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Great insights!

It is possible, Blinkin’s fealty is not to Biden or the US. His lawyering hasn’t proved up to the task. He appears over his head, and running scared.

Warriors for greater Israel grabbed the opportunity on 10-7 and are now being rebuffed by world outrage. They now fear a ceasefire that will be closely observed which could close off future opportunities for taking territory by force. Then, there is the to be avoided pressure for diplomacy to resolve the Palestine Question once and for all.

Israel should not have shut down Al Jazeera. It is censorship. Israel may not like their coverage and may feel it’s one sided. The solution to that is a free press that provides other points of view. Sure, Al Jazeera is partly funded by Qatar and has media bias, but every media outlet does to some extent. That’s not a good reason to shut them down.

“The Gaza uprising appears to be sparking a new philosophical awakening—…The battle lines have been drawn, and the progressive movement’s future now hinges on whether its standard-bearers arise to meet the moral challenge of the moment.”
____________________________________________

The progressive movement’s future may also hinge on whether Palestinian thought leaders and support system are up to the challenge of cultivating their path to a peaceful future for themselves, for Israelis, and for humanity.

James North states:
“Distort protester behavior; portray them as violent, in word and deed.”

Unfortunately there is no need to distort. Protestors illegally occupying buildings, preventing people from moving about on campus, preventing people from attending classes they paid for, shouting that it’s OK to kill people with views you don’t like, disrupting graduation ceremonies, threatening people for refusing to hide their religion, shouting “death to America” speaks for itself.

This is a bit peripheral to the story but if we’re talking about the MSM and its distortions, Israel has just shut down Al Jazeera. In the clip below Gideon Levy explains that the media in Israel doesn’t cover the situation in Gaza very well and Al Jazeera is a valuable source of news –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkIzKh14Ap4

Israel isn’t going to disappear but it may turn into the intellectual equivalent of a third world country.

So now US personnel/Pier Construction moved to Israel …
***********************************

Gaza Pier Delayed Over Rough Seas, Pentagon Calls Project “Extremely Challenging”

by Tyler Durden

May 23, 2024

“But the $320 million project has hit another snag, as the Pentagon has said its soldiers and engineers were forced to “temporarily pause” the offshore assembly of the floating pier due to bad sea conditions in the eastern Mediterranean. So a finish date by this weekend appears unrealistic at this point, based on the Friday announcement.

“The partially built pier and military vessels involved in its construction have moved to the Port of Ashdod, where assembly will continue, and will be completed prior to the emplacement of the pier in its intended location when sea states subside,” CENTCOM said in a statement. 

So now the US personnel constructing it have moved to Israel. Presumably once the floating pier is completed it will be moved by sea back to the northern Gaza coast in preparation for maritime aid deliveries. 

The pier is expected to allow “the delivery of large quantities of humanitarian aid from ship to shore by truck, with vehicles driving directly off ships and across the temporary pier to a marshaling yard ashore,” per the US military statement.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/gaza-pier-delayed-over-rough-seas-pentagon-calls-project-extremely-challenging

R.I.P. Hamas – history will remember you as Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred instrument for preventing the two state solution.

Now that we have that out of the way we can talk about the occupation, genocide, starvation and other fun topics.

According to Btselem, in Sep 2023 , there were no children under 14 in custody, and a handful (12) of 14-16 year old kids and 144 16-18 year old.
It looks like they don’t have data for after October.

https://www.btselem.org/statistics/minors_in_custody

The only thing that matters to Netanyahu is his own survival, even more than the lives of Israeli hostages.

“Once built, the Israelis could destroy the pier, possibly blaming it on Hamas. (Cynically, some Zionist media have been expressing surprise that Hamas have not yet attacked it)”

I wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen and apartheid Israel blames Hamas … Hamas did it. They blame Hamas for just about everything. They commit the crimes and then lay the blame on someone else … they attacked the USS Liberty ship killed 34 US sailors and wounded 171 … then tried to put the blame on Egypt and/or mistaken identity.

“No children , anywhere , should ever be abused. I would condemn any such case.
What is your attitude towards rape, when the victims are Jewish Israeli women?”

Apartheid Israel has been abusing Palestinians and their children for decades.

Many are still rotting in Israeli/IDF prisons with no charges.
Many are beaten, sexually abused & tortured.
Many are deprived of food, sleep and medical care.
Many are killed and in cold-blooded murder methods/style.

Rape should be outlawed, condemned and eradicated regardless of ethnicity or creed. And yet it happens and has been happening to Palestinians … women too … in Israeli/IDF prisons.

But Israel is absolutely unwilling to declare an end to its operations.

This is false, Israel would end its operations with the release of all hostages and the surrender of Hamas. This has been the case from the first day of war.

But the only thing that matters to Hamas is it own survival, even more than the lives of their own children.

That map pretty much looks exactly like nearly every Palestinian map, logo or poster ever published. So there in no need to imagine what might happen if the Arabs or Palestinians did so – they do it all the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization#:~:text=The%20Palestine%20Liberation%20Organization%20(PLO,representative%20of%20the%20Palestinian%20people.

On one hand, the institutional power structure has increasingly solidified durring the intervening years, since I was once on the streets of San Francisco and participating in anti-Vietnam war protests. Back then, my fellow protesters had completely swallowed the Zionist propaganda rife in that day.

On the other hand, the grip of the entrenched media no longer holds sway, no longer has sole control over what we are allowed to see and know. It gives me hope to see these students taking on a cause that back then, those protesting against the atrocities in SE Asia, were unable to even imagine. “The times, they are a changing.” Indeed!

You don’t discuss issues in good faith or you simply refuse to take in information that contradicts your bumper sticker slogans.

Israel went far beyond what was needed to keep arms from reaching Hamas. You don’t bother to read what human rights organizations have said. Here is an interview from a couple of years ago about what it was like to live in Gaza as a young person and there are countless articles about Israel’s arbitrary policies.

https://gisha.org/en/growing-up-in-the-shadow-of-the-closure/

If Israel were not intentionally cruel in its policies then ordinary people in Gaza should have been able to visit their family members in the West Bank as a routine matter. Traveling in and out of Gaza should have been routine. If Israel insisted on control of the borders they should have made every effort not to penalize ordinary people, but cruelty was part of the point.

I am not a liberal Zionist but I can put myself in that place where I imagine believing Israel has to be a Jewish state, protect itself, etc…And it is just a fact that Israel’s policies from that point of view have increased resentment and hatred and are intended to make life miserable for everyone in Gaza.

Parts of Gaza in ‘Full-Blown Famine,’ U.N. Aid Official Says…Cindy McCain, the director of the World Food Program, said starvation is entrenched in northern Gaza and is “moving its way She did not explain why an official famine declaration has not been made. But she said her assessment was “based on what we have seen and what we have experienced on the ground.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/world/middleeast/gaza-famine-mccain-israel.html

Rosetta, recently you wrote somthing about zionist militias rampaging in 1943.
Now you come up with this nonsense.
When Israel was founded the non-Jewish population -Moslems , Christians, Druze- all became Israeli citizens.
Who are (or were) “Palestinian Arab Jews” in 1948? What are you talking about?

No, the Zionist intention , as expressed by the mainstream Zionist leaders, was to live in peaceful coexistence with the Arab population.

Hard to understand the German reasoning on this. Germany went against Jews and now Jews going against Palestinians with the help of Germany. I would say that all those supporting going against Palestinians should read up on the history of Zionists – paying special attention/meaning to the quote…”Palestine a land without people”…which is being heard again.

Thanks for this!

What still astounds me to this day, every time I look up AIPAC contributions to our bought and paid for representatives, is simply how little they are willing to completely sell out for. Some have been taking AIPAC money for decades and even then they couldn’t even buy a nice house in a major city in their home state or pay an annual salary plus benefits to a full time professional staff member (or two) with that kind of money.

It’s both embarrassing and terrifying at the same time. Like, if you’re going to sell out to a fascist foreign regime, at least go big like Bob “Gold Bars” Menendez!

Hahahaha! Wouldn’t ya know it! Looking back at his numbers, he tops the charts for AIPAC contributions with $2.5 million, and it’s not even close! Bet you won’t see mention of that in his upcoming corruption case.

Hoping this analysis is accurate. I remain skeptical given the acquiescence of many of these non-representative governments to US diktats. Economic pressure is the only hope for reigning in Israel and, longer term, US Neocons who have wreaked such havoc to our world for over a quarter century.

Israel’s Defenders Talk So Much About Feelings Because They Can’t Talk About Facts
Caitlin Johnstone

May 04, 2024

“The Guardian has an article out titled “Israelis voice sadness and defiance over Gaza protests on US campuses”, subtitled “People in Jerusalem express little sympathy with anti-war demonstrators, with some accusing them of hatred for Israel”.

It’s exactly what it sounds like: an entire news report about the feelings that some Israelis are feeling in their feely bits about protests in another country on the other side of the world. The Guardian’s Jason Burke asked some random people about their feelings outside a theater in Jerusalem, and then presented this weird nothing thing as relevant news reporting.

“We didn’t know so many people hated Israel,” some random security guard is quoted as saying.

“Such feelings appear widespread among the Jewish majority in Israel, seven months after war was triggered by surprise attacks launched by Hamas into the south of the country in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 taken hostage,” writes Burke.

“Jewish Israelis interviewed by the Guardian this week blame outrage overseas on misinformation, ignorance, historical hostility from international institutions such as the UN, global ‘double standards’ and entrenched antisemitism,” Burke informs us.

If you’re just tuning in, it might seem odd to you that a major news outlet would publish a story about the emotions that some Israelis are feeling about foreign protests against an active genocide being committed by their country. After all, this is not a news story. A story about how some people’s feelings are feeling is not news, and is not journalism.”

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israels-defenders-talk-so-much-about

Israel and Egypt control their borders, like all states. Including entrances and exits to and from Gaza.
Yes, there is a naval blockade. Quite understandable regarding a territory controlled by a murderous terrorist organization.
Telecommunications: as far as I know, companies like Paltel and Ooredo. The war has caused a lot of disruptions
At present supplies to Gaza are coordinated by Israel, Egypt ,other countries , the UN and other international agencies. Israel inspects supplies entering.

I’m not whining, I’m SCREAMING about our kidnapped hostages. Children and women and men, Jews and Arabs and foreigners, civilians and soldiers, sick and wounded…starved and sexually abused and neglected. Who knows how many are still alive? They need to be released immediately!
Yes, I’ve directed my anger at Netanyahu and his disastrous government. I was one of the protesters in the streets last night.
No children , anywhere , should ever be abused. I would condemn any such case.
What is your attitude towards rape, when the victims are Jewish Israeli women?

These are delaying tactics to stop aid going in, resulting in more deaths. Starvation = genocide. Once built, the Israelis could destroy the pier, possibly blaming it on Hamas. (Cynically, some Zionist media have been expressing surprise that Hamas have not yet attacked it). If the US REALLY wanted to get aid in, (as they would have to if it were their troops crying out for supplies),
they could do it within hours.

I’ve had heart-breaking appeals from parents keen to get their families out of what remains of “Palestinian Zion”, but I am reluctant to finance ethnic cleansing and leaving the land open to illegal, Israeli-Jewish colonisation. The (mainly US) Christian Zionist-sponsored ethnic cleansing / genocide must be confronted as such, but won’t be. Zionist-influenced media will continue to describe this Crime Against Humanity as a “war” in which those defending their homeland are as guilty as the aggressors / occupiers, and thus “have brought any consequencies on themselves”, (or rather on the innocent). NOTHING justifies Crimes Against Humanity, but until pro-Palestinians are clear about, and campaign on this, it is not going to end and another 100,000 – mainly (or all), innocents – are going to be killed and maimed in southern Gaza and the W Bank including E Jerusalem. We must never accept pro-Zionist euphemisms to describe the situation

Mecca is in a Muslim majority country and was the birthplace of the founder of Islam. Get real. And no, Islam does not claim all lands ever ruled by Muslims and, even if they did, they have no right to invade them as Israel has done in Palestine.

And all wars with Palestinian allies were started by Israel as a move to take more of the land.

Worth noting, the Zioraelis never had a problem with Arabs or Palestinians, just non-Jews. We know that because when Israel was invented in 1948 they gave immediate citizenship to all Palestinian Arab Jews, thereby demonstrating the only problem they had was religious prejudice.

Is that the Ziorael credo – IT IS ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT?

Let us return to reality, the Zionist forces had the power to do the right thing by the Palestinians as demanded in the UN recommendation. That recommendation had no legal power which is why the Zionists invaded and took Palestine with genocidal force.

However, if the Israelis had not been bigots and had been able to act with intelligence, they would have embraced the Palestinians as the recommendation demanded, and ultimately created one shared State. They did not do that. They would not do that. They were bent on colonial elitism and domination. Israel has destroyed itself in the name of racism.

The one-state solution is the only solution. Israelis are incapable of participating in the creation of two fully independent States with exactly the same rights and would never give up attacking any Palestinian State.

The one-state solution means any Israelis who want to remain do so as Palestinians and as was the case before 1947, Jews, Muslims and Christians live alongside each other.

Those who believe that Palestinian Christians and Muslims are subhuman and cannot be a majority over Jews who are superior human beings, can go back to where they came from.

Genocide means the destruction of a group. Since Zionist and Israeli history is littered with statements saying that the Palestinians had to be exterminated or expelled and Palestine must cease to exist, one can hardly argue the correct word is not GENOCIDE.

Perhaps the settlers won in the US and Australia because they gave the native people justice and rights as citizens. All denied to Palestinians.

In the case of Australia, the British by the late 18th century were more enlightened and they made the aboriginal peoples citizens very quickly and then set up departments to support them. Australia never had the level of genocide seen in the US and which was the foundation and has been the function of Israel. Neither did the British and later Australian Governments consider the aborigines to be subhuman, but rather, primitive peoples who needed to be helped to join the then modern world. Today not only has Australia given official apologies for suffering caused by colonisation but those with Aboriginal ancestry not only have full rights they have more benefits.

The native people of the land Israel has stolen have no justice, freedom or human and civil rights and continue to be dispossessed and abused in the most sadistic ways. If the US or Australia were doing to their native peoples what Israel does to the Palestinians and has done for nearly 80 years there would be outrage.

Would Zionist Israel be where they are now if they had done what the Americans and Australians did in regard to the indigenous people? I doubt it.

The majority of the American people do not agree. We should be ashamed of our Government for not representing us well.

Dana Bash is a political hack with an anti-Palestinian prejudice. It speaks values that CNN showcases her, Jake Tapper and Wolf B. in prime time slots. Even Anderson Cooper, who should know better, is pathetic on this issue.

Comical headline from Haaretz:
Netanyahu: ICC Arrest Warrants Against Israeli Leaders Would Be ‘Antisemitic Hate Crime’

Butcher Bibi presumes his ~AIPAC purchased US Reps~ swift passage of H.R.6090 IHRA will provide all the cover he needs for more SLAUGHTER. How comical to ponder, that once it’s a hate crime to criticize Israel….butcher bibi gets away with Genocide. What’s sicker, is expecting universities to remain committed to the false conflation of anti-semitism and anti-zionism as a means of muzzling dissent. Intelligent students at Emory, UCLA, Columbia, Brown, USC will not be muzzled.

Will voters have an opportunity in 2024 to vote to Stop Cop City? Will the referendum be on the ballot this year?

The irony of “the only democracy in the Middle East” being now the greatest threat to democracy and free speech in the US is mind-blowing.

On the BBC News yesterday, Turkey is suspending all trade with Israel. Turkey is a major supplier of building materials to Israel, just as Palestinians were a major source of labour to Israeli building projects, until the Israeli government banned them from working in Israel and is now looking to India to make up the shortfall in workers.

It looks like the men and materials can be put to better use somewhere else nearby. And the chances of Israel now becoming a network hub are nil.

The US Congress/Senate is an “Occupied Territory”. Most of its spineless members are corrupt & are owned by AIPAC, which represents a foreign country … Apartheid Israel.

Thanks for the update. Hopefully, if this change in law comes up in the Senate, it will be defeated after a debate that enlightens people about the issue better than the debate in the House. And hopefully MSM coverage will be clear and free of Israeli propaganda. And if it passes in the Senate, hopefully Biden won’t sign it. But in this election year, I wouldn’t bet on any of that.

Robert Wright devotes most of his current “NonZero” newsletter to the proposed law. He begins:

I personally haven’t been using the word “genocide” to describe what’s going on in Gaza. I’ve always used that term narrowly—conservatively, you might say—even as, in recent decades, it has come to be used more and more broadly.

Still, given that broadened use—which we’ve seen not just in op-eds and social media posts, but in international law circles—it seems hard to get indignant about people who are using the term to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. If commentators can call China’s treatment of the Uighurs genocide without being expelled from the realm of acceptable discourse, shouldn’t college students be able to call Israel’s treatment of the Gazans genocide without being expelled from the realm of acceptable discourse?

You’d think. But a bill passed this week by the House of Representatives, if it becomes law, could lead to the expulsion of such students not just from the realm of acceptable discourse but from the colleges they attend. Of all the recent attempts to stifle criticism of Israel in the guise of fighting antisemitism, this bill may be the most pernicious.

The Guardian reports on the kind of limits on free speech regarding Israel and Gaza that are now becoming common in Europe. Hopefully it won’t come to that in colleges here, but it could if this becomes law:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/04/uk-surgeon-who-described-gaza-massacre-denied-entry-to-france

And what is legitimate, so legitimate, about your beloved apartheid Israel and its IDF killers’ massacres, the killing/murder of so many Palestinian lives, so many Palestinian women and children, so much savagery, so much destruction?

Can you tell us about your beloved apartheid Israel’s many “legitimate forms” of barbarity and savagery?

Casualty numbers:

• 34,488 + killed* and at least 77,643 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
• 487+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**

“A few months after Netanyahu flaunted the map of this “New Middle East,” in which Palestine was effectively erased…”

Here’s the map:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map

I like Mitchell Plitnick’s comment –

“Need I even add what would happen if any Arab, much less #Palestinian, leader showed such a map as representative of #Palestine?”

Your beloved apartheid Israel’s savagery killing scale numbers is logical to its apologists?

Economic pressure is a major tool against Israeli hegemony in the region. Israel (and the United States) must be forced to realize that a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians is the only way forward for Israel.

Dana Bash has openly shown her bias, and if you watched her interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders, you would have seen her goad him, asking the same question about three times, and basically interview him as if she was working for the apartheid nation.

The purpose of the pier is to involuntarily transport the survivors out to who knows where. Israel and the US have nearly completed their wicked project objectives: make Gaza uninhabitable, impose famine and disease conditions to cull the refugee population before removing the traumatized survivors never to be heard from again. Ethnic cleansing phase 1 completed. Next up, the West Bank.

All brought to you by the “most moral army in the world” in the “only democracy in the Middle East” with the complete coordination and complicity of America, the “indispensable nation”. Facilitated, of course, by Israel’s foreign minister Antony Blinken.

If you can cite that, I can cite this:

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

It seems strange to me that students in general would harass Jewish students due to sympathy for Palestinians. From what I’ve read and heard, Jewish students are well-represented among those demonstrating against what is being done to Palestinians. Indeed, Jewish students seem to be very well-represented in the leadership of the movement. Students would be well aware of this. On the other hand, I understand that there are pro-Israel Jewish students who might oppose the pro-Palestinian stand taken by the co-religionists. And it is my understanding that there significant numbers of Israeli students who might take this view at Columbia. Also, I’ve read and heard that non-student actors have played a role, e.g., at UCLA. So it seems one needs more details about what who does what to whom to know how to interpret these alleged events.

I am confused. What did Biden sign? I read that the House passed a bill that would effectively incorporate into law Trump’s executive order on Anti-Semitism (which Biden has not reversed), but I didn’t think that the Senate has taken it up yet, much less passed it.

Yesterday, Emory College of Arts and Sciences voted 358 to 119–>>>”No Confidence”—>>Fenves for issuing False Statement, Extreme use of Force:Riot Cops committing violence against students and faculty. As for the Emory community, check out the photo in this article of Beth Jacob’s Executive Director, Yitz Tendler, hanging with Ben Packer; a supporter of violent racist Smotrich. Southern Poverty Law Center has Ben Packer on their Hate Map. Although, Fenves has come out as Zionist, does he support violent racist settlers?

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/anti-palestinian-racists-attacking-raphael-warnock

Mainstream media in Atlanta have yet to ask Feldman about Tendler’s close association with the outright racistPacker.

Congregation Beth Jacob faces more questions that must be answered.

A map on their website shows all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of Israel – an indication that should surprise no one of its support for Israel’s aggressive plans to settle and annex occupied Palestinian territory.

Emory is Atlanta’s largest employer with 32,594 full-time employees and $11 billion endowment, making it the11th wealthiest university in the nation. Emory needs real leadership not a zionist puppet.

Frederick Lawrence, former Brandeis President, said today, “Provoking people, challenging people, asking difficult questions, making people uncomfortable, that’s part of the price of living in a democracy,” he says. He also notes that what constitutes a threat to campus safety should be narrowly defined. “You are not entitled to be intellectually safe. You are entitled to be physically safe.”

Warnock and Ossoff were purchased by AIPAC for $1.6 million. Lucy McBath went for $333,578. Most GA Reps are owned by AIPAC puppets ready to criminalize our First Amendment Rights. TiKToK’s not going anywhere.

The U.S. public should by now be realizing that instead of stopping genocide, U.S. institutional and media authority is actively stamping out cries to stop the mass murder being committed with U.S. complicity.Covering for Israel is evidently more important to U.S. leaders than international law, than the lives of civilians or students, than freedom of speech, and even, it seems, their own re-election as they resist polls showing a majority of Americans want an end to the killing in Gaza. Elizabeth Vos, Consortium News

https://trackaipac.com/us-senate

Rubbish.

Yeah, and they definitely can be started by a brutal military Occupation, land theft, and thousands of civilians being killed for protesting their suffering for years.
Killing civilians in the most cruel ways does have consequences, and the apartheid nation cannot expect the occupied people to keep grinning and bearing their suffering.
Israelis choose poorly too, they have had 3 corrupt Prime Ministers, one was jailed and as for the present one, wasn’t it he who propped u Hamas by giving them (at Qatar’s expense) suitcases of money to prevent a 2 state solution?

2014

“Gaza Lives Erased: Israel Is Wiping Out Entire Palestinian Families on Purpose
The numerous incidents of killing entire families in Israeli bombings in Gaza – Parents and children, babies, grandparents, siblings – attest that these were not mistakes. The bombings follow a decision from higher up, backed by the approval of military jurists.

Fifteen Palestinian nuclear and extended families lost at least three, and in general more, of their members, in the Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip during the week from May 10 through to Monday afternoon. Parents and children, babies, grandparents, siblings and nephews and nieces died together when Israel bombed their homes, which collapsed over them. Insofar as is known, no advance warning was given so that they could evacuate the targeted houses.” 

You whine about hostages, but have you directed your anger against the man who rejected a few offers to get them free by accepting ceasefire deals? That would be the corrupt PM of Israel. Were you angered by the fact that the genocidal forces killed their own hostages?

Are you okay with Palestinian children being beaten and abused (even sexually) for years, and kept in Israeli dungeons indefinitely?

“Palestinian children in the Israel military detention system face physical and emotional abuse, with four out of five (86%) of them being beaten, and 69% strip-searched, according to new research by Save the Children. Nearly half (42%) are injured at the point of arrest, including gunshot wounds and broken bones. Some report violence of a sexual nature and some are transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages, the child rights organisation said. 
The new research comes as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 presents evidence today to the Human Rights Council on Palestinian children in detention. It is estimated that there are between 500 and 1000 children held in Israeli military detention each year.” SAVE THE CHILDREN

You seem outraged about the hostages understandably, but you fail to see what the Palestinians are forced to go through. Apologists have shown indifference to the suffering of the Palestinian people, just imagine the outrage if 14,000 of Israeli children had been slaughtered.

I meant to add this: there are Palestinians under occupation, in the West Bank, and they do have the right to resist. Actually, I’ve never heard of a people under occupation who don’t resist.
But what happened on Oct7 was not resistance to occupation and ,in any case, atrocities such as murdering entire families, raping women, kidnapping children – are not legitimate forms of resistance.

It seems the US government is passing a law to make all protests and criticism of Israel illegal.
That will be goodbye to Mondoweiss.
You put up a good fight.

“And with the same rights as other nations.”
Nations in the tribal sense do not have rights.
“Jews have lived continuously in Israel for thousands of years.”
Some Jews have lived in the region. This does not give any rights to other Jews.
“Our connection to our homeland is a component of Jewish religion and culture and identity.”
Neither religion, not culture, nor identity give any rights.

Columbia University has been an anti Israel university (tolerating antisemitism) for decades. Columbia Unbecoming (2004) (youtube.com)

The replies to SteveS are mediocre and flimsy. The (hypothetical) created state of Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 need not have implied acceptance of those boundaries. But neither Jordan nor Egypt were willing to cede a millimeter to Palestinian independence and those are the countries that had the power to do so, and they didn’t. (Israel was pleased by Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank rather than an independent Palestinian state and probably not displeased with Egypt’s control of Gaza, so that adds a little historical accuracy to the picture as well.)

Who controls the borders and airspace of Gaza? Who controls access by sea? Who controls telecommunications in Gaza? Who controls how much food enters Gaza, who controls all goods who enter?

Do you understand the phrase functional occupation?

Israeli video trend mocks Palestinians’ suffering

1,310,515 views Oct 26, 2023

Videos of Israeli content creators making fun of Palestinians suffering without water, electricity are going viral. Meanwhile, there have been reports of pro-Palestinian content being flagged or removed from social media networks.

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

I heard about this second hand, but yes, that’s a sample of the rancid and disgusting hatred that characterizes so much of Palestinian discourse, and which Mondoweiss disgracefully glorifies.

Hardly empty. You keep citing the comparative casualty figures as proof that the Israelis are in the wrong, which is illogical.

If you believe that Hamas are combatants, if you believe that killing combatants isn’t murder, and if you believe that Hamas and the Palestinians are sort of, kind of, vaguely speaking one entity (” both, of course”), then you don’t need a PHD in mathematical logic to see the conclusion.

god, do we have to go through this again?

Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnam, was a war lord state that we supported after the fall of the French…and most probably created…read “The Spy Who Loved Us” written by a Major General in the People’s Army of Vietnam, Pham Xuan An, who was inspirational for a character in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s book. And most probably many others including Graham Greene. Look it up.

The North had an Army and an insurgency in South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese had an Army backed by the Yanqui dollar. The South was close to collapse when the North Vietnamese attempted to cut the country in half…therefore the movie by Mel Gibson parts of which were disowned by General Hal Moore, for whom a big Army base is named in Georgia.

I “came clean for Gene” in 68 but served in Vietnam. It was a conflicted time and I knew, lived and worked with Vietnamese. I had read “Streets Without Joy” and “Hell in a Small Place” and knew the ins and outs but was astonished in 70 that there were actually North Vietnamese soldiers 2 miles from me.

The USA didn’t know what was going on, and it was established as a reply to communism when in actuality it was an ongoing colonial civil war from the French. The question was, since we had firmly established ourselves as “saviors” how did we get out of the mess? Johnson and Nixon both understood and Nixon in his paranoid delusional state did just that with a lot of murder and mayhem thrown in.

I sat in a bunker in the Central Highlands at night controlling artillery, air strikes, some from returning aircraft from the north, and the like from American Forces and every strike or fire had to cleared with a bunker full of Vietnamese led by a Major or LT Col surveying maps to make sure the village or location did not contain innocents. For the most part the strikes were not indiscriminate.

The end of the Draft and all other activities were not really caused by students, of whom I was one in 68 but by the futility of it all reflected in the Media and the returning Veterans. County Joe Fish was a Navy Veteran, John Kerry was a Navy Veteran, Silver Star, who charged over the levee into the rice patties to shoot Viet Cong and Al Gore went on patrol in the US Army.

Viet Thanh Nguyen and various other guys from North Vietnam have gone over all this.

It was a sad occasion.

The MidEast is different. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan we have blundered into places of which the USA had no understanding. And we, USA, have bankrolled a fascist apartheid state in Palestine and cannot for the life of us understand why the inhabitants should object?

You are delusional in your recollection of the facts.
You insult people all the time in your posts.
By the way, bullies are the cowardly and the weak.

The present war was started by Hamas on Oct.7 , not by the majority of Palestinians. Almost all of Gaza hasn’t been under Israeli occupation since 1994. After the Disengagement in 2005 there wasn’t a single inch under occupation . No Israeli soldiers, or civilians.
So , assuming that the perpetrators of Oct.7 were primarily young men, they (the attackers ) had no memory or experience of living even one day under Israeli occupation. “Resisting the Occupation” was not their motivation. 

Meanwhile our kidnapped hostages are still being held by Hamas ; starved, sexually abused and neglected. Time is running out! Free them now!

Rosetta, Strange that you chose 1943. In 1943 Palestine was under British rule , Jews were being murdered wholesale in the Holocaust, and the Jewish armed militias (Haganah and IZL) were focused on cooperating with the British in the war against the Nazis. (Only the LHY , which was a tiny organization at the time, refused to cooperate and continued to fight the British). In short,  “Jewish terrorist gangs rampaged around Palestine preparing the way for the invasion by Zionist troops bent on genocidal ethnic cleansing” – is pure fiction.
Jews are not (only ) a religion . Israeli Jews are a people living in their historic homeland, just as indigenous as the Palestinians. And with the same rights as other nations.
“Lived there for a bit” – Jews have lived continuously in Israel for thousands of years. Our connection to our homeland is a component of Jewish religion and culture and identity. 

Our MIC has sought to maintain the I/P issue unresolved to keep chaos, its lifeblood.

We can anticipate once the ceasefire in Gaza is forced on Netanyahu, a resolution of the conflict will be on the table. Biden will need to be empowered to prevail on greater Israel’s sabotage.

Activists could encourage the resolution to be framed as one of self-determination via independence with two states or equality under one governance. Biden could then expect Israel to choose.

“Chose not to defend…” :that’s conspiracy-theory territory and I don’t buy it. Like saying that the US “chose” not to defend Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 , 1941.
No, there was a colossal failure of the IDF and the Intelligence agencies, due to arrogance and complacency and the expectancy that the leaders of Hamas make decisions like normal, rational, people, based on rational political and economic considerations. Big mistake.

jrg, I think you were referring to this phone call, from a delirious Hamas killer on Oct. 7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bACNYtaLBQI&ab_channel=IsraelDefenseForces

Donald, It looks like we’re never going to agree on the “equivalence”: Hamas is an illegal, criminal, terrorist organization. Hamas operatives should be hunted down in their cars, in their homes, in their bunkers, in the street , and killed or taken prisoner. While doing so , an effort should be made to avoid harming innocent civilians. IDF soldiers, on the other hand, are part of a legal military force belonging  to  a democratic country. Only a broken moral compass would point to an equivalence. 

Abbas is incompetent and dysfunctional. If apartheid Israel and the US thought that Abbas were a savvy, competent person who was capable/able to vigorously/effectively promote the Palestinian cause on the world stage, they would have undermined him long ago.

The Bizarre Gymnastics Of The Gaza Aid Pier
Caitlin Johnstone

May 03, 2024

“So let me get this straight. The US wound up building its “floating pier” a few miles off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, but nobody will be able to ship the aid directly to the pier to get it to Gaza. Instead, the aid will be delivered to Cyprus via air or sea, and then from Cyprus the aid will be shipped 200 miles to the pier. From there the pallets of aid will be loaded onto smaller US army boats, which will then carry the aid from the pier to a long causeway on Gaza’s actual coast. Those pallets will then be carried from the boats to the shore via the causeway — possibly by British troops or possibly by Israeli troops depending on what source you’re reading — and taken into Gaza by IDF troops after careful examination and approval of their contents. All to deliver some 90 to 150 truckloads worth of aid per day, which is far short of the 500 truckloads the UN says Gaza needs.

And this is all being done because Israel isn’t simply letting people drive an adequate amount of aid through the custom-built gates directly into Gaza. Since Washington doesn’t want to exert any pressure on Israel to allow such a self-evident move, this immensely complicated and expensive dance is being performed to deliver a pathetically inadequate amount of aid instead. Aid that is only necessary because Israel has been destroying Gaza in its genocidal bombing campaign which it has been carrying out with total impunity.

Cool. Very normal and cool.”

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-bizarre-gymnastics-of-the-gaza

Did ‘the Palestinians’ start the war of did Hamas?

Both of course.

The majority of the Palestinian people did not start any war…

Wars are never started by “the majority” of a people, but they are nonetheless started. Nobody pretended the US was not at war with Japan when a relatively small group made the decision to attack. And I made no claims as to who the victims are, just that the Palestinians choose poorly.

As for their rights to resist, the very protocol you refer to makes war crimes of the Palestinian actions on October 7. And the UNGA provides no rights at all.

You appear to be saying that destroying Gaza’s health system is a legitimate way for Israel to conduct the war. Is that correct?

Thanks for the link. The site provides some interesting information. Actually, it understates the impact of the Lobby, which has additional ways to provide support, as well as threats. Unfortunately, for those of us who live in “bright red states,” there is little need to check: if someone is an elected official (or wants to be elected), she or he is either beholden to the Lobby, or intimidated by it.

Bob Feldman was heroic in 1968 and is still on the right side of history in 2024. He quoted Joan Baez. Unfortunately she seems to be amongst the sell outs. There has not been a comment from her on this horrific far too long Gaza genocide on Twitter.

The natural gas reserves along the Gaza Strip coast are what Israel (and America?) want to control.

As this piece in Jewish Currents about the current situation on campuses points out, plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose – the current hysteria about ‘new antisemitism’ is a copy of the previous hysteria about ‘the new antisemitism’ – from 50 years ago!

…the mainstream media has frequently justified these crackdowns [ on protestors on college campuses ] as a necessary defense against lawless mobs who pose an antisemitic threat to the university…These claims build on recent attempts to paint pro-Palestine activism as a source and expression of a novel form of antisemitism. An emblematic example is a February cover article in Time magazine by Harvard legal scholar Noah Feldman, which announced the arrival of “The New Antisemitism.” The article urged readers to pay attention to a recent surge in antisemitism and its supposed new source: the pro-Palestine left….Ironically, this article proclaiming its identification of a “new” phenomenon shares its exact title—and much of its argument—with a work from 50 years ago. In 1974, Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published the book The New Anti-Semitism, warning of a novel form of anti-Jewish animus emerging from the left, and singling out particular groups, such as Arabs and Black Americans. Their argument conflated anti-Zionism and antisemitism. In the intervening years, over a dozen books and articles with “new antisemitism” in their title have been published. The main argument is consistent: there is a new increase in antisemitism, which has a new source—leftist social movements….This script recurs again and again in moments when Israel faces increased international criticism for its violence against Palestinian people. Like other moral panics, this one is a sign of a crisis—in this case, the crisis of Zionism, but also US imperialism more broadly….

https://jewishcurrents.org/anatomy-of-a-moral-panic

It seems the hasbara has a convenient loss of memory. The majority of the Palestinian people did not start any war, they have been kept in a horrible concentration camp, with NO Freedom or Rights, while their lands are being stolen, and their children killed whenever they protested, for over 50 years.

Do stop with claims of being the victim, and try to be honest, if possible. International laws allow the Palestinians to resist the apartheid nation’s occupation, even through armed struggle.

“Palestinians have a recognized right under international law to resist Israeli occupation under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.[1][2]This right is affirmed in the context of the right of self-determination of all peoples under foreign and colonial rule.[3][4] The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has expressly affirmed the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli military occupation, including through armed struggle.”

People all over the world have got wiser now, and are not buying the hasbara narrative that they did nothing to deserve some kind of retaliation or attack, for the BRUTAL occupation of 2.2 million people. They are watching in shock the war crimes against the people of Gaza.

first it has figured out how to PROFIT from such help

Please explain the profit motive.

You point out some realities for going forward. Arms have not, and almost certainly will not, advance liberation. Two pillars in defeating Palestinians have been to capitalize on their political divisions and to deny them any success to build upon.

Warriors for greater Israel grabbed the opportunity opened on Oct. 7. The devastation, the inhumanity shocked world opinion which opened a window to advance Palestinian interests…politically.

If Palestinian thought leaders figure how to expand the narrative from self-defense for Israelis to self-determination for Palestinians, liberation becomes possible. After a ceasefire, attention will turn to possible solutions.

While Palestinians may revile Abbas, they could try and encourage him to follow through on promoting self-determination through a one state arrangement with equality under law. That would put Israelis in a position of choosing between two independent states or one.

This “War” was started by Israel decades ago.

Personal insults aside (refuge of the weak), the ceasefire sought by the world existed on October 6, this current war started on October 7. I should not have to explain this.

The Israeli Connection to the Raid on Columbia University
May 3, 2024

The NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau’s Tel Aviv office coordinates with Israeli security. A Columbia lecturer, heading the NYPD bureau, probed the students, whom the bureau arrested, and is the bridge between Israel and New York, The GrayZone reports.

By Wyatt Reed and Max Blumenthal

“The violent crackdown carried out on Columbia University students protesting Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip was led by a member of the school’s own faculty, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has declared. 

During a May 1 press conference, just hours after the New York Police Department [Counterterrorism unit] arrested nearly 300 people on university grounds, Adams praised adjunct Columbia professor Rebecca Weiner, who moonlights as the head of the NYPD counter-terrorism bureau, for giving police the green light to clear out anti-genocide students by force.

“She was the one that was monitoring the situation,” Adams explained, adding that the crackdown was carried out after “she was able to — her team was able to conduct an investigation.”

On April 30, dozens of police in riot gear descended on Columbia’s Hamilton Hall after students seized the building earlier in the day, citing a request from the administration. Several hours later, officers used a heavily armored NYPD BearCat vehicle to enter the building through the window on the second floor and arrested those inside, while another team swept up members of the encampment outside.

Starting on April 17, students at Columbia escalated their ongoing protest against Israel’s genocidal assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. They encamped on school grounds, stating their refusal to leave until the university fully divested from its Israeli-related investments.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/03/the-israeli-connection-to-the-raid-on-columbia-university/

With all due respect, “slurrish” is not a word. The word “slur” does exist as a noun or verb.

This “War” was started by Israel decades ago. You seem to suffer from an amnesia problem about the history of this conflict.
Also, your English grammar is horrible. I assume English is not your mother tongue.

CNN Compares Campus Protesters To Nazis In Stunning Propaganda Segment
Caitlin Johnstone

May 02, 2024

“In one of the most appalling propaganda segments I have ever seen in my life, CNN’s Dana Bash launched into a fire-and-brimstone sermon on Wednesday comparing anti-genocide university protesters to the brownshirts of Nazi Germany — doing so in defense of a fascistic police crackdown against those very same protesters.

After playing a clip of Zionist activist Eli Tsives theatrically claiming campus protesters at UCLA were blocking him from his classroom, Bash solemnly said, “Again, what you just saw is 2024 in Los Angeles. Hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe, and I do not say that lightly. The fear among Jews in this country is palpable right now.”

According to journalist Jeremy Lindenfeld — who happens to be Jewish — Tsives wasn’t even being denied access to his classroom, but was only being denied access to the protesters’ encampment which he’d conveniently decided he wanted to walk through in order to get there. Dana Bash makes no mention of this, framing this instead as a terrifying attack on Jews which could soon see them being loaded onto trains headed for extermination camps.

Bash played a clip of New York City Mayor Eric Adams saying “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done,” as though preventing the spread of radical political opinions is something a mayor is elected to do in the United States.” 

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/cnn-compares-campus-protesters-to

Did ‘the Palestinians’ start the war of did Hamas? Didn’t you say Palestinians = Hamas = Palestinians?

Just write young Jews. Don’t write Seinfeld junior. That’s slurrish. If instead of writing young Hispanics someone wrote Hernandez junior it would be slurrish and so is this. If you wish to avoid accusations of Jew hating, it’s easy to avoid using slurrish terms. But you are slurrish and enjoy being slurrish.

Hamas doesn’t have to do anything it doesn’t want, Mr. Blinken. And as for that pier being built…it isn’t to bring aid to Gazans, no, it is so America can establish a beachhead in that region. Beware of America offering to help…first it has figured out how to PROFIT from such help. Hypocrites.

I don’t know how long it’ll take…but one day israel will pay a very heavy price for all this. And those supporting these genocidal actions…will never be forgotten. BOYCOTT israel AND the US.

 They’ve tried everything…

They have not tried understanding that Jerusalem will not be divided, and that millions of Palestinians will not be permitted entry into Israel.

It’s almost as if the Palestinians starting this current war was a really bad idea.

In the past couple years more than 7,500 United Methodist congregations have voted to leave the denomination – this plus other nonsense will add to the total.

Don’t you just love the projection and all the talk in the media and the literal lobbyists and their beneficiaries on live TV, cable news, and the mainstream media about how “…we need to get to the bottom of these protests and find out who is funding and indoctrinating these students…”?

These same scumbags are so guilty and complicit in Israel’s atrocities that they can only see the world through their own warped, corrupt, duplicitous, and underhanded lens. They either can’t see the simple humanity of these protests or want to equate them and paint them with their own same questionable and nefarious motives.

Which is why those older “counter protesters” are barely mentioned. They were 100% organized by very well funded by pro-Israel groups to stoke tensions and violence and use any and all means to use anything that happened to them in the course of events as “proof” that the campus protests are just violent antisemitism.

I wish one, just one news anchor would turn around when they are speaking to the likes of Mayor Adams and point out, disclose, or straight up ask how much in donations they have received from AIPAC or other single issue pro-Israel special interest groups and when their last all expenses paid trip to Israel was.

Respect for real Christians as opposed to the antisemitic evangelicals who support Israel as a precursor to the return of the messiah at which point Jews will be forced to either convert or perish.

The Palestinians are completely powerless. The conflict is wholly asymmetrical. They’ve tried everything from non-violence to armed struggle to international law to ceding 78 percent of their historic homeland under Oslo. All to no effect. Israel and its lapdog, the US government under both parties, have undermined every effort and, in the process, undermined international law. As for Abbas, most Palestinians consider him traitorous for acting as Israel’s police force.

Quite simple explanation: https://trackaipac.com/us-house

Both political parties are bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby, among other lobbies. This is legalized bribery that most citizens don’t know about or don’t care about or lack the inquisitiveness to find out or are too busy trying to put food on their table. Bit by bit the great ideals on which the US was founded, are being eroded while politicians get richer and richer.

“Cornell: A student was arrested for threatening to shoot and kill Jewish students on campus.
Lehigh: A swastika was etched in a dorm.”

Those are both undeniably antisemitic. The problem is when, at least in the UK, the political establishment and media talk about “rising antisemitism” in the context of increased pro-Palestinian sentiment, often not providing more than that, which leads people to think that pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist equals antisemitic in and of itself. This was evident in the desperate speech Rishi Sunak did following the Workers Party of Britain by-election win in Rochadale.