The chaos Israel is sowing across the Middle East could come back to haunt it

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Written by David Hearst | Middle East Eye David Hearst | Middle East Eye

Published: 01 October 2024 01 October 2024

Nothing can persuade its Arab neighbours that Israel cannot live with them in peace more than the course on which Netanyahu is currently set

A ritual is performed every time Israel starts another war, before the white phosphorus rains down, before the fear and panic of people fleeing their homes, before the footage of stunned survivors sifting through the rubble of collapsed apartment blocks. 

It’s called the ceasefire ritual - a public display of hand-washing. It’s the charade of pretending that there are honest diplomats out there trying to search every avenue, stretch every sinew, to stop this bedlam from starting.

Much of it is choreographed. Other parts are improvised. But be sure about one thing: it is pantomime. It bears no relationship to reality.

...

If this charade sounds horribly familiar, that’s because it is.

Cut through the verbiage and the bottom line - as the Pentagon has confirmed - is that the US supports a ground invasion of Lebanon, and ceasefire plans can go hang. 

Read more at: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/chaos-israel-sowing-across-middle-east-could-come-back-haunt-it

OREGON ACTION: Please Support Bernie Sanders' Senate Resolutions to Block Offensive U.S. Weapons to Israel!

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 01 October 2024 01 October 2024

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/please-support-bernie-sanders-senate-resolutions-to-block-offensive-us-weapons-to-israel?source=email

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block the sale of more than $20 billion in offensive U.S. weaponry to Israel. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is an original co-sponsor on four of the six resolutions. Please write to thank Senator Merkley for co-sponsoring four of the six and ask him to co-sponsor the other two. Please write to Senator Wyden to ask him to co-sponsor and support these Joint Resolutions urgently needed to pressure Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire and to open full access to Gaza for aid shipments that remain stalled and inadequate to address the growing humanitarian crisis.

Jewish-Palestinian Alliance of Oregon (JPAO)

First-Ever DNC Panel on Palestinian Rights: We Need to “Restore the Soul of the Democratic Party”

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 26 September 2024 26 September 2024

 This year, the Democratic National Convention held its first-ever panel on Palestinian human rights. The panel came after persistent grassroots organizing against U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. We play excerpts, including from the Arab American Institute’s James Zogby, a former executive member of the Democratic National Committee; Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care surgeon who recently worked in Gaza; and Layla Elabed, co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement.

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN:

I received a young boy into the emergency department during one of the mass casualties who had half of his face and neck blown off. Luckily, the organs that are vital for breathing and blood supply to the brain were preserved. They were visible, but preserved. And he was talking to us. He couldn’t see himself, so he didn’t know what he looked like at that point in time, and he kept asking for his sister. His sister was in the bed next to him. The majority of her body was burned beyond recognition. He didn’t recognize that the girl in the bed next to him was his sister. His entire family, parents and the rest of his siblings, were killed in the same attack.

That boy survived. And the next day, I went to see him. A very young plastic surgeon, one of the few remaining plastic surgeons in Gaza, because the others have either been killed or have fled, understandably, had removed part of his chest and created a graft to cover those vital organs of the neck. He was lying in his bed and mumbling, because it was so difficult to talk. And he kept saying — I got really close to him, and he said, “I wish I had died, too.” And I said, “What?” And he said, “I think my entire family has gone to heaven” — or, it’s not “my entire family.” His exact words were something to the effect of, “Everybody I love is now in heaven. I don’t want to be here anymore.” That is one of so many stories.

Read more at: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/20/dnc_palestinian_rights_panel

Calls grow for US investigation into Israeli killing of Turkish American activist

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Written by Ruth Michaelson | The Guardian Ruth Michaelson | The Guardian

Published: 26 September 2024 26 September 2024

[As we know from Israel's killing of Rachel Corrie, Israel does not do investigations, they only do coverups]

Family joins US lawmakers in demanding that government look into death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in West Bank

The family of a Turkish American woman shot by the Israeli military while attending a protest in the West Bank have been joined by a growing chorus of US lawmakers demanding that their government launch its own investigation into the killing.

Autopsies conducted in the West Bank town of Nablus and Turkey found that Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head. Shortly after the incident, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her”.

The White House has called for Israel to investigate Eygi’s death but friends and family has expressed skepticism that such an inquiry will lead to any accountability.

“We are not putting our faith or trust in a military that deliberately shot and killed an individual to investigate themselves of their own crime,” said Juliette Majid, who graduated alongside Eygi from the university of Washington in Seattle.

“What I want is justice and accountability, which to me looks like a US-led criminal investigation … I want the US to hold [the Israeli military] accountable. At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be in this situation, Ayşenur should be coming home alive,” she said.

Eygi’s family’s call for a US-led inquiry has been echoed by senator Patty Murray and congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state who wrote to Joe Biden and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, demanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launch an investigation.

“We fear that if this pattern of impunity does not end with Ms Eygi, it will only continue to escalate,” they said, pointing to the killing of activist Rachel Corrie – also from Washington state – in 2003 at a protest in Gaza, and calling on the US government to better protect American citizens overseas

Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/26/aysenur-ezgi-eygi-investigation-israel