War Criminal and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in the news. AP reports:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said Saturday that he “will not compromise on full Israeli control”
over Gaza and that “this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” rejecting
U.S. President Joe Biden’s suggestion that creative solutions could bridge wide gaps between the leaders' views on Palestinian statehood.
In a sign of the pressures
Netanyahu’s government faces at home, thousands of Israelis protested
in Tel Aviv calling for new elections, and others demonstrated outside
the prime minister’s house, joining families of the more than 100 remaining hostages held by Hamas and other militants. They fear that Israel's military activity further endangers hostages' lives.
Emma Graham-Harrison and Toby Helm (GUARDIAN adds, "Over the weekend, Netanyahu sparred publicly – if indirectly – with US President Joe Biden,
who for months has offered Israel almost unconditional support for its
war in Gaza, at considerable political cost to his own administration,
both in America and beyond." Poor Joe, getting played for a fool by a crook like Netanyahu. NBC NEWS notes, "President Joe Biden attempted to downplay Netanyahu's opposition to a
Palestinian state. When asked if a two-state solution is impossible with
Netanyahu in office, Biden said, 'No, it is not,' adding that he
believes the Israeli prime minister could change his mind." Does he sound like an optimist or like a fool? Speaking of fools, Olivia Rosane (COMMON DREAMS) types, "Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
said on Saturday that the U.S. must stop providing military aid to
Israel for its war on Gaza now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has publicly stated his opposition to a Palestinian state." I'm sorry, after 2016's Democratic Party primary and after the 2020 one as well, are we still expecting Bernie to find a spine and stand up consistently? Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "The latest remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on
January 18 suggest that the license also extends to ensuring that
Palestinians will never be permitted a sovereign homeland, that they
will be, in a perverse biblical echo, kept in a form of bondage,
downtrodden, oppressed and, given what happened on October 7 last year,
suppressed. This is to ensure that, whatever the grievance, that they
never err, never threaten, and never cause grief to the Israeli State.
To that end, it is axiomatic that their political authorities are kept
incipient, inchoate, corrupt and permanently on life support, the
tolerated beggars and charity seekers of the Middle East."
As Washington continues to help arm and finance the Israeli
government’s genocidal assault on Gaza, White House rhetoric has
increasingly centered on preventing the war from expanding across the
region. But the Biden administration’s actions in Yemen and the Red Sea
are having exactly the opposite effect.
Beginning shortly after the Israeli assault on Gaza started in early
October, Houthi militants from Yemen launched a series of attacks on
commercial ships, some of them connected to the Israeli economy, in the
shipping lanes in and around the Red Sea. The militants announced that
their attacks were conducted to support the people of Gaza, and would
continue until a cease-fire was put in place. While relatively little
damage was done, the threat was taken very seriously, and shipping and
insurance companies began re-routing large container ships away from the
Red Sea to a longer route around Africa — adding significant time and
cost to global shipping. This re-routing has the potential to cause
serious problems in countries around the world that depend on global
shipping lanes for export and import of everything from crude oil to
children’s toys.
The day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on
Israel, the United States sent an entire aircraft carrier group to the
region that was soon joined by two other destroyers and a 10-country armada of additional warships. On Dec. 31, the U.S. used helicopter gunships to sink Houthi attack boats in the Red Sea, killing 10 Houthi fighters. Less than two weeks later, on Jan. 12, the United States, backed by the UK, attacked 28 sites inside Yemen, killing at least 5 Houthi fighters and injuring 6 — the strike included Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a ballistic missile submarine. And early on Jan. 16,
Washington launched another cruise missile attack inside Yemen,
allegedly targeting Houthi anti-ship missiles. Overall, violence is
rapidly escalating across the already tense and highly
militarized region.
American
forces are assessing the damage from a Saturday evening attack on an
air base in western Iraq, according to U.S. Central Command, which said
air defenses intercepted “most” of the missiles and rockets launched by
Iranian-backed militants.
“A
number” of U.S. personnel were being evaluated for traumatic brain
injuries, and at least one Iraqi service member was wounded by the
missiles that reached Ain al-Asad Air Base, Centcom said on X.
CNN’s Oren Liebermann and Hamdi Alkhshali add, "The US and coalition forces have come under attack more than 140 times
in Iraq and Syria since then, as Iranian-backed Shia militias have
launched repeated drone and rockets. The use of more powerful ballistic
missiles -- far rarer than rockets or one-way attack drones -- comes at a
time of increased tension in the region as the war passes 100 days."
Gaza remains under assault.
Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."
CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is '
the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."
ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."
NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war,
according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service.
Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have
condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. Friday,
United Nations Women noted, "Since 7 October 2023, more than 24,620 Palestinians have been killed in
the Gaza Strip, 70 per cent of whom were women or children. More than
1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have
been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million
women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million
people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."
ALJAZEERA notes,
"The number of Palestinians killed since the start of Israel’s attacks
on October 7 has risen to 24,285, Gaza’s health ministry says. At least
61,154 others have been wounded." In addition to the dead
and
the injured, there are the missing.
AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." And the area itself?
Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s
military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells."
Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a
new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of
45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War."
Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three
of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of
destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by
Israeli forces."
The
European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Friday that Israel
created and financed Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority
led by the Fatah party.
“Hamas
was funded by the Israeli government to try to weaken the Palestinian
Authority, Fatah,” the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy said in a speech at the University of Valladolid in
Spain.
"We
believe that a two-state solution [Israeli and Palestinian] must be
imposed from the outside to bring peace back, even if, and I insist,
Israel reaffirms its refusal [of this solution], and to prevent it they
have gone so far as to create Hamas itself," Borrell said.
The following sites updated:
