It’s day 255 of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The US is complicit.
Attacks like the one on the Nuseirat camp were so heinous that a UN-backed inquiry has now accused Israel of committing “crimes against humanity.” including “extermination; murder, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys; forcible transfer; and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment”.
Israel has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza in an assault that shows no sign of stopping.
But missing from the report is any mention of the fact that none of these crimes could have been carried out without support from the US. Now there’s news of American boots on the ground in Gaza and possible US direct involvement in committing war crimes has been downplayed in western media accounts and doesn’t seem to have gained the attention of the growing protest movement in this country.
The Biden administration’s complicity in the Nuseirat mass slaughter shatters the last pretense of American diplomacy in the Middle East. It’s a sinister calculus that justifies killing and wounding 1000 people to rescue four–four people who could have been released through a ceasefire, a ceasefire the Biden administration claims it wanted to broker.
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Netanyahu’s coalition is crumbling as the war continues with no prisoner swap and no ceasefire in sight. He has reportedly dissolved his war cabinet after prominent member Benny Gantz resigned earlier this month. Netanyahu will likely consult a group of government ministers instead. [Reuters]
Is D.T. running unopposed?
The Washington Post is advising Biden to take his poll numbers seriously. His approval rating hovers around 38% — one of the lowest for a sitting president in decades. The picture is worse in swing states, with Biden trailing in five of the six states he won in 2020. In a recent New York Times-Siena College survey, Trump leads Biden by 12% in Nevada and 10% in Georgia.
In some sense, it’s an unfair election because Trump is running virtually unopposed. Or, you might say, he’s running against himself. Yesterday, he spoke to hundreds of mostly Black churchgoers in Detroit while Biden remained invisible.
Lorenzo Sewell, the pastor of 180 Church, defended his decision to host Trump, adding that he thought the initial call from the campaign was a prank. “I’ve had people say things like, ‘I can’t believe you would bring the devil here.’”
Sewell thanked Trump for coming to “the hood,” which he said Biden and Barack Obama never did.
Weekend Quotables
Sen. Bernie Sanders
“The US is complicit.” — NBC News
Columnist Howard French
“If the United States is hurtling toward the kind of dictatorship and lawlessness that Trump and his apologists lazily ascribe to the “Third World,” they hold most of the blame.” — Foreign Policy
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan
Hamdan told CNN that "no one has any idea" how many Israeli hostages in Gaza are still alive, and that any deal to release them must include guarantees of a permanent cease-fire and a complete IDF withdrawal from Gaza. — Haaretz
Jennifer Master, the partner of rescued Israeli hostage Andrey Kozlov.
Master told ABC News that the first Israeli soldiers Kozlov encountered during the operation were dressed as women.
Arundhati Roy, Indian author
"The only moral thing Palestinian civilians can do apparently is to die. The only legal thing the rest of us can do is to watch them die. And be silent. If not, we risk our scholarships, grants, lecture fees & livelihoods." — X
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Final Note:
It’s hard for me to imagine all these MAGA/NRA gun freaks cheering Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun charges.