Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 18, 2024
12 Killed, 3,000 Wounded as Israel Triggers Explosives Planted in Pagers Used by Hezbollah
Sep 18, 2024
In Lebanon, at least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 people were injured Tuesday afternoon when electronic pagers used by members of Hezbollah exploded at the same time. The simultaneous blasts set off fear and panic in Beirut and across southern Lebanon and left hospitals overwhelmed. Hezbollah blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate, raising fears of a broader regional war. Reuters reports Israel’s Mossad spy agency managed to plant explosive devices in pagers bought in recent months by Hezbollah. Victims of the attack included a 10-year-old girl named Fatima Jaafar Abdullah, who was killed when her father’s pager exploded. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, lost an eye to an exploding pager. Hezbollah relied on pagers for communication in part to avoid Israel’s surveillance of other communication networks. Lebanese lawmakers condemned the attack as an act of terrorism. After headlines, we’ll go to Beirut, Geneva and Boston for the latest.
State Dept. Denies Advance Knowledge of Pager Plot; Kamala Harris Defends U.S. Arms to Israel
Sep 18, 2024
Top Biden administration officials quickly distanced themselves from Tuesday’s pager attack on Lebanon. This is State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Matthew Miller: “I can tell you that the U.S. was not involved in it. The U.S. was not aware of this incident in advance. And at this point, we’re gathering information.”
On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris defended the Biden administration’s support of Israel throughout its assault on Gaza. During an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris also cited her support for President Biden’s decision in May to temporarily pause the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Harris was questioned by reporter Eugene Daniels of Politico.
Eugene Daniels: “But what do you say to those that say that’s not enough, that stopping the 2,000-pound bombs the one time wasn’t enough, that this administration, your possible administration, has to do more?”
Vice President Kamala Harris: “Well, we are doing the work of putting the pressure on all parties involved to get the deal done. But let me be very clear also: I support Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
Just last month, the Biden administration approved $20 billion in additional weapons sales to Israel, including advanced air-to-air missiles and fighter jets.
8 Killed as Israel Bombs School Housing Displaced Palestinians in Gaza
Sep 18, 2024
In Gaza, at least 20 Palestinians have been killed and 54 wounded over the past 24 hours, including at least eight people who were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school sheltering displaced civilians in Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood. Another attack on a civilian car near Rafah in southern Gaza killed two Palestinians and wounded several others. Israel announced four of its soldiers were killed in Rafah.
***
Israel Blamed as Pager Explosions in Lebanon Kill 12 & Injure 2,800; Hezbollah Vows to Respond
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 18, 2024
At least 12 people were killed and over 2,800 people were injured Tuesday in Lebanon when electronic pagers used by many members of Hezbollah — who had switched to the older technology over concerns of mobile phones’ vulnerability to security breaches — exploded simultaneously across the country in a coordinated attack on the group. Individual explosions occurred in supermarkets, cafes, houses and in other public places. Many of the injuries were sustained by civilians who were not carrying the pagers themselves, including at least two children who died from their wounds. According to a Reuters report, Israel’s Mossad spy agency had managed to plant explosive material in a batch of pagers bought in recent months by Hezbollah, which has vowed to retaliate, deepening the risks of a broader regional war. We discuss the attack with three guests: Beirut-based journalist Mohamad Kleit, Human Rights Watch’s Ramzi Kaiss and Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri. Kaiss says the “indiscriminate attack” on the Lebanese population — which Kleit additionally describes as “terrorist” — is “unlawful under the rules of war.” “What the Israeli attack using the pagers did was completely throw out the rulebook,” says Khouri, as eyes are on the region in preparation for another possible Israeli escalation.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
In Lebanon, at least 12 people were killed, over 2,800 injured Tuesday when electronic pagers used by members of Hezbollah exploded at the same time. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon. Israel is widely believed to be behind the attack. Hezbollah vowed to retaliate against Israel, as fears grow of a broader regional war.
According to a report by Reuters, Israel’s Mossad spy agency had managed to plant explosive material in a batch of pagers bought in recent months by Hezbollah. The pagers were sold under the name of the Taiwanese brand Gold Apollo, but the company said the pagers were actually made by a firm in Budapest that had a license to use the Gold Apollo name.
Victims of the attack included a 10-year-old girl who died when her father’s pager exploded. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also injured by an exploding pager. The New York Times reports he lost an eye in the blast.
The nature of the simultaneous attack shocked many in Lebanon.
LEBANESE MAN: [translated] What happened yesterday shocked us. It was unimaginable. No one could have thought that pagers could explode like that. The scene was shocking, how people were torn apart right in front of you.
AMY GOODMAN: Hezbollah relied on pagers in part to avoid Israel’s surveillance of other communication networks, like cellphones. Lebanese lawmaker Tony Frangieh Jr. condemned the attack as an act of terrorism.
TONY FRANGIEH JR.: [translated] Catastrophic repercussions for the crisis today, but this, as I have previously explained with several stations, is terrorism being practiced against Lebanon. And we — and, I believe, the majority of the Lebanese people — do not submit to the language of terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said the U.S. did not know about nor was involved in what he called, quote, “these incidents.” Blinken made the comments in Cairo, Egypt, where he held a joint news conference with the Egyptian foreign minister and met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Axios reports Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin shortly before the operation began.
We go now to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by independent Lebanese journalist Mohamad Kleit.
Thanks so much for being with us. Mohamad, can you describe the scene yesterday at 3:30?
MOHAMAD KLEIT: Thank you very much for having me.
We’re still in a sort of state of shock of what happened. We didn’t comprehend what was going on until later hours at night. What happened at 3:30 exactly, certain sounds of small explosions were happening in the streets of the southern suburbs specifically, people hearing — yelling at the street. People were in a state of shock. Some of them who were not targeted by this terrorist attack were in a state of — they were frozen in the streets, not knowing what was going on. It was very hard to comprehend, to make sense of what was happening.
Then, later on, people started helping the people who were injured, where these pagers exploded on their waists or even their hands or in front of their faces, taking them to hospitals, because they were falling down on the street by the thousands. As the minister of health has counted, around 1,850 persons were injured in the southern suburbs alone, or in Beirut in general. There were around 2,000 persons who were admitted to hospitals, around 450 persons who were critically injured in the faces and the eyes, while on the street people until now are still making sense of what was happening. Even until late at night, people were still on the streets still trying to get people who were injured from their houses, from the cafes, from the supermarkets, from all the civilian buildings where these pagers have exploded, trying to admit them to hospitals, trying to donate blood for those who have lost it.
AMY GOODMAN: And the number of people killed and wounded and the people who were killed — we just reported on an 8-year-old girl — can you go more into this, Mohamad?
MOHAMAD KLEIT: Yes. So far, there have been 13 persons who were killed, 10 of them who are direct personnels of Hezbollah, whether they be affiliated with Hezbollah or they might be contractors, as well, because from what — and there are also three other civilians, a mother and the little girl that you talked about, who was — I think she’s 9 years old, and there’s also a young boy who’s 11 years old who passed away late at night. From what I know, that these pagers are used by Hezbollah, basically by the people who are medics, who work in logistics, not the people who work — very few of them who work in the military sector of Hezbollah use these pagers.
AMY GOODMAN: I’d like to bring a guest into the conversation who is an expert on investigating human rights abuses: Ramzi Kaiss, Human Rights Watch researcher investigating human rights abuses in Lebanon. He’s joining us from Geneva. Ramzi, thanks so much for being with us. Can you explain what you understand technically happened? And talk about it in the context of an international human rights framework.
RAMZI KAISS: Thanks, Amy. And thanks for having me.
As you noted and as Mohamad noted, yesterday there were scenes of just chaos and shock in Lebanon as thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously across the country, resulting in thousands of people being injured, according to the Ministry of Health. At least 12 people have been killed. This includes two children and aid workers. At least 2,800 people have been injured.
Now, photos and videos that we reviewed that were taken by witnesses to the attack or victims showed pagers exploding in public places such as grocery stores or supermarkets. And other videos that appear to be linked to the attack that took place, taken from emergency rooms, showed adults and children in emergency rooms with truly severe, traumatic and penetrating injuries. We saw injuries to the head, to the torso, to the limbs, with — many people had decapitated fingers, in addition to other injuries that appear to be consistent with the detonation of high explosives.
Now, we know that Hezbollah, in a statement that they issued, said that these pagers had belonged to various units and institutions within Hezbollah. They blame the Israeli government. And we know from the various media reports that have come out, you know, citing Israeli — former Israeli officials and U.S. officials saying that Israel is responsible for the attack. But the Israeli military has not commented as of yet, at least according to my knowledge.
But, look, certainly, there needs to be a full and prompt investigation into how the attack unfolded, that should be conducted. But what we know, from the perspective of international humanitarian law, on the way in which this attack took place, the law of armed conflict is clear. It prohibits the use of booby traps or other apparently harmless portable devices that civilians could be attracted to or that civilians use, precisely in order to avoid the harm that we saw unfold in Beirut yesterday with the devastating scenes of thousands of people being rushed to the hospital at the same time, including children, including civilians. When an explosive device is used or implanted in something such as a pager, where this device, its location cannot be reliably determined, where the means of attack or the method in which the attack takes place cannot differentiate between civilians or combatants, it cannot be directed at a specific military target, and which would strike military targets and civilians alike without distinguishing between them, this is an unlawfully indiscriminate attack, and it’s unlawful under the laws of war.
And there needs to be accountability for this violation and for other violations, because, as we’ve seen, there has been continued impunity for violations of the laws of war in Lebanon. Human Rights Watch has documented apparently deliberate attacks on civilians, on journalists, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, widespread use of white phosphorus, including on populated areas, and the use of U.S. weapons unlawfully against aid workers. And without accountability for such violations, they will continue with impunity. We’ve previously on various countries, such as the U.S. and other countries, to suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel in light of the fact that they could be used unlawfully in violations of IHL, as we are seeing unfold in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted following the attacks, quote, “What Israel has just done is, via any method, reckless. They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping (your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism.” Ramzi, your response?
RAMZI KAISS: Yeah. I mean, in the videos that we reviewed, you could clearly see these devices go off in supermarkets, where civilians were nearby, children were nearby, and the attacks happened at the same time. And so, when you use explosive devices that are not able to distinguish between — or, specifically target a military object, then they’re indiscriminate and could cause harm to civilians, as well as the military target. That would amount to an indiscriminate attack, and that is unlawful under the laws of war and should be investigated as a violation of IHL. And for those reasons, there needs to be not just an investigation, but accountability for such violations, or we will continue to see violations unfold with impunity.
AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned about the risk of a broader regional war.
JOSEP BORRELL: I was in Lebanon before coming to Emirates. I was visiting the United Nation troops in the border. When I came there, the level of danger was increasing, and I see the troops going to their barracks. Certainly, there is a possibility of the war spilling over not only to Lebanon, but also it’s already being important fire in the Red Sea, where we, the European Union, has deployed a navy mission in order to protect the freedom of navigation. The risk of a spillover is not from yesterday; it’s from the beginning. And we have to put all our efforts in order to try to avoid the regionalization of the war in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Josep Borrell, EU chief, the European Union. Rami Khouri is also with us, in Boston, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. Rami, you have repeatedly said you do not believe what was happening in Gaza would lead to a broader regional war. What are your thoughts today on what happened yesterday and where this is all headed?
RAMI KHOURI: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
You know, there are so many dimensions to this. And most of the discussion that we’re all involved in is based on speculation and assumptions. We have to be really careful to wait ’til we get verifiable facts, and then we can have a better idea.
But for the moment, I think I would say the following. I still believe that Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, Hamas and others want to avoid a all-out, you know, free-for-all war between people in the region, which would probably include the U.S. if Iran gets involved. We saw a couple months ago that Israel cannot defend itself by itself. It needs Arab support. It needs big-time American support on the spot. And it needs significant aid of money and weapons and other things. So, I still believe an all-out regional war is going to be avoided, because everybody realizes it wouldn’t solve anything. It would just create massive suffering and more openings for terror groups and armed nonstate actors, as well, etc. That’s what happens when you have chaos.
So, but what we do have is a regional low-intensity conflict going on. It’s been going on for about a year or so. And Hezbollah and Israel are the key points of this, but Hamas is involved. The Ansar Allah, the Houthis, in Yemen are involved, and others. Iran indirectly is involved. And the U.S. indirectly, through Israel, is involved.
What the Israeli attack using the pagers did is completely throw out the rulebook on two things. One, as the previous guest said, the rules of war are irrelevant. They’ve always been irrelevant to Israel and the Zionist movements before the creation of Israel. They’ve done whatever they needed to do, they say, to protect themselves. The world says there’s rules of wars to deal with that, but the Israelis have always ignored it. But they’ve also now thrown out the rules of engagement that Hezbollah and Israel have applied really since 2006, the last big war between them. I was in Beirut for that, and I experienced it, and I know the feeling that’s prevalent all over Lebanon now. It’s something I’ve experienced several times. And that was the point of what the Israelis wanted to do. They wanted to traumatize and terrorize the entire civilian population. They wanted to shock the Hezbollah institutions. And they wanted to basically destabilize the country to the point where if the Israelis wanted to go into South Lebanon in a big way, they would lay the groundwork for that.
But at the same time, what we, I think, have to keep remembering, in the last three, four months, we’ve had Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Israel and the Ansar Allah in Yemen, with their supersonic missile or whatever it’s called, the big-time missile that went right into Israel undetected from Yemen — they’ve all been broadcasting, showcasing their technical capabilities — in other words, sending a message to the other that we want to avoid a full war, because we have huge capabilities that we haven’t used yet, and this is something you all want to avoid. Israel just did its part in that drama, showing the capabilities that it has.
The thing that is fascinating to me and important and still unclear is that Israel had to prepare for this months and months ahead of time. And we’ll get more details on that soon. But this suggests that this kind of an operation was probably the prelude to a big land and air attack, I’m assuming, because they wouldn’t just do this by itself and drop it probably. But we’ll see. We don’t know the details.
But the Israelis have talked about Hezbollah for several years as their main threat, their main concern in the region. Hamas and others are secondary. They see Hezbollah both as a threat because of its power and its disruption in the north of Israel and because of its very direct links with Iran. And they’ve talked about trying to break it up, destroy it, push it back from the border. They keep coming up with all kinds of different ideas, none of which are clear, and almost none of which are within its capabilities.
So, you know, there are so many unknown factors. But we can say that all sides have tremendous capabilities, technological and other. They’re prepared to use them. They’re prepared to risk an all-out war in the region, which they would try to contain in the region without getting, say, the U.S. and Iran involved. And we don’t know if this is all — if the Israelis did this mainly to put pressure on the Lebanese and Hezbollah to accept the Israeli terms for the new terms of engagement, which is to push Hezbollah back from the Lebanon-Israel border about 10 miles or so. And it’s possible that this is just a short-term measure that Israel is trying to achieve. So, I think we have to take all of these things into consideration.
The last point I make is, nothing that happened yesterday and today or in the last few months is really new, but the scale of it is much bigger than anything that’s happened before. Israel and Hezbollah and others have used technology to kill each other and terrorize each other for decades. Terrorizing civilians is a stable Israeli policy for many years. And none of it is really new, but the scale of it now is what’s kind of scary. And because the Israel-U.S. combination is now actively exchanging fire with five or six parties all around the Middle East and facing a huge global swell of support for a ceasefire in Gaza and for a Palestinian state, serious political pressures that might even influence the American presidential election outcome possibly in the swing states, these are signs that the scale of the actions and the scale of the consequences are far higher than ever before.
And if you take a — you say, “Why is this?” I would say the one main reason — there are many, but the one main reason is that the U.S. and the Western world has allowed the right-wing Israeli governments of the last 15, 20 years to do anything they want, in terms of settlements, imprisoning thousands of Palestinians, killing people, now a plausible genocide. Israel can do anything it wants, kill as many people, ignore as many laws, terrorize as many people as it wants, dehumanize as many people as it wants. It will suffer no consequences. This is something quite extraordinary. And the world has to somehow come to grips with this.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Beirut for a moment. Victims of Israel’s pager attack included — I guess she’s 10 years old — a little girl named Fatima Jaafar Abdullah, killed when her father’s pager exploded. And now also confirmed, a young boy named Bilal Kanj has not survived his injuries after the Israeli pager attack in Lebanon. He becomes the second child to be killed. And I wanted to go back to the journalist Mohamad Kleit to ask about how widespread these pagers are in Lebanon and about the use of pagers specifically to avoid Israel’s surveillance of, specifically, cellphones.
MOHAMAD KLEIT: OK. So, there are two catches in this. The first part is that this batch, this new batch, that Hezbollah has ordered for these pagers, as you have mentioned before, that it’s a Taiwanese-made pager, but they got it from a Bulgarian [sic] company that uses the same name of the Taiwanese company or has the rights to use the name. As the investigations, journalistic investigations, have shown, Israel has intercepted this cargo of around 4,000 to 5,000 pagers, and they have tampered with it and detonated them, alongside placing eavesdropping devices inside of them.
And as Dr. Khouri has mentioned, that it was a weapon that they wanted to use during a full-on-scale attack or maybe a land attack on Lebanon, but, as we have seen two days ago, this plot was exposed by certain technicians in Hezbollah. And, you know, my personal sources have said that because this plot was exposed and they were working on getting rid of them and doing an investigation that they were doing on these pagers, that’s why Israel has detonated these pagers in a sudden way and caused this chain attack on people, on civilians and military personnel of Hezbollah. And about the —
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamad, just a quick correction.
MOHAMAD KLEIT: — second catch, why do they —
AMY GOODMAN: Just a quick correction on —
MOHAMAD KLEIT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: It was a Budapest-based — it was a Hungary-based company. I’m looking at the Reuters report. “The model of pagers used in” —
MOHAMAD KLEIT: I’m sorry. Yeah, Hungary. I said Bulgaria. Yeah, sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: — “detonations in Lebanon were made by Budapest-based BAC Consulting,” —
MOHAMAD KLEIT: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — the “Taiwanese pager firm Gold Apollo said on Wednesday, adding it had only licensed out its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices.” But keep going, Mohamad.
MOHAMAD KLEIT: Yes. I’m sorry. I think I said Bulgarian, not Budapest.
Yeah. And as for the second part, why do they still use the pagers? Hezbollah General-Secretary Hassan Nasrallah has said before that there’s a huge danger in using cellphones, smartphones, that are connected to the Wi-Fi and to global internet, on the safety of the combatants of Hezbollah in the south, as well as the civilian usage of these phones when they are filming in videos the locations of where the missiles and the rockets are coming out in the fields and in the valleys and so on, because this is — when it’s being spread on social media or being distributed and shared on WhatsApp or other applications, this is giving intelligence information for the Israelis, who are later on bombing these locations of the videos that are being widespread. So there were internal orders by Hezbollah to not use smartphones, to try to disconnect them, when possible, from the internet and from the Wi-Fi connections. So they have relied on this new batch of pagers that they had. But, as I’ve mentioned, that they were tampered with and — intercepted and tampered with by the Israeli Mossad. And we saw what happened yesterday.
AMY GOODMAN: And are people still going to hospitals to give blood?
MOHAMAD KLEIT: And I wanted to also — and I just wanted to add something for what Mr. Kaiss has said concerning that Israel is using booby traps, which are illegal based on international law. During the '90s, I still remember, when we used to go to the south during the Israeli occupation of the southern Lebanon, Israel used to drop baby toys that had booby traps, and they have small explosive devices. They used to drop them from military helicopters in the valleys, on the streets of the villages, where little kids used to pick them up, and then they would explode. That's why we have seen many people from my generation, from the ’90s, they are either arms are amputated or they are missing a leg, because of this illegal usage or illegal forms of warfare.
AMY GOODMAN: And the hospital, the issue of the hospitals and people going to give blood? Again, thousands and thousands of people have been injured, nearly 3,000, it’s believed, at this point, Mohamad.
MOHAMAD KLEIT: Yes. And as I’ve mentioned earlier, that these pagers are used by medical personnel or logistics, some of the military personnel of Hezbollah. I know some of the persons that I talked to yesterday, that they were at a clinic, and two of the doctors had these pagers, and they blew up on their waist. One of them had his fingers amputated. The other had minor injuries.
And we’ve seen this huge influx of people trying to donate blood, because, as the Ministry of Health has said, there are roughly 2,800 persons who were injured, as I’ve mentioned, as well, 1,850 only in Beirut. The huge state of chaos, of medical chaos that we have seen in the city, particularly, is out of this world. It’s sort of like something from a sci-fi movie. But we have seen this huge state of cohesion and support from Lebanese, in general, that they have went from — that they came from different parts of the country, from far sides of the country, just to donate blood. Doctors and nurses came from bordering areas to the city and to Baalbek in the east and also to Nabatieh and Tyre in the south, to support the hospitals, because they had a shortage of medical staff, and also to donate blood for the people who were injured, creating these blood banks in the streets, as we have — also are seeing today, because it’s a huge case of chaos, and, sadly, we don’t have the proper medical infrastructure because of the crises that we have been through since 2019, and there is no proper plan of emergency to be implemented by the government, so people are trying to organize themselves in order to ease the crisis that we are in right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mohamad Kleit, I want to thank you so much for being with us, joining us from Beirut, Lebanon, Lebanese journalist. Ramzi Kaiss, a Human Rights Watch researcher, thank you, as well, for joining us from Geneva, investigating human rights abuses in Lebanon, and Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, speaking to us from Boston, senior public policy fellow at American University of Beirut. Of course, we’ll continue to follow this story.
Coming up, ProPublica has revealed at least two Black women died in Georgia after they could not access legal abortion and timely medical care. Vice President Harris brought up their stories while addressing the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday. We’ll speak with a ProPublica editor working on the story and a Georgia reproductive justice activist with SisterSong. Stay with us.
U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Sep 19, 2024 2:12 am
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Sep 19, 2024 8:43 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/19/headlines
At Least 25 Killed in Walkie-Talkie Explosions in Lebanon, One Day After Pager Attack Kills 12
Sep 19, 2024
In Lebanon, at least 25 people were killed and more than 600 others wounded on Wednesday when more hand-held electronic devices exploded without warning. Most of the explosions were of walkie-talkies, but there are also reports of mobile phones; laptops and even solar panels suddenly exploding.
The blasts sowed further panic across Beirut and southern Lebanon one day after some 4,000 pagers exploded simultaneously, killing 12 people and leaving thousands more with gruesome injuries. Wednesday’s explosions triggered fires that engulfed homes, stores, cars and motorcycles. Some of the blasts occurred during the funeral of 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah, who was killed in Tuesday’s pager attack. Lebanon has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, while Lebanese citizens say they now live in fear everyday household electronics could suddenly explode. It’s widely believed Israel is behind the attacks. This is Lebanese politician Ahmad Hariri.
Ahmad Hariri: “The Lebanese people must be aware of what the Israeli enemy aims to achieve. They want to sow discord among us or strike Lebanon at a time when international attention is focused on the upcoming American elections. This suggests that the Israeli army might be preparing to execute a malicious plan to strike Lebanon, like they struck Gaza.”
Evidence in Pager Explosion Points to Israel as U.N. Warns Against Weaponizing Civilian Objects
Sep 19, 2024
The New York Times reports the electronic pagers had been manufactured by a company in Budapest, Hungary — BAC Consulting — that was actually a front company run by Israeli intelligence officers. Many of the pagers were obtained earlier this year after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned against using cellphones to avoid Israeli surveillance.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned nations against weaponizing civilian objects.
Secretary-General António Guterres: “The logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a preemptive strike before a major military operation. So, as important as the event in itself is the indication that this event confirms that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon, and everything must be done to avoid that escalation.”
Israel Declares War Is Moving Toward Lebanon Border as It Continues Deadly Attacks in Gaza
Sep 19, 2024
Israel has declared it’s launching a “new phase” of war, redirecting forces from Gaza to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. But Israel’s carnage in Gaza continues, with deadly attacks reported today in Rafah and Jabaliya, while many children were injured in an Israeli quadcopter attack on Nuseirat. Rescue workers are rushing to uncover possible survivors buried under rubble in the Bureij camp.
In Khan Younis, a father mourned the loss of nearly his entire family to an Israeli strike, including his three children. His youngest was just one-and-a-half years old.
Muhammad Abu Houj: “Come and see. What did he do? One year and 9 months old. What did he do? Did he fire a rocket? He was sitting, safe, amongst us. Look, people. Look, o world. One year and 9 months old. Look at how my son is.”
Third Doctor from Gaza Dies in Israeli Custody After He Was Abducted in Hospital Raid
Sep 19, 2024
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday Dr. Ziad Mohammed al-Dalou, who was abducted by Israeli forces during its March raid on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, has died in an Israeli jail. He’s the third doctor to die in Israeli custody since October 7 and one of at least 60 Palestinians who’ve since perished in Israeli prisons, which are rife with abuse and torture.
U.N. General Assembly Adopts Resolution Calling on Israel to End Illegal Occupation of Palestine
Sep 19, 2024
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution Wednesday demanding Israel end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory within 12 months. One hundred twenty-four countries voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution. Israel and the United States were among the 14 member states to vote no. It was the first resolution formally introduced by the State of Palestine since it took a permanent seat at the General Assembly last week.
“We Must End Our Complicity”: Sanders Unveils Resolution to Block $20B in Arms Sales to Israel
Sep 19, 2024
In Washington, D.C., Sen. Bernie Sanders is preparing a “joint resolution of disapproval” against a planned $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel. He spoke from the Senate floor Wednesday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history. … The simple fact is that we must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering.”
Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that Germany appears to have put a hold on new exports of weapons to Israel amid ongoing legal challenges.
******
Lebanon: 37 Dead, 3,400+ Injured in Wave of Explosions in Electronic Devices Booby-Trapped by Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/19/ ... transcript
We get an update from Beirut, after at least 20 people were killed and 450 others wounded in Lebanon on Wednesday when walkie-talkie radios across the country exploded without warning, the second day of an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah members by booby-trapping handheld communication devices. A day earlier, at least 12 people were killed and thousands more left with gruesome injuries when pagers began exploding across the country. Lebanon has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, while Lebanese citizens say they now live in fear that everyday household electronics could suddenly explode. Among those killed in the attacks are children, medics and other civilians. “This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occuring in civilian areas,” says journalist Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of the Beirut-based independent media organization The Public Source. Bitar warns that Israel’s “terrorist attacks” could be a prelude to a larger assault. “The Israeli government has already taken a decision to escalate, to wage full-scale war on all of Lebanon.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where there’s widespread fear after a second wave of explosions involving electronic devices went off across the country. Israeli agents are reportedly responsible for rigging the devices. On Wednesday, thousands of walkie-talkies and other devices blew up, killing more than 25 people and injuring more than 600. Some of the blasts occurred at funerals for victims of Tuesday’s explosions which targeted electronic pagers, when 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 injured, including many members of Hezbollah. This was the scene at one funeral on Wednesday.
AMY GOODMAN: Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib condemned what he called a “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security,” unquote. Hospitals in Lebanon have been overwhelmed with severe injuries as patients have come in after losing eyes and limbs.
DR. DANIA EL HALLAK: We saw young victims, and we saw very old victims. And all just had the same type of wounds. They had puncture wounds on their faces. They had amputated limbs. They had open abdomens, intestines out, bowels out. Unfortunately, there were — there were wounds that you couldn’t explain. There were ruptured eyeballs. There were fractured mandibles, fractured bones, bones out. So, basically, it was the first time I ever see the wounds like that. I couldn’t even classify some wounds or categorize some wounds.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The New York Times reports the electronic pagers had been manufactured by a front company run by Israeli intelligence officers. Many of the pagers were obtained earlier this year after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned against the use of cellphones to avoid Israeli surveillance. On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the weaponization of civilian objects.
SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: I think it’s very important that there is an effective control of civilian objects, not to weaponize civilian objects. That should be a rule that everywhere in the world governments should be able to implement. The link of what’s happening in Lebanon with what’s happened in Gaza is obvious since the beginning. I mean, the Hezbollah has been very clear in saying that it has launched its operations because of what’s happening in Gaza and that it will stop when there will be a ceasefire in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s focus is turning more to its northern border with Lebanon. He said, quote, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” unquote. Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to give a televised speech today.
We go now to Beirut, where we’re joined by Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
Thanks so much for being with us. These last two days, Lara, have been unprecedented. You have the shock of Tuesday, when all of these pagers exploded, killing 12 people, injuring close to 3,000, and then, yesterday, more explosions in walkie-talkies and not clear what other electronic devices. The total, 37 dead, what, something like 3,500 people injured. Can you describe the situation on the ground right now?
LARA BITAR: Good morning.
So, as you can imagine, the events of the past two days have caused a lot of panic, a lot of fear and, to a large extent, paranoia, which was aided by a disinformation campaign, to a large extent. Over the past couple of days, or at least yesterday, for the most part, people were receiving messages over different WhatsApp groups, on social media platforms, that any and every electronic device can be detonated by the Israelis. So people were scared of using their cellphones. People were hearing that even kitchen appliances were exploding, solar panels, laptops and so on. Thankfully, for the most part, this turned out to be a disinformation campaign, and it did not really — was not really materializing on the ground as was being reported across different channels. That may be the only solace from the events of the past couple of days, where we saw civilian areas and civilians being targeted.
This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occurring in civilian areas, in vegetable markets and in the supermarket and the funeral, as you mentioned. And that’s on one hand, but also, on the other, not everybody who’s carrying these pagers and these walkie-talkies is a Hezbollah fighter, nor were any of them on the combat field or on the frontlines in the southern part of the country. It’s very important to note that Hezbollah is not just a resistance group or a militant group. Hezbollah is also a political party here in Lebanon that is represented in Parliament. And Hezbollah also runs and operates several large civil institutions. So, we saw medical personnel and healthcare workers being killed and injured and maimed by these explosions. We saw children. We saw even the Iranian diplomat. So this was a indiscriminate attack that made the Lebanese population feel that anyone can be targeted, at any point, anywhere in the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Lara Bitar, if you could respond — give us a sense of what you expect Hassan Nasrallah to say today when he speaks at 5 p.m. Beirut time? You’ve suggested that this might be the very early stage of a much larger and much bigger war that has the potential to implicate the entire country. What are you expecting in terms of a response from Hezbollah?
LARA BITAR: It’s very difficult to anticipate what the secretary-general will be saying today. But one thing is clear, at least to my mind and to many who are following very closely what’s been happening in Lebanon: It seems that the Israeli government has already taken an action — a decision to escalate, to wage a full-scale war on all of Lebanon. And it seems to me that it doesn’t really matter what Hezbollah decides to do at this point and what form of retaliation the party engages in, that the Israeli — that the genocidal Israeli government has made up its mind to launch a full-scale war on all of the population.
And I think the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon can give us some significant clues as to what could potentially happen. So, in 2006, which was a war that lasted about 33 or 34 days, Israel started off by cutting communication lines. That was the first thing that it did before launching a wider-scale war on the rest of the country. And it seems like this is what it’s doing yet again, cutting the communication lines, and not just of Hezbollah members, but for military personnel, for paramedics, for aid workers, doctors and so on, causing a lot of disorientation, a lot of chaos, a lot of panic. And then this would be acting as a prelude to something that could potentially be much bigger and much scarier.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lara Bitar, I’d like to ask you about what the response has been from different political parties in Lebanon to these widespread attacks. Let’s just go to Lebanese parliamentarian Mark Daou, who spoke to the BBC earlier today. This is what he had to say.
MARK DAOU: The reality is Lebanon has been suffering for the past 11 months from the war in Gaza, economically, financially, but also because we had some unilateral actions by Hezbollah, as well, to start bombing from South Lebanon. We’re talking to Hezbollah and telling them you need to take all your decisions within the institutions of the state. Acting as a rogue, unilateral actor on the military front is causing all of Lebanon damages because of Israeli aggressions, their genocidal war and their lack of respect for the rules of war or even for crimes against humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Lara, if you could respond to what Mark Daou said and whether this is a widespread belief, the fact that Hezbollah is operating unilaterally and that it should not be, it should be working within the imperatives and desires of the Lebanese state?
LARA BITAR: So, Lebanon is split between two camps. On one hand, you have Hezbollah supporters who believe that we have a moral, ethical, political duty to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and also in the West Bank. Hezbollah scholar Amal Saad referred to this as anticipatory self-defense and as military solidarity. We can roughly estimate that about half of the country or so supports this operation and this campaign that was initiated by Hezbollah on October 8.
And on the other hand, the second camp is fiercely in opposition, not only to this operation, but to Hezbollah in general. And they are using the war of the past 11 months as a means to weaken Hezbollah, to attempt to strip the resistance group from its weapons, to demoralize its supporters. The second camp has been consistently lobbying the international community to exert additional pressure on the militant group.
So, right now the country is not really unified. But in the aftermath of the two terrorist attacks that took place on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, we saw for the very first time wide condemnation across the board in Lebanon, but also for the first time, to some extent, in the international community.
AMY GOODMAN: You tweeted on Tuesday, the day of the pager explosions, “We should learn from the mistakes that were committed in 2000 and not repeat them when the next big day of liberation comes. And it will. Sooner or later.” What did you mean?
LARA BITAR: Many of us believe that the liberation of Palestine is inevitable and that it’s only a matter of time. In that tweet, in particular, I was referring to certain individuals, certain groups and, to some extent, some political parties who are constantly agitating against Hezbollah, who have in the past collaborated with Israel, and who would much rather see the country be completely destroyed rather than maintain Hezbollah in power or have Hezbollah maintain its weapons. In that tweet, I was referring to what happened in the aftermath of liberation in May 2000, when the southerners who had endured the torture, the abuse, the humiliation by the Israeli occupation forces and their Lebanese allies, those residents were asked to simply turn the page, to forget about what had happened, and to coexist with those who had tortured them.
And I was just referring to this mistake, in particular, that I believe has allowed these Zionists, to some extent, to continue to operate in the country. We saw something happen during the 2006 war, but this was on the level of government officials. And we know this from WikiLeaks cables. Several prominent government officials were agitating for war against Hezbollah. They were pushing the international community and supporting Israel to continue its bombardment of all of Lebanon in order for them to get rid of Hezbollah. And that, in my opinion, is a betrayal of the citizens of the country and the sovereignty of the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Lara Bitar, I would like you to talk about what your concerns are about how this war could escalate along the border. I’d just like to go to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who spoke Wednesday at an air force base near Haifa.
YOAV GALLANT: [translated] I believe that we are at the start of a new phase in the war, and we must adapt. … First of all, the center of gravity is moving north. The meaning is that we are moving resources and forces and energy in the northern direction. … The action is being done by all the bodies, and the goal is a clear one, and it’s simple: to return the residents of the communities in the north to their homes safely.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Lara Bitar, what do you think that means, their moving forces to the northern border?
LARA BITAR: It’s difficult to predict, but again, looking at the 2006 war, we can expect the bombing of bridges, of roads, power plants, irrigation and drinking water systems and other vital infrastructure. In 2006, an airport runway was also bombarded, and Israel imposed a sea, air and land blockade on Lebanon.
But I just want to address the point that this war that Israel will be waging against Lebanon is an attempt to return its settlers to the northern part of occupied Palestine. And I imagine that this is how most media organizations will be reporting on this war. But I think it’s important for us to go back a little bit in history and recall that Zionist organizations, as early as 1919, were pushing for the demarcation of the border after the Litani River, which means 30 kilometers, or 19 or 20 miles, deep inside Lebanon. So, this is not really very much about returning the settlers to their homes, but this is about this long-standing desire and intent of the Zionist project to seize the Litani River.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Lara Bitar, finally, will this —
LARA BITAR: Or I should say parts of the Litani River. Yes?
AMY GOODMAN: Will this make Hezbollah more popular in Lebanon? And compare its power to the Lebanese government.
LARA BITAR: There is no Lebanese government really to speak of. Lebanon is still reeling from an economic crisis that started in 2019. The state is almost bankrupt. Most state institutions are barely functional. There is absolutely no comparison between the power of the Lebanese government in comparison to Hezbollah.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Bitar, we want to thank you very much —
LARA BITAR: And as far as Hezbollah’s — sure.
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
LARA BITAR: I just wanted to respond to the question of Hezbollah’s popularity and support. We do know that Hezbollah supporters are only increasing their actions, their mobilizations, their support of the party. And it doesn’t really seem to matter what the political group does or the militant group does. Their supporters are fiercely behind them. And what we’ve been hearing over the past couple of days, but also over the past 11 months, is that they continue to be even more determined to wage this war against Israel. And the supporters of the party and loyalists to the party are willing to give up their children, their homes, their livelihoods in support of the mission and political project of Hezbollah.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, speaking to us from Beirut. The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
Coming up, we speak with Maya Berry. She’s executive director of the Arab American Institute, came under fierce questioning by Republican senators during a hearing on hate crimes this week. And we’ll be speaking with a congressmember from Illinois who’s introduced a bill against hate crimes, based on the 6-year-old Palestinian death in Chicago, a little boy killed by his landlord. Stay with us.
***
Arab American Leader Responds After GOP Senator Says at Hearing, “You Should Hide Your Head in a Bag”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
We speak with Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, after she faced racist and hostile questioning from Republicans at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, including Senator John Kennedy, who told Berry, “You should hide your head in a bag.” The experience illustrated the very problem of dehumanization the hearing was meant to address, Berry says: “That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.” We also speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who has introduced a resolution to honor 6-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy stabbed to death in a Chicago suburb last October in an anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian attack. “This horrible bigotry and hate have real consequences in the Arab community and the Palestinian community, in other communities, and it makes us all less safe,” Ramirez says of Kennedy.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As rights groups warn dehumanizing rhetoric around Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza has put the lives of Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. at risk, we look now at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on the “Tide of Hate Crimes in America.” Committee chair Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois called the hearing. His constituent, Hanan Shaheen, sat in the front row. Her 6-year-old son, Wadea al-Fayoume, was stabbed to death in an anti-Muslim hate crime by her landlord in a Chicago suburb in October. Shaheen herself was also stabbed at least 12 times.
Durbin has introduced a resolution honoring Wadea along with Illinois Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, who will join us in a minute to discuss growing support for the Wadea Act. We’ll also be joined by the Arab American witness at Tuesday’s hearing who faced hostile questions from Republicans, Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute. But first, let’s go to Republican Senator John Kennedy questioning Berry.
AMY GOODMAN: “You should hide your head in a bag,” Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, at Tuesday’s Senate hearing on hate crimes.
Maya Berry joins us now in our New York studio. And in the Cannon Rotunda in Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Maya Berry, you’re now the head of the Arab American Institute. During 9/11, you were the legislative director of the minority whip, Congressmember David Bonior. You’re well known on Capitol Hill. Can you talk about what Kennedy said to you? And talk about the other two witnesses, as well.
MAYA BERRY: It’s difficult to talk about what Senator Kennedy said to me, because I still, sitting here in front of you, actually do not know what he meant when he said, “Put a bag over your head.” I worry about the senator’s 31,000-plus Arab American constituents and the rest of the constituents he represents from Louisiana. That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.
The hearing itself — but you’re right to point this out — is incredibly important to do. We have been, year after year after year, breaking records for the number of hate crimes in our country, a trajectory that’s increased since the 2015 year, which tied with the 2016 presidential election. And the fact that the hearing that was supposed to cover the issue of hate crime and how to formulate a better response was derailed by a group of senators who chose to have the conversation about a political agenda they wanted to advance with regards to Israel and instead use it as an opportunity to further dehumanize people, it’s not how we fight antisemitism, and it’s certainly not how we fight anti-Arab racism.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Maya Berry, could you speak specifically about the increase in hate crimes from 2023 to 2024, in other words, following the October 7th attacks and then the war, the assault on Gaza?
MAYA BERRY: Yeah. There’s been a sense, obviously, anecdotally and looking at specific news accounts, that there’s been an increase. One of the things that we did in preparation for the hearing is that we actually pulled all of the 2023 data from 27 states plus the District of Columbia. And we did that because the federal data on hate crime has not been released yet for 2023. That won’t be coming out until a bit later.
And we found exactly what we thought, which was that there’s been an extraordinary increase of hate targeting both the Arab American and the Jewish American community: in the case of the Jewish American community, just over a thousand to more than 2,000; in the case of Arab Americans, it went from just over a hundred to 180. All of that is to say, by the way, one of the most important things to understand about hate crime data is the massive underreporting problem that exists. Based on the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice, only about 1% of hate crimes are actually reported. So those numbers tell us that, yes, there’s a significant problem, but it’s significantly worse than that. And then, just to point out, the post-October numbers, that’s where you saw at least half of those crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about Kenneth Stern, who was another witness, who is director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.
MAYA BERRY: Yeah. Professor Stern was there specifically because I think there was an anticipation that this conversation might delve into the idea of debating what antisemitism is or isn’t. He is actually the author of the IHRA Definition, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of Antisemitism, that he specifically wrote for the purposes of data collection outside of the United States primarily, to provide guidance. The definition is designed and written to introduce the idea of Israel and Israel issues into conflating it with the very real problem of antisemitism that exists. So, the problem has been — it’s we need to talk about antisemitism; we must not conflate it with anti-Israel criticism or criticism of Zionism. And, you know, he spent some considerable time trying to educate the senators on the importance of not doing that and the harm that it can cause to communities.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, what do you think — Maya, what do you think needs to be done in order to make government more responsible? I mean, [size=15\20]what the Republicans did, of course, the way they questioned you, was completely outrageous[/size]. But even beyond that, you know, taking that out of the picture, what is missing from the way in which the state, the federal government and also state governments, respond to this kind of violence?
MAYA BERRY: I think that’s the question and incredibly important to keep elevating. Part of how policy is set is that you’re asking the right questions and that it’s informed by data. And one of the things that has to happen in this process is actually what happened at the hearing, meaning the convening the hearing to have this discussion so we elevate the issue and the crisis of hate that we’re in. We strongly believe that part of that is requiring mandatory hate crime reporting, which means that every municipality that receives federal funding should have to report on hate crime. We’re not there yet. The introduction of the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act was a vehicle to improve hate crime data collection and reporting. And I think there’s more that can be done in that space. But the point is, we must have our government focus on the actual problem as opposed to distractions from it, which do not advance safety for anyone.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Delia Ramirez into this conversation, who is standing in Congress right now, in Washington, D.C., in the Cannon Rotunda. In the front row of this hearing, your constituent, Senator Durbin’s constituent, since he’s the head of the committee, and he is also the Illinois senator, introduced her, Hanan Shaheen, the mother of Wadea al-Fayoume, the 6-year-old boy who — Palestinian child, who was killed by their landlord. Can you explain what happened then, in October, and what you’ve done in introducing your bill around hate crimes, how the Democrats dealt with this grieving mother, who herself was knifed repeatedly, and how the Republicans dealt with her?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Yeah. Look, I was listening to what Senator Kennedy said, and it really was difficult for me not to have an out-of-body experience in reaction to what he did. Hanan Shaheen and Wadea al-Fayoume were constituents of Congresswoman Underwood, just a few minutes from my district. And when the conversation Senator Dick Durbin and I had about finally having a hearing that actually, since October 7th, talked about the rise of Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian hate and antisemitism and the impact that it has in our communities, it was with Wadea and his mother’s face in mind. And the idea that a hearing that was supposed to be about educating us on what this impact is around our country becoming the perfect example of what elected officials do and how they spew the hate that killed Wadea al-Fayoume was heartbreaking, but also, I think, to Maya’s point, was exactly what we’re talking about.
What Senator Kennedy did in that hearing, the consequences of his horrible bigotry and hate have real consequences in the Arab community and the Palestinian community, in other communities, and it makes us all less safe. The Wadea resolution is about honoring the life of a little boy that was stabbed 26 times by his landlord because Wadea and his mother are Palestinian. And the resolution was about honoring his life and also saying we have to end the bigotry and we have to end the spewing hate and the words that are used by elected officials and the media. That is what this resolution was about. And actually, it’s what inspired Senator Durbin to have this hearing on the rise of hate crimes.
What Senator Kennedy did should have real consequences. Here’s what I’m telling you. You can’t come into the House floor or the Senate chamber without a tie. You have to pay a fine. You can’t use a camera while you’re on the floor. You’ll get fined. But you can treat a witness, treat Maya the way that Kennedy treated Maya, and have no consequences? To me, that is the biggest ethics violation and an example of elected officials not being accountable to their people. And what he did should have consequences. And I’m going to look into what we could be doing to ensure that no elected official use a hearing room to further spew the hate that we’re seeing in the rise of hate crimes around the country.
AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about the issue of hate, Donald Trump said he is heading to Springfield, Ohio, where he and his vice-presidential running mate, now a sitting senator, Ohio Senator JD Vance, have falsely accused the Haitian community of eating pets. It is something that has generated enormous laughter, derision, but, much more importantly, horror, because of what’s happening in the streets of Springfield — state troopers marching through the streets, kids afraid to go to school, bomb threats at schools, at hospitals. You, yourself, Delia Ramirez, are an immigrant, an immigrant from Guatemala. If you can talk about this attack on the immigrant community and what it means, how it’s reverberating for you, as well?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Let me start by saying that what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, is Donald Trump’s fault. All of it. The idea that you make immigrants less than human — which is exactly what his strategy has been the entire time, since he started his campaign eight years ago. This man is intentionally creating ways and using words and accusations to make immigrants less than human — Haitian immigrants, Black immigrants. I mean, if that is not racism and bigotry, and if you can support this man, then it makes me question if you’re a racist and a bigot, as well.
The people of Springfield have said, “Leave us alone.” Haitian immigrants in this town are boosting our economy. Its own mayor, the city manager, the entire community has said, “Enough is enough. You, Donald Trump, is bringing hate to our community. You, Donald Trump, is making us less safe. You, Donald Trump, is impacting our economy,” because now we’re having to spend all this money on safety because of what he did. Shame on Donald Trump. Donald Trump, the last thing he should be doing is going to Springfield, Ohio. What he should be doing is asking himself, “Who am I? And why do I hate people so much?”
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, though I’m not quoting his words directly, he just said in a town hall forum he’ll go to Springfield, but who knows if he’ll make it out? We’re going to leave it there. I want to thank you so much, Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, speaking to us from Washington, D.C., in the Cannon Rotunda. And thank you to Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute. We thank you for both being with us.
Coming up, we speak to a Burmese genocide scholar about Burma, the latest news there, and his trip to the West Bank. Stay with us. Back in 20 seconds.
**********
Standing at Gaza Border Felt Like Visiting Auschwitz: Burmese Genocide Scholar Maung Zarni
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
The United Nations is warning about widespread human rights abuses in Burma as the military regime intensifies the killings and arbitrary arrests of tens of thousands of civilians since seizing power in a coup over three years ago. A new report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says many of those detained by the Burmese military are children taken from their parents, with dozens of minors dying in custody. “What it paints is an extremely disturbing picture of Burma descending into this human rights abyss. If you’re living there, it’s a complete living hell,” says Burmese scholar, dissident and human rights activist Maung Zarni. He also discusses his recent visit with faith leaders to the West Bank and the border of Gaza, drawing parallels between Burma’s and Israel’s human rights abuses. “Israel has taken the practices and policies of genocide to a whole new level,” says Zarni.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The United Nations is warning Burma is “plumbing the depths of a human rights abyss” as the military regime intensifies the killings and arbitrary arrests of tens of thousands of civilians since seizing power in a coup over three years ago. The gruesome findings are part of a new U.N. human rights report detailing how the Burmese military detained children who were taken from their parents. Dozens of those children have died in custody.
We end today’s show with Maung Zarni, a Burmese genocide scholar and human rights activist who’s been a vocal critic of the Burmese junta and Israel’s war on Gaza and the Israeli occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: In August, Maung Zarni traveled to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza border.
MAUNG ZARNI: Here at this Rafah crossing, sandwiched between Israel and Egyptian border, I feel like I am standing outside a giant concentration camp. When I see the tanks coming in and out, hearing airstrikes, I feel like I am once again visiting Auschwitz.
AMY GOODMAN: Maung Zarni, Burmese genocide scholar and human rights activist, joins us now from Kent, England, co-founder of the Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia, or FORSEA.
Welcome back, Zarni, to Democracy Now! It’s so important to have you with us. Talk about the groups you traveled to the Gaza border and to the West Bank with and your thoughts not only about what’s happening there, but comparisons to what’s going on, the horror that’s going on in Burma right now.
MAUNG ZARNI: Well, Amy, I am greatly indebted to the North American-based, particularly the U.S.-based Rabbis for Ceasefire and Christians for Ceasefire, as well as the Jerusalem-based liberation theologian group called Sabeel. And these three organizations facilitated a visit of the 28-member delegation. And most of the delegates are, you know, clergymen and clergywomen and people of faith. And I am, rather, a humanist, a human rights activist, but nonetheless I joined them, because I wanted to bear witness to what’s happening.
As you know, you have — you know, I’ve covered my own native country of Burma for 30 years and since we have known each other. And Burma and Israel, we regained our — Burma regained independence in 1948. Israel established itself as a sovereign state in 1948. They had what Golda Meir called a love affair. And these newly independent states after the Second World War are now undergoing a genocide trial or, you know, proceedings at the International Court of Justice. And so, you know, Burma is no stranger when it comes to mass atrocities.
What I found in Israel actually shocked me more than what I was prepared. You know, I have studied genocide for decades, and I’ve studied Nazi genocide, Cambodian genocide, my own country’s so-called Buddhist genocide of Rohingya people in western Burma. But Israel has taken the practices and policies of genocide to a whole new level. You know, what I found there — I’ve said this, as well, in other forums — a vast ecosystem of genocidal methodologies or methods.
That is to say that Israel has invented, very creatively, a system of depopulating the pre-1967 Palestine land using different methods, separating different pockets of subpopulation of Palestinians, from Gaza as open-air prison to other various parts of West Bank, you know, five- or six-tier citizenships with severely limited basic and fundamental rights, the severely — you know, severe restriction of life’s essentials, like access to food system, agricultural land, not just simply confiscating massive agricultural land, you know, across Israel. The chicken farms that Israeli companies run, and settlers, that have set up fantastic stone houses in communities fenced off, have chickens. Let me put this this way. Chickens in Israel, in Israeli companies’ farm, have far more access to water and electricity than Palestinian villages and people. And checkpoints, 810-kilometer-long wall — and it’s not just for security purposes. It is actually — the U.N. said it in 2005 — the wall, 810-kilometer-long wall, has been the prime driver behind mass deprivation — in other words, mass poverty of Palestinian people. And so, it’s rather frightening.
And Ramallah, you know, it’s thriving, the city, a bubble. But the locals tell me that the Israeli IDF and security agency will come in and do anything they want, and Palestinian Authority is completely helpless and that they cannot do nothing. They cannot protect the Palestinian people, even in Ramallah — forget about West Bank and other places.
Land confiscation. You know, we came very close to being tear-gassed by the IDF because we were supporting a farm family that have been evicted after their farm has been confiscated in Jerusalem, UNESCO World Heritage agricultural areas. And so, the Hebrew-speaking local colleagues in Jerusalem area who were with us told us that we need to vacate the place because the IDF is going to start firing tear gas and stun guns or grenades.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Zarni, finally, we want to turn to what’s going on in Burma. If you could respond to the new U.N. human rights report and their warning about what’s going on in Burma?
MAUNG ZARNI: Yeah. The new U.N. human rights report cover a one-year period since spring of 2023. What it says — what it paints is an extremely disturbing picture of Burma descending into this human rights abyss. You know, if you’re living there, it’s a complete living hell. You know, 3 million people are being displaced by a civil war between the army, on one hand, and various — you know, the pro-democracy or pro-ethnic liberation armed groups. You know, then we got hit by the typhoon over the last 10 days, and another 700,000 people, they’re displaced and dispossessed.
And so, the only problem is that in the past the Burmese military, the junta, has been the number one or sole perpetrator of egregious human rights crime, but since the coup three years ago, we have a mushrooming of armed organizations in the name of like a pro-democracy movement, and they join hands with different ethnic or ethnonationalist organizations. And so, there are organizations, such as Arakan Army, which represent the Buddhist Rakhine in western Myanmar. Now they are —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds, Maung Zarni.
MAUNG ZARNI: — [inaudible] permitting genocide. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us. Of course, we’ll continue to cover what’s happening in Burma and also in Gaza and the West Bank. Maung Zarni, Burmese dissident, human rights activist, scholar of genocide, co-founder of the Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia, speaking to us from Kent.
Very happy belated birthday to Sam Alcoff! That does it for our show. Democracy Now! produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks for joining us.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/19/headlines
At Least 25 Killed in Walkie-Talkie Explosions in Lebanon, One Day After Pager Attack Kills 12
Sep 19, 2024
In Lebanon, at least 25 people were killed and more than 600 others wounded on Wednesday when more hand-held electronic devices exploded without warning. Most of the explosions were of walkie-talkies, but there are also reports of mobile phones; laptops and even solar panels suddenly exploding.
The blasts sowed further panic across Beirut and southern Lebanon one day after some 4,000 pagers exploded simultaneously, killing 12 people and leaving thousands more with gruesome injuries. Wednesday’s explosions triggered fires that engulfed homes, stores, cars and motorcycles. Some of the blasts occurred during the funeral of 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah, who was killed in Tuesday’s pager attack. Lebanon has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, while Lebanese citizens say they now live in fear everyday household electronics could suddenly explode. It’s widely believed Israel is behind the attacks. This is Lebanese politician Ahmad Hariri.
Ahmad Hariri: “The Lebanese people must be aware of what the Israeli enemy aims to achieve. They want to sow discord among us or strike Lebanon at a time when international attention is focused on the upcoming American elections. This suggests that the Israeli army might be preparing to execute a malicious plan to strike Lebanon, like they struck Gaza.”
Evidence in Pager Explosion Points to Israel as U.N. Warns Against Weaponizing Civilian Objects
Sep 19, 2024
The New York Times reports the electronic pagers had been manufactured by a company in Budapest, Hungary — BAC Consulting — that was actually a front company run by Israeli intelligence officers. Many of the pagers were obtained earlier this year after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned against using cellphones to avoid Israeli surveillance.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned nations against weaponizing civilian objects.
Secretary-General António Guterres: “The logic of making all these devices explode is to do it as a preemptive strike before a major military operation. So, as important as the event in itself is the indication that this event confirms that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon, and everything must be done to avoid that escalation.”
Israel Declares War Is Moving Toward Lebanon Border as It Continues Deadly Attacks in Gaza
Sep 19, 2024
Israel has declared it’s launching a “new phase” of war, redirecting forces from Gaza to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. But Israel’s carnage in Gaza continues, with deadly attacks reported today in Rafah and Jabaliya, while many children were injured in an Israeli quadcopter attack on Nuseirat. Rescue workers are rushing to uncover possible survivors buried under rubble in the Bureij camp.
In Khan Younis, a father mourned the loss of nearly his entire family to an Israeli strike, including his three children. His youngest was just one-and-a-half years old.
Muhammad Abu Houj: “Come and see. What did he do? One year and 9 months old. What did he do? Did he fire a rocket? He was sitting, safe, amongst us. Look, people. Look, o world. One year and 9 months old. Look at how my son is.”
Third Doctor from Gaza Dies in Israeli Custody After He Was Abducted in Hospital Raid
Sep 19, 2024
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday Dr. Ziad Mohammed al-Dalou, who was abducted by Israeli forces during its March raid on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, has died in an Israeli jail. He’s the third doctor to die in Israeli custody since October 7 and one of at least 60 Palestinians who’ve since perished in Israeli prisons, which are rife with abuse and torture.
U.N. General Assembly Adopts Resolution Calling on Israel to End Illegal Occupation of Palestine
Sep 19, 2024
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution Wednesday demanding Israel end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory within 12 months. One hundred twenty-four countries voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution. Israel and the United States were among the 14 member states to vote no. It was the first resolution formally introduced by the State of Palestine since it took a permanent seat at the General Assembly last week.
“We Must End Our Complicity”: Sanders Unveils Resolution to Block $20B in Arms Sales to Israel
Sep 19, 2024
In Washington, D.C., Sen. Bernie Sanders is preparing a “joint resolution of disapproval” against a planned $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel. He spoke from the Senate floor Wednesday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history. … The simple fact is that we must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering.”
Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that Germany appears to have put a hold on new exports of weapons to Israel amid ongoing legal challenges.
******
Lebanon: 37 Dead, 3,400+ Injured in Wave of Explosions in Electronic Devices Booby-Trapped by Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/19/ ... transcript
We get an update from Beirut, after at least 20 people were killed and 450 others wounded in Lebanon on Wednesday when walkie-talkie radios across the country exploded without warning, the second day of an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah members by booby-trapping handheld communication devices. A day earlier, at least 12 people were killed and thousands more left with gruesome injuries when pagers began exploding across the country. Lebanon has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, while Lebanese citizens say they now live in fear that everyday household electronics could suddenly explode. Among those killed in the attacks are children, medics and other civilians. “This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occuring in civilian areas,” says journalist Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of the Beirut-based independent media organization The Public Source. Bitar warns that Israel’s “terrorist attacks” could be a prelude to a larger assault. “The Israeli government has already taken a decision to escalate, to wage full-scale war on all of Lebanon.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where there’s widespread fear after a second wave of explosions involving electronic devices went off across the country. Israeli agents are reportedly responsible for rigging the devices. On Wednesday, thousands of walkie-talkies and other devices blew up, killing more than 25 people and injuring more than 600. Some of the blasts occurred at funerals for victims of Tuesday’s explosions which targeted electronic pagers, when 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 injured, including many members of Hezbollah. This was the scene at one funeral on Wednesday.
AMY GOODMAN: Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib condemned what he called a “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security,” unquote. Hospitals in Lebanon have been overwhelmed with severe injuries as patients have come in after losing eyes and limbs.
DR. DANIA EL HALLAK: We saw young victims, and we saw very old victims. And all just had the same type of wounds. They had puncture wounds on their faces. They had amputated limbs. They had open abdomens, intestines out, bowels out. Unfortunately, there were — there were wounds that you couldn’t explain. There were ruptured eyeballs. There were fractured mandibles, fractured bones, bones out. So, basically, it was the first time I ever see the wounds like that. I couldn’t even classify some wounds or categorize some wounds.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The New York Times reports the electronic pagers had been manufactured by a front company run by Israeli intelligence officers. Many of the pagers were obtained earlier this year after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned against the use of cellphones to avoid Israeli surveillance. On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the weaponization of civilian objects.
SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: I think it’s very important that there is an effective control of civilian objects, not to weaponize civilian objects. That should be a rule that everywhere in the world governments should be able to implement. The link of what’s happening in Lebanon with what’s happened in Gaza is obvious since the beginning. I mean, the Hezbollah has been very clear in saying that it has launched its operations because of what’s happening in Gaza and that it will stop when there will be a ceasefire in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s focus is turning more to its northern border with Lebanon. He said, quote, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” unquote. Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to give a televised speech today.
We go now to Beirut, where we’re joined by Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
Thanks so much for being with us. These last two days, Lara, have been unprecedented. You have the shock of Tuesday, when all of these pagers exploded, killing 12 people, injuring close to 3,000, and then, yesterday, more explosions in walkie-talkies and not clear what other electronic devices. The total, 37 dead, what, something like 3,500 people injured. Can you describe the situation on the ground right now?
LARA BITAR: Good morning.
So, as you can imagine, the events of the past two days have caused a lot of panic, a lot of fear and, to a large extent, paranoia, which was aided by a disinformation campaign, to a large extent. Over the past couple of days, or at least yesterday, for the most part, people were receiving messages over different WhatsApp groups, on social media platforms, that any and every electronic device can be detonated by the Israelis. So people were scared of using their cellphones. People were hearing that even kitchen appliances were exploding, solar panels, laptops and so on. Thankfully, for the most part, this turned out to be a disinformation campaign, and it did not really — was not really materializing on the ground as was being reported across different channels. That may be the only solace from the events of the past couple of days, where we saw civilian areas and civilians being targeted.
This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occurring in civilian areas, in vegetable markets and in the supermarket and the funeral, as you mentioned. And that’s on one hand, but also, on the other, not everybody who’s carrying these pagers and these walkie-talkies is a Hezbollah fighter, nor were any of them on the combat field or on the frontlines in the southern part of the country. It’s very important to note that Hezbollah is not just a resistance group or a militant group. Hezbollah is also a political party here in Lebanon that is represented in Parliament. And Hezbollah also runs and operates several large civil institutions. So, we saw medical personnel and healthcare workers being killed and injured and maimed by these explosions. We saw children. We saw even the Iranian diplomat. So this was a indiscriminate attack that made the Lebanese population feel that anyone can be targeted, at any point, anywhere in the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Lara Bitar, if you could respond — give us a sense of what you expect Hassan Nasrallah to say today when he speaks at 5 p.m. Beirut time? You’ve suggested that this might be the very early stage of a much larger and much bigger war that has the potential to implicate the entire country. What are you expecting in terms of a response from Hezbollah?
LARA BITAR: It’s very difficult to anticipate what the secretary-general will be saying today. But one thing is clear, at least to my mind and to many who are following very closely what’s been happening in Lebanon: It seems that the Israeli government has already taken an action — a decision to escalate, to wage a full-scale war on all of Lebanon. And it seems to me that it doesn’t really matter what Hezbollah decides to do at this point and what form of retaliation the party engages in, that the Israeli — that the genocidal Israeli government has made up its mind to launch a full-scale war on all of the population.
And I think the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon can give us some significant clues as to what could potentially happen. So, in 2006, which was a war that lasted about 33 or 34 days, Israel started off by cutting communication lines. That was the first thing that it did before launching a wider-scale war on the rest of the country. And it seems like this is what it’s doing yet again, cutting the communication lines, and not just of Hezbollah members, but for military personnel, for paramedics, for aid workers, doctors and so on, causing a lot of disorientation, a lot of chaos, a lot of panic. And then this would be acting as a prelude to something that could potentially be much bigger and much scarier.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lara Bitar, I’d like to ask you about what the response has been from different political parties in Lebanon to these widespread attacks. Let’s just go to Lebanese parliamentarian Mark Daou, who spoke to the BBC earlier today. This is what he had to say.
MARK DAOU: The reality is Lebanon has been suffering for the past 11 months from the war in Gaza, economically, financially, but also because we had some unilateral actions by Hezbollah, as well, to start bombing from South Lebanon. We’re talking to Hezbollah and telling them you need to take all your decisions within the institutions of the state. Acting as a rogue, unilateral actor on the military front is causing all of Lebanon damages because of Israeli aggressions, their genocidal war and their lack of respect for the rules of war or even for crimes against humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Lara, if you could respond to what Mark Daou said and whether this is a widespread belief, the fact that Hezbollah is operating unilaterally and that it should not be, it should be working within the imperatives and desires of the Lebanese state?
LARA BITAR: So, Lebanon is split between two camps. On one hand, you have Hezbollah supporters who believe that we have a moral, ethical, political duty to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and also in the West Bank. Hezbollah scholar Amal Saad referred to this as anticipatory self-defense and as military solidarity. We can roughly estimate that about half of the country or so supports this operation and this campaign that was initiated by Hezbollah on October 8.
And on the other hand, the second camp is fiercely in opposition, not only to this operation, but to Hezbollah in general. And they are using the war of the past 11 months as a means to weaken Hezbollah, to attempt to strip the resistance group from its weapons, to demoralize its supporters. The second camp has been consistently lobbying the international community to exert additional pressure on the militant group.
So, right now the country is not really unified. But in the aftermath of the two terrorist attacks that took place on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, we saw for the very first time wide condemnation across the board in Lebanon, but also for the first time, to some extent, in the international community.
AMY GOODMAN: You tweeted on Tuesday, the day of the pager explosions, “We should learn from the mistakes that were committed in 2000 and not repeat them when the next big day of liberation comes. And it will. Sooner or later.” What did you mean?
LARA BITAR: Many of us believe that the liberation of Palestine is inevitable and that it’s only a matter of time. In that tweet, in particular, I was referring to certain individuals, certain groups and, to some extent, some political parties who are constantly agitating against Hezbollah, who have in the past collaborated with Israel, and who would much rather see the country be completely destroyed rather than maintain Hezbollah in power or have Hezbollah maintain its weapons. In that tweet, I was referring to what happened in the aftermath of liberation in May 2000, when the southerners who had endured the torture, the abuse, the humiliation by the Israeli occupation forces and their Lebanese allies, those residents were asked to simply turn the page, to forget about what had happened, and to coexist with those who had tortured them.
And I was just referring to this mistake, in particular, that I believe has allowed these Zionists, to some extent, to continue to operate in the country. We saw something happen during the 2006 war, but this was on the level of government officials. And we know this from WikiLeaks cables. Several prominent government officials were agitating for war against Hezbollah. They were pushing the international community and supporting Israel to continue its bombardment of all of Lebanon in order for them to get rid of Hezbollah. And that, in my opinion, is a betrayal of the citizens of the country and the sovereignty of the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Lara Bitar, I would like you to talk about what your concerns are about how this war could escalate along the border. I’d just like to go to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who spoke Wednesday at an air force base near Haifa.
YOAV GALLANT: [translated] I believe that we are at the start of a new phase in the war, and we must adapt. … First of all, the center of gravity is moving north. The meaning is that we are moving resources and forces and energy in the northern direction. … The action is being done by all the bodies, and the goal is a clear one, and it’s simple: to return the residents of the communities in the north to their homes safely.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Lara Bitar, what do you think that means, their moving forces to the northern border?
LARA BITAR: It’s difficult to predict, but again, looking at the 2006 war, we can expect the bombing of bridges, of roads, power plants, irrigation and drinking water systems and other vital infrastructure. In 2006, an airport runway was also bombarded, and Israel imposed a sea, air and land blockade on Lebanon.
But I just want to address the point that this war that Israel will be waging against Lebanon is an attempt to return its settlers to the northern part of occupied Palestine. And I imagine that this is how most media organizations will be reporting on this war. But I think it’s important for us to go back a little bit in history and recall that Zionist organizations, as early as 1919, were pushing for the demarcation of the border after the Litani River, which means 30 kilometers, or 19 or 20 miles, deep inside Lebanon. So, this is not really very much about returning the settlers to their homes, but this is about this long-standing desire and intent of the Zionist project to seize the Litani River.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Lara Bitar, finally, will this —
LARA BITAR: Or I should say parts of the Litani River. Yes?
AMY GOODMAN: Will this make Hezbollah more popular in Lebanon? And compare its power to the Lebanese government.
LARA BITAR: There is no Lebanese government really to speak of. Lebanon is still reeling from an economic crisis that started in 2019. The state is almost bankrupt. Most state institutions are barely functional. There is absolutely no comparison between the power of the Lebanese government in comparison to Hezbollah.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Bitar, we want to thank you very much —
LARA BITAR: And as far as Hezbollah’s — sure.
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
LARA BITAR: I just wanted to respond to the question of Hezbollah’s popularity and support. We do know that Hezbollah supporters are only increasing their actions, their mobilizations, their support of the party. And it doesn’t really seem to matter what the political group does or the militant group does. Their supporters are fiercely behind them. And what we’ve been hearing over the past couple of days, but also over the past 11 months, is that they continue to be even more determined to wage this war against Israel. And the supporters of the party and loyalists to the party are willing to give up their children, their homes, their livelihoods in support of the mission and political project of Hezbollah.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, speaking to us from Beirut. The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
Coming up, we speak with Maya Berry. She’s executive director of the Arab American Institute, came under fierce questioning by Republican senators during a hearing on hate crimes this week. And we’ll be speaking with a congressmember from Illinois who’s introduced a bill against hate crimes, based on the 6-year-old Palestinian death in Chicago, a little boy killed by his landlord. Stay with us.
***
Arab American Leader Responds After GOP Senator Says at Hearing, “You Should Hide Your Head in a Bag”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
We speak with Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, after she faced racist and hostile questioning from Republicans at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, including Senator John Kennedy, who told Berry, “You should hide your head in a bag.” The experience illustrated the very problem of dehumanization the hearing was meant to address, Berry says: “That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.” We also speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who has introduced a resolution to honor 6-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy stabbed to death in a Chicago suburb last October in an anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian attack. “This horrible bigotry and hate have real consequences in the Arab community and the Palestinian community, in other communities, and it makes us all less safe,” Ramirez says of Kennedy.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As rights groups warn dehumanizing rhetoric around Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza has put the lives of Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. at risk, we look now at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on the “Tide of Hate Crimes in America.” Committee chair Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois called the hearing. His constituent, Hanan Shaheen, sat in the front row. Her 6-year-old son, Wadea al-Fayoume, was stabbed to death in an anti-Muslim hate crime by her landlord in a Chicago suburb in October. Shaheen herself was also stabbed at least 12 times.
Durbin has introduced a resolution honoring Wadea along with Illinois Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, who will join us in a minute to discuss growing support for the Wadea Act. We’ll also be joined by the Arab American witness at Tuesday’s hearing who faced hostile questions from Republicans, Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute. But first, let’s go to Republican Senator John Kennedy questioning Berry.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You support Hamas, do you not?
MAYA BERRY: Senator, oddly enough, I’m going to say thank you for that question, because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today in a very effective way.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Let’s start first with a yes or no.
MAYA BERRY: Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support. But you asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: OK. Well, I got your answer, and I appreciate it. What is the — you support Hezbollah, too, don’t you?
MAYA BERRY: Again, I find this line of questioning extraordinarily disappointing, Senator.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Is that a no?
MAYA BERRY: That you have —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Or yes?
MAYA BERRY: You have Arab American constituents that you represent —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: But is that a —
MAYA BERRY: — in your great state.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Yes, ma’am, I understand that. But is — my time is limited, and I apologize, but is that a yes or a no?
MAYA BERRY: A yes-or-no question to do I support Hezbollah? The answer is I don’t support violence, whether it’s Hezbollah, Hamas or any other entity that invokes it. So, no, sir.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?
MAYA BERRY: No, I can say no. I can say yes.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: But you haven’t.
MAYA BERRY: What I can say is your line of questioning —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You just can’t bring yourself to do it.
MAYA BERRY: Senator —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Do you support or oppose Iran in their hatred of Jews?
MAYA BERRY: Again, I’m going to emphasize, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, none of them is going to —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?
MAYA BERRY: This discussion — sir, I don’t support —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: It’s real simple.
MAYA BERRY: Excuse me. I’m going to —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: And —
MAYA BERRY: If I may?
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Nah, nah, no!
MAYA BERRY: As a Muslim woman — as a Muslim woman, sir, I’m going to tell you —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: I —
MAYA BERRY: — I do not support Iran. But what I will tell you is that —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You —
MAYA BERRY: — this conversation —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: I’m running out of time.
MAYA BERRY: OK.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: I’m sorry. You —
PROTESTER: Senator Kennedy —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You called our decision —
PROTESTER: [inaudible]
CHAIR: Please.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: — to cut funding —
PROTESTER: [inaudible] Goodbye.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You called our decision to cut funding — well, first, what’s the United Nations Relief and Works Agency?
MAYA BERRY: It’s UNRWA, which is —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Yeah.
MAYA BERRY: — the institution that exists to provide services and aid to the nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: And you called our decision to cut funding for them, quote, “an incredible moral failure,” close quote.
MAYA BERRY: That is absolutely correct. But again, I would suggest that conversation —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: And we did —
MAYA BERRY: — is about foreign policy —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: We did that because nine UNRWA staff members were fired for actually helping Hamas on October 7th. Isn’t that the case?
PROTESTER: [inaudible]
MAYA BERRY: I don’t believe that that’s correct in terms of the —
CHAIR: Audience will please —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Let me ask you one more time: You support Hamas, don’t you?
PROTESTER: [inaudible] dead in Gaza!
MAYA BERRY: Sir?
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You support UNRWA and Hamas, don’t you?
MAYA BERRY: Sir?
PROTESTER: [inaudible]
CHAIR: Please.
MAYA BERRY: I think it’s exceptionally disappointing that you’re looking at an Arab American witness before you and saying, “You support Hamas.”
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You know what’s disappointing to me?
MAYA BERRY: I do not support Hamas.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You can’t bring yourself to say —
MAYA BERRY: I do not support Hamas or any —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: — you don’t support UNRWA, you don’t support Hamas, you don’t —
MAYA BERRY: I was very clear on my support for UNRWA.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: — support Hezbollah, and you don’t support Iran.
MAYA BERRY: I oppose —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You should hide your head in a bag.
AMY GOODMAN: “You should hide your head in a bag,” Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, at Tuesday’s Senate hearing on hate crimes.
Maya Berry joins us now in our New York studio. And in the Cannon Rotunda in Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Maya Berry, you’re now the head of the Arab American Institute. During 9/11, you were the legislative director of the minority whip, Congressmember David Bonior. You’re well known on Capitol Hill. Can you talk about what Kennedy said to you? And talk about the other two witnesses, as well.
MAYA BERRY: It’s difficult to talk about what Senator Kennedy said to me, because I still, sitting here in front of you, actually do not know what he meant when he said, “Put a bag over your head.” I worry about the senator’s 31,000-plus Arab American constituents and the rest of the constituents he represents from Louisiana. That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.
The hearing itself — but you’re right to point this out — is incredibly important to do. We have been, year after year after year, breaking records for the number of hate crimes in our country, a trajectory that’s increased since the 2015 year, which tied with the 2016 presidential election. And the fact that the hearing that was supposed to cover the issue of hate crime and how to formulate a better response was derailed by a group of senators who chose to have the conversation about a political agenda they wanted to advance with regards to Israel and instead use it as an opportunity to further dehumanize people, it’s not how we fight antisemitism, and it’s certainly not how we fight anti-Arab racism.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Maya Berry, could you speak specifically about the increase in hate crimes from 2023 to 2024, in other words, following the October 7th attacks and then the war, the assault on Gaza?
MAYA BERRY: Yeah. There’s been a sense, obviously, anecdotally and looking at specific news accounts, that there’s been an increase. One of the things that we did in preparation for the hearing is that we actually pulled all of the 2023 data from 27 states plus the District of Columbia. And we did that because the federal data on hate crime has not been released yet for 2023. That won’t be coming out until a bit later.
And we found exactly what we thought, which was that there’s been an extraordinary increase of hate targeting both the Arab American and the Jewish American community: in the case of the Jewish American community, just over a thousand to more than 2,000; in the case of Arab Americans, it went from just over a hundred to 180. All of that is to say, by the way, one of the most important things to understand about hate crime data is the massive underreporting problem that exists. Based on the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice, only about 1% of hate crimes are actually reported. So those numbers tell us that, yes, there’s a significant problem, but it’s significantly worse than that. And then, just to point out, the post-October numbers, that’s where you saw at least half of those crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about Kenneth Stern, who was another witness, who is director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.
MAYA BERRY: Yeah. Professor Stern was there specifically because I think there was an anticipation that this conversation might delve into the idea of debating what antisemitism is or isn’t. He is actually the author of the IHRA Definition, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of Antisemitism, that he specifically wrote for the purposes of data collection outside of the United States primarily, to provide guidance. The definition is designed and written to introduce the idea of Israel and Israel issues into conflating it with the very real problem of antisemitism that exists. So, the problem has been — it’s we need to talk about antisemitism; we must not conflate it with anti-Israel criticism or criticism of Zionism. And, you know, he spent some considerable time trying to educate the senators on the importance of not doing that and the harm that it can cause to communities.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, what do you think — Maya, what do you think needs to be done in order to make government more responsible? I mean, [size=15\20]what the Republicans did, of course, the way they questioned you, was completely outrageous[/size]. But even beyond that, you know, taking that out of the picture, what is missing from the way in which the state, the federal government and also state governments, respond to this kind of violence?
MAYA BERRY: I think that’s the question and incredibly important to keep elevating. Part of how policy is set is that you’re asking the right questions and that it’s informed by data. And one of the things that has to happen in this process is actually what happened at the hearing, meaning the convening the hearing to have this discussion so we elevate the issue and the crisis of hate that we’re in. We strongly believe that part of that is requiring mandatory hate crime reporting, which means that every municipality that receives federal funding should have to report on hate crime. We’re not there yet. The introduction of the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act was a vehicle to improve hate crime data collection and reporting. And I think there’s more that can be done in that space. But the point is, we must have our government focus on the actual problem as opposed to distractions from it, which do not advance safety for anyone.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Delia Ramirez into this conversation, who is standing in Congress right now, in Washington, D.C., in the Cannon Rotunda. In the front row of this hearing, your constituent, Senator Durbin’s constituent, since he’s the head of the committee, and he is also the Illinois senator, introduced her, Hanan Shaheen, the mother of Wadea al-Fayoume, the 6-year-old boy who — Palestinian child, who was killed by their landlord. Can you explain what happened then, in October, and what you’ve done in introducing your bill around hate crimes, how the Democrats dealt with this grieving mother, who herself was knifed repeatedly, and how the Republicans dealt with her?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Yeah. Look, I was listening to what Senator Kennedy said, and it really was difficult for me not to have an out-of-body experience in reaction to what he did. Hanan Shaheen and Wadea al-Fayoume were constituents of Congresswoman Underwood, just a few minutes from my district. And when the conversation Senator Dick Durbin and I had about finally having a hearing that actually, since October 7th, talked about the rise of Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian hate and antisemitism and the impact that it has in our communities, it was with Wadea and his mother’s face in mind. And the idea that a hearing that was supposed to be about educating us on what this impact is around our country becoming the perfect example of what elected officials do and how they spew the hate that killed Wadea al-Fayoume was heartbreaking, but also, I think, to Maya’s point, was exactly what we’re talking about.
What Senator Kennedy did in that hearing, the consequences of his horrible bigotry and hate have real consequences in the Arab community and the Palestinian community, in other communities, and it makes us all less safe. The Wadea resolution is about honoring the life of a little boy that was stabbed 26 times by his landlord because Wadea and his mother are Palestinian. And the resolution was about honoring his life and also saying we have to end the bigotry and we have to end the spewing hate and the words that are used by elected officials and the media. That is what this resolution was about. And actually, it’s what inspired Senator Durbin to have this hearing on the rise of hate crimes.
What Senator Kennedy did should have real consequences. Here’s what I’m telling you. You can’t come into the House floor or the Senate chamber without a tie. You have to pay a fine. You can’t use a camera while you’re on the floor. You’ll get fined. But you can treat a witness, treat Maya the way that Kennedy treated Maya, and have no consequences? To me, that is the biggest ethics violation and an example of elected officials not being accountable to their people. And what he did should have consequences. And I’m going to look into what we could be doing to ensure that no elected official use a hearing room to further spew the hate that we’re seeing in the rise of hate crimes around the country.
AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about the issue of hate, Donald Trump said he is heading to Springfield, Ohio, where he and his vice-presidential running mate, now a sitting senator, Ohio Senator JD Vance, have falsely accused the Haitian community of eating pets. It is something that has generated enormous laughter, derision, but, much more importantly, horror, because of what’s happening in the streets of Springfield — state troopers marching through the streets, kids afraid to go to school, bomb threats at schools, at hospitals. You, yourself, Delia Ramirez, are an immigrant, an immigrant from Guatemala. If you can talk about this attack on the immigrant community and what it means, how it’s reverberating for you, as well?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Let me start by saying that what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, is Donald Trump’s fault. All of it. The idea that you make immigrants less than human — which is exactly what his strategy has been the entire time, since he started his campaign eight years ago. This man is intentionally creating ways and using words and accusations to make immigrants less than human — Haitian immigrants, Black immigrants. I mean, if that is not racism and bigotry, and if you can support this man, then it makes me question if you’re a racist and a bigot, as well.
The people of Springfield have said, “Leave us alone.” Haitian immigrants in this town are boosting our economy. Its own mayor, the city manager, the entire community has said, “Enough is enough. You, Donald Trump, is bringing hate to our community. You, Donald Trump, is making us less safe. You, Donald Trump, is impacting our economy,” because now we’re having to spend all this money on safety because of what he did. Shame on Donald Trump. Donald Trump, the last thing he should be doing is going to Springfield, Ohio. What he should be doing is asking himself, “Who am I? And why do I hate people so much?”
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, though I’m not quoting his words directly, he just said in a town hall forum he’ll go to Springfield, but who knows if he’ll make it out? We’re going to leave it there. I want to thank you so much, Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, speaking to us from Washington, D.C., in the Cannon Rotunda. And thank you to Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute. We thank you for both being with us.
Coming up, we speak to a Burmese genocide scholar about Burma, the latest news there, and his trip to the West Bank. Stay with us. Back in 20 seconds.
**********
Standing at Gaza Border Felt Like Visiting Auschwitz: Burmese Genocide Scholar Maung Zarni
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 19, 2024
The United Nations is warning about widespread human rights abuses in Burma as the military regime intensifies the killings and arbitrary arrests of tens of thousands of civilians since seizing power in a coup over three years ago. A new report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says many of those detained by the Burmese military are children taken from their parents, with dozens of minors dying in custody. “What it paints is an extremely disturbing picture of Burma descending into this human rights abyss. If you’re living there, it’s a complete living hell,” says Burmese scholar, dissident and human rights activist Maung Zarni. He also discusses his recent visit with faith leaders to the West Bank and the border of Gaza, drawing parallels between Burma’s and Israel’s human rights abuses. “Israel has taken the practices and policies of genocide to a whole new level,” says Zarni.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The United Nations is warning Burma is “plumbing the depths of a human rights abyss” as the military regime intensifies the killings and arbitrary arrests of tens of thousands of civilians since seizing power in a coup over three years ago. The gruesome findings are part of a new U.N. human rights report detailing how the Burmese military detained children who were taken from their parents. Dozens of those children have died in custody.
We end today’s show with Maung Zarni, a Burmese genocide scholar and human rights activist who’s been a vocal critic of the Burmese junta and Israel’s war on Gaza and the Israeli occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: In August, Maung Zarni traveled to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza border.
MAUNG ZARNI: Here at this Rafah crossing, sandwiched between Israel and Egyptian border, I feel like I am standing outside a giant concentration camp. When I see the tanks coming in and out, hearing airstrikes, I feel like I am once again visiting Auschwitz.
AMY GOODMAN: Maung Zarni, Burmese genocide scholar and human rights activist, joins us now from Kent, England, co-founder of the Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia, or FORSEA.
Welcome back, Zarni, to Democracy Now! It’s so important to have you with us. Talk about the groups you traveled to the Gaza border and to the West Bank with and your thoughts not only about what’s happening there, but comparisons to what’s going on, the horror that’s going on in Burma right now.
MAUNG ZARNI: Well, Amy, I am greatly indebted to the North American-based, particularly the U.S.-based Rabbis for Ceasefire and Christians for Ceasefire, as well as the Jerusalem-based liberation theologian group called Sabeel. And these three organizations facilitated a visit of the 28-member delegation. And most of the delegates are, you know, clergymen and clergywomen and people of faith. And I am, rather, a humanist, a human rights activist, but nonetheless I joined them, because I wanted to bear witness to what’s happening.
As you know, you have — you know, I’ve covered my own native country of Burma for 30 years and since we have known each other. And Burma and Israel, we regained our — Burma regained independence in 1948. Israel established itself as a sovereign state in 1948. They had what Golda Meir called a love affair. And these newly independent states after the Second World War are now undergoing a genocide trial or, you know, proceedings at the International Court of Justice. And so, you know, Burma is no stranger when it comes to mass atrocities.
What I found in Israel actually shocked me more than what I was prepared. You know, I have studied genocide for decades, and I’ve studied Nazi genocide, Cambodian genocide, my own country’s so-called Buddhist genocide of Rohingya people in western Burma. But Israel has taken the practices and policies of genocide to a whole new level. You know, what I found there — I’ve said this, as well, in other forums — a vast ecosystem of genocidal methodologies or methods.
That is to say that Israel has invented, very creatively, a system of depopulating the pre-1967 Palestine land using different methods, separating different pockets of subpopulation of Palestinians, from Gaza as open-air prison to other various parts of West Bank, you know, five- or six-tier citizenships with severely limited basic and fundamental rights, the severely — you know, severe restriction of life’s essentials, like access to food system, agricultural land, not just simply confiscating massive agricultural land, you know, across Israel. The chicken farms that Israeli companies run, and settlers, that have set up fantastic stone houses in communities fenced off, have chickens. Let me put this this way. Chickens in Israel, in Israeli companies’ farm, have far more access to water and electricity than Palestinian villages and people. And checkpoints, 810-kilometer-long wall — and it’s not just for security purposes. It is actually — the U.N. said it in 2005 — the wall, 810-kilometer-long wall, has been the prime driver behind mass deprivation — in other words, mass poverty of Palestinian people. And so, it’s rather frightening.
And Ramallah, you know, it’s thriving, the city, a bubble. But the locals tell me that the Israeli IDF and security agency will come in and do anything they want, and Palestinian Authority is completely helpless and that they cannot do nothing. They cannot protect the Palestinian people, even in Ramallah — forget about West Bank and other places.
Land confiscation. You know, we came very close to being tear-gassed by the IDF because we were supporting a farm family that have been evicted after their farm has been confiscated in Jerusalem, UNESCO World Heritage agricultural areas. And so, the Hebrew-speaking local colleagues in Jerusalem area who were with us told us that we need to vacate the place because the IDF is going to start firing tear gas and stun guns or grenades.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Zarni, finally, we want to turn to what’s going on in Burma. If you could respond to the new U.N. human rights report and their warning about what’s going on in Burma?
MAUNG ZARNI: Yeah. The new U.N. human rights report cover a one-year period since spring of 2023. What it says — what it paints is an extremely disturbing picture of Burma descending into this human rights abyss. You know, if you’re living there, it’s a complete living hell. You know, 3 million people are being displaced by a civil war between the army, on one hand, and various — you know, the pro-democracy or pro-ethnic liberation armed groups. You know, then we got hit by the typhoon over the last 10 days, and another 700,000 people, they’re displaced and dispossessed.
And so, the only problem is that in the past the Burmese military, the junta, has been the number one or sole perpetrator of egregious human rights crime, but since the coup three years ago, we have a mushrooming of armed organizations in the name of like a pro-democracy movement, and they join hands with different ethnic or ethnonationalist organizations. And so, there are organizations, such as Arakan Army, which represent the Buddhist Rakhine in western Myanmar. Now they are —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds, Maung Zarni.
MAUNG ZARNI: — [inaudible] permitting genocide. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us. Of course, we’ll continue to cover what’s happening in Burma and also in Gaza and the West Bank. Maung Zarni, Burmese dissident, human rights activist, scholar of genocide, co-founder of the Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia, speaking to us from Kent.
Very happy belated birthday to Sam Alcoff! That does it for our show. Democracy Now! produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks for joining us.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Mon Sep 23, 2024 11:04 pm
Headlines:
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
Hezbollah Leader Says Israel Has Crossed “All Red Lines” as Israel Escalates War with Lebanon
Sep 20, 2024
Israeli military jets bombarded southern Lebanon Thursday, while Hezbollah struck sites in northern Israel, after mass walkie-talkie and pager explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people in Lebanon and injured thousands of others in what is widely believed to be a coordinated attack by Israel. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of crossing “all red lines” as he addressed the week’s attacks in televised remarks.
Hassan Nasrallah: “War crimes or a declaration of war — you can call it anything, and it deserves those words. … Undoubtedly, we have been subjected to a major attack in terms of security and humanitarian aspects, unprecedented in the history of resistance in Lebanon. … We say to the enemy’s government, army and society that the Lebanese front will not stop before the aggression on Gaza stops.”
Despite the widely condemned attacks on Lebanon, Israel is doubling down on its intent to expand its war on Lebanon. This is Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Yoav Gallant: “Over the past several days, we have held a series of important discussions. This is a new phase of the war. It includes opportunities but also significant risks. Hezbollah feels it is being persecuted, and the sequence of military and defense actions will continue.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has postponed a trip to Israel early next week amid the mounting tensions. The Associated Press reports Yoav Gallant warned Austin ahead of the attacks this week that Israel was launching a military operation in Lebanon, but did not give any more details.
Video Shows Israeli Soldiers Pushing Bodies of Palestinians They Killed Off West Bank Roof
Sep 20, 2024
Deadly Israeli raids are continuing in the occupied West Bank, including in Jenin and Qabatiya, where a video has been circulating showing Israeli soldiers pushing dead bodies off a roof after a raid that killed at least five Palestinians. The desecration of corpses is considered a war crime, but Palestinians say the Israeli military frequently violates the deceased bodies of its victims. During the Qabatiya raid, Israeli forces also opened fire on a group of journalists filming the events. This is an eyewitness.
Zakaria Zakarneh: “Israeli special forces, fully equipped, raided and surrounded the area. They started shooting grenades and missiles. They struck young men at our place on the rooftop as they were trying to escape the trap.”
U.N. Panel Accuses Israel of Unprecedented Violations of Children’s Rights in War on Palestine
Sep 20, 2024
Israeli attacks on Gaza have also continued with deaths reported over the past day in Gaza City, Jabaliya, Nuseirat and Beit Hanoun. The official death toll in Gaza since October 7 has topped 41,000 with over 95,000 wounded, though the true toll is certainly much higher.
A U.N. committee on Thursday accused Israel of engaging in unprecedented violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child over the past 11 months.
Ann Skelton: “More children have died in this war than men or women. That is massive. And I think when we think about it and we know that under international humanitarian law, that Israel admits it is bound by, killing of civilian targets on this scale is unacceptable in international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well. And children are always civilians.”
Here in the U.S., three Democratic lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that would restore emergency funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after the U.S. suspended its contributions in January and later passed a bill barring any further funding of UNRWA until March of next year.
Students Across U.S. Continue to Protest Universities’ Complicity in War on Gaza
Sep 20, 2024
Resistance to Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza continues on college campuses as the new school year gets underway with more protests and calls to divest from Israel. On Wednesday, Cornell students shut down a career fair featuring weapons manufacturers supplying Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, a chapter of the activist group Students for Justice in Palestine is suing the University of Maryland in College Park after the school canceled an October 7 Gaza vigil.
********
“Declaration of War”: Hezbollah Girds for Israeli Invasion of Lebanon After Mobile Device Attacks
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
Right after we broadcast, Israel carried out “targeted strikes” in Beirut as it appears to be preparing for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon as an expansion of its war on Gaza.
Following deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon this week, killing at least 37 people and wounding around 3,000, Israeli officials have pledged to ramp up their campaign against Hezbollah. Hezbollah characterized the devastating pager explosions as a “declaration of war.” In Beirut, we hear from journalist Rania Abouzeid about the aftereffects of the attack and the prospects of war on the Lebanese front. “There is certainly a sense of heightened anxiety as people wonder what else, what other devices in their vicinity, may explode,” she says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where reports suggest Israel appears to be linking its southern Lebanon border to Gaza. As we broadcast, the Associated Press is reporting Hezbollah has launched 140 rockets into northern Israel in what is said is retaliation for Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
This comes as Al Jazeera reports Israel’s reserve forces commander said earlier today, quote, “It is time for Lebanon to suffer as well, … the power plants, bridges, airports and seaports as well,” unquote. Al Jazeera has also reported on videos from Israeli government media sources that show Israel’s minefields on Lebanon’s border are being cleared to, quote, “make way for what most likely will be a movement of ground forces into southern Lebanon.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday Israel will keep up military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
YOAV GALLANT: [translated] Our goal is to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. As time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price.
AMY GOODMAN: This all comes after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah denounced the deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, including children, and wounding thousands more. As Nasrallah delivered a televised address Thursday, sonic booms from Israeli warplanes shook Beirut.
HASSAN NASRALLAH: [translated] We say to the enemy’s government, army and society that the Lebanese front will not stop before the aggression on Gaza stops. We have been saying this for 11 months now. It might sound repetitive now, but these words come after these two big blows, after all these martyrs, all these wounds, all this pain. I say clearly, whatever the sacrifices, whatever the consequences, whatever the possibilities, whatever the horizon to which the region heads, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting the people of Gaza and the West Bank, who are oppressed in that Holy Land.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says the explosions in booby-trapped pagers and radios in Lebanon seriously disrupted Lebanon’s health sector. The WHO’s representative in Lebanon said a hundred hospitals were involved in responding to the crisis.
DR. ABDINASIR ABUBAKAR: You know, what happened for the last two days actually was an unprecedented incident, the explosion of different gadgets. And it’s been used not the normal explosion material. It’s been used a different. So, it’s sometimes — it’s very difficult actually to know exactly the short-term and the long-term impact of this substance that’s been used for the explosions. But I think the experts, and as well as in collaboration also with WHO now, we are trying to study more exactly what happened, how it happened, what kind of material is being used and how it’s affecting the people that have already been wounded, which is over 3,000 people. And also, 37 people have died so far.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by Rania Abouzeid, Lebanese Australian journalist and author, who is based there.
Welcome to Democracy Now! First off, as you join us from Beirut, where there has been this wave of attacks, people are concerned about a second wave of explosions involving electronic devices. At this point, the figures are something like 3,500 people injured; 37, including children, are dead. Talk about the response on the ground, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, there’s certainly a sense of heightened anxiety as people wonder what else, what other devices in their vicinity, may explode. They wonder if anything that they’re holding in their hands or that might be in their homes could be weaponized, turned into an improvised explosive device to maim and kill either them or the people around them.
There is also anger about the attacks, the fact that people — you know, they didn’t target combatants in a battlefield, but, rather, people going about their everyday lives. These devices exploded in supermarkets. They exploded as people were driving their cars. They exploded in people’s homes.
The hospitals, as you mentioned in that report, were overwhelmed. More than a hundred hospitals rallied to try and help the thousands of wounded, as well as some of the dead that were coming into the hospitals.
So, it’s a — there’s also been an escalation on the southern Lebanese front with northern Israel. Overnight, there were more than 50 Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese villages. And as you mentioned in your report, more than a hundred Hezbollah rockets have been fired across the border today.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what Nasrallah said yesterday?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, it was a very wide-ranging speech. Part of it was he looked at these attacks and he said, “Let’s consider what Israel’s aims were in this attack.” And he pointed out three things. He said the first was to try and separate the Lebanese front from Gaza. And he said that won’t happen until the war in Gaza ends. The second was to splinter and to pressure Hezbollah’s support base to say, “Enough. We have had enough of this.” That aim also has failed. On the contrary, we have seen people who are wounded in the hospitals saying that this is a sacrifice that they are prepared to make. The third thing was to disrupt Hezbollah’s communications infrastructure. And Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that that didn’t happen.
He also turned to these growing Israeli calls for a ground invasion of Lebanon or to widen the war in Lebanon away from the southern Lebanese border region, but to engulf the whole country. And he said at one point that Hezbollah welcomes a ground invasion. It prefers to target Israeli soldiers on its home turf rather than in northern Israel. And he said that if Israeli soldiers cross that border, they will find themselves in hell. And he also said at one point they will also face, quote, “hundreds of those who were wounded in Tuesday and Wednesday’s attacks.”
AMY GOODMAN: So, what about the response to the reports from Reuters and The New York Times and other places that it was Israeli agents who were reportedly responsible, but wouldn’t quite say — accurate to say rigging devices, manufacturing these devices, not clear, debate over where exactly they were manufactured, but possibly a Budapest, Hungary-based company was involved? Your response to this and the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres saying that — decrying the use of everyday electronics as a weapon of war?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, there’s — speculation is rife about exactly how these devices exploded and at what point did they — were explosives placed in them, were they remotely hacked. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah yesterday in his speech said that Hezbollah has set up a number of committees to investigate this and that it would, you know, soon release the results.
As for the use, you know, turning everyday objects into IEDs, basically, there was a press release recently, just moments ago, before we went on air, where U.N. experts said that it was a terrifying violation of international law, that you can’t booby-trap devices that civilians might use or that may be in the vicinity of civilians. So, it is a, to use Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s word again, “unprecedented” tactic and one that is very grave, because it also — it didn’t — it attacked so many different people. It wasn’t an attack, a mass attack, on people in the same location, but it was in at least three places across Lebanon: in south Lebanon, in the Beqaa Valley and in Beirut.
AMY GOODMAN: As Guterres decries the weaponization of civilian objects, can you talk about, on the ground, in the hospitals, the kind of injuries that these hospitals, that are overwhelmed, are dealing with? Word is that somewhere over 3,500 people were injured.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Yes, and we have seen — on Lebanese TV, we have seen trauma surgeons break down and cry as they describe some of the cases that they are dealing with. Injuries are predominantly to the eyes, to the face, to the torso and to the hands. We have heard surgeons say that in the same operation, there are sometimes three or four specialists who are trying to save some of these wounded people. Each one is focused on a particular body part. So they are really quite, quite devastating injuries. Some of them — there was a trauma surgeon this morning who was talking about how some of these wounded people might need multiple surgeries over a very extended period of time.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh speaking Thursday.
SABRINA SINGH: Yesterday, Secretary Austin spoke by phone with his Israeli counterpart, Minister of Defense Gallant, to review regional security developments and reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran’s other regional partners. The secretary emphasized the U.S. commitment to deterring regional adversaries, deescalating tensions across the region, and reaffirmed the priority of reaching a ceasefire deal that will bring home hostages held by Hamas, and an enduring diplomatic resolution to the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border that will allow civilians on both sides to return home.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the U.S. response so far to these explosions in Lebanon? Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, was in Paris. He cautioned against any further escalations that would make a Gaza ceasefire deal even more challenging, though it looks like that has fallen apart, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, I can’t speak to what the U.S. is — to the U.S.’s point of view, but I can certainly tell you that over here, people very intimately link this Israeli offensive with the U.S. People point out the double standards in terms of international law. They also point out how, you know, Blinken and other U.S. officials talk about deescalating the conflict, while continuing to arm Israel, not only in Gaza, but also, of course, with regard to its offensive here in Lebanon. So, you know, the mask has fallen on the doublespeak that is coming out of Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the formation of Hezbollah, what its political aspirations are, and its relationship to the Lebanese government?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, it is part of the Lebanese government. Hezbollah has more than a dozen parliamentarians. It also has Cabinet ministers. And it has had people in government for many, many years. It has a political wing. It has a military wing. And it also runs a lot of charities and schools and hospitals. It formed in 1982 as a resistance group in response to Israel’s occupation, invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. And it maintains its arms because part of Lebanon remains Israeli-occupied and has been for decades.
AMY GOODMAN: And what you see happening now with the Israeli government, the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying the war is widening, the reports of troops being used, Israeli troops being moved to the north from Gaza?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, that’s the big question. That’s the question that is on the minds of many Lebanese: What happens next? Will there be a ground invasion? Will there be airstrikes? We heard the Israeli official point out targets. He mentioned the airport. He mentioned the port, Beirut’s port. These are all civilian infrastructure. And let’s not forget that in 2006 war with Israel, the airport was hit on day one. Beirut airport was hit on day one, rendering it unusable. So, the idea that Israel would broaden its war not just to target Hezbollah, but to target Lebanese civilian infrastructure, is a very — is a grave concern over here.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to your New Yorker piece. You said, “Earlier this summer, I met with a Hezbollah military strategist in a small village in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres from the Israeli border. At one point during our off-the-record conversation, his pager beeped. He decrypted the message using a neatly folded piece of laminated paper. I hadn’t seen a sheet like that since the 2006 war with Israel, when another Hezbollah militant in another southern Lebanese village pulled one out of his pocket to relay a coded message over a walkie-talkie. The group has long used various low-tech methods, including pagers, as part of its strategy to avoid Israeli tracking and surveillance of cell phones. It also has its own landline network.” Take it from there, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, I mean, I’ll just go back to the 2006 incident. Not only did the — I saw two fighters in a southern Lebanese village, and they were using the walkie-talkies and this laminated piece of paper. But they told me about how they use coded messages. One man said, “If I tell my friend to meet me under the tree where he met his fiancée, I understand it, he understands it, but even if a message like that is intercepted by the Israelis, they will not understand it.” This is the advantage that Hezbollah has on its home turf. These are local men fighting in their villages. They are fighting in their towns. The are fighting in territory that they are very intimately familiar with. And they’re a very disciplined, very highly trained, very motivated fighting force.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the sonic booms that you’re hearing and how that affects the Lebanese population?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, they’re terrifying, first of all. It’s just — you don’t know if it’s a sonic boom, and you wait to hear if there’s an explosion that follows the noise. Now, this is also — you know, let’s not forget that Beirut has long been terrorized by Israeli overflights by Israeli warplanes. All of these things, incidentally, are violations of sovereignty and acts of war. Every year, the United Nations tallies up these violations and presents a report about them. They’re usually in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands, these cross-border violations.
So, they’re not a new development per se. But given the heightened tensions, they are certainly a terrifying sound to hear in the middle of the day, because you just don’t know if this is the opening salvo of an expanded war or if it is just the boom itself and not followed by an explosion.
AMY GOODMAN: Are people afraid to use pagers, walkie-talkies, even their cellphones?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Beyond that, people are wondering if perhaps — you know, there were reports that people were disconnecting the lithium batteries in their homes from the solar panels to provide electricity. People were wondering what other devices might explode, what electronics in their home might explode. Some people were telling each other not to use cellphones, but to go back to landlines to communicate. So, they’re really — you know, this is psychologically — it’s broken something, because this is a new sort of development, when an everyday object can be weaponized and it can be weaponized en masse.
AMY GOODMAN: Rania Abouzeid, we thank you for being with us, Lebanese Australian journalist and author based in Beirut.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: We will link to your article in The New Yorker magazine, “Explosions Across Lebanon.”
RANIA ABOUZEID: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Next up, weeks out from the U.S. election, the Uncommitted National Movement has announced it’s not going to endorse Kamala Harris, even as they say they oppose President Trump and that voting for a third party a mistake. We’ll speak with the co-founder of the movement. Stay with us.
***
No Endorsement: Uncommitted Mvmt. Won’t Back Harris, Trump or Third Party as U.S. Keeps Arming Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
The U.S. presidential election is just 45 days away, and for antiwar voters, the policy differences between the two leading candidates are vanishingly thin. As the Biden-Harris administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, the Uncommitted National Movement, which for months has attempted to steer the Democratic Party toward a more critical stance on Israel, has announced it is not endorsing Kamala Harris. Neither does the organization recommend casting a third-party vote, citing the risk of splitting the two-party vote and ushering in a second term for Donald Trump. “We were not met in good faith with our policy demands,” says the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founder Lexis Zeidan about its attempts to parley with the Harris campaign. Zeidan says the organization will continue to pressure Democrats from within and outside of the party. “What we’re asking is not outrageous.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
We’re just 45 days away from the U.S. election. As the Biden administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, demands for a U.S. arms embargo to Israel remain a key issue among antiwar voters, who say they feel ignored by both major political parties. Now the Uncommitted National Movement, which pressured by the Democratic Party — or, pressured the Democratic Party to shift its policy towards Israel and to end the war on Gaza, has announced it will not endorse Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, saying her campaign failed to accept the movement’s demands, which also include meeting with Palestinian American families who have had many of their relatives killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.
With less than two months to go until the election, Harris has repeatedly defended the Biden administration’s support of Israel amidst its relentless war on Gaza. During an interview on Tuesday with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, Vice President Harris was questioned on the issues by reporter Tonya Mosley of WHYY Radio.
TONYA MOSLEY: You’ve called for a ceasefire-hostage deal and a two-state solution as an end to the war for many months now. And while you’ve expressed support for Israel to defend itself, a two-state solution and a ceasefire are at odds with what Benjamin Netanyahu has said is their right to defense. If it matters, as you say, how Israel defends itself, where do you see the line between aggression and defense, and our power as Israel’s ally to do something?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: OK, a lot to unpack in what you just said. So, let’s start with this. I absolutely believe that this war has to end, and it has to end as soon as possible. And the way that will be achieved is by getting a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. And we are working around the clock to achieve that end. Stepping back, October 7, 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered — and actually, and some Americans, by the way, in that number, slaughtered, young people who were attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And yes, so I have said Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And —
TONYA MOSLEY: But, Madam Vice President —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But, no.
TONYA MOSLEY: — I think my ask —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But let me finish.
TONYA MOSLEY: — is the difference —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But, no, no. Let me finish.
TONYA MOSLEY: — between aggression and defense here.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: No, but it’s important to put it in context, which is what I’m doing, and I’ll get to that. And so, how it does so matters. And far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, women and children. We have seen with horror the images coming out of Gaza. And we have to take that seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Vice President Kamala Harris being questioned Tuesday by reporter Tonya Mosley as part of a panel of journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists event in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday Jewish voters will be to blame if he loses November’s election. Trump stood in front of an Israeli flag as he spoke at the Israeli-American Council national summit. He also used the term “Palestinian” as a pejorative to describe Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and New York Democrat, and claimed if Kamala Harris wins in November, Israel would cease to exist.
DONALD TRUMP: The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%. If I’m at 40, think of it. That means 60% of voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel, very bad. … I mean, Chuck Schumer is a Palestinian. … But if we don’t win this election, Israel, in my opinion, within a period of two to three years, will cease to exist. It’s going to be wiped out. It’s what’s going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump previously referred to President Biden as a, quote, “very bad Palestinian,” unquote, in their only presidential debate in June.
This all comes as the Teamsters union has said it’s not endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time since 1996. The union, which endorsed Biden in 2020, says neither candidate have enough support from their 1.3 million-strong membership.
For more on the election and the “uncommitted” movement’s announcement it will not endorse Kamala Harris, we go to Detroit — actually, we go to Michigan, where we’re joined by Lexis Zeidan, co-founder and co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you explain the statement that you put out yesterday, Lexis?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah. Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
As many know, Uncommitted put out a statement yesterday where we announced we will not be endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. And in that same statement, we had announced that we are vehemently opposing Donald Trump and that we do not recommend a third-party vote.
And to put it into a little bit of context, we have been working for months, where we, you know, started in Michigan, 1.5 million voter contacts, mobilized over 101,000 people to go to the polls and vote uncommitted as a protest vote against Biden and the administration and their ongoing support for Israel as it relates to the occupation and killing of Palestinians.
And what we offered to VP Harris is that if Vice President Kamala Harris is able to do two things — either change policy as it relates to current U.S. policy that backs bombs, or simply does the thing of ensuring and upholding current international and human rights laws as it relates to the way that Israel is violating war crimes — that we would do — that we would repeat what we did in Michigan to mobilize our base to go to the polls and vote for her come November. It was the offer we put on the table that was declined by Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign team.
And so, because we were not met in good faith, we had to make the decision to not be able to endorse her. And to be clear, an endorsement is an opportunity for us to do the same thing that we did in Michigan: mobilize our voters. An endorsement means that we are offering something and doing something. And because we were not met in good faith with our policy demands, it is something that we cannot do.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain each position — not endorsing Kamala Harris, telling people not to support President Trump or a third-party candidate.
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah, great question. I think I’ll lead with, we have to be very clear, is that there’s two options come November at the top of the ticket. It’s going to be Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. So, keeping that context in mind, we had to make a decision of what that means to grow the power that we’ve already built within our antiwar organizing movement. And so, for us, and like I said, an endorsement is meaning that we will mobilize voters to go to the polls and vote for VP Harris. That has to come with policy change. And no policy change came, so it’s a decision we had to make to not endorse her.
Donald Trump, we have to be very clear, is a direct threat to our society, our civil liberties here and Palestinians back home. As he has mentioned, he plans to annex the West Bank. As he has mentioned, that he plans to criminalize organizations here in our own country who are fighting for Palestinian human rights.
And then, to the third point of not recommending a third-party vote, we know that, unfortunately, a third-party vote is not viable in this broken electoral system. And so, inadvertently, a third-party vote would support a Donald Trump victory.
And so, knowing all this context, we believe that our power lies within our movement, that our power lies within our people, that our power lies in continuing to grow the antiwar organizing movement that we have, to truly pressure the Democratic coalition or the Democratic administration to change policy as it relates to its current U.S. policy of backing bombs.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of third parties, this month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, published a follow-up poll that shows Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein ahead of Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. So, can you talk about the significance of what this means of not endorsing Kamala Harris?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah. I mean, I think we have to recognize that a lot of people, especially people within the Arab and Muslim community — you know, as VP Harris put it in her speech, we’ve got to put things into context. And the context here is that these communities are communities that are suffering. They are communities that are grieving. And the idea of people going and asking them who you are voting for come November — we’ve said this repeatedly — is like asking them that question at a funeral. And so, we have to keep in context how people are grieving, feeling emotionally, the very same people who came out in 2020 and mobilized very well for Biden, who feels very betrayed by this administration.
And so, we believe, as a movement, that it’s our responsibility to do three things right in this very moment, is, one, educate voters across the country, including Arab and Muslim voters, provide them with voter education on the dangers of Donald Trump; two, recognize that the genocide is still happening, that we cannot wait ’til January to shift policy, and that we have to continue to pressure the Biden-Harris administration to change policy immediately to save as many Palestinian lives as possible; and the third thing is to continue to grow our antiwar organizing power with Democratic coalitions across the country. We have to recognize that our power has impacted elected officials speaking up for Palestine, as well, from school board members all the way up to congressional leaders that are talking openly about why we need to change our U.S. foreign policy as it relates to backing bombs.
And so, these people that are talking about voting Jill Stein and third party are people who are suffering. And we believe it is our job to continue to do the organizing work that we have to do ahead of November to educate our voters about what’s at stake come November and how we have to grow our organizing power to see long-term policy change to lead to a liberated and a free Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, your response to Senator Bernie Sanders preparing a joint resolution of disapproval against the planned $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel? He spoke from the Senate floor Wednesday.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history. … The simple fact is that we must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering.”
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds, Lexis. Your response?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah, I mean, he highlighted it perfectly, is that we are aiding and abetting in indiscriminately killing civilians. And it goes to the point of what we’ve been explaining in this movement and what we’ve been trying to get VP Harris and the administration to move on, a sentiment that actually resonates the majority of Democrats, 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, that oppose weapons aids to Israel. When we look at our international law and our U.S. law as it relates to violation of war crimes, this is something that we should not be funding.
So, what we’re asking is not outrageous. We’re making a very simple request to follow international law and do what’s right and create an opportunity to deescalate what’s happening in the region and to really make sure that we’re valuing Palestinian lives as much as any other lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Lexis Zeidan, I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement, speaking to us from Detroit, Michigan.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
Hezbollah Leader Says Israel Has Crossed “All Red Lines” as Israel Escalates War with Lebanon
Sep 20, 2024
Israeli military jets bombarded southern Lebanon Thursday, while Hezbollah struck sites in northern Israel, after mass walkie-talkie and pager explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people in Lebanon and injured thousands of others in what is widely believed to be a coordinated attack by Israel. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of crossing “all red lines” as he addressed the week’s attacks in televised remarks.
Hassan Nasrallah: “War crimes or a declaration of war — you can call it anything, and it deserves those words. … Undoubtedly, we have been subjected to a major attack in terms of security and humanitarian aspects, unprecedented in the history of resistance in Lebanon. … We say to the enemy’s government, army and society that the Lebanese front will not stop before the aggression on Gaza stops.”
Despite the widely condemned attacks on Lebanon, Israel is doubling down on its intent to expand its war on Lebanon. This is Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Yoav Gallant: “Over the past several days, we have held a series of important discussions. This is a new phase of the war. It includes opportunities but also significant risks. Hezbollah feels it is being persecuted, and the sequence of military and defense actions will continue.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has postponed a trip to Israel early next week amid the mounting tensions. The Associated Press reports Yoav Gallant warned Austin ahead of the attacks this week that Israel was launching a military operation in Lebanon, but did not give any more details.
Video Shows Israeli Soldiers Pushing Bodies of Palestinians They Killed Off West Bank Roof
Sep 20, 2024
Deadly Israeli raids are continuing in the occupied West Bank, including in Jenin and Qabatiya, where a video has been circulating showing Israeli soldiers pushing dead bodies off a roof after a raid that killed at least five Palestinians. The desecration of corpses is considered a war crime, but Palestinians say the Israeli military frequently violates the deceased bodies of its victims. During the Qabatiya raid, Israeli forces also opened fire on a group of journalists filming the events. This is an eyewitness.
Zakaria Zakarneh: “Israeli special forces, fully equipped, raided and surrounded the area. They started shooting grenades and missiles. They struck young men at our place on the rooftop as they were trying to escape the trap.”
U.N. Panel Accuses Israel of Unprecedented Violations of Children’s Rights in War on Palestine
Sep 20, 2024
Israeli attacks on Gaza have also continued with deaths reported over the past day in Gaza City, Jabaliya, Nuseirat and Beit Hanoun. The official death toll in Gaza since October 7 has topped 41,000 with over 95,000 wounded, though the true toll is certainly much higher.
A U.N. committee on Thursday accused Israel of engaging in unprecedented violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child over the past 11 months.
Ann Skelton: “More children have died in this war than men or women. That is massive. And I think when we think about it and we know that under international humanitarian law, that Israel admits it is bound by, killing of civilian targets on this scale is unacceptable in international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well. And children are always civilians.”
Here in the U.S., three Democratic lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that would restore emergency funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after the U.S. suspended its contributions in January and later passed a bill barring any further funding of UNRWA until March of next year.
Students Across U.S. Continue to Protest Universities’ Complicity in War on Gaza
Sep 20, 2024
Resistance to Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza continues on college campuses as the new school year gets underway with more protests and calls to divest from Israel. On Wednesday, Cornell students shut down a career fair featuring weapons manufacturers supplying Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, a chapter of the activist group Students for Justice in Palestine is suing the University of Maryland in College Park after the school canceled an October 7 Gaza vigil.
********
“Declaration of War”: Hezbollah Girds for Israeli Invasion of Lebanon After Mobile Device Attacks
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
Right after we broadcast, Israel carried out “targeted strikes” in Beirut as it appears to be preparing for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon as an expansion of its war on Gaza.
Following deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon this week, killing at least 37 people and wounding around 3,000, Israeli officials have pledged to ramp up their campaign against Hezbollah. Hezbollah characterized the devastating pager explosions as a “declaration of war.” In Beirut, we hear from journalist Rania Abouzeid about the aftereffects of the attack and the prospects of war on the Lebanese front. “There is certainly a sense of heightened anxiety as people wonder what else, what other devices in their vicinity, may explode,” she says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where reports suggest Israel appears to be linking its southern Lebanon border to Gaza. As we broadcast, the Associated Press is reporting Hezbollah has launched 140 rockets into northern Israel in what is said is retaliation for Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
This comes as Al Jazeera reports Israel’s reserve forces commander said earlier today, quote, “It is time for Lebanon to suffer as well, … the power plants, bridges, airports and seaports as well,” unquote. Al Jazeera has also reported on videos from Israeli government media sources that show Israel’s minefields on Lebanon’s border are being cleared to, quote, “make way for what most likely will be a movement of ground forces into southern Lebanon.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday Israel will keep up military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
YOAV GALLANT: [translated] Our goal is to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. As time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price.
AMY GOODMAN: This all comes after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah denounced the deadly Israeli attacks that blew up walkie-talkies and pagers across Lebanon Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, including children, and wounding thousands more. As Nasrallah delivered a televised address Thursday, sonic booms from Israeli warplanes shook Beirut.
HASSAN NASRALLAH: [translated] We say to the enemy’s government, army and society that the Lebanese front will not stop before the aggression on Gaza stops. We have been saying this for 11 months now. It might sound repetitive now, but these words come after these two big blows, after all these martyrs, all these wounds, all this pain. I say clearly, whatever the sacrifices, whatever the consequences, whatever the possibilities, whatever the horizon to which the region heads, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting the people of Gaza and the West Bank, who are oppressed in that Holy Land.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says the explosions in booby-trapped pagers and radios in Lebanon seriously disrupted Lebanon’s health sector. The WHO’s representative in Lebanon said a hundred hospitals were involved in responding to the crisis.
DR. ABDINASIR ABUBAKAR: You know, what happened for the last two days actually was an unprecedented incident, the explosion of different gadgets. And it’s been used not the normal explosion material. It’s been used a different. So, it’s sometimes — it’s very difficult actually to know exactly the short-term and the long-term impact of this substance that’s been used for the explosions. But I think the experts, and as well as in collaboration also with WHO now, we are trying to study more exactly what happened, how it happened, what kind of material is being used and how it’s affecting the people that have already been wounded, which is over 3,000 people. And also, 37 people have died so far.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by Rania Abouzeid, Lebanese Australian journalist and author, who is based there.
Welcome to Democracy Now! First off, as you join us from Beirut, where there has been this wave of attacks, people are concerned about a second wave of explosions involving electronic devices. At this point, the figures are something like 3,500 people injured; 37, including children, are dead. Talk about the response on the ground, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, there’s certainly a sense of heightened anxiety as people wonder what else, what other devices in their vicinity, may explode. They wonder if anything that they’re holding in their hands or that might be in their homes could be weaponized, turned into an improvised explosive device to maim and kill either them or the people around them.
There is also anger about the attacks, the fact that people — you know, they didn’t target combatants in a battlefield, but, rather, people going about their everyday lives. These devices exploded in supermarkets. They exploded as people were driving their cars. They exploded in people’s homes.
The hospitals, as you mentioned in that report, were overwhelmed. More than a hundred hospitals rallied to try and help the thousands of wounded, as well as some of the dead that were coming into the hospitals.
So, it’s a — there’s also been an escalation on the southern Lebanese front with northern Israel. Overnight, there were more than 50 Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese villages. And as you mentioned in your report, more than a hundred Hezbollah rockets have been fired across the border today.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what Nasrallah said yesterday?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, it was a very wide-ranging speech. Part of it was he looked at these attacks and he said, “Let’s consider what Israel’s aims were in this attack.” And he pointed out three things. He said the first was to try and separate the Lebanese front from Gaza. And he said that won’t happen until the war in Gaza ends. The second was to splinter and to pressure Hezbollah’s support base to say, “Enough. We have had enough of this.” That aim also has failed. On the contrary, we have seen people who are wounded in the hospitals saying that this is a sacrifice that they are prepared to make. The third thing was to disrupt Hezbollah’s communications infrastructure. And Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that that didn’t happen.
He also turned to these growing Israeli calls for a ground invasion of Lebanon or to widen the war in Lebanon away from the southern Lebanese border region, but to engulf the whole country. And he said at one point that Hezbollah welcomes a ground invasion. It prefers to target Israeli soldiers on its home turf rather than in northern Israel. And he said that if Israeli soldiers cross that border, they will find themselves in hell. And he also said at one point they will also face, quote, “hundreds of those who were wounded in Tuesday and Wednesday’s attacks.”
AMY GOODMAN: So, what about the response to the reports from Reuters and The New York Times and other places that it was Israeli agents who were reportedly responsible, but wouldn’t quite say — accurate to say rigging devices, manufacturing these devices, not clear, debate over where exactly they were manufactured, but possibly a Budapest, Hungary-based company was involved? Your response to this and the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres saying that — decrying the use of everyday electronics as a weapon of war?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, there’s — speculation is rife about exactly how these devices exploded and at what point did they — were explosives placed in them, were they remotely hacked. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah yesterday in his speech said that Hezbollah has set up a number of committees to investigate this and that it would, you know, soon release the results.
As for the use, you know, turning everyday objects into IEDs, basically, there was a press release recently, just moments ago, before we went on air, where U.N. experts said that it was a terrifying violation of international law, that you can’t booby-trap devices that civilians might use or that may be in the vicinity of civilians. So, it is a, to use Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s word again, “unprecedented” tactic and one that is very grave, because it also — it didn’t — it attacked so many different people. It wasn’t an attack, a mass attack, on people in the same location, but it was in at least three places across Lebanon: in south Lebanon, in the Beqaa Valley and in Beirut.
AMY GOODMAN: As Guterres decries the weaponization of civilian objects, can you talk about, on the ground, in the hospitals, the kind of injuries that these hospitals, that are overwhelmed, are dealing with? Word is that somewhere over 3,500 people were injured.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Yes, and we have seen — on Lebanese TV, we have seen trauma surgeons break down and cry as they describe some of the cases that they are dealing with. Injuries are predominantly to the eyes, to the face, to the torso and to the hands. We have heard surgeons say that in the same operation, there are sometimes three or four specialists who are trying to save some of these wounded people. Each one is focused on a particular body part. So they are really quite, quite devastating injuries. Some of them — there was a trauma surgeon this morning who was talking about how some of these wounded people might need multiple surgeries over a very extended period of time.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh speaking Thursday.
SABRINA SINGH: Yesterday, Secretary Austin spoke by phone with his Israeli counterpart, Minister of Defense Gallant, to review regional security developments and reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran’s other regional partners. The secretary emphasized the U.S. commitment to deterring regional adversaries, deescalating tensions across the region, and reaffirmed the priority of reaching a ceasefire deal that will bring home hostages held by Hamas, and an enduring diplomatic resolution to the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border that will allow civilians on both sides to return home.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the U.S. response so far to these explosions in Lebanon? Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, was in Paris. He cautioned against any further escalations that would make a Gaza ceasefire deal even more challenging, though it looks like that has fallen apart, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, I can’t speak to what the U.S. is — to the U.S.’s point of view, but I can certainly tell you that over here, people very intimately link this Israeli offensive with the U.S. People point out the double standards in terms of international law. They also point out how, you know, Blinken and other U.S. officials talk about deescalating the conflict, while continuing to arm Israel, not only in Gaza, but also, of course, with regard to its offensive here in Lebanon. So, you know, the mask has fallen on the doublespeak that is coming out of Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the formation of Hezbollah, what its political aspirations are, and its relationship to the Lebanese government?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, it is part of the Lebanese government. Hezbollah has more than a dozen parliamentarians. It also has Cabinet ministers. And it has had people in government for many, many years. It has a political wing. It has a military wing. And it also runs a lot of charities and schools and hospitals. It formed in 1982 as a resistance group in response to Israel’s occupation, invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. And it maintains its arms because part of Lebanon remains Israeli-occupied and has been for decades.
AMY GOODMAN: And what you see happening now with the Israeli government, the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying the war is widening, the reports of troops being used, Israeli troops being moved to the north from Gaza?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, that’s the big question. That’s the question that is on the minds of many Lebanese: What happens next? Will there be a ground invasion? Will there be airstrikes? We heard the Israeli official point out targets. He mentioned the airport. He mentioned the port, Beirut’s port. These are all civilian infrastructure. And let’s not forget that in 2006 war with Israel, the airport was hit on day one. Beirut airport was hit on day one, rendering it unusable. So, the idea that Israel would broaden its war not just to target Hezbollah, but to target Lebanese civilian infrastructure, is a very — is a grave concern over here.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to your New Yorker piece. You said, “Earlier this summer, I met with a Hezbollah military strategist in a small village in southern Lebanon, a few kilometres from the Israeli border. At one point during our off-the-record conversation, his pager beeped. He decrypted the message using a neatly folded piece of laminated paper. I hadn’t seen a sheet like that since the 2006 war with Israel, when another Hezbollah militant in another southern Lebanese village pulled one out of his pocket to relay a coded message over a walkie-talkie. The group has long used various low-tech methods, including pagers, as part of its strategy to avoid Israeli tracking and surveillance of cell phones. It also has its own landline network.” Take it from there, Rania.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, I mean, I’ll just go back to the 2006 incident. Not only did the — I saw two fighters in a southern Lebanese village, and they were using the walkie-talkies and this laminated piece of paper. But they told me about how they use coded messages. One man said, “If I tell my friend to meet me under the tree where he met his fiancée, I understand it, he understands it, but even if a message like that is intercepted by the Israelis, they will not understand it.” This is the advantage that Hezbollah has on its home turf. These are local men fighting in their villages. They are fighting in their towns. The are fighting in territory that they are very intimately familiar with. And they’re a very disciplined, very highly trained, very motivated fighting force.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the sonic booms that you’re hearing and how that affects the Lebanese population?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Well, they’re terrifying, first of all. It’s just — you don’t know if it’s a sonic boom, and you wait to hear if there’s an explosion that follows the noise. Now, this is also — you know, let’s not forget that Beirut has long been terrorized by Israeli overflights by Israeli warplanes. All of these things, incidentally, are violations of sovereignty and acts of war. Every year, the United Nations tallies up these violations and presents a report about them. They’re usually in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands, these cross-border violations.
So, they’re not a new development per se. But given the heightened tensions, they are certainly a terrifying sound to hear in the middle of the day, because you just don’t know if this is the opening salvo of an expanded war or if it is just the boom itself and not followed by an explosion.
AMY GOODMAN: Are people afraid to use pagers, walkie-talkies, even their cellphones?
RANIA ABOUZEID: Beyond that, people are wondering if perhaps — you know, there were reports that people were disconnecting the lithium batteries in their homes from the solar panels to provide electricity. People were wondering what other devices might explode, what electronics in their home might explode. Some people were telling each other not to use cellphones, but to go back to landlines to communicate. So, they’re really — you know, this is psychologically — it’s broken something, because this is a new sort of development, when an everyday object can be weaponized and it can be weaponized en masse.
AMY GOODMAN: Rania Abouzeid, we thank you for being with us, Lebanese Australian journalist and author based in Beirut.
RANIA ABOUZEID: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: We will link to your article in The New Yorker magazine, “Explosions Across Lebanon.”
RANIA ABOUZEID: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Next up, weeks out from the U.S. election, the Uncommitted National Movement has announced it’s not going to endorse Kamala Harris, even as they say they oppose President Trump and that voting for a third party a mistake. We’ll speak with the co-founder of the movement. Stay with us.
***
No Endorsement: Uncommitted Mvmt. Won’t Back Harris, Trump or Third Party as U.S. Keeps Arming Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 20, 2024
The U.S. presidential election is just 45 days away, and for antiwar voters, the policy differences between the two leading candidates are vanishingly thin. As the Biden-Harris administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, the Uncommitted National Movement, which for months has attempted to steer the Democratic Party toward a more critical stance on Israel, has announced it is not endorsing Kamala Harris. Neither does the organization recommend casting a third-party vote, citing the risk of splitting the two-party vote and ushering in a second term for Donald Trump. “We were not met in good faith with our policy demands,” says the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founder Lexis Zeidan about its attempts to parley with the Harris campaign. Zeidan says the organization will continue to pressure Democrats from within and outside of the party. “What we’re asking is not outrageous.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
We’re just 45 days away from the U.S. election. As the Biden administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, demands for a U.S. arms embargo to Israel remain a key issue among antiwar voters, who say they feel ignored by both major political parties. Now the Uncommitted National Movement, which pressured by the Democratic Party — or, pressured the Democratic Party to shift its policy towards Israel and to end the war on Gaza, has announced it will not endorse Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, saying her campaign failed to accept the movement’s demands, which also include meeting with Palestinian American families who have had many of their relatives killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.
With less than two months to go until the election, Harris has repeatedly defended the Biden administration’s support of Israel amidst its relentless war on Gaza. During an interview on Tuesday with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, Vice President Harris was questioned on the issues by reporter Tonya Mosley of WHYY Radio.
TONYA MOSLEY: You’ve called for a ceasefire-hostage deal and a two-state solution as an end to the war for many months now. And while you’ve expressed support for Israel to defend itself, a two-state solution and a ceasefire are at odds with what Benjamin Netanyahu has said is their right to defense. If it matters, as you say, how Israel defends itself, where do you see the line between aggression and defense, and our power as Israel’s ally to do something?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: OK, a lot to unpack in what you just said. So, let’s start with this. I absolutely believe that this war has to end, and it has to end as soon as possible. And the way that will be achieved is by getting a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. And we are working around the clock to achieve that end. Stepping back, October 7, 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered — and actually, and some Americans, by the way, in that number, slaughtered, young people who were attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And yes, so I have said Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And —
TONYA MOSLEY: But, Madam Vice President —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But, no.
TONYA MOSLEY: — I think my ask —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But let me finish.
TONYA MOSLEY: — is the difference —
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But, no, no. Let me finish.
TONYA MOSLEY: — between aggression and defense here.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: No, but it’s important to put it in context, which is what I’m doing, and I’ll get to that. And so, how it does so matters. And far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, women and children. We have seen with horror the images coming out of Gaza. And we have to take that seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Vice President Kamala Harris being questioned Tuesday by reporter Tonya Mosley as part of a panel of journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists event in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday Jewish voters will be to blame if he loses November’s election. Trump stood in front of an Israeli flag as he spoke at the Israeli-American Council national summit. He also used the term “Palestinian” as a pejorative to describe Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and New York Democrat, and claimed if Kamala Harris wins in November, Israel would cease to exist.
DONALD TRUMP: The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%. If I’m at 40, think of it. That means 60% of voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel, very bad. … I mean, Chuck Schumer is a Palestinian. … But if we don’t win this election, Israel, in my opinion, within a period of two to three years, will cease to exist. It’s going to be wiped out. It’s what’s going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump previously referred to President Biden as a, quote, “very bad Palestinian,” unquote, in their only presidential debate in June.
This all comes as the Teamsters union has said it’s not endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time since 1996. The union, which endorsed Biden in 2020, says neither candidate have enough support from their 1.3 million-strong membership.
For more on the election and the “uncommitted” movement’s announcement it will not endorse Kamala Harris, we go to Detroit — actually, we go to Michigan, where we’re joined by Lexis Zeidan, co-founder and co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you explain the statement that you put out yesterday, Lexis?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah. Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
As many know, Uncommitted put out a statement yesterday where we announced we will not be endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. And in that same statement, we had announced that we are vehemently opposing Donald Trump and that we do not recommend a third-party vote.
And to put it into a little bit of context, we have been working for months, where we, you know, started in Michigan, 1.5 million voter contacts, mobilized over 101,000 people to go to the polls and vote uncommitted as a protest vote against Biden and the administration and their ongoing support for Israel as it relates to the occupation and killing of Palestinians.
And what we offered to VP Harris is that if Vice President Kamala Harris is able to do two things — either change policy as it relates to current U.S. policy that backs bombs, or simply does the thing of ensuring and upholding current international and human rights laws as it relates to the way that Israel is violating war crimes — that we would do — that we would repeat what we did in Michigan to mobilize our base to go to the polls and vote for her come November. It was the offer we put on the table that was declined by Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign team.
And so, because we were not met in good faith, we had to make the decision to not be able to endorse her. And to be clear, an endorsement is an opportunity for us to do the same thing that we did in Michigan: mobilize our voters. An endorsement means that we are offering something and doing something. And because we were not met in good faith with our policy demands, it is something that we cannot do.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain each position — not endorsing Kamala Harris, telling people not to support President Trump or a third-party candidate.
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah, great question. I think I’ll lead with, we have to be very clear, is that there’s two options come November at the top of the ticket. It’s going to be Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. So, keeping that context in mind, we had to make a decision of what that means to grow the power that we’ve already built within our antiwar organizing movement. And so, for us, and like I said, an endorsement is meaning that we will mobilize voters to go to the polls and vote for VP Harris. That has to come with policy change. And no policy change came, so it’s a decision we had to make to not endorse her.
Donald Trump, we have to be very clear, is a direct threat to our society, our civil liberties here and Palestinians back home. As he has mentioned, he plans to annex the West Bank. As he has mentioned, that he plans to criminalize organizations here in our own country who are fighting for Palestinian human rights.
And then, to the third point of not recommending a third-party vote, we know that, unfortunately, a third-party vote is not viable in this broken electoral system. And so, inadvertently, a third-party vote would support a Donald Trump victory.
And so, knowing all this context, we believe that our power lies within our movement, that our power lies within our people, that our power lies in continuing to grow the antiwar organizing movement that we have, to truly pressure the Democratic coalition or the Democratic administration to change policy as it relates to its current U.S. policy of backing bombs.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of third parties, this month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, published a follow-up poll that shows Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein ahead of Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. So, can you talk about the significance of what this means of not endorsing Kamala Harris?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah. I mean, I think we have to recognize that a lot of people, especially people within the Arab and Muslim community — you know, as VP Harris put it in her speech, we’ve got to put things into context. And the context here is that these communities are communities that are suffering. They are communities that are grieving. And the idea of people going and asking them who you are voting for come November — we’ve said this repeatedly — is like asking them that question at a funeral. And so, we have to keep in context how people are grieving, feeling emotionally, the very same people who came out in 2020 and mobilized very well for Biden, who feels very betrayed by this administration.
And so, we believe, as a movement, that it’s our responsibility to do three things right in this very moment, is, one, educate voters across the country, including Arab and Muslim voters, provide them with voter education on the dangers of Donald Trump; two, recognize that the genocide is still happening, that we cannot wait ’til January to shift policy, and that we have to continue to pressure the Biden-Harris administration to change policy immediately to save as many Palestinian lives as possible; and the third thing is to continue to grow our antiwar organizing power with Democratic coalitions across the country. We have to recognize that our power has impacted elected officials speaking up for Palestine, as well, from school board members all the way up to congressional leaders that are talking openly about why we need to change our U.S. foreign policy as it relates to backing bombs.
And so, these people that are talking about voting Jill Stein and third party are people who are suffering. And we believe it is our job to continue to do the organizing work that we have to do ahead of November to educate our voters about what’s at stake come November and how we have to grow our organizing power to see long-term policy change to lead to a liberated and a free Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, your response to Senator Bernie Sanders preparing a joint resolution of disapproval against the planned $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel? He spoke from the Senate floor Wednesday.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history. … The simple fact is that we must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering.”
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds, Lexis. Your response?
LEXIS ZEIDAN: Yeah, I mean, he highlighted it perfectly, is that we are aiding and abetting in indiscriminately killing civilians. And it goes to the point of what we’ve been explaining in this movement and what we’ve been trying to get VP Harris and the administration to move on, a sentiment that actually resonates the majority of Democrats, 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, that oppose weapons aids to Israel. When we look at our international law and our U.S. law as it relates to violation of war crimes, this is something that we should not be funding.
So, what we’re asking is not outrageous. We’re making a very simple request to follow international law and do what’s right and create an opportunity to deescalate what’s happening in the region and to really make sure that we’re valuing Palestinian lives as much as any other lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Lexis Zeidan, I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement, speaking to us from Detroit, Michigan.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Mon Sep 23, 2024 11:10 pm
Headlines:
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 23, 2024
Massive Israeli Airstrikes in Lebanon Kill Over 180 People, Injure 700+
Sep 23, 2024
Al Jazeera is reporting Israel has killed more than 182 people in Lebanon so far today in a wave of extensive airstrikes hitting more than 300 targets. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the dead include children, women and paramedics. More than 700 people have been wounded.
Earlier today, Israel instructed residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near any site used by Hezbollah. Israel sent text messages and made phone calls to tens of thousands of people in what Lebanese officials decried as a form of “psychological warfare.” Israel also hacked into Lebanese radio stations.
On Friday, Israel killed at least 45 people in a massive airstrike on a densely populated residential neighborhood of Beirut. The dead include 16 members of Hezbollah, including two senior commanders, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi. Lebanon’s Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh condemned the Israeli attacks.
Ali Hamieh: “The Israeli enemy, with all its continued crimes, with the excuse of pursuing Hezbollah, has targeted a residential compound. It has committed a massacre to a residential building, against unarmed children, women at their homes. … The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war.”
Hezbollah responded to Friday’s attack by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel targeting an air base and weapons factories.
Ex-CIA Director: Israel’s Deadly Pager Attacks in Lebanon Was Act of “Terrorism”
Sep 23, 2024
Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has accused Israel of committing an act of terrorism by rigging thousands of walkie-talkies and pagers that exploded in a coordinated attack last week that killed at least 37 people and injured thousands in Lebanon. Panetta spoke to CBS News.
Leon Panetta: “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism. This has gone right into the supply chain. Right into the supply chain. And when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question: What the hell is next?”
Israeli Attacks Continue on Gaza’s Schools, Killing Displaced Palestinian Children Seeking Shelter
Sep 23, 2024
In Gaza, Israel is continuing to target schools and shelters housing displaced Palestinians. On Saturday, an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza City killed 22 people, including 13 children and six women. One of the victims was a 3-month-old baby. Survivors said there are no safe places to go in Gaza.
Umm Mahmoud: “We got displaced and came to this school. I left from my house after it was targeted and my husband and my two children were martyred, and we came to this school and thought it was safe. We thought this was a safe place. Then they target us. Where are we supposed to go if at a school we’re not safe? We got displaced seven or eight times, and I’m all alone with my two remaining children.”
An Israeli airstrike earlier today in Deir al-Balah killed a mother and four of her children. Meanwhile, heavy rain has flooded makeshift camps in al-Mawasi and other areas of Gaza.
Israel Raids and Shuts Down Al Jazeera Ramallah Office Amid Intensifying West Bank Attacks
Sep 23, 2024
Press freedom groups have condemned the Israeli military for raiding and shutting down Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank. Heavily armed Israeli troops were seen on live TV entering the office and confiscating equipment while ordering the office closed for 45 days. Israeli troops also tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was fatally shot by Israeli forces while covering a raid on Jenin two years ago. This is Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari.
Walid al-Omari: “This is a blatant attack on the Al Jazeera channel and Al Jazeera network and those who are working with them, as well as on the freedom of speech and the task of delivering the truth. This is an attack that aims to obscure the truth.”
The raid comes months after Israel banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting inside Israel.
****************
Israel Bombs Lebanon After Blowing Up Pagers in “Act of Mass Mutilation.” Is Ground Invasion Next?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 23, 2024
Israel attacked more than 300 sites in Lebanon Monday, killing at least 182 people and injuring more than 700 others as fears grow of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Israeli military also ordered residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near any site used by the militant group. “At the heart of this is an attempt to manufacture consent and try to portray most southern Lebanese as Hezbolloh operatives,” says Sintia Issa, editor-at-large at the Beirut-based media organization The Public Source. We also speak with Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon volunteering at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, where he has been treating victims of last week’s device explosions that injured thousands of people. He describes the disfiguring injuries from Israel’s booby-trapping of pagers and walkie-talkies, calling it “an act of mass mutilation.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel has attacked more than 300 sites today and fears of a broader regional war are growing. Al Jazeera and other media outlets report 100 people were killed in the wave of strikes today, 400 more wounded, as the Israeli army steps up pressure on Hezbollah. United Nations chief António Guterres told CNN he feared, quote, “the possibility of transforming Lebanon into another Gaza.”
Earlier today, Israel instructed residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near by any site used by Hezbollah. Israel sent text messages, made phone calls to tens of thousands of people in what Lebanese officials decried as a form of “psychological warfare.” This is a Lebanese shopkeeper in Beirut.
LEBANESE SHOPKEEPER: [translated] I say this is the beginning of the war, definitely the beginning of a war.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes after Israel killed at least 45 people Friday in a massive airstrike on a densely populated residential neighborhood of Beirut. The dead include 16 members of Hezbollah, including two senior commanders, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi. Lebanon’s Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh condemned the Israeli attacks.
ALI HAMIEH: [translated] The Israeli enemy, with all its continued crimes, with the excuse of pursuing Hezbollah, has targeted a residential compound. It has committed a massacre to a residential building, against unarmed children, women at their homes. … The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war.
AMY GOODMAN: Hezbollah responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel targeting an air base and weapons factories.
Meanwhile, former CIA director, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has accused Israel of terrorism for rigging thousands of walkie-talkies and pagers to explode in a coordinated attack last week that killed at least 37 people, injuring thousands more in Lebanon. Panetta spoke to CBS News.
LEON PANETTA: I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism. This has gone right into the supply chain. Right into the supply chain. And when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question: What the hell is next?
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by two guests. Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who arrived in Beirut last week to treat some of the thousands of people injured when pagers and walkie-talkies exploded. He’s also worked in Gaza with Doctors Without Borders. Also with us in Beirut is Sintia Issa, editor-at-large at The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
We’re going to go to Sintia first. Can you describe the latest in Lebanon, this morning’s attacks that we hear killed, what, 100 people, injuring hundreds more, and then make your way back through the weekend?
SINTIA ISSA: Thank you for having me, Amy.
This morning, between 6 and 7 a.m., as most people were still sleeping, Israel began its largest bombardment campaign of the year in South Lebanon and then gradually it made its way to the Beqaa, reaching all the way north of the Beqaa to the Hermel. That’s about 200 kilometers far from the border. These are locations that were not targeted up until this point in the war. And in fact, this is very reminiscent of 2006. We’re talking about a hundred locations or so, 50 or a hundred locations or so, between villages, towns and various parts of the landscape. Jbeil district, which is not really involved at all in this war, was also targeted, Laqlouq. This is also part of the psychological warfare that we are seeing.
And the bombing itself, you know, we saw plumes that were not necessarily the most familiar, so we’re talking about bombs that may have been added to the arsenal for the first time here in Lebanon, or at least used in Lebanon for the first time. The scale is incomparable so far.
Later, in the afternoon, at around noon, we had maybe another hundred or 200 strikes in different locations. As you did mention, it seems like there’s a hundred people who were killed already and several hundred more definitely wounded and injured. Sites near hospitals were targeted, in a clear indication that what has happened in Gaza may be coming to Lebanon, as well.
In relation to this, as well, southerners, but also different people, reaching Beirut, but mostly in the south, received text messages telling them to leave their homes if their homes contains a missile or a rocket. Israel also infiltrated the landline network in Sour, in the south, and called people and told them to leave if their house contains rockets or if they’re close to any weapons. There’s also a series of videos that Israel has been circulating on social media platforms for propagandistic purposes. These are animations where you can clearly see homes, and inside these homes there are rockets lying there. And the same message is basically telling residents of Lebanon to leave if their homes contains rockets.
So, what we’re seeing here is an attempt to manufacture consent for a carpet-bombing campaign that will no doubt, perhaps — let’s see how far it goes, but it promises at least to resemble a little bit what we’re seeing in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how do people know if they’re near some kind of Hezbollah site?
SINTIA ISSA: There is a conflation that’s essentially happening with southerners in Lebanon. There’s a conflation between all civilians and Hezbollah happening at the same time. There is a — if the question is, “Where is Israel attacking right now?” it’s been fairly indiscriminate. We’ve seen that, you know, cities and towns, including the heart of Nabatieh, was bombed. So, the Ghazieh, next to Saida, also the square was bombed. So we’re talking about attacks that are happening in the thick of the towns, densely populated areas, not just in disparate places. And, you know, at the heart of this is an attempt to manufacture consent and kind of try to portray most southernese as Hezbollah operatives, their homes as essentially depots and caches.
AMY GOODMAN: Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem spoke at the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, killed in Friday’s Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Beirut.
NAIM QASSEM: [translated] The Lebanese support front for Gaza will continue, no matter how long it takes, until the war on Gaza ends. Secondly, the people of the north won’t return. Rather, displacement will increase, and support will expand. The Israeli military solution only deepens Israel’s dilemma and that of the northern population without solving their problems. So, go to Gaza and stop the war.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could comment on what he was saying? And also, I wanted to go to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, who told ABC’s This Week the U.S. has been engaged in, quote, “extensive and quite assertive diplomacy.”
JOHN KIRBY: We don’t believe that a military conflict — and we’re saying this directly to our Israeli counterparts, George — we don’t believe that escalating this military conflict is in their best interest. … We want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an all-out war there with Hezbollah across that Lebanese border.
AMY GOODMAN: Sintia Issa, if you could comment?
SINTIA ISSA: Well, to be very clear, Hezbollah never intended to have a full-on war on Lebanon. That was not a part of their calculation or strategy at all, actually. They were very much interested in and intent on being a front of support and military solidarity to Gaza in the context of a genocide and ethnic cleansing. But Hezbollah never really wanted to have a full-fledged war. This is something that they stated themselves. And if we actually follow the facts on the ground, the actions, we will notice that they tried to work within the rules of engagement, target only military infrastructures and never civilian infrastructures. And that was always the intent. It was always Israel that wants to escalate this into a broader war with Lebanon. And for an entire year, Hezbollah has been trying to deescalate.
Now with what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday with about 3,000 people maimed in Dahieh in the span of seconds and then another assassination on Friday that took the lives of 54 people, injuring many more, it seems like war is forced upon Hezbollah. And if war is forced upon Hezbollah, then they will do it, and it will be a fierce battle, and it will be a costly battle for both sides.
Now, when it comes to the United States and John Kirby saying that, you know, the U.S. is very much trying to work for a ceasefire, again, if we actually try to compare the statements with actions on the ground, there’s large inconsistencies there. And the Lebanese people and the Palestinians and everyone in the region very much recognizes that the U.S. is not in fact trying to work on a ceasefire in real terms. In fact, the U.S. is quite complicit in what is happening in Gaza and now in this coming war on Lebanon. It supplies Israel with 60% of the weapons it’s using in Lebanon and Palestine, but also in Syria. It’s giving it diplomatic immunity in various U.N. Security Councils. And at the ICC, it’s basically stopping any incrimination of Yoav Gallant and Benjamin Netanyahu of war crimes and plausible genocide. So the U.S. has been playing a very important role in this war from the very get-go.
And, of course, this question of peace process, you know, one remembers the — this question of ceasefire process, sorry, one remembers the peace process and the question of peace process. This question of process is really a ploy to extend the possibilities of capitulation, the possibilities of, in this case here, genocide in Palestine and increase the war on Lebanon. But the reality is just a ploy that’s presented to give more time to Israel to do more. Unfortunately, that’s the situation.
Of course, the war is maybe a fait accompli or not. I think the war can come to an end, and there are — there is a way out of this war. There is a roadmap. First, if the U.S. is indeed, you know, interested in reaching a ceasefire, it would halt all arms supply to Israel right now, the 60% it supplies. And, you know, since the U.S. does sanction about 30% of the countries in the world, then, in that case, it should be able to sanction Israel for committing war crimes against humanity and a genocide. And then, finally, it would lift all diplomatic and legal impunity for Israel at the ICC, for example. So, there is a road forward to end the war, and that’s to be sure.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah into the conversation. You came to Lebanon last week. Interesting to hear the former CIA director, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta talking about the explosions of the pagers and the walkie-talkies as being a terrorist act. Can you talk about the effects on the ground and the kind of injuries you’re seeing, with, I think at last count, 37 dead, thousands injured?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: This is the largest act of mass mutilation we’ve seen, even more than in the civil war in Sierra Leone, where warring parties were chopping each other’s hands off. This is — the explosive put in the pagers was sufficient to maim and not to kill. And so, what you have is over 3,000, with around 90% who have penetrating injuries to the eyes, some of whom both eyes, and a blast injury to the hand, with what we refer to in hand surgery as a mangled hand, because what happened is the pager went off, the victims picked up the pager and then looked at it, and it exploded in their hand facing their faces, and so there are also facial injuries.
Now, the act of booby-trapping these pagers meant that they went off when the people were in their cars with families, when they were in their homes, with kids picking up these pagers when they went off. And so, truly, the aim of this was to mutilate. And I tell my colleagues here that it’s reminiscent of the Marches of Return between 2018 and 2020, when Israel intentionally shot over 8,000 Palestinians in the lower limb with the aim of disablement and mutilation. And so, this is an act that was designed at inflicting disablement, at mutilation of the victims.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting you talk about the seconds’ delay, that it’s most like a double-tap bomb on a much smaller level — right? — when a country bombs another country, and then, as the rescue workers come running to help the people on the ground, they’re bombed again. In this case, it was a pager. And so, first it vibrates, forcing people — well, people instinctively then pick up or go over across the room to where it might not have hurt them, and then, as they pick it up, they are injured or killed.
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: And also, what happened the following day is that the walkie-talkies that had also been booby-trapped went off. And these walkie-talkies were being used by paramedics, by ambulance staff, by civil defense staff. And so, there was a kind of second wave of similarly, but with bigger explosive quantities in, with the same aim of inducing that terrible injury, paralyzing the health system and leaving these people with permanent disability.
AMY GOODMAN: On Friday, you were operating on victims of the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, when Israel bombed the residential building in Beirut?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Yes. And, I mean, that was our biggest worry, is that it highlighted the fact that as a result of around 3,000 wounded in the hospitals, there wasn’t any capacity left in the health system to take any of the wounded. And that’s what forced a lot of the hospitals to push for early discharge of the wounded over the weekend, because we felt that the health system was very exposed with all of these injured people in the beds, and we felt that there’s going to be another wave. And unfortunately, this came true this morning, that we needed to discharge a lot of the wounded early.
What you need to realize, this comes at the end of a four-year economic crisis that has really disabled the Lebanese health system and disabled the Lebanese government in terms of its ability to support the Ministry of Health. So, you have around a third of the doctors and nurses emigrated as a result of the collapse of the Lebanese currency. And you have a health system that’s mainly made up of small and medium-sized private institutions that, you know, just don’t have the purchasing capacity to buy the kind medications, consumables that they need. And those who did, it was used up on Tuesday treating and, since then, treating the 3,000 wounded.
AMY GOODMAN: You worked for weeks in Gaza treating the wounded, the injured there. How does what you’re seeing here in Beirut compare? You told The New York Times, “The Lebanese health system is in no way able to treat war wounded if it were to escalate into a full-blown war. the Lebanese health system is in no way able to treat war wounded if you were to escalate into a full-blown war. We are stuck in this loop. You just operate and operate. You feel like you are playing catch up all the time.” Dr. Abu-Sittah?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, when we have these 3,000 wounded all within a couple of hours of each other, they flooded the health system, which then meant that they were being taken to the operating room. Really, I mean, this is the biggest hospital in Lebanon, the American University of Beirut Medical Center. And we had 10 rooms going all the time. We were doing around 50 to 60 cases per day. And it took us from Tuesday night, Wednesday morning ’til Saturday to finish the majority of the initial surgeries.
I mean, these patients, especially for their hand reconstruction, will need between five and 12 surgeries over the next five years to regain some hand function, to try to limit the disability that’s left. The eyes, that’s the even more devastating thing, the eyes, the loss of vision as a result of these injuries. That’s going to leave permanent disability. This is an act of kind of almost mythical mutilation. It’s an act of mutilation, not an — it was not an assassination attempt, but an act of mass mutilation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, we want to thank you for being with us. My final question is — you moved to Beirut in 2011, joined the faculty of the American University of Beirut Hospital. Your mother was born in Lebanon. Why did you choose to go back?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: On Tuesday, I realized, when I was in London — I had been in Glasgow as director, speaking at the opening ceremony of the academic year and then went back to London. And as the news came about on Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon, I realized the sheer number and the type of injuries which would require reconstructive surgery. And so, that was the decision. I took an overnight flight from London on Tuesday night and got here at 8:00 on Wednesday morning and came straight to the hospital. And we have literally been operating since then.
We’re now trying to clear the hospital, with the news of over 500 now wounded in the south. And we’re expecting these wounded, some of whom to come here, the most critically wounded. The Israelis have been targeting cars on the roads full of fleeing families. And so, we need — you know, I think the most important thing is that the humanitarian sector needs to realize that the Lebanese health system now needs help, before the Israelis bomb the airport. It needs trauma teams to be brought in. It needs them to be fully equipped and fully funded in terms of consumables and medication, because the system is not going to be able to deal with this.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, British Palestinian surgeon, speaking to us from Beirut, and Sintia Issa, editor-at-large at The Public Source, also in Beirut, Lebanon.
When we come back, press freedom groups are condemning the Israeli military for raiding and shutting down Al Jazeera’s main West Bank office in Ramallah. The raid was broadcast live on television. We’ll speak with Al Jazeera’s managing editor.
***
“Israel Has No Right”: Al Jazeera Managing Editor Slams Israel’s Raid & Closing of West Bank Bureau
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 23, 2024
Israel stepped up its censorship of Al Jazeera on Sunday as soldiers raided the Qatar-based news network’s Ramallah offices in the occupied West Bank and ordered a 45-day closure of the bureau. This comes after the Netanyahu government banned the network inside of Israel in May under a new media law giving authorities broad power to censor foreign outlets deemed to be security threats. “It was a show of force, a show of intimidation to show journalists around the globe that what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank isn’t allowed to be reported,” Al Jazeera managing editor Mohamed Moawad tells Democracy Now! Israeli forces have killed as many as 160 journalists in Gaza over the last year, including several who work for Al Jazeera. In 2022, an Israeli sniper killed the network’s acclaimed Palestinian American correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.
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.
Press freedom groups are condemning the Israeli military for raiding and shutting down Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank. The raid was broadcast live on TV Sunday morning. Heavily armed Israeli troops were seen entering the office and confiscating equipment while ordering the office closed for at least 45 days. This is an Israeli soldier confronting Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari.
ISRAEL SOLDIER: [translated] Good evening. There’s an order from the court to shut down Al Jazeera for 45 days. I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office now.
WALID AL-OMARI: [translated] Should we all leave?
ISRAEL SOLDIER: [translated] This is an order.
WALID AL-OMARI: [translated] Can I see it, please? This is the order which was brought to us by this office and in his military forces. The order says that it is an order to shut down the office of Al Jazeera channel for 45 days. And this is a military decision from the commander of the central area and the Israeli military. It asks us to leave this office immediately and to take our personal belongings and our cameras.
AMY GOODMAN: During the raid, Israeli troops also tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist, the Palestinian American, who was fatally shot by Israeli troops May 11th, 2022, when she was outside the Jenin refugee camp.
Reporters Without Borders responded to this weekend’s raid with a statement denouncing, quote, “Israel’s relentless assault,” unquote, and repeating its call for the repeal of the Israeli law that allows the government to shut down foreign media. U.N. secretary-general spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Sunday the U.N. is deeply concerned about Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s offices in the occupied West Bank.
STÉPHANE DUJARRIC: We’re very concerned any time, anywhere in the world, media offices get closed, especially in conflict areas, where journalists are the eyes and ears of the world, and they need to be able to do their job free from harassment or any other type of impediment.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Doha, where we’re joined by Mohamed Moawad, managing editor of Al Jazeera.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you lay out exactly what happened on Sunday morning, Mohamed?
MOHAMED MOAWAD: Thanks, Amy, for having me. Glad to be back with you.
When we spoke, when we last spoke in May, when the Israeli government took the decision of shutting down our offices in Jerusalem and the Palestinian — and Tel Aviv, I told you that the situation is ambiguous and that the law itself upon which the Israeli government took the decision is ambiguous, as well. It could be weaponized against us anytime. When the Israeli government feel that the intimidation — as type of intimidation isn’t enough, they can go farther, escalate the intimidation process. So, that’s exactly what happened.
Our bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, was live, was live on air, reporting on the exchange of strikes in Lebanon between Hezbollah and the Israeli forces. Suddenly, the Israeli soldiers — these were not ordinary officers, but, rather, you know, fully equipped and ready-for-combat-zone officers and soldiers, and they invade — I say “invade,” not “stormed.” They invaded the office, and they spoke to Walid al-Omari, who stood very strong against them, defending his right for freedom of the press. And he told them, “Why you are here? This is not a combat zone. This is a space for journalism.” They said that there is an order to shut down the office. And that’s when that the whole situation was chilling for us, because, you know, this is a dedicated space for journalism. This is an office for reporters, for journalists. This is not a combat zone.
They then went on to move from corner to corner in the office as if it’s a combat zone. And then they tore down our late colleague Shireen Abu Akleh’s picture from the wall. They stole all equipments from inside the office, despite the fact that the order itself that was handed to Walid al-Omari did not mention anything about equipments. And then they went farther, to follow our colleagues downstairs, where they continued reporting about the incident, and they took the mic from Walid al-Omari and said, “You’re not allowed to work here. Go home.”
But, you know, the whole situation here is not shutting down an office, it’s not a decision by the Israeli government that was executed by the army, a fully equipped army, but, rather, an invasion to the very principle of the press freedom around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how the Israeli military has jurisdiction here? Your Ramallah bureau, which is in charge of the whole West Bank coverage of Al Jazeera, is in Area A, an area marked as being under Palestinian control in the Oslo Accords. So what legal jurisdiction did Israel have to come in with their heavily armed soldiers?
MOHAMED MOAWAD: That’s why, Amy, it’s very difficult for us to find a way to challenge this legally, because, really, the whole situation is ambiguous. They say this is emergency law. This is according to the defense minister of Israel, an order by him to the army to enter the West Bank and shut down an office which does not — you know, does not include the power of the Israeli army in this area because it’s an area that is under the jurisdiction A, which is mainly for the Palestinian Authority to decide about.
But, you know, the whole — Israel has no right to kill over 160 journalists in Gaza, I mean, and they’ve done it, and they continue to do it. They’ve killed three colleagues at Al Jazeera. They continue to commit atrocities against journalists. So, it wasn’t surprising. By the way, it was the least decision, the least action they have taken against us, because we’ve lost colleagues.
But at the same time, it was a show of force, a show of intimidation to show journalists around the globe that what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank isn’t allowed to be reported about and that the coverage of Al Jazeera is an enemy for the Israeli government, despite the fact that we haven’t and we’re not weaponizing at all, and we’re not going to do that. We’re not weaponizing our platform, despite the fact that we are being intimidated, we have lost colleagues.
Just before I came on air, we’ve been airing the Israeli forces press conference. And we continue to do that, despite the fact that the Israeli government shut down our offices in Israel and the Palestinian territories to try to delegitimize our coverage and say that Al Jazeera is a one-sided coverage, don’t operate there. But we continue to cover. We continue to make sure that we give voice to the voiceless and at the same time make sure that both narratives are kind of covered.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the things you do on Al Jazeera when reporters are reporting on Israel, since you’re banned from Israel, is repeatedly say that. That’s unlike U.S. networks that don’t say, when they’re reporting on Gaza, that the Israeli military prevents them from going into Gaza. Talk about that editorial decision that you’ve made, as you have reporters in Amman and other places saying, “We are not allowed to be in Israel as we report this right now,” and what these images mean that you’re broadcasting that others don’t.
MOHAMED MOAWAD: This is exactly what we should be talking about, Amy. Shutting down Al Jazeera’s office is the headline, but the name of the game is preventing journalists from doing their job, either in Gaza, in the West Bank. They want us to report remotely. They don’t want us to be in the frontlines. And that’s crystal clear.
I mean, the whole international journalistic community should be talking about one topic when they see a journalist killed in Gaza. They should be talking about one topic when they see an office shut down in Gaza or in West Bank or in Israel. The one topic is: No international journalist was allowed to enter Gaza to cover the war there, to give voice to the voiceless, which is at the core of this and the principle, the main principle, of this profession. No international journalists.
Even the international journalistic community is not placing pressure on Israel to allow their colleagues to get into Gaza to cover. Remember the Arab Spring, when so many American and Western journalists challenged the bureaucracy of the authoritarian regimes to go cover from Tahrir Square or from Tunisia or from Syria or from Libya. Right now no one is placing that pressure. And it’s really, really annoying, because we should be defending the freedom of the press. We should be defending the right to know what’s happening there. We should not be — we should not shy from what’s happening in Gaza and be part of this concealing that the Israeli government is trying to do to conceal what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank and the atrocities being committed. They just want us to report remotely.
And we will continue to remind the world and the journalistic community that this is happening and that you should unite to place pressure on the Israeli government to give the right for journalists to enter Gaza. Even after a possible ceasefire, this should be the case to uncover what’s really happened there. I remind you that we still have six correspondents reporting from Gaza. And that’s something that we are committed to. We are committed to give voice to the voiceless. An office is nothing for us. We will continue the coverage. We asked our colleagues to stay safe in the West Bank right now until we figure out the legal procedure, because, as I told you, Amy, the situation is ambiguous. We can’t really know on what basis that decision was taken, but we expected it.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Moawad, I want to thank you for being with us, managing editor of Al Jazeera, speaking to us from Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 23, 2024
Massive Israeli Airstrikes in Lebanon Kill Over 180 People, Injure 700+
Sep 23, 2024
Al Jazeera is reporting Israel has killed more than 182 people in Lebanon so far today in a wave of extensive airstrikes hitting more than 300 targets. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the dead include children, women and paramedics. More than 700 people have been wounded.
Earlier today, Israel instructed residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near any site used by Hezbollah. Israel sent text messages and made phone calls to tens of thousands of people in what Lebanese officials decried as a form of “psychological warfare.” Israel also hacked into Lebanese radio stations.
On Friday, Israel killed at least 45 people in a massive airstrike on a densely populated residential neighborhood of Beirut. The dead include 16 members of Hezbollah, including two senior commanders, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi. Lebanon’s Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh condemned the Israeli attacks.
Ali Hamieh: “The Israeli enemy, with all its continued crimes, with the excuse of pursuing Hezbollah, has targeted a residential compound. It has committed a massacre to a residential building, against unarmed children, women at their homes. … The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war.”
Hezbollah responded to Friday’s attack by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel targeting an air base and weapons factories.
Ex-CIA Director: Israel’s Deadly Pager Attacks in Lebanon Was Act of “Terrorism”
Sep 23, 2024
Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has accused Israel of committing an act of terrorism by rigging thousands of walkie-talkies and pagers that exploded in a coordinated attack last week that killed at least 37 people and injured thousands in Lebanon. Panetta spoke to CBS News.
Leon Panetta: “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism. This has gone right into the supply chain. Right into the supply chain. And when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question: What the hell is next?”
Israeli Attacks Continue on Gaza’s Schools, Killing Displaced Palestinian Children Seeking Shelter
Sep 23, 2024
In Gaza, Israel is continuing to target schools and shelters housing displaced Palestinians. On Saturday, an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza City killed 22 people, including 13 children and six women. One of the victims was a 3-month-old baby. Survivors said there are no safe places to go in Gaza.
Umm Mahmoud: “We got displaced and came to this school. I left from my house after it was targeted and my husband and my two children were martyred, and we came to this school and thought it was safe. We thought this was a safe place. Then they target us. Where are we supposed to go if at a school we’re not safe? We got displaced seven or eight times, and I’m all alone with my two remaining children.”
An Israeli airstrike earlier today in Deir al-Balah killed a mother and four of her children. Meanwhile, heavy rain has flooded makeshift camps in al-Mawasi and other areas of Gaza.
Israel Raids and Shuts Down Al Jazeera Ramallah Office Amid Intensifying West Bank Attacks
Sep 23, 2024
Press freedom groups have condemned the Israeli military for raiding and shutting down Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank. Heavily armed Israeli troops were seen on live TV entering the office and confiscating equipment while ordering the office closed for 45 days. Israeli troops also tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was fatally shot by Israeli forces while covering a raid on Jenin two years ago. This is Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari.
Walid al-Omari: “This is a blatant attack on the Al Jazeera channel and Al Jazeera network and those who are working with them, as well as on the freedom of speech and the task of delivering the truth. This is an attack that aims to obscure the truth.”
The raid comes months after Israel banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting inside Israel.
****************
Israel Bombs Lebanon After Blowing Up Pagers in “Act of Mass Mutilation.” Is Ground Invasion Next?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 23, 2024
Israel attacked more than 300 sites in Lebanon Monday, killing at least 182 people and injuring more than 700 others as fears grow of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Israeli military also ordered residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near any site used by the militant group. “At the heart of this is an attempt to manufacture consent and try to portray most southern Lebanese as Hezbolloh operatives,” says Sintia Issa, editor-at-large at the Beirut-based media organization The Public Source. We also speak with Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon volunteering at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, where he has been treating victims of last week’s device explosions that injured thousands of people. He describes the disfiguring injuries from Israel’s booby-trapping of pagers and walkie-talkies, calling it “an act of mass mutilation.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel has attacked more than 300 sites today and fears of a broader regional war are growing. Al Jazeera and other media outlets report 100 people were killed in the wave of strikes today, 400 more wounded, as the Israeli army steps up pressure on Hezbollah. United Nations chief António Guterres told CNN he feared, quote, “the possibility of transforming Lebanon into another Gaza.”
Earlier today, Israel instructed residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes if they live near by any site used by Hezbollah. Israel sent text messages, made phone calls to tens of thousands of people in what Lebanese officials decried as a form of “psychological warfare.” This is a Lebanese shopkeeper in Beirut.
LEBANESE SHOPKEEPER: [translated] I say this is the beginning of the war, definitely the beginning of a war.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes after Israel killed at least 45 people Friday in a massive airstrike on a densely populated residential neighborhood of Beirut. The dead include 16 members of Hezbollah, including two senior commanders, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi. Lebanon’s Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh condemned the Israeli attacks.
ALI HAMIEH: [translated] The Israeli enemy, with all its continued crimes, with the excuse of pursuing Hezbollah, has targeted a residential compound. It has committed a massacre to a residential building, against unarmed children, women at their homes. … The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war.
AMY GOODMAN: Hezbollah responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel targeting an air base and weapons factories.
Meanwhile, former CIA director, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has accused Israel of terrorism for rigging thousands of walkie-talkies and pagers to explode in a coordinated attack last week that killed at least 37 people, injuring thousands more in Lebanon. Panetta spoke to CBS News.
LEON PANETTA: I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism. This has gone right into the supply chain. Right into the supply chain. And when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question: What the hell is next?
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by two guests. Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who arrived in Beirut last week to treat some of the thousands of people injured when pagers and walkie-talkies exploded. He’s also worked in Gaza with Doctors Without Borders. Also with us in Beirut is Sintia Issa, editor-at-large at The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
We’re going to go to Sintia first. Can you describe the latest in Lebanon, this morning’s attacks that we hear killed, what, 100 people, injuring hundreds more, and then make your way back through the weekend?
SINTIA ISSA: Thank you for having me, Amy.
This morning, between 6 and 7 a.m., as most people were still sleeping, Israel began its largest bombardment campaign of the year in South Lebanon and then gradually it made its way to the Beqaa, reaching all the way north of the Beqaa to the Hermel. That’s about 200 kilometers far from the border. These are locations that were not targeted up until this point in the war. And in fact, this is very reminiscent of 2006. We’re talking about a hundred locations or so, 50 or a hundred locations or so, between villages, towns and various parts of the landscape. Jbeil district, which is not really involved at all in this war, was also targeted, Laqlouq. This is also part of the psychological warfare that we are seeing.
And the bombing itself, you know, we saw plumes that were not necessarily the most familiar, so we’re talking about bombs that may have been added to the arsenal for the first time here in Lebanon, or at least used in Lebanon for the first time. The scale is incomparable so far.
Later, in the afternoon, at around noon, we had maybe another hundred or 200 strikes in different locations. As you did mention, it seems like there’s a hundred people who were killed already and several hundred more definitely wounded and injured. Sites near hospitals were targeted, in a clear indication that what has happened in Gaza may be coming to Lebanon, as well.
In relation to this, as well, southerners, but also different people, reaching Beirut, but mostly in the south, received text messages telling them to leave their homes if their homes contains a missile or a rocket. Israel also infiltrated the landline network in Sour, in the south, and called people and told them to leave if their house contains rockets or if they’re close to any weapons. There’s also a series of videos that Israel has been circulating on social media platforms for propagandistic purposes. These are animations where you can clearly see homes, and inside these homes there are rockets lying there. And the same message is basically telling residents of Lebanon to leave if their homes contains rockets.
So, what we’re seeing here is an attempt to manufacture consent for a carpet-bombing campaign that will no doubt, perhaps — let’s see how far it goes, but it promises at least to resemble a little bit what we’re seeing in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how do people know if they’re near some kind of Hezbollah site?
SINTIA ISSA: There is a conflation that’s essentially happening with southerners in Lebanon. There’s a conflation between all civilians and Hezbollah happening at the same time. There is a — if the question is, “Where is Israel attacking right now?” it’s been fairly indiscriminate. We’ve seen that, you know, cities and towns, including the heart of Nabatieh, was bombed. So, the Ghazieh, next to Saida, also the square was bombed. So we’re talking about attacks that are happening in the thick of the towns, densely populated areas, not just in disparate places. And, you know, at the heart of this is an attempt to manufacture consent and kind of try to portray most southernese as Hezbollah operatives, their homes as essentially depots and caches.
AMY GOODMAN: Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem spoke at the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, killed in Friday’s Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Beirut.
NAIM QASSEM: [translated] The Lebanese support front for Gaza will continue, no matter how long it takes, until the war on Gaza ends. Secondly, the people of the north won’t return. Rather, displacement will increase, and support will expand. The Israeli military solution only deepens Israel’s dilemma and that of the northern population without solving their problems. So, go to Gaza and stop the war.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could comment on what he was saying? And also, I wanted to go to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, who told ABC’s This Week the U.S. has been engaged in, quote, “extensive and quite assertive diplomacy.”
JOHN KIRBY: We don’t believe that a military conflict — and we’re saying this directly to our Israeli counterparts, George — we don’t believe that escalating this military conflict is in their best interest. … We want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an all-out war there with Hezbollah across that Lebanese border.
AMY GOODMAN: Sintia Issa, if you could comment?
SINTIA ISSA: Well, to be very clear, Hezbollah never intended to have a full-on war on Lebanon. That was not a part of their calculation or strategy at all, actually. They were very much interested in and intent on being a front of support and military solidarity to Gaza in the context of a genocide and ethnic cleansing. But Hezbollah never really wanted to have a full-fledged war. This is something that they stated themselves. And if we actually follow the facts on the ground, the actions, we will notice that they tried to work within the rules of engagement, target only military infrastructures and never civilian infrastructures. And that was always the intent. It was always Israel that wants to escalate this into a broader war with Lebanon. And for an entire year, Hezbollah has been trying to deescalate.
Now with what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday with about 3,000 people maimed in Dahieh in the span of seconds and then another assassination on Friday that took the lives of 54 people, injuring many more, it seems like war is forced upon Hezbollah. And if war is forced upon Hezbollah, then they will do it, and it will be a fierce battle, and it will be a costly battle for both sides.
Now, when it comes to the United States and John Kirby saying that, you know, the U.S. is very much trying to work for a ceasefire, again, if we actually try to compare the statements with actions on the ground, there’s large inconsistencies there. And the Lebanese people and the Palestinians and everyone in the region very much recognizes that the U.S. is not in fact trying to work on a ceasefire in real terms. In fact, the U.S. is quite complicit in what is happening in Gaza and now in this coming war on Lebanon. It supplies Israel with 60% of the weapons it’s using in Lebanon and Palestine, but also in Syria. It’s giving it diplomatic immunity in various U.N. Security Councils. And at the ICC, it’s basically stopping any incrimination of Yoav Gallant and Benjamin Netanyahu of war crimes and plausible genocide. So the U.S. has been playing a very important role in this war from the very get-go.
And, of course, this question of peace process, you know, one remembers the — this question of ceasefire process, sorry, one remembers the peace process and the question of peace process. This question of process is really a ploy to extend the possibilities of capitulation, the possibilities of, in this case here, genocide in Palestine and increase the war on Lebanon. But the reality is just a ploy that’s presented to give more time to Israel to do more. Unfortunately, that’s the situation.
Of course, the war is maybe a fait accompli or not. I think the war can come to an end, and there are — there is a way out of this war. There is a roadmap. First, if the U.S. is indeed, you know, interested in reaching a ceasefire, it would halt all arms supply to Israel right now, the 60% it supplies. And, you know, since the U.S. does sanction about 30% of the countries in the world, then, in that case, it should be able to sanction Israel for committing war crimes against humanity and a genocide. And then, finally, it would lift all diplomatic and legal impunity for Israel at the ICC, for example. So, there is a road forward to end the war, and that’s to be sure.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah into the conversation. You came to Lebanon last week. Interesting to hear the former CIA director, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta talking about the explosions of the pagers and the walkie-talkies as being a terrorist act. Can you talk about the effects on the ground and the kind of injuries you’re seeing, with, I think at last count, 37 dead, thousands injured?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: This is the largest act of mass mutilation we’ve seen, even more than in the civil war in Sierra Leone, where warring parties were chopping each other’s hands off. This is — the explosive put in the pagers was sufficient to maim and not to kill. And so, what you have is over 3,000, with around 90% who have penetrating injuries to the eyes, some of whom both eyes, and a blast injury to the hand, with what we refer to in hand surgery as a mangled hand, because what happened is the pager went off, the victims picked up the pager and then looked at it, and it exploded in their hand facing their faces, and so there are also facial injuries.
Now, the act of booby-trapping these pagers meant that they went off when the people were in their cars with families, when they were in their homes, with kids picking up these pagers when they went off. And so, truly, the aim of this was to mutilate. And I tell my colleagues here that it’s reminiscent of the Marches of Return between 2018 and 2020, when Israel intentionally shot over 8,000 Palestinians in the lower limb with the aim of disablement and mutilation. And so, this is an act that was designed at inflicting disablement, at mutilation of the victims.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting you talk about the seconds’ delay, that it’s most like a double-tap bomb on a much smaller level — right? — when a country bombs another country, and then, as the rescue workers come running to help the people on the ground, they’re bombed again. In this case, it was a pager. And so, first it vibrates, forcing people — well, people instinctively then pick up or go over across the room to where it might not have hurt them, and then, as they pick it up, they are injured or killed.
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: And also, what happened the following day is that the walkie-talkies that had also been booby-trapped went off. And these walkie-talkies were being used by paramedics, by ambulance staff, by civil defense staff. And so, there was a kind of second wave of similarly, but with bigger explosive quantities in, with the same aim of inducing that terrible injury, paralyzing the health system and leaving these people with permanent disability.
AMY GOODMAN: On Friday, you were operating on victims of the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, when Israel bombed the residential building in Beirut?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Yes. And, I mean, that was our biggest worry, is that it highlighted the fact that as a result of around 3,000 wounded in the hospitals, there wasn’t any capacity left in the health system to take any of the wounded. And that’s what forced a lot of the hospitals to push for early discharge of the wounded over the weekend, because we felt that the health system was very exposed with all of these injured people in the beds, and we felt that there’s going to be another wave. And unfortunately, this came true this morning, that we needed to discharge a lot of the wounded early.
What you need to realize, this comes at the end of a four-year economic crisis that has really disabled the Lebanese health system and disabled the Lebanese government in terms of its ability to support the Ministry of Health. So, you have around a third of the doctors and nurses emigrated as a result of the collapse of the Lebanese currency. And you have a health system that’s mainly made up of small and medium-sized private institutions that, you know, just don’t have the purchasing capacity to buy the kind medications, consumables that they need. And those who did, it was used up on Tuesday treating and, since then, treating the 3,000 wounded.
AMY GOODMAN: You worked for weeks in Gaza treating the wounded, the injured there. How does what you’re seeing here in Beirut compare? You told The New York Times, “The Lebanese health system is in no way able to treat war wounded if it were to escalate into a full-blown war. the Lebanese health system is in no way able to treat war wounded if you were to escalate into a full-blown war. We are stuck in this loop. You just operate and operate. You feel like you are playing catch up all the time.” Dr. Abu-Sittah?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, when we have these 3,000 wounded all within a couple of hours of each other, they flooded the health system, which then meant that they were being taken to the operating room. Really, I mean, this is the biggest hospital in Lebanon, the American University of Beirut Medical Center. And we had 10 rooms going all the time. We were doing around 50 to 60 cases per day. And it took us from Tuesday night, Wednesday morning ’til Saturday to finish the majority of the initial surgeries.
I mean, these patients, especially for their hand reconstruction, will need between five and 12 surgeries over the next five years to regain some hand function, to try to limit the disability that’s left. The eyes, that’s the even more devastating thing, the eyes, the loss of vision as a result of these injuries. That’s going to leave permanent disability. This is an act of kind of almost mythical mutilation. It’s an act of mutilation, not an — it was not an assassination attempt, but an act of mass mutilation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, we want to thank you for being with us. My final question is — you moved to Beirut in 2011, joined the faculty of the American University of Beirut Hospital. Your mother was born in Lebanon. Why did you choose to go back?
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: On Tuesday, I realized, when I was in London — I had been in Glasgow as director, speaking at the opening ceremony of the academic year and then went back to London. And as the news came about on Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon, I realized the sheer number and the type of injuries which would require reconstructive surgery. And so, that was the decision. I took an overnight flight from London on Tuesday night and got here at 8:00 on Wednesday morning and came straight to the hospital. And we have literally been operating since then.
We’re now trying to clear the hospital, with the news of over 500 now wounded in the south. And we’re expecting these wounded, some of whom to come here, the most critically wounded. The Israelis have been targeting cars on the roads full of fleeing families. And so, we need — you know, I think the most important thing is that the humanitarian sector needs to realize that the Lebanese health system now needs help, before the Israelis bomb the airport. It needs trauma teams to be brought in. It needs them to be fully equipped and fully funded in terms of consumables and medication, because the system is not going to be able to deal with this.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, British Palestinian surgeon, speaking to us from Beirut, and Sintia Issa, editor-at-large at The Public Source, also in Beirut, Lebanon.
When we come back, press freedom groups are condemning the Israeli military for raiding and shutting down Al Jazeera’s main West Bank office in Ramallah. The raid was broadcast live on television. We’ll speak with Al Jazeera’s managing editor.
***
“Israel Has No Right”: Al Jazeera Managing Editor Slams Israel’s Raid & Closing of West Bank Bureau
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 23, 2024
Israel stepped up its censorship of Al Jazeera on Sunday as soldiers raided the Qatar-based news network’s Ramallah offices in the occupied West Bank and ordered a 45-day closure of the bureau. This comes after the Netanyahu government banned the network inside of Israel in May under a new media law giving authorities broad power to censor foreign outlets deemed to be security threats. “It was a show of force, a show of intimidation to show journalists around the globe that what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank isn’t allowed to be reported,” Al Jazeera managing editor Mohamed Moawad tells Democracy Now! Israeli forces have killed as many as 160 journalists in Gaza over the last year, including several who work for Al Jazeera. In 2022, an Israeli sniper killed the network’s acclaimed Palestinian American correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.
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.
Press freedom groups are condemning the Israeli military for raiding and shutting down Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank. The raid was broadcast live on TV Sunday morning. Heavily armed Israeli troops were seen entering the office and confiscating equipment while ordering the office closed for at least 45 days. This is an Israeli soldier confronting Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari.
ISRAEL SOLDIER: [translated] Good evening. There’s an order from the court to shut down Al Jazeera for 45 days. I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office now.
WALID AL-OMARI: [translated] Should we all leave?
ISRAEL SOLDIER: [translated] This is an order.
WALID AL-OMARI: [translated] Can I see it, please? This is the order which was brought to us by this office and in his military forces. The order says that it is an order to shut down the office of Al Jazeera channel for 45 days. And this is a military decision from the commander of the central area and the Israeli military. It asks us to leave this office immediately and to take our personal belongings and our cameras.
AMY GOODMAN: During the raid, Israeli troops also tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist, the Palestinian American, who was fatally shot by Israeli troops May 11th, 2022, when she was outside the Jenin refugee camp.
Reporters Without Borders responded to this weekend’s raid with a statement denouncing, quote, “Israel’s relentless assault,” unquote, and repeating its call for the repeal of the Israeli law that allows the government to shut down foreign media. U.N. secretary-general spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Sunday the U.N. is deeply concerned about Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s offices in the occupied West Bank.
STÉPHANE DUJARRIC: We’re very concerned any time, anywhere in the world, media offices get closed, especially in conflict areas, where journalists are the eyes and ears of the world, and they need to be able to do their job free from harassment or any other type of impediment.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Doha, where we’re joined by Mohamed Moawad, managing editor of Al Jazeera.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you lay out exactly what happened on Sunday morning, Mohamed?
MOHAMED MOAWAD: Thanks, Amy, for having me. Glad to be back with you.
When we spoke, when we last spoke in May, when the Israeli government took the decision of shutting down our offices in Jerusalem and the Palestinian — and Tel Aviv, I told you that the situation is ambiguous and that the law itself upon which the Israeli government took the decision is ambiguous, as well. It could be weaponized against us anytime. When the Israeli government feel that the intimidation — as type of intimidation isn’t enough, they can go farther, escalate the intimidation process. So, that’s exactly what happened.
Our bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, was live, was live on air, reporting on the exchange of strikes in Lebanon between Hezbollah and the Israeli forces. Suddenly, the Israeli soldiers — these were not ordinary officers, but, rather, you know, fully equipped and ready-for-combat-zone officers and soldiers, and they invade — I say “invade,” not “stormed.” They invaded the office, and they spoke to Walid al-Omari, who stood very strong against them, defending his right for freedom of the press. And he told them, “Why you are here? This is not a combat zone. This is a space for journalism.” They said that there is an order to shut down the office. And that’s when that the whole situation was chilling for us, because, you know, this is a dedicated space for journalism. This is an office for reporters, for journalists. This is not a combat zone.
They then went on to move from corner to corner in the office as if it’s a combat zone. And then they tore down our late colleague Shireen Abu Akleh’s picture from the wall. They stole all equipments from inside the office, despite the fact that the order itself that was handed to Walid al-Omari did not mention anything about equipments. And then they went farther, to follow our colleagues downstairs, where they continued reporting about the incident, and they took the mic from Walid al-Omari and said, “You’re not allowed to work here. Go home.”
But, you know, the whole situation here is not shutting down an office, it’s not a decision by the Israeli government that was executed by the army, a fully equipped army, but, rather, an invasion to the very principle of the press freedom around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how the Israeli military has jurisdiction here? Your Ramallah bureau, which is in charge of the whole West Bank coverage of Al Jazeera, is in Area A, an area marked as being under Palestinian control in the Oslo Accords. So what legal jurisdiction did Israel have to come in with their heavily armed soldiers?
MOHAMED MOAWAD: That’s why, Amy, it’s very difficult for us to find a way to challenge this legally, because, really, the whole situation is ambiguous. They say this is emergency law. This is according to the defense minister of Israel, an order by him to the army to enter the West Bank and shut down an office which does not — you know, does not include the power of the Israeli army in this area because it’s an area that is under the jurisdiction A, which is mainly for the Palestinian Authority to decide about.
But, you know, the whole — Israel has no right to kill over 160 journalists in Gaza, I mean, and they’ve done it, and they continue to do it. They’ve killed three colleagues at Al Jazeera. They continue to commit atrocities against journalists. So, it wasn’t surprising. By the way, it was the least decision, the least action they have taken against us, because we’ve lost colleagues.
But at the same time, it was a show of force, a show of intimidation to show journalists around the globe that what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank isn’t allowed to be reported about and that the coverage of Al Jazeera is an enemy for the Israeli government, despite the fact that we haven’t and we’re not weaponizing at all, and we’re not going to do that. We’re not weaponizing our platform, despite the fact that we are being intimidated, we have lost colleagues.
Just before I came on air, we’ve been airing the Israeli forces press conference. And we continue to do that, despite the fact that the Israeli government shut down our offices in Israel and the Palestinian territories to try to delegitimize our coverage and say that Al Jazeera is a one-sided coverage, don’t operate there. But we continue to cover. We continue to make sure that we give voice to the voiceless and at the same time make sure that both narratives are kind of covered.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the things you do on Al Jazeera when reporters are reporting on Israel, since you’re banned from Israel, is repeatedly say that. That’s unlike U.S. networks that don’t say, when they’re reporting on Gaza, that the Israeli military prevents them from going into Gaza. Talk about that editorial decision that you’ve made, as you have reporters in Amman and other places saying, “We are not allowed to be in Israel as we report this right now,” and what these images mean that you’re broadcasting that others don’t.
MOHAMED MOAWAD: This is exactly what we should be talking about, Amy. Shutting down Al Jazeera’s office is the headline, but the name of the game is preventing journalists from doing their job, either in Gaza, in the West Bank. They want us to report remotely. They don’t want us to be in the frontlines. And that’s crystal clear.
I mean, the whole international journalistic community should be talking about one topic when they see a journalist killed in Gaza. They should be talking about one topic when they see an office shut down in Gaza or in West Bank or in Israel. The one topic is: No international journalist was allowed to enter Gaza to cover the war there, to give voice to the voiceless, which is at the core of this and the principle, the main principle, of this profession. No international journalists.
Even the international journalistic community is not placing pressure on Israel to allow their colleagues to get into Gaza to cover. Remember the Arab Spring, when so many American and Western journalists challenged the bureaucracy of the authoritarian regimes to go cover from Tahrir Square or from Tunisia or from Syria or from Libya. Right now no one is placing that pressure. And it’s really, really annoying, because we should be defending the freedom of the press. We should be defending the right to know what’s happening there. We should not be — we should not shy from what’s happening in Gaza and be part of this concealing that the Israeli government is trying to do to conceal what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank and the atrocities being committed. They just want us to report remotely.
And we will continue to remind the world and the journalistic community that this is happening and that you should unite to place pressure on the Israeli government to give the right for journalists to enter Gaza. Even after a possible ceasefire, this should be the case to uncover what’s really happened there. I remind you that we still have six correspondents reporting from Gaza. And that’s something that we are committed to. We are committed to give voice to the voiceless. An office is nothing for us. We will continue the coverage. We asked our colleagues to stay safe in the West Bank right now until we figure out the legal procedure, because, as I told you, Amy, the situation is ambiguous. We can’t really know on what basis that decision was taken, but we expected it.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Moawad, I want to thank you for being with us, managing editor of Al Jazeera, speaking to us from Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Sep 24, 2024 7:54 pm
Jon Stewart on Israel, Lebanon & The Widening Mideast War [PREVIEW]
The Daily Show
Sep 23, 2024 #DailyShow #Israel #Gaza
Jon Stewart tackles the growing war in the Middle East, from the recent Hezbollah pager attacks in Lebanon, to Israel’s plan of de-escalation through escalation, to the Biden administration's futile efforts to contain the conflict, while looking at criticism of Netanyahu from Americans and Israelis. #DailyShow #Israel #Gaza #Lebanon
Transcript
What if you really want to experience the full cognitive
dissonance and language calisthenics that have to be
deployed to describe the Middle East over the last,
I don't know, four, five, six, 10,000 years?
How we're describing what's--
I give you the golden soundbite brought
down from Sinai to explain how [BLEEP]
convoluted this has to be.
[LAUGHTER]
Or as that is sometimes called, war.
That is-- World War II, look at the subhead.
De-escalation through escalation.
I mean, do you even hear yourself?
My God.
The de-escalation through escalation.
That phrase is-- where have I heard?
It's right out of-- hold on a second.
Let me see if I can find.
Hold on.
No, it's not in there.
Hold on.
Let me see if I can find.
[APPLAUSE]
No, it's not in there.
Let me see if I can find.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Oh, my God.
[LAUGHTER]
John, that cat has wreaked havoc
on your bachelor lifestyle.
[LAUGHTER]
Although I do take issue with one of Garfield's bromides.
I happen to love Mondays.
[CHEERING]
[APPLAUSE]
It's the start and end of every workweek.
[LAUGHTER]
Though I hear Fridays are nice.
But here's the worst part.
The country that's providing all the bombs to the Middle
East-- or I guess now we have to call the bombs escalators--
[LAUGHTER]
Seems to have no idea when these bombs
are going to be used.
We were not notified by the Israelis
about their strike or the intended
target of their strike.
First, this is something we were
not aware of or involved in.
The United States did not know about,
nor was it involved in these incidents.
They're not telling you anything, huh?
Have you checked your pager?
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, my God, there have to be other ways of achieving
de-escalation without all this respectful exchange
of missiles.
Historically, that part is generally followed by years
of sorrow and bloodshed.
And we know there have been opportunities
for de-escalation, but Netanyahu did not seem
particularly interested in it.
Oh, my God.
I've criticized Netanyahu.
What have I done?
Go-- go ahead.
The people who are criticizing the prime minister,
it is shameful.
It is pathetic.
We should be standing shoulder
to shoulder with our strongest ally in the Middle East
instead of launching this criticism.
They criticized them for going too far constantly,
and that gives Hamas comfort.
(IN SQUEAKY VOICE) I'm sorry.
[LAUGHTER]
Criticism of the war is shameful,
and it gives comfort to Hamas.
You know who might be surprised to hear that?
The Israelis, who are unbelievably critical
of the war and Netanyahu.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[LAUGHTER]
What you going to say now, [BLEEP]?
[LAUGHTER]
Get off my back.
You heard what he said.
He said-- (FEIGNING HEBREW).
Does anyone have a Google translate on what he said?
What anti-Semites the former prime minister of Israel
and defense minister are.
But still, people are going to see this segment
and go, all right, maybe Israel isn't perfect.
But criticizing them feeds the fire.
Don't you worry about anti-Semitism?
And to that, I say no.
I believe anti-Semitism will be fine.
[LAUGHTER]
I've got to say--
[APPLAUSE]
Not for nothing.
[APPLAUSE]
But from what I've experienced, it's very resilient.
And it's not really tied to any event
or war or activity or reality.
For God's sakes, Kanye thought we ruined his Adidas deal.
We didn't though.
We just need orthotics, that's all.
[LAUGHTER]
Anti-Semitism will survive this war
like it survived all wars going back to the brave Hebrews
at Masada.
Do you see, Rabbi?
I was paying attention in Hebrew School.
[LAUGHTER]
You know what?
[CHEERING]
You know what?
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe the blame the Jews from the Black Death
to the Spanish inquisition to the space lasers
will all go away if Israel does right.
And peace will reign and people will no longer baselessly
and conveniently blame the Jews when
things don't work out exactly the way they want them to.
This is the most important election in the history
of the United States.
I'm not going to call this as a prediction, but in my opinion,
the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss
if I'm at 40%.
Son of a bitch.
The Daily Show
Sep 23, 2024 #DailyShow #Israel #Gaza
Jon Stewart tackles the growing war in the Middle East, from the recent Hezbollah pager attacks in Lebanon, to Israel’s plan of de-escalation through escalation, to the Biden administration's futile efforts to contain the conflict, while looking at criticism of Netanyahu from Americans and Israelis. #DailyShow #Israel #Gaza #Lebanon
Transcript
What if you really want to experience the full cognitive
dissonance and language calisthenics that have to be
deployed to describe the Middle East over the last,
I don't know, four, five, six, 10,000 years?
How we're describing what's--
I give you the golden soundbite brought
down from Sinai to explain how [BLEEP]
convoluted this has to be.
[LAUGHTER]
Or as that is sometimes called, war.
That is-- World War II, look at the subhead.
De-escalation through escalation.
I mean, do you even hear yourself?
My God.
The de-escalation through escalation.
That phrase is-- where have I heard?
It's right out of-- hold on a second.
Let me see if I can find.
Hold on.
No, it's not in there.
Hold on.
Let me see if I can find.
[APPLAUSE]
No, it's not in there.
Let me see if I can find.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Oh, my God.
[LAUGHTER]
John, that cat has wreaked havoc
on your bachelor lifestyle.
[LAUGHTER]
Although I do take issue with one of Garfield's bromides.
I happen to love Mondays.
[CHEERING]
[APPLAUSE]
It's the start and end of every workweek.
[LAUGHTER]
Though I hear Fridays are nice.
But here's the worst part.
The country that's providing all the bombs to the Middle
East-- or I guess now we have to call the bombs escalators--
[LAUGHTER]
Seems to have no idea when these bombs
are going to be used.
We were not notified by the Israelis
about their strike or the intended
target of their strike.
First, this is something we were
not aware of or involved in.
The United States did not know about,
nor was it involved in these incidents.
They're not telling you anything, huh?
Have you checked your pager?
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, my God, there have to be other ways of achieving
de-escalation without all this respectful exchange
of missiles.
Historically, that part is generally followed by years
of sorrow and bloodshed.
And we know there have been opportunities
for de-escalation, but Netanyahu did not seem
particularly interested in it.
Oh, my God.
I've criticized Netanyahu.
What have I done?
Go-- go ahead.
The people who are criticizing the prime minister,
it is shameful.
It is pathetic.
We should be standing shoulder
to shoulder with our strongest ally in the Middle East
instead of launching this criticism.
They criticized them for going too far constantly,
and that gives Hamas comfort.
(IN SQUEAKY VOICE) I'm sorry.
[LAUGHTER]
Criticism of the war is shameful,
and it gives comfort to Hamas.
You know who might be surprised to hear that?
The Israelis, who are unbelievably critical
of the war and Netanyahu.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[LAUGHTER]
What you going to say now, [BLEEP]?
[LAUGHTER]
Get off my back.
You heard what he said.
He said-- (FEIGNING HEBREW).
Does anyone have a Google translate on what he said?
What anti-Semites the former prime minister of Israel
and defense minister are.
But still, people are going to see this segment
and go, all right, maybe Israel isn't perfect.
But criticizing them feeds the fire.
Don't you worry about anti-Semitism?
And to that, I say no.
I believe anti-Semitism will be fine.
[LAUGHTER]
I've got to say--
[APPLAUSE]
Not for nothing.
[APPLAUSE]
But from what I've experienced, it's very resilient.
And it's not really tied to any event
or war or activity or reality.
For God's sakes, Kanye thought we ruined his Adidas deal.
We didn't though.
We just need orthotics, that's all.
[LAUGHTER]
Anti-Semitism will survive this war
like it survived all wars going back to the brave Hebrews
at Masada.
Do you see, Rabbi?
I was paying attention in Hebrew School.
[LAUGHTER]
You know what?
[CHEERING]
You know what?
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe the blame the Jews from the Black Death
to the Spanish inquisition to the space lasers
will all go away if Israel does right.
And peace will reign and people will no longer baselessly
and conveniently blame the Jews when
things don't work out exactly the way they want them to.
This is the most important election in the history
of the United States.
I'm not going to call this as a prediction, but in my opinion,
the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss
if I'm at 40%.
Son of a bitch.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:09 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 24, 2024
Israel Vows to Ramp Up Its Assault on Lebanon After Killing 558+ People in One Day
Sep 24, 2024
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has accused Israel of waging “a war of extermination” after Israeli airstrikes killed at least 558 people, including 50 children, and injured over 1,800 since Monday. It was Israel’s largest attack on Lebanon in nearly two decades. Israel said today it will further “accelerate” its attacks on Lebanon. Israel claimed the airstrikes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, but Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israel mostly struck civilian sites including hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. Thousands of Lebanese residents have fled southern Lebanon, with many heading to Beirut. The U.N. Human Rights Office warned Israel that sending a “warning” before attacking civilians is not acceptable.
Hezbollah forces responded to Israel’s massive attack by firing missiles at Israeli military bases, arms factories and other areas. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned, “We are almost in a full-fledged war,” while U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was “alarmed” at the large number of civilian casualties reported in Lebanon.
Stéphane Dujarric: “The message to the parties that are firing at each other across the Blue Line, to all the parties involved in this conflict, is: Step back from the brink. Stop the escalation. … As we just said, there is no military solution at this point that will make anyone in either country any safer.”
Israel’s attack on Lebanon also killed at least one journalist. Hadi Al-Sayed, a reporter for Al-Mayadeen, died after Israel bombed his home in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced more U.S. troops would be sent to the Middle East.
“They’re Being Killed in Schools as They Seek Shelter”: U.N. Decries Israel’s War on Gaza’s Children
Sep 24, 2024
The U.N. Human Rights Office is calling on Israel to stop attacking schools in Gaza that provide shelter to displaced Palestinians. Over the past three days, Israeli attacks on schools have killed at least 32 Palestinians, including 16 children. The U.N. agency said, “The children of Gaza have already lost schools as a place of education. Now, they are being killed in schools as they seek shelter.”
On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa spoke at the United Nations.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa: “As I speak to you, before you, our people in Gaza are enduring one of the darkest chapters in modern history. For nearly a year now, Israel’s genocidal war has caused unprecedented loss and suffering and humanitarian catastrophe. At the same time, our people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continue to face systemic threats driven by the escalating settlers’ violence, military raids, movement restrictions and financial siege, withholding of Palestinian tax revenues.”
Biden Admin Kept Arming Genocide After State Dept., USAID Found Israel Blocked Gaza Aid Delivery
Sep 24, 2024
ProPublica has revealed USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies — the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries preventing the delivery of U.S.-backed aid.
Greta Thunberg Joins Palestinian Call to Boycott Chevron
Sep 24, 2024
Prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg has joined demands to boycott Chevron over its supplying of energy to Israel.
Greta Thunberg: “In Palestine and all over the world, the fight against colonialism and corporations’ destruction of the planet are intrinsically linked. Look at Chevron. Everyone knows that Chevron is one of the world’s biggest climate criminals, but the oil giant is also fueling Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”
***************
“Absolutely Terrifying”: Israel’s War Comes to Lebanon, Setting Record-Breaking Single-Day Death Toll
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 24, 2024
Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon killed at least 558 people on Monday in what is the highest single-day death toll in Lebanon in nearly two decades. Thousands more have been injured in strikes that targeted hospitals, medical centers and ambulances, while tens of thousands of civilians have been forced from their homes. “It has been havoc,” says Michelle Eid, editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya, in Beirut, describing attempts by family members to flee the attacks in the south. “The speed with which this has happened has been incredibly shocking,” says Lebanese writer and translator Lina Mounzer. “Once Lebanon goes up in flames, it’s also very likely that the entire region goes up in flames.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military says it carried out another airstrike on Beirut today in a southern suburb of the city. This comes as the death toll from Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon Monday rose to at least 558 people, including over 50 children and over 40 women. More than 1,600 people have been injured. It marked the highest single-day death toll on Lebanon in nearly two decades.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been forced from their homes in southern Lebanon in the largest exodus since the 2006 war. Many displaced families are sleeping in makeshift shelters set up in schools in Beirut and other cities. Some 500 people have even crossed into Syria to seek safety, according to Agence France-Presse.
Israel claimed the airstrike struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, but Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israel also struck hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. Hezbollah forces responded to Israel’s massive attack by firing missiles at Israeli military bases, arms factories and other areas. Satellite data analyzed by Associated Press showed the wide range of Israeli airstrikes aimed at southern Lebanon covering an area of over 650 square miles.
The aerial bombardment comes as Lebanon is still reeling from last week’s attack by Israel when thousands of electronic communication devices, from walkie-talkies to pagers, exploded at the same time across Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000.
For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Michelle Eid, editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya, a digital magazine covering the Levant. She joins us from Beirut.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you describe what’s happening on the ground now in Lebanon with this largest single-day death toll in almost 20 years, the massive flight of Lebanese from the south moving towards Beirut, Michelle?
MICHELLE EID: Hi. First of all, thanks for having me.
Essentially, what’s happening now is a massive exodus from the south. Many people are displaced. They’re trying to find a safe haven. And as a result, the roads are jammed. There’s an oncoming fuel crisis, as well, because people are trying to fill their tanks. And so, so many people have been stuck on the road for hours on end trying to reach somewhere safe. And as people were exiting south Lebanon and going on the road towards Beirut, there were airstrikes falling near them, around them. So you can imagine it’s a very panic-filled scene.
And around Lebanon, so what’s happening at the moment is these individuals who are displaced from the south are trying to find safe havens in schools and different shelters all across Lebanon, whether it be the north, Beqaa, Mount Lebanon. And people are going, trying to help them, trying to find any basic necessities that they can help them with, provide them with food, with water, with medicine, with sleeping bags so they can sleep. So you can imagine the situation is quite dire at the moment.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Michelle, these bombing attacks have occurred not just in the south, but also in some northern sections of Lebanon, as well. So, how are the civilians supposed to know even where to go?
MICHELLE EID: You know, the way that I can describe this is, they think about the next — the immediate solution. So, once they’re bombing the south, people are leaving the south. When they bomb Beqaa, they try to find another safe place in Beqaa. They don’t have the luxury of thinking long term. They don’t have the luxury of thinking, “Where would be the safest place for me to be now?” especially with the crowding, you can say, because there are a lot of people who are trying to find these shelters, who are trying to find apartments, so there’s an overflow of demand and maybe not enough supply, or, rather — let me fix that — there is supply, but there is also some sort of exploitation of the people who are being displaced from the south. So, landlords, for example, there is not a lot of, you can say, give and take when it comes to rent. And so, many families find themselves unable to rent an apartment with their children, with their elderly parents, with their members of the family that have special needs or special medical requirements.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this comes — these attacks come in a situation where Lebanon has already had a long-term economic crisis. Could you talk about the situation in the country as a whole?
MICHELLE EID: You know, prior to the war, the country has already been suffering. It’s been suffering since 2019 with the financial collapse, then, after that, with the coronavirus. So, public institutions are not able to support the community, the Lebanese population properly, or all communities that live within Lebanon. And so, once the war began in October, there was, you know, panic amongst people in the community, in the Lebanese communities, about whether Lebanon would be able to sustain a war, whether the medical sector would be able to sustain the war, whether directorates that are responsible for food security are able to, whether gas and energy directorates are able to, as well.
So, Lebanon is not properly equipped to be able to sustain such a war. And it was not properly equipped to function even ever so normally prior to the war in its normal situation. So, as you can imagine, there is panic across not only members of the public, but also people who are in public institutions, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle, you’re speaking to us from Beirut, so your own family has to be impacted by this. Can you describe both what you’ve talked about, the chaos —
MICHELLE EID: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — in the streets, what has happened to your family in the south, and what these phone calls mean? Israel is saying they’ve sent out tens of thousands of calls. Apparently, Lebanon’s minister of information got one of these morning calls. The U.N. Human Rights Office warned Israel sending a warning before attacking civilians is not acceptable.
MICHELLE EID: Mm-hmm. I can talk about maybe my family first. So, I have family living in the south and Beqaa, as well. And on a personal level, for the past few days, it has been havoc trying to be able to reach them to make sure that they are OK. My maternal great-uncle is stuck in the south because of the situation on the roads. He didn’t want to leave the south at first, either, because the concept of leaving his home is already painful enough, because this is not the first time the south witnesses such aggression, you know? And so, it’s been just panic mode on a personal level to be able to try and get my family to safety, especially with data not being able — not being proper, as well, not having good connections, so we can’t reach them all the time. So, as you can imagine, even my family living abroad, they’re also in this state of panic trying to reach their family members here, as well. So, on an internal level, it’s been a mess.
And then, going on to people receiving texts and phone calls, so, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals yesterday received either phone calls or texts telling them to evacuate their buildings because they do have some either Hezbollah weapons or Hezbollah personnel in these buildings. And they gave them either a timeframe to leave or with no timeframe at all. So, these individuals, not even knowing — you know, they haven’t had time to think of a plan B or a plan C. They had to grab their stuff and just leave their homes, try to find some safe haven, whether near or far. And these people who were conducting these phone calls, for example, the phone calls, they were coming from Lebanese numbers, but the individuals who were doing the calling spoke in formal Arabic, which is very different than our colloquial language, our mostly used language, our informal language. And so, as you can imagine, this induces quite the scary scenario for many people who are also unable to leave right away, who have members of their family who need special support, whether it be a physical disability, a mental disability of the sorts. So, it’s been quite hard on these families who were across the Beqaa, across the south and even in some suburbs in Beirut.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Eid is editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya. She’s speaking to us from Beirut. And in our New York studio, we’re joined by Lina Mounzer, Lebanese writer, translator, senior editor of the arts and literature magazine The Markaz Review. Her new piece for Middle East Eye is headlined “Israel’s war on Lebanon: The trauma of watching the 'Hollywood movie' from afar.”
Start off with what just has happened in the last 24 hours, worst single lethal day, deadly day for Lebanon in nearly 20 years, with over 558 people dead, 50 of them children. Your response, looking at all of this from New York?
LINA MOUNZER: First, hi, Amy. Thank you for having me here.
Honestly, it’s very shocking, looking at it, the speed with which everything is happening. The death toll, as you said, it’s actually — at this point, I think it’s fully half the amount of casualties that we saw in the 33 days of the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon — or, I should say, the assault on Lebanon in 2006. So, within one day, we’re seeing a huge amount of casualties.
And at the same time, we’re seeing all of the tactics that they have been using in Gaza. They’re kind of speed running what has been happening in Gaza. They’ve been bombing ambulances, pathways to hospitals. As Michelle was just talking about, they’ve been asking people to evacuate, but really it is flee. They’re, you know, making people panic. And then they’re also bombing the roads out, the bridges. People are terrified. It’s very difficult for them to find their way out.
And it’s really — you know, I just left Beirut. I’ve been there. You know, I live there normally, and I left Beirut a few weeks ago, and knowing that there was a possibility that things would escalate while I was gone, but truly the speed with which this has happened has been incredibly shocking. And, you know, just between one night and the next to wake up and to see full-blown war and this level of casualties and carnage is just absolutely terrifying. So, you know, my initial reaction really is one of shock, even though I feel we should have been inured watching what’s been happening in Gaza over the period of an entire year. We shouldn’t be shocked anymore, but still it is absolutely shocking.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lina, I wanted to ask you about the coverage, the media coverage, in the United States and Europe on this, because it’s clear, number one, that these pager and walkie-talkie attacks were sheer terrorism on the part of Israel and that this is a naked escalation of the war on Israel’s part, yet that’s not the way it’s being portrayed. Rather, they’re concentrating on the technological sophistication of Israel and being able to use these pagers and these walkie-talkies to attack Hezbollah.
LINA MOUNZER: Yes, Juan, absolutely. I mean, basically, what we’ve been seeing from the beginning of the assault on Gaza, as well, is the media has been — you know, we use the word “complicit,” but what does that really mean? I mean, the media has been actively helping manufacture consent for what has been happening, allowing people to — not just to be complacent, but to feel that whatever is happening in Gaza, in Lebanon is well deserved. You know, this is Israel’s counterterrorism. This is Israel “defending itself,” quote-unquote. And people have bought that, to the extent that now Israel can come up with whatever flimsy excuse. You know, one of the things that they’ve been saying now is that they are bombing locations in the south because Hezbollah uses people’s homes to hide rocket launchers, and so any civilian casualties incurred are part of this counterterrorism.
And so, for me, the pager attack and the way that it was covered is really only just a small part of all of the way that Israel’s attacks have been — are being covered, you know, whether it’s by the fact that they continue to repeat the lies about, you know, burned, raped, mutilated, beheaded babies. If you notice, every single time an Israeli spokesperson speaks, they will never — you know, when they talk about the attacks, they will always — you know, it’s like they’ve been given this directive to use all of these, like — to use this particular language that’s very incendiary and to remind people of, you know, burned, beheaded, etc. And no one calls them out on it, even though there is no evidence of any of these things actually having taken place.
And so, it was very shocking to me. You know, if this pager attack had happened anywhere else — and we keep saying that, which I think it’s actually quite sad that we have to keep saying, “Imagine this happened to you,” or “Imagine it happened in any other country. What would you think about it in that way?” You know, it’s this constant feeling of having to remind people that, you know, we are equally as human as anybody else.
But, truly, I mean, what you had was you had a series of small explosions going off against the intimacy of people’s bodies across the entire country. And it was — everybody was in a — it is the absolute definition of terrorism. People were terrified. People were afraid of the electronic devices in their own homes.
And yet, you know, you have people covering this as though it were a marvel. I mean, even I saw an opinion piece in The New York Times the other day that began with, “Even though we’re all amazed by this, even though we all think it’s such an incredible thing, you know, technological feat that Israel pulled off, we still must admit that this is an act of terrorism.” So, even if somebody uses those words, it’s always couched within a kind of inherent excuse. And it’s, frankly, sickening, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s quite something to, for example, hear Leon Panetta, the former CIA director, the former defense secretary, saying that the blowing up of pagers and walkie-talkies is terrorism. So, he is describing it in that way, you know, represents the establishment in the United States. And, of course, you hear Biden and Blinken decrying the fact that there isn’t a ceasefire, but at the same time, we bring you this report today from ProPublica, just one of many different reports, that says, USAID and the State Department’s refugee bureau — and this has to do with Gaza, and you make serious links, like saying Israel is speed running the Gaza playbook. ProPublica has revealed USAID and State Department’s refugee bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but Secretary of State Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies, the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. That decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel, because under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed aid. And I wanted to bring that to the end of your piece, where you quote a Lebanese friend who’s been living in the U.S. for a while, saying, “I’m either in the flames or I’m in the place [that’s] lighting the fire.” Can you talk about the U.S. role in what’s happening in your country, Lebanon, and Gaza?
LINA MOUNZER: I mean, the United States is — you know, there’s always these debates about who is wagging the dog, let’s say, you know, this idea of like who is truly in control. Is it Israel, or is it the United States? For me, they are one and the same. Israel seems to be kind of like a colonial outpost of the United States, and I feel that their interests are very much aligned. And so, the United States continues to say that it is not interested in a regional war, it is not interested in a conflagration. At the same time, they have been running cover for what Israel has been doing in Gaza for an entire year.
And honestly, since pretty much October 8th, we could see that this day was coming. We could see that so long as the war continued in Gaza, as long as the assault on Gaza continued, that this was eventually going to come and engulf Lebanon. And, you know, once Lebanon goes up in flames, it’s also very likely that the entire region goes up in flames.
And so, the United States can say all they like that they are, you know, looking at the possibility of a ceasefire, that they don’t want for there to be a regional war, but the way that they have been doing things is — you know, frankly, says otherwise, including and up to the fact that every single time that there’s something that Israel needs to be called out on, we see them running interference for Israel. You know, all the State Department spokespeople refuse to comment. They will not allow journalists to ask them any questions, and they will deflect constantly.
And so, I mean, the United States is firmly partnered. You know, as they keep saying, they say, you know, “We’re looking to our partners in Israel.” That’s exactly what they mean. They’re partners in Israel. They are partners in crime. And they truly are one and the same. It’s very difficult, honestly, to separate between the two, the United States and Israel, at this point.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lina, I wanted to ask you about the timing of this escalation by the Netanyahu government, because those of us who have followed the conflict in the Middle East for decades know that Israel almost always uses the period before a presidential election, or sometimes after the election before a new government is sworn in, to launch its fiercest attacks, precisely because it knows that the administration in power, given the volatility of U.S. elections, is reluctant to take any action to even mildly criticize Israel. I’m wondering what your thoughts about the timing of this escalation.
LINA MOUNZER: I mean, I think you’re absolutely correct, and yet, at the same time, because we have seen absolutely no change in the U.S. administration, the Biden administration has been absolutely gung ho, 100% behind Israel, you know, so they have the full support. So it’s not — it doesn’t seem to me like this is going to — that the United States at any point was even threatening to withdraw full support from what’s happening. So, yes, the timing is before the election, and at the same time, you know, it’s been going on for so long at this point that I don’t even know what the election has to do with it anymore. It just feels like the United States is busy right now with its own — you know, with the elections and what’s happening there, and Israel is just free to run rampage all over Gaza, all over Lebanon. So, it is related to the United States elections, and yet, at the same time, I really cannot see how it’s going to make any difference whether it’s Harris or Trump or Biden in power, frankly, at this stage. It seems like it’s just running on autopilot, this war, at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: Lina Mounzer, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Lebanese writer, translator, senior editor of the arts and literature magazine The Markaz Review. We’ll link your piece in Middle East Eye headlined “Israel’s war on Lebanon: The trauma of watching the 'Hollywood movie' from afar.”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 24, 2024
Israel Vows to Ramp Up Its Assault on Lebanon After Killing 558+ People in One Day
Sep 24, 2024
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has accused Israel of waging “a war of extermination” after Israeli airstrikes killed at least 558 people, including 50 children, and injured over 1,800 since Monday. It was Israel’s largest attack on Lebanon in nearly two decades. Israel said today it will further “accelerate” its attacks on Lebanon. Israel claimed the airstrikes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, but Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israel mostly struck civilian sites including hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. Thousands of Lebanese residents have fled southern Lebanon, with many heading to Beirut. The U.N. Human Rights Office warned Israel that sending a “warning” before attacking civilians is not acceptable.
Hezbollah forces responded to Israel’s massive attack by firing missiles at Israeli military bases, arms factories and other areas. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned, “We are almost in a full-fledged war,” while U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was “alarmed” at the large number of civilian casualties reported in Lebanon.
Stéphane Dujarric: “The message to the parties that are firing at each other across the Blue Line, to all the parties involved in this conflict, is: Step back from the brink. Stop the escalation. … As we just said, there is no military solution at this point that will make anyone in either country any safer.”
Israel’s attack on Lebanon also killed at least one journalist. Hadi Al-Sayed, a reporter for Al-Mayadeen, died after Israel bombed his home in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced more U.S. troops would be sent to the Middle East.
“They’re Being Killed in Schools as They Seek Shelter”: U.N. Decries Israel’s War on Gaza’s Children
Sep 24, 2024
The U.N. Human Rights Office is calling on Israel to stop attacking schools in Gaza that provide shelter to displaced Palestinians. Over the past three days, Israeli attacks on schools have killed at least 32 Palestinians, including 16 children. The U.N. agency said, “The children of Gaza have already lost schools as a place of education. Now, they are being killed in schools as they seek shelter.”
On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa spoke at the United Nations.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa: “As I speak to you, before you, our people in Gaza are enduring one of the darkest chapters in modern history. For nearly a year now, Israel’s genocidal war has caused unprecedented loss and suffering and humanitarian catastrophe. At the same time, our people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continue to face systemic threats driven by the escalating settlers’ violence, military raids, movement restrictions and financial siege, withholding of Palestinian tax revenues.”
Biden Admin Kept Arming Genocide After State Dept., USAID Found Israel Blocked Gaza Aid Delivery
Sep 24, 2024
ProPublica has revealed USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies — the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries preventing the delivery of U.S.-backed aid.
Greta Thunberg Joins Palestinian Call to Boycott Chevron
Sep 24, 2024
Prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg has joined demands to boycott Chevron over its supplying of energy to Israel.
Greta Thunberg: “In Palestine and all over the world, the fight against colonialism and corporations’ destruction of the planet are intrinsically linked. Look at Chevron. Everyone knows that Chevron is one of the world’s biggest climate criminals, but the oil giant is also fueling Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”
***************
“Absolutely Terrifying”: Israel’s War Comes to Lebanon, Setting Record-Breaking Single-Day Death Toll
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 24, 2024
Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon killed at least 558 people on Monday in what is the highest single-day death toll in Lebanon in nearly two decades. Thousands more have been injured in strikes that targeted hospitals, medical centers and ambulances, while tens of thousands of civilians have been forced from their homes. “It has been havoc,” says Michelle Eid, editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya, in Beirut, describing attempts by family members to flee the attacks in the south. “The speed with which this has happened has been incredibly shocking,” says Lebanese writer and translator Lina Mounzer. “Once Lebanon goes up in flames, it’s also very likely that the entire region goes up in flames.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military says it carried out another airstrike on Beirut today in a southern suburb of the city. This comes as the death toll from Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon Monday rose to at least 558 people, including over 50 children and over 40 women. More than 1,600 people have been injured. It marked the highest single-day death toll on Lebanon in nearly two decades.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been forced from their homes in southern Lebanon in the largest exodus since the 2006 war. Many displaced families are sleeping in makeshift shelters set up in schools in Beirut and other cities. Some 500 people have even crossed into Syria to seek safety, according to Agence France-Presse.
Israel claimed the airstrike struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, but Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israel also struck hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. Hezbollah forces responded to Israel’s massive attack by firing missiles at Israeli military bases, arms factories and other areas. Satellite data analyzed by Associated Press showed the wide range of Israeli airstrikes aimed at southern Lebanon covering an area of over 650 square miles.
The aerial bombardment comes as Lebanon is still reeling from last week’s attack by Israel when thousands of electronic communication devices, from walkie-talkies to pagers, exploded at the same time across Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000.
For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Michelle Eid, editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya, a digital magazine covering the Levant. She joins us from Beirut.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you describe what’s happening on the ground now in Lebanon with this largest single-day death toll in almost 20 years, the massive flight of Lebanese from the south moving towards Beirut, Michelle?
MICHELLE EID: Hi. First of all, thanks for having me.
Essentially, what’s happening now is a massive exodus from the south. Many people are displaced. They’re trying to find a safe haven. And as a result, the roads are jammed. There’s an oncoming fuel crisis, as well, because people are trying to fill their tanks. And so, so many people have been stuck on the road for hours on end trying to reach somewhere safe. And as people were exiting south Lebanon and going on the road towards Beirut, there were airstrikes falling near them, around them. So you can imagine it’s a very panic-filled scene.
And around Lebanon, so what’s happening at the moment is these individuals who are displaced from the south are trying to find safe havens in schools and different shelters all across Lebanon, whether it be the north, Beqaa, Mount Lebanon. And people are going, trying to help them, trying to find any basic necessities that they can help them with, provide them with food, with water, with medicine, with sleeping bags so they can sleep. So you can imagine the situation is quite dire at the moment.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Michelle, these bombing attacks have occurred not just in the south, but also in some northern sections of Lebanon, as well. So, how are the civilians supposed to know even where to go?
MICHELLE EID: You know, the way that I can describe this is, they think about the next — the immediate solution. So, once they’re bombing the south, people are leaving the south. When they bomb Beqaa, they try to find another safe place in Beqaa. They don’t have the luxury of thinking long term. They don’t have the luxury of thinking, “Where would be the safest place for me to be now?” especially with the crowding, you can say, because there are a lot of people who are trying to find these shelters, who are trying to find apartments, so there’s an overflow of demand and maybe not enough supply, or, rather — let me fix that — there is supply, but there is also some sort of exploitation of the people who are being displaced from the south. So, landlords, for example, there is not a lot of, you can say, give and take when it comes to rent. And so, many families find themselves unable to rent an apartment with their children, with their elderly parents, with their members of the family that have special needs or special medical requirements.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this comes — these attacks come in a situation where Lebanon has already had a long-term economic crisis. Could you talk about the situation in the country as a whole?
MICHELLE EID: You know, prior to the war, the country has already been suffering. It’s been suffering since 2019 with the financial collapse, then, after that, with the coronavirus. So, public institutions are not able to support the community, the Lebanese population properly, or all communities that live within Lebanon. And so, once the war began in October, there was, you know, panic amongst people in the community, in the Lebanese communities, about whether Lebanon would be able to sustain a war, whether the medical sector would be able to sustain the war, whether directorates that are responsible for food security are able to, whether gas and energy directorates are able to, as well.
So, Lebanon is not properly equipped to be able to sustain such a war. And it was not properly equipped to function even ever so normally prior to the war in its normal situation. So, as you can imagine, there is panic across not only members of the public, but also people who are in public institutions, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle, you’re speaking to us from Beirut, so your own family has to be impacted by this. Can you describe both what you’ve talked about, the chaos —
MICHELLE EID: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — in the streets, what has happened to your family in the south, and what these phone calls mean? Israel is saying they’ve sent out tens of thousands of calls. Apparently, Lebanon’s minister of information got one of these morning calls. The U.N. Human Rights Office warned Israel sending a warning before attacking civilians is not acceptable.
MICHELLE EID: Mm-hmm. I can talk about maybe my family first. So, I have family living in the south and Beqaa, as well. And on a personal level, for the past few days, it has been havoc trying to be able to reach them to make sure that they are OK. My maternal great-uncle is stuck in the south because of the situation on the roads. He didn’t want to leave the south at first, either, because the concept of leaving his home is already painful enough, because this is not the first time the south witnesses such aggression, you know? And so, it’s been just panic mode on a personal level to be able to try and get my family to safety, especially with data not being able — not being proper, as well, not having good connections, so we can’t reach them all the time. So, as you can imagine, even my family living abroad, they’re also in this state of panic trying to reach their family members here, as well. So, on an internal level, it’s been a mess.
And then, going on to people receiving texts and phone calls, so, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals yesterday received either phone calls or texts telling them to evacuate their buildings because they do have some either Hezbollah weapons or Hezbollah personnel in these buildings. And they gave them either a timeframe to leave or with no timeframe at all. So, these individuals, not even knowing — you know, they haven’t had time to think of a plan B or a plan C. They had to grab their stuff and just leave their homes, try to find some safe haven, whether near or far. And these people who were conducting these phone calls, for example, the phone calls, they were coming from Lebanese numbers, but the individuals who were doing the calling spoke in formal Arabic, which is very different than our colloquial language, our mostly used language, our informal language. And so, as you can imagine, this induces quite the scary scenario for many people who are also unable to leave right away, who have members of their family who need special support, whether it be a physical disability, a mental disability of the sorts. So, it’s been quite hard on these families who were across the Beqaa, across the south and even in some suburbs in Beirut.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Eid is editor-in-chief of Al Rawiya. She’s speaking to us from Beirut. And in our New York studio, we’re joined by Lina Mounzer, Lebanese writer, translator, senior editor of the arts and literature magazine The Markaz Review. Her new piece for Middle East Eye is headlined “Israel’s war on Lebanon: The trauma of watching the 'Hollywood movie' from afar.”
Start off with what just has happened in the last 24 hours, worst single lethal day, deadly day for Lebanon in nearly 20 years, with over 558 people dead, 50 of them children. Your response, looking at all of this from New York?
LINA MOUNZER: First, hi, Amy. Thank you for having me here.
Honestly, it’s very shocking, looking at it, the speed with which everything is happening. The death toll, as you said, it’s actually — at this point, I think it’s fully half the amount of casualties that we saw in the 33 days of the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon — or, I should say, the assault on Lebanon in 2006. So, within one day, we’re seeing a huge amount of casualties.
And at the same time, we’re seeing all of the tactics that they have been using in Gaza. They’re kind of speed running what has been happening in Gaza. They’ve been bombing ambulances, pathways to hospitals. As Michelle was just talking about, they’ve been asking people to evacuate, but really it is flee. They’re, you know, making people panic. And then they’re also bombing the roads out, the bridges. People are terrified. It’s very difficult for them to find their way out.
And it’s really — you know, I just left Beirut. I’ve been there. You know, I live there normally, and I left Beirut a few weeks ago, and knowing that there was a possibility that things would escalate while I was gone, but truly the speed with which this has happened has been incredibly shocking. And, you know, just between one night and the next to wake up and to see full-blown war and this level of casualties and carnage is just absolutely terrifying. So, you know, my initial reaction really is one of shock, even though I feel we should have been inured watching what’s been happening in Gaza over the period of an entire year. We shouldn’t be shocked anymore, but still it is absolutely shocking.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lina, I wanted to ask you about the coverage, the media coverage, in the United States and Europe on this, because it’s clear, number one, that these pager and walkie-talkie attacks were sheer terrorism on the part of Israel and that this is a naked escalation of the war on Israel’s part, yet that’s not the way it’s being portrayed. Rather, they’re concentrating on the technological sophistication of Israel and being able to use these pagers and these walkie-talkies to attack Hezbollah.
LINA MOUNZER: Yes, Juan, absolutely. I mean, basically, what we’ve been seeing from the beginning of the assault on Gaza, as well, is the media has been — you know, we use the word “complicit,” but what does that really mean? I mean, the media has been actively helping manufacture consent for what has been happening, allowing people to — not just to be complacent, but to feel that whatever is happening in Gaza, in Lebanon is well deserved. You know, this is Israel’s counterterrorism. This is Israel “defending itself,” quote-unquote. And people have bought that, to the extent that now Israel can come up with whatever flimsy excuse. You know, one of the things that they’ve been saying now is that they are bombing locations in the south because Hezbollah uses people’s homes to hide rocket launchers, and so any civilian casualties incurred are part of this counterterrorism.
And so, for me, the pager attack and the way that it was covered is really only just a small part of all of the way that Israel’s attacks have been — are being covered, you know, whether it’s by the fact that they continue to repeat the lies about, you know, burned, raped, mutilated, beheaded babies. If you notice, every single time an Israeli spokesperson speaks, they will never — you know, when they talk about the attacks, they will always — you know, it’s like they’ve been given this directive to use all of these, like — to use this particular language that’s very incendiary and to remind people of, you know, burned, beheaded, etc. And no one calls them out on it, even though there is no evidence of any of these things actually having taken place.
And so, it was very shocking to me. You know, if this pager attack had happened anywhere else — and we keep saying that, which I think it’s actually quite sad that we have to keep saying, “Imagine this happened to you,” or “Imagine it happened in any other country. What would you think about it in that way?” You know, it’s this constant feeling of having to remind people that, you know, we are equally as human as anybody else.
But, truly, I mean, what you had was you had a series of small explosions going off against the intimacy of people’s bodies across the entire country. And it was — everybody was in a — it is the absolute definition of terrorism. People were terrified. People were afraid of the electronic devices in their own homes.
And yet, you know, you have people covering this as though it were a marvel. I mean, even I saw an opinion piece in The New York Times the other day that began with, “Even though we’re all amazed by this, even though we all think it’s such an incredible thing, you know, technological feat that Israel pulled off, we still must admit that this is an act of terrorism.” So, even if somebody uses those words, it’s always couched within a kind of inherent excuse. And it’s, frankly, sickening, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s quite something to, for example, hear Leon Panetta, the former CIA director, the former defense secretary, saying that the blowing up of pagers and walkie-talkies is terrorism. So, he is describing it in that way, you know, represents the establishment in the United States. And, of course, you hear Biden and Blinken decrying the fact that there isn’t a ceasefire, but at the same time, we bring you this report today from ProPublica, just one of many different reports, that says, USAID and the State Department’s refugee bureau — and this has to do with Gaza, and you make serious links, like saying Israel is speed running the Gaza playbook. ProPublica has revealed USAID and State Department’s refugee bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but Secretary of State Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies, the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. That decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel, because under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed aid. And I wanted to bring that to the end of your piece, where you quote a Lebanese friend who’s been living in the U.S. for a while, saying, “I’m either in the flames or I’m in the place [that’s] lighting the fire.” Can you talk about the U.S. role in what’s happening in your country, Lebanon, and Gaza?
LINA MOUNZER: I mean, the United States is — you know, there’s always these debates about who is wagging the dog, let’s say, you know, this idea of like who is truly in control. Is it Israel, or is it the United States? For me, they are one and the same. Israel seems to be kind of like a colonial outpost of the United States, and I feel that their interests are very much aligned. And so, the United States continues to say that it is not interested in a regional war, it is not interested in a conflagration. At the same time, they have been running cover for what Israel has been doing in Gaza for an entire year.
And honestly, since pretty much October 8th, we could see that this day was coming. We could see that so long as the war continued in Gaza, as long as the assault on Gaza continued, that this was eventually going to come and engulf Lebanon. And, you know, once Lebanon goes up in flames, it’s also very likely that the entire region goes up in flames.
And so, the United States can say all they like that they are, you know, looking at the possibility of a ceasefire, that they don’t want for there to be a regional war, but the way that they have been doing things is — you know, frankly, says otherwise, including and up to the fact that every single time that there’s something that Israel needs to be called out on, we see them running interference for Israel. You know, all the State Department spokespeople refuse to comment. They will not allow journalists to ask them any questions, and they will deflect constantly.
And so, I mean, the United States is firmly partnered. You know, as they keep saying, they say, you know, “We’re looking to our partners in Israel.” That’s exactly what they mean. They’re partners in Israel. They are partners in crime. And they truly are one and the same. It’s very difficult, honestly, to separate between the two, the United States and Israel, at this point.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lina, I wanted to ask you about the timing of this escalation by the Netanyahu government, because those of us who have followed the conflict in the Middle East for decades know that Israel almost always uses the period before a presidential election, or sometimes after the election before a new government is sworn in, to launch its fiercest attacks, precisely because it knows that the administration in power, given the volatility of U.S. elections, is reluctant to take any action to even mildly criticize Israel. I’m wondering what your thoughts about the timing of this escalation.
LINA MOUNZER: I mean, I think you’re absolutely correct, and yet, at the same time, because we have seen absolutely no change in the U.S. administration, the Biden administration has been absolutely gung ho, 100% behind Israel, you know, so they have the full support. So it’s not — it doesn’t seem to me like this is going to — that the United States at any point was even threatening to withdraw full support from what’s happening. So, yes, the timing is before the election, and at the same time, you know, it’s been going on for so long at this point that I don’t even know what the election has to do with it anymore. It just feels like the United States is busy right now with its own — you know, with the elections and what’s happening there, and Israel is just free to run rampage all over Gaza, all over Lebanon. So, it is related to the United States elections, and yet, at the same time, I really cannot see how it’s going to make any difference whether it’s Harris or Trump or Biden in power, frankly, at this stage. It seems like it’s just running on autopilot, this war, at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: Lina Mounzer, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Lebanese writer, translator, senior editor of the arts and literature magazine The Markaz Review. We’ll link your piece in Middle East Eye headlined “Israel’s war on Lebanon: The trauma of watching the 'Hollywood movie' from afar.”
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:14 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 25, 2024
Thousands Flee as Israel Continues Assault on Southern Lebanon
Sep 25, 2024
Tens of thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon as Israel’s military continues intense artillery and missile attacks. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has climbed to at least 569 people, including 50 children. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of drones and rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. Israeli public media is reporting that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is readying troops for a possible ground invasion into Lebanon. In Beirut, officials say they’ve secured shelters for 10,000 people displaced from southern Lebanon. Some of the evacuees were forced into the same shelters they fled to nearly two decades ago during Israel’s July 2006 assault. This is Feryal Mehsen, a 58-year-old who narrowly survived a strike that destroyed her family home.
Feryal Mehsen: “The rocket landed in front of me. I was shocked. I couldn’t hear or see after that. Dust was all over the place. So I drove off quickly and headed to the upper road and kept going. I lost my temper because of what happened. It took me 12 to 15 hours to reach Beirut from Aitat because of the traffic congestion.”
U.N. Staffers and Journalist Among Those Killed by Israeli Strikes on Lebanon
Sep 25, 2024
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports two United Nations staffers were among those killed by Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon. Ali Basma worked as a janitor at the UNHCR’s Tyre office for seven years before he was killed in an Israeli strike on Monday. And Dina Darwiche, a UNHCR employee featured in many of the agency’s videos, was killed along with her youngest son in an Israeli strike that seriously injured her husband and her other child. A separate Israeli strike killed cameraman Kamel Karaki of Al-Manar TV. He’s at least the fifth journalist killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 7.
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 53 Palestinians, Including a Mother and Her Five Children
Sep 25, 2024
Israel’s military has continued its attacks on the Gaza Strip with at least 53 Palestinians killed over the past 24 hours. Among the dead are a mother killed along with her five children when Israel’s military bombed their house north of Rafah.
In the occupied West Bank, four Palestinians were shot and wounded as Israeli soldiers raided the Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron. Elsewhere, a Palestinian doctor was hospitalized in serious condition after he was shot by Israeli forces during a raid near the city of Qalqilya.
World Leaders Gathered at U.N. General Assembly Condemn Israel’s Assaults on Gaza, Lebanon
Sep 25, 2024
Here in New York, world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday condemned Israel’s assaults on Palestine and Lebanon. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and said the failure of nations to stop the violence showed the United Nations system and Western values are “dying.” Chilean President Gabriel Boric also condemned Israel’s actions.
President Gabriel Boric: “I refuse to choose between Hamas’s terrorism or the massacre and genocidal behavior of Netanyahu’s Israel. We do not have to choose between barbarities. I choose humanity. We denounce the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and the de facto denial of the existence of an independent Palestinian state by the occupying country.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres accused Israel of violating the United Nations Charter and said too many governments were turning a blind eye to international human rights conventions and the decisions of international courts. Meanwhile, Joe Biden delivered his last speech to the United Nations as U.S. president, calling for a diplomatic solution to end Israel’s war on Gaza — even as his administration continues to provide weapons and billions of dollars in aid to Israel’s military.
President Joe Biden: “We’re also working to bring a greater measure of peace and stability in the Middle East. The world must not flinch from the horrors of October 7th. Any country, any country would have the right and responsibility to ensure that such an attack could never happen again.”
************
“Lebanese Civilians Are Paying the Price”: Israeli Strikes Kill Nearly 600, Displace Tens of Thousands
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 25, 2024
Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The Israeli military is reportedly preparing to invade Lebanon while continuing to launch extensive airstrikes across the country, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has reached at least 569 people, with more than 1,800 wounded. Israeli strikes have killed United Nations employees, medical workers, at least one journalist and 50 children over the past two days. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. “Lebanese civilians are paying the price,” says Aya Majzoub in Beirut, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, who calls Israel’s attacks “unprecedented” and “devastating.” “In a single day, on Monday, more than 500 people were killed. … It is one of the highest daily death tolls in recent global wars.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: At least 22 people have been killed in Lebanon today as the Israeli military continues its bombardment across Lebanon. Israel is expanding the zones of attack with strikes for the first time on the beach resort town of Jiyeh, just south of Beirut, and Maaysrah, in the mountains in the north. The death toll over the past three days is nearly 600 killed, including over 50 children, 40 women, with more than 1,800 people wounded. Tens of thousands have fled southern Lebanon, many going to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, and are sleeping in schools and parks, in their cars.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports two United Nations staffers were among those killed by Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon. Ali Basma worked as a janitor at the UNHCR’s Tyre office for seven years before he was killed in an Israeli strike Monday. And Dina Darwiche, a 12-year staff member of UNHCR’s Beqaa office who was featured in UNHCR videos, was killed along with her son in an Israeli strike that seriously injured her husband and another of their children. Another Israeli strike killed cameraman Kamel Karaki of Al-Manar TV.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems.
The U.N. Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on Lebanon today at the request of France.
For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Aya Majzoub. She’s Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Aya. Since you’re right there in Beirut, just describe the scene on the ground in the country.
AYA MAJZOUB: I mean, the onslaught that started Monday was really unprecedented. We saw tens and tens and tens of thousands of families hastily pack up their bags, leave their homes, without any idea where they’re going to next. All across Beirut now, you see cars that are parked with displaced families that have nowhere to go. The strikes have been expanding. There’s a lot of misinformation around. People are paranoid about another pager or walkie-talkie attack. I mean, the situation is really devastating.
And, Amy, you know, I really want to put the death count into perspective here. In a single day, on Monday, more than 500 people were killed, and that is a really astounding number. It is one of the highest daily death tolls in recent global wars. It is higher than most daily death tolls in Gaza in the past year. You know, in Gaza, despite the horrific Israeli onslaught, it took 18 days for the death count to reach 500. This happened in Lebanon in about 24 hours. In 2006, the 33-day war that took place between Hezbollah and Israel resulted in 1,100 deaths over 33 days. We’ve already achieved half of that in just 24 hours. So the numbers are really unprecedented.
And you see a major panic across the entire country. People don’t know where is safe anymore. The Israelis have expanded the areas that they’re targeting. They’re not limited to some areas in south Lebanon along the border and in the Beqaa. They’ve really expanded inwards into coastal cities, into mountains in the north. It really feels like nowhere is safe, and people are very much at a loss for what to do and where to go.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Aya, what about these phone calls and text messages and also reports of dropping of leaflets on the population by the Israelis? How are people reacting to that? And what indication do they have of even where to go?
AYA MAJZOUB: So, on Monday, the information minister said that around 80,000 people received calls to evacuate. And we tried to look into some of those calls, and there didn’t seem to be any pattern for who was receiving these calls. Some people in Beirut received them. Some people in the south received them, in the Beqaa. It was really all across the country. So it seemed like a tactic that was more intended to cause fear rather than an actual evacuation.
Some residents in south Lebanon did get more specific evacuation orders. But again, under international law, for evacuation orders to mean anything, they have to be effective, meaning that people must have the time to leave, and they must have the means to do so. What we saw on Monday was anything but. I mean, the instructions that people got were stay away from Hezbollah targets. Nobody knows — a civilian doesn’t know where a Hezbollah target is. So people just fled with the clothes off their back. It took 14, 15 hours for some families to make it from south Lebanon to Beirut. And we were receiving reports that there were some strikes on, you know, near where civilians were gathered to evacuate, in traffic jams. We’re still looking into those. But if that holds up, then that is also a serious violation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — that Amnesty is calling for an international investigation into the deadly attacks using these exploding portable devices. Could you talk about what you’re calling for and why? And why isn’t this patently labeled as a terrorist attack?
AYA MAJZOUB: So, under international humanitarian law and human rights law, we don’t use the term “terrorist attacks.” For us, attacks are either lawful or unlawful. Our qualification of the pager attacks is if, as is being reported and as U.S. officials and Lebanese officials have said, Israel was behind the attacks, then international humanitarian law applies, because these attacks were part of an armed conflict. Under international humanitarian law, it is prohibited to use weapons indiscriminately, which we found that the pager attacks were. The people who detonated the pagers did not know who was given the pagers or the walkie-talkies, and they did not know who would be around the individuals carrying those pagers and walkie-talkies. Therefore, the attack was indiscriminate and, therefore, unlawful under international humanitarian law and should be investigated as a war crime.
The reason that Amnesty has called for an international investigation on this particular attack is because of the risks of this kind of warfare. It transforms everyday objects, like pagers and walkie-talkies, into essentially booby traps. And there is an explicit prohibition under international humanitarian law on the use of such booby traps. But we felt that such an attack, although it didn’t cause nearly the same number of casualties as Monday’s onslaught, did instill some fear and panic into the Lebanese society and is a really dangerous method of warfare to be using. It was unprecedented. And the involvement goes far beyond just, you know, the Israeli military. There are allegations around various shell companies. So we’re trying to look into all of the multifaceted aspects of this attack, but we do feel that an international investigation in this case is warranted.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you, Aya Majzoub, if you consider this a war on Hezbollah or Israel’s war on Lebanon.
AYA MAJZOUB: I mean, in terms of the impact on civilians, it is undeniable that Lebanese civilians are paying the price. You know, a lot of the media coverage of Monday’s attacks was Israel strikes Hezbollah targets. However, you know, we’ve looked at entire neighborhoods that have been flattened, residential towers that have been brought down, people’s livelihoods, their shops, their homes, their cars, all in ruins. You mentioned the deaths of the two UNHCR staff members. The health minister also mentioned the deaths of four medics and paramedics. Ambulances are being hit, medical centers. And the wave of displacement from south Lebanon, the Beqaa and other areas is now, I think, almost 500,000 people have had to leave their homes. Not all 500,000 people are Hezbollah. So, the impact on Lebanese civilians has really been catastrophic.
AMY GOODMAN: And the response of the United States? President Biden just gave his last speech at the United Nations as U.S. president. He — let’s see — the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has characterized this as almost a full-fledged war. President Biden said, “Too many on each side of the Israeli-Lebanon border remain displaced. Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest.” Even though a “situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is not [sic] possible.” He said “is still possible,” he said. Aya Majzoub, at the same time, the U.S. continuing to provide billions of dollars to the U.S. military — to the Israeli military.
AYA MAJZOUB: Yeah. I mean, there’s an obvious hypocrisy there. We consistently, since October 7, have been calling for the suspension of weapons sales and shipments to Israel. We’ve continued to call for respect of IHL. We have, in at least one instance, documented a possible war crime that Israel committed in Lebanon using U.S. weapons. So, if the U.S. really was serious about a deescalation in the region, then they should start by stopping arms and weapons shipments to Israel and by also supporting judicial criminal proceedings, including at the ICC.
AMY GOODMAN: Aya Majzoub, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Middle East and North Africa, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 25, 2024
Thousands Flee as Israel Continues Assault on Southern Lebanon
Sep 25, 2024
Tens of thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon as Israel’s military continues intense artillery and missile attacks. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has climbed to at least 569 people, including 50 children. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of drones and rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. Israeli public media is reporting that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is readying troops for a possible ground invasion into Lebanon. In Beirut, officials say they’ve secured shelters for 10,000 people displaced from southern Lebanon. Some of the evacuees were forced into the same shelters they fled to nearly two decades ago during Israel’s July 2006 assault. This is Feryal Mehsen, a 58-year-old who narrowly survived a strike that destroyed her family home.
Feryal Mehsen: “The rocket landed in front of me. I was shocked. I couldn’t hear or see after that. Dust was all over the place. So I drove off quickly and headed to the upper road and kept going. I lost my temper because of what happened. It took me 12 to 15 hours to reach Beirut from Aitat because of the traffic congestion.”
U.N. Staffers and Journalist Among Those Killed by Israeli Strikes on Lebanon
Sep 25, 2024
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports two United Nations staffers were among those killed by Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon. Ali Basma worked as a janitor at the UNHCR’s Tyre office for seven years before he was killed in an Israeli strike on Monday. And Dina Darwiche, a UNHCR employee featured in many of the agency’s videos, was killed along with her youngest son in an Israeli strike that seriously injured her husband and her other child. A separate Israeli strike killed cameraman Kamel Karaki of Al-Manar TV. He’s at least the fifth journalist killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 7.
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 53 Palestinians, Including a Mother and Her Five Children
Sep 25, 2024
Israel’s military has continued its attacks on the Gaza Strip with at least 53 Palestinians killed over the past 24 hours. Among the dead are a mother killed along with her five children when Israel’s military bombed their house north of Rafah.
In the occupied West Bank, four Palestinians were shot and wounded as Israeli soldiers raided the Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron. Elsewhere, a Palestinian doctor was hospitalized in serious condition after he was shot by Israeli forces during a raid near the city of Qalqilya.
World Leaders Gathered at U.N. General Assembly Condemn Israel’s Assaults on Gaza, Lebanon
Sep 25, 2024
Here in New York, world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday condemned Israel’s assaults on Palestine and Lebanon. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and said the failure of nations to stop the violence showed the United Nations system and Western values are “dying.” Chilean President Gabriel Boric also condemned Israel’s actions.
President Gabriel Boric: “I refuse to choose between Hamas’s terrorism or the massacre and genocidal behavior of Netanyahu’s Israel. We do not have to choose between barbarities. I choose humanity. We denounce the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and the de facto denial of the existence of an independent Palestinian state by the occupying country.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres accused Israel of violating the United Nations Charter and said too many governments were turning a blind eye to international human rights conventions and the decisions of international courts. Meanwhile, Joe Biden delivered his last speech to the United Nations as U.S. president, calling for a diplomatic solution to end Israel’s war on Gaza — even as his administration continues to provide weapons and billions of dollars in aid to Israel’s military.
President Joe Biden: “We’re also working to bring a greater measure of peace and stability in the Middle East. The world must not flinch from the horrors of October 7th. Any country, any country would have the right and responsibility to ensure that such an attack could never happen again.”
************
“Lebanese Civilians Are Paying the Price”: Israeli Strikes Kill Nearly 600, Displace Tens of Thousands
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 25, 2024
Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The Israeli military is reportedly preparing to invade Lebanon while continuing to launch extensive airstrikes across the country, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has reached at least 569 people, with more than 1,800 wounded. Israeli strikes have killed United Nations employees, medical workers, at least one journalist and 50 children over the past two days. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. “Lebanese civilians are paying the price,” says Aya Majzoub in Beirut, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, who calls Israel’s attacks “unprecedented” and “devastating.” “In a single day, on Monday, more than 500 people were killed. … It is one of the highest daily death tolls in recent global wars.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: At least 22 people have been killed in Lebanon today as the Israeli military continues its bombardment across Lebanon. Israel is expanding the zones of attack with strikes for the first time on the beach resort town of Jiyeh, just south of Beirut, and Maaysrah, in the mountains in the north. The death toll over the past three days is nearly 600 killed, including over 50 children, 40 women, with more than 1,800 people wounded. Tens of thousands have fled southern Lebanon, many going to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, and are sleeping in schools and parks, in their cars.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports two United Nations staffers were among those killed by Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon. Ali Basma worked as a janitor at the UNHCR’s Tyre office for seven years before he was killed in an Israeli strike Monday. And Dina Darwiche, a 12-year staff member of UNHCR’s Beqaa office who was featured in UNHCR videos, was killed along with her son in an Israeli strike that seriously injured her husband and another of their children. Another Israeli strike killed cameraman Kamel Karaki of Al-Manar TV.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems.
The U.N. Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on Lebanon today at the request of France.
For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Aya Majzoub. She’s Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Aya. Since you’re right there in Beirut, just describe the scene on the ground in the country.
AYA MAJZOUB: I mean, the onslaught that started Monday was really unprecedented. We saw tens and tens and tens of thousands of families hastily pack up their bags, leave their homes, without any idea where they’re going to next. All across Beirut now, you see cars that are parked with displaced families that have nowhere to go. The strikes have been expanding. There’s a lot of misinformation around. People are paranoid about another pager or walkie-talkie attack. I mean, the situation is really devastating.
And, Amy, you know, I really want to put the death count into perspective here. In a single day, on Monday, more than 500 people were killed, and that is a really astounding number. It is one of the highest daily death tolls in recent global wars. It is higher than most daily death tolls in Gaza in the past year. You know, in Gaza, despite the horrific Israeli onslaught, it took 18 days for the death count to reach 500. This happened in Lebanon in about 24 hours. In 2006, the 33-day war that took place between Hezbollah and Israel resulted in 1,100 deaths over 33 days. We’ve already achieved half of that in just 24 hours. So the numbers are really unprecedented.
And you see a major panic across the entire country. People don’t know where is safe anymore. The Israelis have expanded the areas that they’re targeting. They’re not limited to some areas in south Lebanon along the border and in the Beqaa. They’ve really expanded inwards into coastal cities, into mountains in the north. It really feels like nowhere is safe, and people are very much at a loss for what to do and where to go.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Aya, what about these phone calls and text messages and also reports of dropping of leaflets on the population by the Israelis? How are people reacting to that? And what indication do they have of even where to go?
AYA MAJZOUB: So, on Monday, the information minister said that around 80,000 people received calls to evacuate. And we tried to look into some of those calls, and there didn’t seem to be any pattern for who was receiving these calls. Some people in Beirut received them. Some people in the south received them, in the Beqaa. It was really all across the country. So it seemed like a tactic that was more intended to cause fear rather than an actual evacuation.
Some residents in south Lebanon did get more specific evacuation orders. But again, under international law, for evacuation orders to mean anything, they have to be effective, meaning that people must have the time to leave, and they must have the means to do so. What we saw on Monday was anything but. I mean, the instructions that people got were stay away from Hezbollah targets. Nobody knows — a civilian doesn’t know where a Hezbollah target is. So people just fled with the clothes off their back. It took 14, 15 hours for some families to make it from south Lebanon to Beirut. And we were receiving reports that there were some strikes on, you know, near where civilians were gathered to evacuate, in traffic jams. We’re still looking into those. But if that holds up, then that is also a serious violation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — that Amnesty is calling for an international investigation into the deadly attacks using these exploding portable devices. Could you talk about what you’re calling for and why? And why isn’t this patently labeled as a terrorist attack?
AYA MAJZOUB: So, under international humanitarian law and human rights law, we don’t use the term “terrorist attacks.” For us, attacks are either lawful or unlawful. Our qualification of the pager attacks is if, as is being reported and as U.S. officials and Lebanese officials have said, Israel was behind the attacks, then international humanitarian law applies, because these attacks were part of an armed conflict. Under international humanitarian law, it is prohibited to use weapons indiscriminately, which we found that the pager attacks were. The people who detonated the pagers did not know who was given the pagers or the walkie-talkies, and they did not know who would be around the individuals carrying those pagers and walkie-talkies. Therefore, the attack was indiscriminate and, therefore, unlawful under international humanitarian law and should be investigated as a war crime.
The reason that Amnesty has called for an international investigation on this particular attack is because of the risks of this kind of warfare. It transforms everyday objects, like pagers and walkie-talkies, into essentially booby traps. And there is an explicit prohibition under international humanitarian law on the use of such booby traps. But we felt that such an attack, although it didn’t cause nearly the same number of casualties as Monday’s onslaught, did instill some fear and panic into the Lebanese society and is a really dangerous method of warfare to be using. It was unprecedented. And the involvement goes far beyond just, you know, the Israeli military. There are allegations around various shell companies. So we’re trying to look into all of the multifaceted aspects of this attack, but we do feel that an international investigation in this case is warranted.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you, Aya Majzoub, if you consider this a war on Hezbollah or Israel’s war on Lebanon.
AYA MAJZOUB: I mean, in terms of the impact on civilians, it is undeniable that Lebanese civilians are paying the price. You know, a lot of the media coverage of Monday’s attacks was Israel strikes Hezbollah targets. However, you know, we’ve looked at entire neighborhoods that have been flattened, residential towers that have been brought down, people’s livelihoods, their shops, their homes, their cars, all in ruins. You mentioned the deaths of the two UNHCR staff members. The health minister also mentioned the deaths of four medics and paramedics. Ambulances are being hit, medical centers. And the wave of displacement from south Lebanon, the Beqaa and other areas is now, I think, almost 500,000 people have had to leave their homes. Not all 500,000 people are Hezbollah. So, the impact on Lebanese civilians has really been catastrophic.
AMY GOODMAN: And the response of the United States? President Biden just gave his last speech at the United Nations as U.S. president. He — let’s see — the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has characterized this as almost a full-fledged war. President Biden said, “Too many on each side of the Israeli-Lebanon border remain displaced. Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest.” Even though a “situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is not [sic] possible.” He said “is still possible,” he said. Aya Majzoub, at the same time, the U.S. continuing to provide billions of dollars to the U.S. military — to the Israeli military.
AYA MAJZOUB: Yeah. I mean, there’s an obvious hypocrisy there. We consistently, since October 7, have been calling for the suspension of weapons sales and shipments to Israel. We’ve continued to call for respect of IHL. We have, in at least one instance, documented a possible war crime that Israel committed in Lebanon using U.S. weapons. So, if the U.S. really was serious about a deescalation in the region, then they should start by stopping arms and weapons shipments to Israel and by also supporting judicial criminal proceedings, including at the ICC.
AMY GOODMAN: Aya Majzoub, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Middle East and North Africa, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:22 pm
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 26, 2024
Israel Rejects Ceasefire Calls, Prepares for Possible Ground Invasion as Lebanon Death Toll Tops 620
Sep 26, 2024
Israel has rejected a possible ceasefire as it continues its assault on Lebanon. The U.S., France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia had called for a 21-day ceasefire as the death toll in Lebanon topped 620 people, at least 72 of those killed on Wednesday. Despite resounding international warnings against escalating attacks, Israel is doubling down, with its military chief Herzi Halevi telling troops Wednesday, “You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day. This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
Half a million people in Lebanon are now believed to be displaced. Hospitals are overrun with victims of Israeli attacks. This is Dr. Adel Raee, director of the Raee Hospital in Sidon.
Dr. Adel Raee: “Since Monday until today, we have received 136 wounded, including 36 martyrs. Among those 36 martyrs, 18 were torn to pieces. There are still bodies in the morgue that require DNA testing for identification.”
We’ll go to Lebanon for the latest later in the broadcast.
“Israel Is Violating Our Sovereignty”: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Pleads with UNSC to Do Its Job
Sep 26, 2024
Here in New York, Lebanon’s interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati pleaded with the U.N. Security Council Wednesday to intervene to stop Israel’s bombardment during an emergency session. Mikati said, “Israel is violating our sovereignty by sending their warplanes and drones to our skies.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke from the sidelines of the Security Council meeting Wednesday.
Abbas Araghchi: “The Security Council must act now to halt Israel’s war and enforce an immediate ceasefire, and by that, to save innocent lives. If not, the region risks full-scale conflict, and history will hold Israel’s enablers, especially the United States, responsible. … Iran will not remain indifferent in case of a full-scale war in Lebanon. We stand with the people of Lebanon with all means.”
This comes as a new Oxfam report is calling for urgent reform of the “colonial and archaic” Security Council. Oxfam says the UNSC’s five permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K. and France — are “failing people living in conflict” as they consistently abuse their veto power in their own interests, blocking opportunities for peace around the world.
One Year into Genocide, Palestinians in Gaza Warn Israel Is Poised to Subject Lebanon to Same Fate
Sep 26, 2024
In Gaza, displaced Palestinians are expressing solidarity with Lebanese people under Israeli attack.
Umm Muhammad Abu Shaqfa: “What is happening to us in Gaza is happening to Lebanon now. I have been displaced from the north for the last five months. And the world is quiet and is still standing by Israel. How is it the world is standing by it? In what viewpoint are they standing by them? How did they see the oppressor, and how did they see the oppressed? I don’t understand how. I don’t know how to comprehend this in my head, this mass genocide, the massacre of children, women, elderly, and making us live in tents and crisis that have no end. And now they are doing the same to Lebanon. But the war will not end unless it ends in Lebanon. If it ends in Lebanon, it will end in Gaza.”
Israel Dumps Truck with 88 Unidentified Palestinian Bodies in Gaza
Sep 26, 2024
In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry refused to receive an Israeli truck filled with the unidentified remains of 88 Palestinians killed by Israel. A distraught mother searching for her missing son went to meet the truck.
Umm Tamer Yassin: “I got a call telling me there are dead bodies coming from Israel. I came running to see if my son is fine or dead. I want to know if he is among the dead bodies. … Look! These are dead bodies being thrown. They throw it to the people, left them to the streets, and their families cannot identify their bodies. Here is the truck. The bodies are inside. We cannot see them.”
Journalist Mujahed al-Saadi Arrested Amid Unprecedented Israeli Assault on West Bank Reporters
Sep 26, 2024
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank over the past year. CPJ has documented a total of 54 such arrests since October 7; 36 remain jailed, including 14 held without charges under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy. Among them is Palestinian journalist Mujahed al-Saadi, who was beaten along with his wife by Israeli soldiers during a violent raid on their home in the early hours of September 19. He has since had no contact with his lawyer or family.
“It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive” Wins Emmy for Outstanding Hard News Feature
Sep 26, 2024
Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda has won a News and Documentary Emmy for her AJ+ report “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” A group of Hollywood celebrities and pro-Israel groups unsuccessfully attempted to disqualify Owda’s widely acclaimed report, which chronicles her family’s forced evacuation of their home in Beit Hanoun after Israel launched its assault on Gaza.
***************
“Hell Is Breaking Loose in Lebanon”: Israel Rejects Ceasefire Proposal as U.N. Chief Calls for Peace
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 26, 2024
Israel is continuing its bombardment of Lebanon and preparing for a possible ground invasion of the country, with the Netanyahu government rejecting a proposed 21-day ceasefire put forward by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. About 500,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced, and the Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days. “There is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now,” says Beirut-based journalist Lara Bitar, who details how Israel has repeatedly attacked and invaded Lebanese territory going back decades. “The source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Lebanon, where some 500,000 people have been displaced by Israel’s bombardment. The Lebanese Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days. Earlier today, Israel rejected a proposed 21-day ceasefire that had been called for by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Israel has called up two brigades to the Lebanese border in a sign that a ground invasion could be imminent. U.N. Secretary-General António Gutteres called for peace on Wednesday.
SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon. … An all-out war must be avoided at all costs. It would surely be an all-out catastrophe. The people of Lebanon, as well as the people of Israel and the people of the world, cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Beirut, where we’re joined by Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
Lara, if you can talk about what’s happening on the ground in Beirut? And here we are in New York right next to the United Nations. You have this international call for a ceasefire, but apparently the Netanyahu government of Israel is saying no, the Israeli general in charge of the IDF forces rallying troops, saying he’s preparing them for a ground invasion of Lebanon.
LARA BITAR: Good morning.
Here in Beirut, nobody really has any hope in these processes in the United Nations, in the words of the Biden administration or in the words also of the Netanyahu government.
I wanted to share with you some things that were relayed to me by one of our journalists who is now working in the south. He is going around to different schools that are hosting people who have been displaced from their homes but remain in southern Lebanon. So, first, he relayed to me that people are very, very tired. They’re unable to sleep for longer than a few minutes at a time because of the relentless bombardment by Israel. And he said that the shelters are full with elderly people, who have lived through so many massacres and witnessed so much horror inflicted by the Israeli settler colony. And he shared the story of one woman in particular. He said that she was in her eighties. She was wearing her house key as a pendant. And she told him that this is nothing in comparison to what they have lived through over the past few decades. And she mentioned the 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut, the first Qana massacre in 1996, the second Qana massacre in 2006, and so on and so forth.
And the one thing that I want to relay here is that for a lot of these people who have been displaced from their homes, whose homes have been destroyed, their attachment to their land only grows stronger. And this is a prevailing sentiment among those who have been displaced. And this is not uncommon for Lebanon.
So, if you will just allow me 30 seconds or so, I would like to read a brief passage that I came across yesterday, written by Mahdi Amel, who was a Marxist intellectual. And he wrote this a few months after the 1982 invasion of Beirut. And he writes, “They said that the war in Lebanon would be swift and that in a few days those who have not knelt and who understand only the language of force would kneel. They declared that there would be no salaam, but shalom, and that Israel is the Rome of our modern times. To the kings of Israel, to the scum of our nation and our foul Arab regimes, to the petty fascists and to their imperialist masters, we say: It pleases us to spit in your faces. We will fight you even with our nails. Our fists are the compass of history. And the bullet of our freedom will pierce your hearts. To them, we say, brick by brick, we build a world on your graves. You are the dustbin of history, and Beirut is the city of the free. We have vowed that we will resist you.”
And this is not to say that everyone in Lebanon shares this sentiment, and definitely not the over 200,000, up to half a million people who have been displaced from their homes over the past few weeks, because there is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now. People are struggling to find housing, shelter, food, diapers, milk. Hospitals are at capacity. People are really exhausted and suffering across the board. But for the most part, this pain can be pinpointed — the source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Lara Bitar, you talked about this quotation that you read from 1982, when Israel invaded in 1982, and you’ve said that you don’t have much faith in a ceasefire. So, if you could provide some context to a possible imminent invasion, Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Talk about what happened in not just 1982, but also in 1978 and 2006.
LARA BITAR: I think we have to take very, very seriously every genocidal intent that is now being uttered by different government and military officials in Israel. Lebanon has a long history of invasions and occupation and terror by the Israeli state. And we can go even further back, to ’47, ’48. Lebanon [sic] seized over a dozen Lebanese towns and villages in ’78. There was also an invasion in ’82. The ’82 invasion lasted until the liberation in May 2000. There was also an attempted ground operation in 2006. And in terms of the 2006 attempted ground invasion into Lebanon, soldiers who returned home recounted how traumatizing it was for them, how they felt that they were fighting with ghosts. They could not see the fighters on the other side.
So, I think it’s important to note that coming into Lebanon is deeply traumatizing and frightening experience for the Israeli soldiers, who are accustomed to throwing bombs from the safety of the airspace. But on-the-ground battle, on-the-ground confrontation with real fighters who are fighting for their land, for their country, for their people, they don’t stand much of a chance.
And to the point of pushing for a ceasefire or for a truce or for the Biden administration having any kind of redline, we saw exactly what happened in Gaza over the past 11 months. The Biden administration was repeatedly saying that Rafah was a redline, that a ground invasion into Gaza was a redline. But the Israeli state, there were absolutely no repercussions, no ramifications for any of the actions that the Israeli state was doing. And this is what compelled it to continue to escalate, to continue to escalate its massacres, its terror of the Palestinian people in Gaza, who to this day continue to endure daily massacres that are not being reported on as much as they were at the beginning of the war.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lara Bitar, so, if you could tell us a little bit more about how you think Hezbollah might respond to a possible invasion? And also explain Resolution — U.N. Resolution 1701, because the U.N. secretary-general, speaking Wednesday, he warned that Lebanon is at the brink, calling for an urgent ceasefire, but he also called for the implementation of U.N. Resolutions 1559 and 1701.
LARA BITAR: I can’t really predict how Hezbollah will respond, but what we know is that, so far, Hezbollah has continuously tried to deescalate. Hezbollah is not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. They have consistently aimed their weapons at military infrastructure and sites and soldiers, even after the pager attack, the walkie-talkie attack, repeated campaigns on Dahieh. Just a few minutes ago, before I joined you, Dahieh was yet again bombarded by the Israelis. I think this is the eighth attack on the Lebanese capital. Despite all of this escalation from the Israeli side, Hezbollah remains restraint, continues to try to deescalate. And the only ask here, which is not a really unreasonable ask, is for Israel to immediately end its war on the Palestinian people of Gaza after 11 months.
As far as U.N. resolutions, for the most part, they’re not legally binding. For the most part, they’re not respected. The 1701 Resolution, that was adopted after the 2006 war, is habitually, if not daily, violated by the Israelis in a variety of different ways. That’s why the majority of the Lebanese population is not holding its breath waiting for a U.N. resolution or for the Security Council or even for the international community. I think not just the people in Lebanon, but people around the world have completely lost faith in the so-called international order, the rule of law.
So, right now we can only expect things to get significantly worse. So long as the international community does not take any action to halt the insanity and the barbarism of the Israeli state, so long as the Western world continues to supply the Israelis with weapons, with support, with diplomatic cover, we have very little chance of seeing an end to this campaign anytime soon.
But on the other hand, what people can do, people anywhere can boycott Israel, can put pressure on their institutions, on their universities, on the corporations in which they work, and to divest from Israel. The only chance that we have is for the world and for comrades around the world to put this kind of pressure on their governments and on their institutions to isolate Israel, because Israel will only stop this campaign and this war around the region if it becomes too costly for it. And right now it’s not paying any kind of price for its actions.
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, Lara Bitar, there is a protest that is approaching the United Nations now, especially people protesting what’s happening in Gaza. You have Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who delayed his trip by a day. He was supposed to address the U.N. General Assembly today; he’s going to do it tomorrow. What do you expect him to say? And in the U.S. media, on television, they’re saying that Blinken has been desperately, you know, rallying countries on the sidelines to get this 21-day ceasefire that the U.S., France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are now calling for. But you have The Guardian reporting that, in fact, an effort by France and Britain to secure a joint statement by the U.N. Security Council calling for a ceasefire has stalled in the face of U.S. objections. Your final thoughts, Lara?
LARA BITAR: At the risk of repeating myself, I don’t see —or, we, for the most part, don’t really believe anything that’s coming out of the Biden administration, neither its White House spokespeople or Blinken and others who are representing the U.S. And again, we have seen these maneuvers and this manipulation of public opinion, manipulation of the press for 11 months. They are not serious about a ceasefire, neither in Gaza nor in Lebanon, regardless of what they’re saying, regardless of what narrative they’re trying to sell us. We’re simply not buying it.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Bitar, I want to thank you for being with us, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization, speaking to us from Lebanon.
Next up, Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, two government bodies concluded. Antony Blinken rejected them. We’ll speak to the reporter who exposed this story in ProPublica. Stay with us.
***
U.S. Gov’t Agencies Found Israel Was Blocking Gaza Aid. Blinken Ignored Them to Keep Weapons Flowing
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 26, 2024
We speak with Brett Murphy, the ProPublica reporterbehind a blockbuster exposé that revealed the Biden administration ignored warnings from its own experts about Israel blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to keep supplying the country with weapons. USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded earlier this year that Israeli authorities routinely impeded delivery of food and medicine into the devastated Palestinian territory, where hunger, disease and displacement have wreaked havoc on the civilian population. Although U.S. law requires the government to stop arms shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed aid, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ignored the findings and told Congress Israel was not restricting humanitarian assistance — helping to keep weapons flowing to the Israeli military to continue its assault on Gaza.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: ProPublica has revealed USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies even though they’re considered the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries preventing the delivery of U.S.-backed aid. Days after receiving the reports, Blinken told Congress, quote, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, called for Blinken’s resignation, accusing him of lying to Congress. [Blinken] was asked about the ProPublica report Wednesday on CBS. This was his response.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: So, this is actually pretty, pretty typical. We had a report to put out on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and what Israel was doing to try to make sure that people got the assistance they needed. And I had different assessments from different parts of the State Department, from other agencies that were involved, like USAID. My job is to sort through them, which I did, draw some conclusions from that. And we put our report, and we found that Israel needed to do a better job on the humanitarian assistance. We’ve seen improvements since then. It’s still not sufficient.
AMY GOODMAN: Of course, that was U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
We’re joined now by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Brett Murphy, a reporter at ProPublica, where his new piece is headlined “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.”
Can you respond to Blinken’s response to your report, Brett?
BRETT MURPHY: Yeah. So, he said, basically, it was his decision to make. He was getting a lot of information, and he ultimately decided that it was not the assessment of the State Department that the Israelis were deliberately blocking aid.
What he didn’t mention and what’s really important to note here is that the two agencies that had told him that they were in fact deliberately blocking aid, one being USAID, are the foremost experts in this, as you said. They are the ones responsible for delivering humanitarian assistance into Gaza, into war zones all over the world. In addition to that, his own refugees bureau had made a similar conclusion called that a law called the Foreign Assistance Act should have been triggered because the Israelis were restricting aid.
The other assessments he was receiving were nowhere near as detailed as what he received from USAID. They sent a 17-page memo with detailed evidence describing exactly what they knew to be the truth on the ground, and he ultimately rejected those findings in what he told Congress.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, if you could elaborate, Brett, also on what U.S. obligations are under the Foreign Assistance Act?
BRETT MURPHY: Sure, yeah. So, it’s this law that has not been used very much systematically, but it basically says a foreign partner or ally that is receiving military assistance from the U.S. cannot at the same time be blocking U.S.-backed humanitarian assistance into a war zone. If it is the conclusion of the U.S. government that that is happening, the U.S. government is then required to cut off the military assistance. That’s what the law says.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Is there any other context in which this has occurred, that the U.S. has denied that a country is preventing U.S. aid from getting in in a conflict zone?
BRETT MURPHY: The last time it came up was in Turkey and Armenia. That was kind of the original context of the law itself. But, like I was saying, we have never truly been applying this in a systematic way. So, this has really been an obscure provision in the Foreign Assistance Act, but this year lawmakers, activist groups have been calling for the Biden administration to be using this exact provision.
AMY GOODMAN: We interviewed two people: Stacy Gilbert, the former senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration — she resigned over this after 20 years in service — and Alex Smith, a former contractor for USAID, who was forced to resign over the Biden administration’s support for the war on Gaza. Talk about the significance of what they did, and Antony Blinken understanding full well what they understood and why they left.
BRETT MURPHY: Stacy Gilbert worked on the report that Secretary Blinken ultimately delivered to Congress. She was working on the drafts of that report. She was in the refugees bureau. She had a very clear understanding of what was going on. And what she ultimately said, when she resigned, when she saw the final version of what he had told Congress, she said, “We know this not to be true. We, the experts inside of the government, know that the truth on the ground is that the Israelis have been blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza.” This is what she said, and this is what she resigned over. And she said in her resignation letter that this report, what he told Congress, “is going to haunt us.”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And can you explain: How detailed was that USAID memo that Blinken saw?
BRETT MURPHY: It was extremely detailed. It’s 17 pages of evidence that they were bringing to bear. The example that stuck out to me the most was on food, food shipments that were being held up just 30 miles outside of Gaza. There was enough flour, USAID said, to feed 1.5 million Palestinians for at least five months. But at the time — this was in the February to March timeframe — Israelis were not allowing flour into Gaza, because they said it was going to the U.N.’s branch there that had been accused of having ties to Hamas, so they were not allowing the flour in.
And this is what — this is the kind of thing that was really bothering USAID and frustrating their efforts. They couldn’t get food in. They couldn’t get medicine in, other supplies. A lot of their trucks, from, like, the Red Crescent, other humanitarian groups, were being turned around because of items in there the Israelis were not allowing in. Aid workers had been killed. Their convoys had been targeted. These were all the types of examples that USAID was telling Secretary Blinken.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And basically, there’s no recourse now, right, because it’s done? Or is there anything that the U.S., the Biden administration could now do differently?
BRETT MURPHY: Yeah, the law is not — it was not just a one-time shot. And this is what the U.S. government said, too, in response. They said, “We’re currently — we’re always assessing the situation.” They said that they believed that the situation was improving since after they applied leverage with this. The folks I talked to, both inside the government and in the humanitarian world, said that’s not true at all. The situation is as bad as it’s ever been, including since the Rafah incursion. But this law does not only have — you know, whenever Blinken addresses Congress to it; it can be applied at any point.
AMY GOODMAN: That they could cut off, that the U.S. government could cut off aid to — military arms to Israel.
BRETT MURPHY: Absolutely. If it assesses that the Israelis are deliberately blocking humanitarian assistance at any point, they can apply this law. That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: Brett Murphy, we want to thank you for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for ProPublica. We’ll link to your new article, “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.”
And this update from the streets of New York: Twenty-five protesters have been arrested outside the United Nations ahead of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arrival to address the U.N. on Friday. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 26, 2024
Israel Rejects Ceasefire Calls, Prepares for Possible Ground Invasion as Lebanon Death Toll Tops 620
Sep 26, 2024
Israel has rejected a possible ceasefire as it continues its assault on Lebanon. The U.S., France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia had called for a 21-day ceasefire as the death toll in Lebanon topped 620 people, at least 72 of those killed on Wednesday. Despite resounding international warnings against escalating attacks, Israel is doubling down, with its military chief Herzi Halevi telling troops Wednesday, “You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day. This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
Half a million people in Lebanon are now believed to be displaced. Hospitals are overrun with victims of Israeli attacks. This is Dr. Adel Raee, director of the Raee Hospital in Sidon.
Dr. Adel Raee: “Since Monday until today, we have received 136 wounded, including 36 martyrs. Among those 36 martyrs, 18 were torn to pieces. There are still bodies in the morgue that require DNA testing for identification.”
We’ll go to Lebanon for the latest later in the broadcast.
“Israel Is Violating Our Sovereignty”: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Pleads with UNSC to Do Its Job
Sep 26, 2024
Here in New York, Lebanon’s interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati pleaded with the U.N. Security Council Wednesday to intervene to stop Israel’s bombardment during an emergency session. Mikati said, “Israel is violating our sovereignty by sending their warplanes and drones to our skies.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke from the sidelines of the Security Council meeting Wednesday.
Abbas Araghchi: “The Security Council must act now to halt Israel’s war and enforce an immediate ceasefire, and by that, to save innocent lives. If not, the region risks full-scale conflict, and history will hold Israel’s enablers, especially the United States, responsible. … Iran will not remain indifferent in case of a full-scale war in Lebanon. We stand with the people of Lebanon with all means.”
This comes as a new Oxfam report is calling for urgent reform of the “colonial and archaic” Security Council. Oxfam says the UNSC’s five permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K. and France — are “failing people living in conflict” as they consistently abuse their veto power in their own interests, blocking opportunities for peace around the world.
One Year into Genocide, Palestinians in Gaza Warn Israel Is Poised to Subject Lebanon to Same Fate
Sep 26, 2024
In Gaza, displaced Palestinians are expressing solidarity with Lebanese people under Israeli attack.
Umm Muhammad Abu Shaqfa: “What is happening to us in Gaza is happening to Lebanon now. I have been displaced from the north for the last five months. And the world is quiet and is still standing by Israel. How is it the world is standing by it? In what viewpoint are they standing by them? How did they see the oppressor, and how did they see the oppressed? I don’t understand how. I don’t know how to comprehend this in my head, this mass genocide, the massacre of children, women, elderly, and making us live in tents and crisis that have no end. And now they are doing the same to Lebanon. But the war will not end unless it ends in Lebanon. If it ends in Lebanon, it will end in Gaza.”
Israel Dumps Truck with 88 Unidentified Palestinian Bodies in Gaza
Sep 26, 2024
In Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry refused to receive an Israeli truck filled with the unidentified remains of 88 Palestinians killed by Israel. A distraught mother searching for her missing son went to meet the truck.
Umm Tamer Yassin: “I got a call telling me there are dead bodies coming from Israel. I came running to see if my son is fine or dead. I want to know if he is among the dead bodies. … Look! These are dead bodies being thrown. They throw it to the people, left them to the streets, and their families cannot identify their bodies. Here is the truck. The bodies are inside. We cannot see them.”
Journalist Mujahed al-Saadi Arrested Amid Unprecedented Israeli Assault on West Bank Reporters
Sep 26, 2024
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank over the past year. CPJ has documented a total of 54 such arrests since October 7; 36 remain jailed, including 14 held without charges under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy. Among them is Palestinian journalist Mujahed al-Saadi, who was beaten along with his wife by Israeli soldiers during a violent raid on their home in the early hours of September 19. He has since had no contact with his lawyer or family.
“It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive” Wins Emmy for Outstanding Hard News Feature
Sep 26, 2024
Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda has won a News and Documentary Emmy for her AJ+ report “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” A group of Hollywood celebrities and pro-Israel groups unsuccessfully attempted to disqualify Owda’s widely acclaimed report, which chronicles her family’s forced evacuation of their home in Beit Hanoun after Israel launched its assault on Gaza.
***************
“Hell Is Breaking Loose in Lebanon”: Israel Rejects Ceasefire Proposal as U.N. Chief Calls for Peace
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 26, 2024
Israel is continuing its bombardment of Lebanon and preparing for a possible ground invasion of the country, with the Netanyahu government rejecting a proposed 21-day ceasefire put forward by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. About 500,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced, and the Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days. “There is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now,” says Beirut-based journalist Lara Bitar, who details how Israel has repeatedly attacked and invaded Lebanese territory going back decades. “The source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Lebanon, where some 500,000 people have been displaced by Israel’s bombardment. The Lebanese Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days. Earlier today, Israel rejected a proposed 21-day ceasefire that had been called for by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Israel has called up two brigades to the Lebanese border in a sign that a ground invasion could be imminent. U.N. Secretary-General António Gutteres called for peace on Wednesday.
SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon. … An all-out war must be avoided at all costs. It would surely be an all-out catastrophe. The people of Lebanon, as well as the people of Israel and the people of the world, cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Beirut, where we’re joined by Lara Bitar, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization.
Lara, if you can talk about what’s happening on the ground in Beirut? And here we are in New York right next to the United Nations. You have this international call for a ceasefire, but apparently the Netanyahu government of Israel is saying no, the Israeli general in charge of the IDF forces rallying troops, saying he’s preparing them for a ground invasion of Lebanon.
LARA BITAR: Good morning.
Here in Beirut, nobody really has any hope in these processes in the United Nations, in the words of the Biden administration or in the words also of the Netanyahu government.
I wanted to share with you some things that were relayed to me by one of our journalists who is now working in the south. He is going around to different schools that are hosting people who have been displaced from their homes but remain in southern Lebanon. So, first, he relayed to me that people are very, very tired. They’re unable to sleep for longer than a few minutes at a time because of the relentless bombardment by Israel. And he said that the shelters are full with elderly people, who have lived through so many massacres and witnessed so much horror inflicted by the Israeli settler colony. And he shared the story of one woman in particular. He said that she was in her eighties. She was wearing her house key as a pendant. And she told him that this is nothing in comparison to what they have lived through over the past few decades. And she mentioned the 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut, the first Qana massacre in 1996, the second Qana massacre in 2006, and so on and so forth.
And the one thing that I want to relay here is that for a lot of these people who have been displaced from their homes, whose homes have been destroyed, their attachment to their land only grows stronger. And this is a prevailing sentiment among those who have been displaced. And this is not uncommon for Lebanon.
So, if you will just allow me 30 seconds or so, I would like to read a brief passage that I came across yesterday, written by Mahdi Amel, who was a Marxist intellectual. And he wrote this a few months after the 1982 invasion of Beirut. And he writes, “They said that the war in Lebanon would be swift and that in a few days those who have not knelt and who understand only the language of force would kneel. They declared that there would be no salaam, but shalom, and that Israel is the Rome of our modern times. To the kings of Israel, to the scum of our nation and our foul Arab regimes, to the petty fascists and to their imperialist masters, we say: It pleases us to spit in your faces. We will fight you even with our nails. Our fists are the compass of history. And the bullet of our freedom will pierce your hearts. To them, we say, brick by brick, we build a world on your graves. You are the dustbin of history, and Beirut is the city of the free. We have vowed that we will resist you.”
And this is not to say that everyone in Lebanon shares this sentiment, and definitely not the over 200,000, up to half a million people who have been displaced from their homes over the past few weeks, because there is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now. People are struggling to find housing, shelter, food, diapers, milk. Hospitals are at capacity. People are really exhausted and suffering across the board. But for the most part, this pain can be pinpointed — the source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Lara Bitar, you talked about this quotation that you read from 1982, when Israel invaded in 1982, and you’ve said that you don’t have much faith in a ceasefire. So, if you could provide some context to a possible imminent invasion, Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Talk about what happened in not just 1982, but also in 1978 and 2006.
LARA BITAR: I think we have to take very, very seriously every genocidal intent that is now being uttered by different government and military officials in Israel. Lebanon has a long history of invasions and occupation and terror by the Israeli state. And we can go even further back, to ’47, ’48. Lebanon [sic] seized over a dozen Lebanese towns and villages in ’78. There was also an invasion in ’82. The ’82 invasion lasted until the liberation in May 2000. There was also an attempted ground operation in 2006. And in terms of the 2006 attempted ground invasion into Lebanon, soldiers who returned home recounted how traumatizing it was for them, how they felt that they were fighting with ghosts. They could not see the fighters on the other side.
So, I think it’s important to note that coming into Lebanon is deeply traumatizing and frightening experience for the Israeli soldiers, who are accustomed to throwing bombs from the safety of the airspace. But on-the-ground battle, on-the-ground confrontation with real fighters who are fighting for their land, for their country, for their people, they don’t stand much of a chance.
And to the point of pushing for a ceasefire or for a truce or for the Biden administration having any kind of redline, we saw exactly what happened in Gaza over the past 11 months. The Biden administration was repeatedly saying that Rafah was a redline, that a ground invasion into Gaza was a redline. But the Israeli state, there were absolutely no repercussions, no ramifications for any of the actions that the Israeli state was doing. And this is what compelled it to continue to escalate, to continue to escalate its massacres, its terror of the Palestinian people in Gaza, who to this day continue to endure daily massacres that are not being reported on as much as they were at the beginning of the war.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lara Bitar, so, if you could tell us a little bit more about how you think Hezbollah might respond to a possible invasion? And also explain Resolution — U.N. Resolution 1701, because the U.N. secretary-general, speaking Wednesday, he warned that Lebanon is at the brink, calling for an urgent ceasefire, but he also called for the implementation of U.N. Resolutions 1559 and 1701.
LARA BITAR: I can’t really predict how Hezbollah will respond, but what we know is that, so far, Hezbollah has continuously tried to deescalate. Hezbollah is not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. They have consistently aimed their weapons at military infrastructure and sites and soldiers, even after the pager attack, the walkie-talkie attack, repeated campaigns on Dahieh. Just a few minutes ago, before I joined you, Dahieh was yet again bombarded by the Israelis. I think this is the eighth attack on the Lebanese capital. Despite all of this escalation from the Israeli side, Hezbollah remains restraint, continues to try to deescalate. And the only ask here, which is not a really unreasonable ask, is for Israel to immediately end its war on the Palestinian people of Gaza after 11 months.
As far as U.N. resolutions, for the most part, they’re not legally binding. For the most part, they’re not respected. The 1701 Resolution, that was adopted after the 2006 war, is habitually, if not daily, violated by the Israelis in a variety of different ways. That’s why the majority of the Lebanese population is not holding its breath waiting for a U.N. resolution or for the Security Council or even for the international community. I think not just the people in Lebanon, but people around the world have completely lost faith in the so-called international order, the rule of law.
So, right now we can only expect things to get significantly worse. So long as the international community does not take any action to halt the insanity and the barbarism of the Israeli state, so long as the Western world continues to supply the Israelis with weapons, with support, with diplomatic cover, we have very little chance of seeing an end to this campaign anytime soon.
But on the other hand, what people can do, people anywhere can boycott Israel, can put pressure on their institutions, on their universities, on the corporations in which they work, and to divest from Israel. The only chance that we have is for the world and for comrades around the world to put this kind of pressure on their governments and on their institutions to isolate Israel, because Israel will only stop this campaign and this war around the region if it becomes too costly for it. And right now it’s not paying any kind of price for its actions.
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, Lara Bitar, there is a protest that is approaching the United Nations now, especially people protesting what’s happening in Gaza. You have Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who delayed his trip by a day. He was supposed to address the U.N. General Assembly today; he’s going to do it tomorrow. What do you expect him to say? And in the U.S. media, on television, they’re saying that Blinken has been desperately, you know, rallying countries on the sidelines to get this 21-day ceasefire that the U.S., France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are now calling for. But you have The Guardian reporting that, in fact, an effort by France and Britain to secure a joint statement by the U.N. Security Council calling for a ceasefire has stalled in the face of U.S. objections. Your final thoughts, Lara?
LARA BITAR: At the risk of repeating myself, I don’t see —or, we, for the most part, don’t really believe anything that’s coming out of the Biden administration, neither its White House spokespeople or Blinken and others who are representing the U.S. And again, we have seen these maneuvers and this manipulation of public opinion, manipulation of the press for 11 months. They are not serious about a ceasefire, neither in Gaza nor in Lebanon, regardless of what they’re saying, regardless of what narrative they’re trying to sell us. We’re simply not buying it.
AMY GOODMAN: Lara Bitar, I want to thank you for being with us, editor-in-chief of The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organization, speaking to us from Lebanon.
Next up, Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, two government bodies concluded. Antony Blinken rejected them. We’ll speak to the reporter who exposed this story in ProPublica. Stay with us.
***
U.S. Gov’t Agencies Found Israel Was Blocking Gaza Aid. Blinken Ignored Them to Keep Weapons Flowing
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 26, 2024
We speak with Brett Murphy, the ProPublica reporterbehind a blockbuster exposé that revealed the Biden administration ignored warnings from its own experts about Israel blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to keep supplying the country with weapons. USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded earlier this year that Israeli authorities routinely impeded delivery of food and medicine into the devastated Palestinian territory, where hunger, disease and displacement have wreaked havoc on the civilian population. Although U.S. law requires the government to stop arms shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed aid, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ignored the findings and told Congress Israel was not restricting humanitarian assistance — helping to keep weapons flowing to the Israeli military to continue its assault on Gaza.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: ProPublica has revealed USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies even though they’re considered the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries preventing the delivery of U.S.-backed aid. Days after receiving the reports, Blinken told Congress, quote, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, called for Blinken’s resignation, accusing him of lying to Congress. [Blinken] was asked about the ProPublica report Wednesday on CBS. This was his response.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: So, this is actually pretty, pretty typical. We had a report to put out on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and what Israel was doing to try to make sure that people got the assistance they needed. And I had different assessments from different parts of the State Department, from other agencies that were involved, like USAID. My job is to sort through them, which I did, draw some conclusions from that. And we put our report, and we found that Israel needed to do a better job on the humanitarian assistance. We’ve seen improvements since then. It’s still not sufficient.
AMY GOODMAN: Of course, that was U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
We’re joined now by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Brett Murphy, a reporter at ProPublica, where his new piece is headlined “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.”
Can you respond to Blinken’s response to your report, Brett?
BRETT MURPHY: Yeah. So, he said, basically, it was his decision to make. He was getting a lot of information, and he ultimately decided that it was not the assessment of the State Department that the Israelis were deliberately blocking aid.
What he didn’t mention and what’s really important to note here is that the two agencies that had told him that they were in fact deliberately blocking aid, one being USAID, are the foremost experts in this, as you said. They are the ones responsible for delivering humanitarian assistance into Gaza, into war zones all over the world. In addition to that, his own refugees bureau had made a similar conclusion called that a law called the Foreign Assistance Act should have been triggered because the Israelis were restricting aid.
The other assessments he was receiving were nowhere near as detailed as what he received from USAID. They sent a 17-page memo with detailed evidence describing exactly what they knew to be the truth on the ground, and he ultimately rejected those findings in what he told Congress.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, if you could elaborate, Brett, also on what U.S. obligations are under the Foreign Assistance Act?
BRETT MURPHY: Sure, yeah. So, it’s this law that has not been used very much systematically, but it basically says a foreign partner or ally that is receiving military assistance from the U.S. cannot at the same time be blocking U.S.-backed humanitarian assistance into a war zone. If it is the conclusion of the U.S. government that that is happening, the U.S. government is then required to cut off the military assistance. That’s what the law says.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Is there any other context in which this has occurred, that the U.S. has denied that a country is preventing U.S. aid from getting in in a conflict zone?
BRETT MURPHY: The last time it came up was in Turkey and Armenia. That was kind of the original context of the law itself. But, like I was saying, we have never truly been applying this in a systematic way. So, this has really been an obscure provision in the Foreign Assistance Act, but this year lawmakers, activist groups have been calling for the Biden administration to be using this exact provision.
AMY GOODMAN: We interviewed two people: Stacy Gilbert, the former senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration — she resigned over this after 20 years in service — and Alex Smith, a former contractor for USAID, who was forced to resign over the Biden administration’s support for the war on Gaza. Talk about the significance of what they did, and Antony Blinken understanding full well what they understood and why they left.
BRETT MURPHY: Stacy Gilbert worked on the report that Secretary Blinken ultimately delivered to Congress. She was working on the drafts of that report. She was in the refugees bureau. She had a very clear understanding of what was going on. And what she ultimately said, when she resigned, when she saw the final version of what he had told Congress, she said, “We know this not to be true. We, the experts inside of the government, know that the truth on the ground is that the Israelis have been blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza.” This is what she said, and this is what she resigned over. And she said in her resignation letter that this report, what he told Congress, “is going to haunt us.”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And can you explain: How detailed was that USAID memo that Blinken saw?
BRETT MURPHY: It was extremely detailed. It’s 17 pages of evidence that they were bringing to bear. The example that stuck out to me the most was on food, food shipments that were being held up just 30 miles outside of Gaza. There was enough flour, USAID said, to feed 1.5 million Palestinians for at least five months. But at the time — this was in the February to March timeframe — Israelis were not allowing flour into Gaza, because they said it was going to the U.N.’s branch there that had been accused of having ties to Hamas, so they were not allowing the flour in.
And this is what — this is the kind of thing that was really bothering USAID and frustrating their efforts. They couldn’t get food in. They couldn’t get medicine in, other supplies. A lot of their trucks, from, like, the Red Crescent, other humanitarian groups, were being turned around because of items in there the Israelis were not allowing in. Aid workers had been killed. Their convoys had been targeted. These were all the types of examples that USAID was telling Secretary Blinken.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And basically, there’s no recourse now, right, because it’s done? Or is there anything that the U.S., the Biden administration could now do differently?
BRETT MURPHY: Yeah, the law is not — it was not just a one-time shot. And this is what the U.S. government said, too, in response. They said, “We’re currently — we’re always assessing the situation.” They said that they believed that the situation was improving since after they applied leverage with this. The folks I talked to, both inside the government and in the humanitarian world, said that’s not true at all. The situation is as bad as it’s ever been, including since the Rafah incursion. But this law does not only have — you know, whenever Blinken addresses Congress to it; it can be applied at any point.
AMY GOODMAN: That they could cut off, that the U.S. government could cut off aid to — military arms to Israel.
BRETT MURPHY: Absolutely. If it assesses that the Israelis are deliberately blocking humanitarian assistance at any point, they can apply this law. That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: Brett Murphy, we want to thank you for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for ProPublica. We’ll link to your new article, “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.”
And this update from the streets of New York: Twenty-five protesters have been arrested outside the United Nations ahead of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arrival to address the U.N. on Friday. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:28 pm
Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them. Blinken told Congress, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting” aid, even though the U.S. Agency for International Development and others had determined that Israel had broken the law.
by Brett Murphy
Propublica
Sept. 24, 5 a.m. EDT
https://www.propublica.org/article/gaza ... id-blinken
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.
The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
Prior to his report, USAID had sent Blinken a detailed 17-page memo on Israel’s conduct. The memo described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.
Lifesaving food was stockpiled less than 30 miles across the border in an Israeli port, including enough flour to feed about 1.5 million Palestinians for five months, according to the memo. But in February the Israeli government had prohibited the transfer of flour, saying its recipient was the United Nations’ Palestinian branch that had been accused of having ties with Hamas.
Separately, the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration had also determined that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel, according to emails obtained by ProPublica.
The U.N. has declared a famine in parts of Gaza. The world’s leading independent panel of aid experts found that nearly half of the Palestinians in the enclave are struggling with hunger. Many go days without eating. Local authorities say dozens of children have starved to death — likely a significant undercount. Health care workers are battling a lack of immunizations compounded by a sanitation crisis. Last month, a little boy became Gaza’s first confirmed case of polio in 25 years.
The USAID officials wrote that because of Israel’s behavior, the U.S. should pause additional arms sales to the country. ProPublica obtained a copy of the agency’s April memo along with the list of evidence that the officials cited to back up their findings.
USAID, which is led by longtime diplomat Samantha Power, said the looming famine in Gaza was the result of Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” according to the memo. It also acknowledged Hamas had played a role in the humanitarian crisis. USAID, which receives overall policy guidance from the secretary of state, is an independent agency responsible for international development and disaster relief. The agency had for months tried and failed to deliver enough food and medicine to a starving and desperate Palestinian population.
It is, USAID concluded, “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.”
In response to detailed questions for this story, the State Department said that it had pressured the Israelis to increase the flow of aid. “As we made clear in May when [our] report was released, the US had deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed to a lack of sustained delivery of needed humanitarian assistance,” a spokesperson wrote. “Israel subsequently took steps to facilitate increased humanitarian access and aid flow into Gaza.”
Government experts and human rights advocates said while the State Department may have secured a number of important commitments from the Israelis, the level of aid going to Palestinians is as inadequate as when the two determinations were reached. “The implication that the humanitarian situation has markedly improved in Gaza is a farce,” said Scott Paul, an associate director at Oxfam. “The emergence of polio in the last couple months tells you all that you need to know.”
The USAID memo was an indication of a deep rift within the Biden administration on the issue of military aid to Israel. In March, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, sent Blinken a cable arguing that Israel’s war cabinet, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, should be trusted to facilitate aid shipments to the Palestinians.
Lew acknowledged that “other parts of the Israeli government have tried to impede the movement of [humanitarian assistance,]” according to a copy of his cable obtained by ProPublica. But he recommended continuing to provide military assistance because he had “assessed that Israel will not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede U.S. provided or supported” shipments of food and medicine.
Lew said Israeli officials regularly cite “overwhelming negative Israeli public opinion against” allowing aid to the Palestinians, “especially when Hamas seizes portions of it and when hostages remain in Gaza.” The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment but has said in the past that it follows the laws of war, unlike Hamas.
In the months leading up to that cable, Lew had been told repeatedly about instances of the Israelis blocking humanitarian assistance, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the embassy operations but, like others quoted in this story, not authorized to speak about them. “No other nation has ever provided so much humanitarian assistance to their enemies,” Lew responded to subordinates at the time, according to two of the officials, who said the comments drew widespread consternation.
“That put people over the edge,” one of the officials told ProPublica. “He’d be a great spokesperson for the Israeli government.”
A second official said Lew had access to the same information as USAID leaders in Washington, in addition to evidence collected by the local State Department diplomats working in Jerusalem. “But his instincts are to defend Israel,” said a third official.
“Ambassador Lew has been at the forefront of the United States’ work to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, as well as diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would secure the release of hostages, alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, and bring an end to the conflict,” the State Department spokesperson wrote.
The question of whether Israel was impeding humanitarian aid has garnered widespread attention. Before Blinken’s statement to Congress, Reuters reported concerns from USAID about the death toll in Gaza, which now stands at about 42,000, and that some officials inside the State Department, including the refugees bureau, had warned him that the Israelis’ assurances were not credible. The existence of USAID’s memo, Lew’s cable and their broad conclusions were also previously reported.
But the full accounting of USAID’s evidence, the determination of the refugees bureau in April and the statements from experts at the embassy — along with Lew’s decision to undermine them — reveal new aspects of the striking split within the Biden administration and how the highest-ranking American diplomats have justified his policy of continuing to flood Israel with arms over the objections of their own experts.
Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil military adviser in the refugees bureau who had been working on drafts of Blinken’s report to Congress, resigned over the language in the final version. “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid,” she wrote in a statement shortly after leaving, which The Washington Post and other outlets reported on. “To deny this is absurd and shameful.
“That report and its flagrant untruths will haunt us.”
The State Department’s headquarters in Washington did not always welcome that kind of information from U.S. experts on the ground, according to a person familiar with the embassy operations. That was especially true when experts reported the small number of aid trucks being allowed in.
“A lot of times they would not accept it because it was lower than what the Israelis said,” the person told ProPublica. “The sentiment from Washington was, ‘We want to see the aid increasing because Israel told us it would.’”
[x]
Aid trucks wait in Egypt at the border with Gaza on Sept. 9. Credit AFP/Getty Images
While Israel has its own arms industry, the country relies heavily on American jets, bombs and other weapons in Gaza. Since October, the U.S. has shipped more than 50,000 tons of weaponry, which the Israeli military says has been “crucial for sustaining” the Israel Defense Forces’ “operational capabilities during the ongoing war.”
The U.S. gives the Israeli government about $3.8 billion every year as a baseline and significantly more during wartime — money the Israelis use to buy American-made bombs and equipment. Congress and the executive branch have imposed legal guardrails on how Israel and other partners can use that money.
One of them is the Foreign Assistance Act. The humanitarian aid portion of the law is known as 6201, which dates back to Turkey’s embargo of Armenia during the 1990s. That part of the law has never been widely implemented. But this year, advocacy groups and some Democrats in Congress brought it out of obscurity and called for Biden to use 6201 to pressure the Israelis to allow aid freely into Gaza.
In response, the Biden administration announced a policy called the National Security Memorandum, or NSM-20, to require the State Department to vet Israel’s assurances about whether it was blocking aid and then report its findings to lawmakers. If Blinken determined the Israelis were not facilitating aid and were instead arbitrarily restricting it, then the government would be required by the law to halt military assistance.
Blinken submitted the agency’s official position on May 10, siding with Lew, which meant that the military support would continue.
In a statement that same day, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., criticized the administration for choosing “to disregard the requirements of NSM-20.”
“Whether or not Israel is at this moment complying with international standards with respect to facilitating humanitarian assistance to desperate, starving citizens may be debatable,” Van Hollen said. “What is undeniable — for those who don’t look the other way — is that it has repeatedly violated those standards over the last 7 months.”
As of early March, at least 930 trucks full of food, medicine and other supplies were stuck in Egypt awaiting approval from the Israelis, according to USAID’s memo.
The officials wrote that the Israeli government frequently blocks aid by imposing bureaucratic delays. The Israelis took weeks or months to respond to humanitarian groups that had submitted specific items to be approved for passage past government checkpoints. Israel would then often deny those submissions outright or accept them some days but not others. The Israeli government “doesn’t provide justification, issues blanket rejections, or cites arbitrary factors for the denial of certain items,” the memo said.
Israeli officials told State Department attorneys that the Israeli government has “scaled up its security check capacity and asserted that it imposes no limits on the number of trucks that can be inspected and enter Gaza,” according to a separate memo sent to Blinken and obtained by ProPublica. Those officials blamed most of the holdups on the humanitarian groups for not having enough capacity to get food and medicine in. USAID and State Department experts who work directly with those groups say that is not true.
In separate emails obtained by ProPublica, aid officials identified items in trucks that were banned by the Israelis, including emergency shelter gear, solar lamps, cooking stoves and desalination kits, because they were deemed “dual use,” which means Hamas could co-opt the materials. Some of the trucks that were turned away had also been carrying American-funded items like hygiene kits, the emails show.
In its memo to Blinken, USAID also cited numerous publicly reported incidents in which aid facilities and workers were hit by Israeli airstrikes even sometimes after they had shared their locations with the IDF and received approval, a process known as “deconfliction.” The Israeli government has maintained that most of those incidents were mistakes.
USAID found the Israelis often promised to take adequate measures to prevent such incidents but frequently failed to follow through. On Nov. 18, for instance, a convoy of aid workers was trying to evacuate along a route assigned to them by the IDF. The convoy was denied permission to cross a military checkpoint — despite previous IDF authorization.
Then, while en route back to their facility, the IDF opened fire on the aid workers, killing two of them.
Inside the State Department and ahead of Blinken’s report to Congress, some of the agency’s highest-ranking officials had a separate exchange about whether Israel was blocking humanitarian aid. ProPublica obtained an email thread documenting the episode.
On April 17, a Department of Defense official reached out to Mira Resnick, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department who has been described as the agency’s driving force behind arms sales to Israel and other partners this year. The official alerted Resnick to the fact that there was about $827 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars sitting in limbo.
Resnick turned to the Counselor of the State Department and said, “We need to be able to move the rest of the” financing so that Israel could pay off bills for past weapons purchases. The financing she referenced came from American tax dollars.
The counselor, one of the highest posts at the agency, agreed with Resnick. “I think we need to move these funds,” he wrote.
But there was a hurdle, according to the agency’s top attorney: All the relevant bureaus inside the State Department would need to sign off on and agree that Israel was not preventing humanitarian aid shipments. “The principal thing we would need to see is that no bureau currently assesses that the restriction in 6201 is triggered,” Richard Visek, the agency’s acting legal adviser, wrote.
The bureaus started to fall in line. The Middle East and human rights divisions agreed and determined the law hadn’t been triggered, “in light of Netanyahu’s commitments and the steps Israel has announced so far,” while noting that they still have “significant concerns about Israeli actions.”
By April 25, all had signed off but one. The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration was the holdout. That was notable because the bureau had among the most firsthand knowledge of the situation after months of working closely with USAID and humanitarian groups to try to get food and medicine to the Palestinians.
“While we agree there have been positive steps on some commitments related to humanitarian assistance, we continue to assess that the facts on the ground indicate U.S. humanitarian assistance is being restricted,” an official in the bureau wrote to the group.
It was a potentially explosive stance to take. One of Resnick’s subordinates in the arms transfer bureau replied and asked for clarification: “Is PRM saying 6201 has been triggered for Israel?”
Yes, replied Julieta Valls Noyes, its assistant secretary, that was indeed the bureau’s view. In her email, she cited a meeting from the previous day between Blinken’s deputy secretary and other top aides in the administration. All the bureaus on the email thread had provided talking points to the deputy secretary, including one that said Israel had “failed to meet most of its commitments to the president.” (None of these officials responded to a request for comment.)
But, after a series of in-person conversations, Valls Noyes backed down, according to a person familiar with the episode. When asked during a staff meeting later why she had punted on the issue, Valls Noyes replied, “There will be other opportunities,” the person said.
The financing appears to have ultimately gone through.
Less than two weeks later, Blinken delivered his report to Congress.
by Brett Murphy
Propublica
Sept. 24, 5 a.m. EDT
https://www.propublica.org/article/gaza ... id-blinken
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.
The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
Prior to his report, USAID had sent Blinken a detailed 17-page memo on Israel’s conduct. The memo described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.
Lifesaving food was stockpiled less than 30 miles across the border in an Israeli port, including enough flour to feed about 1.5 million Palestinians for five months, according to the memo. But in February the Israeli government had prohibited the transfer of flour, saying its recipient was the United Nations’ Palestinian branch that had been accused of having ties with Hamas.
... [T]he UN Office of Oversight Services (OIOS)... was not able to independently authenticate information used by Israel to support the allegations....
“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement, while in nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement,” he said.
-- UN completes investigation on UNRWA staff, 8/5/2024
Separately, the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration had also determined that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel, according to emails obtained by ProPublica.
The U.N. has declared a famine in parts of Gaza. The world’s leading independent panel of aid experts found that nearly half of the Palestinians in the enclave are struggling with hunger. Many go days without eating. Local authorities say dozens of children have starved to death — likely a significant undercount. Health care workers are battling a lack of immunizations compounded by a sanitation crisis. Last month, a little boy became Gaza’s first confirmed case of polio in 25 years.
The USAID officials wrote that because of Israel’s behavior, the U.S. should pause additional arms sales to the country. ProPublica obtained a copy of the agency’s April memo along with the list of evidence that the officials cited to back up their findings.
USAID, which is led by longtime diplomat Samantha Power, said the looming famine in Gaza was the result of Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” according to the memo. It also acknowledged Hamas had played a role in the humanitarian crisis. USAID, which receives overall policy guidance from the secretary of state, is an independent agency responsible for international development and disaster relief. The agency had for months tried and failed to deliver enough food and medicine to a starving and desperate Palestinian population.
It is, USAID concluded, “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.”
In response to detailed questions for this story, the State Department said that it had pressured the Israelis to increase the flow of aid. “As we made clear in May when [our] report was released, the US had deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed to a lack of sustained delivery of needed humanitarian assistance,” a spokesperson wrote. “Israel subsequently took steps to facilitate increased humanitarian access and aid flow into Gaza.”
Government experts and human rights advocates said while the State Department may have secured a number of important commitments from the Israelis, the level of aid going to Palestinians is as inadequate as when the two determinations were reached. “The implication that the humanitarian situation has markedly improved in Gaza is a farce,” said Scott Paul, an associate director at Oxfam. “The emergence of polio in the last couple months tells you all that you need to know.”
The USAID memo was an indication of a deep rift within the Biden administration on the issue of military aid to Israel. In March, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, sent Blinken a cable arguing that Israel’s war cabinet, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, should be trusted to facilitate aid shipments to the Palestinians.
Lew acknowledged that “other parts of the Israeli government have tried to impede the movement of [humanitarian assistance,]” according to a copy of his cable obtained by ProPublica. But he recommended continuing to provide military assistance because he had “assessed that Israel will not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede U.S. provided or supported” shipments of food and medicine.
Lew said Israeli officials regularly cite “overwhelming negative Israeli public opinion against” allowing aid to the Palestinians, “especially when Hamas seizes portions of it and when hostages remain in Gaza.” The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment but has said in the past that it follows the laws of war, unlike Hamas.
In the months leading up to that cable, Lew had been told repeatedly about instances of the Israelis blocking humanitarian assistance, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the embassy operations but, like others quoted in this story, not authorized to speak about them. “No other nation has ever provided so much humanitarian assistance to their enemies,” Lew responded to subordinates at the time, according to two of the officials, who said the comments drew widespread consternation.
“That put people over the edge,” one of the officials told ProPublica. “He’d be a great spokesperson for the Israeli government.”
A second official said Lew had access to the same information as USAID leaders in Washington, in addition to evidence collected by the local State Department diplomats working in Jerusalem. “But his instincts are to defend Israel,” said a third official.
“Ambassador Lew has been at the forefront of the United States’ work to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, as well as diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would secure the release of hostages, alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, and bring an end to the conflict,” the State Department spokesperson wrote.
The question of whether Israel was impeding humanitarian aid has garnered widespread attention. Before Blinken’s statement to Congress, Reuters reported concerns from USAID about the death toll in Gaza, which now stands at about 42,000, and that some officials inside the State Department, including the refugees bureau, had warned him that the Israelis’ assurances were not credible. The existence of USAID’s memo, Lew’s cable and their broad conclusions were also previously reported.
But the full accounting of USAID’s evidence, the determination of the refugees bureau in April and the statements from experts at the embassy — along with Lew’s decision to undermine them — reveal new aspects of the striking split within the Biden administration and how the highest-ranking American diplomats have justified his policy of continuing to flood Israel with arms over the objections of their own experts.
Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil military adviser in the refugees bureau who had been working on drafts of Blinken’s report to Congress, resigned over the language in the final version. “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid,” she wrote in a statement shortly after leaving, which The Washington Post and other outlets reported on. “To deny this is absurd and shameful.
“That report and its flagrant untruths will haunt us.”
The State Department’s headquarters in Washington did not always welcome that kind of information from U.S. experts on the ground, according to a person familiar with the embassy operations. That was especially true when experts reported the small number of aid trucks being allowed in.
“A lot of times they would not accept it because it was lower than what the Israelis said,” the person told ProPublica. “The sentiment from Washington was, ‘We want to see the aid increasing because Israel told us it would.’”
[x]
Aid trucks wait in Egypt at the border with Gaza on Sept. 9. Credit AFP/Getty Images
While Israel has its own arms industry, the country relies heavily on American jets, bombs and other weapons in Gaza. Since October, the U.S. has shipped more than 50,000 tons of weaponry, which the Israeli military says has been “crucial for sustaining” the Israel Defense Forces’ “operational capabilities during the ongoing war.”
The U.S. gives the Israeli government about $3.8 billion every year as a baseline and significantly more during wartime — money the Israelis use to buy American-made bombs and equipment. Congress and the executive branch have imposed legal guardrails on how Israel and other partners can use that money.
One of them is the Foreign Assistance Act. The humanitarian aid portion of the law is known as 6201, which dates back to Turkey’s embargo of Armenia during the 1990s. That part of the law has never been widely implemented. But this year, advocacy groups and some Democrats in Congress brought it out of obscurity and called for Biden to use 6201 to pressure the Israelis to allow aid freely into Gaza.
In response, the Biden administration announced a policy called the National Security Memorandum, or NSM-20, to require the State Department to vet Israel’s assurances about whether it was blocking aid and then report its findings to lawmakers. If Blinken determined the Israelis were not facilitating aid and were instead arbitrarily restricting it, then the government would be required by the law to halt military assistance.
Blinken submitted the agency’s official position on May 10, siding with Lew, which meant that the military support would continue.
In a statement that same day, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., criticized the administration for choosing “to disregard the requirements of NSM-20.”
“Whether or not Israel is at this moment complying with international standards with respect to facilitating humanitarian assistance to desperate, starving citizens may be debatable,” Van Hollen said. “What is undeniable — for those who don’t look the other way — is that it has repeatedly violated those standards over the last 7 months.”
As of early March, at least 930 trucks full of food, medicine and other supplies were stuck in Egypt awaiting approval from the Israelis, according to USAID’s memo.
The officials wrote that the Israeli government frequently blocks aid by imposing bureaucratic delays. The Israelis took weeks or months to respond to humanitarian groups that had submitted specific items to be approved for passage past government checkpoints. Israel would then often deny those submissions outright or accept them some days but not others. The Israeli government “doesn’t provide justification, issues blanket rejections, or cites arbitrary factors for the denial of certain items,” the memo said.
Israeli officials told State Department attorneys that the Israeli government has “scaled up its security check capacity and asserted that it imposes no limits on the number of trucks that can be inspected and enter Gaza,” according to a separate memo sent to Blinken and obtained by ProPublica. Those officials blamed most of the holdups on the humanitarian groups for not having enough capacity to get food and medicine in. USAID and State Department experts who work directly with those groups say that is not true.
In separate emails obtained by ProPublica, aid officials identified items in trucks that were banned by the Israelis, including emergency shelter gear, solar lamps, cooking stoves and desalination kits, because they were deemed “dual use,” which means Hamas could co-opt the materials. Some of the trucks that were turned away had also been carrying American-funded items like hygiene kits, the emails show.
In its memo to Blinken, USAID also cited numerous publicly reported incidents in which aid facilities and workers were hit by Israeli airstrikes even sometimes after they had shared their locations with the IDF and received approval, a process known as “deconfliction.” The Israeli government has maintained that most of those incidents were mistakes.
USAID found the Israelis often promised to take adequate measures to prevent such incidents but frequently failed to follow through. On Nov. 18, for instance, a convoy of aid workers was trying to evacuate along a route assigned to them by the IDF. The convoy was denied permission to cross a military checkpoint — despite previous IDF authorization.
Then, while en route back to their facility, the IDF opened fire on the aid workers, killing two of them.
Inside the State Department and ahead of Blinken’s report to Congress, some of the agency’s highest-ranking officials had a separate exchange about whether Israel was blocking humanitarian aid. ProPublica obtained an email thread documenting the episode.
On April 17, a Department of Defense official reached out to Mira Resnick, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department who has been described as the agency’s driving force behind arms sales to Israel and other partners this year. The official alerted Resnick to the fact that there was about $827 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars sitting in limbo.
Resnick turned to the Counselor of the State Department and said, “We need to be able to move the rest of the” financing so that Israel could pay off bills for past weapons purchases. The financing she referenced came from American tax dollars.
The counselor, one of the highest posts at the agency, agreed with Resnick. “I think we need to move these funds,” he wrote.
But there was a hurdle, according to the agency’s top attorney: All the relevant bureaus inside the State Department would need to sign off on and agree that Israel was not preventing humanitarian aid shipments. “The principal thing we would need to see is that no bureau currently assesses that the restriction in 6201 is triggered,” Richard Visek, the agency’s acting legal adviser, wrote.
The bureaus started to fall in line. The Middle East and human rights divisions agreed and determined the law hadn’t been triggered, “in light of Netanyahu’s commitments and the steps Israel has announced so far,” while noting that they still have “significant concerns about Israeli actions.”
By April 25, all had signed off but one. The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration was the holdout. That was notable because the bureau had among the most firsthand knowledge of the situation after months of working closely with USAID and humanitarian groups to try to get food and medicine to the Palestinians.
“While we agree there have been positive steps on some commitments related to humanitarian assistance, we continue to assess that the facts on the ground indicate U.S. humanitarian assistance is being restricted,” an official in the bureau wrote to the group.
It was a potentially explosive stance to take. One of Resnick’s subordinates in the arms transfer bureau replied and asked for clarification: “Is PRM saying 6201 has been triggered for Israel?”
Yes, replied Julieta Valls Noyes, its assistant secretary, that was indeed the bureau’s view. In her email, she cited a meeting from the previous day between Blinken’s deputy secretary and other top aides in the administration. All the bureaus on the email thread had provided talking points to the deputy secretary, including one that said Israel had “failed to meet most of its commitments to the president.” (None of these officials responded to a request for comment.)
But, after a series of in-person conversations, Valls Noyes backed down, according to a person familiar with the episode. When asked during a staff meeting later why she had punted on the issue, Valls Noyes replied, “There will be other opportunities,” the person said.
The financing appears to have ultimately gone through.
Less than two weeks later, Blinken delivered his report to Congress.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Fri Sep 27, 2024 1:01 am
Stein leads Harris among Muslim voters in several swing states, new analysis finds
Adam Reilly
September 09, 2024
[X]
Jill Stein speaks into a microphone at a stage in a public park.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the White House on June 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Mattie Neretin Getty Images
A new report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Jill Stein, the Lexington, Massachusetts, resident and Green Party candidate for president, is leading Democratic nominee Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in several key swing states.
The analysis expands on a survey conducted late last month that showed Muslim voters nationally split between Harris and Stein, even thought 69% of the respondents said they usually vote for the Democratic Party. The new analysis dug deeper into the data, specifically looking at voters in swing states.
In Michigan, 40% of Muslim voters said they plan to vote for Stein, compared to just 12% who said they plan to vote for Harris. Stein also received significant support from Muslim voters in Wisconsin, where 44% said they plan to vote for her compared to 39% who said they’ll back Harris. And in Arizona, Stein draws support from 35% of Muslim voters, compared to 29% for Harris.
According to the website World Population Review, Michigan has a Muslim population of more than 241,000, meaning that Stein’s substantial lead there — if it holds — could have a decisive impact on who ultimately wins that state. The website FiveThirtyEight currently shows Harris leading Republican nominee Donald Trump in Michigan by 1.9%.
A similar dynamic applies in Arizona and Wisconsin, where World Population Review puts the Muslim population at about 110,000 and 68,000, respectively. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Trump a 0.5% lead in Arizona and Harris a 2.8% lead in Wisconsin.
“When you have a candidate like Stein being a third-party candidate in these states, she has the potential to disrupt all these elections,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s national government affairs director and one of the authors of the report. “And how all candidates appeal to Muslim voters will really determine who might be the next president of the United States.
”From a Muslim civil rights organization’s perspective, we’re really challenging Muslims to turn out to vote regardless of which candidate they [choose], knowing that they can have an impact on the election,“ McCaw added.
Stein previously ran for president in both 2012 and 2016, when she received about 1% of the vote nationally. While Stein’s total tally in 2016 was modest, an argument can be made that the votes she received in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that year ultimately helped Trump become president. Stein was also a candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010, and for secretary of the commonwealth in 2006.
Stein’s 2024 platform calls, among other things, for an “immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine” and an immediate end to all U.S. military aid to Israel. She has also called for an independent investigation into “the legality of the billions for direct military aid” and suggested that prosecution by the International Criminal Court may be warranted.
In a statement provided to GBH News, Stein said: “We’re grateful for the strong support of Muslim voters who share with us the determination to end genocide in Gaza, and the injustice faced by our Muslim friends. We urge all people of conscience to resist the propaganda telling you to hold your nose and vote for genocide.
”If you vote for genocide, you are actively consenting to it and enabling it,“ Stein added. ”Don’t let them talk you out of your humanity. Stopping genocide is the moral imperative of our time.“
After President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid, Harris made remarks that were interpreted by some as indicating that she is more pro-Palestinian than Biden. But others argue that on a substantive level, Harris has maintained Biden’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war. At the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris asserted Israel’s fundamental right to defend itself during her acceptance speech, and pro-Palestinian activists who had hoped to secure a speaking slot have said they were rebuffed.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to CAIR’s analysis, Harris leads Stein among Muslim voters in other swing states, including Georgia (43% to 17%), Pennsylvania (37% to 25%), and Nevada (26% to 13%, with Trump at 27%). According to World Population Review, the Muslim population of those states is approximately 124,000, 150,000 and 7,000, respectively.
FiveThirtyEight currently shows Harris leading Georgia by 0.3%, Pennsylvania by 0.6% and Nevada by 0.5%.
During the Democratic presidential primaries, when Biden was the party’s presumptive nominee, activists opposed to the administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war urged voters to remain uncommitted in several states. In Michigan, more than 100,000 uncommitted votes were ultimately cast, and in Hawaii, “uncommitted” received 29% of the vote.
The new report also highlights some notable differences inside the national Muslim electorate. For example, while Harris enjoys a sizable lead over Stein among Black Muslim voters (55% to 11%), Stein fares better with white, Arab and Turkic Muslims (33% to 26%). The discrepancy is smaller among Asian Muslims, with 28% backing Harris and 26% backing Stein.
Support for the two candidates also varies by gender. Harris leads among Muslim men with 29% support, while Stein leads among Muslim women with 34% support.
Adam Reilly: Adam Reilly is a politics reporter and the host of GBH’s Talking Politics. Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email Adam at [email protected].
Adam Reilly
September 09, 2024
[X]
Jill Stein speaks into a microphone at a stage in a public park.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the White House on June 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Mattie Neretin Getty Images
A new report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Jill Stein, the Lexington, Massachusetts, resident and Green Party candidate for president, is leading Democratic nominee Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in several key swing states.
The analysis expands on a survey conducted late last month that showed Muslim voters nationally split between Harris and Stein, even thought 69% of the respondents said they usually vote for the Democratic Party. The new analysis dug deeper into the data, specifically looking at voters in swing states.
In Michigan, 40% of Muslim voters said they plan to vote for Stein, compared to just 12% who said they plan to vote for Harris. Stein also received significant support from Muslim voters in Wisconsin, where 44% said they plan to vote for her compared to 39% who said they’ll back Harris. And in Arizona, Stein draws support from 35% of Muslim voters, compared to 29% for Harris.
According to the website World Population Review, Michigan has a Muslim population of more than 241,000, meaning that Stein’s substantial lead there — if it holds — could have a decisive impact on who ultimately wins that state. The website FiveThirtyEight currently shows Harris leading Republican nominee Donald Trump in Michigan by 1.9%.
A similar dynamic applies in Arizona and Wisconsin, where World Population Review puts the Muslim population at about 110,000 and 68,000, respectively. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Trump a 0.5% lead in Arizona and Harris a 2.8% lead in Wisconsin.
“When you have a candidate like Stein being a third-party candidate in these states, she has the potential to disrupt all these elections,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s national government affairs director and one of the authors of the report. “And how all candidates appeal to Muslim voters will really determine who might be the next president of the United States.
”From a Muslim civil rights organization’s perspective, we’re really challenging Muslims to turn out to vote regardless of which candidate they [choose], knowing that they can have an impact on the election,“ McCaw added.
Stein previously ran for president in both 2012 and 2016, when she received about 1% of the vote nationally. While Stein’s total tally in 2016 was modest, an argument can be made that the votes she received in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that year ultimately helped Trump become president. Stein was also a candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010, and for secretary of the commonwealth in 2006.
Stein’s 2024 platform calls, among other things, for an “immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine” and an immediate end to all U.S. military aid to Israel. She has also called for an independent investigation into “the legality of the billions for direct military aid” and suggested that prosecution by the International Criminal Court may be warranted.
In a statement provided to GBH News, Stein said: “We’re grateful for the strong support of Muslim voters who share with us the determination to end genocide in Gaza, and the injustice faced by our Muslim friends. We urge all people of conscience to resist the propaganda telling you to hold your nose and vote for genocide.
”If you vote for genocide, you are actively consenting to it and enabling it,“ Stein added. ”Don’t let them talk you out of your humanity. Stopping genocide is the moral imperative of our time.“
After President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid, Harris made remarks that were interpreted by some as indicating that she is more pro-Palestinian than Biden. But others argue that on a substantive level, Harris has maintained Biden’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war. At the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris asserted Israel’s fundamental right to defend itself during her acceptance speech, and pro-Palestinian activists who had hoped to secure a speaking slot have said they were rebuffed.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to CAIR’s analysis, Harris leads Stein among Muslim voters in other swing states, including Georgia (43% to 17%), Pennsylvania (37% to 25%), and Nevada (26% to 13%, with Trump at 27%). According to World Population Review, the Muslim population of those states is approximately 124,000, 150,000 and 7,000, respectively.
FiveThirtyEight currently shows Harris leading Georgia by 0.3%, Pennsylvania by 0.6% and Nevada by 0.5%.
During the Democratic presidential primaries, when Biden was the party’s presumptive nominee, activists opposed to the administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war urged voters to remain uncommitted in several states. In Michigan, more than 100,000 uncommitted votes were ultimately cast, and in Hawaii, “uncommitted” received 29% of the vote.
The new report also highlights some notable differences inside the national Muslim electorate. For example, while Harris enjoys a sizable lead over Stein among Black Muslim voters (55% to 11%), Stein fares better with white, Arab and Turkic Muslims (33% to 26%). The discrepancy is smaller among Asian Muslims, with 28% backing Harris and 26% backing Stein.
Support for the two candidates also varies by gender. Harris leads among Muslim men with 29% support, while Stein leads among Muslim women with 34% support.
Adam Reilly: Adam Reilly is a politics reporter and the host of GBH’s Talking Politics. Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email Adam at [email protected].
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37505
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Return to United States Government Crime
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest