RANT: WHO'S IN CHARGE OF THIS SLOW MOTION TRAIN WRECK?

 

IN CASE IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM THE PICTURE, this is a still photo clipped from a cell phone video taken at the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza last weekend. It was taken just after Israel bombed the refugee tent camp located within the hospital grounds. In the foreground there is a young man lying on a hospital bed with an I-V line in his arm. He is burning to death. Gazans use fire extinguishers to try and douse the flames and smother the blaze with carpets, but the fire is too intense. The young man in the photo was later identified by his younger brother as Sha'ban al-Dalou. He was a 19-year-old software engineering student at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza when he and his family were forcibly displaced last year during an IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) attack that destroyed his home. Last week, he was injured during an Israeli air strike on a mosque which killed 20 people. He was taken to the Al-Aqsa Hospital where he and his mother perished in the fire that engulfed the tent camp where they had been sheltering. He is survived by his father, two sisters and and two brothers.*

 

    Sha'ban al-Dalou

After a year of such atrocities, we are almost numb to it. There is just too much to be taken in, or even believed possible, as Israel wages its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Yet we must look, and continue to look, and never forget what we have seen. **

 

WEST JERUSALEM’S CAMPAIGN in Lebanon has taken the world’s eye temporarily from the war crimes committed daily by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) in Gaza, but Israel’s plan to ethnically cleanse the enclave continues at pace. The latest campaign, called the “Generals Plan”, named after retired General Giora Eiland and other retired Israeli military chiefs, calls for the expulsion of all Palestinians from northern Gaza by attacking infrastructure (like the Al-Qusa hospital) and the remaining populated centres in the district. There’s nothing new in that, except Israel has ratcheted it up a notch by blockading all humanitarian food supplies from entering northern Gaza—as per the Generals' suggestion of using starvation to depopulate the district—warning the remaining inhabitants (some estimates suggest there are between 300,000 and 400,000 Palestinians who have remained in place) to move south of the Netzarim Corridor (see map).¹ Otherwise, they will be considered Hamas operatives and become legitimate military targets. It seems starvation and slaughter are the tools de jour that Israel will use to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza of Palestinians.² And as more and more of the world watches in horror, will this finally prove a bridge too far? Will the international community condemn Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza (and its "scorched earth" assault into southern  Lebanon) and take action to stop it? Will the United States rein in this out-of-control, sociopathic Israeli government, which it easily could have done on day one by stopping military and financial aid? Time will tell, but don’t hold your breath.

 

RECENTLY, ISRAEL ANNOUNCED that it would be confiscating UNRWA’s (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) headquarters in Gaza City (what’s left of the place) and will develop it as an Israeli settlement.³ The headquarters is, of course, United Nations property.⁴ UNRWA has said it has great difficulties in getting aid into Gaza and to the Palestinian people, not only because of the blockade and the problem with so much of transportation infrastructure having been destroyed, but also because of the nature of the conflict whereby UNRWA workers, vehicles, warehouses and shelters are periodically attacked by Israeli drones and bombs. Thus far, 182 staff members of the UN aid agency have been killed.

 

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION earlier this week has warned, in writing, mind you, to withhold⁵ military shipments to Israel if aid relief to Gaza, including the northern district, is not brought up to humanitarian standards. Yea! [Applause!] Genocide Joe, you sure taught that Netanyahu a thing or two! Oh…wait. Why does the Israeli PM have a whole month to open the borders for food and medical supplies to get into Gaza? Why not immediately? That a real puzzle. What could be the reason? Let’s see. Could it be, maybe…the upcoming U.S. elections? Biden doesn’t want to tick off donors, those rich, American-Zionist Christians and Jews, zealots, and Israeli lobbyists who pour millions into Presidential and down-ballot political campaigns. Trump, for example, got $100 million from Miriam Adelson. Wowzers! He and his Democratic rival, Harris, who also gets scads of money from the same sources, are Israel supporters to the max, no matter what! At least until after November 5. 

 

IN OTHER WORDS, no U.S. political leader has the balls to really sanction Israel, to cut off arms and financial aid by using America's real leverage to tamp down this sick, rogue nation’s dangerous and genocidal military adventures. And Western nations, in Europe and elsewhere, while they raise complaints about Israel's behaviour, none of them will do anything because they're afraid of what the U.S. will do to them (sanctions, etc.). So, it's a roost full of cucks in the Western world!  Though it must be said that the recent attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have raised the ire of several European countries, including Spain, France and Italy, who have issued harsh condemnations of such flagrant violations of international law. Some columnists have even called for the expulsion of Israel from the UN. 

 

Just to make the point: Biden sent Netanyahu a ‘sternly worded’ letter the other day which warns the Israeli PM that there needs to be an improvement in the conditions of Gazan relief or the U.S. may stop the flow of arms and money into Israel. And to show Netanyahu he really means business, he's sending him an anti-missile battery. So there! 😆 Biden sent a THAAD missile defense system and 100 American troops to operate it. That’ll teach ‘em! You won’t get any more weapons from us a month from now, boyo, if you don’t get with the program! In the meantime, Bibi, pleasepleaseplease don’t bomb any more hospitals or starve any more Gazans, or use toddlers for target practice. Okay? Thanx.⁶

 

A FINAL NOTE: We will probably see before the November 5 U.S. elections the long-awaited Israeli response to the Iranian missile barrage of October 1. [Which, please remember, was a response, to the assassination of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on July 31, while he attended the presidential inauguration ceremonies in Tehran, and for the assassination in Beirut of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Ed.] The October 1 Iranian barrage was directed at Israeli military targets and caused just one accidental civilian death in a tit-for-tat, non-escalatory reprisal meant to signal that Iran would not initiate further attacks unless Israel makes good on its threats to launch a "lethal and surprising" strike in the coming days.

 

And we are waiting to see what Netanyahu and his cabal will do. They have said they will not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or its oil infrastructure, just its military. We’ll see. But, if their attack is severe enough, then Iran will respond with significant force and then all bets are off. Fun times in the Levant. 😱

 

ADDITIONALLY: Russia has sent to Iran shipments of defensive armaments and, I believe, advanced jet fighters (which would probably be flown by Russian pilots). Iran entered the BRICS trade alliance this year and is in the process of negotiating a security pact with Russia. Therefore, Putin sent military equipment to support its Iranian partner as the two strengthen their ties within BRICS and unilaterally. Interestingly, Putin has publicly warned Israel against attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. Such an attack would not deter Iran from a nuclear weapons program, rather it would encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons and the necessary rocketry, and keep them as a deterrent against a nuclear strike by Israel. [Iran may already have “The Bomb” or be capable of developing one within a short period of time. Ed.] Because of the fuktards in charge of the White House and U.S. foreign policy, the nuclear genie may be out of the bottle again, with Iran and possible other countries in the Middle East becoming nuclear powers as the region becomes more and more unstable. Good job, guys!👍

 

👉FUN FACT: The new Iranian president, a newcomer to politics, Masoud Pezeshkian, is seen as a moderate reformer. In fact, he reached out to the United States before the July 31 Israeli attack to renegotiate the original JCPOA (Joint comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear deal that Donald Trump walked away from in 2018. The plan, though imperfect, kept Iran from developing a nuclear weapon's program. It’s off the table now that Israel, along with  the U.S., may be set to start a war with the Persian state. And, to be clear, the United States does not want to be drawn into a war with Iran because of the danger of it escalating into a conflict with Russia and China who support Iran. But, because of America's obscenely close ties with Israel, may be forced to follow them into the maw of a greater war. 

What an absolute clusterfuck! All this could have been avoided had the United States acquired a bit of humility, ate some crow and, instead of “gunboat” diplomacy, practiced real diplomacy.

 

 Cheers, Jake.______________________________________

 

* Sha'ban's 10-year-old  brother Abdulrahman was also burned in the tent fire and later succumbed to his injuries.

 

** Here’s an interesting, short article on how the media reported (or didn’t report) last Sunday’s attack on the Al-Aqsa hospital the seventh attack since March. For example, there was more coverage of Hezbollah's drone killing four young active-duty Israeli soldiers  in their barracks south of Haifa, than Israel’s attack on the Palestinian civilians at the Al-Aqsa hospital. It took a couple of days before MSM covered the Gazan hospital bombing in any detail. The horrific images of Sha'ban al-Dalou being burned alive [There were three others who also died in the flames, including Sha’ban’s mother] and shown globally on social media, prompted, presumably, even the New York Times to highlight the hospital’s bombing in its Sunday news coverage, a change from its normally ‘Israel-centric’ reporting. It is getting harder to ignore such visceral images or to wash our eyes of them.

 

👉1. FUN FACT: “Netzarim” was the name of the last kibbutz settlement evicted by the IDF from the Gaza strip when Israel withdrew its civilian and military presence there in 2005.

 

“The motivation behind the disengagement was described by [Prime Minister] Sharon's top aide as a means of isolating Gaza and avoiding international pressure on Israel to reach a political settlement with the Palestinians” (Wikipedia)

 

UNDER INTERNATIONAL law, an occupying power has certain obligations it must adhere to with respect to its occupied population. By unilaterally withdrawing its settlers and occupation forces from Gaza in 2005, the Israeli government hoped to bypass such obligations. The withdrawal occurred swiftly, in a matter of days, with the Israelis leaving the enclave to the Palestinians to govern for themselves. When elections were held there in 2006, the Hamas political wing broke with the Fatah Party. After a minor civil war between the two factions, the rival Fatah party, which had governed the Palestinian enclaves of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem since the mid-1990s, quit Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge. Most Gazans by that time had grown tired of a Fatah administration, seeing it as little more than a “cat’s paw” for Israel, keeping the peace in the Palestinian territories but not doing enough for the millions of Palestinians they purported to represent. [Of course, Israel did not want a unified Palestinian government, so it secretly funded Hamas to ensure it ended up ruling in Gaza. Divide and conquer is an age-old problem solver for despots and zealots, alike, though there is often blowback against such policies, given enough time, as we have seen recently.

AND FINALLY, some commentators suggest that if Hamas were allowed to run a slate of candidates in the West Bank, it would beat Fatah hands down. Ed.]

 

DURING ITS CURRENT CAMPAIGN of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, Israel created the Netzarim land corridor, bisecting the enclave and separating the north from central and south Gaza, with the intention of removing the remaining Palestinians and re-colonizing the northern district with Israeli settlers. Recall that the Netzarim kibbutzniks, mentioned earlier, were the last to leave the enclave in 2005. Wanna bet who’ll be first in if Israel’s resettlement plans start to gel?

 

2. Heated discussions between Washington and Tel Aviv have forced concessions on the part of the Netanyahu government with some food aid entering northern Gaza, a “trickle” according to UNRWA officials. And it is to be noted that aid “…is at its lowest level in months, and both the north and south of the enclave are at a ‘breaking point’, UN humanitarians said on Friday.” NOTE: There has been no aid entering Gaza since the October 1 missile attack on Israel by Iran. Deliberately withholding, or stopping altogether, necessary food and medical supplies from reaching a captive population is a war crime. It’s called “collective punishment”, and it occurs when civilians/non-combatants are kept from the necessities of life by one or the other combatant in a conflict.

 

3. QUESTION: “ALEXA, is UNRWA’s HQ a waterfront property and, if so, when can I buy a condo timeshare there?”

 

4. Israel has every intention of recolonizing the entire Gaza Strip using the tried-and-true methods of confiscation of Palestinian lands, settler re-developments, breaking up the enclave piecemeal and absorbing it bit by bit as they have done, and continue to do, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As for the Gazans who live there, it’s a choice between submit, move or die. Or fight. What would we do if in the same situation? Just sayin’.

 

5. Well, the letter actually says that the U.S. Zionist State Department will do an “assessment” as to whether Israel is in compliance with strictures put in place for using U.S. weaponry in its wars in the Levant. I guess that means dropping a couple dozen two-thousand-pound, U.S. made, “bunker-buster” bombs on an apartment complex in Beirut to kill one Hezbollah leader, or deploying its snipers to shoot children in the head are no-nos. The letter is a cynical ploy attempting to bring back into the Democratic fold those under-30 voters who are appalled at the brutality and war crimes they witness daily on social media, war crimes that are aided and abetted by the current Democratic administration. “Genocide Joe” and “Killer Kamila” can preen and cluck and point to the letter and say: “See, we’re trying to stop the dying.” Liars, of course. Because all politicians lie, particularly around election time. They’re doing nothing and after November 5, all bets are off. The letter can then be discarded and shredded along with the bodies of tens of thousands Palestinian children torn up by Israeli bombs and buried under the rubble in Gaza.  

 

6. I think like a lot of people I am dumbstruck by the utterly feckless and appallingly inept leadership across almost the entire American political class, (and really Western leadership as a whole). We have never been this close to a broader regional war in the Middle East, with the real possibility of an escalation to the nuclear level. There is also the potential for an equally dangerous escalation in the Ukraine conflict if we do not tone down the rhetoric and hostility towards Russia (and China), and demand of our elites that they reacquaint themselves with the necessary art of diplomacy. Not to put too fine a point on it, but all of us, today, are being driven full bore in the clown car known as Western Civilization straight into that brick wall known as the End of History.     

 

HERE IS a short and inspiring (or damning, depending on your point of view) video recently put out by the Türkiye government.