OMNI
GAZA NEWSLETTER # 8
BUILDING A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY. MAY 13, 2021.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(#1: 3-3-08; #2 Nov. 16, 2012; #3 Nov. 17, 2013; #4 May 31, 2014; #5 July 28, 2014; #6 August 30, 2014; #7 April 8, 2015).
What’s at stake: Over 1.5 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. It is not a battlefield. It is becoming an Extermination Camp.
Contents of Gaza Newsletter #8
PART I
ASSAULT ON GAZA MAY 2021
PART II
BACKGROUND: OCCUPATION AND REPRESSION
2010
2014
2018
RESISTANCE
TEXTS
PART I
ANOTHER ISRAELI DECIMATION OF GAZA, MAY 2021
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ALJAZEERA: THANK YOU LUIS for this excellent source of up to date live information. D ick
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this is a good source
A JEWISH AMERICAN SOURCE
Weekly Update - Israel and Gaza on Fire
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CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
What if Palestinians had human rights?
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Protests in 50 U.S. cities demanding end to U.S.-backed Israeli apartheid. ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).
FREE PALESTINE
In response to the Israeli government and Zionist extremists' murderous actions in the last week, there is a new wave of Palestinian mass resistance not only in cities and towns across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but also in many Palestinian cities inside the 1948 borders of Israel. On May 10, a horrifically violent and desecrating attack on the Al-Aqsa mosque left more than 400 Palestinians wounded, with 250 suffering injuries serious enough to require hospital treatment.
In the latest escalation, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on the Gaza Strip. The death toll now reaches over 65, in Gaza. At least 365 people have been wounded, including 86 children and 39 women. Meanwhile, six people were killed on the Israeli side by rocket fire, including the first death of an Israeli soldier in this round of conflict. About 100 Israelis have also been wounded.
Free Palestine! Please make an urgently needed donation to the antiwar and anti-racism movement today. We can only carry on this crucial work with contributions from supporters like you.
Click here to read the full statement by the ANSWER Coalition – Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
Find local actions in your city:https://www.answercoalition.org/?utm_campaign=palestine_3_may_12_2021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition
PART II BACKGROUND
US CAMPAIGN FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS
Ahmad Abuznaid, USCPR via uark.onmicrosoft.com , 5-13-21
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Norman Finkelstein: Palestinians Have the Right to Break Free of the “Unlivable” Cage That Is Gaza
DEMOCRACY NOW STORYMAY 16, 2018
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/16/norman_finkelstein_palestinians_have_the_right
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2 Articles from Popular Resistance.org
Israel: Arms Embargo Needed As Military Unlawfully Kills And Maims Gaza Protesters
By Amnesty.org. Israel is carrying out a murderous assault against protesting Palestinians, with its armed forces killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them, Amnesty International revealed today, based on its latest research, as the “Great March of Return” protests continued in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has killed 35 Palestinians and injured more than 5,500 others – some with what appear to be deliberately inflicted life-changing injuries – during the weekly Friday protests that began on 30 March. Amnesty International has renewed its call on governments... -more-
Why Are Palestinians Protesting In Gaza?
By Mike Merryman-Lotze, Otherwords.org. Once again, the Israeli military has turned its guns on Gaza — this time on unarmed protestors, in a series of shootings over the last few weeks. Gaza’s already under-resourced hospitals are straining to care for the thousands of protesters who have been injured, on top of 40 killed. According to a group of United Nations experts, “there is no available evidence to suggest that the lives of heavily armed security forces were threatened” by the unarmed demonstrators they fired on. The violence is getting some coverage in the news. -more-
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Demolition of Palestinian homes is illegal, UN official says Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes outside Jerusalem violates international laws and increases many Palestinians' risk of forcible transfer, warns Rosemary DiCarlo, head of the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour has asked the UN Security Council to investigate, while Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon says the homes are being demolished legally because they were built without permits. Al Jazeera (7/23) |
Uninhabitable: Gaza faces the moment of truth - Jonathan Cook
https://www.jonathan-cook.net › uninhabitable-gaza
Oct 13, 2019 - Israel has ignored warnings by the United Nations that Gaza is about to become uninhabitable, acting as if Palestinians there can be caged, ...
Uninhabitable - Americans for Middle East Understanding
ameu.org › getattachment › Uninhabitable
The Link pblished by Americans for. Middle East Understanding, Inc. Volume 52, Issue 3. Link Archives: www.ameu.org. Uninhabitable. By. Jonathan Cook ...
Can an Error This Egregious Be Called a Mistake?
· ACTION ALERT: What NYT Called Israel’s ‘1st Incursion’ Was at Least Its 263rd by JOHN MCCULLOUGH. FAIR Fairness and accuracy in reporting, NOVEMBER 16, 2018. DONATE
A New York Times article (11/11/18) misstates the number of recent Israeli ground incursions into Gaza by two orders of magnitude.
In a piece headlined “Deadly Gaza Raid by Israel Threatens Nascent Ceasefire” (11/11/18), the New York Times described an Israeli assault near the city of Khan Yunis that killed seven Palestinians as
the first known Israeli ground incursion into Gaza since Operation Protective Edge, in July 2014, set off a seven-week war.
This depiction of the attack as a unique occurrence in recent times is wildly inaccurate. Since the 2014 Gaza War, the IDF has carried out 262 ground incursions into the Gaza strip, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Seventy of these have occurred in the past year alone. As Henriette Chacar, writing for +972 Magazine (11/13/18), points out:
Israel carried out 21 incursions into Gaza in 2014…. The next year, in 2015, that number more than doubled, to 56 incidents. In 2016 and 2017, 68 and 65 incursions took place, respectively. By end of October 2018, 73 such incidents had been recorded, according to the UN data.
Such incursions are a regular occurrence, but are rarely reported by media or known to the general public. Chacar’s article (which was reposted by Lobe Log—11/14/18) quotes retired Israeli Gen. Tal Russo: “Activities that most civilians aren’t aware of happen all the time, every night and in every region.”
Operations by the Israeli military can have a devastating effect on ordinary Palestinians in Gaza. Combined with the ever-changing “buffer zone” declared by the IDF, they make it difficult for nearby farmers to grow crops or raise livestock, worsening the area’s already tenuous economic situation.
Errors like the New York Times’ minimize the degree to which Israel continues to occupy Gaza, despite claiming to have “disengaged” in 2005, and aid a media narrative in which the IDF is reacting defensively rather than acting as an aggressor.
[I read about this in FAIR’s Extra! (Soundbites, Jan/Feb 2019), to which I subscribe, and in search of it I found the preceding larger original report. –Dick]
Why We Sail, Sail, and Sail Again: Freedom Flotilla 2020 ...
https://canadaboatgaza.org › 2020/01/28 › why-we-sail...
Jan 28, 2020 — The Flotilla will sail again in 2020, at the request of Palestinians of Gaza. This is the year the UN report declared that Gaza will be unliveable. Right now, most of its drinking water is contaminated. Every child shows symptoms of psychological distress.
New Freedom Flotilla will sail for Gaza in summer 2020 ...
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com › 20191202-new-f...
Dec 2, 2019 — The International Coalition of the Freedom Flotilla has announced that it will sail again to the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2020 to try to break ...
51 DAY WAR 2014
UN report on the 2014 Gaza conflict
UN report is a reminder: Over 1.5 million people live in the Gaza Strip. It is not a battlefield. B’Tselem, June 30, 2015 |
The UN report on the 2014 Gaza conflict rejects Israeli government and military officials’ view of what is permissible in combat in densely populated areas. The UN commission’s premise differs from that of these officials, seeing Gaza as the home of over 1.5 million civilians where combat took place, not as a battlefield on which civilians live. The report states that the immense harm to civilians during the fighting cannot be justified nor can IHL be interpreted so as to legalize it, even considering the modus operandi of Hamas and other armed groups. The commission also found that the responsibility for violating IHL rests with the senior political and military officials who drew up the policy and did not change it even when its lethal consequences became clear. |
Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught for more than 50 years.
RELATED
Noam Chomsky: Israel’s Actions in Palestine are "Much Worse Than Apartheid" in South Africa
Aug 08, 2014 | WEB EXCLUSIVE
Uri Avnery on Gaza Crisis, His Time in a Zionist "Terrorist" Group & Becoming a Peace Activist
Aug 08, 2014 | STORY
"A Hideous Atrocity": Noam Chomsky on Israel’s Assault on Gaza & U.S. Support for the Occupation
Aug 07, 2014 | STORY
LINKS
Watch all Democracy Now! interviews about the Gaza conflict
Watch more Noam Chomsky interviews on Democracy Now!
This is viewer supported news
MIT Professor Noam Chomsky discusses U.S. support for Israel; the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS); and the blockade of Gaza. "In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid," Chomsky says. "To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by 'apartheid' you mean South African-style apartheid. … There’s a crucial difference. The South African Nationalists needed the black population. That was their workforce. The Israeli relationship to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is totally different. They just don’t want them. They want them out, or at least in prison."
Click here to watch Part 1 of the interview.
Click here to watch all of Part 2 of the interview.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org,The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with MIT Professor Noam Chomsky. The world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author has written more than a hundred books; one of his latest, Gaza in Crisis. I interviewed him on Thursday.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to ask you about your recent piece for The Nation on Israel-Palestine and BDS. You were critical of the effectiveness of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. One of the many responses came from Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund and its educational program, the Palestine Center. He wrote, quote, "Chomsky’s criticism ofBDS seems to be that it hasn’t changed the power dynamic yet, and thus that it can’t. There is no doubt the road ahead is a long one for BDS, but there is also no doubt the movement is growing ... All other paths toward change, including diplomacy and armed struggle, have so far proved ineffective, and some have imposed significant costs on Palestinian life and livelihood." Could you respond?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, actually, I did respond. You can find it on The Nation website. But in brief, far from being critical of BDS, I was strongly supportive of it. One of the oddities of what’s called the BDS movement is that they can’t—many of the activists just can’t see support as support unless it becomes something like almost worship: repeat the catechism. If you take a look at that article, it very strongly supported these tactics. In fact, I was involved in them and supporting them before the BDS movement even existed. They’re the right tactics.
But it should be second nature to activists—and it usually is—that you have to ask yourself, when you conduct some tactic, when you pursue it, what the effect is going to be on the victims. You don’t pursue a tactic because it makes you feel good. You pursue it because it’s going—you estimate that it’ll help the victims. And you have to make choices. This goes way back. You know, say, back during the Vietnam War, there were debates about whether you should resort to violent tactics, say Weathermen-style tactics. You could understand the motivation—people were desperate—but the Vietnamese were strongly opposed. And many of us, me included, were also opposed, not because the horrors don’t justify some strong action, but because the consequences would be harm to the victims. The tactics would increase support for the violence, which in fact is what happened. Those questions arise all the time.
SHOW FULL TRANSCRIPT ›
MESSAGES VIA AMY GOODMAN’S DEMOCRACY NOW 8-11-14
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- Second 72-Hour Ceasefire Takes Effect After New Israeli Strikes on Gaza
- Palestinian Toll Nears 2,000, Including 456 Children
- Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Boy, 11, in West Bank
- Tens of Thousands Rally Worldwide in Day of Action for Gaza
Delinda Hanley.
What Looms Ahead for the Forgotten Heroes of Gaza? Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. May, 2015. WRMEA, May, 2015, pp. 16-17.
Especially about the Gazan and UNRWA victims and heroes of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014. Focuses particularly on UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl and the Gazan victims. --D
The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza
by Max Blumenthal.
Best-selling author reports on Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza in July 2014
Beginning July 8, 2014, Israel launched air strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza that lasted fifty-one days, leaving over 2,000 people dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians. During the assault, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed and, according to the United Nations, nearly 300,000 Palestinians were displaced.
Max Blumenthal was on the ground during what he argues was an entirely avoidable catastrophe. In this explosive work of reportage, Blumenthal reveals the harrowing conditions and cynical deceptions that led to the ruinous war. Here, for the first time, Blumenthal unearths and presents shocking evidence of atrocities he gathered in the rubble of Gaza.
Reviews
“Max Blumenthal’s new book about this Israeli attack [is] so compelling, so necessary … It humanizes this event like nothing else I’ve read … The book is filled with very well-documented history, facts and statistics relevant to what the Israeli military calls Operation Protective Edge. And all of those are both interesting and important.”– Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
“This will be the definitive history of the Israeli war of 2014 against Gaza. Blumenthal has once again demonstrated his devotion to truth and justice.”– W. Patrick Lang, Former Defense Intelligence Agency head for Middle East / South Asia
“Max Blumenthal audaciously takes in-your-face, on-the-ground journalism into the realm of geopolitics.”– Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs and Engaging the Muslim World
“To really understand what happened, read Max Blumenthal's The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. His concision and clarity are established in the introduction” – Independent
“Max Blumenthal has spent the last decade transforming himself into one of the most vital voices in journalism today, always speaking truth to power with fearlessness and integrity. As with his previous books, The 51 Day War is sure to be talked about for years to come.”– Reza Aslan, author of Zealot and No god but God
“Explosive, pull-no-punches reporting that is certain to stir controversy.”– Kirkus Review
“A gripping eyewitness narrative of the latest pointless war in Gaza last year.”– Foreign Policy
“Tells a powerful story powerfully well.”– David Swanson
“The definitive account of the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza. Max combines the very best of humanistic, on-the-ground journalism with detailed documentation backing up every point he makes.”– Asa Winstanley, Middle East Monitor
In Max Blumenthal’s ‘The 51 Day War,’ Life in Gaza Looks Bleak, But Resistance is Growing BY BEN LORBER Email Print. In These Times (July 2015). Blumenthal offers an unembellished look at the misery on the ground in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Blumenthal allows the young men and women of Gaza to speak.
When American journalist Max Blumenthal arrived in the Gaza Strip on August 14, 2014, it was the 38th day of Israel’s bombardment of the coastal enclave. By the time Operation Protective Edge ended on August 26, over 2,100 Palestinians had been killed, including more than 1,500 civilians and over 500 children, and over 10,000 wounded. With more than 7,000 homes destroyed and 10,000 more severely damaged by Israeli bombing, approximately 30 percent of the 1.8 million residents of Gaza were internally displaced, with hundreds of thousands needing emergency food assistance and seeking shelter in UN-run schools.
Blumenthal’s new book, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, lays bare some of the names, faces and experiences behind these statistics, and stands both as a harrowing account of the destruction wrought by the Israeli army, and a testament to the resilience and strength of the Palestinian people. The book takes us inside the halls of hospitals overflowing with wounded patients and the corpses of innocent adults and children; through the streets of shell-shocked cities and towns, flooded with refugees dodging shrapnel, frantically searching for loved ones and fleeing for safety; and across the blood-stained courtyards of UN schools scorched and decimated by Israeli airstrikes.
MORE https://inthesetimes.com/article/18068/the-51-day-war-operation-protective-edge
"Sadistic & Grotesque": Noam Chomsky on How Israel Limits Food & Medicine in Occupied Gaza
Massacre in Gaza 2018
UN WIRE, April 27, 2018
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Tell Your Members of Congress to Speak Out Against Gaza Massacre
The death toll continues to rise from today’s massacre of unarmed Palestinian protestors by the Israeli military. We urge you to take action by contacting your members of Congress and demanding significant changes to U.S. policy in the region.
Just days after announcing his administration’s intention to violate the nuclear deal with Iran, President Trump went ahead with the provocative move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
For decades, the U.S. government has supported Israel’s development and possession of a substantial nuclear arsenal while going to war against other nations over non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
While Israeli snipers were shooting unarmed Palestinians, including children, from long range, President Trump was hard at work on Twitter. This morning, he tweeted, “Big day for Israel. Congratulations!”
While thousands of Gazan families mourned the injuries and deaths from Israeli bullets, White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah called the massacre “a gruesome and unfortunate propaganda attempt” by Hamas.
As long as the United States government continues to unconditionally support Israel’s unlawful actions, peace between Israel and Palestine, and in the Middle East more broadly, will remain elusive.
Please contact your senators and representative today, and demand that they condemn Israel’s killing of unarmed protestors. Ask them to support sensible, balanced policies that will foster peace and a nuclear-free Middle East, instead of willfully provocative policies designed to further inflame tensions.
Noam Chomsky on Media’s "Shameful Moment" in Gaza & How a U.S. Shift Could End the Occupation
CODE PINK FOR BDS
Gaza, My Love
July 9, 2015 | 1:22 PM (55 minutes ago)
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Dear Dick, This week marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of Israel’s ruinous assault against the besieged people of Gaza, the third such operation since 2008 and the most devastating. Over 2,200 Palestinians were killed during Israel’s 50-day military incursion; 547 of the casualties were children. Many families in Gaza are still living in the rubble of their destroyed homes, and there is little hope of rebuilding while the Israeli blockade of land, sea and air continues. Today—July 9th—we mark the tenth anniversary of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. We believe that BDS is the most effective means at our disposal to hold Israel to account for its war crimes, as well at for its ongoing land theft, dispossession, and discrimination against Palestinians. At CODEPINK we’ve been working to expose real estate giant REMAX for selling illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Please take a moment to send a note to the CEO of REMAX, and tell him to respect international law and immediately halt the sale of illegal Israeli settlements! The growing strength and power of this global movement has Israeli leadersworried, and just this week Hillary Clinton paid tribute to our influence in a letter to top donor Haim Saban in which she vowed to fight BDS. So as we remember those who died in Gaza last summer, we commit ourselves to redouble our efforts on behalf of dignity, equality and justice. Check out our ongoing boycott campaigns: Stolen Beauty, Stop SodaStream, and No Open House on Stolen Land, and send a note to the CEO of REMAX today. In solidarity, Alli, Chelsea, Janet, Jodie, Lia, Medea, Michelle, Mike, Nancy, Tighe, and Sergei | |||||
This email was sent to jbennet@uark.edu.To stop receiving emails, click here.Created with NationBuilder | |||||
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This Land Was Their Land
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Contents of Gaza Newsletter #7
Gaza Newsletter #7 is mainly about the 51 Day War that began July 8, 2014
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2015/04/gaza-newsletter-7.html
Dick, Conversion of US Funds
Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Sept. 25, 2014
Twelve Articles Report the Siege of Gaza, by the Washington Report on Middle
East Affairs
Gaza’s Ark’s Weekly Digest[DB1]
Gaza’s Ark’s Weekly Digest
Gaza’s Ark’s Weekly Digest, Dec. 27, 2014
Noam Chomsky, Brutal Israeli Occupation
Two Reports from Democracy Now
Henry Siegman, “A Slaughter of Innocents”
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, “The Guns of August,” Context of WWI
Three Articles by Marjorie Cohn, Our Country’s Truth and Justice Conscience
Debra DeLee, Americans for Peace Now Available Online Free Daily
Contact President Obama
END GAZA NEWSLETTER #8