Israel is committing genocide and Western media is helping hide the bodies

In Gaza, the distinctive blue flak jackets and helmets of journalists, symbols of the pursuit of truth under dangerous conditions, have now also come to represent Israeli violence and silencing, writes Fatima el Issawi. [GETTY]

Since the start of Israel's onslaught on Gaza, Western media has continuously been complicit in the erasure of Palestinian suffering, says Fatima el Issawi.

For over the last nearly 11 months, mainstream Western media has framed the ongoing onslaught in Gaza as a ‘classic’ conflict between two parties. The Gaza mass killing, is largely bloodless on televised screens. On social media platforms, another story is unfolding; a torrent of horrific accounts of Israel’s war crimes inflicted on civilians surpassing any surreal imaginary of violence, captured by the victims themselves as well as their perpetrators, the latter proudly celebrating their impunity.

Navigating between my social media feeds and my TV screen, it is hard to believe I am following the same story. Gazans’ encounters with their “bare life” are beyond any hallucinations that our imagination can create, including our own living experiences of trauma.

I was born and raised in a conflict zone in South Lebanon where life was punctuated by Israeli attacks and several invasions. However, Western media remains largely indifferent to the victims. The absence of their shredded bodies from mainstream coverage is more perverse than simple apathy due to lack of geographical and cultural proximity, as we teach our students in journalism courses. Indeed, the media is serving to whitewash Israel’s war crimes and therefore partakes in the erasure of those who it violently targets. Victims are denied the basic right to be acknowledged as suffering subjects.

The implicit message is: it is OK to kill them since some of them are potential terrorists, and their children will likely follow suit.

The unsaid

Passive voices and soft wording that steers clear of terms like “massacre”, “crimes” or “killing”, are just a some of the countless examples of erasure used in mainstream Western reporting.... READ MORE  https://www.newarab.com/opinion/western-media-helping-hide-bodies-amid-israels-genocide

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Ending Discrimination #fightracism #StandUp4HumanRights #NoToHate #UNGA #UnitedNations #HumanRights #HumanBeings #Compassion #GoldenRuleThinking #Kindness

As hate speech, discrimination & xenophobia are on the rise, each of us can #StandUp4HumanRights, and help #FightRacism & hatred.

#NoToHate

Racism and discrimination are the rejection of all that we stand for. 

We must reject and #FightRacism.

Societies around the world are increasingly recognizing the role structural #racism plays in driving social, economic, & political inequalities, but much more needs to be done.

#GoldenRuleThinking

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."   https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

Nelson Mandela grandson Zwelivelile comes out in support of South Africa coal embargo on Israel

Chief Zwelivelile Mandela, grandson of former South African president & anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela

As Israel intensifies its bombing of Palestinian people, eminent South Africans led by the likes of Chief Zwelivelile Mandela — the indefatigable grandson of former South African president and anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela — are intensifying solidarity activities in support of the people of Gaza calling for a more serious boycott of Israel.

"The Palestinian people and their struggle were always close to Madiba's heart. He considered it the greatest moral issue of our time," Zwelivelile tells The New Arab.

"I have no doubt that the ongoing genocide would pain him very much — the daily sight of mangled and maimed bodies, the cries of orphans, and the lament of parents burying their innocent babies and young children. These are matters that would weigh heavily on his heart," says Zwelivelile.

"I do not doubt that he would call out the cold-hearted apartheid Israel killing machine, its war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing."

Zwelivelile said his grandfather would condemn the complicity of the West for supplying bombs of mass destruction, stating that Mandela would pressure Netanyahu to withdraw from occupied Palestinian land, release all Palestinian political prisoners, accept the right to return for all Palestinians in the diaspora, and most importantly, recognize Palestinians' right to self-determination.

"We all know that ending the occupation and an immediate comprehensive ceasefire is the only path to finding a lasting solution," added Zwelivelile, imploring that the world should boycott all countries and corporations that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza and all the occupied Palestinian territories.... READ MORE   https://www.newarab.com/features/mandela-would-be-mourning-gaza-furious-israel-grandson

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

The Government of Israel has been running a smear campaign against Palestinians & UNWRA by buying ads on Google

Swiss humanitarian relief expert Philippe Lazzarini, heads UNRWA the UN agency responsible for aiding Palestinian refugees. "It is time to reach a political solution to this decades’ long conflict to end the suffering of civilians wherever they are." Philippe Lazzarini

 August 30,2024

Philippe Lazzarini

@UNLazzarini

The spread of misinformation & disinformation continues to be used as a weapon in the [Israel's] war in #Gaza. 

 

As part of its campaign to undermine & discredit @UNRWA, the Government of Israel has been buying ads on  @Google to block users from giving donations to the Agency + undertake a defamation campaign.

 

@UNRWA  is the largest humanitarian organization responding to the crisis in #Gaza. This does not just hurt the agency’s reputation but most importantly it puts the lives of our staff at risk. 

 

These deliberate efforts to spread misinformation should stop + be investigated. 

 

Companies including social media platforms continue to make profit through spreading misinformation. More regulations are needed to combat disinformation + hate speech. 

 

@WIRED  @UNRWAUSA

 

 

Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency

The UNRWA calls Israel’s strategy of promoting alleged misinformation “destructive.”

 

https://www.wired.com/story/israel-unrwa-usa-hamas-google-search-ads/

Middle East Targeting

"Employees at Google have publicly raised concerns about Israel’s use of a number of Google technologies, such as cloud computing and Photos, as well a perceived bias among management at its YouTube unit toward favoring Israel on content and monetization policies. “We’ve seen Israel creatively weaponize a lot of Google services,” says Josh Marxen, a Google Cloud software engineer who has protested his division’s contract with Israel, a deal known as Nimbus.

While Nimbus has drawn more widespread and public protest, some employees say they have fumed within Google about Israel’s ad campaigns in part because users have complained about them"

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

More Than 65 Palestinian Filmmakers, Including Hany Abu Assad, Elia Suleiman and Farah Nabulsi, Sign Letter Accusing Hollywood of ‘Dehumanizing’ Palestinians

A group of almost 70 Palestinian filmmakers — including two-time Oscar nominee Hany Abu Assad, acclaimed director Elia Suleiman and recent BAFTA winner Farah Nabulsi — have signed a strongly-worded letter in which they accuse Hollywood of “dehumanizing” Palestinians on screen over decades, a factor they assert has helped enable the ongoing devastation in Gaza.

https://variety.com/2024/film/global/palestinian-filmmakers-accuse-hollywood-dehumanizing-gaza-israel-1236120786/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

We, Palestinian filmmakers, appreciate and thank the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) for standing up to pressure and insisting on freedom of expression by upholding Bisan Owda’s 2024 News and Documentary Emmy nomination for the documentary, “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” 

This film is narrated by the award-winning and inspiring 25-year-old Palestinian journalist, Bisan Owda, who has risked her life to share with the world reports and stories about the resilience, resistance and survival of ordinary Palestinian families in the face of Israel’s ongoing, livestreamed genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip. 

Trying to censor Bisan’s voice is only the latest repressive attempt to deny Palestinians the right to reclaim our narrative, share our history, and in this case bring attention to the atrocities our people are facing in the hopes that we can bring an end to them. We well understand the power of image and cinema, and for far too long we have been outraged at the inhumanity and racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry towards our people, even during this most difficult of times. 

Through our films, we have tried to present alternative narratives, depictions and images to reverse the stereotypical, dehumanizing “worthless, disposable beings” image which enables the whitewashing and/or justification of the crimes perpetrated for decades against Palestinians. But why must we always put on our “boxing gloves” to defend our art against ruthless censorship that targets us merely on the basis of our identity, not our creativity? 

We wholeheartedly welcomed the nomination of Bisan Owda’s film for an Emmy as an indication that, after so many years of Israel’s apartheid and settler-colonial rule over the Palestinian people, the relentless, decades-old dehumanization of Palestinians on small and big screens in the U.S., in Hollywood in particular, was beginning to give way to a more ethical stance. The censorship attempt against the film, though, was a reality check of sorts. We must still contend with and fiercely challenge the anti-Palestinian and generally anti-Arab racist propaganda that remains all too prevalent in Western entertainment media.  

Although we are deeply concerned at how this dehumanization is a danger to our very existence as Palestinians, we are cognizant of how it also puts many racialized communities around the world, including in the West, at risk of a similar fate as the “might makes right” credo prevails. 

We call on our international colleagues in the film industry, visionaries for the kind of world we would like to live in, to speak out against this genocide and the erasure, racism and censorship that enable it; to do everything humanly possible to stop and end complicity with this unspeakable horror; and to stand against working with production companies that are deeply complicit in dehumanizing Palestinians, or whitewashing and justifying Israel’s crimes against us. 

This has to stop. Now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Ground Zero is a 2024 anthology film directed by 22 different Palestinian directors.^[1] The film is made up of 22 short films, including documentaries, fiction, animation and experimental films about the current situation of the people of Gaza  

• "Out Of Frame", Directed by Nidaa Abu Hasna
• "Hill Of Heaven", Directed by Kareem Satoum
• "Charm", Directed by Bashar Al-Balbeisi
• "Awakening", Directed by Mahdi Karirah
• "Jad and Natalie", Directed by Aws Al-Banna
• "No", Directed by Hana Awad
• "Everything is fine", Directed by Nidal Damo
• "Taxi Waneesa", Directed by E’temad Weshah
• "24 Hours", Directed by Alaa Damo
• "Selfies", Directed by Reema Mahmoud
• "No Signal", Directed by Muhammad Alshareef
• "Soft Skin", Directed by Khamees Masharawi
• "Flash Back", Directed by Islam Al Zrieai
• "Fragments", Directed by Basil Al-Maqousi
• "Offerings", Directed by Mustafa Al-Nabih
• "School Day", Directed by Ahmed Al-Danf
• "Farah and Meryam", Directed by Wissam Moussa
• "Overburden", Directed by Ala’a Ayob
• "The Teacher", Directed by Tamer Najm
• "Recycling", Directed by Rabab Khamees
• "Echo", Directed by Mustafa Kallab
• "Sorry Cinema", Directed by Ahmad Hassouna

August 28 2024: Since last night, the Israeli army has conducted a large-scale military operation in various parts of the West Bank, particularly in the northern regions.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti

 Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti

@MustafaBarghou1

Palestinian MD and MP, Presidential candidate 2005, Founder and Leader of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) Activist and advocate of Palestinian rights.

 

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti:  

 

Since last night, the Israeli army has conducted a large-scale military operation in various parts of the West Bank, particularly in the northern regions. The army has invaded Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem, Jenin city and its camp, and the Al Fara'a camp and the city of Tubas. 

 

Additionally, the Israeli army has besieged all hospitals in the area, including Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, and is preventing people from reaching the hospital and restricting the movement of ambulances. 

 

So far, 11 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army, most of them civilians. The army has also initiated a process of destruction, targeting infrastructure including electricity networks, water pipelines, and roads. 

 

The level of destruction being inflicted on the West Bank is a reminder of the extensive damage caused in Gaza by the Israeli bombardments. Moreover, the Israeli army has invaded numerous villages in the West Bank and is conducting a significant campaign of arrests. Dozens of people were arrested last night, and the operation which is the largest since 2002 is ongoing. 

 

The Israeli army remains stationed in these four areas, and the operation continues, reflecting a dangerous escalation that suggests the transfer of the genocide and ethnic cleansing war crimes from Gaza to the West Bank The Israeli foreign minister Katz called for displacement of Civilian Palestinians from refugee camps trying to imitate the ethnic cleansing in Gaza. 

 

The west Bank is fully Occupied by Israel since 1967 and Israel is conducting a unilateral war on the people it is occupying using Air Force, tanks which is a grave violation of international law. 

 

Aug 27, 2024

 

It is time for everyone to understand Netanyahu’s intentions: 

 

1- He does not want the war to stop and will keep undermining negotiations for a ceasefire by constantly changing or imposing new conditions. 

 

2- He wants to keep the Israeli occupation of the entire Gaza Strip. 

 

3- His plan is to continue the war on Gaza and expand it to the West Bank, combining the Israeli army and illegal settler attacks on Palestinian civilians. 

 

4- Netanyahu does not care about the lives of Israeli captives and he doesn’t care if they die due to Israeli bombardment. 

 

5- By destroying the chances of ending the war Netanyahu is hoping to help the election of Trump so he will try to extend the war till after the American elections. 

 

In summary Netanyahu cares only about his own interests.

Scholasticide: As the new school year begins, Palestinian students in Gaza cannot access education due to Israel’s systemic attacks on the education system

 Visualizing Palestine

@visualizingpal

 

As the new school year begins, Palestinian students in Gaza cannot access education due to Israel’s systemic attacks on the education system, known as "scholasticide."    #EndScholasticide

Dear America, Please Help Stop Institutionalized Bigotry & Injustice

"It's very important that we know all the facts. The facts set us free. The facts help us make the right decisions. Also, the truth is the basis of justice, [so] we must always seek the truth. The enemies of truth do not seek justice. And I always ask: who is afraid of the truth? Only the criminal is afraid of the truth. Only the criminal wants to hide that." Dr. Salman Abu Sitta

Dear America,

Families flee after new Israeli evacuation orders in Gaza- 90% of Gaza is now under Israeli evacuation orders... & the U.S. continues to send tons of military equipment and $$$ to Israel.

The Christian plea "Hear Our Prayer" echoes in my head, and it breaks my heart that American leadership continues to be so horribly lead astray by our cruel "friend" Israel as Israel continues to blatantly violate international law, all borders, and the basic human rights of the native non-Jewish men, women, and children of the Middle East.

Palestinian educator & historian, Salman Abu Sitta (born in 1937) recalls how decades ago he witnessed Zionists ethnically cleanse his village of Al Ma’in during the 1948 Nakba. He vowed to dedicate his life to creating an archive of each and every Palestinian village.  https://www.plands.org/en/maps-atlases

World famous Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish 1941-2008, wrote many haunting poems explaining the very real plight and suffering of the Palestinian people.  https://poets.org/poet/mahmoud-darwish

Concerned doctors, aid workers, educators, reporters and citizens currently live-stream Israeli violence and cruelty in Gaza, as well as Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, day after day after day.  

In a post Holocaust world, a world with international law and clear calls against bigotry and injustice we should not be arming, funding, or excusing the barbaric Zionist quest to harass, oppress, impoverish, and displace Palestinian men, women, and children.       

Israel needles and needles- wanting HAMAS, Hezbollah, Islamist militancy, and other such misguided groups to flourish, so that Israel can spin the story to raise more funds, getting more sympathy and support for escalating war and injustice.

JUST SAY NO.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES  https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes

Because of Us... poem by Emily Berry + Democracy Now "As the WHO warns Gaza’s hospitals are becoming cemeteries, it’s time to heed the poets and the doctors, stop the killing, end the occupation, and dress the open wounds of war."

Susan Muaddi Darraj: Palestinian Americans learned from the best... "I, Too" poem by Langton Hughes [written in 1926]

Don't Feed The Trolls

The speech that Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American and Democrat, had hoped to give America at the DNC 2024

CNN: Children are drinking from puddles and wading through sewage pools, as Israel pummels water systems in Gaza

A Palestinian American’s Place Under the Democrats’ Big Tent? By Ta-Nehisi Coates in Vanity Fair

"The way they talk about the Palestinians “finally realizing their dream” of dignity and self-determination like they haven’t spent years and billions of dollars obstructing that dream, like all we need is a TED talk on goal-setting and time management" Susan Muaddi Darraj

Dear America- Israel can not be trusted, and should not be subsidized

Germany's Berlin police raided and shut down a pro-Palestine event organised by a Jewish group in April 2024

Arwa Mahdawi: This war [on Palestine] isn’t just being waged with bombs, it’s being waged with “euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness” When you lay out what is happening in clear language, it is indefensible. So political language dresses all those dead and starving children up in euphemism.

CSM: ‘Waiting to see if I will survive’: A Gaza reporter caught in the war she’s covering ..."We no longer even bother to ask where humanity has gone."

An engineered genocide... Israel's genocide in Gaza isn't just about brutal mass murder, it's also about deliberately creating "conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the population"

Send an honorable message far and wide- we believe in freedom of and from religion... and we believe in real justice, peace, and security for ALL !

A Guardian report reveals that there are 60,000 Americans living in illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as well as some 23,400 Americans serving in the Israeli army.

Accusing peaceful pro-Palestine protesters of being "antisemitic" pleases Israel but it does not make any Jews any safer anywhere.

 

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."   https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

Because of Us... poem by Emily Berry + Democracy Now "As the WHO warns Gaza’s hospitals are becoming cemeteries, it’s time to heed the poets and the doctors, stop the killing, end the occupation, and dress the open wounds of war."

 

The Undressed Wounds of Gaza

"... The late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, as a child, survived the 1948 Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and 15,000 were killed during Israel’s founding. Darwish lived much of his life in exile and was a critic of Hamas. He wrote in his poem, “To A Young Poet,”

“A poem in a difficult time
is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.”

As the WHO warns Gaza’s hospitals are becoming cemeteries, it’s time to heed the poets and the doctors, stop the killing, end the occupation, and dress the open wounds of war."  https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16/the_undressed_wounds_of_gaza

Susan Muaddi Darraj: Palestinian Americans learned from the best... "I, Too" poem by Langton Hughes [written in 1926]

Susan Muaddi Darraj

Palestinian Americans learned from the best.

Don't Feed The Trolls

The speech that Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American and Democrat, had hoped to give America at the DNC 2024

 My name is Ruwa Romman, and I’m honored to be the first Palestinian elected to public office in the great state of Georgia and the first Palestinian to ever speak at the Democratic National Convention. My story begins in a small village near Jerusalem, called Suba, where my dad’s family is from. My mom’s roots trace back to Al Khalil, or Hebron. My parents, born in Jordan, brought us to Georgia when I was eight, where I now live with my wonderful husband and our sweet pets.

Growing up, my grandfather and I shared a special bond. He was my partner in mischief—whether it was sneaking me sweets from the bodega or slipping a $20 into my pocket with that familiar wink and smile. He was my rock, but he passed away a few years ago, never seeing Suba or any part of Palestine again. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.

This past year has been especially hard. As we’ve been moral witnesses to the massacres in Gaza, I’ve thought of him, wondering if this was the pain he knew too well. When we watched Palestinians displaced from one end of the Gaza Strip to the other I wanted to ask him how he found the strength to walk all those miles decades ago and leave everything behind. 

But in this pain, I’ve also witnessed something profound—a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we’ve stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here—members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world.

They’ll say this is how it’s always been, that nothing can change. But remember Fannie Lou Hamer—shunned for her courage, yet she paved the way for an integrated Democratic Party. Her legacy lives on, and it’s her example we follow.

But we can’t do it alone. This historic moment is full of promise, but only if we stand together. Our party’s greatest strength has always been our ability to unite. Some see that as a weakness, but it’s time we flex that strength. 

Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let’s fight for the policies long overdue—from restoring access to abortions to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza. To those who doubt us, to the cynics and the naysayers, I say, yes we can—yes we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us—Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us, like my grandfather taught me, together.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/dnc-speech-uncommitted-movement-harris-walz-ruwan-romman/

Mother Jones illustration; Photos courtesy of Noah Lanard and Nate Gowdy

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]