Special Report: Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes
- Details
- Written by Humeyra Pamuk | Reuters Humeyra Pamuk | Reuters
- Published: 04 October 2024 04 October 2024
The emails, which haven’t been reported before, reveal alarm early on in the State Department and Pentagon that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize U.S. ties in the Arab world. The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
...
‘Game of demographics’: How Israel aims to wipe out Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem
- Details
- Written by Rabia Ali Rabia Ali
- Published: 03 October 2024 03 October 2024
‘All measures of forced displacement have seen a drastic escalation since Oct. 7,’ says Tamara Tamimi, a Palestinian policy fellow at think tank Al-Shabaka
In occupied East Jerusalem, however, experts say Israel has taken a different approach, using the Gaza war to accelerate the “silent displacement” of Palestinians to reshape its demographic landscape.
The strategy there has four main elements: demolitions, evictions, land confiscation, and expansion of illegal settlements.
It is designed specifically to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, imposing further restrictions on Palestinian residents, and advancing Israel’s “settler colonial” ambitions.
“All measures of forced displacement have seen a drastic escalation since Oct. 7, and Israel is well known to exploit these kinds of situations in order to advance its settler colonial endeavors,” said Tamara Tamimi, a Palestinian policy fellow at think tank Al-Shabaka living in East Jerusalem.
“Israel has exploited its genocidal onslaught on Gaza in order to advance settler colonialism in other key strategic areas, particularly Jerusalem and Area C in the remainder of the West Bank.”
A crucial actor in this “large escalation” is the illegal settler movement and the organizations associated with it in key strategic areas in Jerusalem, she said.
The chaos Israel is sowing across the Middle East could come back to haunt it
- Details
- Written by David Hearst | Middle East Eye David Hearst | Middle East Eye
- Published: 01 October 2024 01 October 2024
Nothing can persuade its Arab neighbours that Israel cannot live with them in peace more than the course on which Netanyahu is currently set
A ritual is performed every time Israel starts another war, before the white phosphorus rains down, before the fear and panic of people fleeing their homes, before the footage of stunned survivors sifting through the rubble of collapsed apartment blocks.
It’s called the ceasefire ritual - a public display of hand-washing. It’s the charade of pretending that there are honest diplomats out there trying to search every avenue, stretch every sinew, to stop this bedlam from starting.
Much of it is choreographed. Other parts are improvised. But be sure about one thing: it is pantomime. It bears no relationship to reality.
...
If this charade sounds horribly familiar, that’s because it is.
Cut through the verbiage and the bottom line - as the Pentagon has confirmed - is that the US supports a ground invasion of Lebanon, and ceasefire plans can go hang.
Read more at: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/chaos-israel-sowing-across-middle-east-could-come-back-haunt-it
OREGON ACTION: Please Support Bernie Sanders' Senate Resolutions to Block Offensive U.S. Weapons to Israel!
- Details
- Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller
- Published: 01 October 2024 01 October 2024
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block the sale of more than $20 billion in offensive U.S. weaponry to Israel. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is an original co-sponsor on four of the six resolutions. Please write to thank Senator Merkley for co-sponsoring four of the six and ask him to co-sponsor the other two. Please write to Senator Wyden to ask him to co-sponsor and support these Joint Resolutions urgently needed to pressure Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire and to open full access to Gaza for aid shipments that remain stalled and inadequate to address the growing humanitarian crisis.
Jewish-Palestinian Alliance of Oregon (JPAO)
First-Ever DNC Panel on Palestinian Rights: We Need to “Restore the Soul of the Democratic Party”
- Details
- Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller
- Published: 26 September 2024 26 September 2024
This year, the Democratic National Convention held its first-ever panel on Palestinian human rights. The panel came after persistent grassroots organizing against U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. We play excerpts, including from the Arab American Institute’s James Zogby, a former executive member of the Democratic National Committee; Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care surgeon who recently worked in Gaza; and Layla Elabed, co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement.
DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN:
I received a young boy into the emergency department during one of the mass casualties who had half of his face and neck blown off. Luckily, the organs that are vital for breathing and blood supply to the brain were preserved. They were visible, but preserved. And he was talking to us. He couldn’t see himself, so he didn’t know what he looked like at that point in time, and he kept asking for his sister. His sister was in the bed next to him. The majority of her body was burned beyond recognition. He didn’t recognize that the girl in the bed next to him was his sister. His entire family, parents and the rest of his siblings, were killed in the same attack.
That boy survived. And the next day, I went to see him. A very young plastic surgeon, one of the few remaining plastic surgeons in Gaza, because the others have either been killed or have fled, understandably, had removed part of his chest and created a graft to cover those vital organs of the neck. He was lying in his bed and mumbling, because it was so difficult to talk. And he kept saying — I got really close to him, and he said, “I wish I had died, too.” And I said, “What?” And he said, “I think my entire family has gone to heaven” — or, it’s not “my entire family.” His exact words were something to the effect of, “Everybody I love is now in heaven. I don’t want to be here anymore.” That is one of so many stories.
Read more at: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/20/dnc_palestinian_rights_panel