Oooloolloo

just can't wait to get on the road again...

[KNEECAP @KNEECAPCEOL]

KNEECAP STATEMENT:

Since our statements at Coachella — exposing the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people — we have faced a coordinated smear campaign.

For over a year, we have used our shows to call out the British and Irish governments' complicity in war crimes.

The recent attacks against us, largely emanating from the US, are based on deliberate distortions and falsehoods. We are taking action against several of these malicious efforts.

Let us be absolutely clear.

The reason Kneecap is being targeted is simple — we are telling the truth, and our audience is growing.

Those attacking us want to silence criticism of a mass slaughter. They weaponize false accusations of antisemitism to distract, confuse, and provide cover for genocide.

We do not give a f*ck what religion anyone practices. We know there are massive numbers of Jewish people outraged by this genocide just as we are. What we care about is that governments of the countries we perform in are enabling some of the most horrific crimes of our lifetimes — and we will not stay silent.

No media spin will change this.

Our only concern is the Palestinian people — the 20,000 murdered children and counting.

The young people at our gigs see through the lies.

They stand on the side of humanity and justice.

And that gives us great hope.

Kneecap ❤️

[Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 @OmarHamadD]

One word can give us enough strength to endure even more. Perhaps I wouldn’t have remained steadfast and strong without your words and support. In this tweet, I want to thank everyone who stood by us and supported us, even with just a word. Anyone who thinks words don’t make a difference is mistaken. So please don’t withhold your words from us—keep up your struggle, your solidarity, and your support. Thank you all.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

UN “deeply concerned” over Israeli military’s use of “unlawful lethal force” this week in its attacks on Jenin, in the occupied West Bank – including using methods developed for fighting wars.

— in pictures https://t.co/iEPIS8DDjN

[KNEECAP @KNEECAPCEOL]

While a ceasefire is welcome we must not forget what Israel has done.

They need to be sanctioned and their leadership arrested and prosecuted.

They’ve murdered 100,000 people, mostly kids, and left Gaza as an unliveable wasteland.

FUCK ISRAEL

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

A Palestinian photographer in Gaza, Yahia Barzaq, has shared images of infants he had previously photographed in his studio who have now been killed by Israeli attacks.

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

The family of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, recently abducted by the Israeli army as his hospital in northern Gaza was destroyed, have been told he's in a critical condition after being severely tortured.

We know at least two other senior doctors from Gaza have been tortured to death.

[Abubaker Abed @AbubakerAbedW]

I had a word to say against the lack of international support for Palestinian journalists

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Watching, on the one hand, the Israeli soldiers’ video confessions of their genocidal intent and acts and, on the other hand, the Palestinians’ livestreaming of their own deaths and devastation, it is ever so easy to throw one’s hands up in the air, to despair, to want to shut the cruelty out, to find solace in oblivion and disengagement. But, it is not only ethically wrong to surrender to despair – it is also factually wrong that nothing good can be expected. Things change every day and, yes, the seeds of hope are already planted on the blood soaked soil of the ancient land of Palestine. They may be only seeds, but that’s how new life is born.

So, let’s take a look at the seeds of hope that are taking root underneath the rubble.

1. Israel is not winning on the battlefield

Gaza has been destroyed. Its population is on death row. And yet the smart people in the Israeli military know full well that the destruction they wreaked does not translate into a victory. Fifteen months after they re-invaded the open prison that has been the Gaza strip since 1948, they still cannot control more than a small portion of it at a time. Armed resistance, including the regular blowing up of Israel’s mighty tanks, is continuing. Israeli military officers also know that their political leaders’ stated aim, of eradicating Hamas, can never be demonstrably achieved, however many Hamas fighters they kill. As a former Israeli general put it to me: “Even if we kill most the Gazans before we declare victory, a single teenager raising the Hamas flag over a pile of rubble will prove that we failed.”

Similarly in Lebanon. Yes, Israel has killed much of the Hezbollah leadership and, yes, the ceasefire it imposed on Hezbollah succeeded in stopping the Hezbollah missile launches in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance further south. However, the ceasefire was also forced upon Israel by its army’s inability to venture without massive losses by more than a few kilometres into Lebanese territory. And, lest we forget, it is simply not true that Hezbollah had to accept the ceasefire because its missile arsenal was destroyed: Israel signed the ceasefire hours after missiles hit Haifa, and indeed Tel Aviv.

The past year, in other words, will be remembered as a cruel paradox: Israel destroyed Gaza and much of South Lebanon, mainly from the air, but failed abysmally to control the ground. The time is fast approaching when Israeli society will realise that the thousands of Israeli soldiers who died or were seriously injured were the victims of a leadership that, ultimately, placed the Israeli people’s interests very low in their own list of priorities. This is also confirmed by the readiness of Israel’s government to lie through its teeth about its own casualties on the battlefield: compare the low number of casualties officially admitted with the more than twenty thousand soldiers that Israel’s health authorities say have been admitted to veteran rehabilitation centres.

2. Israel’s economy has entered a ‘spiral of collapse’

Turning now to the medium and long term impact of the war on Israel’s economy (which is of great importance from the perspective of the apartheid state’s capacity to reproduce itself through war and devastation financially), it is instructive to read a letter signed by Israeli economists, including Dan Ben-Davidwho explain how Israel’s economic miracle hinges on a hi-tech sector that numbers at most 300 thousand people (including doctors, scientists, academics etc.) His point? If only 10% of these people leave the country, say thirty thousand, Israel’s already hugely indebted economy will fade. In Ben-David’s even starker words,

“We won’t become a third world country, we just won’t be anymore. Only 0.6% of the population are doctors, but who trains them? The senior staff in research universities are 0.1% of the people. High-Tech workers are 6% of the population. Altogether it’s 300,000 people. It’s enough that a critical mass of this group chooses not to be here tomorrow morning, and the State of Israel leaves the developed world.”

Are they leaving? You bet they are – leaving behind them more influential, more dominant than ever before the low-productivity bigots who are driving the fascist settler movement. And, the more dominant these low-productivity bigots are in government and in society, the greater the exodus of the high-tech, secular more liberally minded Israelis. This is the definition of a spiral of collapse.

3. Israel has lost in the court of public opinion – the illusion of a liberal democratic state is gone

Meanwhile, the genocide of Palestinians, and in particular the manner in which so many Israeli soldiers and politicians celebrate it in videos, speeches and posts, has claimed what is left of the illusion of Israel as a European liberal democracy embedded in a hostile Middle East. That illusion has been a central underpinning of the propaganda that helped Israeli lobbyists succeed in Washington and Europe. Now it is gone. It has drowned in the sea of flesh and blood the Israeli military has strewn all over Gaza – and the trail of destruction, hatred and viciousness that the settlers have unleashed in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Once Israel’s cleverly constructed reputation was gone, sullied, it cannot be reclaimed. And that is good news in the sense that the first step toward a just peace is the ethical fall from grace of the aggressor.

4. The situation in the Occupied Territories

Turning now to the situation in the West Bank, it is heart-wrenching to watch the non-stop violence against the Palestinians living under brutal apartheid conditions there. The violence against them comes from three quarters: From the Israeli military. From Israeli settlers. And, most tragically, from the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) own security forces who are, in the midst of the genocide of their people by the apartheid state, are cooperating fully with the security forces of that apartheid state. Why the army is doing this, we know. Why the settlers are doing it, we also know. But why is the leadership of the PA doing it?

This is not the first time the PA has cooperated fully with the Israeli occupiers who steadfastly reject any prospect of a Palestinian state – the stated objective of the PA. Sure enough, the PA’s leadership have been doing this for years. But, now, in the face of the fully-fledged genocidal campaign by Israel, the PA’s excuses are becoming transparent. The unelected, unrepresentative, patently corrupt leadership of the PA is behaving as if to impress Netanyahu and Trump that they can do their dirty work for them, with a veneer of legitimacy courtesy of being Palestinians themselves. That they have a role to play. It is a pathetic plea to the genocidal US-Israeli establishment to give them a job to do against the Palestinian Resistance now that the Palestinian people has seen through them. Nothing else explains why they are turning even against Fatah members who continue to resist in Jenin and elsewhere.

This is the saddest, most depressing, aspect of the Palestinian tragedy. So I shall not dwell on it further except to reiterate the urgent need for the election of a representative and thus legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people. No peace can be imagined, let alone negotiated, otherwise. I hope and trust that the Palestinians will find a way to speak with one non-sectarian voice. Nothing short of succeeding in this will curb the genocide they face. As for the rest of us, we must stand by to help give this voice, their voice, a chance to be heard.

5. Summary

To sum up, days before Donald Trump enters the White House – a man who has never not liked any war crime aimed at eradicating the Palestinian resistance, the Palestinians as a people native to Palestine – we are at a crossroads. Mega Death and uber destruction on the ground wreaked by a US-armed and EU-supported Israel. A spiral of collapse within Israel’s social economy. Arab countries split between complicit regimes and enraged citizens. A Global South that is becoming increasingly powerful and intolerant of the Western-Israeli self-awarded right ethnically to cleanse the non-Jewish native population. And a Western public opinion that can no longer pretend to not know. What is the upshot of these ingredients?

If I were to issue an educated guess, it would be this: Things will get even worse for the Palestinians in the short run. But, in the longer run, the possibility of liberation, of a just peace for both Palestinians, who refuse to go gently into the good night, and for Israelis, who understand the trap into which Netanyahu has ensnared them, seems stronger than it has been for thirty years.

[IPSC @ipsc48]

Apartheid Israel is deliberately murdering Palestinian journalists

[IPSC @ipsc48]

Tomorrow! Join us New Year's Eve, 2pm Ha’penny Bridge. Every year we hold vigils across the country to commemorate the Israeli ‘Operation Cast Lead’ attack on Gaza. This year they are not commemorations but protests against apartheid Israel's ongoing #GazaGenocide #FreePalestine

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

24 years apart.

The picture of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya is sure to become another iconic image of Palestinian resistance. Decades later, the West is still trying to convince you that the ones in the tanks are just acting in “self defense.”

[Mosab Abu Toha @MosabAbuToha]

Letter from the family of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya:

*Family of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan hospital*

Peace be upon you, and may the mercy and blessings of Allah be with you.

We are the family of Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya. It is widely known the immense efforts he has made since the beginning of the war to support the only healthcare system for the residents of North Gaza—your families, friends, and relatives.

Most recently, his dedication continued after the military operation in North Gaza, which followed a siege lasting 84 days.

During this time, he faced the harshest trials, including hunger, oppression, bombardment, and threats, all for the sake of the patients.

Tragically, he lost his beloved son, Ibrahim, who was also severely injured. It is important to note that Dr. Hossam is still affected by his injuries to this day.

We do not know the fate of our father, and we urge you to take action by applying media pressure, making appeals, and sharing news reports to help us push for his swift release from captivity.

Our father is currently suffering from extreme cold. Many of you have heard from released eyewitnesses about the conditions he has faced, including being forced to remove his clothing and medical coat, which were used to make him a human shield.

We appeal to every compassionate individual and all international organizations and institutions to take action.

[Norman Finkelstein @normfinkelstein]

I received this message in my inbox today. If any group is taking any action, I would want to join.

A message to the world from North Gaza
Northern Gaza is being destroyed and the last landmark of life there (Kamal Adwan Hospital) is being subjected to heavy bombardment and its patients and medical staff are starving.
The occupation has destroyed all the necessities of life. There is no food, water, ambulance services, or civil defense, and the bombing has been ongoing for about 80 days.

What is the world waiting for
https://t.co/bId9zhMRzH https://t.co/bId9zhMRzH

[GazaMedicVoices @GazaMedicVoices]

Terrified patients are sheltering in corridors as the Israeli military attempts to force Kamal Adwan Hospital out of service. The hospital director says they hold the world accountable for what happens next.

[Bill Badbody @Bill_Badbody]

Country That Stole Irish Passports For Use In Assassinations, Attacked Irish Peacekeepers Closes Embassy In Ireland Over Country's Opposition To Genocide https://t.co/iVkclrufOf

[Oooloolloo @thruthedoors]

Would you be able to give 3 minutes today to watch this video #SongForPalestine.

And, please please write a comment ❤️🖤💚 #WatchCommentShare

Thanks so much🇮🇪🇵🇸🎶🕊️https://t.co/g6OhSwNWda

[Quds News Network @QudsNen]

The media office has stated that more than 1,000 Palestinian doctors and nurses have been killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 2023. The office confirmed that the Israeli occupation is enforcing starvation due to the blockade and closure of all border crossings for over 200 days.