#israel/hamas war

[girlactionfigure]

Today, @SenSanders stood on the Senate floor and lied to the American people.

He said Israel is intentionally starving civilians in Gaza, pointing to the picture behind him — promoted by Hamas propaganda outlet Al Jazeera — as evidence.

The truth?? The boy in the picture, Fadi, has cystic fibrosis and requires advanced medical support. Israel facilitated his exit from Gaza to a US hospital where he received the care he needed.

Israel is surging more aid into Gaza than international organizations are able to handle. There is currently a backlog of ~850 trucks worth of aid inside Gaza waiting to be distributed.

Sanders also accused Israel of preventing a ceasefire/hostage deal when the US has reiterated time and time again that it is Hamas, not Israel, that has rejected offer after offer after offer.

So why is @SenSanders peddling lies to the Senate and to the American public?

Withholding weapons from Israel won’t help reach a ceasefire any faster, and it won’t help bring the hostages home. It will only endanger Israel’s security while emboldening the Iranian regime and its proxies, who have sworn not only to destroy Israel but to destroy the US as well.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Julian Borger and Andrew Roth at The Guardian:

The international criminal court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war. It is the first time that leaders of a democracy and western-aligned state have been charged by the court, in the most momentous decision of its 22-year history. Netanyahu and Gallant are at risk of arrest if they travel to any of the 124 countries that signed the Rome statute establishing the court. Israel claims to have killed Deif in an airstrike in July, but the court’s pre-trial chamber said it would “continue to gather information” to confirm his death.

The chamber ruled that there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore criminal responsibility as co-perpetrators for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”. The three-judge panel also said it had found reasonable grounds to believe Deif was responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, torture, rape and hostage taking relating to the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in which fighters killed more than 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and kidnapped 250. Netanyahu’s office denounced the chamber’s decision as “antisemitic”. “Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the international criminal court, a biased and discriminatory political body,” the office said in a statement, adding that “no war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza”. The statement pointed to an investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct against the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan who sought the charges against the three men in May. Khan, 54, has denied the allegations and said he will cooperate with the investigation.

The US national security council issued a statement “fundamentally” rejecting the court’s decision. “We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision,” the statement said, without any detail of the alleged errors. “The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter. In coordination with partners, including Israel, we are discussing next steps.” The US has previously welcomed ICC war crimes warrants against Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials for atrocities committed in Ukraine, exposing the Biden administration to accusations of double standards from many UN members, particularly from the global south.

Netanyahu can expect more resounding support from the incoming Donald Trump administration. During his first term, in 2020, Trump imposed US sanctions on the ICC, aimed at court officials and their families. The then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, made clear the sanctions were imposed because the ICC had begun investigating the actions of the US and its allies in Afghanistan, as well as Israeli military operations in the occupied territories. The panel said the full version of the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were secret “in order to protect witnesses and to safeguard the conduct of the investigations”, but the judges released much of their reasoning. This focused on the obstruction of the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which it judged to be deliberate.

The ICC has issued arrest warrants for genocidal maniacs Israel PM Benjamin Netanayhu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’s military leader Mohammed Deif.

See Also:

AP, via HuffPost: International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrants For Netanyahu And Hamas Officials

[gingerswagfreckles]

Multiple posts with over 25k notes stanning the Houthis. The fucking Houthis. Who brought back chattle slavery to Yemen, who are directly responsible for the Yemeni famine that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, who redirect international food aid into their military faction, who have "a curse upon the Jews" on their flag, who rounded up and expelled the last few dozen Jews remaining in Yemen in 2021, who openly sex traffic Ethiopian women, who don't allow women to travel without a male guardian even for essential medical care, who torture and execute their political enemies, who have started to oppertunistically attack random ships that are neither coming nor going from Israel to fund their oppressive regime. Those Houthis. Those Houthis. Multiple posts with over 25k notes about how they are "coming through" for Palestine.

Are you people fucking insane? I wish I had a nicer way to say this but this website is literally filled with some of the stupidest and most hateful people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. How many times do you people need to learn that some idiot on Twitter is not where you should be getting your news???

[jewish-mccoy]

Can we talk about how fucked up it is that Jews and Israelis have no safe spaces online? And if we dare complain, we’re told we’re whining and other groups have it worse.

And no one seems to either notice or care. The pro Palestine movement is infested with antisemitism. Leftist spaces are infested with antisemitism. It’s impossible to engage with the pro Palestinian movement because to do so, they demand you denounce Israel’s existence and make you be their token Jew. Like no? The fuck gives you the audacity?

I’m tired of walking on eggshells around leftists for fear of being called a colonizer or a genocide apologist because guess what??? It doesn’t fucking matter what I say, you’re gonna do it anyway, because I’m an evil Jew!

I could talk till I’m blue in the face about cease fires or how Hamas is purposefully putting civilians in harms way, but the second I do, people are like “oh you mean Israel. Israel is the problem.” Actually, you fucking black and white thinker, ISRAEL IS NOT ALWAYS THE PROBLEM. Israel has done fucked up things. So has every fucking country on earth. But the news is dominated by “Israel is awful” and “wipe Israel off the map.” Why do you think that is.

IT’S ANTISEMITISM. It’s just that simple. Really fucking is.

And because the movement keeps flooding Jewish tags on tumblr with antisemitism, I am gonna tag this so the “river to the sea” people ACTUALLY ADVOCATING GENOCIDE can have their safe spaces (Jew free spaces) interrupted. I’m tired of taking the high road.

You all would rather side with terrorists than Jews. That’s how bad the leftist problem with antisemitism is. Terrorists who admit to using rape and murder and torture ON CIVILIANS as tactics. That’s how much you fucking hate us. Well, tough fucking luck. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere. Am yisrael chai, fuckers.

[emiliejolie]

idiots

"If I lived during the holocaust I would defend jews "

No bitch you would fall right into the nazi propaganda trap

[moran-with-a-g]

Tell me, what would you think of someone who respected the Jewish people but genuinely believed that Israel is as bad as their old persecutors now?

That honestly depends on what you mean.

Part of respecting the Jewish people is respecting their right to exist in their homeland, have a country that fits their cultural needs, and knowing that that country's government actions are not a representation of the entire population.

Do they believe Israel's existence as a concept is as bad as Nazi ideology of scientific racism? Do they believe the Israeli government is as bad as Nazi Germany? Do they believe the treatment the IDF ia giving the Palestinian people is as bad as the pogroms the Jewish people went through throughout history?

When you say Israel, are you talking about the country, the government, the people, the military?

When you say as bad as their old persecutors, are you talking about the Nazis? About other people in history?

I have no issues with people who hate the Israeli government, I have no issues with people who hate the actions of the IDF, what I do have issues with is people who say "Israel" without specifying what they mean, and the people who see the need to compare "Israel" with "their old persecutors".

Because you can criticize the government and the military actions as much as your heart desires. I'm not fan of the current government, I'm also very much aware that the IDF is not an innocent force. But when you just say Israel, I would think that actually, you don't really respect Jewish people, because you don't make an effort to seperate the Israeli civilians from the actions of the military and the government.

Because for some reason, people have this obsession of comparing us to the groups who hurt us in the past. Because for some reason, they have this obsession of taking out trauma, our history, and comparing half of our people to those who who hurt us. They have the option of comparing Bibi to Putin, instead they choose Hitler. They treat our past as if it's a lesson we didn't learn, as if we were punished for some great evil we commited and still have yet to change. We're just as bad, if not worse, as the people who burnt away our history, our records and our lineage.

If they properly criticize the government, and the military, and they believe they deserve to be considered between of the worst in human history - while being able to seperate them from the people who live in Israel, the people who believe in Israel's right of existence, and they don't specifically compare them to persecutors of the Jewish people - then I wouldn't consider them antisemitic, and I would love to have a civil discussion with them, and I would probably be able to agree with at least some of what they have to say.

If they can't seperate the concept of Israel into people, government and military, and if they only compare them to persecutors of the Jewish people, while claiming they respect Jewish people - then they never bothered to listen to a Jew when they were told they're being antisemitic.

So you tell me, is that person actually respecting Jewish people, when they don't make the effort to understand what it is they're doing that's antisemitic and why?

[athymelyreply]

A highly recommended read. Full text of article under cut

On October 7, I was not hiding with my child in the safe room. My house was not burnt to the ground, and my husband didn't blow me a last kiss before his killer fired a fatal bullet.

I was safely at home in London where I have lived for over 30 years when my elderly peace-activist parents, Oded and Yocheved Lifschitz, along with 77 others members of the community, were taken hostage, barefoot and in their pajamas from their homes in the kibbutz where I was born and raised.

Israel's hostages in Gaza: A matter of life and death

Israeli peace activists who lost loved ones in the Hamas massacre stand their ground

What we can learn from released Hamas hostage Yocheved Lifshitz

For the past 229 days, together with the families of the other of hostages taken captive which now number 128, we have taken part in the fight for the lives of our loved ones.

A photo of the writer, Sharone Lifschitz's parents, Yocheved and Oded Lifschitz, who were both kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza on October 7. To date, only Yocheved Lifschitz has returned. Credit: Amiram Oren

In Nir Oz, my family's kibbutz, one in four people (117 in total), were either executed or kidnapped. We are still piecing together the events of that brutal day that Hamas terrorists and some Gazan civilians, perpetrated medieval levels of cruelty, driven by hate and revenge, blinded by radical religious ideology and super-charged with amphetamines.

Last month, at the "Seder in the Streets" event in New York, activist Naomi Klein spoke as if none of that ever took place. Instead, addressing hundreds who gathered for a combination Passover Seder and protest of the war in Gaza, she spoke of what she termed the "False Idol of Zionism", comparing Jewish support of it to the Israelites "worshiping" the golden calf and recalling Moses' rage seeing the spectacle.

Klein's interpretation seems to miss the point: Moses, unlike Klein, did not disengage. He did not give up on his people when they worshipped a false idol. Instead, without compromising his integrity and beliefs, he guided them through the desert for forty more years in their journey to become a nation. Klein, at this dangerous moment in history, is failing to lead her listeners to take responsibility, to engage and work towards a shared future in the region for Jews and Palestinians, one built on the preciousness of life on both sides and an understanding of the original intention of Zionism: the necessity for a safe home for the Jewish people.

"Seder in the Street" was also protesting the heartbreaking and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank. Many in Israel, like my parents, would agree. Yet their plight and that of the other hostages – most of them civilians, from a baby boy of one year to a man of 86 - are not mentioned at Seder in the Streets or other gatherings of far-left pro-Palestinian Jewish activists.

My father, Oded Lifschitz, who is 83, and his friends who are also hostages, all in their late 70s and 80s, have worked for peace for decades. My mother, Yocheved Lifschitz, was thankfully released after 17 days of captivity.

Yocheved Lifschitz after being released from 17 days in Hamas captivity, in Tel Aviv, Israel in late October. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

How much more effective these protests could be if activists abroad could act as a bridge between the pro-Palestinian movement and progressives fighting for peace in Israel?

Hamas, a terrorist organization which has been systematically stripping freedom, women's rights and democracy from the Gaza strip since 2006 are also strangely left out of the discussion. In fact, I see more criticism of the Hamas attack and crimes from moderate Palestinian voices than from prominent Jewish voices of the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States and Europe.

Klein is instead content in disengaging from Israel based on a distorted idea of Zionism and in so doing offers no solidarity with the moderate, progressive Jews living in Israel and for whom rejecting Zionism is irrelevant at this moment. Whether we like our government's policies or hate them as many do, Israel is home. Just as Canada is Klein's home, whether or not she likes the policies of the Canadian government or condones its mistreatment of its Indigenous population.

I consider myself pro-Palestinian. My family has always fought for a shared future for our two peoples, understanding this key point: our fates are interlinked. My parents have advocated for peace and equality for and with the Palestinians since the 1960s. We have united as a family to protest policies of the current Israeli government we find abhorrent. I wish for the Palestinians what I want for my own people: to live without bloodshed, in their own democratic state, as part of a negotiated two-state solution.

The facts are indisputable to Zionists and non-Zionists alike: There are about 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Jewish Israelis cannot be expected to reject the idea that they can and should have the right to live safely in Israel. Without Israel, where would they go?

Everyone who cares about what's best for the region must strengthen those who are working for a peaceful future. As my father always says, "You make peace with your enemies."

A Palestinian family rides on the back of a donkey-drawn carriage next to damaged buildings in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, in April.Credit: AFP

Thanks to international efforts to formulate a plan for the "day after" the war in Gaza, we are potentially closer to a long-term political agreement to lift us out of conflict than ever before. To help facilitate it, American and European progressives must distinguish between religious fanatics on both sides and those working toward a path of justice and peace for everyone in the region.

We must differentiate the liberal American pro-Palestinian activists from those who justify Hamas atrocities as acts of resistance. The dominant current narrative of the American far left, including the Jews among them, unwittingly aligns with Iran, and with antidemocratic and illiberal forces.

Instead of fostering hate and promoting disengagement from Israel, progressives abroad should help those in the region regain a sense that another future is possible and advocate for a negotiated political agreement that would create a state of Palestine established alongside the state of Israel. It won't be perfect, but it will be a good start.

The work of advocating for a different, sustainable future, must start with a call for the immediate release of hostages as part of a long-term agreement, backed by America and its allies, including moderate Arab states, that has the potential to transform the lives of Palestinians and Israelis by rescuing them from this ongoing tragedy. To fail to do so is to fail not just the hostages and their families, but to throw all the people of the region further into the abyss and undo the inspiring work of moderate forces within Israeli and Palestinian society.

In this, our darkest hour, we ask ourselves, who is our enemy? My enemy is the blind hate that seeks to erase the humanity of the other side. All of us who are horrified by what is unfolding in Gaza should work toward empowering the people of the region to move away from our common enemy. That's not Zionism, but rather the religious fanaticism we have within both our societies – Israeli and Palestinian – that threatens to engulf us all.

Sometimes, I want to shout at the news on TV, to remind people that their indulgent engagement in hatred of one side is so futile, so self-congratulatory. We can do better.

As we bleed and grieve, and in the case of families like my own – hang suspended between hope and despair for the fate of our loved ones, we must seek points of human connection between Jews and Palestinians, we must fight, not against one another, but for a practical solution that dismantles the status quo so that we can all survive – and live in freedom and security.

Sharone Lifschitz is a London-based filmmaker and academic originally from Kibbutz Nir Oz, whose parents were taken hostage on October 7. On Twitter: @Lifschitz_sha

[eretzyisrael]

[amaditalks]

Toni Morrison wrote:

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

I’ve been thinking about how this is not just true for the people on the receiving end of the racism, but also for the racist as well. They are in a constant churn of noise, generating new versions of the lies they tell about their victims and efforts to justify their racism. And I think it’s easy to see how this extends beyond racism to other forms of oppression like misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and so on, including antisemitism.

And so now we have a heightened crisis situation in Gaza, and antisemites are so busy trying to tear down Jews, in order to tear down Israel – and not the reverse — that their own antisemitism has served as a distraction from their ability to focus on the ostensible and claimed goal of ending the harm and oppression of Palestinians.

People are dying, and antisemites have people distracted, fighting over whether or not Jews are indigenous to the land that was called Judea, the place we are named for.

Multiple generations of families are being wiped out, and antisemites have people distracted, fighting over (their always malleable redefinitions of) Zionism.

80% of Gaza is functionally destroyed and will need decades to rebuild, and antisemites have people distracted, fighting over whether or not Israel has a right to exist, a question not asked about any other country regardless of brutality and offenses committed.

Gazans are becoming sick and dying from the expected consequences of mass crisis displacement like famine, lack of medicines and infections, and antisemites have people distracted, fighting over the definitions of words.

None of this endless churn of noise serves any purpose to ending the violence, to creating safety for Palestinians, or finding a workable long term answer that brings security and sovereignty to everyone. And that last word is crucial — those who are operating in reality understand that the interests and human rights of everyone must be protected in order for peace to ever be possible. Antisemites don’t, can’t, want that.

So they’re distracted and distracting, because none of this noise is or ever was about Palestinians at all.



[a-very-tired-jew]

I'm going to a con in a few weeks and I'm taking a look at the programming. One of my colleagues is presenting (yay!), but I'm seeing a few panels about the Israel/Hamas War. They're being run by people from the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, which on the surface is an activist group for electronic rights. Except for the fact that many of its writers, higher ups, and personnel are associated with, platform, and/or contribute to Al Jazeera, Al Quds Network, and more (E.g. Jillian C. York).

Myself and said colleague, who is also Jewish, are now hesitant about how safe this con is going to be. Considering this is a panel with "experts" (who are totally not biased at all /s), how much antisemitic conspiracy and rhetoric are we going to hear? There's not much we can do beyond wait for the panel to happen and see what goes down. I'm betting it's going to be full of dogwhistles so that they can insist it's "not antisemitism, only anti-Zionism" as usual.

[girlactionfigure]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Mathias at HuffPost:

A coalition of 185 social justice and religious groups published an open letter Monday expressing support for the campus protest encampments sweeping the country in opposition to Israel’s siege of Gaza, and calling on university administrators to end the brutal crackdowns of the student-led demonstrations. “We commend the students who are exercising their right to protest peacefully despite an overwhelming atmosphere of pressure, intimidation and retaliation, to raise awareness about Israel’s assault on Gaza — with U.S. weapons and funding,” the letter states. “These students have come forth with clear demands that their universities divest from corporations profiting from Israeli occupation, and demanding safe environments for Palestinians across their campuses. ” Groups that signed the letter include Gen-Z for Change, Working Families Party, IfNotNow Movement, Young Democrats of America Black Caucus, Movement for Black Lives, Sunrise Movement, MPower Change, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestine Legal, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Some 900 students have been arrested during anti-war encampments and demonstrations at American universities in the last 10 days, per a tally from Al Jazeera — a tumultuous period that mirrors volatile demonstrations against the Vietnam War in 1968, when police arrested at least 700 students. The open letter Monday represents one of the largest shows of support among progressive groups for the burgeoning student protests, and makes clear the divide between establishment Democratic figures and social justice groups when it comes to U.S. support for Israel. President Joe Biden has refused so far to condition the sale of weapons to Israel. “Our communities have been horrified to see the militarized and violent response to students protesting an ongoing genocide funded and supported by our government, and our coalition of organizations join millions of our members across the country in standing in solidarity with the students’ efforts in support of the people of Gaza,” Yasmine Taeb, one of the main organizers of the letter, told HuffPost. Taeb is a human rights lawyer and political director at MPower Change, a Muslim social justice group.

“Instead of attacking young people mobilizing for Palestinian human rights, President Biden needs to listen to the majority of Americans who have been calling on him to stop funding and supporting the atrocities committed against the people of Gaza,” Taeb said.

[...] Israel has killed over 33,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, when the Gaza-based militant group Hamas launched an attack in which nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed. In January, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s siege of Gaza — which has displaced 85% of the population and put the occupied territory on the cusp of famine — left Palestinians at risk of experiencing a genocide. Last week, health officials in Gaza said medics had discovered mass graves at hospitals raided by Israeli troops. “We join [the students] in calling for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and an end to the U.S. government’s and institutions’ role in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” Monday’s letter states. “As we stand in solidarity with the students protesting in encampments across the country, we reaffirm our commitment to amplifying their voices, condemn the university administration officials’ violent response to their activism, and demand that universities remove the presence of police and other militarized forces from their campuses,” it continues.

[...] Meanwhile, Republican Party officials and right-wing media figures have accused the demonstrations of antisemitism, falsely equating criticism of Israel with bigotry towards Jews. Although there have been scattered reports of actual antisemitic incidents at or near the encampments, many were not perpetrated by students but by interlopers. Many of the student protesters across the country are Jewish. Far-right agitators, including Christian nationalist activists, have also targeted the encampments, with MAGA pastor Sean Feucht leading hundreds of Christian and Jewish Zionists on a march around the Columbia campus on Thursday. The rally ended with pro-Israel demonstrators yelling through the gate at pro-Palestinian Columbia students. “Go back to Gaza!” they screamed.

More than 185 groups, including IfNotNow, Jewish Voice For Peace, MPower Change, and Working Families Party, signed a letter in support of the campus protests against Israel Apartheid State's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

[short-wooloo]

What do you do when an old and close friend just wholeheartedly believes every conspiracy, historical revisionism, misinformation, falsehood, and hyperbole about the Israel-Palestine conflict?

And I mean everything

"The Land was always Palestine"? Check

"There was peace before 1948"? Check

Ignores hamas and iran's part in the conflict? Check

"They're building resorts/strip clubs/etc on gaza?" Check

"No Israelis died on Oct 7"? Check

"Exaggeration of the death count not just since the start of the current conflict but also of all the conflicts since 1948 (the number I was given was 800,000)"? Check

"Denial of the historical claim of the Israelis to the land"? Check

"The Jews are meant to be wanders, that's wat "Jew" means" OK I'll admit this is a new one I hadn't heard before (honestly it sounds like just a remix of "rootless cosmopolitan"), but fuck it's so wrong it hurts and I cannot believe she actually buys this

[jewish-mccoy]

okay leftists you’ve got two seconds, and if you get this wrong you’re getting hurled into a shark pit: before you stands a Hamas “freedom fighter” and an Israeli civilian. which one of those is the terrorist?

oh no, time’s up! you picked Israeli civilian and it’s to the sharks with you. fuck Hamas, and fuck leftists who support Hamas.

[emiliejolie]

Literally EVERY single corner of the Internet I'm on it's just talking about palestine this palestine that, zionism this zionism that and the amount of people who are so uneducated I want to just give them a fucking zbeng on their head because what do you mean you can't decide if you want to donate to fucking UNWRA or The UN??! like bitch neither.

And what is this random 16 year old bitch who's still in highschool gonna teach me about zionism and how I'm a terrible person like hunny go eat you chicken wings.

I can't even enjoy youtube videos without being bombarded with misinformation and fucking hamas apologists like FUCK OFF

[notes-to-society]

Note to Society #35

The primary reason behind the common American backing Ukraine instead of Palestine is the United States government’s relationship with the offending nation.

If the US interacted with Israel the way it interacts with Russia, there would have been immediate calls to end this genocide as well as stronger humanitarian aid given to the people of Gaza.

Remember to be weary of propaganda when you’re consuming media related to this crisis. The people of Palestine have been calling for help for decades - Israel is committing genocide. And we are doing nothing.