US And Israel Ensure Palestinians Will Spend Christmas In Living Hell

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As U.S. leaders celebrate Christmas with their families, Palestinians will be mourning the loss of their loved ones.

By Michel Moushabeck

Source: The Free Thought Project

As our hopes for an extended ceasefire are dashed and Israel’s war on Gaza is now in its third month, the dire conditions that Palestinians are living under — hunger, lack of drinking water, infectious diseases, displacement, and fear of dying from the nonstop bombardment — continue to worsen as the U.S. supports Israel’s relentless assault on the besieged, occupied and now largely houseless population of Gaza.

How will the children endure the harsh conditions during the coming winter months as the torrential rains flood the streets of Gaza, the temperature starts to drop and illnesses become more rampant? How will 2.3 million Gazans — 90 percent of them displaced from their homes — be able to stay warm in their makeshift shelters? Who will give the displaced refugees the needed medical attention now that so many hospitals have been bombed and/or evacuated and so many doctors and nurses have been killed, including at least 300 aid workers? Who will bring us the truth and report on the ongoing atrocities wrought on Palestinian civilians now that 92 fine journalists have perished in the past nine weeks?

On December 14, the World Health Organization announced that it had delivered 4,200 body bags, underscoring the critical need to safeguard civilians from the risk of infection. Additionally, the shortage of latrines in shelters has given people no choice other than open defecation. As a result, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said: “There have been significant increases or increased risk of outbreak in some communicable diseases and conditions such as diarrhea, influenza, chicken pox, meningitis, jaundice, impetigo acute respiratory infections, skin infections and hygiene-related conditions like lice and scabies.”

Israeli snipers opened fire on several hundred Christian worshipers inside Gaza’s The Holy Family Catholic Church, in the Zeytun area, murdering a mother and her daughter, and received strong condemnation from the Vatican. An Al Jazeera journalist shook as he described how Israeli bulldozers crushed sick and injured civilians taking shelter outside the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, burying some alive — abominable and beyond human comprehension.

I can’t even begin to imagine a worse nightmare. The scenes of massive devastation are apocalyptic. The images of Palestinian civilians stripped down to their underwear, with hands strapped behind their backs, terrified, humiliated, and paraded like cattle by Israeli forces in the streets are utterly inhumane and disgusting.

You know that the world is broken when a country is given the freedom to annihilate another people as the world watches in real time. This should shake each and every one of us to the core.

While our elected officials will soon be going on their holiday recess to celebrate Christmas with their families, friends and loved ones in the warmth of their homes, Palestinian families will be huddling in cold tents or makeshift shelters shivering as they mourn the loss of loved ones. Many will still be searching with their bare hands for their children that remain missing under the rubble. It is estimated that more than 25,000 children have been orphaned since the start of the Israeli bombardment.

No one can doubt our elected officials’ complicity in fueling the ongoing genocide — committed and reported on in real time — by voting to send Israel an additional $14.3 billion in military aid, including the State Department’s bypassing of Congress to approve the expedited airlifting of 14,000 tank shells to slaughter more Palestinian civilians. I hope that they will wake up and realize — if they have a grain of compassion — what they have done and the extent of the death and destruction caused by their actions. Their unwillingness to demand an immediate ceasefire and stop the carnage has enabled the killing of nearly 20,000 civilians — 8,000 of whom are children — injured more than 50,000, displaced more than 1.9 million inhabitants of Gaza, and has drawn widespread outcry worldwide.

Before October 7, nearly 500 trucks were allowed to enter Gaza daily. The food and medical supplies they carried were barely enough to sustain the besieged population suffering from a 17-year blockade. Today, very few aid trucks are allowed into Gaza. Food has become very scarce; farms have become bombed-out war zones with massive craters; and Israeli forces are flooding Gaza with seawater, rendering agriculture impossible and drinking water undrinkable. Starvation is setting in and we are told by the World Food Program that 9 out of 10 people in Gaza cannot eat every day. This horrific situation will likely get worse if aid trucks continue to be prevented from entering the enclave.

Do U.S. politicians believe that the limitless death and destruction wreaked upon the people of Gaza is a just and moral assault, or are they afraid they’ll be accused of antisemitism and lose AIPAC campaign contributions if they call for a ceasefire? How many times do they need to be reminded that ethnic cleansing is a war crime?

In Israel “there is no voice calling to stop the bloodbath,” Israeli journalist Gideon Levy laments in Ha’aretz. “We’ve never before had a war like this, a war of complete consensus, a war of total silence ….”

But while it appears to most of us on the outside that, as Levy said, “it is a unanimous war,” it is important to point out that opposition does exist despite the Israeli government’s aggressive crackdown on dissent. Protests in Israel have been largely repressed, silenced and criminalized. Numerous critics of the Israeli government have been attacked, jailed, harassed, interrogated, and warned about speech, protests, or social media posts that call for a ceasefire.

Masha Gessen, in her November 8 article for The New Yorker, outlines the various methods used by Israeli right-wing mobs and the Israeli security services to instill fear in peace activists who are opposed to Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza. She quotes Kobi Shabtai, the head of Israeli police, who announced that protests against Israeli actions in Gaza would not be tolerated. He said: “Anyone who wishes to identify with Gaza, is welcome to — I will put him on the buses that are heading there now.”

Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise nearly 21 percent of the citizenry, have relatives in Gaza who were displaced, lost their homes, or were injured or killed in the Israeli bombardment. While there is outrage and opposition among Jewish peace activists, Israeli Arabs are the ones who suffer the most of Israel’s repressive practices. According to the Adalah Legal Center, they have been targeted by employers and academic institutions, and terrorized by right-wing mobs and subjected to surveillance by Israeli intelligence. A friend in Bethlehem told me that a Palestinian flag emoji can get you fired; a watermelon — because it has the same colors as the Palestinian flag — can get you arrested; and a keffiyeh around the neck can get you beaten up. Legendary human rights lawyer, Lea Tsemel, who has represented hundreds of jailed Palestinians, said that it is unprecedented that “people were getting arrested for social media posts and even likes.”

In the days and months ahead we shall see increased opposition in Israel, especially in the wake of reports that Israeli forces shot and killed three Israeli hostages even though they were holding white flags and were shirtless to show that they have not strapped themselves with suicide bombs. This tragic incident compelled protesters to set up tents outside the Israel’s Ministry of Defense in order to pressure the Netanyahu government to step up its negotiations for the hostage release. It is worth noting here that if those killed were Palestinians, it would not be newsworthy in U.S. or Israeli corporate media.

No Merry Christmas in the Land of Christ

As Americans celebrate the holiday season and enjoy a merry Christmas with their families, and children in the U.S. and Europe are busy rehearsing nativity or Christmas plays at school, it will not be merry at all in Palestine, the birthplace of Christ. In the Holy Land, where Palestinian baby Jesus was born in a manger and where Christ’s message of love, compassion and caring for the oppressed was heard for the first time, Palestinians live their lives in daily fear under the gun of Israeli soldiers and armed settlers. According to UNRWA, the United Nations refugee authority, 271 Palestinians, including 69 minors, have been killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank this year — a record since the Second Intifada.

In the West Bank town of Jenin, residents have emptied the streets and children hide indoors as Israeli tanks and snipers raid the city. The Jenin Refugee Camp has been targeted with drones and repeatedly invaded with armored bulldozers that tear up streets. Since October 7, 58 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin alone. Last week, Israeli soldiers stormed Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, a renowned cultural institution, ransacking the place, knocking down walls, destroying theater and office equipment, confiscating computers and assaulting theater staff. They later beat up, handcuffed, blindfolded and abducted Mustafa Sheta, the Freedom Theatre’s general manager, and Ahmed Tobasi, the theater’s artistic director, from their homes. Zoe Lafferty, the theatre’s associate director, described the attack to the Middle East Eye as a form of “cultural genocide.”

In any given year, around Christmastime, the Church of Nativity receives hundreds of thousands of visitors and worshipers. This year, Bethlehem — home to more than a quarter of a million Palestinians — is besieged like other towns in the West Bank. It is shrouded in darkness, sadness, tears and agony. Since October 7, a large number of people were rounded up in Bethlehem and put in jail without being charged under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy.

The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem declared the cancellation of Christmas celebrations in a solemn announcement on November 10. The Church of Nativity has canceled its Christmas festivities, put away its Christmas decorations, and instead of the church’s normal nativity scene, it placed baby Jesus on top of a pile of rubble inside the church.

Munther Isaac, the church’s pastor, explained his decision in his Sunday sermon in Arabic and said:

This is precisely the meaning of Christmas. This year due to the death, destruction, and rubble in our land, this is how we welcome ‘the King of Glory’ … Christmas is the presence of baby Jesus with those who suffer … If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble … Yes, Christmas celebrations are canceled this year, but Christmas itself is not, and will not be canceled, for our hope cannot be canceled. Jesus’ birth is our hope; Jesus is our hope.

U.S. Ensures UN Fails to Stop the Genocide

On December 8, the UN secretary-general invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter to trigger a vote for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Many lives could have been saved had the U.S. not used its veto power and cast the single “no” vote. The U.S.’s veto of the ceasefire resolution — despite the fact that the vast majority of the people in the U.S. support a ceasefire — shows the people of this country and the world at large that the Biden administration’s allegiance is not to public opinion or international law, but to the apartheid state of Israel.

Four days after the Security Council vote, the UN General Assembly held an “emergency special session” under the “Uniting for Peace” resolution. This session is applicable when the Security Council fails to exercise its primary responsibility for international peace and security due to the veto of a permanent member. During the special session, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The result was 153 votes in favor, 23 abstentions and 10 votes against. The negative votes were cast by the U.S., Israel, two EU countries (Austria and Czech Republic), Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Paraguay.

While this “binding” vote shows that the U.S. and Israel are isolated and that most countries in the world want an immediate ceasefire, we know from past UN resolutions that Israel is unlikely to comply, having previously ignored more than 40 UN resolutions since its establishment.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli leaders last Thursday and delivered President Joe Biden’s message: Israel should switch to more precise tactics in about three weeks. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated over the weekend that Israel will need to continue the “high-intensity” phase for more than another two months in order to achieve its goal of “eradicating Hamas.”

During his visit to Tel Aviv on Monday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, “Hamas is determined to doom both Israelis and Palestinians to an unending cycle of suffering and strife.” He added: “So make no mistake: Hamas should never again be able to project terror from Gaza into the sovereign state of Israel. And we will continue to work together for a safer, more secure future for Israel, and a brighter future for the Palestinians.”

With a fresh supply of U.S.-made bombs and ammunition, the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Palestinians of Gaza appears to have no end in sight.

As U.S. leaders celebrate Christmas with their families, Palestinians 

Born in a Police State: The Deep State’s Persecution of Its Most Vulnerable Citizens

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By John & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.”—Howard Thurman, theologian and civil rights activist

The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.

The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.

Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later?

What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them?

A singular number of churches across the country have asked those very questions in recent years, and their conclusions were depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing.

Those nativity scenes were a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war, all driven by a manipulative shadow government called the Deep State.

The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do?

What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do about the injustices of our  modern age?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer was executed by Hitler for attempting to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality.

Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation as well as his life when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds.

Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.”

Yet this is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love.

After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings.

When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.

Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state?

Consider the following if you will.

Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000.

Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.

Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis and purposes yet to be disclosed.

Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.

From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.

Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone.

Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us.

From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations.

Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”

While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies.

Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled.

Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.

Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.

Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.

Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.

Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. More than 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.

Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.

Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error.

Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square.

Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs.

Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.

Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebration of miracles and promise of salvation, we would do well to remember that what happened in that manger on that starry night in Bethlehem is only the beginning of the story. That baby born in a police state grew up to be a man who did not turn away from the evils of his age but rather spoke out against it.

We must do no less.

Saturday Matinee: Breathing Happy

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‘Breathing Happy’ Is A Fantastical Look At Addiction and Grief Perfect For The Holiday Seasons

By Sharai Bohannon

Source: Dread Central

Breathing Happy is a weird Christmas redemption story that defies genre. Writer-director-actor Shane Brady manages to give us a mind-bending story about recovery, redemption, and grief with a pinch of magic for good measure. Brady plays Dylan in the movie. Dylan is hours away from achieving a year of sobriety. However, his past comes back to haunt him, in the literal sense, making those last few hours even harder than he could’ve predicted. 

The holidays are difficult for all of us, but I imagine it’s even harder for our sober friends. We also find ourselves instantly rooting for Dylan even before getting the full story. Brady captures something profoundly human in a guy just trying to hold on that is so very relatable. Having his first anniversary on Christmas day raises the stakes even before his inner demons come out to play. Throughout the movie, we watch flashbacks of all the Christmases Dylan ruined because of his addiction. We also see how this has impacted his relationships with his family. Which answers the question of why he’s alone this year for such a big milestone.

Breathing Happy is a stylistic mindfuck. As we’re watching Dylan get into fights with talking doors, and we’re being thrown into flashbacks via VHS tapes, the narrative becomes a little dizzying. However, before I could get too annoyed, everything started to gel in a way that proved this was the only way to tell a story of this magnitude. The road to recovery isn’t a direct route. The same is true for the bumpy road that is the grieving process. As we discover these VHS moments are filling us in on Dylan’s dead dad, pieces fall into place. This leaves us realizing that this Christmas and sobriety anniversary is even heavier than we assumed at first glance.

Memories are tricky, and the fragmented way this movie gives us these moments makes it hard to not empathize with everyone involved. We feel bad for Dylan’s adopted mom and sisters, but we also are frustratingly sad for Dylan. Anyone close to an addict knows it’s a complicated relationship and that there is no right way to support them. You can try tough love, you can try being too kind, you can try combos of everything at your disposal, but it’s a helpless feeling because nothing you can do is going to magically cure this disease. Breathing Happy does a good job of reminding the viewers that there are no villains even when it looks like self-sabotage on Dylan’s part. There are bigger issues at play, and I think this is part of what works for this movie.

Breathing Happy is a messy story about being human and having emotions bigger than ourselves. Not all of the humor lands, but it does manage to pull at all the right heartstrings. I’m a magical realism girl, but I can also see this drama not being the holiday movie most genre fans are hunting for at this time of year. However, if you do catch it, you’ll probably agree that Brady has captured a lot more than the advertising for the film lets on. 

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Watch Breathing Happy on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15503415

No Virginia, That’s Not Snow over Gaza and Lebanon for the Holiday; it’s White Phosphorus Sent by Uncle Sam

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Netanyahu’s, Biden’s and Blinken’s Chanukah Bombing of Gaza:

Images of white phosphorus shells releasing their deadly cargo on Gaza (courtesy of from Snopes 10/13/2023 report)

By Dave Lindorff

Source: This Can’t Be Happening!

Evidence is mounting that Israel is firing shells that disperse illegal white phosphorus on targets — a gruesome weapon supplied to Israel by and manufactured in the US, and which the US has, in contravention to a  UN ban, itself used in Syria, Iraq and other conflicts.

White phosphorus  or WP is widely opposed as a weapon of war because the phosphorus, put on small bits of felt  released and scattered from the air from a burst cannon shell, grenade or bomb, ignites on contact with atmospheric oxygen and burns at a very high temperature. On contacting human flesh it burns straight down through skin and muscle to the bone, is terribly painful, and can cause painful death or lasting injuries. 

Israel was caught having used the weapon in southern Lebanon on Oct. 16, as reported in the Washington Post, in an attack that burned several homes and at least nine civilians when Israel’s military responded to shelling by Hezbollah. The Israeli military initially denied using the weapon, but spent shell casings identifying them as white phosphorus shells and with markings showing they were made by US arms makers, discovered by a Post reporter on the ground there, were unmistakable. So was the obvious Israeli lie that the phosphorus weapon was only used to create a smoke screen to protect Israeli troops (who in truth were not in Lebanon!).

Israel has also been charged with using white phosphorus in its two-month massive attack on Gaza, in particular over crowded parts of Northern Gaza (see photo which shows the characteristic burning trails of phosphorus falling from an opened shell in mid-air, a familiar image from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003-4). 

Meanwhile, the fact-check outfit Snopes has issued a damning report by investigative reporter Alex Kasprak that concludes that while the evidence may not provide absolute confirmation regarding white phosphorus shell use in Gaza, the  available photos and videos “are strong evidence in support of that conclusion.” 

The use of white phosphorus as a weapon in the Gaza War is particularly horrific because most Palestinians there have no shelter.  The concrete buildings they had lived in might have helped protect them, but have largely been destroyed thanks to Israel’s carpet-bombing and shelling of their homes and apartment buildings. Now much of the Gaza population lives on the streets, sleeping on sidewalks or empty lots, and is completely exposed to contact with any falling white phosphorus —- this at a time when hospitals are no longer functioning anywhere in Gaza. 

When accused of using white phosphorus in Iraq, particularly on occasions like the total destruction of Fallujah in a 2004 revenge attack that Israel might well be using as a model for its much larger current attack on Gaza, the Pentagon and Bush administration lied by claiming the phosphorus weapon was only being used to “light up the area,” not to kill troops or civilians. But that lie was exposed by the weapon’s results: the many civilians horribly burned or killed by white phosphorus — and also by the photos taken in daytime showing the distinctive white smoke trails coming down from the air against a bright blue sky when no artificial light was required. 

It all amounts to one more charge of war crimes against Israel (and the US) in addition to the major war crime of launching a war of collective punishment and revenge upon the 2.3 million captive and suffering residents of Gaza by the Israeli government and military that is charged with assuring their well-being in a captive territory from which they cannot leave at will and which is dependent upon Israel for currently barred food, water, electricity and access to medical supplies.

Already, the IDF war on Gaza—when one factors in all the missing and now dead victims buried under buildings collapsed over the past nine weeks by Israel’s record bombing campaign— has claimed the  lives off over one-percent of the Palestinian population trapped in the fenced-in and walled-off territory. And the IDF’s brutal one-sided campaign, now in its eighth week, continues full force, with the US, the supplier of the ammunition, including white phosphorus 155-millimeter cannon rounds, refusing to pull the plug and demand a cease fire. 

Obviously most of the known 18,000 Palestinian deaths and the thousands of unknown deaths from building collapses have been killed by “ordinary” bombs and explosive howitzer and tank shells or gunfire, But while white phosphorus attacks may not be adding that many victims to that list, relatively speaking, it speaks to the viciousness of the Israeli military that has chosen to use this weapon, as well as of the US military for keeping such bombs and shells in its inventory and supplying them to such a racist, apartheid state. (As for the US, where’s the surprise in learning that the nation that invented “stickier’ napalm, not to mention atomic bombs, doesn’t just use white phosphorus weapons, but like a oxycontin dealer trying to support his own habit is pushing them on other countries.)

Nixon and Kissinger had their wretched, criminal  Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam by B-52 bombers over three decades ago in 1972. Netanyahu, Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken are now having their own Chanukah Bombing, which, if the US-backed Iraeli blitz continues for another two weeks will be a Christmas Bombing 2.0.

Famine Stalks the People of Gaza

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By Daniel Larison

Source: Eunomia

The UN emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, issued a grim warning about the humanitarian crisis created by the war in Gaza:

The UN’s top aid official has said the Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza has been just as devastating as in the north, creating “apocalyptic” conditions and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.

The resumption of the military campaign and the continuation of the siege are a death sentence for civilians in Gaza. Even during the truce there was nowhere near enough aid reaching the people, and now it is impossible for any aid to reach them. Pre-war conditions in Gaza were already very bad, and in the last two months they have become nightmarish. Gaza was the world’s largest open-air prison before the war, and it is now being turned into the world’s largest charnel house. This is what comes from providing unconditional support to a policy of collective punishment.

The UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territories offered a similarly bleak assessment of the situation:

Throughout the Gaza Strip, Israel’s bombardment of Palestinians has intensified in recent days, and provision of life-saving humanitarian assistance has all but ceased, raising the spectre of disease, hunger, and death for Gaza’s 2.2. million civilians.

The World Food Program raised the alarm that Gaza is “on the brink of famine. Haaretz recently spoke with Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, and he said that the famine warning should be heeded:

“That is not a word any humanitarian organization uses lightly – it is used very sparingly, because there’s a risk it could get overused and watered down. The WFP knows better than anyone, so when they warn about the risk of famine, I take that extraordinarily seriously,” he says.

As Konyndyk explains, Gaza is especially vulnerable to famine because of its dependence on imports. It is worth noting here that the few means that the people of Gaza have to grow and produce their own food are also being destroyed by the Israeli military. Human Rights Watch has reported that satellite imagery shows the razing of orchards, fields, and greenhouses. We saw something similar during the war on Yemen where the Saudi coalition targeted farms and fishing vessels to strike at local means of food production at the same time that they used the blockade to strangle the country.

Widespread hunger is making the population more vulnerable to the spread of disease, and the lack of clean water and sanitation mean that waterborne diseases will start moving quickly through the population. The Haaretz report went on to say, “The combination of food insecurity and vulnerability to waterborne diseases, Konyndyk says, is “a terrifying combination to me, as someone who’s been around humanitarian response for a long time.” If conditions in Gaza are allowed to continue deteriorating like this, we will be looking at massive loss of life from disease and starvation that could have been prevented.

This is what was obviously going to happen when the Israeli government put the entire population under siege and then began devastating their public infrastructure and health care facilities. Haaretz quotes Konyndyk on this point:

He faults the Biden administration for empowering Israel to conduct an offensive from the outset “in a way that was so disproportionate and showed such disregard for civilian harm,” calling this “the inevitable outcome.”

“Siege tactics at a population level is not a close call in terms of international law. That is collective punishment and it is illegal,” he says.

The Biden administration started off pledging that they would put human rights at the center of their foreign policy. Now they are supporting a government as it bombs civilians with abandon and creates famine conditions in one of the most impoverished parts of the world. The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said this in a statement yesterday:

The pulverising of Gaza now ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age. Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell.  

The people of Gaza are being starved by a blockade. This is not an accidental byproduct of war, but the predictable result of a policy to deprive the population of the basic necessities of life. They are also enduring one of the most intense bombing campaigns of this century. Hundreds of thousands have already seen their homes destroyed, and the vast majority of the population is now displaced with winter only weeks away. This is one of the worst man-made disasters in decades, and it will only get worse unless something is done to halt it.

Many innocent people are going to die from hunger, sickness, and exposure in the coming weeks and months, but most of that could still be prevented if the war and siege ended now. The U.S. is enabling the disaster, but it is also within our government’s power to put an end to it. If our government fails to use its considerable leverage to avert this catastrophe, it will be one of the most shameful episodes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.

US Seeks Plausible Deniability as it Lights Middle East on Fire

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By Brian Berletic

Source: New Eastern Outlook

A surprising change of tone came from the Pentagon in early December. After weeks of devastating Israeli military operations inside Gaza, the US Secretary of Defense implored Israel to demonstrate restraint and concern for the civilian population.

The Hill in its early December 2023 article, “Israel risks ‘strategic defeat’ if civilians aren’t protected, Pentagon chief says,” would report:

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Israel risks a “strategic defeat” if it does not work to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza amid its war on militant group Hamas in the region. “The center of gravity is the civilian population and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat…”

The article also noted:

The Biden administration has issued caution that a campaign in southern Gaza must be carried out more precisely than Israel did in the first leg of the war.

After a century of American military aggression killing millions (mostly civilians) around the globe, everywhere from Southeast Asia to North Africa, across the Middle East and deep into Central Asia, is Washington finally finding a sense of humanity?

No.

All while US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin attempted to convince the world that Washington cares about the Palestinian civilian population, the US continues flooding the Israeli arsenal with US-made weapons, enabling the campaign of indiscriminate brutality.

Bloomberg in its November 2023 article, “US Is Quietly Sending Israel More Ammunition, Missiles,” would report:

The Pentagon has quietly ramped up military aid to Israel, delivering on requests that include more laser-guided missiles for its Apache gunship fleet, as well as 155mm shells, night-vision devices, bunker-buster munitions and new army vehicles, according to an internal Defense Department list. 

The weapons pipeline to Israel is extending beyond the well-publicized provision of Iron Dome interceptors and Boeing Co. smart bombs. It continues even as Biden administration officials increasingly caution Israel about trying to avoid civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.

Israel could not continue its military operations and the subsequent destruction of Gaza’s civilian population without this US military aid. Israel also continues to enjoy US political protection within the halls of the United Nations.

Washington cannot even say it didn’t know its weapons would be used by Israel to carry out this indiscriminate brutality because Israeli military representatives openly declared they would before their military operations into Gaza even began.

The Guardian in their October 10, 2023, article, “‘Emphasis is on damage, not accuracy’: ground offensive into Gaza seems imminent,” admitted:

IDF spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari made the startling admission that “hundreds of tons of bombs” had already been dropped on the tiny strip, adding that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy…”

Why then does Washington want the world to believe it has growing concerns over the nature of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, and more specifically, concerns regarding the brutality Washington is admitting is being used against the civilian population?

Washington’s History of Pleading Peace While Pursuing War 

Washington wants plausible deniability. The US has for years followed a familiar pattern of attempting to covertly provoke nations and regions into conflict while publicly appearing to pursue reconciliation and peace.

For example, the US for years rhetorically supported the Minsk agreements regarding reconciliation within Ukraine, all while deliberately building up Ukraine’s military capabilities to empower and encourage the widening violence in eastern Ukraine and the eventual provocation of Russia to become directly involved in the conflict.

Likewise, the US officially maintains a “One China” policy in regards to the status of Taiwan, recognizing it as an integral part of Chinese territory, yet unofficially Washington has done everything in its power to undermine the policy and provoke war with China over its efforts to support separatism in Taipei.

Officially, the US supports the two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine. Unofficially, and sometimes quite openly, the US has supported the most extreme elements within both Israel and among Palestinians to ensure no such peace agreement is ever possible.

Israel as the Eager Provocateur 

The intention by Washington to use Israel as a proxy and provocateur within the Middle East is well documented within US government and corporate-funded policy think tank papers. One such paper, published by the Brookings Institution in 2009 titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran,” focuses on containing Iran politically, militarily, and economically. It lays out options for disarming Iran and for overthrowing its government through US-sponsored sedition or US military intervention. Beyond the US and groups the paper sought to use as proxies within Iran, the paper also cited Israel as an eager regional proxy that could attack Iran, triggering a regional war that the US could then appear “reluctant” to join. The goal, of course, is to appear that the US sought peace, being left with no choice but war, all while a US-led war was the objective to begin with.

The paper notes:

…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)

It also says:

“In a similar vein, any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.”

Here, the paper admits Iran does not seek war, but could be provoked into one anyway, and notes that the US, or Israel, could then carry out military aggression against Iran having convinced the world they did so reluctantly.

Israel factors so heavily in US plans to provoke war with Iran, it was given its own chapter in the paper. Chapter 5 of the paper is titled, “Leave it to Bibib: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” and notes how a war started by Israel could then be cited as a pretext for the US itself to join in afterwards, and most importantly, appear to do so “reluctantly.”

Thus, as Israel continues destroying Gaza, targeting the civilian population deliberately, knowingly triggering unrest across the region which in turn is placing pressure on Arab governments as well as Iran’s to respond, the stage is being set for the possibility of wider conflict.

As Israel attacks, invades, and erases Gaza, it is also targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both the US and Israel have already carried out strikes in Syria. The goal is to trigger a conflict the US and Israel can portray as an act of aggression against either or both to then expand military operations across the whole region.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin posing as concerned for the Palestinian population all while arming Israel to continue indiscriminately brutalizing them, is being done to convince the world the US is pleading peace all while in actuality pursuing wider war.

The US used the proxy war in Ukraine to reorder Europe and reassert hegemony over the continent, rolling back European cooperation with both Russia and China. The US likely seeks to repeat a similar process in the Middle East where relations are improving within the region between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and between Syria and the rest of the Arab World. The region also collectively continues moving closer with Russia and China as well as toward multipolarism.

Only time will tell if the region continues successfully moving out from under generations of Western hegemony – first under the British Empire and now under the US – or if the US will successfully trigger regional conflict that can divide, destroy, and disrupt this process, just as it has in Europe.

Could America Have a French-Style Revolution?

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By Charles Hugh Smith

Source: Of Two Minds

Combine all these factors and the result is a potentially volatile mixture awaiting a catalyst.

In the past, I reckoned the odds of America experiencing a revolution akin to France 1789 were low due to the different political, economic and cultural conditions present then and now, but recently I’ve considered the possibility that America’s extremes of wealth, income and power inequality are a powder keg awaiting ignition.

By French-Style Revolution I don’t mean a violent overthrow of the ruling elite as much as a tumultuous reset of how resources and power are distributed. Systems become vulnerable to such resets when they become highly asymmetrical in how they distribute resources and power, and rigid in their defense of the extreme inequality of the distribution.

The fundamental source of democracy’s stability is the dynamic competition of various interests and the dynamic equilibrium of the three branches of the state each balancing the others by restraining the dominance of any one branch or interest.

But extremes of inequality undermine this stability, as the wealthiest elites now bring such a preponderance of wealth to bear that each of the three branches of the state are now beholden to the interests of the few, leaving little recourse to the many.

When the agenda and narratives have been shaped by the wealthiest elites’ foundations, think tanks, corporate PR and lobbyists, then electing different representatives has little effect on the power structure.

The masses can still influence cultural / social policies by voting in a liberal or conservative slate, but the distribution of wealth, power and resources remains unchanged.

As wealth and power are concentrated into ever fewer hands, the mythology of broad-based access to prosperity has vastly expanded the pool of second-tier elites who feel entitled (via implicit promises made by the system) to their fair share of income, wealth and power–financial security and political agency, i.e. a say in public decisions.

These second-tier elites are primarily university graduates and the offspring of upper-middle class households who have been led to expect a secure slot in the upper reaches of the economy or state is a birthright gained by their education and class.

That there are no longer enough slots for this class means those left out constitute the raw material of a potently dissatisfied and potentially angry political class. Historian Peter Turchin presents this as the result of the overproduction of elites, a dynamic he has traced back to previous eras of tumultuous upheaval.

Another common factor driving the masses to revolt is when the essentials of life are no longer affordable or available in sufficient quantity. Historian David Hackett Fischer has documented the perilous impact of inflation, i.e. the collapse of the purchasing power of wages.

Yet another potentially explosive factor is the supreme confidence of the wealthiest elites that the system they rule could ever turn against them or crumble beneath their feet–in a word, a hubris as extreme as their wealth and power. The resignation of the masses and the ease of distracting them with ginned-up controversies and crises and consumerist novelties has fed elite confidence that their supremacy is unassailable.

This hubris leads to the elite becoming tone-deaf to their own excesses and the instability their excesses are generating within the system, an instability that’s currently hidden beneath the resignation and distraction of the masses and the mute frustration of the second-tier elites facing lifetimes of insecurity.

Another factor is the promises made by the state generations ago can no longer be met without creating new money on a scale that guarantees destabilizing inflation. This new money is issued as Treasury bonds which are purchased for income by the wealthy, further exacerbating wealth and income inequality.

The power elite are incapable of demanding sacrifices of the wealthy as the prime directive of the status quo is to defend the current asymmetry of wealth and power. This undermines the collective consensus needed to take the collective action needed to reset the system.

Combine all these factors and the result is a potentially volatile mixture awaiting a catalyst. The confidence of the status quo that it is essentially omnipotent (the Federal Reserve will always save us, etc.) and eternal is itself a factor in the mix.

The key factor is the rigidity or flexibility of the power structure. If the structure is incapable of resetting to a more flexible, symmetric distribution of power as resources, it will come apart as pressures mount.