Tag: palestine

Neo-Nazis and the Far-Right Are Trying to Hijack Pro-Palestine Protests

Around 40 people affiliated with the National Justice Party, a white nationalist and antisemitic group, gathered in front of the White House to protest Israel last weekend. The group was led by Mike Peinovich, a long-time white nationalist personality who previously used the alias “Mike Enoch,” and was one of the architects of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Israel “is a pure genocidal state, make no mistake,” Peinovich told rally attendees over a PA system. “We Americans have been snookered into supporting [Israel] by Jewish control of our banks, our media, and our politicians, but we have to say enough and rise up as a people.”

Their small demonstration was dwarfed by the hundreds-strong protest that flooded the streets of Washington D.C. But Peinovich’s rhetoric is an example of how far-right antisemites are trying to use the pro-Palestine movement, hijack some of its language criticizing the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, and then use that as a vehicle to push anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and tropes into the mainstream. 

The presence of the National Justice Party in D.C. shouldn’t be seen as an indication that there is some ideological kinship between that group and the wider pro-Palestine movement. Fringe extremist groups are first and foremost opportunists, and will leap at any chance to insert themselves into a popular movement. In 2020, the anti-government Boogaloo movement’s gun-toting adherents—including white supremacists—unsuccessfully tried to latch onto the Black Lives Matter movement by claiming they shared similar goals. 

“They’re not pro-Palestine, they just hate Jews, and they see this moment as an opportunity to get attention, get coverage, put their banners, their images, their ideas, into reporting patterns,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told VICE News of the recent displays by brazen antisemites. “Nine out of ten of them would probably happily commit a hate crime against anyone [at the pro-Palestine protest].”

The pro-Palestine movement has picked up enormous support in recent weeks, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets in cities around the world to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, where intense bombardment by the Israeli government has led to the deaths of more than 8,000 people, including thousands of children. 

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Israel Deletes Post Accusing Palestinians of Faking Their Deaths Using Crisis Actors

The Israeli government on Wednesday deleted a comically stupid post accusing Palestinians of faking their deaths using crisis actors.

From Mediaite, “Israel Deletes Post Accusing Palestinians of Faking Their Deaths in Gaza”:

Israel’s official social media account on X, formerly known as Twitter, published a video supposedly showing a Palestinian corpse in a body bag moving on Monday, along with the caption, “Reminder: The Gaza Ministry of Health=Hamas… Bodies can’t move their heads.”

The post received more than 4.5 million views, 27,000 likes, and 7,800 reposts before it was eventually deleted on Wednesday.

“The official government account for Israel once again spread the Pallywood conspiracy theory which claims Palestinians are crisis actors performing for videos & faking their death,” reacted journalist Matt Binder on X. “They deleted it now but it already had been viewed more than 4.5 million times in the past two days.”

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GOP REPRESENTATIVE DENIES EXISTENCE OF “INNOCENT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS” AND TRIES TO HOBBLE AID TO GAZA

CONGRESS IS CONSIDERING a bill that would significantly slow down humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip amid ongoing airstrikes and a ground invasion by Israel that have left at least 8,000 dead and strained critical resources in the already besieged Palestinian territory.

The debate over the bill comes two weeks after its sponsor said U.S. officials should make all efforts to slow down any humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and suggested that there is no distinction between civilians — including children — and the militant group Hamas that massacred some 1,300 Israelis in an October 7 surprise attack.

The original text in the bill — the Hamas International Financing Prevention Act, or H.R. 340 — allowed a humanitarian exemption to provide food, medicine, and medical devices to civilians in Gaza. During committee markup, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., the sponsor, offered an amendment to remove the language and replace it with a provision that would require President Joe Biden to issue a case-by-case waiver to approve humanitarian aid transfers.

“Any assistance should be slowed down — any assistance,” Mast had said in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the bill last month. “Because I would challenge anybody in here to point to me, which Palestinian is Hamas, and which one is an innocent civilian? Which is the child that was poking other Israeli children?” — a reference to a viral video allegedly showing Palestinian boys prodding an Israeli Jewish hostage in Gaza — “And which ones exactly are the innocent ones? It should absolutely be every effort made to slow down any perceived assistance that’s going there.”

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Israel confirms airstrike hit Gaza refugee camp

A series of Israeli airstrikes hit the densely packed Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza on Tuesday, in what Israel said was an attempt to take out a senior Hamas commander in the area.

The Associated Press reported that at least six Israeli airstrikes hit residential dwellings in the heart of the refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City, citing the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

Gaza officials told Reuters that 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 more wounded. Footage from the scene showed people searching through gutted concrete apartment blocks for loved ones, per Reuters.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday claimed the airstrikes killed Ibrahim Biari, the commander for Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion, along with “neutralizing” an estimated 50 other “terrorists.”

Asked about the Israeli attack on the Jabalya camp later on Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said he could not “speak to individual Israeli strikes,” but that the U.S. believes “taking civilian safety into account is both a moral and a strategic obligation.”

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Israel Massacres Civilians to Kill Hamas Leader

The mass murder of innocent Palestinian civilians by Israel continues, with the bombing of the Jabaliyah refugee camp north of Gaza City on Wednesday. Israel initially claimed that 50 Hamas fighters were killed in the attack though only one Hamas leader is confirmed dead. 

So far 100 people are feared dead, 300 are wounded with many hundreds more feared trapped in the rubble. Al Jazeera reports that six Israeli bombs hit the camp where more than 100,000 thousand refugees are crowded into a square kilometer. 

Jabaliyah is the largest refugee camp in Gaza, established after the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from what became Israel. The camp is seen by Israel as a Hamas stronghold. The First Intifada started there in 1987. 

It was the fourth time Israel struck the camp since Oct. 7, the date of Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people. On Wednesday the camp was struck for a fifth time, despite the growing international outcry over Tuesday’s attack.  Israel said it killed Ibrahim Biari, who it named as the “ringleader” of the Oct. 7 attacks. However in the process, dozens of civilians were also killed. 

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has tended to Gaza’s wounded in previous Israeli attacks, in remarks to Al Jazeera, called it a “mass murder” and demanded to know why Joe Biden is not putting a stop to the killing.  It may be the worst massacre in Israel’s nearly one month war on Gaza.

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UK Police Arrest Women Who Attended Gaza Protest Wearing Paraglider-Print Shirts

London police have made the latest in a series of arrests related to the repeated Gaza and Hamas protests in recent weeks, now arresting two women on suspicion of terrorism offences for wearing prints of paragliders stuck to their clothing at a rally.

Two women, aged 29 and 44 years old surrendered themselves to police and were arrested “on suspicion of inviting support for a proscribed organisation” under the Terrorism Act after the Metropolitan Police published their images in an appeal for information. The pair are being held at a police station, the force said.

Images of four people had been published by police on the 27th relating to “Pro-Palestine” protests on October 14th and 21st, with three of those being women wearing print-outs of paragliders taped to their clothes. The fourth was a man carrying a “I fully support Hamas” placard.

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The ‘Genocide Moment’

Israel’s systematic and wanton destruction of Gaza has raised long-standing issues of its political and legal culpability over the treatment of Palestinians to a new level of seriousness. 

It obviously poses familiar issues of Israeli war crimes, and Amnesty International had already clearly designated it as such after just the first week. The human rights organization also asked the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to “urgently expedite” its investigation of the aims of all parties.

But this Israeli campaign now poses the even graver issue of genocide of Palestinians as a nation. The utter devastation of Gaza and the vast numbers of civilians facing death from bombardment and from deliberately engineered starvation and sickness already presents the world with a spectacle of mass murder of unspeakable proportions. 

The Israelis should face accountability for its crimes. 

A panel of nine distinguished independent experts on human rights who investigated the Gaza emergency for the United Nations’ Human Rights Council has just warned that the Israeli campaign of destruction of Gaza poses “a risk of genocide against the Palestinian people.”  

And there is a long history of genocidal thinking and action behind this “genocidal moment”.  It should be recalled that during the previous Gaza crisis in 2014, an equally extremist Israeli government openly threatened genocide against the Palestinians.  

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There’s Only So Much Propaganda Spin You Can Put On The Murder Of Thousands Of Children

The thing is there’s only so much propaganda spin you can put on the murder of thousands of children.

With other imperial military actions the propagandists had an easier time spinning things. Oh no those evil communists are taking over South Vietnam, we need to stop them! Oh no Saddam’s got WMDs, we need to get him! Oh no Gaddafi’s gonna rape and kill all those Libyans, we have a responsibility to protect them!

In Gaza, Israel and its western backers are massacring children by the thousands with a shockingly vicious bombing campaign that is turning entire neighborhoods into gravel. They’re raining down military explosives on a giant concentration camp that is densely populated by children.

There’s only so much a propagandist can do with that.

They can talk about the killings on October 7 til they’re blue in the face, but people are going to object that nothing Hamas did makes it moral or acceptable to murder children by the thousands.

They can say “Israel has a right to defend itself” as much as they want, but people are going to object that murdering children by the thousands is not actually defending anything from anyone.

They can bleat the phrase “human shields” over and over again, but eventually people are going to start saying “Okay but even if they are human shields, could we please stop murdering children by the thousands? I know I wouldn’t want my children to be murdered just because they were being used as human shields.”

They can say every death is the fault of Hamas, but more and more people are going to start saying “Okay blame whoever you want, but can we please stop murdering children by the thousands right this very instant?”

They can say “Well what do you expect Israel to do?”, and people will respond “Stop murdering children by the thousands for starters, please and thank you.”

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U.S. Faces Risks in Spreading Israel-Hamas Conflict

If you suspect that, with Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel added to the Ukraine war and other global conflicts, matters worldwide are heating up in unfortunate ways for all concerned including Americans, the U.S. State Department wants to tell you: You’re right.

“Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution,” warns a recent travel advisory.

Where should Americans “exercise increased caution?” Well, it’s a worldwide advisory, so everywhere. That’s understandable given that preexisting tensions with Russia and its allies almost pale in comparison to the growing stresses following Hamas’s atrocities against Israeli citizens. As fighting rages, other nations are being drawn in, including traditional Israeli ally, the U.S.

“On Wednesday, the USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, opened fire on four cruise missiles and 15 airborne drones for nine hours, far longer than the military first said,” reports military news site Task & Purpose. “Citing an American official familiar with the matter, the path and trajectory of the missiles had them en route to Israel. The missiles were fired by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to the Department of Defense, and would be the first attempt by any group in Yemen to strike at Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas two weeks ago.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. But it’s not the full story.

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Total of 5,000 US Soldiers Partook in Israel’s Overnight Raid in Northern Gaza – Reports

A total of 5,000 US servicepeople took part in Israel’s overnight ground operation in northern Gaza, Iranian news agency reported on Saturday, citing sources.

The Israeli operation reportedly involved three divisions and several brigades of the US Armed Forces, according to the news agency.

The Israeli army is now trying to divide the Gaza Strip into two or three zones by entering from these areas and then starting the next phase of the war with Palestine to eliminate the link between the forces of Palestinian movement Hamas, the report said.

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