I hesitate to share this kind of information to this email list, with it having moved so far to the Far-Right since 2015 so that one opposing the anti-Constitituonal extremism of Willmoore Kendall and George Carey now predictably gets one denounced here. And knowing it will offend the Trumpites/NatCons and the people/groups disproportionately represented here who are all-in, in getting Trump elected again. I have no illusions of Harris ending this long, national nightmare the Republicans set us on a course for back on 9/11/01, with NeoCon Democrats like Joe Lieberman, Clinton, et al., eagerly joining in with Republicans/Conservatives to make the Cheney Doctrine “reality” for the world and the U.S., to the detriment of each.
But given the enormity of the Trump War Crimes during his administration, in league with his partner Netanyahu as graduated genocide against the Palestinians, and the Republican Party/Conservatives who unqualifiedly support and pay obeisance to Netanyahu/Ben-Gvir/Smotrich, that is, the Israeli fascists, this illustrates well why the “American Conservatives,” the “Right,” are going all-out to get Trump/Vance in office, in support of their fellow ideologue’s objectives of the Israeli Fascist Coalition You don’t need to be a lawyers to know “complicity” comes in degrees, and however complicit Biden/Harris are in Israeli genocide, they don’t come close to these right-wing Zionist fanatics:
"He criticized President Joe Biden for delaying offensive weapons transfers and potential sales to Israel while trying to avert a full-scale Rafah invasion earlier this month, and dug in during Thursday’s address on why the America First platform he aligns himself with requires a strong relationship with Israel.”
. . .
“Maybe the most important thing we can do with the Israelis vis a vis [containing Iranian pursuit of] uranium is make sure they have the weapons systems the other supports necessary to keep the nuclear program in check,” he added.”
So here is the “real” motive for the "Right” in getting Trump Vance elected, to “further Netanyahu’s “interests” (what the “Right" means by an “interests based foreign policy!) in enabling each one of the these objectives, with a sophisticated campaign by Quincy (Koch) Institute and The American Conservative magazine, often using these tools of propaganda as a form of “gaslighting”: https://www.historians.org/resource/what-are-the-tools-of-propaganda/ "The propagandist tries to stimulate others to accept without challenge his own assertions, or to act as he wants them to do. The idea of using suggestion or stimulationas a propaganda device is that it will lead a public to accept a proposition even though there are not logical grounds for accepting it,” i.e. “Trump ending the wars. . . . J.D. Vance a Restrainer.”
Trump will “finish the job” of recognizing Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, at a minimum, in furthering Israeli military aggression/expansionism, as can be seen in the J.D. Vance links above, and that is why the highest “cognitive war objective” of the Right is to get him back in as POTUS!
Orit Strock, the Israeli Minister of Settlement, called on the Netanyahu government to declare a state of war against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
+ Idit Silman, Israel’s Minister of Environmental Protection, “It’s not just the Philadelphia Corridor. We are on a path to inherit the land…let them know in Jenin, in Nablus, & everywhere – we want our land back, attack – & we will inherit it back.”
+ In his new book, Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, proposes diverting $1 billion from U.S. aid for the Palestinians to fund Israeli West Bank annexation in a second Trump presidency. Friedman writes that the annexation of the West Bank is justified “based first and foremost on biblical prophecies and values.”
The 3 paragraphs above fully explain why this is an “all hands on deck cognitive campaign operation” by the “Right,” to include New Right, NatCons, Traditional Conservative Trump-/DeSantis-, and Jeff Sessions-ites (including Jeff Sessions as he was so extolled here by our Resident Traditional Conservative Kendallian), and many self-identified “libertarians.”
On another 9/11 Anniversary, let’s remember who did the most to “excite” U.S. pro-war passions. And it wasn’t just the “NeoCons,” but “Traditional Conservative” fanatics like Jesse Helms, and Sen. Jeff Sessions!
Quote: "In 2005, Sessions spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C. in favor of the War in Iraq organized in opposition to an anti-war protest held the day before. Sessions said of the anti-war protesters: "The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world. I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first."[241] The same year, he opposed legislation by Senator John McCainprohibiting the U.S. military from engaging in torture; the amendment passed 90–9.[242](https://original.antiwar.com/brian-j-foley/2005/10/01/i-gave-my-copy-of-the-constitution-to-a-pro-war-veteran/: Quote: "I focused on the freedom of speech and said everyone had a right to protest.
. . .
"Americans who criticize the protesters should read our Constitution. This includes Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), who told Sunday’s small pro-war "counter-protest," "The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty, and spreading that around the world. I frankly don’t know what they represent, other than to blame America first."
That bit about “free speech” does not apply if one adheres ideologically to “Traditional Conservative” Willmoore Kendall’s and George Carey’s “Originalist interpretation” of the 1787 Constitution!
But here is what the “Right,” of Trumpism, et al., gives their unqualified support too
Yuli Novak, executive director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, testimony before the UN Security Council on Weds.
During this week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets. They feel angry, desperate, and betrayed by their government. They have understood, perhaps for the first time, that the Israeli government does not want to return the hostages in a deal but to continue the war indefinitely.
They see that the occupation and the settlements matter more than human life – and not only of Palestinians…. The government is cynically exploiting our collective trauma to violently advance its project of cementing Israeli control over the entire land. To do that, it is waging war on the entire Palestinian people – committing war crimes almost daily.
+ On Friday, Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old American peace activist, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli sniper during a demonstration against illegal settlements and land seizures in the West Bank village of Beita, near the city of Nablus. Eygi was taken to Rafida Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.According to witnesses, Eygi and a young Palestinian man were shot by Israeli snipers who were stationed on the roof of a house about 150 meters away. The Palestinian was shot in the leg and survived.
Weekly protests have been held by Palestinians and peace activists in Beiti for the past three years since an illegal “outpost” was established there by militant Israeli settlers. The “outpost” was “legalized” by the Netanyahu government in June. Since 2011, at least seven people have been killed by the IDF during protests outside the village.
The weekly protests traditionally begin with a prayer. On Friday, Israeli soldiers surrounded the demonstrators as they prayed and began trying to push them back toward the village. When some resisted, the Israelis doused them with tear gas and fired live rounds toward them.
About half an hour later, things had calmed down. There were no clashes going on. The young Palestinians and the foreign nationals had separated. Aysenur was standing in a grove of olive trees, talking with other members of the ISM, when the Israeli sniper shot her for no apparent reason.
The shooting was witnessed by Jonathan Pollack, a veteran Israeli peace campaigner and correspondent for Haaretz:
“We were standing in the street, and it was calm; nothing was happening. Soldiers climbed onto the roof of a house, and I saw a soldier aiming, and then I heard gunfire. The first shot hit something metallic and then the thigh of a young man from the village, and then there was another shot. Then someone called my name in English and said they needed help. I ran about 15 meters and saw her [Eygi] lying on the ground under olive trees, bleeding to death. She had a gunshot wound to the head. I looked up and saw there was a direct line of sight between us and the soldiers…It was quiet. There was nothing to justify the shot. The shot was taken to kill.”
Eygi had arrived in Beita only a few days earlier with a contingent from the International Solidarity Movement as part of a campaign to protect Palestinian farmers. She was killed shortly after attending her first protest in the village.
+ Like Rachel Corrie, Aysenur Eygi, who was murdered by the IDF in an olive grove while defending the land rights of Palestinian farmers, went to college in Washington state. Rachel is at Evergreen; Aysenur is at UW, where she graduated last spring.
One of her professors, Aria Fani, said Aysenur went to the West Bank to “protect Palestinian farmers from settler violence. I know exactly what she would say right now if she were alive. She’d say, ‘The only reason I’m in the headlines is because I have American citizenship.’ Which I think is sadly true. We’ve become numb to Palestinian loss.”
+++
+ When she was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, Azysenur Eygi was demonstrating against illegal settlements and land seizures in the West Bank that the US piously says it opposes but does nothing to stop. She was only armed with her conscience–something the US government has long abandoned any pretense of possessing.
+ In the last ten days, two Americans have been killed by bullets to the head in the Occupied Territories. Two distinct reactions from Team Biden.
Biden on the death of American hostage Hersh: “I am devastated and outraged. Hersh was among the innocents brutally attacked while attending a music festival for peace in Israel on October 7. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a ceasefire and to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
+ With more weapons for their killers, apparently.
+ Biden’s State Department on the death of Azysenur Eygi: “We are aware of the tragic death of an American citizen, Aysenur Eygi, today in the West Bank. We offer our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones. We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death, and will have more to say as we learn more. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens.”
+ American citizens killed by the IDF since Rachel’s murder in 2003. None of their families have received any justice (or even much sympathy) from either Israel or their own government…
+ American teacher Amado Sison, after being shot three weeks ago by Israeli forces while he protested illegal West Bank settlements: “If Israeli soldiers are willing to shoot a non-violent unarmed American citizen from behind, imagine the level of violence they direct at Palestinians when no one is there to document the settler and IDF’s violence…The money I pay in my taxes as a teacher probably funded the bullet they have run through me.”
+ Blinken: “We are gathering information from the Israelis on what happened.”
+ Thomas Hundall was a 22-year-old British photojournalist who was trying to help some children when he was shot in the head and killed by an IDF sniper in 2003. Last November, Hundall’s father told Sky News: “One of the lessons we learned was that you can’t place any reliance on Israeli accounts of events.”
+ Sen. Chris Van Hollen: “The Netanyahu Government – including racist extremists like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir – has fueled settler violence in the West Bank at the same time that it has announced new illegal settlements. The United States cannot turn a blind eye to these actions – including the killing of American citizens. The Biden Administration must do more to hold the Netanyahu Government accountable and use American influence to demand the prosecution of those responsible for harm against American citizens. If the Netanyahu Government will not pursue justice for Americans, the U.S. Department of Justice must.”
+++
+ Statement from the family of Aysenur Eygi…”Like the olive tree she lay beneath where she took her last breaths, Aysenur was strong, beautiful, and nourishing…an Israeli investigation is not adequate. We call on Biden, Harris, and Blinken to order an independent investigation.”
+++
+ Here is a recent sampling of the kind of daily violence visited upon Palestinians in the West Bank that Aysenur went to Baeti to protest…
+ Over the last 11 months, at least 652 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.Of these, 146 Palestinians have been killed and 54 injured in 55 airstrikes. By contrast, six Palestinians were killed in airstrikes in 2023 (up till October) and none in the preceding three years. The Palestinian fatalities since October 7 include 634 killed by Israeli forces, eleven by Israeli settlers, and seven where it remains unknown whether the perpetrators were Israeli forces or settlers.
+ Between October 7, 2023, and September 2, 2024, there have been at least 1,300 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, including 120 attacks that led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries. About 1,050 settler attacks inflicted damage to Palestinian property, and over 140 led to both casualties and property damage.
+ Since October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have destroyed, demolished, or confiscated 1,478 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, resulting in the displacement of more than 3,477 Palestinians, including about 1,485 children. This is more than double the number of displacements for the previous ten months. The demolitions after October 7 included over 500 inhabited structures, more than 300 agricultural structures, more than 100 water and sanitation buildings, and 200 places of business.
+ There are now at least 196 unauthorized Israeli settler “outposts” on Palestinian land across the West Bank, and according to the Israeli NGO Peace Now, Israel has built at least 29 illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank since last October, a record high.
+ On the night of August, the IDF launched a large-scale military raid in the northern West Bank using tanks, drones, airstrikes, and ground troops to enter Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas., resulting in mass casualties of Palestinians. Much of the public infrastructure was destroyed or damaged with the use of Israeli bulldozers. Israel’s raid on Jenin left more than 70% of the city’s streets bulldozed; 20 kilometers of water and sewage networks, communication, and electric cables destroyed. Meanwhile, the Israelis cut off the water supply from 80% of the city.
+ At least 30 Palestinians were killed during the first few days of the military operation the Israelis called “Summer Camp,” including ten by airstrikes. On August 31, the UN Human Rights Office in Occupied Palestinian Territory () condemned the Israeli forces’ “use of unlawful force during militarized operations in the occupied West Bank and called for an immediate end to the current attack on Jenin refugee camp.”
+ Early Monday morning, Israeli forces raided the home of Ayman Abed in the West Bank village of Kafr Dan. Abed was taken into custody and put into a military Jeep. A few hours later, Abed’s dead body was returned to the house with signs that he had been beaten and tortured. “We believe they tortured him in a military Jeep because it didn’t take a lot of time until they sent him back as a body,” Abed’s daughter Isra told Middle East Eye. “I saw his body, and he had, and he had signs of torture on him on his nose, hair, hands, and other areas. It’s obvious he went through severe torture, and it’s also clear that he was beaten.”
+ A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was walking with his father to the Mosque in the Tulakarem camp in the West Bank when an Israeli sniper shot him in the neck.
+ Israel has killed at least 70 children in the West Bank this year. Two of them were American citizens.
+ According to Doctors Without Borders, the IDF has been obstructing access to health facilities, blocking traffic, and targeting ambulances in Jenin, delaying Palestinians’s access to care in the West Bank.
+Orit Strock, the Israeli Minister of Settlement, called on the Netanyahu government to declare a state of war against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
+ Idit Silman, Israel’s Minister of Environmental Protection, “It’s not just the Philadelphia Corridor. We are on a path to inherit the land…let them know in Jenin, in Nablus, & everywhere – we want our land back, attack – & we will inherit it back.”
+ In his new book, Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, proposes diverting $1 billion from U.S. aid for the Palestinians to fund Israeli West Bank annexation in a second Trump presidency. Friedman writes that the annexation of the West Bank is justified “based first and foremost on biblical prophecies and values.”
+++
+ On the morning of December 6, 2023, a young Palestinian boy named Assad Abu Salah walked out of the girl’s school where his family had been sheltering in Jabaliia in north Gaza since October 8, when Israeli airstrikes destroyed the family’s home—and walked down the street near the Indonesian hospital, which had been under assault by the IDF for several days. He was shot in the heart by an Israeli sniper. Six members of his family came to recover his body. They placed him on a stretcher and carried him several blocks to a cemetery, where they buried his corpse. While walking back to the school, his uncle, Saaidi, carried a white flag, two of his cousins shouldered the shovels they’d used to bury him, and another carried the orange stretcher. As they approached the Indonesian Hospital, the family, too, came under Israeli sniper fire. Saadi was shot in the neck, falling forward onto the white flag he’d carried. One of his sons was shot in the back of the head. Three of his sons and his wife, Inshirah, were shot as they huddled together. Several of the bullets struck them as they were already lying on the street, their arms around each other. Then, the Israelis bulldozed their bodies into a pile of rubble and garbage.
The six members of the Abu Salah family were gunned down by Israeli snipers as they returned from burying their young nephew, who’d been shot in the heart and killed by Israeli forces early in the day.
+ In one of the most valuable features the paper has produced in years, the New York Times made a “video reconstruction” of the sniper attack on the Abu Salahs showing how they were killed, where the Israeli snipers shot from, and the depraved disposal of their bodies. When the Times asked the Israelis to comment on their findings, the IDF made no denials and instead, true to form, attempted to blame those they’d murdered, saying that many Palestinians in the area of the Indonesian hospital were “terrorists who fight and move in combat areas while wearing civilian clothes and disguise weapons in buildings and property that seems civilian.” What weapons could possibly be disguised as a stretcher, two shovels, and a white flag?
+++
Haaretz’s lead editorial on the killing of Israeli hostages by Hamas: “It was Hamas terrorists who pulled the trigger, but it was Netanyahu who sealed their fate. The prime minister likes to think of himself as Mr. Security, but he will go down in history as Mr. Death and Mr. Abandonment .”
Israeli news anchor Yaron Avraham:“I’m not supposed to say this on the air, but each one of the recovered hostages who were murdered had one bullet in their head, and one in the back of their neck…A senior official whom I trust said to me unequivocally that the military pressure as it is right now causes hostages to be killed. It’s difficult for me to say this, but that is the truth.”
+ Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid condemned Netanyahu for focusing on insignificant issues as “our sons and daughters are being abandoned and dying in captivity.”
+ On Monday, after the massive protests across Israel for a ceasefire, Netanyahu went on national TV to defend his demand for permanent control of the Philadelphi Corridor, saying that the 2005 Israeli pullout from Gaza was a strategic mistake he is now determined to correct.
+ During his speech, Netanyahu did some show-and-tell using a map that depicted the entire West Bank as part of Israel…
+ After Netanyahu’s speech, Peter Lerner, former IDF chief international spokesman, said: “He has sealed the fate of our hostages”.
+ Reporter: Yesterday, Netanyahu showed a map with no West Bank…is this normal?
Matthew Miller: I’m not going to comment
Reporter: I’m just saying, is that normal for you?
Miller: I’m not going to comment…
+ Do you think Miller would comment if Putin showed a map of Eastern Europe without Ukraine? Do you think he’d shut up about it?
+++
Pentagon’s Sabrina Singh: “We know that there are tunnels under that [Philadelphia] corridor”
Reporter: “The Egyptians deny the existence of these tunnels. Can you share more about what you know about these tunnels?”
Singh: “I don’t have more to provide other than what is.”
Reporter: “Is this based on recent U.S. intelligence or Israel?”
Singh: “Yeah, I wish I could get into more specifics.”
Reporter: “When you make such a claim that there are tunnels underneath the Philadelphia corridor while Egypt is denying that. I think some explanation is warranted here.”
Sabrina Singh: “Appreciate the question, Fadi, but I’m just not gonna have more.”
+ Eli Bahar, an Israeli lawyer who is a former legal adviser to the Shin Bet security service, told Haaretz that the “Philadelphi corridor” is code for Israel remaining in Gaza as an occupying power indefinitely.
+++
+ At least 11 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded on Monday when Israel bombed the former Safad school that currently shelters forcibly displaced people in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City.
+ A senior Israeli Air Force officer told Haaretz that without US aid, Israel would have struggled to fight in Gaza for more than a few months and that US support helped to block the Iranian counter-attack in April and launch a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah in April.
+ The parents of murdered Israeli hostage Carmel Gat refused to meet with Netanyahu and accused him of “being the person who murdered” their daughter: “We saw in the media Netanyahu wanted to speak with us. We’re not interested in talking with the person who murdered Carmel.”
+ Nearly 280,000 Israelis poured onto the streets of Tel Aviv on Sunday night, demanding a ceasefire after the recovery of six Israeli hostages, apparently killed by Hamas during an Israeli military raid. The protesters were met with tear gas and skunk water, treatment usually reserved for Palestinians.
+ Ronen Bergman reported for Ynet this week that after Hamas had largely agreed to a detailed Israeli hostage deal proposal in May, Netanyahu backtracked and introduced changes aimed at thwarting any possibility for a deal.
+ Without any troublesome fact-checking, the NYT repeated claims from the FBI that Iran helped to “stoke” anti-genocide protests on college campuses in the spring. I’d like to see some proof of this claim, but they should also find out who stoked the pro-genocide protests. Which “stoker” is the more morally compromised?
+++
+ As Gaza began a mass polio vaccination program, the Israeli army killed Dr. Mahmoud Al-Manama, Director of the Central Laboratory Department at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, by a drone strike on his home.
+ Heba al-Nashef: “My name is Hiea. I’m a midwife. I was in Gaza for six weeks on a medical mission, and I’m an eyewitness to genocide. Saturday, June 8th, was my first day at Al-Awda. It began with an orientation, then bombs went off around the hospital, and the building began shaking. The IDF was conducting a daytime raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp next door, during which it rescued four hostages at the expense of killing 274 Palestinians. During that first night, a pregnant woman came into the hospital to have her baby. She was crying and crying in horror. Her cries didn’t seem like the usual cries of pain during labor. It turned out that her husband and five children all had been murdered in front of her during that raid. I want you to imagine having to give birth under those circumstances. After she had her baby, we had to sedate her in order for her to cope with the pain and trauma. As a healthcare worker, I demand a permanent ceasefire and to enact a two-way arms embargo immediately.”
+ Irene Montero, a member of the European Parliament from Spain: “Without the complicity of the US and Europe, Netanyahu would not have been able to commit this genocide for the past 11 months.”
+ At least 370,000 housing units in Gaza have been damaged, including 79,000 destroyed completely.
+ The cost of damage to critical infrastructure in Gaza is estimated at around $18.5 billion, 72 percent of which is the cost of damage to the housing sector, 19 percent to public services infrastructure, such as water, health clinics, hospitals, and schools, and 9 percent to commercial and industrial buildings.
+ The coming rainy season will exacerbate the already catastrophic sanitation crisis in Gaza. The Council for Northern Gaza Municipalities and the Municipality of Gaza City have reported the destruction of 97 water wells, 13 major sewage pumps, 57 generators used for wells, 204 waste collection vehicles, and 255,000 meters of water and sewage lines since October 2023. The Council warned that as winter sets in, the extensive damage to rainwater and sewage networks would likely result in severe flooding, particularly in Jabalyia Camp and Beit Lahia, where humanitarian needs are already acute.
+ At least 1.9 million people (or nine in ten people) across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced, including people who have been repeatedly displaced, some of them ten times or more.
+ According to OCHA, in August, an average of only 69 humanitarian trucks entered the Gaza Strip per day. This is far below the pre-crisis average of 500 trucks per working day.
+ As of September 2nd, at least 213 UNRWA team members had been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023.
+++
+ The UK decided to suspend 30 pending arms sales to Israel. That’s 30 out of 350 or less than 10%. Much of the media coverage of the decision called it a “partial” suspension of arms sales. But “fractional” is more accurate.
+ British officials say that former Foreign Minister David Cameron refused to act on advice that British arms sales to Israel for use in Gaza violated UK laws. A former Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office adviser, who helped draft the memorandum, told the Guardian that it warned the UK government was putting itself at “clear risk” of being held complicit in Israel’s violations of international.
+ The legal advice “is similar to what was being sent to the government from at least February onwards in various drafts by Foreign Office advisers, much of it linked to the deteriorating humanitarian position in Gaza. But what has been eventually published is in much less strident language, the source said. “The tragedy has to be considered: how many lives might have been saved if the arms export licenses had been stopped then and not in September, and what the potential ripple effect might have been on how other countries would have reacted in ceasing trade…“The advice being sent through to the Foreign Office was clear that the breaches of IHL by Israel as the occupying power were so obvious that there was a danger of UK complicity if the licenses were not withdrawn.”
+ Netanyahu exploded after the British announcement that it was suspended a few arms shipments to Israel, posting on Twitter: “This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1,200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens. Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror … With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future.”
+ When questioned about the UK’s decision to suspend a few arms shipments to Israel, the Biden White House once again said it hadn’t seen any evidence that Israel had violated international law, despite opinions from the ICC, ICJ, and human rights organizations to the contrary. “Every nation can speak for themselves on how and to what degree that they support Israel…I can just tell you that, number one, we’re going to continue to do what we have to do to support Israel’s defensive capabilities; that support continues today.,” said John Kirby, spokesperson for Biden’s National Security Council. “Number two, we have, as I’ve said many times, reviewed individual reports as best we can…about compliance with international humanitarian law. And as we speak. There’s been no determination that they have violated international humanitarian law,”
+ The same drivel was pouring forth from the State Department.
Reporter: How are two countries with similar values looking at the same battlefield and coming with different conclusions
Matthew Miller: We have not reached any conclusions.
Reporter: Does the US see the same risks?
Matthew Miller: We said it’s reasonable to assess that there have been violations of international law. We’re trying to look at specifics.
Reporter: When will those assessments be concluded?
Miller: As soon as possible…
+ Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon:
Reporter: This weekend, Britain suspended 30 arms export licenses to Israel.Does the Secretary believe that every weapon the US is providing to Israel is being used correctly under international humanitarian law?
Pentagon: Our State Department has processes to look into those questions…Those processes are ongoing.
+ Heart of Darkness, Gaza edition: “The process, the process….”
+++
+ On Monday, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, denounced Israel’s attempts in the West Bank and Gaza to “de-Palestinianize” the Occupied Territories:
The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinization of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.
Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion.
The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinization of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.
The international community, made up of both state and non-state actors, including companies and financial institutions, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability, and ultimately end Israel’s colonization of Palestinian territory.
+++
Reporter: More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the majority civilians…We’ve seen countless children orphaned. We’ve seen countless mothers lose their children. How much is too much?
Netanyahu: We’ll end the war when we achieve our goals…we’re fighting a just war with just means. In fact, with means that no other army has ever fought.
Reporter: Did you tell Blinken that you would withdraw troops from the Philadelphi corridor at any point in a deal?
Netanyahu: No, I agreed to reduce the number of troops…The conditions for a permanent ceasefire must include somebody in Philadelphia…
Reporter: Does that mean troops?
Netanyahu: I don’t care. Bring me anyone who will actually prevent what happened there…I don’t see that happening. Until that happens, we’re there.
+ An official in the Israeli government told Haaretz: “Netanyahu decided some weeks ago that he does not want a deal, and when it became possible, he got nervous and did all he could to torpedo it.”
+++
+ According to a Pew Research survey, nearly 70% of Jewish Israelis say it should be forbidden to express any sympathy for Palestinian civilians in Gaza on social media platforms.
+ Dr. Victoria Rose, who just returned to England after working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said that 80% percent of the Palestinians she treated for injuries from Israeli attacks were children.
+ Yuli Novak, executive director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, testimony before the UN Security Council on Weds.
During this week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets. They feel angry, desperate, and betrayed by their government. They have understood, perhaps for the first time, that the Israeli government does not want to return the hostages in a deal but to continue the war indefinitely.
They see that the occupation and the settlements matter more than human life – and not only of Palestinians…. The government is cynically exploiting our collective trauma to violently advance its project of cementing Israeli control over the entire land. To do that, it is waging war on the entire Palestinian people – committing war crimes almost daily.
+++
+ Five days in September in Gaza…
+ On September 1, six Palestinians were killed and others injured in an airstrike in Beit Lahiya, in north Gaza.
+ On September 2, eight Palestinians were killed and others injured when they were hit by an Israeli airstrike in front of the Al Fakhoura School’s main gate in Jabalya Camp, in north Gaza.
+ On September 3, nine Palestinians, including at least one woman and five children, were killed and many others injured when a residential building was hit by an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza City. That same day, seven Palestinians were killed and others wounded when a children’s nursery was hit by an Israeli airstrike in western Jabalya, north Gaza.
+ On September 4, six Palestinians were killed and eight others injured by an Israeli airstrike near the Taalim Roundabout in Beit Lahiya, in north Gaza. On the same day, six Palestinian men were killed and others injured in Ash Sheihkh Zaied buildings, north Gaza City. An hour later, five Palestinians, including two children, were killed and others injured when the Israelis bombed a house in the Ash Sheikh Redwan neighborhood in Gaza City.
+ On September 5, five Palestinians were killed, and 15 others were injured, including children, when an Israeli airstrike near the open-air clinics of Al Aqsa Hospital in eastern Deir al Balah hit their refugee tents. The strike resulted in the destruction and burning of many tents located in the camp for internally displaced people.
+ Craig Mokhiber: “U.S. policy in Gaza is not a “failure.” It is a terrible success. Washington’s real policy has always been to support Israel in the destruction of Gaza, to render it unlivable, and to lay the ground for its ethnic cleansing. The ceasefire negotiation charade, the fake pier, the airdrop theater, the trickle of aid, the crocodile tears for civilian loss, the movable red lines, and the arguments with Israel on the pace of the destruction are all fig leaves designed to create diplomatic and political space for genocide. The U.S. is a successful co-perpetrator in Genocide.”
+++
+ Since the Israelis closed the Rafah crossing on May 7, the medical evacuation of critically ill and injured patients outside Gaza remains almost impossible, with only a few exceptions allowed. The WHO reports that only 124 patients and 137 accompaniers have been evacuated from Gaza on four separate occasions since May 7, while an estimated 12,000 patients have been unable to leave and receive urgently needed medical care abroad. According to the WHO, without a systematic mechanism for the medical evacuation of severely sick and injured patients outside Gaza, the waiting list “keeps growing while the clinical conditions of many of them continue to deteriorate.”
+ It’s still almost impossible to get enough food into Gaza to adequately feed the hundreds of thousands of starving Palestinians. In August, more than one million people did not receive any food rations in southern and central Gaza, and families living there will only be able to receive one food parcel during the September distribution cycle. In northern Gaza, food distribution was suspended in July and August due to the evacuation orders in Gaza City and North Gaza. As a result, each family will receive a monthly ration of two food parcels, excluding wheat flour, which is prioritized for supporting bakeries. According to the UN, the multiple Israeli-issued evacuation orders have forced around 70 kitchens to either suspend cooked meal provision or relocate. As a result, around 450,000 cooked meals prepared in 130 kitchens were provided daily to families across the Gaza Strip by the end of August, a 35 percent decrease compared with up to 700,000 meals provided at more than 200 kitchens in early July.
+ According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in July, the price of soap in Gaza increased by 1,177 percent, and the price of shampoo has risen by 490 percent across the Strip compared to July 2023. The UN warned that the lack of affordable hygiene items and limited access to clean water and sanitation facilities pose a growing risk of severe health consequences. This risk is exceptionally high for families who have been displaced, as they face extreme challenges maintaining basic hygiene in overcrowded shelters and displacement sites. Even the critical facilities—such as health centers, community kitchens, child-protection spaces, nutrition centers, and schools—lack the necessary tools to ensure safe and sanitary conditions. These conditions are all expected to deteriorate further during the coming winter.
+ On August 26, the Israeli-issued evacuation orders in Deir al Balah prevented access to 15 of the 18 groundwater wells, resulting in a 75 percent reduction in groundwater production (12,000 to 3,000 cubic meters a day) for the rest of the month. Israeli operations significantly damaged eight wells, and four of them were utterly destroyed.
+ From August 19 to September 1, the UN reported that an average of 114,901 cubic meters of water were produced daily for safe drinking and domestic use across the Gaza Strip. This volume represents about 30 percent of the potential production capacity of 378,500 cubic meters per day, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza with insufficient water resources.
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+ In an interview on Friday with WCMU News on the campus of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Tim Walz was asked how a Harris-Walz administration would handle Israel’s genocidal military assault on Gaza and whether their policy would break in any way with Bidens. Walz’s answer was typically anodyne, skirting both questions, but did mark new ground for defending the anti-genocide protesters in Michigan and suggesting, softly, that Netanyahu was an obstacle to peace. Walz: “Well, I think first and foremost, what we saw on October 7 was, was a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel. They have certainly–and the vice president has said, I’ve said it–have the right to defend themselves, and the United States will always stand by that. But we can’t allow what’s happened in Gaza to happen. The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves. We need to continue, I think, to put the leverage on to make sure we move towards a two-state solution. I think we’re at a critical point right now. We need the Netanyahu government to start moving in that direction. But I think those folks who are speaking out loudly in Michigan are speaking out for all the right reasons. It’s a humanitarian crisis. It can’t stand the way it is and we need to find a way that people can live together in this. And we’ve said it and continue to say it: getting a ceasefire with the return of the hostages and then moving towards a sustainable, two-state solution is the only way forward.”
+ If we assume these statements are pre-planned, then it might be possible to parse what’s new in Walz’s non-answer as:
1) an emphasis on what’s happening in Gaza, even though he leaves what’s happening there (genocide) unmentioned;
2. recognizing the validity of Arab-American protests against “what’s happening in Gaza” (at least in Michigan);
3. Outting Bibi as an obstacle to peace.
+ Hardly earth-shattering.
+ Will Harris send Walz out to answer all of the other “problematic” questions during the campaign? Will he pinch-hit for her in one of the debates?
+++
+ On the popular Two Nice Jewish Boys Israeli podcast this week, the co-hosts Naor Meningher and Eytan Weinstein “joked” about erasing all Palestinians from Gaza.
Weinstein: If you gave me a button to just erase Gaza, every single living being in Gaza would no longer be living tomorrow. I would press it in a second. I think most Israelis probably…
Meningher: If that’s the choice, yeah.
Weinstein: No, even if it’s not like right now, I would press it right now.
Meningher: Yeah, the same in the territories.
Weinstein: I would press it right now. No choice.
Meningher: No, I’m saying for the chance…
Weinstein: Yeah. I would press it right now. Give me that button. I’ll press it right now. And I think most Israelis would, too.
Meningher: Most Jewish Israelis…
Weinstein: They wouldn’t talk about it like I am. They wouldn’t say, ‘I pressed it.’
Meningher: They don’t have balls of steel like you.
Weinstein:But they would press it, right?
Meningher: Yeah.
Weinstein: “If they were in a closet alone, they wouldn’t even hesitate. If someone came in the dark and said, ‘No one will know. You press this; all Palestinians are gone.’ You’d be like [imitates pressing motion]. Is there another one?
+++
+ Back in August, Houston Mayor John Whitmire accused a pro-Palestinian demonstrator who protested outside his home of “being paid by Iran.” Whitmire claimed he learned this through “intelligence reports” from the Department of Homeland Security and his own Office of Public Safety. However, when Houston Public Media filed a public records request for the intelligence reports, the City of Houston said it had “no responsive documents” that would support the Mayor’s claim.
+ Ilan Pappe on why the ceasefire talks are doomed: “It’s funny how we sort of think that we are hearing some dramatic news, when actually we see the repeat of the same news, again and again. And I’m afraid this [ceasefire talks] is going to be the same. Netanyahu is going to reject the American proposal, whatever it is. He doesn’t think the Americans are in any position to really pose a danger to his own position in the government because we are 60 days before the [US presidential] elections. Therefore, this is all going to be a lot of talk but very little action on the ground. I’m afraid we need something far more drastic than an American proposal that tries to satisfy Netanyahu’s demands that keep changing because he doesn’t want a deal and he doesn’t want to end the fighting.”
+++
+ Let’s give the last word to Harvard’s Stephen Walt this week: “Basically, by the 1990s, the Israelis had won. Their state was established. It was prosperous. It had nuclear weapons. It had military superiority in the region. It had peace with Egypt and peace with Jordan. Syria is not a serious problem for the Israelis anymore. The Soviet Union is gone, so the Arabs don’t have a great power ally to help them. The Israelis have won, and in victory, they needed to be generous and say, ‘The only problem we have left is the Palestinian problem, and what they need is a state, and we want that state run by legitimate, popular, highly competent people who aren’t interested in going to war anymore. And instead, what the Israelis did was to keep building settlements, and they did everything they possibly could to keep the Palestinians weak and divided. As a result, they have faced violent movements doing the only thing that’s left to them, which is to try and resist. Of course, it’s probably worth remembering that international law explicitly says that populations under belligerent occupation have the right to resist. How they resist matters. They can’t commit war crimes in resistance, which is why what Hamas did on October 7 was wrong. But it’s not like they have no right to resist, as well. And I think that Americans often forget that. Palestinian resistance is completely legitimate, provided it follows the laws of war.”
