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An executive order is something, back to empty words now
Biden says he understands "pain and passion" felt for suffering in Israel and Gaza
US President Joe Biden acknowledged the fallen US service members in Jordan and the suffering of the citizens of Gaza and Israel in remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Capitol Hill Thursday morning, saying he understands the “pain and passion felt by so many here in America and around the world” in response to the “trauma, the destruction in Israel and Gaza.”
“We value and pray for the lives taken and for the families left behind,” Biden said. “For all those who are living in dire circumstances, innocent men, women and children, held hostage or under bombardment, or displaced not knowing where the next meal will come from, or if it will come at all.”
“Not only do we pray for peace,” he continued, “we're actively working for peace, security, dignity for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.” Biden said he was engaged in bringing hostages held by Hamas home “day and night,” and was also working to “ease the humanitarian crisis and to bring peace to Gaza and Israel and enduring peace with two states for two peoples.” On the fallen service members, Biden said he had spoken with the families and would attend the dignified transfer of their bodies on Friday.
People need more than prayers to stay alive... In fact, it's those prayers and your actions that got us here.
UNRWA says funding suspensions will "most likely" halt its work across Middle East by end of February
After nearly 20 governments suspended $440 million in funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the colossal humanitarian needs of people in Gaza will likely get worse, the main relief agency in Gaza said. “If the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February not only in Gaza but also across the region.” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Thursday.
Daily call for help
UN chief: Everyone in Gaza is hungry
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has again renewed his call for unrestricted humanitarian access throughout Gaza in an X post. He made a similar appeal yesterday during a speech at the UN, before the organisation’s head of humanitarian relief, Martin Griffiths, said that the entry of aid into Gazza was still being blocked.
Everyone in Gaza is hungry.
1.7 million people have been displaced.
The humanitarian system in collapsing.
I call for rapid, safe, unhindered, expanded & sustained humanitarian access throughout Gaza.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) February 1, 2024
Far right takes any hostage deal hostage
Netanyahu takes heat over captive deal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a huge amount of pressure from the far-right members of his cabinet. Among them is far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who continues to publicly state that if a bad deal with Hamas is reached, he will walk away, causing the collapse of the government.
We’re also hearing similar rhetoric from the far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. This is key for Netanyahu because he is trying to reach a deal that would see some kind of a cessation of hostilities and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of captives in Gaza.
Far-right ministers do not want to see the end to the hostilities in Gaza and the release of thousands of “terrorists”, as they call them. Some call Netanyahu’s position “untenable” because if he continues down this road, he will be faced with the real possibility of his members of government leaving, and that would mean new elections at a time when he is very low in the polls.
I say let the government fall, but Netanyahu knows he's done when that happens. And the polls don't look like it would help much anyway.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/almost-4-in-10-israelis-back-a-revival-of-jewish-settlements-in-gaza-poll-finds/
As war with Hamas rages on, survey shows Gantz increasing his lead over Netanyahu as preferred prime minister, and the Netanyahu-led bloc losing power were elections held today. Thirty-eight percent of Israelis are in favor of reestablishing settlements in the Gaza Strip, according to a Tuesday television poll.
Channel 12 news asked respondents whether they were in favor of resettling Gaza two days after thousands of settlement activists gathered in Jerusalem to advance plans for such a move, at a conference attended by 11 coalition ministers and 15 coalition MKs.
Regarding the hostages, Channel 12 asked whether Israelis support halting humanitarian aid to Gaza until Hamas returns all the hostages it is holding. An overwhelming 72% said yes, while 21% said the aid should continue. Earlier this week, the IDF declared the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza a closed military zone after some relatives of hostages and other activists repeatedly demonstrated there and blocked aid from getting through.
Gantz's national unity party would become the dominant party if elections were held today.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-779966
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/gantz-war-against-hamas-could-last-an-entire-generation-hostages-must-remain-top-priority/
War cabinet minister Benny Gantz tells residents of the evacuated southern communities that the war against Hamas could last “a year, a decade, or even an entire generation,” and acknowledges the urgent need to ensure the release of the hostages still held in Gaza, Channel 12 reports.
“There is time to destroy Hamas; there is no time left for the hostages; right now, they are the priority,” he tells representatives of various Gaza border communities during a meeting about the ongoing war.
“Complete removal of the threat will take time; we are hoping for relative security by the summer,” he says, and adds that the troops in Gaza will soon reach the city of Rafah, which borders Egypt.
Really, the only thing that would make a significant difference at this point is the USA finally putting conditions on its military aid it keeps providing to Israel. There is no ceasefire coming from within Israel without real outside pressure. Plus USA putting sanctions on Israel might wake up the people there to see what's really happening. All they see in Israel right now is Netanyahu claiming baseless accusations from the ICJ and the UN etc, cause see the USA stands firmly behind us.
Israeli defence minister says UNRWA is ‘Hamas with facelift’
Yoav Gallant has told a visiting delegation of ambassadors to the United Nations that the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, is “Hamas with a facelift” and has “lost its legitimacy to exist in its current form”. “Funds from countries all over the world have been funnelled through UNRWA and used to strengthen terror infrastructure, and to pay terrorists,” the defence minister was quoted by The Times of Israel as saying.
A statement from the Ministry of Defence did not say where the meeting with the delegation led by Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, took place or who the members of the international delegation were.
More than 150 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombing the territory, the largest number of UN personnel killed in an operation since World War II. Palestinian officials say steps taken by some Western countries to suspend funding to the agency constitute “collective punishment” against millions of Palestinians.
Smotrich denounces reports that Biden administration considering sanctions
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has hit out at the Biden administration following reports that the US is considering sanctions against him and fellow ultra-nationalist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for promoting violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.
“The “settler violence” campaign is an anti-Semitic lie spread by Israel’s enemies with the aim of discrediting the pioneer settlers and the settlement enterprise and harming them, thereby discrediting the entire State of Israel,” Smotrich said in a social media post on Thursday. “This is an anti-moral BDS campaign that turns the victim into the aggressor and permits the blood of the settlers. It’s a shame that the Biden government cooperates with this in the days when the settlers are paying a dear blood price in the best of their sons in the war in Gaza.”
Smotrich added that peace will only be achieved once Palestinian aspirations to establish a state “are dashed”.
Time to quote Goebbels again
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Describes exactly what is happening in Israel
The OSS psychological profile of Hitler described his use of the big lie:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
The parallels with late 1930's Nazi Germany are insane
