14 months and counting, genocide and genocide denial continues
December 6, 2024 10:41 AM Subscribe
From the previous post: Amnesty International concludes Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. Amnesty International's Israel branch distances itself from "genocide" claim".
In the meantime, Israeli military kills four doctors in raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza. Over 1,000 doctors and nurses have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to local authorities.
Israel continues to bomb Lebanon despite a ceasefire deal. Lebanon closes all land border crossings with Syria.
IDF is bolstering forces on Israel's border with Syria. Turkey and Israel reaping rewards from chaos in Syria. Or is it bad news for Israel?
ICYMI: Norway's wealth fund divests from Israel's largest telecom over services to West Bank settlements.
Sen Tom Cotton introduces bill to eliminate federal use of the the term "West Bank" and instead refer to it as "Judea and Samaria", the preferred name of Israel.
US lawmakers are also working on a bipartisan bill that would yank federal financial aid from colleges that divest from Israel.
Israeli President Herzog called Elon Musk to discuss revival of hostage talks.
IDF said to warn dozens of soldiers against travel abroad over war crimes claims.
The most important thing you need in Gaza is a backpack: Around the world, backpacks represent freedom—school, work, adventure—but in Gaza, they have come to mean something entirely different. Backpacks are what we use to carry what’s left of our lives.
Our children sprint from place to place, not to learn, but to escape the very real threat of death that looms over us daily. The backpacks that once held books and lunches now hold meager rations like processed meats and beans—food that is hardly nourishing for growing children, barely enough to sustain us during these times of turmoil.
Oxford Union speeches - This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide - Susan Albuhawa, Mohammed El-Kurd.
The chef preserving Gaza's cuisine amid a genocide.
(Previously)
ICYMI: Norway's wealth fund divests from Israel's largest telecom over services to West Bank settlements.
Sen Tom Cotton introduces bill to eliminate federal use of the the term "West Bank" and instead refer to it as "Judea and Samaria", the preferred name of Israel.
US lawmakers are also working on a bipartisan bill that would yank federal financial aid from colleges that divest from Israel.
Israeli President Herzog called Elon Musk to discuss revival of hostage talks.
IDF said to warn dozens of soldiers against travel abroad over war crimes claims.
The most important thing you need in Gaza is a backpack: Around the world, backpacks represent freedom—school, work, adventure—but in Gaza, they have come to mean something entirely different. Backpacks are what we use to carry what’s left of our lives.
Our children sprint from place to place, not to learn, but to escape the very real threat of death that looms over us daily. The backpacks that once held books and lunches now hold meager rations like processed meats and beans—food that is hardly nourishing for growing children, barely enough to sustain us during these times of turmoil.
Oxford Union speeches - This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide - Susan Albuhawa, Mohammed El-Kurd.
The chef preserving Gaza's cuisine amid a genocide.
(Previously)
Israeli historian produces vast database of war crimes in Gaza: Lee Mordechai’s (Princeton) 124-page report Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War
Meanwhile, motivations become transparent as Israeli court rejects Netanyahu’s request to limit how often he’ll testify. “His lawyers had requested that he testify fewer than three days a week, because of the demands of dealing with the Mideast wars and the fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.”
posted by rubatan at 11:32 AM on December 6, 2024 [12 favorites]
Meanwhile, motivations become transparent as Israeli court rejects Netanyahu’s request to limit how often he’ll testify. “His lawyers had requested that he testify fewer than three days a week, because of the demands of dealing with the Mideast wars and the fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.”
posted by rubatan at 11:32 AM on December 6, 2024 [12 favorites]
Sen Tom Cotton introduces bill to eliminate federal use of the the term "West Bank" and instead refer to it as "Judea and Samaria", the preferred name of Israel.
Rebecca Solnit quoting Fanny Howe
"I studied with Joseph Brodsky the great Russian poet and how do I say this, he thought we were lazy American students. We had to memorize 500 lines a week and come in and write them out for him. He said, you Americans are so naive. He said, you think that evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots and climb up the stairs–it begins in the language. Look to the language."
posted by lalochezia at 11:38 AM on December 6, 2024 [45 favorites]
Rebecca Solnit quoting Fanny Howe
"I studied with Joseph Brodsky the great Russian poet and how do I say this, he thought we were lazy American students. We had to memorize 500 lines a week and come in and write them out for him. He said, you Americans are so naive. He said, you think that evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots and climb up the stairs–it begins in the language. Look to the language."
posted by lalochezia at 11:38 AM on December 6, 2024 [45 favorites]
B'Tselem: UNLEASHED: Abuse of Palestinians By Israeli Soldiers in the Centre of Hebron
For over a year, Israel has been waging an unrestrained war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and within the State of Israel. The violence that has always characterized the Israeli apartheid regime’s treatment of Palestinians is now appearing in its most direct and exposed form. This report focuses on one facet of this violence: recurring instances of severe abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the center of Hebron throughout the summer of 2024.
posted by lalochezia at 11:44 AM on December 6, 2024 [12 favorites]
For over a year, Israel has been waging an unrestrained war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and within the State of Israel. The violence that has always characterized the Israeli apartheid regime’s treatment of Palestinians is now appearing in its most direct and exposed form. This report focuses on one facet of this violence: recurring instances of severe abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the center of Hebron throughout the summer of 2024.
posted by lalochezia at 11:44 AM on December 6, 2024 [12 favorites]
Toward an Intellectual History of Genocide in Gaza
posted by chavenet at 11:49 AM on December 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 11:49 AM on December 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Couple of comments removed, please avoid bringing the US election into threads where it doesn't belong, thanks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:35 PM on December 6, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:35 PM on December 6, 2024 [1 favorite]
A measure of the mental disconnect that is going on in Establishment heads right now is how it appears there's going to be a schism in Amnesty International over it.
For the record I was one of those annoyed oldsters back in October-December '23 who kept trying to tell people that it wasn't genocide, that it didn't have to be genocide to be crimes against humanity, and you didn't have to be tooting the "genocide" horn to be making a real stink about Israeli behavior. I was ready to drop those objections months ago if anybody had cared.
"Israel is a vital American ally in the Middle East" is such a baked-in assumption of consensus reality in the US that even the observation "Israel is clearly requesting these munitions from the US for the express purpose of using them to commit war crimes and it is illegal under US law for us to provide them under those circumstances" could not budge literally anybody with any decision-making authority in the US.
I think the people in power in America who conceivably care about war crimes are stuck in a "it can't happen here, therefore it's not happening here" state, to avoid having to call into question something so unquestionably basic as "the strategic importance to the US of Israeli territorial integrity." Which, at least with respect to the Democratic Party fraction of them, would seem like another good reason why it might have been a good idea to pick a President who was born after the invention of jet airplane travel in 2020. And is a good argument for the retirement of a lot of the other oldsters with power in their respective parts of government.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:45 PM on December 6, 2024 [13 favorites]
For the record I was one of those annoyed oldsters back in October-December '23 who kept trying to tell people that it wasn't genocide, that it didn't have to be genocide to be crimes against humanity, and you didn't have to be tooting the "genocide" horn to be making a real stink about Israeli behavior. I was ready to drop those objections months ago if anybody had cared.
"Israel is a vital American ally in the Middle East" is such a baked-in assumption of consensus reality in the US that even the observation "Israel is clearly requesting these munitions from the US for the express purpose of using them to commit war crimes and it is illegal under US law for us to provide them under those circumstances" could not budge literally anybody with any decision-making authority in the US.
I think the people in power in America who conceivably care about war crimes are stuck in a "it can't happen here, therefore it's not happening here" state, to avoid having to call into question something so unquestionably basic as "the strategic importance to the US of Israeli territorial integrity." Which, at least with respect to the Democratic Party fraction of them, would seem like another good reason why it might have been a good idea to pick a President who was born after the invention of jet airplane travel in 2020. And is a good argument for the retirement of a lot of the other oldsters with power in their respective parts of government.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:45 PM on December 6, 2024 [13 favorites]
I don't know, man: I think the US election is absolutely relevant here.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:12 PM on December 6, 2024 [11 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:12 PM on December 6, 2024 [11 favorites]
Think what you will of genocide allegations; what’s inarguable is that the divide between Israel and the world is growing
posted by robbyrobs at 1:19 PM on December 6, 2024 [10 favorites]
posted by robbyrobs at 1:19 PM on December 6, 2024 [10 favorites]
If you're in Alameda County, please message your supervisor before Tuesday!
posted by latkes at 2:19 PM on December 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by latkes at 2:19 PM on December 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
What's interesting for me about the Amnesty conclusion is, to my understanding, it was reached following the same metrics the ICJ (will) apply, and fairly conservative ones at that. Just like how when they concluded that Israel is practicing apartheid, this conclusion will be accepted fact, except in the isolated ally countries and even then at the establishment and pro-Israel circles merely. In the meantime, however long it'll take, I can already draw my own conclusions about where South Africa's suit will eventually land.
In the meantime at the UNGA level, there will be a June conference to discuss the practical means to work on a two-state solution. France and KSA also is taking up the reins for leading that next year too. The way forward in all of this is less clear but maybe this is how it was like during apartheid South Africa when the holdouts were also Western states (US & UK) while all other recourse was being pursued assiduously, so that when exhaustion strikes...
Re: that Tom Cotton proposed bill, I'm struck at how united the establishment line is, to recall the phrasing Bill Clinton used (though he was careful to place it in history but regardless the disrespect remains): He said that Jews had been in the land “in the time of King David, and the southernmost tribes had Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank using the Biblical terminology also in use among Israelis.
Israel grows isolated as it continues its crimes while its so-called friends leaves it to hang with military objectives barely achieved, own army accidentally killing its own hostages (and finally admitting it*), spiking rate of mental illness and outright suicides, and a plummeting economy cratering. But anything for both geopolitics and also an unaddressed guilt over antisemitism. I won't talk about Palestinians, it's not like the establishment cares. But it's pretty self-evident they don't care about Israelis either except as some kind of sin eater ideal of their own.
*Per the translation (including the subtitled podcast portion):
"(In the Netzarim Corridor) there are large, serious outposts that can accommodate a company, and sometimes beyond, with infrastructure, like water and electricity. We see full cellular communication systems being set up by Israeli companies..."
24-minute clip from Ha'aretz podcast from two weeks ago with Yaniv Kubovich, a reporter who went into Gaza many times with the army. He describes first hand the reality of Israel creating an irreversible situation in the Gaza Strip, with total destruction, literally erasing Gaza, and the establishment of many army outposts (in preparation for settlement).
He also reveals that the 6 captives found dead in August were actually found by mistake, when a D9 fell into the shaft of the tunnel they were held in.
posted by cendawanita at 5:26 PM on December 6, 2024 [18 favorites]
In the meantime at the UNGA level, there will be a June conference to discuss the practical means to work on a two-state solution. France and KSA also is taking up the reins for leading that next year too. The way forward in all of this is less clear but maybe this is how it was like during apartheid South Africa when the holdouts were also Western states (US & UK) while all other recourse was being pursued assiduously, so that when exhaustion strikes...
Re: that Tom Cotton proposed bill, I'm struck at how united the establishment line is, to recall the phrasing Bill Clinton used (though he was careful to place it in history but regardless the disrespect remains): He said that Jews had been in the land “in the time of King David, and the southernmost tribes had Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank using the Biblical terminology also in use among Israelis.
Israel grows isolated as it continues its crimes while its so-called friends leaves it to hang with military objectives barely achieved, own army accidentally killing its own hostages (and finally admitting it*), spiking rate of mental illness and outright suicides, and a plummeting economy cratering. But anything for both geopolitics and also an unaddressed guilt over antisemitism. I won't talk about Palestinians, it's not like the establishment cares. But it's pretty self-evident they don't care about Israelis either except as some kind of sin eater ideal of their own.
*Per the translation (including the subtitled podcast portion):
"(In the Netzarim Corridor) there are large, serious outposts that can accommodate a company, and sometimes beyond, with infrastructure, like water and electricity. We see full cellular communication systems being set up by Israeli companies..."
24-minute clip from Ha'aretz podcast from two weeks ago with Yaniv Kubovich, a reporter who went into Gaza many times with the army. He describes first hand the reality of Israel creating an irreversible situation in the Gaza Strip, with total destruction, literally erasing Gaza, and the establishment of many army outposts (in preparation for settlement).
He also reveals that the 6 captives found dead in August were actually found by mistake, when a D9 fell into the shaft of the tunnel they were held in.
posted by cendawanita at 5:26 PM on December 6, 2024 [18 favorites]
I've seen this in various places...
Ever wondered what you'd have done during:
- Slavery
- The Holocaust
- The Civil Rights Movement
- Ethnic Cleansing
- Genocide??
Well...
You're doing it, right now...
posted by chavenet at 6:01 PM on December 6, 2024 [16 favorites]
Ever wondered what you'd have done during:
- Slavery
- The Holocaust
- The Civil Rights Movement
- Ethnic Cleansing
- Genocide??
Well...
You're doing it, right now...
posted by chavenet at 6:01 PM on December 6, 2024 [16 favorites]
Iran Begins to Evacuate Military Officials and Personnel From Syria
posted by gwint at 6:03 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
Iran began to evacuate its military commanders and personnel from Syria on Friday, according to regional officials and three Iranian officials, in a sign of Iran’s inability to help keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as he faces a resurgent rebel offensive.This seems... serious.
Among those evacuated to neighboring Iraq and Lebanon were top commanders of Iran’s powerful Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the officials said.
Guards personnel, some Iranian diplomatic staff, their families, and Iranian civilians were also being evacuated, according to the Iranian officials, two of them members of the Guards, and regional officials. Iranians began to leave Syria on Friday morning, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
Evacuations were ordered at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, and at bases of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian and regional officials said. At least some of the embassy staff has departed.
Part of the evacuation is being carried out by planes to Tehran, while others are leaving via land routes to Lebanon, Iraq and the Syrian port of Latakia, the officials said.
“Iran is starting to evacuate its forces and military personnel because we cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight,” Mehdi Rahmati, a prominent Iranian analyst who advises officials on regional strategy, said in a telephone interview.
posted by gwint at 6:03 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
For those not familiar with the city of Hama, which the Syrian rebels recently occupied: 1982 Hama massacre
posted by gwint at 6:08 PM on December 6, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by gwint at 6:08 PM on December 6, 2024 [4 favorites]
Oh yeah, the collapse of the Assadist regime this week has been incredible to watch. It makes collecting Palestine news even more fraught, as it always happens when the pro-Assadist commentators are suddenly caught between actually sharing hyperbolic takes of actual crimes or hyperbolic takes to defend other actual crimes.
posted by cendawanita at 6:13 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:13 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
It's so sad and horrible, and then there's the evangelical Christian angle too - if Israel annexes the West Bank and parts of Lebanon they'll support it as a way to bring a out the End Times.
posted by subdee at 7:06 PM on December 6, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by subdee at 7:06 PM on December 6, 2024 [6 favorites]
Not to create a second order argument hobnail, but I love arguing about the US election, it's all I do when the season comes around, but the election's relevance to this issue after the fact is that nothing has changed and nothing was going to change. As of January 20th, Biden's genocide will become Trump's genocide, and we will still not see establishment Dem condemnation of it, Because they view it as a foreign policy win, and will continue to do so until the empire collapses around their ears.
posted by jy4m at 7:19 PM on December 6, 2024 [18 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 7:19 PM on December 6, 2024 [18 favorites]
As of January 20th, Biden's genocide will become Trump's genocide
Trump is not a True Believer in Zionism the way Biden is. He'll enjoy letting Kushner build waterfront condos in Gaza and has a rapport with Netanyahu as a fellow thug but he doesn't give a shit about a "Jewish homeland".
posted by Lemkin at 8:51 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
Trump is not a True Believer in Zionism the way Biden is. He'll enjoy letting Kushner build waterfront condos in Gaza and has a rapport with Netanyahu as a fellow thug but he doesn't give a shit about a "Jewish homeland".
posted by Lemkin at 8:51 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
Genocide is bipartisan in the US at the moment. There are signs that some Dems may start getting uncomfortable with continuing to support genocide, but it's honestly not enough.
Right now, instead of doing anything to help the US prepare for dealing with Trump, the US is opening an investigation into Spain's reported port denials of cargo ships carrying arms to Israel. (And extending contracts to private immigration jails, but that's another post.)
This was so sad: "Her Name Was Zehava" - a documentary about a Palestinian trans woman jailed in Palestine for her sexual identity and in Israel for her Palestinian identity.
NewLinesMag also has several articles about Syria; Hassan Hassan wrote about what led to the fall of Aleppo. Zeteo did a town hall with him that I expect to be released in full eventually on YouTube.
"Rooted in this land until death" - an Al-Jazeera feature on a West Bank family on harvest season while getting attacked by settlers.
posted by toastyk at 8:57 PM on December 6, 2024 [11 favorites]
Right now, instead of doing anything to help the US prepare for dealing with Trump, the US is opening an investigation into Spain's reported port denials of cargo ships carrying arms to Israel. (And extending contracts to private immigration jails, but that's another post.)
This was so sad: "Her Name Was Zehava" - a documentary about a Palestinian trans woman jailed in Palestine for her sexual identity and in Israel for her Palestinian identity.
NewLinesMag also has several articles about Syria; Hassan Hassan wrote about what led to the fall of Aleppo. Zeteo did a town hall with him that I expect to be released in full eventually on YouTube.
"Rooted in this land until death" - an Al-Jazeera feature on a West Bank family on harvest season while getting attacked by settlers.
posted by toastyk at 8:57 PM on December 6, 2024 [11 favorites]
You never know… maybe Trump will encourage the ICC to indict Biden, and rather than expend domestic political will in the US he can bury Biden’s legacy under the epitaph “Genocide Joe.” Really anything is possible January 20th.
The US isn’t party to the Rome Statute but neither is Israel (Palestine is, and thus is under the jurisdiction of the ICC)
posted by rubatan at 8:58 PM on December 6, 2024 [4 favorites]
The US isn’t party to the Rome Statute but neither is Israel (Palestine is, and thus is under the jurisdiction of the ICC)
posted by rubatan at 8:58 PM on December 6, 2024 [4 favorites]
he can bury Biden’s legacy under the epitaph “Genocide Joe”
Biden strikes me as someone who cares how he'll be remembered. I hope his advancing senescence leaves him some awareness of his place in history as the Butcher of Jerusalem's lapdog.
posted by Lemkin at 9:08 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
Biden strikes me as someone who cares how he'll be remembered. I hope his advancing senescence leaves him some awareness of his place in history as the Butcher of Jerusalem's lapdog.
posted by Lemkin at 9:08 PM on December 6, 2024 [7 favorites]
Biden strikes me as someone who cares how he'll be remembered.
I mentioned that to him in of the emails I sent (as well as in the ones I sent to Harris). I did get one answer - the classic non-answer kind.
I was emailing him because my throat was sore from yelling; my arms tired from holding signs and putting up posters; my legs worn out from marching; my donations and fundraising draining me; my friends and family were flinching from my lectures; my social media 'friends' silently shun me; clerks and strangers back away when I explain my keffiyeh ...
And, the election left me gutted.
Every day I see people here in Seattle step over bodies of the houseless/street-ill as they carry their lattes on their way to work. I probably shouldn't be so shocked that Americans can ignore this genocide.
posted by Surfurrus at 12:14 AM on December 7, 2024 [15 favorites]
I mentioned that to him in of the emails I sent (as well as in the ones I sent to Harris). I did get one answer - the classic non-answer kind.
I was emailing him because my throat was sore from yelling; my arms tired from holding signs and putting up posters; my legs worn out from marching; my donations and fundraising draining me; my friends and family were flinching from my lectures; my social media 'friends' silently shun me; clerks and strangers back away when I explain my keffiyeh ...
And, the election left me gutted.
Every day I see people here in Seattle step over bodies of the houseless/street-ill as they carry their lattes on their way to work. I probably shouldn't be so shocked that Americans can ignore this genocide.
posted by Surfurrus at 12:14 AM on December 7, 2024 [15 favorites]
...but the election's relevance to this issue after the fact is that nothing has changed and nothing was going to change. As of January 20th, Biden's genocide will become Trump's genocide, and we will still not see establishment Dem condemnation of it...
I mean, we could have had Biden's "genocide" become Harris' more nuanced approach to remaining close with a long-term ally while making at least a rhetorical effort to push for regime change in Israel, but several million idiots decided to stay home and now it's slaughter all the way down. Those people staying home because of their "principles" bear all the responsibility for whatever happens to the poor chumps in Gaza who had nothing to do with October 7, thought it was a horror, and are being punished for it anyway.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:16 AM on December 7, 2024
I mean, we could have had Biden's "genocide" become Harris' more nuanced approach to remaining close with a long-term ally while making at least a rhetorical effort to push for regime change in Israel, but several million idiots decided to stay home and now it's slaughter all the way down. Those people staying home because of their "principles" bear all the responsibility for whatever happens to the poor chumps in Gaza who had nothing to do with October 7, thought it was a horror, and are being punished for it anyway.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:16 AM on December 7, 2024
You know what is etched into my brains when I think of the Democratic party now? People at the DNC of all stripes covering their ears and laughing and mocking Uncommitted delegates as they read out the names of children who had been killed. So if we are going by the things that the Harris campaign did and said, there is no reason to believe that they would have been any different on Gaza. Harris maintained that she would keep all the same policies as Biden, and when she differentiated herself from him, went rightward on pretty much every single policy, not just Gaza. If you watched the Makdisi Street interview with Mehdi Hasan, which was conducted about a week before the election, they straight up ask him, what is with the Harris campaign and Gaza? Why are they so intractable on this? Hasan basically says, they think they'll make it up with suburban voters with whatever voters they lose on Gaza. And don't they know Trump is worse?
Anyway, to move the focus back to the genocide: from the live feed off Al-Jazeera today - Israeli army targets ambulance, uses human shields in North Gaza.
Times of Israel liveblog: Hamas posted a video of a live hostage, Trump says US should not get involved in Syria fighting, and supposedly Assad is still in Damascus even as rebel forces move there.
Israel create a buffer zone in Lebanon using white phosphorous.
Haaretz: A Soldier's Warning: What I saw in Gaza will define our future ungated: To all of us, from those in the control room to the last of the fighters, it's clear that the government doesn't know a damn thing about how to proceed from here. There are no goals to advance to, no political ability to retreat. Except for in Jabalya, there's hardly any fighting. Only at the edges of the camps. And even this is partial, for fear that hostages might be there. The problem is diplomatic, not military and not tactical. And therefore it's clear to everyone that we will be called up for yet another round, for the exact same missions. Reservists will still come, but fewer of them.
Where's the line between understanding the "complexity" and blind obedience? When have you earned the right to refuse to take part in a war crime? That's less of interest. What's more of interest is when will the Israeli mainstream wake up, when will a leader arise who'll explain to the citizens what a terrible mess we're in, and who will be the first kippah-wearer to call me a traitor. Because before The Hague, before the American universities, before the condemnation in the Security Council, this is first and foremost an internal matter for us. And for 2 million Palestinians.
posted by toastyk at 7:44 AM on December 7, 2024 [17 favorites]
Anyway, to move the focus back to the genocide: from the live feed off Al-Jazeera today - Israeli army targets ambulance, uses human shields in North Gaza.
Times of Israel liveblog: Hamas posted a video of a live hostage, Trump says US should not get involved in Syria fighting, and supposedly Assad is still in Damascus even as rebel forces move there.
Israel create a buffer zone in Lebanon using white phosphorous.
Haaretz: A Soldier's Warning: What I saw in Gaza will define our future ungated: To all of us, from those in the control room to the last of the fighters, it's clear that the government doesn't know a damn thing about how to proceed from here. There are no goals to advance to, no political ability to retreat. Except for in Jabalya, there's hardly any fighting. Only at the edges of the camps. And even this is partial, for fear that hostages might be there. The problem is diplomatic, not military and not tactical. And therefore it's clear to everyone that we will be called up for yet another round, for the exact same missions. Reservists will still come, but fewer of them.
Where's the line between understanding the "complexity" and blind obedience? When have you earned the right to refuse to take part in a war crime? That's less of interest. What's more of interest is when will the Israeli mainstream wake up, when will a leader arise who'll explain to the citizens what a terrible mess we're in, and who will be the first kippah-wearer to call me a traitor. Because before The Hague, before the American universities, before the condemnation in the Security Council, this is first and foremost an internal matter for us. And for 2 million Palestinians.
posted by toastyk at 7:44 AM on December 7, 2024 [17 favorites]
I mean, we could have had Biden's "genocide" become Harris' more nuanced approach to remaining close with a long-term ally while making at least a rhetorical effort to push for regime change in Israel, but several million idiots decided to stay home and now it's slaughter all the way down.
The 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style was published not long ago. I must consult it about the use of scare quotes in this context.
posted by Lemkin at 7:54 AM on December 7, 2024 [12 favorites]
The 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style was published not long ago. I must consult it about the use of scare quotes in this context.
posted by Lemkin at 7:54 AM on December 7, 2024 [12 favorites]
Those people staying home because of their "principles" bear all the responsibility for whatever happens to the poor chumps in Gaza who had nothing to do with October 7, thought it was a horror, and are being punished for it anyway.
Yes the US election is intimately tied to the genocide, but for fucks sake the reason mods try to separate the two is because it inevitably invites moronic comments like these that assign more blame to a mythical voters (not one county was flipped because of protest non votes) than to the actual genocidaires.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2024 [13 favorites]
Yes the US election is intimately tied to the genocide, but for fucks sake the reason mods try to separate the two is because it inevitably invites moronic comments like these that assign more blame to a mythical voters (not one county was flipped because of protest non votes) than to the actual genocidaires.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2024 [13 favorites]
Oh we're putting genocide in scare quotes now? Cool, glad I'm against having this argument then.
posted by jy4m at 8:34 AM on December 7, 2024 [9 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 8:34 AM on December 7, 2024 [9 favorites]
Mod note: Hi, mod checking again.
A few comments were previously removed after being flagged as off-topic aka US politics about the situation in Gaza.
But folks have continued to mix the topics, including the OP, so it sounds like people want to talk about both in these thread, so the mods will refrain from trying to enforce a particular topic, unless something drastically changes. Folks are welcome to flag things and include a note
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:36 AM on December 7, 2024 [5 favorites]
A few comments were previously removed after being flagged as off-topic aka US politics about the situation in Gaza.
But folks have continued to mix the topics, including the OP, so it sounds like people want to talk about both in these thread, so the mods will refrain from trying to enforce a particular topic, unless something drastically changes. Folks are welcome to flag things and include a note
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:36 AM on December 7, 2024 [5 favorites]
outgrown_hobnail, your argument would only hold water if there was any evidence that Gaza was a top driver of turnout in this election. (And even then, one could argue that Biden and then Harris did a lot to snub voters concerned about Gaza...I mean, sending Richie Torres to Michigan? Not even meeting with the Uncommitted movement? etc.) As someone who canvassed in a swing state (albeit not Michigan), Gaza never came up once. The most common complaint was inflation. The closest was a voter on the fence due to the size of military spending, but it was clear his primary concern was economic, and he was just as concerned about spending in Ukraine.
posted by coffeecat at 8:41 AM on December 7, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 8:41 AM on December 7, 2024 [5 favorites]
My observation: It's not just them, but it is especially the pro-Assadists who love to draw a rhetorical point about how Palestine will contribute to the downfall of all of the US (and then sympathetically reshared by others, feeling what they feel), and has been making (hyperbolic) hay about the voting trends, even as the ones on the left who've been actually paying attention have been saying otherwise (not just MisanthropicPainforest; I regularly watch FD Signifier and he's done the same).
I go through my daily feeds and just nod and move on. Interesting how Russia-paid tankie talking points unmoored from reality can be so attractive to perpetuate however, rather than looking at these guys:
The 2020 Biden campaign made some specific promises to Arab Americans
-Opposition to Israeli settlement expansion
-Restoration of funding to UNRWA, PLO-affiliated charities
-Restoration of Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem
-Reopening of PLO office in Washington D.C.
0/4 met.
Or:
Patel: Allegations of [🇮🇱] genocide are unfounded
@tombateman: When you’ve been asked about violations of international law, you’ve said it’s reasonable to assess but you can’t make a final conclusion because of lack of information, yet you can conclude allegations of genocide are unfounded. How is it you can conclude that but not conclude anything else?
Patel: What I am simply saying is these allegations of genocide continue to be unfounded
Tom: I’m just confused about whether you have information. You’re saying definitively the allegations of genocide are unfounded but in every other case you don’t have enough information to say if [🇮🇱] violations of international law are conclusively found
Patel: I’m not a lawyer, there are processes we have in place…but on allegations of genocide we continue to believe they’re unfounded and I don’t have any other assessment to offer
I will note only one factor that might even have any meaningful traction: GOTV work needs activists, and young people. If they're busy getting arrested or shunned or delegitimized, well. They still voted (if they can), but who wants to talk about any party with any energy?
Anyway speaking of the Assadists, Damascus will probably fall as I'm asleep in my timezone. But of note:
Iranian state TV has shifted its terminology for Syrian rebels from “terrorists” to “armed opposition” possibly signaling Tehran’s reassessment of Assad’s future and an openness to negotiating with the rebels. They also acknowledged that the rebels didn’t attack Shia communities.
It will be interesting to see if HTS issues a statement clarifying their vision towards the Iranian interests. Such a move would be much more consequential over their recent reassurance to Russia, given the sectarian dimension and nature of the Iranian role in Syria and how many HTS fighters might feel about such a statement.
Maybe Palestinians really will be the ones to save the region. (Tipping my hat to al-Jolani's background)
posted by cendawanita at 8:47 AM on December 7, 2024 [8 favorites]
I go through my daily feeds and just nod and move on. Interesting how Russia-paid tankie talking points unmoored from reality can be so attractive to perpetuate however, rather than looking at these guys:
The 2020 Biden campaign made some specific promises to Arab Americans
-Opposition to Israeli settlement expansion
-Restoration of funding to UNRWA, PLO-affiliated charities
-Restoration of Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem
-Reopening of PLO office in Washington D.C.
0/4 met.
Or:
Patel: Allegations of [🇮🇱] genocide are unfounded
@tombateman: When you’ve been asked about violations of international law, you’ve said it’s reasonable to assess but you can’t make a final conclusion because of lack of information, yet you can conclude allegations of genocide are unfounded. How is it you can conclude that but not conclude anything else?
Patel: What I am simply saying is these allegations of genocide continue to be unfounded
Tom: I’m just confused about whether you have information. You’re saying definitively the allegations of genocide are unfounded but in every other case you don’t have enough information to say if [🇮🇱] violations of international law are conclusively found
Patel: I’m not a lawyer, there are processes we have in place…but on allegations of genocide we continue to believe they’re unfounded and I don’t have any other assessment to offer
I will note only one factor that might even have any meaningful traction: GOTV work needs activists, and young people. If they're busy getting arrested or shunned or delegitimized, well. They still voted (if they can), but who wants to talk about any party with any energy?
Anyway speaking of the Assadists, Damascus will probably fall as I'm asleep in my timezone. But of note:
Iranian state TV has shifted its terminology for Syrian rebels from “terrorists” to “armed opposition” possibly signaling Tehran’s reassessment of Assad’s future and an openness to negotiating with the rebels. They also acknowledged that the rebels didn’t attack Shia communities.
It will be interesting to see if HTS issues a statement clarifying their vision towards the Iranian interests. Such a move would be much more consequential over their recent reassurance to Russia, given the sectarian dimension and nature of the Iranian role in Syria and how many HTS fighters might feel about such a statement.
Maybe Palestinians really will be the ones to save the region. (Tipping my hat to al-Jolani's background)
posted by cendawanita at 8:47 AM on December 7, 2024 [8 favorites]
Anyway, from the OP link about yanking financial aid from higher ed institutions that engages from any divestment - "The new bipartisan Protect Economic Freedom Act will give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses."
Ah yes, gotta protect the economic freedom of the US government to defund access to higher education for anyone besides the rich.
posted by coffeecat at 8:54 AM on December 7, 2024 [8 favorites]
Ah yes, gotta protect the economic freedom of the US government to defund access to higher education for anyone besides the rich.
posted by coffeecat at 8:54 AM on December 7, 2024 [8 favorites]
one could argue that Biden and then Harris did a lot to snub voters concerned about Gaza
Harris was admirably candid when telling pro-Palestine voters to eat shit.
It's the closest she came to integrity.
posted by Lemkin at 9:30 AM on December 7, 2024 [7 favorites]
Harris was admirably candid when telling pro-Palestine voters to eat shit.
It's the closest she came to integrity.
posted by Lemkin at 9:30 AM on December 7, 2024 [7 favorites]
Frankly, since the death toll will be identical, I'd rather have Trump's naked contempt for Palestinian lives than Harris's crocodile tears.
posted by Lemkin at 9:32 AM on December 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 9:32 AM on December 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
Okay, I certainly don't buy the argument that Harris lost the election because of outrage over genocide in Gaza and America's role in it. That assumes a level of awareness and concern for people in other parts of the world that is 100% not in evidence in the American body politic. Everything about this election suggests Gaza's impact was marginal and time spent blaming people angry about the genocide is time that could be better spent thinking about the actual, real reasons Democrats lost this election.
That being said, the idea that Trump and Biden will be indistinguishable on this is equally unreal. There are degrees of awfulness. There's a reason Netanyahu wanted Trump to win and reportedly did what he could to help swing the election towards him. I don't think it made really any difference, but it suggests there is in fact a difference, and I for one lean towards thinking that whoever Netanyahu is actively pushing for is the more awful option, even if only a little bit. Saying they're the same-- saying you'd rather have Trump because "at least he's honest about it!" (really?)-- is silly, especially when you consider the many other communities around the world who are going to absolutely suffer more under Trump, including communities suffering or threatened by genocide.
posted by Method Man at 10:15 AM on December 7, 2024 [8 favorites]
That being said, the idea that Trump and Biden will be indistinguishable on this is equally unreal. There are degrees of awfulness. There's a reason Netanyahu wanted Trump to win and reportedly did what he could to help swing the election towards him. I don't think it made really any difference, but it suggests there is in fact a difference, and I for one lean towards thinking that whoever Netanyahu is actively pushing for is the more awful option, even if only a little bit. Saying they're the same-- saying you'd rather have Trump because "at least he's honest about it!" (really?)-- is silly, especially when you consider the many other communities around the world who are going to absolutely suffer more under Trump, including communities suffering or threatened by genocide.
posted by Method Man at 10:15 AM on December 7, 2024 [8 favorites]
There are degrees of awfulness.
I suspect the nuances are lost on the Palestinian parents extracting pieces of their children from the rubble of their home.
But I fully agree, as observed above, that Gaza did not cost her a single county.
posted by Lemkin at 10:42 AM on December 7, 2024 [7 favorites]
I suspect the nuances are lost on the Palestinian parents extracting pieces of their children from the rubble of their home.
But I fully agree, as observed above, that Gaza did not cost her a single county.
posted by Lemkin at 10:42 AM on December 7, 2024 [7 favorites]
I think reflecting on the election is fine, but continuing to focus on it to the exclusion of the actual topic at hand is myopic.
Anyway, the Zeteo townhall with Hassan Hassan, who provides a lot of background on Syria, is now available to the public. Worth your time.
I am seeing conflicting rumors about whether Assad has fled Damascus or not. There are reports now that he is making overtures to the US. Trump says the US shouldn't intervene in Syria, the first time I actually agree with him on something.
Syrian government forces withdraw from Homs.
The White House gave Israel the coordinates to save an American's family. The Israelis bombed them instead.
US and Canadian universities are hiring Israeli security firms to deal with pro-Palestinian protesters, excuse me, "hostile environments".
Qatar says momentum is building for Gaza ceasefire efforts.
The real reason a former Israeli army chief called out ethnic cleansing in Gaza: “We are transitioning from a Jewish, liberal, democratic state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to a messianic, racist, corrupt, and leprous dictatorship. Prove me wrong.” In other words, Ya’alon’s concern is not for the Palestinians being forced out of their homes en masse by the Israeli army, but for Israel’s future as a “Jewish and democratic” state.
posted by toastyk at 1:38 PM on December 7, 2024 [10 favorites]
Anyway, the Zeteo townhall with Hassan Hassan, who provides a lot of background on Syria, is now available to the public. Worth your time.
I am seeing conflicting rumors about whether Assad has fled Damascus or not. There are reports now that he is making overtures to the US. Trump says the US shouldn't intervene in Syria, the first time I actually agree with him on something.
Syrian government forces withdraw from Homs.
The White House gave Israel the coordinates to save an American's family. The Israelis bombed them instead.
US and Canadian universities are hiring Israeli security firms to deal with pro-Palestinian protesters, excuse me, "hostile environments".
Qatar says momentum is building for Gaza ceasefire efforts.
The real reason a former Israeli army chief called out ethnic cleansing in Gaza: “We are transitioning from a Jewish, liberal, democratic state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to a messianic, racist, corrupt, and leprous dictatorship. Prove me wrong.” In other words, Ya’alon’s concern is not for the Palestinians being forced out of their homes en masse by the Israeli army, but for Israel’s future as a “Jewish and democratic” state.
posted by toastyk at 1:38 PM on December 7, 2024 [10 favorites]
Okay, I certainly don't buy the argument that Harris lost the election because of outrage over genocide in Gaza and America's role in it.
Neither do I, but have you seen the Dearborn returns? In an area where Biden got 88 percent of the vote in 2020, Harris received 13 percent.
THIRTEEN. Percent.
I mean, Jesus.
posted by Gadarene at 2:18 PM on December 7, 2024 [7 favorites]
Neither do I, but have you seen the Dearborn returns? In an area where Biden got 88 percent of the vote in 2020, Harris received 13 percent.
THIRTEEN. Percent.
I mean, Jesus.
posted by Gadarene at 2:18 PM on December 7, 2024 [7 favorites]
Syria will definitely need its own post - it's a moment for history (holy shit).
In the meantime, relevant chatter I'm tracking:
Emissary of Night (belated note: this person and another couple of Israelis have resolutely posted behind pseudonyms even if it takes little work to find their official nom de plume when appearing elsewhere, I don't feel comfortable using those names so will retain their account names): A popular talking point on here and amongst American apologists for US policy on Israel-Palestine is that Israel can't agree to partition so long as Iran maintains a strong status of regional hegemony— now that this is purportedly receding what will the excuse be now
or will they just finally admit that they agree on the merits with permanent racial war on the palestinian people
---
Dr Ezzideen: 🚨A Looming Medical Catastrophe ‼️
A significant increase in bacterial infections has been observed in recent weeks, raising serious concerns about public health in Gaza. Minor wounds that would typically heal without intervention are now developing severe infections, often unresponsive to topical antibiotics. In many cases, systemic antibiotic therapy has become necessary for resolution.
Compounding this issue is the acute scarcity of antibiotics in northern Gaza. When available, these essential medications are prohibitively expensive, placing them beyond the reach of many individuals who need them.
The etiology of this surge in bacterial infections is likely multifactorial and requires comprehensive epidemiological studies to identify the underlying causes. One hypothesized contributing factor is the decomposition of unrecovered bodies trapped beneath rubble. The decomposition process may release bioaerosols and particulate matter into the environment, creating a fertile ground for bacterial proliferation and potentially facilitating the emergence of novel, pathogenic bacterial strains !
This situation represents a public health emergency that demands immediate attention. Coordinated efforts, including medical resource allocation, environmental hazard mitigation, and focused research, are essential to address this escalating crisis and prevent further deterioration of health outcomes in the affected population.
#GazaGenocide #SaveNorthernGaza
----
U.S. mainstream media downplays Amnesty International’s finding that Israel is committing genocide
Israeli soldier was ordered to kill Palestinian holding white flag, says reservist -
Senior commanders order shooting of Palestinians over ethnicity without facing repercussions, Israeli journalist and reserve soldier writes
whitephosphorus.info: "Over the course of one year, from Oct. 8th, 2023, to Oct. 3rd, 2024, we have verified 195 incidents of white phosphorus deployment by Israel in South Lebanon. Our website now features an interactive cartographic display that organizes this data chronologically and spatially, offering detailed insights into deployment patterns. This project serves as a continuously updated database for tracking white phosphorus munitions in South Lebanon."
Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh wins RSF Courage Award for work in Gaza
Israeli soldiers have been sexually assaulting Palestinian women for decades. Now they're speaking out -
Researchers documenting violence against Palestinian women say so many have been attacked by Israeli soldiers since 7 October, the silence that once accompanied assaults has been shattered
“You Can’t Buy Paradise with Blood” - Nineteen-year-old Sofia Orr was jailed for refusing to enlist in the Israeli military. In an interview with Jacobin, she explains the disturbing authoritarianism of an Israeli society that has rallied behind the massacre in Gaza.
I've mentioned Israeli historian Lee Mordechai before. He's updated his list of Israeli war crimes since Oct 7 (Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War (English)), and this would be the most comprehensive list in Hebrew. Haaretz article on his work, if you find it helpful for anyone: A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel's War Crimes in Gaza (ungated)
(Randomly that reminded me of seeing screenshots of a disgusting socmed post of a soldier who clearly indicated he was masturbating over the ruins in Gaza. I didn't save it.)
posted by cendawanita at 9:27 PM on December 7, 2024 [11 favorites]
In the meantime, relevant chatter I'm tracking:
Emissary of Night (belated note: this person and another couple of Israelis have resolutely posted behind pseudonyms even if it takes little work to find their official nom de plume when appearing elsewhere, I don't feel comfortable using those names so will retain their account names): A popular talking point on here and amongst American apologists for US policy on Israel-Palestine is that Israel can't agree to partition so long as Iran maintains a strong status of regional hegemony— now that this is purportedly receding what will the excuse be now
or will they just finally admit that they agree on the merits with permanent racial war on the palestinian people
---
Dr Ezzideen: 🚨A Looming Medical Catastrophe ‼️
A significant increase in bacterial infections has been observed in recent weeks, raising serious concerns about public health in Gaza. Minor wounds that would typically heal without intervention are now developing severe infections, often unresponsive to topical antibiotics. In many cases, systemic antibiotic therapy has become necessary for resolution.
Compounding this issue is the acute scarcity of antibiotics in northern Gaza. When available, these essential medications are prohibitively expensive, placing them beyond the reach of many individuals who need them.
The etiology of this surge in bacterial infections is likely multifactorial and requires comprehensive epidemiological studies to identify the underlying causes. One hypothesized contributing factor is the decomposition of unrecovered bodies trapped beneath rubble. The decomposition process may release bioaerosols and particulate matter into the environment, creating a fertile ground for bacterial proliferation and potentially facilitating the emergence of novel, pathogenic bacterial strains !
This situation represents a public health emergency that demands immediate attention. Coordinated efforts, including medical resource allocation, environmental hazard mitigation, and focused research, are essential to address this escalating crisis and prevent further deterioration of health outcomes in the affected population.
#GazaGenocide #SaveNorthernGaza
----
U.S. mainstream media downplays Amnesty International’s finding that Israel is committing genocide
Israeli soldier was ordered to kill Palestinian holding white flag, says reservist -
Senior commanders order shooting of Palestinians over ethnicity without facing repercussions, Israeli journalist and reserve soldier writes
whitephosphorus.info: "Over the course of one year, from Oct. 8th, 2023, to Oct. 3rd, 2024, we have verified 195 incidents of white phosphorus deployment by Israel in South Lebanon. Our website now features an interactive cartographic display that organizes this data chronologically and spatially, offering detailed insights into deployment patterns. This project serves as a continuously updated database for tracking white phosphorus munitions in South Lebanon."
Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh wins RSF Courage Award for work in Gaza
Israeli soldiers have been sexually assaulting Palestinian women for decades. Now they're speaking out -
Researchers documenting violence against Palestinian women say so many have been attacked by Israeli soldiers since 7 October, the silence that once accompanied assaults has been shattered
“You Can’t Buy Paradise with Blood” - Nineteen-year-old Sofia Orr was jailed for refusing to enlist in the Israeli military. In an interview with Jacobin, she explains the disturbing authoritarianism of an Israeli society that has rallied behind the massacre in Gaza.
I've mentioned Israeli historian Lee Mordechai before. He's updated his list of Israeli war crimes since Oct 7 (Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War (English)), and this would be the most comprehensive list in Hebrew. Haaretz article on his work, if you find it helpful for anyone: A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel's War Crimes in Gaza (ungated)
(Randomly that reminded me of seeing screenshots of a disgusting socmed post of a soldier who clearly indicated he was masturbating over the ruins in Gaza. I didn't save it.)
posted by cendawanita at 9:27 PM on December 7, 2024 [11 favorites]
Bluesky starter pack - Syria's OG journalists/experts
Syrian rebels declare Damascus "free of tyrant al-Assad".
Apparently Israel is taking the opportunity to invade Syria. Just a little.
Refaat Alareer's posthumous collection of poetry and prose is available for pre-order and currently climbing up the charts.
posted by toastyk at 9:33 PM on December 7, 2024 [4 favorites]
Syrian rebels declare Damascus "free of tyrant al-Assad".
Apparently Israel is taking the opportunity to invade Syria. Just a little.
Refaat Alareer's posthumous collection of poetry and prose is available for pre-order and currently climbing up the charts.
posted by toastyk at 9:33 PM on December 7, 2024 [4 favorites]
Re: invasion - *inserts that free real estate meme* 😑
posted by cendawanita at 10:19 PM on December 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 10:19 PM on December 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
Situation in Syria gets its own post on MeFi
posted by lalochezia at 4:17 AM on December 8, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 4:17 AM on December 8, 2024 [2 favorites]
Per Daniel Seidemann, translating Hebrew news:
During his visit today to the Golan Heights, with an outlook over the overthrow of Assad, Netanyahu announced, among else, that this is a historic day, and nullified the Separation of Forces Agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War. He annexed to lsrael yet another territory in the Golan that until today the buffer zone area under UN control. That is, not a temporary step, but permanent annexation.
Edit: an actual article - Israel's Netanyahu declares end of Syria border agreement, orders military to seize buffer zone -
Netanyahu announces the collapse of the 1974 border agreement with Syria and orders the army to seize the Golan Heights buffer zone.
posted by cendawanita at 7:55 AM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]
During his visit today to the Golan Heights, with an outlook over the overthrow of Assad, Netanyahu announced, among else, that this is a historic day, and nullified the Separation of Forces Agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War. He annexed to lsrael yet another territory in the Golan that until today the buffer zone area under UN control. That is, not a temporary step, but permanent annexation.
Edit: an actual article - Israel's Netanyahu declares end of Syria border agreement, orders military to seize buffer zone -
Netanyahu announces the collapse of the 1974 border agreement with Syria and orders the army to seize the Golan Heights buffer zone.
posted by cendawanita at 7:55 AM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]
The thing is, from a pure cold blooded evil standpoint, Israel can AFFORD to lose friends and be more isolated for a while.
If you're a person like Netanyahu and you've got a goal of ending Palestine once and for all, that goal is in reach, and the cost will be mass economic depression, social unrest, and fraying public mental health among your own Jewish population, then he's going to take that opportunity and see more or less anything as an acceptable price for the long term goal of securing all of the territory and evicting or eradicating all the Palestinians.
If you start with his axioms, his behavior is entirely rational and makes perfect sense. I think his axioms are awful, but he's not irrational.
Which is why I think he's going to carry on and barring actual invasion by outside powers he's going to succeed. Sure, Trump may not personally give a shit, but he wants in on that beachfront property and he's more than willing to back Netanyahu more than even Biden did. Or, rather, that he'll stand back and let the rabid Christian fundamentalist types in his staff do that while he golfs and livetweets FOX on Truth Social.
posted by sotonohito at 10:52 AM on December 8, 2024 [5 favorites]
If you're a person like Netanyahu and you've got a goal of ending Palestine once and for all, that goal is in reach, and the cost will be mass economic depression, social unrest, and fraying public mental health among your own Jewish population, then he's going to take that opportunity and see more or less anything as an acceptable price for the long term goal of securing all of the territory and evicting or eradicating all the Palestinians.
If you start with his axioms, his behavior is entirely rational and makes perfect sense. I think his axioms are awful, but he's not irrational.
Which is why I think he's going to carry on and barring actual invasion by outside powers he's going to succeed. Sure, Trump may not personally give a shit, but he wants in on that beachfront property and he's more than willing to back Netanyahu more than even Biden did. Or, rather, that he'll stand back and let the rabid Christian fundamentalist types in his staff do that while he golfs and livetweets FOX on Truth Social.
posted by sotonohito at 10:52 AM on December 8, 2024 [5 favorites]
Whether Trump himself is a Christian end-times person doesn't matter, he is surrounded by them and just nominated one as Secretary of Defense.
posted by subdee at 11:38 AM on December 8, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by subdee at 11:38 AM on December 8, 2024 [5 favorites]
Egypt proposes a 2 days ceasefire deal.
Reportedly Hamas is exchanging names with Israel for Gaza truce deal.
Four Israeli troops killed in southern Lebanon - Reservists believed to have triggered unmarked munitions left by other IDF soldiers, setting off Hezbollah cache and bringing tunnel down on troops.
Israel confiscates 6000 acres in West Bank.
Some controversy because Pope Francis unveiled a nativity scene with Jesus atop a keffiyeh.
posted by toastyk at 7:49 AM on December 9, 2024 [7 favorites]
Reportedly Hamas is exchanging names with Israel for Gaza truce deal.
Four Israeli troops killed in southern Lebanon - Reservists believed to have triggered unmarked munitions left by other IDF soldiers, setting off Hezbollah cache and bringing tunnel down on troops.
Israel confiscates 6000 acres in West Bank.
Some controversy because Pope Francis unveiled a nativity scene with Jesus atop a keffiyeh.
posted by toastyk at 7:49 AM on December 9, 2024 [7 favorites]
Oh yeah I was about to come in on sharing the potential new terms as well. This is being covered in al-Arabiy Arabic, and it's really upset pro-war pro-Israel types on get (but don't they want hostages home? Anyway.) Trump is being credited for it, so don't let Biden read that part. The pro-war types are also quite upset that Rafah crossing being opened again is up for agreement.
Another one: Hamas hands Egypt a list of prisoners to transfer amid negotiations with Israel
posted by cendawanita at 7:53 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]
Another one: Hamas hands Egypt a list of prisoners to transfer amid negotiations with Israel
posted by cendawanita at 7:53 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]
What's international law to America really, but at least destroying it seems to be a bipartisan project:
ICC faces slimmed-down budget, sanction threats
The meeting opened on Monday with dire warnings about the challenges the court is facing.
“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions from institutions of another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization,” court President Tomoko Akane said in her opening address.
The Japanese judge was referring to the threat of economic sanctions by the United States.
The U.S. has often been hostile to the court. The country signed the Rome Statute, which created the court in 2002, but never ratified the treaty and later withdrew its signature. In 2020, the Trump administration placed sanctions on the previous chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, over the global judicial body investigating American military actions in Afghanistan.
“Sanctions are meant to coerce the court into not doing its job,” Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg, who focuses on international relations at University of Oxford, told Courthouse News Service.
U.S. politicians and others were highly critical after the court issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and a senior Hamas official for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Biden administration blasted the decision, calling the arrest warrants “outrageous.”
Hah, united against a common enemy: In her opening address, Judge Akane also pointed to threats from Russia, which has issued arrest warrants for Khan and several judges over the court's 2023 arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last week, the court announced that two of the judges on the panel that issued the warrant for Netanyhau and others had been subjected to arrest warrants in Russia.
Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad, had attempted to pressure Bensouda.
She opened the investigation into supposed war crimes committed in Palestinian territories in 2021 after judges ruled that the court has jurisdiction over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel occupied following the Six-Day War of 1967.
This reminds me that I forgot to share this (other Guardian) article earlier, from a couple of weeks ago: Former ICC chief prosecutor says she faced threats and ‘thug-style tactics’ -
Fatou Bensouda says she and her family were subjected to ‘direct threats’ while working on the most sensitive cases
posted by cendawanita at 8:46 AM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
ICC faces slimmed-down budget, sanction threats
The meeting opened on Monday with dire warnings about the challenges the court is facing.
“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions from institutions of another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization,” court President Tomoko Akane said in her opening address.
The Japanese judge was referring to the threat of economic sanctions by the United States.
The U.S. has often been hostile to the court. The country signed the Rome Statute, which created the court in 2002, but never ratified the treaty and later withdrew its signature. In 2020, the Trump administration placed sanctions on the previous chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, over the global judicial body investigating American military actions in Afghanistan.
“Sanctions are meant to coerce the court into not doing its job,” Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg, who focuses on international relations at University of Oxford, told Courthouse News Service.
U.S. politicians and others were highly critical after the court issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and a senior Hamas official for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Biden administration blasted the decision, calling the arrest warrants “outrageous.”
Hah, united against a common enemy: In her opening address, Judge Akane also pointed to threats from Russia, which has issued arrest warrants for Khan and several judges over the court's 2023 arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last week, the court announced that two of the judges on the panel that issued the warrant for Netanyhau and others had been subjected to arrest warrants in Russia.
Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad, had attempted to pressure Bensouda.
She opened the investigation into supposed war crimes committed in Palestinian territories in 2021 after judges ruled that the court has jurisdiction over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel occupied following the Six-Day War of 1967.
This reminds me that I forgot to share this (other Guardian) article earlier, from a couple of weeks ago: Former ICC chief prosecutor says she faced threats and ‘thug-style tactics’ -
Fatou Bensouda says she and her family were subjected to ‘direct threats’ while working on the most sensitive cases
posted by cendawanita at 8:46 AM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
Israel confiscates 6000 acres in West Bank.
Fucking evil. Just pure fucking evil.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:54 AM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]
Fucking evil. Just pure fucking evil.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:54 AM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]
Hmm... Prominent DC synagogue cancels event with Yoav Gallant after members protest: Benjamin Temchine, a member of Adas Israel, said that he met with one of the synagogue’s rabbis on Friday to object to the event with Gallant, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes related to Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza, which have killed at least 44,000 Palestinians. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November.
“I don’t see Adas opening the door to Smotrich, I don’t see them opening the door to Ben-Gvir,” Temchine said in an interview Friday, referring to two far-right Israeli ministers. “How is Gallant different?”
Temchine, 50, said that he knew of at least 10 other members who had also complained to the synagogue’s leadership.
Chuck Schumer is moving forward with the Senate vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act this Friday, so call your reps.
posted by toastyk at 9:19 AM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]
“I don’t see Adas opening the door to Smotrich, I don’t see them opening the door to Ben-Gvir,” Temchine said in an interview Friday, referring to two far-right Israeli ministers. “How is Gallant different?”
Temchine, 50, said that he knew of at least 10 other members who had also complained to the synagogue’s leadership.
Chuck Schumer is moving forward with the Senate vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act this Friday, so call your reps.
posted by toastyk at 9:19 AM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]
In the midst of continued strikes and massacres (heard of another one that killed 40 people), some good news (if we recall the push and pull and strife):
PEN America endorses the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
Though this endorsement is an extraordinary measure, it is not the first time that PEN America has stood with besieged writers, as we have done for writers silenced by the South African apartheid regime and for Ukrainian writers under assault by Russia. Given the urgency of the Israel-Palestine conflict, we have concluded that the violence we are witnessing amidst this war poses a greater obstacle to effective dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians than a boycott does.
While PEN America opposes in principle boycotts that aim to silence writers and foreclose dialogue, we are heartened that PACBI does not target individual Israeli writers, many of whom long for peace. Rather, it is a measure by which cultural organizations like PEN America can pressure Israeli institutions to take a stand for the human rights of Palestinians.
Casual war crime confessions over in Israeli media: Doing what is needed: 'Post' reporter on battling Hamas face-to-face in Gaza
We didn’t wait long before one of the drone specialists saw movement as he peered through a window. Hamas operatives were sneaking from the old complex. We had caught them by surprise. The order came down, and a sniper opened fire, killing one of the men. A teen lookout, possibly around 14 years old, darted over to the mouth of the main road at the boundary line. I fired at the ground nearby to scare him off. He fled back north. Another man appeared in the sandy depression. As he ran, I shot him in the leg, but I mistakenly believed I had missed. He stumbled as more gunfire rang – another marksman and I put two more rounds into his torso. I watched through my scope as he nestled into a dirt mound and ceased movement. A moment later, my partner opened fire on another man. The dust cleared, and we waited, and watched.
The young man I had killed couldn’t have been much older than 18. He was in civilian clothes. He was unarmed. My heart sank when inspection of a bag dropped by one of the men revealed foodstuffs inside.
Was he actually Hamas? What if he was just a civilian desperate for the food we had abandoned in our old complex? Did we really have enough intelligence to use deadly force?
Wonderful display of a cryshooter. Wring your hands somemore, why don't you.
posted by cendawanita at 5:24 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
PEN America endorses the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
Though this endorsement is an extraordinary measure, it is not the first time that PEN America has stood with besieged writers, as we have done for writers silenced by the South African apartheid regime and for Ukrainian writers under assault by Russia. Given the urgency of the Israel-Palestine conflict, we have concluded that the violence we are witnessing amidst this war poses a greater obstacle to effective dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians than a boycott does.
While PEN America opposes in principle boycotts that aim to silence writers and foreclose dialogue, we are heartened that PACBI does not target individual Israeli writers, many of whom long for peace. Rather, it is a measure by which cultural organizations like PEN America can pressure Israeli institutions to take a stand for the human rights of Palestinians.
Casual war crime confessions over in Israeli media: Doing what is needed: 'Post' reporter on battling Hamas face-to-face in Gaza
We didn’t wait long before one of the drone specialists saw movement as he peered through a window. Hamas operatives were sneaking from the old complex. We had caught them by surprise. The order came down, and a sniper opened fire, killing one of the men. A teen lookout, possibly around 14 years old, darted over to the mouth of the main road at the boundary line. I fired at the ground nearby to scare him off. He fled back north. Another man appeared in the sandy depression. As he ran, I shot him in the leg, but I mistakenly believed I had missed. He stumbled as more gunfire rang – another marksman and I put two more rounds into his torso. I watched through my scope as he nestled into a dirt mound and ceased movement. A moment later, my partner opened fire on another man. The dust cleared, and we waited, and watched.
The young man I had killed couldn’t have been much older than 18. He was in civilian clothes. He was unarmed. My heart sank when inspection of a bag dropped by one of the men revealed foodstuffs inside.
Was he actually Hamas? What if he was just a civilian desperate for the food we had abandoned in our old complex? Did we really have enough intelligence to use deadly force?
Wonderful display of a cryshooter. Wring your hands somemore, why don't you.
posted by cendawanita at 5:24 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
cendawanita, I regret to inform you that the press release is fake. PEN America does not endorse the PACBI.
Writers Against the War on Gaza still has a Boycott PEN America campaign up.
Meanwhile, another flour massacre where Israel killed 50 across Gaza.
posted by toastyk at 9:11 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
Writers Against the War on Gaza still has a Boycott PEN America campaign up.
Meanwhile, another flour massacre where Israel killed 50 across Gaza.
posted by toastyk at 9:11 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
Damn! Ok scratch that good news then :(
posted by cendawanita at 9:13 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:13 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
The Wire (India) wrote up about Lee Mordechai's database of Israeli war crimes if you also want another source.
While I'm there: 'Plight of Gazans Akin to the Trauma of Partition': Punjab Farmer Union Donates Funds to Palestine Embassy (first farmer union to do so in India)
On Vittles magazine, no less: Stone and Seed -
Mira Mattar on starvation as a tool of genocide in Gaza.
Welp: Ex-president Rivlin: Queen Elizabeth ‘believed that every Israeli was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist’ — report
Cash Crisis in Gaza: “I barter my belongings to eat” -
Palestinians in Gaza barter staple goods to fight starvation
Scoop: Internal Project Esther documents describe conspiracy of Jewish ‘masterminds’ seeking to dismantle Western values -
A presentation meant to win supporters for the Heritage Foundation’s plan to fight antisemitism draws a line from George Soros to Antifa and pro-Palestinian protests
Death march from Beit Lahia -
Hossam Shabat reports from northern Gaza on Israel’s mass expulsion campaign
North Gaza: Israel destroys the last collapsing hospital to complete forced displacement crime
And not to overlook other parts of Palestine:
The West Bank villages wiped off the map by Israeli settler violence - Since October 7, over 50 rural Palestinian communities have been forced to abandon their homes amid intensifying attacks, threats, and harassment by Israeli settlers — almost always with the backing of the army and police.
Israeli soldiers systematically abusing Palestinians in Hebron, report reveals -
Whipped with a belt, beaten in the groin, threatened with rape: Palestinians recount a pattern of arbitrary attacks in the West Bank city this year.
posted by cendawanita at 7:06 AM on December 10, 2024 [10 favorites]
While I'm there: 'Plight of Gazans Akin to the Trauma of Partition': Punjab Farmer Union Donates Funds to Palestine Embassy (first farmer union to do so in India)
On Vittles magazine, no less: Stone and Seed -
Mira Mattar on starvation as a tool of genocide in Gaza.
Welp: Ex-president Rivlin: Queen Elizabeth ‘believed that every Israeli was either a terrorist or a son of a terrorist’ — report
Cash Crisis in Gaza: “I barter my belongings to eat” -
Palestinians in Gaza barter staple goods to fight starvation
Scoop: Internal Project Esther documents describe conspiracy of Jewish ‘masterminds’ seeking to dismantle Western values -
A presentation meant to win supporters for the Heritage Foundation’s plan to fight antisemitism draws a line from George Soros to Antifa and pro-Palestinian protests
Death march from Beit Lahia -
Hossam Shabat reports from northern Gaza on Israel’s mass expulsion campaign
North Gaza: Israel destroys the last collapsing hospital to complete forced displacement crime
And not to overlook other parts of Palestine:
The West Bank villages wiped off the map by Israeli settler violence - Since October 7, over 50 rural Palestinian communities have been forced to abandon their homes amid intensifying attacks, threats, and harassment by Israeli settlers — almost always with the backing of the army and police.
Israeli soldiers systematically abusing Palestinians in Hebron, report reveals -
Whipped with a belt, beaten in the groin, threatened with rape: Palestinians recount a pattern of arbitrary attacks in the West Bank city this year.
posted by cendawanita at 7:06 AM on December 10, 2024 [10 favorites]
How a hostage family leader became one of the loudest anti-war voices in Israel: Despite the respectable showings at the weekly protests in support of the hostage families, Metzger feels the activists have been left with little recourse. But there is one act she believes could force the government to end the war and cut a deal: conscientious objection, a phenomenon that gained popularity during last year’s protests against the government’s judicial overhaul, but became a near-treasonous position following the Hamas attacks.
“People must refuse to be part of an army that continues to corrupt itself,” she says. “Why are we surprised when Palestinians, who we have harmed, turn around and commit pogroms against us when we invade their homes?” (???)
Why I resigned as chairman of Amnesty Israel - I insisted on Palestinian representation in managerial roles, but nothing changed. Members of management and the board were reluctant to make the necessary structural adjustments. Staff told met that there was a rule that says a Palestinian staff member must be consulted on issues pertaining to Palestinians, something Amnesty Israel pointed out in their defense recently.
However, staff also informed me that frequent arguments resulted from this rule not being applied, and it was certainly not applied to Amnesty Israel’s analysis for its position on the genocide report. Ironically, this pattern of defending one’s self by citing a rule that isn’t enforced mirrors the IDF’s approach, where it would promise “tightening of regulations” after a human rights violation, with little change following.
Two Palestinian board members joined during my tenure, and left shortly after one of them was told in a meeting that her opinions are evidence of a lack of experience and therefore she is unfit to be on the board. In addition, staff repeatedly ignored her pleas to include Palestinian voices in official decisions. A board member from before my time pointed out in a tweet that Amnesty Israel seems unable to retain Palestinians.
World Central Kitchen sacks 62 Palestinians after Israel finds connections to terror groups - guess I'm done donating to World Central Kitchen. In a message to staff, WCK confirmed that it had "made changes" after Israel demanded an investigation into its hiring practices in Gaza. "This should not be taken as a conclusion by WCK that the individuals are affiliated with any terror organization," it said.
posted by toastyk at 3:45 PM on December 10, 2024 [6 favorites]
“People must refuse to be part of an army that continues to corrupt itself,” she says. “Why are we surprised when Palestinians, who we have harmed, turn around and commit pogroms against us when we invade their homes?” (???)
Why I resigned as chairman of Amnesty Israel - I insisted on Palestinian representation in managerial roles, but nothing changed. Members of management and the board were reluctant to make the necessary structural adjustments. Staff told met that there was a rule that says a Palestinian staff member must be consulted on issues pertaining to Palestinians, something Amnesty Israel pointed out in their defense recently.
However, staff also informed me that frequent arguments resulted from this rule not being applied, and it was certainly not applied to Amnesty Israel’s analysis for its position on the genocide report. Ironically, this pattern of defending one’s self by citing a rule that isn’t enforced mirrors the IDF’s approach, where it would promise “tightening of regulations” after a human rights violation, with little change following.
Two Palestinian board members joined during my tenure, and left shortly after one of them was told in a meeting that her opinions are evidence of a lack of experience and therefore she is unfit to be on the board. In addition, staff repeatedly ignored her pleas to include Palestinian voices in official decisions. A board member from before my time pointed out in a tweet that Amnesty Israel seems unable to retain Palestinians.
World Central Kitchen sacks 62 Palestinians after Israel finds connections to terror groups - guess I'm done donating to World Central Kitchen. In a message to staff, WCK confirmed that it had "made changes" after Israel demanded an investigation into its hiring practices in Gaza. "This should not be taken as a conclusion by WCK that the individuals are affiliated with any terror organization," it said.
posted by toastyk at 3:45 PM on December 10, 2024 [6 favorites]
Mind you, he's not even an active member of cabinet now, he's just a war criminal: White House Welcomes Gallant Despite ICC Warrant for Crimes Against Humanity
posted by cendawanita at 6:41 PM on December 10, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:41 PM on December 10, 2024 [4 favorites]
A little slow here,
--The Yahoo Pope Keffiyeh article was taken down by Yahoo (not on archive). It remains up on other outlets, including validation by Snopes: TRUE.
--Can someone explain the PEN America BDS post? From Cenda to Toastyk, despite stating "This is NOT from us,..." it certainly seems it was from them (archive of original on PEN.org). I can't find anything explaining it: malicious hack? or, an internal revolt again from last March?
posted by rubatan at 1:25 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
--The Yahoo Pope Keffiyeh article was taken down by Yahoo (not on archive). It remains up on other outlets, including validation by Snopes: TRUE.
--Can someone explain the PEN America BDS post? From Cenda to Toastyk, despite stating "This is NOT from us,..." it certainly seems it was from them (archive of original on PEN.org). I can't find anything explaining it: malicious hack? or, an internal revolt again from last March?
posted by rubatan at 1:25 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
Latkes, that is great news! Do you know what the next steps are? It sounds like a policy has to be now drafted on ethical investments?
Rubatan, as far as I can tell, no one has come forward to take credit for the fake press release. I'm guessing it was some internal prankster.
A reflection on Refaat Alareer and his book, whose book sold out yesterday - Even as Alareer sought to cultivate Palestinian storytellers, he was equally committed to fostering a critical Palestinian readership. Encompassing works spanning from The Merchant of Venice to Charles Dickens and the Israeli Jewish author Yehuda Amichai, Alareer’s syllabuses invited his students to wrestle with their own artistic, moral and national inclinations. In the essay Gaza Asks: When Will This Pass? Alareer recalls: “To many of my students, [Shakespeare’s Jewish character] Shylock was beyond repair. Even Shylock’s daughter hated him!” However, with time, discussion and close reading, Shylock became recognizable to his students as a character who endured “an apartheid-like society [and] had to choose between total submission and humiliation … and resisting by the means available to him. He chose to resist, just like Palestinians do nowadays.”
Rashid Khalidi and a roomful of observant Jews - “I used to be invited to synagogues, I used to speak at the Hillel at University of Chicago when it was run by Rabbi Danny Leifer,” Khalidi recalled, a little wistfully. (He spent eight years at U. Chicago before moving to Columbia in 2003.)
“This is before Hillel became centralized and turned into a place where people who didn’t accept certain views weren’t welcome,” he added. “I can’t cross the threshold of a Hillel now.”
I know that quote is going to make some readers shut down. You support Hillel, your kids go to Hillel and you don’t think it’s closed-minded — or maybe you think it’s not a space where Palestinian perspectives belong. I thought about cutting the “certain views” line, to keep you reading this newsletter, to prevent you from dismissing Khalidi.
But this story, like Sperber’s makeshift group, is about breaking out of the bubbles too many of us live inside, particularly regarding Israel. It’s about the urgent need for all of us to wrestle with other people’s perspectives and narratives even about the things closest to our hearts, even when it’s upsetting. So go ahead and think Khalidi is wrong about Hillel — and The New York Times and maybe the whole conflict — but also, please, swallow hard and stick with me to hear him out.
Al-Jazeera longform feature on starvation in Gaza - "Our life is like zeft (black like tar)," said 42-year-old Mohammed angrily, using a local expression to convey the inescapable hardship Palestinians are facing, a small bag of bread on his shoulder.
"I wake up at 5am to fetch water for my family. From 8 to 9am, I search for tekkiyyat to find food for my children. Then, I stand in line for hours to get bread, now scarce due to the flour shortage," he explained, describing his daily routine in Deir el-Balah.
"This is the summary of life in Gaza now for many like me."
Israeli airstrikes kill at least 38 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say.
These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza - hmm, I still remember when AP fired a Jewish journalist over her pro-Palestinian tweets.
BTW college protests are ongoing. There is a live feed at Columbia Spectator - the latest being 100 pro-Palestinian protesters rally outside Barnard.
Mondoweiss reports on retaliation against faculty staff for their participation in protests.
With all the attention on Syria, plus the UHC shooter, a lot of donations to Palestinians have fallen off the radar. A reminder that you can make donations to the following:
GazaFunds
Operation Olive Branch
Gaza Soup Kitchen (I had trouble connecting to the site today, but they are on Instagram.)
PCRF
Doctors Without Borders
UNRWA
Workshops4Gaza
eSIMS for Gaza
posted by toastyk at 6:41 AM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
Rubatan, as far as I can tell, no one has come forward to take credit for the fake press release. I'm guessing it was some internal prankster.
A reflection on Refaat Alareer and his book, whose book sold out yesterday - Even as Alareer sought to cultivate Palestinian storytellers, he was equally committed to fostering a critical Palestinian readership. Encompassing works spanning from The Merchant of Venice to Charles Dickens and the Israeli Jewish author Yehuda Amichai, Alareer’s syllabuses invited his students to wrestle with their own artistic, moral and national inclinations. In the essay Gaza Asks: When Will This Pass? Alareer recalls: “To many of my students, [Shakespeare’s Jewish character] Shylock was beyond repair. Even Shylock’s daughter hated him!” However, with time, discussion and close reading, Shylock became recognizable to his students as a character who endured “an apartheid-like society [and] had to choose between total submission and humiliation … and resisting by the means available to him. He chose to resist, just like Palestinians do nowadays.”
Rashid Khalidi and a roomful of observant Jews - “I used to be invited to synagogues, I used to speak at the Hillel at University of Chicago when it was run by Rabbi Danny Leifer,” Khalidi recalled, a little wistfully. (He spent eight years at U. Chicago before moving to Columbia in 2003.)
“This is before Hillel became centralized and turned into a place where people who didn’t accept certain views weren’t welcome,” he added. “I can’t cross the threshold of a Hillel now.”
I know that quote is going to make some readers shut down. You support Hillel, your kids go to Hillel and you don’t think it’s closed-minded — or maybe you think it’s not a space where Palestinian perspectives belong. I thought about cutting the “certain views” line, to keep you reading this newsletter, to prevent you from dismissing Khalidi.
But this story, like Sperber’s makeshift group, is about breaking out of the bubbles too many of us live inside, particularly regarding Israel. It’s about the urgent need for all of us to wrestle with other people’s perspectives and narratives even about the things closest to our hearts, even when it’s upsetting. So go ahead and think Khalidi is wrong about Hillel — and The New York Times and maybe the whole conflict — but also, please, swallow hard and stick with me to hear him out.
Al-Jazeera longform feature on starvation in Gaza - "Our life is like zeft (black like tar)," said 42-year-old Mohammed angrily, using a local expression to convey the inescapable hardship Palestinians are facing, a small bag of bread on his shoulder.
"I wake up at 5am to fetch water for my family. From 8 to 9am, I search for tekkiyyat to find food for my children. Then, I stand in line for hours to get bread, now scarce due to the flour shortage," he explained, describing his daily routine in Deir el-Balah.
"This is the summary of life in Gaza now for many like me."
Israeli airstrikes kill at least 38 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say.
These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza - hmm, I still remember when AP fired a Jewish journalist over her pro-Palestinian tweets.
BTW college protests are ongoing. There is a live feed at Columbia Spectator - the latest being 100 pro-Palestinian protesters rally outside Barnard.
Mondoweiss reports on retaliation against faculty staff for their participation in protests.
With all the attention on Syria, plus the UHC shooter, a lot of donations to Palestinians have fallen off the radar. A reminder that you can make donations to the following:
GazaFunds
Operation Olive Branch
Gaza Soup Kitchen (I had trouble connecting to the site today, but they are on Instagram.)
PCRF
Doctors Without Borders
UNRWA
Workshops4Gaza
eSIMS for Gaza
posted by toastyk at 6:41 AM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
I just came across this NYT feature on the plight of the Palestinian scientist - Theoretical research can flourish in the West Bank, but “experimental physics has almost no chance,” she said. Universities struggle to pay for laboratory equipment and infrastructure, she explained, and rely on donations. Birzeit’s observatory, which opened in 2015 and is one of few astronomical facilities in the West Bank, was endowed by Ramez Hakim, a Palestinian American businessman.
“It was the first time that our students could see a telescope and look up to the sky,” Dr. Khater said.
posted by toastyk at 6:44 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
“It was the first time that our students could see a telescope and look up to the sky,” Dr. Khater said.
posted by toastyk at 6:44 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
Won one tonight!
fuck yeah, well done!
posted by busted_crayons at 3:37 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
fuck yeah, well done!
posted by busted_crayons at 3:37 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza - A new study of children living through the war in Gaza has found that 96% of them feel that their death is imminent and almost half want to die as a result of the trauma they have been through.
A needs assessment, carried out by a Gaza-based NGO sponsored by the War Child Alliance charity, also found that 92% of the children in the survey were “not accepting of reality”, 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.
“This report lays bare that Gaza is one of the most horrifying places in the world to be a child,” Helen Pattinson, chief executive of War Child UK, said. “Alongside the levelling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”
posted by toastyk at 7:03 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
A needs assessment, carried out by a Gaza-based NGO sponsored by the War Child Alliance charity, also found that 92% of the children in the survey were “not accepting of reality”, 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.
“This report lays bare that Gaza is one of the most horrifying places in the world to be a child,” Helen Pattinson, chief executive of War Child UK, said. “Alongside the levelling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”
posted by toastyk at 7:03 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
No comfort and little shelter in Gaza as nightmare of winter sets in
UN General Assembly demands ‘immediate’ ceasefire in Gaza, supports UNRWA -
UN members voted overwhelmingly to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and in support of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)
The Palestinians and their supporters went to the General Assembly after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution on November 20 demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire.
The language of the ceasefire resolution adopted by the assembly is the same as the text of the vetoed Security Council resolution, and demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties,” while also reiterating a “demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.
Pair that with another Barak Ravid special about a day later: Netanyahu tells Sullivan he wants Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal (suffice to say Israeli media consumers and journalists have been, what.)
Why settler intimidation of West Bank farmers is about far more than the olive harvest -
The symbolism of the olive tree for Palestinian nationalism has fed into the rise in violence and damage in the last year
&
‘I lost my wife and my land’: A deadly olive harvest season ends in the West Bank -
Restrictions and attacks by the Israeli military, together with rampant settler violence, left many Palestinians unable to harvest this year's crop.
Israeli strikes kill 12 guarding Gaza aid lorries
In Northern Gaza, Buildings Weakened by Airstrikes Are Collapsing on Families Seeking Shelter from Cold and Rain
These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza
Claims of Hamas fighters in Gaza hospitals may have been exaggerated, says senior ICC prosecutor -
Andrew Cayley, of the international criminal court, questioned reports used to justify Israeli military strikes
Dealing with Trump, Israel, and Hamas: The path to peace in the Middle East
Europeans should work closely with Arab states to offer the US a deal that meets Donald Trump’s goals of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, advancing Israeli-Saudi normalisation, and securing regional de-escalation. To do so, they will need to impose greater costs on Israel to end its occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination. (this is from the European Council for Foreign Relations btw)
New Airwars report but on that first month of the siege on Gaza: Patterns of harm analysis
This report focuses on the pattern and intensity of civilian harm during the opening weeks of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, comparing the level of civilian harm with military campaigns documented by Airwars over a decade of work in some of the world’s most intense and complex conflict zones.
At the time of analysing this dataset, Airwars had published 606 incidents of civilian harm reported between October 7th and October 31st 2023 - the first three weeks of the war. In these incidents, a minimum of 5,139 civilians were reported killed. This represents only a fraction of the more than 7,000 incidents of civilian harm in Gaza that Airwars researchers have monitored since October 2023, the vast majority of which are yet to be published. Still, this record of harm constitutes an evidence base that is large enough to allow for reliable comparisons with other conflicts, and to draw conclusions on those findings.
Since October 7th, policy makers, journalists and military personnel have sought to understand the comparative intensity of this war against others. Primarily, this report intends to speak to these comparative questions and provide a clear, data-driven response for those trying to understand patterns of harm in Gaza. As such, the report does not address the full and varied lives of those individuals who are reflected in this report. Such narratives are available on Airwars’ public civilian harm archive.
Key Findings headline text: By almost every metric, the harm to civilians from the first month of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is incomparable with any 21st century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented.
Why is Israel accusing Amnesty International of inventing its own definition of genocide?
However, international law experts have told The Journal that the accusation levelled at Amnesty is not accurate and, as one genocide scholar put it, is a “vexatious” attempt to tarnish the organisation’s reputation.
The [US] Supreme Court wades into the Israel-Palestine conflict -
What could possibly go wrong?
posted by cendawanita at 1:15 AM on December 13, 2024 [6 favorites]
UN General Assembly demands ‘immediate’ ceasefire in Gaza, supports UNRWA -
UN members voted overwhelmingly to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and in support of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)
The Palestinians and their supporters went to the General Assembly after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution on November 20 demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire.
The language of the ceasefire resolution adopted by the assembly is the same as the text of the vetoed Security Council resolution, and demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties,” while also reiterating a “demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.
Pair that with another Barak Ravid special about a day later: Netanyahu tells Sullivan he wants Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal (suffice to say Israeli media consumers and journalists have been, what.)
Why settler intimidation of West Bank farmers is about far more than the olive harvest -
The symbolism of the olive tree for Palestinian nationalism has fed into the rise in violence and damage in the last year
&
‘I lost my wife and my land’: A deadly olive harvest season ends in the West Bank -
Restrictions and attacks by the Israeli military, together with rampant settler violence, left many Palestinians unable to harvest this year's crop.
Israeli strikes kill 12 guarding Gaza aid lorries
In Northern Gaza, Buildings Weakened by Airstrikes Are Collapsing on Families Seeking Shelter from Cold and Rain
These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza
Claims of Hamas fighters in Gaza hospitals may have been exaggerated, says senior ICC prosecutor -
Andrew Cayley, of the international criminal court, questioned reports used to justify Israeli military strikes
Dealing with Trump, Israel, and Hamas: The path to peace in the Middle East
Europeans should work closely with Arab states to offer the US a deal that meets Donald Trump’s goals of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, advancing Israeli-Saudi normalisation, and securing regional de-escalation. To do so, they will need to impose greater costs on Israel to end its occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination. (this is from the European Council for Foreign Relations btw)
New Airwars report but on that first month of the siege on Gaza: Patterns of harm analysis
This report focuses on the pattern and intensity of civilian harm during the opening weeks of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, comparing the level of civilian harm with military campaigns documented by Airwars over a decade of work in some of the world’s most intense and complex conflict zones.
At the time of analysing this dataset, Airwars had published 606 incidents of civilian harm reported between October 7th and October 31st 2023 - the first three weeks of the war. In these incidents, a minimum of 5,139 civilians were reported killed. This represents only a fraction of the more than 7,000 incidents of civilian harm in Gaza that Airwars researchers have monitored since October 2023, the vast majority of which are yet to be published. Still, this record of harm constitutes an evidence base that is large enough to allow for reliable comparisons with other conflicts, and to draw conclusions on those findings.
Since October 7th, policy makers, journalists and military personnel have sought to understand the comparative intensity of this war against others. Primarily, this report intends to speak to these comparative questions and provide a clear, data-driven response for those trying to understand patterns of harm in Gaza. As such, the report does not address the full and varied lives of those individuals who are reflected in this report. Such narratives are available on Airwars’ public civilian harm archive.
Key Findings headline text: By almost every metric, the harm to civilians from the first month of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is incomparable with any 21st century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented.
Why is Israel accusing Amnesty International of inventing its own definition of genocide?
However, international law experts have told The Journal that the accusation levelled at Amnesty is not accurate and, as one genocide scholar put it, is a “vexatious” attempt to tarnish the organisation’s reputation.
The [US] Supreme Court wades into the Israel-Palestine conflict -
What could possibly go wrong?
posted by cendawanita at 1:15 AM on December 13, 2024 [6 favorites]
Rightwing (US-led*) Catholic schism grows imminent:
From DC to the Vatican, baby Jesus is wearing a keffiyeh
Pope Francis, growing critical of Israel, to meet Palestinian president on Thursday
Pope and PA Chief Discuss ‘Serious’ Situation in Gaza
*From my pov where I am where Christian Zionism both Catholic and Protestant seems to be driven entirely by American Christian media ecosystem
posted by cendawanita at 1:31 AM on December 13, 2024 [6 favorites]
From DC to the Vatican, baby Jesus is wearing a keffiyeh
Pope Francis, growing critical of Israel, to meet Palestinian president on Thursday
Pope and PA Chief Discuss ‘Serious’ Situation in Gaza
*From my pov where I am where Christian Zionism both Catholic and Protestant seems to be driven entirely by American Christian media ecosystem
posted by cendawanita at 1:31 AM on December 13, 2024 [6 favorites]
Thanks cendawanita.
On the US side of things:
At Columbia University, a student reports being punched in the face and having his Israeli flag stolen. The incident is being reported and investigated as a hate crime by NYPD.
UCLA police chief is out after a UC audit found that administrators and police responded in a chaotic way to violence at an on-campus encampment last spring. University officials called on officers with the LAPD, California Highway Patrol, and UCLA police to respond to violence at the encampment. Police clashed with protesters and arrested more than 200 people.
2 faculty members arrested at Bobst University library protest in NYU, and dozens of students have been issued "persona non grata" status for their participation in the demonstration. (I can't find it, but I think on social media, I have seen people claiming the faculty members are Jewish.)
Apparently Mossad Boulos, the father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, and selected as Trump's Middle East adviser, is basically not even a billionaire, or a millionaire, and may not have that much money? There is no indication in corporate documents that Mr. Boulos, a Lebanese-American whose son is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Tiffany, is a man of significant wealth as a result of his businesses. The truck dealership is valued at about $865,000 at its current share price. Mr. Boulos’s stake, according to securities filings, is worth $1.53.
posted by toastyk at 7:16 AM on December 13, 2024 [3 favorites]
On the US side of things:
At Columbia University, a student reports being punched in the face and having his Israeli flag stolen. The incident is being reported and investigated as a hate crime by NYPD.
UCLA police chief is out after a UC audit found that administrators and police responded in a chaotic way to violence at an on-campus encampment last spring. University officials called on officers with the LAPD, California Highway Patrol, and UCLA police to respond to violence at the encampment. Police clashed with protesters and arrested more than 200 people.
2 faculty members arrested at Bobst University library protest in NYU, and dozens of students have been issued "persona non grata" status for their participation in the demonstration. (I can't find it, but I think on social media, I have seen people claiming the faculty members are Jewish.)
Apparently Mossad Boulos, the father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, and selected as Trump's Middle East adviser, is basically not even a billionaire, or a millionaire, and may not have that much money? There is no indication in corporate documents that Mr. Boulos, a Lebanese-American whose son is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Tiffany, is a man of significant wealth as a result of his businesses. The truck dealership is valued at about $865,000 at its current share price. Mr. Boulos’s stake, according to securities filings, is worth $1.53.
posted by toastyk at 7:16 AM on December 13, 2024 [3 favorites]
I don't know. I wake up every morning hoping that this nightmare can end, and every day is bad news.
Why is the Palestinian Authority raiding Jenin camp, fighting Jenin brigades?
North Gaza's neonatal intensive care unit hit with evacuation order. Evacuate to fucking where?
Israel appeals ICC arrest warrants; Gaza death toll nears 45,000. I don't know why they keep using this number when every day brings stories of a new airstrike or massacre; even with official, verified numbers, it's probably closer to 200,000. 300,000+, realistically.
At least 22 killed in Israeli Gaza strikes, Palestinian medics say. (These headlines! Can't say a Palestinian medic may be telling the truth.)
I haven't watched it but The Bibi Files documentary about Netanyahu is available.
Apparently settlers in the West Bank are fighting amongst themselves and trying to oust each other from the land they stole. Ungated.
BTW Oxford Union took down the full YouTube video of Susan Abulhawa giving her speech and replaced it with a truncated version. Here is the transcript of the full speech.
A lot of Palestinians are having their GoFundMes, PayPals, etc, being reported and taken down, and their accounts are being mass-reported on BlueSky. I've seen Chuffed cited as an alternative for them to use.
posted by toastyk at 7:48 AM on December 15, 2024 [10 favorites]
Why is the Palestinian Authority raiding Jenin camp, fighting Jenin brigades?
North Gaza's neonatal intensive care unit hit with evacuation order. Evacuate to fucking where?
Israel appeals ICC arrest warrants; Gaza death toll nears 45,000. I don't know why they keep using this number when every day brings stories of a new airstrike or massacre; even with official, verified numbers, it's probably closer to 200,000. 300,000+, realistically.
At least 22 killed in Israeli Gaza strikes, Palestinian medics say. (These headlines! Can't say a Palestinian medic may be telling the truth.)
I haven't watched it but The Bibi Files documentary about Netanyahu is available.
Apparently settlers in the West Bank are fighting amongst themselves and trying to oust each other from the land they stole. Ungated.
BTW Oxford Union took down the full YouTube video of Susan Abulhawa giving her speech and replaced it with a truncated version. Here is the transcript of the full speech.
A lot of Palestinians are having their GoFundMes, PayPals, etc, being reported and taken down, and their accounts are being mass-reported on BlueSky. I've seen Chuffed cited as an alternative for them to use.
posted by toastyk at 7:48 AM on December 15, 2024 [10 favorites]
Do not skip reading the transcript in toastyk’s comment 👆. It is tragic reality layered into poetry.
I’m reminded, as with the olive links above, the same language of connection to land in the early 2000s (and before). Sabra meant for both Palestinians and Israelis “a person from the land” but, named after the cactus, it hinted at a local obstanance to eradication. It’s strange now to see Wikipedia only applies it to one people. And then there are all the ancient homes, removed brick by brick, and foundations planted over in cedars, like the USA’s peopleless “wilderness”: erase the signs of a people from the land, while simultaneously acknowledging through “Restoration” projects “because they didn’t take care of it anyway.”
“Death feels imminent to 96% of the children of Palestine” if you don’t want this conflict still going when they’re grandparents, you have to give them everything to live for and nothing to die for , not the other way around…. There is little left you could take from them. Build Palestine into a shining city on the sea, you’d be a fool to throw away, and let the community regulate themselves.
posted by rubatan at 1:48 AM on December 16, 2024 [8 favorites]
I’m reminded, as with the olive links above, the same language of connection to land in the early 2000s (and before). Sabra meant for both Palestinians and Israelis “a person from the land” but, named after the cactus, it hinted at a local obstanance to eradication. It’s strange now to see Wikipedia only applies it to one people. And then there are all the ancient homes, removed brick by brick, and foundations planted over in cedars, like the USA’s peopleless “wilderness”: erase the signs of a people from the land, while simultaneously acknowledging through “Restoration” projects “because they didn’t take care of it anyway.”
“Death feels imminent to 96% of the children of Palestine” if you don’t want this conflict still going when they’re grandparents, you have to give them everything to live for and nothing to die for , not the other way around…. There is little left you could take from them. Build Palestine into a shining city on the sea, you’d be a fool to throw away, and let the community regulate themselves.
posted by rubatan at 1:48 AM on December 16, 2024 [8 favorites]
Thank you rubatan.
Let's get the worst stuff out of the way:
Israel attacks another hospital, killing 10.
Israeli shelling kills the grandfather made famous in the "soul of my soul" meme.
Hamid Ali, spouse of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, writes an op-ed demanding answers on her death: My wife, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier on Sept. 6, 2024, while peacefully standing under an olive tree in the occupied West Bank. Although the Biden administration has described her death as unprovoked and unjustified, it has yet to apply adequate pressure on Israel to seek justice for the killing of one of its citizens.
Her family met with Blinken today and came away unsatisfied: Blinken was “attentive in listening to us,” but “unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing,” he said.
Blinken told them the US would “be in touch with the Israeli military and officials about changes in conduct, which we know from Rachel Corrie’s case, Shireen Abu Akleh’s case has not led to anything substantial or any kind of positive changes to prevent incidents like my sister’s killing from occurring again,” her sister said.
The family has demanded the US government to launch an independent investigation and repeated that in their meeting with Blinken, but they said the top US diplomat reiterated that the US would wait for the Israeli government to wrap up its own investigation. The family also called for Blinken to publicly pressure Israel to finish that probe before the Biden administration leaves office.
Marginally better news?
Israel will close its Ireland embassy over Gaza tensions.
Apparently Trump said that West Bank annexation is off the table for now.
Thousands of Israelis protest in Tel Aviv for Gaza hostage deal. Left-wing Israelis protest against Gaza war in New York.
Came across this on YouTube from Business Insider - The Man Who Feeds Gaza's Children, a mini-documentary focused on Hamada Shaqoura, who was a food blogger before the war, and talks about how he sees food as a symbol of resistance.
posted by toastyk at 9:27 PM on December 16, 2024 [6 favorites]
Let's get the worst stuff out of the way:
Israel attacks another hospital, killing 10.
Israeli shelling kills the grandfather made famous in the "soul of my soul" meme.
Hamid Ali, spouse of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, writes an op-ed demanding answers on her death: My wife, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier on Sept. 6, 2024, while peacefully standing under an olive tree in the occupied West Bank. Although the Biden administration has described her death as unprovoked and unjustified, it has yet to apply adequate pressure on Israel to seek justice for the killing of one of its citizens.
Her family met with Blinken today and came away unsatisfied: Blinken was “attentive in listening to us,” but “unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing,” he said.
Blinken told them the US would “be in touch with the Israeli military and officials about changes in conduct, which we know from Rachel Corrie’s case, Shireen Abu Akleh’s case has not led to anything substantial or any kind of positive changes to prevent incidents like my sister’s killing from occurring again,” her sister said.
The family has demanded the US government to launch an independent investigation and repeated that in their meeting with Blinken, but they said the top US diplomat reiterated that the US would wait for the Israeli government to wrap up its own investigation. The family also called for Blinken to publicly pressure Israel to finish that probe before the Biden administration leaves office.
Marginally better news?
Israel will close its Ireland embassy over Gaza tensions.
Apparently Trump said that West Bank annexation is off the table for now.
Thousands of Israelis protest in Tel Aviv for Gaza hostage deal. Left-wing Israelis protest against Gaza war in New York.
Came across this on YouTube from Business Insider - The Man Who Feeds Gaza's Children, a mini-documentary focused on Hamada Shaqoura, who was a food blogger before the war, and talks about how he sees food as a symbol of resistance.
posted by toastyk at 9:27 PM on December 16, 2024 [6 favorites]
Latkes, that is great news! Do you know what the next steps are? It sounds like a policy has to be now drafted on ethical investments?
Yes we still have a lot of work to do. The treasurer has to develop a proposed policy which the BOS will then vote on. Lots of continuous pressure will be needed to give the policy teeth. Having said that, the treasurer preemptively divested from Caterpillar on his own so that's good news re: what he decides to do next.
posted by latkes at 9:24 AM on December 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
Yes we still have a lot of work to do. The treasurer has to develop a proposed policy which the BOS will then vote on. Lots of continuous pressure will be needed to give the policy teeth. Having said that, the treasurer preemptively divested from Caterpillar on his own so that's good news re: what he decides to do next.
posted by latkes at 9:24 AM on December 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
Zeteo: Gaza v. Blinken: Palestinians sue Secretary of State over "failure to follow US law on military aid to Israel".
Truthout: US Senators urge Biden to grant Palestinians special status to avoid deportation.
Dropsite News: The last two weeks have been the most dire in the Gaza war: Hospital director - Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza "will turn into a graveyard for everyone inside" amid ongoing Israeli attacks.
Dropsite News: NYT ignored source's doubts about Hamas docs provided by Israel - Al-Awawdeh said he told the Times that he did not believe the alleged Hamas meetings were specifically about the October 7 plans and that he doubted Iran—or any other outside forces—were informed in advance of the plot. Nonetheless, the story was published with the headline: “Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack.”
Ceasefire talks, again. There was a whole thing where Haaretz released an article (ungated) claiming that Saudi Arabia was going to normalize relations with Israel without the condition of a Palestinian state, which Saudi Arabia then refuted. I can't find it but it was floating on X somewhere.
Al-Jazeera live: dozens killed in a day as Israel steps up attacks across Gaza.
posted by toastyk at 7:05 AM on December 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
Truthout: US Senators urge Biden to grant Palestinians special status to avoid deportation.
Dropsite News: The last two weeks have been the most dire in the Gaza war: Hospital director - Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza "will turn into a graveyard for everyone inside" amid ongoing Israeli attacks.
Dropsite News: NYT ignored source's doubts about Hamas docs provided by Israel - Al-Awawdeh said he told the Times that he did not believe the alleged Hamas meetings were specifically about the October 7 plans and that he doubted Iran—or any other outside forces—were informed in advance of the plot. Nonetheless, the story was published with the headline: “Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack.”
Ceasefire talks, again. There was a whole thing where Haaretz released an article (ungated) claiming that Saudi Arabia was going to normalize relations with Israel without the condition of a Palestinian state, which Saudi Arabia then refuted. I can't find it but it was floating on X somewhere.
Al-Jazeera live: dozens killed in a day as Israel steps up attacks across Gaza.
posted by toastyk at 7:05 AM on December 18, 2024 [7 favorites]
HRW: Extermination and Acts of Genocide - Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water
Bader Mosleh, a disability rights activist with a visual disability and father of three, told Human Rights Watch in October 2023 that he walked three kilometers each day to fill one plastic container of water, which holds several liters of water, for his family and five other families he was hosting.[96] “Having 40 people in my house, that was not enough. We used small coffee cups to drink water to make sure everyone gets some.” Mosleh was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike on December 7, 2023.[97]posted by away for regrooving at 12:33 AM on December 19, 2024 [6 favorites]
...
In an October 2024 letter to the Biden administration, 99 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in Gaza between October 2023 and October 2024 stated:
Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking. It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months. Most of them will be young children.[105]
Bret "Bedbug" Stephens knows who to blame for this whole mess: the "un-Jews" like me, who have "integrated" too much.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:30 AM on December 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:30 AM on December 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
In chronological order:
Back in November: Email Leaked To HuffPost Shows State Department Anxiety About Leaks To HuffPost -
The White House should have shown more concern for Palestinians from the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza, a top adviser to the secretary of state wrote.
Yesterday: ‘Tired of writing about dead kids’: why a US state department worker resigned over Israel-Gaza policy -
Mike Casey, one of only two people explicitly focused on Gaza, left over inaction and doing ‘what the Israelis want’
What he didn’t anticipate was becoming a key witness to what he describes as a systematic failure of US foreign policy.
“The more informed you become on this issue, you can’t avoid realizing how bad it is,” Casey told the Guardian.
Casey resigned from the state department in July after four years at the job, discreetly leaving the post unlike other recent high-profile government departures. Now seated at his kitchen table in the quiet suburbs of northern Michigan, Casey reflected on how, as one of only two people in the entire US government explicitly focused on Gaza, he became an unwilling chronicler of a humanitarian catastrophe.
“I got so tired of writing about dead kids,” he said. “Just constantly having to prove to Washington that these children actually died and then watching nothing happen.”
Casey’s work function included documenting the humanitarian and political landscape through classified cables, research and reporting. But his disillusionment wasn’t sudden. It was a slow accumulation of bureaucratic betrayals – each report dismissed, each humanitarian concern bulldozed by political expediency.
“We would write daily updates on Gaza,” he said. Colleagues used to joke, he said, that they could attach cash to the reports and still nobody would read them.
(...) When Trump left office, Casey had initially hoped the Biden administration would represent a more balanced approach, but it instead disappointed him at every turn.
One particularly galling moment came near the onset of the war, when Joe Biden publicly questioned casualty numbers – which had been estimated at around 8,300 killed in under a month – numbers that Casey himself had documented.
“I was the one writing the reports,” he said. “What’s the point of me writing this stuff, if you’re just going to disregard it?”
(...) Unlike his previous diplomatic postings in Malaysia, China and Pakistan, Casey found direct negotiations with Israeli officials fundamentally different when it came to how the US uses its leverage.
“In Malaysia, if you didn’t cooperate, you could get sanctioned,” he explains. “With Pakistan, we could pull training programs, stop certain aid.”
“But with the Israelis, it’s completely different. They just have to drag out negotiations and we’ll eventually agree to whatever they want.”
(malaysiamentioned.jpg)
Today: The “Blob” Is Furious About Gaza. But That’s Not Enough. -
The foreign policy proletariat needs to stop filtering its dissent through official channels and start taking more radical action.
Over the past year, a series of sanctioned and unsanctioned revolts has erupted among foreign policy and intelligence agencies in protest of the Biden administration’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
This phenomenon has been concentrated heavily in the middle ranks of America’s imperial administrators. No cabinet-level official has broken with the administration. No ambassador has tendered their resignation. The highest-ranking State Department resignee was a director in the arms transfer office; the highest-ranking military officer to resign was a major in the Defense Intelligence Agency. An associate deputy director at the CIA was disciplined for pro-Palestine Facebook posts, but did not quit.
But the further down the ranks you go, the more pervasive the anger at the US’s complicity in mass slaughter becomes. An entire contingent of junior White House staffers, for instance, made up a “staffer bloc” in pro-ceasefire demonstrations in Washington, DC. As a former US diplomat, I know that many people have resigned quietly and anonymously over Gaza. Many want to quit but literally don’t know what other work they’d be qualified for. These administrators—the ones who make up most of the foreign policy bureaucracy that the Obama administration derided as “the Blob”—are the ones angriest about American policy in Gaza. They are also the ones who can do the least about it, and they know it.
Now that Biden is on his way out, the rank-and-file functionaries who don’t depart with him will greet a second Trump term feeling more angry and alienated than they have ever been. So why don’t they do something?
It’s important to understand that the source of these staffers’ moral indignation and their lack of radical action are deeply intertwined. A ceaseless drumbeat of dissent from within Washington’s ranks is not, and structurally cannot be, an actual check on US foreign policy. This is due as much to the class position of policy workers as anything else. The way they came to their posts limits their political horizons more closely than what they do.
Edit: missed sharing the chaser: US won’t sanction Smotrich and Ben Gvir before end of Biden’s term — officials
Deeming far-right ministers responsible for destabilizing West Bank, US weighed unprecedented move for months, but ultimately held off, as Trump would likely reverse it
There's that spirit that wins elections.
posted by cendawanita at 10:31 AM on December 19, 2024 [8 favorites]
Back in November: Email Leaked To HuffPost Shows State Department Anxiety About Leaks To HuffPost -
The White House should have shown more concern for Palestinians from the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza, a top adviser to the secretary of state wrote.
Yesterday: ‘Tired of writing about dead kids’: why a US state department worker resigned over Israel-Gaza policy -
Mike Casey, one of only two people explicitly focused on Gaza, left over inaction and doing ‘what the Israelis want’
What he didn’t anticipate was becoming a key witness to what he describes as a systematic failure of US foreign policy.
“The more informed you become on this issue, you can’t avoid realizing how bad it is,” Casey told the Guardian.
Casey resigned from the state department in July after four years at the job, discreetly leaving the post unlike other recent high-profile government departures. Now seated at his kitchen table in the quiet suburbs of northern Michigan, Casey reflected on how, as one of only two people in the entire US government explicitly focused on Gaza, he became an unwilling chronicler of a humanitarian catastrophe.
“I got so tired of writing about dead kids,” he said. “Just constantly having to prove to Washington that these children actually died and then watching nothing happen.”
Casey’s work function included documenting the humanitarian and political landscape through classified cables, research and reporting. But his disillusionment wasn’t sudden. It was a slow accumulation of bureaucratic betrayals – each report dismissed, each humanitarian concern bulldozed by political expediency.
“We would write daily updates on Gaza,” he said. Colleagues used to joke, he said, that they could attach cash to the reports and still nobody would read them.
(...) When Trump left office, Casey had initially hoped the Biden administration would represent a more balanced approach, but it instead disappointed him at every turn.
One particularly galling moment came near the onset of the war, when Joe Biden publicly questioned casualty numbers – which had been estimated at around 8,300 killed in under a month – numbers that Casey himself had documented.
“I was the one writing the reports,” he said. “What’s the point of me writing this stuff, if you’re just going to disregard it?”
(...) Unlike his previous diplomatic postings in Malaysia, China and Pakistan, Casey found direct negotiations with Israeli officials fundamentally different when it came to how the US uses its leverage.
“In Malaysia, if you didn’t cooperate, you could get sanctioned,” he explains. “With Pakistan, we could pull training programs, stop certain aid.”
“But with the Israelis, it’s completely different. They just have to drag out negotiations and we’ll eventually agree to whatever they want.”
(malaysiamentioned.jpg)
Today: The “Blob” Is Furious About Gaza. But That’s Not Enough. -
The foreign policy proletariat needs to stop filtering its dissent through official channels and start taking more radical action.
Over the past year, a series of sanctioned and unsanctioned revolts has erupted among foreign policy and intelligence agencies in protest of the Biden administration’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
This phenomenon has been concentrated heavily in the middle ranks of America’s imperial administrators. No cabinet-level official has broken with the administration. No ambassador has tendered their resignation. The highest-ranking State Department resignee was a director in the arms transfer office; the highest-ranking military officer to resign was a major in the Defense Intelligence Agency. An associate deputy director at the CIA was disciplined for pro-Palestine Facebook posts, but did not quit.
But the further down the ranks you go, the more pervasive the anger at the US’s complicity in mass slaughter becomes. An entire contingent of junior White House staffers, for instance, made up a “staffer bloc” in pro-ceasefire demonstrations in Washington, DC. As a former US diplomat, I know that many people have resigned quietly and anonymously over Gaza. Many want to quit but literally don’t know what other work they’d be qualified for. These administrators—the ones who make up most of the foreign policy bureaucracy that the Obama administration derided as “the Blob”—are the ones angriest about American policy in Gaza. They are also the ones who can do the least about it, and they know it.
Now that Biden is on his way out, the rank-and-file functionaries who don’t depart with him will greet a second Trump term feeling more angry and alienated than they have ever been. So why don’t they do something?
It’s important to understand that the source of these staffers’ moral indignation and their lack of radical action are deeply intertwined. A ceaseless drumbeat of dissent from within Washington’s ranks is not, and structurally cannot be, an actual check on US foreign policy. This is due as much to the class position of policy workers as anything else. The way they came to their posts limits their political horizons more closely than what they do.
Edit: missed sharing the chaser: US won’t sanction Smotrich and Ben Gvir before end of Biden’s term — officials
Deeming far-right ministers responsible for destabilizing West Bank, US weighed unprecedented move for months, but ultimately held off, as Trump would likely reverse it
There's that spirit that wins elections.
posted by cendawanita at 10:31 AM on December 19, 2024 [8 favorites]
Gleginrof, I tried to read that article and I could not make my way through it. What a turgid mess.
Who knows if the US gov is even functioning next month. (As an aside, WSJ has a feature about how concerns about Biden's diminished ability to lead went all the way back to 2021 (ungated), which honestly, leads one to question, who, then is actually in charge and making decisions.)
Jewish American poker player Justin Bonomo almost disqualified from World Series of Poker Paradise for wearing a keffiyeh - "If they want to have a policy that's absolutely no politics, I'm okay with that. But I think it's the worst possible decision that they've taken the other side and decided to endorse Israeli charities while banning Palestinian clothes. That is just so completely lopsided and unfair ... So I think the World Series is absolutely on the wrong side of this."
LA City Attorney charges 30 Gaza protesters who blocked 110 freeway - “We believe that this charging decision was based upon impermissible bias,” said attorney Colleen Flynn, who is representing the individuals charged.
The City Attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But Feldstein-Soto has been vocal about her support for Israel, posting to social media last year: “I stand with the Israeli people with all my heart and all my soul and all my might.” (Note, LA Public Press is a nonprofit, independent news org, if you're looking for local LA news that isn't the LATimes.)
Dropsite News: The BBC's Civil War over Gaza - The BBC journalists who spoke to Drop Site News believe the imbalance is structural, and has been enforced by the top brass for many years; all of them requested anonymity for fear of professional retribution. The journalists also overwhelmingly point to the role of one person in particular: Raffi Berg, BBC News online’s Middle East editor. Berg sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine, they say. They also allege that internal complaints about how the BBC covers Gaza have been repeatedly brushed aside. “This guy’s entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel,” one former BBC journalist said.
posted by toastyk at 12:14 PM on December 19, 2024 [6 favorites]
Who knows if the US gov is even functioning next month. (As an aside, WSJ has a feature about how concerns about Biden's diminished ability to lead went all the way back to 2021 (ungated), which honestly, leads one to question, who, then is actually in charge and making decisions.)
Jewish American poker player Justin Bonomo almost disqualified from World Series of Poker Paradise for wearing a keffiyeh - "If they want to have a policy that's absolutely no politics, I'm okay with that. But I think it's the worst possible decision that they've taken the other side and decided to endorse Israeli charities while banning Palestinian clothes. That is just so completely lopsided and unfair ... So I think the World Series is absolutely on the wrong side of this."
LA City Attorney charges 30 Gaza protesters who blocked 110 freeway - “We believe that this charging decision was based upon impermissible bias,” said attorney Colleen Flynn, who is representing the individuals charged.
The City Attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But Feldstein-Soto has been vocal about her support for Israel, posting to social media last year: “I stand with the Israeli people with all my heart and all my soul and all my might.” (Note, LA Public Press is a nonprofit, independent news org, if you're looking for local LA news that isn't the LATimes.)
Dropsite News: The BBC's Civil War over Gaza - The BBC journalists who spoke to Drop Site News believe the imbalance is structural, and has been enforced by the top brass for many years; all of them requested anonymity for fear of professional retribution. The journalists also overwhelmingly point to the role of one person in particular: Raffi Berg, BBC News online’s Middle East editor. Berg sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine, they say. They also allege that internal complaints about how the BBC covers Gaza have been repeatedly brushed aside. “This guy’s entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel,” one former BBC journalist said.
posted by toastyk at 12:14 PM on December 19, 2024 [6 favorites]
The “Blob” Is Furious About Gaza...
this article is really good. thanks!
posted by busted_crayons at 7:09 PM on December 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
this article is really good. thanks!
posted by busted_crayons at 7:09 PM on December 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
Dropsite News: The BBC's Civil War over Gaza
Adding to this (and the mountain of articles and investigations on media complicity around the western world), new updates for the US and Germany: (but don't forget Canadian and Australian press - there's been a lot of coverage domestically too, some even shared here)
As Gaza war rages, Deutsche Welle insiders accuse outlet of pro-Israel bias -
Journalists at the German media network say newsroom leaders instil fear and dehumanise Palestinian suffering.
How Sunday Morning News Shows Promote an Anti-Palestinian Agenda for Washington -
Since October 2023, NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, and CNN’s State of the Union have not featured a single Palestinian guest.
(On a personal note, I don't know how much energy I have left in doing FPPs - my strike rate is pretty not good, and this isn't on the mods, but I'm more of a collector and a responder/followup-er than a presenter, with all the editorial acumen needed there. So I am just saying in advance, I'm not doing any more new FPPs for 2025.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:48 PM on December 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
Adding to this (and the mountain of articles and investigations on media complicity around the western world), new updates for the US and Germany: (but don't forget Canadian and Australian press - there's been a lot of coverage domestically too, some even shared here)
As Gaza war rages, Deutsche Welle insiders accuse outlet of pro-Israel bias -
Journalists at the German media network say newsroom leaders instil fear and dehumanise Palestinian suffering.
How Sunday Morning News Shows Promote an Anti-Palestinian Agenda for Washington -
Since October 2023, NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, and CNN’s State of the Union have not featured a single Palestinian guest.
(On a personal note, I don't know how much energy I have left in doing FPPs - my strike rate is pretty not good, and this isn't on the mods, but I'm more of a collector and a responder/followup-er than a presenter, with all the editorial acumen needed there. So I am just saying in advance, I'm not doing any more new FPPs for 2025.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:48 PM on December 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
Thanks cendawanita. Always appreciate your contributions.
Woke up to this news of Northern California residents suing 2 representatives over aid to Israel. I'm doubtful about how far this will go, but there was apparently a CODE Pink rally yesterday.
Chris Hayes apparently did a segment about this Haaretz news story about the IDF's "Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor". I don't see it up on YouTube yet though.
Poker player Justin Bonomo posted a statement about why he cares so much about Palestine: “But Hamas…” - Listen, this has been going on since long before Hamas existed. 76 years of ethnic cleansing. If you don’t know what The Nakba is, please look it up. Israel and the US have consistently fought against Palestinian self determination for 50+ years. The international courts have long upheld that Israel’s occupation is illegal, and that Palestinian resistance therefore is legally and morally justified.
Yes it’s personal and I’m emotionally invested in this. It’s The Holocaust all over again. Except this time it’s happening by my people instead of to them.
My tax dollars are being used, by politicians I voted for, in the name of my family’s religion, to mass slaughter innocent people who have never known freedom or peace in their entire lives.
972 interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen - Articulation is crucial for a number of reasons. First, it helps me to think through political, historical, and aesthetic issues. That was why immediately upon signing the ceasefire letter back in October, I also articulated on Instagram why I signed the letter, which elaborated in ways that were a little bit different than what the letter itself actually said. I quoted the letter but also affirmed my support for BDS and said something to the effect of “count me among the human animals.” Apparently, that was more incendiary than simply signing the letter itself.
Jewish Currents on nonprofits being denied funding for their pro-Palestinian statements/stances - More than 40 interviews with people on either side of the grantmaker–grantee divide reveal a pattern of funding decisions that punish expressions of Palestinian solidarity, affecting social justice organizations that work on a range of domestic issues, from police violence and the prison system to environmental justice and the affordable housing crisis. For funders—including prominent Jewish family foundations like Schusterman—the enforcement of Israel-related guardrails lays bare the contradictions inherent in a philanthropic portfolio that pursues a progressive domestic agenda while promoting allegiance to the Jewish state. “These liberal Zionist foundations were not necessarily hiding their focus on Israel, and their support of Israel, as part of their philanthropic work,” before October 2023, said Rebecca Vilkomerson, a former executive director of the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace who now co-directs Funding Freedom, which organizes for Palestinian liberation within philanthropy. “It’s just that there was an apparent dividing line between the support for progressive causes—which is in line with the ‘liberal’ part of liberal Zionist—and the Zionist causes. And now they’re feeling forced to choose, and they’re choosing Zionist over liberal.”
posted by toastyk at 7:13 AM on December 20, 2024 [7 favorites]
Woke up to this news of Northern California residents suing 2 representatives over aid to Israel. I'm doubtful about how far this will go, but there was apparently a CODE Pink rally yesterday.
Chris Hayes apparently did a segment about this Haaretz news story about the IDF's "Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor". I don't see it up on YouTube yet though.
Poker player Justin Bonomo posted a statement about why he cares so much about Palestine: “But Hamas…” - Listen, this has been going on since long before Hamas existed. 76 years of ethnic cleansing. If you don’t know what The Nakba is, please look it up. Israel and the US have consistently fought against Palestinian self determination for 50+ years. The international courts have long upheld that Israel’s occupation is illegal, and that Palestinian resistance therefore is legally and morally justified.
Yes it’s personal and I’m emotionally invested in this. It’s The Holocaust all over again. Except this time it’s happening by my people instead of to them.
My tax dollars are being used, by politicians I voted for, in the name of my family’s religion, to mass slaughter innocent people who have never known freedom or peace in their entire lives.
972 interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen - Articulation is crucial for a number of reasons. First, it helps me to think through political, historical, and aesthetic issues. That was why immediately upon signing the ceasefire letter back in October, I also articulated on Instagram why I signed the letter, which elaborated in ways that were a little bit different than what the letter itself actually said. I quoted the letter but also affirmed my support for BDS and said something to the effect of “count me among the human animals.” Apparently, that was more incendiary than simply signing the letter itself.
Jewish Currents on nonprofits being denied funding for their pro-Palestinian statements/stances - More than 40 interviews with people on either side of the grantmaker–grantee divide reveal a pattern of funding decisions that punish expressions of Palestinian solidarity, affecting social justice organizations that work on a range of domestic issues, from police violence and the prison system to environmental justice and the affordable housing crisis. For funders—including prominent Jewish family foundations like Schusterman—the enforcement of Israel-related guardrails lays bare the contradictions inherent in a philanthropic portfolio that pursues a progressive domestic agenda while promoting allegiance to the Jewish state. “These liberal Zionist foundations were not necessarily hiding their focus on Israel, and their support of Israel, as part of their philanthropic work,” before October 2023, said Rebecca Vilkomerson, a former executive director of the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace who now co-directs Funding Freedom, which organizes for Palestinian liberation within philanthropy. “It’s just that there was an apparent dividing line between the support for progressive causes—which is in line with the ‘liberal’ part of liberal Zionist—and the Zionist causes. And now they’re feeling forced to choose, and they’re choosing Zionist over liberal.”
posted by toastyk at 7:13 AM on December 20, 2024 [7 favorites]
cendawanita's moratorium on FPPs for 2025 is a blow
posted by ginger.beef at 1:11 PM on December 21, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 1:11 PM on December 21, 2024 [4 favorites]
Honestly, I find myself also wondering why I'm doing this sometimes, but I think mostly it's to remind myself that I am not crazy.
Rev Dr. Munther Isaac Christmas sermon- Christ is still in the rubble.
The Pope criticizes Israeli airstrikes as "cruelty".
Israeli forces are attacking 2 hospitals in Gaza, killing 10. Anyone remember when it was considered "unbelievable" that Israel would attack a hospital? Now every hospital has been attacked, multiple times.
Apparently a ceasefire deal may be near. We'll see.
Doctors without Borders - nurse shares what she has experienced in Gaza.
It's Bisan from Gaza - How we grow food in a genocide.
We didn't make it to the Paralympics, but we still have hope: the Gazan paracyclist - “I want to prove to the world that I am unstoppable, that I can continue doing my job with one leg, that even in a war I will risk my life to take photos and tell the world what’s happening, that even after shells fell on our homes, we rose from under the rubble.”
posted by toastyk at 9:34 PM on December 21, 2024 [7 favorites]
Rev Dr. Munther Isaac Christmas sermon- Christ is still in the rubble.
The Pope criticizes Israeli airstrikes as "cruelty".
Israeli forces are attacking 2 hospitals in Gaza, killing 10. Anyone remember when it was considered "unbelievable" that Israel would attack a hospital? Now every hospital has been attacked, multiple times.
Apparently a ceasefire deal may be near. We'll see.
Doctors without Borders - nurse shares what she has experienced in Gaza.
It's Bisan from Gaza - How we grow food in a genocide.
We didn't make it to the Paralympics, but we still have hope: the Gazan paracyclist - “I want to prove to the world that I am unstoppable, that I can continue doing my job with one leg, that even in a war I will risk my life to take photos and tell the world what’s happening, that even after shells fell on our homes, we rose from under the rubble.”
posted by toastyk at 9:34 PM on December 21, 2024 [7 favorites]
I will probably start a new thread next week unless someone else does it. In the meantime, some stuff I missed:
Irish Times op-ed by Mark O'Connell: In any case, the mystery is not why we Irish have responded as we have to Israel’s barbarism. (Do you need me to provide the numbers of the dead here, and of the missing? Do you need me to detail the ongoing horror and depravity, the children shot by snipers, the starvation policies, the systematic destruction of civilian life and infrastructure in Gaza?) The mystery is why the strength of that response is unmatched, with the exception of Spain and Norway, by our fellow European countries.
Article references this interview with Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi at the New York Book Review (ungated) - If there was anything that was unexpected, it was the participation of the US government on every level, and its complete unwillingness to restrain Israel in any significant fashion. And by participation, I mean a repetition of Israeli lies. The idea that Israel was not trying to kill people on purpose; the idea that every time Palestinians were killed, it was because they were being used as human shields; completely ignoring the purposeful destruction of infrastructure in order to make life impossible; the fact that the US government repeated every single Israeli justification for the unjustifiable: I found that over the top, frankly. This administration has done less to restrain Israel than pretty much any administration, except perhaps the previous one, the Trump administration.
In other words, you go back to Eisenhower, or Reagan, or anybody, and they were always complicit. They were always involved. They always supported Israel up to a point. But that point would come after months or weeks. And here we are in month thirteen. That point has not come.
Al-Jazeera live - Israeli attacks kill 58 Palestinians in a day.
Guardian - 20 killed overnight with strike on "humanitarian zone" in Gaza.
WaPo - Israel is demolishing northern Gaza and fortifying military positions, imagery shows.
posted by toastyk at 6:25 AM on December 23, 2024 [7 favorites]
Irish Times op-ed by Mark O'Connell: In any case, the mystery is not why we Irish have responded as we have to Israel’s barbarism. (Do you need me to provide the numbers of the dead here, and of the missing? Do you need me to detail the ongoing horror and depravity, the children shot by snipers, the starvation policies, the systematic destruction of civilian life and infrastructure in Gaza?) The mystery is why the strength of that response is unmatched, with the exception of Spain and Norway, by our fellow European countries.
Article references this interview with Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi at the New York Book Review (ungated) - If there was anything that was unexpected, it was the participation of the US government on every level, and its complete unwillingness to restrain Israel in any significant fashion. And by participation, I mean a repetition of Israeli lies. The idea that Israel was not trying to kill people on purpose; the idea that every time Palestinians were killed, it was because they were being used as human shields; completely ignoring the purposeful destruction of infrastructure in order to make life impossible; the fact that the US government repeated every single Israeli justification for the unjustifiable: I found that over the top, frankly. This administration has done less to restrain Israel than pretty much any administration, except perhaps the previous one, the Trump administration.
In other words, you go back to Eisenhower, or Reagan, or anybody, and they were always complicit. They were always involved. They always supported Israel up to a point. But that point would come after months or weeks. And here we are in month thirteen. That point has not come.
Al-Jazeera live - Israeli attacks kill 58 Palestinians in a day.
Guardian - 20 killed overnight with strike on "humanitarian zone" in Gaza.
WaPo - Israel is demolishing northern Gaza and fortifying military positions, imagery shows.
posted by toastyk at 6:25 AM on December 23, 2024 [7 favorites]
I will probably start a new thread next week unless someone else does it
Thank you and cendawanita for your tireless efforts. I keep coming back to these threads. I rarely have anything constructive to add myself, but I deeply value your block updates from a range of sources. There's something about that format that avoids the fatigue of scrolling past the Gaza headline of the day in a news feed or on a newspaper's front page.
If a ceasefire comes, the deaths will not stop. A ceasefire does not mean uninhibited flow of aid or an end to violent occupation. It does not mean water and sanitation infrastructure miraculously reappear, nor heating in the deadly cold of winter. I fully expect a ceasefire to mean only a switch from active to (relatively) passive genocide. And even at that I fear for what the most extreme elements of the Israeli government and military will do in the immediate run-up to a ceasefire, unleashing all of the death and destruction they can possibly get away with. And, as in Lebanon, likely violating that ceasefire countless times afterward.
posted by jedicus at 8:28 AM on December 23, 2024 [8 favorites]
Thank you and cendawanita for your tireless efforts. I keep coming back to these threads. I rarely have anything constructive to add myself, but I deeply value your block updates from a range of sources. There's something about that format that avoids the fatigue of scrolling past the Gaza headline of the day in a news feed or on a newspaper's front page.
If a ceasefire comes, the deaths will not stop. A ceasefire does not mean uninhibited flow of aid or an end to violent occupation. It does not mean water and sanitation infrastructure miraculously reappear, nor heating in the deadly cold of winter. I fully expect a ceasefire to mean only a switch from active to (relatively) passive genocide. And even at that I fear for what the most extreme elements of the Israeli government and military will do in the immediate run-up to a ceasefire, unleashing all of the death and destruction they can possibly get away with. And, as in Lebanon, likely violating that ceasefire countless times afterward.
posted by jedicus at 8:28 AM on December 23, 2024 [8 favorites]
Speaking of Lebanon - Taking a victory lap: Ex-Israeli agents reveal how pager attacks were carried out
Gaza war victims take legal action against BP over oil supply to Israel -
Palestinians accuse UK firm of breaching human rights laws by piping oil allegedly used by Israeli army
A consensus is emerging: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Where is the action?
Poland Says It Will Arrest Bibi If Israeli PM Attends Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary
Once complicit in Germany’s genocide of Jews, the German Church now risks complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians -
A recent resolution of the Evangelical Church in Germany underscores the church’s continued failure to challenge Israel's prolonged settler colonial occupation.
Palestinian Christians call on western churches to ‘humanize’ the children of Gaza
At Least Seven Outposts Established in Palestinian-Controlled Area B
In 2024, for the first time since the Oslo Accords, Peace Now’s Settlement Watch team documented the establishment of at least seven outposts deep within Area B.
West Bank:
Grandmother, 80, 'fell to her knees' after IDF shot her six times during raid, says son -
The IDF says it is aware of reports that "during the exchanges of fire with the terrorists, uninvolved civilians present in the area were harmed".
Despite censorship and intimidation we continue to demand: no more research for genocide at MIT -
An MIT lab is collaborating with the Israeli military to develop AI surveillance algorithms and the university censored a campus publication that tried to expose it. We refuse to be intimidated and continue to demand: No More Research for Genocide.
Heh: Iran managing to recruit surprising number Jewish Israelis for spying ops
If you recall the rape "investigations": 20 Suspects Identified in Storming of Israeli Army Bases – None Have Been Questioned -
After reservists were arrested on suspicion of abusing a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman base, hundreds of right-wing protesters broke into the base and another where the soldiers were transferred to (ungated)
Meanwhile all that heat on Sde Teiman just meant a change of scenery: ‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp -
Inmates at Israel's shadowy new facility face non-stop abuse — from deadly beatings and electric shocks, to constant handcuffing and skin diseases.
'Humanitarian superstar' Samantha Power admits Gaza is a loss -
The outgoing head of USAID all but acknowledges the Biden admin failed to use leverage to stop civilian carnage
posted by cendawanita at 8:33 AM on December 23, 2024 [8 favorites]
Gaza war victims take legal action against BP over oil supply to Israel -
Palestinians accuse UK firm of breaching human rights laws by piping oil allegedly used by Israeli army
A consensus is emerging: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Where is the action?
Poland Says It Will Arrest Bibi If Israeli PM Attends Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary
Once complicit in Germany’s genocide of Jews, the German Church now risks complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians -
A recent resolution of the Evangelical Church in Germany underscores the church’s continued failure to challenge Israel's prolonged settler colonial occupation.
Palestinian Christians call on western churches to ‘humanize’ the children of Gaza
At Least Seven Outposts Established in Palestinian-Controlled Area B
In 2024, for the first time since the Oslo Accords, Peace Now’s Settlement Watch team documented the establishment of at least seven outposts deep within Area B.
West Bank:
Grandmother, 80, 'fell to her knees' after IDF shot her six times during raid, says son -
The IDF says it is aware of reports that "during the exchanges of fire with the terrorists, uninvolved civilians present in the area were harmed".
Despite censorship and intimidation we continue to demand: no more research for genocide at MIT -
An MIT lab is collaborating with the Israeli military to develop AI surveillance algorithms and the university censored a campus publication that tried to expose it. We refuse to be intimidated and continue to demand: No More Research for Genocide.
Heh: Iran managing to recruit surprising number Jewish Israelis for spying ops
If you recall the rape "investigations": 20 Suspects Identified in Storming of Israeli Army Bases – None Have Been Questioned -
After reservists were arrested on suspicion of abusing a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman base, hundreds of right-wing protesters broke into the base and another where the soldiers were transferred to (ungated)
Meanwhile all that heat on Sde Teiman just meant a change of scenery: ‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp -
Inmates at Israel's shadowy new facility face non-stop abuse — from deadly beatings and electric shocks, to constant handcuffing and skin diseases.
'Humanitarian superstar' Samantha Power admits Gaza is a loss -
The outgoing head of USAID all but acknowledges the Biden admin failed to use leverage to stop civilian carnage
posted by cendawanita at 8:33 AM on December 23, 2024 [8 favorites]
Also, I do not think ceasefire will seriously happen until Trump is in office because he's a simple crook who doesn't actually care for bad publicity, and he's got a short fuse. Let's just hope the timing is such it's a cascade effect from his building annoyance and boredom with Musk to this other fool Netanyahu (as I imagine what he's thinking). And I agree it'll just switch to passive genocide, much like before, only with additional infrastructures in place thanks to Biden's people - these will not be of interest to Trump at all to dismantle.
In the meantime domestic US and Western civil society coalition-building will also take at least another half decade to recover to even mount a useful challenge to right-wing politics (that's part of the accelerated infra that I'm talking about) because commitment to Israeli war crimes trumps everything, which does have spillover effect elsewhere too.
It is in the West's best interests to switch to a passive genocide, to recover some of that political clout as a multi-frontal warring future lies ahead of us, but one fool is going senile on the way to his grave while the other one is just spinning plates so he doesn't lose his job or risk going to prison, and we're all here bearing moral injury, so some would rather consider this all a foolish thing to care about because priorities or whathaveyou. But at least they're not actively auditioning for a future Nuremberg trials like all the public-facing officials, so if they're justifying anything it's not captured by the media. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new Superman movie.
posted by cendawanita at 8:48 AM on December 23, 2024 [3 favorites]
In the meantime domestic US and Western civil society coalition-building will also take at least another half decade to recover to even mount a useful challenge to right-wing politics (that's part of the accelerated infra that I'm talking about) because commitment to Israeli war crimes trumps everything, which does have spillover effect elsewhere too.
It is in the West's best interests to switch to a passive genocide, to recover some of that political clout as a multi-frontal warring future lies ahead of us, but one fool is going senile on the way to his grave while the other one is just spinning plates so he doesn't lose his job or risk going to prison, and we're all here bearing moral injury, so some would rather consider this all a foolish thing to care about because priorities or whathaveyou. But at least they're not actively auditioning for a future Nuremberg trials like all the public-facing officials, so if they're justifying anything it's not captured by the media. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new Superman movie.
posted by cendawanita at 8:48 AM on December 23, 2024 [3 favorites]
Church holds Christmas mass amid horrors of Israel’s war in Gaza -
Christians in Gaza celebrate mass as Pope Francis doubled down on his condemnation of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Though really, this is the one making the rounds. There's a sense that this is in part trying to get ahead of the story, or validation (there's another earlier opinion piece about how Israel is losing its humanity in Gaza. I only question the choice of the conjugated verb): 'When You Leave Israel and Enter Gaza, You Are God': Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes -
As a psychologist dealing with brutality in the military, I see how the government rhetoric of hatred is worsening the problem (ungated)
Israeli society views the IDF as a moral army. The discussion of atrocities evokes emotional resistance even though it is intellectually understood that crimes exist in every civilized society and that war crimes have been committed by soldiers in every army. Developmental psychologists have identified callous traits in young children while social psychologists have demonstrated that authoritative directives and social pressure lead ordinary people to harmful behavior.
Still, it is difficult to face the violence of callous soldiers and the brutalization of ordinary soldiers. Therefore, I am not reassured when my grandson says: "Don't worry, Grandpa, I will refuse an illegal order."
I want to protect him and all others who are risking their body and mind when they serve in the IDF. I want them to know how difficult it is to stand up to a callous commander and to resist peer pressure encouraging brutality. I want them to know about the slippery slope of brutalization and get educated about the moral dilemmas they will face during wartime. This motivated me to write this essay both as a grandfather and as a psychologist who has researched soldiers' experience with brutalization.
Maybe in 25 years a filmmaker like Alex Garland can make a movie with A24 covering such personalities like:
We identified five groups of soldiers based on personality traits. 1. A small Callous group was composed of ruthless soldiers, some of whom confessed to violence before the draft. These soldiers committed most of the severe atrocities. The power they received in the army was intoxicating: "It's like a drug ... you feel like you are the law, you make the rules. As if from the moment you leave the place called Israel and enter the Gaza Strip, you are God." They viewed brutality as an expression of strength and masculinity.
"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."
"X shot an Arab four times in the back and got away with a self-defense claim. Four bullets in the back from a distance of ten meters ... cold-blooded murder. We did things like that every day."
"An Arab just walked down the street, about 25 years old, didn't throw a stone, nothing. Bang, a bullet in the stomach. Shot him in the stomach, and he was dying on the sidewalk, and we drove away indifferently."
(...) 4. A large group of followers consisted of soldiers with no prior inclination to violence. Their behavior was most influenced by junior officers' modeling and the company's norms. Some followers who committed atrocities reported moral injuries: "I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews."
posted by cendawanita at 9:20 PM on December 23, 2024 [6 favorites]
Christians in Gaza celebrate mass as Pope Francis doubled down on his condemnation of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Though really, this is the one making the rounds. There's a sense that this is in part trying to get ahead of the story, or validation (there's another earlier opinion piece about how Israel is losing its humanity in Gaza. I only question the choice of the conjugated verb): 'When You Leave Israel and Enter Gaza, You Are God': Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes -
As a psychologist dealing with brutality in the military, I see how the government rhetoric of hatred is worsening the problem (ungated)
Israeli society views the IDF as a moral army. The discussion of atrocities evokes emotional resistance even though it is intellectually understood that crimes exist in every civilized society and that war crimes have been committed by soldiers in every army. Developmental psychologists have identified callous traits in young children while social psychologists have demonstrated that authoritative directives and social pressure lead ordinary people to harmful behavior.
Still, it is difficult to face the violence of callous soldiers and the brutalization of ordinary soldiers. Therefore, I am not reassured when my grandson says: "Don't worry, Grandpa, I will refuse an illegal order."
I want to protect him and all others who are risking their body and mind when they serve in the IDF. I want them to know how difficult it is to stand up to a callous commander and to resist peer pressure encouraging brutality. I want them to know about the slippery slope of brutalization and get educated about the moral dilemmas they will face during wartime. This motivated me to write this essay both as a grandfather and as a psychologist who has researched soldiers' experience with brutalization.
Maybe in 25 years a filmmaker like Alex Garland can make a movie with A24 covering such personalities like:
We identified five groups of soldiers based on personality traits. 1. A small Callous group was composed of ruthless soldiers, some of whom confessed to violence before the draft. These soldiers committed most of the severe atrocities. The power they received in the army was intoxicating: "It's like a drug ... you feel like you are the law, you make the rules. As if from the moment you leave the place called Israel and enter the Gaza Strip, you are God." They viewed brutality as an expression of strength and masculinity.
"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."
"X shot an Arab four times in the back and got away with a self-defense claim. Four bullets in the back from a distance of ten meters ... cold-blooded murder. We did things like that every day."
"An Arab just walked down the street, about 25 years old, didn't throw a stone, nothing. Bang, a bullet in the stomach. Shot him in the stomach, and he was dying on the sidewalk, and we drove away indifferently."
(...) 4. A large group of followers consisted of soldiers with no prior inclination to violence. Their behavior was most influenced by junior officers' modeling and the company's norms. Some followers who committed atrocities reported moral injuries: "I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews."
posted by cendawanita at 9:20 PM on December 23, 2024 [6 favorites]
"When Food Doesn’t Taste Like Home" - How occupation and war have severed the people of Gaza from their culinary history. Written by Doha Kahlout. Translated by Katharine Halls.
"Food, for Palestinians, is our history. We have been deprived of both. The people of Gaza have survived astonishingly difficult circumstances that have robbed us of choice and made despair and need the organising principles of life, testing our resilience and resourcefulness again and again. We are forced to fight for ordinary, simple things. The struggle to eat is just one of many that Palestinians face, but like those other struggles, its solution is clear: freedom and return. Our dream is to live, freely, in our homes and on our land, to build a history we can share with our grandchildren, to sit beneath orange trees we have planted with our own hands and to taste the fruit of our labour."posted by phigmov at 3:53 PM on December 25, 2024 [2 favorites]
I hope I'm wrong, but it sure sounded like busted_crayons was thinking of buttoning based on a MeTa comment
Really appreciate the work some of you've done with these threads. Take care, all
posted by ginger.beef at 4:35 PM on December 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
Really appreciate the work some of you've done with these threads. Take care, all
posted by ginger.beef at 4:35 PM on December 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
Israeli forces storm Kamal Adwan Hospital, putting the last remaining medical facility in northern Gaza out of service.
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burned and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said
The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including those on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital.
The patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital, the United Nations health agency said, adding that it was “deeply concerned for their safety”.
“Such hostilities and the raids are undoing all our efforts and support to keep the facility minimal functional. The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of healthcare.
“This horror must end and healthcare must be protected.”
posted by away for regrooving at 11:32 PM on December 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burned and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said
The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including those on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital.
The patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital, the United Nations health agency said, adding that it was “deeply concerned for their safety”.
“Such hostilities and the raids are undoing all our efforts and support to keep the facility minimal functional. The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of healthcare.
“This horror must end and healthcare must be protected.”
posted by away for regrooving at 11:32 PM on December 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
Happy Christmas and Hanukkah season! Israel lashes out at Vatican after Pope Francis condemns killing of children -
The pontiff's condemnation of atrocities in Gaza reveals an increasing anger over Israel's actions in the holy land
Sheltering in churches, Gaza’s Christians face another Christmas under fire -
After repeated Israeli attacks on Gaza's historic churches, displaced Palestinians mourn loved ones and the joy of holidays past.
I think we're up to 4 babies dead from the cold. Head still intact thankfully, on account of being actual humans: Gaza children freezing to death amid Israeli blockade, warns UNRWA chief -
'Blankets, mattresses, and other winter supplies have been stuck in the region for months waiting for approval to get into Gaza,' Philippe Lazzarini says, referring to Israel's blockade of coastal enclave
Speaking of that lie, held dear by such luminaries in the Biden administration:
The US says it pushed retraction of a famine warning for north Gaza. Aid groups express concern
That's the AP version. There's also this Truthout headline: Biden Officials Pressured US-Funded Food Monitor to Retract Gaza Famine Warning -
The findings of famine conditions in north Gaza have been corroborated by myriad experts and aid groups.
(rather neatly provides a proof of the concern expressed in that Jewish Currents article toastyk shared, even though that was about private philanthropy. Who needs impartiality, if it's good enough for Russia and China, it's good enough for the West to zombify human rights groups.)
posted by cendawanita at 6:37 PM on December 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The pontiff's condemnation of atrocities in Gaza reveals an increasing anger over Israel's actions in the holy land
Sheltering in churches, Gaza’s Christians face another Christmas under fire -
After repeated Israeli attacks on Gaza's historic churches, displaced Palestinians mourn loved ones and the joy of holidays past.
I think we're up to 4 babies dead from the cold. Head still intact thankfully, on account of being actual humans: Gaza children freezing to death amid Israeli blockade, warns UNRWA chief -
'Blankets, mattresses, and other winter supplies have been stuck in the region for months waiting for approval to get into Gaza,' Philippe Lazzarini says, referring to Israel's blockade of coastal enclave
Speaking of that lie, held dear by such luminaries in the Biden administration:
The US says it pushed retraction of a famine warning for north Gaza. Aid groups express concern
That's the AP version. There's also this Truthout headline: Biden Officials Pressured US-Funded Food Monitor to Retract Gaza Famine Warning -
The findings of famine conditions in north Gaza have been corroborated by myriad experts and aid groups.
(rather neatly provides a proof of the concern expressed in that Jewish Currents article toastyk shared, even though that was about private philanthropy. Who needs impartiality, if it's good enough for Russia and China, it's good enough for the West to zombify human rights groups.)
posted by cendawanita at 6:37 PM on December 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Oops, I'm accidentally staying on theme of "belatedly reporting things everyone else has worked on, but we have the imprimatur of Western Media and our polite denial through refusal of coverage just isn't working because our allies stop killing. It's like morality requires work or something, dammit" by overlooking these:
Via Scotland's The National: BBC admits fault over Israeli football fan violence – after 45 days
Christmas cookies for NYT please: Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians - it's finally reporting on the matter +972 had broke (which The Guardian also ran) months ago. Bad enough it even earned a separate Mefi FPP /gasp
(Don't worry, genocide apologia is still active though. It's basically a shooting and crying piece.)
posted by cendawanita at 6:47 PM on December 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Via Scotland's The National: BBC admits fault over Israeli football fan violence – after 45 days
Christmas cookies for NYT please: Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians - it's finally reporting on the matter +972 had broke (which The Guardian also ran) months ago. Bad enough it even earned a separate Mefi FPP /gasp
(Don't worry, genocide apologia is still active though. It's basically a shooting and crying piece.)
posted by cendawanita at 6:47 PM on December 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
new thread is up, sorry for the delay, been traveling and sick.
posted by toastyk at 6:31 AM on December 29, 2024
posted by toastyk at 6:31 AM on December 29, 2024
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posted by Popular Ethics at 11:17 AM on December 6, 2024 [17 favorites]