LOL, it's not REMOTELY the same thing to defend one's nation from genocidal fiends like HAMAS, not under the law of armed conflict, not under international human rights law, no where, read this and either refute it or cease and desist from enabling Hamas's policy of of continued murders of their own Palestinian opponents, and of course J…
LOL, it's not REMOTELY the same thing to defend one's nation from genocidal fiends like HAMAS, not under the law of armed conflict, not under international human rights law, no where, read this and either refute it or cease and desist from enabling Hamas's policy of of continued murders of their own Palestinian opponents, and of course Jews, Israelis, Americans, and any allies of the State of Israel, all of whom the openly declare they consider legitimate targets for murder:
nonsense being spread about a "ceasefire" is so dangerous, as opposed to a "humanitarian pause" - Hamas are terrorists, they profit from a phony ceasefire.
Don’t Lecture Israel About ‘Proportionality’
Shoshana Bryen • October 30, 2023
As the Israeli incursion into Gaza continues, increased attention has been focused on the notion of “proportionality” in both the number of casualties on each side and the sophistication of weapons each side brings to bear. Mostly, pundits mean that Israel is killing too many Palestinians. An understanding of proportionality in the laws of war, however, has been missing.
Even friends of Israel get it wrong – one irate speaker on British television said, “Do you want proportionality? Should Israel seek out young women in Gaza, rape, torture, and kill them? Should Israel find babies and murder them in front of their parents – or murder parents in front of their children? Should Israel indiscriminately shell Palestinian villages?”
An Israeli journalist, in a prior response to Hamas missiles, went so far as to call Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system “unsportsmanlike.” He wondered what FIFA would say “if Germany, with its superior economy and industry, were to replace Manuel Neuer with a bionic goalkeeper… capable of calculating where each Argentine ball will come from, the exact position to stand in, and amount of force needed to block it… On the modern battlefield (Israel) is a bionic Germany.”
How unsportsmanlike!
Then there is the “yes, but…” response. “Yes” Hamas started it; “Yes,” Hamas tortured and massacred Israeli civilians; “Yes” Hamas puts military infrastructure in civilian neighborhoods; “Yes” Israel is entitled to self-defense; “Yes” the Israelis warn Palestinians. “But” so many more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis.
Isn’t that the definition of “disproportionate?” No. It isn’t.
Proportionality in international law is not about equality of death or civilian suffering, or even about firepower returned being equal in sophistication or lethality to firepower received. Proportionality weighs the military necessity of an action against the suffering that the action might cause to enemy civilians in the vicinity. A review of expert opinion – none of which was written in relation to Israel – helps to clarify. And each should be read in relation to Hamas crimes against Israeli civilians.
Prof. Horst Fischer, Academic Director of the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, wrote in The Crimes of War Project:
The principle of proportionality is embedded in almost every national legal system and underlies the international legal order… When a party commits a lawful attack against a military objective, the principle of proportionality also comes into play whenever there is collateral damage, that is, civilian casualties or damage to a non-military objective… attacks are prohibited if they cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage of the attack. This creates a permanent obligation for military commanders to consider the results of the attack compared to the advantage anticipated.
Exactly as Israel does when it drops leaflets warning civilians of an impending attack and aborts missions after finding civilians used as human shields on rooftops.
The Council on Foreign Relations notes:
A state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante.
Status quo ante October 7 is impossible for Israel.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, investigated allegations of war crimes during 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in 2006 published an open letter containing his findings. Included was this section on proportionality:
Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur.
A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality).
Finally, Dr. Françoise Hampton, University of Essex (UK) wrote about the concept of “military necessity.”
Military necessity is a legal concept used in international humanitarian law (IHL) as part of the legal justification for attacks on legitimate military targets that may have adverse, even terrible, consequences for civilians and civilian objects. It means that military forces in planning military actions are permitted to take into account the practical requirements of a military situation at any given moment and the imperatives of winning.
As some military objectives are destroyed, the enemy will use other installations for the same purpose, thereby making them military objectives and their attack justifiable under military necessity. There is a similarly variable effect on the determination of proportionality. The greater the military advantage anticipated, the larger the amount of collateral damage – often civilian casualties – which will be “justified” or “necessary.”
All civilian casualties are to be mourned, but what becomes clear – absent a shaky notion of sportsmanship – is that Israel has the right, and indeed the obligation, to defend its people, has the right to “win” the war of self-defense that it is fighting, and has taken account of the requirements of international law regarding “proportionality” and “military necessity.”
While the killing of civilians is dreadful, the rape, torture, shooting young women in their sex organs, and playing catch with their severed breast is... there are no words to describe what Hamas fighters did. Just think of how you would feel if one of your relatives were so murdered?
Another key fact of which the wider world tends to be wholly ignorant - busy with its quotidian struggles and usually not caring much to begin with - there are about 16 million Jews in the world, total, and around 6 million in Israel and same number in the USA!
One stubborn, or maybe just really elderly, Jew still lives in Yemen, I read the other day. Anyway I think the usual idea (along with some of the Protocols Banker-Conspiracy paranoid demonizations of Jews as "secretly running things and to hell with everyone else," which is so contrary to facts it leaves me speechless, but they don't care, they have their all-purpose "Bogey Man" object of hate and a crackpot rationale for why things are so messed up!) is that of course there are several hundred million Jews. Maybe a billion! After all, the planet's population is around 8 billion, so why not? The older I get the more I respect facts.
Richard, that statement about “Jews are running everything” has been said for eons. All I know is that we have to remind people that Hamas committed atrocities to innocent people. They started this war. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are caught in the middle and that isn’t fair. I can’t stand Netanyahu nor the Likud Party. To me, they are as much fascists as the ones we have in our country.
Oh yeah I entirely agree, it's crucial to distinguish whatever Netanyahu's self-serving motives are, from the legal case under the Genocide convention that fails against Israel, and HAMAS is unfortunately "popular" amongst Palestinians according to polling data, sure, but we have NO IDEA what some of those same people being polled would say if HAMAS wasn't able to imprison or kill them for stating their opposition, either. There haven't been elections in Gaza since September, 2006 - HAMAS hasn't allowed them! The news coverage does.not.even.make.that.clear. Think about that!
I just heard a farcical line of preposterous bilge (in fact it may still be on the BBC World News overnight broadcast) presided over by "Paul Henley" featuring "Ali" or ("Ollie") "Hayns" (?) or "Haines? Haynes?" - the latter identified only as a "free-lance journalist," a completely one sided line of anti-Israeli propaganda lauding the "symbolic importance" of South Africa being the nation behind the 82 paged "cogently reasoned (sic)" brief charging ISRAEL with "genocide" in Gaza.* There was also a telling snort of derision from Henley vis-a-vis a separate discussion about US "soft power" being promoted via music, "Do you think anyone in MOSCOW cares about that?" (i.e., cares that this or that musician or music originates in the US) - again, as IF Muscovites are free to publicly praise the US! And as IF there is no sub rosa opposition IN MOSCOW to Putin!
I will be investigating who the hell Henley and the other propagandist are over the next days/weeks/months because of course I will.
I'll stop posting links here, there is an entire page (and a huge archive) of devastating rebuttals to BBC, Guardian, Sky News, and Times (of London) obfuscations, non fact-checked reporting, and worse biased reporting errors. I started reading the material on this website's predecessor in 2009-2010, when it mainly focused on the Guardian's "Comment is Free" section and other Guardian articles. The Guardian no longer even features a regular "Comment is Free" section, and I for one can explain that succinctly and accurately: the readership overall, collectively, did such an effective job of refuting the incredible b.s. the Guardian routinely featured in that era that the G just stopped providing a forum for it. Now they allow comments under SOME articles, and like the bad old days, immediately jump in to close down the comments once a trend emerges that exposes one of their hare-brained dogmatic "identity politics" darlings of the moment as full of beans, or there's some similarly obvious and embarrassing slapdown. What must have really bugged them was that some of the most scathing responses were not only deserved, but that they came from solid progressive "left wingers" espousing universal human rights, opposition to global oppression of women, ethnic minorities, and against the forces promoting what amounts to global ecocide. Conservatives or actual right-wingers complaining wouldn't bother them nearly as much, and I admit it's strange to ever find oneself on "the same side" as someone like Netanyahu, but he's simply "doing the right thing by accident, by fortuitous happenstance," what else can he do but respond to assert Israel's self-defense rights, anyway?
And it's not ONLY the barbaric atrocities, so horrible the mainstream news has, for better or worse, shied away from authentic details, it's the fact I have posted on this very blog several times since October 7: If you were to have a terrorist massacre in the United States in 2023 that killed the same number, proportionately, as HAMAS did in Israel, it would translate to 40,000 dead Americans, men, women and children, targeted intentionally, enthusiastically, with all the bombastic b.s. "justifications," in ONE DAY!
You likely already realize it, but millions don't - that Israel is not just a very small country, about the "size of New Jersey" used to be the comparison I heard as a 14 year old kid in Des Moines during the 1967 Six Day War, but with "neighbors" run by fanatics dedicated to wiping them out, a second Shoah / Holocaust.
EDIT: I have agreed with "Vague Craig" on many many issues, but I also realize my usual allies on the democratic Left do not agree with me - and they're WRONG.
People tend to have no comprehension of the magnitude of Oct. 7 to the Israelis. You and I realize if that kind of event really DID happen here, if, somehow, some lunatic terrorist cult seized territory in Canada (it's impossible as it is now, but ex hypothesi!) and managed to strike Buffalo killing FORTY THOUSANDS PEOPLE in one day, we would go bonkers, essentially, and it would be a done deal that if we found the terrorists deeply embedded in the civilian infrastructure, siting missile platforms in and around schools, mosques, apartment complexes, shopping centers, hospitals, with a gargantuan tunnel system complete with power, heat, ac, running like 300 miles total, we would MAYBE drop 7 million leaflets , do all the phone warnings, urge the civilians to flee, then hit the legit military targets. Just like the IDF!
Well said, I have tried to make those points many times on Facebook and on the NYT Web-Site and when I get to proportionality the Times do not publish it.
Minneapolis city council set to condemn Israel's war in Gaza
A majority of council members will ask the U.S. government to withdraw support for Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Author: John Croman
Published: 9:56 AM CST January 6, 2024
Updated: 9:56 AM CST January 6, 2024
Facebook
MINNEAPOLIS — A solid majority of the Minneapolis City Council has laid out plans to introduce a resolution Monday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and asking the federal government to withdraw support for Israeli military operations against Hamas.
They say the United States shouldn't be giving political or material support to the Israeli government for a military campaign that has claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis for Gazans fleeing the invasion.
"We want an end to our tax dollars being used to contribute to this humanitarian catastrophe and unspeakable loss of life," Council Member Aisha Chughtai remarked during a Friday afternoon press conference.
"As a Muslim person, just watching the horrific violence in Gaza over the last few months has been a deeply painful and personal thing to experience, like many people in our community."
The event also featured speakers from a coalition supporting the resolution, including the Council on Islamic American Relations, TakeAction Minnesota, Jewish Voices for Peace and Minnesota BDS Community.
"To my community I say Jewish safety matters. And it must come through the safety and liberation of all people," Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg of Jewish Voices for Peace. "We will not find safety or peace through a wall or a gun as thousands of children are killed."
Jaylani Hussein of CAIR said that at least 100 of the Palestinians who've died in Gaza have Minnesota connections, including one family that lost 40 family members in one airstrike. He said the U.S. has become increasingly isolated by not condemning the deaths of civilians.
"Calling for a ceasefire is not a major step. Calling for a ceasefire is the least we can do. It is the most basic, human request."
Mayor Jacob Frey, at a separate press conference Friday, said he won't support any resolution that doesn't acknowledge the Oct. 7th attack that sparked this Israeli incursion into Gaza. At least 1,200 civilians were killed in those attacks, and 200 persons were taken hostage.
"I did not hear from enough people how horrible it was, I did not hear from enough organizations about how innocent lives and civilians should not be slaughtered. That is a universal truth that we should all abide by."
He said that, as a Jew, he would've expected that the council members talk to him about their resolution before launching the effort.
"There are resolutions out there that I would adamantly support. A resolution calling for an end to the atrocities and support for innocent civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli, I would proudly get behind. It is not mutually exclusive to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. You can be supportive the state of Israel and simultaneously disagree adamantly with the administration that is running the government."
Frey bristled at the notion that Israelis are being condemned as colonizers when it was a nation founded by refugees fleeing prosecution. He noted his Jewish ancestors in Europe were persecuted and murdered first by Russians and later by German Nazis in the Holocaust.
He said he supports a two-state solution that recognizes that both Jews and Arabs have historical connections to that part of the world dating back thousands of years.
He was joined by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman of Temple Israel. She noted she has worked for years to form bonds with fellow clergy of all faiths and to build bridges of understanding, but that fabric has been frayed since the Oct. 7 attacks and Israel's retaliatory military strikes against Hamas.
"The recent increase in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in our city has caused suffering and fear to many communities and to the residents of Minneapolis," Rabbi Zimmerman remarked.
"In this time of great upheaval, we need the council to be a unifying force that brings us together to fight hate speech and hate violence. We pray every Shabbat for innocent lives of Israelis and Palestinians who have died. We pray to return those kidnapped by Hamas on October 7."
Frey also invited Steve Hunegs, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. He acknowledged deaths of Palestinian civilians has been tragic but objected to term "genocide" being used to describe what's happening in Gaza.
"This accusation of genocide against the Jewish people and Israel, is wrong, it’s a blood libel. And on top of everything else it turns fact and history on his head when you’re talking about Hamas, which in its charter has the goal of destroying Israel.
The actual wording of the resolution won't be made public until Monday, but Council Member Auren Chowdhury conveyed a sense of what will be in it.
"The ask is to make it clear that in a Democratic society, where are public dollars are a part of our voice, that there is a broad voice saying we do not want to contribute to a humanitarian crisis. It does not speak for us," Chowdhury told reporters.
"We ask our US congressional delegation and our president to hold the state of Israel accountable, and to push for a permanent, immediate ceasefire to allow for humanitarian aid and to end further US military funding that is contributing to this humanitarian crisis."
*****
I first met Mayor Frey in 2013 /2014 when he was running for city council himself in Ward 3,
Precinct 3, a bit closer to the University of Minnesota campus (by only about sixteen blocks) from where I am living now, a few blocks from the Mississippi River and St. Anthony Main - the oldest part of the the city, same Ward. Our council rep, Michael Rainville, won't support this
resolution, but I guess he will be a dissenter, like Mayor Frey.
Thanks, the NYT doing that sort of thing is one of the main reasons I cancelled my subscription - but it's different for those of us who (1) Don't live IN one of the five boroughs, nearby in L.I. or NJ or PA or CT, maybe commute regularly or (2) Have friends / family living in NYC, IF that was the case I would go ahead and read the NYT for all of the useful info and features that are well worth the cost, which isn't that onerous. I'm in the Twin Cities, so not only do we have a vibrant arts scene, there's more theatrical venues per capita than anywhere else between NY and the Bay Area, with the possible exception of Chicago, a world class orchestra (I raised funds and sold season subscriptions for the Minnesota Orchestra as a PT gig on and off for eight years, 1996-2004) and more than enough intellectual stimulation and all the rest to occupy one's time. It's a drag, though, I always used seek out the New York Times pre-internet, around the U campus in Coffman Union, or in the library, or at a Dinkytown newsstand that sold every imaginable publication from all over the world (we have a huge South Asian and Chinese foreign student presence and have for many years,, so that helped the owners stay in business) but not anymore.
Compare the Guardian, they have been incredibly biased for DECADES on the entire I/P disputes, struggles, attacks, wars, terrorist organizations, failed negotiations {"The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" - is that quote from Golda Meir?), parades honoring Palestinian "martyrs" who turn out to have bombed a Pizza outlet - Sbarro, textbooks in Palestinian schools filled with anti-Semitic stereotypes, wacko cartoons showing the "martyrs" at work...this is a practically endless list. On top of which, Palestinians who dissent often have to flee (Cf. Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Myanmar, Turkey, Egypt, etc.) "or else."
LOL, it's not REMOTELY the same thing to defend one's nation from genocidal fiends like HAMAS, not under the law of armed conflict, not under international human rights law, no where, read this and either refute it or cease and desist from enabling Hamas's policy of of continued murders of their own Palestinian opponents, and of course Jews, Israelis, Americans, and any allies of the State of Israel, all of whom the openly declare they consider legitimate targets for murder:
https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2023/10/30/dont-lecture-israel-about-proportionality/ ******* Here's the text, you can learn something about why the
nonsense being spread about a "ceasefire" is so dangerous, as opposed to a "humanitarian pause" - Hamas are terrorists, they profit from a phony ceasefire.
Don’t Lecture Israel About ‘Proportionality’
Shoshana Bryen • October 30, 2023
As the Israeli incursion into Gaza continues, increased attention has been focused on the notion of “proportionality” in both the number of casualties on each side and the sophistication of weapons each side brings to bear. Mostly, pundits mean that Israel is killing too many Palestinians. An understanding of proportionality in the laws of war, however, has been missing.
Even friends of Israel get it wrong – one irate speaker on British television said, “Do you want proportionality? Should Israel seek out young women in Gaza, rape, torture, and kill them? Should Israel find babies and murder them in front of their parents – or murder parents in front of their children? Should Israel indiscriminately shell Palestinian villages?”
An Israeli journalist, in a prior response to Hamas missiles, went so far as to call Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system “unsportsmanlike.” He wondered what FIFA would say “if Germany, with its superior economy and industry, were to replace Manuel Neuer with a bionic goalkeeper… capable of calculating where each Argentine ball will come from, the exact position to stand in, and amount of force needed to block it… On the modern battlefield (Israel) is a bionic Germany.”
How unsportsmanlike!
Then there is the “yes, but…” response. “Yes” Hamas started it; “Yes,” Hamas tortured and massacred Israeli civilians; “Yes” Hamas puts military infrastructure in civilian neighborhoods; “Yes” Israel is entitled to self-defense; “Yes” the Israelis warn Palestinians. “But” so many more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis.
Isn’t that the definition of “disproportionate?” No. It isn’t.
Proportionality in international law is not about equality of death or civilian suffering, or even about firepower returned being equal in sophistication or lethality to firepower received. Proportionality weighs the military necessity of an action against the suffering that the action might cause to enemy civilians in the vicinity. A review of expert opinion – none of which was written in relation to Israel – helps to clarify. And each should be read in relation to Hamas crimes against Israeli civilians.
Prof. Horst Fischer, Academic Director of the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, wrote in The Crimes of War Project:
The principle of proportionality is embedded in almost every national legal system and underlies the international legal order… When a party commits a lawful attack against a military objective, the principle of proportionality also comes into play whenever there is collateral damage, that is, civilian casualties or damage to a non-military objective… attacks are prohibited if they cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage of the attack. This creates a permanent obligation for military commanders to consider the results of the attack compared to the advantage anticipated.
Exactly as Israel does when it drops leaflets warning civilians of an impending attack and aborts missions after finding civilians used as human shields on rooftops.
The Council on Foreign Relations notes:
A state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante.
Status quo ante October 7 is impossible for Israel.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, investigated allegations of war crimes during 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in 2006 published an open letter containing his findings. Included was this section on proportionality:
Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur.
A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality).
Finally, Dr. Françoise Hampton, University of Essex (UK) wrote about the concept of “military necessity.”
Military necessity is a legal concept used in international humanitarian law (IHL) as part of the legal justification for attacks on legitimate military targets that may have adverse, even terrible, consequences for civilians and civilian objects. It means that military forces in planning military actions are permitted to take into account the practical requirements of a military situation at any given moment and the imperatives of winning.
As some military objectives are destroyed, the enemy will use other installations for the same purpose, thereby making them military objectives and their attack justifiable under military necessity. There is a similarly variable effect on the determination of proportionality. The greater the military advantage anticipated, the larger the amount of collateral damage – often civilian casualties – which will be “justified” or “necessary.”
All civilian casualties are to be mourned, but what becomes clear – absent a shaky notion of sportsmanship – is that Israel has the right, and indeed the obligation, to defend its people, has the right to “win” the war of self-defense that it is fighting, and has taken account of the requirements of international law regarding “proportionality” and “military necessity.”
The same cannot be said for Hamas.
While the killing of civilians is dreadful, the rape, torture, shooting young women in their sex organs, and playing catch with their severed breast is... there are no words to describe what Hamas fighters did. Just think of how you would feel if one of your relatives were so murdered?
Another key fact of which the wider world tends to be wholly ignorant - busy with its quotidian struggles and usually not caring much to begin with - there are about 16 million Jews in the world, total, and around 6 million in Israel and same number in the USA!
One stubborn, or maybe just really elderly, Jew still lives in Yemen, I read the other day. Anyway I think the usual idea (along with some of the Protocols Banker-Conspiracy paranoid demonizations of Jews as "secretly running things and to hell with everyone else," which is so contrary to facts it leaves me speechless, but they don't care, they have their all-purpose "Bogey Man" object of hate and a crackpot rationale for why things are so messed up!) is that of course there are several hundred million Jews. Maybe a billion! After all, the planet's population is around 8 billion, so why not? The older I get the more I respect facts.
Richard, that statement about “Jews are running everything” has been said for eons. All I know is that we have to remind people that Hamas committed atrocities to innocent people. They started this war. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are caught in the middle and that isn’t fair. I can’t stand Netanyahu nor the Likud Party. To me, they are as much fascists as the ones we have in our country.
Oh yeah I entirely agree, it's crucial to distinguish whatever Netanyahu's self-serving motives are, from the legal case under the Genocide convention that fails against Israel, and HAMAS is unfortunately "popular" amongst Palestinians according to polling data, sure, but we have NO IDEA what some of those same people being polled would say if HAMAS wasn't able to imprison or kill them for stating their opposition, either. There haven't been elections in Gaza since September, 2006 - HAMAS hasn't allowed them! The news coverage does.not.even.make.that.clear. Think about that!
I just heard a farcical line of preposterous bilge (in fact it may still be on the BBC World News overnight broadcast) presided over by "Paul Henley" featuring "Ali" or ("Ollie") "Hayns" (?) or "Haines? Haynes?" - the latter identified only as a "free-lance journalist," a completely one sided line of anti-Israeli propaganda lauding the "symbolic importance" of South Africa being the nation behind the 82 paged "cogently reasoned (sic)" brief charging ISRAEL with "genocide" in Gaza.* There was also a telling snort of derision from Henley vis-a-vis a separate discussion about US "soft power" being promoted via music, "Do you think anyone in MOSCOW cares about that?" (i.e., cares that this or that musician or music originates in the US) - again, as IF Muscovites are free to publicly praise the US! And as IF there is no sub rosa opposition IN MOSCOW to Putin!
I will be investigating who the hell Henley and the other propagandist are over the next days/weeks/months because of course I will.
* https://camera-uk.org/2023/12/13/bbcs-paul-adams-amplifies-hamas-propaganda/
https://camera-uk.org/2023/05/09/palestinian-casualties-in-2023-the-facts/
https://camera-uk.org/2024/01/05/bbc-news-reporting-on-saleh-al-arouri-highlights-years-of-omission/
https://camera-uk.org/2024/01/05/weekend-long-read-388/
I'll stop posting links here, there is an entire page (and a huge archive) of devastating rebuttals to BBC, Guardian, Sky News, and Times (of London) obfuscations, non fact-checked reporting, and worse biased reporting errors. I started reading the material on this website's predecessor in 2009-2010, when it mainly focused on the Guardian's "Comment is Free" section and other Guardian articles. The Guardian no longer even features a regular "Comment is Free" section, and I for one can explain that succinctly and accurately: the readership overall, collectively, did such an effective job of refuting the incredible b.s. the Guardian routinely featured in that era that the G just stopped providing a forum for it. Now they allow comments under SOME articles, and like the bad old days, immediately jump in to close down the comments once a trend emerges that exposes one of their hare-brained dogmatic "identity politics" darlings of the moment as full of beans, or there's some similarly obvious and embarrassing slapdown. What must have really bugged them was that some of the most scathing responses were not only deserved, but that they came from solid progressive "left wingers" espousing universal human rights, opposition to global oppression of women, ethnic minorities, and against the forces promoting what amounts to global ecocide. Conservatives or actual right-wingers complaining wouldn't bother them nearly as much, and I admit it's strange to ever find oneself on "the same side" as someone like Netanyahu, but he's simply "doing the right thing by accident, by fortuitous happenstance," what else can he do but respond to assert Israel's self-defense rights, anyway?
And it's not ONLY the barbaric atrocities, so horrible the mainstream news has, for better or worse, shied away from authentic details, it's the fact I have posted on this very blog several times since October 7: If you were to have a terrorist massacre in the United States in 2023 that killed the same number, proportionately, as HAMAS did in Israel, it would translate to 40,000 dead Americans, men, women and children, targeted intentionally, enthusiastically, with all the bombastic b.s. "justifications," in ONE DAY!
You likely already realize it, but millions don't - that Israel is not just a very small country, about the "size of New Jersey" used to be the comparison I heard as a 14 year old kid in Des Moines during the 1967 Six Day War, but with "neighbors" run by fanatics dedicated to wiping them out, a second Shoah / Holocaust.
EDIT: I have agreed with "Vague Craig" on many many issues, but I also realize my usual allies on the democratic Left do not agree with me - and they're WRONG.
People tend to have no comprehension of the magnitude of Oct. 7 to the Israelis. You and I realize if that kind of event really DID happen here, if, somehow, some lunatic terrorist cult seized territory in Canada (it's impossible as it is now, but ex hypothesi!) and managed to strike Buffalo killing FORTY THOUSANDS PEOPLE in one day, we would go bonkers, essentially, and it would be a done deal that if we found the terrorists deeply embedded in the civilian infrastructure, siting missile platforms in and around schools, mosques, apartment complexes, shopping centers, hospitals, with a gargantuan tunnel system complete with power, heat, ac, running like 300 miles total, we would MAYBE drop 7 million leaflets , do all the phone warnings, urge the civilians to flee, then hit the legit military targets. Just like the IDF!
Well said, I have tried to make those points many times on Facebook and on the NYT Web-Site and when I get to proportionality the Times do not publish it.
And it just keeps spreading, now the Minneapolis City Council is wasting our time with this:
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/politics/mpls-city-council-gaza-ceasefire-resolution-israel/89-a9eca649-5678-41ea-a7c3-7ce75ecf83a8
Politics
Minneapolis city council set to condemn Israel's war in Gaza
A majority of council members will ask the U.S. government to withdraw support for Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Author: John Croman
Published: 9:56 AM CST January 6, 2024
Updated: 9:56 AM CST January 6, 2024
Facebook
MINNEAPOLIS — A solid majority of the Minneapolis City Council has laid out plans to introduce a resolution Monday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and asking the federal government to withdraw support for Israeli military operations against Hamas.
They say the United States shouldn't be giving political or material support to the Israeli government for a military campaign that has claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis for Gazans fleeing the invasion.
"We want an end to our tax dollars being used to contribute to this humanitarian catastrophe and unspeakable loss of life," Council Member Aisha Chughtai remarked during a Friday afternoon press conference.
"As a Muslim person, just watching the horrific violence in Gaza over the last few months has been a deeply painful and personal thing to experience, like many people in our community."
The event also featured speakers from a coalition supporting the resolution, including the Council on Islamic American Relations, TakeAction Minnesota, Jewish Voices for Peace and Minnesota BDS Community.
"To my community I say Jewish safety matters. And it must come through the safety and liberation of all people," Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg of Jewish Voices for Peace. "We will not find safety or peace through a wall or a gun as thousands of children are killed."
Jaylani Hussein of CAIR said that at least 100 of the Palestinians who've died in Gaza have Minnesota connections, including one family that lost 40 family members in one airstrike. He said the U.S. has become increasingly isolated by not condemning the deaths of civilians.
"Calling for a ceasefire is not a major step. Calling for a ceasefire is the least we can do. It is the most basic, human request."
Mayor Jacob Frey, at a separate press conference Friday, said he won't support any resolution that doesn't acknowledge the Oct. 7th attack that sparked this Israeli incursion into Gaza. At least 1,200 civilians were killed in those attacks, and 200 persons were taken hostage.
"I did not hear from enough people how horrible it was, I did not hear from enough organizations about how innocent lives and civilians should not be slaughtered. That is a universal truth that we should all abide by."
He said that, as a Jew, he would've expected that the council members talk to him about their resolution before launching the effort.
"There are resolutions out there that I would adamantly support. A resolution calling for an end to the atrocities and support for innocent civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli, I would proudly get behind. It is not mutually exclusive to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. You can be supportive the state of Israel and simultaneously disagree adamantly with the administration that is running the government."
Frey bristled at the notion that Israelis are being condemned as colonizers when it was a nation founded by refugees fleeing prosecution. He noted his Jewish ancestors in Europe were persecuted and murdered first by Russians and later by German Nazis in the Holocaust.
He said he supports a two-state solution that recognizes that both Jews and Arabs have historical connections to that part of the world dating back thousands of years.
He was joined by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman of Temple Israel. She noted she has worked for years to form bonds with fellow clergy of all faiths and to build bridges of understanding, but that fabric has been frayed since the Oct. 7 attacks and Israel's retaliatory military strikes against Hamas.
"The recent increase in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in our city has caused suffering and fear to many communities and to the residents of Minneapolis," Rabbi Zimmerman remarked.
"In this time of great upheaval, we need the council to be a unifying force that brings us together to fight hate speech and hate violence. We pray every Shabbat for innocent lives of Israelis and Palestinians who have died. We pray to return those kidnapped by Hamas on October 7."
Frey also invited Steve Hunegs, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. He acknowledged deaths of Palestinian civilians has been tragic but objected to term "genocide" being used to describe what's happening in Gaza.
"This accusation of genocide against the Jewish people and Israel, is wrong, it’s a blood libel. And on top of everything else it turns fact and history on his head when you’re talking about Hamas, which in its charter has the goal of destroying Israel.
The actual wording of the resolution won't be made public until Monday, but Council Member Auren Chowdhury conveyed a sense of what will be in it.
"The ask is to make it clear that in a Democratic society, where are public dollars are a part of our voice, that there is a broad voice saying we do not want to contribute to a humanitarian crisis. It does not speak for us," Chowdhury told reporters.
"We ask our US congressional delegation and our president to hold the state of Israel accountable, and to push for a permanent, immediate ceasefire to allow for humanitarian aid and to end further US military funding that is contributing to this humanitarian crisis."
*****
I first met Mayor Frey in 2013 /2014 when he was running for city council himself in Ward 3,
Precinct 3, a bit closer to the University of Minnesota campus (by only about sixteen blocks) from where I am living now, a few blocks from the Mississippi River and St. Anthony Main - the oldest part of the the city, same Ward. Our council rep, Michael Rainville, won't support this
resolution, but I guess he will be a dissenter, like Mayor Frey.
Thanks, the NYT doing that sort of thing is one of the main reasons I cancelled my subscription - but it's different for those of us who (1) Don't live IN one of the five boroughs, nearby in L.I. or NJ or PA or CT, maybe commute regularly or (2) Have friends / family living in NYC, IF that was the case I would go ahead and read the NYT for all of the useful info and features that are well worth the cost, which isn't that onerous. I'm in the Twin Cities, so not only do we have a vibrant arts scene, there's more theatrical venues per capita than anywhere else between NY and the Bay Area, with the possible exception of Chicago, a world class orchestra (I raised funds and sold season subscriptions for the Minnesota Orchestra as a PT gig on and off for eight years, 1996-2004) and more than enough intellectual stimulation and all the rest to occupy one's time. It's a drag, though, I always used seek out the New York Times pre-internet, around the U campus in Coffman Union, or in the library, or at a Dinkytown newsstand that sold every imaginable publication from all over the world (we have a huge South Asian and Chinese foreign student presence and have for many years,, so that helped the owners stay in business) but not anymore.
Compare the Guardian, they have been incredibly biased for DECADES on the entire I/P disputes, struggles, attacks, wars, terrorist organizations, failed negotiations {"The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" - is that quote from Golda Meir?), parades honoring Palestinian "martyrs" who turn out to have bombed a Pizza outlet - Sbarro, textbooks in Palestinian schools filled with anti-Semitic stereotypes, wacko cartoons showing the "martyrs" at work...this is a practically endless list. On top of which, Palestinians who dissent often have to flee (Cf. Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Myanmar, Turkey, Egypt, etc.) "or else."