Like Maria Said Paz

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY doesn't have Beth and Meg from LITTLE WOMEN?

I don't normally cover TV here. I covered SMASH which was good its first season and had Anjelica Huston front and center and then collapsed. But I'm noting TV tonight because of something that caught my eye. Samantha Bergeson (INDIE WIRE) reports:

Sofia Coppola is calling out why her slated limited series "The Custom of the Country" is no longer in production at Apple.

Coppola confirmed to The New Yorker that the streamer "pulled" funding for the Edith Wharton adaptation, in part due to not understanding the "unlikable" character at the center of the story. The 1913 novel follows Undine Spragg, a Midwestern transplant on a desperate quest to infiltrate Gilded Age Manhattan society. The limited series was set for five episodes, with Coppola teasing that the show had the budget of "five ‘Marie Antoinettes,'" citing her 2006 film that had a $40 million budget; that would put the anticipated budget for the Apple limited series at $200 million, if taken literally by Coppola's statement.

So what? We can only have adaptations of LITTLE WOMEN? Anything a woman does more controversial than Meg's silk buying is problematic for viewers? What a load of nonsense. Many of us need something a bit more complex than Alcott's LITTLE WOMEN.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY was my favorite Edith Wharton novel. I loved Undine (the lead character) and thought she made a fascinating character. The problem with the bulk of 'entertainment' today is not that we have too many complex characters, it's the opposite, in fact. This would have been something worth watching and no one does layered meanings like Sofia Coppola. Well, that's a good reason for me to continue to avoid getting APPLE. What a worthless streamer.

"TV: No one is owed media coverage" (Ava and C.I., THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW):

The always ridiculous, spoiled and entitled Donald Trump insisted, "NBC and CNN refused to air my victory speech. Think of it - because they are crooked. They're dishonest, and frankly, they should have their licenses or whatever they have: Take it away."

There is no law that any candidate's victory speech needs to be aired. Donald, as always, is an idiot. Sadly so are many others.

We wonder what would happen if this were 1984 and these idiots were watching the DNC convention on ABC when ABC elected to shut it off and air a repeat of a scripted program instead (as TV GUIDE observed, tongue-in-cheek, at the time, ABC interrupted the live coverage for a late-breaking episode of HART TO HART). That wasn't censorship. That was the network making a decision. Based on ratings, yes. Also based upon the fact that they felt the DNC convention was staged and scripted and didn't qualify as news.

These are decisions that are made. By all means disagree if you want but don't lie that it was censorship.

When Joan Crawford left Douglas Fairbanks, it was news around the world. Bette Davis complained and complained about that (she had a 'scandolous' film, EX-LADY, that opened the same week and no one paid attention to the film due to the interest in Joan). As Adela St. Rogers declared "It was bad timing for Bette. WWII could have broken out, yet everyone wanted to hear about Joan and Doug."

The media doesn't owe you coverage. If you're the sitting president, what you do and say generally qualifies as news and will get coverage. The rest? Not really.

If you want to be covered by the news media, you need to make some news. Yacking is not making news. Candidates are expected to make speeches, after all.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, January 23, 2024. The assault on Gaza continues, over 4500 Palestinian students have been killed in the last 109 days, hospitals remain targeted, NYT looks at the treatment of Palestinians when they are 'detained,' and much more.

This morning, Raja Abdulrahim (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

Cold, almost naked and surrounded by Israeli soldiers with M16 assault rifles, Ayman Lubbad knelt among dozens of Palestinian men and boys who had just been forced from their homes in northern Gaza.

It was early December and photographs and videos taken at the time showed him and other detainees in the street, wearing only underwear and lined up in rows, surrounded by Israeli forces. In one video, a soldier yelled at them over a megaphone: “We’re occupying all of Gaza. Is that what you wanted? You want Hamas with you? Don’t tell me you’re not Hamas.”

The detainees, some barefoot with their hands on their heads, shouted objections. “I’m a day laborer,” one man shouted.

“Shut up,” the soldier yelled back.

Palestinian detainees from Gaza have been stripped, beaten, interrogated and held incommunicado over the past three months, according to accounts by nearly a dozen of the detainees or their relatives interviewed by The New York Times. Organizations representing Palestinian prisoners and detainees gave similar accounts in a report, accusing Israel of both indiscriminate detention of civilians and demeaning treatment of detainees.

How many horrors must the Palestinians endure? So many refuse to accept reality and live in denial. That was a segment on yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Six students have sued Harvard University, accusing it of becoming “a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment” and tolerating intensifying harassment of Jewish students since October 7th. This comes as reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia have soared nationwide, but there’s been a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on college and university campuses and to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel’s occupation and demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The former Harvard President Claudine Gay was forced to resign earlier this month, just weeks after the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down in the wake of a congressional hearing on antisemitism where they were grilled by lawmakers, including the far-right New York Congressmember Elise Stefanik.

The lawsuit against Harvard was filed by two law firms, including the New York-based Kasowitz Benson Torres, which filed similar lawsuits against New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. The firm also has ties to the Trump administration.

The lawsuit refers to student-led marches on Harvard’s campus in support of Palestinian rights as “mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty” and singles out a screening at Harvard Divinity School in September of the new documentary Israelism, which examines the relationship between Jews in the United States and the state of Israel, and the disillusionment as they begin to question Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

In a minute, we’ll speak with one of the film’s directors and one of the main subjects. This is the film’s trailer.

UNIDENTIFIED: Some American Jews who come here say, “We came to Israel, and we left from Palestine.”

ABE FOXMAN: The non-Jewish community does not understand our obsession with Israel.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I went to a Jewish day school.

EITAN: Summer camp, organized trips to Israel.

TEACHER: Do you want to go to Israel, too?

STUDENTS: Yeah! We want to go! We want to go!

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Israeli soldiers, they are hot. They’re awesome. They’re strong.

JACQUI SCHULEFAND: We actually have had quite a few of our former students join the IDF. These are kids. These are 18-, 19-year-olds. Amazing.

EITAN: I told my parents, “I don’t even need to apply to college. I am going to just join the Israeli military.”

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Ten percent of my graduating class joined the Israeli army.

EITAN: We were deployed to the West Bank.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I don’t think I realized the extent to which what I would come to see on the ground would really shock me and horrify me.

LARA FRIEDMAN: When people look at the West Bank today and say this is an apartheid system, it’s not just throwing out a word.

UNIDENTIFIED: Palestinians living, day in, day out, without experiencing a day of freedom.

PETER BEINART: And you see what non-democracy looks like.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: What we’ve been told is that the only way that Jews can be safe is if Palestinians are not safe. The more I learned about that, the more I came to see that as a lie.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Within the Jewish community, there’s been a striking change.

JEREMY BEN-AMI: They’re really angry at the way they were indoctrinated, justifiably so.

ABE FOXMAN: When we talk about we’re losing the kids, we not — we lost them. I think they’re a little super naive.

CORNEL WEST: Any time you cut against the grain, you’re going to catch hell.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: “You are a self-loathing Jew. Go kill yourself. You’re an antisemitic Jew.”

SARAH ANNE MINKIN: The way that we talk about antisemitism isn’t about protecting Jews. It’s about protecting Israel. How dangerous is that?

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: They will do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel.

LARA FRIEDMAN: The great irony is that there actually is a resurgent antisemitism.

WHITE SUPREMACISTS: Jews will not replace us!

LARA FRIEDMAN: History is not going to judge us kindly.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for the documentary Israelism.

For more, we’re joined in Toronto by Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism. The film is now on a 40-city screening tour in Canada and the United States. Here in New York, we’re joined by Simone Zimmerman, Jewish American activist, co-founder of IfNotNow, one of the main protagonists of Israelism.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Erin, let’s begin with you. Why did you make this film?

ERIN AXELMAN: Yeah, this film is really based off my story. It’s based off a story of young American Jews learning a idealized and sanitized version of Israeli history, and really falling in love with that history, but, upon coming into contact with Palestinians and Palestinian narratives, having quite the rude awakening upon learning about the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people.

So, upon learning about the Nakba and the occupation as a young person, I wanted to do all I could in whatever way, big or small, to help change my own Jewish community, as well as to end the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people. And I began trying to come into contact with more and more people who had similar experiences,, and I began to realize that my own story was part of a much larger generational change, as hundreds of thousands of young American Jews begin to realize that to live out our Jewish values to the best of our ability, we must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians while also fighting against antisemitism.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the organizations that you chronicle, that you sort of depict in this film, those that are challenging the state of Israel and those that are supporting it, that the other groups are taking on.

ERIN AXELMAN: Definitely. We really — Simone is the main character and protagonist in the film. And we really try to tell a generational story, and I’m telling my own story through Simone, in many ways. We really chronicle a variety of progressive Jewish groups, including IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street and many others.

And then we also, on the right, document a lot of pro-Israel groups. We had Abe Foxman as one of the main characters in the film, the director emeritus and former head of the Anti-Defamation League. We talk extensively about Birthright and AIPAC and other groups that have tried to keep the status quo of unconditional support for Israel alive and well.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s bring Simone Zimmerman into this conversation. Why don’t you tell us about your upbringing, Simone? Talk about your allegiance to the state of Israel, how it was instilled with you, and then talk about your transformation.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely. I grew up in a Jewish community where, you know, the Holocaust was a formative part of my upbringing, and I saw defending the state of Israel as a core part of what it meant to keep the Jewish people safe. It was a core Jewish commitment for me, so much so that when I actually met anti-Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Israelis, people who were fighting occupation and apartheid when I was a college student at UC Berkeley, I couldn’t even believe that those people existed. They were an anomaly to me.

And the more I met those students and, more importantly, met Palestinian students, learned about their lives, about, you know, what it means, from the moment that you’re born, to live under a system that deems you lesser, less worthy, that you have to live under occupation and oppression and dispossession just because of who you are and where you were born, I very quickly ran out of answers that felt moral and logical to me to answer the hard questions that I was hearing from these students about how I could justify the oppression that they lived under.

AMY GOODMAN: Simone, I wanted to go to that moment at UC Berkeley — you’re a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley — a clip from Israelism, which features you in 2010 there, when the student Senate failed to override a veto of a bill calling on campus officials to divest from companies that supply weapons that Israel uses in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I just knew it was this bad thing that I had to fight.

BILL OPPONENT 1: It is antisemitism. It is.

BILL OPPONENT 2: You are trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: And I remember all of us going, “Well, you shouldn’t boycott Israel, because it’s applying a double standard. And you shouldn’t boycott Israel, because it’s unfair to single out Israel.”

BILL OPPONENT 3: Please, I beg of you. I beg you, please, to have compassion and to remember that we are alienating students. And I am devastated by this bill. I am a human being.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: I still remember you have these Palestinian students who get up and said, you know, “Jewish students, you are crying about feeling silenced and marginalized. You know, my aunts and cousins didn’t sleep for weeks while bombs were falling overhead in Gaza. What do you have to say to that?”

BILL SUPPORTER: If divestment is hostile, then where do we begin to describe the hostility of a military occupation?

AMY GOODMAN: Simone Zimmerman, if you can talk about that moment at UC Berkeley, what exactly was happening, and how you decided to explore further the kind of questioning that actually also came out of your Jewish education?

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely. Well, you know, first, I want to say it’s striking to have this conversation right now as the Israeli military has destroyed all the universities in Gaza right now. And for me, I remember when I was in that campus debate, the way that this narrative about Jewish students being unsafe on campus is actually, I think, a deep conflation between being unsafe and being uncomfortable. I was deeply uncomfortable. I did not know about the realities that Palestinians lived under. I was systematically denied an education about that reality. And to this day, we see pro-Israel organizations working to do everything they can to change the topic away from Palestinian suffering onto Jewish discomfort.

You know what? Occupation and apartheid are deeply uncomfortable. We should all be uncomfortable and outraged by what’s happening in Gaza right now. And again, as I already said, the more I listened to Palestinian students testify about their realities, the more it was undeniable to me that I was missing a huge part of the story, and I had to go find out more.

AMY GOODMAN: Erin Axelman, I wanted you to introduce us to Eitan, an American who decides not to go to college first, but to serve in the IDF. We’re about to play a clip of him.

EITAN: From our hands and threw him to the ground while he’s still blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, and they started kicking him for a good few minutes. I was responsible for this man’s well-being. I was responsible to bring him from the checkpoint to the detention center. That was my job. And right outside the fence of the detention center, they grabbed him from me, and they started beating him. I felt responsible, but my commander wasn’t saying anything, so how could I say anything? The entire time that this was happening, a military police officer was standing just inside the fence watching and smoking a cigarette. As soon as these guys were done kicking this Palestinian man, the military police officer tossed his cigarette, he came, brought him inside the detention center. And I didn’t even speak up. I didn’t speak up. And that’s just one of many stories that I have from my time in the West Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Eitan. It reminds me of our previous guest, Mosab Abu Toha, describing being beaten by the IDF. Well, he, Eitan, came to serve in Israel in the IDF. Tell us more about him and his transformation.

ERIN AXELMAN: Yeah, many American Jews are told that to defend the Jewish people and to be a good Jewish person, one of the best things you can do is to join the Israeli military or support the Israeli military. In the film, we extensively interview Hillel educators and an Israel fellow at the University of Connecticut, and they openly brag about how many kids they’ve gotten to serve in the Israeli military. And that is deeply tragic.

And I have had friends, American Jewish friends, who have also served. And they join as young people, as 18-year-olds, thinking that they’re doing a great thing by defending the Jewish people. And then many of them are sent to the occupied West Bank, and they quickly realize that they are actually a cog in a system of apartheid, a system that places you in a different legal system based upon the race you are born into. And so many American Jews, and some Israelis, as well, when they actually realize that this is what they’re doing — they’re not defending the Jewish people; they’re actually defending a settlement expansionist program in the West Bank, that is very literally a system of apartheid — it is devastating, and it is heartbreaking.

Obviously, they’re not the greatest victims. The greatest victims, of course, are the Palestinians who have to face that apartheid. But it’s inspiring to see members of Breaking the Silence, both Israelis and Americans, speak out and say, “We thought we were joining to do something, and we found out that we were actually, again, a part of this apartheid system,” and they are going to do everything they can to end this system of occupation and apartheid. And so, we really wanted to include someone like him, because it’s a common story, and it’s also the story of many of my friends, who were — served in the Israeli military, realized that they were part of a system of apartheid, and are now doing all they can to end that system.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Simone Zimmerman, you didn’t serve in the IDF, but you did go to Israel and the Occupied Territories. You also, for a moment — what was it? For two days? — became the outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign, before a campaign was waged against you. Talk about your trajectory, going to the Occupied Territories, coming back, founding IfNotNow.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, I went. You know, I had grown up spending time in Israel. I felt deeply connected to the place. I thought I knew — I thought I knew Israel. But the way that the apartheid system is actually built is such that Israeli Jews don’t actually have to see the reality that Palestinians live under. They can drive on roads. You know, they can drive on the side of the wall where they don’t have to see what is on the other side, the daily horrors and brutality and deep denial of dignity and freedom that Palestinians live under.

And once I saw those realities with my own eyes, once I met people who had been evicted from their homes, who were denied basic freedom of movement, people just like me who want to live in freedom and safety, whose every piece of their lives have been destroyed and constricted by a system of Jewish supremacy, I couldn’t unsee those things. And again, as Erin has already spoke about, this is a story that thousands of Jewish people around the world have encountered. And we know that it’s so deeply contrary to our values as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial of freedom from another people. And I’ve been part of this generation that includes IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace and many other groups that are taking on an outdated establishment that wants to enforce a pro-Israel orthodoxy and will do everything they can to attack and marginalize and silence anybody who dissents from that viewpoint.

You mentioned at the beginning of this segment the lawsuit going on at Harvard University. I can’t help but bring up right now the attacks that we’ve seen over the weekend on Derek Penslar, the director of a Jewish studies center at Harvard University, a world-renowned Jewish studies scholar. And he has been attacked for being named to an antisemitism task force at Harvard just because he criticizes the Israeli government.

So we’re seeing how far this establishment is willing to go to attack and marginalize anybody who doesn’t toe that very strict and narrow orthodoxy, and increasingly anybody who doesn’t defend this government’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. And it’s absurd, but it’s also deeply dangerous and offensive to those of us who are acting out of a deep place of intellectual integrity, of Jewish values, of a commitment to justice, who want to build a world of genuine safety and freedom and dignity for Jewish people and for Palestinians. And that old guard is more and more desperate to keep any of us out of public life and political life, and certainly not to be legitimized as a legitimate Jewish voice.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Erin Axelman, you’re in Canada. Simone is here in New York. You’re starting yet another tour of the film. As Simone mentioned, Israelism is mentioned in the Harvard lawsuit, equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism or criticism of the Israeli state. Your final thoughts as the two of you travel both countries?

ERIN AXELMAN: Totally. You know, it’s ironic. You know, there was four attempted cancellations of screenings that we had in the fall. And at all of those screenings, it was actually Jewish groups, Jewish student groups or Jewish faculty, who were bringing this to the venue or university. So it’s very ironic that under the guise of protecting Jewish students or fighting antisemitism, administrations or venues are trying to cancel a film brought by Jewish people, made by Jewish people, about Jewish people. And it just shows how confused this moment is, and how all criticism of Israel, even if it’s being made by Jews, is often considered antisemitic, and which is totally absurd and really makes it much more difficult to fight real antisemitism.

And as we’re about to do this screening tour, we’re sure there’s going to be quite a few attempted cancellations. We just found out that Barnard’s president is attempting to unilaterally cancel a screening of Israelism in February. We’re working with the faculty, and we will make this screening happen. And we will fight all attempts to cancel our screenings. And we’ll also be part of the movement to fight back against attempted censorship of any pro-Palestinian or progressive Jewish voices.

AMY GOODMAN: Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism, and Simone Zimmerman, Jewish American activist, co-founder of IfNotNow.

When we come back, Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the presidential race. Stay with us.

Remember back in October when the Israeli government was insistent that they didn't and would never attack hospitals? The attacks on hospitals have grown too numerous and even they no longer have the energy to lie. This morning, ALJAZEERA notes, "The Palestine Red Crescent Society says one person has been killed and 12 wounded as Israel targets its El Amal City Hospital and headquarters in Khan Younis." THE GUARIDAN reports:

The White House has called on Israel to protect innocent people as Palestinian officials said the Israeli military had stormed one hospital in Gaza and placed another under siege.

National security council spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday Israel had a right to defend itself but added: “We expect them to do so in accordance with international law and to protect innocent people in hospitals, medical staff and patients as well, as much as possible.”

Israeli troops advanced for the first time into Gaza’s al-Mawasi district near the Mediterranean coast, west of Khan Younis, the main city in the territory’s south, in what some Palestinians said was the bloodiest assault so far in January.

Hanna Duggal, Mohamed Hussein and Soha Elghany (ALJAZEERA) reports:

The widespread damage caused by Israeli attacks since October 7, following Hamas’s surprise attacks on Israel, has led to a shortage of medical staff and supplies and an urgent need for fuel, electricity and water.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 15 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional - nine in the south and six in the north.

From October 7 to November 24, there were 74 Israeli assaults on health facilities with 30 hospitals attacked in Gaza, according to Insecurity Insight, a humanitarian association that collates data on threats facing people in dangerous environments.

Northern Gaza, including Gaza City, has borne the brunt of attacks on the healthcare sector, but as the war has progressed, previously designated safe areas south of Wadi Gaza have come under Israeli fire.

I believe it's day 109 of the assault on Gaza and the world recoils in horror. The Israeli government is on trial before the International Court of Justice, yes, but also on trial before the eyes of the world as we watch what unfolds.

ALJAZEERA notes today, "The Palestinian Ministry of Education says that 4,551 students have been killed and 8,193 wounded since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7 on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank." At IN THESE TIMES, Dave Stieber explains why his union (Chicago Teachers Union) supports a cease-fire:

Fundamentally, educators are really only in this profession because we care so deeply about young people and the promise they hold — not in our communities, but across the globe.

Watching what is happening in Gaza has been soul-shattering too. Some 10,000 children have been killed since October 7; many are now without parents; some have been held hostage. Every one of them is someone’s child, someone’s loved one, someone’s student.

I’ve been told directly that teachers need to stick to teaching, that international matters aren’t something we should talk about, and that educators don’t have any clue or right to comment on issues that may seem so far away.

But we know what it is like to lose students, to see young people suffer. Whether that child is in Chicago, Israel, Palestine or anywhere in the world, we don’t want anyone else to experience this pain. My partner encouraged me to finally start therapy because I lost so many students that I was no longer able to cope with seeing the empty desks, the social media eulogies, the funerals.

That’s why, for the first time in the history of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), we approved a resolution on November 1 to improve how we support students during world conflicts. That’s why we also approved another resolution, to add our name to a letter with other unions calling for an immediate cease-fire in Israel and Palestine. This decision wasn’t impulsive; our members met and thoroughly considered and discussed the various angles and issues. Our hundreds of delegates, all educators, further discussed and voted democratically. The support was nearly unanimous.

On the topic of unions, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reports:

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) called for an “immediate” ceasefire in Gaza on Monday, adding to a growing chorus of voices who are calling for a ceasefire as Israel’s genocidal assault has killed over 25,000 Palestinians so far, with thousands missing under the rubble.

In a statement, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry cited Israel’s systematic dismantling of the infrastructure for basic needs in Gaza — with bombings, starvation and disease threatening the lives of everyone in the region — as reasoning behind the call.

“We call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving food, water, medicine and other resources to the people of Gaza,” Henry said.

Gaza remains under assault. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. Friday, United Nations Women noted, "Since 7 October 2023, more than 24,620 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, 70 per cent of whom were women or children. More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." CNN notes, "The Palestinian toll includes 25,105 killed and 62,681 injured" and there are also the missing. AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." And the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War." Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by Israeli forces."

We've covered the attacks on journalists, on doctors, on children, artists and various other groups in Gaza. I don't believe we've covered the assault on sports. So let's note Dave Zirin (THE NATION):

hat will it take for the International Olympic Committee to suspend Israel from the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics? Would the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian Olympic coaches be enough for such a sanction? That is the question posed after an Israeli air strike on Gaza City killed Hani al-Masdar, the 42-year-old coach of the Palestinian Olympic soccer team. Al-Masdar, known in Palestine as Abu al-Abed, was a midfielder for the Al-Maghazi Club and then the Gaza Sports Club before retiring in 2018. The Palestinian Football Association announced his death on Facebook with the following statement posted by The Palestine Chronicle:

The President of the Palestinian Football Association, the family of the Palestinian Football Association, and the entire Palestinian sports family, extend their sincere feelings of sadness and pain at the martyrdom of former Palestinian football star, the general coach of the Olympic national team, Hani Al-Masdar (Abu al-Abed). Abu al-Abed rose [to martyrdom] due to the occupation aggression on the Gaza Strip for the third month, joining the constellation of football martyrs and martyrs of the Palestinian sports movement.

This is just part of a horror that has been inflicted upon the Palestinian athletic community since the start of the Israeli bombing campaign. The Palestinian Football Association says Israel has killed 88 top-tier athletes since the Hamas raid of October 7, 67 of whom played soccer. In addition, the group counts 24 administrators and technical staff who have been killed. Israeli forces killed one prominent soccer player, Ahmed Daraghmeh, 23, not in Gaza but the West Bank.

In previous decades there have been calls to ban Israel from international athletic competition in response to its jailing and targeting of Palestinian athletes as well as keeping competitors in Gaza from leaving in order to join their West Bank teammates to play overseas. When these complaints have been raised, the Israeli response is invariably that they are being held to a “higher standard” than other countries also engaged in awful acts against civilians, and this higher standard is rank antisemitism. But how could anyone short of a zealot or the Biden administration not see that the genocide settling over Gaza and the killing of Olympic coaches cannot be tolerated?

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

The continued decline and depravity of 'Medea' (Susan) Benjamin

I Need Attention Benjamin needs to shut up and CODESTINK should have shut her up and ejected her long ago. Susan Benjamin -- stage name Medea -- was part of a Proud Boys event last year. She was there with Nazis. She was supposed to speak and thought she'd get away with it; however, young members of CODE PINK said hell no. So she didn't speak but she still attended. More recently, she did a selfie with hate monger Marjorie Taylor Greene. If you thought Susan couldn't sink any lower, you were wrong:

Now, the co-founder of feminist group CODE PINK has turned against Biden. Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Medea Benjamin wrote: "Tell me this: I think Trump is awful but is there anything Trump did during his terrible 4 years as president that comes even close to the horror of Biden's support for genocide in Gaza?"

Newsweek contacted Medea Benjamin on X, and CODE PINK and a Biden representative via email to comment on this story.

CODE PINK is a left-wing, feminist grassroots organization founded in 2002 that is working, according to its website, to "end U.S. warfare and imperialism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs."

Am I thrilled that Joe's a part of the genocide? No, I am not.

Am I saying Donald Trump is better? No, I am not.

She's not a feminist and shouldn't be described as that. Donald Trump appointed three Supreme Court Justices and that is why ROE was overturned. Susan does realize that, right? LGBTQ+ rights are under attack and she realizes that too, right? Are we also ignoring January 6th?

I will call out Joe over Gaza, I will demand an end to the genocide. As our voices grow, he will have to listen. Let's also not pretend like this isn't a sea change -- the current assault getting called out.

But I will not promote Donald Trump and I have no respect for any so-called leftist who does.

Susan needs to go home, sit down and draw the curtains. We don't need her and we honestly never did. At 71, it's time for her to retire and let other, younger women in CODE PINK lead.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, January 22, 2024. A milestone in the Gaza death toll, Netanyahu rejects Joe Biden's call, children continue to suffer, and much more.

A little over 100 days ago, the assault on Gaza began and on Sunday, the number killed climbed to over 25,000. Yesterday, Mark Lowen (BBC NEWS) reported, "More than 25,000 people have now been killed in Gaza during Israel's offensive there, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. It said there had been 178 deaths in the last 24 hours, making it one of the deadliest days in the war so far." Grasp that these deaths have taken place in just a little over 100 days. That is a massive amount of deaths. When do world leaders start listening to the people they supposedly represent? When do we see a cease-fire? Najib Jobain and Samy Magdy (AP) explain, "The war’s deaths, destruction and displacement are without precedent in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The war has divided Israelis while the offensive threatens to ignite a wider conflict involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that support the Palestinians." Jason Burke (GUARDIAN) adds:

Most of the casualties were women and children, the ministry said, and thousands more bodies were likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.

Speaking at a global summit in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, denounced Israel’s three-month assault.

“Israel’s military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary general,” Guterres said at the opening of the G77+China, a coalition of 135 developing countries.

“This is heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable. The Middle East is a tinderbox. We must do all we can to prevent conflict from igniting across the region.”

This morning, Clea Caulcutt (POLITICO) reports:

In the hospital ward of the Dixmude, a French helicopter carrier turned hospital ship that was dispatched in November to assist overstretched Gaza hospitals, there’s a whiteboard with the ages and injuries of the incoming patients. Girl, 2 years old, skull injury, infected. Boy, 4 years old, burns to the front.

Half the patients treated on the vessel are children.

Only a trickle of patients and their relatives, a couple of dozens every day, are let through at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, where they are screened by Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian authorities. Only men who have suffered severe and life-changing injuries are allowed out.

Yazan is one of the few Palestinians who have been able to evacuate after suffering injuries in Israel’s bombing campaign launched after Hamas’ attacks against Israel on October 7. After weeks lying on a stretcher in overcrowded hospitals, Yazan left Gaza via Rafah alongside his aunt and his 4-year-old cousin who was suffering from severe diarrhea after sheltering for days in an overcrowded school.

Remember back in the early days of the assault when the Israeli government would lie that they weren't targeting hospitals and the press would report those claims as though they were believable? On Friday, the United Nations noted:

Reiterating urgent international calls for a ceasefire, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that there have been nearly 20,000 births since the start of widespread Israeli bombardment in response to Hamas-led attacks in Israel that left some 1,200 dead and approximately 250 taken hostage.

Chronic aid access problems have meant that Caesarean sections have been performed without anaesthetic while other women have been unable to deliver their stillborn babies because medical staff are overwhelmed, the UN agency said.

“Mothers face unimaginable challenges in accessing adequate medical care, nutrition and protection before, during and after giving birth,” said UNICEF Communications Specialist Tess Ingram.

“Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration. In Gaza, it's another child delivered into hell.”

Echoing deep concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed alarm that hepatitis A infections had been confirmed in Gaza.

“The inhumane living conditions – barely any clean water, clean toilets and possibility to keep the surroundings clean – will enable hepatitis A to spread further and highlight how explosively dangerous the environment is for the spread of disease,” Tedros tweeted on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

The latest WHO data indicates that on average 500 people are sharing one toilet, and over 2,000 people have to use a single shower, increasing the risk of disease spread.

In addition to a sharp rise in upper respiratory infections, diarrhoea cases among children under age five recorded during the last three months of 2023 were 26 times higher than reports from the same period in 2022, the UN health agency noted.

This morning, Yasmine Salam (NBC NEWS) notes:

Pediatric doctors told NBC News yesterday that they were concerned about the spread of the Hepatitis C virus and other diseases among young children in southern Gaza.

“We are seeing many cases of Hepatitis C,” Dr. Bessam Hamouda said as he treated patients in the children’s ward of Rafah's El Najar Hospital.

“It spreads in the packed and the difficult conditions the Palestinian people are in, displaced, tents and the big number of children and the pollution around them. This is a virus which contaminates children in particular,” he added.

Let's drop back to Friday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Israeli forces are pushing further into southern Gaza, with airstrikes and ground troops attacking areas that Israel had previously told Palestinians to flee to as safe zones. Over the past few days, Israel has bombed areas close to Nasser Hospital, the largest remaining semi-functioning health facility in Gaza, located in the southern city of Khan Younis. Gaza only has 16 partially functioning health facilities remaining. Before Israel’s assault, Gaza had 36 hospitals. The hospitals that are still working are operating far beyond their capacity, have been turned into makeshift refugee camps to house the displaced — and makeshift morgues — with health officials describing the situation as catastrophic. The Health Ministry estimates that over 60,000 people have been wounded in Gaza, with hundreds more casualties every day. The casualty count at this point is nearing 25,000, more than 10,000 of them children.

For more, we’re joined by Dr. James Smith, an emergency medical doctor who just returned from Gaza earlier this month, where he worked alongside Palestinian healthcare workers to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital located in Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Dr. James was in Gaza with the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians. He’s joining us now from London.

Dr. James, welcome to Democracy Now! Describe what you saw, what you confronted, the work you were doing, what’s happening at Al-Aqsa Hospital.

DR. JAMES SMITH: Hi, Amy.

So, yes, as you say, I was working with a team. There were 10 of us. Myself, I was with the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians. We were accompanied by colleagues from the International Rescue Committee. And very importantly, we were — it’s important to really reiterate that we were working with our Palestinian colleagues, so doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals, at Al — sorry, at Al-Aqsa Hospital. Al-Aqsa is a hospital based in the middle area of Gaza, so south of Gaza City and north of Khan Younis.

Myself, I was working in the emergency room. So, we would position ourselves in the ER every morning and, really, at that point, wait to see what the day would bring. Every single day, without exception, there were multiple mass casualty incidents at the hospital. So that’s several patients presenting at a time with traumatic injuries of varying severity. Those patients would require stabilization and then often transfer through to the operating room for surgical intervention. Some patients would require palliative care, if we were able to provide some form of palliative care, and in addition to many, many trauma patients. And by “many,” I mean several hundred over the time that we were working at Al-Aqsa. We were also treating patients presenting with complex medical problems, so people that had suffered heart attacks, for example, had suffered from strokes, and people whose hypertension or diabetes management had been negatively impacted, usually through a lack of access to their usual medication or because they hadn’t been able to see their usual doctor for several months. And then, furthermore, we were also seeing an even greater number of people with, effectively, primary healthcare-level problems.

So, the entirety of the primary healthcare or community care system in Gaza has completely collapsed. In fact, the entire healthcare system, the Ministry of Health has already announced several months ago, has completely collapsed. But that meant that anyone presenting with so-called, well, more minor complaints — coughs, colds, diarrheal illnesses — they were all also presenting to the emergency room to be seen by the doctors and nurses there.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about treating children, Dr. James?

DR. JAMES SMITH: Sure. So, as you’ve mentioned, a significant proportion of the people that have been killed since the start of this escalation are children. We certainly saw every mass casualty incident in the emergency room. There were several children also present. I remember very vividly some of the most traumatic injuries inflicted upon people were inflicted upon children. And they would include open chest wounds, open abdominal wounds, traumatic amputations, severe full-thickness burns to a substantial proportion of the body area — really some of the most horrific traumatic injuries that I have ever seen.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re actually showing images for our TV audience of Al-Aqsa Hospital and of the children and the adults who have been wounded there. You know, it’s really important to point out, if you’re talking about a hospital in normal times that has repeatedly been attacked, it would — and that’s severely compromised in its functioning, but we’re talking about this constant bombardment, where you have people coming in who have been severely wounded. You have people taking refuge there. And is it both like a refugee camp and a morgue?

DR. JAMES SMITH: So, there were several thousand people that had sought supposed sanctuary within the hospital compound itself. And we’ve seen this in several other hospitals across the Gaza Strip. There were reports, for example, of thousands of people sheltering in the Al-Shifa compound before that was surrounded and raided by the Israeli occupation forces. The same was the case at Al-Aqsa. So there were people staying in makeshift tents in and around the hospital buildings. Just up the main street adjacent to the hospital, sort of another IDP camp, internally displaced persons camp, had sort of formed very organically on open land. As the Israeli ground forces moved closer to the hospital and as the bombardment, the artillery and air bombardment, intensified, many of those — many thousands of those displaced people have displaced further south towards Rafah. And that also includes patients who were in the hospital at the time that we were working there. Many of them have also fled, along with many of the staff, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip, and it’s really important to play these clips. Right now Gaza has experienced the longest communications blackout of this Israeli attack for the last three months. I think it’s something like seven days. So it’s really hard to get information inside this intense Israeli bombardment in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in Khan Younis, the largest remaining semi-functioning health facility in Gaza, and tanks and armored vehicles are on the main road leading to the area. On Wednesday, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, who works in Nasser Hospital. He described the situation on the ground and the difficulty in getting out any messages. This is what he had to say.

DR. AHMED MOGHRABI: Thank you, sister, for asking about us. Thank you for letting me speak out here. We don’t have internet at all. I managed to get a very weak signal. I can’t upload any of these videos. Here, 90% of people who are already evacuated at the hospital, they evacuated from the hospital. Ninety percent of medical personnel evacuated from the hospital.

And this is my little daughter, actually. She got head trauma Saturday. You know, hundreds of these evacuating people at the corridor, somebody pushed her, and she fell on her head. Now I’m taking care about my — this little girl. She needs medicine. She’s not well. So I stay at the hospital now, but I want to evacuate. The situation is catastrophic, sister. Really, I’m very tired. I’m very tired.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi, and the image we’ve been showing as he spoke was Dr. Moghrabi holding his own wounded daughter. I’m wondering, Dr. James, if you can talk about the significance, the medical significance, of a complete — almost complete telecommunications blackout, in terms of ambulances being reached, people being able to communicate to get help.

DR. JAMES SMITH: Absolutely. I mean, this is a catastrophic development. As you’ve mentioned, Amy, this, I think, is the seventh time that the Israelis have suspended access to telecommunications across almost the entirety of the Gaza Strip. This is now day six or seven of a complete sort of telecommunications blackout. It makes it almost impossible to do anything.

So, in the first instance, people can’t reach their families, their loved ones. They can’t communicate with colleagues. They can’t reassure family that they’re OK, or indeed relatives and friends can’t inform family members and so on when somebody has been killed or injured. There have been occasions where the emergency number has not been in use. So, as you say, it’s been difficult to call ambulances or mobilize ambulances to places where there has been an air or artillery strike. It makes it very difficult for health and humanitarian workers to do their essential work —

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Smith, we —

DR. JAMES SMITH: — so they can’t coordinate with each other.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have 10 seconds. What message do you have for the world, just having come out of Gaza? Ten seconds.

DR. JAMES SMITH: The violence needs to end immediately.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. James Smith, emergency medical doctor, just back from Gaza, where he worked to treat patients at Al-Aqsa Hospital.

That does it for our show. Democracy Now! has job openings. Check democracynow.org.

Let's note this from NBC NEWS.

That's the Sunday funeral of Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar. Faris Tanyos (CBS NEWS) reports:

A Palestinian-American teenager was shot and killed Friday by Israeli troops in the West Bank, Palestinian officials told Reuters.

The 17-year-old boy was shot during clashes with Israeli forces, the victim's uncle told Reuters.

A State Department spokesperson would only confirm to CBS News that a U.S. citizen had died in the West Bank, adding that "we are working to understand the circumstances of the incident and have asked the government of Israel for further information."

According to Wafa, the Palestinian National Authority's official news agency, the boy was shot in the head. Wafa identified him as Tawfiq Ajjaq.

Julia Frankel and Nasser Nasser (AP) quote the child's father declaring, "They [Israeli forces] are killer machines. They are using our tax dollars in the U.S. to support the weapons to kill our own children." ALJAZEERA notes:

Celebrated UK-based Palestinian writer and director Ahmed Masoud lost his brother in Gaza after he was hit by an Israeli air strike.

“I knew I was going to write a post like this, I knew I wouldn’t find the words,” Masoud, who grew up in Gaza and later moved to the United Kingdom, wrote on X.

He showed earlier this month how his brother Khalid’s home was almost entirely destroyed after being targeted by an Israeli air strike as drones buzzed in the background. Then, his brother was shot by an Israeli sniper in the leg.

“A few days ago he went missing. A drone bombed, he lost his leg and bled for three days. My brother and friend is gone.”

Friday, Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) noted, "There are reports Israel has killed another journalist in Gaza. Palestinian news outlets report Wael Fannouneh, the manager of Al-Quds Today TV, was killed today in an Israeli bombing in Gaza City. Over 110 journalists have been killed since Israel began its assault on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack."

ALJAZEERA notes that professors have been murdered:

Israel has killed 94 university professors, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students during its war in Gaza, a rights group has said.

The Israeli military has targeted academics and intellectuals “in deliberate and specific air raids” on their homes without prior warning, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement on Saturday.

These figures appear to have been targeted with “no justification or clear reason”, the monitor said.

“The targeted academics studied and taught across a variety of academic disciplines, and many of their ideas served as cornerstones of academic research in the Gaza Strip’s universities,” the Geneva, Switzerland-based group said.

The Israeli military says it is reviewing the decision to destroy the main building of Gaza’s Israa University in what appears to have been a planned explosion.

In a widely viewed video geolocated by The Washington Post, a camera apparently attached to a drone shows the sprawling building outside of Gaza City implode, demolishing the educational complex and engulfing the area in smoke.

The university shared news of the explosion of building, which housed its graduate and undergraduate studies, Wednesday.

Israa University Vice President Alaa Matar told The Washington Post that he could not confirm the date of the blast: Israeli forces, he said, had been occupying the campus for about 70 days, and Palestinians could not safely access the area. Matar spoke by phone from the southern city of Rafah, where more than half of Palestinians in Gaza have fled.

Satellite imagery of the area, assessed by The Post, showed the building intact on Jan. 13 and destroyed the next day. Most cellular and other communications had been unusable in the Gaza Strip for more than a week, from Jan. 12 until Friday evening.

Julia Conley (COMMON DREAMS) covers the destruction of Israa University noting:

The Israel Defense Forces' detonation of more than 300 mines planted at Israa University in Gaza on Wednesday provided the latest evidence that Israel's objective in its bombardment of the enclave is not self-defense, rights advocates said.

"This is not self-defense," said Chris Hazzard, an Irish member of the United Kingdom's Parliament. "This is not counter-insurgency. This is ethnic-cleansing."

The International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) called the destruction of Israa University Israel's latest attempt to carry out a "cultural genocide" along with the slaughter of at least 24,620 people in just over three months—people who Israeli officials have claimed are legitimate military targets despite the fact that roughly half of those killed have been children.

The wiping out of cultural landmarks was included in South Africa's International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of genocidal acts in Gaza last week, with the complaint noting that "Israel has damaged and destroyed numerous centers of Palestinian learning and culture," including libraries, one of the world's oldest Christian monasteries, and the Great Omari Mosque, where an ancient collection of manuscripts was kept before the building was destroyed in an airstrike last month.

"The crime of targeting and destroying archaeological sites should spur the world and UNESCO into action to preserve this great civilizational and cultural heritage," Gaza's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said after the mosque was bombed.

Last week, Wyre Davies (BBC NEWS) noted:

Phillippe Lazzarini is the Commissioner General for UNRWA - the UN agency with specific responsibility for Palestinian refugees. He's just returned from his fourth visit to Gaza since the start of the war.

"There are today more than half a million children in the primary and secondary school system. How will they go back if you cannot bring people back to their homes which have been completely destroyed," Mr Lazzarini tells me.

"And I'm afraid that we're running the risk here of losing a generation of children."

Images of Israeli troops cheering as educational institutions were blown up went viral on social media, including one showing the complete demolition of a distinctive blue UN school in northern Gaza.

Over the weekend, AP reported:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that he “will not compromise on full Israeli control” over Gaza and that “this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” rejecting U.S. President Joe Biden’s suggestion that creative solutions could bridge wide gaps between the leaders' views on Palestinian statehood.

In a sign of the pressures Netanyahu’s government faces at home, thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv calling for new elections, and others demonstrated outside the prime minister’s house, joining families of the more than 100 remaining hostages held by Hamas and other militants. They fear that Israel's military activity further endangers hostages' lives.

Emma Graham-Harrison and Toby Helm (GUARDIAN adds, "Over the weekend, Netanyahu sparred publicly – if indirectly – with US President Joe Biden, who for months has offered Israel almost unconditional support for its war in Gaza, at considerable political cost to his own administration, both in America and beyond." Poor Joe, getting played for a fool by a crook like Netanyahu. NBC NEWS notes, "President Joe Biden attempted to downplay Netanyahu's opposition to a Palestinian state. When asked if a two-state solution is impossible with Netanyahu in office, Biden said, 'No, it is not,' adding that he believes the Israeli prime minister could change his mind." Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "The latest remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 18 suggest that the license also extends to ensuring that Palestinians will never be permitted a sovereign homeland, that they will be, in a perverse biblical echo, kept in a form of bondage, downtrodden, oppressed and, given what happened on October 7 last year, suppressed. This is to ensure that, whatever the grievance, that they never err, never threaten, and never cause grief to the Israeli State. To that end, it is axiomatic that their political authorities are kept incipient, inchoate, corrupt and permanently on life support, the tolerated beggars and charity seekers of the Middle East."

The following sites updated: