U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Wed Oct 18, 2023 5:38 am

A Letter from Michael Moore Regarding the Killings of Palestinians and Israelis
by Michael Moore
OCT 17, 2023
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/a-letter ... dium=email

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Actor/playwright Wally Shawn at the White House with a massive turnout of Jewish peace groups @IfNotNowOrg and @JvpAction demanding President Biden fight for a cease fire and end the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

To My Friends and Loved Ones,

No one ever wants to wake up on a Saturday morning to a thousand dead Jews in the street. Anywhere.

SHAME!

I still have not been able to process this and I still can’t believe this is the world I live in. I was born 8+ years after the Holocaust. And now I sit and wait for the mass slaughter of Palestinians, a Semitic tribe, cousins to Jews.

Not one Palestinian helped build Auschwitz.

Not one Palestinian led a Spanish Inquisition.

Not one Palestinian in New York City turned away a boatload of Jewish refugees trying to dock here to escape the Nazis — and not one Palestinian escorted those Jews back to their death in Germany.

And yet they, the Palestinians, will now be exterminated like something less than insects by the descendants of the very people who have suffered one extermination attempt after another for 5,784 years! Cousins! Cease! The Madness! Your only true enemy for the past 2,000 years has been and still is the White “Christians”! Ask the Native Americans. Ask any Black American. Ask the Mexicans. Ask the Indigenous Peoples of the British Empire, the Vietnamese under the boot of the French, and on and on. And now this week, the people of Gaza must be wiped out or forcibly moved into the Sinai Desert? Those left behind have already had their food and their drinking water cut off (humans can only live 4 days without water).

WHY?! Palestinians didn’t take your land, your water, your fruit groves. They share the same prophets with you. They eat hummus and you eat hummus. No Palestinian ever murdered you while you were registering voters in the South. No Palestinians ever paraded with tiki torches through Charlottesville chanting “THE JEWS SHALL NOT REPLACE US!” That was US! Why not punish us? No. Instead you’ve given us great masterpieces of music, art, comedy, literature, philosophy, film, medicine, science and a moral compass which you gave us to live by, to help create a world of love and peace with each other. Now you throw your compass away? You were supposed to be our guiding light, even in the midst of unspeakable horrors. You’ve let a fascist gang take over, a group of killers who seek genocide — and our only hope of stopping them is that there are too many smart citizens of Israel who’ve already figured it out. They are asking the right questions. Why did Netanyahu pull the army back from the Gaza border? For 6-18 hours no help arrived. People were left to be slaughtered.
And now comes news from the Israeli press that Netanyahu’s administration has for years been holding secret meetings with Hamas because they wanted to use them and turn them against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Divide and conquer, one of the oldest fascist tricks in the book.

But the Israeli peace movement is vibrant and loud and there is nothing like them in the U.S. When we, the few of us, tried to stop the invasion of Iraq, we were denounced and opposed by 29 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times, and other “liberals” who called us “unpatriotic” for not “supporting the troops.”

But too many Israelis now know the truth about October 7th, and they will not go away. As the bank for this now in-progress-slaughter — a bank called the United States of America — the citizens of my country must support the voices against genocide in Israel. You do not defeat evil by becoming evil. Those with the most courage and humanity rise up and say, “NO! Never! Not I!! I will not do to others what has been done to me.”

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Thanks to our friend, Donald Borenstein, for researching and providing us with these 10 links, many of them from Israelis who are trying to get the word out to stop the impending slaughter of Palestinians. Please share.

On Netanyahu and Hamas:

“For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces”

On Netanyahu and the assassination of PM Rabin:

“Labor chief Michaeli: Rabin was assassinated with Netanyahu’s cooperation”

On the uncomfortable and widespread far-right sentiments in the current Netanyahu govt, which has now secured an emergency unified govt with its primary opposition in a time of war:

“Likud court restores member who said ‘6 million more’ Ashkenazim should burn”

Likud court restores member who said ‘6 million more’ Ashkenazim should burn: Panel says Itzik Zarka’s remarks ‘crossed red lines’ but hails him as ‘devoted and committed’ to ruling party, rejects petitions against two other activists for contentious acts
by Toi Staff
The Times of Israel
22 September 2023, 4:45 pm

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) embraces Likud activist Itzik Zarka during a party faction meeting at the Knesset on July 9, 2018 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The ruling Likud party’s internal court on Friday rejected petitions to boot several party activists for inflammatory remarks and actions.

In July, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the removal of Itzik Zarka after he was caught on video shouting at protesters, “Ashkenazim, whores, may you burn in hell,” referring to Jews of Eastern European origin.

“I am proud of the six million that were burned, I wish that another six million will be burned,” Zarka said at the time, referencing the Holocaust.
“Leftists are traitors, you are the cancer of the country.”

While not acquitting Zarka for his remarks, the court restored his membership effective immediately and handed him a yearlong conditional suspension, which will kick in if he makes any comments over the next three years “relating directly or indirectly to the Holocaust or the murder of six million people because they belong to the Jewish people.”

In its decision, the court described Zarka as “devoted and committed” to Likud and said he “crossed red lines in a manner that cannot be accepted,” before reinstating him.


“There are comments that have no justification and no atonement. Zarka’s inconceivable comments became the property of the entire public in Israel and will accompany us and especially him for many years to come, like a blue number that is burned on the arm and cannot be removed,” it said, in an apparent reference to the tattoos received by prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.

Zarka, a prominent Likud activist, has a long history of violent statements against those who oppose Netanyahu or his government’s policies, while still enjoying close ties to senior politicians including the premier, as well as to his family.

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Likud activist Itzik Zarka celebrates the election results with pink champagne in an apparent reference to party leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, in Jerusalem, November 1, 2022 (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

The tribunal outright rejected petitions to ban activists Rami Ben-Yehuda and Moshe Meron for their contentious statements and actions, saying they “are lovers of their people and country” and lauded their commitment to the party in the face of “incited zombies.”

Among other incidents in the past, the two were documented with posters reading
“leftists are traitors” near the Western Wall during a protest by veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War against the government’s judicial overhaul.

Part of their defense was a letter from
Jerusalem District Prosecutor Nurit Litman, who determined that “leftist traitors” cannot be considered incitement to violence and is protected as freedom of expression.

Ben-Yehuda is known for his attack dog tactics against political rivals and opponents of the party. He was suspended from the Likud in September after physically assaulting anti-Netanyahu protesters, and placed under a restraining order in 2021 for verbally abusing the wife of Likud defector MK Ze’ev Elkin.

Despite his antics, which include calling opponents of the judicial overhaul both “Hitler’s contemptible handmaids” and wishing a lawmaker would be sent “to the gas chambers,” Ben-Yehuda has been feted by senior Likud members and photographed alongside them, and last month received birthday greetings from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Meron, a former Kahanist, was a leading figure in protests against the previous government.

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Rami Ben-Yehuda arrives for a court hearing at the Magistrate’s Court in Tel Aviv on December 18, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Responding to Friday’s rulings, Likud put out a statement saying it was “sorrowed” the court reinstated Zarka’s membership and said the party’s position was that he should be permanently barred.

“We will appeal with the appropriate procedures,” the statement said.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party slammed Likud, accusing it of “spitting in the face of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors.”

“Shame on you,” it added.

Elkin, the former Likud lawmaker, condemned Likud for its praise of Ben-Yehuda.

“To where have you declined?!” Elkin, now a member of the opposition National Unity party, wrote on X. “And after this they will again tell us that Netanyahu and Likud are not responsible for [Ben-Yehuda’s] thuggery.”


On Gaza as an open air prison:

“Israel occupation makes Palestinian territories 'open-air prison', UN expert says”

On the influx of Evangelical Christian money and American right-wing support for the Netanyahu government:

“Half of evangelicals support Israel because they believe it is important for fulfilling end-times prophecy”

Please watch this. It is not easy and it is morally required of you as an American paying for this:



On how this is not being carried out in the name of anyone but Benjamin Netanyahu:

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Gilad Melzer
October 13 at 9:08 AM
Dear Friends all around the world.
Here is "Little Rock", a 19 years old young woman from Kibbutz Beeri - less than 3 miles from the border with Gaza. 110 of her neighbors were slaughtered. Buildings burnt to the ground. The community destroyed. Her friends in near by communities suffered no less. AND HER HER PLIGHT; STOP THE BOMBING OF GAZA. EXCHANGE PRISONERS NOW. SIT DOWN FOR PEACE TALKS.
"Little Rock" is our mountain of hope. She asks that we all listen to her, we owe it to her. I ask that you all spread the word. Words of hope. Re-post, re-twitt, on all mediums
Translated, Ilana Goldberg. Edited, Eitan Mor.
Here it is also in YOUTUBE - SPREAD THE WORD


On where this fits in to the struggle for Palestinian Liberation (written before the seige escalated):

“A Siege Broken”

https://twitter.com/ayaghanameh/status/ ... nNQgSnHV3s

Most importantly, if you wish to take action, call your congressperson NOW:

Jewish Voice for Peace: URGENT: Stop genocide against Palestinians in Gaza (call now)
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Wed Oct 18, 2023 5:44 am

For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces. The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
by Tal Schneider
Times of Israel
8 October 2023, 3:58 pm
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years ... dium=email

THE MOSSAD'S FALSE FLAG AL QAEDA CELL

Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the Gaza Strip said on Friday, December 6, 2002 that his forces had identified a number of Palestinian collaborators who had been ordered by Israeli security agencies to "work in the Gaza Strip under the name of Al-Qaeda." Al-Jazeera TV reported that the Palestinian authorities had arrested a group of Palestinian "collaborators with Israeli occupation" in Gaza, who were trying to set up an operation there in the name of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. The Palestinian Authority spokesman said the members of the group had confessed that they were recruited and organized by the Israeli intelligence, Mossad. Sharon had personally claimed on December 4, 2002 that he had proof of Al-Qaeda operations in Gaza, and used the allegations to justify brutal Israeli Defense Forces attacks in the Gaza Strip the next day -- which was the start of the Islamic holiday, Eid, celebrating the end of Ramadan. Ten civilians were killed in the IDF assaults. Reuters published an extensive featured story on the affair by Diala Saadeh on December 7, 2002, under the headline "Palestinians: Israel Faked Gaza Al Qaeda Presence." The article quoted President Arafat, who told reporters at his West Bank Ramallah headquarters, "It is a big, big, big lie to cover [Sharon's] attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere." Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo explained: "There are certain elements who were instructed by the Mossad to form a cell under the name of Al Qaeda in the Gaza Strip in order to justify the assault and the military campaigns of the Israeli occupation army against Gaza." (Haaretz, Reuters and Al Jazeera, December 7, 2002) Sharon is of course a past master of false-flag tactics like these, having been implicated in the direction of the Abu Nidal organization and also in the setting up of Hamas.

On Sunday, December 8, 2002, Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian Authority Planning and International Cooperation Minister, held a press conference with Col. Rashid Abu Shbak, head of the PA 's Preventive Security Apparatus in the Gaza Strip, to release documents and provide further information about the Israeli intelligence creation of a self-styled Al Qaeda cell. Shaath called on the diplomats to "convey to their countries that they assume the responsibility of exerting pressure on the Israeli government to stop the Israeli aggression," and announced that the PA had handed ambassadors and consuls of the Arab and foreign countries documents revealing the involvement of the Israeli Intelligence in recruiting citizens from Gaza Strip in a fake organization carrying the name of Qaeda. The goal of the operation was to create a new pretext for aggression against the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Shbak said that the PA had found eight cases of fake Al Qaeda recruiting over the previous nine months. Three Palestinians were arrested, while another 11 Palestinians were released, "because they came and informed us of this Israeli plot." The PA Security Service had traced mobile phone calls and e-mails, purportedly from Germany and Lebanon, back to Israel; these were messages asking Palestinians to join Al Qaeda. One e-mail even bore the forged signature of Osama bin Laden. "We investigated the origin of those calls, which used roaming, and messages, and found out they all came from Israel," Shbak said. The recruits were paired with collaborators in Gaza, and received money and weapons, "although most of these weapons did not work." The money was provided by collaborators, or transferred from bank accounts in Israel and Jerusalem. (Palestine Ministry of Public Information, Islam Online, December 9, 2002)...

Palestine -- After Israeli had occupied the west bank of the Jordan River, the Gaza strip and the Sinai peninsula in June, 1967, the Israelis found themselves ruling over some two million Palestinians. Under the United Nations system it is illegal to annex territory acquired through armed conflict without the approval of the United Nations Security Council, which in this case was not forthcoming. Rather, the UNSC passed resolution 242, calling on Israel to withdraw to the internationally recognized borders as they had been before June 1967. (In the run-up to the Iraq war, Bush spokesmen accused Iraq of having violated some 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions; they conveniently forgot that Israel was the all-time champion in that department, since Israel is currently in violation of some 30 UNSC resolutions regarded the territories it has occupied since 1967. But the US never proposed war to enforce compliance with those resolutions.) The Israeli occupation of conquered Palestine was oppressive and humiliating, and a national resistance soon emerged in the form of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Its leader was Yassir Arafat, a secular nationalist more or less in the Nasser mold. Since the PLO had few weapons, and since the Israeli army was a dominant presence, the PLO began doing what the Jews had done between 1945 and 1948 against the British occupation of the same territory: they launched guerilla warfare, which the occupiers quickly labeled terrorism. The official Israeli line was that there was no Palestinian people, but this was soon disproved. From the beginning, the Israeli Mossad was active in conducting provocations which it sought to attribute to the PLO and its peripheries: attacks on airliners and on the 1972 Olympic games in Munich are therefore of uncertain paternity. The more horrendous the atrocity, the greater the backlash of world public opinion against the PLO. There is no doubt that the Mossad controlled a part of the central committee of the organization known as Abu Nidal, after the nom de guerre of its leader, Sabri al Banna. In 1987-88, just as the first Palestinian intifada uprising was getting under way, there emerged in the occupied territories the organization known as Hamas. Hamas combined a strong commitment to neighborhood social services with the rejection of negotiations with Israel and the demand for a military solution which was sure to be labeled terrorism. Interestingly enough, one of the leading sponsors of Hamas was Ariel Sharon, a former general who was then a cabinet minister. These facts are widely recognized; US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurzer, an observant Jew, stated late in 2001 that Hamas had emerged "with the tacit support of Israel" because in the late 1980s "Israel perceived it would be better to have people turning toward religion, rather than toward a nationalistic cause." (Ha'aretz, Dec. 21, 2001) In an acrimonious Israeli cabinet debate around the same time, Israeli extremist Knesset member Silva Shalom stated:

"between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas ... Arafat is a terrorist in a diplomat's suit, while the Hamas can be hit unmercifully." (Ha'aretz, Dec. 4, 2001)


This tirade provoked a walkout by Shimon Peres and the other Labor Party ministers. Arafat added his own view, which was that

"Hamas is a creature of Israel which, at the time of Prime Minister Shamir, gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities, and mosques. Even [Israeli Prime Minister] Rabin ended up admitting it, when I charged him with it, in the presence of Mubarak." (Corriere della Sera, Dec. 11, 2001)


With incredible arrogance, the Bush administration has pronounced Arafat as unfit to be a negotiating partner. In effect, they are choosing Hamas -- or worse, an act of incalculable folly for Israel and for the United States as well.

-- 9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA, by Webster Griffin Tarpley


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Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products.


Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm.

Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a government conference at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on September 27, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Since Netanyahu returned to power in January 2023, the number of work permits has soared to nearly 20,000.

Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip.


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A Palestinian man receives financial aid at a supermarket in Gaza City, on September 15, 2021, as part of the UN’s Humanitarian Cash Assistance program, supported by the state of Qatar. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.

According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.


While Netanyahu does not make these kind of statements publicly or officially, his words are in line with the policy that he implemented.

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looking on as he receives Palestinian athletes in Ramallah in the West Bank on August 4, 2023. (Wissam KHALIFA/PPO/AFP)

The same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.

Bolstered by this policy, Hamas grew stronger and stronger until Saturday, Israel’s “Pearl Harbor,” the bloodiest day in its history — when terrorists crossed the border, slaughtered hundreds of Israelis and kidnapped an unknown number under the cover of thousands of rockets fired at towns throughout the country’s south and center.

The country has known attacks and wars, but never on such a scale in a single morning.

One thing is clear: The concept of indirectly strengthening Hamas — while tolerating sporadic attacks and minor military operations every few years — went up in smoke Saturday.

Just a few days ago, Assaf Pozilov, a reporter for the Kan public broadcaster, tweeted the following: “The Islamic Jihad organization has started a noisy exercise very close to the border, in which they practiced launching missiles, breaking into Israel and kidnapping soldiers.”

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The body of a person killed by Hamas terrorists lies covered inside a bullet-riddled car in the southern city of Sderot on October 7, 2023 (Oren ZIV / AFP)

The difference between Islamic Jihad and Hamas doesn’t matter much at this point. As far as the State of Israel is concerned, the territory is under the control of Hamas, and it is responsible for all the training and activities there.

Hamas became stronger and used the auspices of peace that Israelis so longed for as cover for its training, and hundreds of Israelis have paid with their lives for this massive omission.

The terror inflicted on the civilian population in Israel is so enormous that the wounds from it will not heal for years, a challenge compounded by the dozens abducted into Gaza.

Judging by the way Netanyahu has managed Gaza in the last 13 years, it is not certain that there will be a clear policy going forward.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:09 am

The outside world must walk Israel back from the abyss. It cannot be part of the choir of incitement. A former Israeli adviser and a former Palestinian adviser say individual member states must push harder for an end to the wanton destruction
by Daniel Levy and Zaha Hassan
Irish Times
Sat Oct 14 2023 - 06:20
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023 ... ncitement/

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A Palestinian girl holds two children in Gaza City: There has been a glaring absence of reference to the humanity of Palestinians. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images

These are painful and dangerous times. Following Hamas’s launch on October 7th of an attack on Israel that has resulted in the confirmed killing of 1,300 Israelis so far, Israel on Friday gave 24 hours for half of the Palestinian population of Gaza – 1.1 million people – to move south to make way for what they warned would be the entry of a large ground force, having called up 300,000 reservists. Last Monday, Israel cut food, fuel, water and electricity to Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assault on Gaza has pulverised residential neighbourhoods already struggling to recover from previous large-scale bombardments in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

At time of writing, at least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, including 440 children. Palestinians in Gaza have nowhere to go. Even if they did, trying to move the critically wounded and the hundreds of other patients who have flooded Gaza’s main hospitals would turn those centres into morgues, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. We do not say this lightly: if the international community does not intervene to stop what is coming, we could be watching a combination of mass killing and forced expulsion in real time.

We both unequivocally condemn the targeting of civilians, no matter who they are, as a violation of the laws of war. Full stop. International law defines the conduct of war and the parameters for what constitutes legitimate self-defence. It does not say “anything goes” or that one war crime justifies another. It is also clear that occupied people have the right to resist structural violence associated with military occupation – again, within the confines of legal prohibitions.

We have both spent endless hours, most of our professional careers, warning of the dangers that lie ahead if attention is not paid to the root causes for the untenable situation existing between Palestinians and Israelis. In 2021, we co-authored a report that called on the United States to prioritise rights and the security of individuals and marginalised communities in its policy approach towards Palestine/Israel and to recalibrate US engagement toward international law and normative behaviour, including holding Israel accountable when it is in violation of these norms.

Closing off all diplomatic, political and legal avenues to Palestinians for advancing their rights and for pushing back against Israeli impunity we feared would eventually erupt into violent confrontation that would have devastating consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis. Neither of us is in the mood for “we told you so”.

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According to Human Rights Watch, the Israeli siege and strikes on the civilian population of Gaza are a war crime. Video: Reuters

Before last week, Israelis enjoyed a high degree of normality. For Palestinians, normal has been defined by 56 years of military occupation that has morphed into apartheid. In Gaza, it has also included 16 years of siege and blockade.

We are now staring into an abyss. Surely it is possible, if one accepts the humanity and equality of all people without discrimination or distinction, to hold three truths simultaneously. First, the militant attack on Israeli civilians was unconscionable, inhumane and in violation of international law. Second, Israel’s collective punishment against Palestinian civilians and its actions in Gaza are unconscionable, inhumane and a violation of international law. And, third, one must address the context of occupation and apartheid in which this is unfolding if one is to maintain integrity and be able to plot a strategy going forward in which both Palestinians and Israelis can live in freedom and security. If we can hold these three truths, then it will be possible to prevent further casualties, secure the release of prisoners and step back from the precipice.

The priority now must be to stop the death and destruction in Gaza. Further bombings and a ground invasion will only exacerbate the crisis and increase the likelihood of war expanding to the West Bank (where the Israeli army and settler killings of Palestinians have accelerated), to Israel’s northern border and possibly beyond. Israel has chosen to act in this manner, not Hamas. The bombs falling are Israeli and the decision to cut essential supplies is Israeli.

A humanitarian corridor must be opened between Israel and Egypt for food and supplies to get into Gaza. Trying to force Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt is not a humanitarian gesture. Egypt is resisting for now but pressure may increase on it and other Arab countries to open borders to displaced Palestinians. As a largely refugee population forced out of what became the state of Israel during the Nakba (or catastrophe) between 1948-1949, Palestinians in Gaza are rightly concerned about never being allowed to return to the strip once evacuated.

Israeli political leaders are openly threatening a second Nakba. The language being used is itself extremely escalatory, even genocidal. What is needed is an outside world that can walk Israel back from the abyss.

Western leaders have spoken thus far with tremendous empathy about the humanity of Israelis. As well they should. However, there has been a glaring absence of any reference to the humanity of Palestinians – it should not be hard to acknowledge Palestinian pain, suffering and endless dispossession. This sin of omission in the language coming from the US and many European leaders is encouraging the committing of war crimes. Western leaders should be on notice and desist from being part of the choir of incitement.

If the EU and its institutions are incapable of stepping up collectively, then leaders in individual member states must push harder for an end to this wanton destruction – perhaps as coalitions of the willing from among the Global North and the Global South.

Zaha Hassan is a human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously she was the co-ordinator and senior legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for UN membership, and a member of the Palestinian delegation to Quartet-sponsored exploratory talks between 2011 and 2012

Daniel Levy is the president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under prime minister Ehud Barak and at Oslo B under prime minister Yitzhak Rabin
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Wed Oct 18, 2023 8:32 pm

‘They Wanted to Dance in Peace. And They Got Slaughtered’: Israel's Supernova festival celebrated music and unity. It turned into the deadliest concert attack in history
by David Browne, Nancy Dillon, Kory Grow
Rolling Stone
Oct. 15, 2023 9:18 AM
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 234854306/

Librarian's Comment: As reportage emerges revealing that Netanyahu's right wing cabal had developed a long-friendly financially supportive and militarily tolerant relationship with the Hamas forces that committed the massacre of Israelis, it's worth taking a look at who the primary victims were. I think it's a safe bet that the young people attending Supernova were not voting for Netanyahu, and clearly were not right-wing orthodox Jews with restricted diets and of course, a ban on secular dancing. This was probably the largest group of young, pro-peace Israelis that you could find in the entire country on that day. So, just assuming for the sake of engaging in reasonable speculation that Netanyahu wanted to give Hamas an opportunity to kill a large number of Israelis who he did not like anyway, the massacre of these youthful ravers may also be laid at his door. Clearly he deployed forces to protect the New York transplants known as "settlers" to allow them to continue their killing of Palestinian people, and their destructive revels in Palestinian border towns, while backed by IDF soldiers who made sure that Palestinians could not protect their property or themselves from these rampaging bands of renegade New Yorkers. That also meant that the soldiers were not there to guard against the incursion that made it so easy to roll in and kill hundreds of ravers, and made sure that military forces were deployed so far away that they couldn't prevent the catastrophe from unfolding in its full lurid horror. Finally, we now know that Netanyahu's cabal happily canoodling with Hamas in what it believed was a partnership to undermine the PLO, turned a blind eye to Hamas's military buildup and organization, allowing the well-planned, and apparently well-informed assault to take place.

LARA FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, the taking of hostages, the taking of civilian hostages by Hamas — I mean, the October 7th attack was heinous in every aspect. The aspect of taking the hostages brought this home to Israelis in a way that is just — I don’t think anyone who has not spent time in a small country where everyone is — you know, there’s one degree of separation. This is incredibly real and incredibly personal for everyone in Israel.

What is notable is, in past experiences where there have been hostages taken, Israel has sort of turned over every rock possible, done everything possible to get them back. You have negotiations. You have contacts. You have — think of Gilad Shalit. I mean, the entire country mobilizes to get the hostage back — “hostage,” singular, “hostages,” plural. In this context, after October 7th, the issue of hostages is raised constantly by the Israeli government as a reason for why it has to do what it’s doing in Gaza, notwithstanding the fact that carpet bombing Gaza, using deep, deep penetrating bombs that are trying to get at the tunnels, seems like a very likely way to kill your own hostages. There has been a clear signal given — and if you listen to the — if you look at the Israeli media, the contacts that the families of hostages have had with the Netanyahu government, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there isn’t actually a lot of desire on the part of the Israeli government to get the hostages back.

There have been numerous — and it’s been public — from other governments, from negotiators, there have been numerous offers by Hamas to exchange hostages, to release hostages in certain circumstances. There was, you know, a 24 — for a brief ceasefire. And so far, the argument seems to be, from the Israeli side, “We won’t do that, because anything we do would be a victory for Hamas. And that is — that we can’t let that happen, so releasing the hostages is simply not a priority.

But talking about the hostages and accusing anyone who talks about ceasefire as not caring about the hostages is a wonderful tactic. All of us who are speaking out on this in social media, on media like this, are accused constantly of, “Well, you don’t care about the hostages.” The answer is, no, I care very much about the hostages. I don’t understand why the Israeli government doesn’t care more about the hostages. I would suggest that the Israeli government’s approach to the hostages makes clear that their objectives in this war are not about freeing the hostages. And that, I think, requires further thought.

-- Middle East Expert Lara Friedman: If Netanyahu Cared About Hostages, Why Did He Launch Ground Invasion?, by Amy Goodman

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SEVERAL HOURS AFTER the gates opened for the Israeli music festival Supernova, Amit Bar and her boyfriend Nir Jorno arrived with their friend Ziv Hagbi, excited for the event. The devoted electronic-music fans had traveled from Matzliah, some 60 miles away. “We really waited for this event,” the 27-year-old Bar says. “It was supposed to be a really good one — really fun, lots of people.”

The gathering promised to be the highlight of the year, especially for those who loved psychedelic trance, or psytrance, the intense and celestial dance-music subgenre. “[The music] is based on a philosophy of life,” says veteran British DJ Martin Freeland, who performs as Man With No Name and was scheduled for late Saturday morning. “It’s Woodstock with electronic music. It’s that kind of mentality: a hippie culture, but the music is different. These are the sweetest people. They would never harm anybody.”

Between 3,000 and 4,000 attendees flocked to an open-air space in Israel’s Negev Desert — about three miles from the Gaza border — where 16 DJs from around the world were set to spin in darkness and light for 15 hours straight. The event was timed to the end of Sukkot, a weeklong celebratory Jewish holiday commemorating the harvest and the period after Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.

Supernova, produced by Israel-based Nova Tribe, also doubled as the Israeli edition of Brazil’s popular Universo Paralello festival, a biannual nine-day event that has hosted electronic, reggae, and hip-hop artists near the country’s southern beaches for 20 years. It was set to take place Oct. 6 and 7, although its producers wouldn’t reveal the exact location to ticketholders — which included many teenagers able to get around the minimum-age requirement of 23 — until shortly before it began. All anyone knew was this: “The event will take place in a powerful, natural location full of trees, stunning in its beauty and organized for your convenience, about an hour and a quarter south of Tel Aviv.” Attendees were prohibited from bringing weapons including guns and sharp objects. The announcement on the ticketing site joyously proclaimed, “We Are On!”

Many Supernova attendees who paid $100 a ticket shared Bar’s optimism. “Nova is like a family,” says 26-year-old Tel Aviv bartender Sofia Nikitin. “I bartend at a lot of festivals, and Nova is something different. People got prepared for this party for weeks. Everyone knows each other. It was like magic.”

But the dream of a communal music high ended in Saturday’s early hours when Hamas insurgents invaded attendees from all directions, killing at least 260 people and abducting dozens as hostages. Mass shootings and terror attacks at concerts are not new: The terrorists who assaulted Paris’ Bataclan in 2015 killed 130 people, including 90 inside the theater, and the mass murderer who opened fire on a country-music festival in Las Vegas in 2017 ultimately killed 60. But Supernova, which was intended to be the first in a series of dance events at that space in Israel, became not just the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever, but the deadliest concert attack in history.

“We arrived at the party at three o’clock in the morning, all the friends met and celebrated life,” festivalgoer Michal Ohana, 27, tells Rolling Stone. “At 6 a.m., the hell started.”

FOR MANY PEOPLE LIKE BAR, the site for Supernova was familiar. Located in an agricultural section of southern Israel near Kibbutz Re’im — a communal settlement with a population of around 430 — the space had hosted similar music events in recent years. The large, grassless area — complete with multicolored, billowing coverings and tents — was perfect for dancing. Two DJ booths each had barricades, and banks of speakers sat, pyramid-style, on wooden platforms. Trees circled the center of the festival, which also included campgrounds. In an effort to be as eco-conscious as possible, plastic cups were banned, and attendees were told to buy a cup and receive free water in exchange. Organizers hired around 30 police officers for security, per The New York Times.

This gathering, though, promised to dwarf any previous festivals. Officially called “Universo Paralello Israel Edition—Supernova Sukkot Gathering,” it licensed the branding of its Brazilian counterpart from Universo Paralello founder Juarez Petrillo, a DJ and producer also known as DJ Swarup. (Petrillo was also on hand at the Israeli festival and was set to perform.) This year, Nova Tribe was using the name.

The all-night party was scheduled to run from just before midnight Friday through approximately 5 p.m. on Saturday. It would present more than a dozen DJs on three stages: Israeli DJs Astral Projection, NoFace, Artifex, and Jackalon alongside Man With No Name, the German group Protonica, Japanese DJ Spectra Sonics, and Swiss DJ Jumpstreet, among others. “You don’t know how much love was at this festival,” Chen Mizrachi, a 34-year-old artist manager who helped with festival logistics, tells Rolling Stone.

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Thousands of revelers dancing at the Supernova Music Festival IDO DERBY

Electronic-dance music has flourished in Israel since the late Eighties. Festivals and packed crowds are the norm in Israel, thanks to a temperate climate and a shared desire to chill out. “There’s no DJ in the world who doesn’t like to come to Tel Aviv — the great people, the great weather,” says Raz Gaster, whose Beyond Management company manages some of the Israeli acts at the festival. “You can party more than in every other city in the world.”

The festival reflected the free-spirited nature of the artists on the bill and Israel’s history with musical escapism, which dates back to the Sixties, when traveling hippies discovered the beach-strewn community of Goa, India. The pilgrimage gradually spread to Israel.

Starting at age 18, all men and women in the country are required to serve in the military. In the Eighties, it became something of a ritual for Israeli soldiers, after finishing their duties, to travel to Goa, where they immersed themselves in techno as well as the culture and drugs associated with it. They brought some of that back with them to their home country. “[Psytrance] is up-tempo, four-on-the-floor dance music,” says Freeland. “The minimum tempo [in dance music] is 130 beats per minute, but [psytrance] is up to 150. It’s what we used to describe as acid house, but sped up.” That influence was also seen in the Hindu-inspired tents and decor at Supernova. Attendees, like Bar, expressed the ethos with their colorful, flowing fashions, septum rings, and tattoos.


“We arrived at the party at three o’clock in the morning. At 6 a.m., the hell started.” -- michal ohana


At the festival, a production glitch delayed the start of the music by a few hours. As attendees wandered the grounds and danced, the sense of community was undeniable. “Everyone knows each other,” says Nikitin. “One old lady was giving everyone little notes with good words. She was at every Nova party. Everyone knew her. It was like a family.” (The woman survived the massacre.) Before his own set, NoFace, a.k.a. Lee Chizmario, strolled between DJ booths. “Most of the people I knew,” he says. “There were friends from years past. We all knew each other from when I just started and we’d party together.”

“Israel is not such a big place,” says Bar. “Eventually, it’s the same people going to the same places, and when you dance on a dance floor next to them for 12 hours, you remember the people around you. You remember them the next time you go and dance.” In those early hours, people kissed, hula-hooped, and blissed out to the music.

The idea that anything dangerous or deadly would take place — even given the location so close to Gaza — rarely crossed anyone’s minds. “It’s quite known that we do these events around the Gaza area,” attendee Yoni Diller, the 28-year-old founder of a creative agency in Tel Aviv, tells Rolling Stone. “There’s a lot of open areas. We thought it was safe. Most of us did the army, so we’re not scared. It’s not our first time being in the Gaza area. It’s not supposed to be a dangerous area.”

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Artifex (left) during his DJ set, shortly before the attack IDO DERBY, 2

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Not everyone felt so secure, however. “All the way, I asked my friend, ‘Why are we so close to Gaza?’ ‘Why are you having a party so close?’” says Ohana, who had returned to Israel from Portugal to see her sister and attend the festival. “I was told that there were security guards and that everything was approved.”

“Every event you have in Israel, no matter if it’s close to the border or not, you must have police,” says Eliran Slider, whose Israel-based FM Booking company handles many psytrance artists, including a few at the festival. “Production pays a lot for security and police.” Slider had to leave for another event, but he, like many, felt there was little to worry about.

IT WAS 6:40 IN THE morning and Artifex, whose visual trademark is shaving his head on each side, was in the middle of his set. The music was so loud that at least some in the crowd had no idea mortars and rockets were hammering in the distance. “At this moment, there was also music, so we couldn’t hear any sirens,” says Nikitin. “I noticed there was a big boom, and I looked up in the sky and saw the missiles and the bombs.”

Before anyone could fully grasp what was happening, Chizmario, who was near the DJ booth, told Artifex to turn down the volume, and a security guard jumped onstage and told everyone to hit the floor and cover their heads with their hands. Chizmario went to the backstage area and told the non-Israeli musicians what was happening. “I tried to explain to the artists, to make them realize it’ll be OK,” he says. “[We’re] used to having alarms about missiles. We didn’t think the shooting part would arrive.”

“The door opens, and we see a wounded girl. Someone shot her in the leg … We tried to help her [and] give her water. She was dying in front of our eyes.” -- yoni diller


When alarms began sounding, it became frighteningly clear that everyone needed to leave the grounds immediately. With Petrillo and several others, Gaster ran to his car and saw other artists doing the same. Driving as fast as possible, Gaster called Freeland in his Tel Aviv hotel room and told him not to go to the festival. At that moment, Gaster thought rockets were the only issue. But once he arrived at a safe-space house about 18 miles away, he began receiving text messages and calls: “They are shooting at us … Everybody’s shooting at us.”

“Then I understood what was happening,” he says. “We didn’t have a clue until we arrived at the house.”

In his own vehicle, with a friend, Chizmario began driving out and soon saw other cars turning around and doubling back. “Maybe they saw something up in the road and got scared, and they all went back,” he says. At one point, as he and his friend took a different road, they ran into men with weapons. “They pointed a gun at us, so we made a U-turn and tried to go another way,” he says. With the help of Waze, they managed to get out.

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Various items left in the aftermath of the massacre LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES; © MARTIN DIVISEK/EFE/ZUMA

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Confusion and chaos followed at the festival site. Within half an hour, attackers — clad in body armor and carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — arrived in trucks and on motorcycles. As attendees drove out by way of the dirt roads to the north and south, they encountered Hamas fighters armed with guns on the road. Other Hamas militants flew in on motorized paragliders, striking the ground and opening fire, Mizrachi says. When the traffic began bottlenecking, Hamas, which blockaded the two roads in and out of the festival, started firing into cars along those routes. “After a few minutes, we saw cars with broken windows and started to hear the shooting of guns,” says Jorno, who was attempting to drive out. After running back toward festival security, Jorno saw insurgents shooting women and a person in a wheelchair.

“People were panicking,” Diller tells Rolling Stone. “Suddenly we see this car bumping into another car very slowly. The door opens, and we see a wounded girl. Someone shot her in the leg, and her whole left knee was disconnected from her body. She couldn’t brake. Her knee was shot. We tried to help her [and] give her water. She was dying in front of our eyes.”

By 8:00, the Hamas soldiers blockading the roads started hunting down music fans gathered in nearby bomb shelters, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We called the army [over a radio] to let them know we were in the security station, stuck,” Mizrachi says. “We asked, ‘Where are you?’” But Hamas had intercepted the transmission. “We are on the way for you,” a voice told Mizrachi in an Arabic dialect. Upon fleeing, Mizrachi felt a sense of hope when he spotted an Israeli policeman stopping a car. He soon realized that it was a Hamas fighter who had stolen a uniform.

The insurgents blocked the northern exit by 8:30, just two hours after the rockets sprayed overhead. Panicked festivalgoers tried to escape by running across the open fields around the festival, but the militants gunned down many of them. Others tried to hide wherever they could on the festival grounds, in dumpsters and in the surrounding foliage. Video footage and photos from the massacre show hundreds of attendees sprinting in every direction. “We couldn’t imagine that hundreds of terrorists could invade Israel like this,” Amir Ben Natan, a 37-year-old stock trader from Herzliya, says. “I feel like I was hunted. They tried to kill me. Not just me, everyone at the festival. We were helpless. We were unarmed civilians who just wanted to have fun.”

“I feel like I was hunted. They tried to kill me. Not just me, everyone at the festival. We were helpless. We were unarmed civilians who just wanted to have fun.” -- amir ben natan


Separated from her friend, Ohana ran for what felt like hours, ultimately ducking under a tank. She thought she would be the most protected there, but she was still shot in the leg and had shrapnel pierce her stomach. “For six hours, I lay without moving, scared, while they shot at me and threw grenades at us,” she texts Rolling Stone from an Israeli hospital. “I saw the terrorists approaching me. I did Shema Yisrael [a Jewish prayer that begins “The Lord is our God …”] and prayed to God that I would get out of this alive. My friends died by me, and I saw friends kidnapped in front of my eyes.”

When Jorno and Bar jumped out of another vehicle that offered them a ride, they scrambled to a hiding space under a bush. Hagbi seemed to make a right turn out of the car, ending up around 60 feet away. “We had our faces on the sand,” Bar says. “We couldn’t put our heads up.” They wanted to call out to Hagbi but didn’t, fearing they’d give away their location. After a few hours, they saw an Israeli woman in a car and heard Hagbi’s voice. They believe he tried to escape with her.

For a week, the couple held on to the grim hope their missing best friend had been kidnapped instead of just murdered on the spot. “We know he spoke Arabic. We really trust him, that he’ll know how to manage whatever situation he’s in,” Bar said in a phone interview Wednesday.

“He’s a big hero. I’m sure he’s helping people right now. I’m sure he’s not dead, because he’s Ziv,” Jorno added, speaking on the same call.

On Saturday, they got the news they dreaded. “Ziv is already murdered,” Bar texted Rolling Stone. A eulogy posted online by a relative read, “We will remember you laughing … We will remember you having fun … Don’t stop dancing.” Hagbi was 28.

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Ziv Hagbi and Amit Bar at Supernova. Hagbi did not survive the attack NIR JORNO

Nikitin initially hid in the forest but fled to a field when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the trees. “It was like in movies. You see all gray, there’s wind in your face, and sound, then you don’t hear anything in your ears, you hear only buzzing,” she says. “I just started to run.” She eventually found Israeli police. Later, she heard how another bartender had covered herself with blood from a gunshot victim to disguise herself as already dead. The friend told Nikitin that Hamas fighters found her anyway and ordered her to open a refrigerator at the bar in which people were hiding. It was a calculated move: If the people hiding in the fridge were armed, they’d shoot the bartender thinking it was Hamas. “Everyone hiding in the refrigerator, they opened it and killed them,” Nikitin relayed. (The bartender survived the attack.)

After the initial shock sent music fans fleeing, Hamas fighters scoured the festival grounds for survivors. One attendee who was playing dead by a car flinched his body enough to show life, so a Hamas militant walked over and fatally shot him at point-blank range. Rather than kill all of the concertgoers, though, Hamas captured an unknown number to bring back to Gaza as hostages. One couple, Noa Argamani and her partner Avinatan Or, were caught on camera as Hamas separated them, placing Argamani on a motorcycle while directing Or away on foot with his arms behind him. (Their status is still unknown.) As the carnage mounted, festivalgoers had to wait about eight hours for help from the Israeli army.

Some of the casualties include Osher Vaknin, who helped organize the festival, as well as an Israeli soccer player, Lior Asulin, and a British man, Nathaniel Young, who was serving in the Israeli army. Vaknin’s twin brother, Michael, remains missing. An American who for days after the massacre was presumed missing, Daniel Ben Senior, 34, had moved from Los Angeles to Israel to take care of family members. “This is the first time in so long she was going to just relax and dance,” her cousin, Riki Ben Senior, told The Washington Post. Her father, Jacob Ben Senior, told CNN that she was working at the festival as a paramedic; later in the week, he confirmed to CNN that she had died.

At 8:11 a.m., California-born Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who had just turned 23 when he attended the festival, texted his mother, Rachel Goldberg, with two messages: “I love you” and “I’m sorry.” Neither she nor his father, Jonathan Polin, have heard from him since. A photo taken inside a bomb shelter showed Hersh with several others, defending themselves until Hamas took all but eight of them. One of the survivors told Hersh’s parents that their son had lost part of his arm, according to the Los Angeles Times. The last photo of him was taken at 12:45 p.m., as he boarded a truck with other captives. He is believed to have been taken hostage as family and friends beg diplomats for help in rescuing him.

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Destroyed cars and belongings left at the Supernova Music Festival site LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES; SERGEY PONOMAREV/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

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HAMAS’ TERROR ATTACKS WERE more organized, widespread, and sophisticated than any of the festivalgoers sheltering in place could fathom. While the insurgents were attacking the festival, Hamas militants were also infiltrating kibbutzim to the north and south. They launched their attack by firing more than 2,000 rockets and were able to disable the Israeli military’s communications and remote-controlled machine guns using drones, allowing them to blast a hole in the border fence. More than 1,000 Gazan insurgents entered Israel through 30 points in the fence and over it with paragliders, according to The New York Times. They also reached some of their targets by boat.

At 5:55 a.m., Hamas militants arrived at Be’eri, a kibbutz about a 20-minute drive from the festival grounds, where the BBC reports that about 100 people were killed and others taken as hostages over 20 hours. Within the hour, Hamas militants were killing Israelis in their homes elsewhere.

Hamas, which took control of the 139-square-mile Gaza Strip in 2007, attacked 22 Israeli towns in total within miles of the Gaza border. The militants had been rehearsing the widespread onslaught in mock Israeli villages for months. A Hamas operative in Lebanon claimed plans had begun two years ago. They practiced landing their paragliders while holding their guns out, and firing rocket-propelled grenades at buildings.

Within an hour of news breaking about the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed his country that the state of Israel was now “in a war.”

President Biden expressed horror at the attacks and pledged his support to Israel that day, telling Netanyahu, “My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.” In another statement, Biden condemned Hamas as terrorists. “This attack was a campaign of pure cruelty — not just hate, but pure cruelty — against the Jewish people,” the president said. “One of the worst chapters in human history that reminded us all that — that expression I learned from my dad early on: ‘Silence is complicity.'”

“I prayed to God that I would get out of this alive. My friends died by me, and I saw friends kidnapped in front of my eyes.” -- michal ohana


More than 1,300 Israelis have died in the conflict so far, alongside 29 Americans. An additional 3,300 Israelis have been injured, according to NBC News. Hamas militants have taken an estimated 150 people hostage, including Americans. “There are a number of U.S. citizens who are unaccounted for,” a State Department spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. “The U.S. government is working around the clock … with the Israeli government on every aspect of the hostage crisis.”

Almost immediately after Hamas’ attack, Israel mounted a siege against Gaza, launching airstrikes and depriving 2 million Palestinians in the area of electricity, food, water, and fuel. More than 2,200 Palestinians have died in retaliatory strikes — including more than 700 children — and nearly 9,000 more wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Officials in Gaza have claimed that Israeli bombs have struck mosques and hospitals. Because of the airstrikes — Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza this week — Gazan civilians haven’t been able to rescue people from the rubble. “While panic and the fear of a historic expulsion permeates Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are watching in horror amidst stringent lockdown conditions, escalating army raids, and settler attacks,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Jesse Rosenfeld from Israel.

The Israeli army has displaced more than a million Palestinian civilians and forced them to leave the northern part of Gaza since last Saturday. A spokesperson for the United Nations said it would be “impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.”

WHEN ISRAELI SOLDIERS ENTERED what was now a crime scene, they came upon remnants of the festival — discarded water bottles and shoes and some of the tents still standing. While some photos taken during and after the event could pass as a typical music festival like Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza, the aftermath looked apocalyptic. Psychedelic scenery around the stages had fallen over. Smoldering abandoned cars blocked the exits, and bullet casings lined the roads. More than a week later, The New York Times has reported, the shells of cars and pieces of tents remain on the festival grounds.

“It’s crazy to do a massacre like that on innocent people,” Mizrachi says. “Young people with dreams. They just wanted peace, love, and to travel the world.”

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Dancing at the festival prior to the attack IDO DERBY

The attendees who died were united in their love of music and community; now, their families and friends were brought together in mourning. Chizmario buried a childhood friend. Nikitin went to a service for her friend and bar manager. Gaster has attended funerals for seven of his friends and colleagues. When the family of Supernova attendee Bruna Valeanu, a 24-year-old who had recently moved with her family from Brazil to Israel, tried to plan her funeral, they needed 10 people to attend, per Jewish tradition, according to CBS News. On social media, they asked for 10 people to show up. Around 10,000 came to grieve.

In a statement issued Oct. 14, festival producer Nova Tribe denounced what it called “a scene of unspeakable tragedy, an inhumane war crime, an unprecedented violation of the most basic human values.

“At this moment, our production team is focused on providing the right and extensive emotional and mental support to everyone involved,” organizers wrote. “We are working tirelessly, day and night, conducting search and rescue operations, helping identify the victims and updating their families. Searching for those located in the disaster area, or other locations, recovering equipment from the site and its surroundings and, above all, ensuring the security of Israel.”

The organizers also promised to uphold the festival’s mission. “We will keep fighting until we reach our objective adorned on our tribe’s flag: to spread light throughout the world.”

Survivors of the massacre are still making sense of what they endured. “Everyone needs to know what happened,” Nikitin says with a broken voice. “It’s the last thing I can do for my friends and for Nova and for all of Israel. It was a peaceful festival. Everyone hugged everyone, and everyone loved everyone.”

“All they wanted was to come and listen to the music,” says Gaster. “They like to party with their friends. They wanted us to come and dance in peace. And they got slaughtered.”


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Hamas attack on Israeli techno festival leaves at least 260 dead and many missing
by Daniel Estrin
Heard on All Things Considered
October 10, 20235:05 PM ET
Transcript

An Israeli techno music festival has become Israel's single deadliest attack on civilians in its history. At least 260 young Israelis were gunned down by Hamas militants. Many more are missing.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

It's Day 4 of a Middle East war. Israelis have been evacuated from the areas that Hamas infiltrated this weekend while heavy rocket fire from Gaza continues. In Gaza, Israel's airstrikes have sent about 200,000 Palestinians fleeing their homes, seeking shelter. Authorities have reported the deaths of a thousand people in Israel and more than 900 in Gaza. Amid all these developments, one event at the start of this weekend is continuing to shock Israelis. A techno music festival became the scene of the deadliest single attack on civilians in Israeli history. NPR's Daniel Estrin has pieced together how it unfolded. A warning that the details are disturbing.

DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: The festival was called the Supernova Universo Parallelo Festival, the Parallel Universe Festival...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ESTRIN: ...An outdoor trance music festival advertised as, quote, "the essence of unity and love in a breathtaking location." It was only about a couple miles from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ESTRIN: This TikTok video shows dancers under festival tents dancing in T-shirts and tank tops when something strange starts descending from the sky - Hamas militants flying in from Gaza on paragliders. They also drove across the border on pickup trucks.

(CROSSTALK)

ESTRIN: Another video shows throngs of Israelis in a dusty field fleeing on foot, in cars. I met one survivor at a hospital, Roee Shalev.

ROEE SHALEV: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said 50 gunmen on five pickup trucks surrounded them as they ran. He and his girlfriend hid under a truck. The gunmen found them and shot them. He didn't know if his girlfriend would make it. I checked in with him again today, three days after the attack.

SHALEV: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said he just got word she and their friend didn't survive. He said, I'm left alone to tell their story.

SHALEV: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: An emergency rescue service in Israel says at least 260 Israelis' bodies were recovered at the festival. Some Israelis have been taken back to Gaza as prisoners. Shelly Shem Tov's 21-year-old son, Omer, had sent her a live location to track him on his phone.

SHELLY SHEM TOV: We see that Omer is getting inside Gaza, and then we didn't see any more. Nothing from him.

ESTRIN: Until Hamas published a video. The face was blurred, but she recognized his yellow shirt and patterned pants and arm tattoo. Her son's hands were bound behind his back, but he didn't look injured.

SHEM TOV: One of his friends sent us a video that Omer is in a car. They are taking him I don't know where. And it was hell. I was so shocked to see him like that, and I don't know where he is. I don't know what they are doing to him. And I don't have nothing to do.

ESTRIN: Israel's army says this is not the time to unpack how this disaster could have happened on its heavily surveilled border. It's appointed a retired general to coordinate efforts to release the hostages. Army representatives visited Shelly Shem Tov to notify her her son is in Gaza. They didn't say much else. I've spoken to several other parents whose children were at the festival. I asked them what Israel should do. One father, Meir Zohar, pointed his finger at the government.

MEIR ZOHAR: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said Bibi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other leaders should resign. They should be ashamed, he said. There was an insane failure here. He said, like many Israelis do, that Gaza should be wiped out. Another parent, Ahuva Maizel, told me she doesn't seek revenge.

AHUVA MAIZEL: Everybody should quit - want revenge, you know? To revenge - us and them. Something has to happen. Something different has to happen between these two people. Revenge wouldn't bring my daughter back.

ESTRIN: The concert massacre has also touched Bono.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BONO: Those beautiful kids at that music festival.

ESTRIN: This weekend, he performed his song "Pride" with new lyrics commemorating, quote, "stars of David."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BONO: Stars of David, they took your life, but they could not take your pride. (Singing) Could not take your pride, could not take your pride, could not take your...

ESTRIN: Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Be'er Sheva, Israel.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at http://www.npr.org for further information.

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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:26 am

After Al-Ahli Hospital Blast Kills 500, Gaza Doctor Fears for His Life & Safety of His Patients
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 18, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18 ... _bombing#t

Medical workers in Gaza are racing to treat survivors of a massive explosion Tuesday at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, where displaced people were sheltering from Israel’s unrelenting attacks when, Palestinian officials say, an Israeli airstrike hit the compound, killing hundreds of people. Israel denied responsibility, blaming a failed rocket launch by militants for the blast. Israeli strikes had already damaged the hospital once before, and have killed medical workers and struck other medical facilities since it started bombing Gaza in retaliation for a deadly Hamas raid into Israel on October 7. “As a physician, I’m afraid if I now leave and go to work, my hospital is going to be hit, as well,” says Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine and nephrology specialist at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, which is the largest hospital in Gaza. He describes how “almost 40,000” people are seeking refuge outside of hospital buildings in Gaza.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian officials are accusing Israel of killing over 500 people in an airstrike on a hospital in Gaza City where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Israel has denied responsibility, claiming the explosion was caused by a failed rocket fired by the militant group Islamic Jihad. Palestinian officials have blasted Israel’s claim, pointing out Israeli military had already hit the hospital just days before.

This is Dr. Fadel Naim, head of the orthopedic surgery department at Al-Ahli Hospital.

DR. FADEL NAIM: [translated] I will describe what I saw myself. I was in the surgery department, and I had just finished a surgery, and I was about to rest before my next surgery. Suddenly we heard the sound of a huge explosion. In the beginning, we thought it was one of the explosions we hear all the time. We didn’t think it was in the hospital. Then people came to the surgery department screaming and yelling, asking us to save them, telling us they were injured and dead people. It was a shock for everyone. The hospital was full of dead people, injured people and body parts. People were crying and screaming. We tried to give first aid, but there were more injuries than we could handle with our limited resources at the hospital. Many people were martyred. Some of them were alive. We saw them alive and breathing, but we could not do anything for them. They died in our arms. We saw them.

AMY GOODMAN: The blast came just hours before President Biden landed in Israel for an unprecedented wartime visit to Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express U.S. support for Israel. Biden placed the blame for the hospital strike on Palestinians.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

AMY GOODMAN: Biden said it appears “it was done by the other team, not you.”

Earlier today, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: [I call] for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space to help realize my two appeals and to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing. Too many lives and the fate of the entire region hang on the balance.

AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday night, Democracy Now!'s Messiah Rhodes spoke with Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine and nephrology specialist working in Gaza City at the largest hospital, Al-Shifa, which is around five miles away from Al-Ahli Hospital, where over 500 Palestinians died in an airstrike. Dr. Alloh said an earlier Israeli airstrike had hit Al-Ahli Hospital days before Tuesday's devastating blast.

DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: This is a Baptist hospital — am I clear enough? — a Baptist hospital. This is definitely something not related to Islam or to whatever extremist, extremist group some people consider. So, it is a very old hospital, aged more than 100 years. So, it is situated in a very densely populated area. It was hit the day before, but patients, refugees and staff couldn’t simply leave the hospital. So it was —

MESSIAH RHODES: So, you’re saying that the hospital was hit before?

DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And then, when it was finally hit again, the death toll is rising now to more than 800 lives lost. And what if this is going to happen in other hospitals, in bigger hospitals? The massacre is going to be worse. There will be no safe shelter for all patients. As a physician, I’m afraid if I now leave and go to work, my hospital is going to be hit, as well. And we have — for example, in terms of dialysis, we have only now five hospitals providing hemodialysis service. What if nurses are afraid of going there? What if patients are afraid of going there? What if injured patients, war injured, with war-related injuries, do not go there? This means not slow; this is even fast death, very rapid death.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hammam Alloh went on to describe how tens of thousands of civilians have sought refuge at the hospitals in Gaza.

DR. HAMMAM ALLOH: In Al-Shifa Hospital, there are almost 40,000 persons in the — outside the hospital buildings. They came looking for safer shelter away from their high-risk areas. Those are in addition to the patients now living in the hospital hallways. Wherever you go, no matter what part you go to, there are a lot of people sleeping — kids, women, ladies, elderly patients. Some of them are immunosuppressed. They are living in the hospital hallways, so you can barely even walk through the hallway because of people actually living there for more than a week. And you can’t just simply ask them to leave so you can walk freely, because they have no safer shelter. And many of those lost their homes now, so this is their new home.

So, if you could imagine the amount and the magnitude of transmissible diseases and infections, speaking of which, yesterday I met the first patient with a disease called leptospirosis. This is a bad disease that we usually get from poorly hygienic living circumstances, transmitted by rodents and sewage water and dirty drinking water. So, this disease affects badly our kidneys and liver. The patient is in a state of acute renal failure, acute kidney injury. His whole life is threatened. And this is because he was in an UNRWA school as a shelter, but those schools are now very busy, with very unlivable living circumstances. But he had to be there with his family looking for safer shelter away from his threatened house.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine and nephrology specialist working in Gaza City at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest.

When we come back, we speak to Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Stay with us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:28 am

Rashid Khalidi on Biden’s “Israel-First Approach” & Growing Outrage over Gaza Across the Middle East
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 18, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18 ... transcript

President Biden is in Israel to show more support for its relentless assault on the Gaza Strip, which has reduced much of the territory to rubble, killed at least 3,300 Palestinians and displaced more than a million people. Israel also continues to maintain a complete siege, refusing to let in food, water, fuel, medicines and other necessities. Meanwhile, international outrage is growing over a massive explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital that killed hundreds of people on Tuesday. Palestinian authorities say it was an Israeli airstrike, while Israel has claimed a failed rocket launch by Gaza militants caused the blast. “Whoever was responsible, the result will be enormous, enormous anger at the United States for its support of Israel, as well as a further increase in this enormous death toll inside Gaza,” says Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University.

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.

Palestinian officials are accusing Israel of killing over 500 people in an airstrike on a hospital in Gaza City, where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Israel is denying responsibility, claiming the explosion was caused by a failed rocket fired by the militant group Islamic Jihad. Palestinian officials have blasted Israel’s claim, pointing out Israel, the military, had already hit the hospital just days before.

As we continue to look at Israel’s war on Gaza, we’re joined by Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, a renowned Palestinian American scholar. He’s the author of a number of books, including his latest, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Professor Khalidi’s new piece for The New York Times is headlined “The U.S. Should Think Twice About Israel’s Plans for Gaza.”

We’re going to go to that in just a minute, Rashid, what the U.S. should be thinking about right now. But if you can begin by responding to these developments of the last 24 hours, with the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital, and the significance of this?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, it’s obviously had an enormous significance. It led to the cancellation of a summit that was planned for Amman with President Biden. The Arab participants all pulled out after this atrocity.

I think it’s also led to increased anger all over the Arab world. There are demonstrations in at least eight or nine Arab capitals as a result of this. There was already rage at American — blanket American support for Israel. And I think this has increased that.

I think that it is very hard to believe, given that Israel has threatened hospitals and schools in the past, and it’s hit hospitals and schools in the past, and that the kinds of weapons used by Islamic Jihad and Hamas have very limited warheads, that this could have been, as the Israelis claim, a misfire. As you reported, a piece of video that they put up turns out to have been dated from a period after the attack on this hospital. In any case, whoever was responsible, the result will be enormous, enormous anger at the United States for its support of Israel, as well as a further increase in this enormous death toll inside Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the Palestinian legislator and medical doctor himself, said they actually had, in a very short period of time, a number of explanations of what happened. At first they didn’t say this. They said that Hamas was operating underneath the hospital. Then they said they were using Palestinians as human shields, sort of to explain what had happened. Then they came up with this. Now, I wanted to ask you — you know, we had on Sharif Abdel Kouddous, whose award-winning documentary, The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, won the George Polk Award for that, documenting what Israel said about the murder of this Palestinian American journalist. They first said she was killed by a Palestinian gunman —

RASHID KHALIDI: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — then said evidence was inconclusive. Then, after enormous pressure and multiple investigations by many news outlets and human rights groups, they said they likely killed her, but not intentional and caught in crossfire — something that was disproven by human rights group after a forensic architecture study of the whole thing —

RASHID KHALIDI: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — showing it was an Israeli sniper, Professor Khalidi.

RASHID KHALIDI: I mean, Israel has an enormously successful public relations machine. It took them, I think, 45 minutes to put out this specific cover story on this one, and it was immediately knocked down, as I think you already reported, when it turned out that the piece of film that they produced actually dated 40 minutes after the attack on the hospital.

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times pointed that out, the timestamp.

RASHID KHALIDI: Precisely.

AMY GOODMAN: And then they actually retracted the video from X, from Twitter.

RASHID KHALIDI: Precisely, precisely. I mean, they have a well-oiled machine to manufacture cover stories for everything they do. They have been warning hospitals that they are targets since just after this attack, the initial attack out of Gaza on the 7th of October. They hit this hospital the other day, as you just reported. They hit a school today. If you read the Israeli press, you have senior Israeli generals and retired generals talking about places like hospitals and schools as targets, because they claim there are Hamas bunkers beneath them. So it’s hard not to accept that this was an Israeli airstrike or an Israeli bombardment.

And in any case, I think here perception is reality. Given that Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs, at least, on the Gaza Strip in the last 11 days, it’s very hard to believe that — it will be very hard at least for people in the Middle East, who know how Israel systematically lies about what it does in military operations, to believe that this was anybody else than Israel. And I think that’s the important fact to retain. People in Palestine, people in the Arab world, people in everywhere except in the American, Western European media bubble are going to chalk this up to Israel’s attack on Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about your piece, “The U.S. Should Think Twice About Israel’s Plans for Gaza.” Explain what you see unfolding now, and respond to President Biden sitting down with the prime minister, Netanyahu, today and saying the other team did it, attacking the hospital, and go on from there.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I mean, the president has bonded the United States to Israel at the hip, since very soon after this horrible escalation started. And in so doing, he has made the United States responsible, in the eyes of the world, for everything. And this is the latest example of that. He’s basically read from an Israeli teleprompter, as he seems to do routinely when anything relating to the Middle East comes up. It’s almost as if his lines are scripted in Tel Aviv at the Israeli Defense Ministry, where their disinformation headquarters are located.

And he has, I think, put the United States in a position that I am not entirely sure anybody in his administration realizes. The United States is going to be vilified not just in the Middle East as a result of its unlimited support for Israel. What we are seeing now is only the beginning. The munitions that are being sent, the aircraft carriers that have been sent to the eastern Mediterranean, the huge bill that they’re going to put before Congress for — I’ve seen a figure of $100 billion — is going to cement in people’s minds the idea that the United States and Israel are one, which means that whatever happens in Gaza, going forward, in terms of people being killed, innocent civilians being killed, in terms of population being expelled — basically, we’re talking about ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza — and, heaven forbid, people actually being forced out of Gaza into Egypt, which is still a possibility, even though the Egyptians have resisted — all of these things will be put down not just to Israel, but to the United States. And I don’t think they fully realize — or if they do, they haven’t anything about it — that this is what the president has — this is where the president has put the United States, for whatever reason. Electoral reasons, his own personal sympathy for Israel, it really doesn’t matter. We are now in a situation where the United States, in my view, has put itself in a more precarious position in the Middle East than it has any time since the 1967 War.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what’s happening on the northern border, on the Israel-Lebanon border, and Hezbollah and the back-and-forth rocket fire that’s going on there and what this could signify.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I mean, the most apocalyptic scenario, which I hope and pray does not come about, would be a full-scale war on the northern border between Hezbollah and Israel. That has the potential to draw many other actors in and turn into an even wider war than that, possibly, heaven forbid, involving Syria and Iran, and then, indeed, perhaps the United States. That would be a real apocalyptic scenario. I have a sense that the United States, Iran and Hezbollah and Israel are all reluctant to go too far down that path. Any one of them might do something that could provoke that kind of escalation.

But the real problem is unintended consequences of actions that are out of control. Whatever Israel or Hezbollah or Iran or the United States may want, there may be actions that will precipitate a rapid escalation. And that would — I mean, the situation is appalling as it is. It really would be infinitely worse, the devastation of Lebanon that would follow, the involvement of — communities in northern Israel would be devastated, as well. But the possibility of that growing even wider is, to me, terrifying.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about who Biden hears. I mean, on the one hand, you have Jordan canceling the summit. He was going to meet with the king, with the Egyptian President Sisi and with Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, who turned around as soon as the bombing happened, and said he wouldn’t participate. Then Jordan canceled. Now the U.S. is saying they canceled it mutually. But what exactly this means? So, the only image is President Biden hugging Israeli President Herzog and the prime minister, Netanyahu, at the airport when he arrived. But even at home, State Department officials afraid to raise the issue of Palestinian deaths. HuffPo had a very interesting piece, “'On Thin Ice': Some Biden Administration Staffers Feel Stifled Discussing Horrors in Gaza.” And they talk about a call made by — made by the head — let me see if I can find this — a call with Muslim staffers where they were told to talk about their concerns. And they talked about being afraid of being fired, of being blacklisted, if they dared raise the actual concern they have about what’s happening and what the death toll could be and the position that President Biden is taking right now.

RASHID KHALIDI: We are moving into a McCarthyite era where expression of sympathy for Palestinians is equated with terrorism, and maybe met with police state tactics. Students are being visited by the FBI. I’m not in the least surprised that the government is sending the FBI to talk to student activists, is clamping down on its own employees who dare to express humanitarian sentiments. You are required now to utter a mantra in which you exclusively talk about Israeli suffering. And if you do not do that, you are branded and doxed, and so on and so forth. That’s happening in the academic — in academia, in universities. It’s happening in companies. And it’s, I am sure, happening within the federal government. I have no information about that.

But that is in line with the administration’s position, which is that this is a one-sided affair, in which on the one side is absolute evil, something which, according to administration spokesmen, is worse than ISIS, Da’ish. And with that kind of Manichaean point of view, clearly, anyone who expresses any dissent, you know, you are supporting absolute evil if you talk about anything but the unlimited suffering of Israelis. Now, the suffering of Israelis is unquestionable, but that that should be the only obsession of the president and his men and women puts the United States in a position where, maybe in the sound bubble of the United States, the so-called Western world, it’s comfortable, but with the rest of the world, that will not wash, including countries that are not particularly supportive of Palestine, countries like India, China and so forth. Those are countries that — and other parts of the world, I think — see things in the very same way. So, I don’t know that these people understand the degree to which they are harming this country by this kind of blind, one-sided, Israel-first approach.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Rashid Khalidi, if you were president, if you were President Biden, what would you do right now?

RASHID KHALIDI: What would I do right now? I would immediately call for a ceasefire. I would make sure that the hostages were released immediately. It is unconscionable that they be held. That would require a negotiation between Israel and Hamas about what the terms for that release would be. I would insist on that. It is absolutely urgent those people be gotten out. Most of those are innocent civilians, certainly the civilians amongst them, or many of them are innocent civilians.

The second thing I would do would be to say to Israel, “Look, there is this Palestine question. It’s been the problem for 75 years. If you don’t address it, the United States will not be willing to offer unlimited support.” And addressing it means talking about the Palestinian self-determination, talking about ending the occupation, talking about rolling back settlements, not limiting the unlimited expansion of settlements. I mean, there’s a whole set of things without which you will never have a resolution of this. And so I would work towards a lasting resolution of a struggle that’s been going on, as I say in the book, for more than a hundred years, instead of yet another Band-Aid, yet another attempt to stabilize the status quo, which is massively unfavorable to the Palestinians and which will only lead to more suffering for everybody concerned. That is an idealistic position perhaps, but I don’t think that anybody who has any sense of how this is likely to develop would say anything different, frankly.

AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, we want to thank you for being with us, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. We’ll link to your New York Times op-ed, “The U.S. Should Think Twice About Israel’s Plans for Gaza.”

Coming up, we speak with the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Back in 30 seconds.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:30 am

U.N. Rapporteur for Palestine: Gaza War Risks “Largest Instance of Ethnic Cleansing” in Mideast History
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 18, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18 ... transcript

Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, says the latest violence in Israel and Palestine has shocked even long-term observers of the conflict. She says Hamas atrocities cannot justify Israeli crimes in Gaza, where at least 3,300 people have been killed since Israel began pounding the territory with thousands of bombs. “What we are watching is a catastrophe of Olympian proportions,” says Albanese. “The only reasonable and necessary thing to ask for is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, which of course must be also accompanied by the release of the civilian hostages that Hamas has taken.” She says the scale of Israel’s response cannot be considered proportional, and warns that the displacement of potentially millions of Palestinians from Gaza would constitute the “largest instance of ethnic cleansing in the history of this tormented land.”

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.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. He spoke earlier today.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: Immediately before departing for Beijing, I made two urgent humanitarian appeals: to Hamas, for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages; to Israel, to immediately allow unrestricted access of humanitarian aid to respond to the most basic needs of the people of Gaza, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children. …

They cannot justify the acts of terror against civilians committed by Hamas on October 7 that I immediately condemned. But those attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

Each of my two humanitarian appeals have a value in themselves. They are not bargaining chips. They are simply the right thing to do. And I am horrified by the hundreds of people killed at Al-Ahli Hospital this same day in Gaza by a strike that I strongly condemned earlier today. I call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to provide sufficient time and space to help realize my two appeals and to ease the epic human suffering we are witnessing. Too many lives and the fate of the entire region hang on the balance.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.

Thank you so much for being with us. Can you respond to what’s unfolding right now and to the U.N.’s call for a humanitarian ceasefire at this point, after the deaths of some more than 1,300 Israelis and over 3,300 Palestinians?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Good morning, Amy, and thank you for having me.

What we are watching is a catastrophe of Olympian proportions. It’s a humanitarian and political catastrophe. Since the very early hours of this new tragedy unfolding in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, I’ve unequivocally condemned what Hamas has done, its targeting of innocent civilians, its taking hostages, and at the same time, in the same breath, I have condemned the response that has been given by Israel under the pretense of — under the pretext of self-defense, and brutal, even unprecedented attacks in terms of intensity, against a population which has suffered, in the Gaza Strip alone, five major wars over less than 15 years. So, I’ve said, how the killing of 3,000 civilians, the bombing of hospitals, schools, crowded markets, the leveling of houses — how can it ever be justified as self-defense?

And amidst all this, I’ve said the only reasonable and necessary thing to ask for is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, which of course must be also accompanied by the release of the civilian hostages that Hamas has taken. There is no way out without a peaceful solution. And it’s important, it’s imperative for the international community and the U.S., first and foremost, to take this opportunity to act evenhandedly and with wisdom, before we spiral further into abyss, because this is what is going to happen if the situation does not deescalate.

AMY GOODMAN: Spiraling into an abyss. Francesca Albanese, if you could respond first to what happened on October 7th, the surprise Hamas attack that ultimately killed more than 1,300 Israelis? Now we believe roughly 200 to 250, according to them, additional people are being held hostage in Gaza. And then if you can respond to the plans of Israel — repeatedly what is said is they want to de-Hamasify Gaza — and what that means?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: What has happened since the 7th of October is, as I said, unconscionable, has taken everyone, even longtime observers of the situation in Israel-occupied Palestinian territory, by surprise. There is no way that what Hamas has done cannot be condemned as war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, with no prejudice to an investigation that needs to be conducted. And there is already an investigation ongoing by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. As I said, killing civilians and taking civilian hostages cannot be ever justified. Civilian life must be preserved at all times, under all circumstances. And, you know, if we put this in context from a Palestinian perspective, the Palestinians have been under an oppressive regime, a settler colonial regime in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which is apartheid by default, for decades now. But so, while resisting the occupation, resisting this oppression is a legitimate goal under international law, it doesn’t give blanket license to kill or to target civilians. So, resistance has rules as much as — like the conduct of the occupied power — I mean Israel — has rules. And I cannot think of one rule of international humanitarian law that has not been violated. So, this is clear.

Now, going to Israel’s response, well, there is the opaqueness of declaring wanting Israel — Israel wants to uproot, eradicate Hamas from the Gaza Strip. We have to remember that the Gaza Strip has been under an unlawful blockade for 16 years. And it was already on the brink of humanitarian collapse, according to many sources, primarily the United Nations, other international organizations, even before the 7th of October. And what has happened is an intensification of this unlawfulness, because the blockade has been further tightened by declaring — by cutting off the Gaza Strip from receiving water, electricity, food, essential medicines, while it was also being bombed. I cannot imagine how this can on Earth be considered proportionate, proportional. And again, all this violence, all this brutality unleashed against 2.2 million people, half of whom are children, how can it lead, on the one hand, to the eradication of Hamas or to the, let’s say, the deescalation of the tension among the Palestinian people in Gaza?

And there is another element here, which you rightly pointed to, which is the intent to move out — I mean, to eradicate Hamas, but also to move out Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. As I myself denounce, there is a risk of ethnic cleansing here. And it wouldn’t be the first time. And there is both a declared intent, because there have been countless statements by Israeli leaders wanting to push the people of Gaza out into the Sinai, and there is also the practice. Under the fog of war, mass displacement of Palestinians has occurred — in 1947, '49, when 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, made refugees, and never allowed to return; in 1967, when 350,000 Palestinians were displaced, made refugees, many of them anew, for the second time, and never allowed to return. So, what is happening now, it's targeting millions of Palestinians. So it would be the largest instance of ethnic cleansing in the history of this tormented land. And it’s not possible that it happens under the watch of the international community.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the rejection of the U.N. Security Council draft resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza? The resolution was introduced Monday. It was introduced by Russia, won the support of Gabon, Mozambique, the United Arab Emirates and China. Six countries abstained. France, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States voted against the ceasefire resolution.

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Amy, it’s not a coincidence that I started this interview by saying this is a catastrophe of humanitarian and political Olympian proportion. We can see the failure of the United Nations system to ensure peace and security now, because the fact that the U.N. Security Council has so far been unable to issue a strong condemnation of what’s happening, of what has been committed by Hamas and what is being committed by Israel. This is, again, symptomatic of a decadelong political failure to resolve a situation that has been transformed into a humanitarian emergency and humanitarian catastrophe. But it remains a political — a political — situation that needs to be resolved in line with international law. And it’s upon the United Nations Security Council to do so. As I said, this is a critical time to show compassion and to show solidarity with both the Israelis and the Palestinians and act evenhandedly.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the news that Israel is set to ban Al Jazeera from reporting in the Occupied Territories, after the attorney general approved the move. According to the Israeli media, the attorney general, Gali Baharav Miara, and communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, reached an agreement Tuesday on the wording of emergency regulations to stop Al Jazeera from operating. Francesca Albanese, what does this mean? I mean, here in the United States — and you’re not always here, to say the least, but in this country, the news we are getting from the corporate media, when it comes to the broadcast and cable networks, there is almost no one reporting regularly from inside Gaza. Al Jazeera does report on the ground in Gaza. The significance of this?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I have to say, I learned this now. I hadn’t heard of it yet. And it’s extremely worrisome, because, again, we need information. We need information so that — I mean, everyone, the public opinion, and, all the more, political leaders. There have been very few independent voices reporting from Gaza, let alone after the 7th of October. But Al Jazeera has been an incredible source of information. So it’s incredible that this is happening. At the same time, what I want to point to is that both Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations have done an incredible job over the years, and including these days in these tragic hours for both, to report and also put in context what’s happening. So I do hope that the decision to expel Al Jazeera will be repealed. And this will put even more onus —

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it hasn’t happened yet, but they’re on the verge, it sounds like.

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: It shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. And this is all the more — it makes all the more necessary for the international community, individual member states to prevent this from happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Francesca Albanese, we want to thank you so much for being with us, United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:31 am

“Stop the War”: Israeli Peace Activist Whose Parents Were Killed in Hamas Attack Calls for Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 18, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18 ... transcript

We speak with Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, whose parents Bilha and Yakovi Inon were killed in the surprise attack by Hamas militants on October 7 that killed over 1,300 people in Israel. He wants the war to end. “Let’s call for peace. Let’s call for hope. Let’s call for a complete ceasefire. Let’s call for building bridges,” says Inon. “We must build the future, and this future must be based on equality, on partnership, on peace.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org.

We end today’s show in Israel, where we’re joined by Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, in the surprise attack by Hamas October 7th that killed over 1,300 people in Israel. Maoz is an Israeli peace activist with the movement Standing Together who’s calling for the war to end. His parents lived on a kibbutz, a farming collective, just north of the Gaza border. They were 78 and 76 years old.

Maoz, our deepest condolences on the loss of your parents.

MAOZ INON: Thank you, Amy. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your parents and what you are calling for now? Because so often we’re hearing the Israeli government use the killing, this mass killing of Israelis, over 1,300 killed — and it’s not clear, but between 200 and 250 now held hostage in Gaza — as the rationale for a ground invasion and the bombing now of Gaza.

MAOZ INON: Amy, I’m overwhelmed with what happened to me and to my family and to my community and classmates, friends in our community, Israeli communities around Gaza. Nothing prepared me for this moment that I would be here speaking with you about my tragedy. I wished I was speaking with you about the initiatives, the peace and shared society initiatives I’ve been taking part in in the last 20 years. And honestly, I’m overwhelmed with everything that’s going on.

My parents were loving people and an amazing couple, really adored and admired by their colleagues, their friends, their community, and of course by us, my five brothers and sisters and the 11 grandchildren. They didn’t want to harm anyone. They didn’t want to fight with anyone. We have close and very tight relationship — we call it even a family relationship — with the Bedouin in the Negev. I have many friends, colleagues, partners in Palestine, in Jordan, in Egypt. And what’s happening now is just devastating. It’s just devastating.

And listening to you and your guests, I was crying again. I was crying again because of the term everyone are using is “the other side team.” It’s kind of a blame game — who started it, who shoot the missile, how many victims there is from each side. And it’s just — it’s shocking. And we keep using the — everyone, including you and your guests, the same terms we are using for the last century, the century of this cycle of blood between Israelis and Palestinians. And my cry, my cry is to stop this cycle, to stop this cycle of blood, to stop this cycle of war. And I’m crying. I was interviewed the other — a few days ago with the BBC, and I said there that I’m crying not for my parents, I’m crying for those who are going to lose their life in this war. And then my cries didn’t help for too many people, hundreds of people.

And I’m crying now again with you. And I’m crying to everyone that’s watching and listening. We need you to cry with us. Don’t blame anyone. Me and my family, we seek no revenge. And we seek no revenge. We just seek peace. We seek for hope. We must change the terminology we are using to positive terminology, for reconciliation, for recognition, for partnership and for peace. I’m crying, and I’m begging you. Just will their wellness, not to blame anyone, just to stop the war and to build a different future, to break the cycle of blood, to break this game of blood and to build a new future with hope.

And hope — I’m not a scholar. I’m not a spokesman. I’m not a politician. I’m a normal people. I’m working very hard for my living. I’m raising my three beautiful children. I’m married to a beautiful, beautiful and amazing woman. And I never thought something like this might happen to someone like me. You hear it maybe in Ukraine. You hear it in Africa. You hear it in like faraway places. And this catastrophe reached me.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz —

MAOZ INON: And it’s just — yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: There is a mass —

MAOZ INON: Sorry, I am very, very emotional, very much. Sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: And again, my condolences to you, to your family. Today there’s a mass protest planned for Washington, D.C., led by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace. Two dozen rabbis will be part of a civil disobedience, apparently. They’re calling for an end to the occupation. Do you feel the same way?

MAOZ INON: I think occupation — of course, but we are in such a risk. And I think now calling for to do these things or the other, we are going back to the terminology — we are using the same terminology that brought us to this situation. Let’s call for peace. Let’s call for hope. Let’s call for a complete ceasefire. Let’s call for building bridges. Of course I’m against the occupation. But it’s irrelevant at the moment. There might — or, I’m afraid there will be many, many more victims. And what we all should be focusing now is to stop the war. Very simple message. And we must cry it. We must cry our message to everyone that has a heart and that can listen.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Maoz, there are people, Israeli families, in front of the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, whose families have been taken hostage, either mother, father, daughter, son. And they are there saying the same thing. We often see them in the media describing the horror of what happened to their loved ones, but then the media doesn’t go on to say what they’re calling for. What do you demand right now of Prime Minister Netanyahu, when you talk about ending the war?

MAOZ INON: Again, I am calling and I’m crying, not to Benjamin Netanyahu, not to the leader of the Hamas, not to President Biden. I’m crying for humanity, for the entire humanity, for the entire mankind. I’m crying to stop the war. I’m crying for immediate ceasefire. And I’m crying for hope, hope that will take us from this cycle of blood to a new and bright future. We must build hope. We must build a future. And this future must be based on equality, on partnership, on peace. And this is what I am crying for. And it’s not to blame this or the other, this person or the other. They’re irrelevant anymore. We must build a new system. And it might —

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Maoz, so much, as the show ends. And our condolences again, Israeli peace activist, speaking to us from Binyamina, Israel. I’m Amy Goodman. Thank you for joining us.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:33 am

Annexation, Ethnic Cleansing & Genocide: Mustafa Barghouti Decries Israel’s Deadly Campaign in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 19, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19 ... transcript

As the death toll in Gaza nears 3,800 from two weeks of Israeli aerial bombardment, we go to the occupied West Bank to speak with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. “With the passage of each minute, more Palestinians are killed,” says Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative. Barghouti has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 and is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council. He discusses Biden’s visit to Israel, the “clearly Israeli” strike on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Israel’s plans to annex Gaza, and the collapsed civilian society there, where residents have no access to clean water, no hospital beds for critical medical care and no safe haven. “The game is clear: They want to ethnically cleanse, completely, the Gaza Strip.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The death toll in Gaza is nearing 3,800 as Israel continues its aerial bombardment of the besieged territory for the 13th day. Dozens of Palestinians were killed overnight as Israel bombed southern Gaza in areas that were supposed to be safe zones after Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza to vacate their homes. This is Raafat al-Nakhal speaking in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike.

RAAFAT AL-NAKHAL: [translated] We came from Gaza City. They told us to come to the south, so we came to the south. We found that the strikes intensified in the south. We stayed in a house. In front of us, there were strikes, and behind us, strikes. There’s no safety. There’s nowhere safe in Gaza. You have to be ready to die and to just stay in your house. …

There’s absolutely no difference between Gaza City, Rafah, Khan Younis, between the south, the north, the east or the west. They brought us to the south, and it’s been strikes every day. Every day there are martyrs in massive numbers. …

I’m over 70 years old. I’ve lived through several wars. It’s never been like this. It’s never been this brutal — no religion and no conscience.
Thank God. We only have hope in God, not in any Arab or Muslim country or anywhere in the world, except for God.

AMY GOODMAN: Funerals were held earlier today in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike leveled a three-story building, killing 12 members of the same family. Relatives said the dead include seven children.

GRANDFATHER: [translated] What is this that has happened to them? Babies sleeping in their houses, five children and four women sleeping in their houses, no men. They were sleeping inside. The strike hit a three-level building on six babies and four women. What shall we say? Thank God. The children were all 5 or 6 years old. There was no warning, because it’s an Israeli despicable terrorist country and not an Islamic country, a terrorist American country.

UNCLE: [translated] These are seven babies. Four are buried here, and three are buried in another site. The total is 10.

GRANDFATHER: [translated] The children died, their mothers and their grandmother.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Meanwhile, in the northern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike trapped children under rubble. Dramatic footage shows Palestinians trying to rescue the children.

AMY GOODMAN: This all comes as Israel has amassed tanks on the border of Gaza ahead of what appears to be an imminent ground invasion. Protests have been growing across the Middle East after hundreds of Palestinians died in an explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. Palestinians say the blast was caused by an Israeli missile. Israel has denied responsibility despite attacking the same hospital just days earlier. According to the World Health Organization, 115 health facilities have been attacked so far in Gaza.

On the diplomatic front, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza. President Biden, who’s returned from Israel, is scheduled to give a primetime address tonight seeking $100 billion from Congress to help arm Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. Meanwhile, Israel now says they believe 203 hostages are being held in Gaza after being seized in the Hamas attack on October 7th that killed over 1,400 people in Israel.

We go now to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where we’re joined by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. He’s a Palestinian physician, an activist and politician, who serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative. He’s been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006, is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council.

Dr. Barghouti, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can respond to —

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — all the developments? Most recently, of course, President Biden has just left. Your assessment of his visit and the Arab summit that was canceled by Mahmoud Abbas, who’s based where you are, in Ramallah, the head of the Palestinian Authority, the Jordanian king and the Egyptian president, after the attack on the hospital, and your assessment of what Israel is saying about that attack?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: You know, Amy, I don’t know where to start. The atrocities are beyond description. We are subjected now, as Palestinians, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank, to horrifying war crimes, ethnic cleansing, acts of collective punishment against the population of Gaza, where civilians are dying because they don’t have water, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have food, they don’t have medicines, and an act of genocide. Every five minutes, a Palestinian is killed in Gaza. Every 15 minutes, a Palestinian child is killed in Gaza. And it goes on. My last number is 3,785. I think it’s already wrong, because with the passage of each minute, more Palestinians are killed.

What did President Biden do? Instead of coming here and telling the Israelis — and he knows very well that the United States is the only country in the world that has leverage over Israel. Instead of telling them, “Stop this atrocity. Have ceasefire, so that you can at least save the prisoners that are in Gaza, the Israeli prisoners,” he came here to be totally complicit with Israeli war crimes and to push the United States into becoming a participant in these war crimes by sending soldiers to participate in the Israeli invasion and in the crimes that are committed against the Palestinian people.

He bought every lie that Netanyahu told him, and he kept repeating them. And I don’t understand how the American intelligence structure don’t tell their president that these are lies. I am sure they know that. The first lie about decapitating children, it turned out to be a big lie. The other lie about raping women, it turned out to be a lie, and that’s what Los Angeles Times apologized about.
Then this huge lie about Palestinians killing themselvesin their hospital,
this huge lie that Israel distributed and the Israeli military did, as they usually do, by telling series of lies and changing them one time after the other.

Before I come back to President Biden, let me explain. Israel committed a terrible airstrike on the Baptist Hospital, run by the Anglican Church, killing no less than 300 — killing no less than 473 Palestinian people, mainly children and women, and injuring more than 300 others. Why? For what? It was all about the Israeli ultimatum that was already, according to WHO, sent to no less than 27 hospitals, including the largest hospital in Gaza, Shifa Hospital, to evict and evacuate so that Israel can conduct its ethnic cleansing of big parts of Gaza at the moment, with a plan of ethnically cleansing all of Gaza Strip. The strike was clearly Israeli. The type of explosion is something that no Palestinian militant group has, a huge blast that took the lives of almost 500 people instantly, in less than a minute. That’s a power that no Palestinian group has. So it was a big lie.

But Israel lied four times in justifying this attack. The first Israeli reaction was that they did the airstrike on the hospital — they admitted it in the first round, and they said they did it because Hamas militants were hiding there. Then they changed the story, and they said that Hamas is taking Palestinians as human shield. Then the third story, they changed the story and said it was Hamas rocket. And then the fourth lie, which is now dominant, is that it was a jihadi rocket.

How could the United States repeat these lies and accept them without verifying them? Israel did that before with the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, when they changed their story four times. Each time, in the beginning, they said she was killed by a Palestinian, and gradually they admitted that it was their crime. Believe me, these lies should not be continued.

And the United States should immediately support an immediate ceasefire. The meeting that should have been taking place with the Jordanian king and with the Egyptian president and with Palestinian president did not take place because all these three people realized that Mr. Biden does not want to support ceasefire immediately. And they realized that he’s practically supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, something that Egypt refused and something that Jordan refused and something that all the Arab countries refused. That is the essence of what’s happening now.

And so, Israel now is changing the plan a little bit by pushing all the people from the northern part of Gaza and the middle of Gaza into the southern part. It’s already a very small area of less than 140 square miles, becoming now less than 60 square miles, with 2.3 million people. They say they pushed them down for safety, but they continue to bombard them in the south. The game is clear: They want to ethnically cleanse, completely, Gaza Strip. And they initiated acts of ethnic cleansing already in the West Bank, where 20 Palestinian communities have already been evicted by Israeli terror settlers, where more than 75 Palestinians already killed also in the West Bank. At this very moment, the Israeli army is attacking Tulkarem camp and Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem area, using drones and using also rockets against civilian population in a refugee camp. This is the situation that is getting worse and worse every day.

And the real plan, as I can see it, according to what an Israeli minister said, “We’re going to shrink Gaza’s size.” What does that mean? Annexing the northern part and the middle of Gaza? What will happen to all these hospitals? Let me read to you what World Health Organization says. The World Health Organization says that 130 attacks — 136 attacks were committed against health facilities in Gaza, during which time 491 Palestinians were killed, 16 health workers were killed, 370 people were injured, 23 Palestinian health ambulances were destroyed, and 26 facilities were completely destroyed or partially destroyed. Seventy-seven similar attacks also took place in the West Bank.

So nobody can convince us that it was Palestinians who killed Palestinians in that hospital. And nobody should give any justification for the behavior of President Biden. The only conclusion that one can come to is that he cares only about his reelection. He doesn’t care even about the lives of Israeli prisoners, neither him nor Netanyahu; otherwise, why wouldn’t they accept ceasefire? Why Netanyahu continues his airstrikes, although these airstrikes already killed 22 Israeli prisoners? They continue because they don’t care about Palestinian lives or Israeli lives.

And Mr. Biden should listen not to the lies of Netanyahu, but to the noble voice of the Jewish people, the American Jewish people who came to the American Congress to demonstrate and demand one thing: immediate ceasefire. I’m telling you, we’re calling on the whole world to immediately stand up, and instead of supporting the genocide and the collective punishment and the hysterical Israeli ethnic cleansing, to support immediate ceasefire, so we can stop the killings that are taking place, a ceasefire that could guarantee safe passage to the prisoners, but also that could guarantee humanitarian aid to Palestinians who are now dying out because of thirst, because of starvation, and, most importantly, because of lack of medicines and because of a possibility of an epidemic that could immediately start in Gaza because of the suspension of vaccinations for children and because of the destruction of sanitary infrastructure. We could see an epidemic of cholera very soon in Gaza. Is that what Mr. Biden wants? Is that what Mr. Netanyahu wants? This is atrocity that should stop. And anybody that don’t call — that doesn’t call, sorry, for a ceasefire immediately will be considered not only complicit with these war crimes, but a participant in them.


NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Barghouti, could you respond to the decision that Biden announced of Egypt opening the Rafah border for 20 humanitarian trucks to enter into Gaza, you know, and what you think the significance of that is, if there is any, and the specific concerns you’ve raised as a doctor, the tens of thousands of pregnant women in Gaza today, what the fate of patients there are, who are in urgent need of medical care, and none is available?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Well, one of the most striking scenes was the images of children who died in the uterus of their mothers, because they were pregnant and they were hit. But there are 5,500 Palestinian women who are giving birth this month, and we already received terrible, terrible information about them giving birth in the streets, because there is no place to go to. The south of Gaza does not have any space anymore, besides the fact that there is no safe space for anybody. Israel has already destroyed more than 80,000 homes and houses of people, and people have no place to go to. And there is very high risk now of an increased infant mortality, perinatal mortality and maternal mortality because of the situation that Palestinians find themselves in — no sanitary facilities, no drinking water, no running water, no proper sewage system. It’s a total disaster and total, total humanitarian crisis.

You asked me about something about President Biden. Can you repeat the question, please?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Yes, about the decision to let convoys, humanitarian convoys, 20, in from Egypt into Gaza.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Imagine 2.3 million people already deprived of fuel, water, electricity, medications and food for 12 days. And you send 20 trucks for them? What does that change? It’s less than a drop in the ocean. That’s much less than what people need. It becomes only a cover of the crime that is happening. I’m not against, of course, bringing these trucks, whatever they can help, but that’s not what we need. We need an open corridor so that food, water, electricity, as well as medications can get to people. We have medical teams in Gaza. We have Palestinian medical relief teams working along the work of the Red Crescent, as well as the Ministry of Health. And they are calling us every day, telling us, “We don’t have any more medications. We don’t have even dressing to help the injured people. We don’t have proper sanitary facilities. How can we deal with patients in these conditions?” You know, patients were treated and surgical operations took place the other day on the stairs of the hospitals, because there were no beds left. And the massacre that happened in the Baptist Hospital was so shocking and practically brought the whole health structure down. And now, already, three hospitals stopped working, because they have no electricity, because they don’t have sufficient medications. It’s a humanitarian disaster that is building up.

And the only explanation is that Netanyahu wants to solve what he thinks is the demographic problem of Israel, being that the number of Palestinians today in West Bank and Gaza Strip and in Israel itself is equal to the number of Israeli Jewish people. He wants to eliminate that, first by ethnically cleansing the 2.3 million people in Gaza, pushing them out of Gaza and then annexing Gaza Strip, and then initiate a process of ethnic cleansing for Palestinians in the West Bank, first in Area C and then in the rest of the West Bank. That’s why the king of Jordan is so shocked about these plans, because he knows that he’s coming next. After they finish with Gaza, they will move to the West Bank. This is something that nobody should accept.

I never thought — I never thought, I admit — and I was wrong — I never thought that Israel could dare to conduct ethnic cleansing in the 21st century. And unfortunately, I was wrong. That’s exactly what they are doing today. And I ask the question. They say that Israel has the right to respond. OK, they responded. They responded. They already killed almost 4,000 people. How many thousands of children, how many thousands of patients, how many thousands of women and men should die before Israel decides it’s enough? Or should all the millions of Palestinians disappear from Palestine and disappear from this world so that these fascists — and I call them fascists and Nazis — that are governing Israel would be satisfied?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Barghouti, I just want to quote to you — I think this is the senior minister to whom you were referring, comments he made — Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, saying in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio on Wednesday — he said, quote, that “At the end of this war, not only will Hamas no longer be in Gaza, but the territory of Gaza will also decrease.” So, if you could talk more about that, elaborate on your point about what precisely they intend to do with Gaza, and then talk about what’s happening in the West Bank? You said it’s also the site of war crimes, of ethnic cleansing. But also the protests that are directed against the Palestinian Authority there — we had earlier in headlines that the protests across the West Bank have also taken aim at the ruling Palestinian Authority, which has launched a violent crackdown on demonstrations. A 12-year-old Palestinian girl named Razan Nasrallah was shot and killed by PA security forces Tuesday during protests in Jenin. So, if you could talk about that, the situation in the West Bank?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Yeah. I’m sorry, but you asked about something else before the West Bank?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Yes. I just cited to you the person whom I thought you were mentioning earlier, the Israeli foreign minister —

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Oh, Cohen, yes, yes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — talking about — yes, please.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Yes, yes, Eli Cohen. The foreign minister of Israel means that Israel is turning now, since Egypt is not allowing the ethnic cleansing of people in Gaza to Egypt up ’til now, is turning to plan B. And plan B is to remove everybody in the northern part of Gaza and in Gaza City itself — that is about 1.1 million to 1.2 million people — move them down to the southern parts of Gaza and then annex that area, cutting down the size of Gaza from 140 square miles to maybe now less than 50 square miles or maybe 60 square miles. This is the only explanation of what he said, shrinking the size of Gaza, bringing it down. And they think — the Israeli government thinks — that if they cluster all these 2.3 million people in such a small area, then the pressure will be so huge that Egypt will be obliged to open the borders and let them out of Gaza. And in that case, Israel would have achieved its original plan of total ethnic cleansing, pushing Palestinians out of Palestine into the Sinai. Mind you, 70% of these people have already been ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948. They were displaced from parts of the 520 communities that Israeli troops erased to earth back in 1948, committing 50 massacres and pushing Palestinians out of Palestine. They want to repeat the same ethnic cleansing again.

But let me tell you, this is not the last plan of Israel. Netanyahu made it very clear. Maybe I’m repeating that. He carried the map of Israel in the United Nations in front of the whole world weeks ago, in which that map, the map of Israel, included the annexation of all of the West Bank and the annexation of all the occupied Gaza Strip. This is their plan: annexation, ethnic cleansing and committing genocide against the Palestinian population.

But in response to your question about West Bank, let me tell you the situation here is very dangerous, is very grave. First of all, Israel imposed practically a process of fragmenting the West Bank into 224 small islands or ghettos, if you want, separated from each other by no less than 640 military Israeli checkpoints, many of which are closed completely — for instance, Jericho now is totally closed — and then the wall, of course, itself and the so-called bypass roads, which are segregated roads exclusive for Israelis. Many, many Palestinians cannot move now from one area to another. Our health work is becoming very, very complicated in the West Bank because we cannot move medications, we cannot move medical teams.

And the worst situation is in the so-called Area C, which represents no less than 60% of the West Bank, where settlers are continuously attacking Palestinians. The other day, Israeli terror settlers attacked the village of Qusra, in Nablus area, killed three Palestinian civilians. The army, the Israeli army, came and killed a fourth one. The next day, when the people were having the funeral of these four Palestinians killed, the settlers came back again and killed two more people, a father and a son — six people in one village in less than 24 hours. The terror of settlers is everywhere.

But in addition to that, the Israeli army is conducting a wide-range campaign of arresting Palestinians. According to my information, no less than 750 Palestinians have been arrested during the last week. And the number is growing, which means that the number of prisoners in Israeli jails is more than 6,300 now, many of whom are held under the so-called administrative detention, which means they don’t know why they are in jail, they don’t have any legal due process. Their lawyers cannot even defend them, because they don’t know what they are charged for, including 260 children who are in Israeli jails at the moment.

Add to that the fact that already more than 75 Palestinians have been killed. And the Israeli army, now thinking that everybody is busy with what’s happening in Gaza, they are now conducting military operations against Palestinian civil areas, including Tulkarem refugee camp and, before that, Jenin refugee camp. And this can go on. So it’s a very dangerous situation and a very risky situation for all Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Barghouti, we only have a minute, but what about, and why then, the Palestinian Authority violent crackdown on demonstrations, with the 12-year-old Palestinian girl, Razan Nasrallah, shot and killed in Jenin?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: That was also a crime, committed by Palestinian security forces, and it should not have happened. It is unacceptable to encounter demonstrators with gunfire. That is unacceptable. We’re not calling, of course, for chaos or internal division here among Palestinians. We have enough of what we have in front of us with fighting Israelis. But the reality is that the behavior of the security apparatus is unacceptable, including suppression of freedom of expression. People were mad. They were angry at what was happening in Gaza, about the killing of people inside that hospital. And maybe they made some — I mean, they went out of control. But responding to that by shooting Palestinians, that’s the last thing that we can accept or we should accept.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa —

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: And for this —

AMY GOODMAN: — Barghouti, I want to —

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Sorry. I just wanted to say that they have to also abide by international law and stop this wrongdoing.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Barghouti is a Palestinian physician, activist, politician, serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative.

Coming up, we’ll hear the voices of the historic Jewish-led protest in Washington, D.C. Thousands came out, hundreds were arrested, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Back in 20 seconds.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

Postby admin » Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:34 am

Ceasefire Now! Rashida Tlaib, Naomi Klein Join Thousands in Jewish-Led D.C. Protest Against Gaza War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 19, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/19 ... transcript

Thousands rallied at the U.S. Capitol this week calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, in what organizers with IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace called the largest-ever protest of Jews in support of Palestine. Hundreds were also arrested during a sit-in of the Cannon House Office Building. We feature addresses by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, and author Naomi Klein.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Capitol Hill, police arrested at least 300 activists Wednesday as they held a nonviolent sit-in protest in the Cannon House Office Building to demand lawmakers press for a ceasefire in Gaza. The arrests came as thousands of people rallied on the National Mall for a demonstration organized by the groups IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. Organizers called it the largest-ever protest of Jews in support of Palestinians. Among those who spoke was the only Palestinian American congressmember, Rashida Tlaib.

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB: I wish all the Palestinian people would see this. I wish they can see that not all of America want them to die, that they are not disposable. They have a right to live. They didn’t ask to be born in occupation. And so I just want to thank you on the bottom of my heart. The dehumanization has chipped at my soul, and I can’t imagine what it’s made so many other people feel. So, you all being here to speak truth — because the warmongers are out, y’all. They are ready. They want to kill and not stop. It’s pure insanity.

I still remember the cry of Maya, who was being dragged out of that festival, crying for her father. But just like poor Shaima in Gaza, who was number one in her scores — I don’t know if you know anything about Palestinian culture, but it’s a big that somebody from Gaza could score number one on her — you know, it’s like the valedictorian for the whole Palestinian people. And both of them — both of them are victims. They’re victims of the oppression, of the violence. They both deserve to live. I don’t care what their faith is or their ethnicity. Maya didn’t deserve to be targeted. Neither did Shaima deserve to die. And that’s the common humanity that we all have to remember, because they’re trying to take it away from us. And we have to make sure it doesn’t happen, not on our watch.

I’m going to be real with you all. My colleagues, many of them — I usually don’t talk smack about them. No, I’m usually considerate, because I don’t like them policing me, so I don’t police them. But as an American, not just as a member of the United States Congress, I am ashamed. I am ashamed that they’re saying, “Not yet. Maybe next week.”

CROWD: Shame!

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB: “Not yet, Rashida. Maybe — maybe in a couple of days.” How many more have to die?

AMY GOODMAN: That was the only Palestinian American congressmember, Rashida Tlaib, addressing Wednesday’s historic Jewish-led protest of thousands in Washington. This is the award-winning author and writer Naomi Klein.

NAOMI KLEIN: Thank you all for being here. I have never seen anything like this in my history of Jewish anti-Zionist activism. It’s been decades. We used to be tiny. We are huge and growing.

We have a sacred responsibility to engage with our parents, our grandparents, our uncles, our brothers and sisters, and try to save their souls, to keep them from indulging in this quest for bloody vengeance.
We are here because we will not let our fears of antisemitism be manipulated in this way, as cover for war crimes and colonial land grabs and to foreclose on the possibility of a political solution, which will only come with an end to occupation, with an end to apartheid, with true Palestinian freedom and self-determination. We will not use the fact that many of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were refugees from genocide to justify making hundreds of thousands or even millions of new Palestinian refugees.

These are not our leaders, not in the Knesset, with its so-called unity government, and not here in Congress, which reconvenes now in part in order to approve new money and new weapons to send to Israel for its genocidal attack on Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: The award-winning author and writer Naomi Klein. When we come back, the legendary Israeli journalist Amira Hass, in 20 seconds.
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