Saturday, November 11, 2023

Gaza

The assault on Gaza continues as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL reports, "A surgeon at the Al-Shifa complex said it was without basic utilities. Israel's military said there were clashes between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters outside the complex. The World Health Organization said that it had lost communication with its Al-Shifa contacts and that it was concerned about those remaining at the complex." NBC NEWS explains,  "On Saturday the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a post on X that Israeli tanks were attacking the Al-Quds Hospital, 'creating a state of extreme panic and fear among 14,000 displaced people.' In another post, the society pleaded to the 'international community and humanitarian institutions to intervene immediately'."


  CNN adds:


Heavy fighting near Gaza’s largest hospital has left it in a “catastrophic situation,” with patients and staff trapped inside, ambulances unable to collect the wounded and life-support systems without electricity, health officials and aid agencies are reporting.

Hostilities around the hospital, Gaza’s largest, “have not stopped,” according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, with constant bombardment preventing evacuations and making it too dangerous for ambulance journeys, according to the organization.

A freelance journalist told CNN the situation is dire, with medics working by candlelight, food being rationed, and other resources dwindling.

Three newborn babies died after the hospital went “out of service” amid intense fighting in the area, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, which claims the hospital is surrounded on all four sides by Israeli forces and under “complete siege.”


ALJAZEERA notes:

Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, warned on Saturday that hundreds of injured people as well as newborn babies needed to be urgently transported to an operational medical facility as his hospital was crumbling under the strain of a lack of fuel and medicine – as well as Israeli bombardments.

“It’s a tragedy. The dead bodies – we can’t put them in freezers as they’re not functioning so we decided to dig a pit in the vicinity of the hospital. It’s a very inhumane scene. The situation is totally out of control. Hundreds of bodies are decomposing,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera.


Andre Damon (WSWS) reports, "Throughout the day Friday, Israel bombed and burned hospitals in Gaza City, which is being invaded by Israeli forces. Israel attacked six hospitals, including two children’s hospitals, in the span of 24 hours." The world watches as the US government participates and condones these War Crimes.   Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:


  A Norwegian physician who has volunteered in Gaza for decades said Friday that Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, are complicit in Israel's intensifying assault on the Palestinian enclave's hospitals, which are overwhelmed with airstrike victims and displaced people seeking refuge.

In a video message posted to social media as Israeli forces bombarded al-Shifa—Gaza's largest hospital—and other medical facilities, Dr. Mads Gilbert asked, "Can you hear the screams from innocent people, refugees sheltering, trying to find a safe place, being bombed by the Israeli attack forces this morning inside the hospital, hospitals that are the temples of humanity and protection?"

"When are you going to stop this?" Gilbert added, with audio of screams from Gaza's al-Shifa hospital playing in the background. "You're all complicit."

Gilbert's plea for immediate action from world leaders who are supporting and arming Israel's military came as Israeli forces surrounded al-Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza, claiming that Hamas is using the facilities as command centers—an assertion that hospital directors have denied.

Targeting hospitals is a war crime under international law.

Israeli airstrikes and sniper fire on Gaza hospitals have forced thousands of people who were sheltering at the facilities to flee, but many others "remain trapped inside," the U.K.-based humanitarian group Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said Saturday. 

 

Kaamil Ahmed (GUARDIAN) notes, "At least 70% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, according to the UN, and many families have clustered together, crowding dozens of them into their homes in the hope they can avoid the heavy bombardment or at least pool increasingly scarce resources such as water, fuel and food."


Mumia Abu-Jamal (WORKERS WORLD) explains,  "It’s a war for that which is no longer being produced -- land."  Paul Larudee (DISSIDENT VOICE) offers:


Israel is losing the battle. They cannot afford to remain fully mobilized this long, even with unlimited US financial support. It is estimated that despite limited commercial flights, more than a quarter million Israelis have left the country. This is also the number that have evacuated settlements in both the south, in a large radius around Gaza, and in a wide ribbon along the northern border with Lebanon.

Israel is not used to this, and despite its sophisticated military equipment, it depends upon concluding its combat quickly and overwhelmingly. The problem is that it can’t. Hamas is too well dug in, and Hezbollah is too strong. Both have their own sophisticated equipment, despite an absence of navy and air force. Their strategy has been to make air and naval forces largely useless against them by means of a vast and well equipped underground network of reinforced, sealed and well defended tunnels. Their strategy is attrition: to draw out the conflict longer than Israelis are willing or able to endure.

It appears to be effective. Israelis are taking casualties at a rate to which they are not accustomed. This is making them slower and more cautious, except in the air, and it is disrupting civilian life to an unprecedented extent. The resistance forces of the Palestinians and their allies have planned for a confrontation of unlimited duration, while Israel plans only short, massive attacks designed for a quick, decisive victory, which in this case is illusive.

This is the main reason they have chosen genocide as a tactic. They reason that massive, horrible deaths of vulnerable civil Palestinians, mainly women and children, will force Hamas, Hezbollah and their allies to take risks and expose themselves. But genocide is not working. And when it doesn’t, Israel’s answer is to use more genocide.


IN THESE TIMES offers Adam Johnson's superficial media criticism:


As the staggering number of civilian deaths in Gaza grows every day, and as fresh reports of Israel’s brazen attacks on mosques, hospitals, churches, refugee camps, and other civilian targets come across our social media timelines every few hours, there’s a mounting urgency among Israeli officials, pro-Israel groups in the United States, and the U.S. media and political establishment that’s backing these manifest war crimes to downplay the horrific mass killing of Palestinian noncombatants. 

With polls showing that a majority of voters, including 80% of Democrats, back a cease-fire — putting the vast majority of Democratic politicians at odds with their own constituents — excuses are needed to justify and handwave away the reports of carnage coming out of Gaza every day. 

There are three popular tropes commonly employed by U.S. media, politicians, and pundits tasked with supporting President Biden and his lockstep backing of the Gaza bombing to effectively, ex post-facto, militarize civilians being killed and maimed by Israel: 


Why is it superficial?  Did you read it?  The three are 'terror' tunnels, human shields and Hamas blending in.  Adam just types.  Thought's apparently not required.


Thought?  You'd note that these were the three used to promote the Iraq War.  You might even note NEWSWEEK's in depth underground tunnel coverage ahead of the Iraq War.  It's a popular lie that stokes fear.  If you can't connect this campaign to sell war with the earlier campaign, you might as well just write for THE PROGRESSIVE because you're not helping anyone.  


Has any outlet on the left been more uselless in the last weeks than THE PROGRESSIVE.  They've got a 'hard hitting' piece by Kathy Kelley finally  I do understand why people see her as a joke.  But setting that aside, that's the big thing THE PROGRESSIVE's going to offer?  The piece of astroturf posted at every other website -- DISSIDENT VOICE, COUNTPUNCH, ZNET . . . 


At ZNET, Brett Wilkins offers real media criticism:


U.S. corporate media outlets have granted Israeli military commanders pre-publication review rights for “all materials and footage” recorded by their correspondents embedded with the Israel Defense Forces during the invasion of Gaza, a precondition condemned by press freedom advocates.

“Journalists embedded with the IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field, and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip,” Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN‘s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” explained in a segment on Sunday.

“As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication,” he added. “CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel’s operations in Gaza.”

In a clip featuring correspondent Raf Sanchez—who is embedded with an IDF unit tasked with finding and destroying Hamas tunnels in Gaza—NBC News also acknowledged that it has “agreed to share raw footage” as “an operational security requirement.”

Responding to Zakaria’s admission, U.S. journalist Dan Cohen asserted that “CNN is explicitly acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for the genocidal Zionist regime.”

U.S. photojournalist Zach D. Roberts said on social media that “what CNN is doing here is creating ad b-roll for the IDF. It’s nothing resembling news and the CNN employees that participated in it aren’t anything resembling journalists.”

Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Texas-based Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, said Sunday on social media that “Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them.”


Letting government officials vet your copy?  That's not journalism.  If you don't grasp that, call Gina Chon and ask her why THE WALL STREET JOURNAL fired her.


On media criticism, let's return to the lie of mis-connection that every outlet rushes to repeat.  Doug G. Ware and STARS AND STRIPES?  Only the latest and no link to garbage.  US troops in Iraq and Syria are under attack.  That is true.  And apparently that's why Ware and others in the media need to lie and misrepresent.


I am so damn sick of seeing these stories insisting that the attacks are from Iraqi groups "linked to Iran."  This nonsense of lying about Iran is all over the media.  Let's all lie and start another war -- that appears to be the goal.  Linked to Iran?  You mean part of the Iraqi security forces -- because that's what they are.  And the Iraqi people are not complaining.  Stop trying to pretend like Iran is orchestrating something.  The actions of those forces are embraced by Iraqis.  The forces doing this are under the umbrella of Iraq's security forces.  Stop pretending it's some small rogue element in Iraq.


Maybe you have to lie like that to avoid calling out Joe Biden out because, as we've noted before, his actions and statements with regards to the assault on Gaza have put a target on the backs of US troops in the Middle East.  As Andre Damon (WSWS) notes, "The actions of the Netanyahu regime have the active support and are being coordinated with the US-NATO powers, and in particular the Biden administration, which repeatedly and insistently rejects a ceasefire and any limits or conditions on Netanyahu’s actions."



As the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate has noted,  "Even by the low standards set by media coverage of previous massacres in Gaza, the media discourse surrounding recent events represents a new low for the principles of journalistic integrity. Shorn of any pretence of objectivity or truth, some Western media organisations have parroted Israeli government talking points, failed to challenge or even attempt to verify blatant misinformation and propaganda, and adopted dehumanising and violent language about the Palestinian people."



I'll come back and add "The following sites updated:" in a bit -- at least three community sites are abou to post.  ADDED: The following sites updated:




  • NEWS: 71% of Michigan Democrats Support a Ceasefire

     

    NEWS: 71% of Michigan Democrats Support a Ceasefire

    Nov 06, 2023
    Press

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new poll of Michigan Democrats by Lake Research Partners, a polling firm for the DNC and one of two lead pollsters for President Biden in Michigan, finds that 71% of Michigan Democrats support a ceasefire, including a 53% majority who feel that way strongly.

    “Michigan Democrats overwhelmingly support a mutual ceasefire to save countless lives,” said Congresswoman Tlaib. “I will continue to advocate for a ceasefire, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for an end to this horrific violence. The answer to war crimes is not more war crimes. We must work to save as many lives as possible, no matter their faith or ethnicity.”

    “This poll illustrates what Detroit Action and members in our community have expressed numerous times,” said Branden Snyder, Executive Director of Detroit Action, who commissioned the poll. “We are committed to a ceasefire in Gaza and the liberation of Palestinian people. Instead of feeding the global war machine, the $14 billion for Israel could go to feeding hungry children or vastly improving a public education system that has been underfunded for years.”

    You can view the results of the poll here.

    ###

    Senator Baldwin Questions Biden Administration Officials on Efforts to Stop Fentanyl at the Border and Address the Child Care Crisis

     11.08.2023

    Senator Baldwin Questions Biden Administration Officials on Efforts to Stop Fentanyl at the Border and Address the Child Care Crisis

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, questioned Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra on the Biden Administration’s requests for additional funding to address the child care crisis and to combat the opioid crisis by disrupting the flow of illegal drugs into the country. A full video of Senator Baldwin’s questions is available here.

    In 2022, accidental drug overdoses were the largest cause of death for people under 40. More than 1,400 Wisconsinites died from overdoses in 2022, and between 2019 and 2021, fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin grew by 97%. To address the opioid and fentanyl epidemics, the Biden Administration’s supplemental requests include:

    • Disrupting the Flow of Fentanyl: The national security supplemental request includes $1.2 billion to crack down on the trafficking of dangerous and lethal illicit drugs like fentanyl, including hiring an additional 1,300 border agents and deploying new cutting-edge detection equipment to disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the country.
    • Boosting State Opioid Response: The emergency domestic supplemental request includes $1.55 billion for HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration State Opioid Response (SOR) grants to provide treatment, harm reduction, and recovery support services in all States and territories. Since 2018, the SOR grant program has provided treatment services to over 1.2 million people.

    Senator Baldwin has long worked to both increase resources for individuals struggling with substance use disorder, disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the country, and keep dangerous and illicit drugs out of our communities. As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Senator Baldwin also advanced funding legislation for Fiscal Year 2024 that includes $1.5 billion for the State Opioid Response (SOR) grants to help communities with prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts.

    In October, Senator Baldwin sent a letter pushing President Biden to prioritize additional resources to strengthen the security at the southwest border to stop the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl through ports of entry along the border. Senator Baldwin also co-sponsors the FEND OFF Fentanyl Act to target the illicit fentanyl supply chain and transnational criminal organizations, which was included in the Senate-passed National Defense Authorization Act of 2024.

    Senator Baldwin also questioned the Biden Administration officials on their efforts to address the child care crisis, which is impacting Wisconsin child care providers, families, and employers. The President’s domestic supplemental funding request includes $16 billion for HHS to provide an additional year of child care stabilization funding to help keep child care providers afloat, mitigating the likelihood that providers will close or raise costs for families.

    According to the Wisconsin Economic Development Institute, approximately 4 out of 5 Wisconsin employers say the state economy is impacted by parent’s access to affordable, high-quality childcare. In Wisconsin, Child Care Counts, which received funding through the American Rescue Plan Act, supported nearly 5,000 child care providers across the state. An analysis found that if Congress does not provide additional funding for the nation’s child care sector, more than 70,000 child care programs—one-third of those supported by ARPA stabilization funding—could close nationwide, causing approximately 3.2 million children to lose their child care spots.

    A full video of Senator Baldwin’s questions is available here.

    Murray, Durbin, Colleagues Urge Biden Administration to Designate Palestinian Territories for Temporary Protected Status or Authorize Deferred Enforced Departure for Palestinians in U.S.

     

    Murray, Durbin, Colleagues Urge Biden Administration to Designate Palestinian Territories for Temporary Protected Status or Authorize Deferred Enforced Departure for Palestinians in U.S.

    Washington, D.C. – This week, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09) and 102 of their colleagues in a sending a letter to President Joe Biden calling on his Administration to designate the Palestinian territories for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and/or authorize Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Palestinians present in the United States.  TPS and DED offer temporary relief from removal and work authorization for eligible foreign nationals already in the United States who are unable to return safely to their home country.  

    “In light of ongoing armed conflict, Palestinians already in the United States should not be forced to return to the Palestinian territories, consistent with President Biden’s stated commitment to protecting Palestinian civilians,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Following the horrific October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas and Israel’s ensuing military response, conditions in the Palestinian territories have greatly deteriorated.  According to reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of November 6, at least 10,000 Palestinians have been killed.  This includes more than 4,100 children, which, according to Save the Children, is more than the number of children killed in all of the world’s armed conflicts on an annual basis since 2019.  The United Nations reports that almost 1.5 million of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million have been displaced. Thousands are unable to access clean water and nutrition; access to medical care has become increasingly difficult, with some health facilities in Gaza hit by bombardment and many others crippled by a lack of fuel for electricity.   And in the West Bank, unrest and settler violence have resulted in the deaths of 149 Palestinians and the forcible displacement of hundreds more.   

    “Given these conditions, it is no surprise that the U.S. Department of State extended a Level 4 Travel Advisory for Gaza due to ‘terrorism, civil unrest and armed conflict’ and a Level 3 Travel Advisory for the West Bank earlier this month for terrorism and civil unrest,” the lawmakers wrote.  “Providing TPS and/or authorizing DED would protect Palestinians in the United States from being forced to return to these clearly dangerous conditions.”

    The lawmakers’ letter continues, “U.S. Department of State statistics indicate that 7,241 nonimmigrant visas were issued to individuals holding Palestinian Authority (PA) travel documents in 2022, the most recent year for which such data is available.  While the number of non-immigrant visas issued cannot provide an exact approximation of the number of Palestinians that would be eligible for TPS or DED, it makes clear that the number of beneficiaries would be small, while the benefit could be lifesaving.  TPS or DED would enable Palestinians currently present in the U.S., including students, tourists, and workers, to be protected from a dangerous return to their homeland while affording them the ability to remain safely in the U.S. and to work legally to support themselves and their families.”

    The lawmakers’ letter concludes, “As such, we urge your Administration to designate the Palestinian territories for TPS and/or to authorize DED for Palestinians in the United States without delay.”

    Along with Senators Murray and Durbin, today’s letter was signed by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Laphonza Butler D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Jack Reed (D-RI), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Gary Peters (D-MI), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Cory Booker (D-NJ).

    The letter is endorsed by the following organizations: Arab American Institute, African Communities Together, American Civil Liberties Union, American Friends Service Committee, American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Muslim Empowerment Network, Americans for Peace Now, America’s Voice, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Church World Service, Climate Refugees, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Communities United for Status & Protection, Every Campus A Refuge, Friends United Meeting, Immigration Hub, Indivisible, International Refugee Assistance Project, J Street, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, MPower Change Action Fund, National Network for Arab American Communities, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, OneAmerica, People’s Action, Refugees International, TPS-DED Administrative Advocacy Coalition, T’ruah, and UndocuBlack Network.

    Full text of the letter is available HERE and below.

    Dear President Biden:

    We urge your Administration to designate the Palestinian territories for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and/or authorize Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Palestinians present in the United States.  As you know, TPS and DED offer temporary relief from removal and work authorization for eligible foreign nationals who are unable to return safely to their home countries or part of a country.  In light of ongoing armed conflict, Palestinians already in the United States should not be forced to return to the Palestinian territories, consistent with President Biden’s stated commitment to protecting Palestinian civilians.

    Following the horrific October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas and Israel’s ensuing military response, conditions in the Palestinian territories have greatly deteriorated.  According to reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of November 6, at least 10,000 Palestinians have been killed.  This includes more than 4,100 children, which, according to Save the Children, is more than the number of children killed in all of the world’s armed conflicts on an annual basis since 2019.  The United Nations reports that almost 1.5 million of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million have been displaced of which nearly 725,000 are sheltering in 149 UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East] installations” across the Gaza Strip.  Further, OCHA reports at least 42 percent of all housing units in the Gaza strip as damaged or destroyed since October 7.  Thousands are unable to access clean water and nutrition; access to medical care has become increasingly difficult, with some health facilities in Gaza hit by bombardment and many others crippled by a lack of fuel for electricity.  And in the West Bank, unrest and settler violence have resulted in the deaths of 149 Palestinians and the forcible displacement of hundreds more.  Such forcible displacement from the West Bank is of serious concern, and we also share the Administration’s opposition to the “displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.”  At the same time, we believe that Palestinians currently in the United States who cannot safely return home at this time should have the option of seeking temporary protection.

    Given these conditions, it is no surprise that the U.S. Department of State extended a Level 4 Travel Advisory for Gaza due to “terrorism, civil unrest and armed conflict” and a Level 3 Travel Advisory for the West Bank earlier this month for terrorism and civil unrest.   Providing TPS and/or authorizing DED would protect Palestinians in the United States from being forced to return to these clearly dangerous conditions.

    There is precedent for analogous designations.  In 1998, there was a designation of only the Province of Kosovo in light of ongoing armed conflict.  Montserrat was designated for TPS in 1997 when volcanic eruptions caused nearly two-thirds of its population to flee.  At the time, Montserrat was a colony of the United Kingdom, and Montserratians did not enjoy British residency rights or citizenship.  Similarly, DED is currently authorized to defer the removal of certain residents of Hong Kong present in the United States. 

    U.S. Department of State statistics indicate that 7,241 nonimmigrant visas were issued to individuals holding Palestinian Authority (PA) travel documents in 2022, the most recent year for which such data is available.  While the number of non-immigrant visas issued cannot provide an exact approximation of the number of Palestinians that would be eligible for TPS or DED, it makes clear that the number of beneficiaries would be small, while the benefit could be lifesaving.  TPS or DED would enable Palestinians currently present in the U.S., including students, tourists, and workers, to be protected from a dangerous return to their homeland while affording them the ability to remain safely in the U.S. and to work legally to support themselves and their families. 

    As such, we urge your Administration to designate the Palestinian territories for TPS and/or to authorize DED for Palestinians in the United States without delay.  Thank you for your consideration of this request.

    ###

    Iraq snapshot

    Friday, November 10, 2023.  The assault on Gaza continues. 


    The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there have been some “issues” getting aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

    At a briefing, the agency said the crossing had been designed for pedestrians, not trucks.

    Only 65 trucks carrying food, medicine, hygiene supplies and water, and seven ambulances, crossed from Egypt into Gaza on Wednesday, it said, adding that none of that aid can reach northern Gaza.

    “We cannot drive to the north at the current point, which is of course deeply frustrating because we know there are several hundred thousand people who remain in the north,” said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.

    “If there is a hell on Earth today, its name is northern Gaza,” he said. “It is a life of fear by day and darkness at night and what do you tell your children in such a situation, it’s almost unimaginable — that the fire they see in the sky is out to kill them?” he said.


    "If there is a hell on Earth today, its name is northern Gaza."  CNN notes:


    “Demands for civilians to relocate to an Israeli Defence Force designated ‘safe zone’ are also very alarming,” Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a news conference in Amman, Jordan.
    “A so-called ‘safe zone,’ when established unilaterally, can heighten risks to civilians, and raises real questions as to whether security can be guaranteed in practice. At the moment, nowhere in Gaza is safe, as bombardments are being reported in all parts of the Strip.”




    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Israel and the United States are continuing to reject calls for a ceasefire in Gaza as the death toll from Israel’s bombardment tops 10,500, including over 4,000 Palestinian children. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza have evacuated their homes on foot as Israeli troops attempt to forcibly seize control of the area. The U.N. estimates 1.5 million Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza — that’s 70% of Gaza’s population. Many Palestinians fear Israel will never allow them to return to their homes.

    On Wednesday, the top human rights official at the United Nations, Volker Türk, traveled to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, where he accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes.

    VOLKER TÜRK: The Rafah crossing has been the symbolic lifeline for the last month for the 2.3 million in Gaza. The lifeline has been unjustly, outrageously thin. These are the gates to a living nightmare, a nightmare where people have been suffocating under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for food, for electricity and fuel. … On the other side of this gate is Gaza, already described as the world’s biggest open-air prison before 7 October, under a 56-year occupation and a 16-year blockade by Israel.

    The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on the 7th of October were heinous. They were war crimes, as is the continued holding of hostages. The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians is also a war crime, as is unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.

    AMY GOODMAN: In Gaza City, Israeli airstrikes have hit areas near Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest hospital. Meanwhile, most operations at al-Quds Hospital have been halted due to dwindling fuel supplies and daily Israeli attacks on areas around the hospital. Most roads to the hospital have been destroyed. The hospital is run by Palestine Red Crescent Society, which is part of the International Red Cross.

    We go now to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where we’re joined by Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

    Thanks so much for being with us. If you could start off by talking about the state of the hospitals in Gaza right now? And what hospitals are you being told that you must have evacuated? And what is the response of the Palestinian Red Crescent, Nebal?

    NEBAL FARSAKH: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

    The situation now in hospitals is dire. Almost 18 hospitals out of 35 in Gaza Strip have been — have gone out of service, either due to bombardment or because extreme shortage of — they are running out of fuel and medical supplies. The rest of the hospitals are operating under extreme difficult situations. They are having extreme shortages of medical supplies and medicine, as well as almost running out of fuel.

    For example, al-Quds Hospital, yesterday we had to reduce all services and operations in al-Quds Hospital to the extent that the major and main generator in the hospital has been turned off, and now we are only using the small generator. The hospital’s surgical ward has been shut down, as well. The hospital’s oxygen generator also has been shut down, and now we are using oxygen cylinders. According to the information, we are only now for 24 hours, and we will be completely shutting down, because we will be running out of fuel. Basically, up to this moment, none of the aid has been allowed to get into al-Quds Hospital.

    This is the fourth day, and al-Quds Hospital has been under intense bombardments, along of all roads that lead to al-Quds Hospital are closed. Because of the bombardment, the roads are closed. Our emergency medical services team, they are also inside the hospital, so they are unable to go out of the hospital to arrive the wounded people in the area. They can see from where they are inside the hospital that there are many wounded people very close to the hospital, but, unfortunately, they feel helpless. Because of the intense bombardment, it’s so much dangerous. So they even can’t go out to arrive those wounded people and save their lives. And the area where the hospital is located now became so much dangerous. As highlighted, all roads are closed, so nobody can get into al-Quds Hospital.

    Unfortunately, none of the aid has been allowed to get into al-Quds Hospital. Two days ago, we were waiting for aid to come in through ICRC. However, the ICRC convoy was targeted by Israeli occupation forces. And unfortunately, they were unable to deliver the aid to al-Quds Hospital.

    So, now the situation, not only the problem is the fuel; we are barely having food or water for our staff and our patients and for over 14,000 civilians who are currently sheltering inside the hospital. Because of the continuous bombardments, all the windows have been falled down — I mean, the glass. So they are literally open. And at nighttime, it became so much cold, even for families who are lying and sleeping on the ground. You can’t imagine the picture of children who are feeling so much cold and don’t even have a blanket to warm them up. So now we are in urgent need for everything, for blankets, for food and water. Those children, they even have a very minimum amount of food. As I mentioned, we barely have even food for the staff or for the patients. This is the third day all Gaza City and the north is out of bread, because all bakeries have already run out of fuel. So none of Gazans who are now currently in Gaza and the north are able to get any piece of bread.

    There’s still in Gaza and the north almost 500,000 civilians who are still now sheltering in schools and hospitals in those area where Israel forced its people to evacuate. It’s not easy to say just “evacuate,” because intense bombardments are just taking place all over, and it’s not safe to evacuate yourself, taking into consideration that, as you highlighted, many people have to do that on foot under intense bombardment. There is no transportation. There is complete destruction of the road and infrastructure. And simply an ICRC convoy was targeted while it was on its way from the south to the north. So, how it would be safe for civilians to evacuate themselves to the south?

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Nebal, so if you could respond to the fact that Israel has said, either evacuate from al-Quds Hospital, or the Palestinian Red Crescent is responsible for any deaths? And then, also, you know, you’ve said that oxygen generators have now been shut off, you’re relying on oxygen cylinders, that fuel is running out. I mean, what do you — how will this go, if you don’t have access to fuel? What do you fear will happen to these patients who are dependent on oxygen, not to mention all of the other medical supplies that are dwindling, if not have entirely run out?

    NEBAL FARSAKH: Yes. We have announced repeatedly that we have around 500 patients inside the hospital. Many of them are connected to life support machines. They are in the intensive care unit. We have babies in incubators. We don’t have the means to evacuate them safely. Evacuating them means killing them. Taking into consideration that already intense bombardments are taking place, so there will be no even any way to evacuate the staff, along with 14,000 civilians who are currently taking shelter because, simply, they have nowhere, no way to go to.

    Hospitals, healthcare personnel, healthcare facilities should be protected under international humanitarian law. There will be no justification for Israel targeting al-Quds Hospital, although — even the WHO has announced that evacuation orders against hospitals are impossible to implement. They constitute a death penalty for patients. Doctors, nurses, healthcare workers should not put in an option to choose either to lose your life or risk your life or even turn back — turn your back to your patients and just go away. This is not acceptable.

    And this situation, to be under intense bombardment, under constant fear and panic of losing your life, it’s also unacceptable. As I said, for over at least a week, now two weeks almost, intense bombardments are taking place in a very close area of the hospital, to the extent that most of the buildings in the surrounding area of the hospital has been damaged. Airstrikes are taking place even 15 meters away from the hospital. It has resulted to at least 16 people were injured during these bombardments, to the extent that a patient in the intensive care unit was also injured. This should not be acceptable.

    I can’t describe the situation now inside the hospital, when I’m talking about 14,000 civilians — most of them are children and women — just sleeping on the hospital’s ground. Every single corner in the hospital, there is internally displaced people, who have no other option. This is the last choice for them. It’s just seeking shelter to a place they thought they will be in a safe place. Unfortunately, this is not the case, because Israel, it looks like it’s absolutely over and above the international humanitarian law.

    Unfortunately, as a humanitarian organization, we have completely run out of all of solutions. Over three weeks now we have been calling on the international community to intervene immediately to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and including fuel. We have warned repeatedly, “We are running out of fuel.” We have already run out of fuel a week ago. So, we managed to get some fuel from some gas stations who had some left over. Unfortunately, because of the continuous blockade on Gaza, particularly, and the north, it’s now an impossible mission to find one liter of gas, one liter of fuel in Gaza and the north. We have come to an end. We have already reduced all of our operations, all of our services, in order just to manage to take care of those patients who are now inside the hospital. And although we have taken all of these measures, we are only for 24 hours. At that point, the hospital’s small generator will shut down, and then the lives of those who are connected to life support machines, they will lose their life. And we even — we even can’t imagine the situation we will be in. As a humanitarian organization, we feel helpless. We feel helpless.

    AMY GOODMAN: And, Nebal, your response to Israel saying, if you don’t evacuate al-Quds Hospital, your organization, the Palestinian Red Crescent, is responsible for any deaths?

    NEBAL FARSAKH: As I said, international humanitarian law is clear: Hospitals, healthcare worker, healthcare facilities, civilians should not be a target. If an attack or whatsoever happened for al-Quds Hospital, this will be a responsibility of Israel, the responsibility of the international community, who are, up to this moment, fail to stand up for humanity, fail to pressure Israel to ensure the protection of civilians, healthcare personnel and healthcare facilities. Up to this moment, four colleagues were killed during conducting their humanitarian role, trying to save other people’s life. Twenty-two other paramedics were injured. At least eight ambulances completely went out of service due to Israeli bombardment and targeted for ambulances. This also should be stopped. Under all circumstances, in all conflicts, healthcare workers, healthcare personnel, healthcare facilities and hospitals, along with civilians, they should be protected. Unfortunately, 70% of the victims, of thousands of people who were killed in Gaza, are children, women and elderly people. This war crime should be stopped.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Nebal, I mean, if you could talk specifically about the situation of children, over 4,000 killed, countless others thought to be under the rubble? But apart from that, there’s a new acronym that’s been in use in Gaza hospitals: WCNSF, wounded child, no surviving family. If you could say something about that, Nebal, whether you’re witnessing that, how much you’re witnessing it in hospitals there, al-Quds included?

    NEBAL FARSAKH: Unfortunately, because of the intensive bombardments that is taking place on people’s residential buildings, houses, without even any prior warning, that has resulted to wiping out whole families. And unfortunately, many children who are survivors now, they don’t even have any family member.

    We have saved a 12-years-old girl. She was under the rubble for almost 30 hours. Unfortunately, she has lost all of her family. And now she is currently sheltering inside the hospital. Our psychosocial support team try as much as they can to support her, but no words can describe the traumatized situation that this 13-years-old girl, along with other children in Gaza, are living because of this intense bombardment.

    Even those who didn’t lose anyone, simply being under intense bombardments day and night, and hearing strong bombardments with complete darkness because of the cut of electricity, is just so much horrifying and panic among those children who are living unprecedented situations that no child in this world, we wish, is be living.

    AMY GOODMAN: Nebal Farsakh, we want to thank you for spending this time with us, spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, joining us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

    Coming up, we’ll speak to the Palestinian American poet and physician Fady Joudah. Israel has killed dozens of his family members in Gaza in just the past month. Stay with us.

     
    Nebal Farsakh stated, "As I said, international humanitarian law is clear: Hospitals, healthcare worker, healthcare facilities, civilians should not be a target. If an attack or whatsoever happened for al-Quds Hospital, this will be a responsibility of Israel, the responsibility of the international community, who are, up to this moment, fail to stand up for humanity, fail to pressure Israel to ensure the protection of civilians, healthcare personnel and healthcare facilities."   Nidal Al-Mughrabi (REUTERS) reports this morning, "Israeli air strikes hit Gaza's biggest hospital, the Al Shifa, on Friday, killing one person and wounding others sheltering there, Palestinian officials said, one of several hospitals reported struck at dawn as Israel battles Hamas in the heart of the enclave."  An hour ago, ALJAZEERA noted:

    Gaza resident Motei Ibrahim says the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, is “totally overwhelmed by people who have evacuated their homes”.

    “People are living inside the corridors,” he told Al Jazeera from the hospital. “The situation is so dire and so difficult,” Ibrahim said.

    “The repetitive scene here is the people who are targeted by the Israeli air strikes frequent the road to the hospital and their relatives and beloved ones come to bid a farewell to them and carry them to their last destination,” he added.

    “The grief is overwhelming.”


    It's amazing what people can lie to themselves and justify.  And it's worth noting that once they lie like that, the behavior gets easier and easier.  ALJAZEERA notes, "Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra says Israel has bombed al-Shifa Hospital buildings five times since Thursday night." The Israeli government is openly targeting hospitals now.  Gone is any effort to argue that it wasn't them.  It matters less and less, the war machinery keeps grinding on.  And we can thank the feckless leaders like Joe Biden who have refused to address this issue in a rational manner. Andre Damon (WSWS) reports:


    On Thursday, as he was leaving for a campaign event in Illinois, US President Joe Biden again categorically reiterated his opposition to a ceasefire in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Asked, “What are the prospects of a Gaza ceasefire?” Biden replied, “None. No possibility.”

    Biden’s comments made clear that the United States is actively instigating Israel’s genocide in Gaza and working to inflame a wider war in the Middle East. They came just two days after White House National Security spokesman John Kirby stated again that the United States has no “red lines” on the number of civilian casualties it will accept.

    Biden’s remarks sparked worldwide outrage, with clips of his statement viewed or shared by millions of people on all social media platforms. He was met in Chicago by thousands of people demonstrating against US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The crowd chanted, “Genocide Joe” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”

    While Biden was speaking in Illinois, he was interrupted by a protester who yelled, “10,000 Palestinians have been killed. Half of them are children.”

    Before Biden left for Chicago, he was asked whether Israel’s “retaliatory airstrikes” were working, he replied, “Yes,” adding, “they’re hitting the targets they’re seeking.”

    So targeting hospitals is working?  Good to know.  Good to know how low Joe is willing to go.  He's a War Criminal.  



    Ooh you're slickYou investors in hateYou Saddams and you BushesYou Bin Ladens and snakesYou billionaire bulliesYou're a globalized curseYou put war on the masses while you clean out the purse
    And that's how it's done war after warYou old feudal parasites just sacrifice the poorYou've got the cutting edge weapons But your scam's still the same as it's been since the RomansIt's the patriot gameIt's the war racket
    You twisters of languageYou creeps of disguiseYour disinformationLike worms in your eyesYou privileged bankersYou gambler thievesYou profit on warThere's less money in peace
    That's how it's done time after timeCountry after country, crime after crimeYou pretend it's religion and there's no one to blameFor the dead and impoverished in your little patriot gameHoney, that's the war racket

    -- "War Racket," words and music by Buffy Sainte-Marie, first appears on her album MEDICINE SONGS.


    Amnesty International has called for a cease-fire. ALJAZEERA noted earlier this week, "The leaders of 18 United Nations agencies and non-profit organisations (NGO) have called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli-Hamas war, expressing 'shock and horror' at the mounting death toll from the conflict."  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) notes:


      As Israeli troops neared the hospital on Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on social media that "with ongoing strikes and fighting nearby, we are gravely concerned about the well-being of thousands of civilians there, many children among them, seeking medical care and shelter, including people on life support, those who lost limbs in air strikes, and burn victims."

    "Videos from inside al-Shifa's compound, verified by HRW, show hundreds of people in a courtyard next to the [emergency room], including sheltering civilians, medics tending to patients, emergency workers collecting dead bodies, and journalists. Satellite imagery shows many tents there," the group said. "Videos and photos taken in recent days show civilians and emergency workers bringing hundreds of injured and dead people to the hospital day and night, by ambulance, by car, on foot, and by donkey cart. People regularly walk in and out of the hospital's main entrance."



    CNN’s Zeena Saifi reports, "Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) called for an end to the war in Gaza and the end of the 'forced displacement' of Palestinians."  Mithil Aggarwal (NBC NEWS) notes, "Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed news that Israel would formalize daily humanitarian pauses but said that 'more needs to be done'."  More needs to be done?  Well you're an abject failure so clearly it won't be accomplished by you. 



    There’s no question that US aid provides a substantial share of Israel’s war costs. A rough sense of the overall importance of US aid to the Israeli war effort can be developed by comparing the $14 billion in military aid proposed by the Biden administration with an estimate by the Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist, first reported by Reuters. Calcalist estimates that the conflict in Gaza will cost Tel Aviv roughly $50 billion if it goes on for eight to 12 months.

    If the Calcalist estimate is on the mark, that would mean that if the $14 billion in proposed US aid is approved and disbursed over the next year, it would account for just over one-quarter of the total cost of the war to Israel. About half of the estimate—$25 billion—represents direct military costs, with the additional costs related to negative economic impacts of the war, compensation for businesses, and reconstruction. If US aid is compared only to the estimate of direct military costs of the war, it would amount to more than half of relevant expenditures. No estimate made in the midst of an ongoing conflict will be entirely accurate, but what we do know suggests that US tax dollars are a major factor in sustaining the Israeli war effort.

    The role of US-supplied weapons may be even more important than the question of how much of the costs of the war would be paid for with American tax dollars. The United States has been Israel’s principal arms supplier since the nation’s inception—supplying military aid to the tune of $124 billion over that time period before adjusting for inflation. Washington is currently in the fifth year of a 10-year $38 billion military aid commitment to Tel Aviv, or $3.8 billion per year. This annual figure will be dwarfed by the $14 billion in military aid contained in the administration’s pending emergency aid request. The types of weaponry in the package include large quantities of bombs and tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells that can be put straight to use in the Gaza war.


    Joe makes all Americans complicit in these War Crimes.  Gabriel Black (WSWS) notes:

    On November 2, Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker who ran as the rank-and-file socialist candidate for president of the UAW, issued a video statement demanding the immediate cessation of production for equipment and munitions used by the Israeli military. At the time of writing, his statement has been viewed over a hundred thousand times, particularly on TikTok where it was widely shared.

    In his statement, Lehman endorsed the call of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions asking workers around the world to “refuse to build weapons destined for Israel … refuse to transport weapons to Israel … [to] take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege.”

    Lehman noted, however, that the leadership of the UAW “has ignored the appeal by the Palestinian trade unions,” with UAW President Shawn Fain—the backed candidate of the DSA—inviting President Joe Biden to Michigan “to posture as a friend of working people.” At the time of writing, the UAW leadership remains silent on the call of the Palestinian Federation of Trade Unions to shut down the production of bombs, missiles, and other equipment for war.

    More than 1,100 General Dynamics workers in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania were set to strike on October 22 but the UAW announced a last-minute deal to prevent a walkout at the giant defense contractor, which supplies weapons to Israel.

    The American weapons being used by the IDF to destroy Gaza

    Over ten thousand Palestinian civilians have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In just one month of bombing, the IDF has killed 4,000 children. Responding to the slaughter which has been made possible by Biden and the imperialist powers in Europe, United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres described Gaza as a “graveyard for children” on Monday.

    The vast majority have been killed inside their apartments, tents, or place of shelter, as bombs fired by Israeli warplanes either kill them on impact or collapse the infrastructure around them, in which case they are crushed to death or suffocate beneath the rubble. Civilians hear the whistling of the bombs for several seconds before the bombs land on their homes and explode. On-the-ground footage from independent journalists, such as Motaz Azaiza (Instagram) and Eye on Palestine (Instagram), shows Palestinian civilians desperately trying to free their relatives and loved-ones from the rubble every day—hoping for signs of life beneath the concrete.

    The IDF has one of the more advanced militaries on the planet—funded, almost exclusively, by billions of American tax-dollars. The US has spent over $130 billion on supplying Israel with weapons since the country’s founding in 1948.

    The IDF fires bombs on Gaza from a fleet of American made war planes. Cross-referencing information from Reuters, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Al Jazeera suggests this fleet consists of:

    • 40 F-35 advanced Lockheed Martin stealth warplanes (Reuters reports that a total of 75 have been ordered)
    • 196 F-16 multi-purpose planes made by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin
    • 83 F-15 fighters designed and produced by McDonnell Douglas (which is now Boeing)

    These warplanes are equipped with bombs, missiles, and guidance kits largely manufactured in the United States. 






    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, we’re joined in Houston, Texas, by Fady Joudah. He’s an award-winning Palestinian American writer and poet, as well as a physician. He has translated several collections of poetry from Arabic into English, including work by the renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Dozens of his family members have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. His recent piece for LitHub is titled “A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation.”

    Fady Joudah, welcome to Democracy Now! First of all, of course, our condolences on the loss of your family members. If you could say a little bit about those family members and how you and your family here in the U.S. are keeping in touch with people who remain in Gaza?

    DR. FADY JOUDAH: Thank you.

    We have had more than 50 or 60 people in our extended family killed by Israeli airstrikes. Some of them are in-laws of one of my cousins, and others are different families. Others were also killed by the dozens in one strike. One particular story is of a woman I knew since when I was a child in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And her brother’s grandkids were killed because Israel bombed the house next to them, and in the bombing, one of the walls — one of the walls of their house fell off on them. And they were sleeping, and it killed the three grandchildren and the parents. And only the grandfather survives. So this is also a different spectrum of what we hear about the children being the only survivors in entire families. There are also stories of elderly people who have survived 1948, the Nakba, and/or 1967, and they’re the only ones who are surviving or who have survived their families.

    We try to keep in touch with some family members through social media or WhatsApp or what have you, but you know there’s no guarantee that there is regular access or regular communication. You can send a message and maybe get a response the next day. In the beginning of the war, we could get a few phone calls in. But the stuff now is just very difficult to access many people.

    The situation is unspeakable and will remain unspeakable, I think, for generations and decades, has been a culmination of the Palestinian experience for a hundred years, since the British Mandate and the beginning of settler colonialism with Zionist immigration into Palestine. It is really beyond words to describe what it means to be a Palestinian in this moment, the accumulation of multigenerational trauma and memories that activates in each one of us previous memories we’ve tried overcome with hope and a flair for life and for freedom, only to find that there is always some horrific episode that reminds us that we are on this Earth in this time, liable to be massacred and lied about. It is —

    AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of which, Fady — we’re speaking to Fady Joudah, who is an award-winning Palestinian American writer and poet and physician. As you speak to us from Houston, we’ve spoken to so many Palestinians in Gaza, in the West Bank, as well, but you are here in the United States. And the United States is so important when it comes to how Israel deals with Palestine, because of the amount of aid, to the tune of billions of dollars a year, and is now asking for much more. Can you talk about how the media here covers this issue?

    DR. FADY JOUDAH: Well, it’s how the media doesn’t cover it. I think that I’ve written in the piece there — and I’ve written in other pieces before — there is a collective psychosis in the mainstream language of U.S. media and administration, that is bizarre to the point of ghosting Palestinians, permitting their erasure, year after year, decade after decade.

    When we say, for example, Israel has a right to defend itself, we’re also saying that Palestinian lives are not equal to any other lives that we deem superior to them. And I think that we have not repeatedly asked the question in American media and culture: Do you believe that Palestinian lives are equal to Israeli lives and to Jewish lives? There are many, Jewish people among them, who believe the answer is yes. But there are many more who haven’t even entertained the question honestly. And I think the importance of the question is to go beyond the moral lip service reflex of saying, “Of course, yes,” because to say “yes” means that you have to believe in the equal humanity of Palestinians as a political condition for freedom. When we hear about all the stuff from Blinken or Biden, it is really a language that says, “We believe that the Palestinians have rights when we decide that they have equal rights. We will put it on the back burner.” Always on the back burner.

    And what I say is that we have reached a point where the murder and the destruction of Palestinian lives has reached a point of every time it reaches, it goes up higher, escalates in what is permissible about destroying Palestinian lives. We are not just talking about the numbers of the dead. We are talking about 2 million people who are living a life worse than death, and they have to overcome that and the trauma, that is unspeakable. And I do not expect the U.S. media and mainstream media or politics to even care about this. The ghosting continues.

    Yesterday in The Washington Post, they published a racist cartoon, in — which they took down because there was an immediate back — I mean, lashing out at the racist cartoon. It is unimaginable to think that this — and it shouldn’t be imaginable — to think that this would be directed at Jewish lives or Israeli lives, but it is permissible to dehumanize Palestinians, until it has become part of the accepted feeling within the American psyche or consciousness on the whole. And so, everyone, I think, on the whole, except pockets here and there, is really complicit in the permissibility of the destruction of Palestinian lives, that has reached an unprecedented level in our hundred years of being massacred, displaced, dehumanized.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Fady, I want to ask you about a point that you raise in this beautiful essay that you’ve written, “A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation.” In the essay, you cite Aimé Césaire, the renowned Martinican poet, very important anticolonial thinker, who wrote one of the canonical texts on colonialism, A Discourse on Colonialism. You cite him saying, “Neither America nor Europe seem able or willing to solve their colonial addiction, their civilizational motif. Israel is a translation of that failure, a prized Western desire. But Israel has agency in mechanizing this desire.” Could you explain, elaborate on that?

    DR. FADY JOUDAH: Well, I think that, for some of us who know, or don’t know, that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 was a response to the Zionist movement in Europe by a Jewish people in Europe who had suffered a lot of oppression. But to overcome that oppression, they chose to side with the colonial aspect, the domineering aspect of the culture that dominated them, and export that as a mode for success and triumph into a Palestine, without much recognition of the racism involved in dehumanizing what they call the Arab population of Palestine.

    And since then, it has been in the interest of the West and the U.S. to prop up Israel as an outpost, so to speak, for further domination of the Middle East for various reasons. But the problem is that this kind of propping up has really gone mad at this point. And, you know, I think we’ve reached a moment — and others have said it — where the degree of colonial viciousness that exists now in Israeli society, and is supported by the West, sends us back to 19th century barbarism, really, colonial barbarism. And then, obviously, Israel is interested in affecting this kind of behavior within the U.S. through major lobby influences and also cultural influences.

    As I said, I — or let me say it this way. It would be an amazing achievement if Zionists in the U.S., and outside it, would actually say to a single Palestinian, “I am sorry.” Just once. This has not happened in a hundred years. It has happened, of course, on an individual level. I have Jewish friends and colleagues who have said it, because we are all human, and there is no monolithic collective anywhere.

    But I think that one of the things we need to do is to begin to shift the language that speaks of the Palestinian and to allow for more Palestinian presence in the American consciousness, beyond death and dying. It seems to me that Palestinians in the West are only alive when they are dying, and that is abhorrent and unacceptable. And that is part of a settler colonial mentality that only humanizes its subjects when they are limp, near dying, completely helpless, obedient. Any sense of resistance or rise toward freedom or liberation is denied them through dehumanizing language and, you know, manipulative approaches and processes.

    AMY GOODMAN: Fady Joudah, we want to thank you so much for spending this time with us, Palestinian American writer, poet, translator and physician, speaking to us from Houston. Dozens of his family members have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. We’ll link to your recent piece for LitHub, “A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation.”



    The following sites updated: