American Healthcare Workers Plead for End to Gaza Bombing
On October 3, 2024, 99 American healthcare workers in Gaza released an open letter to the White House pleading for an end to Israel’s bombing of little children.
The letter was sent by American physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, and nurses who had volunteered a combined five years to treat the besieged people of Palestine.
The letter said: “Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets. President Biden and Vice President Harris, we urge you: End this madness now!”
The letter writers also said that “every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest… It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilians and military authorities.”
Dr. Mark Perlmutter said, “Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand, the first of many.”
A U.S. Veterans Affairs trauma and critical care surgeon said: “I’ve never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources. Our bombs are cutting down women and children by the thousands. Their mutilated bodies are a monument to cruelty.”
The American healthcare workers also wrote: “We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world… they had lost family members and their homes. Most lived in and around their hospitals with their surviving family, in unimaginable conditions.”
Because Israel claimed hospitals were sometimes used by Hamas, the letter signatories said: “We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.”
The authors also estimate that more have now died from starvation and disease and untold thousands buried under the rubble than by military deaths. They estimate what they described as a very conservative total of over 118,000 who have died in the past year in Gaza. In July, the well-respected British medical journal, The Lancet, had estimated 186,00 deaths there.
On October 8, Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia professor who is one of the world’s most respected foreign policy experts, spoke on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast.
Professor Sachs is a Jew who has been a very outspoken critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sachs said, “Israel is less safe today, by far, than a year ago despite 40,000, 100,000, 200,000 deaths.”
He deplored what he called the “cruel bombing of apartment buildings, hospitals, clinics, schools – it’s been horrendous.”
Sachs said, “Netanyahu is leading Israel into the greatest insecurity of its modern history – complete diplomatic isolation.” He added that “Israel can never be safe with Netanyahu’s delusional plan.”
The professor said Netanyahu has been “selling” a regional war in the Middle East for over 20 years in his speeches, writings, and congressional testimony, and that he is “counting on the U.S. military and the U.S. taxpayer” to make Israel the dominant power so it can “rule in an apartheid manner over millions of people.”
Sachs also said “the war in Iraq in 2003 was strongly promoted by Netanyahu. He wanted a war against Saddam Hussein by the United States for Israel’s sake.”
He added that America is “not served by a blind obedience to the Israel Lobby” and that Americans “do not want another disastrous Middle East War.”
Now Netanyahu has expanded his war into Lebanon, and he will go further – into Syria, Jordan, Iran and perhaps other places – if the U.S. does not stop him.
Sachs said the “American people do not want a nuclear war over Israel’s claim over Gaza or the occupied territories.”
I wish every member of Congress would read the letter from the American healthcare workers in Gaza and listen to the Judging Freedom podcast of Oct. 8. Sadly, I don’t believe any of them will read or listen to either one. Hopefully, you will.
Reprinted with author’s permission from the Knoxville Focus.
John James Duncan Jr. is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Tennessee’s 2nd congressional district from 1988 to 2019. A lawyer, former judge, and former long serving member of the Army National Guard, he is a member of the Republican Party.
Women and Children Pay the Highest Price
Illustration by Paola Bilancieri.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are widely considered one of the most powerful armies in the world. And, according to Israeli leaders, they are “the most moral army in the world.” How, then, to reconcile these statements with what is happening now in Gaza and Lebanon, where tens of thousands of women and children have been slaughtered or injured in the conflict with the Palestinians?
On October 13 and 14, dozens of Palestinians civilians were killed and many more wounded by the IDF’s attacks on a Gaza hospital and several refugee camps. The dead included women waiting for food to be delivered and children at play. The IDF claims that they only operate against terrorists and are investigating the incident, a lame excuse when practically never these investigations by the Israeli military result in punishment for those guilty of serious crimes.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) states that the IDF shelled dozens of hungry people waiting for food at a distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp. Dozens of homes were destroyed in these incidents. The humanitarian organization Save the Children estimated last June that around 21,000 kids are missing in the Gaza Strip, and that roughly 4,000 children are buried under debris. “No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try to find their child’s body,” said Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East.
UNICEF reports that in Gaza cases of diarrhea among children under five have soared, while cases of scabies, lice, chicken pox, skin rashes and respiratory and gastrointestinal infections have also climbed. Hundreds of thousands of children have been killed or injured, and more than half a million children are in need of psychological support due to sustained trauma. Malnutrition is rampant; when left untreated malnutrition and disease are a deadly combination.
Last August, a 10-month-old baby became partially paralyzed after contracting polio in Gaza. According to the World Health Organization, Gaza has not registered a polio case for 25 years. Because of the dismal sanitary conditions, type 2 poliovirus had been detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater last June. Poliovirus, most frequently spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious.
Humanitarian organizations blame the re-emergence of polio in Gaza on the disruption of vaccination programs and the massive damage to water and sanitation systems. “Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are at risk,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres. UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russel said that the re-emergence of the virus in the strip after 25 years is “another sobering reminder of how chaotic, desperate and dangerous the situation has become.” The Gaza Ministry of Health accused the IDF of intensifying “its targeting of the health system” in north Gaza as more hospitals came under siege or fire.
The IDF’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon, which have resulted in the deaths of thousands of women and children, have been widely condemned. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 2,412 people have been killed during the IDF attacks. The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 42,519 people have been killed in Gaza. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, dozens of people were killed or injured after an IDF attack in the town of Beit Lahia.
During a recent trip to Belgium, Pope Francis suggested that the IDF’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, saying that they go beyond the rules of war. According to International Humanitarian Law, “The harm caused to protected civilians or civilian property must be proportional and ‘not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated’ by an attack on a military objective.”
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court investigated allegations of war crimes during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an open letter containing his findings, he elucidates the use of proportionality. In the letter he states, “A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv)).”
The IDF consistently violates elemental rules of war. As Omer Bartov, a Professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University wrote, “If we truly believe that the Holocaust taught us a lesson about the need –or really, the duty—to preserve our own humanity and dignity by protecting those of others, this is the time to stand up and raise our voices, before Israel’s leadership plunges it and its neighbors into the abyss.”
As 2,000 pound-bombs continue falling on women and children, Prime Minister Netanyahu struts among his troops. He is totally unconcerned to the evil he is causing, as Gaza and Lebanon become not only a cemetery for people, but a cemetery for hope and peace in the region.
Western Support for Israel: A Colonial Legacy
Western support for Israel’s high-tech genocide, justified in the name of the Holocaust, exposes the blatant hypocrisy of so-called ‘liberal values.’ The stakes of the current conflict extend beyond Palestinian liberation, challenging the deeply ingrained colonial mindset of the West at the heart of both global and domestic systems of oppression.
For over a year now, Israel’s relentless bombardment and military operations in Gaza have been supported not only by diplomatic backing but also by military assistance and distorted media narratives all over the “collective West.” Often, this unconditional support is explained through two conventional arguments: a historical guilt tied to the Holocaust, depicting Israel as a perpetual victim of “Islamic terrorism” and/or antisemitism, and shared values between the West and Israel. However, these explanations fall short of explaining the depth and persistence of Western complicity. A third and more convincing hypothesis suggests that Israel is fulfilling the same colonial and racist impulses that Western powers were forced to restrain after decolonization.
The Holocaust Guilt Argument: A Flawed Explanation
The idea that the West supports Israel because of guilt from the Holocaust is often cited as a driving factor. While it is true that Western nations, particularly the United States, were initially sympathetic to the establishment of a Jewish state in the wake of World War II, this narrative of guilt does not explain the breadth of support Israel continues to receive today.
Before 1967, U.S. support for Israel was more restrained and pragmatic, reflecting broader Cold War interests in the Middle East. While the U.S. recognized Israel immediately in 1948, its aid and support remained relatively limited, balancing its ties with Arab nations. The U.S. did not view Israel as a strategic ally before the Six-Day War. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. was cautious about deep involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict and sought to maintain relationships with oil-rich Arab nations that were key in its geopolitical strategy against the Soviet Union.
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, the U.S. reined in Israel and its British and French allies, forcing them to retreat disgracefully after their invasion of Egypt, which had been prompted by Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. This incident underscores how, prior to 1967, the U.S. was not yet committed to unconditional support for Israel and even aligned itself with international condemnation of its actions. However, after the Six-Day War, this dynamic shifted, as Israel’s military prowess made it an invaluable Cold War asset, leading to a much deeper alliance between the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. began providing significant military and economic aid to Israel, transforming the relationship into the close strategic partnership it is today.
The Holocaust narrative also gained renewed prominence post-1967, shaping U.S. and Western perceptions of Israel. Before this period, the memory of the Holocaust, while acknowledged, was not as central in American public discourse or foreign policy. The Eichmann trial in the early 1960s played a role in bringing Holocaust memory to the forefront, but it was after 1967 that the Holocaust narrative became deeply intertwined with Israel’s legitimacy in Western discourse. The Holocaust was increasingly invoked to justify the need for a strong, secure Jewish state, whitewashing or deflecting criticism of its policies toward Palestinians and other Arab nations.
In The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein explains how the memory of the Holocaust has been instrumentalized to shield Israel from criticism. He argues that before 1967, American Jewish elites used the Holocaust primarily to denounce anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, drawing parallels with Nazism. Skeptical of the Jewish state, they feared that its creation would reinforce accusations of dual loyalty, especially in the context of the Cold War. However, the 1967 war changed all that: Israel’s military display impressed the United States, which made it a strategic pillar in the Middle East. For American Jewish elites, this alignment enabled a smoother assimilation into the United States: Israel was now perceived as a defender of American interests. The Holocaust took on a central place in American Jewish memory, serving to reinforce Israel’s legitimacy as an outpost against common enemies. American Jewish intellectuals, hitherto largely indifferent to Israel’s fate, increasingly rallied behind the Hebrew state, which they presented as a bastion of Western civilization. After 1973, this memory was consolidated as a tool of mobilization and influence, aimed at justifying support for Israel, whatever the circumstances. This allowed Israel to present itself as a permanent victim, despite its growing military and geopolitical dominance, thereby deflecting scrutiny of its actions, especially concerning the occupation of Palestinian territories.
Western intervention in the Middle East has historically been driven by control, exploitation, and domination, not altruistic motives. As Frantz Fanon argued in The Wretched of the Earth,
The colonizer, who is himself the product of a history of violence, has, in the final analysis, only one way of dealing with the violence that is directed against him: he must point out that the violence comes from the victim. He must show that he is the one who is oppressed.
Colonizers often invoke past suffering to justify current oppression, manipulating historical victimhood to evade responsibility for their own violence. In this case, Israel has weaponized its historical trauma to deflect criticism of its actions, transforming the Holocaust into a shield to justify its violence against Palestinians. This perverse exploitation is bolstered by Western nations, who eagerly participate in the narrative, masking their own complicity in the ongoing colonial project. The irony and outrage of this defense of current agressions, massacres and ethnic cleasing in the name of a past genocide become clear when we reflect on the words of Aimé Césaire, who saw in Europe’s colonial crimes the roots of modern barbarism.
Césaire famously argued in his Discourse on Colonialism that Europe’s greatest crime was not the rise of fascism per se, but the fact that “what [Hitler] inflicted on Europe, Europe had previously inflicted on the colonies.” He highlights the deep hypocrisy of the West, which only recoiled in horror at Nazism when it became a victim of its own tools of oppression, which had long been honed through colonization in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As Césaire states,
What the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.
By participating in Israel’s genocidal project, the West is not atoning for the Holocaust; rather, it is perpetuating the same logic of exclusion and dehumanization that enabled colonialism and Nazism. This is why Israel’s invocation of the Jewish people’s tragedy rings hollow in the context of its ongoing violence — because what was once condemned when perpetrated in Europe is now justified in Palestine. This selective application of moral outrage underscores the reality that the West’s real concern is not with human rights or justice, but with protecting colonial interests and racial hierarchies.
Ultimately, the West’s relationship to Israel is less about historical guilt than about using Israel as an instrument to perpetuate a colonial and imperialistic project in the Middle East. The same crimes the West claims to condemn in its past are the ones it now supports in the present, showing that its commitment to “never again” has never truly extended beyond Europe’s borders — that paradoxically include the Jewish population of Israel, a pure product of “Western civilization”.
The Myth of “Shared Values”
Another common justification for the West’s support of Israel is the claim that it upholds Western humanist and democratic values, making it a natural ally in a region often depicted as autocratic and hostile to Western ideals of progress. This argument is frequently strengthened by referencing the so-called “Judeo-Christian roots” of Western identity, which frame Israel as part of a shared cultural heritage. These supposed roots are presented as the moral foundation of the West, positioning Israel as a guardian of civilization against a perceived Middle Eastern “otherness” — particularly Islam, seen as irreconcilable with these values.
As Edward Said famously observed, “Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” Israel, with steadfast Western support, replicates this narrative. But the true aim is not liberation — it’s about maintaining power through violence and subjugation. The West has long framed the Arab world as the civilizational “other” to justify intervention and alliances that are first and foremost about domination. The West’s support for Israel is less about common democratic principles and more about maintaining colonial power structures through an “us versus them” dynamic.
Israel is often hailed as the only democracy in the Middle East, a civilizational outpost in a supposedly barbaric and chaotic region, yet its treatment of Palestinians — both within its borders and in the occupied territories — completely contradicts the democratic values it claims to uphold, exposing it as a full-fledged apartheid regime. Said’s critique of Orientalism shows how such perceptions have historically allowed Western powers to rationalize their support for oppressive regimes under the guise of protecting civilization.
In practice, Western nations turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of principles and norms when it comes to the treatment of Palestinians. Discriminatory policies, ethnic cleansing, and gross abuses of human rights are overlooked by Western governments that would vehemently condemn such actions elsewhere. After October 7, the hypocrisy of “Western values” has been unmasked and discredited for ever by the torrents of crocodile tears shed for 40 Israeli babies decapitated only in the putrid imagination of propagandists, while indifference prevails towards the thousands of Palestinian babies and children torn apart, with images and videos circulated daily on social media. Human rights have been exposed as nothing but a rhetorical tool used to justify political agendas rather than a genuine commitment to humanist ideals. The West prides itself on defending even animal rights, yet it seems that “human animals” — Palestinians and all so-called “inferior races” — are, in its eyes, granted only the right to die in silence, the
sole “blessing” of Western civilization.
A Colonial, Racist, and Islamophobic Project Fulfilled
The most compelling explanation for Western support lies in the fact that Israel’s actions resonate with colonial, racist, and Islamophobic ideologies that Western powers still harbor, despite the postcolonial era. Israel’s ongoing expansion of settlements, displacement of Palestinians, brutal military occupation and regular massacres reflect the same colonial practices that enabled Western powers to conquer America between the 16th and 19th centuries, but were forcibly abandoned in Africa and Asia due to the decolonization movements of the mid-20th century.
As Fanon highlighted in Black Skin, White Masks, colonialism inherently dehumanizes, dividing the world into compartments “inhabited by different species.” This process is central to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, who are reduced to a status below that of full human beings. Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists or existential threats, a narrative used to justify Israel’s ongoing occupation, military assaults, and outright extermination. The West’s complicity in this dehumanization is rooted in its own colonial legacy, where indigenous peoples were displaced, exploited, and erased from existence in the name of progress and civilization.
Furthermore, Islamophobia plays a crucial role in maintaining this alliance. The demonization of Muslims and Arabs as inherently backward, violent and irrational has become a central tenet of Western foreign policy, particularly after the events of 9/11. Israel capitalizes on this Islamophobic discourse, portraying itself as a bulwark against “Islamic extremism” in the region. Western nations, particularly the U.S., use this narrative to justify their support for Israel, despite its blatant disregard for international law and human rights. The Netanyahu government exemplifies the very fanaticism and bloodlust attributed to Arabs and Muslims, as seen in its leaders’ messianic rhetoric, violent calls for the annihilation of Palestinians and genocidal actions.
In this sense, Israel is not simply a rogue state acting independently; it is fulfilling the very impulses that Western powers were forced to moderate after the end of formal colonialism. The support for Israel’s policies towards Gaza, the broader Palestinian question and neighbouring Arab countries is not an aberration but rather a continuation of colonial violence by other means. As Fanon argued, colonialism is not just a physical occupation but a psychological and ideological project that persists long after the formal end of empire.
Israel as a Proxy for Western Oppression
The West’s unwavering support for Israel, despite its clear violations of fundamental universal norms, cannot be fully attributed to Holocaust guilt or a purported alignment of values. Instead, Israel serves as an outlet for Western powers to express their suppressed colonial instincts, racism, and Islamophobia. The settler-colonial project in Palestine mirrors the violence that Western powers once inflicted upon colonized peoples across the globe. Just as European empires sought to “civilize” non-Western populations through domination, Israel perpetuates this colonial legacy by asserting control over Palestinians. Having been forced to abandon their formal colonial empires, Western nations now view Israel as a proxy to continue their project of domination by alternative methods.
This support for Israel isn’t only about geopolitics or strategic alliances and interests. It’s about preserving the colonial order in a world increasingly calling for justice and liberation. Former colonial powers in the West are not just contending with this externally, in global power struggles between unipolar and multipolar systems, but also internally from marginalized groups, often coming from their former colonies. These groups challenge the legacies of racism, oppression, and inequality that were established during the colonial era. In this context, support for Israel helps suppress these growing movements by reinforcing the belief that colonial power structures — whether global or domestic — must remain intact.
If Israel were to be defeated, it would pave the way for a second wave of decolonization — this time, a decolonization of minds. Just as the early victories of Hitler during World War II demonstrated that European colonial powers could fall, emboldening indigenous populations to rise against their masters, Israel’s defeat would similarly expose the fragility of the global neocolonial order. This would inspire more developing countries to break free from US hegemony and oppressed groups within Western nations to push harder against segregation in their societies, exposing the hypocrisy and injustices of policies rooted in oppression. This notably explains why Western media, acting as guardians of the social order, eagerly parrots Israeli military rhetoric, praising its supposed successes, even when they amount to mass terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Israel must remain “invincible,” not just for geostrategic reasons but as a psychological fortress. Its dominance reassures Western powers that the colonial mindset endures, allowing them to justify oppression at home and abroad, paying tribute to “worthy” victims and preserving “the lives that count,” all under the guise of hollow “values.” The struggle in Gaza is not solely for Palestinian freedom — it’s a stand for the freedom and dignity of all humankind.
The U.S.-Israel Plan for the Gazans
Dan Cohen, an American Jew whose family in Lithuania had been wiped out by Hitler’s forces, is one of the great investigative journalists on Israel-Palestinian affairs, and he headlined on October 21, “US authorizes CIA mercenaries to run biometric concentration camps in Gaza Strip.” He opened:
The Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubblescape into a high-tech dystopia.
Starting with Al-Atatra, a village in the northwestern Gaza Strip, the plan calls to build what the Israeli daily Ynet calls “humanitarian bubbles” – turning the remains of villages and neighborhoods into tiny concentration camps cut off from their environs and surrounded and controlled by mercenaries.
These mercenaries will be hired by the CIA. “The plan, approved by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calls for the Israeli military to clear out pockets of Palestinian resistance. … 48 hours after stamping out resistance, they plan to erect separation walls around the neighborhood, forcing its residents, and no one else, to enter and exit using biometric identification under the CIA contractors’ control. Those who do not accept the biometric regime would be refused humanitarian aid.” In other words: they will starve to death. The Gazans who do accept “the biometric regime” won’t be starved to death. Biometrics includes fingerprinting but also other physical — and also behavioral — measurements of an individual who is being kept under surveillance.
The company at the forefront of this plan is called Global Development Company, described in its promotional materials as an “Uber for war zones.” Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana owns it and employs several top Israeli and American military intelligence officials, including retired U.S. Navy Captain Michael Durnan, retired U.S. Special Forces captain Justin Sapp, former Israeli military intelligence division head Yossi Kuperwasser, and former Israeli military chief intelligence officer David Tzur.
[That is GDC’s promotional video, “GDC- Global Delivery Company.”]
Kahana has played a key role in the dirty war against Syria in the 2010s and worked with the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army [the “FSA,” which the U.S. Government under Obama hired to help overthrow and replace the Russia-and-Iran-supported President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad; and Dan Cohen’s FSA link is to an article in Britain’s Independent heroizing Kahana, headlining him as “Israeli man starts ‘Good Samaritan’ charity to get injured Syrian women and children to Israel for medical help.” That article opens with a video in which he speaks as a “philanthropist.”]
… GDC has also been involved in Ukraine, where it collaborated with the Zionist organization, the American Joint Distribution Committee, to operate a refugee camp in Romania near its border with Ukraine. …
Kahana’s Gaza plan has been in the works since at least February 2024. He presented the plan to establish these electronic cantons – what Jewish News referred to as “gated communities” – to the White House, State Department, and Defense Department, as well as Netanyahu. U.S. officials did not respond. While the Israeli military had agreed, the Israeli prime minister shot it down. “What’s the rush?” he quipped. …
However, as Hamas has maintained its civil control throughout Gaza and Israel has failed to defeat armed resistance groups, the Netanyahu government is relying on the U.S. to do its bidding. …
While the [original version of the] proposal called for the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia to assume civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that has failed to materialize, prompting the United States to approve deployment of CIA contractors.
In other words: finally, Netanyahu, too, approved the plan.
The Jewish News article that Cohen refers to was dated 4 April 2024, and praises Kahana’s plan for Gaza, calls it “humanitarian,” and says:
The meticulous plan, seen by Jewish News, envisages the creation of “gated communities” in a safe space in the Strip and biometric recognition put in place for civilian recipients of aid. Those who did not pass the biometric tests would not have received aid. The gated communities are described as a Secure Humanitarian Logistics Corridor which, the plan states, “once established, can process and securely deliver humanitarian assistance from other sources across Gaza”.
In other words: the plan is as Cohen describes it, but employs euphemistic phrasings to deceive fools into believing that Kahana, his GDC, and his concentration camps for cooperative Gazan survivors, are “humanitarian,” and “gated communities,” such as that phrase is used in America to refer to protected oases of peace amidst a surrounding environment of war — like saying, “We’ll protect you Gazans.”
Cohen’s article didn’t mention the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department’s Defense Forensics & Biometrics Agency (DFBA), but this federal Agency (which he does link to without mentioning it) was, in fact, established by President Obama in 2012, and is crucially involved in what Kahana’s GDC is doing in Gaza. In 2016, DFBA’s “Overview” stated: “Biometrics and forensics are critical to identifying known and unknown individuals by matching them with automated records (such as for access control) or with anonymous samples (such as crime scene investigations).” In other words: the surviving Gazans will be tracked not by a number that is tattoed onto their arms like was done at Auschwitz to prisoners who weren’t immediately sent to their deaths, but instead tracked by the person’s “biometrics.” So: Israel’s Jews use Hitler’s — the original form of — nazism, but against different people, and with modern technology.
Furthermore: their propaganda is far more sophisticated than Joseph Goebbels’s was.
The link that Cohen provides to DFBA is to its current promotional video, their latest “Overview.”
It makes clear that DFBA is being used by the federal Government not ONLY in order to control the surviving Gazans, but ALSO in order to control the American people, as well as to extend the American empire throughout the world.
In other words: Yesterday it was the Jews who were the target; today it is the surviving Gazans who are, and also an increasing percentage of Americans are (targeted by our own Government); and, in the future, this system is to become expanded to everyone.
Cohen’s article also (at the word “worked”) linked to (but unfortunately out of context) a self-promotional youtube by and for Kahana himself, that appears to have been intended by him to promote himself to both Russians and Syrians, as being a magnanimous israeli philanthropist who rescues victims of his hated Assad, because he cares so much about the Syrian people.
We are already well beyond George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984. This is the reality of today’s U.S. empire.
On October 24 was posted to X an exposé by James Li, of the top people at the U.S. magazine the Atlantic, which opens, “Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic‘s Editor-in-Chief who compared Trump to Hitler, was an IDF prison guard at a facility known for torture and sex abuse. He also pushed the false Saddam-Al-Qaeda link that led to the Iraq War and keeps pushing for war in the Middle East.” And the magazine’s owner is Steve Jobs’s deeply neoconservative widow, and she pitches her propaganda to Democratic Party voters, to keep them backing her candidates.
On October 15, ZeroHedge headlined “US Threatens Israel With Arms Embargo As Evidence Of War Crimes Becomes Impossible to Deny.” This is how successful U.S. politicians win votes from their suckers. Biden publicly threatens Israel at the same time as he privately authorizes — and arms to the teeth — what it is doing that he publicly condemns. Both of America’s political Parties are fully complicit in this deceit — this genocide.
Crippling UNRWA: The Knesset’s Collective Punishment of Palestinians
The man has a cheek. Having lectured Iranians and Lebanese about what (and who) is good for them in terms of rulers and rule (we already know what he thinks of the Palestinians), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been keeping busy on further depriving access and assistance to those in Gaza and the West Bank. This comes in draft legislation that would prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from pursuing its valuable functions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli state has been relentless and pathological. Even before last year’s October 7 attacks by Hamas, much was made of the fact that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current. Victimhood, complained the amnesiac enforcers of the Israeli state, was being encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees. Nasty memories were being kept alive.
Since then, Israel has been further libelling and blackening the organisation as a terrorist front best abolished. (Labels are effortlessly swapped – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist”.) Initially came that infamous dossier pointing the finger at 12 individuals said to be Hamas participants in the October 7 attacks. With swiftness, the UN commenced internal investigations. Some individuals were sacked on suspicion of being linked to the attacks. Unfortunately, some US$450 million worth of donor funding from sixteen countries was suspended.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was always at pains to explain that he had “never been informed” nor received evidence substantiating Israel’s accusations. It was also all the more curious given that staff lists for the agency were provided to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance. At no point had he ever “received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”
In April, Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is under way, with serious implications for peace and security”. Repeatedly, requests by the agency to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been refused, staff barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian actors and Israel, and UNRWA premises and staff targeted.
Israel’s campaign to dissuade donor states from restoring funding proved a mixed one. Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July that funding would be restored. In the view of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA had taken steps to ensure that it was meeting “the highest standards of neutrality.”
In August, the findings of a review of the allegations by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, instigated at the request of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, were released. It confirmed UNRWA’s role as “irreplaceable and indispensable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a “pivotal” body that provided “life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”
In identifying eight areas for immediate improvement on the subject of neutrality (for instance, engaging donors, neutrality of staff, installations, education and staff unions), it was noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” that the agency’s employees had been “members of terrorist organizations.”
On October 24, UNRWA confirmed that one of its staffers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been in the agency’s employ since July 2022 while serving as a Nukhba commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion. Attawi is alleged to have participated in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im in October last year. His name had featured in a July letter from Israel to the agency listing 100 names allegedly connected with terrorist groups. But no action was taken against Attawi as the Israelis failed to supply UNRWA with evidence. Lazzarini’s letter urging, in the words of Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, “to cooperate … by providing more information so he could take action” did not receive “any response”.
Having been foiled on various fronts in its quest to terminate UNRWA’s viable existence, Israeli lawmakers are now taking the legislative route to entrench the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Two bills are in train in the Knesset. The first, sponsored by such figures as Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, would bar state authorities from having contact with UNRWA. The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically prevent the agency from operating in Israeli territory through revoking a 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.
Even proclaimed moderates – the term is relative – such as former defence minister Benny Gantz support the measures, accusing the UN body of making “itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it”. It did not improve the lot of refugees, but merely perpetuated “their victimisation.” Evidently for Gantz, Israel had no central role in creating Palestinian victims in the first place.
By barring cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA, work in Gaza and the West Bank would become effectively impossible, largely because Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to the territories or permit any coordination with the Israeli Defense Forces.
UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills. “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.” Ambassadors from 123 UN member states have echoed the same views, while the Biden administration has, impotently, warned that the proposed “restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment” while also denying educational and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
In their October 23 statement, the Nordic countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate “to carry out […] direct relief and works programmes” for millions of Palestinian refugees as determined by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) would be jettisoned. “In the midst of an ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, a halt to any of the organisation’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”
The statement goes on to make a warning. To impair the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “may well destabilise the situation in [Gaza, and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem], in Israel and in the region as a whole, and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects of a two-state solution.”
These are concerns that hardly matter before the rationale of murderous collective punishment, one used against a people seen more as mute serfs and submissive animals than sovereign beings entitled to rights and protections. Israel’s efforts to malign and cripple UNRWA remains a vital part of that agenda. In that organisation exists a repository of deep and troubling memories the forces of oppression long to erase.
The Escalator Grinds to a Halt
It is apparently not much of an exaggeration to say that Israel’s attack on Iran fizzled. Some targets were hit and at least two Iranian soldiers were killed, but the ineffectiveness of the operation was probably due to several factors:
- Israel just doesn’t have the weaponry. Most of its missiles don’t have the distance, and those that do, just barely so. That’s true for a lot of its drones, too, and they are too easily detected and don’t have the carrying power.
- The US didn’t aid, in particular with refueling manned aircraft. It’s just as well. It would have been a good way to lose both pilots and aircraft.
- Most of the nations geographically in between Israel and Iran would not permit overflights from either Israel or the US. Iran told these nations that they prefer to remain on good terms with them, and that they would consider it an act of war to lend their airspace to Israeli operations.
- Iranian antiaircraft systems were apparently quite effective.
Other factors may have been involved. It is possible that cooler heads prevailed in the Israeli and US militaries, for example, but we may never know, or at least not soon. Nevertheless, the main reason that Israel did not cause more damage appears not to be a question of intention, but of capability. There’s no question that Israel was hoping for an escalation that would widen the war and force the US to enter on Israel’s side. That appears to have been avoided. Iran will have to respond, but unlike Israel, neither Iran nor the US wants escalation. Iran’s response will therefore be measured, and they will declare the matter settled.
The Netanyahu government now finds itself squarely in check, though not yet checkmated. Nevertheless, the best it can do now is probably a stalemate. This is not good in the short run for Gaza and the Palestinians, nor for Lebanon, but it’s also not good for Israel, whose population is emigrating, whose economy is tanking, and which is generally a pariah throughout the world. Its decades of building its image as glamorous, progressive and a technological powerhouse is gone. It is now the redoubt of religious fanatics and criminals that even much of the international Jewish community is loathe to support. Its current mainstay is the international network of influence peddlers such as AIPAC, whose power has not dwindled in the US and other western governments, due to its ability to enrich the military industrial complex and to control the elective processes in these governments. With the loss of a wider base in the Jewish community, however, that power is likely to decline.
Almog Cohen, member of the Israeli Knesset, Using Lies about the 10/07 Attack to Justify Targeting and Killing of Palestinian Children
X/Twitter screen cap from Almog Cohen. He is perpetuating lies about the 10/07 attack to justify targeting and killing of Palestinian children.
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