How far will complicity reach in Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza?
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | January 16, 2024
If we were to listen to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the definition of genocide would be altered, because Israel’s definition of its genocidal intent and actions were summed up by him as “a moral and just war” waged by the settler-colonial enterprise and the Israeli military. “This international defamation campaign will not weaken our hands or weaken our determination to fight to the end,” Netanyahu asserted. Until what end? The complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza?
At the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last week, Israel played its fabricated security narrative to the full, and unsurprisingly blamed Hamas for the thousands of Palestinians injured and killed by Israeli air strikes. The apartheid state also played the humanitarian card, despite starvation being one of the tactics used to annihilate the Palestinian population. Humanitarian corridors have been bombed, food aid has been prevented from entering Gaza and, on occasions where delivery was possible, the provisions were meagre in comparison with the scale of deprivation as a result of Israel’s dealing of death and destruction. Not to mention Israeli soldiers firing upon Palestinian civilians as they crowded around to get aid. Or children collecting flour that had been spilled on the ground. Genocide is not a fabrication — or a “defamation campaign” as Netanyahu would have us believe – and Israel, of course, has perfected its methods.
However, not even Israel believes its own lies, let alone the rest of the international community.
Alliances and complicity are what Israel relies on, though. It is allowed to retain control over its security narrative because ties run deep and dependence upon Israel’s military technology is the major weakness of too many governments. So much so, in fact, that the Jerusalem Post is marketing Israel’s weaponry which it has used in Gaza. As if to inaugurate the “100 days of the Israel-Hamas war” – Israel’s euphemism for genocide – a recent article lists Israel’s new weaponry and medical supplies for the military. With emphasis on precision targeting and mortars with “improved accuracy… for use against terrorists in crowded areas”, perhaps Israel can explain why precision targeting increases the death toll of Palestinian civilians, unless Israel is precisely targeting civilians. This is beside Israel’s assertion that it also used unguided bombs, “the goal being more attacks in fewer flights”. The Jerusalem Post notes that, “Israel is the first country to use them in operational activity.” Whatever Israel uses, precision strikes or unguided bombs, civilians have been targeted in a strip of land in which nowhere is safe and the only way out is forced transfer, a preference which Israeli leaders only stopped touting as the ICJ hearing loomed closer.
There is no defamation campaign against Israel. The settler-colonial state has boasted of its intent to annihilate Palestinians in Gaza and carried out genocidal actions that prove the intent. What is more, it has already boasted of its own impunity at the ICJ when it stated that a court order granting the requested provisional measures to stop the genocide would “ensure that Israel will be in breach of it as soon as it is made.” The underlying tone is that Israel will not be stopped from committing genocide because Israel deems itself above international laws and conventions. If the international community fails to stop this rogue state, a new level will be ushered in with regard to impunity and complicity in genocide.
Bypassing the UK parliament; the royal prerogative; and bombing Yemen
By Binoy Kampmark | MEMO | January 16, 2024
There is something distinctly revolting and authoritarian about the royal prerogative. It reeks of clandestine assumption, unwarranted self-confidence and, most of all, a blithe indifference to accountability before elected representatives. That prerogative, in other words, is the last reminder of divine right, the fiction that a ruler can have powers vested by an unsubstantiated deity, the invisible God, and a punishing force beyond the reach of human control. And that such powers can in turn be vested in the government of the day. It is anathema to democracy, a stain on republican models of government, a joke on any political system that has some claim on representing what might be called the broader citizenry.
The UK government, in league with the US and with support from a number of other countries, attacked Houthi positions in Yemen on 11 January. The decision was made without recourse to parliament and was justified by reference to Article 51 of the UN Charter as “limited, necessary and proportionate in self-defence”.
In his statement on the attacks, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pointed to the Houthi’s role in staging “a series of dangerous and destabilising attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, threatening UK and other international ships, causing major disruption to a vital trade route and driving up commodity prices.” He made no mention of the Houthis’ own justification for the attacks as necessary measures to disrupt Israeli shipping and interests in response to their systematic, bloodcurdling razing of the Gaza Strip.
Lip service has been paid by the executive within Westminster to parliament’s importance in deciding whether the country commits to military action or not.
The stark problem is that the action is always decided upon in advance, and no dissent among parliamentarians will necessarily sway the issue. Motions can be proposed and rejected but remain non-binding on the executive emboldened by the royal prerogative.
The British decision to commit to the egregious invasion of Iraq in 2003 was already a foregone conclusion, despite preliminary debates in the House of Commons and huge public protests against the measure. On 18 March, 2011, the then British Prime Minister David Cameron informed the Commons of his intention to attack Libya, leading to a government motion on 21 March that the chamber “supports Her Majesty’s Government… in the taking of all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian-protected measures.”
That same year, the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the UK acknowledged that a convention had crystallised in parliament that the House of Commons should be availed of “an opportunity to debate the matter [of committing troops] and said that it proposed to observe that convention except when there was an emergency and such action would not be appropriate.”
The broadly worded nature of the caveats – in cases of emergency or when it would not be appropriate – have made something of a nonsense of the convention. In April 2016, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon made much of the “exception”, arguing that it was “important to ensure that this and future Governments can use their judgment about how best to protect the security and interests of the UK.”
Parliament, in short, should be put in its place when necessary. Governments, it is reasoned, know best when it comes to matters of national security; parliamentarians less so. “In observing the Convention,” Fallon goes on to explain, “we must ensure that the ability of our Armed Forces is to act quickly and decisively, and to maintain the security of their operations, is not compromised.” In such cases, matters could be dealt with retrospectively, with the government of the day subsequently informing parliament after the fact.
An example of this absurd policy was played out in the decision by the UK government in April 2018 to target the Assad regime’s chemical weapons facilities in Syria. Hiding behind the weasel claim of humanitarianism, the explanation for avoiding parliament was shoddy and leaden. “It was necessary,” came the explanation from the PM’s office, “to strike with speed so we could allow our Armed Forces to act decisively, maintain the vital security of their operations, and protect the security and interests of the UK.”
The Yemen strikes eschew humanitarianism (the humanitarian justifications advanced by the Houthis in protecting Palestinian civilians has been rejected), but, in any case, shipping interests take priority. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey, apparently, was satisfied that an exception to the convention to consult parliament had presented itself. “The prime minister,” the minister parroted, “needs to make decisions such as these based on the military, strategic and operational requirements. That led to the timing.”
With the horse having bolted merrily out of the stable, Heappey remarked with all due condescension that parliament would, in time, be able to respond to the decision to strike Yemen. An “opportunity” would be made available “when parliament returns for these things to be fully discussed and debated.” The sheer redundancy of parliament’s role in matters of state, and that of MPs, could thereby be affirmed.
Much agitated by this state of affairs, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell opined that no military action should take place without parliament’s approval. “If we have learnt anything in recent years it’s that military intervention in the Middle East always has dangerous and often unforeseen consequences,” said McDonnell. “There is a risk of setting the region alight.”
Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson Layla Moran was of the view that parliament should not be bypassed in matters of war, yet opted for the rather fatuous formula arising out of the 2011 convention. “Rishi Sunak must announce a retrospective vote in the House of Commons on these strikes, and recall parliament this weekend,” she said.
The use of the royal prerogative in authorising military action remains one of those British perversions that makes for good common room conversation but offends the sensibilities of the democratically minded elector. A far better practice would be to make the PM of the day accountable to that most essential body of all: parliament. That same principle would be extended to other constitutional monarchies, which are similarly weighed down by the all too liberal use of the prerogative when shedding blood. If a country’s citizens are to go to war to kill and be killed, surely their elected representatives should have a say in that most vital of decisions?
China Slams US, Issues Statement With Arab League Calling for Gaza Ceasefire
Sputnik – 16.01.2024
“The US, which is pouring fuel on the fire in the Israel-Palestine conflict, also wants to play the role of fireman,” read an article in Chinese media criticizing America’s “unconditional support for Israel.”
China released a joint statement with Arab League nations Sunday urging a ceasefire in Gaza and advocating a two-state solution to resolve the long running Palestine-Israel conflict.
The resolution emerged after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit in Cairo, Egypt.
The statement called for dialogue with Palestinian groups and a global peace conference to move towards implementing a two-state solution, advocating a “government of Palestine for the Palestinians.” The leaders urged the full implementation of resolutions passed by the United Nations which have long criticized the Israeli occupation of internationally-recognized Palestinian territory. The United States typically uses its influence and position on the UN Security Council to block and undermine resolutions criticizing Israel’s conduct.
The leaders also promoted the resumption of direct peace talks between the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
The statement then touched on recent US and UK-backed airstrikes against the Houthi movement in Yemen, which Chinese media criticized as an “escalation” of the situation and an attempt to distract from the broader conflict. Chinese media called for the respect of the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yemen,” a critique of the airstrikes that it noted lacked authorization by the UN.
Finally, China called for the sending of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, which it labeled an “imperative moral responsibility.” China insisted that the only way to ultimately safeguard commercial interests in the Red Sea is to achieve “a just settlement of the Palestinian issue.”
“We have a common responsibility to ensure the security of the Red Sea, and we will not be deceived by the US to fuel such tensions,” said Li Weijian, a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
China and Arab League countries also vowed to move forward on economic cooperation via China’s Belt and Road initiative during the meeting.
US, UK attacks on Yemen illegal, strategic mistake: Iran foreign minister
Press TV – January 16, 2024
Iran’s foreign minister has strongly slammed the recent attacks on the Yemeni territory by the United States and the UK as illegal and a strategic mistake.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in an early Tuesday phone call with Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, during which the two sides discussed the latest developments related to the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea.
During the conversation, Iran’s top diplomat stressed the Islamic Republic’s principled stance on protecting and maintaining security of shipping and navigation.
“By stopping ships that are bound for the occupied [Palestinian] territories, Yemen seeks to put a halt to the Zionist regime’s crimes and genocide against civilians in Gaza,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
He added that “illegal measures taken by the United States and the UK in attacking Yemen” amounted to a strategic mistake that would lead to further escalation of tensions in the region.
Since the start of the Israeli military aggression on Gaza in early October 2023, the United States and its Western allies have been providing financial and logistical support to the occupying regime in its ceaseless bombardment campaign against Palestinians in the besieged territory.
As part of their support for Palestinians, Yemen’s Armed Forces and popular Ansarullah resistance movement have over the past month targeted several ships owned by Israel or bound for ports in the occupied territories in the strategic Red Sea after multiple warnings.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Iran’s foreign minister expressed concern about the complicated humanitarian situation in the besieged Gaza Strip, reiterating Iran’s readiness to send humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people in the territory.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza has so far claimed the lives of more than 24,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, leaving thousands of others wounded and millions homeless. According to the UN, about 85 percent of the territory’s population has been displaced and forced into crowded shelters.
The regime has been also enforcing an all-out siege against Gaza that has prevented the flow of food, water, fuel, and medicine into the territory.
The UN chief, for his part, expressed concern about further spread of conflicts across the region, saying the world body is trying to stop the war and alleviate the suffering of the regional people.
He once again condemned the ongoing military aggression against Gaza, stressing the need for stopping it and sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians there.
Guterres also lauded the role played by the Islamic Republic in bolstering peace and stability in the region.
100 days of Israeli genocide in Gaza and 100 lies peddled by regime
By Humaira Ahad | Press TV | January 15, 2024
Since October 7, when the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war on Gaza, the regime and its media as well as their Western apologists have weaponized lies and propaganda against Palestinians.
Over the past 100 days, from “beheading of babies” to “Hamas headquarters” under the Gaza hospitals, the Israeli regime has employed hundreds of lies to justify its unchecked aggression.
Even at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing last week, the Israeli lawyers resorted to flagrant lies to whitewash the regime’s crimes committed in the besieged coastal territory.
Here is the compilation of 100 Israeli lies that characterized the first 100 days of its war on Gaza, all of them already debunked and exposed.
1- Hamas beheaded babies near Israel’s southern border with Gaza on October 7.
2- Hamas fighters laughed and were jubilant after murdering babies, children and settlers.
3- Israeli girls were taken as sex slaves by Hamas fighters.
4- Hamas fighters went door-to-door to hunt down Israeli settlers.
5- Hamas fighters were instructed to pull out organs from people’s bodies and to behead people. Conversely, this is what the regime has been doing with Palestinians.
6- The use of white phosphorus shells in Gaza and Lebanon is “unequivocally false.”
7- Hamas fighters raped Israeli women during its attack on October 7.
8- Hamas entered the homes of Israeli civilians, kidnaped, raped, butchered and burnt their babies.
9- The whole family of an Israeli farmer was reduced to ashes by Hamas on October 7.
10- An Israeli woman’s body was paraded by Hamas as a trophy.
11- Hamas came with a genocidal intent to kill innocent Jews, and if they could, they would have killed everyone.
12- The attack on a civilian convoy fleeing Gaza City on a road identified as a “safe route”, which killed 70 people and wounded 200 others, was not done by Israel.
13- Israel is fighting Hamas, and not the civilian Gazan population, and it is doing so in full compliance with international law.
14- Israel bombed ‘al-Shifa’ hospital because it was a cover for the military operation of Hamas.
15- Ammunition and protective vests used by Hamas fighters were hidden behind M.R.I. machines at al-Shifa hospital, and other ammunition was in nearby storage units and some behind a “blast-proof door”.
16- A paper on a wall of a hospital showed a “list of terrorist names”, which actually was a calendar with days of the week written in Arabic.
17- Israeli regime sent incubators to Gaza hospitals to save premature babies from dying.
18- The projectiles fired by Palestinian fighters hit al-Shifa hospital on November 10.
19- The occupying regime said they targeted a car with “terrorists” in Lebanon. It was later found that the vehicle carried three little girls, their mother, and grandmother.
20- Hamas is holding people as human shields and the evidence is a video. The woman shown in the video was found to be a Mexican-Israeli actor.
21- An ambulance transferred members of Hamas to Rafah crossing (south of Gaza). After the ambulance was attacked, the victims were all civilians.
22- Gaza’s Baptist hospital attack, which killed 500 civilians, was done by Hamas. A fake video was released, transferring the blame to the Palestinian resistance group for the massacre.
23- Israel is doing everything it can to provide humanitarian assistance to babies at the Shifa hospital like sending them incubators and helping to evacuate them.
24- Hamas has its headquarters underneath hospitals in Gaza and is using babies as human shields, so these facilities are legitimate targets.
25- The tunnels under the al-Shifa hospital connect the hospital with other parts of Gaza.
26- The women raped by Hamas had their bones broken and suffered severe injuries.
27- On Jan. 14, Israel hinted at the possibility of pregnancies in female captives “raped” by Hamas. The claims of rape or injuries were never proven.
28- Israeli doctors treating freed captives said they had suffered violent sexual assault.
29- A video shared by Israeli official accounts said several Hamas fighters raped an Israeli woman. They were laughing and the last one shot her in the head.
30- The regime’s medics said a man aged 30 also suffered sexual assault during his captivity at the hands of Hamas. On the contrary, the freed captives were all praise for Hamas.
31- A 12-year-old Israeli captive was beaten by Palestinian civilians during captivity and was told Israel is destroyed.
32- A video of a young girl with a man showed Hamas fighters with a kidnapped Israeli girl.
33- Palestinian fighters were faking injuries. The video was a 2017 report about a makeup artist working on Palestinian films and with charities.
34- Palestinian children killed in the regime’s airstrikes were actually “dolls”, not humans.
35- Hitler’s autobiographical book “Mein Kampf” was found in the bedrooms of Gaza children.
36- Hitler’s picture was kept as the screensaver of tablets used by Palestinian children.
37- Hamas trains children in summer camps to kill Israelis, inciting them to terrorism. They are trained in tunnels and taught to shoot and kidnap, and learn the values of “jihad”.
38- Hamas has used every penny received from the international community to build terror tunnels.
39- Hamas teaches children not to love life but instead become martyrs and laud death.
40- Amid the ongoing war, Hamas has positioned children at the frontline sending them to deliver messages while operatives hide in shelters.
41- Hamas planted explosive devices in kindergartens in Gaza.
42- The complex web of Hamas tunnels located near Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City is equipped with elevators and electrical infrastructure.
43- Israeli army enacted tactical pauses for humanitarian purposes to allow civilians to replenish stocks such as food and water.
44- Food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment are being transferred to the Gaza Strip regularly. The claim has been refuted by the UN time and again.
45- Israel does not stand in the way of providing any form of humanitarian aid to people in Gaza
46- In January 2024, Israel coordinated and facilitated a new field hospital in southern Gaza with a capacity of 50 beds to help wounded people.
47- Hamas is stifling humanitarian aid efforts for the people of Gaza to force a ceasefire.
48- Israel seeks to bring down civilian casualties in Gaza as much as possible.
49- Hamas fighters are increasingly surrendering to the Israeli military.
50- Israeli military discovered 1500 Hamas tunnels in Gaza since the start of the war.
51- Hamas has a subterranean network in Khan Younis, where key commanders are positioned.
52- Gaza’s civilian population is not the target of Israeli military attacks.
53- Israeli military differentiates between Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters.
54- Hamas has been hiding its missiles under a little girl’s bed in Gaza.
55- Israeli military found tunnel shafts under children’s beds in Gaza.
56- Weapons manufacturing facilities were unearthed inside mosques in the Gaza Strip and booby traps were seen leading to clinics.
57- Children in Gaza play with puzzles that show Palestinian gunboats attacking Tel Aviv.
58- Israel designed a whole area as a humanitarian zone for Palestinians to escape fighting but Hamas shifted to that humanitarian zone and fired over 100 rockets from there.
59- Hamas violently seizes humanitarian aid convoys and shoots Gazan civilians on their way to southern Gaza.
60- Hamas hijacks aid trucks meant for Gazans and the UN agencies cover it up.
61- Hamas is trying to stop the people of Gaza from moving south to safety as “requested” by Israel.
62- An Israeli has been “murdered” every 6 minutes since the war began on October 7.
63- Israel aims to protect its people, this is a war of self-defense for the regime.
64- Hamas is using Western media to spread lies and carry out their psychological warfare.
65- Hamas has been using a child’s bedroom to shield one of the group’s weapons manufacturing and storage facilities.
66- Israeli military has gone out of its way to protect civilians while shelling Gaza.
67- United Nations is the biggest disappointment since October 7. The secretary general and all the UN agencies are in denial of the truth; they are hypocrites and speak downright lies.
68- Hamas killed 160 Palestinian children to build tunnels and used child labor to construct the underground network.
69- Israeli army captured hundreds of Hamas fighters in Gaza, while the footage showed naked Palestinian civilians being paraded and humiliated by Israeli troops.
70- Hamas built a terror tunnel using UNRWA cement bags in civilian neighborhoods.
71- Hamas is targeting Jewish worshipers and struck a synagogue in Gaza.
72- Hamas has spent billions of dollars in funding on building tunnels, and each tunnel costs around $3 million.
73- Israel’s battle is not against flesh and blood, but it is a spiritual war against darkness.
74- Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza was revealed to be a covert terror base.
75- Israeli army helps civilians in Gaza. It helped an elderly woman to get to a safe zone, dressed the wound of a young girl, and saved a newborn puppy.
76- Hamas hid weapons inside incubators at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.
77- Gazan physician, Dr Nasser Almadhun, was a Hamas fighter who had been hiding in a hospital.
78- The Israeli military is defending Al Aqsa mosque from Hamas missiles.
79- Hamas fighters, carrying stockpiles of weapons, leave hospitals in Gaza
80- Israel is doing the world a favor by fighting radicalism.
81- The dead body of a kidnapped Israeli woman was found by Israeli forces in a tunnel in Gaza, but it was never released to the media.
82- Israeli army detonated 850 mines in Gaza during its ground operations, however, it never gave an exact figure of its casualties.
83- Israeli forces found Hamas weapons hidden in UNRWA humanitarian bags inside a school in Gaza.
84- Israeli army plans to flood Hamas tunnels in Gaza with seawater.
85- Before the war, 70 food trucks entered Gaza but now the average is 109 food trucks facilitated by Israel.
86- A video was posted by Israeli officials, claiming that Palestinian fighters were “staging” war scenes. The video used was a Lebanese artistic tribute to Gaza.
87- One of Israel’s top diplomats shared a video showing people in Gaza watching footage of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, however, it was found to be an Al Jazeera video of the war.
88- Israel posted photos showing “the teeth of children killed on October 7”. The pictures were of porcelain crowns or fake adult teeth.
89- The Israeli army claimed that underneath the city of Khan Yunis was an underground tunnel holding Israeli hostages. The tunnel is beneath a civilian area.
90- Al Jazeera Journalists Hamza al Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria were members of Hamas. Thuria was deputy commander in Hamas’ Gaza city brigade and Dahdouh was working with Islamic Jihad’s electronic engineering unit and previously served as deputy commander.
91- AK-47 rifles, cartridges, mortar shells, grenades and combat equipment were found in Gaza’s Islamic University.
92- The largest Hamas weapons production site in Gaza is located in Bureij, in central Gaza.
93- In a densely populated area like Jabalya, the Israeli army evacuated locals to protect them.
94- Israel has been helping in the delivery of medical aid to Gaza. Along with the UN, it helped in the delivery of 49,000 vaccines to Gaza on December 29.
95- Toy boxes were filled with mortar shells, warheads, and anti-tank missiles in a kindergarten in Gaza used by Hamas.
96- Israel aborts attacks on Gaza if it sees unexpected civilian presence.
97- Hamas connected dolls to speakers playing crying sounds and set them in an area rigged with explosives to ambush Israeli troops.
98- Hamas used a room in a mosque in Jabalya for rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) training. Ammunition was found inside UNRWA bags. Again a manipulated video to back the claim.
99- Israel is doing philanthropic activities in Gaza. In December, it assisted in the evacuation of patients from Al-Ahli Hospital to UAE field hospital
Rafah. The fact is that the regime bombarded the Al-Ahli hospital in October, killing 500 people.
100- School curriculums in Hamas-ruled Gaza promote antisemitic ideology.
Nazis and Zionists
Genocidal Hate Speech in Nazi Germany and Talmudic-Zionist “Israel”
Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method | January 9, 2024
The Nazis
On 25 October 1941 we have the following statement from Hitler. It was uttered during a private dinner with his co-conspirators SS chief Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhardt Heydricht, commander of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Nazi Germany’s Department of Homeland Security):
“In Parliament [30 January1939 and 1941], I prophesied Jewry that the Jew will disappear from Europe if war is not avoided. This criminal race has to account for two million deaths in World War I, and now again hundreds of thousands. Don’t anybody tell me that we cannot send them into the morass! Who cares about our people? It is good if the terror precedes us that we are exterminating Jewry. The attempt to create a Jewish state will be a failure!”
From the diary of Josef Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, May 27, 1942:
“Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated (abgeschoben) eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated (liquidiert)…” (Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, 1941-1945; De Gruyter Saur).
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
In July 1942, hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were being deported, most of them via the Treblinka Camp. Jewish leaders in the Warsaw Ghetto therefore decided to fight back. They started an uprising on April 19, 1943. It was put down brutally by German armed forces, for the most part within a few days, but skirmishes carried on until mid-May. Jews who survived were again generally deported.
October 6, 1943 SS chief Himmler spoke before the political elite of the Third Reich. In a brief excerpt from his long speech, we read the following (Smith/Peterson 1974, pp. 169 f.):
“I ask of you that that which I say to you in this circle be really only heard and not ever discussed. We were faced with the question: what about the women and children? – I decided to find a clear solution to this problem too. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate (only) the men – in other words, to kill them or have them killed and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up.
“The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth. For the organization which had to execute this task, it was the most difficult which we had ever had…I felt obliged to you, as the most superior dignitary, as the most superior dignitary of the party, this political order, this political instrument of the Führer, to also speak about this question quite openly…”
October 7, 1943, the day after Himmler had given his lengthy speech about “making the Jews disappear from the earth,” Goebbels wrote: “As to the Jewish Question, (Himmler) gives a very frank and candid picture. He is of the opinion that we can solve the Jewish Question for all of Europe by the end of this year. He advocates the most radical and harshest solution, namely, that the whole of Jewry will be exterminated [auszurotten]. This is surely a consistent, if brutal, solution.”
Hans Frank (Nazi governor of occupied Poland) — diary entry for December 16, 1941: “We must destroy the Jews, wherever we find them, in order to maintain the overall structure of the Reich here. […] Currently there are in the Government General [occupied Poland] approximately 2½ million, and together with those who are kith and kin and connected in all kinds of ways, we now have 3 ½ million Jews. We cannot shoot these 3 ½ million Jews, nor can we poison them, yet we will have to take measures which will somehow lead to the goal of annihilation, and that will be done in connection with the great measures which are to be discussed together with the Reich. The territory of the General Government must be made free of Jews, as is the case in the Reich. Where and how this will happen is a matter of the means which must be used and created, and about whose effectiveness I will inform you in due time.” (IMT, Vol. 29, pp. 502f.)
On March 4, 1944, Nazi governor Frank stated (p. 687): “The Jews are a race that must be effaced. Wherever we catch one, he is coming to an end.”
Between late 1941 and late 1942, Nazi authorities deported many tens of thousands of Jews from western and central European countries to locations in the German-occupied Soviet Union… many if not most of them were killed there by the Einsatzgruppen and associated units.
“In particular the camp Maly Trostenets near Minsk (capital of Belorussia), and the prison at Fort IX near Kaunas (Lithuania) deserve to be mentioned in this context. Thousands of deported Jews were executed there.
“Jews living inside the Soviet Union were the primary target of the Einsatzgruppen and associated units…this happened primarily by way of mass shootings…German wartime documents speak of some 750,000 victims…”
“Not just one, but two Einsatzgruppen – C and D – were active in Ukraine. The most infamous crime scene associated with these units occurred in the suburbs of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, at Babi Yar… The Einsatzgruppen’s ranked death-toll list includes several entries for Ukrainian locations…(totaling approximately 138,000 victims)… Ukraine was completely occupied by Germany.. This put all of Ukraine’s remaining Jews in mortal danger, and many paid with their life.”
“SS Gruppenführer Arthur Nebe became head of Germany’s Civil Police in 1936. In June 1941, Nebe was appointed commander of Einsatzgruppe B, which he led from its inception in June, 1941 until October 1941, hence “for some four months. As such, he approved several Einsatzgruppen reports sent to Berlin which documented the execution of thousands of Jews in the deployment area of his Einsatzgruppe B.”
“SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf was the director of Office III, the “SD” (Internal Security Service) of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office). In 1941 he was appointed head of Einsatzgruppe D, a position he held for a year. This group operated in the southern region of the temporarily German-occupied Soviet Union (Bessarabia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus)…“At the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen Trial, Ohlendorf accepted responsibility for at least 90,000 victims of mass shootings carried out by Einsatzgruppe D, while he was in charge of that unit. There is an abundance of documentary evidence in support of these facts.
In the summer of 1942, the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Polish Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto was underway. When the deported Jews arrived further East, Wilhelm Kube, Nazi Commissioner for Belorussia, complained to his superior Lohse on July 31, 1942 (and later also to Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories), indicating Kube’s forces had been executing tens of thousands of Jews in the area to prevent them from supporting the partisans.”
“In Hitler’s Table Talk, Hitler drew a picture of the future of the Eastern European territories which is one of the best authenticated of his life’s visions and typical of his weltanschauung, which entailed the total disfranchisement of the subjugated. He ruled they have no claims of any kind, except to an early death. They are forbidden to learn to read and write; to concern themselves with history or politics is a crime worthy of death. Any communication whatever going beyond the confines of the village is strictly prohibited…They are to live in their filthy hovels without hygiene or inoculation, while the German settlers, strictly segregated, own splendid villages and spacious fortress farms.”
— German revisionist historian Ernst Nolte (1923-2016), author of the magisterial 1987 history, Der europäische Bürgerkrieg (“The European Civil War”).
The Zionists
“We shall try to spirit the penniless (Palestinian) population across the border…while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” —Theodor Herzl, founding father of Zionism, 1895
“I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it” (1938). “Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin (Palestinian peasant farmers)….….Jewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.”
—David Ben-Gurion, first Israeli Prime Minister, 1948
Writing in his diary in 1940 Yosef Weitz, a senior Jewish National Fund official who chaired the influential Transfer Committee before and during the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), and became known as the “Architect of Transfer,” (mass expulsion of the Palestinian population), put it thus: “The only solution is a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. They must all be moved. Not one village, not one tribe can remain. Only through this transfer of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel will redemption come.”
The religious-terrorist Kach party was founded in 1971 by Brooklyn-born Rabbi Meir Kahane who argued for the immediate expulsion of the Palestinians, who he called “dogs.” In 1984, Kahane introduced legislation in the Knesset to ban all Jewish-Gentile marriages and sexual relations and revoke the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews.
In 2019, Kahane’s follower Itamar Ben Gvir formed the “Jewish Power” party, an ideological offshoot of Kach. Merging with other Talmudic-Zionist parties to form Religious Zionism in 2022, they won the third-largest share of Israel’s parliament seats. Netanyahu appointed Ben-Gvir Israeli Minister of Security. For years Ben-Gvir displayed in a place of honor in his home a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who killed 40 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 in a shooting massacre as they knelt in prayer at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994. As the Israeli Security Minister Ben-Gvir has instigated a settler reign of terror on Palestinian farmers and sheepherders on the West Bank.
In the aftermath of Goldstein’s slaughter, Noam Federman, a spokesman for the Kach party opined, “The act itself was one of greatness. It was a great act of sanctifying the Name (of God).”
Paying homage at Goldstein’s funeral, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin told mourners that “one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.”
”Palestinians in Lebanon are two-legged animals.”
—Israeli Prime Minister Menchaem Begin (source: NY Times, August 5, 1985, p. A6)
Palestinians are cockroaches scurrying in a bottle.”
—Israeli Army Chief of Staff Rafael Eytan (source: NY Times, August 5, 1985, p. A6)
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of the powerful Israeli Shas political party and chief rabbi of Sephadic Israeli Judaism, taught that the Arab people should be exterminated, “May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them. It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones.”
—2001 Passover sermon. Cf. Haaretz, April 12, 2001. 700,000 Israelis attended Ovadia’s funeral. In its obituary, the New York Times eulogized him and omitted all reference to his calls for exterminating Arabs.
“If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It’s an ugly solution, but it is the only solution.”
—Ben Shapiro, American media personality, Orlando Sentinel, September 8, 2023
“Well, if everyone in Gaza is a refugee, let’s scatter them around the world. There are 2.5 million people there, every country will take in 20,000 people, 100 countries.”
— Ram Ben Barak, Member of the Knesset, ex-Mossad Deputy Director, November 1
“There should be a second Nakba.”
—Israeli agriculture minister Avi Dichter, November 11, 2023. [Nakba: the 1948 forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, which culminated in the creation of the so-called “state of Israel”].
Gaza City in the early days of the Israeli terror bombings, October, 2023
“The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them (Palestinians) there is but one sentence, and that is death…Gaza has to be wiped off the map, in order to send a message to all our enemies and those who seek us harm…. In Gaza, we have to be clear, there are no innocent [civilians]. There are no “uninvolved” people.”
—Yitzhak Kroizer, Member of the Israeli parliament (“Knesset”), Nov. 5. 2023.
Tally Gotliv, an official in Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has demanded that Prime Minister Netanyahu use a nuclear bomb on Gaza. “Before we consider inserting ground troops, doomsday weapon.”
Likud member of the Knesset, Boaz Bismuth stated with reference to Gaza: “There’s no place for any humanitarian gestures.”
Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli said on Israel’s Channel 13: “[We] should have killed many times 20,000 people, [we] should have begun with a blow of 100,000.”
As of January 9, 2024, the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of Gaza’s housing.
85 percent of the population of Gaza have been dehoused and rendered homeless.
In three months the Israelis have killed more than 22,000 Gazans, the majority of them women and children. The number of wounded, disabled and mutilated are more than twice that casualty figure. It is expected that many more Palestinian civilians will die of intentional Israeli-imposed imposed disease and hunger.
“Non-Jews are uncompassionate by nature and attacks on them curb their evil inclination.” — Torat Ha-Melekh (sometimes spelled Torat Hamelech, 2009). Torat Ha-Melekh is an Israeli rabbinic book based on the Talmud which has been widely distributed to Israeli military personnel.
A Palestinian child is treated for injuries on a hospital floor in Gaza, inflicted by the “Israeli Defense Force”, while a wounded Palestinian man awaits further medical care, autumn, 2023
Torat Ha-Melekh teaches that it is a religious duty to kill non-Jewish children on the enemy side during warfare, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.” Other reasons the Israeli authors furnish for the permission to kill non-Jewish children include if they “block the rescue of Jews… Little children are often situated in this way…it is permitted to kill them because their very presence facilitates the killing (of Jews)…(p. 215). “It is also permitted to kill the children of the leader (of the enemy) in order to put pressure on him…” (p. 215).
“We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”
— Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, October 9, 2023.
On January 6, 2024 the New York Times described Gallant as “a moderate member of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party…” (Section A, Page 6; italics added).
“Human beasts are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza: no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell—you will get hell”.
—Israeli Major General Ghassan Alian, Coordinator of the Government in the Territories, October 10
“Israel has no choice but to render Gaza into a place that is temporarily, or permanently, unfit for living.”
— Giora Eiland, Israeli Defense Ministry, October 11
“Do not leave a stone unturned in Gaza. Gaza needs to turn into Dresden. Complete incineration. Annihilate Gaza now!”
—Moshe Feiglin, Member of the Israeli Knesset, October 26, 2023. The Allied incineration by more than 800 bombers leveled the city of Dresden and burned alive tens of thousands of civilians.
Concerning the Palestinian population of Gaza: “They are not humans nor human animals, they are sub-humans and should be treated as such.”
—Arieh King, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, December 8
“There are no innocent [civilians] in Gaza.”
—Avigdor Lieberman, Member of the Knesset, and leader of Israel Beytenu Party, former Israeli Defense Minister, December 3
“We are too humane. Burn Gaza now, nothing less!”
—Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, November 17
“… we should make sure that there is a severe humanitarian disaster there (in Gaza), and severe epidemics, and horrible pressure, and cries to the sky—because that’s how wars are won… A humanitarian disaster is the only way to bring about the end of the war in a desirable way. Think about it this way: the poor women of Gaza, who are they? They are the mothers and sisters and wives of the Hamas murderers. Gaza’s system, unlike [its characterization by the US which I mentioned earlier] that there is Hamas and there are civilians—it is not true! Gaza is a state that is entirely united around its leader and its ideology for 15 years, without any dissent and with enthusiastic support….
“The weak point [of Gaza] is their civilian population…the thousands of Hamas terrorists, whose mothers and wives and children who will start suffering from severe illnesses, are the point of weakness. If we want to win the war—that’s how you win a war.”
“I agree with every word of Giora Eiland.”
—Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, November, 2024
“Given the collapse of Gaza’s sanitation and medical systems, as much as a quarter of Gaza’s people could die within the year, mostly from disease or lack of access to medical care.”
—Peter Beinart, Jan. 7, 2024
“Spend your energy on one thing; wiping Gaza off the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters fly to the southern fence and flee into Egyptian territory. Or have them die. And have them die horribly. Gaza must be wiped out. ..We require a revengeful and cruel IDF (Israeli military). Anything less than that is immoral. Simply immoral.”
—Galit Distel-Atbaryan, Member of the Knesset, November 1
“I am saying here to the citizens of Lebanon…(w)hat we are doing in Gaza we know how to do in Beirut.”
—Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, November 11.
(Gallant was telling the truth. In the summer of 1982 the Israeli air force terror-bombed the city of Beirut resulting in 20,000 civilians killed and tens of thousands wounded).
“The north of the Gaza strip—more beautiful than ever. Blowing up and flattening everything, simply a delight for the eyes.”
—Amichai Eliyahu, Israeli Minister of Heritage, November 1.
“…twice as many children have died in Gaza just since the war started on Oct. 7 as in all the conflicts worldwide in 2022…Far more women and children appear to have been killed in Gaza than in the entire first year of the Iraq war…pulverizing entire neighborhoods…Too many (people) see events through a prism in which (Israeli) lives are invaluable on one side while (Palestinian) deaths on the other are regrettable.”
—Nicholas Kristof, December 6
“This law is taught: in the case of Israel, this soul of the kelipah is derived from kelipat nogah, which contains good…The souls of the gentiles however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever.” —Shneur Zalman of Lyady, “the Alter Rebbe.” Likkutei Amarim, (chapter 1). This sacred text is more commonly known by its first Hebrew word “Tanya.” Zalman is the founder of Chabad Lubavitch. Tanya is its revered text.
“According to this radical Hasidic teaching, divinity dwells in the inner core of every Judaic human being. Those who are non-Judaic have no humanity, no inner core in which the divine can take up residence. Those beings who are not Judaic are sub-human: empty kelipot (corporeal ‘shells’) which constitute broken vessels.
“In this theology non-Jews are broken shells who adopt the appearance of a human form which conceals their demonic essence. Those who are not Jews are the personification of purely evil materiality. Kabbalistic theology posits a cosmic dichotomy wherein the gentile represents biologically-determined, irredeemable evil. This is the esoteric rabbinic teaching which the western secret societies (also known as the ‘New Age’), understood and implemented. In the case of the indoctrination of their agent Adolf Hitler, the western occult reversed the polarities and taught Hitler that “the Jews” were the kelipot (‘untermenschen’), and the ‘Aryans’ the purely distilled essence of the divine. The Hitler/Himmler/Goebbels version of National Socialism was, unknown to these dupes themselves, a Kabbalistic teaching on the biologically-determined, irredeemable evil in the form of the ‘Jew.’ Hitlerism was Kabalism in the garments of Aryanism.”
— Michael Hoffman
“The differences between Jews and gentiles are not religious, historical, cultural or political. They are, rather, racial, genetic and scientifically unalterable. The one group is at its very root and by natural constitution ‘totally evil’ while the other is ‘totally good.’ Jewish successes in the world are completely contingent upon the failure of all other peoples. Only when the gentiles face total catastrophe do the Jews experience good fortune.”
—Rabbi Saadya Grama, Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (“Jewish Superiority and the Question of Exile,” 2003). Grama is an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha, a renowned yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey.
There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life.”
—Talmudic-Kabbalist Yitzhak Ginsburg, Jewish Week (N.Y.), Aug. 26, 1996
“The dissimilarity between the Jewish soul, in all its independence, inner desires, longings, character and standing vis-à-vis the soul of all the gentiles–on all of their levels–is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, for the difference in the latter case is one of quantity, while the difference in the first case is one of essential quality.”
— Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, 1921-1935, “The Father of Talmudic Zionism.” [Source: David Dishon,“The Beauty of Yefet in the Tents of Shem-Gentiles and Jews in the Thought of Rav Kook,” in Havruta: A Journal of Jewish Conversation; Shalom Hartman Institute. 1 (2): 80–89.]
“Wherever there is liability for capital punishment, with regard to bloodshed, if a gentile murders another gentile, or a gentile murders a Jew, he is liable. If a Jew murders a gentile, he is exempt.”
—Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 57a
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, October 28: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you says our Holy Bible, and we do remember and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that started 3,000 years ago—from Joshua to the heroes of 1948—the Six Day War, the 1973 October war—and all other wars of this country—are hero troops. They have one supreme main goal, to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country.”
In 1 Samuel 15:3 the judgment of God is on the Amalekites, in the form of the divine command to Saul, the first King of Israel: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
These are patently the marching orders Netanyahu gave the Israeli military (‘the most moral military in the world’): slay all the civilians of Gaza and spare them not. Not even Clarence Darrow could parse it otherwise. There’s no lawyer’s loophole here; no moderating clause.
“Netanyahu’s Amalek speech was a warrant for a genocide that has been carried out to the letter, notwithstanding the delusional Gaza holocaust denial which squats in our media, churches and government atop the cadavers of thousands of ‘unclean kelipot’—bombed and burned Palestinian children and their mothers, whose deaths do not register in the conscience of America. The Talmudic-resonate belief in the worthlessness of the Palestinians is as ubiquitous and inescapable as the racist hate speech which inculcates it.”
—Michael Hoffman, January 9, 2024.
I will not be silent.
Copyright©2024 by Independent History and Research
Michael Hoffman manages the podcast, Revisionist History®. He is the author of the banned 2008 textbook Judaism Discovered (1,102 pages), and nine other volumes of history and literature, as well as 122 issues of the periodical, Revisionist History®. Michael is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press and a former paid consultant to the news department of the New York Times. His books have been published in translation in Japan and France. He resides with his family in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. On Twitter (“X”): https://twitter.com/HoffmanMichaelA
For Further Research
Asymmetric Warfare: Why the Houthis Can Beat the Collective West
By Russell Bentley – Sputnik – 14.01.2024
Dr. Michael Parenti once said, “Economic violence is physical violence in slow motion.” The economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990’s led directly to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. Economic sanctions can be a weapon as deadly as any artillery shell or cruise missile.
The Houthis might at first appear to be vastly outmatched by the US/UK armada that has struck Yemen, but militarily and economically, the US and Europe are actually much more vulnerable than the Houthis. To put it simply, in both economic and military terms, the US, UK and Europe, and Israel, have a lot more to lose.
The Houthis are not alone – Hezbollah, considered to be one of the most effective fighting forces in the world today, has an estimated 100,000 highly trained and motivated and very well armed soldiers in Lebanon, and is already at (undeclared, but de facto) war with Israel, and will probably escalate in the next few days. In October, 1983, Hezbollah was able to kill 305 US and French occupation soldiers at a cost of only 2 KIA on the Hezbollah side.
Of the US and French soldiers, 220 were US Marines, the greatest single loss in one day of US Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. In the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, in which Israel invaded southern Lebanon, Hezbollah was able to inflict “unacceptable casualties” on Israeli forces, which resulted in the withdrawal of IDF forces and the signing of UNSC1701. While the Lebanese casualties were significantly higher than Israeli, the conflict is generally seen as a tactical and strategic defeat for Israel. Israel and their US/EU allies would do well to remember both of these battles before continuing to escalate an already extremely volatile situation beyond the point of no return.
Escalation between Hezbollah and the IDF on Lebanon’s southern border will not only expand the current area of conflict into the eastern Mediterranean, it can quickly become a serious threat to the Israeli city of Haifa, only 20 miles from the Lebanese border. Haifa is Israel’s 3rd largest city, with a population of around 300,000. The Port of Haifa is Israel’s second largest by cargo tonnage, and the Haifa oil refinery (the largest, and one of only two in Israel) processes more than 66 million barrels of crude oil per year, more than a million barrels per week. The port, and especially the refinery would be prime targets, and significant damage to either, especially the refinery, would have serious repercussions for the Israeli economy.
The “massive attack” by US/UK naval forces against the Houthis involved airstrikes, as well as approximately 100 cruise missiles, at a cost of more than $1 million each. According to reports published by the Houthi military command and Western media, the attack killed five Houthis. Now, do the math. The US and UK just spent a collective $100 million to kill 5 Houthis and escalate and exacerbate an already volatile situation. Based on assurances from the Houthi government that only Israeli-connected shipping was under threat, the majority of Red Sea shipping traffic had actually continued the Red Sea unhindered.
This is no longer the case. As of January 13th, after the US/UK attacks and their possible continuation, the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (Intertanko), which represents almost 70 per cent of all internationally traded oil, gas and chemical tankers, said in an advisory to members to “stay well away” from the Bab al Mendab strait, and for vessels travelling south via the Suez Canal to pause north of Yemen. This major disruption of tanker traffic may well have an upward influence on oil prices, coming as it does right on the heels of Saudi Aramco’s announcement of a $2 per barrel discount beginning in February.
The Huthis don’t even have to shoot at any more ships – just the threat of the possibility of Houthi or coalition missiles being fired has been enough to disrupt Red Sea shipping traffic, which carries 12% of all global trade goods, and a staggering 30% of all container goods. It is actually the US/UK “coalition” that has escalated the situation to dangerous levels that now interfere with much more shipping, including tanker traffic.
‘Witch hunts in Israel’: Teacher placed in solitary confinement for criticizing Gaza killings
Press TV – January 14, 2024
The Israeli regime has held a history teacher in solitary confinement and fired him for raising concerns on social media about the Zionist forces killing of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and criticizing the military.
Meir Baruchin was kept in solitary confinement in a high-security jail in early November, over a series of Facebook posts he’d made, mourning the civilians killed in Gaza, criticizing the Israeli military, and warning against wars of revenge.
“Horrific images are pouring in from Gaza. Entire families were wiped out. I don’t usually upload pictures like this, but look what we do in revenge,” said his message on 8 October, a day after the Israeli regime started a genocidal war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Strom.
“Anyone who thinks this is justified because of what happened yesterday should unfriend themselves. I ask everyone else to do everything possible to stop this madness. Stop it now. Not later, Now!!!” he wrote below a picture of the family of Abu Daqqa, killed in one of the first airstrikes on Gaza.
Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in the solitary confinement wing of al-Qud’s notorious “Russian Compound” prison, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.
Baruchin was initially told to come to a police station for questioning over charges of sedition. When he pointed out to police that they needed a warrant from the attorney general to charge an Israeli citizen with that offense, treason charges were duly drawn up.
When he arrived at the police station, his arms and ankles were cuffed, and he was shown a warrant to search his home. Five detectives escorted him there, turned his apartment upside down, and eventually confiscated two laptops and six hard drives. The police then asked for more time to investigate, and a judge ordered that he be detained.
“I wasn’t allowed to take anything with me to the cell,” he told the Observer. “I walked in with my clothes on and stayed with the same clothes for four days. There were cold-water showers, a tiny piece of soap, two blankets stinking from cigarette smoke, and a tiny towel,” he said.
He was interrogated again before a second judge ordered his release.
But he is living on savings while he waits for the verdict and even if he wins the treason charges have not been dropped: he could live in their shadow for five years, the limit for the police to prosecute.
He is not the only teacher to be targeted. Authorities also summoned Yael Ayalon, head of a Tel Aviv high school, after she shared a Haaretz article warning that Israeli media was hiding the suffering of Gaza’s civilians. “Israeli citizens need to be aware of this reality,” the piece said.
“This story is much bigger than my personal story, or Yael’s personal story. It is a time of witch hunts in Israel, of political persecution,” he said. “I became a ‘Hamas supporter’ because I expressed my opposition to targeting innocent civilians.”
He said he’d received hundreds of private messages of support from fellow teachers and students who were too frightened to go public, and showed several to the Observer.
“The message is crystal clear: keep silent, watch out,” he says, adding that they strengthened his conviction about speaking out. “I thought to myself, when I retire, I might conclude this is the most significant lesson I ever gave in civics.”
He still follows what is happening in Gaza closely, and flicks on his phone through images of the recent dead, a journalist, a violinist, a baby.
His latest post before the interview with the Observer was an image of an improvised grave marker, that looks like part of a broken piece of furniture. “Unknown martyr, green jacket and trainers,” the inscription reads.
“The whole story in one picture,” he says. “The Israeli mainstream media don’t broadcast this picture. They don’t get this picture, and don’t want to get this picture.”
100 Days of Ongoing Genocide in Gaza Amid the International Community’s Failure to Protect Palestinians
Al-Haq | January 14, 2024
Today, 14 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign against Gaza enters its hundredth day. Over this period, Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) have monitored and exposed the plethora of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts constituting genocide committed by the Israeli authorities and military across the occupied Palestinian territory, with its epicenter in Gaza. A hundred days later, the international community still falls short of fulfilling its duty to protect the Palestinian people.
The Israeli military is killing an average of 250 Palestinians per day in Gaza, a higher daily death rate than any other twenty-first-century armed conflict. In 100 days, Israeli attacks have killed one out of every 100 Palestinians in Gaza and injured—often with life-altering wounds—at least two Palestinians in every 100. As we write, thousands of Palestinians remain buried under rubble, whether dead or alive, some enduring this situation for days or even weeks. Hundreds of bodies are in a state of decay, deprived of the right to a dignified burial, as Israel continues to deny medical and rescue teams access to areas where its troops and soldiers are deployed.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza killed 23,843 Palestinians and wounded 60,317 more. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, among those killed are approximately 10,400 children, 7,100 women, 337 medical personnel, 45 civil defense personnel, and 117 journalists. Our teams on the ground emphasize that the actual number of fatalities is considerably higher than the figure announced by the Ministry of Health, as a substantial number of individuals remain trapped under the rubble.
This chilling death and injury toll occurs amidst a deliberately imposed humanitarian crisis by the Israeli authorities upon the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza. Ninety percent of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, with many experiencing displacement on multiple occasions, notwithstanding that there is not a single place in Gaza that can be called safe. Israel employs starvation as a method of warfare: 2.3 million residents of Gaza, including our staff, face significant daily challenges in accessing food and water. Reports of deaths from hunger, particularly among children, newborns and infants, are beginning to surface. The situation is particularly catastrophic in northern Gaza, where the presence of Israeli soldiers and troops on the ground has made the delivery of humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians who are still located there virtually impossible.
Due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, every facet of life there has faced utter destruction. The local healthcare system has crumbled as Israel has declared an “unrelenting war” on the health system in Gaza, rendering it incapable of delivering essential care to the injured, sick individuals, and everyday patients. Educational pursuits have been severely disrupted, with Israeli attacks causing complete destruction to 95 schools and universities, and partial damage to 295 others, as reported by the Government Media Office in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes destroyed 145 mosques, while another 243 were partially damaged. Three churches have been destroyed by Israeli attacks, along with numerous archaeological and historical sites, as well as significant cultural landmarks, contributing to the erasure of Palestinian history and life throughout Gaza.
Simultaneously with the genocide in Gaza, Israel escalated attacks against Palestinians all across historic Palestine. In the occupied West Bank, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, the Israeli military and settlers killed 336 Palestinians, including 84 children. Over the same period of time, Israel started a campaign of mass arrest: since 7 October, at least 5875 Palestinians have been detained, as further punitive measures have been imposed on them and the existing 5,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including administrative detainees. Palestinians in Israeli custody and detention are subjected to torture, ill-treatment, inhumane or degrading treatment, and enforced disappearances. The Israel Prison Service announced the ‘death’ of at least seven Palestinian detainees and prisoners. Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship have also experienced various forms of persecution, including arbitrary arrests, threats of citizenship revocation, and a severe crackdown on freedom of speech.
Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR reiterate that the Palestinian people in Gaza are facing an ongoing genocide. Israel’s actions in Gaza—encompassing killings, causing severe bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life aimed at physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group—constitute genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention. These acts are committed with the intent to destroy, either wholly or in part, the Palestinian population in Gaza. This intent is substantiated by statements from official Israeli sources and individuals expressing the clear intention to carry out such destruction.
The recent address from the Israeli Prime Minister, delivered last night, underscores the lack of any inclination on Israel’s part to cease its genocidal military campaign in Gaza. The remarks made during this speech also underline Israel’s refusal to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, in violation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/ES-10/L.27 adopted on 10 December 2023, highlighting the urgency for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to promptly issue provisional measures.
To this end, we urge the ICJ to swiftly issue provisional measures instructing Israel to cease military operations, refrain from genocidal acts in Gaza, and facilitate the entry of aid and fact-finding teams for accountability purposes, as requested by South Africa. We additionally call on all State Parties to the Genocide Convention to express their endorsements and formally support the legal proceedings initiated by South Africa at the ICJ.
We reiterate our plea to the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, to officially acknowledge and publicly affirm that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip amount to genocide. Additionally, we urge her to condemn the genocidal rhetoric emanating from Israeli officials and emphasize the inherent dangers that such rhetoric poses to the international community.
Under international law, States must not recognize illegal situations as legitimate and must refrain from assisting in maintaining the illegal situation. States must also impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel and stop the provision and transit of military equipment that may foreseeably be used in the commission of international crimes.
Responsibility at the State level should be accompanied by individual criminal accountability. We strongly reiterate our calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to promptly issue arrest warrants for Israeli political, security and military officials—especially governmental officials and high-ranking military personel—believed to be responsible for perpetrating, ordering, planning, and instigating international crimes, including genocide, committed over the past 100 days as well as since 13 June 2014.
Israel’s international crimes against the Palestinian people must cease immediately and permanently. To this end, the international community must not only hold Israel and the Israeli authorities accountable, but address the root causes by dismantling Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, and ensuring that all discriminatory and inhumane laws, policies and practices against the Palestinian people are abolished once and for all. The international community must also urge Israel, the Occupying Power, to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, lift the closure and blockade of Gaza, and enable the Palestinian people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, including their right to return.
Genocide Will Not Save Israel
By Paul Larudee – Global Research – January 12, 2023
I wish I could see a way that Gaza can escape genocide, but I can’t. The global mobilization of millions of people, including you and me, is inspirational, as is the stunning work by small independent journalists, upon whom we now rely for the truth, in contrast to the fiction peddled by the mainstream coddlers of racist mass murderers and their professional Zionist prevaricators tasked with persuading us all that black is white, filth is clean and countless child deaths by disease, starvation, thirst and exposure is self defense.
Even more inspiring is the dedication and courage of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, like Hamza Dahdouh and more than 110 others that have given their lives so that no one can ignore the carnage for even a moment, not even those who are assassinating them so that they cannot report that they are being assassinated. And the doctors, nurses, paramedics, and orderlies, who carry on the profession of medicine when there is no medicine, nor dressings, nor ambulances, nor even hospitals, so that at the very least we can count the casualties and measure the size of the crime.
But do we have the power to stop the monstrous actors from the bottom of Hell and their apologists who rule over us? Perhaps mathematically we do, but I have no confidence that we are organized enough or radical enough to make it happen. I don’t blame anyone other than the criminals themselves, because I am no better than anyone else who is trying to stop them. While I do what I think I can, I wallow with the rest of you in our collective helplessness.
On the other hand, the resistance fighters are not helpless. They have planned and trained and armed themselves by incredible feats of will, discipline and perseverance. They care nothing for the lies that are fabricated about them. They care only for their mission and their pride in refusing to do to their persecutors what is being done to their brothers and sisters in Palestine – only to do what is necessary to achieve liberation from the crushing oppression which they have been forced to endure for so long. They will prevail.
As I have said previously, Israel’s only strategy is genocide, and I fear that they will achieve it. But genocide will not save Israel. Hamas and all the resistance forces will outlast the Zionist project. They will outlast even the unthinkable mass murder an/or expulsion of two million of their brothers and sisters. The half million Zionists that have abandoned the “Jewish Home” since October 7th, 2023 will fulfill different dreams on other shores. The former “settlements” in the “Gaza envelope” and the northern frontiers will not return. Israel will never resurrect its economy, and it will be an even bigger pariah to the rest of the world than ever before.
Will the International Court of Justice save Gaza? I think not. Even in the unlikely event that South Africa wins its case and the court enjoins Israel from its genocidal practices, who will enforce the ruling? And it’s quite possible that the game is rigged, the deck stacked, and that the ruling will go against South Africa.
I know your compulsion to save the population of Gaza. It is my compulsion, too. I could never live with myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to prevent this horror. My heart with its triple bypass demands it. But my head tells me that the odds are against us. My only consolation is that the current storm is pushing the Zionist ship straight toward the rocks, and that nothing will save it. Not even genocide.
Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Larudee is a member of the Syria Support Movement Executive Board.
Featured Video
Chinese jet fuel and the myth of energy independence
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Review
Former Insiders Criticize Iran Policy as U.S. Hegemony
By GARETH PORTER | CounterPunch | February 27, 2013
“Going to Tehran” arguably represents the most important work on the subject of U.S.-Iran relations to be published thus far.
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett tackle not only U.S. policy toward Iran but the broader context of Middle East policy with a systematic analytical perspective informed by personal experience, as well as very extensive documentation.
More importantly, however, their exposé required a degree of courage that may be unparalleled in the writing of former U.S. national security officials about issues on which they worked. They have chosen not just to criticise U.S. policy toward Iran but to analyse that policy as a problem of U.S. hegemony. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- What is fueling unrest across the EU?
- Why no power can undermine Iran’s eternal dominance over the Strait of Hormuz
- Is The War Against Iran Over?
- Iran war will leave long-term ‘scar’ on Wall Street, investors warn
- How Iran decimated US power projection in West Asia: Military lessons of 40-day war
- Iran’s report details US-Israeli war crimes in targeting schools, hospitals, livelihoods
- NATO’s Slow Fracture: How Trump’s Iran War Exposed the Instrument of Hegemony
- Chinese jet fuel and the myth of energy independence
- Ukraine Sea Drone Fired From Libya Hit Russian Tanker in Mediterranean
- IRGC: Iranian forces launched no attacks during ceasefire hours
- If Americans Knew
- Military aid to Israel emerges as the latest political litmus test for Democrats
- The only Palestinian children’s rights organization closes following years-long Israeli campaign against it
- ‘I Can’t Forget the Smell’: Lebanese Reel After Israel Kills Over 300 in Single Day
- DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to Israel
- TCN: Is Israel Blackmailing President Trump?
- Israel killed at least 303 Lebanese yesterday – who were they? Daily Update
- Amnesty: Urgent – Protect Lebanese civilians from brutal escalation in Israeli attacks
- Is The War Against Iran Over?
- Inside the Israeli army’s propaganda wing
- Hundreds of Gaza Amputees Stranded in Legal Limbo
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
Aletho News 