Peter Howitt
@peterhowitt.bsky.socialA thread on the pressing humanitarian need for the option of a safe mass migration plan for willing #Palestinians - "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War)
Whatever the international law rights and wrongs of enabling mass migration. The USA's long and unwavering support for Israeli policy means prison, apartheid or a death sentence for Palestinians. The two state solution is irretrievably dead: www.newstatesman.com
“It’s too late for the Jewish state”
A discussion on the war in Gaza, free speech and the future of the two-state solution.
www.newstatesman.com
Upholding international law above dealing with the humanitarian crisis makes us oppressors of Palestinians too. We can watch and lecture on human rights but it does not stop the murder and oppression, so we need to be more honest about reality versus what is possible under international law.
Despite what some ppl (like Starmer) would have you believe the systematic oppression and murder of Palestinians did not start on October 7 2023 as a response to Hamas terrorism. It accelerated an existing brutal occupation and apartheid with sporadic thinning out ('mowing the lawn') into genocide.
For those wishing to understand the oppression operating in Gaza in recent years I recommend reading:
Gideon Levy's 'The Punishment of Gaza' - books.google.co.uk
The Punishment of Gaza
Israel’s 2009 invasion of Gaza was an act of aggression that killed over a thousand Palestinians and devastated the infrastructure of an already impoverished enclave. The Punishment of Gaza shows how ...
books.google.co.uk
Coming back to today, the leader of the free world reminds us again that there is no terrorism and human rights abuses against any number of Palestinian women and children conducted by the USA and Israel that could ever be comparable with Arab terrorism: www.whitehouse.gov
Statement from President Joe Biden on Warrants Issued by the International Criminal Court | The White House
The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no
www.whitehouse.gov
Thankfully journalist Liam Cosgrove has already told Matt Miller what we are all thinking about the US administration's ethical 'pragmatism': "people are sick of the bullshit in here":
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Meanwhile Germany (extraordinarily) like an ethical contortionist somehow manages to justify this genocide to make up for the last time it supported it. There is an understandable historical guilt and also present day pressures that partially explain this position www.theguardian.com
Germany’s murderous history should give it clarity about the Middle East. Instead, it is paralysed | John Kampfner
Both domestically and internationally, Germany is struggling to disentangle its past from events today in Gaza, says the commentator and broadcaster John Kampfner
www.theguardian.com
The issues in Germany are complex and #MashaGessen does an excellent job of helping us to understand how Germany got itself in this moral mess on Israel:
www.newyorker.com
In the Shadow of the Holocaust
How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today.
www.newyorker.com
Luckily the UK has better politicians than in Germany. Badenoch displays the Tories ever deft handling of complex ethical and legal issues, simultaneously preaching cultural discrimination and outrage that people might not like Israeli apartheid and genocide: www.theguardian.com
‘Not all cultures equally valid’ when it comes to immigration, says Badenoch
Tory leadership candidate says some arriving in UK ‘hate Israel’ and voiced concern about people bringing ‘ancestral ethnic hostilities’
www.theguardian.com
And where does this leave us and, more importantly, how is life going to get better for the Palestinians when it was fairly intolerable before October 7th:
time.com
What Palestinian Children Face in Israeli Prisons
Under Israel's military laws, Palestinian children are systemically imprisoned. Here's what they face in detention.
time.com
The wheels of justice turn slowly and too late for the Israeli hostages and their families and the Palestinians. Israel supported Hamas in order to keep the Palestinians divided and now uses the word 'Hamas' to justify a full house of crimes against humanity:
www.timesofisrael.com
For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
The premier's policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
www.timesofisrael.com
One suspects the US and Israel would be quite happy to nuke the occupied territories, if it wasn't for the fact that it would make the real estate unliveable for a while:
www.independent.co.uk
Lindsey Graham suggests Israel should nuke Gaza
South Carolina Republican told Israel: ‘Do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Whatever you have to do’
www.independent.co.uk
I understand the Israeli Govt would like the Palestinians to leave against their will but that does not invalidate a humanitarian desire to give Palestinians an option to leave. In Germany it was right to help Jews flee even though the Nazis wanted that (pre-41):
en.m.wikipedia.org
Emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
And all we have to console our souls is poetry, which "makes nothing happen" yet is the only way to stay sane and human in face of so much contempt for compassion:
"And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too."
And yet poets can speak to each of us beyond the grave and provide a voice to communal suffering: "Weeks before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike, Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer shared his 2011 poem If I Must Die. “If I must die/you must live/to tell my story,”
time.com
How Poetry Became a Tool of Resistance for Palestinians
For Palestinians, poetry can serve as “compensation for their lack of physical power."
time.com
"...i go to the cemetery every day
i look for your grave but in vain
are they sure they buried you
or did you turn into a tree
or perhaps you flew with a bird to the nowhere..."
(Mosab Abu Toha)
"Abu Toha was arrested on Nov. 20 while fleeing from Northern Gaza to the south, heading for the Rafah crossing..he was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint. He was stripped, beaten, and handcuffed when Israeli forces accused him of being a Hamas activist without evidence"
“They wanted to humiliate me, they wanted to beat me, to punish me for speaking and writing about what I have seen in Gaza,” Abu Toha says. “They are trying to kill the voice, to kill the people who speak.”
You can read some of Abu Toha's poems here:
www.poetryfoundation.org
Mosab Abu Toha
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
www.poetryfoundation.org
The intention and consequence of this genocide has also been to stop the Palestinian people from having people that can bear witness and speak to the world on their behalf.
The extraordinary extent of the lies being peddled by and for Israel is repulsive: "The vast majority of Israelis...fail to grasp the full extent of Netanyahu’s involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict."
www.972mag.com
The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu's support for Hamas
From sabotaging Oslo to funneling Qatari cash into Gaza, Bibi has spent his career bolstering Hamas to help perpetuate the conflict.
www.972mag.com
The criminal end goal is not even hidden anymore:
"Exterminate, expel, resettle: Israel’s endgame in northern Gaza"
www.972mag.com
Exterminate, expel, resettle: Israel's endgame in northern Gaza
Debates over the details of the ‘Generals’ Plan’ distract from the true brutality of Israel’s latest operation — one that drops the veneer of humanitarian considerations and lays the groundwork for se...
www.972mag.com
You can choose to be silent or refuse to believe we could be part of this. Or you can trust your eyes and ears and wake up. The fight against crimes of humanity will never end and it needs us all to stand up for the voiceless. Particularly when we are made complicit with the Western war criminals.
This is why we write and refuse to be silent - to protect children like this: youtu.be
We found her shivering in the rain 😔 ✅Donate| www.LaunchGood.com/SpotlightsAppeals #fypシ゚viral
YouTube video by Spotlight Humanity
youtu.be
The USA is just as culpable and criminal in this genocide:
bsky.app
“If you love America, you should love Israel.”
Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that the US military should ignore the Geneva conventions and any international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead “unleash them” to become a “ruthless” force. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...
Peter Howitt
@peterhowitt.bsky.social