Sunday, December 31, 2023

Joe and Netanyahu do everything but lock lips in public

REUTERS notes, "Israeli jets intensified attacks on central Gaza on Sunday, residents and medics said, as battles raged through the rubble of towns and refugee camps in a war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would take 'many more months' to end. Netanyahu's comments signal no let-up in a campaign that has killed many thousands and levelled much of Gaza, while his vow to restore Israeli control over the enclave's border with Egypt raises new questions over an eventual two-state solution."  AP adds that an "airstrike killed at least 13 people and wounded dozens of others, according to witnesses. The bodies were draped in white plastic and laid out in front of a hospital, where prayers were held before burial" and quotes a family member of the dead, Hussein Siam, stating, "They were innocent people.  Israeli warplanes bombarded the whole family."


When not calling for more and more war, Netanyahu took time out to thank US President Joe Biden, "In a televised address, he also thanked the U.S. after the Biden administration bypassed Congress for a second time to approve weapons sales to Israel."  While Netanyahu and Biden sang "The Closer I Get To You" to one another, the people of the world showed their support for the Palestinians.  ALJAZEERA notes:


People have marked New Year’s Eve with protests for peace in Palestine.

In Lahore, Pakistan, people took to the streets on rollerblades and motorbikes, waving Palestinian flags.

In Istanbul, Turkey, demonstrators gathered outside the US consulate.

In Tahrir Square, Baghdad, a Christmas tree decorated with items resembling children wrapped in shrouds was displayed in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.


Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein (COMMON DREAMS) write:

We and many other organizations and peaceful protesters in our country have worked in vain to persuade President Joe Biden to use his influence to have the Israeli regime agree to a ceasefire that would allow hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks daily into the devastated graveyard that is now the Gaza Strip. Biden regularly begs Israel to let in more trucks, paid for by the U.S. At the same time the Biden administration exercises veto power on the U.N. Security Council blocking a cease-fire, truce, or negotiations toward a permanent two-state resolution. A cease-fire would at least allow aid to reach the besieged.

According to Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, “[U]nless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population—close to half a million human beings” can die within a year. (See, The Guardian, December 29, 2023).

We have appealed to Biden’s duty to apply vigorous diplomacy to this cascade of genocidal war crimes by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This means suspension of hostilities, and the immediate flow of critical food, water, medical, shelter, and other supplies for civilians, followed by serious negotiations toward a two-state solution. Instead, Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, behaves as a secretary of war shuttling between the U.S. and Israel.

We have appealed to Biden’s political sense and how he is losing the support of more Americans every day as the slaughters of children, women, the elderly and other innocents worsen.

None of these appeals has moved this co-belligerent in the White House. All that is left is to appeal to what he has said his practicing Catholicism means to him every day.


While Netanyahu made criminal statements of more and more war, Pope Francis noted the end of 2023, "At the end of the year, we will have the courage to ask ourselves how many human lives have been shattered by armed conflict, how many dead and how much destruction, how much suffering, how much poverty."


Catholicism or not, Joe Biden will apparently never have that courage.


It's New Year's Eve.  What'll happen at this site is various reports will go up starting around 1:00 am EST.  I have not written one word of my year-in-review yet.  When it goes up -- probably six in the morning EST at the earliest, it will be the last thing posted for at least eight hours because I will immediately go to sleep when it goes up.  Tuesday, we'll go back to the regular schedule.


The following sites updated:




 

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