Incredibly the Israeli genocide in Gaza is now reaching new heights of violence. Casualty figures are not coming in, as the attacks are so bad that bodies cannot be recovered, medics cannot travel and there are almost no medical facilities operational now anyway.
We now see that the Western injunctions not to attack Rafah were a smokescreen of lies to mask complicity. The final pocket of Gaza is being ruthlessly ethnically cleansed and its infrastructure will be destroyed like all the rest.
It is striking that this is accompanied by an absolutely shameless doubling down of support for Israel by the Western political and media classes. Any thought that their isolation from the vast breadth of public opinion would give them pause, must be abandoned. Their Zionist lobby paymasters have jerked the chain, and rather than rowing back, we are seeing a redoubling of their efforts to suppress dissent and obscure the truth.
Some of this shameless distortion is so dissonant with the alleged norms of Western society it is almost impossible to believe it is happening. Here are a few examples.
1) Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta is a highly respected reconstructive surgeon who continued to work heroically and tirelessly in Al Shifa hospital, carrying out operation after operation, mostly on women and children, as the hospital was shelled, strafed and machine gunned around him.
He was already a surgeon of great distinction, based in Glasgow where he is now Rector of Glasgow University.
When Germany banned him from entering to address the conference on Palestine from which Yanis Varoufakis and others were also barred, it appeared perhaps as a one-off action as part of Germany’s extreme and panicked reaction to pro-Palestinian expression.
We have come to understand that Germany has a vicious hatred of Palestinians, remarkably based on the psychological trauma of inherited guilt from the Holocaust. While this is a muddled national psychosis that is plainly immoral and wrongheaded, at least it is possible to have some understanding of how it occurred.
But it then turned out that the travel ban slapped on Dr Abu Sitta by Germany has a Schengen-wide effect as he was also banned from France. That appeared again something that was almost a technical accident as regards the rest of Europe.
But the Western political establishment has now doubled down again by banning him from the Netherlands, and this time the Dutch government has made it clear that it supports the ban, and is not just caught by a Schengen restriction.
So the major governments of the European Union are forbidding a distinguished surgeon from giving first-hand medical evidence of the genocide taking place. I cannot think of anything that more sharply exposes the willingness of the Western political class to abandon the most basic tenets of supposed “Western democracy” in the interests of Israel.
2) The willingness of the United States to use extreme violence against pro-Palestinian students on college campuses is another demonstration of the same abandonment of the pretence of democracy when it comes to Israel. It also illustrates what has come to be a serious generational divide in Western public opinion, with young people very strongly motivated to oppose the genocide (which is not to say that older people are pro-genocide, just that they are more split, particularly in the USA).
This is being followed up with yet more crazed pro-Israeli legislation in the United States, seeking to designate anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian expression on campuses as anti-semitic and thus illegal.
In many ways this typifies the reaction of the ruling class across the West. Their reaction to suddenly being exposed as the paid servants of an Israel which no longer has popular support and now causes public revulsion, is simply to attempt to ban free expression and make it specifically illegal to disagree with them.
3) The British Labour Party has gone even madder. Keir Starmer’s Genocide Party is an outstanding example of the success of the Israeli lobby in buying up both sides of the aisle and controlling the entire neoliberal uniparty that poses as the repository of democratic “choice” in the West.
Starmer had been doing his best to conceal his explicitly expressed “unequivocal support for Israel” lately, and to row back from his straightforward assertion that Israel has the right to cut off food and water from the population of Gaza. There had been a fake shift, from refusing to countenance the word “ceasefire” to supporting a temporary ceasefire or a “sustainable” ceasefire – the latter being code for a ceasefire after Israel had achieved all its ethnic cleansing objectives.
But then David Lammy blew this out of the water with an address to US Republican senators in which he made the totally bonkers assertion that Nelson Mandela would have opposed the college protests for Palestine. Lammy is a truly despicable individual, one of the ultimate examples of the corrupt politician whose voice is bought. But this was a move far beyond the pale.
4) Even today, the Western media continues to spout out Israeli propaganda at mains pressure. The Guardian, despite the thousands and thousands of dead women and children we have seen on our mobile phones this past seven months, continues to pretend that the genocidal attack is on “Hamas militants”.
The bombing and shelling of civilians in tents is still described as “clashes”. This propaganda really does not wash any more, though it may reinforce the morale of hardened Zionists. Everybody else has seen through it months ago. Yet still they persist.
5) The endgame is becoming very apparent. The United States is completing its floating harbour for Gaza, and Israel has gained control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, giving the US and Israel total control of entry points into Gaza. Israel has announced that the Rafah crossing is to be handed over to a US mercenary force. The US can then say it is complying with Biden’s pledge not to put US forces’ boots on the ground in Gaza, while actually taking control.
The Israeli attack on Rafah has been justified by the USA as a “limited military operation”, thus claiming it does not violate Biden’s purported “red line”, even though Israel has ordered over a million displaced people in Rafah to evacuate again, to nowhere.
Conclusion:
The only possible conclusion from all of the above is to reinforce my analysis that the Zionist political and media classes in the West, including Biden, Blinken, Trudeau, Macron, Sunak, Starmer, Scholtz, von der Leyen and all, are active and willing participants in a programme of genocide.
They had numerous opportunities to turn back. We all saw what is happening months ago. They did not take them.
The endgame remains the processing of the remaining Palestinian population out of Gaza through the US-controlled points of the Rafah crossing and the floating harbour, primarily into camps in the Sinai desert. The Western powers are doubling down on their genocide and on their colonial project.
I see nothing whatsoever that indicates they can have any other long-term objective in mind than the complete Israeli annexation of Gaza minus its civilian population. What do you see?
————————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
First Ambassador Murray, now Ilan Pappé, a 70 years old Jewish Israeli historian — interrogated for 2 hours by the FBI at Detroit airport and asked if he was “a Hamas supporter”.
Meantime, in Kiev, Secretary Blinken takes the stage to perform “Rocking in the Free World,” unaware Neil Young wrote it as a critique of said “free world”: homlessness, poverty, war, environmental destruction.
Some formidably intelligent individuals at the helm of this genocide.
Dr Pappé is the author of what I consider the best all-round book about the Zionist movement, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. It covers many topics that are neglected in other sources.
In particular, it gives the outright lie to the claim, believed by many, that “after the state [of Israel] was declared, seven armies attacked. They far outnumbered and were infinitely better equipped than the Jewish forces…”. (Ronen Bergan, “Rise and kill first: the secret history of Israel’s targeted assassinations”).
As Pappé writes, “A few weeks into the war, the Israeli recruitment was so efficient that by the end of the summer their army stood at 80,000 troops. The Arab regular force never crossed the 50,000 threshold, and, in addition, had stopped receiving arms from Britain, which was its main arms supplier.
“In other words, during the early stages of the ethnic cleansing (until May 1948), a few thousand irregular Palestinians and Arabs were facing tens of thousands of well-trained Jewish troops. As the next stages evolved, a Jewish force of almost double the number of all the Arab armies combined had little trouble completing the job”.
Moreover, the Zionists had amassed a large arsenal of modern weapons which were superior to those of the Arab armies – including mortars, heavy machine guns, flamethrowers (which they used on civilians), and fighter aircraft.
…Still had no time to read it.
On a very good episode of “Usfeful Idiots” Pappé said that his book with Oct.8th had been taken off the book-shelves by his publisher. It was his most successful bestseller I believe.
His persecution shows how much the historical truth hurts these inveterate liars.
Another great writer on the situation is Avi Shlaim whose book “The Iron wall” exposes the myth that Israel has ever sought to live at peace with its neighbours, it gains territory at times of war.
It was reported on the BBC that five IDF murderers were blown up by their own side, with a few more injured, after one of their tanks fired at them.
Good enough for them, was my first thought. Shows just how utterly indiscriminate and kill-happy these out of control thugs are, was the second.
But the BBC went on to describe their condition, what was being done for their families and so on – like, wtf?? Like we’re actually supposed to be concerned about them? Needless to say, zero word on all the other killing taking place there, when these bastards are firing thousands of rounds a day from their tanks the rest of the time.
The IDF have consistently been posting group photos of themselves posing with the cuddly toys of children they have just murdered. They are just Palestinian children, so in BBC eyes these are honourable warriors/ like minds with whom we should identify.
Israel claims to be killing fewer noncombatants than any other army in history. This is because Israel helpfully classifies all of its victims as enemy combatants, men, women, old people, children, pets.
Zionists also claim a massive upsurge in antisemitism, which somehow justifies genocide. This is because the Zionists helpfully classify even the most timid demurral of anything Israel does as antisemitism identical to Hitler and Himmler.
I’d suggest the Israelis are surpassing nazi Germany on many fronts.
Sadly true. The Nazis didn’t excuse their massacres on the grounds that everyone was out to get them so they were just getting their retaliation in first.
Zionist double standards and demands for special pleading, together with the intentional conflation of “Israel” with “all Jews everywhere” and insistence that even the mildest criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism equivalent to Hitler and Himmler has done more to create genuine antisemites than all the imbeciles ever to post drivel on the internet.
This is entirely intentional.
re: Abu Sitta´s court action, which I mentioned earlier, here by ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
From May 15th
“Court overturns German ban on surgeon who witnessed Gaza war crimes”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/court-overturns-german-ban-surgeon-who-witnessed-gaza-war-crimes
p.s. and this eyewitness account by a law teacher at NYU
“From Gaza to Manhattan and Back
A Letter from New York”
“A note from a faculty member at Columbia University, depicting the 4/30/2024 NYPD crackdown of Columbia students’ encampment. ”
https://verfassungsblog.de/from-gaza-to-manhattan-and-back/
This is a rarity in Germany. Especially being the government-affirming Constitutional Blog.
From time to time they bring fig leaf items like this one.
So one may not blame ´em for bias. 😇
The west have no shame at all. Up and coming serial murderers have alot to learn from the callous attitude west have displayed in their indifference to the massmurdering in Gaza.
Imagine if jews were slaughered day and night for 6 months, no one in the west would support that.
University Human Rights Network Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/16/headlines/university_human_rights_network_concludes_israel_is_committing_genocide_in_gaza
Full report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3538249d5abb21360e858f/t/6644b96c59a09c12e6939533/1715779949018/Genocide+in+Gaza+-+Final+version+051524+Clean.pdf
An alternative viewpoint is that the West sat back and let Hitler carry out the ‘holocaust’, so the zionists knew that the West would do the same for them.
@ Stevie Boy,
The Red Army ended the nazi genocides. What could have been done before that?
Not giving Hitler the money to build an army to attack the Sovs?
“Imagine if jews were slaughtered day and night for 6 months, no one in the west would support that”.
Might be true now but that was certainly not the case in the 1940s. The holocaust was not just a single event carried out by the Germans but a whole series of events in which jew – hate spilled over with people from many European countries, which might now seem to be defending Israel, joining in the pogroms. The Ukraine nationalists were far from being alone.
I find it interesting that the countries that colluded most with the Germans in the persecution of the Jewish populations particularly the Baltic states such as Lithuania and Latvia seem to be the ones that are now the most vigorous in their expressions of hate for Russia, which put a stop to it by their defeat of the Germans there. Displacement, or reaction – formation as Freud might have suggested?
The German Nazis in the Baltic countries commentated at the time on their surprise at how enthusiastically the locals carried out mass executions. Willing executioners, whose progeny now drape themselves in different flags of convenience.
Not to mention how the baltics are suddenly ok with a bigger power (Israel) carry out war occupation, annexation against a defenseless people.
Precisely the same – the veil is in tatters!
The actions of Israel in Gaza are heinous and barbaric. Israel has NO right to a state. The end of Zionism can be painted as death clouds rise above Palestine and the stench of extermination reaches the world’s nostrils.
Former US ambassador Chas Freeman posed the same question awhile ago: what legitimacy does a regime like Israel really have after this sinister mass carnage? Regimes that have carried out similar acts historically have often not been long-lived since the outside world in many times have taken a stance against such barbaric regimes, suffocating them, isolating them, making them change their ways, imposing sanctions, military measures against them.
This inevitable trajectory must come for Israel too. There is no going back to normal with this despicable regime.
‘Israel is demonstrating the values of the Ku Klux Klan’ says former US ambassador Chas Freeman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip8YGeLMUMY
and it so hurts us all on here too Mark- Just so sad tearful
Indeed Brian – 37 mothers are being killed daily and 17,000 Palestinian children are believed to have been orphaned since the war on Gaza began. Sad; Sad; Sad…
At least we have indisputable, hard evidence for this particular genocide.
Another ‘Color Revolution’ (I use the US spelling, because they invented it).
We know what happened and is happening in the last ‘Color Revolution’ surely?
Hundreds of thousands of people dead for various reasons and apart from already rich and the salaried rich the only beneficiaries of the slaughter were not the people who changed ‘Color’.
Always changed to the Blue of Capitalism though – never the Red of Socialism.
I wonder why no-one notices? Perhaps they do, but as with Gaza they are not saying anything.
If Nuland turns up with Cupcakes to further her latest personal adventure she should be escorted out from Georgia rapido.
According to Russian media a delegation from some EU countries did actually arrive in Georgia today – Lithuania, Latvia and the usual suspects. I understand they were cold shouldered. A rather suspiciously swift reaction to events from these self-styled democracies one might ponder.
sry if following concerns Ukraine – but I would like to recommend this from the forum:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/ukraine-date-nov-2023/page/11/#post-97537
Nicolai Petro wrote an obituary on historian Pyotr Tolochko, who was a seminal scholar about the history of Ukraine (and canceled by 2014).
Since the nature of Ukrainian nationalism and the relation to RU was often subject of debate here. And in the public still is, even though the lines seem to be drawn between the argueing sides.
Evil Sunak laughs
Like a twisted billionaire
Thanks to BBC
“Like a twisted billionaire”
Are there any other sort?
I think Not will .. as Sunak Proves and Gates and Zuckerberg Etc.
I’m Currently Banned on Fbook for calling out Israeli apologists.
Brian, I know nothing of facebook or any of the other social media but I did look at “Inverclyde for independence” (?) when you mentioned defending GG there.
I not being funny but I find it hard to believe that you have been banned – you are hardly a virtual terrorist judging from the posts I read on InvforInd.
p.s. thanks for the vid of the flags fluttering on the beach. A long time ago I walked those beaches and climbed those hills. The sound of the wind took me back for a moment. I don’t feel envy or jealousy now, only love, but if I still did feel envy and such I would be jealous of you shooting that vid.
Did you..I’m A mountain walker too have you been to seil
In the spring and summer 1993, I was adopted by a friendly group of lads who lived along the Clyde, some in Glasgow, some in Greenock and a couple from Alexandra, we were work mates We got massively into walking, tramping all over Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, Argyle and Bute etc and eventually walking the West Highland Way together. They were naughty pot smoking drunkards, so we had a great time. The sound of the wind tugging at my pack as it blasted down the Valley is my most enduring memory
Soz Brian don’t know what what“seil” is, not a pro just a keen amateur
The creation of the Walled Garden of Western Isolation is moving apace and the Internal Dictatorship is advancing as Lockdown Compliance revealed supine subservience from the livestock
The US may find itself with a big new problem in the Middle East. The Greater Israel ambitions have been around a long time. It seems quite likely that surrounding countries have cozied up to the US on the basis that, as Israel’s indispensable ally, it would never allow it to carry out those ambitions. But now, after the pitiful spectacle of Genocide Joe bleating and wringing his hands ineffectually as the genocide carries on and on, those countries are bound to be assessing whether Russia and/or Iran might be more effective allies for them.
Unfortunately Russia/China have proved to be as indifferent to the mass killing in Gaza as the west, they had a great chance to pick up the lead for the Global south – a great PR win for them – but as usual Russia/China miss their chances.
One thought that BRICS would be a counterforce to the western hegemony but only South Africa and Brazil seems to have this interest within that organisation.
And India is pro this genocide.
Hindu nationalists don’t like Muslims any more than Israelis/white supremacists like Muslims. You might recall a little antipathy between Muslims and Hindus around the time of India’s partition, which never completely went away.
Modi has been doing his best to stoke hatred for his political benefit, and Israeli fascists have been targeting India with messages to the effect that Hamas is coming from them (all of India!) next. Yes indeed… Israel is fighting Hamas right now, selflessly putting themselves on the front line, to stop Hamas before they kill every last resident of India.
But Russia and Iran have weapons with at least fewer strings attached and maybe that’s the only effective deterrent. The other factor is pressure from the street if their rulers keep toadying to the chief supplier of materiel for the genocide. All the same, I wish that China in particular had stepped up in this situation. For example by funding UNRWA when the Western nations stopped. It isn’t as if they’re short of readies.
Something I bumped into:
“International Crisis Behavior Project”
“The International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project is a project that collates interstate crisis data from 1918 (the end of World War I) onward to 2019.”
based apparently at Duke Univers.
According to Wiki the data is regularly updated:
“The International Crisis Behavior project contains data on international crises from 1918 onward (i.e., after the end of World War I). As of March 2023, the newest available data is ICB Version 15. The data for this version extends through 2019 and includes 496 international crises and 1,100 crisis actors. All data is available freely for download”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Crisis_Behavior_Project
@Geoffrey
Avi Shlaim´s study about the 1948 Berlin blockade was published there.
(I was initially looking for what you suggested and then discovered this.)
https://sites.duke.edu/icbdata/
So, the giant PR exercise that is the ‘Aid Pier’ is now operational.
“British personnel have been working with US counterparts aboard RFA Cardigan Bay to build and operate the pier, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz96d3dn9jro
How long before the first Palestinians are shipped off ?
Great, so we’ve spent some $250 million building this thing. Beats air-drops of aid.
Everyone in MSM is clearly too polite to ponder _why_, exactly, we have to build ports and conduct air-drops, when the aid lorries are actually at the border waiting to go in. Because then we’d be faced with awkward questions about who is preventing them from doing so. Operations like this are only usually necessary for sending supplies to allies cut off behind enemy lines, but in this case it’s our righteous Partner in Peace Israel who we have to get around.
Unbelievable.
Has anyone heard from Craig Lately?
He’s around on Twitter/X. https://x.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1791456333918507387
On the BBC News Channel early this morning someone said that there’s about 30 lorries of aid a day getting into Gaza (which is little more than about 5% of what is needed).
Just did a search on BBC News to see if I could find an article in which it’s mentioned – ie that there’s only about 30 lorries getting into Gaza each day – and came across the following from a few days ago:
‘Israeli protesters block aid trucks destined for Gaza’
Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks destined for Gaza on Monday, throwing food packages onto the road and ripping bags of grain open in the occupied West Bank.
The lorries, which were set upon at the Tarqumiya checkpoint west of Hebron, came from Jordan and were headed to the Gaza Strip, where people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid…..
Some videos appeared to show vehicles being set on fire later in the evening. The BBC has not been able to independently verify these.
According to reports in Israeli media, the Tzav 9 activist group were responsible for organising the protest.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg300jek94zo
So they’re still at it!
The Israel police do absolutely nothing to stop all this, of course, just like they do nothing to prevent white supremacist thugs on the West Bank regularly harassing, stealing from, beating and murdering the Palestinians who are resident there. The police will stand around laughing, encouraging or at the very least simply ignoring what’s going on.
Now if the West Bank Palestinians try to stand up for themselves or retaliate, why – that’s a different matter altogether. They will be intervening with extreme prejudice on behalf of the ‘settlers’.
(Again, isn’t the language always so meek and cosy? They’re not whte supremacists, invaders, looters and thieves – no! They’re harmless little ‘settlers’, that’s all!)
Other Israelis have been holding up aid lorries with spontaneous rave-type parties on the crossing points, for months. Actively stopping food reaching a starving population. To nobody’s surprise, the Israeli police are extremely indulgent of this activity too.
When this settler scum is driven from Palestine, they will seek shelter in a few countries, including I the one live in – Britain
I and many, many millions of British citizens will not welcome these people. Who would welcome religious terrorists to their country, who behaved so badly in their last “country” treating its inhabitants, the Palestinians, as subhumans who could be killed at will.
We had a little sniff when the Royal Navy brought the terrorists to Britain who killed Brits in Manchester. These terrorists were Muslim but it appears that they are rare amongst Islam’s adherents – certainly the ones I live with in my local area are not terrorists; yet most Israeli settlers are terrorists, hundreds of thousands of nutty anti-human killers.
I am not one to quote Enoch Powell regarding immigration – he was wrong but I feel here there is no choice due to the perverted ideology these fanatics profess. If these people are allowed to settle in Britain or return to exercise their rights as dual citizens, I say right now there will be “Rivers of Blood” in Britain.
I would not want to live in the same country, never mind the same city as these racist freaks and would be willing to evince my disapproval of a hostile alien presence in my country with great energy to the relevant authorities.
Portuguese lawyer-activist Boaventura de Sousa Santos has a new essay about the Non-Aligned movement of the 1960s till today. I may post later in the Gaza forum so it won´t get lost.
Here just a quote, which shows todays contradiction of identity.
“(…) African-American journalist Richard Wright, who was present in Bandung (1955), describes the atmosphere in Bandung thus:
“Only brown, black and yellow men who had long been made agonizingly self-conscious, under the rigors of colonial rule, of their race and their religion could have felt the need for such a meeting. There was something extra-political, extra-social, almost extra-human about it; it smacked of tidal waves, of natural forces. And the call for the meeting had not been sounded in terms of ideology. The agenda and the subject matter had been written for centuries in the blood and bones of the participants. The conditions under which these men had lived had become their tradition, their culture, their raison d’être”.(…)”
another statement in the essay:
“(…)In fact, the Russian-Ukrainian war, like the Israel-Palestinian war, has the same objective of stopping the USA’s great rival, China, by neutralizing its most important allies, whether Russia or Iran.(…)”
Which of course sounds odd for a Palestinian lacking any agency by those enemies of the US (your enemy´s enemy your friend?). Not now.
But of course Israel wants to provoke that agency.
p.s. Sadly not only the Palestinians are left alone. What about e.g. Yemen (400.000 dead mainly due to hunger) or Haiti?
I’ve been meaning to post about this contradiction for some time now, but keep forgetting. So Israel has been saying since more-or-less the outset that its objective is to totally destroy Hamas, and yet for months now – as in this recent Guardian article – Israel has been saying the following:
‘Israel launches Rafah offensive it says is start of mission to ‘eliminate’ Hamas’
Defence minister says operation will continue until militant group is defeated or begins to free hostages
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the offensive would continue until Hamas forces in Rafah “and the entire Gaza Strip” were “eliminated” or the militant Islamist organisation begins to release hostages. A government spokesperson described the first stage of a wider effort targeting Hamas.
“This is the beginning of our mission to take out the last four Hamas brigades in Rafah. You should be in no doubt about that whatsoever,” the spokesperson said.
So on the one hand Israel is saying that their offensive will continue until Hamas fighters are eliminated. And at the same time saying that their offensive will continue until Hamas begins to release the hostages, in which case Hamas WOULDN’T have been completely eliminated. Doesn’t make sense or add up of course. But from Hamas’s point of view, the implication appears to be that once they’ve released all the hostages, Israel would just continue their ‘mission’ to completely eradicate Hamas, which Hamas are hardly going to go along with.
What Israel is saying to Hamas in effect is that if you don’t start releasing the hostages we’re going to kill you all now, but if you release the hostages, we’ll finish killing you all afterwards.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/israel-launches-rafah-offensive-start-mission-eliminate-hamas
So during the past few months or more posters on various platforms have been saying that if Hamas surrenders then all the bombing and killing and destruction would end. In other words, all the death and destruction being inflicted on Gaza is down to Hamas, and would end if they surrended. I’ve come across people saying this on at least half-a-dozen occasions (and on here at least once I think). Thing is this though, that we all know (on here) how Israel and the IDF lie through their teeth about everything – as Hamas knows they do of course – and their lies are so gargantuan that Hamas could actually surrender and Israel claim that they haven’t, or that they haven’t ALL surrendered and, as such, just continue bombing and killing thousands of civilians. Apart from which, I think we can all be pretty certain that even if there were thousands of Hamas fighters that surrendered, they would all be tortured in the most horrific ways and then murdered in the following weeks and months if they DID surrender. And Hamas know it of course, so they are hardly going to agree to do so. And THAT is why they haven’t.
The reality is that Hamas have been saying for months that they will release all the rest of the hostages if Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire, and the only possible reason that BN and Co HAVEN’T agreed to the proposal is because they want to kill and maim and destroy and keep the nightmare and the horror and the terror going for as long as possible.
Allan Howard.
What you say is true.
If Israel wants to eliminate Hamas (even though it is impossible) by killing Gazans in the process as a means of ridding itself from any future threats to the Israeli State they are seriously mistaken.
Because of the way they are conducting these attacks the Israeli State has shown the world what a so-called ‘Democracy’ will do if allowed to do so.
They are following in the ‘Democratic’ footsteps of their Uncle Sam wherein: if you are a powerful democracy (local or International) you reserve the right to ‘democratise’ by force what is considered as a non Democracy. That is called ‘Regime Change’.
The problem is is that all the Regime Changes carried out by Big Uncle Sam have made every country worse and not better.
The Real World – not the Unreal Western World has witnessed and is witnessing this ideology and its practical expression and is heading for the Exit Doors.
The reason behind all these Proxy Wars is decline and not even revival of the US mainly and its toady’s in the West whilst the main enemies are the leading BRICS countries – the ones with Nuclear Weapons.
What that Clown Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t understand is that if Japan had had Nuclear Weapons itself, then it is likely that Hiroshima and Nagasaki may not have been attacked, as they would have sent some Nukes back.
Attacking Russia or China is not the same ‘Regime Change’ method applied to Iraq/Libya/Afghanistan etc. You are dealing with enemies who have not been dis-armed and are arming more under threat from NATO.
What the idiot (and many pundits and politicians) don’t get is that many things have changed since the US ‘Liberated’ Iraq – and changed forever.
The danger for Israel is not Hamas – the danger lies with much bigger and well armed forces in the region and outside the region. They have not stood still.
Of course, the perfect example is North Korea. If they surrendered their nukes they would be destroyed fairly quickly soon afterwards. The USA and Israel are compulsive liars and any agreements with them are worthless. They have a retarded mentality whereby the only things they understand and respect is force.
This is a Time of tears
https://youtu.be/7-pvEZogO_M?t=1146
Just came across this Live Updates list of events and episodes in The Times of Israel from yesterday, including the following:
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would block President Joe Biden from withholding weapons from Israel.
For the second night in a row, Israeli settlers have attacked a truck in the West Bank, thinking it was delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, Hebrew media reports.
The Foreign Ministry says South Africa was “presenting biased and false claims” that “rely on unreliable Hamas sources,” in response to a case brought to the UN’s top court accusing Israel of genocide on Thursday.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel will abolish its free trade agreement with Turkey and also impose a 100% tariff on other imports from Turkey in retaliation for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to halt exports to Israel.
After more than a week of significant decreases in the amount of humanitarian aid going into Gaza due to the IDF’s operations in Rafah, the number of trucks is picking back up, according to Israel’s COGAT
IDF Central Command chief: Smotrich completely undermines crackdown on illegal settler construction
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leads a Religious Zionism party faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 12, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leads a Religious Zionism party faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 12, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The head of the IDF’s Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, accused far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich of completely undermining Israeli law enforcement efforts to clamp down on illegal Israeli construction in the West Bank, an internal document uncovered by The New York Times reveals.
Sixty percent of respondents to a Channel 12 poll say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a day after Gallant accused Netanyahu of ducking vital decisions on post-war Gaza and demanded that the prime minister rule out post-war Israeli military and civil control of the Strip.
Spain has refused permission for an Israel-bound ship carrying arms to call at the southeastern port of Cartagena, Transport Minister Oscar Puente says.
The Marianne Danica was carrying a cargo of arms to Israel and had requested permission to call at Cartagena on May 21, Puente tweets.
It was carrying nearly 27 tons in explosive material from India’s Madras, El Pais reports.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-may-16-2024/
And also this, from a couple of days ago:
‘To save and heal Israel, Netanyahu must quit or at least face the electorate’
If he is not prepared to leave public life of his own volition, he should set the date to face the political judgment of the nation that entrusted him with its safety
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sometimes tiptoed close to acknowledging a degree of personal responsibility for the failure to prevent the monstrous October 7 Hamas invasion. But questioned and cajoled in numerous press conferences and interviews in the more than seven months since, he has ducked and dived and, ultimately, refused to simply say:
It happened on my watch. As prime minister, I had a more complete view than anybody else of the military, intelligence, political and diplomatic realities regarding Gaza, Hamas, and the looming catastrophe. I personally controlled all the levers of power that, if activated, would have prevented it. And, therefore, I bear prime responsibility for failing to do so.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/to-save-and-heal-israel-netanyahu-must-quit-or-at-least-face-the-electorate/
Or he could of course say that he knew months in advance that Hamas was planning and training for an attack and that he deliberately let it happen. Mind you, he would probably be assassinated in a matter of days if he did.
NB As I said several months ago, it’s really tragic that Egypt didn’t think to put it in the public domain that Hamas was planning a big attack BEFORE the attack happened AND that they had warned Israel/Netanyahu about it on several occasions.
Netanyahu is not the problem. The problem is Israel and its zionist makeup. Getting rid of Netanyahu won’t make things better. Israel needs to fundamentally change and/or dissappear.
This is in response to Stevie Boy’s reply to my post a bit further up the page:
The author of the article was making the point that the attack happened on BNs ‘watch’, and that if he had been doing his job properly it wouldn’t have happened, or at the very least, Israel/the IDF would have been prepared for the attack*. Yes, it more-than-likely wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to the plight of the Palestinians (in Gaza and the Westbank) if BN was gone, but does that mean he should just stay on as PM.
*It seems highly unlikely that the author of the article isn’t aware that Egypt warned Israel/BN on several occasions in the weeks and months prior to the attack that an attack by Hamas was imminent, and that the ‘spotters’ on the border of Gaza had been warning for months and months prior to October 7th that Hamas were carrying out a whole bunch of military-type exercises. And there was also this, as Haaretz reported on December 5th (most of it is behind a paywall, but here’s what’s visible):
«‘This Massacre Should Have Been Prevented’ | Despite Israeli Intelligence Warnings About a Hamas Attack, the Army Didn’t Evacuate the Nova Festival (Haaretz, 5 Dec 2023)
Top defense officials held urgent consultations the night before October 7 about a possible Hamas attack. But no one in the IDF notified the the Nova festival organizers or the party-goers, hundreds of whom were mown down – and for nine hours, no one came to save them
Hours before Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, Israel’s security forces had enough warning signs to prepare – at least partially – for the possibility that terrorists would seek to infiltrate from Gaza into Israel…..»
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.premium/despite-intel-warnings-about-a-hamas-attack-the-army-didnt-evacuate-the-nova-festival/0000018c-3993-dc03-a9ec-3dfb2cda0000
And when I did a search to find the Haaretz article I also came across the following posted on December 25th, which I’ve not come across before, the details of which sound quite different to the Haaretz article some three weeks earlier, and which mentions a SECOND ‘smaller’ music festival that was taking place on October 7th near the border with Gaza AND in which people were allegedly killed by Hamas, and which I’ve never heard about before…. And the OBVIOUS thing is that if there was ANOTHER music festival in which people were killed by Hamas, then how come we didn’t get to 1. Hear about it at the time; and 2. Hear how many people were killed at the smaller music festival.
«‘Key IDF officer reportedly voiced concern about Nova festival, but was told to OK it’ (Times of Israel, 25 Dec 2023)
Gaza Division operations officer saw party as ‘needless security risk’ due to proximity to Gaza, report says; opposition was based on threat of rocket fire, not incursion
Earlier in December, relatives of those murdered by Hamas terrorists at two raves on October 7 — the Supernova festival and the smaller, nearby Psyduck festival — announced that they had formed a lobby to address their grievances with the government.»
https://www.timesofisrael.com/key-idf-officer-reportedly-voiced-concern-about-nova-festival-but-was-told-to-ok-it/
Just did a search re >october 7 psyduck festival< and there were only a few relevant results, including this wikipedia entry:
«Psyduck music festival massacre
Psyduck was a small trance music festival that took place in the open fields between kibbutz Nir Oz and kibbutz Nirim, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the border of Gaza. The rave hosted about 100 participants. On 7 October 2023 morning, as part of the surprise attack on Israel, the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas attacked the Psyduck festival, killing 17 Israeli partygoers.
For five years, Psyduck music gatherings were held once every two months, with the location of the party kept a secret. In many cases, even the organizers didn't know where the party would take place until right before the event began…..»
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyduck_music_festival_massacre
I wonder if it had ever been held near the Gaza border before?
Oh, I posted my response to Stevie Boy at the end of the comments, but it’s appeared just under his reply. Very odd.
I think this is quite disburbing, Ben Gvir of the israeli government is the leader of the party “Otzma Yehudit”, I just found out that “Otzma Yehudit” mean “Jewish Power”. That is like there would be a party in a western government that had the name of “White power”…. Could you imagine!? Not to mention that this Ben Gvir is a Khahanist.
The Kahane movement: A legacy of violence and racism in Israel
https://www.newarab.com/analysis/kahanism-legacy-violence-and-racism-israel
It is sickening and absurd that so many western liberals, socialists, even deluded leftists have this sweet spot for the far-right racist regime of Israel while they would never ever support such a political party/regime in their nations!
Jsut take the fact that Israel constantly bulldoze palestinian homes in the West bank, because of the owners have the “wrong” race? And then let jews build a new house on the top of the area?? I mean it is like a western state would demolish houses because immigrants were living there making room for white people!
The “far-right”-label do not cover what is going on in Israel, that is too kind, no, this is some type of fascist regime.
May be we should do a test and fly an El Al (Israel´s Airline) passenger plane into Trump Tower in Manhattan and look what happens.
I would assume some medal of valour would be due at least by the current administration. And Trump explaining the pilot somehow mixed up destinations and that it´s “just a scratch”.
p.s. press release on Abu-Sittah case by European Legal Support Center
“VICTORY FOR DR GHASSAN ABU SITTAH: ELSC and ICJP overturn Schengen-wide travel ban”
https://elsc.support/news/victory-for-ghassan-abu-sittah-elsc-and-icjp-overturn-schengen-wide-travel-ban
Are you sure these ‘deluded leftists’ you refer to Jack ARE leftists? Or, to put it another way, how do you know they are leftists? Just curious….
The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions … but by iron and blood. Said Otto von. Bismarck, in the case of Israel its future is sealed, due to its small size, with Metropolitan Tel Aviv area 50 sq miles, where most of its population and industrial capacity are based, are vulnerable to a war of attrition waged by non state actors who in turn, when not manufactured by themselves their precision missiles and drones are supplied by Iran. This combination together with the opprobrium felt by 85% of the rest of humanity to Israell is more than enough to finish this apartheid supporting genocidal monstrosity, no matter how much money its big stupid friend the US pumps into it.
Qasim Soleimani was arguably Iran’s most important military leader in modern history. He moved Iran’s overall strategy from a direct approach to an indirect one of proxy warfare using non-state actors. The non state actors of the ‘arc of resistance’ with its tactics of attrition will win in the end, it will probably take a little longer than most people would like. but it will be death by a thousand cuts for the murderous apartheid state.
Well said in this post. The “west” and the US plan for Gaza is much the same as can be found on any of the dozens of isolated Indian tribal “reservation” in the US….. except the Palestinians have armed guards and a wall on the outside.
Too angry to write.