CRINGE PICS: TROUBLE IN GAZA (FOR THE NEW GUY ON THE BLOCK)

 

 

    Lineup at GHF's Rafah 'Aid' Station

“SO, HOW’S THE GENO GOING OVER THERE? STARVING BABIES “Я” US! Right? Ha-ha! What’s that, you say? The U.S. has a plan to feed ‘em! Do tell. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, they’re setting up a whole new thing. Wow! Hey, don’t get me wrong but aren’t they the same folks who built that floating pier last year? The one that floated away before any food aid could be delivered! That was FUBAR, matey, all round. But, I’m sure they’ve learned their lesson. What? Well I'll be! You say they’re using private contractors this time. And a new Swiss aid charity up and running barely before the ink’s dried on the incorporation papers. Speed-O! With armed mercenaries there to keep things running smoothly. Sweet! Makes sense. Who needs UNRWA. So what if they have expertise, people on the ground, a proven track record, and can run schools and other social services. They were just showing off.

I can see that it’s out with the old and in with the new, eh, sensi? But where do they go? All of them? To Rafah? It'll get crowded, won't it? Oh. That’s the plan. Get ‘em all in one spot, keep an eye on them until they open the gates into Egypt. Man! Will the Egyptians be pissed! So, bomb them until they move south to where the food is, and…that'll be something! You say the IDF will control three-quarters of Gaza in two months, with the north and central parts completely free of Palestinians. Wowser! That's impressive! I guess with enough bombs and bullets just about anything is possible. Good luck with your geno.”

 

    Close-up of  cattle shutes aid lines in Rafah

AS I UNDERSTAND IT, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a newly incorporated Swiss entity has, or is, opening four aid distribution centres in the Rafah district. Palestinians who move south to get food there are to be screened, their passports checked and retinal scans done before they can receive a small box of food. Thus far, the new distribution system has proven woefully inadequate, with chaotic scenes of desperate Palestinians breaking down barriers to grab food boxes. GHF has four "mega" food distribution sites set up in Rafah. Four sites for two-million people! (UNRWA had four-hundred.) What could possibly go wrong? And since pictures speak louder than words, here’s what goes wrong: The first two pics are of the fenced-off lines Palestinians are expected to queue, as each person was individually scanned and IDed. The third pic is what happens when you’ve starved a population for nearly three months, bombed them, killed scores of mostly women and children on a daily basis, then forced them to march south to so-called 'aid centres' in the hopes of receiving food to feed their families, only to spend long hours behind fencing that looks more like a cattle shute.

It's interesting to note that the new CEO of GDF resigned his position last Sunday, prior to this week’s food fiasco saying: “[T]he group’s aid distribution system could not work in a way that would be able to fulfill the principles of ‘humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence’”.  (BBC)

IN ADDITION, Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former UN humanitarian chief, describes the GHF aid distribution system as “militarized, privatized, politicized.” He goes on:

 

"The people behind it are military - ex-CIA, ex-security people. There is a security firm that is going to work closely with one party to the armed conflict, the Israel Defense Forces," he told the BBC on Monday. "They will have some hubs... where people will be screened according to the needs of one side in this conflict - Israel…We cannot have a party to the conflict decide where, how and who will get the aid.” (BBC)

 

The Israeli government says it is sponsoring the new aid relief organization (that got the green light from the Trump administration) because, it claims, Hamas steals the food provided to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The UN organization has decades of experience, with personnel on the ground, along with warehouses and distribution networks set up to serve the Gazan people should humanitarian aid be allowed back in. Currently, Israel has disallowed the UN agency to operate within the Gaza Strip and has shuttered its offices in Tel Aviv.

 

Desperate Gazans break down barriers to access GHF food stores.

Since March 2, 2025, Israel has blockaded all aid from entering Gaza to the point that agencies still operating there have raised the alarm of empty warehouses and shuttered distribution centres. And all the while, people are literally starving to death. Last week, the Netanyahu government allowed in a minuscule amount of aid, not because it's the morally correct thing to do, but rather to keep its Western supporters, particularly the United States, from turning against them. In recent days, countries like Canada, France, Britain, even Germany have condemned Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza, demanding an immediate lifting of the blockade. It seems pictures of starving babies on the nightly news are proving to be a PR nightmare for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his gang of thugs. 

 

👉Humanitarian aid must be allowed to enter immediately and UNRWA and other aid agencies must be allowed to operate and do their jobs. As it stands, the majority of humanitarian aid now entering Gaza is through GHF. None of the other aid organizations, like the World Food Program, UNRWA, Oxfam, etc., will cooperate with the new relief agency for the reasons outlined by Jan Egeland.

 

👉Netanyahu’s obvious ploy of weaponizing food distribution to corral and control Palestinians in the southern Rafah region, as part of his plan to ethnically cleanse them from Gaza, is despicable and criminal. Global public opinion is turning against Israel and condemning its actions in occupied Palestine. Even some of our current crop of feckless political leaders are beginning to see which way the wind is blowing, as they strive to get in sync with their populations.

 

👉But, actions, not just words, are needed to end what Grayzone editor Max Blumental calls the "holocaust of our time."

 

[p.s., I wonder if GHF will last longer than 2024's floating dock? Ed.]

 

 

Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________

  

FUN FACT: Last Friday, while Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician at Nassar Medical complex in Khan Younis, was a work, nine of her ten children, who were at home with their father, Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar, were killed in an Israeli bombing attack. [It may have been a targeted attack on health care workers. Over 1000 have been killed since Oct.7, 2023.] Dr. al-Najjar was at the hospital when the bodies of her children, burned and mutilated, were brought in, along with her severely injured husband and son, Adam. The children had Egyptian passports, and the family had hoped to emigrate to Cairo. Another tragedy, another day in Gaza. [UPDATE: Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar died from his injuries last Saturday.]

 

[Here's a short vid of Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon, who volunteers his services in Gaza. His is a compelling presentation before the United Nations Security Council on the state of Gaza's health care system (it's virtually nonexistent), as well as his description of some of the cases he's treated while at the Nassar Medical complex in Khan Younis.]

 

 

NoW UPDATE: GAZA: RELEASING YOUR INNER NAZI

 

ONE OF THE THINGS that is most disturbing about Israel’s assault on Gaza over these past nineteen months is the fact that so many Israeli Jews  have a favourable opinion of the Netanyahu government’s policies with respect to the Palestinian people. A recent poll by the University of Pennsylvania and published in the Haaretz newspaper found: 

👉Over 80% of Jewish Israelis are in favour of the forced expulsions of Palestinians from Gaza. 

👉More disturbingly, nearly 50% of Jewish Israelis favour killing all the Palestinians in Gaza. A shocking figure.

👉57% favour continuing to blockade all humanitarian from entering Gaza.

👉Nearly 70% of secular Israelis (the so-called ‘liberals’ in Israeli society) agree with Netanyahu’s planned expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza. 

👉56% of Israeli Jews want the expulsion of Palestinian citizens* of Israel which would include those Palestinians living in Israel proper, and in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We’re talking about millions of Palestinians who are slated for deportation. Or worse. And make no mistake, Israel is conducting genocide and war crimes in Gaza, along with its campaign to ethnically cleanse every last Palestinian who happens to live on land the Israelis claim as theirs.

 

AND ONE WONDERS how such a mindset and world view came to pass. Perhaps by decades of indoctrination, of being told by the media, the schools, religious institutions, civil society, and the government how they were superior, better than their Arab neighbours, that they were special—God’s chosen people. And eventually, they came to believe their own hype. Past military victories by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) reinforced this  view among Jewish Israelis, that they were an unstoppable force for good in the region. Their country prospered. Money poured in. Billions of dollars in aid and weaponry, and investment from the United States, and from rich donors abroad came in each year, filling the state coffers. Jewish Israeli citizens lived comfortable lives much like white South Africans did during the years of apartheid.

‘Facts on the ground’ seemed to confirm their world view: They were safe, protected by an advanced military armed with the latest weaponry. Their intelligence services and special operations forces were second to none. The periodic “mowing-the-lawn” operations conducted by the IDF to quell dissent among the native Arab population seemed to be working. Years of peace were punctuated only occasionally by episodes of resistance from the captive Gazans under their sway. Increasingly, Israelis walled themselves off from the Palestinians they co-habitated with in the Levant, living separate lives in gated communities and commuting along Jewish-only highways. It became easier to forget their Shangri-La, was built on a foundation of sand.

 

IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE Jewish Israeli views have hardened since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. A couple of links here (at the 14:18 mark) and here, suggest how mainstream these ideas have become. REMEMBER that 47% of those polled thought the situation in Gaza had parallels with the biblical story of Jericho, where the ancient Israelites killed the entire population of the city. In another biblical reference, Palestinians are called “Amalek” by the Israeli PM, among others, a tribe the escaping Israelites fought and destroyed to the last man, woman and child (and goat, apparently), as they made their way out of Egypt. In 2025, texts from the bible are used as precedents to justify the mass murder of Palestinians.

THE VID of a former Knesset member posted at the 14:18 mark on the Judge Napolitano podcast is especially infuriating. Moshe Feiglin’s short speech, AI dubbed into English, could give Heinrich Himmler a run for his money! And Feiglin is contemplating running again for a seat in the Knesset.

Rivka Lafair is an Israeli yoga instructor who “blends spirituality with ethnic cleansing…” Huh?! This "YogaNazi" tells her followers that killing Palestinians “from infant to old woman,” like music, involves “altering one’s consciousness.” Feiglin and Lafair have certainly worked hard in bringing their inner Nazis to the surface.

 

AS I'VE SAID BEFORE, these beliefs, or perceptions, or core tenents held by the majority of Israelis today suggest a society that is psychologically sick and one that may not recover from this latest and most virulent outbreak of a kind of collective madness or psychosis. And not to put too fine a point on it, this same society possesses nuclear weapons. Buckle up.

 

Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________

 

* Palestinians who are Israeli citizens do not have the same rights, under law, as Jewish Israelis. Israel is a “heavily segregated and hierarchical state”, and a clear candidate deserving the world’s opprobrium as an apartheid state:

 

“At first glance it does seem that all citizens in Israel enjoy the same rights, they can all vote, for example, among many other rights granted by citizenship. However, after a more thorough look it becomes clear that this talking point is only held together by the omission of one very important fact:

It is relevant because many of the rights you are accorded in Israel stem from your nationality not your citizenship. Meaning an “Arab” Israeli citizen and a Jewish Israeli citizen, while both citizens, enjoy different rights and privileges determined by their “nationality.” (DecolonizePalestine)

FUN FACT:  "Unicef estimates that between 3,000 and 4,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated. That small tract of earth is now home to more child amputees per inhabitant than anywhere else in the world." (The Guardian)

FUN FACT: Did you know that Canadian taxpayers are subsidizing the Israeli Defense Forces through charitable organizations operating in Canada despite recent statements made by the Canadian government critical of Israel's military actions in Gaza and the International Court of Justice's preliminary findings that Israel has been committing genocide and ethnic cleansing there?  Should not such organizations be labelled as "lobbyists" and lose their charitable status, which allows donors to claim tax deductions, leaving Canadian taxpayers to foot the bill? One would think so.

 

 

NoW: THE THREE AMIGOS!

 

IT’S AN ANNOUNCEMENT that was a long time coming but one that is nevertheless welcome. On May 19, Britain, France and Canada put on their big boy pants and issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s wanton destruction and killing in Gaza. The communique states, in part:

"The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law. We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank, [and] we will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete steps in response". We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions. We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable," the three leaders said in the joint statement, adding that Israel's announcement it will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is "wholly inadequate." (Prime Minister of Canada)

THE LANGUAGE in the statement is the harshest criticism of Israel coming from a Western government that I’ve heard. And, frankly, it was music to my ears! They said the quiet part out loud—that Israel is breaking every norm and international law there is in its maniacal pursuit of the Zionist dream of a Palestine free of Palestinians. The world has watched in horror for over nineteen months as the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has carried out ethnic cleansing, genocide (or mass murder if you prefer), and a multitude of war crimes in Gaza with seeming impunity. It shrugs off the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its decision to adjudicate South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing genocide. And it  shrugs off the International Criminal Court’s issuance of arrest warrants for PM Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Both men are charged with committing war crimes in their roles overseeing Israeli Defense Force (IDF) operations. [South Africa filed its motion with the ICJ in December of 2023; the ICC arrest warrants were issued in November 2024. Ed.]

  

ISRAEL IS ABLE to carry out its genocidal mission in Gaza, not to mention its military operations in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt (in taking the Philadelphi Corridor) and maybe Iran, if Netanyahu has his way, only because of the backing, militarily and politically,* from the United States. This conflict was a bit of an eye-opener for me in that I came to understand how dependent Israel is on the United States—to supply it with weapons and an annual dole of three-billion-dollars in walking around money. Point being, Israel could not be doing what it’s doing without the U.S. 

👉NOTE: Only the United States can stop Israel in its tracks by withholding military and financial support. But the Israel lobby and rich Zionist backers (both Jewish and Christian) seem to have a strangle hold on the American political establishment and perhaps President Trump as well.

IN THE PAST, I had the impression that Israel was an independent, high tech super-state filled with wunderkinds forever hatching brilliant schemes for making money and growing their industries, along with a kick-ass military. It seems I was wrong. In fact, Israel is an outpost of Western (read: U.S.) hegemony, the sharp point of the spear, tasked with keeping the Middle East unstable so the United States and its allies can swoop in, do regime changes, keep the mess on tumble/dry, and hoover-up the oil.

And while there is still overwhelming congressional support in the United States for Israel, these nineteen months of Israeli sponsored starvation and genocide in Gaza has turned world opinion decidedly against West Jerusalem and the United States, whose credibility and reputation has been shredded by its support of the Netanyahu government. Even inside the U.S., public opinion in shifting around Israel. For example, a recent Pew poll found 53% of adult Americans now have an unfavourable opinion of Israel. That’s up from 42% in March 2022 and the first time public disfavour with Israel has been over fifty-percent. But there are conflicting messages coming from Washington: Trump complains about the number of people being killed in Gaza yet continues to arm and equip the army carrying out the slaughter. Average people everywhere see what’s happening in Gaza on their screens. Day after day. They know what’s going on. When will our political elites get the message?¹

 

 

Cheers, Jake.  ____________________________________

 

* ESPECIALLY AT the United Nations where the U.S. consistently vetoes any votes in the Security Council to censure or constrain Israel. It should be noted that over 75% of the 198 members in the General Assembly (GA) have voted to recognize Palestine as sovereign state. In the Security Council, where full recognition of Palestine would have to be ratified, the United States has consistently voted against any such resolution.

A vote to recognize Palestine as a nation and full member of the United Nations would have far-reaching consequences.

1. The UK has announced it will suspend its free trade relationship with Israel and sanction individual West Bank settlers, whose occupation of Palestinian lands there (for decades) is illegal under international law. It’s a start. We’ll see if France and Canada follow Britain’s lead.   

 

Aid trucks waiting for the go-ahead to enter Gaza

👉Note: Israel’s PM stated last Monday  that he was letting in a “limited” number of aid trucks because he was receiving increasing criticism from "[o]ur best friends in the world, senators that I know as enthusiastic Israel supporters….”, including the U.S., who can no longer tolerate pictures of starving Palestinian children witnessed in recent weeks. He's let aid trucks into Gaza (a trickle compared for what’s really needed) for PR purposes—to keep up support from the international community. Nice.

👉Note: On May 19, a joint-statement was issued from 24 "donor nations" of food aid to Gaza calling on Israel: "to allow a full resumption of aid to Gaza immediately and enable the UN and humanitarian organizations to work independently and impartially to save lives, reduce suffering and maintain dignity.”

👉Note: 7 out of 10 Israelis think Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed from Gaza and relocated to another country. Nice again.

👉Note: While the joint statement by France-Britain-Canada is welcome, it is too little, too late. This abhorrent military campaign by Israel to destroy the Gaza Strip and depopulate it of Palestinians, has been going on for 19 months now. And every government, save a few, has been complicit, by their silence, in Israel’s war crimes. It’s like, collectively, we have fallen into a ‘moral black hole’ and we know not whether we will emerge on the other side and in what condition.

👉Note: Canada should sanction Israel as Britain has done and go further by adopting a Boycott/Divestment/Sanction (BDS) policy. Canada could recall its ambassador to Israel, even break off diplomatic relations. And if our government is feeling frisky enough, it could put forward a motion in the United Nations to expel Israel from the organization.

👉Note: The joint France-Britain-Canada communique, for the most part, is just that—words on a paper. The cynic in me thinks it’s more about Macron-Starmer-Carney ‘butt-covering’ as they sniff the changing political winds and their populations' ire with Israel grows. And with Carney, his decision to co-sign the communique may be more a demonstration to Canadians showing how he's standing up to Washington by taking a different stance on Israel than anything else. 

LET'S SEE what concrete actions are taken by the three amigos should Israel continue its ethnic cleansing and genocidal campaign in Gaza. [Though, anything that raises the blood pressure of the Israeli PM is okay by me! Ed. 😂]

But, again, we’ll see.

 

 

 

CRINGE PICS: BACK TO THE FUTURE

 

 

AS THEY SAY: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. I ran across this pic when I was researching about Ukraine for a previous post. The caption underneath reads: “A woman is being attacked during the Jewish pogrom in Lviv, in July 1941.” 

I was immediately reminded of the shameful incident in April of this year in New York City, when a woman stepped out of her home to observe (and no doubt record on her phone) a pro-Palestine demonstration in her predominately Jewish neighbourhood.

 

“The pro-Palestinian activists had reportedly gathered to demonstrate against the visit of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir at the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where they were met with Orthodox Jewish counter-protesters.” (CNN)

 

The counter-protestors were loud and boisterous, composed mostly of young males. When some of them started shouting at her (why?) and photographing her, she felt intimidated and put a scarf over her face to hide her identity. Perhaps the demonstrators thought it was a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian scarf, and more began to surround her, yelling and even pushing her, until she felt unsafe. 

 

ACCORDING to her statement, the woman moved to the police cordon which was there to keep the protest ‘orderly’, but she says they did nothing for her. She was shouted at, spit on, had objects thrown at her, kicked and shoved as a lone policeman eventually took her from the increasing dangerous scene. Why the police did nothing and allowed just a single policeman to escort her from the demonstration is a good question. Perhaps they assumed she was an Arab-American or a pro-Palestinian demonstrator (she was neither, nor was she Jewish), and was ‘playing for the wrong team’ as far as they were concerned. Their behaviour warrants a public inquiry. 

 

👉Anti-Semitic Ukrainians harassing a Jewish woman in the streets of 1941 Lviv. 

👉Zionist Jewish-Americans harassing a Gentile woman in the streets of 2025 New York.

 

Not quite the circle of life, is it?

 

 

Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________

[Video of Medea Benjamin of Code Pink confronting Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as he visits American Congressional offices in Washington in late April. That is one spunky gal!]