Akbar S. Ahmed: Gaza Tests Biden Foreign Policy Team’s Promise To Learn From past Mistakes / Chomsky: Without US Aid, Israel Wouldn’t Be Killing Palestinians En Masse / Photo essay on the suffering of children

By Dilip -

NB: The word 'mistake' is so ugly in the midst of corpses of children and piles of rubble. Led by the US, the western powers have an unofficial and flexible algebra for the numbers of Palestinian civilians killed, hospitals and schools in Gaza destroyed, before they call for a cease-fire. This is not a mistake you shameless people. This is a crime against humanity; this is prolonged and planned ethnic cleansing and you are complicit in it. Read the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide and ask yourselves what is going on in Palestine. Thank God there are persons of conscience in the US, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky who are exposing you for what you are: spineless opportunists. DS

‘Bearing the brunt’: the suffering of children in the Gaza-Israel conflict – photo essay

Gaza Tests Biden Foreign Policy Team’s Promise To Learn From past Mistakes

Two years before Joe Biden won the presidency, 30 national security experts who worked with him under President Barack Obama published a high-profile mea culpa. They called their policy of supporting the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen a “failure,” citing how it hurt civilians, and urged then-President Donald Trump to end it. The move had big implications for U.S. foreign policy. Critically, it acknowledged that Washington’s pattern of arming and aiding other nations made Americans complicit in their actions ― a truth that the Obama administration spent years denying with regard to Yemen. 

Today, 23 of the people who signed that letter are back in government, holding high-ranking jobs under Biden. Their administration is supporting Israel as it pummels Gaza in an offensive that has killed dozens of children and destroyed medical facilities. Although Biden expressed support for a ceasefire during calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and Wednesday, he and his administration have not publicly urged Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, to lay down their arms.

Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)

HuffPost contacted those 23 officials - including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, domestic policy chief Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, and top Pentagon appointees ― to ask how they perceived the situations in Yemen and Gaza differently. None agreed to comment on the record. The organization of Obama alumni that put together the Yemen letter, National Security Action, no longer hosts the statement on its website. U.S. weaponry and international diplomatic support are critical for Israel. Hamas, whose indiscriminate firing has killed at least 12 Israelis in the current round of fighting, has no similar relationship with Washington; America’s influence on its leaders is extremely limited. 

Many experts believe the humane thing to do is obvious. “As a global superpower and Israel’s closest ally, the U.S. has a responsibility to do much more to end this escalation,” the influential liberal Jewish group J Street argued in a Monday statement. The organization asked Biden to publicly tell Israel to stop hitting densely populated areas, call for a ceasefire and abandon his hands-off approach to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.…

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-yemen-gaza_n_60a53b09e4b09092480b81d8

Noam Chomsky: Without US Aid, Israel Wouldn’t Be Killing Palestinians En Masse

Successive Israeli governments have been trying for years to push Palestinians out of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and the latest round of Israeli attacks fall in line with that goal. But to understand the roots of the current escalation - and the possible threat of all-out war - one must examine the U.S.-backed, foundational Israeli government policy of using strategies of “terror and expulsion” in an effort to expand its territory by killing and displacing Palestinians, says Noam Chomsky, in this exclusive interview for Truthout.

Chomsky - a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT - is internationally recognized as one of the most astute analysts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Middle East politics in general, and is a leading voice in the struggle to liberate Palestine. Among his many writings on the topic are The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and Palestinians; Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians; and On Palestine…

https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-without-us-aid-israel-wouldnt-be-killing-palestinians-en-masse/

Why do Americans turn a Blind eye to Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians? / Children are on the frontline of Israel’s war on Gaza – again / How the United States helps to kill Palestinians

‘It’s not fair’: 10-year-old Palestinian girl breaks down while talking about violence in Gaza // Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, Israeli rights group says

Yair Wallach: The violence that began at Jerusalem’s ancient holy sites is driven by a distinctly modern zeal

Chris Hedges - Israel's big lie: This isn't self defense, it's a war crime, aided and abetted by the U.S.

Meredith Tax: Biden is supporting Turkey’s Bounties on Kurdish Leaders / American silence over Israeli land encroachments and attacks on Palestinians

Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)

Israel is committing the crime of apartheid: Human Rights Watch

Israel Guilty of Apartheid, Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians: UN Rapporteur

Palestinians Shot In Kusra Clash With Israeli Settlers

Israel admits it revoked residency rights of a quarter million Palestinians

The Agony of Palestine

URI AVNERY - Is Israel an apartheid state? // Israel announces east Jerusalem settlements

Robert Fisk: In the cases of two separate holocausts, Israel and Poland find it difficult to acknowledge the facts of history // ANDRÉ LIEBICH - Righteous indignation: On the Polish Holocaust law debate

Israel subjecting Palestinian children to 'spiral of injustice' - Children in military custody


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