Why Are Israelis Obsessed with Killing Palestinian Children?
KEVIN BARRETT • DECEMBER 29, 2023
Kevin Barrett is editor at Veterans Today who joins us. Welcome to the program, Kevin Barrett. I’m not too sure whether I should talk about the reference that the Osama Hamdan, the senior Hamas leader there, made to the Israeli regime force who wanted to kill children or to the other aspect of this war. But let’s start with that one in particular, which is pretty gruesome and pretty shocking. Why do you think the Israeli soldiers are acting in that way unless they’re being maybe instructed to kill babies? But then again, isn’t that part of their psyche in terms of the training that they received in the past in their military?
Yes, the Israeli military is notorious for deliberately targeting and murdering children. Chris Hedges wrote about that in his famous article “A Gaza Diary” from 15 years ago, maybe 20, I think, actually. And he described how he had been in war zones and witnessed atrocities before, but until he went to Gaza, he had never seen soldiers barking out obscene insults over their bullhorns in order to lure Palestinian children within range of their gun sights so that they could be shot for sport. And he witnessed that happen to several Palestinian children. It’s a common occurrence. The sport shooting of children is a regular part of what the Israeli Defense Forces do. And they never face any kind of justice. Because it’s open season on Palestinian childfen.
The Israeli Defense Forces hand out t-shirts that say, “one shot, two kills,” and they show a pregnant Palestinian woman with a target on her belly.
They are proud of killing children. Ayelet Shaked, the former Justice Minister, is notorious for calling for the mass murder of Palestinian children. She called them “little snakes.” And she said Israel should also kill their mothers. So there is something deep in the Israeli psyche that is twisted, mentally ill. They hate Palestinian children and want to kill them.
In this current war in Gaza there are mainstream Western reports attesting to the fact that Israel soldiers have been lured into ambushes by the resistance fighters broadcasting recorded sounds of children. The Israelis are always going to want to kill the children. That lures them into the ambush. And the Israeli military even admitted to this. So these are psychotic, genocidal child killers. And they are terrorists.
The Palestinian side is rationally calculating a military operation and trying to diplomatically negotiate a solution. The Israeli side is just psychotic and genocidal and they want to exterminate Amalek, as Netanyahu said, referring to the Hebrew Bible ordering the complete extermination of every man, woman, child and baby and even animal.
So there’s something deeply wrong with the Israeli psyche.
So when you take a look at the future here, what are we looking at? At this point we are hearing about the losses that the Israeli regime forces are suffering on the ground, but it’s not to the point where I don’t think they’re going to throw the white flag in. So are we looking at a war of attrition here? Are we looking at a long ways to go when it comes to this genocidal war?
It’s really just a matter of how long the world puts up with genocide. And the longer it waits, the worse it will look in the eyes of history.
I have no idea at what point the proverbial straw will break the camel’s back and the relevant forces in the world will shift enough to the point that the Zionists feel that they have no choice but to stop the genocide.
It could be a combination of things: Pressure from the Ansarullah forces of Yemen, who have been heroically targeting Israeli shipping and imposing their own blockade on the Israelis, who are of course themselves imposing a genocidal blockade on food, water, and medicine and fuel in Gaza. So that’s the biggest factor that’s got the Americans concerned about the possibility of a wider war. Naturally Netanyahu wants a wider war, because his whole political career, and maybe his staying out of jail, depends on his keeping the war going, and seeing how much mass murder of civilians he can get away with.
The resistance forces have been good at managing things to avoid the escalation that could lead to something utterly disastrous for the region. At this point Yemen is the only country meaningfully pressuring the US to put an end to this genocide.
UN convoy attacked by Israel on designated ‘humanitarian route’
The Cradle | December 29, 2023
The Director of the UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, Thomas White, announced on 29 December that the Israeli army had targeted one of the organization’s aid convoys as it was returning from north Gaza on a route designated by Tel Aviv itself.
“Israeli soldiers fired at an aid convoy as it returned from Northern Gaza along a route designated by the Israeli Army,” White said via social media.
“Our international convoy leader and his team were not injured, but one vehicle sustained damage – aid workers should never be a target,” he added.
Israel has shown blatant disregard for humanitarian aid workers during its campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing which began on 7 October.
As of 28 December, 142 UNRWA employees have been killed as a result of the Israeli assault on Gaza, according to the organization’s 57th situation report on the besieged enclave. According to the report, 125 UNRWA installations have also been damaged.
“At least 308 internally displaced peoples (IDPs) sheltering in UNRWA premises have been killed and 1,095 injured since 7 October,” the situation report adds.
It is worth noting that a large majority of the over 30,000 employed by UNRWA are Palestinians.
This is not the first time Palestinians and aid workers have been targeted on humanitarian routes designated specifically by Israel.
Upon resuming the assault after the seven-day truce that ended at the very start of this month, Israel published a map of so-called ‘safe zones’ for Gazans to flee to, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza do not have electricity or internet to access the map. Many Gazans reported airstrikes on a number of the zones designated by Israel.
“The so-called safe zones … are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” a UNICEF spokesman told Al-Jazeera on 5 December.
Gazans are suffering due to a severe lack of humanitarian aid, which since the start of the war has trickled into Gaza at a pace nowhere near fast enough to address the dire situation.
Israel continues to bombard the civilian population indiscriminately, while actively pursuing plans for forced displacement.
Tel Aviv recently issued more evacuation orders for Gazans in Khan Yunis to evacuate further south, as tens of thousands of displaced Gazans are already stranded in the southern border city of Rafah.
“People forced to move once again. More people in less space. Rafah in the south is now bursting at the seams. No respite. Time for a humanitarian ceasefire,” Thomas White wrote on social media on 26 December.
Report: Number of wounded Israeli soldiers approaching 20,000
Israel evacuates soldiers who were wounded in battles in Gaza on December 18, 2023. [Nir Keidar – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | December 29, 2023
The number of wounded Israeli soldiers is likely to reach approximately 20,000 once those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are included, AP reported citing an Israeli activist.
Edan Kleiman, who heads the non-profit Disabled Veterans Organisation, said: “I have never seen a scope like this and an intensity like this.”
“We must rehabilitate these people,” he added, warning that the Israeli authorities are not grasping the severity of the situation.
There is a large and growing segment of the wounded, who are also afflicted with deep psychological trauma, and whose suffering appears as a hidden cost of war, the Times of Israel reported.
According to Limor Luria, the head of the Israeli Defence Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department, 58 per cent of soldiers have sustained injuries to their limbs, including amputation.
The Defence Ministry said in mid-December that over 6,000 Israeli occupation forces and police members have been wounded since 7 October.
Al-Qassam Brigades: We destroyed 825 Israeli military vehicles
Palestine Information Center – December 28, 2023
GAZA – Spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades Abu Obeida said in a new audio recording that the Battle of Aqsa Flood paved the way for the collapse of the “occupation entity”, reflecting on the struggles and aspirations of the Palestinian people after 83 days of battle.
“We have been fighting for decades, leading up to the Aqsa Flood Battle, for the sake of our people.”
“We dealt the Israeli occupation the blow of the century and told the world that we are a people demanding rights and freedom.”
He further pointed out that the Palestinian resistance remains steadfast, fighting in every corner of Gaza.
“We continue to fight because we know our rights are being taken away.”
“Since the start of the war on October 7, our fighters of Al-Qassam Brigades have destroyed 825 Israeli military vehicles, including tanks, personnel carriers, and bulldozers, among other vehicles,” he said.
Abu Obeida also stated that “the Israeli aggression will break soon, and our people will rise with their heads held high.”
“The Battle of al-Aqsa Flood has put Israel on the path to extinction.”
On the other hand, Abu Obeida stressed that there will be no prisoner exchanges without a full ceasefire.
“Our priority is to stop the Israeli aggression against our people, and no priority comes before that.”
“There are no deals that we can accept before the aggression against our people stops completely.”
Denouncing the international community’s silence towards Israeli crimes, Abu Obeida said that “the world is divided between being unjust criminals or helpless spectators.”
Biden’s America Surrenders to War Criminal Netanyahu
Vital US interests are sacrificed to avoid offending Israel and its Lobby
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • DECEMBER 28, 2023
I don’t have anyone whom I would consider a friend who supports the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza. But my occasional interaction with the psychopaths who infest the US government and media and who are intimately connected by virtue of their political instincts as well as their personal interests in campaign donations and/or elevated salaries derived from Israel and its powerful lobby have plenty of sound bites to throw out to demonstrate their love of the Jewish state in all its manifestations. They mouth the Pelosi-Schumer-Biden assertion that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and that Israel is “America’s closest ally” and “best friend,” all of which can readily be exposed as a series of self-serving lies and deliberate misinterpretations of international law. Beyond that, they inevitably cite their view that critics of Israel are fully responsible for what they choose to refer to as the ultimate evil of “surging anti-semitism.” In so doing they conveniently ignore the obvious fact that anger towards Jews collectively speaking is nearly always derived from the crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist political entity that now legally defines itself as Jewish.
I sometimes ask the friends of Israel what interest the United States has that would warrant our country becoming complicit in committing war crimes that, collectively speaking, amount to precursors for the complete expulsion or killing of millions of Palestinians from what remains of their homes. They try to weasel word their way avoiding the implications of that question by observing that the United States is not directly engaged in the conflict, an evasion that I belittle by pointing out that Washington is providing funding, arming and political cover for the more powerful and lethal party engaged in the conflict while also blocking attempts to bring about a ceasefire to comply with orders from that same party, which sure looks like direct involvement to me. I also point out that Israel is working hard to get the US military engaged against Hezbollah in Lebanon and also against Iran and is likely to be able to maneuver the stoneheads in and around the White House to do its bidding vis-à-vis both objectives.
So the big question has to be “Why does the United States engage in a conflict that inter alia has utterly ruined our country’s reputation worldwide and for which there is no real compelling national interest?” The answer is, of course unpalatable to many, but has to be that the US government is in many respects and vis-à-vis some of its designated national policies completely under the control of Israel and its powerful domestic as well as international lobby. This habitual bowing to force majeure has warped the thinking of the ambitious scallywags who seem to be present wherever one turns in places like Washington. How else does one explain the infamous and quite frankly ridiculous comment delivered at the 2018 Israeli American Council meeting by leading politician Nancy Pelosi, who said that “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid… and I don’t even call it aid… our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”
The delusional Pelosi, who appears to have no “fundamental” attachment to the interests of the American people whom she represents, is unfortunately not unique in the halls of Congress, even less so in the Joe Biden White House, which might be regarded as the illustration of what happens when you appoint Zionists to nearly all key positions running your foreign, economic and national security policies. The degree of direct Zionist/Israeli control over the hapless Biden can best be illustrated by reviewing the course of the recent redrafting of a UN Security Council resolution authored by the United Arab Emirates that sought to bring about a suspension of the fighting and the urgent resumption of humanitarian supplies for Gaza. The US forced the revisions after coordination with Israel to permit the Israelis to continue to attack civilian targets and avoid entering into anything like a ceasefire, changing the word “suspension” in the original draft to the less demanding creation of “conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” Language authorizing the lead UN role in monitoring and delivering the assistance to the Gazans was also expunged leaving to belligerent Israel the task of completely controlling the distribution of any supplies allowed entry into the areas inside Gaza, which it is also simultaneously continuing to bomb, thereby slowing the stream of urgently needed supplies to a trickle while also killing hundreds more civilians.
To be sure, it was the United States blindly supporting Israel that rendered what was a promising proposal to put an end to the multiplying civilian deaths toothless. Israel demonstrated just how highly it regarded Joe Biden when it contradicted what the president said about the US being able to moderate some Israeli offensive action in Gaza. Netanyahu denied that, saying that he and his war cabinet were continuing to make all relevant decisions based on Israel’s own interests. Israel Defense Force (IDF) Chief of the General Staff General Herzi Halevi followed on with his own assessment that finishing the job in Gaza, i.e. totally destroying Hamas by whatever means it requires, will take “many more months.” The Israeli military has indeed visibly increased its efforts by opening up new “battle zones” inside Gaza, to include directly targeting the crowded and starving refugee camps outside the cities. The civilians are paying the price while a grinning Joe Biden is spending his New Year’s holiday in the American Virgin Islands.
Allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a known liar and habitual war criminal to tell the US government what to do is about as low as it gets, Mr. Biden! You should not only be ashamed, but more than that, humiliated, compelled to do ghastly things in support of your own fear of possible Jewish/Israeli reaction if you do not bow down before King Netanyahu. He and the band of inhuman monsters he has assembled in his cabinet have made no secret of their intention to remove the Palestinians from Palestine, either by forced emigration or by killing them if necessary. On Christmas Day, Prime Minister Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud bloc “that he was still working on the ‘voluntary’ immigration of Gaza’s inhabitants to other countries.” His associates Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have made it clear that the ethnic cleansing process will proceed even if it is not in any way voluntary. As Israel is the occupying power in the former Palestine, what is taking place is, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention and the UN Charter, a crime against humanity and the United States is completely complicit in it not to mention actually enabling the slaughter through its supplying of arms and money to the Israelis. It has recently been reported in the Israeli media that the United States has delivered an astonishing “10,000 tons of armaments and military equipment on 244 cargo planes and 20 ships” to sustain the Israeli homicidal assault against the people of Gaza. And to demonstrate its gratitude for the flood of weapons, America’s “best friend” and “closest ally” Israel has nevertheless complained “about a delay in the delivery of munitions.”
The total support of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians by Washington and the media is not only shameful, it is lacking any context for a crime against humanity that has been going on with US connivance for the past 76 years. Under international law, an occupied people has a right to use force to resist occupation, but even given that, the majority of Israeli deaths on October 7th should probably be attributed to so-called “friendly fire” from the Israeli army not from Hamas. The occupied and woefully abused Palestinians rising-up and seeking both freedom and sovereignty in the land that was once completely theirs is fully justified and should be respected. Israel’s killing women and children through deliberate starvation or even by execution style is indisputably a war crime. Bombing hospitals or leaving newborn incubator babies abandoned to die is a crime against humanity. Arresting innocent Palestinians before parading them naked and even desecrating their bodies by harvesting organs that you then sell is unspeakable and almost unimaginable evil as is deliberately targeting and bombing schools and churches where people are trying to find shelter.
The genocide and destruction in Gaza is the worst crime committed in modern history and the man who could have stopped it, Joe Biden, sits on his hands and grins. No one should remain silent when confronted by this horror but the silence and the deliberate distortion of what is taking place is a tribute to Jewish power in America and elsewhere. I am including some recent commentary from the illustrious Australian Journalist Caitlin Johnstone which demonstrates perfectly the hypocrisy and inhumanity of both Biden and the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, and Germany: “Sometimes Israel’s crimes are so horrific that at first you don’t even understand what you’re looking at. You just stare at it trying to make sense of what you’re seeing for a bit, like you would if you suddenly saw a space alien or a leprechaun or something… It’s so incredibly obvious what we’re looking at here. The only thing putting a wobble on people’s perception is the immense amount of propaganda distortion the media is churning out on this issue, plus the fact that the demographics look a bit different from what history has conditioned people to watch out for. If there were two million Jewish people trapped by Christians in a giant concentration camp and placed under total siege, being told that half of them had 24 hours to relocate into the other half or be killed, nobody would have any confusion about what they were witnessing.”
And a leading American journalist Daniel Larison must have the last word of advice from his site on Eunomia: “We are witnessing one of the gravest crimes of our time. Our government is aiding and abetting the perpetrators. It is up to people in this country to make our government cut off all support for this war and to press for an end to the war itself.” Amen, Daniel!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
China Advocates Solving Red Sea Tensions Through Dialogue – Defense Ministry
Sputnik – 28.12.2023
BEIJING – Beijing advocates solving pressing regional problems, including the current tensions in the Red Sea, through dialogue and political consultations, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday.
Earlier in December, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington would like Beijing to join the US-led multinational operation to secure the Red Sea amid a surge in Houthis’ attacks on cargo ships.
“China has always stood for maintaining the security of international waterways, sought to address both symptoms and root causes, and advocated resolving pressing regional problems through dialogue, consultations and political means,” Wu told a press briefing.
The Red Sea is an important channel of international trade of goods and energy commodities, the spokesman said, adding that it was in the common interests of the international community to ensure security and stability in the region.
In November, Yemen’s Ansar Allah rebel movement, also known as the Houthis, announced its intention to attack any ships associated with Israel, urging other countries to recall their crews from the vessels. The Houthis vowed to continue the attacks until Israel ends its military actions in the Gaza Strip.
On December 19, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the establishment of a multinational operation to secure the Red Sea, saying that the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain would take part in the mission, although Madrid has not officially confirmed its participation yet. The Houthis vowed to attack any ships that join the US-led maritime coalition.
Decrepit Biden Props Up Decrepit Abbas
The “PA will run Gaza solution” is a non-starter
BY KEVIN BARRETT | DECEMBER 27, 2023
Interview for IRIB
1) Despite Gazans’ demand and desire, the USA is trying to impose the Palestinian authority to rule over Gaza in substitution for Hamas. How do you assess this policy?
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is universally despised. Palestinians hate it because it’s a tool of the Occupation. Netanyahu’s government also hates it because it carries the torch, however feebly, of the two-state solution.
So why is the USA trying to unite Gaza and the West Bank under the authority of a group that everyone loathes? A humorist might answer: “Because the PA resembles Biden: A walking corpse with no meaningful support. When Biden looks at the unpopular, decrepit, sold-out-to-Israel, monumentally corrupt 88-year-old Abbas, he sees himself in the mirror.”
Aside from Biden’s narcissistic projection, there are also political considerations. To assuage both wings of his party—the pro-Palestine and pro-peace forces on the left, and his Zionist billionaire donors on the right—Biden has to pretend to be both pro-peace and pro-Israel. And that is impossible. Israel’s very existence and identity rests on its nonstop war of extermination against the Palestinian people. Indeed, “Israel” is just a euphemism for the genocide of Palestine. And its population and government have steadily gotten more extremist and openly genocidal.
Since it is impossible to be pro-peace and pro-Israel at the same time, Biden has to deal in vague impressions rather than hard realities. Most Americans don’t know much about Palestine, and have a general sense that the Palestinian Authority is “moderate” and “supports the two-state solution.” So Biden uses rhetorical support for the PA to stake out a supposedly centrist position that he hopes will mollify both the activists to his left and the Jewish billionaires to his right. He hopes the former will say: “Well, at least Biden isn’t as bad as Trump.” Since the latter realize that the PA is dead in the water, they know that Biden’s apparent support for it is only rhetorical, and doesn’t pose any meaningful obstacle to Zionist genocide. So the billionaires have no problem with Biden’s position, and will continue to fund him.
2) Americans always emphasize democracy and free elections. Then why (in practice) are they doing the opposite in Gaza? And moreover, why is Hamas so popular in Gaza?
American support for democracy is purely rhetorical. In reality, the US empire has been, since World War II, the world’s biggest enemy of democracy. Why? Because the US empire wants every other country on Earth to be its vassal. And it wants the vassal states run by obedient puppets who obey the empire’s orders to plunder their own people and hand over their nations’ wealth to the empire and the banks that own it. Naturally this program isn’t popular with ordinary people, who generally vote against Washington’s puppets and in favor of “anti-American” candidates who want to serve their own people rather than the empire. So to keep its puppets in power, the US has to prevent, corrupt, and sabotage free and fair elections.
The best-known quote illustrating the US empire’s opposition to democracy was a bon mot from the late Henry Kissinger: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” So Kissinger’s US murdered democratically-elected president Allende and installed a vicious dictator, Pinochet, to obey the empire’s orders.
The same situation happened in Gaza in 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in a landslide, despite US and Israeli vote-rigging and chicanery. Like Kissinger in 1973 with respect to Chile, the Bush Administration, and later the Obama Administration, tried to kill Hamas’s leaders and overthrow the democratically-elected government. But they failed miserably, because Hamas has widespread support in Palestine and throughout the region. Due to Hamas’s popularity in the West Bank as well as Gaza, the Americans, the international bodies they control, and the Israelis have not allowed any more elections since 2006. They know that if they did, Hamas would win, take over all of Palestine, and administer it in the interests of the Palestinian people rather than the Zionist occupation.
Hamas’s popularity stems from its reputation for honesty and competence. Unlike the ultra-corrupt PA, Hamas does not take bribes from America and Israel to participate in the slow-motion genocide of its own people. And unlike the PA, Hamas gets things done—whether it’s feeding the poor, taking care of the sick, or organizing armed resistance to genocide.
Additionally, Hamas, unlike the PA, is living in the real world. The PA inhabits an illusory world in which we all pretend that Israel is a benign entity that will withdraw from all the land it stole in 1967 and allow a viable Palestinian state to come into being. Hamas honestly faces the stark reality that “Israel” is an illegitimate and inherently genocidal entity that has zero interest in any “two-state solution” and will continue to grow like a malignant tumor on the region, eliminating not just the Palestinians but ultimately all the peoples between the Nile and the Euphrates, if the tumor is not forcibly excised.
A final reason for Hamas’s popularity is its religiosity. Palestinian Christians as well as Muslims respect the piety and selfless devotion to doing good “in the path of God” that they see among the members and leaders of Hamas. And they love and respect Hamas fighters for their willingness to put their lives on the line against a much more powerful and cruel enemy. As Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida says:
“Disgrace, shame and defeat for the Zionist Nazi enemy. Indeed it is a struggle of victory or martyrdom.”
Biden’s plan to ‘revive Palestinian Authority’ fizzles out: Report
The Cradle | December 26, 2023
The US government has run into a significant hurdle in its campaign to “revitalize” the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) as possible successors to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, failing to convince Israel to unblock funds necessary to prevent the PA from total collapse.
“Even if we agreed [to take over for Hamas in Gaza], how can we implement it? The policy of Israel is to weaken the authority, not strengthen it,” PA Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Washington Post. “We cannot even pay the salaries of our soldiers, our employees,” he added.
Despite round-the-clock visits to the heavily fortified PA headquarters in Ramallah and meetings with Israeli authorities, US officials have made little progress in securing the release of millions in Palestinian tax money that Israel has blocked since 7 October.
Two months ago, the Israeli finance ministry – led by Jewish supremacist official Bezalel Smotrich – froze the transfer of tax revenues amounting to some $188 million monthly to the PA.
“The PA didn’t see fit to distance itself from these barbarian actions, and officials in the authority even expressed support for the awful massacre […] Furthermore, the PA is acting against Israel at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice,” Smotrich said on 30 October.
The tax revenues – known in Palestine as maqasa – are collected by the Israeli government on behalf of the PA on Palestinian imports and exports. Israel earns a commission of 3 percent of collected revenues.
On Friday, the European Commission said it was preparing a $130 million aid package to help plug the gap.
According to Sabri Saidam, a member of the central committee for the Fatah party and close adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, plans for Palestinians to receive their tax revenue have “collapsed.”
Besides finding ways to avert the financial collapse of the PA, US officials have also been pushing for “changes and new faces in key positions” in a last-ditch effort to improve the public image of the deeply unpopular organization.
According to a recent poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 88 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign as PA President, up 10 points from three months ago.
Meanwhile, the popularity of Hamas has soared in the occupied West Bank, from 12 percent to 44 percent.
“It’s always this colonizing mentality, whereby, ‘We decide your leadership, we are the ones basically designing your strategy for the day after, we tell you how to live, we tell you how to breathe, and we tell you how to run your land,’” Saidam told the Washington Post.
The PA was established in 1994 based on the first Oslo Accords (1993) between Tel Aviv and the now-defunct Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was initially established as a temporary governing body to lay the foundation for an independent Palestinian state.
However, after decades of corruption allegations, collaboration scandals, and a poor human rights record, the PA was in a state of “total inertia” before the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation unfolded on 7 October.
Complicating matters further for Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is staunchly opposed to a PA-controlled Gaza.
“Expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream,” Netanyahu says in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Monday.
“[The PA] has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza,” the premier added, claiming that Ramallah “currently funds and glorifies terrorism […] and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel.”
“For the foreseeable future, Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza,” Netanyahu stressed.
Israel massacres at least 70 Palestinians in airstrike on Gaza refugee camp
Press TV – December 25, 2023
An Israeli airstrike targeting a refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 70 Palestinians as the regime’s genocidal war across the besieged territory continues unabated.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported the massacre in a late Sunday statement, saying the fatalities came after the regime’s air raid hit a number of houses at the al-Maghazi refugee camp.
According to the ministry’s spokesman, the strike destroyed a “residential block” and the “toll is likely to rise” given the large number of families residing there and the fact that many people are still under the rubble.
“What is happening at the al-Maghazi camp is the annihilation of an entire residential square,” Ashraf al-Qudra said.
The ministry also noted that another Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed 10 members of the same family.
The ministry’s spokesman said the regime’s forces “are bombing the main roads between the [refugee] camps … to impede the arrival of ambulances and civil defense vehicles to the targeted locations.”
“Most of the martyrs who arrived from the Maghazi camp were children, women, and the elderly,” the spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was quoted by the Palestinian media as saying.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said the Israeli strike saw the regime’s military bombing “four inhabited homes” at al-Maghazi.
“We call on all countries of the world to put pressure on the criminal occupation in order to stop the genocidal war … against our Palestinian people and against children, women and civilians,” it added.
The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also reacted to the Israeli attack, describing it as a “horrific massacre.”
Hamas called the strike “a new war crime extending the genocide” that the Israeli regime “commits against children and unarmed civilians.”
The movement said Israel perpetrated “this treacherous and cowardly bombing…in an attempt to renovate the image of its defeated army.”
Hamas noted that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is being “supported by [US] President [Joe] Biden’s administration, [which is] the primary partner of the Zionist entity in its crimes and fascist aggression” against the blockaded territory.
The Israeli war machine launched its military aggression on October 7 following an operation by Gaza’s resistance movements, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. Over 20,400 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the Israeli genocide so far.
As the regime’s most dedicated ally, the US has supplied it with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment since the onset of the aggression.
Washington has also cast its veto against all the United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for implementation of an immediate ceasefire across Gaza.
Netanyahu Outsmarted by ‘Wily’ Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 25, 2023
Biden smirked and responded, “I know”, when told by a guest that Netanyahu is drawing the U.S. into a civilisational conflict – and further that Netanyahu blames him (Biden), complaining that the White House wants to block Israel from getting at the root of the problem, by harping on about Gaza and the ‘day after’.
In practice, what Netanyahu is doing is simply mounting a classic flanking manoeuvre – attempting to circumvent Biden by pointing to the ‘broader conflict’ with Iran: ‘Why are you pestering me about Gaza when there’s a monumental conflict raging’, suggests Bibi in exasperation?
“This is not only ‘our war’ but in many ways your war… This is a battle against the Iranian axis… now threatening to close the maritime strait of Bab Al-Mandeb… It is the interest … of the entire civilized community”, Netanyahu has said – not very subtly.
Biden’s reaction is a smug smile, hinting that he thinks he can outplay Netanyahu (‘the fox’). This is Biden’s approach: He aims to disarm Netanyahu’s allegation of an obstructionist U.S. through a parade of top-level visits that reiterates his unstinting support Israel – and to pre-empt Bibi, through insisting that he (Biden) will take care of the non-Gaza issues (Hizbullah, Yemen etc.).
So, the U.S. is assembling a maritime force to confront AnsarAllah in Yemen; the Biden Admin will act to sanction violent settlers in the West Bank; it is warning Baghdad to rein-in the Hashad al Sha’abi; and his envoys in Beirut are trying to forge a ‘diplomatic agreement’ that will include the withdrawal of Hizbullah’s Radwan Forces to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and also deal with the unresolved border disputes between Israel and Lebanon.
Biden prides himself on being a hugely experienced foreign policy actor – and thinks himself too wily for Bibi’s tricks. But maybe, Netanyahu – for all his many faults – better understands the Region?
Biden clearly is being played. Even though he fails to recognize it.
Netanyahu knows that ‘no way’ will Hizbullah disarm, and withdraw to north of the Litani. He knows this, and thus can wait out Biden’s diplomatic failure, before saying that the approximately 70,000 Israeli citizens displaced from the northern towns in the wake of 7 October need to ”go home”, and that if the U.S. cannot remove Hizbullah from the border-fence, then Israel will do it.
Netanyahu is using Biden’s diplomatic Lebanese initiative to build European justification for an Israeli operation in a few weeks’ time to push Hizbullah away from the border with Israel. (An Israeli operation against Hizbullah has been in the works from the outset of the Gaza war).
Netanyahu knows too that control over settler violence in the West Bank lies not with him, but is in the hands of his partners: i.e., Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Neither he, nor Biden can dictate to them – they have been quietly increasing the squeeze on West Bank Palestinians for months.
And finally, Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.
Like it or not, Biden’s tactic of containing and pre-empting regional escalation through the U.S. itself becoming lead actor – in lieu of Israel – is clearly drawing the U.S. deeper into conflict. Does Biden believe that the Houthis will just quietly ‘roll-over’ because the Gerald Ford is anchored off Bab Al-Mandeb, or that Hizbullah will accept instruction from Amos Hochstein?
The second way that Biden is being outplayed is through him seeing the Israeli problem as ‘just Bibi’ – indulging in personal politics. Of course, it is true that the Israeli PM is moulding Israeli politics to his own survival needs; yet pause a moment to consider what President Herzog said on Tuesday during an interview facilitated by the Atlantic Council, a leading Washington-based think tank.
Herzog has long been viewed as distinctly ‘dovish’ and ‘Leftist’ by the Beltway foreign policy establishment – prior to the war – compared to Netanyahu.
In the interview, Herzog said: “We intend to take over the entire Gaza Strip and change the course of history”. He said that the current conflict is a clash of “a set of civilizational values” and he cast Hamas (in pure Manichaean terms) as a “force of evil”, adding that Israel would no longer tolerate Gaza being a “platform for Iran – driving everyone into the abyss of bloodshed and warfare”.
Not much daylight then between him and the PM then.
The convergence between Herzog and Bibi reflects, perhaps, a more substantive change taking place in Israel – a strategic shift that extends far beyond Biden’s personal obsession with Bibi:
Since 7 October, the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post report that 36% of Israelis have moved decidedly to the right on a number of political issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsements for far-right politicians, and even settlements again inside the Gaza Strip. And while public opinion of Netanyahu himself is faltering, his government is not expected to fall.
And even were that to occur, the more important point to grasp is that support for the policies upheld by Netanyahu’s radical Rightist government is growing, and rapidly.
Israel’s Right generally believes in Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, with many right-wing Israelis opposed to the principle of a Palestinian state existing at all alongside Israel. This can be seen in many of the current government’s policies, which have worked toward expanding Israeli settlement of the West Bank and rendering Gaza unlivable for Palestinians.
On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Israel’s Left. The Jerusalem Post notes that the Left largely believe that Israel is ‘occupying’ the West Bank, and that an end to the conflict can only be achieved by ending the occupation and enabling a two-state solution. But no one is explicit on where that second state – a Palestinian state – would be situated. Legally it would be Gaza, the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. But who could enforce that? Who would expel settlers from the West Bank?
For many Israelis, the separation ‘apartheid’ Occupation state of the past 30 years was the workable ‘two-state solution’ – but its pillars (structural separation, military enforcement and deterrence) which had for many Israelis seemed to promise the ‘quiet’ that many hoped for – blew apart on 7 October.
“The trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes”, said Israeli columnist, Tal Schneider:
“They are calling now for more — more military, more protection, more hard-line policies”.
“Many right-wing people,” Ariella Marsden writes in the Jerusalem Post, “and a minority of left-wingers, saw 7 Oct as proof that peace with the Palestinians is impossible”. Not surprisingly, thinking has turned to population removal which chimes with Netanyahu’s ‘new war of Independence’ theme.
In short, Biden may believe that his ‘long experience’ puts him on the ‘right side’ in judging events. His experience however, is drawn from another era. The political Israel he knew is over: It has reached the end of the road in respect to the old paradigm of its Palestinian modus vivendi. Demography no longer pushes towards ‘giving’ the Palestinians a state, but rather to a clearing of the land of all ‘hostile populations’.
Israelis are rummaging now for their new solution.
And just as Hamas’ resistance has pointed to new ways of conducting warfare, so Biden’s ‘long experience’ exemplified in the sending of 1960s era carriers and vessels to sit offshore, in an age of smart nimble, often untraceable drones and pinpoint missiles, points to something also passé.
The U.S. is directly engaged today in Yemen, Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq and Syria. And as the war widens, so the U.S. will be held at least partly responsible – You deliberately let Gaza break, and what’s broken, you own. What further gets broke, you own that too.
A destitute 2 million Gazans will be all refugees with no government to provide basic functions and services. Does Netanyahu get it? Of course. Do the vast majority of Israelis care? Nope. But the rest of the world does, and sees a dark stain spreading across the map, and leeching into the West.
And does the U.S. Red Sea flotilla; does the diplomatic effort in Lebanon; do the frantic calls to China to ask for help to rein-in Iran, and the efforts in Baghdad – will this suffice to bring an end to the Axis’ plan?
No – the Resistance must see the U.S. floundering and that Israel – suffused with anger – is positively inviting the next ascent up the escalatory ladder of diffused incremental wider conflict.
Biden’s disregard for truce speaks volumes of US heartless approach to Gaza genocide: CAIR
Press TV – December 25, 2023
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has slammed US President Joe Biden’s administration for “actively supporting” Israel’s ongoing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and indifference to the genocide there.
In a statement on Sunday, CAIR national communications director of the US-based Muslim advocacy group said Biden’s actions will “stain” the US “international reputation.”
“The Biden administration’s callous indifference to – and active support for – the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by [Israel] will stain our nation’s international reputation for generations to come,” Ibrahim Hooper said.
“The fact that President Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in a recent conversation with [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks volumes about the administration’s heartless and immoral approach to the genocide in Gaza,” he added.
On Saturday, Biden told reporters that his conversation with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza was a “long talk,” but he did not ask for a ceasefire in that call.
“Israel has now killed probably more than one in every 100 people in Gaza. That shocking figure alone should be all the evidence that is needed to finally acknowledge the truth of the ‘genocide’ label,” Hooper said.
The statement came as Israel’s deadly air raid on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 70 people, including pregnant women and children on Monday.
An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza interviewed eyewitnesses who said Israeli forces killed pregnant women “without mercy.”
“The women were reportedly raising white flags as they were attempting to reach the Al-Awda Hospital when they were shot by Israeli forces,” the reporter said.
On Saturday, CAIR called on Americans of all backgrounds to demand that the Biden administration act to “end the slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”
The call came after several reports revealed that Israeli forces massacred 76 members of an extended family in Gaza, Israeli-imposed famine is widespread, and that bodies are decaying in the streets and are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers.
The group said more than 110,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and occupation.
Previously, CAIR called on the Biden administration to stop sending what it called “genocide bombs” to Israel after the New York Times revealed that US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs were “routinely” used against Palestinian civilians in so-called “safe areas” in Gaza.
CAIR also said the Biden administration must stop “justifying war crimes” Israel has perpetrated against hospitals after an investigation by the Washington Post debunked claims that Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital had to be attacked because it was a military command center.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians.
The Israeli attacks have so far killed at least 20,400 Palestinians, including 6,200 women and 8,200 children, and wounded 53,688 others in the besieged territory, where the Zionists cut off fuel, electricity, food, and water to Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
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History and Biblical Scholarship: Al-Quds Is Not Jerusalem
By Dr. Elias Akleh | Global Research | July 3, 2018
The Zionist Israeli state calls on the Old Testament/Torah as a historical document to prove its legality to “re-claim” Palestine; their god’s promised land. To assert this legality and the myth of the promised land Zionist Organization, since its establishment, had recruited the science of archaeology, employing western Christian biblical archaeologists, to provide the required “historic” proof of the right of the Jews; alleged modern Israelites, to Palestine. This became very critical after Julius Wellhausen; the biblical scholar and Professor Ordinarius of Theology and head of the German School of Biblical Criticism, published his 1883 book “Geschichte Israels”, later titled as “Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels” claiming that the Old Testament/Torah stories were invented during the Babylonian exile to serve certain theological and political purposes.
American biblical scholars and archaeologists, such as William Fox Albright, were recruited to refute Wellhausen’s claims. Albright was endorsed by covertly Zionist financed Biblical Colloquium; a scholarly society devoted to the analysis and discussions of biblical matters, and the preparations, publication, and distribution of biblical literature to brainwash readers and students with a specific theological ideology. Albright, as well as other biblical archaeologists like him, was also honored (bribed) by the American Friends of the Israel Exploration Society. His writings; such as “Why the Near East Needs the Jews”, are flagrant racist Zionist propaganda ignoring the vast archaeological history of the indigenous Palestinians while emphasizing the fake unproven Israelites’ narrative in Palestine. … continue
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