Media Review: Haaretz asks, "Did the right-wing celebration of the Rafah massacre reveal the “ugly face” of Israel?"

Media Review: Haaretz asks, "Did the right-wing celebration of the Rafah massacre reveal the “ugly face” of Israel?"

    Tuesday, May 28, 2024   No comments

Some say that the Israeli right's celebration of the massacre of civilians in Rafah is the true ugly face of Israel, making those who believe or actually know that there is a "different Israel" face an impossible challenge in their quest to prove the opposite.

This is what is summarized by an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which confirmed at the beginning that the massacre that took place in the Palestinian city of Rafah last Sunday was inevitable, as regardless of how accurate the Israeli military strikes were, and in light of the presence of more than a million Palestinian refugees in the region’s camps, it was inevitable, Sooner or later, this will cause mass human casualties.

 She explained that this Israeli raid caused widespread destruction, killing at least 45 people, and the footage showed civilians floundering in tents surrounded by hell.

 As usual, the article's author, Alison Kaplan Sommer, says Israel's leaders, citizens, and supporters abroad were ready to defend Israel's "moral" army.

 The writer pointed out that they expressed their rejection and denunciation of any accusation that the aggression could have been avoided, or any suggestion that what happened was intentional, including the use of words such as “genocide” or “massacre.”

 Such accusations are “an inaccurate distortion of the truth at best and vile anti-Semitism at worst,” they claim.

 “But before they could do it this time, it became painfully clear from the beginning that their efforts would be in vain,” Sommer said.

 Far-right media voices in Israel soon began celebrating the fires, and thus the deaths of those engulfed in the flames, by jokingly comparing the images to the memorial bonfires lit on Lag Baomer - the Jewish holiday that fell on the same day as the massacre.

 She added that these extremists expressed their happiness that this fire was “the central bonfire in Rafah,” wishing those affected a “Happy Eid,” in tweets that were later deleted, but they will not be forgotten, and will be referred to as evidence that the fire was intentional, and was even celebrated, As she said.

 Sommer explained that the most prominent journalist who fanned the flames of hatred is Yinon Magal, who is constantly proven to be Itamar Ben Gvir by the Israeli media, and it seems that, like the extremist minister, he rejoices and is proud of the insolent manifestations that indicate disdain for the lives of the Palestinians and denial of their humanity.

 She concluded that Ben Gvir and Magal's behavior provides sufficient evidence of malicious intentions to obstruct any attempt by Israel to defend the behavior of its army, which makes erasing the image of "the ugly face of Israel" difficult for those who believe that it has another side.

Another US governmental official and a Biden Appointee, who is also Jewish, resign protesting Biden's handling of the war in Gaza calling it a Genocide

Another US governmental official and a Biden Appointee, who is also Jewish, resign protesting Biden's handling of the war in Gaza calling it a Genocide

    Friday, May 17, 2024   No comments

In a move that some observers described as a resounding rejection of Biden's handling of the war in Gaza, a high-ranking Jewish employee in the administration of US President Joe Biden announced her resignation from her position on Wednesday, due to what she described as his disastrous and ongoing support for the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

In an article published by the Washington Post, Lily Greenberg Call, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the Interior Ministry, cited her Jewish upbringing and relationship with Israel and recounted how her family fled from Europe to America to escape anti-Semitic persecution there.

In her resignation letter (see below), Greenberg Call - who made the first public resignation by a Jew over Biden's support for Israel - wrote, "I can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration amid President Biden's disastrous and continuing support for the genocide in Gaza."

In an interview she conducted with writer Yasmine Abu Talib Yasmine Abu Talib, Greenberg Call said that resigning was a difficult decision because of the society in which she grew up, but the Jewish values ​​in which she was raised led her to make this decision.

“Judaism is the most important part of my identity, and all the values ​​I was raised with and all my Jewish education are what led me to this decision,” Greenberg Call said. She added, "What Israel is doing in Gaza and to the Palestinians throughout the land does not represent the Jews and is a shame to our ancestors."

Commenting on her position in the Biden administration, she said, “Everyone here is thinking about achieving the American dream and rising to the top, but I asked myself several times during the past eight months: What is the benefit of power if it is not used to stop crimes against humanity?”

Earlier this week, a US Army major working for the Defense Intelligence Agency resignedUS Army major working for the Defense Intelligence Agency resigned, writing in an open letter that he felt “incredibly ashamed and guilty” when he realized that his work contributed to the suffering and killing of Palestinians.

A political official also resigned from the Ministry of Education last January, and an employee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who worked on transporting weapons to foreign countries last October.

In february of this year, U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., after he described his action while walking to the location as an extreme act of protest against the war in Gaza—a desperate plea to “free Palestine,” as he screamed while flames engulfed his body.

As early as October of last year, some US officials, including State Department officials, have resigned rejecting Biden's blind support of a genocidal war in Gaza.

Whi is Lily Greenberg Call

 An American Jewish politician and human rights activist at the local and international levels. She served as Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the US Department of the Interior, and participated in the election campaigns of US President Joe Biden and his Vice President, Kamala Harris.

She worked for many years within Zionist groups supporting Israel, then took an anti-occupation stance, opposed violence in the occupied Palestinian territories, and called for peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews.

Lily Greenberg Cole was born and raised in San Diego, California. Her origins go back to a Jewish family that immigrated to the United States of America to escape the persecution practiced against Jews in Europe.

Her family lived on Ellis Island, New York, and spent decades suffering under the weight of racial discrimination, which affected Lily's upbringing and her vision of issues of justice and discrimination.

Greenberg grew up in a Jewish community in which unconditional support for Israel prevails, to the point where it is considered part of the Jewish identity, so she was a prominent youth in pro-Israel activism in her high school years, and has been involved in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) since her freshman year of high school. She was elected president of the Israel Defense Club at her school.

When she was 16 years old, she went on a trip to the occupied territories and stayed there for a full year, as part of a program for the “Jewish Youth” movement, which included making trips in the occupying state and joining educational courses. Among the activities were meetings with Palestinian teenagers, the goal of which was Developing the spirit of coexistence between the two parties.

When she joined the University of California, she joined pro-Israel groups, and became the leader of a student movement supporting Israel and known within the university.

In 2017, she led a trip to Israel, organized by the Hillel Berkeley Jewish Student Center. Students from a wide range of ethnic and religious backgrounds joined the trip, visited Palestinian cities such as Bethlehem and Ramallah, and met Palestinians and settlers.

Greenberg worked for many years as an activist to defend Israel, but experiences began to change her convictions. During a relief mission in Greece, she forged friendly relations with refugees of Palestinian origins, developed deep relationships with Palestinians through academic programs, and established close relationships with Palestinian Americans during periods of study and campaigns. Electoral relations, and those relations had a significant impact on changing the ideas on which they grew up.

In her article about severing its relationship with AIPAC, Lilly stated that she realized that the organization, through its unconditional support for the Israeli government, was supporting violence, which was contrary to its values, and so she joined to work with other groups.

Greenberg also worked with non-Zionist organizations, such as the "If Not Now" organization, which opposes the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

  

Reviewing Naomi Klein’s Declaration of Exodus from Zionism

Reviewing Naomi Klein’s Declaration of Exodus from Zionism

    Thursday, May 16, 2024   No comments

On the eve of the Jewish Passover, and at his “Seder” celebration in the streets of New York, which was witnessed by Jews and non-Jews, Naomi Klein, the Canadian Jewish writer and activist, professor of climate justice and director of the Center for Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia, delivered a memorable speech representing “Declaration of Exodus” for the Jews of the world from Zionism and its false idol in Palestine, in which it used two symbols from the Old Testament that have a very important significance for Jews of all times: - The Book of Exodus, one of the five books of the Torah, which tells the story of the exodus of the children of Israel, led by the Prophet Moses, from the captivity of Pharaoh. In biblical Egypt, the Exodus is the moment of liberation from captivity.

- And the story of the golden calf that the Samaritan made and which the Children of Israel took as a god in the absence of Moses, when he preceded them to the appointed time of his Lord, but the Samaritan led them astray, and they broke their appointment with Moses. It is a moment of tremendous setback for the Children of Israel’s journey with God, the prophets, and prophecy.

Klein recalled the moment of Moses descending from the mountain and his extreme anger when he found the children of Israel worshiping a “golden calf,” calling for the rejection of the worship of the new “golden calf,” by which she meant “the false idol of Zionism.” Klein said, before a gathering of Americans (the majority of whom were anti-war Jews), in a protest calling for an end to arming Israel, which was held in Brooklyn (New York), near the home of the majority leader in the US Senate, Senator Chuck Schumer: “Many members of our (Jewish) community worship a false idol.” ... They are delighted with it... They are drunk... The idol has defiled them... This false idol is called Zionism,” she said, considering that “Zionism is a false idol that took the idea of ​​the Promised Land and turned it into a bill of sale for an ethno-military state.” “It is a false idol that takes our deepest biblical stories of justice and freedom from slavery — the Easter story itself — and turns them into brutal weapons of land theft and colonization, and road maps for ethnic cleansing and genocide,” she added. “It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of ​​the Promised Land, a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled through multiple religions to every corner of this world, and has dared to turn it into a bill of sale to a militaristic ethno-state.”

Also, Klein rejected Zionism's claims about liberating Jews from anti-Semitism and securing them in a Jewish state of their own, saying that "the version of liberation proposed by political Zionism is itself worldly." From the beginning, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands during the Nakba,” noting that “from the beginning (Zionism) was at war with dreams of liberation. It is worth remembering in the Easter celebration that this includes dreams of liberation and self-determination for the Egyptian people. This false Zionist idol equates Israel’s security with the Egyptian dictatorship and client states.”

 Zionism and genocide

Likewise, Klein spoke about the genocidal nature of the Zionist project against the people of Palestine and its immoral essence, saying that Zionism “produced an ugly type of freedom that viewed Palestinian children, not as human beings, but as a demographic threat, just as the Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the increasing population.” Of the children of Israel, and therefore ordered the killing of their children. Zionism has brought us to the present moment of catastrophe, and it is time to say clearly: it always leads us here. “It is a false idol that has led many of our people down a very immoral path, making them now justified in tearing up the basic commandments: Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not covet.”

She also called for protest and the Jews’ exit from Zionism, just as they left Pharaonic captivity, and to disavow the Zionist entity and its crimes, saying: “We, in these streets for months and months, are the exit. Leaving Zionism. It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children. Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed all Jewish values, including the value we place on asking questions. “It is a practice rooted in Easter with its four questions asked by the youngest child, including the love we have as a people for text and teaching.” She added: “Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza. The destruction of countless schools, archives, and printing presses; Hundreds of academics, journalists and poets were killed. This is what the Palestinians call educational genocide, that is, killing the means of education.”

 No to an ethnic Jewish state

“Meanwhile, in this city,” Klein continued, “universities are calling in the NYPD and barricading themselves against the dangerous threat posed by their students who dare to ask them basic questions, like: How can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all of us, when you By enabling, investing in, and cooperating with this genocide? “The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for too long.” She added: “So we say tonight: It all ends here.” Our Judaism cannot contain an ethnic state, because our Judaism is international in nature. Our Judaism cannot be protected by the rampaging military establishment of that (ethnic) state, because all the army does is sow sadness and reap hatred, including against us as Jews,” noting that “our Judaism is not threatened by people who raise their voices in solidarity with Palestine. Crossing lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender identity and generations. Our Judaism is one of those voices, and it knows that in this chorus of voices lies our collective safety and liberation.”

Klein added, “Our Judaism is Passover Judaism: gathering in celebration to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike, a ritual that is portable by nature, light enough to carry on our backs, and we need nothing but each other: no walls, no temple, no Rabbi, there is a role for everyone, even - especially - the youngest children.” He considered that “the Passover Seder is a diaspora technology if there is one, and it is designed for collective grief, contemplation, asking questions, remembering, and reviving the revolutionary spirit.” So, look around. This, here, is our Judaism. While the waters rise and the forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray on the altar of solidarity and mutual assistance, whatever the cost.”

Liberation of Judaism

Klein added: “We do not need or want the false idol of Zionism.” We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name. Freedom from an ideology that has no plan for peace other than dealing with the murderous theocratic petro-states next door, while selling automated assassination techniques to the world. We seek to liberate Judaism from the ethno-state that wants Jews to feel perpetual fear, wants our children to be afraid, wants us to believe that the world is against us, so that we run to its fortress and under its iron dome, or - at the very least - to keep the weapons and donations flowing. That is a false idol.” According to Klein, the matter is not limited to “Netanyahu only, but the world that created it and created it: it is Zionism,” asking, “Who are we?” We, in these streets for months and months, are getting out… Leaving Zionism. And to the likes of the Chuck Schumers of this world, we do not say: “Let our people come out (from the captivity of Zionism).” Rather, we say: We have already left. And your children? They are with us now.” Exit statement finished.

 Resuming the battle against Zionism

The United States witnessed a decisive battle between Reform Judaism and the Zionist project, fought by the American Council for Judaism (the organization of observant American Jews) under the slogan that Jews are not a nationality but a religious group, and that it is necessary to revive the principles of Reform Judaism, whose rabbis have opposed Zionism since before World War First, they supported equal rights for Jews in the countries in which they lived. This battle was led by Elmer Berger (1908-1996), the Reform Jewish rabbi and writer, emancipated from Zionist thought, and who stood against Zionist intellectual terrorism. He contributed to the establishment and leadership of the “American Council of Judaism” with the aim of confronting the establishment of the Zionist state, because it does not represent all Jews in any national or political sense. He devoted his life, efforts, and writings to the issue of Palestine and opposing Zionism, exposing its claims, and warning Jews of its myths and dangers.

It is worth mentioning here that the United States, under the administration of Harry Truman, was the first country in the world to recognize the Zionist state, five minutes after announcing its establishment on May 15, 1948. On that day, everyone thought that Rabbi Elmer Berger and Reform Judaism had been defeated and had lost their battle against Zionism once and for all. But one who contemplates the statement of the Jewish “exit” from Zionism and the repudiation of the “settlement wheel,” in the heart of New York, as well as the popular movement across religions, generations, and races in the streets of the Western Metropolitan and its ancient universities, which was launched by the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” sees the resumption of Rabbi Elmer Berger’s battle against Zionism. The battle is not over, but is being fought with greater energy, broader horizons, and greater momentum.

  

Current Events: What should the world think when a majority of the people in a country support a Genocidal regime?

Current Events: What should the world think when a majority of the people in a country support a Genocidal regime?

    Saturday, May 04, 2024   No comments

How should a nation whose majority support extremists be treated?

It depends.

If such a country is a non-Western nation-state, then that will make the entire country a terrorist country and genociding them by a “civilized” state will be acceptable.

If such a country is a “Western” nation-state, the will of the majority is sacred. That is what seems to be the implication of the extraordinary admission by head of the US State Department, Anthony Blinken.

US State Secretary Anthony Blinken said on 4 May that the genocidal actions undertaken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza are "a reflection of where a large majority of Israelis are in this moment.”

“This is a complicated government. It’s a balancing act when you have a coalition. And if you’re just looking at the politics of it, that’s something that he has to factor in,” Blinken said at an event in Arizona.

"What’s important to understand is that much of what [Netanyahu is] doing is not simply a reflection of his politics or his policies; it’s actually a reflection of where a large majority of Israelis are in this moment,” the top US diplomat said.

Last month, a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute revealed that three-quarters of Jewish Israelis support Netanyahu's much-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, where about 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering after being violently displaced from their homes.

Surveys conducted over recent months have shown a similar trend despite growing pressure to see Netanyahu removed from office.

In January, opinion polls showed that Israelis overwhelmingly agreed that “the best way” to obtain the release of captives held inside Gaza was “military pressure” against Hamas, falling in line with the same rhetoric Netanyahu and his war chief have been repeating daily since 7 October.

Polls have also shown a stern objection to delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, even if the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is “replaced.”

The problem of seeing a majority electing demonstrably authoritarian, supremacist bigots is the true test of the limits and flaws of democracy. In the past, when such processes happened in non-Western  nation-states, it is often blamed on corruption and processes being flawed. Turkey, for example, over 4 decades voted for a conservative party and a conservative leader. The West dismissed these elections, because they simply thought of all Turkish people as backward, incapable of embracing "true democracy". 

However, with rise of extremist politicians through democratic processes, the West is now facing a moment of truth about democracy. In the past, when democracy did not represent any problems at home, Western leaders used it abroad as a political instrument to intimidate and subjugate other nations.

Media Matters: Elon Musk, owner of "X", suspends the account of Mandela's grandson

Media Matters: Elon Musk, owner of "X", suspends the account of Mandela's grandson

    Saturday, April 27, 2024   No comments

 In a total tone-deafness, and lack of awareness of the symbolism and reality, the former white settler in South Africa and self-declared free speech absolutist, Elon Musk, suspended the account of the nephew of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s freedom icon, without even burdening himself with an explanation—although the reasons are obvious.

Social Communication Platform X (formerly Twitter), Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela account, grandson of the late President of South Africa Nelson Mandela، After his statements in support of the "International Fleet of Freedom", which is to be sailed from Turkey within days, to break the siege on Gaza Strip.

Mandela had arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of the week to attend the fifth conference of the Jerusalem International Parliamentary Forum, and to support preparations for the International Freedom Fleet in Istanbul.

 Mandela attended the press conference of the International Freedom Fleet, which is made up of NGOs from 12 countries last week, before expressing his support for the fleet and breaking the siege on Gaza, through several publications on the platform "X".

US Government: Infants were placed in the oven and cooked alive

US Government: Infants were placed in the oven and cooked alive

    Friday, April 26, 2024   No comments

When the president of the United States, Biden,  amplified the fake story of 40 babies beheaded by Hamas, some excused his actions by claiming that he was duped by Israel intelligence to ascertain his unwavering support for the war Israel intended to unleash. 

With another US government official making a similar and even more shocking allegation, amplifying another fake story, that excuse becomes untenable.  

The third in line in the order of succession in the US government, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Johnson, on the same "trusted" news outlet that propagated the beheadings, CNN, repeated a story that was first made by some Israel person, Eli Beer, speaking at the Republican group’s summit in Las Vegas on October 28, that were later debunked by more than one investigative reports. Johnson, on that basis, claimed that Hamas "placed infants in the oven and cooked them alive".