Gaza Poet, Writer, Refaat Alareer Killed In Targeted Strike With 6 Family Members
By Celia Farber | The Truth Barrier | December 8, 2023
Beloved Palestinian writer, poet, and teacher Refaat Alareer, founder of the Gaza based organization “We Are Not Numbers,” has been killed in an Israeli airstrike along with six members of his family. He was known for his lifelong devotion to encouraging story telling and writing, including the book Gaza Writes Back, featuring writing from young Palestinians.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Alareer had gotten direct death threats from an Israeli officer, knew he was a target, and had re-located to his sister’s home, and killed there by a surgical strike.
Max Blumenthal wrote a blistering account, here:
And here is his tribute to Akareer, published in The Grayzone.
[As for mockery, (see Blumenthal’s Tweet,) there have been waves of Tik Tok trends with Israelis, including children, grotesquely mocking Palestinians, so let’s BE FAIR.]
There had been many calls for Alareer’s death, according to his friend and one time student, interviewed here, and the BBC, in its headline about his murder, icily called him “controversial.”
In his last interview, he spoke very openly about the near certainty of being killed. “There is no way out,” he said.
…
This was Alareer’s most well known poem, “If I Must Die:”
And here is a TED talk he gave about story telling, and family.
Voices of Gaza’s children.
One country voted against a ceasefire in Gaza.
US blocks UN Security Council demand for ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war
Press TV – December 8, 2023
The United States has vetoed a United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip despite mounting calls to stop the regime’s atrocities.
On Friday, 13 Security Council members voted in favor of a draft resolution, put forward by the United Arab Emirates, while Britain abstained and the US vetoed it, isolating itself while sheilding Israel’s aggression.
“Tonight, the UK refused to back a UN resolution for a ceasefire,” said former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“We mourn those who will die because their lives were deemed unworthy of protection. And we vow to keep demonstrating in solidarity with the Palestinian people to end the bombings, blockades and occupation,” Corbyn added.
The vote came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres formally warned the 15-member council on Wednesday of a global threat from the two-month-long Israeli war against the defenseless people of Gaza.
“What is the message we are sending Palestinians if we cannot unite behind a call to halt the relentless bombardment of Gaza?” Deputy UAE UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab asked the council.
Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood called the draft resolution an imbalanced text “that was divorced from reality.”
“Although the United States strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support this resolution’s call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war,” Wood claimed.
Washinton’s ally London abstained. Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said her country abstained because there was no condemnation of Hamas.
“Israel needs to be able to address the threat posed by Hamas and it needs to do so in a manner that abides by international humanitarian law so that such attack can never be carried out again,” she told the council.
Guterres convened the meeting on the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the besieged Palestinian territory, two months after Israel launched its air and ground strikes on the besieged territory.
The brutal war has so far killed more than 17,487 people and left the territory in ruins.
Wood told the meeting that Washington does not support a ceasefire.
The General Assembly, where the US has no veto power, overwhelmingly supported a humanitarian ceasefire. On Oct. 26, the assembly approved the cease-fire with 120 votes in favor and only 14 against the non-binding resolution.
UN inaction makes it complicit in Gaza slaughter: MSF
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Friday that the council is “complicit in the ongoing slaughter” in the Gaza Strip through inaction and vetoes.
The charity said that “the inaction of the United Nations Security Council and vetoes from member states, particularly the United States, make them complicit in the ongoing slaughter; this inaction has given license to the mass killing of men, women and children.”
The meeting was convened after Guterres activated Article 99 — a step no one in his post has taken for decades.
The article allows the secretary general to bring to the council’s attention “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, also rejected calls for a ceasefire as he addressed the Security Council.
Erdan once again threatened that the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has to be “eliminated.”
Israel waged its war on Gaza on October 7, after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to Tel Aviv’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
In the event, the regime’s leaders ordered Israeli military forces to attack the besieged Gaza Strip with a force “like never before.”
End ‘decimation’ of Palestinian lives in Gaza
The head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) called on Friday for an end to the “decimation” of Palestinian lives in the territory.
Philippe Lazzarini urged all UN member states to “take immediate actions to implement an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
Diplomats from Arab countries call for immediate ceasefire
In a related development, chief diplomats from a grouping of Arab and Islamic nations, on a visit to Washington, called for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on behalf of the group, called on the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire.
“Our message is we believe it is absolutely necessary to end the fighting immediately.”
He was in Washington as part of a visit of the Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee.
Earlier this week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) condemned Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians and called for a ceasefire, in remarks at the summit of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council in Qatar.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is pushing the entire region into danger for the sake of his political future.”
Martyrdom of Dr. Refaat Al-Areer, the PIC social media founder and manager
Palestinian Information Center | December 8, 2023
The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) mourns with grief and pride Dr. Refaat Al-Areer (Abu Omar) one of the pillars of the PIC English language site and the founder and manager of its social media department.
Abu Omar was killed along with his brother, sister and her four children in an Israeli shelling that targeted her house in Gaza City in yet another proof of the barbarity of the Israeli genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing for more than two months.
Dr. Refaat was an English language professor in the Islamic University that was destroyed in the barbaric Israeli aggression and whose rector was also killed by Israeli shelling along with his family.
The martyr was distinguished for advocating the Palestine cause at various western and international media platforms. He wrote a book about Gaza titled “Gaza Writes Back” in the English language and had numerous notable interviews with western media outlets.
While mourning our academic and media expert colleague Abu Omar, we strongly condemn Israel’s escalating targeting of reporters and journalists in a bid to cover up its army’s crimes that have violated and continue to violate all human rights laws and doctrines.
We further call on international human rights institutions worldwide to adopt whatever is necessary to protect journalists and enable them to do their job without hindrances or harassment. We also call on world organizations concerned with protecting journalists to condemn the premeditated Israeli targeting of journalists and deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians. We also call for bringing all those responsible for such crimes to justice.
75 Palestinian journalists have so far been killed and 80 others were injured while two are still missing due to the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip that started on October 7.
Israel targeting Gaza’s history, destroying ancient mosques, churches
MEMO | December 8, 2023
Israel has deliberately destroyed dozens of archaeological sites and ancient sites in the besieged Gaza Strip since 7 October, in a blatant attempt to target Palestinian cultural heritage.
Yesterday Israeli warplanes bombed the ancient Othman Bin Qashqar Mosque in the Old City of Gaza, killing a number of Palestinians and causing damage to nearby homes.
The mosque was built in 620AH in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, and is considered one of the oldest mosques and archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip.
According to Palestinian sources, the Ministry of Culture recorded that Israeli warplanes have bombed eight museums since the beginning of the war, including the Rafah Museum, Al-Qarara Museum and the Khan Yunis Museum, in addition to destroying most parts of Gaza’s Old City, including dozens of historical buildings i.e. churches, mosques, museums and archaeological sites.
Israel has also destroyed nine publishing houses and libraries and destroyed or partially damaged at least 21 cultural centres.
The Great Omari Mosque, located in the Daraj neighbourhood in Gaza, is considered one of the most important and oldest mosques in Palestine and the first mosque in the Gaza Strip. It was destroyed in an air strike.
The mosque was named after the second Muslim Caliph, Omar Bin Khattab, and which was later described as “the beautiful mosque” by traveller Ibn Battuta.
The Israeli bombardment also targeted the Church of Saint Porfirio, located in the Zaytoun neighbourhood, which was built in 425AD and was renovated in 1856.
The Sayyed Al-Hashim Mosque, considered one of the most important mosques in the Old City of Gaza because it is thought to hold the tomb of Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him)’s grandfather, Hashim Bin Abd Manaf, was also destroyed.
The Byzantine church in Jabalia, a prominent landmark in the Levant, was also levelled, along with Al-Khader Shrine in the city of Deir Al-Balah, which is the first and oldest Christian monastery built in Palestine by Saint Hilarius during the Byzantine era.
Israel rounding up hundreds of Palestinian boys, men and disappearing them
Israeli occupation forces rounded up and detained hundreds of Palestinian boys and men over the age of 15 in northern Gaza on 07 December 2023
MEMO | December 7, 2023
Hundreds of Palestinian boys and men over the age of 15 are being rounded up by occupation forces in northern Gaza, stripped of their clothes and taken away.
Shocking images and video footage circulating online show the boys and men stripped to their underwear and left sitting on the ground in the cold winter temperatures in Gaza. They can be seen surrounded by heavily armed Israeli occupation soldiers who are screaming orders at them.
Further images show an army people carrier filled with the men being driven away.
It is not clear how many boys and men were disappeared, but some reports have put the figure as high as 700. They are said to have been taken from shelter schools in northern Gaza where thousands of displaced civilians were forced to take shelter as a result of the bombing and destruction of their neighbourhoods and homes.
Reports state that among those taken is Diaa Al-Kahlot, bureau chief of Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper in Gaza. With social media users saying they have identified him sitting in a vest and his underwear among the rows of men in the images released.
Towards a Palestine Without Palestinians
Israel’s ethnic cleansing continues with no end in sight
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • DECEMBER 7, 2023
On Friday December 1st active Israeli combat operations resumed directed against Gaza after a one week “pause” to exchange hostages and prisoners. It should surprise no one to learn that Israel’s ultimate objective in its sustained war crime directed against Gaza is to kill and/or drive out its 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants. The adopted policy, which has been revealed through a top level Israeli intelligence document relating to options for operations in Gaza that was leaked to the media, “…recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. …” to include “the evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.” And Israel should “Make It Clear [to the refugees that] there Is No Hope of Returning [home]” with the final objective being “wiping Gaza off the map.”
Less widely observed or even reported in the western media, however, is the associated campaign to drive out the Palestinians living in the other major Arab enclave the West Bank, where armed settlers and soldiers have been shooting to kill and imprisoning local residents, to include children, to set the stage for forcing the local population across the Jordan River into Jordan itself. Part of the program has been to destroy the livelihoods of the 3 million plus Palestinians who have resisted previous efforts to pressure them into leaving what remains of Palestine. It is the harvest season in Palestine and the major cash crop is olive oil, so settlers and soldiers have been destroying olive trees and closing off roads so that the olives cannot be harvested and brought to market. It is just one measure of the hardships being inflicted on the Palestinians by an Israeli government that clearly believes that the way to treat Arabs is to regularly force them to endure maximum pain and suffering. Many would also argue that it is precisely those policies that produced the armed incursion into Israel by Hamas.
The Israeli intelligence assessment also cites the need to keep “friends” in the US and NATO supportive, or at least not critical, of the ethnic cleansing or genocide of the Palestinians while it is taking place. That would seem to be rather tricky as there have been large demonstrations in most European capitals as well as in American cities calling for a ceasefire and supporting the Palestinians. Against that, European leaders have been reluctant to directly criticize Israel and have repeatedly voiced their delusional view that Israel has a “right to defend itself,” a punchline that one often hears in the halls of the US Congress and coming from the White House.
UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has dismissed the “defense” argument as “Israel cannot claim self-defense from a threat that emanates from a territory that it occupies – from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation.” Beyond that, defending oneself should not necessarily include the targeted killing of thousands of helpless civilians together with the wholesale destruction of infrastructure to include hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, churches and mosques, which never seems to occur to the Nancy Pelosis and Chuck Schumers who unfortunately share our planet with us. Nor to Joe Biden, apparently, as he is dependent on Jewish donations and friendly media to support his next presidential campaign.
To help the ethnic cleansing succeed as smoothly as possible, the Israeli intelligence produced document encourages the Israel government to work through all its friendly media and lobbying groups to develop a publicity campaign in the Western world to promote the transfer plan by obtaining international support “in a way that does not incite or vilify Israel.” This would be done by presenting the expulsion of Gaza’s population in a positive light as a humanitarian necessity, arguing that relocation will lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected casualties if the population remains.” The document also recommends that the United States should be enlisted in the process to exert pressure on Egypt to absorb the Palestinian residents of Gaza.
No doubt the gutless Mr. Biden will do whatever it takes to help his Zionist friends and it is interesting to note that the Israeli government is already heavily engaged in its propaganda blitz in the United States, where it helps to have a strongly Jewish Hollywood as an ally. A notorious video of a choir of Jewish children singing angelic praise for mass murder is being circulated both by the Israeli government and by Jewish Lobby groups. The production, entitled in Hebrew translated into English as “The Friendship Song 2023,” was produced by Israel’s Rosenbaum Communications and it could quite possibly represent a new low in manipulative war propaganda, even low for Israel. The video was so objectionable that it was removed from its biggest platform “for violating You Tube’s Terms of Service.” The children affirmed in their song that “we will show the world how we destroyed our enemy… within a year we will annihilate everyone.” “Everyone” was intended to mean all the Palestinians.
There is also a film entitled “Bearing Witness,” which was produced by the Israeli army’s so-called Spokespersons Unit, which has been making the rounds on the West Coast and also in private showings before members of congress. The film shows alleged “Hamas atrocities” and has been viewed at select gatherings for the past three weeks, with one showing in New York City hosted by actress Gal Gadot, an Israeli army veteran last seen playing Wonder Woman, causing a riot when protesters showed up. A recent showing to a group of Senators on Capitol Hill concluded with America’s Solons staggering out crying and otherwise expressing both their horror and their emotion as well as their love for Israel. Interestingly, the “evidence” presented in the film has been contradicted by a number of eyewitnesses and Jewish hostage/survivors of the October 7th attack by Hamas, who have stated that they were treated well and that most of the deaths came not from Hamas but from the counter-attack by the Israeli military.
But truly the biggest surprise in where the catastrophe of Gaza might be leading is coming from the Europeans. One would expect maneuvering to avoid too deep involvement in the Gaza conflict, but quite to the contrary some European leaders are eager to help Israel out in its search for a “final solution” for dealing with the Palestinians. Referring to the mass expulsion of millions of people as any kind of “solution” is apparently a polite expression for what has surfaced regarding the EU’s attempted bribery of Egypt and Jordan. Reportedly, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, has recently visited Egypt and Jordan to present them with financial inducements ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the transfer of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip to their territory – effectively to facilitate the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the Strip in line with Israel’s intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
And there should be no doubt that the Netanyahu government has clearly decided to use the Hamas attack as an excuse to finally put an end to what it sees as the Gaza problem. The Israeli view on the proper outcome has been several times outlined by government officials, one of whom is prepared to use his country’s nominally secret nuclear weapons to clear out the Gaza Strip completely. On the day after the Hamas attack, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant notoriously announced that the “human animals” in Gaza would be subjected to a “siege” including being cut off from all food, water, and electricity. Likud Knesset Member Ariel Kallner has elaborated how “the solution… to move the population to Egypt, is a logical and necessary solution.” Former minister Ayalet Shaked’s tweet “After we turn Khan Yunis into a soccer field, we need to tell the countries that each of them take a quota: We need all 2 million to leave.” That’s what Israel’s leadership increasingly sees as its own version of the “solution” for Gaza. And nobody is mentioning how there will, of course, be a payoff in getting rid of the Gazans when the oil and gas fields off the Gaza shoreline fall into Israel’s hands to be exploited.
Another Israeli leadership bright spark is not intimidated by words like “genocide” and is prepared to unleash plague to get rid of the Gazans. Major General Giora Eiland has been arguing that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate enemy terrorist targets and that even a “severe epidemic” in Gaza will only serve a good cause, i.e. to “bring victory closer.” And it does not end there. Government minister in charge of the West Bank Bezalel Smotrich wants to apply the Gaza solution to the remaining Palestinian territory that he oversees as the occupying power. Smotrich, a settler himself, has submitted a plan for Israel to annex the entire West Bank. He claims that Palestinian territories on the West Bank are “home” to two million nazis who will have to be forced to leave.
Is there no end to the carnage in sight? Not really, as even the Israelis are predicting a drawn-out months long campaign amidst the rubble of Gaza to completely destroy Hamas. The key to some kind of admittedly temporary resolution is for the United States to actually use its considerable leverage over Israel due to the money and weapons that it is supplying to keep the war going. A ceasefire driven by Washington would create some space to consider the damage that is being done to all sides involved while seeking a solution that gives Israel security and the Palestinians some kind of real sovereignty where they will not feel trapped and persecuted. Alas, however, such forward thinking is not about to come out of Washington and hopes for a European initiative are likely to be squashed by EU President Ursula von der Leyen and her advisers, all of whom seem intent on vindicating Israel’s actions. And, like the slaughtered Ukrainian soldier-victims in that other senseless and avoidable conflict, the ones who will be paying the biggest price will inevitably be the ordinary defenseless Palestinians who will wind up bereft of their homes, their jobs and, all too often, their very lives.
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.
Environmentalists: Gaza’s Water, Farmland ‘Will Be Unusable’ if Israel Floods Tunnels With Seawater
By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 05.12.2023
Gaza’s fragile ecosystem could be permanently damaged by a huge influx of salty seawater like that which Israel is considering pumping into the city, experts said. Some of the deepest tunnels dug by Hamas and other militant groups could be near groundwater depths, souring the area’s drinking water.
According to reports in US media on Tuesday, Israel has pushed ahead with plans to flood Gaza City with seawater in an attempt to destroy the network of tunnels dug beneath the city by Palestinian militant groups.
According to the report, the IDF finished assembling five massive seawater pumps north of the Al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip in mid-November. The plan is reportedly to flood the tunnels slowly over several weeks, giving Palestinian fighters and their Israeli captives time to safely evacuate.
The report was unclear about the disposition of the White House toward the plan. The Biden administration has largely supported Israel’s actions in Gaza as self-defense against Hamas, but given rhetorical warning against violating Palestinian human rights. The warnings have had little effect, though, as nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by IDF bombing and ground operations since Hamas attacked several Israeli border towns in early October, killing some 1,200 people.
Andrey Frolov, co-chair of Moscow’s Environmental Organizations, told Sputnik on Tuesday that an influx of salty seawater could wreck Gaza’s fragile ecosystem, making it difficult to sustain life there.
“When water comes in, it all depends of course, depending on the scale of the disaster. That is, what kind of tunnels are they, where are they laid and what is their size. Because the first thing that immediately catches your eye is that if the tunnels are shallow, say, two to three meters deep, then this will simply undermine the foundations of buildings. When moisture enters, the stability of the soil changes, subsidence begins, and accordingly, it will just begin [to collapse]. Israel has already destroyed the entire city, so I think that for them it is not important.”
“There is information that these tunnels are hundreds of square kilometers in size and go to a depth of up to 80 meters,” he noted, adding that it was probably “a bit of an exaggeration.”
Frolov noted “it depends on the waters” how the influx of salty seawater would affect the fresh groundwater. Some of the deepest tunnels rumored to have been dug in Gaza could be near the depths of the aquifers.
“Because seawater can get into these aquifers it will make them salty. As a result, those wells that were used in Gaza will simply stop working. The territory was already short on water, Israel supplied water from the Sea of Galilee. If a large amount of sea water is pumped into it, it will simply become unusable.”
He noted the salt will also impact agriculture in Gaza, making it “so that any kind of farming or maintaining green spaces will simply be impossible.”
“Our nature lives in biocenosis. That is, it is a complex of living beings that adapt to a certain habitat. If the biocenosis is salted and the living conditions are changed, then some species simply will not be able to live there. And if one, two, three species stop living, then the entire biocenosis crumbles,” he explained.
Israel can’t defeat Hamas in battle, so what’s next?
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | December 5, 2023
After a seven-day lull in the war between Israel and the Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, the resumption of hostilities has been given another green light from Washington. Having failed to lead its Israeli allies towards military victory, the US is permitting a dangerous escalation and rejects a peaceful solution that will prevent further civilian suffering.
Just minutes after the departure of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, from Palestine/Israel, the war in Gaza resumed, with a large aerial onslaught on Palestinian civilian infrastructure resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 civilians. The White House spokesperson John Kirby announced continued support for Israel’s “right and responsibility to go after Hamas,” but to what end is unclear. As the likes of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak admits that Hamas is far from falling apart, it begs the question: what really is the point of this war?
Following six weeks of war that resulted in likely over 20,000 Palestinian deaths, the Israeli military has failed to produce any evidence that it has made a significant dent on the military capabilities of Hamas and the other Palestinian armed groups in the besieged coastal enclave. While Israel forced its way into the major hospitals in northern Gaza, claiming that Hamas was using the sites as bases and command-and-control centers, the evidence produced by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) does not support these allegations. The US government backed the idea that a command node had existed at the Shifa Hospital, and when the Israeli forces entered the hospital compound they presented weapons they claimed to have found there, as well as an empty tunnel. Any such images released to the public are curated and edited by the Israeli army, but if independently verified, they could serve as evidence of militant presence – still, not proof of a control center or node. Little of note was discovered in other hospitals, and American claims of having solid intel that confirms Israeli claims is dubious, considering previous public statements such as US President Joe Biden’s words about having seen “confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children” which the White House later had to walk back.
At the start of this war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government was going to “crush Hamas,” a goal that the US government backed publicly. Yet, Hamas has managed to not only inflict the largest blow against Israel in its history, but has also defended Gaza on the ground with countless documented cases of success against Israeli forces. The whole world is now talking about the formation of a Palestinian State, an idea that had been all but abandoned in favor of unconditional normalization agreements between Arab States and Israel, prior to the war. In addition to this, one of the predictable outcomes of the Israeli war on Gaza, has been a tremendous uptick in support for Hamas throughout the occupied territories. In the Middle East and throughout the Muslim World, Hamas militants have become heroes and are widely viewed as a valiant national resistance.
The Saudi-Israeli normalization deal, which the Biden administration’s Middle East policy revolved around, is dead in the water at this time as Riyadh moves closer to Tehran. According to Israeli polling data, Benjamin Netanyahu is only trusted by 4% of Israelis, while the most trusted national figure was recorded to be Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari. Hagari, despite being trusted by Israelis, was turned into the “there is a list guy” and an online meme, after presenting a video in which he claimed a regular Arabic calendar named “terrorists”. That video, in which he referred to the list, was supposed to show evidence of Hamas keeping hostages at the Rantisi Children’s Hospital.
At least 10 countries have either withdrawn ambassadors from, or suspended ties with, Israel. All this as the largest pro-Palestinian protests to have ever taken place in the West continue to occur in capital cities like London and Washington DC. This, combined with a considerable drop in Joe Biden’s approval rating, all spell disaster for the US-supported war in Gaza.
The White House claims that it is putting certain restrictions on the Israeli army as it plans to invade the south of Gaza, but in the same breath offers unconditional support for Israel’s actions. At no point has the US government taken any responsibility for what has happened since October 7, there has been no apology for their lies, no change in strategy and no acknowledgement in the role that Washington has played in creating the situation on the ground in Gaza that facilitated the Hamas attack.
The real question now is: Where do we go from here? Israel aimlessly fights in Gaza and continues to kill thousands of Palestinian civilians, there is no sign of a Hamas defeat on the horizon and the humanitarian situation, which is described as “the worst ever” by UN Relief Chief Martin Griffiths, is further deteriorating. While these elements are all to be taken seriously, there is also the specter of a regional war erupting in the event that the Israeli attack escalates against Gaza. Lebanese Hezbollah is currently engaged in frequent battles along the Lebanese border and has been expanding the scope of its attacks on Israeli military targets.
The prisoner exchanges which took place between Israel and Hamas proved that the Palestinian group was capable of being engaged diplomatically. The exchange also worked to expose to the world that Israel was also holding women and children captive without any charges. Israeli civilian captives who were released, the majority of whom were filmed smiling, shaking the hands of and thanking Hamas fighters upon their releases, have been blocked from speaking to the media about their experiences directly. On the other hand, Palestinian women and children recounted abuse, torture and humiliation that they had suffered at the hands of their Israeli jailers. This represented another public-relations debacle for the Israeli government, who came off looking more guilty than Hamas.
The US government is in the driver’s seat of the war. It has the power to end the conflict at any time but continues to prolong this disaster. During the seven-day pause in hostilities, nothing shifted in Israel’s favor to make its victory possible. There can be no military solution to the war in Gaza, the US must recognise that this conflict will never end until the Palestinian people are granted justice and freedom. For 75 years the governments of the collective West have ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people, they have never been objective peace-brokers. Violence begets violence and hate begets hate, it is not possible to simply murder the Palestinians into submission. Even if Hamas were to be defeated, there will be more groups that emerge to take revenge for their fallen and fight for statehood in the future. If the international community comes together, this cycle can be broken, but it is going to take courage.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
Workers worldwide urged to block Israeli ships as Gaza genocide escalates
Press TV – December 5, 2023
The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil) has urged all labor activists, trade unionists, and workers’ organizations to block Israeli ships over the genocide committed by the occupying regime against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Masar Badil called on the international global working class to “block and reject the appearance or docking of any Israeli ship in any global port; to refuse to load or unload any Israeli ship” and to refuse to transport weapons of war to the Israeli entity.
“The hands of the workers should not be sullied with the cargo of genocide,” it added.
According to Masar Badil, the action is “a material means of besieging the occupation and supporting the colonized, occupied people of Palestine.”
The group also hailed Yemen for “blocking the use of Yemeni seas for the transportation and passage of Zionist ships and cargo.”
“All states should follow the Yemeni example and prohibit the use of their ports and seas to arm this genocidal regime!”
Last month, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, announced that the military units would target all ships owned or operated by Israeli companies or carrying the Israeli flag.
Masar Badil also said that Israel is not alone in carrying out its genocide and warned that every port and company that allows Israeli ships to dock at its port is “a full partner in war crimes and genocide.”
“[Israel] is backed, armed, and funded by the imperialist powers – first and foremost, the United States, together with its partners in Canada, France, Germany, and Britain,” it said.
“Every port and company that allows Israeli ships of any kind to dock at its port is a full partner in war crimes and genocide with the blood of the Palestinian people on their hands and must be held accountable,” it added.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Tel Aviv also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
Nearly 16,000 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 1.9 million others have been internally displaced as a result of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.
More Journalists Killed as Israel Resumes Military Operations in Gaza
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 4, 2023
At least three Palestinian journalists have been killed in the Israeli onslaught in Gaza since Tel Aviv broke a truce and resumed military operations on Friday. Human rights groups have described the dozens of dead journalists in the besieged enclave as unprecedented.
Anthony Bellanger, the general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, told the Associated Press that three or four journalists have been killed in Gaza since Friday. He said, “Unfortunately, we received the bad news this weekend — after the end of this cease-fire — and at least three or four were killed.”
Tel Aviv told Reuters and Agence France Presse that Israel could not ensure the safety of their reporters in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports over 50 journalists have been killed in Gaza since Israel began military operations following the October 7 Hamas attack. Three other reporters are missing, and 11 have been injured. Additionally, five Israeli journalists were killed on October 7, and Tel Aviv’s military operations in southern Lebanon killed three reporters.
Israel has also cracked down on journalists in other areas. At least 19 reporters have been arrested.
Bellanger said the killing of journalists in Gaza is unlike what has occurred in other war zones. “In a war, you know, a classical war, I can say that in Syria, in Iraq, in ex-Yugoslavia, we didn’t see this kind of massacre,” he explained.
CPJ says the war in Gaza produced the deadliest month for journalists since the group began keeping count. “The Israel-Gaza war has taken a severe toll on journalists… which has led to the deadliest month for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992,” a statement from the group said.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned journalism was being eradicated in Gaza. The group said, “Journalism is in the process of being eradicated in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israel’s refusal to heed calls to protect media personnel.”
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From the Archives
The US: The Century of Lost Wars
By James Petras | Global Research | September 12, 2018
Introduction
Despite having the biggest military budget in the world, five times larger than the next six countries, the largest number of military bases – over 180 – in the world and the most expensive military industrial complex, the US has failed to win a single war in the 21st century.
In this paper we will enumerate the wars and proceed to analyze why, despite the powerful material basis for wars, it has led to failures. … continue
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