Al Mayadeen – September 1, 2024
By day 332 of Israeli genocide in Gaza, 40,786 killed, 94,224 injured
Gaza's Health Ministry says Israeli occupation forces committed three massacres in Gaza, killing 48 people and injuring 70 others in only 24 hours.
The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli war on October 7 has risen to 40,786 and those injured 94,224, confirmed the Gaza Health Ministry on Sunday.
In its daily report, the ministry mentioned that Israeli occupation forces committed three massacres in Gaza, killing 48 people and injuring 70 others in only 24 hours.
It also noted that many victims remain trapped under the rubble and on the streets, with ambulance and civil defense teams unable to reach them.
Israeli genocide ongoing
In yet another harrowing Israeli massacre, the Israeli military killed yesterday at least 11 Palestinians in an airstrike on a school in Gaza City that was housing forcible displaced individuals.
The Safad school in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood was struck on Sunday, according to a medical source.
Witnesses reported to Anadolu news agency that the bodies of the deceased were "torn apart and scattered" due to the intensity of the bombing. They also mentioned that one of the school’s buildings, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced people, was destroyed.
In a related development, Israeli warplanes have struck a group of civilians, mostly women, in the al-Tannour neighborhood, located east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Concurrently, an Israeli Apache helicopter has reportedly opened fire on areas in southern Gaza City, as per Al Mayadeen's correspondent.
Our correspondent in Gaza reported renewed Israeli artillery and airstrikes on the northern part of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Civil Defense has reported three fatalities and several injuries resulting from an Israeli airstrike on a civilian vehicle in front of the al-Rimal clinic, west of Gaza City.
Israeli artillery has also targeted the eastern areas of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Al Mayadeen's correspondent.
He also reported that Israeli artillery had shelled the town of Khuza’a, located east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/by-day-332-of-israeli-genocide-in-gaza--40-786-killed--94-22
Al Mayadeen – September 1, 2024
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claim responsibility for Tarqumiyah op
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claim responsibility for the shooting operation executed earlier on Sunday, which killed three Israeli police officers in Tarqumiyah, al-Khalil.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - the military wing of the Fatah movement - claimed responsibility for the shooting operation that eliminated three Israeli police officers in Tarqumiyah, in the southern West Bank governorate of al-Khalil.
Martyr Muhannad Mohammed Al-Asoud carried out the operation earlier on Sunday, according to the statement issued by the Brigades.
It further noted that the operation came as retribution for the martyr's blood and fell under their responsibility to respond to the Israeli massacres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Initially, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, two Israeli police officers were critically injured and one was seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting on Route 35 east of the Tarqumiyah military checkpoint. Israeli emergency services rushed to the scene in an area to the northwest of the city of al-Khalil. Israeli emergency services later announced the death of the three injured soldiers.
Later, Israeli media reported a high-security alert at the site of the shooting, as military reinforcements arrived at the scene.
It is worth noting, as per the Israeli Army Radio, that 11 bullets were fired at the targeted vehicle, and the shooting took place one kilometer from the Tarqumiya military checkpoint.
The operation was conducted amid an ongoing Israeli aggression on the northern governorates of the West Bank in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas. This aggression coincides with continued incursions into several cities and towns across the West Bank.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/al-aqsa-martyrs-brigades-claim-responsibility-for-tarqumiyah
Countercurrent – September 1, 2024
Israel’s Violent Invasion of West Bank Parallels the Early Stages of War on Gaza
By Jeremy Scahill
Israel is in the midst of its largest scale assault of the occupied West Bank since 2002.
Beginning in the predawn hours on Wednesday, hundreds of Israeli forces in columns of armored vehicles and bulldozers backed by drones and helicopters stormed into refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas. Israel also carried out drone strikes and snipers have reportedly been firing on people inside Jenin. Internet and cell phone service, as well as water and sewage systems, were shut down in parts of the West Bank as Israeli forces conducted house raids. Local residents have reported widespread demolitions of their homes and streets and the blocking of ambulances and medical workers attempting to reach wounded people. Israeli forces surrounded the main hospital in Jenin and have reportedly been searching people entering and exiting the facility.
“This is an incredible scaling up of the violence of the preceding months and in particular weeks,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, “with a full military assault, destroying hospitals, destroying roads, destroying vital infrastructure which had already been severely damaged during the preceding months, and Voila!, telling the Palestinians to go, ordering mass evacuations.”
In an interview with Drop Site News, Albanese said, “I see a serious pattern parallel with what is happening in the Gaza Strip”—“patterns of torture, of destruction, of extrajudicial killings, of uprooting that are very similar to Gaza.”
“It is my responsibility to warn against the risk of the genocide leaking into the West Bank. There is similar rhetoric, similar patterns, and escalating violence, ordering similar things.”
Brandishing Israel’s well-worn propaganda ensign of self-defense, foreign minister Israel Katz has described the operation as “a war in every sense,” declaring that Tel Aviv would approach its invasion of parts of the West Bank “exactly as we deal with terror infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian civilians.”
“We are in the post 9/11 era,” Albanese said. “So resistance movements are naturally considered terrorist first, and then it’s very difficult to dismantle this perception which is so entrenched, so ingrained in ordinary people’s mindset. So if politicians say that—and journalists amplify it—probably this is going to convince people that they are protecting all of us from these masses of savages.”
Kamala Harris Pledges Unequivocal Support for the Israel
Israel’s threat of waging a Gaza-style war against the Palestinians of the West Bank comes as the White House has spent weeks assuring the public that it is working “tirelessly” for a ceasefire deal. The administration’s actions, however, make such claims appear cynical. Since the end of July, there has been aﾠspike in U.S. weapons shipments to Israel and August saw the second largest number of military cargo planes delivering munitions and other equipment at Nevatim Air Base since the launch of the war last October.
In the midst of the attacks on the West Bank, Vice President Kamala Harris did her first sit-down interview with a media outlet since she was anointed Democratic nominee for president. Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash, Harris affirmed her ironclad support for Israel, saying she would not withhold weapons shipments. “Let me be very clear. I’m unequivocal and—and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself,” Harris said. “And that’s not gonna change.”
“It is my responsibility to warn against the risk of the genocide leaking into the West Bank. There is similar rhetoric, similar patterns, and escalating violence, ordering similar things.”
Harris made no reference to the siege of the West Bank. The Biden-Harris administration has said little publicly about the Israeli invasion there, reiterating its line that Israel has a right to defend its “very real security needs, which includes countering terrorist activity in the West Bank.” An administration official claimed in a statement to reporters that the U.S. opposes “mass displacements of Palestinians in the West Bank,” but added, “We recognize that localized evacuation orders may be necessary in certain instances to protect civilian lives during sensitive counter-terrorism operations.”
At the Pentagon Thursday, spokesperson Sabrina Singh spoke as though the U.S. and Israel are not in constant contact with Israel about a war that is being underwritten militarily and politically by the U.S. “We are aware that the IDF is conducting operations in the West Bank, but again we don’t have an understanding of what exactly that is,” Singh said. “We are trying to learn more about their operation.”
In an English-languageﾠpost on Twitter/X, Katz, the Israeli Foreign Minister, charged that Iran is smuggling weapons into the West Bank by transporting them via Syria through its border with Jordan and accused Tehran of “working to establish an eastern terror front against Israel through special units of the IRGC, involved in smuggling weapons, funding, and directing terror organizations.”
Katz claimed Jordan needed Western support to confront “Iranian subversion,” saying that a “security fence along the Israel-Jordan border must be constructed quickly to prevent an influx of advanced Iranian weapons.”
Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur, rejected this justification, saying it defied belief that any significant quantity of Iranian weapons would be coming in through Jordan, a country that participated in defending Israel against an Iranian missile strike in April. “Israel is making up arguments to legitimize and normalize its assault. And the U.S. is providing the most important asset. The United States continues to provide political, even legal justification, economic and military support to Israel while it has already committed genocide and escalates its violence against the Palestinians,” she said. “It’s very clear what the U.S. is doing.”
Israeli media outlets have not focused heavily on the Iran angle, instead citing IDF sources describing the operations in the West Bank as “mowing the lawn”—the phrase used by Israel for conducting periodic intense military attacks against Palestinians to assert its dominance. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the IDF has defined two main aims for the operation: “destroying Improvised Explosive Devices and infrastructure for making IEDs” and “killing as many terrorists as possible.” Hebrew-language media have also cited an effort to stop weapons smuggling via Jordan but have not particularly emphasized an Iranian connection.
Hamas Vows to Resume “Martyrdom Operations” Against Israel
Since the invasion began Wednesday morning, armed Palestinian resistance factions, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Al Quds force, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades have launched a defensive guerrilla campaign. On Thursday, Abdel Hakim Hanini, a senior Hamas official, suggested that the group was preparing to engage in suicide bombings inside Israel, a tactic that became common during the Second Intifada, which spanned 2000-2005, but had ended almost entirely after 2006 when Hamas and other groups announced an end to the practice.
“The resistance in the West Bank has begun changing its tactics and returning to martyrdom operations to strike at the occupation within the occupied interior,” Hamas said in a statement outlining Hanini’s announcement. “The resistance’s change in tactics is a result of the settlers and the occupation government crossing red lines in their crimes against the Palestinian people.” Hanini also called on the security forces of the Palestinian Authority to participate in a popular uprising against Israeli occupation forces and settlers.
The change in strategy was announced Thursday after the killings of resistance leaders in the West Bank. Most prominent among those killed in the Israeli operations was Mohammed Jaber, a young Islamic Jihad commander known by the nom du guerre Abu Shuja’a, Father of the Brave. A well-known resistance figure whom Israel had previously claimed to have killed in April, Jaber was reportedly killed Thursday alongside four other Palestinian fighters when Israeli forces attacked the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem. The Israeli military claimed Palestinian resistance forces were storing weapons inside a mosque, but a local official said Jaber was killed in a nearby house and that Israeli forces took his body back to Israel. Islamic Jihad, which is a member of the Tulkarem Brigade that Jaber led, confirmed his death. On Friday, Hamas confirmed that the Jenin commander of Al-Qassam Brigades was also killed by Israeli forces.
While “the right to kill exists in international law,” Albanese stressed, it can only be used “as an extreme measure when the person is posing a danger that cannot be averted. Otherwise, it’s an execution.” She added that “targeted assassinations” of Palestinian resistance figures in occupied territory, including commanders of armed groups, are illegal.
Albanese, citing international law, UN resolutions, and the Geneva protocols, said that Palestinians have a right to take up arms against the invading Israeli forces. “They are in the West Bank and technically they are defending themselves from an unlawful occupier which takes their land.” Israel, she added, has no claim to self defense when engaged in an unlawful invasion. In July, the International Court of Justice issued a ruling reaffirming that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is illegal.
More than 665 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the West Bank since October 7. Since then, Israeli forces have carried out nearly daily raids in parts of the West Bank. During the past 11 months, some 10,200 Palestinians in the West Bank have been detained or imprisoned by Israel, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
Since Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this month and Yahya Sinwar consolidated his control of both the political and military operations of Hamas, the group has stated that it won’t participate in ceasefire negotiations under the current U.S. and Israeli imposed framework. Hamas has charged that the U.S. is deceiving the public on the negotiations, saying that Washington has backtracked from the proposal Biden first described publicly in May, which Hamas said it accepted in early July. The group says the U.S. is supporting Israel’s demand that it be allowed to continue its war on Gaza after an initial exchange of captives and to continue occupying parts of the Strip.
Israel has named its violent incursion into the West Bank “Operation Summer Camps.” Palestinian resistance groups have dubbed it “The Horrors of the Camps” battle. Combined with the unceasing mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the U.S. backing of Israel’s expansion of the war, the attacks on the West Bank could prove the spark that leads to a Third Intifada. History may show it has already begun.
Jeremy Scahill has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill has served as the national security correspondent for The Nation and Democracy Now!. Scahill’s work has sparked several congressional investigations and won some of journalism’s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for “Blackwater.” Scahill is a producer and writer of the award-winning film “Dirty Wars,” which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Countercurrent – September 1, 2024
Israel Destroys ‘Everything’ in Khan Younis
by Dr Marwan Asmar
Khan Younis is a wasteland one blogger wrote referring to the mass destruction of the second biggest city that lies to the south of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army in its Division 98, Friday, withdrew from the city of Khan Younis after a 22-day bloody military operation that left mass destruction in its wake.
The social media has been inundated with news about their withdrawal. However, news websites point out the Israeli army had pulled out from several parts of the cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip after “completing their mission” in these areas.
Initial reports reported that at least nine people have been recovered in different parts of Khan Younis by Palestinian civil defense and there is more expected as the search continues.
“These were originally safe areas as told to us by the Israeli army and then they told us these were combat zones and we had to leave, we left our things behind us and they destroyed it,” one woman who returned said.
Reports talk about widespread destruction, ruined infrastructure and bombed out housing and buildings that have been turned into rubble and wreckage with a sense of déjà vu of when will this destruction end but nobody knows and nobody wants to think about what is next.
Like scenes repeated over the past months, dead bodies lying and strewn on the streets dominate the wrecked city as if this the most natural thing in Gaza.
The spokesman of the Israeli army announced officially, Friday, was the end of operations in Khan Younis as being confirmed by Jewish media reports.
As the army left, they allowed the residents of the city to return back to their houses. Over the past weeks the army have been ordering these people to keep moving but to were?
Now these people have been allowed to come back. People are finding it in total destruction, even more so than they have left it. They are also wondering when will the Israeli army return.
This is their third mass invasion in less than a year.
Many point out including Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the Israeli troop withdrawal means that Israel has lost in Gaza; Other than destruction they have not been able to destroy Hamas fighters, nor get to the underground tunnels or free the 109-or so remaining hostages.
Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.
https://countercurrents.org/2024/09/israel-destroys-everything-in-khan-younis/
Countercurrent – September 1, 2024
China urges Israel to immediately cease all military operations in Gaza
by Ambassador Fu Cong
Remarks by Chinese Ambassador Fu Cong at the UN Security Council Briefing on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question on August 22
President,
I thank Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland and Ms. Louisa Baxter for their briefings.
Gaza has been subjected to more than 10 months of blockade, siege, bombing, and attacks that have killed more than 40,000 people and displaced 1.9 million. 80% of homes in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, and 85% of the area is under emergency evacuation orders imposed by the Israeli military. In the West Bank, nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed since last October. Such a tragedy cannot go on any longer.
The international community has repeatedly sent clear calls for a ceasefire and an end to the fighting. And the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the International Court of Justice have all made clear demands. However, we have seen that Israel has turned a deaf ear to them and has not shown any sign of a ceasefire. More than two months after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2735, the Israeli military operations in Gaza continue causing new casualties every day. At the same time, the repeated provocative and adventurous actions by the Israeli side have intensified the risk of conflict spillovers. The Middle East is hanging by a thread.
It must be noted that blind faith in achieving a total victory in Gaza will only result in more innocent civilian casualties and will not create the conditions for the release of hostages, nor will it bring peace or tranquility to Israel and the region. Ceasefire negotiations and a political solution are the fundamental way out.
It must be noted that humanitarian issues cannot be politicized, hunger cannot be weaponized, and civilian lives cannot be trivialized as bargaining chips. Israel must fulfill its obligations under international humanitarian law by opening all border crossings, guaranteeing rapid and safe access to humanitarian supplies at scale, ceasing restrictions and attacks on the United Nations and humanitarian agencies, and providing support and cooperation for the polio vaccination program in Gaza.
It must be noted that sustainable security can only be achieved by upholding the concept of common security. Regional peace must be built with the responsible participation of all parties. Achieving an independent Palestinian state and implementation of the two-State solution is the only viable way forward for the political settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli question.
China urges Israel to immediately cease all military operations in Gaza, to immediately stop its actions that stoke escalation of the situation in the region, and to end immediately placing obstacles to a ceasefire in Gaza. We urge countries with significant influence to demonstrate a sincere, impartial, and responsible attitude in pushing Israe l to cease its military operations in Gaza as soon as possible and to stop the killing of civilians. China supports the Council in taking further necessary actions to promote the implementation of the relevant resolutions and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.
China stands ready to work with the international community to make unremitting efforts to end the war in Gaza at an early date, alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe, implement the two-State solution, and achieve lasting peace and security in the Middle East.
Thank you, President.
Al Mayadeen – September 1, 2024
Red Sea operations sound death knell for US, Zionist crimes
By Hannan Hussain
These are all of the natural consequences of an illegal occupation that has sought to normalize bloodshed and export terrorism for a long.
In a stunning development, the total number of UK, US and Israel-bound ships has decreased substantially in the Red Sea following "Israel’s" condemnable assault on Hodeidah. Yemen’s critical operations against Western aggressors also appear to rob the occupation of any viable arrangement in the Red Sea to facilitate "Israel"-bound vessels, indicating the extent of internal panic.
Yemen’s highly precise responses amid "Israel’s" raging genocide put the causes and consequences in perspective: the occupation thought it could violate Yemen’s territorial sovereignty and somehow undermine the country’s ironclad solidarity with the Palestinian cause. That assumption has been shattered to the ground as Yemen demands an end to the raging Israeli onslaught. Moreover, rising panic among vessels, their companies, and associated Western interests suggest that continued aggression against Palestinians and the Yemeni people is due cause for further unrest.
First, US naval operations are already in complete disarray. Increased vessel flows to the region will only reinforce US support for a climate of aggression and impunity spearheaded by its occupation allies. Washington’s maritime operations effectively give "Israel" a carte blanche for its glaring war crimes, both within and beyond Gaza. The occupation assault on Hodeidah port is a proof point for all to consider: it was deliberate Zionist aggression aimed at jeopardizing Yemeni lives, as well as their food and humanitarian assistance hub. And despite these glaring Israeli crimes, US naval operations refuse to focus on the root causes of present belligerence in the region, choosing to aid Israeli crimes and targeting legitimate resistance.
These objectives are bound to backfire now. After all, Yemen strengthened its activism in the Red Sea in the wake of Israeli massacres and has been clear that an end to genocidal atrocities was key to ceasing hostilities. Rather than heeding these demands, Washington is embracing an escalatory path against Yemen through its discredited naval coalition. This is the same coalition that put a target on the back of many Western allies and so-called US maritime “defense” partners. Little suggests that reality is going to change.
Look no further than the rampant demise of the coalition and its activities: Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) lacked regional support from the outset, and contributed to a rise in powerful, diversified resistance attacks since January. "Israel" feels it can benefit from US naval operations and use it as a cover to proceed with rogue strikes on sovereign territories, but that assumption has been shot to the ground. The occupation’s Eilat port was forced to do away with 50% of its workforce while economic losses from the Gaza onslaught kept pounding "Israel". Other port losses have reportedly also risen to multimillion-dollar highs. So, where are Washington’s tall promises of lifting confidence among commercial shipping partners, and preventing it from taking a nosedive?
Lets be certain – giving Australia command of the discredited coalition won’t bring Washington and Zionist aggressors in the clear. Contrary to propaganda, Yemen’s capabilities in self-defense, deterrence, and precision attacks have only increased. In fact, Washington’s own media machinery is testifying to the OPG’s grave failures and role in mounting threat perceptions in the Red Sea. Yemen’s sovereignty – like the territorial integrity of any state – is a glaring red line with zero compromise on defense. As long as Washington engages its allies to test these hard-set boundaries, it risks unprecedented damage to its vessels and those that it seeks to protect in the interests of the genocidal regime.
Interestingly, there is considerable regionwide alignment against Israeli atrocities. Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi has already warned that Israel would face severe consequences for assassinating Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh, while regional supporters appear aligned against "Israel’s" unlawful, indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing of Yemen’s port city. "Israel’s" capitulation appears imminent, given its own role in opening up a multifront war through its genocide in Gaza.
The Lebanese, Palestinian and Yemeni resistance have consistently pierced through occupation defenses, made considerable ingress into sensitive locations, and exposed "Israel’s" bluster on getting a ceasefire through. Collectively, IOF faces the formidable task of concealing its tactical and economic losses on more fronts than it can count. Moreover, IOF’s own presence keeps thinning out amid the Gaza onslaught. Battlefield losses and strategic disagreements also cut through any semblance of unity.
These are all of the natural consequences of an illegal occupation that has sought to normalize bloodshed and export terrorism for a long. As "Israel" faces political disintegration from within, millions stand united in Yemen in support of Gaza, defiant against US-British aggression and Israeli crimes on their soil. In light of such solidarity, Washington’s unwarranted attack on Yemen’s missile system this week puts more targets on its back. Such aggression is not an attempt to “protect freedom of navigation,” as the US Central Command insists.
It is a clear declaration of escalation that no amount of US optics or naval adventurism can offset.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/red-sea-operations-sound-death-knell-for-us--zionist-crimes
Democrats refused to allow a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention
The Democrats did not allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC because they did not want to encourage any possible sympathy for the Palestinian people who are facing a genocide fully supported by the Biden-Harris administration.
BY MITCHELL PLITNICK
The Democratic National Convention is over and, for the most part, Democrats are taking a victory lap. They wanted to display unity and enthusiasm for the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket on the convention floor. Both were accomplished, although some chicanery was necessary for the unity display.
To achieve the appearance of unity, discussion of policy in Chicago’s United Center, where the convention was held, was minimized. Gaza is not the only foreign policy issue in this election, of course, but it is by far the most prominent one, the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia notwithstanding. Yet it barely got a mention at the convention.
Only a few words were devoted to Gaza by Democratic speakers, most of them framing the issue primarily in terms of the Israeli hostages still being held there. Much of the hope that some in the Palestinian-American community might have held that Harris would be materially different than Biden on Gaza was dashed when the Democrats refused to allow a Palestinian-American speaker to address the convention.
But why did the DNC make this decision?
The pro-Israel lobby is only part of the reason the Democrats made the foolish decision to disallow a Palestinian-American speaker, and it’s not the major one. Of course, AIPAC and its fellow travelers contribute at all times to the overall trepidation among Democrats to be critical of Israel. AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups have certainly been flexing their financial muscles during this election cycle. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush can attest to that.
But in this case, they played a passive role, limiting their influence on this decision to the fact that Democrats would know they wouldn’t appreciate a Palestinian-American speaker at the DNC. Not only did they generally decline to weigh in publicly on the question, but there was also no buzz about them around this question. Even when these groups make no public statements, when they are actively opposing or supporting something, word gets around. There was none this time.
The reason for that lack of activism is simple: it was unnecessary. First, pro-Israel groups were more concerned that Harris affirm the mantra of “ironclad” support for Israel and enmity to Iran, both of which she did in hawkish terms.
The main reason a Palestinian speaker was refused was much simpler. Whatever Harris might do if she takes office in January, she and the Democratic party are, at least for the moment, fully committed to defending Joe Biden’s unqualified support for genocide in Gaza.
The kind of speech that would have any shot at coming to the DNC floor, like the one State Rep. Ruwa Romman wanted to give would have been perfectly in line with the sort of rhetoric Harris and even Biden have been using. Romman’s mild, very pro-Harris speech barely mentioned Israel and called for a ceasefire without even hinting that the Biden administration was not doing enough to bring one about.
But Romman’s speech would have humanized the Palestinian people. It would have put the face of her loving and doting grandfather on the cold statistics that tell us that over 40,000 lives have been snuffed out by Israel. More, given the call for a ceasefire and hostage deal that the crowd was so moved by from Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg—parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin who is being held in Gaza—and the widespread sympathy for Palestinians among attendees that has reported, the daily defense of ongoing arms shipments and sales to Israel would have become even harder to sustain.
Israel is already largely identified with Netanyahu, and far-right ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Democratic popular support for Israel is slipping, and not only regarding its actions in Gaza. While basic support for Israel’s real security and its existence as a Jewish state still seems to be the majority view among Democrats, this is no longer as clear as it once was.
The Gaza war is unpopular among Democrats, that much is clear. And the general view of Israel among Democrats, while still favorable, is declining. But polls have not yet fully explored how much support there is among Democrats for a Jewish state if that state cannot or will not be a democracy with full, equal rights for all.
These are questions the Democratic leadership does not want to raise. If there was a mission accomplished moment for Harris at the DNC regarding Israel, it was the loud applause that greeted her hawkish statements regarding Israel’s ability to “defend itself,” even if the applause was matched by her empty mantra about Palestinian self-determination.
That support for Israel—given that American weapons are not being used for self-defense but for illegal, offensive operations against civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank and have been since long before October 7—can emerge essentially unaffected by the sympathy shown to Palestinians by the parents of a hostage in Gaza. It can withstand a panel on the sidelines of the DNC about Palestinian rights.
But can it withstand putting a real, human face on the Palestinians being slaughtered en masse on a constant basis in Gaza and increasingly in the West Bank as well?
Democrats don’t think so, and they are likely correct.
If you look carefully at the words Kamala Harris spoke at the DNC and elsewhere, they are virtually identical to the words Joe Biden has been using for many months, well before he unveiled his ceasefire proposal at the end of May. The difference between the two of them is that Biden sometimes forgets or decides not to add the words of sympathy for Palestinians who have been killed and injured and that Biden comes across as utterly phony when he does speak those words. Harris projects more empathy, genuine or not.
That’s the Democrats’ tactic, as it has been for decades. Continue monstrous policies, but find political forces or others to blame for it while convincing American voters that this time they’re really and truly going to change their policies.
The tactic is only partially effective, but it’s enough for most Democratic voters to put aside genocide against Palestinians. A major factor in the tactic being even that effective is the anti-Palestinian racism most liberals and moderates hold, consciously or otherwise. Genocide can only be written off as just a policy debate if the people being killed are not seen as fully human.
That was the case for Jews in World War II. It was the case for Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, and the Timorese in the late 1970s. All of these, it’s worth noting, happened entirely or mostly with Democrats in the White House, and in each case, the administrations were heavily criticized, mostly after the fact, over their support or inaction. There are more examples, and it’s important to note that those further examples include numerous atrocities committed through the willful participation or indifference of Republican presidents as well.
Ruwa Romman, or someone like her, would have made it much harder for Democrats to see the people of Gaza as mere statistics, or unfortunate casualties of a war that, Americans are constantly and falsely told, “was started by Hamas.” Of course, it dates back many decades further than October 7, 2023.
Republicans have no such concerns. The base there sees Israel on a divine mission and sees all Muslims and Brown Christians as lesser and easily killed if they stand athwart “God’s plan.” But Democrats, with some exceptions, need to be able to see Israelis as the “good guys” even if they don’t see the Israeli government that way. Concomitantly, they need to see Palestinians as unrelatable, as abstract images that can be reduced to casualty statistics. Humanize them, and it becomes much harder to reconcile being progressive except for Palestine. The Democrats couldn’t have that at the DNC, and they didn’t need AIPAC to tell them so.
Rahul Gandhi:
Govt. machinery a ‘mute spectator’ despite continuous attacks on Muslims
BJP govt. has given a free hand to such miscreants, says Congress leader
PTI
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday (September 1, 2024) accused the BJP government of being a "mute spectator" in the face of "continuous attacks" on minorities, especially Muslims, and demanded the strictest action against "anarchist elements" behind such incidents.
His comments come in the wake of two incidents of mob violence in the BJP-ruled Haryana and Maharashtra.
On August 27, a Muslim migrant from West Bengal was beaten to death allegedly by cow vigilantes in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri over suspicions that he had eaten beef. Another person was injured in the attack.
In Maharashtra, an elderly man was abused and beaten up in a train on the suspicion of carrying beef. He was travelling to Kalyan.
‘Rule of fear’
Sharing screenshots of the two incidents, videos of which have been doing the rounds on social media, Mr. Gandhi said those who climbed the ladder of power by using hatred as a political weapon were continuously establishing the “rule of fear” in the country.
"The hateful elements hiding in the form of the mob are openly spreading violence, challenging the rule of law. These miscreants have got a free hand from the BJP government, that is why they have developed the courage to do so," the former Congress chief said in a post in Hindi on X.
Despite continuous attacks on minorities, especially Muslims, the government machinery had remained a "mute spectator", he said.
The authority of the law should be established by taking the strictest action against such "anarchist elements", Mr. Gandhi said in a post in Hindi.
"Any attack on the communal unity of India and the rights of Indians is an attack on the Constitution, which we will not tolerate at all," he said. "No matter how much the BJP tries, we will win this historic battle to unite India against hatred at any cost," the Congress leader said.
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Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
