“The humanitarian initiatives
that you have that you and others have taken…they are not what is needed
to take the Palestinians out of the genocide, out of the apartheid, out of the
unlawful occupation. Many of you continue to treat Palestine as a humanitarian
crisis to manage in perpetuity and I stand firmly against it in name of the
name of justice and humanity” (Francesca Albanese: United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories)*
"An average of eight Palestinians are killed daily under the ongoing comprehensive blockade on the Gaza Strip, alongside a policy of deliberate starvation ... denial of medical treatment for the wounded and sick, and the deliberate hindrance of humanitarian aid." (Anadolu)
ISRAEL'S Satan spawn PM,
Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, along with his BFF Donald Trump have been busy
devising plans for what some are calling “New Gaza”. The U.S. announced earlier
in the week that a contingent of American soldiers would be stationed in
Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, ostensively tasked with “coordinating and
overseeing humanitarian aid into Gaza,” and replacing Israel’s Civil-Military
Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) agency that
did such a bang-up job earlier. I say “ostensively” because what appears to be
happening is the recolonizing of the Gaza Strip, with the United States acting
as the senior partner in the deal.
“…of a technocratic, apolitical
Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of
public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza, supervised by a
"Board of Peace," which will be headed and chaired by Trump, with other
members and heads of state to be announced, including Former Prime Minister
Tony Blair.” [The same Tony Blair, British PM from 1997-2007, that promoted the
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) hoax that kicked off the Iraq conflict in
2003.] The “board” will remain in place until such time the Palestinian
Authority can take control. If ever.(BBC)
👉FUN FACT: To destabilize Gaza and keep its
population fragmented and powerless, Israel funds local criminal gangs and jihadi terrorists. The al-Quwat al-Shaabiya
(“Popular Forces”) is a criminal gang in Rafah that is responsible for dozens
of hijackings of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, selling food to starving
Palestinians at exorbitant black market prices. Other gangs and criminals are supported
by Israel including ISIS-linked militia fighters from Syria and Egypt. The more
damage Israel can inflict upon Gazan civil society, the more disorder it
promotes keeping Gaza dysfunctional and dependant, the easier it will be to
control the population and shape its fate to their will.
IT IS TOO SOON to tell how all this
will shake out. Will Trump and Netanyahu achieve their aim of expelling (or
exterminating) the Palestinian population of Gaza?1 (Will settlers
in the West Bank likewise evict Palestinians from their homeland?) Will the
Trump/Netanyahu plan succeed in creating a dysfunctional Gazan ‘colony’,
dependent on foreign elites for governance, like Trump’s Orwellian “Board of
Peace”, and serviced by corrupt and compromised humanitarian aid agencies, like
the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation, whose failings
I posted about, here and
here.
THE QUOTE by Francesca Albanese at the
start of this post is instructive. She asks what kind of Gaza do we want to see
at the end of all the bloodshed and pain—is it to be a colony of the West, with a permanent
underclass and people living in a state of constant crisis, “managed in
perpetuity”, as objects to be forever pitied, or, rather, do we want to see the people of
the Occupied Palestinian lands (especially those living in the moonscape that is Gaza)
as subjects in their own right, as independent actors free to form their own administrative
structures, their own economies and social institutions, expressive of their own culture?2 I think
most of us who have watched this horror show for the last two years would want
the later status for the Palestinian people. What choice do we have?
CHEERS, JAKE.
_______________________________________________________
* RECALL that in early July, Ms.
Albanese had sanctions put on her by the U.S. government, displeased as
it was by her muckraking efforts to expose crimes against humanity committed by
Israel against the Palestinian people, and the shameful complicity many in the
international community find themselves, especially the United States. In her July report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of
Genocide”, Albanese rebukes in the strongest terms the international community
for its commercial and highly lucrative ties to the genocidal, apartheid state.
Her report seems to have gotten under the skin of U.S. elites in government and business because she was denied a visa
to attend the opening session of the United Nations in New York this past
September. (She is a member of the UN’s Human Rights Council and has just begun
her second, three-year mandate as a Special Rapporteur) However, she attended virtually
and gave a further, equally blistering, report: “Gaza
Genocide: A Collective Crime”.
AS ONE human rights group said of
Albanese’s ban from travelling to New York to deliver her latest Gaza missive:
“Following the
recent sanctions against the International Criminal Court, the measures
announced today [Albanese’s visa ban] are a continuation of the Trump
administration’s assault on international law and its efforts to protect the
Israeli government from accountability at all costs. They are the latest in a
series of Trump administration policies seeking to intimidate and silence those
that dare speak out for Palestinians’ human rights. Instead of attacking the
Special Rapporteur and further undermining the rule-based order, the US
government should focus on putting an end to its unconditional support to
Israel, enabling total impunity for its crimes in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory.” (Amnesty International)
1. And don’t forget the West Bank and
East Jerusalem. In the WB, in the last twenty years 1001 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks, including one-hundred and seventy seven children. Killings since October 2023, represent over 40% of that total. Palestinians have
been killed by fanatical Israeli settlers, aided and abbeted by state actors, such as right-wing, nut-bar
extraordinaire Itmar Ben-Gviv who, as Israel’s security minister, provided
arms to the settlers. There are 3.4 million Palestinians living in the West
Bank along with six-hundred-and-seventy-thousand Israeli settlers illegally occupying Palestinian territory.
2. I personally feel the “two-state”
solution is dead on arrival. The West Bank has been so divided by illegal
Israeli settlements over the years that the chance of a viable Palestinian
state is hard to imagine. And Gaza, for the last two decades until 7 October
2023, known as the “world’s largest open-air prison”3, is now a
moonscape of rubble, destroyed by a fuselage
of Israelis shells and missiles, with tens of thousands killed and still more
wounded and maimed for life. A single state of Palestine-Israel, SECULAR, with equal
rights under the law for all its citizens, with reparations and justice meted
out to genocidaires, could grow and thrive like a normal country. [I know. Jake’s
being naïve, of course. How can Palestine-Israel become a ‘normal’ country
after all this? Especially when there's nuclear weapons on the premises that allow Israel to act with impunity, ignoring the constraints (moral, ethical, legal, political) that most countries live with in dealing with their neighbours. Ed.]
3. The label is from David Cameron, former
British PM, upon his visit to the Palestinian enclave in 2010.
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