#unconscionable killing of civilians

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

“Last week, I was meant to deliver a talk at the 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center. That talk, along with the entire speaking series to which it belonged, was canceled back in October after the Y abruptly scrapped an event with the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen because he had signed an open letter condemning Israel’s war on Gaza. (I signed the same letter.) The 92NY debacle, which resulted in the resignation of the Poetry Center’s entire staff, was part of a much broader stifling of dissent within our liberal cultural institutions, where a decidedly pro-Israel consensus holds strong among donors and executives. Since Israel began its brutal bombing campaign in Gaza, where the death toll has reached 20,000, we have seen waves of suppression roll across the culture: the editor-in-chief of Artforum has been fired; an award-winning writer has been pushed out of The New York Times Magazine; an actress was dropped from the upcoming horror movie Scream 7. The situation has become especially dire on college campuses, where pro-Palestine students groups are facing doxing and disbandment — even as Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, in a contentious House committee hearing, rebuked several university presidents for failing to discipline students for chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea.” (Penn president Liz Magill has since resigned over this supposed failure.)

We should call this what it is: a one-sided, McCarthyist crackdown on pro-Palestine speech.” […]

“After a letter was released at Harvard that blamed ‘all unfolding violence’ on the Israeli government, the billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, apparently speaking for his fellow CEOs, demanded that the school publish the rosters of the student groups who had signed the letter “so as to insure [sic] that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” The implicit understanding here was that elite private universities funnel their graduates into the nation’s highest positions of power and influence — including Congress itself — and that this pipeline must not be polluted by ideas that its previous beneficiaries find morally despicable or politically disadvantageous. The House hearing itself came chillingly close to a direct attempt by the federal government to materially intervene in the composition of the incipient professional class through, as more than one Republican suggested, the expulsion of student protestors.”

“Yes, anti-Zionism is an idea, not a rock; but if it were only an idea, without any practical potential, then there would be no point in throwing it. The difference right now is that, given the tremendous political and ideological instability introduced by the war, a number of powerful people in America currently believe that talking about freeing Palestine could actually end up freeing Palestine, and it is this cascade of actions that they are ultimately trying to suppress. This tells us something very important: They are afraid. The question is not whether intifada, which means “uprising” in Arabic and invokes both civil disobedience and violent resistance, is a threatening term; if it were not threatening, the House would never have convened an entire hearing about it. The only question is whether threatened parties — the Israeli apartheid regime, American foreign-policy hawks, all the board members and lobbyists and donors and hedge-fund managers — deserve to be threatened.

They do. For as often as pro-Palestine speech is described as an existential menace to Jews in Israel and across America, our major newspapers are saturated with equally plausible incitements to violence — for that, my friends, is what it means to support a war. The difference is that when the New York Times editorial board defends the bombardment of Gaza or urges lawmakers to send Israel more Hellfire missiles, this may not look like incitement because the violence in question is endorsed by the White House, funded by Congress, and normalized by the media. There is no denying that this is an American war, even if there are no American boots on the ground. The House recently approved a resolution declaring that all anti-Zionism is antisemitism. This was truly disturbing on First Amendment grounds: It suggested that the government really might try to abridge the freedom of speech on grounds of sedition, as wartime governments have been known to do — including Israel, whose occupying military forces have restricted the free-speech rights of Palestinians in the name of “public order” for decades.

- Andrea Long Chu, Pulitzer-winning book critic for New York and Vulture, The Free-Speech Debate Is a Trap

[untexting]

We Are No Strangers to Human Suffering, but We’ve Seen Nothing Like the Siege of Gaza

Dec. 11, 2023 | Source: New York Times Op-ed

By Michelle Nunn (CARE USA), Tjada D’Oyen McKenna (Mercy Corps), Jan Egeland (Norwegian Refugee Council), Abby Maxman (Oxfam America), Jeremy Konyndyk (Refugees International), and Janti Soeripto (Save the Children U.S.)

We are no strangers to human suffering — to conflict, to natural disasters, to some of the world’s largest and gravest catastrophes. We were there when fighting erupted in Khartoum, Sudan. As bombs rained down on Ukraine. When earthquakes leveled southern Turkey and northern Syria. As the Horn of Africa faced its worst drought in years. The list goes on.

But as the leaders of some of the world’s largest global humanitarian organizations, we have seen nothing like the siege of Gaza. In the more than two months since the horrifying attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people and resulted in some 240 abductions, about 18,000 Gazans — including more than 7,500 children — have been killed, according to the Gazan health ministry. More children have been reported killed in this conflict than in all major global conflicts combined last year.

The atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 were unconscionable and depraved, and the taking and holding of hostages is abhorrent. The calls for their release are urgent and justified. But the right to self-defense does not and cannot require unleashing this humanitarian nightmare on millions of civilians. It is not a path to accountability, healing or peace. In no other war we can think of in this century have civilians been so trapped, without any avenue or option to escape to save themselves and their children.

Most of our organizations have been operating in Gaza for decades. But we can do nothing remotely adequate to address the level of suffering there without an immediate and complete cease-fire and an end to the siege. The aerial bombardments have rendered our jobs impossible. The withholding of water, fuel, food and other basic goods has created an enormous scale of need that aid alone cannot offset.

Global leaders — and especially the United States government — must understand that we cannot save lives under these conditions. A significant change in approach from the U.S. government is needed today to pull Gaza back from this abyss.

For a start, the Biden administration must stop its diplomatic interference at the United Nations, blocking calls for a cease-fire.

Since the pause in fighting ended, we are again witnessing an exceptionally high level of bombardment, and at increasing ferocity. The few areas left in Gaza that are untouched by bombardment are shrinking by the hour, forcing more and more civilians to seek safety that does not exist. Over 80 percent of 2.3 million Gazans are now displaced. The newest Israeli offensive is now forcing them to cluster on a tiny sliver of land.

The bombardment is not the only thing brutally cutting lives short. The siege of — and blockades surrounding — Gaza have led to a critical food scarcity, cutoffs of medical supplies and electricity, and a lack of clean water. There is barely any medical care to be found in the enclave and few medications. Surgeons are working by the light of their mobile phones, without anesthetics. They are using dishcloths as bandages. The risk of waves of waterborne and infectious disease will only grow in the increasingly overcrowded living conditions of the displaced.

One of our colleagues in Gaza recently described their struggle to feed an orphaned infant who had been rescued from the rubble of an airstrike. The baby had not eaten for days after her mother’s death. Colleagues could only scrounge up powdered milk — not formula, not breast milk, and not a nutritionally suitable infant food — to help stave off her starvation.

Before the war, hundreds of truckloads of aid were needed each day to support Gazans’ daily existence. Only a trickle of that required aid has made it into Gaza in the two months since the war began. But even if more were allowed in, our work in Gaza is dependent on ensuring our teams can move safely to set up warehouses, shelters, health clinics, schools, and water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure.

Today our staff members are not safe. They tell us they’re making the daily choice of staying with their families in one place so that they can die together or go out to seek water and food.

Among leaders in Washington, there is constant talk about preparing for the “day after.” But if this relentless bombardment and siege continue, there will be no “day after” for Gaza. It will be too late. Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance today.

So far, American diplomacy in this war has not delivered on the goals President Biden has conveyed: protection of innocent civilians, adherence to humanitarian law, more aid delivery. To stop Gaza’s apocalyptic free fall, the Biden administration must take tangible measures, as it does in other conflicts, to up the ante with all parties to the conflict and bordering countries.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken once said of the war in Ukraine that the targeting of heat, water and electricity was a “brutalization of Ukraine’s people” and “barbaric.” The Biden administration should acknowledge that the same holds true in Gaza. While it has announced measures to deter violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, Mr. Blinken and his colleagues should apply similar pressure to stop violence against civilians in Gaza, too.

The harrowing events unfolding before us are shaping a global narrative that, if unchanged, will reveal a legacy of indifference in the face of unspeakable suffering, bias in the application of the laws of conflict and impunity for actors that violate international humanitarian law.

The U.S. government must act now — and fight for humanity.

Ms. Nunn is the president and chief executive of CARE USA. Ms. McKenna is the chief executive of Mercy Corps. Mr. Egeland is the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Ms. Maxman is the president and chief executive of Oxfam America. Mr. Konyndyk is the president of Refugees International. Ms. Soeripto is the president and chief executive of Save the Children U.S.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Some senior U.S. officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find "credible or reliable" Israel's assurances that it is using U.S.-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters. [...] The assessment from the four bureaus said Israel's assurances were "neither credible nor reliable." It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that the officials said raise "serious questions" about potential violations of international humanitarian law. These included repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure; "unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage"; taking little action to investigate violations or to hold to account those responsible for significant civilian harm and "killing humanitarian workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate." The assessment from the four bureaus also cited 11 instances of Israeli military actions the officials said "arbitrarily restrict humanitarian aid," including rejecting entire trucks of aid due to a single "dual-use" item, "artificial" limitations on inspections as well as repeated attacks on humanitarian sites that should not be hit. [...] USAID also provided input to the memo. "The killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the GOI (Government of Israel) itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilian, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law requirement," USAID officials wrote in the submission. [...] Biden can suspend or put conditions on U.S. weapons transfers at any time. He has so far resisted calls from rights groups, left-leaning Democrats and Arab American groups to do so. (x)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Craig at Vox:

After more than a year of neglect from global leaders and massive funding gaps for humanitarian assistance, the war in Sudan has reached a critical tipping point. Warring parties are waging a deadly battle for control of El Fasher — the capital of the state of North Darfur and, until recently, one of the last safe havens for civilians. If the city falls, experts warn there will be dire human rights consequences, ranging from ethnic cleansing to outright genocide for millions of people.

What’s happening in El Fasher is just the latest in the year-long conflict between two rivaling military groups struggling for power after working together to oust Sudan’s former president and his successor. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the general of the country’s military, known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), became the de facto ruler of Sudan in 2021 — but tensions with his temporary ally, the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), soon boiled over as the leaders attempted to integrate the RSF into the SAF. This tension grew into a civil war last year, one that has created the world’s largest displacement crisis: On Monday, the United Nations told the AP that more than 10 million people — about a quarter of the population — have already been internally displaced since the war began. The SAF and RSF have clashed sporadically��in El Fasher, which is the government military’s last foothold in all of western Sudan, but the town has largely been spared the worst of the war until recent weeks. That changed on the morning of May 10, when heavy fighting between the two groups broke out. Near daily bombings, indiscriminate shelling, and airstrikes have rocked the city since. More than 1,000 civilians have been injured and 206 people have died, according to Claire Nicolet, the emergency program manager at Médecins Sans Frontières. Hospitals and camps for internally displaced people have been damaged by gunfire and explosions. Very few aid convoys carrying food and health supplies have reached the estimated 2 million civilians in the city. 

As RSF has expanded its control of other towns in Darfur over the course of the war, they have resorted to ethnic targeting and brutal violence against civilians, including raping, torturing, and killing non-Arab civilians and using racial slurs against them, as Human Rights Watch has documented. Human rights experts are concerned that if El Fasher falls to the RSF, it might trigger a new wave of ethnic cleansing, reminiscent of the genocide that occurred in Darfur in the early 2000s when some 200,000 non-Arab civilians were killed by Janjaweed militias and government forces. The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militia, an Arab-majority fighting force created by the former president to fight Darfuris in the mid-1980s. 

Although the current war between RSF and SAF is more of a power struggle than a sectarian one, ethnic tensions have long simmered in Darfur since the genocide, Akshaya Kumar, the director of crisis advocacy at Human Rights Watch, explained. If RSF gains the upper hand, they will control the entire Darfur region where most non-Arab communities reside.  The situation is all too familiar. As it was in 2003, the crisis teeters on the brink of famine and genocide. And as was the case then, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis remains unconscionably neglected by the foreign governments and international bodies that have the power to intervene to push for a peaceful resolution or to urge the warring parties to respect international humanitarian law. In the coming months, the humanitarian and human rights situation in Darfur and across Sudan may be finally too harrowing to ignore, but by that point, it may be too late to do anything about it.

Vox takes a look at the vastly under-covered story of the Darfur Genocide and the battle for control of El Fasher in Sudan.

[boycottthechosen]

Boycott the Chosen

We are a community of fans calling for likeminded others to boycott The Chosen as a result of the response (or lack thereof) to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine. We were all excited for the new season. Many of us were planning to attend theatre screenings of the premier. But we cannot support a show about the life of a revolutionary Palestinian man when its creators won't speak up for the Palestinian people. We are asking fans to

1. Boycott the series. This involves not attending theatre screenings, refunding tickets where possible, and not watching season four.

2. Delete The Chosen app

3. Donate to our fundraiser for Medical Aid Palestine. We are not expecting many donations, but every little helps

Simon Peter is fundraising for Medical Aid for Palestinians (justgiving.com)

Approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed on October 7th. Since then, approximately 25, 000 Palestinians have been killed. If you as a Christian were disturbed by the violence on October 7th you should also be appalled by the ongoing violence against the innocent civilians of Palestine. If Jesus were alive in Palestine today he would be in the middle of a warzone, facing displacement, famine, and death. It is unconscionable to profit from the life of a Jewish Palestinian while ignoring the ongoing violence.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the Earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called the Sons of God.

🇵🇸🙏❤️

Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/boycottchosen

[eretzyisrael]

by Brendan O'Neill

So now we know what it takes to become a state: the murder of Jews. Rape, kill and kidnap Jews and seven months later, the leaders of Ireland, Spain and Norway will recognise your statehood. That’s the lesson of today’s coordinated spectacle of virtue-signalling in Dublin, Madrid and Oslo: pogroms work. The butchery of civilians gets results. Fascism has its rewards. This is ‘diplomacy’ at its most dangerous.

Of course, Irish taoiseach Simon Harris, Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre are presenting their pious recognition of Palestine as a stab for peace. This is about helping to ‘create a peaceful future’, said Harris. They’re either delusional or they’re engaging in doublespeak. For the true impact of their imperious intervention will be to exacerbate hostilities. Hamas will feel emboldened. It now knows that a wonderful gift awaits it if it keeps battering Israel: a state of its own. In dangling this dream before Hamas, the three PMs have all but green-lighted its terrorism.

Rarely has virtue-signalling felt so reckless. The PMs are so keen to broadcast their correct-think to the world that they appear not to have given one thought to what the consequences might be of three European nations butting in to a bloody war. Their blindness to everything but their own righteousness was best summed up in the figure of Simon Harris. There he was on the steps of Government Buildings in Dublin sermonising about how this is ‘the right thing to do’ – translation: ‘aren’t I wonderful?’ – without so much as a flicker of concern for the global impact of rewarding an act of apocalyptic violence.

That really is what is happening here. Harris and the others were careful to condemn Hamas’s 7 October pogrom, of course. Harris called it a ‘barbaric massacre’. And yet the fact is that today’s announcements, this vain granting of legitimacy to a Palestinian state, would not be happening had it not been for 7 October. Indeed, Harris expressly linked his recognition of Palestine with the ‘appalling’ and ‘unconscionable’ war in Gaza. Yes, a war started by Hamas. On 7 October. With its carnival of anti-Semitic barbarism, the likes of which the world had not seen since the Holocaust. And there you have it. Want a state? Start a war. Kill some Jews. Job done.

[good-old-gossip]

"No matter how Israel's military operations in Gaza have been spun since 7 October, its latest attack on the aid group World Central Kitchen (WCK) on 1 April leaves no doubt that this is a war being waged against all life in the besieged strip. Whether it is the civilians who desperately need help or the aid workers who are desperately trying to provide this help, they all seem to be in danger. Even if Israel's narrative, questionable as it may be, were true - and for which its leaders apologised earlier this week - it still proves, as many of us have long suspected, that this war is being conducted with the goal of "victory at all costs". And it is ultimately civilians who bear such costs as no death seems too unconscionable - whether it is aid workers, journalists, health professionals or children, who are at best, collateral damage, or at worst, targets themselves. By attacking NGOs distributing aid, hospitals and journalists, Israel's creation of an environment too dangerous to operate in appears to be its primary goal. Following the attack on WCK, ships carrying undelivered aid to Gaza immediately turned back with operations suspended. Israeli forces are making conditions too dangerous to provide any help or assistance to people in Gaza, rendering it uninhabitable for Palestinians, and securing Israel's victory as civilians pay the ultimate price. This attack has rightly triggered global condemnation, but it is worrying that such outrage may be related to the nationalities of those tragically killed. Innocent Palestinians have been killed every minute over the course of the past six months amid a deafening silence from western governments. The killing of every aid worker should be universally condemned for the war crime that it certainly is, as should the targeting of every civilian."

By Othman Moqbel

[mariacallous]

(J. Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — The City Council in Oakland, California, unanimously passed a resolution on Monday night calling for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, after listening to hours of intense and sometimes violently anti-Israel comments.

“It was the most antisemitic room I have ever been in,” said Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, who lives in Oakland.

The council meeting exploded into public view on Tuesday after Yashar Ali, the social media influencer, posted a highlights reel of some of the comments, in which speakers accused Israel of killing its own people on Oct. 7, defended Hamas as a legitimate protest group and compared defending Israel to a man who beats his wife.

The people in the video were among the more than 250 people who offered public comment during the special meeting devoted to the resolution, which lasted for six hours.

Among those commenting on the video was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who tweeted, “Hamas is a terrorist organization. They must be called out for what they are: evil.”

The Oakland council resolution focused on a permanent ceasefire, which Israel and many of its supporters oppose because it would leave Hamas in power in Gaza. The measure also condemned a recent spike in antisemitism and Islamophobia, acknowledged the “long history” behind the current war and called for more humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

But it did not include a condemnation of Hamas. An effort by a Jewish council member, Dan Kalb, to amend the resolution to acknowledge Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and condemn the terrorist group for its “repression and violence” against both Palestinians and Israelis failed, in a 2-6 vote. One councilmember, Treva Reid, joined Kalb in voting for the amended version, saying she actually supported the unamended resolution but would not allow Kalb to “stand alone.”

“I’m very disappointed in my colleagues except for Treva,” Kalb said on Tuesday. He said the idea of passing a war-related resolution without mentioning the Hamas massacre that started the war didn’t make sense to him.

“Let’s condemn all domestic and international terrorist organizations — who can be against that?” Kalb said.

Kalb and Gregory said they would remember the hostile atmosphere inside the council chambers.

“What we voted on was not the rhetoric at the microphone,” Kalb said. “A substantial number of people were trying to justify or rationalize the Hamas mass murder on Oct. 7. To me, that is so fringe and unconscionable and ridiculous.”

People who tried to legitimize the terrorist attack “should be embarrassed,” he added. “That is just nuts.”

Before the meeting started, the JCRC held a vigil in front of City Hall for the estimated 240 people in Israel who were taken hostage on Oct. 7. (As of Wednesday, Hamas had released more than 90 hostages as part of a truce deal.) About 50 people attended the vigil, while a slightly larger group of protesters across the plaza shouted and chanted to try to drown it out.

Carroll Fife, the council member who wrote the ceasefire resolution, said at Monday’s meeting that the document went through four drafts in a purposeful effort to “depoliticize” the language and focus on peace, without condemning Israel or Hamas.

“It attempted to bring the sides together,” she said at the meeting. “I want Jewish children to live as much as I want Palestinian children to live.” Fife added that she needed to acknowledge the “disproportionate deaths on one side.” According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, about 15,000 Palestinians have died in the war; the figure does not differentiate between militants and civilians. Israel’s death toll stands at around 1,200 people killed on Oct. 7, most of them civilians, and about 70 soldiers who have died in Gaza since the ground invasion began late last month.

Kalb publicly thanked Fife for her “sincere effort to craft and support a resolution that doesn’t have the hot-button and problematic language that had weighed down other resolutions in other places.” But he said not mentioning Oct. 7 is “sending the wrong message and an embarrassing message.”

The city clerk noted that 86% of 1,254 people who weighed in on the issue online supported the resolution without any amendments.

The scores of anti-Israeli speakers who rejected amending the resolution ranged from passionate advocates for Palestinian children to conspiracy theorists to hardcore anti-Zionists who openly supported Hamas’ attack on Israel.

John Reimann, who lost his bid as a socialist candidate for Oakland mayor last year, compared Israel to a “wife beater” who complains when the wife fights back.

One Hamas supporter described Israel as a “genocidal settler colonial state” that needs to be “completely dismantled.” Others repeatedly described Hamas as a “resistance organization” and “not a terrorist” one.

“It’s a contradiction to be pro-humanity and pro-Israel,” one woman said.

Dozens of people who identified themselves as Jewish spoke at the council meeting, with many announcing they were anti-Zionist. Kalb said Israel supporters were “outnumbered.”

Anti-Zionist Jews wore “Not in our name” T-shirts and referenced the Holocaust in their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“I know the price of silence,” said one woman. “Never again means never again for anyone.”

Seated in the audience, Gregory said he repeatedly heard people referencing “white Hitler” to describe Jews who condemn Hamas and heard others saying that “antisemitism isn’t real.”

“I don’t expect maturity from these antisemites,” he said. “But it was disappointing the city council couldn’t rein in it.”

The council “failed to call out the antisemitism” in the chamber, Gregory said. “They tolerated it.”

The San Francisco-based Arab Resource and Organizing Center, which Gregory called a “pro-terrorism organization,” handed out scripts to speakers that “justified and glorified Hamas,” he said. Gregory added that JCRC had been cautious in the past about describing AROC as supporting terrorists. “Not anymore,” he said.

Councilmembers repeatedly told audience members to stop booing when Israel supporters were speaking. Speakers who mentioned Hamas raping Israeli women on Oct. 7 — an ascendant topic of advocacy given the relative silence by UN Women about allegations of sexual violence against Israelis — were loudly booed.

One pro-Israel speaker said she was deeply saddened by the “slurs and lies” against Israel and Jews.

Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who is Jewish, used her time “in the spirit of bringing us back to our common humanity” by sharing the story of Isaac and Ishmael from the Bible. “Let them live, these two children of Abraham. So may it be,” she said.

Gregory spoke at the meeting in favor of Kalb’s amended resolution.

“I am proud to be a gay Jewish Zionist, and that means that I believe Jews have a right to our indigenous homeland. And that is not in contradiction to Palestinians having that same indigenous right,” he said. “Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks the annihilation of Israel. This resolution must be amended to acknowledge the atrocities of Hamas and include its removal from power in Gaza.”

Even though Kalb’s effort to amend the resolution failed, he said he chose to vote in favor of the resolution because the final version didn’t include the “horrible, inaccurate, divisive language” that he’s seen from other local bodies such as the Richmond City Council, the Oakland Education Association and the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee.

Gregory said the city council’s resolution would have no impact on foreign policy but would help to spread a “culture of antisemitism” in Oakland.

“They should focus on policing and housing and education issues,” he said, “and not the most intractable foreign policy issue we have on the planet.”

[freedomforpalestine]

This is German news.

In red marked

"In Jabalia, Israeli forces say 50 terrorists were killed. There are also civilian casualties."-FAZ.NET

WHY does the Western world focus on "terrorists" ?

How can anyone focus on terrorists in this unconscionable disaster that happened in Jabalia? An entire neighborhood was destroyed, everything and everyone turned into a speck of dust. Hundreds of innocent people, young or old, disabled or healthy are dead. The number of these innocent dead people should not be labeled as " there were dead civilians too"! There were ONLY dead civilians and the world is focused on possible killed terrorists?

The news in Germany are shameful, thats a scandal!

Why don't you report the numbers of dead Palestinians, the frightening number of injured people? Publish pictures.

Show the truth!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer

Published: Feb 13, 2024

On October 7th, 2023, most Americans watched in horror as Israel experienced the deadliest terrorist attacks in its history. In the days and weeks that followed, some of that horror mingled with confusion.

For example, on Oct. 8th—before an Israeli counteroffensive was launched—BLM Grassroots issued a “Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” writing that they “stand unwaveringly on the side of the oppressed” and “see clear parallels between Black and Palestinian people.” Two days later, BLM Chicago posted a graphic featuring a paraglider with a Palestinian flag and the text “I stand with Palestine” (terrorists had used paraglides to attack a Music festival on Oct. 7th, killing over three hundred civilians). Even more bizarre posts began turning up on social media. The Slow Factory, a progressive group with over 600k followers on Instagram, posted a graphic stating “Free Palestine is a Feminist issue. It’s a reproductive rights issue. It’s an Indigenous Rights issue. It’s a Climate Justice issue, it’s a Queer Rights issue, it’s an Abolitionist Issue.” The group “Queers for Palestine” began showing up with signs at various demonstrations. A banner hanging from a building at the University of British Columbia announced, “Trans liberation cannot happen without Palestinian Liberation.”

What explains these signs and sentiments, which seem to be springing up organically around the country and other parts of the world? How is the Hamas-Israel war connected to climate change? Why is it a feminist issue? Why are “queers” standing in solidarity with Palestine when Israel’s government is far more permissive than Palestine’s (for example, same-sex activity is criminalized in Gaza)? What has inspired an outpouring of egregious and unconscionable antisemitic rhetoric and behavior in various cities and on a number of college campuses?

The answer is, in a word, intersectionality. In this article, we’ll explain the intersectional framework that undergirds these phenomena and will then offer a brief reflection on how it can be resisted.

* * *

Intersectionality was a term coined by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. She used it to describe the discrimination faced by Black women, whose social location (that is, their relationship to power within U.S. society) was predicated on both their race and their sex simultaneously. In other words, a Black woman’s experience cannot be reduced to merely the sum of her race and sex experiences. Instead, she occupies a unique (and uniquely marginalized) category that is shaped by both her Blackness and femininity.

Although Crenshaw’s first examples focused on race and gender, intersectionality was rapidly applied to other categories like sexuality, class, and disability, just as Crenshaw intended. Indeed, precursors to Crenshaw’s conception of intersectionality can be found in other Black feminist writings. For example, the Combahee River Collective Statement insisted in 1977 that it is “difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because... they are most often experienced simultaneously” and feminist Beverly Lindsay argued in 1979 that sexism, racism, and classism exposed poor Black women to “triple jeopardy” (see Collins and Bilge, Intersectionality, p. 76).

So in what ways does intersectionality shape progressive views on the Israel-Hamas War?

First, through its embrace of the social binary; second, through its implicit adoption of the category of “whiteness,” and finally through its commitment to solidarity in liberation.

The Social Binary

While the concept of intersectionality can be understood narrowly to refer to the trivial claim that our identities are complex and multifaceted, Crenshaw intended a far more robust understanding rooted in a prominent feature of critical social theory, what we call the “social binary.” The social binary refers to the belief that society is divided into oppressed groups and oppressor groups along lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, physical ability, religion, and a host of other identity markers. Crenshaw did not merely believe that Black women (and White men, and Hispanic lesbians) all had different social locations, but that they had differently-valued social locations.

In a 1989 paper, Crenshaw asked the reader to “[imagine] a basement which contains all people who are disadvantaged on the basis of race, sex, class, sexual preference, age and/or physical ability” and who were then literally stacked “feet standing on shoulders with the multiply-disadvantaged at the bottom and the fully privilege at the very top.” This understanding of intersectionality necessarily assumes a hierarchy of oppression and privilege such that people can be ranked in order from most to least oppressed.

Although Crenshaw didn’t discuss “colonial status” in the body of her paper, she did state in a footnote that Third World feminism is inevitably subordinated to the fight against “international domination” and “imperialism.” It is at precisely this point that intersectionality affects progressive understanding of Israel-Palestinian relationships.

Later critical social theorists, and especially postcolonial scholars, believe that colonialism—like white supremacy, the patriarchy, and heterosexism—divides society into oppressed and oppressor groups. Because the Israeli government is positioned as a “colonizing foreign power,” it is therefore necessarily oppressive. Conversely, Palestinians are then necessarily positioned as a colonized, oppressed group. Never mind the spurious assessment of both. Note here that critical theorists make these judgments not on the basis of the actual history of the region (which is complex) or a careful analysis of particular Israeli policies (which are certainly open to debate). Rather, the mere identification of Israel as a “colonial power” is all that is needed to set up a social binary between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The social binary then explains why some progressives make such a quick, simplistic analysis: intersectionality deceptively primes them to see the world in these black-and-white terms.

Whiteness

A second factor that contributes to a reflexive pro-Palestinian perspective by some in the U.S. is the ascendance of critical race theory and an attendant understanding of “whiteness.”

CRT, which was birthed concurrently with intersectionality in the late 1980s, conceptualizes whiteness not as a skin color or even as an ethnicity, but as a social construct that provides tangible and intangible benefits to those raced as “White.” (Notwithstanding that white skin and whiteness are often conflated when it serves the interests of progressives). Whiteness as a social construct signals that “whiteness” is fluid and malleable and need not only include people traditionally understood as White. For example, in his important 2003 book Racism Without Racists, sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva hypothesized that America could develop a “triracial order” consisting of “Whites,” “Honorary Whites,” and “Collective Black.” On Bonilla-Silva’s reading, Whites would include not just Anglo-Saxons, but also “Assimilated white Latinos,” “Some multiracials,” “Assimilated (urban) Native Americans,” and “A few Asian-origin people.” On the other hand, the “Collective Black” category would include “Vietnamese Americans,” “Dark-skinned Latinos,” and “Reservation-bound Native Americans” (see Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists, 228).

Critical race theorists have long wrestled with the place of Jewish people within their racial hierarchy. On the one hand, Americans did not traditionally consider Jews “White” and the U.S. has explicitly discriminated against Jews in the recent past (Jewish admission quotas at Ivy League Schools being one glaring example). On the other hand, many critical race theorists today believe that most Jews have assimilated to whiteness and benefit from “White privilege” and therefore should be classified as White. In her chapter “Whiteness, Intersectionality, and the Contradictions of White Jewish Identity,” Jewish psychologist Jodie Kliman writes that,

As European Jews have slowly ‘become’ white over the last three generations (Brodkin, 1998), we have internalized White supremacy in general and anti-Black prejudice in particular...Immigrant Jews and their descendants assimilated into US society, becoming white, or sort of white...

Unfortunately, to the extent that American Jews are viewed as “White adjacent” while Palestinians are viewed as “Brown,” the former are members of an oppressor group and the latter of an oppressed group. This categorization adds another layer to knee-jerk progressive support for Palestinians.

Liberation

Finally, the glue that binds together pro-Palestinian, pro-LGBTQ, and feminist activists is a shared commitment to mutual liberation. Again, this commitment is not new; it is found in the earliest texts of critical race theory, including those authored by Crenshaw herself. For instance, in the 1993 anthology Words that Wound, she and other co-founders of CRT wrote that a “defining element” of CRT is the commitment to ending all forms of oppression: They write: 

Critical race theory works toward the end of eliminating racial oppression as part of the broader goal of ending all forms of oppression. Racial oppression is experienced by many in tandem with oppressions on grounds of gender, class, or sexual orientation. Critical race theory measures progress by a yardstick that looks to fundamental social transformation. The interests of all people of color necessarily require not just adjustments within the established hierarchies, but a challenge to hierarchy itself (Matusda et al., Words that Wound, 6-7).

This last point is crucial to understanding the automatic solidarity between, say, LGBTQ activists and decolonial activists. One could, in principle, accept that both LGBTQ people and Palestinians are oppressed groups and still conclude that their goals are mutually exclusive. For example, most Palestinians are Muslim and traditional Islam rejects the sexual autonomy demanded by LGBTQ activists. Yet an intersectional framework insists that homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and colonialism are all “interlocking systems of oppression” that can and must be overturned simultaneously—never mind the details.

Lest anyone worry that we’re misinterpreting or overstating the degree to which popular progressive sentiments surrounding this issue are shaped by a fundamental commitment to intersectionality, consider the article “Palestine is a Feminist Issue” from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. It begins with a quotation from Mariam Barghouti “Fundamentally speaking, feminism cannot support racism, supremacy and oppressive domination in any form” and immediately explains intersectionality in its opening paragraph: 

Intersectional feminism is a framework that holds that women’s overlapping, or intersecting, identities impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination. Intersectionality rejects the idea that a woman’s experience can be reduced to only her gender, and insists that we look at the multiple factors shaping her life: race, class, ethnicity, disability, citizenship status, sexual orientation, and others, as well as how systems of oppression are connected... When we look at the world through an intersectional feminist lens, it becomes clear that Palestine is a feminist issue.

Conclusions

While the reaction of some progressives to the Hamas-Israel war took many people, especially Jewish people, by surprise, it was largely predictable given the powerful influence that intersectionality exerts on our culture. Intersectionality can lead to a grotesque moral calculus that justifies Hamas’ rape of Israeli girls as an understandable response of the oppressed lashing out at their oppressor. It has caused university presidents at our elite institutions to shamefully equivocate and prevaricate when given opportunity to unapologetically condemn antisemitism. Unfortunately, these examples are natural outworkings of the intersectional worldview.

For those who are alarmed by what seems to be growing acceptance of anti-Semitism within some segments of the left, we offer the following action items.

First, we should resist critical theory’s simplistic moral categories of Oppressor vs. Oppressed. To the extent that we see every conflict as a battle between innocent victims and cruel victimizers, we will gloss over the moral complexities of reality.

Second, we need to see people primarily as individuals rather than as avatars of their demographic groups. It’s much easier to dehumanize abstract categories than the nervous old woman across the street or the energetic cashier at the grocery store. Personal connection is an antidote to demonization.

Finally, we need to be realistic about the perniciousness of “woke” ideology, which has been infiltrating our institutions, universities, businesses, and places of worship for decades. Many social movements have waved the banner of progress and justice while slaughtering tens of millions. If we don’t learn from history, we very well may repeat it.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Exclusive: Some US officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza | Reuters

Some senior U.S. officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find "credible or reliable" Israel's assurances that it is using U.S.-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.

Other officials upheld support for Israel's representation.

Under a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel's assurances that its use of U.S. weapons does not violate U.S. or international law.

By March 24, at least seven State Department bureaus had sent in their contributions to an initial "options memo" to Blinken. Parts of the memo, which has not been previously reported, were classified.

The submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.

"Some components in the department favored accepting Israel's assurances, some favored rejecting them and some took no position," a U.S. official said.

A joint submission from four bureaus - Democracy Human Rights & Labor; Population, Refugees and Migration; Global Criminal Justice and International Organization Affairs – raised "serious concern over non-compliance" with international humanitarian law during Israel's prosecution of the Gaza war.

The assessment from the four bureaus said Israel's assurances were "neither credible nor reliable." It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that the officials said raise "serious questions" about potential violations of international humanitarian law.

These included repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure; "unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage"; taking little action to investigate violations or to hold to account those responsible for significant civilian harm and "killing humanitarian workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate."

The assessment from the four bureaus also cited 11 instances of Israeli military actions the officials said "arbitrarily restrict humanitarian aid," including rejecting entire trucks of aid due to a single "dual-use" item, "artificial" limitations on inspections as well as repeated attacks on humanitarian sites that should not be hit.

Another submission to the memo reviewed by Reuters, from the bureau of Political and Military Affairs, which deals with U.S. military assistance and arms transfers, warned Blinken that suspending U.S. weapons would limit Israel's ability to meet potential threats outside its airspace and require Washington to re-evaluate "all ongoing and future sales to other countries in the region."

Any suspension of U.S. arms sales would invite "provocations" by Iran and aligned militias, the bureau said in its submission, illustrating the push-and-pull inside the department as it prepares to report to Congress.

The submission did not directly address Israel's assurances.

Inputs to the memo from the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism and U.S. ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said they assessed Israel's assurances as credible and reliable, a second U.S. official told Reuters.

The State Department's legal bureau, known as the Office of the Legal Adviser, "did not take a substantive position" on the credibility of Israel's assurances, a source familiar with the matter said.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the agency doesn't comment on leaked documents.

"On complex issues, the Secretary often hears a diverse range of views from within the Department, and he takes all of those views into consideration," Miller said.

MAY 8 REPORT TO CONGRESS

When asked about the memo, an Israeli official said: "Israel is fully committed to its commitments and their implementation, among them the assurances given to the U.S. government."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Biden administration officials repeatedly have said they have not found Israel in violation of international law.

Blinken has seen all of the bureau assessments about Israel's pledges, the second U.S. official said.

Matthew Miller on March 25 said the department received the pledges. However, the State Department is not expected to render its complete assessment of credibility until the May 8 report to Congress.

Further deliberations between the department's bureaus are underway ahead of the report's deadline, the U.S. official said.

USAID also provided input to the memo. "The killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the GOI (Government of Israel) itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilian, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law requirement," USAID officials wrote in the submission.

USAID does not comment on leaked documents, a USAID spokesperson said.

The warnings about Israel's possible breaches of international humanitarian law made by some senior State Department officials come as Israel is vowing to launch a military offensive into Rafah, the southern-most pocket of the Gaza Strip that is home to over a million people displaced by the war, despite repeated warnings from Washington not to do so.

Israel's military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave's health authorities, most of them women and children.

Israel's assault was launched in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage.

The National Security Memorandum was issued in early February after Democratic lawmakers began questioning whether Israel was abiding by international law.

The memorandum imposed no new legal requirements but asked the State Department to demand written assurances from countries receiving U.S.-funded weapons that they are not violating international humanitarian law or blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance.

It also required the administration to submit an annual report to Congress to assess whether countries are adhering to international law and not impeding the flow of humanitarian aid.

If Israel's assurances are called into question, Biden would have the option to "remediate" the situation through actions ranging from seeking fresh assurances to suspending further U.S. weapons transfers, according to the memorandum.

Biden can suspend or put conditions on U.S. weapons transfers at any time.

He has so far resisted calls from rights groups, left-leaning Democrats and Arab American groups to do so.

But earlier this month he threatened for the first time to put conditions on the transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel, if it does not take concrete steps to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

(This story has been refiled to remove an extraneous paragraph)

[catdotjpeg]

The bombardment of Gaza has continued for the 139th day and the Palestinian death toll is steadily increasing. Nowhere is safe for civilians in the besieged enclave as the Israeli military is attacking the area with wild abandon.  Overnight on Wednesday, stretching into the early hours of Thursday morning, an intense bombing campaign took place across Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, reported Hani Mahmoud from Gaza for Al Jazeera. “Overnight, we’re looking at attacks in the eastern part, the northern part, and even the western part where literally hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering,” Mahmoud said, describing the sounds of systematic home demolitions in the north. 

“This is absolutely terrifying in a densely populated area. Right now, Rafah has been a center for Israeli attacks,” Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum added.

The Israeli military has also continued its attacks on Gaza City, where the military demanded all residents of the Zeitoun and Turkmen neighborhoods urgently move to al-Mawasi area in Rafah’s outskirts in the south of the Gaza Strip. To do so, they would have to travel more than 30km through ongoing attacks and bombed roads of the war zone. 

Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli army, told the Palestinians on X that the evacuation order comes “for your safety”, despite there being no safe place in the war-torn and besieged enclave. Israeli attacks on the supposed ‘safe areas’ have continued. On Wednesday, a shelter run by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) in al-Masawi was targeted by Israeli forces.

According to the statement, an Israeli tank fired on the building, sheltering 64 MSF employees and family members, killing the wife and daughter-in-law of an MSF worker. Nearby shelling prevented an ambulance from reaching the facility to assist the wounded for more than two hours. Israeli forces had been “clearly informed of the precise location of this MSF shelter in al-Mawasi” and that the building was additionally identified with a large MSF flag, the organization added.  “These killings underscore the grim reality that nowhere in Gaza is safe, that promises of safe areas are empty and deconfliction mechanisms unreliable,” said MSF general director Meinie Nicolai. “The amount of force being used in densely populated urban environments is staggering, and targeting a building knowing it is full of humanitarian workers and their families is unconscionable.” 

Just a few hours after the evacuation order in Gaza City, Israeli forces killed journalist Ihab Nasrallah and his wife in Zeitoun. Their three children were also badly burned, reported Wafa, citing medical sources.  In Nuseirat, in central Gaza, air strikes on the home of the al-Daalis family killed 17 people and wounded dozens of others, who were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in neighboring Deir el-Balah, Wafa added.

Families across the Gaza Strip have continued to shelter in the ruins of schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) because they have nowhere else to go, the UN agency says in a post on X. “Entire neighborhoods are gone without a trace. Military operations relentlessly continue. No place is safe.”

-- From "‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 139" by Leila Warah for Mondoweiss, 22 Feb 2024

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes from the unconscionable murder of innocent civilians by the Israeli occupation army after targeting a civilian vehicle with a tank shell as the person drives down the street in Rafah city. After hitting the vehicle, the tank fires a second shell at the civilian, who'd exited his damaged vehicle and was lying in the street at the time.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏠💥 🚨

💥ISRAELI MASSACRES OF PALESTINIAN FAMILIES CONTINUES ON THE 138TH DAY OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP💥

Israeli occupation atrocities were recorded for the 138th day of Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip as attacks on civilian homes, vehicles and places of gathering across the enclave continued by land, sea and air.

According to Gaza's media office, the Israeli occupation committed a total of 11 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 118 civilians, mostly women and children, and the wounding of another 163 others.

In a clear violation of International humanitarian law, the Israeli occupation army bombed in the vicinity of Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, injuring several civilians and damaging the hospital's buildings as the siege of the hospital by occupation forces continues.

Sources with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) say around 120 injured civilians, patients and medical staff remain at Nasser Hospital as PRCS works to transfer the wounded to the International Medical Corps and the Indonesian field hospitals in Rafah, also in the southern Gaza Strip. PRCS said they transported 21 wounded civilians from Nasser Medical Complex on Tuesday and are continuing to transfer patients at this time.

At the same time, Israeli tanks opened fire on displaced civilians in the Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Yunis, slaughtering six Palestinian civilians.

PRCS is also reporting the completion of a mission to evacuate two martyrs and 8 wounded civilians from the Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctor's Without Borders) headquarters located on Rashid Street, west of Khan Yunis governate.

The Red Crescent Society said they carried out the mission in conjunction with, and accompanied by, a team from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), helping to transfer the wounded to the International Medical Corps in Rafah.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation bombed residences in the village of Khuza'a, east of Khan Yunis, resulting in the murder of 8 Palestinians.

According to local reports, ambulance crews discovered a number of dead and wounded in the Al-Mawasi neighborhood and in the New Port area north of Khan Yunis, after the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) withdrew military vehicles and tanks that had previously moved into the two neighborhoods around dawn.

According to reports, the Israeli occupation air forces bombed three civilian homes in the Shaboura Camp in central Rafah, while occupation gunboats fired artillery shells towards the tents of the displaced in the Al-Mawasi neighborhood west of Rafah, with several casualties reported as a result.

In another horrific atrocity, Israeli occupation forces bombarded central Rafah with airstrikes and artillery fire towards a gathering of local civilians, resulting in the death of a civilian and the wounding of several others.

In continued horrors in the central Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombarded multiple civilian residences in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah Refugee Camps, killing 34 civilians and wounding a number of others.

According to local sources, at least 20 civilians were killed after Israeli aircraft bombed the Khattab family home in Deir al-Balah.

Simultaneously, occupation jets bombed a civilian home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, resulting in the deaths of at least 12 Palestinians, while another home bombed by occupation warplanes resulted in the deaths of two Palestinians in the Al-Zahra area.

In another crime against humanity, the Israeli Occupation Forces targeted the home of Professor Nasser Abu Al-Nour, Dean of Faculty of Nursing at the Islamic University in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 8 civilians, including a lawyer from the Women's unit at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Nour Nasser Abu Al-Nour (Juma), along with her child, Kenzi and four of her daughters.

Israeli artillery shelling fired from a tank also targeted a civilian vehicle in Rafah, killing two civilians.

In the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation army launched a massive ground operation in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, announcing that the operation would continue for at least two weeks.

Israeli forces also stormed various areas of Al-Zaytoun, killing 5 Palestinians and killing another 5 in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, while several others were killed after incursions into the Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City.

There was also a marked increase in the number of bombings and shelling across the entirety of the northern Gaza Strip.

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, at least 8 Palestinians have died after a power outage cut off oxygen for patients at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.

The report says that, due to the Israeli siege of the hospital, the dead were unable to be removed from the hospital in a timely fashion, resulting in the beginning of decomposition as the bodies remained in their beds amongst living patients for four days. Medical staff have asked that the Israeli army withdraw to allow a proper burial of their dead, but the siege continues unabated.

As a result of Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among Palestinians has risen to 29'313 martyrs, while an additional 69'333 civilians have been wounded since the beginning of Israeli aggression on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[news4dzhozhar]

IT HAS HAPPENED AGAIN!!!

Palestinian officials call latest assault ‘premeditated’ as people seeking humanitarian supplies increasingly targeted.

At least 21 Palestinians have been killed after Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of people waiting for aid in Gaza City in the same area that was targeted hours earlier, government officials said.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza described the late Thursday attack as a “new, premeditated massacre” and said more than 150 people were wounded.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces had used helicopters, tanks and drones to target thousands of people waiting on food trucks.

It was the latest in a string of assaults on people desperately in need of food and other essential supplies as Israel continues to obstruct and severely control the entry of aid into the enclave.

Earlier on Thursday, at the same food distribution point at the Kuwait Roundabout, Israeli forces had shot dead at least six Palestinians, as the death toll has risen to more than 400 people in such attacks.

The Israeli military carried out five separate attacks on aid distribution centres in the past 48 hours in the Gaza Strip, killing 56 people and injuring more than 300,  the media office of the enclave’s government said on Friday.

“We hold the US administration and the international community, in addition to the ‘Israeli’ occupation, fully responsible for the crime of genocide,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

The Israeli military denied that its forces had opened fire on the crowds and claimed instead that “armed Palestinians” were responsible for the attack.

“Armed Palestinians opened fire while Gazan civilians were awaiting the arrival of the aid convoy” in Gaza City on Thursday and then “continued to shoot as the crowd of Gazans began looting the trucks”, the military said in a statement on Friday.

“Additionally, a number of Gazan civilians were run over by the trucks,” it said, adding that a preliminary review determined that its forces did not carry out the attack with tanks, guns or air strikes.

The military was “continuing to review the incident”, it said.

Weapon of war

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said on Friday that incidents of Israeli forces shooting at Palestinians searching for food “cannot be allowed to continue”.

“People should not have to die while trying to keep their families alive,” he said in a post on X.

“Distributing aid in Gaza should be done in a safe, dignified and predictable manner. Anything less is unconscionable. The war must end.”

Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the ongoing killings of aid seekers represent a breakdown in communication between aid groups and Israeli authorities.

“It’s a clear sign that the deconfliction system, in which humanitarian agencies and the UN notify and correspond with Israel … is completely failing,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that this system is meant to allow aid agencies to inform Israel of routes they will take to ensure they aren’t targeted.

“This is something that is preventable and shouldn’t be happening,” Low added.

Rights groups say that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.

With Israel’s war on Gaza now in its sixth month, the United Nations has warned that at least 576,000 people in the enclave – a quarter of the population – are on the brink of famine, and global pressure has been growing on Israel to allow more access to aid.

Israel, which controls Gaza’s crossings, has opened just one entry point into the enclave since the start of the war and imposed “endless checking procedures” for trucks to pass through, UN agencies say.

Faced with Israel’s obstruction of aid trucks, the international community has devised complicated workarounds, including a sea corridor from Cyprus to the besieged Strip and plans by the United States to set up a temporary jetty off Gaza’s coast to bring in supplies –  a move criticised as an attempt to divert attention from Washington’s continued military and political support for Israel as famine looms and the onslaught persists.

Last month, Israeli forces killed 118 people scrambling for flour on the coastal al-Rashid Street, southwest of Gaza City, provoking worldwide condemnation, but the attacks have nonetheless continued unabated.

The Gaza Health Ministry said in its latest update on Friday that at least 31,490 Palestinians have been killed and 73,439  wounded by Israeli attacks since October 7.

[nivenus]

Nations, States, and People

Hey all!

So, since November, I've been a member of the Libertarian Socialists of Portland, an affiliated group of the Democratic Socialists of America, Portland. I've been in charge of writing newsletters, but when I wrote this last one, I was unable to reach consensus on the subject matter I chose to talk about, Israel and Palestine.

Nonetheless, I felt it was important to share so while i've removed the editorial from this month's newsletter for the group, I'm sharing it here. Please note all opinions expressed below are my own:

It took me awhile to decide what I wanted to talk about for this editorial, but my mind kept coming back to one topic, over and over: the current disaster in Gaza. I think I avoided the subject on first impulse because of how fraught it is. But I also think it’s an important one to discuss.

With that in mind, let me make me clear that I speak only for myself on this subject, not for anyone else in the Libertarian Socialists of Portland or Democratic Socialists of America. I also would like to make it clear, first and foremost, that Israel is an apartheid state and that the occupation of West Bank and Gaza is immoral, illegal, and inhuman.

Nonetheless, whenever I think about Israel and Palestine, I’m reminded of how it is a good example of how few conflicts are cut and dry, especially when states are involved. The dishonest, skewed framing of left-wing protesters as pro-Hamas by centrist and right-wing media is a perfect case of this, as is the German government’s severe crackdown on pro-Palestinian groups. But this tendency towards binary thinking can also be seen among many of us on the left, where some have either disregarded the suffering of Israeli victims on October 6 or the wave of anti-Semitism many Jews in the West have experienced during the ongoing war.

This is not to say that Israelis or Jews have suffered more than Palestinians or Muslims. Over 1,000 Israelis died on October 6, but since then almost 20 times as many Palestinians have been killed. In both cases, the majority have been civilians. The truth is both Muslims and Jews, Arabs and Israelis, have suffered enormously and peace would be beneficial to both sides. Which brings me to what I really want to talk about: the distinction between nation-states and people.

Part of the issue, I feel, with many narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to talk about Israel and Palestine each as if they are uniform entities. When commentators talk about Israel, they often mean all Israelis (or worse than that, all Jews). When people talk about Palestine, they often mean all Palestinians (or worse, all Arabs or Muslims). This results not just in a skewed view of reality but unconscionable acts of violence and hate speech toward people who have nothing to do with the war aside from faith they practice or the language they speak, something that has happened repeatedly since this war began in multiple countries.

Israel and Palestine are not uniform. Israel is composed not only of people like Benjamin Netanyahu or Itamar Ben-Gvir, but also of people like Arik Ascherman, who has defended Palestinians in the West Bank against Israeli settlers, or Vivian Silver, who was tragically killed during the October 6 attacks. Palestine is not Hamas, but also Ali Abu Awwad, a nonviolent activist committed to peace between Jews and Arabs, and Hanan Ashrawi, a woman awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2003 for her work toward resolving the conflict. Although many Israelis support the occupation of the West Bank, many others do not. Although many Palestinians support Hamas, many others do not. Nations are not monolithic.

This doesn’t mean that both sides in the conflict are “equally wrong.” As I noted before, Palestinians have suffered far, far more in this conflict than Israelis have. Nor does it mean that the virtues of some can wash out the crimes of others. But it does mean that we should remember the essential humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians. There is no such thing as a victimless killing. There is no such thing as a war that does not engender cruelty and wickedness. And there is no such thing as a people who are all good or all bad.

This binary way of thinking, where we think one group is all the same, is not worthy of socialism. And it is certainly not what libertarian socialism should be. I think of Abdullah Ocalan’s words in his manifesto of democratic confederalism, the ideology of Rojava: “Diversity and plurality [have] to be fought, an approach that [leads] into assimilation and genocide… [the state] aims at creating a single national culture, a single national identity, and a single unified religious community. Thus it also enforces a homogeneous citizenship. The notion of citizen has been created as a result of the quest for such a homogeneity.” If the libertarian socialist fighters of Syria recognize that ethnonationalism is a trap, how can we, who do not face the same challenges and moral dilemmas as them, not be equally clear minded?

The state and the people it governs are not identical. Are all Americans guilty of the Bush administration’s crimes? Did the citizens of Japan deserve to have the atomic bomb dropped on them as punishment for the Rape of Nanking? Do all Russians in all countries deserve to be treated with contempt because of Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine?

Such narratives can even be counterproductive towards the ones they mean to protect. Consider the case of modern Germany, where Germany’s historic (and in many ways commemorable) institutional memory of the Holocaust has led the state to declare Israel the German state’s “reason to exist.” This in turn has led Germany not only to persecute Palestinian activists but Jewish ones who criticize Israel’s policies! As Deborah Feldman, a German Jewish activist for Palestine said, the German government must now decide between Israel and Jews. Because they are not the same thing.

When we advocate for peace (and advocate for peace we must), I ask us all to do just one thing, which is to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, to think about the Gaza War not as an ideological cause celebre or a metric by which we measure our own righteousness, but as what it is: a calamitous conflict that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people and continues to bring suffering to millions.

Arthur Niven