on Twitter is below.

I wish to call out here several points from the interview. First is an issue I introduced lately in my commentary to various news carriers, namely that the real danger is not so much a regional conflagration but the global conflagration that may follow just days later. This is because the Great Powers, meaning the USA and Russia, have military assets very close to the fighting and their level of mutual trust at the moment is zero.

In a sense, both of these global Powers are also regional players in the Middle East. The United States has a number of military bases in the Gulf States. It has troops stationed in Iraq and Syria, not to mention in fellow NATO member state Turkey. It also has sent the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier task force to the Eastern Mediterranean and a second carrier, the Dwight Eisenhower, is on the way, perhaps to the Red Sea – Persian Gulf, where it will directly threaten Iran.

For its part, Russia is prepared to defend its interests and the interests of its close partners, Iran and Syria, should they come under attack by U.S. planes from the aircraft carriers. As I mentioned several days ago, when still in Beijing on Wednesday Vladimir Putin announced the new permanent air patrol Russia has set up over the Black Sea. Its bombers are carrying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles that can reach and destroy the U.S. naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean if so required.

But Russia also has assets in the Middle East that it developed substantially during its participation in the Syrian civil war, from 2015-2018 on the side of Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus. These are an air base in Khmeimim – Latakia, where 30 jets were stationed in the past and a naval base at Tartus, which supports the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. At Latakia, the Russians maintain an electronic surveillance station that monitors all communications in the region.

Russia also is very close to the Iraqi government and has been ever since the Syrian civil war. Even at the apex of American diplomatic and intelligence activities in the Green Zone outside Baghdad, the Russians and Iraqis managed to establish a cooperation that the Americans knew nothing about. It was with the complicity of Baghdad that Russia maintained its air links with Syria by flying over Iraqi air space.

A further point that Western media have totally ignored is Russian relations with Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah is a cat’s paw of Iran. But for three years it also worked very closely with the Russian military during the Syrian civil war. Hezbollah actions on the ground to recapture territory for the government in Damascus were closely coordinated with Russian ground forces, including the Wagner Group, and more particularly with the Russian air force, which dominated the skies over Syria and inflicted punishing blows against the infrastructure and group formations of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups that were backed by the United States.

Yesterday morning, the threat of regional spread seemed to retreat. Two American hostages were released in Gaza by Hamas following negotiations held in Qatar, and subsequently the Rafah border crossing was opened to allow twenty trucks with humanitarian assistance to cross over from Egypt into Gaza. Both the hostage release and the passage of trucks were tokens of possible further negotiations, and it seemed reasonable to expect the Israelis to hold back their ground invasion into Gaza while these talks were ongoing. Delay to the ground invasion by itself would provide more time for the “international community” to mobilize pressure on the warring parties to declare a cease-fire and take us all back from the abyss.

Yesterday afternoon there was a less hopeful bit of news coming out of the gathering in Egypt convened by President Sisi between regional heads of state and European leaders. It turned out that the sides could not agree on a way forward. The Arab, Egyptian and other regional leaders wanted to agree a call for an immediate cease-fire, while the European heads of government resisted signing to that bit of humanitarian common sense and only spoke in support of Israel.

This morning’s news from reporters on CNN and other major Western channels still spoke of an imminent Israeli ground attack. Meanwhile Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Galant was sounding off about the war that he claimed Hezbollah was initiating from across the Lebanese border. Dark clouds appeared to be gathering once again.

A separate news item in this morning’s Financial Times helps explain the failure of European leaders to support the call for a cease-fire. In an interview, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, the Dutch justice minister, who is the front-runner candidate in the forthcoming elections to replace Mark Rutte as prime minister, warned that the Israel-Hamas war poses a threat to Europe because it is widening cleavages in society. She noted that “…it will get translated to our societies as well.”

Clearly the lady hasn’t a clue as to the real external threats to Europe that lie immediately ahead, and no doubt she is not alone among European leaders in this willful ignorance. Should the Israelis proceed with a ground invasion, the Arab neighbors may respond in a manner that follows the U.S. example, namely they will not participate militarily in the conflict but will impose economic sanctions against the European Union for its one-sided approach and for turning a blind eye to the acts of genocide that Israel is now committing against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which we all see on our television screens on major media every day. CNN, to its credit, shows us Palestinian doctors pleading for intervention to supply the medicines, the anesthetics, the fuel for generators that have all run out, leaving them helpless to watch the death of newborn infants, the injured and the sick.

Qatar has already warned Germany that it stands ready to cut off further shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe, which would precipitate an enormous spike in prices and serious shortages of energy in Europe. How long will it be before the oil producers of the region declare an embargo on Europe for its stance relative to the blockade of Gaza and bombing of residential neighborhoods and hospitals?

Then, of course, there is the likelihood of a full-scale war between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Force in the event of a ground invasion.

These are the main points in the interview which I hope readers will find provides food for thought.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/10/22/ ... or-europe/

*******

The Palestinian People Are Already Free: The Forty-Second Newsletter (2023)

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Last Painting Before the 2021 War, 2021.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

This week, from 14–18 October, the Dilemmas of Humanity conference brought together political leaders, activists, and organic intellectuals from around the world to discuss the central problems facing humanity today and strengthen proposals to address them. Gathered in Johannesburg (South Africa), participants watched in horror as Israel escalated its genocidal war against the Palestinian people. On 17 October, the eleventh consecutive day of its bombardment, Israel stunned the world by bombing the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, where thousands of civilians were receiving medical treatment and seeking shelter from the attacks. According to the initial estimate of Gaza’s health ministry, over 500 people were killed, though that number is certain to rise in the coming days. One day before the massacre, the UN Security Council had the opportunity to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, which may have averted the hospital bombing. This resolution, however, was blocked by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

During the opening session of the Dilemmas of Humanity conference, in the midst of what many have referred to as a second Nakba, Palestinian People’s Party member Arwa Abu Hashhash gave an impassioned speech about the assault on her country. This week’s newsletter contains her speech, which has been updated as of 18 October to reflect current figures and sources.

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Olive Harvest, 2019

Allow me to speak on behalf of the Palestinian delegation that was supposed to be among us now but was unable to attend because of the difficult circumstances and the suffocating blockade that the Palestinian people are currently enduring. At this moment, as I address you, the besieged people of Gaza and Palestine are facing a genocidal operation by the fascist Zionist occupation forces. For the twelfth consecutive day, the Israeli war machine continues to massacre Palestinians, resulting in the killing of children, women, youth, and the elderly. Since 7 October, more than 3,400 Palestinians, many of them children, have been martyred. Dozens of families have been completely wiped from the civil register after multiple generations were martyred, and there has been a horrific destruction of infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, government buildings, and media houses. This has led to the displacement of over one million people in Gaza from their homes, along with a suffocating siege and an attempt to starve the more than two million inhabitants of the region by cutting off all food, medicine, fuel supplies, water, and electricity.

The genocide of the Palestinian people today has the unequivocal support of the imperialist powers of the world, primarily the United States and some allied Western countries. These countries are making a terrible yet futile attempt to re-define the essence of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an issue of terrorism, likening the Palestinian people and their resistance to ISIS and placing Hamas and the Palestinian people as a whole within what they call the ‘War on Terror’. In their deliberate effort to establish this narrative, these powers first aim to legitimise the killings and daily crimes committed by Israel. They seek to blind the world to the truth behind the ongoing conflict and continue to ignore and evade the reality that the Palestinian cause is a matter of national liberation.

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Mother Nature Embracing the Boy and His Horse, 2023.

As we gather today from all over the world to discuss the crisis of the capitalist system – so that we can propose alternatives to overcome this system and formulate a socialist alternative – we are faced with one of the most fundamental tasks, which requires us to accurately identify the tools of this system. In order to understand the nature of the ongoing conflict in Palestine today, it is crucial to understand the Israeli occupation in the Arab and Maghreb region as a fundamental tool and an advanced military base that serves imperialists’ interests in the region and ensures their control and hegemony. This is part of the battle of ideas that we have repeatedly emphasised in our ongoing work through Dilemmas of Humanity.

Israel, which did not exist 75 years ago, was established through one of the most violent acts of ethnic cleansing in modern history with the unwavering support of British imperialism at the time and later US imperialism alongside French and other European imperialist forces. As these imperialist powers sought to seize our region’s resources and exploit its wealth, their interests converged with those of the Zionist movement, which proposed to address the issues of Jews in Europe by establishing the state of Israel and colonising Palestinian land, displacing its people.

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Giving Birth in a Prison Cell, 2022.

These imperialist forces, with the United States at the fore, have continued to support and justify the state of Israel’s daily brutal aggression against Palestinians. This aggression includes stealing land, demolishing homes, building illegal settlements, and arresting, detaining, humiliating, and killing innocent young people, women, and the elderly in Palestine every day.

Israel, after seizing the majority of Palestine in 1948 and displacing nearly 800,000 Palestinians – the vast majority of the population at the time – [in an act of ethnic cleansing known as the Nakba] reoccupied what remained of historical Palestine by capturing the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. Since then, Israel has persistently violated all international agreements by building over 200 illegal settlements, each containing thousands of housing units where more than 700,000 settlers now reside. The construction of these settlements involves not only the seizure of thousands of acres of Palestinian land, depriving many Palestinians of their land and basic livelihoods, but also the separation of Palestinian cities and towns from each other, hindering the movement and mobility of Palestinians and undermining the possibility of establishing a contiguous state, even in the areas that the entire world recognises as Palestinian territory.

Moreover, Israel continues to detain more than 5,000 Palestinians, including 1,264 ‘administrative detainees’ held without charge or trial – a practice prohibited by international law – as well as 170 children under the age of 16 and 30 women. More than 1,000 of these prisoners suffer from various health conditions, including 200 with chronic diseases, and face deliberate medical neglect by the Israeli prison authorities. This includes failing to provide necessary medications, denying essential surgical procedures, and keeping ill detainees in confinement rather than providing them with medical care in clinics or hospitals.

Image
Malek Mattar (Palestine), When Family Is the Only Shelter, 2021.

Gaza, which Israel is subjecting to the most brutal genocide today using massive amounts of heavy explosives and internationally prohibited weapons, has been under a suffocating siege for over sixteen years. During this siege and blockade, Israel has launched more than six bloody wars, resulting in thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of wounded individuals, many of whom have permanent disabilities, and the displacement of so many families. Gaza has been turned into an open-air prison for two million Palestinians. Hundreds of homes, schools, universities, places of worship, and health centres have been shelled and destroyed, leading to a persistent crisis of displacement for Palestinians, most of whom were already refugees driven from their lands during the Nakba of 1948. Today, there is an explicit attempt by Israel to forcibly displace the residents of Gaza, which they do not conceal but express openly in various television broadcasts.

Faced with the consequences of the brutal colonisation that the Palestinian people have endured for over 75 years, Western imperialist and Zionist powers have propagated a multitude of falsehoods in order to justify their unwavering support [of Israel]. This ranges from portraying Palestinian land as ‘a land without a people’, attempting to depict the conflict between Palestinians and Israeli settlers as a religious struggle, and, most recently, framing the conflict as a war on terrorism.

Today, we have the fundamental task of dismantling this Western imperialist narrative and replacing it with the true story of the Palestinian people, their legitimate struggle, and their resistance for their liberation and rights.

Today, we are also engaged in another battle, the battle of emotions, which we have always emphasised in our work in the International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA). In this battle, imperialist forces seek to strip humanity, including the Palestinian people, of its belief in the feasibility and potential of resistance and instead spread a discourse based on frustration and defeat. What happened on 7 October is an integral part of the Palestinian people’s struggle over the past 75 years. Resistance against colonialism and occupation is a just human right that is protected by all international laws. Any attempt to portray what happened as an ‘attack’ or ‘terrorism’ is a cover-up for the terrorism of the occupying state and an attempt to legitimise it.


Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), When Peace Dies, Embrace It. It Will Live Again, 2019.

The Palestinian people today are in dire need of the widest possible solidarity from all free peoples. This call for solidarity is not made from a position of humanitarian or symbolic solidarity but is an integral part of our shared struggle. What is happening in Palestine today is not isolated from what is happening in India, Iraq, Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, or elsewhere. The defeat of imperialist assaults in one region is a victory for all of us.

Allow me to thank all the social movements that are acting in solidarity with the Palestinian people and extend my thanks to the IPA, which has always embraced the cause of Palestine. It is true that the Israeli killing machine continues to take Palestinian lives, but we believe that this will only strengthen our determination to continue resisting. Allow me to conclude with a quote from the Palestinian communist poet Muin Bseiso: ‘Yes, we may die, but we will uproot death from our land’.

Victory to the resistance! Liberty and freedom to Palestine!

Image
Heba Zagout (Palestine), Jerusalem Is My City, 2022.

We hope that this message from Arwa is both informative and inspirational. Much of the art in this newsletter is by the Palestinian artist Malak Mattar, who began painting at age 14 after a quarter of her neighbourhood was destroyed in an airstrike during Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza. The last painting is by the Palestinian artist Heba Zagout, who, along with her two children, was killed on 13 October by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. The terrible violence against the Palestinian people must stop now. Palestinians will be a free people. In fact, they are already free.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... lestine-2/

*******

We Are All Palestinians!, the French People Chant in Paris

Image
Pro-Palestine rally in Paris, France, Oct. 22, 2023. | Photo: X/ @LaCroix

Published 22 October 2023 (4 hours 15 minutes ago)

Meanwhile, Israel threatens the Palestinians with considering them terrorists if they stay in northern Gaza.

On Sunday, thousands of people took to the streets of central Paris to support Palestine, demand an end to the Israeli bombing of Gaza, and repudiate the stance taken by President Emmanuel Macron's administration.

The massive demonstration took place in Republic Square, the traditional symbolic setting for political and civic rallies.

Permanently monitored by the police, the French carried Palestinian flags, posters, slogans, and the traditional Kufija scarf while expressing their indignation at the genocide that the Israeli occupation army is perpetrating in Gaza.

"We are all Palestinians," "In the face of colonial aggression, solidarity with the Palestinians" or "Immediate ceasefire" were some of the multiple signs carried by the protesters, who also repeatedly chanted the slogan "Israel a murderer, Macron an accomplice."


The text reads, “'Gaza, Gaza, Paris is with you'. Republic Square is now filled with people supporting the Palestinians and demanding an immediate ceasefire." People repeatedly chant "We are all Palestinians."

While this was happening in Paris, Israel dropped leaflets in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, warning Palestinians still there to go south or be considered terrorists.

"Anyone who chooses not to leave the northern Gaza Strip heading south can be identified as a collaborator of a terrorist organization," said one of the pamphlets, as reported by EFE.

Since October 7, Israel has been bombing Gaza, leaving some 4,651 Palestinians dead and over 14,200 people injured.

In this context, the warning pamphlets make little sense given that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip. Israeli aviation is indiscriminately hitting markets, bakeries, and homes.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/We- ... -0010.html

******

EVIDENCE THAT ISRAEL ATTACKED GAZA'S AL-AHLI HOSPITAL
Oct 18, 2023 , 2:44 pm .

Image


On Tuesday, October 17, at dawn, the Al-Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip was attacked with a heavy bomb that killed more than 800 people who were there, a number that could increase when all the rubble is removed.

The evidence reveals that it was an Israeli attack, but they blamed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the brutal attack. However, the destructive power of the bomb-missile and the way it was launched indicate that it came from Israel , in addition to other evidence.

Hours before the attack, Israel had "warned" that it was going to bomb said hospital and "they asked for it to be evicted." That hospital, where there were thousands of refugees, had previously been bombed by Israel according to other reports .
Some media indicate that it is a Mark 84 (MK-84) ammunition of American manufacture and was launched in free fall from a fighter-type aircraft, an aircraft that the Palestinian resistance groups do not have.

The confirmation came from Sait Ersoy Bereketlioglu, director of the Troy Technology Defense company, which deals with production techniques for military-grade warheads, microrockets and highly explosive chemicals. He explained to the Turkish media Anadolu that the signs of the arrival of the ammunition at the hospital, the sound and the intensity of the explosion indicate that it could be a 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb and not a rocket, weapons in the arsenal. of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

This would expand the file of war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel has carried out against the Palestinian population in Gaza so far in October.

https://misionverdad.com/pruebas-de-que ... li-de-gaza

Google Translator

*******

Image
Palestinians pass through an Israeli checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. (Photo: Orinoco Tribune/Getty images/File photo)

In Palestine, 50,000 women are due to give birth within next 14 days
Originally published: Orinoco Tribune on October 17, 2023 by Fra Hughes (more by Orinoco Tribune) | (Posted Oct 21, 2023)

According to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, 50,000 Gazan women are set to give to birth in Gaza within the next 14 days.

Israel’s abhorrent genocidal destruction of Gaza continues unabated. The ongoing targeting of the living, the dead, and, now, it appears, the unborn garners no criticism from the political elite in the West but only unquestioning support. American boots may be seen on the ground soon.

There are nearly 3,000 dead, with a suspected further 1,000+ Gazans missing, presumed buried under the rubble of their homes, and more than 10,000 wounded. Figures that we endured in 30 years of conflict have been visited upon Gazans in just 10 days.

No water, no electricity, no food, and no fuel is condemning the most vulnerable—that is, the very young and the very old—to death. How many miscarriages, still births, and deaths in labour can we expect to see when there are no hospital beds, medicines, or sterile equipment to help facilitate these births.

Like baby Jesus in the biblical tale who was born in stable in Bethlehem in Palestine 2000 years ago because there were no available lodgings, will we witness Gazan children being born in stables, in the back seats of cars or by the roadside? Tens of thousands flee from one unsafe area only to discover their new place of refuge is to be bombed too, accompanied only by the cries of dying children, dying mothers, dying grandparents and their extended families, carried on a fetid breeze filled with disease and death.

Some may question the actions of the united Resistance in Gaza, who mounted operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. People should remember, all resistance from Gaza is purely a response to the ongoing policies of the Zionist apartheid regime.

Netanyahu showed his new map of the Middle East at the UN assembly recently, which erased Gaza and the illegally occupied lands of the West Bank to show one Israel from the river to the sea.

Let us not forget Ariel Sharon, the “Butcher of Beirut,” in 1982, desecrated the Al Aqsa mosque in Al Quds, East Jerusalem when he led illegal settlers into the building, sparking the first Intifada.

While Netanyahu played his game of provocation at the UN, right-wing, Jewish religious fundamentalist broke into the Al Aqsa Mosque and desecrated the third holiest shrine in Islam just last week, potentially igniting the current situation.

240 Palestinians in the West Bank had been murdered just this year alone, and that was before the Gazan resistance launched operation Al Aqsa Flood.

Between 800 and 1,000 Palestinian children are arrested and detained in the occupied territories each year, many as young as 12, charged with throwing stones at occupation forces, and imprisoned.

More than 5,000 Palestinians are currently languishing in Israeli prisons, many without charge or due process under administrative detention. Hundreds are suffering with chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and cancer. They are refused medical treatment.

Illegal settlers continue to steal Palestinian land and water resources. They attack Palestinian farmers out collecting their harvest and burn the olive groves upon which many families rely.

Israel ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians before their self-declared state was recognized in 1948.

The Stern gangs, Leahy and Hagganah, were terrorists who genocidally purged Palestine of many of its indigenous people, leveling 500 villages so Palestinians had no homes or land to return to. To this day, Israelis refuses the Palestinians their Right of Return enshrined in UN Resolution 194.

Believe me: that is what we are witnessing today in Gaza. The wholesale destruction of Northern Gaza is designed to prevent the people from returning to their homes and land. 2.3 million people will now be herded like cattle into a strip of land now halved in size to 3 miles by 12 miles, half the size of the Ards peninsula, where life will be untenable. This is Israel’s intended endgame.

They want Gazans to be forced into the Sinai in Egypt and the people of the occupied West Bank to be forced into Jordan.

The Americans are using the refugee crisis to assist Israel in its long term goal of expelling every last Palestinian from their homeland when it asked Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to take the Gazans in.

Not content with creating millions of refugees from Syria to Iraq and from Yemen to Afghanistan, they want another 2.3 million on the road with nothing but the clothes on their back and the shoes on their feet, accompanied by the cries of dying children, old men, old women, and the disabled, all fleeing for their lives.

For those of you who wave flags and then go for a beer, a coffee, or a shopping spree while in town, I would ask, is that really enough for you?

Waving a flag?

Like snow on a ditch on a spring morning will you disappear back into the comfort of a Saturday bet, minding the grand kids or booking a holiday? Will we really not see you do anything until the next attack, maybe in Jordan, or Lebanon, in Syria or Yemen, in Iran or Iraq? Greater Israel has designs on lands far bigger than Palestine. They already illegally occupy parts of Lebanon and Syria.

Give yourselves a shake.

Commendable as it is for tens of thousands of people of good conscience across this island to call for an end to the bloody unilateral coercive measures imposed on Gaza, if that’s all you intend doing, I respectfully suggest you question your motives.

You are obviously following your conscience, and I commend you for that, but once the gunpowder residue and the building dust settles, are you going to help the people on the ground or simply put Emerdale on the TV, have another coffee, place another bet, watch the champions league, or have another round of shopping?

Only you can answer that question

Well, you and your conscience.

A 71-year-old American landlord assaulted his tenants in a frenzied attack last night. Saying “you Muslims must die,” he stabbed a six-year-old boy 26 times, leaving him dead and his mother fighting for her life in hospital.

An isolated deranged loner? Or a sign of the huge rise in Islamophobia created by our cherished political leaders who are beating Palestinian supporters on the streets of Germany and banning the Hijab in France, while allowing nuns to continue to wear their habits, equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to obscure the difference and deplatform and criminalize those who stand against political Zionism.

Corbyn won’t be the last victim of smears, lies, and distortions, you can bet on that.

Israel has now given orders to its storm troopers to shoot any male of fighting age.

Not content with wiping out a generation of unborn Palestinian children, they are going to kill the present generation of 16-to-60-year-olds without justification.

If you’re 14 and you look older or if you are 70 and look younger, well, that’s just too bad.

The only good Palestinian, apparently, is a dead Palestinian.

Palestinians have the right under international law to resist the illegal occupation of their lands and homes.

If it’s good enough under international law, then that’s good enough for me.

I stand by the right of Palestinians to choose how, when, and where they resist that illegal occupation.

The question, is do you?

https://mronline.org/2023/10/21/in-pale ... t-14-days/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 23, 2023 6:06 pm

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 22, 2023
October 22, 2023
Rybar

The most striking event of today in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the strike of an Israeli Defense Forces tank on the positions of Egyptian troops near the Kerem Shalom checkpoint . It is noteworthy that shortly before this, Israeli drones were operating in the sky in the area. As a result of the incident, 9 Egyptians were injured; IDF representatives apologized for the incident.

Clashes continue along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Hezbollah fighters again attacked Israeli positions near Margaliot, Avivim and other IDF strongholds. The Israeli Air Force responds to the group's targeted strikes with artillery and air fire in southern Lebanon .

Palestinian militants actively shelled Israeli military positions along the border with the Gaza Strip . The Palestinians launched an incursion near Kibbutz Kisufim , firing ATGMs at IDF positions. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force continues to level the Palestinian enclave.

In the West Bank of Jordan, Israeli security forces are carrying out mass detentions of Palestinians. Tonight, the IDF again used aircraft to strike a building in Jenin , where, in their opinion, militants were located, a local mosque was damaged.

In the evening, the Israeli Air Force once again attacked Syrian airfields in Damascus and Aleppo . Shortly before this, Israeli authorities announced that responsibility for attacks on Syrian territory would lie with Iran .

Image

Progress of hostilities
Northern direction
Attacks on Israeli cities continue: for example, Hamas militants again launched rockets at Ashkelon, Beit Shemesh and Tel Aviv .

Eastern and southern directions
In the southern direction, an incident occurred at the Kerem Shalom checkpoint in the evening . An IDF tank "accidentally fired" and hit an Egyptian position near the border in the Kerem Shalom area. The checkpoint is located 3.5 km from the Rafah checkpoint, from where there were earlier reports of an explosion and ambulance sirens. It is noteworthy that shortly before the event, Israeli drones were operating in the sky. As a result of the attack, according to media reports, 9 Egyptian soldiers were injured. Later, the IDF leadership apologized for the incident.

In addition, militants infiltrated the border at Kissufim and attacked IDF positions with ATGMs. Artillery duels continued all day along the border area with the Gaza Strip: Palestinian groups fired at Israeli positions near the Reim base, Beeri, Nirima, Sufa and Netivot.

Gaza Strip

At the same time, the IDF continued to carry out massive attacks on residential areas in the Gaza Strip: footage of destroyed houses and casualties is actively spreading online. The shelling of the south of the enclave does not stop: a series of explosions occurred in Khan Yunis and Rafah . However, during the day, 17 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for residents and civilian institutions of the Gaza Strip passed through the Rafah checkpoint.

Image
A before/after comparison video of satellite images of the Az-Zahra area southwest of Gaza City has appeared on the Internet. Massive attacks began on the residential area last Thursday. Before, as the locals say, it was one of the most beautiful areas, where three and a half thousand people lived. What it has become can be seen in satellite images.

Considering that Israel has decided to close the issue with the Gaza Strip once and for all, the approaches are clear. The time for selective and targeted strikes has passed, so the Israelis are leveling all residential buildings to the ground. True, a fair question arises: will this help destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad ? Or will only civilians lose from this? Taking into account the developed network of underground communications and buried headquarters in the catacombs of the Gaza Strip, this is a rhetorical question.

Border with Lebanon

Clashes continue along the entire border: for example, Hezbollah fighters also attacked an IDF post in the area of ​​Tel al-Abyad and Margaliot . Israeli troops attacked Odaisa, Taiba, Ad-Dahira, Zarit and Avivim , from the areas of which shelling was also carried out on Israel’s northern border.

The network also circulates information that the Israeli authorities plan to resettle 60 thousand citizens from the border with Lebanon .

Border with Syria
By evening, Israeli F-15 and F-16 aircraft again launched missile attacks on airfields in Syria and Damascus . It is noteworthy that earlier in the day, Israeli authorities said that Iran was responsible for the attacks on Syrian territory .

West Bank

In the West Bank, clashes between the Arab population and security forces continue: in Jenin, Israeli troops carried out an airstrike on a residential building where one of the protest leaders was supposedly located. Clashes also took place in the areas of Tamune , Kabatiya , Askar , Tulkarm , Nablus and other localities. Detentions of identified radicals continue throughout the region: a series of raids took place in Beit Liki and Al-Ram .

Political-diplomatic background
Statements regarding ground operations in the Gaza Strip

Senior Israeli Defense Ministry correspondent Alon Ben-David said that the IDF had completed preparations for the ground operation, but the political leadership had allegedly not yet approved it. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the planned operation would be the last for Hamas . Against this background, the statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel does not plan to take full control of the Gaza Strip is noteworthy.

Comments on the entry of third forces into the conflict

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the American army is ready to act if new participants enter the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , in turn, threatened Lebanon, saying that if Hezbollah enters the conflict , it will lead to devastating consequences for the country.

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

*******

THE EXISTENTIAL TRAP – THE PENTAGON HAS JUST FALLEN INTO IT, AS BIDEN TRIES TO AVOID CARTER’S HOSTAGE RESCUE DISASTER

Image

By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

The sudden change of US warfighting plans in defence of Israel, disclosed on Saturday by General Lloyd Austin, the US Defense Secretary, reveals the trap which Russia, China, and Iran have opened, and the desperate measures the US has taken as it falls in.

Austin announced that he has “redirected the movement of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group to the Central Command area of responsibility. This carrier strike group is in addition to the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which is currently operating in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. It will further increase our force posture and strengthen our capabilities and ability to respond to a range of contingencies.”

“I have also activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as well as additional Patriot battalions to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. forces.”

The Eisenhower’s new destination has not been announced. US military media are claiming it will be the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea, or both.

The Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR) is officially the Arab and Iranian territories east of the Mediterranean shoreline, focusing on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and targeting Iran, Russia, and China.

“In a small change that could have major meaning,” Pentagon officials are telling their press, “the U.S. is changing its plans for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. The change could place the strike group in waters where Chinese warships have been active in recent months. Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the Eisenhower strike group would head to the eastern Mediterranean instead of Europe as had been planned. Sailing in the eastern Mediterranean would have put the strike group to the west of Israel. But that plan changed after a week in which U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq came under fire from Iran-backed militias, and a U.S. Navy ship in the Red Sea downed missiles launched from Yemen…On Saturday, Austin said in a statement the strike group will now go to the ‘Central Command area of responsibility.’ Central Command covers a vast amount of Middle East territory, including the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.”

The purpose of “these steps,” Austin said, is to “bolster regional deterrence efforts, increase force protection for U.S. forces in the region, and assist in the defense of Israel.” The priority order is a switch. Israel comes last – Iran, Russia and China come first.

For the first time too, the US command has acknowledged what President Vladimir Putin meant when he said in Beijing last Wednesday, October 18, that he has deployed MiG-31s armed with Kinzhal missiles within range of the Eisenhower.

Austin added for Sunday television viewers in the US: “If any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict and take advantage of this very unfortunate situation that we see, our advice is: don’t. We maintain the right to defend ourselves, and we won’t hesitate to take the appropriate action.”

The US doctrine of self-defence while attacking states like Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Somalia isn’t new. In September 1969, when Libyan Army Captain Muammar Qaddafi took control of his country, he carefully skirted the US Air Force (USAF) base at Wheelus (Mellaha), which was stocking nuclear weapons at the time; Qaddafi then squeezed the US forces out of Wheelus over twelve months, but the USAF evacuated its nuclear weapons swiftly.

Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon don’t have time; the Israelis even less.

But Austin’s rush to change the sailing orders for the Eisenhower and fly THAADs and Patriots to US bases in the Arab territories reveals he’s short of time too. This is because the entire portfolio of US air defence systems is being defeated. The Russian Kinzhal has defeated the US Patriot batteries around Kiev; the Hamas swarms of drones and rockets defeated Israel’s Iron Dome on October 7. THAAD has been tested in combat once, against a Houthi missile, rocket and drone attack against Abu Dhabi targets in January 2022. “Several were intercepted, a few of them [weren’t].”

The USS Carney’s firing against Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea has exposed how vulnerable that southern line of attack against Israel would be if the Houthis try swarming instead of testing their ordnance, as they did against the Carney. Originally, in the Pentagon version of Friday, October 19, three Houthi missiles and several drones were intercepted on their way to Israel. A day later, CNN revised the story by reporting “a US official familiar with the situation” to say there had been a “nine-hour duel” and four cruise missiles and fifteen drones came down.

Tongue-biting and stammering are clinical symptoms of the mind which knows what to say but has difficulty getting it out; this usually causes loss of self-esteem. When General Austin is speaking like this, it signals the mind doesn’t know what to say, and is desperate for self-esteem.

Austin also signalled that the Pentagon is preparing rapid deployment forces for evacuation of air and ground base soldiers and airmen in Jordan, Syria and Iraq if they are swarmed by protesters. “I have placed,” Austin said, “an additional number of forces on prepare-to-deploy orders as part of prudent contingency planning, to increase their readiness and ability to quickly respond as required.” The likelihood that the Pentagon is laying plans for US ground troops to fight to keep the bases is low; secret Congressional briefings are bound to leak if that possibility is entering the US presidential race at this stage.*

Instead, these are Kabul Airport type evacuation missions. The fear in the Biden White House, and the Democratic National Committee, is that US military personnel or other officials may be taken hostage following swarm attacks by the Arabs across the region.

According to a military source near Washington, “Biden got them out of Kabul. [President Jimmy] Carter didn’t get them out of Teheran. If CENTCOM has anything in mind it’s missile defence capability, readiness and base security – and figuring what the hell the Chinese are up to.”

Image
Left: US aircraft wreckage in Iran following the failure of the hostage-rescue mission known as OPERATION EAGLE CLAW in April 1980. Right: read the new history of US operations against the Arab world.

Russia and China are saying little, doing more.

By redeploying the Eisenhower from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the US has moved the aircraft carrier out of range of Russian Kinzhals in the Black Sea. However, in the Persian Gulf, the Eisenhower will be within shooting distance of MiG-31s and the Kinzhal in the Caspian Sea, as well as other long-range Russian missiles.

Image
Left: According to a US state propaganda agency, Russia has fired long-range ballistic missiles from the Caspian to targets in the Ukraine, including Kiev, between May and October of 2022; flight distance was about 1,800 kilometres. Right: The red line from international waters and airspace of the Caspian to the mid-Persian Gulf is about 1,700 kms.

In the Red Sea, the US fleet will be within range of several types of Iranian ballistic missiles against which there have been no US combat tests to date. Click here to review the Iranian missile armoury, including estimated range, payload and accuracy. There is ample evidence that the general staffs of Russia, China, and Iran are currently coordinating in the Persian Gulf, where there was a visible surface navy exercise in March, and since then much that is invisible in intelligence-gathering and sharing, targeting, early-warning systems, and the like.

According to this source, the anti-air and land target capabilities of the DC-10 missile arming the Chinese Navy’s Type-052D destroyer now in the Persian Gulf “poses a number of security challenges for the United States. The DH-10 has a low flight altitude that increases its stealth capabilities against the air defense radars. The DH-10 can also be updated during its flight with new targeting data, allowing it to change targets. The stealth capabilities employed by the DH-10 allow it to confuse or outmaneuver the radars and defenses around ships in the region.”

Image

In March 2023, Reuters reported from Beijing on the naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman with vessels from Russia, China and Iran: “The 2023 edition of the ‘Marine Security Belt’ exercises will help ‘deepen practical cooperation among the navies of participating countries’, China's Defense Ministry said.” Source: https://www.reuters.com/

A Moscow military reporter comments: “in my view, Russians and Chinese should cut to the chase and say, you can try sorting it out with Israel, but here is the red line. Obviously, that red line has no meaning if it is not with the capability to deliver on the threat.”

“Hanging out with or near Israel just became very dangerous,” according to a US military source familiar with the situation. “I think the Houthi firing, trap or not, scared the shit out of them [Pentagon]. The number of drones and missiles the Carney ‘shot down’ keeps going up. It’s not just the missiles they are worried about. Iranian drone technology, and their capacity to get them into the hands of their allies, must be causing alarm. What scares them about the Chinese task force is the range of its cruise missiles as well as its capacity to link up with Iranian and (I assume) Russian air defence radar and targeting networks. They’ve all been practicing together.”

“Every American and allied base in the region is now under a joint, mutually supportive, Russian, Iranian and Chinese umbrella. In short, a trap.”

[*] American voter disapproval of President Biden's foreign policy performance is growing; the current negative spread of 19 points is approaching the worst it has been in Biden's term. His trip to Israel and unqualified support for the Israeli war against the Palestinians have gained nothing for him from American voters.

Image
Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

NOTE: on Israel’s southwestern front, Egypt is bringing up armoured forces to the El Arish-Rafah area. Media reports from Qatar suggesting the reason is to combat Palestinians moving into the Sinai from Gaza are false.

Image
“Urgent Local sources and eyewitnesses reported to the Sinai Foundation the arrival of large military reinforcements to the Rafah border area on Thursday afternoon [October 19]. The sources said that the reinforcements included officers, soldiers, military vehicles, jeeps, and tanks.” -- source: https://twitter.com/

https://johnhelmer.net/the-existential- ... more-88732

Indeed, why would you want armor for crowd control,? Ya want gobs of infantry.

Note to Israel: Genocide - careful what you wish for. ...Arabs states cannot stand by and let it happen, their governments will be overthrown.

*******

Memo on the Final Solution for One State – Israel or Palestine
Posted on October 22, 2023 by Yves Smith

Yves here. You are getting a Sunday extra on the conflict in Gaza and where it looks set to be headed, given Hamas’ apparent strategy, the dug in position of the US and Israel, and the so far on-track behavior of the Arab world.

John Helmer’s post clinically and persuasively draws conclusions that most commentators, including yours truly, have been loath to state clearly, perhaps because depicting the likelihood of bad outcomes somehow feels as if it increases the odds they come to pass (magical thinking cults and their lesser “intention” cousins illustrate this superstitious tendency).

Even though the earlier part of Helmer’s analysis is based on known facts (at least if you’ve been paying attention), he adds critical information about the implications of even a shortish war with Israel’s neighbors on Israel, and the apparently-not-heretofore-reported sighting that China has naval vessels in the Persian Gulf that have anti-sub and anti-missile capabilities.

It’s not hard to conclude from Helmer’s depiction that with the US and Israel unwilling to accept a loss and the lack of any adults on “our team” mean the odds of eventual nuclear war are way too high. And if you think Helmer is too pessimistic, listen to the section from Larry Johnson in the broadcast on Judge Napolitano with Ray McGovern. Starting at 11:40, Johnson describes how Pakistan has offered to send some of its nukes to Türkiye in case of a dustup with Israel.

(See yesterday's post in this thread for Helmer's entire entry. Nice to see I'm in good company.)

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10 ... stine.html

Liberatory Violence Is Never “Unprovoked”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 22, 2023
James Dugan

Image

In today’s world no one is innocent, no one a neutral. A man is either with the oppressed or he is with the oppressors. He who takes no interest in politics gives his blessing to the prevailing order, that of the ruling classes and exploiting forces.” —George Habash

“Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a program of complete disorder. But it cannot come as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding” —Frantz Fanon


With Israel in particular, it is immediately apparent how willfully ignorant Americans are to the level of sheer violence that it takes to uphold a settler society. Every day that Israel exists as an apartheid State is a violent event for Palestinians. Further, every missile that strikes Gaza and every raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank is propped up by financial support from the United States. The focus of condemnation should therefore be Israel and the United States for creating the material conditions that have necessitated a liberation movement.

The purported concern about violence rings empty when it is devoid of any reference to Israel’s history as a settler colonial project; without any reference to the Nakba of 1948 or the 11-day bombardment of Gaza in 2021 which resulted in hundreds of lost lives and thousands of destroyed residences. Throughout the onslaught, hospitals and news agencies were deliberately targeted by the air strikes—which of course utilized U.S.-made warplanes and bombs. The conditions of colonialism and apartheid ensure that even the most ordinary day is subjected to violence in less blatant forms (e.g. the violence like hunger and poverty that Kwame Ture described as being “so institutionalized that it becomes a part of our way of life” and is accepted as normal). But 2021 was also preceded and followed by other explicitly jarring events, such as the senseless shootings during the Great March of Return in 2018-2019 (over 8,000 hit with live ammunition, over 30,000 injured) and the settler rampage of Huwara earlier this year (leaving hundreds of homes and vehicles torched).

All of this illustrates that, as put by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, “Settler colonialism, as an institution or system, requires violence or the threat of violence to attain its goals.” Israel’s colonization of Palestine is the embodiment of violence—and any notion that violence is “committed equally by the colonized and the colonizer [ ] blurs the nature of the historical processes.” Dunbar-Ortiz’s point has been reiterated by many voices committed to self-determination, decolonization, and universal freedom. Paulo Freire, the great Brazilian educator instructed that “with the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed.” Walter Rodney, the radical Guyanese intellectual, put it similarly, “Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression.”

With this framework in mind, to call the recent militancy “unprovoked” is to ignore the systemic nature of oppression in Palestine. To those that opt not to ignore it, the response was inevitable for the same reasons that Angela Davis called certain tactics taken during the black liberation struggle inevitable: “Because of the violence that exists on the surface everywhere, you have to expect that there are going to be such explosions. You have to expect things like that as reactions.” An acknowledgment of how violence permeates prior to the reaction is crucial.

And it should be clear that what we expect and what we desire are not always one and the same. Malcolm X, an early advocate of Palestinian liberation articulated this point well: “I don’t believe in violence that’s why I want to stop it. And you can’t stop it with love. So, we only mean vigorous action in self-defense and that vigorous action we feel we’re justified in initiating by any means necessary.” When Palestine resists its oppression, it acts in self-defense; it aims at “the recovery of human dignity.” For anyone whose crucial guiding moral and political directive is self-determination and freedom, it is clear which side of the struggle we stand on.

To a Free Palestine in our lifetimes.

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” —Assata Shakur

“The way the oppressor tries to stop the oppressed from using violence as a means to attain liberation is to raise ethical or moral questions about violence. . . . [V]iolence in any society is neither moral nor is it ethical. It is neither right nor is it wrong. It is just simply a question of who has the power to legalize violence.” –Kwame Ture


https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... nprovoked/

(Late edition....)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:57 pm

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 23, 2023
October 23, 2023
Rybar

Last night, the Israel Defense Forces carried out one of the most powerful attacks on the Gaza Strip : dozens of civilian objects were damaged, including residential buildings, a mosque and buildings located near two hospitals. According to the local Ministry of Health, more than 430 people died, including 182 children.

Already the third convoy with humanitarian aid entered the territory of the enclave through the Rafah checkpoint . At the same time, Israeli authorities continue to prevent fuel from entering the Gaza Strip, which affects the work of hospitals, desalination plants and power plants.

According to some reports, negotiations have begun between the parties on the release of 50 hostages with dual citizenship and foreigners from Hamas captivity. Currently, it is known about the return of two prisoners through the mediation of Egypt and Qatar . It is possible that the militants could request fuel supplies in exchange for them.

Palestinian factions again attacked IDF positions along the border with the Gaza Strip, including in the areas of Sderot , Nahal Oz , Kissufima and Sufa . In addition, two kamikaze drones attempted to attack the IDF bases Hatzerim and Ts'eelim , but were intercepted by air defense systems.

Image

Progress of hostilities
Northern direction

The situation has not changed significantly: Palestinian groups continue to launch attacks on Israeli border settlements. Mafkaim , Ashkelon , Yad Mordechai, Nir Am and Sderot came under fire . In the latter, several buildings and cars were damaged. It was also reported that the corpse of a previously eliminated militant was found off the coast in the Zikim area .

Eastern and southern directions

Hamas militants fired mortars at Israeli positions in Suf and Kissufim , and also used drones to attack enemy military targets. Two kamikaze drones tried to break through to the IDF bases Hatzerim and Ts'elim , but both vehicles were intercepted by air defense systems. In addition, Palestinian forces fired a series of rocket salvos at Ba'er Sheva .

Gaza Strip

The Israeli air force carried out one of the heaviest strikes in 17 days of conflict, destroying dozens of civilian objects, including residential buildings, a mosque and buildings located near two hospitals. The overnight strikes killed more than 430 people, including 182 children, while about 1,500 residents remain under the rubble. At least 27 people were killed in just one of the Jabaliya flights. However, the IDF reported the defeat of Hamas facilities in the enclave, including observation posts, command centers, underground shelters and other militant facilities.


Rafah came under fire in the morning , killing several dozen people. However, already in the afternoon, a third convoy with humanitarian aid for the enclave passed through the checkpoint. The total number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip over three days was 54 trucks. At the same time, the Israeli authorities continue to prevent fuel from entering the enclave. However, international leaders are calling for the need to import fuel into the Gaza Strip to keep hospitals, desalination plants and power plants running.

In addition, the Israelis announced that a group of IDF soldiers had entered the enclave to search for and free the hostages. According to the latest data, Hamas holds 222 people captive.

Border with Lebanon

Interception of a drone near the village of Akka

Hezbollah fighters carried out attacks on Israeli border towns, including Kiryat Shmona , Margaliot , Manara and Shlomi . In turn, the Israel Defense Forces shelled the vicinity of Rmeish , Hula , Markab , Kfar Shube , as well as the Shebaa farms area . Skirmishes and incidents of the use of anti-tank systems were also reported in several sections of the border. In addition, air defense crews intercepted a drone in Haifa near the village of Akka. At the same time, Hezbollah officially announced the death of 29 members of the group since the beginning of the escalation of the conflict.

At the same time, the Israeli authorities announced the creation of a tent camp in Kibbutz Kfar Ha - Maccabi for residents evacuated from the north of the country.

West Bank

Clashes continue in the region between the Arab population and Israeli security forces. Overnight , 70 people were detained in Bethlehem , Jericho , Hebron , Ramallah and Tulkarm . In total, about 800 Palestinians have been detained in the region since the beginning of the conflict, more than half of them are accused of having links with Hamas. Shootings were also reported in Nablus, Jenin and Anabta. In addition, in the city of Tubas, after the news of the death in prison of one of the radical leaders Omar Daraghme, a protest began, the participants of which accused the security forces of his murder. To date, all these protests have not led to a “new intifada.”

Political-diplomatic background
On the postponement of the Israeli Defense Forces' ground operation

Israeli Channel 12 says that Netanyahu has once again decided to delay the start of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip. This happened after a call from Joe Biden (already the seventh in a row): the White House press release directly states that the American authorities demanded that the operation be postponed. Before this, the leaders of the Western world - Biden , Trudeau , Macron , Scholz and others - issued a joint communiqué in which they emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense and full support for its actions (within reasonable limits).

Secretary of State Blinken's speech sheds light on what awaits Gaza : the Israeli authorities have no desire to be in any way concerned about the fate of local Palestinians, and they are not satisfied with the current state of affairs. Yes, now there are words that the operation should be postponed until the issue with the hostages is resolved, but this is nothing more than an excuse. Until the bargaining over who and how will deal with what remains of the Gaza Strip is over, until it becomes clear whether the local conflict will develop into a global one, such calls and pressure on the humanitarian aspect will continue.

In addition, the Al Jazeera TV channel discussed a potential ground operation in the Gaza Strip. Thus, military analyst Fayez ad - Daveyri emphasizes several important points that for some reason few people take into account. Even if the Israelis razed the entire sector, this would not eliminate either the Hamas ideology or the Palestinian view of Israel. Moreover, such an operation will only lead to the spread of such thoughts among refugees and the Arab population. Despite the apparent military successes of the Israelis, when they enter Gaza they will face the so-called “Hamas metro,” since Gaza is a “city of tunnels.” No one has a complete map of these tunnels.

Hamas strikes will be like being bitten by a skink lizard (the Arabs call it the “fish of the desert”), as mobile groups of militants will attack from ruins and catacombs. Tunnels for Hamas are not just some kind of shelters. There are offensive tunnels, there are defensive ones, there are training tunnels, there are ones for launching missiles. Palestinian militants have learned not only to live in them, but also to use them as weapons. And if the Israelis set foot in Gaza, the Palestinians will use their capabilities to the fullest.

On preparation for forceful methods of solving humanitarian issues


Soldiers of the German special forces GSG 9 arrived in Cyprus : together with colleagues from the American, Italian, Dutch and British special forces, they will be stationed on the island, creating a jump-off point for operations in the Gaza Strip. GSG 9 specializes primarily in the release of hostages from crisis regions of the world. And formally, the purpose of deploying an international special forces detachment is precisely the forceful solution of humanitarian issues in the zone of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the benefit of their governments.

True, “rays of goodness” have already spread across the Internet: the Germans, of course, remember the Second World War and say that this is not the first time they have “committed genocide.” And the fact that, first of all, an international special forces detachment was created gave rise to discussions about the possible use of fighters to carry out targeted sweeps and liquidations together with the Israel Defense Forces.

On calls for residents of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south of the enclave

Image

The day before yesterday, the Israel Defense Forces published another call for civilians in the Gaza Strip to evacuate from Gaza City and the central part of the enclave to the southwest towards Khan Yunis and Rafah .

The call is accompanied by words that Hamas is using civilians as human shields, and resettlement will save lives.

Given that there are already over 1 million temporarily displaced people in Gaza, such a hint of continued indiscriminate bombing of the strip in the northern and central parts will increase pressure on the southwestern borders. And first of all, Egypt will be in the disaster zone , where these flows will pour.

And this, in turn, will provoke an uncontrollable increase in crime and crime. Taking into account the ongoing activity of the Islamic State’s underdogs in the Sinai Peninsula , this will lead to an increase in the “feed base” of terrorist groups.

About US financial assistance for Israel

While turmoil reigns in the House of Representatives of the US Congress , which was left without a speaker, the Senate decided to take over the development of a bill at the request of Joe Biden to allocate funds to help Ukraine and Israel . The Senate is in a hurry - they plan to make it before Thanksgiving, which in the United States will fall on November 23 this year. The initiative is led by Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , giving the document strong bipartisan support in the Senate.

Due to the fact that the only obstacle to the passage of the bill through Congress are conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, on October 19 the most influential party members in the Senate went to negotiate with them. It is noteworthy that the meeting was also attended by Kristen Sinema , an independent senator specializing in immigration issues and representing the interests of the White House and Democrats. Considering that the Conservatives have always conceded when approving serious financial requests, the same is highly likely to happen this time.

The situation will most likely develop according to the following scenario. First, the Senate will develop a bill through bipartisan efforts, after which the Democrats will meet the conservative Republican layer halfway to solve the migration problem, and the conservatives, in turn, will vote to approve the funds requested by Biden.

About Israeli media technologies

Image

Remember the fake news on October 10 about 40 beheaded Israeli babies that was carried around by the world media? The Israeli media have already calculated the average age of children killed as a result of attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There are no babies among those killed at all. In principle, a total of 16 children between the ages of 4 and 17 died. There remain 248 people whose age could not be determined, but this is still the older generation. This is a clear demonstration of how the media, driven by emotions, are ready to pick up any information about dead children in order to denigrate the enemy as much as possible. And this applies not only to Israelis, but also to Palestinians. However, no one is going to deny the fact that there are many times more children killed in Gaza: there is enough footage on the Internet.

About Ukrainian weapons on Palestinian land


In the Arab segment, a video is being circulated of a Palestinian militant filming an arsenal of Hamas anti-tank weapons. The shot included American M136 and M141 grenade launchers , as well as Swedish-British NLAW ATGMs . Where all this could have gotten into the Gaza Strip is a purely rhetorical question. Back in March, we talked about the smuggling routes of military products supplied to Ukraine and the main beneficiaries of its sale on the “black market.”

And the very appearance of these weapons among Palestinian groups, apparently, has long been no secret to the Mossad: in June, Benjamin Netanyahu directly stated that Western weapons transferred to the Kiev regime were found near the borders of Israel. Another question is whether Hamas will be able to use the same NLAWs: during the NVO, Ukrainian formations often did not use these ATGMs due to the banal lack of batteries. It is possible that even now enterprising businessmen have sold substandard complexes without batteries to the Palestinians.

On the peculiarities of media coverage of the conflict

The aggravation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has once again clearly demonstrated the cost of all the talk about the high standards of the modern Western press. For example, the BBC will henceforth refer to Hamas exclusively as a “banned terrorist organization”, refusing even to use the word “militants” in relation to the Palestinian group. It took Israeli supporters less than a week to push through the position of the British media.

Previously, the topic of incorrect coverage of events was raised by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in negotiations with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak . He demanded that the BBC be sued for failing to condemn Hamas and call them terrorists.

In addition, the Israeli authorities threatened to suspend the corporation’s activities in the country because one of the news reports suggested the possible involvement of the IDF in the tragedy at the Al - Ahli hospital . The BBC also suspended six reporters from its Arab desk for supporting Palestine and criticizing the Israeli position. The current situation is just one illustration of the general tendency towards the establishment of already open and demonstrative segregation. Where some can do everything, and others can do nothing.

About actions in support of Lebanon


Thousands of people held rallies in support of Palestine in many cities in Europe and the Middle East . Particularly violent actions took place in Lebanese Beirut , where it was reported that demonstrators were attempting to break into the territory of the French embassy.

Against the background of protests and aggravation of the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border, the US State Department recommended its citizens to leave Lebanon . Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Rudakov also warned Russians about the possible risks associated with being on the territory of this country. There are now more than three thousand Russians in Lebanon.

Europe is also uneasy. Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian actions took place in a number of European capitals. Clashes between Palestinian and Israeli supporters were reported in London . Thousands of people demonstrated in the Swedish capital Stockholm in solidarity with Palestine. And the organizers of the pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels announced the participation of about 40 thousand people..

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

*******

Israel’s Ground Invasion of Gaza: Not If, but When
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 23, 2023
Hasan Illaik

Image

The question isn’t whether Israel will launch a ground war or not. Head of state Benjamin Netanyahu has already made clear that Tel Aviv’s battle with Gaza is a matter of ‘life or death’ for the occupation state.

The “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle launched by the Palestinian resistance on 7 October dealt Israel an unprecedented blow – in terms of human loss and its impact on the country’s military, intelligence, psychology, and deterrence.

In exchange for the blow it received, Israel set itself a goal of eliminating the Hamas movement. This goal was announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and the majority of Israeli officials.

Hence, any ceasefire without achieving the full elimination of Hamas means a pure Israeli loss.

And while the Israeli military has killed about 5,000 Palestinian civilians and caused massive damage to housing and infrastructure in its 17-day air assault on the Gaza Strip, it has neither restored the pre-7 October deterrence it enjoyed, nor is it capable of emerging victorious.


To date, Israel has not been able to seriously harm Hamas’ military structure, say Gaza sources who spoke to The Cradle. Any ceasefire today would therefore mean that Tel Aviv has publicly swallowed the losses it incurred in Operation Al-Aqsa flood: at least 1,400 dead Israelis, the destruction of its army’s Gaza division, and 250 captives held by its enemy inside Gaza. Together, these will deliver a massive blow to Israel’s hard-fought deterrence capacity.

These prisoners will be used by the resistance to negotiate the release of more than 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention centers, in addition to lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip. Unless Tel Aviv is willing to sacrifice all these prisoners in its Gaza air blitz, the captives will play a big role in any settlement. Consider, for instance, that in 2011, Israel exchanged a single captured soldier for 1,027 Palestinian detainees.

Israel cannot exit this battle without fighting a ground war. Its army spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, told the Australian ABC that a ground war will occur unless Hamas complies with two conditions: surrendering without conditions, and releasing all Israeli prisoners. The Palestinian resistance outright rejects these conditions, and will continue to use its captives to pressure Israel to stop the war.

What’s taking so long?

Israel believes it needs a ground war to restore its deterrence with not only Gaza’s resistance factions, but also with adversaries in Lebanon, Iran, and the rest of the region. This ground war will focus on the northern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City and its environs, where the military and heart of the resistance is based. Eliminating Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip will inflict a defeat on the resistance that will take years, and perhaps decades, to recover from.

So then, why hasn’t the ground war begun yet? Eighteen days have already elapsed since Israel’s declaration of war, when it began to mobilize its 300,000 soldiers and reserve officers.

First, the occupation army knows well that the goal of “eliminating Hamas” is no easy feat. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has said that “eliminating Hamas is not possible” because it is an expression of an ideology and exists “in people’s hearts and minds.” Barak’s analysis is important – he isn’t just a former head of state, but importantly, a former Israeli army chief of staff and a former defense minister who led two battles in the Gaza Strip in 2008 and 2012.

Second, the Palestinian resistance in Gaza has prepared itself well for the ground war. The last such operation conducted by the Israelis in 2014, in which 60 troops were killed and two went missing, ended in failure by not achieving any of its goals. At that time, the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) forces had nowhere near the quality of armaments, training, and numbers that they have today.

Furthermore, the network of strategic underground tunnels allegedly built by the Gaza resistance also developed significantly after 2014, allowing Hamas, PIJ, and others to move troops, weapons, and supplies around the territory unseen.

While the Israeli army seems prepared to bear greater human losses than it did in any previous war, largely because of Al-Aqsa Flood’s huge death toll, this does not mean that Tel Aviv can bear the cost of thousands more deaths, hundreds of destroyed armored vehicles, and the economic fallout of war.

The Israelis usually also try to avoid lengthy battles at all cost. In the case of a ground war, Tel Aviv recognizes that it may need to occupy the northern Gaza Strip for months, which will place severe hardship and pressure on Israel’s settlement community who will effectively become refugees.

Third, is Israel’s fear that its regional adversaries will open other battle fronts to relieve pressure on the resistance in Gaza. Both Washington and Tel Aviv are most wary of this development unfolding on the border with Lebanon.

But even the introduction of two US aircraft carriers into the East Mediterranean was unable to deter the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, from continuing its attacks on Israeli military positions along the Lebanese-Palestinian border. Since October 8, these borders have turned into daily clashes that have only escalated on both sides. ​​

So far, the Israeli army has lost most of the surveillance equipment that it amassed over years on that critical border. Hezbollah has also destroyed more than 15 tanks and 20 armored vehicles, in addition to the killing and wounding of dozens of Israeli troops. In turn, the resistance has lost 28 of its soldiers, along with four Lebanese civilians.

Palestinian resistance factions (Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which had 5 casualties) have also participated in these Lebanese border operations, in addition to the “Islamic Group,” the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the “Lebanese Brigades for Resisting the Occupation,” which lost two fighters.

The situation on the Lebanese-Palestinian border is still being classified as “clashes,” despite the intensity of confrontations escalating each day. Tel Aviv expects the pace of these clashes to spike after the start of its ground operation in Gaza, which it fears will prevent the achievement of its goals in Gaza.

While the Resistance Axis refuses to divulge any of its plans, its sources indicate that escalation against the Israeli military will increase in correlation with developments in the Gaza war.

US presence & the Axis of Resistance

The fourth factor delaying the onset of Israel’s ground war is Washington’s need to secure its own regional military bases, assets, and interests, in advance of any regional escalation.

In recent days, US bases in Iraq and Syria have been bombed by Iraqi resistance factions, as Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, launched missiles and drones in the direction of Israel. When some of these projectiles were shot down by US defense systems, Ansarallah threatened to target Israeli ships in the Red Sea.

On the Iraqi-Jordanian border, Iraqi resistance factions are mobilizing thousands of supporters who have declared their intention to head to the occupied West Bank, via Jordan, if the aggression against Gaza continues.

To date, Israel’s western allies have amassed aircraft carriers and battleships; 2,000 American soldiers have landed in occupied Palestine; about 1,000 tons of western military aid has been airlifted to Israel; tens of thousands of munitions intended for Ukraine have been diverted to the occupation army; the Biden administration has announced the allocation of $14 billion in urgent aid to replenish Israel’s war coffers; the US has issued threats to the entire regional Axis of Resistance in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran that it will enter the war if those forces attacked the Israeli army.

Together, all these factors have delayed the start of Israel’s ground war in Gaza, as Tel Aviv awaits the arrival of even more US and western forces into West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean – both to bolster Israeli military forces and to fortify US bases in the region.

The fifth and final reason for postponing Tel Aviv’s ground invasion, is to provide a short window for Qatari-led negotiations to gain the release of further captives held in Gaza, as revealed by Israeli Army Radio on 23 October. The news leak coincides with fears expressed by the Washington establishment that the region could catch fire, to the detriment of American interests, if Israel insists on pursuing its Gaza ground war until the very end.

Delaying the ground war does not, however, mean canceling it. In 2014, Israel’s ground attack began two weeks after the war’s onset, although the number of Israeli reservists called up was no more than 40,000 – one-seventh of the 300,000 troops mobilized today.

Israel also faces another problem that it cannot solve: the presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the northern Gaza Strip who refuse to comply with Israeli orders to abandon their homes.
All these factors pose a potentially insurmountable challenge for Tel Aviv. They each conspire to thwart Israel’s plan to destroy Hamas and re-establish the deterrence capacity it lost on 7 October. While the occupation state may win many battles ahead, it cannot win the war with so many uncontrolled variables in the air.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... -but-when/

********

Image
Made in Israel – by Mr. Fish

Let them eat cement
By Chris Hedges (Posted Oct 24, 2023)

Originally published: ScheerPost on October 22, 2023 (more by ScheerPost)

Israel, with the backing of its U.S. and European allies, is preparing to launch not only a scorched earth campaign in Gaza but the worst ethnic cleansing since the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The goal is to drive tens, most probably hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the southern border at Rafah into refugee camps in Egypt. The reverberations will be catastrophic, not only for the Palestinians, but throughout the region, almost certainly triggering armed clashes to the north of Israel with Hezbollah in Lebanon and perhaps with Syria and Iran.

The Biden administration, slavishly doing Israel’s bidding, is fueling the madness. The U.S. was the only country to veto the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to deliver food, medicine, water and fuel to Gaza. It has blocked proposals for a ceasefire. It has proposed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that says Israel has a right to defend itself. The resolution also demands Iran stop exporting arms to “militias and terrorist groups threatening peace and security across the region.”

The U.S. and its Western allies are as morally bankrupt and as complicit in genocide as those who witnessed the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews and did nothing.

The conflict, which has taken the lives of 1,400 Israelis and at least 4,600 Palestinians in Gaza, is widening. Israel carried out a second airstrike on two airports in Syria. It daily trades rocket barrages with Hezbollah militias. U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Shia militias. The USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer, shot down three cruise missiles on Thursday, apparently launched by the Houthis in Yemen and heading towards Israel.

Israel is also struggling to quell daily violent clashes in the occupied West Bank. It carried out an airstrike on Sunday on a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp—the first air strike in the West Bank for two decades—that killed at least 2 people. Armed Jewish settlers have been rampaging through Palestinian towns in the West Bank. At least 90 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by armed settlers or the Israeli military since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Hamas and other resistance fighters, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office. Some 4,000 workers from Gaza and 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been arrested in the past two weeks, doubling the number of Palestinian prisoners to 10,000 held by Israel, over half of whom are political prisoners.

“Many of the prisoners have had their limbs, hands and legs broken … degrading and insulting expressions, insults, cursing, tying them with handcuffs to the back and tightening them at the end to the point of causing severe pain … naked, humiliating and group search of the prisoners,” the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees’ Affairs, Qadura Fares, said at a press conference.

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, told the BBC that since the Oct. 7 attack, it had documented “a concerted and organized effort by settlers to use the fact that the entire international and local attention is focused on Gaza and the north of Israel to try to seize land in the West Bank.”

Inside Israel, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and Jerusalem IDs are being harassed, detained, arrested and expelled from jobs and universities in what is described as a “witch hunt.” More than 152,000 Israelis have been evacuated from towns and villages near the borders of Gaza and Lebanon.

The U.S., in an effort to thwart a military response by Iran that could trigger a regional war, is deploying an additional 2,000 troops to the Middle East. It will redeploy one of its strike groups to the Persian Gulf and send additional air defense systems to the region. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its strike group–which last weekend was being deployed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea to join the USS Gerald R. Ford–has been redirected to the Persian Gulf. A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile battery, and Patriot missile defense system battalions, have also been sent to the Persian Gulf.

Israel has unleashed its Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—Death, Famine, War and Conquest.

It has given Gazans two choices. Leave Gaza or die.

Palestinians will be killed not only from the bombs and shells, and eventually, with the ground invasion, bullets and tank shells, but from hunger and epidemics such as cholera. Without water, fuel and medicine and with the breakdown of sanitation, diseases will spread swiftly. The U.N. states that hospitals in Gaza “are on the brink of collapse.” Thousands of patients will die once fuel runs out for hospital generators.

A doctor from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza reported in an interview Saturday, “We are collapsing.” He spoke of a lack of oxygen, light and medical supplies, no water in some departments, concerns about cholera and the loss of doctors killed by Israeli airstrikes, including a dentist killed in Israel’s bombing of an Orthodox church that left at least 18 dead, including several children.

The handful of trucks, 37 so far, of aid into Gaza is a cynical public relations gimmick demanded by the Biden administration. It will do little to alleviate the Israeli-engineered humanitarian crisis. The U.N. says it needs at least 100 aid tracks a day. Gaza’s last functioning seawater desalination plant shut down on Sunday because of a lack of fuel.

Israel has no intention of lifting the total siege on Gaza. It announced it will increase its airstrikes. It will continue, as it has for the past two weeks, to extinguish the lives of Palestinians and terrorize and starve them into leaving Gaza.

The ground assault on Gaza will not be quick. It will involve weeks, perhaps months, of street fighting. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin compared the looming battle in Gaza to the U.S. assault on the Iraqi city of Mosul, held by ISIS, in 2014. It took the U.S. nine months to recapture Mosul.

When Israel says this will be a “long war” they are, for once, telling the truth.

Israel has requested more military aid from Washington, $14.3 billion including $10.6 billion for air and missile defense. It will get it. Israel is rapidly depleting its stocks as it pounds Gaza, including in the south of Gaza where hundreds of thousands of displaced families from the north have fled.

Israel will not permit the distribution of the $100 million in U.S. aid pledged for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, at least not until their scorched earth campaign is finished. But by then, Gaza will be unrecognizable. Israel will have annexed part or all of it. Maybe the money can go to building more illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. And pledging aid is not the same as appropriating it. So perhaps that, too, is part of the illusion.

Egyptian officials are acutely aware of what comes next. Up to half, maybe more, of the 2.3 million Palestinians will be pushed by Israel into Egypt on Gaza’s southern border and never be allowed to return.

“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refuge and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted,” Egyptian president Abdulfattah al-Sisi warned.

Reports out of Egypt contend that Washington has promised to forgive much of Egypt’s massive $162.9 billion debt, as well as offer other economic incentives in exchange for Egypt’s acquiescence to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The refugees, once they cross the border into Egypt, will be left to rot in the Sinai.

“There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,” said Francesca Albanese, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967.

Israel has long used war to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Government officials have openly called for another Nakba, or “catastrophe,” the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from historic Palestine and driven into refugee camps to create the state of Israel. During the 1967 war, which led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel ethnically cleansed another 300,000 Palestinians during the Naksa, or “day of the setback,” which is commemorated every year by Palestinians.

Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, however, is not limited to wars. There has been an ongoing slow motion ethnic cleansing as Israel has steadily built more Jewish-only colonies and incrementally seized Palestinian land. Palestinians, denied basic civil liberties in Israel’s apartheid state, have been robbed of assets, including, often, their homes. They have faced mounting restrictions on their physical movements. They have been blocked from trading and business, especially the selling of produce. They have found themselves increasingly impoverished and trapped behind walls and security fences erected around Gaza and the West Bank. At the same time, they have endured periodic Israeli airstrikes, targeted assassinations and near daily attacks by armed Jewish settlers and the Israeli army.

Israel prevented Palestinians who left the West Bank and Gaza Strip from returning at the rate of about 9,000 Palestinians per year following the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994, according to the Israel human rights group HaMoked. Israel has also revoked the residency permits for some 14,000 Palestinians who lived in East Jerusalem since 1967 according to B’Tselem.

Israel demolished 9,880 structures, including over 2,600 inhabited residential buildings, displacing over 14,000 people and affecting 233,681 in the West Bank alone between Jan. 1, 2009 and 7 Oct. 7, 2023, according to data from the U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Since the Oct. 7 attack, a further 38 homes and other structures were demolished in the West Bank affecting an additional 13,613 people and displacing at least 73.

Less than 2.2 percent of Palestinian requests for construction permits made between 2009 and 2020 were approved, according to data from Peace Now and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The number of Israeli colonists in the occupied territories, however, has gone from zero before the June 1967 war, to between 600,000 to 750,000 spread out across at least 250 settlements and outposts throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, all of them in violation of international law.

Israel makes no secret about its intentions.

Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, told troops preparing to enter Gaza,

I have released all the restraints.

Knesset member Ariel Kallner, part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, called on X, formerly known as Twitter, for “a Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48.”

The Israeli army mobilized Ezra Yachin, a 95-year-old army veteran, to “motivate” the troops. Yachin was a member of the Lehi Zionist militia that carried out numerous massacres of Palestinian civilians, including the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, 1948, where over 100 Palestinian civilians, many women and children, were slaughtered.

“Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them,” Yachin said addressing Israeli troops.

“Erase them, their families, mothers and children,” he went on.

These animals can no longer live.

“Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them,” he said.

If you have an Arab neighbor, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him.

Where are our humanitarian interventionists? The ones who wept crocodile tears about the human rights of Ukranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans and Afghans, to justify massive arms shipments and war? Where is the old anti-war wing of the Democratic Party and the liberal class? What has happened to the public intellectuals who used to decry the slaughter of innocents and the U.S. war machine? Where are the jurists who uphold the rule of international law? Why are the few lonely voices speaking out about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians attacked, censored and doxxed?

“The previous president wanted to ban us and probably put us in concentration camps,” said Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, at a rally in support of a ceasefire on Oct. 20 in Washington in front of the U.S. Capitol.

This one wants us just to die. That’s how it feels. Shame on them.

Israel will not halt its genocidal campaign in Gaza against the Palestinians until there is a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. Our weapons systems, munitions and attack aircraft sustain the slaughter. We must terminate the $3.8 billion in military aid that the U.S. gives to Israel each year. We must support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and demand suspension of all free trade and other agreements between the U.S. and Israel. Only when these props are knocked out from under Israel will the Israeli leadership be forced, as was the apartheid regime in South Africa, to integrate Palestinians into one state with equal rights. As long as these props remain, the Palestinians are doomed.

https://mronline.org/2023/10/24/let-them-eat-cement/

Image

Mass rallies in support of Gaza continue with momentum
Originally published: Mass rallies in support of Gaza continue with momentum on October 23, 2023 by Agencies + Al Mayadeen (more by Mass rallies in support of Gaza continue with momentum) (Posted Oct 24, 2023)

Earlier this month, when protests started to break out across the globe, France was one of the countries that banned pro-Palestine protests. However, since “Israel” bombed al-Ahli Hospital, France was no longer able to oppress pro-Palestinian crowds across the nation.

On Sunday, thousands took to the streets chanting in support of Palestine and the people of the Gaza Strip and condemning the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and the war crimes “Israel” has committed.

In Lyon, people chanted “We are all Palestinians,” and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the former Deputy in the National Assembly of France, wrote in a post on X,

This is France. Meanwhile, Madame Braun-Pivet camps in Tel Aviv to encourage the massacre. Not in the name of the French people!
[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1716104403076190592[/youtube]

The statements of Mélenchon come to show the growing schism between the official French position vis-à-vis the Palestinian cause and the popular decision of the people of France who have made it clear that they stand with Palestine and its people.

There were also protests across Sweden bringing together hundreds where people who chanted:

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

In Barcelona, Spain, about 70,000 people took to the streets chanting “Israel Kills, Europe sponsors,” as well as “Boycott Israel”.
[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1715825113763823751[/youtube]

Protests were also carried out at Harvard University in the U.S., in Morocco, Belgium, and Kenya.


In Morocco, people protested against the Israeli aggression on Gaza holding accountable, in their chants, governments, agencies, and people who have always spoken about “human rights” but now stand silent in front of the atrocities and massacres committed by “Israel”.
[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1716207641389637851[youtube]

In Kenya, a protest was led by the current Member of Parliament for Nyali Constituency in Mombasa County, Nyali MP Mohamed Ali, who said, “We stand with the people of Gaza during this trying time. The suffering and violence they are enduring must end. It is our duty as fellow human beings to raise our voices against such injustices.”
[youtube]http://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9DwkPwaMAAb ... name=small[/youtube]

US private universities are being cornered by pro-Israeli donors
U.S. universities are stuck between a rock and a hard place—between satisfying rich donors that support “Israel” and respecting students’ rights to free expression, as the rich threaten to withdraw their financial support from prestigious private Ivy League schools like Harvard University in Massachusetts and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).

For example, the Wexner Foundation, meant for young Jewish leaders in North America and “Israel”, ended its partnership with Harvard’s Kennedy School.

The Wexner family, which founded the Bath & Body Works chain, formally cut their ties to the school following the “dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal  stand against the barbaric murders  of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists.”

Marc Rowan, the CEO of the Apollo Global Management investment fund and a major donor to UPenn, called on the school’s president, Elizabeth Magill, to step down after criticizing her for UPenn’s hosting of a Palestinian literature festival which, he claimed, included some “well-known anti-Semites and fomenters of hate and racism.”

The CEO of the Citadel investment fund and one of Harvard’s biggest donors, Kenneth Griffin, alongside heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics group and another UPenn donor, Ronald Lauder, are expressing displeasure as well.

Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU), said,

Leaders are criticized for not speaking out quickly or forcefully enough. They’re being forced to choose sides. And yet many say that given a diversity of perspectives on campus, there can’t be an institutional position on such complex global issues.

https://mronline.org/2023/10/24/mass-ra ... -momentum/

*******

Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza Kill 5,800 Palestinians So Far

Image
Paramedic carries a Palestinian child to a hospital in Gaza, Oct. 23, 2023. | Photo: X/ @aa_french

Published 24 October 2023

As of Oct. 24, the World Health Organization has documented 62 Israeli attacks on health care facilities and ambulances.

On Tuesday, the Health Ministry on Gaza stated that the death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes has risen to 5,791. At least 16,297 Palestinians have also been wounded.

So far, 40 percent of the deceased are children, 22 percent are women, and 5 percent are elderly. The list of deaths in Gaza includes at least 65 doctors and health workers. On Tuesday, there are still about 1,550 people under the rubble caused by the Israeli airstrikes.

Most of the fatalities recorded so far are concentrated in Gaza City, where 2,586 people have lost their lives. This is followed by 1,247 deaths in the north of the enclave, 791 in the central area, 588 in the Khan Yunis region, and 579 in the Rafah area.

Over the last 24 hours, Israeli bombings killed 704 new Palestinians, a figure that makes Monday the bloodiest day since the start of hostilities on Oct. 7. This happened as a result of the Israeli Army's attacks against 400 targets classified as "terrorist."

Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed that 20 trucks crossed the Rafah border point into Gaza on Monday. Half of the trucks were carrying water, food, and medicine.

Previously, on Saturday and Sunday, 34 trucks were able to enter Gaza with life-saving supplies. This is equivalent to no more than 4 percent of the daily average volume of commodities entering Gaza prior to this latest crisis.

A convoy of 20 trucks entered Gaza through Rafah on Saturday, the first in two weeks since the escalation of tensions between Israel and Palestinians.

Aid deliveries entering Gaza have not included fuel. The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), by far the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, will exhaust its fuel reserves within the next two days.


The number of people internally displaced is estimated at about 1.4 million, with nearly 580,000 people sheltering in 150 UNRWA-designated emergency shelters.

Human rights defenders warn about overcrowding, as the average number of people per shelter has reached more than 2.5 times capacity.

The situation in hospitals remains dire, given shortages of electricity, medicine, equipment and specialized personnel. The Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, is currently treating some 5,000 patients, significantly over its capacity of 700 patients. This is in addition to 45,000 internally displaced people seeking refuge within and around the hospital.

As of Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) had documented 62 Israeli attacks on health care, affecting 29 healthcare facilities and 23 ambulances. Seven hospitals were forced to shut down due to the damage they sustained, lack of power and supplies, and evacuation orders. For the 14th consecutive day, Gaza remains under full electricity blackout.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Isr ... -0003.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 25, 2023 12:32 pm

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 24, 2023
October 25, 2023
Rybar

During the day, Hamas launched several massive rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and the surrounding area, as well as on populated areas neighboring the Gaza Strip .

Later, the Al-Qassam Brigades launched an amphibious operation north of Gaza in the area of ​​Zikim Beach , which resulted in several hours of fighting between the IDF and saboteurs in the area of ​​the village of the same name and a military base.

Massive artillery and air strikes by the Israel Defense Forces on Gaza continued . The Palestinians have traditionally claimed dozens of civilian casualties.

During a meeting of the UN Security Council, a diplomatic scandal occurred. The organization’s secretary general said that current events are “a consequence of the “occupation of the Palestinian people,” to which the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry reacted harshly .

Image

Progress of hostilities
Northern direction
It was relatively quiet during the day. Hamas did not announce the launches, while the IDF carried out massive strikes on the Gaza Strip. However, already in the afternoon the situation changed radically.

The Al-Qassam brigades announced a massive launch of rockets at Tel Aviv, which also hit Ashdod and Ashkelon, which are closer to the sector. Numerous footage of missile interceptions and crashes appeared online.

Image

At the same time, Hamas once again tried to land north of the Gaza Strip : the group announced an attack near the village of Zikim and a nearby military base.

At the same time, the IDF reported repelling an “amphibious assault” of 10-15 people and eliminating four militants. The fighting in the vicinity of the facility continued until late in the evening, and according to some reports, continued after midnight. The Palestinians have been actively using similar tactics of raids under the cover of salvos and air raids since the beginning of the escalation.

Eastern and southern directions

To the southeast and south of Gaza, shelling by the al-Qassam Brigades and al-Quds Brigades continued against kibbutzim Miftahim , Kisufim , Sufa and Kholit . The Palestinians fired rockets and fired mortars.

As darkness fell, firefights began on the borders of the Gaza Strip, accompanied by reports of flare launches. Apparently, the IDF launched another operation to identify passages from the sector and search for the bodies of those killed in the first days of the exacerbation. One of the previous operations ended in the loss of equipment and several wounded soldiers. How it all ended and whether it is over at this time is not yet known.

Gaza Strip

The IDF continues massive strikes against various targets in populated areas throughout the sector, including the southern part - Khan Younis and Rafah , where, according to the IDF, Palestinians should evacuate.

IDF artillery and aviation are actively operating north of Gaza . The number of wounded after midnight already numbers in the dozens. According to the Palestinians, only civilians suffer (which, however, is not so far from the truth, given the network of underground communications).

The Israeli Air Force carried out several airstrikes, including in the vicinity of hospitals. In Gaza , a high-rise building across the road from Al-Wafa Hospital was hit , and in Khan Yunis , a building adjacent to Al-Amal Hospital was hit .

Border with Lebanon
Mutual shelling continues between Hezbollah and the IDF. The Lebanese group, by hook or by crook, is trying (sometimes quite ineptly) to disable communication and surveillance systems at Israeli border points. The Israelis respond with artillery and tank strikes. Aviation operates from time to time.

The populated areas of Maroun al-Ras , Aytarun , Tell an-Nhas and Sarda were subjected to Israeli airstrikes . In the afternoon , a shootout began between IDF soldiers and unknown persons in the area of ​​Kibbutz Mitzgav Am .

In addition, several IDF bases in Ras Naqoura , Jal al-Alam , Shtula and Baranit were shelled from the Lebanese side of the border .


While the Israelis again report their readiness to launch a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Lebanese Hezbollah published a breakdown of attacks on IDF surveillance equipment on the border.

In the video, the organization uses a large arsenal of weapons - recoilless rifles, Iranian copies of the Konkurs ATGM and old Soviet Malyutki , and even large-caliber sniper rifles for shooting at cameras.

One of the shots showed Hezbollah using the American BGM-71 TOW anti-tank system : they could have come from the Lebanese army, but it is more likely that the group captured them in Syria in the battles of 2015-2020.

Given the confirmed cases of weapons smuggling from Ukraine to the Middle East , it is likely that Hezbollah also possesses other modern Western-made weapons, such as the Javelin or NLAW .

West Bank

In the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, a campaign of mass arrests of Palestinians continues.

Detentions took place in Yabad , Ramallah , Atar , At-Tarem , Al-Khader and Beit Fajar , as well as several villages. In some places, arrest attempts escalated into clashes and shootings. There was unrest in Hebron , Shuafat camp , Nablus , Burin , Talluz and Al-Badhan .

In Tulkarm and a number of settlements, after evening prayers, rallies and protests were held in support of Gaza .

Political-diplomatic background
About Hamas media operation


Hamas PR people again decided to show their “human face” and play the card with the humane appearance of the organization. The militants freed two old women from captivity, drank tea with them on camera and handed the prisoners over to humanitarian organizations.

Against the backdrop of the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza , heaps of corpses and victims of war, showing yourself white and fluffy is almost a win-win move. Anyway, 95% of the audience will not remember what massacre the Palestinians committed on October 7th.


Later, the press was allowed to meet with the freed hostages. On Israeli television, old women (one, by the way, had a husband who was held hostage by Hamas, which, to put it mildly, hints at her “objectivity”) said that they were treated respectfully, politely, all requests were fulfilled, and they were fed from the same pot as the fighters .

And of course, old women speak negatively about the actions of the Israel Defense Forces . It must be admitted that the Palestinians carried out an extremely successful information operation.

About Macron's visit to Israel

French President Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to Israel, announced the death of 30 French citizens as a result of a Hamas attack on October 7.

The French President met with representatives of the Israeli leadership and traveled to Ramallah , where he held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas .

About the humanitarian situation in Gaza

Various organizations are sounding the alarm about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. Hospitals lack fuel and medicine. UNICEF said the number of children killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 has reached 2,360 , and 5,364 injured .

The Palestinian Red Crescent announced that it had received humanitarian aid from Egypt in the form of 8 trucks that entered through the Rafah checkpoint - the trucks contained water, food, and medicine.

New York Front of the Middle East War

At the UN , disputes related to the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue. The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN and the UN Security Council, Vasily Nebenzya , proposed an alternative to the American draft UN Security Council resolution on resolving the situation in the Middle East. Russia condemned the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, as well as the IDF's indiscriminate strikes on residential areas in Gaza. Proposals were made to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. In addition, there was a call for the immediate release of the captured civilian hostages, and Nebenzya also announced the death of 19 Russians as a result of the conflict.

At the same time, a scandal broke out between the UN Secretary General and the representative of Israel. Antonio Guterres said the attack on Israel is “the consequence of 56 years of suffocating occupation of the Palestinian people.” Obviously, the answer did not suit the Israeli delegation, despite the fact that the Secretary General condemned the October 7 attack and the actions of Hamas against civilians. Israel's representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called on the UN chief to resign immediately and also said that he was no longer going to hold meetings with the secretary general.

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

********

Gaza, Hamas & Netanyahu’s Likud
October 23, 2023

Dan Steinbock says the Hamas war is manna from heaven to Israel’s far-right government. Netanyahu himself has contributed to the expansion of Hamas since the 1990s.

Image
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Oct. 12. (State Department, Chuck Kennedy, Public domain)

By Dan Steinbock

The Hamas-Israel War, as it is portrayed by international media, reflects very poorly the realities in the region and even less the structural forces that led to the disaster.

In contrast to the standard narrative, the Hamas war is manna from heaven to Benyamin Netanyahu’s far-right government. Netanyahu himself has contributed to the expansion of Hamas since the 1990s.

With a population of over 2 million on some 365 square kilometers, the Gaza Strip is one of the world’s most densely populated areas and “largest open-air prison.” After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, it became an Egyptian-administrated territory. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, it came under Israeli occupation.

The precursor of Hamas, Al Mujamma al Islami (“The Islamic Center”), was established in the Israeli-occupied Gaza in the 1970s under the auspices of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood.

One of their adherents was the wheelchair-bound Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the future leader of Hamas. Yassin concentrated the Mujamma’s activities on religious and social services. Ironically, Israeli authorities actively supported its rise, when their main antagonist was the late Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

While PLO operatives in the occupied territories faced brutal repression, the Islamists affiliated with Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood were allowed to operate in Gaza. Israelis hoped to use the Islamists against PLO.

Image
2009 map of Gaza Strip. (Gringer, Country Borders: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2009, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Yassin was jailed in 1984 on a 12-year sentence, but released only a year later.

Around the same time, Netanyahu first made his mark in the United States, particularly when he served as the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. In his book Fighting Terrorism (1986), he offered lessons on “how democracies can defeat domestic and international terrorists.”

Fast, smart and slick, he represented a new generation of Israeli politicians trained by American PR experts and his former employer, global consultancy BCG. To the right-wing Likud Party, the ambitious politician was very welcome.

Launched in 1988 amid the first intifada (uprising), Hamas has always refused to accept the existence of the Israeli state. When the peace process began between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat, Yassin was again in prison.

Hamas launched a campaign of attacks against civilians, which contributed to the rise of Netanyahu and the Israeli far-right in 1996.

Image
Popular poster showing founders of Hamas, with Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin in upper left, photographed in 2007. (delayed gratification, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Intriguingly, Netanyahu, as prime minister, ordered Yassin to be released from prison (“on humanitarian grounds”), despite his life sentence. He seems to have relied on the Islamists to sabotage the Oslo Peace Accords. After having expelled Yassin to Jordan, Netanyahu allowed him to return to Gaza as a hero in late 1997. Until his killing in 2004, Yassin initiated a wave of suicide attacks against Israelis.

Yet, as Netanyahu told his Likud Party’s Knesset members in March 2019,

“anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy- to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

In the 1990s, as part of the Oslo Accords, most of Gaza had been handed over to the Palestinian National Authority, alongside the Israeli settlements, which were evacuated in 2005, despite intense opposition by Israeli far-right.

In 2007, after a legitimate Hamas election victory that rankled both the West and Fatah, the Islamist group took over and began administering Gaza. That led both Israel and Egypt to impose a land, sea and air blockade, which has devastated the poor, ailing economy.

Toward Gaza’s Catastrophe?

Image
Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Eisenkot leads an Israeli military delegation in Auschwitz-Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2017. (Amit Elkayam, IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Before the global pandemic, Gazan Palestinians organized widespread protests demanding Israel to end the blockade and address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Already two years ago, Gaza’s economy was on the verge of collapse. Yet, those interests that had most to gain from such a humanitarian crisis allowed it to proceed to its inflection point.

The final solution of Netanyahu government’s far-right seems to be the devastation of Gaza and the twisted hope that this would cause a mass emigration of Gazans away from the Israeli border. Hence, the preference for the Dahiya Doctrine, outlined by former IDF Chief Gadi Eizenkot in the 2006 Lebanese War and in the 2008-09 Gaza War. It is premised on the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of “hostile regimes.”

“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”

Scholars of international law have called it “state terrorism.” In the view of the U.N., it is a “carefully planned” assault intended “to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.”

In Gaza, it looks increasingly like a war crime of historical magnitude.

After the Hamas offensive, Eisenkot was appointed as a minister without portfolio in Netanyahu’s war cabinet.

In the first six days of the War Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza. That’s almost the number of bombs the U.S. used in Afghanistan in one year. To understand the intensity of such bombing, it is vital to recall that Afghanistan is almost 1,800 larger than the besieged Palestinian enclave. And that bombing is just a prelude to the ground assault.

If the Hamas War threatens to exacerbate Israel’s social and economic tensions, it risks turning Gaza into a desert and the West Bank into a Jewish suburbia.

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/23/g ... hus-likud/

Image

If Israel Stops Murdering Thousands Of Children, The Bad Guys Might Win

No no you don’t understand: if Israel stops killing children by the thousands in its relentless bombing campaign, the nation could be taken over by murderous terrorists.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 24, 2023

You see kids, Israel needs to keep dropping bombs on buildings full of children and targeting civilians with siege warfare and murdering Palestinians in the West Bank and censoring the media and arresting dissidents and killing journalists, because if it doesn’t, the bad guys will win.

No no you don’t understand: if Israel stops killing children by the thousands in its relentless bombing campaign, the nation could be taken over by murderous terrorists.



Normal person: It’s wrong to kill children by the thousands by dropping military explosives on the places where they are known to be located.

Crazy person: Oh so you’re saying you love Hamas and you want them to kill every Jew in the world???



Normal person: It’s wrong to drop bombs on buildings full of children and it needs to stop right now.

Crazy person: BUT A BAD THING HAPPENED TWO WEEKS AGO



One of the dumbest things Israel apologists ask us to believe is this bizarre narrative that Hamas bears 100 percent of the responsibility for the children killed by Israeli bombs, and Israel bears zero percent of the responsibility. It’s just self-evidently moronic and nonsensical.

And the thing about this framing is there’s no upper limit on it. If Israel kills 10,000 children, Hamas killed 10,000 children. If Israel kills 100,000 children, then Hamas killed 100,000 children. If Israel exterminates all the Palestinians, then Hamas exterminated all the Palestinians.

It’s plainly absurd.



Israel-Palestine is not complicated, it only looks complicated after you add in all the freakish mental contortions Israel’s apologists ask you to perform to make it look like its self-evidently indefensible abuses are justifiable.



The thing about Israel apologists who say Israel needs to go scorched earth on Gaza or else there’ll be another Hamas attack is that, in the sense that they mean it, they’re correct. Because they have already ruled out the option of rolling back the many Israeli abuses which led to the rise of Hamas and the attack on October 7, it is a safe bet that if they agreed to a ceasefire right now and returned to the abusive status quo which provoked the attack it would only be a matter of time before Gazans launched another one. So, from within that framework, the only other option is to kill and kill and kill and destroy and destroy and destroy until Gaza can pose no further threat.

The problem, of course, is that their framework is bullshit. The obvious other option is to move toward peace and reconciliation and right all the wrongs which gave rise to the attack on October 7, which would mean a one-state or two-state solution that Palestinians are happy with instead of the status quo of apartheid and tyranny and ghettos and a giant concentration camp of profound human suffering. That would allow the possibility of a ceasefire without the need for continued Palestinian resistance.

But Israel is unwilling to do this because it would mean ceding a bunch of land or ending Israel’s existence as a Jewish ethnostate, so that option is framed as unthinkable nonsense instead of the glaringly obvious fix for this problem that it plainly is. Murdering children by the thousands and carpet bombing Gaza is seen as preferable to the measures that would be necessary to achieve a lasting peace.



Officially Israel has three options:

1. Make huge compromises and right all wrongs so the Palestinian resistance has no further reason to exist,

2. Return to the status quo and accept that there will be more attacks in the future, or

3. Go scorched earth genocide on Gaza.

A hidden fourth option which nobody wants to talk about would be to address the uncomfortable fact that Israeli intelligence probably allowed the Hamas attack to happen. It seems highly unlikely that Hamas spent two years coordinating and openly training for an attack of unprecedented scale and sophistication involving motorboats, drones and motorized paragliders in an enclosed area the size of Philadelphia which also happens to be one of the most spied-on places on earth, and that the attack was carried out so successfully even Hamas was surprised at how many Israelis they were able to kill and capture because it went completely undetected by Israeli intelligence those entire two years despite being warned by Egyptian intelligence that an attack was coming, and despite the fact that US intelligence was aware of unusual activity by Hamas on October 6.

If Israel got real with itself and investigated and found that officials in Israeli intelligence kept operatives looking the other way to allow the October 7 attack to occur, then simply acknowledging this and taking steps to ensure that it never happens again would be enough to feel secure that Israel won’t suffer any more attacks of that scale, because Israeli intelligence can indeed prevent them from happening. The premise that Hamas needs to be eliminated to prevent such attacks would be proven false.

This is perhaps the least likely of all possible options, though, because the internal political fallout that would occur when the Israeli public learns their nation’s intelligence services sacrificed massive numbers of their own citizens to advance a pre-existing agenda would collapse the entire national order.



Israel apologists are like, “All you goddamn anti-semitic terrorist lovers just don’t get it: if Israel doesn’t go full scorched earth and completely obliterate Hamas right now, what’s to stop another massive Hamas attack from being intentionally allowed to happen by Israeli intelligence?”



Funny how empire simps spent the last seven years screaming the word “whataboutism” and saying it’s evil, and now their response to all criticisms of Israel is “what about what Hamas did” and “what about those other countries who do bad things”.



Westerners who didn’t already know about Israel’s criminality have been learning that Israel

Routinely bombs hospitals, churches and mosques
Constantly lies and circulates disinformation
Is fine with killing children by the thousands
Sees Palestinians as sub-human
We’re fast approaching the point where the emotional heat of October 7 wears off and people start looking at Israel’s actions more rationally, after which point they’ll look over and just see Israel murdering children by the thousands and reducing Gaza to rubble for no legitimate reason.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/10 ... might-win/

******

Un SecGen Calls For End Of Zionist Bombing

Press Briefing with the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby - October 24, 2023

And as I think you’ve heard us say, a ceasefire right now really only benefits Hamas. That’s where we are right now.


A ceasefire would of course benefit ALL people living in Gaza and all Israeli's under threads of Hamas missile fire.

The UN Secretary General António Guterres took a much saner position:

Secretary-General's remarks to the Security Council - on the Middle East - October 24, 2023

It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.
The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.

They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.

But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
...

Excellencies,
Even war has rules.

We must demand that all parties uphold and respect their obligations under international humanitarian law; take constant care in the conduct of military operations to spare civilians; and respect and protect hospitals and respect the inviolability of UN facilities which today are sheltering more than 600,000 Palestinians.

The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming.
...
The protection of civilians is paramount in any armed conflict.

Protecting civilians can never mean using them as human shields.

Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel, and then continuing to bomb the south itself.

I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza.

Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law.
...
Today is United Nations Day, marking 78 years since the UN Charter entered into force.

That Charter reflects our shared commitment to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights.

On this UN Day, at this critical hour, I appeal to all to pull back from the brink before the violence claims even more lives and spreads even farther.


I find this unprecedented. The UN SecGen is clearly pointing to the U.S. which had vetoed last week's ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council.

Should the U.S. calls for a ceasefire Israel will have to end its bombing. It should anyway immediately do so because its opponents are ready for the next phase of the fight.

Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders discuss how to achieve 'victory'

The meeting involved Hezbollah's Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri and Islamic Jihad chief Ziad al-Nakhala, Hezbollah said in a statement. It did not say when the meeting took place.
"An assessment was made of the international positions being taken and what the parties of the Axis of Resistance must do ... to realise a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestinian and to halt the brutal aggression," Hezbollah said.


If Hizbullah unleashes its missile force against Israel's infrastructure and industrial areas the Zionist entity is done.

Posted by b on October 25, 2023 at 9:18 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/u ... .html#more

******

Teach a lesson to the UN
Colonelcassad
October 25, 12:03

Image

Israel is about to teach the UN a lesson.

After:

1. Negotiations with UN representatives were cancelled.
2. The UN Secretary General was convicted.
3. Demands were put forward for the UN Secretary General to apologize and resign.

Israel announced that UN employees would no longer be issued visas to Israel and that Israel was going to teach the UN leadership a lesson.

The hysteria continues. And all because the UN Secretary General, with his statements, seriously prevented Israel from building the myth that it is not to blame for anything and that Hamas’s actions have no previous background, while Israeli propaganda relied on viewing the entire situation as some kind of “spherical horse in a vacuum” ", where at a certain point in time Hamas, for no apparent reason, suddenly decided to attack peaceful Israel. But public opinion, even in the West, for the most part refused to consume this propaganda semolina for morons (which was clearly demonstrated by the failed summit in Cairo and mass protests in the West). And then the UN Secretary General (what a worthless organization he is) played a dirty trick.

PS. Well, as usual, all current posters on the topic were drawn several decades ago by Soviet propaganda.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8727364.html

Google Translator

********

Zionist Think Tank Publishes Blueprint for Palestinian Genocide
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 24, 2023
Kit Klarenberg

Image
A tent city in Khan Younis, Gaza for Palestinians forced to flee the northern areas of the besieged strip

As Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza entered its third week, leaving over 5000 dead and at least one million residents displaced, a Tel Aviv-based think tank published a blueprint for self-proclaimed Jewish state’s final solution.


In a white paper released over a week after the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israeli military bases and kibbutzes, The Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy outlined “a plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza,” based on the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip” that Israel’s latest assault on the besieged costal enclave provided.

Published in Hebrew on the organization’s website, the paper was authored by Amir Weitman, “an investment manager and visiting researcher” at the Institute who also leads the libertarian caucus of Israel’s ruling Likud Party. The document began by noting that there are 10 million vacant housing units in neighboring Egypt that could be “immediately” filled with Palestinians. Weitman then assured readers that the “sustainable plan…aligns well with the economic and geopolitical interests of the State of Israel, Egypt, the USA and Saudi Arabia.”

Weitman’s ethnic cleansing proposal echoes forced transfer plans advanced in recent days by former Israeli officials while capitalizing on evacuation orders delivered to the entire civilian population of northern Gaza by the Israeli military.

Flyers dropped from Israeli warplanes, Just received this from #Gaza. #Israel literally asked more than 1.1 million from north and central #Gaza city to leave towards the south. This is illegal and absurd. People of Gaza refuse to leave. #GazaUnderAttack#StopIsraeliAggression… pic.twitter.com/pPktoEjKQJ

— Sameh Habeeb (@Samehahabeeb) October 13, 2023


Weitman’s sinister blueprint imagined Israel purchasing these properties at a cost of $5 – 8 billion dollars, a whopping price-tag that reflects just 1 – 1.5 percent of Israel’s GDP.

“These sums of money [required to cleanse Gaza] in relation to the Israeli economy, are minimal,” Weitman posits. “Investing individual billions of dollars to solve this difficult issue is an innovative, cheap and sustainable solution.”

Weitman acknowledged that his plan virtually amounts to Israel “buying the Gaza Strip,” arguing the move would be “a very worthwhile investment” for Zionists because it would “add a lot of value over time.” He asserted local “land conditions” in the area would provide “many” Israeli settlers a high standard of living, therefore allowing for an expansion of settlements in Gush Dan near the Egyptian border, giving “a tremendous impetus to settlement in the Negev.”

Tel Aviv has approved plans to establish four settlements in the Negev to house 3,000 settler families in December 2021.

A genocidal war to end all wars

Though Egypt has so far rejected Israeli pressure for a mass exodus of Gaza residents through the southern Rafah crossing, Weitman argued Cairo will welcome the mass exodus of Palestinian refugees as “an immediate stimulus” that will “provide a tremendous and immediate benefit to al-Sisi’s regime.”

Weitman claimed that Cairo’s major creditors — including France, Germany and Saudi Arabia — are likely to welcome a revitalized Egyptian economy, courtesy of “Israeli investment” in the Palestinians’ permanent removal. He surmizes that Western Europe will welcome “the transfer of the entire Gaza population to Egypt,” because it will significantly “reduce the risk of illegal immigration…a tremendous advantage.” Meanwhile, he expects Riyadh to embrace the move because the “evacuation of the Gaza Strip means the elimination of a significant ally of Iran.”

The ethnic cleansing of Gaza would mean an end to “ceaseless, repeated rounds of fighting, which inflame the fires of hatred against Israel.” Moreover, “closing the Gaza issue will ensure a stable and increased supply of Israeli gas to Egypt and its liquefaction,” from the vast reserves seized by Israel near Gaza’s shores.

Palestinians in turn are expected to jump at the chance to be forcibly transferred from their homes rather than “living in poverty under the rule of Hamas.” It is therefore necessary for Israel to “create the right conditions” for them to “immigrate” from Gaza to Cairo. Weitman noted that Gaza’s two million inhabitants “constitute less than 2% of the total Egyptian population, which today already includes 9 million refugees. A drop in the ocean.”

The paper ominously concluded: “There is no doubt that in order for this plan to come to fruition, many conditions must exist at the same time. Currently, these conditions are met and it is unclear when such an opportunity will arise again, if ever. This is the time to act. Now.”

“If we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill”

As barbarous as these proposals might seem, they reflect what many Israeli officials appear to be murmuring in private, and what at least one former government spinmeister has openly pushed as an altruistic solution to the Palestinian “problem.”

“There is a huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai Desert, just on the other side of Gaza,” former Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, echoed the genocidal Zionist logic behind Weitman’s proposal in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Marc Lamont Hill. “The idea is—and this is not the first time it will be done—for them to leave over to the open areas where we and the international community will prepare the infrastructure — you know, 10 cities with food and water — just like for the refugees of Syria.”

Image

“There is almost endless space in the Sinai Desert…this is not the first time it has been done…we & the international community will prepare tent cities…”

Israeli politician Danny Ayalon describes the their vision for another Nakba today in Gaza.

pic.twitter.com/dcuDUPBLVi

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) October 14, 2023


In 2004, Zionist demographer Arnon Sofer of Haifa University laid out detailed plans for the isolation of Gaza directly to Ariel Sharon’s government. This entailed withdrawing Israeli forces from the area entirely and constructing a stringent system of surveillance and security to ensure nothing and no one went in or out without Zionist proviso. He predicted a perpetual bloodbath:

“When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today…The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day…the only thing that concerns me is how to ensure the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.”

The Institute has put forward a clean and easy fantasy of achieving the same goal put forward by Sofer. For it to succeed, all Palestinians have to do is put down their weapons and head toward the desert of permanent exile.

Arnon Sofer is an academic who helped devise Israel’s siege of Gaza to engineer a one-way peace

Sofer said, “If we want to remain alive, we have to kill and kill and kill, all day, every day. If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist.”

I explain the logic of the siege (2013) pic.twitter.com/il2oCQQG7O

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 10, 2023


https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... -genocide/

What Really Happened on October 7th? Evidence Countradicts Zionist Propaganda
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 24, 2023
Robert Inlakesh

Image
Evidence is now emerging that up to half the Israelis killed were combatants; that Israeli forces were responsible for some of their own civilian deaths; and that Tel Aviv disseminated false ‘Hamas atrocities’ stories to justify its devastating air assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Two weeks after the Hamas breakout assault on Israel on 7 October, a clearer picture of what happened – who died, and who killed – is now beginning to emerge.

Instead of the wholescale massacre of civilians claimed by Israel, incomplete figures published by the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz show that almost half the Israelis killed that day were in fact combatants – soldiers or police.

In the interim, two weeks of blanket western media reporting that Hamas allegedly killed around 1,400 Israeli civilians during its 7 October military attack has served to inflame emotions and create the climate for Israel’s unconstrained destruction of the Gaza Strip and its civilian population.

Accounts of the Israeli death toll have been filtered and shaped to suggest that a wholesale civilian massacre occurred that day, with babies, children, and women the main targets of a terror attack.

Now, detailed statistics on the casualties released by the Israeli daily Haaretz paint a starkly different picture. So far, the news outlet has released information on 683 Israelis killed during the Hamas-led offensive, including their names and locations of their deaths on 7 October.

Of these, 331 casualties – or 48.4 percent – have been confirmed to be soldiers and police officers, many of them female. Another 13 are described as rescue service members, and the remaining 339 are ostensibly considered to be civilians.

While this list is not comprehensive and only accounts for roughly half of Israel’s stated death toll, almost half of those killed in the melee are clearly identified as Israeli combatants.

There are also so far no recorded deaths of children under the age of three, which throws into question the Israeli narrative that babies were targeted by Palestinian resistance fighters. Of the 683 total casualties reported thus far, seven were between the ages of 4 and 7, and nine between the ages of 10 and 17. The remaining 667 casualties appear to be adults.

Image
Age distribution of the Israelis killed on the October 7 operation. The graph has been removed from Haaretz website.

The numbers and proportion of Palestinian civilians and children among those killed by Israeli bombardment over the past two weeks – over 5,791 killed, including 2,360 children and 1,292 women, and more than 18,000 injured – are far higher than any of these Israeli figures from the events of 7 October.


Revisiting the scene

The daring Hamas-led military operation, codenamed Al-Aqsa Flood, unfolded with a dramatic dawn raid at approximately 6:30 AM (Palestine time) on 7 October. This was accompanied by a cacophony of sirens breaking the silence of occupied Jerusalem, signaling the start of what became an extraordinary event in the occupation state’s 75-year history.

As per the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, around 1,500 Palestinian fighters crossed the formidable Gaza-Israel separation barrier.

However, this breakout was not limited to Hamas forces alone; numerous armed fighters belonging to other factions such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) later breached the armistice line, along with some Palestinians unaffiliated with any organized militia.

As it became apparent this was no ordinary resistance operation, hundreds of videos quickly flooded social media, most of which have been viewed by The Cradle, depicting dead Israeli troops and settlers, fierce gunfire battles between various parties, and Israelis being taken captive into Gaza.

These videos were either taken on the phones of Israelis, or were released by Palestinian fighters filming their own operation. It wasn’t until hours later that more gruesome and downright dubious allegations began to surface.

Unsubstantiated allegations of ‘Hamas atrocities’

Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriter for the Israeli mission to the UN, was the first Israeli of note to spread the claim that there were reports of “Israeli girls being raped and their bodies dragged through the street.”

She posted this on X at 9:18 PM (Palestine time), on 7 October, although an op-ed Klompa published with Newsweek at 12:28 AM (Palestine time), on 8 October, made no mention of any sexual violence.

Klompas is also the co-founder of Boundless Israel, a “think-action tank” that works “to revitalize Israel education and take bold collective action to combat Jew-hatred.” An “unapologetically Zionist” charitable group that works to promote Israeli narratives on social media.

The one case touted as proof of rape was that of a young German-Israeli woman named Shani Louk, who was filmed face down in the back of a pickup truck and was widely assumed dead.

It was unclear whether the fighters filmed with Louk in the Gaza-bound vehicle were members of Hamas, as they do not sport the uniforms or insignia of the Al-Qassam troops identifiable in other Hamas videos – some even wore casual civilian clothing and sandals.

Later, her mother claimed to have evidence that her daughter was still alive, but had suffered a severe head wound. This rings true with information released by Hamas that indicated Louk was being treated for her injuries at an unspecified Gaza hospital.

Complicating matters further, on the day these rape allegations arose, Israelis would not have had access to this information. Their armed forces had not yet entered many, if not most, of the areas liberated by the resistance and were still engaged in armed clashes with them on multiple fronts.

Nevertheless, these rape claims took on a life of their own, with even US President Joe Biden alleging, during a speech days later, that Israeli women were “raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies” by Hamas fighters. It is important to note that The Forward’s article on 11 October reported that the Israeli military acknowledged they had no evidence of such allegations at that point.

When the army later made its own allegations of decapitations, foot amputations, and rape, Reuters pointed out that “the military personnel overseeing the identification process didn’t present any forensic evidence in the form of pictures or medical records.” To date, there is no credible evidence of these atrocities that has been presented.

Other outrageous allegations, such as the story of Hamas “beheading 40 babies‘ made headlines and the front pages of countless western news outlets. Even Biden claimed to have seen “confirmed photos of terrorists beheading babies.” The claims trace back to Israeli reserve settler and soldier David Ben Zion, who has previously incited violent riots against Palestinians and called for the West Bank town of Huwara to be wiped out. No evidence was ever produced to support these claims and the White House itself confirmed later that Joe Biden had never seen such photos.

The Hamas plan

There is little to no credible evidence that Palestinian fighters had a plan to – or deliberately sought to – kill or harm unarmed Israeli civilians on 7 October. From the available footage, we witness them engaging primarily with armed Israeli forces, accounting for the deaths of hundreds of occupation soldiers. As Qassam Brigades’ Spokesman Abu Obeida made clear on 12 October:

“Al-Aqsa Flood operation aimed to destroy the Gaza Division (an Israeli army unit on Gaza’s borders) which was attacked at 15 points, followed by attacking 10 further military intervention points. We attacked the Zikim site and several other settlements outside the Gaza Division headquarters.”

Abu Obeida and other resistance officials claims that the other key objective of their operation was to take Israeli prisoners that they could exchange for the approximately 5,300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention centers, many of whom are women and children.

Hamas Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Saleh Al-Arouri, in an interview after the operation, stressed: “We have a large and qualitative number and senior officers. All we can say now is that the freedom of our prisoners is at the doorstep.”

Both sides play this game: Since the start of its military assault on Gaza, Israel has rounded up and imprisoned more than 1,200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. To date there have been 38 prisoner exchange deals between the resistance factions and Tel Aviv – deals that Israelis often resist to the very last minute.

While these kinds of testimonies trickle out, reports are emerging that Israeli authorities have dialed up the mistreatment, torture, and even killing of Palestinian prisoners in their custody – a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ironically, a non-state actor like Hamas appears to have followed to the letter.

In relation to the events of 7 October, there are certainly some videos depicting possibly unarmed Israelis, killed in their vehicles or at entrances to facilities, so that Palestinian troops could gain access.

There are also videos which show the fighters engaging in shootouts with armed Israeli forces, where there were unarmed Israelis taking cover in between, in addition to videos of fighters shooting toward houses and throwing grenades into fortified areas. Eyewitness testimony also suggests grenades were thrown into bomb shelters, though by whom is unclear.

Even at the Israeli “peace rave”, which has been cited as the single deadliest attack committed by Palestinian fighters during their operation, videos emerged that appeared to show Israeli forces opening fire through a crowd of unarmed civilians, toward targets they believed to be Hamas members. ABC News also reported that an Israeli tank had headed to the site of the festival.

An Israeli massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri?

In its report on the events at Be’eri Kibbutz, ABC News photographed artillery pieces resembling Israeli munitions outside a bombed-out home. The reporter, David Muir, mentioned that Hamas fighters, covered in plastic bags, were found in the aftermath.

Additionally, videos of the scene show homes that appear to have been struck by munitions that Hamas fighters did not possess. Muir reported that about 14 people were held hostage in a building by Palestinian fighters.

A Hebrew-language Haaretz article published on 20 October, which only appears in English in a must-read Mondoweiss article, paints a very different story of what went down in Be’eri that day. A Kibbutz resident who had been away from his home – whose partner was killed in the melee – reveals stunning new details:

“His voice trembles when his partner, who was besieged in her home shelter at the time, comes to mind. According to him, only on Monday night (9 October) and only after the commanders in the field made difficult decisions — including shelling houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages — did the IDF complete the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri people were killed. Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble.”

Photo evidence of the destruction in Be’eri corroborates his account. Only the heavy munitions of the Israeli army could have destroyed residential homes in this manner.

Image
Aftermath or Be’eri Kibbutz after the fire power of the two sides ceased


Hamas behaviors: Evidence vs allegations

Yasmin Porat, a survivor from Kibbutz Be’eri, said in an interview for an Israeli radio-show, hosted by state-broadcaster Kan, that Israeli forces “eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” going on to state that “there was very, very heavy crossfire” and even noted tank shelling.

Porat had attended the Nova rave and testified to the humane treatment throughout different interviews she conducted with Israeli media. She explained that when she was held prisoner, the Hamas fighters “guarded us”, telling her in Hebrew to “Look at me well, we’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm, you’re not going to die.” She also added the following:

“They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous they calm us down. It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.”

Increasingly, and to the horror of some Israeli officials and news outlets, Israeli eyewitnesses and survivors of the bloodshed are testifying that they were treated well by Palestinian fighters. On 24 October, Israeli state broadcaster Kan bemoaned the fact that prisoner Yocheved Lifshitz, released by Hamas the day before, was allowed to make statements live on air.



As she was handed over to Red Cross intermediaries, the elderly Israeli female captive was caught on camera turning back to squeeze the hand of her Hamas captor in her last goodbyes. Lifshitz’s live broadcast, in which she spoke about her two-week ordeal, “humanized” her Hamas captors even further as she recounted her daily life with the fighters:

“They were very friendly toward us. They took care of us. We were given medicine and were treated. One of the men with us was badly injured in a motorbike accident. Their (Hamas) paramedics looked after his wounds, he was given medicine and antibiotics. The people were friendly. They kept the place very clean. They were very concerned about us.”

Following her release from Gaza by Hamas, 85 year old Yosheved Lifshitz is interviewed about her experience in captivity. pic.twitter.com/MOTEJ82BmB


# Al-Qassam Brigades releases the detainees “Nurit Yitzhak” and “yochvad Lifshitz”for compelling humanitarian reasons through Egyptian mediation # Gaza # Palestine #the great revolution #Al-Aqsa flood pic.twitter.com/p5pDh62yyv

– Al-Mayadeen channel (@AlMayadeenNews) October 24, 2023



More questions than answers

It is essential to recognize that in many reports by western journalists on the ground, the majority of information regarding the actions of Hamas fighters comes from the Israeli army – an active participant in the conflict.

Emerging evidence now indicates that there is a high probability, especially due to the scale of the infrastructural damage, that Israeli military forces could have deliberately killed captives, fired on incorrect targets, or mistaken Israelis for Palestinians in their firefights. If the only source of information for a serious claim made is the Israeli army, then it has to be taken into account that they have reason to conceal cases of friendly fire.

Israeli friendly fire was rampant, even in the days that followed, from an army with very little actual combat experience. In the city of Ashkelon (Askalan) on 8 October, Israeli soldiers shot dead and shouted insults at the body of a man they believed to have been a Hamas fighter, yet later realized they had executed a fellow Israeli. This is just one of three such examples of friendly fire in one day, resulting in the killing of Israelis by their own troops.

Amid the fog of war, parties to the conflict have different perspectives on what occurred during the initial raid and its aftermath. It’s not disputed that Palestinian armed groups inflicted significant losses on the Israeli military, but there will be plenty of ongoing debate regarding everything else in the weeks and months to come.

An independent, impartial, international investigation is urgently needed, one that has access to information from all sides involved in the conflict. Neither the Israelis nor the Americans will agree to this, which itself suggests that Tel Aviv has much to conceal.

In the meantime, Palestinian civilians in Gaza endure ongoing, indiscriminate attacks with the most sophisticated heavy weapons in existence, living under the persistent threat of forced and potentially irreversible displacement. This Israeli air blitz was made possible only by the flood of unsubstantiated ‘Hamas atrocities’ stories that media began to circulate on and after 7 October.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... ropaganda/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 25, 2023 10:21 pm

Image
Demonstrators in Berlin take the streets in solidarity with Palestine (Photo: Montecruz Foto)

Germany bans public grieving and solidarity with Palestine
By Peoples Dispatch (Posted Oct 25, 2023)

Originally published: Peoples Dispatch on October 23, 2023 (more by Peoples Dispatch) |

Germany is home to Europe’s largest Palestinian community, with roughly 80,000 Palestinians living in the country. For years, German authorities have tried to stifle Palestinian activism in the country, viewing it as a nuisance to its explicit policy of “unconditional support for Israel.” Demonstrations, such as one earlier this year to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, have been sporadically banned in recent years and organizations, like the Palestinian prisoner solidarity network Samidoun, have also come under increasing scrutiny.

Yet the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine on a national level has taken on entirely new dimensions since October 7. After a small demonstration on Berlin’s busy Sonnenallee street on the evening of October 7, the German media and body politic have been up in arms about Palestinians supposedly celebrating terrorism and antisemitism on German streets.

Talking points that were two weeks ago only uttered by far-right AfD politicians are now being openly expressed by politicians from all parliamentary parties in Germany. Playing off the idea of “imported antisemitism,” the social democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now arguing that “we must finally deport on a large scale” residents who do not hold German citizenship and openly protest against Israel. The Christian Democrats (CDU) are even demanding that the recognition of Israel’s right to exist must become a precondition for German citizenship.

Samidoun has been made into public enemy number one, as the media presents the group as a bastion for “sympathizers of terror” that poses “a particular danger, because as a secular organization, they are building bridges between Islamists and radical leftists.” In a speech before parliament on October 12, Chancellor Scholz personally announced a ban on Samidoun along with a ban on the activities of Hamas in Germany.

In Berlin specifically, which is home to one of the largest Palestinian diaspora communities outside the Arab world, the authorities have been particularly hostile towards any signs of solidarity with Palestine. Since October 7, every demonstration explicitly or implicitly referring to Palestine has been banned, leaving the roughly 30,000 Palestinians living in Berlin with no means of expressing their anguish at the siege and bombardment of Gaza.

Solidarity groups have been trying to bypass this censorship by avoiding political statements and focusing on humanitarian campaigning, yet even demonstrations and slogans such as “Children in Gaza need help” and “Solidarity with the civilian population in the Gaza Strip” were banned. On October 13, the police went so far as to ban a demonstration registered by the group “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East” entitled “Jewish Berliners against violence in the Middle East.”

Sonnenallee, a busy street in the district in which many Arab migrants live, has become a focal point of dissent against Israel’s attack on Gaza. The police patrol Sonnenallee every evening with tight controls on the public squares. Racial profiling and brutal arrests are commonplace and often recorded and posted to social media. One particular video shows police officers stomping out a candle-lit vigil with their boots.

In a letter to all Berlin schools, the city’s Department for Education, Youth and Family set out strict guidelines on how to discuss the situation in Palestine with students. “Any demonstrative action or expression of opinion that can be understood as advocating or approving of the attacks against Israel or support for the terrorist organizations carrying them out, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, constitutes a threat to school peace in the current situation and is prohibited.” According to the letter, these may include the following:

visibly wearing relevant clothing (for example, the kuffiyeh known as the Palestinian scarf), displaying stickers and patches with inscriptions such as ‘free Palestine’ or a map of Israel in the colors of Palestine (white, red, black, green), and shouting ‘free Palestine!’ and demonstrating verbal support for Hamas and its terrorism.

At one high school on Sonnenallee, a 61-year-old teacher attempted to confiscate a Palestinian flag from a 14-year-old student and ended up in a physical altercation with a second 15-year-old student. The parents’ association of the school tried to organize a demonstration under the slogan “No place for racism, no place for violence” as a reaction to the incident, yet it was promptly banned by the police, ostensibly as a “a precautionary measure”. The Central Council of Palestinians in Germany has since sent a letter in response to Berlin’s Department for Education, expressing their “great concern about the psychological and educational development [of their children]” in Berlin schools.

As other European states are witnessing mass protests in solidarity with Palestine, the German state has been able to use force and violence to prevent such scenes on German streets. Yet it is unlikely that the government will be able to ban these sentiments of solidarity indefinitely, especially as the images of Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza continue to circulate around the world.

https://mronline.org/2023/10/25/germany ... palestine/

*******

Germany Does Not Support Israeli Demand for Guterres to Resign

Image
United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres. | Photo: X/ @europapress

Published 25 October 2023 (1 hours 8 minutes ago)

UN Secretary Antonio Guterres stated that the attack on Oct. 7 "did not come out of nowhere" but was a result of "56 years of occupation."


On Wednesday, Germany reaffirmed its confidence in the work of United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres in the face of Israeli demands for his resignation.

"We need to take a step back. The situation is highly charged, very tense. It's affecting all of us, and I don't feel that the calls for resignation are justified," said Steffen Hebestreit, the spokesperson for Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Hebestreit declined to comment on the content of Guterres' statements but emphasized that he enjoys the "confidence" of the Scholz administration. He added that Germany currently stands "unwaveringly" by Israel's side but is also making efforts to "mediate."

"We see what's happening in Israel, what's happening in Gaza. We're trying to open humanitarian channels so that civilians can continue to receive food and water," the spokesperson said, echoing the message conveyed by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock before the UN Security Council meeting in New York on Tuesday.


"In this situation, my advice would be that on the international and public level, we should not allow ourselves to be divided but rather address a very complicated and delicate conflict together," he summarized.

During a debate about the conflict at the United Nations on Tuesday, Guterres stated that the attack on October 7 "didn't come out of nowhere" but was a result of "56 years of occupation." He also condemned human rights violations during the offensive in the Gaza Strip, where approximately 6,000 people have died due to Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called for the resignation of the Portuguese diplomat, who later emphasized that there is no justification for Hamas taking hostages and called for their release.

Meanwhile, the UK's Secretary of State for Immigration, Robert Jenrick, called on Guterres today to "retract" his comments and rejected the assertion made by the UN Secretary that Israel had violated the law in its Gaza blockade.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ger ... -0006.html

Germany trying to have it botth ways but ain't nothing in the middle of the road except dead armadillos.

Israel Uses Starvation as a Weapon of War Against Gaza: OXFAM

Image
Destruction caused by Israeli bombings to civilian infrastructure in Gaza, Oct. 2023. | Photo: X/ @newsfromoxfam

Published 25 October 2023

Before Israel intensified the siege of Gaza, over 100 trucks delivered food to this Palestinian territory every day.


On Wednesday, OXFAM accused Israel of using "hunger as a weapon of war" against Palestinian civilians.

This humanitarian organization demanded that food, water, fuel and other essential goods be allowed into the Gaza Strip, where 2.2 million people face an "urgent need for food."

Based on an analysis of United Nations data, the organization estimates that only 2 percent of the food that has been destined for Gaza has managed to enter the territory since Israel imposed the blockade on October 9.

"Although a small volume of food aid has been allowed in, commercial international food imports have not been delivered," OXFAM said.


Before the Israeli State intensified the siege of Gaza, 104 trucks delivered food to this Palestinian territory every day, which meant an average income of 1 truck every 14 minutes.

Over the weekend, 62 trucks were able to enter Gaza through the Egyptian Rafah crossing, but only 30 of them contained food, OXFAM specified.

"The situation is nothing short of horrific, where is humanity? Millions of civilians are being collectively punished for the entire world to see, there can be no justification for using hunger as a weapon of war. World leaders cannot continue idly by, they have the obligation to act and to act now," said Sally Abi Khalil, OXFAM's director for the Middle East, said.


Previously, OXFAM issued a statement asking the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and other relevant international actors to urgently promote a ceasefire based unconditionally on the following principles:

-. Facilitate the delivery of lifesaving assistance, including food, medical supplies, fuel, and the resumption of electricity and internet to Gaza, in addition to safe passage of humanitarian and medical staff

-. Free all civilian hostages, especially children and elderly

-. Allow humanitarian convoys to reach UN facilities, schools, hospitals, and health facilities in Gaza and commit to protecting them along with the civilians and staff inside them at all times

-. Rescind orders by the Government of Israel for civilians to depart northern Gaza

-. Allow patients in critical condition to be medically evacuated for urgent care

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Isr ... -0007.html

******

US Blocks Peace in Gaza, Supporting Israel’s Genocidal War on Civilians
OCTOBER 24, 2023

By Ben Norton – Oct 21, 2023

Image

The United States vetoed Gaza ceasefire proposals at the UN Security Council, while sending Israel more weapons. UN experts warn Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing. An Israeli scholar of the Holocaust says Israel is guilty of “genocide” against Palestinians.

While Israel indiscriminately bombs the Gaza strip, killing thousands of Palestinian civilians, the United States has blocked numerous ceasefire proposals at the United Nations Security Council.

Instead of supporting peace, Washington has sent more weapons and military aid to Israel.

Meanwhile, mainstream Western human rights organizations have clearly stated that Israel is carrying out rampant war crimes, wiping out entire families.

A top UN expert warned “that Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing”.

An Israeli scholar who is a specialist in genocide and the history of the Nazi holocaust even published an article warning that Israel’s scorched-earth war on Gaza is “a textbook case of genocide”.


Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza – the world’s largest prison camp
Gaza is a small strip of land that is just 40 kilometers (25 miles) long. But with roughly 2.3 million people, it is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

Since 2007, Palestinians in Gaza have lived under a suffocating Israeli blockade. In 2011, UN experts emphasized that this blockade flagrantly violates international law. But Israel continued to impose it, controlling everything that goes in and out of Gaza.

Human Rights Watch stated in 2022 that Israel’s 15-year blockade had “devastated the economy in Gaza, contributed to fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and forms part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians”.

Israel had “turned Gaza into an open-air prison”, Human Rights Watch wrote.

Even the United Kingdom’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged the same back in 2010, insisting, “Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp”.

70% of the Palestinians killed by Israel’s bombing of Gaza are children and women
In response to an attack by Palestinian militants on 7 October, 2023, Israel tightened the blockade even further. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”.

The top Israeli official described Palestinians as “human animals”.

The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, publicly stated that this Israeli siege was illegal, and violated restrictions under international law against collective punishment of civilians.

Ignoring the United Nations, Israel launched a devastating war, relentlessly carpet bombing civilian areas in Gaza.

In 13 days of nonstop attacks, Israel had killed 4,137 Palestinians, according to data published on 20 October by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The vast majority, 70 percent, of the Palestinians killed by Israel were children and women.

Another 1,000 people were missing, many trapped under the rubble of their houses.

Israel destroyed or damaged at least 30% of all housing units in Gaza, OCHA reported.

A staggering 1.4 million of the roughly 2.3 million people in Gaza were internally displaced.

UN expert warns of Israeli ethnic cleansing
A week into the Israeli bombing, on 14 October, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published an alarming statement: “A UN human rights expert warned today that Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing and called on the international community to urgently mediate a ceasefire”.

“Palestinians have no safe zone anywhere in Gaza, with Israel having imposed a ‘complete siege’ on the tiny enclave, with water, food, fuel and electricity unlawfully cut off”, the OHCR stressed.

The UN human rights office quoted the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, writing:

“There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,” the UN expert said. She noted that Israeli public officials have openly advocated for another Nakba, the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands during the hostilities that led to the establishment of the State of Israel. The Naksa, which led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, displaced 350,000 Palestinians.

“Israel has already carried out mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war,” the expert said. “Again, in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.

“Any continued military operations by Israel have gone well beyond the limits of international law. The international community must stop these egregious violations of international law now, before tragic history is repeated.”

US vetoes UN Security Council resolutions proposing peace in Gaza
Many countries have joined UN officials in calling for a ceasefire to end the violence in Gaza. But the United States has blocked all attempts at bringing about peace.

On 16 October, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted on a resolution that called for a humanitarian ceasefire. The measure was proposed by Russia.

The ceasefire resolution was opposed by four former colonial powers on the council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

Five Security Council members supported it: China, Russia, Gabon, Mozambique, and the United Arab Emirates.

The remaining six countries on the 15-member UNSC abstained: Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta, and Switzerland.

The UN News agency noted that Russia’s representative, Vassily Nebenzia, blamed the “selfish intention of the Western bloc” for sabotaging the ceasefire proposal, stating that the US and its allies had “basically stomped” on the attempt to bring about peace.


Two days later, the UN Security Council held another vote on a Gaza-related resolution. This measure, which was proposed by Brazil, called for “humanitarian pauses”, in order to send aid to besieged civilians.

The United States was the only country on the 15-member council that voted against this resolution. Washington thus killed the proposal, because it is one of the five permanent members, which have veto power.

12 UNSC members voted for the humanitarian pauses: Albania, Brazil, China, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland, and the UAE.

The United Kingdom abstained in the vote, along with Russia. But while London abstained as a show of support for Israel, Moscow abstained in protest of how weak the measure was.

UN News reported, “Prior to the vote, two amendments proposed by Russia, calling for an immediate, durable and full ceasefire, and to stop attacks against civilians were rejected by the Security Council”.

The UN News agency added that Russia’s ambassador, Nebenzia, “proposed a call to end indiscriminate attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Gaza and the condemnation of the imposition of the blockade on the enclave; and adding a new point for a call for a humanitarian ceasefire”.


An anonymous senior diplomat from an unnamed G7 member state acknowledged to the Financial Times that the nations of the Global South, which represent the vast majority of the world population, have been enraged by the West’s support for Israel as it massacres Palestinian civilians.

“We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South”, the diplomat lamented. ”Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again”.

Image

US pledges billions in military support as Israel massacres civilians
On 18 October, the day that the United States unilaterally killed the UNSC proposal for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, President Joe Biden arrived in Israel.

There, Biden met with the country’s far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The US president reassured him unflinching support for Israel.

The Biden administration also released a $105 billion national security package, which included $14.3 billion in aid for Israel (along with $61.4 billion for Ukraine).

This funding was in addition to the baseline $3.8 billion in military aid that the United States provides to Israel every year.

Biden’s friendly meeting with Netanyahu came at a moment when Israel was bombing not only Gaza, but also the occupied West Bank, southern Lebanon, and even airports in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Aleppo.

On 19 October, Israel attacked the roughly 1,000-year-old St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, killing at least 17 civilians, including 10 members of a family.

Numerous international Christian churches condemned this Israeli assault on Palestinian civilians. The Catholic Church’s Vatican News agency cited a statement by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which wrote that “targeting churches and its affiliated institutions, in addition to the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens, especially children and women who lost their homes as a result of the Israeli bombing of residential areas during the past thirteen days, constitutes a war crime that cannot be ignored”.

The World Council of Churches likewise stated, “We condemn this unconscionable attack on a sacred compound and call upon the world community to enforce protections in Gaza for sanctuaries of refuge”.

Amnesty International then published a bone-chilling report on 20 October titled “Damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families in Gaza”.

The mainstream Western human rights organization described Israel’s attack as a “cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip”, writing:

Amnesty International has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.

The organization spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families.

Here the organization presents an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.

“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity. Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

Image

The same day that Amnesty released this report on Israeli war crimes, Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate voted unanimously, 97-0, to support Tel Aviv.

Israeli scholars and mainstream media warn of Israel’s genocidal intentions
An Israeli scholar has argued that Tel Aviv is engaged in a campaign of genocide against Palestinians.

The magazine Jewish Currents published an article on 13 October by Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in the United States.

Segal wrote that “the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians”.

“Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by ‘the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,’ as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, Segal explained, adding, “In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent”.

Even a columnist at the mainstream British newspaper The Guardian, Chris McGreal, warned that the “language being used to describe Palestinians is genocidal”.

He noted that Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, blamed the Palestinian people as a whole for the 7 October attacks, declaring, “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true”.

Similarly, a member of Israel’s parliament from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s far-right Likud party, Ariel Kallner, openly called for the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, proclaiming, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948”.

https://orinocotribune.com/us-blocks-pe ... civilians/

IOF Still Unable To Control, Secure Gaza Envelope: DFLP – Exclusive
OCTOBER 23, 2023

Image
Fighters from the Democratic Front the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) - National Resistance Brigades exit a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestine, on May 19, 2023. Photo: Al Mayadeen.

Talal Abu Zarifeh tells Al Mayadeen Net that the Resistance is ready to confront invading Israeli occupation forces for a long period of time.

The Palestinian Resistance still holds the necessary capabilities and assets to go forward with Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Talal Abu Zarifeh, a leader in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) told Al Mayadeen Net.

Abu Zarifeh clarified that the Resistance’s missions behind enemy lines are ongoing, adding that it continues to confront the Israeli occupation forces by launching rockets and shelling settlements and groupings. The official reiterated that these operations come in response to the occupation’s massacres against the Palestinian people.

The DFLP leader emphasized that the Israeli occupation is “still unable to secure Gaza’s Envelope,” referring to occupied territories surrounding the Gaza Strip that saw relentless confrontations on the first week of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

Regarding the rumored ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Abu Zarifeh expressed strong skepticism about the Israeli occupation forces’ ability to successfully penetrate the Strip. He pointed out that the Israeli military apparatus has yet to fully recover from the significant defeat it suffered on October 7.

On the contrary, Abu Zarifeh stressed the ability of the Resistance to increase the count of casualties among occupation soldiers and augment the count of captives it currently detains, estimated to be at a minimum of 200.

He underlined that the Resistance would surprise the occupation with its ability to expand the battle for a long period of time.

‘Israel’ targets UNRWA
Regarding confirmed reports that aid that entered the Rafah crossing was only distributed in the Southern part of the Gaza Strip, Abu Zarifeh said this is evidence that the occupation is still attempting to forcibly displace Gazans toward the South.

The DFLP leader said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East’s (UNRWA) decision, to abide by the Israeli-pushed distribution plan, cannot be justified.

He explained that the organization is going against its mission, which obliges it to provide aid to Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip. Abu Zarifeh added that UNRWA is conforming to Israeli pressures, urging it to reassess its actions.

Furthermore, Abu Zarifeh pointed to the consensus among all Islamic and national factions in the Gaza Strip that believe that the organization’s actions go hand in hand with the occupation’s plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

In the same context, the organization’s spokesperson, Adnan Abu Hasna, told Al Mayadeenearlier that Gaza needs around 100 truckloads of aid a day to meet the needs of forcibly displaced people.

The official emphasized that the Rafah crossing, which lies on Gaza’s border with Egypt, must be opened for humanitarian aid to the besieged Strip.

On Saturday, the Rafah crossing was opened for 20 trucks with another 17 trucks following suit on Sunday.

However, experts and officials have explained that the amount of aid that has reached the Strip is not even close to meeting the needs of Gazans.

Moreover, the Strip the Israeli occupation has cut off all water and fuel for almost two weeks supplies to the Strip which has worsened the humanitarian situation in the Strip.

The first round of aid contained basic medical supplies for the most part, as social media accounts from within the Strip shared pictures of shrouds sent into the Strip which has been subject to indiscriminate Israeli bombing.



(Al Mayadeen – English)

https://orinocotribune.com/iof-still-un ... exclusive/

Years After Washington’s Bloody Escape from Lebanon, US Threatens to Send the Marines: ‘Ahla Bhal Talleh’!
OCTOBER 24, 2023

Image

By Karim Al-Amin – Oct 23, 2023

Around 5:30 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck entered the main compound of the United States Marine Corps (the marines) near Beirut Airport. The truck driver circled the area south of the parking lot of the compound and then left the premises. At 6:22 a.m., the truck returned and broke into the compound. However, this time it approached from the west side of the parking area, making a detour, before heading directly towards the barbed wire fence that separated the parking area from the building. After crashing through the fence, it broke through the front doors and exploded in the main lobby inside the building. The force of the explosion lifted the four-story building into the air, destroying the support columns and foundations before the entire building collapsed.

Numerous narratives and theories have been presented about what happened; most people agree with the conclusions of investigations conducted by the US government. However, no group has taken responsibility for the act or presented an explanation of how it was carried out. Eyewitnesses, on the other hand, unanimously agreed that what occurred seemed like a well-planned operation. The guards said they had previously seen the truck and did not suspect anything about it because it resembled the trucks that delivered supplies to the compound. The guards were caught completely off guard and did not even open fire on it before it breached the security checkpoint and the main entrance. According to Deputy Sergeant Eddie DeFranco, who survived and was stationed at guard post number seven, near the main entrance where the truck broke in, when he first saw the truck before it approached, he believed it was just another of the dozens of trucks that transported water, goods, and other equipment from the airport on a daily basis.

Conflicting estimates have circulated regarding the amount of explosives planted in the truck, but most experts believe it was approximately five tons of highly explosive TNT. The explosives were deliberately arranged in order to direct the force of the explosion upward, resulting in significant destruction and injuries to everyone inside the building. It was later announced that 241 US citizens were killed, including 220 marines.

Just a few minutes after the explosion, another massive explosion struck a building known as Drakkar, a few kilometers away, where the French paratroopers were stationed, killing 58 of them. The cause of this explosion is also disputed; however it was initially attributed to a car bomb loaded with approximately five tons of explosives.

Another narrative about the truck was presented 30 years later. In 2013, the French newspaper Le Monde published an investigation based on the investigations carried out by the French government. It cited testimonies from French soldiers who were in a nearby building called Catamaran, located less than 100 meters from Drakkar. They stated that they had gone onto the balcony after the US compound explosion, and, two minutes later, Drakkar exploded. However, they claimed they did not see any truck entering the building. The officer responsible for protecting the surviving building, Omer Marie Magdeleine, stated that “the building was surrounded by fences, each entrance was protected by barriers with machine guns and anti-tank weapons, and the street was closed from both sides. Between the fences and barriers it would be impossible for a truck to pass without being noticed.” Nonetheless, none of these witnesses were interviewed during the official investigations, and survivors were prohibited from speaking to anyone about the event.

Washington sent retired admiral Robert L.J. Long, a representative of the US Department of Defense, to investigate the bombing of the marines’ headquarters. But the situation was rapidly deteriorating for Washington’s forces, as operations against the marines continued until former US President Ronald Reagan announced, on February 7, 1984, the transfer of the marines from the bases in Beirut to US ships on the shore. Over the next two weeks, the battleship USS New Jersey carried out retaliatory bombing operations against many areas in Lebanon before the US order was issued to permanently leave Lebanon and its waters on February 26, 1984.

Who was behind the operation?
The bombing at the marines’ headquarters was not an ordinary event for Washington. It had significant repercussions which eventually led to the collapse of Washington’s puppet government in Lebanon and the retreat of “Israeli” forces into southern Lebanon. Because of the ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union, Washington initially accused Moscow and Damascus of being behind the attack or facilitating it. However, US military intelligence swiftly blamed a new group on the scene: mujahideen with connections to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Image
The aftermath of the attack on the marine headquarters in Beirut in 1983 Photo: AP/File Photo.

A relatively short time after the US directly accused fighters close to Iran of being behind the attack, the West started linking it to the attacks on US intelligence officers in Lebanon, including the captured US and Western hostages. Within a few years, the Western governments began to suggest that the groups affiliated with Hezbollah were responsible for these operations. This is when the martyr Imad Mughniyeh was placed at the top of the US most wanted list.

US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) teams that rotated through Middle East assignments always carried a grudge against those whom they held responsible for the attack. According to a number of US reports written by former intelligence analysts, “the hunt for Imad Mughniyeh was personal.” Washington also accused al-Hajj Radwan (Imad Mughniyeh) of orchestrating the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, which led to the destruction of the entire CIA station and the death of the head of the agency’s Middle East branch. It was also claimed that he was responsible for the abduction and execution of the CIA station chief William Buckley in 1984. Buckley had been sent to Beirut in 1983 to establish a new CIA station after the previous one was destroyed. A senior official in the Central Intelligence Agency stated that “Buckley’s capture led to the closure of all CIA activities in [Lebanon].”

In his book Known and Unknown, Donald Rumsfeld, the US special envoy to Lebanon during the Reagan administration, devoted a special chapter to the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut, which he called “Smiling Death.” Everyone who writes about that operation mentions that, according to eyewitnesses, the driver of the truck that destroyed the marines’ headquarters was seen smiling seconds before the explosion. The explosion killed 241 soldiers out of the 350 who made up the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, and is the largest blow to the marines in their history. Rumsfeld stated the bombing of the Marine Corps Headquarters was the largest terrorist attack on the United States before September 11th.

Rumsfeld himself quoted a statement by the then US vice president, George H.W. Bush, in which Bush vowed, “we’re not going to let a bunch of insidious terrorists, cowards, shape the foreign policy of the United States.” Rumsfeld commented that “I was uncomfortable with his word choice. I have never thought people willing to drive a truck bomb into a building and kill themselves were cowards.” Rumsfeld also notes that he told US secretary of state at the time, George Shultz, firstly, that US policymakers “should close the gap between inflated perceptions of our abilities and reality;” secondly to “never use US troops as a “peacekeeping force,” we were too big a target;” and, thirdly, ”keep reminding ourselves that it is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.”

Today, 40 years after one of the most important resistance operations against the US occupation in the region, the leaders of the United States are repeating the same scenario. Just days ago, United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered 2,000 US soldiers to be prepared for the possibility of participating in a war alongside “Israel.” However, experts believe that this group of military personnel will not have combat roles but will be limited to logistical support. Nevertheless, this step may serve as a prelude to sending more soldiers on combat missions in the future. In the event that the United States decides to directly enter the ongoing war today, those in Lebanon and the region are waiting for them. Among them are Lebanese who adhere to the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism’s campaign, saying to them, “Ahla Bhal Talleh!” (which translates to something along the lines of “we welcome you to here, now that you are here!”).

===========================
Appendix

The US military in Lebanon… with nuclear weapons, too!
The visit of the US marine amphibious unit to Lebanon in 1982 was not the first of its kind; an earlier one took place in 1958 at the request of President Camille Chamoun, who was facing an armed popular uprising against his rule. On that occasion, President Eisenhower sent the Second Battalion of the US Marine Corps. 1,700 soldiers arrived at the shores of Beirut, with more than 70 US Navy warships of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet.

According to Bruce Riedel’s book, Beirut 1958: How America’s Wars in the Middle East Began, this was the first time in history that the United States sent combat forces to the Arab region. He adds that in July 1958, Lebanon was on the brink of catastrophe, with Muslims considering that Washington’s intervention was against them and the Christians believing that Washington had come to rescue their leader, Camille Chamoun. The US was preparing for war. According to the US author, Washington requested that Germany bring missile batteries, some of which included nuclear warheads. However, as soon as the missiles arrived by sea, they were flown back to Germany, and the Lebanese crisis ended diplomatically.

After the “Israeli” invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and the occupation of Beirut after expelling the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) fighters, the so-called peacekeeping forces were sent to Beirut and tasked with overseeing the evacuation of Palestinian fighters. The foreign force at that time consisted of 800 US marines, 400 French soldiers, and 800 Italian soldiers. After the removal of Palestinian fighters, the US force left in mid-September, only to return to Lebanon on September 26 of the same year following the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, and the Zionist enemy and its allies in the Lebanese Front carried out the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. The marine force was then incorporated into the “peacekeeping force.”

Between October and December of the same year, weapons and armored vehicles were transferred from US warships to the mainland. Some US forces also conducted patrols in the eastern neighborhoods of Beirut, behind what was then known as the “Green Line.” In parallel, US forces implemented a training program for elements of the Lebanese army.

Islamic Jihad Movement operations against US soldiers
As military confrontations escalated against the Israeli aggression in Lebanon, Lebanese and Palestinian factions began carrying out more and more operations. After the relative calm following the departure of Palestinian fighters and the strengthening of President Amin Gemayel’s rule, new fedayeen [fighter] groups emerged. These groups used aliases intended to emphasize their ideological character. The most prominent among them was the Islamic Jihad Organization, which claimed responsibility for many operations, including the bombings of the marines’ and French paratroopers’ headquarters.

So-called peacekeeping soldiers were subjected to numerous attacks. On March 16, 1983, five marines were wounded in an attack in south Beirut. A month later, at precisely 1 p.m. on April 18, a truck loaded with about one ton of explosives breached the US embassy in Beirut and detonated, destroying the building and causing significant losses, including 17 Americans, eight of whom were CIA officers, and more than 100 others injured. The bombing occurred specifically during a special meeting of high-level CIA officers in the region.

In May of the same year, Resistance forces shot at a marine helicopter carrying Colonel James Mead, the marine commander in Lebanon. In August and September, the marine barracks near Beirut Airport came under multiple attacks, resulting in the deaths of five soldiers and the injury of 49 others. Additionally, the French and Italian military units were attacked, resulting in the death of a French soldier and injuries to five Italian soldiers.

In September as well, the destroyers USS John Rodgers and USS Virginia shelled areas in Mount Lebanon, and large shells targeted the areas between Shouf and Aley, which were under the control of pro-Syrian Lebanese forces. On September 24 of the same year, the battleship USS New Jersey arrived off the coast of Beirut. During that period, the pace of attacks against the occupying forces increased, with machine-gun fire targeting two marine helicopters and wounding two of their soldiers. A soldier was killed on October 14, five others were wounded due to sniper fire, and another soldier was injured due to a bombing. On the 19th of the same month, four marines were injured after an attempt to bomb their vehicle was foiled.



Featured Photo: British soldiers assist in rescue operations at the site of the bomb-wrecked US Marine command center near the Beirut airport in Lebanon, Oct. 23, 1983. Photo:Bill Foley/AP.

(Al-Akhbar)

Translated by Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/years-after- ... al-talleh/

******

Image

How Much Killing Is Enough Killing?

How high does the pile of mutilated and dismembered children need to be before it’s high enough? Give me a specific height please, in meters or in yards.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 25, 2023

Israel has killed multiple times as many people since October 7 as were killed on October 7, has caused many times more destruction since October 7 than was caused on October 7, and has inflicted many times more pain and suffering since October 7 than was inflicted on October 7.

Even if you completely ignore the power dynamics and abuses which led to the Hamas attack and just look impartially at the raw data, it’s an easily quantifiable fact that what Israel has done since October 7 is worse than what Hamas did on October 7. While there is a huge taboo against saying this publicly, it’s not seriously debatable. The only way to make it seem otherwise would be to see Palestinian lives as worth less than Israeli lives, which is not a position that deserves to be taken seriously.

But that isn’t the foremost objective fact separating the death and destruction on October 7 from all the death and destruction that’s happened since. The foremost objective fact separating the death and destruction on October 7 from the death and destruction that’s happened since is that October 7 already happened, while the Gaza massacre is still ongoing and can be stopped.

Everything that happened on October 7 is in the past. It’s done. No matter how many bombs the IDF drops, no matter how many civilians in Gaza are killed, no matter how many buildings are smashed to rocks and powder, no matter how much propaganda the western media churn out, it won’t bring one single Israeli who died on October 7 back to life.

Nothing about October 7 can be changed. It’s in the past. We have no access to it. But what can be changed is the decision to keep killing civilians by the thousands with a relentless barrage of military explosives and strangling them to death with siege warfare for something they did not do.

At any time Israel could stop turning entire city blocks into rubble and adding to the thousands of children who’ve been killed, but they don’t. It’s still happening. Every hour this goes on is another decision made by the Israeli government to keep it going, and every hour it keeps going is more death and human misery in Gaza.

And at a certain point there’s a very important question that will need to be answered, and that question is this: how much is enough?

How much killing is enough killing? How many civilians need to die before we can draw a line under this one?

How high does the pile of mutilated and dismembered children need to be before it’s high enough? Give me a specific height please, in meters or in yards.

It’s an answer we’re going to come to one way or another. At some point we’re going to reach the end of the killing, either because some sliver of conscience awakened in the powers perpetrating and facilitating it, or because it became politically inconvenient to continue, or because some meaningless and arbitrary goal was declared to have been met, or because the killers felt satiated by the amount of killing they’d done, or because there was no one left to kill.

So we may as well begin chewing on that question right now so we can get settle on a number as soon as possible. How much is enough? It’s a question that demands an answer. And the answer we come to collectively will say a lot about our species, and about where it is headed.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/10 ... h-killing/

Well, by Zionist metrics Palestinian deaths much excced Israeli deaths at least by a magnitude....
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 26, 2023 11:24 am

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 25, 2023
October 25, 2023
Rybar

Today there is relative calm in the conflict zone. However, after a night break, Hezbollah fighters again attacked IDF positions at Yiftah , Zarit and Avivim . IDF fighters, as before, responded to this with air and artillery fire in southern Lebanon . During one of these artillery duels, an Israeli shell fell on the grounds of the UN peacekeepers' headquarters in An-Naqura .

In addition, over the past 24 hours, Israeli aircraft carried out strikes on Syrian territory three times : the targets were Karfa and Izra in the Daraa province , as well as the long-suffering Aleppo airfield . In the first case, the IDF attacked targets because they allegedly fired at the Israeli -occupied part of the Golan Heights from that territory . In the second, the Israelis are again trying to disrupt the logistics of pro-Iranian proxies in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Meanwhile, the IDF continues to level the Gaza Strip with airstrikes . During one of these raids, the family of Wael al-Dahduh , a journalist for the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera, was killed . By evening, rumors began to circulate in the Israeli media that the military had allegedly managed to eliminate one of the most senior Hamas leaders . However, this information has not yet been confirmed.

In the evening, Hamas launched several dozen rockets into central Israel. In Rishon Lezion, a rocket hit a residential building, injuring two residents. The shelling continues.

Image

For a week and a half, the Israeli authorities demanded that the Palestinians evacuate hospitals from Gaza towards Khan Yunis and Rafah : this would give the Israelis a free hand to carry out strikes. And yesterday, Palestinian sources announced explosions literally at the doorstep of Al-Wafa hospitals in Gaza and Al-Amal in Khan Yunis. Based on footage from the field, it was possible to establish the exact locations of the strikes that hit buildings near hospitals. Such explosions within a few tens of meters from medical facilities can serve as a more clear “warning” than the demands of the Israelis to evacuate hospitals in the media and leaflets.

And in the evening, information appeared in the Palestinian media about an attack on the house of Dr. Kamal Khattab , director of the Al-Durra Children's Hospital : his wife, two daughters and little son were killed, and the head doctor himself was seriously wounded. This approach fits into the Israel Defense Forces' strategy to push Palestinians to the south of the Gaza Strip. With the cessation of hospital operations, life in the north of the sector will become even more unbearable, which will ultimately lead to an increase in the number of civilian casualties. But this will not particularly affect the capabilities of Hamas. Having dug tens of kilometers of tunnels for movement, warehouses, attacks and defenses, it is unlikely that the Palestinian groups forgot about the underground hospitals.

Border with Lebanon

After an overnight pause, Hezbollah fighters fired at the Israelis at Zarit , Yiftah and Avivim . The IDF, as before, responds with strikes and artillery in southern Lebanon . In addition, during the day Hamas attempted to attack Haifa with a long-range R-160 rocket from the Gaza Strip, but the shell exploded in the air.

One of the IDF shells fired into Lebanese territory fell on the grounds of the UN peacekeepers' headquarters in Al-Nakoura.

Border with Syria

Image

At night, the Israelis launched three strikes: they hit the positions of the Syrian Arab Army in the village. Karfa and Izra in the province of Daraa , from where, according to the Israelis, fire was fired at IDF positions in the occupied part of the Golan Heights . The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims 20+ deaths in IDF strikes, including four officers. But there is confirmation on the Internet of the death of only one senior lieutenant of the SAA.

Today, the Israelis once again (for the third time) hit the international airport of Aleppo , disrupting logistics processes in northern Syria . The pro-Iranian formations are neither cold nor hot from these attacks: on the contrary, by leaking false information to the Israelis through agents controlled by them and provoking attacks, the Iranians support in the Syrians hatred towards the “Zionist entity” (as they call Israel).

West Bank

Everything is stable in the West Bank : Israeli security forces are detaining local residents en masse throughout the Palestinian territory. In Jenin , Palestinians ambushed IDF fighters, detonating a landmine on the road and wounding four soldiers. The Israelis responded by attacking the city with helicopters.

Political-diplomatic background
About American funds to support Israel and Ukraine

Additional details have emerged about the fate of the funds requested by Joe Biden , a bill for which was about to be drafted in the Senate . The Upper House, as we already wrote, is in a hurry until November 17 - that’s when the extended government funding ends, after which the United States again begins to face a shutdown.

In general, the Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are not doing very well - his party members want guarantees of funds to solve the migration problem, and this requires time, which is already not there. They propose to get out of this situation by dividing the bills. The fact is that none of the senators have any questions regarding Israel - everyone is ready to vote unanimously for providing it with assistance. But there is a split regarding Ukraine . It is possible that by November 17 they will have time to allocate aid only to Israel, and Ukraine will be dealt with after the shutdown is prevented.

Negotiations between Palestinian groups and Hezbollah


Apparently, the time has come for negotiations: the leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Ziyad al-Nahala), the militant wing of Hamas - the Kataib Izz ad-Din al-Qassam group (Saleh al-Arouri) and the Lebanese Hezbollah (Hassan Nasrallah ) met (and the meeting, apparently, took place in Lebanon). And given that both An-Nahala and Al-Arouri came to Nasrallah , they now find themselves in the position of a supplicant (this is exactly what Hezbollah expected, not wanting to find themselves in a position dependent on Palestinian groups).

It is not yet clear what this kind of negotiations will lead to. There are still chances that, due to their ideological contradictions and the war for the flock, the leaders of the groups will not agree on mutually beneficial terms. But the opposite is also possible: before this, the Gaza Strip was not on the verge of destruction.

Speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the current conflict


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shook up the media by canceling his visit to Israel and calling Hamas mujahideen fighting for their lands. And Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that the world is at a turning point, where there will be either a big war or a big peace. In parallel, the Turkish Ministry of Energy announced the suspension of cooperation with Israel on joint energy projects. To understand the meaning of these words, one must look at the position of the Turks from the very beginning of the conflict. The Turkish authorities, through the official media, actively spoke out in support of Palestine , while hinting at the need for Muslim unity against the barbaric actions of Israel.

What Erdogan said today (and Fidan echoed him) confirms the version with the intention of the head of Turkey to take over the “blanket of protector” of the entire Muslim world by creating a so-called “Islamic army” in which the Turks will be leaders. At the same time, Erdogan himself, to some extent, became a hostage to the situation that he himself created, calling himself this very “protector” several years ago. The number of fanatics on his side had increased considerably, and refusing to support Palestine could end badly for him.

And his years as a self-proclaimed “leader of Muslims” have raised his self-esteem to the skies, so he has no intention of retreating. Against this background, while everyone is distracted by the Gaza Strip , “on the sly” the Turks can easily launch a ground operation in Syria and Iraq in order to finally secure previously occupied territories. A similar scenario is possible in Cyprus and the Greek islands, to which the Turks have repeatedly declared their claims. An increase in rates in the context of rapidly developing events is quite likely.

For Erdogan, such a development will show that he is still strong and supposedly independent in foreign policy. The ardent support of the Palestinians will help consolidate society, which, given the difficult social situation in Turkey, is very useful for increasing ratings. And the concentration of significant US and NATO forces in the Middle East looks more like preparation for just such a scenario, and not for a war with Iran and pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria. It is better to have troops nearby than to urgently transfer them if Erdogan decides to go to war.

Investigation into the attack on Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital in Gaza


Journalists from The New York Times released their own investigation into the attack on the Al-Ahly hospital in Gaza . According to them, the previously published Al-Jazeera video , which allegedly confirmed the innocence of the Israelis, does not confirm this. Journalists were able to prove that the missile that was not flown by in the recording led to the tragedy, and the filmed incident actually occurred several miles from the combat zone in that area.

Rumors about the start of an IDF ground operation

In the evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the population, saying that the decision on the date for the start of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip was made together with the IDF chief of staff. However, he did not name the date of the alleged invasion.

Journalists from the American publication Axios write that Netanyahu allegedly intends to postpone the ground operation in the Gaza Strip in order to gain time to free the hostages. In this, they say, he is actively supported by US President Joe Biden . Netanyahu's plans for a delay allegedly contradict the position of the Israeli Defense Forces command about the early start of the ground operation. Western media write that the authorities are delaying the start, allegedly because they are waiting for the transfer of American anti-missile systems to the region, which can ensure the safety of Israelis in the event of a full-scale war.

Egyptian army exercises


Amid the Israeli-Palestinian escalation, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi inspected the 4th Armored Division in Suez near the Sinai Peninsula. The video allows you to roughly assess the arsenal of the Egyptian armed forces . The frame included the Buk, Tor, Pechora-2M and Chapparal air defense systems, M270 MLRS and Egyptian versions of Grads, M109 howitzers, Abrams tanks, Ka-52 and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Yabhon United 40 UAV , as well as a lot of vehicles.

All this, of course, looks impressive, but the formations in the style of the Zapad-81 exercises themselves do not say anything about the combat readiness of the armed forces. Unfortunately , you don’t have to look far for examples .

Moreover, such events do not indicate Egypt’s intention to intervene in what is happening in the Gaza Strip , but are more reminiscent of the army’s preparation for various scenarios for the development of the conflict.

Israel's conflict with the UN

The conflict between the Israelis and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres continues , who allowed himself to voice that the Hamas attack is also a consequence of Israel's long occupation of Palestinian lands (which is quite fair). The Israeli authorities decided to stop issuing visas to representatives of the Organization because of the statements of its Secretary General.

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

*******

<a snip from simplicius>

The last major topic to comment on is the Palestine situation, which continues to develop. There is a lot of scrambling around behind the scenes as powers shake and move and jockey for position in what could soon be an explosive powder keg to reshape the international scene.

Presently, the IDF claims to be finally ready to pull the trigger on the Gaza invasion but there’s indication the U.S. is desperately trying to pull them back from the brink. One of the ways they appear to be trying to talk Israel down from the ledge is floating the idea of convincing a coalition of Arab states to pressure Palestine into some kind of “interim government” which would be entirely free of Hamas influence:

Image
https://www.rt.com/news/585464-us-israe ... ment-gaza/
After only a couple weeks, Israel is already reporting major military shortages:

🇮🇱Israeli media: 12 days after the start of the war: Fighters are still reporting a shortage of medical equipment and weapons.

It’s a testament to how unexceptional Russia’s own mobilization problems truly were last year, proving every nation would suffer from the same issues.

Meanwhile, the threats continue to grow as Turkish nationalist party leader says Turkey will step in if Israel doesn’t stop bombing Gaza:

Image

Most interesting is that Lavrov arrived in Tehran:


At the same time that Russian Colonel-General Alexander Fomin met with the Iraqi ambassador in Moscow:


Deputy Defense Minister of the Russian Federation Colonel General Alexander Fomin met with Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the Russian Federation Qahtan Janabi in Moscow.

During the talks, the sides discussed topical issues of bilateral cooperation in the field of defense and the fight against terrorism. The sides also exchanged views on the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The meeting was held in a friendly atmosphere and confirmed the intention to further develop Russian-Iraqi cooperation in these areas.


The reason this is of particular interest is because the U.S. has now been subject to major attacks on many of its bases across the region of the Middle East, with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance taking credit for one of the attacks:

Image

🇮🇶🇸🇾💥🇺🇸A statement issued by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq:

💬 "In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful

“Permission has been given to those who fight because they have been wronged, and indeed, God is Able to grant them victory.”

The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted the American occupation base, “Kharab al-Jir,” in northeastern Syria, with a missile salvo, hitting its targets directly.

Islamic resistance in Iraq

Wednesday - 9 Rabi’ al-Akhir 1445 AH"


The attacks are much worse than reported, as they are now acknowledging over two dozen U.S. soldiers were injured:

Image

In fact one contractor even died from a heart attack while hiding in one of the attacks.

Most revealing is the fact that in each attack, the U.S. air defense proved to be of marginal efficacy—and these are minor strikes of only a few drones at a time. For instance, here’s footage of the vaunted C-Ram perimeter defense trying to shoot down rockets toward a U.S. base days ago, reportedly succeeding in downing only one of the rockets.

But in general, given these high level meetings between Russia and Iran-Iraq, and the new attacks on U.S. bases, one can’t help the sense that there are blocs and factions forming in what may break out to be a major powder keg if Israel opens up Pandora’s box.

Now there’s news that the U.S. is rushing in its most advanced high altitude THAAD air defense to the region.

Image

The full post:

According to U.S. Defense Officials, the Army is currently Scrambling to Deploy at least 12 Air Defense Systems to the multiple Countries across the Middle East before the Israeli Invasion of the Gaza Strip is set to soon begin; a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Battery for use against Ballistic Missiles is currently on its way to Saudi Arabia from Fort Bliss, Texas, while at least 11 MIM-104 Patriot Surface-to-Air Missile Systems from both Fort Liberty, North Carolina and Fort Sill, Oklahoma are heading to Locations in Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Word is that this is specifically to create a shield for potential Iranian ballistic missiles which are now expected to rain down on Israel should things kick off.

Furthermore, WaPo is now reporting that U.S. has a ‘worst case scenario’ plan to evacuate Americans from literally the entire Middle East:

Image

The Biden administration is preparing for the possibility that hundreds of thousands of American citizens will require evacuation from the Middle East if the bloodshed in Gaza cannot be contained, according to four officials familiar with the U.S. government’s contingency planning.

Many experts continue to warn that Israel is stepping into a trap:

Image
https://www.rt.com/news/585361-israel-g ... -steroids/
With Hamas itself now openly goading Israel to enter Gaza by releasing the following graphic:

Image

And things heat up even more with the rumor that Russia is now granting Iran direct access to land in Russia’s Khmeimim Syria base, after Israel recently bombed and disabled runways in both Damascus and Aleppo international airports.

Image

Sources stating that Russia will begin allowing Iran to land its planes in Khmeimim air base in Northern Syria to avoid Israeli bombing of shipments.

In somewhat related news, recall that Russia just recently again conducted some final tests on the Burevestnik missile, which no country on the world has an analog of. It’s a missile that has unlimited range due to using nuclear powered propulsion. That makes it unstoppable as it’s capable of flying virtually forever, which allows it to circumnavigate the entire globe in avoiding any air defense coverage zones.

This has apparently caused a panic in U.S. military echelons, causing them to rush toward creating new air defense zones in unforeseen areas:

Image
https://www.defenseone.com/defense-syst ... es/391403/
You see, previously, all missile types, due to the limitations of their propulsion, had known, prefigured routes which could be covered with a series of air defense and radar installations at key strategic locations, like this one at the northernmost tip of Alaska.

But the new Russian missile nullifies them all because it can come from anywhere, as it has no limits. It can fly over the south pole if it has to and come up from somewhere near Mexico, where U.S. has no radar installations of any kind, in order to strike.

So apparently now the U.S. is scrambling to build more over-the-horizon mega radars in a bid to keep up with Russian advancements.

To give you an idea why this missile is deadly. Recall how the U.S. has very few production facilities for key military items, whether it’s the 1 production line for 155mm shells, or the 1 tank plant, 1 explosives manufacturer which burned down, but was being restored.

So now imagine a stealthy missile that can fly forever, avoiding the perimeters of all known radars, and thus infiltrate into the interior of the U.S. where it can hit any of those key American manufacturing facilities. That one weapon puts U.S.’s entire war fighting capability in check as it can completely lock down America’s ability to manufacture key weapons systems.

But getting back—one key aspect of the upcoming potential Israel conflagration is that even Israeli commanders have openly stated the Gaza operation is slated for up to 3 months. Meaning, that is the minimal time scale they themselves acknowledge the major operation will take. Realistically of course it can take far more than that and turn into an indefinite embroilment, as many are now suspecting.

But even if it were to hypothetically last those 3 months, that already creates a catastrophic situation for Ukraine given that all allied shells will be going to Israel for that time period and likely even afterwards to replenish their stocks.

The spring counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a big question. In a month, the entire Ukrainian army may be covered by a shell famine, since even Germany will now send all its 155-mm shells to Israel.

Most of the 155-mm shells from the United States and other high-precision weapons will also go there: SAM missiles, Excalibur shells. Ukraine does not produce its own projectiles and is completely dependent on external supplies.


One can imagine that if the Israeli war gets bogged down into next year, then Ukraine will be in a disastrous situation this winter and may face total collapse by early next year.

Problems are already being reported:

⚡️⚡️⚡️☝️The Ukrainian channel “Resident” writes about the bullet famine of the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

“Our source in the OP confirmed Western media information that Zelensky was informed about the reduction in ammunition supplies and even raised the issue at the headquarters. For now, the decision has been made to save the shells and use them timely, in more exposed positions, which is why the counteroffensive on the flanks of Bakhmut and in the Zaporozhye direction."


It stands to reason this may be one of the chief motivations behind the U.S.’s desperate exhortations toward Israel to not go through with the war—because U.S. knows they can’t sustain both fronts and would face total loss in Ukraine.

But the problem for Israel is now intractable: even if they were to stop, the damage that they’ve already done onto Palestine will only magnify the Hamas ideology, making Hamas even more potent and numerous from this point forward. Thus, Israel finds itself in a lose-lose situation to many extents.

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... -victories

*******

The Humanitarian Case For Another Arab Oil Embargo

ANDREW KORYBKO
OCT 24, 2023

Image

Anything less than threatening an oil embargo against Israel and its Western allies will likely fail to get the former to open up a humanitarian corridor, but this requires a degree of political will, trust, and coordination between the participating countries that can’t be taken for granted.

Many observers considered last weekend’s Cairo Summit to be a failure after the lack of any joint statement, but nobody should have ever expected one since this event wasn’t actually intended to achieve that purpose. To be sure, each of the three camps that were represented there – the pro-Palestinian, pro-Israeli, and neutral ones – lamented this outcome and opportunistically blamed others for it, but none of their diplomats realistically expected an agreement to be reached.

Rather, the whole point of that get-together was for every party to candidly express their positions on this issue, after which they’d have a clearer idea of where everyone stands and could then initiate potentially more productive diplomatic engagements either on the sidelines of the event or outside of it. In this sense, the Cairo Summit was a success since there’s no longer any doubt about where each of the participating countries stand. Their diplomats can now formulate more effective policies as a result.

There are objective limits to what each of the previously described three camps are capable of doing. The pro-Israeli one led by the US is against the formal involvement of any third parties in the latest war, hence the redeployment of their naval assets to the region in order to deter this scenario. Accordingly, the pro-Palestinian camp represented most relevantly by Egypt, Jordan, and Turkiye – all of which officially recognize Israel – are unlikely to risk the hegemon’s wrath by going to war in support of Hamas.

As for the neutral one led by Russia, the aforesaid dynamics disappointingly suggest that there’s no credible chance for a ceasefire anytime soon since US-backed Israel is hellbent on destroying Hamas out of vengeance, which will require a ground operation in Gaza unless it unexpectedly walks back its plans. That being the case, everything is only going to get worse before it gets better, but that doesn’t mean that the pro-Palestinian and neutral camps can’t help make a positive difference in some respect.

The humanitarian consequences of Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas’ infamous terrorist attack have turned most of the international community, including many Westerners, against the self-professed Jewish State. If it’s impossible to prevent the conflict’s escalation by convincing Israel to abandon its planned ground operation, then the most pragmatic policy that these two camps can pursue is trying to relieve some of the Gazans’ suffering through the creation of humanitarian corridors.

Two challenges stand in the way of this noble goal: 1) Egypt is against allowing Palestinian refugees to enter its territory since it fears that Israel will never let them return; and 2) Israel is also against sheltering these refugees on the grounds that public opinion wouldn’t support it after Hamas’ attacks. Additionally, both claim that each scenario entails unconventional threats to their countries, with each of them prioritizing their own national security over the personal security of Gaza’s over 2 million people.

The end result is that these refugees continue dying as “collateral damage” of the incessant strikes that Israel carries out on anti-terrorist pretexts, which infuriates the global masses and especially those in majority-Muslim countries, who feel powerless to stop the Gazans’ suffering. Without the creation of humanitarian corridors and amidst the spike in violence that’s expected to follow the onset of Israel’s planned ground operation, there’s a very real risk of riots breaking out across the world.

Western countries could either brutally suppress them like they did those that occurred during the height of the pandemic or stand aside due to their elites’ self-interested political reasons like they did during the Antifa-BLM riots all across the US over summer 2020. In either case, their national stability wouldn’t seriously be threatened even if some extremists carry out terrorist attacks against those who participate in this unrest, but the same can’t be said for many majority-Muslim countries.

These states could struggle to contain such riots since some of their security personnel might refuse to crack down on the participants if they sympathize with their pro-Palestinian cause, and even if they follow orders, the masses might riot more on the pretext that their governments are “Zionist puppets”. After all, their riots would have begun as protests in support of a noble cause, so it would be seen by the participants as a betrayal of the Palestinians, fellow Muslims, and humanity to violently disperse them.

With a view towards averting that worst-case but nevertheless plausible scenario, it would therefore be a good idea for the pro-Palestinian and neutral camps to collaborate on ways to most compellingly pressure Egypt and/or Israel to open up humanitarian corridors. Since it’s unlikely that majority-Muslim countries will team up against one of their own, these efforts would thus almost certainly be directed against Israel and its Western allies, which could most effectively take the form of an oil embargo.

Many Westerners already sympathize with the Palestinians’ plight so they could be counted on to pressure their governments to accede to these demands via large-scale protests across their bloc if majority-Muslim energy-exporting states and Russia give them an ultimatum. Their decisionmakers might still refuse to do their utmost in forcing Israel to host these refugees or the self-professed Jewish State might defy them in spite of their efforts, but it’s arguably the best way to advance this noble goal.

Anything less than threatening an oil embargo against Israel and its Western allies will likely fail to get the former to open up a humanitarian corridor, but this requires a degree of political will, trust, and coordination between the participating countries that can’t be taken for granted. Seeing as how no indication has yet to emerge suggesting serious interest in this, it therefore remains speculative for now, but that could quickly change if public pressure becomes unbearable in many majority-Muslim countries.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-huma ... or-another

******

A Veto from Hell
BY BAR EDITOR
OCT 25, 2023
INTERNATIONAL

Image

By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor

On October 16, the Russian Federation introduced a draft resolution at the UN Security Council (UNSC) calling for an “immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.” In hopes of getting it passed, they avoided placing blame on either Israel or Hamas. Twelve Arab nations and eight more majority Muslim nations endorsed it, as did Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

The Council voted that resolution down, with only five of the fifteen members—Russia, China, Mozambique, Gabon, and the United Arab Emirates—voting in favor. The US, UK, France and Japan voted against it, and the other six members of the Council—Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta, and Switzerland—abstained.
To pass, a UNSC resolution needs a supermajority, nine of 15 members, and no vetoes from the five permanent members, Russia, China, France, the UK, and the US.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield objected that the Russian resolution failed to condemn Hamas.

Brazil’s resolution for “humanitarian pauses”

Two days later, on October 18, in the aftermath of the shocking air strike on the northern Gazan Al-Ahli Hospital, Brazil put forth a resolution that called not for a ceasefire but simply for “humanitarian pauses to allow full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access for United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other impartial humanitarian organizations” and “establishment of humanitarian corridors and other initiatives for the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians.”

It also called for “rescission of the order for civilians and UN staff to evacuate all areas in Gaza north of the Wadi Gaza and relocate in southern Gaza.”

The Brazilian resolution condemned Hamas, presumably to win a US vote.

Russia introduced two amendments to Brazil’s resolution, one of which again called for a ceasefire, and another which condemned indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects in Gaza and the blockade depriving Gazans of “means indispensable to their survival,” meaning of course food, fuel, electricity, and water.

The Council voted both of Russia’s amendments down, but 12 of its 15 members—three more than the supermajority—voted in favor of Brazil’s resolution, with Russia and the UK abstaining.

Lacking the support even of its ally France, the US then exercised its veto from hell. This time Thomas-Greenfield, speaking as a true American exceptionalist extremist, said that President Biden was in Israel and that US diplomatic efforts should supersede the Council’s efforts. Even though the resolution condemned Hamas, she complained that it failed to mention Israel’s right to defend itself. Like Biden speaking in Israel and then in the Oval Office, she gave a green light to Israel.

The representatives of the Permanent Observer State of Palestine and the State of Israel were invited to speak after the vote on Brazil’s resolution. Here is an excerpt of remarks made by Palestinian Ambassador Riyad H. Mansour:

“The whole world is watching. They're watching us. The events of the last 10 days may shape the next 10 years in our region and beyond. What happens next is decisive.

“If anyone thinks this is a situation under control, for which you can plan and implement, they are making false and irresponsible assumptions. This is the kind of war where you know how it starts, and have no clue how it ends. Until now, it can be stopped, and it should be stopped immediately. Any further delay is a risk no one should take. The Council should have met today to heed the call of the Secretary General, of religious leaders around the world, including the Pope, of the Arab states, of the Muslim countries, of the Global South, of the overwhelming number of states around the world, of billions of people, including the millions who marched in your streets. Stop the bloodshed. Stop it now. Stop the bloodshed. Stop it now. Listen to them.

“But it has not heeded these goals. It has not upheld international law unequivocally, equally, and responsibly. And in the next few hours, more Palestinians will be killed. Tensions in the region will rise to new dangerous levels. Anger and resentment will explode. Each one of us will be asked what we did when all of this was happening. All will be asked what they did to prevent what will happen next.”

Here is an excerpt of remarks by Israeli Ambassador Gilad Menashe Erdan:

“Hamas deliberately targets civilians and massacres children when given the chance. This makes Hamas a terror organization no different than ISIS. They do not believe in dialogue. They don't want a dialogue, not in political solutions. They only believe in exterminating Jews and annihilating the Jewish state, and nothing can change their genocidal ideology. They don't even recognize the existence of international law.

“To all those who are talking about a two-state solution and international law: There is only one solution to curing a cancer, and it is the evisceration of every cancerous cell, just as was done with ISIS and al Qaeda, complete obliteration. This is the only way to ensure such atrocities will never be repeated."

. . .

“This council should be purely focused on condemning the Hamas terrorists, supporting Israel's right to defend itself, and demanding from Hamas to immediately and unconditionally return our hostages. Israel's rescue mission can end very quickly if Hamas terrorists turned themselves in and released all of the hostages. But this rescue mission will not end until Israel ensures that Hamas atrocities can never be repeated again. And there is no way to ensure this other than the obliteration of Hamas’s capabilities.”

After the remarks of the Palestinian and Israeli ambassadors, other ambassadors who had asked to speak were given the floor. They included those of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Oman, Pakistan, South Africa, Syria, Tunisia, and the European Union, with Jordan speaking on behalf of the UN’s Arab Group.

The Arab and other majority Muslim nations, and South Africa, condemned the attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital, holding Israel responsible. With some variations, they said that the conflict began not on October 7, but with Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine. They demanded the lifting of the siege and the end of war crimes, including the forced transfer of Palestinians from North to South Gaza, and the end of genocide against the Palestinian people. They also demanded an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.

The European Union’s Ambassador Olof Skoog spoke last. He condemned Hamas and expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself. He also deplored the destruction and death at the Al-Ahli Hospital without assigning blame and pledged humanitarian support to Gaza.

As of this publication, nearly 6000 are reported dead in Gaza, including thousands of children, and the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank says that 91 Palestinians have been killed there.

Parents in Gaza are reported to be writing their children’s names on their legs to identify them in case they are separated or killed.

https://blackagendareport.org/news/288/ ... -from-Hell

Pro-Israel War Propaganda and Censorship
BY MARGARET KIMBERLEY
OCT 25, 2023

Image

By Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

“I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of @eLife for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.” Michael B. Eisen

Michael B. Eisen is just the latest victim of unrelenting pro-Israel war propaganda spread by the state and by its friends in corporate media. The scorched earth policy is operating in the United States and in its allied nations such as Canada, where physician Dr. Ben Thomson was suspended from his job after posting on the X platform, “No babies were beheaded, there have been no confirmed reports of rapes. You repeat this nonsense out of racism. In the meantime, Palestinians are experiencing genocide and war crimes and you are silent. History will judge you very badly."

Everything Thomson said is true. The beheaded baby trope was made up out of whole cloth and Palestinians are the group being subjected to war crimes. War crimes are very clearly defined in international law. Geneva Conventions IV, Article 33 explains, “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

Israel’s rationale for indiscriminate bombing in Gaza is collective punishment by its own admission. Regardless of what acts were committed by Hamas forces on October 7, killing entire Palestinian families in retaliation is indefensible under international law. Yet this clearly documented doctrine that is ordinarily upheld as an international norm no longer applies because the U.S. finds doing so to be a great inconvenience.

Foreign policy under the Biden administration has reached its nadir as fantasies about breaking up Russia or containing China are unchecked by a president who truly believes that U.S. power is unlimited and can accomplish anything he wants it to. When asked on the program 60 Minutes if the U.S. will have difficulty carrying on proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel simultaneously, Biden’s reply exposed his simple minded and dangerous belief about U.S. power. “No. We're the United States of America for God's sake, the most powerful nation in the history-- not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.”

Biden thinks that U.S. power can create any outcome that he may dream up, that Russia will allow Ukraine to be used as a point of attack or that the rest of the world will stand by passively and silently as the U.S. gives Israel carte blanche to kill thousands of people. Joe Biden’s recent trip to Israel was an unmitigated disaster because of his arrogance and stupidity. He was originally scheduled to meet King Abdullah of Jordan and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt along with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza was an affront to every Arab country, even those like Egypt and Jordan who maintain friendly ties with the U.S.

Biden’s incompetence and his ill-considered decision to go to Israel at all and to publicly agree with the Israeli claim that a misfired Hamas rocket hit the hospital and not the Israeli air force, made the king and the president look bad in the eyes of their people. It is one thing to be perceived as a U.S. puppet, it is quite another to be seen with a U.S. president who sides with Israel as atrocities are being committed.

The foreign policy debacle was not described as such in U.S. corporate media. His failure to engage Arab leaders was swept under the rug and disappeared into a black hole. The president’s televised address was replete with trite platitudes and was devoid of anything other than unquestioned support of Israel with an odd swipe at Vladimir Putin thrown in for good measure. Actually the Putin reference was not so odd. The point of the speech was to announce a request to congress to allocate $61 billion to Ukraine and $14 billion to Israel and $7 billion to Taiwan. Why Taiwan? Biden’s calculus is to antagonize China in the process of creating more bloodshed in Gaza and Ukraine. Apparently the most powerful country in the history of the world believes that the more risks to world peace the better.

This full court press of a pro-Zionist narrative that connects the white house to the television networks and national newspapers has also given a green light to Israel's supporters to practice their own form of collective punishment. A social media post can end a job or as Harvard and Columbia University law students discovered, even the prospect of a job offer.

The 1950s McCarthy era is remembered for the blacklists which effectively deprived anyone of a public life if they were said to be a communist or a leftist of any stripe. Now 70 years later the same imperative to silence those who stray from official doctrine is being whipped up again. The U.S. and Canada are not alone as European allies France and Germany banned any pro-Palestine protests from taking place. A French official said, “Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order.”

He was correct in one sense. Public denunciations of imperialist policies do disturb the public order and that is a good thing for anyone who believes in democratic rights. But democracy is the last thing that the U.S. and its friends want. It is difficult to support Israeli government carnage if people don’t fear being beat down. Intimidation is the whole point of the exercise and anyone who dares to show even a little empathy with Palestine is quickly used to make an example.

Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen had the temerity to sign a letter which expressed sympathy for Israeli and Palestinian deaths but which added, "But the unprecedented and indiscriminate violence that is still escalating against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, with the financial and political support of Western powers, can and must be brought to an end." That sentiment was enough for his speech at the 92nd Street Y in New York City to be canceled.

The censorship begins at the very top. The State Department told employees that they were not to use phrases containing the words “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” in any press materials. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre labeled congressional calls for de-escalation as “repugnant” and added for good measure, “There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.”

From the president on down, people in this country have been told that there is only one side, the side of Israel, and that anyone who says otherwise is to be ignored or shouted down. Of course big law firms and hospitals can fire people who dare to break the spell of American exceptionalism when a presidential administration gives even tacit permission to punish those who speak up.

Yet people are speaking up. The corporate media may give little attention to or smear the thousands of people who protest Israel’s war crimes all over the country. They have done so in the thousands despite the threats lodged against them. Biden and his team of amateurs may think that the U.S. cannot suffer any setbacks, but history shows that power is not unlimited. Billions of dollars and press collusion notwithstanding, U.S. policy of supporting Israel threatens that region and the whole house of cards of bad U.S. foreign policy decisions from Ukraine to Taiwan. Perhaps they know that and realize that they must enforce conformity. But history shows that can’t last forever either.

https://blackagendareport.org/news/290/ ... Censorship

*******

Exposed: Israel Is Paying Social Media Influencers to Whitewash Gaza Genocide
OCTOBER 24, 2023

Image

By Press TV Staff Writer – Oct 22, 2023

“I’m reaching out to you on behalf of a global collective of agencies, influencers, and content creators who are coming together to raise awareness about the difficult situation in Israel.”

This is a text from an email being sent to prominent social media influencers across the world by the Israeli regime and its lobbies based in the West, inviting them to join the disinformation campaign.

The campaign has gained momentum in the wake of the Tel Aviv regime’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip as well as the occupied West Bank over the last two weeks.

More than 4,400 Palestinian civilians, most of them children, have been killed in the Israeli airstrikes.

The regime warplanes have also targeted hospitals, ambulances, churches and mosques in brazen violation of international humanitarian conventions, constituting horrendous war crimes.

To counter the global backlash and to distort facts about what’s unfolding in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli regime and its backers in the West are turning to social media influencers to whitewash its crimes.

“As you’re aware, the people of Israel are currently fighting not just a war against Hamas terrorism at home, but also in the battle to tell the story to the world,” reads one of the leaked emails.

The words employed in the emails show how the regime that has been murdering children and bombing hospitals is hell-bent on demonizing the Palestinian resistance fighters as “terrorists.”

Image
— Palestine Highlights (@PalHighlight) October 20, 2023

Hamas-led ‘Al-Aqsa Storm’ (also known as Al-Aqsa Flood) operation launched on October 7 did not come in a vacuum. It was the natural response to daily atrocities inflicted on Palestinians.

From the crippling siege of Gaza to the recurrent desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to the expansion of illegal settler units in occupied territories to the inhumane condition of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the Palestinian resistance fighters had been waiting to give their response.

The surprise operation, which targeted the regime soldiers and settlers, took the far-right Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet by complete surprise and caused a major embarrassment to the regime amid the internal crisis.

After facing the crushing defeat on the battlefield, the regime’s cyber-army is now busy in hiring social media influencers, both in the Arab and Western world, to justify the unjustifiable war crimes.

“Our group has created a library of explainer videos that can be used directly on your platforms with hashtags #HAMASisISIS and #StandWithIsrael,” the email states further, adding that prominent influencers such as Kim Kardashian, Madonna, Gal Gadot, Casey Neistat and others have already joined.

The attempt is clearly to project Hamas as the villains and the child-murdering regime as heroes.

Sara Watson, a British social media influencer, took to her TikTok page to reveal that she had been approached by the Israeli regime, bribed and even coerced to retract her support for Palestine.

“That is not going to happen, you cannot buy my morals,” she said in a short video, noting that the brand she was working with informed her of their decision to not work with her anymore.

Watson was asked to pull down a post on Instagram that she had posted in solidarity with the people of Palestine and promised a hefty amount but she bluntly refused, she said in the video.

📰 Israel is badly losing the PR battle

"We need an “Israel Digital Defense Force,” a global network of social media influencers…"

– The Jerusalem Post, 2022https://t.co/guOuzpT678 pic.twitter.com/7OY3MgsP9n

— Ofhoseok⁷💜 Apobangpo (@SarahsJustHere) October 21, 2023


Another social media user, whose video was widely shared on X (formerly Twitter), revealed that the Israeli regime was paying social media influencers $1,000 for every video “to put out reports about Hamas being evil and savage and beheading babies.”

He slammed those social media influencers who took the media to participate in the regime’s disinformation campaign, saying they were “complicit in the genocide” unfolding in Gaza.

“It is always about controlling the narrative, it’s always about putting your propaganda out there, to justify the horrific things you do to people in the world, just like the United States does,” he said.

“It’s disgusting and as an American citizen I am going to continue to fight against my own country doing it and I’m going to continue fighting against Israel doing it. This is horrific.”

ISRAEL PAYING INFLUENCERS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA pic.twitter.com/CmvDoJRtPb

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) October 20, 2023


A social media user said the Israeli regime not only contacted TokTok influencers asking them to join a campaign to support the regime but also “threatened public figures like Faryal Makhdoom and Dina Torkia.”

The user shared a screenshot of a message that Makhdoom received on her Instagram page.

“If you support Israel and cease posting about Palestine, we will ensure you are rewarded lucratively,” reads the message. “If you don’t and if this is publicized, there will be severe consequences.”

Torkia also received a similar message, calling it a “typical behavior.”

Israel not only contacted Tiktok influencers asking them to join a campaign to support Israel, they're now THREATENING public figures like Faryal Makhdoom and Dina Torkia

See screenshots below. This is just the two that I've seen in the last 5 mins. There are more. Cowards. pic.twitter.com/8XlRnoEvgt
Image
— Taz🌹 (@TazTheStarGazer) October 20, 2023

The campaign comes as disinformation about the genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip has expanded alarmingly in recent days, with everyone from mainstream media to celebrities doing Israel’s bidding.

There has been a conscious attempt to whitewash the Israeli regime’s war crimes in Gaza and push the narrative that the Palestinian resistance movement is a “terrorist campaign.”

Even the bombing of a hospital in Gaza or the slaughtering of children in their homes has been defended by Western media outlets, social media influencers and political leaders.

(PressTV)

https://orinocotribune.com/exposed-isra ... -genocide/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 26, 2023 8:59 pm

‘An Absolute Outrage’: Israel To Deny Visas to UN Officials Over Secretary-General’s Gaza Remarks
OCTOBER 26, 2023

Image
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres at a conference. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images.

By Julia Conley – Oct 25, 2023

Human rights advocates called on the U.S., U.K., and other European countries to take action against Israel’s “intimidation” tactic.

Israeli authorities were accused of intimidation tactics “fitting of an authoritarian state” after they announced U.N. officials would no longer be permitted in Israel—a retaliatory step taken after comments by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres about the ongoing bombardment of civilian targets in Gaza.

The country’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, told Army Radio on Wednesday that the government will “refuse to issue visas to U.N. representatives” following Guterres’ remark that the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 people, did not happen “in a vacuum.”

At the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Guterres once again “condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented October 7 acts of terror by Hamas in Israel,” and said that “nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring, and kidnapping of civilians.”

“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” Guterres added. “They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”

Erdan responded by saying Israel has already rescinded the visa of the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, and would do the same for Guterres and other officials. He also called on the secretary-general to resign.

“The time has come to teach them a lesson,” he said.

Guterres’ comments came a week after he joined the international call for a cease-fire in Gaza, which has been led by international human rights groups including Israel-based B’Tselem, Amnesty International, and Jewish-led U.S. groups IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.

The U.N. chief repeated his strong condemnation of both Israel and Hamas on social media following the speech, but Israel still rejected his criticism of its bombardment of Gaza, where at least 6,546 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. Health officials said the healthcare system is now “completely out of service” as of Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported, and Oxfam warned that in addition to repeated airstrikes which have targeted areas that Palestinians have been ordered to evacuate to, Israel is using “starvation as a weapon.”

On Wednesday, Guterres said he was “shocked” by the “misrepresentation” of his remarks by Israeli officials including Minister Benny Gantz, who called the secretary-general a “terror apologist.”

Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Sophie McNeill noted Israel has previously rescinded the visas of high-ranking U.N. officials “who dared speak out regarding Israeli violations,” and called the tactic “an absolute outrage.”


Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that shutting out U.N. human rights officials “is bad for all aid groups assisting a million children under bombardment and in crossfire,” and called on countries with strong influences on Israel, including the United States and United Kingdom, to speak out against Israel’s decision.


British labor leader Howard Beckett noted that the strong support of leaders such as U.S. President Joe Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and U.K. Labour Leader Keir Starmer—even in the face of thousands of civilian deaths from Israel’s onslaught—has emboldened Israel.

“Israel believes it can make the U.N. an enemy,” Beckett said. “Why? Because of Biden, Sunak, and Starmer.”

https://orinocotribune.com/an-absolute- ... a-remarks/

******

Israel’s Coming Attack on Gaza: Boundary Conditions and Delay
Posted on October 25, 2023 by Yves Smith

Since there are a raft of unknowns with Israel’s next steps in and what sort of fallout that might trigger, it makes sense to step back and see if we can infer anything, even at a very general level, from known or presumed boundary conditions.

Israel is committed to a ground invasion of Gaza. It has also doubled down on its stated aim of destroying Hamas in rejecting UN calls for a ceasefire.

The invasion of Gaza and the intent to destroy Hamas appear to be political aims, since the former will be extremely costly, particularly in soldiers’ lives to a casualty-averse IDF, and the elimination of Hamas is not attainable. The point Alex Christoforu made in his show today, that the US with its much greater resources, has not been able to eliminate Al Qaeda, is confirmed in a Financial Times comment, Israel must know that destroying Hamas is beyond its reach.


Many military experts, including former Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, Douglas Macgregor, and Scott Ritter, have warned that it will be very difficult for the IDF to engage in this kind of urban clearing operation, particularly given its scale versus the IDF’s limited experience and the largely reservist status of the majority of its forces. Foreign Affairs, the premier US foreign policy publication, just released a grim prognosis in How Will the IDF Handle Urban Combat?Fighting Hamas in Gaza Will Be Difficult and Costly. Key sections:

A potential ground assault into Gaza…would entail horrendously difficult tactical conditions, including room-to-room combat and tunnel warfare that would lead to massive casualties. It would require fighting on the ground, in the air, and at sea—fighting that must be done in a carefully synchronized fashion. Combat will be slow and grinding, and the resulting devastation will almost certainly test international support for Israel’s invasion…

Urban combat is slow, grinding, destructive, environmentally devastating, and horrendously costly in human life—especially for civilians. It involves house-by-house, block-by-block fighting that soaks up troops and firepower in enormous quantities, as every room, street corner, rooftop, sewer, and basement must be secured before the next can be taken. Such combat is particularly dangerous for junior combat leaders, who must constantly expose themselves in order to see, communicate with, and command their soldiers…

…for soldiers and civilians in the midst of urban fighting, the danger, the fatigue, the sense of perpetual threat from every direction, and the horror of close-range hand-to-hand combat all take an immense physical and psychological toll. Battles tend to be confused, fleeting (measured in seconds), and short range, with targets often closer than 50 yards. Troops may be focused on the house or room they are fighting in, but at the same time they may also be targeted from a distance by mortar crews, snipers, and drone operators.


There is a lot more along these lines.

Several points seem noteworthy. First, as is evident even from this short extract, Foreign Affairs acts as if a ground operation is not a given, when there are reports of large numbers of Israeli tanks and troops newly positioned nearby and more expected. Second is that it bangs on about the findings of “NATO researchers” and of creating a “combined-arms effect.” As we saw in Ukraine, forces trained to supposed NATO standards were found by the Ukraine military to perform less well than ones that used what NATO derided as more primitive approaches better suited to battle conditions.

Third, and perhaps most important, this article does not give much consideration about how the extensive Gaza tunnel system vastly complicates this operation. Readers are welcome to correct me, but my strong impression is that not only has there never been a clearing operation in this large a setting, there has also never been one that has had to contend with such an extensive tunnel system.

The IDF may be correct in its belief, or one might say hope, that bunker busters can destroy most if not all of it and also detonate stored munitions. There was alleged evidence of that happening, with Jacob Dreizen posting a video of a presumed bunker buster then producing successive explosions from below ground a meaningful distance from the strike site.

It may be that most of the tunnels can be destroyed by arial bomb and it’s simply a matter of systematically wrecking them. But Iran has massive and deeply buried command centers and operations. Hamas would presumably have sought and received advice on how to build and fortify its tunnels to resist bunker bombs.1 Whether Hamas got very far with any such effort will be revealed in due course.

Another tunnel matter is how much Hamas has stockpiled and whether, even after round of bunker-busting, there are enough tunnels to Egypt that survive and are well-enough connected to other surviving tunnels under most of Gaza to allow Hamas members and their supplies to move about readily enough to allow them to continue indefinitely, or at least for an unseemly long time. A sometimes stated assumption on the Israel side is that they can starve Hamas out and force them to leave the tunnels, as happened with the Azov Battalion forces that retreated to the extensive basement system underneath the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.

What does the delay in launching the ground operation portend? Some theories, which are not mutually exclusive:

The politicians and the military are arguing with each other, and senior members of the military are also debating how to proceed. Perhaps Hamas will be revealed to be a paper tiger. But if not, victory, even if defined as clearing Gaza (as opposed to destroying Hamas) looks set to be Pyrrhic.

The IDF is waiting to get US men and materiel in place. With Iran having promised to Do Something in the event of an assault on Gaza, the bigger the threat display, the better. The IDF and the US appear to be erring on the side of assuming that Hezbollah and Iran are loath to escalate. That may not be as true as they believe.2

The US is trying to curb Israel. Mind you, that sort of message is not coming from where it really counts, Biden or Blinken, but enough US military men may be worried enough to do what they can to throw sand in the gears. Consider this new story from the Financial Times, Fears grow that Israel has ‘no plan’ agreed for postwar Gaza:

But about two weeks after Hamas’s devastating attacks, there remain many unresolved questions over Israel’s exit strategy and postwar goals. The US has directly raised its concerns with Israel, according to sources close to the process. The lack of an exit plan is one factor in the delays to the Gaza ground operation that has long been threatened by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“There is no plan for the ‘day after’. The [Israeli] system hasn’t decided yet,” said one person familiar with Israeli thinking. “The Americans went crazy when they realised there was no plan.”

In what were described as probing conversations with Israeli officials, US officials have encouraged their counterparts to think about how to achieve their military aims should the original plans fail, and to imagine the day after….

Several people close to the Israeli planning process described a frantic effort to establish clear war aims, develop realistic post-conflict scenarios, and agree them across the military and civilian leadership….

One recurring theme in the proposals is avoiding an open-ended Israeli reoccupation of Gaza, a narrow coastal strip that is home to 2.3mn people. Israel withdrew from the enclave in 2005.

Another is the need to strengthen the Palestinian Authority, which may be called upon to reassert control in Gaza even though it is considered to be a weak institution that lacks credibility among Palestinians…

A third element in planning is the potential for Arab states including Egypt and Saudi Arabia to play a direct role, including possible financial and peacekeeping support in Gaza.

The delay is deliberate, to starve out Gaza. Israel’s sabotaging of humanitarian convoys (bombing the roads at Rarah, allowing only a pathetic 20 trucks in, now refusing to allow fuel in and assuring the shutdown of hospitals) is a facet of Israel’s announced policy of collective punishment. Perhaps some in the government rationalize this conduct by hoping that enough suffering in Gaza will force Egypt to relent and admit a large number of refugees. But the international community is instead increasing its calls for a ceasefire and serious humanitarian relief.

It looks instead as if too many are shying away form the logic of Israel’s actions. They want to empty Gaza. That is why they have no post war plans. There’s no need to worry about post-Gaza governance if all the Palestinians have been removed.3

So tarrying with the ground operations as the Gaza citizenry dies of dehydration4 has a certain logic. The IDF is not wrong in being concerned that nominal civilians can easily serve to advance a guerrilla war, such as kids planting mines. It reduces the need to waste shells to destroy buildings. Experts like Scott Ritter have argued that more rubble is more favorable to defenders, since it offers more places to hide, makes it harder to deploy armored vehicles, and could blunt the impact of bunker busters. Conversely, keeping as much of Gaza’s roads open will help the invading force.

Delaying a Gaza invasion while refusing to let supplies in also theoretically puts of triggering a Hezbollah and potentially Iran action, although Iran has cleared its throat and said too much mistreatment of Gazans would also be a red line.


So yours truly has to wonder if the sudden intense messaging about how hard an invasion will be, and how the Israels and the US are in a dither over how to proceed, is a case of “the lady doth protest too much.” Even if these accounts are substantially true, broadcasting them would seem to be to the detriment of Israel’s operations. Perhaps it is intended to depict the Israel and its allies as in disarray so as to misdirect Hamas and its potential backers and mask a blow that is coming in days. Or perhaps it instead is to mask the monstrousness of Israel’s true plans, which are not hard to infer given its persistent obstruction of humanitarian relief.

____

1 Some have asserted that Gaza is on sandy soil that would facilitate the use of these super duper munitions. Based on a quick look, Lambert found the “sandy soil” story to be wrong:

We’re not talking granite, but it’s not sand and dirt either

http://om.ciheam.org/om/pdf/b34/01002095.pdf

Gaza Strip region has a substratum of Tertiary limestones, calcareous sandstone marls, clay and marine diluvium. Partially fossilised dune sand deposits cover wide stretches of land. These dune sands are often cemented by calcareous sediments and cemented infiltration, and form therefore compact masses of hard rocks.

Found map (“geology.png”).

https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2968023793/view

It’s hard to read (I’m assuming yellow has faded) but it looks like Gaza City area is on “Pliocene Marine”

2 In addition, by virtue of proximity, Hezbollah almost certainly has escalation options short of invasion. How might it turn up the heat?

3 If worse comes to worse, when Israel finally secures the surface, it can flood, gas [who would be the wiser?] or use thermobaric bombs on the tunnels.

4 Starving to death can take a while. For instance, in the case of Bobby Sands, it took 66 days.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10 ... delay.html

*******

Israeli army launches ‘limited’ ground incursion into Gaza
US special forces and senior Pentagon officials have been 'advising' Israel ahead of a ground offensive, as the army is deemed unprepared to confront the Palestinian resistance in urban warfare

News Desk

OCT 26, 2023

Image
Screen shot of footage showing the limited incursion, released by the Israeli army. (Photo credit: IDF/AFP)

Israel forces launched a limited ground incursion into the northern Gaza Strip late on 25 October to prepare for the “next stages” of the war and its anticipated large-scale offensive into the enclave.

“In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza. IDF tanks and infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure, and anti-tank missile launch posts. The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory,” a military statement said on 26 October.


The incursion was considerably bigger than the smaller incursions that Israel has been carrying out near the Gaza border lately, which reportedly aims to locate missing Israelis and clear out explosives.

Last weekend, Israeli troops crossed the border fence by several meters, launching a preparatory incursion into the Gaza Strip.

However, the Al-Qassam Brigades ambushed the troops, destroying two army bulldozers and a tank, leaving several soldiers seriously wounded, and forcing them to withdraw.

Israel announced plans to launch a full ground invasion of the Gaza Strip following the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.

The stated goal is to “eradicate” Hamas. Israel says it intends to find and destroy the group’s extensive network of tunnels and wipe out its infrastructure while its army attacks from the air and sea.

However, Tel Aviv has continued to delay the operation, coinciding with reports that Washington is unconvinced of Israel readiness for a ground invasion.

US officials told the New York Times (NYT) on 23 October that the Israeli army is “not yet ready” to launch a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip and lacks “achievable military objectives” to accomplish the stated goal of “eradicating” the resistance group.

Other US officials have also urged Israel to delay the ground offensive further to make way for prisoner release talks, allow Gaza access to aid, and prepare itself further for the challenging urban combat it will face inside the enclave. Israel has been coordinating with US special forces in preparation for the ground invasion.

According to Middle East Eye (MEE), US Delta Force commandos are helping Israel devise a strategy to flood tunnels underneath Gaza used by resistance forces with nerve gas and chemical weapons.

Over the past two weeks, reports have circulated regarding concerns that the army is ill-equipped to launch a full-scale invasion of Gaza.

According to Israel Hayom, many reservists have complained about “equipment shortages” and “shortcomings” in the army preparations.

The Times of Israel also wrote earlier this month that army reservists are finding themselves preparing for battle with “old, inadequate combat gear.”

Israel announced on 25 October that it is waiting for further equipment deliveries from the US.

Analysts have said Israel’s goal of “eradicating” Hamas is overambitious.

According to The Cradle’s Hassan Illaik, such an operation will drag Israel into a massive multi-front war, the losses of which it would not be able to bear the cost of.

Israel’s last ground invasion occurred in 2014 when it lost dozens of soldiers and failed to achieve any of its goals.

“At that time, the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) forces had nowhere near the quality of armaments, training, and numbers that they have today.”

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/israe ... -into-gaza

Nerve gas, chemical, nukes.....Biden is on board.

*******

Biden’s Gaza “Aid” Plan a Fig Leaf for Genocide
BY BAR EDITOR
OCT 25, 2023
INTERNATIONAL
facebook sharing button Sharetwitter sharing button Tweetwhatsapp sharing button Sharegmail sharing button Emailsharethis sharing button


Image
Photo: Getty Images

By Maureen Clare Murphy and Ali Abunimah

Originally published in Electronic Intifada.

The Biden administration on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to deliver urgently needed aid to Gaza.

But it put forward its own bogus “aid” plan that amounts to nothing more than “humanitarian” window dressing for Israel’s genocidal, US-backed bombing campaign.

The resolution introduced by Brazil “called for humanitarian access to Gaza and protection of civilians” and “condemned the Hamas attack on Israel” on 7 October, The New York Times reported.

Majed Bamya, a diplomat representing the Palestinian Authority at the UN, said that Brazil’s “draft resolution was biased, politicized, failed to acknowledge Palestinian victims and the Israeli indiscriminate attacks against them, failed to call for a ceasefire, all to avoid a US veto.”

“It was just vetoed nevertheless,” Bamya added.

The US cast its veto, according to the Times, “because the US wanted to give diplomacy a chance as President Biden was in Israel and because it did not state that Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Gaza, a besieged coastal enclave, has been under total Israeli blockade and constant bombardment for nearly two weeks, with a death toll reaching 3,500, including at least 1,200 children, on Wednesday, according to its health ministry.

Actually giving “diplomacy a chance” would mean supporting an end to the carnage so that a political solution could be found.

Instead of undertaking any sort of diplomacy to end the daily massacres of hundreds of Palestinians, the Biden White House has denounced calls for a ceasefire as “repugnant.”

It is giving unconditional backing to Israel’s vows to annihilate Hamas, a political movement that enjoys broad support among Palestinians and across the region.

Biden rejected by regional allies

The US position is now so extreme and reprehensible, particularly following Tuesday’s bloodbath at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital, that King Abdullah of Jordan – a reliable American ally – canceled Biden’s planned stop in Amman.

Abdallah and Biden were to be joined by Egyptian leader Abdulfattah al-Sisi for a summit in the Jordanian capital. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas had already pulled out.

Biden was reduced to going on a cheerleading visit to Israel, shorn of the pretense that he was engaging in any sort of regional diplomacy.

But in an attempt to spin the trip as something more than that, Biden announced that he got Israel and Egypt to agree to the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza via Egypt.

Even if aid does start trickling in from Egypt, this would not be much more than a public relations exercise. It would not significantly alleviate the enormous harm and suffering that Israel is deliberately inflicting on the civilian population as collective punishment.

The 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are without water, food, fuel and medicine – life essentials – because Israel has deliberately cut them off. This a crime against humanity of the highest order against people the Israeli government has labeled “human animals.”

As the occupying power, Human Rights Watch observes, Israel “has a duty under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to the fullest extent of the means available to it, ‘of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population.’”

“Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited and is a war crime,” the New York-based rights group said on Wednesday.

Biden aims to help Israeli war propaganda

The agreement made by the US and Israel supposedly to ensure the delivery of aid to Gaza is being touted by the Biden administration as evidence that the president hasn’t completely forsaken Palestinians – even as federal employees begin to quit in protest over Biden’s hardline pro-Israel approach and a White House representative was heckled during a visit to a Chicago suburb where a Palestinian American child was killed in a brutal hate crime.

But as noted, the agreement is just a fig leaf for Israel’s horrific extermination campaign in Gaza.

“Israel’s war cabinet on Wednesday approved the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt following pressure from the US and other countries,” Axios reported on Wednesday.

A senior Israeli official told the publication that “during his meeting with the Israeli war cabinet, Biden asked that Israel allow the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza and explained it would help in maintaining international support for the operation against Hamas.”

Biden assured Israel that the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza would be halted if it was diverted by Hamas and pledged a $100 million US aid package for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

That is a paltry amount compared to the minimum of $3.8 billion in military aid the US provides annually to Israel and is nowhere near the amount necessary to rebuild infrastructure and housing in Gaza destroyed by Israel with US-provided weapons.

And that is assuming that any of it will even reach Gaza.

Impossible task

More urgently it would do nothing to address Gaza’s spiraling humanitarian crisis.

Providing food, water, fuel and medicine to Gaza’s population through Egypt would require a logistical operation on an historically vast scale similar to the Berlin airlift.

In 1948, the Soviet Union imposed a total blockade on West Berlin, following a political dispute with the United States and its Western allies. For 10 months, the US and its allies mounted an enormous aerial resupply operation to 2.5 million people in Hitler’s war-ravaged former capital.

At the airlift’s peak, keeping the population in West Berlin supplied with food, fuel and medicine required one aircraft full of cargo to land every 45 seconds.

By contrast, Biden announced that Egyptian leader Abdulfattah al-Sisi had agreed to “let up to 20 trucks through to begin with” carrying supplies into Gaza in the coming days.

That’s about one truckload of supplies for every 100,000 of Gaza’s already exhausted, dehydrated and increasingly hungry population.

There is absolutely no plan on the table for a supply operation from Egypt on the enormous scale required to meet even the most basic needs of Gaza’s population.

And nor is that even necessary.

While the United States could not order the Soviet Union about in 1948, the Biden administration can simply instruct Israel – which is entirely dependent on US military and political support – to turn the supply of water, food, fuel, medicine and electricity for Gaza’s 2.3 million civilians back on.

Instead, Biden has acquiesced to Israel’s decision that a photogenic trickle of aid will be allowed into Gaza through Egypt, but that Israel would not resume the supply of any life essentials into Gaza until the captives being held in the territory are freed.

That is nothing less than a death sentence for millions of people.

No safe place

While Biden’s Egypt “aid” announcement is merely a fig leaf for a genocidal siege and extermination campaign directly aided by the United States, the president is moving quickly to get huge amounts of new weapons into Tel Aviv’s hands.

Biden is requesting “an unprecedented military aid package for Israel” from Congress, Axios reported, adding that “Israeli officials say they asked for $10 billion in aid and that it be approved as soon as possible.”

If and when any aid does get into Gaza via Egypt – however inadequate it may be – distribution would require an end to Israel’s constant bombing across the territory, something, again, that the US opposes.

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s relief chief, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the UN and its humanitarian partners, particularly the Red Crescent, “must be able to deliver relief to civilians in need throughout Gaza” in safety.

At present, no area is safe in Gaza, with constant Israeli airstrikes even in southern Gaza, the area to which Israel last week ordered 1.1 million Palestinians in the north to evacuate.

Israel’s evacuation order was “intended to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and move them closer to the border with Egypt,” three Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said on Wednesday.

“This forcible transfer is taking place amid the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” they added.

The Forensic Architecture Unit of Al-Haq, one of the Palestinian human rights groups, confirmed that 70 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike that hit convoys driving south on Salah al-Din Road, one of two routes that the Israeli military had instructed to be used for evacuation.

Since the evacuation order, the Israeli military has targeted homes full of people who moved from the northern half of Gaza following Israel’s order.

One of those strikes killed 12 family members of Hassan Halasa, who works for the Independent Commission for Human Rights.

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council meanwhile said that the family members of one of its staff were killed in Rafah, where they had sought safety following Israel’s evacuation orders.

The bombing in Khan Younis and Rafah, in southern Gaza, intensified beginning early Tuesday, killing 80 people and injuring dozens more, according to the Palestinian human rights group, citing the local authorities.

An Israeli airstrike meanwhile damaged the entrance to the European Hospital in Khan Younis shortly before the bombing of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City that killed hundreds.

“Hundreds of additional fatalities are believed to be trapped under the rubble,” according to the UN, which also estimates that aside from casualties from war violence, mortality rates in Gaza “have been on the rise due to the extremely limited access to essential healthcare services.”

Looming mass ethnic cleansing

As Israel continues to mercilessly attack the civilian population, causing dozens of deaths and hundreds of serious injuries every day, the territory’s health system is at breaking point.

In the north half of Gaza, around 70 percent of the remaining population have been “deprived of health services after UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestine refugees] evacuated to the south and stopped its services in the north.”

“Our organizations have received reports, including from our colleagues in Gaza, of multiple families (even up to 50 people) crammed into one house without water, food, or electricity,” the Palestinian rights groups said.

Some families that left their homes for the south have returned to the northern half of Gaza because nowhere is safe and they don’t want to be uprooted from their land, as is Israel’s apparent objective.

Other people had remained in the north since they were unable or unwilling to relocate.

The evacuation order “does not not absolve Israel from its obligations and responsibilities under international humanitarian law,” the rights groups stated.

They observed that every three in four Palestinians in Gaza “are already refugees to whom Israel has denied the right of return since 1948.”

“The looming mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza requires immediate intervention by the international community to halt this forcible transfer, which may amount to a war crime and a crime against humanity,” the groups said.

US support for forced transfer?

Egypt’s leader reiterated on Wednesday that Cairo would refuse a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula.

Underscoring Egypt’s fears, Israel’s foreign minister echoed statements made previously by military and political figures in that country declaring that the territory of Gaza, already one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, will be decreased after the war.

“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refuge and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted,” Abdulfattah al-Sisi said during a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“Egypt rejects any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region,” al-Sisi added.

Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that a Hamas source revealed to the broadcaster what he said was a US-Israel plan to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, disarm the resistance and forcibly transfer half of Gaza’s population to Egypt. Biden would forgive Cairo’s debts in return, the Hamas source said.

Mada Masr, an Egyptian publication, carried a similar report last week.

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has said that the transfer of Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt is a “non-starter” among Arab leaders, “and so we do not support it.”

Blinken notably did not reject the idea as a crime against humanity and a grave violation of the rights of the Palestinian people but merely because it lacks sufficient regional support.

Presumably if the Biden administration was successful in rallying such support, the United States would back the ethnic cleansing.

UN envoy’s dire warnings
The Hamas source also told Al Jazeera that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ politburo, had met with Tor Wennesland, the UN secretary-general’s Middle East envoy, in Doha.

Wennesland briefed the UN Security Council on Wednesday on his diplomatic efforts to deescalate the situation “and spare the lives of civilians.”

The Biden administration on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to deliver urgently needed aid to Gaza.

But it put forward its own bogus “aid” plan that amounts to nothing more than “humanitarian” window dressing for Israel’s genocidal, US-backed bombing campaign.

The resolution introduced by Brazil “called for humanitarian access to Gaza and protection of civilians” and “condemned the Hamas attack on Israel” on 7 October, The New York Times reported.

Majed Bamya, a diplomat representing the Palestinian Authority at the UN, said that Brazil’s “draft resolution was biased, politicized, failed to acknowledge Palestinian victims and the Israeli indiscriminate attacks against them, failed to call for a ceasefire, all to avoid a US veto.”

“It was just vetoed nevertheless,” Bamya added.

The US cast its veto, according to the Times, “because the US wanted to give diplomacy a chance as President Biden was in Israel and because it did not state that Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Gaza, a besieged coastal enclave, has been under total Israeli blockade and constant bombardment for nearly two weeks, with a death toll reaching 3,500, including at least 1,200 children, on Wednesday, according to its health ministry.

Actually giving “diplomacy a chance” would mean supporting an end to the carnage so that a political solution could be found.

Instead of undertaking any sort of diplomacy to end the daily massacres of hundreds of Palestinians, the Biden White House has denounced calls for a ceasefire as “repugnant.”

It is giving unconditional backing to Israel’s vows to annihilate Hamas, a political movement that enjoys broad support among Palestinians and across the region.

Biden rejected by regional allies

The US position is now so extreme and reprehensible, particularly following Tuesday’s bloodbath at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital, that King Abdullah of Jordan – a reliable American ally – canceled Biden’s planned stop in Amman.

Abdallah and Biden were to be joined by Egyptian leader Abdulfattah al-Sisi for a summit in the Jordanian capital. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas had already pulled out.

Biden was reduced to going on a cheerleading visit to Israel, shorn of the pretense that he was engaging in any sort of regional diplomacy.

But in an attempt to spin the trip as something more than that, Biden announced that he got Israel and Egypt to agree to the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza via Egypt.

Even if aid does start trickling in from Egypt, this would not be much more than a public relations exercise. It would not significantly alleviate the enormous harm and suffering that Israel is deliberately inflicting on the civilian population as collective punishment.

The 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are without water, food, fuel and medicine – life essentials – because Israel has deliberately cut them off. This a crime against humanity of the highest order against people the Israeli government has labeled “human animals.”

As the occupying power, Human Rights Watch observes, Israel “has a duty under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to the fullest extent of the means available to it, ‘of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population.’”

“Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited and is a war crime,” the New York-based rights group said on Wednesday.

Biden aims to help Israeli war propaganda

The agreement made by the US and Israel supposedly to ensure the delivery of aid to Gaza is being touted by the Biden administration as evidence that the president hasn’t completely forsaken Palestinians – even as federal employees begin to quit in protest over Biden’s hardline pro-Israel approach and a White House representative was heckled during a visit to a Chicago suburb where a Palestinian American child was killed in a brutal hate crime.

But as noted, the agreement is just a fig leaf for Israel’s horrific extermination campaign in Gaza.

“Israel’s war cabinet on Wednesday approved the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt following pressure from the US and other countries,” Axios reported on Wednesday.

A senior Israeli official told the publication that “during his meeting with the Israeli war cabinet, Biden asked that Israel allow the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza and explained it would help in maintaining international support for the operation against Hamas.”

Biden assured Israel that the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza would be halted if it was diverted by Hamas and pledged a $100 million US aid package for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

That is a paltry amount compared to the minimum of $3.8 billion in military aid the US provides annually to Israel and is nowhere near the amount necessary to rebuild infrastructure and housing in Gaza destroyed by Israel with US-provided weapons.

And that is assuming that any of it will even reach Gaza.

Impossible task

More urgently it would do nothing to address Gaza’s spiraling humanitarian crisis.

Providing food, water, fuel and medicine to Gaza’s population through Egypt would require a logistical operation on an historically vast scale similar to the Berlin airlift.

In 1948, the Soviet Union imposed a total blockade on West Berlin, following a political dispute with the United States and its Western allies. For 10 months, the US and its allies mounted an enormous aerial resupply operation to 2.5 million people in Hitler’s war-ravaged former capital.

At the airlift’s peak, keeping the population in West Berlin supplied with food, fuel and medicine required one aircraft full of cargo to land every 45 seconds.

By contrast, Biden announced that Egyptian leader Abdulfattah al-Sisi had agreed to “let up to 20 trucks through to begin with” carrying supplies into Gaza in the coming days.

That’s about one truckload of supplies for every 100,000 of Gaza’s already exhausted, dehydrated and increasingly hungry population.

The site of an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a bakery and killed four people in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, 18 October.

There is absolutely no plan on the table for a supply operation from Egypt on the enormous scale required to meet even the most basic needs of Gaza’s population.

And nor is that even necessary.

While the United States could not order the Soviet Union about in 1948, the Biden administration can simply instruct Israel – which is entirely dependent on US military and political support – to turn the supply of water, food, fuel, medicine and electricity for Gaza’s 2.3 million civilians back on.

Instead, Biden has acquiesced to Israel’s decision that a photogenic trickle of aid will be allowed into Gaza through Egypt, but that Israel would not resume the supply of any life essentials into Gaza until the captives being held in the territory are freed.

That is nothing less than a death sentence for millions of people.

No safe place

While Biden’s Egypt “aid” announcement is merely a fig leaf for a genocidal siege and extermination campaign directly aided by the United States, the president is moving quickly to get huge amounts of new weapons into Tel Aviv’s hands.

Biden is requesting “an unprecedented military aid package for Israel” from Congress, Axios reported, adding that “Israeli officials say they asked for $10 billion in aid and that it be approved as soon as possible.”

If and when any aid does get into Gaza via Egypt – however inadequate it may be – distribution would require an end to Israel’s constant bombing across the territory, something, again, that the US opposes.

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s relief chief, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the UN and its humanitarian partners, particularly the Red Crescent, “must be able to deliver relief to civilians in need throughout Gaza” in safety.

At present, no area is safe in Gaza, with constant Israeli airstrikes even in southern Gaza, the area to which Israel last week ordered 1.1 million Palestinians in the north to evacuate.

Israel’s evacuation order was “intended to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and move them closer to the border with Egypt,” three Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said on Wednesday.

“This forcible transfer is taking place amid the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” they added.

The Forensic Architecture Unit of Al-Haq, one of the Palestinian human rights groups, confirmed that 70 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike that hit convoys driving south on Salah al-Din Road, one of two routes that the Israeli military had instructed to be used for evacuation.

Since the evacuation order, the Israeli military has targeted homes full of people who moved from the northern half of Gaza following Israel’s order.

One of those strikes killed 12 family members of Hassan Halasa, who works for the Independent Commission for Human Rights.

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council meanwhile said that the family members of one of its staff were killed in Rafah, where they had sought safety following Israel’s evacuation orders.

The bombing in Khan Younis and Rafah, in southern Gaza, intensified beginning early Tuesday, killing 80 people and injuring dozens more, according to the Palestinian human rights group, citing the local authorities.

An Israeli airstrike meanwhile damaged the entrance to the European Hospital in Khan Younis shortly before the bombing of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City that killed hundreds.

“Hundreds of additional fatalities are believed to be trapped under the rubble,” according to the UN, which also estimates that aside from casualties from war violence, mortality rates in Gaza “have been on the rise due to the extremely limited access to essential healthcare services.”

Looming mass ethnic cleansing

As Israel continues to mercilessly attack the civilian population, causing dozens of deaths and hundreds of serious injuries every day, the territory’s health system is at breaking point.

In the north half of Gaza, around 70 percent of the remaining population have been “deprived of health services after UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestine refugees] evacuated to the south and stopped its services in the north.”

“Our organizations have received reports, including from our colleagues in Gaza, of multiple families (even up to 50 people) crammed into one house without water, food, or electricity,” the Palestinian rights groups said.

Some families that left their homes for the south have returned to the northern half of Gaza because nowhere is safe and they don’t want to be uprooted from their land, as is Israel’s apparent objective.

Other people had remained in the north since they were unable or unwilling to relocate.

The evacuation order “does not not absolve Israel from its obligations and responsibilities under international humanitarian law,” the rights groups stated.

They observed that every three in four Palestinians in Gaza “are already refugees to whom Israel has denied the right of return since 1948.”

“The looming mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza requires immediate intervention by the international community to halt this forcible transfer, which may amount to a war crime and a crime against humanity,” the groups said.

US support for forced transfer?

Egypt’s leader reiterated on Wednesday that Cairo would refuse a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula.

Underscoring Egypt’s fears, Israel’s foreign minister echoed statements made previously by military and political figures in that country declaring that the territory of Gaza, already one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, will be decreased after the war.

“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refuge and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted,” Abdulfattah al-Sisi said during a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“Egypt rejects any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region,” al-Sisi added.

Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that a Hamas source revealed to the broadcaster what he said was a US-Israel plan to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, disarm the resistance and forcibly transfer half of Gaza’s population to Egypt. Biden would forgive Cairo’s debts in return, the Hamas source said.

Mada Masr, an Egyptian publication, carried a similar report last week.

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has said that the transfer of Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt is a “non-starter” among Arab leaders, “and so we do not support it.”

Blinken notably did not reject the idea as a crime against humanity and a grave violation of the rights of the Palestinian people but merely because it lacks sufficient regional support.

Presumably if the Biden administration was successful in rallying such support, the United States would back the ethnic cleansing.

UN envoy’s dire warnings

The Hamas source also told Al Jazeera that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ politburo, had met with Tor Wennesland, the UN secretary-general’s Middle East envoy, in Doha.

Wennesland briefed the UN Security Council on Wednesday on his diplomatic efforts to deescalate the situation “and spare the lives of civilians.”

Wennesland unequivocally condemned the 7 October attack led by Hamas and said that “this is one of the most difficult moments facing the Israeli and Palestinian people in the past 75 years.”

He said the conflict risks expanding dangerously, with both profound regional and international implications, and “comes at a moment when the global institutions we need to respond to such a crisis are already overstretched.”

Wennesland said that the first priority was securing the “immediate, unconditional release of all hostages” held by Hamas and secondly, “fast, unrestricted access of humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.”

Instead of calling for a ceasefire, he said that the third priority is “collective efforts to end the hostilities and prevent any further expansion of the conflict to the region.”

Wennesland emphasized that only a long-term political solution would “bring an end to the bloodletting and prevent any recurrence.”

But he did not call for accountability, which Palestinians say is key to ending the current situation of Israeli impunity engendering further abuses and preventing the root causes of the conflict from being addressed.

Both Wennesland and Griffiths called for a “fact-based inquiry” into the explosion at al-Ahli hospital.

Hospitals “on brink of collapse”

Wednesday witnessed new Israeli attacks around Gaza City hospitals.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that heavy bombardment took place around its hospital in Gaza City, where more than 8,000 displaced people had taken refuge.

This was not the first attack close to the Red Crescent’s hospital; the organization reported bombing on Saturday that filled its facility with dust and debris.

Meanwhile, the UN warned on Wednesday that Gaza “hospitals are on the brink of collapse.”

“Most of them have been operating at a bare minimum capacity,” the UN added. “Vital procedures such as sterilization and dialysis may soon be halted.”

Most of the people injured at al-Ahli hospital were evacuated to al-Shifa, forcing “doctors to attempt surgery on the floor and in the halls, mostly without anesthesia.”

Video from al-Shifa hospital – the largest in Gaza – showed waiting rooms and hallways being used as operating rooms, filled with patients on stretchers and on the lying ground.

“This is utterly inhumane, this is unbelievable,” says the person who recorded the video, apparently a doctor or nurse at al-Shifa.

“This is what happens when you bomb a hospital over the heads of the patients and the injured,” he says, referring to the strike on al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday.

He says that the patients had undergone surgery “without anesthesia, so we can save as many people as possible.”

Meanwhile, the UN reported additional Israeli airstrikes targeting residential buildings between Tuesday night and Wednesday, killing 25 people in al-Bureij, central Gaza, and 37 people in Jabaliya, northern Gaza.

This man being treated at al-Shifa after Israel bombed his house said that his baby grandson Marwan was killed, and his own son, Adnan, and daughters Mary and Majd, were missing under the rubble.

He said that Israel’s goal was to force Palestinians to leave Gaza.

“Today we were attacked and injured. My grandson was martyred and maybe my son and my daughters as well, but I swear we will go back to our house,” he vowed.

“This is our fate. I swear to God we will not back down.”

https://blackagendareport.org/news/260/ ... r-Genocide

*******

Image

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8728630.html

*******

Image

White House Says Continued Civilian Slaughter “Is Going To Happen” In Gaza

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the press on Tuesday that the continued killing of civilians in Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza “is going to happen”.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 26, 2023

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the press on Tuesday that the continued killing of civilians in Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza “is going to happen”.

“This is war,” said Kirby. “It is combat. It is bloody, ugly and it’s going to be messy, and innocent civilians are going to be hurt going forward. I wish I could tell you something different — I wish that wasn’t gonna happen, but it is going to happen.”

“And that doesn’t make it right,” Kirby added. “It doesn’t make it dismissible. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to express concerns about that and do everything we can to help the Israelis do everything they can to minimize it. But that’s unfortunately the nature of conflict.”

Oh okay well as long as you’re going to “express concerns”.


The information interests of Israel and its western allies have been greatly served by framing this onslaught as a “war”, when that label doesn’t actually apply here. A war is when two nations or groups are in a state of armed combat with each other; one side may be more powerful than the other, but the combat is decidedly going two ways.

That’s not what’s happening here. Israel is raining high-tech military explosives upon civilian infrastructure inside a giant concentration camp densely populated with children, and every now and then a militant in Gaza fires back a type of rocket that is essentially a glorified firework which historically hardly ever kills anyone. Israel is killing civilians by the thousands and turning entire city blocks to rubble, while Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza are doing some light property damage in what amounts to a performative display of defiance.

That’s not a war. That’s a massacre.

By calling this something that it isn’t instead of what it is, Israel apologists are able to respond to all criticisms of its actions with a shrug and a “This is war, man. War is ugly, what can I tell ya?” They wouldn’t be able to do that if they were addressing this atrocity truthfully.


The only thing truthful about Kirby’s framing was his statement that the slaughter of civilians is going to keep happening. The death toll from airstrikes in Gaza has reportedly surpassed 6,500, with the 24-hour periods from Monday to Tuesday and Tuesday to Wednesday both exceeding 700 deaths each. As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp notes, this large escalation in deaths coincides with claims from Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel has escalated its bombing campaign.

This is all being funded and supported by the United States, who has been ramping up its military presence in the middle east in some pretty disconcerting ways. Not one but two US aircraft carrier strike groups have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean since the killing began, and the Pentagon has told the press that it expects a “significant escalation” in attacks on US troops in the middle east in response to Israel’s relentless assault on Palestinian lives. US military advisers have been sent to Israel to help the IDF prepare for its ground invasion of Gaza, and as usual Australia is joining in the US warmongering by sending more troops to the middle east as well.

So we can expect a lot more killing in the near future, one way or the other. No meaningful pressure is being placed on Israel to stop butchering civilians, and an escalation into a broader war in the middle east is not at all outside the realm of possibility. Things could be headed in a direction that makes a genocidal massacre look like sunny days in retrospect.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/10 ... n-in-gaza/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 27, 2023 11:35 am

The situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone for October 26, 2023
October 26, 2023
Rybar

At night, several units of the Israel Defense Forces entered the northern part of the Gaza Strip , where they prepared for the upcoming ground operation, simultaneously causing damage to the infrastructure of Palestinian groups in the enclave.

Meanwhile, massive air strikes by the IDF continued against the Gaza Strip. The Israelis said they had killed another Hamas commander, Hassan al - Abdallah . The militants, in turn, respond with massive missile launches at Israeli cities: today Tel Aviv , Petah Tikva , Rishon LeZion and others have again become targets.

Despite the fact that Hezbollah showed almost no activity today, the Israelis continue to fiercely bomb the territory of southern Lebanon . An IDF reconnaissance drone crashed near the Israeli-Lebanese border in the city of Ma'alot - Tarshiha .

By evening, information appeared on the Internet about the visit of a Hamas delegation to Moscow , while at the same time, negotiations were allegedly ongoing between Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Bogdanov and representatives of the group in Qatar . The agenda of these meetings is still unknown, but the Israelis have already demanded that Russia expel them.

In addition, the group's leaders stated that they were ready to hand over all captured civilian hostages to Iran .

Image

Progress of hostilities
Northern and eastern directions

During the night, Israeli engineering and armored units entered the northern Gaza Strip . Representatives of the IDF reported that work had been carried out to develop the territory and destroy the militants' infrastructure in preparation for the ground operation. After completing the task, the fighters left the enclave.

In addition, throughout the day, militants shelled populated areas nearby and to the north of the Gaza Strip: Ashdod, Beeri, Kisufim, Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva and others came under attack. Also during the day, security forces searched Sderot in search of accomplices of the militants.

Gaza Strip

Air raids on the enclave continue. Residential areas in Gaza, Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah and Rafah were again hit . Representatives of the Israeli command reported that one of the commanders of the Hamas military wing, Hassan al-Abdallah, was eliminated in Khan Yunis.

This morning, another 12 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah checkpoint . There is still no fuel among the cargo, and the amount of aid cannot even minimally cover the needs of the Palestinians.

In the evening, representatives of the Hamas group suddenly made a statement: they said that they were ready to hand over all civilian hostages to Iran .

Border with Lebanon

Israeli troops continue to carry out strikes in southern Lebanon despite the complete absence of any action from the opposite side of the border. Targets included Alma al-Shaab, Naqura, Blida and Al-Adisa . Hezbollah representatives reported in sources under their control that 46 fighters were killed during the conflict. In addition, in the north of the country, an IDF drone crashed in the city of Ma'alot Tarshiha .

West Bank

Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces continue in the region, but their intensity has decreased. However, the latter continue to massively detain those they suspect of facilitating the activities of Palestinian militants. Thus, in Hebron , a member of the Palestinian parliament , Samira Halaika, was detained , as well as the rector of a local university, students and several journalists. In East Jerusalem, the owner of one of the large local Telegram channels , Iyad Abu Damos , who published “inflammatory” content against Israel, was arrested.

Political-diplomatic background
On the transfer of hostages to Iran


The head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry , while in New York , made an important statement that could change the picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian factions have announced their readiness to hand over non-military hostages to Iran. In exchange, Hamas declares its readiness for negotiations through the mediation of Qatar and Turkey and the demand for the release of six thousand Palestinian hostages from Israeli prisons.

From terrorists in the eyes of the international community, the Palestinians are turning into negotiable people who are ready to accept such a gesture of goodwill. Russia and China received points , which during the negotiations pushed through the idea of ​​​​transferring hostages. Well, Iran, Qatar and Turkey also get points - how could we not do without it.

It is now extremely inconvenient for the Israelis to sell the “they are terrorists” version to the population, because the population has somehow forgotten about the events of October 7-8 against the backdrop of massive bombing of the Gaza Strip. It is now more difficult to dismiss the need to negotiate with Hamas: public opinion is changing in favor of the fact that it is possible to do business with the Palestinians.

And it turns out that after 19 days of conflict, the role of “thug with a club” passed from the Arabs to the Israelis. Because the former are trying to negotiate, while the latter are behaving more and more inappropriately.

Once again about the speech of the Turkish President about Israel

After yesterday's speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan , in which he called Hamas not terrorists, but mujahideen fighting for their land, some members of the US Congress wanted to bring the Turks to justice and turned to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with a demand to bring charges against Ankara . Congressmen demand that Turkey officially recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization, close the organization's offices in Istanbul, deprive all official representatives in Turkey of Turkish citizenship and revoke their passports, investigate Turkish banks for their involvement in financing Hamas, and also check for the involvement of Turkish officials in militant actions against Israel on October 7, 2023.

American parliamentarians are asking Blinken to conduct a large-scale investigation, the results of which are being demanded to be reported. They are probably personally embarrassed by the rather harsh rhetoric of the Turkish President, but the cunning Erdogan always senses the limits of what is permitted and his recent statement is just part of the game of balancing on the notorious “two chairs”: on the one hand, with his attack he earns himself the admiration and applause of the Islamic world , on the other hand, it shows voters its “independence.”

UN Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

At a meeting of the UN Security Council, Russia and China vetoed the US draft resolution on the Middle East. The Russian-Chinese option was also not accepted: four countries voted for it, Great Britain and the United States voted against it , and the remaining nine members of the UN Security Council abstained.

Russia's negotiations with Hamas

A Hamas delegation led by Abu Mazruk , a member of the organization's Politburo, arrived in Moscow . In addition, against this background, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Bogdanov met with representatives of the group in Qatar. The subject of negotiations is currently unknown.

About the statements of Hossein Amir Abdollahian

The head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry , while in New York , made an important statement that could change the picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian factions have announced their readiness to hand over non-military hostages to Iran. In exchange, Hamas declares its readiness for negotiations through the mediation of Qatar and Turkey and the demand for the release of six thousand Palestinian hostages from Israeli prisons. From terrorists in the eyes of the international community, the Palestinians are turning into negotiable people who are ready to make such a gesture of goodwill. Russia and China received points , which during the negotiations pushed through the idea of ​​​​transferring hostages. Well, Iran, Qatar and Turkey also get points - how could we not do without it.

It is now extremely inconvenient for the Israelis to sell the “they are terrorists” version to the population, because the population has somehow forgotten about the events of October 7-8 against the backdrop of massive bombing of the Gaza Strip. It is now more difficult to dismiss the need to negotiate with Hamas: public opinion is changing in favor of the fact that it is possible to do business with the Palestinians. And it turns out that after 19 days of conflict, the role of “thug with a club” passed from the Arabs to the Israelis. Because the former are trying to negotiate, while the latter are behaving more and more inappropriately.

https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-zone-izra ... 2023-goda/

Google Translator

******

Palestine: The Failure of the Two-State Solution and the Communist Alternative
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 25, 2023
Josh Holroyd

Image
Gaza is becoming a mass grave

As the death count in Gaza soars, many leading left-wingers are calling for a ceasefire and for peace negotiations. But there can be no genuine end to Palestinian oppression under capitalism. That is why we say: Intifada until victory!


Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is reaching a pivotal stage. The horrifying images of butchered civilians have provoked a wave of revulsion across the world.

Thousands have taken to the streets in capitals throughout the Middle East, demanding action in support of Gaza, while hundreds of thousands of people in the West have protested against the complicity of their governments in Israel’s crimes.

The IMT wholeheartedly supports this movement, and stands in complete solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for national liberation and freedom from imperialist oppression.

But the question immediately arises: how is Palestinian freedom to be achieved? And this question requires a clear answer.

No resolution

Many left-wing parties and workers’ organisations have called for an immediate ceasefire and a peace plan, holding out the prospect of an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The World Federation of Trade Unions, for example, has demanded an end to “Israeli occupation and settlement in the occupied Arab territories, as provided for in the UN resolutions”, and the establishment of “an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and guarantee the right of return of Palestinian refugees”.

Image
Israel breached the Green Line in 1967 when it overran the whole of Palestine during the Six Day War / Image: Yakov Agor, Wikimedia Commons

Communist Parties around the world have released similar statements. The Communist Party of Britain (CPB), for example, calls for “the implementation of a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders establishing an independent Palestinian state.”

But aside from the sentiment of support, what does this really offer the Palestinian masses?

The first duty of any communist is to tell the truth. And the most elementary truth in the whole situation is that nothing could be of less assistance to the people of Palestine than the impotent resolutions of the UN and the intrigues of the ‘international community’.

To begin with, the pre-1967 borders were established by the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians between 1947-49, known as the Nakba (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic), which was carried out by Zionist militias with the backing of US imperialism.

By the end of 1949, Israel had seized 78 percent of Palestine. What was the response of the ‘international community’? It recognised this bloody fait accompli as the ‘Green Line’ – the very border that the CPB and others would now like to return to.

Israel breached the Green Line in 1967 when it overran the whole of Palestine during the Six Day War. The UN’s response was to pass Resolution 242, which remains unenforced to this day. Therefore we must ask, if the UN has been completely unable (and unwilling) to enforce its own limp resolutions since 1947, then who will?

A rotten peace

What is always lacking from calls for a ‘two-state’ solution is any proposal for how this is to be achieved. When organisations call for a peace deal, it is necessary to ask: What deal? Negotiated by whom? And enforced by whom?

Palestine has some experience of peace deals. In fact, the present crisis is the product of the complete failure of the ‘two-state’ solution, as laid down in the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995.

Image
In fact, the present crisis is the product of the complete failure of the ‘two-state’ solution, as laid down in the Oslo Accords / Image: Vince Musi, Wikimedia Commons

Under the terms of this deal, negotiated behind the backs of the Palestinian people, Israel agreed to partially withdraw from the occupied territories. A Palestinian semi-state called the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established. The problem, however, was that 60 percent of the West Bank would remain entirely under Israeli control.

In return, Yasser Arafat and the PLO agreed to recognise the state of Israel and abandon its demand for the right of Palestinians displaced during the Nakba to return to their homes.

Instead, the Palestinian leadership agreed to work towards the restoration of the pre-1967 borders, as recognised in the UN’s Resolution 242 – precisely the terms demanded by the official Communist Parties today.

Further, the parties agreed “to lay the groundwork for strengthening the economic base of the Palestinian side”. But this was to be achieved by incorporating Palestine into a customs union with Israel. Palestine would also use the same currency, the Israeli Shekel.

Finally, a Palestinian police force was established. But the Israeli state retained “all the powers” to safeguard “internal security and order”. Israel also retained exclusive control of Palestine’s borders and airspace.

What has been the result of this ‘peace’? Thirty years on, living conditions in Palestine have worsened. Unemployment in Gaza and the West Bank was 7 percent in 1993; today it is 24 percent. Youth unemployment stands at almost 37 percent. The latest figure for unemployment in Gaza is even worse, standing at 45 percent, and higher for young people. That was prior to Israel’s bombardment.

The entire Palestinian economy is held in a state of colonial dependence on Israel, which provides 58 percent of its imports and receives around 86 percent of its exports.

The PA and the ruling party Fatah have become nothing but a corrupt clique, who remain in power solely because they serve as a useful puppet regime for the Israeli state. And this is precisely how they are seen by most Palestinians. The shooting of Palestinian protesters in Nablus by the PA’s security forces last week is a graphic illustration of this fact.

When mass hostility to Fatah gave victory to Hamas in the 2006 legislative elections, Israel, the EU, and the US refused to recognise the result, putting pressure on Fatah not to hand over power. As a result, Palestine was split by a civil war. This left Gaza under Hamas’ control and the West Bank under Fatah’s control. There have been no elections since.

The so-called ‘two-state’ solution has succeeded in creating two Palestines; or rather, two miserable reserves in which Palestinians are held as prisoners in their own country.

At the same time, the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank has continued under every single Israeli government since the Accords were signed.

Palestine has never been further from independence than it is now. Its economy has been systematically strangled. The so-called Palestinian Authority has no authority at all.

Pious resolutions that simply call for a return to pre-1967 borders and “an independent Palestinian state” in the abstract completely overlook this inconvenient fact.

Israel imperialism

Advocates of a ‘two-state’ solution might protest that the problem is that right-wing Israeli governments – and Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular – have acted in bad faith and deliberately undermined the path to peace.

This is all true, of course. But then we must ask: what Israeli government would be either willing or able to abandon the whole of the West Bank? Further, what Israeli government would be prepared to effectively pay for the development of a viable and independent Palestinian economy on its border?

Israel is a capitalist state with imperialist interests that it has developed across the region. And the domination of the whole of Palestine is an absolute necessity for the pursuit of those interests. This fact was recognised by the founders of Israel. And it has determined the policy of every Israeli government since 1948.

The proliferation of illegal settlements in the West Bank has continued since 1967, and accelerated since 1993. There are now more than 700,000 Jewish settlers living illegally in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, exploiting the labour of Palestinians who work in slave-like conditions. And the settlements have become a powerful political force that no government in Israel is able to ignore.

Image
In reality, there is no viable Palestinian state and there will never be one so long as Israeli capitalism continues to exist / Image: United Nations Photo, Flickr

It was not Likud or Netanyahu, but the Israeli Labour Party of Yitzhak ‘Bonebreaker’ Rabin that negotiated the Oslo Accords, with their insistence on the economic ‘integration’ of the Israeli and Palestinian economies. And when Labour’s ‘One Israel’ alliance came to power in 1999, it neither reversed nor even paused the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Under imperialism, peace is simply the continuation of war by other means. The only difference between liberal and right-wing Zionism is that the former prefers to quietly place its boot on the necks of the Palestinians and choke them unconscious, whereas the latter kicks them repeatedly in the face.

What the liberal wing of the Israeli ruling class object to is not the monstrous oppression of the Palestinians, but the prospect that the provocations of the right could result in another revolt of the Palestinian masses. And their fears are being borne out by events.

In reality, there is no viable Palestinian state – and there will never be one so long as Israeli capitalism continues to exist. Solidarity with Palestine must proceed from this unavoidable fact, which is already understood by the majority in Palestine.

In a September poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 64 percent said the situation was worse today then before Oslo; 71 percent said it was wrong for the PLO to sign the agreement in the first place; and 53 percent said that armed struggle was the best way forward for the Palestinian liberation struggle.

The demand of a new peace plan along the same lines as Oslo, under the present conditions, is at best a distraction and at worst a deception.

This is precisely why the United States intervened and brokered the Oslo Accords in 1993, and why a string of US presidents have endorsed the so-called ‘two-state’ solution ever since. This is also why much of the Palestinian youth have rightly rejected it.

An honest rejection of war and destruction is completely understandable. But in the conflict between oppressor and oppressed, the best pacifism can achieve is to preach passivity to the masses, and divert the struggle into a blind alley.

For a revolutionary solution

There is no reformist road to Palestinian freedom. International pressure and ‘peace’ deals can only preserve the already intolerable status quo. The Palestinian masses can only rely on their own strength, supported by the solidarity of the worldwide working class.

A new uprising throughout the whole of Palestine, basing itself first and foremost on the revolutionary youth, could shake not only the Israeli regime but the entire region.


Image

Mobilised around a socialist programme, the movement could reach beyond the artificial borders of Palestine to Arab workers living on the Israeli side of the Green Line; to the workers and poor of the neighbouring Arab states, who burn with indignation at their own ruling class’ complicity in the crimes of Zionism; and could begin to stoke class struggle and break down the national unity between Israeli workers and bosses, which is vital for the rule of the latter.

But for such an all-powerful movement to halt at the establishment of a weak capitalist Palestine, side-by-side with some ‘democratic’ version of the present capitalist Israeli state, would be utterly self-defeating.

In fact, such an outcome would be impossible. The Israeli ruling class, if its rule was merely shaken rather than smashed, would come back seeking revenge. It would revert to something even more nightmarish than the present setup.

The reactionary Zionist establishment needs to be completely dismantled; the ruling class expropriated; and the land and monopolies placed under the control of the working class.

Only a regime of workers’ democracy can replace the present state of Israel, end the occupation, resolve the essential question of the land, and respect the democratic rights of both Jews and Arabs. In short, we are not for a sham peace – we are for revolution.

But what is required is a revolution that respects neither capitalist ‘democracy’ nor national boundaries; that does not stop until Israeli imperialism and its puppets in Palestine have been completely smashed; and that satisfies the crying needs of the Palestinian people, for land, work, housing and a dignified existence for all.

That means the revolution must be socialist, which is the only way of removing the material base upon which the Zionist ruling elite rests.

That is why we say: Intifada until victory!

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... ternative/

Zionism – An Ideology for the Self-Loathing
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 25, 2023
Roger D. Harris

Image

Jewish Voice for PeaceWhen I told my grandmother that I was going to visit Europe for the first time, she exploded, “Oy vey!” Raising her voice, she exclaimed: “There’s nothing there! NOTHING! Just poverty and filth.” Collecting herself, she added: “You like foreign food? There’s better in New York.”

For her generation of Jews, there was little nostalgia for the old country…and for good reason. She had been an involuntary participant in pogroms, violent riots massacring Jews. Fast forward to the present, the perpetrators are being rehabilitated. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, disregarding his religious heritage, honors the murderous Stepan Bandera as one of his “indisputable heroes.”

My dear grandmother, like so many other immigrants from eastern Europe, had endured the oppression of the shtetl. She then came to these shores and became a Fancy American Lady. Her friends came to call her Fanny, a sophisticated name rather than her given one of Felicia. There was no going back for them.

Of the diverse mélange of ethnic groups that comprise the so-called American melting pot, the Jews – to the extent that one can generalize about anyone – are unique in having no affection for whence they came. The old folks would say in their more cynical moments that they “came from hunger” rather than a particular country.

In the case of my family, I don’t even know from where specifically they came. As a child, I intuitively learned that there were some subjects that were out of bounds. Our family’s past was an implicitly verboten topic. Now they are gone, and I wish that I had asked about their early life.

Although my relatives had no intention of returning to Europe, they still retained the culture they brought with them.

The old folks did not have a particular interest in Zionism. However, for many of my co-religionists today, the tradition of European Jewish culture is being replaced by the Disneyesque synthetic of political Zionism. The shame and pain of the past is buried in the Zionist conceit.

The ideal of the Jewish scholar has been discarded for the veneration of the warrior. No longer identifying as the “people of the book,” the Zionist is proud to be the gun bearer. Grace and mercy have made way for a vengeance of biblical proportions. The Zionist state is unapologetically nuclear armed and a leading world purveyor of cluster bombs, surveillance equipment and policing technology.

Our warm Yiddish language with its the rich literature, theatre and song has been cast off. Also tellingly vanishing is its humor and humanity; its sometimes self-deprecating humility. In its place is a former liturgical language, Hebrew. Unearthed from the cold catacombs, the new tongue is a deliberate part of a break from tradition in a project to build a new national identity that escapes from its past.

Zionism rests on a mythos of a supreme being who chose a particular people to establish a nation on the eastern Mediterranean coast. More political than religious, Zionism posits a basic antagonism between Jews and others, necessitating an exclusive state to defend the former against the rest.

Long one of many currents in the Jewish diaspora, even before World War II, Zionism got legs in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Though still disputed in some circles, it is today the dominant ideology of the diaspora and the Israeli state.

“Making aliyah” is to return to what is described as our motherland, the land of our origins per the Zionists. Aliyah is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism.

What do you take me for, a schlemiel?

Genetic evidence shows that the European Jews never occupied the occupied territories. We can’t “go back” to a place that was never ours.


The European settlers, who immigrated as part of the Zionist project to the territory now claimed by Israel, were not descended from the Jewish people depicted in the Bible. Rather, they were in all likelihood the descendants of converts to Judaism.

Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Congress, explained back in 1914: “There is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country?”

Of course there was the inconvenient existence of the indigenous people who lived there and had done so for millennia. But to the settler colonialists that now head the Zionist state, these indigenous are literally “animals.” As I write this, those untermenschen are being cleansed out.

The narrow nationalist and xenophobic tribalism of Zionism contrasts with the universal humanism of “welcoming the stranger” at the Passover table. In traditional Jewish culture, a seat was added to the family table for a stranger on the religious feast day. This beautiful ritual was explicitly designed to engender empathy for others.

The Torah reminds those who have not renounced their past: “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 23:9).” That is why many anti-Zionist Jews in today’s political context resonate with the slogan, “we are ALL Palestinians.”

Over time, the Zionists have achieved a horrific conversion of an oppressed people becoming the oppressor. But they could not have done that transformation alone. The political ideology of Zionism had to be inseparably joined in a seamless union with US imperialism. As US President Biden emphasized, “making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security.”

Endless war is the prescription for the US imperial/Zionist joint project. A ceasefire let alone a peace with justice is off the table. Perversely, political Zionism has instrumentalized Jewish identity into a tool of empire.

Paradoxically the biggest fans of modern Zionism outside of the Jewish community are anti-Semitic autocrats. They love the self-proclaimed Apartheid state because of its institutionalized racism, not in spite of it. Name an international bully and you can bet they’re bullish about the so-called Promised Land.

Yet growing numbers of us still embrace our ancestral identity and, especially in light of current events, wholly renounce its self-loathing antithesis of Zionism. What the Nazis failed to achieve – the obliteration of European Jewish culture – the Zionists are carrying forward. We have a word for that in Yiddish. It’s a shanda, a scandalous embarrassment and shame.

Image

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/10/ ... -loathing/

*******

Destruction in the Gaza Strip. Satellite view
October 26, 16:36

Image

Destruction in the Gaza Strip. Satellite view.

Image

Image

Photos were uploaded through the updated LiveJournal photo hosting site.
Write how it is displayed in the current magazine style and if there are any problems with the display.

PS. It’s good that we’ve finally gotten around to updating the photo hosting site.
What I would like to see new in LiveJournal is to expand the number of characters for one post, so that you don’t have to split large posts into 2.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8730363.html

Google Translator

*******

Biden Claims CIA and Pentagon Determined Gaza Hospital Strike Originated in Gaza—But Where’s the Proof?
By John Kiriakou - October 24, 2023 0

Image
Photo of rocket fireball inside al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. [Source: thesun.ie]

On October 17, an explosion took place immediately adjacent to the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, the result of what appears to have been a rocket attack. Between 200 and 500 people were killed, all of them Palestinians. Gazans and many in the international community immediately blamed the Israeli military for the attack. Israel, however, blamed an errant rocket from the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, an organization allied with Hamas. A day after the explosion, President Biden said that the Pentagon and the CIA had determined that the rocket had indeed originated in Gaza and was likely from Islamic Jihad. But where’s the proof?

A few days after the explosion, Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that they had been briefed on the matter and were confident that the rocket had come from Islamic Jihad. We’re all just supposed to take their word for it.

There’s an easy way to inform the public as to what the intelligence on this bombing concludes. It’s called a “tearline.” In the Intelligence Community, a report will come in that will lay out an event something like this:

“Source ABCDE, whose previous reporting has been deemed to be accurate, says that Islamic Jihad launched the rocket that hit the al-Ahli Hospital on October 17. As proof, Source ABCDE offered information indicating that the launch originated at coordinates XX’XX” by ZZ’ZZ”.”

That information is then followed by a line of asterisks across the paper, where it is literally torn off. And underneath that tearline, the issuing agency would write something unclassified and ready for release to the public akin to “The rocket associated with the explosion at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza originated from coordinates XX’XX” by ZZ’ZZ,” indicating that it was launched from territory controlled by Hamas.”

Image
Image from ruined hospital. [Source: enews.com]

See? It’s as easy as that. So why haven’t the Israelis or the United States issued something for public consumption? Why are we just supposed to take their word for it? And to make this even more of an open-and-shut case of keeping the intelligence away from the American people, consider this:

Classified cables produced by the U.S. government always have something called a precedence designator. That designator tells the recipient how important the cable is and whether it needs immediate action. For example, most diplomatic cable traffic is given a “Routine” designation. Some if it is designated “Priority,” meaning that the recipient should act on it sometime over the next several days. The next highest designation is “Immediate.” That means that the message requires an immediate response or some other immediate action. An Immediate cable can also have a sub-designator assigned to it. That’s NIACT, which means “Night Action.” If a cable his NIACT on it, it means that the recipient’s agency has to wake the recipient up, get him to the office, and have him respond to the cable immediately.

NIACT cables are unusual. They’re usually reserved for times when lives are at stake. But believe it or not, there are two precedence designators that are above Immediate NIACT. The first is FLASH. Just as it sounds, FLASH means something terrible is happening. An army is crossing a border, rioters have breached the embassy walls, or an embassy employee has been assassinated. FLASH cables are exceedingly rare. I only saw a few dozen in my career at the CIA in what were probably millions of cables over the course of 15 years.

The rarest precedence designator of all is CRITIC. A CRITIC is so serious that it means, for all intents and purposes, to take cover. At the very beginning of my career, I saw a lot of CRITICs. They all came during the first Gulf War when Iraq was launching Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia. A sister agency of the CIA would send a cable marked “CRITIC,” saying, “A missile launch was detected originating at coordinates XX’XX” by ZZ’ZZ.” We knew that if the coordinates were in western Iraq, the missile was going to Israel. If the coordinates were in southern Iraq, the missile was going to Saudi Arabia. Again, it’s as simple as that.

So why haven’t we seen any tearlines on the al-Ahli bombing? We can be confident that a CRITIC was likely issued as soon as the rocket was launched. The intelligence services of a half-dozen countries likely know the information. So why don’t the Israeli or American governments, at least, just come out and show us the evidence? Could it be that they have something to hide?

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/1 ... the-proof/

*******

Image

All Israel Apologists Have Are Ad Hominem Attacks
They don’t have truth on their side, and they don’t have morality on their side, so all they can ever do is attack the sources of the ideas and information that are opening people’s eyes to the criminality of Israel and its western allies.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 26, 2023

The Washington Post has a new article out explaining why it and other mainstream media outlets have been citing the Gaza Health Ministry as a source on the daily death toll from Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign, noting that the ministry has an established track record of reporting such deaths truthfully and accurately.

“Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” Human Rights Watch’s Omar Shakir told the Post. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”

This point is inconvenient for Israel apologists — including the president of the United States — who’ve been suggesting in recent days that the Gaza death count is untrustworthy on the basis that the Gaza Health Ministry operates under Hamas governance.

“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” Biden told the press on Wednesday, adding, “I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”



Adam Taylor, the author of the aforementioned Washington Post article, correctly notes that Biden’s statements are a bit odd given that his own State Department considered Gaza’s Ministry of Health reliable enough to cite their death counts in its own reports as recently as a few months ago.

What changed? The information interests of the US empire changed.

When I drew attention to all this on Twitter a few hours ago I immediately started getting comments from Israel apologists dismissing the information I was providing because Human Rights Watch is bad and unreliable and because The Washington Post is bad and unreliable, in order to defend their belief that the Gaza Ministry of Health is bad and unreliable.

These are the tactics of people who have lost the argument. They understand that the soaring death counts from Israel’s ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is devastating to the information interests of the side they support, so they need to make up fairy tales about how The Washington Post, Human Rights Watch and the US State Department have been engaged in a years-long conspiracy to make Israel look bad.


Which is of course not to say that anyone should ever believe claims made by The Washington Post or Human Rights Watch on blind faith — I’ve had major criticisms of both of these institutions myself over the years. Believing they’re infallible would be as misguided as believing they’re always lying.

Which is exactly the point I’m trying to make here: it’s not about the source, it’s about the strength of the argument. Attacking the source instead of attacking the argument is what people do when they can’t attack the argument. It’s a standard ad hominem.

A lot of people think an ad hominem is when you say something that hurts the feelings of somebody you disagree with, but that’s not what that term refers to. An ad hominem is when you attack the character or motives of the person making the argument instead of attacking the argument itself; it’s a fallacious debate tactic designed to move the conversation away from the pursuit of truth and facts to just dismissing someone’s claims because you don’t like them. It can be entirely appropriate to interrogate someone’s motives and character when that’s the only information you’ve got to work with and is relevant to the conversation, but when it’s used as a substitute for addressing evidence and argumentation it’s a fallacy.

And that’s the only tool Israel apologists seem to have in their toolbox these days. It’s exactly what they are doing when they accuse you of being a “terrorist supporter” or an “anti-semite” when you criticize Israel; they cannot address your actual criticisms because Israel’s actions in Gaza are indefensible, so they attempt to malign your character or your motives to shut down the debate and keep people from listening to you.

The “you can’t trust those death counts because they come from the health ministry of an enemy government” line can be used in literally any war against literally any enemy. People who care about facts don’t look at what governmental loyalties a source has, they look at whether the institutions in question have a track record of being reliable or not, and whether its claims are supported by evidence.


You’d have to be a complete idiot to look at the photos and videos showing entire city blocks reduced to rubble in an area known to be packed full of children and not assume that there is a massive number of civilian deaths in Gaza right now. As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp recently noted, dramatic increases in death counts in Gaza correspond directly with Israeli government statements about having increased the number of bombs dropped. This is what you would expect to see if the ministry was accurately reporting deaths.

Israel apologists are doing everything they can to minimize and justify Israel’s crimes in every way possible, because if westerners start looking objectively at the crimes themselves they will cease consenting to this horrific genocidal massacre that western governments are fully supporting.

They don’t have truth on their side, and they don’t have morality on their side, so all they can ever do is attack the sources of the ideas and information that are opening people’s eyes to the criminality of Israel and its western allies.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/10 ... m-attacks/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 14838
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 27, 2023 3:17 pm

The Gods Are Going Against the Chosen People — Mammon Against Israel, Mars Against the Pentagon
Posted on October 27, 2023 by Yves Smith

Yves here. John Helmer makes a critically important point in this article: that Israel is facing a long war with Hamas, and it will sustain crippling economic damage. Helmer describes considerable economic damage Israel is already suffering, yet has gone largely unreported.

This impact also means Hamas and its allies in The Resistance don’t need to escalate to bleed Israel. Various commentators, starting with Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforu, have pointed out that the US military buildup in theater goes beyond what is necessary for the professed purpose of deterrence. The drumbeat of US official statements against Iran suggest that it is the intended target. For instance:
@thesiriusreport
·
Follow
So in response to recent attacks on US facilities in Syria and Iraq, Washington conducted strikes on two facilities in Eastern Syria.

The MSM unsurprisingly is claiming these facilities have links to Iran, meaning the IRGC and also Iranian backed militias.

Whether that is true… Show more
David North
@DavidNorthWSWS
·
Follow
This military escalation makes clear that the Israeli onslaught on #Gaza is only the first stage of what is clearly a long-planned joint US-Israel-NATO attack on #Iran. The fighting is spreading across continents. What we are witnessing is the unfolding of a Third World War.
BNO News
@BNONews
BREAKING: U.S. carries out airstrikes targeting Iranian proxy forces in Syria - Fox
Michael Tracey
@mtracey
·
Follow
Just back from Israel, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) calls for "striking" Iran

"We can't afford not to act," says Sen. John Thune (R-SD)

Coons is Biden's key intermediary in the Senate. Thune is the GOP's second-in-command
Mind you, not everyone agrees that the US is out to find an excuse for waging war (see Scott Ritter, for instance, who views it as threat display). One reason to think the trajectory might not be that grim is the numerous warnings by military experts as to how punishingly difficult a clearing operation will be. Importantly, the din from naysayers includes a new article in the premier US foreign policy magazine, Foreign Affairs. And in a recent post, we pointed out that piece didn’t even (much) factor in the additional hurdle of the extensive tunnel network in Gaza.

But if the US really wants to take on Iran, it needs a provocation. Will Iran provide one? Will poorly-controlled proxies provide one? Or will the US and Israel present one, which like the beheaded babies, is a fabrication?

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10 ... tagon.html

THE GODS ARE GOING AGAINST THE CHOSEN PEOPLE — MAMMON AGAINST ISRAEL, MARS AGAINST THE PENTAGON

Image

By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

The Palestinian strategy against Israel is aimed at destroying Israel’s capacity to survive in its present state in a long war.

This means attacking the invincibility of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and theur so-called Iron Dome defence; this began with the cross-border offensive on October 7, and continues with daily drone and artillery attacks on targets inside Israel, as well as resistance to IDF incursions in Gaza.

The plan also means exposing the weakness of the state’s infrastructure and economy; extending the battlefield across all of Israel’s territory – the ports, power plants and electricity grid, communications, and financial markets — making the cost of occupation of the Arab territories unendurable. In a long war, two of Israel’s leading exports earning more than 40% of the state’s trade — diamonds and tourism — face ruin.*

“The Israelis cannot withstand one year of fighting in a war,” Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein told his general staff in 1983 during a discussion of planning for a regional war of the Arabs against Israel.** In the forty years since then, the evolution of military technology and tactics has expanded the power of small national liberation armies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, of proxy principals like Iran, and of the strategic balancing role of Russia and China. Their combination now has shortened the Zionist state’s endurance in a long war, and that of its proxy principal, the US.

The Israelis and the Jewish diaspora comprehend this reluctantly. For them, the short war must be correspondingly shorter. This means the genocide of at least a million Palestinians in lives and displacement.

The war to do that has now become an international war – and this is a war the US cannot sustain. As a Pentagon insider said publicly this week, “because there are so many draws on the logistics and support infrastructure of the Pentagon, we’re not prepared to go in in a concerted way. What we are seeing right now is death by a thousand cuts. Our adversaries know we are stretched so they are going to make us stretch even more, so we can respond even less.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Maria Zakharova, acknowledged the point in Moscow on Thursday: US naval, air force, and marine reinforcements deployed around Israel and Gaza are “American tactics to strengthen their own security (this is how it should be interpreted) at someone else’s expense.” They are backfiring on Washington’s capacity to defend US forces in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and in land bases in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. “On the contrary,” Zakharova added, the US military deployment “will further rock the situation in the Middle East, create additional tension that can spill out beyond the region.”

Zakharova’s warning came in the Moscow afternoon. By then Russian Foreign Ministry officials had held meetings with a Hamas delegation, and officials from Iran, Egypt, and Kuwait. Across the city at the same time, President Vladimir Putin held telephone talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Kremlin communiqué reported: “Russia and Turkiye have practically overlapping positions.”

Israeli and US-led media censorship and propaganda are concealing the breadth of impact of the Palestine warfighting plan, and the deepening military and economic weaknesses of the Israeli state.

The longer the war continues, the plainer the evidence is on the battlefield that the single-state scheme of Israel and the US is no longer possible. Whether Israel and the US can be compelled to withdraw to the 1967 borders and a new Palestinian state created with partition, demilitarisation, and international security guarantees – the basis of the Russian position announced again on Thursday in Moscow — remains to be fought over.

In this long war, the gods do not favour the Chosen People.

Following with precision the battlefield action is impossible in the Israeli and Anglo-American press. Reporting of operations, and of Israeli and US casualties, is being suppressed entirely or delayed for days, if not weeks.

Image
According to this NBC television report, broadcast on October 24, there were at least 24 US combat casualties following drone attacks on or about October 18 at the Al-Tanf base in Syria and the Al-Asad base in Iraq. Reporting of naval action in the Red Sea, when the USS Carney reportedly engaged Houthi missiles over several hours, has been changing since the initial news flashes of October 19. Read more here. In a new report of October 24, Israeli and US casualties in a joint raid inside Gaza were revealed: “in the last 24 hours or so, some of our Special Ops forces and Israeli Special Ops forces went into Gaza to reconnoiter, to plan for where they might want to go to free hostages and make an impact, and they were shot to pieces and took heavy losses, as I understand it. I think that is where we are headed and I don't see that as a win for Israel in any way, shape, or form. And I certainly think it is very dangerous for us”. In current reporting by Al Mayadeen, daily strikes against US bases in Iraq and northeastern Syria are documented.

Tracking the electric war and infrastructure strikes by Hamas and Hezbollah is also difficult. They commenced with cyber attacks on Israel’s electricity generation plants and power grids; these have been followed by missile and drone strikes. “The ground has been laid for attacks on the Israeli grid,” a US military source claims. “I believe drones will come first, then missiles. We may even see commando raids.”

Israel’s seaports are also under constant attack. Ashkelon, which is closest in range to Gaza, has been closed. Eilat may have been the target of the Houthi missile strike which was engaged last week by the USS Carney. Ashdod, which accounts for about 40% of incoming and outgoing Israeli seaborne trade, and Tel Aviv port have been targeted. The result is a tenfold surge in war risk insurance for vessels and cargoes, and the curtailment of international vessel movement in and out of the Israeli ports; there are reports that shipping is down 30% in Ashdod compared to the pre-war volume. Evergreen, the Taiwanese container shipping company, declared force majeure for Ashdod on October 17, diverted one vessel to Haifa, and halted future shipping into both ports. “We advise evaluating each port visit in Israel on a case by case basis and implementing appropriate precautions in ship contingency plans,” recommends a maritime industry alert bulletin.

Chevron’s offshore Tamar gas field has been shut down. The source produces 70% of the gas required to fuel Israel’s electricity generation needs. Not a single Anglo-American media source has noticed that Israel is at risk of losing its principal energy source to drone or missile attack. “After what the Americans and Germans did to blow up the Nordstream pipelines,” comments a Moscow industry source, “what is holding Hamas back from hitting Tamar, or Hezbollah from the other Israeli gas fields?”

Image
Left: Chevron’s Tamar gas production platform is located at sea 24 kilometres west of Ashkelon. Right: click to enlarge map of Israel’s offshore gas sources.

A Moscow source comments that “in Israel, the US and the UK will be able to bring in supplies without a very big risk of US ships being attacked. The risk is to the ports and bases, not to supplies from the Med[iterranean]. The Greek and Cyprus bases will come in very useful. Israel will not face severe logistical issues as long as it is on the offensive. If its settlements start getting cut off, encircled or penetrated then it is a different matter.”

The indirect economic impacts of the war have also not been calculated or discussed in the mainstream media or international business newspapers. The leading export revenue earners are diamonds at above $9 billion per annum, and tourism which had been peaking at $8.5 billion in 2019. Counted together, diamonds and tourism amount to more than 40% of the state’s export earnings.

The Covid-19 pandemic and worldwide travel restrictions cut Israel’s tourism revenue fourfold, and this had been recovering over 2022 and the tourist season this year. This has now stopped, although for the time being Hamas rocket launches on Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv have been intercepted.

Image
October 12, 2023 -- source: https://www.youtube.com/.

ISRAEL TOURISM REVENUE TRAJECTORY, 1999-2022

Image
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/

Israel’s high-tech machine exports and pharmaceuticals may also be affected if electricity supply, internet networks, and transportation are damaged.

The cumulative effect will be the outcome which the international ratings agencies have been warning the international banks and financial markets to prepare for. “In our view,” Fitch reported to clients on October 17, “the combination of Israel’s dynamic, high-value added economy, the record of resilience to regional conflict, [and] preparedness for military confrontations…make it unlikely a relatively short conflict largely confined to Gaza will affect Israel’s rating…. the risk that other actors hostile to Israel, such as Iran and Hezbollah, could join the conflict at scale has risen significantly…a major escalation could result in negative rating action. This could take the form of a wider and longer conflict, resulting in a sustained fiscal drain, both from higher spending and lower tax collection, as well as loss of human and material capital and severe economic disruption.”

How short, and also how long, Israel’s warfighting plan will take depends on American and international acceptance, not only of the genocide intended for the Palestinians of Gaza, but of the Novichok-type chemical warfare planned by the IDF and the Pentagon for the Hamas tunnel system in Gaza City. After several years in which the US and UK have fabricated claims that Syria and Russia were using prohibited gas warfare weapons, the Israelis have reportedly persuaded the US to participate in the tunnel attack operation. The Pentagon is denying the reports.

Image
Source: https://www.middleeasteye.net

Russian and US military sources are already confirming the logistical supply problems facing Israeli and US forces at present, when the war is just three weeks long. Greek sources are reporting the Souda Bay, Crete, base has already reached its capacity for incoming US navy and air force supply and support operations; the spillover is facing growing Greek protest at the Elefsina air base near Athens.

A Cyprus source says the movement of US and British aircraft into and out of the Dekhelia and Akrotiri airbases is accelerating, and there is an air and seaborne shuttle between the Cypriot ports of Larnaca and Limassol and the USS Gerald Ford carrier group at sea to the southwest of the island.

The lengthening of the supply lines required to support the USS Eisenhower carrier group in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and the shore bases needed to support it are politically sensitive already; and the risks of Houthi and other attacks, along with domestic Arab crowd protests, will intensify for these bases in the Arab sheikhdoms the longer the war against Israel reveals Arab and Iranian warfighting skill and resistance.

Converting these gains into a negotiating framework for Israeli-American retreat is the task Russian officials are attempting in silent coordination with the Chinese, and in semi-open negotiations in Moscow this week. In its first move outside the region since the war began, Hamas has visited Moscow for negotiations, led by US-educated Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouq.

Image
Left: Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouq; centre: Husam Badran; right, Ali Bagheri Kyani.

Zakharova confirmed the start of the talks with Hamas on Thursday. She said: “I can also say and confirm that representatives of the relevant Palestinian movement are in Moscow. As for contacts, we will inform you additionally.” She has also disclosed that since the war began, nine thousand Russian passport holders have returned to Russia from Israel; and that at least fifteen Russian passport holders among the Hamas hostages have been killed in the IDF airstrikes.

At the same time as Marzouq’s meetings, Husam Badran issued a statement to the Russian state news medium, Sputnik. “Russia,” Badran said, “is able to play an important role in ending the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and delivering aid to the Palestinian exclave. Hamas values Russia’s role on the international stage, especially use of veto in the UN Security Council against the United States. But Russia can play a greater role in ending the aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip and applying international pressure to deliver urgent aid to our people in the Gaza Strip.”

What Hamas means by “greater role” for Russia has not been disclosed publicly yet. It is known that Hamas is willing to negotiate the release of “non-military” hostages, including Israelis holding Russian passports, through Iran. This is conditional on the IDF lifting its siege on Gaza and allowing sufficient supplies into all parts of the territory.

The “military hostages” are being held in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. There are more than 6,000 of the latter; there may be fewer than 200 hostages in Gaza, as up to 50 have been killed by Israeli bombing.

The Russian Foreign Ministry statement on the talks with Hamas is less revealing. According to the Sputnik release, “Russia has discussed release of hostages and evacuation of Russians from the Gaza Strip during a meeting with a delegation of Hamas in Moscow on Thursday.” A member of the political office of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, Abu Marzouq, is in Moscow. Contacts took place with him in continuation of the Russian line for the immediate release of foreign hostages located in the Gaza Strip, and issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from the territory of the Palestinian enclave were also discussed.”

At the same time on Thursday – unnoticed and unreported by the western media – Russian officials held several negotiating sessions with an Iranian emissary, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kyani. In three separate Foreign Ministry releases, meeting communiqués were issued for Kyani’s meetings with deputy ministers Mikhail Bogdanov, Sergei Ryabkov, and Mikhail Galuzin. “The need for the cessation of hostilities in and around the Gaza Strip and the prompt provision of humanitarian assistance to the affected Palestinian population was confirmed,” Bogdanov’s communiqué said. “It was stated that Moscow and Tehran are determined to continue close coordination of efforts in the interests of stabilizing the situation in the Middle East.”

It is unclear if the talks also included the Hamas officials in a three-party format. During the day there were also Foreign Ministry negotiations in Moscow with Kuwaiti and Egyptian officials.

At the Kremlin it has been announced that President Putin spoke with Turkish President Erdogan to discuss the war. According to the Kremlin release, “the presidents reviewed the active efforts undertaken by Russia at the UN Security Council, as well as the corresponding political and diplomatic steps taken by Turkiye to stop the bloodshed and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need. It was emphasised that Russia and Turkiye have practically overlapping positions, focused on implementing the well-known two-state solution, which provides for the creation of an independent Palestine coexisting with Israel in peace and security.”

In her briefing for the press, Zakharova dismissed the US moves so far. “We do not consider the US presence in the Middle East as contributing to the stability of the situation in the region. Exactly the opposite. Washington’s earlier attempts to monopolise the Middle East settlement process, ignoring the true causes of the protracted conflict, have largely led to the current catastrophic consequences…This situation has an absolutely clear and understandable road, a ‘road map’ for settlement. It is not simple, but complex, painful, but leading to the solution of the issue, not its aggravation.”

“Of course, no air defence systems, arms supplies, materiel injections into some ‘security complexes’ will help resolve this situation. Today’s lesson must be learned. How many Americans have deployed there (their bases, experts, satellites), nothing has worked to prevent a bloody scenario, of which both Palestinians and Israelis are victims.”

[*] With support from Israel and influential Jewish diamantaires in New York and Tel Aviv, a scheme of sanctions is being prepared by the US Government to stop Russian raw diamonds, produced by Alrosa, from being sold into the Belgian, Israeli, and US markets. The Russian goods are to be tagged “blood diamonds” because of the war in the Ukraine. However, now that Israel is destroying the Palestinian population of Gaza, the “blood” tag can be applied to the Israeli diamond cutting industry and to the Jewish diamond trade abroad. Support for the anti-Russian sanction, and also for the IDF operations against the Palestinians can be found in Rapaport.com news reports. “Rapaport stands with Israel”, the publication and its owner Martin Rapaport declared on October 26, “and has undertaken all the necessary effort and costs for the October Single Stone Auction to help the Israeli market continue to conduct business as best as possible during this difficult time. Rapaport believes that continuing to do business in Israel during the war is a victory over the brutal Hamas terrorists, and will help Israel win the war.” In another editorial for the diamond trade, Rapaport proposes “to boycott Iran and all other supporters of the Hamas terrorist organization.” Rapaport also cites religious authority for liquidation. “In the words of G-d (Exodus 17:14): ‘I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’May the words of G-d be done, here and now.” Quietly, Russia’s state diamond interests dictate a strategy for protecting against this double-edged Israeli policy.


[**] Saddam Hussein is quoted in the chapter on US plots against him in Iraq – see The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt, Ch. 6.

https://johnhelmer.net/the-gods-are-goi ... more-88742

*******

Very Important Message...
... powerful and sad that identity has to be hidden. But, yet another voice of sanity from D.C.



http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/10 ... ssage.html

******

Image
(Photo: Quds News Network/X)

In defiance of international calls to stop bombardment of Gaza, Israel extends airstrikes to West Bank
Originally published: In defiance of international calls to stop bombardment of Gaza, Israel extends airstrikes to West Bank on October 25, 2023 by Abdul Rahman (more by In defiance of international calls to stop bombardment of Gaza, Israel extends airstrikes to West Bank) (Posted Oct 27, 2023)

Israel continued to bomb innocent civilians inside the besieged Gaza strip in the third week of its offensive on Tuesday, October 24. According to the Palestinian officials in Gaza, at least 80 people were killed in the territory in overnight airstrikes carried out by Israel. Several more Palestinians were killed in fresh airstrikes in the early morning of Wednesday.

Israeli occupation forces also carried out fresh attacks inside the occupied West Bank on Tuesday night and early morning on Wednesday, killing at least seven Palestinians. At least three people were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Jenin refugee camp, one Palestinian was killed at Qalqilya, and another in the occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli attacks inside the occupied West Bank since October 7 have killed over 103 Palestinians.

According to Palestinian officials, the total number of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes and raids since October 7 has crossed 6,000, with over 18,000 injured. Almost 2,300 of those killed in the Israeli attacks were children.

According to Palestinian officials, over 12,000 tons of explosives have been used by Israel to bomb Gaza since October 7, which is “equivalent in magnitude to the devastating nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”

It has also been alleged that Israel has used the banned white phosphorus against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The condition of hospitals in Gaza is very dire, according to UN agencies. They claimed that most of the hospitals are likely to be forced to shut down due to acute fuel shortages caused by the relentless Israeli bombing and the blockade imposed on the supply of all essential goods inside the densely populated territory.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza strip has forcibly displaced over a million Palestinians. Out of these, around 600,000 Palestinians are living in 150 facilities run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which claimed on Wednesday that it is sheltering at least four times more people than the total capacity of those facilities and that the Israeli attacks have impacted at least 40 facilities.

Israel carried out attacks inside Syria in the early morning of Wednesday as well. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that at least eight military personnel were killed and seven others were injured in an Israeli airstrike in its southern Daraa province.

Israel says no visas to UN staff over Guterres’ remarks
Following comments by UN Secretary General António Guterres on Tuesday, who stated that the attacks carried out by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas inside Israel on October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum,” Israel announced it would deny visas to all UN officials. Guterres had also asked for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the lifting of the blockade imposed by Israel on the supply of food, fuel and medicine to Gaza since October 9.

Guterres asserted that Israel and the world community need to focus on finding ways to materialize a two-state solution as the “only realistic foundation for peace and stability in the Middle East.” He said that “Israelis must see their legitimate need for security materialized and Palestinians must see their legitimate need for an independent state realized, in line with UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements.”

Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said that Israel has already denied a visa to Martin Griffith, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, and “will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives” due to the comments made by Guterres. He stated that “the time has come to teach [the UN] a lesson,” The Times of Israel reported.

Erden also demanded that Guterres resign from his post.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council held a day-long meeting on the situation in Gaza on Tuesday. Several countries including Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Russia, and China, as well as several UN humanitarian representatives, criticized Israel for targeting civilians and demanded an immediate ceasefire to address the grave humanitarian situation on the ground.

However, most of the Western representatives, including the US, France, the UK, and Germany, stood behind Israel and supported its “right to defense.”

Addressing the meeting, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki criticized Western countries for extending their support to Israel’s mission to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and noted that the Security Council’s “continued failure” to end the massacre of civilians in Palestine “is inexcusable.”

The UN Security Council has met several times since October 7 to vote on resolutions demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. However, the US and its allies have used their veto on occasions to deny the adoption of any such resolution.

https://mronline.org/2023/10/27/in-defi ... west-bank/

Image
AL JAZEERA CORRESPONDENT WAEL EL-DAHDOUH CRIES AS HE HOLDS ONE OF HIS FAMILY MEMBERS WHO WERE KILLED IN AN ISRAELI AIR STRIKE ON A BUILDING IN NUSEIRAT, IN THE CENTRAL GAZA STRIP, ON OCTOBER 25, 2023. (PHOTO: OMAR ASHTAWY/APA IMAGES)

Israel kills Al-Jazeera correspondent’s family days after Blinken demands the channel’s coverage be ‘toned down’
Originally published: Israel kills Al-Jazeera correspondent’s family days after Blinken demands the channel’s coverage be ‘toned down’ on October 25, 2023 by Mohammed El-Kurd (more by Israel kills Al-Jazeera correspondent’s family days after Blinken demands the channel’s coverage be ‘toned down’) (Posted Oct 27, 2023)

Wael El-Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera Bureau Chief in Gaza, was reporting live when an Israeli airstrike targeted the southern Gaza building where his family sheltered, killing his wife, son, daughter, and grandson.

The news came hours after Axios reported that Secretary Antony Blinken told U.S. Jewish leaders he asked Qatar to “turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage” of the Israeli genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip, accusing the network of being “anti-Israel.”

Mondoweiss reached out to journalists in Gaza who shared their anxiety that their families could fall victim to punitive shelling solely for doing their job. “I’ve started to feel that I’m a danger to those around me,” one journalist confessed.

I was feeling this from the beginning of the war, since my voice started being heard… There are so many innocents around me, people that have nothing to do with me or my writings or my work.

The journalist, who remained anonymous for fear of retaliation, said, “Targeting someone’s family is more painful than targeting that person only.” “Maybe,” he added,

this is the message they want to send to every journalist: ‘you aren’t the only one we will target; we can burn your heart by targeting your family and robbing you of the will to live afterward.’

Earlier today, Mohammed Farra, another Palestinian journalist, received the news that his wife and children were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis, while he was positioned in Ramallah, many miles and checkpoints away from Gaza.

“Any person whose voice is being heard or is gaining international visibility is being made to pay the price,” the journalist in Gaza told Mondoweiss.

You can feel the intense surveillance of anything coming out of Gaza. And if anyone says anything, even a phrase or a word, that Israel doesn’t want, will be targeted and have their families targeted.

This testimony is consistent with the targeting of students, activists, and everyday social media users across occupied Jerusalem and 1948 territories and charging them for incitement over their social media posts.

Since October 7, the Israeli regime has killed 20 Palestinian journalists in Gaza and one Lebanese journalist in the south of Lebanon.

El-Dahdouh, a veteran reporter, was recorded kneeling on the floor, caressing the bloodied face of his 15-year-old son, Mahmoud, who had aspired to become a journalist. “They are exacting their revenge by killing our children,” Dahdouh said, surrounded by a crew of his peers. Other members of his family remain under the rubble.


During Mondoweiss‘s conversation with the journalist from Gaza, he recalled an English video that Dahdouh’s late children had just made and shared online.

They described what was going on in Gaza. They talked about how entire neighborhoods have been destroyed and how nowhere is safe. They asked what international law and human rights had to say about this. And they ended their video with a message: ‘Help us to stay alive.’ And the world failed them.

In Qatar, an Al Jazeera anchor cried as he broke the news that his colleague’s entire family had been killed in aerial bombardments of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the heart of the besieged Strip, where Dahdouh and his family were sheltering.

The family was displaced from the north of Gaza after their neighborhood was bombarded, alongside 1.4 million Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes after threats made by the Israeli military that those remaining in the north of the enclave might be “treated as members of a terrorist organization.” “Your presence in Gaza valley increases your chances of death,” said the thousands of leaflets dropped over Gaza from Israeli warplanes.

It has been reported that 43% of the buildings in the Strip have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli shelling. “This is the ‘safe’ area that the occupation army spoke of,” El-Dahdouh told media outside of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

“[Dahdouh’s children] were trying to make their voices heard and to expose Israel’s crimes. In honesty, this terrifies me. Right now my voice is reaching people and I get a huge number of replies from Israelis to posts on Twitter. They attack me personally and say that they haven’t even begun,” the journalist in Gaza told Mondoweiss.

Al-Jazeera Media Network condemned “the indiscriminate assault by the Israeli occupation forces resulted in the tragic loss of [Dahdouh’s] wife, son and daughter, while the rest of his family is buried under the rubble.”

At the end of the conversation, the anonymous journalist told Mondoweiss,

If the price of adhering to your professional duty or journalistic duty in Gaza means losing your entire family, then I feel it won’t be long before most journalists have left their jobs for the sake of their family’s safety.

I’m starting to think that maybe I really do pose a danger to their lives, and to my life as well, but like I told you, when you lose your life, you don’t feel it. I don’t know, I really don’t know.


https://mronline.org/2023/10/27/israel- ... oned-down/

Image

The West’s refusal to call for a ceasefire is a green light to Israel’s ethnic cleansing
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on October 24, 2023 by Richard Falk (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Oct 27, 2023)

In the avalanche of emotionally fraught commentary on the 7 October attack by Palestinian fighters against Israel and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza, media and political leaders appear to have forgotten that from the perspective of international law, Gaza remains an occupied territory subject to the Fourth Geneva Convention (Geneva IV).

Although Israel unilaterally proclaimed its “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005—withdrawing its troops, dismantling 21 settlements and ejecting 8,000 settlers (somewhat offset by giving each unlawful settler family hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation)—this did not end Israel’s obligations under international law.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has drawn this conclusion on the basis that Israel’s disengagement did not end the existential realities of Israeli control over Gaza, nor did it allow the territory to enjoy the benefits of autonomous political development.

Rather, the process involved an intrusive redeployment of occupying military and police forces on Gaza’s borders, including total control over the entry and exit of Palestinians and goods at border crossings, as well as continuing exclusive dominance over Gaza’s air and sea space.

This post-2005 structure of occupation was reinforced by frequent Israeli incursions, including targeted assassinations of Hamas political and military officials, frightening sonic booms of overflying Israeli fighter jets, and major military operations in 2008-09, 2012, 2014 and 2021, during which Israel committed many war crimes.

In addition, since 2007, a harsh and punitive blockade has left the impoverished population of Gaza facing the world’s highest unemployment rate and a collective experience of life-threatening economic decline.

Israel’s record of criminality towards Gaza was most notably documented in the UN’s 2009 Goldstone report, whose policy recommendations were left unimplemented due to political pressures exerted on Israel’s behalf.

This typical experience of condemning Israel’s policies and practices, but taking no proposed preventive or punitive action in response, has been repeated over and over again, which explains Palestinian disillusionment with the UN and international law.

Disproportionate response
The question of Gaza’s legal status is extremely relevant to the indiscriminate and disproportionate Israeli retaliation, which has been justified by Israel and its supporters as exacting vengeance while pursuing the goal of destroying Hamas.

The 7 October Palestinian fighters’ operation inside Israel, accounting for more than 1,400 Israeli deaths and the capture of around 200 hostages, was itself a distinct war crime.

Neither the Palestinian fighters’ attack nor Israel’s response are free from the restraints of law and morality. In the simplest terms, the crimes committed do not give legal impunity to retaliatory Israeli war crimes.

The central point thus far lost in the public discourse is this: just as the Palestinian armed factions had no authority to commit war crimes because they were intensely provoked by decades of Israeli criminal actions, nor does Israel have the authority to act outside the constraints of law when retaliating.

The proper international framing of the relationship between Israel and Hamas—despite being crucial to interpreting the legal, moral and political issues at stake—has been revealingly absent from most media treatments and the policy postures of influential western political leaders.

Israel has used the most inflammatory and expansive language to vindicate its retaliatory responses. This lawless Israeli extremism has been blandly endorsed by governments in the U.S.”, France, Germany and the UK. Such pronouncements neglect to mention the obligation of the occupying power to administer the territories under its control in ways that give priority to the protection and wellbeing of the occupied civilian population. The occupier does enjoy a reciprocal right to maintain its security in ways that respect and protect non-combatants.

From such a perspective, it is conceptually misleading and normatively unacceptable for Israel to declare war against an occupied territory, as if the indigenous administrative authority was an enemy foreign government—but this is exactly what Israel has done, including claims of self-defence that do not fit the situation of belligerent occupation.

Genocidal siege
Israel has declared a total war on Gaza, imposing a genocidal siege that has cut off supplies of food, electricity and fuel, making no provision whatsoever to exempt civilians—most of whom have no direct contact with the military activities of Hamas.

Article 55 of Geneva IV sets forth the duty of Israel as occupying power to ensure that the people living in the territory it “occupies” have adequate food, water and medicines. But Israel’s indiscriminate retaliation has included repeated nighttime aerial bombardments of residential areas, alongside the forbidden targeting of hospitals, schools and UN buildings, where many Palestinians have sought shelter under these extraordinary conditions.

A 24-hour evacuation order directed at 1.1 million Palestinians living in northern Gaza, without the provision of reasonable time to arrange such a dangerous departure from long-term places of residence, was aggravated by the lack of a safe and habitable place for Palestinians to go, thus intensifying the dangers facing civilians in Gaza—and their suffering. Such a measure amounts to extreme collective punishment, which is prohibited by Article 33 of Geneva IV. It has less to do with security than with driving Palestinians out of Gaza, thereby implementing the end-game visions of Israel’s extremist coalition government.

It is relevant to note that Michael Lynk, the UN’s special rapporteur for Palestine, submitted a detailed report to the agency on why Israel’s authority as occupying power should be terminated, given its failure to comply with applicable international human rights law.

This recommendation was ignored by the UN, but the General Assembly was sufficiently distressed by Israel’s pattern of behaviour in occupied Palestine that it requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the continuing legality of Israel’s status as an occupying power within the framework of Geneva IV. The case is currently under consideration by the court.

If the West continues to endorse the double standards on display during the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, it will serve as a reminder that the post-colonial world retains an ethos of Orientalist racism when it comes to addressing issues of peace and justice in the Middle East.

By failing to advocate for a ceasefire, western states have given a green light to Israel’s agenda of collective punishment, which might itself be grotesque cover for the regime’s end goal of massive dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

In India, thousands of people demonstrated in many cities in support of Palestine, which is suffering an escalation of violence by Israel. In Mumbai, Kerala and Lahore, demonstrators expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian people and called for an end to the Israeli occupation and blockade of Gaza

https://mronline.org/2023/10/27/the-wes ... cleansing/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply