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Deir Yassin Massacre  (also see Israel Massacres)

Updated 2024-08-25

Deir Yassin massacre – Wikipedia    The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when Zionist paramilitaries attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, killing at least 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children. The attack was conducted primarily by the Irgun and Lehi, who were supported by the Haganah and Palmach. The massacre was carried out despite the village having agreed to a non-aggression pact. It occurred during the 1947-1948 civil war and was a central component of the Nakba and the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

Remembering Deir Yassin: The Future of Israel and Palestine (book)   The first eight essays offer personal accounts, from both Jewish and Palestinian perspectives, of the 1948 massacre of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. In the last four essays, theologians and scholars discuss possibilities for a tenable future for both Israelis and Palestinians.     https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Deir-Yassin-Future-Palestine/dp/1566562910/ref=sr_1_1? 

2023-04-09 The Deir Yassin massacre: Why it still matters 75 years later     Seventy-five years ago, Zionist militias tore through Palestinian villages, massacring the villagers and expelling those who remained alive, to clear the way for the creation of the state of Israel.   An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes to live as refugees in other parts of Palestine or neighbouring countries, an event known by Palestinians as the Nakba – “the catastrophe”.

On April 9, 1948, just weeks before the creation of the State of Israel, members of the Irgun and Stern Gang Zionist militias attacked the village of Deir Yassin, killing at least 107 Palestinians.

According to testimonies from the perpetrators and surviving victims, many of the people slaughtered – from those who were tied to trees and burned to death to those lined up against a wall and shot by submachine guns – were women, children and the elderly. As news of the atrocities spread, thousands fled their villages in fear. Eventually, some 700,000 Palestinians would flee or be forcibly displaced at the outset of Israel’s creation, making the massacre a decisive moment in Palestinian history. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/9/the-deir-yassin-massacre-why-it-still-matters-75-years-later

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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

Cori Bush

2024-08-08 Tlaib Slams White House for Criticizing Cori Bush’s Vow to Fight AIPAC   Bush will “be remembered for valiantly standing up for the rights of Palestinians when too many still did not have the political courage to do so.”   U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday ripped the White House for admonishing Rep. Cori Bush’s vow to fight the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the powerful lobby group spent millions of dollars to unseat the Missouri Democrat for opposing Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.

AIPAC’s dark money arm, United Democracy Project (UDP), spent $8 million in support of Bush’s opponent, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, in the second-most expensive House race ever. UDP spent $15 million to defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), another “Squad” member who has criticized Israel’s war on Gaza. AIPAC has vowed to spend $100 million to unseat progressive lawmakers—many of them Black and brown—who it deems insufficiently supportive of Israel.

In a defiant concession speech on Tuesday night, Bush declared, “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down!”   “All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid,” she added. https://www.commondreams.org/news/cori-bush-rashida-tlaib

2024-08-07 AIPAC Hijacks Rep. Cori Bush’s Race–and Our Elections    The progressive lawmaker’s defeat in her Democratic primary is a tremendous blow to progressives and to the U.S. electoral process itself.   Representative Cori Bush, a progressive black woman from St. Louis, Missouri who is a member of “the Squad” in the U.S. House and has been a powerful voice in Congress for poor people, women’s rights, healthcare, housing–and Palestine—just lost her primary because pro-Israel lobby groups flooded the race with outside funding. Her loss is a tremendous blow to progressives and to the U.S. electoral process itself.

This is the pro-Israel lobby’s second “win” of the season. The first was the June defeat of progressive, black congressman from Westchester County, N.Y., Jamaal Bowman, who was a forceful critic of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. AIPAC and its mis-named super PAC, the United Democracy Project, barged into Westchester County to anoint an opponent—white, pro-Israel Westchester County Executive George Latimer—and then shower him with cash.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/aipac-cori-bush

2024-08-01 The Simple Question Those Who Smear Cori Bush Refuse to Answer    Soon after the Gaza war began 10 months ago, a prominent newspaper columnist denounced Congresswoman Cori Bush under a headline declaring that “anti-Israel comments make her unfit for reelection.” The piece appeared in the newspaper with the second-largest readership in Missouri, the Kansas City Star. Multimillion-dollar attacks on Bush followed.

Bush’s opponent, county prosecutor Wesley Bell, “is now the number-one recipient of AIPAC cash this election cycle,” according to Justice Democrats. “Almost two-thirds of all his donations came from the anti-Palestinian, far-right megadonor-funded lobby group.” The Intercept reports that “AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has gone on to spend a total of $7 million so far to oust Bush” in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary in her St. Louis area district.

“The $2.1 million in ads spent for her campaign is up against $12.2 million spent to attack her or support Bell,” The American Prospect points out. AIPAC “is trying to pull voters away from her without ever saying the words ‘Israel’ or ‘Palestine.’ Instead, their advertising against Bush centers around her record on infrastructure legislation, in a manner that lacks context.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cori-bush-primary

2024-07-30 Different Circumstances in the Next Squad Primary Fight  Congresswoman Cori Bush is facing a primary challenge in Missouri’s First Congressional District from St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell—and from the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC United Democracy Project.  UDP is coming after Bush for her outspokenness against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, but as in other races it has targeted, the PAC is trying to pull voters away from her without ever saying the words “Israel” or “Palestine.” Instead, their advertising against Bush centers around her record on infrastructure legislation, in a manner that lacks context.

The election, which will be held on August 6, comes months after Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a member of the left-wing Squad alongside Bush, was defeated by George Latimer in New York. Latimer was backed by UDP, which spent millions on his campaign.   Bowman’s defeat (rightly) raised alarm bells among other progressives who have been outspoken against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. But it’s essential to keep in mind that Bowman’s loss had much to do with the particular characteristics of his district.  https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-30-cori-bush-wesley-bell-next-squad-primary-fight/

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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

Cop City

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-07-31 Atlanta’s Cop City Is Funded by Some of the Same Billionaires Who Back AIPAC     Donors to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are underwriting a thin blue line between Israel and Cop City. https://truthout.org/articles/atlantas-cop-city-is-funded-by-some-of-the-same-billionaires-who-back-aipac/

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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

Congressional Black Caucus

Updated 2024-08-25

2016-09-07 Congressional Black Caucus: Deep in the Israel Lobby’s Pocket    “[Debbie] Wasser­man Schultz embodied the enormous in­flu­ence that American Jews have within the Democratic Party. A Jew with deep communal involvements who was a key pillar of support for the mainstream pro-Israel lobby in Congress and within the party, Wasser­man was both chair­man of the Demo­cratic National Committee and a mem­ber of Congress sitting on the powerful House Commit­tee on Appropriations — a panel that votes on all major government expenditures.    

This article is not about Debbie Wasserman Schultz but of the influence of who and what she represented as chair of the Democratic National Committee until taken down by Julian Assange, and still represents, in Congress, the interests of Israel, and the power of its domestic supporters over the Black American political establishment as represented by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

To be sure, the CBC’s subjugation by what is generally referred to as the pro-Israel Lobby is not unique. Thanks largely to American Jews having long been the Democratic Party’s major source of funds, estimated by reliable sources to be at least 60% in every election cycle, the Israel Lobby has been not only able to shape the party’s’ Middle East agenda but, of equal importance, determine who will be the chairs and the ranking members on the Congressional committees and subcommittees that have an impact on US-Israel relations. (The same thing can be said about the Republicans but there we see more variety among the donors.)   https://blackagendareport.com/cbc_in_israel%27s_pocket

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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

CIA

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-14 Seeds of Today’s Middle East Disaster Were Sown by the CIA | Opinion    Seventy-one years ago this week, a pair of energetic American brothers carried out a plan to overthrow a pesky Middle Eastern government, setting in motion a chain of events that has the region on the cusp of all-out war. The convoluted tale offers a clear illustration of a truism we tend to ignore: Beware most of all the consequences that are unintended.   

 In the summer of 1953, the target of U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, was Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized Iran’s oil industry. It was a popular move that was part of a broader effort to assert Iranian sovereignty and please Iranians frustrated with foreign control of their resources.  

Mossadegh set about reforming the system to diminish the power of the pro-Western head of state, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been in power for just a decade and was the latest incarnation of centuries of monarchic rule. Having come of age in World War II, the “Shah of Iran” was mindful of the preferences of the victors, chiefly the United States and Britain, and knew well that they preferred their oil close at hand.   

As the government seized more and more of the shah’s authority, he attempted to dismiss Mossadegh through a royal decree—but the premier refused to step down, leading to a political crisis. Fearing for his safety, the shah fled Iran, going first to Baghdad and then to Rome, leaving Mossadegh briefly fully in charge.  

Enter the brothers Dulles, aided by Britain’s spy agency, MI6. Only declassified in recent years, their Operation Ajax included all the hallmarks: Psychological warfare, bribes, orchestrated street protests and dark propaganda warnings of a world where the Soviet Union could gain a foothold in the oil-rich Middle East if Mossadegh’s nationalist agenda prevailed.   The effort began in earnest on Aug. 15, 1953, and reached its climax four days later when pro-shah forces stormed Mossadegh’s residence, leading to his arrest. The shah was reinstated with U.S. and British backing, his return celebrated with orchestrated jubilation.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/seeds-of-today-s-middle-east-disaster-were-sown-by-the-cia-opinion/ar-AA1oNzhM?

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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

Chomsky, Noam

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-11 A Note on Noam Chomsky and Climate Collapse     As Noam once said, “if you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope.”    In many of his recent writings, Noam Chomsky has warned that humanity has reached a very dangerous point because we are now living in a world of cascading crises.     

What’s happening in Gaza is an abomination, one that the leaders of this world are watching coldly from a distance. The same can be said about climate collapse, which is as real as the daily slaughtering of scores of innocent women and children in Gaza by Israel’s military. Our global institutions are incapable of doing anything meaningful about these crises. Real power is in the hands of the most powerful nation-states and their leaders have opted to turn a blind eye to both disasters so as not to disrupt business as usual. Profits and geostrategic interests take priority over human lives and the environment. This is as clear as day, and it has always been so since at least the emergence of capitalism and the rise of the nation-state.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/noam-chomsky-climate-collapse

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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

Camp David Summit – 2000

Updated 2024-08-25

2000 Camp David Summit  – Wikipedia  The 2000 Camp David Summit was a summit meeting at Camp David between United States president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat. The summit took place between 11 and 25 July 2000 and was an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The summit ended without an agreement, largely due to irreconcilable differences between Israelis and Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem.[1] Its failure is considered one of the main triggers of the Second Intifada.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit   

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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

Biden & Trump

Updated 2024-08-24

2024-06-18 Trump and Biden on Israel   Asked about the likely choice in November between Biden and Donald Trump, the consensus among the demonstrators was that they wouldn’t vote for “Genocide Joe,” and that there was nothing to choose from between Biden and Trump when it comes to Middle East policy. Some would simply stay home, while some might vote for the Green Party or another third party, and even those who might eventually pull the lever for Biden pledged to vote “uncommitted” in any primary to “send a message to the White House.”

Still, no matter the horrors — and they are horrors — of Gaza and of the low-intensity war Israel is also waging in the occupied West Bank, and despite Israel’s regular artillery and bombing runs against targets in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and even Iran, those who argue that there’s no difference between Biden and Trump when it comes to Israel are deeply mistaken.    

Trump, on the other hand — ever transactional, with distinctly bizarre attitudes toward American Jews and, in particular, Jewish supporters of Israel — has gone out of his way to cultivate his connection to Netanyahu and the most extreme wing of Israel’s governing parties. To placate Christian Zionists, who comprise a substantial chunk of his base, he’s donned the cloak of an uber-Zionist himself. During his administration, in fact, he named his son-in-law Jared Kushner as his Middle East “czar.” Kushner has lifelong ties to Netanyahu, who even slept in his bedroom when Kushner was young. (“Jared Kushner once lent Benjamin Netanyahu his bed,” is how the Jerusalem Post put it.)   

So, while pro-Palestinian demonstrators are focusing their anger on Biden, they may, all too ironically, find themselves targeted for deportation by Donald Trump, should he win a second term in office. “One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country,” was his comment on the Gaza protests. “You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.”  

Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, promoted moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which President Trump indeed did. That move, supported by radical-right Republicans, many ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Christian Zionists, was a calculated provocation of the Palestinians, and would be condemned by the Pope, the United Nations, and much of the world.

Throughout his presidency, Trump made it clear that he supported a radical revision of U.S. policy toward the Israel-Palestine issue. In 2019, in a move that drew outrage and derision, Trump signed an order recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights, seized in 1967. And later that year, in a political “gift” to Netanyahu, Trump discarded decades of U.S. policy by declaring that Israel’s massive project to build illegal settlements in the West Bank did not violate international law. “We’ve recognized the reality on the ground,” was the way Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it.

In addition, the president unilaterally shut down the Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, while halting $200 million in direct U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and $300 million owed to the United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA), which supports Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to the Middle East culminated in January 2020 when he and Netanyahu jointly released a “Middle East peace plan” hammered out by Kushner, Friedman, Greenblatt, and Avi Berkowitz (plucked from the Kushner Companies with zero experience in the region). Among other provisions, it green-lit Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley and a web of illegal settlements that house hundreds of thousands of Jewish occupiers.   https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/06/18/trump-and-biden-on-israel/

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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

Blinken, Antony – U.S. Secretary of State

Updated 2024-08-24

2024-5-06 Antony Blinken Greeted by Protestors for Palestine   On Today’s Show: US Secretary of State in San Francisco, greeted by protesters with the mock blood of Palestinians. The East Bay City of Richmond, California takes a bold step to divest from companies that do business with the Israel apartheid State. And Nora Barrows Friedman talks to antigenocide students from coast to coast   https://kpfa.org/episode/flashpoints-may-6-2024/

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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

Antisemitism in Europe

Updated 2024-08-24

Antisemitism in Europe -Wikipedia     Antisemitism—prejudice, hatred of, or discrimination against Jews—has experienced a long history of expression since the days of ancient civilizations, with most of it having originated in the Christian and pre-Christian civilizations of Europe.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Europe

2024-08-04 The Gaza War in This Dangerous Era of Polycrisis   European anti-Semitism, from the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492 to the extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis, created a worldwide diaspora. This led many diasporic Jews to seek a national home, and a small number of pioneers began to establish settlements in the predominantly Arab territory historically known as Palestine. In World War I Britain attacked and ultimately replaced the Ottoman Empire as the ruler of Palestine. During the war Britain announced support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Jews were divided on how to relate to their Arab neighbors, but a Zionist movement opted to seize Arab lands and establish an Israeli state. They won support from many countries, including the US and the USSR. The establishment of the Israeli state was followed by repeated wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors, nearly all won by Israel.   https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-war-polycrisis

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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