Below is a 15 minute interview with Amnesty International reporter and analyst, Budour Hassan, which goes beyond and behind the staggering numbers of dead and dying Palestinians to humanize the hell on earth that is Gaza now-- as well as discussing ever increasing murders of Palestinians in the West Bank at the hands of settler colonists, many of whom were given arms by the Israeli government. We don't hear much about any of these horrific stories-- the waking nightmares endured by Palestinian in US media. But as the world becomes increasingly fed up with the unacceptable hypocrisy of talking about Israel's compliance with "the rule of law," while heartbreaking atrocities are being documented by several human rights groups, Biden, Blinken and others are trying to maintain the moral high ground even as they increasingly come under fire. There is an increasingly pronounced resentment in much of the world --especially the global south-- of Israel and the US. As Ian Bremmer recently said, we have come to seem out of touch with most of the world, and especially the global south, where we are seen as defending the last advanced, democratic power that perpetuates apartheid and the dehumanization of an ethnic population . The sense of US complicity looms large, and understandably as we enable the deliberate mistreatment of an entire group on the basis of ethnicity -- even as our leaders speak loudly and proudly about our role as champions of the "Rules Based International Order of the Free World," which justifies our military and economic warfare all over the world. The fact is, though, that the US was the ONLY member of the UN Security Council to veto a UN Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire last week. We were the only of 15 nation-states that prevented the Resolution from passing as it did not factor in "the Israeli right to defend itself." France,Switzerland, Japan were among the 12 states that voted for a humanitarian ceasefire. Only 2 powers abstained (Russia and UK). But only ONE country opposed the idea of a humanitarian pause in this devastating and wanton destruction of the 25 by 5 mile strip of overcrowded land that has become an urban killing zone.
The following interview provides both an update on the conditions in Gaza (and also to a lesser degree in the West Bank, where settlers armed by the government round up and kill innocent Palestinians, taking advantage of the chaos to further eliminate them to seize and build on their land). It 's a tough watch, but we should not bury our heads in the sand. Facts and figures; statistics and abstract overview statements-- these cannot convey the extent and utter barbarity of the collective punishment-- torture-- of a population slowly dying of thirst, hunger, rampant disease and a collapsed health system at the hands of the country that long ago made Gaza a dependent concentration camp. Some say it is an open-air prison. The distinction of relevance is that none of those born in Gaza (the majority there are children) ever did anything indicating consent including voting. Gaza is not a prison, because prisons house people accused and convicted of crimes, not newborn babies and random civilians whose sin is their ethnicity. That is, like the US Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 19th and early 20th century, a *concentration camp.* It is punishment enough to be stuck there without any charges brought against you. But in this case, the wardens have decided to starve the captives, deprive them of food, fuel needed to power the last of the functioning hospitals (12 out of 35 hospitals have stopped functioning, and the 23 barely functional ones left are filled beyond capacity according to Doctors Without Borders and other sources . Rather than going on, I am posting 2 videos below. The first is the 15 minute interview with Amnesty International reserarcher, Budour Hassan, followed by a much shorter but very informative video by a human rights lawyer from the region, Noura Ekarat. Hopefully, these fill in a much needed gap of humane and factual reporting on these things in MSM.
Below is a video in which human rights lawyer , Noura Erakat, indicts mainstream media for failing to report the many credible findings of human rights and international law organizations that have documented evidence for both genocidal intent and action on the part of Israel's government in its response to the Hamas attacks of 10/7/23. In about 3 minute she summarizes some of the main genocidal war crimes that have simply been ignored by mainstream media. In a future post, I plan to discuss the deliberate and systematic jailing and silencing of Palestinians (including Israeli citizens) in a crackdown and chilling intimidation campaign designed to sideline their voices in the coverage of unfolding events. But for now, this 3 minute video is an important one for those who have only seen MSM and US/UK accounts of the Israeli prosecution of this war.
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