Michael

[Michael @Greekmike80]

@peakdesignltd I am considering the Xlarge ICU. Does it fit in any bags or just the new roller bag.

[Michael @Greekmike80]

@bookingcom I left China 4 years ago and my account keeps transferring to a .cn website. How do I stop this?

[Michael @Greekmike80]

@CBDUAE what do you consider a reasonable wait time?

[Dr Rachel Clarke @doctor_oxford]

.@carolvorders YOU ARE BLOODY MAGNIFICENT. EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS 🔥🔥�

[Martin Konečný @MartinKonecny]

Good point by @NachoSAmor in EU Parliament debate on UNRWA:
The accused employees are 0.04% of UNRWA. Let me remind you: 0.28% of this parliament is under investigation for Qatargate. That’s 7x more than % of UNRWA staff under investigation. So shall we close the EP? (In Spanish)

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

Egyptian squash player Ali Farah speaks up about Gaza in post-game interview

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

David Cameron accidentally exposed Israel's war crimes.

He didn't mean to - but he did.

[Lowkey @Lowkey0nline]

I hope western journalists look into his eyes and watch this well.

It has even been translated for you.

[Liam O'Hare @Liam_O_Hare]

Green Brigade back at Celtic Park after a two month ban and straight back to showing support for the Palestinians.

[Michael @Greekmike80]

@RhonddaBryant I'm sure Charles I would disagree. 🤔

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe says that Israel is a settler colonial project which may be coming to an end. He warns that settler colonial projects reaching their last phase become more “brutal and ruthless”

[Dilly Hussain @DillyHussain88]

Owen Jones confirms after attending @Israel’s official screening of the events of October 7th that:

• No proof of beheaded babies.
• No proof of Hamas killing children.
• No proof of rape.
• No proof of beheading humans alive.
• Hamas asked Israeli partygoers if they were soldiers or civilians.

The 43 minute screening was Israel’s handpicked footage to convince the world that the ongoing collective punishment and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is justified.

Owen’s request for footage to be handed over to experts to be independently verified is a reasonable and standard journalistic request.

[. @jdpoc]

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

[Lorraine @lorraine]

“I’m tired Lorraine of having to justify my existence by the worth I bring to this country”

@DrAmirKhanGP responds to the immigration and NHS claims made by Nigel Farage in last night’s episode of @imacelebrity #Lorraine #ImACeleb

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

Gaza is a 'textbook genocide'.

This is according to Raz Segal - an Israeli associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in the US.

Listen carefully to what he says.

It's based on facts, law and precedent - and it should terrify you.

[Lowkey @Lowkey0nline]

"Why can't you feel for us?"

13-year-old Rozan al-Rifi screams to the world, which watched Israel kill her family.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Israelis Keep Hurting Their Own PR Interests By Talking

One problem Israel keeps running into is how the institutionalized dehumanization of Palestinians which keeps the apartheid state operational also causes Israelis to say things that non-Israelis will find extremely shocking, which hurts Israel’s PR interests.

We saw this illustrated in a recent New Yorker interview with Daniella Weiss, a leader of the push to build illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Weiss stated frankly and unapologetically that she supports apartheid, that she doesn’t believe Palestinians should have any sovereignty anywhere, that she doesn’t believe Palestinians should have voting rights, that she wants the population of Gaza to be replaced by Israeli settlements, and that she is untroubled by the killing of children in Gaza because she feels it’s being done in the interests of Israeli children.

Asked where the Palestinians in Gaza should go, Weiss replied, “To Sinai, to Egypt, to Turkey.” When the interviewer said the Palestinians are not Egyptian or Turkish, she contended that “The Ukrainians are not French, but when the war started they went to many countries.”

To the question “When you see Palestinian children dying, what’s your emotional reaction as a human being?”, Weiss answered, “I go by a very basic human law of nature. My children are prior to the children of the enemy, period. They are first. My children are first.”

Asked if she believes human rights are not universal and should not apply equally to everyone, Weiss replied “That’s right.”

But perhaps the most revealing statement Weiss made was her entirely truthful explanation of what drives the Israeli push to colonize Palestinian land:

“In Israel, there’s a lot of support for settlements, and this is why there have been right-wing governments for so many years. The world, especially the United States, thinks there is an option for a Palestinian state, and, if we continue to build communities, then we block the option for a Palestinian state. We want to close the option for a Palestinian state, and the world wants to leave the option open. It’s a very simple thing to understand.”

That one paragraph right there will teach you more about the present-day realities of the Israel-Palestine conflict than an entire year of watching CNN. It’s horrid, and it’s jarring to hear it spoken out loud in a favorable way… but it’s true.

This sort of thing has been happening for years. Israelis who’ve been marinating in a self-validating echo chamber of Zionist ideology which dehumanizes Palestinians and normalizes oppression and abuse don’t think twice about saying things that make Israel look bad on the world stage, because to them it’s just the standard status quo way of looking at things.

In 2021 a settler from New York named Yaakov Fauci made headlines around the world with his candid statements to a Palestinian family whose Sheikh Jarrah home he was squatting in.

Fauci, apparently fully aware that he was being filmed, famously replied to the family’s complaints that he was stealing their home by shamelessly telling them, “If I don’t steal it, someone else will steal it.”

And the thing is, he wasn’t lying. He was truthfully describing an abusive dynamic in apartheid Israel where Palestinians are being forced out of their homes in order to control ethnic demographics and advance the agenda outlined above by Daniella Weiss. If he’d been a trained propagandist for the Israeli state he never would have made such comments on camera, but because he was just a Zionism-indocrinated member of the Israeli public he saw no reason to hold his tongue.

Some years ago The Empire Files’ Abby Martin put together a devastating critique of the Zionist ideology just by going around the streets of Jerusalem with a camera and a microphone and talking to Jewish Israelis about their views on Palestinians. Over and over and over again they shared their support for tyranny, murder, genocide and ethnic cleansing in their own words and without hesitation, never thinking that their words could be used to harm Israel’s image, because to them these were just normal things that they said all the time in their day to day life.

You see the same sort of thing when Israelis are filmed sitting in lawn chairs to watch and cheer IDF bombing operations on Palestinian neighborhoods, during which a woman once told the press “I’m just a little bit fascist” after advocating the total destruction of Gaza City.

Every time this happens it sends viral video footage around the internet and does real damage to the world’s perception of Israel. That’s a big part of why Israel is struggling to control the narrative about the Gaza massacre today, which is in turn being exacerbated by more incendiary statements by Israelis, not just from the general public but from within the Israeli government itself.

On Saturday Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter casually referred to the violent forced expulsion of Palestinians from the northern half of the Gaza Strip as “Nakba 2023”, a reference to the violent forced expulsion which was inflicted on Palestinians at the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.

Haaretz reports:

Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud) was asked in a news interview on Saturday whether the images of northern Gaza Strip residents evacuating south on the IDF’s orders are comparable to images of the Nakba. He replied: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war — as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza — with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.”

When asked again whether this was the “Gaza Nakba”, Dichter — a member of the security cabinet and former Shin Bet director — said “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”

When later asked if this means Gaza City residents won’t be allowed to return, he replied: “I don’t know how it’ll end up happening since Gaza City is one-third of the Strip — half the land’s population but a third of the territory.”

Dichter’s comments are surprising not only because Israel has been publicly framing the mass displacement in Gaza as a measure taken solely to protect civilians, but also because the Israeli government has long officially denied that the Nakba ever happened, even passing laws forbidding its history to be taught in schools.

Even as western officials hasten to frame Israel’s actions as a defensive and measured response to the Hamas attack on October 7, Israeli officials have been falling all over themselves in a mad rush to make those western officials look like liars.

When talking about the Gaza assault Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines by invoking the biblical nation of Amalek, whose people God instructed the Israelites to commit total genocide against. The first book of Samuel contains the instructions, “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

President Isaac Herzog insinuated last month that all civilians in Gaza are legitimate military targets because they failed to overthrow Hamas, saying, “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”

When announcing the total siege on Gaza which would see the enclave cut off from electricity, food, water and fuel, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant stated that “we are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel would turn Gaza into a “city of tents” and that Israel’s “emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” in its bombing campaign.

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, said last month that “I am very puzzled by the constant concern which the world is showing for the Palestinian people and is actually showing for these horrible, inhuman animals who have done the worst atrocities that this century has seen.”

“Hamas became ISIS and the citizens of Gaza are celebrating instead of being horrified,” The Economist cites an Israeli general saying last month. “Human beasts are dealt with accordingly.”

“Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal,” a major general named Giora Eiland wrote in an Israeli newspaper, adding, “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

Israel’s allies keep trying to portray it as a rational actor and a positive force in the world, but if you listen to Israelis themselves you get a very different understanding of what this murderous apartheid state is actually about.

As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

[Stan Collymore @StanCollymore]

Firstly, I'm English.

I favour my country by paying its taxes instead of leeching from the state or living in tax exile like those who own the papers that rot your brain or who you voted for.

I give my time to my community, set up a mental health charity so that any Briton, anywhere could benefit. 40,000 did. All colours, all religions, all political points of view.

I favour my country by calling out racists and bigots hiding behind my flag, like Oswald Moseley's "patriots" hid behind it 80 years ago. They were destroyed too.

I favour my country by working abroad often and telling anyone and everyone to "come over, go and see the Peaks, Cornwall, Broads, Borders!", many do and still do.

I favour my country by voting regularly for political parties who want to put money into books, schools, hospitals, public transport rather than their friends pockets in the Cayman Islands.

I favour my country by honouring my family's service in every Armistice and also by visiting at least one of the Normandy beaches or Ypres annually.

I favour my country by trying to do better today than yesterday, put up daily dopey running videos to encourage anyone to join in and start the process of getting fit, in a nation with a growing obesity pandemic. One of the most important things I do in hindsight.

I favour my country by spending my money on local produce and British products, and where possible plug them for free here and elsewhere.

Now how about your patriotism?

Shouting at clouds, blaming everyone for your problems, waving a flag, dreaming of the glory of the past. It looks to me like that's it unless you can give us a flavour of how your patriotism manifests itself. I'm genuinely interested. Because all I see are 40,50,60 and 70 somethings with Union Flags, self proclaimed patriots who bring only bitterness, anger and spite to the party.

One day Britain will be a progressive, dynamic, forward looking and global nation again. It's inevitable.

But not while people like you blame others for your own ignorance, your own fecklessness, and your unwillingness to blame yourself for the state of this nation.

Britain. It's never our fault, is it?

[Stan Collymore @StanCollymore]

Morning!

[Chris Bryant @RhonddaBryant]

Every element of this front page is right.