Free Free Palestine!

UPDATE: Israel bombs Gaza hospital killing 500, ignites protests across Middle East: Israel accused of committing a 'crime of genocide' after hospital massacre

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-invasion-live

photo by Amjad Doumani

Free Free Palestine!

words and some photos by C.A. Matthews

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Free, free Palestine!”

I had thought about writing a piece this week about war propaganda after being inundated with the stuff (almost to the point of overdosing on it) via the mainstream media. I would have talked about how I once wrote a paper for a college sociology class on the effects of propaganda during World War I, and how these very same propaganda techniques carry on today with our government’s selling of the Ukraine proxy war and now this current ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Then I attended a local peace demonstration—and then another a day later—to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are being bombed and starved out of existence by the Israeli government, and I changed my mind. The following photos and memes tell their story better than my words could break through the Western pro-war propaganda.

A picture paints a thousands words—and engenders empathetic feelings that only sociopaths can deny. Alas, the United States of America is a country run by sociopaths and their followers.

But propaganda alone cannot wipe away unforgettable images from the human brain. That’s why the mainstream media and many Western governments—France and Germany leading the way—are banning protests and any mentions of sympathy with the Palestinian cause on online platforms to keep the public away from seeing inconvenient photos and videos. Watching the Israeli Defense Force wipe out entire apartment blocks and destroy hospitals and schools doesn’t quite sell the Western viewpoint that Israelis are “innocent” occupiers of the Palestinian homeland.

Those little Palestinian boys and girls lying in morgues in Gaza just “accidentally” ran into an IDF bullet or bomb, right? They deserve what they got coming to them according to the Israeli defense minister with the laughable name of “Gallant.” He ungraciously labeled the Palestinian people “human animals.” Animals that needed to be put down, in his opinion.

The racism doesn't stop there. In the US, MSNBC suspended three Muslim anchors during Israel’s Gaza assault because it didn’t want Muslims reporting on the violence against the Palestinian people. Can you imagine why an American propaganda outlet wouldn’t want a Muslim face talking about how the IDF is committing genocide? Maybe MSNBC thought it would upset their Islamophobic American audience?

Being forced to live in a concentration camp like Gaza should bring back painful memories to Americans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t for the white majority. Unless your immediate relatives or ancestors have been forced to live on a reservation like Native Americans, or been locked up in an internment camp like Japanese-Americans were during the 1940s, or held in the bonds of slavery for over two centuries because you came from Africa, then you’ve probably no real idea what it means to be held prisoner with members of your ethnic group. You lucked out because of your skin color, religion, money, and/or connections with power. You should be eternally grateful that such great fortune has smiled upon you and yours.

I’ve noticed sometimes it’s those who have been blessed with the most “freedoms” who are the stingiest and meanest when it comes with sharing freedom with others. I wonder why is that?

The modern state of Israel isn’t yet one-hundred years old, and already it’s made a mess of the Middle East by attempting to exterminate indigenous peoples. The modern state of Israel was created by those who survived the Holocaust and then discovered that their governments didn’t particularly want them in Europe anymore. These survivors decided to guilt-trip the powers-that-be after the war to allow them to take over the British Mandate of Palestine, and it worked. Europe was free of Jews, and the Palestinians’ worst nightmare had just begun.

Excuse me for thinking this was a terrible idea from the start. The Europeans who harmed their Jewish citizens during WWII should have made reparations to them and given them their original homes, lands, and businesses back in their home countries—not just send them into another people’s country on another continent. The Holocaust survivors were Europeans after all, not Middle Easterners.

White European powers are always looking for some “empty land” (like North America in 1492 or Palestine in 1947) to give out to those they’ve hurt. It helps to kick out people you don't want to see anymore so you don’t have to keep looking directly into their hurt faces and feel guilty for what you did. Sending those you hurt off on a boat to a far distance shore is a convenient way out of dealing with your crimes against your fellow countrymen and women, isn’t it?

It’s not so convenient for the innocent people whose lands and resources are to be taken away by those you hurt though, is it? The survivors, the hurt ones have taken on the role of European colonizers now, and they don’t want to see the faces of the indigenous peoples they’re displacing because it’s only adds to their guilty feelings. It’s best just to wipe the indigenous peoples off the map completely so their faces will be no more. Once the Palestinians are gone, the Israelis can rest easy knowing that they’ll never come back to haunt the land.

But they will come back to haunt you… Those faces should haunt you if you possess an ounce of humanity. The sociopaths and psychopaths of the modern War Machine aren’t particularly haunted by those they’ve slaughtered unfortunately. There’s simply too much money to be made in armament sales. Once you mix European colonizers’ enthusiasm for stealing land from indigenous people with the psychopathology of the Endless War crowd, then you have the perfect recipe for ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Caitlin Johnstone states it succinctly:

Stop calling it the “Israel-Hamas war”. It’s the Israel-Gaza massacre. Calling it the Israel-Hamas war creates the false impression that this is a war that is directed exclusively at Hamas when it’s really an ethnic purge that’s directed at all Palestinians in Gaza.

The child body count alone makes it clear that this isn’t a war against Hamas; I saw an anonymous account point out on Twitter that the number of children killed in this onslaught after one week already exceeds the total number of children killed after a year and a half of fighting in Ukraine, per the United Nations.

Laying complete siege to a civilian population and bombing anything that stands would be an extraordinary abomination in any war. And this is not a war, it’s an enclosed shooting range with military explosives and human targets. --It’s Not the Israel-Hamas War, It’s the Israel-Gaza Massacre

Guess what’s not happening in the modern state of Israel? They’re not following the human rights laws of the United Nations. Worse yet, they’re not even following the commandment, “Thou shall not kill,” either. No one can convince me the modern state of Israel is based upon religion and morality. Recent surveys show how modern Israelis are extremely prejudiced against Palestinians and wouldn’t dare let their son or daughter date or marry one. Kill a Palestinian to take his homeland, yes, but marry one? No.

So, don’t kid a kidder who was born in the South and has witnessed racism up close. Israel is all about racism and white European settler colonialism, pure and simple. It's not about the Jewish religion. My American Jewish contacts support the Palestinians and their desire to have their homeland back, and they don’t disown their family members who marry outside the faith. That’s not was being an observant Jew is all about, I’m told.

I’m not falling for the cultish propaganda circulating on the internet about how Israel's massacre of the Palestinian people is all about “The End Times” or Armageddon and Jesus returning. As if! The Netanyahu government is taking their cues from the Ku Klux Klan or the Third Reich, not the Bible. After all, the book of Genesis states all human beings were made in God’s image. Why should we destroy God’s own handiwork--our fellow human beings-- if we truly believed in what the Bible says? Wouldn’t that make God sad and angry?

The saddest part of all is the US military helping Israel commit war crimes and not helping save the innocents. Not only are the US “Ministry of Truth” propagandists tasked with convincing the public that “Ukraine is winning the war against Russia,” they’ll have to convince us that simultaneously starting a war with Iran (that says it backs Hamas) is a good idea. Billions of dollars of armaments sent to two hot spots on the globe that is raising the risk of setting off a nuclear world war…

Settler colonialism seems to be at the root of many problems in the world. Diplomacy and peace talks could help solve these problems. Bombing innocent children, starving them, preventing them and their families from getting to safety, and then stealing their homeland won’t solve anyone’s problems.

When has genocide ever solved anyone’s problems?

Chris Hedges says it well:

This is not a war. It is the obliteration of civilians trapped for 16 years in the world’s largest concentration camp. Gaza is being leveled, flattened, destroyed, reduced to rubble. Hundreds of thousands of its impoverished residents will be killed, wounded or left homeless without food, fuel, water and medical help. Nearly 600 children are already dead. (As of today, it’s 1250 Palestinians killed.)

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been forced to close 14 food distribution centers leaving half a million people without food relief. Gaza’s only power plant has run out of fuel. The United Nations says 12 of its staff have been killed by Israeli air strikes, 21 out of 22 UNRWA health facilities in Gaza have been damaged and hospitals lack basic medicines and supplies.

 Israel, as it has in the past, will block the dissemination of independent reporting and images once some 360,000 soldiers launch a ground assault. It cut internet service in Gaza on Saturday. The brief glimpses of Israeli atrocities that make it out will be dismissed by Israeli leaders as anomalies or blamed on Hamas.

The West refuses to intervene, as 2.3 million people, including 1 million children, are deprived of food, fuel, electricity and water, see their schools and hospitals bombed and are butchered and rendered homeless by one of the most advanced military machines on the planet.  – This Way for the Genocide, Ladies and Gentlemen

 Free, free Palestine! NOW. Tomorrow may be too late.

From Twitter/X:

RECAP #Israel #Palestine (as of 21:00 GMT, 15 October) 1. The death toll in Gaza has exceeded 2,450 people with over 60% of the victims being children and women 2. At least 1,000 are still missing under the rubble and over 9,600 have been wounded 3. In Israel, the death toll has reached 1,400 people while 3,400 are wounded, with scores of captives still being held in Gaza 4. At least 12 journalists have been killed since the start of the war, 10 of them Palestinian and one Israeli, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists 5. Israel dropped equivalent to “a quarter of a nuclear bomb” according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor 6. 47 families have been “entirely wiped out from the civil registry” 7. Gaza’s healthcare system is “taking its last breath amid Israeli massacres” 8. Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded patients which they can no longer cater for, and people seek shelter in the hospital corridors. 6 hospitals in Gaza have shut down after being bombed 9. Fire exchanges between Israel and Lebanon have escalated, as Hezbollah vowed to react if Israel’s aggression on Gaza does not end 10. The Palestinian health ministry says one Palestinian is killed every five minutes in Gaza, while an emergency mass grave has been established to cater for the high number of dead 11. Israel is seeking to close down Al Jazeera’s bureau in the country, with their journalists facing harassment 12. Palestinians in Gaza are in danger of mass ethnic cleansing, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, warned

 

Related Articles and Links

MSNBC Suspends Muslim Anchors Amid Israeli War in Gaza https://www.arabnews.com/node/2391271/media

This Way for the Genocide, Ladies and Gentlemen https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/this-way-for-the-genocide-ladies

I Wish Americans Could See the Humanity of Palestinians as They Do With Israelis https://truthout.org/articles/i-wish-americans-could-see-the-humanity-of-palestinians-as-they-do-with-israelis/

Israel’s Colonial Revenge Genocide in Gaza is only the latest in a Long History of such Massacres https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/colonial-genocide-massacres.html

Big Lies and Gaza https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/big-lies-and-gaza

Source of Dubious ‘Beheaded Babies’ Claim is Israeli Settler Leader Who Incited Riots to ‘Wipe Out’ Palestinian Village
https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/12/source-of-dubious-beheaded-babies-claim-is-israeli-settler-leader-who-incited-riots-to-wipe-out-palestinian-village/

Palestine Today https://palestinetoday.quora.com/Baby-beheadings-and-Rape-are-All-Israeli-Lies-Repeated-by-West-to-Justify-Genocide-in-Gaza-and-Incite-Rage

 ‘A Massive War Crime’: Israel Begins Total Blockade Of Gaza Strip
https://popularresistance.org/a-massive-war-crime-israel-announces-total-blockade-of-gaza-strip/ 

re Obscuring Settler Colonialism in Their Gaza Coverage https://truthout.org/articles/corporate-media-outlets-are-obscuring-settler-colonialism-in-their-gaza-coverage

Palestinians Speak the Language of Violence Israel Taught Them
https://unac.notowar.net/2023/10/09/palestinians-speak-the-language-of-violence-israel-taught-them/

'Genuinely Shocked They Aired It': CNN Interview Cuts Through Pro-Israel Propaganda on Gaza https://www.commondreams.org/news/cnn-interview-palestinian

Who is responsible for the violence in Israel and Gaza? https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/10/ytol-o10.html

What Preceded the Killings in Israel and Gaza Was Not “Peace” — It Was Apartheid https://truthout.org/articles/what-preceded-this- bloodshed-in-gaza-was-not-peace-it-was-apartheid

The US Is Just As Culpable As Israel For The Atrocities Committed In Gaza https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-is-just-as-culpable-as-israel

People Have A Serious Case Of 9/11 Brain Right Now, And It's Scary https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/people-have-a-serious-case-of-911

Built on the Bodies of Native Californians https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/10/built-on-the-bodies-of-native-californians/

Boston Demands Indigenous Peoples Day! https://popularresistance.org/boston-demands-indigenous-peoples-day/

John Kiriakou: A Victimizers’ Memorial https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/12/john-kiriakou-a-victimizers-memorial/

“An Irreversible Torture”: The Global Call to End Capital Punishment on 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty
https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/10/an-irreversible-torture-the-global-call-to-end-capital-punishment-on-21st-world-day-against-the-death-penalty/
 

Seen on X/Twitter:

Israel is one of the most racist countries in the world.

While Israel works hard to play the victim, it’s actually a racist, Jewish supremacist state that aims to ethnically cleanse Palestine.

BT’s @KeiPritsker explains how racism is the core of Israel’s national identity pic.twitter.com/71JY6OggEv

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) October 12, 2023

https://twitter.com/BTnewsroom/status/1712606372813066586

 

Today was one of the worst days in Gaza

So far:

—2,800 Palestinians, incl 800 children and 900 women, killed by Israel. That's double the israeli death toll.

—1,200 Palestinians, incl 500 children are missing, suspected to be under the rubble.

—Over a million Gazans displaced

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) October 16, 2023

https://twitter.com/richimedhurst/status/1714036369058635897