Here I share with my readers some of the best material I have been reading and viewing on the situation in Gaza and Israel.
My Call for a Ceasefire - Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley calls for a Gaza ceasefire, only the second U.S. Senator to do so. “After grimly witnessing accelerating body counts, many Americans, including thousands of Oregonians, have raised their voices to say more must be done to stop the carnage. I agree. So today I am calling for a ceasefire. Israel must end its bombing and shelling and also address the immediate humanitarian challenge. Israel should open the Kerem Shalom gate and flood Gaza with humanitarian aid . . . “
Euro-Med Monitor to UN: Recognise Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide - “In an open letter to the United Nations, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor highlighted that 2.5% of the Gaza Strip’s total population has now been killed or injured in the bloody Israeli attacks. Addressing UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Euro-Med Monitor called for official recognition ofIsrael’s actions in Gaza as genocide, in reference to the critical situation unfolding in the Strip since 7 October. The Geneva-based organisation stated that the aforementioned percentage of victims in Gaza—which is home to about 2.3 million people—would be equivalent to approximately 18 million European victims or 11 million Arab victims. According to Euro-Med Monitor estimates, 17,144 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including 7,208 children, 3,716 women, and a total of 15,482 civilians. More than 33,830 Palestinians in Gaza have sustained various injuries.”
The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza - “On Saturday, the board of the Harvard Law Review voted not to publish ‘The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine,’ a piece by Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School. The vote followed what an editor at the law review described in an email to Eghbariah as ‘an unprecedented decision’ by the leadership of the Harvard Law Review to prevent the piece’s publication. Today, The Nation is sharing the piece that the Harvard Law Review refused to run.”
HARVARD LAW REVIEW EDITORS VOTE TO KILL ARTICLE ABOUT GENOCIDE IN GAZA - Backstory about the above.
Fighting Amalek in Gaza: What Israelis Say and Western Media Ignore - To prove genocide under international law, one must document genocidal intent. It is crystal clear in these statements by Israeli government officials.
An Open Letter on the Misuse of Holocaust Memory Crucial statement by scholars of antisemitism and the Holocaust: “Israeli leaders and others are using the Holocaust framing to portray Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza as a battle for civilization in the face of barbarism, thereby promoting racist narratives about Palestinians. This rhetoric encourages us to separate this current crisis from the context out of which it has arisen. Seventy-five years of displacement, fifty-six years of occupation, and sixteen years of the Gaza blockade have generated an ever-deteriorating spiral of violence that can only be arrested by a political solution. There is no military solution in Israel-Palestine, and deploying a Holocaust narrative in which an ‘evil’ must be vanquished by force will only perpetuate an oppressive state of affairs that has already lasted far too long.”
Israel’s claims of “terrorist activity” in a children’s hospital were lies - “On 10 November, we woke up and found Israeli tanks right under our window. My family had been taking shelter at the Rantisi children’s hospital for a few days. What happened before and after we woke up that day demonstrates how Israel lies as a matter of routine. Contrary to its claims, Israel deliberately causes destruction and damage. Its systematic attacks have been designed to make the functioning of Gaza’s health system impossible.”
Israeli helicopter shot civilians at 7 October rave, police find - “An Israeli military helicopter shot civilians at the Supernova rave where Israel says 364 people were killed on 7 October. Israeli investigators have concluded that Hamas fighters who crossed the boundary from Gaza that day had no prior knowledge of the music festival held near Kibbutz Re’im, an Israeli colonial settlement a few kilometers east of Gaza, the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz reported on Saturday. ‘According to a police source, the investigation also shows that an IDF combat helicopter that arrived to the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants,’ Haaretz states.”
When Anti, Anti-Zionism Becomes Anti-Semitism - Stephen Eisenman writes, “So, to hear a prominent Jew like Herzog of Israel or Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, tell Jewish protestors, (like the kids in Jewish Voices for Peace), that they are anti-Semitic – essentially, that they are not Jews — is not only chutzpah, it’s un-Jewish, the actions of a shonda. Since when is fervent Zionism a litmus test for being Jewish? What pope made that rule? Who the ___are you to tell me I am or am not a Jew?”
And finally, three great videos:
Journalist and scholar V.J, Prashad provides a 17-minute history on the creation of the state of Israel, what led up to it and what has transpired since, concluding with his suggestion for a solution.
Abby Martin interviews Alana Hadid, a member of what may be the world’s most famous Palestinian family. Her sisters Gigi and Bella are well-known supermodels. She tells the story of her family’s expulsion from Palestine in 1948, and relates her view on what is occurring now. A discussion between two great and courageous women.
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy explains why Israel can act as it does, why he has lost hope for change from within, and how his only hope is intervention by Israel’s backers, especially the U.S. Spoken 8 years ago but even more true today. Why our activism in this country is so important. Why the upsurge in support for the Palestinians in the U.S. is their only hope.
Harvard is trashing its reputation as a knowledge-based institution. It may never recover from this low point in so visibly deviating from the path of intellectual honesty, open rigorous debate and searching for knowledge and truth.
No matter how much wealth Harvard has in its foundation, as an academic institution, it is now exposed as a place where some sort of “taliban” run the place, and academics cannot pursue knowledge without risking some kind of “fatwah” coming down upon them. Which in turn means that going forward, any academic work from Harvard is implicitly tainted by questions about what sort of filter and agenda have coloured it, and what weaknesses are hidden in it because of a a fear to address topics openly.
From what I have observed, Dartmouth and Columbia too have disgraced themselves here in the same way. Horribly wrong choices were made there.