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SmokeyBear1861

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3 hours ago, Welshy said:

I'm Gen X, which basically means I trust no one, so I have a head start I suppose, but tell me...who do you trust to do the right thing? *Honest question. 

Do you understand how humans work? *not so honest. I think I know the answer to this one.

There are still psychological tricks, generally speaking empathy is important for out tribal groups.

When MAGA started warning each other on day one of the Trump presidency, to not look at immigrant sob stories, I knew that the goal was complete assault on immigrant rights.

Then you have narcissism vs science, everyone should have known the colossal fuckup disaster incoming on Feb 2020. Purely based on the Donald denials about COVID.

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Your opinion didn't and hasn't bothered me, really. I have valued your input, even if it's wrong.

Netanyahu's fault for not immediately invading.  He's really, irrevocably, stupid. Worse, he's incompetent.

But just so we're clear, trump could occasionally, randomly, mistakenly bump against my mentality. I despise the man, his coalition and his party (now). Netanyahu too. Not a single thing I have said or posted has been based on Trumpism.

If Trump says the sun is bright, and I say it's bright, that doesn't mean we're fucking blood-brothers. I would never vote for Donald and would fist-fight him. Aggressivly. With extreme chingasos. 

I'm not a trumper. I'm not a Jew, and I'm not a Palestinian. ...but I can math, and I can see what has happened in the last 3 weeks. Hamas did this, and Palestinians did too. Period. Not the zeitgeist now, but I was here. I saw.

Reality has warped into Jewish fault and culpability for Gaza. They are definitely at fault. As is Palestine (not arabia, it's important to note - many Arabian countries have a less than positive opinion of Palestine - and Gaza in particular. Blame the ottomans, the british, the germans, the US, the Iranians... and Israel twice.

The solution is not to allow Hamas to murder and rape its people.

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1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

So… Israel plotted the October 7 attack to take over the West Bank?

They’ve been fostering terrorism and allowing it to pop up here and there so that they can always justify oppressing the natives. I think the severity of this attack caught Bibi by surprise. They never wanted all out war but the west is stalwart in “We Support Israel” and anyone who desires to dig a little deeper into the past is labeled a genocidal anti-Semite. I don’t think even Bibi expected that level of support, so the opportunity is there, might as well wipe out the natives and take what’s left.

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It’s clear the Palestinians have no interest in a two state solution. 
 
I will give them the benefit of the doubt, that they (most) would be ok with another Jewish diaspora instead of a Holocaust repeat. 
 
The idea is: make Israel so uncomfortable that, like the French in Algeria and the British in the Levantine, that they…leave. 
 
The problem with that idea is that there is no place for Jews to go, in the world. I used to think that Israelis would always be ok in America, but that doesn’t look sure any more. They are two generations from a genocidal event and Israel is all they have. They’re not going anywhere. 
 
In the west, “never again” means that we will never look away from a genocide (spoiler- ask the Tutsis if that’s true). 
 
To Israelis, “never again” means they will never, ever rely on another people or state for survival. 
 
So, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. 

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1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

One correction; Israel has never, ever NOT relied on the US for survival. 

1948. And Nixon was damned late in 1973. 
 
And I don’t believe they have ever asked permission to assassinate an Iranian physicist. 

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Genocide Is Underway in Gaza. US Leaders Can No Longer Say “We Didn’t Know.”

Quote

The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.

Spoiler

The past two weeks have been very painful for me and my Palestinian American family, but especially for our relatives in Palestine. I’ve had little sleep, and when I did manage to close my eyes, I was unable to stop the nightmares. The horror that is taking place in Gaza became like a noose around my neck preventing me from breathing. I couldn’t help but think of all the children who lost their parents, their homes, and who can’t understand why no one in the world cares about them and why no one is coming to their rescue. Close to half the population of Gaza was born under the 17-year-long suffocating siege and have known nothing but misery and extreme hardship.

The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.

“Hospitals have lost their ability to treat [patients], and medical teams are treating the patients with very limited capabilities,” Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in an interview.

Under the watchful eye of world leaders who continue to repeat the same mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” but are indifferent to Palestinians and their right to resist their occupation and blockade, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israel National Security Council, said in Israeli media, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction,” said Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. “You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement at yesterday’s UN Security Council session that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” simply adds fuel to the fire. Every government official in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU who isn’t calling for a ceasefire and an end to the carnage should be held accountable for their part in this genocide. Sending billions of dollars in missiles and weapons to the Israeli military in order to mercilessly kill and ethnically cleanse more Palestinians amplifies the U.S.’s complicity in the atrocities. The tragic loss of Israeli lives on October 7 should not be used as a pretext to launch this genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel is actively implementing a strategy I have called the “out-of-state” solution. This strategy aims to transfer Palestinians — or keep terrorizing and oppressing them until they give up and leave — to neighboring Arab countries, dispossessing them of their homeland. This is what we are witnessing in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem before our very eyes.

According to the Palestine Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Israel Defense Forces and armed settlers have killed at least 100 Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced at least 13 Palestinian communities in the last two weeks.

The two-state solution promised to Palestinians during the Oslo Accords is no longer possible; the chances of a one-state solution with equal citizenship rights for everyone are even slimmer, since Zionists insist on keeping Israel a Jewish state with democratic rights for Jews only.

What is left — and what many in the new extremist Israeli government are in favor of — is driving as many Palestinians as possible out of Israel/Palestine.

The Netanyahu government made clear its intention to commit genocide against the Palestinians and is counting on people around the world becoming numb as the death toll rises.

During French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Israel, Netanyahu said that the fight “was a battle between the ‘axis of evil’ and ‘the free world’.… This battle is not merely our own … it’s everybody’s battle.” Macron’s visit to Israel completes the series of pilgrimages to Israel by prominent Western leaders renewing their pledges of allegiance to the Israeli state and giving it the green light for its ground offensive.

But, as we’ve seen time and time again, Palestinians are resilient and are determined to keep their struggle alive, no matter how severe Israeli attempts are at their erasure.

There is a newly invigorated global grassroots movement for justice in the Arab and Muslim world as we’ve seen from the massive demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, and elsewhere. Palestine is on the minds of the masses in Europe, too. From Paris — in defiance of a pro-Palestinian protest ban — to Dublin, London, Edinburgh and Geneva, the voices of Palestinian supporters chanting “Free Free Palestine” are reverberating in cities throughout the Western world. And in Washington, D.C. we heard the voices of American Jews mobilizing in solidarity with Palestinians and loudly declaring “Not In Our Name” as they marched to Capitol Hill and called on their representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire. On October 19, they shut down Congress to draw attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in spaces ranging from cultural institutions to college campuses to media outlets are being silenced, harassed and discriminated against.

My latest personal experience of this occurred in Germany, where I spent this past week attending the Frankfurter Buchmesse, or Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF). Upon my arrival in Frankfurt, I was greeted by an overwhelming display of Israeli flags everywhere — at the airport, on train ticket machines, on government buildings. Why, I wondered? Is it because Germany is still atoning for its past crimes? The next morning, I woke up to a shocking statement by the FBF Director Juergen Boos that said: “We want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair.… Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”

As if this was not bad enough coming from a renowned institution that was celebrating its 75th anniversary — and one that prides itself on promoting cultural exchange and freedom of expression — the FBF followed its one-sided statement by announcing a decision to cancel the award ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis 2023 “due to the war in Israel.” Palestinian writer Adania Shibli won the German literature prize this year. Contrary to what The New York Times initially reported, Shibli, whose first two novels Touch and We Are Equally Far Away from Love were released by Interlink Publishing, (the Massachusetts-based, independent publishing house that I founded), did not agree to the cancellation.

In light of these announcements and the FBF’s attempt to silence Palestinian voices, many exhibitors — Indonesia’s collective stand, Malaysia’s collective stand, the Arab Publishers Association, the Sharjah Book authority, and others — decided to withdraw their participation as a sign of protest, leaving behind many empty booths. In a statement, the Sharjah Book Authority, organizer of the world’s third-largest book fair, said: “Given the recent announcement by the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have decided to withdraw our participation this year. We champion the role of culture and books to encourage dialogue and understanding between people. We believe that this role is more important now than ever.”

I, too, was compelled to withdraw from my scheduled talk sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I was initially asked to participate in a discussion about the role of literature-in-translation in promoting cross-cultural understanding and knowledge. How could I participate in such a discussion when the FBF had just silenced an author whose novels we translated into English simply because she is Palestinian?

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which claims to monitor the Frankfurt Book Fair each year for books that foment “antisemitism and hate” apparently did not like the Palestine-related books displayed on our stand and suggested that our publishing house, Interlink Publishing, “be denied access, in the spirit of the Fair’s rules.” The center called several of our titles “in the lineage of the so-called ‘self-hating’ Jews.” While the “Hate Prize” went to a Turkish publisher, Timas Publishing Group, the “Runner-Up Prize” is shared by our publishing house Interlink Publishing and French publisher La Fabrique “for their combined effort to demonize Israel and indulge in antisemitism.”

The silencing of Palestinian voices and their supporters is not restricted to Germany. It is happening here in the United States, in mainstream media and on college campuses. The New York City cultural institution known as the 92nd Street Y canceled an event with author Viet Thanh Nguyen after he signed an open letter critical of Israel. As a result, several authors — including Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe and Andrea Long Chu — have canceled their own upcoming talks at the 92nd Street Y. Similarly, the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel canceled its contract to host the upcoming conference of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights scheduled to take place on October 27-29. You can read the full press release here. And according to a report in Arab News, the U.S. news network MSNBC suspended Muslim anchors Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi amid the Israeli war in Gaza. On October 26, 57 UMass Amherst students were arrested for democratic dissent.

The world’s failure to challenge Israel’s ongoing oppression, occupation, apartheid and genocidal tactics against Palestinians provides the context for what is taking place now. Fearing a repeat of their mass displacement 75 years ago, many Palestinians in Gaza are opting to stay where they are and risk death. Israel’s message to the people of Gaza to leave or die is being ignored because Palestinians know that if they leave, they will not be able to return.

There is an urgent need for a ceasefire to stop the deliberate mass killing of Palestinians, which is in flagrant violation of international law. The genocide is underway. We can no longer say that we didn’t know.

https://truthout.org/articles/genocide-is-underway-in-gaza-us-leaders-can-no-longer-say-we-didnt-know/

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Israel’s UN envoy slams General Assembly resolution
Gilad Erdan says “this is a dark day for the UN and for mankind” after the UNGA passed the resolution, which urged a humanitarian truce in Gaza.

The Israeli ambassador promised that Israel would use “every means” in fighting Hamas.

“Today is a day that will go down as infamy. We have all witnessed that the UN no longer holds even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance,” Erdan said.

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Internet and cell service have been cut off in the Gaza Strip as Israeli airstrikes intensify on the besieged territory, where more than 7,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants.

News outlets and on-the-ground aid groups reported on Friday that their communications with individuals within Gaza have been severed, and the 2.3 million people who live there are now left in a near-complete digital blackout. Jawal and Paltel, Palestine’s largest internet service providers, said Friday that service had collapsed due to Israel’s bombardment of the region, which has intensified in the last 24 hours. “The intense bombing in the last hour caused the destruction of all remaining international routes linking Gaza to the outside world,” Paltel wrote in a statement.

 

 




https://news.yahoo.com/gaza-internet-cell-cut-off-203531860.html

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Genocide Is Underway in Gaza. US Leaders Can No Longer Say “We Didn’t Know.”
The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.
Spoiler

The past two weeks have been very painful for me and my Palestinian American family, but especially for our relatives in Palestine. I’ve had little sleep, and when I did manage to close my eyes, I was unable to stop the nightmares. The horror that is taking place in Gaza became like a noose around my neck preventing me from breathing. I couldn’t help but think of all the children who lost their parents, their homes, and who can’t understand why no one in the world cares about them and why no one is coming to their rescue. Close to half the population of Gaza was born under the 17-year-long suffocating siege and have known nothing but misery and extreme hardship.
The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.
“Hospitals have lost their ability to treat [patients], and medical teams are treating the patients with very limited capabilities,” Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in an interview.
Under the watchful eye of world leaders who continue to repeat the same mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” but are indifferent to Palestinians and their right to resist their occupation and blockade, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israel National Security Council, said in Israeli media, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”
“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction,” said Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. “You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement at yesterday’s UN Security Council session that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” simply adds fuel to the fire. Every government official in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU who isn’t calling for a ceasefire and an end to the carnage should be held accountable for their part in this genocide. Sending billions of dollars in missiles and weapons to the Israeli military in order to mercilessly kill and ethnically cleanse more Palestinians amplifies the U.S.’s complicity in the atrocities. The tragic loss of Israeli lives on October 7 should not be used as a pretext to launch this genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel is actively implementing a strategy I have called the “out-of-state” solution. This strategy aims to transfer Palestinians — or keep terrorizing and oppressing them until they give up and leave — to neighboring Arab countries, dispossessing them of their homeland. This is what we are witnessing in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem before our very eyes.
According to the Palestine Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Israel Defense Forces and armed settlers have killed at least 100 Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced at least 13 Palestinian communities in the last two weeks.
The two-state solution promised to Palestinians during the Oslo Accords is no longer possible; the chances of a one-state solution with equal citizenship rights for everyone are even slimmer, since Zionists insist on keeping Israel a Jewish state with democratic rights for Jews only.
What is left — and what many in the new extremist Israeli government are in favor of — is driving as many Palestinians as possible out of Israel/Palestine.
The Netanyahu government made clear its intention to commit genocide against the Palestinians and is counting on people around the world becoming numb as the death toll rises.
During French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Israel, Netanyahu said that the fight “was a battle between the ‘axis of evil’ and ‘the free world’.… This battle is not merely our own … it’s everybody’s battle.” Macron’s visit to Israel completes the series of pilgrimages to Israel by prominent Western leaders renewing their pledges of allegiance to the Israeli state and giving it the green light for its ground offensive.
But, as we’ve seen time and time again, Palestinians are resilient and are determined to keep their struggle alive, no matter how severe Israeli attempts are at their erasure.
There is a newly invigorated global grassroots movement for justice in the Arab and Muslim world as we’ve seen from the massive demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, and elsewhere. Palestine is on the minds of the masses in Europe, too. From Paris — in defiance of a pro-Palestinian protest ban — to Dublin, London, Edinburgh and Geneva, the voices of Palestinian supporters chanting “Free Free Palestine” are reverberating in cities throughout the Western world. And in Washington, D.C. we heard the voices of American Jews mobilizing in solidarity with Palestinians and loudly declaring “Not In Our Name” as they marched to Capitol Hill and called on their representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire. On October 19, they shut down Congress to draw attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in spaces ranging from cultural institutions to college campuses to media outlets are being silenced, harassed and discriminated against.
My latest personal experience of this occurred in Germany, where I spent this past week attending the Frankfurter Buchmesse, or Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF). Upon my arrival in Frankfurt, I was greeted by an overwhelming display of Israeli flags everywhere — at the airport, on train ticket machines, on government buildings. Why, I wondered? Is it because Germany is still atoning for its past crimes? The next morning, I woke up to a shocking statement by the FBF Director Juergen Boos that said: “We want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair.… Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”
As if this was not bad enough coming from a renowned institution that was celebrating its 75th anniversary — and one that prides itself on promoting cultural exchange and freedom of expression — the FBF followed its one-sided statement by announcing a decision to cancel the award ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis 2023 “due to the war in Israel.” Palestinian writer Adania Shibli won the German literature prize this year. Contrary to what The New York Times initially reported, Shibli, whose first two novels Touch and We Are Equally Far Away from Love were released by Interlink Publishing, (the Massachusetts-based, independent publishing house that I founded), did not agree to the cancellation.
In light of these announcements and the FBF’s attempt to silence Palestinian voices, many exhibitors — Indonesia’s collective stand, Malaysia’s collective stand, the Arab Publishers Association, the Sharjah Book authority, and others — decided to withdraw their participation as a sign of protest, leaving behind many empty booths. In a statement, the Sharjah Book Authority, organizer of the world’s third-largest book fair, said: “Given the recent announcement by the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have decided to withdraw our participation this year. We champion the role of culture and books to encourage dialogue and understanding between people. We believe that this role is more important now than ever.”
I, too, was compelled to withdraw from my scheduled talk sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I was initially asked to participate in a discussion about the role of literature-in-translation in promoting cross-cultural understanding and knowledge. How could I participate in such a discussion when the FBF had just silenced an author whose novels we translated into English simply because she is Palestinian?
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which claims to monitor the Frankfurt Book Fair each year for books that foment “antisemitism and hate” apparently did not like the Palestine-related books displayed on our stand and suggested that our publishing house, Interlink Publishing, “be denied access, in the spirit of the Fair’s rules.” The center called several of our titles “in the lineage of the so-called ‘self-hating’ Jews.” While the “Hate Prize” went to a Turkish publisher, Timas Publishing Group, the “Runner-Up Prize” is shared by our publishing house Interlink Publishing and French publisher La Fabrique “for their combined effort to demonize Israel and indulge in antisemitism.”
The silencing of Palestinian voices and their supporters is not restricted to Germany. It is happening here in the United States, in mainstream media and on college campuses. The New York City cultural institution known as the 92nd Street Y canceled an event with author Viet Thanh Nguyen after he signed an open letter critical of Israel. As a result, several authors — including Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe and Andrea Long Chu — have canceled their own upcoming talks at the 92nd Street Y. Similarly, the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel canceled its contract to host the upcoming conference of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights scheduled to take place on October 27-29. You can read the full press release here. And according to a report in Arab News, the U.S. news network MSNBC suspended Muslim anchors Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi amid the Israeli war in Gaza. On October 26, 57 UMass Amherst students were arrested for democratic dissent.
The world’s failure to challenge Israel’s ongoing oppression, occupation, apartheid and genocidal tactics against Palestinians provides the context for what is taking place now. Fearing a repeat of their mass displacement 75 years ago, many Palestinians in Gaza are opting to stay where they are and risk death. Israel’s message to the people of Gaza to leave or die is being ignored because Palestinians know that if they leave, they will not be able to return.
There is an urgent need for a ceasefire to stop the deliberate mass killing of Palestinians, which is in flagrant violation of international law. The genocide is underway. We can no longer say that we didn’t know.

https://truthout.org/articles/genocide-is-underway-in-gaza-us-leaders-can-no-longer-say-we-didnt-know/

I am in no way calling Israel the beacon of truth, but how can anyone site any numbers from the Palestinian health authority with a straight face?

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2 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I am in no way calling Israel the beacon of truth, but how can anyone site any numbers from the Palestinian health authority with a straight face?

What are the other sources that we can bounce the numbers of the dead children of darkness up against?

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12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

What are the other sources that we can bounce the numbers of the dead children of darkness up against?

Maybe bounce those numbers up against the wall at GWU where "Glory to the martyrs" of Hamas is being projected.

I really, really, really want to sympathize with the Palestinian cause.  And I do not excuse Israel's complete blockade of Gaza, which is a war crime.  Nor do I excuse any purposeful targeting of civilians by Israel - any specific act of Israel which is determined to be a purposeful targeting of civilians should be treated as a war crime.  And frankly, I very much hope that Israel opts NOT to launch a full ground offensive, and allows the conflict to cool to a simmer, avoiding significant additional loss of life.

But goddamn.  The fucking repeated bullshit from the pro-Palestinians, fucking glorifying and praising Hamas's horrific crimes against humanity, make it functionally impossible to sympathize.  You have me with "the conditions in Gaza and the WB are inhumane," and "rampant Israeli settlements in the WB are intended to torpedo any chance for peace," and "Netanyahu is a fucking war criminal," and dozens of other very valid points and reasons to side with the Palestinian cause....and then fucking person after person, group after group, has to top it off with the fucking turd of "and glory to the martyrs" or "those israelis they grabbed are prisoners, not hostages," or tearing down posters of the hostages, or waving signs showing that jews should go to the wastebin of history, or that Israel should be wiped off the map ("from the river to the sea").  Nope.  Don't care what's underneath, what you're serving is a shit sandwich.  There is no two-state solution that will ever work with that in play.  There is no solution at all with that in play.  It is a plain drawing of a line -- may the party best able to commit genocide win.  What a stupid fucking line to draw, but goddamn, stupid is the order of humanity's day, every day.

So, let's just treat this as a fucking war.  Hamas has to pay for its crimes against humanity. Israel has to be held accountable for any war crimes.  But fuck it, let them fight, let them bring ruin and destruction upon the entire levant, so maybe the last person standing can rule the smoldering rubble.  One side will be wiped out.  The other side will be the evil side that succeeded at genocide.  YAY, what a winning outcome!

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What are the other sources that we can bounce the numbers of the dead children of darkness up against?

There’s no sources anyone can trust, by design.

One thing I do trust, the comments under this Bernie tweet should be a giant wake up call to all the people trying to claim anti-Zionism is completely separate from antisemitism.

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1 minute ago, Chuckie Finster said:


There’s no sources anyone can trust, by design.

One thing I do trust, the comments under this Bernie tweet should be a giant wake up call to all the people trying to claim anti-Zionism is completely separate from antisemitism.

 

 

 

 

"Sure, that's unfortunate, but have you heard about how shitty Israel is?"

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38 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Spoiler

  Reveal hidden contents

The past two weeks have been very painful for me and my Palestinian American family, but especially for our relatives in Palestine. I’ve had little sleep, and when I did manage to close my eyes, I was unable to stop the nightmares. The horror that is taking place in Gaza became like a noose around my neck preventing me from breathing. I couldn’t help but think of all the children who lost their parents, their homes, and who can’t understand why no one in the world cares about them and why no one is coming to their rescue. Close to half the population of Gaza was born under the 17-year-long suffocating siege and have known nothing but misery and extreme hardship.
The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.
“Hospitals have lost their ability to treat [patients], and medical teams are treating the patients with very limited capabilities,” Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in an interview.
Under the watchful eye of world leaders who continue to repeat the same mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” but are indifferent to Palestinians and their right to resist their occupation and blockade, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israel National Security Council, said in Israeli media, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”
“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction,” said Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. “You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement at yesterday’s UN Security Council session that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” simply adds fuel to the fire. Every government official in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU who isn’t calling for a ceasefire and an end to the carnage should be held accountable for their part in this genocide. Sending billions of dollars in missiles and weapons to the Israeli military in order to mercilessly kill and ethnically cleanse more Palestinians amplifies the U.S.’s complicity in the atrocities. The tragic loss of Israeli lives on October 7 should not be used as a pretext to launch this genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel is actively implementing a strategy I have called the “out-of-state” solution. This strategy aims to transfer Palestinians — or keep terrorizing and oppressing them until they give up and leave — to neighboring Arab countries, dispossessing them of their homeland. This is what we are witnessing in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem before our very eyes.
According to the Palestine Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Israel Defense Forces and armed settlers have killed at least 100 Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced at least 13 Palestinian communities in the last two weeks.
The two-state solution promised to Palestinians during the Oslo Accords is no longer possible; the chances of a one-state solution with equal citizenship rights for everyone are even slimmer, since Zionists insist on keeping Israel a Jewish state with democratic rights for Jews only.
What is left — and what many in the new extremist Israeli government are in favor of — is driving as many Palestinians as possible out of Israel/Palestine.
The Netanyahu government made clear its intention to commit genocide against the Palestinians and is counting on people around the world becoming numb as the death toll rises.
During French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Israel, Netanyahu said that the fight “was a battle between the ‘axis of evil’ and ‘the free world’.… This battle is not merely our own … it’s everybody’s battle.” Macron’s visit to Israel completes the series of pilgrimages to Israel by prominent Western leaders renewing their pledges of allegiance to the Israeli state and giving it the green light for its ground offensive.
But, as we’ve seen time and time again, Palestinians are resilient and are determined to keep their struggle alive, no matter how severe Israeli attempts are at their erasure.
There is a newly invigorated global grassroots movement for justice in the Arab and Muslim world as we’ve seen from the massive demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, and elsewhere. Palestine is on the minds of the masses in Europe, too. From Paris — in defiance of a pro-Palestinian protest ban — to Dublin, London, Edinburgh and Geneva, the voices of Palestinian supporters chanting “Free Free Palestine” are reverberating in cities throughout the Western world. And in Washington, D.C. we heard the voices of American Jews mobilizing in solidarity with Palestinians and loudly declaring “Not In Our Name” as they marched to Capitol Hill and called on their representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire. On October 19, they shut down Congress to draw attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in spaces ranging from cultural institutions to college campuses to media outlets are being silenced, harassed and discriminated against.
My latest personal experience of this occurred in Germany, where I spent this past week attending the Frankfurter Buchmesse, or Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF). Upon my arrival in Frankfurt, I was greeted by an overwhelming display of Israeli flags everywhere — at the airport, on train ticket machines, on government buildings. Why, I wondered? Is it because Germany is still atoning for its past crimes? The next morning, I woke up to a shocking statement by the FBF Director Juergen Boos that said: “We want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair.… Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”
As if this was not bad enough coming from a renowned institution that was celebrating its 75th anniversary — and one that prides itself on promoting cultural exchange and freedom of expression — the FBF followed its one-sided statement by announcing a decision to cancel the award ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis 2023 “due to the war in Israel.” Palestinian writer Adania Shibli won the German literature prize this year. Contrary to what The New York Times initially reported, Shibli, whose first two novels Touch and We Are Equally Far Away from Love were released by Interlink Publishing, (the Massachusetts-based, independent publishing house that I founded), did not agree to the cancellation.
In light of these announcements and the FBF’s attempt to silence Palestinian voices, many exhibitors — Indonesia’s collective stand, Malaysia’s collective stand, the Arab Publishers Association, the Sharjah Book authority, and others — decided to withdraw their participation as a sign of protest, leaving behind many empty booths. In a statement, the Sharjah Book Authority, organizer of the world’s third-largest book fair, said: “Given the recent announcement by the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have decided to withdraw our participation this year. We champion the role of culture and books to encourage dialogue and understanding between people. We believe that this role is more important now than ever.”
I, too, was compelled to withdraw from my scheduled talk sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I was initially asked to participate in a discussion about the role of literature-in-translation in promoting cross-cultural understanding and knowledge. How could I participate in such a discussion when the FBF had just silenced an author whose novels we translated into English simply because she is Palestinian?
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which claims to monitor the Frankfurt Book Fair each year for books that foment “antisemitism and hate” apparently did not like the Palestine-related books displayed on our stand and suggested that our publishing house, Interlink Publishing, “be denied access, in the spirit of the Fair’s rules.” The center called several of our titles “in the lineage of the so-called ‘self-hating’ Jews.” While the “Hate Prize” went to a Turkish publisher, Timas Publishing Group, the “Runner-Up Prize” is shared by our publishing house Interlink Publishing and French publisher La Fabrique “for their combined effort to demonize Israel and indulge in antisemitism.”
The silencing of Palestinian voices and their supporters is not restricted to Germany. It is happening here in the United States, in mainstream media and on college campuses. The New York City cultural institution known as the 92nd Street Y canceled an event with author Viet Thanh Nguyen after he signed an open letter critical of Israel. As a result, several authors — including Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe and Andrea Long Chu — have canceled their own upcoming talks at the 92nd Street Y. Similarly, the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel canceled its contract to host the upcoming conference of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights scheduled to take place on October 27-29. You can read the full press release here. And according to a report in Arab News, the U.S. news network MSNBC suspended Muslim anchors Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi amid the Israeli war in Gaza. On October 26, 57 UMass Amherst students were arrested for democratic dissent.
The world’s failure to challenge Israel’s ongoing oppression, occupation, apartheid and genocidal tactics against Palestinians provides the context for what is taking place now. Fearing a repeat of their mass displacement 75 years ago, many Palestinians in Gaza are opting to stay where they are and risk death. Israel’s message to the people of Gaza to leave or die is being ignored because Palestinians know that if they leave, they will not be able to return.
There is an urgent need for a ceasefire to stop the deliberate mass killing of Palestinians, which is in flagrant violation of international law. The genocide is underway. We can no longer say that we didn’t know.

https://truthout.org/articles/genocide-is-underway-in-gaza-us-leaders-can-no-longer-say-we-didnt-know/

I am in no way calling Israel the beacon of truth, but how can anyone site any numbers from the Palestinian health authority with a straight face?

An English general who fought in Afghanistan recently said to remove a 0 from whatever number the Afghani's give you. 

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1 hour ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Genocide Is Underway in Gaza. US Leaders Can No Longer Say “We Didn’t Know.”

  Reveal hidden contents

The past two weeks have been very painful for me and my Palestinian American family, but especially for our relatives in Palestine. I’ve had little sleep, and when I did manage to close my eyes, I was unable to stop the nightmares. The horror that is taking place in Gaza became like a noose around my neck preventing me from breathing. I couldn’t help but think of all the children who lost their parents, their homes, and who can’t understand why no one in the world cares about them and why no one is coming to their rescue. Close to half the population of Gaza was born under the 17-year-long suffocating siege and have known nothing but misery and extreme hardship.

The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.

“Hospitals have lost their ability to treat [patients], and medical teams are treating the patients with very limited capabilities,” Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in an interview.

Under the watchful eye of world leaders who continue to repeat the same mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” but are indifferent to Palestinians and their right to resist their occupation and blockade, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israel National Security Council, said in Israeli media, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction,” said Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. “You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement at yesterday’s UN Security Council session that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” simply adds fuel to the fire. Every government official in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU who isn’t calling for a ceasefire and an end to the carnage should be held accountable for their part in this genocide. Sending billions of dollars in missiles and weapons to the Israeli military in order to mercilessly kill and ethnically cleanse more Palestinians amplifies the U.S.’s complicity in the atrocities. The tragic loss of Israeli lives on October 7 should not be used as a pretext to launch this genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel is actively implementing a strategy I have called the “out-of-state” solution. This strategy aims to transfer Palestinians — or keep terrorizing and oppressing them until they give up and leave — to neighboring Arab countries, dispossessing them of their homeland. This is what we are witnessing in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem before our very eyes.

According to the Palestine Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Israel Defense Forces and armed settlers have killed at least 100 Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced at least 13 Palestinian communities in the last two weeks.

The two-state solution promised to Palestinians during the Oslo Accords is no longer possible; the chances of a one-state solution with equal citizenship rights for everyone are even slimmer, since Zionists insist on keeping Israel a Jewish state with democratic rights for Jews only.

What is left — and what many in the new extremist Israeli government are in favor of — is driving as many Palestinians as possible out of Israel/Palestine.

The Netanyahu government made clear its intention to commit genocide against the Palestinians and is counting on people around the world becoming numb as the death toll rises.

During French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Israel, Netanyahu said that the fight “was a battle between the ‘axis of evil’ and ‘the free world’.… This battle is not merely our own … it’s everybody’s battle.” Macron’s visit to Israel completes the series of pilgrimages to Israel by prominent Western leaders renewing their pledges of allegiance to the Israeli state and giving it the green light for its ground offensive.

But, as we’ve seen time and time again, Palestinians are resilient and are determined to keep their struggle alive, no matter how severe Israeli attempts are at their erasure.

There is a newly invigorated global grassroots movement for justice in the Arab and Muslim world as we’ve seen from the massive demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, and elsewhere. Palestine is on the minds of the masses in Europe, too. From Paris — in defiance of a pro-Palestinian protest ban — to Dublin, London, Edinburgh and Geneva, the voices of Palestinian supporters chanting “Free Free Palestine” are reverberating in cities throughout the Western world. And in Washington, D.C. we heard the voices of American Jews mobilizing in solidarity with Palestinians and loudly declaring “Not In Our Name” as they marched to Capitol Hill and called on their representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire. On October 19, they shut down Congress to draw attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in spaces ranging from cultural institutions to college campuses to media outlets are being silenced, harassed and discriminated against.

My latest personal experience of this occurred in Germany, where I spent this past week attending the Frankfurter Buchmesse, or Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF). Upon my arrival in Frankfurt, I was greeted by an overwhelming display of Israeli flags everywhere — at the airport, on train ticket machines, on government buildings. Why, I wondered? Is it because Germany is still atoning for its past crimes? The next morning, I woke up to a shocking statement by the FBF Director Juergen Boos that said: “We want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair.… Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”

As if this was not bad enough coming from a renowned institution that was celebrating its 75th anniversary — and one that prides itself on promoting cultural exchange and freedom of expression — the FBF followed its one-sided statement by announcing a decision to cancel the award ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis 2023 “due to the war in Israel.” Palestinian writer Adania Shibli won the German literature prize this year. Contrary to what The New York Times initially reported, Shibli, whose first two novels Touch and We Are Equally Far Away from Love were released by Interlink Publishing, (the Massachusetts-based, independent publishing house that I founded), did not agree to the cancellation.

In light of these announcements and the FBF’s attempt to silence Palestinian voices, many exhibitors — Indonesia’s collective stand, Malaysia’s collective stand, the Arab Publishers Association, the Sharjah Book authority, and others — decided to withdraw their participation as a sign of protest, leaving behind many empty booths. In a statement, the Sharjah Book Authority, organizer of the world’s third-largest book fair, said: “Given the recent announcement by the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have decided to withdraw our participation this year. We champion the role of culture and books to encourage dialogue and understanding between people. We believe that this role is more important now than ever.”

I, too, was compelled to withdraw from my scheduled talk sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I was initially asked to participate in a discussion about the role of literature-in-translation in promoting cross-cultural understanding and knowledge. How could I participate in such a discussion when the FBF had just silenced an author whose novels we translated into English simply because she is Palestinian?

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which claims to monitor the Frankfurt Book Fair each year for books that foment “antisemitism and hate” apparently did not like the Palestine-related books displayed on our stand and suggested that our publishing house, Interlink Publishing, “be denied access, in the spirit of the Fair’s rules.” The center called several of our titles “in the lineage of the so-called ‘self-hating’ Jews.” While the “Hate Prize” went to a Turkish publisher, Timas Publishing Group, the “Runner-Up Prize” is shared by our publishing house Interlink Publishing and French publisher La Fabrique “for their combined effort to demonize Israel and indulge in antisemitism.”

The silencing of Palestinian voices and their supporters is not restricted to Germany. It is happening here in the United States, in mainstream media and on college campuses. The New York City cultural institution known as the 92nd Street Y canceled an event with author Viet Thanh Nguyen after he signed an open letter critical of Israel. As a result, several authors — including Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe and Andrea Long Chu — have canceled their own upcoming talks at the 92nd Street Y. Similarly, the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel canceled its contract to host the upcoming conference of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights scheduled to take place on October 27-29. You can read the full press release here. And according to a report in Arab News, the U.S. news network MSNBC suspended Muslim anchors Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi amid the Israeli war in Gaza. On October 26, 57 UMass Amherst students were arrested for democratic dissent.

The world’s failure to challenge Israel’s ongoing oppression, occupation, apartheid and genocidal tactics against Palestinians provides the context for what is taking place now. Fearing a repeat of their mass displacement 75 years ago, many Palestinians in Gaza are opting to stay where they are and risk death. Israel’s message to the people of Gaza to leave or die is being ignored because Palestinians know that if they leave, they will not be able to return.

There is an urgent need for a ceasefire to stop the deliberate mass killing of Palestinians, which is in flagrant violation of international law. The genocide is underway. We can no longer say that we didn’t know.

https://truthout.org/articles/genocide-is-underway-in-gaza-us-leaders-can-no-longer-say-we-didnt-know/

 

 

color me skeptic on those numbers

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17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

But goddamn.  The fucking repeated bullshit from the pro-Palestinians, fucking glorifying and praising Hamas's horrific crimes against humanity, make it functionally impossible to sympathize.  

This.  Civillians have had 3 weeks to get out of the war zone.  It seems like the terrorists are now in the FAFO phase.  Good riddance to all those that shot women and children point blank.  Hope they get them all.

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20 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Maybe bounce those numbers up against the wall at GWU where "Glory to the martyrs" of Hamas is being projected.

Can we also bounce them off the wall at the radical settlement schools teaching that Arabs are subhumans and will be genocided, except for the few that they decide to keep around as slaves. 

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22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So, let's just treat this as a fucking war.  Hamas has to pay for its crimes against humanity. Israel has to be held accountable for any war crimes.  But fuck it, let them fight, let them bring ruin and destruction upon the entire levant, so maybe the last person standing can rule the smoldering rubble.  One side will be wiped out.  The other side will be the evil side that succeeded at genocide.  YAY, what a winning outcome!

I can get on board with this, with the caveat that no US funds or weapons should be injected into the situation now and moving forward, and that our supports efforts should be humanitarian focussed in nature.  

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27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

But goddamn.  The fucking repeated bullshit from the pro-Palestinians, fucking glorifying and praising Hamas's horrific crimes against humanity, make it functionally impossible to sympathize. 

 

 

That plus the images of palestinians dancing in the streets on 9/11 make it real hard for me to empathize. The thought of woman and children being killed is unfortunate, but part me feels they brought this on themselves

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8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I can get on board with this, with the caveat that no US funds or weapons should be injected into the situation now and moving forward, and that our supports efforts should be humanitarian focussed in nature.  

 

 

You know its not that simple, stop arms sales and that impacts the pocket books of voters in districts where said weapons are made.

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11 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Can we also bounce them off the wall at the radical settlement schools teaching that Arabs are subhumans and will be genocided, except for the few that they decide to keep around as slaves. 

Sure, shut them down. And the Madrassas and UN Funded school. teaching the same about the west and Israel at the same time. Funny how those never get mentioned. 

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I can get on board with this, with the caveat that no US funds or weapons should be injected into the situation now and moving forward, and that our supports efforts should be humanitarian focussed in nature.  

Cool. Make it no Arab-state provided weapons the other way, and you’ve got a deal.

They seem intent on genociding each other, and I don’t see any realistic chance of stopping them.
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A Israel without U.S. security guarantees and as a reliable defense partner is almost certainly more aggressive towards Palestinians and destabilizing to the region, up to and including nuclear brinkmanship and options. That relationship is fundamentally a restraining and not accelerating factor. 

But this has never fundamentally been about Palestinian lives or peace. 
 

 

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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Maybe bounce those numbers up against the wall at GWU where "Glory to the martyrs" of Hamas is being projected.

I really, really, really want to sympathize with the Palestinian cause.  And I do not excuse Israel's complete blockade of Gaza, which is a war crime.  Nor do I excuse any purposeful targeting of civilians by Israel - any specific act of Israel which is determined to be a purposeful targeting of civilians should be treated as a war crime.  And frankly, I very much hope that Israel opts NOT to launch a full ground offensive, and allows the conflict to cool to a simmer, avoiding significant additional loss of life.

But goddamn.  The fucking repeated bullshit from the pro-Palestinians, fucking glorifying and praising Hamas's horrific crimes against humanity, make it functionally impossible to sympathize.  You have me with "the conditions in Gaza and the WB are inhumane," and "rampant Israeli settlements in the WB are intended to torpedo any chance for peace," and "Netanyahu is a fucking war criminal," and dozens of other very valid points and reasons to side with the Palestinian cause....and then fucking person after person, group after group, has to top it off with the fucking turd of "and glory to the martyrs" or "those israelis they grabbed are prisoners, not hostages," or tearing down posters of the hostages, or waving signs showing that jews should go to the wastebin of history, or that Israel should be wiped off the map ("from the river to the sea").  Nope.  Don't care what's underneath, what you're serving is a shit sandwich.  There is no two-state solution that will ever work with that in play.  There is no solution at all with that in play.  It is a plain drawing of a line -- may the party best able to commit genocide win.  What a stupid fucking line to draw, but goddamn, stupid is the order of humanity's day, every day.

So, let's just treat this as a fucking war.  Hamas has to pay for its crimes against humanity. Israel has to be held accountable for any war crimes.  But fuck it, let them fight, let them bring ruin and destruction upon the entire levant, so maybe the last person standing can rule the smoldering rubble.  One side will be wiped out.  The other side will be the evil side that succeeded at genocide.  YAY, what a winning outcome!

I do not excuse it. Here's a list of excuses. 

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How about we just go with the fact that the UN passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire (read: Israel, stand down), but couldn’t pass a resolution condemning the Oct 7 Hamas attacks which were aimed almost entirely at civilians.

Yeah. I don’t see why Israel and Jews worldwide think that they’re vulnerable and the world would just as soon exterminate them.

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7 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Genocide Is Underway in Gaza. US Leaders Can No Longer Say “We Didn’t Know.”

  Reveal hidden contents

The past two weeks have been very painful for me and my Palestinian American family, but especially for our relatives in Palestine. I’ve had little sleep, and when I did manage to close my eyes, I was unable to stop the nightmares. The horror that is taking place in Gaza became like a noose around my neck preventing me from breathing. I couldn’t help but think of all the children who lost their parents, their homes, and who can’t understand why no one in the world cares about them and why no one is coming to their rescue. Close to half the population of Gaza was born under the 17-year-long suffocating siege and have known nothing but misery and extreme hardship.

The death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment has surpassed 7000, including 3000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Fifty-one percent of all homes in Gaza have now been destroyed, and over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The dire, inhumane consequences of Israel’s halting deliveries of food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine will take their toll and will result in the death of an even larger number of Palestinian children and civilians in the coming days.

“Hospitals have lost their ability to treat [patients], and medical teams are treating the patients with very limited capabilities,” Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra said in an interview.

Under the watchful eye of world leaders who continue to repeat the same mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” but are indifferent to Palestinians and their right to resist their occupation and blockade, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israel National Security Council, said in Israeli media, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction,” said Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. “You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement at yesterday’s UN Security Council session that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” simply adds fuel to the fire. Every government official in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU who isn’t calling for a ceasefire and an end to the carnage should be held accountable for their part in this genocide. Sending billions of dollars in missiles and weapons to the Israeli military in order to mercilessly kill and ethnically cleanse more Palestinians amplifies the U.S.’s complicity in the atrocities. The tragic loss of Israeli lives on October 7 should not be used as a pretext to launch this genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel is actively implementing a strategy I have called the “out-of-state” solution. This strategy aims to transfer Palestinians — or keep terrorizing and oppressing them until they give up and leave — to neighboring Arab countries, dispossessing them of their homeland. This is what we are witnessing in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem before our very eyes.

According to the Palestine Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Israel Defense Forces and armed settlers have killed at least 100 Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced at least 13 Palestinian communities in the last two weeks.

The two-state solution promised to Palestinians during the Oslo Accords is no longer possible; the chances of a one-state solution with equal citizenship rights for everyone are even slimmer, since Zionists insist on keeping Israel a Jewish state with democratic rights for Jews only.

What is left — and what many in the new extremist Israeli government are in favor of — is driving as many Palestinians as possible out of Israel/Palestine.

The Netanyahu government made clear its intention to commit genocide against the Palestinians and is counting on people around the world becoming numb as the death toll rises.

During French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Israel, Netanyahu said that the fight “was a battle between the ‘axis of evil’ and ‘the free world’.… This battle is not merely our own … it’s everybody’s battle.” Macron’s visit to Israel completes the series of pilgrimages to Israel by prominent Western leaders renewing their pledges of allegiance to the Israeli state and giving it the green light for its ground offensive.

But, as we’ve seen time and time again, Palestinians are resilient and are determined to keep their struggle alive, no matter how severe Israeli attempts are at their erasure.

There is a newly invigorated global grassroots movement for justice in the Arab and Muslim world as we’ve seen from the massive demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, and elsewhere. Palestine is on the minds of the masses in Europe, too. From Paris — in defiance of a pro-Palestinian protest ban — to Dublin, London, Edinburgh and Geneva, the voices of Palestinian supporters chanting “Free Free Palestine” are reverberating in cities throughout the Western world. And in Washington, D.C. we heard the voices of American Jews mobilizing in solidarity with Palestinians and loudly declaring “Not In Our Name” as they marched to Capitol Hill and called on their representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire. On October 19, they shut down Congress to draw attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in spaces ranging from cultural institutions to college campuses to media outlets are being silenced, harassed and discriminated against.

My latest personal experience of this occurred in Germany, where I spent this past week attending the Frankfurter Buchmesse, or Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF). Upon my arrival in Frankfurt, I was greeted by an overwhelming display of Israeli flags everywhere — at the airport, on train ticket machines, on government buildings. Why, I wondered? Is it because Germany is still atoning for its past crimes? The next morning, I woke up to a shocking statement by the FBF Director Juergen Boos that said: “We want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair.… Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”

As if this was not bad enough coming from a renowned institution that was celebrating its 75th anniversary — and one that prides itself on promoting cultural exchange and freedom of expression — the FBF followed its one-sided statement by announcing a decision to cancel the award ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis 2023 “due to the war in Israel.” Palestinian writer Adania Shibli won the German literature prize this year. Contrary to what The New York Times initially reported, Shibli, whose first two novels Touch and We Are Equally Far Away from Love were released by Interlink Publishing, (the Massachusetts-based, independent publishing house that I founded), did not agree to the cancellation.

In light of these announcements and the FBF’s attempt to silence Palestinian voices, many exhibitors — Indonesia’s collective stand, Malaysia’s collective stand, the Arab Publishers Association, the Sharjah Book authority, and others — decided to withdraw their participation as a sign of protest, leaving behind many empty booths. In a statement, the Sharjah Book Authority, organizer of the world’s third-largest book fair, said: “Given the recent announcement by the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have decided to withdraw our participation this year. We champion the role of culture and books to encourage dialogue and understanding between people. We believe that this role is more important now than ever.”

I, too, was compelled to withdraw from my scheduled talk sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I was initially asked to participate in a discussion about the role of literature-in-translation in promoting cross-cultural understanding and knowledge. How could I participate in such a discussion when the FBF had just silenced an author whose novels we translated into English simply because she is Palestinian?

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which claims to monitor the Frankfurt Book Fair each year for books that foment “antisemitism and hate” apparently did not like the Palestine-related books displayed on our stand and suggested that our publishing house, Interlink Publishing, “be denied access, in the spirit of the Fair’s rules.” The center called several of our titles “in the lineage of the so-called ‘self-hating’ Jews.” While the “Hate Prize” went to a Turkish publisher, Timas Publishing Group, the “Runner-Up Prize” is shared by our publishing house Interlink Publishing and French publisher La Fabrique “for their combined effort to demonize Israel and indulge in antisemitism.”

The silencing of Palestinian voices and their supporters is not restricted to Germany. It is happening here in the United States, in mainstream media and on college campuses. The New York City cultural institution known as the 92nd Street Y canceled an event with author Viet Thanh Nguyen after he signed an open letter critical of Israel. As a result, several authors — including Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe and Andrea Long Chu — have canceled their own upcoming talks at the 92nd Street Y. Similarly, the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel canceled its contract to host the upcoming conference of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights scheduled to take place on October 27-29. You can read the full press release here. And according to a report in Arab News, the U.S. news network MSNBC suspended Muslim anchors Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi amid the Israeli war in Gaza. On October 26, 57 UMass Amherst students were arrested for democratic dissent.

The world’s failure to challenge Israel’s ongoing oppression, occupation, apartheid and genocidal tactics against Palestinians provides the context for what is taking place now. Fearing a repeat of their mass displacement 75 years ago, many Palestinians in Gaza are opting to stay where they are and risk death. Israel’s message to the people of Gaza to leave or die is being ignored because Palestinians know that if they leave, they will not be able to return.

There is an urgent need for a ceasefire to stop the deliberate mass killing of Palestinians, which is in flagrant violation of international law. The genocide is underway. We can no longer say that we didn’t know.

https://truthout.org/articles/genocide-is-underway-in-gaza-us-leaders-can-no-longer-say-we-didnt-know/

When will Hamas release the hostages?

 You want Israel to act to relieve civilian suffering? That is a simple and reasonable thing to expect Hamas to do. 
 
 

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One side is murdering indiscriminately, raping teenagers, beheading babies, kidnapping elderly, torturing, calling families from loved ones phones and live streaming people from their grandmother’s Facebook account, launching rockets daily towards civilian populations, while oppressing and hiding behind their own civilian population in homes, schools, hospitals, and places of worship, diverting all money to the continuation of war crimes and then pointing them lying about every conceivable fact in order to condemn their “oppressors” and claiming “genocide” of themselves while actually publicly proclaiming their goal is genocide of the other.

Hamas needs to go. Israel has no choice here.

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5 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

One side is murdering indiscriminately, raping teenagers, beheading babies, kidnapping elderly, torturing, calling families from loved ones phones and live streaming people from their grandmother’s Facebook account, launching rockets daily towards civilian populations, while oppressing and hiding behind their own civilian population in homes, schools, hospitals, and places of worship, diverting all money to the continuation of war crimes and then pointing them lying about every conceivable fact in order to condemn their “oppressors” and claiming “genocide” of themselves while actually publicly proclaiming their goal is genocide of the other.

Hamas needs to go. Israel has no choice here.

If they can find a solution without killing babies and children then sure.

If they can't they have no excuse.

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1 minute ago, linux said:

If they can find a solution without killing babies and children then sure.

If they can't they have no excuse.

Hamas literally beheaded multiple babies INTENTIONALLY! That was the fucking purpose that they had in mind when they did it. Not by accident or unintentionally by happenstance. They gave no warnings because that was their FUCKING GOAL.

Israel warns the residents of Gaza to leave an area that they will be bombing/invading. Hamas blocks civilians from leaving and innocent people are killed. Hamas puts up pictures of these deaths and yells at evil Israel.

There is no way to win. Hamas will not stop. They brutally attack and then call for peace and hide behind civilians and use their death (which they intentionally put in harms way) to advance their goals. This isn’t fucking War Games where Israel can chose not to play. Hamas is using morality and compassion as a weapon, and as soon as they get a cease fire they begin planning for their next attack.

Let’s not even get into how completely idiotic it is to call for a cease fire after murders over 1000 people while still holding hostages and firing rockets at civilians populations every day.

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Just now, TKthunder2 said:

There is no way to win. Hamas will not stop. They brutally attack and then call for peace and hide behind civilians and use their death (which they intentionally put in harms way) to advance their goals. This isn’t fucking War Games where Israel can chose not to play. Hamas is using morality and compassion as a weapon, and as soon as they get a cease fire they begin planning for their next attack.

What a failure of imagination, if they can't stop it without killing children they should be opposed period.

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Just now, linux said:

What a failure of imagination, if they can't stop it without killing children they should be opposed period.

Hamas kills Israeli children intentionally and then hides behind Palestinian children for protection.

If Israel acts children die, if Israel does nothing children die.

If Israel acts they can end this cycle of dead children. If Israel does nothing this cycle will continue indefinitely.

It is a horrendous situation all around, but this cycle cannot continue.

Hamas existence = dead children

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2 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Hamas kills Israeli children intentionally and then hides behind Palestinian children for protection.

If Israel acts children die, if Israel does nothing children die.

If Israel acts they can end this cycle of dead children. If Israel does nothing this cycle will continue indefinitely.

It is a horrendous situation all around, but this cycle cannot continue.

Hamas existence = dead children

That is extremely wrong however, Israel has not done much if anything to ever end a cycle.

Killing children with a dumbass plan is murder, plain and simple. It is butchering innocents.

Things Israel can do to actually end the slaughter is actually putting their army outside Gaza, instead of it going into the WB.

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