Waiting for Biden and Blinken, and their gaggle of podium zombies, to tell us once again how Israel has a right to defend itself. Clearly this is indiscriminate, collective punishment, which is, by definition, a war crime. The ICC and the ICJ need to get off their collective fat asses and stand up for the things that are implied by the very names of these feckless international organizations.
Beyond evil. I saw a photo earlier in the day of a man being taken out on a stretcher. It appeared his face was badly damaged. Perhaps nose and lips gone or not intact. Israeli technology combined with an aggression mentality is taking terrorism to a level not existing before. The obvious course would be for the US to realize the current policy with Israel has degraded to a point of no return and cut ties. Actions up to now indicate this will not happen. No red line in sight.
When you're the protegé of the United States you know that you do not have to obey international law. The extent of Netanyahu's brutality is directly proportional to how much he is protected by this government. That much is painfully obvious.
When will this gangster government decide to do that to American citizens? I am sick of our elected officials selling rights to govern American citizens to a murderous foreign government with a god complex.
My first clue that the U.S. is involved, even indirectly, came when the State Department spokespeople, aka propagandists, declared unequivocally that the U.S. is not involved.
Can't give BDS a boost any better than that. All over the news reading world right now people not previously boycotting goods from Israel are reconsidering, certainly any electronics products from there - or manufacturing associated with Israeli companies.
What's next from these terrorists? Slow cumulative poisons in the food and drink products from Israel? Bio-weapon terrorism in toothpaste?
ANYONE pretending Zionist terrorism is "just defending Israel" qualifies as a sociopath.
They're not done. when they have killed, tortured and starved 6 million Palestinians and made us spend more tax dollars to defend their attacks on Iran, Lebanon, etc. Then: THE WORLD WILL BE THEIRS!!!
From what I see, the Jews of the World are as embarrassed by Netanyahu as American citizens are embarrassed by our own government enlisting us and our country against our will to support a land grab and displacement of a people of Palestine on one hand while enlisting us to support a war against a land grab and against a displacement of a people of Ukraine. Let's not blame the Jews for having a leadership that seems certifiable and more fit for a loony bin than to lead a nation.
It looks like the plan was to damage the communication system while having a bit of sadistic fun causing, death , blindness, loss of fingers...ha ha ha.
Then bomb a suburb. Israel deserves everything bad inflicted on them by those "inferior" people, who are not supported with billions and weapons from countries scared to death of ...pretty much, That Lobby.
An eye surgeon in Lebanon said that 60 percent of his patients had an eye removed. “In 25 years of practice, I have never removed as many eyes as I did yesterday.” And yet the Israeli apologists either praise the sophistication of the attacks or make jokes about them.
Lots of people are talking about how the pager- and walkie-talkie explosions are going to change our conception of warfare for the future; how they violate international law & international humanitarian law. As Scahill points out, however, sabotaging items held by the 'enemy' is nothing new. Neither are random attacks against civilians and others for political gain. That is the very definition of terrorism, a phenomenon both Israel and the US have come to perfect.
Israel's actions against its neighbors and against the Palestinians are not noteworthy because they have altered modern warfare but because they will have ended any last shreds of confidence people might have had in the global institutions, international laws and statutes they are meant to uphold. What Israel has done is to put the final nail in the coffin of our faith in the rule of law. The United Nations, the ICC, the ICJ, and other global bodies have become almost completely irrelevant. They cannot enforce their own resolutions and rulings when states refuse to abide by them - and this allows powers such as Israel and the United States to do whatever they wish with impunity.
For the UN to function properly in this world, it would need armed services with capabilities greater than those of any single state. This is apparently the only way to enforce just, legal decisions reached by consensus. (And, of course, the risk here is that a form of global tyranny could arise).
Those who still believe in the rule of law may always have the satisfaction of knowing which leaders and states are criminal violators of the universal principles most of us take for granted. But it is not enough just to know who the culprits are. Millions of human beings have been left unprotected in even the most basic of ways because there is no enforceable way to guarantee their safety and livelihoods. This leaves us in a quandary of what to do to ensure there is some justice that can be meted out, especially to those bent on destroying the worlds in which they live.
Israelis and others can "high-five" each other in the wake of the devastating and grotesque acts of sabotage just inflicted upon the people of Lebanon. There is little any of us can do to prevent another such attack from taking place, or -- worse yet --, to prevent other states and non-state actors from following in Israel's footsteps. This has already caused fear, paranoia, and demoralization among those directly affected and among those aware of the implications of these actions. What can probably be guaranteed, however, is that when the United States or Israel is the target of a similar attack, more widespread and more lethal, there will finally be some attempt to put an end to them.
Therefore, the best result we can hope for is that nations will achieve a form of high-tech deterrence similar to what exists now among the nuclear armed states: the knowledge that if you attack your enemy with your most powerful weapon, your own destruction is guaranteed. Once the ability to infect or sabotage an enemy's electronics and more has equalized amongst the high-tech powers, any given state will have to think twice before causing a mass casualty event in another country. This will, we might hope, encourage alliances among clusters of nations around a particular power and thereby have a widespread "protective" advantage to those born in the global south and elsewhere.
In the meantime, let us hope that global revulsion towards the kind of acts Israel is committing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran will solidify; that popular mobilization will stretch beyond national boundaries; and that somehow "people power" can be harnessed in ways that genuinely curtail the destructive tendencies of pariah states - those whose arrogance, sadism, and impunity are leading us each day to nuclear and environmental catastrophe.
Biden-Harris won’t stop the Fire, but Congress can. The regional war is a response to the Genocide in Gaza.
Call your Senators and ask them to Co-Sponsor Senator Sanders bill to stop the arms for Israel. (29Billion approved in August).
Go to Jewish Voice for Peace online. They have a simple calling method that you can use. They clarify that this bill if passed will stop the weapons transfers. The root cause.
Congress can call a joint resolution of disapproval which is the only mechanism available to Congress to prevent arm sales from going forward, it is introduced in the Senate to try to prohibit the sale from going forward but all of the history of this process going back to the 1970s no joint resolution disapproval has ever been successful in stopping any arms sales because it requires a 2/3 majority in both the House and the Senate.
Although I believe every action we take to try to stop the genocide is valuable, calling, protesting, boycotting whatever you can do.
remember how the israeli prime minister, in september 2023, presented to the UN GA a map of his "new middle east" ... with palestine nowhere to be found on it? were there any outcries in outrage? "from the river to the sea - only jewish sovereignty."
well, yesterday, the UN general assembly adopted a palestinian draft resolution calling on israel to end its unlawful presence in gaza + the occupied west bank w/i a year. 124 countries voted in favor, while 43 abstained and 14 opposed the resolution, which demands sanctions and an arms embargo against israel along with "the return of the land and other immovable property as well as all assets seized from any natural or legal person since its occupation in 1967 and [the return of] all cultural property and assets taken from palestinians and palestinian institutions".
[considering, if only briefly, the fact that gaza has been reduced to rubble by now, i do ask myself, "what assets seized from any natural or legal person there are now left to return?"] and i wonder:
will this resolution share the fate of all the others that were totally ignored by the nations concerned, i.e. israel and all its al_lies - or will it mark a turning of the tide, as more and more people wake up and decide to side with the forces that work for PEACE, in the middle east and across the globe?
how to effectively STOP these warmongers before they destroy what's left of humanity in all of us? is even voting for parties that advocate for peaceful coexistence nothing but utterly futile?
I get hope from the 124 countries that voted for an end to Israel's military occupation of Palestine but like you feel concern that it won't be enough. If Australia, Canada and UK had voted in support of Palestine (instead of abstaining from the vote) it could have created more pressure on US/Israel to retreat. But unfortunately there's a moral vacuum in the West created from financial ties and cultural arrogance.. I feel very alienated from my Anglo/Euro ancestry. It is literally sickening. The military industrial complex has far far too much lobbying power. Change needed.
@ julia anne: thank you for responding! moral vacuum, cultural arrogance - i totally agree and find it sad that people in my EU country don't get mad enough to flood the streets in protest for days, even weeks on end. global warming, forever wars, techno feudalism, modern slavery, digital and otherwise, fascism on the rise ... too many people are either indifferent or so overwhelmed that they think they can't make a difference. we probably can but might not see the good results in our lifetime?
The Zionists are revealing to the entire world what they are--what they have always been. Hamas terrorists? They are amateurs compared to the monsters who inhabit Israel. But they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Israel just cannot exist in a sane and peaceful world, and must and will expire. Who knew it would be a suicide?
Waiting for Biden and Blinken, and their gaggle of podium zombies, to tell us once again how Israel has a right to defend itself. Clearly this is indiscriminate, collective punishment, which is, by definition, a war crime. The ICC and the ICJ need to get off their collective fat asses and stand up for the things that are implied by the very names of these feckless international organizations.
Beyond evil. I saw a photo earlier in the day of a man being taken out on a stretcher. It appeared his face was badly damaged. Perhaps nose and lips gone or not intact. Israeli technology combined with an aggression mentality is taking terrorism to a level not existing before. The obvious course would be for the US to realize the current policy with Israel has degraded to a point of no return and cut ties. Actions up to now indicate this will not happen. No red line in sight.
When you're the protegé of the United States you know that you do not have to obey international law. The extent of Netanyahu's brutality is directly proportional to how much he is protected by this government. That much is painfully obvious.
International law is as useless as our federal laws, cf., Trump and other seditionists have not been charged.
We are stage managing his genocide quite effectively. No surprise given how much practice we've had spinning our own crimes.
When will this gangster government decide to do that to American citizens? I am sick of our elected officials selling rights to govern American citizens to a murderous foreign government with a god complex.
Well, they're already perfectly will to shoot US citizens in the back....
My first clue that the U.S. is involved, even indirectly, came when the State Department spokespeople, aka propagandists, declared unequivocally that the U.S. is not involved.
Can't give BDS a boost any better than that. All over the news reading world right now people not previously boycotting goods from Israel are reconsidering, certainly any electronics products from there - or manufacturing associated with Israeli companies.
What's next from these terrorists? Slow cumulative poisons in the food and drink products from Israel? Bio-weapon terrorism in toothpaste?
ANYONE pretending Zionist terrorism is "just defending Israel" qualifies as a sociopath.
:(
Wow!! what a thought provoking report on the depths of inhumanity
the Israelies will sink to.
They're not done. when they have killed, tortured and starved 6 million Palestinians and made us spend more tax dollars to defend their attacks on Iran, Lebanon, etc. Then: THE WORLD WILL BE THEIRS!!!
These are indeed very evil people.
If the Jews of the WORLD would put pressure on
Israel this insanity would stop.
From what I see, the Jews of the World are as embarrassed by Netanyahu as American citizens are embarrassed by our own government enlisting us and our country against our will to support a land grab and displacement of a people of Palestine on one hand while enlisting us to support a war against a land grab and against a displacement of a people of Ukraine. Let's not blame the Jews for having a leadership that seems certifiable and more fit for a loony bin than to lead a nation.
From what I see the Jews of the World aren't embarrassed.
They attack protests against Genocide on the college campus they
call free speech antisemitism they push AIPAC pro Netanyahu money.
They aren't being led they are pushing.
Joking, right?
Consult Ilan Pappe.....on youtube, on Amazon, on Wikipedia.
"If you own a pager or a cell phone, you must be Hamas."
And now a walkie talkie. Second attack today.
It looks like the plan was to damage the communication system while having a bit of sadistic fun causing, death , blindness, loss of fingers...ha ha ha.
Then bomb a suburb. Israel deserves everything bad inflicted on them by those "inferior" people, who are not supported with billions and weapons from countries scared to death of ...pretty much, That Lobby.
An eye surgeon in Lebanon said that 60 percent of his patients had an eye removed. “In 25 years of practice, I have never removed as many eyes as I did yesterday.” And yet the Israeli apologists either praise the sophistication of the attacks or make jokes about them.
Many of the survivors of this attack will carry it for life. Blind, faces disfigured, hands destroyed.
Lots of people are talking about how the pager- and walkie-talkie explosions are going to change our conception of warfare for the future; how they violate international law & international humanitarian law. As Scahill points out, however, sabotaging items held by the 'enemy' is nothing new. Neither are random attacks against civilians and others for political gain. That is the very definition of terrorism, a phenomenon both Israel and the US have come to perfect.
Israel's actions against its neighbors and against the Palestinians are not noteworthy because they have altered modern warfare but because they will have ended any last shreds of confidence people might have had in the global institutions, international laws and statutes they are meant to uphold. What Israel has done is to put the final nail in the coffin of our faith in the rule of law. The United Nations, the ICC, the ICJ, and other global bodies have become almost completely irrelevant. They cannot enforce their own resolutions and rulings when states refuse to abide by them - and this allows powers such as Israel and the United States to do whatever they wish with impunity.
For the UN to function properly in this world, it would need armed services with capabilities greater than those of any single state. This is apparently the only way to enforce just, legal decisions reached by consensus. (And, of course, the risk here is that a form of global tyranny could arise).
Those who still believe in the rule of law may always have the satisfaction of knowing which leaders and states are criminal violators of the universal principles most of us take for granted. But it is not enough just to know who the culprits are. Millions of human beings have been left unprotected in even the most basic of ways because there is no enforceable way to guarantee their safety and livelihoods. This leaves us in a quandary of what to do to ensure there is some justice that can be meted out, especially to those bent on destroying the worlds in which they live.
Israelis and others can "high-five" each other in the wake of the devastating and grotesque acts of sabotage just inflicted upon the people of Lebanon. There is little any of us can do to prevent another such attack from taking place, or -- worse yet --, to prevent other states and non-state actors from following in Israel's footsteps. This has already caused fear, paranoia, and demoralization among those directly affected and among those aware of the implications of these actions. What can probably be guaranteed, however, is that when the United States or Israel is the target of a similar attack, more widespread and more lethal, there will finally be some attempt to put an end to them.
Therefore, the best result we can hope for is that nations will achieve a form of high-tech deterrence similar to what exists now among the nuclear armed states: the knowledge that if you attack your enemy with your most powerful weapon, your own destruction is guaranteed. Once the ability to infect or sabotage an enemy's electronics and more has equalized amongst the high-tech powers, any given state will have to think twice before causing a mass casualty event in another country. This will, we might hope, encourage alliances among clusters of nations around a particular power and thereby have a widespread "protective" advantage to those born in the global south and elsewhere.
In the meantime, let us hope that global revulsion towards the kind of acts Israel is committing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran will solidify; that popular mobilization will stretch beyond national boundaries; and that somehow "people power" can be harnessed in ways that genuinely curtail the destructive tendencies of pariah states - those whose arrogance, sadism, and impunity are leading us each day to nuclear and environmental catastrophe.
Biden-Harris won’t stop the Fire, but Congress can. The regional war is a response to the Genocide in Gaza.
Call your Senators and ask them to Co-Sponsor Senator Sanders bill to stop the arms for Israel. (29Billion approved in August).
Go to Jewish Voice for Peace online. They have a simple calling method that you can use. They clarify that this bill if passed will stop the weapons transfers. The root cause.
Peace to All
details of a joint resolution of disapproval-
Congress can call a joint resolution of disapproval which is the only mechanism available to Congress to prevent arm sales from going forward, it is introduced in the Senate to try to prohibit the sale from going forward but all of the history of this process going back to the 1970s no joint resolution disapproval has ever been successful in stopping any arms sales because it requires a 2/3 majority in both the House and the Senate.
Although I believe every action we take to try to stop the genocide is valuable, calling, protesting, boycotting whatever you can do.
Done
Only the indiscriminate scope differs for Israel, only Jewish lives matter; all others are dispeensable.
Also U.S. foreign policy re. Israel for 76 years: blanket impunity! When will it never end?????? One would expect Congress to force Biden.......
William H. Slavick
Need tto proofead, punctuate
need to edit.
"When one lies down with dogs, one wakes up with fleas." Our country is in bed with mad dogs. But I apologize to dogs.
remember how the israeli prime minister, in september 2023, presented to the UN GA a map of his "new middle east" ... with palestine nowhere to be found on it? were there any outcries in outrage? "from the river to the sea - only jewish sovereignty."
well, yesterday, the UN general assembly adopted a palestinian draft resolution calling on israel to end its unlawful presence in gaza + the occupied west bank w/i a year. 124 countries voted in favor, while 43 abstained and 14 opposed the resolution, which demands sanctions and an arms embargo against israel along with "the return of the land and other immovable property as well as all assets seized from any natural or legal person since its occupation in 1967 and [the return of] all cultural property and assets taken from palestinians and palestinian institutions".
[considering, if only briefly, the fact that gaza has been reduced to rubble by now, i do ask myself, "what assets seized from any natural or legal person there are now left to return?"] and i wonder:
will this resolution share the fate of all the others that were totally ignored by the nations concerned, i.e. israel and all its al_lies - or will it mark a turning of the tide, as more and more people wake up and decide to side with the forces that work for PEACE, in the middle east and across the globe?
how to effectively STOP these warmongers before they destroy what's left of humanity in all of us? is even voting for parties that advocate for peaceful coexistence nothing but utterly futile?
I get hope from the 124 countries that voted for an end to Israel's military occupation of Palestine but like you feel concern that it won't be enough. If Australia, Canada and UK had voted in support of Palestine (instead of abstaining from the vote) it could have created more pressure on US/Israel to retreat. But unfortunately there's a moral vacuum in the West created from financial ties and cultural arrogance.. I feel very alienated from my Anglo/Euro ancestry. It is literally sickening. The military industrial complex has far far too much lobbying power. Change needed.
@ julia anne: thank you for responding! moral vacuum, cultural arrogance - i totally agree and find it sad that people in my EU country don't get mad enough to flood the streets in protest for days, even weeks on end. global warming, forever wars, techno feudalism, modern slavery, digital and otherwise, fascism on the rise ... too many people are either indifferent or so overwhelmed that they think they can't make a difference. we probably can but might not see the good results in our lifetime?
Diabolical.....
Biden's primary legacy: "the light is very bright green, Bibi. If you want anything from us, just let me know."
The Zionists are revealing to the entire world what they are--what they have always been. Hamas terrorists? They are amateurs compared to the monsters who inhabit Israel. But they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Israel just cannot exist in a sane and peaceful world, and must and will expire. Who knew it would be a suicide?