Dispatch #142 White Lesbian Age 71 Considers That Israel and US Continue Collaborating to Normalize Genocide and Thereby Achieve the Public Extirpation of Palestinians in Gaza
- Kathleen A. Maloy
- May 13, 2024
- 6 min read
May 14th 2024 1209 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President
186 Days Until 2024 Presidential Elections 11/5/2024
689 Days Since SCOTUS Ruled American Women Don’t Have Human Rights
220 Days Since Israel Began Genocidal Assault on Palestinians in Gaza
In the most Orwellian and appalling event in recent memory, the New York Times receives a Pulitzer for “its wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas’ lethal attack in southern Israel on October 7, Israel’s intelligence failures and the Israeli military’s sweeping, deadly response in Gaza.” This Pulitzer actually rewards the NYT’s finesse in consistently reporting Israeli war propaganda and creating distractions from its genocide in Gaza and its brutal campaign of displacement in the occupied West Bank. Acknowledging this prize online, the NYT featured a picture of destroyed Kibbutz Be’eri with a single woman running for shelter.
As Israel continues to reduce every inch of Gaza to lethal rubble and intentionally destroy every pillar of civil and livable society, the NYT considers these issues instead: the traumatized country of Israel; the battle between good (Israel and the US) and evil (Iran and its proxies); who actually bombed a hospital; allegations with NO evidence of Hamas’ extreme violence on 7 October; the fraught relationship between US and Israel; the rising tide of antisemitism in the US; the existential threat to Israel; and so on and so forth.
Even now, as Israel advances on Rafah where 1.4M starving and brutalized Gazans – including 600,000 children -- are trapped with no escape, the NYT reports as fact Israel’s assertion with no evidence that Hamas’ remaining battalions are hiding in Rafah.
Even as international experts report on how Israel creates an ecological catastrophe in Gaza with its savage scorched earth campaign, i.e., tons of unexploded munitions, all roads and all infrastructure destroyed, farmlands and greenhouses all destroyed, the New York Times reports irrelevant discussions about who will govern Gaza the day after.
Israel’s genocide campaign is “televised” widely on social media and international media such as Al Jazeera (recently shut down in Israel as a terrorist threat). But, if you only read the New York Times, then you are ignorant, e.g., you would not know that UN munitions estimate that it will take 14 years to make Gaza safe for human beings.
200 days of military attack on Gaza: A horrific death toll amid international failure to stop Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, Euro-Med Monitor 24 April 2024
Palestinian civilians have been the primary and real target of Israel's crimes in the Gaza Strip from the first day of the assault. They have paid a heavy and unprecedented price as Israeli forces systematically and extensively targeted them as part of a comprehensive revenge operation aimed at dehumanizing them, and ending their existence through killing and displacement.
The Israeli army commits various crimes of destruction and actual obliteration against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. These include mass killings with heavy and indiscriminate weapons, ammunition, rockets, and bombs, including U.S.-made munitions that have been gradually supplied to Israeli military warehouses.
According to the preliminary, non-final toll, at least 131,200 housing units in the Gaza Strip have been completely destroyed, and another 281,000 units have been partially destroyed. In addition, thousands of kilometres of streets in the Strip have been demolished and turned into dirt roads full of rubble by Israeli forces, all without any military necessity, but rather to devastate the lives of Palestinians there and disrupt their geographical and social ties.
The Israeli army also continues to erase Palestinian identity from the Gaza Strip and sever the historical ties between the land and its people. It has destroyed the educational, historical, cultural, and religious assets of Palestinians in the Strip, including the majority of public buildings, hundreds of cultural landmarks, service facilities, and water wells.
Moreover, it demolished 80% of schools in the Strip, both partially and completely, nearly all universities in the Gaza Strip, 13 public libraries, 241 mosques entirely, 318 mosques partially, and three churches.
The Israeli army has killed 42,510 Palestinians over the course of its 200-day attack, 38,621 of whom were civilians, including 10,091 women and 15,780 children. The bodies of several thousand are still stuck under the rubble, while thousands remain missing and are presumed dead. These statistics include the killing of 137 journalists, 356 medical personnel, and 42 civil defense personnel.
Based on these data, the daily death toll for Palestinians has reached 212, including 50 women and 79 children. These are horrifying statistics and unprecedented in the context of contemporary warfare. https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/200-days-military-attack-gaza-horrific-death-toll-amid-intl-failure-stop-israels-genocide-palestinians-enar
A Threshold Crossed: On Genocidal Intent and the Duty to Prevent Genocide in Palestine. Nimar Sultany, Journal of Genocide Research 09 May 2024.
By any measure, Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is unprecedented. Israel claims that the killing of civilians is typical of warfare. Yet by the end of November 2023 it was clear that “even a conservative reading of the casualty figures” showed that “the pace of death during Israel’s campaign has few precedents in this century.”
It also showed that the proportion of civilian deaths is higher than all other conflicts in the twentieth century. After the first three months of Israeli attacks, a military historian maintained that “Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history” that surpassed Allied bombings of Germany during World War II in a much shorter period of time. Doctors who entered Gaza said that it is not a “normal war,” that it is worse than war zones they witnessed, that the war’s aim is “the destruction of all the components of modern life,” and is thus better described as an “annihilation.”
What these descriptions convey is that the military logic of defeating an enemy in war has been crossed into the genocidal logic of elimination. In fact, the combination between starvation and the systematic destruction of hospitals, schools, and universities – and the killing of doctors, nurses, teachers, and academics who can provide health and education – can indicate the targeting of the three pillars of social existence and reproduction (subsistence, health, education). This targeting has impacted over two million Palestinians in Gaza, for a lengthy period of over 200 days, at the time of writing. The destruction of these pillars endangers the ability of social groups to maintain continuity over time.
At the time of writing, 205 days have passed since Israel started its assault on Gaza. The media have published ceaseless revelations about Israel’s crimes, such as the killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, and the mass graves in Shifa and Nasser hospitals. Despite this, an end to the decimation of Gaza and the annihilation of its population is still out of sight. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2351261
Gaza’s Unexploded-Bomb Crisis | The New Yorker May 8 2024
Late last month, Charles (Mungo) Birch, who oversees the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in the Palestinian territories, issued a warning about the dangers posed by unexploded ordnance in Gaza, especially if and when Gazan civilians return to the enclave’s north. Birch said that more unexploded missiles and bombs have fallen in Gaza than anywhere in the world since at least the Second World War.
In Gaza, a hidden threat could kill Palestinians even after a cease-fire. National Public Radio May 13, 2024
The rule of thumb, explosives experts say, is that 10% of munitions do not detonate on impact. That means an estimated 7,500 metric tons of live munition may be scattered throughout the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations. These weapons could continue to kill and maim Palestinians even if a cease-fire eventually ends the Israel-Hamas war. The U.N. estimates it could take 14 years to make Gaza safe from these bombs.
Much of the munitions is hidden in what the U.N. estimates is 37 million metric tons of debris. "There's now more rubble in Gaza than in Ukraine," Charles Birch says. "And to put that in perspective, the front line in Ukraine is about 600 miles and Gaza is 25 miles long."
War on Gaza: Israel kills hundreds of imams offering message of hope and patience https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/religious-scholars-targeted-israels-war-gaza
Palestinians are setting up temporary camps in Rafah, Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah and Az-Zawayda to maintain their lives without access to necessities. Israel intentionally targets Gaza’s social fabric: Emjad al-Sheva Civil Society Organizations Network 11 May 2024
Israel continues its crimes to deepen the crisis and prolong it, deliberately harming the social and psychological system of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Emjad al-Sheva. Human rights and international organizations’ reports reveal that 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, forced to flee Israeli attacks, face severe living and health challenges in shelters and refugee camps. Sheva continued: “Israel intentionally killed all members of Palestinian families” and erased their records. He pointed to the thousands of orphaned children in Gaza, highlighting the psychological conditions causing unprecedented trauma in children.
Hunger, malnutrition and trauma create devastating impacts on children – impacts that last a lifetime. Israel is intentionally disabling multiple generations of Palestinians.
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