Every single state in the world has a positive duty to intervene to prevent the Genocide in Gaza now, not after a court has reached a determination of genocide. This is made crystal clear in para 431 of the International Court of Justice judgment in Bosnia vs Serbia:
This obviously does not mean that the obligation to prevent genocide only comes into being when perpetration of genocide commences ; that would be absurd, since the whole point of the obligation is to prevent, or attempt to prevent, the occurrence of the act. In fact, a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.
This case was specifically on the application of the Genocide Convention. That the ICJ has ruled there is a positive duty on states to act to prevent genocide makes it even more astonishing to me that no state has invoked the Genocide Convention over the blatant genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza. Not least is it puzzling that this action has not been undertaken by Palestine itself, which is a party to the Convention and does have the ability to invoke it.
On Monday, I attended a surreal event at the United Nations in Geneva. It was part of the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention. It had been organised before the start of the current phase of the genocide of the Palestinians, and the subject was the suppression of incitement to genocide in the media and social media. It was formally a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, but other states were also entitled to attend and to speak.
Delegates came and went, but over the course of the day approximately 60 nation states were present in the hall. Not all spoke, but enough did to give a feeling for the diplomatic dynamics.
I think this is best summed up by recounting the tale of two striking-looking women who spoke. The first was the delegate of Palestine, with notable long black hair, who spoke movingly of the current genocide in Gaza and the terrible destruction wrought upon tens of thousands of entirely innocent people, chiefly women and children.
Palestine was followed by the delegate representing Denmark, with equally notable long hair only this time very blonde, who said the government of Denmark was taking important concrete measures to prevent the incitement of genocide, including legislation to combat anti-semitism in social media. Two nations speaking entirely past each other.
And that was how the discussion went. Arab, African and South American states stressed the urgent need to stop the current genocide; developed nations stressed the need for states to control social media and counter “disinformation” and anti-semitism. The experts invited to join the discussion very much focused on Palestine – indeed that is where I got the reference to the precise passage from the ICJ judgment above.
None of which still explains why none of the pro-Palestinian states has fulfilled their duty and reported Israel under the Genocide Convention, thus triggering a determination by the International Court of Justice. This is particularly strange as several states have referred Israel to the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Yet I have not found a single diplomat from any nation who disagrees with me when I say that this is a waste of time as the ICC is a western tool and will do nothing. I have not found a single diplomat who disagrees with me when I say that the ICJ is much better and a reference under the Genocide Convention is a far better route.
Yet still no political leader has taken it.
Fatah is influenced by two negative factors. The first is that it has become so immersed in the running of the Palestinian Authority it feels crippled by responsibility. Israel has already cut off the flow of funds to the Palestinian Authority which go to Gaza to pay 60,000 public sector workers there. The PA is worried about the potential to cut funding to the West Bank as well.
The ICJ already has a Palestinian case before it. On 19 February there are oral hearings on an advisory opinion for the UN General Assembly on the status of the Occupied Territories. Arguments are being made that it would not be helpful to introduce another case.
It is always possible to find arguments for not rocking the status quo. There is no doubt that there will be heavy pressure from the USA on the PA not to activate the Genocide Convention – not least because of the stark fact that “Genocide Joe” Biden should, on any rational view, be himself indicted for conspiracy or at least complicity.
I do not myself think that the Fatah leadership is consciously willing the destruction by Israel of Hamas, and certainly not at the cost of so much civilian life. But old resentments – and remember Hamas killed many Fatah people – may feed in to the process whereby frankly spurious arguments against activating the Genocide Convention are given undue weight. Many other nations which support Palestine supporters are not acting because it appears Abbas does not want them to act.
But there is something much more profound than that. This feels like a moment so shocking that the entire world is stupefied, not quite knowing how to act. An enormous rift has been exposed in international affairs. Previously, the developed nations had given lip service to the values of international organisations and to the basic concepts that move the UN, such as decolonisation, human rights and conflict resolution.
Suddenly, not only is genocide occurring with a scale and rapidity that is simply stunning – in six weeks in Gaza ten times the number of children have been killed as in two years of war in Ukraine – but the western nations are roaring on a racial extermination that dehumanises its victims. The western political class are systematically silencing internal opposition, and promoting blatant White Power marches thinly disguised as against anti-semitism.
Every developing and Arab state who spoke at the UN session on Monday described Israel in terms of colonial occupation. That is a real shift to plain speaking.
The world has been jolted, suddenly. Masks have been ripped off. Almost the entire political Establishment of the West have outed themselves as enthusiastic proponents of a racial supremacism, prepared to give active assistance to a genocide of indigenous people.
There really is no way to face up to the Genocide in Gaza without facing up to the active support of Biden, von der Leyen, Sunak and most western political leaderships – including both Labour and Conservatives in the UK. We also have to face the complicity of Karim Khan and a number of other western stooges operating at senior levels within international institutions. Where the World goes from here, in the face of the raw racial hatred and enthusiasm for the killing of babies that has been revealed by those in power, is very difficult for people to come to reckon.
I know we have been here before, with the invasion of Iraq and numerous other instances of brutal abuse of power on the world stage. But this has a different feel. I am trying to understand why. Possibly because the balance of power in the world has swung considerably. Possibly because social media enables more people, particularly the young, to see the truth. I do not fully understand why; but this feels very different, momentous.
Almost all of the nations that have been utterly appalled by the actions of the US, UK and EU over Gaza, are to some extent dependent on “aid” flows from those sources. It is also worth noting, at this crucial time, the failure of China to provide any kind of leadership. I have previously praised China’s singular lack of interest in expansion or in meddling overseas, as compared to the fading and ultra-aggressive US hegemon. But China’s narrow definition of its interests is not helpful where there is an overwhelming need for China to throw its weight into the balance for the sake of humanity.
Everybody is failing the Palestinians. Even you and me. None of us are doing enough. I have struggled to get this article right, and there are perhaps six hours of work in it, in addition probably to another eighteen hours in various meetings on the subject trying to get things moving diplomatically. In those hours, 140 Palestinian children will have been killed by Israel and 300 maimed. Is there anybody reading this who really is doing enough to halt so great an evil? How do we avoid feeling trapped by frustration, helplessness and overwhelming sorrow?
“It’s quite clear to anyone with half a brain that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as we speak.”
—Roger Waters
🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸pic.twitter.com/c23OPhmrHI
— sarah (@sahouraxo) December 5, 2023
I am sorry I cannot immediately find more answers. But let us all work harder, wherever we are, to do our little bit for peace.
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An Emergency Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly is an unscheduled meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to make urgent recommendations on a particular issue. Such recommendations can include collective measures and can include the use of armed force when necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression when the United Nations Security Council fails to exercise its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security due to lack of unanimity of its permanent (“veto”) members.
I think the answer is… simple, simply trepidation. If the West is capable of, complicit in what amounts to mass atrocities against a helpless and imprisoned civilian population in Gaza – what many, controversially label… ‘genocide’ – then, what else are they capable of doing to their enemies if the West’s interests are seriously challenged?
Confronting the combined West by aggressively charging it and its ‘liberal democratic’ leadership with aiding and abetting ‘genocide’ and ethnic cleansing, is a very serious matter indeed. How is it possible to have civilized relations with the West after that? What if the non-western world decided to intervene in Gaza to stop the ‘genocide’, a genocide that has been designated as just, moral and lawful, understandable, natural… how would the West react to this, the imposition of a no-fly zone over Gaza because the rest of the world believes in has a responsibility to protect the helpless people in Gaza?
This could, ‘get out of hand’ and the slide to towards a war of the west against everyone else, might be the outcome. Is that the outcome we want? That the West no seems to have embraced a new, modernized variety of… fascism is a particularly unpleasant thought. So, no wonder the rest of the world is nervous and cautious about ‘provoking’ the wrath of the West which has shown a readiness, in Gaza, to abandon all civilized norms a and standards.
“I think the answer is… simple, simply trepidation. ”
It’s like the crowd in front of the baddie with the six-shooter. They know there are hundreds of them and he has only a half-dozen shots, but no-one wants to be one of the six that die.
“the slide to towards a war of the west against everyone else, might be the outcome. Is that the outcome we want? ”
It might be the outcome that somebody wants. The likely outcome is an isolated Western block consisting of USA and a few friends, including the UK and the rest of what they like to call the ‘international community’. From this base they can once again try to take over the world a la Pinky and the Brain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_and_the_Brain
There will be no opportunity to vote against this.
Thank you for your amazing work. I fear there is no political solution to what is happening in Gaza bc by adopting capitalism & privatisation we’ve put capital in charge of ourselves. We’ve even commodified essential human needs; our humanity even, one could argue.
Capitalism isn’t compatible with humanism because it pits us against each other, and predatory behavior develops.
Homines sapientes were prey on the Savanna and our humanity was born out of the trust our cooperation developed when we relied upon each other for survival.
For humanity to survive and for humans to thrive we need a humane culture. Homo Sapiens is meant to mean Wise Human, but wisdom has no value on the capitalist market; unless it generates profit.
Capitalism, by its very nature, corrupts our humanity because its principles are the opposite to those from which our humanity was born.
But it’s difficult to pry money & power away from those who think their lives depend on it. It is my belief that most people in positions of power today are people whose humanity, if it still exists, is severely compromised and/or corrupted.
We are story-based sentient beings since 200,000 years and culture is our “software”. But who are our storytellers? Not the carefully chosen elders tasked to pass on survival skills and customs to the next generation.
I don’t think it has been a grand-scale long-term conspiracy, rather a gradual corruption and grab for power that was rapidly expanded during “the globalisation”.
Well said, Jenny! I heartily agree with everything you say. Humans evolved to live in relatively small groups (certainly 200 or less, often a mere dozen or so). That does not translate well to living in societies of millions or billions. A careful study of history shows that, apart from occasional lucky breaks, no satisfactory solution has ever been found to the problems of governing human societies.
The tiny minority who feel “dominant” and are determined to make themselves so always tend to ride roughshod over the majority. The essential requirement for becoming rich and powerful is to want those things intensely, more than anything else – whereas most of us care much more about human relationships such as friendship, marriage, and family, and also our useful work. So we can easily be conned by those who control the media and who put forth cleverly crafted – but untrue – narratives.
It’s the strongest instinct gone haywire Jenny – ie survival – combined with the survival of the fittest. The mystery is….. where does the psychopath mindset spring from in evolutionary terms?
I think I can answer that, Allan. Purely theoretical, but it looks logical to me.
During those millions of years, humans evolved to stick together, trust one another, and cast out anyone who tried to cheat or freeload.
Then, just moments ago relatively, our ancestors became farmers and herders and settled down. Soon there were big cities, then huge nations. The critical point is that large anonymous societies, and especially big cities, are ideal niches for psychopaths. They can move on from day to day, almost hour to hour, so losing reputation with people they have cheated doesn’t matter. As the saying has it, “there’s a new sucker born every minute”.
So the bigger and more faceless societies get – especially after the introduction of money and “the soulless cash nexus” – the better adapted psychopaths are. They survive, they thrive and become rich, they produce lots of offspring who inherit money and unscrupulousness, and learn about business and legal trickery at the dinner table every day. They go to Harvard, the finishing school for psychopaths.
Meanwhile honest people, on average, do worse and worse – as we see around us every day.
Thomas Jefferson summed it up over 240 years ago:
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe”.
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison (20 December 1787), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. VI, p. 392.
Anthropologists such as Christopher Boehm and David Graeber found, through their empirical studies of actual societies, past and present, that many common beliefs about “primitive people” are completely wrong. Thomas Hobbes’ suggestion, for example, that life before civilisation was “a war of all against all”, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. In fact, “primitive” societies are and have always been highly cooperative; the selfish and exploiters do not thrive or survive in them.
Sebastian Junger writes in his book “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging”:
‘As modern society reduced the role of community, it simultaneously elevated the role of authority. The two are uneasy companions, and as one goes up, the other tends to go down. In 2007, anthropologist Christopher Boehm published an analysis of 154 foraging societies that were deemed to be representative of our ancestral past, and one of their most common traits was the absence of major wealth disparities between individuals. Another was the absence of arbitrary authority. “Social life is politically egalitarian in that there is always a low tolerance by a group’s mature males for one of their number dominating, bossing, or denigrating the others,” Boehm observed. “The human conscience evolved in the Middle to Late Pleistocene as a result of… the hunting of large game. This required… cooperative band-level sharing of meat”.
‘Because tribal foragers are highly mobile and can easily shift between different communities, authority is almost impossible to impose on the unwilling… In his survey of ancestral-type societies, Boehm found that – in addition to murder and theft – one of the most commonly punished infractions was “failure to share”. Freeloading on the hard work of others and bullying were also high up on the list. Punishments included public ridicule, shunning, and, finally, “assassination of the culprit by the entire group”’.
I think it was Graeber who, in one of his books, told the story of a New Guinea village where one man cynically battened on others. He never fished or did any work, and always begged his food from others. For years, as I recall, this went on. No one complained or even mentioned it. Then one day, while he and others were walking along a path at the top of a cliff, he fell off into the sea. No one mentioned that, either.
Don’t you wish we could live in a society like that?
I can only assume that most politicians avoid cliff paths!
Given that the brains of psychopaths are different to non-psychopaths, it should be mandatory for anyone intending to stand as an MP or a councillor to have an MRI scan. And ditto civil servants etc, etc:
The Psychopathic Brain: Is It Different from a Normal Brain?
The psychopathic brain has been an interest of study for decades due to the fact that psychopaths represent such a small segment of society and yet commit a highly disproportionate amount of criminal acts. And with more-and-more psychopaths having magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans or functional MRI (fMRI) scans, some correlates have been found. In short, the brain of a psychopath is different than a normal brain.
There are three main parts of the brain which psychopath brain scans show significant differences in…….
https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/psychopath/the-psychopathic-brain-is-it-different-from-a-normal-brain
PS There’s also a link to another article entitled ‘Psychopathic Personality and How It Develops’, which is interesting.
This is actually a reply to Allan Howard’s comment in reply to Tom Welsh but his comment does not have a reply button.
Functional MRI is not a definitive test for psychopathy. I remember reading about a psychologist studying psychopathy with MRI and he had own brain scanned but could not find his scan in the non-psychopath pile he actually found it in the psychopath pile and considered after viewing it that it had all the characteristics of an image of a psychopathic brain.
Requiring all members of the military, police, public service and elected government to undergo an MRI is a good idea but more study is needed.
fyi, this was the open letter from Nov. 29th 2020
against the antisemitism definition decided on by the IHRA and adopted by many governments subsequently:
it was originally published in THE GUARDIAN:
“A group of 122 Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals express their concerns about the IHRA definition”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/nov/29/palestinian-rights-and-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism
(On what democratic grounds did all this happen I wonder. Who on earth is IHRA? Did I vote for them? Was I asked whether I agree? )
Of course due to Covid this went by unnoticed.
And today we see how much troubles it has caused us, not to speak of the probably soon 20,000 killed in Gaza.
If anybody asks whats the sense of freedom of speech? Well the years 2022-2023 have shown that it could have helped save the lives of Hundreds of Thousands of people.
The letter gives a general statement (nothing unusual if one is familiar with the matter) and then lists 7 particular points of criticism.
Just like the open letter against WMDs of the same year then signed by Joschka Fischer, this too has gone down into history´s dust bin.
So I thought I bring it back for everyone to read.
I don’t care about any definition of anti-semitism. The idea does not interest me in any way.
I am not opposed to any particular group or kind of people. But I dislike the dishonest and violent; and I would like to see them stopped.
Agree.
But to uncover the fallacies of the term, to stress the dubious way it has become in fact law is an important part of what you are demanding, “see them stopped”.
In Germany of instance the definition became basis for a law and is crippling an entire country´s civil society trying support the Palestinian cause adequately. This definition is pre-censoring the TV discussions of shows millions are watching. It supports transform lies and omissions into actual scholarly accepted history.
This defnition in fact alters historic record. For a place like Europe, where the holocaust took place this is eminently significant.
…for the antisemitism definition now enshrined into law a text like the above by Craig Murray will most likely not be printed by any German newspaper, except may be “Junge Welt”. But they haven´t published it either so far (may be its their policy regarding outside material).
Same would be true for Chris Hedge´s latest speech given in NY – (which btw would be below linked, I just finished listening to it soi I can as well recommend it now – the 2nd part with the Q&A is may be even better, TC:52:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly6lfhOxTe0
While listening I counted the passages that would cause public outcry in a German venue would Hedges truly be able to speak. Because by now the events are pre-emptively cancelled by public administration after some “shills” are filing complaints. But it would cause a ruckus and I assume legal consequences but surely financial.
The “antisemitism” hammer would be much less powerful without this definition by a law.
I am not sure if Kenneth Stern and the other authors of the antisemitism draft are now having regrets for trying to draw out concrete borders for speech, for the most natural human thing.
Hello Craig and thank you again.
The US is as guilty as its rabid dog.
History will not forgive or forget those who in the darkest hour shot at the last lighten light.
perhaps, it was needed for the world to understand where evil resides.
It’s a shame to see how the land of the free as become the land of fascism and of the genocide endorsers.
But that is what it is.
Keep your spirit up, humanity is awaking.
How do we stop a genocide when the west are ruled by obvious sociopaths?
Sociopathy
Ree Langham, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Nashville, TN, says the term sociopathy refers to a range of antisocial behaviors and attitudes that encompasses:
• manipulation
• deceit
• impulsivity
• a disregard for the rights or feelings of others
“Most prominently, these behaviors are accompanied by an absence of remorse,” Langham notes.
https://psychcentral.com/health/sociopath-traits
Not only did US, once again, veto a UNSC resolution last night.
US blocks UN Security Council demand for ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/12/08/716028/UN-meeting-on-Gaza–US-opposes-immediate-halt-to-Israel-s-war
Adding to that, the Biden urged more quick, arms transfers to Israel
Biden pushing $500 million arms sale to Israel – Reuters
https://swentr.site/news/588776-biden-pushing-arms-israel/
I am at loss with words, the same clientele that have talked about Responsibility to protect and Humanitarian Liberal intervention for decades are now the same clientele that support the very human rights violations, enabling it, openly support it!?
From Samantha Power to Bernard Henri-Levy, may they rot in hell.
Jack, I agree with your point about sociopathy, and add cognitive distortion, aka insanity.
In the article you’ve linked, in this phrase “Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said her country abstained because there was no condemnation of Hamas.”
I see the linking two unrelated things into one, as cause and effect. In Russia there is a saying that describes something similar: В огороде бузина, а в Киеве дядька. *An elderberry grows in my garden, and my uncle lives in Kiev.*
I saw a similar thing in a case to which Mr. Murray once devoted a separate blog
Protecting the Nazis: The Extraordinary Vote of Ukraine and the USA
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/12/protecting-the-nazis-the-extraordinary-vote-of-ukraine-and-the-usa/
The US did not vote to ban the glorification of Nazism, citing freedom of speech as the reason. I asked myself if the logic was that freedom of speech also implies freedom to glorify Nazism?
Well, actually, that resolution was about Nazism, racism and other manifestations of xenophobia, which is quite relevant for the internal situation in the US. However, they felt it necessary to attach a free speech argument, which is especially hypocritical given Assange’s imprisonment.
I think this is ostentatious madness, not real. It seems to me that this is manipulation, outright deception served under the guise of decency. A mask of dignity stretched over dirty meanness.
Otherwise, we must admit that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom are recruited exclusively from idiots.
Tatyana
I see the linking two unrelated things into one, as cause and effect. In Russia there is a saying that describes something similar: В огороде бузина, а в Киеве дядька. *An elderberry grows in my garden, and my uncle lives in Kiev.*
Exactly, the US is desperately trying to cluch onto anything to justify a continued assault by Israel. As if the US would support a ceasefire even if the resolution named Hamas atrocities! Yeah right. In a such a case, the US would just come up with another justification to block a ceasefire.
The veto was purely virtue signalling to their sponsors: even if the resolution had gone through, Israel would have ignored it. The veto was totally unnecessary.
Israel would have ignored it.
Indeed, it is telling that the UNSC do nothing about it even though their resolutions are binding and if Israel do not respect the resolutions, military force could and should be used by now to stop Israel.
In the end all this chatter, noise, brouhaha about calling for a ceasefire are in the end a meaningless effort.
Boycott, Divestment, Sanction should be used more, hurt Israel where it matters the most because the current approach is not working obviously.
Samantha Power has been celebrated among establishment liberals in recent years as an expert “scholar of genocide”. Not one of them during the last two months has suggested that she break her silence on the genocide in Gaza.
I automatically assumed that “scholar of genocide” means “scholar of the practice of genocide”. It’s what Washington does.
Sociopath, psychopath etc. are fatuous terms invented by Americans to label traditional un-people. If you want to label the mannikins who run executives, utilitarian would make more sense. It’s common to use “frankness” about the Nazi genocides as a loss-leader, to disparage later atrocities. The antisemitic genocides committed by the Germans and their henchmen (plenty of Ukrainian, Latvian etc. volunteers….) were motivated by utilitarianism as much as antisemitism. Aktion Reinhard would have happened even if there had been no Jewish prisoners in the General government.
What is the UK delivering to Israel?
On Wednesday the UK military sent a huge C17 transport plane to Tel Aviv.
On Thursday the UK military sent a huge A400M transport plane to Tel Aviv.
The MoD still refuses to say what is onboard the dozens of planes it has sent to Israel since it began bombing Gaza.
This is the key question the BBC and the rest of establishment media should be asking ministers.
How long will the conspiracy of silence around the UK’s role in the genocide continue?
This will give you an idea of what we are sending Israel. The UK and others are complicit in a genocide, but not an ordinary genocide, one which will see nobody facing a war crimes tribunal.
https://caat.org.uk/app/uploads/2023/11/Fact-sheet-re-Gaza-2023-11-14.pdf
The flights never happened, despite all being logged.
There is a force powerful enough to shift the balance against Israel, and that is the people – the ones who vote governments in and vote them out and the ones who turn out on the streets to protest. I have been much heartened in recent weeks by the massive continual demonstrations, nominally for a ceasefire but in reality for recognition of the right of the Palestinians to live as equals in their own land. It was actions like this that gave women the vote, ended the war in Vietnam and disposed of the French monarchy and the most repressive regimes of the Soviet bloc. Gruesome and murderous as they undoubtedly were, the actions of Hamas fighters on October 7 have led to this outcome, which must have been the intention of those who planned them.
I find it interesting that the reaction of many British Jews to the protests has been to assume that they are directed against their community. Some claim that they have been forced into hiding, in fear of their lives. For others it has been a teaching moment, a time to challenge their community’s reflexive loyalty to Israel and the ideology underpinning its existence. These reactions are all part of the current paradigm shift which Craig, I think correctly, describes as momentous. The great tragedy is that any improvement in the world’s understanding of modern colonialism has to be bought with the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, not to mention the terrible suffering of the survivors.
Re-reading my comment I see that I should also have acknowledged the Israeli losses and suffering that are another component of this horrendous tragedy. Israelis too have had to pay a price for living within a society haunted by a historic injustice and plagued in consequence by periodic eruptions of terrible violence.
“the reaction of many British Jews to the protests has been to assume that they are directed against their community”.
Yes but clearly not all Jews, as some Jewish groups have actually participated to these very protests.
Reply to Marc (9/12, 18.30): there is indeed a substantial minority of British Jews who strongly and vocally oppose Israel’s war on Gaza. See for instance https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/statement/jews-against-the-war-on-gaza/
One of the difficulties of prosecuting the charge of Genocide is intent. Here, Yanav Cogan and Jamie Stern-Weiner have compiled a list of what Israeli Officials and others have said. I would say, when introduced in a court of law, they have all condemned themselves.
https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/fighting-amalek-in-gaza-what-israelis
This list is not quite up to date here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tasking his top adviser, Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs, with designing plans to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,” according to a bombshell new report in an Israeli newspaper founded by the late Republican billionaire Sheldon …6 days ago
Netanyahu’s Goal for Gaza: “Thin” Population “to a Minimum” https://theintercept.com/2023/12/03/netanyahu-thin-gaza-population/
The link in my comment above does not go to the correct story on the thinning out plan, here is a better link..
You have no choice but to leave Gaza. Either by death, pushed across the Rafah Crossing into Egypt in the south, or pushed into the sea and shipped out toward Europe, Africa, North America or further and forever made a refugee.
Netanyahu’s “thinning out” plan is already unfolding before our eyes. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in less than 60 days, northern Gaza is flattened and ripe for full-fledged Israeli occupation, and the south of the Strip has faced horrific bombing in the days after last week’s conflict pause.
But the nuances of this leaked aim are shocking.
The Middle East Eye observes that:
“The plan will aim to bypass expected US and Egyptian opposition. Unless Egypt starts shooting Palestinians crossing into the country, Cairo’s “determined resistance” can be overcome, it added. The report also foresees global outrage without outlining the repercussions for Israel.”
Global outrage, whether by way of political condemnation or mass protests, have not slowed Israeli militarism in Gaza.
Netanyahu is fully entrenched, invested in a campaign to eliminate the Palestinian people of Gaza by any and all means. “Thinning out” their population and every marker of their existence, against every human rights accord and even beyond the limits of his closest allies, manifests a subsequent stage of violence that we may not be ready to absorb:
That the horrors unfolding in Gaza may be dwarfed by those still yet to come. https://khaledbeydoun.substack.com/p/netanyahus-plan-to-thin-out-the-palestinian
The German Springer press plumbs to new depths with its increasingly desperate excuses for Israel war crimes. Including over the latest images showing men abducted from a UN school shelter in northern Gaza, some of whom have been identified as among other things: UN, UNRWA workers, along with a well-known journalist. Many of these men are obese, and clearly not Hamas fighters, yet they face an uncertain fate. Last seen kneeling in what appears to be a freshly dug execution pit, in scenes eerily reminiscent of WW2.
At home, due to untrammelled power, lack of oversight of govt, thanks to no codified constitution, the UK is headed on a fascist trajectory. The MoD has long had a problem within its ranks with white supremacists and far right infiltration. This is now doubly problematic, because there appears to be a desire to control all speech and opinion as part of some full spectrum, total information control role they’ve awarded themselves. The recent revelations in the US, that the UK MoD view X/Twitter as less a place of social interaction, and more as some informational battleground, or digital ‘grey zone,’ in which to conduct psy-ops at population scale, is in equal part scary, obnoxious and ludicrous. Also regarding the MoD; UK Special Forces may be involved in Ukraine(?) and Gaza(?), and because there’s NO democratic oversight of UK Special Forces operations; neither pre operation approval, nor even post operational reviews. The UK public, nor our parliamentary representatives have right to know of any such UK involvement. The UK is the only western country to have such a secretive brazenly anti-democratic arrangement, an arrangement that’s quite obviously wide open to all sorts of sinister abuse in terms of sketchy missions/deployments.
Meanwhile, not content with controlling 90% of the press, the BBC, ITV, Ch4 and Sky plus manipulating social media while accusing other countries that aren’t of doing the same, we’re seeing a coordinated integrity Initiative-esque attacks on Owen Jones, one of the few MSM journos speaking out about the genocide:
The Dangerous Lies of Guardian Columnist Owen Jones About Israel-Hamas War
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/12/07/the-dangerous-lies-of-guardian-columnist-owen-jones-about-israel-hamas-war/
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/29/we-mustnt-let-the-left-erase-the-truth-of-7-october/
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1842529/Owen-jones-support-hamas-hate-jews-palestine-israel-war
And these are just a few examples. Journalists at the Mail, times and Telegraph plus others have all joined in the pile-on.
Speaking on media manipulation, many people from israeli intelligence, including the infamous “8200 unit”, are working at social media companies:
MUST WATCH: ZIONIST CONTROL OF INFLUENCERS AND MEDIA EXPOSED –
8200 ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE OP EXPOSED
https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1716144144685445193
One can only imagine the censorship, shadowbanning, banning of accounts that condemn and criticize Israel that is going on at Twitter, Facebook and so on.
Goose, what tenth of the British press do you consider to be outside the tent? Owen Jones has been scorned and smeared even by the other hacks at The Guardian. And the connivance in suppressing evidence of UK support for the genocide is complete across the entire breadth of British media. They will report only what the MoD authorises them to report. So this week they headlined, as one, an approved MoD story about UK surveillance flights to find Israeli hostages. Not one among them has sought to follow up on the Declassified revelation that huge UK military transport planes have been flying into Tel Aviv since the genocide started. Or reported questions in Parliament about UK troops being deployed in Gaza. They are all conniving in a conspiracy of silence about Britain’s role.
There are fiercely independent journalists that aren’t stooges within establishment controlled organisations. Channel 4 have some, you’ll know them, even the BBC have some. They are typically the people Israeli lobbying operations keep complaining about and wanting fired. To be called out by such groups, accused of being biased against Israel, likely means you are being objective and their interest in your journalism and reports, should be seen as a meritorious distinction.
On the MoD. This is why having an establishment stooge like Starmer, leading the opposition, is such a disaster. Were Corbyn leading, Labour’s position would be for a ceasefire and the whole party would be on board. This is basically a sinister cabal in London, going against the entire country.
I thought you said a tenth of the British press, not a few individuals reporting for C4 and BBC. In any case what mention has the BBC or C4 made of the British Army transport flights to Israel throughout this genocide, surely a matter of the utmost significance so far as British viewers are concerned? And over a far longer period, what have the TV reporters you admire ever said about the establishment coup of Jeremy Corbyn?
You may sense I’m less than convinced that 10% of the British media are admirable.
“thanks to no codified constitution,”
Having a codified constitution isn’t slowing down the Yanks any when it comes to aiding and abetting genocide. If the UK had one it would honoured more in the breach than the observance, just like the US one.
Must not forget Assaf Kaplan who works in Starmer’s office. He was hired by Labour as a social listening and organising manager, a new post described as “a crucial new role at the heart of Labour’s new approach to digital campaigning”.
The complaint from Bindmans solicitors alleges that Kaplan worked for Unit 8200, the cyber branch of the Israeli Defence Force, from 2009 to 2013. It adds that the unit has been mired in controversy over its surveillance practices against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/02/lawyers-complain-to-labour-over-hiring-of-ex-israeli-intelligence-officer
He’s obviously there to keep Starver on message on Israel. No wonder Starver looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights in so many of his pictures.
” No wonder Starver looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights in so many of his pictures.”
I think he’s trying to lose the next election so he can say he’s done his bit and be moved on to some BS job on the international BS circuit.
Perhaps there is something we can do: blockading factories.
There is an organisation called Workers for a Free Palestine that organises such things. I know nothing about them except a couple of links that someone posted here. I don’t even know whether they’re genuine – it’s easy enough for someone to set up a website to scam us. (I sent them some money anyway.) Can anyone give some more info about them, ideally with links to confirm (or otherwise) their bona fides?
Why aren’t those producing these bombs in the West so sickened by the way they’re being used, that they strike, go slow or halt production altogether? I’d be thoroughly ashamed at the idea of supplying parts or providing munitions for Israel’s unanswered slaughterfest and ongoing war crimes.
It’s not a fair fight in any way – civilians have nowhere safe nor any defensive protection. However much the American and British elites try to pretend Israel is behaving just like the West, they aren’t; the mentality is completely alien when it comes to their lack of empathy and excessive force. Terrorists are typically targeted carefully by the West with precision strikes of raids. Israel is clearly carrying out collective punishment.
Had the order been given to bomb West Belfast flat in the Troubles, causing death and destruction on Gaza’s scale and creating lines of refugees, we would have jailed those among us responsible. Look at the repercussions for those involved in Bloody Sunday aka Bogside Massacre, on 30 January 1972 when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians. The idea the West would behave just like Israel in response to an Oct 7, is clearly idiotic nonsense. Israel’s leadership is uniquely deranged.
You have an unrealistic opinion of The West.
The West includes all the anglophone nations and most of Europe and ALL are one eyed Pro-“Democratic”-Israel.
Israel is largely behaving like the West (mainly the US & UK) was during the main part of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq & Syria from 2014–2018, Goose. Have a look at what the latter did to Mosul & Raqqa. You can’t level cities containing hundreds of thousands of civilians and not kill thousands of them. The only real difference was that the West was able to keep things out of the media, helped by the fact that no Western journalists were reporting from there because they didn’t want to get murdered by ISIS (who were often their own worst enemy). So what the coalition forces could do was to claim that most of the civilians they killed were actually ISIS fighters – who was checking?* The official figure for the whole operation is still only around 1300 civilians killed.
I’d imagine that if the Provisional IRA had murdered 1200 people in England on a single day in the 70s, whilst the British government might have stopped short of having West Belfast or the Bogside levelled in retaliation, they would have found it very difficult to resist calls for the army and RUC to take a much tougher line in Northern Ireland. I’m also not sure there have been any serious repercussions for most of the Paras who carried out the (almost certainly pre-planned) Bloody Sunday massacre. Only one (Soldier F) looks like he will ever face trial, and only because the family of one of his (alleged) victims was prepared to go to the High Court. If convicted, he will probably only serve two years in prison due to the terms of Good Friday Agreement.
* Apart from people like me who are aware that ISIS never had over 40,000 fighters, much less 80,000.
“I’d imagine that if the Provisional IRA had murdered 1200 people in England on a single day in the 70s”
then probably more than half would actually have been killed by the British Army or the UDF, who would, of course, have counted them as IRA victims, if October 7th and Bloody Sunday is anything to go by.
“they would have found it very difficult to resist calls for the army and RUC to take a much tougher line in Northern Ireland.”
That would have been the object of the exercise.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. A few Israelis may have been killed by the IDF, but why would Hamas etc just hang around with hostages on the kibbutzim waiting for the IDF to start shelling / launching Hellfire missiles from Apaches, when they could just walk the hostages the few miles to Gaza to give them more bargaining chips, and then return back across the fence to face the Israeli wrath should they wish to go out with a bang?
P.S. UDF is the United Dairy Farmers.
You make it sound so simple. “just walk the hostages the few miles to Gaza ” , yeah “just”, with Apache helicopters firing cannon at you all the way. In any case, you don’t hit a building with a Hellfire without killing everyone inside it and if Hamas were inside it, there would also have been hostages. As you say, Hamas were not going to be hanging around once they had got their hostages.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. It is simple: Hamas etc managed to capture nearly 250 hostages, so why not hundreds more (especially as around 2000 Palestinian fighters are believed to have made it back to Gaza, with around 1000 deciding to stay in Israel for a last stand)? It’s unlikely that the Apaches would have been on high alert, so it would have taken a couple of hours to scramble them (they needed to do pre-flight checks etc). Kfar Aza, where over 200 Israelis were killed, is only two miles from the Gaza border, so hostages could have been walked back there in 40 minutes. Even if the Apaches were on high alert, Hamas could have reasonably believed that they wouldn’t chain gun hostages interspersed with their fighters. You claim that over 600 Israelis were killed by the IDF. Where is your evidence?
“so why not hundreds more?”
I don’t know, ask your local friendly Hamas representative? Possibly because hostages were being killed along with their captors? There were very many Israelis burnt to death and we know that at least 200 Hamas fighters were also burnt to death. Are you seriously trying to claim that, whilst all the Israelis were burnt to death by the Hamas fighters, all the Hamas fighters were burnt to death by the IDF? Is it not more likely that they were all burnt to death after the buildings they were in were hit by Hellfire missiles? There is eyewitness testimony coming out that the IDF, rather than risk getting killed at close range, basically shot anything that moved at long range, including Hamas fighters, hostages and civilians and in doing so, expended a lot of ammunition. Not only that, but your touching faith in the unlikelihood of the IDF shooting at Hamas fighters because they had hostages with them is not borne out by the facts on the ground. Indeed the reverse appears to be true.
The Israeli state has 20,000 civilain deaths to try to justify. They’re not likely to be telling people at this stage that many of the now notorious 1400, sorry 1200, Israeli deaths were caused by “friendly fire”, are they? Do you really think that the reports of what happened on October 7th coming from the Israeli side are likely to be pure, unvarnished truth? If so, I have a bridge to sell you. Don’t worry, it was left to me by a rich uncle, honest.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. We don’t know that many Israelis were burnt to death – the ones that were found burned could have been burnt by missile attacks etc on buildings after they’d been shot dead by Hamas fighters, who also filmed themselves setting buildings on fire. I haven’t seen any footage of the IDF shooting at anything that moves, but I’ve seen plenty of the Palestinian fighters doing so. We don’t however know the facts on the ground, so we can’t say whether my ‘touching faith’ (I was actually referring to reasonable expectations by the Palestinians, who could also have been carrying Igla or Strela MANPADS which would be lethal to Apaches at close range) is borne out by them or not. Of course I don’t believe everything the Israeli war machine says, but extraordinary claims, like most of the 1200 (1400 to 1200 is hardly a massive revision) being killed by the IDF, demand extraordinary evidence.
To mangle the Karl Marx apothegm, to each according to their need, seems to be the rationale. The unspeakable scale of the horror during the Holocaust is so great that Zionism asserts that the need for a state of Israel is greater than any other need or claim.
Having Law that is not administered impartially undermines the very rationale for having it.
That Zionism opposes any Palestinian claim is clear. If women and children and civilians are to be collectively punished and the plan is to ethnically cleanse them from their historic homes or murder them in lieu of this, then we ourselves are the denizens of the Jungle.
A free pass and impunity for all time?
Sadly, I think there may be truth in that view, as it seems to be the unspoken position of many western politicians. You’d like to think at a bare minimum Israel will face heavy sanctions for demolishing Gaza. But which western country will lead the way? Most countries have been busily passing legislative curbs on domestic BDS movements over the last decade – another successful Israeli lobbying effort. Alongside getting all their opponents in the ME labelled terrorists and western politicians that hold unfavourable views of Israel labelled anti-Semites.
There is seemingly no chance of the US letting any new UN resolutions against Israel to go through, a testimony to Israel’s often tenacious, aggressive lobbying. And the fact Jewish US party donors and AIPAC seemingly have a veto over any new administration’s key cabinet positions, with the US population largely oblivious to this horrendous interference. Meddling on a scale that makes Russia’s alleged meddling seem insignificant by way of contrast.
Just came across this excellent short documentary on youtube (13mins 28secs) by The Real News Network in which they speak to residents of the Jenin refugee camp about life under occupation (filmed in July, and posted on youtube three weeks ago). It’s insights like these that wake people up to the reality and see through the Zionist propaganda:
‘They call us terrorists’: Inside the Palestinian resistance forces of Jenin, West Bank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WfLVa1u4pk
“Almost the entire political Establishment of the West have outed themselves as enthusiastic proponents of a racial supremacism, prepared to give active assistance to a genocide of indigenous people.”
US, UK and EU elites have always been warmongering bigots towards Palestinians. At this fateful historical juncture however their blood lust is even more extreme and dangerous due to losing their proxy war in Ukraine.
It is not just the Israelis who are responding to a military humiliation but their benefactors in Washington, London, Berlin and Brussels.
To protect their “muscular” self-image, the neocons have even more psychological incentive to massacre brown babies, women and elderly folk. They think this brutal display of western power is aweing the world and disguising the excruciating defeats in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria etc.
“This is made crystal clear in para 431”
Oh, Craig!
Why don’t you just give up on the international “law” stuff? I realise that this is your area of expertise, but it’s completely meaningless. There is no international government; no-one much cares or pays attention to this; it’s not law – it’s agreements between countries which are free to withdraw or ignore at any time, as many do; and your raising these points is pointless.
The moral issues – fine. The factual issues – also fine. Your analysis and predictions – well, time will tell, but your record here isn’t great.
But for goodness sake, recognise that nobody cares about para 431.
Not in this instance, clearly. But if a genocide were being perpetrated this brazenly by a non-client state you can be sure that western media and the whole liberal humanitarian complex would ensure the entire world was aware of Para 431. The caring about it would be intense and overwhelming.
I attended the big protest in London yesterday. I was reluctant to go as it was cold and wet and miserable (in contrast to the previous two marches I’d attended); then I thought about what is happening to people in Gaza, and I’m bothered about a bit of rain? Then I checked the National Rail website for train times to London. Strike! No trains to London appeared on the screen! After a bit of searching it turned out that I could still get to London, I would just have to change trains a couple of times.
The march was to start at Bank (the “heart of darkness”). A really stupid place to start a march, as there is no room for a large crowd. They kept us waiting for about an hour before starting the march. Given the bad weather, the train strike, and the awkward start point, it doesn’t surprise me that the turnout would be reduced. But still, once the march started, thousands of people appeared from nowhere, Palestinian flags everywhere as far as the eye could see.
A great surprise was meeting this wonderful Jewish-Israeli woman, Yael Kahn We were able to have a short converstion, and give each other a hug. She’s even better in real life than she is in the video. I put a note about her on my Wikipedia user page.
I can’t see any mention of the march on the BBC, but Al Jazeera does report it.
If it was not for the corrupt lackey-relationship between Palestinian Authority with US/Israel Mahmoud Abbas should be broken ties long time ago and through that move put pressure on the US but instead this corrupt Abbas are in lock-step with US/Israeli interest to crush the real resistance in the region, a useful idiot:
President Abbas: Hezbollah example will not be acceptable
https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/91092
Fatah: Iran Has Not Offered a Dime to the Palestinian People (from 2018)
https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1317141/fatah-iran-has-not-offered-dime-palestinian-people
Mahmoud Abbas asked businessman to donate $50m to Mahmoud Ahamdinejad opponents, according to the documents (2011)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/26/palestinian-distrust-iran-leaked-papers
What scares me about Israel is that the israelis seems to be so full of themselves, the chosen people, free to do anything. While other states that have been engaged in human rights violations in war those states often deny it, cover their crimes up, but not Israel, they boast about it like they believe we, the spectators, would somehow be impressed by their callous attitude and slaughter of thousands of defenseless children.
Just take this sickening comment by Mark Regev defending stripping and parading palestinian POWs, a warcrime in itself, with the argument:
“Remember, it’s the Middle East and it’s warmer here, and especially during the day when it’s sunny, to be asked to take off your shirt, it might not be pleasant but it’s not the end of the world,” Regev said.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/12/10/716109/Israel-Prime-Minister-Benjamin-Netanyahu-footage-Palestinian-civilians-stripped-Gaza-Strip-Mark-Regev
Have you ever heard such callous evil, dehumanizing manipulative reasoning? What is going on in the minds of people like Regev? He seems to be a complete sociopath. Just imagine if was the other side around, that Hamas paraded nude israeli soldiers in Gaza, oh the uproar by Mr Regev, because his ethnic group/race is apparently more valuable, higher standing than the ethnicity of arabs, palestinians.
Explosion and anger in Egypt over the Palestinians. How long before the region explodes?
https://x.com/ahmed_alabab/status/1733623020827078700?s=20
Egyptians are headed to the polls today. After seizing power in a military coup in 2013, Sisi has won two presidential elections with 97% of the vote, the last of which was against a candidate who openly supported his rule. so ubiquitous are the posters of Sisi that people have turned to the only venue for free expression they have left and have begun making memes of them to share online. One picture that circulated features Jack and Rose from the film Titanic sitting on the deck of the ship surrounded by Sisi’s campaign posters. In another, people joke that a pregnant woman passed so many pictures of Sisi on her way to work that her newborn baby resembled the incumbent president. Don’t expect any change in government through these phony elections, the only hope is that the Gaza conflict will reduce his vote.
“Don’t you dare say you would rather eat than build and progress,” Sisi said in a speech in October. “If the price of the nation’s progress and prosperity is to go hungry and thirsty, then let us not eat or drink.”
That video remind me of that video where Khadaffi warn the arab leaders to unite against western plots against them, the other arab leaders in the room in the video was smirking and chuckling during his speech – but obviously Khadaffi was of course right.
Al-Sisi is as bad as Mubarak, he have been almost completely silent during the slaughter in Gaza. Instead he have targeted the opposition with the support from the freedom-loving west.
Former Egypt presidential hopeful Ahmed Tantawi to face trial
https://www.newarab.com/news/former-egypt-presidential-hopeful-tantawi-face-trial
It is of course the same Sisi that put the Muslim Brotherhood opposition on trial too. Israel and the US could not wish for a better puppet.
Some may throw their hands up and abandon all hope for the proper and effective application of the law to attain a just resolution. If I did that and abandoned the case in the face of an unjust Judge, then I would be forfeiting the right of appeal – for the foundation would not have been properly laid to make such an appeal. In international law – realistically viewed, as Muggy often observes – ‘might is right’. Yet an appeal (so to speak) directly to world opinion can ultimately shift the tide – despite the bias of mighty nations.
I guess that the writer below sums up the line of reasoning I take. Not to see all Jews off the land; not to see all Palestinians into the sea; not to support an Apartheid state in the 21st century; not to avoid a just solution for all those involved in this on-going and lasting conflict:-
“How international law is used to cover up Israeli settler-colonialism: Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’ is wrongly evoked within the context of its occupation of Palestinian territories.” By Shahd Hammouri, Lecturer in International Law at the University of Kent. Al Jazeera (10 Dec 2023)
— https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/10/how-international-law-is-used-to-cover-up-israeli-settler-colonialism
I just did a search to ascertain how many Palestinians were killed in past conflicts between Israel and Gaza, as I’m pretty sure that in a number of them, if not ALL of them, more Palestinians were killed than the number of Israelis killed in the present conflict. Anyway, there just happened to be a BBC News article in the list of results from November 16th entitled ‘How the dead are counted in Gaza’ , so I clicked on it out of interest and read it. And here’s what it says at the end of the article (apart from mentioning that over 2,000 Gazans were killed in the 2014 conflict):
We also asked the Israeli prime minister’s office about how the numbers of Israelis killed on 7 October by Hamas were recorded. It did not answer that question, however in recent days Israel has revised down the number of people killed during the attack to about 1,200, from the earlier figure of 1,400.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said the revised number was because many bodies were not immediately identified after the attack, and “now we think those belong to terrorists… not Israeli casualties”.
The Israeli government has not published a detailed list of the civilian casualties although some Israeli media outlets have assembled such lists with names, ages and locations of deaths.
Israel’s police says more than 850 bodies of civilians have been identified – work is continuing to try to identify remains using specialist forensic techniques.
There is a public list of the Israeli soldiers killed so far that includes 48 who have died in the fighting inside Gaza.
————————–
So it doesn’t say when the BBC asked the Israeli prime minister’s office about how the numbers of Israelis killed on 7 October by Hamas were recorded, but one gets the impression from what it says in the article that whilst they were waiting for a reply from the prime ministers office, the number killed suddenly dropped by 200 to 1,200. Coincidence? Maybe yes, but then maybe no! Thing is, though, did they just happen to get the results back from the laboratory shortly after the BBC made its enquiry, and ALL two hundred or so at the same time? Seems highly unlikely, on both counts.
As for what the Israeli police said – ie that more than 850 bodies of civilians have been identified etc, they imply that a significant number of the more than 850 civilians were identified by their remains. And there are still more to be identified. It would be very telling to learn how many Israeli civilians had to be identified by forensics. What we do know is that Hamas didn’t have the weapons to incinerate people, and they would hardly kill any of their own of course, so whatever the number of Israelis who had to be identified – their remains, that is – by forensics, then it was the IDF who killed them, from helicopter gun ships or tanks. And I’m pretty sure I’m right in saying that none of the IDF who were killed had to be identified by their remains, which just futher reinforces the rationale that the IDF were responsible for many of the Israeli civilians killed, and not only those who had to be identified by their remains.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67347201
If the process of identifying the remains of bodies is ongoing, as the Israeli police said (as in the BBC News article on November 16th*), then presumably some of them could be Hamas fighters, and yet apart from the 200 that they suddenly announced (and deducted from the 1,400 figure for Israelis killed in the attack), I’ve not come across any updates re Hamas fighters being killed initially. That said, I’ve not come across any explanation as to why Israel revised its figure from 1,200 down to 1,147. Anyway, I just did a search to ascertain how many IDF have been killed altogether, and there was a figure of 425 mentioned in a recent article, up from just under 300 that were announced a few days after the attack. And the point I’m making is that if there are more and more IDF being killed in the ground offensive, then how come the figure hasn’t changed from the figure of 1,147, and instead of going up when it was 1,200, went down. It doesn’t add up!
*That was nearly one month ago, and yet I’m not aware of any updates, apart from the 1,200 figure dropping to 1,147.
Here’s a link to the (short) article posted today, the 10th of December:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-army-says-425-soldiers-killed-1-593-others-injured-in-gaza/3078726#
(Allan
I have additionally put a few quotations on casualty numbers taken from B´Tselem reports about the major military events from 2008-2019 onto the GAZA Discussion Forum including the source links.
see: post #93305 )
The obvious just occurred to me (well it seemed obvious to me when I thought of it) re the forty babies who were allegedly beheaded by Hamas, OR, as some of the MSM had it at the time, the forty babies Hamas killed, some of whom were beheaded. And what occurred to me is this: That the MSM newspapers in Israel – one or the other initially – would surely think to get the names of the families so that they could, with the parents permission, do a front-page article listing the names of the forty babies who were killed and beheaded (or the names of the forty babies who were killed and some beheaded), and ask the parents (or parent) if they could include a photo of the baby, along with his or her name. It’s EXACTLY what I could imagine the Sun or the Mail thinking to do, and then doing. And you would think that BN would be totally into it, if only for propaganda purposes. But it obviously hasn’t happened, and we all know why of course.
Earlier on I was checking out how many IDF had been killed since October 7th, and I happened to come across a Ynet article (the first I’ve come across in fact) with the following headline and sub-headline:
Commanders, soldiers, police officers: The names of the heroes who died defending Israel
Following Hamas’s criminal invasion of southern Israel, brave men and women have stepped up to defend their homeland, with scores sacrificing their lives in the process; these are their names
There are several hundred listed, with details of theim, along with photos of getting on for two hundred of them, And, as I say, it would be the most obvious thing in the world to have done the same regarding the forty babies.
NB As far as I’m aware, only ONE baby was killed in the attack, and it’s quite possible that it was either killed by a Hamas rocket, or by the IDF of course.
Damn, I forgot to put a link to the article again:
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1rxsrj11a
Allan, when I first heard these horrific “stories” about beheaded babies, it made me think back to the propaganda stories of WW1, where German troops were eating babies alive and then, the first Gulf War, where the propaganda machine accused Iraqi troops of murdering Kuwaiti babies in hospitals, by turning off the incubators.
In war, in order to demonise one side, you have to create monsters.
I have come to the conclusion that there is NOTHING the Israeli government could commit, that would make Germany and most European powers to EVER condemn Israel the way they condemned Russia. Including proverbial extermination of Palestinians and the use of nuclear bombs. Israel has a “hall pass” valid for eternity.
AG
You are so right, I was about to post this:
In solidarity with Israel, Italy, France, Germany call for EU sanctions against Hamas
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/12/11/716200/Israel-Italy-France-Germany-EU-sanctions-Hamas
After 2 months of mass killing, including some 8000 kids, the biggest EU nations seek to sanction…the victims.
That is on the same day that Israel, once again, bomb a UN school with refugees.
Israel bombs UN school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/12/11/716198/Israeli-jets-target-school-sheltering-displaced-Palestinians-in-north-Gaza-
Total sociopaths are ruling the EU.
AG
When quizzed about British colonial atrocities in Kenya; India, Australia and other places. British ministers just say [sic] that was a different generation’s crimes.
German politicians seem incapable of doing the same? Robert Habeck, for instance, was born in 1969.
As a Scot I have no real political representation within a UK perspective. Other than giving “likes” on X and attending public marches in support of the Palestinian people, I feel utterly powerless. It is a powerlessness that has left me numb to my very soul. I apologise to the Palestinian people for the fact that I have so little agency on their behalf.
I feel the same, I am constantly plagued by my inaction which gets more profound for every day that goes by I hate to admit, but I do not know what to do. I cannot even read the news from Aljazeera as much as I used to anymore, fearing the news will only generate more sadness, more anger, more anxiety and empowered feelings of powerlessness inside of me. At the same time I cannot look away. One has to do keep doing the “activism”, as small as it is on an individual level.
Just came across this Factcheck.org piece from November 16th entitled ‘Dozens of Children Died in Hamas Oct. 7 Attack on Israel, Contrary to Online Claim’ in which it says that 29 children (those under the age of 18, that is) were killed by Hamas, which in effect disproves the claim that forty babies were killed and beheaded by Hamas, OR, as some of the MSM reported it at the time, forty babies killed and some of them beheaded. The main theme of the story is quite interesting as well….. one aspect of it that is. Here’s a clip from the piece:
It appears that the Instagram post by the World Jewish Congress — an organization representing Jewish communities globally — shown in the video does repeat some of the names included in a list from 2014 of children who had been killed in Israel over the preceding years.
It’s a bit too convoluted for me to explain and elaborate, so you’ll have to read it.
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/11/dozens-of-children-died-in-hamas-oct-7-attack-on-israel-contrary-to-online-claim/
Anyway, a bit earlier I came across the following article which lists the names of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas, posted on November 3rd and entitled ‘The names of 729 of the hundreds of civilians killed by Hamas – the names released so far’, and gives the age for about half of them, and the youngest of those listed (with their age) was two. And just 26 of those which included their age were under 18, and of those, about half under the age of 12. Just why so many don’t include their age isn’t explained, and doesn’t make sense:
https://aoav.org.uk/2023/the-names-of-729-of-the-hundreds-of-civilians-killed-by-hamas-the-names-released-so-far/
“Anyway, a bit earlier I came across the following article which lists the names of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas,”
It would be more accurate to say “…Israelis killed on October 7th,” since many of them are actually soldiers (which can be seen by simply reading the list) and it is now becoming clear that many of them were killed by the IDF.
But the title of the piece is ‘The names of 729 of the hundreds of civilians killed by Hamas – the names released so far’ Bayard. And how can it be seen by reading the list that many of them were soldiers, when only their names are listed (and their age in about half of them)?
‘And it’s now becoming clear that many of them were killed by the IDF’.
Yes, the civilians, that is. As I said in a previous post, we know that approximately 200 Hamas fighters were pretty much incinerated, and had to be identified by their DNA, and I expect the same was true for many Israelis, and Hamas didn’t have the weapons to do that (and they would hardly kill two hundred of their own anyway), so it must have been IDF tanks and helicopter gun ships. And no doubt quite a few others (that were identifiable) were killed by the IDF in crossfire. It would be very interesting to learn how many Israeli civilians had to be identified by their DNA….. their remains, that is. But I very much doubt we’ll ever find out.
Boggles the mind how people undergoing genocide by ethic replacement and other “passive” acts of genocide won’t speak up about. Some even actively participate in their own people’s genocide by individually and consciously contributing to ethnic replacement in their personal lives.