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Wednesday, May 01, 2024

Fetty-Crap (aka John Fetterman) gets even nuttier

First up, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "From The River To The Sea No Student Shall Be Free." That went up earlier tonight.

What an embarrassing and evil asshole. She's nuts and should be charged for attacking the students. Speaking of lunatics . . .

Crazy, unhinged John Fetterman is at it again. Do we need to get the goons with nets to come grab him and put him back in the mental home? Fetty, are you wetting yourself again, sucking your thumb and cowering in a corner? The crazed US senator who had to take nearly four months off from his job to go into the nut farm is Tweeting his madness for the world to see. Students were attacked on US campuses yesterday. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk noted this was a troubling occurrence. That set Fetty-crap off and he Tweeted that the UN ignores "Hamas who killed, raped, mutilated and tortured more than 1,000 Israeli babies, children, women, and elderly."

He's insane. He really is going to be at the top of some clock tower shooting people soon. And when that happens, don't blame me. Blame Pennsylvania voters who elected a crazy man despite huge health concerns.

First off, Fetty Crap, there is no proof that anyone was raped on October 7th. Second off, over 14,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7th by the Israeli government. Third, you're a cheap whore. We all know AIPAC has become your biggest contributor. Save that money, Fetty Crap, with your mental illness, you're going to need it.

And can someone break the news to him that he's not Dan Cortese hosting MTV's ROCK & JOCK so, at 54 he can lose the goatee. Cortese is two years older and even he doesn't wear it anymore, old man.

And here's some truth for Fetty-Crap, Anat Peled and Jared Malsin (WALL STREET JOURNAL) report:

When commandos retrieved Ron Sherman’s body from the tunnel under Gaza, Israeli officials told the 19-year-old soldier’s mother that he had died at the hands of his Hamas captors.

At the time, in mid-December, Maayan Sherman had no reason to question their account of her son’s death.

Doubts began to emerge in the weeks afterward when a pathologist’s report found that the soldier’s remains showed no signs of trauma.

Maayan Sherman and the mother of another soldier, Nik Beizer, the same age and killed at the same time, began their own investigation. They called the families of other hostages, scanned Hamas social media and peppered Israeli officials with questions. Their persistence took them to the steel and glass offices of the military’s hostage-intelligence chief in Tel Aviv and secured meetings with other senior military officials and even the president.

It also extracted an admission from two senior military officials that an Israeli airstrike targeting a Hamas commander in November had killed their sons.

“We have to find out the truth about everything.” Sherman said. “Even if the truth is, ‘We had to kill them.’”

Israel’s military officials haven’t publicly acknowledged that the men died in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza in November. They say they have given all the information they have to the soldiers’ families. In response to questions about the death of the soldiers from The Wall Street Journal, Israel said that it had “no information about the presence of hostages in the tunnel of the commander of the northern division of Hamas, at the time of the attack.”

Well what do you know, Fetty Crap, the men you whore for lied. Work that tired old body for the men in the Israeli government, Fetty Crap, you're a private dancer, dancer for money . . .

Stand with the students.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Officials unleash the police on peaceful student protesters.

There are various versions going out to news consumers about what took place at Columbia University last night.

Let's start with the truth via Esha Karam, Shea Vance, Sarah Huddleston, Amira McKee and Manuela Silva (COLUMBIA SPECTATOR):

Hundreds of New York Police Department officers entered campus on Tuesday night and cleared Hamilton Hall, which demonstrators occupied early Tuesday morning, arresting dozens of protesters. The sweep came after University President Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD “to clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments” on Tuesday.

Outside the admissions office entrance to Hamilton, officers pushed protesters to the ground and slammed them with metal barricades. Police began arresting protesters outside the main entrance of the building at around 9:30 p.m.

One protester lay on the ground in front of Hamilton unmoving as police officers stood over them. Three officers then carried the individual away from the building. Another protester was thrown down the stairs in front of Hamilton, according to videos reviewed by Spectator.

As they entered the building, officers threw down the metal and wooden tables barricading the doors and shattered the glass on the leftmost doors of Hamilton to enter with shields in hand. As they entered rooms in the building, several officers drew their guns, according to footage posted by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry.

The arrests came on the 56th anniversary of the 1968 police sweep of the Morningside campus, when the NYPD arrested hundreds of students occupying several buildings on campus, including Hamilton Hall.

That's sound and basic journalism. Let's zoom in on a 'local' news report that was, in fact, aired nationally with a liar at each station pretending that they were the 'reporter' on the piece.

Who's a whore? So many but let's go to a big market, let's not pick on someone already struggling in a small one. So let's go to Los Angeles.

KTLA's Sandra Mitchell is a whore. I get it, I do. When you look like her in Chicago, viewers might just find you plain. But for Los Angeles TV? You're butt ugly. You're the one they take up an office donations for cosmetic surgery. So I get it, Sandra, you'll stoop to anything. But your decision to pass someone else's report from New York off as your own on local Los Angeles television?

Well, whore, that means you have to answer for it.

So she needs to answer for her report yesterday evening (which again she just narrated and pretended like she had done it herself) when you featured two people -- each billed solely as "Columbia student" -- praising the violent assault by the police. Onscreen they were just "Columbia student." And wasn't it, strange, Sandra, how "you" (reality: some reporter in New York) could only find two students to speak to and they weren't involved in the protest so they really weren't pat of the news. But the two you provide for context both hate the protesters and these two are just students, just two students with no dog in the battle.

No, they do have dogs in the battle. Take bow wow Jessica Schwalb who is actually a journalist and is actually a Palestinian hater who has been Tweeting hatred at the protesters for as long as it's been going on and this Laura Loomer fan girl goes back even further on her Tweets attacking the Palestinians and attacking their supporters -- no links to trash.

She's not the only nightmare. Playing a right-wing version of the Rupert Everett to her right-wing Julia Roberts, we get Jonas Du -- known as Jonas Doo-Doo to his friends? This "Columbia student" who is also the only other student interviewed by "Sandra" also happens to be a right-winger.

In fact, he and Jessica are working with the right-wing press as he noted before he and Jessica spoke to "Sandra" for "her" "report" -- he Tweeted:

It’s an honor to work with
@bariweiss
and
@TheFP
in collaboration with
@jessicaschwalb7
to cover the madness that has engulfed Columbia

Get it?

It took me less than two minutes -- while walking on the treadmill to warm up -- to find the information that "Sandra" should have found herself before putting a name to a report that she didn't do and couldn't have done.

But that is what happens thanks to media consolidation. Like far too many channels in this country, KTLA is owned by NEXSTAR MEDIA GROUP. They own 197 TV stations throughout the country.

Shame on Sandra and KTLA and every other of the 196 that the garbage 'report' got aired on. Sandra now resumes trying to pose her body seductively while doing hard hitting topics like dog safety. Does she think this is the pose of a journalist or a sexpot?

Normal women don't angle themselves in a chair like that -- nor, and this goes for her co-host as well -- do they were Joan Crawford f**k-me heels for a mid-day segment.

They won't tell the truth about the protesters because the truth hurts their side. The truth puts the blood on their hands. So they lie about the protesters and NEXSTAR viewers were under the impression that they were watching a locally produced segment (how did their local TV favorite get to New York and back!!!!) with fairness and no distortions. They didn't know that the students -- the only ones who got to speak on camera -- were both fright-wingers working with Bari The Transphobe Weiss. Don't worry, Zac and Gavin will find a way to brag about Bari's ethics in yet another editon of THE VANGUARD.

Media consolidation hurts us all. Might be something to remember as renewal licenses are sought.

WSWS continues its coverage of Columbia and the other universities where students are making their voices heard.

From the report on Columbia University -- the first one listed above -- we'll note this:

In order to prevent objective documentation of their brutality, police forced legal observers, press and medics to leave the campus area, and even public streets nearby, before they began their assault. As of this writing it is unclear how many protesters have been arrested and the extent of their injuries.

The police brutality witnessed at Columbia Tuesday night was replicated across the country. At the University of South Florida in Tampa, riot police were recorded firing tear gas and rubber bullets against unarmed and peaceful protesters.

The coordinated and violent assaults on non-violent student encampments have been ordered from the White House. On Tuesday, the Biden administration issued a series of statements doubling down on the lie that anti-Gaza genocide protests continuing to spread across US university campuses are antisemitic, signaling its support for stepped-up police attacks and arrests of peaceful protesters.

In response to the occupation of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall by pro-Palestinian students in the early morning hours of Tuesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates declared:

President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life. He condemns the use of the term “intifada,” as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days. President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful—it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.

Biden’s lead was taken up by New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, who said “external actors” were behind the Columbia occupation and demanded that all protesters “leave the area now.” He added that the occupation “must end now.”

The occupation of the classroom building came in response to the university’s announcement that it had begun suspending students who defied its order that a protest encampment set up two weeks ago be disbanded. The administration effectively placed the entire campus on lockdown.

This followed the mobilization of New York City police to attack and arrest hundreds of protesters, who courageously refused to end their protest demanding that the university divest from Israel as part of the fight to stop the US/Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which has already taken the lives of more than 34,000 defenseless civilians, mainly women and children.

Following the occupation of Hamilton Hall, the university announced that it would expel students who refused to leave the building.

The hypocrisy of the White House statement defies description. Biden and his accomplices in both parties and all branches of the government are supplying the fascistic government of Benjamin Netanyahu with the bullets, bombs, tanks, missiles and war planes that are being used to murder and starve Palestinians, while providing political cover for the murderous Zionist regime. Along with its imperialist and NATO allies around the world, the US is defying mass demonstrations all over the world demanding a halt to the greatest war crime since the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II.

Let's move to UCLA. Anna Dai-Liu and Dylan Winward (DAILY BRUIN) report:

Fireworks, tear gas and fights broke out just after 10:50 p.m. Tuesday night and continued early Wednesday morning as around 100 pro-Israel counter-protesters attempted to seize the barricade around and storm the ongoing Palestine solidarity encampment in Dickson Plaza.

The chaos comes as Chancellor Gene Block faces criticism for improper handling of the encampment and the same day the university deemed the encampment to be unlawful, threatening students inside with suspension and expulsion. Security and UCPD both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment – led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA – that followed similar ones across the country.

There has been a minimal police presence on campus despite multiple events of counter-protesters antagonizing the encampment since Thursday.

UC President Michael Drake released a statement Tuesday evening supporting the university’s decision to label the encampment as unlawful, adding that “when it threatens the safety of students, or anyone else, we must act.”

In an emailed statement sent at 12:40 a.m., Mary Osako – the vice chancellor of strategic communications – said the university had called law enforcement personnel for immediate support.

“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight,” she said in the statement. “The fire department and medical personnel are on the scene. We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end.”

At around 10:50 p.m., counter-protesters – who had been gathering around the encampment since that afternoon – began wrestling with protesters inside and CSC security hired by UCLA over the metal barricades surrounding the Gaza solidarity encampment. The barriers came down shortly afterward, and counter-protesters wearing masks then began shoving the wooden boards surrounding the encampment, attempting to topple them onto the protesters inside.

“If they can be there, so can we,” a counter-protester shouted through a megaphone as they tore down the metal barriers. Just before the barriers came down, another yelled, “You guys are going to want to get this. This is history being made.”

CSC security officers hired by the university retreated into Kaplan Hall shortly after, refusing to allow entrance into the building to anyone, including Daily Bruin reporters. The Daily Bruin had previously been pledged 24-hour access to Haines Hall by UCLA Media Relations to protect the safety of its staff, but when reporters attempted to access the building, they found it locked. No immediate remedy was provided, and Media Relations only said that they were working on providing a solution.

After the barricades came down, counter-protesters and protesters inside the encampment began to fight. Counter-protesters shot fireworks into the encampment just after 11 p.m., and irritant gasses were released from both sides. A Daily Bruin reporter was indirectly sprayed in the face.

That might shock you if you read the bulk of the coverage with one outlet after another attempting to pretend that both sides started it. No, for hours it had been egged on by the pro-genocide activists. Unlike many others, ALJAZEERA gets the reality correct;

The People’s City Council, a collective of different activist organizations, has published a statement on behalf of the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment.

It said that the encampment was attacked with gas canisters, pepper spray, fireworks and bricks overnight.

According to the statement, the university’s external security watched and filmed the attack, while law enforcement did not intervene.

Even the use of police force to silence democracy will not work. Protests continue to pop up. Dallas; WFAA reports on Denton's University of North Texas:

Hundreds of students marched Tuesday at the University of North Texas, demanding the school disclose any foundation investments that might benefit Israel’s military.

The Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student organization, coordinated the walkout.

“Our youth is fighting a just cause for the liberation of Palestine,” Palestine Solidarity Committee member Talia Irsh told WFAA. “They are standing up to say that we are not okay with genocide. We are not okay with our institutions funding genocide and profiting off of genocide.”

[, , ,]

The demonstration was considerably larger than similar protests last week at UT Dallas and UT Arlington, which also finished without incident. UNT has more than 49,000 students enrolled, about 10,000 more than UT Arlington and about 20,000 more than UT Dallas.

A friend who's a college professor at UNT told me over the phone that UNT has not seen this kind of turnout and activity since 1994 when Pearl Jam played live on campus.

Yesterday, before the police attacked Columbia, some students appeared on DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: As police crack down on student protesters around the country, we begin today at Columbia University, where scores of students took over Hamilton Hall just after midnight last night after the school began suspending students who refused to leave the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which began almost two weeks ago. Columbia’s Emergency Management Operations Team says it has now locked down the main campus following the occupation. Hamilton Hall was also the site of a historic student occupation in 1968. Students have renamed the building Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

PROTESTER: [echoed by the people’s mic] This building is liberated in honor of Hind, a 6-year-old Palestinian child murdered in Gaza!

AMY GOODMAN: Students are calling for Columbia University to divest from Israel. Democracy Now! was on campus Monday. We spoke to professors and students after a vote around noon to stay in the encampment despite being sanctioned with interim suspension.

PROTESTERS: Disclose! Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest! Disclose! Divest!

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! We’re on the Columbia University campus. Right behind us is the tent encampment. There are dozens of tents there. And then you see around me are people in orange fluorescent vests. They are the faculty. They are the professors at Columbia University who are here to protect their students. It’s just before 2:30, when a news conference will be held. We just passed a 2 p.m. deadline, when Columbia President Shafik said after this point that the students can be suspended. It’s not clear whether they will be moving in the police. On Friday, President Shafik said they would not send in the New York police. But as we were coming up from the subway, there were scores of police. And I now have heard that they’re standing there with plastic handcuffs. But these students are determined.

SUEDA POLAT: My name is Sueda Polat. I’m a student organizer. I’m a graduate student at Columbia University. I study human rights here. I’m also part of the negotiating team.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you could tell us what is it exactly you’re demanding?

SUEDA POLAT: Simple. We don’t want to trade in the blood of Palestinians. And that means divestment from all direct and indirect holding that this university has, whether that be weapons manufacturing, companies that operate illegally in occupied territory, companies that produce information technology for the occupation army. Complete divestment.

We’re also requesting disclosure. We don’t have transparency on this university’s investments. And we need that to be able to push the movement further.

We’re also requesting amnesty. Hundreds of our students have been disciplined over the past six months on unfair premises. We’re willing to put a lot on the line for this cause. My right to education shouldn’t come before the right to education of Gazans.

LINNEA NORTON: My name is Linnea Norton. I’m a Ph.D. student here.

AMY GOODMAN: In?

LINNEA NORTON: In — I study ecology and climate science. I’m a second-year. And yeah, I’ve been part of the initial encampment and was one of the over a hundred students who were suspended and arrested, or first arrested and subsequently suspended.

We have our doctors in John Jay Hall, just there. And my shoulder was injured during the arrest because we were zip-tied for like seven hours straight. And I couldn’t go to the doctor. So I had to go to — because I wasn’t allowed to enter campus and be on campus property. So I had to go to urgent care.

AMY GOODMAN: So you had to pay for that.

LINNEA NORTON: Yeah, yeah.

PROTESTERS: Hey hey! Ho ho! The occupation has got to go!

SHANA REDMOND: My name is Shana Redmond. I am a professor of English and comparative literature and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. And I’m here today because this is leadership in action. These students have taken the worst of circumstances on a global scale and the worst of circumstances at a very localized university scale and turned it into something beautiful. The encampment here, complete with a library, complete with a deescalation team, complete with lessons and teach-ins, has modeled for this campus what open and free inquiry and debate actually looks like.

As the students say, we keep us safe. And so, we, as faculty, are here to assist in ensuring that that is made true.

NADIA ABU EL-HAJ: I’m Nadia Abu El-Haj. I’m an anthropologist, a professor of anthropology, and the co-director of the Center for Palestine Studies. The people behind me in the orange vests are mostly faculty, some staff, who have been mobilized since the last police raid, however long ago it was. We’ve mobilized faculty who would come out and stand sort of both guard but also mostly witness if the police came in again. The president has promised that the police would not come in. That was a promise made two days ago. But this morning, her email said that the encampment would be cleared after 2 p.m. if the students didn’t leave. So we’re not quite clear what that means, how they’re going to clear the encampment.

I mean, the core issue in the immediate is, of course, the genocide going on in Gaza. And the kind of depiction of the students as somehow Hamas supporters or antisemites and sort of dangerous rabble-rousers is a complete misrepresentation of these students. They’ve been calm. They’ve been incredibly well organized. And they’re taking a principled stance.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the fact that today a Jewish student sued the university, saying they don’t feel safe on campus?

NADIA ABU EL-HAJ: I think that there is a really important distinction to be made between feeling unsafe and being unsafe. So I would start with that. I am more than willing to engage any student in a conversation about feeling unsafe. And we’re hearing a lot of that from Muslim and Palestinian students, as well. But as I told the Palestinian students I met with about this months ago, I think it’s helpful to disentangle: When you say, “I feel unsafe,” what are you feeling? Are you uncomfortable? Are you offended? Are you angered? Or are you actually unsafe?

Being doxxed makes you unsafe. Being sprayed by chemicals makes you unsafe. Having the right-wing Christian nationalists on the outside trying to climb the fences into Columbia makes people unsafe. But a lot of what is being labeled as unsafe is being made uncomfortable. And if there are specific instances of physical threats and violence against Jewish students, of course they need to be dealt with. But the depiction of campus as a kind of hotbed of antisemitism that makes Jewish students unsafe is just not true. And there are lots of Jewish students in the encampment. JVP is a very powerful force on this campus, and they don’t think it’s an accurate description.

MAHMOUD KHALIL: Throughout the negotiations, the Shafik administration treated this movement as a matter of internal student discipline rather than a movement or rather than as one of the great moral and political questions of this generation.

ANURIMA BHARGAVA: Anurima Bhargava, civil rights lawyer and filmmaker. This is, you know, we’re into the second — third week of the encampment. Obviously, this morning, there was a statement by the president, very much sort of putting people on alert and trying to give herself the legal foundation that she didn’t have when she arrested students the first time.

And I think, in many ways, we continue to see a very — very much an encampment that has been peaceful. There are many, many students who came here when they heard about the fact that there’s action that has been promised to be taken today. And so we see a lot of people. A lot of students have come in support of the students who have been part of the encampment for all of these days. And I think this is somewhat of a situation of the university’s own creation, right? Because by suggesting that they’re going to take action today, there have been a lot more students who have come onto campus.

And in many ways — again, this is the last day of classes. This is a time where we’re going into study period. And if you can see around you, there’s a lot of efforts to get ready for commencement. And so, we’re at the end of the school year. And in many ways, this request to sort of remove students because of a safety concern — obviously, two weeks ago, when this happened, it was, you know, even the chief of police of the New York Police Department was saying that these students were peacefully protesting, and they were not resisting arrest, and they were peacefully here.

PROTESTERS: Disclose! Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest! Disclose! Divest!

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices of students, professors and their supporters at Columbia University, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment Monday, as many students refused to leave even as they faced suspension. Standing outside of Columbia University on the sidewalk, I then spotted civil rights activist Reverend Herbert Daughtry. I asked why he was there.

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: My name is Herb Daughtry. My church is the House of the Lord Churches. And I’m standing out here today to support the students, the right to protest for what they believe is right. That’s our tradition. I’ve stood on many lines before, across the world, for Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, for Jews here, for Palestinians. I just believe that somebody somewhere must be advocating for peace.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you: Did you know Dr. King? And when were you with him?

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: Well, Dr. King, yes, we go back, 1958, ’59, something like that, particularly on the War in Vietnam, 1967. I was at the Riverside Church when he made his famous “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.” And —

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see this as a similar moment? Where people take a position that — even people in King’s inner circle said, “You shouldn’t take on the Vietnam War. It’s not your war. You are a civil rights leader.” And he said, “No, all of these issues are connected.”

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: And I’m a follower of Dr. King. I believe our efforts are to save the planet, save the people. That’s what I believe that I’ve been called to do. And wherever there are oppression, exploitation, wherever there are people who — listen, Jesus said, told us, the least of these, to struggle for, speak for, work for, the least in society. And so we try to identify where are — where’s the pain, where’s the misery. And I’ve been to Sudan. I’ve been to Israel. I’ve been to Ireland, you name it, and Saigon. So, you know, I’m 93 now, so been —

AMY GOODMAN: So, you were here at Riverside Church, just down the road from Columbia University, on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before Dr. King was assassinated, when he gave his speech here against the War in Vietnam. What was it like to be in there?

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: Well, I had taken some young people. And it was an electric moment. Everybody was waiting for him and when he speaks, because he was mesmerizing. And when he speaks, his reasoning was compelling, persuasive, for anybody who had even a balanced mind. And it was an electric moment. And, well, it was an unforgettable moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see parallels to today?

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: Yeah, where people are gathered to make these issues, to raise these issues, yes. What impressed me is when people are putting their lives on the line, their conveniences on the line. That impressed me. So, when you run across people who are willing to risk something precious, you take note. And so, if Dr. King were here, I believe he’d be here. And it was he who said, “If we haven’t found something to die for, we haven’t found something to live for.”

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the legendary civil rights activist Reverend Herbert Daughtry at 93. His daughter, Reverend Leah Daughtry, was the CEO of the Democratic National Conventions in 2008 and 2016. As her father proudly said, they were rated the best conventions ever.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we take a journey 56 years ago, to 1968, when Hamilton Hall was occupied. Stay with us.

This morning, THE NATIONAL reports:

Jordan has strongly condemned an attack it said was carried out by Israeli settlers on two Jordanian aid convoys.

The two convoys were on the way to Gaza, state news agency Petra reported.

The condemnation comes ahead of an expected visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Jordan as part of a Middle East trip that included a visit to Israel.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 208 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." 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." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." 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." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Wednesday. In the past 24 hours, 33 people were killed and 57 injured, the ministry added." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."

As for 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."

ALJAZEERA reports:

Foreign doctors returning from Gaza describe being left “speechless” by the overwhelming scenes of trauma in the enclave’s hospitals.

Shariq Sayeed, a vascular surgeon from Atlanta, Georgia, says his team treated 40 to 60 patients a day, most of them young people with shrapnel injuries he had never seen before.

“Most were patients 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 years of age,” Sayeed said. “… And unfortunately, there is a very high incidence of infection, … so once you have an amputation that doesn’t heal, you end of getting a higher amputation.”

Ismail Mehr, an anaesthesiologist from New York who led the medical mission, said the foreign doctors were “speechless” when they saw the number of injuries and warned that a looming Rafah offensive would push Gaza’s health sector beyond its capacity.

“I hope and I pray that Rafah is not attacked,” Mehr said. “The health system will not be able to take care of that. It will be a complete catastrophe.”

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Stand with the students and say NO to genocide

As promised, we got a new BURN IT DOWN WITH KIM BROWN today.

Giving credit to THE NATION for P.E. Moskowitz's article:

I would never say I expected more from Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, as that would have required me to expect anything good from him. But I still found myself surprised when he referred to the Columbia University protests against Israel’s war on Gaza as a form of “pogroms.”

Nor did I expect more from The Wall Street Journal, which ran an op-ed arguing that Hamas and Hezbollah are “working with and grooming” pro-Palestine activists. Nor from Benjamin Netanyahu, who compared the campus protests to Nazi Germany. Nor from House Speaker Mike Johnson or Anti-Defamation League President Jonathan Greenblatt, both of whom called for the National Guard to be sent to Columbia.

Yet I have been consistently taken aback at just how ridiculous these and other claims from the media and politicians about the growing pro-Palestine movement have become recently.

Politicians and the mainstream media outlets that support them are consistently simplistic in their analyses, or flat-out wrong, or, well, stupid. But over the last few weeks, it feels like the stupidity has ramped up to a level previously unreached—a level that can no longer be described as misinterpretation or obfuscation or spin, but rather as a complete detachment from reality.

And this condition of near-psychosis appears to be spreading. It’s not just the far-right that’s responding to largely peaceful protests with extreme rhetoric and action. College administrations have sent in police in riot gear to arrest peacefully demonstrating students and faculty, suspended or expelled students, canceled graduations, and even hastily barricaded their campuses with plywood in a fashion that feels both barbaric and Wile-E.-Coyote-esque.

To understand this state of unreality, it’s important to understand that the United States and the elite media are nearly always, to some extent, in a state of unreality. We’ve known this for a while. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman outlined the process by which Americans become unwilling or unable to confront the violence endemic in American life (whether the violence of US-backed wars in other countries or the violence of corporate-backed plutocracy at home) way back in 1988.

As they argued in Manufacturing Consent, a crucial step toward enabling war is the creation of groups of worthy and unworthy victims. Chomsky and Herman were writing about Vietnam and the lack of attention paid to the millions killed in that failed war, but the same is happening today.

Since October 7, politicians and leading media outlets have made it clear, over and over again, that they consider Israeli lives to be worthier than Palestinian ones. Now, the media’s relentless focus on Columbia and other college campuses is proof in itself that it cares, and, crucially, wants us to care, more about any perceived victims of the protests in the US (even if their victimization consists of not being able to teach a class on classical music as they’d prefer), especially if they are from elite institutions, than they do about the lives of Palestinians.

This distorted reality enabled by the media—in which the supposed dangers of student organizing get significantly more coverage than the thing the protests are actually about—partially explains the unhinged reactions of the last few weeks. If one consumes only mainstream US media, one gets a very hysterical version of reality. It’s the same reason Americans think crime is going up all the time even as it falls to historic lows. Feeling constantly under threat, while ignoring people who actually are constantly under threat, is a time-honored, mass-media-enabled, American tradition.

Good article. I stand with the students. I have to use that phrase all the time. I'll be getting food or taking my daughter to the zoo and some adult I don't know will want to talk to me and two our of five times it will be about Gaza and they'll be some pro-genocide freak. I'll say, "I stand with the students." That ends the conversation -- for which I'm glad -- and they'll walk off. Sometimes, they'll give me a dirty look before they do.

A woman came up to my daughter and me today to say how pretty my daughter was and then starts talking about those "spoiled" students. Spoiled? If they were spoiled, they'd just care about themselves. They're risking a lot to speak out. Look at the cowards in our government. We've had three brave adults in the State Department step down over this genocide. The others? They're spoiled. They'll just stay silent to get ahead. That's spoiled. The students are brave.

The media has done a horrible job and it needs to be called out. And it's not just FOX "NEWS." It's all of them. But, yes, as C.I. pointed out many weeks ago, on FOX "NEWS," you are pro-peace or anti-genocide or anything but "anti-Israel." That's how they bill you. And the mainstream media isn't much better.

CNN's Tareq Elhelou, Kareem Khadder, Zeena Saifi and Abeer Salman report:

Twenty-two people, including at least one infant and a toddler, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike over Rafah, Gaza, overnight into Monday, according to hospital officials.

The deceased were brought into Abu Youssef Al Najjar hospital in Rafah following the attack, as their loved ones gathered for their final farewells.

A video filmed for CNN in the hospital courtyard shows several body bags laid on the ground with dozens of anguished people including men, women and children crowded around their late loved ones.

People are seen crouching over the body bags, with some caressing their loved one’s lifeless bodies. At least one baby’s head can be seen sticking out of a bag, as the woman beside it shouts: “My whole family has perished.”

The baby’s uncle, Mahmoud Abu Taha, was carrying the 1-year-old’s lifeless body while talking to the camera, saying his parents had tried having children for 10 years before he was born.

“We were sitting in our homes, not doing anything. It was unexpected when they struck the house. Everyone was asleep in their beds… most of the people that were killed were displaced… they were women and children,” he said.

Lifting the baby boy’s body to the camera, Mahmoud Abu Taha cries out, “this is who they are targeting. This is their objective. This is the generation they’re looking for. This is the safe Rafah they talk about.”

Again, it's a genocide. The world will not forget.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Students at Columbia University claim Hamilton Hall, students at the University of Texas are attacked, despite US government findings of abuse by Israeli troops there is no attempt to withdraw funding or stop supplying arms, nor is there any call for an investigation into the recently discovered mass graces.

Three US State Dept officials have resigned so far over the assault on Gaza. Josh Paul resigned, Tariq Habash resigned and, last week, Hala Rharrit resigned. Hala spoke about her resignation on yesterday's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR):

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Let's turn now to a protest against U.S. policy in Gaza. I'm not talking about the protests unfolding on college campuses across the country. This one is unfolding within the State Department itself. An Arabic-speaking public affairs official has just resigned, the third public resignation over the Biden administration's approach to the war in Gaza. Well, her name is Hala Rharrit. She's been with the State Department for 18 years, most recently as deputy director of the Dubai Media Hub. Hala Rharrit, welcome.

HALA RHARRIT: Thank you so much, Mary Louise.

KELLY: Tell me when you started thinking about this, thinking about resigning.

RHARRIT: Well, honestly, it was quite a long process. As you mentioned, I've been a diplomat for 18 years, really my entire adult life. But the policy really became unacceptable. I was holding out, hoping to try to change things from the inside, until I realized at one point that this policy was undermining U.S. interests. It was destabilizing the Middle East. And it was indeed a failed policy. And with that, I decided that I could no longer be part of the department and decided to submit my resignation.

KELLY: Was there a specific moment? I mean, what was your breaking point?

RHARRIT: There was no real specific moment. It was just a build-up. We were undermining our entire credibility with this policy, the double standards that we were having. We could no longer talk about human rights when we were allowing and enabling the mass killing of civilians. We could no longer talk about press freedom when we remained silent on the killing of over a hundred journalists in Gaza. Everything that we had stood for was no longer relevant. I did experience a lot of silencing. I was ostracized. And it came to a point where I decided it was just - it was not possible anymore.

KELLY: You said you had been hoping to try to change things from inside. Did you write a dissent cable? Did you try to go through official channels to register your unhappiness with U.S. policy?

RHARRIT: I absolutely went through official channels to express my dissent. I wrote daily reports back to this department initially after the conflict for months, explaining and reporting and documenting how the U.S. was being seen on Pan-Arab media, how our favorability was plummeting, how we were demonized as child killers. I did this formally. I did this informally. Again, I was stopped from doing this, but I kept on doing it. It became abundantly clear that no matter what I did, no matter what other diplomats did, the policy was the policy. And most specifically, our unconditional military aid made it impossible for us to have any credibility on even the good things that we were doing.

KELLY: I want to inject that State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, another State Department spokesperson, says that Secretary of State Blinken reads all dissent cables, that Blinken wants to hear differing points of view. When you say you were ostracized, can you be specific?

RHARRIT: From the get-go, I refused to do - as a spokesperson in the region, I refused to do interviews on Gaza, not because I personally disagreed with the policy, but because I documented how this policy was undermining U.S. interests in the Arab world, how we were being called out for our double standard and how people across the region saw through our talking points and no longer believed us for lack of credibility. I was documenting how I was causing a backlash. In reaction to that, there was action taken against me, multiple actions taken against me.

KELLY: If I may, what kind of actions were taken against you?

RHARRIT: I mean, I was accused of having misconduct, that it was a conduct issue, that I was refusing to do my job. I was told get back on air or curtail or resign. Curtail means cut your assignment short. Or resign - I mean, I was given an ultimatum.

KELLY: I mentioned you are the third public resignation from the State Department. You're the first diplomat, the first foreign service officer serving overseas to resign. But out of a department of thousands, how widespread do you believe anger to be within the State Department?

RHARRIT: Well, look. I can only tell you about what I've experienced, right? But it's a very strange time in the State Department, I would say, something that I've never experienced before in my 18 years of service where people are just extremely uneasy about our policy and also extremely uneasy about the ability to speak about our policy internally. And I've never faced that before. We've always been able to talk about what's working, what's not working. We've been able to have very open and frank conversations. This has felt very, very different.

It's one War Crime after another. And they pile up. Take the recently discovered mass graves. ALJAZEERA notes:

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have reportedly gathered testimony from staff of two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip, in what is believed to be the first confirmation that ICC investigators are speaking to medical workers about possible crimes during Israel’s nearly seven-month war on the besieged territory.

The sources, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject, told Reuters news agency that the investigators had interviewed staff who had worked at al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital, on the grounds of which Palestinian officials say they have discovered mass graves following the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

The sources declined to provide more details, citing concerns about the safety of potential witnesses, Reuters reported on Monday. One of the sources said that events surrounding the hospitals could become part of the investigation by the ICC, which hears criminal cases against individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression.

Last week, the United Nations human rights office said it was “horrified” by reports of mass graves found at al-Shifa and Nasser after Israeli sieges and raids that damaged the facilities, noting the “special protection” awarded to medical facilities under international law.

Let's drop back to Thursday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In Gaza, medics and Civil Defense workers are still recovering bodies from mass graves found at the Nasser Medical Complex for the sixth day in a row following Israel’s siege on the hospital. Over 320 bodies have so far been discovered, including women, children, patients and medical staff, according to Al Jazeera. Another mass grave with up to 400 bodies was discovered weeks earlier at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Civil Defense officials have said bodies were found stacked together and showed indications of field executions or being buried alive. The United Nations and the European Union have called for an independent probe into the mass graves, and the White House on Wednesday also called for an investigation.

This comes as Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza, with at least 43 people killed over the last 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. At least five of them were killed in the southern city of Rafah, where Israel has conducted near-daily airstrikes as it prepares for an offensive in the city.

AMY GOODMAN: A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government told Reuters Israel is moving ahead with a ground operation in Rafah, but gave no timeline. An unnamed Israeli defense official said Israel had bought 40,000 tents, each able to hold between 10 and 12 people, to house Palestinians evacuated from Rafah ahead of its assault on the city. Israeli news outlets report Israel will forcibly evacuate civilians to the nearby city of Khan Younis, which has been virtually destroyed by Israeli forces. Over 1.3 million Palestinians are seeking shelter in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

We go now to Rafah, in Gaza, where we’re joined by Akram al-Satarri, a journalist based in Gaza.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Akram. Just moments ago, Palestinian officials held a press conference in Rafah regarding the mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex. Can you tell us the latest? I know there’s a delay in the broadcast.

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Good morning, Amy, to you and all the viewers.

I have just come back from Khan Younis area. I was at Nasser Hospital. I spoke to the Civil Defense official who’s now giving this press conference about the situation in Nasser Hospital and about the number of the people who were killed, the way they were killed, and an account of the potential suffering they had been seeing even before they did.

It looks like the mass graves, the three different mass graves, are containing around 700 bodies. Up to this particular moment, around 400 bodies were unearthed and discovered. Around 300 bodies or even more are still in the ground. The bulldozer — one bulldozer, because of the very limited resources, working — is working there for the sake of just digging out the bodies.

Family members are lined up there. Family members are trying and rushing with passion and with great deal of sorrow to identify the bodies of their dears. Some of them managed to identify the bodies. Then you hear the outcry. You hear the people screaming, crying and mourning the death of their dears. But at the very same time, they feel a little bit relief, because they finally found the body of their dears.

I spoke to a mother who’s around 42, 43 years old. She was trying to identify her son. And then she found the body of her son. She was crying. The sister also, her daughter, was crying. And they were calling for the family to come and join them in the burial, because in our culture as Muslims and Arabs, we find a burial as the best fitting homage for the people who are dead.

People are continuously digging out the bodies. People are continuously — and this is very ironic — they’re trying to save the dead. People, when they die, are supposed to be resting in peace. And I was saying that people in Gaza, when they die, they’re neither resting nor in peace. The bodies, those bodies, were collected twice by the Israeli occupation forces. They were taken for some forensic investigation. They were returned to Nasser Hospital. They’re stockpiled in this very big hall, three different halls. And then they were buried. And then, a second time, the Israeli occupation forces came back to Nasser Hospital. They invaded all different departments of the hospital. They targeted the specialized surgery department, the reception and emergency. And they once again unearthed those hundreds of bodies and took them once again. And then they returned them to this mass grave or mass graves. So, the suffering even for the dead people in Gaza is still continuous.

And the heartache for their families is nonstop. Every single body that is being unearthed, you find tens of people rushing for the sake of identifying whether those are their relatives or otherwise. You see also many families looking into these individual graves in the Nasser Hospital area. You see written on the tombstone that “This guy is a tall guy. He has long hair. He’s wearing a gray shirt. And this is all we know.” And then it’s up to the family to try and to find and for people to recall what their dears were wearing the day they were parting from them, what were they wearing the day they were killed. So, a very emotionally draining process.

The numbers are quite shocking. But the account of the loss and the death that led to that eventual mass grave is extremely shocking, where some of the people — like you have just said, some of the people were tied. Some of the people had medical accessories on their hands, like the cannulas. And when they were unearthed from the ground, it was apparent that they were buried alive. Some people were tortured. Some of the bodies were extremely mutilated, which means that those bodies, some of their organs were taken by the Israeli occupation. Some lost their eyes. I could see some bodies with no eyes. I could see some bodies with no liver, with no kidney, some bodies that are — you see them, like the outer skin is just covering the skeleton, and that’s it. So, the account of that experience is quite heart-wrenching.

The families that have been suffering for the sake of just identifying their dears are also broken. They have been crying. But at least they say, “We feel comfortable because we found our dear.” So, it gives you an insight, a glimpse, into the suffering people of Gaza have been living. It gives you a glimpse into the bereavement the women, men, children and girls in Gaza have been experiencing for the last six months also.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Akram al-Satarri, just for our audience to know, you know, whenever we speak to you, we have — there’s this constant noise around you, and those are drones, of course, flying overhead, as they have been for months now. But if you could respond? You know, the European Union, the United Nations and now also the United States have called for an independent investigation into these mass graves. So, your response to that? And we’re speaking to you in Rafah. If you could also describe what conditions there are on the ground?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, as to the independent scrutiny or investigation committee that needs to be developed, I’ve been working in journalism for around 16 years now. I have been hearing about the independent committees, commissions, inquiries, fact-finding committees and international reports and tribunals about the situation in Gaza, looking into the particular details of the incidents that were taking place, investigating the death of several people in mass killing incidents, including the war in 2008, the war in 2014 and the war in 2021. I have been hearing a book about Gaza and the war in Gaza from 2014, and I was reading the exact words that I’m going to say now: “Palestinians struggle to dig out the bodies.” So, this is something that happened in 2014. This is something that happened in 2008. This is something that happened in ’21, ’22 and is still happening throughout 2023 and 2024.

The international community has failed to preserve and — to preserve and observe the dictates of the international humanitarian law. The humanity at large is facing a challenge. All the political systems worldwide are asked now and expected to do something tangible for the sake of just saving the Gaza Strip. Rhetoric is no longer needed. Rhetoric is no longer satisfactory. We need them to do something tangible to stop the things that are happening in Gaza.

Some of the things that Gazans are suggesting, the no-fly zone to protect the civilians in Gaza. Some of the things that Gazans are suggesting, that Israel should be held accountable for what they call crimes that were committed against the humanity, against people, against civilians. The international humanitarian law is rich with terms and vocab that are related to the, what they call the civil objects, civil objects that are protected, journalists that are protected, medical teams that are supposed to be protected, medical facilities that are supposed also to be protected. But when you review the shocking numbers about the way that the journalists are being killed, for instance, the medical teams are being killed, for instance, you conclude that the international community is failing so far to do something tangible, rather than the statements, the condemnations, the calls for independent inquiries or commissions to look into the investigation. We need something tangible. And that something tangible has not been achieved so far. And Gazans have been dying constantly because of that.

Something should be done. Something swift should be done. Otherwise, the death would continue. Now in Gaza today, 79 people were killed. And an average number of around 65 to 79 is killed every day. And if nothing is done, this means the international community accepts the killing of Gazans and accepts the justification of Israel to continue that killing. [coughs] Sorry.

And when it comes to the situation in Rafah, in Rafah, around 1.4 to 1.2 million, because of the influx of people from Rafah in the last few days. People are so scared because of the looming ground operation. They understand that the Israeli occupation is going to target them, and they understand that death would be chasing them. So some of them moved from Rafah. Around 150,000 Gazans have already left Rafah and moved to the area in al-Mawasi, a buffer zone between Rafah and Khan Younis, in the hope that they would survive. The ones who are in Rafah and the ones who are in Khan Younis and the ones in Gaza, at the entirety of Gaza, are all IDPs, around 2.1 million IDPs, because of the destruction of the infrastructure, the destruction of the homes, the destruction of the streets, and because of the continuous bombardment that has been taking their life. And those people are living in areas that have no infrastructure. No infrastructure means that they don’t have water supplies that are regular. They don’t have sewage systems. They don’t have food. They don’t have even drinkable water with which they can cook the food. They don’t have houses. They’re living in tents. And today is a very hot day. Today and yesterday were very hot days in this specific season. And now people in the tents are struggling. They are sweating all day. The children that have respiratory — even the adults that have some respiratory disorders are suffering more than any other people, and this suffering is continuous.

And this situation, when it comes to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, is unbearable, unimaginable and unacceptable. When I tell you the situation is unimaginable, because, for me, some parts of Gaza and some part of those camps that I have seen, the suffering of the people is unimaginable. You will see them living just by the minimum, and even there is no minimum. And they have no other choice to continue living and waiting and hoping some solution would be developed or concluded sometime soon. This is the truth about the situation, something I have never seen in my life, let alone someone who’s living thousands of miles away from Gaza.

People are buried in the streets. People are buried on the pavement. People are buried everywhere, in their homes. And some of the bodies, around 10,000 bodies, are in Gaza, are still under the rubble, and they have not been retrieved so far. You walk down the streets, and you smell death everywhere. You go to the hospital, that is supposed to be the temple of protection and humanity, you find the hospital totally devastated by death. You find the patients, who were supposed to be receiving the medical treatments, buried within the hospital. And you smell their decomposed bodies after the bodies were desecrated and unearthed. And wherever you turn your face, you see the children, you see the adults, you see the women and the men, the girls and the boys, suffering from that unjust situation that is still continuous. And no one single international power could stop that or bring an end to that ongoing suffering and misery.

AMY GOODMAN: Akram al-Satarri, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Be safe. Akram is a Gaza-based journalist, speaking to us from Rafah.

Mass graves discovered. But no call from the US government for investigations. Arwa Mahdawi (GUARDIAN) notes this strange refusal:

Did you know that the Palestinians are the very first people in the world to ethnically cleanse and mass murder themselves? I know it sounds weird, but – as American and Israeli politicians keep reminding us – these are “savages” that we are talking about here. Normal rules don’t apply, you’ve got to follow the Palestine Rules.

The Palestine Rules dictate you do the following: ignore every international agency if that agency says anything remotely critical about Israel. Certainly don’t listen to international aid agencies like Oxfam when they argue that the government of Israel is “deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip”. Nope, the fact that babies in Gaza are dying of malnutrition is all their fault. The fact that children in Gaza are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known is nothing to do with Israel, it’s the fault of those pesky Palestinians.

The fact that there are an unprecedented number of child amputees in Gaza is the Palestinians’ fault. Let’s be very clear here: if every single Palestinian had fled the land they were born in back in 1948, when Israel was founded, if they’d just completely renounced their Palestinian identity, none of the horrors currently unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank would be happening. Can’t argue with that logic, can you?

You know what’s also the Palestinians’ fault? Those mass graves that have recently been discovered at the ruins of hospitals in Gaza. “Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands … tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, last week.

It shouldn’t be remotely controversial to say that when you discover evidence suggesting gross violations of international law have occurred, then there should be an immediate independent investigation. And yet, the Palestine Rules have kicked in once again: Israel has said they didn’t do anything wrong – arguing that it’s all “fake news” and saying the Palestinians dug their own graves. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has said it trusts Israel to look into its own affairs.

While US officials have called for Israel to “thoroughly and transparently” investigate reports of mass graves they have refused to call for an independent investigation. Why, one has to wonder, the reluctance to investigate? If it’s really all “fake news” then Israel and the US should welcome a proper investigation. Nothing screams “covering up war crimes” like insisting that there should absolutely not be an independent investigation.

This morning, Ali Harb and Jillian Kestler-D'Amours (ALJAZEERA) report:

The stench of death filled the halls of Gaza City’s Ahli Arab Hospital.

Bodies – many already decomposing – lay in heaps on the floor, next to injured patients writhing in pain.

Amid the chaos and suffering, one of Naifa Rizq al-Sawada’s relatives was methodically searching for signs of the family’s 92-year-old matriarch.

Naifa had gone missing more than two weeks earlier, in late March, after the Israeli army raided the family’s home near another Gaza City health complex, al-Shifa, and ordered everyone to leave.

Naifa hadn’t been seen since, and Israel’s intense military assault in northern Gaza had made gathering information on her whereabouts next to impossible.

"Did anyone arrive here that fits her description?" Naifa’s relative recalled asking hospital administrators after reaching Ahli Hospital, insisting on seeing any bodies resembling the elderly woman’s slender frame.

"'Uncover this one' – that's a man. 'Uncover this one' – that's a little girl. 'Uncover this one' – that's a child," said the relative, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity due to a fear of reprisals.

“I went to a different department, all the same – indescribable scenes that I will never forget.”

The family’s sombre search finally ended days later when, after returning to the seven-storey Gaza City building where Naifa was last seen, they uncovered charred bone fragments they believe belong to her.

Meanwhile Julian Borger (GUARDIAN) reports:

The US has found five units of the Israeli security forces responsible for gross violations of human rights, over incidents in the West Bank before the current Gaza war, the state department has said.

The findings come at a time when Israel is facing potential accountability from the international criminal court and the state department for its conduct of the conflict in Gaza, in which more than 34,000 people have been killed.

The units found to be involved in abuses in the West Bank are mostly from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) but include at least one police unit. They have not been sanctioned, however, the state department said.

Four of the units were judged to have carried out effective remedial action after the US state department shared its findings with Israel.

The fifth, an ultra-orthodox military unit known as Netzah Yehuda, drawn in part from West Bank settlers, was about to be blacklisted earlier this month under the Leahy laws, which ban US funding of any foreign military units involved in atrocities.

The unit had carried out no apparent remedial action despite having been alerted to the abuses and Israeli government lawyers had ignored communications about the issue for months, according to US officials.

Shortly before the sanctions were due to be announced, however, Israeli government lawyers urgently contacted Washington and insisted that under the current 10-year US memorandum of understanding governing military relations with Israel signed in 2018, Israel should be given more time to respond to the US finding. US officials stressed that Leahy sanctions remained under consideration.

And still the government of Israel gets billions of US tax dollars and still the Israeli government gets arms and weapons from the US.

Are you getting why students are protesting yet? War Crimes are being carried out and the US government is supporting those War Crimes with money and with action.

Columbia University is the campus that kicked off the national wave of student protests. ALJAZEERA reported early this morning:

The response of the authorities has been tough, with critics of the protests referring to sporadic instances of anti-Semitism. About 100 protesters were arrested at Columbia on April 18.

In the latest crackdown, authorities at the prestigious university in New York had demanded that the protest encampment be cleared by 2pm (18:00 GMT) or students would face disciplinary action.

“These repulsive scare tactics mean nothing compared to the deaths of over 34,000 Palestinians,” said a statement, read out by a student at a news conference after the deadline passed, referring to the death toll in Gaza.

And then? Amira McKee, Sarah Huddleston, Esha Karam, Shea Vance, Manuela Silva and Claire Cleary (COLUMBIA SPECTATOR) report:

Dozens of protesters seized Hamilton Hall in the early hours of Tuesday morning, moving metal gates to barricade the doors, blocking entrances with wooden tables and chairs, and zip-tying doors shut.

Protestors carrying barricades entered Hamilton through the leftmost door of the building at approximately 12:30 a.m. Shortly after, a protester broke the window of the rightmost door of Hamilton as dozens more formed a human barricade directly outside the Hamilton doors. Within minutes, protesters sealed Hamilton while hundreds more flooded in front of the building.

At around 1:40 a.m., protesters inside Hamilton unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall”—renaming Hamilton after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

The occupation came nearly two weeks after University President Minouche Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to sweep the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on April 18, leading to the largest mass arrest on campus since 1968, when student protesters also occupied Hamilton and over 80 people inside were arrested.

A University spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The University announced at 8:05 a.m. on Monday, that negotiations between student demonstrators and the University had reached an impasse, and Columbia University Apartheid Divest warned of escalating action in a Monday post to the coalition’s Substack.

Meanwhile, at the University of Texas? ALJAZEERA reports:

At UT Austin, an attorney said at least 40 demonstrators had been arrested on Monday on charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct, some of them by officers in riot gear who encircled about 100 sitting protesters, dragging or carrying them out one by one amid screams. Another group of demonstrators trapped police and a van full of detainees between buildings, creating a mass of bodies pushing and shoving and prompting the officers to use pepper spray and flash-bang devices to clear the crowd.

The confrontation was an escalation on the 53,000-student campus in the state’s capital, where more than 50 protestors were arrested last week.

The university late on Monday issued a statement saying that many of Monday’s protesters were not affiliated with the school and that encampments are prohibited on campus. The school also alleged that some demonstrators were “physically and verbally combative” with university staff, prompting officials to call law enforcement.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from UT Austin, described the clashes as an “extraordinary turn of events”.

“What began as a silent protest on Monday morning by faculty in opposition to the way UT Austin administration has been responding to these protests has now erupted into conflict,” she said. “The 43 arrested were part of the encampment that began this afternoon, with people setting up tents and forming a circle around it, refusing to disperse. We saw police descend on those protesters just moments after the tents went up. The police encircled them, began arresting them one by one, picking them up off the ground and dragging them away from the line.”

As soon as police cleared the encampment, other students began rallying on the area, said Zhou-Castro. Some of them were holding umbrellas to protect against pepper spray. Police, too, were out in force, blocking the path to the area where the encampment had stood.

AP adds, "The protests have even spread to Europe, with French police removing dozens of students from the Sorbonne university after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the main courtyard. In Canada, student protest camps have popped up at the University of Ottawa, McGill University in Montreal and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, The Canadian Press reported." And Eduardo Cuevas, John Bacon and Jorge L. Ortiz (USA TODAY) report:

Author Pam Zhang and educator Safiya Noble have withdrawn as keynote speakers at the University of Southern California's Rossier’s doctoral and master’s commencement ceremonies. In an open letter to the school, Zhang and Noble criticized USC for failing to conduct good-faith talks with student protesters and for bringing armed LAPD officers onto campus to break up a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The duo also lashed out at USC for canceling a commencement speech by valedictorian Asna Tabassum after pro-Israel groups objected to Tabassum's support for Palestinians on social media. USC later canceled its primary undergraduate commencement, but some satellite ceremonies are taking place.

“To speak at USC in this moment would betray not only our own values, but USC’s too … We cannot overlook the link between recent developments and the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” Zhang and Noble said.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 207 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." 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." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." 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." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 34,535 Palestinians have been killed and 77,704 have been wounded in Israel's military offensive in Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday. In the past 24 hours, 47 people were killed and 61 injured, the ministry added." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted: