Tag: palestine

How to Read Wars

THE YOUNG DECADE of the 2020s has already seen major wars in the Horn of Africa, Armenia, Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, and Myanmar, as well as sputtering irregular wars across Africa’s Sahel. What can you learn by looking at these recent wars? The wrong lessons, usually, if you follow the dominant news sources. That coverage almost always advances the “our team” versus “the other team” perspective. There are lessons to be learned from observing modern warfare, but you have to look for patterns, not sentiment, not who claims the moral high ground, not even who has the most advanced military.

Some patterns are plain as day. Sometimes the wars are all too simple, and the disaster is there for all to see. In October 2023, Hamas fighters broke out of Gaza and wreaked havoc for a day before the Israeli Defense Forces took revenge from the air for months, running up the count of dead civilians as if that were the real point—which it was. Only one aspect of the horrific Gaza war has been interesting from a military standpoint: the total failure of IDF and Israeli intelligence to be prepared for the Hamas attack. That’s a level of incompetence with few precedents in military history. You could cite the Red Army’s failure to spot the signs of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, or the United States Navy not noticing that Japanese carriers were steaming toward Pearl Harbor, but there were mitigating factors: Stalin’s touching faith that Germany would abide by its treaty; the Americans’ distaste for espionage in Roosevelt’s time; and the limitations of 1940s technology—no radar and no drone overflights.

The IDF had none of those excuses. They knew Hamas was armed and had vowed a terrible revenge for the blockade of Gaza and the settler violence that the Israeli government was orchestrating in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel had 24/7 surveillance over every street corner in Gaza by way of gizmos that they export to the entire world with the cachet that it’s good enough for Israeli border forces. So for the IDF to fail so utterly in Gaza, a tiny enclave one-fourth the size of London and as transparent as a goldfish bowl, is one of the great intelligence debacles in history. Haleigh Bartos and John Chin of the Modern War Institute hypothesize that Israeli intelligence had an outdated idea of Hamas’s capabilities and dismissed warnings that conflicted with their preconceived assessments. The IDF made up for its own failures by inflicting a disproportionate revenge on Gaza. This happens frequently: an army fails in its basic mission and then takes it out on civilians in the enemy territory. With an endless supply of free U.S. air-to-ground munitions, the IDF attempted to erase its shame by erasing the neighborhoods of Gaza one by one. The hecatomb was so savage that even the Biden administration’s lower ranks began to protest. As the proverb saith so wisely, “Even buzzards sometimes gag.”

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OUCH: White House Cancels Annual Ramadan Dinner After Muslims Refuse to Attend

The White House was forced to cancel its annual Ramadan celebration after Muslims refused to attend an event with Joe Biden.

CBS News reports that while the White House held a successful Iftar dinner last year with hundreds of Muslims, this year’s celebrations involved just a handful administration officials:

Last year, President Biden hadn’t even spoken a word at the White House celebration of Ramadan before someone shouted out “we love you.” Hundreds of Muslims were there to mark the end of the holy month that requires fasting from sunrise to sunset.

There are no such joyous scenes during this Ramadan. With many Muslim Americans outraged over Mr. Biden’s support for Israel’s siege of Gaza, the White House chose to hold a smaller iftar dinner on Tuesday evening. The only dinner attendees were people who work for his administration.

…

Alzayat attended last year’s event, but he declined an invitation to break his fast with Mr. Biden this year, saying, “It’s inappropriate to do such a celebration while there’s a famine going on in Gaza.”

After rejections from Alzayat and others, he said the White House adjusted its plans Monday, telling community leaders it wanted to host a meeting focused on administration policy. Alzayat still said no, believing that one day wasn’t enough time to prepare for an opportunity to sway Mr. Biden’s mind on the conflict.

The boycott reflects the growing anger among America’s Muslims communities about Biden’s lukewarm for Israel’s war against Hamas.

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Washington Abandons All Norms To Arm Israel

Despite the U.S. not vetoing a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during the month of Ramadan, the Biden administration continues to prove itself as a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Washington has previously used its veto powers to block three UNSC resolutions on Gaza, staying true to its role as the main political and economic backer of Israel with its steady supply of arms to support the military offensive. However, by abstaining from voting on Resolution 2728 (2024), it was successfully passed with 14 votes in favor. While the U.S. did not strike down the resolution, eyebrows have been raised after numerous U.S. officials described the resolution as “non-binding.”

“Of course, we still have Israels back. As you and I are speaking, we are still providing tools and capabilities, weapon systems, so Israel can defend itself,” said the White House National Security Communications Advisor, John Kirby, in a press interview. “Again, no change by this non-binding resolution on what Israel can and cannot do in terms of defending itself,” he added.

Additionally, both the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and the U.S. State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, have repeatedly referred to the resolution as “non-binding.”

All UN Security Council resolutions are binding, as is made clear under Article 25 of the U.N. Charter: “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.” Additional confirmation can be found in the 1971 advisory opinion on the question of Namibia by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which established that all UNSC resolutions are indeed legally binding.

Despite the indisputability of the resolution being binding, Washington continues its attempts to jump through hoops to discredit this fact. The U.S ambassador to the UN argued that since the resolution does not fall under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and therefore does not authorize the use of force to implement it.

Richard Gowan, a former senior official at the UN who currently works at NGO International Crisis Group, provided his insight on Washington’s interpretation in an interview.

“It is clear that the resolution does not contain any enforcement mechanism of its own, and if other Council members proposed sanctions against Israel for non-compliance, the U.S. would veto them,” he said. “So ultimately the resolution is an important diplomatic sign about the need for a ceasefire, but it has little force.”

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Israel Creates ‘Kill Zones’ in Gaza Where Anyone Who Enters Gets Shot

Israel has been creating “kill zones” in the Gaza Strip in areas where the Israeli military is operating, and anyone who enters will get shot even if they’re unarmed civilians, Haaretz reported on Sunday.

The report said anyone killed in a designated kill zone is labeled a “terrorist” even if they “never held a gun in their lives,” and they are “often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the IDF.”

One Israeli reservist who was recently in north Gaza said the “feeling we had was that there weren’t really rules of engagement there.”

Other sources in the IDF told Haaretz that Israel’s claim that 9,000 out of the 32,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are “terrorists” is not valid. “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate,” an Israeli reserve officer said.

A senior officer in Israel’s Southern Command said it was “astonishing to hear the reports after every operation regarding how many terrorists were killed.” He added that Hamas fighters don’t operate in large groups, saying, “You don’t need to be a genius to realize that you don’t have hundreds or dozens of armed men running through the streets of Khan Yunis or Jabaliya, fighting the IDF.”

Another reserve officer who spoke with Haaretz said he was tasked with telling senior IDF officers how many “terrorists” were killed in operations his men carried out and said no one “can determine with certainty who is a terrorist and who was hit after entering the combat zone of an IDF force.”

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EASY TIGER! GOP Rep. Tim Walberg Suggests Ending War in Gaza and Russia ‘Like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’

Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg appeared to get somewhat carried away with his rhetoric during a town hall meeting with constituents this week.

The event, which was held at Dundee Village Hall in Michigan, allowed attendees to ask Walberg his view on various hot button issues of the day.

One man said he knew a soldier who was travelling to Gaza to help build a port at the request of the Biden administration as Israel carries out its war against Hamas.

“Why are we spending our money to build a port for them?” the man asked, according to a video posted on the X platform.

“It’s Joe Biden’s reason; we need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza,” Walberg responded. “I don’t think any of our aid that goes to Israel to support our greatest ally, arguably maybe in the world, to defeat Hamas and Iran and Russia, and probably North Korea’s in there, and China, too, with them helping Hamas — we shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid.”

The Congressman then brought up the example of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, when the allies dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities, which together killed over 100,000 people.

Although the bombings did bring a swift end to the war with the surrender of the Axis powers, debate over the ethics of the decision is debated to this date.

“It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” he continued. “Get it over quick. The same should be in Ukraine. Defeat Putin quick.”

In a statement to Detroit News, Walberg’s spokesman Mike Rorke insisted that he “vehemently disagrees with putting our troops in harm’s way.”

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Israel’s Holocaust trauma is a myth

Responding to a journalist’s question in October, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett fumed: “Are you seriously … asking me about Palestinian civilians? What’s wrong with you? Have you not seen what happened? We’re fighting Nazis.”

Bennett had been asked what would happen to babies in incubators and other patients who would die after Israel cut off the power to the Gaza Strip.

There are many other examples of prominent Israeli politicians making similar statements. South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice documented many of them, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloody invocation of “Amalek.”

In the wake of the 7 October attack, an exterminationist mood swept Israel. Israeli peace activist Adam Keller described how Roy Sharon, a radio and TV commentator on the main broadcasting corporation, spoke of his desire to see “a million dead bodies in Gaza.”

Keller wrote that “the streets of Tel Aviv are flooded with red stickers reading ‘Exterminate Gaza!’ Not ‘Destroy!,’ not ‘Flatten!’ – but clearly and explicitly ‘Exterminate Gaza!’ ‘Le-Ha-Sh-Mid!’ – ‘Exterminate!’ Every Hebrew-speaking Jewish Israeli knows from a young age exactly what this word means.”

The lazy explanation for Israel’s genocidal and exterminationist mentality is “Holocaust trauma.” Using the Holocaust as a catch-all explanation is convenient, because it absolves people of the need to look for the real cause of Israeli Zionist violence.

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Speaker Johnson Wants to Pass Bill Sending Billions in Arms to Ukraine and Israel

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says he will work to pass a massive military aid bill for Ukraine and Israel once Congress returns to session next week, a move that could trigger a backlash from his party. House Democrats have vowed to shield the speaker from a GOP rebellion should he support the legislation.

Johnson has underscored the urgency of providing aid to Ukraine and Israel, declaring it a top priority upon the House’s return from Easter recess. “We’ll turn our attention to it and we won’t delay on that,” he told reporters last week.  

Sending billions more in aid to Ukraine is a volatile issue within the Republican Caucus. Johnson won his role as leader of the House, in part, because of his past votes opposing aid to Ukraine. However, since taking over as speaker, Johnson has repeatedly stated that he supports President Joe Biden’s $61 billion aid package for Kiev. 

The issue facing Johnson is how the aid to Ukraine is currently packaged. Initially, the GOP sought to include the funding in a bill that would also supply arms to Israel and Taiwan, as well as devote billions to border security. Last month, the Senate stripped the border funding and immigration reform from the legislation and passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill, including $61 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel. 

After passing the Senate over a month ago, Johnson has prevented the legislation from coming to a vote in the House. Some Republicans in the chamber say if Johnson brings the bill to the floor, they will vote to remove him as speaker. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he spoke with the speaker by phone on Thursday and pressed Johnson to pass the bill. “In this situation, quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital. We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelensky wrote on X.

To overcome the threat from a small number of Republicans, Democrats in the House have hinted that they would support Johnson’s continued role as speaker if he brings the bill for a vote. “If the choice is between Ukraine aid and providing a vote to stop a motion to vacate, or no Ukraine aid, I think there’s a lot of Democrats who would be willing to assist in getting it done,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) told the Hill. 

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18 Killed In Gaza Trying To Reach Aid As Pentagon Vows More Airdrops

The Biden administration announced this week that it plans to resume humanitarian aid drops into Gaza amid reports that large-scale famine is looming. However, critics have said that the airdropped crates from large military transport planes are dangerous given the cramped and desperate conditions on the ground below. 

So far the Pentagon has delivered at least 17 airdrops of nearly 500,000 meals, but the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has said that just on Monday alone 18 people died trying to desperately access the aid, much of which landed in the sea.

Airdropping supplies just off the coast is an apparent safety precaution, after earlier this month Palestinian civilians died after apparently being impacted by falling crates amid parachute failure.

But 12 of the deceased drowned on Monday while trying to access the aid which landed in the Mediterranean. “The aid airdrops pose a real threat to the lives of hungry Palestinians,” Gaza’s government media office warned. Others reportedly perished during stampedes as the aid arrived on land.

The statement further described that some of the recent aid has fallen into active war zones, which presents the risk of hungry civilians getting caught in the crossfire trying to reach it. “This all put the lives of people in real danger,” the office added.

Initially only Jordan was engaged in airdrops, later joined by the US military. Since then and into this week the countries of Germany, Britain, Egypt, Singapore, and UAE have joined and cooperated on airdrops. 

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh has noted there have been recent instances of parachute malfunctions when delivering the aid. “As always, safety is a top priority when planning these airdrops,” Singh said. “Of note, during [Monday’s] humanitarian airdrop, which included approximately 80 bundles, three bundles were reported to have had parachute malfunctions and landed in the water.”

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Close-up of Death Culture: 1,000 in Entertainment Biz Proclaim Support for Gaza Slaughter

Last week, Variety reported that “more than 1,000 Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter denouncing Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ Oscar speech.” The angry letter is a tight script for a real-life drama of defending Israel as it continues to methodically kill civilians no less precious than the signers’ own loved ones.

A few ethical words from Glazer while accepting his award provoked outrage. He spoke of wanting to refute “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” and he followed with a vital question: “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Those words were too much for the letter’s signers, who included many of Hollywood’s powerful producers, directors and agents. For starters, they accused Glazer (who is Jewish) of “drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.”

Ironically, that accusation embodied what Glazer had confronted from the Academy Awards stage when he said that what’s crucial in the present is “not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now.’”

But the letter refused to look at what Israel is doing now as it bombs, kills, maims and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where there are now 32,000 known dead and 74,000 injured. The letter’s moral vision only looked back at what the Third Reich did. Its signers endorsed the usual Zionist polemics – fitting neatly into Glazer’s description of “Jewishness and the Holocaust” being “hijacked by an occupation.”

The letter even denied that an occupation actually exists – objecting to “the use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years.” Somehow the Old Testament was presumed to be sufficient justification for the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, most of whose ancestors lived in what’s now Israel. The vast majority of 2.2 million people have been driven from their bombed-out homes in Gaza, with many now facing starvation due to blockage of food.

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Israel’s Trojan Horse

Piers allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza, including its policy of enforced starvation, appears to have found a solution to its problem of where to expel the 2.3 million Palestinians. 

If the Arab world will not take them, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed during his first round of visits after Oct. 7, the Palestinians will be cast adrift on ships.

It worked in Beirut in 1982 when some eight and a half thousand Palestine Liberation Organization members were sent by sea to Tunisia and another two and a half thousand ended up in other Arab states. Israel expects that the same forced deportation by sea will work in Gaza.

Israel, for this reason, supports the “temporary pier” the Biden administration is building, to ostensibly deliver food and aid to Gaza – food and aid whose “distribution” will be overseen by the Israeli military.  

“You need drivers that don’t exist, trucks that don’t exist feeding into a distribution system that doesn’t exist,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior aid official in the Biden administration, and now president of the Refugees International aid advocacy group told The Guardian. 

This “maritime corridor” is Israel’s Trojan Horse, a subterfuge to expel Palestinians. The small shipments of seaborne aid, like the food packets that have been air dropped, will not alleviate the looming famine. They are not meant to. 

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