Israeli tanks advance in Rafah as fleeing Palestinians ‘face death and starvation’

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Written by Julian Borger in Washington | The Guardian Julian Borger in Washington | The Guardian

Published: 14 June 2024 14 June 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/13/israel-gaza-war-rafah 

Israeli tanks rolled into the western part of Rafah on Thursday as the city came under intense helicopter, drone and artillery fire in what residents described as one of the worst bombardments of the area so far.

The assault on Rafah has driven out more than a million Palestinians who had been sheltering there, forcing them into areas with little or no access to food, water or shelter. The UN has warned that more than a million people are expected to “face death and starvation by the middle of July”.

Joe Biden had warned he would cut off the supply of US weapons if Israel went ahead with an attack on Rafah, in part because of the lack of an adequate humanitarian plan for all the civilians who would be displaced, but the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his war cabinet launched the attack anyway over a month ago.

The Biden administration has yet to slow the flow of arms in response, arguing that Israel had yet to carry out “major operations”.

People living in Rafah described the level of fighting as devastating, however.

The Biden administration must stop Israel before it escalates in Lebanon

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Written by MITCHELL PLITNICK | Mondweiss MITCHELL PLITNICK | Mondweiss

Published: 10 June 2024 10 June 2024

[Mitchel Plitnick plots the obvious, simplest, and most humane path to avoid a regional conflict: Ceasefire and release of hostages]

The way out

And yet, the way to avoid all of this has never been clearer: stop playing games with the terms of a ceasefire and demand that all hostilities end, Israel fully withdraws from Gaza, and all hostages—Israeli, Palestinian, and international—are freed. 

There doesn’t need to be three stages; just one, where the above terms are carried out forthwith. Hamas has made it abundantly clear that they would accept such a deal. The Israeli people will accept that deal. And Netanyahu will accept it if the United States tells him we will cut off the arms supply and political support for his genocide. 

It really is that simple. Yes, it would still be a political minefield for Biden, but even he seems to have finally realized that the Israeli misadventure to “eradicate” Hamas is a failure. If he is worried about the backlash from the Republicans and from Israel’s zealots within his own party, especially the funders—which, to be fair, will be enormous—imagine what he’ll have to contend with politically if American soldiers are once again being killed and maimed in a Middle Eastern war. 

The Americans seem to have correctly assessed at last that there can be no ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah without an end to the Gaza slaughter. It may well be that was a factor in Biden’s futile announcement last week.

It was pointless because Biden still hasn’t learned that Netanyahu, and Israel more broadly, does not act because they are cajoled, convinced, or pleaded with. They act when there are consequences if they don’t. And so, almost immediately, Netanyahu made it clear that the deal Biden announced was not the “Israeli offer” Israel meant to put forth. 

If Israel does intend to raise the stakes with Hezbollah, then the risk of the regional war the U.S. fears grows enormously. If all Biden cares about is the politics, the political risk of letting that happen is far greater than the political risk of coercing Israel to stand down both in Gaza and at the northern border. If he is concerned about the potential damage to the entire world that a regional Middle East war could do, then he has every reason to finally act. 

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/the-biden-administration-must-stop-israel-before-it-escalates-in-lebanon/

Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War

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Written by Sheera Frenkel | The New York Times Sheera Frenkel | The New York Times

Published: 05 June 2024 05 June 2024

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.

The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents.

The campaign began in October and remains active on the platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel’s military.

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles.

Read more at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/technology/israel-campaign-gaza-social-media.html

Support the Oregon Food Bank Now!

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 02 June 2024 02 June 2024

Reject messaging from local media outlets and the Jewish Federation of Portland that criticizing Israel and calling for unobstructed humanitarian aid is antisemitic. Add your voice to shift the narrative and demonstrate that Jewish values demand a permanent ceasefire, and an end to the occupation.

Add your name here and spread the word: https://www.jvpportland.org/food-bank-support