For pioneering the first alternatives to the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs, Jacques Vallée has earned a reputation as the grandfather of the “new” ufology, and he’s inspired a generation of ufologists to explore a whole new set of questions about the UFO phenomenon.
Having the Croatian Foreign Ministry fly an Israeli flag was “idiotic” and inappropriate, President Zoran Milanovic said on Friday, adding that the atrocities by Hamas do not give Israel the right to bomb civilians for revenge.
“I think it was an idiotic move, for all my sympathies for Israel – which they unfortunately wasted after 15 minutes – after the horrors and massacres by Hamas,” Milanovic told reporters who asked him about the flag incident.
“I condemned the killings [by Hamas], and expressed my horror and revulsion, but the right to self-defense does not include vengeance and killing civilians,” he added.
Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli bases and settlements near Gaza on Saturday, killing over 1,300 Israeli citizens, according to the latest figures from West Jerusalem. Israel has declared war on the Palestinian group and bombed Gaza with artillery and aircraft, vowing to “dismantle” the Hamas leadership.
At least 1,900 Palestinians, including 614 children and 370 women, have been killed in Gaza over the past week, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry; 7,696 were injured, the ministry added.
Milanovic, a social democrat, has often clashed with the Croatian cabinet, which is led by the nationalist HDZ. He explained his objection to the flag gesture by citing protocol.
“Other flags have no place in Croatia, unless in strictly regulated circumstances,” the president said. He added that he would lower the banners of NATO and the EU – which Croatia joined in 2009 and 2013 respectively – “slightly” below the national flag in his office, “just to show that the Croatian flag is a step above them.”
The former foreign minister, who assumed the presidential post in 2020, has gained notoriety in both the EU and NATO by going against conventional wisdom on many issues. In June, he said the ‘glory to Ukraine’ slogan repeated by many Western officials is no different than that of the WWII Croatian allies of the Nazis, which he denounced as harmful to Croatia’s image.
Earlier this year, Milanovic insisted Croatia was not at war with Russia and criticized the German decision to send tanks to Ukraine. He also criticized the EU’s treatment of member states like Poland and Hungary and accused Brussels of treating Croatia like a “retarded” child.
It is therefore deeply sinister that the European Commission is actively working to shut down pro-Palestinian information and comments on social media. The European Commission has written to all major social media organisations and is able to threaten them with massive fines if they do not remove information of which the European Union disapproves.
The UK and the US are both sending military assistance to Israel to commit a calculated and deliberate act of genocide, which is already underway.
Over 500 children have been killed in Gaza in the last week and over 2,000 maimed, many with life-changing injuries. Nobody can claim they do not know what is already happening or what is about to unfold. The cutting off of food and water to Gaza is a major international crime, which the Western proponents of the “rules-based order” universally refuse to condemn.
In both the UK and the US there can be no more stark illustration of the lack of any kind of meaningful democracy, than the fact that there is no major political party that opposes the genocide – despite massive public opposition.
The bought and paid-for media and political class in the West are extremely nervous, throughout the Western world. Now they have come to the final genocide for which Zionism has always aimed, they face a good deal of popular resistance.
Throughout Europe, there is a massive gap between the zionist unanimity of the politicians and the much greater understanding of the Palestinian situation among the general public. Tellingly the response by the zionist political class has been a wave of outright fascist suppression.
In France, Macron has made all pro-Palestinian demonstrations illegal, but as so often the French people are not standing for that kind of authoritarianism.
In the UK, the police have adopted the cowardly tactic of arresting a couple of individuals, one in Brighton and one in Manchester, for a pro-Palestinian demonstration. Under Tony Blair’s notorious draconian “anti-terror” legislation, they could face up to 14 years in prison.
The young man in Manchester was arrested on the precise site of the famous “Peterloo massacre”, which generations of British people were taught at school was a terrible crime in breach of the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Let the irony of that set in.
You can go out in the streets of the UK with an Israeli flag and yell that you want every Palestinian to be cleansed from Gaza. That is not illegal. If you say the Palestinians have a right to resist their genocide, that is illegal.
That appears to be a genuine analysis of the law in the UK, France and many other Western countries.
That is intended to terrify all of us. It will not work.
The European Commission has been ferociously zionist and gung-ho for this Palestinian genocide. It displayed the Israeli flag on its Berlaymont headquarters. It has taken a side in the most ferocious way.
It is therefore deeply sinister that the European Commission is actively working to shut down pro-Palestinian information and comments on social media. The European Commission has written to all major social media organisations and is able to threaten them with massive fines if they do not remove information of which the European Union disapproves.
The notion is plainly nonsense that through the fog of war the European Commission – which is 100% parti pris – is qualified to say what information is true and what information is false, and what comment is legitimate.
Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner in charge of this operation, is a former chief executive of electronic companies – and defence contractors – Atos and Thomson. He has no genuine interest in freedom of speech and is engaged in a process of silencing dissent for military aims, which is quite simply fascist.
We are witnessing almost all Western governments deliberately facilitating massacre, ethnic cleansing and genocide. We are witnessing almost all Western governments turning on their own people to crush dissent at that complicity in genocide.
This feels not so much like the week that Western democracy died, as the week it was impossible any longer to deny that Western democracy died some time ago.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
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A man carries a wounded child into Al Shifa hospital following Israeli strikes in Gaza City on October 10, 2023.
(Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)
Seventy-five years of global inaction and Israeli impunity have led to this moment in which one of the most vulnerable populations on earth is pummeled by one of the world’s strongest military powers on a genocidal warpath.
Israel is planning on carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
The motions have been underway for days, as Israel has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
In six days, Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs on the besieged coastal enclave, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. Half of them are children. This falls just short of the highest number of bombs dropped by the US in a year in the war on Afghanistan.
Palestinians have been screaming at the top of their lungs for days that Israel is carrying out a genocide on them. Israeli leaders have only supported those fears, calling Gazans “human animals” and pledging to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.”
Today, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed.
On Friday, October 13, Palestinians in Gaza woke up to the news that the Israeli army was demanding that the more than 1.1 million Palestinians who live in the northern Gaza Strip “evacuate” to the southern part of the strip in the span of 24 hours.
Palestinians have been screaming at the top of their lungs for days that Israel is carrying out a genocide on them. Israeli leaders have only supported those fears, calling Gazans “human animals” and pledging to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.” Today, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed.
Let that sink in. This is half of Gaza’s population. The northern part of Gaza includes Gaza City – the most densely populated area within the Gaza Strip. It also includes two of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, the Jabalia and al-Shati refugee camps. Both have been bombed over the past few days. Both are home to hundreds of thousands of refugees. They were made refugees by Israel, 75 years ago.
But the United Nations said it received a different, much broader order, saying Israel was given 1.1 million civilians in northern Gaza 24 hours to flee south. A UN spokesman called the order “impossible” to achieve “without devastating humanitarian consequences.”
The Israeli army reportedly ordered Gazans not to return to the north until the army says they are allowed to go back.
But will they ever be allowed to go back? And will there even be a Gaza left to go back to?
No one knows what Israel’s plans are when the 24-hour deadline expires. Will they launch a ground invasion? Or will they simply pummel Gaza from the skies, as they have been doing for the past 16 years?
Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide right before our eyes. It has been ongoing, a slow genocide and ethnic cleansing, for 75 years.
Whichever way Israel decides to go about it does not matter.
What matters is that Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide right before our eyes. It has been ongoing, a slow genocide and ethnic cleansing, for 75 years.
75 years of global inaction and Israeli impunity have led to this moment. The moment where we see one of the most vulnerable populations on earth, 77% of whom are already refugees, being displaced as one of the world’s strongest military powers goes on a genocidal warpath.
Many Gazans are vowing to remain, saying they refuse to be displaced yet again. Many Palestinians are saying it’s psychological warfare, akin to the Zionist radio broadcasts of 75 years ago, that spread fear amongst the population and caused many to flee their homes out of fear of the Zionist atrocities that would await them if they stayed.
But the images are already flooding in as people in Gaza begin to flee their homes in fear of what comes.
Men, women, and children, walking through the rubble of their destroyed land, holding onto whatever bags and belongings they can carry. A march to the south, not knowing if tomorrow, the south will be next.
A death march.
Palestinians have said for 75 years, that the Nakba of 1948 never ended. It has continued for 75 years, every single day. In the crowded refugee camps of Gaza, the alleyways of Jerusalem, the hills of Haifa, and the corners of Jenin.
But today feels different. As millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, ‘48, and across the diaspora watch their people in Gaza be expelled en masse while Israel destroys their homes and slaughters those who remain, the only words that people can muster, is “it’s happening again.”
U.S. news networks have dispatched correspondents to Israel to cover the violence, but there are few Palestinians being interviewed, or Israeli peace activists or reporters who oppose the occupation. Reports that Hamas beheaded babies are widely circulated on major news channels, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by President Biden. When questioned, the White House walked back the claim, saying they “could not confirm” the reports.
Palestinian women and children flee with their belongings after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
As Israel intensifies its brutal response to Hamas’ brutal October 7th attack, it is important to hear from those at the target end of the weapons – from both sides of the conflict. The mainstream media in the United States consistently brings us the voices of Israelis who have suffered violence at the hands of Hamas gunmen. Let that be a model for coverage of Palestinian grief. We rarely hear from Palestinian civilians. Hearing people speak for themselves is the first step to breaking down barriers, to fostering understanding that can lead to a just peace.
Not long after the Hamas attack, Israel began its latest intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Bearing the full force of that retaliation are the 2.4 million Palestinians who Israel has blockaded in Gaza, almost half of whom are children. The Gaza Strip, roughly four miles wide and 25 miles long, is one of the most densely populated places on earth and has long been described as the world’s largest open-air prison. Under “normal” conditions, Gazans live under a severe military occupation. No one gets in or out without Israel’s permission. Israel controls Gaza’s water, food and fuel. Now, in the wake of the Hamas attack, the Israeli siege and bombardment of Gaza has become cataclysmic.
“We are imposing a complete siege in Gaza. There will be no food, no water, no fuel; everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced.
As of the time of this writing, 1,300 Israelis been confirmed killed and thousands injured, with an estimated 150 people kidnapped. More than 1,350 Palestinians have been killed and 6,000 wounded as Israel devastates Gaza in an act of collective punishment that is illegal under international law.
We rarely hear from Palestinian civilians. Hearing people speak for themselves is the first step to breaking down barriers, to fostering understanding that can lead to a just peace.
“There is no single place you can call a safe haven in Gaza, airplane fighters, drones ruling all over the sky…whether it’s an apartment, whether it’s a tower with hundreds of apartments, whether it’s a house, whether it’s a hospital, whether it’s a school, a shelter used by UNRWA [the UN’s Palestinian relief agency],” Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, said on the Democracy Now! news hour. As he spoke, his house shook from an explosion. “Netanyahu says Gazans should leave Gaza. Where to? We don’t have safe passage. …it’s genocidal.”
Ofer Cassif, an Israeli Jewish member of the Knesset, or parliament, said on Democracy Now!:
“I got a WhatsApp message from a very good friend of mine who was hiding with her husband in the kibbutz. She told me she was very afraid and she could hear the Hamas fighters outside. Unfortunately, those were probably the last words she ever wrote, because she was murdered with her husband just after she sent me that message — a very good friend of mine who was also against the occupation, a voter with our party. Innocent people, innocent civilians on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, pay the price of the arrogant, criminal, ongoing occupation that Israel refuses to end.”
U.S. news networks have dispatched correspondents to Israel to cover the violence, but there are few Palestinians being interviewed, or Israeli peace activists or reporters who oppose the occupation. Reports that Hamas beheaded babies are widely circulated on major news channels, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by President Biden. When questioned, the White House walked back the claim, saying they “could not confirm” the reports.
The actual violence is horrible enough: 260 young people were massacred at a music festival dedicated to “unity and love.” A kibbutz described by one resident as home to Israeli “peaceniks” was destroyed, with over 100 killed and many kidnapped by Hamas. In Gaza, entire families, entire neighborhoods, are being erased by Israeli bombs. Hospitals and ambulances are being attacked. At least six journalists have been killed in Gaza attempting to report on the Israeli assault that is only expected to worsen.
“The idea that you can coop up 5 million people, put them behind walls, tighten the siege on them, use an eyedropper to allow them some food, some water, some electricity, that idea has exploded as a result of the horrific events…This cannot continue,” Rashid Khalidi, renowned Palestinian American scholar and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, said on Democracy Now!
“The United States should be trying to defuse the situation…We finance this occupation. We finance this violence. There are American weapons that are being used today, right now, in Gaza to kill innocent civilians in violation of U.S. law.”
The United States has the power to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. First, the media must allow the American public to hear the voices of victims from all sides of this conflict.
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide.
Denis Moynihan has worked with Democracy Now! since 2000. He is a bestselling author and a syndicated columnist with King Features. He lives in Colorado, where he founded community radio station KFFR 88.3 FM in the town of Winter Park.
This is part 2 of my commentary from 24 hours ago. As an American Jew, I bleed for Israel. Israel must now send a message that echoes around the world and lasts forever in the brains of Jew-haters and all those around the world who want to do harm to the Jewish people. The world is about to learn a lesson. This isn’t 1941. No one will ever kill Jews again and live to gloat. Anywhere in world … if someone targets Jews and kills them for being Jewish, they will be hunted down and killed.
The last thing they will think before being killed by Israeli forces is “Oops, maybe attacking Jews wasn’t such a good idea.”
But everything I’m talking about is up to Israel. Right now, America needs to focus on America and our border.
Because what America is facing is a thousand times worse than what Israel just experienced.
Military intelligence and security experts analyzing what went wrong with Israel’s massive security failure are citing a “failure of imagination of what Hamas was capable of.” So, it’s time to imagine the kind of attack America is facing.
If I can imagine it, then you know China’s evil leaders are thinking it too. I believe they are planning it right now.
Here is what I believe an attack by China might look like. And I expect it soon.
First, if I were China, I’d invade Taiwan NOW. To take advantage of a world now distracted by two major wars in Ukraine and the Middle East – and plunged into chaos and crisis.
America is weak. America is led by an incompetent, brain-dead, feeble old man with dementia and diapers who should be in a nursing home.
Worse, the Biden crime family (and his boss, the real president, Barack Obama) are clearly owned by China and the Chinese Communist Party. So, who is going to stop China from invading Taiwan?
America is running dangerously low on weapons and ammo – because President Joe Biden left them on the ground in Afghanistan and gave most of the rest of our stockpile away to Ukraine. The cupboards are bare. America is weak and vulnerable.
Our military is depleted, demoralized and distracted by a focus on climate change, transgenderism, diversity and critical race theory. We can’t recruit anyone who wants to join a military like that.
Old, feeble, confused Biden is frozen with fear and clueless. Maybe he’ll turn for military advice to Vice President Kamala Harris, the only person in history who sits a heartbeat away from the presidency and is dumber than a doorknob.
At this moment in time, we are incapable of mounting a serious challenge to China invading Taiwan.
Unlike Ukraine, Taiwan is not some meaningless country to America. Taiwan makes well over 90% of the advanced computer chips to run America’s cars, computers, cell phones and military equipment. If China takes Taiwan and controls the world’s chip production, it’s game over.
So, taking Taiwan is the key to enslaving America.
But that’s only part 1 of what I’d be planning for America if I were running China. Part 2 is even more frightening.
Biden (and his boss, Obama) have left the border open. They’ve let millions of dangerous foreigners in. Most of the migrants entering our country are military-age males from China and the Middle East along with MS-13 thugs and gangbangers under the control of the Mexican drug cartels. This is an army of killers now roaming around our country.
If I ruled China, I’d order this army into action to paralyze America with low-tech violence and terrorism – just like the Hamas terror attack in Israel.
There’s no need for another 9/11.
If I were China, I’d send “hit squads” of 100 killers to airports, train stations and supermarkets in 20 major U.S. cities at the exact same time to walk in with assault rifles, machine guns and grenades. Think of the fear and hysteria from seeing thousands of murdered Americans in 20 different cities across the USA. All at the same time.
All that takes is 100 killers times 20. That’s only an army of 2,000 killers needed. China has sent tens of thousands of military-age males across our open border. Biden, Kamala and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas have welcomed them in like family – with no background checks.
There’s already a large enough Chinese army in our country for many rounds of the low-tech terror attack I just dreamed up. They could do it 30 days in a row. To the same 20 cities. Or choose a new set of 20 cities every day. They could expand to suburbs and small towns.
Our economy would shut down. The stock market would collapse. There would be no travel or tourism. No one would dare go to a supermarket. All schools would be shuttered. We’d all be locked in our homes. America would quickly become a ghost town.
All from an easy low-tech attack. And this Chinese army is already in our country. Biden (and his boss, Obama) welcomed them in. Millions more are coming.
Those Chinese military-age males are separate from millions of other illegals in our country set to do us harm with murder and mayhem. And who knows how many military-age Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syrian terrorists are now in the country? Will they join in on the slaughter? Or just turn our cities into war zones? Get ready for “Mad Max.”
For good measure, if I were China, at this exact same moment, I’d send another pandemic our way. Keep in mind China has had three years to make it much more deadly than COVID-19.
In the middle of all of that, do you think we could mount a serious military effort to defend Taiwan? And fight WWIII with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea? Good luck.
Stay frosty. It’s coming. Trust me, if I can imagine it, China is planning it right now.
This past weekend, the world witnessed absolute barbarism play out as Hamas agents brutally targeted Israeli civilians. The State of Israel, suffering from a historic failure to protect its residents, has predictably responded with major military operations in the Gaza strip. The result is a growing regional conflict fueled by historic feuds beyond the scale of traditional geopolitical considerations.
Add to this the ongoing war in Ukraine, a less-talked-about conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the threat of renewed fighting between Kosovo and Serbia, and the world is witnessing the breakdown of a global order established by modern assumptions that are being exposed.
In the later part of his career, Murray Rothbard identified the Whig theory of history as one of the most dangerous intellectual traps in existence. The general belief that society is in a constant march toward progress, that newer ideas reflect a natural upgrade over past wisdom, has been accepted by broad segments of the modern intellectual class. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe has critiqued, this theory underlies a number of modern assumptions about the world.
Whig hubris has resulted in a global order that has sowed the seeds of barbarism. The triumph of fiat money has created an economic system that enriches states and the politically connected at the expense of the rest of society. Technocratic public health initiatives created authoritarian states in the face of a global pandemic. Politically driven climate hysteria has prompted a policy agenda that is gambling away human well-being on utopian promises of a “green energy” revolution.
The deadliest of these false assumptions has been the modern “rules-based international order” guided by post–Cold War US hegemony. The triumph of “liberal democracy” over the Soviet Union fueled the hubris of Washington and its allies—their belief that the world could be shaped to fit into comfortable models, that concerns over ethnicity, religion, and the past could be transformed by the power of economics and intellectual change.
By this thinking, Afghanistan and Iraq could be transformed with just the right mix of warfare and pocket constitutions. Russian ambitions could be blunted with the right mix of regional defense treaties and economic relations. China would adopt Western liberalism with enough global trade.
Underlying these assumptions of US power has been the triumph of the dollar, which has financed the American empire and become the foundation of the global economy. With US debt as the most reliable financial asset in the world, America has enjoyed the privilege of incredible soft power in dealing with major nations, allowing its military focus to be directed at nonstate terrorist groups and “rogue state” allies.
This belief in a global order backed by American economic and military power, limited only by political will, has influenced how other global actors have operated. Foreign lobbies have dedicated vast resources to Washington. While the influence of the Israel lobby is the most visible, with politicians vocally pledging their allegiance to the Jewish state, since 2016 nations like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, South Korea, and others have also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in influencing American policy.
Assumptions of American support have undoubtedly influenced nations’ strategic decisions about their own security. Ukraine surrendered Soviet nuclear weapons in exchange for Western security promises, which for a long time may have served as a potent deterrent to a Russian invasion. The government of post–World War II Japan demilitarized in exchange for its own security guarantees from the United States. With rising concerns over China, Washington and Tokyo have pivoted toward rearmament.
Decisions made by the State of Israel have also been guided by false assumptions, such as the belief that militant movements would be easier to delegitimize internationally than other political actors seeking to create a Palestinian state. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2009:
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah.
A look at Israel’s decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals—including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists—reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel’s efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people.
Israel’s experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda.
As Israeli officials have acknowledged, American military support, which became a staple of US foreign-aid military strategy following the Six Days War in 1967, has influenced Israel’s aims for Palestinian relations.
Similarly, as the WSJ article mentions, the belief that nonstate Islamic groups would be easier to control than functional states has been an ongoing and consistent blind spot for Washington. The toppling of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi created power vacuums in the Middle East that were filled by the Islamic State and other jihadist groups.
Recognizing these government blunders of the past should not be confused with providing moral cover for the horrific consequences suffered by the citizens of these states. Understanding the cause and effects of state action on innocent people is important in shaping future decisions so as to avoid such disasters in the future.
The unfortunate reality is that the global order—one built on the assumption that American blood and treasure can single-handedly maintain stability and peace—is under severe stress. The poor foundation is beginning to crack. In September 2001, the US debt reached $3.4 trillion. In 2023, it stands at over $34 trillion. The Pentagon’s virtually nonexistent oversight of the American military budget has contributed to gross malinvestment and misallocation of resources. In modern conflict, million-dollar weapons have been destroyed by cheap drones, not a small concern as US aircraft carriers head to the Middle East.
The breakdown of the old order also means that we should expect new behavior from states adapting to the times. Israel, for example, has ended previous campaigns against Hamas following international pressure resulting from civilian casualties, which has shaped how the Islamic group positions its military and arms. Will similar condemnation come following the most recent attack? Will Israel care? What paths exist for deescalation?
Additionally, the hubris created by the presumption of dollar dominance, which has factored in the weaponization of the dollar, has sparked a blowback of its own. The BRICS nations have recently called for alternatives to the dollar for foreign trade, and even the Bank of England has raised concerns about the power and influence the dollar gives Washington. Concerns about China and supply chain disruptions due to both COVID-19 and the Ukraine-Russia war have sparked renewed concerns over how close international trade relations should be, which could further impact economic globalization.
Domestically, Western nations are also being stressed by another false assumption of modern states—the deemphasis of a common ethnic, religious, and cultural background as a building block of society relative to immigration policy. Large rallies in support of the “decolonization” of Israel, fueled by social justice ideologies that equate the cause of Hamas with the perceived victimization of other minority groups, have sparked new concerns about social stability and order. How modern nations, whose most shared experience is becoming a common tax collector, will fare in a time of crisis will continue to be a potent political question going forward, as witnessed by the growing populist movements in Europe.
History shows that periods of crisis can radically transform the global order. Following World War II, Ludwig von Mises called for a global embrace of sound money, government restraint, and cultural conservatism. Unfortunately, the West embraced the ideologies of inflationism, interventionism, and cultural leftism instead. Without a correction, Mises warned, assumptions of ever-improving material well-being would be found wanting.
As he wrote in Planning for Freedom, “It is not true that human conditions must always improve, and that a relapse into very unsatisfactory modes of life, penury and barbarism is impossible.”
The recent attacks in Israel are a horrific reminder of how lightly guarded civilization is from savagery.
Washington, DC – Arab, Muslim and Palestinian rights advocates in the United States have denounced Washington’s unconditional support for Israel’s war in Gaza, decrying the “dehumanisation” of Palestinians by media outlets and politicians.
Speaking at a news conference on Friday, representatives of several advocacy groups also sounded the alarm about the prospect of hate incidents against Arab and Muslim Americans.
Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), slammed President Joe Biden, accusing him of failing to recognise the Palestinians’ humanity.
“You are not helping,” Awad said, speaking as if he were addressing Biden himself. “You are, in fact, giving the green light for Israel to commit a genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. You failed us as American citizens. You failed us as Palestinians. And you failed the world community.”
Biden, a self-described Zionist, has consistently voiced support for Israel. In a speech this week, the president pledged to ensure that Israel has the military needs to “defend itself”, while barely mentioning the Palestinian civilians under bombardment in Gaza.
“We call on you, Mr President, to put an end to this violence. You have the ability and power to prevent a mass crime and genocide from happening,” Awad said.
The war erupted on October 7 when the Palestinian group Hamas launched a highly coordinated attack against Israel from the besieged Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of people and taking dozens captive.
Israel responded with a bombing campaign that has killed nearly 1,900 Palestinians, including more than 500 children in Gaza. Israeli authorities have also announced a total blockade on Gaza, preventing fuel and other basic supplies from entering the territory.
In addition, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of using white phosphorus in violation of international law, which prohibits the use of the highly incendiary munition in populated areas like Gaza, a narrow strip of land home to 2.3 million people.
Early on Friday, Israel ordered more than 1.1 million Palestinians there — nearly half of the territory’s population — to flee south within 24 hours, sparking further outrage from rights groups.
At the news conference in Washington, DC, Awad, who is Palestinian American, stressed the need to address the historical context of the conflict.
Leading rights groups, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have said Israel is imposing a system of apartheid on Palestinians.
“History did not start on October 7,” Awad said, referring to the Hamas attack. He called Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison, a frequent criticism among rights advocates who denounce Israel’s efforts to restrict movement to and from the territory and detain its residents.
Awad added that Palestinians have been “subjugated to all kinds of violence, discrimination, ethnic cleansing” for decades.
Awad underscored the killing of two US citizens by Israel last year — Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and elderly Palestinian American man Omar Assad — saying their lives did not matter to the US government.
“We, as Muslims and Palestinians and Americans, we believe that every human life is valuable and sacred and has to be protected,” Awad said.
For his part, Chris Habiby, director of national government affairs and advocacy at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said the US should be calling for immediate de-escalation to stop the violence.
Instead, he said, “our elected leaders are perpetuating Israeli lies, calling for a religious war and openly advocating for the destruction of the second most densely populated place on planet Earth”.
Several US politicians have called for unchecked violence against Gaza. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News earlier this week, “We’re in a religious war here. I am with Israel. Do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself. Level the place.”
Habiby said that such rhetoric has led to a “culture of fear” in Arab-American communities. He cited incidents of assault against Palestine solidarity demonstrators across the country.
“In New York City, they’re waving the flag of a Jewish terrorist organisation,” he said, referring to the Jewish Defense League, an ultranationalist group suspected of carrying out violent attacks against Arab and Palestinian Americans.
“We need our elected leaders to stand up and remember the humanity of people, the humanity of Palestinians. This is not a one-sided affair here. We need to do better,” he said.
Ayah Ziyadeh, advocacy director at American Muslims for Palestine, also accused US politicians of demonising Palestinians to give Israel cover to commit its “horrendous crimes”.
“The root causes of this violence are clear. It is decades of Israeli military occupation and apartheid and US complicity,” she said.
It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.
It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.
When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas.
The phrase “Hamas targets” has been all over the news media the last few days in reference to the ongoing attacks on Gaza, which have as of this writing killed over 1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children.
“Israel conducts large-scale strikes on Hamas targets,” reads a CNN headline.
“Israel conducts ‘large-scale strike’ on Hamas targets,” reads the title of a segment for ABC News.
“Israel says it dropped 6,000 bombs so far against Hamas targets,” reads a report by The Washington Post.
Gosh, Israel must have really great visibility into Gaza to know that each of those 6,000 bombs was aimed at “Hamas targets” and not just civilian buildings.
Where was this 20/20 vision when Hamas was preparing for an attack using motorized paragliders, drones and motorboats in an enclosed strip of land the size of Philadelphia? How did Israeli intelligence fail to detect preparations for this attack even after Egyptian intelligence warned them that it was coming? How did they fail so spectacularly that even Hamas was reportedly surprised by the scale of their operation’s success? Is it really reasonable to believe they were blind as moles to Hamas activity last week but have the eye of the eagle this week?
President Biden made some noises on Wednesday about how important it is that Israel “operate by the rules of war”, which sounded like empty cover-your-ass narrative fluff even before we heard US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan dismiss any notion of “red lines” that Israel must not cross in Gaza.
Not even mainstream empire apologists are buying it. Politico’s Andrew Ward, in an article sponsored by Lockheed Martin in which he writes that “Israel’s ferocious counterattack is easy to understand” given the severity of the Hamas attack, writes that “The Biden administration wants Israel to abide by the laws of war as it responds to Hamas’ barbaric attack, but Jerusalem doesn’t appear to be listening.”
Of course, Israel isn’t abiding by the rules of war. They’re not even pretending to. Human Rights Watch has just issued a statement decrying Israel’s “unlawfully indiscriminate” use of white phosphorus in Gaza and in Lebanon, and an Israeli security official told the Israeli press that the IDF’s plan is to turn Gaza into “a city of tents” with “no buildings”.
This is all publicly available information, yet the Western press has the gall to use the phrase “Hamas targets” when describing Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza? I’m sorry, but that’s demented. The only reason to do something like that would be to administer propaganda.
The claim that Israel is targeting Hamas when it destroys buildings in Gaza is further undermined by the fact that Hamas would be taking shelter underground during this bombing campaign. As journalist Sharmine Narwani explained on Twitter, “Hamas cadres live underground in Gaza, which they have learned to do after countless Israeli bombing campaigns. The ONLY people being massacred in Gaza by Israeli terror planes right now are Palestinian civilians and Israeli POWs.”
In reality, both the claims that Israeli intelligence was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack and that Israel is solely targeting Hamas with its Gaza strikes are highly suspect and worthy of intense scrutiny. Israel has never been averse to killing Palestinian civilians, and there’s no reason to feel confident Israeli intelligence didn’t let the attack through in order to justify longstanding agendas like the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian territory. Both claims can be false, but from where I’m sitting it looks highly unlikely that they’re both true.
If you want to support Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza then go ahead, and if you want to uncritically accept the official narrative about Saturday’s attack then you do you. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone