#cw: israel

[gobblelynn]

I need the world to see these images side by side and Wake The Fuck Up.

My Queer and Jewish ass will never be silenced.

Zionism does not speak for me.

Burning books does not and will never make me feel safer in this world.

[msilverstar]

Peace is the only ethical option

I'm Jewish, and I need to say that the Hamas attacks were horrors, awful, unforgivable. I hope the remaining Hamas organizers and participants are found and punished, I wouldn't be upset if they are killed in battle.

But Israel isn't going to be safer doing more of what it has been doing for 80 years. The US, Arab states and Palestinian leaders have some of the blame as well. We terrorized and dehumanized the Palestinians in Gaza for decades until they had no hope, and we were surprised when they exploded. Collective punishment is never acceptable. Bombing refugees is a war crime. Killing so many civilians of one culture, trying to destroy their physical environment and heritage, is genocide.

Attacking Israel civilians and Jews around the world is terrible, irrational and wrong.

Never again applies to everyone.

[nikkidafox]

I also am not usually a political blog. But please. This is something that needs to be stopped. Raise a big stink.

The director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN (UN OHCHR), Craig Mokhiber, has resigned in a letter dated 28 October 2023

the resignation letter can be found embedded in this tweet by Rami Atari (@.Raminho) dated 31 October 2023.

The letters are here:

Transcription:

United Nations | Nations Unies

HEADQUARTERS I SIEGE I NEW YORK, NY 10017

28 October 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations "to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities.

Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva

In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for radio Mules Collins in Rwanda.

In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we phave not met the challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been blocked by US intransigence, the SG [UN Secretary General] is under assault for the mildest of protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous attack by an organized, online impunity network.

Decades of distraction by the illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the "two-state solution" has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called "Quartet" has become nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to "agreements between the parties themselves" (in place of international law) was always a transparent slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.

High Commissioner, I came to this Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.

In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian people. As we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious genocides of the 20th Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists. We have much for which to atone.

But the path to atonement is clear. We have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying "not in our name", are all leading the way. All we have to do is to follow them.

Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York's Grand Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point, it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that criticism of Israel's human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is all about.

But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have refused to compromise the Organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards, OHCHR. has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is to make our voice heard, from the Secretary-General to the newest UN recruit, and horizontally across the wider UN system, incisting that the human rights of the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise anywhere under the blue flag.

What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple—if we have the clarity to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:

Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and international law.

Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.

One State based on human rights: We must support the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dicmantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.

Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.

Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.

Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel's massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.

Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.

Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.

This will take years to achieve, and western powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN's political offices.

The UN's failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.

I thank you, High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Craig Mokhiber

End of transcription.

Emphasis (bolding) is my own. I have added links, where relevant, to explanations of concepts the Director refers to.

[girlinafairytale]

source

[nightwussy]

in lieu of joost being disqualified for no reason im posting his semi final performance so u don’t have to give the ebu any views

[reasonsforhope]

I am a little freaked out because I just KNOW there are SO many middle of the road people who would rather vote for Trump than a brown woman (or throw their vote away on a third party, which is the same thing). I'm far from Biden's greatest fan but he was SAFE. he was PALATABLE. and THIS year of all years I was happy for THAT. Is there a bright side to this situation somewhere?

I talked a bit about this in the replies on the post. Basically, I'm deliberately choosing to be optimistic about it and to hit the pavement for voting as hard as I fucking can.

For what it's worth, there are also of reasons to believe (and this definitely top of the list now) that Biden's decline is worse than we've generally seen. Biden's safe-ness has been feeling increasingly precarious for a couple of months now, and I know I've been getting pretty worried about it.

Also for what it's worth, I firmly believe that if we win, it will be because abortion rights are on the ticket. That's something that Biden hasn't campaigned on very hard, and also arguably a more powerful issue to campaign on, with a woman at the top of the ticket.

The biggest reason I'm hopeful, though, and the main reason I posted it, is that Kamala Harris winning is quite possibly the best chance we have of the Palestinian genocide ending soon.

[weaselbeaselpants]

K, I really REALLY don't mean to lecture everyone here, but, a few things. Keep in mind this is from the perspective of a white western gentile (non-Jewish person, alt called 'goyim' but I use 'gentile').

Firstly, white people, especially white gentiles HAVE historically hated and/or gotten on Maus's case. No outright Holocaust deniers ftmp, but like w people censoring Anne Frank for mentioning genitals and sexuality- people have gotten on Art's case for being "too graphic" with aspects relating to the Holocaust like the nudity or him recounting his mother's suicide.

Someone who's better at this kind of discourse could find the receipts to prove it, but there's a thing gentiles do where they expect Holocaust victims to be "perfect" and for there to be 'good' and 'bad' factions of stories about them, w in reality and what Maus proves is there were no cushy liberators. Heroes like Oscar Schindler weren't able to save everyone. The Holocaust wasn't evil because the people who suffered were all goodie-two shoes it was evil because it was a GENOCIDE. Art Spiegelman's whole point was to illustrate his father as a person and that includes his father's racism. He even despairs in the book about depicting Vladek's thriftyness and hoarding because he KNOWS that antisemites will gobble that up for the wrong reasons and he would be accused of antisemitism by other jews (he was).

The other user brings up "Boy in the Striped Pajamas", which is a movie+film a lot of Jewish critics consider in poor taste. It was written by a gentile and pushes the narrative that children are uwu innocents who had no idea what was happening to Jewish people right in front of them. Spiegelman's work is one of many books about the Holocaust that aims to illustrate how that's just burying one's head in the sand AND ALSO antisemitic.

Op is conflating all white people w liberals and gentiles (they are a Jewish anti-zionist). I'm not personally a fan of this, for reasons that deserve it's own post on the subject, but,

I looked up OP's handle. The dude is VERY passionate about Jewish identity being used to spread hate andor push neoliberal propoganda. He hates white supremacy and white fragility to ignore white supremacy. I don't know if he mentioned if he himself was white or not, but honestly he is kind of spitting sum facts here here:

The "white person = everyone I don't like"-talk is again it's own discussion to be held apart from this. Tbh, think the man's just harsh but deservingly mad. More importantly, from what I can find, OP's using Maus and Spiegelman's words in the context of Zionism and how people are using the trauma of the Holocaust to campaign for another genocide - that of Palestinians. In anti-Zionism and anti-Colonialist circles, there's a point ppl making that the European-backed state of Israel use the "survivors of holocaust need a place to go"- as an excuse to colonize the West Bank and Palestine, all the while spitting on actual Jewish heritage and even Holocaust survivors who are calling out the genocide. There's a reason talking about zionism is super difficult and hard for Jewish people of all nationalities and ethnicities rn- the Holocaust WAS evil and for years Israel has used the Holocaust to rectify it's own racism and right to colonize Palestine. If you all loved Maus so much, you'd have recognized the scene posted at the end there w Art even talks about Israel in the book and how he thinks Israelis should be porcupines and are fat, priviledged people according to his drawing.

I'm sorry but by reducing this argument into a "you're being judgemental of white ppl in the same way this is happening in the book"- you're all neglecting the message that OP is trying to dish out.

[directactionforhope]

By the way, even if you fully plan to vote for Biden in November (because Trump would be worse and has declared that if elected he would ban Palestinians from entering the US x, x, x, x)...

You can and I would argue should call or email Biden or whatever other Democrats represent you and just straight up lie about it. Tell them "I'm a constituent, and I've voted for you in x number of elections, and thanks to your support for the genocide of the Palestinian people, I will never, ever vote for you again."

Politicians, Democrats, and especially Biden need a fire lit under their asses, because the vast majority of them clearly aren't going to do shit without one. Or, worse, be like Biden and actively be the reason that Israel can continue its genocide on a political, monetary, and military level.

Tell Biden and other politicians that you will never vote for them again. It doesn't matter if it's true. It will help pressure US politicians to stop this genocide, and therefore it's the right thing to do.

Obviously this also applies to other countries where politicians are supporting Israel's genocide, especially countries that have cut funding to UNRWA (list here).

[heritageposts]

No, this is not footage from Gaza or Lebanon; it's Iranian missiles hitting "Israeli" soil.

– From @/War Monitor on Twitter. The same footage if also being shown on Al Jazeera and other mainstream news outlets right now (1st of October 2024).

[midnightlockhearth]

Link to video: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFYSM16j/

Source:@/middleeasteye on tiktok

Description from the OG video:

Isnotreal returned the bodies of 80 unidentified palestinians taken by its forces.

Some of the bodies were taken by isnotreal forces after they were killed, while others were exhumed from several cemeteries around Gaza, including Al-Shifa cemetery and Al-Nimsawi cemetery in Khan Youins

Pictures were taken of the bodies before burial to facilitate later identification by their families.

[athena5898]

(BreakThrough News) — An attempted self-immolation took place at a Washington DC protest, apparently in opposition to biased media coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Witnesses say the man announced he worked for CBS.

[motherofplatypus]

Killed an 8 years old girl along 36 others of her family

This post has been compiled in Record of Genocide.

[toboldlymuppet]

broken but not destroyed

WHAT A DISAPPOINTING AND HEARTBREAKING FINALE? To have the man who was abused, mutilated, and disabled for protecting the crew, to have a suicide attempt survivor who crawled on the ground, to have someone who battled depression and alcoholism, to cement his role as the 'Ship's Unicorn" (the figurehead that protected the crew) only to reduce him as someone who "had to die" because he had no more narrative feeling, what a slap to the face. DJenkins said he didn't want to fall back into old tropes and burying your gays, but there's an elder disabled queer man you just buried for what, to absolve Ed of his abuse? Izzy died thinking he DESERVED the torture done upon him. What a disgrace. Izzy fans rallied and kickstarted a S3 renewal Campaign. And many of us are heartbroken and grieving for a show who promised kindness but only justified the abuse we've gotten the past months? We stayed and hoped better because of kindness and belonging. "This show is kind" has never rang more hollow. I'll still love and create art for him, but I don't think I can trust any other queer show again. I thought this would be different. Do you want a queer show full of kindness and found family, for all queers, the disabled and survivors and the rough around the edges ones? It's not Our Flag Means Death.

[odinsblog]

tw: child death

The body of a six-year-old Palestinian girl, missing for 12 days after an Israeli tank targeted their family car in Gaza, has been found along with the bodies of two medics dispatched to look for them.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the family of the girl, Hind Rajab, confirmed on Saturday that all seven people inside the car were killed, with the Palestinian relief organisation saying it lost crew members Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun in the Israeli attack on civilians in Gaza City.

Family members found Hind’s body along with those of her uncle and aunt and their three children near a roundabout in the city’s Tal al-Hawa suburb, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Another of Hind’s uncles, Sameeh Hamadeh, said the car was peppered with bullet holes.

“The occupation deliberately targeted the ambulance upon its arrival at the scene, where it was found just metres away from the vehicle containing the trapped child Hind,” said the PRCS statement.

“Despite prior coordination to allow the ambulance to reach the location to rescue the child, Hind, the occupation deliberately targeted the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance crew.”

(continue reading)

[houseofpurplestars]

Palestinian lives do not suddenly matter to those who simultaneously support their slaughter. What is happening is that empire sees the writing on the wall.

Do you realize how bad bibi has to be failing, what kind of RISK the occupation must currently be at if schumer- the occupation's eternal cheerleader- is actually trying to save face by admonishing the occupation for its atrocities? That's not because he suddenly cares about Palestinians. Its because he sees how badly the occupation is losing.

[koheletgirl]

the dissonance between the way israelis view the hostages and the way they view everyone else in gaza is so confusing to me. "theyre getting bombed" "they're starving" "they have no medicine" "they're not safe anywhere" ok. so you can see this. so you are in fact capable of acknowledging this. then what exactly makes you so comfortable ignoring the fact that those same things are happening to civilians in gaza who have no more blame in this than the hostages?