The Cradle – December 21, 2023
Qassam Brigades kill Ukrainian mercenaries in Gaza
The Palestinian resistance continues to inflict heavy losses on Israeli ground forces
Fighters from Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, ambushed and killed at least seven Ukrainian mercenaries who were fighting with the Israeli army in Gaza, Quds News Network reported on 21 December.
According to sources speaking with the network, Qassam fighters targeted the mercenaries on 14 November after spotting them on Hassanein Street in the Shujaiya neighborhood, one of the main centers of Palestinian resistance to the ongoing Israeli ground invasion.
The sources added that "the occupation army did not include the dead among the numbers it acknowledges about its losses among soldiers in Gaza," and that the ambush killed soldiers from the Israeli army as well.
According to the sources, a video that circulated on social media of a unit of Ukrainian mercenaries in a Shujaiya school was recorded on the same day as the attack.
The video showed one mercenary writing in the Ukrainian language on a chalk board in the school.
It also showed a group of Ukrainian mercenaries in a neighborhood of Gaza City, hiding behind a wall.
Ukrainians fighting for Israel is a reversal of a dynamic that appeared in 2022, as reports emerged of hundreds of Ukrainian-born Israelis and several native Israelis traveling to Ukraine to join volunteer units after the Russian invasion.
The Quds Network report comes as the Israeli military announced the deaths of three additional soldiers on Thursday, Lavi Gehati, Omri Schwartz, and Yacoub Elian, during battles in the Gaza Strip. This brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed to more than 136, according to Israel, since the start of its ground invasion in Gaza on 27 October.
However, as The Cradle hasﾠreported, Israeli military leaders seeks to hide many of their soldiers’ deaths, and the number killed and wounded is likely much higher than the military’s official acknowledgements.
Hamas has released a flurry of combat videos in the past week showing its fighters targeting Israeli troops, armored personnel carriers, and tanks. This indicates that while Israel has caused massive destruction in Gaza, the Qassam Brigades are still strong militarily and are inflicting heavy losses on the Israeli army.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/qassam-brigades-kill-ukrainian-mercenaries-in-gaza
Information Clearing House - December 22, 2023
The Atrocities In Gaza Are The Perfect Embodiment Of ‘Western Values’
This is western civilization. This is what it looks like.
By Caitlin Johnstone
When Israeli president Isaac Herzog described the assault on Gaza as a war “to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization,” he wasn’t really lying. He was telling the truth — just maybe not quite in the way that he meant it.
The demolition of Gaza is indeed being perpetrated in defense of western values, and is itself a perfect embodiment of western values. Not the western values they teach you about in school, but the hidden ones they don’t want you to look at. Not the attractive packaging with the advertising slogans on the label, but the product that’s actually inside the box.
For centuries western civilization has depended heavily on war, genocide, theft, colonialism and imperialism, which it has justified using narratives premised on religion, racism and ethnic supremacy — all of which we are seeing play out in the incineration of Gaza today.
What we are seeing in Gaza is a much better representation of what western civilization is really about than all the gibberish about freedom and democracy we learned about in school. A much better representation of western civilization than all the art and literature we’ve been proudly congratulating ourselves on over the centuries. A much better representation of western civilization than the love and compassion we like to pretend our Judeo-Christian values revolve around.
It’s been so surreal watching western rightists babbling about how savage and barbaric Muslim culture is amid the 2023 zombie resurrection of Bush-era Islamophobia, even while western civilization amasses a mountain of ten thousand child corpses.
That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced.
This is western civilization. This is what it looks like.
Western civilization, where Julian Assange awaits his final appeal in February against US extradition for journalism which exposed US war crimes.
Where we are fed a nonstop deluge of mass media propaganda to manufacture our consent for wars and aggression which have killed millions and displaced tens of millions in the 21st century alone.
Where we are kept distracted by vapid entertainment and artificial culture wars so we don’t think too hard about what this civilization is and who it is killing and maiming and starving and exploiting.
Where news cycles are dominated more by celebrity gossip and Donald Trump’s latest mouth farts than by the mass atrocities that are being actively facilitated by western governments.
Where liberals congratulate themselves for having progressive views on race and gender while the officials they elect help rip apart children’s bodies with military explosives.
Where Zionist Jews center themselves and their emotions because opposition to an active genocide makes them feel like they are being persecuted, and where Israel supporters who are not Jewish still kind of feel like they are being persecuted also.
Where a giant globe-spanning empire powered by militarism, imperialism, capitalism and authoritarianism devours human flesh with an insatiable appetite while we congratulate ourselves on how much better we are than nations like Iran or China.
These are western values. This is western civilization.
Ask somebody to tell you what their values are and they’ll give you a bunch of pleasant-sounding words about family and love and caring or whatever. Watch their actions to see what their actual values are and you’ll often get a very different story.
That’s us. That’s western civilization. We say we value freedom, justice, truth, peace and free expression, but our actions paint a very different picture. The real western values, the actual product inside the box underneath the attractive label, are the ones you see acted out in Gaza today.
World Socialist Web Site – December 22, 2023
Amid mass executions and genocidal rhetoric, US deepens support for Israeli onslaught on Gaza
By Andre Damon
Amid reports that Israel is carrying out mass executions of civilian prisoners in Gaza and open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli politicians, the US has doubled down on its support for Israel’s war on Palestinian civilians. Before the eyes of the whole world, the bloodbath in Gaza is emerging as “America’s genocide.”
On Wednesday, the United Nations and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor published reports accusing Israeli forces of carrying out a mass execution of civilians in northern Gaza. Having either driven away or killed all remaining journalists in the north, Israel has moved from massacring civilians through bombing to summary executions.
These war crimes are accompanied by the open advocacy of genocide by Israeli officials, not merely in veiled biblical references, as with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invocation of “Amalek,” but in direct calls to copy the Nazi genocide of the Jews:
* In a radio interview Sunday, David Azoulai, head of Israel’s regional Metula Council, said that Gaza should be made to look like “Auschwitz.” He said, “Tell everyone in Gaza to go to the beaches. Navy ships should load the terrorists onto the shores of Lebanon. The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and leveled flat, just like in Auschwitz.”
* In a TV interview, Miri Golan, Israel’s Women’s Advancement Minister, said, “I don’t care about Gaza … for all I care, they can go out and swim in the sea.” She added, “I want to see dead bodies of terrorists around Gaza.”
* Daniella Weiss, the former mayor of an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and a leader of the Israeli settler movement, said in a TV interview that Israel’s goal is to make “Gaza free of Arabs” to prepare “the establishment of Jewish settlements in all of the Gaza Strip.”
Israel is starving the 2.2 million people of Gaza. On Monday, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of having “an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare.” According to the World Food Program, the share of Gazans experiencing “very severe hunger levels” has surged from 24 percent to 44 percent.
Against this backdrop, the United States has deepened its categorical support for Israel’s genocide. In a press briefing Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by a reporter to comment on the fact that “much of the world [is] blaming the US and Israel” and “seeing it as America’s war.”
Critically, Blinken did not attempt to distance himself from the claim that Israel is waging “America’s war.” Instead, he doubled down:
I hear virtually no one saying, demanding of Hamas, that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow, if Hamas does that this would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that. How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor, and only demands made of the victim?
Blinken’s assertion that the Israeli government is the “victim” in the conflict is so absurd as to not even merit refutation. After orchestrating a deliberate military and intelligence stand-down on October 7, the Netanyahu government has massacred 25 Gazans for every Israeli killed that day. While seizing on the October 7 attacks to proclaim itself a “victim” of the Palestinians it oppresses and dominates, the Netanyahu government moved to implement what Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter called a “Gaza Nakba 2023”—the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.
With a level of cynicism comparable only to officials of the Third Reich, Blinken proclaimed that Israel’s goal is not to massacre the population of Gaza but to protect them. “Israel conducts its operations, again, with a focus on protecting civilians, minimizing harm, and maximizing assistance getting to them,” he claimed.
In a follow-up question, Blinken was asked, “Is there a red line for you?” regarding how many people Israel will be allowed to massacre. To this, Blinken replied that the United States is “intent on seeing this through to completion.”
Blinken’s comments came after US President Joe Biden admitted at a campaign event that Israel was carrying out “indiscriminate bombings”—a crime under international law—and conceded that Israel’s defense minister is seeking “retribution … against all Palestinians.”
If one puts together the comments by Biden and Blinken, the clear conclusion is that “retribution … against all Palestinians” is, in fact, “America’s war” or more precisely, America’s genocide.
Throughout this entire process, the United States has provided financial, logistical and military support for the genocide, while running interference at the United Nations for the mass murder of Palestinians. Last year, the US provided Israel with $3.3 billion in economic aid, adding to the $260 billion provided by the US since the end of the Second World War. Over the past 10 weeks, the US has provided Israel with 10,000 tons of military equipment, including armored vehicles, armaments and ammunition. The US and UK have carried out drone surveillance flights over Gaza, and there have even been reports of US personnel operating on the ground.
Even more critically, the United States has vowed to veto any Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war, with its UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield declaring, “Any ceasefire right now would be temporary at best and dangerous at worst.”
There are deep-rooted and fundamental reasons why the United States is supporting the genocide in Gaza. First, the US has clearly decided to carry out a major military escalation in the Middle East, as part of what it sees as an existential struggle for world hegemony aimed at dominating China, Russia, and Iran. Israel, which effectively functions as a garrison state for US imperialism in the Middle East, is a critical component of this plan.
Second, amid a growing strike movement and mounting domestic political opposition, the Biden administration is seeking to create a precedent for dealing with rebellious urban areas through mass murder. For those factions of the US oligarchy seeking to solve the domestic political crisis through dictatorship, the genocide in Gaza is seen as a testing ground.
Finally, the genocide has become the occasion for the implementation of a massive crackdown on democratic rights. Throughout Europe, demonstrations have been banned, and protesters have been arrested simply for opposing Zionism. In the United States, university student groups have been disbanded, and academics and students have lost their positions for opposing US foreign policy. Social media networks have implemented a draconian regime of internet censorship, in what Human Rights Watch called a “pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech, including peaceful expression in support of Palestine.”
From this reality arises the inevitable conclusion that the struggle against the genocide in Gaza is the fight against the imperialist governments that are enabling it.
Describing the rise of fascism in the 20th century, Leon Trotsky wrote that “capitalist society is puking up” its “undigested barbarism.” The Gaza genocide represents the same process. The capitalist social order, with America at the head, is putting on display before the whole world its homicidal barbarism. This social order offers humanity nothing but rampant social inequality, war and mass murder.
The fight against the genocide in Gaza must, for that reason, become the struggle for the socialist transformation of society through the building of a mass movement in the working class. Workers must prepare strikes at docks and airports to prevent the shipment of any items to Israel with a military use, as part of the systematic preparation for a political general strike against the war.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/22/vvtj-d22.html?pk_kwd=wsws
World Socialist Web Site – December 22, 2023
Human Rights Watch reports mass censorship of opposition to Gaza genocide
Kevin Reed
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report on Thursday alleging that the social media company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has engaged in “systematic censorship” of pro-Palestinian content on its platforms before and during the US-backed Israeli campaign of genocide in Gaza.
The fifty-one page document entitled “Meta’s Broken Promises” reveals that two of the most active social media sites in the world—Facebook has over 3 billion users and Instagram has 2 billion users—have engaged in long-standing censorship of posts and accounts expressing support for Palestinians, and this censorship has been intensified since October 7.
In a press release published Wednesday, HRW says its report “documents a pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about Palestinian human rights.” This evaluation is based on HRW’s review of 1,050 cases of online censorship from over 60 countries.
Human Rights Watch is a non-governmental organization founded in 1978 that conducts research and advocacy on human rights internationally. The New York City-based organization publishes reports on violations of the rights and freedoms of all human beings as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.
Among the patterns of social media censorship identified by HRW is content removal, suspension or deletion of accounts, inability to engage with content, inability to follow or tag accounts and “shadow banning” or decreasing the visibility of a specific users posts or stories. Meanwhile, many of the censored users were not permitted to appeal the decisions to remove their posts or accounts because the appeal mechanism malfunctioned.
The HRW press statement points out that Meta was informed in 2021 of its censorship of the discussion of human rights issues pertaining to Israel and Palestine, and the platforms were “silencing many people arbitrarily and without explanation.” In a response, Meta claimed that its content moderation practices “appear” to adversely impact the rights of Palestinian users. In 2022, Meta’s Oversight Board claimed it would address the issue. However, the new report demonstrates that the censorship of pro-Palestinian views has been intensified.
Deborah Brown, acting associate technology and human rights director at HRW commented on the findings of the report, saying, “Meta’s censorship of content in support of Palestine adds insult to injury at a time of unspeakable atrocities and repression already stifling Palestinians’ expression. Social media is an essential platform for people to bear witness and speak out against abuses while Meta’s censorship is furthering the erasure of Palestinians’ suffering.”
The summary of the HRW report characterizes the censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook as “systemic and global.” As to the “underlying, systemic factors that contributed to the censorship,” the report identified four sources including “flaws in Meta policies” that identified support for Palestinians as Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI); “inconsistent and opaque application of Meta policies;” “deference to requests by governments for content removals, such as requests by Israel’s Cyber Unit and other countries’ internet referral units to remove content” and heavy reliance on “automated tools for content removal to moderate or translate Palestine-related content.”
The third of these underlying causes points directly to the political forces behind the censorship of pro-Palestinian social media content by Meta. The report states, “According to media reports on November 14, Israel’s Cyber Unit sent Meta and other platforms 9,500 content takedown requests since October 7, 2023, 60 percent of which went to Meta. Platforms are reported to have responded with a 94-percent compliance rate, according to an Israeli official.”
In other words, while Israel’s intelligence agencies have lied to the public repeatedly—from the facts of what took place on October 7 to the scale and scope of the genocide in Gaza—Facebook and Instagram have complied with thousands of requests from the Israeli state to take down social media posts, including those documenting Palestinian suffering or death.
HRW reported that attempts to contact the Israeli Cyber Unit to learn specifics about the posts that were targeted for takedown were not responded to.
In a statement released to the Guardian, Meta said that it makes errors that are “frustrating” to people, but “the implication that we deliberately and systemically suppress a particular voice is false. Claiming that one thousand examples, out of the enormous amount of content posted about the conflict, are proof of ‘systemic censorship’ may make for a good headline, but that doesn’t make the claim any less misleading.”
The documenting of systematic censorship by Facebook and Instagram against pro-Palestinian content by HRW, regardless of the size of the sample and whatever the technical issues involved, exposes the collaboration of Meta, a $1 trillion corporation, with the political establishment and corporate media in pushing the US-Israeli propaganda that is justifying ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/22/rrys-d22.html?pk_kwd=wsws
As Israel fights to destroy Hamas, the group's popularity surges among Palestinians
Brian Mann
RAMALLAH, West Bank — More than two months into Israel's war against Hamas, the militant group's popularity appears to be rising dramatically among Palestinians in the West Bank.
"Hamas made the most important action against Israel since its existence," says Nihad Abughosh, a Palestinian journalist and political analyst, who describes himself as a secular moderate.
"To me it's something like a miracle, the 7th of October," he tells NPR in an interview in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,200 people is viewed in Israel and much of the West as an act of terrorism, that included the killing of women and children. The United States has long designated Hamas a terrorist organization.
But many Palestinians view Oct. 7 very differently — as a legitimate act of defiance.
During more than two weeks of interviews in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, dozens of people told NPR they don't accept evidence that Hamas targeted and killed civilians.
Fadi Quran, a West Bank activist and organizer who works for the progressive advocacy group Avaaz, says he is personally troubled by accounts of Hamas violence against women and children.
But he says many Palestinians refuse to believe those stories.
"Palestinians do not support the harming of innocents," Quran says. "From the first day, there was a question on many Palestinians' minds: Is this all true?"
Quran says he supports a peaceful resolution to the war. But he believes many Palestinians now see Hamas as a symbol of strength and defiance against Israel's occupation.
"This idea that Gaza, after 17 years of blockade, was capable of challenging the blockade, challenging the military occupation, was seen as an inspiring act of resistance," he says.
Surveys conducted since Oct. 7 appear to reflect the surge of support for Hamas in the West Bank.
"Three months ago ... we had 12% support for Hamas in the West Bank, and today it is 44%, so that's more than tripled," says Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research.
Public support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip also rose modestly during the same period, from 38% to 42%, according to the center's survey conducted from Nov. 22-Dec. 2.
The survey, published Dec. 13, found less than half of Palestinians support Hamas as an organization, but respondents showed "wide public support for Hamas' offensive" against Israel.
A previous poll conducted by the group Arab World for Research and Development in late October and early November found 68% of Palestinians in the West Bank supported Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1217758546/hamas-support-palestinians-west-bank
Yeni Safak - December 22, 2023
Israel is displaying barbaric brutality to save Western civilization
By Selçuk Türkyılmaz
The number of publications on Europe's colonial history has been increasing in recent years. The studies on Europe in the last century were constructed on the concepts of the Enlightenment era, and the burdens of colonial past were made invisible. Today, this may seem like a strange expression to Turkish readers, but according to Walter Mignolo, this situation stemmed from their time of colonization. There was a certain hierarchy, and generalizations like modern European thought always represented the summit. Europe had taken on the burden of civilization, trying to bring the outside of Europe to its own time. Until just a few years ago, most of us experienced the resistance of the non-European to this evaluation. Today, however, the veil over the "heinous history" is lifting, and we are witnessing the collapse of ongoing colonial domination. The fact that Europe is now beginning to be seen as a periphery is not an ordinary event, and new studies on Europe's colonial past have a significant share in this.
When Edward Said wrote his book "Orientalism," could anyone have known that the perception of Europe could be shaken so much by a Palestinian-origin intellectual? However, the reactions against him showed that the importance of this new approach was understood. This situation is still valid today. The most brutal attacks on Palestinians that history could witness have revealed the reality of Europe and its natural extension, Israel. We must see that these events open the door to a new historical perspective. Although it may not have fully emerged in Turkish publications, the existence of Israel and the brutality against Palestinians are seen as a continuation of Europe's colonial past. This was an unexpected development. Especially in the foreign press, globally influential newspapers and magazines are addressing Israel's brutal attacks on Palestinians as a continuation of European colonialism. They do not view Israel's brutal attacks as a religious war or explain them with the sacred texts of Jewish history. Israel is clearly considered a colony of Europe and the United States. Undoubtedly, the tremendous resistance displayed by the Palestinians is also seen as an anti-colonial struggle. This is a very important change, and its impact will be better understood over time.
It is impossible not to notice that certain segments in Turkey have fallen into meaningful silence on the issue of Palestine. This silence needs to be interpreted from different angles, but it can be said that this silence stems from not knowing the heinous history of Europe. The direct impact of the terms we use has a significant role in this. To put it more clearly, when it comes to the colonial history of Europe and the imperialist activities of Israel, the existing concepts not only fail to show the reality but also lead to ambiguity. Unfortunately, most of the terms and explanatory models we use have gained meaning based on ideologies that are based on class differences and contradictions. Therefore, it is not possible to see reality in all its clarity. This naturally prevents going beyond universal issues such as exploitation. Yet, today, especially in Palestine, the brutality of nations against other nations is rampant. The issue goes far beyond the concept of the "other."
Generalizations like European history or Europe's colonial history can also be problematic. Therefore, it is especially important to emphasize that Israel's recent brutality directly overlaps with the colonial expansion of the Anglo-Saxons. This is a very important difference. The similarity between the colonial brutality displayed by the Anglo-Saxons in the 19th century in North America, Africa, and Asia and the brutality that Israel is exhibiting in Palestine today is remarkable.
To put it bluntly, generalizations like Western civilization no longer provide a useful ideological perspective. This recent brutality should be charged to the Anglo-Saxons. If the Anglo-Saxons had not allowed Israel, Palestine would not have been drenched in blood from the beginning. This is not a brutality seen recently. Nations are also accomplices in this crime. If there were a different situation, we would have definitely seen some events in the opposite direction by now. But it didn't happen. Israeli President Isaac Herzog's statement, "This war is indeed a war to rescue Western civilization, the values of Western civilization," should have caused a reaction among the Anglo-Saxons as well.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
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