US once again vetoes UN resolution for Gaza ceasefire
Press TV – February 20, 2024
Unsurprisingly, the United States has once again vetoed a UN resolution that calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s great benefactor used its veto at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to block the draft prepared by Algeria.
It was the third time Washington has opposed such a resolution since Israel ignited its bloody war machine in Gaza in early October.
Representatives of 13 countries at the 15-member Security Council voted in favor of the resolution. Britain abstained.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations Riyad Mansour condemned the US veto as being “absolutely reckless and dangerous.”
“The message given today to Israel with this veto is that it can continue to get away with murder,” he said in a statement to the Security Council.
US says Gaza ceasefire ‘wishful and irresponsible’
In remarks to the Security Council after the US wielded its veto power, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was “wishful and irresponsible.”
She claimed that such an action by the United Nations could stifle diplomatic efforts to broker an agreement between Hamas and Israel for a pause in the war.
“Colleagues, over the past few weeks, we have made incredibly clear that the resolution before the council would not achieve the goal of a sustainable peace, and may in fact run counter to it,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Before the vote, Amar Bendjama, the Algerian ambassador to the UN, told the Council, “A vote in favor of this draft resolution is support to the Palestinians right to life.”
“Conversely, voting against it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon them.”
The US had already threatened it would block the Algerian-proposed resolution.
Washington, instead, has been actively pushing for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to facilitate the release of Israeli captives held by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Israel’s savagery in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out the historic surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupiers.
So far, the regime has killed more than 29,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured about 70,000 others in Gaza.
Washington has since supplied the regime with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment.
The United States vetoed similar UN draft resolutions for a ceasefire in October and December.
Feeble BBC Hamas ‘exposé’ achieved one thing: obscuring genocide
By Jonathan Cook – February 20, 2024
Israel was put on trial for committing genocide in Gaza last month by the judges of the International Court of Justice. So far western governments have not only done nothing to intervene but are actively assisting in that slaughter. They have supplied arms and turned a blind eye to Israel’s denial of humanitarian aid. The people of Gaza are slowly being starved to death.
But it was at this moment, as the world watches in horror, that the BBC’s chief news investigation programme, Panorama, chose not to scrutinise that massacre of tens of thousands of Palestinians but to hand the microphone over to the very military doing the killing.
On Monday it aired a programme titled “Hamas’s Secret Financial Empire” headed by reporter John Ware.
It leant heavily on Israel’s military spokesman, on documents that had almost certainly been supplied by Israeli military intelligence, on video footage from the Israeli military, and an Israeli survivor of the Hamas attack of October 7.
Ware and Panorama have worked together before, most notably on a special hour-long edition that doubtless equally delighted Israel.
Broadcast shortly before the 2019 general election, the programme served as little more than a hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming that the then Labour leader had allowed antisemitism to run rampant in his party.
Serial failures in the programme were exposed, including by me at the time.
Quotes and interviews had been edited misleadingly, including one that implied an antisemitic incident had happened inside the Labour party when it had not.
Basic fact-checking had not been carried out, which led to the complete misrepresentation of a key incident the programme wrongly claimed as antisemitic.
The programme concealed the identities of those claiming to have suffered antisemitism in Labour, when most were in fact members of a highly partisan, pro-Israel group openly committed to the ousting of Corbyn as leader for his pro-Palestininan views. One had trained with the Israeli army.
Another unnamed, tearful interviewee, Ella Rose, had previously worked for the Israeli embassy, though the audience was not told. The programme also did not refer to the fact that she had admitted to being a confidante of an Israeli undercover agent, Shai Masot, who was later exposed trying to bring down a British government minister for his critical views of Israel – views far less critical than Corbyn’s.
One might have assumed that, given this disastrous outing for Panorama by Ware and his producers, they would have been considered by the BBC as a very unwise pick indeed to follow up with an investigation into another issue so close to Israel’s heart. But such an assumption would be wrong.
Much as the Corbyn “investigation” presented a distorted picture of what was taking place in Labour, the latest Panorama “investigation” completely obscured the reality of what is taking place in Gaza. Not least, Monday’s audiences would have been barely aware that Israel is currently under investigation by the World Court after its panel of 17 judges accepted that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza.
The Panorama narrative, following the BBC’s usual script, suggested instead that this was simply another round of fighting in a long-standing “conflict” in which, the programme limply conceded, both sides are suffering.
The only non-official interviewed was an Israeli survivor of Hamas’s October 7 attack, a young woman present at the Nova festival. She felt betrayed that “people only look at the side of Hamas. We are invisible to them.”
Bizarrely, the BBC team took this patently preposterous view as the programme’s central premise. It was, said Ware, Hamas’s nefarious goal to “project itself as a resistance movement and Israel as a terrorist state”.
The BBC seemed to have forgotten that it was also the World Court, not just Hamas, seriously considering the idea that the Israeli military is flagrantly acting outside the laws of war. If, in the eyes of the BBC, a campaign of genocide does not constitute state terrorism – or worse – one has to wonder what does.
Former Foreign Office official Sir John Jenkins was given centre stage by Panorama to claim that Hamas, not the prolonged slaughter of children in Gaza, was fomenting the “delegitimisation of Israel”.
All of this served as the prelude to the programme’s efforts to delegitimise Hamas and any of its activities in creating a network of tunnels to resist Israel’s occupation and siege at a time when western capitals are more actively than ever assisting Israel in destroying Gaza.
If Israel posed no real threat to the people of Gaza, as the programme implied throughout, then Hamas apparently did not need to fortify the enclave to defend it from an Israeli attack. Its money could have been better used for the benefit of ordinary Palestinians.
The elephant in the room was genocide. Ware and the BBC had to keep treating Israel’s slaughter of at least 30,000 Palestinians over the past four months as an aberration – a reaction to the unprecedented events of October 7 – rather than as an intensification of Israel’s well-documented abuse of the Palestinian people spanning over decades.
The reference to Hamas’s “secret” financial empire was meant to sound sinister. But, as the programme-makers struggled to hide, there is nothing secret about Hamas’s funding.
After all, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally approved the flow of money to Hamas, wishing to keep the group just strong enough to ensure it could prevent the more compliant Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank, from re-establishing itself in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s goal – one he never concealed – was to keep the two rival Palestinian groups permanently feuding, the two territories split, and thereby undermine the case for any kind of Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ware informed us that Hamas’s “financial empire” derived from various funding sources: directly from Iran and Qatar, but also from humanitarian aid provided by international donors. The programme concluded that these donors were effectively “subsidising Hamas’s war machine” by easing the economic burden on Hamas in providing – in so far as was possible given Israel’s siege – essentials such as food, water and power to Gaza’s civilians.
Predictably, Ware’s argument echoed one of the main claims made by Israel in its current campaign to intensify the genocide in Gaza by destroying the United Nations’ refugee body, UNRWA. The relief agency is the last lifeline to a population of 2.3 million people brought to the point of starvation by Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid.
Israeli officials have consistently implied that the Palestinian population of Gaza may justifiably be starved to death as the price to be paid to avoid any risk that some of that aid ends up in the hands of Hamas fighters. Such a denial of assistance is not only patently immoral but constitutes a war crime.
If journalists are ever brought to the Hague accused of complicity in the current genocide, there should surely be a place reserved in the dock for Ware and his BBC team for breathing credibility into this monstrous argument.
Panorama’s central narrative was that Hamas had used parts of its revenues to build a network of resistance fortifications such as tunnels – money that, as Ware and his interviewees kept stressing, could have been spent on building schools and homes to aid the people of Gaza.
Ware omitted to mention, of course, that, more often than not, schools and homes actually needed rebuilding, not building, because Israel blew them up every few years with its bombs.
Again, all too predictably, the programme stripped out obvious context.
Hamas chose to build these fortifications, such as its extensive network of tunnels, because Israel is an offensive, occupying power that enjoys absolute control over Gaza’s borders, as well as its airspace and sea. Israel can bomb and invade Gaza any time it chooses. It can drag people off to “arrest” them – or take them hostage, as we would call it were the roles reversed.
Not only can it do those things, it did and does them regularly. And with complete impunity.
Pretending that Hamas had no reason to build a tunnel network, as Panorama does, is to rewrite history – to excise Israel’s decades of crimes against the Palestinians and their legitimate desire to struggle against that oppression.
It is to unthinkingly regurgitate Israel’s claim that these are simply “terror tunnels” rather than a way for Hamas to survive as a resistance organisation, as it is fully entitled to do under international law.
Hamas made it a priority to build a tunnel network to resist a violent, occupying army. Given limited resources and room to manoeuvre – after all, Gaza is a tiny territory and one of the most overcrowded places on the planet – Hamas had little choice but to move underground to avoid Israel’s sophisticated surveillance technology where it could build an arsenal of largely improvised, homegrown weapons.
Its historic popularity among ordinary Palestinians – at least compared to the supine, endlessly complicit PA in the West Bank – derives precisely from its refusal to submit to Israeli control. Panorama forgot to mention this too.
By contrast, and confounding Panorama’s thesis, the PA’s exclusive reliance on international diplomacy has won no tangible concessions from Israel – unless winning a reprieve from genocide, at least until this point, is considered such a concession.
Also inconveniently for Panorama, the PA’s standing with the Palestinian public continues to be dismal.
Bizarrely, Ware was equally troubled by the fact that Hamas raised import taxes on the limited goods that Israel did allow into Gaza.
That is all the stranger given that the programme’s implicit – and entirely bogus – assumption is that Gaza is not under a belligerent Israeli occupation. Hamas, it therefore suggested, should have behaved more like a normal country.
But raising taxes on the import of goods is precisely what normal countries do. Why would Ware expect Hamas to behave differently?
And why would it be strange or sinister for it to use some of those revenues to build Gaza’s defences, as best it could, against an aggressive occupier?
Does Britain not also spend the money it raises from taxes to buy weapons and “subsidise its war machine”? And it does so, even though the UK is not under belligerent occupation and is unlikely to be invaded any time soon.
In dramatic fashion, Ware declared ominously: “We have obtained documents that Israeli intelligence say are from inside Hamas and shine a light on how it makes some of its millions.”
It is hard not to conclude that those words mean Panorama was fed those documents by the Israeli intelligence services. Nonetheless, with utter credulity, the programme treated the papers as though they were infallible proof of Hamas’s wickedness.
What they actually showed, assuming they are real, is that Hamas had gained a modest income stream from investments in Middle Eastern companies and ventures. Should Hamas not make investments to raise income, as countries and funds do around the world? And if not, why?
Moving money out of Gaza and investing it overseas seems eminently sensible given that Israel has so regularly laid waste to the enclave – and is doing so once again and on an unprecedented scale.
In similar credulous fashion, Ware accepted unquestioningly the claim that Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was known to “hate Jews”. On what basis? Because a former Israeli security officer who proudly admitted that years ago he interrogated Sinwar for “between 150 and 180 hours” said so. Interrogation of Palestinians by Israel typically includes lengthy periods of torture.
All of this was depressingly familiar. The BBC and Panorama rarely dig into issues that might reflect badly on Israel and risk a backlash of criticism, including from the British government. That toothlessness when a genocide is unfolding in Gaza is especially egregious.
But the BBC is not just overlooking that horrifying crime but using its resources – funds provided by British taxpayers – to actively obscure Israel’s campaign of genocide and implicitly rationalise it as warranted.
A programme whose thesis is that Hamas misused public funds for nefarious purposes is, paradoxically, doing the very thing it condemns. It has misused British taxes to make a entirely bogus case that provides cover for the slaughter and maiming of many tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.
UN experts: Inhumane Israeli troops sexually assault Palestinian girls
Press TV – February 19, 2024
In yet another shocking revelation, the Special Rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council say Palestinian women and girls are being sexually assaulted and raped by Israeli troops in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
During a public hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday, the UN experts said they were “shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge.”
According to information they received, they told the hearing that hundreds of Palestinian women and girls are being detained and subjected “to inhuman and degrading treatment.”
“On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.”
They said they were distressed by reports that the Palestinians in question have been “subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers.”
“At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence.”
They said Israeli forces took photos “of female detainees in degrading circumstances,” and shared them on social media platforms.
The experts said an unknown number of the Palestinians have gone missing after contact with the regime’s forces in Gaza.
“There are disturbing reports of at least one female infant forcibly transferred by the Israeli army into Israel, and of children being separated from their parents, whose whereabouts remain unknown.”
The Special Rapporteurs warned Israel that these inhumane acts could “amount to serious crimes under international criminal law that could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute.”
“Those responsible for these apparent crimes must be held accountable and victims and their families are entitled to full redress and justice.”
The Special Rapporteurs are independent experts – part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council – whose mandate is to follow and report on the human rights situation of a specific country or thematic issues in all parts of the world.
The public hearings began at the ICJ in the Hague – at the request of the UN General Assembly – on Monday to examine the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
US Official Admits Israeli Actions Make It ‘Virtually Impossible’ to Distribute Aid in Gaza
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 18, 2024
A US Middle East official explained that Israeli decisions to target police in Gaza have made the distribution of aid in the besieged enclave “virtually impossible.” The official added that Israel has failed to provide evidence for its claim that Hamas is stealing the aid sent into Gaza. Tel Aviv has used allegations that Hamas is tied to international humanitarian agencies and steals shipments to severely restrict aid deliveries into Gaza as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are starving to death.
David Satterfield, the Biden administration’s special Middle East envoy for humanitarian issues, explained that Israel had killed several members of the police force in Gaza that safeguarded aid deliveries. Targeting the police force led to them being unable to escort aid deliveries.
“With the departure of police escorts, it has been virtually impossible for the UN or anyone else, Jordan, the UAE, or any other implementer to safely move assistance in Gaza because of criminal elements,” Satterfield said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday.
The Middle East envoy went on to admit that Israel has not presented “evidence of diversion or theft” of aid shipments into Gaza. Tel Aviv has used claims that assistance to the Palestinian people is exploited and stolen by Hamas to restrict the amount of food, fuel, and medicine that enters the enclave. Tel Aviv also restricts many medications, including painkillers, antibiotics, and anesthetics, from entering Gaza, claiming the aid could be used by Hamas militants.
Since October 7, Tel Aviv has exploited and promoted several lies to justify the genocide that is being inflicted on the Palestinian people. Last month, Israel claimed 12 members of the UN aid agency UNRWA participated in the Hamas attack on Israel. The US and over a dozen other Western nations cut funding to the agency based on Israeli allegations. However, several media outlets that have reviewed the Israeli dossier, which supposedly supports Tel Aviv’s assertions, say it contains no evidence.
Tel Aviv has asserted that Hamas command and control centers were built under critical civilian infrastructure in Gaza, such as cemeteries, the UNRWA headquarters, and Shifa Hospital. But, Israel was unable to produce evidence to back their claims even after having total control over the facilities.
The Israeli destruction of Gaza and restriction of aid have created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.3 million Palestinians that live in the Strip. Food, medical supplies, clean water, and fuel are scarce. Hundreds of thousands of people are in a state of famine.
Genocide Court Calls on Israel to Prevent ‘Exponential Increase of Humanitarian Nightmare’
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 18, 2024
The International Court of Justice demanded that Israel abide by a ruling the court issued last month as Palestinians suffer in a “perilous situation.” The court issued the statement in response to a request by South Africa for the court to intervene and prevent an Israeli attack on Rafah.
Near the end of last year, South Africa filed a suit with the ICJ alleging Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. In January, the court issued a primary ruling that Israel was committing a genocide fueled by statements from Israeli officials.
The ICJ ruling demanded that Israel halt operations that endanger civilians, end genocidal rhetoric, and punish those who commit or encourage war crimes. Israel and the US dismissed the ICJ ruling.
Last week, Pretoria filed a request with the court to issue an additional ruling against Israel as Tel Aviv planned operations in Rafah. Rafah is the last remaining city in Gaza not completely decimated by the Israeli military operations. At least 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering in the city, many in tents and on the streets.
The ICJ responded to the South African request by declining to issue further orders to Israel but cited its previous ruling that called on Israel to halt operations that could endanger Palestinian civilians. “The Court notes that the most recent developments in the Gaza Strip, and in Rafah in particular, would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,” A statement from the ICJ said.
“This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the Court in its Order of 26 January 2024.” The press release continues, “The Court emphasizes that the State of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said Order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
The Israeli government is planning the attack on Rafah, and Prime Minister Netanyahu says it will go ahead despite international pressure. Human rights organizations and Western governments are warning Israel not to attack the city because of the suffering it will inflict on Palestinian civilians.
It is unclear where the Palestinians will go once Israel destroys Rafah. Tel Aviv says it will not push the Palestinians from Rafah across the border into Egypt. However, Cairo is preparing for an influx of refugees.
Israeli military, intelligence bodies admit Hamas will survive onslaught on Gaza Strip
Press TV – February 18, 2024
Israeli military and intelligence institutions have warned the regime’s top-ranking authorities that the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement will survive the unrelenting ground and air strikes against the besieged Gaza Strip.
A document circulated from Israeli military leaders to senior politicians states that “authentic support remains” for Hamas among Gazans, according to a report published by the Hebrew-language Keshet 12 television channel.
The document, put together by the Israeli army’s research division, also warned that “Gaza will become an area in deep crisis”, given the lack of plan for the “day after” war.
The document was reportedly presented on Monday to leading Israeli officials following a week of senior military and intelligence talks about the findings, Keshet 12 noted.
Ilana Dayan, an investigative journalist at the broadcaster, said that the “bottom line” of the document was that the Hamas movement would inevitably survive Israel’s offensive.
The report comes as Israel prepares a ground offensive on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
The UN special rapporteur on Palestine has slammed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to push on with the assault.
“Rafah stands as the last line of Palestinian existence in Gaza, amidst the relentless anguish faced by the people trapped therein,” Francesa Albanese wrote on X.
“How can we possibly allow another Nakba? Have we really lost our minds?”
According to diplomatic sources quoted by the AFP news agency, the UN Security Council is set to put to vote a new resolution put forth by Algeria that demands an “immediate” truce in Gaza.
The latest version of the text “demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties”, the agency said.
It also “rejects forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population”, and it “demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”, AFP reported.
Earlier, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield issued a statement responding to reports that Algeria plans to put the resolution to a vote on Tuesday.
“Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The US has previously used its veto to prevent the UN Security Council from passing resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has reiterated his country’s “categorical rejection of the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt in any shape or form”.
During a phone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, the two leaders agreed on the need to “stop the bloodshed” in the Gaza Strip and discussed advancing the establishment of an independent sovereign Palestinian state, a statement by the Egyptian presidency read.
Israel has been waging the war against Gaza since October 7, 2023, when the coastal sliver’s resistance groups staged an operation, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupied territories.
Nearly 29,000 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and adolescents, have been killed so far as a result of the brutal military onslaught.
Israeli army converts Nasser Hospital into military barracks, arrests dozens of doctors, patients
Palestinian Information Center – February 18, 2024
GAZA – Israeli occupation forces converted the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis into a military barracks after taking it out of service. They have arrested dozens of medical staff and patients.
Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said on Sunday that the Israeli occupation has turned the Nasser Medical Complex into a military barracks and taken it out of service.
He pointed out that the Israeli occupation forces kept medical personnel for hours in the maternity building, handcuffed them, beat them, and stripped them of their clothes. He pointed out that the occupation army arrested 70 healthcare workers in the medical complex.
He said that there are now only 25 medical personnel left in the Nasser Medical Complex who are unable to handle cases in need of critical care. He warned that the occupation army has arrested the intensive care doctor and there is no doctor to follow up on critical cases.
He noted that the Israeli occupation forces have arrested dozens of immobile patients who are receiving treatment and placed them in military beds, loaded them onto trucks, and taken them to an unknown location, putting their lives at risk.
He added that the electricity has been cut off from the Nasser Medical Complex for three days, resulting in lack of oxygen for the patients. This has led to the death of seven patients so far, with fears of the death of dozens of critical cases.
He pointed out that three women, including a female doctor, gave birth in the Nasser Medical Complex under difficult and unsafe conditions, lacking water, food, electricity, and cleanliness. The water supply to the Nasser Medical Complex has been completely cut off for three days due to the power generators being out of service.
The spokesperson held Israel fully responsible for the lives of the medical staff and patients in the Nasser Medical Complex.
The Israeli army since January 22, following the expansion of its ground attack to the west of Khan Yunis and their issuance of more evacuation orders for the area, has been besieging the Nasser Hospital with a capacity of 475 beds, Al-Amal Hospital with a capacity of 100 beds, the Jordanian Field Hospital with a capacity of 50 beds, and Al-Khair Hospital, in addition to three health clinics, which housed thousands of displaced people along with patients, according to the statement.
On the same day, the Israeli occupation forces raided Al-Khair Hospital, which is run by a charitable association, and ordered women and children to evacuate towards Rafah. They also arrested several medical staff members and completely took it out of service.
In the following days, the Israeli occupation forces continued to shell and fire at Al-Amal Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex, using artillery, snipers, and quadcopter aircraft, resulting in the killing and injury of dozens of civilians. The hospital grounds turned into temporary graves before being raided, and taken out of service, along with the medical staff and patients inside.
Diplomatic Cables: Biden’s Support for Israel Has Poisoned Allies’ Attitudes Toward US
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 17.02.2024
The Biden administration has offered unequivocal support for Israel’s punitive operations in spite of international condemnation of Tel Aviv and calls for an urgent ceasefire. Top US allies in the Middle East have taken or threatened to take serious steps to distance themselves from Washington amid the crisis.
US diplomats stationed in Middle Eastern countries have been sending warning signals to Washington about the lasting anti-American sentiment stirred up in the region thanks to the Biden administration’s stubborn support for Tel Aviv’s military actions in Gaza.
The warnings, collected by the State Department over recent weeks and seen by ABC News, reportedly prompted a meeting between officials and US intelligence services to evaluate just how much damage had been done.
A cable from the US diplomatic mission in Morocco, for example, indicated that pro-US “collaborators” in the Northwest African country felt that ties with the US were now “toxic” thanks to the “blank check” Biden gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s Gaza operations.
“Criticism of the US position has proven unshakable despite significant adjustments to US messaging to highlight the need to protect civilian lives,” the cable, marked ‘sensitive’, warned, complaining that US messaging about sending “aid into Gaza or diplomatic pressure for Israel to avoid civilian casualties” were falling on deaf ears in the Moroccan press. The Embassy’s social media accounts have been targeted by “waves of unfollows or negative and abusive comments,” according to the cable.
An anonymous official told the network that the issue has spread beyond the Middle East to other Muslim majority countries, including Indonesia. Meanwhile, the “enduring hit to US popularity” in the Mideast is said to pose a threat to US plans for post-conflict diplomacy, as well as Washington’s long-standing push for normalization with Israel.
US intelligence agencies reportedly believe the negativity will blow over in the long term, while State Department officials fear it could take up to a “generation” to reestablish frayed ties.
The diplomatic downturn abroad has also been matched at home, with the administration quietly reaching out to American Muslim communities in battleground states like Michigan amid fears that they could stay home come November instead of coming out to reelect Joe Biden.
Biden’s handlers have sought to balance his comments on the Palestinian-Israeli crisis in recent weeks, but despite the posturing, the US is reportedly proceeding with plans to supply Israel with additional weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits and bomb fuses, while simultaneously calling publicly for a temporary ceasefire.
Washington’s duplicity has threatened to unravel decades of US diplomacy in the region. Last week, officials warned that Egypt is considering suspending its landmark 1978 Camp David peace agreement with Israel – the keystone to US normalization strategy.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of former regional arch adversaries Saudi Arabia and Iran vowed on Friday to expand their bilateral cooperation, while jointly blasting Israel over its “crimes” against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Saudi Arabia welcomed Iran’s proposal for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s foreign ministers to stop Israel’s “genocide.”
The latest escalation of the 75-year-old Palestinian-Israeli crisis began on October 7 after Hamas carried out surprise raids into southern Israel, catching the military off guard and taking hundreds of hostages. Over 1,450 Israelis and nearly 29,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the conflict to date, with some 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents displaced in the fighting.
Israeli army bars access of UN aid convoy to Nasser Hospital in Gaza
Palestinian Information Center – February 17, 2024
GAZA – The health ministry in Gaza said on Friday that the Israeli occupation army blocked a World Health Organization (WHO) aid convoy and top UN officials from reaching the besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
In a statement, the ministry said that the convoy, which consists of two trucks carrying food, water and fuel, had been stopped by the Israeli army on the road for several hours, while bulldozers dug holes in front of and behind the convoy.
There was no information if the Israeli army released the convoy later and allowed it to go back or reach the hospital.
In this regard, Palestinian minister of health Mai Kayla accused the Israeli army of committing a genocidal crime against the remaining displaced civilians, patients and medical staff at the Nasser Hospital.
Kayla warned that there would be a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip if the hospital stopped providing medical services, describing the facility as the backbone of the health system in the war-torn territory.
For its part, the WHO described the reports emerging from the Nasser hospital as “deeply alarming” and expressed its concern over the safety of the patients, health workers, and civilians sheltering at the facility.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told journalists at a press briefing in Geneva that the UN health body was trying to gain urgent access to the hospital.
“We really need to get there to bring fuel so [the] hospital can continue to function and those patients who are still there can continue to receive medical care,” he said, also stressing the need to assess the conditions of patients and for their safe referral to other facilities.
“We have been saying all this time… that patients, health workers and civilians who are seeking refuge in hospitals deserve safety and not a burial in those places of healing,” he added.
Washington readies thousands of bombs for Israel despite ‘push for truce’
The Cradle | February 17, 2024
US President Joe Biden and other White House officials are preparing to send additional bombs and other weapons to Israel even as the US claims to be pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 16 February.
Citing current and former US officials, the WSJ says the proposed arms delivery includes 500-pound MK-82 bombs, KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions that add precision guidance to bombs, and FMU-139 bomb fuses.
The value of the weapons deliveries is estimated to be “tens of millions of dollars.”
The proposed delivery is still being internally reviewed and must be approved by a congressional committee.
As of December 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has twice used emergency measures to bypass congressional review to send weapons to Israel.
While publicly asking Israel to kill fewer Palestinians during its military operations, Blinken and Biden have been staunch supporters of Israel’s military, refusing to set any red lines on the use of US weapons.
President Biden recently stated that the US would take no action against Israel should it invade Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where over 1 million displaced are sheltering, despite warnings from aid agencies that such an invasion would be a “bloodbath.”
Israel has dropped tens of thousands of US bombs, including hundreds of 2,000-pound BLU-109 bunker buster bombs, on Gaza, destroying entire residential neighborhoods, creating 40-foot craters in crowded refugee camps, and killing dozens at one time.
Israel’s air and ground offensive on Gaza since 7 October has killed 28,775 people, mostly civilians, and displaced nearly all of its more than 2 million inhabitants from their homes.
The Israeli campaign is widely viewed as genocide, while Israeli leaders openly discuss their desire to ethnically cleanse the besieged enclave, annex it, and establish Jewish settlements on the remains of destroyed Palestinian cities.
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From the Archives
Mutually Assured Delusion (MAD)
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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- Have the US and Israel killed non-proliferation?
- Moscow, Tehran to support each other amid US aggression: Russia’s defense minister
- Iran says EU’s insistence on sanctions hastens its ‘embarrassing descent into irrelevance’
- Argentina’s Javier Milei sells out his country for Israel
- Putting Nukes in Finland Won’t Make Country Safer, Finnish Politician Cautions
- If Americans Knew
- By Week’s End, Trump’s War Will Be Plainly Illegal
- CBS News Reportedly Ousts London Bureau Chief Over Differences With Bari Weiss Over Gaza Coverage
- State Department Says US Is in Conflict With Iran ‘At the Request’ of Israel
- What ceasefire? Israel won’t stop killing in Gaza, Lebanon – Daily Update
- Palestinians in Gaza Want to Rebuild Food Systems. Israel Isn’t Letting Them.
- Under Trump, Green Card Seekers Face New Scrutiny for Views on Israel
- Sheep Theft Sent Shockwaves Through a Palestinian Village. Then, a 12-year-old Boy Was Shot Dead
- Trump alum helps Israel mount AI influence campaign
- Dispatches From Catastrophe
- Despite Denials, AIPAC Is Now Funding Campaign of Ala Stanford In Philadelphia
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
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