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

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023

Israeli Soldiers Strip and Detain Palestinians in Gaza, Including Journalist and Other Civilians
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warns civil order is “breaking down” in the Gaza Strip as Israel continues its unrelenting assault. In one of the latest attacks, dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured as Israeli warplanes struck near the al-Amal Hospital and the Palestinian Red Crescent’s headquarters in Khan Younis. In Gaza City, Doctors Without Borders reports 115 Palestinians were brought to the Al-Aqsa Hospital Thursday dead on arrival. The medical charity said in a statement, “The hospital is full, the morgue is full. We call on Israeli Forces to stop the indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. We need a ceasefire now.”

Video has emerged showing Israeli soldiers in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza detaining over 100 Palestinian men at gunpoint, forcing them to strip to their underwear while lined up, kneeling on the pavement. Among those detained was Diaa Al-Kahlout, a Palestinian journalist with the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. In a statement, the newspaper condemned the mistreatment of Al-Kahlout and other civilians, saying Israeli forces “deliberately subjected the Gazans to degrading treatment, forcing them to disrobe, conducting intrusive searches, and subjecting them to humiliation upon arrest, before forcibly transporting them to undisclosed locations.”

In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports at least six Palestinians were killed and many others wounded in Israeli raids overnight.

Israeli Airstrike Kills Palestinian Academic and Activist Refaat Alareer and Family Members
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed the prominent Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, along with his brother, his sister and her four children. He authored dozens of stories and poems about life under Israeli occupation. Refaat Alareer spoke to Democracy Now! in October as Israeli strikes rattled his family’s home in Gaza City.

Refaat Alareer: “We speak about thousands, hundreds and thousands of Israeli bombs and shells targeting all areas of the Gaza Strip. The kids can’t sleep. The kids can’t eat. The kids can’t even speak. Most of the time they’re just mute, silent, shaking out of fear, sometimes whimpering because of how close the bombs are wherever you are in Gaza.”

After headlines, we’ll speak with Jehad Abusalim, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund and former student of Refaat Alareer, whom Abusalim described as a teacher, mentor and friend.

Netanyahu Threatens to Reduce Beirut to Rubble If Hezbollah Increases Attacks
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023

An anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon killed an Israeli civilian on Thursday. The cross-border attack prompted retaliatory fire from Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to reduce Lebanon’s capital Beirut to rubble if Hezbollah increases its attacks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “If Hezbollah chooses to start an all-out war, then it will, by its own hands, turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, not far from here, into Gaza and Khan Younis.”

Released Captives Confront Israeli War Cabinet over Response to Hostage Crisis
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023

In Tel Aviv, friends and family of Israelis held hostage by Hamas held a candle-lighting ceremony Thursday marking the start of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. This is Daniel Lifshitz, whose 83-year-old grandfather Oded was kidnapped by Hamas and brought to the Gaza Strip on October 7.

Daniel Lifshitz: “So, we light the candles for the return of the hostages, for the release of the hostages, to make a deal for the hostages. And that’s what we are here for.”

On Tuesday, released Israeli hostages joined the loved ones of Israelis still held captive, in a meeting with Netanyahu and his war cabinet. Ha’aretz reports one woman whose release was negotiated during an exchange of captives assailed Israeli leaders for indiscriminate attacks that put hostages at risk. She said, “We slept in tunnels, and we feared not Hamas, but Israel might kill us, and then it would have been said, 'Hamas killed you.'”

Another former hostage whose husband remains a captive cited recent reports in The Wall Street Journal that Israel has drawn up plans to flood Gaza’s network of underground tunnels with seawater — a move that could foul Gaza’s supply of drinking water for decades. She said, “He was taken to the tunnels, and you talk about washing the tunnels with seawater. You prioritize politics over the hostages!”

*******************

“We Want Freedom”: Refaat Alareer, Gaza Scholar & Activist Killed by Israeli Strike, in His Own Words
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/8/ ... transcript

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, along with his brother, his sister and her four children. Alareer was just 44 years old. For more than 16 years, he worked as a professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and authored dozens of stories and poems about life under Israeli occupation in Gaza. “Whether it is my kids or any Palestinian kid or any Palestinian, no one is safe. No place is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere,” Alareer told Democracy Now! on October 10.

Previous interviews with Refaat Alareer:

•October 2023: Israel’s 'Barbaric' Bombardment Is Part of Ethnic Cleansing Campaign
• May 2021: Israel Is Trying to Destroy Us: Gaza Father & Writer Speaks Out as Palestinian Death Toll Nears 200

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates at the U.N. climate summit.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has entered its third month. Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli assault has killed over 17,000 Palestinians. Earlier this week, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, along with his brother, his sister and four of his nieces. For more than 16 years, Alareer worked as a professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he taught Shakespeare and other subjects. Refaat Alareer was a father of six and a mentor to many young Palestinian writers and journalists. He also co-founded the organization We Are Not Numbers. He authored dozens of stories and poems about life under Israeli occupation in Gaza.

In a few minutes we’ll speak to one of his friends, but first I want to return to Refaat Alareer in his own words. He’s spoken to us several times. This is October 10th. As he spoke to Democracy Now!, Israeli strikes rattled his family’s home in Gaza City.

REFAAT ALAREER: What is happening in Gaza is complete and utter extermination of the non-Jewish population in occupied Palestine. As you mentioned, Israel ordered a medieval hermetic siege from air and sea. Israel has also just bombed the only way out through Egypt, the Rafah crossing. The only way out is for — what’s happening, what we are foreseeing is slow starvation, slow genocide. Maybe Israel is going to push us all into the sea.

And I think what is making it even more difficult than before is that the whole world, not even lip service — all American and European countries and politicians are rushing to pledge allegiance to Israel and to Netanyahu. American politicians, American presidential hopefuls are literally calling for genocide. American mainstream media is not pushing back against Israeli officials calling for the collateral damage of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.

Why is this happening? Because we refuse to live under occupation. We refuse to live in total submission. We want freedom. We want this occupation to end. This is not a state of war, as one of your guests just mentioned. This is a state of occupation that started over 75 years, that started with the British Empire giving Palestine to the Zionist movement in 1917. …

The only hope we have is in the growing popular support in America, in the movements of — the movements, the human rights and the rights movements in America and across Europe, to take to the streets to pressure their politicians into putting an end to this dark, dark episode of not only the history of the Middle East, but also the history of humanity. If people are asking how was the Holocaust allowed and other genocides in Africa and across the world, now you can see this live on TV, live on social media. Palestinians’ whole blocks destroyed, hospitals, schools, businesses. We are speaking about thousands and thousands of housing units destroyed by Israel. So, my message to the free people of the world is to move to pressure, to mobilize and to take to the streets.

AMY GOODMAN: Refaat Alareer, you are the father of six. How old are your children? And can you describe what it’s like to live there right now?

REFAAT ALAREER: Like I said, this has been systematically happening for over seven decades. It was the noose around Gaza’s neck was tightened 15 years ago, and it’s being tightened even further now. The situation is unspeakable. You can’t describe what’s happening in words. We speak about thousands, hundreds and thousands of Israeli bombs and shells targeting all areas of the Gaza Strip. The kids can’t sleep. The kids can’t eat. The kids can’t even speak. Most of the time they’re just mute, silent, shaking out of fear, sometimes whimpering because of how close the bombs are wherever you are in Gaza. And again, the houses shake every time there is a bomb around. And this is happening again all over Gaza Strip.

Israel is telling people, is pushing people forcibly to leave out of their homes and urging them to go to certain places, like the city center or the U.N. places, shelters, and then Israel bombs the roads leading to these areas and bombs these crowded areas. Yesterday, there was a massacre. Israel killed about 60 Palestinians in Jabaliya refugee camp in a local market where there is a U.N. school, people taking shelter there. So, whether it is my kids or any Palestinian kid or any Palestinian, no one is safe. No place is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere.

AMY GOODMAN: Those were the words of the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, speaking on Democracy Now! October 10th. Earlier this week, he was killed in an Israeli airstrike along with his brother, his sister and four of his nieces. Refaat last posted on social media Monday, writing on the platform X, quote, “The Democratic Party and Biden are responsible for the Gaza genocide perpetrated by Israel.” When Democracy Now! spoke to Refaat during the 2021 Israeli assault on Gaza, he also accused the Biden administration of enabling the massacre of Palestinians.

REFAAT ALAREER: I think it was Biden that gave Netanyahu the green light to start it. When they tweeted that America supports Israel’s right to defend itself two days after the aggression started, I quickly said that this is going to be a long war against civilians, because Israel is killing us using American weapons, using American technology, using American planes. America has — the American administration — all American administrations have blood, Palestinian blood, on their hands. The massacre that is going on is on Biden.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, the words of the late Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, speaking on Democracy Now! in 2021, months after he had written an op-ed for The New York Times headlined “My Child Asks, 'Can Israel Destroy Our Building If the Power Is Out?'”

****************

“If I Must Die”: IDF Strike Kills Gaza Scholar Refaat Alareer; Friend Pays Tribute & Reads His Poem
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/8/ ... transcript

Scholar and policy analyst Jehad Abusalim remembers his friend Refaat Alareer, the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City earlier this week. “Refaat Alareer was a towering figure in Palestinian society, especially in Gaza,” who used education and “language as a weapon against oppression,” says Abusalim, who speaks about the widespread destruction of schools and educators in Gaza by Israel’s renewed bombardment, siege and invasion. “The tragedy that has befallen the academic, scholarly and intellectual community in Gaza and in Palestine is unprecedented. Israel is destroying the foundations of society in the Gaza Strip.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by Jehad Abusalim, scholar and policy analyst from Gaza, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund. He was a student and close friend of Refaat Alareer.

Jehad, thank you so much for joining us. Our deepest condolences on the loss of your friend, who you’ve known for some 17, 18 years. Can you talk about how you learned of Refaat’s death, and tell us the story of his life?

JEHAD ABUSALIM: Thank you for having me.

I was at work when my wife called me asking me if I heard something about Refaat and if the news about him were true. I opened my phone. I looked at my social media apps, and that was the moment I realized that he was gone.

Refaat Alareer was a towering figure in Palestinian society, especially in Gaza. He transcended the role of a mere educator and a teacher. He was a mentor, a beacon of wisdom and guidance, a loving father and husband, and a compassionate son. Refaat’s presence enriched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of students. His influence extended far beyond the confines of the classroom. Refaat wasn’t just a teacher. He was a friend, a confidant. He was someone who loved to support his students and who believed strongly in the potential of each student, offering them personal advice and guidance. Refaat will be missed.

It is really hard to sum up Refaat’s story in a few words. But one thing I can say, Amy, is that Refaat’s life was not without its share of many, many challenges. Despite personal tragedies and the harsh realities of life in Gaza, Refaat remained unwavering, using his pen and his voice to fight back and to write back. His resilience was an inspiration to us all, his students and friends and members of the cultural, intellectual and literary community in Gaza. In a place like Gaza, where educational resources are scarce, Refaat’s mastery of the English language was more than a skill. It was a mission. He saw English as a key, a tool to liberation and a means to defy the siege and intellectual and academic restrictions that Israel imposed on Gaza and other Palestinian communities. So, for him, his teaching wasn’t just about imparting knowledge or conducting exams. It was about empowerment, about using language as a weapon against oppression.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know, Jehad, how he was killed?

JEHAD ABUSALIM: From what we hear in the media and based on reports by his friends, neighbors, he was sheltering at a school, and he received a phone call from the Israeli intelligence informing him that his location — that they located his place, that they identified his location. And whether this was a call from an official arm of the Israeli intelligence or a mere troll, we don’t know. He decided that it’s probably not safe for him to remain at the school where he was sheltering, so he went probably to see family — his sister, his brother. And at that moment, the place where he was was bombed, which led to killing him, his sister, his brother and his four nieces.

Many of the details remain unknown, given the fact that the part of Gaza where he was killed, in Shuja’iyya, is cut off from the rest of the Gaza Strip. It is under heavy bombardment. And it is the site of many atrocities that are still being committed by Israeli forces. So, without having journalists and investigators and workers with international organizations access these areas, we can’t really fully grasp all the details of Refaat’s death, and, of course, the tragedies that have befell many, many other Palestinians there.

AMY GOODMAN: Jehad Abusalim, he taught at Islamic University, is that right? You know, before the well-known human rights attorney Raji Sourani ultimately left Gaza, we were interviewing him at his home in Gaza City, and the house shook. And we learned then that Islamic University had been hit. Now, in the last days, we’ve learned that the president of Islamic University was killed with his family, professor Sofyan Taya. That occurred just recently. He was a well-known mathematician and physicist. Did you know him?

JEHAD ABUSALIM: I did not know Professor Taya. But as someone who went to both Al-Azhar University in Gaza, which was destroyed, the Islamic University in Gaza, which was destroyed, I can tell you that the scale of loss, the tragedy that has befallen the academic, scholarly and intellectual community in Gaza and in Palestine, is unprecedented. Israel is destroying the foundations of society in the Gaza Strip. Israel is systematically destroying our educational system, our cultural institutions. And today we saw footage of the Grand Omari Mosque in Gaza, a structure that dates back to thousands of years, also in ruins. This is a genocidal war of erasure, of uprooting and of mass destruction.

We mourn our teachers, our educators, our doctors, our nurses, our friends, our neighbors. And we also are mourning the loss of a society as we knew it, that no longer exists. And this is all happening while the world is watching, leaving Palestinians in Gaza endure one of the largest bombardment campaigns in the 21st century. How is this acceptable? How is this allowed to happen?

AMY GOODMAN: Jehad Abusalim, Refaat edited two volumes. Can you talk about those books, like Gaza Writes Back? He was a poet, a writer, an author, an activist.

JEHAD ABUSALIM: In Gaza Writes Back, Refaat says — and I quote — “Writing is a testimony, a memory that outlives any human experience, and an obligation to communicate with ourselves and the world. We lived for a reason, to tell the tales of loss, of survival, and of hope,” end-quote.

Refaat Alareer understood the power of English. He understood that in a place like Gaza, where educational resources are scarce and where educational institutions are cut off from the rest of the world, he realized that his mastery of the English language was more than a skill. It was a mission. So he saw English as a key to liberation, a means to defy the siege and the intellectual and academic blockade that Israel has imposed and continues to impose in Gaza. And as I said, Refaat’s teaching wasn’t just about imparting knowledge. It was about empowerment and about using language as a weapon against oppression.

So, when Refaat was teaching those hundreds and thousands of students, including myself, he said to us that we are living in a world that is refusing to hear us, is refusing to listen to us and is refusing to listen to our stories. And he warned — he warned that the world will continue to perceive Palestinians as numbers and to perceive their pain as abstract statistics mentioned in the reports of human rights organizations that come out every year and then are rendered unimportant. So he told us that we have to write our stories, we have to talk about our stories, and we have to make sure that our stories are communicated in every language and in every way possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Jehad, I’m wondering if, as we wrap up, you can read the poem that Refaat had pinned to his Twitter page, the top, “If I Must Die.”

JEHAD ABUSALIM: I will, and it’s a great honor to do so. Refaat wrote:

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.

AMY GOODMAN: Jehad Abusalim, I want to thank you for being with us. Again, deepest condolences on the loss of your friend and mentor. Jehad is a scholar and policy analyst from Gaza, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund. Refaat Alareer was the editor of two volumes, Gaza Unsilenced and Gaza Writes Back. We’ll also link to his op-ed piece in The New York Times he wrote several years ago.

***************

COP28 Activists Say Palestine Solidarity Protests Calling for Ceasefire Face Severe Restrictions
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 08, 2023

At COP28 in Dubai, protests in solidarity with Palestine have faced severe restrictions. Asad Rehman, the lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition, joined with human rights groups at an unofficial media briefing to explain how climate summit officials have threatened to debadge participants for even wearing Palestinian colors or sporting visual depictions calling for a ceasefire. “This is probably the most restrictive we’ve seen,” Rehman said. “Everything we have tried to do has been within the U.N. rules, … but the rules are being changed on a day-by-day basis.”

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. Meanwhile, here at COP28 in Dubai, protests in solidarity with Palestine have faced severe restrictions. Earlier today, Asad Rehman, the lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition, joined with other leaders of human rights groups in a media huddle to talk at an unofficial media briefing.

ASAD REHMAN: There’s a deep irony that we have the secretary-general invoking Article 99 of the U.N. Charter, and we still — and in this U.N. space, where you have countless U.N. institutions calling for a ceasefire, even uttering the word “ceasefire” has been something that we were blocked from saying. And it has taken us a week of negotiating before we were allowed to say that sentence in there. But still today, any visual depictions of that, including badges, etc., I mean, people have been told they are not allowed to wear that. People have been told they will be debadged if they don’t take off those badges or take off keffiyehs or take off these lanyards.

I have to say, as some — both of us, who have been involved in this U.N. space for many, many years, this is probably the most restrictive we’ve seen, way more restrictive than Egypt last year. And deep irony there, where we were promised that our rights as civil society would be protected here.

And everything we have tried to do has been within the U.N. rules. Everything. We are well versed in the U.N. rules about what is acceptable and not acceptable. But the rules are being changed on a day-by-day basis. They’re being interpreted by somebody else to determine what is acceptable and not acceptable. We were told that was called by the COP presidency. We went and saw the COP presidency, and the COP presidency said, both privately and then publicly, it is not the COP28 presidency which is pushing for these restrictions.

Then, the question is: Who is pressuring the U.N. and the U.N. institution and U.N. agency that we are not allowed to raise what is a question that is, of course, the uppermost in everybody’s minds, both what’s taking place in Gaza, the fact that international law and humanitarian law lies in shreds, and what that implication means for us as organizations deeply committed to both the multilateral space and also, of course, international law?

AMY GOODMAN: Asad Rehman, the lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition, speaking earlier today here at COP28 in Dubai.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023

Displacement, Disease and Death Plague Gazans as Israel Continues Its Genocidal Assault
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023

Israel’s unrelenting assault on the Gaza Strip continues as the death toll has reached 18,000 Palestinians killed in just over two months. Airstrikes rocked the Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza overnight. At least 23 people were killed in Maghazi. Airstrikes also struck at least two residential homes in Rafah. Meanwhile, the ground battle is pushing ahead in Khan Younis, which is under heavy bombardment.

Gazan women say Israeli soldiers forced them to leave their husbands and sons behind and flee their Gaza City homes. They spoke from the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah where they were taking refuge.

Amnah Abu Zor: “They made us go to the south. They did not let us wait for our husbands. They said, 'Go to the south from here, and that is it,' and they made us leave. They lied to us, saying the road is safe, but they were shooting us throughout the way.”

Dina Abu Zor: “We asked the Israeli interrogator, 'Where are our male relatives?' He said, 'They are gone. No one is left.' We asked about the children. He said all of them are gone. Palestine is gone. Gaza is gone.”

The mass displacement and war on the besieged territory has led to a public health disaster. The U.N.'s World Food Programme warns half of Gaza's population of over 2 million people is starving and that nine out of 10 people are not able to eat every day. As clean water becomes more scarce, diarrhea, skin infections, acute viral hepatitis, scabies and measles are multiplying. Earlier today, the World Health Organization passed a resolution calling for immediate humanitarian aid access and an end to fighting in Gaza.

In the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, usually busy streets and commercial areas are empty today in observance of a general strike for Gaza. Global actions are also taking place today, including marches and calls to refrain from buying anything.

Meanwhile, a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon is warning the likelihood of a “wider conflict” is increasing amid escalating cross-border violence between Israel and Hezbollah.

UNGA to Convene on Gaza Ceasefire After U.S. Vetoes Security Council Resolution
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023

The U.N. General Assembly will hold a special session Tuesday after Egypt and Mauritania invoked Resolution 377, known as “Uniting for Peace.” The move came in response to the U.S. on Friday again vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza. Resolution 377 is designed to be deployed when the Security Council fails to “exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for the U.N. body to be reformed Saturday following the U.S. veto.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “With the torment in Gaza, we believe that this helpless and dysfunctional structure of the United Nations will be questioned all over the world. Look, I am saying very openly: Nothing can continue as business as usual after Gaza.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department bypassed congressional review to approve the emergency sale of over $100 million in tank ammunition to Israel.

UPenn President Steps Down Amid Right-Wing Firestorm over Pro-Palestinian Movement on Campuses
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023

The president of the University of Pennsylvania has stepped down following intense Republican-led backlash over her handling of antisemitism on campus and her contentious testimony before Congress last week. Liz Magill’s resignation Saturday, followed by that of UPenn Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok, came amid a mounting attack on students calling for Palestinian rights on campus. Right-wing Congressmember Elise Stefanik, who grilled Magill during her congressional testimony, wrote on social media, “One down. Two to go,” as Stefanik also seeks the ouster of Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, who also testified.

************************

Peter Beinart & Omer Bartov on UPenn President Resignation, Gaza & the Weaponization of Antisemitism
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/11 ... transcript

University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill voluntarily resigned her position Saturday after a House Education Committee hearing last Tuesday on how colleges have handled antisemitism. Magill has faced demands to resign since September, when she refused to bow to pressure to cancel the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus. More universities face accusations that they have failed to protect Jewish students since the October 7 Hamas incursion into southern Israel amid a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on campus. We speak with Peter Beinart, professor of journalism at the City University of New York and the editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, and with Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. “This whole discussion seems to me to be the least important issue,” says Bartov. “What is most important now is that Israel now has been conducting a war for weeks and weeks in which it has killed thousands and thousands of Palestinians.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at allegations that universities have failed to address threats of violence against Jewish students following a contentious congressional hearing on antisemitism and a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on campus.

On Saturday, the University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill resigned her position over fallout from last Tuesday’s House Education Committee hearing. UPenn board chair Scott Bok, who announced her resignation, he also resigned soon after.

Magill was questioned along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth by the right-wing Republican New York congressmember and Trump ally Elise Stefanik. This is Stefanik questioning Harvard President Gay first, then UPenn President Magill.

CLAUDINE GAY: … free speech extends —

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: It’s a yes-or-no question. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you’re familiar with the term “intifada,” correct?

CLAUDINE GAY: I have heard that term, yes.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: And you understand that the use of the term “intifada” in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?

CLAUDINE GAY: That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me. …

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: Well, let me ask you this: Will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say “from the river to the sea” or “intifada,” advocating for the murder of Jews.

CLAUDINE GAY: As I have said, that type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me. …

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: Ms. Magill, at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?

LIZ MAGILL: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?

LIZ MAGILL: If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK: So the answer is yes.

LIZ MAGILL: It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill. She announced her resignation Saturday and will remain a tenured law professor at UPenn. Major donors to the University of Pennsylvania had demanded Magill’s resignation since September, after she refused to cancel the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus.

New York Republican Congressmember Elise Stefanik herself faced scrutiny for a campaign ad she ran last year that echoed Donald Trump and appeared to promote the white supremacist “great replacement” theory that Jews want to replace and disempower white Americans. She made similar comments after the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that was inspired by the “great replacement” theory. After news of Magill’s resignation, Stefanik called for the ouster of the Harvard and MIT presidents, writing on social media, “One down. Two to go.” She was echoed by Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, Elise. What a job she’s done. You know, I watched the way — she’s very smart. I watched the way she was asking the questions, and they were asked in a very complex way. And these women, who I guess are smart, but, boy, that was — they were really dumb answers, weren’t they? But they were asked in a very complex way, and these people had no idea what the hell they were doing. I said, “You know, I think she’s got to lose her job.” I guess they’re all going to be losing their job within the next day or two, but one down, two to go.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Harvard President Claudine Gay has growing support. Some 600 professors signed a petition against calls for her to step down this weekend. The school’s board of directors met Sunday.

Congressmember Stefanik is a Harvard alumna and was removed from a Harvard advisory board in 2021 over her comments about voter fraud in the 2020 election that had, quote, “no basis in evidence.”

For more, we’re joined by Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and, as well, an MSNBC contributor, and Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, the Israeli American author of numerous books. His books include, recently, Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis. He has been described by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as one of the world’s leading specialists on the subject of genocide.

Peter Beinart, let’s begin with you. Your response to the congressional hearing and the grilling of the three women presidents of MIT, Harvard and UPenn, and the resignation then of UPenn President Magill, as well as the chair of the board of trustees, Scott Bok, who announced her resignation, then resigned himself?

PETER BEINART: This really isn’t about those individual presidents. It’s about the fact that given the extraordinary slaughter that’s happening in Gaza, there is a movement on college campuses and across America for a ceasefire and to end American complicity in that slaughter. And in response to that, the effort is now to try to limit the ability of people who want to protest U.S. policy and support Palestinian rights from being able to organize on college campuses. So the reason that you’re going after these presidents is to try to set a precedent and bring in people who will be much tougher on restricting the ability of students and faculty and others who want to organize politically against this war in Gaza. This is what this is about.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you can talk about exactly what happened, for people who missed it this past week? We just played an excerpt of the questioning by Stefanik. I mean, it went on for hours, the overall congressional testimony, but it came down to these points. And this is the critical point. She said, “It’s a yes-or-no question. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you’re familiar with the term 'intifada,' correct?” And President Gay says, “I’ve heard that term.” Congressmember Stefanik says, “You understand the use of the term 'intifada' in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews.” This was the question they were asked. Elaborate on that, Peter Beinart, and talk about their responses.

PETER BEINART: Right. The premise of the question was just nonsense, right? The premise of the question is that “intifada,” which essentially means “uprising,” is the equivalent of an attempt at genocide at Jews. “Intifada” is actually a term that has been used even in uprising against Arab governments. Intifada can take nonviolent forms. The First Intifada had a lot of nonviolence. The Second Intifada, tragically, involved suicide bombings, which were horrifying and totally immoral. But these were uprisings in the context of oppression. It’s like saying a Ukrainian uprising against Russians that also killed Russian civilians would be an attempt at Russian genocide. It makes no sense.

But the problem was that these presidents, because they were not willing to contest the premise, because they were so lawyered up and defensive in their answers, that they basically accepted the premise and then were put in this ridiculous position where they didn’t — when they didn’t say it would be unacceptable for people to call for the genocide of Jews. Of course it would be unacceptable for people to call in mass protest for the genocide of Jews, but that’s not what was happening.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Omer Bartov into this discussion — you’re considered by the Holocaust Museum one of the leading scholars on genocide — and go to this second point. Congressmember Stefanik was asking the college presidents, she said, “Well, let me ask you this: Will admission offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say 'from the river to the sea' or 'intifada,' advocating the murder of Jews?” equating “from the river to the sea” and “intifada” with the murder of Jews. Can you respond to this? And also explain that term and how it’s been used by both Hamas but also protesters and the Likud party in Israel.

OMER BARTOV: Well, hi, and thank you for having me.

First of all, I want to agree with what Peter was saying. I think that this whole debate is so off-kilter, that the terms that are being used are being misused and are not being challenged by these three presidents, who should have been better prepared, not by their lawyers, but actually to have studied the issue itself and to have spoken about how they think about it. Using the term “intifada” is, of course, wrong, as Peter was saying. It means “uprising.” And uprising against oppression, one should support it.

Using the term “from the river to the sea” can mean all kinds of things. There are 7 million Jews living between the river and the sea, and 7 million Palestinians. Historically, speaking about “from the river to the sea,” or, in fact, both banks of the river in the traditional Zionist revisionist ideology, meant that the Jews should be in control of Eretz Yisrael, of the — sorry, of the land of Israel. I apologize.

AMY GOODMAN: Repeat —

OMER BARTOV: Sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: Repeat that point.

OMER BARTOV: Yeah, sorry. So, the term “from the river to the sea,” or Greater Israel, which means Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, that land stretches between the Jordan —

AMY GOODMAN: We’re hearing you fine.

OMER BARTOV: Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m getting interruption here. Means the land between the Jordan and the sea, and, in fact, for some of the traditional revisionist movement, the right wing of the Zionist party, meant also across the river, even east of the river, into what is now known as Jordan, Transjordan at the time. So, to say that that is an antisemitic term or that it calls for the genocide of the Jews is nonsense. It can mean, if you look at it from the point of view of the Israeli right, that Jews have the right to rule over all the land of Israel. And many of the people who are now in Netanyahu’s government, the settler right-wing Jewish supremacists, such as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, they would like to rule over all the land, and they would like the Palestinians to go away or to agree to be ruled over by the Jews. Now, it can also mean the opposite. If you look at what Hamas has been saying, it can mean exactly the opposite. Hamas indeed wants to create an Islamic Palestinian state where Jews would either have no room or would have to be living there in much smaller numbers and be tolerated.

And so, it does not mean what people say, unless you ask them what do they mean. And in that sense, putting these three presidents to answer these questions, to my mind, A, they should have said, “Look, if you speak about genocide, no one should condone genocide, not of Jews and not of anyone else. If you’re speaking about intifada or about political slogans, you have to explain what they are, how we understand them.”

But beyond that, I have to say that this whole discussion seems to me to be the least important issue. What is most important is that Israel now is — has been conducting a war for weeks and weeks in which it has killed thousands and thousands of Palestinians. It has moved them to a very small part of the Gaza Strip. It has destroyed their property and has not even made a commitment to allow them to return. And it’s been doing that with enormous amounts of American-supplied munitions, not only rockets, but also tank shells, artillery shells and anti-rocket rockets. And that has to stop, and there has to be a political plan as to how to move to the next day, which is what Netanyahu is refusing to do. This is the main issue, not how we talk about politics on American campuses. That’s useful to talk about it, but it’s not the main emergency issue right now to my mind.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you two questions. You’re in Paris, France, now, but you’re generally in Cambridge, and you’re a professor at Brown University in Providence. What should Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, do you feel, at this point, should she do? Hundreds of Harvard professors have rallied around her. And I also wanted to ask about Hisham Awartani, who is the Brown University student, a student at your school, who was shot with two other Palestinian students in Burlington, could well be paralyzed, a horrifying situation. I mean, I think there’s no question that antisemitism is increasing around the country, and that is very serious, and also Islamophobia.

OMER BARTOV: Yes. I mean, both are, of course, increasing, and we should do everything we can against them. And what happened with Hisham and the other two Palestinian students is horrible. In some ways, I would say, it reflects both the heated discussion that we have about Israel-Palestine and also the kind of gun culture and violence that we have in America, quite separately from what is happening in the Middle East.

As for resignations of presidents, I think this is — this would be terrible. I totally support those — I’m not a Harvard faculty. My wife is. But I totally support those people who have come out against her resignation. I think it would give completely the wrong signal, because the pressure is coming in large part from donors. That will create an impression that there is pressure from moneyed people, that there’s pressure from often people identified with Jewish interests, with right-wing Israelis, with the Israeli government, to control speech. And just as there has been, I must say — and that was reflected in the responses by these presidents — great sort of timidity in saying anything that is not correct speech, to correct it the other way, to try and control it in a way that does not allow criticism of Israel, presents criticism of Israel as antisemitism. And to do it by firing, for instance, at Harvard, the first African American president of Harvard would be an absolute disaster, and I would totally oppose it.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by asking Peter Beinart about Democratic Congressmember — Republican Congressmember Stefanik and her history. This is Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland speaking on MSNBC.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: With lax Republican gun laws across the country, we’ve got to take very seriously anybody who’s making any kind of violent threats, especially genocidal threats. Having said that, where does Elise Stefanik get off lecturing anybody about antisemitism, when she is the hugest supporter of Donald Trump, who traffics in antisemitism all the time? She didn’t utter a peep of protest when he had Kanye West and Nick Fuentes over for dinner — Nick Fuentes, who doubts whether October 7th even took place, because he thinks it was some kind of suspicious propaganda move by the Israelis. And the Republican Party is filled with people who are entangled with antisemitism like that, and yet somehow she gets on her high horse and lectures a Jewish college president from MIT.

AMY GOODMAN: So, last year, Republican Congressmember Elise Stefanik of New York was criticized for seeming to endorse the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, the white supremacist theory maintaining white people are being replaced by people of color and that Democrats are deliberately trying to deluge the U.S. with immigrants in order to gain an electoral advantage. We all know what happened in Charlottesville, the mass protest where the Trump-supporting white supremacists kept repeating “Jews will not replace us.” Peter Beinart, can you respond to the woman who’s taking these women presidents, at least attempting to, and succeeded in the case of UPenn President Magill, down?

PETER BEINART: First of all, there’s a tremendous irony in the fact that Elise Stefanik is supposedly so upset about people saying Palestine will be free from the river to the sea, because Elise Stefanik supports the existence of one country which denies Palestinians basic rights between the river and the sea. And as for the idea that she has some great concern for Jews, as you said, she’s actually trafficked in the same “great replacement” theory that is what motivated the Pittsburgh shooter because of this insane idea that Jews are bringing in Black and Brown immigrants into the United States to replace white people. Elise Stefanik doesn’t actually care about Jews. What she believes in is ethnonationalism. She believes in a white Christian state in the United States. And she’s sympathetic to forces in Israel that believe in a Jewish supremacist state, because fundamentally she’s hostile to the basic principle that people should be treated equally under the law irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity. She’s hostile to it in Israel-Palestine. She’s hostile to it in the United States. That’s what motivates her.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. We’ll continue, of course, to cover this issue. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, and Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, author of a number of books, including, most recently, Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis.

Next up, the State Department’s bypassing Congress to send nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel. We’ll speak to Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza. Back in 20 seconds.

*******************

State Dept. Whistleblower Blasts Blinken for Bypassing Congress to Send 14K Tank Munitions to Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023

The Biden administration has bypassed Congress to approve an “emergency” sale of over $100 million of tank ammunition to Israel. Congress was notified just hours after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire. We get response from Josh Paul, former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other nations. Paul resigned from the State Department in October to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its ongoing siege on Gaza.

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.

As the death toll in Gaza reaches 18,000, the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve the sale of 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel. The sale is valued at more than $106 million. Secretary of State Tony Blinken informed Congress of the plan Friday night, saying, quote, “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale.” Congress was notified just hours after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council calling for a Gaza ceasefire. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland criticized the State Department’s decision to bypass Congress. He told The New York Times, quote, “The administration’s decision to short-circuit what is already a quick time frame for congressional review undermines transparency and weakens accountability.”

Well, we’re joined right now by Josh Paul. In October, he resigned from the State Department to protest the Biden administration’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza. Josh Paul had served as director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other nations around the world.

Josh Paul, your response to this move Friday night?

JOSH PAUL: First of all, thank you very much for having me. It’s good to join you. I’m sorry it’s in such circumstances.

I think what this move demonstrates is that nothing has changed in U.S. policy. Two months into this awful conflict, almost 20,000 deaths later, so much suffering later, U.S. policy remains that we will continue to flow arms to Israel and to support its operation in Gaza. I think we have heard Secretary Blinken and others speaking up and saying that there needs to be a reduction in civilian casualties, but I think actions speak louder than words. You know, I’ve been thinking a lot these past weeks of Lewis Carroll’s “Walrus and the Carpenter.” When you see the U.S. bemoaning Palestinian civilian deaths and yet continuing to provide the arms that are consuming the people of Gaza, it’s extremely distressing and problematic.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s see. Secretary of State Pompeo, under Trump, previously used the emergency provision in 2019 for arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Can you talk about the financial scale of over $1.8 billion and the types of weaponry purchased during that time and how that relates to now?

JOSH PAUL: Yes. I think that’s an interesting counterpart to what’s happening now, because, of course, at that time, Secretary Pompeo, under President Trump, was supporting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. And in that conflict, many thousands of civilians, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, died, as well, many of them, again, through the use of U.S. arms. In fact, the first thing that President Biden did upon coming to office in this space was to suspend arms transfers to the Saudi-led coalition of precision-guided munitions precisely because he cared about the civilian casualties who were being harmed. And yet here he is using the same authority as President Trump, as Secretary Pompeo to override congressional will, to override congressional oversight.

I think one thing that we need to keep an eye on is that in the wake of the decision to use the emergency authority under President Trump, that Congress actually moved forward with 27 — the Senate passed 27 joint resolutions of disapproval to block these arms transfers, after a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian that they could do so. Will Congress act in a similar way in this effort? I doubt it, but we will have to see.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, can you talk specifically about the 120-millimeter M830A1 high-explosive anti-tank, multipurpose with tracer, MPAT, tank cartridges that are part of this deal? I probably said some part of that wrong.

JOSH PAUL: No, I think you got it right. Those are essentially standard-issue tank shells that will be used by Israel’s Merkava main battle tanks. These are the tanks that are currently pushing through Khan Younis in the south of Gaza. These are the same tanks and same sort of shells that on October 13th killed civilians in Lebanon, including a Reuters reporter, in an incident that both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have described as intentional and targeted by the IDF. You know, part of the arms transfer review process is to ask whether or not such weapons that we are providing will be used to commit human rights abuses. I think we now see a clear record of these precise weapons having been used to commit human rights abuses in this conflict, and yet here we are, still flowing them to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: I just have to ask before we go, Josh Paul. We spoke to you soon after you resigned from the State Department in October. This was, of course, in the midst of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which came after the October 7th surprise attack on Israel that killed 1,200. Can you talk about the response of your colleagues at the State Department? Have others resigned in other parts of the government?

JOSH PAUL: So, we have seen, certainly from the U.N., a U.N. senior official, Craig Mokhiber, resign. We have not seen, to my knowledge, significant resignations within the U.S. government. But I have heard, and continue to hear, from many of my former colleagues who are really trying to find what mechanisms they can use to slow this down, to change the policy. I fear that their efforts at this point continue to be in vain. I think we need to see a policy change from the top. But I know a lot of good people are continuing to make the argument.

AMY GOODMAN: My last question to you goes back to 2021. In a recent CNN interview, you discussed a disturbing story of a 13-year-old Palestinian child raped by Israeli forces. Can you outline what you understand happened?

JOSH PAUL: Yes. There was a report by a charity called Defense of Children International-Palestine — that’s the Palestine branch of this global charity — in which this child had been taken into Israeli custody — which is, of course, itself a question we should be asking: why there are children in Israeli custody, without charge, in the Moskobiyyeh Prison in Jerusalem — who was raped by his prison guards as part of his interrogation. This report came to the State Department’s attention. We looked at it. We considered it valid. We raised it with the government of Israel. And the next day after it was raised by the State Department, actually by Embassy Jerusalem, with the government of Israel, the IDF, the Israeli security forces, went into the charity’s office, into Defense of Children International-Palestine’s offices, and ransacked it, and several months later declared them and several other Palestinian NGOs a terrorist organization. I think sexual violence is such a horrific event, and we need to condemn it wherever it happens, whether it happens in the kibbutzes of Israel or whether it happens in the prisons of Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst the Gaza bombardment.

*************************

U.S. Vetoes U.N. Gaza Ceasefire Again as Biden Veers Far from Global Consensus, Death Toll Tops 18,000
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/11 ... transcript

To discuss the shocking United States veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution requesting a Gaza ceasefire, we’re joined by Shibley Telhami, who says President Biden’s refusal to engage with popular calls for ceasefire is a shocking “personal decision” that will have negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy and “American standing” around the world. Members of the Israeli government clearly want “more than self-defense,” adds Telhami, and have created human rights needs in Gaza “so massive that you need a ceasefire to deal with that.” Telhami is professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland.

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, as we turn now to look at how the Biden administration is facing widespread condemnation around the world for vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution Friday calling for a Gaza ceasefire. The Palestinian U.N. envoy, Riyad Mansour, criticized the U.S. veto.

RIYAD MANSOUR: It is disastrous that the Security Council was again prevented from rising to this moment to uphold its clear responsibilities in the face of this grave crisis threatening human lives and threatening regional and international peace and security.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood defended the U.S. decision to veto the ceasefire resolution.

ROBERT WOOD: The United States engaged in good faith on this text. We proposed language with an eye toward a constructive resolution that would have reinforced the life-saving diplomacy we have undertaken since October 7, increased opportunities for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, encouraged the release of hostages and the resumption of humanitarian pauses, and laid a foundation for a durable peace. Unfortunately, nearly all of our recommendations were ignored. And the result of this rush process was an imbalanced resolution that was divorced from reality, that would not move the needle forward on the ground in any concrete way. And so we regretfully could not support it.

AMY GOODMAN: The United Nations General Assembly will hold an emergency session on a Gaza ceasefire Tuesday.

To talk more about the U.S. veto of the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, we’re joined by Shibley Telhami, professor of peace and development, University of Maryland, also senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy. He’s co-editor of the book The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?

Professor Telhami, thanks for rejoining us. Talk about the significance and the reaction to the U.S. veto of the Gaza ceasefire resolution.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Well, it’s an extraordinary act. I mean, think about it this way. Whatever the representative of the U.S. says, there were 13 members, including pro-U.S. members, like France, who voted for the resolution. Only one other country did not vote for it. It abstained. That’s the U.K., sticking with U.S. So, think about that. This is the U.S. trying to take a leadership role globally on many issues, including Ukraine, and it goes against a global consensus on an issue that is humanitarian.

This resolution didn’t call for an end to the fighting and a ceasefire that ends the fighting. It called for a humanitarian ceasefire. Every international human rights organization and aid organization — I talked to two heads of aid organizations just last week. They said it’s impossible to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza without a ceasefire. You can’t just trickle it in. The needs are so massive that you need a ceasefire to deal with that.

If you look at it also from the point of view, even American, of public opinion, you have a majority of Americans, according to polls, who support a ceasefire. You have, from the president’s point of view, two-thirds of Democrats who do not approve of the Israeli military action in Gaza. And it’s not just Democrats. You have, essentially, two-thirds of people of color, as Gallup polls them, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans. You have a majority, two-thirds, of young people of all types, not just Democrats, who disapprove the operations. You have a majority of women. Essentially, every major constituency of the Democratic Party, the president’s Democratic Party, who wants this. And the president goes against it in the international community. Think about what that does to America’s standing in the world, let alone, obviously, to continuation of the death and destruction in Gaza.

And I want to say here that it is the puzzle for me, as somebody who has known the president before he became president, as somebody who’s been watching — and I’m a realist in terms of how politics take place — I’m still shocked by the degree to which this decision that has been taken vis-à-vis this particular crisis after October 7 has been a personal decision by the president of United States. It was really acting on his preferences, his beliefs, rather, it seems to me, than the consequences for American foreign policy and for America’s national interest, which have been huge from the beginning.

It could have been anticipated that his massive support and even the backing of this vague idea of destroying Hamas was going to lead inevitably to mass destruction in Gaza, and it was going to, therefore, also bring possible blowback on the U.S., because the U.S. now is seen as a sponsor of this war, as a party to this war. There’s a danger of blowback that would be unfortunate, devastating across much of the Arab and Muslim world that we see now. There’s also, of course, the chance of escalation that we see in Lebanon, and perhaps even bringing Iran in, in a way that would be hugely detrimental to American interests and draw the U.S. in.

And the idea that you give — you know, you support Israel’s right to self-defense, of course. Israel has a right to defend itself. Every country does. But to give that government to define what is right of self-defense, when you know there are members of this government who want a lot more than self-defense, including things that are at odds with American interests, that are at odds with American values, and to give them license to do so, including the possibility of drawing the U.S. into war with Iran, that’s the thing that seems to be shocking to me as an analyst viewing this episode in American foreign policy.

AMY GOODMAN: Shibley Telhami, we want to thank you so much for spending this time with us, professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland, senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy.

Next up, we speak to a doctor in Gaza. Stay with us.

*****************

“Please Stop This War Against Us”: Gaza Doctor Begs for World’s Help as Hunger & Disease Spread
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/11 ... transcript

We get an update from one of the few hospitals still operating in southern Gaza from Ahmed Moghrabi, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, who describes horrific conditions. “I’ve developed [a] psychological disorder,” says Moghrabi, who himself is barely surviving on little food and clean water. “Please stop this genocide against us. Stop this war. Please, please, I beg you.” We also speak with Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency room medical doctor shot by the Israeli military in Gaza in 2018, about the arrests, killings and torture of his fellow medical workers by the Israeli military, and the enormous risk of disease as a consequence of the lack of essential aid and supplies available in the region. He predicts tens of thousands of deaths from starvation, dehydration and infectious disease will soon hit Gaza as Israel’s assault continues in the coming weeks.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: United Nations Palestinian aid agency UNRWA is warning society in Gaza is, quote, “on the brink of full-blown collapse” as Israel continues its devastating assault that’s killed 18,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 7,000 children.

We turn now to a doctor in Gaza, Ahmed Moghrabi. He works at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of few hospitals still functioning in southern Gaza. We reached him yesterday.

DR. AHMED MOGHRABI: Hello, Deena. Yeah, I am talking to you from the Nasser Hospital — it’s in Khan Younis, south of Gaza — where I’m working as a head of plastic and burn department. It’s been 64 days since the aggression actually started against Gaza. I can tell you here, actually, I’m working since the beginning of this war. Actually, I’m so exhausted. So exhausted. Forty percent of the injured people from explosions are children. They are seriously injured. Actually, this morning — actually, I’m working since early morning 'til midnight every day. Every day we are here at the hospital, actually, it's like a siege, all troops around us.

What is going on here actually is real massacres all over around. If you see the pictures and the videos, actually, you will be shocked. There is no words — no words can describe what is going here. What is going here actually is a real genocide. You know, hundreds and thousands of people, actually, are passing away every day because of these attacks. They’re attacking schools. They’re attacking church, mosques, civilians’ areas, everywhere. Everywhere, they’re attacking. Oh my god, I can’t describe what is going here. It’s massacres. Massacres, what is going here. The entire families are wiped out, actually. I don’t know, really. Actually, I became — I developed like psychological disorder to see these children actually are, you know — how to say it? — like — how to say? — I don’t know how. They are burned 'til bone. They are burned ’til bone, children. If you see my [inaudible], you will see all these, you know, horrible — it's horror, horror, horror, what is going here. My god, I hope this will end soon.

I don’t know if anybody could help us. If you hear me — actually, I thought we are alone here in this world. We are living in big prison under siege, actually, and nobody listen to us. Nobody want actually to — how to — to adopt our Palestinian narrative, actually. Everybody listens to the Israeli narrative. Just listen to Palestinian narratives. We are here living under siege in a big prison. We are human being. Me, like you, I’m a human being. I’m a human being. I want to live in peace. I want a better future for my children. Really, this I want. This I want.

You know, actually, Israel is supported by the whole world. You give Israel these mass destruction weapons. But on the other hand, nobody gives us even food. Here, I can’t find food, clean water. Me as a surgeon, I can’t find clean water to drink. I can’t find food. I eat only once a day, Deena. Yes, once a day. I can’t afford my children food. I can’t see my children, because I can’t provide simple, simple, you know, food for living. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t provide this food to my children. We eat once a day, simple rice. You know, my little daughter yesterday, 2 years old, she asked me — you know, she asked me apple, an apple. There’s nothing here. Nothing here.

We are dying from starvation. From everything, we are dying now. All over, actually, they send these rockets over our heads everywhere, every time. Please, please stop this war against us. Please stop the genocide against us. Stop this war. Please, please, I beg you.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, who works in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which is one of the few hospitals still functioning in southern Gaza.

We end today’s show with Dr. Tarek Loubani, emergency room medical doctor who works at the London Health Sciences Center in Ontario, Canada. In 2018, Dr. Loubani was among 19 medics shot by the Israeli military in Gaza. In October, he was arrested for nonviolently protesting for a ceasefire. He’s a Palestinian refugee, a member of the Glia Project, creating open-source medical devices for low-resource settings.

You hear your colleague in Nasser Hospital talking about not being able to feed his own children, not to mention what’s happening in the hospital, Dr. Loubani. You’re in constant contact with medical staff in Gaza. Tell us what you understand at this point.

DR. TAREK LOUBANI: What Dr. Ahmed is saying is exactly what we’re hearing all across the Gaza Strip from the hospitals there. Really, the situation, it’s not teetering on verging on collapse; it has — the medical system has fully collapsed. And the only reason we are using these words to mitigate the devastation and the absolute collapse is because the absolute bravery and incredible resourcefulness of the Palestinian doctors, who have done just an amazing job trying to provide care for their patients. These are people — these are doctors who themselves, like you said, are starving, literally starving. They themselves are getting killed, are being arrested, are having their families harmed, and still they show up to work every day, like Dr. Ahmed does, bravely and to face a new day of horrors.

AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible] are telling doctors to leave their patients, particularly in northern Gaza, and move south. Also, doctors, like the head of a hospital in northern Gaza, are being arrested. Can you talk about what you understand at this point?

DR. TAREK LOUBANI: The arrests are a new dimension here. We’ve always been used to a doctor here and there being killed. However, we’ve had over 250 — I think it might even be up to 300 now — healthcare workers who have been killed during this war on Gaza. As well, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya was one of the first arrested.

But I can tell you the story of one of my students, a young doctor who graduated only a couple of years ago, who I’ve been teaching throughout his residency. He was an emergency medicine doctor. And he was, in fact, the valedictorian, Saleh Eleiwa, the highest-ranking student in his medical class, a delightful human being who had never stopped smiling, and then was arrested because he wouldn’t leave his patients until it was too late. He was at the Al-Shifa Hospital.

That’s the story — his story is one of 41 stories that we have so far. Only a few of them have been released since. What the people who have been released tell us is that they are being tortured right now. They are being, quote, “interrogated.” And I know this because I’ve been in Israeli jails, I’ve been interrogated in those ways, I’ve been tortured, I’ve been beaten. And so I know what they’re experiencing. And that was for me as a young Canadian. Now, what, mind you, these people who the Israelis want to see confessions from, who the Israelis are convinced are doing bad things, despite the fact that all they have done throughout this war and ever is take care of their patients.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Tarek Loubani, if you can talk about the warnings that the death toll could be dwarfed by those who die of diseases now, with the lack of clean water, the close proximity of everyone now being pushed south, diseases like diarrhea, scabies, measles, meningitis, acute viral hepatitis? What do you understand?

DR. TAREK LOUBANI: Before this war, the hospitals in Gaza were full, because things happen to people day by day. And now those chronic diseases, the people with those chronic diseases, like diabetes or diseases that need medications or cancers, those patients are all starting to die. It’s been two, going on three months now that they haven’t been able to receive proper care. And that means proper medical care.

Now, the foundations of life aren’t proper medical care; they’re water, they’re food, they’re psychological safety. And so people are starting to die from those things, as well. We’ve already had our first starvation deaths. Predictably, they’re in the very young and the very old. And as time goes on, we will see these deaths start to come in from the margins, come in from people who are sick and vulnerable, to everybody, because right now the normal Palestinian has not — in Gaza, has not been able to eat or drink for weeks, if not months. When we’re talking about the treatment of many of these problems that they’re facing right now, the treatment is proper food, it’s rest, it’s clean water. And those things are not available. So, yes, the predictions right now is that in the next few weeks it will be like falling from a cliff, and we will see 20,000, 30,000 people dying.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Tarek Loubani, I want to thank you for being with us, Canadian Palestinian emergency room doctor, joining us from London, Ontario, spent years traveling to and working in Gaza.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 12, 2023

Israeli Troops Storm Kamal Adwan Hospital as Gaza’s Humanitarian Crisis Deepens
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 12, 2023

Israeli troops backed by tanks and heavy artillery have stormed the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, where 3,000 displaced people are sheltering from Israeli’s unrelenting assault. Al Jazeera reports medical staff inside the hospital were among those shot and killed, as were two mothers killed Monday when Israel’s military bombarded the hospital’s maternity ward. The hospital’s remaining patients include a dozen children in an intensive care unit and six newborns in incubators. Palestinian health officials say Israeli soldiers were rounding up men in the hospital courtyard, stripping them, blindfolding them and taking them away for interrogation. A Human Rights Watch official said such treatment “amounts to a war crime.”

The assault on the Kamal Adwan Hospital came as Israel’s military continued to bombard the southern Gaza Strip, including Rafah on the Egyptian border, where thousands of Palestinians expelled from northern Gaza face dire shortages of food, water, medicine, fuel and shelter. This is Fatma Soliman Al-Malihy, who was displaced along with her family from northern Gaza.

Fatma Soliman Al-Malihy: “There is no food or drink. The house is destroyed. There is nothing. There is no money. Please stop the war on us, for God’s sake. We are innocent people. We have nothing. We own nothing. We are unarmed people, for God’s sake. Look at us. Muslims, foreigners, the U.S. itself, stop the war, for God’s sake. We are destroyed. Where would we go? You moved us from the north to Rafah. We don’t know where to go. We don’t sleep. By God, we don’t sleep. We are depressed. We are scared, dead scared about our sons and children. We have children with disabilities, paralyzed ones. Where would we go?”

Protesters Hold Global Strike to Demand Ceasefire in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 12, 2023

Palestinians and their supporters around the world joined a global strike Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The action, which saw businesses closed and other activities suspended for the day, came in response to the United States’ veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza.

In Washington, D.C., over a dozen Jewish elders chained themselves to the fence in front of the White House, urging President Biden to end his opposition to a ceasefire. The 18 women who participated in the act of civil disobedience read the names of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’s October 7 attack. They also chanted, “Biden, Biden, pick a side, ceasefire not genocide!”

Also on Capitol Hill, over 100 protesters occupied the Senate atrium Monday, urging lawmakers and the Biden administration to cease all military aid to Israel, and instead divest funds for affordable housing, healthcare and other needs. Many protesters wore black shirts with the words “Invest in life.” Dozens were arrested.

Harvard Rejects Calls to Fire President Claudine Gay Amid Crackdown on Pro-Palestinian Speech
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 12, 2023

The Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s highest governing body, has rejected calls to fire President Claudine Gay following a contentious congressional hearing on antisemitism and a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses. That’s according to The Harvard Crimson, which reports the decision came after more than 700 faculty members signed an open letter calling on the Harvard Corporation to “defend the independence of the university and to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom, including calls for the removal of President Claudine Gay.” The letter continues, “The critical work of defending a culture of free inquiry in our diverse community cannot proceed if we let its shape be dictated by outside forces.” Claudine Gay also won the backing of Harvard’s alumni association and more than 70 Black faculty members who called attacks on her “specious and politically motivated.” Gay was inaugurated in October as the first African American and second woman to lead Harvard University. She’s the daughter of Haitian immigrants. Efforts to unseat her came as University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill resigned her position following intense Republican-led backlash and a Capitol Hill grilling by far-right Republican Congressmember Elise Stefanik.

*************

Diplomacy, Not War: Daughter of Released Hostage Urges Israel to Reach Deal to Free More Captives
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 12, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/12 ... transcript

As relatives of hostages held in Gaza urge Israeli lawmakers to use diplomacy, not war, to free their loved ones, we speak to an Israeli peace activist whose 84-year-old mother was released by Hamas in late November as part of an Israel-Hamas hostage swap during the weeklong pause in fighting. “We are demanding to release all the hostages,” says Neta Heiman Mina, a member of Women Wage Peace. She says Israeli leaders must “put a deal on the table” even if it comes with a “painful price” that includes freeing more Palestinian prisoners, including some accused of violence. “We must bring them home now. There is no time.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: The United Nations General Assembly is voting today on a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages. The vote comes four days after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire to halt Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed over 18,000 Palestinians.

Israel says Hamas and other groups in Gaza are still holding 138 hostages. During the seven-day truce in late November, Hamas released 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and children who were held in Israeli prisons.

On Monday, relatives of some of the remaining Israeli hostages met with Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset. The Times of Israel reports the families, quote, “called for the government to prioritize seeking an agreement for their release through diplomatic channels, rather than pressing on with the military offensive in Gaza against Hamas,” unquote. Family members are planning to hold a protest outside the Knesset today under the slogan “The hostages have no time.”

We’re joined right now by Neta Heiman Mina. Her 84-year-old mother, Ditza Heiman, was held hostage in Gaza and freed on November 28th. She had been kidnapped on October 7th from her home on the kibbutz Nir Oz near the border with Gaza by Hamas. Neta Heiman is joining us from Haifa. She’s a member of the Israeli chapter of Women Wage Peace.

Neta, welcome to Democracy Now! I’m so sorry under these circumstances. Can you talk about what you’re demanding?

NETA HEIMAN MINA: We are demanding to release all the hostages. We are demanding from the Israeli government to put a deal on the table, not — do not wait to Sinwar to offer a deal. We need the Israeli government to put a deal that will be — it will be a painful price. We will need to release lots of Palestinian prisoners. We will need to do a lot of days of stop the fire, fire stop. But the people that were taken on the 7th of October, the price is for them, and they deserve this price, because the country left them behind. It’s been 67 days, I think, since the 7th of October, and they’re still there. Yesterday, Amiram Cooper from kibbutz Nir Oz, it was his 85th birthday, a 85-years-old man that they’re keeping hostage in Gaza without medication, without enough food. Who can survive this?

AMY GOODMAN: There’s been some discussion of Israel flooding the tunnels with saltwater. Can you respond to this, and what was said to Israeli lawmakers?

NETA HEIMAN MINA: Yes, yes. Part of our people are in these tunnels. If you flood it with water, what will happen to the hostages? We know part of them is in the tunnels — are in the tunnels.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the day that your mother was released? This was during the truce, during the temporary ceasefire, when more than a hundred — Hamas released more than a hundred hostages. Where were you? How was your mother, Ditza Heiman?

NETA HEIMAN MINA: It was very exciting. We wait for this for 53 days. She was a hostage 53 days. And we wait for her to be in the list. Every day there was a list, who will be released the day after. And we wait. And she came back. We were very happy. She came back, and she’s OK. But there is a lot of people are still there. And this is what’s important, to bring them back home immediately, because they have no time. The bombing on Gaza can hurt them. My mother wasn’t in a tunnel. Every bomb that they fell on Gaza can hurt her, hurt the hostages. We must bring them home now. There is no time.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk more about how she was treated by Hamas, who she was held with, and also who your mom, 84 years old, Ditza is? And talk about her role in the kibbutz Nir Oz.

NETA HEIMAN MINA: I can’t — the story for 53 days, it’s her story, and I can’t tell her condition, because it’s going to be a danger for the people who left behind. She was 84 years old, that lived all her adult life in the kibbutz near the border with Gaza. She built the kibbutz. She was from the founders of the kibbutz. She was a very — she was a social worker for a long time. She worked until age of 80.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Neta, if you can talk about your organization, Women Wage Peace, an organization that the slain activist Vivian Silver was also a part of, who was killed on one of the kibbutzes? They thought she was being held hostage, but, ultimately, I guess, they found DNA of her on the kibbutz.

NETA HEIMAN MINA: Women Wage Peace is a movement, Israeli movement, of people from all of the rainbow, political rainbow. We are not a — sorry. And all we ask, since Tzuk Eitan, since 2014, to make an agreement with the Palestinians. We don’t tell what kind of agreement, but we believe that there is a possibility to talk with the Palestinians and to make an agreement that they will bring us a peaceful life. We have a sisterhood, a movement, a Palestinian sisterhood movement, that they call us — themselves Women of the Sun. There are people, women, from the West Bank and from Gaza, as well. And we all believe that we can live here in peace.

AMY GOODMAN: In your opinion piece for Haaretz back in October, you wrote, “I’m furious at the Israeli government, and the accursed members of the government who, because of them, the army was patrolling the West Bank village of Hawara over the Sukkot holiday, instead of guarding and protecting my mother. I’m furious at this government that has for almost a year been doing everything they can to escalate the situation in the Gaza border area. This colossal failure, this chaos, is on their shoulders, is their fault — as is the fact that even now, four days later, a government representative has still not visited most of the families of the hostages.” That was in October. If you can talk about what is happening now with the Israeli government, how they’re communicating with you? You gave a speech yesterday. Explain where you gave it and what your message was, Neta.

NETA HEIMAN MINA: The Israeli government contacted all the families, and all the hostage families had contact with the government and with the army, but it took too long. Part of the families, it took almost two weeks until someone called them. Yesterday we were — Women Wage Peace were lighting Hanukkah candles in the Hostages Square, the name of the Tel Aviv Museum. And we call for a release all the hostages, and they start a peace process after.

AMY GOODMAN: What would that peace process look like?

NETA HEIMAN MINA: I don’t know. I know that Hamas must go. They can’t control Gaza. But Israel can’t control Gaza, as well. It will be — I think it will be — it will need international involvement to establish something else in Gaza, that maybe the Palestinian — I don’t know how to tell it in —

AMY GOODMAN: Authority? The Palestinian Authority?

NETA HEIMAN MINA: Authority will take — yes, the Palestinian Authority will take Gaza, to establish something else to replace the Hamas control in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Your final thoughts —

NETA HEIMAN MINA: And then maybe — what?

AMY GOODMAN: Your final thoughts on President Biden, on the United States vetoing the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for ceasefire?

NETA HEIMAN MINA: I think it must be a ceasefire for — that we can release all the hostages. And then, Israel has a right to protect herself. And what happened on the 7th of October came out from Gaza. But I don’t think we can destroy Gaza or erase Gaza. There are also innocent people in Gaza, not all of them from the Hamas.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Neta Heiman Mina, I want to thank you for being with us. Her 84-year-old mother, Ditza Heiman, was kidnapped by Hamas from her home on the kibbutz Nir Oz near the Gaza border, was released November 28th. Neta is a member of the Israeli chapter of Women Wage Peace.

Coming up, outrage is growing in Dubai after a call to phase out fossil fuels is dropped from the draft of the proposed climate deal at the U.N. climate summit. We’ll be in Dubai. Stay with us.

[admin]

Palestinian Diplomat Who Went Viral for U.N. Speech Says Israel & U.S. Are Isolated on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 13, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/13 ... srael_gaza

Transcript

The U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza: 153 U.N. members approved the resolution, 23 abstained, and just 10, including the United States, voted “no.” The vote is nonbinding but adds to the mounting isolation faced by the U.S. for its ongoing support of Israel’s assault that has killed at least 18,000 Palestinians in just over two months. In an exclusive interview, Democracy Now! speaks with Palestinian diplomat Nada Tarbush, whose address to the U.N. went viral last month. “Only a handful of powerful states have been trying to get Palestine off the agenda and been blocking any avenue to push for the rights of the Palestinian people under international law,” says Tarbush. She also discusses how Zionists have disrupted Palestine’s history of diversity by trying to create an ethnocracy through ethnic cleansing and colonization.

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, with Juan González.

The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. In Tuesday’s vote, 153 nations approved the resolution, 23 abstained, just 10, including the U.S. and Israel, voted “no.” Though nonbinding, the U.N. vote is another indication of the mounting isolation of the United States as it continues to support Israel’s assault, which has killed over 18,000 Palestinians in a little over two months. The vote came just days after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, President Biden has delivered his sharpest criticism yet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a donor event in Washington, D.C., Biden criticized what he called Israel’s, quote, “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.

In a moment, we’ll be joined by the Palestinian U.N. diplomat Nada Tarbush. But first, let’s turn to a speech she gave in November at the U.N. in Geneva. It went viral.

NADA TARBUSH: Israel said something that should make all of you shudder. It effectively said, “I can kill any and every person in Gaza. The 2.3 million people in Gaza are either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers or human shields, and are therefore legitimate targets.” Every person, according to Israel, falls into one of these three categories — a child, a journalist, a doctor, a U.N. staff, a newborn baby in an incubator. And so, according to Israel, it can kill them and then have the audacity to come to this room and tell the world with a straight face, “We are acting in accordance with international law.”

The death of each of the over 11,350 people killed over the past month, be it children, journalists, U.N. staff, the sick, the elderly, according to Israel, was justified. Think about that for a moment, and let it give you pause. Anyone espousing this warped logic has no shred of humanity, no sense of morality and no knowledge of legality.

But guess what: Your carpet explanation for carpet bombing will not fly. People are not fools. The people in this room are seasoned diplomats, who are well read, have a knowledge of history, and many of whom have seen your government make the same arguments during your six previous military aggressions on Gaza in the past 15 years. They have seen you resort to collective punishment, targeting of Palestinian children, journalists, medical staff, aid workers before. They have seen you forcibly transfer our communities, colonize our lands, demolish our homes, and evict families from their own properties since the 7th of October and for the 75 years that preceded it.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Palestinian U.N. diplomat Nada Tarbush speaking November 17th, almost a month ago. At the time, the death toll in Gaza from Israel’s assault was about 11,000. Today it’s over 18,600.

Nada Tarbush joins us now in an exclusive interview from Geneva, where she serves as counselor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations in Geneva.

I’m wondering, Nada Tarbush, if you can start off by responding to the UNGA, the U.N. General Assembly’s overwhelming call, even if it is symbolic, for a Gaza ceasefire, in response to the U.S. vetoing in the U.N. Security Council on Friday the ceasefire call, at the same time that it looks like President Biden is intensifying his criticism of Netanyahu and the Israeli bombardment, criticizing indiscriminate bombing. If you can just take that on?

NADA TARBUSH: Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me, Amy.

So, with regard to the UNGA vote, what I’d like to first say is, to put it in context for the audience, this resolution was brought to the General Assembly following the United States’s veto on a resolution at the Security Council last Friday which had called for an immediate ceasefire. And so states invoked tools that are available in the United Nations to — whenever the Security Council is deadlocked, to take the discussion to the General Assembly, and on a matter of international peace and security. So this is what happened. And the vote was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly for an immediate ceasefire.

Now, the significance this vote was that not only is it showing that the support that Israel had, from many Western states especially, for its military assault on Gaza is eroding, and even staunch supporters of Israel, like Australia and like Canada, are now saying we need a ceasefire. And so, what this shows is that Israel is isolated, the United States is isolated. The General Assembly, which is the world’s parliament and which is the most democratic organ in the United Nations, has said, “We overwhelmingly want an immediate ceasefire.”

Now, at the same time — and this is where sometimes you feel there’s a parallel reality — you hear the United States voting against that — you see the United States voting against that resolution, and at the same time words from the Biden administration about Israeli indiscriminate bombing. So, my comment on that would be that we believe in actions and not words when it comes to the U.S. government. I have heard words in the U.N. that anyone would have thought were a good thing for the Americans to say, like “We care about Palestinian civilians.” But this will not fly as long as we see the United States sending military aid, billions of dollars in military aid, using Americans’ taxpayer money, which it could have used on other things, like homelessness and healthcare, and sending that aid to help Israel commit a genocide. So I am not convinced that the Biden administration has changed course. It is still voting against a ceasefire, vetoing Security Council resolutions, sending aid and giving Israel all the diplomatic and political cover that it needs.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nada Tarbush, I wanted to ask you — before October 7th, both Israel and the United States comfortably believed that the issue of Palestine had been forgotten by the rest of the world. I’m wondering your sense of how the world has rallied in the recent two months in support of the Palestinian cause.

NADA TARBUSH: I would say that the world has never forgotten Palestine, unless by “the world” we mean the powerful, militarized states like the United States and other European states or other states from the Global North, let’s say. The international community has, year after year, said — called for a solution, called for an end to occupation, for an end to apartheid, an end to the settlement colonization project that we see in the West Bank. And so, it is only a handful of powerful states that have been trying to get Palestine off the agenda and blocking any avenue to push for the rights of the Palestinian people under international law.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk, as well, about your own family history as it relates to Palestine? Your family fled in 1948. Because in your powerful speech, you also talked about how relations between Jews and Palestinians were before the creation of Israel.

NADA TARBUSH: Yes, absolutely. My family are refugees from 1948. My father was from a village near Jerusalem which is one of the more than 450 villages that were completely destroyed during the Nakba, which is the catastrophic events that led to mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and to the most protracted refugee crisis in the world. And my mother also is from a city that became part of Israel after 1948.

The Palestine’s history is one of diversity. It is a multiethnic, multireligious land historically, which has hosted and welcomed all faiths, which has welcomed people of various ethnicities. It has always been a culturally diverse mosaic. And so, this is why it is not surprising to me that many people don’t see that this land can be transformed into an ethnocracy, into a state which is only for one people. And you have seen, even in the early days of Zionism, that you had many Jewish intellectuals, like Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sigmund Freud and others, who were against the idea of an exclusively Jewish state in the historical land of Palestine. They saw that that would cause issues like ethnic cleansing, like not respecting and indeed violating the rights of the Indigenous inhabitants.

AMY GOODMAN: In your speech that you gave at the U.N. in Geneva, you referred to these remarks in March by Israel’s far-right West Bank settler, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

BEZALEL SMOTRICH: [translated] There is no such thing as a Palestinian. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. … Do you know who is Palestinian? I am Palestinian.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that is the finance minister, part of Netanyahu’s government, Smotrich, saying, “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian,” and, for people, in case you had any trouble hearing this, “I am a Palestinian,” he said. I was wondering if you can respond.

NADA TARBUSH: Yes, I can. This is, again, not a surprising narrative. It is a narrative that we have been hearing for decades, which is that Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Golda Meir, a former Israeli prime minister, said that there is no such thing as the Palestinian people. Palestinians have been dehumanized since the creation of Israel, and even before, and, you know, in order to try and justify this settler colonial project. And there was the myth of a land without a people for a people without a land. But there were people on this land, and they are the Palestinian people.

And so, for us to hear these kind of racist and colonialist slogans is consistent with what Israel has been doing in terms of action throughout these years, which is to try and get rid of the maximum of Palestinian inhabitants from Palestine, from the West Bank, from Gaza, and to try and replace them with Israeli settlers. And so, you know, they’re just saying explicitly what they have been doing. And I think that in Gaza now, what we are seeing is the continuation of this policy of mass ethnic cleansing, of forced displacement, of trying to get rid of the Palestinian population in order to take over the land.

AMY GOODMAN: You also note in —

NADA TARBUSH: And so, you know, even the Biden — please.

AMY GOODMAN: You also note in your speech in September that Netanyahu held up a map on what he called the new Middle East, that did not show Palestine, during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. It did not show the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza. Explain what he’s putting forward, and then President Biden now saying to this group of donors that — he’s criticizing Netanyahu, saying that he is doing this in Gaza because he doesn’t want a Palestinian — a two-state solution.

NADA TARBUSH: Indeed, yes. So, again, this is not the first time that the Israelis have shown maps which completely delete the West Bank and Gaza and incorporate them into Israel and call them Israel. I mean, this has been done consistently. Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, as — West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem were annexed. There are annexationist policies happening in the West Bank with the construction of settlements and the wall and the whole settler colonial infrastructure. And in Gaza, this is — a similar project is underway. And Gaza and the West Bank have been occupied for 56 years. Palestinian dispossession has taken place for 75 years. It is an ongoing Nakba. It is a continuation of mass ethnic cleansing and annexationist policies.

Now, the problem with them formally annexing these lands is that they would have to give the right to vote to the Palestinians, whose land they would be annexing. So, instead, they try to get rid of the Palestinians before annexing the land. But the plan has been clear, and it is a plan to take over what remains of Palestine, which is very little, what remains of historic Palestine. The West Bank and Gaza constitute 22% of historic Palestine. With the settlements, this has reduced dramatically. And they’re trying to take over whatever little bits are left.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Nada Tarbush, counselor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations in Geneva. This is her first broadcast interview since the video went viral of her U.N. address on Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that she gave in Geneva.

[admin]

Israel Accused of War Crimes for “Apparently Deliberate” Killing of Reuters Journalist in Lebanon
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 14, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/14 ... transcript

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are calling for Israel to be officially investigated for committing war crimes in its targeting of journalists. This comes after an internal Reuters investigation conclusively found that its journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by an Israeli tank shell fired on him and a group of six other journalists in southern Lebanon on October 13. We speak with investigation co-author and Reuters Lebanon bureau chief Maya Gebeily, who says the group of journalists “did everything right,” including being clearly marked as press, yet were still fired upon in two successive strikes, meaning the attack is a clear violation of international humanitarian law against the military targeting of journalists.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are calling for Israel to be investigated for committing war crimes for targeting journalists. The groups have both called for an official investigation into an October 13th Israeli tank strike that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah while he was reporting in southern Lebanon with a group of six other journalists. One of the journalists who survived the attack, Christina Assi of Agence France-Presse, AFP, had to have her leg amputated. She’s still hospitalized. Human Rights Watch said it, quote, “found no evidence of a military target near the journalists’ location,” unquote. Reuters also conducted its own investigation and concluded that Issam Abdallah was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

This is an excerpt of a short video report produced by Agence France-Presse. It includes interviews with AFP reporters Christina Assi, in her hospital bed, and Dylan Collins.

ALESSANDRA GALLONI: Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah was killed on Friday, October 13th, when a shell hit him.

NARRATOR: Six other journalists are wounded. Among them, AFP photographer Christina Assi, who suffers serious injuries, later needing an amputation of her right leg.

CHRISTINA ASSI: Everything gets white, and I lose sensation in my leg.

DYLAN COLLINS: I saw Christina on the ground, and I immediately ran to her, and we were hit the second time.

CHRISTINA ASSI: There was no Hamas around us, no Hezbollah around us.

DYLAN COLLINS: Seven journalists wearing flak jackets, wearing helmets, everyone with “press” written on their chest, there’s no way they didn’t know that we were press.

CHRISTINA ASSI: And we were attacked by Israel twice, not once.

AMY GOODMAN: That was AFP reporter Christina Assi, who lost her leg after being hit by an Israeli tank shell October 13th in the same attack that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah. And this is an excerpt from a video made by Amnesty International documenting how it determined that Issam Abdallah was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

MARIJA RISTIC: In many cases when we work on conflicts, the weapon can directly lead us to perpetrators. This is the key piece of evidence. My colleague, who’s our weapons analyst, knew immediately what this weapon is.

AYA MAJZOUB: It was a 120-millimeter tank round. And that confirmed that it was the Israeli military that fired on the journalists, because Hezbollah and the armed groups in south Lebanon don’t use those kinds of weapons.

MARIJA RISTIC: And more importantly, we did identify this weapon before being used by the Israeli forces in the context of different strikes on Gaza. So this is at least the third time where we are able to link this type of weapon with the Israeli forces.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of a video by Amnesty International.

We’re joined now by Maya Gebeily. She is the Reuters bureau chief for Lebanon. She co-wrote the new Reuters special report, “Israeli tank fire killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in Lebanon.”

Maya, welcome to Democracy Now! Our condolences to you and your colleagues on the loss of Issam. If you can talk about what exactly you found? Talk about that day, as we just heard these other reporters who survived the attack, one having lost her leg, discussing.

MAYA GEBEILY: Thank you, Amy, for having us on. And, of course, Issam’s loss is one that we continue to feel every single day in the Reuters bureau and across the media, the media teams across Lebanon.

That day, I mean, ironically and very sadly, it was Friday the 13th. And Issam had been in the south covering Israeli shelling on Lebanese territory for a few days by that point. And he’s a very seasoned journalist. So, as you have reported yourself, as well, on this show in the past, Issam had a lot of conflict experience. He did everything right, along with the colleagues with whom he was, on that day. They were wearing press helmets. They were wearing vests that had “press” written on them. They were in an open area in which they could be clearly identified by all of the, obviously, the Israeli drone activity above, the Israeli helicopter activity around them, that they could be clearly identified as press.

And that evening — it was really as the sun was setting — that team of journalists — there were seven of them there in total on that hilltop — were hit twice, 37 seconds apart, first by an Israeli tank shell that hit Issam and killed Issam immediately, and 37 seconds later by another tank shell that hit the vehicle that had been driven by the two Al Jazeera journalists that were also going live from that location. And really, it was the experts that we spoke to at the end of our investigation, after presenting them with the evidence that we had gathered, you know, noting that there were two strikes in such quick succession at a team of journalists that could be so clearly identified, that warrants, you know, calling this a violation of international humanitarian law and possibly amounting to a war crime.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about this. I mean, you’ve got Al Jazeera. You’ve got AFP, Agence France-Presse. You’ve got Reuters. Issam had just set up, what, like an hour before, this live feed, that people all over the world were watching. I talked to another Reuters journalist who said he was watching, and suddenly just this strike, trying to figure out what had taken place. So, in a sense, he actually filmed his own death, Issam.

MAYA GEBEILY: Yes. And I think that is the ultimate kind of — you know, he was really bearing witness everything that was happening in southern Lebanon. And Issam himself is from southern Lebanon. So, you know, it is such a testament to the power of his work and of his job that really it was him and the feeds of other journalists that were there in the area that provided such an important piece of evidence for us as we were investigating exactly what happened. I mean, in the immediate aftermath, you know, we were gathering the footage from different journalists who were there. We were also gathering what Issam had filmed himself on his camera and on his phone. And it was so difficult to go through that, that evidence, knowing that he had really documented such important evidence of what had taken place that day.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the tank shell — the two tank shells that injured and killed the journalists, and how you were able to identify them? We just heard clips from Amnesty and AFP.

MAYA GEBEILY: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: And how precise they were, as opposed to a dumb bomb that’s being used, for example, in Gaza in almost half the cases?

MAYA GEBEILY: Absolutely. So, what we did in the immediate aftermath — the attack was on a Friday. By Sunday, we were trying to gain access to the site where Issam was killed. There was ongoing shelling in the area, so it was very difficult for us to be able to go in and to collect evidence, but we were able to get to the site and to spend a few minutes there, essentially just picking up what we thought could be shrapnel, so that we could get it tested. We, later on, then also obtained another — the tail fin, which is the biggest piece of evidence that we had. And these were taken to a lab in The Hague. We had other analysts looking at them at the same time visually and being able to kind of identify the features of these different bits of shrapnel visually to tell us what they think it might be. The lab was able to test them from a chemical perspective, to test, you know, what chemical components were there.

And these independent analytical processes came to the same conclusion, which is that this is an Israeli-made tank, as you noted in the introduction, as well. It’s made by an Israeli weapons manufacturer. And it is fired from a weapon system that’s on top of the Merkava tank. And so that was really the conclusive kind of evidence, in addition to geolocation of the exact firing location from where these shells were fired, that could allow us to conclusively say that this was an Israeli tank using an Israeli weapon system, fired from an Israeli location, that hit those journalists on that day.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the drones? One of the things the reporters described — well, they say there wasn’t gunfire; they weren’t, like, caught in the crossfire at that point; it was quiet — that there were drones. They were all wearing their press gear. You know, you could see “P-R-E-S-S.” They said I’m sure that they could see their faces that closely. Talk about the level of Israeli surveillance there.

MAYA GEBEILY: It’s a really important point, and not one that should be overlooked. Again, these journalists did everything right. In the interviews that we conducted, as well, with our own teams that were there — Thaer Al-Sudani, Reuters photographer; Maher Nazeh, Reuters video journalist, who were also wounded on that day — they said, “We chose that location specifically — not just because we had a clear view of the border area which we wanted to be filming, but also because there were different positions along the border that had a clear view of us. And so nobody could then accuse us of embedding with armed groups, doing something suspicious, you know, hiding behind a line of trees, anything like that. We were clearly visible from all sides.” And that was one of the key reasons they chose that location. So, that’s the kind of 360 on the ground.

But in all of the footage that we reviewed and in the eyewitness statements that we gathered, as well, from that day, everybody — everybody — could mention and remembered hearing the sound of Israeli drones, surveillance drones, overhead. That sound really has not left southern Lebanon over the past two months almost. There have been brief respites, but the residents of southern Lebanon are very, very accustomed to hearing that sound, hearing the sound of surveillance drones above. And so, what that tells us is, again, Israel had such a clear view of the journalists, either from the air or from the different surveillance points that they have along the border. And, you know, Merkava tanks, as well, have a very, very — have a very long distance at which they can see quite clearly through the scope. I believe it’s up to nine kilometers, if I’m not mistaken. But either way, those journalists were about 1.3 kilometers from the border. They were clearly within the visible range that you could have from that scope.

AMY GOODMAN: They had such a view of the area in three directions. I mean, this is a controversial question. Do you think Israel did not want them there? And what have they said? I mean, right afterwards, when there was tremendous outcry, they said they would look into it. They said they were sorry it happened. They didn’t take responsibility. What about now that the Reuters report is out, the Amnesty report is out, the Agence France-Presse report is out?

MAYA GEBEILY: We, at various points, Reuters, from the very first moment, you know, from that night of Friday, October 13th, sought more details and more information from the Israeli military. So, at various points, Reuters has gone back to the Israeli military and asked them, “Can you give us more information about what happened on that day? Can you tell us whether it was you that targeted them? If so, what were they suspected of doing, or what was the reasoning?” And we’ve gotten very little information. I mean, the IDF has told us, just in response to our findings, that they do not target journalists. And we have gotten nowhere else beyond that.

I mean, they have repeatedly said, obviously, when it comes to southern Lebanon, that this is a conflict area, that there is kind of crossfire happening all the time, that it’s very dangerous. But I think it’s really important to remember, again, that these journalists were not embedded with any armed actors. They were there on that hilltop, very, very far away, as Amnesty has really kind of meticulously laid out in its report, as well, and as the eyewitnesses told us, very far away from any armed activities and from any crossfire. It’s not like they were caught up between two sides shooting at each other. It was a very quiet day, and they were filming shelling at a distance.

And it’s important to note here, as well, that after our investigation was published, Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni has escalated her calls to Israel, not just to carry out an investigation, but to carry out a criminal investigation and to determine who exactly was responsible for those two strikes. And, you know, that really goes to show that there’s something criminal that took place on that day.

AMY GOODMAN: According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 63 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7th, including 56 Palestinian, four Israeli and three Lebanese journalists. Authorities in Gaza put the death toll higher, saying 86 Palestinian media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7th, the Hamas attack. The Committee to Protect Journalists says no other war has taken so many journalist lives in such a short time span, this according to CPJ data that’s been gathered since 1992. Your final comments? And as we wrap up, Maya, you didn’t just do an investigation of people you didn’t know. You knew Issam Abdallah well. This is a close-knit community. And it goes beyond Reuters, journalists dealing with this all over the world, how many journalists are dying right now in Gaza and southern Lebanon. What do you want us to remember about Issam?

MAYA GEBEILY: Issam was someone who did everything with a lot of passion and integrity. And as we were carrying out this investigation, you know, I was trying to do it in the same way, just to carry — you know, to leave no stone unturned, to do this as right as we possibly could and go as far as we possibly can with that investigation. And even journalists within Reuters who never met Issam were so moved by learning about him as they worked on this investigation, in the way that he did his job, the care with which he approached every interview subject. He treated everybody with so much humanity and with so much love. He was really a model for us in the Beirut bureau, for people who had been journalists even for longer than him and for people who were just starting out. He just took the time to teach everyone, to teach our interns, to teach everybody who was in the office how to look for a story, how to do a story justice. And I think that’s something that — you know, we’re all trying to carry that with us every single day as we try to pick up the pieces in the office and keep covering what is continuing to be, you know, a very active and bloody conflict around the region.

AMY GOODMAN: I encourage people to go to our interview with Lama Al-Arian, who was a dear friend of Issam in Lebanon. She works with Vice News. Maya Gebeily, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Reuters bureau chief for Lebanon, co-wrote the new Reuters special report, “Israeli tank fire killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in Lebanon.”

***********************

Jeremy Scahill: Gaza “Scorched-Earth Campaign” Is a “Joint U.S.-Israeli Operation”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December14, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/14 ... transcript

We discuss President Joe Biden’s “full support for a scorched-earth campaign” in Gaza with The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill, who says the U.S. is providing “political cover and rushing weapons there and giving support to the most pernicious lies that Israel [is] telling.” Despite the Biden administration's recent assertions that it is helping to restrain Israel, Israel’s military and intelligence operation is significantly propped up by resources from the United States State and Defense departments, explains Scahill. “This is a joint U.S. operation militarily and politically.” Meanwhile, he says, Biden continues to repeat debunked falsehoods about pictures of beheaded babies from the October 7 Hamas attack.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The United States is becoming increasingly isolated as it continues to oppose calls for a Gaza ceasefire while sending more munitions to Israel. On Tuesday, the United States was one of just 10 nations to vote against a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire. That vote came four days after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution for a ceasefire. This comes as the Biden administration has bypassed Congress to approve the sale of 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel, the sale valued at more than $106 million.

We’re joined now by the award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept. His new piece is just out this morning, headlined “Joe Biden Keeps Repeating His False Claim That He Saw Pictures of Beheaded Babies.” But we’re going to begin with your piece just before that, headlined “This Is Not a War Against Hamas.”

Jeremy, you write, “The events of the past week should obliterate any doubt that the war against the Palestinians of Gaza is a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.” Take it from there.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, of course, it’s no secret that for many decades the United States has showered Israel with not just military and intelligence support, but, crucially, political and, I guess you could say, moral cover for the amoral, immoral activities that Israel engages in as it operates its apartheid state in the West Bank and its repeated attacks against the people of Gaza. And, you know, when we want to talk about Hamas and we want to talk about threats that Israel faces, that it says it faces from Gaza, we have to understand that this didn’t begin on October 7th. Yes, the events of October 7th were horrifying, and the facts as they exist, as we know them, are bad enough. And to have Joe Biden repeatedly making comments that are based on completely fictitious photos that he claims to have saw of, you know, 40 babies being beheaded, then we understand that this is part of a propaganda campaign aimed at dehumanizing the population of Gaza and implying very strongly — well, actually, Joe Biden has said that Israel is waging a war against animals. This is all part of a dehumanization campaign, and Joe Biden has elevated some of the most obscene lies that have been told about — not just about Palestinian people, in general, but even about what Hamas did on October 7th. What we know is true is already horrifying enough, so I don’t know what the motive is for Biden to continuously say this.

But to directly answer your question about it being a joint U.S. military operation, for decades the U.S. has done this, but in this particular war, on October 9th, you had the defense secretary, the defense minister of Israel, Yoav Gallant, say that there is going to be — that he had ordered a complete siege of the Gaza Strip. He said, “There will be no electricity. There will be no food, no fuel.” I’m quoting. “Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” This is a genocidal phrase from the minister of defense of the Israeli armed forces on October 9th. At that moment, the United States should have hit pause immediately on any support for Israel and said, “We want to clarify that this is not going to be a war waged against a civilian population.” Not only did the Biden administration not do that, they continued to offer political cover and rushing weapons there and giving support to the most pernicious lies that Israel was telling.

And what we saw in the past days is that on the day that the United States stands alone in the world and vetoes the extraordinary session of United Nations Security Council calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, Antony Blinken informs the Pentagon and Congress that he was circumventing congressional review processes to rush through 13,000 additional tank rounds that are part of a package of 45,000 rounds that the U.S. is slated to give Israel. While he’s doing that, he is in the middle of a PR tour around the world saying the United States cares about Palestinian civilians, cares about Palestinian lives, wants to make sure that innocent people are not being killed. So, you can take the words of the administration, on the one hand, where they portray themselves almost like a kind of friend trying to talk tough to another friend who’s doing something really wrong, and, on the other hand, you can look at their actions, which is full support for a scorched-earth campaign that has killed more than 18,000 people, 7,000 of whom are children, targets being — hospitals being targeted and bombed, children being massacred, sadistic videos emerging of IDF soldiers not just killing and mutilating Palestinian bodies, but also creating propaganda films, like we saw with the stripped-down prisoners.

And one, in particular, Amy, one of the famous incidents that occurred here, is that Israeli forces gathered together dozens of men, stripped them to their underwear, and then, bizarrely, filmed them laying down guns. These are almost completely naked men that somehow still have guns in their hands. And then they filmed them putting them down. And the man who was the main person that they filmed placing a rifle down has been identified as a civilian, not a member of Hamas. But in the video, too, there’s edits where in one cut he has the rifle in his right hand, in the other cut he has the rifle in his left hand. What is clear here is that Israel made a totally sick and twisted propaganda video where they forced Palestinian men at gunpoint to be actors in this propaganda film playing armed Hamas members.

The Biden administration is completely complicit in this. Joe Biden is co-signing pernicious lies about the people of Gaza. He is distorting the already devastating and horrifying facts of October 7th. And he’s keeping the spigot of military and intelligence support open for the Israelis. And by the way, the recent reporting — and you had the author of this on — from +972 Magazine in Israel that talked about “The Gospel,” this AI-fueled assassination program in Israel, and that they sometimes will kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians in pursuit of one alleged Hamas member, much of the intelligence that is being fed to the Israelis is coming from the United States to be used to wage this war. So, yes, this is a joint U.S. operation militarily and politically.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to a recent White House press briefing, National Security Council coordinator Admiral John Kirby claiming the U.S. was doing more than any other nation to alleviate suffering in Gaza.

JOHN KIRBY: Tell me, name me one more nation, any other nation, that’s doing as much as the United States to alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Gaza. You can’t. You just can’t. … And name another nation that is doing more to urge the Israeli counterparts, our Israeli counterparts, to be as cautious and deliberate as they can be in the prosecution of their military operations. You can’t.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s John Kirby. Jeremy, your response?

JEREMY SCAHILL: OK. First of all, the United States has supplied an unending quantity of gasoline for Israel to pour on the fire that it has started in Gaza. It is an absolute obscenity for John Kirby to stand in front of the world and make such an audacious claim that the United States is doing more to help the Palestinian civilians than any other nation on Earth.

But I’ll give you a concrete list of some nation-states that are doing more than the United States. Ireland, which has opposed this from the beginning, has rightly termed what Israel is doing what it is. The government of Spain. The government of Belgium even has spoken out more forcefully than the United States. All of the nations that voted in the General Assembly for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, and the United States and only none other countries voted on Israel’s side, all of those nations are doing more than the United States to try to help the Palestinian people.

You know, you can send Samantha Power on a propaganda visit to bring 36,000 pounds of aid and have all the cameras around filming her talking about it, while at the same time you’re giving Israel 2,000-pound bombs, you’re giving them intelligence used for their scorched-earth campaign, you’re circumventing congressional processes to rush them new tank rounds. No, this is utterly obscene. And John Kirby should be entirely ashamed of himself for his conduct during this entire thing, Amy. The entire thing. John Kirby has been one of the most vicious propagandists for the worst excesses in crimes of the U.S.-backed Israeli scorched-earth campaign in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about a New York Times exposé that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. Israel just canceled a planned trip to Qatar by the head of Mossad to resume hostage negotiations. Well, that’s the latest news. His name is David Barnea. But this comes as the Times has published an exposé headlined “'Buying Quiet': Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas.” It’s about Israel secretly sending billions of dollars to Hamas over roughly a decade. The piece begins, quote, “Just weeks before Hamas launched the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the head of Mossad arrived in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting with Qatari officials. For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he [had] encouraged them.” And when the Qatari officials asked David Barnea, the head of Mossad, “Should we stop this?” he said, “No.” Jeremy Scahill, your response?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, what we know is, at least going back to 2012, Netanyahu has embraced this strategy that Hamas should be propped up in Gaza — it probably goes back much before that, but if we want to talk about concrete, provable facts. And in 2019, there’s a quote where Netanyahu is addressing his comrades in the Likud party. This is in 2019, and he said the following, quote, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”

So, what’s going on here? Well, Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want an Israeli [sic] state, and he wants to make sure that no alternative voices —

AMY GOODMAN: A Palestinian state, doesn’t want it.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Sorry, doesn’t want — yes. Well, he also seems to be working very hard in that regard, too, because he’s making it less safe in the world for Jewish people by his actions, and he is — you know, if you read the Israeli press, there’s an increasing amount of criticism that what Netanyahu is doing is actually going to make the citizens of Israel less safe in the world, not more safe.

But what Netanyahu wants to do is make sure that no political forces rise in Gaza or elsewhere in Palestine that can garner more support from the world in pursuit of being recognized as human beings, being recognized as a fully independent nation. And so, of course he wants to keep the money flowing to Hamas. It’s very good for his business, for his agenda. It’s also very good for both the United States and the Israeli war agenda and war industries.

But the other part of this, Amy, is, when we talk about groups like Hamas, beyond the fact that there’s a documented history of Netanyahu, for his own reasons, supporting the flow of money and the grip on power of Hamas, you also have the reality that for 75 years Israel has operated a murderous campaign against the Palestinian people aimed at making sure they will never get an independent homeland. And when you do things, as occurred in 2018 and 2019, like gunning down, repeatedly gunning down, nonviolent protesters who participated in the weekly Friday marches on the Great March of Return, and you had a Haaretz exposé where IDF soldiers confessed that they were in a competition to see how many kneecaps they could shoot of these nonviolent protesters, it’s sickening. When you see how Palestinians are treated when they do what the world or what others say they should do — “Oh, protest nonviolently. Don’t take up arms” — they’re gunned down by Netanyahu’s forces. So, why is there a group like Hamas? Why was there a group like the African National Congress? Why was there a group like the Irish Republican Army? Why would people support vicious entities like Hamas? Well, because they’ve been stripped of every possible other means of resistance by their occupiers, by settler colonialist powers. So, if we want to talk about why is there a Hamas, part of it is people like Netanyahu, and Netanyahu personally supporting the rise of Hamas and sustaining Hamas. And the other part of it is 75 years of history of constantly massacring Palestinians and showing them that nonviolent protest also will not be tolerated.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, we just have a minute, but I want to go to your new piece, out today, headlined “Joe Biden Keeps Repeating His False Claim That He Saw Pictures of Beheaded Babies.” I want to go back to President Biden, October 11th, four days after October 7th, when Hamas attacked Israel, when he was speaking to a group of Jewish community leaders.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I mean, I have been doing this a long time. I never really thought that I would see, have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children. I never thought I’d ever — anyway.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Biden. The White House was forced to walk this back somewhat. But explain what he’s talking about.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7th, when journalists — and at first it was primarily Israeli journalists — went to the scene of some of the kibbutzes where the massacres had taken place, they began to hear stories from Israeli soldiers that there were decapitated babies and babies who were burned alive. And so, i24NEWS in Israel, one of their reporters, we believe, was the first to report this and said that it was based on what Israeli soldiers had told her. And then that starts to spread like wildfire. CNN then picks up the report. CBS also did a report promoting the claim that there were beheaded babies. And then, as much more attention starts getting drawn to it, people start asking the Israeli government, and Netanyahu’s spokesperson then confirms that this happened.

And then, a few hours later, you have Joe Biden standing up and saying that he has personally seen photographs of it. Then, when U.S. reporters started pushing on this and saying, you know, “Is Biden saying that the U.S. has independent evidence of this?” then they had to say, “No, actually, Joe Biden and no one in the administration has seen any photos. He was just referring to the media reporting about it.”

And now the Israeli government doesn’t make this claim at all anymore. In fact, when Netanyahu has appeared alongside U.S. officials, or when Tony Blinken is shown photos by the Israeli government of the aftermath of the horrifying scene at the kibbutzes, he’s never mentioned beheaded babies. Netanyahu has said that they beheaded soldiers.

But what is really perplexing is that the established facts that we already understand are horrifying enough. Why would the most powerful individual in the world find the need to repeatedly — not just once, Amy. He said it in October, he said it in November, and he said it a few days ago. He keeps saying that he has seen photos, and then his advisers have to walk it back. Also, The Washington Post reported that before he first said that, in a meeting with his staffers, they warned him against including that in his speech because they said it’s not verified.

So, what you have here is Joe — this is the one of the most incendiary charges that has been made about those raids led by Hamas on October 7th, this idea of beheaded babies. But if you look at the actual figures that have been released by Israel — and I want to be very precise here, because it’s very, very important. If you look at the actual figures — and I’m going to read this for you, Amy. This is published in mainstream Israeli news outlets. They’ve said approximately 1,200 Israelis or Israeli residents were killed on October 7th: 274 of them were soldiers, 764 were civilians, 57 were police, 38 were local security guards. Among the civilians killed, there was a 9-month-old baby — she was the youngest — Mila Cohen. She was shot — and this is horrifying — she was shot as her mother carried her. Her mother survived, but her father and other relatives were killed. So you had a 9-month-old that was killed. Then you had 12 children between the ages of 1 and 9 years old, and you had 36 children between the ages of 10 and 19 years old.

Where does this story of 40 beheaded babies come from? Well, Israel has walked it back. The reporters have retracted it. Only Joe Biden is out there in the world continuing to insist that he somehow has seen photos of beheaded babies, when not even Benjamin Netanyahu, who absolutely would be screaming it every day if it was true, isn’t going that far.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, I want to thank you for being with us, senior reporter and correspondent at The Intercept. We’ll link to your pieces.

****************

Palestinian Student Shot in VT & Granddaughter of Holocaust Survivor Join Haverford Sit-In for Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 14, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/14 ... transcript

We look at student protests nationwide calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, including 41 students at Brown University arrested Monday at a sit-in demanding the school divest its endowment from weapons manufacturers like Raytheon and United Technologies, and a weeklong sit-in at Haverford College. One of the students who joined the protest has just returned to campus: Kinnan Abdalhamid, a junior who was shot two weeks ago along with his two friends, who are also of Palestinian descent, by a white man in Burlington, Vermont. We speak with Abdalhamid and Ellie Baron, an organizer with Students for Peace at Haverford College who is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. “It’s very heartwarming to see a collective body of students stand against a blatant genocide of my people,” says Abdalhamid about support for Palestine at Haverford and other schools.

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.

We look now at student protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In one of many actions nationwide, 41 students at Brown University were arrested Monday at a sit-in demanding the school divest its endowment from weapons manufacturers like Raytheon and United Technologies. The school charged the students with willful trespass within school buildings. Meanwhile, students at Haverford College just ended a peaceful weeklong sit-in yesterday of the school’s administrative offices.

PROTESTERS: Hey hey, ho ho! Militarism has got to go! Hey hey, ho ho! Militarism has got to go!

AMY GOODMAN: Some 100 Haverford students now face the threat of disciplinary action. One of the students who joined the protest has just returned to campus. Kinnan Abdalhamid is a junior at Haverford who was shot two weeks ago, along with his two friends, by a white man in Burlington, Vermont. All three are of Palestinian descent. Tahseen Ahmed was shot in the chest, and Hisham Awartani was paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spinal cord. He is a student at Brown University. The three grew up and went to school together in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

We are joined by Kinnan Abdalhamid at Haverford College and by his fellow student Ellie Baron, a Haverford College junior and organizer with Students for Peace who participated in the sit-in. She’s granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Kinnan, thank you so much for being with us. What you and your two close friends went through — I mean, you grew up in Ramallah, went to the Friends School there, visiting together at Thanksgiving Hisham’s grandmother and uncle. Tell us what happened then. And thank goodness you’re able to go back to school, having been shot yourself. But then talk about what you’re calling for. Why were you just walking? What? You had just — were going to dinner at Hisham’s family’s house?

KINNAN ABDALHAMID: We were originally going to go straight to dinner at Hisham’s family house, but before going in, we usually decide to go on a walk. And on the walk back, when we were going to have that delayed dinner, I guess, yeah, that’s when we saw.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you see? What happened? Explain what happened to the three of you.

KINNAN ABDALHAMID: Well, he was standing on the porch of the house, and he turned around and saw us, immediately ran down the steps of the porch, pulled out a pistol and started shooting. Tahseen was the first to be wounded, then Hisham. And during that time, I was able to run, but he seems to have hit me while I was running.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is the latest? We talked to Hisham’s mother, someone you know well, Elizabeth Price, who had flown in to be with her son. At the time we talked, it looked like he would be paralyzed from the chest down. Do you have any latest information? He’s in rehab now?

KINNAN ABDALHAMID: I’m not willing to speak on his condition now. That’s him and his family’s decision.

AMY GOODMAN: So talk about you coming back to Haverford and what that’s meant and the level of activism. And we see now at Brown, where Hisham went to school — where he goes to school, 41 students have been arrested. Talk about what’s happening at Haverford.

KINNAN ABDALHAMID: Yes. What’s happening in Haverford, the student activism has been absolutely astounding and amazing. It’s very heartwarming to see a collective body of students stand against a blatant genocide of my people, and the humanity in that, as well as — I wouldn’t like to distinguish it being only students. There are different faculty members here that are, in fact, at least pro-Palestinian when it comes to this case. It’s overwhelming to see the humanity. I’m very happy it happened. And hopefully, sometime different people with different platforms will call for a ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Ellie Baron into the conversation. You’re a Haverford junior, granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. Talk about what you’re demanding at Haverford. You all just finished occupying the admin offices, threatened with arrest yesterday. Is that right?

ELLIE BARON: So, we occupied Founders Hall, which is the main administrative building. And if we didn’t leave by yesterday morning, we were threatened with a dean’s panel, which could include expulsion. We have been calling for a ceasefire, for specifically Haverford College President Wendy Raymond to release a public statement in support of a ceasefire. And this has precedent at Haverford College. President John Coleman in 1969 wrote a letter to President Nixon and galvanized the signatures of 79 other college presidents, demanding that President Nixon oppose the Vietnam War. And so we’re demanding that President Raymond follow in his footsteps in this tradition of activism and using leadership in order to create change in the world, which is very much in line with our Quaker values, and call for a ceasefire and call for our elected officials to support peace in Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the accusations that when you call for ceasefire now, when you hold a Palestinian flag, when you wear a keffiyeh, that you’re expressing antisemitism? Talk about your own family history and how you came to the views you have, Ellie.

ELLIE BARON: Absolutely. So, antisemitism has been something that’s weaponized. We have seen accusations of antisemitism on our campus that have delegitimatized Palestinian organizing. And I, frankly, find accusations of antisemitism to be horrific, considering what my family went through in the Holocaust. There is real antisemitism out there. There are real threats to Jewish people. These threats have been experienced by my family. So many members of my family died in the Holocaust. And it’s absolutely horrifying that claims of antisemitism are being attributed to criticism of Israel. And that just delegitimatizes antisemitism and — sorry, that delegitimatizes actual threats to Jewish people and actual antisemitism in this world.

AMY GOODMAN: So, today a rally is being held as we speak at Haverford?

ELLIE BARON: So, the rally was yesterday. And we had the rally to conclude our sit-in in the administrative building. And although the sit-in is over, the calls for Haverford College and so many other higher education institutions to take action and to leverage their power for change in the world and in order to have a ceasefire have not ended. So, just because the sit-in has ended, hundreds of students yesterday at the rally called for Haverford College to create change and to call for a ceasefire and leverage their power.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Kinnan, you started by talking about how moved you are by the Haverford protests. You’ve got the last word right now. What you want to see happen at Haverford? You also just spoke at Bryn Mawr, didn’t you? Another college nearby.

KINNAN ABDALHAMID: Yeah. This college is part of a system, Bi-Co, so Bryn Mawr and Haverford are quite linked together.

If there was a final message I’d like to say, it’s to kind of, I’d say, dismantle this “we know better” mentality with a lot of people I’ve interacted with. It’s important for both sides to have an open mind and to engage with students and faculty, to have pro-Palestinian views as just like other people. They’re not misinformed. They know what they’re talking about. Palestinians, in their own rights, a lot of them that were raised in Palestine, are experts about the history, the atrocities they’ve endured and seen in their lifetime, and what has led up to the events of October 7th. It’s important to underscore that. A lot of people that were born and raised here, God bless them, simply don’t know as much and should engage with an open mind and learn more, before stifling discourse regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict, especially Palestinians who are out crying for a ceasefire, who are generally witnessing their people being exterminated.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for doing this interview with us, Kinnan Abdalhamid, again, shot Thanksgiving weekend with his two friends, Tahseen and Hisham Awartani, who at this point is paralyzed from the chest down. You can go to democracynow.org and see our interview with Elizabeth Price, Hisham’s mother. And I also want to thank Ellie Baron, a junior at Haverford involved with calling for a ceasefire.

[admin]

“Politics of Memory”: Masha Gessen’s Hannah Arendt Prize Postponed for Comparing Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 15, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/15 ... transcript

We speak with the acclaimed Russian American writer Masha Gessen, whose latest article for The New Yorker looks at the politics of Holocaust commemoration in Europe. Gessen was scheduled to receive the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize in Germany on December 15, but the ceremony was postponed after some award sponsors withdrew support over Gessen’s comparison in the article of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. A smaller award ceremony is set for Saturday. Gessen says Germany’s culture of learning about and atoning for the sins of the Nazi regime has morphed into steadfast support for the state of Israel despite its actions, while banning most forms of pro-Palestinian solidarity as part of a flawed effort to fight antisemitism. The cornerstone of this form of “memory politics” is that “you can’t compare the Holocaust to anything,” says Gessen. “My argument is that in order to learn from history, we have to compare.”

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.

We begin today’s show with the acclaimed Russian American writer Masha Gessen, scheduled to receive the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize in Germany today, but the ceremony had to be postponed after one of the award’s sponsors, the left-leaning Heinrich Böll Foundation, withdrew its support for the prize after Masha Gessen compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto in a recent article for The New Yorker titled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today.” The German city of Bremen also withdrew the venue where today’s prize ceremony was scheduled to take place.

In the essay, Masha Gessen wrote, quote, “For the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyperdensely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time — in other words, a ghetto. Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany.”

Masha Gessen went on to write about why the term “ghetto” is not commonly used to describe Gaza. They wrote, quote, “Presumably, the more fitting term 'ghetto' would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”

Masha Gessen’s essay sparked some outrage in Germany. In its announcement withdrawing support for Gessen’s prize, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is tied to the German Green Party, criticizes Gessen’s essay, saying it, quote, “implies that Israel aims to liquidate Gaza like a Nazi ghetto,” unquote. While the foundation pulled out of the Hannah Arendt Prize ceremony, a smaller ceremony will take place Saturday at a different venue.

For Gessen, the controversy in Germany comes just days after being added to Russia’s most wanted list for comments they made about the war in Iraq — in Ukraine.

Masha Gessen joins us now from Bremen, Germany. Masha Gessen is staff writer at The New Yorker, author of numerous books, including, most recently, Surviving Autocracy.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Masha. If you can start off by talking about this controversy, talking about what you wrote in The New Yorker magazine? And the fact that, well, the ceremony hasn’t been completely canceled, but just explain what’s happened.

MASHA GESSEN: Hi, Amy. It’s good to be here.

I don’t know that I can fully explain what happened, because I don’t think I quite understand what happened, because the Heinrich Böll Foundation first withdrew from the prize ceremony, causing the city of Bremen to withdraw from the prize ceremony, causing the prize organizers to tell me that, first of all, they stand by me and by their decision to give me the prize, but also to — oh, and then the university where the discussion the day after the prize was supposed to be held also withdrew. And this is interesting, because the university said that they believed that having the discussion would violate a law. Now, by the law, I think what they actually meant was the nonbinding resolution that bans anything connected with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, which is nonbinding but has a huge influence in Germany. And that was largely the topic of my article.

So, then the prize organizers decided to have a smaller ceremony at a different location, which I’m not going to mention, not because I’m afraid of Germans, but because I’m concerned about Russians. And then the Heinrich Böll Foundation, after quite an uproar in German social media and conventional media, issued a new statement saying that they stand by the prize, but the venue had canceled, so they couldn’t hold the award ceremony, so it was postponed, which I don’t think was entirely forthcoming on the part of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and their first statement was on record. But that’s where we stand now.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the heart of what the Heinrich Böll Foundation has found so controversial. Talk about this piece that you wrote for The New Yorker magazine, the comparison you’ve made to Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto.

MASHA GESSEN: So, the piece is fairly wide-ranging. It’s a piece in which I travel through Germany, Poland and Ukraine and talk about the politics of memory in each country, but a large part of the piece — and how we view the current war in Israel-Palestine through the prism — or, fail to view the war through the prism of the Holocaust. A large part of the article is devoted to, in fact, memory politics in Germany and the vast anti-antisemitism machine, which largely targets people who are critical of Israel and, in fact, are often Jewish. This happens to be a description that fits me, as well. I am Jewish. I come from a family that includes Holocaust survivors. I grew up in the Soviet Union very much in the shadow of the Holocaust. That’s where the phrase in the headline came from, is from the passage in the article itself. And I am critical of Israel.

Now, the part that really offended the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the city of Bremen — and, I would imagine, some German public — is the part that you read out loud, which is where I make the comparison between the besieged Gaza, so Gaza before October 7th, and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. I made that comparison intentionally. It was not what they call here a provocation. It was very much the point of the piece, because I think that the way that memory politics function now in Europe and in the United States, but particularly in Germany, is that their cornerstone is that you can’t compare the Holocaust to anything. It is a singular event that stands outside of history.

My argument is that in order to learn from history, we have to compare. Like, that actually has to be a constant exercise. We are not better people or smarter people or more educated people than the people who lived 90 years ago. The only thing that makes us different from those people is that in their imagination the Holocaust didn’t yet exist and in ours it does. We know that it’s possible. And the way to prevent it is to be vigilant, in the way that Hannah Arendt, in fact, and other Jewish thinkers who survived the Holocaust were vigilant and were — there was an entire conversation, especially in the first two decades after World War II, in which they really talked about how to recognize the signs of sliding into the darkness.

And I think that we need to — oh, and one other thing that I want to say is that our entire framework of international humanitarian law is essentially based — it all comes out of the Holocaust, as does the concept of genocide. And I argue that that framework is based on the assumption that you’re always looking at war, at conflict, at violence through the prism of the Holocaust. You always have to be asking the question of whether crimes against humanity, the definitions of which came out of the Holocaust, are recurring. And Israel has waged an incredibly successful campaign at setting — not only setting the Holocaust outside of history, but setting itself aside from the optics of international humanitarian law, in part by weaponizing the politics of memory and the politics of the Holocaust.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about that, that learning about the Holocaust through the idea that it is separate and apart and can be compared to nothing else, versus how we ensure “never again” anywhere for anyone.

MASHA GESSEN: I don’t know that we can ensure “never again” anywhere for anyone. But I think the only way to try to ensure it is to keep knowing that the Holocaust is possible, keep knowing that it is — it can come out of what Arendt called “shallowness.” I mean, this was very much her point in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. And by the way, this was a book that got Arendt really ostracized by both the Israeli political mainstream and much of the North American Jewish political mainstream, for things that she wrote about the Judenrat, but also for this very framing of the banality of evil. It was misinterpreted as trivializing the Holocaust. But what she was saying is that the most horrible things of which humanity has proven capable can grow out of something that seems like nothing, can grow out of thoughtlessness, can grow out of the failure to see the fate of the other or the inability to see it. And I interpret that as a call to constant vigilance for failure to see the fate of the other, for doubting the kind of overwhelming consensus that, certainly in Israel and in the North American Jewish community, appears to back the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. This is the way in which we stumble into our darkest moments.

AMY GOODMAN: For people who don’t know who Hannah Arendt is, the Jewish philosopher, political theorist, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition, The Banality of Evil, as well, covered the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker magazine, the magazine that Masha Gessen writes for.

Masha, last week, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed the acclaimed Palestinian academic, the activist, the poet Refaat Alareer, along with his brother, his sister and his four nieces. For more than 16 years, Alareer worked as a professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he taught Shakespeare and other subjects, the father of six and mentor to so many young Palestinian writers and journalists. He co-founded the organization We Are Not Numbers. In October, Democracy Now! spoke to Refaat Alareer, who also compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto.

REFAAT ALAREER: If you have seen the pictures from Gaza, we speak about complete devastation and destruction to universities, to schools, to mosques, to businesses, to clinics, to roads, infrastructure, to water lines. I googled this morning Warsaw Ghetto pictures, and I got pictures I couldn’t differentiate. Somebody tweeted four pictures and asked to tell which one is from Gaza and which one is from the Warsaw Ghetto. They are remarkably the same, because the perpetrator is almost using the same strategies against a minority, against the oppressed people, the battered people, the besieged people, whether it was in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jews in Warsaw Ghetto in the past or the Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the Gaza Strip. So, the similarity is uncanny.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the Palestinian poet, writer and professor Refaat Alareer, who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike that killed his brother, sister and four of her daughters. This is Scottish actor Brian Cox, famous for Succession, just nominated for a number of Emmys, reading Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die,” in a video that’s gone viral.

BRIAN COX: If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.

AMY GOODMAN: Scottish actor Brian Cox reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” in a video produced by the Palestine Festival of Literature, PalFest. Masha Gessen, if you can comment on both what Refaat and you are saying about the Warsaw Ghetto, and the significance of him dying in this strike, like so many other Palestinians? I think the number, as we speak, we’re at something like 19,000 Palestinians dead, more than 7,000 children, more than 5,000 women, Masha.

MASHA GESSEN: I wasn’t aware that he had made this comparison, but I’m not particularly surprised, because the comparison lies on the surface. And so, the question I had to ask when writing this, it was, “Why hadn’t this comparison been made before?” The trope that’s been used for at least a dozen years in sort of human rights circles is “open-air prison.” And “open-air prison” is not a good descriptor for what was Gaza before October 7th. There are no prison cells. There are no prison guards. There is no regimented daily schedule. What there was was isolation. What there was was a wall. What there was was the inability of people to leave, with the exception of very, very few. What there was was a local force, enabled in part by the people who built the wall — and I’m talking about Hamas now as the local force — that maintained order, and in this way serviced, in part, the needs of the people who built the wall. That was the bargain that Israel had struck by pulling out of Gaza, was that Hamas would maintain order there. And obviously, there are huge differences. I’m not claiming, by any means, that this is a one-to-one comparison or that even there is such a thing as a one-to-one comparison. That’s not a thing. But what I’m arguing is that the similarities are so substantial that they can actually inform our understanding of what’s happening now.

And what’s happening now — and this is probably the line in the piece that made a lot of people throw their laptops across the room — what’s happening now is that the ghetto is being liquidated. And I think that’s an important thing to say, not just because it’s important to call things — to describe things in the best possible way that we can, but because, again, in the name of “never again,” we have to ask if this is like a ghetto. And if what we’re witnessing now in this indiscriminate killing, in this — in an onslaught that has displaced almost all the people of Gaza, that has made them homeless, if that is substantially similar to what we saw in some places during the Holocaust, then what is the world going to do about it? What is the world going to do in the name of “never again”?

AMY GOODMAN: Masha Gessen, the cancellations of speeches, of festivals that are seen as pro-Palestinian are on the rise. You have taught at Bard for years. You know the kind of pressure that professors and students are being brought under all over the United States. You’re in Germany right now. I’m wondering if you can comment on this. Some are calling it a “new McCarthyism.” And yet, interestingly, like you, so many of the protesters are Jews, are Jewish students, Jewish professors. But when this ceremony was first canceled, then postponed, what kind of response did you get from the press? Was it an avalanche of interest? And especially in Germany now, where people like Greta Thunberg — right? — the young climate activist, spoke up for Gaza and got pilloried in the German press?

MASHA GESSEN: Well, funny you should ask, because I was making my way to Bremen after having woken up to an email telling me that this was all going on, and I started seeing media reports that were wildly inaccurate. They said, for example, that the prize had been rescinded, which it never was. The jury was very firm, and I can’t say enough to express my appreciation for them. I think they’ve shielded me from how much pressure they’ve come under as a result of this controversy. But I’ve felt so well hosted and supported by them. But, yeah, the media were reporting all sorts of things and also making up biographical facts about me.

And in all that time, not a single German reporter contacted me, and only one U.S. reporter contacted me, a reporter from The Washington Post. So I tweeted about it. And it was like I reminded journalists that that’s what we do, is we call people and find out what actually happened. So, I have been talking to the media now nonstop for the last 28 hours. I almost wish I hadn’t tweeted it, but I also think it’s very important to try to have this conversation in a meaningful way. So I’ve been concentrating mostly on German media. Every single German media outlet I’ve ever heard of has reached out to me. So I don’t think it’s that they didn’t want give me a voice. It’s that the habit of aggregating the news has just become so ingrained that people forget that the substance of our profession is to actually call people and ask them.

AMY GOODMAN: Go to where the silence is. Masha Gessen, I also want to ask you about another issue. Russian police recently placed you on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against you on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army. The Kremlin is accusing you of spreading false information over your remarks about the massacre of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces in the city of Bucha in March of last year. Can you comment?

MASHA GESSEN: Well, it’s been quite a week. I kind of feel like I want to stop making news. But you know what? It’s not crazy to me that I’m both placed on the Russian wanted list and running into trouble with German authorities, because I think that there is a kind of politics — and this is what you referred to in the first part of your earlier question — which is, you know, the thing that some people are referring to as the “new McCarthyism.”

This is, to me, the most worrying part of domestic Western politics, both here and in the United States, that the right wing is riding the horse of anti-antisemitism. In Germany, the AfD, which is the far-right anti-immigrant party, has been using antisemitism as a cudgel to — both as a ticket into the political mainstream and as a cudgel against a lot of anti-Israeli policy voices, many of which belong to Jews. And I think that what we have observed with the university presidents being called into Congress in the United States has definite similarities. It is also Elise Stefanik’s ticket into the political limelight and political mainstream. But it also — and this is the really important part — it is also based on a profoundly antisemitic worldview. Elise Stefanik is using these university presidents to attack liberal institutions, to attack Ivy League universities. And I think, in her imagination — and I think we know enough to know that this is how her imagination is working — she is trying to get donors to withdraw funding to undermine these institutions. And, of course, in her imagination, the Jews control all the money, so the donors are Jews. This is the most sort of basic antisemitic trope.

And the fact that the right is able to hijack the issue of antisemitism so effectively is truly dangerous, because you know what? Antisemitism is real. Antisemitism, when right-wing politicians or stupid politicians mix actual antisemitism with fake antisemitism, with what in Germany they called Israel-related antisemitism, which is basically criticism of Israel, what we end up with is a muddled picture in which Jews are being used and antisemitic worldview is being reaffirmed, and, ultimately, actual real antisemitism becomes a bigger danger.

AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to end with another victim of the Holocaust, the LGBTQ community. Russia’s Supreme Court recently banned LGBTQ+ activism in a landmark decision Amnesty International blasted as “shameful and absurd.” The ruling, which asserts the international LGBTQ movement is extremist, threatens to further endanger already persecuted communities. Masha, isn’t that part of the reason you left the Soviet Union, you left Russia, to begin with? We just have a minute, but if you could comment?

MASHA GESSEN: Yes. I left — next week is 10 years since I was forced to leave Russia because of the anti-gay campaign that was already underway in Russia, and the Kremlin was threatening to go after my family.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Masha Gessen, we thank you so much for joining us, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, distinguished writer-in-residence at Bard, award-winning Russian American journalist, author of numerous books, including, most recently, Surviving Autocracy. Masha’s most recent piece for The New Yorker is headlined “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today.” We’ll link to it at democracynow.org. Masha Gessen has been speaking to us from Bremen, Germany, where they will be receiving the Hannah Arendt Award, albeit at a different venue, not sponsored by as many organizations that originally were sponsoring that award.

*************************

Israel Raids Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp; Director Speaks Out After Being Jailed & Beaten
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 15, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/15 ... transcript

The Israeli military this week raided the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, a renowned cultural institution whose mission is to fight for Palestinian justice, equality and self-determination. It’s part of a wave of violence Israel has unleashed across the occupied West Bank since October 7, killing 58 people in Jenin alone even as the country intensifies its assault on Gaza. We speak with Freedom Theater artistic director Ahmed Tobasi, who was just released after being held for 24 hours. Two of his colleagues remain in Israeli detention. “The Israeli soldiers believe we are not human beings,” says Tobasi. “You are under occupation, and that’s your destiny as a Palestinian.” He decries the decades of international impunity under which the oppression of Palestinians operates, and calls on Americans to resist the use of their tax dollars to fund Israel’s violence. “They believe no one in this world can ask them to stop,” he says. We also get a reaction from Peter Schumann, the founder and director of the Bread and Puppet Theater, the legendary political and social justice-oriented theater company, marking its 60th year with a puppet show in New York City that is an ode to Gaza.

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.

We turn now to the occupied West Bank, where Israel has killed at least 12 Palestinians during a three-day raid on the Jenin refugee camp, the largest raid there in 20 years. On Wednesday, Israeli soldiers raided the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, a renowned cultural institution whose mission is to fight for Palestinian justice, equality and self-determination. The theater has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli forces since its founding in 2006. In 2011, one of the theater’s founders, Juliano Mer-Khamis, was assassinated. In July, the theater was struck in an Israeli drone strike.

We’re joined now by Ahmed Tobasi, the theater’s artistic director, who was detained and beaten this week. Two of his colleagues remain detained, including the theater’s general manager Mustafa Sheta.

Ahmed, thank you so much for being with us. Describe where you are sitting right now, and then what happened to you this week. We’re seeing a raid that is one of the largest that Israel — I mean, frequently raids Jenin. One of the times it raided Jenin, it killed the Al Jazeera reporter. But, Ahmed, if you can talk about what’s happened now?

AHMED TOBASI: Just there is no words, actually. I could not find words to describe the pain, the sore that we have as the Palestinian and especially the people in Jenin and Jenin camp. I’m sitting in the middle of my office and Mustafa’s office. And for me, just like everything is destroyed. And you see all this mess. And I don’t know why. It’s because — this is theater. It’s not a military base. It’s not an artillery house. It’s not an armed place, or there is no guns. There is books, pictures, cameras, music and instruments. All of it been destroyed. The whole theater been — like, all computers, all offices been destroyed. And they’ve been writing and writing and drawing Hebrew things all around.

And, you know, just yesterday — before yesterday, I was actually in my house, which is in front of the Freedom Theatre, and I know — I was waiting — they’re going to come to check us in the house, because they’re going house to house. They’re arresting everyone, from like 13 to 60, 50 years old. And I was hearing them. They’re coming to my house, because they’re going house by house. And then they just broke the door of my house. I just went out to them and told them, “Please, there is children here. We are a whole family here, and we can do whatever you want. There is no need for violence. There is no need to do anything.” But quickly, they put the guns on me. They took me, put me down, and they started to beat me. And I don’t know why. I was telling them, like, “I have a Norwegian passport. I have Norwegian citizenship.” But they didn’t care.

They stormed in. They broke all the house. They broke everything, any electronic stuff, any glass. And they took my brother, too. The children were screaming, crying. And even they were screaming on them. And because I understand a little Hebrew, they were swearing at the children. They were screaming at my mom and dad, which is old people. And then they started to beat me, and then they handcuffed me. And they took me, and they put some even like army clothes on me, and they started to take pictures of me, taking poses, soldier by soldier, to show their girlfriends they are heroes. But while I was under arrest, under the guns, and they were taking these pictures from me.

And then they put me in a truck. They took me to al-Jalama checkpoint, and they threw me in the mud. It was raining. They threw me beside the street, where all the Jeeps, the vehicles, army go around me. And I don’t understand what is going on. Are they going to drive on me? Are they going to kill me? I don’t know what is going on, because I was blindfolded. And then they put me in another truck, and they took me to another place, where they throw us again outside, start to do like an immediate interrogation about my identity and, like, you know, intelligence. But it’s outside intelligence, in the rain. They didn’t let me even take my shoes or clothes to cover myself. It’s December. It’s very cold with the rain. And it was a torture in somehow, a psychological torture, mentally torture, that all the time the soldiers go around you with the guns, their guns touching you, and you’re just waiting the moment when they’re going to shoot you. Are they going to drive on you? Are they going to smash you? And, you know, they take you from place to place, place to place, makes you walk, that you don’t know, without shoes, with the mud.

So it was a whole crazy — I cannot — I cannot describe. This is happening. For me, it takes me directly to 2002, when I was 17 years old. It’s exactly the same thing happening. The Israelis have the machine time to bring you back 20 years just with one button, with one invasion. And for me, I am wondering how long this is going to happen again and again in the same way, and still the whole world looking, and they cannot do anything for us. We, as the Palestinians, we are too bored of this life. We are too bored of this legacy of the world, that they’re promising humanity, promising democracy. This is — this is — I cannot go on again. I mean, we, as the Palestinians, now we are at the point that we cannot wait for another promise. We have to do something even as the Palestinians.

But even though we still, in the Freedom Theatre, is a cultural, artistic place, where we have children, young people, girls, boys, women to come here to practice, to find a place where they can express themselves, where they can imagine there is a better life, a better place in this world, where they can decide their future in different ways, to choose to be different from the reality that we’re living. And still the Israelis come, and they’re telling us, “No, you cannot dream. You cannot think that you can be something different from the reality around you. You are under occupation, and that’s your destiny as a Palestinian, to grow up, to be born, to grow up and die under brutal, crazy, violent occupation,” that they don’t believe in anything, not in art. They arrest us as artists, as the people who do theater. They arrest — they destroy everything that shows there is culture, there is art, that we Palestinians, we are a normal people. The Israeli soldiers believe we are not a human being. That’s why they’re killing us in very easy way. That’s why they destroy theaters and cultural places, because also they believe no one in this world can ask them to stop. No one can tell them, “You can’t do this.” They believe, as Israelis, they can do whatever they want, and no one in this world can tell them what you are doing.

So, I am asking all the artists in this world — and, you know, as Juliano Mer-Khamis and Zakaria Zubeidi, the main founders of the Freedom Theatre, was believing the Third Intifada, which we’re doing now, is going to be a cultural, artistic intifada. We’re asking also all the friends all around the world, you have to unite, and we have to fight not just for Palestinians. We have to fight this planet, for the humanity, for each community and each country still under colonization or under occupation. This planet is very important, that we can live together in this planet without all this hate, without all this violence, that the only country creating this and make all this world unstable, it’s Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play the words of Juliano Mer-Khamis, again, the co-founder of the Jenin Freedom Theatre. He was killed in 2011 in Jenin, shot by masked assailants. We talked to him when he was in the United States. He talked about the theater’s mission, that you’re sitting in right now, the theater that is once again ransacked. This is Juliano.

JULIANO MER-KHAMIS: My name is Juliano, and I’m the director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp. The Freedom Theatre is a venue to join the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation. We believe that the Third Intifada, the coming intifada, should be cultural, with poetry, music, theater, cameras and magazines.

This place never had a theater. This place never was exposed to these arts. So, actually, we are building everything from scratch. We are building capacity, building of actors. We are building capacity, people of audience. You know, sometimes it’s easier to create actors than audience. We are dealing with the young generation to expose them to these arts.

The location of the Freedom Theatre — and don’t let this view to deceive you — we are sitting in the mid of the most attacked and poor refugee camp in Palestine: the refugee camp of Jenin. We are talking about almost 3,000 children under the age of 15 suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It means they pee in their pants when they are 11. It means they cannot concentrate. They cannot deal with each other without violence.

AMY GOODMAN: That was a promotional video that Juliano Mer-Khamis did for the Jenin Freedom Theatre, talking about the theater’s mission. And we’re right now in the Jenin theater, in the Freedom Theatre, with one of the people who — Ahmed Tobasi, who is now the artistic director. Juliano was killed, assassinated in 2011. So, Ahmed Tobasi, you were held for 24 hours. The general manager of the theater, Mustafa Sheta, is still being held. Do you know what’s happening to him, and the other scores of men who have been taken at this point, Israel saying they are Hamas?

AHMED TOBASI: You know, in a way, that the Freedom Theatre, as you said and as you mentioned, being attacked all the time, that Jenin camp being attacked, it’s like we are part of this place, and the Israelis have no differences to look at the organizations, like Freedom Theatre as an artistic, cultural organization which should be safe as an international organization.

Yes, at the same time, Mustafa Sheta also was taken, the same time I was taken. And I think he been taken to other place, which is clearly that they’re going to hold him. We still do not have any information about him. Soon after this program, I will go to his family to see if they got any news about him. But, for sure, there is many friends around the world trying to push to get some information or at least to push to release him.

Another student also was also arrested yesterday. You know, even our kids, after the July invasion, being killed in front of the theater. We have now three people, three young people, been killed from the children of the Freedom Theatre. And still, like 15 years now, 20 years, we work in building this place. In the last July, been destroyed. We rebuild it again. We fix it again. But now, after two, three months, again they come and destroy everything. They even stole the computers. It’s crazy. This army have no morals. They steal computers. They are not soldiers. They are just thieves.

But, yeah, it’s crazy that — we talked to a lawyer, that he’s going to start looking for information and see what the situation of Mustafa. But, for sure, Israelis do not give informations that easy, and because he’s still not in, like, a clear prison. He still may be under interrogation. And that’s what we are worrying about, because also the head of the board of the Freedom Theatre been already one year, arrested before one year, and there is no any clear evidence about what is the accuse about him.

So, you see, as an artistic field, as an artist in Palestine, that’s the way that we live our life. That’s the way we do our theater, our work in art. We are not looked as a different way. But that’s our mission. That’s my mission, to keep the Freedom Theatre open, to save Juliano’s legacy and keep fighting for the same things that we believe. And we know that in Palestine, to be an artist, that’s also a chance that you’re going to be arrested or killed even.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end today’s show, if you will stay with us, Ahmed, with another theater director, Peter Schumann, the 89-year-old co-founder of the legendary Bread and Puppet Theater. It’s here in New York at the Theater for the New City with a show that is an ode to Gaza. I went to it last night. Peter, we only have a minute. Then we’re going to continue the conversation after with Ahmed. But if you can — if you want to share your thoughts with Ahmed right now about what you’re doing as he called for solidarity with his theater?

PETER SCHUMANN: Oh my god, Amy, just to listen to this report of Ahmed and this company. Oh my god, I’m crying all the way through it, in fury and in solidarity. It’s unbearable. Unbearable. And to think that this stupid organization called the Freedom and Democracy, or some [bleep] like that, that doesn’t exist —

AMY GOODMAN: You can’t curse, Peter. You cannot curse on the air.

PETER SCHUMANN: OK, no more cursing. OK, no. Big honor. It’s so wonderful. Right. Unbelievable that this is a Congress of cowards, a president who seems to be an idiot. So that’s a curse. It’s unbelievable what this country is supporting. I don’t get it, because it isn’t just Israel at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask —

PETER SCHUMANN: It’s the weapons and the —

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask, in the last 30 seconds, Ahmed Tobasi, about the U.S. position, and if you have a message, Ahmed, for President Biden?

AHMED TOBASI: I’m sorry for the Americans that the Israel — all the support of taxpayers goes to Israel to kill children and kill women. For me, this money should go to create art, to create culture, to support artists, to build theaters, to build artistic and cultural organizations all over the world, to save artists in China, in Russia, even in U.S. I want this money not goes to create weapons. Americans, you are getting your picture in a way — not in a right way, because all this military support and all this military crazy support goes to change your pictures as a human. I believe our friends in America — we have the Friends of the Freedom Theatre in New York. They are Jewish, and they are supporting us. And I’m asking them: Change the tax.

AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed, we have to leave it there. Ahmed Tobasi, artistic director of Freedom Theatre, just released by Israel, and Peter Schumann. Thank you.

[admin]

Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara on IDF Killing AJ Journalist, the 3 Hostages & U.S. Support for Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 18, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/18 ... transcript

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing growing calls for another ceasefire in Gaza after Israeli troops mistakenly shot dead three Israeli hostages who were shirtless and waving a white flag. This comes as Israel continues to target hospitals, refugee camps and journalists in Gaza. On Friday, Samer Abudaqa, a reporter from Al Jazeera, bled to death after being injured in an Israeli drone strike on a U.N. school. Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him for five hours. “This is not the first time we’ve gone through this,” says Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, that has impacted citizens like journalists, teachers and doctors the most. “Gaza has been the target of this war, not Hamas.” Bishara addresses how the United States is increasingly isolated in its opposition to a ceasefire, growing focus on Israel’s collective punishment, and more.

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.

Israel is intensifying its attacks across Gaza as pressure grows on Israel to support another ceasefire. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, has met with the prime minister of Qatar and CIA chief William Burns in Poland. Talks between the Mossad and Qatar also took place this weekend in Norway. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has arrived in Tel Aviv for talks.

This comes as Israel continues to carry out attacks across Gaza, targeting hospitals, schools and refugee camps. Authorities in Gaza say an Israeli attack on the Jabaliya refugee camp killed 110 people on Saturday. Israel has also raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, where doctors say Israeli bulldozers crushed Palestinians to death, including wounded patients who were living in tents in the hospital’s courtyard. Israel has also attacked Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing growing calls to secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, after Israeli forces mistakenly shot dead three Israeli hostages who managed to escape captivity in northern Gaza. The three men, who were all shirtless, were shot as they cried for help in Hebrew while holding up a white flag.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to attack Palestinian journalists. On Friday, Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa was killed after an Israeli drone struck a U.N. school in Khan Younis where displaced Palestinians were being sheltered. In a statement, Al Jazeera said, quote, “Following Samer’s injury, he was left to bleed to death for over five hours, as Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, denying the much-needed emergency treatment,” unquote. This is Ibrahim Qanan, a reporter for Al-Ghad in Gaza.

IBRAHIM QANAN: [translated] This is a horrific crime, a direct target. The first missile hit Samer, and he tried to crawl for 200 meters, but the Israeli warplanes hit him again and directly, so he became a martyr, and his body was cut into pieces. This is a crime, day and night, against journalists and against the media outlets who are working to reveal the Israeli occupation crimes in Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Jazeera says it will ask the International Criminal Court to investigate the killing of Samer Abudaqqa. He was working with his colleague Wael Dahdouh, the head of Al Jazeera in Gaza, who was injured in the same drone strike. They were reporting from the school together. Wael was able to walk to a hospital, dazed, to receive medical attention. He already had lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in an earlier Israeli attack.

We begin today’s show with Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, longtime Palestinian journalist and author. His books include Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid: Prospects for Resolving the Conflict. He’s joining us from the studios of Al Jazeera in Doha.

We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Marwan. We welcome you back. If you can start off, since you’re there at Al Jazeera, by talking about the International Criminal Court complaint that Al Jazeera has filed after the death of a beloved cameraman who’s worked with so many Al Jazeera journalists there, was working with the head of Al Jazeera in Gaza at the time, with Wael Dahdouh? Talk about what happened to him and just what it’s like to walk the halls of Al Jazeera right now, as I watched Al Jazeera over the weekend, every hour the tributes to him, the video, the photos of him, his colleagues remembering him, his family crying out for him.

MARWAN BISHARA: Well, as you know, this is not the first time we go through this. We’ve gone through it a number of times already, mourning our colleagues, the death of our colleagues and the death of their families. They are our family, and their families are also our extended family. And that’s just been going on for too long. We’ve covered too many wars. I personally have been in since the First Gaza Wqar back in 2008, 2009. We’ve gone through four wars like that. And only a couple years ago, one of our colleagues, as you know, Shireen Abu Akleh, was killed in the Jenin refugee camp. So this is all too close to home.

I mean, you know, every day we live the tragedy of the death of several hundreds in Gaza the past 10 weeks. But when it comes to our very own, I guess it’s human nature, right? You just can’t ignore it, can’t go on without being preoccupied with it and preoccupied with the feelings of those loved ones, that continue to endure the bombings, the inhumane bombings that we’re seeing in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. So it’s a somber atmosphere, but people here just, I guess, plow ahead — there’s no other option — as countless people die and countless families suffer without shelter, without medical treatment, even without food. It’s just the tragedy that we just have to live through every day and report on every day.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about that issue of food. You have this new Human Rights Watch report that’s out that’s accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, saying, “Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival.” This is Carl Skau, the deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme, speaking to reporters last week in New York after a recent visit to Gaza.

CARL SKAU: What we found there was that half of the population are starving. The grim reality is also that nine out of 10 people are not eating enough, are not eating every day, and don’t know where the next meal is going to come from. … We are ready to deliver to another million people within a couple of weeks, should the conditions allow. And let me reiterate that caveat, that should those conditions allow, which would be opening of more crossings and a humanitarian ceasefire to be able to reach people across the strip.

AMY GOODMAN: The deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme. He says nine out of 10 people are not eating enough in Gaza. I mean, in the past, with all of Gaza’s problems, hunger was not one of them. Can you talk about the significance of this, and also this latest news? I mean, even as we’re broadcasting, these attacks on one hospital after another. I mean, Abudaqa and Wael Dahdouh were covering the strike on the U.N. school in Khan Younis when Abudaqa was killed.

MARWAN BISHARA: Yes, absolutely. Just as a reminder to your viewers, there was also a report by Oxfam on October 23rd — that’s also just two weeks after the war started in Gaza, or on Gaza — where it also spoke about the weaponization of hunger, because this has actually been going on since day one, since October 8, when defense minister — so-called defense minister, minister of war, Yoav Gallant, if you remember, made his infamous threat by saying, “We’re going to cut their food, their fuel, their electricity,” basically denying the Palestinians of every basic need. It’s part of the collective punishment that Israel decided from day one to impose on the Palestinians, which of course is a war crime.

But that’s been the nature of the war, because right after he said that he’s going to deny the Palestinians in Gaza all of this, he said they are “human animals.” This was basically an intent for genocide, because right after he did make those infamous declarations, the president of Israel, Mr. Herzog, also came out with his statements about the fact, to his view, there are no innocents in Gaza. No innocents in Gaza. And that was followed by the prime minister, Netanyahu, who said something about an analogy with some biblical times, comparing the Palestinians to the Amalek, and hence basically saying that Israel will go after their families, their parents, the children, even the infants and their families. So we have the three leading Israeli officials basically admitting in public, once and again, [inaudible] collective punishment against Palestinians in general in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Marwan, if you can talk about what’s happening, the increasing isolation of Israel, and the United States supporting Israel? You have yet another vote today in the U.N. Security Council around a ceasefire. You have the British and German foreign ministers calling for a ceasefire, further isolating the U.S., which blocked a ceasefire at the U.N. Security Council. Lloyd Austin is in Tel Aviv meeting with the Israeli leadership. If you can shed light on — you know, Netanyahu, after the killing of the three Israeli hostages, held a news conference. He is under enormous pressure right now to put the hostages at the top. You’ve got negotiations going on, apparently, in Norway between the Qatari and Mossad officials, and now William Burns, head of central intelligence, is in Poland to meet with the Qatari officials. Talk about all that’s happening right now, Netanyahu not wanting to end this war right now. And there is a question about, since he’s facing one criminal trial after another himself, whether, once this ends and there’s a real evaluation done, he could end up in jail himself, so putting that off.

MARWAN BISHARA: Well, OK, so let’s try quickly to dissect all of these very complicated issues. Let me just start by a quick — not going to call it “correction,” but just, you know, shed a light on the German, British position. They have not called for an immediate ceasefire. They called for a sustained ceasefire, which is the opposite of an immediate ceasefire, because, basically, they said it’s not anything that we think of that will happen anytime in the near future, when they mention “sustained,” which means the circumstances have to be suitable, which is basically very close to the American position. Unfortunately, the European clients of the United States, for the time being, remain so, clients of the United States, following in the footsteps of the United States, basically to the displeasure of the majority of their public opinion, also like that of the public opinion of the United States, apparently.

But clearly the Biden administration wants to beautify the genocide in Gaza. I think they’re being embarrassed, because the reports coming out of Gaza, the images, the suffering and all of that, is reaching American public and the Western public in general. And they need to, you know, give the impression that they’re doing something, hence they’re sending these envoys to the region and writing articles and so on and so forth, to at least prove that they are trying to do something, while, in fact, in reality, the United States continue to subsidize this war, manage this war, because we see Lloyd Austin sitting along with Yoav and the rest of the Israeli generals. And they also, of course, as we know, sent the two aircraft carriers and the nuclear submarines to the area, hence shielding Israel, not just militarily, but also at the United Nations, committing $14 billion to Israel’s war effort. So, all in all, the United States continue to unconditionally support Israel, while claiming to distance itself from the intensive phase of the war, claiming that they want to phase out to something different. Right? So, that’s what we have for the time being.

But the fact of the matter is that, until today, 10 weeks later, the United States has yet to condemn Israel in public, its war crimes in Gaza, yet to distance themselves from those war crimes that have been reported once and again that are taking place in Gaza. All what they’re saying is that Israel should try to minimize, because too many Palestinians have died over the past 10 weeks. And now when they talk about the phaseout — and here, this is a very, very interesting fact that we see — they’re saying Israel should perhaps target Hamas fighters, Hamas tunnels, and assassinate their leaders. That’s what they’re saying. So, it begs the question: If this is the way to fight Hamas, why did they go on and destroy Gaza, leading to tens of thousands of casualties the past 10 weeks? There is clearly another way to fight this war, which is going after Hamas, not going after Gazans. But from the beginning, Amy — and this is, again, very important to underline — is the fact that Gaza has been the target of this war, not Hamas. And if you look at the statistics, Gazans — the journalists, the doctors, the nurses, the teachers, the academics, the children — have been the main victims of this war. Hamas fighters, Hamas militants have been the collateral damage in this war. For the past 10 weeks, it was Gaza that’s being decimated, its civil infrastructure being decimated. It’s been a war on hospitals, on schools, on mosques and, yes, a war on children. And yet it was unconditionally supported by the United States and other Western powers. And we haven’t heard a single retraction for that support. And it’s still being shielded at the United Nations. Hundred and fifty-three members called for an immediate ceasefire, and what did the United States do? Voted against it. Thirty members of the U.N. Security Council voted for an immediate ceasefire. Britain abstained. The United States vetoed the resolution. The United States and Britain, until today, they sit isolated in the international community.

So, when President Biden tells a small group of people in Washington that Israel is perhaps losing the public support, what public support? What international public support? A majority in America, to my knowledge, ask for a ceasefire. A majority of the [inaudible] out are the Biden administration and his lackeys in London and Berlin. The rest of the international community, including the absolute majority of everyone in this region, wants a ceasefire.

And just quickly to cap that, we just interviewed a number of people in Gaza, in the streets in Gaza, asked them, “What do you think about Lloyd Austin coming to the area?” They said something to the fact, “Oh my god, this means we’re going to be bombed again and again the next few days,” because think about that. Since Biden landed in the middle of October, every time an American official showed up in Israel, Israel had intensified the bombings. After Biden came, the land invasion started. And every visit by Blinken or Sullivan or Lloyd Austin, we have seen an intensification of the bombings of the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, of the residential buildings in Gaza. That’s been the case. That’s been the reality. There’s no other interpretations of it.

So, the diagram, the process, if you will, shows unconditional American support, despite the various acrobatic verbal diarrhea that comes out of Western capital about, “Well, we’re not very happy about too many Palestinians dying.” Well, how many is enough exactly for them to stop Israel from continuing? Because Israel couldn’t launch this war, couldn’t sustain this war, couldn’t survive in the region like this without American support. In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu says that “We will win this war with the support of the United States.” So, imagine: A country that calls itself the most important power in the Middle East is incapable of defeating a small guerrilla group that’s been under siege for the past 17 years, and it requires the deployment of aircraft carriers and the financial and military power of the world’s superpower. And yet, until today, it still insists it’s not even done with half of the job, because despite the tens of thousands of casualties, despite the death of more than 7,000 children, only a fraction — a fraction — of Hamas fighters have been killed in this war. It all goes to tell you that the endgame and the military objectives, none of them have been reached, despite the genocide that continues to unravel in Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Netanyahu holds this news conference on Saturday after the killing of the three Israeli hostages in Gaza, and he says, “We have to intensify the war to make Hamas release the hostages.” What is your response to this? Clearly at odds with even Israeli public opinion. And the idea that these three men, who were killed by Israeli forces, Netanyahu saying that his own forces violated the rules of war, was this any different or any surprise than the thousands — the way thousands of Palestinians have been treated, many also holding up a white flag? The surprise here is that these hostages were not treated differently than Palestinians.

MARWAN BISHARA: Absolutely, shirtless, white flag and shouting in Hebrew, and yet they were murdered by their own, which tells you, according now to a good number of Israelis speaking out, that there are no rules of engagements. It’s crap. It’s humbug. There are no rules of engagement in Gaza. You shoot whatever moves in Gaza. And, yes, it’s odd, because the Israelis have been doing exactly that since day one.

Now, as you said, it’s also odd, his arguments about the captives, because this is the most ridiculous arguments of all arguments. We’ve known from the beginning that they said the aim of the war is first to defeat Hamas, second to release the captives. And they kind of connected both by saying, “If we intensify the war, Hamas will be pressured to release the captives.” It never did. So they had to resort to diplomacy, asking the Qataris, the Egyptians and the Americans to help. And they did. And through diplomacy, they were able to release some of the hostages. And then they went back to war the day after. Now they want to try it again.

Well, the news is that Hamas will no longer accept humanitarian pauses. Hamas now insists on permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from Gaza. Otherwise, what incentive does Hamas have in order to release any more of the, especially military, captives that it has in Gaza? Because if the Israelis, with the support of the United States, are going to continue the bombings the next day, and they insist that the war objective is to kill Hamas fighters, there is zero incentives why they would release anyone.

So, today, we are in the Netanyahu logic. And the Netanyahu logic is neither in the interests of Israel or the United States. And Biden knows that. Apparently, he got a file from Israel, through his intelligence agencies, that says something to the fact, according to Haaretz, the Israeli mainstream paper, that Netanyahu has a vested — has a personal vested interest in prolonging the war, because he, you know, as a political-criminal-indicted-on-corruption-charges-cum-war-criminal, he has a vested interest to prolong the war as much as he can in order to improve his chances for reelection. In fact, he just put in the military fatigue and started making his populist slogans, the ones that we know them, saying that only he can prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, that only he can stand up to the United States, and hence the Israelis need to elect him again. So, Netanyahu, as a person, the military establishment, as well, have vested interest to continue with this war.

AMY GOODMAN: Marwan Bishara, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, speaking to us from Doha, Qatar, born in Nazareth, in the occupied West Bank. Thanks so much for being with us.

[admin]

“Beyond Our Imagination”: Journalist Describes Total Destruction, with Fellow Gazans Buried Alive
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 19, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/19 ... transcript

We are joined in Cairo by Fadi Abu Shammalah, the head of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers, who describes the inhumane conditions he was able to escape in Gaza. “Every city in the Gaza Strip is beyond our imagination,” says Abu Shammalah. He notes that in just the last 36 hours, at least 170 civilians were killed. “Witnesses say that the Israeli bulldozers buried the injured people in Kamal Adwan Hospital. They buried them while they are alive,” says Abu Shammalah. “They were still alive. They killed and they buried them.” He calls this a war on Palestinian civilians, meant to destroy as much of Gaza’s infrastructure as possible.

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 in New York, with Democracy Now!’s Juan González in Chicago.

As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens, we turn now to Palestinians and Palestinian Americans who are trying to evacuate their family members to the United States. At least two Palestinian Americans have now filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, saying its failure to help them violates their constitutional rights. This is Yasmen Elagha, who says she lost at least a hundred relatives in Gaza, including two American citizens.

YASMEEN ELAGHA: The only thing that I’m being told is that there is nothing further that the U.S. government can do, which I don’t believe all.

AMY GOODMAN: The lawsuit notes that after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, the U.S. government organized charter flights from Tel Aviv for Americans to leave Israel. So far, they say, the United States has not organized any flights to secure the exit of at least 900 U.S. citizens, residents and family members still in Gaza.

Al Jazeera reports more than a hundred staff members at the Department of Homeland Security signed an open letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denouncing the response to humanitarian crisis in Gaza so far, saying it should be, quote, “commensurate with past responses to humanitarian tragedies” and offer a humanitarian parole program to Palestinians like it did after conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine.

More than a hundred Democrats, led by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, have called on Biden to make Palestinians who are already in the U.S. eligible for temporary protected status, or TPS.

Today we’ll hear two stories, one a Palestinian American woman in Detroit whose mother died in Gaza. She was approved to evacuate but was still but waiting to get out. The daughter is desperately seeking the government’s help to evacuate the rest of her family. We’ll also be joined by her attorney, Sophia Akbar. But first, we go to Cairo, Egypt, with another one of Sophia’s clients, Fadi Abu Shammalah. He is Just Vision’s outreach associate in Gaza, executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers. We spoke to him last month, when he was still in Gaza, about his New York Times op-ed, “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?” Well, he was able to leave Gaza and is joining us now as he works to be reunited with his wife and his three children, who are still in Gaza — Ali, Karam and Adam.

Fadi, welcome back to Democracy Now! In a moment, we’re going to talk about the legal case here. But if you can talk about what is happening in Gaza right now, what’s happening in Rafah, in Jabaliya? Talk about why you left Gaza and what you think needs to happen.

FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: Oh, thank you so much for having me for the second time. I wouldn’t do the — I wouldn’t do the same for me. But, yeah, again, thank you so much for having me in this interview.

I will start by telling the situation on the ground, not in Rafah city itself, like in every city in Gaza Strip, is beyond our imagination. Like, not all of the news really come out to us here. I’m talking with you from Cairo. And the situation on the ground itself, it’s more horrible than what you can see by your screens and TVs. I would say also a horrific number. Like, all I would say that 1.9 million of the Palestinian people are displaced, already displaced, their homes. They all, most of them, were pushed into the far south of Gaza Strip in a city called Rafah. In the last — sorry, in the last 36 hours only, 177 Palestinians, civilian Palestinians, were killed.

This war, I would call it the war against the civilian, the Palestinian civilian, in order only to kill. That’s it. This is the main goal. I would say that there’s two goals. The first one is to kill the civilians as much as they can, and the second goal is to destroy as much as they can. Gaza City itself is erased. You will be shocked when you — if you will send your cameras after, hopefully, this nightmare and this war will end. You will be shocked because of the numbers of the neighborhoods, that it’s completely, completely damaged.

The south — the north, sorry, the north of the Gaza Strip, no one knows about the north of Gaza Strip. Only there is two journalists, according to what I knew — according to what I know, that only there’s two journalists who are trying to cover the situation, the situation there. Like, they are killing people in tents. That’s what I hear also. Like, also, sorry, witnesses say that the Israeli bulldozers buried the injured people in Kamal Adwan Hospital. They buried them while they are alive. They were still alive. They killed and they buried them.

This is — we should find a word that can express more than the word of “genocide.” That’s what is going on there. Like, the medical situation is horrible. The humanitarian situation is horrible, the water itself, the food itself, the electricity, the number of the killed people, the number of the bombed homes over the head of its residents. At the end, no one knows when this war is going to end. But what I know for sure, that we were all devastated, that our all hearts is broken for the destruction —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Fadi, I wanted to ask you —

FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: — that’s happened, the cruel destruction that’s happening.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — about your decision to leave Gaza. And also, what is the situation with your wife and your three children? Could you talk about the obstacles of them not being able to get out? Fadi, could you hear me?

AMY GOODMAN: Fadi, I’m going to put Juan’s question to you. For some reason, you’re not able to hear him. He’s talking about — he’s talking about your family and trying to get your family out. Can you describe —

FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: I don’t hear you, sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: I think the IFB has dropped, and we’re going to go back to you.

***********************

Palestinian American Woman Tries to Save Family in Gaza After Her Mom Dies Awaiting Evacuation
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 19, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/19 ... transcript

As the Biden administration faces accusations of being too slow to help Palestinian Americans and their families trapped in Gaza, we speak with Narmin Abushaban in Detroit whose mother died from lack of medical care while waiting to leave Gaza. She is working now to rescue the rest of her family members. This comes as calls grow for the U.S. to grant temporary protected status (TPS) to Palestinians already in the United States. We are also joined by civil rights attorney Sophia Akbar to discuss a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of violating the constitutional rights of Palestinian Americans by withholding support for U.S. citizens, residents and their family members trapped in Gaza, despite having organized charter flights from Tel Aviv for Americans to leave Israel after the October 7 Hamas attack and having accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go right now to your lawyer — and we’ll try to fix the sound system to Cairo — Sophia Akbar. Sophia, can you talk about the situation that Fadi and a number of other people are in? Talk about what’s happening in the United States and how Palestinian Americans in the United States, trying to get their families out, and Palestinians who are trying to come into the United States from Gaza — talk about, with your experience as a civil rights attorney who’s been working with other attorneys and advocates to grant TPS to Palestinians here already, and what’s happening to, for example, your client, Fadi.

SOPHIA AKBAR: Thank you for having me, Ms. Goodman.

My clients’ family members need immediate evacuation from Gaza to reunite with their families and to escape near-certain death due to Israel’s brutal war on Palestine. We need the U.S. government to demand an immediate ceasefire from Israel and to stop U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate the genocide of the Palestinian people. We need the U.S. government to create immigration pathways for Palestinians to come to the U.S. to escape deadly and inhumane conditions.

We know that last week UNICEF declared Palestine to be the deadliest place for children in the entire world. In just the last 10 weeks, Israel has killed over 10,000 Palestinian children, and that’s not including the numbers that are trapped under the rubble, and has injured over 18,000 Palestinian children while they’re walking to school, playing outside, receiving medical treatment in hospitals, staying quietly in their homes or waving a white flag while crawling to them.

Both of my clients have children that have been affected by — children in their families that have been affected by this war. Fadi has three children, and we just found out this morning that they were able to evacuate from [sic] Egypt. But this has been —

AMY GOODMAN: To Egypt?

SOPHIA AKBAR: a grueling process. I’m sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: Able to evacuate to Egypt?

SOPHIA AKBAR: That’s correct. They were able to evacuate just this morning. And prior to this, they were in a refugee camp that was bombed. There were 20 people that died in that bombing. And Fadi was frantically looking through pictures to make sure that his family members were not included in the dead. It has been a grueling process of waiting while Fadi has been separated from his family. And hopefully they will be reuniting in the next few hours. But Fadi still has 20 family members who are in Gaza. And my other client, who we’ll hear from, as well, Narmin, she has 20 nephews and nieces under the age of 21 who are in Gaza. And some are in the northern part of Gaza, where they rarely hear from them.

So, regarding efforts to grant temporary protected status, as you mentioned, Senator Durbin and Senator Jayapal wrote letters to the Biden administration demanding that temporary protected status be extended to Palestinians. I am also part of a collective of attorneys and advocates across the country, and we, along with the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, wrote a letter, as well, to the Biden administration demanding that TPS be extended to Palestinians. And we had over a hundred organizational signatories.

TPS is typically granted to countries that are undergoing armed conflict or an environmental disaster. In Palestine, there are no more buildings where people can work. There are no more schools for children to attend, to allow parents to work and for children to have a future. Even if we have a ceasefire tomorrow, the amount of destruction that Israel has unleashed onto Palestinians in Gaza has made life impossible. So temporary protected status would allow Palestinians who are already here in the United States extended status so that they do not have to return to a death sentence. But TPS is not enough. That only applies to Palestinians who are here. So what we really need is a humanitarian immigration pathway that would allow Palestinians who are in Gaza a pathway to come to the United States and find refuge here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sophia, could —

SOPHIA AKBAR: You mentioned that — yes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Sophia, could you talk about the difference between how the administration has been dealing, for instance, with those fleeing the war in Ukraine versus the Palestinians?

SOPHIA AKBAR: Absolutely. That is an extremely stark difference. Under the Uniting for Ukraine program, all requirements of having connections to green card holders and U.S. citizens were waived. So, Ukraine, about — over 270,000 Ukrainians were allowed to come to the United States under this program. And as advocates on the ground right now serving, you know, our clients who have families in Gaza, we cannot even get U.S. citizens out. Our advocates had to sue the Biden administration just to get U.S. citizens evacuated. And that didn’t even — that didn’t even prioritize the issue. We had to — my colleagues had to sue, you know, place two more lawsuits last week to evacuate U.S. citizens. And so, that’s not to say how the family members of U.S. citizens and green card holders are treated. And the Uniting for Ukraine program applied to people beyond that category, as well. So what we really need is a similar program, like Uniting for Ukraine, where Palestinians can have an immigration humanitarian pathway to come here and seek refuge.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what are the obstacles posed by the fact that the United States does not recognize Palestine as a foreign state when it comes to immigration issues?

SOPHIA AKBAR: That’s absolutely a challenge, and it is something that we had to address in our efforts to request TPS. And we have seen that the United States has offered temporary protected status to territories, so that is something that we included in our letter, in our request. But, absolutely, it is a challenge. And, you know, ultimately, without a solution that grants Palestinians freedom, there is no immigration solution that will properly address this problem. Even if we allow Palestinians to come here, to open our borders to them, we have no way of assuring them that when they want to go back, that they will be allowed to return. Palestinians and Native Americans are the only groups of people in the entire world where their return to their land and their property is not governed by them. And that has to change.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Narmin Abushaban into this conversation, Sophia, another of your clients. Narmin, thanks so much for being with us. You’re a Palestinian American attempting to expedite your request to rescue your siblings and their families from Gaza. We’re speaking to you in Detroit. First, our deep condolences on the loss of your mother. Can you talk about what happened to her and what your situation is?

NARMIN ABUSHABAN: Hi. Good morning. I just want to thank you for having me here to share my story about my mother, even though there are like no words that can describe what happened.

My mother is an old lady who was living safely in her home. She was displaced many times. Every time they get displaced, they move to another house, they are threatened to bomb the — the Israeli forces are threatening them to bomb the house. So my brothers had to displace her. She’s paralyzed. She’s on medications. And due to the air forces threatening them to displace many times — they were in the north — they had to go to the south. Even when they were in the south, in Khan Younis, they were threatened in the middle of the night to leave their house. They had to displace her again, until they reached to Rafah. And there, her health was getting worse and worse, until she didn’t have the medication, the right medication, due to the Israeli forces. They prevented the medical supplies to get into Gaza. So she had to switch to another medication that did not help her at all. And she passed away, Allah yerhama.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Narmin, how has it been possible for you even to communicate with family members in Gaza to assess their situation and their state?

NARMIN ABUSHABAN: It’s really hard for me to communicate with them. I had to have my phone, international calls to be able to call them. Nowadays it’s not working. It was working before, but now it’s not working at all. They have to go to the hospital to get some internet connection so they can talk to me. They send me — like in specific times of the day, like in the middle of the night, I have to keep my eyes open so I can see when they can text me or when they can send me a WhatsApp, like, message to see if they’re OK or not.

But my siblings that are in the north, I have no communication at all. My brother, I haven’t been hearing from him for two weeks now. And he’s in the healthcare, and the Israeli forces are targeting all the healthcare professions. And all I know, that they surrounded the houses there, and they’re shooting on people. But I don’t know anything about my brother and his family, that are like more than 10 kids and grandkids.

AMY GOODMAN: Narmin, have you been speaking with your senator, with Dick Durbin? And what has been the response?

NARMIN ABUSHABAN: I have been — actually, I did send emails, but I didn’t get any reply. I filed the crisis intake. I put all my siblings, my mother. And I’ve been emailing them, telling them about her situation and my siblings’ situation. But I didn’t get any answer. They’ve been saying that they’re not in the category. They don’t fall in the category to get them: only immediate family. And they are immediate family. Like, what do they consider immediate family?

After my mother’s death, like two days after, I got an email that they put my mother’s name on the list to be evacuated. So I had to send them again that she’s dead, it’s too late. They told me that they’re going to put my siblings’ names on the Rafah crossing. They even sent me the names that they will put them and that they send them to Rafah crossing. But still, it’s been like three weeks, and I haven’t heard anything.

And I don’t want to lose my siblings as I lost my uncle, as you know. Like, my uncle, his entire family were bombed by the Israeli forces, by the airstrike. And my uncle is an old man. He was in his home playing with his grandchildren. His wife was feeding her grandchild. They bombed the house on top of them. They were under the rubble for one week. They could not get there. Nobody could get in there to help them until the air forces, the Israeli soldiers left. They wouldn’t allow anybody to get in there.

So I don’t want to lose my brothers and my sisters. Every day I hear like bombing and striking people and targeting hospitals, civilians. I want to reunite with my siblings. I don’t want to lose them the way I lost my mother. I just want them to evacuate. If they don’t stop the genocide, they don’t stop it at all, so they even can’t sleep. There are children. There are women. There are like all of them, they’re always scared. They can’t sleep. So, if they don’t stop the genocide, this is the only thing I can do. I can, like, ask for your help, for the Department of State to help me evacuate my siblings.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re speaking to Narmin Abushaban, Palestinian American, talking to us from Detroit. She’s already lost her mother, her uncle, attempting to have her request expedited to rescue her siblings and their families from Gaza.

***********************

Israel’s War on Children: Fadi Abu Shammalah on Horrific Ordeal Facing Kids in Gaza, Including His Own
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Democracy 19, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/19 ... transcript

In Part 2 of our interview with Fadi Abu Shammalah, the head of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers, he describes how his three children were finally able to flee to Cairo this morning. He is now working to secure safe passage for more than a dozen family members still stuck behind the blockade. “The international community are silent. And a lot of them are supporting it,” Abu Shammalah says.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: And we are rejoined by Fadi Abu Shammalah from Cairo. Fadi, we understand that your kids, your three kids, and wife just got through Rafah into Egypt just before this broadcast, as you were attempting to get them out. Can you talk about their situation and how you’re trying to get into the United States at this point? You are Just Vision’s outreach associate in Gaza and the executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers.

FADI ABU SHAMMALAH: Yeah, I will start answering this question by saying that the trip and the journey that my kids had to go through, it start from October 9, when we decided to evacuate our home from Gaza City into my parents’ home in Khan Younis. And working in journalism and speaking up about — for the Palestinian people and all the massacres and genocide that is going on on the ground by the Israeli commission, we reached a point that I have to evacuate. I had to, sorry, leave Gaza Strip, because there was like really a risk over my family, because Israel, until that day — I’m talking about November 14 — until that date, around 61 journalists have been killed. My family felt that they are in dangers and they might be bombed anytime. That’s made me have to sleep in my car for one time, the night before I leave Gaza Strip. And I thought that by traveling to Cairo, I will be able to help my family to evacuate. I mean, my name only was on the list of November 2. I mean the U.S. list of November 2. So, but it wasn’t — it didn’t happen. That’s what I want to say.

Then, on December 5, the Israeli commission did throw leaflets asking the people of Khan Younis to evacuate to Shaboura refugee camps, which is in Rafah city. And the next day — before the next day they have to evacuate, like after seven hours, I figured out that they arrived safe to Rafah city. It wasn’t easy for me, like, to be waiting, because I knew in the news that they were bombing in the streets, I mean, the same streets that they are using to evacuate to Rafah city.

The next day, on December 6, while I don’t have connection with my wife and my kids, I get — I knew that from the news that the Israeli commission bombed in the Shaboura refugee camp, exactly where is my family are evacuating. And to get more, like, orientation about this refugee — it’s just only 15 kilometers square. It’s a very small neighborhood. And it consists of also old building. And there is a very high risk that all these buildings will be demolished because of this bombing. For two hours and a half, I was waiting any sign that my family are alive. I had to go through the news of WhatsApp thread to look for my kids’ photo. I had to look into the photos of the killed children, because I knew that there’s 20 women and kids were killed in this bombing. I had to open the photos and zoom in to determine if one of these photos is one of my kids. It wasn’t easy for me at all, like, to have these 2.5, two hours and a half, waiting any sign that my family alive. It was in the end. But even so, the next night and the next night and the next night, they have daily bombing in Shaboura and in Rafah city. This is the place that exactly Israeli commission said it is a safe area, as exactly they said that the Palestinian people from Gaza City have to evacuate to Khan Younis, they considered Khan Younis as a safe area, and then they asked us to evacuate to Rafah.

My kids have to go through all of this. They have to be in — by the way, yes, you are right, my kids are coming to me to Cairo, but the three of them, they are sick. I will move them immediately once I hold them. I will move them to the hospital because they are very sick. There is no clean water. They don’t have healthy food there. It’s horrible. I’m happy that my kids are coming to my hug, that I’m going to hold them, but I’m so devastated about the hundreds of the thousands of the kids in Gaza Strip. They have to go through all these circumstances.

And the international community are silent. And a lot of them are supporting it. Like, as Paul Pillar said, that Biden is a partner in making the biggest human disaster that the world is witnessing since 500 years ago. This is the situation that the kids and the women have to go through it, that they don’t have food to eat, clean water to drink. My kids have infection in their mouth, in their stomach. They are very thin. My wife has to send me photos for them after I asked her many times, “Send me photos of my kids.” I was shocked. They are not my kids at all. I just left them for one month, and they are completely changed.

I will do my best to get them recovered and get better health and get better food. But what about the other people in Gaza Strip, the other kids, the women who are not — who don’t find milk for their kids? My wife couldn’t find antibiotic for my kids. Only antibiotic. Antibiotic. I mean, this is the most simple medicine that you should have in any place in the world. Even in the jungle you will find antibiotic and painkiller. I will do my best with my kids, for sure. But I’m very devastated, very sad about 2.3 millions of Palestinians who are pushed into the south of Gaza Strip.

I would say that, yeah, my kids, we made it. They are coming to Cairo like in five, six, seven hours. Whatever, I don’t care. They are coming to my hug again. And I’m going to — all of us are going to travel to U.S. for five months, starting from January until the end of May. I was so lucky to get a fellowship from an American organization. But the majority of the people do not have this chance and do not have this privilege to do the same.

This is injustice at all. It’s insane at all. What is happening there cannot be explained, cannot be discussed, I mean, in a normal conversation. We need millions of cameras. I always keep saying that every Palestinian family has its own story, and every member of every Palestinian family has his only — his or her own story, because everyone has a story that is full of tears, full of fear, full of being scared, full of hunger.

We are being fighted by making us starving, as the Human Rights Watch have said, I think, yesterday or early today. Yes, Israel is fighting us by food. They are preventing us to get food. The number of the trucks that’s of humanitarian aid that should be allowed to enter Gaza, it’s nothing. We need much, doubles. We need thousands of trucks to enter Gaza, 24 hours, until three months, until we get a balance, at least for the food only. We will need at least 10 years to reconstruct and rebuild the destroyed Gaza Strip.

That is the real face of the Israeli occupation by — and Palestinian people will never forgive the world. The Nakba in 1948, it happened while there is no cameras, there is no TVs like now. But now the international community are silent. I do thanks, of course, and appreciate all the demonstration and the marches that went to the streets in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We think that it’s not still enough. We need from you more pressure against the international community, against your leaders, especially the U.S. administration. They have to stop supporting Israel by providing them the military that we are being killed by it. They have to stop financially support Israel, or at least asking Israel — or at least, I mean, preventing of issuing veto in the Security Council when the Palestinian people need only humanitarian ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: Fadi Abu Shammalah, I want to thank you so much for being with us. In fact, our next segment, we’re going to look at that Human Rights Watch report with its author, yes, the report called “Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza.” Fadi, I want to thank you for being with us, Fadi Abu Shammalah, Just Vision’s outreach associate, usually in Gaza, now in Cairo, executive director of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers, will be reuniting with his three children and wife in just a few hours, then soon coming to the United States. We want to thank civil rights attorney Sophia Akbar and Narmin Abushaban, Palestinian American attempting to expedite her request to rescue her siblings and their families from Gaza. Her mother died there while waiting to get out, as did her uncle.

Coming up, Human Rights Watch. Stay with us.

**************************

Starvation as a Weapon of War: Human Rights Watch Denounces Israel for Denying Gaza Access to Food
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 19, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/19 ... transcript

Israel is deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel in Gaza, prompting Human Rights Watch to accuse the occupation of utilizing starvation as a weapon of war. Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir, says 97% of the groundwater in Gaza is unfit for human consumption after the destruction of pipelines and treatment sources, the rejection of humanitarian aid and the collapse of the medical system under incessant bombing, leading to mass dehydration and contagious disease. Shakir calls on the international community to condemn Israel’s actions and to increase pressure on U.S. support in particular. “The United States and Israel are isolated in the international community,” Shakir says. “The use of double standards in Israel and Palestine harms civilians all over the world.”

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, with Juan González.

As the death toll in Gaza nears 20,000, Human Rights Watch has accused the Israeli government of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Human Rights Watch says Israel has deliberately blocked the delivery of water, food and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance. The group said Israel has also apparently razed agricultural areas inside Gaza as many Palestinians face starvation.

We’re joined now by Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, which has just published a report headlined “Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza.” He’s joining us from Amman, Jordan.

Omar, why don’t you lay out your findings?

OMAR SHAKIR: We found five very disturbing trends coming together that led us to this conclusion, the first of which has been for more than two months now the Israeli government has been blocking all but a trickle of aid, food and water from entering the Gaza Strip. Secondly, the Israeli government has, in essence, cut off the entry and exit of goods from its own crossings with Gaza, despite being the occupying power that’s obligated to provide for the civilian population. Third, satellite imagery that we’ve been carefully studying shows the apparent deliberate razing of agricultural land. You can see entire farms and other areas turned from lush green agricultural land into barren wasteland in different parts of the Gaza Strip. Fourth, we look at the destruction of the kinds of objects necessary for human survival — bakeries, wheat mills, sanitation and water facilities, hospitals. In northern Gaza, you cannot find many of these facilities that are functioning. And fifth and finally, statements from Israeli government officials that set out in very plain terms — and this includes the defense minister, the national security minister, members of COGAT, the Israeli army — that state clearly that they will continue to prevent these basic supplies — food, water, aid — from entering until they accomplish the objectives they’ve set, such as the return of hostages and the destruction of Hamas. All this collectively amounts to starvation used as weapon of war, which is an abhorrent war crime, adding to the Israeli government’s many other war crimes, like collective punishment, that have been taking over the last 10 weeks.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Omar, specifically in terms of the deprivation of clean water to drink and fuel, could you talk about the impacts of this policy in terms of the spread of disease and access to food?

OMAR SHAKIR: Absolutely. Look, I mean, I think water is a basic thing that’s needed for health services, for everyday life, for cleaning. And you’ve seen several things take place with water. The first thing is to note that 97% of the groundwater in Gaza is unfit for human consumption as a result of overextraction of the ground aquifer that comes in from Israel, so Gaza has long relied on water that’s coming in from Israel. Israel cut that water supply after October 7th. It’s resumed piping to parts of southern Gaza, but in northern Gaza that’s not the case. We’ve also seen significant destruction of the water infrastructure. We’ve also seen destruction to other water facilities, pipelines. And you have the lack of fuel, that’s led to the shutdown of desalinization and water pumping facilities.

So you have some water coming in on trucks, but bottled water is not enough to allow the population to drink, for hospitals to function, for sanitation to take place. And the results are quite deadly. We’re already hearing, seeing reports of thousands of cases of contagious diseases, and we’re seeing hospitals trying to make do. And, of course, the majority of hospitals in Gaza are not functioning. The Israeli government has been systematically attacking hospitals, especially in northern Gaza. But those that are operating are trying to do so without adequate supply of medical supplies and water. And the consequences are stark. And they will get worse unless we see the taps switched on water and the ability for the water infrastructure to be repaired, and fuel to enter, so those pumping stations and desalinization plants can operate.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What actions do you see necessary by the international community at this point, especially given the fact that the United States continues to veto any resolutions in the Security Council?

OMAR SHAKIR: I think today’s U.N. Security Council vote is quite essential. There’s an opportunity to take concrete action to protect civilians. It’s critical that states support that resolution, and the United States not exercise its veto. Lives quite literally hang in the balance.

Beyond the action at the Security Council, there is absolutely a need for states to unequivocally condemn this war crime. We’ve seen far too often, especially the United States and its allies in Europe that are condemning, rightfully, abuses that are carried out by Palestinian armed groups, but not using the same language to condemn the clear war crimes committed by the Israeli government.

There needs to be a call for an immediate resumption of full aid, not the trickle that’s being allowed in. But the aid alone is not enough. There needs to be a restoration of electricity, water and other basic services. And ultimately, that’s not going to matter, if unlawful attacks and incessant bombardment continue to wreak havoc on the lives of people. There must be an end to unlawful attacks.

And obviously, more long term, beyond these sort of immediate needs of the civilian population, there are a couple of essential things that are needed. One, there must be accountability for unlawful attacks and other violations, including at the International Criminal Court. Secondly, there must be an addressing of root causes, such as Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians. And finally, all states must evaluate all forms of potential complicity in these grave abuses. And in the case of the United States, that means imposing an arms embargo, ending the provision of military assistance and arms, given the high risk they’ll be used in the commission of grave abuses.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk, Omar Shakir, about the Biden administration’s, to say the least, mixed message, bypassing Congress, sending tank artillery that is being used against Palestinians, saying that they’re staunchly behind Israel, then at the same time saying they’re putting out a private message that they’ve got to reduce the casualties, and at the same time vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions, though it’s not clear what’s going to happen today? They want the language watered down, but may not stop that resolution from going forward. We’ll find out soon. Can you talk about what exactly the U.S. is doing versus France calling for a ceasefire, versus Germany, Britain, and what it would mean if the U.S. were on the front of calling for permanent ceasefire?

OMAR SHAKIR: Look, I think the United States and Israel are isolated in the international community. There’s a growing consensus, as reflected in U.N. votes and otherwise, about the enormity of the catastrophe that we’re seeing taking place in Gaza and the urgent need for action to end that.

There has indeed been a shift in the U.S. government rhetoric. President Biden spoke of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing in Gaza. Indiscriminate bombing is a violation of the laws of war. So, if this is the assessment of the Biden administration, how can it justify providing military support? That risks complicity in what they themselves have acknowledged to be war crimes. The reality here is the Israeli government has a long track record of unlawful attacks. U.S. weapons, as has been documented in previous rounds of hostilities by Human Rights Watch, as has been documented by Amnesty International, has itself been used in the commission of grave abuses over the years. The reality here is the United States, by continuing to provide arms and diplomatic cover to the Israeli government as it commits atrocity, risks complicity in these underlying abuses. That not only sends the wrong message, that not only undermines the protection of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, but it undermines the very international human rights and humanitarian law that the United States mobilizes and cites when it comes to places like Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. Undermining the protection of civilians, the use of double standards in Israel-Palestine harms civilians everywhere in the world.

The Biden administration has the chance to make the right choice here to begin to match some of its recent words with action, and we hope the United States will not veto today’s resolution. Doing so will be incredibly damaging to civilians on the ground and to the United States in its position globally.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, but this issue of starvation is not only being raised by Human Rights Watch. World Food Programme warned of the immediate possibility of starvation on December 6th. You have this high risk of famine right through to now. As we wrap up, what this means? We just heard our previous guest talking about what’s happened to his children, from disease to hunger. Your final comment?

OMAR SHAKIR: Look, you have a reality where nine out of 10 households in north Gaza have gone — you have a reality where nine of 10 households, according to the World Food Programme, in north Gaza have been without food for a whole day and a whole night. Imagine families that have to spend hours or more a day just to be able to get a couple of pieces of bread to feed their family. We’re seeing hundreds of bodies pile up a day in airstrikes. We risk seeing that or more in the days ahead if there isn’t urgent action by world leaders to end these atrocities. We’ve been on the wrong side of this.

AMY GOODMAN: Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch, we thank you so much for being with us.

[admin]

“This Is a Colonial War”: Historian Rashid Khalidi on Israel, Gaza & the Future of Palestine
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/20 ... transcript

Historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the pending United Nations Security Council vote on suspending fighting in Gaza to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and the future of Palestine. The Biden administration reportedly delayed the U.N. vote and pushed other countries to water down the language. This comes as Israel and Hamas leaders have signaled they are open to another truce and hostage exchange. Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza has now killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians and displaced over 90% of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people. “The situation in Gaza is unspeakable,” says Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. “We are talking about traumatic events that are going to scar generations to come.” He also discusses how the Gaza war risks sparking a regional conflict, ways to pressure Israel, and how U.S. leaders are prompting anger from “whole generations” in the Arab world and beyond.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: The head of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, has arrived in Cairo, Egypt, for talks as hopes grow that a new deal could be reached for a ceasefire and the release of more hostages. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began 75 days ago, on October 7th, just hours after Hamas’s attack on Israel. Health authorities in Gaza say at least 19,600 Palestinians have been killed so far. Thousands are feared to be still trapped under the rubble.

Just before this broadcast, Israel struck residential buildings in the southern city of Rafah near the Kuwaiti Special Hospital. A reporter from Al Jazeera, Hani Mahmoud, was on the air when the attack occurred.

HANI MAHMOUD: As we’re getting into — ooh! Oh my god! Did you hear that?

ANCHOR: Yes. Yes, we did, Hani.

HANI MAHMOUD: Oh my god! Oh, that’s the hospital! That’s the hospital! That’s the hospital! Oh my god! Are you guys hearing this?

ANCHOR: Yes, we are. We are hearing that, Hani. Are you — are you OK?

HANI MAHMOUD: Are you hearing that? All the debris.

ANCHOR: Are you — are you in a safe place to continue to talk to us?

HANI MAHMOUD: Why? Why? Why?

AMY GOODMAN: “Why? Why?” Hani Mahmoud asks, the Al Jazeera reporter. Al Jazeera reports the Israeli attack destroyed a large mosque in Rafah, as well as two residential homes. Israeli drones had been seen in the sky just before the strikes. Earlier, an Israeli attack on the Jabaliya refugee camp killed at least 46 Palestinians and wounded dozens.

The United Nations Security Council is expected to vote on a new Gaza resolution today. The vote was postponed Tuesday after the United States voiced opposition to a draft of the resolution. On December 8th, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for ceasefire.

This all comes as tension is growing in the Red Sea. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has announced the U.S. will lead a new military task force to protect ships in the Red Sea following a number of attacks by Houthi forces from Yemen.

We’re joined now by Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University here in New York. He’s the author of several books, including his latest, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. His recent opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times is headlined “How the U.S. has fueled Israel’s decades-long war on Palestinians.”

Professor Khalidi, I’m wondering if you can start off by just talking about the situation overall in Gaza? Your family is from the West Bank. You also have family in Gaza. And I want to just point out that I particularly talked about, named the journalist with Al Jazeera, Hani Mahmoud, because it has been so horrifying to only name journalists after they have been killed, and so many scores of them have died. Hani Mahmoud’s bravery is astounding as we watch him through the Gaza Strip and today in the midst of this attack. Take it from there, Professor Khalidi.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, he’s very fortunate that he’s still alive. Over 90 journalists have been killed in Gaza since — we’re now in the 11th week of this war. Two hundred and eighty-three healthcare workers have been killed. A hundred and thirty-five United Nations workers have been killed. It’s the highest death toll the United Nations has ever suffered in its entire history. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You cited a number of 20,000 people earlier, apparently having been killed. Probably the number is much higher, because there are so many thousands of people buried under the rubble or missing. And we will probably not know the final death toll until many, many months from now, when operations to remove the ruins of the buildings that have been destroyed are completed.

The situation in Gaza is unspeakable. What we hear from my niece’s family there is — I can’t describe it. It’s beyond belief. People are scrambling for the basic necessities of life and are sometimes not finding them — firewood to heat water and cook, enough water for everybody to have sufficient water to drink, let alone wash. I could go on. It is unspeakable. It is intolerable.

And the tragic thing about it is that this is clearly intended. Neither our government nor the Israeli government recognize the fact that what is happening there is causing this immiseration of over 2 million people. And this could easily be stopped, and should be stopped. I can’t — I can’t — I can’t understand how this country can allow this to continue. The idea that going after Hamas entails the destruction of more than half of the housing in Gaza, the idea that going after Hamas entails the wounding of 50,000 people and the killing of 20,000, is just — it’s incomprehensible to me that our government can be so callous and can be so determined not to separate itself from Israel, as far as this basic — the basic nature of this war, which is really directed against the people of Gaza. Over 2 million people have been forced to leave their homes. This is the largest displacement in Palestinian history. The killing of 20,000 people, almost half of whom are children, is unprecedented in Palestinian history. So we are talking about traumatic events that are going to scar generations to come. And this doesn’t seem to be a matter of concern to our government, let alone the government of Israel.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Professor Khalidi, we’ve seen massive, unprecedented demonstrations in support of the Palestinians throughout the world. A majority of governments in the General Assembly, overwhelming majority, have called for a ceasefire, yet the Security Council continues to be a roadblock, especially the United States. Can you talk about what this is doing to the legitimacy of the U.N. itself?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I think it’s harming the United Nations, but I think it’s also harming the legitimacy of the United States’ position. It’s not the Security Council that’s blocking action. It’s the U.S. government that’s blocking action. There was one abstention, 13 votes in favor last time that a ceasefire resolution was before the Security Council. And they spent three days trying to get a resolution which involves not a ceasefire, but a humanitarian pause, and the United States has been obstructing that, as I’ve said, for three days. So, I think this is going to harm not just the United Nations, because it’s manifestly helpless in the face of this catastrophe; it’s harming the United States.

There is overwhelming support the world over for ending this. There is overwhelming support, sympathy, the world over for the Palestinians. There is — I think the polls show very strong support even in the United States for ending this war, and at the very least for stopping what’s going on so that humanitarian aid can get in. And the administration is clearly impervious to all of this. And I think the mainstream media, frankly, are complicit in this. Nobody knows that four major trade unions have come out for a ceasefire: the United Auto Workers, the nurses, the electricians and the postal workers. The New York Times, for example, has not deigned to mentioned that. Well, that’s a large chunk of labor. We’re talking about a great deal of anger and opposition to the Biden administration’s policy among wide swaths of the American people. And they just plow on as if none of this mattered. I find it very hard to explain, frankly.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about — there have been numerous media reports of attacks on U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq, that are threatening to expand the conflict beyond just the Occupied Territories and Gaza. But what the heck are U.S. troops still doing in those two countries? Has Congress authorized their presence there? Do the governments of those countries even want them there?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, the government of Syria, the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, certainly doesn’t want them there. And the pretext for their being in Syria [inaudible] against the Islamic State. I don’t think there is any authorization for their being there. The troops that are in Iraq are supposedly engaged in training the Iraqi army but there’s a great deal of opposition in Iraq, even though the Iraqi government has accepted their presence there. There’s a great deal of opposition in the Iraqi parliament to the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq.

And I think what we’re seeing are attacks, whether from Yemen on shipping or firing missiles at Israel or attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq or in Syria, which are a response to what Israel is doing in Gaza. And the same is true, obviously, of the fighting that’s going on between Hezbollah and the Israeli army along Israel’s northern frontiers. The fear is that this will — that this could possibly be expanded, that this could become a regional war. So far, we are now in the 11th week of this war, since the 7th of October. And so far, that fear has been — or, that possibility has been contained. But it is always there. And it would lead to, I think, possibly terrible consequences, were the war to expand beyond its already quite horrific level in Gaza and were that to spark a further increase of fighting on the Lebanese border, in Syria, Iraq or out of Yemen.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about also what’s happening in the Red Sea? You have a dozen corporations who say they won’t ship their goods through the Red Sea. You have U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announcing a 10-nation coalition to protect trading interests there, including Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the U.K., the Seychelles; Houthi officials saying that their drone and missile attacks will continue as long as Israel bombards Gaza.

RASHID KHALIDI: There is enormous anger in the Arab world about what is happening in Gaza. Things that Americans don’t see, or don’t see enough of, the scenes of what is actually happening in Gaza, are being watched all over the Arab world, and across much of the world. And the anger that people have and their frustration at the unwillingness of their governments to do more to try and stop this is palpable. In Saudi Arabia, people can’t demonstrate. In some countries, they can demonstrate. But you talk to anybody in any of these countries, and public opinion is boiling. And the passivity of Arab governments in the face of this, their unwillingness to actually take action, I think, is — contrasts with Hezbollah, militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen actually engaging militarily in doing something.

And I think it is really time for countries that want to have to ceasefire to begin to group together, whether Arab countries or European countries or countries in the Global South, to group together and say there will be X, Y, Z sanctions if this doesn’t stop. At the very least, if sufficient humanitarian aid, if sufficient field hospitals, if sufficient water and food and so forth are not allowed into Gaza, this and this and this will be done to Israel, which is responsible. And I think that there are countries that could do this, including Arab countries. Jordan has recalled its ambassador. Well, that’s not going to affect Israel very much. But stopping the transportation of food from the Gulf to Israel — apparently the Emiratis are shipping food to Israel — would actually affect Israel. Doing things that threaten diplomatic relations would have an impact. Now, that, in and of itself, is not enough, but I think a lot more has to be done.

The United Nations, as we can see, is paralyzed by the U.N. veto — by the U.S., I should say, veto. The General Assembly has done what it could, 153 to 10. You can’t have a more lopsided vote than that. I think more has to be done to bring home to people in Washington, in particular, that this is unacceptable and actually unsustainable, that the possibility of this overflowing into regional conflagration, which is always there, is only part of the damage that is being done. Whole generations are being brought up angry at the United States, enraged at Israel, all over the region. And Israel is going to have to deal with this for decades to come. The United States is going to have to deal with this for decades to come. We are seen as complicit. These are American artillery shells, American bombs, American rockets, American planes, American helicopters, American artillery that are being used in this war. Twenty thousand people have been killed mainly with American weapons, mostly civilians, in Gaza. And people are not going to forget that, unfortunately. And I don’t see a sense of the impact of this in Washington. I don’t — I really think they live in some kind of a bubble, in some kind of a vacuum, in some kind of a fact-free space, where they don’t seem to understand the impact of all of this. What they are thinking and why they are thinking that is actually beyond me, as I’ve said.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you, Rashid Khalidi, about the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Egypt to discuss a possible new truce, The Wall Street Journal reporting Hamas is also in discussions with Palestinian rivals, like Fatah, about a possible joint scenario for ruling the West Bank and Gaza afterwards. Of course, Netanyahu is completely against this. If you can talk about the discussion of the hostage negotiations, where we have seen reports of possibly Marwan Barghouti — and if you can explain his significance — being released for a number of Israeli soldiers released? Talk about all of this that’s going on right now, so people can understand what’s next.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, that’s a big — that’s a big — that’s a big number — that’s a large number of questions.

I think the first thing, the hostage issue. There has been a huge problem around the hostages, because what Hamas has been demanding up until now is essentially an all-for-all exchange, all of the prisoners and hostages. I mean, some of the hostages are military, and many of them are civilians. And what they’ve been saying, apparently, from what we can tell from press reports, is that if you want all of the hostages, you’re going to have to release all of the prisoners. And that is one possibility, I think unlikely. And one of the prisoners who could, therefore, be released is Marwan Barghouti, who’s a senior Fatah leader who was convicted of multiple murders, by an Israeli military court that he never recognized, and who might well be a candidate for president who could win a majority of Palestinian votes.

I think the other issue — and there are other possibilities as far as hostages are concerned — for example, release of all the civilian hostages in exchange for a certain number of prisoners. And I have no idea where that negotiation is going. Some Israeli press reports indicate that the Israeli government is talking about progress, when there hasn’t actually been progress, in order to decrease the pressure of hostage families, who are demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in order to get their loved ones home. I think the broader question is —

AMY GOODMAN: Especially after Israel killed three of the hostages from Israel.

RASHID KHALIDI: Accidentally, exactly, yes. And many others apparently have been killed in the bombing. And released hostages have said, “We were terrified for our lives because of the bombing that was going on.” I’ve read accounts in the Israeli press from released hostages, who’ve talked about how — the kind of danger that they were in, not so much from their captors as from the possibility that they would be killed by the Israeli bombardments.

The other aspect of this is the political aspect. Hamas has a position in Palestinian politics that is not going to be eradicated, no matter what Israel does in Gaza. If Israel entirely defeats Hamas’s entire military network, infrastructure, if it kills every single fighter — these are, of course, probably unrealistic, but even assuming that they can do that, Hamas continues as a political movement. Hamas continues to have support among Palestinians — not majority support, according to almost every poll I’ve ever seen, but a certain amount of support. If the — when and if the Palestinians manage to put together a government — and, you know, everybody else is going to try and do it for them. The United States is going to try and impose its intentions on them. The Israeli government will undoubtedly try and do the same. And the Europeans, in their colonial way, will probably try and do the same, telling the Palestinians what’s good for them and telling them who they can have and not have in their government. But when and if the Palestinians can get their own act together and form some kind of, for example, reformed PLO, there is no way to exclude Hamas from that. This idea that Hamas, because of what it did on October 7th, is completely excluded from Palestinian governance is a fantasy, an Israeli, American, European fantasy.

You do not negotiate with the people who have already agreed to your terms. You couldn’t do that in Ireland; you had to bring the IRA in. You couldn’t do that in South Africa; you had to bring the ANC in. You couldn’t do that in Algeria; you had to bring the FLN in. These are groups that had carried out horrific attacks, in many cases, on civilians. These are groups that were described by the colonial power in South Africa, in Algeria, in Ireland as terrorists or bandits, or they had different terms at different times. But the only people you really need to negotiate with are the people with the guns, after all. And until that fact gets through the thick skulls of people in Washington and in Paris and London, we’re not going anywhere. They can pick quislings. They can pick technocrats. They can select the Palestinians who are acceptable to them, who meet whatever tests, who get down on their knees and condemn Hamas, or whatever litmus test is imposed, and those people will represent nobody, will have no credibility, will have no legitimacy and will have no control over the situation.

And so, you are looking — barring an acceptance that you have to eventually deal with your real enemies, you are looking at a situation of unending Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, direct or indirect. You are looking at a situation which implies unending resistance to that occupation. How many people can they kill? If Israel claims that there are 25,000 or 30,000 militants, armed militants, in Hamas, how many of them can they kill? Ten, 12, 11, 15? There will eventually be others, people who are still there. And that means that an imposed solution, with Israel continuing to operate in the Gaza Strip, which it has said it intends to do, will provoke continued resistance. So, nothing will be solved.

And the reconstruction and the end of the misery of the people of Gaza can’t take place until those kinds of changes, from occupation to some kind of Palestinian governance, takes place. And I don’t see — you read The Washington Post, David Ignatius. The idea that Arab countries are going to go in and do Israel and the United States’s dirty work for them is a fantasy. The Emiratis and the Saudis and the Egyptians and the Jordanians will not go in and govern on behalf of Israel. It is not going to happen. There has to be Palestinian governance of Palestinian territories.

And that is going to have to, one way or another, involve all the groups within the Palestinian political spectrum. The Palestinians have been divided by their own, you know, for reasons that have to do with Palestinian dysfunction, but they’ve also been divided by the divide-and-rule policies of the United States, Israel and the Europeans. As long as that continues, this festering sore will continue, and there will be violence. And it will not only be violence caused by hard men in Hamas. It will be violence caused by the horrors visited on the Palestinians by 56 years of occupation, by 75 years of colonialism, and the fact that people, inevitably, necessarily, resist occupation. You have to — they have to come to terms, sooner or later, with the fact — in Washington and in Israel, with the fact that Palestinian governance is a matter to be decided by Palestinians. And that is simply not in the mindset, if you read what comes out of Washington or what comes out of Israel, of our government or the Israeli government or many European governments.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Professor, we only have a couple of minutes left, but I wanted to ask you — you’ve said that there’s an unquestionable connection of Judaism and the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and yet that Israel — the Israeli state is a settler colonial project. And in your L.A. Times piece recently, you called it, the assault on Gaza, “the last colonial war of the modern age.” Could you elaborate?

RASHID KHALIDI: Right. Sure. I mean, this goes back to the nature of Zionism. Zionism is a national project, which distinguishes it from every other settler colonial movement, project. But at the same time, it was a self-identified colonial project. I mean, the Jewish Colonization Agency, the Palestinian Jewish Colonization Agency, is the term that that organization, which existed until 1958, applied to itself. That was something that was accepted by early Zionist leaders. They argued they had a claim to the Holy Land, there’s a connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. All of this is true, that there is such an attachment and such a connection, but Zionism is a European colonial project, backed by imperialism, British imperialism, and which intended to replace an Indigenous population with a Jewish population. As Ze’ev Jabotinsky said, “We want to transform Palestine into the land of Israel.” And that meant a demographic transformation, and that meant dispossession of the population and theft of their land, as happens in every settler colonial scenario. So, Israel is both the result of a national project, Zionism, and the result of a settler colonial project. There’s no — you can walk and chew gum at the same time. There’s actually no contradiction between it.

And it’s unique, in that it was not just an extension of a mother country’s population and sovereignty. It had its own independent ambitions: to establish a Jewish state, not a British state — came in under the protection of Britain, but it had its own aims, separate, independent aims. So, it’s a unique — it’s a unique phenomenon in the modern world. And it learned everything it did from the British. The Israeli army’s earliest leaders were trained by British colonial counterinsurgency specialists, to blow up houses over the heads of their residents, to shoot prisoners, to attack villages at night. This is British counterinsurgency, which was transmitted to Israeli — members of the Palmach and the Haganah in the 1930s in order for them to help the British fight the Palestinians. And those are the founders of the Israeli army. Moshe Dayan was trained by British counterinsurgency specialists. Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Sadeh, many of the leading figures in what became the Israeli army have that training. And Israel is using the laws left over, the 1945 Defense (Emergency) Regulations, under which people are put in administrative detention, no indictment, no trial, no conviction, nothing. They’re just put in jail and kept there. That’s a British 1945 emergency regulation. That’s a typical colonial instrument.

So, this is a colonial war, fought in order to maintain the supremacy of this group, which has taken the country over, at the expense of the Indigenous Palestinian population. The connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is, in my view, incontrovertible. But that, in and of itself, doesn’t justify the colonial methods that have been used in the establishment and the maintenance of Israel’s supremacy over now the entirety of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, 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 opinion piece for the L.A. Times, headlined “How the U.S. has fueled Israel’s decades-long war on Palestinians.”

Coming up, we look at how a group of Palestinian Christians are trapped in the Holy Family Church in Gaza, where a mother and daughter were shot dead this weekend by an Israeli sniper. Stay with us.

**************************

Pope Condemns Israeli Killings of Palestinian Christians; Relative of 84-Year-Old Victim Mourns Her Death
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 20, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/20 ... transcript

As international outrage grows over Israeli attacks on churches in Gaza, we speak with Philip Farah, co-founder of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace. Israeli snipers shot dead an elderly woman and her adult daughter at the Holy Family Parish, a Catholic church, on Sunday. Pope Francis denounced the killings as “terrorism.” Farah’s elderly relative Elham Farah, a beloved music teacher and member of one of the oldest Christian families in Gaza, was killed by an Israeli sniper in November while sheltering outside the church. Israeli soldiers have also attacked Palestinian Christians elsewhere in Gaza as part of this “genocidal war,” says Farah. “There’s no other name for it.”

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, with Juan González.

“It is terrorism.” Those were the words of Pope Francis after an Israeli sniper shot dead two Christian women, an elderly woman and her adult daughter who tried to save her, at a Catholic church in Gaza City on Sunday. The shooting took place at the Holy Family Latin Parish, where scores of Palestinian Christians have been trapped with little food or water. The pope condemned the shooting in remarks Sunday.

POPE FRANCIS: [translated] And let us not forget our brothers and sisters suffering from war in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and other conflict zones. May the approach of Christmas strengthen our commitment to open paths of peace. I continue to receive from Gaza very serious and painful news. Unarmed civilians are being bombed and shot at. And this has even happened inside the Holy Family Parish compound, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, and sick people with disabilities, and nuns. A mother and her daughter, Ms. Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar Kamal Anton, were killed, and others wounded, by the snipers as they went to the bathroom. The house of Mother Teresa’s nuns was damaged, their generator hit. Some say it’s terrorism. It’s war. Yes, it’s war. It’s terrorism. That is why Scripture says that God stops war, breaks bows and breaks spears. Let us pray to the Lord for peace.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the pope this Sunday. British MP Layla Moran has also denounced Israel’s attacks on the Gaza City Catholic church. Some of her relatives are trapped inside.

LAYLA MORAN: I’ve spoken before in this House about my extended family who are in the Holy Family Parish Church in Zeitoun in Gaza. And the situation has been desperate for weeks, but now it’s descending. There are tanks outside the gates. There are soldiers and snipers pointing into the complex, shooting at anyone who ventures out. And the convent was bombed. On Saturday, two women were shot. They were simply trying to get to the toilet. There is no electricity. There is no clean water. And the update that I had last night was that they’re down to their last can of corn. I’m told, after pressure, that food has been delivered. But they’ve not seen it.

And when this began a week ago, the IDF soldiers ordered these civilians to evacuate against their will. Can the government confirm that it sees the forcible displacement of civilians as unacceptable? The people in this church, Mr. Speaker, are civilians. They have nothing to do with Hamas. They are nuns, orphans, disabled people. They are a small Christian community, and they know everyone. As the pope has said, and my family can confirm, it is categorically untrue to say Hamas are operating from there. This situation has been condemned by many. Will this government do so?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Philip Farah. He is a co-founder of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, has relatives sheltering in the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, which has also come under attack. Last month, one of his relatives, Elham Farah, who was a beloved 84-year-old music teacher, daughter of a famed Palestinian poet, was killed by an Israeli sniper outside the Holy Family Church, where the mother and daughter were killed on Sunday by an Israeli sniper.

Philip Farah, can you describe what is happening there right now? And talk about this small Palestinian Christian community under siege. How is this happening?

PHILIP FARAH: Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Democracy Now!

Yes, three of my grandparents are from Gaza. I was raised in Jerusalem, but we had very strong connections to Gaza. There were many, many Palestinian Christian families in Gaza. It was a thriving community. Our relatives, the Medbaqs, the Tarazis, the Sabas, the Jahshan, Farah, including Farah, and Sayeghs, were a thriving community that lived in peace with their Muslim neighbors and even their Jewish neighbors. Back then, one of my granduncles was a greens merchant, and some of his best friends were Jewish greens merchants, as well. They were in the business of exporting barley, actually, to the United Kingdom for upgrading beer in breweries in the U.K.

Over the years, that community has dwindled to a tiny minority because of the horrible conditions that Israel has imposed on Gaza, especially — back in 2013, the number was 3,000, far, far smaller than it was, say, at the turn of the century. Now it’s only barely a thousand people. And they’re all sheltering in Saint Porphyrius, the Orthodox church. That is the church where my father, uncles and aunts and members of my extended family were baptized. So, many were sheltering in Saint Porphyrius. I think still some are. Four of my Tarazi relatives were killed there.

Elham actually was sheltering at Saint Porphyrius until the bombing that killed — the Israeli bombing that killed 18 Christians in that church. And then she moved to the Holy Cross, the Holy Family Church. She was a delightful 84-year-old woman, beloved of many students in Gaza. But she was strongheaded. And against the advice of her fellows who were sheltering there, she wanted to go home. She just simply wanted to go home. And she proceeded to do that. A sniper shot her in the leg. And folks who were trying to rescue her were all being shot at, so she bled to death. What could a woman like that, 84-year-old woman, have done to hurt Israelis?

So, you know, this is a continuing saga. Now the vast majority are sheltering in the Church of the Holy Family. And as you said, the snipers have shot two other elderly — well, Nahida, an elderly woman, and her daughter came to carry her, and she was shot and killed. And several others were also injured.

I have a relative by the name of Philip Jahshan. Actually, my family originally was Jahshan. Philip Jahshan is the only Gazan whom I’m able to reach through social media. He’s sheltering there. You know, for four days, I was worried about him and tried to reach him, but communications was shut down. Finally, I was able. He told me that he was OK. But, like you said, they have no food. And as you know, Israel has used water and food and electricity as part of its genocidal war. There’s no other name for it.

AMY GOODMAN: Philip, we want to continue this conversation after the broadcast, and we’re going to post it online. Philip Farah is co-founder of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, has relatives sheltering in the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, which was bombed by the Israeli military. Porphyrius is thought to be the third-oldest church in the world. Last month, his family member Elham Farah was killed by an Israeli sniper outside the Holy Family Church, where she had been taking refuge.

[admin]

“The Hostages Weren’t Our Top Priority”: Israel’s “Bombing Frenzy” Endangered Hostages Held in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/21 ... transcript

A new investigation reveals Israel launched its military campaign of relentless airstrikes, which has killed nearly 1% of the population of Gaza, with little intelligence about where hostages taken by Hamas were being held. Jerusalem-based journalist Yuval Abraham reports the military decided hostages were “just not a priority,” their safety “relegated in favor of carrying out this bombing campaign.” The revelation comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces increasing pressure to secure the release of the hostages after Israeli forces shot dead three Israeli hostages who managed to escape captivity in northern Gaza. Abraham lays out the “outrageous” differences between the media reaction to the IDF killing Israeli hostages rather than Palestinian civilians. “Really, at the heart of a lot of what is going on is this disparity between having some people whose lives have meaning and other people whose lives have no meaning for so many people in the West and in Israel.”

Transcript

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Health officials in Gaza say the death toll from Israel’s 10-week bombardment has now topped 20,000, including more than 8,000 Palestinian children. Officials in Gaza say the death toll also includes 97 journalists and 310 healthcare workers.

On Wednesday, the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials about a possible new ceasefire and the exchange of captives. Israel believes about 129 Israeli hostages are still being held in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under increasing pressure to secure the release of more hostages, after Israeli forces mistakenly shot dead three Israeli hostages who managed to escape captivity in northern Gaza. The three men, who were all shirtless, were shot as they cried for help in Hebrew while holding up a white flag.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. His latest article for +972 Magazine and Local Call is headlined “'The hostages weren't our top priority’: How Israel’s bombing frenzy endangered captives in Gaza.”

Yuval, if you can start off by talking about exactly what you understand happened? Now there is apparently a GoPro on a dog that captured what took place. The reaction of the Israeli public, and then what this means about the Netanyahu administration and how they’re dealing or prioritizing, or not, hostages?

YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah, sure, of course. So, these are three hostages — Yotam, Alon and Samir — one of them is a Palestinian Israeli, two of them Jewish Israelis — who somehow managed to escape their captivity. We don’t know how. And they roamed around Gaza for a few days. They have written in Hebrew on buildings, “Help,” in Hebrew, “Hostages are released.” They have, as you said, communicated the fact they were Israeli captives to a dog that — an army dog that had a GoPro camera.

And they were, I mean, essentially, executed by soldiers. One of them held a white flag. They took off their — they approached soldiers. They took off their clothes to show that they were not wearing any explosives. And soldiers opened fire at them, immediately killing two of them. The commander on the scene realized that they were perhaps Israelis, and told soldiers to stop firing. The third captive managed to run back to a building. And when he came out, soldiers shot at him again, killing him.

And yeah, I mean, I’ve heard — I mean, it’s being reported as a mistake that soldiers have made. I think that it was not a mistake when they thought they were Palestinians. I mean, clearly, you do not, you know, accidentally shoot at somebody who is holding a white flag. And, of course, it becomes a mistake when they realize they’re Israeli hostages.

And it shocked Israeli society. It triggered protests calling on the Netanyahu government to reach a deal with Hamas to release more captives and hostages. But currently, from the way I am reading both the political situation and the public situation, such a deal seems unlikely for now.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Yuval, could you explain why you think such a deal is unlikely? And then tell us what the intelligence sources you spoke to for your piece, what they told you about the concerns that hostages had, the fact that you write in this piece that Israeli hostages often said that they were more afraid of being killed by Israeli airstrikes than they were by Hamas.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah, of course. So, I think it’s unlikely, because I think Netanyahu politically is not going to be willing to pay the price that Hamas is asking, which is to reach a more substantial ceasefire, or perhaps a permanent ceasefire, and to release a lot of Palestinian prisoners, including people like Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat, who are considered to be Palestinian leaders, including many Palestinians who are serving, you know, long prison sentences in the occupation jails, some of them for killing Israeli civilians. And this will, you know, ruin Netanyahu politically, even more than he’s already ruined, which I think is why he will not do it and why he is making it clear publicly that he plans to continue the war for months.

And this relates to our investigation at +972 Magazine, because we have basically spoken to Israeli intelligence sources who have described how during the first weeks of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, the military knowingly carried out a striking policy, relentless bombardment policy, that not only decimated Gaza and killed thousands and thousands of Palestinians, but also endangered Israeli captives and hostages. And sources have told me, in intelligence, that at the time, they had very little intelligence as to where these captives were being held and that the general atmosphere was, in the top military commanders, is that the hostages are just not a priority, that their safety is relegated in favor of carrying out this bombardment campaign.

And as you said, you know, in the end of November, when captives were released from Gaza for the first time, many of them have described being hit by Israeli airstrikes or attacks, describing a fear, you know, this sort of traumatic fear, of feeling that the power that is supposed to supposedly protect you is actually a very, very, very big threat to your life, you know, talking about really being on the verge of death. And we know that in some cases hostages were hit by these Israeli attacks. Now, the conditions in the captivity of Hamas were horrific for some hostages, as well. We also cover that in the report. We also talk about testimonies of released captivities and sources inside the military of sexual assault against some of the captives. But a recurring theme in many of the testimonies of the captives is really being terrified from the Israeli airstrikes. And again, it seems that, at least for the first few weeks of the war, this was done knowingly, in a sense, by the military.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I mean, quite rightly, there has been a lot of emphasis on the Israeli hostages. But at the same time — you mentioned earlier Palestinian activist and politician Mustafa Barghouti — speaking to the BBC this morning, he talked about how Palestinian prisoners are not so much the focus of discussion. Some who were released from a detention center in northern [sic] Israel earlier, they said that they were — that they were tortured, and some died as a result. He was speaking to the BBC on Thursday.

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: They told me they were kept, more than 1,000 people, in detention or concentration camp near Beersheba, and they were beaten badly. They were tortured with different methods. Some people were hit with electrical shocks. They also used drowning their heads in the water while they were interrogating them intensively for hours. They are kept in a place which is very cold. They don’t have enough clothes. And the food they are given is very little. But the most important thing, that a number of prisoners that they witnessed died because of the beating and torture. Some of them were old people who had diseases, like heart diseases.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that’s Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, speaking earlier today to the BBC. And just a correction: The detention center where the Palestinian prisoners were held was in southern Israel, not northern. Yuval, your response?

YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah, it’s appalling. And I’ve seen these testimonies. I’ve also seen live testimonies of these Palestinians being released from Israeli interrogation. And honestly, to me, it reminded me of scenes that I saw of Jews in Eastern Europe, you know, in the '30s and ’40s. You see their hands are filled with bruises. They were handcuffed for hours. Some of them have died. They spoke about being electrified by soldiers, being beaten by soldiers, really torture. I mean, you could see on their faces. I mean, it's horrific.

And I think that — you know, you said at the start of the show that now it’s more than 20,000 Palestinians who were killed in Gaza, roughly 1% of the population. That’s unimaginable numbers. I mean, just to put it in some sort of proportion for audiences in the United States, 1% of the population in the U.S. is 3.3 million people being killed in 75 days.

And yeah, I agree with you that, in a way, I’ve heard Israeli journalists using the term “war crimes” for the first time after the three Israeli hostages were killed by soldiers. And obviously — obviously — soldiers thought that they were Palestinians, which is why they felt comfortable, it seems, to shoot somebody who was holding a white flag in their hand. And to me, it’s really outrageous how there is like two completely different sets of ways we look at the world, not according to the crime, but according to the victim of the crime. Because, you know, how many Palestinians were executed by Israeli soldiers? And how often does that happen without any response from journalists, without using words like “war crimes”? And I think, really, at the heart of a lot of what is going on is this disparity between having some people whose lives have meaning and other people whose lives have no meaning for so many people on the West and in Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Yuval, I wanted to ask you about the number of prisoners being taken by Israel on the West Bank. We’re talking about something like 4,000 just since October 7th. Do you have the sense that they are just rounding up people because, as they negotiate a prisoner exchange, they’ll have more to give back? That’s one question. And the other is about Human Rights Watch’s report released today, “Meta’s Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook,” people being systemically knocked off of Facebook and Instagram if they are posting about what’s happening to Palestinians.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yeah. So, you know, Israel has a long-standing policy of these mass arrests. We’ve seen them happening in the previous Gaza bombardments, also in 2021. Many of these — I think thousands of these Palestinian prisoners are held without trial, without charges being pressed against them. Even when charges are pressed, the system of the military occupation and the military judicial system is extremely unjust. Ninety-nine-point-four percent of the cases end up in indictment.

I’m not sure — I mean, I think part of it has to do with getting numbers. It seems very logical. I don’t have any inside information about it, but what you suggested seems logical. Again, I think that for the next prisoner exchange, Hamas will insist on releasing much more prominent Palestinian prisoners. So, unlike the last time, when, really, you know, you saw Palestinian prisoners being released after they spent a short time in prison, I think if — for a next hostage deal to take place, they will need to have more substantial Palestinian prisoners.

And, I mean, there is repression online. I know that there are Israeli ministries that are constantly working with Meta, with Facebook, with X, as well, and with Instagram to aid in this process. There have been reports about sort of this mass scanning that Israel does of social media to find posts to flag, in a way, for these international social media organizations. And yeah, the repression is taking place, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Yuval Abraham, I want to thank you for being with us, journalist based in Jerusalem who writes for +972 Magazine and Local Call. We’ll link to your new article, “'The hostages weren't our top priority’: How Israel’s bombing frenzy endangered captives in Gaza.”

Coming up, on Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council forced to postpone a vote for the third time on Gaza due to U.S. opposition. We’ll speak with Phyllis Bennis. Back in 20 seconds.

************************

“The U.S. and Israel Stand Alone”: World Demands Ceasefire as Gaza Death Toll Tops 20,000
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 21, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/21 ... transcript

President Joe Biden has called the over 20,000 Palestinian deaths from 75 days of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip “tragic,” while Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel’s military will be expected to shift to a “lower-intensity phase” of its assault on the territory. Phyllis Bennis, author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says Biden must move from protecting and funding Israel’s war crimes to holding Israel accountable. “There’s no way that Israel feels compelled to respond to that until the requests become requirements, and the requirements come with conditions that make a difference,” says Bennis. At the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. continues to delay and threaten to veto measures calling for a ceasefire after days of negotiations. “Not only is the U.S. isolated at the United Nations, but the Biden administration, on this issue, is massively isolated within the United States itself,” says Bennis.

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, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The United Nations Security Council has for the third time this week postponed a vote on a resolution calling for a halt to the fighting in Gaza and for Israel to allow shipments of food, water, fuel and medicine into the besieged territory. Several Security Council members have expressed frustration with the United States for repeatedly delaying votes and for threatening to once again veto any resolution.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, serves as an international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. Phyllis has written a number of books, including Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, her recent piece for In These Times headlined “The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Demand for a Cease-Fire in Gaza.”

As we went to air today, Phyllis, there is no resolution at this point at the U.N. One is expected today, but we said that Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. If you can talk about what’s going on there? And then we can talk about that Christmas truce, as we move into the weekend.

PHYLLIS BENNIS: This is, in some ways, a very old story. The United States refuses to accept a globally demanded ceasefire in the context of Israeli assaults, particularly on Gaza. And we’ve seen it before; we’re seeing it again now. The U.S. is refusing to allow the term “cessation of hostilities.” They certainly will not allow the term “ceasefire” to be used. They want to talk about a suspension of hostilities, meaning just a temporary pause, like we saw two weeks ago, to allow in a certain amount of aid, reduce the pressure on Israel, get some of the hostages released, and then go back to the Israeli assault and kill more thousands of Palestinians presumably.

So what we’re looking at is the question of whether the other members of the Security Council will be able to persuade the U.S. — and I think this is very doubtful — to change their position and allow decent language about a real cessation of hostilities or a ceasefire. And if they don’t, will the council go ahead and force the United States to use its veto, something the U.S. does not like to do, or will it essentially collapse under its own pressure and simply withdraw the resolution and say, “Well, we couldn’t get the U.S. on board, so we’re not going to go forward”? The issue then becomes whether you’re letting the U.S. off the hook by saying, “We will simply” — excuse me — “We will simply withdraw the resolution,” or do you force the U.S. to use its veto, which then has consequences, including sending the resolution off to the General Assembly, where it passes under very particular conditions that can make it much more influential and, by some arguments by legal scholars, perhaps enforceable, like a Security Council resolution would be? So that’s where the council is right now.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Phyllis, so, if you could explain that? Because normally a General Assembly vote is not legally binding in the way that a Security Council vote is —

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Right.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — which is why there’s so much emphasis on what the Security Council does.

PHYLLIS BENNIS: The particularity here, Nermeen, is that when the U.S. or any other of the five permanent members of the council actually uses a veto, a new regulation at the U.N., that was passed a couple of years ago, requires that the General Assembly then meet within 10 days to take up that same issue. You know, ordinarily, this is very closely held. The Security Council deals with threats to peace and security around the world. The General Assembly can deal with everything else. But when one of the five permanent members — in this case, of course, the United States — uses its veto on an issue of peace and security, under those conditions, the General Assembly is required to hold an emergency session. And it’s held under what’s known in the U.N. as “Uniting for Peace” precedent. This was something the U.N. was forced to accept back in 1951 at the instigation, ironically, of the United States. It’s how the U.S. got the United Nations to endorse its war in Korea. And under those conditions, the decisions made by the General Assembly, which officially are considered nonbinding, not enforceable, take on additional power, because it’s derivative of United Nations Security Council power. So, the decisions are uncertain, whether it’s really enforceable, but it’s a much stronger resolution in the General Assembly if it follows a veto in the Security Council. That’s one of the big reasons why the United States does not like to use its veto, if it can avoid it.

The other reason, of course, is that it shows the world just how isolated the United States now is. The U.S. and Israel stand alone. The vote in the General Assembly on a very similar resolution was 153 countries, out of 193, who voted “yes,” and only 10 countries, including the U.S. and Israel, voted “no.” And under those circumstances, it really demonstrates the isolation of the U.S. And that’s not something that the Biden administration is eager to be showing up again.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, if you could say, Phyllis — I mean, talk about the significance of U.S. support. Explain why it’s so strident, despite what’s happening in Gaza, and also the fact that when Biden did lightly criticize Israel for its indiscriminate bombardment, saying that it was losing international support, the Israeli foreign minister very quickly said that Israel would continue, quote, “with or without international support.” Your response to that?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Yeah.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I mean, is that accurate, you think?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Right. Well, I think what is true is that the United States has made a number of polite requests of the Israeli government. They have said, “Please stop killing so many people. What you’re doing is OK. Using massive bombardment is OK. But try and pull back a little bit. Maybe change the tactics of the ground invasion so that you’re not killing quite so many civilians. It doesn’t look good.” But there are no consequences when the Israeli response, as you just said, from Prime Minister Netanyahu or others is simply, “No, we’re going to continue what we’re doing.”

There’s no way that Israel feels compelled to respond to that until the request become requirements, and the requirements come with conditions that make a difference, so that when the United States says, “You’ve got to stop bombing Gaza. You’re killing civilians, and it’s illegal under international law. You’ve got to stop,” and Israel says, “Nope, we’re going to continue,” then the next sentence out of the mouth of President Biden or Secretary of State Blinken, or whoever is relaying that message, is, “OK. Then, you know those billions of dollars we send to your military every year? You can kiss that goodbye. And you know how we’ve been protecting you at the International Criminal Court so you’re never held accountable for war crimes? We’re not doing that anymore.” So, those are the kinds of things that will begin to have a real impact on Israel. As long as the Israelis are clear that the Biden position of what we might call bear hug diplomacy, where the symbolism of his embrace, physically and politically, of Netanyahu and the Israeli state is “We have your back. We will protect you no matter what, but please make a few amendments,” they have no reason to take that seriously —

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn —

PHYLLIS BENNIS: — because the U.S. doesn’t express it seriously.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken, speaking Wednesday in D.C. at a State Department briefing.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: I hear virtually no one saying — demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that. And how could it be — how can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim?

AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, your response?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: You know, it’s ironic that the secretary of state of Israel’s biggest supporter, the provider of 20% of its entire military budget, among other things, will move forward to say that it’s — that there’s the need for the people of Gaza — because this war is against the people of Gaza. It is not just against Hamas. That’s simply not the case. The notion that the U.S. is saying that the demand should be made on Hamas, when it’s been the United States’ backing of Israel that has allowed Israel to impose a siege on Gaza for 17 years? We should be clear: This siege did not begin on October 7th. It was escalated after the atrocities that were committed on October 7th, for sure. But this had been going on for 17 years, harshly enough that 20% of all children in Gaza were stunted by the age of 2 because they could not get sufficient food necessary for children to thrive. That was way before October 7th. So, we have to look at this in the context of the ongoing war that Israel has been waging in Gaza, against Gaza, against the people of Palestine. And it’s a war that has become genocidal in its impact. So, this notion that Secretary of State Blinken, who is desperately trying to divert the focus of U.S. outrage, global outrage at Israel and at the United States for enabling the Israeli war crimes to continue, he’s using every possibility that he can.

The negotiations are underway between Israel and Hamas in Cairo, with Egypt and Qatar as interlocutors. There’s other negotiations underway, of course, at the United Nations, as we’ve been discussing. But the bottom line is that Israel has killed 20,000 people, 70% of them children and women. And that doesn’t even count the thousands of people that have been killed under the rubble when Israeli bombs have destroyed buildings and homes over people’s bodies. So we’re looking at something that has never happened at this scale in this century. And that has to be our focus. That’s why we need a ceasefire. You’re not going to be able to protect the hostages and bring them home without a ceasefire. You’re not going to be able to bring in sufficient aid to make it possible to stop what is now real starvation in Gaza. We have not seen that before, even under the siege. We have not seen actual starvation. And now the United States — sorry, the United Nations World Food Programme is saying that more than half of the families in Gaza are starving and that 90% are food insecure. That doesn’t exist anywhere in the world right now, where 50% of a population is starving. And that’s what has to stop. And that’s why we need a ceasefire, to end those realities.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, Phyllis, we just have a minute. If you could respond to The New York Times/Siena poll that was released earlier this week, where it’s clear that the majority of Americans are opposed to the Biden administration’s policy, but, in a perplexing finding, a number of them say that they would, in the 2024 election, vote for Trump instead as a result?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: I can’t explain it. I don’t know exactly what the question was that they asked, and that’s always a key part of how they get answers like this. But I think what’s key is the first thing you said, Nermeen. There is massive opposition in this country to what the Biden administration is doing. Eighty percent of Democrats, President Biden’s own party, want a ceasefire now. We’re seeing massive opposition within the State Department, within the White House. The White House interns, these young ambitious students, high school and college students, the youngest of the federal workforce, came out publicly and said, “We are not the leaders of today, but we aspire to lead in the future, and we cannot stand by and watch this genocide being perpetuated by Israel with our support.” That’s extraordinary. That’s never been seen before in this country. And that’s why we say that not only is the U.S. isolated at the United Nations, but the Biden administration, on this issue, is massively isolated within the United States itself.

AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, we want to thank you for being with us, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. We’ll link to your new piece in In These Times, “The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Demand for a Cease-Fire in Gaza.”