Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

Germany is also on the concern trolling trip.

Already, the suffering in #Rafah is unfathomable. In an extremely confined space 1.3 million people are seeking shelter from the fighting. A large-scale IDF offensive in Rafah would be a humanitarian catastrophe in the making. The people of #Gaza cannot vanish into thin air. 1/2 https://t.co/ORgOBYJXdc

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) February 10, 2024

The hunger situation is also unbearably bleak. I mean the entire situation is, but Israel is conducting a campaign to starve Gazans, and I guess they get a pass on this because...?

If Israel is causing "unfathomable suffering" maybe someone should do something ffs. This has gotten genuinely maddening

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/trying-to-keep-his-family-safe-in-rafah

xp otm, also what rings more hollow than countries who spend hundreds of millions buying this exact thing & who actively suppress criticism of it suddenly issuing the stern message “oh isn’t that a bit much”

Yeah, it’s blatant manipulation of narrative: “We’re so concerned about this,” well why now? Because it’s having negative effects on approval ratings? Sickening and maddening.

When they were among the survivors of the ethnic cleansing in 1948, my grandfather and young uncle at the time went to the make shift Israeli military outpost for a food ration permit, my uncle realized the commanding officer was using their stolen dinner table as his desk. https://t.co/tTWkKyXIuk

— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) February 11, 2024

frustration, increasing

President Biden reportedly has grown increasingly frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, finding him to be harder to privately influence as Israel continues its ground assault on the Gaza Strip. https://t.co/765ZDjnNWm

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 11, 2024

Results for Biden “increasingly frustrated”
About 205,000 results (0.33 seconds)

it's unfortunate that there's no option for the President to take any action commensurate with his frustration

Maybe stop shoveling money and weapons to the Israelis, has anyone thought of that?

... and vetoing every single resolution concerning Israel in the UN.

…And cancelling all US funding to the largest humanitarian org in Gaza because Israel falsely accused a bunch of its workers of taking part in the October 7 attacks.

good ideas all, but not nearly as effective as leaking measured private criticism to sympathetic media outlets

“i’m a good person”

…And cancelling all US funding to the largest humanitarian org in Gaza because Israel falsely accused a bunch of its workers of taking part in the October 7 attacks

has this been proven one way or the other? I lost track of this story.

No evidence given by Israel, head of UNRWA admits so:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff

has anyone even tried to deny the story of 6yo hind rajab's family being killed, and then the paramedics who thought they'd been given an ok to rescue her being killed, and then she herself being killed

my bad; they were all simply 'found dead'

In Gaza right now more people than in San Francisco and Kansas City combined have been driven from their homes to seek refuge in a city so small it only has a clinic, not a full hospital. Israel is dropping our bombs on its tents

— Max Fox (@mxwfx) February 12, 2024

LeMonde posted a string of portraits among the 28'000 allegedly killed. Among them a 12-year old named Dunia who lost her leg and her family in a bombing, had time to be filmed and speak to the press, before being killed in another bombing three weeks later. This is next to a girl of three who died in a refugee camp, a young woman 14 who wanted to be a famous violinist, people of all age and trades.

As if public opinion and outcry mattered, but at least stories are starting to be told for those who have eyes to see

hey it's long thread so forgive me if this has been asked and answered, but what's a good, reputable organization that's giving humanitarian aid, food, etc to gaza?

you just hear so many things about how some orgs just do general fundraising on the back of big world tragedies and i want to avoid that

thank you

here is what I did:
https://palestinesolidaritycompilation.bandcamp.com/album/palestine-solidarity-compilation

I personally donated to the PCRF but I believe this is a solid list below

27 new tracks, demos and covers from your favorite and new favorite bands. All songs are previously unreleased. In solidarity with Palestine, forever and ever.

!!! PLEASE DON'T BUY THE DIGITAL ALBUM HERE !!!
Because of some temporary tax issues, payment from this account to MAP is blocked by BC. We are trying to resolve the issue at the moment. In the meantime, please follow these steps to buy the album.

1. Donate the amount directly to UNRWA, PCRF, PRCS, ANERA, MAP, PYM etc.
2. E-mail the donation receipt to gd4palest✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧
3. Get a Bandcamp download code in return
4. Use the code to add the album to your library and download

It's fine to donate, but remember that not a lot of it will get in. Zionist Israelis are holding demonstrations— last night they held a rave— preventing aid from getting in.

one that I donated to and recommended earlier is anera.org

they've only ever been focused on helping victims or war in the region, and they are transparent about their daily activities:

https://www.anera.org/blog/gaza-and-west-bank-response-log/

honestly hard for me to even process how sick and barbaric Israeli civilians blockading humanitarian aid is

seems extremely under-reported by the North American media too, this is the only times piece I could find about it and it's about how Israel is "stepping up efforts" to stop the "protesters"

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-aid-kerem-shalom.html

The goons at Kerem Shalom are not going to stop the IDF from doing as it pleases.

thanks for the recommendations

anera looks good

jfc

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/10/gaza-aid-blockade-protest-kerem-shalom/

Israeli minister blocking flour Bibi promised Biden would be allowed into Gaza: https://www.axios.com/2024/02/13/israel-gaza-flour-shipment

imagine what the UNRWA could do with all that flour, chilling

The teens, and a smattering of people in their 20s, have come from all over Israel. They say that humanitarian aid to Gaza helps Hamas, and they’ll block it even if it means innocents starve.

Ben Shabat argues sugar and flour can be used to make bombs. “When you mix flour with potassium nitrate you get an explosive for a warhead,” he says. “Every pound of sugar and flour that goes into Gaza from Israel, we will get it back by the way of a rocket that will kill our children.”

The tactic is also about starvation. “When a soldier is hungry, he’s not fighting so well.”

And the children? “Nobody can say children are bad,” he says. But “the children from the past were murdering and raping and kidnapping” on Oct. 7.

Others say the aid isn’t even necessary.

“We heard they are giving them stuff that they don’t really, really need,” Attar says. “Like strawberries. I don’t think people there are crying for strawberries.”

I hadn't read the WaPo story before posting, fucking hell

would the official diplomatic world reaction be any different if israel were using tactical nukes

Young Israelis sounding awfully Hitler Youth there, tbrh.

That’s what happens when you build a ethno-fascist state based on subjugation of another group of people

I keep thinking about how Jewish tradition includes all these rituals dedicated to reminding Jews of their traumatic history, when they were oppressed, killed, driven out of their homes, thousands of years ago. Every year, even non-observant Jews will tell the Haggadah etc. I can't help thinking that what's happening now is similarly traumatic and existential for Palestinians. That if they survive as a people at all, they will be telling stories about this time, in ritualised form perhaps, for hundreds of years. Or thousands.

Well, they already have that, the Nakba, or "ongoing Nakba" as it was already updated in the late 90s. Maybe the "ongoing, intensifying Nakba" now ? :(

Yeah you're right, I mean it's a continuum I guess

Haunting post from Mohammad Elhelo, one of only 2 journalists left in Khan Younis, posted as Israeli occupation forces storm the besieged Nasser hospital amid reports of executions and the order for thousands to evacuate.

“Forgive us and pray for us. Remember us fondly.” pic.twitter.com/RWgND5Dlf8

— Laila Al-Arian (@LailaAlarian) February 14, 2024

Netanyahu Jr. partying down in Florida

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13076037/Benjamin-Netanyahu-son-Yair-Florida-apartment-Israel-war-Hamas-Gaza.html

I keep thinking about how Jewish tradition includes all these rituals dedicated to reminding Jews of their traumatic history, when they were oppressed, killed, driven out of their homes, thousands of years ago. Every year, even non-observant Jews will tell the Haggadah etc. I can't help thinking that what's happening now is similarly traumatic and existential for Palestinians. That if they survive as a people at all, they will be telling stories about this time, in ritualised form perhaps, for hundreds of years. Or thousands.

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, February 14, 2024 4:18 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

IMO this is why Israel is so dedicated to denying and/or destroying Palestinian identity, betting that if they keep killing Palestinians and destroying their homes, they will have to leave and mix into the populations of other countries.

a diaspora, if you will

sure, but a lot of ethnic groups have been displaced, genocided, etc. over the past few thousand years, and I'm not sure how many have held on to a collective identity in diaspora.

I mean maybe but I don't think this reversal thing really works. It doesn't explain why Israel vacated Gaza in 2005 or accounts for Egyptian and Jordanian occupation of regions previously considered disputed.

sure, but a lot of ethnic groups have been displaced, genocided, etc. over the past few thousand years, and I'm not sure how many have held on to a collective identity in diaspora.

Palestinians: the new Roma?

https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1655161?

Little has changed since Edward Said argued, in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, that Palestinians have been denied the “permission to narrate.” According to him, the privileging of a “Western master narrative, highlighting Jewish alienation and redemption” erases the Palestinian understanding of reality, where the struggle for liberation is far from over. In this sense, the epistemic privilege accorded to the Israeli state and its institutions through its epistemicide of Palestinians plays a role in legitimizing it in the eyes of those more powerful than it.

Therefore, in attempting to resist the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and across the entirety of historic Palestine, it is absolutely vital to recognize and push back against epistemicide in all of its forms. Rana Barakat asserts the importance of centering Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty, resistance, and endurance within analyses of Israel's settler colonial project. It is crucial to add here that recognizing Palestinians not just as narrators of history but as producers of knowledge within the context of the land of Historic Palestine and the experiences of Palestinian people all over the world pushes back against the Israeli state's attempts to solidify its epistemic privilege through escalating its epistemicide.

New polls indicate 71% of Israelis support expansion of the war into Lebanon.

jfc

Haaretz has published (in Hebrew, not English) an incomprehensibly vile article in the style of a lifestyle cooking feature, about Israel's soldiers finding and cooking with ingredients in the kitchens of Gazans who had to flee their homes and are now starving. pic.twitter.com/peOvTQm2cF

— gawanmac 🇵🇸 (@gawanmac) February 13, 2024

There's a lot to say about a start-up culture that continually innovates new grotesques. A telling part of the article comes at the end, where it's revealed that although most people fail escape rooms, this one is rigged so that the Israelis never lose https://t.co/HEBEkNRLTi pic.twitter.com/T5mhJhG84a

— David Grossman (@davidgross_man) February 15, 2024