Media review: Haaretz says Israelis must wake up before it is too late

Media review: Haaretz says Israelis must wake up before it is too late

    Sunday, March 03, 2024   No comments

Will the Flour Massacre be a turning point on this road paved by blood? It is unlikely because tomorrow, the day after, or a week after, there will be another equally harrowing event that will supersede this massacre. However, some Israeli media outlets now see it as a red flag, if not a turning point. This point was made this week in the opinion essay, Gaza's Night of Death and Hunger, published in Haaretz. 

The author, Gideon Levy, argues that the people of Gaza lived through the “flour massacre” that took place in the Nabulsi roundabout in the Gaza Strip last Thursday, as a “night of death and hunger”, when at least 118 people (figure updated after the death of injured who cannot be treated due to destroyed hospitals) were killed and 760 others were injured, explaining that Israel tried to deny its responsibility, which cannot be denied because it is the occupying power in sector.

In his article in Haaretz newspaper, Gideon Levy refuted the Israeli army’s account of the massacre, and pointed out that among the 176 wounded who were taken to the hospital, 142 had gunshot wounds.

Levy pointed out sarcastically that the trucks - according to what is known - do not fire, and that the claim that the security guards of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) were the ones who fired such an insane amount of ammunition into the crowd carries no more credibility than the credibility that the Palestinians were the ones who fired Palestinian-American journalist Sherine Abu Aqla was shot in Jenin in 2022.

The writer explained that video clips published on the Instagram platform show hundreds of people gathering around fires in an attempt to alleviate the winter cold, while they are waiting for trucks, before a convoy of trucks coming from Egypt heads through the Israeli checkpoint north on Al-Rashid Street.

He continued that Al Jazeera also showed a video clip that was partially filmed at the back of the convoy, where gunfire could be heard and people could be seen crawling to the trucks or taking cover behind them. Eyewitnesses also reported that the gunfire came from the direction of the Israeli vehicles, and even more than that. The Israelis prevented access to the wounded.

However, if it were proven that the occupation army soldiers were the ones who opened fire on this gathering and killed and wounded hundreds of hungry residents, no one in Israel would be upset about that - according to Gideon Levy - because it is “a war as you know: remember October 7th.”

Levy said, "The minimum level of sympathy for the Palestinians completely stopped in Israel on October 7, as if we were in a coma. We only feel sympathy for ourselves, our soldiers and our hostages, and anyone else could explode."

Indeed, Levy continues, Gazans and the world are exploding with anger, and Israel is on the verge of being outcast, as it has never been condemned, denounced, or incited such hatred as is the case today, and soon every Israeli will feel this.

The writer wondered: What must happen in order for the Israelis to wake up from their sense of complacency and activate their moral sensors regarding what has happened since October 7?

He concluded that the night of death and hunger, in which body bags replaced food bags in trucks, and blood mixed with flour, did not inspire Israel to confront the continuation of the war, and nothing would stop it, even to think about its fate, if not because of the horrific price that the residents of Gaza are paying, At least for the price that Israel itself will pay.

Media review: The West is losing “liberal Muslims” because of the Gaza War

Media review: The West is losing “liberal Muslims” because of the Gaza War

    Wednesday, February 21, 2024   No comments

The American magazine "Foreign Policy" saw that what it described as "Western indifference towards Palestinian suffering in the Gaza Strip" alienates what it calls "liberal Muslims" throughout the Islamic world, and "distorts the appeal of liberal democratic values," as it described it.

In an analytical article it published, the magazine highlighted the presence of an unprecedented level of anger towards the United States of America and its Western allies throughout the Middle East and the broader Islamic world, warning that this matter could have “long-term consequences.”

She warned that the current reality “could be much worse than the impact of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003,” because the massacre, committed by the Israeli occupation, is worse than anything that happened during the American wars in the Middle East.

Foreign Policy attributed this anger to millions watching horrific scenes from Gaza every day, explaining that this is often done via live broadcast on television, showing the bombing of entire neighborhoods, and the bodies of children and infants emerging from under the rubble.

The magazine also pointed out the martyrdom of Palestinian civilians by occupation bullets in the West Bank, which is relatively calmer.

Here, it should be noted that the pace of Israeli incursions into various cities and towns in the West Bank has increased since the 7th of last October, and this was accompanied by an increase in the number of Palestinian martyrs who were killed by the bullets of the occupation forces.

When Muslims listen to what Western leaders, such as US President Joe Biden, say about what the occupation is committing in occupied Palestine, all they hear is about “Israel’s right to defend itself,” as the magazine reported.

Moreover, all they see is “granting more American dollars and weapons” to the Israeli government, so that it can continue its war on Gaza, according to what the magazine continued.

In view of this, a number of people, especially in the Islamic world, believe that the lives of Israelis are, for Western leaders, “more important” than the lives of Palestinians, according to what Foreign Policy reported.

The magazine also saw that the West is practicing a “historical denial” of the liberal values that its governments have adopted and defended since the end of World War II, with regard to “universal human rights.”

In this context, the magazine explained that some say that “these noble ideals were never fully achieved,” as national interests, alliances, and hypocrisy led to “double standards.”

The “loss of faith” in Arab standards does not affect people who tend to oppose the United States, or criticize the Western-led global order, and among these Muslims are those with liberal tendencies, which leads to “discrediting the West and its liberal narrative, in the eyes of the rest of the world.” According to Foreign Policy.

In light of all of this, the magazine borrowed the satirical political principle of the German thinker, Carl Schmitt, which states that “sovereign powers are able, according to their desire, to determine exceptions to their rules,” in reference to the West’s disavowal of the responsibility it has shouldered for itself, and which it has used as an excuse to fight its wars. It claimed the lives of millions around the world and the Middle East.

What is the value of the life of a Muslim person compared to the life of a Westerner?

What is the value of the life of a Muslim person compared to the life of a Westerner?

    Monday, February 12, 2024   No comments

1/25, that is the value.

At the peak of the "war on terror" and the during the course of Israel’s assassination campaigns in the last two decades, a media commentator and former US military official was asked about what would be an acceptable collateral damage. He said: if killing a "high-value" terrorist or conducting an important security operation results in the deaths of 25 civilians or less, then, such collateral damage is acceptable. That is 25-to-1 ratio.

According to a study by Brown University, the US-led global war on terror, that took place mainly in Muslim-majority countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, “nearly 1 million people” have been killed. Adding all persons of all Western countries killed by acts that could be categorized as “foreign terrorism” (a category coined to designate acts carried out by persons who might Muslim) as well as troops killed in battle fields (including US and NATO troops), the 25/1 ratio becomes a very aspirational figure. The data shows that for every one Western person killed in any incident involving Muslim actors, 100 Muslims--mostly civilians--were killed. 

This formula for revange establishes that the life of non-Westerners as being worth less compared to Western lives. The dehumanizing formula was crudely, yet illustratively articulated by Trump last year. Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Conference on Oct. 28, 2023, the former US president declared: “If you spill a drop of American blood, we will spill a gallon of yours.”

To add to the body of evidence of dehumanizing people from non-Western nations, Israel just acted on that equation, killing 100 civilians to rescue just two Israelis. During this conflict alone, comparing the reported total of 1,139 Israelis killed since Oct. 7 (695 Israeli civilians and 373 security forces and 71 foreigners), and comparing it to the 29,000 Palestinians killed thus far, produces a ration of exactly 25 Palestinians killed for every 1 Israeli--the formular still holds--though the killing is still ongoing and likely to reach the 50-for-1 ratio should the war on Gaza lasts for another five months.

In the light of the above data and the comments by US officials that the civilian toll in Gaza “remains too high”, one must ask Israeli officials: How many Palestinian civilians must die for every Israeli death before this revenge war comes to an end? And one must ask US officials: what is an acceptable “toll of civilian deaths”?

The lack of awareness of how bigoted the view that there is an acceptable “toll of civilian deaths” that can be excused and justified when every single Western life is avenged by unimaged level of destruction and death is confounding. When one adds the number of children killed thus far in Gaza, such callousness becomes cruelly mind-bending.

 Acceptance of some level of civilian toll destroys Western rhetoric about their commitment to universal rights. It clearly shows that there is no universal right to life; that some lives are superior and worth saving at any cost and some lives can be destroyed to avenge the loss of the superior lives. The troubling part is that, now, US officials acknowledge that the military operation is "over the top" and that too many civilians have been killed and displaced, yet the US administration blocked every UN intervention that could have stopped the war.

Biden’s phone call with Netanyahu comes a few days after the president offered one of his sharpest rebukes to date of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, saying the operation to go after Hamas had been “over the top.”

 “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza – in the Gaza Strip – has been over the top,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Thursday, describing his own efforts to open up Gaza so more humanitarian aid could flow in.

 Last week, Blinken told Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials that the civilian toll in Gaza “remains too high” as violence continues in the region.

“Nearly 2 million people have been displaced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are experiencing acute hunger. Most have lost someone that they love. And day after day, more people are killed,” Blinken said at a news conference after meeting with top Israeli officials.

Media review: Western democracy is declining and losing its value

Media review: Western democracy is declining and losing its value

    Sunday, February 11, 2024   No comments

Under the title “Democracy is declining in a number of countries that seek to achieve it and is losing its value in the democratic countries themselves,” Alain Frachon wrote in the French newspaper “Le Monde” an article in which he highlighted the decline of democracy in a number of countries, and considered that democracy has lost its ability to seduce. Its soft power was shaken under the weight of the blows received by Westerners as a result of their repeated betrayals of its principles.

Summary

Hail to democracy: In 2024, about half of the adults on this Earth are expected to vote. We can already hear skeptics about the results of this democratic activity even before it happens. Voting conditions are not the same in the United Kingdom and India under Narendra Modi and in the United States and Russia under Vladimir Putin if we take a few countries whose residents are asked to elect their rulers.

However, the call to go to the polls reflects an important dedication to the principle of democracy. The elections that will be held in several countries, in Azerbaijan, for example, which is ruled by Ilham Aliyev, the autocratic ruler believes that he is forced to hold them, even with his prior knowledge of the results.

Elections are a purely formal procedure, hypocritical, or whatever it is, but the tyrant sees it as a way to obtain the legitimacy and respect that the results of the ballot box give him, just as one puts on a tie or wears a hat to go to a wedding. It is certain that this process does not stem from a sincere belief in the principle of democracy, although it is felt as an obligation. Rather, it expresses a simple fact, even if in the subconscious mind, that the democratic character is taking a better turn.

This situation is not without contradictions. According to Janan Ganesh, a columnist for the Financial Times, the “man and woman of 2024” are the voters.

But democracy is “in decline,” according to American Larry Diamond, a professor at Stanford University. As for the number of countries that practice this system, it is declining. In the lands that established this system, especially in the West, this system lost its quality.

Democracy, in the broad sense of regular and fairly free elections, reached its peak in 2000, benefiting about 54% of the world's population, according to Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that conducts this type of statistics. This percentage then decreased to 50% in 2018, finally reaching 32% in 2019. This is mainly due to the reclassification of India, which today is the most populous country on this earth.

Only 34 countries are classified as liberal democracies, which includes elections, the rule of law, freedom of the press, powers, checks and balances, and minority rights, which in short constitute the complete and complex institutional arsenal of democratic life. American Samantha Power, who heads the US Agency for International Development, expressed this situation by saying: “For 17 years, freedom has been in decline.”

The export of democracy has declined, it has lost its ability to seduce, and its soft power has been shaken under the weight of the blows that Westerners are receiving as a result of their repeated betrayals of its principles. George W. Bush is considered one of the main contributors to changing the course of democracy after his invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Samantha Power continues by saying that the slide of some democracies towards authoritarianism puts us before a fundamental question about “which model [of government] will prevail in the coming years?” Estimates from the Cambridge University Center on the Future of Democracy indicate that China and Russia enjoy slightly more popularity than the United States. In the Global South, however, this information is difficult to confirm.

She adds that liberal democratic systems are eroding from within, which she calls "democracy fatigue." She believes that Western youth will move away from the chaotic and exhausting system, which decides slowly and always searches for short answers and confuses them with its ambiguous decisions. The contemporary voter decides according to what he wants from the list and not according to what is presented to him from the list. He is no longer loyal to his party affiliations; Accordingly, the popularity of the main institutions of democracy and political parties is declining.

Other risks loom in the digital environment, where the distinction between truth and falsehood is blurred by conspiracy theories and the dominance of social media over traditional journalism, as well as disinformation and manipulation of public opinion. According to what Lawrence Norden, an expert from New York University School of Law, told the New York Times, “Everything that has been threatening our democracy for some time may be exacerbated by generative artificial intelligence.” For example, false speeches attributed to President Joe Biden are circulating on the Internet.

According to opinion polls, the European Parliament elections that will be held in June herald the rise of far-right parties. In a climate that encourages taking advantage of elite parties' loss of credibility, these anti-investment parties are betting on contemporary problems, including immigration, economic and social disparity, and environmental restrictions.

These parties follow the approach of illiberal democracy, also known as “democracy,” and the champion of this democratic retreat was Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister.

The US elections scheduled for November 5 will determine whether the most powerful liberal democracies are willing to submit to “democracy” by returning Republican Donald Trump to the White House.

The dilemma of the times is that the announcement of this decline in liberal democracy comes at a time when it has proven its absolute superiority in its battle against the “Covid-19” pandemic. Also, the Polish "democracy" was defeated by the centrists led by Donald Tusk.

The West, which is described as a decadent and decadent entity, remains the preferred destination for an unprecedented migration movement. Crowds of hapless people from the Global South seem drawn to the promise of freedom and prosperity embodied by liberal democracy. Therefore, announcing her death seems very premature.

Media review: How to End America’s Hypocrisy on Gaza

Media review: How to End America’s Hypocrisy on Gaza

    Friday, February 09, 2024   No comments

Sarah Yager, director of Human Rights Watch in Washington, described the US handling of the Israeli war on Gaza as “hypocrisy,” and the Biden administration must evaluate Israel’s behavior and hold it accountable for that.

Yager commented in an article published by Foreign Affairsmagazine that the staggering numbers of Palestinian casualties and injuries as a result of the war launched by Israel on Gaza in response to the attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7 is impossible to consider without considering whether Israel has violated the law. International humanitarian aid during its war.

She added that a large amount of available information indicates that Israel did in fact do this, as human rights organizations and the media published reports of illegal collective punishment of the Palestinian population, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, air and artillery strikes, and the demolition of buildings that had no targets. A clear military operation, but it resulted in heavy civilian casualties and the destruction of property.

She pointed out that there was enough smoke to suspect a fire, which put American officials in a dilemma, because American law obliges the State Department to ensure that American security aid does not go to security forces that constantly commit gross human rights violations.

 Current US policy also requires the department to evaluate whether recipients of US military assistance are “more likely” to use US weapons to violate international law, and prohibit transfers to any country that meets these criteria.

 Yager questioned whether the State Department had conducted these assessments yet, despite the fact that its Secretary, Tony Blinken, and Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, repeated on more than one occasion the phrase that the number of civilian casualties was “very high.”

 However, despite President Joe Biden's offhanded warning last December about the risk to Israel's reputation by carrying out "indiscriminate bombing," US officials have avoided clearly stating that any specific Israeli actions in Gaza are unacceptable, taking Administration spokesmen walk back Biden's comment.

 The director of Human Rights Watch referred to the direct questions directed to White House spokesmen regarding Israel's behavior in Gaza and their twisted responses on more than one occasion.

 She commented that these official statements and many others were noticeably absent of any positive declaration that Israel is in fact adhering to international law.

 She said if American officials believed that Israel was doing this - or at least taking all possible measures to avoid harming civilians under difficult circumstances - they would say so with passion, but they did not do so even though the Biden administration was not shy about criticizing the behavior of the warring parties in Other conflicts.

 The reason is that drawing more attention to what is happening in Gaza could almost certainly force a policy change that Biden does not want to make, could confront his administration with a series of difficult choices that it would rather avoid, and could also further complicate the already complex dynamics of the US-Israel relationship. And it may create political weakness for Biden in the election year.

 She added that as long as the administration avoids the reality of Israeli violations in Gaza and selectively applies the rules for military assistance, the moral authority claimed by the United States will diminish more and more, and the Biden administration’s apparent unwillingness to apply the legal aspect to the available information will be exacerbated by its clear failure to adhere to policies that She put it herself as an expression of Biden's supposed commitment to human rights.

 Yager believes that the worst consequence of the administration's refusal to comply with the letter and spirit of American law is that Washington may make it possible for massive and perhaps criminal loss of civilian lives in Gaza.

 

She added that there is another victim of this approach, which is the credibility of the United States, which has been damaged by what can be considered at best inconsistency and at worst hypocrisy.

 

For example, in 2016, President Barack Obama condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s deprivation of food and water to civilians in Aleppo. It can be said that Israel did the same thing with the civilian population in Gaza for more than 3 months without facing any criticism for this method from the Biden administration. Biden Netanyahu called for opening a corridor to Gaza to deliver more aid, but he did not directly criticize the blockade.

 

She added that to begin to rein in Israel and stop the bleeding of American credibility, the Biden administration needs to assign its lawyers to evaluate all available information - confidential and non-confidential - regarding the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and determine the time and place of Israeli forces violating the laws of war, and the results should be published and evidence submitted to Congress.

 

She concluded that the political costs resulting from looking directly at the evidence and correcting the course of American policy as necessary will not be comfortable for the president and lawmakers during the election campaign.

 

But these costs are less than the cost of US authorities acting as if the extreme suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza does not deserve the same scrutiny as the suffering of civilians in other conflicts, a position that gives an argument to those who claim that when it comes to applying basic American principles and protecting inherent human rights, Washington applies A clearly hypocritical double standard.

 

 

 

Media Review: The National Interest calls on Biden to return soldiers from Syria and Iraq: stop making them targets

Media Review: The National Interest calls on Biden to return soldiers from Syria and Iraq: stop making them targets

    Wednesday, January 03, 2024   No comments

The American magazine "National Interest" criticized the foreign policy of US President Joe Biden, and his involvement of the United States in endless conflicts at the expense of the interests of the nation and the well-being of the army.

In an article entitled “Joe Biden Should Stop Treating American Soldiers as Targets” published, Tuesday, the magazine stated that attacks on American bases in Iraq and Syria with mortar shells, drones, and missiles have become routine (more than 100 since October 17). It caused dozens of injuries.

The magazine considered that the claim of National Security Council spokeswoman Adrian Watson that “the president does not place a higher priority than protecting American soldiers” is clear nonsense, because they are still being injured in Iraq and Syria without clear strategic goals, and that 2,500 Americans are stationed in Iraq, And 900 others are in Syria, with no clear purpose other than to be targets for enemies.

The magazine feared a larger strike that might hit a crowded building, with many American deaths expected, forcing the United States to fight another war in the Middle East, questioning the legal justification for occupying Syrian territory, mocking the slogan of “self-defense” on this front.

It considered that Washington's policy, supported by successive administrations and Congress, aimed at starving the Syrian people in a futile attempt to pressure Damascus, is morally abhorrent and practically foolish.

The magazine concluded by emphasizing the need for American military personnel in Iraq to also return to their homeland, instead of remaining a suitable target, considering that “the security of the United States is not served by illegal intervention and endless war, and that America is best served by avoiding involvement in conflicts that are of little importance to us.” "For the United States."