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Tag: Gaza (Page 1 of 2)

The brave 12

07.07.2024 /

In the USA, 12 brave men and women have resigned their posts as United States government officials in protest over the part the USA is playing in the war against Palestine in general and the population of Gaza in particular. On 2 July, they issued and signed a JOINT STATEMENT explaining why they did so. To publish such a statement in defiance of a president who, to quote him, “is running the world” is a beautiful and — I repeat — brave act. The document is well worth reading. I particularly recommend what follows under the sub-headings “How did it go wrong?” and “What is to be done?”

In Europe there is hardly any mention of the Joint Statement signed by the 12.

Admittedly BBC, does refer to it quite briefly, but is more than tight-lipped: “Ex-officials say Gaza policy has put US at risk” (my emphasis). However, nearly half the brief article informs us of what (the politely hypocritical) “state department spokesperson” told the BBC (my emphasis) about the blessings of US freedom of expression.

On the other side of the planet, not only does Reuters (acquired by Thomson Corporation in Canada in 2008) devote at least three articles to the matter. They have listed the 12 “US officials who have quit over Biden’s support of Israel”, and more recently they have added a link to the Joint Statement itself and a subheading: “WHY IT IS IMPORTANT”.

Huffpost, too, has a long article about the joint statement and quotes much of it.

Even CNN has at least twice provided sympathetic coverage of what the 12 have done. Is the tide seriously turning in the USA?

Palestine

19.06.2024 /

Quoting Aljazeera 19 June: “Israel is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah, officials have said.”

How about “talking” to Hezbolla? How about “talking” to Hamas? How about actually listening? While Israel and the USA kill and maim and starve people right, left and centre in the name of “Democracy”, more and more people are getting very, very angry,

Some people are even saying “if this is Democracy, stuff Democracy.”

Hail South Africa

11.01.2024 /

Where I live, winter has been unusually severe so far. Temperatures have dropped to 24 below zero (centigrade), and dog walkers like me have had to wade in knee-deep snow.

Yet, South Africa’s powerful response to the Israeli genocide and in defence of innocent Palestinian civilians, has warmed every last one of my frozen bones. That precisely South Africa should have undertaken this brave course is all the more moving, since it was from South Africa we first heard of the terrible concept, and the term to describe it, “apartheid”.

Although I fear that the USA will manage to somehow paralyse the work of the International Court of Justice, South Africa has mounted a tremendously important and – we are told – singularly well-prepared case.

On it hinges no less than the very reputation of international law. If USA and Israel prevail, there will no longer be such a thing as “international law”, which will have been replaced by the Mediaeval principle that the victor takes all, including honour. The British historian Mary Beard maintains, for instance, that Julius Caesar committed genocide against the Gauls, a crime for which he has never been accused, naturally, since it was not defined as a crime in his day. If Israel and the USA get away with their attempted extermination of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the very concept “genocide” will have been turned to dust.

I hasten to add that the USA is technically as responsible for genocide, according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as Israel, cf, Article III (e):

The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

The stand held by the US and Israel has nothing to do with “defence” of race, religion or ethnicity. I confess I fail to understand how the two nations defend their preposterous actions otherwise than by equally preposterous deliberate fabrications.

I have just read a heartbreaking French biographical novel about the painter Charlotte Solomon who was gassed – i.e. murdered – by the Nazis in 1943, as part of – yes – a genocide. What the Israelis are now doing in Gaza is murdering Palestinian Charlottes – painters, poets, housewives, adorable children, health workers en mass. EN MASS! Forgive me for not resisting the temptation to capitalise. I am, after all, only human. I cannot watch this carnage without reacting as a human. Mind you the killing, the murdering, the massacring is far worse than the daily death tolls reveal: The number of those who will die of unattended injuries, starvation and diseases, not to mention under collapsed buildings, will, in coming months maybe even approach the numbers of persons killed by bombs and bullets.

The Israeli actions are horrific! If they are not judged and found heinous by the court – I fear that in future, people who are,after all, “only human” will find that killing anyone arbitrarily, everywhere, is a perfectly legitimate course of action for anyone with a grudge.

President Biden: Are you not a Catholic? Do you not think God will judge you for the course you are taking?

The News

09.01.2024 /

As usual, every morning, I check Reuters, UPI, AP. What are they saying? What are they telling the US population and the press in the USA’s satellite states in Europe?

Every morning I hope “this day will be different”. Every morning I muse: “Surely, somebody will say, ‘This is it! I can’t take anymore!'”, and I will see, in Reuters, the UPI or the AP, a great big headline: THIS IS GENOCIDE. STOP IT!

But this morning was just as every other morning:

  • Cat flees from owner at truck stop, turns up 670 miles away (UPI)
    This was not, I admit, the top headline, nor even one of them. But I assure you that GAZA was not mentioned in any of the headlines.
  • Israeli strike kills an elite Hezbollah commander in the latest escalation linked to the war in Gaza (AP)
    Yes, this was the top headline. It was meant to bring joy to those worried that Israel’s war against the terrorists was not going well. It was meant as joyful tidings.

  • US secretary of state rallies Mideast leaders to prepare for Gaza’s post-war future (AP)
    Note the word “post-war”. As though the ongoing war is just any old war, not an extermination campaign. Later today, several US outlets proudly declare that the “Mideast leaders” have committed to some post-war efforts, as though Blinken had achieved something, anything at all. Of course the “Mideast leaders” will help Gaza, as they always do! Nothing to do with Blinken.

  • US top diplomat urges Israel to avoid harming civilians in Gaza. (Reuters)
    Isn’t that just sweet: Do please be careful, when you bomb hospitals, ambulances and aid convoys. And do please avoid hurting children when you raise apartment buildings to the ground.

Ugh.

A Christmas Carol

07.01.2024 /

I wept in front of Al Jazeera television for much of the holiday. That is the long and the short of it.

I still feel numb and shaken. The horror of what we have witnessed – are still witnessing – the evil of it, is beyond anything I had been able to fathom.

I check Associated Press, United Press International and Reuters every day! To the extent they report at all on the massacres taking place day after day after day in Gaza (and also the West Bank!!!) they all three refer to them offhandedly as to just any old, distant and – above all – minor event that is of little or no concern to us.

Ghastly! You find me for once tongue-tied. The nightmare is still going on, mind you, unchecked by moral scruples. Why hasn’t the corporate press voiced outrage? Because it is a puppet, an instrument of the US powers that be.

I feel like a child who has discovered that Santa Claus was just a fairytale. Worse, in fact, much worse. Santa Clause is in reality a very big, very black and immensely dangerous wolf. Worse, even: Santa is evil to the core.

Stunned, still, I really have nothing more to add other than a very warm recommendation for another book:

Patrick Lawrence, Journalists and their Shadows, 2023

Except, oh yes, except that there is a sliver of light between the black clouds:

  • My own servile-to-the-USA country’s pusillanimous public broadcasting company dutifully reports, every day, the number of Palestinians massacred over the past 24 hours. And every day it presents us with new heart-wrenching photos and scenes. It is bravely reporting what the USA does not want reported.
  • Learning of my despair, a friend in Iceland sent me a picture of his Christmas tree this year. It is decked in the Palestinian colours and with Palestinian flags. Surprised and grateful I started watching the Icelandic evening news on television.
  • One of the headlines of yesterday’s evening news from Iceland was the arrival at Keflavik Airport of a young Palestinian woman, who had been “gifted” with Icelandic nationality. She had never been to Iceland, but a Palestinian refugee there – her brother – had mobilised sympathy for her, and the government had decided to offer her a home in Iceland. The footage of her arrival was very moving as she appeared in a wheelchair.
    She had no legs.
    So the Icelandic public broadcasting company is also doing its bit.

A conversation

25.12.2023 /

I recommend a conversation between 3 analysts about some objectives underlying the wars in Palestine and Ukraine.

1) John Mearsheimer is a prominent political scientist best known internationally for his theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve or maintain regional hegemony.

(2) Alexander Mercouris har proved himself an extraordinarily prescient expert on the Ukraine issue, for which he has taken a particular interest for a decade or so. His acumen and determination in finding relevant information is astounding.

(3) Glenn Diesen is a young professor of political science who has had the courage to contradict the mainstream narrative regarding the Ukraine war and has written several interesting books.

In their conversation they try to understand why Israel and the USA are making such grave strategic mistakes in Gaza. They try to predict that war’s outcome. In the second half of the conversation they compare the Palestine issue with the debacle of Ukraine. Here they do not entirely agree as Alexander has noticed a few worrying signs.

On this day

24.12.2023 /

It’s Christmas Eve. “Palestinian Christians refuse to celebrate Christmas.” “Churches in Bethlehem have cancelled activities.” Several churches and hospitals have been bombed.

Faithful to my promise to not look away, I go to the news to see what is happening in Gaza: UPI, AP and Reuters tell us virtually nothing. And yet, there is a genocide going on!

But most people living in the USA and Europe simply don’t know it.

Unless you watch Al Jazeera, you might not even know it. You might think I’m exaggerating. After all, Biden doesn’t recognise it, and most governments loyal to the US don’t recognise it either. Shame on them!

But go to Al Jazeera (television). What we are seeing there, what we are hearing stymies all logical thinking. In addition to the “more than 20 thousand” killed, “at least 50 thousand” have been maimed for life and there are almost no medical supplies, the health workers who haven’t yet been killed are working under impossible conditions. The hospitals have been bombed … and just look at the place! Rubble. All rubble. At least 101 journalists have been killed.

Such evil takes your breath away.

Two million people are starving and without sufficient water. What water there is, is unsafe and lots of people are vomiting and suffering from diarrhoea.

And of course the West Bank (not Gaza) saw at least 208 people killed this year by settlers or soldiers before October 7. Since then… do we even have any numbers. Nobody is watching the West Bank now because of Gaza. Many of the victims on the West Bank were Christians, by the way.

And the USA is letting it happen. I ask myself: How much of the US support and military aid to Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing is due to lobbying and political pressure from Christian Zionists (i.e. evangelicals)?

What will the world be like after this abhorrent deed? Will more nations start killing off minorities now that the USA with its “rule of law” condones such actions?

Post scriptum

21.12.2023 /

I have wondered how Hamas could even consider carrying out the October 7 attack, knowing as they did, as did I, how viciously Israel would retaliate. I thought: The Gazans will cease to support Hamas, will hate Hamas for having subjected them to Israeli viciousness.

How very wrong I was! According to Al Jazeera, support for Hamas has never been greater in Gaza.

I put to you: Better than even Al Jazeera documentaries, better than any book that has ever analysed the Palestine issue, Gazans’ support for Hamas reveal how unbearable the Israeli concentration camp was.

What we are seeing, the ongoing genocide, strenuously supported by the USA, tells us just how violent Israeli racism has been.

No!

12.12.2023 /

No, Mr Biden and his lot do not believe that “all men [and women] are created equal”. I have no doubt he says he does, but nobody should ever take the word of a man (or woman) in his position. Mr Biden may, however, believe that all men [and women] are created equal, but that some are more equal than others, while others are definitely less so.

Of course we always knew that the USA had a race issue, but the Democratic Party has lately been loudly shouting that “Black Lives Matter”, and we actually thought they meant it, but now Palestinians are being killed in the USA, and supporters of Palestinians are being hassled, expelled, fired and generally persecuted by some – I insist – some fellow US Americans and – again I insist – and Congress, which has declared anti-Zionism antisemitic. (Mr Biden isn’t alone: His Republican counterparts agree fully: “some are more equal than others, while others are definitely less so.”)

No, Mr Biden and his lot, including his Republican counterparts, no longer value one of the most important pillars of the Democracy they keep bragging about: freedom of expression. Mainstream US media – a grovelling troupe of cowardly verbal mercenaries – has effectively been gagged. Again and again, it merely regurgitates State Department talking points.

No, Mr Biden and his lot do not believe in “rule of law”. They are actively supporting the extermination of as many Gazans as possible. Actively. With bombs! With yet another Security Council veto! With warships all over the place. With military aircraft all over the place. In case you had forgotten, exterminating populations is – apart from each and every killing’s being a mortal sin according to most religions – the very most heinous crime in the book of most criminal codes.

Why, you ask? Why get rid of the Gazans? What’s in it for him, you ask? Why indeed. Well you see, Mr Biden is just a puppet of the monstrous machinery that is US hegemony, which now desperately needs to nurture the loyalty of Israel. All the other countries of the Middle East are turning away from the USA, not because of Gaza, by the way, though Gaza certainly does not improve USA’s standing. Israel is the last outcrop of US-support in that part of the world. To put it differently: The USA is slipping, losing its grip. Even Israel is on good terms with Russia (as was demonstrated by Naftali Bennett’s role in the peace agreement reached between Zelensky and Putin in March 2022 – an agreement that NATO, represented by Boris Johnson, put a stop to). So Mr Biden must outbid the Russians. Biden must go all the way for Israel’s “self-defence”.

No, Israel is not engaged in self-defence. Israel really does need to get rid of as many Gazans as possible, not least children – who will grow up hating Israel – and not least women – who hate Israel and will bear more children who will hate Israel. All Gazans are traumatised, many must be nearly insane with grief and pain. Gazans are truly dangerous for Israel.

No, Hamas is not the problem. Israel is the problem! Israel that has sabotaged a two-state solution all the way and is still adamantly opposed to a two-state solution (though you will never hear or see the grovelling troupe of cowardly verbal mercenaries – US mainstream media – list the details of that sabotage), Israel that for decades has beaten, tortured, imprisoned and randomly killed Palestinians all over the West Bank, Israel that has imprisoned all of Gaza. Why, you ask? Why make life on the West Bank and Gaza a nightmare for Palestinians? Why of course: to make Palestinians flee. Israel is determined to take over the West Bank and Gaza, though that grovelling troupe of cowardly verbal mercenaries will never admit it.

No, Gaza is just the epicentre of decades of unfathomable Israeli violence against a people that Bin Laden insisted were more Semitic than the Israelis themselves. (So according to him, the real antisemites are the Israelis.) But the grovelling troupe of you-know-what that makes up the US mainstream media has unfortunately failed to inform the public:
The public in the USA and its satellites has deliberately been prevented from making informed decisions about what to demand from their elected representatives.

***

So what will happen? Here is my favourite scenario:
Even with US help, Israel won’t succeed in killing all Gazans. Even disease and starvation won’t finish off the Gazans. The maimed, nearly insane with grief and pain and hate survivors will have to be air-lifted out of Palestine, while their dwellings are being rebuilt. The international community will demand that the perpetrators of the genocide pay a price: Israelis must rebuild Gaza for the Gazans. The spirit of the Kibbutzes will resurface as Israeli men and women also plant orchards and vines between the new buildings, and make sure that each and every one of the dead they find in the rubble has a grave which they will water with their tears, muttering “I’m so so sorry … so terribly sorry …”

In Israeli schools, each child will be encouraged to adopt a dead Gazan sister or brother. Parents will try to reach out to surviving family members. Maybe photos can be sent, memories of the dead shared. Who knows? Many Israelis earnestly long for peace. I think that lasting peace without understanding, without humility and sympathy is not possible.

Meanwhile, the airlifted, maimed, nearly insane with grief and pain and hate survivors will be cared for in the very best US hospitals and clinics. All the US citizens who had the courage to oppose the genocide will welcome them joyously, bring them flowers, ask for their autographs and tell their children, “they survived hell on earth. They are heroes!”

***

Alas, I am not a Christian and I’m not an optimist. I want justice to be done. I want the evildoers to be punished. Period.

Alas, in real life, justice is seldom done.

The Israeli settlers will, however, have to leave the West Bank. All of them! Those of them who have also committed crimes against Palestinians will have to be tried and sentenced as harshly as they would have been had they been Palestinians committing the same crimes against Jews. Of course.
Reasonable by any standard.

The ongoing US-abetted, US-aided crimes are so heinous that even science fiction baulks at describing them. And all we can do, we who live in “Democratic” countries is promise to spit on the future graves of the perpetrators.

The US, Israel and Hamas all have God on their side. Now as far as Hamas is concerned, God is all they have, so I earnestly hope he does not forsake them.

As for the Israeli God and the blond US God, they will probably collaborate in making a total hash of what remains of this planet.

Frost

28.11.2023 /

Most of the year I’ll be complaining about the weather. It’s never right, as it were. Too mild in winter, too wet or too dry in summer. “Climate change,” I’ll sigh, pointedly nodding towards the window.

So now, I should rejoice and tell anybody who is willing to listen to me, that here where I live, the weather is for once just right, just the way it should be in late November: The temperature drops and drops, precipitation stops, the winds stall, fogs slither in and out, to and from goodness knows where, and all of nature seems to be holding its breath pending the arrival of loads of snow. Said arrival will without doubt be briefly prefaced by a marked rise of the mercury in the thermometer. Let us enjoy these days of climatic normality for all they are worth. We may or may not know such normality ever again.

In Gaza, the temperature is now 15 degrees. At 7 AM tomorrow the temperature will be 11 degrees. I’ve never been to Gaza, so I cannot tell you whether or not the cool 11 degrees are normal for this time of year. But I’m sure of one thing: Climate change will not enter into the equations to be solved by the displaced survivors of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, wherever they catch a couple of hours’ sleep now and then.

Here in Europe we have suffered due to the sanctions war against Russia (which deprived continental Europe of NLG) from lack of energy to heat our dwellings in winter. In Norway, we had always had more than enough hydro-electric power until our energy was commodified and put on the stock market (and sold to poor continental Europe) at which point we could no longer afford to buy our own electricity. We had to adapt to a drop of indoor temperatures from 23º C. I have managed to adapt to 20.5 º by wearing thermal underwear and woollen sweaters. I can cope with 18º by being in constant activity, cleaning house, etc. But at 16º… Let me tell you that at 16 degrees, I wish I were dead.

Of course, some of us can adapt. Some of us are made of tougher stuff. But 11 degrees without a roof over your head! When I am frozen stiff, I take a hot bath. I can still afford to take a hot bath a couple of times a week. But for the barely surviving people of Gaza, I assume there is no such thing as a bath, let alone a hot bath or a big warm towel and clean underwear.

I dare not even think of what it must be like to have to pee for a woman in Gaza, not to mention to menstruate! Good God what humiliations they must endure! And bowel movements for men and women; where do they go? There must be an unbelievable stench everywhere.

And the dead! Oh Lord, the dead! Not only the thousands and thousands who are known; also those who are simply “missing”, decomposing under the ruins of the bombed buildings.

I have never been to Gaza, never been to the West Bank, far less to Israel. Having written what I have written I will probably never be allowed anywhere near occupied Palestine. (Not that I shall ever humiliate myself or the Palestinians by asking for Israeli permission!)

But I must ask Israelis: You maintain that we, those of us who criticise you, do not understand your “plight”. But have you even tried to imagine what life has been like for the population you maintain is trying to eradicate you?

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