Saturday, October 28: Information Blackout
Who do we turn to when all the lights are turned off?
We’ve now descended to the point in this nightmare of being worried by the lack of available news out of Gaza.
The entirety of Gaza (2 million+ people) was hit with a near-total information blackout yesterday afternoon. No calls were being received and few were coming out from the millions of people still trapped with nowhere to escape to, beyond a desperate handful using satellite phones. One of the only journalists in Gaza with limited satellite communication capability is Wael Al Dahdouh’s team. A man who just lost his entire family to an Israeli airstrike two days ago is now one of the only voices able to tell the world what is happening in the darkness. In one of his most recent dispatches Al Dahdouh said, “We are not fine, body parts are everywhere, missiles are targeting everyone, and the bombing hasn’t stopped for a second.”
Try to imagine, with all the horrific atrocities that we’ve witnessed before the Israeli apartheid regime blacked out phone and internet signals, just think of what they’re doing with the lights turned off and no one watching. Having already killed over 7,300 Palestinians, the relentless airstrikes are only intensifying, and now with no internal communications, ambulance drivers are simply watching for the massive explosions taking place all around them, and driving in the direction of the worst-hit areas, relying on the noise from the surrounding damage to guess where there might be the most injured or murdered civilians.
When we say Israel cut off telecommunications, I don’t mean like they flipped a switch and will eventually decide the time is right to flip it back. I mean they destroyed telecommunications infrastructure, so the internet was completely cut off. Local journalists are unable to report out, hospitals are unable to make calls to ambulance services, and the endless bombing can be heard and felt from 35 miles away in Egypt. The true definition of heartless ethnic cleansing.
The vast military forces defending occupation and apartheid cut off all the lights in Gaza so they could do this. Palestinian and Israeli media both reported that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched what appears to be the most violent and massive air campaign so far against any targets inside Gaza. According to Palestinians, it was the heaviest attack by Israeli warplanes since the beginning of the month. This SFW animated video is an effective, if over-simplified, illustration of what the past 24 hour air campaign against Gaza is like.
And as this carnage is unfolding, companies like General Dynamics, the weapons manufacturer, had an investor call this week. A bank analyst asks about their reaction to how, "Israel-Hamas has created additional demand." and these bozos say the company is, "Working ahead of schedule to accelerate that production capacity up to 85,000, even as high as 100,000 rounds per month. And I think the Israel situation is only going to put upward pressure on that demand."
Meanwhile, the majority of the western political world stands by silently, and the best idea a supposedly-progressive politician like Bernie Sanders can muster up is a “humanitarian pause”, an idea so absurd, it can’t stop bouncing around in my head. Like, how exactly is pressing pause on a genocidal bombing campaign so we can give people food and water, as if this is a children’s soccer game and we’re distributing orange slices, just to continue bombing them immediately afterwards?? How is this even remotely a semi-serious proposal?
Hundreds of anti-zionist Jewish New Yorkers crowded Grand Central Station yesterday evening, holding an emergency sit-in and demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. The crowds of people shut down the largest concourse in the city, with close to 200 people eventually arrested by New York’s finest piglets. At a certain point, I’m pretty sure we have to consider it antisemitism when police are arresting exclusively Jewish protesters. The number of people taking to the streets in European cities like London right now looks to be similar to past weeks or larger. Recognize that what we’re seeing play out in real time has less to do with politics than it has to do with humanity. If you’re not speaking up and loudly proclaiming your opposition to what’s happening, you’re suffering from a deficit of humanity. There is no other way to put it.
We have no right to despair while Palestinians commit every living second, every breath, to survival and to victory. To give up and feel defeated would be to abandon Palestine. And we must never abandon Palestine. I beg you, wherever you’re reading this from, do not allow yourself to grow numb to what’s happening in Gaza. Keep talking about Palestine, on whatever platform and in whatever capacity you can manage.
If you have the opportunity and the freedom, get outside and loudly voice your opposition to the genocide today. Get out to a protest, shout at an elected official, take whatever opportunity you have, because you need to tell future generations that while this large-scale crime was taking place, at least you did something. Have the pride to tell your children or your nieces and nephews or whoever you can talk to 10 years from now, 30 years from now, that you didn’t just stand by and silently watch this unfold.
Side Items
Maine Shooter Found Dead: Law enforcement in Maine say that the man suspected of fatally shooting 18 people in Maine has been found dead. Robert Card is believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an outcome far better than he deserved