Palestine or Barbarism: We Have Failed to Prevent a Genocide
This is the defining issue of our time.
From United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese:
We Have Failed to Prevent a Genocide
Israel just killed hundreds more people in Gaza. This is not the acceleration of a war. It is the acceleration of a genocide happening in real time. We have failed to prevent a genocide.
As the world wakes up to the harrowing images of children slain by Israeli bombs across the entire Gaza strip AGAIN, we cannot bear witness to global leaders JUST. DOING. NOTHING. This is an acceleration of the genocide that Israeli is committing against the Palestinian people as a whole. We already failed to prevent it and our governments have an even greater obligation to stop it now.
WAKE UP, people.
Today, Palestine is a REVEALER of the system we live in. Not long ago, European Jews were genocided in ‘civilized’ Europe, under everyone’s eyes: They were “unseen,” and not many seemed to care. Today, millions of people “see” and are trying to stop Israel’s genocide—protesting, seeking accountability, invoking the very legal framework that was crafted after the Holocaust to ensure “never again.” But, from the US to Europe, they are either ignored or harshly punished.
Far too many states are enabling the genocide of the Palestinians, while turning also repressive toward their own citizens. This is both revolting and scary. We must stop it now.
From Rania Khalek:
IT’S PALESTINE OR BARBARISM
There are states, institutions and individuals in this world who watch the bloodthirsty fascist settler state of Israel continually demolish its own record of depravity and barbarism, and they do nothing.
They think they can ignore it or stay neutral. They maintain their trade deals and cultural exchange programs. They have accepted a world of death camps where hundreds are deliberately murdered within hours.
Why?
Is it because they’re afraid of the US? Maybe they think it’s not their problem? Perhaps they have accepted the genocide of Palestinians as part of the global order and they think it will stay isolated to Palestine. They are sorely mistaken.
This is the defining issue of our time.
Our choices are a dystopian world where the powerful treat anyone weaker the way Israel treats Palestinians. Or we can fight for a just and liberated world where people live in dignity, and where no one dares to murder tens of thousands of babies because of the consequences.
It’s literally either Palestinian liberation or barbarism everywhere.
There are consequences for cowardice and complicity. People won’t take this lying down. But if those who stay silent keep allowing Israel to raise the bar of horrors, this will become the norm all over the place. And no one will be safe.
From Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, March 21, 2025:
Israel Has Been Committing Genocide Against the Palestinian People for Nearly 18 Months
The consequences of Israel’s latest forced displacement campaign, masked as “evacuation orders,” in the Gaza Strip—along with its renewed ground assaults and ongoing intense aerial bombardments—are already catastrophic. This situation will undoubtedly compel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee once more, forcing them to face homelessness yet again if the international community allows Israeli occupation forces to ravage most homes, shelters, and structures in the area.
The Euro-Med Monitor field team observed Israeli occupation forces advancing on foot into western Beit Lahia on the evening of Thursday 20 March, accompanied by heavy artillery shelling and airstrikes during the night. This resulted in the forced relocation of thousands of people who were living in tents and run-down houses to areas devoid of the most basic necessities of life, where they were further bombarded and had no protection.
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Israel began its most recent violent bombing campaign on Tuesday morning with the apparent intent to target population centres, shelters, displaced people’s tents, and inhabited homes,without any military justification or necessity. Its illegal ground incursions and evacuation orders have occurred at the same time as this campaign.
Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip for nearly 18 months now, and its latest crimes are part of a systematic policy designed to impose harsh living conditions on the Strip’s residents that will ultimately result in their total annihilation.
From Democracy Now, March 21, 2025:
Israel Pushes Further into Gaza; Genocide’s Death Toll Rises, with 200 Children Killed Since Tuesday
Israel’s military has launched a full-scale ground invasion in Rafah as it relentlessly attacks the Gaza Strip for the fourth straight day since Israel unilaterally shattered the ceasefire with Hamas. Israeli troops are also pushing into the north near Beit Lahia and other areas. At least 200 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli attacks since Tuesday. This is a mother in Khan Younis whose daughter was killed by an Israeli strike:
Buthayna al-Mujayda: “Stop this war. Stop this extermination. This is an extermination of the entire Palestinian people. What is the fault of the children? These are children. What is their fault? For every child, you bring 100. What is this? Shame on you! The entire square, not a stone or anything remains. It is all destroyed. They left nothing in the whole area.”
UNRWA announced five of its workers have been killed in recent days. This brings the total of all UNRWA workers killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza over the past 18 months to 284.
From Haaretz, March 21, 2025:
Largest Child Massacre in History
Israel recently committed the largest child massacre in its history. Two hundred children and 100 women were killed in one day. Altogether, about 400 civilians were killed, and the number of dead is not yet final…
From Democracy Now, March 20, 2025:
Israel Kills Another 100 Palestinians; Death Toll Tops 700 in 3 Days Since Gaza Ceasefire Withdrawal
Israel’s army has reinvaded the Gaza Strip, reclaiming control over the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the besieged Palestinian territory in two. Israel is also continuing to bombard Gaza by land, air and sea for a third straight day, after Israel unilaterally shattered the Gaza ceasefire on Tuesday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s renewed attacks have killed 710 Palestinians, including at least 95 people since daybreak today. One of those was a newborn baby. Another 900 Palestinians have been injured, a majority of them children and women. Some of the wounded died due to severe shortages of medical equipment from Israel’s total blockade of Gaza, which took effect on March 2.
From Common Dreams, March 20, 2025:
'Nothing Short of Genocide': Israel Kills 200 Children
Nearly 200 children are among those killed by Israel in Gaza over the last three days since the powerful U.S. ally broke a cease-fire agreement and began a massive bombing campaign with the blessing of the Trump administration.
According to figures released Thursday by the Gaza Health Ministry, 504 people—mostly innocent men, women, and children–have been killed since Israel broke the cease-fire agreement on Tuesday, with more than 900 wounded in the attacks.
Al-Jazeera reports Thursday that at least 110 people were killed since dawn on Thursday. It was not clear if any of those fatalities were included in the ministry's latest figures.
In the widespread bombing unleashed Tuesday, over 400 people were killed, more than 180 of whom were children. The bombings and military operations continued on Wednesday and into Thursday.
"I do not spend too much time concerned with who the Israeli military says they targeted in attacks like this," Miranda Cleland, an advocacy officer with Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), said in remarks to Middle East Eye following the first wave of attacks. "Instead, look at the evidence: 183 dead children, comprising almost half of yesterday's death toll, tells me that this is a war on children."
"Eighteen thousand dead children since October 7, 2023 tells me this is a war on children, regardless of what the Israeli military says."
From Amnesty International, March 19, 2025:
ISRAELI AIR STRIKES KILL OVER 400 PALESTINIANS ACROSS GAZA FOLLOWING UNILATERAL RESUMPTION OF MASS ATTACKS
Responding to a series of Israeli strikes across the occupied Gaza Strip overnight which killed at least 414 Palestinians, including 174 children, and hospitalized over 550 more, signaling a unilateral end to the truce with Hamas, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said:
“Today is a desperately dark day for humanity. Israel brazenly resumed its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza killing at least 414 people in their sleep, including at least 100 children, and again wiping out entire families in a matter of hours. Palestinians in Gaza – who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel’s past attacks – have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment.
Israel’s genocide and its unlawful air strikes have already caused unprecedented humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Today, we are back to square one. Since 2 March, Israel has re-imposed a total siege on Gaza blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine, and commercial supplies, including fuel and food, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel has also cut off electricity to Gaza’s main operational desalination plant. And today the Israeli military has once again started issuing mass ‘evacuation’ orders displacing Palestinians.
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The world cannot stand by and allow Israel to continue inflicting staggering levels of death and suffering on Palestinians in Gaza. We urge all states to uphold their obligations to prevent and punish genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law, by pressing Israel to end its attacks and to facilitate the unconditional and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid. “States must come together and demand an immediate resumption of an enduring ceasefire, an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and the dismantling of its system of apartheid and unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory.”
From Ahmed Nashwan, March 19-21, 2025, from Gaza:
Humanity Has Abandoned Us, The Kids Have Only Seen Death
What painful moments we have experienced. We evacuated from Beit Hanoun, carrying my father in a wheelchair for dozens of kilometers. My mother endured the pain despite her weakness. Perhaps today was the worst for my family during this genocide. I will never forget my brother’s children crying on the road, frightened and exhausted. Humanity has abandoned us, leaving us to suffer through one of the toughest crises in history.
Now, I am writing to you while living with my family as displaced persons on one of Gaza’s streets. It is our only refuge right now. We have no water, no food, and no supplies.
I urge you to donate to us and share this message so it reaches the world. We need your help.
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I will never forget that night as long as I live. We were sleeping, reassured that the war had ended, and that now it was time to gradually return to life. Then we heard the rockets falling above us; the shrapnel pierced our tent where we were sleeping, and fortunately, no one was hit. It seems our fate in Gaza is to suffer in this moment and not die. But when I saw our neighbors turned into martyrs while they were peacefully asleep, it felt like a thunderbolt. What a treacherous occupation, and what difficult days these are. We survived, but we pay a heavy price by witnessing our loved ones being killed and dying in front of our eyes. Please, stop all of this now, at every moment innocents are being killed!
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My brother called me after being forced to evacuate Beit Hanoun three days ago. He now finds himself in the Center of Gaza, in an area called “Al Karama.” He tells me that the Zionist occupation is ordering that the residents of this area evacuate immediately. I don’t know where to take my brother and his young children. Where can they go again?
These innocent kids have only seen death in their lives.
From Hossam Shabat, March 19, 2025, from Gaza:
There’s Not Much of Anything Left—Except Death
Hundreds of injured people have been arriving throughout the day. The “lucky” ones are transported by ambulance, but most are brought in on donkey carts or barely functioning cars and trucks. There aren’t enough beds, doctors or medicine. The air is filled with screams and cries. With no available operating tables, the hospital floor becomes the only option—where young children are being hand-stitched. The hospital has run out of anesthesia, leaving young children to endure every moment of pain.
The dead lie in the hallways, waiting to be wrapped in shrouds. Mothers scream for their children. Men hold each other, trying to offer comfort—but there are few words, few answers. There’s not much of anything left except death. So much death. So much killing.
Many of the injured could be saved, but hospitals don’t have enough doctors, beds, or equipment to treat everyone. With limited resources, they are forced to choose who gets a chance to live.
Palestinian doctors are heroes—some working 24-hour shifts while fasting. They look numb, exhausted, but they keep going because there’s no other choice. They have to keep going. While the world may have given up on us, we cannot give up on each other.
I leave the hospital with tears in my eyes, overwhelmed by pain and disbelief that this is happening all over again. That I have to see more dead children. That more innocent lives will be ruthlessly taken—simply because we are Palestinian.
From Haaretz, March 19, 2025:
What Will Happen to Us?
"The food is finished. Drinking water, diapers and cleaning supplies, what we have is enough for just two or three days. After that, what will happen to us?" one Gaza resident asks…
From Electronic Intifada, March 18, 2025:
Israeli Forces Have Signed a Death Warrant for Palestinian Children
Israel launched intensive attacks on Gaza early Tuesday, killing at least 400 Palestinians and injuring more than 560, the health ministry in the territory said later in the day.
The ministry said that more victims are still under the rubble.
Entire families were massacred in the strikes, according to the government media office in Gaza.
Defense for Children International-Palestine said that at least 174 children were among the dead.
“Today marks one of the largest one-day child death tolls in Gaza in history,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, a program director with the children’s rights group.
“Israeli forces have signed a death warrant for Palestinian children in Gaza as they carry out nonstop attacks, continue to destroy civilian infrastructure and prevent any humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in need. This is nothing short of genocide,” he added.
From CNN, March 18, 2025:
‘Mama, I’m tired - I want to die:’ Israel’s strikes in Gaza leave a generation of Palestinian children traumatized
Last year, doctors diagnosed that Sama’s hair loss was a result of “nervous shock,” specifically after her neighbor’s house in Rafah was hit by an Israeli airstrike in August. The traumatic upending of her daily life since October 7 also likely contributed to her alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss, they said.
A report late last year by the War Child Alliance and Gaza-based Community Training Centre for Crisis Management highlights the severe psychological toll on children of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza over the past year. The report, based on a survey of more than 500 caregivers of vulnerable children, found that 96% of children in those circumstances felt that death was imminent and nearly half – 49% – had expressed a “wish to die” because of Israel’s assault.
Sama’s mental anguish intensified after she was bullied by other children for her hair loss, leading her to retreat indoors. Outside, she wears a pink bandana to cover her scalp.
“Mama I’m tired – I want to die. Why won’t my hair grow?” she pleaded with her mother, Om-Mohammed, when CNN visited the family in September 2024, before asking if she would remain bald forever.
“I want to die and have my hair grow in Paradise; God willing.”
From Omar Baddar, March 18, 2025:
Israel killed 174 Palestinian children overnight, in just a few hours.
Over the past year and a half, Israel’s genocide has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian children.
Not since the Rwandan genocide has anyone killed children at the rate Israel is murdering them.
About a year ago, Save the Children noted Israel’s genocide had decimated 20,000 children between killed, disappeared, lost, and buried under the rubble.
Nearly a year before that (BEFORE OCTOBER 7, 2023), Human Rights Watch said, “2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels.”
From Muhammad Shehada, March 18, 2025:
Israel never fulfilled the signed ceasefire agreement. They:
Never started phase 2 negotiations, scheduled on February 6
Killed over 150 Gazans during the "ceasefire" (& 400 today)
Never allowed caravans, bulldozers, trucks into Gaza...
Violated the agreement over 960 times
Allowed less than 30% of the fuel supposed to enter
Heavily restricted the evacuation of wounded & seriously ill Gazans
Banned all Gazans stuck in Egypt & abroad from returning to the enclave
Cut off all food, water, electricity fuel since March 2
Arrested 762 Palestinians in February after releasing about the same number in the same month
Killed Palestinian captives after their release
Murdered Palestinian hostages in captivity
Restricted the work of UN agencies in Gaza (e.g. UNRWA) in violation of the humanitarian protocol
More on this from Israeli media:
From the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, March 13, 2025:
“More Than a Human Can Bear”: Israel's Systematic Use of Sexual, Reproductive Violence Against Palestinians
Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, according to a new report issued today by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
The report documents a broad range of violations perpetrated against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys across the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023 that constitutes a major element in the ill-treatment of Palestinians and are part of the unlawful occupation and persecution of Palestinians as a group.
“The evidence collected by the Commission reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “There is no escape from the conclusion that Israel has employed sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorize them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination.”
From DAWN MENA, Democracy in Exile, March 4, 2025:
How Western Media Has Manufactured Consent For Atrocities, From Iraq To Gaza
As far as the media is concerned, it appears no lessons were learned from the catastrophic results of the Iraq war more than 20 years ago. Major Western media, such as The New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, BBC and similar legacy outlets, have largely spent the past year whitewashing Israel's genocide in Gaza, uncritically repeating Israeli government claims and talking points about Gaza just as they did the Bush administration's about Iraq. Western media has long framed Israel-Palestine in a way that obscures or even justifies Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories and apartheid system. But the regular stream of massacres and horrors from Gaza over and over since October 2023—that the public has seen because of social media and Palestinian journalists on the ground—ignited global outcry this time.
Rather than challenging statements from the Israeli government and military, or the U.S. government which repeats without question whatever Israeli officials say, mainstream Western media has largely acted like stenographers of state-run media. In headline after headline, Western outlets have repeatedly failed to mention Israel at all when reporting death tolls from airstrikes in Gaza and Lebanon; used passive voice when attacks are actually attributed to Israel; cast doubt when Palestinians are killed; and dehumanized Palestinians with subtle differences in word choice used to describe Israelis.
In many cases, significant stories from Gaza are not reported or barely mentioned at all, and coverage is lacking to show the daily toll on Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza. The U.N.'s report concluding that Israel's actions were consistent with genocide received almost no coverage by Western outlets. In other cases, like the deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza—a clear war crime—the media does not attribute it to Israeli policies and actions.
I have spent over a year documenting the mainstream Western media's role in manufacturing consent for Israel's genocide in Gaza. What I hoped to accomplish was simply for people to think more critically about the headlines and reporting they see and to take note of how small edits in language can change the framing and how one understands the same story or issue.
The world has changed a great deal since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Social media, smartphones, independent journalism and citizen journalists in Gaza have shown Americans, and everyone around the world, what the U.S. government and media have tried to hide. As Israel commits atrocities in Gaza with U.S. weapons and tax dollars, it is time for Western journalists to rectify the mistakes of the past and report the truth.
From The Holler, Brett Murphy, ProPublica, January 16, 2025:
How the US Let Israel Get Away With Genocide
There is a ceasefire deal, so I want to share this story from my past year reporting inside the State Dept. trying to answer the central question of Biden’s foreign policy: How did the U.S. let Israel get away with widespread horrors in Gaza?
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Biden and Secretary of State Blinken repeatedly drew lines on humanitarian grounds that the Israelis ostensibly couldn’t cross. The IDF crossed them anyway. And each time, there were no real consequences.
Using leaked documents and interviews, we pieced together scenes from inside the government as diplomats and experts repeatedly tried — and failed — to change the policy of not holding Israel to account.
“This is the human rights atrocity of our time,” one senior official at State told me. “I work for the department that’s responsible for this policy. I signed up for this… I don’t deserve sympathy for it.”
From Haaretz, December 23, 2024:
“I Felt Like a Nazi” : Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes
From Common Dreams, December 13, 2024:
Study Finds 96% of Gaza Children Fear Imminent Death—And Half Want to Die
Amid a relentless Israeli onslaught that has wrought monumental physical and psychological destruction in Gaza, a report published this week revealed that nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent—and nearly half of them want to die.
The Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management, supported by War Child Alliance, surveyed more than 500 Palestinian children in Gaza last June and found that 96% of them fear imminent death, 92% are not accepting of reality, 79% suffer from nightmares, 77% avoid discussing traumatic events, 73% display signs of aggression, 49% wish to die because of the war, and many more "show signs of withdrawal and severe anxiety, alongside a pervasive sense of hopelessness."
"This report lays bare that Gaza is one of the most horrifying places in the world to be a child," War Child U.K. CEO Helen Pattinson said in a statement. "Alongside the leveling of hospitals, schools, and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war."
Israel's 434-day assault on Gaza—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—has left tens of thousands of children dead, maimed, missing, or orphaned and hundreds of thousands more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Doctors and others including volunteers from the United States have documented many cases in which they've concluded Israeli snipers and other troops have deliberately shot children in the head and chest.
"The harm caused to Gaza's children goes beyond statistics. Behind every number is a name, a life, and a future that is being extinguished before it can even begin," Iain Overton, executive director of the U.K.-based group Action on Armed Violence, said in response to the new report.
"The world's failure to protect Gaza's children is a moral failing on a monumental scale," he added. "We must act decisively and compassionately to ensure that these children's voices are heard and their futures protected."
From Al Jazeera, March 17, 2024:
Malnourished Babies in Gaza Do Not Have Energy to Cry, Says UNICEF
Israel has killed more than 13,000 children in Gaza since October 7 while others are suffering from severe malnutrition and do not “even have the energy to cry”, says the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“Thousands more have been injured or we can’t even determine where they are. They may be stuck under rubble … We haven’t seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the CBS News network on Sunday.
“I have been in wards of children who are suffering from severe anaemia malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet. Because the children, the babies … don’t even have the energy to cry.”
Russell said there were “very great bureaucratic challenges” moving trucks into Gaza for aid and assistance as famine stalks more than two million Palestinians since Israel’s “genocidal” war began.
From the Holler: ISRAEL-PALESTINE IS NOT COMPLICATED
Do we stand with the kids throwing stones at tanks and yearning for freedom? Or do we stand with the heavily armed forces imprisoning and sniping those kids in the head?
The International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Save the Children, and countless other human rights organizations and institutions around the world all agree that Israel—with ironclad support from the United States—is committing a genocide primarily of tens of thousands of children in Palestine.
Most recently, Amnesty International released a 296-page report titled “‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.”
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Retired Israeli General Yirzhak Brik once stated bluntly: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs—it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”
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Even before 2023, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International already had declared that Israel—with total support from the US—was operating as an illegal apartheid state.
“In April 2021, after years of research, detailed case studies and a careful review of Israeli government planning documents, statements by officials and other sources, Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities were and are committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, based on the Israeli government policy to maintain domination over Palestinians and grave abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territory.”
“Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty International stated in a damning report. The investigation details how Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it has control over their rights. This includes Palestinians living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), as well as displaced refugees in other countries.
The comprehensive report, ‘Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity,’ sets out how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law. This system is maintained by violations which Amnesty International found to constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.”
Israel is one of few nations remaining in the world which still regularly imprisons children. For decades, according to Defense for Children International, each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, have been detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone throwing.
An estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been held in military detention over the past 20 years, with Save the Children noting that they are “the only children in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military courts.”
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You are in grave danger and you don’t even realize it. The moral bubbles we all live in are going to destroy us all. Think. Do you really believe that the dehumanization, wholesale murder, systematic torture, mass imprisonment, imposed starvation and disease and media erasure of victims will stop at the borders of Palestine? Is it credible to believe that impunity for a live-streamed genocide will not lead to more horror? If Israel, the US and other perpetrators get away with this, don’t doubt that the same dark power may knock on your door next. You leave the people of Gaza alone at your own peril.
There is an implicit admission within the West’s acceptance and defense of Israel’s crimes—like mass rape, torturing hostages to death, and gleefully massacring children—that shows human life and human suffering do not matter to those in charge. This is a threat to us all. You simply can’t take a bunch of psychopaths and give them absolute power and control over society and then expect anything except a society that stumbles from crisis to crisis with massive human suffering before eventually collapsing in on itself. This is what ‘None of us are free until all of us are free’ points to. It’s what Dr. King meant when he said ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ It’s what Baldwin got at when he said ‘Every bombed village is my home town.’ We are all intimately connected. Either we fight to create a world within which justice is applied universally, rights are protected universally, and liberation for *all* is the bedrock of our efforts, or it is merely a matter of time before we or our children sit at the wrong end of the injustice we foster.
From Noam Chomsky, The Myth of American Idealism:
![The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World [Book]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7Om7!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbe3c5b06-4a26-4158-9d4c-0372ea263592_1684x2560.jpeg "The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World [Book]")
When We Talk About Israel, We Are Talking About Ourselves
American support for Israel means that Israel’s actions should rightly be understood as ‘US-Israeli’ actions. When we talk about ‘Israeli crimes,’ the framing is misleading, because they are US-Israeli crimes. Whatever Israel does is either implicitly or explicitly authorized by the US, which provides economic, diplomatic, military, and ideological support, and US presidents can alter Israeli policy and restrain Israel’s violence when they choose to do so. When we talk about Israel, we should remember that in an important sense we are talking about ourselves. Because the US arms and protects Israel, we bear responsibility for what it does.
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The Israel-Palestine conflict is often portrayed as complicated. In fact, it is relatively simple. The conflict is centered in territories that have been under harsh military occupation for fifty years. The conqueror is a major military power, acting with massive military, economic, and diplomatic support from the global superpower. Its subjects are alone and defenseless, many barely surviving in miserable camps, who have suffered brutal terror of a kind familiar in colonial wars and have in turn committed terrible atrocities. The United States has long had a choice: will it insist that Israel operate in accordance with basic democratic values and international norms, or will it fund and encourage the immoral, illegal, and self-destructive project of building a permanent apartheid state? Only through domestic public pressure in the US can the pattern of this country’s policies be disrupted.
Thank you for all your dedication to this issue
Yes, but criticize the actions of the Israeli government….and you’re accused of antisemitism.