Israel #5

Israel Defense Forces IDF | 12:42 AM · Oct 26, 2023:
In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza.
IDF tanks & infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.
The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory.
1:01 ( https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1717401249199329634 )

Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en | 10:11 AM · Oct 26, 2023:

⚡️Delegation of Hamas, chaired by Abu Marzook, a Palestinian senior member of Hamas, has arrived to Moscow - confirmed by spokesperson for Russian foreign affairs ministry Zakharova.

Upd{ate}. A delegation from Iran has also arrived in Moscow.

Photo ( https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1717544548639871141/photo/1 )

Update with Alastair Crooke.

"Judge Nap: Do you think that President Biden is under pressure from the globalists and neocons around him to take this as an opportunity, once and for all, to destroy the regime and its nuclear capability in Tehran?

Alastair Crooke: I think so, yes. I think there's pressure. I'm not saying he's succumbed to it. I'm not saying it will prevail, but you have to look at it from the other end of the telescope too.

In the region, people look at this huge build-up and they see, is America preparing for World War III?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDzPIitIqM

Wrong thread

#134 in previous thread: photos of Mariupol before and after Russian attacks
( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/28/mariupol-before-and-after-updated-... )

Looks like Israel has its buffer? Without significant outside assistance--or Israeli--Gaza surely can't afford to rebuild?

Before and after satellite images show destruction in Gaza
CNN Staff | October 25, 2023
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/middleeast/satellite-images-gaza-destruction/inde...

Glad we don't have to see this, but important that some do--so no denying Hamas's crimes on 7 Oct 2023...

A Record of Pure, Predatory Sadism
Officials in Israel screened footage of the Hamas attack for the press: “What we shared with you, you should know it,” one official said.
Graeme Wood | October 23, 2023
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/why-israeli-officials-screened...

Nick Schifrin {PBS} @nickschifrin | 10:02 PM · Oct 26, 2023:

BREAKING: First US airstrikes since Oct 7 terrorist attack:

@secdef statement:
Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted self-defense strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17. As a result of these attacks, one U.S. citizen contractor died from a cardiac incident while sheltering in place; 21 U.S. personnel suffered from minor injuries, but all have since returned to duty. The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.

The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop. Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.

These narrowly-tailored strikes in self-defense were intended solely to protect and defend U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria. They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict. We continue to urge all state and non-state entities not to take action that would escalate into a broader regional conflict.

Israel: From the Six-Day War to the Six-Front War
Thomas Friedman | Oct. 25, 2023

...This war is being fought by and through nonstate actors, nation-states, social networks, ideological movements, West Bank communities and Israeli political factions, and it is the most complex war that I’ve ever covered. But one thing is crystal clear to me: Israel cannot win this six-front war alone. It can win only if Israel — and the United States — can assemble a global alliance.

Unfortunately, Israel today has a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and a ruling coalition that will not and cannot produce the keystone needed to sustain such a global alliance. That keystone is to declare an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and overhaul Israel’s relations with the Palestinian Authority so that it becomes a credible, legitimate Palestinian partner that can govern a post-Hamas Gaza and forge a broader two-state solution including the West Bank.

...a lot of the strength of that alliance today rests on Joe Biden and the fact that he brings to this crisis a set of core, gut principles about America’s role in the world, right versus wrong, democracy versus autocracy. Another president with those instincts may not come along again anytime soon.

In other words, Biden has created diplomatic working capital — that comes with a time limit — for both Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. They must both use it wisely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/opinion/israel-gaza-palestine-war.html
{unlocked at https://twitter.com/simon_schama/status/1717883431952978351}

Yonatan Touval @Yonatan_Touval | 3:26 PM · Oct 27, 2023:
Geopolitical and security analyst, Head of Intel @LeBeckInt. Commentator on international affairs. Columnist for @AlMajallaEN.

#ANALYSIS: Tonight's IDF ground operation raises the possibility that the anticipated "ground invasion" has been a misconception.

IDF spox has consistently talked of"ground maneuvers" "timrunim". Hence we might see gradual and widening maneuvers, not a clear-cut "invasion."

Photo ( https://twitter.com/Yonatan_Touval/status/1717986180325667218/photo/1 )

A Time article:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-cast-doubt-gazas-death-194208480.html

The thrust of this is that the Palestinians are claiming more deaths from Israel's continual bombing of Gaza than actual....and after which the Palestinians put names to the 6747 they've claimed. I'd guess the number is wrong too but not on the high end.....on the low end. There are bodies that will be buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings---some who haven't been found and some who are still alive but won't be if not rescued and their clocks are ticking. No names have been put to them yet. Another issue I have with Biden here is his claiming this is what happens in war. Israel bombing civilians is not what I would call a war. A war is when at least two sides are fighting each other. The Palestinians that the Israelis are bombing are not fighting.....they're sitting ducks waiting for bombs to fall on their heads and they have no defenses against that. The Biden administration and a very very high % of the Democratic Party in DC here are supporting war crimes from a hard right wing Israeli govt.

Jim Sciutto {CNN} @jimsciutto | 9:48 AM · Oct 28, 2023:

“It’s just going to sink us deeper into this abyss and then what? Another war to be added to the many wars we had in the region? That saved no one.” - Jordanian FM @AymanHsafadi reacting to expanding Israeli ground operations in Gaza.

2:20 ( https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1718263481445630463 )

Chris Blattman @cblatts | 8:24 AM · Oct 27, 2023:
Economist, political scientist & writer UChicago @HarrisPolicy.

Timing is everything: Arab Barometer interviewed a random sample of 399 Gazans between Sept 28 and Oct 6—the day before Hamas’ attack. Fatah has more support than Hamas, and a majority support a peaceful settlement with Israel, principally the two state solution based on the Oslo Accords.

https://reader.foreignaffairs.com/2023/10/25/what-palestinians-really-think-of-h...

Bar graph
https://twitter.com/cblatts/status/1717879998575530000/photo/1
Text:
https://twitter.com/cblatts/status/1717879998575530000/photo/2
https://twitter.com/cblatts/status/1717879998575530000/photo/3

Jewish Voice for Peace @jvplive | 6:22 PM · Oct 27, 2023
Jews organizing toward Palestinian liberation and Judaism beyond Zionism

⚠️ HAPPENING NOW AT NYC'S GRAND CENTRAL STATION: THOUSANDS OF JEWS AND ALLIES HOLD AN EMERGENCY SIT-IN, DEMANDING A CEASEFIRE IN GAZA. WE'RE TAKING OVER THE GRAND CONCOURSE. WE'RE REFUSING TO ALLOW A GENOCIDE BE CARRIED OUT IN OUR NAMES. CEASEFIRE NOW! NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE! ⚠️

Jewish Voice for Peace NYC (Photos)
https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1718030480459620604/photo/1
https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1718030480459620604/photo/2
https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1718030480459620604/photo/3
https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1718030480459620604/photo/4

Jim Sciutto {CNN} @jimsciutto | 5:16 PM · Oct 27, 2023:

Hamas leaders underwhelmed by their allies’ support so far:
Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, told the AP Hezbollah and others were expected to play a bigger role as the Israel-Hamas war rages, “…we need more in order to stop the aggression on Gaza … We expect more.”

>13 margd: Bravo! wish I could be there. Hope someone is listening

It's all going to kick off now. And when it's over, there will be a new world. I think a lot of people will be unhappy with that world.

------
Meanwhile:
WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. has stopped issuing export licenses for most civilian firearms and ammunition for 90 days for all non-governmental users, the Commerce Department said on Friday, citing national security and foreign policy interests.

The Commerce Department did not provide further details for the pause, which also includes shotguns and optical sights, but said an urgent review will assess the "risk of firearms being diverted to entities or activities that promote regional instability, violate human rights, or fuel criminal activities."

The Commerce Department declined to comment beyond the posting on its website.

The halt covers most of the guns and ammunition that could be purchased in a U.S. gun store, said Johanna Reeves, a lawyer who specializes in export controls and firearms with the law firm Reeves & Dola in Washington.

Reeves said she had not seen the Commerce Department take such a sweeping action like this before. "For sure they have individual country policies – but nothing like this," she said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-halts-exports-most-civilian-firearms-90-days...

>16 davidgn: FINALLY, says Mexico?

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Absolutely masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France's opposition to the Iraq war and who, IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades.

This is so important, so incredibly well argued, that I decided to translate it in full:

"Hamas has set a trap for us, and this trap is one of maximum horror, of maximum cruelty. And so there's a risk of an escalation in militarism, of more military interventions, as if we could with armies solve a problem as serious as the Palestinian question.

There's also a second major trap, which is that of Occidentalism. We find ourselves trapped, with Israel, in this western bloc which today is being challenged by most of the international community.

Presenter: What is Occidentalism?

Occidentalism is the idea that the West, which for 5 centuries managed the world's affairs, will be able to quietly continue to do so. And we can clearly see, even in the debates of the French political class, that there is the idea that, faced with what is currently happening in the Middle East, we must continue the fight even more, towards what might resemble a religious or a civilizational war. That is to say, to isolate ourselves even more on the international stage.

This is not the way, especially since there's a third trap, which is that of moralism. And here we have in a way the proof, through what is happening in Ukraine and what is happening in the Middle East, of this double standard that is denounced everywhere in the world, including in recent weeks when I travel to Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America. The criticism is always the same: look at how civilian populations are treated in Gaza, you denounce what happened in Ukraine, and you are very timid in the face of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.

Consider international law, the second criticism that is made by the global south. We sanction Russia when it aggresses Ukraine, we sanction Russia when it doesn't respect the resolutions of the United Nations, and it's been 70 years that the resolutions of the United Nations have been voted in vain and that Israel doesn't respect them.

Presenter: Do you believe that the Westerners are currently guilty of hubris?

Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers.

Presenter: What is the historical drama? I mean, we're talking about the tragedy of October 7th first and foremost, right?

Of course, there are these horrors happening, but the way to respond to them is crucial. Are we going to kill the future by finding the wrong answers...

Presenter: Kill the future?

Kill the future, yes! Why?

Presenter: But who is killing whom?

You are in a game of causes and effects. Faced with the tragedy of history, one cannot take this 'chain of causality' analytical grid, simply because if you do you can't escape from it. Once we understand that there is a trap, once we realize that behind this trap there has also been a change in the Middle East regarding the Palestinian issue... The situation today is profoundly different from what it was in the past. The Palestinian cause was a political and secular cause. Today we are faced with an Islamist cause, led by Hamas. Obviously, this kind of cause is absolute and allows no form of negotiation. On the Israeli side, there has also been a development. Zionism was secular and political, championed by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century. It has largely become messianic, biblical today. This means that they too do not want to compromise, and everything that the far-right Israeli government does, continuing to encourage colonization, obviously makes things worse, including since October 7th. So in this context, understand that we are already in this region facing a problem that seems profoundly insoluble.

Added to this is the hardening of states. Diplomatically, look at the statements of the King of Jordan, they are not the same as six months ago. Look at the statements of Erdogan in Turkey.

Presenter: Precisely, these are extremely harsh statements...

Extremely worrying. Why? Because if the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian issue, hasn't been brought to the forefront, hasn't been put on stage for a while, and if most of the youth today in Europe have often never even heard of it, it remains for the Arab peoples the mother of all battles. All the progress made towards an attempt to stabilize the Middle East, where one could believe...

Presenter: Yes, but whose fault is it? I have a hard time following you, is it Hamas's fault?

But Ms. Malherbe, I am trained as a diplomat. The question of fault will be addressed by historians and philosophers.

Presenter: But you can't remain neutral, it's difficult, it's complicated, isn't it?

I am not neutral, I am in action. I am simply telling you that every day that passes, we can ensure that this horrific cycle stops... that's why I speak of a trap and that's why it's so important to know what response we are going to give. We stand alone before history today. And we do not treat this new world the way we currently do, knowing that today we are no longer in a position of strength, we are not able to manage on our own, as the world's policemen.

Presenter: So what do we do?

Exactly, what should we do? This is where it is essential not to cut off anyone on the international stage.

Presenter: Including the Russians?

Everyone.

Presenter: Everyone? Should we ask the Russians for help?

I'm not saying we should ask the Russians for help. I'm saying: if the Russians can contribute by calming some factions in this region, then it will be a step in the right direction.

Presenter: How can we proportionally respond to barbarism? It's no longer army against army.

But listen, Appolline de Malherbe, the civilian populations that are dying in Gaza, don't they exist? So because horror was committed on one side, horror must be committed on the other?

Presenter: Do we indeed need to equate the two?

No, it's you who are doing that. I'm not saying I equate the faults. I try to take into account what a large part of humanity thinks. There is certainly a realistic objective to pursue, which is to eradicate the Hamas leaders who committed this horror. And not to confuse the Palestinians with Hamas, that's a realistic goal.

The second thing is a targeted response. Let's define realistic political objectives. And the third thing is a combined response. Because there is no effective use of force without a political strategy. We are not in 1973 or in 1967. There are things no army in the world knows how to do, which is to win in an asymmetrical battle against terrorists. The war on terror has never been won anywhere. And it instead triggers extremely dramatic misdeeds, cycles, and escalations. If America lost in Afghanistan, if America lost in Iraq, if we lost in the Sahel, it's because it's a battle that can't be won simply, it's not like you have a hammer that strikes a nail and the problem is solved. So we need to mobilize the international community, get out of this Western entrapment in which we are.

Presenter: But when Emmanuel Macron talks about an international coalition…

Yes, and what was the response?

Presenter: None.

Exactly. We need a political perspective, and this is challenging because the two-state solution has been removed from the Israeli political and diplomatic program. Israel needs to understand that for a country with a territory of 20,000 square kilometers, a population of 9 million inhabitants, facing 1.5 billion people... Peoples have never forgotten that the Palestinian cause and the injustice done to the Palestinians was a significant source of mobilization. We must consider this situation, and I believe it is essential to help Israel, to guide... some say impose, but I think it's better to convince, to move in this direction. The challenge is that there is no interlocutor today, neither on the Israeli side nor the Palestinian side. We need to bring out interlocutors.

Presenter: It's not for us to choose who will be the leaders of Palestine.

The Israeli policy over recent years did not necessarily want to cultivate a Palestinian leadership... Many are in prison, and Israel's interest - because I repeat: it was not in their program or in Israel's interest at the time, or so they thought - was instead to divide the Palestinians and ensure that the Palestinian question fades. This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle.

Presenter: The "eye for an eye, tooth for tooth".

Yes. That's why the political response must be defended by us. Israel has a right to self-defense, but this right cannot be indiscriminate vengeance. And there cannot be collective responsibility of the Palestinian people for the actions of a terrorist minority from Hamas.

When you get into this cycle of finding faults, one side's memories clash with the other's. Some will juxtapose Israel's memories with the memories of the Nakba, the 1948 catastrophe, which is a disaster that the Palestinians still experience every day. So you can't break these cycles. We must have the strength, of course, to understand and denounce what happened, and from this standpoint, there's no doubt about our position. But we must also have the courage, and that's what diplomacy is... diplomacy is about being able to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that's the cunning of history; when you're at the bottom, something can happen that gives hope. After the 1973 war, who would have thought that before the end of the decade, Egypt would sign a peace treaty with Israel?

The debate shouldn't be about rhetoric or word choice. The debate today is about action; we must act. And when you think about action, there are two options. Either it's war, war, war. Or it's about trying to move towards peace, and I'll say it again, it's in Israel's interest. It's in Israel's interest!"
0:01 / 10:25
5:42 AM · Oct 28, 2023
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>16 davidgn: "risk of firearms being diverted to entities or activities that promote regional instability, violate human rights, or fuel criminal activities."

That sounds very much like the everyday risk of selling firearms to civilians within the USA.

But as long as the USA is still allowing firearms to be sold to governments, and particularly the Israeli government given the current situation, the "risk of firearms being diverted to entities or activities that promote regional instability, violate human rights, or fuel criminal activities" continues apace, and the USA is in collusion.

A Strategy of Annihilation - Ralph Nader Radio Hour Episode 503
Nader has Col. Wilkerson on today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3JfTtcbgo0

Putting a face on one Gaza refugee:

The View from My Window in Gaza
Two days before Israel escalated attacks in the Gaza Strip, my family bought some bread. After we evacuated, I biked home to get it.
Mosab Abu Toha | October 20, 2023
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/the-view-from-my-window-in-gaza

Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler | 3:29 AM · Oct 29, 2023:
Writer, political analyst, comms consultant. UK, Israeli, US. Politics, current affairs and technology.

In the middle of the night, Netanyahu tweeted that he wasn't responsible for any failures over the October 7 massacres, and pinned the blame on the security establishment. After an outcry, including from his new coalition partner Benny Gantz, the tweet was just deleted.
---------------------------------------------------

בני גנץ - Benny Gantz @gantzbe | 2:44 AM · Oct 29, 2023:
הממלכתי.Israel's 21st Minister of Defense. 20th IDF Chief of Staff. "Blue & White" Chairman

Translated from Hebrew by Google
This morning in particular, I would like to back up and strengthen all the security forces and the soldiers of the IDF - including the Chief of Staff, the head of the IDF and the head of the Shin Bet. When we are at war, leadership must show responsibility, decide to do the right things and strengthen the forces in a way that they can to realize what we demand from them. Any other action or statement - harms the people's ability to stand and their strength.
The Prime Minister must retract his statement last night, and stop dealing with the issue.
I said yesterday that a heavy burden rests on the shoulders of the heads of the security forces for what was and will be, this morning, I would like to emphasize - we are all with you and behind you, the entire Israeli society carries the burden. Don't look up or back - continue your mission.
Love you, appreciate you and support you.

·

>22 margd: Sisi is so arrogant, he only thinks about himself and his success. How dare he! The above post was spot on.

>23 cindydavid4: Trump is another leader who makes every issue all about himself...

Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 @NTarnopolsky | 9:18 AM · Oct 29, 2023
🇮🇱Israel🇵🇸 Palestine reporter♥️🇦🇷🇨🇭🥩🍷PostNews

💥This now seems even a more significant moment than we thought last night. The Defense Minister is incapable of saying he has confidence in the Prime Minister.

... DefMin Gallant is asked is he has confidence in the prime minister and replies: "there are no disagreements regarding achieving victory."

Photo: https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1718333186827018372/photo/1

Mehmet Solmaz @MhmtSlmz | 4:25 PM · Oct 28, 2023:
Journalist | Brummie | Fenerbahçe | Previously based in Istanbul, Brussels, London

Netanyahu: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible"

1 Samuel 15:3
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass"
___________________________________________

Sherrilyn Ifill @SIfill_ | 6:10 PM · Oct 28, 2023:
Civil Rights Atty, Law Professor, Fmr President & Director-Counsel of LDF (NAACP Legal Defense Fund).

...Please. It is 2023. Not 550 B.C. This kind of collective punishment is outlawed by international law.
____________________________________________
ETA

Netanyahu Openly Calls for Genocide Citing the Bible: "Go, attack the Amalekites..."
Faruk Imamovic | 29 Oct 2023
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/netanyahu-openly-calls-for-genocide-citing-...
____________________________________________
ETA

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 10:47 AM · Oct 29, 2023:

BREAKING: White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says that Joe Biden will call Benjamin Netanyahu to urge the IDF to distinguish between soldiers and civilians in Gaza

Solidarity with Palestine: Free Resources and Further Reading

Free ebooks:

Ten myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe

The punishment of Gaza by Gideon Levy

Blaming the victims, many contributors, edited by Christopher Hitchens and Edward Said

The case for sanctions against Israel, many contributors, edited by Audrea Lim

The Palestine laboratory by Antony Loewenstein

More at the link.

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2 | 5:45 PM · Oct 28, 2023:

Starlink has emerged as a potential solution to Gaza's telecommunications blackout
Elon Musk has expressed openness to supplying it to recognised aid agencies in the Gaza Strip

As Starlink adds to the impact of fuel shortages for health care facilities, this is seen as a positive move by many humanitarian organisations

Israel fears that Starlink will be used by Hamas for terrorism and has proposed tying Starlink access to the hostage releases

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2 | 10:38 AM · Oct 29, 2023:

BREAKING: Israel allows water to flow into the second of three major pipelines to Gaza

The Gaza Strip's water crisis is not related exclusively to the current war
The coastal aquifer, which supplies Gaza with 80% of its water, functioned until the 1990s. Now it is 97% unsafe to drink due to waste contamination according to the WHO
More on the Gaza Strip's water crisis here. To give a sense of its severity, water use for all purposes (washing, cooking and drinking) fell to 3 litres per person

How bombings, blockades and import bans caused Gaza’s water system to crumble
Gaza’s already rudimentary water network has been obliterated, with 2.2 million residents trying to get by on three litres a day
Damien Gayle | 25 Oct 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/25/how-bombings-blockades-and-import-...

>24 margd: Trump is another leader who makes every issue all about himself...

ya think? if yoiu look up narcisist in the dictionary youll ssee his face: gack cant stand american pollitics any more

from the NYT "why jews cannot stop shaking right now" by Dara Horn

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/opinion/hamas-israel-jews-massacre.html

Former senior UN officials publish statement in support of the UN Secretary-General (UNA-UK)

We share his unequivocal condemnation of the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel; his call for the unconditional release of hostages; his reminder of the suffering of the Palestinian people; and his statement that while this cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas, nor can those appalling attacks justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. We express our deep dismay at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza which worsens daily, and call for the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, which is depriving civilians of goods essential for survival, which United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has noted is prohibited under international humanitarian law. We call for humanitarian access to all parts of Gaza, an end to forced displacement of civilians, and a rapid, large and sustained scale-up of humanitarian assistance across the border. Recognising that air strikes have involved disproportionate use of force in violation of international humanitarian law principles of distinction and proportionality, killing and injuring thousands of Palestinian civilians including a high proportion of women and children, as well as staff of the UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) and people taking refuge in UNRWA premises, we support the Secretary-General’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. We deplore Israel’s threatened refusal of visas to UN personnel, which will further impede humanitarian efforts...

>30 cindydavid4: Important reading. Thank you.

The Human Cost Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Niall McCarthy | May 12, 2021
https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-a...

Bar graph, The Human Cost Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ( 2008-2020 )
https://twitter.com/reel_emma_stone/status/1718735979199013077/photo/1

>32 davidgn: thanks, btw Horn also wrote People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present as well as several novels inclucing in the image and the world to come both excellent reads.

>31 John5918: yes, now if they will only listen

Looks like the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Gaza entire into the Sinai---
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/leaked-israeli-plan-to-ethnically-cleanse-gaza

---is off?
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/1234/511228/Egypt/Foreign-Affairs/Sis...

Now what?
(h/t https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/biden-forced-to-call-off-his-plans-for-eth... )

Alastair Crooke for the week.
Alastair Crooke: The Deterrence Paradigm has Failed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohj-wHm9ICk

>36 davidgn: Wow.

Quds News Network @QudsNen | 7:43 PM · Oct 27, 2023:
From #Palestine 🇵🇸 to the world.

A popular Israeli singer called Hanan Ben Ari sings for Israeli soldiers about "returning to #Gaza and making a resort on its beach" after ethnically cleansing it.

0:30 ( https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1718050822930546742 )
______________________________

margd: dubs coming...

Video of weapons being handed out to Israeli civilians. The US has warned they will stop supplying arms if this continues.

(second image is the video)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CzB91rIRYqK/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Finkelstein on Katie Halper, not to be missed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33KsfEWs9Mw

>36 davidgn: Biden Forced To Call Off His Plans For Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza

what? when did he say he was going to? link pls

>41 cindydavid4: He didn't. That is a questionable and speculative interpretation based on some very circumstantial evidence. The final linked source is very biased, but it cites more reliable sources. I cite it at all only because it brought those other sources (the first two links) to my attention.

What Biden and various members of his administration actually had planned or considered (without announcing) is not a matter of public record. The leaked document is not proof per se of operational Israeli government plans, but likely indicative of thought processes (and fits well with the sort of public pronouncements we've seen). The point is, given the Egyptian readout, barring a stunning reversal, it looks like the Biden administration is not going to allow this to happen (whether or not elements within it had been tending in that direction, as the final linked source plausibly suggests but does not prove) -- if for no other reason than that the Egyptians are intransigently opposed.

The harm caused by dehumanising language (BBC)

Sticks and stones famously break bones – but words can also hurt you. It is there in the charged rhetoric from both sides of the conflict unfolding in Israel and Gaza, just as it can be found in the language of clashes around the world: old tropes and name-calling that seek to paint whole groups of people as somehow less than human...

A UN envoy says the Israel-Hamas war is spilling into Syria, adding to growing instability there
EDITH M. LEDERER | October 31, 2023

Geir Pedersen told the Security Council that, on top of violence from the Syrian conflict, the Syrian people now face “a terrifying prospect of a potential wider escalation” following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ongoing retaliatory military action. “Spillover into Syria is not just a risk; it has already begun”...

Pedersen pointed to airstrikes attributed to Israel hitting Syria’s airports in Aleppo and Damascus several times, and retaliation by the United States against what it said were multiple attacks on its forces “by groups that it claims are backed by Iran, including on Syrian territory.”...

https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-israel-hamas-syria-envoy-71b76bbe66ef8...

Opinion: The Memories That Feed Distrust in the Middle East
Zeynep Tufekci* | Oct. 31, 2023

...there’s been an uproar over whether Hamas had beheaded babies — an unverified claim that President Biden repeated before the White House walked it back, and has been subject to much discussion since.

Indeed, since Hamas did murder children and take others as hostages, should it get credit if it didn’t also behead them? It’s an appalling thought.

Some of this skepticism is surely the result of antisemitism. But that’s not all that’s going on.

One key reason for some of the incidents of doubt is the suspicion that horrendous but false or exaggerated claims are being used as a rationale for war — and there are many such historical examples, most notably the Iraq war.

{"The terrible outcome of all this history is widespread distrust and dehumanization, as ordinary people’s loss and pain are viewed suspiciously as a potential cudgel that will cause further loss and pain for others." - zeynep}

...fabricating or exaggerating atrocities is done to influence the calculus of what the public will accept — including what costs are justified to impose on civilians...

...All this highlights the importance of voices capable of retaining trust and consistent concern for all victims...Human Rights Watch...Amnesty International...these are the kind of independent voices that need to be heard. In a context where many in the region and world already see the United States as reflexively supporting Israel, no matter its conduct, President Biden might consider elevating such independent human rights voices rather than embracing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As Amnesty International states, kidnapping civilians is a war crime and the hostages should be released, unharmed. And their families shouldn’t have to endure this suspicion {that their kidnapping was a lie} on top of their pain.

But to credibly demand that war crimes be stopped and lives respected requires equal concern extended to all victims, including the two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The victims are real — all of them — and that’s where all efforts to rebuild credibility or to seek a solution must begin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/opinion/columnists/israel-gaza-hamas-misinfor...

*Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology, science and more. Princeton
professor. @NYTimes columnist.

Col. Wilkerson in conversation with our precocious Brazilian interviewer.
Infinite Turmoil: Unending Struggles | Col. Larry Wilkerson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKZCpI_9PDc
Straight talk, as always.

>42 davidgn: thx for that, I imagine thats not the only false report aroung the situtation

Here in Az I heard a report about an Hamaas group protesting at the university's cancelation of a palestinian speaker on campus. the group ended up getting violent . Havent seen this reported any where but given the tensious on all campuses, I wouldn't be surprised

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H74hfWmIrw0

As Gaza crumbles, those speaking up for innocent Palestinians are being silenced and sacked (Guardian)

Simply opposing violence against civilians is to risk career and reputation. Where are the defenders of ‘free speech’ now?...

Arab American backing for Biden sinks over ‘rock-solid’ Israel support (Guardian)

Poll from AAI shows increase in discrimination against Arab Americans and increase in support for Donald Trump...

And here are three recent pieces from Professor Stephen Zunes:

Biden’s Backing of Israeli War Crimes Carries on a Sordid US Tradition (Truthout)

This is not the first time the U.S. has used disinformation to justify a political ally’s targeting of civilians...

Biden’s Failure on Gaza Could Cost Him the Election (The Progressive)

By refusing to call for a ceasefire as civilian deaths rise, Biden is alienating young and left-leaning voters... In response to popular outrage over widespread Israeli war crimes documented by Amnesty International and other human rights observers, the Biden Administration keeps insisting that the United States supports Israel’s “right to self-defense.” But hardly anyone is questioning Israel’s right to self-defense. What people are questioning, however, is the bombing of civilian targets... It would appear that Biden believes that massive indiscriminate attacks on crowded urban neighborhoods by Israel is somehow legitimate self-defense. The contrast between the outrage of the Biden Administration towards Russia for their attacks on civilian population centers in Ukraine with their support for Israel is striking...

How U.S. Policy Failures Have Helped Hamas (Foreign Policy in Focus)

To begin with, Washington has failed to be an honest broker in the peace process...

The leftier side of American politics or at least as far as Washington representatives have pretty much cratered over this. In the Senate Sanders has been quiet. Brown also but he's an AIPAC guy and if Fetterman wasn't one before he definitely wants to be now. Warren? In the House you have about two handfuls of Justice democrats and that's it. And the American public's support for Israel is a lot more mixed. As the above points out they're targeting people like on college campuses whenever they can. It's shitty. Biden's risking a whole lot of positive things up until now on this and I suspect it's going to cost him in turnout. Michigan which has the largest Arabic population and is a state he needs is more than up for grabs now.

>49 lriley: Bernie Sanders quiet? By his usual standards?

Bernie Sanders @SenSanders | 3:10 PM · Oct 26, 2023:
The time is NOW for a humanitarian pause in the bombing so that desperately needed aid can get to the men, women, and children of Gaza and that hostages can be immediately released. We must avert a total and horrific humanitarian disaster. Here is my speech on the Senate floor.
6:50 ( https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1717619671405375978 )

Bernie Sanders @SenSanders | 3:44 PM · Oct 27, 2023:
Today, we remember and mourn for the victims lost five years ago in the devastating massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue.
We must remain committed to fighting all forms of bigotry, antisemitism, intolerance, racism, and xenophobia.

Bernie Sanders @SenSanders | 3:47 PM · Oct 28, 2023:
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire, and getting worse by the minute. Israel must obey international law and allow innocent men, women, and children the food, water, medical supplies, and fuel that is desperately needed. NOW.

Bernie Sanders @SenSanders | 1:14 PM · Oct 30, 2023:
The U.S. provides $3.8 billion a year to Israel. The Biden administration and Congress must make it clear. Israel has the right to defend itself and destroy Hamas terrorism, but it does not have the right to use U.S. dollars to kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.

ETA
Israel War Room @IsraelWarRoom | 10:46 AM · Nov 5, 2023:
#BREAKING: Bernie Sanders rejects calls for a ceasefire to benefit Hamas.
"I don't know how you can have a permanent cease fire with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel.
HAMAS HAS GOT TO GO”
0:36 ( https://twitter.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1721192375362396302 )
____________________________________________
Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

Blinken to visit Israel on Friday
DW | 1 Nov 2023

..."Secretary Blinken will travel to Israel on Friday for meetings with members of the Israeli government, and then will make other stops in the region," {State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller} said.

Earlier this month, Blinken visited Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-un-chief-deeply-alarmed-by-escalation/liv...
_______________________________________________
Islamophobia also high right now? Unless I'm over-generalizing due to proximity to Dearborn, MI?)

FBI Director: Antisemitism is reaching “historic levels” in the US.
Hannah Rabinowitz | October 31, 2023

...“the Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum” including homegrown violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, and domestic violent extremists.

“In fact, our statistics would indicate that for a group that represents only about 2.4% of the American public, they account for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes,” {FBI Director Christopher Wray} said of the Jewish American population...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/politics/fbi-director-antisemitism-wray/index.htm...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brT0RZRpBEg
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: How Israel is harming itself.
"You recently wrote, Professor Sachs, that Israel is running out of time to save itself. What did you mean by that?"

Europe, the Jews, and the Muslim World | Dr. Michael Brenner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOltA8oQyvc
(*Brenner is prof. emeritus of int'l affairs at Pitt)

South American countries recall ambassadors and cut ties with Israel over war with Hamas
Bolivia’s leftwing government cuts diplomatic ties with Israel, alleging crimes and human rights abuses in Gaza, as Chile and Colombia recall ambassadors
Tom Phillips | 31 Oct 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/bolivia-israel-hamas-gaza-war-crim...
________________________________________
An observation...

Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum | 11:50 PM · Nov 1, 2023:
Staff writer @TheAtlantic . @SNFAgoraJHU . Author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Red Famine, Twilight of Democracy.

Did South American countries recall ambassadors and cut their ties with Russia when the Russian army destroyed the city of Mariupol, killing and displacing tens of thousands of people? I can't remember that happening

The Israeli Officials I Speak With Tell Me They Know Two Things for Sure
Thomas L. Friedman | Oct. 29, 2023

I am watching the Israel-Hamas war and thinking about one of the world leaders I’ve most admired: Manmohan Singh. He was India’s prime minister in late November 2008 when 10 Pakistani jihadist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, widely believed to be linked to Pakistan’s military intelligence, infiltrated India and killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, including 61 at two luxury hotels. What was Singh’s military response to India’s Sept. 11?

He did nothing.

Singh never retaliated militarily against the nation of Pakistan or Lashkar camps in Pakistan. It was a remarkable act of restraint. What was the logic? In his book Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy, India’s foreign secretary at the time, Shivshankar Menon, explained, making these key points:

“I myself pressed at that time for immediate visible retaliation” against the jihadist bases or against Pakistani military intelligence, “which was clearly complicit,” Menon wrote. “To have done so would have been emotionally satisfying and gone some way toward erasing the shame of the incompetence that India’s police and security agencies displayed.”

He continued, “But on sober reflection and in hindsight, I now believe that the decision not to retaliate militarily and to concentrate on diplomatic, covert and other means was the right one for that time and place.”

Chief among the reasons, Menon said, was that any military response would have quickly obscured just how outrageous and terrible the raid on Indian civilians and tourists was; “the fact of a terrorist attack from Pakistan on India with official involvement on the Pakistan side” would have been lost. Once India retaliated, the world would immediately have had what Menon called a “ho-hum reaction.” Just another Pakistani-Indian dust-up — nothing unusual here.

Moreover, Menon wrote, “an Indian attack on Pakistan would have united Pakistan behind the Pakistan Army, which was in increasing domestic disrepute,” and “an attack on Pakistan would also have weakened the civilian government in Pakistan, which had just been elected to power and which sought a much better relationship with India than the Pakistan Army was willing to consider.” He continued, “A war scare, and maybe even a war itself, was exactly what the Pakistan Army wanted to buttress its internal position.”

In addition, he wrote, “a war, even a successful war, would have imposed costs and set back the progress of the Indian economy just when the world economy in November 2008 was in an unprecedented financial crisis.”

In conclusion, said Menon, “by not attacking Pakistan, India was free to pursue all legal and covert means to achieve its goals of bringing the perpetrators to justice, uniting the international community to force consequences on Pakistan for its behavior and to strengthen the likelihood that such an attack would not take place again.”

I understand that Israel is not India — a country of 1.4 billion people, covering a massive territory. The loss of more than 160 people in Mumbai, some of them tourists, was not felt in every home and hamlet, as were Hamas’s killing of roughly 1,400 Israelis, the maiming of countless others and the kidnapping of more than 200 people. Pakistan also has nuclear weapons to deter retaliation.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to reflect on the contrast between India’s response to the Mumbai terrorist attack and Israel’s response to the Hamas slaughter...

...Israel should keep the door open for a humanitarian cease-fire and prisoner exchange that will also allow Israel to pause and reflect on exactly where it is going with its rushed Gaza military operation — and the price it could pay over the long haul...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/israel-hamas-ceasefire.html

>54 margd:

Nice to hear a bit of common sense amongst all the "emotionally satisfying" and totally pointless violence.

>53 margd: contd

Jordan recalls envoy in Israel over Gaza bombardment {and told the Israeli ambassador to stay away}
Suleiman Al-Khalidi | November 1, 2023

...The ambassador would only return to Tel Aviv if Israel halted its war on the enclave and ended "the humanitarian crisis it has caused," Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said.

"This is to express Jordan's stance that rejects and condemns the Israeli war on Gaza that kills innocents and is causing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe," Safadi said in a statement carried on state media.

Safadi said the decision was also taken because Israel was depriving Palestinians of food, water and medicines after it imposed a siege on the enclave following a devastating assault by Hamas on Israel on Oct 7.

...The conflict has stirred long-standing fears in Jordan, home to a large population of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, that a wider conflagration would give Israel the chance to implement a transfer policy to expel Palestinians en masse from the West Bank...

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-recalls-envoy-israel-over-gaza-...

Just for some context there are reasons why air strikes against defenseless civilian populations have been considered war crimes pretty much post WWII. The first such came in the Spanish Civil War when the Nazi's bombed Guernica in the Basque region of Spain. The same bombed and strafed fleeing French and Belgian refugees and then later the Battle of Britain was alll about stopping Nazi bombers from laying waste to Britain's cities. The allies in time responded with even worse atrocities firebombing German cities and eventually hitting Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs.

We've since bombed Yugoslavia and did the shock and awe bullshit in Iraq. The Russians did the same in Chechnya....blew up Grozny and Mariupol. There are the drone strikes that sometimes hit their targets but almost always seem to take a bunch of innocents with them. Even if we and the Russians have done all this and more there really isn't an exception clause to a war crime. What there is is unaccountability on the national or the world stage and Israel is another country that has done shit like this before....is doing it again now and thinks it should be an exception too. They might in the end drive all the Palestinians out of their country but my guess is they're already setting back whatever goodwill they've been able to build in the region over the last few decades back to the point where they'll be considered by neighboring countries as a pariah.

>58 lriley: Israel can't have peace with PM Netanyahu at the helm. He needs to go. The Israeli president, too?
__________________________________________

Scoop: Wounded Palestinians treated in Egypt may return to Gaza after war, Israel says
headshot
Barak Ravid | 1 Nov 2023

Israel has told the U.S, Egypt, the U.K. and other countries that any Palestinian who leaves Gaza for medical treatment will be allowed to return after the Israel-Hamas war...

...Under the new agreement, 80 or so wounded Palestinians were evacuated from the Gaza Strip to hospitals in Egypt on Wednesday. 1/11/2023...represent a tiny fraction of the thousands of people the Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported wounded.

...Israel — under increasing pressure from its Western allies to deal with the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza — is seeking to ease the situation in the enclave's hospitals, which are swamped with the dead and dying.

Between the lines: Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority were suspicious that Israel wanted to deport Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt — and not allow them to return after the war.

...Israel is weighing other options to give medical treatment to Palestinians...French military ship...Italy and Greece also have such ships...also are discussing the possibility of sending wounded Palestinian women and children for medical treatment in several other European countries...

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/01/israel-hamas-war-palestinians-egypt-return-afte...

>53 margd: >57 margd: contd. Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Jordan, now Bahrain:

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2 | 11:46 AM · Nov 2, 2023:

BREAKING: Bahrain's House of Representatives announces the recall of its ambassador from Israel

The Times of Israel says that this is aimed at quelling public opinion in Bahrain and won't affect bilateral relations or trade, as the Bahrain Foreign Ministry didn't issue it
Note the Bahraini legislature has little real power
https://www.timesofisrael.com/bahrain-lawmakers-recall-envoy-from-tel-aviv-but-i...

The National cites a Bahraini government source which says this reflects broader policy {"and suspends economic ties"}. So UAE media is interpreting this as something bigger than Israeli media is claiming it to be
https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2023/11/02/bahrains-parlia...

Col. Douglas Macgregor: Israeli self-destruction in Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAz-owhWYwk
"I think Mr. Netanyahu has got us where he wants us, and we're going to ride down the hill with him. And at the bottom is an abyss."

Yesterday, but still catching up.
“Genocide”: Top U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber Resigns, Denounces Israeli Assault on Gaza
Democracy Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiGp2mvFLY0

And today.
Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against Israel's "Segregationist Apartheid Regime" After West Bank Visit
Democracy Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_df_u7yJj3k

Rania Khalek and Abby Martin -- two names I haven't heard in a while, but certainly worth listening to today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF7qndyvmEE
Among other things, they discuss Israeli accusations that the Palestinians are genociding themselves.
And also, the fog of war in the West Bank, where pogroms, lynchings, and wholesale assaults on villages are ongoing by (newly state-armed) settler groups. Pretty sure this is what's behind the US arms export ban.
ETA: I missed when I posted that it goes off the rails a bit in the last five minutes. But still an important document.

>53 margd: Something about shooting fish in a barrel (who are actually millions of humans in a giant open-air cage), with openly admitted genocidal intent, plays poorly.

>65 davidgn: Just maybe, diplomatic measures, perhaps a feared leading wedge, might have influence?

Israel criticizes South American countries after they cut diplomatic ties and recall ambassadors
DANIEL POLITI | November 1, 2023
https://apnews.com/article/israel-bolivia-colombia-chile-argentina-brazil-4cc038...

UN experts say ceasefire needed as Palestinians at 'grave risk of genocide'
Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Emma Farge | November 2, 2023
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-experts-say-ceasefire-needed-palest...

So here's a scenario for the near future. Palestinians moved out of Gaza and/or the West Bank proper. For many of those in Gaza there's already nowhere to go. They don't have the means to rebuild what's been destroyed and I don't see the Israeli govt. helping them at all. The most likely spots in the region for them to go are Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan. Israel might not be surrounded altogether by belligerents afterwards but they'll have no friends in the region. Turkey has already said that Israel can pound salt as far as oil---when you have no friends or limited friends countries tend towards paranoia. Consider North Korea with no friends or Iran with few friends. Where will Israel get oil? From us? Maybe but maybe not very much. Yes the United States, Britain and France still friends but I suspect our oil prices are going to go up too. Trump goes to prison but the Saudis would rather have a republican anyway. Our price for supporting Israel in this is we're going to pay more for imported oil and maybe a lot more which is how the Saudis etc. are going to take it out on us. Meanwhile Netanyahu finally falls but I expect Israel will still have a conservative govt. In the United States with rising gas prices inflation spikes higher too. Democrats chances of winning house and Senate seats and POTUS reelection then get a lot harder. In Britain their gas prices take off and Brexit bites in even harder. The National Front in France might be on the rise again too.

Jacob Magid @JacobMagid | 9:38 PM · Nov 2, 2023
U.S. Bureau Chief @timesofisrael; formerly West Bank Correspondent
https://twitter.com/JacobMagid/status/1720254095892570296

Speaking w/ folks in the admin, there IS notable amount of internal dissent re Gaza policy.
But.
It's largely at State Dept - not NSC (National Security Council) - & more coming from low-to-mid-level diplos in aid/humanitarian offices that don't set policy & don't get this worked up about any other issue

Settlers attacking the military during wartime.
Very soon Israelis will have to decide: either a violent settler state which will drain lives and finance, or a functioning society with clear borders. On Oct 7 we saw the result of the former.

From יריב אופנהיימר
0:22 ( https://twitter.com/Etanetan23/status/1720060438598074636 )

- Etan Nechin @Etanetan23 | 8:49 AM · Nov 2, 2023
Contributing writer @haaretzcom || Also @nytimes time @worldlittoday independent etc.

Why so many Thai workers became Hamas victims
Julian Küng in Thailand
10/31/2023October 31, 2023

Israel hosts some 30,000 Thai guest workers, many of whom work on farms near Gaza. Thais comprised the highest number of foreign victims in the Hamas terror attacks, with dozens killed or kidnapped.

...Israel has said 54 Thais are among the estimated 220 people being held hostage by Hamas, which is considered a terror organization by the EU, the US, Germany and others. Thailand's government said 32 Thais have been killed, one the highest numbers of foreign victims.

Guest workers from Thailand in Israel are considered politically neutral and a group who largely keep to themselves.

While Israel is trying to prevent Thai migrant workers from leaving by offering visa extensions and financial incentives, Bangkok is doing everything it can to bring as many citizens home as possible.

"Please come back," Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin recently appealed to Thais in Israel. "At the moment, 1,000 Thais can be evacuated every day. I would like all of them to return."...

Furthermore, an amount of about €4.7 million ($4.9 million) has been budgeted for the compensation of foreign workers "who continue to work in the border area with the Gaza Strip until the end of the year," according to the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok. {guarded by tanks}

Thai Prime Minister Srettha responded negatively to the offer.

"This is unacceptable. Thai lives are at stake," Srettha told Thai media, announcing that the Thai government would pay each returnee 15,000 Thai baht (€400) to somewhat cushion losses by leaving work...

https://www.dw.com/en/why-so-many-thai-workers-became-hamas-victims/a-67266701
--------------------------------------------------------

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1720413311408259078/photo/1

BREAKING: Israeli minister of defense Gallant told Secretary of State Blinken during his meeting with the Israeli war cabinet today that Israel will not agree to any pause in the fighting in Gaza that doesn't include a release of hostages, two Israeli officials told me

- Barak Ravid @BarakRavid | 9:24 AM · Nov 3, 2023
Political reporter for Axios covering foreign policy & the 2024 election. Washington correspondent for Walla. Author of Trump's Peace.

>63 davidgn: I did see that yesterday David. I watched it twice. Pretty much puts things the way I see it.

So Nasrallah's much-hyped speech came out today.
(beginning at 15:23 Beirut time)
https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1355978/lebanon-awaits-nasrallahs-speech...
(The whole thing is here for anyone with much more patience than I have today https://twitter.com/MarQs__/status/1720427842092052557 )

Unfolded much as predicted by long-time journalist Elijah Magnier (Al Rai, Kuwait).
https://ejmagnier.com/2023/11/02/what-is-the-role-expected-of-hezbollah-in-the-g...

No immediate commitment to a wider war, but threats of increased engagement on Israel's Northern front (with mutual civilian evacuations of the border areas long since completed) and defiance versus possibility of U.S. intervention.
Hezbollah will be playing this by ear.
(h/t https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/11/nazrallah-speech-on-gaza.html#more )

ETA: Looks like Blumenthal and Mate also covered it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVcZS-fla2M

Palestine, Israel, and the US war machine w/Dennis Kucinich | The Chris Hedges Report
"We are cartwheeling towards a massive East v. West war with religious and ethnic overtones. This seemingly inexorable March of (nuclear) Folly will ultimately pit the United States militarily against China, Russia and their allies." -Kucinich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTP-W9VoFKA

REQUIRED LISTENING, in my book.

Vijay Prashad On The Genocide Committed Against The Palestinians By Israel And The Collective West
Editorial subtitle: "This is a genocide that will break the West"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwoPzm4Cgw

One of Prashad's key points: in terms of international law, to say that Israel has a "right to defend itself" against a people it has occupied is a legal error. In fact, under international law, an occupied people has a right to resist its occupier.

I've heard this before. I wish I had a better understanding of that body of law.
ETA: As far as I can tell, the body of rulings has to do with things like building defense walls inside occupied territories, rather than anything applicable to the present situation. But I again, I would genuinely like to know enough to determine whether Prashad's argument is genuinely spurious.

ETA:
This appears to be the relevant information.

For the current conflict, the status of the occupation affects whether and how Israel can justify its use of force in Gaza under the UN Charter in response to Hamas’s attacks. The US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter on October 18 to argue that Israel has an inherent right to self-defense. However, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in its 2004 advisory opinion that Israel could not invoke Article 51 against a threat coming from an occupied territory over which it has control but that it has the right to respond with actions in conformity with applicable international law.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/gaza-israel-occupied-internatio....

Here's longtime UN international law expert Craig Mokhiber again, interviewed by Blumenthal.
UN official resigns over 'prima facie case of genocide' in Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLu3bNJVQDg

Democracy Now!
1.75M subscribers
Nov 3, 2023 Latest Shows
We speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned last month to protest continued arms sales to Israel amid its bombardment of Gaza, writing in a viral letter that one-sided U.S. support for Israel is “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” Media reports say many others inside the State Department are equally frustrated with the U.S. role in the conflict. Paul tells Democracy Now! he tried to raise his concerns with his superiors but found “no appetite for that discussion” and that unlike all other U.S. arms sales that take humanitarian concerns into account, Israel gets a blank check. Paul says the overall message inside the Biden administration is: “Don’t question the policy because it’s coming from the top.”

State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w9fAgaUBrw

Wonder how intensity compares to the heaviest urban bombing campaigns of history: Mariupol, Syria, WW2?
If Israel does not have strategic goals beyond smashing Hamas at all costs, hopefully Washington does?

Analysis: Israel’s Gaza bombing campaign is proving costly, for Israel
A back of the envelope calculation suggests it has already cost Israel more than $2bn with little actual gains to show for it.
Zoran Kusovac | 3 Nov 2023

The first response by Israel to the Hamas attacks of October 7 was to send in the air force to bomb Gaza. The air force was given a long list of potential targets, related to the attacks or not. The logic was to show to Israelis and Palestinians alike that Israel was not down but could muster a quick, resolute and brutal response.

...the number of bombing flights over Gaza might be closer to 6,000...

...the bombing campaign has so far cost Israel a minimum of $750m just in bombs...Israel has probably spent at least $2bn so far to bomb Gaza, and the figure could be even higher. This is without the cost of mobilizing and keeping under arms 360,000 reservists and waging the ground war that Israel began last week.

All that for very dubious military value. It is obvious that at the receiving ends of Israeli bombs are predominantly civilians and civilian infrastructure. There is little reason to believe that the figure of more than 9,000 people killed in Gaza, among which nearly 4,000 are children, includes more than a few hundred Hamas fighters.

Battles are won by men; wars are won by resources, according to an old military adage. But as the war drags on with little clarity by way of results from the Israeli perspective, Israel’s leaders will also be fighting this war with a calculator in their hands.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/3/analysis-israels-gaza-bombing-campaign-...
________________________________________________

How big is the Gaza Strip? Here's how the tiny enclave compares to Australia and the world
Nelli Saarinen and Basel Hindeleh | updated 24 Oct 2023

...The Gaza Strip is home to 2.1 million people and is densely populated.

...The Gaza Strip has a total land area of about 360 square kilometres.

It's 41 kilometres long from its northern border with Israel to Egypt down south, a distance just shy of a marathon run.

The small territory is 13 kilometres at its widest, about 5 kilometres at its narrowest, and about 10 kilometres at the top...The Gaza Strip is about twice the size of Washington, DC (177 square kilometres), one-quarter the size of London (1,579 square kilometres) and one-10th the size of Cape Town (2,461 square kilometres).

It shares a 13-kilometre border with Egypt and a 59-kilometre border with Israel, and has a 40-kilometre coastline on the Mediterranean.

...Gaza is home to 2.1 million people...The Gaza Strip is very densely populated, with an average of 8,121 people per square kilometre...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-24/how-big-is-the-gaza-strip/103001830
_________________________________________________

Israel-Hamas war: Netanyahu rejects calls for cease-fire
DW | 11/03/2023

The US has urged humanitarian "pauses" to allow aid into Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel refuses any cease-fire that doesn't involve the release of hostages...

https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-friday-november-3/live-67291...

The Youtube algorithm scores a win.

Shocking insight into Israel's Apartheid | Roadmap to Apartheid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMGQE0iW4

Draws stark comparisons (mostly negative) versus the historical South African system.

>78 margd: a question is what are they going to do with it once the military campaign is over and done with? Give it back to the Palestinians? Bring electricity in and fix the water issues for a people they don't want and have just smashed to bits again? Having spent billions on their war they'll have to spend more billions upon billions clearing the rubble and on reconstruction. It doesn't make sense with their past history of taking land and giving it to settlers. They could turn it over to developers and major corporations to build more housing settlements or even a resort area next to the water that would more than help pay back all their costs for war and reconstruction. That's what makes sense to what they've been up to the past 2/3 decades anyway. Drive out those they don't want and turn a profit afterwards with people they do want.

Honduras recalls Israel envoy
DW | 3 Nov 2023

Honduras became the latest Latin American country to recall its ambassador to Israel on Friday amid concerns over the "humanitarian situation" of Palestinians in Gaza.

"In the face of the serious humanitarian situation suffered by the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip" President Xiomara Castro had decided to immediately recall envoy Roberto Martinez "for consultations," Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-friday-november-3/live-67291...

>80 lriley: I don't doubt that's Netanyahu government's goal...

Is such a costly war and Israel's increasing isolation driving Israel to be even more reliant on US $? Will US at some point (soon!) use this leverage to insist on two states? At this point, US funds bought it access to Israeli military planning, but surprising little influence?

Col. Wilkerson on theanalysis.news (The Real News Founder's Paul Jay's solo venture)
Strategically and Morally Bankrupt: U.S. Policy in the Middle East - Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAe_s8Vvw34

I'm still wondering why Israel isn't using technology (tear gas! water! GPS-equipped rats! ) to surgically target vulnerabilities of Hamas tunnels? Are Hamas defenses that good? Are surface bombs actually preferred BECAUSE they smash civilian infrastructure?

Hamas tried to send fighters to Egypt in ambulances for wounded Gazans — US official
Israeli officials say inspectors uncovered oxygen concentrators for tunnels used by Palestinian terror groups inside truck carrying aid to Strip
Jacob Magid | 4 Nov 2023

...Hamas tried to sneak its fighters out of the Gaza Strip in ambulances that evacuated dozens of wounded Palestinians to Egypt earlier this week, a senior Biden administration official said Friday.

Hamas had compiled a list of the seriously wounded that it wanted to evacuate from Gaza for treatment in Egypt, along with thousands of foreign nationals looking to flee the enclave.

The list was then vetted by Egypt and the United States, which found that a third of the names on it were of Hamas fighters, the administration official said, adding that the list was rejected and none of the 76 wounded Palestinians who were ultimately evacuated in ambulances out of Gaza were members of the terror group.

Meanwhile, two senior Israeli officials told The Times of Israel that Israeli inspectors earlier this week uncovered several oxygen concentrators meant to aerate the tunnels operated by terror organizations in Gaza...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-tried-to-send-fighters-to-egypt-in-ambulance...

sorry this is long but I feel the need to vent. I am not sure if this has been posted or not but this article is a must read

Letter from Israeln the Cities of Killing
The Hamas massacre, the assaults on Gaza, and what comes after.

for as long as I remember Id sit with my dad watching the news on tv. We talked about what I was seeing and hearing; those times didn't upset me, just got me curious for learning more about the world. I made it a habit to watch and listen to news, in those days that werent filled with conspiracy theories and hate (they were still there I know now, just hidden) With social media I am overly emersed in it. Ive long thought I should cut back, so I dont go mad. then I read two articles in the Nov 6 issue of the NYer. One was about the fire in Maui. The other was by David Remnick "Letter from Israel, In the Cities of Killing". This was a summary of the modern history of the conflict from the last 5 decades, including information on the mistakes made by Israel that led to this horror.s The more I read the more the more I got upset. then halfway through when I saw the photo of the child from gaza, dead in a medics arms and I lost it. Had to stop reading. I dont understand why adults cant find a way to keep everyones children safe, no matter who or where they are. Reminick interviewed many people on all side, people who were actively helping promote peace and activly demonstrating. The seed is there; I long for the day when it bares fruit..

Not sure I can stand getting news; then I remember a quote that has led my activism for many years "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it."

>82 margd: Speaking of Netanyahu I think much of this is himself trying to stay in power to avoid going to prison for his corruption. He'd rather the world burn instead. It's another version of a would be dictator like Trump, like Orban, like we can go on and on these days. There are despots at the head of governments in lots of countries. So Benjamin gives his right wing base everything they want.....pushing and pushing the Palestinians deeper into a corner. Did Netanyahu want Oct. 7 to happen? There's some question he knew it was in the offing.....also he'd pulled much of Israel's military presence in the months before from the area around Gaza to support more settler's incursions into the West Bank. Afterwards he gets to play the victim and Jehovah as avenger. There have been plenty of noise that he's going to fall when the dust settles but maybe he doesn't see it that way. This also might speak to why he continues to avenge, won't ceasefire, because again he's playing to his hard right base who are wanting all this......seeing more opportunity for them open up to take at least a large chunk of Gaza and now he also has much of the middle of Israel's voter public along for the ride. His intention is to come out of this looking like a hero. A superhero that destroyed the Palestinian Arab menace. That speech the other day about exterminating Israel's enemies speaks to that.

All that said he's destroying decades worth of diplomacy in the region. All countries also run on oil. All countries need some kind of international support. Israel will be more dependent on the United States and Britain particularly in the years to come and how that plays out remains to be seen but the AIPAC umbrella of lobbyists have bought off most of the elected politicians of both parties in the United States AOC pointing out the other day even many of those republicans who aided and abetted Trump in trying to overthrow the 2020 election.

But there's also the chance of some kind of regional war which could change a lot of things.

DW News @dwnews | 9:16 AM · Nov 4, 2023:

Pro-Palestinian protesters in the US clung to the ladder of a cargo ship they said was carrying weapons intended for Israel, trying to stop it from leaving port.

0:53 ( https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1720792048368828807 )

DW News @dwnews | 9:16 AM · Nov 4, 2023:

Pro-Palestinian protesters in the US clung to the ladder of a cargo ship they said was carrying weapons intended for Israel, trying to stop it from leaving port.

0:53 ( https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1720792048368828807 )

Wow. Hamas really doesn't give a sh*t about Gaza civilians... (Even Russia built shelters for its people, including Ukraine when it was part of USSR. Egypt's Hamas equivalent, Muslim Brotherhood, ran preschools and clinics.) This time, UN protection must be replaced by a diplomatic solution.

Anton Gerashchenko {Ukraine} @Gerashchenko_en | 9:27 AM · Nov 4, 2023:

When asked why Hamas hasn't built bomb shelters for civilians, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official, replied that is not of their concern but of the United Nations.

Journalist: Many people are asking: Since you have built 500 kilometers of tunnels, why haven’t you built bomb shelters, where civilians can hide during bombardments?
Mousa Abu Marzouk: We have built the tunnels because we had no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. ... Everybody knows that 75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them.
______________________________________________
ETA

Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas | 2:46 PM · Nov 4, 2023:
Co-founder of Boundless 🌍 Former Head of Speechwriting at 🇮🇱 Mission to UN.

The people of Gaza are fed up with Hamas.

They are finally telling the truth - Hamas has spent the past 15 years impoverishing the Palestinian people and treating them like they are dispensable.

From Emily Habsburg
0:41 ( https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1720875200152059975 )

>89 margd: That's not a surprise either.

>89 margd: Meanwhile in Israel: !!

Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 @NTarnopolsky | 1:10 PM · Nov 4, 2023:

💥Incredibly, Mounted police are acting against 𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 & 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 across from the PM's official residence.

0:13 ( https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1720851087123476704 )

Amb. Chas Freeman interviewed by the Brazilian "Dialogue Works" guy.

This Is Not a War, but a Mass Murder Tragedy | Chas Freeman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRb4QhZi2MA

One of our surviving wise men.
(No man is a prophet in his own country, they say.)

I dont get twitter, someone explain whats happening pls?

>93 cindydavid4: Police on horseback charging protestors with batons.

sigh, thank you

Y'mean don't believe our lying eyes?

Jim Sciutto (CNN) @jimsciutto | 6:04 AM · Nov 5, 2023:

New: Israeli PM Netanyahu has suspended a far-right cabinet member from government meetings after he suggested in a radio interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was “one way”. 1/

2/ On Radio Kol Berama, a religious radio station, Heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu was asked early Sunday if an atomic bomb should be dropped on the Gaza Strip, to which he answered “this is one way.”

3/Netanyahu on Twitter said “Minister Amihai Eliyahu's statements are not based in reality. Israel and the IDF are operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents. We will continue to do so until our victory.”

re 3/ hahahaha oh my sides!!!! glad he at least got rid of him,but seriously?

>97 cindydavid4: Would a "pause" be long enough for a no-confidence vote, so President could ask someone else to form a Government? :/

Meanwhile, the gangsters in Gaza:

Hamas held a screening for their supporters at the #AlShifaHospital last night.
Note:
1. Plenty of electricity. {margd: lights in every window as well as for screening for outside crowd!}
2. The generator obviously wasn't shut down.
3. Hamas doesn’t lack fuel for the things they prioritize.

#NoMasHamas
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/cogatonline/status/1721091200134885873 )

- COGAT @cogatonline | 4:04 AM · Nov 5, 2023

{margd: hope this doesn't lead to Israel bombing the hospital and all the innocents therein...or is that Hamas's goal by staging such an obvious event???}

>98 margd: watched a UN representative yesterday say that Hamas tells them pretty much it's their job to keep Gaza's Palestinians heads above water which according to the UN guy they've been trying their best to do for some time now. My guess is there really is only a small % of Gaza's Palestinians with any really strong link to Hamas. Maybe as small as 1%. Part of the issue is when Israel locked the door on Gaza it abdicated its governing responsibility from within and when you turn what is essentially a prison over to the inmates the largest nastiest gang is going to take over---there is always going to be someone taking over in the absence of any other authority.

I've tried to keep up on Israel/Palestine over the years but I'm a lot more versed on things Irish and the Provisional IRA over the last several years of the troubles pretty much kept the entire province on its toes through that later period with only something like a couple hundred activists. Partly why was to try to control British infiltration (which even with the numbers down that low wasn't all that successful) but also they realized they didn't really need more than that. It doesn't take much when you have trained and committed people....with resources and know how. There was also movement by then being made towards a political solution and a big reason that movement really started came from within the prison system between IRA, UVF and UDA paramilitaries. They all got to the point where they felt both used and abused by their respective politicos and they started talking to each other with real seriousness. FWIW the British govt. was always the biggest roadblock to peace from beginning to end. Bill Clinton's (and I've never been a fan of his but credit where it's due) involvement was one of the crucial factors to peace finally being realized.

a cousin who lives in Israel told me that the Israelis built a southern exit for the Gazans to leave but Hamas bombed it. can anyone clarify that?

If only we had a Clinton, an Albright, a Holbroke rightnow

>100 cindydavid4: I have heard that, and also Hamas said it was the Israelis(?) I don't recall any outside opinions?
What I'm sure of is that each wants the other to look bad in eyes of the world.

I suspect that
Neither Hamas, nor Netanyahu govt, cares much about Gaza civilians themselves.
Hamas want to use them as human shields.
Israeli govt want them to leave for Egypt, preferably not to come back.
There will not be much for Gaza civilians to return to in the north when it's over.

As usual, Jonathan Cook's reporting is a vital corrective.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-11-02/bbc-october-7/

What the BBC fails to tell you about October 7
2 November 2023
It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be repeating so credulously the Israeli military’s account of that day

The BBC’s Lucy Williamson was taken once again this week to view the terrible destruction at a kibbutz community just outside Gaza attacked on October 7. As we have been shown so many times before, the Israeli homes were riddled with automatic fire, both inside and out. Sections of concrete wall had holes in them, or had collapsed entirely. And parts of the buildings that were still standing were deeply charred. It looked like a small snapshot of the current horrors in Gaza.

There is a possible reason for those similarities – one that the BBC is studiously failing to report, despite mounting evidence from a variety of sources, including the Israeli media. Instead the BBC is sticking resolutely to a narrative crafted for them, and the rest of the western media, by the Israeli military: that Hamas alone caused all this destruction.

Simply repeating that narrative without any caveats has by now reached the level of journalistic malpractice. And yet that is precisely what the BBC does night after night.

Just a cursory look at the wreckage in the various kibbutz communities that were attacked that day should raise questions in the mind of any good reporter. Were Palestinian militants in a position to actually inflict physical damage to that degree and extent with the kind of light weapons they carried?

And if not, who else was in a position to wreak such havoc other than Israel?
...
What we know from a growing body of evidence gleaned from the Israeli media and Israeli eyewitnesses – carefully laid out, for example, in this report from Max Blumenthal – is that the Israeli military was completely blindsided by that day’s events. Heavy artillery, including tanks and attack helicopters, was called in to deal with Hamas. That appears to have been a straightforward decision in regard to the military bases Hamas had overrun.

Israel has a long-standing policy of seeking to prevent Israeli soldiers from being taken captive – chiefly, because of the high price Israeli society insists on paying to ensure soldiers are returned. For decades, the military’s so-called “Hannibal procedure” has directed Israeli troops to kill fellow soldiers rather than allow them to be taken captive. For the same reason, Hamas expends a great deal of energy in trying to find innovative ways to seize soldiers.

The two sides are essentially engaged in a brutal tango in which each understands the other’s dance moves.

Given Hamas’ situation, effectively managing the Israeli-controlled concentration camp of Gaza, it has limited resistance strategies available to it. Capturing Israeli soldiers maximises its leverage. They can be traded for the release of many of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held in jails inside Israel, in breach of international law. In addition, in the negotiations, Hamas usually hopes to win an easing of Israel’s 16-year siege of Gaza.

To avert this scenario, Israeli commanders reportedly called in the attack helicopters on the military bases overwhelmed by Hamas on October 7. The helicopters appear to have fired indiscriminately, despite the risk posed to the Israeli soldiers in the base who were still alive. Israel’s was a scorched-earth policy to stop Hamas achieving its aims. That may, in part, explain the very large proportion of Israeli soldiers among the 1,300 killed that day.

Charred bodies
But what about the situation in the kibbutz communities? By the time the army arrived and was in position, Hamas was well dug in. It had taken the inhabitants as hostages inside their own homes. Israeli eyewitness testimony and media reports suggest Hamas was almost certainly trying to negotiate safe passage back into Gaza, using the Israeli civilians as human shields. The civilians were the Hamas fighters’ only ticket out, and they could be converted later into bargaining chips for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

The evidence – from Israeli meda reports and eyewitnesses, as well as a host of visual clues from the crime scene itself – tell a far more complex story than the one presented nightly on the BBC.

Did the Israeli military fire into the Hamas-controlled civilian homes in the same fashion as it had fired into its own military bases, and with the same disregard for the safety of Israelis inside? Was the goal in each case to prevent at all costs Hamas taking hostages whose release would require a very high price from Israel?
...

>102 davidgn: if true that would be pretty damned ruthless. Also if true I would suspect survivor’s stories would eventually come out.

>103 lriley: They already have started to -- weeks ago. Links in Cook's piece.
For instance:
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2023-10-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/... (paywalled, but there's a free trial, and Google Translate works).

This is only "news" to those of us in the West.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october

ETA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTQcjyhPOIk&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2...
(from Cook two weeks ago: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-10-23/israel-kill-hamas-hostages/ )
Cook's characterization:
"Electronic Intifada first unearthed this interview, noting that it appears to have been taken down by Israeli radio."
EI's piece:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-k...
Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says
Ali Abunimah and David Sheen The Electronic Intifada 16 October 2023

Update, 23 October
The Electronic Intifada is now able to publish the entire interview with Yasmin Porat, the Kibbutz Be’eri survivor who told Israeli radio that Israeli security forces “undoubtedly” killed a large number of their own civilians following the Hamas assault on 7 October.

When this article was originally published on 15 October, a recording of the interview was not available on the website of Israeli state broadcaster Kan and was not included in the online edition of Haboker Hazeh for that day, the program that interviewed Porat.

Following the publication of this article, the full interview was uploaded by Kan. It includes several extra minutes that were edited out of the version of the interview that we had originally obtained and translated.

In the full-length interview, Porat states that the Palestinian fighters – who she says treated her and the other Israeli civilians “humanely” – intended to “kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder us.”

She adds that “after we were there for two hours with the abductors, the police arrive. A gun battle takes place that our police started.”

You can listen to the full interview with English subtitles here in the video below. A full transcript is at the bottom of this page.

Also of note is that Mondoweiss on 22 October published a story based on accounts in Israeli media indicating that Israeli forces were responsible for many Israeli civilian and military deaths following the 7 October Palestinian offensive.

This includes the shocking revelation that some Israeli civilians were alive for up to two days before Israeli forces killed them, along with Palestinian fighters who were holding them.(my emphasis)

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper on 20 October published an interview – only in its Hebrew edition – with a man called Tuval who lived in Kibbutz Be’eri, but who was away on 7 October. Tuval’s partner was however killed in the events.

Haaretz reports: “According to him (Tuval), only on Monday night and only after the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages – did the IDF (Israeli army) complete the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri people were killed. Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble.”

This testimony would seem to indicate that many Israeli captives were still alive on Monday, 9 October, Mondoweiss observes, a full two days after the events of Saturday, 7 October.

“While it might be understandable if captives had been killed in the hectic crossfire of an initial Israeli response to the attack on the 7th, this account would seem to indicate that the decision to assault the kibbutz and everyone inside was made as a clear military calculation,” Mondoweiss adds.(my emphasis)

Also, from Cook's 10/23 piece:
"The wider problem for Hamas is that western media is in lockstep with Israeli spin that Hamas is a death cult like Islamic State and cannot be talked to, rather than the reality that it is a political and military resistance movement fighting for Palestinian liberation. As a result, many of the Israeli hostages are likely to die unnecessarily – alongside, of course, far larger numbers of Palestinians."

____

----
Not to minimize what Hamas (and the other assorted actors that came out through the breaches in the wall) did (ETA: and I've removed a link above that, on reflection, comes too close to doing that), but the picture is more complex. And to point to bombed-out ruins (with deceased occupants) caused by Israeli armaments as a justification for genocidal revenge is disingenuous at best.

Reality is usually far messier than narratives intended to justify genocide would suggest.

>96 margd: Eliyahu unsuspnded?

Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof | 12:29 PM · Nov 5, 2023:
Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal.

Looks like the “nuke Gaza” minister Eliyahu has already been un-suspended. Netanyahu still wants to govern after the war, and is putting the preservation of his coalition with the extreme settler far-right ahead of Israel’s clear national security interest.

Quote
Raviv Drucker @RavivDrucker | 9:01 AM · Nov 5, 2023:
Translated from Hebrew by Google: Presenter of the investigative program "The Source", political commentator, Channel 13

Amichai Eliyahu suspended from government meetings? Well, at this very moment there is a telephone referendum between the ministers to authorize the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs on a series of topics: special education, designation of detention hearings, and more. Amichai Eliyahu votes like all the other ministers.

...MK Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Islamist Ra’am party, ... “there is and will be no space in our ranks for anyone who denies or minimizes the severity of the actions {October 7 massacre by Hamas} which negate our values and also the religion of Islam.”..
https://www.timesofisrael.com/raam-party-chief-calls-on-mk-to-resign-for-claimin...

The United Arab List, commonly known by its Hebrew acronym Ra'am, is an Islamist and conservative political party in Israel and the political wing of the Southern Branch of the Islamic movement. (Wikipedia)

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran | 4:43 PM · Nov 4, 2023:
📢 Public Health, Climate Justice, and Science Communication 🎓 Columbia, Cornell, Cambridge, Adelaide
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1720904696129331544.html

We are witnessing the biggest global anti-war protests since the Iraq war in 2003.

Protest in Washington DC, US demanding a ceasefire in Gaza
https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720904696129331544/photo/1

Protest in London, UK demanding a ceasefire in Gaza
https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720904696129331544/photo/2

Massive national march in Washington DC demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
0:11 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720905163437674618 )

Huge demonstration for Palestine in Paris, France, despite Macron trying to ban it.
0:17 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720906014587797836 )

Large protest for Palestine in Berlin, Germany
0:14 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720906179293946272 )

Huge ceasefire rally in Trafalgar Square, followed by a shutdown of Oxford Street in London, UK
0:123 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720907911558279396 )

March in solidarity with Palestine in Santiago, Chile
0:35 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720908474748445112 )

Hundreds of protesters surrounding the Israeli embassy in Tokyo, Japan demanding a ceasefire
0:23 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720908809818808398 )

Haha performance at a rally for Palestine in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand)
1:01 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720909938761904273 )

Tens of thousands at a rally supporting Palestine in Montreal, Canada.
0:16 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720912128175956329 )

Sit in demanding a ceasefire at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, UK
0:10 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720912372456395204 )

March protesting the bombing of Gaza in Manchester, UK
2:18 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720912372456395204 )

Indigenous groups are leading the march for Palestine in Minneapolis, US
0:27 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720915091938263296 )

Display of solidarity with Palestine at a football match in Malaysia
0:42 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720915661088567549 )

Rally in Cork, Ireland
0:10 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720916635907748123 )

Rally and March for Palestine in Sydney, Australia
0:15 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1720917558512042255 )

Demonstration in Oslo, Norway in solidarity with Gaza
0:46 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1721006932025118806 )

Massive protest in solidarity with Palestine in Jakarta, Indonesia
0:45 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1721015224843530427 )

São Paulo, Brazil
0:11 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1721019783863288057 )

Caracas, Venezuela
0:20 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1721020515630903475 )

Berlin, Germany has been banning protests in support of Palestine, but they couldn't stop today's one from growing this massive.
0:55 ( https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1721022475973144813 )

>104 davidgn: Right wing governments are always at war with some part of their own population. I'm reminded of Rodolfo Walsh's Letter to the Argentine military junta detailing their killings and economic crimes.....also Margaret Thatcher calling the people in the miners union and their families 'the enemy within' at the same some of the sons of those miner families were off fighting in the Falklands War as well as at war with the people of Northern Ireland. Trump and the republicans would have us fighting against blacks, latin American emigrants and gays and etc. etc. It's like someone always has to be suppressed, imprisoned, killed. If you want to find a fascist style government just look for countries where people are being systematically targeted.

>108 lriley: Further than I wanted to go, but yes: if I were an Israeli liberal, I would have to wonder what the relevant decision-makers really thought about those pesky kibbutzniks, and to what degree that colored the assessment of their expendability in the strategic calculus.

>107 margd: read an essay in the NYT from a woman whose sister, husband and three children are hostages, and wants to know if everyone has forgotten them. All of her friends on suddenly on Palestines side and shes really at a loss what to think. I wish more was being said about that and would hope that they are not forgotten and negotioation working for their releas. I also cynically think that many may have been killed. I pray for that not to be true but we hear so little about them anymore that its easy to wonder that

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/opinion/israel-palestinians-hostage-silence.h...

>110 cindydavid4: The official line seems to remain the same.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gallant-tells-families-all-for-all-hostage-offer-p...
There's just no willingness to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange, despite some prominent voices calling for just that.
https://truthout.org/articles/calls-grow-for-prisoner-hostage-exchange-as-israel...

>110 cindydavid4: Most people should know that the ongoing oppression of Palestinians helped lead to Oct. 7. That's not to justify what Hamas did that day and it's not to take sides---it's about hoping that the two sides can somehow learn to live with each other on some kind of equal footing. What Hamas did do that day only added to the numbers of victims who have been killed and abducted over the years. The Israel govt. could have tried to negotiate to get those hostages back but unfortunately they've chosen not to do that but to bomb Gaza night after night adding a good 10,000 more dead + countless injured mostly people who had nothing to do with Hamas's terroristic attack of Oct. 7. I don't know what we should expect out of a non state actor like Hamas but it would have been much better if the Netanyahu govt. had at least tried to make an already terribly situation better by negotiating to get those people back but unfortunately he and his settler and Likud cronies never do that and what they are doing instead only further endangers the hostages.

I really don't think the British or American governments unconditional support of the current Israel govt. in whatever it does has been helpful at all. There are American and British amongst the hostages. They need IMO to push for a ceasefire and push the Netanyahu govt. to change tack and start to negotiate and stop bombing and killing. Biden should realize he has always had soft support. I think that's why Obama finally weighed in. Lots of people who voted for Biden in 2020 would have liked to vote for somebody else. He got a lot of anybody but Trump voters. He's likely to lose a lot of that soft support just over this and especially if Trump is convicted and goes to prison. It's true that only 23 democratic house members and one senator so far have called for a ceasefire but the demonstrations against these bombings of a defenseless population are getting bigger and bigger. A lot of American voters don't like it whatever their representatives are saying and doing. It seems though wherever you look the actors are all out of touch with each other and/or with the constituencies they represent.

i agree with you., I think this essay is asking the same question: why isn't isreal trying to get the hostages back? I agree with Netanyahu in charge its not going to change, and we will only have many more cycles of death and destruction on both sides. I wish hed see reason; or at the very least step aside and let someone else more interested in negotiating. I can only hope that the israelis will demand that he step down

>113 cindydavid4: End of the day I'd want a peaceful resolution and neither Netanyahu or Hamas with any power.

>114 lriley:

I agree completely. But the problem in many autocratic regimes is that the leaders have eliminated any real opposition, even within their own parties, and that removing the current leadership only creates a chaotic and violent vacuum. And in these undemocratic societies, where power is in the hands of certain elites, often with militias to back them up, it is very difficult for a popular civilian leader to be allowed to fill the gap. Sudan, whose current war is almost certainly as destructive as the war in Gaza but is getting little international attention, is an example of how the military "strong men" react when there is the threat of a genuine democratic civilian government.

Israel and Palestine both need a Nelson Mandela type of leader, someone who recognises that the solution to oppression, suffering, violence and death by one group against another is not resolved by just creating more oppression, suffering, violence and death.

>110 cindydavid4: It must be hell for families of Hamas's hostages. In their opposition to military operations in Gaza, "pro-Palestinian protesters" might actually be on hostages' side, i.e., has there ever been an instance where bombing and shooting resulted in release of all but a rare, lucky hostage? Except maybe when ceasefire is offered, not something Netanyahu offers except, perhaps, as "pauses", if hostages first released. Prisoner exchanges work (Israel, US), but are not on table. Money works (US/Iran), but not in play here? Daring, targeted rescues can work (Entebbe), but--ask Jimmy Carter--not always. At least Hamas's hostages from US, Europe, and Israel have strong proponents: the ~40 Thais taken hostage aren't even "People of the Book"...

>115 John5918: That's true too.

>116 margd: The Israelis are holding thousands of Palestinians prisoner without charges. At least some of them are partly what Hamas said it wanted to exchange their hostages for. I don't suspect that the situations or conditions of their imprisonment is all that much better than the hostages being held by Hamas. From what I understand Israeli prisons aren't a joke. There's torture (depending) and regular beatings.....probably food, water and material conditions are really bad.

DW News @dwnews | 4:43 AM · Nov 7, 2023:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview that Israel will have "overall security responsibility" in Gaza, the clearest indication yet that Israel plans to maintain control of the territory, home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
--------------------------------------------------

...In the interview, Netanyahu also said Israel would take "security responsibility" for the Gaza Strip following the war. "Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibility," he said...

https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-netanyahu-open-to-tactical-little-pauses/...
____________________________________
ETA: didn't learn from US mistakes in handling prisoners...

Bangladesh News 24 @bdnews24 | 4:57 AM · Nov 7, 2023:
𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗗 𝗚𝗔𝗭𝗔𝗡 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗔𝗖𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗘 𝗜𝗦𝗥𝗔𝗘𝗟𝗜 𝗔𝗨𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗦𝗘, 𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 (CNN)

Palestinian workers who were expelled back to Gaza from Israel last week have accused Israeli authorities of “torture,” alleging they were stripped naked, held in cages, viciously beaten and, according to one worker’s account, subjected to electric shocks.

3:55 ( https://twitter.com/bdnews24/status/1721829245775659459 )
_____________________________________
ETA:

Samuel Ramani (Oxford U) @SamRamani2 | 7:35 AM · Nov 7, 2023:
Netanyahu's comments on assuming security responsibility in Gaza have fuelled concerns about an Israeli occupation
Here are 4 scenarios that could follow an Israeli victory over Hamas /THREAD

SCENARIO 1: Short-Term Israeli Occupation Followed by Transfer of Power (Most Likely)
Israel's lack of clear preparations for Hamas's endgame and relatively swift military progress so far, which includes the encirclement of Gaza City, could cause Israel to assume this
The transfer of power would most likely be to a potentially pliable figure, such as Mohammed Dahlan, who also has close ties to the UAE
Due to Dahlan or someone of his ilk's unpopularity, regular Israeli incursions will be needed to quell Hamas remnants/inspired organisations

SCENARIO 2: RAPID TRANSITION TO PALESTINIAN SELF-RULE
This would resemble the first scenario but narrower in scope, it would lead to someone like Dahlan taking over straight away
The Israeli military will then declare victory and leave

This would be more likely in a long war, as Israel has preparation time, and be good for the Israeli economy as reservists will integrate
But the experience of Bachir Gemayel's assassination in 1982 suggests that Israel will be on edge about security threats in Gaz

SCENARIO 3: LONG-TERM ISRAELI OCCUPATION
This view, which could include the return of settlements dismantled in 2005, would be popular amongst Itamar Ben-Gvir and Israeli far-right
The Eliyahu scandal shows their power over Nentanyahu and makes this possible despite its costs

SCENARIO 4: SWIFT PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY TAKEOVER (LEAST LIKELY)
The PA has called for a two-state solution including East Jerusalem, which is a non-starter for Netanyahu
Any cooperation with Israel without this would risk a 2007-style conflict with Hamas-inspired groups

There are other scenarios within these scenarios, such as the UN having a key role in Gaza, but fractious relations between the UN and Israel render these problematic
Netanyahu's comments reflect uncertainty in Israel about what comes next more than anything else /END

Chris Hedges: Israel's endgame in Palestine is genocide | The Marc Steiner Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42FmObIfodY
Chris Hedges -- (onetime New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief, let's not forget).

Arab American Support for Biden Plummets over Gaza Ahead of 2024 Election
Democracy Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dtPACnGESs

Israel Threatening to Bomb Gaza's Only Pediatric Cancer Unit, Says Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Democracy Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sITnlKEdGDs
(Having already, in fact, bombed the hospital housing it and destroyed another floor, which included part of the unit.)

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1722061957803770143

Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Another masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades.

Again I believe that his words are so important and so rare among Western leaders today, that I decided to translate it in full (the bold parts are emphasis Villepin himself made when speaking):

"The Israeli government, Benjamin Netanyahu, failed on October 7th and failed doubly. Firstly, in its ability to ensure the protection of the Israeli people by allowing massacres that are an abomination to occur. He bears direct responsibility for what happened. And his second failure is having encouraged a policy of occupation and colonization, which continues at this moment in the West Bank and constitutes another threat to Israel if a second front in the West Bank were to open.

Force does not ensure the security of a people! This is what all Israelis must understand today. And what is important is that since October 7th, the Israeli government's choice has been to escalate the use of force. You know, neither force nor vengeance ensures peace and security. What ensures peace and security is justice! And justice is not being served today.

The rationale of the Israeli government for the bombings happening today is flawed, and the whole international community can see it. The principle is: "we target terrorists, and unfortunately, there are also civilian populations," what is euphemistically called in military language "collateral damage." It must be understood that this collateral damage is not accidental. That is to say, it is perfectly predictable and fully accepted.

Host: "But once again, the responsibility is not solely Israeli."

But once more, let's stop asking about responsibility; let's look at the reality of what's happening on the ground! Assigning fault, allow me to tell you, we will leave to historians. What we want is to stop this violence, to stop these massacres. Israel is putting itself in danger, even more today, with this type of warfare and these types of strikes.

We are essentially dealing with a policy of vengeance from the Netanyahu government. Israel has the right to self-defense, but self-defense does not give an indiscriminate right to kill civilian populations. When you target an ambulance, you can always imagine that there was a terrorist in one of the ambulances, or not. But the result is that there are children, women who die. Every child, every woman killed, that's more terrorists. Therefore, Israel's objective, what Israel achieves, is exactly the opposite of what they wish. So, it is essential today to change this logic and return to a strategy that is sound.

Hostages, everything must be done to secure their release. But let's not forget: the Palestinian people are also taken hostage, by Hamas and by Israel. And Hamas, we all know, cares little for the Palestinian people. So telling Hamas: "we will not lift the siege, we will not have a humanitarian truce until the hostages are released," is a dialogue of the deaf.

Benjamin Netanyahu is waging a war to do everything so that the political solution does not come to the table. And this is where the international community, Europe, the United States, must tell Benjamin Netanyahu that this war is not acceptable. It is not acceptable because it leads us directly to escalation - because we can see it well, from Hamas we will move to Iran, from Iran we will move to other targets, and we then enter into the logic of a clash of civilizations. When Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu says that on one side there is the people of light and on the other the people of darkness, we can see the kind of spiral we are getting into.

All the wars that have been going on for the past twenty years are wars that begin and do not end. These are frozen conflicts. We know how to start a war; we do not know how to end it. And Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu could control Gaza, it would change nothing. There will continue to be terrorist attacks, Israelis will continue to live in fear. We must get out of this. The second reason why this is yesterday's war is that the war against terrorism has never been won anywhere. Force is not the answer, once again. Vengeance is not the answer. The answer is justice, and that is what all the peoples of the world, all those who today watch what is happening, call for justice.

Today the direction we must follow is to prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from continuing his suicidal logic that will make Israel a besieged state. They can besiege Gaza, but they will be besieged. And do not think that tomorrow we will again have a pacified discourse with Saudi Arabia, with the Arab states that will normalize the situation: no! The wounds of history are awakening.

Israel's interest is to have a responsible state at its side. And this responsible state, let's stop splitting hairs, must clearly be the West Bank, all of the West Bank. It must be Gaza, with access between the two territories, and East Jerusalem. The problem, and this is the whole point of Benjamin Netanyahu's escalation, is that Benjamin Netanyahu does not want it. And the policy of separation must be dignified. That is, it must confer to the Palestinians a state where they can live, a viable state, a true state, which can build itself and which will be all the more at peace...

Host: "Does that mean that the settlements in the West Bank have to be removed?"

Well, when we left Algeria, there were a million French who left Algeria. Today there are 500,000 Israelis colonizing the West Bank, and there are 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

Host: "They must leave the West Bank?"

Yes. Yes, that is history, that is responsibility, that is the price! I tell you solemnly, it is the price of security for Israel! And all those who today consider that it will never be enough are pursuing the worst policy."

Credit to
@caissesdegreve
who took these extracts from the original interview which can be found here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vY7Iw54NiWM
8:22 PM · Nov 7, 2023

>122 davidgn: That critique is right on and fine David but the game to Netanyahu (and I think he sees this as a game, just as other right wing dictators or would be dictators) is about power and the future even 6 months down the road isn't as important to him as the now. The reason why Netanyahu continues to do what he's doing with the war crimes in Gaza and the settler land grabs in the West Bank is that's what makes the base that supports him and has kept him in power happy.......and it's also keeping him out of prison. He's been able to string out his time in power for quite a while now several times after seemingly being on the ropes and no doubt he thinks he can continue to do so....also that he has no choice but to do so because when he gets off the carousel he's toast. The other thing is he's pathological with at least a pretty decent amount of narcissism and doesn't really give a shit even about Israeli Jews being killed.....let alone the Palestinians (with them they're just mowing the lawn). Israeli Jews dying (or at least it seems to me when looking at Benjamin) are political pawns for him to stoke public outrage and it would be amazing to me at least with most leaders of nations that if 200 and some of their citizens were taken hostage that still after more than a month now wouldn't have made some serious attempt to negotiate to get them back...it's not really that amazing though that Benjamin hasn't.

Shashank Joshi @shashj | 11:49 AM · Nov 8, 2023:
Defence editor at TheEconomist, Visiting fellow at @warstudies King's College London.

Blinken lays out red lines: "no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now, not after the war. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism...No reoccupation of Gaza...No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory"

'Some of Blinken’s warnings were also a public pushback against private ideas raised by Israelis, U.S. officials said, including that Israeli security could be ensured by a “buffer zone” between Gaza and Israel, potentially sliced out of Gaza’s territory.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/blinken-gaza-future-reoccupation...

>124 margd: That's better than I expected from Blinken. Now: will he follow through, or cave? (Possibly after dithering until the Israelis create the "facts on the ground" that the entirety of the territory has been razed and made unliveable -- which seems to be the course of things so far.)
In other words: I'll believe it when I see it, and when it's accompanied by plans for a ceasefire. Otherwise, I expect we'll see the bombing continue as long as it takes to make the "humanitarian" case for expulsion compelling.
cf. https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2023/11/05/israel-proposes-expulsion-of-hundr...
Referencing the NYT: https://web.archive.org/web/20231106010620/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/wo...

Meanwhile in the West Bank:

Settler Violence Rises in the West Bank during the Gaza War
Mairav Zonszein, Senior Analyst, Israel-Palestine | 6 Nov 2023

...With all eyes on Gaza, the West Bank is at its most combustible. Settlers have taken advantage of the situation by stepping up abuse of Palestinians in a calculated effort to seize control of more land. Field researchers with the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, who have been monitoring the issue closely for years, warn that the settlers have freer rein from the state than ever before: “Events on the ground indicate that under cover of war, settlers are carrying out such assaults virtually unchecked, with no one trying to stop them before, during or after the fact”.

...While revenge may be the immediate motive in particular cases, the fundamental purpose of settler violence is to scare Palestinians out of the rural West Bank, specifically Area C, the 60 per cent of the territory that remains under full Israeli control as per the 1993 Oslo accords. Settler leaders and government ministers have openly said Area C, which under international law is occupied territory and was envisioned to be part of a future Palestinian state, belongs to Israel and should be formally annexed. They have laid out plans, which include large budgets for building housing and extensive roads, to double the number of settlers in the West Bank. The younger settlers who perpetrate the most violence against Palestinians, known as “hilltop youth”, largely believe it is their God-given right to be in the West Bank, which they call “Judea and Samaria”, evoking these lands’ biblical names. In their view, the Palestinians must either accept secondary status or leave...

...In the first half of 2023, settlers carried out 591 attacks in the occupied West Bank, an average of 95 per month or about three per day...The record pace of attacks has risen again after 7 October, to an unprecedented seven per day. In nearly half of all incidents, also according to the UN, Israeli forces were either accompanying or actively supporting the attackers.

...The Palestinian Authority, for its part, has no jurisdiction in Area C of the West Bank, where most acts of settler violence take place, so calling on Ramallah to help is a non-starter...

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/isr...

A week old, but intensely worth listening to. Marc Steiner in conversation with Max Alvarez.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDJ2mN2wX8
"We cannot allow ourselves to become this."

>126 margd: Basically it's been a government sponsored campaign of harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank for years. Whereas Gaza is described as an open air prison the West Bank is more like Jim Crow era South or South Africa before the whites/Boers lost their political power. It's a daily routine of slurs and curses, being threatened with guns and other weapons, arrests and jail time without charges like the British SUS laws of the 70's where you could be arrested and held without charges for however long somebody decides. Palestinians are barred from going this place and that and using main roads even in their own 'supposed' territory. They are treated as subhumans.

Speaking of South Africa 9 countries so far have pulled their ambassadors from Israel which is kind of extraordinary partiucularly after a terrorist attack when nations tend to gather around the attacked country but the Israeli bombing of civilian targets in Gaza has spent a lot of the sympathy capital already. Those countries are South Africa, Turkey, Jordan, Chad, Bahrain, Bolivia, Honduras, Colombia and Chile.

Biden tells Bibi 3-day fighting pause could help secure release of some hostages
Barak Ravid | 7 Nov 2023

...According to a proposal that is being discussed between the U.S., Israel and Qatar, Hamas would release 10-15 hostages and use the three-day pause to verify the identities of all the hostages and deliver a list of names of the people it is holding

...According to the Israeli assessment, Hamas is holding about 180 hostages, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is holding 40 and people loosely affiliated with the militant factions are holding about 20

...Hamas claimed in a statement on Tuesday that it was ready to release 12 foreign nationals it is holding hostage, but it couldn't because of Israel's airstrikes and ground operation.

...Netanyahu told Biden he doesn't trust Hamas' intentions and doesn't believe they are ready to agree to a deal regarding the hostages...He also said that Israel could lose the current international support it has for the operation if the fighting stops for three days...

The Israeli official told Axios that part of Netanyahu's reservation is because Hamas attacked a group of Israeli soldiers, kidnapped one of them, and killed several others during a humanitarian pause during the 2014 war...

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/07/biden-netanayhu-gaza-hamas-ceasefire-pause-host...

Gaza's trail of tears:

Jitender Chaudhary @JituChaudhary25 | 9:05 AM · Nov 9, 2023:
Jitender Chaudhary Humanist / Peace 🕊️ Activist

Breaking News - Israel said there will be no ceasefire. , There are strategic, localized barriers to humanitarian aid reaching Gazan civilians. These strategic pauses are limited in time and scope.

We are also providing humanitarian corridors for civilians in Gaza to temporarily move south to safer areas where they can receive humanitarian assistance.
0:33 ( https://twitter.com/JituChaudhary25/status/1722616287581597789 )

The Israeli government says our war is with Hamas, not with the people of Gaza.
______________________________________________

Israel Defense Forces IDF | 7:29 AM · Nov 9, 2023:

0:29 ( https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1722592236464931219 )

Netanyahu rejected ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza, sources say (Guardian)

Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza in return for the release of some of the hostages held in the territory early in the war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations...

>131 John5918: Everyone feel free to hit the ceiling any time now.

yikes really?

".He also said that Israel could lose the current international support it has for the operation if the fighting stops for three days..."

what support? All I see are countries removing their ambassadors and demonstrations in all major cities in the world. He even has this life long Isreal supporter , say enough is enough. You claim you awant the hostages back,something tells me you dont really, you just want to blow any people in gaza away. That is not the way of negotiation , its the way of widening this war, which is scarying me should it happen. Those poor hostages, those poor families what I hope is that Israelis say enough is enough and get rid of him

Collateral damage was wrong with Shock and Awe. It was wrong with Obama's drone strikes. It's wrong targeting civilians in the number of ways that the Russians have done in Ukraine and it's wrong here. Anyone who remembers the twin towers....it was weeks to recover some of the bodies so an accurate count didn't happen for a while but with a 1/3 estimate of Gaza City's buildings collapsed in a densely populated area with hardly any chance getting a lot of those bodies out because of lack of equipment, fuel and amid ongoing airstrikes and/or Israeli troops on the ground that number IMO almost has to be a lot higher. As well lack of food and water and medical supplies to over 2 million people for an extended period of time and lack of proper medical treatment for people with devastating injuries and lack of shelter as well the longer this goes on the more serious a humanitarian crisis we're going to see. 50% of Gaza's population under 18 years old----a lot of children who are starving and they don't have drinking water and some of them are badly injured. I don't know what politicians in the United States see and I'm looking at Democrats particularly....I wouldn't expect most republicans to have much empathy but most democrats usually have some but here most are on the wrong side of this and the longer this situation goes on the more apparent how wrong they are is going to be.....and there will be excuses and forgetfulness. I'm more happy with socialist economic and justice and environmental oriented politics to begin with and voted for Biden mainly because I saw Trump as an existential problem. It's not that I think Biden has been terrible though or at least up until this but I don't see myself (like he has) okaying these kind of war crimes and voting for him again.

>133 cindydavid4: I hope so too. I would love nothing more than for things to change course, for there to be a comprehensive peace. But we have no leaders anymore on any side who could make it stick. Decades of marching in the wrong direction, by all parties. It's stomach-churning and far more bitter than I can easily express. We are all marching in lockstep towards complete disaster.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The dangers of unbridled war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpqSCWbcU7c
"If we want to help Israel, we need to help Israel save itself from itself. And that is what we need to do. We need to be grown-up and say to Israel, you're on the wrong path, and it's extraordinarily dangerous for you, for us, and for the world. Get off that path, and get on the path to diplomacy and peace."

Biden administration privately warned by American diplomats of growing fury against US in Arab world
Priscilla Alvarez and Alex Marquardt | November 9, 2023

... President Joe Biden has been under growing pressure domestically and abroad over US support of Israel amid images of destruction in Gaza and the dire humanitarian crisis in the region. While the administration has resisted calls for a ceasefire, officials have worked to ramp up aid going into Gaza and pushed for humanitarian pauses to allow more assistance to flow into the enclave and to allow civilians to flee away from the fighting...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/09/politics/biden-diplomats-warn-middle-east-fury/in...

>136 davidgn: Well said Problem is that I dont think N is a grown up. hes a little egotistical boy playing a game only he knows.

as usual, Freidman gets it right

I Have Never Been to This Israel Before

>138 cindydavid4: Yes, he's essentially right. I just don't see how we get there. Barring some sort of paradigm-shattering diplomatic intervention from the rest of the world, if the West is left to its own devices, I see two likely medium-term outcomes: a successful genocide of the Gaza Palestinians and absorption of the West Bank, (likely in fits and starts) by a consolidated Kahanist state that successfully manages to sustain itself (for a time) by nuclear deterrence alone, while retaining the support of an unhinged and far-right United States where the Christian Right has seized power using Trump as a battering ram, or a large regional war with potentially apocalyptic consequences. (These are not mutually exclusive). I hate it all. All of it. It's why I haven't slept properly in a month. Make it stop.

>139 davidgn:
I posted a Leonard Cohen song, but anything can be misinterpreted.

I fear we may have failed. All of us.

https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1723240092121088095
Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺
@ejmalrai
·
55m
This is THE most serious attack and escalation for many years & its consequences are critical, much more than what the eye can see:

#Israeli warplanes attack a truck in Zahrani, south of Lebanon, 40 kilometres from the border, breaking all red lines in #Lebanon after #Syria.
Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺
@ejmalrai
The escalation between #Israel and #Hezbollah has started TODAY (you may disagree if you don't see the full picture).

It seems the occupation of north of #Gaza won't take too long and
@netanyahu
doesn't mind starting a war on another front.

The next hours/days are crucial.
2:23 AM · Nov 11, 2023
·
4,024
Views

UN Secretary-General's Press Conference - on the Middle East
The Secretary-General | 06 November 2023
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2023-11-06/secretary-general...

>142 margd: A few quibbles aside (e.g. I will accept any just final settlement, no matter what it looks like, and the assertion of Hamas' use of human shields is a thinly-worn talking point much abused as a fig leaf to cover crimes, while being nonetheless broadly accurate), I emphatically support the statement. It's one of the few manifestoes I've seen that I could undersign.
But I fear that nothing I can do or say will make a difference.

>143 davidgn: Yeah, we can all agree with the sentiment. Nothing new, though, in terms of practical steps. :(

>139 davidgn: yes, sleeping is not a problem. Waking to watch people going about their lives and wonder how long we have.

which Leonard song?

>142 margd: wow. lets hope someone is listening

>145 cindydavid4: The Future.

wow hadnt heard that before, its actually too depressing for even me at this point

Topher Toms 🔶🇮🇱🇺🇦 @TopherToms | 6:09 AM · Nov 11, 2023:
Pro EU, Antifa, LibDem, atheist, tech geek (Linux is love; Linux is life), Wikipedia addict, gentile Zionist.

Here's a helpful guide for anyone who only pays attention when there are Jews involved.

Map casualties in wars of the Middle East
https://twitter.com/TopherToms/status/1723296950240387497/photo/1

>149 margd: A tough neighborhood, as they say. What a lot of them have in common as well is U.S. complicity. And most of the actors are quite through with us, thank you very much.
To repost:
https://chasfreeman.net/the-middle-east-is-once-again-west-asia/

Now, we have this: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-middle-east/
"Ruinous" is an understatement. Consider, too, the domestic political implications. We already have Trump holding himself out as the only person who can stop World War III. Soon, at the present rate of things, we will have a groundswell of people desperate and panicked enough to believe him.

I fear all of us stand to lose everything.

ETA: cf. also: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-israel-ukraine/

On present trends — no exit to the Sinai for the mass of Gaza’s population, the complete collapse of the health and sanitation systems, relentless Israeli military pressure and economic blockade, 1.5 million already displaced — it is difficult to see how the total casualty count among Gazans avoids numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Probably many more will die from disease and epidemics than from bullets and bombs. The experience, as Netanyahu has said, will be remembered “for decades to come.” What if it registers in world public opinion as an historic crime?

Incredibly, advocates of total war against Hamas invoke Dresden, Hiroshima, and other atrocities to justify their course, neglecting that neither Germany nor Japan had anyone to weep for them after the war, whereas Palestinians have 1.8 billion Muslims to weep over them today.

The obvious fact is that Israel cannot pursue to the end its aim of destroying Hamas without causing death on a biblical scale. There is no reason whatsoever for the United States to embrace these aims.

Biden’s choice is to get tough with the Israelis or to go along with what he fears is going to be a gigantic catastrophe.

There are precedents for getting tough, but they are admittedly distant ones. Dwight Eisenhower did it in 1956 over the Anglo-French-Israeli Suez adventure. Bush I did it in 1991 over loan guarantees to Israel.

But the most resonant example is 1982, when Ronald Reagan told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to cease Israeli’s bombardment of Beirut. “Menachem,” Reagan said, “this is a holocaust.” To Reagan’s surprise, his threat of an agonizing reappraisal worked. “I didn’t know I had that kind of power,” he told his aide Mike Deaver. At the time of Reagan’s threat, the death toll from two and a half months of war approached 20,000, of which nearly half were civilians.

Can Biden summon the will to confront Netanyahu? Will his administration force Ukraine to the bargaining table?

In our weird empire, where dependents call the shots, deeply embedded tendencies dictate a negative answer to both questions, though wise policy would dictate positive ones. Perhaps the time is ripe for a new policy in which America consults its own national interests rather than theirs.

I presume everybody is watching Al Jazeera's coverage of events at Al Shifa hospital. Eye witnesses are reporting that there is no Hamas activity in or around the hospital and that Israeli forces are shooting and killing anyone who moves within the hospital complex.

>151 John5918: Thank you, John. I wasn't following. Though I can scarcely say I'm surprised.

>150 davidgn: What strikes me is the casualties in the Iran-Iraq war: 1-2 million out of ~80 million! No wonder Iran supports Shiite groups against Sunni--and us. Why Israel, though? It's a wonder that they haven't yet developed nuclear weapons...

The Extreme Ambitions of West Bank Settlers
A leader of the settlement movement on expanding into Gaza, and her vision for the Jewish state.
Isaac Chotiner | November 11, 2023

....You said, "Settlement is the way to return to Zion”?
Yes. It’s the end of the dispersion and the beginning of the revival of the Jewish nation in this homeland.

...What are the borders of that Jewish nation?
The borders of the homeland of the Jews are the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest. (This would include the territory of multiple Middle Eastern countries as well as the territory that Israel controls today.)

...When you say that the government’s been better, but it hasn’t realized your dreams, what are those dreams?
Two million Jews in Judea and Samaria. More settlements, more farms, bigger cities.

When you say that you want more Jews in the West Bank, is your idea that the Palestinians there and the Jews will live side by side as friends, or that—
If they accept our sovereignty, they can live here.

So they should accept the sovereign power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean having rights. It just means accepting the sovereign power.
Right. No, I’m saying specifically that they are not going to have the right to vote for the Knesset. No, no, no...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions-of-west-bank-settle...

Unfortunately, it looks as though some of the darker speculations of U.S. policy positions are proving accurate.
https://twitter.com/DalrympleWill/status/1723168674318840091

William Dalrymple
@DalrympleWill
Very damaging new evidence of US support for Netanyahu's plan to "transfer" the population of Gaza into Egypt: Biden's special Middle East humanitarian envoy, "raised the idea of moving Gaza civilians into Egypt during a high-level meeting."
Quote
Habiba Hamid
@habibahamid
·
19h
This is the key part: Satterfield pushed for the ethnic cleaning of Palestinians to Sinai. Blinken said that they’re rejecting that Israeli position. But it was a US position all along. “David Satterfield, a former ambassador whom President Joe Biden appointed as a special Middle East humanitarian envoy amid the war, raised the idea of moving Gaza civilians into Egypt during a high-level meeting last month, a U.S. official in the meeting told HuffPost.”

https://news.yahoo.com/accept-life-gaza-conditions-worsen-001949955.html

>154 margd: that's typical settler mentality. There are all kinds of videos expressing sentiments like that all over YouTube. It's like American policemen shooting people's dogs for the hell of it. You could spend 8 hours a day for months on end going from one to the next. Bringing those themes together I watched the Canadian punk band Propagandi's (from Manitoba) video today 'Haile Selassie, up your ass' which is a reggae style tune written years ago which is about Israel/Palestine and almost seems prescient with 'the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, soon will be a parking lot for American tourists and fascist cops' line.

The only ones with the means to clear the rubble around Gaza City are the Israelis. They have the bulldozers and the trucks and my guess is when they clean things up they're not going to worry about the bodies they find. Those bodies will be dumped in the Mediterranean and it's likely they'll turn Gaza into a resort type area afterwards.

All that said there is a fairly strong opposition of Israeli citizens....it's just they don't have the power. The right wingers who do are not good people.

PS: it also makes me wonder if back in the 1870's there was a YouTube the things American settlers would be saying about native Americans. Probably pretty much the same attitudes.

>148 cindydavid4: Leonard did not pull punches. I find myself turning to him at the worst times.
I must get myself a copy of The Flame -- if I can bring myself to read anything of substance for any reason.

I read this and sob uncontrollably.
https://iapsp.org/poets-column-you-want-it-darker-but-who-is-the-you-a-dialog-be...

Perhaps the song I should have shared instead, but I'm afraid it is no less depressing.

Just saw this that started my heart beating again. I don't know the Rabbi who wrote this, but I bless his efforts and hope people are listening

taking sides

>156 lriley: Ive heard people say the zionists are to blame. true they were first to consider a homeland for the Jews after the horrors of the pograms, and later after the Holocaust. I know many refugees who came to Israel, and set up Kibbutzim, small collectives like russia tried but actually ver sucessful. I volunteered at one for a semester, learned so much. One thing I never encountered is the total hate that I am seeing from todays settlers. But I suppose I should lay the blame for them from the leaders who decidede it was ok to allow these to be built.

>157 davidgn: oh my god I had no idea about that poem, devistating and so true.

read the post I just put up and see if that helps you see the real truth

Thanks. That's a moving and incredibly important poem.

>159 cindydavid4: It's not unique to just hard right Israelis. We have similar or the same thought patterns here in the United States from people on the right who have any number of perceived enemies---blacks, hispanics, Asians, gay people and strict ideas about how women should behave. A main difference is our government hasn't green lighted them here like has happened in Israel. There is definitely a danger it might happen though.

For me if I was Jewish and living in Israel I would not like this goal of turning it into a Jewish state just as I don't like the idea of people wanting the United States to be a Christian nation. I think having diversity in beliefs/no beliefs and the diversity of different cultures is a good thing and a strength.

>159 cindydavid4: Thank you. Thank you for the North Star.
I can't stand to follow things closely anymore. I have neglected too much my own needs and threatened to neglect those of people who depend on me. I've spent the last couple of days mostly sleeping -- badly, but sleeping. I can't afford to fall apart.

I'll be around, but sporadically.

Targeting civilians is a war crime and there was justifiable international condemnation of Hamas for doing so.

Targeting hospitals is a war crime and it is very difficult to understand why there is so much ambiguity on the part of the western section of the international community to this war crime by the Israeli government. Targeting hospitals forms no part of "legitimate self defence" and there is no conceivable justification for it, and neither is there any justification for tolerating it nor colluding with it.

John Oliver doing yeoman's work this week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8

>163 davidgn: Im at that stage too, think I may have tp back off. Its just too much to take in. I still care, but feel utterly helpless. Hang in there

>166 cindydavid4: You too.

thanks for the JO link, I keep forgetting to watch that. He is amazing

Archbishop of Canterbury makes ‘moral cry’ for Israel-Hamas ceasefire (Guardian)

The archbishop of Canterbury has called for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, saying the scale of civilian deaths and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza could not be “morally justified”. “The killing must stop,” Justin Welby said, adding that the call for a ceasefire was a “moral cry”. In his opening address to the Church of England synod, meeting in London, Welby said: “As a religious leader I can say that the killing of so many civilians, the extensive damage to civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified. I do not have military or political answers to this crisis. I do not speak from those perspectives. But the call for a ceasefire is a moral cry that we are hearing from people of many faiths and none. Our common humanity must find another way to achieve justice, security and peaceful coexistence for Israelis and Palestinians from now, for the future,” he added. “In Christ’s name, we cry out from our hearts: ‘No more. The killing must stop.’” Welby also called for Israeli hostages being held by Hamas to be released, and said aid must be allowed to reach people in Gaza...

https://unherd.com/2023/11/israel-could-collapse-the-american-empire/

There is no anti-imperialist glee to be found in the situation we are in. For all its faults, the world that follows American hegemony will hardly be more peaceful or humane than that we have come to know: if anything, the withering of America’s reach is already shaping up to be bloodier than the fall of the Soviet Union. Faced with such a prospect, the task that remains is to help America manage its own decline in as painless a way possible, preventing the conflicts nibbling at the edge of its empire from coalescing into a single war that will consume us all.

The author (from a UK vantage point) neglects that there will be no managing Donald Trump.

How America’s bloodthirsty journalism cheers on Israel’s war on Gaza (Al Jazeera)

American journalists like Jake Tapper mince no words in justifying the Israeli annihilation of the Palestinian people...

>171 John5918: It's a fact that the the US media see the United States as the shining beacon on the hill. When you're the shining beacon things like self critique go by the wayside. Whatever is done in the US name is the right thing though that took a big hit in the Trump years. It shouldn't surprise anyone about our major television or print media----a good portion of which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. CNN and MSNBC aren't a whole lot better though or the NYTimes or Washington Post. They all cheered the Shock and Awe Iraq invasion. They all put credence in Iraq having WMD and playing some part in the events of 9-11......and then we spent years and years on a project of nation building both there and in Afghanistan because our politicians and General's couldn't come to terms that everything they tried somehow always turned to shit. So this is just another example or our elites being elites (and dragging a very big % of the population along with them like they always do) and not learning a thing from history either recent or past.

Three from the Guardian today.

‘All men 16 years and above, raise your hands’: how al-Shifa raid unfolded

Munir al-Boursh, a doctor inside the Dar al-Shifa hospital and a Palestinian health ministry undersecretary, had earlier appealed to approaching Israeli forces to exercise caution. “You being inside the hospital will create a state of fear and hysteria among the patients here,” he told the Israel Defense Forces in a phone call... Witnesses who spoke to the BBC and AFP said Israeli soldiers used loudspeakers to demand that all males aged between 16 and 40 leave every part of the hospital complex other than the surgical and emergency wings and enter the hospital courtyard... About 1,000 Palestinian males, their hands above their heads, were soon led into the vast hospital courtyard, some of them stripped naked by Israeli soldiers... A spokesperson for the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, told Al Jazeera Arabic that “only doctors, patients and displaced people” were present when Israeli forces entered the hospital’s emergency department. “We have nothing to be afraid of or hide,” he said. Omar Zaqout, who works in the emergency room at al-Shifa, told Al Jazeera that Israeli soldiers had detained and assaulted some men who had taken refuge there. “{They} did not bring any aid or supplies, they only brought terror and death,” he said... In the late afternoon, Boursh told Al Jazeera that Israeli troops were still present in the hospital. “They are still here … patients, women and children are terrified,” he said. He said the medical staff had vowed to stay with their patients “till the end.” The raid followed days of suffering for medics, patients and civilians sheltering inside the complex, where staff described how they had moved every patient into the hospital corridors and away from the windows, fearing gunfire. Boursh told the Guardian that some who attempted to flee al-Shifa earlier this week were surrounded by gunfire as they left the hospital grounds, and turned back. 40 patients died on Tuesday, after five days without the fuel needed to power generators that fed dialysis machines and other vital medical equipment. The hospital had also run out of clean water, and doctors said they were subsisting on dates to survive as food supplies dwindled to nothing. Corpses were piled in front of the hospital, with staff too terrified to move between buildings. The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs said staff at al-Shifa, for decades the linchpin of Gaza’s medical system, had begun preparations for a mass grave to entomb 180 bodies in front of the facility, as there was no way for them to leave in order to bury the dead.

Brave Labour MPs have voted with their conscience. Where is Keir Starmer’s?

In backing a ceasefire in Gaza, scores of politicians have shown the courage and heart that their leader is lacking...

Most Americans think Israel should call ceasefire, poll shows

US public support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is eroding and most Americans think Israel should call a ceasefire to a conflict that has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll... Some 68% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they agreed with a statement that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate”...

And from BBC: Keir Starmer suffers major Labour rebellion over Gaza ceasefire vote

Sir Keir Starmer has suffered a major rebellion over his stance on the Israel-Gaza war, with 56 of his MPs voting for an immediate ceasefire. Jess Phillips, Afzal Khan and Yasmin Qureshi were among shadow ministers who quit their roles to back the motion from the SNP. Ten of the party's frontbenchers have left their jobs over the vote, including eight shadow minsters... Announcing she was quitting her role as shadow domestic violence minister, Ms Phillips said she was voting with "my constituents, my head, and my heart". "I can see no route where the current military action does anything but put at risk the hope of peace and security for anyone in the region now and in the future," she added...

And two from Al Jazeera, one of which prompts the question what right under international law do invading soldiers have to interrogate civilian medical personnel, while the other offers a thoughtful reflection on the dynamics of settler states, and that an exclusivist nation state is not the only possible solution.

Israel raids Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital for second day

Israeli troops enter the medical complex from the south, reportedly destroying a wall and interrogating medical workers...

‘From the river to the sea’ and the decolonisation of our collective future

True freedom between the river and the sea can only be achieved by breaking free from settler colonialism and the nation-state... The zero-sum understanding of the nation-state – a specific territory under the exclusive control of one national community, has been the determinative communal identity for at least four centuries. Its logic is as simple as it is violent: if this territory belongs to my group, it cannot belong to yours. Not every country’s identity and politics are based on this logic, but many are. Even countries with a long tradition of intercommunal tolerance can rapidly veer towards chauvinism. The dynamics are even clearer in settler-colonial societies, where the settler community has to conquer the territory and subdue or expel the Indigenous population in order to build its own society. Genocide is more often than not a core experience of this process. Israel is, of course, the quintessential settler-colonial society; yet it is also one whose maximalist impulse has yet to be realised. Palestinians have not been reduced to a manageably small minority who can be given formal political rights and then ignored, repressed and extracted without meaningful resistance – as was the fate of Indigenous Americans and Australians. Given the violence inherent to colonialism, Indigenous resistance has naturally been imagined by settler societies as the mirror image of their eliminationist impulses and policies: We want them gone and will commit whatever violence is necessary to achieve that goal, so they must want and would do the same. Not surprisingly, when resistance does take the form of mass violence, as happened on October 7, that imagination is powerfully reinforced... Within the Israeli political space, from the far-right to the liberal left, the idea of sharing the land with the Palestinians as equals was never on the table... a far more expansive imagination is precisely what is most desperately needed today, not only to establish freedom, justice and peace for all the inhabitants of Palestine/Israel in the midst of the present horror, but to address humanity’s myriad existential problems, in which the Israeli occupation is deeply embedded. In that regard, Tlaib’s argument – echoed by innumerable Palestinian activists and their allies, including many Jews – that “from the River to the Sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate” represents a radically post-nationalist imagination of the future in Palestine and Israel. In fact, it is one that Palestinians on the front lines of the occupation, joined by Israeli and international solidarity activists, have been putting into practice, however tentatively and against overwhelming force, for decades, as anyone who is engaged in solidarity work in the occupied territories will attest... Every day, more and more Jews and others join Palestinians in causing precisely the sort of “good trouble” that previously helped end – however imperfectly – apartheid in America and South Africa, and formal colonial rule across the Global South. There is a growing awareness, particularly among young people, that the stakes of Gaza extend beyond Palestine and Israel, representing the front lines of a battle for the future, for the possibility of humanity not being engulfed by growing violence and inequality as we veer towards ever more deadly threats to our collective survival. For those still trapped inside binary identities and safely ensconced in an increasingly psychopathic global capitalist system, a free Palestine from the river to the sea – indeed, a truly free, equal and sustainable world – remains an unthinkable proposition. But as the latest wave of violence confirms, Israel cannot be free until Palestine is free, and the price of that freedom is real decolonisation. This means the creation of a political order, whatever its name or form, in which all people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are accorded the same fundamental rights and freedoms. In the face of the horrors of Gaza, we should be working to encourage real decolonisation not just in Israel/Palestine, but globally, before the violence engulfs us all.

>173 John5918: FWIW John I think Biden's poll numbers cratering are much because of what's happening in Gaza. I don't know what it means in the long run but those same numbers will come up for him as the 2024 election draws nearer particularly if Donald is still around. As for other democrats holding their positions or hoping to knock off an incumbent I don't know if it means all the much which makes those same would be politicos fodder for lobbying groups including the Israeli govt. supported AIPAC. Biden has been a long supporter of Israel but it's where the mass of his party is still and however much flack incumbents are getting from their constituents pretty much the entire Democratic Party is still all in for Israel.

Seeing the rally for Israel in DC the other day which drew a huge crowd. We had all of Schumer (leader of Senate Democrats), Jefferies (leader of House democrats) and Johnson (newly ordained Republican speaker of the house and leader of House Republicans) at that rally. Van Jones who seemed to misunderstand what he was supposed to be supporting getting booed for saying both Jewish and Muslim people (there was no equivalence in the crowd's collective mind between the two) should not be attacked and that there should be a ceasefire. There was also keynote speaker John Hagee. Hagee a preacher for a megachurch has long held the idea that the battle of Armageddon needs to become a reality. That the Satanic forces of Muslims are to be defeated and Jewish people who will not convert to Christianity to burn in hell and good Christians and converted Jews then to go to heaven. Some shit like that around the rapture. It's curious to me that they drag this guy out as a supporter of their cause but he is one of the leading evangelical supporters of the state of Israel.

Do the rules of war protect hospitals? (BBC)

Israeli forces have entered Gaza's largest hospital in what the military calls a "precise and targeted" operation against Hamas. The BBC's Analysis editor Ros Atkins examines how the rules of war apply to hospitals caught up in military action.

rules of humanity do