US, UK attacks on Yemen illegal, strategic mistake: Iran foreign minister
Press TV – January 16, 2024
Iran’s foreign minister has strongly slammed the recent attacks on the Yemeni territory by the United States and the UK as illegal and a strategic mistake.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in an early Tuesday phone call with Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, during which the two sides discussed the latest developments related to the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea.
During the conversation, Iran’s top diplomat stressed the Islamic Republic’s principled stance on protecting and maintaining security of shipping and navigation.
“By stopping ships that are bound for the occupied [Palestinian] territories, Yemen seeks to put a halt to the Zionist regime’s crimes and genocide against civilians in Gaza,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
He added that “illegal measures taken by the United States and the UK in attacking Yemen” amounted to a strategic mistake that would lead to further escalation of tensions in the region.
Since the start of the Israeli military aggression on Gaza in early October 2023, the United States and its Western allies have been providing financial and logistical support to the occupying regime in its ceaseless bombardment campaign against Palestinians in the besieged territory.
As part of their support for Palestinians, Yemen’s Armed Forces and popular Ansarullah resistance movement have over the past month targeted several ships owned by Israel or bound for ports in the occupied territories in the strategic Red Sea after multiple warnings.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Iran’s foreign minister expressed concern about the complicated humanitarian situation in the besieged Gaza Strip, reiterating Iran’s readiness to send humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people in the territory.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza has so far claimed the lives of more than 24,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, leaving thousands of others wounded and millions homeless. According to the UN, about 85 percent of the territory’s population has been displaced and forced into crowded shelters.
The regime has been also enforcing an all-out siege against Gaza that has prevented the flow of food, water, fuel, and medicine into the territory.
The UN chief, for his part, expressed concern about further spread of conflicts across the region, saying the world body is trying to stop the war and alleviate the suffering of the regional people.
He once again condemned the ongoing military aggression against Gaza, stressing the need for stopping it and sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians there.
Guterres also lauded the role played by the Islamic Republic in bolstering peace and stability in the region.
Nazis and Zionists
Genocidal Hate Speech in Nazi Germany and Talmudic-Zionist “Israel”
Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method | January 9, 2024
The Nazis
On 25 October 1941 we have the following statement from Hitler. It was uttered during a private dinner with his co-conspirators SS chief Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhardt Heydricht, commander of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Nazi Germany’s Department of Homeland Security):
“In Parliament [30 January1939 and 1941], I prophesied Jewry that the Jew will disappear from Europe if war is not avoided. This criminal race has to account for two million deaths in World War I, and now again hundreds of thousands. Don’t anybody tell me that we cannot send them into the morass! Who cares about our people? It is good if the terror precedes us that we are exterminating Jewry. The attempt to create a Jewish state will be a failure!”
From the diary of Josef Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, May 27, 1942:
“Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated (abgeschoben) eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated (liquidiert)…” (Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, 1941-1945; De Gruyter Saur).
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
In July 1942, hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were being deported, most of them via the Treblinka Camp. Jewish leaders in the Warsaw Ghetto therefore decided to fight back. They started an uprising on April 19, 1943. It was put down brutally by German armed forces, for the most part within a few days, but skirmishes carried on until mid-May. Jews who survived were again generally deported.
October 6, 1943 SS chief Himmler spoke before the political elite of the Third Reich. In a brief excerpt from his long speech, we read the following (Smith/Peterson 1974, pp. 169 f.):
“I ask of you that that which I say to you in this circle be really only heard and not ever discussed. We were faced with the question: what about the women and children? – I decided to find a clear solution to this problem too. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate (only) the men – in other words, to kill them or have them killed and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up.
“The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth. For the organization which had to execute this task, it was the most difficult which we had ever had…I felt obliged to you, as the most superior dignitary, as the most superior dignitary of the party, this political order, this political instrument of the Führer, to also speak about this question quite openly…”
October 7, 1943, the day after Himmler had given his lengthy speech about “making the Jews disappear from the earth,” Goebbels wrote: “As to the Jewish Question, (Himmler) gives a very frank and candid picture. He is of the opinion that we can solve the Jewish Question for all of Europe by the end of this year. He advocates the most radical and harshest solution, namely, that the whole of Jewry will be exterminated [auszurotten]. This is surely a consistent, if brutal, solution.”
Hans Frank (Nazi governor of occupied Poland) — diary entry for December 16, 1941: “We must destroy the Jews, wherever we find them, in order to maintain the overall structure of the Reich here. […] Currently there are in the Government General [occupied Poland] approximately 2½ million, and together with those who are kith and kin and connected in all kinds of ways, we now have 3 ½ million Jews. We cannot shoot these 3 ½ million Jews, nor can we poison them, yet we will have to take measures which will somehow lead to the goal of annihilation, and that will be done in connection with the great measures which are to be discussed together with the Reich. The territory of the General Government must be made free of Jews, as is the case in the Reich. Where and how this will happen is a matter of the means which must be used and created, and about whose effectiveness I will inform you in due time.” (IMT, Vol. 29, pp. 502f.)
On March 4, 1944, Nazi governor Frank stated (p. 687): “The Jews are a race that must be effaced. Wherever we catch one, he is coming to an end.”
Between late 1941 and late 1942, Nazi authorities deported many tens of thousands of Jews from western and central European countries to locations in the German-occupied Soviet Union… many if not most of them were killed there by the Einsatzgruppen and associated units.
“In particular the camp Maly Trostenets near Minsk (capital of Belorussia), and the prison at Fort IX near Kaunas (Lithuania) deserve to be mentioned in this context. Thousands of deported Jews were executed there.
“Jews living inside the Soviet Union were the primary target of the Einsatzgruppen and associated units…this happened primarily by way of mass shootings…German wartime documents speak of some 750,000 victims…”
“Not just one, but two Einsatzgruppen – C and D – were active in Ukraine. The most infamous crime scene associated with these units occurred in the suburbs of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, at Babi Yar… The Einsatzgruppen’s ranked death-toll list includes several entries for Ukrainian locations…(totaling approximately 138,000 victims)… Ukraine was completely occupied by Germany.. This put all of Ukraine’s remaining Jews in mortal danger, and many paid with their life.”
“SS Gruppenführer Arthur Nebe became head of Germany’s Civil Police in 1936. In June 1941, Nebe was appointed commander of Einsatzgruppe B, which he led from its inception in June, 1941 until October 1941, hence “for some four months. As such, he approved several Einsatzgruppen reports sent to Berlin which documented the execution of thousands of Jews in the deployment area of his Einsatzgruppe B.”
“SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf was the director of Office III, the “SD” (Internal Security Service) of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office). In 1941 he was appointed head of Einsatzgruppe D, a position he held for a year. This group operated in the southern region of the temporarily German-occupied Soviet Union (Bessarabia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus)…“At the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen Trial, Ohlendorf accepted responsibility for at least 90,000 victims of mass shootings carried out by Einsatzgruppe D, while he was in charge of that unit. There is an abundance of documentary evidence in support of these facts.
In the summer of 1942, the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Polish Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto was underway. When the deported Jews arrived further East, Wilhelm Kube, Nazi Commissioner for Belorussia, complained to his superior Lohse on July 31, 1942 (and later also to Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories), indicating Kube’s forces had been executing tens of thousands of Jews in the area to prevent them from supporting the partisans.”
“In Hitler’s Table Talk, Hitler drew a picture of the future of the Eastern European territories which is one of the best authenticated of his life’s visions and typical of his weltanschauung, which entailed the total disfranchisement of the subjugated. He ruled they have no claims of any kind, except to an early death. They are forbidden to learn to read and write; to concern themselves with history or politics is a crime worthy of death. Any communication whatever going beyond the confines of the village is strictly prohibited…They are to live in their filthy hovels without hygiene or inoculation, while the German settlers, strictly segregated, own splendid villages and spacious fortress farms.”
— German revisionist historian Ernst Nolte (1923-2016), author of the magisterial 1987 history, Der europäische Bürgerkrieg (“The European Civil War”).
The Zionists
“We shall try to spirit the penniless (Palestinian) population across the border…while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” —Theodor Herzl, founding father of Zionism, 1895
“I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it” (1938). “Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin (Palestinian peasant farmers)….….Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.”
—David Ben-Gurion, first Israeli Prime Minister, 1948
Writing in his diary in 1940 Yosef Weitz, a senior Jewish National Fund official who chaired the influential Transfer Committee before and during the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), and became known as the “Architect of Transfer,” (mass expulsion of the Palestinian population), put it thus: “The only solution is a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. They must all be moved. Not one village, not one tribe can remain. Only through this transfer of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel will redemption come.”
The religious-terrorist Kach party was founded in 1971 by Brooklyn-born Rabbi Meir Kahane who argued for the immediate expulsion of the Palestinians, who he called “dogs.” In 1984, Kahane introduced legislation in the Knesset to ban all Jewish-Gentile marriages and sexual relations and revoke the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews.
In 2019, Kahane’s follower Itamar Ben Gvir formed the “Jewish Power” party, an ideological offshoot of Kach. Merging with other Talmudic-Zionist parties to form Religious Zionism in 2022, they won the third-largest share of Israel’s parliament seats. Netanyahu appointed Ben-Gvir Israeli Minister of Security. For years Ben-Gvir displayed in a place of honor in his home a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who killed 40 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 in a shooting massacre as they knelt in prayer at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994. As the Israeli Security Minister Ben-Gvir has instigated a settler reign of terror on Palestinian farmers and sheepherders on the West Bank.
In the aftermath of Goldstein’s slaughter, Noam Federman, a spokesman for the Kach party opined, “The act itself was one of greatness. It was a great act of sanctifying the Name (of God).”
Paying homage at Goldstein’s funeral, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin told mourners that “one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.”
”Palestinians in Lebanon are two-legged animals.”
—Israeli Prime Minister Menchaem Begin (source: NY Times, August 5, 1985, p. A6)
Palestinians are cockroaches scurrying in a bottle.”
—Israeli Army Chief of Staff Rafael Eytan (source: NY Times, August 5, 1985, p. A6)
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of the powerful Israeli Shas political party and chief rabbi of Sephadic Israeli Judaism, taught that the Arab people should be exterminated, “May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them. It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones.”
—2001 Passover sermon. Cf. Haaretz, April 12, 2001. 700,000 Israelis attended Ovadia’s funeral. In its obituary, the New York Times eulogized him and omitted all reference to his calls for exterminating Arabs.
“If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It’s an ugly solution, but it is the only solution.”
—Ben Shapiro, American media personality, Orlando Sentinel, September 8, 2023
“Well, if everyone in Gaza is a refugee, let’s scatter them around the world. There are 2.5 million people there, every country will take in 20,000 people, 100 countries.”
— Ram Ben Barak, Member of the Knesset, ex-Mossad Deputy Director, November 1
“There should be a second Nakba.”
—Israeli agriculture minister Avi Dichter, November 11, 2023. [Nakba: the 1948 forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, which culminated in the creation of the so-called “state of Israel”].
Gaza City in the early days of the Israeli terror bombings, October, 2023
“The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them (Palestinians) there is but one sentence, and that is death…Gaza has to be wiped off the map, in order to send a message to all our enemies and those who seek us harm…. In Gaza, we have to be clear, there are no innocent [civilians]. There are no “uninvolved” people.”
—Yitzhak Kroizer, Member of the Israeli parliament (“Knesset”), Nov. 5. 2023.
Tally Gotliv, an official in Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has demanded that Prime Minister Netanyahu use a nuclear bomb on Gaza. “Before we consider inserting ground troops, doomsday weapon.”
Likud member of the Knesset, Boaz Bismuth stated with reference to Gaza: “There’s no place for any humanitarian gestures.”
Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli said on Israel’s Channel 13: “[We] should have killed many times 20,000 people, [we] should have begun with a blow of 100,000.”
As of January 9, 2024, the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of Gaza’s housing.
85 percent of the population of Gaza have been dehoused and rendered homeless.
In three months the Israelis have killed more than 22,000 Gazans, the majority of them women and children. The number of wounded, disabled and mutilated are more than twice that casualty figure. It is expected that many more Palestinian civilians will die of intentional Israeli-imposed imposed disease and hunger.
“Non-Jews are uncompassionate by nature and attacks on them curb their evil inclination.” — Torat Ha-Melekh (sometimes spelled Torat Hamelech, 2009). Torat Ha-Melekh is an Israeli rabbinic book based on the Talmud which has been widely distributed to Israeli military personnel.
A Palestinian child is treated for injuries on a hospital floor in Gaza, inflicted by the “Israeli Defense Force”, while a wounded Palestinian man awaits further medical care, autumn, 2023
Torat Ha-Melekh teaches that it is a religious duty to kill non-Jewish children on the enemy side during warfare, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.” Other reasons the Israeli authors furnish for the permission to kill non-Jewish children include if they “block the rescue of Jews… Little children are often situated in this way…it is permitted to kill them because their very presence facilitates the killing (of Jews)…(p. 215). “It is also permitted to kill the children of the leader (of the enemy) in order to put pressure on him…” (p. 215).
“We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”
— Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, October 9, 2023.
On January 6, 2024 the New York Times described Gallant as “a moderate member of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party…” (Section A, Page 6; italics added).
“Human beasts are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza: no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell—you will get hell”.
—Israeli Major General Ghassan Alian, Coordinator of the Government in the Territories, October 10
“Israel has no choice but to render Gaza into a place that is temporarily, or permanently, unfit for living.”
— Giora Eiland, Israeli Defense Ministry, October 11
“Do not leave a stone unturned in Gaza. Gaza needs to turn into Dresden. Complete incineration. Annihilate Gaza now!”
—Moshe Feiglin, Member of the Israeli Knesset, October 26, 2023. The Allied incineration by more than 800 bombers leveled the city of Dresden and burned alive tens of thousands of civilians.
Concerning the Palestinian population of Gaza: “They are not humans nor human animals, they are sub-humans and should be treated as such.”
—Arieh King, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, December 8
“There are no innocent [civilians] in Gaza.”
—Avigdor Lieberman, Member of the Knesset, and leader of Israel Beytenu Party, former Israeli Defense Minister, December 3
“We are too humane. Burn Gaza now, nothing less!”
—Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, November 17
“… we should make sure that there is a severe humanitarian disaster there (in Gaza), and severe epidemics, and horrible pressure, and cries to the sky—because that’s how wars are won… A humanitarian disaster is the only way to bring about the end of the war in a desirable way. Think about it this way: the poor women of Gaza, who are they? They are the mothers and sisters and wives of the Hamas murderers. Gaza’s system, unlike [its characterization by the US which I mentioned earlier] that there is Hamas and there are civilians—it is not true! Gaza is a state that is entirely united around its leader and its ideology for 15 years, without any dissent and with enthusiastic support….
“The weak point [of Gaza] is their civilian population…the thousands of Hamas terrorists, whose mothers and wives and children who will start suffering from severe illnesses, are the point of weakness. If we want to win the war—that’s how you win a war.”
“I agree with every word of Giora Eiland.”
—Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, November, 2024
“Given the collapse of Gaza’s sanitation and medical systems, as much as a quarter of Gaza’s people could die within the year, mostly from disease or lack of access to medical care.”
—Peter Beinart, Jan. 7, 2024
“Spend your energy on one thing; wiping Gaza off the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters fly to the southern fence and flee into Egyptian territory. Or have them die. And have them die horribly. Gaza must be wiped out. ..We require a revengeful and cruel IDF (Israeli military). Anything less than that is immoral. Simply immoral.”
—Galit Distel-Atbaryan, Member of the Knesset, November 1
“I am saying here to the citizens of Lebanon…(w)hat we are doing in Gaza we know how to do in Beirut.”
—Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, November 11.
(Gallant was telling the truth. In the summer of 1982 the Israeli air force terror-bombed the city of Beirut resulting in 20,000 civilians killed and tens of thousands wounded).
“The north of the Gaza strip—more beautiful than ever. Blowing up and flattening everything, simply a delight for the eyes.”
—Amichai Eliyahu, Israeli Minister of Heritage, November 1.
“…twice as many children have died in Gaza just since the war started on Oct. 7 as in all the conflicts worldwide in 2022…Far more women and children appear to have been killed in Gaza than in the entire first year of the Iraq war…pulverizing entire neighborhoods…Too many (people) see events through a prism in which (Israeli) lives are invaluable on one side while (Palestinian) deaths on the other are regrettable.”
—Nicholas Kristof, December 6
“This law is taught: in the case of Israel, this soul of the kelipah is derived from kelipat nogah, which contains good…The souls of the gentiles however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever.” —Shneur Zalman of Lyady, “the Alter Rebbe.” Likkutei Amarim, (chapter 1). This sacred text is more commonly known by its first Hebrew word “Tanya.” Zalman is the founder of Chabad Lubavitch. Tanya is its revered text.
“According to this radical Hasidic teaching, divinity dwells in the inner core of every Judaic human being. Those who are non-Judaic have no humanity, no inner core in which the divine can take up residence. Those beings who are not Judaic are sub-human: empty kelipot (corporeal ‘shells’) which constitute broken vessels.
“In this theology non-Jews are broken shells who adopt the appearance of a human form which conceals their demonic essence. Those who are not Jews are the personification of purely evil materiality. Kabbalistic theology posits a cosmic dichotomy wherein the gentile represents biologically-determined, irredeemable evil. This is the esoteric rabbinic teaching which the western secret societies (also known as the ‘New Age’), understood and implemented. In the case of the indoctrination of their agent Adolf Hitler, the western occult reversed the polarities and taught Hitler that “the Jews” were the kelipot (‘untermenschen’), and the ‘Aryans’ the purely distilled essence of the divine. The Hitler/Himmler/Goebbels version of National Socialism was, unknown to these dupes themselves, a Kabbalistic teaching on the biologically-determined, irredeemable evil in the form of the ‘Jew.’ Hitlerism was Kabalism in the garments of Aryanism.”
— Michael Hoffman
“The differences between Jews and gentiles are not religious, historical, cultural or political. They are, rather, racial, genetic and scientifically unalterable. The one group is at its very root and by natural constitution ‘totally evil’ while the other is ‘totally good.’ Jewish successes in the world are completely contingent upon the failure of all other peoples. Only when the gentiles face total catastrophe do the Jews experience good fortune.”
—Rabbi Saadya Grama, Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (“Jewish Superiority and the Question of Exile,” 2003). Grama is an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha, a renowned yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey.
There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life.”
—Talmudic-Kabbalist Yitzhak Ginsburg, Jewish Week (N.Y.), Aug. 26, 1996
“The dissimilarity between the Jewish soul, in all its independence, inner desires, longings, character and standing vis-à-vis the soul of all the gentiles–on all of their levels–is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, for the difference in the latter case is one of quantity, while the difference in the first case is one of essential quality.”
— Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, 1921-1935, “The Father of Talmudic Zionism.” [Source: David Dishon,“The Beauty of Yefet in the Tents of Shem-Gentiles and Jews in the Thought of Rav Kook,” in Havruta: A Journal of Jewish Conversation; Shalom Hartman Institute. 1 (2): 80–89.]
“Wherever there is liability for capital punishment, with regard to bloodshed, if a gentile murders another gentile, or a gentile murders a Jew, he is liable. If a Jew murders a gentile, he is exempt.”
—Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 57a
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, October 28: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you says our Holy Bible, and we do remember and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that started 3,000 years ago—from Joshua to the heroes of 1948—the Six Day War, the 1973 October war—and all other wars of this country—are hero troops. They have one supreme main goal, to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country.”
In 1 Samuel 15:3 the judgment of God is on the Amalekites, in the form of the divine command to Saul, the first King of Israel: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
These are patently the marching orders Netanyahu gave the Israeli military (‘the most moral military in the world’): slay all the civilians of Gaza and spare them not. Not even Clarence Darrow could parse it otherwise. There’s no lawyer’s loophole here; no moderating clause.
“Netanyahu’s Amalek speech was a warrant for a genocide that has been carried out to the letter, notwithstanding the delusional Gaza holocaust denial which squats in our media, churches and government atop the cadavers of thousands of ‘unclean kelipot’—bombed and burned Palestinian children and their mothers, whose deaths do not register in the conscience of America. The Talmudic-resonate belief in the worthlessness of the Palestinians is as ubiquitous and inescapable as the racist hate speech which inculcates it.”
—Michael Hoffman, January 9, 2024.
I will not be silent.
Copyright©2024 by Independent History and Research
Michael Hoffman manages the podcast, Revisionist History®. He is the author of the banned 2008 textbook Judaism Discovered (1,102 pages), and nine other volumes of history and literature, as well as 122 issues of the periodical, Revisionist History®. Michael is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press and a former paid consultant to the news department of the New York Times. His books have been published in translation in Japan and France. He resides with his family in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. On Twitter (“X”): https://twitter.com/HoffmanMichaelA
For Further Research
‘Witch hunts in Israel’: Teacher placed in solitary confinement for criticizing Gaza killings
Press TV – January 14, 2024
The Israeli regime has held a history teacher in solitary confinement and fired him for raising concerns on social media about the Zionist forces killing of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and criticizing the military.
Meir Baruchin was kept in solitary confinement in a high-security jail in early November, over a series of Facebook posts he’d made, mourning the civilians killed in Gaza, criticizing the Israeli military, and warning against wars of revenge.
“Horrific images are pouring in from Gaza. Entire families were wiped out. I don’t usually upload pictures like this, but look what we do in revenge,” said his message on 8 October, a day after the Israeli regime started a genocidal war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Strom.
“Anyone who thinks this is justified because of what happened yesterday should unfriend themselves. I ask everyone else to do everything possible to stop this madness. Stop it now. Not later, Now!!!” he wrote below a picture of the family of Abu Daqqa, killed in one of the first airstrikes on Gaza.
Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in the solitary confinement wing of al-Qud’s notorious “Russian Compound” prison, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.
Baruchin was initially told to come to a police station for questioning over charges of sedition. When he pointed out to police that they needed a warrant from the attorney general to charge an Israeli citizen with that offense, treason charges were duly drawn up.
When he arrived at the police station, his arms and ankles were cuffed, and he was shown a warrant to search his home. Five detectives escorted him there, turned his apartment upside down, and eventually confiscated two laptops and six hard drives. The police then asked for more time to investigate, and a judge ordered that he be detained.
“I wasn’t allowed to take anything with me to the cell,” he told the Observer. “I walked in with my clothes on and stayed with the same clothes for four days. There were cold-water showers, a tiny piece of soap, two blankets stinking from cigarette smoke, and a tiny towel,” he said.
He was interrogated again before a second judge ordered his release.
But he is living on savings while he waits for the verdict and even if he wins the treason charges have not been dropped: he could live in their shadow for five years, the limit for the police to prosecute.
He is not the only teacher to be targeted. Authorities also summoned Yael Ayalon, head of a Tel Aviv high school, after she shared a Haaretz article warning that Israeli media was hiding the suffering of Gaza’s civilians. “Israeli citizens need to be aware of this reality,” the piece said.
“This story is much bigger than my personal story, or Yael’s personal story. It is a time of witch hunts in Israel, of political persecution,” he said. “I became a ‘Hamas supporter’ because I expressed my opposition to targeting innocent civilians.”
He said he’d received hundreds of private messages of support from fellow teachers and students who were too frightened to go public, and showed several to the Observer.
“The message is crystal clear: keep silent, watch out,” he says, adding that they strengthened his conviction about speaking out. “I thought to myself, when I retire, I might conclude this is the most significant lesson I ever gave in civics.”
He still follows what is happening in Gaza closely, and flicks on his phone through images of the recent dead, a journalist, a violinist, a baby.
His latest post before the interview with the Observer was an image of an improvised grave marker, that looks like part of a broken piece of furniture. “Unknown martyr, green jacket and trainers,” the inscription reads.
“The whole story in one picture,” he says. “The Israeli mainstream media don’t broadcast this picture. They don’t get this picture, and don’t want to get this picture.”
100 Days of Ongoing Genocide in Gaza Amid the International Community’s Failure to Protect Palestinians
Al-Haq | January 14, 2024
Today, 14 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign against Gaza enters its hundredth day. Over this period, Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) have monitored and exposed the plethora of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts constituting genocide committed by the Israeli authorities and military across the occupied Palestinian territory, with its epicenter in Gaza. A hundred days later, the international community still falls short of fulfilling its duty to protect the Palestinian people.
The Israeli military is killing an average of 250 Palestinians per day in Gaza, a higher daily death rate than any other twenty-first-century armed conflict. In 100 days, Israeli attacks have killed one out of every 100 Palestinians in Gaza and injured—often with life-altering wounds—at least two Palestinians in every 100. As we write, thousands of Palestinians remain buried under rubble, whether dead or alive, some enduring this situation for days or even weeks. Hundreds of bodies are in a state of decay, deprived of the right to a dignified burial, as Israel continues to deny medical and rescue teams access to areas where its troops and soldiers are deployed.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza killed 23,843 Palestinians and wounded 60,317 more. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, among those killed are approximately 10,400 children, 7,100 women, 337 medical personnel, 45 civil defense personnel, and 117 journalists. Our teams on the ground emphasize that the actual number of fatalities is considerably higher than the figure announced by the Ministry of Health, as a substantial number of individuals remain trapped under the rubble.
This chilling death and injury toll occurs amidst a deliberately imposed humanitarian crisis by the Israeli authorities upon the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza. Ninety percent of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, with many experiencing displacement on multiple occasions, notwithstanding that there is not a single place in Gaza that can be called safe. Israel employs starvation as a method of warfare: 2.3 million residents of Gaza, including our staff, face significant daily challenges in accessing food and water. Reports of deaths from hunger, particularly among children, newborns and infants, are beginning to surface. The situation is particularly catastrophic in northern Gaza, where the presence of Israeli soldiers and troops on the ground has made the delivery of humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians who are still located there virtually impossible.
Due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, every facet of life there has faced utter destruction. The local healthcare system has crumbled as Israel has declared an “unrelenting war” on the health system in Gaza, rendering it incapable of delivering essential care to the injured, sick individuals, and everyday patients. Educational pursuits have been severely disrupted, with Israeli attacks causing complete destruction to 95 schools and universities, and partial damage to 295 others, as reported by the Government Media Office in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes destroyed 145 mosques, while another 243 were partially damaged. Three churches have been destroyed by Israeli attacks, along with numerous archaeological and historical sites, as well as significant cultural landmarks, contributing to the erasure of Palestinian history and life throughout Gaza.
Simultaneously with the genocide in Gaza, Israel escalated attacks against Palestinians all across historic Palestine. In the occupied West Bank, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, the Israeli military and settlers killed 336 Palestinians, including 84 children. Over the same period of time, Israel started a campaign of mass arrest: since 7 October, at least 5875 Palestinians have been detained, as further punitive measures have been imposed on them and the existing 5,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including administrative detainees. Palestinians in Israeli custody and detention are subjected to torture, ill-treatment, inhumane or degrading treatment, and enforced disappearances. The Israel Prison Service announced the ‘death’ of at least seven Palestinian detainees and prisoners. Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship have also experienced various forms of persecution, including arbitrary arrests, threats of citizenship revocation, and a severe crackdown on freedom of speech.
Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR reiterate that the Palestinian people in Gaza are facing an ongoing genocide. Israel’s actions in Gaza—encompassing killings, causing severe bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life aimed at physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group—constitute genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention. These acts are committed with the intent to destroy, either wholly or in part, the Palestinian population in Gaza. This intent is substantiated by statements from official Israeli sources and individuals expressing the clear intention to carry out such destruction.
The recent address from the Israeli Prime Minister, delivered last night, underscores the lack of any inclination on Israel’s part to cease its genocidal military campaign in Gaza. The remarks made during this speech also underline Israel’s refusal to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, in violation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/ES-10/L.27 adopted on 10 December 2023, highlighting the urgency for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to promptly issue provisional measures.
To this end, we urge the ICJ to swiftly issue provisional measures instructing Israel to cease military operations, refrain from genocidal acts in Gaza, and facilitate the entry of aid and fact-finding teams for accountability purposes, as requested by South Africa. We additionally call on all State Parties to the Genocide Convention to express their endorsements and formally support the legal proceedings initiated by South Africa at the ICJ.
We reiterate our plea to the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, to officially acknowledge and publicly affirm that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip amount to genocide. Additionally, we urge her to condemn the genocidal rhetoric emanating from Israeli officials and emphasize the inherent dangers that such rhetoric poses to the international community.
Under international law, States must not recognize illegal situations as legitimate and must refrain from assisting in maintaining the illegal situation. States must also impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel and stop the provision and transit of military equipment that may foreseeably be used in the commission of international crimes.
Responsibility at the State level should be accompanied by individual criminal accountability. We strongly reiterate our calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to promptly issue arrest warrants for Israeli political, security and military officials—especially governmental officials and high-ranking military personel—believed to be responsible for perpetrating, ordering, planning, and instigating international crimes, including genocide, committed over the past 100 days as well as since 13 June 2014.
Israel’s international crimes against the Palestinian people must cease immediately and permanently. To this end, the international community must not only hold Israel and the Israeli authorities accountable, but address the root causes by dismantling Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, and ensuring that all discriminatory and inhumane laws, policies and practices against the Palestinian people are abolished once and for all. The international community must also urge Israel, the Occupying Power, to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, lift the closure and blockade of Gaza, and enable the Palestinian people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, including their right to return.
The Hague won’t stop us – Netanyahu
RT | January 13, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed at a press conference on Saturday not to let the genocide case being taken against his country at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stand in the way of continuing his country’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“No one will stop us – not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, and no one else. It is possible and necessary to continue until victory and we will do it,” he said.
While the term “Axis of Evil” was first used in a speech by then-US president George W Bush to refer to Iraq, Iran and North Korea – at the time believed to be Washington’s chief enemies equipped with “weapons of mass destruction” later shown to be almost entirely mythological – it’s not clear whether Netanyahu intended to slight Pyongyang. However, North Korean state media did argue in an editorial posted shortly after the October 7 attack by Hamas that West Jerusalem had brought the raid upon itself with its “constant criminal acts against the Palestinian people.”
Elsewhere in the speech, the Israeli leader used the term to refer to Iran, the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah, and Hamas itself – a loose coalition that has elsewhere been described as the “Axis of Resistance” for its opposition to US and Israeli power in the region.
Hearings into alleged genocide against Israel began earlier this week at the ICJ in The Hague in the Netherlands, with South Africa making the case that Israel has engaged in actions “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
West Jerusalem has countered that it is Hamas actually that is harboring genocidal intent against Israelis and argued it is justified in attempting to “eliminate” the militant group it blames for 1,200 Israeli deaths on October 7 – no matter the resulting harm to the civilian population.
Israel Defense Forces troops have since admitted they were ordered to fire on Israelis in the border kibbutzes and desert rave during the Hamas raid, raising questions about how many of the casualties were actually killed by Palestinians as opposed to IDF tank fire and airstrikes.
Venezuelan FM Condemns the US Attacks on Yemen
teleSUR – January 13, 2024
The Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, strongly condemned the USA, United Kingdom and other countries’ attacks on Yemen, through a formal statement on his X account.
Gil emphasized that those are an illegal action that violates International Law and that only contributes to generating greater destabilization in the region.
“Venezuela insists that the only way to guarantee peace and stability in the Middle East is through the cessation of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, carried out by Israel,” reads the communique.
As well, Venezuela asks the immediate compliance with all United Nations resolutions for the establishment of a free and sovereign Palestinian State.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela join to the countries that urges the international community to exert all necessary pressure measures to reestablish international legality and justice in the area, avoiding an escalation of the conflict caused by Israeli barbarity in Palestine.
Other FMs, like the Russian and the Cuban, also condemned the military attacks by the US & NATO allies in Yemen. They considered that such acts encourage genocide in Gaza and reiterated their call for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave.
UNSC has not authorized force against Yemen; China urges all parties concerned to abide by international law
Global Times | January 13, 2024
China opposes any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, and all measures must be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe and make a cease-fire the most urgent task of the moment, China’s permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun said during a UN Security Council conference on Friday local time.
An immediate ceasefire has become the overwhelming call of the international community, but a permanent member of UN Security Council (UNSC) has vetoed the consensus reached by the UNSC in this regard on various grounds, which is a blatant defiance of international fairness, justice and the authority of UNSC, Zhang said.
The UNSC failed to adopt a draft resolution on December 8, 2023 that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza due to a veto cast by the US. Many countries expressed disappointment over the US veto of the Gaza-related draft.
It is a blatant double standard for some people to talk about the protection of human rights and the prevention of genocide while pretending to be deaf and dumb, covering up and diverting attention from the tragic situation in Gaza, Zhang remarked, “We must remove all interference and take vigorous action to quell the war, save lives and restore peace.”
In addition, Zhang stressed that that any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people must be firmly rejected.
Over the past three months, millions of Palestinian people have been forced to relocate repeatedly and were under constant threat to their lives, said Zhang, noting that China is gravely concerned about the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza people, which has been advocated by some Israeli politicians.
The horrific idea of displacing two million people from Gaza and turning it into a “safe zone” devoid of human habitation, if implemented, would constitute a grave crime under international law and completely destroy prospects for the “Two-State solution,” Zhang remarked.
The Chinese envoy called for all measures to be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
Zhang said it was totally unacceptable for Israel to accuse the UN of not having the will and capacity to provide humanitarian relief when it was clear that Israel was accountable for the continued bombing and striking in Gaza and setting obstacles to the entry of humanitarian supplies.
He urged Israel to immediately cease its indiscriminate military attacks and destruction of Gaza.
UNSC resolutions 2712 and 2720 must be fully implemented, and Israel must fulfil its obligations as the occupying party to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and provide full cooperation with humanitarian relief efforts, Zhang said.
The envoy reiterated that a ceasefire must be implemented with the utmost urgency. “Only a ceasefire can prevent greater civilian casualties and humanitarian disasters and create conditions for the early release of all hostages; only a ceasefire can prevent the complete destruction of the basis of the Two-State solution; and only a ceasefire can prevent the entire Middle East region from being drawn into a catastrophe.”
Regarding the recent attacks launched by US and UK on Yemen against the Houthi rebels, which targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, Zhang expressed concerns about the spillover effects of the Gaza crisis.
Zhang said at a UNSC emergency conference on the Red Sea situation on the same day that the UNSC has never authorized any country to use force against Yemen. The military action taken by the related countries runs counter to the UN resolution 2722, which the Security Council has just adopted.
The envoy warned that the Middle East region is on the brink of extreme danger, and what should be avoided now is reckless military adventurism. He added that what is needed most of all is calm and restraint to prevent further expansion of the conflict.
China urges all parties concerned, especially the influential powers, to abide by the Charter of the UN and international law, adhere to the direction of dialogue and consultation, and make practical efforts to maintain peace and stability in the Red Sea and the Middle East region, Zhang said.
The US carried out further strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday night a day after launching a coordinated multi-nation attack on nearly 30 Houthi locations.
Israel has destroyed 380 mosques since 7 October
MEMO | January 12, 2024
The Israeli occupation army has destroyed 380 mosques and three churches in Gaza since the beginning of its aggression on 7 October, the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip revealed yesterday.
Earlier, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the death toll from the aggression on the territory had risen to 23,469 martyrs and 59,604 wounded.
The Ministry of Health stated that the occupation had committed ten massacres against families in the territory in the past 24 hours, resulting in 112 deaths and 194 injuries.
Since October, the occupation army has deliberately targeted mosques, churches, and historical sites in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to erase the religious, cultural, and heritage presence in the territory, and to conceal the historical evidence and Palestinian historical depth in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- RSF military group defects, joins Sudanese army: State media
- Ireland goalkeeper refuses to play ‘Israel’ as squad weighs boycott
- China pushes back against US on Cuba, Iran
- Ukrainian Soldiers, Potential Mercenaries: Have Gun, Will Travel!
- Burnham’s UN debut… A masterclass in British disinformation
- Iran flights continue despite US aviation sanctions
- Global Tipping Points Lead the World Into a State of Entropy
- The day-after at the White House: USA and Xi Jinping
- The Geopolitical Balance in the Red Sea: The UAE Being Displaced by New Players
- Iraqi resistance group vows to stage airport sit-ins over Iran aerial blockade
- If Americans Knew
- Deconstructing Netanyahu’s pants-on-fire UN rant – Daily Update
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
