ionelv | Entries tagged with genocide

BBC reports on the dire situation in Gaza. Excerpts:

The IPC says that 470,000 Gazans, 22% of the population, are in a classification it calls "Phase 5 – catastrophe." The IPC defines it as a condition in which "at least one in five households experience an extreme lack of food and face starvation resulting in destitution, extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death."

In practical terms, the phase five classification, the most acute used by the IPC, estimates that "71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition".

Thousands of tons of the food, medical aid and humanitarian supplies that they need are sitting only a few miles away, on the other side of the border in Egypt.

[…]

In the air force reserve, 1,200 pilots signed an open letter saying that prolonging the war served mainly "political and personal interests and not security ones".

[…]

The allegation that the total denial of food to Gazan civilians is more evidence of an Israeli genocide against Palestinians has outraged Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and many Israeli citizens. It produced rare political unity in Israel. The leader of the opposition Yair Lapid, normally a stern critic of Netanyahu, condemned "a moral collapse and a moral disaster" at the ICJ.

Genocide is defined as the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate body, has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister on war crimes charges, which they reject. The three Hamas leaders who were also the subject of ICC warrants have all been killed by Israel.

Ereyesterday, I left a FB group that had "progressive values" in its name (although originally the group was just a US Democrats support group). I just could not bear the constant black-and-white 100%, no-reservations pro-Israel attitude of its most vocal supporters, participants and defenders whenever Gaza genocide was mentioned. Incidentally, I was reading recently that Israel paid hundreds of people to defend Israel and its war on social media.

There were at least 6 of these Bibi stans defending the absolute right of Israel to kill with impunity Palestinian civilians in the tens of thousands lest Trump might win the US election and Putin and Hamas terrorists win the hearts and souls of the West. The only anti-Gaza genocide supporters who actually commented in that group were only 2.

Of the 1000+ members of the group, 900+ did not even care or saw the exchanges on Israel and Gaza, most likely because FB algos that exclude posts in one's feed from any source that one has not interacted with recently, which creates a catch-22 situation: if you forget to "like" or comment on enough posts from any one source, that source is forever gone from your FB feed (until you actively look for and start interacting with again).

Some international law scholars are pointing out that current international humanitarian law is deficient in that it deals mostly with assessment, prosecution and punishment at the end of hostilities and does not deal very well with preventing crimes against humanity and genocide, thus they urge immediate action in Gaza. Here is the actual paper from Dannenbaum and Dill.

They argue that, when applying the right threshold, Israel is in violation of international humanitarian law and that outside countries should suspend material assistance such as selling weapons.

Two days ago, on a "progressive" FB group, I shared (Australian blogger) Caitlin Johnstone (CJ)'s very hard-nosed and narrow opinion on Harris v Trump re: Israel and Palestine with this preamble: "This is an unpopular opinion, but one that I endorse 100%". During the ensuing discussion I even added some context for my POV. The gist of CJ's opinion was this (with the second part about Trump automatically null and void in a "progressive" group IMO):

If you want to vote for Harris, then vote for Harris. But do it with the full knowledge that you are voting for someone who has spent a year supporting genocidal atrocities [...] At the very least have the decency to honor the mountains of victims who will suffer in ways you can’t even imagine under a Harris administration by casting your vote mournfully [...]

If you want to vote for Trump, then vote for Trump. But do it with the understanding that he is being backed by some of the most virulent Zionists on earth and will throw his weight behind Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Don’t lie to yourself that he’s going to end the wars and fight the deep state.

The responses/comments to my post fell into a few categories (left column) and here are my responses (right column):

Responses/comments	Responses
1. CJ is one of <<"full-time professional anti-imperialists" who praise Assad and Putin and blame the US for every evil in the world.>> CJ was/is on Assad's and Putin's payroll (via RT News). CJ did not condemn the Chechen Wars (or "Putin whose complete and total destruction of Chechnya is on par with anything Israel has done"). Due to all of these, it was heavily implied that I and others like me are useful idiots.	Don't shoot the messenger, as the message still holds despite all of CJ's flaws (i.e. read the above quoted paragraphs as if someone anonymous wrote them and judge whether they still hold true or not).
2. I am going to waste my vote or, worse, I'll convince others to do that or, worst, vote for Trump.	I did not intend to suggest or try to convince others to throw their vote away or vote for Trump and if you see it as such, you have very little confidence in your fellow "progressives" (who had a very low defection rate in 2016 even after the DNC email leak scandal).
3. Harris as a VP does not hold real power, so she can't really be blamed for US policy and any complicity in Israel-Hamas War.	A decent human being is at least partially complicit just like a crime witness who does not report it is guilty in the eyes of the law (obviously of a lesser crime than the perpetrator).
4. Always pick the lesser of two evils while more-or-less ignoring any egregious human rights violations (done by Democrats) as long as it's against non-Americans and as long as Democrats do what's right for Americans (only) because they are much better than Republicans who tear everything down and divide (Americans).	If you think that one American life is much more important than a non-American life, then I can see why you believe that.
5. CJ's opinion is idealistic.	I would call the opinion a moral one, not idealistic as it does acknowledge the reality of choosing the lesser of two evils.
6. This whole thread is laughable or funny.	Please do consult a psychiatrist, have a long look in the mirror or at least take a long break from social media as your capacity for empathy seems to be heavily impaired.
7. Harris is heads and shoulders above Trump on her abortion record and plans.	I agreed and admitted so, with the qualifier that CJ's opinion only considered Harris v Trump on Israel policy.

Summary

If you fear that sharing on a "progressive" private group the opinion of one Australian journalist (with a pro-Putin/Assad and an anti-US/Israel agenda) who points out the whitewashing of US complicity in genocide and that any American should feel dirty about it, is either invalid because of the deep flaws of the person holding the mirror or that it will tip the balance in Trump's favor, the Democrats are in deep trouble not just this time around but in the future as well as it will require a lot of cognitive dissonance and whitewashing to support deeply flawed individuals and policies at the highest levels of US government (while admittedly these individuals and policies might deliver some incremental non-negative change elsewhere within the US, e.g. abortion rights, public healthcare, minimum/living wage, union and job protections, minority human rights).

OpenDemocracy.net published in August the best explainer I read so far on Kamala Harris' Israel-Palestine position. The interesting thing is that it acknowledges that her position to the left of Biden is trying to appease the wavering/bleeding leftmost progressive flank support, but it does not really mention that her shift presents the danger of leaking support on its more conservative rightmost flank, especially with its Zionist and protestant Christian strong Israel supporters.

By talking more progressive and doing Zionist things is at best threading a very narrow winning path different enough but not too different from Biden's and Trump's Zionist positions and at worst, effectively having her cake (now) and eating it too (later) by appearing progressive enough before the election and then staying the usual US course on Israel after (e.g. its #1 and often sole enabler diplomatically, militarily and economically as it has been for half+ century).

I will give Kamala (a very slim) benefit of the doubt, but I put the chance of a fair two-state solution and rapid Israel war deescalation (to some pre-October 7 normalcy or at the very least a near-complete detachment of the US war and diplomatic machine from the Palestinian genocide) within Harris' first term at around 15%. I will be happy if I am proven wrong, and ecstatic if very wrong.

Caitlin Johnstone has a cautionary tale about talking politics at the dinner table (audio). Here is the transcript:

Don’t Talk About Politics At The Dinner Table

Everything was going fine until Grandma brought out the roast Palestinian child for dinner.

“Who’s hungry?” she chirped, a small honey-glazed human corpse on a platter in her arms.

“I am!” said Grandpa.

“Oh boy!” said Tommy.

“OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK??” Susan shrieked.

“Jesus, Sue, my ears,” said Ellen.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Grandma asked, frozen in shock.

“That’s a dead kid! Why the fuck is there a dead kid on that plate??” Susan yelled.

“Hey, you can’t talk to your grandmother like that,” Grandpa warned.

“Yeah, Sue, watch your mouth,” said Stanley, covering his daughter’s ears.

“It’s — oh my God! It’s a dead kid! Why is everyone acting like this is fine?? What the fuck is happening??”

“Oh, Susan, sweetie, are you a vegetarian? I’m sorry, I didn’t know!” said Grandma.

“Did — did you kill this kid??” Susan asked, struggling to catch her breath.

“Oh Christ, no!” said Grandpa. “Is that what this is about? No, it’s some Arab kid that got killed in that Israeli war. They started selling them by the pound at Costco last month.”

“YOU MEAN THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA??” Susan bellowed, falling to her knees and sobbing.

“Oh, here we go,” Tommy sighed.

“Can we please not get all political at the dinner table?” said Stanley.

“Yeah, no politics!” said Grandpa. “We’re all here together as a family, let’s just try to have a nice time.”

“Politics??” Susan screamed. “I’m staring at a dead Palestinian kid right in front of me and it freaks me out! How the fuck is that political??”

“I mean, calling it a ‘genocide’, Sue?” said Ellen.

“Look, we can sit here arguing about the war and who started it and whether Israel has a right to defend itself and whether Jews have a right to exist in their homeland, or we can all just take a deep breath, and relax, and enjoy this delicious meal Grandma spent hours in the kitchen preparing,” said Grandpa, reaching for the carving knife.

“I swear to God if any of you so much as touches that kid I will never speak to you for the rest of my life,” said Susan.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Tommy.

“Tom!” said Stanley, putting down the knife to again cover his daughter’s ears.

“God, Sue why do you always gotta be such a hysterical drama queen?” said Ellen. “We’re just trying to have a nice meal together and you gotta come in playing Woke Police on everyone.”

“It’s a victim of genocide! You want to eat a human child who was killed in a genocide!” screamed Susan.

“You say it’s a genocide victim, I say it’s dinner,” said Tommy. “But nobody can be right except you, right Sue? Only Saint Susan gets to decide which opinions are valid.”

“I think we just need to have respect for one another’s different political opinions, Susan” said Grandma. “We’re not all going to agree on everything, and we need to be able to set that aside and get along together. This is a complicated issue. Who’s to say who’s right?”

“But this isn’t political!” wailed Susan. “How can you guys not see that?? There’s a DEAD KID on the dinner table! A dead kid!”

“I think they’re right, Aunt Susan,” said Morgan, taking off her headphones. “I didn’t want to say anything but a lot of the stuff you’ve been saying online about the war is really problematic and antisemitic, and actually kind of borderline fascist-adjacent. The kinds of things you’ve been saying about President Biden and Vice President Harris are going to land Trump back in the White House.”

“Alright, alright, what did we just say about politics at the dinner table?” said Grandpa. “This is what it leads to. A bunch of hurtful words and hurt feelings.”

“Fuck. Your. Feelings,” said Susan.

“Okay, well, dinner’s ruined,” said Stanley. “Morgan, Louise, come on, we’re getting McDonald’s. Thanks a lot, Sue.”

“Yeah, Sue,” said Tommy. “Selfish bitch.”

Everyone left, leaving Grandpa and Grandma alone with Susan — who was still crying on the floor.

“Susan,” said Grandpa. “Someday you’re going to have to learn that other people have feelings just like you, and that we all deserve to be treated as human beings, just like you do.”

“Really, sweetie, you’ve just got to learn to have a little compassion,” said Grandma, picking up the platter with the Palestinian child on it and carrying it into the kitchen.

“I guess we can use all these leftovers for sandwiches later,” she mumbled, shaking her head sadly.

Reading about friendly fire: how IDF killed its own citizens or escaped hostages in its blind fury against Hamas, it makes a lot more sense why the Palestinian civilian casulaties are so high and will continue to climb as IDF is willing to inflict a lot of collateral damage as long as they also hit POTENTIAL military targets. Geneva conventions be damned. Bombs away!

Apparently, Israel is attempting to reign in the IDF free-for-all killings (and/or managing international public opinion): IDF fired two senior officers involved in the WCK killings.

Verso Books have made available 5 free books on the Israel-Palestine conflict:

Ten Myths about Israel (PDF), by Ilan Pappe.
Palestine Speaks, edited by Mateo Hoke and Cate Malek
Blaming the Victims, edited by Christopher Hitchens and Edward W. Said; contributions by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Abu-Lughod, G.W. Bowersock, Noam Chomsky, Norman G. Finkelstein, Muhammad Hallaj, Rashid Khalidi, Peretz Kidron and Elia Zureik
The case for sanctions against Israel, edited by Audrea Lim; contributions by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, Merav Amir, Hind Awwad, Mustafa Barghouthi, Omar Barghouti, Dalit Baum, Joel Beinin, John Berger, Angela Davis, Nada Elia, Marc H. Ellis, Noura Erakat, Neve Gordon, Ran Greenstein, Ronald Kasrils, Jamal Khader, Naomi Klein, Paul Laverty, Mark LeVine, David Lloyd, Ken Loach, Haneen Maikey, Rebecca O'Brien, Ilan Pappe, Jonathan Pollak, Laura Pulido, Lisa Taraki, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Michael Warschawski and Slavoj Žižek
The Punishment of Gaza, by Gideon Levy.

I read parts of Pappe's book and I must say his demystification of the Oslo negotiations and predictable fallout is bang on. The map proposed by Israel during Oslo II (1995) (even though it is mentioned in chapter 8) is the very definition of unfairness and cynicism:

I had a few thoughts about America's future while reading this LARB exchange between Codrescu, Crăiuțu and Brădățan about American immigrants and America's evolution since 1991.

The exchange between them is a good read, although I wonder what they would have said were it not for their sunk cost fallacy (very common in immigrants from behind the Iron Curtain) and "fript cu ciorba" phenomenon. I find the whole idea of self-identifying as an American, Romanian, Ardelean, etc, a big trap and sink of energy, a mirage that only leads one away from self-actualization. Over-identifying with one's country of residence (or birth) feeds strife (that often leads to war) and even stokes smoldering genocidal tendencies within any aggrieved (usually) majority subgroup.

For humanity's sake, I hope we eventually learn to live peacefully with each other and do away with ultrapatriotism, artificial borders, skin-deep race illusions, proselytizing religions, social castes, greed, and us vs them mentalities.

As for America's future, I foresee lots of chaos and economic gloom in the coming decades with little upside potential, e.g.

increased polarization and declining standard of living wrought by a schizophrenic power seesaw between
- the party of lawyers and mega-corporations that (mostly) pretends to care about the little guy, and
- the party of those that want to own the libs while sucking up to billionaires and religious nuts,
a fizzling economic power overtaken by a fast-emerging China and that does not know how to deleverage its sky-rocketing debt burden (with incalculable long-term negative effects in US),
increasing bananization and increasingly skewed power distribution (given the increasing influence of a vampiric MICC and maniacal billionaires).

If America is to survive, something big needs to change and I mostly see dark clouds on the horizon, foreshadowing storms that will only worsen things (without even counting the slow-boiling impending climate catastrophe or the [morally legitimate] newest front of its perpetual war which will surely evolve into the much anticipated US-China War).