Israel orders mass 'evacuation' from Northern Gaza, humanitarian crisis certain to ensue

[Gandalf]

It's worth a try, though the DNC's reaction will be as follows:

• You're going to get Trump elected!

That was Gretchen Whitner last night on CNN, presumably as a part of the 2028 run. No real acknowledgement of the underlying concerns of genocide, just covering for Joe Biden.

[LadyTevar]

Can we not do this stupid tangent in the Gaza ethnic cleansing thread?

I AGREE.
The Next Tangent into US Political Election will be flushed from this thread. Those who continue posting about the US Election in this thread about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict will also be flushed.

Is that understood?

[Dominus Atheos]

Can we not do this stupid tangent in the Gaza ethnic cleansing thread?

I AGREE.
The Next Tangent into US Political Election will be flushed from this thread. Those who continue posting about the US Election in this thread about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict will also be flushed.

Is that understood?

Might I suggest a sticky or at least official thread for 2024 us election news and discussion?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Can we not do this stupid tangent in the Gaza ethnic cleansing thread?

I AGREE.
The Next Tangent into US Political Election will be flushed from this thread. Those who continue posting about the US Election in this thread about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict will also be flushed.

Is that understood?

Might I suggest a sticky or at least official thread for 2024 us election news and discussion?

Agreed, and this one should be merged into it.

[Dominus Atheos]

The Intercept does a deep dive on the allegations of rape and torture on Oct 7.

Sources in this link.

AMERICAN MEDIA KEEP CITING ZAKA — THOUGH ITS OCTOBER 7 ATROCITY STORIES ARE DISCREDITED IN ISRAEL
Israeli media has debunked the ultra-Orthodox group’s stories, but the New York Times won’t say so.

Yossi Landau is the head of operations for the southern region at Zaka, an Israeli search-and-rescue organization. Assigned to collect human remains after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, Landau and his fellow Zaka members riveted media outlets worldwide with the horrific atrocities they saw.

Speaking through tears at the Jerusalem Press Club shortly after the attack, Landau described finding a pregnant woman in Kibbutz Be’eri in a “big puddle of blood, face down.”

“Her stomach was butchered open,” Landau said. “The baby that was connected to the cord was stabbed.”

In Be’eri, he said, he also found a family who was tied up, tortured, and executed with a bullet to the back of the head: father, mother, and two small children around 6 or 7 years old. An eye was missing, fingers chopped off. Landau later told CNN, “The terrorists were having a ball,” with Palestinian militants devouring a holiday meal set out by the family. Landau broke down recounting the tale, as a CNN reporter comforted him.

Long after Landau’s emotional recollections were replayed, repeated, cited, and quoted in the global media, a problem emerged: No one could find any evidence that the two massacres ever took place — in Be’eri or elsewhere.

In the case of the butchered mother and fetus, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz concluded the killing “simply didn’t happen.” As for the tortured family, no one killed in Be’eri matches Landau’s account. The one brother and sister to die in the kibbutz were 12-year-old twins, killed when an Israeli general ordered a tank to fire on a house where Hamas militants were holding them hostage. Nevertheless, Landau told these stories unchecked in interviews and press conferences.

Landau spread his tales far and wide with little pushback — telling similar stories on camera to CNN, Fox News, and the Media Line, and at an outdoor press conference. Even after reporters showed his accounts lacked any substantiation, news organizations continued to let him off the hook. The New York Times recently interviewed Landau as part of a profile about Zaka, but it did not mention either of his atrocity stories.

Western Media Whitewash
Zaka stories have been essential to justifying Israel’s all-out war against Gaza, which has killed around 30,000 Palestinians in less than five months. Speaking at the United Nations in December, Zaka deputy commander Simcha Greiniman broke down while describing alleged atrocities. He later told the same stories to a meeting of British parliamentarians.

Given its prominence, Zaka has been scrutinized by the Israeli press but not the U.S. media. A blockbuster Haaretz report found after October 7, senior military leaders sidelined Israel Defense Forces soldiers specializing in recovering bodies and preserving evidence and sent in untrained Zaka volunteers instead. Zaka reportedly turned massacre sites into a “war room for donations,” used corpses as fundraising props, “spread accounts of atrocities that never happened,” and botched forensics that are central to Israel’s claim that Hamas carried out a premeditated campaign of mass rape.

DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA - NOVEMBER 7: Civil defense teams and citizens continue search and rescue operations after an airstrike hits the building belonging to the Maslah family during the 32nd day of Israeli attacks in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza on November 7, 2023. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)


Read our complete coverage

Israel’s War on Gaza
Even when Western media outlets have questioned Landau, the inquiries were half-hearted. The Times asked Landau “about reports, attributed to him, that children had been beheaded on Oct. 7.” It reported: “Mr. Landau denied making the claim, though he acknowledged sometimes misspeaking in the immediate aftermath of the attack. What he saw himself, he said, was a small, burned body with at least part of the head missing, perhaps severed by the force of a blast. It was unclear, he added, if it was the body of teenager or someone younger.”

While the Times said the statements had been “attributed” to Landau, there is no dispute he said them. He told the stories on camera, and the clips were posted widely online. He told CNN he found “a body, of a 14, 15-year-old. Head chopped off. We were looking around for the head. Couldn’t find it.” On India’s Republic TV, Landau said of beheaded children, “Yes, this occurred. This happened.” He made similar comments to Channel 14 Israel and CBS News. There is no evidence Hamas beheaded children or babies. As The Intercept reported at the time, the Israeli military said it couldn’t confirm the claims just four days after the attack.

The Times report on Zaka reads like a glowing portrait of selfless volunteers on a “holy mission” to honor the dead and give families closure in accordance with Jewish law. The article could also be read as a whitewash of an organization mired in sexual abuse and financial scandals for decades. The Times never notes that Landau appears to be a serial fabulist, and other Zaka volunteers tell stories that stretch credulity.

Landau has talked openly on four occasions of inventing stories: “When we go into a house, and we’re using our imagination. The bodies is telling us the stories that happened to them.” Another Zaka official said in an Israeli Foreign Ministry video, “The walls, the stone shouted: ‘I was raped.’”

“Fictional”
Zaka volunteers have become ubiquitous in media reports about the attacks of October 7. They have been quoted by Reuters, CNN, New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, NBC News, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many other outlets — with few, if any, mentions of past scandals or present controversies.

These outlets fail to scrutinize Zaka stories. Many volunteers describe extreme crimes that would leave extensive evidence yet aren’t corroborated by reporting. Greiniman, Zaka’s deputy commander, claimed naked women were tied to trees at the Supernova music festival. He said he found a toddler with a knife stuck through his head and that he discovered foreign fighters — they had left their IDs in their pockets. A Zaka spokesperson said he saw dozens of dead babies, and children bound together and burned. Another volunteer claimed they found a sexually mutilated woman’s corpse under rubble with her organs removed.

Media outlets, including Israeli television news programs, have debunked numerous stories about dead babies, calling them “fictional.”

No one else has corroborated Greiniman’s story of foreign fighters. Months later, another source did claim to find five dead women tied naked to trees: According to a new report from an Israeli group, a farmer who rescued attendees from the music festival alleged the five women’s organs were all slashed and made bizarre claims about sexual mutilation. In three previous interviews, the farmer never made such claims nor is there any forensic or photo evidence to back up his account.

Instead of offering verifiable evidence of war crimes, Zaka volunteers serve another purpose: They are an invaluable part of Israel’s propaganda machine. Israeli government officials, in pushing for a total war on Palestinians, portray Hamas as another Islamic State, the Iraq- and Syria-based terror group that shocked the world by making women sexual slaves and posting a spate of execution videos beginning around 2014.

In an interview with the Israeli news site Ynet, Eitan Schwartz, a volunteer consultant in the prime minister’s National Information Directorate, a public diplomacy office, explained how Zaka volunteers influenced news coverage.

“The testimonies of Zaka volunteers, as first responders on the ground, had a decisive impact in exposing the atrocities in the South to the foreign journalists covering the war,” Schwartz said. “The entire state of Israel was engaged in framing the narrative that Hamas is equal to ISIS and in deepening the legitimacy of the state to act with great force.”

“The entire state of Israel was engaged in framing the narrative that Hamas is equal to ISIS.”
“The first-hand testimonies of the organization’s amazing men of grace, who were exposed to the most difficult sights, had a tremendous impact on the reporters,” he went on. “These testimonies of Zaka people caused a horror and revealed to the reporters what kind of human-monsters we are talking about.”

In the same Ynet article, Nitzan Chen, director of the government press office, said, “It’s hard for me to imagine Israeli hasbara advocacy vis-a-vis the foreign press without the amazing, effective activity of Zaka people.” (Hasbara is usually translated as explanation or diplomacy, but in practice it’s sophisticated information warfare to mold public opinion to serve Israel’s strategic ends.)

Western media lapped up Zaka stories. An Israeli government video of Landau telling his tortured family story is emblazoned with “HAMAS = ISIS.”

The political response after October 7 played out like a coordinated campaign. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led the way, proclaiming “Hamas is ISIS” on October 9. Netanyahu’s rival and ruling partner Benny Gantz rallied behind the slogan, as did Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other Israeli officials. Within days, top American officials lined up too. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin both echoed the sentiment. Even President Joe Biden said, “The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS.”

Fundraising on the Scene
Israeli news outlets — in particular Haaretz’s investigation into Zaka — have called into question credulous media reports repeating Israeli claims that religious concerns and chaos prevented gathering of forensic evidence in the aftermath of the attack.

After Zaka personnel and soldiers from the IDF’s Military Rabbinate were deployed to recover remains, much of the collection was bungled, according to Haaretz. When soldiers trained in recovery were finally let in the second week after the attack, they were alarmed by Zaka’s actions.

An ultra-Orthodox organization made up of male volunteers, the precursor to Zaka, was founded by Yehuda Meshi-Zahav in 1989, formally becoming Zaka in 1995. The group relies on donations and government tenders for its budget, and after October 7 it made the most of both, according to Haaretz. The Israeli newspaper published a photo of Zaka members carrying out fundraising activities near a dead body; sources from other rescue groups observed Zaka volunteers make fundraising calls and videos with corpses in the background. The second week after the attacks, the Defense Ministry began paying Zaka for its work on the ground.

All available evidence suggests Zaka needed a cash infusion. The group was nearly insolvent on October 7. According to a 2022 Haaretz investigation, Zaka netted millions of dollars in public funds over the last five years by claiming more than three times the number of volunteers than it had, a timespan that includes the tenure of the current CEO, Duby Weissenstern, who was featured in the New York Times profile. Even as Zaka was under threat of bankruptcy in 2021, according to the Times of Israel, it used “shadow organizations” to divert millions of dollars to Meshi-Zahav and his family, allegedly spending it on groceries, plane tickets, luxury hotels, “and a multi-million dollar villa.” Zaka’s schemes, reported the Israeli news site NRG, included hitting up donors for money to buy the same motorcycle and changing a plaque to reflect the new donor’s name.

All available evidence suggests Zaka needed a cash infusion. The group was nearly insolvent on October 7.
Under Meshi-Zahav, the organization was beset by financial and abuse scandals. Despite knowing of “at least 20 cases” where Meshi-Zahav allegedly sexually assaulted minors, police failed to investigate him and closed the case without charging him in 2014. More than a dozen people came forward in 2021 claiming Meshi-Zahav raped, assaulted, and threatened them. “He allegedly exploited his status, power, money and even the organization he heads [Zaka] to assault teenagers and … boys and girls” as young as 5 years old, Haaretz reported. The abuse was a family affair: One brother was imprisoned for raping a female relative and a second fled abroad after being investigated, along with Yehuda, for lavishing gifts on seven teenaged girls in distress and then sexually abusing them, sometimes in Zaka vehicles.

One teenaged victim said Meshi-Zahav effectively turned him into a “prostitute” and rewarded the teen with “a Zaka beeper” and a coveted certificate of volunteer work. A young woman alleged that after being raped by Meshi-Zahav, he threatened: “If you say anything to anyone, a Zaka van will run you over.” Police suspected that top Zaka officials and figures in the ultra-Orthodox community knew of the abuse but helped silence the criticisms. Meshi-Zahav attempted suicide shortly after the abuse allegations were reported and died a year later.

No mention of this history made it into the Times profile, or that of any other U.S. media outlet that has featured Zaka volunteers. Meanwhile, the positive reports have been a boon to Zaka’s image and bankroll.

Zaka fundraises on Facebook and buys Google ads for donations. Days after October 7, with specialized fundraising efforts popping up, money began flowing to different Zaka outfits. The group was showered with some of the $242 million disbursed by the Jewish Federation of North America. It shared in a $15 million donation from chip-making giant Nvidia. Billionaire Roman Abramovich pledged $2.2 million to Zaka. At a November 19 “Unity Concert for Israel” in Manhattan, with Yossi Landau on stage, a sign displayed $1,000,430 raised for Zaka. The Zakaworld website has a campaign that has topped $3.5 million, and apparently a separate post-October 7 fundraiser totaled nearly $2.1 million. Haaretz calculated that Zaka has raked in at least $13.7 million since the attacks.

Zaka volunteers seemed less intent on bagging bodies than grabbing money. According to Haaretz, Zaka failed to document remains, put parts from different bodies in the same bag, and did not collect all the remains in homes and the field. Zaka volunteers apparently did find time to rewrap already bagged remains in material that “prominently displayed the Zaka logo.”

“Not Pathology Experts”
The New York Times’s Zaka profile came after the paper’s controversial December 28 article titled “Screams Without Words” about allegations of sexual assault during the October 7 attack. The report was widely criticized for weak sourcing and citing cases that lacked physical evidence. The Times, The Intercept reported in January, pulled a related episode of its podcast “The Daily” over issues with the article, stoking internal worries it could be another “‘Caliphate’-level journalistic debacle.”

In the “Screams Without Words” story, the Times quoted two Zaka figures, one being Landau. “I did not take pictures because we are not allowed to take pictures,” Landau said. “In retrospect, I regret it.”

The Times beatific portrait of Zaka from January 15 seems to take an approach of blind trust in Zaka statements, suggesting that perhaps Landau did not say children were beheaded; that he “worries about getting details right”; that he diligently gathers human remains; that Zaka isn’t trained in forensics; and, finally, that women were subjected to sexual violence.

Yet these are Landau’s assertions, as is his claim that Zaka volunteers can’t take pictures of the dead. Haaretz reported that Zaka “released sensitive and graphic photos” from massacre sites. There is news footage, showing remains being carried on stretchers, labeled “Videos taken onsite by Zaka volunteers.” And Greiniman, the Zaka deputy commander, has bragged at least three times of “all the pictures and all the evidence, we have everything to prove it” — but nothing has ever been publicly produced.

Zaka always seemed ill-suited for the task of forensics. In the 1980s, Meshi-Zahav led an extremist ultra-Orthodox movement called Keshet, which protested archaeological digs and autopsies as religious desecration. Keshet members reportedly terrorized doctors and pathologists by planting fake explosives at their homes and sending them bullets with a note “this time it’s only in the mail.”

The group has also operated a legal department “for decades” whose purpose was to block police and pathologists from conducting medical examinations on dead bodies, which has hampered criminal investigations. No Western media outlet has asked why an organization hostile to forensic pathology was allowed to bungle the most significant forensic evidence in Israel’s history.

Zaka acknowledges the shortcomings of testimony from its own members. Haaretz debunked Landau’s tale of the pregnant woman’s corpse in Kibbutz Be’eri whose fetus was cut out by Hamas attackers. There is no independent corroboration of Landau’s claim, Kibbutz Bee’ri denied that the incident occurred there, police said they have no record of the case, and a “pathology source” at the main morgue did not know of the case.

In a statement to Haaretz on the lack of supporting evidence for its volunteers’ accounts, Zaka said: “The volunteers are not pathology experts and do not have the professional tools to identify a murdered person and his age, or declare how he was murdered, except for eyewitness testimony.”

[EnterpriseSovereign]

US airman dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli embassy, in apparent Gaza protest

WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in an apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza has died, the military and local police said on Monday.
Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell, 25, a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron, died from injuries sustained in the incident, the Air Force said in a statement.
"When a tragedy like this occurs, every member of the Air Force feels it," U.S. Air Force Colonel Celina Noyes said in the statement. "We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Senior Airman Bushnell. Our thoughts and prayers are with them, and we ask that you respect their privacy during this difficult time."
Officer Lee Lepe, a spokesperson for the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, confirmed the death.
The Pentagon said the death was a "tragic event" and that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was following the situation.
Bushnell was initially hospitalized in critical condition after U.S. Secret Service officers put out the flames on Sunday, D.C. Fire and EMS said earlier. Bushnell, wearing military fatigues, broadcast the incident live over the internet.
"I will no longer be complicit in genocide," the man said before dousing himself in a clear liquid and setting himself on fire, screaming "Free Palestine," according to a video seen by Reuters.
"We express our heartfelt condolences and full solidarity with the family and friends of the American pilot Aaron Bushnell, who immortalized his name as a defender of human values and the plight of the Palestinian people, who are oppressed by the American administration and its unjust policies," Hamas said in a post on Telegram Messenger.
The incident comes amid ongoing pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests in the United States following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis and seized 253 hostages in a cross-border attack.
Israeli forces then launched a military campaign against the Palestinian Islamist group that rules Gaza, destroying much of the coastal enclave, with nearly 30,000 people confirmed killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel's embassies have drawn continued protest against the war. In December, a woman protesting the war set herself on fire outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta.

[Elfdart]

The Intercept does a deep dive on the allegations of rape and torture on Oct 7.

Sources in this link.

AMERICAN MEDIA KEEP CITING ZAKA — THOUGH ITS OCTOBER 7 ATROCITY STORIES ARE DISCREDITED IN ISRAEL
Israeli media has debunked the ultra-Orthodox group’s stories, but the New York Times won’t say so.

The Intercept has done a good job of debunking a lot of these hoaxes, though other outlets like Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, Briahna Joy Gray of The Hill and Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone are usually on the case first.





There's more:

The New York Times published “Screams Without Words”, one of the most hysterical pieces or racist atrocity porn since D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, on its front page in spite of the facts that:

1) One of the authors, Jeffrey Gettleman, when questioned about the lack of evidence to back up the claims made in the article, became rather demure on the subject of his agitprop:

“And what we found I don't want to even use the word evidence because evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests you're trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court.”

2) His co-author, Anat Schwartz, was hired by the Times in spite of the fact that she has never done any kind of journalism in her life and has no training in the subject. What she does have training in is serving in the IDF as an "intelligence" officer. She also has experience in promoting genocidal mass murder against the people of Gaza. So genocidal in fact that the social media post which she liked and forwarded that called for turning Gaza into a slaughterhouse was entered and accepted as evidence in South Africa's case at the ICJ:



Mondoweiss has the goods:

Extraordinary charges of bias emerge against NYTimes reporter Anat Schwartz
New doubts are emerging about the New York Times’s coverage of sexual violence in the October 7 attack. The paper must explain why it broke its own rules by hiring a clearly biased writer who endorsed racist and violent rhetoric toward Palestinians.
By James North February 25, 2024

New doubts are emerging about the New York Times’s coverage of sexual violence during the October 7 Hamas-led attack — and the paper owes its readers an open and transparent explanation.

What’s more, its reporting on this issue has become so questionable that it should assign new reporters to go over the entire story again.

The latest questions are centered around Anat Schwartz, an Israeli who co-authored several of the paper’s most widely circulated reports, including the now well-known and scrutinized December 28 article headlined: “‘Screams Without Words’’ How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.”

Independent researchers scrutinized the online record, and raised serious questions about Schwartz. First, she has apparently never been a reporter but is actually a filmmaker, who the Times suddenly hired in October. You would expect the paper to look for someone with actual journalistic experience, especially for a story as sensitive as this one, written during the fog of war. Surely the paper had enough of its own correspondents on staff who could have been assigned to it.

Next, the researchers found that Schwartz had not hidden her strong feelings online. There are screenshots of her “liking” certain posts that repeated the “40 beheaded baby” hoax, and that endorsed another hysterical post that urged the Israeli army to “turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse,” and called Palestinians “human animals.”

snip

Let’s pause here. What would happen if the Times suddenly hired a Palestinian filmmaker with no journalistic background, who had recently publicly “liked” posts that called for “pushing Israeli Jews into the sea,” to co-write several of its most sensitive and contested reports?

(We don’t have to speculate. The Times fired Palestinian photojournalist Hosam Salam in 2022 after one of the pro-Israel media watchdog groups protested about his social media posts.)

After Anat Schwartz’s online history became public, she locked down her accounts and then deleted much of the incriminating content.

The New York Times imposes strict rules on its reporters to maintain the appearance of objectivity. Reporters are not supposed to attend demonstrations of any kind, wear campaign buttons, or post opinions on social media. By hiring Anat Schwartz, the paper clearly violated its own guidelines, and it should publicly explain and apologize.

There’s another related example of how the Times has botched the sexual violence story. One of the first Israeli organizations that arrived on the scene of the Hamas attack was Zaka, a volunteer group that recovers dead bodies. On January 15, Times reporter Sheena Frankel wrote a positive profile of the group; she included 3 or 4 sentences of criticism, only to quickly dismiss them. This site had already raised serious doubts about Zaka weeks earlier, pointing out that “the organization’s volunteers have systematically given false testimonies, and continue repeating them to journalists on behalf of the Israel government.” Then, on January 31, the Israeli daily Haaretz published a long investigation, that highlighted “cases of negligence, misinformation and a fundraising campaign that used the dead as props.” Haaretz cited one Zaka report that said a volunteer had seen a murdered pregnant woman, with the baby still attached by the umbilical cord — before concluding that the incident “simply didn’t happen.”

At this stage, there are serious doubts about many aspects of Israel’s overall account about October 7. Only a genuinely independent and impartial investigation might some day get closer to the truth. But meanwhile, at the very least the New York Times must publicly recognize its errors, and assign new, unbiased reporters to try to clean up its mess.

There are two highly informative Twitter threads detailing the bigotry and the clear desire of the authors of “Screams Without Words” to gin up an ethic cleansing in Gaza. Read them, look at the screenshots, and keep in mind that Julius Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg for promoting the same kind of shrieking propaganda in Der Sturmer as Gettleman, Schwartz and their editors spewed in the New York Times:

https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/17612 ... 22442?s=20

https://twitter.com/eshaLegal/status/17 ... 4898342927

Also worthy of credit is Krystal Ball of Breaking Points, who made two excellent Cliffs Notes videos of the scandal:

[Rogue 9]

Speaker Johnson, in apparent reaction to Senator Schumer's statement last week, has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, consulting with neither the Senate nor the White House. No date has been set, and it will be difficult to convene a joint session without the cooperation of the Senate. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/12398812 ... -netanyahu

[LadyTevar]

Can we not do this stupid tangent in the Gaza ethnic cleansing thread?

I AGREE.
The Next Tangent into US Political Election will be flushed from this thread. Those who continue posting about the US Election in this thread about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict will also be flushed.

Is that understood?

Might I suggest a sticky or at least official thread for 2024 us election news and discussion?

Good Idea. Sticky Made for American 2024 Election news and discussion. Please Use It.

[LadyTevar]

Agreed, and this one should be merged into it.

That thread only had two posts, and is from a month back. Not enough engagement in that post to merge it.

[madd0c0t0r2]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-03-24/

Cartoon evil.

[Edi]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-03-24/

Cartoon evil.

Not cartoon evil. NAZI evil. There is a difference.

If you go and look for imagery from Gaza hospitals and the refugee camps, there is plenty that is in substance indistinguishable from photos taken at Auschwitz and other places after their liberation in terms of the condition of the people.

So let's not beat around the bush with euphemisms that take the edge off the reality.

There is other stuff like execution of unarmed civilians walking on the street by firing drone missiles at them.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsf ... air-attack

Never mind the Israeli operations in Al-Shifa hospital where they executed over 150 civilians after capturing the complex, and the wanton looting, murder and other atrocities such as killing medical personnel. Last time they were at al-Shifa last year, they found nothing that wasn't a staged propaganda video.

Oh, and Israeli soldiers raping and otherwise sexually abusing Palestinian women. Which you're not going to find any reports on in western media.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240 ... -reported/

‘Women in Gaza are being raped and this is not being investigated or reported’
Canadian doctors volunteering in Gaza have reported women being sexually humiliated by Israeli occupation forces in front of their families, one woman was raped for 2 days until she was unable to speak, yet nothing is being done about it, Clinical Professor of Medicine Dr Aliya Khan tells MEMO.

March 24, 2024 at 10:00 am
by Anjuman Rahman

In some ways, the horror of Gaza is exemplified by its staggering statistics. According to the Ministry of Health, the death toll since 7 October surpasses 32,000, half of whom are babies and children. The United Nations reports that 1.9 million civilians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced. Seventy-five per cent of the population is facing famine and has no access to clean water. Additionally, UNICEF has reported children dying from starvation and suffering from malnutrition.

These statistics are reinforced by haunting footage exposing Israel’s relentless barbaric massacres of a civilian population with complete destruction and the collapse of its healthcare infrastructure. Two-thirds of the hospitals and over 80 per cent of all health care clinics have been destroyed. More than 400 healthcare workers have been killed, along with more than 100 journalists. The destruction is enormous and beyond any degree of proportionality.

“What really strikes me is that when we saw the injustices in Ukraine, the global community was united and was speaking out loudly against these injustices as we needed to. But when we see the atrocities, the war crimes, the genocide unfolding in Palestine, the world is silent,” says Dr Aliya Khan, a clinical professor of medicine and a board member of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), which provides medical relief in war zones.

“There is clearly a double standard, and this is wrong. We need to be speaking out to save all lives, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their religion, regardless of their background and the political structure in which these lives are being lost,” she adds.

Khan highlights the contrasting responses of the global community to the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, pointing out the hypocrisy of Western governments and the prevalent double standards. Condemning the paralysis of the United Nations, which has failed to take meaningful action to address the ongoing suffering and destruction in Palestine, she emphasised the daily bombings in Gaza and the brutality of the daily massacres in the Strip, in which more than 70 per cent of the victims are women and children. Children are dying horrific deaths – being burnt to death, dismembered by the bombs or crushed under buildings. In addition, the dire humanitarian situation is exacerbated by Israel’s blockade of life saving supplies of food, water and medications and children are dying from dehydration, starvation and diseases.

Israel has killed more than 14,000 children in Gaza since 7 October while others are suffering from severe malnutrition and “don’t even have the energy to cry”, says the United Nations Children’s Fund. Gaza has become a graveyard not only for children, as described by James Elder the chief spokesperson for UNICEF, but also a graveyard for international humanitarian law. All principles of international law have been and continue to be repeatedly violated by Israel.

“Every child is precious,” says Dr Aliya. “Whether it’s a child that is being harmed or killed in Ukraine or a child that is being harmed or killed in Palestine, and over the past five months we have seen more Palestinian children and civilians killed than any other conflict in this time. But the world and the response of the global community to the war in Ukraine has been very different to the response to the war in Gaza.”

Reflecting on her visit to Palestine before 7 October, Khan says her journey through the occupied West Bank revealed a stark reality: Palestinians are forced to navigate through an oppressive system reminiscent of living in a prison. She recounts the sight of the Separation Wall, the numerous checkpoints and the everyday human rights abuses and challenges endured by Palestinians just to access basic necessities like education and employment.

Furthermore, she witnessed first hand the lack of protection for Palestinians by law enforcement, emphasising that Israeli occupation forces are often deployed to safeguard illegal settlers rather than the indigenous population, exposing the systemic injustices imposed against Palestinian society, including arbitrary arrests and prolonged detentions without trial, including against minors.

“Violence is very significant. Children can be targets going to school and can be arrested and held without charge in Israeli jails for years. Their parents could be shot in front of them. Their houses could be raided at night, by Israeli forces terrifying small children,” Khan explains. “The police are there to protect the illegal settlers, not the Palestinians, who are living under brutal military occupation for the past 56 years. And since 7 October, we’ve seen more than 1,000 Palestinian people have been driven off their land and hundreds have been killed in the West Bank.”

Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank since Israel launched a deadly military offensive against the Gaza Strip in October.

The ongoing war against Gaza has not only led to the loss of more than 32,000 Palestinian lives, but has also resulted in a dire shortage of essential supplies, with tens of thousands of aid trucks blocked from entering Gaza.

Very few humanitarian aid trucks have reached the towns in northern Gaza since November, causing a man-made famine. Condemning this blockade, Khan highlights the devastating consequences it has on the population, particularly children and the vulnerable.

And despite the desperate circumstances, Khan’s colleagues in Gaza continue their work with unwavering dedication, even as hospitals face repeated military strikes by Israeli occupation forces. Tragically, healthcare workers themselves have become targets, with reports of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals being kidnapped, tortured and killed, in clear violation of international law.

“Women in Gaza are being raped and it is not being investigated or reported,” Khan notes. “No one is speaking about this in the Western media. I just received a report from our Canadian medical colleague on the ground in Gaza that the Al-Khayr hospital, which is next to Nasser Hospital, has been attacked.”

The paramedic informed the physician that a woman was raped for two days until she lost her ability to speak. Another woman at the Nasr Hospital was stripped of her clothing by Israeli soldiers in front of her husband and brother, and when one of them took their clothes off to cover her the Israeli soldiers killed both her brother and husband.

“These are credible reports from Canadian physicians serving in Gaza.”

“We call on our leaders and the UN to investigate these war crimes,” she adds, “the International Court of Justice has confirmed that genocide is plausible, and has asked Israel and the United States to stop these attacks immediately. However they have not only continued the assault on the civilian population in Gaza but have intensified it in complete disregard of the International Court of Justice.”

In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel, however, described the allegations as baseless, maintaining its mantra that it has the “most moral army in the world”.

Highlighting the urgent need to lift the blockade on vital resources such as food and water entering Gaza, Khan concludes, “we have failed the people of Palestine.”

You can also go and look at the kinds of videos Israeli soldiers upload on social media, such as Telegram, of themselves committing clear, unambiguous war crimes.

And Israel's actions in Gaza enjoy widespread support among the population, which is an indictment in and of itself.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... efire-vote

UN security council votes to demand immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Resolution passes in a first after US abstains in significant break with Israeli government

Julian Borger in Washington

Mon 25 Mar 2024 15.37 GMT

The UN security council voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after the US dropped a threat to veto, in a significant break with the Israeli government.

The US abstained in a vote for a resolution that “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan”. It also demanded the release of hostages by Hamas, but did not make the ceasefire dependent on hostage release, a linkage the US had previously insisted on.

All other 14 members of the security council voted in favour of the resolution, which was put forward by the 10 elected members, who managed to break a deadlock of more than five months of bloodshed, during which the US on one side and Russia and China on the other, had cast opposing vetoes.

After the vote, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cancelled a visit to Washington DC by an Israeli delegation set for early this week, according to Israel’s Channel 12 television. The delegation was due to discuss a planned Israeli offensive on the city of Rafah in Gaza, something the Biden administration opposed.

The US abstention marks a rift with the Netanyahu government, reflecting mounting frustration in Washington at the prime minister’s defiant insistence Israeli forces will go ahead with the Rafah attack, and at continued Israeli hindrance of humanitarian aid deliveries.

While the resolution demands a temporary ceasefire during the remainder of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, it adds that should lead to a “lasting sustainable ceasefire”. In a late amendment demanded by the US, the word “lasting” was substituted for “permanent”, to Russian objections. A Russian effort to restore the word “permanent” was defeated by 11 votes to three.

At the last minute on Monday morning, the US asked for an amendment adding a condemnation of Hamas for its attack on Israel on 7 October, leading to urgent huddles of diplomats on the chamber floor, but dropped that demand when it became clear the amendment would be resisted.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said: “Certain key edits were ignored, including our requests to add a condemnation of Hamas, and we did not agree with everything in the resolution. For that reason we were unfortunately not able to vote yes. However, as I’ve said before, we fully support some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution.”

Although it is non-binding, the security council resolution does directly demand a ceasefire, rather than determining it to be an “imperative”, the wording of a defeated US text last week, making it an unequivocal expression of the will of the international community.

Thomas-Greenfield insisted that the wording of the resolution “means a ceasefire of any duration must come with the release of hostages”. The wording of the resolution, intensely debated over the weekend, asks for both a ceasefire and a hostage release in parallel, but does not make one conditional on the other. The security council resolution calls, as previous versions have done, for the expansion of the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and for civilians to be protected.

It's not much, but it's more than I was expecting.

For added entertainment, Netanyahu has reportedly cancelled a planned delegation to Washington DC. Maybe he should remember who his friends are in future.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

In the last 6 months Israel has rapidly burned through the good will they had gained in the wake of October 7th. There is a cruel logic in their tactics- Gaza has been a thorn in their side for decades so they want to remove that thorn permanently. Their solution, which is being carried out in the most ham-fisted way imaginable, is to reduce the population of Gaza to zero. How they thought the world would let them get away with that is another question entirely and it makes the chances of them ignoring the UN all the more likely. Politically, the USA abstaining from the vote is the logical thing for them to do, with parties both domestically and overseas.

[3-Body Problem]

Israel's solution is looking rather final these days. You'd think they'd notice or care given the history but...

[Ralin]

So is Joe Genocide going to stop sending them bombs during this ceasefire?

Israel's solution is looking rather final these days. You'd think they'd notice or care given the history but...

I don't know how true this is, but I read elsewhere that it being 'their history' is pretty ahistorical and that Israel actually treated Holocaust survivors like scum early on and didn't really embrace the whole "This is why we need a Jewish state! So the Holocaust can never happen again!" thing until after the Eichmann trial.

[Ralin]

Their solution, which is being carried out in the most ham-fisted way imaginable, is to reduce the population of Gaza to zero.

What exactly does 'ham-fisted' mean here? To me that implies that they're being sloppy or inefficient about doing it and that doesn't really seem to be problem.

How they thought the world would let them get away with that is another question entirely

I don't think it's a question. They knew Daddy would back them no matter what and that the US covering for them means they have pretty close to carte blanche to do whatever they want.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Their solution, which is being carried out in the most ham-fisted way imaginable, is to reduce the population of Gaza to zero.

What exactly does 'ham-fisted' mean here? To me that implies that they're being sloppy or inefficient about doing it and that doesn't really seem to be problem.

How they thought the world would let them get away with that is another question entirely

I don't think it's a question. They knew Daddy would back them no matter what and that the US covering for them means they have pretty close to carte blanche to do whatever they want.

I can think of two occasions off the top of my head, like when they shot dead some Israeli hostages that had managed to escape their captors, and another when they shot dead a guy waving a white flag while moving towards them, this was filmed by a news crew that was present.

And there was this delightful massacre a month ago.

[Ralin]

I can think of two occasions off the top of my head, like when they shot dead some Israeli hostages that had managed to escape their captors, and another when they shot dead a guy waving a white flag while moving towards them, this was filmed by a news crew that was present.

And there was this delightful massacre a month ago.

Fair enough on the first one, but the other two are in line with their goal of depopulating the place.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

A further development.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... row-israel

Plan to end ultra-Orthodox students’ military exemption sparks row in Israel
For years Haredi men have been allowed to continue Torah study, but proposal could force some to enlist

Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem
Tue 26 Mar 2024 13.04 GMT

A proposed bill to extend compulsory military service to ultra-Orthodox students, historically exempt from conscription, has ignited a fierce debate in Israel, with Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly warning that failure to pass the law could jeopardise the stability of the government.

Israel has mandatory army service but for decades made an exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews, also known as Haredi, who are allowed to continue full-time Torah study. The proposal, as Israel approaches six months since the 7 October Hamas attacks that began the war in Gaza, seeks to extend the duration of military service for conscripts and raise the age for reservists, while also urging an end to the customary exemptions granted to yeshiva students.

It envisages ultra-Orthodox battalions in the Israel Defense Forces but does not set an annual quota for the enlistment of Haredi men.

The bill has ignited a contentious debate in Israel. A cabinet meeting to discuss it was postponed at the last minute on Tuesday with no new date set after ultra-Orthodox party leaders met Netanyahu and, according to reports, refused to attend. The prime minister has informed ministers in his Likud party that he is standing firm while Benny Gantz, a political rival of Netanyahu, has declared his willingness to resign from the emergency unity government if the law is approved, calling it a political compromise rather than a conscription solution for all society.

“The people will not tolerate it and my associates and I cannot be part of this emergency government if this law passes,” he said. “Passing such a law would be crossing a red line during normal times, and during the war it’s like flying a black flag over it. We will not be able to look in the eyes of fighters within our borders and beyond them, and ask them to extend their service.”

The defence minister, Yoav Gallant, also said he would not support the law, declaring he “will not be a party to any proposal that isn’t agreed upon by all coalition factions”.

Legislators from the government and the opposition have voiced a stance that places the onus of heightened military service obligations on the Haredi community, rather than imposing additional duties on those now in active service.

“The thought that young people will extend their service for three years, while their peers will not serve a single day, in military or civilian service, is intolerable,” Yehiel Tropper, a minister without portfolio in the unity government, wrote on Facebook.

The proposal has been rejected by most Haredi people and their leaders, who say “no Haredi will enlist and no Haredi will risk his life”, arguing that the proposal discriminates and undermines the unity of the community, ultimately fostering “hatred and alienation”.

The exemption policy dates back to just after the founding of the state of Israel, when 400 yeshiva students were permitted to avoid conscription. But as Haredi populations have increased – to about 12% of the country’s 9 million citizens – tens of thousands now avoid the military and live on government stipends for religious study. An unprecedented number of 66,000 young Haredi men were granted exemptions from military conscription in the last year, according to the data released by the Israel Defense Forces’ personnel directorate.

In his weekly Saturday night sermon, Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, said Haredim would leave Israel en masse if their exemption from compulsory service was not renewed.

“If you force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad,” he said. “The state exists on Torah study, and without the Torah, there would have been no success for the army.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews consider it a religious obligation to exclusively engage in the study of Jewish texts and distance themselves from modern society. Furthermore, certain groups within the ultra-Orthodox community do not recognise the state of Israel, asserting that the establishment of a nation is contingent upon the arrival of the Messiah. During the past two decades a small number of Haredi Jews have volunteered to join the military, often going against their parents’ wishes, and in many cases being rejected by their families.

Despite the proposed law ensuring that Haredi men who do not enlist will not face criminal sanctions, many of them said they would rather spend years in prison than enlist.

“I will never join the army,” said Yankev Frank, 22. “Our religion doesn’t allow us to join the army. I would rather go to jail than join the army. If they tell me to do something that goes against my religion, I would prefer to go to prison. If we join the army, we will be forced to do things that go against our religion.”

For Avigdor Lieberman, a secular former defence minister, the issue was a deal-breaker. In May 2019 he refused to join a coalition government with ultra-Orthodox parties unless Netanyahu agreed to force the Haredi into the army. The deadlock led to a second election being called.

“There were several attempts over the years to force the Haredi to join the army, and they all failed,” said Yitzik Crombie, a Haredi tech entrepreneur and author of When the Haredim Will Be the Majority. “After 7 October, there is a real need of manpower in the military, but the government attempt to pass again this law is the worst decision that can it can make.

“Haredi will not comply to the new bill and they will never join the army if they are forced to. I believe this draft law is a mistake and Israeli society will never accept it. If the law will pass, people will take the streets. And I’ll be the first one to join them.”

Moshe Roth, a Knesset member of the United Torah Judaism party, questioned the necessity of the law.

“We, as the people of the book, prioritise the study of the Torah over everything else,” he said. “While we appreciate the dedication of our soldiers, the crucial question is: does this draft law justify sacrificing Torah study? The answer is no. There is no shortage of manpower in the Israeli army.

“Implementing this draft law could seriously undermine the government’s stability. However, I am confident that if other coalition members were to find themselves torn between remaining in government or going into opposition, they will ultimately realise that it is not worth supporting a draft bill that risks destabilising the government.”

This, I confess, I did not expect.

Netanyahu currently has 72 out of 120 seats in the Knesset. Of those, Shas (11 seats) and United Torah Judaism (7 seats) are Haredi, for a total of 18 seats. Noam (1 seat) and Mafdal-Religious Zionism (7 seats) might conceivably side with them. This means Netanyahu is risking 18-26 seats on the face of it; reducing his War Cabinet from 72 to 54 or as low as 46 seats. Benny Gantz's National Unity Party has 8 seats, and would reduce the War Cabinet back to 64 if he did pull out. If all of them pulled out, Netanyahu would be right down to 38 seats.

Translation; Netanyahu annoying the Haredim like this risks blowing his majority and forcing an election he seems doomed to lose.

[AniThyng]

“I will never join the army,” said Yankev Frank, 22. “Our religion doesn’t allow us to join the army. I would rather go to jail than join the army. If they tell me to do something that goes against my religion, I would prefer to go to prison. If we join the army, we will be forced to do things that go against our religion.”

I dunno, somehow it feels like these ppl should do more to... Make peace with Palestine? But the impression I'm getting is they are fine with what the government is doing in Gaza doing it as long as they are not the ones in the army, which actually seems even worse, at least the other Zionist parties are putting their lives on the line. Am I wrong?

[Ralin]

I dunno, somehow it feels like these ppl should do more to... Make peace with Palestine? But the impression I'm getting is they are fine with what the government is doing in Gaza doing it as long as they are not the ones in the army, which actually seems even worse, at least the other Zionist parties are putting their lives on the line. Am I wrong?

By everything I've ever heard the Ultra-Orthodox are absolute hateful MF-ers who are widely hated by the rest of the Jewish population of Israel. They are also one hundred percent okay with the Palestinians being genocided. They're just categorically opposed to being told what to do, being expected to contribute to society and just in general to not getting their way, ever.

My understanding is that some of them aren't even Zionists and as stated in the article do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a state but do believe they personally are entitled to full welfare benefits from the Israeli state to support dedicating their time to their religious bullshit.

[Dominus Atheos]

What Ralin said.

Also, the number one thing that they are afraid of "being told what to do that goes against their religion" is probably "speak politely to women, and don't spit on them."

[Ralin]

What Ralin said.

Also, the number one thing that they are afraid of "being told what to do that goes against their religion" is probably "speak politely to women, and don't spit on them."

I'm given to understand they also like to attack immodestly dressed women (which means basically all of them) and gays in the streets and they get away with it because the government is collectively unwilling to risk challenging them. It's like how right-wingers in America get treated on steroids and meth.

In short, if the Palestinians were successful in killing a bunch of them I imagine it would raise public opinion of them in Israel considerably and could pave the way to lasting peace.

[Solauren]

Translation; Netanyahu annoying the Haredim like this risks blowing his majority and forcing an election he seems doomed to lose.

That might be the idea. It gives him, and his political party, a way out of the war, while leaving someone else to have to clean up the mess.