By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

SvennoJ on 06 May 2024

Pulitzer board awards ‘special citation’ to journalists covering Gaza

The 2024 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation has been awarded to “journalists and media workers covering the war in Gaza”.

The board of the prestigious awards did not name specifically “Palestinian” journalists – a record number of whom have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza since the start of the war.



Conservative US judges boycott Columbia graduates over campus protests

A group of 13 conservative US federal judges promise they will not hire law students or undergraduates from Columbia University due to pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

In a letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik and Law Dean Gillian Lester, the judges, all appointed by former US President Donald Trump and most based in Texas, called for “serious consequences” for students and faculty who participated in demonstrations.

“Both professors and administrators are on the front lines of the campus disruptions, encouraging the virulent spread of anti-Semitism and bigotry,” the letter reads.

The university earlier on Monday cancelled its main graduation ceremony due to the ongoing protests.



Around the Network
SvennoJ on 06 May 2024

About the recent anti-semitism bill

THIS Will BACKFIRE On Jews Spectacularly!



Blunt video but right about the consequences of the new anti-Semitism bill.

As the perverted form of Zionism, Neo-Zionism has already been dragging down the core of Zionism (simply a homeland for Jews) this bill essentially pushes it further to mean that everything Israel's government does is Judaism. The policies of Israel, specifically Netanyahu and his right wing government, do not represent Judaism nor Jews in general. This bill lobs it all together, criticism of Israel's government is attacking Judaism.

There's already a lot more hatred of Zionism erupting, yet those anti-Zionists are not out to kill all Jews or dismantle Israel.

This bill undermines anti-semitism as a serious problem, while also generating more criticism of Zionism and Judaism.


Hopes for ceasefire 'literally blown up': Relentless bombardments in Rafah, like 'lying in a coffin'


UNICEF warned that around 600,000 children packed into Rafah face "further catastrophe". Soon after the war started, Israel told Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south to "safe zones" -- including Rafah. But Rafah has been repeatedly bombed and Palestinians say nowhere in Gaza is safe. As Hamas accepts a Gaza ceasefire proposal, and Israel urges Rafah evacuation ahead of an all-out military assault, FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee is joined by UNICEF Global Spokesperson James Elder.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 06 May 2024

SvennoJ on 06 May 2024

Palestinians killed as Israel continues to bomb Rafah

Gaza’s Civil Defence announced on its Telegram channel that its crews are “still recovering a number of [dead] and injured people” from under the rubble of a house hit by Israeli warplanes a short while ago.

It added that it was able to control a fire that broke out after the strike.


Qatar sending delegation to Cairo on Tuesday to resume negotiations

The Qatari Foreign Ministry has confirmed in a statement that it is sending a delegation to Cairo on Tuesday morning to resume indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari says Doha hopes “that the talks will culminate in reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the exchange of prisoners and detainees, and the sustainable flow of humanitarian aid into all areas of the Strip”.





Gaza ceasefire could end Netanyahu’s leadership; war continuation could end Biden’s

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst breaks down the forces at work behind the scenes in this latest round of ceasefire talks, and explains the motivations of Israeli and US leaders, as a push to reach a ceasefire in Gaza is under way.





SvennoJ on 06 May 2024

Israeli protesters say demonstrations ‘just the start’ in absence of ceasefire deal to free captives

Several protests continued through the night in Tel Aviv, with demonstrators calling on Israeli authorities to agree to a deal with Hamas to get captives out of Gaza.

The Monday night protests would be “just the start” if there is no ceasefire deal, said Einvar Zangauker, the mother of captive Matan Zangauker, who had led protests earlier in the day as well.

“The time has come to take the deal,” Zangauker could be heard shouting into a loudspeaker as she stood on the roof of a car in demonstrations at the Ayalon freeway, which Israeli media reported were later dispersed.


Protesters block the Ayalon highway where they call for the Israeli government to strike a deal that ensures the immediate release of Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza, during a protest in Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 6



Israeli protesters block road to stop Gaza humanitarian aid trucks

About a dozen far-right Israeli protesters have blocked the Latrun Interchange of Highway 1 in the occupied West Bank to stop trucks carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israeli media reports.

The Kan broadcaster published footage showing police intervening as protesters from the Tzav 9 activist group chant and wave Israeli flags in front of the trucks on Monday night.

The Ynetnews outlet also reported that the protesters grabbed food and other aid from the trucks and threw it to the ground.

The vehicles had been driving via occupied Jerusalem as they carried aid from Jordan to Gaza. A Tzav 9 statement said it will continue to block the trucks until Hamas releases all Israeli captives held in Gaza.



Who tells them where/when to intercept the trucks?



US says ‘reviewing’ the Gaza ceasefire proposal

Essentially what it means is making certain that what Hamas is agreeing to is what has been under discussion in recent days and weeks and also making certain that the Israelis are going to go along with the Hamas agreement.

This is largely speculation by analysts here in Washington, but it is the situation that the US is very concerned that any public discussion of the negotiations – the back and forth – could imperil or possibly torch these negotiations.

The US in recent days has been suggesting that it feels real progress was being made towards achieving, at least a temporary, six-week-long ceasefire and it doesn’t want to do anything that could possibly imperil the achievement of at least the temporary ceasefire – if not the entire package which Hamas has been describing all day on Monday.

It's basically about the meaning of "sustained quiet". Hamas interprets it as a road to an end of the war, Netanyahu still wants to clear out Rafah.



MIT student calls on university to end ‘drone swarm’ research with Israeli military

MIT science student and pro-Palestinian protester Darsh told Al Jazeera’s correspondent Teresa Bo that the university must divest from Israeli interests, particularly ending research with Israel’s military.

“The obvious objective of this encampment is to stand with the people in Gaza and also to ask MIT to divest from the [Israeli military]. It takes money from the [Israeli military] to do research on drone swarms,” Darsh said.

“We don’t want that happening any more.

“There has been so much support from the community today, it was beautiful to see. When they threatened [protesters with] suspension and arrest and eviction from the encampment, there were only 30… And now we see many people who came in really quickly to help support us.

“I think what’s going on now is bigger than any type of graduation or arrests that may happen. There are 5,000 university students in Gaza that have been killed. That’s the same as the MIT undergrad population.

“There are so many children that can’t go to school in Gaza because their schools got bombed and flattened… I don’t think anyone in the world deserves to go to school as long as they [students in Gaza] can’t.”



SvennoJ on 06 May 2024

Rafah ground invasion would be ‘intolerable’, says UN chief

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that a ground invasion of Rafah would be “intolerable” and called on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a truce deal.

“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and a ground invasion in Rafah would be intolerable because of its devastating humanitarian consequences, and because of its destabilising impact in the region,” Guterres said ahead of a meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in New York.


No red lines’ for Israeli military in war on the Gaza Strip: Analyst

Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, which focuses on Israel’s military-technological complex, said the Israeli military’s reported shelling of the land crossing between Egypt and Gaza in the Rafah area demonstrates that Israel has “no red lines” in its war on the Palestinian territory.

“After the last month, when we’ve consistently heard from President Biden and many in the EU, even in the Arab world, that there is a red line – Israel cannot go into Rafah. That red line does not exist,” Loewenstein told Al Jazeera.

“What we are seeing here, I think, is Netanyahu’s so-called ‘strategy’, which is he realises that within the Israeli public, he is deeply unpopular. His stated aims on October 7, none of them have been achieved. Namely, so-called ‘total victory’ over Hamas. Destroying Hamas or getting all the hostages back. None of that has happened. He therefore feels that continuing the war – so-called ‘forever war’ – is essential.

“It’s important to note that Rafah, as you rightly say, is not just a key crossing point for aid but also for people. The only way Palestinians can get out of Rafah – the ones that are able to leave – is there and if that border shuts, then the roughly 1.5 million Palestinians who are trapped in Rafah have nowhere to go.”


Smoke rises following Israeli strikes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 6


At least eight killed so far in Israeli bombardment of Rafah: Wafa

At least eight people have been killed in Rafah, the Wafa news agency reports, as the Israel military continues its assault on the city in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military has killed five people and injured more after bombing a house in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood in the west of Rafah, according to Wafa. The Israeli military has also killed at least three people, including a child, after bombing a house belonging to the Abu Amra family in western Rafah.

There were celebrations in Gaza on Monday after Hamas said it had accepted an Egyptian- and Qatari-brokered ceasefire deal. But the Israeli prime minister’s office released a statement saying the “proposal is far from Israel’s requirements” and it will “continue the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas”.




Four killed in Israeli air attack on eastern Rafah: Report

An Israeli attack on a house in eastern Rafah has killed four people, news outlet the Palestinian Information Center reports. It said that the Israeli bomb struck the Al-Hams family’s home in the al-Jnaina neighbourhood of the city in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military is carrying out a relentless bombardment of Rafah from land and air, claiming it is striking Hamas targets in the city. Earlier, we reported that at least eight people were killed in two other strikes on homes in the city.

We will bring you more updates on the situation in Rafah when we have them.



Palestinians struggle to evacuate Rafah

Palestinians are struggling to evacuate Rafah, after the Israeli military dropped leaflets ordering them to leave as a large-scale assault on the city in southern Gaza begins.

About 1.5 million Palestinians were sheltering in Rafah, once designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military, before these latest evacuation orders.



Around the Network
SvennoJ on 06 May 2024

‘Starvation is the point’: Israeli assault on Rafah puts aid in jeopardy for Gaza’s starving

Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, which focuses on Israel’s military-technological complex, said the Israeli military’s attacks on Rafah threatens to exacerbate the famine being imposed on Gaza.

“Every aid organisation is saying for months that there is a literal famine going on in the northern part of Gaza and many other parts of Gaza, and a key entry point for the aid that is getting in is … Rafah,” Loewenstein told Al Jazeera.

“So if that shuts, what that essentially shows – which has been clear for months – is that starvation is the point.

“I think for a lot of people in the international community the idea that a state – that we see as democratic … would deliberately starve a Palestinian population is seen as so outrageous…. But in fact that’s what they are doing right now.

“Even the areas…that Israel has claimed as so-called safe zones – and there are no safe zones in Gaza – are being bombed.

“And yet again, we see that the US and frankly much of the international community… will not put a brake on Israel, which they could.”



CNN's take Analyst: Hamas trying to look good by agreeing to proposal Jake Tapper of course

Always blame it on Hamas!



Israel Pledges Rafah Attack, Ceasefire Deal Collapses





The REAL Reason Why Graduation Ceremonies Are Getting Cancelled


Last edited by SvennoJ - on 06 May 2024

padib on 07 May 2024
Cobretti2 said:
padib said:

I don't understand how these riot police can live in their skins when doing this. They probably don't understand the Pro in Pro-palestine

Because the protests are seen as antisemitic and not a protest against genocide . 

How are we so concerned about antisemitism when thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians are living a genocide (mass murder) right now? It's so lopsidedly unimportant at the moment, for anyone with a sense of justice and respect for human life.

And even with all this said, the protests proved to not be anti-semitic, this video explains things well:



Cobretti2 on 07 May 2024
padib said:
Cobretti2 said:

Because the protests are seen as antisemitic and not a protest against genocide . 

How are we so concerned about antisemitism when thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians are living a genocide (mass murder) right now? It's so lopsidedly unimportant at the moment, for anyone with a sense of justice and respect for human life.

And even with all this said, the protests proved to not be anti-semitic, this video explains things well:

Because of the optics of singling out the protests and history of countries being against Jews trying to wipe them out.

Atm there is genocide in Ukraine, Sudan, Christians in Nigeria, Hazara Shias in Afghanistan, North Korea, Minorities in Myanmar, Uyghur in China, Ethiopia, Congo etc.

Yet no protests for these?  They don't exist because no one seems to care (hence why I said hypocrisy is human's greatest weakness in another post), but when Israel does it, it is wrong and protests break out all over the world? 

This is why the optics look bad, when you single out one genocide, especially against a race that was on the receiving end on genocide recently in our history.



 

 

SvennoJ on 07 May 2024

The problem is, the old guard does as the old guard does. They're not used to this new wide access to on the ground news.

The narrative is Israel is in mortal danger and needs to be protected at all cost. Since the beginning the focus of the mainstream media has been on anti-semitism and blaming Hamas (and the Palestinians) for everything. Genocide can not be mentioned, scenes from Gaza are discouraged, Palestine should not be mentioned. Any news coming out of Gaza is prefaced with Hamas-run .... Protests were called anti-Israel protests at the start, maybe still on Fox.

And it's now new. The same 'deception' was done with Afghanistan and Iraq. Both massive failures: 432,093 civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the U.S. post-9/11 wars. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians

And that's where the 'confusion' comes from. "Why do you care so much about Gaza" meaning we did much worse before. Which is what Netanyahu means with we're doing better than previous urban warfare wars led by the USA. Which isn't true as the current death toll of 34 thousand is a low estimate and expected to at least double between now and summer even if the war ended today. And with the further repercussions of starvation, no healthcare, no sanitation and unexploded bombs everywhere, it might even get worse than the 8x higher fallout between direct and indirect deaths.

Those high death tolls in Afghanistan and Iraq, people at least had places to go. People in Gaza are stuck. Percentage wise the impact is far greater. 85 million people between Afghanistan and Iraq vs 2 million in Gaza. 0.5% direct deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq vs already 1.7% of Gazans directly massacred.

Congress is mostly old people, stuck in their ways, stay the course. Most of them don't really know what's going on in Gaza and certainly have very little to no knowledge at all of the situation pre Oct 7. They truly do not seem to get the big fuss about Gaza. All Hamas bad (including the janitors, postal workers, Israel targets all civil servants), Hamas are terrorists, must be destroyed. If you interfere you must be pro Hamas, pro terrorists, anti Jew.


There is a huge divide between how older generations and gen Z experience the war in Gaza. Western mainstream media makes sure of that. Truth is always the first casualty in war, propaganda thrives. Yet nowadays we have the option to see for ourselves what's happening thanks to the many brave journalists reporting from Gaza and because everyone has a smartphone nowadays. All you need is a smart phone to report.

Israel has cut off internet access multiple times in Gaza, yet at least the USA has told them to restore it every time since aid agencies and rescue services rely on phone service as well. Hence the tik tok ban trying to get rid of the 'evidence' that way and now the anti-semitism bill to further distract and keep people in line.



SvennoJ on 07 May 2024
Cobretti2 said:

Because of the optics of singling out the protests and history of countries being against Jews trying to wipe them out.

Atm there is genocide in Ukraine, Sudan, Christians in Nigeria, Hazara Shias in Afghanistan, North Korea, Minorities in Myanmar, Uyghur in China, Ethiopia, Congo etc.

Yet no protests for these?  They don't exist because no one seems to care (hence why I said hypocrisy is human's greatest weakness in another post), but when Israel does it, it is wrong and protests break out all over the world? 

This is why the optics look bad, when you single out one genocide, especially against a race that was on the receiving end on genocide recently in our history.

The difference is, USA and Europe are not backing the genocide in Ukraine, Sudan etc.
USA and Europe are not defending the genocide in Ukraine, Sudan, etc.
USA is not using there veto power to protect the one carrying out the genocide.
USA is not sending 27 billion extra to Russia to carry on killing Ukrainians.
There is no destruction of international law to defend the genocides in Ukraine, Sudan, etc.

And more importantly, there are no daily images of children getting blown up and pulled out from under the rubble of houses bombed with US ammunition.


It's also the intensity, never before has a situation deteriorated so fast with so many deaths and destruction.

Ukraine after 2 years:

Key facts: As of 22 February 2024 (the latest data available), 30,457 civilians were killed and wounded, including 10,582 civilians killed in the conflict, including 587 children. A total of 9,241 people have been killed by explosive weapons with wide area effects, and mines and explosive remnants of war.

Gaza after 6 months:

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/200-days-military-attack-gaza-horrific-death-toll-amid-intl-failure-stop-israels-genocide-palestinians-enar

The Israeli army has killed 42,510 Palestinians over the course of its 200-day attack, 38,621 of whom were civilians, including 10,091 women and 15,780 children. The bodies of several thousand are still stuck under the rubble, while thousands remain missing and are presumed dead. These statistics include the killing of 137 journalists, 356 medical personnel, and 42 civil defense personnel.


And since you call those other conflicts genocide, how is Gaza not a genocide?

Gaza exposed the West for its hypocrisy and double standards. You can condemn the other genocides, but not the one carried out by Israel and the USA.