Man prevented from entering event he registered for because he is not Jewish
A man is prevented from attending an event by Keller Williams real estate company at Aish Hatorah in Toronto, Canada for the sale of property in Jerusalem, because he is not Jewish, despite having… pic.twitter.com/WyDZpbHwUM
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) March 4, 2024
Europe is Fearful and Desperate
By Alastair Crooke | Al Mayadeen English | March 4, 2024
A leading Establishment newspaper in Europe says that “what is driving European politics at present – is fear”. The headlines ring out with apprehension: “Germany’s élites run scared, as Putin rains down death on Ukraine”. The British Prime Minister calls an emergency press conference to warns of ‘democracy at risk’ from ‘extremism’ on the eve of a by-election win by George Galloway, an articulate, if somewhat unruly, ‘thorn’ in the side of conventional politics (but hardly any ‘extremist’).
In the US too the liberal sphere is in meltdown over the publication of a just-released book: White Rural Rage: The Threat To American Democracy, in which “rural whites are [described as] the most racist; xenophobic; anti-immigrant; anti-gay; and conspiracy-minded, anti-democratic” demography in America. They “don’t believe in an independent press or free speech”, and are “most likely to accept or excuse violence”.
Of course, the fear is being — in the first instance — diverted outwards towards the claim that this is somehow Russia’s ‘doing’ — a looming ‘menace’ further stoked by claims of President Putin’s ‘imperial aspirations’, way beyond Ukraine. There is however (to invert the usual MSM meme), absolutely no evidence for these claims (from anything Putin has said over the years).
What is spooking the West more immediately is the cascading defeats inflicted on Ukrainian forces, after the Avdeevka rout. The new Ukrainian commander, General Syrski, in the wake of the flight, announced a retreat to new defence lines, but as some had predicted, it turned out that the ‘more favourable lines’ Syrski promoted did not exist.
Ukrainian photographers Konstantin and Vlada Liberov who document the war from the ground demanded from Syrski: “So what is the next “fortetsia” – Pokrovsk? Or just Konstantinovka?”
“Where is this second line of defence?” Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor— following his trip to this area – asks: “There are no words. Gap: here in Kiev – the supreme commander-in-chief says one thing, but at the front something completely different is happening. I want to say that no field lines of fortifications have been built beyond Avdeevka so far. I saw Russian drones attacking our soldiers in their burrows – in the middle of a field”.
There are no constructed defence lines – only hurried improvisations – whilst Ukraine resorts to simply throwing its reserves at the deficiency – so to prop up the incremental retreat. Did NATO leaders not spot this defence-line lacuna? Apparently not …
And so one leg to the current panic is just this: The EU has heavily over-invested in its Ukraine project, and now sees it fast crumbling. Hence President Macron’s hasty summons of EU states (at 24 hours’ notice) to the Elysée Palace to hear him warn that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was so critical, and the stakes for Europe so high, that: “We’re at a critical point in the conflict where we need to take the initiative: We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes”.
What Macron in fact proposed however, shocked the gathered leaders. He advocated committing detachments of European special forces to Ukraine, not so much directly to fight the Russian forces, but to act as vulnerable strategic ‘tripwire’ deterrents to Russia – which, were they attacked, would ‘trip’ a full-throated NATO retaliation down onto the head of Russia.
These tripwire forces, Macron claimed, would form strategic deterrents to Moscow’s military room for manoeuvre — oases of ‘untouchable’ NATO, scattered through Ukraine. His colleagues, horrified, demurred; they saw the emplaced tripwires as the conveyor belt leading to WWIII: ‘Madness’, and ‘no thank you’.
The ‘other leg’ to European desperation was given away by PM Sunak’s rush to the microphone in the wake of the Rochdale by-election outcome to warn that democracy is in peril from extremism.
One commentator opined: ‘Rishi Sunak was right’: “This is not politics, not even of the radical kind … It is inchoate, incoherent rage which is ready to make common cause with anyone else, who is enraged even on contradictory grounds”.
If this reaction sounds a bit over the top – just because George Galloway overwhelmingly won in Rochdale – let us ‘join up the dots’ for you:
The same commentator (Janet Daley in the Telegraph ) avers: “To bring this right up to date, we now have an entity called the Workers Party – a name that summons up traditional Left-wing dedication to the interests of working class people – winning a by-election in Rochdale by somehow conflating the Palestinian cause in Gaza with local working class needs”.
Ouch! That is what hurts. Echoes here from the Michigan primary in the US, where a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups who had set a modest target of 10,000 ‘uncommitted’ votes — Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan in 2016 — to send a message to President Biden that voter frustration over the Gaza war could cost him dearly in the November election. In the event, however, the pro-Palestinian support blew past the 10,000 target and clocked in at nearly 101,400 votes.
Message sent — and as the electoral desperation in Democratic circles, indicates, ‘message received’.
Just to be plain: Events in Gaza and in Ukraine are unravelling long-standing political power control structures in the EU, in Europe and in the US. This is why there is panic and double-down.
Toronto Zionists try to sell stolen property and genocide
By Yves Engler | March 4, 2024
A recent Israeli real estate sale in Toronto highlights Zionists’ racism and violence. Non-Jews were openly excluded from the event and Palestine solidarity activists were violently attacked.
On Sunday real estate firm Keller Williams hosted a sale for properties in Israel. After a city-owned venue canceled the event it was moved to Aish Hatorah Synagogue in Thornhill. Properties located in illegal Israeli settlements were listed, notably in the relatively new colony of Modi’in Illit, which was built on land from the Palestinian villages of Ni’lin, Kharbata, Saffa, Bil’in and Dir Qadis.
Organizers of the event openly blocked non-Jews from entering the venue. In the parking lot they told an Arab looking man, who printed his event registration, that he could not enter because he wasn’t Jewish.
While it is illegal in Canada to discriminate based on religion or race, the police on site failed to intervene.
In an exchange posted on X the Arab looking man who registered for the event is told that he wouldn’t be able to purchase any property anyway. That’s likely correct as land laws in Israel discriminate against non-Jews. In Canada the Supreme Court banned overt discrimination in property ownership seven decades ago.
Alongside their racism, the Israel supporters were violent. A resident of Vaughn named Ilan-Reuben Abramov attacked Palestine solidarity protesters in a parking lot. CTV reported that he shot two nails into a protester with a nail gun. He yelled “every Palestinian will die” and on video Abramov knocked the phone out of another individual’s hand and repeatedly pushed an older woman. He’s also caught on camera preparing to box with the woman. After an uproar on social media, the police arrested Abramov.
In another incident a car bumped into Palestine protesters. In a more troubling incident, an Israel supporter is caught on camera nearly hitting Palestine solidarity activists with their vehicle at high speed. The individual, who has yet to be identified despite their license plate number circulating online, came within inches of running over two people in an incident that could have been deadly.
Zionists have once again revealed their violence and supremacism. Claims of victimhood notwithstanding, one must hold a deeply racist and violent worldview to promote an apartheid state slaughtering tens of thousands.
And trying to sell stolen property as well as genocide in Canada.
Gaza ‘flour massacre’ textbook case of Israel’s war crimes and cover-ups
By Alireza Hashemi | Press TV | March 4, 2024
In the early hours of Thursday, in line with its genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli troops opened indiscriminate fire on people waiting for food aid in the southwest of Gaza City.
At least 116 people were killed and more than 760 others injured in what rights groups described as a textbook case of cold-blooded massacre on the Al Rashid street that stretches along the coast of Gaza.
The regime denied involvement in the massacre that came nearly five months into the Israeli genocide in the besieged territory, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 30,400 Palestinians.
The flawed Israeli narrative kept changing and evolving throughout the day, designed to shift the blame on victims, the desperate aid-seekers who were there to get some flour.
The Israeli army claimed they had nothing to do with the incident and blamed a stampede for it. Later, they said trucks carrying aid had run over civilians. Finally, they admitted to having fired at the crowd, but “only targeting the militants trying to sabotage the aid delivery.”
A report by Yediout Aharonot said, “Dozens of Gazans died during a stampede as large crowds descended on humanitarian aid trucks entering northern Gaza, attempting to loot supplies and sparking violent clashes, the IDF reported on Thursday.”
“An initial IDF probe into the incident found that Palestinian gunmen fired at the aid trucks, with most fatalities resulting from trampling and crowding,” the report noted.
Another report by the Times of Israel said it “acknowledged that troops opened fire on several Gazans who moved toward soldiers and a tank at an IDF checkpoint, endangering soldiers, after they had rushed the last truck in the convoy further south.”
Reuters quoted an Israeli official as saying “there had been two incidents”, in one of which “dozens” were “trampled or run over” and in the second “some people” approached troops including a tank who “felt under threat and opened fire” in a “limited response”.
“The soldiers fired warning shots in the air and then fired towards those who posed a threat and did not move away,” Reuters quoted the official as saying.
“This is what we understand. We’re continuing to review the circumstances.”
In the broadest account, the Jerusalem Post, quoting Israeli army sources, said three incidents occurred.
The first one was the stampede that left most of the casualties, the second when the armed Palestinians fired on the trucks and stole supplies, and the third when a large group of Palestinians approached the Israeli forces nearby, who responded with live fire.
The Israeli newspaper, quoting its sources, claimed that “it was unclear if they had aggressive intentions or were civilians caught up in a chaotic moment.”
Later on Thursday, Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military had fired “a few warning shots” to try to disperse a “mob” who had “ambushed” the aid trucks.
“As these vital humanitarian supplies made their way toward Gazans in need, thousands of Gazans [rushed] the trucks, some began violently pushing and trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies,” he said.
Some accounts identified those targeted as ordinary people and others identified them as a “mob”.
For example, Israel’s far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israeli soldiers “acted excellently against a Gazan mob that tried to harm them”.
In some versions, the victims were said to have trampled each other and in others, the trucks were believed to have mowed down people.
Israeli regime spokesman Eylon Levy blamed “Gaza truck drivers” for the massacre.
In this age of technology, it is interesting that Israeli accounts are never consistent and the regime officials are always “reviewing” things and struggling to find simple answers.
The regime offered no evidence to back its claims. It released a 100-second, heavily edited drone video as proof, which showed aid seekers surrounding trucks, but no trampling or trucks running over people.
If the Israeli drones recorded the situation, why did the regime not publish the scenes showing the moment when people were “trampled” or “run over”?
Holes in Israeli story
However, the strategy of ‘cover-up’ didn’t work this time. There are several glaring holes in the Israeli version of the incident that demand unraveling.
How did Gazan truck drivers start to kill their own people? Why hasn’t this ever happened before?
Or, why did Israeli troops kill 10 unarmed, starved Palestinians who had approached them? What kind of threat did these people pose to armed-to-the-teeth soldiers and tanks?
And, how scores of people were trampled? In any case, who is to blame for the desperate humanitarian situation that this regime claims was the cause of the incident?
These holes are filled by the Palestinian witness accounts that present a different chain of events.
Palestinians say most of the people present at the scene fell victim to Israeli gunfire, and the stampede occurred only after the Israeli troops started indiscriminately firing at them.
Local journalist Khadeer Al Za’anoun, a reporter for the Palestinian news agency Wafa, who witnessed the incident, said the chaos and confusion were sparked after Israeli forces opened fire, which led to people being hit by aid trucks.
Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul reported that Israeli tanks “advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured people.”
The acting director of the Al-Awda Hospital said they received 161 wounded patients, most of whom appeared to have been shot.
Also, an initial probe by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor showed that the Israeli army gunfire was responsible for most deaths in a massacre of Palestinian civilians.
In a follow-up report, the rights group confirmed the regime’s “full involvement” in the massacre at the Nabulsi roundabout, calling for an “effective international investigation to hold Israeli officials accountable.”
Its field team – present at the time of the incident – “documented Israeli tanks firing heavily towards Palestinian civilians while trying to receive humanitarian aid,” the report noted.
Trying to get away with another massacre
The incident has been widely condemned by governments and organizations. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent probe into the killing of civilians.
Iran slammed “the barbaric attack by the Zionist regime”. Iranian foreign ministry in a statement said “The wound of Gaza will not be erased from the memory of the free people of the world.”
China said it was “shocked” while Colombia said, “This is called genocide and recalls The Holocaust.”
Even European allies of Israel, including France and Italy, denounced the massacre. Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, described the incident as a “totally unacceptable carnage”.
It wasn’t the first massacre of Palestinians though. There have been massacres every day in the Gaza Strip since October 7.
On January 26, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Israeli fire struck a crowd of people waiting for humanitarian aid at a roundabout in Gaza City on Thursday, killing at least 20 and wounding 150.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on February 4, “a group of people a group of people waiting for humanitarian aid trucks near Al Kuwaiti roundabout in southern Gaza City were reportedly fired at.”
Another report referred to the February 5 attack on an aid convoy at the same place, Al-Rashid Street. That attack forced the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees to warn it could not carry out its mission and provide humanitarian relief if safety conditions were not met.
A day before the latest attack, on Wednesday, Wafa news agency reported that three Palestinians, who were waiting for aid near Gaza City, were killed after being hit by Israeli artillery fire on al-Rashid Street.
Israel has a long record of massacring Palestinians in cold blood and then trying to cover up their crimes and avoid accountability, say observers. A notable example is the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948 when at least 107 Palestinians were slaughtered by Zionists.
The bloodthirst of the child-murdering regime has only increased over the years.
Israel to get more ‘aggressive’ with Russia – MP
RT | March 4, 2024
An Israeli lawmaker has suggested that his government will take a harder line against Russia by boosting its support for Ukraine because it sees Moscow as somehow involved in the Hamas war against West Jerusalem.
“Israel will take a more aggressive stance against Russia,” MP Amir Weitmann told US media outlet Business Insider in an article published on Saturday. He added that amid its current battle with Hamas, his government doesn’t have munitions to spare, but if the war in Gaza ends before the conflict in Ukraine, “Israeli weapons would find their way” to Kiev.
Weitmann made his comments in response to plans by Israel – revealed on Wednesday at the UN – to provide an early warning system to help Kiev counter Russian airstrikes and drone attacks. The announcement by Gilad Erdan, Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, did not “come out of the blue,” the lawmaker said.
“Russia is heavily involved in what is happening in Israel,” Weitmann claimed, referring to the war with Hamas, which was triggered by surprise raids on southern Israeli villages on October 7. He offered no details on Moscow’s supposed role in the war and said it was not clear “at what level” Russia was involved.
Weitmann, who heads the libertarian faction of Israel’s ruling Likud Party, was less restrained during an RT interview in October. “Russia is supporting Nazi people who want to commit genocide on us, and Russia will pay the price,” he said. The MP added, “We will make sure that Ukraine wins. We will make sure that you pay the price for what you have done.”
Business Insider said Israel may have already “torched its relationship with Russia” by pledging to supply an early warning system to Ukraine. The system is similar to Israel’s Tzeva Adom radar, which quickly detects rocket launches and broadcasts alerts to endangered areas so civilians can take shelter.
After two years of walking a diplomatic “tightrope” over the Ukraine crisis, sending only humanitarian supplies to avoid provoking Russia, the decision to provide Kiev a radar system “signals a major about-turn in Israeli foreign policy,” Business Insider said. Israel will likely send “specialist soldiers” to help Ukrainians set up the system, the outlet noted.
Speaking at the UN on Wednesday, Erdan referred to the Ukrainians as “allies” and “friends in need.” He claimed that Israel has stood in “solidarity” with Ukraine since the conflict escalated in February 2022. “This is the moral thing to do, especially as a country that knows exactly how it feels to be aggressively invaded.”
Iraqi resistance launches drone strike at Israeli chemical storage sites in Haifa port
Press TV – March 3, 2024
Iraqi resistance forces have carried out a drone strike against the largest and busiest port in the Palestinian territories controlled by Israel since 1948 in a new show of solidarity with the Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel on Sunday, claimed responsibility for an aerial attack targeting chemical storage facilities inside the port of Haifa that had taken place two days earlier.
The statement noted that the attack had taken place “in rejection of US military presence in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, in support of our people in Gaza and in response to the massacre of Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and elderly people, by the usurping entity.”
The Iraqi resistance underscored that it will continue to target the occupying regime until the complete “destruction of enemy strongholds.”
Last month, Iraqi resistance forces said they had carried out a drone attack on the port of Haifa in the Israeli-occupied territories.
“In continuation of our approach to resisting the occupation and supporting our people in Gaza, our (fighters), using drones, attacked the port of Haifa in the occupied territories in Palestine,” the IRI said in a statement on the first of February.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has also claimed responsibility for attacks targeting US-occupied military bases in the region, including one in late January on Jordan’s border with Syria that left three US soldiers dead.
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against the Palestinians.
Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed at least 30,410 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Gaza Health Ministry.
The US, Israel’s traditional ally, has backed Tel Aviv’s attacks on the Palestinian territory and provided the regime with extensive military support since the onset of the war.
Washington has also used its veto power to block the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Scores of Palestinians killed, injured as Israel bombs aid truck in central Gaza

A humanitarian aid vehicle which had been the target of Israeli airstrikes resulting in the death of nine and dozens of injured in Deir Al-Balah of Gaza on March 3, 2024. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency ]
MEMO | March 3, 2024
Scores of Palestinians were killed and injured when the Israeli army dropped bombs on people collecting humanitarian aid from a truck in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, Anadolu reports.
This is the second major Israeli attack in the last five days on displaced Palestinians in Gaza who are waiting for humanitarian aid.
Earlier on Thursday, at least 112 Palestinians were killed and 760 others injured when Israeli forces shelled a crowd waiting for humanitarian aid south of Gaza City.
“Many people were killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing that targeted an aid truck in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip,” sources in the medical field told Anadolu while requesting anonymity.
So far, the number of casualties from the latest attack is not clear as neither the Health Ministry in the besieged Gaza Strip nor Israeli authorities have issued statements.
Israel has launched a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack led by Hamas, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed.
At least 30,410 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and 71,700 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents in the north where the Thursday shootings took place, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Jordan’s hyped aid airdrop over Gaza helps Israel more than Palestinians
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | March 3, 2024
Throughout last week, Jordan’s air force, with the approval of the Israeli regime, delivered aid via airdrop to people in the besieged Gaza Strip. The move was widely hailed as heroic.
Overseen by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the aid was dropped in large pallets of items, which included goods like ready-to-eat meals, medical supplies, and feminine care items.
These pallets were delivered through several airplane drops, causing a rush of Palestinians to flee throughout the Gaza Strip to gain access to the boxes. The airdrop itself was also used as a media opportunity for the king, who was filmed dropping parcels while awkwardly posing for cameras.
Though some aid was received by hungry and desperate Gazans, many parcels simply went missing, particularly in north Gaza where acute food shortages have caused death by starvation.
Parcels, despite being waterproof, were purportedly dropped into the Mediterranean Sea far beyond reach or even fell into the Gaza envelope – which can effectively only be accessed by Zionist settlers and military.
For the parcels dropping into the sea within reach, rowboats had to be deployed to gather the precious aid. If Gazans go beyond a specific point in the sea, they are targeted by Zionist naval forces, which have been given shoot-to-kill orders.
Unfortunately, some of these parcels will never be received by any needy Palestinian.
Other pallets landed in locations where the Zionist regime is enacting a full entry block for Palestinians. Even if the aid drop landed in an accessible street or rooftop, the occupation army would murder anyone who went to it, as they have demonstrated with what is now known as “The Flour Massacre.”
The massacre occurred when Zionist forces opened fire on Palestinians accessing designated aid trucks full of food for hungry Gazans. Over a hundred were murdered and many more were injured.
The massacre has been met with global condemnation of the Zionist regime, which has deflected and denied accusations of opening fire despite documented footage of Israeli troops doing exactly that.
Airdrops are a last resort for dispersing aid. They are ineffective, uncoordinated, and ultimately unable to predict exactly where the aid will land. Consider this with the fact that if Zionist troops are willing to open fire on designated aid trucks, traveling to a parachuted pallet is even more dangerous.
Many have criticized King Abdullah II for using these aid drops as a self-serving and self-promotional opportunity, particularly because in contrast to Palestinian aid, the Jordanian regime has not restricted any economic activity with Israel.
In fact, it has surged. Though Jordan is not part of the Abraham Accords, it is in practice a state that has normalized economic and some political ties with the Tel Aviv regime.
So much so that despite the carnage in Gaza since October 7, Jordanian exports to the regime have increased, with no signs of boycott or sanctions to condemn what’s unfolding in the besieged strip.
Jordan and Israel have been the beneficiaries of economic cooperation brokered by Arab regimes such as the UAE, which signed the Abraham Accords. For example, Jordan and Israel have partnered in an unpopular (in Jordan) energy deal meant to further a process of normalization between them.
There is also the shocking export of fruits and vegetables from Jordan to the occupied territories.
Media source Arabi Post revealed that Jordan was the second highest exporter of most fruits and vegetables to the Israeli-occupied territories from October 7 2023 to February 11, 2024, second only to Turkey.
These two countries constitute 55 percent of the total fruits and vegetables that the Israeli regime imported globally. Even more insultingly, Jordan is the final leg of the land corridor set up by some traitorous Arab states to circumvent the blockade enacted by Yemen in solidarity with Gaza.
The reality is stark. While Gazans have to rush to airdropped pallets as they starve, often while dodging Israeli sniper and tank fire, Zionist settlers get Jordanian commodities delivered right to their markets for easy consumption.
The Jordanian government is in one of the best positions to halt the Zionist economy. It shares a massive border with the occupied territories, controls a chunk of imports Israel receives from the east, and produces commodities for the occupation entity.
Yet, Jordan instead works hand in hand with the Zionist regime to coordinate airdrops that are ineffective for Gazans, who are facing genocide, all the while working against resistance factions by hosting US military bases and allowing its roads to deliver products to the Zionist entity.
It cannot be overstated that we must separate the Jordanian regime from the Jordanian people.
Jordanians have rallied for Gaza from Amman to the occupied Palestine border, calling an end to the occupation and their government’s normalization with the Zionist entity.
Furthermore, they are protesting their government’s trade routes with the occupying entity – even forming human chains to block the land corridor created to sustain Israel.
Finally, we must reckon with the most obvious reality: King Abdullah II and the Jordanian Air Force could not have had their photo shoot opportunity without the blessing of the US and the Israeli regime, which ultimately means that these aid drops play into the very hands of the Zionist regime.
By allowing for ineffective aid drops, Israel, who is facing allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), can simply say they are not committing genocide because they allow countries to help aid starving Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the same aid that is dropped is either impossible to reach, or Palestinians must risk their lives under gunfire and starvation to obtain it.
It is a mix of political and media manipulation meant to obscure the reality on the ground: access to aid is systematically prevented as Gazans are being starved and hospitals are being shut down.
Jordan is ideally placed to put an end to Israeli bloodthirst, but it seems the King has prioritized flashy videos and normalization over the fate of the Palestinian people and the region.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
Injured survivors of Gaza aid chaos say Israeli forces shot at them
MEMO | March 2, 2024
Divergent accounts
‘Israel is destroying itself’ as Western media helps in the slaughter of Palestinians
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 01.03.2024
On December 28, 2023, the “paper of record” in the United States, The New York Times, published a piece that described acts of alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 attack. Since publication, independent media outlets have revealed significant issues with the piece.
The New York Times and other Western media outlets paved the way for Israel’s slaughter, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian-American academic and political analyst, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Thursday.
“When The New York Times published that dishonest piece about rape on October the 7th, some Israeli [media] were rejecting those claims, [but] the Western media would not accept any of this. They closed their eyes and simply repeated the accusations in order to help the Israelis justify genocide and they continue to do so today,” he said.
The Times article’s co-author was later revealed as a former Israeli Defense Force officer who had no prior reporting experience and had liked posts that called Gazans “human animals” and advocated turning the Gaza Strip “into a slaughterhouse.”
The family of one of the victims featured heavily in the article later said the newspaper misled them, and the victim’s brother-in-law and sisters denied there was evidence that their family member was raped.
The Times has since said it is reviewing the author’s social media accounts, but has not retracted the article.
“In other words, what the New York Times and others did was that they prepared the ground so that Israelis could slaughter Palestinians, and no one in the West would complain,” he continued.
Marandi noted that anyone who is denying that “Israelis are intentionally massacring Palestinians” has been “closing their eyes to reality,” especially in the wake of videos released on Thursday that appear to show IDF forces firing on Palestinians gathering food from aid trucks.
“It’s quite clear that the Israelis use the trucks as bait and when starving people gather to find food for their starving children, the Israelis open fire.” More than 100 people were killed and more than 750 injured in the attack, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
But it is the mainstream media’s portrayal and non-coverage of these events that brainwash the masses, Marandi said.
“That’s exactly why the United States is not a democracy, why it’s never been a democracy. People are not allowed to have information,” he argued. “If people are being managed, if they’re being fed information that’s divorced from reality and then they make decisions based upon that information, that’s not democratic. That’s a brainwashed society that will do as it’s told.”
Despite the propaganda, the images coming out of Gaza are so horrific that even some of Israel’s most adamant supporters are turning against the US policy of unconditional support.
“Two-thirds of Americans [oppose] the current policy, according to one poll, the majority of even white evangelicals and the majority of American Jews are [in favor of a permanent ceasefire],” Marandi explained, referring to a recent Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) poll.
“The irony is that while the Israeli regime and its allies in Washington are the ones who are preventing a ceasefire from taking place, these are the ones who are going to lose the most by continuing the war,” Marandi argued.
“They can kill more Palestinians and they want to kill more Palestinians, but they are destroying their image. They are destroying their legitimacy in the eyes of those who thought they were legitimate previously across the world. So in my opinion, Israel is destroying itself.”
