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2023-12-26 Watchdog Submits Evidence of Israeli Executions of Gaza Civilians to UN, ICC

https://www.commondreams.org/news/israeli-executions

Euro-Med Monitor documented nine separate cases in which Israeli troops executed Palestinians—including numerous women and children—during the ongoing invasion of Gaza.

A prominent European human rights group on Monday submitted a report to the International Criminal Court and United Nations special rapporteurs documenting “dozens of cases of field executions carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.”

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based nonprofit, requested the ICC and U.N. immediately investigate “the widespread killing operations carried out by Israeli forces targeting Palestinian civilians, especially the field executions and physical liquidations in the Gaza Strip.”

In addition to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, Euro-Med Monitor sent copies of its preliminary findings to Maurice Tydball Benz, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial or arbitrary executions; Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; and Navanethem Pillay, head of the Investigative Committee on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Nearly 10 days after the Israeli army began its ground attack in the Gaza Strip on October 27, the Israeli army carried out dozens of executions and direct physical liquidations against civilians as part of its all-out military campaign that started on October 7 in retaliation for the armed attack that Palestinian factions carried out in Israeli settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip,” Euro-Med Monitor said in a statement.

The group’s report lists nine separate instances in which it says Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops executed Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Victims include multiple elderly couples shot and left to bleed to death after being forced from their homes in Gaza City last week; a mentally ill man shot in his home in the Jabalia refugee camp; six members of the al-Khaldi family shot dead during an Israeli raid on their home; and nine forcibly displaced civilians including women and children who were massacred while seeking shelter in the Shadia Abu Ghazala School near Jabalia on December 13.

“The Israeli soldiers came in and opened fire,” one unidentified witness said of the school attack. “They took all men, then entered classrooms and opened fire on a woman and all the children with her,” including “newborn children.”

“The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families point-blank,” she added.

In the case of the al-Khaldi family, surviving relative Fahed al-Khaldi toldMiddle East Eye that after an Israeli airstrike on a neighboring home killed several people and wounded Fatima al-Khaldi, his pregnant sister-in-law, IDF ground troops “lobbed two grenades into the house” where about 30 people were sheltering “without regard for women, children, or the elderly.”

“They then opened fire directly at people and in an indiscriminate manner, without differentiating between young and old,” he said.

Five people were killed instantly. Al-Khaldi said Israeli troops ordered the survivors out of the home, where they were stripped of their clothes.

“The soldiers then returned to the room and executed all the injured,” he said. Fatima al-Khaldi was shot and left to bleed to death.

Last week, Euro-Med Monitor reported that more than 1,000 Palestinian elders have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, including dozens of people over the age of 60 who were executed.

“These incidents included soldiers shooting elderly people immediately after ordering them to evacuate their homes, and in some cases, executing them just moments after their release from hours or days of arbitrary detention,” the group said.

Euro-Med Monitor said Monday that:

More than 28,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Israeli genocide campaign in the Gaza Strip, a number that includes those who remain trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings and are now presumed dead. Women and children make up 70% of the recorded victims. Thus, Palestinian deaths constitute the highest rate of civilian casualties worldwide in the 21st century.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that the Palestinian death toll from 81 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks was approaching 21,000, with nearly 55,000 others wounded and thousands more missing. More than 1.9 million of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced and face increased risk of starvation, hypothermia, and disease.

The submission of Euro-Med Monitor’s report came nearly a week after the group Democracy for the Arab World Now published a list of 40 Israeli military commanders it called “prime suspects” for ICC war crimes investigations.

Topping the list is Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who on October 9 ordered a complete siege on Gaza City, cutting off the water, fuel, power, and humanitarian aid to millions of Palestinians.

Like numerous other Israeli leaders, Gallant attempted to justify Israel’s actions with what one commentator called “blatantly genocidal” language calling Palestinians “human animals.”

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Short Selling

Updated2023-12-10

2023-12-04 Did Hamas Short the Israeli Economy?  This is a fascinating story amidst the general tragedy and bleak carnage of the last two months. Two scholars analyzed trading in the days just before the October 7th massacres in southern Israel and put together a pretty strong case that someone essentially shorted the Israeli economy based on foreknowledge of the attacks. Specially they tracked short selling of an exchange traded fund which gave investors broad exposure to the Israeli economy.

I’m far from an expert on this topic of this kind of analysis. So perhaps someone with greater technical knowledge could find gaps in the argument. But it seems pretty convincing: short-selling just in advance of October 7th that greatly exceeded what had been seen during various crises over the last twenty years – COVID, the great recession, various Israeli wars and domestic crises. If you’re a Haaretz subscriber they have a detailed write-up here. You can also read the paper published at SSRN here.

As we’ve learned recently, Israel had a decent amount of advance intelligence on an attack something like the one that happened on October.7th. Most of that intelligence was disregarded in the belief that Hamas lacked the capacity to mount an attack on that scale and also because it was widely believed that Hamas hoped for a sustained period of “quiet” with Israel. But the exact date of the planning would have been a closely guarded secret. It seems likely that the trades were placed by someone with various tightly held knowledge of Hamas’s plans.     https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/did-hamas-short-the-israeli-economy

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Settler Attacks (also see West Bank)

Updated 2024-07-30

The Shepherds Of The West Bank  – Documentary    Inside the settlers’ war on Palestine.   Since October 7, 2023, with all eyes on Gaza, in the occupied West Bank the situation has tragically worsened. Over 400 Palestinians have been killed by security forces or Israeli settlers. Over 1,300 people belonging to herding communities have been expelled from their homes, while the Netanyahu government has proposed building over three thousand new homes in the West Bank settlements. The United States and Europe have sanctioned some of the most violent settlers. Reporting from the West Bank, RSI met Palestinian shepherds, Israeli peace activists and Israeli settlers, all protagonists of this other, painful chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   https://www.journeyman.tv/film/8650

Israel: Before The War – Documentary Support for Hamas soars in West Bank amid increase in violence.   Settler violence in the West Bank is increasing in tandem with the war in Gaza. Yet before the latest war broke out between Israel and Hamas, 2023 had been the deadliest year for the occupied West Bank in 15 years. This recent ABC report investigates the escalating tensions of the past 12 months that form the backdrop to the current war.   https://www.journeyman.tv/film/8556

The Settlers’ Billionaire Backer – Documentary    The Israeli settler organization ELAD has been accused of evicting Arab families in Jerusalem. The Israeli settler organization ELAD has been accused of evicting Arab families in Jerusalem. With Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich unmasked as ELAD’s largest donor, this report investigates settlement funding.    https://www.journeyman.tv/film/7930

2023-12-20 Palestinians flee villages as settler violence surges in West Bank amid war  A Palestinian village school had been ransacked and a dozen houses nearby were abandoned. In some, a few belongings remained: a mattress and children’s shoes.  This was Khirbet Zanutah in the West Bank which has been under Israeli military occupation for decades. In late October, its roughly 250 residents fled, packing up their homes, saying attacks and threats from Israeli settlers had become intolerable, according to villagers.   “They said to us, ‘If you don’t leave, we will come in the night and shoot you all,” Faris Samara, who had lived in Khirbet Zanutah, told ABC News. “We had no choice but to leave.”    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/palestinians-flee-villages-as-settler-violence-surges-in-west-bank-amid-war/ar-AA1lKvxH

2023-12-14 How Israeli settler violence forces Palestinians to flee their homes      Masafer Yatta, the most rural and desolate area in the West Bank, is home to about 1,000 Palestinians. The community are mostly herders who raise goats and sheep, and have steadfastly refused to leave their homes despite the mounting difficulties posed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers on the one hand and radical Israeli settlers on the other.    But after weeks of intense settler violence in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October – and despite the decades-long fight to remain in their homes – these communities are now being forced off their land. Some have described it as “a new Nakba.”    The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan travelled to Masafer Yatta and heard from Palestinian families how armed settlers – some in reservist uniforms, others covering their faces – have begun breaking into their homes at night, beating up adults, destroying and stealing belongings, and terrifying children. These West Bank settlements are illegal under international law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMYEHhCkedo

2023-11-15 This Is How AWFUL Israeli Settlers Really Are   Comments from Viewers:  Vaush is right, they just think non-Jews (or in this case, specifically the Palestinian people) are inferior and an obstacle in the way of their greater goal. It’s much easier to justify one’s behavior when you invoke divine right and vague ancestral claims.   This woman is the embodiment of “I don’t consider you to be human so I won’t be guilty of murder if I kill you,”  It‘s fascinating how you can belong to a people that has gone through some of the worst oppression and persecution… and still think oppression is ok, as long as SHE does it!  This is genuinely the most shocking article I think I’ve ever heard. Discussing Israeli settlement activity in person is always such a chore because anyone taking the pro-israeli stance in a western nation will without fail default on antisemitism as a defense. Principled positions don’t exist, it’s such a black and white issue of “yes these people were subject to the most horrific genocide in human history, but under no circumstances, for any reason, does that mean they’re given a ‘one free genocide’ pass as recuperation.”     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1o2MTEwWg

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Refaat Alareer – Gaza Professor, Author and Activist

Update 2024-01-06

2023-12-12 Prominent Gaza professor and writer killed in airstrike, weeks after telling CNN he and his family had ‘nowhere else to go    In October, Refaat Alareer was deliberating whether to stay at his home in the heart of Gaza City, or flee further south with his wife and six children.   As Israeli warplanes bombarded northern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told civilians to evacuate their homes immediately and go south.

Civilians like Alareer were confronted with an impossible predicament. Stay home and risk being killed, or try to flee without protection. At the time, the 44-year-old writer and academic told CNN he and his family had no choice but to remain in the north, because they “have nowhere else to go.” “It’s an archetypal Palestinian image of a discussion, a debate on should we stay in one room, so if we die, we die together, or should we stay in separate rooms, so at least somebody can live?” he said.

A professor of comparative literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, Alareer was famed for his role in chronicling Gazan experiences. He was instrumental in nurturing young Palestinian writers and helped them tell their stories in English, according to friends and colleagues.

Alareer spoke to CNN from Gaza City, on October 12 and October 13. He gave consent in written messages to share the recording in the event of his death.   Weeks later, on December 7, Alareer was killed by a strike in Shajaiya, in northern Gaza, his friend and colleague, Jehad Abusalim, confirmed to CNN. He was staying with his brother, his sister, and her four children, who were also killed, according to Abusalim, a writer, 35, based in Washington, DC.

He left behind his wife, and children aged 7 to 21. CNN has been unable to reach members of Alareer’s family.

In 2014, Alareer edited “Gaza Writes Back,” a collection of short stories by young writers documenting their lives under Israeli blockade. He was also co-editor of “Gaza Unsilenced,” a collection of essays, photos and poetry published in 2015 that documented the pain, loss and faith of Palestinians under Israeli siege. He also contributed to “Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire,” an anthology published in 2022. A native of Gaza City, he studied at University College London and SOAS, in London.

He was a co-founder of “We Are Not Numbers” – a non-profit organization that aims to amplify the voices of Palestinian youth living in Gaza and the refugee camps.  “We have the faith, we have the belief that we have a fair cause, a just cause, to struggle to fight back for freedom, for basic human rights. We’ve been stripped out of this,” he told CNN.

Human rights groups have said that Israel’s attacks on civilians amount to a war crime, as does their forcible evacuation.   During his interview with CNN, Alareer called on the international community to see the “humanity” in Palestinian people, adding: “Feel their pain. Put yourself in their shoes.”  He had written a poem anticipating that he might be killed, titled “If I must die.”   Following Alareer’s death, people in New York and London held vigils to honor his memory.

While Alareer’s death is being mourned among Palestinians, some of his comments have caused offense. In a BBC interview he described the October 7 attacks as “a pre-emptive attack by Palestinian resistance” that was “legitimate and moral.”   Memories of war   Gazan civilians are no strangers to the threat of death, having lived through years under siege. Alareer said that recent Israeli strikes on the Palestinian enclave triggered his early memories of war.

Born in Shajaiya, in the eastern part of Gaza City, he said his family was forced to relocate to the Tel-al-Hawa area of Gaza City, after their home was destroyed by Israeli bombardment during the 2014 war that also claimed his younger brother Hamada, who was 27 when he was killed.   “It’s something we don’t talk about. We don’t even want to think about how these kids, the homes, the lives (that) get destroyed again and again every few years,” he recalled.   The sounds of strikes hitting a building feel as though “the whole earth reverberates,” he said.   “Even the slamming of a door sometimes brings you these memories,” he said “That’s why we usually say there is no post-war trauma for Palestinians. It’s nonstop.”  Nine years on, Alareer said he and many other Gazan parents felt “helplessness and despair” because they have no way to protect themselves, or their children, from Israel’s persistent strikes.   He described the emotional and physical trauma sustained by Palestinian children under bombardment.     https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prominent-gaza-professor-and-writer-killed-in-airstrike-weeks-after-telling-cnn-he-and-his-family-had-nowhere-else-to-go/ar-AA1ljMN

2023-12-08 “We Want Freedom”: Refaat Alareer, Gaza Scholar & Activist Killed by Israeli Strike, in His Own Words    An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, along with his brother, his sister and her four children. Alareer was just 44 years old. For more than 16 years, he worked as a professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and authored dozens of stories and poems about life under Israeli occupation in Gaza. “Whether it is my kids or any Palestinian kid or any Palestinian, no one is safe. No place is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere,” Alareer told Democracy Now! on October 10. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/8/remembering_refaat_alareer_killed_in_gaza

2023-12-08 “If I Must Die”: IDF Strike Kills Gaza Scholar Refaat Alareer; Friend Pays Tribute & Reads His Poem    Scholar and policy analyst Jehad Abusalim remembers his friend Refaat Alareer, the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City earlier this week. “Refaat Alareer was a towering figure in Palestinian society, especially in Gaza,” who used education and “language as a weapon against oppression,” says Abusalim, who speaks about the widespread destruction of schools and educators in Gaza by Israel’s renewed bombardment, siege and invasion. “The tragedy that has befallen the academic, scholarly and intellectual community in Gaza and in Palestine is unprecedented. Israel is destroying the foundations of society in the Gaza Strip.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/8/jehad_abusalim_on_refaat_alareer_death

2023-12-07 ‘Huge Loss’ as Gaza Luminary Refaat Alareer ‘Assassinated’ by Israel      Human rights defenders around the world expressed anguish and outrage Thursday after Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian professor who was one of Gaza’s most prominent writers and activists, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Shejaiya that also killed his brother, sister, and her four children.   Alareer, 44, was “a beloved professor of world literature, comparative literature, Shakespeare, and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he taught since 2007,” noted Literary Hub.

He was the co-editor of Gaza Unsilenced (2015) and the editor of Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine (2014). Dr. Alareer was also one of the founders of We Are Not Numbers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating “a new generation of Palestinian writers and thinkers who can bring together a profound change to the Palestinian cause.”

The Chicago-based website The Electronic Intifadasaid on social media it is “devastated by Israel’s murder of our dear colleague, friend, and mentor.”   “Throughout this genocide, Refaat never stopped writing, supporting his students, and bringing Gaza’s voice to the world,” the site added. “We will make sure it continues to be heard.”  https://www.commondreams.org/news/refaat-alareer

2023-10-10 Refaat Alareer in Gaza: Israel’s “Barbaric” Bombardment Is Part of Ethnic Cleansing Campaign     As hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed by those killed and wounded in Israel’s massive bombing campaign, we go to Gaza City to speak with Palestinian academic and writer Refaat Alareer about conditions inside the besieged territory. Israel announced Monday it was completely cutting off all food, fuel and electricity to Gaza amid airstrikes of unprecedented intensity, launched in response to Saturday’s surprise attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel. Hamas has threatened to begin killing hostages if civilians inside Gaza are targeted without warning. “No one is safe. No place is safe. Israel is bombing everywhere,” says Alareer, who describes his own children as “shaking out of fear” amid the assault. “Why is this happening? Because we refuse to live under occupation. We refuse to live in total submission. We want freedom.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/10/refaat_alareer_gaza_israel_bombing

2021-05-17 Israel Is Trying to Destroy Us: Gaza Father & Writer Speaks Out as Palestinian Death Toll Nears 200   Israel’s assault on Gaza has entered its second week, as Israel killed at least 42 Palestinians in Gaza Sunday in the deadliest day so far when it bombarded the besieged area with airstrikes, artillery fire and gunboat shelling. Israel has killed nearly 200 Palestinians, including 58 children and 34 women, and destroyed over 500 homes in Gaza, leaving 40,000 Palestinians homeless. Israel also leveled a 12-story building housing the offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. “This is a total destruction from the Israeli occupation against the native Palestinians in Gaza,” says Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, who lives in Gaza. “This is not new. This is a continuation of Israeli aggression against Palestinians that started in 1948, the Nakba.”  https://www.democracynow.org/2021/5/17/israel_assault_airstrikes_gaza

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Palestinian Captives in Gaza

Updated2023-12-09

2023-12-07 Images emerge of Palestinian captives stripped and bound in Gaza | BBC News       Images have emerged from Gaza showing dozens of Palestinian men on their knees, stripped to their underwear and with their hands bound, being held by Israeli forces.   It’s not clear if the prisoners have surrendered or have been detained by the Israeli military.  Some are pictured being loaded into Israeli army trucks.   Israeli has not said who the men are but has confirmed that its forces are making arrests in Gaza.

It comes as tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians stream into Rafah city near the border with Egypt, trying to escape the war in Gaza.    The United Nations head of humanitarian affairs says there is no longer any humanitarian operation worthy of the name in the south of Gaza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvUClDPFsGA

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Updated 2024-07-30

A Reel War: Shalal – Documentary   [MEK Note:  Reminds me of the movie “Planet of the Apes” where the Ability of Humans to speak is kept secret from the now advanced Ape Hominidaes as humans are considered a lesser species]

History is written by the victors, but is it also archived by them?   While researching an Israeli archive, a filmmaker stumbles upon reels of film from a long-lost PLO archive seized by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War. As she tries to decipher the never-before-seen Palestinian footage, our filmmaker realizes that what she has found is only a fragment of a larger lost archive. She clashes with the Israeli defense bureaucracy, which denies having any more footage. Will she find more of these untold stories? And what is so dangerous about them that they must remain hidden?    https://www.journeyman.tv/film/8423  

Palestine Liberation Organization – Wikipedia  The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people. Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of the State of Israel. However, in 1993, the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.

It is headquartered in Al-Bireh, a city in the West Bank. As the officially recognized government of the de jure State of Palestine, it has enjoyed United Nations observer status since 1974. Prior to the Oslo Accords, the PLO’s militant wings openly engaged in acts of violence against Israeli civilians, both within Israel and outside of Israel. Consequently, the United States designated it as a terrorist group in 1987, though a presidential waiver has permitted American–PLO contact since 1988.  Mediated talks between the Israeli government and the PLO in 1993 (the Oslo I Accord) resulted in the PLO recognizing Israel’s right to exist in peace and accepting United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, while Israel recognized the PLO as a legitimate authority representing the Palestinian people. Despite the Israel–PLO Letters of Mutual Recognition, in which PLO leader Yasser Arafat renounced “terrorism and other acts of violence” against Israel, the PLO continued to engage in militant activities, particularly during the Second Intifada (2000–2005). On 29 October 2018, the PLO Central Council suspended the Palestinian recognition of Israel, and subsequently halted all forms of security and economic cooperation with Israeli authorities until Israel recognizes a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization

ADL describes the PLO    The PLO was founded in 1964 during the first Arab summit in Cairo, where leaders of 13 Arab nations pledged to take a more active role for the “liberation of Palestine.” Since that time it has declared itself the representative of the Palestinian people and their nationalist aspirations. The PLO has operated primarily as an umbrella organization for six Palestinian groups, most prominently, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group. In 1969, Arafat was elected PLO Chairman, and Fatah became the dominant party in the PLO.

The guiding ideology of the PLO was outlined in the Palestine National Charter or Covenant, which was adopted at its founding in 1964 and amended in 1968. The Charter functioned as the PLO’s constitution, and contained 33 articles calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.

In June 1974 the PLO adopted its “Phased Program” which declared “Any liberation step that is achieved constitutes a step for continuing to achieve the PLO strategy for the establishment of the Palestinian democratic state…to pave the way for completing the liberation of all Palestinian soil.”

The PLO was responsible for scores of acts of terrorism from its creation, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Among the infamous attacks conducted by the PLO are: the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games; the killing of 21 schoolchildren at Ma’alot in 1974; the death of 35 people and wounding of 85 in an attack on Israeli tourist buses along the Haifa-Tel Aviv coastal highway in 1978; the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985 and the murder of disabled American Jewish passenger Leon Klinghoffer. The PLO also launched terrorist and guerrilla attacks against Israel from Jordan — until they were ousted by King Hussein in September 1972 — and from Lebanon — until they were ousted by Israel in 1982.

In 1988 in Geneva, Arafat announced that he would accept the existence of the State of Israel, renounce terrorism, and accept U.N. resolutions 242 and 338. Despite this declaration, the PLO continued terrorist attacks against Israelis.

Following secret negotiations with Israel in Oslo, on September 9, 1993, Arafat sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and pledging to remove clauses in the Palestine National Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. In return, Israel recognized the PLO as the “official representative” of the Palestinian people and began formal negotiations with the PLO. The Charter was revised in a vote by the Palestinian Authority Parliament in the presence of U.S. President Bill Clinton in December 1998. However, the original Charter is still featured on some Palestinian Authority web sites.

Today, the PLO continues to exist; however, most of its leaders have now become top Fatah officials in the Palestinian Authority. Fatah-related militia groups, such as the Tanzim, Force 17 and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade played a leading role in Palestinian violence during the Second Intifada, including suicide terrorist attacks, ambushes, and shootings of Israeli vehicles and facilities.

With the death of Arafat in November 2004, Mahmoud Abbas, a long-time secretary general of the PLO, became the new Chairman of the PLO and was subsequently elected President of the Palestinian Authority.    https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/palestine-liberation-organization-plo

2023-12-12 In Dueling Remarks, Biden and Netanyahu Spar Over Gaza’s Future    President Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed Tuesday over who should govern Gaza after the war, in a remarkable public display of differences emerging between the two leaders over the conflict. 

Biden made his toughest remarks since the war began about Netanyahu’s government. He suggested that its hard-line stance has prevented Netanyahu from accepting the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, and that it would also obstruct progress toward political, economic and security arrangements that could spawn a separate Palestinian state—an outcome the U.S. president sees as a long-term solution to the conflict.

President Biden’s comments came as Netanyahu said in Israel he would block the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, the sharpest sign of Israeli pushback against the U.S. blueprint for administering the enclave after Israel’s invasion ends.   Israel’s position on who will replace Hamas in postwar Gaza may not become fully clear until elections that are expected to be held next year, when it will be decided whether Netanyahu survives as prime minister.

The plan was already facing opposition from Arab governments and from Palestinian Authority officials themselves, who say they want Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza and withdraw its troops before they will agree to serious talks about postwar planning.

“There is no other game in town right now in terms of an organized, institutionalized Palestinian political entity,” Biden’s deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer said Thursday in remarks at the Aspen Security Forum, a Washington policy event. “What is the alternative?”  Netanyahu’s resistance to a Palestinian Authority postwar role in Gaza only applied to it “as currently constituted,” Finer said, implying Israel would be more flexible if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas carries out reforms. U.S. officials have met with Abbas, and other officials, to urge such steps in recent weeks.

Netanyahu’s government is considering creating milewide buffer zones inside Gaza that will be mostly off limits to Palestinians, an idea the Biden administration opposes because it could shrink the enclave’s territory. And a senior Israeli official said Sunday that forces could remain inside Gaza for an indefinite period, despite Biden administration warnings against reoccupying the strip.

The still-developing plans for Gaza under discussion between the U.S. and Arab governments envision an interim government running the enclave for an undefined period, drawing on the remnants of the Hamas-led ministries that delivered services before the invasion, Arab officials said. A massive aid infusion would be needed from United Nations agencies and donor countries to stabilize and rebuild the devastated enclave, according to Arab officials.  Only then would a revamped Palestinian Authority take over full control, officials said.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in-dueling-remarks-biden-and-netanyahu-spar-over-gaza-s-future/ar-AA1lou8j

2023-11-29 In the West Bank, Release of Prisoners Deepens Support for Hamas    Then, early Sunday morning, the bus pulled out of Ofer Prison in the West Bank and into a throng of cheering Palestinians. Before the cousins’ feet could touch the ground, they were hoisted into the air and carried through the streets of Ramallah, surrounded by people waving Palestinian and Hamas flags, revving their motorcycle engines and whistling in excitement.  “This is thanks to the resistance in Gaza,” Anwar said hours later from his family’s home on the outskirts of the city. 

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the elation over the prisoners’ release have deepened support for Hamas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has administered cities and towns for more than two decades. Gaza, the other Palestinian enclave, has by contrast been controlled since 2007 by Hamas, a militant group.

Now, as many in the West Bank fear the war could spread to the occupied territory, some believe Hamas and other armed groups are the only ones they can trust to protect them.   The Palestinian Authority — which is controlled by the Fatah political faction — is deeply unpopular and widely seen as a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. Long-simmering frustrations with the authority’s leadership and accusations of corruption have been exacerbated in the past year by an uptick in violence by Israeli settlers.

For some Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank, the freed prisoners have become a potent symbol of Hamas’s ability to achieve tangible results and its willingness to fight for the Palestinian cause. Each night in Ramallah, as new batches of prisoners were released, one refrain echoed across the crowds: “The people want Hamas! The people want Hamas!”    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/world/middleeast/west-bank-hamas-prisoners.html

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Netherlands

Updated 2023-12-09

2023-12-04 Dutch Court Hears Case Accusing Government of Complicity in Israeli War Crimes      “When military goods can contribute to human rights violations or international humanitarian law, that export is strictly prohibited,” said one campaigner. “It is incomprehensible that, despite clear warnings, the government has knowingly deviated from this.”  

A Dutch court on Monday heard opening arguments in a case brought by four human rights organizations that have accused the government of the Netherlands of being complicit in Israeli war crimes due to its export of military supplies as Israel kills thousands of civilians in Gaza.   Supplying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with parts for F-35 fighter jets, which are stored in a warehouse in the Netherlands, puts the Dutch government at risk for “becoming complicit in violations of international humanitarian law,” the director of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International , one of the plaintiffs, said when the lawsuit was announced last month.

Amnesty is joined by Oxfam Novib—the Dutch chapter of Oxfam International—The Rights Forum, and PAX in the case, which is expected to result in a judgement around December 15.   https://www.commondreams.org/news/dutch-israel-war-crimes

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Jordan

Updated 2024-02-26

2024-02-06 Jordanians On Warpath After ‘Amman Helping Israel’ Expose; ‘End Zionist Land Bridge Else…’   The Jordanian regime is facing revolt over allegedly helping Israel amid the war in Gaza. Hundreds of Jordanians held protests demanding an end to the “Zionist Land Bridge.” The so-called “Zionist Land Bridge” is aimed at circumventing the impact of attacks on ships heading to Israeli ports by Iran-aligned Ansar Allah, also known as Houthis. “We stand united to block the land route that saves the Zionist enemy,” said protesters. Israeli media reported the arrival of shipments from the UAE through a new alternative route that passes through Saudi Arabia and Jordan.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn3c9DkfPpw

2023-12-05 Jordan’s King Abdullah says world should condemn any attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians     Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Tuesday the world should condemn any attempt by Israel to create conditions that would forcibly displace Palestinians within the war-devastated Gaza Strip or outside its borders.

In remarks carried by state media after a meeting with the Cypriot president in Amman, the monarch again called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that Israel’s relentless bombing campaign was leading to a “dangerous deterioration” in the situation.  Abdullah has lobbied Western leaders to pile pressure on Israel to allow an uninterrupted flow of aid and open crossings it controls to bring in sufficient level of aid needed.

Israel now controls the volume and nature of aid entering to over 2.3 million inhabitants under siege, according to U.N. officials and humanitarian workers.    UNRWA officials say only a trickle of the aid the enclave needs is getting through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt which NGOs and officials say can only handle a fraction of the needs.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jordan-s-king-abdullah-says-world-should-condemn-any-attempt-to-forcibly-expel-palestinians/ar-AA1l2KQP

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Kamala Harris

Updated 2024-08-27

2024-8-23 The New Kamala   This year, Harris no longer has to toggle between left and center, an awkward balancing act she was not able to pull off in 2019. The slow-growing awareness that our 40-year romance with the market has produced an astounding upward redistribution of income and wealth, and has devastated whole sectors of the national economy, has yielded a new center-left synthesis that shaped the agendas of such previously not-so-left mainstream Democrats as Joe Biden and Tim Walz. The breadth and power of that center-left synthesis was evident in the forceful and heartfelt addresses that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren delivered to the convention, and in the rapturous reception they received from delegations that had been pledged to Joe Biden just five weeks ago.  

That synthesis calls on the state to intervene not so much to help particular minorities as the entire working and middle class, in the form of aid to families with kids, provision of paid medical and family leave, making child care and college affordable, boosting both housing creation and housing builder creation through apprenticeship programs, kick-starting American industries (green where at all possible), and enhancing workers’ rights. The state needs to fund this by taxing the rich and curtailing some of the power of our globe-trotting (i.e., America-fleeing) corporations.   

But it now provides a foundation for Harris’s domestic and economic policies, as well as a contrast to the pro-plutocratic giveaways that are the core of Trumponomics. It particularly anchors her advocacy of the care economy, which is now one of the party’s foremost ways to promote its family values. Talking about that economy, championing it, and illustrating why we need it is all totally within Harris’s political and personal comfort zone.  https://prospect.org/politics/2024-08-23-dnc-the-new-kamala/

2024-08-17 Harris Is Better Than Biden on Gaza—But She Must Go Further     As U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris steps into the spotlight to take over the Democratic ticket from President Biden, some on the left have so far withheld their support. Of central concern are her views on Palestine and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Will she stake out a different policy than Biden when it comes to indiscriminate Israeli warfare on Palestinians, which has so far received unconditional US aid and political support?

For better or worse, much of Harris’s positions on Palestine are presumed by proxy to Biden’s. Indeed, Biden administration officials themselves have stated there is no daylight between hers and Biden’s positions on Israel’s war in Gaza. When pressed at public events this past month – prior to her candidacy – Harris restated Biden’s position and endorsed a two-state solution.

But in March, she also came out publicly in favour of a ceasefire before Biden did, in what some assume was partially a test of her individual electoral and political salience. Harris has certainly not been an avowed, true believer in Zionism the way Biden has historically been. As a US Senator, Harris opposed SB-1, an anti-Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) bill backed by the Zionist lobby, on constitutional free speech grounds. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/harris-biden-gaza-policy

2024-08-06 ‘Excellent Choice’: Progressives Applaud Harris for Picking Walz as Running Mate   Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has reportedly selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the November election, a victory for progressives who pushed for Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was believed to be the other leading contender.

Harris is expected to formally announce her choice ahead of an evening rally in Philadelphia. CNN was first to report Harris’ decision, followed by other outlets including The Associated Press and The Hill.

Progressives are energized by Walz’s searing critiques of the Trump-era Republican Party and his record as Minnesota’s governor, which includes his unequivocal championing of a universal free school meals program as well as paid family and medical leave.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/kamala-harris-tim-walz

2024-08-04 Why the Left Must Resist Unconditionally Backing Harris      “Leftist leaders hope to prevent a wholesale abandonment of the transformative vision that has energized millions of voters, particularly young people.”    In the wake of President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside, the Democratic Party finds itself at a crucial crossroads. As Vice President Kamala Harris emerges as the presumptive nominee for the 2024 presidential election, a complex debate is unfolding within progressive circles.

While the threat posed by Republican nominee Donald Trump’s potential return to power looms large, some prominent progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, are hesitating to offer their immediate and unconditional endorsement of Harris. This reluctance has sparked criticism from certain quarters, but a closer examination reveals that this measured approach may be both strategically sound and necessary for the long-term health of the progressive movement.     https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/why-the-left-must-resist-unconditionally-backing-harris

2024-08-03 Can Kamala Harris Be the Unlikeliest of Heroes?   At first glance, Kamala Harris may seem an unlikely savior of democracy. As a career prosecutor, including stints as the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California, she specialized in sending people to jail and prison, adding to the nation’s crisis of mass incarceration. As a senator and failed 2020 presidential candidate, she was often accused of opportunism. As vice president, she operated largely out of public view for three years, and was saddled with disapproval ratings that rivaled and sometimes exceeded those of President Joe Biden.

But if the study of the past teaches us anything, it is that history is often driven by unlikely heroes who rose to the occasion in an hour of dire need. Abraham Lincoln, born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky, ended chattel slavery and defeated the Confederacy in the Civil War. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born into wealth and privilege, oversaw New Deal programs that rescued the American working class from the Great Depression and a world war that defeated the Nazis.

Harris may never be mentioned alongside Lincoln and FDR, but she is off to a good start. She has already rescued the Democrats from certain defeat in November and energized the party’s base in a way not seen since Barack Obama in 2008.  Harris will campaign for the presidency at a time of national emergency born from the dark impulses of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement he leads. There are many ways to understand and characterize Trumpism, a phenomenon that is at once authoritarian, racist, misogynistic and reactionary.

“We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [committed by the Israeli military] in Gaza. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.” She called for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and the establishment of a Palestinian state, adding, “As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done.”  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/kamala-harris-2024-2668868417

2024-08-02 Harris Must Commit to Ending Support for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza     During Donald Trump’s presidency, he repeatedly capitulated to Israel’s Zionist regime. He illegally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, illegally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, and declared Israeli settlements on Palestinian land lawful despite international law to the contrary.

As Israel continues its 10-month genocidal campaign in Gaza, there is no doubt that if he were president now, Trump would give Israel everything it wants to “finish what they started” and “get it over with fast,” that is, ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinians from Gaza.

But this genocide is happening on Joe Biden’s watch. His administration has aided and abetted Israeli genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, killing more than 40,000 Palestinians according to the official Gaza Health Ministry count, although the real death toll is likely much higher. Besides the $3.8 billion the U.S. sends annually to Israel, it has furnished an additional $15 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023. And the U.S. has provided political and diplomatic cover to Israel by vetoing three Security Council resolutions that would have required a ceasefire in Gaza.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/kamala-harris-israel-genocide-in-gaza

2024-08-01 Progressives Warn Against Josh Shapiro as Kamala Harris Nears VP Choice      Reports that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is leaning toward selecting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate have sparked warnings from progressives who say his record and policy positions on key issues—from Palestine to public schools to climate—are cause for serious alarm and should be disqualifying.

Earlier this week, dozens of progressive leaders from across the United States wrote in a letter to Harris that Shapiro’s “support for school vouchers is in direct conflict with our teachers union allies and the Democratic Party Platform, threatening to undermine labor support” in a general election matchup with Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The letter’s signatories recommended Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as possible alternatives to Shapiro, who last year relented to pressure and vetoed a school voucher program that he previously supported.  https://www.commondreams.org/news/josh-shapiro-kamala-harris

2024-08-01 Kshama Sawant BLASTS Progressives, Labor for Supporting Kamala Harris    Jordan Chariton is joined by Kshama Sawant of Workers Strike Back as they discuss Progressives bending the knew immediately for Kamala Harris and Biden. These continued acts by ‘progressives’, including endorsing of candidates without Democratic input and supporting a genocide, continue to show how much of a joke the movement has become politically something we will be discussing.     https://substack.com/home/post/p-147245543

2024-07-29 How Harris Can Win Back Voters Who Opposed Biden Over Gaza   By fully charting a new course on Gaza policy, Vice President Harris can build on this goodwill, win back the support of American Muslims and other voters in key swing states and, ultimately, save the country from another Trump presidency.

Long before President Biden’s debate meltdown sparked panic in the Democratic establishment, his support for the Israeli government’s war in Gaza sparked outrage in the Democratic base, where 56 percent of the party’s supporters have described the war as a genocide.

At least half a million Democratic voters protested President Biden’s support for the Gaza genocide by voting uncommitted or submitting blank ballots during the presidential primaries earlier this year, including over 100,000 people in Michigan, 88,000 in North Carolina and 46,000 in Minnesota.  Over 1 in 5 Democrats or independents in key swing states said they were less likely to vote for President Biden due to the war, according to a YouGov-AJP-Action poll in May.

Over a quarter of those voters said that an immediate and lasting ceasefire, full entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and conditions on military aid for Israel’s war were the minimum policy changes needed to secure or solidify their votes for Biden. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/kamala-harris-muslim-american-voters

2024-07-29 Open Letter from Veterans For Peace to Vice President Kamala Harris     Call for a Permanent Ceasefire and Emergency Food and Medical Aid to Gaza

Dear Madam Vice President Kamala Harris:

We are reaching out to you as military veterans who have fought in multiple US wars, and who continue to uphold the US Constitution and international law, to organize for justice and equality in our home communities, and to advocate for a peaceful foreign policy.

We are appalled by the ongoing Israeli slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children and by the maiming of tens of thousands more. We are outraged by the systematic blocking of food, leading to malnutrition, starvation, disease and the deaths of many more, particularly babies and young children. These are unbearable and unacceptable crimes that will go down in the history books as a terrible genocide – a holocaust.

Vice President Harris, many veterans listened carefully to your remarks after your recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. You said:   https://www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2024/07/29/open-letter-veterans-peace-vice-president-kamala-harris

2024-07-29 Why Josh Shapiro Is Not the Right Choice for Harris VP       A running mate who intensely connects her to Biden’s policies on the Gaza war that are so unpopular with much of the Democratic base, party unity—and the chances of defeating Trump—would be undermined.   

Today, parallels are apparent with pivotal events of 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson—increasingly unpopular among Democrats and others because of his Vietnam War—stunned the political world by announcing he would not seek reelection. At the Democratic convention in Chicago, the party nominated LBJ’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, as its standard-bearer. Humphrey’s halting efforts to distance himself from Johnson’s war policy were too little, too late, and he was unable to connect with many of the dedicated Democratic activists and voters who were antiwar. Failing to detach himself sufficiently from the president’s war policy, Humphrey lost a winnable election to Republican Richard Nixon.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/josh-shapiro-vice-president

2024-07-27 Will Kamala Harris Pivot on Gaza and Win the ‘Uncommitted’ Vote?    Simply displaying more empathy toward Palestinians, while shipping arms to Israel that are used in killing those same Palestinians, is not likely to win over recalcitrant voters or to truly energize peace voters. 

Vice President Harris has seen polling revealing that the Democrats suffered from a large enthusiasm gap—trailing Republicans by 11 points in one Gallup poll before President Joe Biden Biden dropped out. Given Democratic-leaning voters’ well-founded existential angst about former President Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses, such a gap in this election is astounding.

At least part of that “enthusiasm gap” was reflected in the “uncommitted” vote over the last few months. In addition to the 650,000 Democrats voted against Biden by choosing options such as “uncommitted,” etc., millions of rank-and-file Democrats are unhappy with the war in Gaza. According to one Reuters poll, 44% of Democratic voters disapprove of the administration’s handling of the Gaza crisis and these voters said they were less likely to vote for Biden come fall. Obviously, Arab American voters are watching Harris’ actions on Gaza closely. But so are other critical constituencies. Younger voters, and particularly younger voters of color, are more likely to support an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and disapprove of Israel’s actions. Seven major labor unions, representing 6 million workers, just wrote to President Biden and called on him to “shut off military aid to Israel.”  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/kamala-harris-gaza

2024-07-22 If Elected, Will Kamala Harris Make A Difference on Palestine?   Today on the Show: An update on the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Will Harris make a difference if she is elected? Also, we feature a rebroadcast of a powerful  eye-witness account from a front-line trauma surgeon just back from treating genocide victims in the Gaza Strip.   https://kpfa.org/episode/flashpoints-july-22-2024/

2024-07-09 The Crowning of Kamala Harris?  While we await President Biden’s talk with the Lord Almighty, the Democratic Party lords are planning the coronation of Vice President Kamala Harris.   Is she the best Democratic Party nominee?

Many party leaders are eager to shut down that discussion. For them, it’s game over. They say that Harris should be the nominee and anyone who opposes her will greatly offend key Democratic constituencies, starting with the Black women who have been the backbone of the party in key states.   https://lesleopold.substack.com/p/the-crowning-of-kamala-harris

2023-12-06 Kamala Harris’s Performative Scolding of Israel   With Israelis in a grueling fight against a dangerous terrorist enemy, Vice President Kamala Harris was dispatched to Dubai to deliver a scolding of our close ally for the benefit of Arab leaders. Her remarks were morally weak and untethered from reality.   In remarks in the United Arab Emirates after meetings with leaders of the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, and the Hamas-sponsoring Iranian ally Qatar, Harris delivered a version of the same message. It was rooted in the same failed Obama-era strategy of trying to show “daylight” with Israel in the groundless hope that it will earn more trust in the Arab world. She reiterated the administration’s “steadfast conviction” that “Israel has a right to defend itself” but then insisted, “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”

In the immediate wake of the October 7 Hamas assault, and again when we gave President Biden credit for his visit to Israel, we argued that the true test of his administration’s pledges to have Israel’s back would come over time, during the slow and arduous — but necessary — process of destroying Hamas.  

As time has dragged on, the public comments in support of Israel from administration officials have become more subdued, while the tongue-lashings about Israeli conduct and calls for restraint have become more frequent.   On a visit to Israel last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized Israel for inflicting too many civilian casualties and reportedly instructed the Israel Defense Forces that the successful tactics they employed in northern Gaza should not be used in the south, which is now where Hamas jihadists and operational leaders are believed to be holed up. He also said Israel didn’t have the “credit” to carry on their mission for several more months. One wonders if 1,000 more dead Jews would be needed to buy Israel more time from Blinken.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kamala-harris-s-performative-scolding-of-israel/ar-AA1l1RGV

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Resistance – No Other Choice

Updated 2023-12-09

2023-10-15 A Day to Remember: How “Al-Aqsa Flood” Altered the Relationship Between Palestine and Israel Forever    REGARDLESS OF the precise  strategy of the Palestinian group Hamas, or any other Palestinian movement for that matter, the daring Palestinian military campaign, deep inside Israel, on Saturday, October 7, was only possible because Palestinians are simply fed up.  

Seventeen years ago, Israel imposed a hermetic siege on the Gaza Strip. The story of the siege is often presented in two starkly different interpretations. For some, it is an inhumane act of “collective punishment”; for others, it is a necessary evil so that Israel may protect itself from so-called Palestinian terrorism.

Largely missing from the story, however, is that 17 years are long enough for a whole generation to grow up under siege, enlist in the resistance and fight for its freedom.   According to Save The Children, nearly half of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza today are children.   This fact is often infused to delineate the suffering of a population that has never stepped outside the tiny, impoverished Strip of 365 square km, approximately 141 square miles.   

This Gaza generation, which either grew up or was born after the imposition of the siege, experienced at least five major, devastating wars, of which children, like them, along with their mothers, fathers and siblings, were the main targets, victims.  

“If you surround your enemy completely, give them no chance to escape, offer them no quarter, then they will fight to the last,” wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War.   Yet, year after year, this is precisely what Israel has done. This strategy proved to be a major strategic miscalculation.   Even the mere attempt at protesting the injustice of the siege, by gathering in large numbers at the Gaza separation barrier, separating besieged Gaza from Israel, was not permitted.

The mass protests, known as the Great March of Return, were answered with Israeli sniper bullets. Scenes of youngsters, carrying other bleeding youth, shouting “God is Great,” became a regular scene at the fence. As the casualty count increased, the media interest in the story simply faded with time.  https://www.wrmea.org/israel-palestine/a-day-to-remember-how-al-aqsa-flood-altered-the-relationship-between-palestine-and-israel-forever.html

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

.

Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World