Weekly Briefing: Normalizing genocide

The Israelis attacked yet another school in Gaza yesterday, killing 16 and “breaking all norms of international humanitarian law.”

But the U.S. blindness to Palestinian humanity is in full swing again. There are far more important things to worry about in the U.S. than the murders of Palestinian children with American-supplied arms.

Let’s talk about the Biden problem. Let’s count the days (17) until Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress, with the Democrats almost completely on board.

So genocide is being normalized.

I’m proud that our writers can’t turn away from this moral catastrophe.

Tareq Hajjaj reports on the famine in Gaza, where people are eating the leaves off trees. Zucchini is going for $10 a pound, and tomatoes are for $12.

Ahmad Abdulrahim was dreading his family’s reaction when they found out that he spent almost half of their money on two cans of beans. 

“I’m starting to deal with my kids as adults,” he said. “I’m telling them this is war, and our enemy wants us to starve.”

Israeli leaders make genocidal statements unnoticed by the American press, Qassam Muaddi informs us.

While philosopher Joseph Levine writes that only an “awful person” can ignore what is happening to Palestinians.

Anyone who is fretting about antisemitism, about the fears and insecurities of Jewish students on campuses, and all the other complaints about antisemitic tropes that are sometimes carelessly expressed by those reacting to the horror of Gaza — to them I say, “let’s cut to the chase; if this is what’s occupying your concerns right now, in the midst of a genocide being perpetrated by your own people, you’re an awful human being!”

And still, the forces of blindness are rampant. Palestinian solidarity is being actively suppressed in New York public schools and on American campuses, amid “mandatory orientations on antisemitism.” It turns out that calling for the “death of Zionism” is antisemitic…

While the New York Times preaches to Democrats that the newly-elected British PM Keir Starmer “rooted out” antisemitism from the Labour Party to gain his victory.

Starmer once denounced a Labour MP for wanting to ban products that came from illegal settlements. “That should tell you that this debate about antisemitism wasn’t simply about antisemitism but about criticism of Israel,” as Donald Johnson points out.

Oh, and as for illegal settlements, this week, Israel announced yet another big land grab in the West Bank, and the Democratic Party and the liberal Zionists merely wrung their hands, as usual.

This is Zionism. The redemption of the land of Israel for the Jews and only the Jews. The slaughter of those who resist. And the blind support from the empire, assured by a powerful American faction. Pray for deliverance.