Starvation as a tool for genocide was always part of the invaders acts to crush and exterminate resistance of the natives.
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I'm not about to turn this account into US political drama posting full time, but I'd like to take a moment to talk about the Linsdey Graham tweet about the Gaza flotilla and anti-genocide activist Greta Thunberg. If you haven't seen it, there's a screenshot in the Zeteo article below, but the short story is that Graham posted or quoted an image of Thunberg on the deck of a flotilla vessel, and wrote over top "hope Greta and her friends can swim."
Graham's behavior is of course disgusting and condemnable on its face. I want to talk about it today however because I think if you take the Senator from South Carolina's post in the proper context, it reveals quite a lot about where the US government, buttressed by a pro-genocide corporate media, stands in contrast to the rest of the world on the subject of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Lindsey Graham's Disgusting Tweet About Greta Thunberg Is 'Brain Rot' in Its Truest, Most Vulgar Sense
zeteo.com/p/lindsey-grahams-di…
"The warped logic, wildly insulting to the intelligence or basic morals of the Americans he serves, is one thing. As with their comical hypocrisy, the refrain about the modern Republican Party that “the cruelty is the point” is baked into US politics. But the extent to which these threads undergirding American conservatism are put into total overdrive when it comes to Israel is jarring to any observer.
Because, to be clear: Graham, a US senator, paid by our taxes, is apparently calling for a government that’s killed at least 54,000 (and likely, far more) Palestinians to bomb a boat carrying food to a starving population (or, if I’m being incredibly generous, he is just hoping the ship sinks). It’d be one thing if Graham was operating in the already-broken framework of the draconianism we’re used to: egging on the detaining of protesters and cheering for the bombing of Gaza under the auspices of “eliminating Hamas.”
Think how far we’ve come: pointing out Israel’s bombing of humanitarians was a “blood libel.” Now, it’s a punchline.
Here, we reach the endpoint of it all: a Republican, sealed off in his grotesque, hermetically-sealed bubble, finding it not only appropriate, but actively helpful in his (and his Israeli friends’) PR crusade to buoyantly rejoice at the idea of 12 volunteers – including a young college-aged person – being bombed, and left to tread in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea."
There's honestly so much going on here that you could write a whole book about this tweet, and the political moment in America that produced it. There are literal layers of grotesque inhumanity behind a US Senator cheerfully wishing death on a world famous activist and her friends for the high crime of trying to feed people we're helping to starve out of existence. Graham's callous, if not gleeful disregard for human life speaks to a modern, cultishly-devoted to Trump Republican Party whose broader motto might as well be "we're for killing and starving people" at this point; a sentiment their voters seem to embrace so long as the leopards aren't eating *their* faces.
If you know that the previous flotilla food aid attempt involving Thunberg was unable to reach Gaza after being struck by weaponized drones widely-believed to be Israeli in origin, then Graham's tweet reads like an open threat by a US Senator on behalf of a foreign government conducting a genocide we're paying for; which at almost any other point in American history would be earth-shaking news, but passes more or less for business as usual in the American pro-genocide reality bubble. This would be appalling under any circumstances, but for Graham to post this at the very same time the US government under Trump is pretending it is forcing Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while openly concentrating starving Palestinians into corrals for the IOF to shoot at, is next-level Third Reich-type shit; and the whole world knows it.
Which then brings us back to the larger point about Israel's genocide in Gaza, and failing international support for the Netanyahu regime and an IOF committing open war crimes and mass murder. At the precise time that the entire international order except the United States is running away from their prior support for Israel's genocidal actions because starving children to death on livestream is extremely unpopular, the United States is accelerating the body count and a US Senator is openly threatening a European peace activist on behalf of our openly eliminationist ally, for the high crime of attempting to feed starving people our govt would clearly prefer dead. The Trump regime and the broader pro-genocide establishment in America are out of step with the rest of the Pig Empire, and out of touch with reality; Israel isn't the only country flirting with pariah state status as the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza continues to unfold.
#USPol #Gaza #Israel #UN #LindseyGraham #GazaFlotilla #GretaThunberg #Genocide #Starvation #WarCrimes #Palestinians #GOP #Trump
Lindsey Graham's Disgusting Tweet About Greta Thunberg Is 'Brain Rot' in Its Truest, Most Vulgar Sense
As the Zeteo contributor set sail on the Gaza aid flotilla, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: "Hope Greta and her friends can swim!"Prem Thakker (Zeteo)
Speaking before the International Court of Justice, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands articulated what everyone who isn't openly lying to obscure a genocide already knows; Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war and its blockade of Gaza is an international crime.
commondreams.org/news/icj-hear…
Palestinian Envoy to ICJ: Israel Using Starvation as 'Weapon of War' in 'Genocidal Campaign'
"The siege has created conditions that are "incompatible with sustaining life or the continued existence of Palestinians in Gaza," Hijazi said.
The ambassador noted that the ICJ hearing was taking place to consider whether Israel is violating international law.
"It is not about the number of aid trucks Israel is or is not allowing into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially Gaza," said Hijazi. "It is about Israel destroying the fundamentals of life in Palestine while it blocks U.N. and other humanitarians from providing lifesaving aid to the population. It is about Israel unraveling fundamental principles of international law, including their obligations under the U.N. Charter."
"Starvation is here," Hijazi added. "Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war."
My friends, I honestly don't know what more I can say here when the facts speak for themselves. Israel has totally blockaded Gaza, they're bombing the shit out of the people inside, and the military isn't allowing enough food, or seemingly any medical supplies or other lifesaving humanitarian aid through to the Palestinian people its bombing. As this clearly genocidal shit is going on, a US media is largely ignoring the crisis while apparently hoping all the Palestinians will be dead before their audience notices we're helping Israel exterminate or ethnically cleanse an entire people in Gaza.
And all the while a Pig Empire establishment continues to manufacture consent for the slaughter by pretending the Netanyahu government's motives are unknowable in the fog of war, despite the fact that cabinet ministers keep blurting out their intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza and we're watching what can only be an attempted genocide unfold on Tik Tok videos day, after horrifying day. History is going to be written about the cowardice, complicity, and depraved indifference to human life on display in the Pig Empire establishment here; the only question is will we as Americans survive our own fascist chickens coming home to roost long enough to help write it.
#Fascism #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #ICJ #Imperialism #Famine #SettlerColonialism #WarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Starvation #AmmarHijazi #Blockade #Netanyahu #Palestine #Palestinians #WhiteSupremacy
Palestinian Envoy to ICJ: Israel Using Starvation as 'Weapon of War' in 'Genocidal Campaign'
"Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives," said Palestinian envoy Ammar Hijazi.julia-conley (Common Dreams)
After seven weeks of bombing and a genocidal blockade of all humanitarian and food aid going into Gaza, the UN's World Food Program is now announcing that it has run out of food inside the strip; which will further exacerbate a humanitarian crisis engineered by the government off Israel as part of the genocide it's conducting against Palestinians in the enclave.
commondreams.org/news/gaza-foo…
UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed," WFP said Friday. "This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems. Food prices have skyrocketed up to 1,400% compared to during the cease-fire, and essential food commodities are in short supply, raising serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly."
Over 18 months into a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the Interenational Court of Justice, WFP said that "the situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: People are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP's critical assistance may be forced to end."
While conditions are dire, WFP is prepared to keep feeding people, if Israel will allow aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The program highlighted that "more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza by WFP and food security partners as soon as borders reopen."
The program called on "all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."
I need to stress here that this isn't an activist organization, or political representatives from Gaza talking here; this is a UN program that feeds refugees, the exploited, and folks in crisis situations. There is absolutely no reason to believe they're exaggerating the situation, which in turn means we're watching Israel commit a crime against humanity in real time. If this were anyone other than a US client state in the MENA, the entire American establishment would be able to see that there is no reason to continuously bomb Gaza while enforcing a nearly two month long blockade on food, supplies, and humanitarian aid, unless you're actively trying to kill innocent people. Which of course Israel is; they're committing a genocide, the Trump administration is happily paying for it, and a bipartisan US establishment awash in PAC and donor money, is quietly ignoring that genocide for political, financial, and ideological reasons.
#Israel #Genocide #Gaza #Palestinians #Blockadge #UN #WorldFoodProgram #Starvation #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Fascism #Trump #Media #Blackout #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism
UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed. This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced," said the World Food Program.jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)