Jort

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[Luc Stultiens @LucStultiens]

Jetten & Yeşilgöz zeggen bij het RTL-debat dat het basispakket in hun plannen niet wordt gesloten voor nieuwe medicijnen.

Dit is niet waar.

D66 en VVD hebben er wel degelijk voor gekozen om het basispakket structureel te bevriezen.

Bezuiniging van €7,7 miljard.

[Remko Theulings @RemkoTheulings]

Jetten loopt weg bij kritiek Timmermans, maar de bevriezing van het basispakket in de zorg staat bij D66 echt zwart op wit #rtldebat #cpb

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Why does the Biden administration support the Israeli genocide and war crimes even in the face of virtually universal condemnation, at massive expense, and to the point of totally debasing the rules-based international order? Why do it?

People fall back on narratives about the power of AIPAC in US elections etc, which is real but also doesn't capture the whole story. The truth is that US capitalism depends on it, and the US ruling class broadly understands this fact.

The key thing to understand is that capitalist growth and accumulation in the imperial core (the US, Britain, Germany etc) relies heavily on the appropriation of cheap inputs and resources from the periphery and semi-periphery of the world economy (broadly, the global South). They need the South remain a subordinated supplier within global commodity chains.

In order to maintain this arrangement, it is imperative for them to suppress sovereign economic development in the South. Because the "problem" with development is it means Southerners begin to produce for themselves and consume their own resources. This makes resources and inputs more expensive for the core, which constrains consumption and profits.

Economic sovereignty in the periphery threatens capital accumulation in the core. To avoid this, the core states constantly intervene to prevent or crush any movement or government in the periphery that seeks national liberation and economic sovereignty.

The US started to support the Zionist project in the 1960s, and invested heavily in the Israeli arms industry, with the explicit intention of using Israel as a staging ground—a massive military base—for counter-revolutionary interventions against rising Arab socialist and national liberation struggles in North Africa and the Middle East. The US could not accept the prospect of sovereign development in that region: liberation movements had to be crushed or destabilized and they used Israel to help them do it. Israel is not an "ally" in the conventional sense. It is a proxy.

They support Israel for the exact same reasons that they have backed assassinations or coups against liberation leaders across the global South: Mosaddegh, Lumumba, Nkrumah, Allende, Arbenz, Sukarno, Sankara...

Israel assassinates movement leaders in the Middle East and interferes in regional political processes, all in concert with the US, but it also constantly bombs the frontline states, destabilizing their societies and economies and forcing them to divert resources toward defensive spending rather than industrial development. The Zionist project is intolerable not only because it is murderously hell-bent on ethnically cleansing Palestine, but because it creates chaos and instability across the whole region.

The core states used South Africa in the very same way. The key reason that Western powers supported the apartheid regime in South Africa – against overwhelming international condemnation – was because it served as a highly militarized Western colonial outpost that was geared up to run counter-insurgency operations not only within South Africa, but also in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, the DRC, etc., leaving immense violence and chaos in its wake.

The vast majority of the world—and international law itself—supports Palestinian liberation, but Palestinian liberation would constrain Israeli power and open the way to regional liberation movements, and this is strongly antithetical to the interests of Western capital. So this is the situation we are in. The Western ruling classes are willing to back obscene violence in Gaza, and shred the liberal values they claim to believe in, because they want to maintain the conditions for capital accumulation and geopolitical hegemony.

You cannot appeal to imperial power in moral terms. The only way the US will stop propping up the Zionist regime is when it becomes too costly for them to do so. This will come down to the strength of the resistance and regional political and military opposition, but also the extent to which people can coordinate boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and punitive measures under international law.

[Zachary Foster @_ZachFoster]

"it's apartheid" (@ICAHD, 2010)
"it's apartheid" (@UNESCWA, 2017)
"it's apartheid" (@YeshDin, 2020)
"it's apartheid" (@AdalahCenter, 2020)
"it's apartheid" (@btselem, 2021)
“it's apartheid" (@hrw, 2021)
"it's apartheid" (@fidh_en, 2021)
"it's apartheid" (@alhaq_org, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@Addameer, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@AlMezanCenter, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@cacalqudsuni, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@AdvocacyJlac, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@miftahpal, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@UN, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@ICJ_org, 2022)
"it's apartheid" (@DAWNmenaorg, 2022)

"We live on planet Mars" (@jerusalemcenter, May 8, 2024) https://t.co/OibeGffFNi

[The Forge: Organizing Strategy and Practice @ForgeOrganizing]

Arielle Klagsbrun (@aklagsbrun) of the Action Center on Race and Economy (@ACREcampaigns) breaks down how the movement for a free Palestine has adopted and transformed the affinity group model of mass movement organizing.

https://t.co/3hMZc6uNVi

[tey meadow @dr_tey]

I’m as guilty as anyone of thinking of my @Columbia undergraduates as “kids.” But here is what I’ve seen them do in the last two weeks: (1/10)

[Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention @LemkinInstitute]

The @LemkinInstitute urges western media outlets to abandon framing that actively shields Israel from responsibility for crimes against the people of #Palestine and to utilize framing that recognizes the binding nature of international law. We are concerned that the western media is becoming complicit in normalizing mass atrocity around the world.

Read the full statement here: https://t.co/m2Da04ZwMl

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

Notice how those who obsess over trans women being a mortal threat to women say nothing about Palestinian women.

Palestinian women being butchered, their babies starving or violently slaughtered, while they’re sexually assaulted or raped, having Caesarians without anaesthetic, using scraps of tents for period products.

The women of Gaza suffering the most heinous barbarism imaginable, with the direct complicity of our governments.

And all they can obsess over is a tiny marginalised minority.

Most of them haven’t said a single then about these women. Not one thing!

Do these Palestinian women qualify as women or not?

[Norman Finkelstein @normfinkelstein]

LEX FRIDMAN ASKS: DOES ISRAEL TARGET CIVILIANS?
In the course of a recent debate, moderator Lex Fridman posed the question, “Do you think there is a policy, top down from the IDF to target civilians?” (from the official transcript). Both Mouin Rabbani and I answered in the affirmative. Someone seated next to Professor Morris indignantly retorted that the notion of “a whole apparatus that tries to murder” was a “ridiculous argument.” To settle this matter, leaving not a smidgen of doubt, I recalled Gaza’s Great March of Return that began in March 2018. A distinguished independent international Commission of inquiry afterwards investigated these protests and produced a voluminous report running to fully 250 single-spaced pages (from which I will be quoting). The report states that at its inception the protests “could be characterized as a genuine popular festive event, with tens of thousands of people ... gathering around traditional activities, concerts, barbecues, cultural activities and sports games.” When Israel perpetrated a large scale massacre six weeks later on May 14, “anger over [the] killings and injuries drove groups of youths to engage in more violent actions.”

How did Israel respond to the overwhelmingly peaceful protesters as they gathered on March 30 and for weeks thereafter engaged in nonviolent demonstrations? It assembled along the perimeter of Gaza, according to Israeli officials, “specially trained snipers, in order to ensure accurate and measured use” of live ammunition. The IDF subsequently stated that “nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed,” while then-Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that “Israeli soldiers did what was necessary. I think all our soldiers deserve a medal.” The Commission of inquiry found that “demonstrators who were hundreds of meters away from the Israeli forces and visibly engaged in civilian activities were intentionally shot. Journalists and health workers who were clearly marked as such were shot, as were children, women, and persons with disabilities;” it also found “reasonable grounds to believe that the Israeli security forces killed and maimed Palestinian demonstrators who did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious injury to others when they were shot.” A large portion of the report documents in detail “emblematic” killings and injuries inflicted by Israel’s precision snipers. Herewith a tiny sample of these typical incidents as described by the Commission:

Mohammad Obeid, a 24-year-old footballer for the Al Salah Sports Club…, took out his telephone and began recording a “selfie” video. An Israeli Security Forces sniper shot him in the right side of his right leg as he filmed himself approximately 150 meters from the separation fence. The bullet passed through his right leg and hit his left leg just above the knee, shattering the base of his femur.… He was standing alone. The area was quiet and calm, there was no shooting from the Israeli side, no tear gas, no stone throwing from the Palestinian side, no one had set fire to tires.… Mohammad was speaking calmly and filming himself when the ISF sniper shot him.

Yousef Kronz was a 19-year-old student journalist when he attended the demonstration.…He wore a blue “PRESS” vest and carried his photography equipment, including a camera and a tripod. He sat cross-legged on top of a sand dune to take photographs of the demonstrators, at least 800 meters from the separation fence. After approximately 40 minutes…, as he stood up, the ISF shot him with two bullets in immediate succession which hit him in the right knee and the left knee.… Yousef’s right leg was later amputated.

Abed Hawajri was a 41-year-old man…. The ISF shot him in the abdomen.… Abed was standing near the back of a crowd when shot, with nothing in his hands…, approximately 150 meters from the fence. He was taken to the hospital and died the same day.

A 16-year-old boy climbed onto high ground … approximately 300 meters from the separation fence. He was distributing sandwiches to demonstrators. The ISF then shot him in the face with a single bullet, which entered his nose and exited his skull. As a result of his injuries, he had a fractured jaw, is deaf in one ear and is unable to taste or smell.

Naji Abu Hojayeer was a 25-year-old mechanic…. An ISF soldier … shot him in the abdomen…. He died the same day.… Naji was standing 300 meters from the separation fence when he was shot. He was wrapped in a Palestinian flag, surrounded by hundreds of people.

Mohammad Ajouri, a 17-year-old … member of the Palestinian Athletics Organization…handed out onions and water to protestors to relieve symptoms of teargas inhalation. When he was approximately 300 meters away from the fence, ISF soldiers shot Mohammad in the back of his right leg. Doctors had to amputate his leg as a result.

Jihad Abu Jamous was a 30-year-old man…. ISF soldiers shot him in the head with live ammunition when he was approximately 250 to 300 meters from the fence. He died immediately.

Alaa Dali is a 21-year-old cyclist for the Palestinian Cycling Team. He had earned a slot to participate in the Asian Games in the summer of 2018.… An ISF sniper shot him in his right leg … as he stood alone watching the demonstration approximately 300 meters from the separation fence … while wearing his cycling gear and holding his bicycle. The nearest demonstrator was approximately 15 meters in front of him.… Doctors amputated Alaa’s leg above the knee in order to save his life.

Ali Khafajah was a university student…. ISF soldiers shot him in the head with live ammunition…. Ali was talking on his phone while standing in a crowd about 150 meters from the separation fence when he was shot.… He died at the hospital.

The ISF shot 14-year-old Mohammad Ayoub … in the head…. Mohammad was at least 200 meters from the separation fence when the ISF shot him.

The ISF shot 14-year-old Haytham Jamal in the abdomen. He was killed with a single shot as he stood in a crowd watching the ISF fire tear gas at another group of demonstrators.

Majdi Al Satari was an 11-year-old child…. He was shot in the head by live ammunition by an ISF sharpshooter while attending the protest…. Majdi died of severe brain lacerations ….Majdi was shot while standing … about 100 meters away from the security fence.

ISF soldiers shot 16-year-old Ahmad Abu Tyoor in the thigh as he danced a traditional Palestinian dance alone with his hands in the air, around 10-15 meters from the separation fence. The bullet severed his femoral artery and he died of his wounds the following day.

The ISF shot 11-year-old Nasser Mosabeh in the back of the head…. Nasser had been helping his two volunteer paramedic sisters treating injured people…. When the victim was shot, he was under a tree, 250 meters from the fence…. The bullet entered the right side of his head behind his ear and parts of his skull and brain were found close to his body.

Musa Abu Hassainen was a 35-year-old Civil Defense paramedic. ISF soldiers killed him with a shot to the chest … while he was wearing a high-visibility Civil Defense vest.… He was approximately 250-300 meters from the fence when ISF soldiers shot him.

Abed Abdullah Al Qotati was a 22-year-old volunteer paramedic…. ISF soldiers shot him in the chest in Rafah … as he was tending to an injured demonstrator near the separation fence. Abdullah was wearing a white paramedic jacket and carrying a red first-aid kit when the ISF soldiers shot him.… He died of bleeding and lacerations to his thoracic organs.

Tarek Loubani is a Canadian-Palestinian physician.… The ISF shot him as he stood among a group of paramedics wearing his hospital uniform. He was shot with one bullet that passed through both legs. Visibility was clear. There were no demonstrators near the group of medics and there was no shooting from the ISF either immediately before or after he was shot.

The ISF shot a 24-year-old freelance photojournalist … in the abdomen with live ammunition. He was standing with his back to the separation fence, around 300 meters away. When he was shot he was taking a break from photographing along with two other photojournalists from international news agencies. He was wearing a blue vest marked “PRESS” and the bullet entered his mid-section just below the vest.

The ISF shot 30-year-old journalist Yasser Murtaja with live ammunition in the lower abdomen as he covered the demonstration site…. Yasser was wearing a dark blue bulletproof vest clearly marked with the word “PRESS,” and a blue helmet.… He was standing approximately 300 meters from the separation fence, behind a large group of demonstrators. Visibility was good, and there were no other shots fired in the vicinity at the time. The gunshot hit him in the abdomen…, and [he] died of his injuries the following morning.

The ISF killed Ahmed Abu Hussein, a 24-year-old journalist…. Publicly available video footage of Ahmed’s shooting ... clearly shows him standing still taking photographs of demonstrators…. At the moment he was shot, Abu Hussein was approximately 250-300 meters from the fence. He was clearly marked as a journalist, wearing a blue helmet and a blue vest marked “PRESS.”

Fadi Abu Salmi was a 29-year-old double amputee…. The ISF shot him in the chest…. He died immediately. The ISF shot him … as he sat in his wheelchair under a tree approximately 250-300 meters from the separation fence with two friends.

Ahmad Abu Aqel was 24 years old…. He walked with crutches…. He sat down alone on a small sand hill … approximately 150 meters from the separation fence … with his back towards the fence. The ISF shot him in the back of the head…. He died the same day.

***

The wonder is that in the here and now it can still be doubted that Israel targets civilians: Haven’t the UN, senior public officials, humanitarian organizations, and human rights groups explicitly and unequivocally denounced Israel for using starvation “as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine” (EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell)?

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

Everyone in the world needs to see this.

Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel.

[Jewish Voice for Peace @jvplive]

Fixed it for you, NYT.

What’s conspicuously and dangerously missing from this New York Times headline covering the genocide on Gaza is culpability.

[Bo Salomons @bo_salomons]

Pleegt Israël een genocide in Gaza?

Van de beantwoording van deze vraag hangt nationaal en internationaal een hoop af. In dit draadje ga ik in op de juridische achtergrond van de vraag, en de desinformatie rond dit onderwerp.

🧵 Internationaal recht, genocide, en desinformatie

[Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם @yuval_abraham]

Our film “No Other Land” on occupied Masafer Yatta’s brutal expulsion won best documentary in Berlinale. Israel’s channel 11 aired this 30 second segment from my speech, insanely called it “anti semitic” - and I’ve been receiving death threats since. I stand behind every word.

[Bassem Youssef @Byoussef]

They lied. . They still do . They bully you to accept their lies . They lie to justify the daily massacre they are committing . Their own media called out their lies . Shame on you western media for not even reporting the Israeli reports on how they lied . You spread their lies for months and when they admit they are lying you don’t report it ? Shame on you @cnn @SkyNews @BBCWorld @FRANCE24 @MSNBC @FoxNews (I don’t know why they fuck I am mentioning Fox News . Now let all the Zionists come here and accuse me of denying their sacred lies .

Please share this . Show the world how they lied . Show everyone how manipulative and psychotic they are .
Watch the full interview with @ChrisCuomo here

[Oxfam Novib @oxfamnovib]

Nu de Nederlandse staat in cassatie gaat hebben we nog eens 150.000 euro nodig voor dit tijd- en geldrovende proces. Help je weer mee in de strijd voor gerechtigheid? https://t.co/6FobwfwulF #F35 #rechtszaak #strijdvoorgelijkheid

[Euro-Med Monitor @EuroMedHR]

#Infographic| Statistics on the Israeli Genocide in the Gaza Strip (07 October 2023-03 February 2024)

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

Here is a list of the names we know from the more than 11,500 Palestinian children killed during Israel’s continuing war on Gaza ⤵️

Know their names: https://t.co/l9T4EJlRKT

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

I just want to say 'happy new year' and give a very special thanks to everyone who has watched and engaged with my content.

For the past 12 weeks, my focus has been on the Israeli assault on Gaza.

This is, I firmly believe, one of the great crimes of our time.

Tens of thousands are being slaughtered, many of them children, a quarter of the population is projected to die from disease, 70% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, the vast majority have been driven from their homes, food and fresh water is being denied, the medical system has all but collapsed. The horrors are endless - the apocalypse has come to Gaza.

While foreign journalists have been prevented from entering, the witnesses to this bloodbath have been the lions of the world's press pack - the Palestinian journalists of Gaza, without whom the world would have little real idea of the crimes committed by the Israeli state. Yet almost every day, these eyes and ears are snuffed out: the greatest massacre of journalists ever recorded, and in such a short space of time.

Every day, we read of reports of entire bloodlines being wiped from the face of the earth. An aid worker, a journalist, a medic, a lecturer has been killed by an Israeli air strike, along with several members of their family. Announcements such as this are to be read every day on Twitter. History may well ask how that could be so and yet there was no overwhelming pressure for this entirely manufactured human catastrophe to end. The best answer is that the Palestinian people have been completely dehumanised, and there hasn't even been a pretence that Palestinian life has any meaningful value at all.

The Israeli state, meanwhile, makes no effort to disguise its intentions, employing genocidal rhetoric on a daily basis, while Israeli society is in the grip of what can only be described as genocidal mania.

Yet this crime of historic proportions has been aided and abetted by Western powers. This is an understatement. Israel would not have been able to unleash this unimaginable horror without the weapons and diplomatic and political cover provided by the US, cheered on by states such as Britain.

Meanwhile, most of the Western media has either cheered on this atrocity, or refused to describe what are clear, unapologetic war crimes which the Israeli state isn't even making an effort to cover up, instead - at best - leaving the question of whether this is a 'proportionate' response to a matter of debate, where we can all agree to disagree.

This has nothing to do with a 'proportionate' response. It is one of the great massacres of our age, inflicted by a state which has made it clear it wishes to rid Gaza of its Palestinian population.

At the same time, dissenting voices have been vilified, harassed and silenced. There has been a deliberate campaign to portray the real hateful dangerous extremists as not those who cheer on this slaughter, but those who oppose it.

That's why my focus has been on this moral obscenity, and that's where it will stay for the foreseeable future.

I'm delighted to say that this content has been reaching an audience of many millions each month. I'm particularly proud of work to elevate the voices we need to hear - Palestinian voices above all else, of course, as well as Israeli peace activists and scholars of war and genocide. It's important that those of us using our platforms to speak the truth aren't acting as 'white knights' - it's the Palestinian people who need the biggest loudspeakers.

There will be much more of that to come. We all have a responsibility to speak out, however big or small our platform, or we become complicit. And while that may mean being harassed, intimidated and vilified, we have to remember that this is nothing compared to the horrors suffered by the Palestinian journalists of Gaza - and if they still have the courage and determination to speak the truth, then the least we can all do under infinitely less horrendous circumstances is to do the same.

Happy New Year and thanks again.

xxxx