🇮🇱: De-escalation through escalation
🇺🇸: Yes, we support you
🇮🇷: Sounds good, we’ll do the same
🇺🇸: No, we meant Israel can endlessly escalate and no one can respond
STARVE OR LEAVE
Let’s cut to the chase: of course Israel deliberately targeted the WCK relief convoy. Not only do all the material facts point to this conclusion. There also aren’t any grounds to doubt it; the heavy burden of proof falls on Israel to demonstrate that it was not a premeditated strike. On October 8, 2023, Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza: no food, fuel, water, or electricity would be allowed in. The rationale behind this order was laid out by former Israeli National Security Council head Giora Eiland: “Israel should not allow any economic assistance. The people should be told that they have two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave.” For the next two weeks, Israel blocked the entry of any aid into Gaza. Flagrant mass murder not being a good look, President Biden counseled Prime Minister Netanyahu to lighten up a bit. Israel tweaked its murder plan so as to pass muster with its enablers in Washington. But it did not alter the essence of its game-plan. Human Rights Watch documented in December that Israel was “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Normally reticent senior international and humanitarian officials have in recent weeks openly charged that “Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine." (Josop Borrell, EU foreign policy chief) If—as everyone seems to agree—Israel’s declared objective is to starve Gaza’s civilian population, then: HOW COULD IT NOT PLUG THE HOLES IN ITS MURDER PLAN BY TARGETING INTERNATIONAL RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS? And in fact it’s mission accomplished: international aid operations in Gaza have largely ceased “as a result of recent attacks on humanitarian workers by the IDF.” (“Letter to the White House and National Security Council,” April 4, 2024) But it might be wondered: Wasn’t it foolhardy for Israel to risk international opprobrium? Not at all. Israel has targeted by various metrics an historically unprecedented number of hospitals, medics, journalists, and aid workers; it has killed an unprecedented number of women and children. It is ever testing the limits of the permissible. So far, it’s successfully crossed every downward threshold into barbarism with impunity. It’s impossible to predict in advance which story will be picked up by the fickle international media and which story will just get passing notice. The latest atrocity could just as easily have been subsumed in a paragraph on the inside pages under the title “Aid workers killed in Gaza.” The only error Israel might have—it’s too soon to tell—committed was anticipating that it would get another free pass. Indeed, Israel’s news bureau in the US, the New York Times, is already spinning the story to exonerate Israel: “botched operation ... mistakes and misjudgments ... accidental killing.” (“Back-to-Back Israeli Strikes Show Tragic Gaps in Choosing Targets,” April 4, 2024) It’s also being said that it’s not senior Israeli officials but on the contrary IDF field commanders and soldiers who are out of control, or that Israel’s resort to AI is behind the hecatomb in Gaza. That’s all bullshit. During its periodic “mowing-the-lawn” hi-tech murder sprees in Gaza (Operation Cast Lead, Operation Protective Edge), Israel has always used DISCRIMINATELY INDISCRIMINATE firepower to terrorize Gaza’s civilian population into submission. The nub of the problem is neither disciplinary nor technical. It’s Israel’s murder plan: to make Gaza unlivable and to force its people to decide—starve or leave.
American actor John Cusack was chosen
As “Anti-Semite of the Week” by Stop Anti-Semitism USA
For his public expression of his pro-Palestinian views.
The actor said in his words:
▪️ “I pity those bastards who think I care about my future projects in Hollywood while committing genocide in Gaza.”
▪️ “We reject the lie that the security of one country depends on the destruction of another people.”
▪️ “Oh my God, whoever does not want a ceasefire has no soul. We cannot stop until these attacks stop.”
Staying silent is the most shameful thing I can imagine.
▪️ “The immorality of the West’s position is unparalleled, and words are insufficient to express it
. “Imagine that October 7 (Hamas attack) lasted for 115 days?
I consider myself to be fairly proficient at capturing moments into words and expressing how they make me feel, but I’m running out of ways to express the horror the world is subjecting Palestinians to and the disgust it inspires within me.
What I keep coming back to, is this:
It feels like how it would have been if the world accepted and supported Nazism at scale.
The actions, words and intentions of Zionism are all Nazi-esque, but it’s the widespread support that has a way of alienating those of us who maintain our humanity—like we’re living in an alternative dimension where we just don’t belong, one where human lives are meaningless compared with an extra 1% GDP.
I will never forget what so many people have allowed to happen with support or silent complicity, and I intend to do everything I can to make sure history remembers them in all their vileness as well.
Why does it outrage to fund a humanitarian organization that, unbeknownst to it, might have had Hamas militants on its staff, but it's not an outrage to fund a State that, according to the International Court of Justice, is plausibly committing genocide?(3)
A random kid in some corner of the world who had never seen this man considers him a second father. Forget the football for a moment but the fact he has impacted lives everywhere unknowingly is impossible for a human being to do. Thank you Jurgen, from that random kid.
Jürgen Klopp has earned the right to wave goodbye in his way, on his time, with his head and heart aligned. A man who tirelessly rebuilt a club, recharged a fanbase and represented the community. He gave people more than success: a shared experience, everlasting memories, belief