12/05/2023

lindsey graham's pathetic life


he's going to be 70 in less than 2 years and lindsey's stll in the closet.

how f**ked up is he?  living a lie.  living in shame.

he really is disgusting and sad.

we all know he's gay.

just like we all knew barbara mikulski was a lesbian.  you can, in fact, argue she retired when she realized that was going to be an issue.  

lindsey's made himself a joke by hiding in the closet his entire adult life.



let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Monday, December 4, 2023.  The slaughter of Gaza continues, Joe Biden's made service in Iraq more dangerous for US troops, Moms For Bigotry and their cousin One Million Moms continue to get publicly shamed, and much more.

Starting in the US where it's been one failure after another for the hate merchants.  Remember last month started with elections.  After, headlines like "Moms for Liberty Annihilated in School Board Elections" (NEWSWEEK),  "Voters Reject Moms for Liberty in Key School Board Races"  
" (THE ADVOCATE) and, my favorite, Tori Otten's "Moms for Liberty Falls Flat on Its Face in School Board Races" (THE NEW REPUBLIC).   From the last one:

The Tuesday loss is a stinging rebuke of Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated as an extremist group. What happened in Iowa mimics similar defeats suffered by the group and by Republicans in general throughout the U.S.

[. . .]

Moms for Liberty was founded in 2021 to push back against Covid-19 restrictions in schools. It has since expanded to opposing classes on diversity, curbing the rights of LGBTQ students, and banning books.

But on Tuesday, voters across the country pushed back on the Moms for Liberty agenda. The organization endorsed more than 130 candidates across the country, and the vast majority of them lost—with some failing to get more than single-digit support.


After this huge and embarrassing loss, it has been one bad moment after another for them and their sister bullies in One Million Moms as America has discovered how ethically bankrupt and dangerous those two groups are.  From NPR's November 18th WEEKEND EDITION:


SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The right-wing group Moms for Liberty has been a force in clashes over what public schools can teach or not about sexuality and race, but its influence may be on the wane. Last week, the group lost closely watched school board races in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Iowa. As Jim Zarroli reports, Moms for Liberty is facing growing resistance at the local level.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Karen Svoboda and her husband have a large blended family of seven kids in New York's Dutchess County. They try to pay attention to what's happening in local schools. So when Moms for Liberty endorsed a slate of school board candidates last year, Svoboda did some research.

KAREN SVOBODA: And then I looked into the local Facebook page of Moms for Liberty and just browsed through some of the social media of some of these individuals. And what I saw was very upsetting.

ZARROLI: The Southern Poverty Law Center has called Moms for Liberty a hate group. It supports efforts to oppose pandemic restrictions, suppress discussion of LGBTQ issues and remove books in local schools across the country. Many of the comments Svoboda read attacked her local school's teachings on gender and racial equity issues. One post in particular bothered Svoboda, who has gay and nonbinary kids in her family. It said a gay students group at the high school was indoctrinating students.

SVOBODA: As a mom of kids who are members of that community, it was very concerning to think that these people would be trying to get onto the school board, 'cause what does that mean for my kids?

ZARROLI: Svoboda knew Moms for Liberty had supporters locally. Dutchess County is an hour and a half north of progressive New York City, but it's a swing district politically. Political scientist Maurice Cunningham says the group appeals to people who feel disenfranchised from politics.

MAURICE CUNNINGHAM: And that may be more potent in blue areas where very conservative people may feel like they don't have a way to fight back. And Moms for Liberty gives them one.

ZARROLI: Svoboda started a group called Defense of Democracy to get the word out about some of the school board candidates. It's part of a nationwide grassroots counteroffensive against conservative efforts targeting schools. Katie Paris, who founded a network of liberal suburban women called Red Wine and Blue, says the culture warriors running for school board in many places are out of step with most voters.

KATIE PARIS: They don't represent the majority, but they are very loud, and their views are very extreme. And we have seen what can happen when just a few people start to sow chaos in any individual school district.


They're liars and they're trash.  On November 14th, Elaine noted One Million Moms were calling for a boycott of The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  One million?  Try three..  As Ava and I reported last week: 


But their power has peaked.

Why?

In part, this happens with most groups.  Eventually, the average person sounds like Mitch and Cam from MODERN FAMILY ("Patriot Games," season six, episode 22, written by Vali Chandrasekara) and state that they don't have the time to follow every issue and turn out for every protest.  It also happens when a pack of liars get exposed for what they really are: Hate merchants.  The United States, as a whole, does not support the restriction of freedoms.  It was only a matter of time before these bigots overplayed their hands.

And we're now at that moment.

Which is how Macy's got great ratings this year.
 

Christmas came early for NBC: The network’s annual telecast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade delivered the biggest ratings ever.

The 97th annual parade was seen by 28.5 million viewers and earned a hefty 7.2 rating in the 18-49 age demo. Both numbers are up 6 percent from last year’s parade. It was also the highest-rated entertainment program of the year in both categories across all of broadcast and cable.

The record is particularly impressive at a time when even major live events have witnessed ratings erosion in recent years.


It is very impressive.  Good for Macy's and NBC.


It's also a lesson, a good one, that businesses need to heed.  Moms for Bigotry and A Million Hateful Moms bloviate and bellyache but they don't have the power you think they have.  Bud Light has the excuse that they were early in the cycle and didn't know better.  But, that said, there's never an excuse to attack the influencer you sought out.  It's the treatment of Dylan Mulvaney that's harmed Bud Light more than anything else.  Had they not attacked her and shamed her and disowned her, the left and those in the middle might have not only continued to purchase Bud Light but might have purchased even more because Dylan was under attack.

It happened with the Natalie Maines and the Chicks.  They were pulled off the radio but they had a hell of a week in sales then Bully Boy Bush and others piled up on them in 2003.

Idiots like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson may say that the United States is "irredeemable" due to the fact that 1/4 of high school students label themselves as LGBTQ+ but grasp that the 1/4 of students have brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors.  That's a lot of people who support them.  Who knows, if Mike's really the closet case he seems (and the one people whisper about), he might even support them privately.

Huge loss in elections and they couldn't even dent the parade's ratings.  People were fighting back against them. And if that had been all in the last weeks, that would have been bad enough.  But reality has bitch slapped Moms For Bigotry much harder than that.

Let's run through a few memorable moments.  November 15th, AP reported:

 Moms for Liberty says it has removed two Kentucky chapter chairs from leadership positions after the women posed in photos with members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, one of several controversies that the conservative “parental rights” nonprofit has fended off in its rise to national prominence in public education.

The two women, who had led local chapters in Boone and Campbell counties near the Ohio border, appeared in photos with several men dressed in yellow and black Proud Boys clothing at a Nov. 4 rally in Frankfort, the Kentucky capital. The photos, posted on Facebook by another attendee, show the women smiling in Moms for Liberty clothing, as one helps to hold up a flag that reads, “Appalachian Proud Boys Kentucky.” 



The Nazi lovers also loved convicted sex offenders who prey on children.  Edward Helmore (GUARDIAN) reported November 21st:


Philadelphia-based outreach leader for Moms for Liberty – the conservative parental rights group that is pushing to exclude discussion of gender and diversity from school curricula – has been exposed as a registered sex offender.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Phillip Fisher Jr – a pastor and local Republican ward leader who volunteered at Moms for Liberty’s national summit in Philadelphia this year – pleaded guilty in 2012 to a charge of aggravated sexual abuse involving a 14-year-old boy when he was 25 and living in Chicago.

Sheila Armstrong, the chairwoman of Philadelphia’s Moms for Liberty chapter, confirmed to the Inquirer that Fisher was still planning to volunteer at her autism non-profit’s Christmas party.


They don't care about children, they never cared about children.  

And it just gets worse.  Over the weekend, another big embarrassment for Moms For Bigotry.  Joe Queally (COMMON DREAMS) reports:

New details made public over the weekend via police documents of a rape investigation have added fresh fuel to the political firestorm surrounding the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, Christian Ziegler, and his wife Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of the far-right Moms for Liberty, which engages in book-banning efforts, attacks on public education, religious moralizing, and the promotion of fascist ideology in chapters nationwide.

After an unnamed longtime associate accused Christian Ziegler of rape last week, the emergence of a police search warrant and associated affidavit showed that the alleged victim said she had engaged in consensual three-way sexual relations with the Zieglers in the past but on the day of the assault, on Oct 3., tried to call off the encounter because Bridget would not be there to participate.

"Sorry I was mostly in for her," the victim said, according to text messages quoted in the affadavit.

The high-profile political work of the Zieglers—who rail against the sexual identities and lifestyle choices of others and who have been openly hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, often suggesting queer people are somehow deviant or morally problematic—has resulted in my cries of hypocrisy and calls for Christian's resignation.

"Allegations of rape and sexual battery are severe and should be taken seriously," said Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried in a statement on Thursday. "I applaud the accuser's bravery in coming forward against a political figure as powerful as Christian Ziegler, and I trust that the Sarasota Police Department will conduct a thorough investigation into these allegations of criminal behavior."

Given the severity of the allegations against him, Fried called on Christian Zeigler to resign from his post, a call echoed later by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican currently running for the GOP presidential nomination.

Fried said that "what happens behind closed doors is Christian and Bridget's personal business," but added that she did "find it interesting that two people who are so obsessed with banning books about gay penguins might be engaged in a non-traditional sexual relationship," referring to a children's book about gay parents which has been targeted by Republicans for banning in schools in Florida and elsewhere.

"As leaders in the Florida GOP and Moms for Liberty," said Fried, "the Zieglers have made a habit out of attacking anything they perceive as going against 'family values'—be it reproductive rights or the existence of LGBTQ+ Floridians. The level of hypocrisy in this situation is stunning."


Ron's people.  Hand-picked by Ronald DeSantis.  How close were they?  

 


Christian Ziegler has been a leader in the state Republican party for years, and Bridget Ziegler found political success more recently with help from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). DeSantis endorsed her when she ran for school board and named her to the board that oversees Disney World’s special district, which was part of an act of vengeance against Disney for opposing his state’s Don’t Say Gay law.

“Bridget Ziegler, we should have her in every county in Florida,” DeSantis once said in a speech posted to Bridget Ziegler’s YouTube channel. “We have to do a better job in these school board races.”

Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo noted that Moms for Liberty is an organization that paved the way for Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law, among other things. She called out the “level of hypocrisy” in light of the allegations.





Turning to the continued assault on Gaza, REUTERS reports this morning, "Israel ordered people out of swathes of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip on Monday as it pressed its ground campaign deep into the south, sending desperate residents fleeing even as it dropped bombs on areas where it told them to go."  This morning, THE GUARDIAN notes:

James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency, Unicef, said the “worst bombardment of the war right now [is] in south Gaza”. Airstrikes were coming every 10 minutes, he said.

He posted on X: “Despite what has been assured, attacks in the south of Gaza are every bit as vicious as what the north endured. Somehow, it’s getting worse for children and mothers.”




The pause is over, as Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) explained Friday, "Dozens of Palestinians have been killed after Israel resumed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, ending a weeklong pause to facilitate the exchange of captives. Hamas responded by firing a salvo of rockets toward southern Israel. The U.N. says the resumption of violence puts thousands of innocent lives at risk."  Joe Queally (COMMON DREAMS) notes, "More than 700 people were killed in the Gaza Strip in just 24 hours, the Health Ministry in the besieged territory said Sunday, as Israeli bombings escalated following a brief pause and wider evacuation orders stoke fears of wider displacement and carnage."  Ryan Grim (INTERCEPT) reports:


On this week’s episode of Deconstructed, I spoke with “Breaking Points” co-host Krystal Ball about my new book, “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution.” You can listen to it on whichever podcast platform you use, and the video has been posted on Krystal’s channel. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tasked his top adviser, Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs, with designing plans to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,” according to a bombshell new report in an Israeli newspaper founded by the late Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson.  

The outlet, Israel Hayom, is considered to be something of an official organ for Netanyahu. It reported that the plan has two main elements: The first would use the pressure of the war and humanitarian crisis to persuade Egypt to allow refugees to flow to other Arab countries, and the second would open up sea routes so that Israel “allows a mass escape to European and African countries.” Dermer, who is originally from Miami, is a Netanyahu confidante and was previously Israeli ambassador to the United States, and enjoys close relations with many members of Congress. 

The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians faces some internal resistance from less hard-line members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, according to Israel Hayom. 


Meanwhile, Stephen Kalin, Anat Peled, Summer Said and Dov Lieber (WALL STREET JOURNAL) report, "Talks between Israel and Hamas to hand over hostages held in Gaza in return for a pause in fighting there have stalled, the White House said Sunday, while Israeli forces step up attacks and direct Palestinians in the enclave to move into a narrower strip of land."  Casey Gannon (CNN) notes:


 Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Japayal on Sunday reiterated her call for a ceasefire in Gaza, even as fighting has resumed following the collapse of a truce on Friday.

“It’s what has to happen, and I do think it’s realistic,” Jayapal told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

“We did have a temporary ceasefire and what happened? We were able to see a significant number of hostages released, we were able to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, and I think the long-term plan for what happens is incredibly important,” she continued.   


THE NEW YORK TIMES quotes the White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby stating today on MEET THE PRESS (NBC), "We are still working it really hard, hour by hour, to see if we can get the sides back to the table and see if we can get something moving.  We would like that to happen today. But honestly, I just don't know."  CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali adds, "Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday and discussed the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, emphasizing the need for de-escalation and a ceasefire, the country’s state news agency said. The prime minister reaffirmed Qatar's commitment, alongside its mediation partners, to ongoing efforts aimed at restoring calm to the region."


As  CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."  ABC NEWS notes, "In the Gaza Strip, more than 15,000 people have been killed and over 41,000 have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry."  In addition to the dead and the injured, there are the missing.  AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."  Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by Israeli forces."


THE GUARDIAN's summary for Sunday's events includes:

  • The Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza was among the sites reported hit from the air as were the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in the south of Gaza. Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, said the military had struck more than 400 targets over the weekend “including extensive aerial attacks in the Khan Younis area” and had also killed Hamas militants and destroyed their infrastructure in Beit Lahiya in the north.

  • Over 15,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in the last two months, Gaza’s health ministry announced on Sunday. According to ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra, 70% of the Palestinians killed were women and children. He said that 41,316 had been injured.

  • During “the past hours” 316 dead and 664 wounded were removed from the rubble and taken to hospitals, al-Qudra said, adding that “many others are still under the rubble”.

  • The UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) said that about 1.8 million people – roughly 75% of Gaza’s population – are internally displaced, up from a previous figure of 1.7 million. “However, obtaining an accurate count is challenging,” it said.

  • Hospitals in southern Gaza overflowed with dead and wounded, amid what Uncief spokesperson James Elder said was “the worst worst bombardment of the war right now in south Gaza” on Sunday evening. “I feel like I’m almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children here,” Elder said in a video from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

  •  [. . .] 

  • The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) called on Israel to respect the international rules of war and said he was accelerating his investigation into violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. In a video address following a visit to Israel and Palestine, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan added, “In Gaza, there is no justification for doctors to perform operations without light, for children to be operated upon without anaesthetics. Imagine the pain … I was crystal clear, that this is the time to comply with the law. If Israel doesn’t comply now, they shouldn’t complain later.”

  • Israeli settlers attacked two Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank late on Saturday, killing one man and torching a car, Palestinian authorities said. The Palestinian ambulance service said a 38-year-old man in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, in the northern West Bank, was shot in the chest and died as residents confronted settlers and Israeli soldiers.


    • ALJZEERA notes:

    A statement issued by the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that an unnamed Jordanian citizen was killed and his brother was severely injured following an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip.

    The statement did not say in which part of Gaza the deadly strike took place.

    Ambassador Sufyan Al-Qudah, a ministry spokesman, said that contact has been made with the families of the two victims.

    The injured brother is reportedly in a coma and is being treated at the Baptist Hospital in the besieged enclave.

    The statement also said that Jordan holds the Israeli government “fully responsible” for the safety of all Jordanian citizens who have remained in Gaza. As of November 20, there were 741 Jordanian nationals in Gaza, according to the ministry’s list.


    When not attacking civilians, the Israeli government attacked medical personnel:


    Israeli forces fired upon two ambulances in the Faluja area of the north of Gaza, injuring two paramedics and an accompanying injured person on Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.


    •  This morning, THE GUARDIAN notes:


    A crater the size of a basketball court out of the earth. A dead toddler’s bare feet and black trousers poked out from under a pile of rubble. Men struggled with their bare hands to move a chunk of the concrete that had crushed the child.

    Later they wept as they marched through the ruins carrying the body in a bundle and that of another small child body wrapped in a blanket.

    “We were asleep and safe, they told us it was a safe area, Rafah and all,” said Salah al-Arja, owner of one of the houses destroyed at the site.

    “There were children, women and martyrs,” he said. “They tell you it is a safe area, but there is no safe area in all of the Gaza Strip, it is all lies and manipulations.”


    The CBC details another bombing:

    At a home in Khan Younis that was struck overnight, flames licked the collapsed masonry and grey smoke billowed out from the rubble. Boys were picking through the wreckage with bare hands.

    Next door, Nesrine Abdelmoty stood amid damaged furniture in the rented room where she lives with her divorced daughter and two-year-old baby.

    "We were sleeping at 5:00 a.m. when we felt things collapse, everything went upside down," she told Reuters. "They told [people] to move from the north to Khan Younis, since the south is safer. And now, they've bombed Khan Younis. Even Khan Younis is not safe now, and even if we move to Rafah, Rafah is not safe as well. Where do they want us to go?



    How's Joe Biden's support for the slaughter in Gaza working out?   World leaders are condemning the US and Israel.  Joe's position has really clarified and honed in Iraqi opinion on the United States and its continued occupation of Iraq. PRESS TV reports:


    The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is an umbrella group of the country's anti-terror fighters, says it has targeted two US bases in eastern Syria and western Iraq in new strikes on the American occupation forces.

    The Iraqi resistance said in a late Sunday statement that the US military base near Syria’s al-Khazra village was hit with a barrage of missiles.

    The statement added that the resistance forces also carried out a drone attack on the American forces based in Ain al-Asad Airbase in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar.


    And, of course, this was in response to a US attack today.  Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) notes:


    An air strike in northern Iraq has killed at least five militants, social media accounts linked to Iran-backed Shiite militias reported late on Sunday.

    The air strike hit the militiamen in Kirkuk province, according to Sabreen news channel on Telegram, which is affiliated with Iran-backed Shiite militias.

    It did not give details on when the air strike happened, but said it was carried out by US forces.

    A US military official - on condition of anonymity - confirmed the "self defense" strike carried out in northern Iraq on a drone staging site.


    ATLAS NEWS adds, "The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization of Iran-backed Shia militias, has confirmed the deaths of five of its fighters amid claims of an American airstrike against militia forces in Iraq today."  The attack follows a pitiful plea from the US government.  Karwan Faidhi Dri (RUDAW) reported yesterday, "United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a Friday phone conversation with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani renewed Washington’s call on Baghdad to protect American troops from attacks by pro-Iran militias as the conflict in Gaza resumes after a brief truce." 


    Please remember that, this is not the first US assault in the last days on this segment of the Iraqi military -- and please remember that the groups being attacked are part of the Iraqi military.  And their political factions?  They make up part of the formation of the current prime minister's bloc.  The last bombing led to calls that the US government had violated Iraq's sovereignty.  November 22nd,  Julian Bechocha (RUDAW) reports:


    The Iraqi government said it “vehemently condemns” the US airstrikes on Iran-backed Iraqi militia positions in Jurf al-Nasr on Wednesday as a “blatant violation of sovereignty” as the strikes took place without government knowledge.


    “We vehemently condemn the attack on Jurf al-Nasr, executed without the knowledge of Iraqi government agencies. This action is a blatant violation of sovereignty and an attempt to destabilize the security situation,” Basem al-Awadi, spokesperson for the Iraqi government, said in a statement. 

    The statement came hours after US warplanes struck pro-Iran fighters in Jurf al-Nasr (formerly Jurf al-Sakhar) in northern Babil province, around 60 kilometers southwest of Baghdad. Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) confirmed to AFP that the strikes left eight fighters dead. 

    Wednesday’s strike came hours after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced its first retaliatory strike targeting Iran-backed groups in Iraq since the start of the attacks on American personnel in Iraq and Syria over Washington’s support for Israel in its war against Gaza. The first retaliatory strike resulted in “several enemy casualties,” according to CENTCOM. 

    “The Iraqi government is solely dedicated to enforcing the law and holding violators accountable, a prerogative exclusively within its purview. No party or foreign agency has the right to assume this role, as it contradicts Iraqi constitutional sovereignty and international law,” the government statement said, labeling the recent escalations as “a dangerous development.” 

                          

    Joe Biden has put US service members a risk in the Middle East. 



    The following sites updated:


    Posted by at

    12/03/2023

    latest episode of fargo

    time to cover episode 3 of 'fargo.'  

    it's halloween and roy wants his deputy gator to kidnap dot that night - dot ran off and went underground to escape the abuse she endured in that marriage.


    meanwhile dot and wayne decided to beef up security in their home by buying guns. 


    all went well until dot was informed that there was a 1 week waiting period.  that wasn't going to work for her.

    gator goes to the police station and gets into the evidence room because he's a deputy.  whit (the guy who stopped the previous kidnapping of dot by pulling the kidnappers over) sees gator pocket something and asks him about it.  gator treats whit like crap, even trying to knock him over by swiping one of whit's crutches with his foot.  (remember, whit's partner got killed by munch and the other kidnapper.  whit followed dot to the gas station and that's where dot killed munch's partner while whit got shot up by munch until dot slammed a shovel onto munch's head.)  

    knowing roy's looking for her, dot goes around the neighborhood changing street signs.  this, later on, will throw off gator and his crew when they're trying to find her.

    also to protect her family, dot announces they've changed costumes - they are going to be killer zombies or zombie killers - not sure which.  but that puts them in bullet proof vests and dot fashions a weapon out of bat by attaching nails all over it.  

    gator's van keeps showing up as wayne, dot and her daughter scotty trick-or-treat.

    i think scotty is roy's daughter.  and i think wayne may know that he's not the father but i'm pretty sure that jennifer jason leigh - who plays wayne's mother - know that wayne's not the father and that's 1 of the reasons she hates dot.  


    munch is a creep and is apparently planning to kill roy.  that wouldn't surprise roy too much - he advised gator to sleep with 1 eye open because much was going to try to get them. 

    the episode ends with dot and her family going back to their home.  wayne and scotty go in but dot notices the van again.  as she closes the door, gator and company prepare to go to the house.  end of episode 3.


     let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


    Friday, December 1, 2023.  The pause has ended, the resumption of War Crimes has begun.



    The pause is apparently over.  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL notes, " Israel said it had restarted airstrikes in Gaza. Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed plumes of smoke in the enclave and carried the sound of gunfire."  CNN adds, "An earlier statement from the ministry said that strikes had landed in southern Gaza, in the areas of Khan Younis and Rafah. The ministry also noted earlier that Israeli military vehicles were firing in northwest Gaza minutes after the truce expired."  ALJAZEERA reports:


    Yousri Alghoul, who lives in northern Gaza, said he heard “shelling and shooting” at the Shati refugee camp (also known as Beach camp) while he was fleeing with his 17-year-old son to the Jabalia refugee camp at 7am today.

    “Unfortunately, we found dead bodies in the streets and roads. You cannot imagine how miserable the situation is when we just escape to another place searching for a secure place,” Alghoul told Al Jazeera.

    “That is what’s happening right now, and just 15 minutes ago, we also heard a new explosion, which is next to us in Jabalia. It seems that Israeli occupation forces got legitimacy from the United States last night,” he added.


    BBC and BLOOMBERGE NEWS video reports below.



    As the horror continues and the world watches, Joshua Frank (COUNTERPUNCH) details some changes that need to be seen:

    It’s time we flipped the script.

    How about before one mentions Hamas, they must first oppose Israeli terror and the murder of children?

    They must call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the occupation?

    They must first voice disgust for Israel’s ongoing war crimes?

    Only after this can we address how Hamas rose to power, how Israel propped them up, and the dehumanizing conditions that led to those horrific, indiscriminate murders on October 7th.

    The analysis of Israel and Palestine must change.




    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed his deep regret at the resumption of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

    “I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza. I still hope that it will be possible to renew the pause that was established. The return to hostilities only shows how important it is to have a true humanitarian ceasefire,” Guterres said in a post on X on Friday.

    Separately, James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF, the UN's Children's Fund, decried what he called a "war on children" in a video message recorded inside one of Gaza's last functioning hospitals.

    “We cannot see more children with the wounds of war. With the burns, with the shrapnel littering their body, with the broken bones. Inaction by those with influence is allowing the killing of children. This is a war on children,” he said.

    Elder also said that bombing in the area could be heard from inside the hospital and that one strike had landed approximately 50 meters away.


    When Israeli forces begin shooting and dropping bombs, what happens?  People get injured and killed.  Ibrahim Dahman (CNN) notes at least 32 people are dead from the bombings with  even more left injured.  Updating minutes ago, ALJAZEERA explained the death toll has already risen to a hundred.    Faris Tanyos and  Haley Ott (CBS NEWS) note:

    After a strike in the southern Gaza city of RafaFaris Tanyos, Haley Ott h on Friday, CBS News' Marwan al-Ghoul found a boy at the scene in tears.  

    "We were there collecting water to wash our clothes. The bombing started and the rocks came flying at us," the teen, Omar Hahrous, told CBS News. "I looked around me and I could not find anybody. Some were injured... some were martyred."




    Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, says medics are dealing with “large numbers” of wounded people seeking treatment in overcrowded hospitals following the resumption of Israeli air strikes.

    “The wounded are lying on the floor in emergency departments and in front of operating rooms as a result of the accumulation of cases,” al-Qudra added.


    THE WASHINGTON POST notes, "Several airstrikes were reported across Gaza on Friday morning; a Post photographer witnessed a strike 200 meters from a hospital in Khan Younis in the south."  For those who don't use the metric system, that's about six-hundred-and-fifty-six feet. They're targeting hospitals again.  Having destroyed so many hospitals in the north, the Israeli government is violating international law yet again to destroy the medical facilities in southern Gaza.  Yesterday, DEMOCRACY NOW! spoke with Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders.




    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Israel has agreed to extend its truce with Hamas for a seventh day to facilitate the exchange of captives. The extension was announced just minutes before it was set to expire on Thursday morning, prolonging a reprieve for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents after 47 days of relentless attacks by Israel spawned a massive humanitarian crisis. On Wednesday, Hamas released 16 hostages. In exchange, Israel released another 30 Palestinian women and child prisoners.

    Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, two Palestinian children were shot dead by Israeli forces during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday. Fifteen-year-old Basil Suleiman Abu al-Wafa died in a hospital after he was shot in the chest. And 8-year-old Adam al-Ghoul was shot in the head as he ran from Israeli forces, in a killing captured on video. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli soldiers blocked medics from reaching the camp to treat the wounded.

    In Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, Doctors Without Borders surgeon Dr. Hafez Abukhussa described how his hospital is overwhelmed.

    DR. HAFEZ ABUKHUSSA: The patients that we see, the majority of patients, they are female and children. But what hurts me a lot, when I see a child, an innocent child, injured, and he need a major surgery. He lost his limb. And he’s the last child. He’s the only remnant of his family. And when he woke up from anesthesia, he asked to see his family. So, this is really a heartbreaking situation.

    The difficulties that we face here is the lack of supplies, the lack of instruments. In the hospital on normal days here, there’s 300 patients. Now it’s more than 1,000 patients. The patients, they are homeless, because many of them are refugees within Gaza, and the other people, they have — their houses were destroyed. They don’t have the access to potable water, or there’s a lack of food, a lack of [electricity]. And some of them just get out from their houses with the clothes that they are wearing. We know that we are in danger, in danger anytime, but we will keep doing the same.

    AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders.

    Welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can talk about what is happening right now in Gaza? I mean, as we are broadcasting, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken is meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, and he just met with Netanyahu. There is a ceasefire, not clear it was going to be extended even one more day. Minutes before the end of that ceasefire, it was announced it would continue. What have you learned about the devastation?

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: Well, thanks for having me.

    From the medical humanitarian perspective of what we have seen from the beginning, after the appalling attack on October 7th, has been a collective punishment of the people in Gaza. And that’s why you’ve seen such a disproportionate number of civilians killed. The devastation on the hospitals is near complete. There are a few hospitals in the north that are really not much more than shelters right now, with still medical personnel trying to stay with patients, but they have no more equipment, they have no electricity, they have no water. They’re holed up.

    And it’s a very high-risk evacuation route. We know from our own experience of our team that was stuck there with their families, after having made the decision for the medical doctors to stay with some of the patients in the hospitals, that they came — they were subjected to crossfire. A couple of the members of the evacuation group, the family members were killed in that. Our vehicles were destroyed, the ones that we were intending to use to be able to evacuate these staff and families after they retreated from what seemed to be imminent risk of death, that proved to be fatal in the end.

    And so, what we’re seeing is this surge of patients in the south. As you just heard, hospitals, from the beginning, have been completely overwhelmed, but now they’ve got patients who really require much more complex medical care. They require, really, referral — ideally, medical evacuation in a safe way to a third country, for example, where they can receive the level of care that will save their lives and prevent further damage.

    Just to mention another thing, because of the lack of antibiotics, medicine, wound dressing equipment, we have a very high risk of high numbers of people dying of infections. And that is something that should never happen under international humanitarian law, the norms of war. People should have access to medical care in a conflict like this. And that is just not being guaranteed in terms of the way this war is being conducted.

    AMY GOODMAN: Can I ask you if you’ve heard about this report of al-Nasr pediatric hospital in northern Gaza and the premature babies, five of them, discovered, the remains of the babies? The reports were that they were left to die after Israeli forces blocked access to the intensive care unit.

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: I don’t have the details on that, I’m sorry. What we do know is that it was a harrowing decision for the medical staff when ordered to evacuate, knowing that sometimes you’re only given a couple of hours, which is completely unacceptable. Even in the context of this pause, this truce — which we certainly hope will continue and become an actual ceasefire — it’s very complicated to transfer a patient that is in a vulnerable state, in a machine that no longer has any electricity — as you probably know, the lack of fuel has meant it’s near impossible to run ambulances — and because of the violence, all these checkpoints, where it seems that people are waiting for hours and hours. You can imagine you’ve got people who are transferred from an intensive care unit stuffed into an ambulance because it’s one of the only ones running, and then at the checkpoint they’re stopped for up to seven hours. And then there’s violence, and they feel they have to retreat. It’s a very harrowing, high-risk kind of thing to organize.

    And that’s one of the reasons that we’re calling for this killing to stop, for there to be a proper ceasefire, and, furthermore, for there to be medical evacuations, so that people can receive the care they need in a safe way, with, of course, the right to return if they so wish, and then also for there to be unconditional humanitarian aid that is allowed to enter, because we know people are in places where the aid cannot reach, and they cannot reach the hospitals. They don’t feel it’s safe. And so they are at risk of dying and suffering lifelong consequences if they don’t receive the medical care right away.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Avril, could you speak about the — during this pause, how much medical equipment, supplies, medicine, as you were speaking about earlier, the acute shortage, which many people have mentioned — how much medication is coming in, medication and equipment is coming in, during this pause, into Gaza?

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: The specifics are unclear, to be perfectly honest. We see that every day there are a certain number of trucks. They move at a snail’s pace. What we would really like to see, of course, is for that to be faster and of greater volume. Before this conflict, before October 7th, there were 500 trucks that would cross daily into Gaza, and that was during a blockade, so not enough. The hospitals were already at a deficit of the equipment that they needed, of the replenishing supplies. All the stocks were always threadbare. And so, then compounded with the fact that we have an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 wounded people, not to mention those that are now coming in with fevers, gastrointestinal situations, acute watery diarrhea — maybe it’s cholera; we don’t know, because we don’t have the testing facilities and labs available to check — what we’re seeing with this truce is that there is no way to be able to support the hospitals that continue to stand. Of course, many of them have been damaged in the fighting. They have been attacked systematically. The World Health Organization has been tracking this.

    And for us, this is such an obvious violation of international humanitarian law, to attack hospitals, to attack medical staff, to kill them while they’re at the bedside of patients — and our own colleagues have been killed — and to just go after these facilities as if there’s some excuse that is legitimate, when it’s not, and there’s no evidence that’s been offered to really prove that they should be targets, really nothing — nothing — to substantiate that at all. They are protected spaces.

    And so, the truce has allowed perhaps some stocks to go in for us to facilitate to do some movements, to check on some hospitals and clinics to see what their stocks are like. But what you really needed was to pre-position everything, to have it already in place at the starting blocks, in a warehouse, ready to be distributed to the places that need it most, that still have medical staff. And that wasn’t done because of the total siege over the last many weeks.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Avril, I’m not sure — I’m sure you’ve heard that the World Health Organization earlier this week warned that more people in Gaza could die from disease than have already died from the bombing. If you could talk a little bit about that?

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: Yes. Well, certainly, I mentioned infections earlier. When you have children coming in who have more than 50% of their bodies burned from explosions, they are, in the best-case scenario, in the fully equipped hospital with all the means to control the infection, really it’s a life-or-death situation. So, now we have so many of these children that we cannot treat properly. We don’t even have the proper gauze in the stocks to be able to do it.

    The other thing that the World Health Organization was pointing out, which is entirely plausible, is this whole question of dehydration. So, young children, infants are coming in severely dehydrated. And where is the water? Since the siege began, this is one of the things that this collective punishment has honed in on to say, “We’re not going to give you access to water or food or medicines” — all the things that are needed just to stay alive. So, that’s a huge problem right now.

    Then you just think of the people with chronic illnesses. And this is always a concern for us. Somebody who’s on heart medication, or they have diabetes, they have any number of chronic illnesses — think of all the cancer patients — where are they supposed to go to replenish? The hospital system that is barely functioning at all in the south, for example, their focus is on the severely wounded that are coming in, trying to keep people alive, patch them up, do the amputations really quickly, not in the proper way even to allow for prosthetic devices after. They’re just trying to do the most triage very urgently. And the ones who need safe place to give birth, the ones who need their heart medication, the children who are severely dehydrated, and there’s nowhere really to look after them in a hospital like that, these are the ones that are likely to be the other casualties of this war, not only the ones who are killed by the direct violence that is seemingly affecting civilians so much more than anyone else.

    AMY GOODMAN: Avril Benoît, if you can talk about Netanyahu’s threat to — in resuming the bombardment? You’ve got Blinken, who reportedly is urging more surgical strikes. But they’re talking about bombarding the south. This is where they forced — what is it? — a million Gazans, Palestinians, to go from the north. So, talk about what this would mean if this temporary ceasefire ends.

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: It’s a horror show for us. Just think about it. A third of the injured people already were injured in the south, which was the place that everyone was told to go. That was the place. You were supposed to leave the north, go to the south. And then they got killed there.

    So, for us, this is the worst, because what we have is, on the one side, the talk of “We would like humanitarian law to be respected. We would like civilians to be considered. Limit the collateral damage of civilians,” and yet, what we have seen time and again is there are no consequences evident for not doing that. And so, we have, with the looming end of this truce — and, it seems, not enough political will to really have a ceasefire — what we would regard as a kind of talking one thing but no consequences. So we can tell the Israeli forces, the Netanyahu government, “Please try to limit the killing of civilians, start doing that,” but we’re not really seeing any consequences if they don’t.

    And we do know that the United States is providing billions in aid, its military aid. And so, you know, it seems that that aid could well be used, with no consequences, to violate international norms, the Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law. And for us, that’s just unacceptable.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, Avril Benoît, MSF International President Christos Christou posted this update on Tuesday, that while he was visiting the MSF team at the Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin, the Israeli army conducted an incursion on the refugee camp.

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: Yes. And one of the most difficult things about that is that —

    AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to play a clip. We’re going to play a clip — 

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: OK.

    AMY GOODMAN: — of Christou right now.

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: Sounds good.

    CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: It’s been already two-and-a-half hours that we are trapped in our hospital here in Jenin, while the Israeli forces are operating in another incursion in Jenin camp. There is no way for any of the injured patients to reach the hospital, and there’s no way for us to reach these people. There’s nothing worse for a doctor to know that there are people there needing our care, and they cannot get it.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Avril Benoît, if you could comment on that and also the fact that two children were killed in Jenin just today?

    AVRIL BENOÃŽT: Yes. Well, as Dr. Christou, our international president, said, if people cannot access a facility in the West Bank, already you can see the grave concern that we have. Under humanitarian law, anyone should be able to reach a hospital. And to have a hospital surrounded, blocked, so that no one can actually bring their injured children, bring their wounded to that hospital, for us, is a complete outrage. It’s been happening systematically in Gaza. And for us to now see it elsewhere is something that we, as the international community, should never accept.

    And that is one of the reasons that we are speaking so loudly and in a united voice with the humanitarian aid agencies for a ceasefire, a proper ceasefire, to stop the killing, stop the siege, and allow aid to come in unconditionally and for the people to be helped, saved, and to be able to resume their lives in some shape or form.

    AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Avril Benoît, for joining us. This ceasefire, we will see, goes day by day, those children in Jenin killed yesterday. Avril Benoît is executive director of Doctors Without Borders.

    Coming up, we’ll be speaking with the acclaimed Gazan human rights attorney Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. He’s going to be joining us from Cairo, after his house was bombed in northern Gaza. We will find out about his journey south. Then we’ll speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin about the death of Henry Kissinger. Stay with us.



      Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, toldAgence France-Presse that the resumption of bombing drags Gazans "back to the nightmarish situation they were in before the truce took place," with millions of people in desperate need of food, medicine, clean water, and sanitary living conditions.

    "People are at a breaking point, hospitals are at a breaking point, the whole Gaza Strip is in a very precarious state," said Mardini. "There is nowhere safe to go for civilians. We have seen in the hospitals where our teams have been working, that over the past days, hundreds of severely injured people have arrived. The influx of severely wounded outpaced the real capacity of hospitals to absorb and treat the wounded, so there is a massive challenge." 

    "Gaza Strip is in a very precarious state."  That's is exactly correct.  Zoe Magee, Sami Zayara, and Ruwaida Amer (ABC NEWS) report:


    Winter is coming to the Gaza Strip and with it, fears that living conditions for the 1.8 million internally displaced people will get significantly worse.

    It’s been nearly two months since a war broke out between Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, and neighboring Israel. About 80% of Gaza’s population is now homeless, with many people forced to live in make-shift shelters, largely exposed to the elements, according to the United Nations.

    Over a million people in Gaza have fled to United Nations Relief and Works Agency shelters set up there, the U.N. said. These shelters cannot cope with the influx, according to Dr. Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesperson at UNRWA in Gaza.

    “The circumstances in our shelters is very tough actually,” Abu Hasna told ABC News. “People are suffering a lot. For example, there is one toilet for 125 persons and one shower for 700 people. There is a lack of cleaning water, a lack of drinkable water also, lack of food, lack of everything.”







    There is no question that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is employing overwhelming military power to terrorize 2.3 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the name of defeating Hamas military forces.  This would be consistent with an Israeli policy that began in 1948 to use every military engagement with Arab states to displace as many Palestinians civilians as possible from their homes, and to never acknowledge a right of return for Palestinian refugees.  No U.S. administration has ever put pressure on Israel to allow the return of Palestinians to their homes in Israel.

    Meanwhile, mainstream media support Israel’s contention that the Israel-Hamas War began on October 7th, which ignores Israel’s punishment of Palestinian civilians over the past 16 years.  Israeli policy has limited the usage of electricity in Gaza, which has created the need to dump sewage into the Mediterranean Sea, making the water undrinkable.  Israeli-imposed fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to be shut down.  Netanyahu, who once boasted that I “stopped the Oslo accords,” never indicated any interest in lessening these punishments, let alone pursuing a diplomatic or political solution to the Palestinian tragedy.

    Sadly, U.S. administrations have paid lip service to the idea of a two-state solution, but have never pressed an Israeli government to move toward Palestinian statehood.  At the very least, the Biden administration should recognize Palestine as a member state in the United Nations, and press Israel to enter talks with Palestinians regarding borders, Jerusalem, and security from Israeli settlers on the West Bank.


    From yesterday's DEMOCRACTY NOW!




    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, with Nermeen Shaikh.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue our coverage of Gaza, we’re joined by Raji Sourani, the award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights. He’s a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. We last spoke with Raji Sourani after Israel bombed his home in Gaza City. He joins us today from Cairo, Egypt.

    Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Raji Sourani. If you could begin by talking about how you managed to leave Gaza and how you got to Cairo?

    RAJI SOURANI: Well, it was very hard and very heartbreaking for me, I mean, to leave Gaza, I mean, the place I lived all my life, one-way ticket in it. And that was very hard and very tough. But really, I mean, after I was targeted for the second time, after we talked, I was advised very strongly, I mean, not to be at that place and to leave the northern of Gaza. And I left with my family, who didn’t want to leave me alone. I mean, so we left together to the south for a few days, and thanks for the help of great friends, I mean, who managed to get me there, because in two previous attempts it was mission impossible, when tens of people died either on the beach road or at Salah al-Din Street in front of our eyes, when the Israelis shot and bombed, I mean, people who were advised to leave to the safe haven in the south. But that wasn’t, I mean, the case. So I managed to leave to the south, finally, on my third attempt. And from there, I managed to move to Egypt.

    There was, I mean, quite a lot of friends who wanted, in a way, the voice, I mean, of Gaza, the voice of the voiceless, about the horrendous genocide taking place at [inaudible] to be reported to the outside world. And there is quite a lot of things to do with the ICC, which greatly disappointing us, and there’s quite a lot of work to do with the ICJ. And there is quite a lot of work to talk, speak to power in European countries about this new Nakba, which is in process, and Israel creating it, and to stop their complicity, their absolute political, legal, military support for belligerent criminal occupation, who’s doing suicide — genocide at the daylight, who’s doing ethnic cleansing, war crimes, broadcasted there live at the real time. But it seems deep in their mind and hearts, the colonial, racist Western governments don’t want to see, don’t want to know, and they are insisting, I mean, in supporting blindly the Israeli belligerent occupation in the crimes they are doing in Gaza and the Occupied Territories at large.

    AMY GOODMAN: Raji, if you could look straight into the camera lens as we speak to you now in Cairo? Thank God you’re OK. When we were speaking to you the day after your house was bombed, you described your son moving you and your beloved wife from one room, saying, “Let’s going into the hallway,” and then the place was destroyed. If you could say in more detail what it was like to make your way north to south, what you saw along the way? We also had reports that those who wanted to return to their homes north — so much of the bombing, it may surprise people, is happening actually in the south, where people are directed to go, before this ceasefire. Is it true that people were shot trying to go home in the north? The Israeli military had said, “Don’t do this.”

    RAJI SOURANI: Well, we have to understand the context, the context of what the Israelis really want. In simple words, Prime Minister Netanyahu, the criminal Netanyahu, said in simple words, “Gazans should leave Gaza.” He said, “Gaza should be deserted.” And the Minister of Defense Gallant, in a clear, simple way, he said, “For Gazans, there will be no food, no electricity, no fuel.”

    And so, what does that mean? I mean, if you say Gazans should leave Gaza, to go where to? It’s obvious and clear. If you are starving and cutting electricity, food, medicine, you are bombing shelters, hospitals, ambulances, if you are killing hundreds of entire families, I mean, being erased, if you are bombing bakeries, if you are bombing water infrastructure and desalination plants, if you are, you know, bluffing, I mean, the entire streets in the Gaza, if you are not allowing people even to reach hospital, if you bomb the civil defense system and the people who are working on it, what do you want from that? If you make no safe haven in entire Gaza, what’s the purpose of that?

    They want to push the north to the south. This is the first stage. And they pushed many as a million people, I mean, to the south — Gaza already one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. And they push them while Gaza suffers 17 years of blockade, suffocated the life socioeconomically, passed through five wars against them, and in the eye of the storm the civilian and civilian targets. And now you are doing all that. You are killing almost 30,000 people, because many, many, Amy, still, I mean, under the rubbles, many still under their destroyed houses, and civil defense unable to recover. You are talking about thousands of people. You are talking about thousands of people in the streets in some areas nobody can get to.

    The rationale, the behavior of the Israeli guidelines, the outcome of this pushing people to the south, and then from the south toward Sinai, that’s a new Nakba. As simple as that. They want us out, out of Palestine, out of Gaza, out of the West Bank. This is, I mean, the ultimate goal, Amy, for the Israeli government. And this coalition of Netanyahu and the right wing, the basis of their governmental agreement, the coalition agreement to do that, this was said at day one of this war, of this genocide war. And I think yet the Israelis so determined, so willing, and they want to do that. They want to do that.

    They finished, I mean, the first stage, and now they want to go to the second stage. And after they finish up with Gaza, it won’t be a new brand of apartheid in East Jerusalem and West Bank. They will do the same, I mean, there. So, what was lack of their plan in 1948 in the Nakba, they want to implement it completely now, so Eretz Yisrael would be clean, and they will have the purity of the Jewish state. And by that, they will accomplish, I mean, their mission. This is simple, clear for any who want to see beyond the details. This is really what Israel want to do.

    And that’s why we call it, from the second day, this is genocide, this is ethnic cleansing, and these are first-class war crimes. It’s against A, B, C of international law, international humanitarian law. And it’s against Geneva Convention. It’s against Rome Statute. And we see, from the wall to wall, support by many European countries, doing that willingly and giving full legal, political and military support for the state of Israel, plus U.S.

    AMY GOODMAN: Raji, as you talk about international law, can you make that comparison between what happened in Ukraine, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, immediately the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court opening an investigation, especially against children — I think there were something — against what happened to the children. Five hundred children have died in Ukraine over almost two years, up to a thousand dead or maimed. And you compare it to the few weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, 5,000 to 6000 children alone dead, over 15,000 people dead. What do you want Karim Khan to do? And finally — and we just have a few minutes — right now Blinken just met with Mahmoud Abbas. He just met with Herzog on his, like, fourth trip to the Middle East, the U.S. pushing hard to give more weapons aid to Israel. Your response to that? What do you want Biden to say to Netanyahu? And how much power does he have?

    RAJI SOURANI: I don’t think yet there is decision by U.S. to stop what is going on. They can simply stop all these crimes. We are bombed with F-35, F-16s, the American tanks, the American artillery, the American ammunition. We are killed with that, with some small amount of European arms. Now, if U.S. want to stop that, they can do that. And they can do that simply. But they are supporting, Amy, really, what Israel is doing. And if we are talking about the next stage that — attends. Hello?

    AMY GOODMAN: We can hear you fine. Just if you can just look up into the camera. We see you. Ah, we may have just lost Raji Sourani. Raji Sourani is the world-renowned, award-winning human rights attorney, won the RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Award, won the Right Livelihood Award, has lived in Gaza for decades, speaking to us from Cairo, Egypt. He just got out of Gaza. His home was bombed, with this wife and his son and him it.

    Next up, we’re going to talk about Henry Kissinger. He has died at the age of 100. We’ll speak to the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin, author of Kissinger’s Shadow. Stay with us.

    [break]

    AMY GOODMAN: “The Right to Live in Peace” by Víctor Jara, the great Chilean musician who died in the days after the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet came to power, U.S.-backed, Nixon-backed, Kissinger-backed Pinochet, leading to the death of thousands.



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