Israel's Wall of Impunity
by Ralph Nader
RalphNaderRadioHour.com
Dec 07, 2024
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/i ... f-impunity
Ralph welcomes international human rights lawyer and activist, and former senior United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiber to discuss Israel and Gaza—if Israel should be thrown out of the UN, how Trump's positions will compare to Biden's, and whether we're starting to see cracks in Israel's wall of impunity. Plus, Ralph shares a possible ray of light in Trump's cabinet, a warning about the cost of credit cards for small businesses, and some tough love for AARP.
Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and activist, and a former senior United Nations human rights official. A human rights activist in the 1980s, he would go on to serve for more than three decades at the United Nations, with postings in Switzerland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and UN Headquarters in New York. In October of 2023, he left the United Nations, penning a widely read letter criticizing the UN’s human rights failures in the Middle East, warning of unfolding genocide in Gaza, and calling for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on international law, human rights, and equality.
Gaza is now the world capital of child amputation. And that doesn't even cover the true horror, because Israel blocks any anesthesia from entering Gaza as a means of imposing further agony on the population that they are subjecting to genocide. Which means those amputations are being carried out on children and adults without anesthesia and often without sterile equipment or adequate hospitals, such that even if they survive the excruciating agony of an amputation without anesthesia, they may well not survive the side effects. They may well not survive the infection.
Craig Mokhiber: The irony is that in November, the UN announced that Israel had paid its dues in full in order to preserve its membership and to continue to fund the UN— an organization that the Israelis say is a terrorist, anti-Semitic organization dedicated to its destruction, is an organization that they have decided to be a member of and to fund. So when you look at the kind of propaganda that they distribute…You can see how ironic and how outrageous it really is. I've said that it would be hard to imagine any country in the history of the organization more deserving—at a minimum—of suspension from the UN General Assembly. No country in history has violated the principles of the UN Charter more than Israel, and it has done so from the moment of its admission in 1948.
We can certainly expect a dangerous four years under Trump. There's no denying it…But we shouldn't forget that we've just had a four-year term under Biden and Harris in which they undid none of those policies, and in which they actually supported horrific international crimes being perpetrated by Israel. And Biden and his administration were at the helm of the brutal repression of human rights defenders here in the United States, on college campuses and workplaces and the streets and in media places. So we're going to go from genocide abroad and repression at home under Biden to more genocide abroad and repression at home under Trump. The only difference is that Trump won't waste his time on the kind of mendacious pretense of civility and humanitarian concern that was peddled by Biden and Harris as it murdered babies in their thousands.
Transcript
On the program today, we welcome back Craig Mokhyber. As you may recall, Mr. Mokhyber served for more than three decades at the United Nations and left the UN last year in protest of what he considered that institution's human rights failures in the Middle East. And he warned of the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
Remarkably, that genocide continues apace despite the reports of all the horrors on the ground. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yov Galan for war crimes committed in Gaza. They are now officially international fugitives.
We're going to talk to Craig Mokhyber about what those ICC arrest warrants mean, what to expect from the incoming Trump administration vis-a-vis U.S.-Israel policy, and also about how the current policies could result in blowback against the United States. Then to conclude the program, Ralph has some salient points to make about what he considers Trump's best cabinet appointment,
the cost of rising credit card fees on small businesses, and a letter he wrote to AARP urging it to reform its practices because its nonprofit mission is coming into conflict with its business interests. As always, somewhere in the middle, we'll check in with our relentless corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhyber.
But first, the world just got a whole lot smaller for Benjamin Netanyahu. David?
Craig Mokhyber is an international human rights lawyer and activist and a former senior United Nations human rights official. A human rights activist in the 1980s, he would go on to serve for more than three decades at the United Nations with postings in Switzerland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and the UN headquarters in New York City.
In October of 2023, he left the United Nations, penning a widely read letter criticizing
the UN's human rights failures in the Middle East,
warning of unfolding genocide in Gaza, and calling for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on international law, human rights, and equality. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Craig Mokhyber.
Thank you. Good to be back. Craig, welcome back. Let's start with something that just never ceases to astonish and dismay me. And that is the vast undercount of the fatality toll in Gaza. Can you give me your view on this undercount? Because first, the Palestinians aren't given a right to live in freedom and justice.
Now, they don't even have the right to have their fatalities counted. And if the real count was published in the New York Times and on television and from the Biden administration, it would change the dynamics. It would force more pressure on Netanyahu to let Western reporters and Israeli reporters to go into Gaza,
from which now they have been prohibited, except on guided tours. Can you give us your views on this undercount? The UN thinks it's an undercount. The only question is how much?
Yeah, and let me say that your comment on changing the dynamic in the sharing of this kind of information is extremely important. And I hope we'll have some time during this discussion to talk a little bit about the media and information pillar of the genocide that is unfolding in Palestine. But you're absolutely right.
There is little doubt in my mind now that we are talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of this genocide, this wave of genocide 14 months ago or so. We know, there are some things that we know. We know that already, just from confirmed kills where bodies have been recovered,
that 1,400 families have been entirely eradicated in Gaza during this wave of genocide. And you will know that Palestinian families are large families, traditionally. and they have been completely wiped out, at least 1400 of them, all of the generations, and erased from the public register, the civil register.
There are more than 3,400 confirmed families that have only one survivor left. And you're talking extended families, aren't you? Extended families. We're talking about being erased from the public register, the end of an extended family. This is what genocide looks like. And we know that the statistics that have been generated by the health ministry are confirmed families.
kills in violent death by the Israelis, bombs and bullets and so on. And we also know that in genocide, particularly one that has been as systematically orchestrated as this one, that the majority of deaths inevitably come from designed starvation, disease, injuries, and so on. So the number of 45,000 or so that have been specifically identified as being
pulled from the rubble and not having survived, that doesn't include the many thousands that are still buried under the rubble, a conservative estimate of which is 10,000. I suspect that is much more. There are those who have been totally obliterated for whom there are no remains remaining because of the nature of the weaponry
being used in these densely populated civilian areas. There are those who are dying of disease, of thirst, of starvation. There are those who are dying by succumbing to the wounds that they have suffered. It has now been reported by the United Nations that every Palestinian in Gaza, every Palestinian in Gaza, is either wounded or sick or both.
And remember that even the statistics that were used in the Lancet study, they were using models that deal with deaths in conflict. They're not models that were originally designed to look at genocide, where the killing is intentional. And in this case, you're not just talking about incidental starvation, incidental disease.
You're talking about systematically and intentionally imposed disease and starvation, as we know from the comments of the Israeli leaders. And this is also a situation in which a key strategy of the genocide has been the systematic destruction of the health care system, so that those who do become sick, those who do become wounded,
are less likely to survive. Hospitals have been specifically targeted in this genocide in ways that the UN has never seen in the history of the organization, one after another. The identification and targeting of healthcare professionals has been a key feature of this. And those hospitals and healthcare facilities are not only targeted because they
are places where people can get medical care and an opportunity to recover from the attacks to which they have been subjected, but they are also places of refuge. And so for the Israelis, they represent a key obstacle to genocide that has to be systematically removed, and that's what they've been doing since the very beginning.
And the last thing I'll say on this, Ralph, that Gaza is now the world capital of child amputation. And that doesn't even cover the true horror because Israel blocks any anesthesia from entering Gaza as a means of imposing further agony on the population that they are subjecting to genocide, which means
those amputations are being carried out on children and adults without anesthesia and often without sterile equipment or adequate hospitals such that even if they survive the excruciating agony of an amputation without anesthesia, they may well not survive the side effects. They may well not survive the infection.
So the question is this, that in order to try to get away with this, the Netanyahu genocidal regime is going after the United Nations. They're bombing UN facilities, feeding facilities, educational facilities, health facilities in Gaza. They've killed over 200 UN staff. In Lebanon, they have artilleried some installations of the UN peacekeeping force.
It's been there for many decades. And in front of the UN in New York City, they attack the UN with the most foul Trumpian-type knowledge when they are speaking at the General Assembly. So here they are. They're destroying UN facilities. They're killing UN staff. Why should they be allowed to stay in the UN?
Why aren't they expelled from the UN?
Well, first of all, I should say, Ralph, that the irony is that in November, the UN announced that Israel had paid its dues in full. in order to preserve its membership and to continue to fund the UN. An organization that the Israelis say is a terrorist, anti-Semitic organization dedicated to its destruction is an organization that they
have decided to be a member of and to fund. So, you know, when you look at the kind of propaganda that they distribute, which is very dangerous, by the way, putting a target on the back of the United Nations, you can see how ironic and how outrageous it really is.
I've said that it would be hard to imagine any country in the history of the organization more deserving as a minimum of suspension from the UN General Assembly. No country in history has violated the principles of the UN Charter more than Israel, and it has done so from the moment of its admission in 1948. First,
carving out the state through genocide, ethnic cleansing, and violation of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration, the Genocide Convention, and then violating Security Council, General Assembly resolutions, Palestinian self-determination ever since. It has literally now achieved the world record again for the violation of UN conventions, UN resolutions of the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council,
and for repeatedly defying all applicable rulings of the International Court of Justice, which is also a UN organ. that just their defiance of so many Security Council resolutions, that constitutes a violation of Article 25 of the Charter. And today, you add to that that Israel is on trial in the world court for genocide.
Its leaders are the subject of arrest warrants for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. The ICJ has found that it is perpetrating apartheid and that it's occupation of Palestine is unlawful. It's attacking the occupied people of Palestine, but also many UN member states, among them Lebanon and Syria and Yemen and Iran.
It has conducted transnational terror attacks in Lebanon and repeatedly carried out foreign assassinations. And it's been repeatedly found responsible for gross and systematic violations of human rights by successive UN commissions of inquiry and special procedures. But what is most exceptional is that no country in the history of the organization has attacked the UN more than Israel has.
It has openly violated the privileges and immunities of the UN. From the very beginning, it has repeatedly blocked UN investigations, UN personnel, UN agencies from entering. It has attacked and smeared and obstructed UNRWA. It even PNG'd UN Secretary General. It announced that he was persona non grata.
It's killed more UN staff than any party in history, more than 230 in the last year alone. It has detained and tortured countless UN staff as well, and it has regularly attacked and slandered and obstructed the UN, and its duly mandated operations. As you said, it has repeatedly targeted UN peacekeepers,
not just these recent attacks and UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, going back for many, many years. And it has invaded and attacked and pillaged and damaged and destroyed UN premises, bombed UN schools and clinics and warehouses. You could not imagine a situation in which a country was more deserving of being removed.
And yet, there it is, still a member of the UN General Assembly.
A lot of this behavior by Israel is protected by the United States veto on the UN Security Council and the diplomatic and political cover the U.S. gives to Israel among U.S. allies. So what do you see coming? Do you see any difference between the B.B. Biden and B.B. Blinken obeisance to Netanyahu? You see any difference coming in?
How would you characterize the transition on Middle East policy from B.B. Biden to B.B. Donald?
Well, B.B. is the key factor there. I mean, at their core, Biden and Trump and all of their predecessors since the 1940s have been equally beholden to the Israel lobby, to the broader Zionist project for the colonization of Palestine, and for the Israeli and U.S. domination of the Middle East. So at their core, They are the same.
You can see proof of that in the fact that all of the mad policies of Donald Trump during his first term in the Middle East, you know, the Jerusalem embassy, the illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan, the eviction of the Palestinian ambassador, the unilateral abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal, the nonsense, you know, Abraham Accords.
Biden reversed none of these policies, and he tried actually to further advance them. And then he actually went further than Donald Trump. by joining Israel in the perpetration of a genocide in Palestine. Now, of course, Trump is now putting together an Israel-first administration comprised of some of
the worst characters that we can find in the darkest corners of the United States. We're talking about fascists and white nationalists and Zionists and neopuns and Islamophobes and xenophobes of every stripe. So we can certainly expect a dangerous four years under Trump. There's no denying it. Dangerous for the people of the Middle East,
also dangerous for American citizens who are opposing the genocide and U.S. policy in the Middle East as well. You can expect violations of human rights defenders in this country, starting with those defending Palestinian human rights. But we shouldn't forget that we've just had a four-year term under Biden and Harris
in which they undid none of those policies and which they actually supported horrific international crimes being perpetrated by Israel. And Biden and his administration were at the helm of the brutal repression of human rights defenders here in the United States, on college campuses and workplaces, in the streets and in media places.
So we're going to go from genocide abroad and repression at home under Biden to more genocide abroad and repression at home under Trump. The only difference is that Trump won't waste his time on the kind of mendacious pretense of civility and humanitarian concern that was peddled by Biden and Harris as it murdered babies in their thousands.
And we also know that Trump, he has to pay back with policy a $100 million check that he got from Marian Adelson. And that could well lead to his recognition of the illegal annexation of the West Bank or other unlawful moves like that. That will not change any realities or dynamics on the ground. The U.S.
cannot impose itself on international law. That will still be an unlawful act. But in the end, we're not going to see a very significant change under Trump, just a ruder tone in the implementation of unlawful policy.
Well, let's talk about the dissent bubbling up inside Israel here. As all Israelis know, Netanyahu is clinging to his job as long as the war continues in Gaza. So if you put aside the October 7th assault by Hamas, Netanyahu is despised by three out of four Israelis. But he's holding off and staying in office.
Now comes the report in the New York Times that former Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yalon is saying that Israeli's Netanyahu regime, quote, is perpetrating war crimes, end quote, in Palestine. What do you think the significance of that is going to be? Are they going to try to quarantine him, prosecute him,
or is he speaking for what he says he's receiving? That is, messages from Israeli soldiers in Gaza who are ordered to commit these war crimes worry that there'll be defendants in the expansion of the war crime investigation by the International Criminal Court.
Well, of course, I mean, what he said was that Israel is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the north of Gaza and that it intends to resettle the land with new illegal Israeli settlements, which is not a surprise to anyone who's been monitoring the situation on the ground.
But it is remarkable for a former senior Israeli official to actually make that confession public in the way that he has. It's been obvious from the start that the objective was ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. That its objective has always been to kill as many people as possible, to render Gaza unlivable,
so that any genocide survivors will be compelled to either leave or to die slow, agonizing deaths. So that part of it is not surprising. What's surprising is that it came from Ayalon, because, you know, you talk about the opposition to Netanyahu. The opposition to Netanyahu is about his governance. It's about his corruption.
It's about his interference with the judiciary. It's about his failures on October 7th. It's about his failures with regard to the hostages. There is very little opposition within the Israeli public for the genocide that's being perpetrated. Sadly, it is broadly supported within the Israeli public.
That's not surprising given the history of the country and the kind of propaganda that saturates Israeli society, but it is also a product of one of the key pillars of this genocide, which is the media and information. pillar, the media and information strategy that Israel has been practicing inside Israel, but also in the West in particular, because,
you know, they realize that this genocide could not be sustained without the continuing flow of Western support of Western weapons and Western diplomatic cover and so on. And so that's been an absolute key pillar. And it's not just in Israel, US government and corporate media are also playing a key role in controlling the narrative.
by disseminating Israeli genocide propaganda, by covering up events that are happening on the ground. Israel is doing this also through the murder of Palestinian journalists. They specifically have followed, targeted, and killed journalists. It's another Israeli world record for the killing of journalists and media workers. More than 190 in the past year alone targeted and killed by Israel.
Hundreds more events injured, arrested, imprisoned, tortured. This is a specific target to silence Palestinian journalists because they don't allow international media inside of Gaza. And so the loose piece for them is the Palestinian journalists themselves. And so they have particularly targeted them. They attacked and seized Palestinian media facilities across Palestine. They barred foreign journalists.
They barred Al Jazeera even outside of Gaza. They passed punitive legislation against the leading Israeli paper, Ha'aretz. for including critical perspectives on what's happening in Gaza. They have a system that goes back to the beginning of the state of strict military censorship of all media inside of Israel.
And then they have this very active transnational program of Israeli propaganda and disinformation, which fabricates all sorts of lies to justify their war crimes, starting on October 7th with falsified stories of beheaded babies and mass rape campaigns in military command centers under hospitals.
all of which has proven not to be true and then the use of Israeli proxy organizations in the west put pressure on journalists that don't toe the line into silence critical reporting you've got the lockstep collaboration of many western media corporations and openly knowingly disseminating Israeli disinformation and propaganda, dehumanizing Palestinians, blacking out the genocide in the West.
So this is a very key part of the genocide, both inside of Israel to maintain public support there, but also in the West, because without the support of American taxpayers, American weapons, American economic support, American diplomatic cover, American intelligence, the genocide could not continue. And that's why controlling the information is so important to them.
Well, you know, for people listening who don't care much what's going on in the Middle East, listeners, you should care about what this Israeli genocide, this Israeli sub-empire, part of the U.S. empire in the Middle East is doing to the United States and its democracy.
So talk about the Congress and the gap between the White House Congress on the one hand and the American people on the other.
Well, I mean, that's absolutely right. I think your listeners will not be surprised to know that the Congress and many in the government have reached a level of capture and corruption, much of it legalized corruption, that is probably unprecedented in the history of the organization. This is true of the pharmaceutical lobby. It's true of the insurance lobby.
It's true of the real estate lobby. It's true of the military and industrial complex. And it's true of the Israel lobby. And when you look now and you see the utter disconnect generally between the policies that are pursued by the Congress on the one hand and what the American people want on the other hand,
you see that to call the United States a democracy anymore is kind of a cruel joke. That is certainly true when it comes to foreign policy, and it's especially true when it comes to policy around Israel and Palestine. It goes so far that you've actually got members of Congress on behalf of an oppressive foreign regime in Israel,
attacking American citizens, including young people in America, students on college campuses, in order to silence them from speaking up on human rights. That is truly remarkable. Not only is this oppressive foreign regime siphoning off american taxpayer money in the tens of billions of dollars to perpetrate international crimes but it is also enabling the persecution by the government,
by the Congress, by university administrations of Americans who are standing up against these crimes. That tells you something about who the government is representing. Clearly, it's not the American people in such a situation. And this provision of things like 2,000 pound bomb without restriction, the purpose of this is genocide. These are quite literally weapons of mass destruction.
They're being targeted on one of the most densely populated civilian areas on the planet. They're by definition indiscriminate weapons. They're guaranteed to produce mass civilian casualties. And they're directed at refugee camps, at homes, at UN shelters, at medical facilities, at all civilian areas. The United States government knows this. The United States Congress knows this.
And yet it has continued to provide these weapons and to run cover for the violations of international law committed by Israel with those weapons provided by the United States. And it's done so over and over again, leaving piles of massacred bodies in their thousands.
So this is, Ralph, this is legal complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It's quintessential complicity in genocide, committed with U.S. weapons, paid for with U.S. tax dollars, supported by U.S. intelligence, facilitated by U.S. diplomatic cover, and obscured by U.S. government propaganda. There couldn't be a clearer case of complicity.
You know a lot about this International Criminal Court. Why do the newspapers keep reporting that it's going to take months, if not years, for them to go from a plausible genocide charge and an arrest warrant for Netanyahu to a final decision on genocide? Why does it take so long?
Netanyahu gives them evidence every day of the year that he's committing genocide.
Yeah, I'd say a couple of things about that. One is on your point about the U.S. position. The striking thing is the hypocrisy of the U.S. 20 years ago, it was pronouncing on the world stage the importance of humanitarian intervention to stop war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Today, its principal profile on the global stage is in defense. of a live stream genocide that the whole world is watching in real time. The costs to the US brand over the long term are going to be massive for what the US is carrying out here and for the capture of US foreign policy.
The American people will never get back the benefits of what they have done. The one key hope is that we are seeing cracks in the wall of impunity that Israel has enjoyed with the defense of the U.S. and the U.K. and the Germans and some others. That impunity is starting to crack, and in significant measure,
it's cracking because of the activism of civil society, of movements in the U.S. across the West and across the world, who are waking up and the people are pulling back the curtain on Israeli apartheid, on settler colonialism, on the genocide, and on U.S. complicity in all of these crimes.
And this movement of accountability for Israeli perpetrators of redress for Palestinian victims, for boycott, divestment and sanctions, for an end to apartheid, and for judicial accountability and international judicial mechanisms, that's growing. It's growing with the raising of voices by Jews and Christians and Muslims and
students and workers and clergy and teachers and ordinary people from every walk of life who are standing up despite unprecedented repression, the threat of beatings and arrest by police, of expulsion from their colleges, firing from their jobs, being smeared and slandered as supporters of terrorism or anti-Semites. That's growing every day, and now it's very much unstoppable.
It's making a difference because we know from the many revelations that the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, behind the scenes, in the shadows, they have been subjected to enormous pressure by Israeli intelligence agencies, by the Mossad, that have threatened and sought to induce the judges and the prosecutors of these mechanisms going back
for a decade since the opening of the Palestine file. We know that that harassment has continued since the beginning of the genocide, the current wave of genocide in Gaza. And in spite of that, we have seen that the International Court of Justice has stepped up that Israel is on trial for genocide in the International Court of Justice.
The International Court of Justice has issued its landmark opinion on the illegality of the Israeli occupation, on Israel's practicing of the crime of apartheid. And of course, the International Criminal Court now issuing arrest warrants for Israel's leaders for crimes against humanity. And by the way, both of those actions in the International Court of Justice
and especially in the International Criminal Court, were delayed for an unprecedented amount of time because of fear and trepidation on the part of court officials, not just from the threats behind the scenes by Israel, but the public threats as well from lawless American lawmakers in the Congress
threatening to obstruct justice by using the power of the United States to interfere with these trials. And yet they stepped forward because they heard from civil society, they heard from these movements, they heard from ordinary people who are not fooled by the lies of corporate media and government podiums,
who are seeing with their own eyes the horrors that are being perpetrated on the people of Palestine by Israel and by the United States, the UK. and Germany, and they are standing up to oppose this. And those courts know that they too are on trial and that they may not survive if
they failed in such an obvious case of genocide and that the reputations of the individual judges and prosecutors would not survive either. And so the world has compelled these institutions to act. And that's something I think that provides a glimmer of hope in what has been an extremely dark year.
Well, just as you think there's got to be a self-restraint on the part of the U.S. government from toting up to Netanyahu, they break through. The recent actions by the International Criminal Court and the World Court against the Netanyahu regime for war crimes, every time they put out a statement on this, Netanyahu attacks the court as anti-Semitic.
How dare you challenge an Israeli leader? compared to the challenges they've made to African leaders, dictators. And then like ping pong, the next day or a few hours later, B.B. Biden and B.B. Blinken are attacking the same courts harshly, saying how dare they even try to impose and enforce international law on the Netanyahu genocidal regime.
It's like a ping pong. So what do you see the future of civic resistance and civic power in the U.S. in the coming days? You think it's going to get more intense? Or do you think Trump is going to wield the terror word and use the Insurrection
Act and other acts to come down even harder on people who are engaged in peaceful marches, resistance, and lobbying against the U.S. complicity and co-belligerency under international law with Netanyahu's genocide?
Well, I don't think the genie of U.S. resistance in the U.S. is going away. I think all the people who are horrified by what the U.S. is doing, together with Israel in the Middle East, that has caused an awakening in this country, which is not going to go away out of fear for the Trump administration.
I think that we have seen that those voices have continued to grow, those demonstrations have continued to grow, and I think they will continue to do so. That does not mean that there isn't a real danger emanating from the Trump administration. He has, as I said, put together not just an Israel-first administration,
but an administration of Israel extremists. Marco Rubio, chief neocon, anti-Palestinian racist, Mideast war hawk. Mike Waltz, a Zionist extremist known for his advocacy of attacks on Americans at home for criticizing Israel, not to mention supporting attacks on the Palestinians and others on behalf of Israel. Elise Stefanik, as UN ambassador,
her claim to fame is attacking American college students on behalf of the Israel lobby and demanding an end to free speech and academic freedom in order to silence public criticism of Israeli genocide and apartheid.
Craig Wurst, she goes and addresses the Israeli Knesset and refuses numerous requests to have a town meeting back in her own district in upstate New York. And Huckabee, who's a proposed ambassador to Israel for Donald Trump, says there's no such thing as the Palestinian people. The ultimate devolution of genocide is omnicide.
And that's who Trump is basically nominating. People want to wipe out the Palestinians and annex the West Bank and Gaza to the greater vision of Israel, which, going back to its founders, David Ben-Gurion, has always been the dream. to take all of the Palestinian mandate and push the Palestinians out if they don't exterminate them in the meantime.
Which Mike Huckabee would be very happy for. I mean, he's a Christian Zionist, religious extremist who openly rejects international law, repeatedly makes public racist statements against Palestinians. He'll be the ambassador to Israel. And alongside him, Steve Whitcoff as the Middle East envoy. a billionaire real estate developer, an Israel lobby operative,
who since October 7th has been supporting the genocide and actively served as the Trump campaign's back channel to the U.S. Zionist donor community, securing large six- and seven-figure donations from wealthy pro-Israel donors, you can expect that there's going to be a payback coming from that direction. And, you know, straight across the administration, Elon Musk,
who used to be Mr. Free Speech, but has declared that he's free speech except for Palestine, and now is the chief censor for the Israel lobby through his social media platform. So I expect that the attacks are going to continue.
In some areas, they may get worse, but I don't think people are going to be deterred from speaking up in the great moral cause of our age, which is a U.S.-supported genocide in Palestine.
Well, Craig, there's a nightmare scenario here. In the past year, both the CIA, NSA, and Department of Justice have been doing internal scenarios of what they call blowback. That means counterattack into this country for what we're doing to the Palestinians and other civilians overseas. If there are counterattacks, like different versions of 9-11,
or different uses of easily constructed deadly drones that have been refined and developed by Ukraine and US military, it's now cheap. It's now something that can be even produced in garages with deadly arms. If that happens, that will fall right into the hands of Donald J. Trump's dictator scenario, because then he's got the terror issue to deploy.
And then it's pretty much curtains for any kind of free speech. and mobilization, because they'll all be called terrorists or accomplices of terrorists. Listeners, this is where it's likely to head, because you can't keep wiping out entire extended families. What do you anticipate here? This could be extremely serious and destroy all domestic priorities.
You think there's going to be opportunities to expand the response to pandemics that are coming, or to climate disruption that are needed, or to alleviate the poverty in this country, or to build up the public services in this country, or to deal with mundane issues like massive solar erosion and healthcare denial? Your views?
Well, I think that the sad reality is that successive administrations, Democrat and Republican, have been building the foundations for what you have just described going back for decades, and that we have been on a downward spiral in the United States in human rights terms. not just in the conduct of the United States abroad,
but in the precarious positioning of the human rights of people inside the United States. And we've been horrified over the course of the last 14 months by the open assaults on the human rights of people who are standing up peacefully to oppose the genocide. Not just the smears and the slander,
but they have been attacked using the force of government and using the law. They have been arrested. They have been expelled. They have been fired, they have been subjected to all kinds of legal harassment, including by the US Congress itself and then in local administrations. The FBI, according to reports,
is already knocking on the doors of people simply for speaking out against the genocide in Palestine. I don't doubt that that dissent is going to continue until the people of the United States take back their government, which has been captured by destructive special interests, both in its domestic policy and in its foreign policy. And in foreign policy,
there's no case more obvious than the capture of policy by the Israel lobby and by the military-industrial complex. This is a downward spiral that wasn't born with the election of Donald Trump, is what I'm saying here. But Donald Trump is just the man for the job to fully exploit the platform that's
been built for him by Biden and Obama and Bush and others going back for decades with the erosion of the human rights of all of us. And I think if the American people don't wake up, very soon that the dark scenario that you draw will happen either in the next administration or in an administration to come afterwards.
I also think that you are right in your premise that you cannot actively participate in the sniper hunting of children, in the murder of babies, in the wiping out of whole families, in the bombing of hospitals and refugee camps, in the torture of thousands, in the destruction of a whole people and not suffer some consequence.
No one is impervious to consequences for crimes of a massive historic nature of what we're witnessing happening in Palestine.
We're in extremely perilous times. Nothing since the Civil War can compare with what's going to happen. And the Democratic Party deserves a very severe denunciation for allowing it to happen and being unable and unwilling to adopt progressive policies like those espoused by Bernie Sanders. in order to defeat the worst, most vicious, most indentured,
corrupt Republican Party in history since it was formed in 1854. So the countervailing forces are just not there. They're not there to stop it. Listeners, I don't want you to despair here. You've got one leverage left, and that's the Congress. It's very close between Democrat-Republican, but there are 535 people that are equipped with the constitutional authority to
stop a lot of this. And when they see what's going to happen to their own country, to their own districts back home economically, climate disruption, all kinds of chaos, a lot of these Republicans might have second thoughts and stand up for the Republic and the Constitution. Your final thoughts, Craig.
Anything you want to say before we have to conclude?
Well, I hope that you are right about some hope within the United States Congress or the Democratic Party. I have some skepticism on that. I suspect that on the matters we've been discussing, both are equally captured, and that's the danger that we find ourselves in. My hope, the light that I look to, is in the people themselves,
in civil society, in movements, and in this flame that's been growing to oppose these kinds of horrors just among ordinary people, the students who have led in this country the moral vision that it's been lacking for so long, over the course of the last year-plus labor unions, social movements, peace movements, human rights defenders,
people who work in the public interest. Unfortunately, the institutions themselves, in my view, which includes the Congress, which includes the administration, which includes the political parties and others, I think these are lost to us in large measure. And I think as much as we'd like to turn to them, and we have to use whatever we have,
I agree with you there, but as much as we'd like to turn to them for hope, we're at a moment in history where we have to make our own hope, where it's up to us and it's not going to be easy, but either we push back, either we resist, what has been happening and what is coming,
or I'm going to have to agree with the darkness that you stand up.
There's more precedent for optimism here. When the American people made their stand on the Vietnam War unrebutable, the Congress cut off the appropriations during the Nixon years and stopped the Vietnam War. They just cut off the money. And years later, when Obama was thinking of sending the U.S. military into Syria, 95% of a torrent of no, no,
no poured into the Congress on Republican Democratic incumbents. And the Congress froze any attempt by Obama to go into Syria. Don't underestimate the power of the sudden arousal of indignant Americans who see that they're all living in the same boat in this country and that divide and rule
tactics of the ruling classes are no longer going to divide and rule and that they have their families and their neighborhood and their communities and their future to protect. And it's going to be done by taking control of Congress. between elections. They don't have to wait for elections,
because members of Congress have their finger to the wind every day of the year, and the people have got to give them powerful wind power to come back home. Steve?
I wanted to get back to the International Criminal Court, and what is the likelihood that Netanyahu and his minions will actually be arrested, or is this largely symbolic? It is at the moment unlikely that they will be arrested, but it's not symbolic. And the reason is because it has already had an impact on Netanyahu and Galant's lives.
They cannot travel to at least 124 countries with confidence. They cannot pursue their personal interest or their governmental interest or otherwise because those states are obliged to arrest them and to hand them over to the court. Now, it's true that the U.S. has been working behind the scenes to peel off some of those Western states that
have subsequently, France and others, issued equivocal statements on whether or not they would meet their obligations under the Rome Statute to arrest Netanyahu. But in the end, I believe that the statute will prevail. And that means not only in those 124 countries, but in other countries as well, where states have obligations under other treaties,
not least the Genocide Convention, who are bound by the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, they too may feel compelled to cooperate with the court. So it is unlikely that Israel will hand over its perpetrators for international trial. but they are already extremely limited.
They have been marked as fugitives from justice, as suspected perpetrators of crimes against humanity. That impact is real, and it is a part of chipping away at that longstanding impunity of Israel, and therefore it's extremely important. So they may never be brought to trial, but they will pay a cost for these enormous crimes. David?
America and Israel are not signatories to the Rome Agreement,
so can you be arrested by the International Criminal Court if you're from a country that doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court? It can be because the statute of the International Criminal Court provides also for territorial jurisdiction. It only requires that one interested party be a party.
In this case, Palestine is a recognized party to the Rome statute. The crimes are being committed on the territory of Palestine. so Netanyahu is covered there. Those in the U.S. who are actually violating the Rome Statute through obstruction of justice and attacking the court officials also may have some concerns, even though the U.S. has not ratified it,
because the Netherlands, which is the seat of the International Criminal Court, is a party to the Rome Statute, and so crimes committed on the court would be covered by the jurisdiction of the territorial jurisdiction of the netherlands and the statute of the court itself makes criminal these kinds of
attacks that some people in washington have been launching against the court so of course you know the u.s has committed itself to obstructing justice and to attacking the court that the congress has actually passed the so-called hague invasion act in order to have some legislative justification for attacking the netherlands in order to free
any perpetrators from the International Criminal Court. We are well and true witnessing a government of the United States, which is a rogue state on the international scene with real disdain for international law. But it's clear that the jurisdiction would be there and that the court could take action if it had the courage to do so. Hannah?
What if we say this is America's final form? We have a lot of fixing to do at home, but the rest of the world is getting us kind of full throttle. This is who we've always wanted to be, threatening to invade the Netherlands to free war criminals from The Hague.
So let's say the rest of the world finally decides that America cannot be reasoned with. Is there a way for other UN member states or signatories to certain conventions or just other countries you can forge alliances to remove the US from the equation in a plausible way, or if not plausible, pie in the sky, we're creating a,
you know, fantastical imaginary scenario that is possible if not plausible.
Well, that is the way that much of the world already views the United States. And I can tell you as someone who lived and worked internationally for 32 years, long before even this genocide in Palestine, the view of much of the world, if not most of the world, that the U.S.
was effectively a rogue actor that placed itself above international law, above basic humanity, and would use its force, the power of its dollar and the power of its military, to impose its will, no matter how cruel or unjust, on the rest of the world. That was already the view. Now, after the course of the last 14 months,
the few remaining skeptics around the world have seen that the curtain has been pulled back so radically and have seen the U.S., for what I'm afraid to say, is the reality of the U.S. empire and the way that it behaves. That has contributed, I think, to the decline of the unipolar moment,
the decline of what you could call U.S. empire that was already beginning to decline with the rise of China and others, the rise of other alliances like the BRICS, the diminishment of the U.S. position in the United Nations. Outside of the Security Council, where it has a veto, the U.S. has lost a lot of power.
and influence in other bodies in the Human Rights Council, in the General Assembly and elsewhere. It is extremely isolated on the international states. Just yesterday, it voted with Israel and a few South Pacific dependencies and a few far-right regime almost alone against the entire world on the latest resolution on Palestine
and on the occupation and on an international conference to be convened next year. So the U.S. is increasingly isolated. Its star is declining. Its stock is declining on the international stage as others raise. And any moral capital that it ever had that wasn't already spent before October of last year has now been completely exhausted. So, you know,
in our life, we're going to see a lot more struggle and upheaval and violence and suffering. But we are clearly, in my view, witnessing the decline of the American empire through self-inflicted wounds, to be sure.
All empires eventually devour themselves, and we're not going to be an exception unless we arouse ourselves to reverse the tide of historical judgment. Craig, before we conclude, what would you like our listeners to read that you've written, and is there anything else you'd like to say?
Well, I've been dedicating myself very much to this genocide over the course of the last year, publishing on Mondoweiss, in particular, a series of pieces that are designed to undo the propaganda that has saturated the West about claims, for example, of Israel having a right to defend itself, claims about human shields,
a whole range of issues that are deeply distorted in the public discourse in the U.S. and in the broader West. I feel folks should take a look at Mondo Weiss for those pieces.
Thank you. We've been talking with Craig McIver for many years, was working for various UN agencies on human rights all over the world. He knows what he's talking about. He's observed and thought about these issues for a long time. And thank you for your contributions on the program today, Craig McIver.
Thank you, Ralph. Thank you, guys. We've been speaking with Craig Mokhyber. We will link to his work at Mondeweiss at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Up next, we'll hear Ralph's thoughts on Trump's cabinet, credit card fees, and conflicts of interest at the AARP.
U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Dec 12, 2024 11:47 pm
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Mon Dec 16, 2024 5:00 am
Israel to close embassy in Ireland after Dublin backs Gaza genocide case
Al Jazeera English
Dec 15, 2024
Israel says it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s recognition of a Palestinian state and support for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its actions in Gaza.
“The decision to close Israel’s embassy in Dublin was made in light of the extreme anti-Israel policies of the Irish government,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a statement on Sunday.
Bobby McDonagh is a former Irish ambassador to the UK, the European Union and Italy.
He says Israel's move to close the embassy, reflects its inability to accept a balanced approach to the Palestine issue.
Transcript
0:00
Israel plans to shut its Dublin Embassy
0:02
citing Ireland's anti-israel stance as
0:05
relations between the two Nations
0:06
further deteriorate Dublin has called
0:08
the decision deeply regrettable last
0:11
week Ireland supported South Africa's
0:13
genocide case against Israel at the
0:15
international court of justice in
0:16
October Ireland and unifil rejected
0:18
Israel's call to withdraw peacekeepers
0:21
from Lebanon citing Israeli forces
0:23
proximity to Irish troops as concerning
0:26
and in May Ireland alongside Spain and
0:29
Norway way recognized Palestine as a
0:32
state prompting Israel to recall its
0:35
envoys Bobby McDon is a former Irish
0:38
ambassador to the UK EU and Italy you're
0:40
joining us sir from Dublin thank you for
0:41
your time your reaction to Israel
0:44
shutting its Embassy in
0:46
Ireland well Israel is a sovereign
0:48
country and it's free to take whatever
0:50
decisions it wants about its empasis
0:52
abroad Ireland is likewise a sovereign
0:54
country uh with a somewhat higher moral
0:57
standing in the world than Israel has at
0:59
the moment and we're also fre free to
1:01
take our decisions about balanced
1:03
matters of principle which we have
1:04
consistently done in relation to the
1:06
conflict in the Middle East so what's
1:08
happened today is a purely Israeli
1:10
decision and the Irish government has as
1:13
you say um made clear that it's deeply
1:15
regretable that the Irish position is
1:17
not anti-israeli it is pro peace pro-
1:19
human rights pro- international law and
1:22
pro- humanitarian law and the government
1:24
has also made clear that it has no plans
1:25
to close its own Embassy in Tel Aviv and
1:27
we do hope to keep diplomatic uh channel
1:30
is open because that's important
1:31
everywhere in the world so I'm wondering
1:33
how you actually read the decision I
1:35
mean the why of it all why is Israel
1:37
doing this is this for domestic
1:38
political consumption to show hey we are
1:41
you know we're putting pressure on the
1:42
countries that have moved uh in in ways
1:45
that we deem hostile or is this perhaps
1:47
a way to put pressure on other countries
1:48
that are maybe considering recognizing
1:50
Palestine as a
1:51
state well I think the first thing to to
1:54
say is that there are two elements of
1:56
the Israeli foreign ministry's statement
1:58
on today's decision that are completely
2:00
false the first is that they accuse
2:02
Ireland of extreme anti-israeli
2:04
positions this is not true Ireland has
2:06
taken a balanced approach which at the
2:08
moment involves not only condemning what
2:10
Hamas did two years ago but also
2:12
condemning the totally disproportionate
2:14
Israeli response that's a Balan position
2:16
and I think what annoys Israel is that
2:19
moderation is seen by them as extremism
2:22
and the second thing that's even more
2:24
ludicrous is the allegation of
2:26
anti-Semitic rhetoric on the part of the
2:28
Irish government that's not just it's
2:30
utter nonsense and I hope your viewers
2:32
will will understand that there is not
2:34
one single example of an Irish
2:35
government making an anti-semitic remark
2:37
it's part of the deliberate conflation
2:40
by the present Israeli government and
2:41
some of their supporters in the world a
2:44
conflation between uh anti-Semitism
2:47
which is a Scourge wherever it happens
2:48
it's not particularly prevalent in
2:50
Ireland and condemnation of the
2:53
grotesque behavior of the Israeli
2:55
government where we we we we we heard
2:56
just now on your program 16 more people
2:58
killed in a school every day and we see
3:00
it with our eyes and so what the
3:02
government's position in general and uh
3:06
specifically in condemning the killings
3:08
in Gaza the disproportionate and
3:09
indiscriminate killings is very much
3:11
effective of Irish public opinion what
3:14
does this tell us about Israel there
3:16
there's a country that is so in this
3:17
case Ireland that is supporting a court
3:19
case against Israel all of this is about
3:22
international law and about facts where
3:24
evidence is presented it's not politics
3:26
it's law uh and Israel in response
3:30
shuts down its Embassy in that
3:32
country well there's two things I'd say
3:35
on that the first is that Israel has
3:37
chosen to close its Embassy in Dublin
3:39
but not its embassies in Madrid and Oslo
3:42
uh Ireland has worked in lock step with
3:44
Norway and Spain so there's something
3:45
going on there I mean possibly they
3:47
think it's easier to pick on a small
3:49
country uh Ireland is more than able to
3:51
stand up for itself but there may be
3:52
some some element there you ask me
3:55
what's going on I I think quite honestly
3:58
uh there's a degree of irrationality
4:00
going on I mean I do understand the Deep
4:03
Emotions in Israel following the Hamas
4:05
attacks in Israel but if if a country
4:08
ceases to be able to behave rationally
4:10
by for example condemning Ireland's
4:12
relatively moderate and balanced
4:13
approach as being anti-semitic it's not
4:15
only feel like upsetting for for our
4:17
country H but it's also uh not very
4:21
optimistic about the future of Israel I
4:24
mean you can get you can get away with
4:25
saying that sort of thing but if it
4:27
can't think rationally and behave
4:29
rationally about international relations
4:31
in the longer run it's really not good
4:33
for for itself can you speak to um when
4:36
there's a big high-profile event like
4:39
this right a headline grabbing event one
4:41
country shutting down an embassy in
4:43
another country over uh over an event in
4:46
this case Ireland supporting South
4:48
Africa in the genocide case against
4:50
Israel when there's that in the public
4:52
eye what's actually going on behind
4:54
closed doors are there more measured
4:56
more reasonable discussions and
4:58
conversations between diplomats behind
5:00
closed doors or
5:02
not well as I said I hope that um the
5:05
Irish Embassy will remain open in t Aviv
5:07
um certainly the Irish government's
5:09
intention is that it should I think it
5:11
is important to maintain dialogue h i
5:14
mean the Israeli statement also said
5:15
today that it will it will calibrate its
5:18
EMES abroad in proportion to how
5:21
supportive they are of Israel that's
5:22
more or less those those aren't the
5:24
exact words but that's not the way
5:25
International diplomacy works you have
5:27
to have embassies not only in countries
5:29
that friendly with you within countries
5:31
with which you have differences and
5:33
Ireland has always stood solidly behind
5:35
the right of Israel to exist and we
5:37
believe strongly in Israel's right to
5:38
exist the Irish government has
5:40
consistently condemned uh what what what
5:42
Hamas did but at the same time we are
5:44
profound Believers in a two-state
5:47
solution there will be no peace long
5:49
term in the Middle East unless the equal
5:51
rights of the Palestinians and I
5:53
emphasize equal rights of the
5:54
Palestinians with the Israelis are
5:55
recognized and that's at the heart of
5:57
the Irish government's approach Bobby
5:59
McDon former Irish ambassador to the UK
6:01
EU and Italy thank you for joining us on
6:03
aljazera thank
6:06
you
Al Jazeera English
Dec 15, 2024
Israel says it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s recognition of a Palestinian state and support for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its actions in Gaza.
“The decision to close Israel’s embassy in Dublin was made in light of the extreme anti-Israel policies of the Irish government,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a statement on Sunday.
Bobby McDonagh is a former Irish ambassador to the UK, the European Union and Italy.
He says Israel's move to close the embassy, reflects its inability to accept a balanced approach to the Palestine issue.
Transcript
0:00
Israel plans to shut its Dublin Embassy
0:02
citing Ireland's anti-israel stance as
0:05
relations between the two Nations
0:06
further deteriorate Dublin has called
0:08
the decision deeply regrettable last
0:11
week Ireland supported South Africa's
0:13
genocide case against Israel at the
0:15
international court of justice in
0:16
October Ireland and unifil rejected
0:18
Israel's call to withdraw peacekeepers
0:21
from Lebanon citing Israeli forces
0:23
proximity to Irish troops as concerning
0:26
and in May Ireland alongside Spain and
0:29
Norway way recognized Palestine as a
0:32
state prompting Israel to recall its
0:35
envoys Bobby McDon is a former Irish
0:38
ambassador to the UK EU and Italy you're
0:40
joining us sir from Dublin thank you for
0:41
your time your reaction to Israel
0:44
shutting its Embassy in
0:46
Ireland well Israel is a sovereign
0:48
country and it's free to take whatever
0:50
decisions it wants about its empasis
0:52
abroad Ireland is likewise a sovereign
0:54
country uh with a somewhat higher moral
0:57
standing in the world than Israel has at
0:59
the moment and we're also fre free to
1:01
take our decisions about balanced
1:03
matters of principle which we have
1:04
consistently done in relation to the
1:06
conflict in the Middle East so what's
1:08
happened today is a purely Israeli
1:10
decision and the Irish government has as
1:13
you say um made clear that it's deeply
1:15
regretable that the Irish position is
1:17
not anti-israeli it is pro peace pro-
1:19
human rights pro- international law and
1:22
pro- humanitarian law and the government
1:24
has also made clear that it has no plans
1:25
to close its own Embassy in Tel Aviv and
1:27
we do hope to keep diplomatic uh channel
1:30
is open because that's important
1:31
everywhere in the world so I'm wondering
1:33
how you actually read the decision I
1:35
mean the why of it all why is Israel
1:37
doing this is this for domestic
1:38
political consumption to show hey we are
1:41
you know we're putting pressure on the
1:42
countries that have moved uh in in ways
1:45
that we deem hostile or is this perhaps
1:47
a way to put pressure on other countries
1:48
that are maybe considering recognizing
1:50
Palestine as a
1:51
state well I think the first thing to to
1:54
say is that there are two elements of
1:56
the Israeli foreign ministry's statement
1:58
on today's decision that are completely
2:00
false the first is that they accuse
2:02
Ireland of extreme anti-israeli
2:04
positions this is not true Ireland has
2:06
taken a balanced approach which at the
2:08
moment involves not only condemning what
2:10
Hamas did two years ago but also
2:12
condemning the totally disproportionate
2:14
Israeli response that's a Balan position
2:16
and I think what annoys Israel is that
2:19
moderation is seen by them as extremism
2:22
and the second thing that's even more
2:24
ludicrous is the allegation of
2:26
anti-Semitic rhetoric on the part of the
2:28
Irish government that's not just it's
2:30
utter nonsense and I hope your viewers
2:32
will will understand that there is not
2:34
one single example of an Irish
2:35
government making an anti-semitic remark
2:37
it's part of the deliberate conflation
2:40
by the present Israeli government and
2:41
some of their supporters in the world a
2:44
conflation between uh anti-Semitism
2:47
which is a Scourge wherever it happens
2:48
it's not particularly prevalent in
2:50
Ireland and condemnation of the
2:53
grotesque behavior of the Israeli
2:55
government where we we we we we heard
2:56
just now on your program 16 more people
2:58
killed in a school every day and we see
3:00
it with our eyes and so what the
3:02
government's position in general and uh
3:06
specifically in condemning the killings
3:08
in Gaza the disproportionate and
3:09
indiscriminate killings is very much
3:11
effective of Irish public opinion what
3:14
does this tell us about Israel there
3:16
there's a country that is so in this
3:17
case Ireland that is supporting a court
3:19
case against Israel all of this is about
3:22
international law and about facts where
3:24
evidence is presented it's not politics
3:26
it's law uh and Israel in response
3:30
shuts down its Embassy in that
3:32
country well there's two things I'd say
3:35
on that the first is that Israel has
3:37
chosen to close its Embassy in Dublin
3:39
but not its embassies in Madrid and Oslo
3:42
uh Ireland has worked in lock step with
3:44
Norway and Spain so there's something
3:45
going on there I mean possibly they
3:47
think it's easier to pick on a small
3:49
country uh Ireland is more than able to
3:51
stand up for itself but there may be
3:52
some some element there you ask me
3:55
what's going on I I think quite honestly
3:58
uh there's a degree of irrationality
4:00
going on I mean I do understand the Deep
4:03
Emotions in Israel following the Hamas
4:05
attacks in Israel but if if a country
4:08
ceases to be able to behave rationally
4:10
by for example condemning Ireland's
4:12
relatively moderate and balanced
4:13
approach as being anti-semitic it's not
4:15
only feel like upsetting for for our
4:17
country H but it's also uh not very
4:21
optimistic about the future of Israel I
4:24
mean you can get you can get away with
4:25
saying that sort of thing but if it
4:27
can't think rationally and behave
4:29
rationally about international relations
4:31
in the longer run it's really not good
4:33
for for itself can you speak to um when
4:36
there's a big high-profile event like
4:39
this right a headline grabbing event one
4:41
country shutting down an embassy in
4:43
another country over uh over an event in
4:46
this case Ireland supporting South
4:48
Africa in the genocide case against
4:50
Israel when there's that in the public
4:52
eye what's actually going on behind
4:54
closed doors are there more measured
4:56
more reasonable discussions and
4:58
conversations between diplomats behind
5:00
closed doors or
5:02
not well as I said I hope that um the
5:05
Irish Embassy will remain open in t Aviv
5:07
um certainly the Irish government's
5:09
intention is that it should I think it
5:11
is important to maintain dialogue h i
5:14
mean the Israeli statement also said
5:15
today that it will it will calibrate its
5:18
EMES abroad in proportion to how
5:21
supportive they are of Israel that's
5:22
more or less those those aren't the
5:24
exact words but that's not the way
5:25
International diplomacy works you have
5:27
to have embassies not only in countries
5:29
that friendly with you within countries
5:31
with which you have differences and
5:33
Ireland has always stood solidly behind
5:35
the right of Israel to exist and we
5:37
believe strongly in Israel's right to
5:38
exist the Irish government has
5:40
consistently condemned uh what what what
5:42
Hamas did but at the same time we are
5:44
profound Believers in a two-state
5:47
solution there will be no peace long
5:49
term in the Middle East unless the equal
5:51
rights of the Palestinians and I
5:53
emphasize equal rights of the
5:54
Palestinians with the Israelis are
5:55
recognized and that's at the heart of
5:57
the Irish government's approach Bobby
5:59
McDon former Irish ambassador to the UK
6:01
EU and Italy thank you for joining us on
6:03
aljazera thank
6:06
you
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37523
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Dec 21, 2024 12:32 am
Part 1 of 2
The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza: The BBC is facing an internal revolt over its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza.
by Owen Jones
Dec 19, 2024
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civi ... d-coverage
The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza
Story by Owen Jones
The BBC is facing an internal revolt over its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza.
Their primary battlefield has become the online news operation. Drop Site News spoke to 13 current and former staffers who mapped out the extensive bias in the BBC’s coverage and how their demands for change have been largely met with silence from management. At times, these journalists point out, the coverage has been more credulous about Israeli claims than the UK’s own Conservative leaders and the Israeli media, while devaluing Palestinian life, ignoring atrocities, and creating a false equivalence in an entirely unbalanced conflict.
The BBC journalists who spoke to Drop Site News believe the imbalance is structural, and has been enforced by the top brass for many years; all of them requested anonymity for fear of professional retribution. The journalists also overwhelmingly point to the role of one person in particular: Raffi Berg, BBC News online’s Middle East editor. Berg sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine, they say. They also allege that internal complaints about how the BBC covers Gaza have been repeatedly brushed aside. “This guy’s entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel,” one former BBC journalist said.
In November, the journalists’ outrage at the Corporation’s overall coverage spilled out into the open after more than 100 BBC employees signed a letter accusing the organization, along with other broadcasters, of failing to adhere to its own editorial standards. The BBC lacked “consistently fair and accurate evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza” across its platforms, they wrote. The employees also requested that the BBC make a series of specific changes:
One BBC journalist told me that the letter was “a last resort after several tried to engage using the usual channels with management and were just ignored.” Another journalist tells me they hadn’t signed the letter because they weren’t aware of it, stating the strength of feeling went “way beyond” the signatories.
BBC management has rejected claims that such dissent has been ignored. In the reply sent by Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, which Drop Site News obtained, Turness told them to “please note we would not normally reply to unsigned, anonymous correspondence,” adding that “BBC News is proud of its journalism and always open to discussion about it, but this is made more difficult when parties are not willing to do so openly and transparently.” She claimed the BBC engaged with internal BBC staff and “external stakeholders” on coverage of Israel and Palestine, and argued “the BBC does not and cannot reflect any single world view, and reports without fear of [sic] favour.” One BBC journalist told me this reflected the BBC’s desire to “frame this as an identity politics issue, when it’s not. It’s about not blindly accepting the Israeli line.” Another called it “very patronizing.”
Email from Deborah Turness
The internal critique peaked again in December, after journalists say the BBC failed to highlight Amnesty International’s report concluding that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Senior correspondents expressed their dismay at the angle chosen for the limited broadcast coverage. In a WhatsApp group of senior Middle East correspondents, editors, and producers—referred to as ‘the big dogs’ by BBC management—one posted the chyron during coverage on the BBC news channel: “Israel rejects ‘fabricated’ claims of genocide.” Another commented: ‘FFS!!—It’s an open goal for those who say we’re frit [afraid] of upsetting the Israelis and keep on couching our stories in an ‘Israel says’ narrative’. As one BBC journalist puts it to me: “These are established senior correspondents—and it’s even bothering them.”
In response to this criticism by their own senior journalists, a BBC spokesperson said: “We take feedback on our coverage seriously, but criticism of BBC output based on a single screenshot taken during a few seconds of coverage, or on false assertions that topics ‘haven’t been covered’ when they have is invalid and disingenuous.”
Another strapline was also used that day: “Amnesty International accuses Israel of genocide.” While it was discussed on BBC radio stations, journalists note that the report was not covered at all on the BBC’s flagship news programmes—BBC One’s News At One, News At Six or News At Ten or its flagship current affairs programme, BBC Two’s Newsnight. According to broadcast regulator Ofcom, BBC One is the most frequented news source in Britain. On December 5, the day the Amnesty report was released, 3.7 million viewers tuned into the BBC News At Six alone. The News Channel attracts only a small fraction of that audience.
The Amnesty International report was also not afforded proper attention by BBC online, the staffers say. It appeared on the BBC front page, but long after the embargo on reporting ended, leading award-winning TV producer Richard Sanders to ask “Why on earth did it take them 12 hours?” Even then, it appeared as the seventh item in order of importance. And for a week after it was reported, the story about the world’s most famous human rights organization concluding that Israel was committing genocide did not appear in the ‘Israel-Gaza war’ index tab which remains fixed at the top of the BBC news front page. The BBC told Drop Site News that this was a mistake. The Amnesty story was added to the index several days after the report was released, meaning traffic to the story was suppressed.
According to data seen by BBC journalists, in the first few days the story received around 120,000 hits. One BBC journalist suggests that—if it had been on the Israel-Gaza index featured on the BBC news front page—it would have attracted far more traffic. They note a story which appeared on the Israel-Gaza index and was just one day older, concerning the recovery of the body of an Israeli hostage from Gaza, garnered around 370,000 hits.
In addition to what they see as a collective management failure, journalists expressed concerns over bias in the shaping of the Middle East index of the BBC news website. Several allege that Berg “micromanages” this section, ensuring that it fails to uphold impartiality. “Many of us have raised concerns that Raffi has the power to reframe every story, and we are ignored,” one told me.
The BBC journalists also point to Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC’s news division, as standing in the way of change. Both are aware of the outrage against Berg, the journalists said. “Almost every correspondent you know has an issue with him,” one said. “He has been named in multiple meetings, but they just ignore it.”
It is difficult to overstate the influence of the BBC’s online operation. According to media watchdog Press Gazette, the BBC news website, which includes both news and non-news content, is the most-visited news site on the internet. In May alone, it had 1.1 billion visits, dwarfing second-place finisher msn.com, which had 686 million visits.
Berg’s influence has a ripple effect, the journalists say. While BBC broadcasters write and produce their own reports, editors and reporters across the organization frequently draw on web articles such as those edited by Berg to flesh out their stories. “Part of the problem is that the staff on Today [the BBC’s flagship radio current affairs programme] and domestic outlets in general are pretty ignorant about Israel/Gaza,” says one BBC journalist, “as anyone who goes to work there from World Service realizes very quickly.” BBC news broadcasts are centered on coverage by veteran journalists with on-the-ground experience like Jeremy Bowen who are regarded as more balanced.
In response to a request for comment, the BBC said it unequivocally stood by Berg’s work and that Drop Site News's descriptions of Berg “fundamentally misdescribe this person’s role, and misunderstand the way the BBC works.” The organization rejected “any suggestion of a ‘lenient stance’” towards Israel or Palestine, and asserted that the BBC was “the world’s most trusted international news source” and that its “coverage should be judged on its own merits and in its entirety.”
“If we make mistakes we correct them,” the BBC said. More on that later.
“This is about editorial standards”
In November 2023, BBC senior management attended a morning meeting with at least 100 staffers to discuss coverage of Gaza. It soon descended into a fiery debate. “We’ve got to all remember that this all started on 7 October,” Deborah Turness, the CEO of the news division, called out, in an attempt to assert control of the meeting, two attendees told me. Liliane Landour, the former head of the BBC World Service, disagreed, pointing to the decades of Israeli occupation before October 7: “No, I’m going to have to say that’s not the case, and I’m sure that’s not how you meant to phrase it.” People were “livid” about Turness’s remarks, one journalist said. When asked for comment, the BBC pointed to a blog post Turness authored in October 2023 detailing the organization’s approach to the conflict.
Internal tensions over the BBC’s coverage of Gaza had been rising for weeks. On October 24, Rami Ruhayem, a Beirut-based BBC Arabic correspondent, sent an email to Tim Davie, BBC’s director general, laying out the concerns he and his fellow journalists had shared about the organization’s lack of impartiality in its Gaza coverage. While stories “prominently” used words like “massacre,” “slaughter,” and “atrocities” to refer to Hamas, they “hardly, if at all,” used them “in reference to actions by Israel,” he wrote.
Ruhayem singled out the use of the word “massacre,” in particular, which the BBC had not used to describe mass slaughters perpetrated by Israeli forces. By contrast, on October 10, 2023, the organization published a story with the headline “Supernova festival: How massacre unfolded from verified video and social media.”
Ruhayem also noted the organization-wide failure to frame reporting and analysis around Israeli statements signifying war crimes and genocidal intent. He pointed out the lack of “historical context,” emphasizing that “apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism” were “terms used by many experts and highly respected organizations to which the BBC usually defers.”
On October 31, 2023, for example, the BBC published a story with a headline that excised Israel’s role: “Israel Gaza: Father loses 11 family members in one blast.” When the BBC does mention Israel as a perpetrator, including when large numbers of civilians are killed by its missiles, the organization’s headlines use the caveat “reportedly.” The BBC repeats the Israeli authorities’ use of “evacuate” to describe the forcible transfer of civilians—effectively using a euphemism for a war crime. Instead of describing Israel’s total siege on Gaza for what it is, an all-encompassing blockade on aid was framed in an October 20, 2023 headline as “Israel aims to cut Gaza ties after war with Hamas.”
In November, around the same time as the meeting with Turness, eight BBC journalists sent a 2,300-word letter to Al Jazeera outlining how their employer had failed to accurately depict the Israel-Palestine story “through omission and lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims” and a “double standard in how civilians are seen.” In the preceding weeks, the BBC had either buried or failed to report on a number of official statements announcing Israel’s intent to perpetrate war crimes. Defense minister Yoav Gallant’s commitment to impose a “full siege” on Gaza and its “human animals” received just one mention in BBC online content, towards the end of an article headlined “Israel's military says it fully controls communities on Gaza border.” No context about the illegality of the statement was offered. A statement by Israeli General Ghassan Alian addressed to both Hamas and “the residents of Gaza”—which unambiguously denounced the Palestinians of Gaza as “human beasts” and promised a total blockade on life’s essentials and the unleashing of “damage” and “hell”—was not covered at all.
By comparison, weeks after the start of the war in Ukraine, the BBC’s online coverage clearly identified war crimes committed by Russia, even without official rulings from international courts. “Gruesome evidence points to war crimes on road outside Kyiv,” read one headline 36 days into the invasion. After October 7, war crimes committed by Hamas were treated as objective fact requiring no legal verdict: “Israeli community frozen as Hamas atrocities continue emerge.” When strong evidence similarly shows Israel committing atrocities, the same editorial guidance does not apply.
In the weeks after October 7, a number of BBC journalists began venting their intense frustrations in forums like WhatsApp groups, where they collected the “bullshit reasons given for not commissioning stories.” They singled out Berg, one of whom says plays a key role in a wider BBC culture of “systematic Israeli propaganda.” After staffers were told by the BBC’s top brass to come forward with any concerns about coverage, in meetings with senior management, journalists have flagged numerous examples of problematic editing by Berg. Again, having been invited to do so by BBC management, journalists have sent large numbers of emails identifying problems with such news stories. Staff members report rarely receiving responses to such emails.
Instead, the BBC’s approach has been to pathologize the problem. In early November 2023, management convened several roundtables, described as “listening sessions,” where, as one attendee told me, it became clear that management sought to recast factual objections and bias concerns raised by staff as emotional struggles. “They said they were concerned about mental health [and] offered the telephone number of the BBC support group,” one journalist who attended said.
“They wanted to turn it into a ‘Muslim thing,’ that ‘we’re worried about your community.’ We said, ‘We appreciate your concern about our mental health, but this is about editorial standards. It’s about being a public service broadcaster and impartiality not being abided by. They realized they’d let the genie out of the bottle. We said: ‘What’s the next session? We want a progress report, collating the evidence.’” Another attendee said management told staff to “be as frank as possible” and that it sought “honest thoughts on coverage.” Despite management efforts to pigeonhole the objections to BBC's coverage, the internal dissent extended far beyond Muslim staff.
“It was quite bad, staff were not treated well,” says one BBC journalist. “They were speaking their mind, then being shut down. They were told to be honest, but managers didn’t want that and snapped.” Since the meeting with Turness in November, staffers have asked, on three occasions, for updates on whether there had been any progress on responding to and acting on claims about biased coverage. “Three times there has been nothing back,” one staffer said.
In March 2024, the Centre for Media Monitoring, a watchdog group established by the Muslim Council of Britain, released “Media Bias: Gaza 2023-24,” a 150-page document detailing numerous allegations against the BBC’s reporting on Israel and Gaza. That included stripping away context such as Israel’s occupation of Palestine and siege of Gaza, far greater use of emotive language to describe Israeli suffering or deaths than that used when the victims are Palestinians and a pattern that BBC's position "has often been to push the Israeli line whilst casting doubt on Pro-Palestinian voices."
The BBC journalists said they presented the document to Richard Burgess, the BBC‘s director of news content who oversees content across BBC platforms. His response: He did not “recognize the bias.”
The BBC's headquarters was splashed with red paint by pro-Palestinian activists from Palestine Action on October 14, 2023 in London, United Kingdom. Photo by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images.
Without Fear or Favor
Between November 2023 and July 2024, BBC management held five listening sessions on Israel-Gaza. In a group meeting with Davie in May 2024, staffers at the meeting acknowledged the pressure the BBC faced from pro-Israel lobbyists. They also emphasized that their sole objective was to uphold the BBC’s values of fairness and impartiality and to produce content “without fear or favor”—principles staffers told me had been cast aside in deference to Israeli narratives. They also noted examples of individual senior journalists who had sent dozens of complaints about coverage of Israel and Gaza, only to be consistently brushed off.
The staffers also identified the website, headed by Berg, as the BBC’s most egregious violator of editorial standards on impartiality on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Davie, BBC’s director-general, was already aware that many BBC journalists had specific concerns about Berg. “He did very little to hide his objective of watering down anything critical of Israel,” said a former BBC journalist.
Berg wasn’t the only senior figure discussed at the meeting in May. The role of another powerful individual raised Robbie Gibb—one of five people who serve on the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee along with Director-General Tim Davie, BBC News CEO Deborah Turness, the Chairman of the Arts Council Nicholas Serota, and BBC Chair Samir Shah. In September 2024, when discussing “the Israel-Gaza story,” Shah told British parliamentarians that the committee was “part of the process where complaints are discussed, talked about and addressed.” He added that the BBC’s next “thematic review” should focus on Israel and Palestine.
Gibb is charged with helping to define the BBC’s commitment to impartiality, and to respond to complaints about the BBC’s coverage on Israel and Palestine—but his ultra-partisan record speaks for itself. The brother of a former Conservative minister, he is a veteran of the revolving door between Britain’s worlds of media and politics. In his thirties, Gibb was the chief of staff for Conservative MP Francis Maude before becoming deputy political editor of Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs show, and, later, editor of BBC politics programs. Between 2017 and 2019, he served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, and was knighted by her upon her resignation. In 2020, Gibb also led a consortium to rescue the Jewish Chronicle from bankruptcy. In 2021, Gibb returned to the BBC, joining its board as a non-executive director. In 2022, former senior BBC journalist Emily Maitlis described Gibb as an “active agent of the Conservative party” who shaped the broadcaster’s coverage by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality.” Similarly, Lewis Goodall, her colleague, said editors told him to “be careful: Robbie is watching you.”
Gibb’s deep involvement with the Jewish Chronicle continued after he took up his BBC role. In the November 2023 BBC Declaration of Personal Interests, he declared he was the 100% owner of the newspaper, before being replaced by a venture capitalist in August 2024. One former Jewish Chronicle journalist declared that, “since the change in ownership, the paper has read more like a propaganda sheet for Benjamin Netanyahu,” and that Gibb regularly appeared in the office “to check up on what stories were topping the news list and offering a view.” Since the acquisition, Jake Wallis Simons, its editor since 2021, has focused on zealously supporting Israel’s onslaught since October 2023. In one example, he tweeted a video of a 2,000-pound bomb exploding in Gaza City with the caption “Onwards to victory!,” before deleting with no apology.
In September 2024, four Jewish Chronicle columnists resigned in protest after the paper published a story that included fabricated quotes from Israeli officials, with one declaring that “too often the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.” Four Israelis, including an aide to Netanyahu, were subsequently arrested on charges of falsifying and distributing fabricated documents to the Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s largest newspaper Bild.
In September, the Muslim Council of Britain wrote a letter expressing concern with Gibb’s position on the editorial standards committee, noting his involvement with the Jewish Chronicle, its political orientation, the fact that it had been repeatedly reported to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. At that May meeting, BBC journalists had emphasized that Gibbs’s agenda was widely understood in British media circles, referring to his links to the Jewish Chronicle and noting its right-wing partisan orientation and slavish pro-Israel stance.
But it was Berg’s key role in shaping online coverage of the Middle East that the staffers emphasized the most at the “listening session” meeting with the BBC director general, Tim Davie, in May. They noted Berg’s history and associations as indicative of bias, pointing to instances where journalists’ copy had been changed prior to publication. They made specific requests: that stories should, as a rule, emphasize that Israel had not granted the BBC access to Gaza, that the network should end the practice of presenting the official Israeli versions of events as fact, and that the BBC should do more to offer context about Israeli occupation and the fact that Gaza is overwhelmingly populated by descendants of refugees forcibly driven from their homes beginning in 1948. While Davie told staff that management would “look into” staff objections, to date no response ever came back.
A crucial part of the BBC news website is its curation department, which selects the stories that are displayed on each section’s “front page,” as well as the overall BBC news homepage. If a story appears on the front page, it often receives hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, BBC staffers said, adding that stories published on regional index pages tend to attract only a fraction of that number. BBC staffers allege that Berg plays a powerful role in deciding which Middle East stories appear on the BBC News front page. The BBC denies that he has a veto, and claims staffers are assigning “outsize importance" to Berg's influence. Given that only a handful of stories are published to the Middle East index each day, it is relatively easy for a single editor to have an effect while also influencing coverage outside of the index. “If it’s Israel/Palestine, it has to go through Raffi before curation even OK it,” one journalist said. “Anyone who writes on Gaza or Israel is asked: ‘Has it gone to edpol [editorial policy], lawyers, and has it gone to Raffi?’” another said.
In response to BBC management claims that Berg’s power is being exaggerated by staff, a former journalist at the BBC World Service says: “I was working for a World Service department, producing content for language services. ‘We have to run this past Raffi’ was the reflex answer to any producer pitching anything on Israel.” The journalist said that other editors were reluctant to sign off content, treating Berg’s verdict as “their safety step” in the editorial process. “There was an extreme fear at the BBC, that if you ever wanted to do anything about Israel or Palestine, editors would say: ‘If you want to pitch something, you have to go through Raffi and get his signoff.”
This dynamic was corroborated by a third journalist, who said that even if a story which touched on Israel and Palestine appeared on another news index, it would still be flagged for Berg’s attention and approval. “How much power he has is wild,” said the journalist. “His reach goes beyond just the Middle East index, but to adjacent subject matters.”
The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza: The BBC is facing an internal revolt over its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza.
by Owen Jones
Dec 19, 2024
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bbc-civi ... d-coverage
Today Drop Site News is publishing a landmark investigation about the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza by British journalist Owen Jones. His report is based on interviews with 13 journalists and other BBC staffers who offer remarkable insights into how senior figures within the BBC’s news operation skewed stories in favor of Israel’s narratives and repeatedly dismissed objections registered by scores of staffers who, throughout the past 14 months, demanded that the network uphold its commitment to impartiality and fairness. Jones’s investigation of the BBC has three main components: a deeply reported look into the internal complaints from BBC journalists, a quantitative assessment of how the BBC characterizes the year-long siege on Gaza, and a review of the histories of the people behind the coverage—and, in particular, one editor, Raffi Berg.
Appropriately, when Jones began this reporting as an independent journalist and reached out to Berg for comment, Berg at first hired the famous defamation lawyer Mark Lewis, who is also former Director of UK Lawyers for Israel. Jones is a Guardian columnist and hosts his own searing independent news coverage on YouTube. If you have the means to help pay for Jones’s $24,000 in initial legal bills in vetting the story, you can do so here.
We are living in an era where many people expect the news to be delivered in 280 characters or less. But investigative journalism often necessitates a careful peeling back of layers, an examination of background and context, and incorporating the insights of many sources. This is a long read, and may take you a couple of sittings to get through, but it’s well worth our attention given the global influence of the BBC, which hails itself as “the world’s most trusted international news provider.” As Jones notes, the BBC website is the most-visited news site on the internet. In May alone, it had 1.1 billion visits.
At Drop Site News, we believe in holding powerful people and institutions accountable, particularly when their actions—or what they publish and how—mean life or death. It is in that spirit that we are publishing Jones’s investigation.
Please subscribe (our journalism is all free) and consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support our work:
—Nausicaa Renner, founding editor
The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza
Story by Owen Jones
The BBC is facing an internal revolt over its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza.
Their primary battlefield has become the online news operation. Drop Site News spoke to 13 current and former staffers who mapped out the extensive bias in the BBC’s coverage and how their demands for change have been largely met with silence from management. At times, these journalists point out, the coverage has been more credulous about Israeli claims than the UK’s own Conservative leaders and the Israeli media, while devaluing Palestinian life, ignoring atrocities, and creating a false equivalence in an entirely unbalanced conflict.
The BBC journalists who spoke to Drop Site News believe the imbalance is structural, and has been enforced by the top brass for many years; all of them requested anonymity for fear of professional retribution. The journalists also overwhelmingly point to the role of one person in particular: Raffi Berg, BBC News online’s Middle East editor. Berg sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine, they say. They also allege that internal complaints about how the BBC covers Gaza have been repeatedly brushed aside. “This guy’s entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel,” one former BBC journalist said.
In November, the journalists’ outrage at the Corporation’s overall coverage spilled out into the open after more than 100 BBC employees signed a letter accusing the organization, along with other broadcasters, of failing to adhere to its own editorial standards. The BBC lacked “consistently fair and accurate evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza” across its platforms, they wrote. The employees also requested that the BBC make a series of specific changes:
reiterating that Israel does not give external journalists access to Gaza, making it clear when there is insufficient evidence to back up Israeli claims, highlighting the extent to which Israeli sources are reliable, making clear where Israel is the perpetrator in article headlines, providing proportionate representation of experts in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including regular historical context predating October 2023, use of consistent language when discussing both Israeli and Palestinian deaths, and robustly challenging Israeli government and military representatives in all interviews.
One BBC journalist told me that the letter was “a last resort after several tried to engage using the usual channels with management and were just ignored.” Another journalist tells me they hadn’t signed the letter because they weren’t aware of it, stating the strength of feeling went “way beyond” the signatories.
BBC management has rejected claims that such dissent has been ignored. In the reply sent by Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, which Drop Site News obtained, Turness told them to “please note we would not normally reply to unsigned, anonymous correspondence,” adding that “BBC News is proud of its journalism and always open to discussion about it, but this is made more difficult when parties are not willing to do so openly and transparently.” She claimed the BBC engaged with internal BBC staff and “external stakeholders” on coverage of Israel and Palestine, and argued “the BBC does not and cannot reflect any single world view, and reports without fear of [sic] favour.” One BBC journalist told me this reflected the BBC’s desire to “frame this as an identity politics issue, when it’s not. It’s about not blindly accepting the Israeli line.” Another called it “very patronizing.”
Email from Deborah Turness
The internal critique peaked again in December, after journalists say the BBC failed to highlight Amnesty International’s report concluding that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Senior correspondents expressed their dismay at the angle chosen for the limited broadcast coverage. In a WhatsApp group of senior Middle East correspondents, editors, and producers—referred to as ‘the big dogs’ by BBC management—one posted the chyron during coverage on the BBC news channel: “Israel rejects ‘fabricated’ claims of genocide.” Another commented: ‘FFS!!—It’s an open goal for those who say we’re frit [afraid] of upsetting the Israelis and keep on couching our stories in an ‘Israel says’ narrative’. As one BBC journalist puts it to me: “These are established senior correspondents—and it’s even bothering them.”
In response to this criticism by their own senior journalists, a BBC spokesperson said: “We take feedback on our coverage seriously, but criticism of BBC output based on a single screenshot taken during a few seconds of coverage, or on false assertions that topics ‘haven’t been covered’ when they have is invalid and disingenuous.”
Another strapline was also used that day: “Amnesty International accuses Israel of genocide.” While it was discussed on BBC radio stations, journalists note that the report was not covered at all on the BBC’s flagship news programmes—BBC One’s News At One, News At Six or News At Ten or its flagship current affairs programme, BBC Two’s Newsnight. According to broadcast regulator Ofcom, BBC One is the most frequented news source in Britain. On December 5, the day the Amnesty report was released, 3.7 million viewers tuned into the BBC News At Six alone. The News Channel attracts only a small fraction of that audience.
The Amnesty International report was also not afforded proper attention by BBC online, the staffers say. It appeared on the BBC front page, but long after the embargo on reporting ended, leading award-winning TV producer Richard Sanders to ask “Why on earth did it take them 12 hours?” Even then, it appeared as the seventh item in order of importance. And for a week after it was reported, the story about the world’s most famous human rights organization concluding that Israel was committing genocide did not appear in the ‘Israel-Gaza war’ index tab which remains fixed at the top of the BBC news front page. The BBC told Drop Site News that this was a mistake. The Amnesty story was added to the index several days after the report was released, meaning traffic to the story was suppressed.
According to data seen by BBC journalists, in the first few days the story received around 120,000 hits. One BBC journalist suggests that—if it had been on the Israel-Gaza index featured on the BBC news front page—it would have attracted far more traffic. They note a story which appeared on the Israel-Gaza index and was just one day older, concerning the recovery of the body of an Israeli hostage from Gaza, garnered around 370,000 hits.
In addition to what they see as a collective management failure, journalists expressed concerns over bias in the shaping of the Middle East index of the BBC news website. Several allege that Berg “micromanages” this section, ensuring that it fails to uphold impartiality. “Many of us have raised concerns that Raffi has the power to reframe every story, and we are ignored,” one told me.
The BBC journalists also point to Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC’s news division, as standing in the way of change. Both are aware of the outrage against Berg, the journalists said. “Almost every correspondent you know has an issue with him,” one said. “He has been named in multiple meetings, but they just ignore it.”
It is difficult to overstate the influence of the BBC’s online operation. According to media watchdog Press Gazette, the BBC news website, which includes both news and non-news content, is the most-visited news site on the internet. In May alone, it had 1.1 billion visits, dwarfing second-place finisher msn.com, which had 686 million visits.
Berg’s influence has a ripple effect, the journalists say. While BBC broadcasters write and produce their own reports, editors and reporters across the organization frequently draw on web articles such as those edited by Berg to flesh out their stories. “Part of the problem is that the staff on Today [the BBC’s flagship radio current affairs programme] and domestic outlets in general are pretty ignorant about Israel/Gaza,” says one BBC journalist, “as anyone who goes to work there from World Service realizes very quickly.” BBC news broadcasts are centered on coverage by veteran journalists with on-the-ground experience like Jeremy Bowen who are regarded as more balanced.
In response to a request for comment, the BBC said it unequivocally stood by Berg’s work and that Drop Site News's descriptions of Berg “fundamentally misdescribe this person’s role, and misunderstand the way the BBC works.” The organization rejected “any suggestion of a ‘lenient stance’” towards Israel or Palestine, and asserted that the BBC was “the world’s most trusted international news source” and that its “coverage should be judged on its own merits and in its entirety.”
“If we make mistakes we correct them,” the BBC said. More on that later.
“This is about editorial standards”
In November 2023, BBC senior management attended a morning meeting with at least 100 staffers to discuss coverage of Gaza. It soon descended into a fiery debate. “We’ve got to all remember that this all started on 7 October,” Deborah Turness, the CEO of the news division, called out, in an attempt to assert control of the meeting, two attendees told me. Liliane Landour, the former head of the BBC World Service, disagreed, pointing to the decades of Israeli occupation before October 7: “No, I’m going to have to say that’s not the case, and I’m sure that’s not how you meant to phrase it.” People were “livid” about Turness’s remarks, one journalist said. When asked for comment, the BBC pointed to a blog post Turness authored in October 2023 detailing the organization’s approach to the conflict.
Internal tensions over the BBC’s coverage of Gaza had been rising for weeks. On October 24, Rami Ruhayem, a Beirut-based BBC Arabic correspondent, sent an email to Tim Davie, BBC’s director general, laying out the concerns he and his fellow journalists had shared about the organization’s lack of impartiality in its Gaza coverage. While stories “prominently” used words like “massacre,” “slaughter,” and “atrocities” to refer to Hamas, they “hardly, if at all,” used them “in reference to actions by Israel,” he wrote.
Ruhayem singled out the use of the word “massacre,” in particular, which the BBC had not used to describe mass slaughters perpetrated by Israeli forces. By contrast, on October 10, 2023, the organization published a story with the headline “Supernova festival: How massacre unfolded from verified video and social media.”
Ruhayem also noted the organization-wide failure to frame reporting and analysis around Israeli statements signifying war crimes and genocidal intent. He pointed out the lack of “historical context,” emphasizing that “apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism” were “terms used by many experts and highly respected organizations to which the BBC usually defers.”
On October 31, 2023, for example, the BBC published a story with a headline that excised Israel’s role: “Israel Gaza: Father loses 11 family members in one blast.” When the BBC does mention Israel as a perpetrator, including when large numbers of civilians are killed by its missiles, the organization’s headlines use the caveat “reportedly.” The BBC repeats the Israeli authorities’ use of “evacuate” to describe the forcible transfer of civilians—effectively using a euphemism for a war crime. Instead of describing Israel’s total siege on Gaza for what it is, an all-encompassing blockade on aid was framed in an October 20, 2023 headline as “Israel aims to cut Gaza ties after war with Hamas.”
In November, around the same time as the meeting with Turness, eight BBC journalists sent a 2,300-word letter to Al Jazeera outlining how their employer had failed to accurately depict the Israel-Palestine story “through omission and lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims” and a “double standard in how civilians are seen.” In the preceding weeks, the BBC had either buried or failed to report on a number of official statements announcing Israel’s intent to perpetrate war crimes. Defense minister Yoav Gallant’s commitment to impose a “full siege” on Gaza and its “human animals” received just one mention in BBC online content, towards the end of an article headlined “Israel's military says it fully controls communities on Gaza border.” No context about the illegality of the statement was offered. A statement by Israeli General Ghassan Alian addressed to both Hamas and “the residents of Gaza”—which unambiguously denounced the Palestinians of Gaza as “human beasts” and promised a total blockade on life’s essentials and the unleashing of “damage” and “hell”—was not covered at all.
By comparison, weeks after the start of the war in Ukraine, the BBC’s online coverage clearly identified war crimes committed by Russia, even without official rulings from international courts. “Gruesome evidence points to war crimes on road outside Kyiv,” read one headline 36 days into the invasion. After October 7, war crimes committed by Hamas were treated as objective fact requiring no legal verdict: “Israeli community frozen as Hamas atrocities continue emerge.” When strong evidence similarly shows Israel committing atrocities, the same editorial guidance does not apply.
“They wanted to turn it into a ‘Muslim thing,’ that ‘we’re worried about your community.’ We said, ‘We appreciate your concern about our mental health, but this is about editorial standards.’”
In the weeks after October 7, a number of BBC journalists began venting their intense frustrations in forums like WhatsApp groups, where they collected the “bullshit reasons given for not commissioning stories.” They singled out Berg, one of whom says plays a key role in a wider BBC culture of “systematic Israeli propaganda.” After staffers were told by the BBC’s top brass to come forward with any concerns about coverage, in meetings with senior management, journalists have flagged numerous examples of problematic editing by Berg. Again, having been invited to do so by BBC management, journalists have sent large numbers of emails identifying problems with such news stories. Staff members report rarely receiving responses to such emails.
Instead, the BBC’s approach has been to pathologize the problem. In early November 2023, management convened several roundtables, described as “listening sessions,” where, as one attendee told me, it became clear that management sought to recast factual objections and bias concerns raised by staff as emotional struggles. “They said they were concerned about mental health [and] offered the telephone number of the BBC support group,” one journalist who attended said.
“They wanted to turn it into a ‘Muslim thing,’ that ‘we’re worried about your community.’ We said, ‘We appreciate your concern about our mental health, but this is about editorial standards. It’s about being a public service broadcaster and impartiality not being abided by. They realized they’d let the genie out of the bottle. We said: ‘What’s the next session? We want a progress report, collating the evidence.’” Another attendee said management told staff to “be as frank as possible” and that it sought “honest thoughts on coverage.” Despite management efforts to pigeonhole the objections to BBC's coverage, the internal dissent extended far beyond Muslim staff.
“It was quite bad, staff were not treated well,” says one BBC journalist. “They were speaking their mind, then being shut down. They were told to be honest, but managers didn’t want that and snapped.” Since the meeting with Turness in November, staffers have asked, on three occasions, for updates on whether there had been any progress on responding to and acting on claims about biased coverage. “Three times there has been nothing back,” one staffer said.
In March 2024, the Centre for Media Monitoring, a watchdog group established by the Muslim Council of Britain, released “Media Bias: Gaza 2023-24,” a 150-page document detailing numerous allegations against the BBC’s reporting on Israel and Gaza. That included stripping away context such as Israel’s occupation of Palestine and siege of Gaza, far greater use of emotive language to describe Israeli suffering or deaths than that used when the victims are Palestinians and a pattern that BBC's position "has often been to push the Israeli line whilst casting doubt on Pro-Palestinian voices."
The BBC journalists said they presented the document to Richard Burgess, the BBC‘s director of news content who oversees content across BBC platforms. His response: He did not “recognize the bias.”
The BBC's headquarters was splashed with red paint by pro-Palestinian activists from Palestine Action on October 14, 2023 in London, United Kingdom. Photo by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images.
Without Fear or Favor
Between November 2023 and July 2024, BBC management held five listening sessions on Israel-Gaza. In a group meeting with Davie in May 2024, staffers at the meeting acknowledged the pressure the BBC faced from pro-Israel lobbyists. They also emphasized that their sole objective was to uphold the BBC’s values of fairness and impartiality and to produce content “without fear or favor”—principles staffers told me had been cast aside in deference to Israeli narratives. They also noted examples of individual senior journalists who had sent dozens of complaints about coverage of Israel and Gaza, only to be consistently brushed off.
The staffers also identified the website, headed by Berg, as the BBC’s most egregious violator of editorial standards on impartiality on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Davie, BBC’s director-general, was already aware that many BBC journalists had specific concerns about Berg. “He did very little to hide his objective of watering down anything critical of Israel,” said a former BBC journalist.
Berg wasn’t the only senior figure discussed at the meeting in May. The role of another powerful individual raised Robbie Gibb—one of five people who serve on the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee along with Director-General Tim Davie, BBC News CEO Deborah Turness, the Chairman of the Arts Council Nicholas Serota, and BBC Chair Samir Shah. In September 2024, when discussing “the Israel-Gaza story,” Shah told British parliamentarians that the committee was “part of the process where complaints are discussed, talked about and addressed.” He added that the BBC’s next “thematic review” should focus on Israel and Palestine.
Gibb is charged with helping to define the BBC’s commitment to impartiality, and to respond to complaints about the BBC’s coverage on Israel and Palestine—but his ultra-partisan record speaks for itself. The brother of a former Conservative minister, he is a veteran of the revolving door between Britain’s worlds of media and politics. In his thirties, Gibb was the chief of staff for Conservative MP Francis Maude before becoming deputy political editor of Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs show, and, later, editor of BBC politics programs. Between 2017 and 2019, he served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, and was knighted by her upon her resignation. In 2020, Gibb also led a consortium to rescue the Jewish Chronicle from bankruptcy. In 2021, Gibb returned to the BBC, joining its board as a non-executive director. In 2022, former senior BBC journalist Emily Maitlis described Gibb as an “active agent of the Conservative party” who shaped the broadcaster’s coverage by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality.” Similarly, Lewis Goodall, her colleague, said editors told him to “be careful: Robbie is watching you.”
Gibb’s deep involvement with the Jewish Chronicle continued after he took up his BBC role. In the November 2023 BBC Declaration of Personal Interests, he declared he was the 100% owner of the newspaper, before being replaced by a venture capitalist in August 2024. One former Jewish Chronicle journalist declared that, “since the change in ownership, the paper has read more like a propaganda sheet for Benjamin Netanyahu,” and that Gibb regularly appeared in the office “to check up on what stories were topping the news list and offering a view.” Since the acquisition, Jake Wallis Simons, its editor since 2021, has focused on zealously supporting Israel’s onslaught since October 2023. In one example, he tweeted a video of a 2,000-pound bomb exploding in Gaza City with the caption “Onwards to victory!,” before deleting with no apology.
In September 2024, four Jewish Chronicle columnists resigned in protest after the paper published a story that included fabricated quotes from Israeli officials, with one declaring that “too often the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.” Four Israelis, including an aide to Netanyahu, were subsequently arrested on charges of falsifying and distributing fabricated documents to the Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s largest newspaper Bild.
In September, the Muslim Council of Britain wrote a letter expressing concern with Gibb’s position on the editorial standards committee, noting his involvement with the Jewish Chronicle, its political orientation, the fact that it had been repeatedly reported to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. At that May meeting, BBC journalists had emphasized that Gibbs’s agenda was widely understood in British media circles, referring to his links to the Jewish Chronicle and noting its right-wing partisan orientation and slavish pro-Israel stance.
But it was Berg’s key role in shaping online coverage of the Middle East that the staffers emphasized the most at the “listening session” meeting with the BBC director general, Tim Davie, in May. They noted Berg’s history and associations as indicative of bias, pointing to instances where journalists’ copy had been changed prior to publication. They made specific requests: that stories should, as a rule, emphasize that Israel had not granted the BBC access to Gaza, that the network should end the practice of presenting the official Israeli versions of events as fact, and that the BBC should do more to offer context about Israeli occupation and the fact that Gaza is overwhelmingly populated by descendants of refugees forcibly driven from their homes beginning in 1948. While Davie told staff that management would “look into” staff objections, to date no response ever came back.
A crucial part of the BBC news website is its curation department, which selects the stories that are displayed on each section’s “front page,” as well as the overall BBC news homepage. If a story appears on the front page, it often receives hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, BBC staffers said, adding that stories published on regional index pages tend to attract only a fraction of that number. BBC staffers allege that Berg plays a powerful role in deciding which Middle East stories appear on the BBC News front page. The BBC denies that he has a veto, and claims staffers are assigning “outsize importance" to Berg's influence. Given that only a handful of stories are published to the Middle East index each day, it is relatively easy for a single editor to have an effect while also influencing coverage outside of the index. “If it’s Israel/Palestine, it has to go through Raffi before curation even OK it,” one journalist said. “Anyone who writes on Gaza or Israel is asked: ‘Has it gone to edpol [editorial policy], lawyers, and has it gone to Raffi?’” another said.
In response to BBC management claims that Berg’s power is being exaggerated by staff, a former journalist at the BBC World Service says: “I was working for a World Service department, producing content for language services. ‘We have to run this past Raffi’ was the reflex answer to any producer pitching anything on Israel.” The journalist said that other editors were reluctant to sign off content, treating Berg’s verdict as “their safety step” in the editorial process. “There was an extreme fear at the BBC, that if you ever wanted to do anything about Israel or Palestine, editors would say: ‘If you want to pitch something, you have to go through Raffi and get his signoff.”
This dynamic was corroborated by a third journalist, who said that even if a story which touched on Israel and Palestine appeared on another news index, it would still be flagged for Berg’s attention and approval. “How much power he has is wild,” said the journalist. “His reach goes beyond just the Middle East index, but to adjacent subject matters.”
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Part 2 of 2
Raffi Berg on Netanyahu’s Bookshelf
Raffi Berg began his career in local radio, later spending nearly a year as a news editor for the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, an outlet he later discovered was run by the CIA—a fact he was “absolutely thrilled” to learn.
Berg’s first job at the BBC was as a reporter. His bylined work included “Israel’s teenage recruits,” a story published in 2002 that presented young IDF soldiers as courageous defenders of their country while failing to mention the occupation and settlement of Palestinian land or the widespread allegations of crimes documented by human rights organizations, including in Israel, and even the U.S. State Department. One BBC journalist described the article as an “IDF puff piece.”
Berg’s reported work also included a three-part series on Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. The series presented them as victims seeking “a better quality of life” and did not mention the fact that the settlements have been repeatedly deemed illegal. Instead, the series included a boxed sidebar, outside the text of the actual story, to relay that the settlements are “widely regarded by international community as illegal under international law,” but Israel maintains that “international conventions do not apply in the West Bank and Gaza because they were not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state in the first place.”
On January 11, 2009, demonstrators held a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in support of Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli military onslaught against Gaza in which up to 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of them believed to be civilians. Demonstrators held Israeli flags and placards emblazoned with the words: “END HAMAS TERROR! PEACE FOR THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND GAZA.” While the event was billed as supporting “Peace in Israel, Peace in Gaza,” speakers at the rally voiced support for Israel’s military offensive. “In this case, I think there is no such thing as disproportion. If you have got a war to fight, then you fight,” one speaker said.
The BBC coverage of the event proclaimed: “Thousands call for Mid-East peace.” Its story opened with several paragraphs that described the rally as showcasing speeches that characterized the Israeli military offensive as pro-peace and repeated without skepticism the claims of the organizers:
Berg did not write the unbylined piece. But he attended the event “in a personal capacity” prior to becoming the BBC’s “Middle East online editor, or indeed acting editor,” the BBC said. Yet Berg was still a BBC staffer at the time, working on the website’s Middle East desk. In an article in which the BBC omitted key details about the nature of the rally, the organization interviewed Berg, a member of its own staff, as a participant in the pro-Israel protest. Berg even went to the trouble of writing a letter to Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post to take issue with its suggestion that only 5,000 people had attended what he called the “Israel solidarity rally at Trafalgar Square on Sunday.” “This is actually well short of the actual number,” he wrote. “The organizers, the Board of Deputies, said it was 15,000, and in my opinion (I was there) that is probably accurate.”
A decade later, the BBC amended its editorial guidelines to clarify that “people working in news and current affairs and factual journalism… should not participate in public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues.” By then, the BBC had concluded that the mere act of attending a protest in a personal capacity was a threat to perceptions of impartiality.
In 2013, Berg became Middle East editor for BBC news online. It was in this role where he encountered material that would form the basis for his book, “Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Diving Resort,” an account of the Israeli spy services’ efforts to evacuate Jews from Ethiopia between 1979 and 1983. In the book, Berg describes Mossad in glowing terms, calling the agency “much vaunted.” Berg received extensive cooperation from Mossad for the book, including “over 100 hours of interviews” of “past and present agents and Navy and Air Force personnel.” It was published in 2020. In an interview to promote the book, Berg said he collaborated on the project with “Dani,” a former senior Mossad commander he described as a “legend” who later became “a very close friend.”
An expert on Mossad who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal from within their professional circles told Drop Site News that the book failed to present crucial context surrounding Israel’s intelligence services, including their record of human rights violations, assassinations, and extraordinary renditions. Berg’s close relationship with Dani “raises the risk of adopting the viewpoints and value judgements of intelligence agencies,” the expert said, raising questions about Berg’s interest in the book’s subject. Books that romanticize the operations of spy agencies are “a powerful legitimizing device for intelligence services,” the expert said. “Authors who don’t even bother to raise tough questions about intelligence services are the best spokesperson these services could have hoped for. At the beginning of February 2020, Ohad Zemet, the spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in London, attended a launch event for Berg’s book, where he posed for a photo with the author and Mark Regev, then Israel’s ambassador to the UK. Zemet posted the photo in a tweet in which he called the book “wonderful.” A year later, Berg retweeted Zemet’s post, with the words: “big honour for me on a very special night.”
On August 23, 2020, Berg posted an image of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taking a phone call at his desk. In his post, Berg has zoomed in on and circled a copy of Red Sea Spies visible on a bookshelf behind the prime minister. “First time I’ve been on a prime minister's bookshelf!” he wrote. “I know I’ve got one of #Israel PM @netanyahu’s books on mine—but wow!” He tweeted a similar image in January 2021.
Source: Twitter/X
Source: Twitter/X
The BBC’s editorial guidelines concerning personal views and bias are clear. They state that “views or opinions expressed elsewhere, on social media or in articles or in books, can … give the impression of bias or prejudice and must also be avoided.” BBC journalists far more junior than Berg have been reprimanded or even disciplined for social media output seen as biased in favor of the Palestinian cause.
BBC journalists emphasize this context when they point to how Berg reshapes everything from headlines, to story text, to images, arguing he repeatedly seeks to foreground the Israeli military perspective while stripping away Palestinian humanity, with one journalist characterizing his approach as “death by a thousand cuts.”
In response to a request for comment from Berg, Drop Site News was informed that Berg had hired British-Israeli lawyer Mark Lewis, who is described as “the UK’s foremost media, libel and privacy lawyer.” The former director of UK Lawyers for Israel, Lewis attended the 2018 launch of Likud-Herut UK, a right-wing Zionist organisation, whose national director is his wife, Mandy Blumenthal. At the launch, Lewis emphasized the importance of “unapologetic Zionism.” Citing rising antisemitism, he announced that he and Blumenthal had immigrated to Israel in December 2018. “Europe in my view is finished,” he declared. His Twitter profile cites his current location as “Israel (legal work England).”
The BBC then informed Drop Site that its responses to our questions covered both Berg and the BBC. The BBC disputed the journalists’ characterization of Berg’s role and alleged bias, though the network declined to answer specific questions about claims made by current and former staffers.
Muhammed Bhar’s “Lonely Death”
In July, the BBC published a story on its website about Muhammed Bhar, a 24-year-old Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome and autism. He lived in Gaza with his family, who provided him with around-the-clock care. Since Israel began its assault on Gaza, he had been terrified of the shells exploding around him, caused by violence he was unable to understand. On July 3, the Israeli military raided Bhar’s home. The family begged for mercy for their disabled son, but the unit’s dog savaged him. He begged the dog to stop, using the only language he could access in that moment: “Khalas ya habibi” (“that’s enough, my dear”). The soldiers then put the injured man in a separate room, locked the door, and forced the family to leave at gunpoint. A week later, the family returned home to find Bhar’s decomposing body.
Bhar’s story was originally documented by Middle East Eye on July 12, with the headline: “Gaza: Palestinian with Down syndrome ‘left to die’ by Israeli soldiers after combat dog attack.” British newspaper The Independent covered it with the headline: “Gaza man with Down’s syndrome mauled by Israeli attack dog and left to die, family says.” Four days later after the first reports, the BBC published its own version of the story. Its headline: “The lonely death of Gaza man with Down’s syndrome.”
The headline did not reflect the hideous circumstances of Bhar’s death and omitted the specifics of who did what to whom—a recurring theme in complaints made by BBC reporters and presenters to management regarding the Corporation’s online coverage. In the original version of the story, it took 500 words to learn that an Israeli army dog had attacked Bhar, and a further 339 to discover how he had died.
Berg was the one to hit publish on the story, according to the edit history obtained by Drop Site. Optimo, the BBC’s content management system, shows that Berg made a series of pre-publication edits, before publishing the story, meaning that Berg himself must have signed off on its framing and deemed that the headline erasing Israeli responsibility satisfied the BBC’s editorial standards.
The article about Bhar sparked an outpouring of fury both internally at the BBC and on social media. In a post liked by 14,000 users, Husam Zomlot, Palestine’s ambassador to the UK, tweeted: “I don’t think there could be a worst murder in human history, still @BBCWorld headlines this as ‘death of a Gaza man’ to abdicate Israel of responsibility. Abhorrent!” Palestinian-American writer Tariq Kenney-Shawa mocked the absurdity of the framing. “A ‘lonely death,’ as if he died after a long battle with cancer or was perhaps swept away by the sea or lost under the rubble of an earthquake,” he tweeted.
Eventually, the BBC decided to rewrite the story. It changed the headline to “Gaza man with Down’s syndrome attacked by IDF dog and left to die, mother tells BBC.” It also inserted two new paragraphs at the top of the piece informing readers that the Israeli military had admitted “that a Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome who was attacked by an army dog in Gaza was left on his own by soldiers, after his family had been ordered to leave,” and that he was “found dead by his family a week later.” Even with the new phrasing, the story implied that the dog had attacked Bhar of its own volition, not that it was under the control of IDF personnel.
In its updated post, the BBC did not acknowledge that its previous version of the story omitted or downplayed key facts or explain to readers why it changed the headline. It did add a note at the bottom of the story: “This story was updated on 19 July with an IDF response.” The BBC also tweeted the article under its new headline, writing: “This post replaces an earlier version in order to update a headline that more accurately represents the article.”
The Bhar story symbolizes what the BBC staffers who spoke to Drop Site News say they want: Stronger assurances that BBC’s Israel and Gaza coverage upholds the organization’s policies around impartiality. As one BBC journalist told me: “There has to be a moral line drawn in the sand. And if this story isn’t it, then what?”
The objections over Berg’s role extend to his own writing. One BBC staffer highlighted Berg’s December 2022 article “Israel says likely killed Palestinian girl in error,” about Jana Zakarneh, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli snipers. The first two paragraphs read:
The story foregrounds the Israeli narrative—that Zakameh had been near gunmen who’d opened fire at Israeli troops, and that the Israeli military had been conducting near nightly raids in the West Bank as part of an operation against militants whose attacks on Israel had left the country “in shock.” Only in the third paragraph does the story quote the Palestinian prime minister’s accusation that Israel had killed the teenager “in cold blood.”
Wafa, the Palestine News Agency, released an image of Zakarneh, which CNN published with its story on her killing. By contrast, the BBC, in its story on the killing, used a photo depicting three members of Zakarneh’s family on the roof of their home.
In stories reporting attacks against young Israelis, the BBC often adopts a different approach to photos. A story about Emily Hand, an Israeli child who had been presumed killed on October 7 but was later released, features her image. A story about a 14-year-old Israeli boy who was killed in the West Bank earlier this year also included a picture of him. Late last year, a story about a 19-year-old British-Israeli IDF soldier—not a civilian—who was killed in combat was accompanied by his photo.
In other cases, facts unfavorable to Israel have been stripped out of Berg’s reports. In a May 2022 story about an annual march of far-right Israeli extremists through Palestinian areas celebrating the capture and occupation of East Jerusalem, Berg’s original copy described the marchers as singing “patriotic songs,” which traditionally included inflammatory, racist anti-Arab lyrics that went unmentioned by Berg. Indeed, when the march took place, the BBC initially reported chants of “death to Arabs!” and “may your village burn.” A BBC crew came under attack during the march; Israeli forces stopped the attack but took no further action. But these details did not appear in a later version of the story. The headline refers euphemistically to “Israeli nationalists stream through Muslim Quarter.” All of this caused a huge outcry on social media and among some BBC staff. These details were later reinstated, with an update noting they had been restored “to give a fuller picture of events.”
On one occasion, the BBC was forced to change Berg’s copy following external and internal backlash, BBC journalists said. In May 2022, an Israeli sniper killed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel has diligently tried to cover up her murder.
Berg’s original text about her funeral read:
The editorial decision not to ascribe responsibility triggered widespread outrage, including from Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab British Understanding and a prominent commentator who has repeatedly appeared on the BBC news channel. He tweeted: “how…Raffi Berg @bbcnews thinks ‘violence broke out’, ‘jostled’ and ‘clashes’ were appropriate terms I cannot fathom.” After widespread anger, the BBC updated the text to correctly open with “Israeli police have hit mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Aqla,” adding “Her coffin almost fell as police, some using batons, waded into a crowd of Palestinians gathered around it.” Nonetheless, the headline still lacked a sense of causality: “Shireen Abu Aqla: Violence at Al Jazeera reporter’s funeral in Jerusalem.”
Despite significant evidence of bias and internal protest, BBC journalists allege that the network has refused to investigate Berg’s crucial role in what they see as conduct that imperils the integrity of the BBC. “We have provided a pretty watertight account about what he’s said and done,” one journalist told me. The response from management has been limited to “Tim Davie saying: ‘It’s good you’ve raised this. We’ll look into it.’”
A Systematic Look at Coverage
Despite the grave concerns over bias and manipulation present in its coverage of Israel and Palestine, the fact is that the BBC is a juggernaut in world journalism. It employs a range of skilled journalists who have done principled and groundbreaking work, including on the Gaza war.
The site has run articles about British Palestinians grieving loved ones killed by the Israeli military, Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in the West Bank, and Israel being accused of a “possible war crime” in the killing of children in the West Bank. Berg himself has written articles on South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice and the court’s recent ruling, with accurate headlines: “UN top court says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal.” In addition, the BBC’s seasoned broadcast journalists have produced damning stories about Israel. In such cases, Berg is less likely to push for sweeping edits in such cases, some staff have suggested.
But an unprecedented analysis of more than 2,900 stories and links on the BBC news website in the year following October 7, 2023 reveals a profound imbalance in how the organization has reported Palestinian and Israeli deaths.
The total number of Israelis killed on and since October 7 is around 1,410, while the official Palestinian death toll is conservatively estimated at 45,000 people, a vast undercount. Yet according to new research by data journalists Dana Najjar and Jan Lietava, which builds on their previous work, the BBC is less likely to use humanizing language to refer to Palestinians than to Israelis. Najjar and Lietava also found that the organization refers to Palestinian deaths only slightly more often than Israeli deaths, despite the fact the Palestinian death toll is now the higher of the two by a factor of at least 28.
There is one exception to this latter trend. On April 1, Israeli drones targeted a three-car convoy belonging to the NGO World Central Kitchen, which was transferring food to a warehouse in northern Gaza after coordinating its movements with Israeli military authorities. Because six of the seven slain aid workers were westerners, their killings received widespread western media attention. The seventh worker killed in the attack was a Palestinian driver named Saifeddin Abu Taha. In each of the numerous BBC articles about the killing of the group, he is referred to as “their Palestinian colleague” or “the Palestinian driver.”
Because of this, mentions of Palestinian deaths surged. “It is the single-largest spike in the whole period in terms of the mentions of the deaths of Palestinians,” Lietava told me. “Even then, Saifeddin Abu Taha is very rarely mentioned directly, often only in association with the Western, majority white, group.”
This analysis is an expansion of Holly Jackson's work analyzing bias in media coverage of Israel and Palestine. Mentions are grouped by week. Death counts for Gaza are from Tech for Palestine and likely vastly undercounted. Death counts for Israel are from the IDF official website. See Github for complete methodology.
Najjar and Lietava also looked at causal versus non-causal headlines that mentioned death, dying, killing, suffering, starvation, or hunger—that is, headlines explicitly describing who killed who (e.g. “A was killed by B” or even “B killed A”), compared to those that did not (e.g. “A was found dead”). In the first nine months after October 7, just 27% of BBC news story headlines about Palestinian deaths explicitly mentioned who killed them. In the case of Israeli deaths, 43% identified the perpetrator. By contrast, when covering the Russian war against Ukraine, the BBC identified the killer in 74% of its reports of Ukrainian deaths.
A similar disparity emerged when analyzing the use of humanizing and emotive words to describe the deaths of Palestinians versus those of Israelis as the researchers found they were used proportionately far less for Palestinians. It was also present when examining terms such as “massacre,” “assault,” “slaughter,” “atrocity” and other terms—these were all applied disproportionately to Palestinian actions when compared to those committed by Israel. Only Israeli strikes were described as “retaliatory”—210 times—compared to 0 for Palestinians’ use of weapons during the period covered by the report.
“Look at the sheer number of stories about October 7 and the hell individuals went through—but not Palestinians, despite the disparity of scale,” one BBC journalist said. “It took until babies started starving to death [in Gaza] before we stopped focusing on the hostages.” Another is even more damning. “We’ve never known the racism to be so overt,” the journalist said.
In response to the overall findings of the study, the BBC said: “The algorithm does not provide insight into the context of the usage of particular words, either in relation to the attacks of 7 October or the Israeli offensive in Gaza. We do not think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words used and do not believe this analysis demonstrates bias.”
In response to the BBC’s statement, the researchers told me “We are not ascribing bias based on some perfunctory analysis of word frequency devoid of any other context,” emphasizing the abundance of evidence pointing towards the same conclusions. “Every word is a choice,” they said, “and words chosen or omitted repeatedly over the course of a full year of coverage are very strong indicators of editorial policy and/or prejudice. Likewise, disproportionately highlighting Israeli suffering and death when Palestinians are dying in far greater numbers tells us a great deal about whose lives matter and whose lives don't.”
Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images.
Deference to Israeli Claims
Since Israel’s onslaught against Gaza began in October 2023, BBC online’s deference to Israeli narratives has been apparent. BBC journalists pointed to specific examples—beginning with the fate of Nasser hospital in Gaza.
In February, the Israeli army laid siege to the hospital. “The evidence at our disposal points to deliberate and repeated attacks by the Israeli forces against Nasser hospital, its patients and its medical staff,” reads a report by NGO Médecins Sans Frontières that detailed the incident. That evidence includes repeated sniper attacks causing multiple deaths and injuries, fatal shell attacks, and the storming of the hospital in February, with the Israeli military detaining an MSF staff member and refusing to offer details on his condition until his release two months later.
The original BBC news headline for an article co-authored by Berg had been updated from “Israel special forces enter besieged Nasser hospital” to “Nasser hospital in catastrophic condition as Israeli troops raid.” The article’s framing aligns with Israeli narratives. The first two paragraphs read:
No hostages were ever found in Nasser hospital.
Deference to Israel also surfaced in the BBC’s first story on the Israeli army massacre of hungry Palestinians waiting for food in February, an article accompanied with the headline “Israel-Gaza war: More than 100 reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy.” The next day, the headline for a second story was “Large number of bullet wounds among those injured in Gaza aid convoy rush—UN.” The language is puzzling: as the article notes, there were multiple eyewitness accounts of the massacre, along with “the presence of Israeli tanks.” As one BBC journalist said, “‘Israel accused of firing on civilians’ would be more accurate.”
On March 8, the BBC published a subsequent piece by Berg with the headline: “Gaza convoy: IDF says it fired at 'suspects' but not at aid trucks.” The article foregrounds Israeli denials and claims, noting only fleetingly that a UN team had visited the injured and found “a large number of people with bullet wounds” (as per the BBC’s own headline from a few days before). Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that Israeli accounts were contradictory: Mark Regev, now a special advisor to Netanyahu, originally claimed Israeli troops were not involved at all. What makes this even harder to defend on editorial grounds is that BBC Verify—launched in May 2023 as the BBC’s fact checking and anti-disinformation department—published a separate piece on March 1 challenging Israeli claims about the massacre. That work was not woven into Berg’s article.
Source: Twitter/X.
Two days before the publication of the report, the NGO Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor had released detailed evidence of Israeli responsibility, including the apparent use of bullets that matched those in Israeli army weapons. A month later, CNN published a detailed piece based on video and eyewitness accounts discrediting Israeli claims, making it clear that the IDF had fired on crowds without warning, as survivors had said from the start.
In May 2024, far-right Israeli extremists blocked aid from getting into Gaza, in part by attacking and destroying the aid; the BBC headlined its story on the incident: “Israeli activists battle over Gaza-bound aid convoys.” As one BBC journalist said, an accurate headline would have been: “Far-right Israeli activists block aid convoys.” “Aid convoy denied entry to northern Gaza, UN says,” reads another headline from June 2024, neglecting to mention that Israel had been the responsible party.
One staffer believes the BBC has largely sought to align its journalism with the UK government’s foreign policy. As far as top brass is concerned, “Israel is treated like Ukraine, Palestinians like Russia,” the staffer said. If a journalist tries to challenge the double standards applied to Russia and Ukraine, managers are baffled, treating both Ukraine and Israel as British allies. “Look at headlines on what Russia does in Ukraine. But the headlines around Gaza are generally entirely unclear, and are never clear that Israel has been the perpetrator.”
Yet even in cases where the UK government has allowed for dissent, the BBC has largely clung to the Israeli narrative.
In January, the ICJ issued provisional orders to Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide.” But not only do the BBC online articles about famine fail to mention this—they also repeatedly fail to detail the actions being taken by Israel to block aid.
This is despite the fact that Lord David Cameron, the then-foreign secretary, wrote a letter in March to Alicia Kearns, the chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, outlining multiple ways in which the Israeli state was preventing aid from entering Gaza. Even the emphatically pro-Israel Jewish Chronicle ran the damning headline: “David Cameron condemns Israel for arbitrarily blocking Gaza aid.” The BBC website did not report on Cameron’s letter.
Earlier that month, the BBC ran an interview with Cameron on the same subject, with the headline, “David Cameron urges Israel to fix Gaza aid shortages.” Some, though not all, of the points Cameron raised in the letter were covered in the interview, but as one journalist pointed out, examples of Israeli obstructions to aid should be cited in every article on the subject. “Articles on famine in Gaza won’t mention the International Court of Justice rulings, or relevant stuff. The full context is lacking,” another journalist said.
This is consistent with the BBC news website’s coverage under Berg’s editorship. “Palestinian sources need to be verified, but Israeli sources do not,” one journalist said. “There’s red flags if linked to Hamas, but you can quote the IDF freely.”
The BBC’s Response
In response to this story’s allegations surrounding BBC’s coverage of Israel and Palestine and Berg’s role and background, a spokesperson for the network told Drop Site News: “We reject your attack on an individual member of staff. Like every journalist at the BBC, they must adhere to the BBC’s editorial guidelines which ensure that we report impartially and without fear or favor.” The statement continued:
The BBC’s defenders point to the fact that the organization is criticized from “both sides.” But even Turness dismissed this as a defense in a blog post titled “How the BBC is covering Israel-Gaza,” published on October 25, 2023. “We cannot afford to simply say that if both sides are criticizing us, we’re getting things right,” she wrote. “That isn’t good enough for the BBC or for our audiences. At the BBC we hold ourselves to a higher standard and rightly challenge ourselves to listen to our critics and consider what changes to make where we think that criticism is fair.”
The BBC told Drop Site News that it corrects mistakes in its stories. Yet one BBC journalist has pointed out that the organization has failed to correct claims in published stories about specific atrocities alleged to have been committed on October 7 that have since been proven false.
Hamas fighters and other armed Palestinian militants undoubtedly committed grave war crimes in the attacks of October 7. But the BBC website published a number of unverified claims about the attacks, a significant number of which originated from the accounts of the religious emergency response team Zaka; many of these claims have since been proven to be false and discredited, most prominently by Israeli media outlets. Yet BBC news stories still include these disproven claims, including those of multiple babies being killed or the bodies of 20 children being tied together and burned. Other media organizations, including the New York Times, have printed articles correcting some of the false claims they made about October 7, though, like the BBC, a staggering number of false reports remain on the websites of many major news organizations.
Even if BBC license payers complained about such false claims remaining in published stories, the organization would be unlikely to act on them: Their standard complaints process only deals with items broadcast or published in the last 30 days.
After 14 months of witnessing the BBC’s failures up close, these disenchanted journalists are divided between believing it is important to stay and try and make changes and wanting to abandon what feels like an irreparable systemic feature. But all agree that the gap between BBC coverage and the gravity of the atrocities committed is indefensible.
As one concludes: “Most people with a conscience here have found that the coverage is frankly despicable and certainly not up to our editorial standards.”
Raffi Berg on Netanyahu’s Bookshelf
Raffi Berg began his career in local radio, later spending nearly a year as a news editor for the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, an outlet he later discovered was run by the CIA—a fact he was “absolutely thrilled” to learn.
Berg’s first job at the BBC was as a reporter. His bylined work included “Israel’s teenage recruits,” a story published in 2002 that presented young IDF soldiers as courageous defenders of their country while failing to mention the occupation and settlement of Palestinian land or the widespread allegations of crimes documented by human rights organizations, including in Israel, and even the U.S. State Department. One BBC journalist described the article as an “IDF puff piece.”
Berg’s reported work also included a three-part series on Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. The series presented them as victims seeking “a better quality of life” and did not mention the fact that the settlements have been repeatedly deemed illegal. Instead, the series included a boxed sidebar, outside the text of the actual story, to relay that the settlements are “widely regarded by international community as illegal under international law,” but Israel maintains that “international conventions do not apply in the West Bank and Gaza because they were not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state in the first place.”
On January 11, 2009, demonstrators held a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in support of Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli military onslaught against Gaza in which up to 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of them believed to be civilians. Demonstrators held Israeli flags and placards emblazoned with the words: “END HAMAS TERROR! PEACE FOR THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND GAZA.” While the event was billed as supporting “Peace in Israel, Peace in Gaza,” speakers at the rally voiced support for Israel’s military offensive. “In this case, I think there is no such thing as disproportion. If you have got a war to fight, then you fight,” one speaker said.
The BBC coverage of the event proclaimed: “Thousands call for Mid-East peace.” Its story opened with several paragraphs that described the rally as showcasing speeches that characterized the Israeli military offensive as pro-peace and repeated without skepticism the claims of the organizers:
Thousands of pro-Israel supporters have gathered in London's Trafalgar Square to call for an end to the violence in the Middle East.
Organizers said they wanted people in Gaza and Israel to live in peace, but argued that Hamas must accept responsibility for the conflict.
Berg did not write the unbylined piece. But he attended the event “in a personal capacity” prior to becoming the BBC’s “Middle East online editor, or indeed acting editor,” the BBC said. Yet Berg was still a BBC staffer at the time, working on the website’s Middle East desk. In an article in which the BBC omitted key details about the nature of the rally, the organization interviewed Berg, a member of its own staff, as a participant in the pro-Israel protest. Berg even went to the trouble of writing a letter to Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post to take issue with its suggestion that only 5,000 people had attended what he called the “Israel solidarity rally at Trafalgar Square on Sunday.” “This is actually well short of the actual number,” he wrote. “The organizers, the Board of Deputies, said it was 15,000, and in my opinion (I was there) that is probably accurate.”
A decade later, the BBC amended its editorial guidelines to clarify that “people working in news and current affairs and factual journalism… should not participate in public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues.” By then, the BBC had concluded that the mere act of attending a protest in a personal capacity was a threat to perceptions of impartiality.
In 2013, Berg became Middle East editor for BBC news online. It was in this role where he encountered material that would form the basis for his book, “Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Diving Resort,” an account of the Israeli spy services’ efforts to evacuate Jews from Ethiopia between 1979 and 1983. In the book, Berg describes Mossad in glowing terms, calling the agency “much vaunted.” Berg received extensive cooperation from Mossad for the book, including “over 100 hours of interviews” of “past and present agents and Navy and Air Force personnel.” It was published in 2020. In an interview to promote the book, Berg said he collaborated on the project with “Dani,” a former senior Mossad commander he described as a “legend” who later became “a very close friend.”
An expert on Mossad who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal from within their professional circles told Drop Site News that the book failed to present crucial context surrounding Israel’s intelligence services, including their record of human rights violations, assassinations, and extraordinary renditions. Berg’s close relationship with Dani “raises the risk of adopting the viewpoints and value judgements of intelligence agencies,” the expert said, raising questions about Berg’s interest in the book’s subject. Books that romanticize the operations of spy agencies are “a powerful legitimizing device for intelligence services,” the expert said. “Authors who don’t even bother to raise tough questions about intelligence services are the best spokesperson these services could have hoped for. At the beginning of February 2020, Ohad Zemet, the spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in London, attended a launch event for Berg’s book, where he posed for a photo with the author and Mark Regev, then Israel’s ambassador to the UK. Zemet posted the photo in a tweet in which he called the book “wonderful.” A year later, Berg retweeted Zemet’s post, with the words: “big honour for me on a very special night.”
On August 23, 2020, Berg posted an image of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taking a phone call at his desk. In his post, Berg has zoomed in on and circled a copy of Red Sea Spies visible on a bookshelf behind the prime minister. “First time I’ve been on a prime minister's bookshelf!” he wrote. “I know I’ve got one of #Israel PM @netanyahu’s books on mine—but wow!” He tweeted a similar image in January 2021.
Source: Twitter/X
Source: Twitter/X
The BBC’s editorial guidelines concerning personal views and bias are clear. They state that “views or opinions expressed elsewhere, on social media or in articles or in books, can … give the impression of bias or prejudice and must also be avoided.” BBC journalists far more junior than Berg have been reprimanded or even disciplined for social media output seen as biased in favor of the Palestinian cause.
BBC journalists emphasize this context when they point to how Berg reshapes everything from headlines, to story text, to images, arguing he repeatedly seeks to foreground the Israeli military perspective while stripping away Palestinian humanity, with one journalist characterizing his approach as “death by a thousand cuts.”
In response to a request for comment from Berg, Drop Site News was informed that Berg had hired British-Israeli lawyer Mark Lewis, who is described as “the UK’s foremost media, libel and privacy lawyer.” The former director of UK Lawyers for Israel, Lewis attended the 2018 launch of Likud-Herut UK, a right-wing Zionist organisation, whose national director is his wife, Mandy Blumenthal. At the launch, Lewis emphasized the importance of “unapologetic Zionism.” Citing rising antisemitism, he announced that he and Blumenthal had immigrated to Israel in December 2018. “Europe in my view is finished,” he declared. His Twitter profile cites his current location as “Israel (legal work England).”
The BBC then informed Drop Site that its responses to our questions covered both Berg and the BBC. The BBC disputed the journalists’ characterization of Berg’s role and alleged bias, though the network declined to answer specific questions about claims made by current and former staffers.
Muhammed Bhar’s “Lonely Death”
In July, the BBC published a story on its website about Muhammed Bhar, a 24-year-old Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome and autism. He lived in Gaza with his family, who provided him with around-the-clock care. Since Israel began its assault on Gaza, he had been terrified of the shells exploding around him, caused by violence he was unable to understand. On July 3, the Israeli military raided Bhar’s home. The family begged for mercy for their disabled son, but the unit’s dog savaged him. He begged the dog to stop, using the only language he could access in that moment: “Khalas ya habibi” (“that’s enough, my dear”). The soldiers then put the injured man in a separate room, locked the door, and forced the family to leave at gunpoint. A week later, the family returned home to find Bhar’s decomposing body.
Bhar’s story was originally documented by Middle East Eye on July 12, with the headline: “Gaza: Palestinian with Down syndrome ‘left to die’ by Israeli soldiers after combat dog attack.” British newspaper The Independent covered it with the headline: “Gaza man with Down’s syndrome mauled by Israeli attack dog and left to die, family says.” Four days later after the first reports, the BBC published its own version of the story. Its headline: “The lonely death of Gaza man with Down’s syndrome.”
“There has to be a moral line drawn in the sand. And if this story isn’t it, then what?”
The headline did not reflect the hideous circumstances of Bhar’s death and omitted the specifics of who did what to whom—a recurring theme in complaints made by BBC reporters and presenters to management regarding the Corporation’s online coverage. In the original version of the story, it took 500 words to learn that an Israeli army dog had attacked Bhar, and a further 339 to discover how he had died.
Berg was the one to hit publish on the story, according to the edit history obtained by Drop Site. Optimo, the BBC’s content management system, shows that Berg made a series of pre-publication edits, before publishing the story, meaning that Berg himself must have signed off on its framing and deemed that the headline erasing Israeli responsibility satisfied the BBC’s editorial standards.
The article about Bhar sparked an outpouring of fury both internally at the BBC and on social media. In a post liked by 14,000 users, Husam Zomlot, Palestine’s ambassador to the UK, tweeted: “I don’t think there could be a worst murder in human history, still @BBCWorld headlines this as ‘death of a Gaza man’ to abdicate Israel of responsibility. Abhorrent!” Palestinian-American writer Tariq Kenney-Shawa mocked the absurdity of the framing. “A ‘lonely death,’ as if he died after a long battle with cancer or was perhaps swept away by the sea or lost under the rubble of an earthquake,” he tweeted.
Eventually, the BBC decided to rewrite the story. It changed the headline to “Gaza man with Down’s syndrome attacked by IDF dog and left to die, mother tells BBC.” It also inserted two new paragraphs at the top of the piece informing readers that the Israeli military had admitted “that a Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome who was attacked by an army dog in Gaza was left on his own by soldiers, after his family had been ordered to leave,” and that he was “found dead by his family a week later.” Even with the new phrasing, the story implied that the dog had attacked Bhar of its own volition, not that it was under the control of IDF personnel.
In its updated post, the BBC did not acknowledge that its previous version of the story omitted or downplayed key facts or explain to readers why it changed the headline. It did add a note at the bottom of the story: “This story was updated on 19 July with an IDF response.” The BBC also tweeted the article under its new headline, writing: “This post replaces an earlier version in order to update a headline that more accurately represents the article.”
The Bhar story symbolizes what the BBC staffers who spoke to Drop Site News say they want: Stronger assurances that BBC’s Israel and Gaza coverage upholds the organization’s policies around impartiality. As one BBC journalist told me: “There has to be a moral line drawn in the sand. And if this story isn’t it, then what?”
The objections over Berg’s role extend to his own writing. One BBC staffer highlighted Berg’s December 2022 article “Israel says likely killed Palestinian girl in error,” about Jana Zakarneh, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli snipers. The first two paragraphs read:
Israel says its forces appear to have unintentionally killed a 16-year-old Palestinian girl amid a gun battle with militants in the occupied West Bank.
The body of Jana Zakarneh was found on the roof of her house in Jenin after the firefight on Sunday night.
The story foregrounds the Israeli narrative—that Zakameh had been near gunmen who’d opened fire at Israeli troops, and that the Israeli military had been conducting near nightly raids in the West Bank as part of an operation against militants whose attacks on Israel had left the country “in shock.” Only in the third paragraph does the story quote the Palestinian prime minister’s accusation that Israel had killed the teenager “in cold blood.”
Wafa, the Palestine News Agency, released an image of Zakarneh, which CNN published with its story on her killing. By contrast, the BBC, in its story on the killing, used a photo depicting three members of Zakarneh’s family on the roof of their home.
In stories reporting attacks against young Israelis, the BBC often adopts a different approach to photos. A story about Emily Hand, an Israeli child who had been presumed killed on October 7 but was later released, features her image. A story about a 14-year-old Israeli boy who was killed in the West Bank earlier this year also included a picture of him. Late last year, a story about a 19-year-old British-Israeli IDF soldier—not a civilian—who was killed in combat was accompanied by his photo.
In other cases, facts unfavorable to Israel have been stripped out of Berg’s reports. In a May 2022 story about an annual march of far-right Israeli extremists through Palestinian areas celebrating the capture and occupation of East Jerusalem, Berg’s original copy described the marchers as singing “patriotic songs,” which traditionally included inflammatory, racist anti-Arab lyrics that went unmentioned by Berg. Indeed, when the march took place, the BBC initially reported chants of “death to Arabs!” and “may your village burn.” A BBC crew came under attack during the march; Israeli forces stopped the attack but took no further action. But these details did not appear in a later version of the story. The headline refers euphemistically to “Israeli nationalists stream through Muslim Quarter.” All of this caused a huge outcry on social media and among some BBC staff. These details were later reinstated, with an update noting they had been restored “to give a fuller picture of events.”
On one occasion, the BBC was forced to change Berg’s copy following external and internal backlash, BBC journalists said. In May 2022, an Israeli sniper killed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel has diligently tried to cover up her murder.
Berg’s original text about her funeral read:
Violence broke out at the funeral in East Jerusalem of reporter Shireen Abu Aqla, killed during an Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank.
Her coffin was jostled as Israeli police and Palestinians clashed as it left a hospital in East Jerusalem.
The editorial decision not to ascribe responsibility triggered widespread outrage, including from Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab British Understanding and a prominent commentator who has repeatedly appeared on the BBC news channel. He tweeted: “how…Raffi Berg @bbcnews thinks ‘violence broke out’, ‘jostled’ and ‘clashes’ were appropriate terms I cannot fathom.” After widespread anger, the BBC updated the text to correctly open with “Israeli police have hit mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Aqla,” adding “Her coffin almost fell as police, some using batons, waded into a crowd of Palestinians gathered around it.” Nonetheless, the headline still lacked a sense of causality: “Shireen Abu Aqla: Violence at Al Jazeera reporter’s funeral in Jerusalem.”
Despite significant evidence of bias and internal protest, BBC journalists allege that the network has refused to investigate Berg’s crucial role in what they see as conduct that imperils the integrity of the BBC. “We have provided a pretty watertight account about what he’s said and done,” one journalist told me. The response from management has been limited to “Tim Davie saying: ‘It’s good you’ve raised this. We’ll look into it.’”
A Systematic Look at Coverage
Despite the grave concerns over bias and manipulation present in its coverage of Israel and Palestine, the fact is that the BBC is a juggernaut in world journalism. It employs a range of skilled journalists who have done principled and groundbreaking work, including on the Gaza war.
The site has run articles about British Palestinians grieving loved ones killed by the Israeli military, Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in the West Bank, and Israel being accused of a “possible war crime” in the killing of children in the West Bank. Berg himself has written articles on South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice and the court’s recent ruling, with accurate headlines: “UN top court says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal.” In addition, the BBC’s seasoned broadcast journalists have produced damning stories about Israel. In such cases, Berg is less likely to push for sweeping edits in such cases, some staff have suggested.
But an unprecedented analysis of more than 2,900 stories and links on the BBC news website in the year following October 7, 2023 reveals a profound imbalance in how the organization has reported Palestinian and Israeli deaths.
The total number of Israelis killed on and since October 7 is around 1,410, while the official Palestinian death toll is conservatively estimated at 45,000 people, a vast undercount. Yet according to new research by data journalists Dana Najjar and Jan Lietava, which builds on their previous work, the BBC is less likely to use humanizing language to refer to Palestinians than to Israelis. Najjar and Lietava also found that the organization refers to Palestinian deaths only slightly more often than Israeli deaths, despite the fact the Palestinian death toll is now the higher of the two by a factor of at least 28.
There is one exception to this latter trend. On April 1, Israeli drones targeted a three-car convoy belonging to the NGO World Central Kitchen, which was transferring food to a warehouse in northern Gaza after coordinating its movements with Israeli military authorities. Because six of the seven slain aid workers were westerners, their killings received widespread western media attention. The seventh worker killed in the attack was a Palestinian driver named Saifeddin Abu Taha. In each of the numerous BBC articles about the killing of the group, he is referred to as “their Palestinian colleague” or “the Palestinian driver.”
Because of this, mentions of Palestinian deaths surged. “It is the single-largest spike in the whole period in terms of the mentions of the deaths of Palestinians,” Lietava told me. “Even then, Saifeddin Abu Taha is very rarely mentioned directly, often only in association with the Western, majority white, group.”
This analysis is an expansion of Holly Jackson's work analyzing bias in media coverage of Israel and Palestine. Mentions are grouped by week. Death counts for Gaza are from Tech for Palestine and likely vastly undercounted. Death counts for Israel are from the IDF official website. See Github for complete methodology.
Najjar and Lietava also looked at causal versus non-causal headlines that mentioned death, dying, killing, suffering, starvation, or hunger—that is, headlines explicitly describing who killed who (e.g. “A was killed by B” or even “B killed A”), compared to those that did not (e.g. “A was found dead”). In the first nine months after October 7, just 27% of BBC news story headlines about Palestinian deaths explicitly mentioned who killed them. In the case of Israeli deaths, 43% identified the perpetrator. By contrast, when covering the Russian war against Ukraine, the BBC identified the killer in 74% of its reports of Ukrainian deaths.
A similar disparity emerged when analyzing the use of humanizing and emotive words to describe the deaths of Palestinians versus those of Israelis as the researchers found they were used proportionately far less for Palestinians. It was also present when examining terms such as “massacre,” “assault,” “slaughter,” “atrocity” and other terms—these were all applied disproportionately to Palestinian actions when compared to those committed by Israel. Only Israeli strikes were described as “retaliatory”—210 times—compared to 0 for Palestinians’ use of weapons during the period covered by the report.
“Look at the sheer number of stories about October 7 and the hell individuals went through—but not Palestinians, despite the disparity of scale,” one BBC journalist said. “It took until babies started starving to death [in Gaza] before we stopped focusing on the hostages.” Another is even more damning. “We’ve never known the racism to be so overt,” the journalist said.
In response to the overall findings of the study, the BBC said: “The algorithm does not provide insight into the context of the usage of particular words, either in relation to the attacks of 7 October or the Israeli offensive in Gaza. We do not think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words used and do not believe this analysis demonstrates bias.”
In response to the BBC’s statement, the researchers told me “We are not ascribing bias based on some perfunctory analysis of word frequency devoid of any other context,” emphasizing the abundance of evidence pointing towards the same conclusions. “Every word is a choice,” they said, “and words chosen or omitted repeatedly over the course of a full year of coverage are very strong indicators of editorial policy and/or prejudice. Likewise, disproportionately highlighting Israeli suffering and death when Palestinians are dying in far greater numbers tells us a great deal about whose lives matter and whose lives don't.”
Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images.
Deference to Israeli Claims
Since Israel’s onslaught against Gaza began in October 2023, BBC online’s deference to Israeli narratives has been apparent. BBC journalists pointed to specific examples—beginning with the fate of Nasser hospital in Gaza.
In February, the Israeli army laid siege to the hospital. “The evidence at our disposal points to deliberate and repeated attacks by the Israeli forces against Nasser hospital, its patients and its medical staff,” reads a report by NGO Médecins Sans Frontières that detailed the incident. That evidence includes repeated sniper attacks causing multiple deaths and injuries, fatal shell attacks, and the storming of the hospital in February, with the Israeli military detaining an MSF staff member and refusing to offer details on his condition until his release two months later.
The original BBC news headline for an article co-authored by Berg had been updated from “Israel special forces enter besieged Nasser hospital” to “Nasser hospital in catastrophic condition as Israeli troops raid.” The article’s framing aligns with Israeli narratives. The first two paragraphs read:
Israel’s military claims it has captured “dozens” of terror suspects during a raid on southern Gaza’s main hospital, as staff and patients were forced to flee under gunfire.
Israel said it launched a “precise and limited mission” at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, adding it had intelligence that Hamas had held hostages there.
No hostages were ever found in Nasser hospital.
Deference to Israel also surfaced in the BBC’s first story on the Israeli army massacre of hungry Palestinians waiting for food in February, an article accompanied with the headline “Israel-Gaza war: More than 100 reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy.” The next day, the headline for a second story was “Large number of bullet wounds among those injured in Gaza aid convoy rush—UN.” The language is puzzling: as the article notes, there were multiple eyewitness accounts of the massacre, along with “the presence of Israeli tanks.” As one BBC journalist said, “‘Israel accused of firing on civilians’ would be more accurate.”
On March 8, the BBC published a subsequent piece by Berg with the headline: “Gaza convoy: IDF says it fired at 'suspects' but not at aid trucks.” The article foregrounds Israeli denials and claims, noting only fleetingly that a UN team had visited the injured and found “a large number of people with bullet wounds” (as per the BBC’s own headline from a few days before). Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that Israeli accounts were contradictory: Mark Regev, now a special advisor to Netanyahu, originally claimed Israeli troops were not involved at all. What makes this even harder to defend on editorial grounds is that BBC Verify—launched in May 2023 as the BBC’s fact checking and anti-disinformation department—published a separate piece on March 1 challenging Israeli claims about the massacre. That work was not woven into Berg’s article.
Source: Twitter/X.
Two days before the publication of the report, the NGO Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor had released detailed evidence of Israeli responsibility, including the apparent use of bullets that matched those in Israeli army weapons. A month later, CNN published a detailed piece based on video and eyewitness accounts discrediting Israeli claims, making it clear that the IDF had fired on crowds without warning, as survivors had said from the start.
In May 2024, far-right Israeli extremists blocked aid from getting into Gaza, in part by attacking and destroying the aid; the BBC headlined its story on the incident: “Israeli activists battle over Gaza-bound aid convoys.” As one BBC journalist said, an accurate headline would have been: “Far-right Israeli activists block aid convoys.” “Aid convoy denied entry to northern Gaza, UN says,” reads another headline from June 2024, neglecting to mention that Israel had been the responsible party.
One staffer believes the BBC has largely sought to align its journalism with the UK government’s foreign policy. As far as top brass is concerned, “Israel is treated like Ukraine, Palestinians like Russia,” the staffer said. If a journalist tries to challenge the double standards applied to Russia and Ukraine, managers are baffled, treating both Ukraine and Israel as British allies. “Look at headlines on what Russia does in Ukraine. But the headlines around Gaza are generally entirely unclear, and are never clear that Israel has been the perpetrator.”
Yet even in cases where the UK government has allowed for dissent, the BBC has largely clung to the Israeli narrative.
In January, the ICJ issued provisional orders to Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide.” But not only do the BBC online articles about famine fail to mention this—they also repeatedly fail to detail the actions being taken by Israel to block aid.
This is despite the fact that Lord David Cameron, the then-foreign secretary, wrote a letter in March to Alicia Kearns, the chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, outlining multiple ways in which the Israeli state was preventing aid from entering Gaza. Even the emphatically pro-Israel Jewish Chronicle ran the damning headline: “David Cameron condemns Israel for arbitrarily blocking Gaza aid.” The BBC website did not report on Cameron’s letter.
Earlier that month, the BBC ran an interview with Cameron on the same subject, with the headline, “David Cameron urges Israel to fix Gaza aid shortages.” Some, though not all, of the points Cameron raised in the letter were covered in the interview, but as one journalist pointed out, examples of Israeli obstructions to aid should be cited in every article on the subject. “Articles on famine in Gaza won’t mention the International Court of Justice rulings, or relevant stuff. The full context is lacking,” another journalist said.
This is consistent with the BBC news website’s coverage under Berg’s editorship. “Palestinian sources need to be verified, but Israeli sources do not,” one journalist said. “There’s red flags if linked to Hamas, but you can quote the IDF freely.”
The BBC’s Response
In response to this story’s allegations surrounding BBC’s coverage of Israel and Palestine and Berg’s role and background, a spokesperson for the network told Drop Site News: “We reject your attack on an individual member of staff. Like every journalist at the BBC, they must adhere to the BBC’s editorial guidelines which ensure that we report impartially and without fear or favor.” The statement continued:
The allegations you’ve made fundamentally misdescribe this person’s role, and misunderstand the way the BBC works.
More broadly, we reject any suggestion of a ‘lenient stance’ towards either side in this conflict. The Israel/Gaza conflict is a challenging and polarising subject to cover, but when asked to choose the one provider they would turn to for impartial reporting on this story, three times as many pick the BBC as choose our closest competitor. The BBC remains the world’s most trusted international news source.
We have transparently set out our approach to reporting the conflict—for example in this blog from Deborah Turness—and if we make mistakes we correct them. Our coverage should be judged on its own merits and in its entirety.
The BBC’s defenders point to the fact that the organization is criticized from “both sides.” But even Turness dismissed this as a defense in a blog post titled “How the BBC is covering Israel-Gaza,” published on October 25, 2023. “We cannot afford to simply say that if both sides are criticizing us, we’re getting things right,” she wrote. “That isn’t good enough for the BBC or for our audiences. At the BBC we hold ourselves to a higher standard and rightly challenge ourselves to listen to our critics and consider what changes to make where we think that criticism is fair.”
The BBC told Drop Site News that it corrects mistakes in its stories. Yet one BBC journalist has pointed out that the organization has failed to correct claims in published stories about specific atrocities alleged to have been committed on October 7 that have since been proven false.
Hamas fighters and other armed Palestinian militants undoubtedly committed grave war crimes in the attacks of October 7. But the BBC website published a number of unverified claims about the attacks, a significant number of which originated from the accounts of the religious emergency response team Zaka; many of these claims have since been proven to be false and discredited, most prominently by Israeli media outlets. Yet BBC news stories still include these disproven claims, including those of multiple babies being killed or the bodies of 20 children being tied together and burned. Other media organizations, including the New York Times, have printed articles correcting some of the false claims they made about October 7, though, like the BBC, a staggering number of false reports remain on the websites of many major news organizations.
Even if BBC license payers complained about such false claims remaining in published stories, the organization would be unlikely to act on them: Their standard complaints process only deals with items broadcast or published in the last 30 days.
After 14 months of witnessing the BBC’s failures up close, these disenchanted journalists are divided between believing it is important to stay and try and make changes and wanting to abandon what feels like an irreparable systemic feature. But all agree that the gap between BBC coverage and the gravity of the atrocities committed is indefensible.
As one concludes: “Most people with a conscience here have found that the coverage is frankly despicable and certainly not up to our editorial standards.”
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Dec 31, 2024 11:48 pm
London Police SHUT Down Pro-Palestinian Carol Service Organised By Jews, Christians and Muslims
by Owen Jones
Dec 31, 2024
If it looks and sounds like a police state...
Transcript
please indulge this thought experiment
imagine a group of mostly old women as
well as little children who were
Christian Jewish Muslim led by a priest
came together in Russia outside the
Kremlin to sing Christmas carols and
read poems in support of peace to oppose
the slaughter of innocent people and
then the Russian police moved in to
threaten them all with
arrest what would you think how would
our media report it well I can tell you
it'd be presented as damning evidence of
what an oppressive police state Vladimir
Putin runs but this happened here in
Britain in London at an Interfaith event
in Parliament Square compared by a vica
in which carols were sung and poems were
read out to oppose the slaughter of the
Palestinian people in a genocide armed
and facilitated by own government here's
some footage of the event
guys we got St moving now we have to
start
moving excuse me EXC have to start
moving now priest is just saying saying
a blessing please he just saying a p
blessing and then we we will
move excuse me you're insulting God
now I understand I'm by myp you
guys
Rel so that you may live deep within
your heart may God bless you with anger
and his Justice
oppression oppression and exploitation
of so that you may
work God bless you with tears
sh rection starvation
and so that you may reach out your your
hand to comfort them and to turn their
pain into Joy may God bless you with
enough
foolishness to believe that you can make
a difference in this world the protest
was organized by a range of
organizations like branches of the
Palestine solidarity Campaign which of
course has been the driving force for
the Palestinian cause here in Britain
Jewish voice for labor Christians for
Palestine qu for Palestine and so on now
I was honored to talk to berett who is a
church of England priest she compared
the event and Diana nzen a veteran
activist for Jews for justice who was
part of the event as well so this was an
Interfaith event obviously in support of
the movement
for so this was an Interfaith event and
it was an Interfaith event which was
drawing attention to the genocide being
suffered by the Palestinian people at
the hands of the Israeli State not just
Muslim Palestinians but of course
Christian Palestinians and this brought
together Muslim Muslims Christians and
Jewish people
non-believers um obviously using the
festive time as a very important hook um
now I think the way the police responded
is informative um about how the those
who are active for Palestine Justice are
treated but also the General State of
civil liberties in this country I would
say I just want to start with you
actually Helen I you're a you're a vican
the dases of Subic um you've been active
um in movements for justice I know for a
long time you just tell us a bit more
about what this event was all about the
event was really about bringing the
carols out onto the streets there are
Carol service happening across London at
this time of year in nice cozy um
Sanctified places um and they are
pedling uh something of a myth to people
who want to just swallow Hook Line and
SN of the idea of baby Jesus me and mild
and have their little shot of
Christianity and then go back to
shopping so um for me the discon between
the words of the carols and um what is
actually happening on the ground in
Palestine right now uh is like a massive
wound in my Ministry at the moment so
the opportunity to sing um in an
Interfaith context with my Muslim and
Jewish siblings with words that reflect
the actual facts on the ground for
Palestinian Christians Muslims and Jews
and also reown the words from some of
the mythologizing that has gone on
because Jesus was a pal inian Jew born
into to occupied territory so it felt
like an a golden opportunity to sing
words that are profoundly moving to very
familiar tunes and there's a sort of
dissonance between the tunes that are so
familiar to us and then the words coming
across that are less familiar because
they've been Rewritten to amplify the
story of the genocide and the apartheid
in Palestine right now I think Diana
you're you're a veteran activist with
Jews for justice for Palestinians why
was this important for you this event
what was it all about for you it's very
important for Jews to recognize that
obviously some of some Jews celebrate
Christmas others don't but it's
important for all of us to recognize
what is happening and what is being done
in in in Israel in Palestine and what is
being done by Jews at this time and we
have to reflect the fact that we
disapprove strongly of what is going on
and most of the words that were written
for the carols were written by Jewish
people Jewish people who feel a sense of
shock a sense of horror a sense of Shame
and for some of us rage are I can't
describe the feelings that those of us
have um who are watching watching what
is going on and feeling helpless so this
is one way of reflecting our views our
feelings at a very difficult
time uh very courageous and it's it's
obviously been inspiring throughout on
both sides of Atlantic how many of
course Jewish activists has been in the
the movement for Palestinian Liberation
what happened then with the police Helen
do you want to explain or din whoever
want to go first I I think I was at the
center of things because I was sort of
comparing the event so I was I was close
to the Christ in a rubble that we had
created of course referring to uh mon
Isaac's um nativity scene in his church
for those don't
knowre he's a pastor in Bethlehem just
so everyone knows who mon Isaac is yeah
so we were using this iconic image that
he had a year ago so we'd recreated that
with the crib from my church and a baby
and so on I was at the center so there
was I was within a a group of sort of
six seven deep but I was very aware as
we began after probably the first Carol
of the a very heavy police presence so
the police beginning to edged towards us
and then starting to see police officers
addressing Carol Singers um talking to
them and I became increasingly aware
that actually they were beginning to
threaten to arrest people so then we had
a um we had decisions to make because we
brought people together into a safe
space we wanted actually to create a a
Sacred Space where that there could be
be a real sense of the Sacred of all
people there and the voices of all
people being heard uh but there was this
sense and then the Vans pulled up and
then a whole contingent of police of the
Met turned up on the pavement and lined
up and I started to get a real sense
that um they were very intentional about
their disruption and and Interruption of
what we were doing um Diana may have
more to add to that yeah Dan what's your
kind of recollection well what happened
was they came and told us we would be
arrested and we asked what for and they
said for protesting and we said we were
singing carols and they said well you've
got Palestinian flags and we said well
Jesus was a Palestinian um and was born
in
Bethlehem um then they they they said
that um we couldn't understand why we
would be arrested and what we had done
wrong and they said there was this um uh
section
14 uh there which is part of the police
and criminal act of 2000 section 14 they
can disperse what they call a standing
protest and although we tried to reason
with them that this was not a protest
this was a carol singing they were
absolutely con you know committed to
what they were doing which was really
quite um difficult for us to understand
we had no we I had a speech that I was
going to give Helen was going to give a
blessing everything was disrupted it was
a wonderful inspirational experience and
yet suddenly it felt violent and
destructive and uh abusive and harassing
uh and that's what I told the police and
my uh complaint letter um because it
felt as if what we were doing was good
and what they were trying to do was make
us bad and and criminal almost criminal
interesting that you should said mention
the blessing Diana because as I was
trying to get the final blessing we
decided to draw it to a close because of
of this threat of arrest and didn't want
to make people vulnerable um as I
started the blessing I know that I had
four nuns pres who were saying to the
police you can't possibly stop this a
blessing is happening so it was a sort
of real extraordinary kind of um
Collision of police power and and and
worship of a type I mean I have to say
just you know taking a step back I mean
anybody seen the video footage just to
be you know don't take this the wrong
way not the most threatening um image
I've ever seen in my entire life I mean
literally just a group of you know often
many older women in particular standing
around sing carols what possible
justification in the minds of the police
could there be to use police powers to
threaten to arrest people what possible
disrup violent disruption could possibly
Be Imagined from a Carol service for
peace it's I mean how just I mean that's
what's astonishing here is it's just
surreal and what what You' expect
important
dictatorship it's something that you
have found in police States it's
something you find in authoritarian
States it's not something you expect in
this country and they were not only I I
have to say I'm disabled I have crutches
and there were children little children
there uh with mothers uh who who were
frightened and who will grow up feeling
that the police are not their friends um
you know so um that good to have
political education early I feel but
yeah carry
on well I understand but um uh yeah it
was I I I cannot think and in fact when
they wrote back to me following my
complaint so just explain that you
complained to the police and then they
got back Polie yes I sent them a letter
of complaint and I got a very quick
response resp extremely quick they
didn't even interview any Witnesses I
I'd given a couple of names as
Witnesses and they said they couldn't
they couldn't find what any reason for
um the for their action but they gave me
a few options namely that we would be um
that they that there was a chance of dis
disrupt of noise and disrupt
and also of of
um uh um oh I'm sorry I've got something
wrong and also of
um disturbing other communities which um
I I haven't got the exact words I can
see I mean there are very particular
powers in Parliament Square about noise
aren't there since the new police
crime and they I think they're very
modeled that would be a generous um yeah
got got muddled about how they apply
those so we weren making a noise the man
who objected the Iraq War from you know
as a result of his encampment the rules
changed around Parliament Square you
could say it might have been that I'm
just I've got is it okay if I just read
it bit because I've got your letter here
is it okay if I read a bit from it
because because in it he says I would
like to apologize on behalf of the
Metropolitan Police for any upset or
distress cause due to the dispersal I
tell them uh to find out why dispersal
was ordered so I could offer you an
explanation unfortunately I could not
find anything relating to the incident
and then it goes on there several
reasons as you say the just person might
be in place one might be to do with
Public Safety if the crowds were getting
too big or traffic was being disrupted
well that doesn't apply I mean it was a
modest Siz Carol service I would say
traffic you weren't standing in the
middle of the road um another reason may
have been the event may have been
causing public Community tensions I mean
that really is all Welling it's an
Interfaith event it's an event of
Christians Jewish people and Muslims um
it's literally bringing communities
together um what could be better for
dealing with Community tensions than a
show solidarity between the three
abrahamic faiths uh the the three
religions of the Holy Land I mean come
on I mean it's just stupid isn't it I'm
not saying any of these reasons were the
cause the reason they're not saying
there's a reason for the cause is
because they are nonsense um but it
could have been a possibility well
clearly not so they met clearly there
have theyve they said we have no idea
they've then come up with two
hypotheticals which are irrelevant
completely and utterly irrelevant um and
then and then says I hope you have a
positive experience should another event
be organized but of course you will now
have rationally as others will have the
fear that any event however Munday not
mundane I don't want to be L it's an
important event but however vanilla if
you like however um you know the most
you know the the least possible
aggressive protest is an interface event
with carols will always have that fear
the police could get involved leading
people to feel harassed and threatened
including little
children um so it's not good enough is
it that's that response is not good
enough they had they've said oh no idea
here's two reasons which aren't
applicable I'm not sure whether in fact
they they got a bloody nose out of that
I'm not sure about that I W I'm not sure
about what the other people complained
but I mean the look for the Metropolitan
Police was very bad very bad and we also
know that the section 14 dispersal
orders
98% of them are used by the Metropolitan
Police and the Metropolitan Police
already has a problem in terms of its um
of the feelings of the loc of the local
people it has to regain confidence and
this is no way to regain confidence of
the local population who already are
extremely suspicious of the metr yeah
and as you allude to I mean a government
report last year found that the
Metropolitan belief institutionally
racist institutionally sexist
institutionally homophobic and
institutionally corrupt so there's a
threat to community relations I don't
think it comes from an Interfaith event
of Jewish Christian and Muslim people
for peace um singing carols I think
probably the Met police have more
answers in that respects I'm just
finally though I mean well done but for
taking a stand both of you but also for
being able to come forward and speak
about this I mean just you know we don't
want to obviously put people off people
I mean it's more important to organize
events like this in
response um yeah but I suppose what
would your final message be just in
terms of you know what your your
resolution to to keep to keep speaking
out Helen my resolution is to build on
these Interfaith connections because I
think um they're so powerful they're
clearly so powerful they're fright and
the Met um so they must be doing
something right um to be able to form
those links and to be really visible
about that uh to push back against the
binary argument that this is an Arab
Jewish um Affair this is about ordinary
people from all faiths and none who are
being slaughtered and the more we can
speak out against that the more we can
be seen to be unified that is what's
frightening you know that we are many
they are few syndrome applies to Faith
as well as many other areas of political
activism and indeed the Christian
Community of Gaza which has been there
for the most of the time that
Christianity has existed may not survive
this um absolutely it's a tiny minority
now thousand
and I've interviewed GS and Christians
on this on this channel who's you know
that whose relatives have been murdered
one of them their father um and their
little sister both Palestinian
Christians who were killed by Israel's
genocide in
Gaza give them so much hope I mean
that's one of the things I'm in touch
with the Alma CRA family with the Casia
family in the alacra valley and when
they know things like this are happening
it's a tiny glimmer of hope for
them what about you
this must go on our answer has to be we
will not be intimidated we will not
allow them to challenge us and to say we
have no place here it is our place we
are the people speaking for Humanity we
are the people speaking for Truth For
Justice for equality and for
self-determination we will not be uh
intimidated we will not be coralled into
some uh little place that silences us
for for many of us Jews who have chosen
to stand against oppression Silence has
always been the option that sists use
and now it feels as if the Metropolitan
Police is using that as well but what we
need to do is to show that our Unity is
an answer to that our Unity is the way
we fight back our Unity is the way we
show the world what is best and what is
good and what is right uh at a time when
we're seeing evil every single day on
our on our phones in our on our
televisions and we need to stand up and
we need to stand strong and that is our
message all of us all of us together
will be and one day I mean this is our
message is our message for New Year this
is our message for Christmas and it's
our message for Hanukah which is happens
at the same time and which is happening
at the same space so that is what we
need to say amen amen amen to that I was
going to say Amen to that a very
powerful galvanizing message for the new
year I feel galvanized by that
galvanized to do more as we all should
do to use everything we have in our
power every platform we have to speak
out against one of the most obscene
crimes of our age directly facilitated
and armed by our governments and indeed
as we speak the people of Palestine as
many will be celebrating across the West
are starving being slaughtered in the
apocalyptic ruins of Gaza whilst others
are suffering pogroms in the West Bank
so let's remember that we have a
privilege to speak out here when so many
are being butchered and ignored by media
Outlets which are complicit in this
genocide uh thank you so much for both
of your courage your determination your
wisdom and your resolution uh everyone
watching this video please share it get
the voice get their words out leave
comments press like that's good for the
algorithm therefore more people listen
please be galvanized the lesson here is
not of course to be intimidated it's to
be more determined to speak out so let's
do that in the new year um thanks so
much to both of you thank you for asking
us thank you
by Owen Jones
Dec 31, 2024
If it looks and sounds like a police state...
Transcript
please indulge this thought experiment
imagine a group of mostly old women as
well as little children who were
Christian Jewish Muslim led by a priest
came together in Russia outside the
Kremlin to sing Christmas carols and
read poems in support of peace to oppose
the slaughter of innocent people and
then the Russian police moved in to
threaten them all with
arrest what would you think how would
our media report it well I can tell you
it'd be presented as damning evidence of
what an oppressive police state Vladimir
Putin runs but this happened here in
Britain in London at an Interfaith event
in Parliament Square compared by a vica
in which carols were sung and poems were
read out to oppose the slaughter of the
Palestinian people in a genocide armed
and facilitated by own government here's
some footage of the event
guys we got St moving now we have to
start
moving excuse me EXC have to start
moving now priest is just saying saying
a blessing please he just saying a p
blessing and then we we will
move excuse me you're insulting God
now I understand I'm by myp you
guys
Rel so that you may live deep within
your heart may God bless you with anger
and his Justice
oppression oppression and exploitation
of so that you may
work God bless you with tears
sh rection starvation
and so that you may reach out your your
hand to comfort them and to turn their
pain into Joy may God bless you with
enough
foolishness to believe that you can make
a difference in this world the protest
was organized by a range of
organizations like branches of the
Palestine solidarity Campaign which of
course has been the driving force for
the Palestinian cause here in Britain
Jewish voice for labor Christians for
Palestine qu for Palestine and so on now
I was honored to talk to berett who is a
church of England priest she compared
the event and Diana nzen a veteran
activist for Jews for justice who was
part of the event as well so this was an
Interfaith event obviously in support of
the movement
for so this was an Interfaith event and
it was an Interfaith event which was
drawing attention to the genocide being
suffered by the Palestinian people at
the hands of the Israeli State not just
Muslim Palestinians but of course
Christian Palestinians and this brought
together Muslim Muslims Christians and
Jewish people
non-believers um obviously using the
festive time as a very important hook um
now I think the way the police responded
is informative um about how the those
who are active for Palestine Justice are
treated but also the General State of
civil liberties in this country I would
say I just want to start with you
actually Helen I you're a you're a vican
the dases of Subic um you've been active
um in movements for justice I know for a
long time you just tell us a bit more
about what this event was all about the
event was really about bringing the
carols out onto the streets there are
Carol service happening across London at
this time of year in nice cozy um
Sanctified places um and they are
pedling uh something of a myth to people
who want to just swallow Hook Line and
SN of the idea of baby Jesus me and mild
and have their little shot of
Christianity and then go back to
shopping so um for me the discon between
the words of the carols and um what is
actually happening on the ground in
Palestine right now uh is like a massive
wound in my Ministry at the moment so
the opportunity to sing um in an
Interfaith context with my Muslim and
Jewish siblings with words that reflect
the actual facts on the ground for
Palestinian Christians Muslims and Jews
and also reown the words from some of
the mythologizing that has gone on
because Jesus was a pal inian Jew born
into to occupied territory so it felt
like an a golden opportunity to sing
words that are profoundly moving to very
familiar tunes and there's a sort of
dissonance between the tunes that are so
familiar to us and then the words coming
across that are less familiar because
they've been Rewritten to amplify the
story of the genocide and the apartheid
in Palestine right now I think Diana
you're you're a veteran activist with
Jews for justice for Palestinians why
was this important for you this event
what was it all about for you it's very
important for Jews to recognize that
obviously some of some Jews celebrate
Christmas others don't but it's
important for all of us to recognize
what is happening and what is being done
in in in Israel in Palestine and what is
being done by Jews at this time and we
have to reflect the fact that we
disapprove strongly of what is going on
and most of the words that were written
for the carols were written by Jewish
people Jewish people who feel a sense of
shock a sense of horror a sense of Shame
and for some of us rage are I can't
describe the feelings that those of us
have um who are watching watching what
is going on and feeling helpless so this
is one way of reflecting our views our
feelings at a very difficult
time uh very courageous and it's it's
obviously been inspiring throughout on
both sides of Atlantic how many of
course Jewish activists has been in the
the movement for Palestinian Liberation
what happened then with the police Helen
do you want to explain or din whoever
want to go first I I think I was at the
center of things because I was sort of
comparing the event so I was I was close
to the Christ in a rubble that we had
created of course referring to uh mon
Isaac's um nativity scene in his church
for those don't
knowre he's a pastor in Bethlehem just
so everyone knows who mon Isaac is yeah
so we were using this iconic image that
he had a year ago so we'd recreated that
with the crib from my church and a baby
and so on I was at the center so there
was I was within a a group of sort of
six seven deep but I was very aware as
we began after probably the first Carol
of the a very heavy police presence so
the police beginning to edged towards us
and then starting to see police officers
addressing Carol Singers um talking to
them and I became increasingly aware
that actually they were beginning to
threaten to arrest people so then we had
a um we had decisions to make because we
brought people together into a safe
space we wanted actually to create a a
Sacred Space where that there could be
be a real sense of the Sacred of all
people there and the voices of all
people being heard uh but there was this
sense and then the Vans pulled up and
then a whole contingent of police of the
Met turned up on the pavement and lined
up and I started to get a real sense
that um they were very intentional about
their disruption and and Interruption of
what we were doing um Diana may have
more to add to that yeah Dan what's your
kind of recollection well what happened
was they came and told us we would be
arrested and we asked what for and they
said for protesting and we said we were
singing carols and they said well you've
got Palestinian flags and we said well
Jesus was a Palestinian um and was born
in
Bethlehem um then they they they said
that um we couldn't understand why we
would be arrested and what we had done
wrong and they said there was this um uh
section
14 uh there which is part of the police
and criminal act of 2000 section 14 they
can disperse what they call a standing
protest and although we tried to reason
with them that this was not a protest
this was a carol singing they were
absolutely con you know committed to
what they were doing which was really
quite um difficult for us to understand
we had no we I had a speech that I was
going to give Helen was going to give a
blessing everything was disrupted it was
a wonderful inspirational experience and
yet suddenly it felt violent and
destructive and uh abusive and harassing
uh and that's what I told the police and
my uh complaint letter um because it
felt as if what we were doing was good
and what they were trying to do was make
us bad and and criminal almost criminal
interesting that you should said mention
the blessing Diana because as I was
trying to get the final blessing we
decided to draw it to a close because of
of this threat of arrest and didn't want
to make people vulnerable um as I
started the blessing I know that I had
four nuns pres who were saying to the
police you can't possibly stop this a
blessing is happening so it was a sort
of real extraordinary kind of um
Collision of police power and and and
worship of a type I mean I have to say
just you know taking a step back I mean
anybody seen the video footage just to
be you know don't take this the wrong
way not the most threatening um image
I've ever seen in my entire life I mean
literally just a group of you know often
many older women in particular standing
around sing carols what possible
justification in the minds of the police
could there be to use police powers to
threaten to arrest people what possible
disrup violent disruption could possibly
Be Imagined from a Carol service for
peace it's I mean how just I mean that's
what's astonishing here is it's just
surreal and what what You' expect
important
dictatorship it's something that you
have found in police States it's
something you find in authoritarian
States it's not something you expect in
this country and they were not only I I
have to say I'm disabled I have crutches
and there were children little children
there uh with mothers uh who who were
frightened and who will grow up feeling
that the police are not their friends um
you know so um that good to have
political education early I feel but
yeah carry
on well I understand but um uh yeah it
was I I I cannot think and in fact when
they wrote back to me following my
complaint so just explain that you
complained to the police and then they
got back Polie yes I sent them a letter
of complaint and I got a very quick
response resp extremely quick they
didn't even interview any Witnesses I
I'd given a couple of names as
Witnesses and they said they couldn't
they couldn't find what any reason for
um the for their action but they gave me
a few options namely that we would be um
that they that there was a chance of dis
disrupt of noise and disrupt
and also of of
um uh um oh I'm sorry I've got something
wrong and also of
um disturbing other communities which um
I I haven't got the exact words I can
see I mean there are very particular
powers in Parliament Square about noise
aren't there since the new police
crime and they I think they're very
modeled that would be a generous um yeah
got got muddled about how they apply
those so we weren making a noise the man
who objected the Iraq War from you know
as a result of his encampment the rules
changed around Parliament Square you
could say it might have been that I'm
just I've got is it okay if I just read
it bit because I've got your letter here
is it okay if I read a bit from it
because because in it he says I would
like to apologize on behalf of the
Metropolitan Police for any upset or
distress cause due to the dispersal I
tell them uh to find out why dispersal
was ordered so I could offer you an
explanation unfortunately I could not
find anything relating to the incident
and then it goes on there several
reasons as you say the just person might
be in place one might be to do with
Public Safety if the crowds were getting
too big or traffic was being disrupted
well that doesn't apply I mean it was a
modest Siz Carol service I would say
traffic you weren't standing in the
middle of the road um another reason may
have been the event may have been
causing public Community tensions I mean
that really is all Welling it's an
Interfaith event it's an event of
Christians Jewish people and Muslims um
it's literally bringing communities
together um what could be better for
dealing with Community tensions than a
show solidarity between the three
abrahamic faiths uh the the three
religions of the Holy Land I mean come
on I mean it's just stupid isn't it I'm
not saying any of these reasons were the
cause the reason they're not saying
there's a reason for the cause is
because they are nonsense um but it
could have been a possibility well
clearly not so they met clearly there
have theyve they said we have no idea
they've then come up with two
hypotheticals which are irrelevant
completely and utterly irrelevant um and
then and then says I hope you have a
positive experience should another event
be organized but of course you will now
have rationally as others will have the
fear that any event however Munday not
mundane I don't want to be L it's an
important event but however vanilla if
you like however um you know the most
you know the the least possible
aggressive protest is an interface event
with carols will always have that fear
the police could get involved leading
people to feel harassed and threatened
including little
children um so it's not good enough is
it that's that response is not good
enough they had they've said oh no idea
here's two reasons which aren't
applicable I'm not sure whether in fact
they they got a bloody nose out of that
I'm not sure about that I W I'm not sure
about what the other people complained
but I mean the look for the Metropolitan
Police was very bad very bad and we also
know that the section 14 dispersal
orders
98% of them are used by the Metropolitan
Police and the Metropolitan Police
already has a problem in terms of its um
of the feelings of the loc of the local
people it has to regain confidence and
this is no way to regain confidence of
the local population who already are
extremely suspicious of the metr yeah
and as you allude to I mean a government
report last year found that the
Metropolitan belief institutionally
racist institutionally sexist
institutionally homophobic and
institutionally corrupt so there's a
threat to community relations I don't
think it comes from an Interfaith event
of Jewish Christian and Muslim people
for peace um singing carols I think
probably the Met police have more
answers in that respects I'm just
finally though I mean well done but for
taking a stand both of you but also for
being able to come forward and speak
about this I mean just you know we don't
want to obviously put people off people
I mean it's more important to organize
events like this in
response um yeah but I suppose what
would your final message be just in
terms of you know what your your
resolution to to keep to keep speaking
out Helen my resolution is to build on
these Interfaith connections because I
think um they're so powerful they're
clearly so powerful they're fright and
the Met um so they must be doing
something right um to be able to form
those links and to be really visible
about that uh to push back against the
binary argument that this is an Arab
Jewish um Affair this is about ordinary
people from all faiths and none who are
being slaughtered and the more we can
speak out against that the more we can
be seen to be unified that is what's
frightening you know that we are many
they are few syndrome applies to Faith
as well as many other areas of political
activism and indeed the Christian
Community of Gaza which has been there
for the most of the time that
Christianity has existed may not survive
this um absolutely it's a tiny minority
now thousand
and I've interviewed GS and Christians
on this on this channel who's you know
that whose relatives have been murdered
one of them their father um and their
little sister both Palestinian
Christians who were killed by Israel's
genocide in
Gaza give them so much hope I mean
that's one of the things I'm in touch
with the Alma CRA family with the Casia
family in the alacra valley and when
they know things like this are happening
it's a tiny glimmer of hope for
them what about you
this must go on our answer has to be we
will not be intimidated we will not
allow them to challenge us and to say we
have no place here it is our place we
are the people speaking for Humanity we
are the people speaking for Truth For
Justice for equality and for
self-determination we will not be uh
intimidated we will not be coralled into
some uh little place that silences us
for for many of us Jews who have chosen
to stand against oppression Silence has
always been the option that sists use
and now it feels as if the Metropolitan
Police is using that as well but what we
need to do is to show that our Unity is
an answer to that our Unity is the way
we fight back our Unity is the way we
show the world what is best and what is
good and what is right uh at a time when
we're seeing evil every single day on
our on our phones in our on our
televisions and we need to stand up and
we need to stand strong and that is our
message all of us all of us together
will be and one day I mean this is our
message is our message for New Year this
is our message for Christmas and it's
our message for Hanukah which is happens
at the same time and which is happening
at the same space so that is what we
need to say amen amen amen to that I was
going to say Amen to that a very
powerful galvanizing message for the new
year I feel galvanized by that
galvanized to do more as we all should
do to use everything we have in our
power every platform we have to speak
out against one of the most obscene
crimes of our age directly facilitated
and armed by our governments and indeed
as we speak the people of Palestine as
many will be celebrating across the West
are starving being slaughtered in the
apocalyptic ruins of Gaza whilst others
are suffering pogroms in the West Bank
so let's remember that we have a
privilege to speak out here when so many
are being butchered and ignored by media
Outlets which are complicit in this
genocide uh thank you so much for both
of your courage your determination your
wisdom and your resolution uh everyone
watching this video please share it get
the voice get their words out leave
comments press like that's good for the
algorithm therefore more people listen
please be galvanized the lesson here is
not of course to be intimidated it's to
be more determined to speak out so let's
do that in the new year um thanks so
much to both of you thank you for asking
us thank you
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Jan 01, 2025 9:52 pm
What It’s Truly Like to Sleep in a Damp, Frigid Tent: A Report From Gaza: Five newborns have died of hypothermia amid the cold in Gaza. Doctors tell Drop Site the deaths are a direct result of Israel's blockades
by Abubaker Abed
Guest Post
Dropsite News
Jan 1, 2025
The streets of Deir al-Balah, where thousands of families set up their tents. Photo: Abubaker Abed.
DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA—On the morning of Dec 28th, Yahya Al-Batraan, a 40-year-old father of five sons and three daughters, got up in his dilapidated tent in Deir al-Balah’s western parts near the beach to find his 1-month-old baby, Jomaa, had frozen to death. His twin brother was hospitalized for hypothermia at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and faces a similar fate. Al-Batraan was displaced from Beit Lahia a year ago. His two brothers and many of his relatives were killed before his eyes. His house was razed to the ground after Israeli troops invaded and annihilated the camp.
Six people have frozen to death in Gaza during the past week, where the low temperatures have reached the low 40s in Fahrenheit—or about 8 degrees Celsius; five were infants less than a month old. Al-Batraan’s newborn baby will not be the last to die from hypothermia as conditions continue to deteriorate in the besieged territory.
“My wife and I got up in the morning. We checked the children as always. But my 1-month-old twin didn’t show any vital signs at all. When I touched him, his body was like a bottle of ice. I took him and rushed to the hospital on foot because I didn’t have the money for a taxi or even an animal-drawn cart. Doctors instantly told me that he passed away. I couldn’t hold my senses and burst into tears. Just moments later, my wife rang me to inform me that the other twin wasn’t breathing. We took him to the hospital. He is now under the resuscitation devices inside the ICU. However, doctors told me that he would die in the upcoming hours,” Al-Batraan said, as he choked in pain.
“I live with my family and my paralyzed parents in a tiny, flimsy tent made from torn blankets and pieces of nylon near the sea. We only have four mattresses and four blankets. All are so ripped apart. As it gets colder at night, I collect some garbage to set up a fire to heat the tent for the children. My children and I only wear one or two pieces of old clothing. We are always shivering with cold during the night hours. I sleep most nights without blankets and just put on my sweater.
“The babies’ mother can’t breastfeed them because she is severely malnourished and suffers from hypertension. Therefore, they’re both 1.6 kg. We barely eat one time a day, and we get our meal from one of the nearby free food distribution centers. One of my children has a trauma of looking at the sand because she has been eating Dugga for the past 14 months. We have no food, no water, no clothes, and no medications. Literally nothing. My tent has been flooded by the rain and blown away by the wind. And I am just waiting for the death of my other baby. I can’t take more heartbreaks,” he told Drop Site News.
“The hardest thing someone can ever endure is to see their children dying in front of them. There are no words to describe this feeling. But I went through it. My message to the world is that we’ve lost our dignity and everything. We need warmth and peace. Someone has to stop this genocide.”
The streets of Deir al-Balah, where thousands of families set up their tents. Photo: Abubaker Abed.
Dr. Mimed is an American emergency doctor who spent nearly thst month in Gaza volunteering at Gaza’s hospitals, particularly Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. She says that she is not shocked that babies are dying from the cold—the living conditions she witnessed are harsh and these babies live on the seaside where temperatures significantly drop. She also insists that Israel’s banning of building materials, which prevents building proper dwellings, amounted to their deaths.
“Dwellings need to be more secure. The humanitarian safe zone is neither humanitarian nor safe since most of the casualties we’ve been receiving are from there. If we want to end this, we need an immediate ceasefire and allow aid and decent containers and building materials in. It’s a huge difficulty for newborn babies to maintain their temperatures when they live under horrible circumstances and without basic human needs,” Dr. Syed explained to Drop site News.
“I’ve been in some people’s tents, and I can imagine the suffering against the backdrop of the extreme wind and rain,” she added. “Also, people don’t have good clothing to be insulated from the cold. Nor can they provide the medications to prevent hypothermia. Consequently, there is a dire need to allow shelter and proper nutrition in, which is just a basic human right. Almost every child I saw at the hospital here has malnutrition signs and patches of hypopigmentation on their skin and hair as well as some sort of inflammatory infectious conditions, let alone the gastrointestinal illnesses they are contracting because of terrible water contamination. I saw an infant who just kept coming to the hospital due to diarrhea, which is a result of the same living conditions. The future for children will be very bleak. There is actually no future.”
Dr. Khalid Abu-Habel, a volunteer emergency doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, has been tirelessly working since the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war. He describes the situation in Gaza as “unbearable” and “unsolvable” amid Israel’s continued blockade of the crossings. “In the open air along the sea line, temperatures hugely drop. So, it is almost impossible to protect them even if they have the clothes,” he told Drop Site News.
“People in Gaza live in tents,” he continued. “Most are along the sealine. The environment they are living in plays a major role in their suffering. Therefore, hypothermia is an anticipated result of the conditions. Children have neither winter clothes nor a good refuge to insulate them from the cold. They are even surrounded by litter and garbage and have already contracted viral infections. Most are malnourished and immunocompromised. Consequently, their bodies can lose temperature and can contract hypothermia very easily.”
Newborns, he said, are at particular risk: “Most newborn babies are born with impairments or deformities because mothers have been subjected to unimaginable trauma, malnutrition, dehydration, and several diseases. These children will easily be exposed to the cold and hypothermia and die.”
Sabreen Saleh and her husband sleep with only a couple of mattresses and three blankets in a perforated tent with no protection from the rain. Photo: Abubaker Abed
Sabreen Saleh, 32, has taken shelter in a leaky tent in Deir al-Balah with her husband and her two children, one of whom is a breastfeeding infant, after being displaced from Jabalya in northern Gaza. She has been very concerned about her baby’s health.
“The cold kills us during the night. We can’t bear it at all. We are here sleeping on the ground with only two mattresses and three blankets. But they are actually just shreds of fabric. We’ve been drowning over the past few days since the rain sneaks through our perforated tent and wets us and our belongings. We’re trembling with cold all day. My husband collects some wood to make a fire and warm us. But as we can’t afford to bring wood all the time, he sometimes resorts to shredding his own clothes or blankets to burn for the fire. My children and I have only some old clothes. We can’t afford anything. We mainly depend on the free food distribution center for our only meal, and we’ve been asking for aid from humanitarian organizations. However, we’ve only received aid two times since the war broke out.
“I fear a lot for my baby, especially after the death of several infants from the cold in Gaza. He wears only summer clothes because there is no winter clothing, and if available, they are sold at inflated prices. Since he was born a month ago, I haven’t showered him except for one time because I am scared of his consequent imminent death. During the night, his face becomes blue. I, as a result, take the towel and roll it around his body. My husband and I sometimes put our own blankets on our children and don’t sleep. What should we do? We don’t have any solutions. Our knees and bones hurt because of the freezing temperatures. But we can’t even purchase some medicine for our pain. We need a rainfly, suitable housing, and good nutrition. My children lack everything. This is our life drenched in extreme pain and horror. I just hope the war ends and we can return to what’s left of our houses.”
Hossam Al-Nabaheen's family in Deir al-Balah where he and 8 children take shelter with almost no means to live. Photo: Abubaker Abed
Hossam Al-Nabaheen, a 52-year-old displaced father of eight orphaned children, has been surviving on hardly a little for months as Israel bombed his house and displaced him from Al-Buraij camp in central Gaza. One of his sons has a chronic kidney condition treated with medications that are now too expensive for them. In his shabby tent in Deir al-Balah, the bare human necessities are nowhere to be found.
“I have eight children who desperately require everything: food, water, clothes, and medicine. But I am unable to get anything for them because prices are skyrocketing, staples are rarely available, and clothes need huge money to purchase,” he said. “We are shaking with cold every single day in our tent located in a very open area. The bitter fact is that we live on the streets where no protection, warmth, or safety can be seen. It is hellish. All that we have are two blankets and three mattresses. Our tent has been flooded by the rain because I can’t provide a tarp. My children are always barefoot and have only one piece of clothing on their bodies. They always have skin diseases and severe gastroenteritis because of the glacial weather. Yet, I can’t provide any medications, food, or good shelter for them. What else should I tell you? There are simply no words.”
“We gather around a woodfire at night to heat our bodies,” he continued. “But then, the cold debilitates us at night. As my children can’t bear the cold, I take my only blanket and cover them with it. This is my makeshift kitchen where I only have one bottle of oil. We only eat from the free meal distribution center. We’ve been calling on all humanitarian organizations, but we haven’t received any help. I have a massive responsibility and can’t take it under these stark and horrific conditions. This genocidal war has taken everything from us, including our homes and souls. I hope someone can help me navigate this grim, totally unavoidable reality. And we are praying for an end to this war in the new year.”
As long as Israel’s war and humanitarian blockade continues, more deaths from the cold are expected. “They need proper shelters, balanced nutrition, and a healthy environment as well as medications,” said Abu-Halel. “Nevertheless, this is unfeasible as all these things are now allowed in. An immediate end to the war will solve things. But as long as the cold weather hits Gaza, we mustn’t be surprised that more people, particularly children, will die from hypothermia in the upcoming weeks.”
Abubaker Abed is an accidental war correspondent from Deir al-Balah in Gaza. He was thrown into an active warzone to report on the genocide. He's a football journalist and commentator.
by Abubaker Abed
Guest Post
Dropsite News
Jan 1, 2025
The streets of Deir al-Balah, where thousands of families set up their tents. Photo: Abubaker Abed.
DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA—On the morning of Dec 28th, Yahya Al-Batraan, a 40-year-old father of five sons and three daughters, got up in his dilapidated tent in Deir al-Balah’s western parts near the beach to find his 1-month-old baby, Jomaa, had frozen to death. His twin brother was hospitalized for hypothermia at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and faces a similar fate. Al-Batraan was displaced from Beit Lahia a year ago. His two brothers and many of his relatives were killed before his eyes. His house was razed to the ground after Israeli troops invaded and annihilated the camp.
Six people have frozen to death in Gaza during the past week, where the low temperatures have reached the low 40s in Fahrenheit—or about 8 degrees Celsius; five were infants less than a month old. Al-Batraan’s newborn baby will not be the last to die from hypothermia as conditions continue to deteriorate in the besieged territory.
“My wife and I got up in the morning. We checked the children as always. But my 1-month-old twin didn’t show any vital signs at all. When I touched him, his body was like a bottle of ice. I took him and rushed to the hospital on foot because I didn’t have the money for a taxi or even an animal-drawn cart. Doctors instantly told me that he passed away. I couldn’t hold my senses and burst into tears. Just moments later, my wife rang me to inform me that the other twin wasn’t breathing. We took him to the hospital. He is now under the resuscitation devices inside the ICU. However, doctors told me that he would die in the upcoming hours,” Al-Batraan said, as he choked in pain.
“I live with my family and my paralyzed parents in a tiny, flimsy tent made from torn blankets and pieces of nylon near the sea. We only have four mattresses and four blankets. All are so ripped apart. As it gets colder at night, I collect some garbage to set up a fire to heat the tent for the children. My children and I only wear one or two pieces of old clothing. We are always shivering with cold during the night hours. I sleep most nights without blankets and just put on my sweater.
“The babies’ mother can’t breastfeed them because she is severely malnourished and suffers from hypertension. Therefore, they’re both 1.6 kg. We barely eat one time a day, and we get our meal from one of the nearby free food distribution centers. One of my children has a trauma of looking at the sand because she has been eating Dugga for the past 14 months. We have no food, no water, no clothes, and no medications. Literally nothing. My tent has been flooded by the rain and blown away by the wind. And I am just waiting for the death of my other baby. I can’t take more heartbreaks,” he told Drop Site News.
“The hardest thing someone can ever endure is to see their children dying in front of them. There are no words to describe this feeling. But I went through it. My message to the world is that we’ve lost our dignity and everything. We need warmth and peace. Someone has to stop this genocide.”
The streets of Deir al-Balah, where thousands of families set up their tents. Photo: Abubaker Abed.
Dr. Mimed is an American emergency doctor who spent nearly thst month in Gaza volunteering at Gaza’s hospitals, particularly Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. She says that she is not shocked that babies are dying from the cold—the living conditions she witnessed are harsh and these babies live on the seaside where temperatures significantly drop. She also insists that Israel’s banning of building materials, which prevents building proper dwellings, amounted to their deaths.
“Dwellings need to be more secure. The humanitarian safe zone is neither humanitarian nor safe since most of the casualties we’ve been receiving are from there. If we want to end this, we need an immediate ceasefire and allow aid and decent containers and building materials in. It’s a huge difficulty for newborn babies to maintain their temperatures when they live under horrible circumstances and without basic human needs,” Dr. Syed explained to Drop site News.
“I’ve been in some people’s tents, and I can imagine the suffering against the backdrop of the extreme wind and rain,” she added. “Also, people don’t have good clothing to be insulated from the cold. Nor can they provide the medications to prevent hypothermia. Consequently, there is a dire need to allow shelter and proper nutrition in, which is just a basic human right. Almost every child I saw at the hospital here has malnutrition signs and patches of hypopigmentation on their skin and hair as well as some sort of inflammatory infectious conditions, let alone the gastrointestinal illnesses they are contracting because of terrible water contamination. I saw an infant who just kept coming to the hospital due to diarrhea, which is a result of the same living conditions. The future for children will be very bleak. There is actually no future.”
Dr. Khalid Abu-Habel, a volunteer emergency doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, has been tirelessly working since the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war. He describes the situation in Gaza as “unbearable” and “unsolvable” amid Israel’s continued blockade of the crossings. “In the open air along the sea line, temperatures hugely drop. So, it is almost impossible to protect them even if they have the clothes,” he told Drop Site News.
“People in Gaza live in tents,” he continued. “Most are along the sealine. The environment they are living in plays a major role in their suffering. Therefore, hypothermia is an anticipated result of the conditions. Children have neither winter clothes nor a good refuge to insulate them from the cold. They are even surrounded by litter and garbage and have already contracted viral infections. Most are malnourished and immunocompromised. Consequently, their bodies can lose temperature and can contract hypothermia very easily.”
Newborns, he said, are at particular risk: “Most newborn babies are born with impairments or deformities because mothers have been subjected to unimaginable trauma, malnutrition, dehydration, and several diseases. These children will easily be exposed to the cold and hypothermia and die.”
Sabreen Saleh and her husband sleep with only a couple of mattresses and three blankets in a perforated tent with no protection from the rain. Photo: Abubaker Abed
Sabreen Saleh, 32, has taken shelter in a leaky tent in Deir al-Balah with her husband and her two children, one of whom is a breastfeeding infant, after being displaced from Jabalya in northern Gaza. She has been very concerned about her baby’s health.
“The cold kills us during the night. We can’t bear it at all. We are here sleeping on the ground with only two mattresses and three blankets. But they are actually just shreds of fabric. We’ve been drowning over the past few days since the rain sneaks through our perforated tent and wets us and our belongings. We’re trembling with cold all day. My husband collects some wood to make a fire and warm us. But as we can’t afford to bring wood all the time, he sometimes resorts to shredding his own clothes or blankets to burn for the fire. My children and I have only some old clothes. We can’t afford anything. We mainly depend on the free food distribution center for our only meal, and we’ve been asking for aid from humanitarian organizations. However, we’ve only received aid two times since the war broke out.
“I fear a lot for my baby, especially after the death of several infants from the cold in Gaza. He wears only summer clothes because there is no winter clothing, and if available, they are sold at inflated prices. Since he was born a month ago, I haven’t showered him except for one time because I am scared of his consequent imminent death. During the night, his face becomes blue. I, as a result, take the towel and roll it around his body. My husband and I sometimes put our own blankets on our children and don’t sleep. What should we do? We don’t have any solutions. Our knees and bones hurt because of the freezing temperatures. But we can’t even purchase some medicine for our pain. We need a rainfly, suitable housing, and good nutrition. My children lack everything. This is our life drenched in extreme pain and horror. I just hope the war ends and we can return to what’s left of our houses.”
Hossam Al-Nabaheen's family in Deir al-Balah where he and 8 children take shelter with almost no means to live. Photo: Abubaker Abed
Hossam Al-Nabaheen, a 52-year-old displaced father of eight orphaned children, has been surviving on hardly a little for months as Israel bombed his house and displaced him from Al-Buraij camp in central Gaza. One of his sons has a chronic kidney condition treated with medications that are now too expensive for them. In his shabby tent in Deir al-Balah, the bare human necessities are nowhere to be found.
“I have eight children who desperately require everything: food, water, clothes, and medicine. But I am unable to get anything for them because prices are skyrocketing, staples are rarely available, and clothes need huge money to purchase,” he said. “We are shaking with cold every single day in our tent located in a very open area. The bitter fact is that we live on the streets where no protection, warmth, or safety can be seen. It is hellish. All that we have are two blankets and three mattresses. Our tent has been flooded by the rain because I can’t provide a tarp. My children are always barefoot and have only one piece of clothing on their bodies. They always have skin diseases and severe gastroenteritis because of the glacial weather. Yet, I can’t provide any medications, food, or good shelter for them. What else should I tell you? There are simply no words.”
“We gather around a woodfire at night to heat our bodies,” he continued. “But then, the cold debilitates us at night. As my children can’t bear the cold, I take my only blanket and cover them with it. This is my makeshift kitchen where I only have one bottle of oil. We only eat from the free meal distribution center. We’ve been calling on all humanitarian organizations, but we haven’t received any help. I have a massive responsibility and can’t take it under these stark and horrific conditions. This genocidal war has taken everything from us, including our homes and souls. I hope someone can help me navigate this grim, totally unavoidable reality. And we are praying for an end to this war in the new year.”
As long as Israel’s war and humanitarian blockade continues, more deaths from the cold are expected. “They need proper shelters, balanced nutrition, and a healthy environment as well as medications,” said Abu-Halel. “Nevertheless, this is unfeasible as all these things are now allowed in. An immediate end to the war will solve things. But as long as the cold weather hits Gaza, we mustn’t be surprised that more people, particularly children, will die from hypothermia in the upcoming weeks.”
Abubaker Abed is an accidental war correspondent from Deir al-Balah in Gaza. He was thrown into an active warzone to report on the genocide. He's a football journalist and commentator.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:35 am
Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now
by Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte
Opinion contributors
12/26/24 8:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-bl ... ification/
The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House.
Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.
The first fully contested proceeding was Trump’s second impeachment trial. On Jan. 13, 2021, then-President Trump was impeached for “incitement of insurrection.” At the trial in the Senate, seven Republicans joined all Democrats to provide a majority for conviction but failed to reach the two-thirds vote required for removal from office. Inciting insurrection encompasses “engaging in insurrection” against the Constitution “or giving aid and comfort to the enemies thereof,” the grounds for disqualification specified in Section 3.
The second contested proceeding was the Colorado five-day judicial due process hearing where the court “found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three.” The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed. On further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court held that states lack power to disqualify candidates for federal office and that federal legislation was required to enforce Section 3. The court did not address the finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection.
Finally, there is the bipartisan inquiry of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. More than half of the witnesses whose testimony was displayed at its nine public hearings were Republicans, including members of the Trump administration. The inescapable conclusion of this evidence is that Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution. In particular, Trump unlawfully demanded that his vice president, Mike Pence, throw out votes in the Electoral College for political opponent Joe Biden, a power he did not have. While the riot was in progress, Trump used Pence’s rejection of his demand to further enflame the crowd and cause them to chant “Hang Mike Pence!”
Some will argue that the Supreme Court decision in the Colorado case, Trump v. Anderson, precludes Congress from rejecting electoral votes when they convene on Jan. 6, on the basis of 14th Amendment disqualification. This view lacks merit for three reasons.
First the majority’s suggestion that there must be new implementing federal legislation passed pursuant to the enforcement power specified in the 14th Amendment is what lawyers call dicta. Dicta are the musings of an opinion that are not required to decide the case. The holding that Section 3 is not self-executing may be an alternate holding, but thoughts about the kind of implementing statute required are plain dicta. Dicta are not precedential. The four dissenters strenuously objected to this part of the opinion as overreach to decide a question not presented. This overreach is a power grab which Congress is not required to credit.
Second, counting the Electoral College votes is a matter uniquely assigned to Congress by the Constitution. Under well-settled law this fact deprives the Supreme Court of a voice in the matter, because the rejection of the vote on constitutionally specified grounds is a nonreviewable political question.
Third, specific legislation designed for this situation already exists. The Electoral Count Act was first enacted in 1887 and later amended and restated in 2022. That statute provides a detailed mechanism for resolving disputes as to the validity of Electoral College votes.
The act specifies two grounds for objection to an electoral vote: If the electors from a state were not lawfully certified or if the vote of one or more electors was not “regularly given.” A vote for a candidate disqualified by the Constitution is plainly in accordance with the normal use of words “not regularly given.” Disqualification for engaging in insurrection is no different from disqualification based on other constitutional requirements such as age, citizenship from birth and 14 years’ residency in the United States.
To make an objection under the Count Act requires a petition signed by 20 percent of the members of each House. If the objection is sustained by majority vote in each house, the vote is not counted and the number of votes required to be elected is reduced by the number of disqualified votes. If all votes for Trump were not counted, Kamala Harris would be elected president.
The unlikelihood of congressional Republicans doing anything that might elect Harris as president is obvious. But Democrats need to take a stand against Electoral College votes for a person disqualified by the Constitution from holding office unless and until this disability is removed. No less is required by their oath to support and defend the Constitution.
Evan Davis was editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review and David Schulte was editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal. Both clerked for Justice Potter Stewart. Davis is a New York lawyer who served as president of the New York City Bar, and Schulte is a Chicago investment banker.
*****************
January 6 Should Be "Disqualification Day" For Adjudicated Insurrectionist Trump. But Will It Be?
by Glenn Kirschner
Jan 2, 2025
A new piece published in The Hill contends, " Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now."
But how realistic is it to expect the the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause to make a robust showing during the January 6 certification of the electoral college votes?
by Evan A. Davis and David M. Schulte
Opinion contributors
12/26/24 8:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-bl ... ification/
The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House.
Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.
The first fully contested proceeding was Trump’s second impeachment trial. On Jan. 13, 2021, then-President Trump was impeached for “incitement of insurrection.” At the trial in the Senate, seven Republicans joined all Democrats to provide a majority for conviction but failed to reach the two-thirds vote required for removal from office. Inciting insurrection encompasses “engaging in insurrection” against the Constitution “or giving aid and comfort to the enemies thereof,” the grounds for disqualification specified in Section 3.
The second contested proceeding was the Colorado five-day judicial due process hearing where the court “found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three.” The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed. On further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court held that states lack power to disqualify candidates for federal office and that federal legislation was required to enforce Section 3. The court did not address the finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection.
Finally, there is the bipartisan inquiry of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. More than half of the witnesses whose testimony was displayed at its nine public hearings were Republicans, including members of the Trump administration. The inescapable conclusion of this evidence is that Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution. In particular, Trump unlawfully demanded that his vice president, Mike Pence, throw out votes in the Electoral College for political opponent Joe Biden, a power he did not have. While the riot was in progress, Trump used Pence’s rejection of his demand to further enflame the crowd and cause them to chant “Hang Mike Pence!”
Some will argue that the Supreme Court decision in the Colorado case, Trump v. Anderson, precludes Congress from rejecting electoral votes when they convene on Jan. 6, on the basis of 14th Amendment disqualification. This view lacks merit for three reasons.
First the majority’s suggestion that there must be new implementing federal legislation passed pursuant to the enforcement power specified in the 14th Amendment is what lawyers call dicta. Dicta are the musings of an opinion that are not required to decide the case. The holding that Section 3 is not self-executing may be an alternate holding, but thoughts about the kind of implementing statute required are plain dicta. Dicta are not precedential. The four dissenters strenuously objected to this part of the opinion as overreach to decide a question not presented. This overreach is a power grab which Congress is not required to credit.
Second, counting the Electoral College votes is a matter uniquely assigned to Congress by the Constitution. Under well-settled law this fact deprives the Supreme Court of a voice in the matter, because the rejection of the vote on constitutionally specified grounds is a nonreviewable political question.
Third, specific legislation designed for this situation already exists. The Electoral Count Act was first enacted in 1887 and later amended and restated in 2022. That statute provides a detailed mechanism for resolving disputes as to the validity of Electoral College votes.
The act specifies two grounds for objection to an electoral vote: If the electors from a state were not lawfully certified or if the vote of one or more electors was not “regularly given.” A vote for a candidate disqualified by the Constitution is plainly in accordance with the normal use of words “not regularly given.” Disqualification for engaging in insurrection is no different from disqualification based on other constitutional requirements such as age, citizenship from birth and 14 years’ residency in the United States.
To make an objection under the Count Act requires a petition signed by 20 percent of the members of each House. If the objection is sustained by majority vote in each house, the vote is not counted and the number of votes required to be elected is reduced by the number of disqualified votes. If all votes for Trump were not counted, Kamala Harris would be elected president.
The unlikelihood of congressional Republicans doing anything that might elect Harris as president is obvious. But Democrats need to take a stand against Electoral College votes for a person disqualified by the Constitution from holding office unless and until this disability is removed. No less is required by their oath to support and defend the Constitution.
Evan Davis was editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review and David Schulte was editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal. Both clerked for Justice Potter Stewart. Davis is a New York lawyer who served as president of the New York City Bar, and Schulte is a Chicago investment banker.
*****************
January 6 Should Be "Disqualification Day" For Adjudicated Insurrectionist Trump. But Will It Be?
by Glenn Kirschner
Jan 2, 2025
A new piece published in The Hill contends, " Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now."
But how realistic is it to expect the the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause to make a robust showing during the January 6 certification of the electoral college votes?
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Jan 08, 2025 9:13 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/13/headlines
Mass Crowds Gather for First Friday Prayers Since Assad Ouster
Dec 13, 2024
In Syria, tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus and other cities for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.
The World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for some 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure people across Syria. That includes more than 1.1 million people uprooted by fighting since late November.
U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone
Dec 13, 2024
Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel.”
On Thursday, the U.N. called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.
Stéphane Dujarric: “The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The secretary-general is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria, stressing the need, the urgent need, to deescalate violence on all fronts throughout the country.”
In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would work to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. After headlines, we’ll go to Damascus for the latest on Syria.
96% of Gaza Children Think Death Is Imminent: Study Highlights Devastating Emotional Toll of Genocide
Dec 13, 2024
In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on Thursday ripped through a post office sheltering displaced Palestinian families in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 33 Palestinians, with 84 others wounded or missing. Elsewhere, separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Rafah and Khan Younis. Palestinian medics said those killed were part of a force protecting humanitarian aid trucks.
This comes as a new study finds 96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent, and nearly half said they wished to die. Four out of five children surveyed suffer from nightmares, and nearly three-quarters show signs of aggression. The study was conducted by the charity War Child Alliance, which said in a statement, “Alongside the leveling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”
Reporters Without Borders: Palestine Remains Most Dangerous Place for Journalists
Dec 13, 2024
Reporters Without Borders warns Palestine remained the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this year. Since October of 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 145 media workers, which the group condemned as an “unprecedented bloodbath.” Palestinian press freedom groups have put the number even higher, at nearly 200 journalists killed by Israel.
Mufid Abdulqader Freed After 16 Years Behind Bars for Work with Pro-Palestinian Charity
Dec 13, 2024
A Palestinian American man who was convicted and imprisoned in 2008 for his work with the charity Holy Land Foundation has been released from federal prison. Mufid Abdulqader, one of the so-called Holy Land 5, was released to a halfway house Thursday. Abdulqader and his four co-defendants — Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh — received sentences of up to 65 years under the Bush administration, accused of working for a terrorist organization.
The Holy Land Foundation raised millions of dollars for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, making it a target for pro-Israel groups in the U.S. Their case was widely denounced as political persecution during the height of the so-called war on terror and shuttered what was once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi remain behind bars.
New York Police Arrest Faculty and Students Demanding NYU Divest from Israel’s Wars and Occupations
Dec 13, 2024
Police arrested at least eight protesters at the campus of New York University Thursday as they nonviolently blockaded the university’s library to demand NYU divest from companies that profit from Israel’s war and occupation of Palestine. Among those arrested were two faculty members: Sonya Posmentier and Andrew Ross. They’re among six professors and dozens of students who’ve been declared “persona non grata” by campus security officials and barred from entering NYU buildings.
*******************
Report from Damascus: Relief Mixed with Sadness. Syrians Search for Loved Ones in Prisons & Morgues
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/13 ... transcript
We go live to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where the country’s populace is still reeling from the power struggle that forcibly displaced more than a million people over the last months. Investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb joins Democracy Now! while looking over the joyous scenes in the city, but reports there is a marked “contrast between the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and no answers for where the loved ones have gone.” El Deeb describes exploring Syria’s notorious prisons, the manhunt for U.S. citizens in the country, and how in the Gaza Strip Israeli soldiers have separated Palestinian families during raids.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.
DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.
AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.
This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.
Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would, quote, “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” unquote.
On Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.
In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers terrorist.
For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who’s based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.
Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —
SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.
SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.” But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.
HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons. But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.
SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone. Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before. I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.
So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers. And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.
What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found. Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killing at the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.
AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —
SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —
AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.
YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport. He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body found.
SARAH EL DEEB: I mean, I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.
I mean, his heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the U.S. — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.
One of his — one of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years. People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. There are also — that is on top of also all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.
So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a U.S. citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.
REPORTER: Travis.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.
REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.
REPORTER: That’s right.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.
REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a 'blessing.'” What can you share about him after interviewing him?
SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night before — yeah, last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated. He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.
His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating and a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —
SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?
SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.
I think the search, the U.S. administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison. But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons was chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing. I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.
SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital. They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.
But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.
And I think what her case kind of symbolizes is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detention, these raids. Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved. And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/13/headlines
Mass Crowds Gather for First Friday Prayers Since Assad Ouster
Dec 13, 2024
In Syria, tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus and other cities for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.
The World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for some 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure people across Syria. That includes more than 1.1 million people uprooted by fighting since late November.
U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone
Dec 13, 2024
Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel.”
On Thursday, the U.N. called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.
Stéphane Dujarric: “The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The secretary-general is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria, stressing the need, the urgent need, to deescalate violence on all fronts throughout the country.”
In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would work to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. After headlines, we’ll go to Damascus for the latest on Syria.
96% of Gaza Children Think Death Is Imminent: Study Highlights Devastating Emotional Toll of Genocide
Dec 13, 2024
In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on Thursday ripped through a post office sheltering displaced Palestinian families in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 33 Palestinians, with 84 others wounded or missing. Elsewhere, separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Rafah and Khan Younis. Palestinian medics said those killed were part of a force protecting humanitarian aid trucks.
This comes as a new study finds 96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent, and nearly half said they wished to die. Four out of five children surveyed suffer from nightmares, and nearly three-quarters show signs of aggression. The study was conducted by the charity War Child Alliance, which said in a statement, “Alongside the leveling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”
Reporters Without Borders: Palestine Remains Most Dangerous Place for Journalists
Dec 13, 2024
Reporters Without Borders warns Palestine remained the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this year. Since October of 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 145 media workers, which the group condemned as an “unprecedented bloodbath.” Palestinian press freedom groups have put the number even higher, at nearly 200 journalists killed by Israel.
Mufid Abdulqader Freed After 16 Years Behind Bars for Work with Pro-Palestinian Charity
Dec 13, 2024
A Palestinian American man who was convicted and imprisoned in 2008 for his work with the charity Holy Land Foundation has been released from federal prison. Mufid Abdulqader, one of the so-called Holy Land 5, was released to a halfway house Thursday. Abdulqader and his four co-defendants — Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh — received sentences of up to 65 years under the Bush administration, accused of working for a terrorist organization.
The Holy Land Foundation raised millions of dollars for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, making it a target for pro-Israel groups in the U.S. Their case was widely denounced as political persecution during the height of the so-called war on terror and shuttered what was once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi remain behind bars.
New York Police Arrest Faculty and Students Demanding NYU Divest from Israel’s Wars and Occupations
Dec 13, 2024
Police arrested at least eight protesters at the campus of New York University Thursday as they nonviolently blockaded the university’s library to demand NYU divest from companies that profit from Israel’s war and occupation of Palestine. Among those arrested were two faculty members: Sonya Posmentier and Andrew Ross. They’re among six professors and dozens of students who’ve been declared “persona non grata” by campus security officials and barred from entering NYU buildings.
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Report from Damascus: Relief Mixed with Sadness. Syrians Search for Loved Ones in Prisons & Morgues
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/13 ... transcript
We go live to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where the country’s populace is still reeling from the power struggle that forcibly displaced more than a million people over the last months. Investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb joins Democracy Now! while looking over the joyous scenes in the city, but reports there is a marked “contrast between the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and no answers for where the loved ones have gone.” El Deeb describes exploring Syria’s notorious prisons, the manhunt for U.S. citizens in the country, and how in the Gaza Strip Israeli soldiers have separated Palestinian families during raids.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.
DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.
AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.
This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.
Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would, quote, “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” unquote.
On Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.
In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers terrorist.
For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who’s based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.
Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —
SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.
SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.” But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.
HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons. But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.
SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone. Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before. I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.
So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers. And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.
What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found. Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killing at the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.
AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —
SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —
AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.
YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport. He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body found.
SARAH EL DEEB: I mean, I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.
I mean, his heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the U.S. — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.
One of his — one of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years. People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. There are also — that is on top of also all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.
So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a U.S. citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.
REPORTER: Travis.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.
REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.
REPORTER: That’s right.
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.
REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a 'blessing.'” What can you share about him after interviewing him?
SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night before — yeah, last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated. He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.
His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating and a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —
SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?
SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.
I think the search, the U.S. administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison. But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons was chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing. I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.
SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital. They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.
But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.
And I think what her case kind of symbolizes is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detention, these raids. Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved. And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Jan 08, 2025 9:19 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 16, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/16/headlines
Israel Continues to Bomb Syria, Pushes Ahead with Plan to Invade and Settle More of Golan Heights
Dec 16, 2024
Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. Last night, Israel dropped what has been described as an “earthquake bomb” on Syrian military and air defense sites in the coastal Tartus region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Israel’s bombing as the heaviest strikes in the area in more than a decade. According to the group, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week.
The Israeli government has also approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. This comes days after Israel invaded Syrian territory to seize more of the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the Biden administration has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist Syrian armed group that led the surprise offensive that toppled Assad. We will have more on Syria after headlines.
Topics:SyriaIsrael
Israel Kills Khaled Nabhan, Palestinian Man Who Mourned His Granddaughter Reem: “Soul of My Soul”
Dec 16, 2024
Israel’s unrelenting slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza continues. Early this morning, a strike on the Nuseirat camp killed Palestinian grandfather Khaled Nabhan, whose story was shared with millions around the world last November after Israel murdered his grandchildren, including 3-year-old Reem, whom Nabhan was filmed cradling while repeating the words “the soul of my soul.”
Separately, Israel bombed yet another U.N.-run school without warning, killing at least 20 people in the Khan Younis shelter. At least 60 Palestinians have been killed over the past day of attacks, bringing the official death toll of the genocide to more than 45,000 Palestinians, though the true toll is certainly much higher.
Topics:Israel & PalestineGaza
Israel Kills 3 More Reporters Incl. Mohammed Balousha, Who Exposed Killing of ICU Babies at Al-Nasr
Dec 16, 2024
At least three journalists have been killed in weekend attacks, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, as well as Mohammed Balousha, who last November was the first to report about the intensive care babies who died after Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuated the Al-Nasr Hospital. This is a clip from that reporting for Al Mashhad.
Mohammed Balousha: “This is the scene in the ICU of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital. It was under siege by the Israeli army. They didn’t allow these babies to evacuate and prevented anyone from rescuing them from the hospital. Until now, these bodies are still there alongside other bodies of citizens laying in the streets, while no party is able to pick them up and bury them with dignity.”
Israel’s unlawful targeting of Gaza’s hospitals continues more than a year later. In the north, Kamal Adwan Hospital remains under siege and attack by Israeli forces. Israel last week also ordered an area which includes the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital to evacuate. The hospital has the only neonatal intensive care unit in north Gaza to receive premature babies. Israeli forces have also destroyed the Abu Shbak Health Center in Jabaliya.
Topics:GazaIsrael & PalestineHealthcareJournalism
Jenin Residents Demonstrate Against Deadly Palestinian Authority Raids
Dec 16, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian Authority police forces have continued raids in the Jenin refugee camp, killing a senior leader of the resistance group Jenin Brigades Saturday. The killing of Yazeed Jayasa’a came amid an escalating crackdown by Palestinian Authority forces across the West Bank targeting groups resisting Israel’s occupation. Gunshots and explosions were heard across Jenin. Many residents have taken to the streets in protest of the raids. UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, has suspended its services in Jenin due to the violence.
Israeli soldiers have also continued near-daily attacks in the West Bank, including in Hebron, where Israeli forces shot and killed a disabled 23-year-old man during a raid Friday. Muhammad Ahmad Masalma, who had learning difficulties, was shot as Israeli soldiers arrested his cousin inside a paint shop.
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“Lawless”: Marwan Bishara on Israel Bombing Syria 800 Times & Expanding Occupation of Golan Heights
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 16, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/16 ... transcript
Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. “Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East,” says Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara. “It’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically.” Bishara also discusses Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the Syria strategy of other actors in the region, including neighboring U.S. allies that had previously attempted to normalize relations with Assad and extremist groups that have formed partially in response to U.S. aggression.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. Last night, Israel dropped what has been described as an “earthquake bomb” on Syrian military and air defense sites in the coastal Tartus region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Israel’s bombing as the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region in more than a decade. According to the group, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week.
The Israeli government has also approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. This comes days after Israel invaded Syrian territory to seize more of the Golan Heights. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, quote, “Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the state of Israel, and is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish, and settle it.”
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the Biden administration has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist Syrian armed group that led the surprise offensive that toppled Assad.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: So, first, yes, we’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties. We have impressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home. And we’ve also shared the principles that I just laid out for our ongoing support, principles, again, that have now been adopted by countries throughout the region and well beyond. And we’ve communicated those.
REPORTER: That’s direct contact?
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: That’s direct contact, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Blinken made the comments in Jordan. Over the weekend, he also visited Turkey and Iraq to discuss the future of Syria.
We go now to Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. He’s joining us from Doha.
If you can start off by responding to the latest, Marwan? Thanks for joining us again.
MARWAN BISHARA: Well, thank you for having me. I’m glad that the both of you are there in the studio. The last time I was with you, the both of you were there, and I was with Noam Chomsky, and we discussed the Arab Spring. It was the first two weeks of it.
AMY GOODMAN: Wow! Well, it’s —
MARWAN BISHARA: Thirteen years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, that’s absolutely amazing. Oh, and a belated happy birthday to Noam Chomsky, who turned, I think it was, 96 on December 7th. Marwan, if you can talk now — I wish we could have Noam Chomsky responding, as well, but if you can talk now about the latest news? And then we’re going to go back to look at the toppling of Assad, but right now this latest news of the attacks on Syria. I think the number of Israeli strikes is at about 800 now.
MARWAN BISHARA: It’s truly incredible. Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East. It has been doing so for the past 75, 80 years, but this week, in the way it’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically, bombing the hell out of its neighbor, simply because there has been a change of rulers in Damascus attempting a peaceful transitional governing there, taking care of the people, and sending all kinds of signals that they have absolutely zero intentions of getting into war with anyone. And yet, this what’s called “strategic opportunism” on the part of the Netanyahu government, also political opportunism just while he’s on trial for corruptions and the rest of it, being a war criminal also, he’s stealing the show by deflecting from what’s going on in Israel, attacking Syria everywhere in Syria, while at the same time expanding in the southern part of Syria beyond the already-occupied Golan Heights. And, as you said, he’s trying to double the illegal settlements in the Golan Heights. So, all in all, Israel, Netanyahu are sending exactly the wrong messages, doing exactly the wrong provocations, and at the same time setting precedents for rogueness, that I think it might not come to bite them soon, but it probably could later.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your response, Marwan, to the summit that was held in Jordan over the weekend? What do you think came out of it, and especially Secretary of State Blinken being there?
MARWAN BISHARA: You know, the first impression is to remember back the leaders’ parole, parole, parole. You know, sometimes things like only words, words and more words come out of Arab leaders and Arab summits, especially those with the United States. But then, if you look a little more deep into it, you would know that a lot of those people who — a lot of those leaders who were convening the summit in Aqaba have already been normalizing relations with the former Assad regime, despite its murderous corruption, despite its narco-state criminal kleptocracy. They’ve invited him back in the Arab League in 2022 and embraced him in 2023, and they were actually strengthening economic relations in the most of them. But now they were suddenly meeting together and to talk about human rights and peaceful transition and minority rights in Syria, as if, moving forward, or as if the past 60 years, it was merely the majority rights that were violated in Syria by the Assad dictatorship.
Be that as it may, I think while they sing from the same sheet, I think they have very different, very different approaches to what security means, to what stability means in Syria, to what even terrorism means. They don’t agree on this, that and the other thing. And, in fact, each and every one of the major powers in that meeting supports different militia, different military force in Syria. Just to give you a simple example, we have now what? Five or six military forces in Syria. We have the Free Syrian Army; we have the National Syrian Army; we have the militias, Syrian forces in the south; we have the Syrian Democratic Forces; and we have, of course, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — all in addition to Assad’s forces that remain there, as well as ISIS. A lot of these groups are supported by some of these people convening, including the Turks and the Emiratis and the Jordanians and so on and so forth. So, it’s going to be a very complicated way forward, and I remain doubtful that the Arab regimes are serious about assisting the Syrian people, moving forward.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to turn to President Biden speaking last week after the fall of Assad.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: So we carried out a comprehensive sanction program against him and all those responsible for atrocities against the Syrian people. Second, we maintained our military presence in Syria, our counter-ISIS — to counter the support of local partners, as well, on the ground, their partners, never ceding an inch of territory, taking out leaders of ISIS, ensuring that ISIS can never establish a safe haven there again. Third, we’ve supported Israel’s freedom of action against Iranian networks in Syria and against actors aligned with Iran who transported lethal aid to Lebanon.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was President Biden taking credit for the fall of Assad. Your response, Marwan?
MARWAN BISHARA: I tell you, it’s mind-boggling, mind-boggling, trying to whitewash genocide by saying, “Well, after all, 15 months of genocide, maybe, you know, we were on the right track after all. Look at us. You know, we are so great,” you know, and basically tapping himself on the shoulders after all the war crimes that were committed in Lebanon and in Palestine. And now he’s taking credit for some change that happened in Syria by the Syrian people — by the Syrian people — despite the complicity and the conspiracies against the Syrian people, and despite the embrace of the Assad regime by Biden’s allies in the region.
The second thing that came to mind is that, you know, Blinken and Biden keep warning us about ISIS, without mentioning that ISIS is basically the creation of the American invasion and occupation in Iraq, of the stupidities committed by everywhere from Bush to Obama, how they dealt with the question of Iraq, including the de-Ba’athifications, including the dissolving of the Iraqi military, that basically led directly to rise of ISIS. So, really, American intervention in the region, whether it is in Iraq or in Syria, and certainly in Palestine, has been catastrophic. Trying to claim credit for what happened in Syria or could happen in Syria is just beyond the pale.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the spokesperson Matt Miller, who was questioned by journalists recently.
MATTHEW MILLER: So, we support the work of the ICC. I know that, obviously, we have disagreed with their —
MATT LEE: Wait a second.
MATTHEW MILLER: Hold on. Hold on. I’m going to — let me address it.
MATT LEE: No, you support the work of the ICC —
MATTHEW MILLER: We do support —
MATT LEE: — until they do something like with Israel.
MATTHEW MILLER: We — so, we have had a lot — let me just answer the question.
MATT LEE: And then you don’t like them at all, or the U.S.
MATTHEW MILLER: You know what, Matt? Let me — Matt, let me answer the question, because I was addressing that before you interrupted me. We obviously have had a jurisdictional dispute with them as it relates to cases against Israel. That is a long-standing jurisdictional dispute. But that said, we have also made clear that we support broadly their work, and we have supported their work in other cases, despite our jurisdictional dispute when it comes to Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by AP’s Matt Lee, talking about why he would support Assad being brought up on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court but doesn’t feel the same way about Netanyahu and Gallant. In fact, that was just a few days after Gallant had been in Washington, D.C., even though the ICC has issued this arrest warrant, meeting with U.S. officials. Marwan Bishara?
MARWAN BISHARA: You know, Amy, it’s funny, right? I mean, each and every era has an image that speaks to it, that represents it, that reflects it. This was one of them, laughing out, laughing at the State Department spokesperson, the Biden administration’s spokesperson, for again underlining, emphasizing and basically speaking clearly to his double standard and hypocrisy.
But, you know, as an international relations observer, let me tell you, America does not have double standard in the Middle East. It has a single standard. And that’s American interest, American-Israeli interest. So, it’s not really a double standard. I mean, you know, global powers, empires, and notably the United States, it looks like, for us intellectuals and others, moralists, that there is double standard, but in the end of the day, they have a single, narrow American strategic, Israeli strategic interest, and they’ve always spoken to it, defended it, justified it.
So, that’s why for 15 months we’ve seen — at Al Jazeera, we’ve reported from — live from Gaza the unraveling genocide, the war on doctors, the war on journalists, the war on children, on schools and hospitals. And a lot of this has trickled down to the American media, and we’ve seen it. And I think the Biden administration understands that there is a genocide, trying to get off technicality. Of course, again, this was exposed to be the total hypocrisy which it is. It’s OK for Putin to be taken or indicted by the ICC, and Assad, it’s OK, even the Myanmar generals, it’s OK, but not the Israeli leaders. It’s hypocrisy and double standard for the rest of us. For America, it’s the one single standard: American-Israeli interest.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I also wanted to ask you about Gaza, which the rest of the world keeps trying to forget, the atrocity still going on there. At least three journalists killed in Israeli attacks this weekend, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, as well as Mohammed Balousha, who last November was first reported to — about the intensive care babies who died after Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuated of the Al-Nasr Hospital. Your response to these latest attacks on your fellow journalists?
MARWAN BISHARA: You know, we’ve been covering this for a while. And at one point, you start asking yourself the question: Is this intentional? Or is it actually, you know, war, as it were, you know, just it happens? But then, when we started investigating and others started investigating and when the U.N. started looking at it, as we did when our own journalists were killed in the West Bank, clearly there is an intentional policy of assassinating journalists in Gaza. They are the eyewitnesses of the unraveling genocide, and hence getting rid of them is a thing that Israel has been doing now for 15, 16 months.
Now, why has this become more and more believable is when, then, more and more human rights organizations start reporting about how children are being targeted, I mean, you know, shooting at children in the head and in the chest. We’ve seen that by doctors, including Western doctors, American doctors, reporting about that. Then, slowly but surely, one starts to believe that, in fact, there is a government, there is an army, that is capable of killing doctors intentionally, killing journalists intentionally, in fact, killing children intentionally. And all that happens while — I don’t want to talk about American journalists — while Israeli journalists are silent. Israeli journalists are silent as countless Palestinian journalists are killed by their military. Israeli doctors are silent as Israel assassinates countless doctors in the 15, 16 clinical or hospital facilities in Gaza, or what remains of them. So, it’s not just the incredible ugliness of it all, the rogueness of it all, the inhumanity of it all. What kills me is the silence in Israel, in the United States and elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: Marwan Bishara, we thank you for being with us, Al Jazeera senior political analyst, speaking to us from Doha.
Coming up, South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president. Stay with us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 16, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/16/headlines
Israel Continues to Bomb Syria, Pushes Ahead with Plan to Invade and Settle More of Golan Heights
Dec 16, 2024
Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. Last night, Israel dropped what has been described as an “earthquake bomb” on Syrian military and air defense sites in the coastal Tartus region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Israel’s bombing as the heaviest strikes in the area in more than a decade. According to the group, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week.
The Israeli government has also approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. This comes days after Israel invaded Syrian territory to seize more of the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the Biden administration has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist Syrian armed group that led the surprise offensive that toppled Assad. We will have more on Syria after headlines.
Topics:SyriaIsrael
Israel Kills Khaled Nabhan, Palestinian Man Who Mourned His Granddaughter Reem: “Soul of My Soul”
Dec 16, 2024
Israel’s unrelenting slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza continues. Early this morning, a strike on the Nuseirat camp killed Palestinian grandfather Khaled Nabhan, whose story was shared with millions around the world last November after Israel murdered his grandchildren, including 3-year-old Reem, whom Nabhan was filmed cradling while repeating the words “the soul of my soul.”
Separately, Israel bombed yet another U.N.-run school without warning, killing at least 20 people in the Khan Younis shelter. At least 60 Palestinians have been killed over the past day of attacks, bringing the official death toll of the genocide to more than 45,000 Palestinians, though the true toll is certainly much higher.
Topics:Israel & PalestineGaza
Israel Kills 3 More Reporters Incl. Mohammed Balousha, Who Exposed Killing of ICU Babies at Al-Nasr
Dec 16, 2024
At least three journalists have been killed in weekend attacks, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, as well as Mohammed Balousha, who last November was the first to report about the intensive care babies who died after Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuated the Al-Nasr Hospital. This is a clip from that reporting for Al Mashhad.
Mohammed Balousha: “This is the scene in the ICU of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital. It was under siege by the Israeli army. They didn’t allow these babies to evacuate and prevented anyone from rescuing them from the hospital. Until now, these bodies are still there alongside other bodies of citizens laying in the streets, while no party is able to pick them up and bury them with dignity.”
Israel’s unlawful targeting of Gaza’s hospitals continues more than a year later. In the north, Kamal Adwan Hospital remains under siege and attack by Israeli forces. Israel last week also ordered an area which includes the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital to evacuate. The hospital has the only neonatal intensive care unit in north Gaza to receive premature babies. Israeli forces have also destroyed the Abu Shbak Health Center in Jabaliya.
Topics:GazaIsrael & PalestineHealthcareJournalism
Jenin Residents Demonstrate Against Deadly Palestinian Authority Raids
Dec 16, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian Authority police forces have continued raids in the Jenin refugee camp, killing a senior leader of the resistance group Jenin Brigades Saturday. The killing of Yazeed Jayasa’a came amid an escalating crackdown by Palestinian Authority forces across the West Bank targeting groups resisting Israel’s occupation. Gunshots and explosions were heard across Jenin. Many residents have taken to the streets in protest of the raids. UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, has suspended its services in Jenin due to the violence.
Israeli soldiers have also continued near-daily attacks in the West Bank, including in Hebron, where Israeli forces shot and killed a disabled 23-year-old man during a raid Friday. Muhammad Ahmad Masalma, who had learning difficulties, was shot as Israeli soldiers arrested his cousin inside a paint shop.
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“Lawless”: Marwan Bishara on Israel Bombing Syria 800 Times & Expanding Occupation of Golan Heights
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 16, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/16 ... transcript
Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. “Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East,” says Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara. “It’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically.” Bishara also discusses Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the Syria strategy of other actors in the region, including neighboring U.S. allies that had previously attempted to normalize relations with Assad and extremist groups that have formed partially in response to U.S. aggression.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. Last night, Israel dropped what has been described as an “earthquake bomb” on Syrian military and air defense sites in the coastal Tartus region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described Israel’s bombing as the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region in more than a decade. According to the group, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week.
The Israeli government has also approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. This comes days after Israel invaded Syrian territory to seize more of the Golan Heights. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, quote, “Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the state of Israel, and is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish, and settle it.”
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the Biden administration has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist Syrian armed group that led the surprise offensive that toppled Assad.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: So, first, yes, we’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties. We have impressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home. And we’ve also shared the principles that I just laid out for our ongoing support, principles, again, that have now been adopted by countries throughout the region and well beyond. And we’ve communicated those.
REPORTER: That’s direct contact?
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: That’s direct contact, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Blinken made the comments in Jordan. Over the weekend, he also visited Turkey and Iraq to discuss the future of Syria.
We go now to Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. He’s joining us from Doha.
If you can start off by responding to the latest, Marwan? Thanks for joining us again.
MARWAN BISHARA: Well, thank you for having me. I’m glad that the both of you are there in the studio. The last time I was with you, the both of you were there, and I was with Noam Chomsky, and we discussed the Arab Spring. It was the first two weeks of it.
AMY GOODMAN: Wow! Well, it’s —
MARWAN BISHARA: Thirteen years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, that’s absolutely amazing. Oh, and a belated happy birthday to Noam Chomsky, who turned, I think it was, 96 on December 7th. Marwan, if you can talk now — I wish we could have Noam Chomsky responding, as well, but if you can talk now about the latest news? And then we’re going to go back to look at the toppling of Assad, but right now this latest news of the attacks on Syria. I think the number of Israeli strikes is at about 800 now.
MARWAN BISHARA: It’s truly incredible. Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East. It has been doing so for the past 75, 80 years, but this week, in the way it’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically, bombing the hell out of its neighbor, simply because there has been a change of rulers in Damascus attempting a peaceful transitional governing there, taking care of the people, and sending all kinds of signals that they have absolutely zero intentions of getting into war with anyone. And yet, this what’s called “strategic opportunism” on the part of the Netanyahu government, also political opportunism just while he’s on trial for corruptions and the rest of it, being a war criminal also, he’s stealing the show by deflecting from what’s going on in Israel, attacking Syria everywhere in Syria, while at the same time expanding in the southern part of Syria beyond the already-occupied Golan Heights. And, as you said, he’s trying to double the illegal settlements in the Golan Heights. So, all in all, Israel, Netanyahu are sending exactly the wrong messages, doing exactly the wrong provocations, and at the same time setting precedents for rogueness, that I think it might not come to bite them soon, but it probably could later.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your response, Marwan, to the summit that was held in Jordan over the weekend? What do you think came out of it, and especially Secretary of State Blinken being there?
MARWAN BISHARA: You know, the first impression is to remember back the leaders’ parole, parole, parole. You know, sometimes things like only words, words and more words come out of Arab leaders and Arab summits, especially those with the United States. But then, if you look a little more deep into it, you would know that a lot of those people who — a lot of those leaders who were convening the summit in Aqaba have already been normalizing relations with the former Assad regime, despite its murderous corruption, despite its narco-state criminal kleptocracy. They’ve invited him back in the Arab League in 2022 and embraced him in 2023, and they were actually strengthening economic relations in the most of them. But now they were suddenly meeting together and to talk about human rights and peaceful transition and minority rights in Syria, as if, moving forward, or as if the past 60 years, it was merely the majority rights that were violated in Syria by the Assad dictatorship.
Be that as it may, I think while they sing from the same sheet, I think they have very different, very different approaches to what security means, to what stability means in Syria, to what even terrorism means. They don’t agree on this, that and the other thing. And, in fact, each and every one of the major powers in that meeting supports different militia, different military force in Syria. Just to give you a simple example, we have now what? Five or six military forces in Syria. We have the Free Syrian Army; we have the National Syrian Army; we have the militias, Syrian forces in the south; we have the Syrian Democratic Forces; and we have, of course, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — all in addition to Assad’s forces that remain there, as well as ISIS. A lot of these groups are supported by some of these people convening, including the Turks and the Emiratis and the Jordanians and so on and so forth. So, it’s going to be a very complicated way forward, and I remain doubtful that the Arab regimes are serious about assisting the Syrian people, moving forward.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to turn to President Biden speaking last week after the fall of Assad.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: So we carried out a comprehensive sanction program against him and all those responsible for atrocities against the Syrian people. Second, we maintained our military presence in Syria, our counter-ISIS — to counter the support of local partners, as well, on the ground, their partners, never ceding an inch of territory, taking out leaders of ISIS, ensuring that ISIS can never establish a safe haven there again. Third, we’ve supported Israel’s freedom of action against Iranian networks in Syria and against actors aligned with Iran who transported lethal aid to Lebanon.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was President Biden taking credit for the fall of Assad. Your response, Marwan?
MARWAN BISHARA: I tell you, it’s mind-boggling, mind-boggling, trying to whitewash genocide by saying, “Well, after all, 15 months of genocide, maybe, you know, we were on the right track after all. Look at us. You know, we are so great,” you know, and basically tapping himself on the shoulders after all the war crimes that were committed in Lebanon and in Palestine. And now he’s taking credit for some change that happened in Syria by the Syrian people — by the Syrian people — despite the complicity and the conspiracies against the Syrian people, and despite the embrace of the Assad regime by Biden’s allies in the region.
The second thing that came to mind is that, you know, Blinken and Biden keep warning us about ISIS, without mentioning that ISIS is basically the creation of the American invasion and occupation in Iraq, of the stupidities committed by everywhere from Bush to Obama, how they dealt with the question of Iraq, including the de-Ba’athifications, including the dissolving of the Iraqi military, that basically led directly to rise of ISIS. So, really, American intervention in the region, whether it is in Iraq or in Syria, and certainly in Palestine, has been catastrophic. Trying to claim credit for what happened in Syria or could happen in Syria is just beyond the pale.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the spokesperson Matt Miller, who was questioned by journalists recently.
MATTHEW MILLER: So, we support the work of the ICC. I know that, obviously, we have disagreed with their —
MATT LEE: Wait a second.
MATTHEW MILLER: Hold on. Hold on. I’m going to — let me address it.
MATT LEE: No, you support the work of the ICC —
MATTHEW MILLER: We do support —
MATT LEE: — until they do something like with Israel.
MATTHEW MILLER: We — so, we have had a lot — let me just answer the question.
MATT LEE: And then you don’t like them at all, or the U.S.
MATTHEW MILLER: You know what, Matt? Let me — Matt, let me answer the question, because I was addressing that before you interrupted me. We obviously have had a jurisdictional dispute with them as it relates to cases against Israel. That is a long-standing jurisdictional dispute. But that said, we have also made clear that we support broadly their work, and we have supported their work in other cases, despite our jurisdictional dispute when it comes to Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by AP’s Matt Lee, talking about why he would support Assad being brought up on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court but doesn’t feel the same way about Netanyahu and Gallant. In fact, that was just a few days after Gallant had been in Washington, D.C., even though the ICC has issued this arrest warrant, meeting with U.S. officials. Marwan Bishara?
MARWAN BISHARA: You know, Amy, it’s funny, right? I mean, each and every era has an image that speaks to it, that represents it, that reflects it. This was one of them, laughing out, laughing at the State Department spokesperson, the Biden administration’s spokesperson, for again underlining, emphasizing and basically speaking clearly to his double standard and hypocrisy.
But, you know, as an international relations observer, let me tell you, America does not have double standard in the Middle East. It has a single standard. And that’s American interest, American-Israeli interest. So, it’s not really a double standard. I mean, you know, global powers, empires, and notably the United States, it looks like, for us intellectuals and others, moralists, that there is double standard, but in the end of the day, they have a single, narrow American strategic, Israeli strategic interest, and they’ve always spoken to it, defended it, justified it.
So, that’s why for 15 months we’ve seen — at Al Jazeera, we’ve reported from — live from Gaza the unraveling genocide, the war on doctors, the war on journalists, the war on children, on schools and hospitals. And a lot of this has trickled down to the American media, and we’ve seen it. And I think the Biden administration understands that there is a genocide, trying to get off technicality. Of course, again, this was exposed to be the total hypocrisy which it is. It’s OK for Putin to be taken or indicted by the ICC, and Assad, it’s OK, even the Myanmar generals, it’s OK, but not the Israeli leaders. It’s hypocrisy and double standard for the rest of us. For America, it’s the one single standard: American-Israeli interest.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I also wanted to ask you about Gaza, which the rest of the world keeps trying to forget, the atrocity still going on there. At least three journalists killed in Israeli attacks this weekend, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Al-Louh, as well as Mohammed Balousha, who last November was first reported to — about the intensive care babies who died after Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuated of the Al-Nasr Hospital. Your response to these latest attacks on your fellow journalists?
MARWAN BISHARA: You know, we’ve been covering this for a while. And at one point, you start asking yourself the question: Is this intentional? Or is it actually, you know, war, as it were, you know, just it happens? But then, when we started investigating and others started investigating and when the U.N. started looking at it, as we did when our own journalists were killed in the West Bank, clearly there is an intentional policy of assassinating journalists in Gaza. They are the eyewitnesses of the unraveling genocide, and hence getting rid of them is a thing that Israel has been doing now for 15, 16 months.
Now, why has this become more and more believable is when, then, more and more human rights organizations start reporting about how children are being targeted, I mean, you know, shooting at children in the head and in the chest. We’ve seen that by doctors, including Western doctors, American doctors, reporting about that. Then, slowly but surely, one starts to believe that, in fact, there is a government, there is an army, that is capable of killing doctors intentionally, killing journalists intentionally, in fact, killing children intentionally. And all that happens while — I don’t want to talk about American journalists — while Israeli journalists are silent. Israeli journalists are silent as countless Palestinian journalists are killed by their military. Israeli doctors are silent as Israel assassinates countless doctors in the 15, 16 clinical or hospital facilities in Gaza, or what remains of them. So, it’s not just the incredible ugliness of it all, the rogueness of it all, the inhumanity of it all. What kills me is the silence in Israel, in the United States and elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: Marwan Bishara, we thank you for being with us, Al Jazeera senior political analyst, speaking to us from Doha.
Coming up, South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the president. Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Jan 08, 2025 9:30 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/17/headlines
Israeli Forces Attack Gaza “Safe Zone” and Again Assault Kamal Adwan Hospital
Dec 17, 2024
In Gaza, Israeli troops backed by armed drones have attacked the al-Mawasi refugee camp, which Israel had designated as a so-called humanitarian safe zone. Elsewhere, Israeli strikes have killed at least 10 people in Gaza City, while in northern Gaza, Israel has once again targeted the Kamal Adwan Hospital, knocking out the power generators, deploying explosive robots and planting booby traps around the hospital grounds. The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned Israel’s assault, writing, “Recent attacks have further damaged the oxygen supply, generators, and broken windows and doors of the patients’ rooms. The conditions in the hospital are simply appalling. We urge for the protection of health care and for this hell to stop! Ceasefire!”
Family Asks Blinken to Launch Independent Probe of Israel’s Killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi
Dec 17, 2024
Here in the United States, the family of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, is criticizing Secretary of State Antony Blinken after talks at the State Department on Monday. Family members have been demanding the U.S. launch an independent investigation into Eygi’s killing but said they left the meeting disappointed and with doubts that they will ever receive justice. Eygi, a recent graduate of the University of Washington, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita. Witnesses say she was fatally shot in the head by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed.
On Monday evening, Michigan Congressmember Rashida Tlaib rallied with Eygi’s family and supporters in a protest outside the White House.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “We all know that Ayşenur’s murder was not a 'tragic error,' as the president shamefully called it. It was devastating, I think, for her family to hear him say that. We know that, and she knew, that what the Israeli military did to her, they do to Palestinians every single day.”
“Nobody Is Going to Silence Ireland”: Irish PM Blasts Israel’s Closure of Dublin Embassy
Dec 17, 2024
Israel says it’s closing its embassy in Ireland over Dublin’s recognition of Palestinian statehood and its backing of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the World Court. On Monday, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris responded to the news.
Prime Minister Simon Harris: “You’re all here today asking me about Ireland’s position. What about Israel’s actions? What about what Netanyahu is doing to the innocent children of Gaza? This is — this is the diplomacy of distraction. And I think it is deeply regrettable that they took that decision. They have every right to take that decision to close the embassy. I’d rather it didn’t happen. We will continue to engage, continue to engage diplomatically. But nobody is going to silence Ireland.”
U.S. Officials Warn Turkey Is Preparing Invasion of Syrian Kurdish Autonomous Region
Dec 17, 2024
Senior U.S. officials say Turkey is building up its forces along the Turkish border with Syria in possible preparation for a large-scale incursion into territory held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds. That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports a Turkish invasion could be imminent near Kobani, a Kurdish-majority city in Syria.
Meanwhile, Syria’s ousted authoritarian president has made his first statement since he fled to Russia to seek political asylum. In a post on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel, Bashar al-Assad writes that his departure from Syria was not planned, and argued that Syria has “fallen into the hands of terrorism.”
Rights Groups Warn Mass Graves in Syria Could Hold Over 100,000 Victims of Assad Family
Dec 17, 2024
Human rights groups are warning mass graves across Syria could contain the bodies of more than 100,000 victims of Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez. One such site is in the Tadamon district of Damascus, where researchers are scrambling to examine evidence of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions. Hiba Zayadin is Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Hiba Zayadin: “We found human remains, bones, you know, part of a skull, fingers, ribs strewn around the entire area surrounding the mass grave, which shows that, really, you know, a lot more happened here than what we already knew. … What happened in Tadamon here is just one of many others that are being found out across the country, and so it is really urgent that at this time, where we can see that there’s quite a bit of chaos given this transition, that there needs to be quick, urgent securing of all of these areas so that we can really find out the truth about these places.”
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Alex Gibney on “The Bibi Files,” Netanyahu’s Corruption Case & How Endless War Keeps Him in Power
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 17, 2024
As the official death toll in Gaza tops 45,000 and Israel’s wars throughout the Middle East continue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in court for a long-awaited corruption trial, making him the country’s first sitting leader to face criminal charges. He is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. For more on this extraordinary case, we speak with acclaimed filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose latest documentary The Bibi Files features leaked behind-the-scenes footage of police interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife and those accused of bribing him. The film has been banned in Israel, and Netanyahu even tried unsuccessfully to stop it from screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, but Gibney says it is being widely shared inside Israel through unofficial channels. “Strictly speaking, this is a film about corruption,” Gibney tells Democracy Now! “It starts with petty corruption — being bribed with gifts and cigars, champagne, jewelry — but then the ultimate corruption is how he’s tried to elude a reckoning for his misdeeds, and in so doing, he wraps himself in the mantle of prime minister and then wages endless war.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The official death toll in Gaza has topped 45,000. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting a different battle inside Israeli courts. The first sitting Israeli prime minister to face criminal charges, he’s finally taking the stand at his long-running corruption trial. The case has gone on for years. He’s charged with fraud, breach of trust, accepting bribes in three separate cases.
We turn now to an extraordinary new documentary that offers an in-depth look into the charges against Netanyahu, featuring leaked footage of police interrogations of Netanyahu himself, his wife Sara and those accused of bribing him. This is the trailer to The Bibi Files.
INTERROGATOR: [translated] Our first question for you is whether you or any of your family members have received any gifts or favors from wealthy businessmen in the last decade.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is preposterous and insane. You’re trying to incriminate the prime minister on nonsense.
RAVIV DRUCKER: In this case, the facts are really simple. The prime minister and his wife are getting gifts.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] It’s a total lie!
RAVIV DRUCKER: And on the other side, Netanyahu did favors.
BENEFACTOR: [translated] We must find a way to reward him.
INTERROGATOR: [translated] What do you need to reward the prime minister for?
NIMROD NOVIK: Government officials are not allowed to take gifts. This is corruption.
RAVIV DRUCKER: The police, they investigated everybody.
BENEFACTOR: [translated] If this comes out, I’m dead.
INTERROGATOR: What did you get?
SARA NETANYAHU: Champagne and cigars. [translated] Necklaces, rings.
NIR HEFETZ: Sara Netanyahu is very important. Both of them never surrendered, never compromised.
SARA NETANYAHU: [translated] My husband is the strongest prime minister we’ve ever had.
NIR HEFETZ: They start to believe that they are untouchable.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Without shame! Saying things that didn’t happen!
AMI AYALON: After the catastrophe of the 7th of October, the war became another instrument to stay in power.
NIMROD NOVIK: When people serve for too long, it gets into their head.
RAVIV DRUCKER: The indictment made him dependent on the extreme right in Israel. He is now captive to their whims.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is nonsense.
RAVIV DRUCKER: Put all Israel in turmoil.
NIMROD NOVIK: Netanyahu is the architect of chaos.
AMI AYALON: He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He’s not a crackpot. He tried to kill the system. Nobody is above the law.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Do you remember that line from The Godfather? [in English] “Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.”
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for The Bibi Files, leaked secret footage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The new documentary The Bibi Files is directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney. The Bibi Files cannot be legally distributed in Israel due to privacy laws.
For more, we’re joined by filmmaker Alex Gibney. In 2008, he won an Oscar for his film Taxi to the Dark Side about an Afghan man who was tortured in prison at Bagram.
Thanks so much for being with us again, Alex. I went to see this film the other night at the theater. This is powerful. Explain why in this trailer we can’t see Netanyahu’s face in these deposition tapes. And how did you get these deposition tapes, when he, his wife, his son Yair and others are being questioned by police?
ALEX GIBNEY: OK, I’ll answer the — hi, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Hi.
ALEX GIBNEY: I’ll answer the questions in reverse. I was leaked these tapes. They’re interrogation videotapes done by the police that were a precursor to the indictment of Netanyahu on corruption charges. And in the tapes, you can see Netanyahu, his wife Sara, his son Yair and many of the people who attempted to bribe Netanyahu. They were — I thought they were explosive and very important. This, by the way, was before 10/7 or the war on Gaza. This when there was a big crisis over the judicial reform attempts by Netanyahu, which, of course, were done in part so he could elude any consequence from, you know, impending bribery charges.
But the key thing to understand about distribution in Israel is, when I got these leaked tapes, I made a promise to the source that I would not distribute the film in Israel, because the source could go to prison. There are privacy laws that make it mandatory that if you are photographed as part of an official proceeding — i.e. a police interrogation — you can’t cause those videotapes to be released, so — unless you get the permission of Netanyahu and Sara, etc., which wasn’t going to happen. So, anyway, that is the occasion of why these things can’t be — this film can’t be released and why we had to, you know, black-bar the trailer in order so that the trailer wouldn’t be freely visible — I couldn’t cause the trailer to be freely visible in Israel. Though I should say that it’s being widely pirated there.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Netanyahu is going after you?
ALEX GIBNEY: Netanyahu, as soon as it was announced that we were going to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, he went to an Israeli court and tried to stop the screening in Toronto. Now, how that was going to happen, I don’t know. But in any event, it was denied. But he certainly tried to stop us. And I understand the Netanyahu administration, through a number of mechanisms, are trying very hard to go after a guy named Raviv Drucker, who’s one of the producers of the film and is a longtime Israeli journalist who has an expertise in this kind of corruption, has been the bane of a number of prime ministers, but particularly Netanyahu.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from The Bibi Files. It begins with Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet.
AMI AYALON: And after the catastrophe of the 7th of October, the war became another instrument to stay in power. He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He survived when we fight each other. He survived when our enemies fight each other.
GILI SCHWARTZ: A forever war is beneficial to Netanyahu. This makes people feel like they are always in danger, like they always need him. There is always some huge threat. I think that that helps him remain prime minister.
AMY GOODMAN: That last voice, the young Israeli woman, Gili Schwartz, is from Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than a hundred people were killed on October 7th last year. Alex, if you can elaborate on what they are saying? I mean, as we speak, Netanyahu is in court in Israel right now. What this means? They say he wants to wage wider war because, otherwise, he’s no longer going to be protected by the prime ministership, by being prime minister.
ALEX GIBNEY: That’s right. I mean, I think, strictly speaking, this is a film about corruption. And it starts with petty corruption, being bribed with gifts and cigars, champagne, jewelry. But then, the ultimate corruption is how he’s tried to elude a reckoning for his misdeeds, and in so doing, he wraps himself in the mantle of prime minister and then wages endless war. Now, I can’t think of really anything more corrupt than somebody who is administering the killing of women and children in order to be able to stay in power. But that is what they are alleging, and that is what the film is about.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from The Bibi Files. This one begins with Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing the U.S. Congress this past July.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Together, we shall defend our common civilization. Together, we shall secure a brilliant future for both our nations.
NIMROD NOVIK: Well, I would say that, tragically, the Americans don’t know how to call him out. There was no plan for ending the war of Gaza, bringing the hostages home and changing dynamics in the region. And things only got worse. Netanyahu is the architect of chaos. And as we speak, when all eyes are on the front in Gaza and the front in Lebanon, he is implementing his plan in the West Bank with the extreme right. He may create a situation where it’s irreversible.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s Nimrod Novik, former adviser to Shimon Peres, in The Bibi Files, the documentary produced by Alex Gibney, who’s with us now. So, talk about how this trial plays out right now. I think most people in the United States aren’t even aware. I mean, you have the horror in Gaza. You have what’s now taking place in Syria, what’s happening in Lebanon. Explain how this all fits in.
ALEX GIBNEY: Well, this is a trial that’s been going on for four years. And Netanyahu has been trying to elude a reckoning related to these charges for that much time. And what he constantly does is to wrap himself in the mantle of leadership. And so, what better way to do that? And this is a tried and true political formula, as grisly and as grotesque as it is, is to wage war, is to continue to use weapons and say, “We’re in danger of being annihilated, so we must strike back.” But, I mean, the destruction that’s going on in Gaza, for example, is a kind of wanton destruction at this point that is just beyond any kind of moral reckoning. And, you know, I think that also the United States bears some responsibility for this. That’s why we included those clips of him in the Congress. You know, we supply Israel with so much aid and so much —
AMY GOODMAN: And to be clear, Sara, his wife, and when she’s being questioned, she yells at the police and says, “Do you know how he’s treated in the United States when he addresses a joint session of Congress?” Alex Gibney, we’re going to have to leave it there, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and producer of The Bibi Files. His next film is about Luigi Mangione and the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. I’m Amy Goodman. Happy birthday, Jeff Stauch!
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 17, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/17/headlines
Israeli Forces Attack Gaza “Safe Zone” and Again Assault Kamal Adwan Hospital
Dec 17, 2024
In Gaza, Israeli troops backed by armed drones have attacked the al-Mawasi refugee camp, which Israel had designated as a so-called humanitarian safe zone. Elsewhere, Israeli strikes have killed at least 10 people in Gaza City, while in northern Gaza, Israel has once again targeted the Kamal Adwan Hospital, knocking out the power generators, deploying explosive robots and planting booby traps around the hospital grounds. The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned Israel’s assault, writing, “Recent attacks have further damaged the oxygen supply, generators, and broken windows and doors of the patients’ rooms. The conditions in the hospital are simply appalling. We urge for the protection of health care and for this hell to stop! Ceasefire!”
Family Asks Blinken to Launch Independent Probe of Israel’s Killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi
Dec 17, 2024
Here in the United States, the family of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, is criticizing Secretary of State Antony Blinken after talks at the State Department on Monday. Family members have been demanding the U.S. launch an independent investigation into Eygi’s killing but said they left the meeting disappointed and with doubts that they will ever receive justice. Eygi, a recent graduate of the University of Washington, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita. Witnesses say she was fatally shot in the head by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed.
On Monday evening, Michigan Congressmember Rashida Tlaib rallied with Eygi’s family and supporters in a protest outside the White House.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “We all know that Ayşenur’s murder was not a 'tragic error,' as the president shamefully called it. It was devastating, I think, for her family to hear him say that. We know that, and she knew, that what the Israeli military did to her, they do to Palestinians every single day.”
“Nobody Is Going to Silence Ireland”: Irish PM Blasts Israel’s Closure of Dublin Embassy
Dec 17, 2024
Israel says it’s closing its embassy in Ireland over Dublin’s recognition of Palestinian statehood and its backing of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the World Court. On Monday, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris responded to the news.
Prime Minister Simon Harris: “You’re all here today asking me about Ireland’s position. What about Israel’s actions? What about what Netanyahu is doing to the innocent children of Gaza? This is — this is the diplomacy of distraction. And I think it is deeply regrettable that they took that decision. They have every right to take that decision to close the embassy. I’d rather it didn’t happen. We will continue to engage, continue to engage diplomatically. But nobody is going to silence Ireland.”
U.S. Officials Warn Turkey Is Preparing Invasion of Syrian Kurdish Autonomous Region
Dec 17, 2024
Senior U.S. officials say Turkey is building up its forces along the Turkish border with Syria in possible preparation for a large-scale incursion into territory held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds. That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports a Turkish invasion could be imminent near Kobani, a Kurdish-majority city in Syria.
Meanwhile, Syria’s ousted authoritarian president has made his first statement since he fled to Russia to seek political asylum. In a post on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel, Bashar al-Assad writes that his departure from Syria was not planned, and argued that Syria has “fallen into the hands of terrorism.”
Rights Groups Warn Mass Graves in Syria Could Hold Over 100,000 Victims of Assad Family
Dec 17, 2024
Human rights groups are warning mass graves across Syria could contain the bodies of more than 100,000 victims of Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez. One such site is in the Tadamon district of Damascus, where researchers are scrambling to examine evidence of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions. Hiba Zayadin is Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Hiba Zayadin: “We found human remains, bones, you know, part of a skull, fingers, ribs strewn around the entire area surrounding the mass grave, which shows that, really, you know, a lot more happened here than what we already knew. … What happened in Tadamon here is just one of many others that are being found out across the country, and so it is really urgent that at this time, where we can see that there’s quite a bit of chaos given this transition, that there needs to be quick, urgent securing of all of these areas so that we can really find out the truth about these places.”
*****************
Alex Gibney on “The Bibi Files,” Netanyahu’s Corruption Case & How Endless War Keeps Him in Power
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 17, 2024
As the official death toll in Gaza tops 45,000 and Israel’s wars throughout the Middle East continue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in court for a long-awaited corruption trial, making him the country’s first sitting leader to face criminal charges. He is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. For more on this extraordinary case, we speak with acclaimed filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose latest documentary The Bibi Files features leaked behind-the-scenes footage of police interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife and those accused of bribing him. The film has been banned in Israel, and Netanyahu even tried unsuccessfully to stop it from screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, but Gibney says it is being widely shared inside Israel through unofficial channels. “Strictly speaking, this is a film about corruption,” Gibney tells Democracy Now! “It starts with petty corruption — being bribed with gifts and cigars, champagne, jewelry — but then the ultimate corruption is how he’s tried to elude a reckoning for his misdeeds, and in so doing, he wraps himself in the mantle of prime minister and then wages endless war.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The official death toll in Gaza has topped 45,000. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting a different battle inside Israeli courts. The first sitting Israeli prime minister to face criminal charges, he’s finally taking the stand at his long-running corruption trial. The case has gone on for years. He’s charged with fraud, breach of trust, accepting bribes in three separate cases.
We turn now to an extraordinary new documentary that offers an in-depth look into the charges against Netanyahu, featuring leaked footage of police interrogations of Netanyahu himself, his wife Sara and those accused of bribing him. This is the trailer to The Bibi Files.
INTERROGATOR: [translated] Our first question for you is whether you or any of your family members have received any gifts or favors from wealthy businessmen in the last decade.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is preposterous and insane. You’re trying to incriminate the prime minister on nonsense.
RAVIV DRUCKER: In this case, the facts are really simple. The prime minister and his wife are getting gifts.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] It’s a total lie!
RAVIV DRUCKER: And on the other side, Netanyahu did favors.
BENEFACTOR: [translated] We must find a way to reward him.
INTERROGATOR: [translated] What do you need to reward the prime minister for?
NIMROD NOVIK: Government officials are not allowed to take gifts. This is corruption.
RAVIV DRUCKER: The police, they investigated everybody.
BENEFACTOR: [translated] If this comes out, I’m dead.
INTERROGATOR: What did you get?
SARA NETANYAHU: Champagne and cigars. [translated] Necklaces, rings.
NIR HEFETZ: Sara Netanyahu is very important. Both of them never surrendered, never compromised.
SARA NETANYAHU: [translated] My husband is the strongest prime minister we’ve ever had.
NIR HEFETZ: They start to believe that they are untouchable.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Without shame! Saying things that didn’t happen!
AMI AYALON: After the catastrophe of the 7th of October, the war became another instrument to stay in power.
NIMROD NOVIK: When people serve for too long, it gets into their head.
RAVIV DRUCKER: The indictment made him dependent on the extreme right in Israel. He is now captive to their whims.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is nonsense.
RAVIV DRUCKER: Put all Israel in turmoil.
NIMROD NOVIK: Netanyahu is the architect of chaos.
AMI AYALON: He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He’s not a crackpot. He tried to kill the system. Nobody is above the law.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Do you remember that line from The Godfather? [in English] “Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.”
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for The Bibi Files, leaked secret footage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The new documentary The Bibi Files is directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney. The Bibi Files cannot be legally distributed in Israel due to privacy laws.
For more, we’re joined by filmmaker Alex Gibney. In 2008, he won an Oscar for his film Taxi to the Dark Side about an Afghan man who was tortured in prison at Bagram.
Thanks so much for being with us again, Alex. I went to see this film the other night at the theater. This is powerful. Explain why in this trailer we can’t see Netanyahu’s face in these deposition tapes. And how did you get these deposition tapes, when he, his wife, his son Yair and others are being questioned by police?
ALEX GIBNEY: OK, I’ll answer the — hi, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Hi.
ALEX GIBNEY: I’ll answer the questions in reverse. I was leaked these tapes. They’re interrogation videotapes done by the police that were a precursor to the indictment of Netanyahu on corruption charges. And in the tapes, you can see Netanyahu, his wife Sara, his son Yair and many of the people who attempted to bribe Netanyahu. They were — I thought they were explosive and very important. This, by the way, was before 10/7 or the war on Gaza. This when there was a big crisis over the judicial reform attempts by Netanyahu, which, of course, were done in part so he could elude any consequence from, you know, impending bribery charges.
But the key thing to understand about distribution in Israel is, when I got these leaked tapes, I made a promise to the source that I would not distribute the film in Israel, because the source could go to prison. There are privacy laws that make it mandatory that if you are photographed as part of an official proceeding — i.e. a police interrogation — you can’t cause those videotapes to be released, so — unless you get the permission of Netanyahu and Sara, etc., which wasn’t going to happen. So, anyway, that is the occasion of why these things can’t be — this film can’t be released and why we had to, you know, black-bar the trailer in order so that the trailer wouldn’t be freely visible — I couldn’t cause the trailer to be freely visible in Israel. Though I should say that it’s being widely pirated there.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Netanyahu is going after you?
ALEX GIBNEY: Netanyahu, as soon as it was announced that we were going to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, he went to an Israeli court and tried to stop the screening in Toronto. Now, how that was going to happen, I don’t know. But in any event, it was denied. But he certainly tried to stop us. And I understand the Netanyahu administration, through a number of mechanisms, are trying very hard to go after a guy named Raviv Drucker, who’s one of the producers of the film and is a longtime Israeli journalist who has an expertise in this kind of corruption, has been the bane of a number of prime ministers, but particularly Netanyahu.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from The Bibi Files. It begins with Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet.
AMI AYALON: And after the catastrophe of the 7th of October, the war became another instrument to stay in power. He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He survived when we fight each other. He survived when our enemies fight each other.
GILI SCHWARTZ: A forever war is beneficial to Netanyahu. This makes people feel like they are always in danger, like they always need him. There is always some huge threat. I think that that helps him remain prime minister.
AMY GOODMAN: That last voice, the young Israeli woman, Gili Schwartz, is from Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than a hundred people were killed on October 7th last year. Alex, if you can elaborate on what they are saying? I mean, as we speak, Netanyahu is in court in Israel right now. What this means? They say he wants to wage wider war because, otherwise, he’s no longer going to be protected by the prime ministership, by being prime minister.
ALEX GIBNEY: That’s right. I mean, I think, strictly speaking, this is a film about corruption. And it starts with petty corruption, being bribed with gifts and cigars, champagne, jewelry. But then, the ultimate corruption is how he’s tried to elude a reckoning for his misdeeds, and in so doing, he wraps himself in the mantle of prime minister and then wages endless war. Now, I can’t think of really anything more corrupt than somebody who is administering the killing of women and children in order to be able to stay in power. But that is what they are alleging, and that is what the film is about.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from The Bibi Files. This one begins with Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing the U.S. Congress this past July.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Together, we shall defend our common civilization. Together, we shall secure a brilliant future for both our nations.
NIMROD NOVIK: Well, I would say that, tragically, the Americans don’t know how to call him out. There was no plan for ending the war of Gaza, bringing the hostages home and changing dynamics in the region. And things only got worse. Netanyahu is the architect of chaos. And as we speak, when all eyes are on the front in Gaza and the front in Lebanon, he is implementing his plan in the West Bank with the extreme right. He may create a situation where it’s irreversible.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s Nimrod Novik, former adviser to Shimon Peres, in The Bibi Files, the documentary produced by Alex Gibney, who’s with us now. So, talk about how this trial plays out right now. I think most people in the United States aren’t even aware. I mean, you have the horror in Gaza. You have what’s now taking place in Syria, what’s happening in Lebanon. Explain how this all fits in.
ALEX GIBNEY: Well, this is a trial that’s been going on for four years. And Netanyahu has been trying to elude a reckoning related to these charges for that much time. And what he constantly does is to wrap himself in the mantle of leadership. And so, what better way to do that? And this is a tried and true political formula, as grisly and as grotesque as it is, is to wage war, is to continue to use weapons and say, “We’re in danger of being annihilated, so we must strike back.” But, I mean, the destruction that’s going on in Gaza, for example, is a kind of wanton destruction at this point that is just beyond any kind of moral reckoning. And, you know, I think that also the United States bears some responsibility for this. That’s why we included those clips of him in the Congress. You know, we supply Israel with so much aid and so much —
AMY GOODMAN: And to be clear, Sara, his wife, and when she’s being questioned, she yells at the police and says, “Do you know how he’s treated in the United States when he addresses a joint session of Congress?” Alex Gibney, we’re going to have to leave it there, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and producer of The Bibi Files. His next film is about Luigi Mangione and the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. I’m Amy Goodman. Happy birthday, Jeff Stauch!
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