"LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME AND DO NOT HINDER THEM FOR TO SUCH BELONGS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN"

  

 

“We have become inured to bestiality”—ret. U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, on the lack of response, globally, to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

 

Autopsy X-Ray of Palestinian child shot in head by Israeli sniper

IT’S HARD TO DISAGREE with Colonel Wilkerson when we look at what’s happening in Gaza. When we see how little has been done by those who could do the most and act quickest to stop the horror show that Palestinians there, and increasingly in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are living through: Children deliberately targeted by IDF (Israeli Defence Force) snipers. Starving Palestinians shot while lining up for food in southern Gaza. Over ninety percent of residences in Gaza damaged or destroyed. Fifty million tonnes of infrastructure—roads, farmland, orchards, water and sewage facilities, power plants, public buildings, places of worship, hospitals, apartments, homes, schools, colleges and universities, businesses—turned to rubble. A recent study found that nearly 70% of those killed have been children up to the age of eighteen and women. It’s estimated that over 100,000 Gazans have been murdered by IDF bombs and bullets, and by disease, malnutrition, and exposure to the elements. And a similar number have been injured or wounded by Israeli’s genocidal rampage of ethnic cleansing. The University of London’s Professor Michael Spagat, co-author of a Gazan mortality study published in June, states: "I think we're probably at something like 4 percent of the population killed," Spagat says, adding, "I'm not sure that there's another case in the 21st century that's reached that high.”

 

IN EARLY MARCH, Israel once more blockaded the Gaza Strip. No food aid would be allowed in until the end of May when the newly incorporated Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was brought in to handle food distribution to the over two million Gazans, many of whom were suffering from malnutrition. From the get-go, the GHF was understood to be a tool of subjugation, offering food aid at four “aid hubs” located in the south-central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip. To receive food, Gazans must move near the aid stations, concentrating the population into the southern Rafah district where they live in tents or among the ruins. 90% of the Palestinian population has been displaced from their homes.

👉Food distribution using such a system is ineffective and wholly inadequate, “forcing two million people into overcrowded and militarized aid zones* where they face daily gunfire” from Israeli soldiers. (BBC)

 

A  RECENT STUDY suggests this is not a fault but, instead, a feature of the system. Yaakov Garb, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, published a study of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and its aid distribution network in southern Gaza.

    Four distribution hubs in Gaza for 2.1 million Palestinians

AS THE MAP shows there are four aid “hubs” set up, ostensibly to provide food aid for approximately 2.1 million Palestinians. I say “ostensively” because the GHF has been roundly criticized by the UN and 170 charitable aid organizations as being wholly inadequate for the job. Note that prior to Israel’s 2025 blockades of foreign humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) had four hundred  aid sites set up throughout the Palestinian enclave. As Garb’s study suggests, GHF’s inability to provide timely, adequate food and other supplies to Gazan citizens needing aid is, in fact, how this new system is supposed to function. Not all Gazans can travel to the aid centres and not all who do make the journey receive aid once they arrive because of supply shortages and administrative oversights. 

👉This is a feature of the system—to keep Gazans hungry and desperate and insecure. And these distribution hubs are manned by often-armed American "contractors" and the grounds are patrolled by IDF soldiers adding an element of threat for Palestinians seeking aid. Since GHF started in late May, there have been daily instances of people killed by IDF fire en route to aid centres or while they are queued. As of last Tuesday, 583 Palestinians were killed including 408 near the distribution centres. “Today, Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families." (BBC)

 

“UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the GHF's aid distribution system ‘inherently unsafe’, adding: ‘It is killing people.’ From the start the UN has opposed the plan, saying it would ‘militarize’ aid, bypass the existing UN-led distribution network and force Gazans to make long journeys through dangerous territory to get food.” (BBC)

 

Garb’s study provides helpful information on the physical location of the aid centres (in one location, forcing people to travel miles for a box of food or to relocate nearer the hubs). He reviews the physical structure of the distribution centres, their layout, fencing, sight lines etc. He concludes the aid centres are designed to accommodate military requirements for crowd control and policing:

 

“The internal layout of these compounds seems to bear the deep imprint of their military context and mindset. Their architecture is the inverse of well accepted and tested principles of food distribution in conflict or disaster areas, and liable to cause recurrent episodes of chaos and violence.” (Garb)

 

He adds, comparing true humanitarian aid systems with the cobbled together Israeli-American sponsored Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s operation:

 

“This layout is so far removed from the design principles and established guidelines for planning emergency camps and distribution sites that a comparison is almost pointless. Humanitarian design principles aim to integrate choice and dignity, reduce physical barriers, rely on community mobilizers and trained de-escalation facilitators rather than armed guards, and other facilities such as shading, toilets and water, as well as first aid posts, and dedicated lanes for vulnerable groups”  (Ibid)

 

EACH FOOD BOX is calibrated to feed 5.5 people for 3.5 days, ensuring a continual “coercive” flow through “dangerous and militarized zones” that Palestinians must regularly make. The bull-dozed, flat and fenced off reception area of a GHF aid centre is surrounded by steep embankments and guard towers, with obvious “choke points” along a ‘fatal funnel’ Palestinians must pass through. The open-air facility, with its single entrance and exit is designed to intimidate and to increase stress levels in a population already traumatized from twenty months of relentless IDF bombings and gunfire. Those same troops responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans now guard the food distribution centres, adding to issues of crowd control and the all-too-quick use of lethal fire against unarmed civilians by IDF soldiers and by some American mercenaries contractors. Hence, the daily shootings we witness of dozens of Palestinians as they approach or enter GHF’s militarized aid zones.

👉Garb makes it clear that the design of the aid centres promotes insecurity and threats of being exposed with a ‘target on your back’. It’s no wonder there are chaotic scenes of overrun facilities or else crowds of Palestinians fleeing Israeli gunfire before they can get a box of food. And this, too, is a feature of the system; feeding Gazans is not the mission of the GHF. It is there to present a show of humanitarian relief, a bare minimum (if that) of food and medicines doled out, so the Israelis can tell the world: “Look, we’re trying to get the food aid distributed but Hamas….” Blahblahblah. Shameful!

Gazan mothers are unable to breast feed because they lack enough nourishment for themselves, and baby formula is not allowed into Gaza. Meanwhile, newborn babies are malnourished and dying.

How can this be happening? How can this be allowed to happen?

 

 

FUN FACT: UNICEF (United Nations International Children Emergency Fund) estimates upwards of 4,000 children in Gaza have one or more limbs amputated (often without anesthesia) due to Israeli bombing or gunfire. The Palestinian enclave has more child amputees per capita that anywhere else on earth. 

 

FUN FACT: During the Twelve Day War between Israel and Iran, Israeli warplanes that did not fire all their ordnance during their missions were ordered to discharge leftover payloads on Gaza as they returned to Israeli air space. Waste not, want not, I suppose.

 

FUN FACT: "American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food," according to The Associated Press. 

 

 Catelyn Stark's 'murder' GoT "The Red Wedding"

FUN FACT: The Friday, June 13 surprise attack on Iran by Israel at the start of the “Twelve-day War” had two “decapitation” sub-operations: One was the targeted assassinations of perhaps thirty Iranian Air Force leaders assembled for a meeting. This sub-operation was code-named “The Red Wedding”. A second decapitation strike, the near-simultaneous assassinations of nine top Iranian nuclear scientists, was code-named “Operation Narnia”. For those who don’t know, “The Red Wedding” was a chapter in the fantasy novel, The Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (as well as the popular HBO television series). In it, Robb Stark, the scion of the Stark family, along with his entourage  and body guards are murdered by Lord Walder Frey as they celebrated the wedding of Frey's daughter, Roslin to Edmure Tully  at Walder’s Riverlands castle. Lord Frey orchestrated the deadly massacre  as revenge for Robb's breaking a marriage pact with the Freys. Treachery and stealth were features in making Lord Frey’s bloody revenge a success, and the same holds true for Israel’s assassination plot against the Iranian military leaders.

“Operation Narnia” takes its name from C.S. Lewis’s fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia and suggests the plot to murder the nuclear scientists was considered a ‘fantasy’ for Israeli Intelligence operatives, one that came with a low probability for success. But succeed it did, dear readers! The decapitation strike⁺ killed the nine, long-surveilled Iranian scientists in their homes, along with 22 members of their families. Nice.

WHY DO I PICTURE A SCENE in some seedy, Tel Aviv bar, earlier this year, where a Mossad operative and his American and British counterparts toss back shooters after having spent the day hammering out the details for the June 13 attacks. I can all-but-see the CIA ‘spook’, glassy-eyed and with a world-weary cynicism, his lips curling in a half-smile-half-sneer, suggest the targeted assassination of a group of Iranian military officers be code-named the “Red Wedding”, something he recalls from a book he once read during a happier time in his life. The Brit, an MI6 spy, with his eyebrow arched in a rictus of supreme irony, suggests “Operation Narnia” for the plot to murder the nine Iranian scientists.

FOR HIS PART, the Israeli agent laughs and writes down their suggestions on the back of a paper napkin. He folds the napkin into a postage stamp size, pops it in his mouth and swallows it along with a shot of tequila, yelling “Top secret!” The table erupts into loud peals of laughter and calls for more drinks, and the group sings narcocorridor ballads until closing. 

Aslan is not amused.

 

 Cheers, Jake.  ____________________________________

* The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (a misnomer if ever there was one) purports to be in Gaza to provide food aid to the starving Gazan population but its real purpose is to militarize the food distribution system, and to corral and control the Palestinian population using armed American “contractors” (aka mercenaries). Its goal is to lure, using food aid, as many Gazans as possible into the Rafah region bordering Egypt, then immiserate and control them in camps patrolled by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) and either shove them into Egypt’s Sinai Desert, or starve them, or kill them, or send them to other countries. [It's always good to have goals in life and plans to achieve them. Ed.]

 

+ In this case, the Israelis hoped to ‘decapitate’ or degrade the knowledge base of Iran’s nuclear program by assassinating key personnel.

 

 

NoW FORECAST

 

Time: The near future

Location: A raft in the mid-Atlantic Ocean

Inhabitants: A man and a cat

 

Key:

VZ: Ex-president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky

Kat: The cat

 

Opening Scene: A drone’s camera pans across the water. It is balmy weather today, warm and humid. The sea is calm, a shiny, blue-bright mirror under a deep blue sky swathed here and there with wisps of airy cloud. Birds fly overhead. Fish school nearby. Gradually the drone camera zooms in on an object floating in the water. We see it is a large raft, ungainly buoyed in the Atlantic Ocean approximately one-hundred kilometres off the Cameroon coast. It is late morning. On the raft is a hut. Inside the hut a radio is playing music. The song, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, is accompanied by a solo male voice.

 

VZ: "Seasonz donz fears the reepser, nor does winds, suns or de rains. We can be likes dey arez. Cum’on Babyz, donz fears the reepser. Babyz take my handz. We be ables to flies…aw shits! What diz soundz? Not anudder fukin’ dronez.” [Ex-President Zelensky opens the door and throws cans of soup at the hovering machine.] “Fukin’ cocks suckerz! Buzz offz!” [The drone flies over the roof of the hut, discharging its load of fish guts and chum, then flies off.] “Uggh! Pitowee! Why dey do dis? Hay Katz! Why? [A large black cat emerges from the hut and begins eating the mess as it drips down the hut wall] “You likes dis shits, doan you, Master Katz.

Kat: “Mrrp-mrrp. Prr-prrt.”

VZ: “If you say soz. It smell badz! Stink all dayz. Basturdz!”

Kat: “Mrrp-mrrp. Meaow!”

VZ: [The ex-president goes inside the hut. He emerges after a few minutes carrying a cup of coffee. Kat continues licking the side of the hut.] “Ah, jaz! My morning cop coffeez. Nothing betterz than dis. Ya zur!” [He sips the hot drink while walking around his floating domain. It is part of the wharf the United States constructed in 2024 to provide a maritime point of entry for humanitarian aid into Gaza. After a short time in operation, high waves broke it apart and its various sections were stored in northern Israel. One section became the ‘raft’ used by the Ukrainian ex-president when he was deposed.] “Whatz a beautifuls dayz! I couldn’instk asktz for more betterz. Except maybez bactks in Kiev where flower bloomz. Grass greens. Warm. Sun shinez. Fight Russians. Yeah, dey waz goodt timez! Goodt timez, for surez. And I make lotz money. Tons moneyz! I hope Olena no spend itz all. Hey, save some for Vova and the kidz.” [He chuckles] “I miss dem so much. I maybe herez on float for whilez. Like Hollywood starz Matt Damons in movie, The Martian. He stuck on Mars. I stuckz on raff. [Dropping his shorts, the ex-president sits on a raised lip of a sealed access tube into the raft.] He defecates into the planter-like structure.] “Ah! Yah. Just like Matt baby, I save my pooz. For fertilize. Maybe start garden. Just in case.” [He finishes and continues touring his domain, coming to a section of the raft that has a built-in ramp for a small ship to dock. He unfolds a nearby deck chair and sits.] “Yeah. Dez should be hare soonz. Every week dronez buzz hut. Then they deliverz foodts. I unload supplies from boatz and das dat. Until naxt weekz. [He sighs and finishes drinking his coffee.] Me all alone. Lonely Vova. Nobody come see me. Only sound now is my voice. Jus’ like Crusoe guy. But at least he had Friday as buddy. Yah.” [The ex-president sits quietly for a time, humming a Ukrainian folk song. The melody is plaintive and stirring. Kat wanders over to the melancholic Vova meowing loudly.] Yas. Just me and you now, Master Katz. Me ‘n’ you.” [The ex-president scratches behind Kat’s ears.]

Kat: “Meow-meow! Prrrr-prrr.” [After a time, a distant motor is heard. Soon, a sleek, torpedo-like boat approaches the raft. It slides onto the partially submerged docking ramp as the ex-president grabs the front line and hooks it into a winch. He begins cranking it to pull the unmanned surface vehicle higher up the ramp. He begins unloading his weekly supplies.]  “Oh boyz! Same old shit! Canz tomato soup. Spamz. Beans. Mac ‘n’ Cheeze. Peanut butters, Bag of stale bagelz. Look, Master Katz, no shave creams, razors. But give me a nudder box of condoms! Wha' for I use dis here, huh? Doan worries, I no try on you! Ha-ha. But all sortz cat foodz for you!” [Kat meows loudly rubbing against the ex-president’s legs as he places the supplies onto a small cart kept near the loading dock. After a while the boat begins to beep and an AI warning sounds: ‘Disengage drone boat from dock or it will explode in two-minutes. Do not attempt to board vehicle. Warning! One minute and forty seconds….’] “Yah-yah. Fuk you, AI! I knowz. I knowz. [The ex-president unhitches the boat’s line from the winch and the drone vehicle slides down into the water and motors off.] “Bye-bye asshole. Bye-bye. Fuk dease basturds, Master Katz! Fuk all! Well, come on. Letz go make the lunchez.” [He begins pulling the cart back to his hut.]

Kat: “Meow-Meow! Yes, let’s hurry! Prrt-prrt!” [Kat jumps onto cart.]

VZ: “Wha you sez, Master Katz? You talk to me nowz? ‘Bout timez!”

Kat: “Prrrr. Mrrrrrrawr. Don’t be silly. Prrrr. Cats can’t talk. Khllllsh!”

VZ: "I hear you plain as dayz. Tell me, when I go home, back to Prez’dent Palace in Kiev? Where my carz. My moneyz? My coke? How I get here, Katz? Why? Where are wife and kidz?”

Kat: “Questions, questions. Why don’t you have any answers, sir? You’re the president..er...ex-president.”

VZ: "How should I knowz? Last thing I rememberz is doing lines with Annalena Barebackz at my dacha near Lviv. We good buddies. Hokey-poke all over plaze! Wow! Germanz sure know how fuk-fuk! I go sleep. I wake up here. Wha’ ‘appen, Katz? You tellz me!” [He stops pulling cart.] 

Kat: “It’s hard to take your problems seriously, Vova. You humans are confusing to us cats. We have nine lives and always land on our feet, so we tend to take things as they come and generally relax when we have problems, like, say, a full litter box. We take life easy. You humans! Man, you make a mess of things! You rarely clean out your own litter boxes and you run around most days like cats in heat! You should nap more. At least nine or ten times a day. It’d do wonders for you, Vova.”

VZ: "I no need napz. I need get off this fukkin' place and go home."

Kat: "Hey, you know how many mating cycles I’ve missed on account of being scooped up with you? Plenty, let me tell you! I’m so horny I could spit!" [Kat spits.] "But then I calm down, cough up a hair ball, and have a nap. See how it works? You gotta learn to relax, Vova. We’re here for the long-haul. Back home, they “couped” you. The Americans. They got tired of you trying to make a deal with the Europeans for more money and weapons, instead of going along with Trump and negotiating with the Russians in order to…”

VZ: “I hate Russians! Pah!”

Kat: “…to save what’s left of your country. Your dawdling cost you Odessa and Kiev, Vova. Ukraine is now a rump state, a shadow of its former self. Landlocked and on life support. Thanks to you. Now, there's no NATO, no EU, no army for you! Banderites are rounded up and thrown in jail. There's millions of refugees. Over a million casualties on the Ukraine side. Government broke. Money gone away with rich expats. Ukrainian infrastructure in tatters. Vova, you could have had a deal in 2022, where you would have kept all the territory you lost (except Crimea). But that fat ass, Boris Johnson, flew in and convinced you to keep fighting. And you listened to that nob! Did you think the Russians were kidding? NATO in Ukraine was a big No-No for them. The biggest. And you ignored Putin (who, by the way, is still president of his country). Man! You humans sure know how to screw things up! And when you do fuk up, brother, it's a humdinger!”

VZ: “But, dey all love me—Macron, Stammer, Merz, Annalena, Ursula— They say so!”

Kat: “Vova, nobody loves you or even likes you. They dropped you like a hot potato when Trump threatened to bail out of Europe and NATO. Heck, I can’t stand you most of the time, and I’m a cat. We love everybody and anybody that keeps our bowl filled. Prrrr-prrr.” [The ex-president starts pulling the cart. Slowly. Lost in thought.]  

VZ: “I could havez been a contender. Yah. They called me Churchill once. Now, I no even have cell phone. Is Katz right? Should I have made deal with Putin in 2022? Did I think I could beat Russia? Was I wrong?”

Kat: “The answers to your questions are yes, yes and yes. And beating Russia, a country with three times Ukraine’s population, with all its resources, was a crazy idea to begin with. It was downhill after that. Nice job!”

VZ: “Stop rubbing ins, stupid cat, or I throwz cat food overboard!”

Kat: “Meaowwwowoa now!” Hey, let’s not get testy. You’re still the skipper hereabouts, you sexy thing! Prrrrr. Mrrrrrr-mrrrrr!”

 

Cheers, Jake.____________________________________

 

 

 

RANT: "DADDY, WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE GENOCIDE?"

 

    Pro-Palestinian demonstration Parliament Hill, 12 April 2025

MY LAST POST discussed growing censorship regimes in the United States where constitutionally protected free speech rights are being trampled by authorities determined to muzzle critics of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The cases of campus crackdowns on student protests in support of Palestine have garnered considerable news coverage in the U.S. I also mentioned the recent campus protests at McGill University in Montreal and at the University of Toronto demanding divestment of stock portfolios with links to Israel and the Israeli military. Needless to say, student protestors face strong headwinds bringing about any change in their respective universities’ investment practices. Meanwhile, the censorship crisis continues apace, with new laws on the books in numerous Western countries regulating speech, for example, labeling pro-Palestinian social media posts as "Hate Speech" can bring the authorities to your door, as was the recent case of Montreal's Yves Engler*, who was arrested and detained for responding on an X-post thread to commentary by a strident Israel supporter whose distasteful posts  parrot the party line among hard-core Zionists and Israeli-apologists. But there are still instances when public protest (a demonstrable form of speech) challenges the status quo and sheds light on government malfeasance and things that should not be.

 

ON THAT FRONT, last Saturday there was a recent pro-Palestinian protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa condemning the recent sale of “artillery propellant” to the United States. Protestors claim the munitions shipment to the United States, worth over seventy-five million dollars, comes with an explicit provision that tags the propellant as being for Israel. In the past, Canada could hide behind the fig-leaf of 'third-party use' restrictions for weapons sales to United States. Recall, last year, how Global Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly, under considerable media scrutiny at the time, stopped sales of “high explosive mortar cartridges” to the U.S. as they were tagged to be re-exported by the Americans to Israel. Minister Joly promised that weapons sales to the United States were contingent on their not being sent to regimes that abuse human rights. And Ottawa, at the time, was uncharacteristically critical of Israel and its arguably genocidal actions in Gaza. You would think Canadian officials would be on their toes doing everything in their power to deny the Israeli military weaponry it then uses in Gaza, a setting for war crimes and as gross a violation of human rights as we’ve seen since the end of the second world war. Just sayin’. 

 

ANOTHER check to stop Canadian-made munitions from being used by Israel is (or should be) the fact that Canada is a signatory to the “Arms Trade Treaty” (2013) that seeks to put ‘guard rails’ on the global sales of conventional weaponry.

 

“The ATT, adopted in April 2013 and entering into force in December 2014, is the first international treaty to regulate the conventional arms trade. The treaty was realized after years of advocacy by civil society organizations from around the world, which celebrated it as a transformative multilateral framework that would address the humanitarian toll posed by the unchecked trade and transfer of military goods. Core obligations of States Parties to the ATT include ensuring that arms exports will not be used in human-rights violations, increasing transparency in the arms trade, and safeguarding against the diversion of conventional arms. At the time of this report’s publication, the treaty included 116 States Parties — more than half of the world’s countries.” (Ploughshares)

 

WHILE MINISTER JOLY CANCELLED the multi-million-dollar cartridge sale, it has recently come to light that Global Affairs Canada signed off on the sale to the United States of artillery propellant used in conjunction with the ever-popular 155-millimeter artillery shell. The sale agreement was clearly tagged as being “for Israel”, and the deal was brokered by the crown corporation, CCC (Canadian Commercial Corporation), between GD-OTS (General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical System-Canada) and the American DOD (Department of Defense). GDO-Canada, the subsidiary or evil stepchild of the giant American arms manufacturer produces the ammunition in Quebec at its idyll-sounding “Valleyfield” plant, which is “the sole source of this type of propellant for the US Army, which is responsible for supplying most munitions to US military aid recipients, including Israel.” (Ploughshares)  

AND this deal came only weeks after Joly stopped the cartridges sale in August of last year. Hence, last weekend’s protest on Parliament Hill.

 

Viet Nam protestor: Flowers, not bullets

The Ottawa protest highlights the lack of transparency governing the sale of munitions to the United States and the specific complaint of Canada being culpable, with its munitions sales via the U.S. to Israel, in the Gazan genocide.  

 

“This…reveals the flaws in the arms free-trade zone between Canada and the United States, which allows the provision of armaments to regimes that abuse human rights, without scrutiny from, or accountability on the part of, Canadian officials. Other examples include the more than $100 million in Canadian-made F-35 components that have been exported to Israel through the US DOD.” (Ploughshares)

 

Your tax dollars at work. Have a nice day.😯

 

 Cheers, Jake.____________________________

 

* I'll discuss Yves' case in a separate post.