#netanyahu resign

[ivovynckier]

Can Bibi explain why this nutcase is a cabinet minister?

[originalleftist]

Netanyahu is a corrupt, incompetent failure.

I'll quote the conclusion here:

"Since around January time, the US has negatively revised its assessment of Israel under Netanyahu. He does not behave as an ally, he has accrued a debilitating credibility deficit over the years on a multitude of issues, and he has intentionally failed to come up with a plan for postwar Gaza - to the point where he is now seriously suspected in Washington of prolonging the war for his own political survival antics. The current showdown over the security council resolution widens the rift to the point that it is impossible to see how the trajectory will change as long as Netanyahu is in power.

At the moment, the US has three points of disagreement with Israel regarding the details of the prosecution of the war: the notion that Israel is impeding humanitarian aid; the number of civilian non-combatant deaths; and a possible military invasion of Rafah, on the southern tip of Gaza. These differences could have been resolved had Netanyahu and Biden had a working, honest and good-faith relationship. They do not. In fact, Netanyahu has a track record of confrontations and frequent spats with US administrations, from George HW Bush through to Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Biden. His -unsuccessful, it must be added -meddling in US politics is also a familiar trait of his since the 1990s.

The current state of relations is close to an inflection point, and could go in one of two directions: either Netanyahu is ousted or leaves or loses an election, or the US will be convinced that the bilateral ecosystem has faltered and warrants a major reassessment of relations. Under Netanyahu, Israel has reached the point at which its very value as an ally is being questioned. It took the US some time, but it finally seems to realise a simple fact: Israel may be an ally, but Netanyahu most certainly is not."

What this article doesn't explicitly state, though the implication is fairly obvious, is that there is at least one US President Netanyahu seems to have had a pretty good relationship with: Donald Trump. And one possible way out of the deterioration of US/Israel relations without him changing course or losing power- the departure of Joe Biden and the reelection of Donald Trump.

But sure, keep telling me how voting out Biden to protest the war in Gaza makes perfect sense, as opposed to what it actually is, which is throwing Bibi his only remaining political life line.

[nando161mando]

BREAKING: Major protest breaks out in Tel Aviv, Israel, calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.

[argaman01]

The pro-Hamas demonstrators in Washington, DC, today. They were supposedly protesting Netanyahu's speech to Congress, but they are actually calling for a Hamas victory over Israel. One man spray painted the slogan "Hamas is coming," with the upside down red triangle above it, on the Columbus monument. Other slogans - "All Zionists are bastards," "long live the resistance," and "Fuck Israel."

I'm no supporter of Netanyahu - he's a corrupt politician whose neglect of Israeli defense against Hamas allowed the attack in the south to happen. He's refusing to sign a hostage release agreement with Hamas. He doesn't care about the lives of Israelis, much less the lives of Palestinians. He should resign.

But - shouting out support of Hamas and calling for the destruction of Israel is not the way to protest Netanyahu!

[gothicprep]

Intractable? Alright lemme go right ahead and tract it for you you piece of shit. Equal rights for Palestinians, right to return for the refugees, and an end to the literal genocide going on. How's that for you

I agree with those goals wholeheartedly – the intractable part is the policy process that can often be obstructive to making this possible, and Israel carries most of that burden. Likud has proved time and time again that peace isn’t important to them, and how they’ll act is unpredictable, even in extremely dire situations. It’s not a question of the ideal result, it’s how we get there, which remains very murky.

[bopinion]

2024 / 39

Aperçu of the week

“Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.”

(Leonard Cohen song line that the recently deceased country musician and actor Kris Kristofferson chose for his gravestone)

Bad News of the Week

Iran has always seen itself as Israel's arch-enemy. And yet it has always shied away from direct confrontation. The Shiite mullahs have rarely taken direct action against the Jewish state and the Sunnis from the Arabian Peninsula, but rather with their vassal-like militias: the Houthi in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the current spiral of violence in the Middle East over the past year or so, there have only been isolated incidents between Israel and Iran. It almost seems as if they are cautiously feeling each other out.

This balance of impending terror could now finally be thrown out of kilter. On the one hand, Benjamin Netanyahu is now targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon after largely destroying Hamas. In an address to his citizens, there was really no room for misunderstanding: “We are not waiting for the threat, we are anticipating it - everywhere, on every front, at all times. We are eliminating officials and terrorists, we are destroying missiles - and we are not finished yet. Anyone who tries to harm us, we harm even more.” And the words were followed by deeds. First, the south of Lebanon was bombed across the board, then hundreds of mini-bombs exploded in pagers and walkie-talkies, and finally Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed.

The short-term development can be foreseen. Iran and Israel will continue to fight each other from afar on a limited scale - missiles will fly, but no air force will be used for bombing. Israel will infiltrate southern Lebanon with ground troops. Militant settlers will continue to attack Palestinians in the West Bank. Isolated Arab terrorists will carry out local attacks in Israel. Politicians around the world will call for de-escalation, which both the mullahs and Netanyahu's government couldn't care less about. Anti-Semitic incidents will increase worldwide.

The long-term development cannot be predicted. Will Israel occupy southern Lebanon - like the Golan Heights, which were annexed in 1967 in violation of international law? Will the USA also take part in Israeli offensive actions against Iran - as it will continue to do defensively in any case? Will the still local conflict spread further, for example to Syria - and will Vladimir Putin then continue to stay out of it? Will there be widespread hostility against Jews worldwide - who actually have nothing to do with Israel's actions? Will Germany unequivocally adhere to the raison d'état of pro-Israeli partisanship - even if Israel commits imperialist acts? How will neighboring middle powers such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey behave?

Only one thing is certain: the Middle East as a whole has not been this close to a fundamental abyss for a long time. After decades of more internal conflicts - such as the civil war in Syria, the implosion of Iraq, the takeover attempts by various IS groups, etcetera - it now seems possible that the powder keg that the region has always been will explode. Because the fuse is burning. I'm really sorry that the Arab world just won't calm down.

Good News of the Week

Austria has voted. And as expected, the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) has won the election and will form the largest parliamentary group in the National Council, Austria's parliament. So will this be the second Western European country after Italy to be governed by the right? And will the extreme right-wing party leader Herbert Kickl, who already calls himself “People's Chancellor”, become head of government? Not necessarily.

A quick look back: the FPÖ has already been in government several times, but always as a junior partner. The last coalition with the conservative ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) collapsed in 2019 when the party leadership's willingness to engage in corruption became public as part of the so-called Ibiza affair. Since then, the FPÖ has become even more radicalized, especially since the party leadership passed to Kickl in 2021, becoming increasingly racist and anti-Semitic, pandering to Russia and wanting to reduce migration to zero: “Fortress Austria”. With this program, it already came first in the European elections in June and was able to build on this success in the national elections last Sunday.

So why don't I look on the black side for our southern neighbor? Because I believe in democracy and its ability to heal itself. The most recent example is Thuringia. In the state elections there, a right-wing party (the AfD, of course) was also the strongest force and yet seems to have ended up on the sidelines. This is because the state organs, especially the constitutional court, are functioning and the other parties are standing together in rare unity. This is why the first attempt to seize power last week - the election of the president of the state parliament - did not work out; the post went to the conservative CDU. So there is hope that it will be possible to form a government without the right.

That's exactly what I wish for the Alpine Republic. And it looks good. Oskar Deutsch, President of the Israelite Religious Society, which had just been shocked by the singing of an SS allegiance song by FPÖ politicians at a funeral, puts the election success into perspective: “More than 71 percent of voters voted for parties that explicitly opposed the FPÖ's participation in government”. He is right about that. Now it is up to the Austrian president, the former Green Alexander Van der Bellen. Because he must give a party the official mandate to form a government. This is normally given to the largest parliamentary group in the National Council.

But Van der Bellen has deliberately left this open. First, the old government will be dismissed and then entrusted with the continuation of business. After that, he wants to hold talks with all party leaders. The aim now is to talk to each other, find compromises and a viable majority. In the run-up to the election, when the FPÖ was clearly ahead in all forecasts, he emphasized that it was important to him “that the cornerstones of our liberal democracy are respected” when forming a government. This was seen by many political experts as the opposite of a free pass for Kickl. A march to power certainly looks different.

Personal happy moment of the week

After all kinds of scheduling back and forth, we did manage to meet up for three quarters of an hour. For 36 years, “Groovy” from the USA and I hadn't seen each other since our time together as teenagers in Canada. But now she and her husband stopped off in Munich on their way from Austria to Switzerland - coincidentally, of all times, for the Oktoberfest. And we were able to have at least a brief meet and greet. Lovely.

I couldn't care less...

...that French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed his new government under conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier. Nothing against Barnier himself, who I think is a good politician. But with this appointment, Macron is ignoring the will of the electorate, which is tending to the left, by making his government, without a majority of his own in parliament, entirely dependent on the toleration of Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National. I really hope that I simply haven't understood the ingenious master plan behind this...

It's fine with me...

...that FIFA's transfer regulations are apparently in breach of European law. The way they have been handled up to now has always reminded me a little of noble slavery.

As I write this...

...the extent of the damage caused by hurricane “Helene” in the USA becomes visible - in terms of human lives and material. Politicians from every party and at every level show compassion and pledge solidarity. At the same time, no one is naming the cause, let alone doing anything about it.

Post Scriptum

Following the devastating defeat in the Brandenburg state elections, the Green leadership duo Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour announce their resignation after the party conference in November. The Greens had formed the (red-black-green) Kenya coalition together with the Social Democrats and Conservatives and now, with 4.1% of the vote, did not even make it into the state parliament. Yes, this was also due to the federal trend, which has seen the two smaller coalition partners, the Greens and the Liberals, fall by the wayside. And for which the Liberal FDP bears the main blame with its eternal nagging about its own government work. The result: 0.8% in Brandenburg, which is less than half of the Animal Welfare Party. And less than “Plus Brandenburg”, which I have never heard of. Is there a leadership crisis in the Liberals because of this? No. All the dignitaries are firmly in the saddle, no one wants to take responsibility or draw consequences.

With the Greens, on the other hand, no stone has been left unturned. Following the announced resignation of the entire party leadership - in addition to the co-chairs, their two deputies as well as the managing director and federal treasurer - further resignations followed. Or even party exits, especially from the youth organization “Grüne Jugend”. This reveals a difference in perception that could not be more extreme: While the Greens in the federal government are fighting against the image of the “ideologically blinded prohibition party”, the young see their ideals betrayed in their ingratiation with the mainstream. A generally advantageous way out is therefore anything but obvious. Particularly against the backdrop of the current shift to the right and the Left Party's struggle for survival, the Greens are not only of fundamental importance as a declared party for sustainability, but also as a proverbial alternative.

[thethief1996]

700 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours and the airstrikes are more violent each night. Gaza's hospitals have fuel left for two more days. Israel only allowed aid into Gaza on the condition they didn't carry fuel. The Indonesian hospital has shut down already, because doctors have no supplies and no choice but to let the wounded die. They're calling it a collapse but the term doesn't do it justice.

Over a 100 incubator babies are at risk. There are 50.000 pregnant women in Gaza right now, and 5.500 due to give birth this month. Menstruating people are taking pills in order to stop their periods, because they do not have pads or water to maintain hygiene. Surgeons are operating without anesthesia. Water is not reaching Gazans because there's no electricity or fuel for water pumps.

There's no excuse for this. Israel justifies the airstrikes by saying they want to destroy Hamas infrastructure and release the hostages, but they have refused to negotiate for their release. Hamas informed Israel they wanted to release two elderly women without anything in return, and Israel refused. Netanyahu said they wouldn't take their own civilians back because it was "mendacious propaganda." When the hostages were finally released, Netanyahu prohibited the hospital from giving press releases. Yocheved Lifshitz went behind their backs and talked to the press anyway, saying she was treated very well by Hamas, but the government abandoned them. They're being used as straw men. Israel is conditioning the entry of fuel to the release of hostages and yet, according to The Wall Street Journal, when Hamas proposed to exchange 50 hostages for fuel they denied. IDF officials have said they fear the release of more hostages because that might withhold the order to their ground invasion. They do not care as long as they can use the hostages as a pretext for their slaughtering.

There's a turning tide for Palestine in public support. Support for Israel was built through decades of propaganda and we are making a dent into it. Zionists are desperate, holding zoom meetings to promote zionism, but we have to do so much more. We have to shame people in power into supporting the Palestinian cause.

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices, looking to inform yourself from the sources. Palestinians have asked of us only that we share, tweet and post, over and over. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera

Anadolu Agency

Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Al-Shabaka (twitter / instagram)

Mariam Barghouti (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza

Take action. You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting (don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. Only boycott additional brands if you can):

Carrefour

HP

Puma

Sabra

Sodastream

Ahava cosmetics

Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate. Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London. Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN GERMANY: Here's a toolkit to contact your representatives by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN POLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN DENMARK: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SWEDEN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Here are upcoming events:

CANBERRA/NGUNNAWAL, AUSTRALIA – Wed Oct 25, 11 am, National Press Club. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyh1xy1BMrU/

OXFORD, ENGLAND – Wed Oct 25, 12:15 pm, Cornmarket. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CykroKeInz3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

SMITH COLLEGE (US) – Wed Oct 25, 12 pm, Chapin Lawn. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CymT8f5vnHN/?img_index=1

ST CATHERINES, ON ( CANADA) – Wed Oct 25, 6 pm, 61 Geneva St Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/889319005528757/

TORONTO, CANADA – Wed Oct 25, 5 pm, Sidney Smith Hall. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyjVbpGvva8/

SANT CUGAT, CATALONIA, SPAIN – Thurs Oct 26, 6 pm, Davant l’Ajuntament. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CynL834tgg9/?img_index=4

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct 27, 7 pm, Federation Square. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyhyd0vhP8t/

LIVORNO, ITALY – Sat Oct 28, 2:30 pm, Piazza Cavour. Info https://www.instagram.com/p/CyiWJ06MXpM/

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (US) – Sat Oct 28, 1 pm, Lake Street and Minnehaha.

ROME, ITALY – Sat Oct 28, Rome. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyi7ey-MMs1/?img_index=1

ROME, ITALY – Sat Nov 4, Rome. Info TBA: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyndKUitnMU/

WASHINGTON, DC (USA) – Sat Nov 4, 12 pm, White House. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyiecRtr9-B/

Wollongong: Rally at Crown Street Mall Amphitheatre on 21 Oct at 1 PM

Melbourne: Blak and Palestinian Solidarity Rally at Victorian Parliament House Steps on 25 Oct at 6 PM

HOUSTON: Thursday, October 26th, 5:45PM, Rice University, Central Quad

VANCOUVER: OCT 28 at 2PM, Vancouver Art Gallery

KITCHENER: Wednesday October 25th at 5 PM at CBC Kitchener

SANTA ANA: 20 Civic Center Plaza, Santa Ana, CA 92701, October 25th at 5:30 pm

TORONTO: WED. OCT 25 at 7PM at Queen's Park

[CAR RALLY] WASHINGTON D.C: Wednesday 10/25 outside the US State Department on the 23rd Street side

Feel free to add more.

[originalleftist]

Massive protests in Tel Aviv demanding a deal to get hostages back (this would presumably entail a ceasefire), and Netanyahu's resignation.

I've seen different numbers- some say 45,000 protesters, while the organizers apparently claim 100,000. But even the low end is a lot, considering Israel's small population, and the context in which this is occurring.

Some Googling puts that at just shy of .5% of Israel's population- which might not seem like a lot, but most people never actually engage in protests. As a percent of population, it's equivalent to somewhere upwards of 1.5 million people at a single protest in the US.

Now, consider that this is happening while a major war is actively on-going, just under 6 months since October 7th. Can anyone imagine 1.5 million Americans demanding Bush's resignation 6 months after 911? It would have been utterly unthinkable.

Do not ever let anyone tell you Netanyahu speaks for, or represents, all Israelis.

[beautifulpaxiel]

L'CHAIM!!

[cheesebongdynasty]

Israelis are getting fed up with Crime Minister Nosferatu.

[zvaigzdelasas]

In late January, our organization [DAWN - Democracy for the Arab World Now] which works to reform US foreign policy in the Middle East, filed a 172-page legal brief to the International Criminal Court urging it to investigate former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, starvation, and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The court has already charged the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for committing these same crimes. Seeking the prosecution of US officials in the only global criminal court was not a decision we took lightly, particularly as the court faces threats from the United States itself. But the evidence against Biden, Blinken, and Austin is so overwhelming and the devastation to Palestinians so horrific that we felt it was our duty as a US-based organization to demand accountability for their crimes.

5 Mar 25

Article 25 of the Rome Statute, which governs the ICC, defines accessorial support for a crime as a crime itself. To be held liable for aiding and abetting an international crime under the Rome Statute, there must be evidence that a person has not only substantially contributed to crimes but knew such contribution would facilitate the commission of crimes.

It was not difficult to document such evidence.

Biden, Blinken, and Austin provided Israel with military, diplomatic, and public support knowing that such support would facilitate Israeli attacks on civilians, mass murder, and the deliberate deprivation of items needed for the survival of Gaza’s people. Israeli officials spoke openly about starving Palestinians as a punishment for October 7, and Israel deliberately blocked food and water from entering the territory, which now imports nearly all of its food, creating famine-like conditions.

The military support that these officials authorized was essential to Israel’s ability to carry out its atrocities. Beyond the nearly $20 billion in weapons, Israel relied on the United States to provide intelligence and targeting assistance; attack armed groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen; and deploy backup forces, such as US warships and planes. Without this help, Israel could not have so fully obliterated the civilian infrastructure in Gaza. In October 2023, Gallant admitted that Israel depended on US assistance for its military operations, stressing that the Israeli government “relies on them for planes and military equipment.” Other Israeli officials explained that “while Israel has its own intelligence, the United States and Britain have been able to provide intelligence from the air and cyberspace that Israel cannot collect on its own.” And when the Biden administration briefly suspended arms shipments to Israel, the Israel Defense Forces was forced to ration its use of certain munitions.

Supplying this aid to Israel was illegal under US law. Biden, Blinken, and Austin rejected the advice of their own staff to halt these weapons transfers because they violated US laws, such as sections 620I and 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Law, which prohibit sending weapons to abusive forces.

Several senior State and Defense Department officials publicly resigned in protest of the Biden administration’s Israel policies. Even the Biden administration’s own report to Congress admitted that Israel had failed to comply with international laws prohibiting attacks on civilians, used US weapons to target civilians and civilian objects, and blocked humanitarian aid—including food, water, and medicine—to Gaza. Biden himself warned Israel that it was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.

These officials knew that Israel would use US weapons to continue its crimes, but instead of following the law and cutting off the flow of arms, they replenished and even accelerated the supply of bombs, artillery shells, mortar rounds, and missiles.

Just as important was the political support that President Biden authorized. The United States vetoed seven Security Council resolutions, including those calling for the provision of humanitarian aid, and abstained in votes for all four successful resolutions that attempted to halt or limit Israeli attacks against civilians. This was coupled with Biden’s, Blinken’s, and Austin’s public justifications of Israeli atrocities—when they sometimes amplified falsehoods, about, for instance, beheaded babies or mass rape, designed to incite rage against Palestinians and neutralize public opposition to US support for Israel. Without the resolute backing of these three US officials, the international community may have been able to order Israel to abide by a ceasefire and halt the bloodletting under threat of sanctions.

Urging the ICC to investigate US officials is a politically fraught undertaking, and with the new Trump administration, it carries additional legal risks. On February 6, President Donald Trump renewed an executive order for sanctions against the ICC—an attempt to obstruct its investigation of Israeli officials. On February 13, the Treasury Department sanctioned ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan under this order, prohibiting the provision of “services” to him by US persons, which could be deemed to include the submission of evidence. Although a federal court enjoined Trump’s previous sanctions on the ICC as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech, it’s unclear whether a new court would reaffirm that finding. DAWN’s January 24 submission predated Trump’s new sanctions regime, but providing any new evidence to the court will be risky, and ICC lawyers and partner organizations have expressed fear of being hit by sanctions and other penalties themselves.

Seeking the ICC’s prosecution of US officials could also trigger a congressional backlash against the court. Though Senate Democrats succeeded in narrowly defeating a bill for much broader sanctions against the court in January, the specter of investigations against US officials may well spur a renewed effort to pass the bill.

The pressure on the court is tremendous, and its survival is at stake—and not only as a direct result of its chief prosecutor being sanctioned. If the ICC fails to prosecute those responsible for the crimes in Gaza because of political pressure, it will lose what credibility it retains and reaffirm the view that it exists merely to prosecute culprits deemed acceptable to the United States—to date, nearly all Black Africans—thereby instigating a stampede of withdrawals from Global South member states. If it continues to prosecute not just indicted Israeli officials but US ones for the genocide in Gaza, the United States will undoubtedly demand that its allies—like the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and France, which provide the bulk of the court’s funding—abandon their membership in the court as well, just as it is now demanding that they refuse to enforce the court’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant should they visit their countries.

[evilwickedme]

It's so clear to me that so many so called "anti Zionists" - especially the non Palestinian goyim - have no idea how the Israeli election system works, and how bibi remains in power, and why we had five elections in like, three years, despite elections supposedly being every four years - because he couldn't keep a government stable enough to stay in power. Bibi netanyahu is MASSIVELY unpopular, and his approval rate has tanked even more since the war started, even among likud voters, the people who vote for HIS party (although their approval rates ranked less than the rest of the population). He has an extreme right wing government because if he didn't cooperate with right wing extremists and haredim he straight up wouldn't have the majority he needs to be our prime minister in the first place. He's been on trial for corruption for years at this point, and tried to completely restructure the judicial system just to avoid prison - leading to nearly a full year of protests until Oct 7. Luckily it didn't end up passing.

If elections were held at any point in the last five months since this war started, not only would he not be PM, we'd straight up have a center-left government. My recent transformation into a Yair Golan stan account is a joke but also 100% real - according to polls from the last three months or so, if he does what he's campaigning to do, leading a combined avoda and meretz party, he'd get enough votes to have an actual influential left wing party in the government for the first time in decades. An unbelievable amount of Israelis are calling for bibi to resign, many of them not calling for it to happen after the war ends, but right now.

I am sourcing this information from polls conducted by channels 11 (kan), 12, and 13, as well as by the Israeli democracy foundation, all but one of our important news channels - channel 14, the last channel, is our equivalent of fox news, and despite their numbers often being extremely different due to what is in my opinion biased reporting and flawed methodology, even they at times have had to admit that gantz is currently leading in the polls.

(Disclaimer that I work for a company that provides subtitles for channel 13, but i do not directly work for channel 13. Channel 13 leans mostly center left, and employs several (self identified) Arab Israelis in front of the camera, including Lucy Aharish, who makes considerable effort to bring Palestinian and Bedouin perspectives to her show. It also employs at least one massive racist though.)

I write this post because I keep seeing an unsourced claim by goyim that there's a poll showing a high rate of approval - 88%! - of the destruction and/or deaths Israel and the IDF are causing in Gaza. I went down a rabbit hole and simply couldn't find a poll asking about approval of deaths or destruction, although maybe I was looking up the wrong keywords? As a result I have just... So many questions. Because with the information I have from trustworthy local news sources, from the news channels I mentioned above and papers such as yediot aharonot/ynet and Haaretz, it doesn't fit with current public opinion, including many recent protests for more efforts towards a ceasefire. So my questions are thus -

Who conducted this poll? Was it a think tank, a government agency, a paper, a news channel? If so, which one? Are they left leaning, right leaning? Was it conducted by an Israeli or foreign institution?

Who did they ask? Was it a sample of likud voters; all Israeli adults; did they include only Jewish Israelis or also Arab citizens (approx. 1.5 million out of our 8 million population), Bedouins, and other minorities?

When was the poll conducted? Was it in October, immediately after the Oct 7 massacre, before the death toll in Gaza grew? Was it conducted more recently?

What, exactly, did they ask? Did they ask about destruction in general, or about the death toll in particular? Did they ask about the attempts to rescue hostages with military means, or all military actions? Did they ask about the number of Hamas operatives dead, about their estimated ratio of Hamas to civilians, about the total deaths?

What was the size of the pool surveyed? Was it conducted on a few dozen, a few hundred, or a few thousand people?

Because without this information, that one, sole statistic is essentially useless. As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Always look at the source and ask: who asked the questions, who got asked, and what the questions were.

More specific statistics and sources under the cut.

I did find one survey by the Israel democracy foundation that asked if the IDF should take the Gazan suffering into account - an entirely different question, although it did still have a horrific 89% Jewish Israelis and 14% Arab Israelis and Palestinian citizens who said they shouldn't. That said, the pool they were drawing from was not very large - 500 of the interviews were conducted in Hebrew, 100 were conducted in Arabic. Also, of the people who supposedly said that they shouldn't, a little more than half of both populations said they should "somewhat" take it into account - that is, they didn't say they shouldn't take it into account at all, just not make it their first priority. This survey was conducted mid December.

In another survey by the same source with a slight larger sample size (a little over 600 Jewish Israelis and a little over 150 Arab Israelis), an insanely low 15% still wanted Bibi to be the PM, with the only candidate who received more than 6.5% being the center candidate Benny Gantz, who historically has tried to cooperate with center and left parties, with a whopping 23% of the votes. The survey included 10 candidates, as well as five other non candidate options. 4% voted "just not Bibi", and an actually insane 30.5% voted they were undecided. Only a quarter of those surveyed believed Bibi would manage to maintain a coalition after the war, a number that includes more extreme right wing voters, and only the ultra Orthodox haredi population had a majority of people (60%) who believed he can. This survey was conducted in January.

The channel 13 news survey from early March - barely over a week ago! - covered more specifically which parties would manage to get into the government and how many seats they would get, as under a certain amount of votes you simply do not get seats. Not all seats get into a coalition. According to their poll, the amount of seats the likud would get is halved, from 32 to 17, while gantz's the state camp would grow from 12 to 39. While currently meretz gets 4 seats and haavodah do not get enough votes to get a seat at the table so to speak, a combined haavodah and meretz under Yair Golan gets 9 mandates. In total, the right wing only get 47 mandates, well short of the amount of mandates necessary to create a government.

Channel 12's corresponding poll from January shows 35 mandates for gantz, and bibi had 18 mandates. Channel 11, in the same month, gave gantz 33 mandates and bibi 20.

I also sources an English Jerusalem post article which reports on channel 14's polls; jpost is a right wing biased paper, and yet even they report 36 mandates for gantz and 18 for bibi as of February.

Sources

The Israel democracy institute: 1 (English), 2 (Hebrew), 3 (Hebrew)

Haaretz: 1 (English) (paywalled)

Channel 13: 1 (Hebrew)

Ma'ariv: 1 (Hebrew) (reporting on channel 12)

Podcast which summarizes the above article: 1 (English) (includes transcript)

Kan 11: 1 (Hebrew)

Jpost: 1 (Hebrew)

[probablyasocialecologist]

Reporting from multiple outlets suggests that Trump and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, played a decisive role in forcing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hand. In a January 7 press conference from Mar-a-Lago, Trump warned that “all hell will break out” if a hostage deal wasn’t reached before his inauguration. “It wasn’t a warning to Hamas. It was a warning to Netanyahu,” Steve Bannon told Politico, which also quoted former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert as saying Netanyahu agreed to the deal “because he’s afraid of Trump.” “The prime minister was dragged into this deal against his will and was unable to resist. He understood the consequences of disappointing Trump even before he reached the White House,” a Netanyahu associate told Al-Monitor, which also cited a former top Israeli official who said, “Netanyahu knows that with Trump he will not be able to wipe the floor as he did with Democratic presidents—like Clinton, Obama and Biden.” Witkoff reportedly told the Israeli prime minister to his face: “Don’t fuck this up.” And Netanyahu has already paid a political price: this past weekend, Israel’s settler-extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir resigned from Netanyahu’s shaky far-right governing coalition over the ceasefire deal, after standing with Netanyahu for fifteen months of genocidal warfare backed by the Biden administration.

[...]

In the same week that the ceasefire deal was tentatively announced, two other stories broke that spotlighted the extent of Biden’s moral and political failure in Palestine. One was The Lancet’s publication, subsequently covered in the New York Times, of a peer-reviewed study of traumatic injury deaths in the Gaza Strip from October 7, 2023 through June 30, 2024. The study estimated that the Palestinian Ministry of Health underreported such deaths by 41 percent during that period, and that over 64,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, had died from traumatic injury, a figure that does not include the untold thousands more who died of starvation or disease resulting from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza’s infrastructure (a previous analysis published by The Lancet estimated total Palestinian deaths to that point at over 186,000). Another six months of nonstop devastation in Gaza have passed since the data for The Lancet study was collected. The exact casualty numbers may never be known and in a sense are irrelevant, as no one seriously doubts that Israel has inflicted indiscriminate collective punishment against a captive civilian population, in what has been declared a genocide by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and multiple world-renowned genocide experts (including some initial skeptics), and ruled at least “plausibly” genocidal by the International Court of Justice. The other story that broke last week was an Institute for Middle East Understanding poll that made the most plausible case to date that Biden’s handling of Gaza might have cost Harris the election. Unlike most polls, which focus on what voters overall in 2024 prioritized in the presidential race—typically, economic issues like inflation—the IMEU poll focuses on the millions of Biden 2020 voters who opted for a candidate other than Harris in 2024, whether that meant Trump or a third-party candidate. Among this subset of the electorate, a 29 percent plurality named “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” as the most important issue in deciding their vote, with even higher percentages in the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. While no single factor can account for Harris’s shutout in all seven battleground states or Trump’s popular vote win, the IMEU poll provides strong evidence for what seemed anecdotally obvious throughout last year: the Biden-Harris team’s unapologetic support for Israel’s genocide alienated meaningful numbers of potential supporters.

21 January 2025

[troythecatfish]

Writers resign from the Jewish Chronicle following revelations that it laundered fake news based on forged documents from Netanyahu's political office.

On Sunday, Jonathan Freedland and Hadley Freeman took to social media to announce their resignations.

Shortly after, fellow columnists David Baddiel and David Aaronovitch also stepped down.

The resignations come in response to revelation that Netanyahu's office published fake documents about Hamas to justify war on Gaza through the Jewish Chronicle.

Source: Mintpress

[27moremoons]

Palestinian political leaders comment on the incoming ceasefire implementation:

🟢 Hamas Political Bureau member Bassem Naim:

The issues surrounding the ceasefire agreement were resolved in the last few hours.

Netanyahu no longer has an opportunity to evade the agreement, and Ben-Gvir's [potential] resignation marks the beginning of "israeli" political collapse.

Netanyahu attempted to play his repeated tricks but failed to achieve the objectives he declared at the start of the aggression.

The agreement includes implementing what the resistance previously announced as conditions for accepting the ceasefire agreement.

We broke the occupation's will, and our grand project remains resistance toward liberation.

We are moving forward to implement the ceasefire agreement on Sunday [January 19th] despite the enemy's approach of stalling and evasion.

🟢 Hamas leader Sami Abu Zuhri:

Netanyahu's claims about the [Hamas] movement reneging on items in the ceasefire agreement are baseless.

The occupation seeks to create tension at a critical time, and we demand that it be obligated to implement the agreement.

We call on the current and upcoming U.S. administrations to compel the occupation to adhere to the agreement.

There is no room for debate or Netanyahu's evasion of implementing the ceasefire agreement.

⚫️ Palestinian Islamic Jihad Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed Al-Hindi to Al-Arabi:

Netanyahu no longer has any chance to place obstacles in the way of the ceasefire agreement.

The agreement includes the release of 250 prisoners serving life sentences.

The withdrawal from the Salah al-Din axis will occur gradually and conclude by the end of the first phase of the agreement.

"Israel" and the United States have failed to impose a "day-after" scenario for the war.

We agreed to an Egyptian proposal with Arab backing to form a relief and support committee for Gaza.

Everything is finalized. The deal is done. Netanyahu has no room to maneuver or obstruct.

⚫️ Palestinian Islamic Jihad Political Bureau member, Sheikh Ali Abu Shaheen, to Palestine Today:

The delay in the "israeli" announcement is due to internal reasons, and today’s situation differs from the past—there is no room for maneuver.

Continued aggression against Gaza will trigger reactions in the region, and the occupation is obligated to adhere to the agreement.

The U.S. has acknowledged the failure of the military option in the Gaza Strip.

The resistance is the guarantee for the Palestinian people and will remain ready on the battlefield.

"Israel" achieved nothing in Gaza or Lebanon but destruction and massacres.

🔴 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine International Relations Officer, Dr. Maher Al-Taher, to Palestine Today:

The steadfastness of our people and their resistance forced the occupation to sign a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

The struggle with the occupation continues. The enemy will not be able to maintain its presence in Gaza as it will pay a heavy price.

[allthegeopolitics]

Israelis staged protests Saturday across the country, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, Anadolu Agency reports. They accused it of obstructing a ceasefire and prisoner swap agreement with the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands criticized Netanyahu, reiterating their demand for the resignation of his government for “the most right-wing government in Israel’s history” and early elections. Protests were held in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, West Jerusalem and other parts of the country.

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