Israel to World: "Suck It."

This really is turning into the American right's mental invasion of Iraq that was speciously justified by 9/11, with the same lop-sided reprisal.

― birdistheword, Friday, 13 October 2023 18:06 (two hours ago) link

I don't really think this is an apt comparison. Iraq literally had nothing to do with 9/11. Hamas actually killed over 1200 people and kidnapped another 150 including children and babies.

Yeah, my mistake - I was thinking of the rationale for inflicting far more harm in retaliation, but it's a poor comparison when those details aren't similar.

Here's Jonathan M. Katz's write-up where he makes this sobering observation:

"...half of Gaza’s population is under 18, and nearly 40 percent is under 15. What happens now will shape the next decades of life in Gaza, Israel, and beyond; how many grow up in both places believing, as Netanyahu does, that the only path to survival and freedom is through violence, casting new iron walls of their own."

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/10/13/breaking-news/thai-and-filipino-workers-get-caught-up-in-israel-hamas-war/

The number of Thais affected by the tragedy stood out in lists of non-Israeli nationals affected by the violence: Thailand’s foreign ministry Thursday said 21 Thais are believed dead and 14 wounded. Sixteen were believed to have been taken hostage.

Survivor Chatree Chasri left his home in northeastern Thailand in 2019 to work in Israel as an agricultural laborer to pay off debts and provide for his wife and two children back home in Nakhon Phanom. Foreign work is a common path for Thais from the country’s economically disadvantaged rural areas, especially the northeast.

Working under a government-to-government agreement, the 38-year-old has been farming tomatoes and cauliflower for the past four years in the southern Israeli town of Mivtahim, less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from Israel’s border with Gaza.

Despite the occasional shelling and rocket attacks that sent him running for cover, his life at the farm had been OK until Saturday, he said from Israel in a phone interview with The Associated Press. Now he says he wants to come home, and never go back to Israel.

Chatree was shot several times in his hip shortly after Hamas launched its rocket attacks and shock ground offensive into southern Israel, killing hundreds of people and capturing more than 100 who were hauled back to Gaza as hostages.

Chatree was using a toilet at the farm where he works with other foreign laborers when he suddenly heard gunshots.

“The sounds came closer and bullets went through the wall of the toilet,” he said, recalling the moment he was hit. He then saw two gunmen making their way into the workers’ living quarters and open fire, so the workers fled outside to hide.

Vibhavadi Vannachai, a Thai expatriate who has lived in Israel for nearly two decades and is coordinating with Israeli authorities to help the Thai workers, fears the number of victims may rise.

Vibhavadi, originally from Nong Bua Lamphu province in Thailand’s northeast, works as an interpreter in a legal office whose cases mostly involve resolving disputes between Thai workers and their employers.

She said abuse and violations of their rights are common, with many bound by years-long contracts but cheated of their wages. Many are forced to work long hours and are beaten if they refuse. Some have to live in “quarters that are not fit for human beings,” she said.

Vibhavadi helped find temporary accommodations for Chatree and Padoong Bootmo, a 26-year-old Thai worker shot on Saturday who said the potato and yam farm where he works in Yesha was raided twice by gunmen and then burned down.

Padoong said in a phone interview he had been able to send 40,000 baht ($1,100) home each month. He might under the best of circumstances make less than half that doing the same job in Thailand, but he said he doesn’t want to stay in Israel anymore.

Almost laughed.

Berlin now banned a Jewish protest against the escalation in Palestine, saying there is a big risk of antisemitism (!) https://t.co/ksJ0Zcpzfq

— s 🦦 (@unitas_spiritus) October 13, 2023

tbf they've got a lot of experience with antisemitism over there

can’t even say who killed their own staff member https://t.co/mqPAuATzv7

— Nihal | نهال (@nihalist___) October 13, 2023

tbf they've got a lot of experience with antisemitism over there

― The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.), Friday, 13 October 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Very true.

Biden: It's also a priority for me to urgently address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza… We can't lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas and the appalling attacks pic.twitter.com/oHybsZBvC7

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 13, 2023

Thank you Joe

This, on the uses of grief, is stirring and clear. https://t.co/7O94v03ftC

— Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) October 13, 2023

'addressing the crisis' is such a vague and bloodless bit of diplomatic language. what's that supposed to mean in real terms?

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-joshua-leifer/

I don’t have a ton to say about this situation in general, but I appreciate that there are thoughtful people like gabriel winant out there

that is a very good piece

as for Germany there's nothing that country finds more threatening than Jewish people who question the civic religion or are insufficiently impressed by remembrance culture - anti-(or not pro- enough)zionist Jews are persecuted with a unique fervour compared to "ethnic Germans" with the same views - it's repulsive

Biden is such a disgusting coward, but same with the EU and the UK leadership responses, the UK is barely even a serious country these days. Talking about deporting foreign students with a Palestine flag on their social media. Just sick deranged people, cowardly people in positions where you need people who have the desire to prevent planned humanitarian catastrophes.

“You can’t cure killed babies with more dead babies. We need peace.”

The son of a missing Israeli peace activist says that his mother would be mortified by the situation in Gaza, and that vengeance is not a strategy. pic.twitter.com/soKJ76nfGc

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 13, 2023

the son of Vivian Silver, the Canadian peace activist taken hostage

Chris Hayes is trying, he’s really trying, to reframe the narrative within the cramped confines of prime time corporate media, and a personality (his own l)that doesn’t exactly relish confrontation (see his persistent-if-gentle pushback at Cory Booker’s frothing-at-the-mouth hawkishness yesterday for example). Daniel Levy was interviewed on the show tonight and in one fell swoop cut through a week’s worth of CNN-MSNBC mostly parroting the Netanyahu framing of the conflict. I could be wrong , but I felt as though Hayes had him on to say what he can’t quite bring himself to say.

I am on a train & the people in seats close to me have been talking incessantly for 30 minutes about their holiday plans all over the world, the latest expensive skin treatments they’ve had & the musicals they’re going to — George Habash’s words from 1970 are ringing in my ears: pic.twitter.com/SXNqodPU9u

— Louis Allday (@Louis_Allday) October 14, 2023

on the train on a saturday morning. going to work I can only presume

The work.

march in London about to begin. thousands here demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza and an end to the occupation. pic.twitter.com/7p9kA3bLw8

— michael richmond (@Sisyphusa) October 14, 2023

If Israeli flags start flying over village greens in Northumberland and in shop windows in Derby like the Ukraine flag is, then I'd say the public would be on board with unconditional support. This feels politician led, I don't see UK public following with any fervour

But who knows, if the public gets politicised over it enough that campism kicks in, then maybe. I don't think things are necessarily as easy as all that

Agree, I don't see that happening... well, maybe at Ibrox Park.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-scotlands-fiercest-soccer-rivalry-features-israeli-vs-palestinian-flags/

That was meant for the Labour thread not this one

xp some prime campism there at Ibrox

Judith Butler in the LRB

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n20/judith-butler/the-compass-of-mourningl

Von der Leyen getting pretty sharply criticised by the Irish Times, a paper about as right wing and pro EU as they come, almost surprising to me.

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/10/13/as-von-der-leyen-visits-israel-is-the-commission-overstretching-its-powers/

Her approach has caused deepening unease within European institutions and in national capitals as Israel undertakes what the Taoiseach has described as “collective punishment” against the people of Gaza, cutting off water, food and electricity, and now ordering over a million people to evacuate in 24 hours to the alarm of the United Nations.

i've seen a few pieces, maybe upthread, maybe elsewhere, that are stressing the historic meaning of Irish neutrality and that seems to be a big factor in emphasizing the distance from von der Leyen's bullshit

That’s not it (I haven’t seen those pieces though). Irish people have historically sympathised with Palestinians. Varadkar is very right wing but is also descended from colonised people on both sides, I was honestly shocked he said that tbh.

fair point, i know about the sympathies of northern irish catholics especially. maybe the writers playing up neutrality are old tories trying to justify not jumping on team colonialism at the moment

id not call IT nor varadkar anything further than centre right- about where starmer labour is? but ofc who knows if these measures even mean anything in current environments

but was very pleasantly surprised by his comments, yes

as much perhaps about fending off the shadow of SF on EU neutrality and palestine as anything else i suspect (im not sure varadkar has individual moral positions tbh) but welcome and id say definitely much more representative of the public position than the other EU leaders ive seen

anyone have non-paywalled butler ?

https://archive.ph/NJppT

thank you

https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide

Went to the London demo earlier. It was good.

Oh it's not paywalled (I think?) - I just added in an extra character: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n20/judith-butler/the-compass-of-mourning

I was if anything more surprised at Micheal Martin saying that "That call by Israel should be rescinded"

this probably not helpful but fucking hell

Here is footage showing moments before and after an Israeli airstrike that hit civilian convoys fleeing Gaza:
Dozens of evacuees reportedly killed.#ForcedDisplacement#DisproportionateAttack#GenocideinGaza
Guardian, 10/14/23, 19.10 BSThttps://t.co/oO2pZYe5oX

— 𝚓𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎 𝚜𝚖𝚢𝚝𝚑 🌻 🇪🇺 (@smyth_jeannette) October 14, 2023

War crimes don’t come much easier to prove than that

Palestine Action left a message overnight for the @BBC: spreading the occupation's lies and manufacturing consent for israel's war crimes means that you have Palestinian blood on your hands #ShutBBCDown https://t.co/wjAPXo8GjJ pic.twitter.com/l5xLYXKVeD

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) October 14, 2023

Thousands are gathering for a pro-Palestinian march in central London.@SkyNewsAdele spoke to one of the protesters who says the "root of this violence is the occupation".

Israel-Hamas war latest ➡️ https://t.co/5HylWXsPOL

📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/DZ1hxyrzEL

— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 14, 2023

Seen photos and videos of marches in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Milan, Montreal.

"Grief Yes - Despair No," by Palestinian artist Abdel Rahman Al Muzain, 1982. pic.twitter.com/7xNV4I94fE

— tabitha 🌞 (@thetolerantweft) October 14, 2023

Interesting thread from an analyst. Picked out this tweet.

The conflict will feed global bigotry, hatred, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, hostility to the US and Europe, etc. It may all be significantly worse than the 9/11 era. 11/X

— Rex Brynen (@RexBrynen) October 14, 2023

Fwiw, Hasan Abi doing a Palestinian medical air fundraiser https://tiltify.com/@hasanabi/palestinian-medical-assistance

US$350k+ raised so far

Multiple Israeli airstrikes on southern Gaza-this is where people were told to seek refuge. https://t.co/qaDjJV1q8w

— Mohammad Alsaafin (@malsaafin) October 15, 2023

I know that raw emotion isn’t helpful right now, but fucking hell

Re: Hasan Abi’s fundraiser: I donated but I’m wondering -and this question might sound stupid- how will the funds or equipment actually get into Gaza (assuming that’s where they’re destined)?

Hoping that external pressure has at least caused the blocking of power food etc to be stopped.
Would be so great if the rest of the world were woken up to conditions in Gaza finally. Maybe far fetched cos they haven't been so far.
Israel will continue to be a nation of victims for indefinite generations not aggressors. Still stuck with the idea you would hope that trauma victims would do something to reduce trauma not channel it onwards. Which may be over positive.

"My grandfather survived Auschwitz, and that is why I fight for a free Palestine."

The words of Talia Baurer from Jewish Voice for Peace, who was one of 57 people arrested at a solidarity demonstration for the people of occupied Gaza in New York City. pic.twitter.com/zNQWtfn9mx

— AJ+ (@ajplus) October 14, 2023

PALESTINIANS IN GAZA ALREADY TRIED THIS! They held peaceful marches to the Israeli fence on the “border” and the IDF responded by FIRING LIVE AMMUNITION AT THEM! They shot THOUSANDS of Palestinians! THIS WAS LIKE FOUR YEARS AGO! https://t.co/1ZCNJkAoqs https://t.co/646krzkhRj

— sam (@halaljew) October 14, 2023

Misspelling Gandhi is a good sign the poster will be an expert in non-violent resistance. Presumably he's also a big fan of Luther Martin King.

The Judith Butler piece in the LRB is getting hammered but I haven't read it.

The stunning lack of urgency in this piece by Judith Butler—published as Gazans flee for their lives—is its own form of moral failure https://t.co/KUt0cF2wEY

— Tobi Haslett (@tobihaslett) October 14, 2023