The Rational National points out in his normal reasonable way that holding the view that there is a difference in the worth of a Palestinian child and an Israeli child makes no sense. He also points out many incidents of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian people, reporters, and children over the last year that received no news coverage. The video is done without sensationalism, which I appreciate. Hugs.
Breaking down the latest from the conflict, including what’s making me go crazy, a good clip from MSNBC, and where major Israeli media is correctly putting the blame.
Thank you to Ten Bears for the link. Again it is becoming clear that the Israeli government is using this event to clear out and claim the entire territory of Gaza as Israeli and belonging to the Jewish people only. The goal of Israel has always been to remove the Palestinians and claim all the land, all the territory as its own. Hugs
As Israel engages in a massive air campaign ahead of an anticipated full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Friday that all citizens of Gaza are responsible for the attack Hamas perpetrated in Israel last weekend that left over 1,200 people dead.
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog said at a press conference on Friday. “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.”
Herzog’s statement has the same logic as “settlers aren’t civilians.” Given that this is coming from a president not a student group, the chorus of condemnations should be louder than that drawn by the Hamas apologists. Somehow, I don’t think it will be https://t.co/93SoZI3mBk
Holding civilians — half of them not adults — collectively responsible for atrocities committed by a democratically unaccountable regime and using this as a justification for destroying neighborhoods with little discrimination, cutting off water and electricity to an entire population, and ordering the 24-hour mass evacuation of over a million people from a tiny land mass with closed borders on both sides — if this isn’t a disproportionate response I’m not sure what would be.
Thank you to Ten Bears for the link. At the time I write this the number of Palestinian deaths is over 2,300 which is more than double the number of Israeli deaths caused by the Hamas raids. Plus the number of Palestinian injured is more than 4 times the number of Israeli’s injured during the Hamas attacks. Israel has gotten their pound of flesh. Hugs
There is no moral clarity in wreaking vengeance on innocent people.
Friends,
Today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stood next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a military base in Tel Aviv and said, “Too often in the past, leaders have equivocated in the face of terrorist attacks against Israel and its people. This is — this must be — a moment for moral clarity.”
Blinken is correct. Moral clarity requires that the world condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas militants as unmitigated evil.
But this does not render morally justifiable retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza that have so far killed 1,417 Palestinians, including 447 children, and wounded 6,368, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Or the siege of a city of 2.1 million people who have gone days without electricity, water, or food.
The wounded in Gaza needing intensive care now have no beds that can hold them, and the number of injured exceeds the hospitals’ capacities. The International Committee of the Red Cross warns that “without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”
More than 300,000 people in Gaza are now homeless. More than 338,000 have left their homes in search of safety, but border crossings into Israel and Egypt are blocked.
Israeli troops are now moving toward the border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground invasion. I fear what is to come.
It could prove to be very bad for Israel, as well as for those trapped in Gaza. As Thomas L. Friedman writes,
What Israel’s worst enemies — Hamas and Iran — want is for Israel to invade Gaza and get enmeshed in a strategic overreach there that would make America’s entanglement in Falluja look like a children’s birthday party. We are talking house-to-house fighting that would undermine whatever sympathy Israel has garnered on the world stage, deflect world attention from the murderous regime in Tehran and force Israel to stretch its forces to permanently occupy Gaza and the West Bank.
In his private meetings with Israeli authorities, I hope Antony Blinken is calling for restraint.
Justifiable moral revulsion must never be confused with retribution. There is no moral clarity in wreaking vengeance on innocent people.
I want to thank PERSONNELENTE for the link. Most things I am hearing about the Hamas attack on Israel is all the horrible things that Hamas committed. And I 100% agree that what they did is horrible. But that doesn’t give the Israeli government and Israeli military the right to also commit horrible tragedies to the civilian Palestinian population. If it is wrong for Israeli children to be harmed, it is also just as wrong for Palestinian children to be harmed. Period full stop. Palestinian civilians and children have as much worth as Israeli civilians and children! Israel is using US supplied planes and missiles to level entire city blocks in Gaza while the people are still in them. Israeli military is bombing UN schools and hospitals. All things the US / world said was a war crime when Russia was doing them.
Please watch the very short subtitled clip of a Palestinian child showing the rubble that was her home, and saying how scared she is. Sad tearful hugs.
I thank Ten Bears for posting this. It is an important to view. It shows clearly how racism and bigotry of the republicans are harming national security. Chris Hayes makes it clear just how racist Sen Tuberville is.He doesn’t want mixing races in the military, but instead wants the best of the best. Well the way he says it is clear he thinks the best of the best are white. I found the view very informing and interesting. Hugs. Scottie
Thanks to Ten Bears for the link. When will the US stop supporting this Apartheid nation? They clearly are not willing to give the Palestine any rights, the Palestine’s live in what is justly called an open air prison. They have no rights, they have no legal remedies but instead of being under the laws of Israel they are under military rule, their treatment is not questioned by the checks and balances of laws. But the US not only supports this corrupt government by billions of dollars, a country that has universal healthcare that the people in the US are told is too expensive for us to have. Does that make sense? This is no different from the US supporting the South African apartheid by white supremacist against black people. Just because this is religious based doesn’t make it right. We are watching the genocide of an entire group of people, and we seem to be OK with it. I AM NOT! Hugs. Scottie
Hundreds of Israeli settlers on Sunday forced their way into the flash point Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish New Year, reports Anadolu Agency.
Israeli settlers observe the Rosh Hashanah (New Year) holiday from September 15 to September 17 this year. They will also mark the Sukkot holiday at the end of September and the Simhat Torah holiday on October 6.
In a statement, the Jordan-run Islamic Waqf Department said Israeli forces had emptied the Al-Aqsa complex from Palestinian worshipers before allowing settlers in.
According to the statement, Palestinians under 50 years old were prevented from entering the site.
A number of Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces from inside the complex, local sources said.
There was no comment from the Israeli authorities on the report.
For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world’s third-holiest site. Jews, for their part, call the area the Temple Mount, saying it was the site of two ancient Jewish temples.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa complex is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.
Scottie's Playtime 