Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 5, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/5/headlines
Israel Kills 70+ People in Gaza over Past Day, Launches More Attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital
Nov 05, 2024
Palestinian medical sources say at least 70 people were killed by Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours. At least 20 were killed in the besieged northern town of Beit Lahia when an Israeli airstrike ripped through two homes.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers have withdrawn from the Kamal Adwan Hospital after raiding it for a second day in a row. The hospital had already been operating with a skeleton crew after Israeli forces last week detained dozens of medical workers. Israel’s most recent attacks damaged the hospital’s upper floors where the children’s ward was located, seriously wounding a child who was recovering from surgery.
Aid Entering Gaza at Just 6% of Pre-Genocide Deliveries as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA
Nov 05, 2024
On Monday, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the amount of aid entering Gaza reached a new low in October, with a daily average of just 30 trucks entering into Gaza. That’s just 6% of the cargo allowed to cross before Israel began its assault on Gaza nearly 13 months ago. Palestinians say the situation will be even worse after Israel this week formally ended a decades-old cooperation agreement that allowed UNRWA to operate.
Abu Khalil Salim: “This is considered a death sentence for Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip. … How many thousand students will be deprived of schooling? How many thousand patients will be deprived of treatment? How many thousand employees will lose their jobs? How many thousand people will be deprived of aid? This is a violation of international norms and the laws that exist in the world.”
“Not the End of the Semester”: State Dept. Says Too Early to “Grade” Israel on North Gaza Actions
Nov 05, 2024
The Biden administration continues to provide weapons and ammunition to Israel, ignoring foreign assistance laws that bar such aid to countries that commit gross human rights violations. On Monday, Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asked State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller to grade Israel’s response to a 30-day deadline imposed by the U.S. to end its starvation campaign in northern Gaza.
Matthew Miller: “They certainly do not have a passing grade. They have failed — I said they have failed to implement all the things that we recommended in that letter. Now, that said, we are not at the end of the 30-day period. And we are — we are in” —
Matt Lee: “OK, so it’s a fail, but you’re not ready to give them an F.”
Matthew Miller: “It’s not the end — it’s not the end of the semester. You don’t give out — you don’t hand out grades in the middle — in the middle.”
Matt Lee: “OK. Well, I suspect that the levity is a little bit inappropriate.”
“I expect that the levity is a little bit inappropriate,” said AP reporter Matt Lee as State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller chuckled at his own joke.
At Least 4 West Bank Palestinians Killed as Israeli Soldiers and Settlers Continue Deadly Attacks
Nov 05, 2024
Israeli forces have killed at least four Palestinians during airstrikes on the occupied West Bank. Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli drone attack near the city of Qabatiya and two others in an aerial attack on Tammun outside the city of Nablus.
The killings come after armed Israeli settlers launched a wave of attacks on West Bank Palestinians, burning their homes and property and destroying olive trees. On Sunday evening, settlers torched more than 20 vehicles in the city of Al-Bireh, while in the town of Deir Dibwan near Ramallah settlers scrawled hateful graffiti on walls and set fire to a parking lot. Elsewhere, settlers burned dozens of trees in an olive grove on Palestinian land in the town of Burqa, northwest of Nablus. When Palestinians tried to put out the flames, they say they were beaten by settlers who also threw rocks at them.
Death Toll from Israeli Assault on Lebanon Tops 3,000 After More Deadly Strikes This Week
Nov 05, 2024
Israeli strikes on Lebanon Monday killed at least 15 people and wounded 90 others. The attacks bring the overall death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon to more than 3,000. Hezbollah responded by firing rockets toward Israel in what it said were attacks on soldiers’ barracks and other military targets. Lebanon’s National News Agency reports Israeli attacks have devastated 37 towns across southern Lebanon, destroying more than 40,000 housing units.
Syria Blasts Israeli Airstrikes Near Damascus, Which Killed at Least 2 People
Nov 05, 2024
Syria’s government has condemned Israel for carrying out airstrikes on a civilian area south of the capital Damascus. On Monday, Syrian media reported two people were killed and five others wounded when Israeli warplanes launched an air attack from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel’s Air Force later claimed it had hit Hezbollah “targets” in Syria.
U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 6, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2024/11/6
Protests Erupt Across Israel After Netanyahu Fires War Chief Yoav Gallant
Nov 06, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Tuesday in a surprise move that triggered large-scale protests across Israel. Gallant had publicly disagreed with Netanyahu over a temporary deal to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners; he also insisted Israel carry out a full investigation into the failures that led to Hamas’s October 7 attack — something Netanyahu rejected. Netanyahu appointed Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to succeed Gallant. Katz recently led a successful campaign to cancel Israel’s agreements with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Earlier this year, he proposed creating an artificial island off Gaza’s coast where Palestinians could be forcibly relocated. In August, Katz called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, declaring, “This is a war on all fronts, and we must win it.” On Tuesday, protests erupted in Jerusalem near Netanyahu’s official residence calling for the prime minister to resign. Meanwhile, tens of thousands marched in Tel Aviv, where protesters blocked a major highway.
Itamar Berger: “We believe it has never ever been this urgent. We believe the worst threat on the very existence of the state of Israel is not posed by Iran or Hezbollah or Hamas, but by our own government. Our own government is doing whatever is within its power to destroy us from within.”
Palestinians Condemn Biden’s Support for Israeli Military as Assault on Gaza Continues
Nov 06, 2024
In the Gaza Strip, four Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops shelled a home southeast of Khan Younis. Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike leveled an apartment building in Gaza City, killing five people. On Tuesday, Palestinians in Gaza observed the U.S. election with a mix of dread and resignation. This is Ikram Al Hamm, a Khan Younis resident who spoke to reporters surrounded by the rubble of her home, which was destroyed by Israeli attacks.
Ikram Al Hamm: “Here’s our destruction. The destruction of the Gaza Strip is at the hands of the Americans. All the explosive materials that America sends to Gaza only bring destruction. What can we benefit from America? What will we gain from it, from the U.S. elections? Did the U.S. president encourage us in any way? No, he stood against us, against our kids in the Gaza Strip and against our very lives. He destroyed us and the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli Raids on Occupied West Bank Kill 8, Wound Child and Photojournalist
Nov 06, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least eight Palestinians in a series of raids that began on Monday. Two people were killed in the town of Tamoun, where Israeli troops were seen moving a body with an armored bulldozer. Elsewhere, at least four people were killed in the city of Qabatiya near Jenin. During the raid, photojournalist Rabie Al-Munir was shot in the abdomen and rushed to a hospital where he’s in stable condition. Palestinian medics said a 3-year-old child was also hospitalized after being bitten by an Israeli attack dog.
Israeli Strike on Residential Building Kills 20 in Beirut Suburb
Nov 06, 2024
Israel’s military is continuing its assault on towns and villages in southern Lebanon, where on Tuesday at least 20 people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded when an Israeli airstrike tore through a high-rise apartment building in the coastal town of Barja south of Beirut. The attack came without warning. Resident Moussa Zahran showed reporters the twisted wreckage of his home after he narrowly survived the attack, which left his young son and wife hospitalized when their home collapsed around them.
Moussa Zahran: “We were drinking coffee in the living room. These slabs that you see here weigh 100 kilograms. They fell on a 13-kilogram child. And all of these fell on my wife.”
NGOs Ask U.N. Human Rights Council to Probe Israel’s Assault on Lebanon
Nov 06, 2024
Today, a group of 12 NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate abuses committed during Israel’s war on Lebanon, which has killed over 3,000 people. Jeremie Smith of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said in a statement, “There’s a huge risk of the same types of atrocities occurring in Lebanon as in Gaza.”
U.K. Authorities Drop Terrorism Charges for Retired Academic Who Advocated for Palestinian Rights
Nov 06, 2024
In the U.K., police arrested Israeli filmmaker, activist and retired academic Haim Bresheeth under the British Terrorism Act after he gave a speech on Friday advocating for Palestinian rights during a protest. Bresheeth is a child of Holocaust survivors and founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine. Police accused him of “making a hate speech” but refused to answer questions from Bresheeth and his supporters when pressed over what specifically triggered the arrest. He was released without charge the next day. It’s the latest in a series of arrests in Britain under the Terrorism Act targeting people who voice criticism of Israel. At least three journalists have been detained and/or raided over their reporting.
***
Linda Sarsour: Harris’s Embrace of Pro-Israel Policies at Odds with Democratic Base
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 6, 2024
In the Arab American-majority city of Dearborn, Michigan, Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by over six percentage points, with third-party candidate Jill Stein capturing nearly one-fifth of the vote. During the primary elections, a majority of Democratic voters in Dearborn selected “uncommitted” over then-presumptive nominee Joe Biden, citing disapproval of the president’s handling of Israel’s aggression in the Middle East. “Uncommitted” voters continued to press the Harris campaign to shift its Israel policy as the election went on, but were routinely ignored. Democrats “made a calculation that they did not need Arab American, Muslim American and Palestinian American voters,” says Palestinian American organizer Linda Sarsour, who was in Dearborn on election night. We speak to Sarsour about the Harris campaign’s failure to secure the support of a previously key part of the Democratic base. “We are going to be in big trouble, and I blame that solely on the Democratic Party and one of the worst campaigns I have seen in my 23 years in organizing.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I also wanted to address the issue of foreign policy. From Dearborn, Michigan, to talk about Donald Trump’s election, we want to go to Michigan, where we’re joined by Linda Sarsour, Palestinian American Muslim organizer, author of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, co-founder of MPower Action Fund. Yes, Dearborn, the Arab-majority city, Trump won 42% of the vote over Vice President Kamala Harris, who received 36%. Jill Stein received 18%. Stein campaigned calling for an arms embargo against Israel. And I also want to hear what Ralph Nader has to say about this.
Linda Sarsour, if you can respond? We spoke to you last night. Now a lot of the results are in. If you can comment on what happened and what a Trump presidency will mean for Israel-Palestine?
LINDA SARSOUR: I appreciated hearing Ralph Nader’s analysis, which I share. And this all goes to the feet of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party literally marginalized Arab American, Palestinian, Muslim American voters. Kamala Harris did not really, in my opinion, make any effort to really win over the votes of these demographics. Kamala Harris continued to parrot the usual talking points about humanitarian aid and about what’s happening, Gaza being devastated, without any action plan. She was asked many times, “Would you break from the policies of Joe Biden or in the ways in which Joe Biden has addressed the genocide in Gaza?” And she has said no multiple times.
Again, Donald Trump engaged in outreach in the Muslim American community. He went and visited mosques. He met with religious leaders. He had billboards all across Dearborn that were multilingual, in the language — in Arabic languages, in Bangla, in Urdu. And whether or not people agree with Donald Trump or whether or not — and you know me, Amy. I’m having déjà vu of 2016. I was a frontline organizer when Donald Trump was president, so I’m not looking forward to the next four years. But the Trump campaign did the outreach. They filled in a gap that was left by the Democratic Party.
And all Kamala Harris had to say in this election was “I will uphold international law. I will actually enforce the laws we already have on the books when it comes to military aid to any country violating human rights.” But the campaign made a calculation. They made a calculation that they did not need Arab American, Muslim American and Palestinian American voters, that they can actually win this election without this important electorate. They were too busy courting Liz Cheney and her friends instead of coming to Michigan and actually having deep, courageous conversations with the critics of the Kamala and Biden administration.
So, this is a devastating moment for our communities. Donald Trump is someone that we know very well. We don’t only know him on domestic policy. We know him also on foreign policy. He gave sovereignty to Israel over the Golan Heights. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. There is an Israeli settlement that is named after Donald Trump. His son-in-law Jared Kushner believes that Gaza is this beautiful waterfront property. We are going to be in big trouble. And I blame that solely on the Democratic Party and one of the worst-run campaigns that I’ve seen in my 23 years in organizing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Linda, I wanted to ask you something I asked earlier to some of our other guests. There was not a large outpouring of independent votes, but there definitely was a decline in the overall Democratic vote. Kamala Harris has apparently gotten 15 million votes less than sleepy Joe Biden did in 2020. I’m wondering, your sense was that those who stayed home, a reflection of some of the failures of the Democrats this time around?
LINDA SARSOUR: Absolutely. And the thing that people don’t want to talk about — and as you know, the Democratic Party is not a fan of mine, because they don’t like to listen to critics who actually are organizers and know how to mobilize communities. Somebody should ask the Democratic Party: How much money did you invest in Black and Brown-led organizations who do get-out-the-vote efforts, who engage and build power locally in communities? Somebody needs to ask them that question.
They spent a majority of their money on ads, on television ads, and really ignored the grassroots. I was on the ground in Pitt County, North Carolina. I was in Saginaw, Michigan. I was in Dearborn. I went to Georgia. And I did not see the type of field operation that is worthy of our communities. And Joe Biden had the Democratic House, Senate and White House in his first two years, and he couldn’t deliver on things like protecting and expanding voting rights. He blamed Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for being obstacles to his agenda. He couldn’t even get two Democrats in line to pass legislation.
Lots of women across the country care about things like reproductive rights. Well, why didn’t the Joe Biden administration push Congress to codify Roe? We are in this situation because Democrats want to be in power, but they don’t know how to use their power once they are in office. And that is a failure of the party. And the party has to go back to its roots if it wants to move from here. You are either going to be loyal to your base, which majority supported ceasefire and support arms embargo against Israel, that support progressive issues, or you’re going to continue to try to recruit a constituency that does not exist, that did not turn out for you in this election. And I hope somebody in the campaign right now is sitting and reflecting on this, and hopefully some people are fired and no longer will be working for the party after this election.
AMY GOODMAN: Linda Sarsour is Palestinian American. Ralph Nader, you are Lebanese American. We only have a minute, but your response on the issue of the Democratic position, the Biden-Harris position on Israel, Palestine and Lebanon right now, and what you think has to happen? Because, in fact, the Democrats are in power right now, before Trump takes over.
RALPH NADER: Are you asking me?
AMY GOODMAN: I am.
RALPH NADER: Yeah. Well, Biden is projecting weakness. There are a lot of voters who want strength, and Trump understands that. And on the Middle East, he’s projecting incredible weakness. That’s why we call him Bibi Biden, and his secretary of state, Bibi Blinken. He’s giving Netanyahu whatever he wants — daily shipments of deadly weapons of mass destruction, diplomatic cover, veto in the U.N., pushing allied countries to get in line. He even refuses to demand that Netanyahu let American reporters into Gaza to report what’s going on. He won’t even allow airlifting at the request of American doctors who are over in Gaza, airlifting burned babies and amputee children for treatment in ready and able American hospitals. He is a co-combatant with the Palestinian holocaust and the genocide that’s going on. And Israel’s making no bones of this. Netanyahu wants the whole of Palestine, the West Bank, southern Lebanon to the Litani River. And it’s an all-go signal from Biden. So he’s projecting weakness here. He is weakly representing the mighty United States of America as if he’s an adjunct, a poodle for the Netanyahu regime.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. That does it for this hour. I want to thank Ralph Nader, Linda Sarsour and John Nichols of The Nation.
***
Rami Khouri: U.S. Voters Are Sick of Foreign Wars. Can Trump Strike a Grand Bargain in Middle East?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 6, 2024
Palestinian American journalist and a senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, as well as a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC.
Shortly after Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the U.S. presidential election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to enthusiastically congratulate him. Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued its violent assault on Gaza, killing multiple Palestinians in strikes on apartment buildings and homes. We speak to Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri about what we know of Trump’s pro-Israel policies and how Trump beat Kamala Harris for the presidency. “Trump out-dramatized Harris, and that’s how he won,” he says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
One of the first world leaders to congratulate Donald Trump on his presidential victory was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He wrote a message online that read, quote, “Dear Donald and Melania Trump, Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.”
We’re joined right now by Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, also a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC.
Rami Khouri, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response to the Trump victory and what this means for Israel-Palestine and for Lebanon and beyond?
RAMI KHOURI: I’m not surprised by the victory. We knew it was going to be very close, and we knew that a lot of voters were not precisely telegraphing what they were going to do. The nature of the whole electorate has changed. It keeps changing every four years, due to many reasons. And the main reason I think that Trump won is that he ran a campaign — much as people don’t like him, for valid reasons usually, he did run a campaign that emotionally connected with not only his supporters, but a lot of other Americans. And Kamala Harris was a rank amateur. She had no idea what she was doing at that level of politics, which she showed four years ago when she ran in the primaries for the Democratic presidency candidate and got nowhere. And she just — she didn’t really touch on the issues that matter, other than abortion and maybe immigration a little bit. But even there, she was just following Trump’s lead.
So it’s no surprise. Many people are shocked. The trouble with Trump is that he’s so unpredictable in many areas. But the difference between now and four years ago is that we’ve had four years of his presidency and we’ve had four years of his being outside the presidency talking about issues. So he’s not an unknown quantity like he was eight years ago. And many of the things that he is going to do, internally and internationally, are predictable, I think. So, I would just hold my horses and wait and see what happens.
The last point I’d make is that the role of the Gaza Israeli plausible genocide, as the International Court of Justice calls it, the role of that plausible genocide by Israel, which was heavily, heavily, enthusiastically, consistently and clearly supported by the United States clearly had an impact. American people have shown now, as they did when I was in college in the late '60s, that they don't want their country being involved in a great war overseas that kills thousands and thousands of people that doesn’t really relate to them. And this is a really powerful lesson. We can’t draw the conclusions yet of exactly what the Gaza war did, but it clearly has mobilized a constituency that goes way beyond Arab and Muslim Americans. And I was in Dearborn, Michigan, last weekend for three days at a convention of Arab Americans, and what I saw was really, really, very, very powerful.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Rami, how do you see the Trump administration changing policy in the Middle East versus what Biden has done, once he gets into office?
RAMI KHOURI: You know, one of the fascinating things about watching this stuff go on for half a century now, as I have, is there are little changes here and there. So, last time Trump was in, he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, the annexation of the Golan Heights. He closed the PLO offices. He stopped funding UNRWA. He did all kinds of things that Palestinians don’t like and justice supporters don’t like, and that Israelis like and the evangelical right-wing American Christian fanatic supporters of Israel like. He did a lot of these things, and then Biden kept most of them. He didn’t really change really any of them significantly. And then Biden got involved in this incredible plausible genocide, and Harris followed him completely. So, I don’t think there’s really much change. Looking back and empirically speaking, looking back over the last 40, 50 years, there are only minor cosmetic changes between Republican and Democratic administrations. The bottom line that all of them accept, with only the occasional minor adjustment, is that they will do almost anything that Israel wants, for many reasons, which we don’t have time to get into here. But the American political establishment is fully and enthusiastically supporting Israel, even in its plausible genocide.
The American public is not. So, there’s a moral issue that came out of the American people over the last year and a half. And it was not just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in Dearborn, Michigan. It was people all over the country, progressive Jews, labor unions, students, the student movement. So, this is a movement that is still young. This is like Vietnam antiwar protests in 1965. It took a long time, another seven, eight years, to get the Vietnam War ended. And this is a similar situation.
How it impacts Trump is not clear. And this is where we have to really wait, because it’s very hard to predict what Trump is going to do. He cares about two things. He cares about drama, entertainment, and he cares about making deals. And the deals may be political deals, and they’re also commercial deals, for him and his family and his cronies and his friends and his supporters. And that’s what politicians do all over the world. There’s nothing illegal about that. It’s just how politics works in superficially democratic societies. But they are democratic, and the vote counts, and new people come to power, and they make deals, and they do dramatic things. Trump outdramatized Harris, and that’s why he won. He appealed to people’s emotions, and that’s how people vote. They don’t vote on, you know, is our democracy threatened. That was a very important line from Harris and all her millions of supporters on the American mainstream television, who look like idiots now, because they were — not because the message is bad, because the message doesn’t resonate with ordinary people all over the country, which is what we saw. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
I think the greatest arena that we should look at is that combination, which Trump sort of looked at a little bit, you know, when he was president — Iran, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the United States — that ring of powers that have — or, they’re not all powers — that ring of actors who all have important interests at play. He pulled out of the Iran agreement, the nuclear and sanctions removal agreement with Iran. And this is one of the triggers that brought this situation of war in the region about. And he also did the Abrahamic Accords with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who knows about the Middle East as much as I know about underwater fishing in China, which is nothing. But the Abraham Accords are one of the things that set the stage for the continued conflict and the marginalization of Palestine, which set the stage for the October 7 attacks. So, if they don’t understand the connection among all of these issues and the growth of resistance movements in Yemen and Iraq and Lebanon and Palestine, if people don’t understand that, they’ll just come down to perpetual conflict.
I think if somebody can explain to Trump that he can be a great hero by making — a great hero to everybody by making a grand bargain that gives the Iranians, the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Saudis, everybody, what they really want, which is to live in peace and a normal life. And I think it’s attainable. I think it’s possible. But you’ve got to have the level of smart, sensitive and daring statesmanship, which we have not seen from Trump in a significant way. We’ve seen it very superficially, where it helps either his political constituents or helps Jared Kushner’s bank account in terms of deals, which he of course did with the Saudis. So, this is the position we’re in. We have to really wait and see. Is a second Trump presidency going to be more sophisticated and more meaningful than his first one? He is more experienced. And we’ll just have to wait and see.
AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, Rami Khouri, the Palestinian youth movement organized a No Votes for Genocide protest. This is Sophie, a student here in New York City.
SOPHIE: I’m not voting for the capitalist ruling class, so I’m not voting for either Kamala or Trump. I don’t think they do anything for my people. Half of — I’m half-Bengali. Half of my family are Muslim Bengali immigrants. And they actually experienced their own genocide that was funded by the U.S. And I’ve never seen any of U.S. presidents do anything for the Global South, including Bangladesh, Pakistan or any of the Middle East. The argument that a vote for Jill Stein or Claudia and Karina or third party is a vote for Trump is really frustrating. I think it’s also — it’s not a vote for Trump or Kamala. It’s a vote for neither of them. And if Kamala loses, it’s her own damn fault. You know, like, this is the one thing that’s important to me. If she were to do anything for Palestine, I would consider voting for her.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was a protest that happened just on Saturday. And I wanted to end, Rami Khouri, by asking you about what happened after President Trump won and he got his congratulations from Benjamin Netanyahu. Just before that, he fired the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and he installed Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who proposed creating an artificial island off Gaza’s coast where Palestinians could be forcibly relocated. Katz also called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, saying, “This is a war on all fronts, and we must win it.” Are you concerned, under Trump, that Netanyahu will follow through with annexing, for example, the West Bank?
RAMI KHOURI: Yes. I mean, we have to be concerned about Trump and Netanyahu and others doing really outrageous things. They’ve done them in the past, and they’ll do them again, unless somebody checks them. And this is the missing element in this situation in Palestine and in U.S.-Israel, U.S.-Middle East relations. The Israelis — Netanyahu is quite desperate right now, so he’s doing desperate things like this, only appealing to his right-wing fascist extremists in government and to their supporters overseas, who actually don’t know much about the details of the situation, but emotionally respond to this kind of process, where Israel is strong and protects itself and defends itself. So, yes, we have to be careful about what might happen. The response to the excesses of the Israeli—
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds.
RAMI KHOURI: Yeah, the response has to be continued mobilization, protest, solidarity and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians simultaneously. That’s the winning formula. And bring in Iran, and everybody will be on board happily, including the Saudis, too.
AMY GOODMAN: Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 6, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2024/11/6
Protests Erupt Across Israel After Netanyahu Fires War Chief Yoav Gallant
Nov 06, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Tuesday in a surprise move that triggered large-scale protests across Israel. Gallant had publicly disagreed with Netanyahu over a temporary deal to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners; he also insisted Israel carry out a full investigation into the failures that led to Hamas’s October 7 attack — something Netanyahu rejected. Netanyahu appointed Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to succeed Gallant. Katz recently led a successful campaign to cancel Israel’s agreements with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Earlier this year, he proposed creating an artificial island off Gaza’s coast where Palestinians could be forcibly relocated. In August, Katz called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, declaring, “This is a war on all fronts, and we must win it.” On Tuesday, protests erupted in Jerusalem near Netanyahu’s official residence calling for the prime minister to resign. Meanwhile, tens of thousands marched in Tel Aviv, where protesters blocked a major highway.
Itamar Berger: “We believe it has never ever been this urgent. We believe the worst threat on the very existence of the state of Israel is not posed by Iran or Hezbollah or Hamas, but by our own government. Our own government is doing whatever is within its power to destroy us from within.”
Palestinians Condemn Biden’s Support for Israeli Military as Assault on Gaza Continues
Nov 06, 2024
In the Gaza Strip, four Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops shelled a home southeast of Khan Younis. Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike leveled an apartment building in Gaza City, killing five people. On Tuesday, Palestinians in Gaza observed the U.S. election with a mix of dread and resignation. This is Ikram Al Hamm, a Khan Younis resident who spoke to reporters surrounded by the rubble of her home, which was destroyed by Israeli attacks.
Ikram Al Hamm: “Here’s our destruction. The destruction of the Gaza Strip is at the hands of the Americans. All the explosive materials that America sends to Gaza only bring destruction. What can we benefit from America? What will we gain from it, from the U.S. elections? Did the U.S. president encourage us in any way? No, he stood against us, against our kids in the Gaza Strip and against our very lives. He destroyed us and the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli Raids on Occupied West Bank Kill 8, Wound Child and Photojournalist
Nov 06, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least eight Palestinians in a series of raids that began on Monday. Two people were killed in the town of Tamoun, where Israeli troops were seen moving a body with an armored bulldozer. Elsewhere, at least four people were killed in the city of Qabatiya near Jenin. During the raid, photojournalist Rabie Al-Munir was shot in the abdomen and rushed to a hospital where he’s in stable condition. Palestinian medics said a 3-year-old child was also hospitalized after being bitten by an Israeli attack dog.
Israeli Strike on Residential Building Kills 20 in Beirut Suburb
Nov 06, 2024
Israel’s military is continuing its assault on towns and villages in southern Lebanon, where on Tuesday at least 20 people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded when an Israeli airstrike tore through a high-rise apartment building in the coastal town of Barja south of Beirut. The attack came without warning. Resident Moussa Zahran showed reporters the twisted wreckage of his home after he narrowly survived the attack, which left his young son and wife hospitalized when their home collapsed around them.
Moussa Zahran: “We were drinking coffee in the living room. These slabs that you see here weigh 100 kilograms. They fell on a 13-kilogram child. And all of these fell on my wife.”
NGOs Ask U.N. Human Rights Council to Probe Israel’s Assault on Lebanon
Nov 06, 2024
Today, a group of 12 NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate abuses committed during Israel’s war on Lebanon, which has killed over 3,000 people. Jeremie Smith of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said in a statement, “There’s a huge risk of the same types of atrocities occurring in Lebanon as in Gaza.”
U.K. Authorities Drop Terrorism Charges for Retired Academic Who Advocated for Palestinian Rights
Nov 06, 2024
In the U.K., police arrested Israeli filmmaker, activist and retired academic Haim Bresheeth under the British Terrorism Act after he gave a speech on Friday advocating for Palestinian rights during a protest. Bresheeth is a child of Holocaust survivors and founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine. Police accused him of “making a hate speech” but refused to answer questions from Bresheeth and his supporters when pressed over what specifically triggered the arrest. He was released without charge the next day. It’s the latest in a series of arrests in Britain under the Terrorism Act targeting people who voice criticism of Israel. At least three journalists have been detained and/or raided over their reporting.
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Linda Sarsour: Harris’s Embrace of Pro-Israel Policies at Odds with Democratic Base
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 6, 2024
In the Arab American-majority city of Dearborn, Michigan, Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by over six percentage points, with third-party candidate Jill Stein capturing nearly one-fifth of the vote. During the primary elections, a majority of Democratic voters in Dearborn selected “uncommitted” over then-presumptive nominee Joe Biden, citing disapproval of the president’s handling of Israel’s aggression in the Middle East. “Uncommitted” voters continued to press the Harris campaign to shift its Israel policy as the election went on, but were routinely ignored. Democrats “made a calculation that they did not need Arab American, Muslim American and Palestinian American voters,” says Palestinian American organizer Linda Sarsour, who was in Dearborn on election night. We speak to Sarsour about the Harris campaign’s failure to secure the support of a previously key part of the Democratic base. “We are going to be in big trouble, and I blame that solely on the Democratic Party and one of the worst campaigns I have seen in my 23 years in organizing.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I also wanted to address the issue of foreign policy. From Dearborn, Michigan, to talk about Donald Trump’s election, we want to go to Michigan, where we’re joined by Linda Sarsour, Palestinian American Muslim organizer, author of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, co-founder of MPower Action Fund. Yes, Dearborn, the Arab-majority city, Trump won 42% of the vote over Vice President Kamala Harris, who received 36%. Jill Stein received 18%. Stein campaigned calling for an arms embargo against Israel. And I also want to hear what Ralph Nader has to say about this.
Linda Sarsour, if you can respond? We spoke to you last night. Now a lot of the results are in. If you can comment on what happened and what a Trump presidency will mean for Israel-Palestine?
LINDA SARSOUR: I appreciated hearing Ralph Nader’s analysis, which I share. And this all goes to the feet of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party literally marginalized Arab American, Palestinian, Muslim American voters. Kamala Harris did not really, in my opinion, make any effort to really win over the votes of these demographics. Kamala Harris continued to parrot the usual talking points about humanitarian aid and about what’s happening, Gaza being devastated, without any action plan. She was asked many times, “Would you break from the policies of Joe Biden or in the ways in which Joe Biden has addressed the genocide in Gaza?” And she has said no multiple times.
Again, Donald Trump engaged in outreach in the Muslim American community. He went and visited mosques. He met with religious leaders. He had billboards all across Dearborn that were multilingual, in the language — in Arabic languages, in Bangla, in Urdu. And whether or not people agree with Donald Trump or whether or not — and you know me, Amy. I’m having déjà vu of 2016. I was a frontline organizer when Donald Trump was president, so I’m not looking forward to the next four years. But the Trump campaign did the outreach. They filled in a gap that was left by the Democratic Party.
And all Kamala Harris had to say in this election was “I will uphold international law. I will actually enforce the laws we already have on the books when it comes to military aid to any country violating human rights.” But the campaign made a calculation. They made a calculation that they did not need Arab American, Muslim American and Palestinian American voters, that they can actually win this election without this important electorate. They were too busy courting Liz Cheney and her friends instead of coming to Michigan and actually having deep, courageous conversations with the critics of the Kamala and Biden administration.
So, this is a devastating moment for our communities. Donald Trump is someone that we know very well. We don’t only know him on domestic policy. We know him also on foreign policy. He gave sovereignty to Israel over the Golan Heights. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. There is an Israeli settlement that is named after Donald Trump. His son-in-law Jared Kushner believes that Gaza is this beautiful waterfront property. We are going to be in big trouble. And I blame that solely on the Democratic Party and one of the worst-run campaigns that I’ve seen in my 23 years in organizing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Linda, I wanted to ask you something I asked earlier to some of our other guests. There was not a large outpouring of independent votes, but there definitely was a decline in the overall Democratic vote. Kamala Harris has apparently gotten 15 million votes less than sleepy Joe Biden did in 2020. I’m wondering, your sense was that those who stayed home, a reflection of some of the failures of the Democrats this time around?
LINDA SARSOUR: Absolutely. And the thing that people don’t want to talk about — and as you know, the Democratic Party is not a fan of mine, because they don’t like to listen to critics who actually are organizers and know how to mobilize communities. Somebody should ask the Democratic Party: How much money did you invest in Black and Brown-led organizations who do get-out-the-vote efforts, who engage and build power locally in communities? Somebody needs to ask them that question.
They spent a majority of their money on ads, on television ads, and really ignored the grassroots. I was on the ground in Pitt County, North Carolina. I was in Saginaw, Michigan. I was in Dearborn. I went to Georgia. And I did not see the type of field operation that is worthy of our communities. And Joe Biden had the Democratic House, Senate and White House in his first two years, and he couldn’t deliver on things like protecting and expanding voting rights. He blamed Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for being obstacles to his agenda. He couldn’t even get two Democrats in line to pass legislation.
Lots of women across the country care about things like reproductive rights. Well, why didn’t the Joe Biden administration push Congress to codify Roe? We are in this situation because Democrats want to be in power, but they don’t know how to use their power once they are in office. And that is a failure of the party. And the party has to go back to its roots if it wants to move from here. You are either going to be loyal to your base, which majority supported ceasefire and support arms embargo against Israel, that support progressive issues, or you’re going to continue to try to recruit a constituency that does not exist, that did not turn out for you in this election. And I hope somebody in the campaign right now is sitting and reflecting on this, and hopefully some people are fired and no longer will be working for the party after this election.
AMY GOODMAN: Linda Sarsour is Palestinian American. Ralph Nader, you are Lebanese American. We only have a minute, but your response on the issue of the Democratic position, the Biden-Harris position on Israel, Palestine and Lebanon right now, and what you think has to happen? Because, in fact, the Democrats are in power right now, before Trump takes over.
RALPH NADER: Are you asking me?
AMY GOODMAN: I am.
RALPH NADER: Yeah. Well, Biden is projecting weakness. There are a lot of voters who want strength, and Trump understands that. And on the Middle East, he’s projecting incredible weakness. That’s why we call him Bibi Biden, and his secretary of state, Bibi Blinken. He’s giving Netanyahu whatever he wants — daily shipments of deadly weapons of mass destruction, diplomatic cover, veto in the U.N., pushing allied countries to get in line. He even refuses to demand that Netanyahu let American reporters into Gaza to report what’s going on. He won’t even allow airlifting at the request of American doctors who are over in Gaza, airlifting burned babies and amputee children for treatment in ready and able American hospitals. He is a co-combatant with the Palestinian holocaust and the genocide that’s going on. And Israel’s making no bones of this. Netanyahu wants the whole of Palestine, the West Bank, southern Lebanon to the Litani River. And it’s an all-go signal from Biden. So he’s projecting weakness here. He is weakly representing the mighty United States of America as if he’s an adjunct, a poodle for the Netanyahu regime.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. That does it for this hour. I want to thank Ralph Nader, Linda Sarsour and John Nichols of The Nation.
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Rami Khouri: U.S. Voters Are Sick of Foreign Wars. Can Trump Strike a Grand Bargain in Middle East?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 6, 2024
Palestinian American journalist and a senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, as well as a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC.
Shortly after Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the U.S. presidential election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to enthusiastically congratulate him. Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued its violent assault on Gaza, killing multiple Palestinians in strikes on apartment buildings and homes. We speak to Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri about what we know of Trump’s pro-Israel policies and how Trump beat Kamala Harris for the presidency. “Trump out-dramatized Harris, and that’s how he won,” he says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
One of the first world leaders to congratulate Donald Trump on his presidential victory was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He wrote a message online that read, quote, “Dear Donald and Melania Trump, Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.”
We’re joined right now by Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, also a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC.
Rami Khouri, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response to the Trump victory and what this means for Israel-Palestine and for Lebanon and beyond?
RAMI KHOURI: I’m not surprised by the victory. We knew it was going to be very close, and we knew that a lot of voters were not precisely telegraphing what they were going to do. The nature of the whole electorate has changed. It keeps changing every four years, due to many reasons. And the main reason I think that Trump won is that he ran a campaign — much as people don’t like him, for valid reasons usually, he did run a campaign that emotionally connected with not only his supporters, but a lot of other Americans. And Kamala Harris was a rank amateur. She had no idea what she was doing at that level of politics, which she showed four years ago when she ran in the primaries for the Democratic presidency candidate and got nowhere. And she just — she didn’t really touch on the issues that matter, other than abortion and maybe immigration a little bit. But even there, she was just following Trump’s lead.
So it’s no surprise. Many people are shocked. The trouble with Trump is that he’s so unpredictable in many areas. But the difference between now and four years ago is that we’ve had four years of his presidency and we’ve had four years of his being outside the presidency talking about issues. So he’s not an unknown quantity like he was eight years ago. And many of the things that he is going to do, internally and internationally, are predictable, I think. So, I would just hold my horses and wait and see what happens.
The last point I’d make is that the role of the Gaza Israeli plausible genocide, as the International Court of Justice calls it, the role of that plausible genocide by Israel, which was heavily, heavily, enthusiastically, consistently and clearly supported by the United States clearly had an impact. American people have shown now, as they did when I was in college in the late '60s, that they don't want their country being involved in a great war overseas that kills thousands and thousands of people that doesn’t really relate to them. And this is a really powerful lesson. We can’t draw the conclusions yet of exactly what the Gaza war did, but it clearly has mobilized a constituency that goes way beyond Arab and Muslim Americans. And I was in Dearborn, Michigan, last weekend for three days at a convention of Arab Americans, and what I saw was really, really, very, very powerful.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Rami, how do you see the Trump administration changing policy in the Middle East versus what Biden has done, once he gets into office?
RAMI KHOURI: You know, one of the fascinating things about watching this stuff go on for half a century now, as I have, is there are little changes here and there. So, last time Trump was in, he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, the annexation of the Golan Heights. He closed the PLO offices. He stopped funding UNRWA. He did all kinds of things that Palestinians don’t like and justice supporters don’t like, and that Israelis like and the evangelical right-wing American Christian fanatic supporters of Israel like. He did a lot of these things, and then Biden kept most of them. He didn’t really change really any of them significantly. And then Biden got involved in this incredible plausible genocide, and Harris followed him completely. So, I don’t think there’s really much change. Looking back and empirically speaking, looking back over the last 40, 50 years, there are only minor cosmetic changes between Republican and Democratic administrations. The bottom line that all of them accept, with only the occasional minor adjustment, is that they will do almost anything that Israel wants, for many reasons, which we don’t have time to get into here. But the American political establishment is fully and enthusiastically supporting Israel, even in its plausible genocide.
The American public is not. So, there’s a moral issue that came out of the American people over the last year and a half. And it was not just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in Dearborn, Michigan. It was people all over the country, progressive Jews, labor unions, students, the student movement. So, this is a movement that is still young. This is like Vietnam antiwar protests in 1965. It took a long time, another seven, eight years, to get the Vietnam War ended. And this is a similar situation.
How it impacts Trump is not clear. And this is where we have to really wait, because it’s very hard to predict what Trump is going to do. He cares about two things. He cares about drama, entertainment, and he cares about making deals. And the deals may be political deals, and they’re also commercial deals, for him and his family and his cronies and his friends and his supporters. And that’s what politicians do all over the world. There’s nothing illegal about that. It’s just how politics works in superficially democratic societies. But they are democratic, and the vote counts, and new people come to power, and they make deals, and they do dramatic things. Trump outdramatized Harris, and that’s why he won. He appealed to people’s emotions, and that’s how people vote. They don’t vote on, you know, is our democracy threatened. That was a very important line from Harris and all her millions of supporters on the American mainstream television, who look like idiots now, because they were — not because the message is bad, because the message doesn’t resonate with ordinary people all over the country, which is what we saw. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
I think the greatest arena that we should look at is that combination, which Trump sort of looked at a little bit, you know, when he was president — Iran, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the United States — that ring of powers that have — or, they’re not all powers — that ring of actors who all have important interests at play. He pulled out of the Iran agreement, the nuclear and sanctions removal agreement with Iran. And this is one of the triggers that brought this situation of war in the region about. And he also did the Abrahamic Accords with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who knows about the Middle East as much as I know about underwater fishing in China, which is nothing. But the Abraham Accords are one of the things that set the stage for the continued conflict and the marginalization of Palestine, which set the stage for the October 7 attacks. So, if they don’t understand the connection among all of these issues and the growth of resistance movements in Yemen and Iraq and Lebanon and Palestine, if people don’t understand that, they’ll just come down to perpetual conflict.
I think if somebody can explain to Trump that he can be a great hero by making — a great hero to everybody by making a grand bargain that gives the Iranians, the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Saudis, everybody, what they really want, which is to live in peace and a normal life. And I think it’s attainable. I think it’s possible. But you’ve got to have the level of smart, sensitive and daring statesmanship, which we have not seen from Trump in a significant way. We’ve seen it very superficially, where it helps either his political constituents or helps Jared Kushner’s bank account in terms of deals, which he of course did with the Saudis. So, this is the position we’re in. We have to really wait and see. Is a second Trump presidency going to be more sophisticated and more meaningful than his first one? He is more experienced. And we’ll just have to wait and see.
AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, Rami Khouri, the Palestinian youth movement organized a No Votes for Genocide protest. This is Sophie, a student here in New York City.
SOPHIE: I’m not voting for the capitalist ruling class, so I’m not voting for either Kamala or Trump. I don’t think they do anything for my people. Half of — I’m half-Bengali. Half of my family are Muslim Bengali immigrants. And they actually experienced their own genocide that was funded by the U.S. And I’ve never seen any of U.S. presidents do anything for the Global South, including Bangladesh, Pakistan or any of the Middle East. The argument that a vote for Jill Stein or Claudia and Karina or third party is a vote for Trump is really frustrating. I think it’s also — it’s not a vote for Trump or Kamala. It’s a vote for neither of them. And if Kamala loses, it’s her own damn fault. You know, like, this is the one thing that’s important to me. If she were to do anything for Palestine, I would consider voting for her.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was a protest that happened just on Saturday. And I wanted to end, Rami Khouri, by asking you about what happened after President Trump won and he got his congratulations from Benjamin Netanyahu. Just before that, he fired the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and he installed Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who proposed creating an artificial island off Gaza’s coast where Palestinians could be forcibly relocated. Katz also called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, saying, “This is a war on all fronts, and we must win it.” Are you concerned, under Trump, that Netanyahu will follow through with annexing, for example, the West Bank?
RAMI KHOURI: Yes. I mean, we have to be concerned about Trump and Netanyahu and others doing really outrageous things. They’ve done them in the past, and they’ll do them again, unless somebody checks them. And this is the missing element in this situation in Palestine and in U.S.-Israel, U.S.-Middle East relations. The Israelis — Netanyahu is quite desperate right now, so he’s doing desperate things like this, only appealing to his right-wing fascist extremists in government and to their supporters overseas, who actually don’t know much about the details of the situation, but emotionally respond to this kind of process, where Israel is strong and protects itself and defends itself. So, yes, we have to be careful about what might happen. The response to the excesses of the Israeli—
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds.
RAMI KHOURI: Yeah, the response has to be continued mobilization, protest, solidarity and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians simultaneously. That’s the winning formula. And bring in Iran, and everybody will be on board happily, including the Saudis, too.
AMY GOODMAN: Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:18 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 7, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/7/headlines
Israeli Strikes Kill 27 Palestinians; Military Says It Won’t Let Northern Gaza Residents Return
Nov 07, 2024
The Israeli military says Palestinians from northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes, effectively admitting to ethnically cleansing the region. A military official said any future aid to Gaza would only be allowed to enter through the south, but not the north, where there are “no more civilians left.”
UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge posted a harrowing video from northern Gaza showing its utter decimation. Wateridge wrote, “No matter from what direction you enter, homes, hospitals, schools, health clinics, mosques, apartments, restaurants — all completely flattened. An entire society now a graveyard.”
This comes as the head of UNRWA warned once again the agency will collapse “without intervention by member states.” Reuters reports the U.N. suggested in a letter to Israel that replacing the aid provided by UNRWA would become Israel’s responsibility after it recently cut ties with the U.N. body.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization resumed large-scale medical evacuations Wednesday, moving over 100 critical patients out of Gaza. Fewer than 300 patients had been able to leave Gaza since Israel blocked the Rafah crossing in May. The WHO estimates up to 14,000 Palestinians are in need of urgent medical evacuation from Gaza.
Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 27 Palestinians since the day started, including at least three children in Rafah.
40 Killed as Israel Bombs Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley and City of Baalbek
Nov 07, 2024
In Lebanon, residents of Beirut woke up to smoke-filled skies this morning after a night of Israeli bombardment targeting the capital’s southern neighborhoods. This followed deadly Israeli strikes on the eastern Beqaa Valley and the city of Baalbek which killed at least 40 people and wounded 50 on Wednesday. Hezbollah said it launched a series of attack drones at the Bilu military base south of Tel Aviv in response to the latest attacks. Lebanese residents of Beirut continue to condemn Israel’s escalating assault on their country.
Ali Al-Ali: “This is a savage, predatory enemy that destroys homes, kills people and kills civilization. It cannot defeat the Hezbollah party. It cannot defeat them with destroying civilizations, with destroying homes, with anything. It cannot defeat them. And I say to Hezbollah: Do not stop. Do not stop resisting this enemy. I mean, what was taken away by force must return by force, too.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon has filed a complaint at the U.N.'s International Labour Organization over Israel's September terror attack, in which 4,000 people were killed or wounded when pagers suddenly exploded across Lebanon.
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Fatima Bhutto: Kamala Harris’s Support for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Is a Betrayal of True Feminism
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 7, 2024
With former U.S. President Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, we speak with Pakistani author and columnist Fatima Bhutto. Bhutto is an award-winning author and writes a monthly column for Zeteo on world affairs. She criticizes Kamala Harris’s campaign for relying heavily on celebrity endorsements and vague appeals to “joy” while silencing dissent on Gaza as the Biden administration continues backing Israel. “You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy,” says Bhutto.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Donald Trump’s return to the White House, we turn now to look at what it means for the world, from Israel’s war on Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During his victory speech, Trump vowed that he was going to, quote, “stop wars.” But will Trump’s foreign policy actually look like?
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Fatima Bhutto, award-winning author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways, New Kings of the World. She is co-editing a book along with Sonia Faleiro titled Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year. She writes a monthly column for Zeteo.
Start off by just responding to Trump’s runaway victory across the United States, Fatima.
FATIMA BHUTTO: Well, Amy, I don’t think it’s an aberration that he won. I think it’s an aberration that he lost in 2020. And I think anyone looking at the American elections for the last year, even longer, could see very clearly that the Democrats were speaking to — I’m not sure who, to a hall of mirrors. They ran an incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign, to see Kamala Harris describe her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza for 13 months straight. You know, it’s very curious to think that they thought a winning strategy was Beyoncé and that Taylor Swift was somehow a political winning strategy that was going to defeat — who? — Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fatima, you wrote a piece for Zeteo earlier this year titled “Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism.” So, you just mentioned the irony of Kamala Harris as, you know, the second presidential candidate who’s a woman, where so much of the campaign was about women, and the fact that — you know, of what’s been unfolding on women, against women and children in Gaza for the last year. If you could elaborate?
FATIMA BHUTTO: Yeah, we’ve seen, Nermeen, over the last year, you know, 70% of those slaughtered in Gaza by Israel and, let’s also be clear, by America, because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated — 70% of those victims are women and children. We have watched children with their heads blown off. We have watched children with no surviving family members find themselves in hospital with limbs missing. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And we have seen newborns left to die as Israel switches off electricity and fuel of hospitals.
So, for Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion, and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice, was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination. And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that. You know, we also saw Kamala Harris bring out celebrities. I mean, the utter vacuousness of bringing out Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers are being widowed, are being orphaned in Gaza, it was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.
I’d also like to add to Robin’s point about toxic masculinity. There was so much toxicity in Kamala Harris’s campaign. You know, I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them. You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Fatima Bhutto, if you look at what Trump represented, and certainly the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, Jewish progressives, young people, African Americans certainly understood what Trump’s policy was when he was president. And it’s rare, you know, a president comes back to serve again after a term away. It’s only happened once before in history. But you have, for example, Trump moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. You have an illegal settlement named after Trump in the West Bank. The whole question of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in Israel pushing for annexation of the West Bank, where Trump would stand on this. And, of course, you have the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians felt left them out completely. If you can talk about this? These were put forward by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, when the massive Gaza destruction was at its height, talked about Gaza as waterfront real estate.
FATIMA BHUTTO: Absolutely. There’s no question that Trump has been a malign force, not just when it concerns Palestinians, but, frankly, out in the world. But I would argue there’s not very much difference between what these two administrations or parties do. The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama or — I mean, I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss. Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.
We saw the Biden administration send over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights. We saw Bill Clinton trotted out in Michigan to tell Muslims that, actually, they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them. I mean, it was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference exactly?
We saw Bernie Sanders, who was mentioned earlier, write an op-ed in The Guardian in the days before the election, warning people that if they were not to vote for Kamala Harris, if Donald Trump was to get in, think about the climate crisis. Well, we have watched Israel’s emissions in the first five months of their deadly attack on Gaza release more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations release in a year.
So, I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t. In a sense, Trump is much clearer for the rest of the world, because he says what he’s going to do, and, you know, you take him at his word, whereas we have been gaslit and lied to by Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7th. Every time that AOC or Kamala Harris spoke about fighting desperately for a ceasefire, we saw more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity. You know, it wasn’t under Trump that Israel has killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more U.N. workers than have ever been killed in the U.N.'s history. So, I'm not sure there’s a difference.
And, you know, we’ll have to wait to see in the months ahead. But I don’t think anyone is bracing for an upturn. Certainly, people didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. I’m not sure they voted for Trump. We know that she lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020. And we know that those votes just didn’t come out for the Democrats. Some may have migrated to Trump. Some may have gone to third parties. But 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Fatima, if you could, you know, tell us what do you think the reasons are for that? I mean, the kind of — as you said, because it is really horrifying, what has unfolded in Gaza in the last 13 months. You’ve written about this. You now have an edited anthology that you’re editing, co-editing. You know, what do you think accounts for this, the sheer disregard for the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza?
FATIMA BHUTTO: It’s a total racism on the part not just of America, but I’m speaking of the West here. This has been betrayed over the last year, the fact that Ukraine is spoken about with an admiration, you know, Zelensky is spoken about with a sort of hero worship, Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorized. You know, Nancy Pelosi wore a bracelet of bullets used by the Ukrainian resistance against Trump [sic]. But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanized to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanization from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, “I am speaking.” What is more toxically masculine than that?
We’ve also seen a concerted crackdown in universities across the United States on college students. I’m speaking also here of my own alma mater of Columbia University, of Barnard College, that called the NYPD, who fired live ammunition at the students. You know, this didn’t happen — this extreme response didn’t happen in protests against apartheid. It didn’t happen in protests against Vietnam in quite the same way. And all I can think is, America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.
And, you know, to go back to what Robin mentioned earlier about the working class, that is absolutely ignored in America — and I would make the argument across the West, too — they have watched administration after, you know, president and congressmen give billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home. They have no relief from debt. They have no relief from student debt. They have no medical care, no coverage. They’re struggling to survive. And this is across the board. And after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Fatima Bhutto, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways and New Kings of the World, co-editing a book called Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year, writes a monthly column for Zeteo.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 7, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/7/headlines
Israeli Strikes Kill 27 Palestinians; Military Says It Won’t Let Northern Gaza Residents Return
Nov 07, 2024
The Israeli military says Palestinians from northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes, effectively admitting to ethnically cleansing the region. A military official said any future aid to Gaza would only be allowed to enter through the south, but not the north, where there are “no more civilians left.”
UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge posted a harrowing video from northern Gaza showing its utter decimation. Wateridge wrote, “No matter from what direction you enter, homes, hospitals, schools, health clinics, mosques, apartments, restaurants — all completely flattened. An entire society now a graveyard.”
This comes as the head of UNRWA warned once again the agency will collapse “without intervention by member states.” Reuters reports the U.N. suggested in a letter to Israel that replacing the aid provided by UNRWA would become Israel’s responsibility after it recently cut ties with the U.N. body.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization resumed large-scale medical evacuations Wednesday, moving over 100 critical patients out of Gaza. Fewer than 300 patients had been able to leave Gaza since Israel blocked the Rafah crossing in May. The WHO estimates up to 14,000 Palestinians are in need of urgent medical evacuation from Gaza.
Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 27 Palestinians since the day started, including at least three children in Rafah.
40 Killed as Israel Bombs Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley and City of Baalbek
Nov 07, 2024
In Lebanon, residents of Beirut woke up to smoke-filled skies this morning after a night of Israeli bombardment targeting the capital’s southern neighborhoods. This followed deadly Israeli strikes on the eastern Beqaa Valley and the city of Baalbek which killed at least 40 people and wounded 50 on Wednesday. Hezbollah said it launched a series of attack drones at the Bilu military base south of Tel Aviv in response to the latest attacks. Lebanese residents of Beirut continue to condemn Israel’s escalating assault on their country.
Ali Al-Ali: “This is a savage, predatory enemy that destroys homes, kills people and kills civilization. It cannot defeat the Hezbollah party. It cannot defeat them with destroying civilizations, with destroying homes, with anything. It cannot defeat them. And I say to Hezbollah: Do not stop. Do not stop resisting this enemy. I mean, what was taken away by force must return by force, too.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon has filed a complaint at the U.N.'s International Labour Organization over Israel's September terror attack, in which 4,000 people were killed or wounded when pagers suddenly exploded across Lebanon.
***
Fatima Bhutto: Kamala Harris’s Support for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Is a Betrayal of True Feminism
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 7, 2024
With former U.S. President Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, we speak with Pakistani author and columnist Fatima Bhutto. Bhutto is an award-winning author and writes a monthly column for Zeteo on world affairs. She criticizes Kamala Harris’s campaign for relying heavily on celebrity endorsements and vague appeals to “joy” while silencing dissent on Gaza as the Biden administration continues backing Israel. “You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy,” says Bhutto.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Donald Trump’s return to the White House, we turn now to look at what it means for the world, from Israel’s war on Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During his victory speech, Trump vowed that he was going to, quote, “stop wars.” But will Trump’s foreign policy actually look like?
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Fatima Bhutto, award-winning author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways, New Kings of the World. She is co-editing a book along with Sonia Faleiro titled Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year. She writes a monthly column for Zeteo.
Start off by just responding to Trump’s runaway victory across the United States, Fatima.
FATIMA BHUTTO: Well, Amy, I don’t think it’s an aberration that he won. I think it’s an aberration that he lost in 2020. And I think anyone looking at the American elections for the last year, even longer, could see very clearly that the Democrats were speaking to — I’m not sure who, to a hall of mirrors. They ran an incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign, to see Kamala Harris describe her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza for 13 months straight. You know, it’s very curious to think that they thought a winning strategy was Beyoncé and that Taylor Swift was somehow a political winning strategy that was going to defeat — who? — Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fatima, you wrote a piece for Zeteo earlier this year titled “Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism.” So, you just mentioned the irony of Kamala Harris as, you know, the second presidential candidate who’s a woman, where so much of the campaign was about women, and the fact that — you know, of what’s been unfolding on women, against women and children in Gaza for the last year. If you could elaborate?
FATIMA BHUTTO: Yeah, we’ve seen, Nermeen, over the last year, you know, 70% of those slaughtered in Gaza by Israel and, let’s also be clear, by America, because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated — 70% of those victims are women and children. We have watched children with their heads blown off. We have watched children with no surviving family members find themselves in hospital with limbs missing. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And we have seen newborns left to die as Israel switches off electricity and fuel of hospitals.
So, for Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion, and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice, was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination. And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that. You know, we also saw Kamala Harris bring out celebrities. I mean, the utter vacuousness of bringing out Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers are being widowed, are being orphaned in Gaza, it was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.
I’d also like to add to Robin’s point about toxic masculinity. There was so much toxicity in Kamala Harris’s campaign. You know, I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them. You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Fatima Bhutto, if you look at what Trump represented, and certainly the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, Jewish progressives, young people, African Americans certainly understood what Trump’s policy was when he was president. And it’s rare, you know, a president comes back to serve again after a term away. It’s only happened once before in history. But you have, for example, Trump moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. You have an illegal settlement named after Trump in the West Bank. The whole question of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in Israel pushing for annexation of the West Bank, where Trump would stand on this. And, of course, you have the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians felt left them out completely. If you can talk about this? These were put forward by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, when the massive Gaza destruction was at its height, talked about Gaza as waterfront real estate.
FATIMA BHUTTO: Absolutely. There’s no question that Trump has been a malign force, not just when it concerns Palestinians, but, frankly, out in the world. But I would argue there’s not very much difference between what these two administrations or parties do. The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama or — I mean, I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss. Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.
We saw the Biden administration send over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights. We saw Bill Clinton trotted out in Michigan to tell Muslims that, actually, they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them. I mean, it was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference exactly?
We saw Bernie Sanders, who was mentioned earlier, write an op-ed in The Guardian in the days before the election, warning people that if they were not to vote for Kamala Harris, if Donald Trump was to get in, think about the climate crisis. Well, we have watched Israel’s emissions in the first five months of their deadly attack on Gaza release more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations release in a year.
So, I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t. In a sense, Trump is much clearer for the rest of the world, because he says what he’s going to do, and, you know, you take him at his word, whereas we have been gaslit and lied to by Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7th. Every time that AOC or Kamala Harris spoke about fighting desperately for a ceasefire, we saw more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity. You know, it wasn’t under Trump that Israel has killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more U.N. workers than have ever been killed in the U.N.'s history. So, I'm not sure there’s a difference.
And, you know, we’ll have to wait to see in the months ahead. But I don’t think anyone is bracing for an upturn. Certainly, people didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. I’m not sure they voted for Trump. We know that she lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020. And we know that those votes just didn’t come out for the Democrats. Some may have migrated to Trump. Some may have gone to third parties. But 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Fatima, if you could, you know, tell us what do you think the reasons are for that? I mean, the kind of — as you said, because it is really horrifying, what has unfolded in Gaza in the last 13 months. You’ve written about this. You now have an edited anthology that you’re editing, co-editing. You know, what do you think accounts for this, the sheer disregard for the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza?
FATIMA BHUTTO: It’s a total racism on the part not just of America, but I’m speaking of the West here. This has been betrayed over the last year, the fact that Ukraine is spoken about with an admiration, you know, Zelensky is spoken about with a sort of hero worship, Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorized. You know, Nancy Pelosi wore a bracelet of bullets used by the Ukrainian resistance against Trump [sic]. But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanized to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanization from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, “I am speaking.” What is more toxically masculine than that?
We’ve also seen a concerted crackdown in universities across the United States on college students. I’m speaking also here of my own alma mater of Columbia University, of Barnard College, that called the NYPD, who fired live ammunition at the students. You know, this didn’t happen — this extreme response didn’t happen in protests against apartheid. It didn’t happen in protests against Vietnam in quite the same way. And all I can think is, America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.
And, you know, to go back to what Robin mentioned earlier about the working class, that is absolutely ignored in America — and I would make the argument across the West, too — they have watched administration after, you know, president and congressmen give billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home. They have no relief from debt. They have no relief from student debt. They have no medical care, no coverage. They’re struggling to survive. And this is across the board. And after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Fatima Bhutto, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways and New Kings of the World, co-editing a book called Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year, writes a monthly column for Zeteo.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:20 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 8, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/8/headlines
Israel Attacks Another School Shelter, Killing 12 Palestinians, as North Gaza Remains on Precipice
Nov 08, 2024
Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip, with reports of nearly two dozen Palestinians killed since dawn. This follows an Israeli attack Thursday on a school turned shelter in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp that killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded 30 others. Survivors said the bombing came without warning.
Umm Hani: “We were baking bread, and our children were sitting around us. And we were at the bottom, and we saw nobody, and the floor shook. The bomb hit, and all the tents were destroyed. People ran. Some people were martyred on the floor. Rubble fell on us, and people were torn to pieces. Where is the humanity? Where is the rest of the world? Where is the mercy? We have never seen any nation waging war on children. I am 65 years old, and I’ve never seen any nation waging war on children.”
For the last seven weeks, Israel has allowed almost no food or aid into northern Gaza as the U.N. has repeatedly warned the entire northern population is “at imminent risk of dying.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations Human Rights Office reports nearly 70% of the more than 43,000 Palestinians killed by Israel over the last 13 months are women and children.
Israel Acquires 25 Boeing Fighter Jets, Paid For by U.S. as Part of “Aid” Package
Nov 08, 2024
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it had secured 25 next-generation F-15 fighter jets from Boeing. The $5.2 billion deal is part of a larger U.S. funding package to Israel approved by Congress and provided by the Biden-Harris administration. Many Gaza residents fear Donald Trump’s election won’t bring an end to the flow of weapons that have laid waste to much of Gaza.
Walid Abdul Wahab: “Biden sent a lot of weapons, rockets, bombs, you know. Those weapons helped the Israeli occupation do their disgraceful acts to the Palestinian people, and the Gazans especially.”
Spain Rejects Arms Ships Headed for Israel; Canadian Palestinians Sue Trudeau Gov’t over Genocide
Nov 08, 2024
Spain has denied harbor to two ships operated by the Danish company Maersk, which were believed to be carrying weapons to Israel. El País reports the ships set sail from New York.
On Thursday, Turkey’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ahmet Yildiz renewed demands for a global arms embargo on Israel as he addressed U.N. reporters. Turkey and another 50 nations recently sent a joint letter to the U.N. pressing for an end to Israeli arms transfers.
Ahmet Yildiz: “We cannot stress enough that the staggering civilian toll, predominantly affecting women and children, resulting from ongoing breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law, is both unacceptable and intolerable.”
Two Canadian Palestinian citizens are suing the government of Canada for violating its duty to prevent genocide. This is attorney Shane Martínez.
Shane Martínez: “Our claim alleges that Canada, by failing to fulfill its legal duty to take all reasonable measures to prevent the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, did causally contribute to violations of our clients’ rights under the charter.”
The plaintiffs in the case have lost family members to Israel’s assault on Gaza, which they argue Canada has illegally abetted.
New York Activists to Launch Hunger Strike for Gaza Outside U.N., Joining Global Protest Movement
Nov 08, 2024
Activists in New York have joined a global hunger strike movement to end the war on Gaza. They’re holding vigils outside the U.N.'s headquarters today and over the weekend to call attention to Israel's catastrophic, 13-month-long assault. Dozens of activists in Amman, Jordan, launched their hunger strike one week ago. This is Mohammed Al-Tobasy.
Mohammed Al-Tobasy: “We had the idea in response to international calls to pressure through a global hunger strike in order to break the siege on northern Gaza. From there, no one has anything more precious than his health, so we decided to use our health as a form of pressure. Hunger strike, as we all know, is a form of pressure and peaceful resistance to achieve a certain demand.”
Israel Kills More Civilians in Attacks on Lebanon, Levels Historic Structures
Nov 08, 2024
Israel’s military is continuing deadly attacks on southern Lebanon, including an airstrike on Sidon that killed three civilians while wounding five United Nations peacekeepers. A separate strike Thursday in the eastern Beqaa Valley destroyed the historic Al-Manshiya building, an Ottoman-era structure just yards away from the Roman temples of Baalbek, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed over 3,100 people.
***
End the Arms: Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland Urges U.S. to Stop Arming Israel Before Trump Takes Office
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 8, 2024
Top U.N. officials are again warning that the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” At least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, many of them children, since October, when Israel imposed a draconian siege and began an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing on northern Gaza. Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council recently spent several days in Gaza. He describes what he saw as “devastation beyond belief,” as Palestinians face “the most intense and most indiscriminate bombardment anywhere in the world in recent memory,” coupled with the utter depletion of aid. Egeland pleads for the United States, the largest supplier of military funding and equipment to Israel, to condition its weapons to Israel, enforce the provision of aid and commit to ending Israel’s assault. “It’s not in Israel’s interest to destroy its neighborhood in Gaza and in Lebanon. It will create new generations of hatred,” Egeland says.
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 northern Gaza remains under a brutal Israeli siege for over a month, Al Jazeera reports at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the north since dawn. This follows Israeli attacks on at least two schools turned shelters for displaced people in Gaza City Thursday. Survivors said the bombing came without warning.
UMM HANI: [translated] We were baking bread, and our children were sitting around us. And we were at the bottom, and we saw nobody, and the floor shook. The bomb hit, and all the tents were destroyed. People ran. Some people were martyred on the floor. Rubble fell on us, and people were torn to pieces. Where is the humanity? Where is the rest of the world? Where is the mercy? We have never seen any nation waging war on children. I am 65 years old, and I’ve never seen any nation waging war on children.
AMY GOODMAN: Over 1,800 Palestinians have have been killed since Israel launched its deadly onslaught on the northern Gaza in October, many of them children, though that figure is likely a vast undercount, saying something like 70% of the population that has died are women and children.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks have also continued near central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp and in Gaza City, where Israel has issued a new forced displacement order for Palestinians who have nowhere safe left to go.
Top U.N. officials have again warned the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza, quote, “is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence,” unquote, while UNICEF and other groups describe the conditions in northern Gaza as “apocalyptic.” For at least the past seven weeks, Israel has persistently blocked lifesaving humanitarian aid and food convoys from entering north Gaza, leaving families and children to starve. The last few operational hospitals in northern Gaza are on the brink of collapse, lacking critical supplies, while also coming under repeated Israeli attacks and raids, with many doctors and medical workers killed or detained.
We go now to Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. He’s joining us from Amman, Jordan. He just left Gaza.
Can you tell us what you saw with your own eyes, Jan?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, I spent three days in Gaza, and I’m shattered, really, as a human being, by seeing so much suffering. From Rafah in the south to Gaza City in the north, it’s devastation beyond belief. This is a small territory where there are 2.2 million people crammed together with no escape and under the most intense and most indiscriminate bombardment anywhere in the world in recent memory, and while they’re also starved because very little aid is coming in, and the little aid which is coming in has enormous problems in being distributed. And in northern Gaza, just next door to Gaza City, where I was, there is the besiegemeant, which is a deliberate starvation of the population there, while they’re being bombarded, to depopulate the area. This is unlawful also beyond belief. Every rule in the Geneva Conventions are being trampled on in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you comment on what’s called the General’s Plan, drafted by Israeli military officers calling for the systematic denial of humanitarian aid in the north, which has basically been labeled as ethnic cleansing?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, I mean, this — a lot of people fear this plan, have heard about this plan. And I don’t know whether it is official Israeli policy. But what I know is that the effect of the Israeli military campaign is that people are driven out of northern Gaza systematically. And the settlers — these are the criminal gangs in the West Bank that are colonizing the land of the Palestinians — they are celebrating the Trump victory, because they want to go back also and colonize Gaza, especially the north, where people are driven out. The Israeli Defense Forces have said that it is a deliberate campaign to drive people out with no return. And that is called, under the Geneva Convention forcible transfer of people, and it’s an atrocity crime. And there will be justice for this.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the significance of Israel formally notifying the United Nations it’s canceling the agreement with UNRWA? What does that mean for aid organizations like your own, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, what’s important to convey here is that when Israel, which itself is a product of a General Assembly resolution in 1948 — Israel was created by the United Nations in the General Assembly resolution. Many Palestinians were driven out then of their ancestral land. The U.N. saw that, and therefore, a second resolution came for the Palestinians, and that was UNRWA, 1950. It was created to provide relief and work and opportunities for the Palestinian refugees. So now the product of the first resolution is killing the product of the second resolution, and it would lead to even more suffering for the Palestinian population, both in the West Bank and in Gaza in particular.
And my organization, which has courageous humanitarian work on the ground, we provide water, shelter, education, relief, food for as many as we can. We’re not able to take over what UNRWA is doing. They are the backbone of the relief to the Palestinian people. On the contrary, we would also be set back, because they provide many of the logistic services. It’s their schools, it’s their fuel services, etc., that we, the nongovernmental organizations, rely on.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Jan Egeland, let me ask you. Haaretz recently reported a senior Air Force official told Haaretz that without the American supply of weapons to the Israel Defense forces, especially the Air Force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months. Now a leaked letter to Israel from Blinken, the secretary of State, and Defense Secretary Austin demanding Israel immediately allow U.S. humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza or face an interruption of arms shipments, they gave Israel until November 13th, unclear why they have that grace period, but that’s coming up. What would it mean if the U.S. stopped arming Israel?
JAN EGELAND: I think it would be real leverage on this extreme policy, which is not self-defense. I mean, of course Israel has a right of self-defense. All nations have that. And what they suffered on the 7th of October were terror and massacres beyond belief, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the others that were behind that has to be brought to justice.
But what America has given indiscriminate arms to — and 2,000-pound bombs is no precision arm to go after terrorists. It is to level entire civilian neighborhoods. What the U.S. has fueled is an indiscriminate military campaign that is destroying Gaza, which is filled to the brim with women and children that have no escape. So, that the U.S. has not even been able to get Israel to provide the relief that we need to get in is beyond belief. It’s been a diplomatic impotence that is astounding.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have President Biden, that has given billions of dollars in aid — military weapons to Israel. Then you have incoming President Trump, whose son-in-law Jared Kushner talked about Gaza as valuable waterfront real estate. You are not only the head of a large refugee agency, but you are a seasoned diplomat. You were involved with, one of the initiators of the peace talks that led to Oslo ’93. What needs to happen now? Biden is still in office until January 20th, and then Trump takes over, expected to be even fierce as an even closer ally to Netanyahu.
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, but he also wants to be close to the Gulf countries. And his son-in-law tried to negotiate this Abraham Accord, which was won between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries. So —
AMY GOODMAN: Which left out the Palestinians.
JAN EGELAND: Which left out the Palestinians, but now the Gulf countries cannot accept any deal with Israel without some justice for the Palestinians. At that time, they could neglect the Palestinians. Not anymore. The public opinion in the Arab world would not accept it.
So, Trump says “America first.” The present policy is Israel first, America second and humanity third. Perhaps there could be some leverage now on Israel as the strongest party here: a ceasefire, end to this slaughter of civilians, a release for the hostages in exchange for the release of the arbitrarily detained Palestinians, and that that could be the beginning of some peace process that could give justice and security to both sides. We cannot have wars every second year. It’s not in Israel’s interest to destroy its neighborhood in Gaza and in Lebanon. It will create new generations of hatred, and that is bad also for Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: Jan Egeland, your final comment right now, just after the U.S. election has taken place? The role that the U.S. plays when it comes to what Israel is doing? And what at this point, as endless U.N. and humanitarian organizations saying all of northern Gaza is on the verge of death — what Israel is trying to accomplish here?
JAN EGELAND: Well, Israel has a cruel military logic, which is similar to that of President Assad of Syria when he starved out besieged areas that were filled with civilians, but also with extremist militants inside. It’s the same logic now for northern Gaza, where there’s total besiegements of 100,000 people. I met some women who had come out with children, and they said, “We were starving. We were being bombed. We left. And when we left, we were chased by Israeli tanks.” I mean, this is the reality of this area. And the U.S., that has helped us in so many countries, from Sudan to the Sahel to Colombia to Myanmar, has —
AMY GOODMAN: Jan, we have three seconds.
JAN EGELAND: — not been able to help us in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, just out of Gaza.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 8, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/8/headlines
Israel Attacks Another School Shelter, Killing 12 Palestinians, as North Gaza Remains on Precipice
Nov 08, 2024
Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip, with reports of nearly two dozen Palestinians killed since dawn. This follows an Israeli attack Thursday on a school turned shelter in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp that killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded 30 others. Survivors said the bombing came without warning.
Umm Hani: “We were baking bread, and our children were sitting around us. And we were at the bottom, and we saw nobody, and the floor shook. The bomb hit, and all the tents were destroyed. People ran. Some people were martyred on the floor. Rubble fell on us, and people were torn to pieces. Where is the humanity? Where is the rest of the world? Where is the mercy? We have never seen any nation waging war on children. I am 65 years old, and I’ve never seen any nation waging war on children.”
For the last seven weeks, Israel has allowed almost no food or aid into northern Gaza as the U.N. has repeatedly warned the entire northern population is “at imminent risk of dying.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations Human Rights Office reports nearly 70% of the more than 43,000 Palestinians killed by Israel over the last 13 months are women and children.
Israel Acquires 25 Boeing Fighter Jets, Paid For by U.S. as Part of “Aid” Package
Nov 08, 2024
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it had secured 25 next-generation F-15 fighter jets from Boeing. The $5.2 billion deal is part of a larger U.S. funding package to Israel approved by Congress and provided by the Biden-Harris administration. Many Gaza residents fear Donald Trump’s election won’t bring an end to the flow of weapons that have laid waste to much of Gaza.
Walid Abdul Wahab: “Biden sent a lot of weapons, rockets, bombs, you know. Those weapons helped the Israeli occupation do their disgraceful acts to the Palestinian people, and the Gazans especially.”
Spain Rejects Arms Ships Headed for Israel; Canadian Palestinians Sue Trudeau Gov’t over Genocide
Nov 08, 2024
Spain has denied harbor to two ships operated by the Danish company Maersk, which were believed to be carrying weapons to Israel. El País reports the ships set sail from New York.
On Thursday, Turkey’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ahmet Yildiz renewed demands for a global arms embargo on Israel as he addressed U.N. reporters. Turkey and another 50 nations recently sent a joint letter to the U.N. pressing for an end to Israeli arms transfers.
Ahmet Yildiz: “We cannot stress enough that the staggering civilian toll, predominantly affecting women and children, resulting from ongoing breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law, is both unacceptable and intolerable.”
Two Canadian Palestinian citizens are suing the government of Canada for violating its duty to prevent genocide. This is attorney Shane Martínez.
Shane Martínez: “Our claim alleges that Canada, by failing to fulfill its legal duty to take all reasonable measures to prevent the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, did causally contribute to violations of our clients’ rights under the charter.”
The plaintiffs in the case have lost family members to Israel’s assault on Gaza, which they argue Canada has illegally abetted.
New York Activists to Launch Hunger Strike for Gaza Outside U.N., Joining Global Protest Movement
Nov 08, 2024
Activists in New York have joined a global hunger strike movement to end the war on Gaza. They’re holding vigils outside the U.N.'s headquarters today and over the weekend to call attention to Israel's catastrophic, 13-month-long assault. Dozens of activists in Amman, Jordan, launched their hunger strike one week ago. This is Mohammed Al-Tobasy.
Mohammed Al-Tobasy: “We had the idea in response to international calls to pressure through a global hunger strike in order to break the siege on northern Gaza. From there, no one has anything more precious than his health, so we decided to use our health as a form of pressure. Hunger strike, as we all know, is a form of pressure and peaceful resistance to achieve a certain demand.”
Israel Kills More Civilians in Attacks on Lebanon, Levels Historic Structures
Nov 08, 2024
Israel’s military is continuing deadly attacks on southern Lebanon, including an airstrike on Sidon that killed three civilians while wounding five United Nations peacekeepers. A separate strike Thursday in the eastern Beqaa Valley destroyed the historic Al-Manshiya building, an Ottoman-era structure just yards away from the Roman temples of Baalbek, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed over 3,100 people.
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End the Arms: Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland Urges U.S. to Stop Arming Israel Before Trump Takes Office
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 8, 2024
Top U.N. officials are again warning that the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” At least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, many of them children, since October, when Israel imposed a draconian siege and began an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing on northern Gaza. Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council recently spent several days in Gaza. He describes what he saw as “devastation beyond belief,” as Palestinians face “the most intense and most indiscriminate bombardment anywhere in the world in recent memory,” coupled with the utter depletion of aid. Egeland pleads for the United States, the largest supplier of military funding and equipment to Israel, to condition its weapons to Israel, enforce the provision of aid and commit to ending Israel’s assault. “It’s not in Israel’s interest to destroy its neighborhood in Gaza and in Lebanon. It will create new generations of hatred,” Egeland says.
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 northern Gaza remains under a brutal Israeli siege for over a month, Al Jazeera reports at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the north since dawn. This follows Israeli attacks on at least two schools turned shelters for displaced people in Gaza City Thursday. Survivors said the bombing came without warning.
UMM HANI: [translated] We were baking bread, and our children were sitting around us. And we were at the bottom, and we saw nobody, and the floor shook. The bomb hit, and all the tents were destroyed. People ran. Some people were martyred on the floor. Rubble fell on us, and people were torn to pieces. Where is the humanity? Where is the rest of the world? Where is the mercy? We have never seen any nation waging war on children. I am 65 years old, and I’ve never seen any nation waging war on children.
AMY GOODMAN: Over 1,800 Palestinians have have been killed since Israel launched its deadly onslaught on the northern Gaza in October, many of them children, though that figure is likely a vast undercount, saying something like 70% of the population that has died are women and children.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks have also continued near central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp and in Gaza City, where Israel has issued a new forced displacement order for Palestinians who have nowhere safe left to go.
Top U.N. officials have again warned the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza, quote, “is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence,” unquote, while UNICEF and other groups describe the conditions in northern Gaza as “apocalyptic.” For at least the past seven weeks, Israel has persistently blocked lifesaving humanitarian aid and food convoys from entering north Gaza, leaving families and children to starve. The last few operational hospitals in northern Gaza are on the brink of collapse, lacking critical supplies, while also coming under repeated Israeli attacks and raids, with many doctors and medical workers killed or detained.
We go now to Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. He’s joining us from Amman, Jordan. He just left Gaza.
Can you tell us what you saw with your own eyes, Jan?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, I spent three days in Gaza, and I’m shattered, really, as a human being, by seeing so much suffering. From Rafah in the south to Gaza City in the north, it’s devastation beyond belief. This is a small territory where there are 2.2 million people crammed together with no escape and under the most intense and most indiscriminate bombardment anywhere in the world in recent memory, and while they’re also starved because very little aid is coming in, and the little aid which is coming in has enormous problems in being distributed. And in northern Gaza, just next door to Gaza City, where I was, there is the besiegemeant, which is a deliberate starvation of the population there, while they’re being bombarded, to depopulate the area. This is unlawful also beyond belief. Every rule in the Geneva Conventions are being trampled on in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you comment on what’s called the General’s Plan, drafted by Israeli military officers calling for the systematic denial of humanitarian aid in the north, which has basically been labeled as ethnic cleansing?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, I mean, this — a lot of people fear this plan, have heard about this plan. And I don’t know whether it is official Israeli policy. But what I know is that the effect of the Israeli military campaign is that people are driven out of northern Gaza systematically. And the settlers — these are the criminal gangs in the West Bank that are colonizing the land of the Palestinians — they are celebrating the Trump victory, because they want to go back also and colonize Gaza, especially the north, where people are driven out. The Israeli Defense Forces have said that it is a deliberate campaign to drive people out with no return. And that is called, under the Geneva Convention forcible transfer of people, and it’s an atrocity crime. And there will be justice for this.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the significance of Israel formally notifying the United Nations it’s canceling the agreement with UNRWA? What does that mean for aid organizations like your own, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, what’s important to convey here is that when Israel, which itself is a product of a General Assembly resolution in 1948 — Israel was created by the United Nations in the General Assembly resolution. Many Palestinians were driven out then of their ancestral land. The U.N. saw that, and therefore, a second resolution came for the Palestinians, and that was UNRWA, 1950. It was created to provide relief and work and opportunities for the Palestinian refugees. So now the product of the first resolution is killing the product of the second resolution, and it would lead to even more suffering for the Palestinian population, both in the West Bank and in Gaza in particular.
And my organization, which has courageous humanitarian work on the ground, we provide water, shelter, education, relief, food for as many as we can. We’re not able to take over what UNRWA is doing. They are the backbone of the relief to the Palestinian people. On the contrary, we would also be set back, because they provide many of the logistic services. It’s their schools, it’s their fuel services, etc., that we, the nongovernmental organizations, rely on.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Jan Egeland, let me ask you. Haaretz recently reported a senior Air Force official told Haaretz that without the American supply of weapons to the Israel Defense forces, especially the Air Force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months. Now a leaked letter to Israel from Blinken, the secretary of State, and Defense Secretary Austin demanding Israel immediately allow U.S. humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza or face an interruption of arms shipments, they gave Israel until November 13th, unclear why they have that grace period, but that’s coming up. What would it mean if the U.S. stopped arming Israel?
JAN EGELAND: I think it would be real leverage on this extreme policy, which is not self-defense. I mean, of course Israel has a right of self-defense. All nations have that. And what they suffered on the 7th of October were terror and massacres beyond belief, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the others that were behind that has to be brought to justice.
But what America has given indiscriminate arms to — and 2,000-pound bombs is no precision arm to go after terrorists. It is to level entire civilian neighborhoods. What the U.S. has fueled is an indiscriminate military campaign that is destroying Gaza, which is filled to the brim with women and children that have no escape. So, that the U.S. has not even been able to get Israel to provide the relief that we need to get in is beyond belief. It’s been a diplomatic impotence that is astounding.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have President Biden, that has given billions of dollars in aid — military weapons to Israel. Then you have incoming President Trump, whose son-in-law Jared Kushner talked about Gaza as valuable waterfront real estate. You are not only the head of a large refugee agency, but you are a seasoned diplomat. You were involved with, one of the initiators of the peace talks that led to Oslo ’93. What needs to happen now? Biden is still in office until January 20th, and then Trump takes over, expected to be even fierce as an even closer ally to Netanyahu.
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, but he also wants to be close to the Gulf countries. And his son-in-law tried to negotiate this Abraham Accord, which was won between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries. So —
AMY GOODMAN: Which left out the Palestinians.
JAN EGELAND: Which left out the Palestinians, but now the Gulf countries cannot accept any deal with Israel without some justice for the Palestinians. At that time, they could neglect the Palestinians. Not anymore. The public opinion in the Arab world would not accept it.
So, Trump says “America first.” The present policy is Israel first, America second and humanity third. Perhaps there could be some leverage now on Israel as the strongest party here: a ceasefire, end to this slaughter of civilians, a release for the hostages in exchange for the release of the arbitrarily detained Palestinians, and that that could be the beginning of some peace process that could give justice and security to both sides. We cannot have wars every second year. It’s not in Israel’s interest to destroy its neighborhood in Gaza and in Lebanon. It will create new generations of hatred, and that is bad also for Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: Jan Egeland, your final comment right now, just after the U.S. election has taken place? The role that the U.S. plays when it comes to what Israel is doing? And what at this point, as endless U.N. and humanitarian organizations saying all of northern Gaza is on the verge of death — what Israel is trying to accomplish here?
JAN EGELAND: Well, Israel has a cruel military logic, which is similar to that of President Assad of Syria when he starved out besieged areas that were filled with civilians, but also with extremist militants inside. It’s the same logic now for northern Gaza, where there’s total besiegements of 100,000 people. I met some women who had come out with children, and they said, “We were starving. We were being bombed. We left. And when we left, we were chased by Israeli tanks.” I mean, this is the reality of this area. And the U.S., that has helped us in so many countries, from Sudan to the Sahel to Colombia to Myanmar, has —
AMY GOODMAN: Jan, we have three seconds.
JAN EGELAND: — not been able to help us in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, just out of Gaza.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:25 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/11/headlines
Israel Kills Dozens of Members of the Same Family in Jabaliya as Genocidal Attacks Continue
Nov 11, 2024
Israel carried out deadly strikes on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria over the weekend, while the United States bombed Yemen over the past two nights. This comes as Saudi Arabia is hosting dozens of world leaders for an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh to discuss Israeli aggression in the region.
In Gaza, Israel struck a family home in the Jabaliya refugee camp early Sunday, killing 36 Palestinians, including at least 13 children and nine women. Relatives of the family decried the attack.
Ahmed Al-Alooshe: “The home of Abu Sobeh Al-Alooshe was crowded with residents and not affiliated with any organization. They are simply people trying to make a living, minding their own business, and have no involvement with anyone. This strike targeted civilians who have no ties to any groups or organizations. … More than 50 people were there, as their grandchildren, children and daughters — all displaced — had taken refuge with them, seeking safety. The house was struck while they were all inside.”
Israel Kills at Least 4 More Palestinian Journalists in Gaza
Nov 11, 2024
Israel has killed at least four more Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Mohammed Khreis and his wife died in an airstrike on their tent near the Nuseirat refugee camp. Ahmad and Zahra Abu Sakheil were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school in al-Tuffah. The radio broadcaster Khaled Abu Zir was killed on Friday.
This comes as the U.N.-backed Famine Review Committee has issued a dire warning saying there is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza.
In other news, Qatar has withdrawn from its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Lebanon, Including 10 Paramedics
Nov 11, 2024
Israel is also continuing its assault on Lebanon despite Israeli claims that ceasefire talks are progressing. On Saturday, Israeli strikes killed 20 people in and around the ancient city of Baalbek. On Sunday, an Israeli strike on the village of Almat, north of Beirut, killed 23, including at least three children. Israel also targeted numerous villages in the West Beqaa region.
Ahmad Ali Hajj: “This is my house. I worked so hard my whole life to build it. No one helped me. I did it all by myself through hard work, to raise my family composed of seven to eight souls, and I’m still working actively. I found it all destroyed. I don’t have in it any missiles to attack the Israelis. The enemy is a butcher with no pity nor mercy at all, even for children. We’ve been resisting since our childhood until the end of our lives.”
Lebanese state media reports at least 10 paramedics were also killed over the weekend as Israel continues to target Lebanon’s health workers.
Amsterdam Police Crack Down on Pro-Palestinian Protesters After Israeli Hooligans Wreak Havoc in City
Nov 11, 2024
In Amsterdam, police beat and arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations following street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans and Dutch youth. Unrest in the city began on Wednesday when fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team were seen chanting pro-genocide, anti-Arab slogans and tearing down Palestinian flags. Street clashes broke out as tensions escalated before and after the soccer match. Amsterdam’s mayor blamed “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” but observers in Amsterdam said Israeli hooligans instigated the violence. The violence grew into an international story as Israel sent planes to evacuate the Israeli fans.
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“A Campaign of Genocide”: Noura Erakat Speaks to Ta-Nehisi Coates About Israel’s War on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
Thousands attended a Palestine Festival of Literature event about “America and the War on Palestine” at the historic Riverside Church in New York Sunday, featuring conversations about U.S. complicity in Israeli human rights abuses. The literary festival, known as PalFest, aims to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle through arts and letters. The acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates moderated the conversations, including one featuring the Palestinian human rights attorney and scholar Noura Erakat. “This is about all of us,” says Erakat. “The fact that Palestinian children have been evaporated, beheaded, killed in NICU, their NICU system, rotted in NICU beds, right? And their parents have had to collect their flesh to weigh it in rice bags in order to bury them, right? At this point, there should have been mercy.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.
On Sunday here in New York City, more than 2,000 people packed the historic Riverside Church for a discussion about America and the war on Palestine. It was hosted by the Palestine Festival of Literature, or PalFest. The church, Riverside, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated.
The event yesterday featured several speakers, including Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat, a professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Another of the panelists was Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, professor of African American studies at Princeton University and contributing writer at The New Yorker magazine. You can see our interview with professor Yamahtta Taylor last week at democracynow.org.
In a minute, we’ll hear from human rights attorney Noura Erakat. She was introduced by the moderator and author Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message, in part about a visit he took to the occupied West Bank and Israel that was organized by members of PalFest, the sponsors of yesterday’s event. This is what he had to say.
TA-NEHISI COATES: When I think about being here, I think about ancestors. And I think it would be wrong if I didn’t, if we didn’t proceed without acknowledging that. First of all, I was informed when I came here that this is where Edward Said’s funeral was. And so it’s incredibly appropriate to be here in this moment.
The second thing is something that Yasmin and I talked about and have been talking about for a year, even when we did the other event before, was the fact that this was also the place where Martin Luther King stood up against the Vietnam War and was so courageous. And I want to acknowledge that in his time, when he did that, a lot of people did not applaud. I want to acknowledge that there were many people who he thought of as his allies who left him.
NOURA ERAKAT: Sounds familiar.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes, yes, yes, yes. That’s why I think it’s very appropriate, right?
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: Absolutely.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Who urged him to be silent as bombs were being dropped on helpless people. And he did not do that. And so, I think, in that spirit, that’s the spirit in which we proceed in our conversation.
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: Yes.
TA-NEHISI COATES: We’re going to talk a lot about theory today, not that theory is irrelevant, but I do think it is important for us to ground ourselves in the reality of what is going on right now.
And, Noura, if you would just take a moment for us and speak to the ongoing genocide, the pain, the life lost, frankly, the role that we as Americans play in that? If you would just take a moment for us just to ground us so that we are not forgetting, so that we are not, you know, all the way up here?
NOURA ERAKAT: Thank you. Thank you, Ta-Nehisi. Thank you, Keeanga and to this audience again. Thank you for coming to find sanctuary collectively.
I think that this was a concern that after more than a year of watching slaughter of babies — this is essentially and continues to be a war on children in a besieged territory where 50% of the population is children, so even before a bomb is dropped, it is a war on children — that it’s really easy to then pivot to the theoretical piece to make sense of it. We want to make sense of it at this stage. And what gets lost is what’s happening.
And so, I appreciated — full transparency: Ta-Nehisi asked me to do this just, you know, right before this event. So I thought that the proper way to do it was actually to read testimony from the ground from a colleague, from a colleague who — who in Gaza, who is recounting, as of 6 a.m. this morning. One of his colleagues woke up to 32 members of his family who were killed in Jabaliya. And Jabaliya is in the north, which is now under now an even tighter siege and a campaign of extermination and ethnic cleansing. What he writes upon waking up at 6 a.m. and finding his family slaughtered is that, quote, “I live meters away from them. It is a matter of luck. I wish I died with them. Neither my heart or mind can tolerate this, my uncle, his wife and three sons and grandsons and daughters all deleted.” He also lost his brother earlier in the year.
And as we’ve been paying attention in this moment, which is important to ground, we’re on day 400 of genocide, but we’re on day 36 of the siege of the north. And the siege of the north is a tightening of the siege that already existed, right? And it’s a siege that even predates the beginning of this campaign, this genocidal campaign. It’s a siege that’s been in place since 2006 at the earliest, thinking about a land siege and a naval blockade. But 1993, if you go back to when Gaza is first circumscribed by barbed wire as a way to prepare for peace, the irony is that the preparation for peace was a program to isolate and separate the Gaza Strip from the rest of the question of Palestine and to call it the Palestinian statelet and never to leave the West Bank to negotiation, but it was done in the language of peace, that this doublespeak continues.
But now here we are, of this — and 36 days of this particular campaign. And we got the earliest indication of it on day six of this genocide, when there was an order to evacuate the north to below the Wadi Gaza line, right? The line which was the order, if you remember, when 1.1 million Palestinians — that’s more than half the population besieged — was ordered to leave the north to below the Wadi Gaza line. But note that that removal was a death sentence, as the World Health Organization called it a death sentence. How do you remove the immobile? How do you force the sick to travel? And those that did take the risk and travel were targeted on the humanitarian lines that they were given, indicating to us on day six that there would be no safe quarter, that this was a campaign of genocide. And it’s why Holocaust studies scholar Raz Segal, the very next day, published in Jewish Currents, “This is a textbook case of genocide,” right?
And it’s why 800 TWAIL scholars, Third World approaches to international law scholars — when people call me international law, you know, the constant question that I get is: How do you still believe in the law? And I’m like, I’m a TWAIL scholar. We never believed in it. We’ve been telling you it is a source and a site of oppression and colonial domination. My book tries to say that and tries to demonstrate how, despite this colonial structure, we can use it for emancipatory purposes, under which circumstances, right? Use it when it suits us. Abandon it when it doesn’t. Create new law when we can. It is a tool. It is not the word of God. It is not holy. It is subject to change and to change by us. So, those 800 TWAIL scholars who know that said, raising the alarm, this is genocide. This was all within the first week, all within the first week.
And now we’re hearing something known as the General’s Plan. The General’s Plan, which is the formula for exterminating the north, the 400,000 people total Palestinians left in the north, 100,000 particularly in the area now marked for ethnic cleansing. The General’s Plan is the brainchild of General Giora. What is his first name? Giora Eiland. Giora Eiland, who proposes this plan. Giora Eiland was also the architect of the Eiland Plan in the early 2000s, which competed with Ariel Sharon’s plan for unilateral withdrawal and disengagement, which was the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and the withdrawal of military installations, but the maintenance of occupation of Gaza. That Eiland Plan in the early 2000s was to ethnically cleanse all of Gaza into the Sinai, right? So, the idea that he’s now — and by the way, Mada Masr — so, thanks to, you know, our partners at Mada Masr — have written, wrote beautifully and thoroughly about the Eiland Plan.
But you have the 1993 circumscription of Gaza in preparation for peace. You have the Eiland Plan in the year 2000. You have the evacuation order on October 12th, which was called a death sentence. You have the calls that this is genocide since day seven. You have now the General’s Plan.
We have a year, over a year of bearing witness to what — you know, my job and other people’s job has been to illuminate what can’t be seen, what’s been obfuscated. They have illuminated it for us. At this point, it is not about us telling you what you have to read between the lines. It’s literally about what they don’t want to hear, not what is not being revealed, because they are telling us, they have shown us, it is evident, they are defending it. They call it self-defense, and they call the completion of the Nakba as the right to complete. So, it’s less obfuscation, right? And now it becomes more about it’s a battle of narrative: Who do you want to listen to?
AMY GOODMAN: Noura Erakat, professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, speaking Sunday here in New York at the historic Riverside Church at an event moderated by author Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message. The event was hosted by the Palestine Festival of Literature. Also in that discussion, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Princeton University professor. To see our interview with her, go to democracynow.org. The next PalFest event, Palestine Festival of Literature, will be in held London November 20th to mark the republication of Edward Said’s book The Question of Palestine, followed by events in Detroit, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
***
“Complete Charade”: Qatar Withdraws from Ceasefire Talks, Middle East Prepares for Trump Presidency
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
We speak with Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani about the latest developments in the Middle East as Israel continues its deadly assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. Qatar recently announced it will no longer act as mediator for ceasefire talks, saying the two sides were not serious about reaching a deal to stop the fighting. “This entire process from the outset has been a complete charade,” Rabbani says of the U.S.-backed ceasefire negotiations, urging Egypt to follow suit and also stop acting as a mediator. Rabbani also discusses how a second Trump administration could deal with the region, saying Trump’s “erratic” behavior makes predictions difficult, but that signs point to a more aggressive posture toward Iran.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.
We continue to look at Gaza, where Israeli forces launched a deadly attack early Sunday morning on a residential area in Jabaliya where displaced Palestinians were attempting to shelter, killing at least 36 people, including over a dozen children. Dozens of the victims were reportedly members of the same family, asleep when Israeli forces attacked their home. An eyewitness who lost several relatives described the horrific scene.
HAMZA ALLOUSH: [translated] We were just sitting peacefully. These are innocent citizens who don’t belong to any military organization or faction. The eldest man is 70 years old. The house of Abu Sobeh Al-Alooshe was bombed over the residents’ head without warning, which led to the martyrdom of everyone inside, more than 30 martyrs. Those who were lucky enough to survive were thrown onto the trees, onto the neighbors, and the remains are still scattered under the rubble.
AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian journalist Mohammed Khreis was killed along with his wife after an Israeli airstrike on their tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp. At least three more Gazan journalists were also killed in the Israeli strikes over the weekend.
The attacks happened as the people of Gaza marked over 400 days since Israel launched its latest war and as northern Gaza remains under a brutal siege, with hospitals surrounded by Israeli forces who have issued forced evacuation orders, but doctors and medical staff have refused to leave their patients behind. Amidst Israel’s relentless attacks, the Palestine Red Crescent Society helped evacuate some 20 patients from Al-Awda Hospital in Jabaliya and transferred them to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. PRCS reported at least one of the patients died as the ambulances were held up for hours at an Israeli checkpoint.
Meanwhile, the U.N.-backed Famine Review Committee has joined other humanitarian groups in issuing a dire warning that there is a, quote, “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza.
This all comes as Qatar has suspended its efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until, they say, Israel and Hamas show, quote, “willingness and seriousness” to resume negotiations.
Israel also carried out deadly strikes on Lebanon and Syria over the weekend, while the United States bombed Yemen over the past two nights.
For more, we go to The Hague, where we’re joined by Mouin Rabbani, Dutch Palestinian Middle East analyst, host of the Connections podcast. He’s former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group and a contributor to the book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm.
Mouin, welcome back to Democracy Now! In a minute we’re going to ask you about the latest in Amsterdam, where police beat and arrested more than a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations following street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans and Dutch youth. But first, can you talk about the significance of Qatar temporarily withdrawing as a mediator between Israel and Hamas for the Gaza ceasefire talks and about what’s happening currently in Riyadh?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, turning to Qatar first, several days ago, there were press reports that Qatar was going to, as you mentioned, suspend its mediation and also show the Hamas exile leadership, that has been based in Qatar, the door and ask them to leave the country in response to U.S. pressure. The expulsion of the Hamas leaders has been denied by Qatar, but it has indeed, as you mentioned, confirmed that it is suspending its — that it is suspending its mediation, saying basically that the parties aren’t serious.
And I think my own view is that this is something that Qatar and the other mediator, Egypt, as well, should have done months ago, when it became entirely apparent that there never were serious ceasefire negotiations and that this process was essentially serving as a fig leaf for Israel and for the United States to continue with their war of annihilation in the Gaza Strip and deflect criticism by claiming that they’re involved in earnest initiatives to try to put an end to this war. As many of your listeners and viewers will know, every time there appears to be progress, the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu shifts the goalposts, and we’re back to the square one. And then Antony Blinken is trotted out to say that Hamas is the obstacle. So I think it’s a good thing that these — at least that Qatar has suspended its efforts, and hopefully Egypt will do so soon, as well, because this entire process has from the outset been a complete charade.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what’s happening right now in Riyadh. Some, what, 60 world leaders, including the Syrian President Assad, including Erdoğan and others, the Turkish president, are in Saudi Arabia right now. Talk about the significance of this and then what this means after the election of Donald Trump.
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, this is the second such summit. The first was held, if I’m not mistaken, in late November or early December last year. It was supposed to be an emergency Arab League summit, but the Saudi de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman then expanded it to also include the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Many people felt that was an attempt to seek to dilute the decisions that would be reached by this enlarged conference. And indeed, the only relevant resolution that they adopted was that they would immediately begin providing humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip, irrespective of any Israeli restrictions. And in fact, they did absolutely nothing and delivered nothing, unless they had Israeli approval to do so.
This is now, if you will, a follow-up summit. It’s possible that this one could be more serious, because there is, as you know, a very significant risk now of an all-out war that would include Israel and Iran trading blows directly at each other. And I think Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states are very much worried about being in the frontline of any such conflict and being left with the consequences in terms of attacks on their own oil facilities and territory and so on. I mean, these are countries that had formerly looked to Israel as a reliable or potentially reliable security partner, but now see an Israeli government determined to set the entire region aflame. And they want to ensure that they’re not consumed by those flames.
AMY GOODMAN: So, where does Trump fit into this picture, well known to be extremely close, as his son-in-law is also extremely close to the Saudi Arabian Prince Salman?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, as you mention, the relationship between the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the American crown prince, Prince Jared of Kushner, is known to be very close.
It’s less clear what a second Trump administration will mean for the region. Will it be a continuation of Biden’s policies towards the region, which were very much a continuation of the first Trump administration’s policies towards the region? Will Trump intensify, hard as that may be to believe, U.S. support for Israel and sign off on open warfare against Iran? Or will he also respond to those isolationist and antiwar elements among his constituency and seek to ensure that the U.S. is not drawn directly into an armed conflict in the Middle East, which would also mean using some leverage on Israel not to escalate matters further?
The problem with Trump is that he is so erratic, and we still don’t know who he’s going to surround himself with, that it’s very difficult to speculate about what the first months of the second Trump administration are going to bring. He’s already, for example, indicated that Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, two well-known Middle East hawks, will not be part of his administration. But against that, he’s also been closely working with Brian Hook, a well-known Iran hawk, and has indicated that his new ambassador to the United Nations will be Congresswoman Stefanik, who’s also well known for her very, very radical positions with respect to the region.
***
Mouin Rabbani on What Really Happened in Amsterdam Between Israeli Soccer Fans & Local Residents
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between visiting Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam. The Dutch authorities made over 60 arrests, and at least five people were hospitalized as a result of the clashes, which local and international leaders were quick to brand as antisemitic, even though observers in Amsterdam have said it was Israeli hooligans who instigated much of the violence. Rabbani says that while it’s common for rival teams’ fans to get into skirmishes, what happened in Amsterdam was different. “What we’re talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims,” Rabbani says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about where you are right now. You’re at The Hague, Mouin Rabbani. But I want to ask you about the latest news nearby, in Amsterdam, where police beat and arrested more than a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations following street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans, many of them violent, and Dutch youth.
Unrest in the city began on Wednesday, when fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team were seen chanting such slogans — and I want to get those slogans right, but I’ll be careful in what I say — “Let the IDF win, and F— the Arabs,” but of course they say “F—,” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive in Gaza. Another video captured a fans screaming “F— you, terrorists! Sinwar, die! Everybody, die!” in reference to the Hamas leader who was assassinated last month.
Amsterdam’s mayor blamed, quote, “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” but many observers in Amsterdam said the Israeli fans were responsible for instigating the violence, the Israeli soccer fans known as hooligans. The violence grew into an international story as Israel sent planes to evacuate the Israeli fans.
On Sunday, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote a piece for the newspaper Haaretz in Israel headlined “The Amsterdam Attack Shows Israelis’ Denial of the Reality They Created.” In it, Gideon Levy writes, quote, “Why do they hate us so much? No, it’s not because we are Jews. Not that there isn’t antisemitism: Of course there is, and it must be fought, but the attempt to pin everything on it is ridiculous and mendacious. … The North African immigrants, the Arabs and the Dutch people who rioted saw the horrors in Gaza over the past year. They are not willing to remain silent about them. … This is another cost of the war in Gaza that should have been considered: The world will hate us for it. Every Israeli abroad will be a target for hatred and violence from now on. That’s what happens when you kill almost 20,000 children, carry out ethnic cleansing and destroy the Gaza Strip. It’s a little quirk of the world; it doesn’t like those who commit these sorts of crimes.” Again, those are the words of the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in a piece for Haaretz.
Mouin Rabbani, can you talk about what happened?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, just to pick up where you left off, in fact, their favorite slogans were “Death to the Arabs! May your village burn!” and “There is no school in Gaza because all the children are dead.” But it wasn’t just about racist and genocidal slogans. These Israeli soccer hooligans, thugs, if you will, also engaged in property destruction, assaulting people of Arab appearance, assaulting taxis and totaling one of them.
And more importantly, they were allowed to do all this under police protection. If you compare it to British football, for example, when British teams play abroad, the British government sends police details with them, not to protect the hooligans, but to restrain them and ensure that they’re unable to do any damage. And so, what we’re talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims, also with some violence included.
And then you had kind of a power struggle within the Dutch elites. Geert Wilders, the far-right, effectively, the ruler of the Netherlands, seeking to undermine the government and prime minister he appointed in order to increase his power over them, that government seeking to retain its fiefdom, if you will, his coalition partners seeking to maintain their power. So they all began kind of outbidding each other in demonizing their own citizens and calling these clashes an antisemitic Jew hunt, which would only make sense if one could demonstrate that the victims of these clashes were not just supporters of the Israeli team or Israelis more generally, but also Dutch Jews and Dutch Jewish institutions and Dutch Jewish properties. And there’s no evidence that such attacks took place or even that the Dutch Jewish community, which of course would have been understandably fearful, given all these reports they were receiving about Jew hunt and antisemitic pogrom and so on — there’s no evidence that they even asked for police protection on the night in question. And so, you know, the government, Wilders, the mayor of Amsterdam have all been going to increasing extremes of trying to compare what happened to the Nazi occupation, the German occupation of the Netherlands during the 1940s. The result —
AMY GOODMAN: Let me play, Mouin, for you what the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said. He’s spoken with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump three times in the past few days, also commenting on what happened in Amsterdam on Thursday night.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Yesterday we marked the Kristallnacht that happened 86 years ago on European soil. It was a brutal and violent attack against Jews just because they were Jews. Unfortunately, in the last few days, we saw pictures that recall that night. In the streets of Amsterdam, antisemitic rioters attacked Jews, Israeli citizens, just because they were Jews. But there’s one big difference between that night and our time: Today we have a state.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the Israeli prime minister, Mouin Rabbani?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, the key difference, of course, between Kristallnacht in November 1938 and what we saw in Amsterdam on the 7th of November is that the properties that were marked for assault and attack were targeted because they were, for example, displaying Palestinian flags, not menorahs. So, that’s kind of a key difference.
And, you know, all this talk about that these people were singled out because they were Jews, rather than because they were football supporters or presumed to be supporters of this racist, genocidal gang of soccer hooligans, is really just, you know, trying once again to make the point that the real victims here are not the children who are being slaughtered in the Gaza Strip, the real victims are those who are engaging in the slaughter and those who are perpetrating the genocide.
And what has happened now is that the Dutch government, the municipality of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam police have put in emergency measures banning all demonstrations in opposition to the genocide and, as you mentioned, have now started arresting dozens of people who have violated that ban to assemble peacefully to protest what is happening in Gaza.
There’s a larger background here, of course, which is the failure, the refusal of the international soccer authorities, known as FIFA and UEFA, to take any measures against Israel, the Israeli Football Association, Israeli football clubs, in sharp contrast to their immediate imposition of comprehensive measures against the Russian Federation and Russian teams literally within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have 30 seconds, but can you, finally, comment on what’s happening in Lebanon, the thousands of people killed, the attacks continuing particularly in southern Lebanon, despite Israel claiming ceasefire talks are progressing?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes, well, Israel is failing militarily — it’s still stuck on the border zone — and is therefore taking out its anger, its aggression on the Lebanese civilian population and hoping to use that as a form of pressure on the government and on Hezbollah to achieve something.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much, Mouin, for joining us. Mouin Rabbani —
MOUIN RABBANI: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — Dutch Palestinian Middle East analyst, host of the Connections podcast, former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, contributor to the book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/11/headlines
Israel Kills Dozens of Members of the Same Family in Jabaliya as Genocidal Attacks Continue
Nov 11, 2024
Israel carried out deadly strikes on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria over the weekend, while the United States bombed Yemen over the past two nights. This comes as Saudi Arabia is hosting dozens of world leaders for an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh to discuss Israeli aggression in the region.
In Gaza, Israel struck a family home in the Jabaliya refugee camp early Sunday, killing 36 Palestinians, including at least 13 children and nine women. Relatives of the family decried the attack.
Ahmed Al-Alooshe: “The home of Abu Sobeh Al-Alooshe was crowded with residents and not affiliated with any organization. They are simply people trying to make a living, minding their own business, and have no involvement with anyone. This strike targeted civilians who have no ties to any groups or organizations. … More than 50 people were there, as their grandchildren, children and daughters — all displaced — had taken refuge with them, seeking safety. The house was struck while they were all inside.”
Israel Kills at Least 4 More Palestinian Journalists in Gaza
Nov 11, 2024
Israel has killed at least four more Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Mohammed Khreis and his wife died in an airstrike on their tent near the Nuseirat refugee camp. Ahmad and Zahra Abu Sakheil were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school in al-Tuffah. The radio broadcaster Khaled Abu Zir was killed on Friday.
This comes as the U.N.-backed Famine Review Committee has issued a dire warning saying there is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza.
In other news, Qatar has withdrawn from its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Lebanon, Including 10 Paramedics
Nov 11, 2024
Israel is also continuing its assault on Lebanon despite Israeli claims that ceasefire talks are progressing. On Saturday, Israeli strikes killed 20 people in and around the ancient city of Baalbek. On Sunday, an Israeli strike on the village of Almat, north of Beirut, killed 23, including at least three children. Israel also targeted numerous villages in the West Beqaa region.
Ahmad Ali Hajj: “This is my house. I worked so hard my whole life to build it. No one helped me. I did it all by myself through hard work, to raise my family composed of seven to eight souls, and I’m still working actively. I found it all destroyed. I don’t have in it any missiles to attack the Israelis. The enemy is a butcher with no pity nor mercy at all, even for children. We’ve been resisting since our childhood until the end of our lives.”
Lebanese state media reports at least 10 paramedics were also killed over the weekend as Israel continues to target Lebanon’s health workers.
Amsterdam Police Crack Down on Pro-Palestinian Protesters After Israeli Hooligans Wreak Havoc in City
Nov 11, 2024
In Amsterdam, police beat and arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations following street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans and Dutch youth. Unrest in the city began on Wednesday when fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team were seen chanting pro-genocide, anti-Arab slogans and tearing down Palestinian flags. Street clashes broke out as tensions escalated before and after the soccer match. Amsterdam’s mayor blamed “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” but observers in Amsterdam said Israeli hooligans instigated the violence. The violence grew into an international story as Israel sent planes to evacuate the Israeli fans.
***
“A Campaign of Genocide”: Noura Erakat Speaks to Ta-Nehisi Coates About Israel’s War on Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
Thousands attended a Palestine Festival of Literature event about “America and the War on Palestine” at the historic Riverside Church in New York Sunday, featuring conversations about U.S. complicity in Israeli human rights abuses. The literary festival, known as PalFest, aims to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle through arts and letters. The acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates moderated the conversations, including one featuring the Palestinian human rights attorney and scholar Noura Erakat. “This is about all of us,” says Erakat. “The fact that Palestinian children have been evaporated, beheaded, killed in NICU, their NICU system, rotted in NICU beds, right? And their parents have had to collect their flesh to weigh it in rice bags in order to bury them, right? At this point, there should have been mercy.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.
On Sunday here in New York City, more than 2,000 people packed the historic Riverside Church for a discussion about America and the war on Palestine. It was hosted by the Palestine Festival of Literature, or PalFest. The church, Riverside, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated.
The event yesterday featured several speakers, including Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat, a professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Another of the panelists was Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, professor of African American studies at Princeton University and contributing writer at The New Yorker magazine. You can see our interview with professor Yamahtta Taylor last week at democracynow.org.
In a minute, we’ll hear from human rights attorney Noura Erakat. She was introduced by the moderator and author Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message, in part about a visit he took to the occupied West Bank and Israel that was organized by members of PalFest, the sponsors of yesterday’s event. This is what he had to say.
TA-NEHISI COATES: When I think about being here, I think about ancestors. And I think it would be wrong if I didn’t, if we didn’t proceed without acknowledging that. First of all, I was informed when I came here that this is where Edward Said’s funeral was. And so it’s incredibly appropriate to be here in this moment.
The second thing is something that Yasmin and I talked about and have been talking about for a year, even when we did the other event before, was the fact that this was also the place where Martin Luther King stood up against the Vietnam War and was so courageous. And I want to acknowledge that in his time, when he did that, a lot of people did not applaud. I want to acknowledge that there were many people who he thought of as his allies who left him.
NOURA ERAKAT: Sounds familiar.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes, yes, yes, yes. That’s why I think it’s very appropriate, right?
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: Absolutely.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Who urged him to be silent as bombs were being dropped on helpless people. And he did not do that. And so, I think, in that spirit, that’s the spirit in which we proceed in our conversation.
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: Yes.
TA-NEHISI COATES: We’re going to talk a lot about theory today, not that theory is irrelevant, but I do think it is important for us to ground ourselves in the reality of what is going on right now.
And, Noura, if you would just take a moment for us and speak to the ongoing genocide, the pain, the life lost, frankly, the role that we as Americans play in that? If you would just take a moment for us just to ground us so that we are not forgetting, so that we are not, you know, all the way up here?
NOURA ERAKAT: Thank you. Thank you, Ta-Nehisi. Thank you, Keeanga and to this audience again. Thank you for coming to find sanctuary collectively.
I think that this was a concern that after more than a year of watching slaughter of babies — this is essentially and continues to be a war on children in a besieged territory where 50% of the population is children, so even before a bomb is dropped, it is a war on children — that it’s really easy to then pivot to the theoretical piece to make sense of it. We want to make sense of it at this stage. And what gets lost is what’s happening.
And so, I appreciated — full transparency: Ta-Nehisi asked me to do this just, you know, right before this event. So I thought that the proper way to do it was actually to read testimony from the ground from a colleague, from a colleague who — who in Gaza, who is recounting, as of 6 a.m. this morning. One of his colleagues woke up to 32 members of his family who were killed in Jabaliya. And Jabaliya is in the north, which is now under now an even tighter siege and a campaign of extermination and ethnic cleansing. What he writes upon waking up at 6 a.m. and finding his family slaughtered is that, quote, “I live meters away from them. It is a matter of luck. I wish I died with them. Neither my heart or mind can tolerate this, my uncle, his wife and three sons and grandsons and daughters all deleted.” He also lost his brother earlier in the year.
And as we’ve been paying attention in this moment, which is important to ground, we’re on day 400 of genocide, but we’re on day 36 of the siege of the north. And the siege of the north is a tightening of the siege that already existed, right? And it’s a siege that even predates the beginning of this campaign, this genocidal campaign. It’s a siege that’s been in place since 2006 at the earliest, thinking about a land siege and a naval blockade. But 1993, if you go back to when Gaza is first circumscribed by barbed wire as a way to prepare for peace, the irony is that the preparation for peace was a program to isolate and separate the Gaza Strip from the rest of the question of Palestine and to call it the Palestinian statelet and never to leave the West Bank to negotiation, but it was done in the language of peace, that this doublespeak continues.
But now here we are, of this — and 36 days of this particular campaign. And we got the earliest indication of it on day six of this genocide, when there was an order to evacuate the north to below the Wadi Gaza line, right? The line which was the order, if you remember, when 1.1 million Palestinians — that’s more than half the population besieged — was ordered to leave the north to below the Wadi Gaza line. But note that that removal was a death sentence, as the World Health Organization called it a death sentence. How do you remove the immobile? How do you force the sick to travel? And those that did take the risk and travel were targeted on the humanitarian lines that they were given, indicating to us on day six that there would be no safe quarter, that this was a campaign of genocide. And it’s why Holocaust studies scholar Raz Segal, the very next day, published in Jewish Currents, “This is a textbook case of genocide,” right?
And it’s why 800 TWAIL scholars, Third World approaches to international law scholars — when people call me international law, you know, the constant question that I get is: How do you still believe in the law? And I’m like, I’m a TWAIL scholar. We never believed in it. We’ve been telling you it is a source and a site of oppression and colonial domination. My book tries to say that and tries to demonstrate how, despite this colonial structure, we can use it for emancipatory purposes, under which circumstances, right? Use it when it suits us. Abandon it when it doesn’t. Create new law when we can. It is a tool. It is not the word of God. It is not holy. It is subject to change and to change by us. So, those 800 TWAIL scholars who know that said, raising the alarm, this is genocide. This was all within the first week, all within the first week.
And now we’re hearing something known as the General’s Plan. The General’s Plan, which is the formula for exterminating the north, the 400,000 people total Palestinians left in the north, 100,000 particularly in the area now marked for ethnic cleansing. The General’s Plan is the brainchild of General Giora. What is his first name? Giora Eiland. Giora Eiland, who proposes this plan. Giora Eiland was also the architect of the Eiland Plan in the early 2000s, which competed with Ariel Sharon’s plan for unilateral withdrawal and disengagement, which was the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and the withdrawal of military installations, but the maintenance of occupation of Gaza. That Eiland Plan in the early 2000s was to ethnically cleanse all of Gaza into the Sinai, right? So, the idea that he’s now — and by the way, Mada Masr — so, thanks to, you know, our partners at Mada Masr — have written, wrote beautifully and thoroughly about the Eiland Plan.
But you have the 1993 circumscription of Gaza in preparation for peace. You have the Eiland Plan in the year 2000. You have the evacuation order on October 12th, which was called a death sentence. You have the calls that this is genocide since day seven. You have now the General’s Plan.
We have a year, over a year of bearing witness to what — you know, my job and other people’s job has been to illuminate what can’t be seen, what’s been obfuscated. They have illuminated it for us. At this point, it is not about us telling you what you have to read between the lines. It’s literally about what they don’t want to hear, not what is not being revealed, because they are telling us, they have shown us, it is evident, they are defending it. They call it self-defense, and they call the completion of the Nakba as the right to complete. So, it’s less obfuscation, right? And now it becomes more about it’s a battle of narrative: Who do you want to listen to?
AMY GOODMAN: Noura Erakat, professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, speaking Sunday here in New York at the historic Riverside Church at an event moderated by author Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message. The event was hosted by the Palestine Festival of Literature. Also in that discussion, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Princeton University professor. To see our interview with her, go to democracynow.org. The next PalFest event, Palestine Festival of Literature, will be in held London November 20th to mark the republication of Edward Said’s book The Question of Palestine, followed by events in Detroit, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
***
“Complete Charade”: Qatar Withdraws from Ceasefire Talks, Middle East Prepares for Trump Presidency
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
We speak with Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani about the latest developments in the Middle East as Israel continues its deadly assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. Qatar recently announced it will no longer act as mediator for ceasefire talks, saying the two sides were not serious about reaching a deal to stop the fighting. “This entire process from the outset has been a complete charade,” Rabbani says of the U.S.-backed ceasefire negotiations, urging Egypt to follow suit and also stop acting as a mediator. Rabbani also discusses how a second Trump administration could deal with the region, saying Trump’s “erratic” behavior makes predictions difficult, but that signs point to a more aggressive posture toward Iran.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.
We continue to look at Gaza, where Israeli forces launched a deadly attack early Sunday morning on a residential area in Jabaliya where displaced Palestinians were attempting to shelter, killing at least 36 people, including over a dozen children. Dozens of the victims were reportedly members of the same family, asleep when Israeli forces attacked their home. An eyewitness who lost several relatives described the horrific scene.
HAMZA ALLOUSH: [translated] We were just sitting peacefully. These are innocent citizens who don’t belong to any military organization or faction. The eldest man is 70 years old. The house of Abu Sobeh Al-Alooshe was bombed over the residents’ head without warning, which led to the martyrdom of everyone inside, more than 30 martyrs. Those who were lucky enough to survive were thrown onto the trees, onto the neighbors, and the remains are still scattered under the rubble.
AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian journalist Mohammed Khreis was killed along with his wife after an Israeli airstrike on their tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp. At least three more Gazan journalists were also killed in the Israeli strikes over the weekend.
The attacks happened as the people of Gaza marked over 400 days since Israel launched its latest war and as northern Gaza remains under a brutal siege, with hospitals surrounded by Israeli forces who have issued forced evacuation orders, but doctors and medical staff have refused to leave their patients behind. Amidst Israel’s relentless attacks, the Palestine Red Crescent Society helped evacuate some 20 patients from Al-Awda Hospital in Jabaliya and transferred them to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. PRCS reported at least one of the patients died as the ambulances were held up for hours at an Israeli checkpoint.
Meanwhile, the U.N.-backed Famine Review Committee has joined other humanitarian groups in issuing a dire warning that there is a, quote, “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza.
This all comes as Qatar has suspended its efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until, they say, Israel and Hamas show, quote, “willingness and seriousness” to resume negotiations.
Israel also carried out deadly strikes on Lebanon and Syria over the weekend, while the United States bombed Yemen over the past two nights.
For more, we go to The Hague, where we’re joined by Mouin Rabbani, Dutch Palestinian Middle East analyst, host of the Connections podcast. He’s former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group and a contributor to the book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm.
Mouin, welcome back to Democracy Now! In a minute we’re going to ask you about the latest in Amsterdam, where police beat and arrested more than a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations following street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans and Dutch youth. But first, can you talk about the significance of Qatar temporarily withdrawing as a mediator between Israel and Hamas for the Gaza ceasefire talks and about what’s happening currently in Riyadh?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, turning to Qatar first, several days ago, there were press reports that Qatar was going to, as you mentioned, suspend its mediation and also show the Hamas exile leadership, that has been based in Qatar, the door and ask them to leave the country in response to U.S. pressure. The expulsion of the Hamas leaders has been denied by Qatar, but it has indeed, as you mentioned, confirmed that it is suspending its — that it is suspending its mediation, saying basically that the parties aren’t serious.
And I think my own view is that this is something that Qatar and the other mediator, Egypt, as well, should have done months ago, when it became entirely apparent that there never were serious ceasefire negotiations and that this process was essentially serving as a fig leaf for Israel and for the United States to continue with their war of annihilation in the Gaza Strip and deflect criticism by claiming that they’re involved in earnest initiatives to try to put an end to this war. As many of your listeners and viewers will know, every time there appears to be progress, the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu shifts the goalposts, and we’re back to the square one. And then Antony Blinken is trotted out to say that Hamas is the obstacle. So I think it’s a good thing that these — at least that Qatar has suspended its efforts, and hopefully Egypt will do so soon, as well, because this entire process has from the outset been a complete charade.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what’s happening right now in Riyadh. Some, what, 60 world leaders, including the Syrian President Assad, including Erdoğan and others, the Turkish president, are in Saudi Arabia right now. Talk about the significance of this and then what this means after the election of Donald Trump.
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, this is the second such summit. The first was held, if I’m not mistaken, in late November or early December last year. It was supposed to be an emergency Arab League summit, but the Saudi de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman then expanded it to also include the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Many people felt that was an attempt to seek to dilute the decisions that would be reached by this enlarged conference. And indeed, the only relevant resolution that they adopted was that they would immediately begin providing humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip, irrespective of any Israeli restrictions. And in fact, they did absolutely nothing and delivered nothing, unless they had Israeli approval to do so.
This is now, if you will, a follow-up summit. It’s possible that this one could be more serious, because there is, as you know, a very significant risk now of an all-out war that would include Israel and Iran trading blows directly at each other. And I think Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states are very much worried about being in the frontline of any such conflict and being left with the consequences in terms of attacks on their own oil facilities and territory and so on. I mean, these are countries that had formerly looked to Israel as a reliable or potentially reliable security partner, but now see an Israeli government determined to set the entire region aflame. And they want to ensure that they’re not consumed by those flames.
AMY GOODMAN: So, where does Trump fit into this picture, well known to be extremely close, as his son-in-law is also extremely close to the Saudi Arabian Prince Salman?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, as you mention, the relationship between the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the American crown prince, Prince Jared of Kushner, is known to be very close.
It’s less clear what a second Trump administration will mean for the region. Will it be a continuation of Biden’s policies towards the region, which were very much a continuation of the first Trump administration’s policies towards the region? Will Trump intensify, hard as that may be to believe, U.S. support for Israel and sign off on open warfare against Iran? Or will he also respond to those isolationist and antiwar elements among his constituency and seek to ensure that the U.S. is not drawn directly into an armed conflict in the Middle East, which would also mean using some leverage on Israel not to escalate matters further?
The problem with Trump is that he is so erratic, and we still don’t know who he’s going to surround himself with, that it’s very difficult to speculate about what the first months of the second Trump administration are going to bring. He’s already, for example, indicated that Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, two well-known Middle East hawks, will not be part of his administration. But against that, he’s also been closely working with Brian Hook, a well-known Iran hawk, and has indicated that his new ambassador to the United Nations will be Congresswoman Stefanik, who’s also well known for her very, very radical positions with respect to the region.
***
Mouin Rabbani on What Really Happened in Amsterdam Between Israeli Soccer Fans & Local Residents
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 11, 2024
Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between visiting Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam. The Dutch authorities made over 60 arrests, and at least five people were hospitalized as a result of the clashes, which local and international leaders were quick to brand as antisemitic, even though observers in Amsterdam have said it was Israeli hooligans who instigated much of the violence. Rabbani says that while it’s common for rival teams’ fans to get into skirmishes, what happened in Amsterdam was different. “What we’re talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims,” Rabbani says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about where you are right now. You’re at The Hague, Mouin Rabbani. But I want to ask you about the latest news nearby, in Amsterdam, where police beat and arrested more than a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations following street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans, many of them violent, and Dutch youth.
Unrest in the city began on Wednesday, when fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team were seen chanting such slogans — and I want to get those slogans right, but I’ll be careful in what I say — “Let the IDF win, and F— the Arabs,” but of course they say “F—,” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive in Gaza. Another video captured a fans screaming “F— you, terrorists! Sinwar, die! Everybody, die!” in reference to the Hamas leader who was assassinated last month.
Amsterdam’s mayor blamed, quote, “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” but many observers in Amsterdam said the Israeli fans were responsible for instigating the violence, the Israeli soccer fans known as hooligans. The violence grew into an international story as Israel sent planes to evacuate the Israeli fans.
On Sunday, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote a piece for the newspaper Haaretz in Israel headlined “The Amsterdam Attack Shows Israelis’ Denial of the Reality They Created.” In it, Gideon Levy writes, quote, “Why do they hate us so much? No, it’s not because we are Jews. Not that there isn’t antisemitism: Of course there is, and it must be fought, but the attempt to pin everything on it is ridiculous and mendacious. … The North African immigrants, the Arabs and the Dutch people who rioted saw the horrors in Gaza over the past year. They are not willing to remain silent about them. … This is another cost of the war in Gaza that should have been considered: The world will hate us for it. Every Israeli abroad will be a target for hatred and violence from now on. That’s what happens when you kill almost 20,000 children, carry out ethnic cleansing and destroy the Gaza Strip. It’s a little quirk of the world; it doesn’t like those who commit these sorts of crimes.” Again, those are the words of the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in a piece for Haaretz.
Mouin Rabbani, can you talk about what happened?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes. Well, just to pick up where you left off, in fact, their favorite slogans were “Death to the Arabs! May your village burn!” and “There is no school in Gaza because all the children are dead.” But it wasn’t just about racist and genocidal slogans. These Israeli soccer hooligans, thugs, if you will, also engaged in property destruction, assaulting people of Arab appearance, assaulting taxis and totaling one of them.
And more importantly, they were allowed to do all this under police protection. If you compare it to British football, for example, when British teams play abroad, the British government sends police details with them, not to protect the hooligans, but to restrain them and ensure that they’re unable to do any damage. And so, what we’re talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims, also with some violence included.
And then you had kind of a power struggle within the Dutch elites. Geert Wilders, the far-right, effectively, the ruler of the Netherlands, seeking to undermine the government and prime minister he appointed in order to increase his power over them, that government seeking to retain its fiefdom, if you will, his coalition partners seeking to maintain their power. So they all began kind of outbidding each other in demonizing their own citizens and calling these clashes an antisemitic Jew hunt, which would only make sense if one could demonstrate that the victims of these clashes were not just supporters of the Israeli team or Israelis more generally, but also Dutch Jews and Dutch Jewish institutions and Dutch Jewish properties. And there’s no evidence that such attacks took place or even that the Dutch Jewish community, which of course would have been understandably fearful, given all these reports they were receiving about Jew hunt and antisemitic pogrom and so on — there’s no evidence that they even asked for police protection on the night in question. And so, you know, the government, Wilders, the mayor of Amsterdam have all been going to increasing extremes of trying to compare what happened to the Nazi occupation, the German occupation of the Netherlands during the 1940s. The result —
AMY GOODMAN: Let me play, Mouin, for you what the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said. He’s spoken with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump three times in the past few days, also commenting on what happened in Amsterdam on Thursday night.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Yesterday we marked the Kristallnacht that happened 86 years ago on European soil. It was a brutal and violent attack against Jews just because they were Jews. Unfortunately, in the last few days, we saw pictures that recall that night. In the streets of Amsterdam, antisemitic rioters attacked Jews, Israeli citizens, just because they were Jews. But there’s one big difference between that night and our time: Today we have a state.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the Israeli prime minister, Mouin Rabbani?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, the key difference, of course, between Kristallnacht in November 1938 and what we saw in Amsterdam on the 7th of November is that the properties that were marked for assault and attack were targeted because they were, for example, displaying Palestinian flags, not menorahs. So, that’s kind of a key difference.
And, you know, all this talk about that these people were singled out because they were Jews, rather than because they were football supporters or presumed to be supporters of this racist, genocidal gang of soccer hooligans, is really just, you know, trying once again to make the point that the real victims here are not the children who are being slaughtered in the Gaza Strip, the real victims are those who are engaging in the slaughter and those who are perpetrating the genocide.
And what has happened now is that the Dutch government, the municipality of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam police have put in emergency measures banning all demonstrations in opposition to the genocide and, as you mentioned, have now started arresting dozens of people who have violated that ban to assemble peacefully to protest what is happening in Gaza.
There’s a larger background here, of course, which is the failure, the refusal of the international soccer authorities, known as FIFA and UEFA, to take any measures against Israel, the Israeli Football Association, Israeli football clubs, in sharp contrast to their immediate imposition of comprehensive measures against the Russian Federation and Russian teams literally within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have 30 seconds, but can you, finally, comment on what’s happening in Lebanon, the thousands of people killed, the attacks continuing particularly in southern Lebanon, despite Israel claiming ceasefire talks are progressing?
MOUIN RABBANI: Yes, well, Israel is failing militarily — it’s still stuck on the border zone — and is therefore taking out its anger, its aggression on the Lebanese civilian population and hoping to use that as a form of pressure on the government and on Hezbollah to achieve something.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much, Mouin, for joining us. Mouin Rabbani —
MOUIN RABBANI: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — Dutch Palestinian Middle East analyst, host of the Connections podcast, former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, contributor to the book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:28 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 12, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/12/headlines
Israel Fails to Meet 30-Day U.S. Deadline to End Starvation Campaign in Northern Gaza
Nov 12, 2024
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip. On Monday, at least 10 civilians were killed when a pair of Israeli missiles struck a crowded tent cafe west of Khan Younis, an area Israel had designated as a so-called safe zone. That followed Israeli attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp that killed 20 people, some of whom were reportedly shot as they tried to flee the onslaught. Meanwhile, Palestinian health workers say three medical staffers were injured in an Israeli attack near the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahia. It’s been just over 400 days since Israel began its assault on Gaza. For thousands of displaced Palestinians forced to live in makeshift camps, life has become a daily struggle for survival.
Ibtissam Sobh: “The 400 days that have passed feel like 400 years, maybe even more. If there was no war, we wouldn’t have known such hunger and displacement. Before, we were living decently. We were fine and happy, receiving aid packages twice a month. Now there’s no food, no water, no medicine. There’s nothing. We are deprived of everything, even the air we breathe.”
Israel has failed to meet a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration to end its starvation campaign in northern Gaza, where the U.N. says a famine is imminent. Despite the deadline, the Biden administration still has not triggered U.S. laws requiring it to withhold military support to Israel over gross human rights abuses. In a report co-signed by Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children, relief groups write that Israel entirely failed to meet 15 of 19 U.S. demands, warning the situation in northern Gaza is “in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”
Israel Bombs Beirut Suburbs as Defense Minister Rules Out Ceasefire with Lebanon
Nov 12, 2024
Israel’s military has bombed Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik after warning residents to flee the area. Today’s attacks came after Lebanese officials reported one person was killed and four injured after an Israeli airstrike targeted the town of Hermel in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel governorate. On Monday, Israel’s newly appointed Defense Minister Israel Katz ruled out even a temporary peace deal, declaring, “There will be no ceasefire and no pause.”
Israel’s Smotrich Lauds Trump’s Victory, Orders Preparations to Illegally Annex West Bank
Nov 12, 2024
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Israeli lawmakers he has ordered work to begin so that Israel can annex the occupied West Bank.
Bezalel Smotrich: “Year 2025 will be, with God’s help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
Smotrich, who is himself a resident of an illegal Israeli settlement in Palestine’s West Bank, said he hopes the incoming Trump administration will back his plans, which violate international law.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 12, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/12/headlines
Israel Fails to Meet 30-Day U.S. Deadline to End Starvation Campaign in Northern Gaza
Nov 12, 2024
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip. On Monday, at least 10 civilians were killed when a pair of Israeli missiles struck a crowded tent cafe west of Khan Younis, an area Israel had designated as a so-called safe zone. That followed Israeli attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp that killed 20 people, some of whom were reportedly shot as they tried to flee the onslaught. Meanwhile, Palestinian health workers say three medical staffers were injured in an Israeli attack near the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahia. It’s been just over 400 days since Israel began its assault on Gaza. For thousands of displaced Palestinians forced to live in makeshift camps, life has become a daily struggle for survival.
Ibtissam Sobh: “The 400 days that have passed feel like 400 years, maybe even more. If there was no war, we wouldn’t have known such hunger and displacement. Before, we were living decently. We were fine and happy, receiving aid packages twice a month. Now there’s no food, no water, no medicine. There’s nothing. We are deprived of everything, even the air we breathe.”
Israel has failed to meet a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration to end its starvation campaign in northern Gaza, where the U.N. says a famine is imminent. Despite the deadline, the Biden administration still has not triggered U.S. laws requiring it to withhold military support to Israel over gross human rights abuses. In a report co-signed by Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children, relief groups write that Israel entirely failed to meet 15 of 19 U.S. demands, warning the situation in northern Gaza is “in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”
Israel Bombs Beirut Suburbs as Defense Minister Rules Out Ceasefire with Lebanon
Nov 12, 2024
Israel’s military has bombed Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik after warning residents to flee the area. Today’s attacks came after Lebanese officials reported one person was killed and four injured after an Israeli airstrike targeted the town of Hermel in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel governorate. On Monday, Israel’s newly appointed Defense Minister Israel Katz ruled out even a temporary peace deal, declaring, “There will be no ceasefire and no pause.”
Israel’s Smotrich Lauds Trump’s Victory, Orders Preparations to Illegally Annex West Bank
Nov 12, 2024
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Israeli lawmakers he has ordered work to begin so that Israel can annex the occupied West Bank.
Bezalel Smotrich: “Year 2025 will be, with God’s help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
Smotrich, who is himself a resident of an illegal Israeli settlement in Palestine’s West Bank, said he hopes the incoming Trump administration will back his plans, which violate international law.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:30 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/13/headlines
“Gravest International Crimes”: U.N. Aid Chief Blasts Israel’s Deadly Siege on Gaza
Nov 13, 2024
In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli strikes have killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 180 others in the past 24 hours. Among the dead is a child who was killed when a massive Israeli airstrike tore through a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, an area in southern Gaza designated by the Israeli army as a so-called safe humanitarian zone. This comes as the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has again warned famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza. On Tuesday, top U.N. humanitarian official Joyce Msuya told the Security Council that Israel has committed grave international crimes by blocking aid to Palestinians. She added, “The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits.”
Joyce Msuya: “Most of Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble. What distinction was made and what precautions were taken, if more than 70% of civilian housing is either damaged or destroyed? Essential commercial goods and services, including electricity, have been all but cut off. This has led to increasing hunger, starvation, and now, as we have heard, potentially famine. We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes.”
Biden Won’t Enforce U.S. Law Requiring Halt of Arms to Israel Despite Clear Human Rights Abuses
Nov 13, 2024
The Biden administration said Tuesday it will not limit weapons transfers to Israel — even after Israeli forces failed to meet a U.S.-imposed 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza. Aid groups say Israel has only worsened the catastrophe over that period, with the amount of aid reaching Gaza now at its lowest level since December. The decision to continue arming Israel despite widespread evidence of gross human rights abuses appears to violate multiple U.S. laws, including the Leahy Law, the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. On Tuesday, a coalition of former Biden administration employees who’ve resigned in protest of U.S. policy released a video calling on Biden to uphold the law and halt U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.
Stacy Gilbert: “There is no provision in U.S. or international law that allows extra time to starve people.
Josh Paul: “Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly put Israel’s interests over the interests of the American people.”
Alex Smith: “Even at the expense of not enforcing our own laws.”
Josh Paul: “That’s why I resigned from the State Department.”
Stacy Gilbert: “The State Department.”
Annelle Sheline: “State Department.”
Hala Rharrit: “The State Department’s diplomatic corps.”
Tariq Habash: “The Department of Education.”
Maryam Hassanein: “The Department of the Interior.”
Harrison Mann: “Army.”
Lily Greenberg Call: “Department of the Interior.”
Riley Livermore: “Department of the Air Force.”
Click here to see our interviews with many of the Biden administration officials who’ve resigned over Gaza.
Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Beirut Suburbs and Mount Lebanon Governorate
Nov 13, 2024
Israel has continued its relentless air and ground attacks on Lebanon, killing at least two dozen people in Beirut’s southern suburbs and towns in Mount Lebanon Governorate. Israeli forces have persistently targeted residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities issued new forced evacuation orders for residents in certain areas south of Beirut ahead of more Israeli military attacks.
National Press Club’s Press Freedom Award Goes to Wael al-Dahdouh for Gaza Coverage
Nov 13, 2024
The National Press Club has handed its top award for press freedom to Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, for continuing to report on Israel’s assault on the besieged territory despite enduring “unspeakable personal tragedies.” Just weeks into the war, al-Dahdouh was live on air when he was informed his wife, 7-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Another of al-Dahdouh’s children, Hamza al-Dahdouh, who was also a journalist and cameraperson for Al Jazeera, was killed in a separate Israeli attack early in January. Earlier this year, al-Dahdouh was evacuated from Gaza to receive medical care in Qatar for injuries he suffered while covering an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis. At the time, al-Dahdouh’s cameraperson, Samer Abudaqa, was left to bleed to death as Israeli forces blocked ambulances from reaching the scene for several hours. Al-Dahdouh is now living in Germany.
Mike Huckabee, Who Declared “There’s No Such Thing as a Palestinian,” Named U.S. Ambassador to Israel
Nov 13, 2024
Donald Trump has selected former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to become U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a leading U.S. Christian Zionist who in recent years has led all-inclusive evangelical Christian tours of Israel. Huckabee has openly advocated for Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. During a failed run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Huckabee declared, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” adding, “That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” In 2017, he told Politico, “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Meanwhile, Trump has named his longtime friend and golfing partner Steve Witkoff as a special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff is a real estate investor from Florida with no foreign policy experience.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 13, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/13/headlines
“Gravest International Crimes”: U.N. Aid Chief Blasts Israel’s Deadly Siege on Gaza
Nov 13, 2024
In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli strikes have killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 180 others in the past 24 hours. Among the dead is a child who was killed when a massive Israeli airstrike tore through a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, an area in southern Gaza designated by the Israeli army as a so-called safe humanitarian zone. This comes as the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has again warned famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza. On Tuesday, top U.N. humanitarian official Joyce Msuya told the Security Council that Israel has committed grave international crimes by blocking aid to Palestinians. She added, “The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits.”
Joyce Msuya: “Most of Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble. What distinction was made and what precautions were taken, if more than 70% of civilian housing is either damaged or destroyed? Essential commercial goods and services, including electricity, have been all but cut off. This has led to increasing hunger, starvation, and now, as we have heard, potentially famine. We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes.”
Biden Won’t Enforce U.S. Law Requiring Halt of Arms to Israel Despite Clear Human Rights Abuses
Nov 13, 2024
The Biden administration said Tuesday it will not limit weapons transfers to Israel — even after Israeli forces failed to meet a U.S.-imposed 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza. Aid groups say Israel has only worsened the catastrophe over that period, with the amount of aid reaching Gaza now at its lowest level since December. The decision to continue arming Israel despite widespread evidence of gross human rights abuses appears to violate multiple U.S. laws, including the Leahy Law, the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. On Tuesday, a coalition of former Biden administration employees who’ve resigned in protest of U.S. policy released a video calling on Biden to uphold the law and halt U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.
Stacy Gilbert: “There is no provision in U.S. or international law that allows extra time to starve people.
Josh Paul: “Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly put Israel’s interests over the interests of the American people.”
Alex Smith: “Even at the expense of not enforcing our own laws.”
Josh Paul: “That’s why I resigned from the State Department.”
Stacy Gilbert: “The State Department.”
Annelle Sheline: “State Department.”
Hala Rharrit: “The State Department’s diplomatic corps.”
Tariq Habash: “The Department of Education.”
Maryam Hassanein: “The Department of the Interior.”
Harrison Mann: “Army.”
Lily Greenberg Call: “Department of the Interior.”
Riley Livermore: “Department of the Air Force.”
Click here to see our interviews with many of the Biden administration officials who’ve resigned over Gaza.
Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Beirut Suburbs and Mount Lebanon Governorate
Nov 13, 2024
Israel has continued its relentless air and ground attacks on Lebanon, killing at least two dozen people in Beirut’s southern suburbs and towns in Mount Lebanon Governorate. Israeli forces have persistently targeted residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities issued new forced evacuation orders for residents in certain areas south of Beirut ahead of more Israeli military attacks.
National Press Club’s Press Freedom Award Goes to Wael al-Dahdouh for Gaza Coverage
Nov 13, 2024
The National Press Club has handed its top award for press freedom to Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, for continuing to report on Israel’s assault on the besieged territory despite enduring “unspeakable personal tragedies.” Just weeks into the war, al-Dahdouh was live on air when he was informed his wife, 7-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Another of al-Dahdouh’s children, Hamza al-Dahdouh, who was also a journalist and cameraperson for Al Jazeera, was killed in a separate Israeli attack early in January. Earlier this year, al-Dahdouh was evacuated from Gaza to receive medical care in Qatar for injuries he suffered while covering an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis. At the time, al-Dahdouh’s cameraperson, Samer Abudaqa, was left to bleed to death as Israeli forces blocked ambulances from reaching the scene for several hours. Al-Dahdouh is now living in Germany.
Mike Huckabee, Who Declared “There’s No Such Thing as a Palestinian,” Named U.S. Ambassador to Israel
Nov 13, 2024
Donald Trump has selected former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to become U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a leading U.S. Christian Zionist who in recent years has led all-inclusive evangelical Christian tours of Israel. Huckabee has openly advocated for Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. During a failed run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Huckabee declared, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” adding, “That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” In 2017, he told Politico, “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Meanwhile, Trump has named his longtime friend and golfing partner Steve Witkoff as a special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff is a real estate investor from Florida with no foreign policy experience.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:33 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 14, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/14/headlines
U.N. Report Finds Israel’s Assault on Gaza “Consistent with Genocide,” Including Starvation Campaign
Nov 14, 2024
A U.N. special committee has found Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 2023 are “consistent with genocide,” including using starvation as a weapon of war and recklessly inflicting civilian casualties. The report, released today, comes one day after a Human Rights Watch report found Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through its mass forced displacement of civilians in Gaza. HRW is calling on nations to adopt sanctions and halt weapons sales to Israel.
But Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter continues, with at least five Palestinians killed today in central Gaza’s al-Maghazi refugee camp. Elsewhere, at least two people were killed by an Israeli strike on a tent encampment for displaced Palestinians near Nuseirat.
Meanwhile, the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office warned Palestinian children are at high risk of injury or death from unexploded ordnance left after more than 13 months of Israeli attacks. Among the victims is severely wounded 8-year-old Mohammed Qarmash. This is his mother.
Amal Al-Wadiya: “No one was there to tell him that these are explosives that the Israelis throw. The children play with them, and they blow up. What is happening to us is not fair. His father died at the Karni border, and his body stayed there. What is happening to us is not fair, really.”
Israeli Airstrikes Pound Beirut; WaPo: Israel Planning to Offer Lebanon Ceasefire as “Gift” to Trump
Nov 14, 2024
In Lebanon, Israel launched at least seven airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight after ordering residents to leave their homes. At least eight people were killed in Israeli attacks on the village of Dawhit Aramoun, south of the capital. Israeli warplanes also struck Damascus and the Syrian city of Homs. In southern Lebanon, Israel’s army says six soldiers were killed on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with Hezbollah fighters defending Lebanese territory. The deaths were announced after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had expanded Israel’s military ground operation in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a “gift” to Trump ahead of his inauguration in January.
CIA Officer on Trial for Leaking U.S. Documents Detailing Israel’s Plans to Attack Iran
Nov 14, 2024
A Central Intelligence Agency official is due to appear in federal court in Guam today, charged with disclosing classified documents that revealed Israeli military planning to attack Iran. The documents reference recent Israeli drills involving air-launched ballistic missiles, as well as covert drone activity. The official, Asif Rahman, was arrested in Cambodia last week and indicted on two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act.
***
Report from Gaza: Palestinians Feel They Are Being “Slowly Exterminated” in Israel’s Genocide
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 14, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/14 ... transcript
We go to Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where we get an update from Arwa Damon of the humanitarian organization INARA on “deteriorating conditions” as Palestinians are “slowly exterminated” by disease and starvation caused by Israel’s brutal siege. A special U.N. committee has found that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” Palestinians in Gaza feel that “they are living through their own annihilation,” says Damon. “There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.”
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 to Israel’s war on Gaza. A special U.N. committee reported today Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” unquote. Another report by Human Rights Watch finds Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through its mass forced displacement of Gaza’s civilians.
This comes as the Biden administration has decided to continue arming Israel, even though aid groups say Israel has failed to meet a U.S.-imposed 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza.
We go now to Deir al-Balah in Gaza, where we’re joined by Arwa Damon, founder of INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, previously spent 18 years at CNN, including time as a senior international correspondent.
Thanks so much for being with us, Arwa. This is your fourth trip back to Gaza since October 7, 2023. Tell us what you see there.
ARWA DAMON: You know, Amy, you think you can’t get worse, and then it does. You think people, quite simply, could never cope with these deteriorating conditions, and yet somehow they do. It’s a situation that they have been forced into.
Arguably, the conditions when it comes to access of humanitarian organizations and our ability to distribute aid, aid actually getting into the strip, we’re talking about the lowest levels yet. And this is exactly during the timeframe that the U.S. had given to Israel to actually improve the situation. We’ve seen it getting significantly worse. We’re not just talking about a shortage in things like flour, food, water, fresh vegetables, you know, hygiene kits. We’re also talking about shortages in what’s available on the commercial market. So, even if you somehow had money to be able to go buy what you need, it quite simply isn’t here.
These hospitals that we keep talking about as being partially functioning, what does that actually mean? It means that if you show up bleeding, someone inside is going to try to stop the bleed, but do they actually have what they need to save your life? No. I was inside visiting some kids here at Al-Aqsa earlier today and over the weekend. There’s a little 2-year-old boy here whose brain you can see pulsing through his skin. His skull bone was removed. This little boy was not stabilizing properly because the ICU was missing a pediatric-sized tracheostomy tube. Now, luckily, we were able to, you know, source some of them, and he has now stabilized, and he is off the ventilator. But this really gives you an idea of just how serious the situation here is.
People are gathering to demonstrate for things like flour, for bread, for whatever it is that you can imagine. Winter is coming. The rains are coming. This means flooding is coming. And on top of just, you know, water flooding, we’e also anticipating that the sewage sites are going to be flooding, as well. Aid organizations need to be able to have the capacity and the ability to, you know, shift those sites to areas where they’re not going to pose even more of a health hazard to the community. So, I mean, it’s a complete and total nightmare. It’s beyond being a nightmare.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about this latest report? The special U.N. committee says Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” coming at the same time as a Human Rights Watch report, and UNRWA talks about famine being imminent in northern Gaza.
ARWA DAMON: So, if we’re talking specifically about the north, the northern province of Gaza, this is an area where Israel launched its military operation there nearly four weeks ago. We have seen people repeatedly being forcibly displaced from their homes. There is very little access to medical assistance there. There has been absolutely no humanitarian assistance delivered there for about the last month. People are starving. They are dying. And it’s not just bombs that are killing people, it’s also disease.
So, when we look at the nature of what is happening in Gaza, you can’t spend a day here, Amy, and not come away with the notion that you are witnessing a population that is being slowly exterminated. And I say “slowly” because, yes, bombs kill quickly, but disease and starvation, they are slow killers. And that is what a lot of people are facing here.
And talk to anybody in Gaza, and there’s absolutely no doubt in their mind that, one, they are living through their own annihilation, and, two, what Israel is doing in the northern part is going to be repeated elsewhere. And this is also part of why you see a reluctance among the population to want to evacuate, because Gazans know, Palestinians know that when they leave, they’re not going to be able to go back home. This is what history has taught them. And there is this very real, ingrained fear among the population here right now that what they’re going through at this moment is not the end. There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.
And they feel completely and totally abandoned by the international community, by global leaders, not to mention the United States. And everyone is convinced that right now Israel is going have even more free rein to do whatever it is that it wants here. When you talk to people about what it is that they’re going through, they do feel as if every single aspect of trying to survive here has been carefully orchestrated by Israel so that it is able to sort of meet America’s bare minimum of standards, to allow America sufficient cover to say, “Oh, no, there’s improvement that’s happening.” And yet, actually, at the core of it is just another way to continue to kill the population.
AMY GOODMAN: And as you talk about the United States, which has given tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, they did recently set a 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, but the U.S. has decided to keep arming Israel despite this and despite the number of officials in the State Department and other parts of the U.S. government who have quit over this.
ARWA DAMON: Yeah, and let’s just look at the numbers. Let’s just look at what happened when the U.S. started the clock for that 30-day deadline to improve humanitarian assistance. We saw, very shortly afterwards, the number of trucks accessing Gaza dip significantly, down to 30 a day, keeping in mind that one of the key demands that the U.S. had was that aid be increased to at least 350 trucks. So we saw this, you know, decrease consistent of roughly 30 trucks a day for most of the month of October. Now, in November, that number did go up to around 60-70, but we’re still talking about, you know, falling extraordinarily short, providing barely 20% of what it is that the population here needs.
We saw less access to these besieged areas in the north, where people are effectively trapped or having to basically risk their lives. We’ve had numerous instances where aid has been delivered to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, for example, where, shortly after medical evacuation teams have arrived there, there have been strikes. You have this very ingrained fear that exists among people right now, especially in the north, where some of them are saying, “Don’t deliver anything, because right after you’re delivering, strikes are happening.”
And just to illustrate how it is that we try to move, so if we’re moving from south to north, for example, or even if we’re moving within the northern areas, those movement requests have to be approved by Israel. And aid organizations are increasingly wary of moving around with what we call soft-skin cars, which is basically your normal vehicle that we use to move around in, because of the increasing frequency of instances at Israeli checkpoints where aid convoys have been shot at by IDF troops after receiving the green light, the OK to cross through, which means that for a lot of aid organizations, movement is limited to those who have access to armored vehicles, vehicles that are more secure. And those don’t really exist in Gaza in high numbers at all. And we’re not allowed to bring in more to sort of beef up our capacity to be able to move around safely.
I mean, no matter which way you look at it, Amy, you’re constantly faced by numerous obstacles that don’t need to be there. It feels very deliberate, not to mention the complete and total breakdown of security. Now we have numerous looting instances of aid trucks. We’ve repeatedly asked the Israeli side to be able to use alternative routes, to be able to use secured routes. Those requests are not being met. I mean, it’s just — it’s such an impossible situation to operate in. I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over and over again each time I come in. And the words to demonstrate how much worse it’s getting, quite simply, lack in our vocabulary.
AMY GOODMAN: You also wrote a piece recently, “The Devastation of Lebanon,” for New Lines. And we had this headline, The Washington Post reporting a close aide to Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a gift to Trump ahead of his January inauguration. Your response to the significance of Trump’s election and what it means to the people of Lebanon and Gaza?
ARWA DAMON: You know, first of all, anyone who lives in the Middle East and anyone who’s kind of been focusing on the Middle East knows very well that it really doesn’t matter who’s in the White House. Whether it’s Republican or Democrat, that really is not going to change significantly U.S. policy towards this region.
But the thing that we’ve been hearing, specifically when it comes to the reelection of Donald Trump, is at least he’s not lying to us. At least whatever America is going to let Israel do, it’s going to be done faster. So, if our end is coming, at least it’s going to come faster. Whereas when it comes to, you know, specifically the Biden administration, the sense is that the Democrats are far more willing to allow this slower, more painful death. But the end result, no matter who it is, people are fully convinced, is exactly the same.
And all people really want right now is for this to end. People are suffocated. They’re crushed. They cannot keep going like this. And they very much feel as if, you know, no matter what it is, no matter who it is, Arabs are viewed by the United States and by the Western world as somehow being less than. Their lives are not that valuable. You constantly hear people in Gaza — and we were hearing the same thing in Lebanon — making comments like, “Well, you know, America, it doesn’t care if we live or die. It doesn’t care how much we suffer. Our lives don’t matter to them.” And that is not really a perspective that changes all that much, no matter who is sitting in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, Arwa. Why did you give up journalism for humanitarian work? What do you think you can accomplish at INARA that you couldn’t do as a journalist?
ARWA DAMON: There’s a certain sort of privilege of being able to spend extensive periods of time with people and really get to know who they are. And I feel as if, you know, moving around in the humanitarian sphere, I’m getting a different understanding of sort of people’s emotional journeys, what it actually takes to be able to provide them with assistance. And it’s provided me a different way of being able to continue to sort of share people’s stories and experiences, but also be able to immediately at least try to provide assistance. You know, the challenge that we have when we’re out in the field as journalists is that you don’t always see the impact. But when you’re in the humanitarian space, there’s a certain kind of magic when you’re able to just bring a smile to a child’s face. And I needed that.
AMY GOODMAN: Arwa Damon, we thank you so much for being with us. Stay safe. Award-winning journalist, was with CNN for 18 years but now has founded INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah in Gaza outside Al-Aqsa Hospital.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 14, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/14/headlines
U.N. Report Finds Israel’s Assault on Gaza “Consistent with Genocide,” Including Starvation Campaign
Nov 14, 2024
A U.N. special committee has found Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 2023 are “consistent with genocide,” including using starvation as a weapon of war and recklessly inflicting civilian casualties. The report, released today, comes one day after a Human Rights Watch report found Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through its mass forced displacement of civilians in Gaza. HRW is calling on nations to adopt sanctions and halt weapons sales to Israel.
But Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter continues, with at least five Palestinians killed today in central Gaza’s al-Maghazi refugee camp. Elsewhere, at least two people were killed by an Israeli strike on a tent encampment for displaced Palestinians near Nuseirat.
Meanwhile, the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office warned Palestinian children are at high risk of injury or death from unexploded ordnance left after more than 13 months of Israeli attacks. Among the victims is severely wounded 8-year-old Mohammed Qarmash. This is his mother.
Amal Al-Wadiya: “No one was there to tell him that these are explosives that the Israelis throw. The children play with them, and they blow up. What is happening to us is not fair. His father died at the Karni border, and his body stayed there. What is happening to us is not fair, really.”
Israeli Airstrikes Pound Beirut; WaPo: Israel Planning to Offer Lebanon Ceasefire as “Gift” to Trump
Nov 14, 2024
In Lebanon, Israel launched at least seven airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight after ordering residents to leave their homes. At least eight people were killed in Israeli attacks on the village of Dawhit Aramoun, south of the capital. Israeli warplanes also struck Damascus and the Syrian city of Homs. In southern Lebanon, Israel’s army says six soldiers were killed on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with Hezbollah fighters defending Lebanese territory. The deaths were announced after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had expanded Israel’s military ground operation in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a “gift” to Trump ahead of his inauguration in January.
CIA Officer on Trial for Leaking U.S. Documents Detailing Israel’s Plans to Attack Iran
Nov 14, 2024
A Central Intelligence Agency official is due to appear in federal court in Guam today, charged with disclosing classified documents that revealed Israeli military planning to attack Iran. The documents reference recent Israeli drills involving air-launched ballistic missiles, as well as covert drone activity. The official, Asif Rahman, was arrested in Cambodia last week and indicted on two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act.
***
Report from Gaza: Palestinians Feel They Are Being “Slowly Exterminated” in Israel’s Genocide
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 14, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/14 ... transcript
We go to Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where we get an update from Arwa Damon of the humanitarian organization INARA on “deteriorating conditions” as Palestinians are “slowly exterminated” by disease and starvation caused by Israel’s brutal siege. A special U.N. committee has found that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” Palestinians in Gaza feel that “they are living through their own annihilation,” says Damon. “There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.”
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 to Israel’s war on Gaza. A special U.N. committee reported today Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” unquote. Another report by Human Rights Watch finds Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through its mass forced displacement of Gaza’s civilians.
This comes as the Biden administration has decided to continue arming Israel, even though aid groups say Israel has failed to meet a U.S.-imposed 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza.
We go now to Deir al-Balah in Gaza, where we’re joined by Arwa Damon, founder of INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, previously spent 18 years at CNN, including time as a senior international correspondent.
Thanks so much for being with us, Arwa. This is your fourth trip back to Gaza since October 7, 2023. Tell us what you see there.
ARWA DAMON: You know, Amy, you think you can’t get worse, and then it does. You think people, quite simply, could never cope with these deteriorating conditions, and yet somehow they do. It’s a situation that they have been forced into.
Arguably, the conditions when it comes to access of humanitarian organizations and our ability to distribute aid, aid actually getting into the strip, we’re talking about the lowest levels yet. And this is exactly during the timeframe that the U.S. had given to Israel to actually improve the situation. We’ve seen it getting significantly worse. We’re not just talking about a shortage in things like flour, food, water, fresh vegetables, you know, hygiene kits. We’re also talking about shortages in what’s available on the commercial market. So, even if you somehow had money to be able to go buy what you need, it quite simply isn’t here.
These hospitals that we keep talking about as being partially functioning, what does that actually mean? It means that if you show up bleeding, someone inside is going to try to stop the bleed, but do they actually have what they need to save your life? No. I was inside visiting some kids here at Al-Aqsa earlier today and over the weekend. There’s a little 2-year-old boy here whose brain you can see pulsing through his skin. His skull bone was removed. This little boy was not stabilizing properly because the ICU was missing a pediatric-sized tracheostomy tube. Now, luckily, we were able to, you know, source some of them, and he has now stabilized, and he is off the ventilator. But this really gives you an idea of just how serious the situation here is.
People are gathering to demonstrate for things like flour, for bread, for whatever it is that you can imagine. Winter is coming. The rains are coming. This means flooding is coming. And on top of just, you know, water flooding, we’e also anticipating that the sewage sites are going to be flooding, as well. Aid organizations need to be able to have the capacity and the ability to, you know, shift those sites to areas where they’re not going to pose even more of a health hazard to the community. So, I mean, it’s a complete and total nightmare. It’s beyond being a nightmare.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about this latest report? The special U.N. committee says Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” coming at the same time as a Human Rights Watch report, and UNRWA talks about famine being imminent in northern Gaza.
ARWA DAMON: So, if we’re talking specifically about the north, the northern province of Gaza, this is an area where Israel launched its military operation there nearly four weeks ago. We have seen people repeatedly being forcibly displaced from their homes. There is very little access to medical assistance there. There has been absolutely no humanitarian assistance delivered there for about the last month. People are starving. They are dying. And it’s not just bombs that are killing people, it’s also disease.
So, when we look at the nature of what is happening in Gaza, you can’t spend a day here, Amy, and not come away with the notion that you are witnessing a population that is being slowly exterminated. And I say “slowly” because, yes, bombs kill quickly, but disease and starvation, they are slow killers. And that is what a lot of people are facing here.
And talk to anybody in Gaza, and there’s absolutely no doubt in their mind that, one, they are living through their own annihilation, and, two, what Israel is doing in the northern part is going to be repeated elsewhere. And this is also part of why you see a reluctance among the population to want to evacuate, because Gazans know, Palestinians know that when they leave, they’re not going to be able to go back home. This is what history has taught them. And there is this very real, ingrained fear among the population here right now that what they’re going through at this moment is not the end. There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.
And they feel completely and totally abandoned by the international community, by global leaders, not to mention the United States. And everyone is convinced that right now Israel is going have even more free rein to do whatever it is that it wants here. When you talk to people about what it is that they’re going through, they do feel as if every single aspect of trying to survive here has been carefully orchestrated by Israel so that it is able to sort of meet America’s bare minimum of standards, to allow America sufficient cover to say, “Oh, no, there’s improvement that’s happening.” And yet, actually, at the core of it is just another way to continue to kill the population.
AMY GOODMAN: And as you talk about the United States, which has given tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, they did recently set a 30-day deadline to increase the flow of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, but the U.S. has decided to keep arming Israel despite this and despite the number of officials in the State Department and other parts of the U.S. government who have quit over this.
ARWA DAMON: Yeah, and let’s just look at the numbers. Let’s just look at what happened when the U.S. started the clock for that 30-day deadline to improve humanitarian assistance. We saw, very shortly afterwards, the number of trucks accessing Gaza dip significantly, down to 30 a day, keeping in mind that one of the key demands that the U.S. had was that aid be increased to at least 350 trucks. So we saw this, you know, decrease consistent of roughly 30 trucks a day for most of the month of October. Now, in November, that number did go up to around 60-70, but we’re still talking about, you know, falling extraordinarily short, providing barely 20% of what it is that the population here needs.
We saw less access to these besieged areas in the north, where people are effectively trapped or having to basically risk their lives. We’ve had numerous instances where aid has been delivered to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north, for example, where, shortly after medical evacuation teams have arrived there, there have been strikes. You have this very ingrained fear that exists among people right now, especially in the north, where some of them are saying, “Don’t deliver anything, because right after you’re delivering, strikes are happening.”
And just to illustrate how it is that we try to move, so if we’re moving from south to north, for example, or even if we’re moving within the northern areas, those movement requests have to be approved by Israel. And aid organizations are increasingly wary of moving around with what we call soft-skin cars, which is basically your normal vehicle that we use to move around in, because of the increasing frequency of instances at Israeli checkpoints where aid convoys have been shot at by IDF troops after receiving the green light, the OK to cross through, which means that for a lot of aid organizations, movement is limited to those who have access to armored vehicles, vehicles that are more secure. And those don’t really exist in Gaza in high numbers at all. And we’re not allowed to bring in more to sort of beef up our capacity to be able to move around safely.
I mean, no matter which way you look at it, Amy, you’re constantly faced by numerous obstacles that don’t need to be there. It feels very deliberate, not to mention the complete and total breakdown of security. Now we have numerous looting instances of aid trucks. We’ve repeatedly asked the Israeli side to be able to use alternative routes, to be able to use secured routes. Those requests are not being met. I mean, it’s just — it’s such an impossible situation to operate in. I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over and over again each time I come in. And the words to demonstrate how much worse it’s getting, quite simply, lack in our vocabulary.
AMY GOODMAN: You also wrote a piece recently, “The Devastation of Lebanon,” for New Lines. And we had this headline, The Washington Post reporting a close aide to Netanyahu told Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner that Israel is rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon as a gift to Trump ahead of his January inauguration. Your response to the significance of Trump’s election and what it means to the people of Lebanon and Gaza?
ARWA DAMON: You know, first of all, anyone who lives in the Middle East and anyone who’s kind of been focusing on the Middle East knows very well that it really doesn’t matter who’s in the White House. Whether it’s Republican or Democrat, that really is not going to change significantly U.S. policy towards this region.
But the thing that we’ve been hearing, specifically when it comes to the reelection of Donald Trump, is at least he’s not lying to us. At least whatever America is going to let Israel do, it’s going to be done faster. So, if our end is coming, at least it’s going to come faster. Whereas when it comes to, you know, specifically the Biden administration, the sense is that the Democrats are far more willing to allow this slower, more painful death. But the end result, no matter who it is, people are fully convinced, is exactly the same.
And all people really want right now is for this to end. People are suffocated. They’re crushed. They cannot keep going like this. And they very much feel as if, you know, no matter what it is, no matter who it is, Arabs are viewed by the United States and by the Western world as somehow being less than. Their lives are not that valuable. You constantly hear people in Gaza — and we were hearing the same thing in Lebanon — making comments like, “Well, you know, America, it doesn’t care if we live or die. It doesn’t care how much we suffer. Our lives don’t matter to them.” And that is not really a perspective that changes all that much, no matter who is sitting in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, Arwa. Why did you give up journalism for humanitarian work? What do you think you can accomplish at INARA that you couldn’t do as a journalist?
ARWA DAMON: There’s a certain sort of privilege of being able to spend extensive periods of time with people and really get to know who they are. And I feel as if, you know, moving around in the humanitarian sphere, I’m getting a different understanding of sort of people’s emotional journeys, what it actually takes to be able to provide them with assistance. And it’s provided me a different way of being able to continue to sort of share people’s stories and experiences, but also be able to immediately at least try to provide assistance. You know, the challenge that we have when we’re out in the field as journalists is that you don’t always see the impact. But when you’re in the humanitarian space, there’s a certain kind of magic when you’re able to just bring a smile to a child’s face. And I needed that.
AMY GOODMAN: Arwa Damon, we thank you so much for being with us. Stay safe. Award-winning journalist, was with CNN for 18 years but now has founded INARA, a nonprofit currently providing medical and mental healthcare to children in Gaza, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah in Gaza outside Al-Aqsa Hospital.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 2:35 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/15/headlines
Israeli Airstrikes Devastate Beirut, Baalbek, Killing Dozens of People and Forcing 100,000s to Flee
Nov 15, 2024
Israel’s military launched more deadly airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, shortly after issuing new forced evacuation orders. The attacks on the Ghobeiry and Burj al-Barajneh neighborhoods leveled entire residential buildings. The districts, where some 700,000 people used to live and work, are largely empty due to Israel’s assault, now in its eighth week. Lebanese officials say the latest Israeli attacks killed at least 37 people, including at least 12 emergency rescue workers killed in a strike on a civil defense center in the city of Baalbek.
Meanwhile, Syria’s government says at least 15 people were killed and 16 others wounded, including children, when Israeli fighter jets bombed the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday.
Rashida Tlaib Calls on Blinken to Resign for Violating U.S. Laws on Aid and Arms Trade
Nov 15, 2024
Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign after he refused to hold Israel accountable for failing to allow U.S. aid into Gaza. Humanitarian groups report aid deliveries have fallen to an all-time low since Blinken issued his ultimatum, with just 37 trucks entering Gaza per day in October and an average of 69 trucks per day in early November. Congressmember Tlaib spoke from the House floor Thursday, displaying a photograph of an emaciated Palestinian child.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “U.S. law is very clear. No nation blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance can receive U.S. weapons. The Biden administration cannot pick and choose when they comply with our own laws. Children are forced to eat pet food and bug-infested flour. Look at this, and do not turn your back on, again, being complicit to this war crime. But Blinken says there’s no need to change our own policy.”
Netanyahu’s Aides May Have Doctored Phone Records on Israeli General’s Pre-Attack Warning on Oct. 7
Nov 15, 2024
The New York Times is reporting aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are being investigated for altering official records of a phone call by a top general who warned of the Hamas attacks on the morning of October 7, 2023. The probe suggests Netanyahu may have been informed of the attack before it happened, which he has denied. Over 1,100 people were killed in the Hamas attacks. In the more than 13 months since, Israel has killed over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, though some estimates put the true death toll at over 300,000.
***
Historian Enzo Traverso: Israel Is Using the Memory of the Holocaust to Justify Genocide in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/15 ... transcript
In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of “civil religion” that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World War. However, in recent decades, Traverso warns, “the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.” Witnessing this distortion of history, “I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood,” says Traverso. “Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, broadcasting from PBS12 in Denver. Nermeen Shaikh is in New York.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show with the acclaimed historian Enzo Traverso, author of the new book Gaza Faces History. One reviewer has said the book offers, quote, “a devastating indictment of the rhetorical subterfuge by which Israel and its supporters in the West have justified Gaza’s slaughter.”
AMY GOODMAN: Enzo Traverso joins us from Ithaca, New York, where he teaches at Cornell University. His other books include The Origins of Nazi Violence and The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far Right.
Professor Enzo Traverso, welcome to Democracy Now! Your field of study has been fascism, the Nazis. Talk about why you’re now taking on Gaza.
ENZO TRAVERSO: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Yeah, I’m a historian of modern European history. I was deeply affected by what is happening in Gaza now, like everyone, but I am not a scholar of the Middle East. And at the beginning, I did not think to write a book on this war and this genocide. But I quickly realized that history, and even a lot of words, a semantic, related to the history of wars, the history of violence and genocides, and that European history itself was hugely mobilized in order to interpret the Gaza war. And I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood, and mislead, concepts like pogroms, Holocaust, antisemitism, Zionism. And so, facing such misunderstanding of reality, so I thought it was important to clarify the meaning of such concepts.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Traverso, you begin the book by citing Sebald’s extraordinary work, On the Natural History of Destruction, in which he tries to understand, in part, why after the devastating aerial bombardments of German cities at the end of the Second World War, there was scarcely a word spoken by German survivors of those aerial assaults. Could you speak about how you use this as a kind of premise and how that one should interpret what’s happened after October 7th through that lens, the way in which victims and perpetrators have represented — how victims and perpetrators have been represented in the conflict?
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. I open my book quoting this great German writer, W. G. Sebald, who pointed out how at the end of the Second World War Germans were silent about their own sufferings, which were uncontestable. So, German civil society had been destroyed by the Allied bombings. But this silence was related to the awareness that when Germans suffered these war crimes, Nazi Germany was perpetrating the Holocaust and worse crimes in Europe, particularly on the Eastern Front. And, well, at the end of the Second World War, the Nuremberg trial judged the Nazi crimes. And only many decades later, the German suffering during the Second World War were acknowledged, without appearing as a kind of exculpation or of relativization of Nazi crime.
Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality. It’s like a Nuremberg trial in which, instead of the Nazi crimes, were judged the Allied atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. and the U.K. aircrafts.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Traverso, could you explain why you think that this memory of the Holocaust, the way in which the Holocaust has been deployed since October 7th, is actually a desecration of the Holocaust itself? If you could elaborate on that point and why you think it’s been used for these ends by so many?
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. The memory of the Holocaust was subterranean and underground, an occulted memory for decades after the Second World War. But through a very difficult and painful process of working through the past, the memory of the Holocaust became a central element of, a pillar of the, not only Western, but global memorial landscape. We cannot think of the 20th century without locating the Holocaust at the center of this picture. And the memory of the Holocaust had — so, I write in my book that it became a kind of civil religion of our liberal democracies and used in order to celebrate human rights and some fundamental values of our democracies. The Holocaust memory was extremely important as a kind of paradigm in order to elaborate the memory of other forms of violence and genocide.
But during the last decades — I would say two last two decades — the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. And this has extremely dangerous consequences, because today we are facing a dramatic, a tragic situation in which the memory of the Holocaust is invoked and claimed in order to justify a war in Gaza which is taking genocidal features. And this means that the memory of the Holocaust is completely perverted.
And think of the possible consequences of that. Those who are protesting against this genocidal war are accused of antisemitism. But if the memory of the Holocaust is mobilized to defend unconditionally a genocidal policy, maybe people could think that the memory of the Holocaust is intrinsically bad. If criticizing a genocide is antisemitism, many people would think that antisemitism is not so bad. And finally, many people would start thinking that the Holocaust itself is a myth invented by Israel in order to justify its politics of occupation of the Palestinian territories and of oppression. So, I fear, I worry that in the long view, maybe not immediately, but people who are claiming an unconditional defense of Israeli occupation and war in the name of the struggle against antisemitism and in the name of the memory of the Holocaust are preparing a new wave of antisemitism.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Enzo Traverso, before we end today’s show, I wanted to ask you about the victory of Trump. You’ve said what astonished you was not his winning, but the extent of his winning. One of your previous books is titled The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far Right. If you could elaborate on this?
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah, in this book, I proposed the category of post-fascism in order to depict this very large and heterogeneous constellation of radical right, extreme right, fascist and radical nationalist movements and parties, which are rising on a global scale. And Trump is not an exception. Trump is part of this global phenomenon. And I used this concept of post-fascism because, for evident reasons, we live in a different context with respect to the age of classical fascism, and because there are many uncontestable differences between Donald Trump or Milei in Argentina or Marine Le Pen in France or Giorgia Meloni in Italy and classical fascism, from this point of view, so it’s something different with respect to fascism. But at the same time, we cannot approach and interpret this new political phenomenon without comparing it with classical fascism. It’s something transitional between fascism and something unknown, which is emerging. Well, there is a debate in the United States about —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 20 seconds, I hate to say to you. Professor, we just have 20 seconds.
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. So, I said I have no difficulties to depict Trump as a fascist. He proved that he is ready to transgress the basic features of democracy, contesting the outcome of the election. But this kind of fascism is not a meteor that’s suddenly falling —
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, but we are looking forward to doing an extended interview when you come to New York City. Cornell professor Enzo Traverso is author of the new book Gaza Faces History.
And that does it for today’s show. We’ve been broadcasting here in Denver at the studios of PBS12 at the Five Points Media Center, which is also home to Free Speech TV. Thanks to the folks here at PBS12: Bobby Springer, Mary Latsis and the whole crew. Next week, we’ll be broadcasting from Baku, Azerbaijan, the U.N. climate summit. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/15/headlines
Israeli Airstrikes Devastate Beirut, Baalbek, Killing Dozens of People and Forcing 100,000s to Flee
Nov 15, 2024
Israel’s military launched more deadly airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, shortly after issuing new forced evacuation orders. The attacks on the Ghobeiry and Burj al-Barajneh neighborhoods leveled entire residential buildings. The districts, where some 700,000 people used to live and work, are largely empty due to Israel’s assault, now in its eighth week. Lebanese officials say the latest Israeli attacks killed at least 37 people, including at least 12 emergency rescue workers killed in a strike on a civil defense center in the city of Baalbek.
Meanwhile, Syria’s government says at least 15 people were killed and 16 others wounded, including children, when Israeli fighter jets bombed the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday.
Rashida Tlaib Calls on Blinken to Resign for Violating U.S. Laws on Aid and Arms Trade
Nov 15, 2024
Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign after he refused to hold Israel accountable for failing to allow U.S. aid into Gaza. Humanitarian groups report aid deliveries have fallen to an all-time low since Blinken issued his ultimatum, with just 37 trucks entering Gaza per day in October and an average of 69 trucks per day in early November. Congressmember Tlaib spoke from the House floor Thursday, displaying a photograph of an emaciated Palestinian child.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “U.S. law is very clear. No nation blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance can receive U.S. weapons. The Biden administration cannot pick and choose when they comply with our own laws. Children are forced to eat pet food and bug-infested flour. Look at this, and do not turn your back on, again, being complicit to this war crime. But Blinken says there’s no need to change our own policy.”
Netanyahu’s Aides May Have Doctored Phone Records on Israeli General’s Pre-Attack Warning on Oct. 7
Nov 15, 2024
The New York Times is reporting aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are being investigated for altering official records of a phone call by a top general who warned of the Hamas attacks on the morning of October 7, 2023. The probe suggests Netanyahu may have been informed of the attack before it happened, which he has denied. Over 1,100 people were killed in the Hamas attacks. In the more than 13 months since, Israel has killed over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, though some estimates put the true death toll at over 300,000.
***
Historian Enzo Traverso: Israel Is Using the Memory of the Holocaust to Justify Genocide in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 15, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/15 ... transcript
In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of “civil religion” that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World War. However, in recent decades, Traverso warns, “the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.” Witnessing this distortion of history, “I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood,” says Traverso. “Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, broadcasting from PBS12 in Denver. Nermeen Shaikh is in New York.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show with the acclaimed historian Enzo Traverso, author of the new book Gaza Faces History. One reviewer has said the book offers, quote, “a devastating indictment of the rhetorical subterfuge by which Israel and its supporters in the West have justified Gaza’s slaughter.”
AMY GOODMAN: Enzo Traverso joins us from Ithaca, New York, where he teaches at Cornell University. His other books include The Origins of Nazi Violence and The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far Right.
Professor Enzo Traverso, welcome to Democracy Now! Your field of study has been fascism, the Nazis. Talk about why you’re now taking on Gaza.
ENZO TRAVERSO: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Yeah, I’m a historian of modern European history. I was deeply affected by what is happening in Gaza now, like everyone, but I am not a scholar of the Middle East. And at the beginning, I did not think to write a book on this war and this genocide. But I quickly realized that history, and even a lot of words, a semantic, related to the history of wars, the history of violence and genocides, and that European history itself was hugely mobilized in order to interpret the Gaza war. And I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood, and mislead, concepts like pogroms, Holocaust, antisemitism, Zionism. And so, facing such misunderstanding of reality, so I thought it was important to clarify the meaning of such concepts.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Traverso, you begin the book by citing Sebald’s extraordinary work, On the Natural History of Destruction, in which he tries to understand, in part, why after the devastating aerial bombardments of German cities at the end of the Second World War, there was scarcely a word spoken by German survivors of those aerial assaults. Could you speak about how you use this as a kind of premise and how that one should interpret what’s happened after October 7th through that lens, the way in which victims and perpetrators have represented — how victims and perpetrators have been represented in the conflict?
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. I open my book quoting this great German writer, W. G. Sebald, who pointed out how at the end of the Second World War Germans were silent about their own sufferings, which were uncontestable. So, German civil society had been destroyed by the Allied bombings. But this silence was related to the awareness that when Germans suffered these war crimes, Nazi Germany was perpetrating the Holocaust and worse crimes in Europe, particularly on the Eastern Front. And, well, at the end of the Second World War, the Nuremberg trial judged the Nazi crimes. And only many decades later, the German suffering during the Second World War were acknowledged, without appearing as a kind of exculpation or of relativization of Nazi crime.
Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality. It’s like a Nuremberg trial in which, instead of the Nazi crimes, were judged the Allied atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. and the U.K. aircrafts.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Traverso, could you explain why you think that this memory of the Holocaust, the way in which the Holocaust has been deployed since October 7th, is actually a desecration of the Holocaust itself? If you could elaborate on that point and why you think it’s been used for these ends by so many?
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. The memory of the Holocaust was subterranean and underground, an occulted memory for decades after the Second World War. But through a very difficult and painful process of working through the past, the memory of the Holocaust became a central element of, a pillar of the, not only Western, but global memorial landscape. We cannot think of the 20th century without locating the Holocaust at the center of this picture. And the memory of the Holocaust had — so, I write in my book that it became a kind of civil religion of our liberal democracies and used in order to celebrate human rights and some fundamental values of our democracies. The Holocaust memory was extremely important as a kind of paradigm in order to elaborate the memory of other forms of violence and genocide.
But during the last decades — I would say two last two decades — the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. And this has extremely dangerous consequences, because today we are facing a dramatic, a tragic situation in which the memory of the Holocaust is invoked and claimed in order to justify a war in Gaza which is taking genocidal features. And this means that the memory of the Holocaust is completely perverted.
And think of the possible consequences of that. Those who are protesting against this genocidal war are accused of antisemitism. But if the memory of the Holocaust is mobilized to defend unconditionally a genocidal policy, maybe people could think that the memory of the Holocaust is intrinsically bad. If criticizing a genocide is antisemitism, many people would think that antisemitism is not so bad. And finally, many people would start thinking that the Holocaust itself is a myth invented by Israel in order to justify its politics of occupation of the Palestinian territories and of oppression. So, I fear, I worry that in the long view, maybe not immediately, but people who are claiming an unconditional defense of Israeli occupation and war in the name of the struggle against antisemitism and in the name of the memory of the Holocaust are preparing a new wave of antisemitism.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Enzo Traverso, before we end today’s show, I wanted to ask you about the victory of Trump. You’ve said what astonished you was not his winning, but the extent of his winning. One of your previous books is titled The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far Right. If you could elaborate on this?
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah, in this book, I proposed the category of post-fascism in order to depict this very large and heterogeneous constellation of radical right, extreme right, fascist and radical nationalist movements and parties, which are rising on a global scale. And Trump is not an exception. Trump is part of this global phenomenon. And I used this concept of post-fascism because, for evident reasons, we live in a different context with respect to the age of classical fascism, and because there are many uncontestable differences between Donald Trump or Milei in Argentina or Marine Le Pen in France or Giorgia Meloni in Italy and classical fascism, from this point of view, so it’s something different with respect to fascism. But at the same time, we cannot approach and interpret this new political phenomenon without comparing it with classical fascism. It’s something transitional between fascism and something unknown, which is emerging. Well, there is a debate in the United States about —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 20 seconds, I hate to say to you. Professor, we just have 20 seconds.
ENZO TRAVERSO: Yeah. So, I said I have no difficulties to depict Trump as a fascist. He proved that he is ready to transgress the basic features of democracy, contesting the outcome of the election. But this kind of fascism is not a meteor that’s suddenly falling —
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, but we are looking forward to doing an extended interview when you come to New York City. Cornell professor Enzo Traverso is author of the new book Gaza Faces History.
And that does it for today’s show. We’ve been broadcasting here in Denver at the studios of PBS12 at the Five Points Media Center, which is also home to Free Speech TV. Thanks to the folks here at PBS12: Bobby Springer, Mary Latsis and the whole crew. Next week, we’ll be broadcasting from Baku, Azerbaijan, the U.N. climate summit. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 30, 2024 11:22 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/18 ... transcript
Pope Calls for Investigation into Gaza Genocide as Israel Kills Dozens More Palestinians Every Day
Nov 18, 2024
Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s war on Gaza constitutes genocide. This comes as the official death toll in Gaza nears 44,000, but that is believed to be a vast undercount.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on a residential tower in Beit Lahia killed as many as 72 people. On Saturday, Israel struck a school in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp housing displaced people. At least 10 Palestinians were killed. Another 10 Palestinians were killed in a strike on the Bureij refugee camp. This is Eid Abou Rikab, who lost cousins in the attack.
Eid Abou Rikab: “It’s one of the biggest crimes, something that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. Why target peaceful people sitting in their home? What could they possibly have to justify hitting them in their own house? If you want to target military personnel, go and search for them. The one who dies is always the civilian. We were forced to flee from the north and went to al-Mawasi, which they said was a safe place. Then you come and strike there.”
Israeli Strikes Kill Another 8 Paramedics in Lebanon, Hezbollah Media Chief
Nov 18, 2024
Israel is continuing to bombard Lebanon despite talk of a possible ceasefire. Al Jazeera reports eight more paramedics have been killed in Lebanon. On Friday, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister urged Iran to persuade Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire deal with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has assassinated Hezbollah’s media chief, Mohammed Afif. He was killed in an airstrike in central Beirut. Afif was one of the last remaining public faces of Hezbollah.
Protesters Arrested After Setting Off Flares Near Home of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
Nov 18, 2024
In Israel, three protesters have been detained after flares were fired near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The incident occurred as protests continue calling for a ceasefire deal to free the remaining hostages in Gaza.
COP29 Protesters Call for Energy Embargo over Gaza Genocide, Climate Catastrophe
Nov 18, 2024
The U.N. climate summit here in Baku, Azerbaijan, has entered its second and final week. On Saturday, activists held a silent protest to demand the phase-out of fossil fuels, climate financing for the Global South and a just transition to clean energy. Earlier today, activists called for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. This is Mohamed Kamal from the Egyptian group Greenish.
Mohamed Kamal: “When we’re calling for an energy embargo, we’re calling it because it’s the primary source that is fueling this genocide. We need action and not commitment. Words are empty. We need this action to be in front of us. People in the region have been speaking out, but governments are not matching that action at all. So we need to see these commitments happening. We need that energy embargo.”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/18 ... transcript
Pope Calls for Investigation into Gaza Genocide as Israel Kills Dozens More Palestinians Every Day
Nov 18, 2024
Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s war on Gaza constitutes genocide. This comes as the official death toll in Gaza nears 44,000, but that is believed to be a vast undercount.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on a residential tower in Beit Lahia killed as many as 72 people. On Saturday, Israel struck a school in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp housing displaced people. At least 10 Palestinians were killed. Another 10 Palestinians were killed in a strike on the Bureij refugee camp. This is Eid Abou Rikab, who lost cousins in the attack.
Eid Abou Rikab: “It’s one of the biggest crimes, something that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. Why target peaceful people sitting in their home? What could they possibly have to justify hitting them in their own house? If you want to target military personnel, go and search for them. The one who dies is always the civilian. We were forced to flee from the north and went to al-Mawasi, which they said was a safe place. Then you come and strike there.”
Israeli Strikes Kill Another 8 Paramedics in Lebanon, Hezbollah Media Chief
Nov 18, 2024
Israel is continuing to bombard Lebanon despite talk of a possible ceasefire. Al Jazeera reports eight more paramedics have been killed in Lebanon. On Friday, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister urged Iran to persuade Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire deal with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has assassinated Hezbollah’s media chief, Mohammed Afif. He was killed in an airstrike in central Beirut. Afif was one of the last remaining public faces of Hezbollah.
Protesters Arrested After Setting Off Flares Near Home of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
Nov 18, 2024
In Israel, three protesters have been detained after flares were fired near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The incident occurred as protests continue calling for a ceasefire deal to free the remaining hostages in Gaza.
COP29 Protesters Call for Energy Embargo over Gaza Genocide, Climate Catastrophe
Nov 18, 2024
The U.N. climate summit here in Baku, Azerbaijan, has entered its second and final week. On Saturday, activists held a silent protest to demand the phase-out of fossil fuels, climate financing for the Global South and a just transition to clean energy. Earlier today, activists called for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. This is Mohamed Kamal from the Egyptian group Greenish.
Mohamed Kamal: “When we’re calling for an energy embargo, we’re calling it because it’s the primary source that is fueling this genocide. We need action and not commitment. Words are empty. We need this action to be in front of us. People in the region have been speaking out, but governments are not matching that action at all. So we need to see these commitments happening. We need that energy embargo.”
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