In a further blow, the Israeli parliament on Monday approved a bill to ban UNRWA, a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, from operating on Israeli territory and areas under Israelâs control. The ban almost certainly ensures the collapse of aid distribution, already crippled, in Gaza.
As of Oct. 20, 233 UNRWA workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, making it the deadliest conflict for U.N. workers.
Israel has expanded its âbuffer zoneâ along the Gaza perimeter to 16 percent of the territory, in the process leveling homes, apartment blocks and farms. It has pushed over 84 percent of the 2.3 million people in Gaza into âa shrinking, unsafe âhumanitarian zoneâ covering 12.6 percent of a territory now reconfigured in preparation for annexation.â Satellite imagery indicates that the Israeli military has built roads and military bases in over 26 percent of Gaza, âsuggesting the aim of a permanent presence.â
The blockade of food is accompanied by the destruction of water treatment plants, sewage systems, reservoirs, aid convoys, healthcare facilities and food distribution points â crowds of desperate people waiting for food âhave been massacredâ by Israeli soldiers.
Israel has all but obliterated medical facilities and services in Gaza. It has damaged 32 of 36 hospitals, with 20 hospitals and 70 of 119 primary healthcare centers incapacitated. By this August it had attacked healthcare facilities 492 times. Israel besieged Al-Shifa Hospital for the second time in March and April, killing more than 400 people and detaining 300, including doctors, patients, displaced persons and civil servants. It carried out a forced evacuation of all but 100 of 650 patients in Al-Aqsa hospital.
âIn August,â the report reads, âentry permits for humanitarian organizations nearly halved. Access to water has been restricted to a quarter of pre-7 October levels. Approximately 93 per cent of the agricultural, forestry and fishing economies has been destroyed; 95 per cent of Palestinians face high levels of acute food insecurity, and deprivation for decades to come.â
âIn recent months, 83 percent of food aid was prevented from entering Gaza, and the civilian police in Rafah were repeatedly targeted, impairing distribution,â the report notes. âAt least 34 deaths from malnutrition were recorded by 14 September 2024.â
These measures âindicate an intent to destroy its population through starvation.â
Palestinians detained by Israeli forces âhave been systematically abused in a network of Israeli torture camps. Thousands have disappeared, many after being detained in appalling conditions, often bound to beds, blindfolded and in diapers, deprived of medical treatment, subjected to unsanitary conditions, starvation, torturous cuffing, severe beatings, electrocution and sexual assault by both humans and animals. At least 48 detainees have died in custody.â
The report cites the role of the Israeli media in âincitingâ the genocide âby helping to foster an unchecked genocidal climate.â
The report criticizes the Israeli media for platforming âproponents of genocideâ and withholding âfacts from the Israeli public.â At the same time, the Israeli military has killed over 130 Palestinian journalists.
Palestinians are equated with the Amalek, the Biblical enemies of the Israelites, as well as Nazis, to justify their extermination.
Albaneseâs report, in a section titled âRisk of genocide in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,â notes that Israel has accelerated its lethal attacks, detentions and land seizures in the West Bank.
âGenocidal conduct in Gaza set an ominous precedent for the West Bank,â it notes.
In May 2024, the governance of the West Bank was âofficially transferred from military to civilian authorities â further de jure annexation â and placed under [Bezalel] Smotrich, a committed Eretz Yisrael politician,â the report reads. âThe largest single land appropriation in 30 years was then approved.â
#GhostPrincess 3/5
As of Oct. 20, 233 UNRWA workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, making it the deadliest conflict for U.N. workers.
Israel has expanded its âbuffer zoneâ along the Gaza perimeter to 16 percent of the territory, in the process leveling homes, apartment blocks and farms. It has pushed over 84 percent of the 2.3 million people in Gaza into âa shrinking, unsafe âhumanitarian zoneâ covering 12.6 percent of a territory now reconfigured in preparation for annexation.â Satellite imagery indicates that the Israeli military has built roads and military bases in over 26 percent of Gaza, âsuggesting the aim of a permanent presence.â
The blockade of food is accompanied by the destruction of water treatment plants, sewage systems, reservoirs, aid convoys, healthcare facilities and food distribution points â crowds of desperate people waiting for food âhave been massacredâ by Israeli soldiers.
Israel has all but obliterated medical facilities and services in Gaza. It has damaged 32 of 36 hospitals, with 20 hospitals and 70 of 119 primary healthcare centers incapacitated. By this August it had attacked healthcare facilities 492 times. Israel besieged Al-Shifa Hospital for the second time in March and April, killing more than 400 people and detaining 300, including doctors, patients, displaced persons and civil servants. It carried out a forced evacuation of all but 100 of 650 patients in Al-Aqsa hospital.
âIn August,â the report reads, âentry permits for humanitarian organizations nearly halved. Access to water has been restricted to a quarter of pre-7 October levels. Approximately 93 per cent of the agricultural, forestry and fishing economies has been destroyed; 95 per cent of Palestinians face high levels of acute food insecurity, and deprivation for decades to come.â
âIn recent months, 83 percent of food aid was prevented from entering Gaza, and the civilian police in Rafah were repeatedly targeted, impairing distribution,â the report notes. âAt least 34 deaths from malnutrition were recorded by 14 September 2024.â
These measures âindicate an intent to destroy its population through starvation.â
Palestinians detained by Israeli forces âhave been systematically abused in a network of Israeli torture camps. Thousands have disappeared, many after being detained in appalling conditions, often bound to beds, blindfolded and in diapers, deprived of medical treatment, subjected to unsanitary conditions, starvation, torturous cuffing, severe beatings, electrocution and sexual assault by both humans and animals. At least 48 detainees have died in custody.â
The report cites the role of the Israeli media in âincitingâ the genocide âby helping to foster an unchecked genocidal climate.â
The report criticizes the Israeli media for platforming âproponents of genocideâ and withholding âfacts from the Israeli public.â At the same time, the Israeli military has killed over 130 Palestinian journalists.
Palestinians are equated with the Amalek, the Biblical enemies of the Israelites, as well as Nazis, to justify their extermination.
Albaneseâs report, in a section titled âRisk of genocide in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,â notes that Israel has accelerated its lethal attacks, detentions and land seizures in the West Bank.
âGenocidal conduct in Gaza set an ominous precedent for the West Bank,â it notes.
In May 2024, the governance of the West Bank was âofficially transferred from military to civilian authorities â further de jure annexation â and placed under [Bezalel] Smotrich, a committed Eretz Yisrael politician,â the report reads. âThe largest single land appropriation in 30 years was then approved.â
#GhostPrincess 3/5
Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, claims there are âtwo million Nazisâ in the West Bank. He has threatened to turn parts of the West Bank into âruined cities like in the Gaza stripâ and stated that starving the entire Gaza population was âjustified and moral,â even if two million people died. Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz has also called for the West Bank to receive the same treatment as Gaza.
Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank towns of Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tubas and Tulkarem live for days under curfew, making it difficult to access food and water. As in Gaza, the Israeli army, during its Operation Summer Camps, has âtargeted ambulances, blocked entrances to hospitals and laid siege to Jenin Hospital. Bulldozers destroyed streets and electricity and public health infrastructure.â
Drones and war planes carry out airstrikes. Israeli roadblocks, checkpoints and blockades make travel difficult or impossible. Israel has suspended financial transfers to the Palestinian Authority, which nominally governs the West Bank in collaboration with Israel. It has revoked 148,000 work permits for those who had jobs in Israel.
âThe gross domestic product (GDP) of the West Bank contracted by 22.7 percent, nearly 30 percent of businesses have closed, and 292,000 jobs have been lost,â the report reads. Over 692 Palestinians â â10 times the previous 14 yearsâ annual average of 69 fatalities,â have been killed and more than 5,000 have been injured. Of the 169 Palestinian children who have been killed, ânearly 80 percent were shot in the head or the torso.â
Since August, in the Jenin refugee camp âapproximately 180 homes were levelled and 3,800 structures damaged, destroying or damaging power supplies, public services and amenities, displacing thousands of families and causing widespread disruption. More than 181,000 Palestinians have been affected, many multiple times.â
The report dismisses the claim that Israel is carrying out the assault in Gaza and the West Bank to âdefend itself,â âeradicate Hamasâ or âbring the hostages home,â charging that these claims are âcamouflage,â a way of âinvisibilizing the crime.â Genocidal intent, as Judge Dalveer Bhandari from the ICJ points out, âmay exist simultaneously with other, ulterior motives.â
Rather, the incursion into Israel by Hamas and other resistance fighters on Oct. 7 âprovided the impetus to advance towards the goal of a âGreater Israel.ââ
âIn the context of Israel ignoring the ICJ directive to end the unlawful occupation, the aim to eradicate resistance contradicts the rights to self-determination and to resist an oppressive regime, protected by Customary International Law,â the report reads. âIt also portrays the entire population as engaged in resistance and therefore eliminable. By continuing to suppress the right to self-determination, Israel is replicating historical instances in which self-defence, counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism were used to justify destruction of the group, leading to genocide.â
It notes that Israel, rather than abiding by the 1993 Oslo Accords, which were supposed to lead to a two-state solution, increased its colonies in the West Bank from 128 to 358 and the numbers of Jewish settlers âhave grown from 256,400 to 714,600.â Israel passed the 2018 Nation State Law that asserts exclusive Jewish sovereignty over âEretz Yisraelâ and names âJewish settlementâ on occupied Palestinian land a ânational priority.â It cultivates âa political doctrine that frames Palestinian assertions of self-determination as a security threat to Israelâ and uses it âto legitimize permanent occupation.â
âThe current intent to destroy the people as such could not be more evident from Israeli conduct when viewed in its totality,â the report states.
A leaked Israeli Ministry of Intelligence âconcept paperâ from October 2023 outlines the plan to expel the entire Gaza population to Egypt and recolonize Gaza. It is a plan Israel appears to be following.
#GhostPrincess 4/5
Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank towns of Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tubas and Tulkarem live for days under curfew, making it difficult to access food and water. As in Gaza, the Israeli army, during its Operation Summer Camps, has âtargeted ambulances, blocked entrances to hospitals and laid siege to Jenin Hospital. Bulldozers destroyed streets and electricity and public health infrastructure.â
Drones and war planes carry out airstrikes. Israeli roadblocks, checkpoints and blockades make travel difficult or impossible. Israel has suspended financial transfers to the Palestinian Authority, which nominally governs the West Bank in collaboration with Israel. It has revoked 148,000 work permits for those who had jobs in Israel.
âThe gross domestic product (GDP) of the West Bank contracted by 22.7 percent, nearly 30 percent of businesses have closed, and 292,000 jobs have been lost,â the report reads. Over 692 Palestinians â â10 times the previous 14 yearsâ annual average of 69 fatalities,â have been killed and more than 5,000 have been injured. Of the 169 Palestinian children who have been killed, ânearly 80 percent were shot in the head or the torso.â
Since August, in the Jenin refugee camp âapproximately 180 homes were levelled and 3,800 structures damaged, destroying or damaging power supplies, public services and amenities, displacing thousands of families and causing widespread disruption. More than 181,000 Palestinians have been affected, many multiple times.â
The report dismisses the claim that Israel is carrying out the assault in Gaza and the West Bank to âdefend itself,â âeradicate Hamasâ or âbring the hostages home,â charging that these claims are âcamouflage,â a way of âinvisibilizing the crime.â Genocidal intent, as Judge Dalveer Bhandari from the ICJ points out, âmay exist simultaneously with other, ulterior motives.â
Rather, the incursion into Israel by Hamas and other resistance fighters on Oct. 7 âprovided the impetus to advance towards the goal of a âGreater Israel.ââ
âIn the context of Israel ignoring the ICJ directive to end the unlawful occupation, the aim to eradicate resistance contradicts the rights to self-determination and to resist an oppressive regime, protected by Customary International Law,â the report reads. âIt also portrays the entire population as engaged in resistance and therefore eliminable. By continuing to suppress the right to self-determination, Israel is replicating historical instances in which self-defence, counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism were used to justify destruction of the group, leading to genocide.â
It notes that Israel, rather than abiding by the 1993 Oslo Accords, which were supposed to lead to a two-state solution, increased its colonies in the West Bank from 128 to 358 and the numbers of Jewish settlers âhave grown from 256,400 to 714,600.â Israel passed the 2018 Nation State Law that asserts exclusive Jewish sovereignty over âEretz Yisraelâ and names âJewish settlementâ on occupied Palestinian land a ânational priority.â It cultivates âa political doctrine that frames Palestinian assertions of self-determination as a security threat to Israelâ and uses it âto legitimize permanent occupation.â
âThe current intent to destroy the people as such could not be more evident from Israeli conduct when viewed in its totality,â the report states.
A leaked Israeli Ministry of Intelligence âconcept paperâ from October 2023 outlines the plan to expel the entire Gaza population to Egypt and recolonize Gaza. It is a plan Israel appears to be following.
#GhostPrincess 4/5
Albanese writes that Israel is replicating the patterns of past genocides. It creates through its rhetoric a âvengeful atmosphereâ that conditions soldiers to be âwilling executioners.â It claims it is acting in self-defense while targeting a civilian population. It is obliterating the infrastructure that sustains life, a process of âgenocide by attrition.â It uses starvation as a weapon. It is attempting to hide its crimes by killing Palestinian journalists and U.N. workers and blocking international agencies and the international media from Gaza.
We have seen genocide before. We have also seen the complicity or silence of nations that have the power to intervene. History doesnât repeat itself, but too often it rhymes.
#GhostPrincess 5/5
We have seen genocide before. We have also seen the complicity or silence of nations that have the power to intervene. History doesnât repeat itself, but too often it rhymes.
#GhostPrincess 5/5
IOF has reportedly exhausted its military reservists with fighting a multifront war with Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon. Nearly 300,000 reservists have been called up since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, according to the IOF. Periods of reserve duty have been extended, and some reservists complain they are unable to go on with their normal lives for up to six straight months. Additionally, the number of disabled soldiers is expected to reach 100,000 by 2030, reflecting rising injuries and rehabilitation needs. - #GhostPrincess
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Dear friends,
This channel may not be visible in Europe. If you want to access this channel and pro-Palestine channels, please use a VPN located outside of Europe. Pro-Palestine channels are restricted in Europe, so to access them, you must use a VPN server outside the region. Many countries outside of Europe provide options for users seeking free VPN services.
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This channel may not be visible in Europe. If you want to access this channel and pro-Palestine channels, please use a VPN located outside of Europe. Pro-Palestine channels are restricted in Europe, so to access them, you must use a VPN server outside the region. Many countries outside of Europe provide options for users seeking free VPN services.
Stay connected!
#GhostsofPs đ
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New UN report says Israel has âperpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gazaâs healthcare systemâ that has included âdeliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilitiesâ, both of which are war crimes. #GhostsofPs
Why Americans and Canadians Support Israel
Zionism originated in the late 19th century as a Jewish nationalist movement aimed at establishing a homeland for Jews and fighting against antisemitism, propelled by figures like Theodor Herzl. While Zionism is fundamentally a Jewish movement, the rise of Christian Zionism emerged in the 20th century, particularly in the United States. Many American Christians, influenced by biblical misinterpretations and a belief in the importance of Israel, began to support Zionist goals. This fusion of beliefs has led to the term "Christian Zionism," illustrating how non-Jews can engage with Zionist ideals, though it remains distinct from the original Jewish movement.
Why Indians Support Israel
The conflict between Indian Hindus and Muslims in politics has intensified since Narendra Modi came to power in India. This has led younger generations to join the older generation in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments. Many Indian Hindus perceive the situations in Palestine and Lebanon as a religious war, failing to recognize that these struggles are about liberating occupied lands from colonialist powers. The Zionist movement is a European colonialist project, with no direct links to ancient Jews. Unfortunately, Indians celebrate the suffering of Palestinians from a religious perspective, rather than understanding that they are dying at the hands of an occupier. Additionally, anti-Muslim views have spread to Buddhist nations, as some Buddhists have adopted Islamophobic attitudes. While Zionists may not have any genuine feelings toward Indians or Buddhists, they welcome support on social media.
#GhostPrincess #GhostsofPs #Al_Aqsa_Flood đ
Zionism originated in the late 19th century as a Jewish nationalist movement aimed at establishing a homeland for Jews and fighting against antisemitism, propelled by figures like Theodor Herzl. While Zionism is fundamentally a Jewish movement, the rise of Christian Zionism emerged in the 20th century, particularly in the United States. Many American Christians, influenced by biblical misinterpretations and a belief in the importance of Israel, began to support Zionist goals. This fusion of beliefs has led to the term "Christian Zionism," illustrating how non-Jews can engage with Zionist ideals, though it remains distinct from the original Jewish movement.
Why Indians Support Israel
The conflict between Indian Hindus and Muslims in politics has intensified since Narendra Modi came to power in India. This has led younger generations to join the older generation in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments. Many Indian Hindus perceive the situations in Palestine and Lebanon as a religious war, failing to recognize that these struggles are about liberating occupied lands from colonialist powers. The Zionist movement is a European colonialist project, with no direct links to ancient Jews. Unfortunately, Indians celebrate the suffering of Palestinians from a religious perspective, rather than understanding that they are dying at the hands of an occupier. Additionally, anti-Muslim views have spread to Buddhist nations, as some Buddhists have adopted Islamophobic attitudes. While Zionists may not have any genuine feelings toward Indians or Buddhists, they welcome support on social media.
#GhostPrincess #GhostsofPs #Al_Aqsa_Flood đ
Israelâs War on Journalism
There are some 4,000 foreign reporters accredited in Israel to cover the war. They stay in luxury hotels. They go on dog and pony shows orchestrated by the Israeli military. They can, on rare occasions, be escorted by Israeli soldiers on lightning visits to Gaza, where they are shown alleged weapons caches or tunnels the military says are used by Hamas. They dutifully attend daily press conferences. They are given off-the-record briefings by senior Israeli officials who feed them information that often turns out to be untrue. They are Israelâs unwitting and sometimes witting propagandists, stenographers for the architects of apartheid and genocide, hotel room warriors. Bertolt Brecht acidly called them the spokesmen of the spokesmen.
And how many foreign reporters are there in Gaza? None.
The Palestinian reporters in Gaza who fill the void often pay with their lives. They are targeted, along with their families, for assassination. At least 128 journalists and media workers in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, have been killed and 69 have been imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, marking the deadliest period for journalists since the organization began collecting data in 1992.
Israel bombed a building on Friday in southern Lebanon housing seven media organizations, killing three journalists from Al Mayadeen and Al Manar and injuring 15 others. Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed 11 journalists in Lebanon.
Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi, who was shot in the neck in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza by an Israeli sniper earlier this month, is in a coma. Israel has refused permission for him to seek medical care outside of Gaza. Like most of the targeted journalists, including his murdered colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, he was wearing a helmet and flak jacket that identified him as press.
The Israeli military has branded as âterroristsâ six Palestinian journalists in Gaza who work for Al Jazeera.
âThese 6 Palestinians are among the last journalists surviving Israel's onslaught in Gaza,â United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said. âDeclaring them âterroristsâ sounds like a death sentence.â
The scale and savagery of the Israeli assault on the media dwarfs anything I witnessed during my two decades as a war correspondent, including in Sarajevo where Serb snipers regularly took aim at reporters. Twenty-three journalists were killed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav Wars between 1991 and 1995. Twenty-two were killed when I covered the war in El Salvador. Sixty-eight journalists were killed in World War II and 63 were killed in Vietnam. But unlike in Gaza, Bosnia and El Salvador, journalists were usually not targeted.
Israelâs assault on press freedom is unlike anything we have experienced since William Howard Russell, the godfather of modern war reporting, sent back dispatches from the Crimean War. Its onslaught against journalists is in a category by itself.
Representative James P. McGovern and 64 House members sent a letter to President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the United States to push for Israel to allow unimpeded access for U.S. and international journalists. In July, over 70 media and civil society organizations signed an open letter calling on Israel to permit foreign reporters into Gaza.
Israel has not budged. Its ban on international journalists in Gaza remains in place. Its genocide grinds forward. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians are killed and wounded daily. During October, Israel killed at least 770 Palestinians in northern Gaza.
#GhostPrincess 1/3
There are some 4,000 foreign reporters accredited in Israel to cover the war. They stay in luxury hotels. They go on dog and pony shows orchestrated by the Israeli military. They can, on rare occasions, be escorted by Israeli soldiers on lightning visits to Gaza, where they are shown alleged weapons caches or tunnels the military says are used by Hamas. They dutifully attend daily press conferences. They are given off-the-record briefings by senior Israeli officials who feed them information that often turns out to be untrue. They are Israelâs unwitting and sometimes witting propagandists, stenographers for the architects of apartheid and genocide, hotel room warriors. Bertolt Brecht acidly called them the spokesmen of the spokesmen.
And how many foreign reporters are there in Gaza? None.
The Palestinian reporters in Gaza who fill the void often pay with their lives. They are targeted, along with their families, for assassination. At least 128 journalists and media workers in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, have been killed and 69 have been imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, marking the deadliest period for journalists since the organization began collecting data in 1992.
Israel bombed a building on Friday in southern Lebanon housing seven media organizations, killing three journalists from Al Mayadeen and Al Manar and injuring 15 others. Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed 11 journalists in Lebanon.
Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi, who was shot in the neck in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza by an Israeli sniper earlier this month, is in a coma. Israel has refused permission for him to seek medical care outside of Gaza. Like most of the targeted journalists, including his murdered colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, he was wearing a helmet and flak jacket that identified him as press.
The Israeli military has branded as âterroristsâ six Palestinian journalists in Gaza who work for Al Jazeera.
âThese 6 Palestinians are among the last journalists surviving Israel's onslaught in Gaza,â United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said. âDeclaring them âterroristsâ sounds like a death sentence.â
The scale and savagery of the Israeli assault on the media dwarfs anything I witnessed during my two decades as a war correspondent, including in Sarajevo where Serb snipers regularly took aim at reporters. Twenty-three journalists were killed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav Wars between 1991 and 1995. Twenty-two were killed when I covered the war in El Salvador. Sixty-eight journalists were killed in World War II and 63 were killed in Vietnam. But unlike in Gaza, Bosnia and El Salvador, journalists were usually not targeted.
Israelâs assault on press freedom is unlike anything we have experienced since William Howard Russell, the godfather of modern war reporting, sent back dispatches from the Crimean War. Its onslaught against journalists is in a category by itself.
Representative James P. McGovern and 64 House members sent a letter to President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the United States to push for Israel to allow unimpeded access for U.S. and international journalists. In July, over 70 media and civil society organizations signed an open letter calling on Israel to permit foreign reporters into Gaza.
Israel has not budged. Its ban on international journalists in Gaza remains in place. Its genocide grinds forward. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians are killed and wounded daily. During October, Israel killed at least 770 Palestinians in northern Gaza.
#GhostPrincess 1/3
Israel spins out its lies and fabrications, from Hamas using Palestinians as human shields, to mass rape and beheaded babies, to a captive press that slavishly amplifies them.By the time the lies are exposed, often weeks or months later, the media cycle has moved on and few notice.
Israelâs wholesale censorship and assassination of journalists will have ominous consequences. It further erodes what few protections we once had as war correspondents. It sends an unequivocal message to any government, despot or dictator that seeks to mask its crimes. It heralds, like the genocide itself, a new world order, where mass murder is normalized, totalitarian censorship is permissible and journalists who try and expose the truth have very short life expectancies.
Israel, with the fulsome support of the U.S. government, is eviscerating the last shreds of freedom of the press.
Those who wage war, any war, seek to shape public opinion. They court the reporters they can domesticate, the ones who prostrate themselves before generals and, although they do not openly admit it, seek to stay as far away from combat as possible. These are the âgoodâ journalists. They like to âplayâ at being a soldier. They enthusiastically assist in disseminating propaganda in the guise of reporting. They want to do their part for the war effort, to be part of the club. Sadly, they constitute the majority of the media in the wars I covered.
All CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the networkâs Jerusalem bureau prior to publication, a bureau that is required to abide by rules set down by Israeli military censors.
These domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, âprisoners of the language of power.â They dutifully parrot the official lexicon â âterrorists,â âpeace process,â âtwo state solutionâ and âIsraelâs right to defend itself.â
The New York Times, The Intercept writes, âinstructed journalists covering Israelâs war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms âgenocideâ and âethnic cleansingâ and to âavoidâ using the phrase âoccupied territoryâ when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.â
âThe memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine âexcept in very rare casesâ and to steer clear of the term ârefugee campsâ to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous IsraeliâArab wars,â The Intercept notes. âThe areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.â
âThere is no battle between power and the media,â Fisk noted. âThrough language, we have become them.â
Retired general David Petraeus, one of the authors of the 2006 U.S. Counterinsurgency Manual used by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, argues that persuading the public that you are winning â even if, as in Afghanistan, you are trapped in a quagmire â is more important than military superiority. The domesticated media is vital in perpetrating this deception.
Then there are the real journalists. They shine a light into the machinery of power. They tell the truth, for as the poet Seamus Heaney said, âThere's such a thing as truth and it can be told.â They make public the cruelty, mendacity and criminality of the powerful. They expose the collaboration of the domesticated media.
#GhostPrincess 2/3
Israelâs wholesale censorship and assassination of journalists will have ominous consequences. It further erodes what few protections we once had as war correspondents. It sends an unequivocal message to any government, despot or dictator that seeks to mask its crimes. It heralds, like the genocide itself, a new world order, where mass murder is normalized, totalitarian censorship is permissible and journalists who try and expose the truth have very short life expectancies.
Israel, with the fulsome support of the U.S. government, is eviscerating the last shreds of freedom of the press.
Those who wage war, any war, seek to shape public opinion. They court the reporters they can domesticate, the ones who prostrate themselves before generals and, although they do not openly admit it, seek to stay as far away from combat as possible. These are the âgoodâ journalists. They like to âplayâ at being a soldier. They enthusiastically assist in disseminating propaganda in the guise of reporting. They want to do their part for the war effort, to be part of the club. Sadly, they constitute the majority of the media in the wars I covered.
All CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the networkâs Jerusalem bureau prior to publication, a bureau that is required to abide by rules set down by Israeli military censors.
These domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, âprisoners of the language of power.â They dutifully parrot the official lexicon â âterrorists,â âpeace process,â âtwo state solutionâ and âIsraelâs right to defend itself.â
The New York Times, The Intercept writes, âinstructed journalists covering Israelâs war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms âgenocideâ and âethnic cleansingâ and to âavoidâ using the phrase âoccupied territoryâ when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.â
âThe memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine âexcept in very rare casesâ and to steer clear of the term ârefugee campsâ to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous IsraeliâArab wars,â The Intercept notes. âThe areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.â
âThere is no battle between power and the media,â Fisk noted. âThrough language, we have become them.â
Retired general David Petraeus, one of the authors of the 2006 U.S. Counterinsurgency Manual used by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, argues that persuading the public that you are winning â even if, as in Afghanistan, you are trapped in a quagmire â is more important than military superiority. The domesticated media is vital in perpetrating this deception.
Then there are the real journalists. They shine a light into the machinery of power. They tell the truth, for as the poet Seamus Heaney said, âThere's such a thing as truth and it can be told.â They make public the cruelty, mendacity and criminality of the powerful. They expose the collaboration of the domesticated media.
#GhostPrincess 2/3
To the powerful, the war makers and the domesticated media, these real journalists are the enemy. This is the reason Julian Assange was mercilessly hounded and persecuted for 14 years. WikiLeaks published a 2,000-page Ministry of Defence document where British government officials equated investigative journalists with terrorists. The animosity is not new. What is new is the scale of Israelâs assault on journalism.
Israel has not defeated Hamas. It has not defeated Hezbollah. It will not defeat Iran. But it must convince its own public, and the rest of the world, it is winning. Censorship and the silencing of journalists who expose Israelâs war crimes and the suffering Israel inflicts on civilians is an Israeli priority.
It would be reassuring to call Israel an outlier, a nation that did not share our values, a nation that we support in spite of its atrocities. But of course, Israel is an extension of ourselves.
As the playwright Harold Pinter said: US foreign policy could be best defined as follows: kiss my arse or Iâll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it is so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.
In accepting the Nobel prize for literature, Pinter said: âThe crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. Itâs a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.â
The most important impediment to Israelâs mass hypnosis are the Palestinian journalists in Gaza. This is why the kill rate is so high. It is why U.S. officials say nothing. They, too, hate real journalists. They, too, demand reporters domesticate themselves to scurry like rats from one choreographed press event to the next.
The U.S. government says and does nothing to protect the press because it endorses Israelâs campaign against the media, as it endorses Israelâs genocide in Gaza.
Journalists, along with the Palestinians, are to be extinguished.
#GhostPrincess 3/3
Israel has not defeated Hamas. It has not defeated Hezbollah. It will not defeat Iran. But it must convince its own public, and the rest of the world, it is winning. Censorship and the silencing of journalists who expose Israelâs war crimes and the suffering Israel inflicts on civilians is an Israeli priority.
It would be reassuring to call Israel an outlier, a nation that did not share our values, a nation that we support in spite of its atrocities. But of course, Israel is an extension of ourselves.
As the playwright Harold Pinter said: US foreign policy could be best defined as follows: kiss my arse or Iâll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it is so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.
In accepting the Nobel prize for literature, Pinter said: âThe crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. Itâs a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.â
The most important impediment to Israelâs mass hypnosis are the Palestinian journalists in Gaza. This is why the kill rate is so high. It is why U.S. officials say nothing. They, too, hate real journalists. They, too, demand reporters domesticate themselves to scurry like rats from one choreographed press event to the next.
The U.S. government says and does nothing to protect the press because it endorses Israelâs campaign against the media, as it endorses Israelâs genocide in Gaza.
Journalists, along with the Palestinians, are to be extinguished.
#GhostPrincess 3/3
The US is a genocidal colonialist settler state: A detailed description from the Smithonian magazineâs âWhere the Buffalo No Longer Roamedâ, by Gilbert King, on 17 July 2012:
Outraged by the Battle of the Hundred Slain, where Lakota and Cheyenne warriors ambushed a troop of the U.S. Cavalry in Wyoming, scalping and mutilating the bodies of all 81 soldiers and officers, [General] Sherman told [General] Grant the year before [on 28 December 1866], âwe must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.â When Grant assumed the presidency in 1869, he appointed Sherman Commanding General of the Army, and Sherman was responsible for U.S. engagement in the Indian Wars.
On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Shermanâs command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the âscorched earthâ tactics that presaged Shermanâs March to the Sea.
Sheridan was soon able to mount the kind of offensive he desired. In the Winter Campaign of 1868-69 against Cheyenne encampments, Sheridan set about destroying the Indiansâ food, shelter and livestock with overwhelming force.
During a November snowstorm in Indian Territory, Sheridan ordered the nearly 700 men of the Seventh Cavalry, commanded by George Armstrong Custer, to âdestroy villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all women and children.â Custerâs men charged into a Cheyenne village on the Washita River, cutting down the Indians as they fled from lodges. Women and children were taken as hostages as part of Custerâs strategy to use them as human shields, but Cavalry scouts reported seeing women and children pursued and killed âwithout mercyâ in what became known as the Washita Massacre.
Massive hunting parties began to arrive in the West by train, with thousands of men packing .50 caliber rifles, and leaving a trail of buffalo carnage in their wake. Unlike the Native Americans or Buffalo Bill, who killed for food, clothing and shelter, the hunters from the East killed mostly for sport.
Native Americans looked on with horror as landscapes and prairies were littered with rotting buffalo carcasses.
The railroads began to advertise excursions for âhunting by rail,â where trains encountered massive herds alongside or crossing the tracks.
Hundreds of men aboard the trains climbed to the roofs and took aim, or fired from their windows, leaving countless 1,500-pound animals where they died. Harperâs Weekly described these hunting excursions: âNearly every railroad train which leaves or arrives at Fort Hays on the Kansas Pacific Railroad has its race with these herds of buffalo; and a most interesting and exciting scene is the result. The train is âslowedâ to a rate of speed about equal to that of the herd; the passengers get out fire-arms which are provided for the defense of the train against the Indians, and open from the windows and platforms of the cars a fire that resembles a brisk skirmish. Frequently a young bull will turn at bay for a moment. His exhibition of courage is generally his death-warrant, for the whole fire of the train is turned upon him, either killing him or some member of the herd in his immediate vicinity.â Hunters began killing buffalo by the hundreds of thousands in the winter months.
By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild. Sheridan acknowledged the role of the railroad in changing the face of the American West, and in his Annual Report of the General of the U.S. Army in 1878, he acknowledged that the Native Americans were scuttled to reservations with no compensation beyond the promise of religious instruction and basic supplies of food and clothingâpromises, he wrote, which were never fulfilled.
#GhostPrincess
Outraged by the Battle of the Hundred Slain, where Lakota and Cheyenne warriors ambushed a troop of the U.S. Cavalry in Wyoming, scalping and mutilating the bodies of all 81 soldiers and officers, [General] Sherman told [General] Grant the year before [on 28 December 1866], âwe must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.â When Grant assumed the presidency in 1869, he appointed Sherman Commanding General of the Army, and Sherman was responsible for U.S. engagement in the Indian Wars.
On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Shermanâs command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the âscorched earthâ tactics that presaged Shermanâs March to the Sea.
Sheridan was soon able to mount the kind of offensive he desired. In the Winter Campaign of 1868-69 against Cheyenne encampments, Sheridan set about destroying the Indiansâ food, shelter and livestock with overwhelming force.
During a November snowstorm in Indian Territory, Sheridan ordered the nearly 700 men of the Seventh Cavalry, commanded by George Armstrong Custer, to âdestroy villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all women and children.â Custerâs men charged into a Cheyenne village on the Washita River, cutting down the Indians as they fled from lodges. Women and children were taken as hostages as part of Custerâs strategy to use them as human shields, but Cavalry scouts reported seeing women and children pursued and killed âwithout mercyâ in what became known as the Washita Massacre.
Massive hunting parties began to arrive in the West by train, with thousands of men packing .50 caliber rifles, and leaving a trail of buffalo carnage in their wake. Unlike the Native Americans or Buffalo Bill, who killed for food, clothing and shelter, the hunters from the East killed mostly for sport.
Native Americans looked on with horror as landscapes and prairies were littered with rotting buffalo carcasses.
The railroads began to advertise excursions for âhunting by rail,â where trains encountered massive herds alongside or crossing the tracks.
Hundreds of men aboard the trains climbed to the roofs and took aim, or fired from their windows, leaving countless 1,500-pound animals where they died. Harperâs Weekly described these hunting excursions: âNearly every railroad train which leaves or arrives at Fort Hays on the Kansas Pacific Railroad has its race with these herds of buffalo; and a most interesting and exciting scene is the result. The train is âslowedâ to a rate of speed about equal to that of the herd; the passengers get out fire-arms which are provided for the defense of the train against the Indians, and open from the windows and platforms of the cars a fire that resembles a brisk skirmish. Frequently a young bull will turn at bay for a moment. His exhibition of courage is generally his death-warrant, for the whole fire of the train is turned upon him, either killing him or some member of the herd in his immediate vicinity.â Hunters began killing buffalo by the hundreds of thousands in the winter months.
By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild. Sheridan acknowledged the role of the railroad in changing the face of the American West, and in his Annual Report of the General of the U.S. Army in 1878, he acknowledged that the Native Americans were scuttled to reservations with no compensation beyond the promise of religious instruction and basic supplies of food and clothingâpromises, he wrote, which were never fulfilled.
#GhostPrincess
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Activists blockaded Europe's largest Coca-Cola plant in Wakefield, UK in protest of the company's complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. #GhostPrincess