Genocide
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Famine in Gaza is now unavoidable and will kill many civilian noncombatants even if more food aid starts getting in now.
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The responsibility for this starvation of children, women and noncombatant males lies squarely with Israel, which is obstructing food aid deliveries.
It’s been clear for months that Israel is carrying out genocide in Palestine. And yet I still see Americans suggest it’s not happening, not genocide. Just two days ago a blogger citing the New York Times to suggest that the problem is confirmation bias and TikTok having undue influence.
Sure, because the New York Times, as the gatekeeper of “All the news that’s fit to print” is to be trusted.
The world would be a more just and peacful place if Americans made an effort to understand their role in the world. I’d suggest starting with texts like Chomsky’s “A Propaganda Model” excerpted from Manufacturing Consent, 1988 by Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky.
“The plan is genocide”: Palestinian ambassador on Israel’s assault #Gaza - YouTube
Senior Palestinian diplomat Husam Zomlot criticizes Western hypocrisy amid Israel’s intensifying attacks on Gaza. “The plan is genocide,” he says.
The Biden administration is claiming the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction to charge Israeli officials for war crimes. This comes after rumors that the ICC may be close to issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over possible crimes in Gaza. The International Court of Justice has rejected a request by Nicaragua to order Germany to halt exporting arms to Israel, but the court declined to throw out the case. For more, we speak with human rights attorney and war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody, who says ICC charges would be a “huge” development. “Since Nuremberg, no international tribunal has issued an arrest warrant for a Western official. For decades, we’ve had this double standard where international justice has only been effective for crimes committed by leaders of developing countries or by enemies of the U.S. like Vladimir Putin.”
They’re committing war crimes and genocide so yes, they should be arrested, tried and if found guilty, imprisoned.
Netanyahu asks Biden to help stop ICC arrest warrants over Gaza war
Israeli officials have grown increasingly concerned over the last two weeks that the ICC is preparing to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi.
Israel Has Already Imposed Unavoidable, Exponential Famine on Gaza outpacing Somalia’s - ZNetwork
Juan Cole summarizes a story by prominent foreign policy journalist Colum Lynch:
Lynch has seen a memo entitled “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths,” which was produced by food security experts in US AID and the State Department, and which they sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. These US officials gave the memo a subheading that is damning for the Israeli government of PM Benjamin Netanyahu: “Israel-imposed administrative challenges are preventing the delivery” of food.
So two things are being asserted:
That is all you need to know. These experts have never seen a situation so bad.
Yesterday Manton shared a recent post by Manuel Moreale The web is not dying – Manu:
Let’s imagine we ban TikTok. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Threads. And all the other huge platforms. There would still be one global town square left. It’s called the web. The web itself IS the global town square.
That’s all well and good BUT while many of us love blogs and a more open web what about the people who rely upon TikTok and the corporate social media? I’m not one of them. I left FB years ago and stopped using Instagram several years ago. I don’t use TikTok. But the world is bigger than me.
I think we should be careful in our idealistic statements about the open web, the small web, etc. The corporate web, for all its many downsides, still serves billions of people that are not us. While it’s full of misinformation, TikTok is being used by a whole generation to keep up on current events. And let’s be honest, if our concern is misinformation and bias, those can be found on the social media owned by US companies like Facebook, Instagram and Xitter. Not to mention that the corporate news sites: Fox News, CNN, MSNBC all have their own bias and agenda which translates into what and how “news” is presented.
Another quote from Moreale’s post:
Sure, it’s a lot harder to reach a million people if you have to start from your own little corner of the web. But you know what? Tough shit.
That statement comes from a position of priviledge. The small indy web is largely dominated by white, middle class straight men and good for them that they have their place on the internet. Meanwhile TikTok and the corporate social media is far more diverse because it’s more accessible and that’s important to remember.
TikTok is not just funny memes and entertainment. Its users are sharing current events often as they unfold, often the news ignored by corporate media because it’s not the “News that’s Fit to Print”. Just one of many, Code Pink who have been covering the movement to protest Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, shared this post from outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner:
@codepinkalert NOW: Protestors are SHUTTING DOWN the entrance to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Western media spreads false anti-Palestinian narratives to justify Israel’s violence and oppression against the Palestinian people. At the same time, they refuse to report on Israel's atrocities. The WHCD is nothing more than a celebration and endorsement of the administration’s actions. That is not journalism. That is complicity. SHAME on the “journalists” who refuse to tell the truth about the genocide the United States & Israel are committing. We will not be silent in the face of propaganda.
♬ original sound - CODEPINK
For all of their problems, TikTok and other corporate social media have been especially important in social justice struggles. From MeToo to Black Lives Matter to any other important movements in the US or internationally, this isn’t something the small indy web can do yet.
I’m all for growing the Indy web but let’s remember how everyone else who is not us is using the web. Grow your awareness beyond yourself enough to know that sites like TikTok are not just being used for trivial attempts at viral humor but that they are being used in meaningful ways by people who have less priviledge than you.
Great to see these protests gaining momentum.
On April 22, 2024, inspired by the resilience of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University and other demonstrations around the country, students at Cal Poly Humboldt campus in Arcata, California occupied a building in solidarity with Palestinians, precipitating a showdown with police from throughout the region. In the following report, participants in the occupation describe what took place and what they learned.
Most nations have resumed funding to UNRWA which is the main channel of humanitarian support to Palestinians in Gaza as well as Palestinian refugees across the region. But with no evidence the US Congress permanently banned funding to UNRWA agency.
The US and Israel: Genocide, war crimes, apartheid.
Alt headline: Israel expects the US to indefinitely and unconditionally support its war crimes, genocide, land theft and apartheid state.
Israel presses the U.S. to reconsider sanctions against IDF battalion
The Israeli government called on the Biden administration on Sunday in public and in private to reconsider its expected decision to sanction the Israel Defense Forces' “Netzah Yehuda” battalion for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.
Famine in Gaza
Is there famine in Gaza? | Reuters
The United Nations said in February that more than a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were “estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” It said without action widespread famine could be “almost inevitable.”
The IPC is due to release a new analysis of the situation in Gaza by mid-March.
…as U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said: “Once a famine is declared, it is too late for too many people.”
America is built on settler colonialism, slavery and white supremacy. For decades we’ve supported Israel in its constant breaking of international laws and now, genocide.
If we refuse to end our complicity in genocide what are we? I see a pattern here.
But do go on about democracy.