More than three dozen people, most donning sunglasses and masks to conceal their identities, participated in the evening vigil, according to media reports.
Former State Department official turned activist Josh Paul, who resigned in October over the Biden administration's approach to the Israel-Hamas war, addressed the crowd during the demonstration in Washington, D.C.
Newsweek reached out via email on Wednesday night to Biden's representatives for comment.
"The temporary ceasefire ended 13 days ago, and we have been horrified to see the full resumption of killings, displacement and bombardment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza," Paul said during prepared remarks he made on behalf of the vigil attendees. "A temporary pause to this violence was never enough. We must move with urgency to save as many lives as possible and achieve an immediate, permanent ceasefire agreement and the return of all hostages."
The number of Palestinian civilian casualties has sparked accusations of Israeli war crimes. Numerous videos and images of suffering in Gaza, which is home to roughly 2.3 million people, have ignited demands by many for a ceasefire.
Pro-Palestinian activists have blocked the entrances to the BP oil company’s offices in central London.
In a tweet, Fossil Free London said the company was “fuelling genocide” as they held up a Palestinian flag and a sign that said “Free Palestine”.
It comes after Israel recently awarded licences to several companies, including BP, to explore for natural gas off the country’s Mediterranean coast.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. In Tuesday’s vote, 153 nations approved the resolution, 23 abstained, just 10, including the U.S. and Israel, voted “no.” Though nonbinding, the U.N. vote is another indication of the mounting isolation of the United States as it continues to support Israel’s assault, which has killed over 18,000 Palestinians in a little over two months. The vote came just days after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, President Biden has delivered his sharpest criticism yet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a donor event in Washington, D.C., Biden criticized what he called Israel’s, quote, “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.
In a moment, we’ll be joined by the Palestinian U.N. diplomat Nada Tarbush. But first, let’s turn to a speech she gave in November at the U.N. in Geneva. It went viral.
NADA TARBUSH: Israel said something that should make all of you shudder. It effectively said, “I can kill any and every person in Gaza. The 2.3 million people in Gaza are either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers or human shields, and are therefore legitimate targets.” Every person, according to Israel, falls into one of these three categories — a child, a journalist, a doctor, a U.N. staff, a newborn baby in an incubator. And so, according to Israel, it can kill them and then have the audacity to come to this room and tell the world with a straight face, “We are acting in accordance with international law.”
The death of each of the over 11,350 people killed over the past month, be it children, journalists, U.N. staff, the sick, the elderly, according to Israel, was justified. Think about that for a moment, and let it give you pause. Anyone espousing this warped logic has no shred of humanity, no sense of morality and no knowledge of legality.
But guess what: Your carpet explanation for carpet bombing will not fly. People are not fools. The people in this room are seasoned diplomats, who are well read, have a knowledge of history, and many of whom have seen your government make the same arguments during your six previous military aggressions on Gaza in the past 15 years. They have seen you resort to collective punishment, targeting of Palestinian children, journalists, medical staff, aid workers before. They have seen you forcibly transfer our communities, colonize our lands, demolish our homes, and evict families from their own properties since the 7th of October and for the 75 years that preceded it.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Palestinian U.N. diplomat Nada Tarbush speaking November 17th, almost a month ago. At the time, the death toll in Gaza from Israel’s assault was about 11,000. Today it’s over 18,600.
Nada Tarbush joins us now in an exclusive interview from Geneva, where she serves as counselor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations in Geneva.
I’m wondering, Nada Tarbush, if you can start off by responding to the UNGA, the U.N. General Assembly’s overwhelming call, even if it is symbolic, for a Gaza ceasefire, in response to the U.S. vetoing in the U.N. Security Council on Friday the ceasefire call, at the same time that it looks like President Biden is intensifying his criticism of Netanyahu and the Israeli bombardment, criticizing indiscriminate bombing. If you can just take that on?
NADA TARBUSH: Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me, Amy.
So, with regard to the UNGA vote, what I’d like to first say is, to put it in context for the audience, this resolution was brought to the General Assembly following the United States’s veto on a resolution at the Security Council last Friday which had called for an immediate ceasefire. And so states invoked tools that are available in the United Nations to — whenever the Security Council is deadlocked, to take the discussion to the General Assembly, and on a matter of international peace and security. So this is what happened. And the vote was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly for an immediate ceasefire.
Now, the significance this vote was that not only is it showing that the support that Israel had, from many Western states especially, for its military assault on Gaza is eroding, and even staunch supporters of Israel, like Australia and like Canada, are now saying we need a ceasefire. And so, what this shows is that Israel is isolated, the United States is isolated. The General Assembly, which is the world’s parliament and which is the most democratic organ in the United Nations, has said, “We overwhelmingly want an immediate ceasefire.”
Now, at the same time — and this is where sometimes you feel there’s a parallel reality — you hear the United States voting against that — you see the United States voting against that resolution, and at the same time words from the Biden administration about Israeli indiscriminate bombing. So, my comment on that would be that we believe in actions and not words when it comes to the U.S. government. I have heard words in the U.N. that anyone would have thought were a good thing for the Americans to say, like “We care about Palestinian civilians.” But this will not fly as long as we see the United States sending military aid, billions of dollars in military aid, using Americans’ taxpayer money, which it could have used on other things, like homelessness and healthcare, and sending that aid to help Israel commit a genocide. So I am not convinced that the Biden administration has changed course. It is still voting against a ceasefire, vetoing Security Council resolutions, sending aid and giving Israel all the diplomatic and political cover that it needs.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nada Tarbush, I wanted to ask you — before October 7th, both Israel and the United States comfortably believed that the issue of Palestine had been forgotten by the rest of the world. I’m wondering your sense of how the world has rallied in the recent two months in support of the Palestinian cause.
NADA TARBUSH: I would say that the world has never forgotten Palestine, unless by “the world” we mean the powerful, militarized states like the United States and other European states or other states from the Global North, let’s say. The international community has, year after year, said — called for a solution, called for an end to occupation, for an end to apartheid, an end to the settlement colonization project that we see in the West Bank. And so, it is only a handful of powerful states that have been trying to get Palestine off the agenda and blocking any avenue to push for the rights of the Palestinian people under international law.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk, as well, about your own family history as it relates to Palestine? Your family fled in 1948. Because in your powerful speech, you also talked about how relations between Jews and Palestinians were before the creation of Israel.
NADA TARBUSH: Yes, absolutely. My family are refugees from 1948. My father was from a village near Jerusalem which is one of the more than 450 villages that were completely destroyed during the Nakba, which is the catastrophic events that led to mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and to the most protracted refugee crisis in the world. And my mother also is from a city that became part of Israel after 1948.
The Palestine’s history is one of diversity. It is a multiethnic, multireligious land historically, which has hosted and welcomed all faiths, which has welcomed people of various ethnicities. It has always been a culturally diverse mosaic. And so, this is why it is not surprising to me that many people don’t see that this land can be transformed into an ethnocracy, into a state which is only for one people. And you have seen, even in the early days of Zionism, that you had many Jewish intellectuals, like Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sigmund Freud and others, who were against the idea of an exclusively Jewish state in the historical land of Palestine. They saw that that would cause issues like ethnic cleansing, like not respecting and indeed violating the rights of the Indigenous inhabitants.
AMY GOODMAN: In your speech that you gave at the U.N. in Geneva, you referred to these remarks in March by Israel’s far-right West Bank settler, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
BEZALEL SMOTRICH: [translated] There is no such thing as a Palestinian. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. … Do you know who is Palestinian? I am Palestinian.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that is the finance minister, part of Netanyahu’s government, Smotrich, saying, “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian,” and, for people, in case you had any trouble hearing this, “I am a Palestinian,” he said. I was wondering if you can respond.
NADA TARBUSH: Yes, I can. This is, again, not a surprising narrative. It is a narrative that we have been hearing for decades, which is that Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Golda Meir, a former Israeli prime minister, said that there is no such thing as the Palestinian people. Palestinians have been dehumanized since the creation of Israel, and even before, and, you know, in order to try and justify this settler colonial project. And there was the myth of a land without a people for a people without a land. But there were people on this land, and they are the Palestinian people.
And so, for us to hear these kind of racist and colonialist slogans is consistent with what Israel has been doing in terms of action throughout these years, which is to try and get rid of the maximum of Palestinian inhabitants from Palestine, from the West Bank, from Gaza, and to try and replace them with Israeli settlers. And so, you know, they’re just saying explicitly what they have been doing. And I think that in Gaza now, what we are seeing is the continuation of this policy of mass ethnic cleansing, of forced displacement, of trying to get rid of the Palestinian population in order to take over the land.
AMY GOODMAN: You also note in —
NADA TARBUSH: And so, you know, even the Biden — please.
AMY GOODMAN: You also note in your speech in September that Netanyahu held up a map on what he called the new Middle East, that did not show Palestine, during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. It did not show the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza. Explain what he’s putting forward, and then President Biden now saying to this group of donors that — he’s criticizing Netanyahu, saying that he is doing this in Gaza because he doesn’t want a Palestinian — a two-state solution.
NADA TARBUSH: Indeed, yes. So, again, this is not the first time that the Israelis have shown maps which completely delete the West Bank and Gaza and incorporate them into Israel and call them Israel. I mean, this has been done consistently. Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, as — West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem were annexed. There are annexationist policies happening in the West Bank with the construction of settlements and the wall and the whole settler colonial infrastructure. And in Gaza, this is — a similar project is underway. And Gaza and the West Bank have been occupied for 56 years. Palestinian dispossession has taken place for 75 years. It is an ongoing Nakba. It is a continuation of mass ethnic cleansing and annexationist policies.
Now, the problem with them formally annexing these lands is that they would have to give the right to vote to the Palestinians, whose land they would be annexing. So, instead, they try to get rid of the Palestinians before annexing the land. But the plan has been clear, and it is a plan to take over what remains of Palestine, which is very little, what remains of historic Palestine. The West Bank and Gaza constitute 22% of historic Palestine. With the settlements, this has reduced dramatically. And they’re trying to take over whatever little bits are left.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Nada Tarbush, counselor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations in Geneva. This is her first broadcast interview since the video went viral of her U.N. address on Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that she gave in Geneva.
Coming up, we’ll speak with Texas Congressmember Greg Casar as President Biden appears to be caving to Republican demands for hard-line border measures in exchange for funding for the war in Ukraine and beyond. Back in 20 seconds.
Tough as the words sounded, Biden’s actions are, if anything, bolstering Israel’s ability to carry out the war and reach its paramount goal of destroying Hamas.
He has yet to take measures that could alter the tactics of the Israeli military in ways that spare more civilian lives.
Biden hasn’t imposed conditions on the military aid that the U.S. sends to Israel, as members of his own party have urged him to do. Nor is he demanding a cease-fire or end date to a war that has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza.
Successive votes in the U.N. General Assembly illustrate how Israel and the U.S. are more and more isolated in their opposition to a cease-fire.
On Tuesday, 153 countries voted in favor of a cease-fire, with 30 countries switching their position in favor since a similar measure was debated in October. Among the countries that changed their stance were three close U.S. allies: Australia, Canada and Japan.
On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden made a series of damning admissions regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza that makes clear the United States is consciously aiding and abetting what it knows to be war crimes by the Israeli government.
At a campaign event, Biden stated that Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate bombing” of the civilian population of Gaza. He subsequently added that Israel’s Minister of National Security “Ben-Gvir and company and the new folks, they… They not only want to have retribution, which they should for what the Palestinians—Hamas—did, but against all Palestinians.”
In other words, Biden admitted that Israel is not making efforts to limit civilian casualties and explained that the reason is that the Minister of National Security is deliberately seeking to carry out retribution, i.e., collective punishment—against all Palestinian civilians, including unarmed women and children.
The American president has thus admitted to arming, funding and politically supporting the intentional murder of civilian members of a targetted ethnic group—i.e., genocide. Significantly, even in light of these admissions, Biden reiterated that the United States would continue its unconditional funding and arming of the Israeli military, declaring that “in the meantime, none of it is going to walk away from providing Israel what they need to defend themselves and to finish the job.”
An admission to complicity in War Crimes.
The man who offered his “rock solid and unwavering” support to Israel’s genocide of two million Palestinians in Gaza will not get my vote.
The man whose administration circulated memos prohibiting staffers around the world from calling for deescalation or restraint in the face of ethnic cleansing cannot remain president.
The man who is spending billions of our taxpayer dollars to fund an Israeli war machine that considers Palestinians “human animals” and denies drinking water and food to a million Palestinian children belongs at The Hague, not the White House.
The man who lied about having seen photographic evidence of atrocities that never took place, and strengthened the rhetoric that is spurring anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian attacks in the United States, is not my candidate.
Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American child was stabbed 26 times by his landlord in the Chicago suburbs shortly after Biden pronounced his lies. Most Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims I know place the blame for Wadea’s murder largely at Biden’s feet. I do too.
If Biden is the Democratic nominee, I will not vote for him.
The anti-Biden mood has only gotten stronger. David Axelrod is noting Joe may not be able to carry Michigan in 2024 and how bad the polling is for Joe across the country. Noting this, Mike offered, "The best way to stop a second term for Donald Trump would be to have a better Democratic Party nominee. And Joe's support of Israel's genocide isn't doing him any favors. I hear more and more people saying that they won't vote for him because of it. At the late date, what name Dem could step in?"
Good question. Let's move from that to bad stupdity.
If you want an image of the lowest point in Joe Biden’s 53-year political career look at a photo that came out of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. A line of babies, born premature, impossibly tiny, surrounded by heat reflective material, struggle to survive in a hospital without power, without heat and light, without working incubators, without safety.
Insisting that a crucial Hamas base lay just under the facility, the Israeli Defence Forces besieged the complex, starved it of fuel, bombarded it with munitions, shot several people through the windows and finally stormed it. For evidence of a vital centre of Hamas’s command structure it presented a few rusty rifles, a handful of grenades and little else. Even news outlets sympathetic to the Israeli side immediately expressed scepticism.
In this the Israeli government has been backed to the hilt by the Biden administration, which has repeatedly given political cover to the dubious claims of Israeli intelligence at enormous cost to its own credibility and electoral prospects.
From the outset of this war Biden has given full-throated support to the military campaign of Netanyahu’s government, even going so far as to physically embrace the man on a visit to the country. He has cast doubt on Israeli culpability for deaths, questioned the numbers of Palestinians killed and cut dead any discussion of a ceasefire as other leaders moved towards that position.
[. . .]
Biden’s hardline stance on the bombing of Gaza has shocked many within his party, from ordinary liberals and progressives, to the already unhappy left, to Arab American voters, a demographic who voted consistently Democratic until now.
It’s hard to overstate just how out of touch with public opinion the administration’s stance is. In a recent poll almost 70 per cent of voters support an immediate ceasefire, including 75 per cent of Democrats and even a majority of Republicans.
The adjacent homes of the Abu Dhbaa and Ashour families have been obliterated in Rafah by a massive air strike. Residents there were seen picking forlornly through the rubble.
Neighbour Fadel Shabaan, who had rushed to the area after the bombing, said: “It was difficult because of the dust and people’s screams. We went there, and we saw our neighbour who had 10 martyrs.”
“This is a safe [refugee] camp, there is nothing here, the children play football in the street,” he added.
Gaza health authorities said 26 people had been killed in the Israeli army bombing, according to Reuters news agency.
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