Pat McGrath

mostly photos of my dogs, scale modelling, art. I was Hud Hastings in Father Ted
My play Small Plastic Wars

[Tehran Tadhg @TadhgHickey]

As they bomb a tent camp housing displaced people in a designated safe zone, the Israeli parliament is voting on designating UNRWA a terrorist organisation. F*** this world.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

8 March 1936 | A Hungarian Jewish girl, Berta Klinenberg, was born in Szekszard.

In 1944 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Saying “Hamas Just Needs To Surrender” Is Saying “We’ll Kill Kids Until We Get What We Want”

Of the many awful warmonger comments President Biden made in his State of the Union address Thursday night, arguably the worst was when he reiterated the US empire’s position that it is fine and good for the IDF to keep murdering Gazan civilians until Hamas bows to all of Israel’s demands.

Biden did this by lamenting the “heartbreaking” death and starvation of civilians in Gaza while in the same breath stating that Hamas could end all of this violence by laying down arms and surrendering those responsible for the October 7 attack.

“Israel has a right to go after Hamas,” Biden said. “Hamas ended this conflict by releasing the hostages, laying down arms — could end it by — by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7th.”

“This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined,” Biden went on to say. “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents — women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned. Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displacement. Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin. Families without food, water, medicine.”

“It’s heartbreaking,” added Biden, referring to the genocide that he himself is actively backing and could choose to end at any time.

(Democrats love babbling about how “heartbreaking” Gaza is. It’s their favorite thing to do. They love nothing more than to weep publicly over the death and starvation and unfathomable human suffering they themselves are directly responsible for, as though it’s some kind of natural disaster and not a US-backed genocide that is only happening because this Democrat-run administration actively facilitates it.)

We don’t talk enough about how horrifyingly evil it is that the actual, stated position of Israel and its immensely powerful allies is that all of the killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is entirely the fault of Hamas, because Hamas has not acquiesced to the military demands made by Israel. In effect, it is saying “We will kill thousands and thousands of children until you give us everything we want.”

I mean, imagine if Russia did that. Imagine if Putin started raining military explosives on parts of Ukraine known to be densely packed with children, and then saying the mass-scale child-killing will continue until Ukraine surrenders and that all of the child deaths are actually the fault of the Ukrainians because they still haven’t given Putin everything he wants.

I think we all know that if such a thing were to happen it would be the subject of worldwide condemnation, and justifiably so. Such a tactic is not meaningfully different from lining up children on their knees on the battlefield and shooting them one by one in the back of the head until the enemy unconditionally surrenders.

They’re not just doing this with airstrikes and bullets — they’re doing it with food as well. Aaron Maté has a new article out titled “The Biden doctrine in Gaza: bomb, starve, deceive” which picks apart statements from White House officials about the temporary pier this administration is planning to build on Gaza’s coast over the next several weeks, ostensibly to allow for the arrival of more aid into the enclave.

Maté writes the following:

“The US military pier, Biden claimed, ‘will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.’ His own aides acknowledge that this is a ruse. According to the Washington Post, administration officials quietly concede that ‘only by securing the opening of additional land crossings would there be enough aid to prevent famine.’ And given that the pier will take at minimum 30 days to complete, that ‘[raises] questions about how famine in Gaza will be staved off in the critical days ahead,’ the New York Times notes.

“The White House has given the answer: rather than compel Israel to open those land crossings and prevent famine, it is instead adopting the Israeli position that the land crossings can be used as a tool of leverage against Hamas — and that Israel can control everything that gets in. In ceasefire talks, Israel has demanded that Hamas release hostages in exchange for, at best, a six-week pause to the massacre.”

Maté explains that Vice President Kamala Harris recently gave a speech in which she said Hamas needs to agree to a hostage deal in order to “get a significant amount of aid in,” which is the same as saying Israel and its allies will help starve Gazan civilians until Hamas capitulates to their demands.

“The very fact that the delivery of ‘a significant amount’ of aid is conditional on Hamas accepting Israeli demands underscores that Israel, with US backing, is using that aid as a tool of coercion,” Maté writes, noting that this directly contradicts Biden’s admonishment to Israeli leaders in his State of the Union address that “Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.”

Washington’s role in the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza makes a lot more sense when you stop looking at it as a reluctant passive witness to Israel’s crimes and begin viewing it as an active participant. US officials will occasionally wag their fingers at the Netanyahu government and act like Israel’s worst atrocities are being carried out against the beneficent humanitarian wishes of the United States, but if you mentally mute all the narrative spin that’s being placed on this thing you just see a giant concentration camp packed full of children being murdered at mass scale by the most powerful empire that has ever existed.

[Quds News Network @QudsNen]

BREAKING| Reuters cites an UNRWA report as stating that kidnapped staffers of the agency were pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 military operation.

The reports added that Israel's ill-treatment of UNRWA staffers included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.

[John Cusack @johncusack]

NOW - is NOW

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

8 March 1929 | A French Jewish girl, Claudine Malack, was born in Paris.

She arrived at #Auschwitz on 13 November 1942 in a transport of 745 Jews deported from Drancy. She was among the 599 people murdered after selection in a gas chamber.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

7 March 1939 | Dutch Jewish girl, Lilian Maud Camnitzer, was born at The Hague.

She was deported to #Auschwitz from #Westerbork in September 1943. She was murdered in a gas chamber after arrival selection.

[John Cusack @johncusack]

The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war. They, their journalists, their doctors, their rescue teams their poets, academics, spokespeople, and even their children have conducted themselves with a courage and dignity that has inspired the rest of the world. The young generation in the western world, particularly the new generation of young Jewish people in the US, have seen through the brainwashing and propaganda and have recognised apartheid and genocide for what it is. The governments of the most powerful countries in the western world have lost their dignity, and any respect they might have had. Yet again. But the millions of protestors on the streets of Europe and the US are the hope for the future of the world.
Palestine will be free.

Statement by Arundhati Roy at the meeting of Working People Against Apartheid and Genocide in Gaza, at the Press Club, New Delhi, on March 7.

[Pat McGrath @parkadge]

@lizzienugent Yes got mine in Lidl. Use it several times a day. Have even cooked scones in it with middling success

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

29 January 1941 | A Dutch Jewish boy, Arnold van Emden, was born in The Hague.

In August 1942 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in the gas chamber after selection.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

28 January 1915 | A Dutch Jewish woman, Dora Block, was born in The Hague.

In December 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz. She did not survive.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

27 January 1932 | French Jewish girl, Alice Levy, was born in Yerres.

She was deported to #Auschwitz from #Drancy on 13 February 1943. She was murdered in a gas chamber after arrival selection.

[Saul Williams @SaulWilliams]

Read it again.

[Howard Beckett @HowardRBeckett]

The Israeli army have destroyed every single mosque in northern Gaza. Not a single place of prayer and worship remains standing.

Nothing at all to do with defence.
Everything to do with destroying a way of life.
Everything to do with genocide.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

22 January 1922 | A German Jewish woman, Margot Rothensies, was born in Saarbruecken. She was a student.

In 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz. She did not survive.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

21 January 1924 | French Jew, Henri Bockfeld, was born in Paris.

He was deported to #Auschwitz from #Drancy on 20 January 1944. He did not survive.

[Irish Sport for Palestine @Sport4Palestine]

🩵🇵🇸💙 “It is black and white. Bombing children is wrong, being forced to leave your home is inhumane, Palestinian lives are just as important as ours. We must not stand idle while families are slaughtered across the seas. Ní saoirse go saoirse na bPalaistíneach.” - Sinéad Wylde

#FreePalestine #GazaGenocide

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

19 January 1940 | A Hungarian Jewish girl, Sarolta Grünwald (pictured left), was born in Csongrad.

In June 1944 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber. She was 4 years old. Her two years older brother Sandor was killed with her.