Daily Sabah – October 27, 2023
Many feared dead as Israeli airstrikes reduce Gaza mosque to rubble
Israel on Thursday launched a targeted airstrike on the historic Al-Abyad Mosque located in the northern Gaza Strip leaving many people fearing the worst.
This devastating attack was just one in a series of airstrikes that took place in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, as reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
The Al-Abyad Mosque, a place of deep significance for the local community, was the unfortunate target of several missiles, resulting in its complete destruction.
The root of this recent conflict in Gaza traces back to the initiation of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by the Palestinian group Hamas.
On Oct. 7, this operation began with a multipronged, surprise attack that included a barrage of rocket launches and daring infiltrations into Israel, both by land, sea and air.
Hamas cited the incursion as retaliation for the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the increasing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.
In response to these events, the Israeli military launched an extensive and relentless bombardment of Hamas targets within the Gaza Strip.
The consequences of this conflict have been truly devastating, with nearly 8,500 lives lost, including at least 7,028 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis.
But the devastation does not stop there.
Gaza, home to 2.3 million residents, has been grappling with dire shortages of essential resources, including food, water, medicine and fuel.
Despite the urgent need, aid convoys allowed into the enclave have been able to provide only a fraction of the assistance required to alleviate the suffering of the local population.
The situation in Gaza is dire, with both human lives and cultural heritage at stake as the region grapples with the ongoing repercussions of this conflict.
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/many-feared-dead-as-israeli-airstrikes-reduce-gaza-mosque-to-rubble
Palestinian Resistance to Meet Russian Authorities: Zakharova
Russia calls for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of negotiations on the creation of a Palestinian state.
On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova confirmed that representatives from the political wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas will hold meetings with Russian authorities in Moscow.
While she did not provide more details about the meetings, the RIA Novosti agency reported that the deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, Musa Abu Marzuq, is leading the delegation.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said that he had met with the political leadership of Hamas in Qatar to discuss the "fate of the kidnapped individuals."
Currently, Hamas is holding at least 224 Israelis in Gaza, including at least three Russian dual nationals, according to Ambassador Anatoli Viktorov.
Additionally, at least 23 Russian citizens have died during the conflict. Russia has urged the Islamist group to immediately release all the hostages it holds.
Bogdanov also indicated that the Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, will soon travel to Moscow and hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated today that Russia calls for an "immediate" ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the resumption of negotiations on the creation of a Palestinian state, "which was promised to them almost 75 years ago."
The visit of the delegation from Hamas's political wing to Moscow coincides with the presence in Russia of Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani, who met with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Galuzin in Moscow.
By Ian Bremmer
Ultimately, there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas is as much an idea as it is an organization made up of specific people: Israel can kill its entire leadership and destroy its infrastructure, but the movement and ideology will survive in one form or another so long as the political conditions that underpin its support continue to fester. The only way Israelis can achieve lasting security is by offering Palestinians a credible pathway to realize their legitimate aspirations for self-determination by peaceful means.
Ian Arthur Bremmer (born November 12, 1969) is an American political scientist, author, and entrepreneur focused on global political risk. He is the founder and president of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm. He is also a founder of GZERO Media, a digital media firm.
Countercurrent – October 26, 2023
‘Human Animals’: The Sordid Language behind Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
Dr Ramzy Baroud
“(Tutsis) are cockroaches. We will kill you.”
Arabs are like “drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”
The first quote was a line repeated frequently by the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, a Rwandan radio station, which is largely blamed for inciting hatred towards the Tutsi people.
The second is by former Israeli army Chief-of-Staff, Gen. Rafael Eitan in 1983,ﾠspeaking at an Israeli parliament’s committee.
Rwanda’s hate-filled radio stationﾠoperated for only one year (1993-94), yet the outcome of its incitement resulted in one of the saddest and most tragic episodes in modern human history: the genocide of the Tutsis.
Compare ‘Radio Genocide’ to the massive Israeli-US-Western propaganda, dehumanizing Palestinians almost with identical language to that used by Hutus media.
Many seem to forget that, long before the Gaza war, on October 7, and even long before the establishment of Israel itself in 1948, the Zionist-Israeli discourse has always been that of racism, dehumanization, erasure and, at times, outright genocide.
If one is to randomly select any period of Israeli history to examine the political discourse emanating from Israeli officials, institutions and even intellectuals, one is to draw the same conclusion: Israel has always built a narrative of incitement and hatred, thus making a constant case for the genocide of Palestinians.
Only recently, this genocidal intent is becoming obvious to many people.
“There is (..) a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People,” the UN expertsﾠsaid in a statement on October 19. But this ‘risk of genocide’ is not born out of recent events.
Indeed, effective political or military actions anywhere in the world hardly take place without an edifice of text and language that facilitates, rationalizes, and justifies those actions. Israel’s perception of Palestinians is a perfect illustration of this claim.
Prior to the establishment of Israel, Zionists denied the very existence of the Palestinians. Many still do.
When that is the case, it becomes only logical to draw a conclusion that Israel, in its own collective mind, cannot be morally culpable of killing those who have never existed in the first place.
Even when Palestinians factor into the Israeli political discourse, they become “bloodthirsty animals”, “terrorists” or “druggedﾠcockroaches in a bottle”.
It would be too convenient to label this as just ‘racist’. Though racism is at work here, this sense of racial supremacy does not exist to merely maintain a socio-political order, in which Israelis are masters and Palestinians are serfs. It is far more complex.
As soon as Palestinian fighters from Gazaﾠcrossed into the southern border of Israel, killing hundreds, not a single Israeli politician, analyst or mainstream intellectual seemed interested in the context of the daring act.
The post-October 7 language used by Israelis, but also many Americans, created the atmosphere necessary for the savage Israeli response which followed.
The number of Palestinians killed in the first eight days of the Israeli war against Gaza has reportedly exceeded the number of casualties who were killed during the longest and most destructive Israeli war on the Strip, dubbed “Protective Edge”, in 2014.
According to DCI–Palestine, a Palestinian child isﾠkilled every 15 minutes and, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health,ﾠover 70% of all of Gaza’s casualties are women and children.
For Israel, none of these facts matter. In theﾠmind of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, often perceived as a ‘moderate’, the “rhetoric about civilians not (being) involved (is) absolutely not true.” They are legitimate targets, simply because they “could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime”, he said, referring to Hamas.
Therefore, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” according to Herzog, who promised payback.
Ariel Kallner, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party,ﾠexplained Israel’s goal behind the Gaza war. “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948,” he said.
The same sentiment wasﾠconveyed by Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, the man responsible for translating Israel’s declaration of war into an action plan: “We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly,” he said on October 9. ‘Accordingly,’ here, meant that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.” And, of course, thousands of dead civilians.
Since Israel’s top political authorities have already declared that all Palestinians are collectively responsible for the October 7 events, this means that all Palestinians are, per Gallant’sﾠassessment, ‘human animals’, deserving no mercy.
Expectedly, Israel’s supporters in the US and other Western countries joined the chorus, also using the most violent and dehumanizing language, thus cementing mainstream Israeli political discourse among ordinary people.
US presidential hopeful, Nikki Haley,ﾠtold Fox News on October 10 that the Hamas attack was not just on Israel but “is an attack on America”. It was then that she made her sinister declaration, while looking directly at the camera, “Netanyahu, finish them, finish them (..) finish them!”
Though US President Joe Biden, and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not use the exact same words, they both madeﾠcomparisons between the October 7 events and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Theﾠmeaning behind this requires no elaboration.
For his part, US Senator Lindsey Grahamﾠrallied American conservative and religious supporters, declaring on October 11, also on Fox News, “We are in a religious war here. (…) Do whatever the hell you have to do. (..) Level the place.”
Much more, equally sinister language was – and continues – to be uttered. The outcome is being broadcast around the clock. Israel is ‘finishing off’ the Gaza civilian population, it is ‘leveling’ thousands of homes, mosques, hospitals, churches and schools. Indeed, it is producing another painful episode of the Nakba.
From Golda Meir’s “Palestinians did not exist” (1969) to Menachem Begin’s Palestinians are “beasts walking on two legs” (1982), to Eli Ben Dahan’s “Palestinians are like animals, they aren’t human” (2013), to numerous other racist and dehumanizing references, the Zionist discourse remains unchanged.
Now, it is all coming together, the language and the action are in perfect alignment. Perhaps, it is time to start paying attention to how Israel’s genocidal language is translated to an actual genocide on the ground. Sadly, for thousands of Palestinian civilians, this awareness is simply too late.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website isﾠwww.ramzybaroud.net
Indian Express - October 25, 2023
First came Zionist terror
Peace can come only through dialogue, not by increasing but de-escalating violence, and thus ensuring justice for all
By Mani Shankar Aiyar
It is ironic that Israel is calling on the world to condemn Hamas terrorism when Zionist terrorism, involving several future Prime Ministers of Israel, was at the heart of the Zionist movement from at least the early 1940s. Even more ironically, its media voice was a newspaper called Hamaas, meaning “Resistance” in both Arabic and Hebrew. It was the mouthpiece of the terrorist group Lehi (a Hebrew acronym for Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) led by Abraham Stern whose later breakaway faction came to be called the Stern Gang. Perhaps the most notorious member of the Stern Gang was Menachem Begin, destined to become Prime Minister of Israel (1977-1983).
The Zionist terrorists sought and obtained the collaboration of Haganah, the official armed wing of the Zionist forces, described by Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary in the late 1930s, as “a Jewish army” designed to secure “eventual Jewish military supremacy in Palestine”. They also obtained the cooperation and collaboration of Palmach, a wing comprising the “crack forces” of Haganah, composed mainly of “Jews from the east who looked and spoke like Arabs”, and specially trained for terrorism, sabotage and ruthless assassination. Palmach’s numbers included Yigal Allon, another future PM of Israel, the infamous Moshe Dayan, future Defence Minister of the country, as well as Itzhak Shamir, a future Speaker of the Israeli Knesset. These groups were conjoined with the most determined terrorist group of all, Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation, generally known as “Irgun”), the terrorist wing of the Revisionist Party that opposed the Jewish Agency that was deemed by the British Mandatory authorities to be the majority representative of the Yishuv (Hebrew for the Jewish immigrants into Palestine). In the final stages of the struggle for the State of Israel, the activities of these groups were coordinated by Tenuat Hameri Ha’ivri (Jewish Resistance Movement), the “single agency which would control the common fight”. This was done with the blessings of the hitherto non-violent Jewish Agency run by David Ben-Gurion, the first PM, and Golda Meir, the second PM of Israel.
The terrorist character of the Zionist Movement had its origins in what was initially a sharp division of opinion and strategy between the London-based Chaim Weizmann, representing the World Zionist Congress, and the fiery, extremist Polish immigrant into Palestine, Vladimir Jabotinsky. It was Weizmann who, along with Rothschild, had squeezed out of the British Government the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which first envisaged a “homeland “ for the Jews in Palestine. Within Palestine, Weizmann was represented by Ben-Gurion, who headed the Jewish Agency. They were bitterly opposed by the Revisionist Party founded by the Polish Jabotinsky, who had witnessed three million Jews suffer horribly in Poland’s repeated anti-Semitic pogroms. While Weizmann and Ben-Gurion chose to ride on the shoulders of British imperialism to realise a Jewish state, Jabotinsky and his Revisionists insisted that it was through terrorism, fighting in the streets, that Israel would be won. So, Jabotinsky founded Irgun and resorted to acts of unbridled violence. While Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky were on opposite sides through the 1920s and ‘30s, later, especially during and after WWII, disillusioned with Britain’s hesitation in relinquishing its League of Nations mandate over Palestine and unwillingness to entrust Palestine wholly to the Jews, the Jewish Agency came to collaborate with the terrorists to bring closer their common dream of Israel.
Their acts of terror included: Laying mines; stocking and using several hundred explosive devices, including what we now call IED; and blowing up railway lines, railway bridges, railway stations, rail depots, goods yards, loco sheds, and railway factories. Sabotaging ports was their speciality. They also attached limpet mines to police launches and ambushed lorries carrying government armaments. They made such devastating use of home-made mortars that the police took to calling them “V3s” in remembrance of the V1s and V2s that Hitler had used in his blitzkrieg against London, Coventry, and other British cities. They also kidnapped Arab and British policemen and used them as hostages or shot them dead. They resorted to hijacking convoys carrying cash for banks and looted armouries of the police and army, killing without mercy the accompanying guards. On November 6, 1944, the former Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne was shot by Lehi terrorists and died the same evening, infuriating Churchill, the staunchest supporter of Zionist immigration into Palestine. The most dramatic of these acts of terror, however, was the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946 that housed the Mandate’s secretariat and the headquarters of the army. This was followed by the assassination of the UN mediator, Count Bernadotte, in September 1948. The victims of Zionist terror included countless Arabs, numerous Jewish dissidents or rival Jewish terrorists, British cops and soldiers, and nameless innocents.
Thus was Israel born out of terrorism and as the massacre at Deir Yassin on April 10, 1948, orchestrated by Menachem Begin showed, when Israel became a State by UN decree, its principal national security plank was terrorising the Palestinians to drive them out of their homesteads as also the Arabs who could not or would not flee Israel. Such terrorising became — and has remained — the key element in its policies towards Palestinians, whether living inside Israel or in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip.
That is why Israel has resolutely refused to implement the UN’s 1967 “Land for Peace” resolution, which envisaged an independent Palestine state living in harmony alongside Israel. Israel also failed to sincerely implement the 1993 Oslo Accord and the White House Rose Garden accord of the same year, to both of which Yasser Arafat committed himself. This, in turn, sparked a series of intifadas in the West Bank, especially after Arafat’s death in 2004. In the face of the apparent capitulation of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Hamas won the popular vote in Gaza. Initially determined to drive Israel into the Mediterranean, Hamas has since moderated its position to accept a “two-state” solution that Israel continues to deny. Thus has Israeli terrorism spawned ever-escalating Palestinian terrorism. Peace can come only through dialogue, not by increasing but de-escalating violence, and thus ensuring justice for all.
The writer is a former Indian Union minister
Israel, with the Christian West has started a religious war against Muslims
By Ersin Çelik
…..the genocide supported by Western countries is being repeated in Gaza.
Israel's 17-year blockade of Gaza, with more than 2 million people inside, is a thought and act of recurring genocide to completely annihilate it. The Gaza genocide is occupation for Israel, to completely seize Palestinian land. For the U.S. and European countries, it is a "holy war." Western civilization has either actively supported every occupation, war, and blockade against Muslim people, or turned a blind eye to the rivers of blood with a policy of "neutrality."
The motivation for Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs to annihilate the Muslim Bosniak people and the hatred to destroy Gaza with those inside are one and the same. Zionist Israel and Evangelical West's alignment against the Muslim Palestinian people essentially targets all Muslims and Islamic countries. Muslim communities still believe that this extraordinary alliance, which has not touched them and is not targeting them, will be stopped through negotiations. Thinking that an agreement ground will be built while preserving current interests would be a great mistake to carry into the future.
We need to name it clearly: Israel, with the Christian West it has taken under its dominion, started a religious war against Muslims. They will not turn back from this path because all their motivation, courage, and desire to kill come from the religions they have corrupted. Such a force with eyes wide shut can only be met with force. The idea that our newspaper, Yeni Şafak, has been emphasizing for a week, the idea of Islamic countries forming a joint military force, is currently the most significant deterrent option. Without taking a concrete step and implementing a deterrent policy, the next invasion step will be even larger.
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/columns/ersin-celik/the-crusades-and-the-islamic-army-3672453
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