Tag: palestine

Bibas family threatens to sue Israeli govt as official propaganda on hostage killings unravels

The Bibas family demands the Israeli government cease exploiting the deaths of their family members for propaganda purposes as layers of evidence support claims an Israeli airstrike killed them.

The relatives of an Israeli family killed while in Hamas captivity in Gaza have demanded the government stop making statements attributing blame for the killings of their loved ones, threatening to “take all legal measures at their disposal” if the Netanyahu administration refuses to comply. The request came three days after a declaration by Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari that Palestinian “terrorists” had “deliberately” killed two young members of the Bibas family “with their bare hands.”

Lawyers representing surviving members of the Bibas family have accused government ministries of seeking to exploit their plight for propaganda purposes, complaining “the family continues to receive, surprisingly, repeated inquiries from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Information System… with the aim of satisfying the public’s voyeuristic instinct.”

“Although it is surprising that it is necessary to request and emphasize this,” the lawyers continued, “we ask once again and in every language of request that all parties” be instructed “not to contact the family, nor to speak with any professional party entrusted with conducting the examinations regarding the circumstances of the murder and the condition of the deceased.”

Read the Bibas family’s letter to Netanyahu and other officials here.

The Bibas family has become a symbol of the plight of Israelis taken captive on October 7, but the truth behind their experience remains obscured by official spin. All four family members were taken captive on Oct. 7, but the father was separated in the chaos. 

While he survived his time in Hamas and was later released to Israel, his wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, were killed while in the custody of the Mujahedin Brigades, a smaller, lesser known faction. According to a Mujahedin Brigades commander, “When [Shiri Bibas] was captured [on October 7], we sent her children with her out of compassion for them. The Israeli occupation killed her along with her children after bombing them along with their captors.”

The commander also declared that Shiri Bibas had served as a soldier in the Israeli army’s Unit 8200 intelligence division, which spies on and seeks to compromise Gaza residents, and later served in the army’s Gaza Division.

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Top Israeli Calls for the Killing of All Palestinian Adults in Gaza: Report

Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset, sounded like a Fox News host on Sunday when he called for the murder of every adult male in Gaza.

The New Arab reported that Vaturi, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, indicated to an Israeli radio station that there are no innocent Palestinians and that the IDF is being too “considerate” in the enclave.

“We need to separate the children and women and kill the adults in Gaza, we are being too considerate,” he said, calling them “scum and subhumans.”

He also called on the IDF to turn the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank into Gaza.

Vaturi’s comments — if they were directed at any other group of people in the world — would be met with scorn and disbelief, but his position is the same as many politicians in Washington and commentators on network news channels.

Martin Oliner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s appointee on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, penned a recent column claiming that Gazans are fundamentally evil and unworthy of mercy.

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The Moralistic Risk for Trump’s Foreign Policy

As the new Trump Administration turns a critical eye to the priorities of government spending, one target of its investigations seems to be delivering an endless supply of questionable practices for scrutiny. USAID, long theorized to be part of a global soft regime change network by many opposed to the status quo of foreign policy, has been proven to be exactly that. This ranges from manufacturing opposition to the Cuban government, to using progressive identitarian groups to affect elections in Bangladesh, and even to create a feedback loop where American media cites supposedly independent activists abroad (who are funded by USAID)  in order to justify distorting the narrative at home.

None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who have been skeptical of the softer side of endless interventionism. Two and a half years ago I published Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence of Social Justice and Neoconservatism, which made the case that the increasingly messianic nature of progressivism served the cause of moral justification for a foreign policy of endless interventionism abroad; it provides a built-in excuse to be involved in as many foreign countries as possible. Through everything from non-governmental organizations supporting ethnic minorities in geopolitical fault lines to the funding of media that pushes a North American–style cultural vanguardism onto very different societies, a changing domestic audience could be brought into the quest for global domination through a self-flattering moralism.

That process is hardly unique to the liberal faction of politics, however. The George W. Bush administration was obsessed with democracy promotion and nation-building as a part of its plan to combat terrorism. It also had a reputation for conflating its own conservative Christian fixation on culture war with foreign policy, such as when its plans to combat AIDS in Africa were tied to abstinence-only education and a ban on condoms, reflecting the administration’s domestic obsession with similar policies at home. It was under such conditions that foreign governments could reasonably claim that American missionaries were tied at the hip to intelligence operations.

The present Trump administration’s willingness to question old talking points about foreign policy being a moral project are laudable but inconsistent. In the transactional worldview that Trump emphasized on campaign, there can be little room for such sentiments, yet already there are signs that he is willing to lean into domestic culture war in order to justify unnecessary interventions abroad. Any plan to remake war-shattered Gaza by acquiring it in a real estate deal facilitated by the United States reflects a long line of interventionist thought about the United States playing some kind of providential role in transforming the Middle East. Indeed, USAID itself once cooked up a potential plan for the relocation of Palestinians into new settlements in Egypt.

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Status Panic on the Campus

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is “fighting back against efforts to intimidate professors into silence,” which—for many of us whose memories of college lecture halls are not uniformly pleasant—is yet another ACLU cause we might not support. The issues here, however, are of more momentous social and political consequence than our initial reaction might suggest.

The ACLU’s efforts—they’re raising funds to support them—are a response to lawsuits brought against students and faculty at Columbia University and elsewhere for their opposition to the war in Gaza. 

The issues are complicated, but the ACLU says it is fighting against attempts to “weaponize our legal system to punish and silence constitutionally protected speech.” Such lawsuits “have become a common tool for intimidating and silencing criticism—including from whistleblowers, journalists and political protestors… not necessarily to win in court, but to entangle people in expensive litigation, using the prospect of mounting legal fees and a potentially ruinous financial penalty to chill speech. In other words, to bully people into silence.” 

The plaintiffs in the Columbia case say statements by faculty supporting student protestors “somehow injured them by causing Columbia University to move classes online, restrict campus access, and cancel commencement.” Three defendants in the case are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman—members of the notorious Capitol Hill “Squad”—which might be about all most conservatives will want to know before making up their minds.

Personally, I have no dog in this fight. Both sides—all sides—seem intent on dragging their opponents into court, a strategy that seems unlikely to improve matters. This conclusion that the atmosphere on campuses will only get more poisonous, tentative as it is, was reinforced the other day in a casual conversation with a college professor friend at a public university more than 300 miles from Columbia. 

This professor and I have a mutual friend who was hoping to land a job at the university, and I asked what he might do to help make that happen. 

“I have no influence here,” the professor said. “I’m just a content provider.”

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The liberal establishment is finally criticizing ethnic cleansing in Gaza now that they can blame Trump

A week after the long-awaited ceasefire between Hamas and Israel brought a rare moment of quiet skies for Palestinians, President Donald Trump announced his plan to “clean out” Gaza, proposing to relocate its remaining population to neighboring countries like Jordan and Egypt. He has since reiterated this stance, claiming that the U.S. aims to “take over” Gaza, in order to rebuild and develop the area into a “riviera of the Middle East”. Is it, one may ask, truly a Trump presidency without the permanent furrowing of one’s brow?

Palestinians were quick to react to Trump: while some do have fears about the uncertainty of their safety and future in the shadow of 15 months of non-stop bombardment that left the strip decimated of both human life and infrastructure, many others expressed their steadfast resolve to remain.

“We will remain here – staying above the rubble, stones and iron. We will remain in our homeland, in Gaza”, said Manar Hamo of the Bureij camp.

But some of the most fervent pushback to Trump’s plan to takeover Gaza has come from the very same people, institutions, and newsrooms that spent fifteen months either remaining quiet on the extermination of Palestinians or supporting and building the case for it to continue. What we find is that there is a manufacturing of a moral hysteria around Trump’s proposal that seeks to – either intentionally or by way of liberal anti-Trump muscle memory – erase the direct culpability of the Biden-Harris administration and the Democrats in the genocide of Palestinians.

And so we have been ambushed by their discovery of the words “war crime”, “ethnic cleansing”, “dastardly deed” and “morally indefensible”. Even The New York Times’ made the very novel discovery of what international law may have to say about forced displacement. What we are seeing, again and again, is the introduction of language that not only offers the criminality of a Trump administration policy that has yet to be put in place but also explicitly moralizes about violence against Palestinians, a moralizing that was markedly absent as U.S-funded and made bombs were ripping apart Palestinian families for fifteen months straight.

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Tel Aviv Bus Bombings: Israeli False-Flag?

On Thursday night, three bombs exploded on buses in Tel Aviv, with another explosive device being found in a separate vehicle. The event triggered hysteria amongst Israelis, while justifying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that a major military operation be carried out in the occupied West Bank. Yet there are serious issues with the Israeli media’s narrative concerning the incident, all of which have led to accusations of a false-flag attack.

While the story has now been subjected to a media black-out, as a result of Israel placing censorship over the emerging details surrounding the explosions, there was a brief period during which key evidence was spread through the Israeli media. In the absence of definite proof of any specific explanation, the story must be approached given the information we do have, combined with the context, in order for the reader to come to their own conclusion.

Although the explosions did not kill or injure even a single person, the issue has been weaponized by arguing that had the bombs exploded at a different time, hundreds could have died. This is the talking point which is now being used to weaponize the event.

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Israeli Defense Minister Says 40,000 Forcibly Displaced Palestinians in West Bank Cannot Return Home

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that the Israeli military has forcibly displaced 40,000 Palestinians in the northern occupied West Bank and that they couldn’t return home as the IDF will be operating in the area over the next year, raising fears of a new ethnic cleansing campaign.

The Israeli military launched the current operation in the West Bank, dubbed “Iron Wall,” on January 21. It has been focused on the northern cities of Jenin and Tulkarm but has spread elsewhere in the occupied territory. In a new escalation, Israeli tanks entered the West Bank on Sunday for the first time since 2002.

Katz said in a statement that he ordered the Israeli military “to prepare for an extended stay in the camps that have been cleared for the coming year, and not to allow residents to return.”

“We will not return to the reality that existed in the past. We will continue to clear refugee camps and other terrorist centers in order to dismantle the [militant] battalions and terrorist infrastructures of extremist Islam that were built,” Katz added.

The tank deployment into the West Bank came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an escalation in the occupied territory following the bombing of empty buses in the Israeli city of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv. Israeli officials blamed West Bank resistance groups for the attack, and a note was left that said “revenge from Tulkarm.” However, two Jewish Israelis were arrested over their alleged involvement in the bombing.

According to the UN, more than 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the new operation was launched last month. The dead include many civilians and children as the Israeli military expanded an “open fire order” in the occupied territory.

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Israel says it knew Bibas family was dead despite claiming they might be alive

The Israeli military acknowledged on Friday it knew the Bibas family was dead in captivity in Gaza despite previously insisting they might be alive.

Hamas said in November 2023 that Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two children, Ariel, aged four, and nine-month-old Kfir, were killed in an Israeli air strike. 

However, the Israeli military continued to demand their release alive.  

Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari on Friday confirmed the death of the two babies “no later than November 2023” following the return of their bodies by Hamas as part of the ceasefire agreement. 

During a news conference, Hagari said the Israeli military had intelligence that they were already dead but could not announce it to the public. 

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Media Afraid to Call Ethnic Cleansing by Its Name

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that the US will “take over the Gaza Strip” and “own” it for the “long-term” (AP, 2/5/25), and that its Palestinian inhabitants will be “permanently” exiled (AP, 2/4/25). Subsequently, when reporters asked Trump whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his plan, he said “no” (BBC, 2/10/25).

After Trump’s remarks, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Reuters, 2/5/25) said “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”

Navi Pillay (Politico, 2/9/25), chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said that

Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Human Rights Watch (2/5/25) said that, if Trump’s plan were implemented, it would “amount to an alarming escalation of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.”

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ADL’s Stats Twist Israel’s Critics Into Antisemites

Media outlets continue to print headlines about antisemitism based on Anti-Defamation League statistics known to be faulty and politicized. In doing so, they grant undeserved credibility to the ADL as a source.

Producing statistics helps the ADL to claim objectivity when they assert that antisemitism is increasing dramatically, prevalent in all fields of society, and emanating from the left as well as the right. Those “facts” are then used to justify policy recommendations that fail to respond to actual antisemitism, but succeed in undermining the free speech rights of Palestinians and their supporters, including those of us who are Jews.

While it frames itself as a civil rights organization, the ADL has a long history of actively spying on critics of Israel and collaborating with the Israeli government (Nation, 1/31/24). (FAIR itself was targeted as a “Pinko” group in ADL’s sprawling spying operation in the ’90s.)

Though it professes to document and challenge antisemitism, it openly admits to counting pro-Palestinian activism as antisemitic: In 2023, the ADL changed its methodology for reporting antisemitic incidents to include rallies that feature “anti-Zionist chants and slogans,” even counting anti-war protests led by Jews—including Jewish organizations the ADL designated as “hate groups.”

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