Wednesday, November 8: "It's Complicated"
Treating a genocide like an early 2000's Facebook relationship status
Thousands of innocent Palestinians are dead and thousands more are dying, but bozo elected officials in the US are keeping themselves busy policing the tone of the only Palestinian-American representative to say anything about it. The house of representatives voted yesterday to censure Rashida Tlaib, "for promoting false narratives regarding the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for destruction of the State of Israel."
This extremely foolish government body dedicated an untold amount of time debating and arguing over the language Tlaib used to describe the ongoing ethnic cleansing of her people. This makes her the 26th member of the house to be censured in this country’s shameful history. Fun fact: the second person ever censured in the house (Joshua Giddings) was censured for introducing a motion for the abolition of slavery, so clearly this particular government entity can’t be taken seriously. It’s remarkable (and of course sets an incredibly dangerous precedent) to punish a member of congress for speaking out against the mass killing of an ethnic group that they’re a part of.
The observable differences between the consequences for expressing even the mildest, G-rated, pro-Palestinian sentiment (Congressional censure, job loss, expulsion, doxing, arrest, etc.) and the consequences for saying that the people of Gaza deserve to be starved (absolutely nothing) are somehow both truly astonishing and completely unsurprising. An untalented, attempted comic like Sarah Silverman can take to social media calling for the collective punishment of innocent Palestinians one week, and then turn around and play host to The Daily Show the following week.
To give you an idea of how deluded the Israeli leadership is, prime minister and genocidal architect Benny Netanyahu said the apartheid state will take “overall security responsibility” in Gaza indefinitely after its “war with Hamas”. This is as clear an indication as possible that Israel plans to maintain control over Gaza one month into a campaign of ethnic cleansing that has killed over 10,000 Palestinians and leveled most of the territory. The linked article, from the Associated Press, states it plainly: “Entire city blocks have been reduced to rubble, and around 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, with many heeding Israeli orders to head to the southern part of the besieged territory, which is also being bombed.”
The apartheid state shared a post yesterday listing the names of those killed on October 7th, the majority of whom were soldiers. This is a stark contrast to the often-repeated claim that “1,400 civilians were murdered”, but I guess there’s no time to issue a correction or retraction for that false claim. Meanwhile, children in Gaza gave a press conference yesterday (In both Arabic and English) outside the hospital they’re sheltering in, trying to get the message across that they’d prefer to continue living. These are kids, begging the world to recognize their humanity and their desire to live. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it best when he said, “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children”. The world has truly failed them.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed an American nurse who was trapped in Gaza for weeks and she had only positive things to say about her Palestinian colleagues, many of whom are at risk of losing their lives every day. But the Washington Post somehow thought it appropriate to feature this racist cartoon in their publication, further dehumanizing innocent Palestinians and parroting the Israeli claim that Hamas is using “human shields”, as if that would stop the apartheid state from dropping thousands of bombs on Gaza.
Apparently a pro-Israel rally is being planned for Washington DC on November 14. I’ve seen some footage of such rallies, but to be completely honest, I’m not really sure what they’re rallying for. The western governments already support Israel wholeheartedly, the western media broadcasts Israeli stories, regardless of whether or not they’re remotely verifiable. Israel has been given BILLIONS of dollars in aid, weaponry, and actual soldiers as well. What exactly is there to rally for? My guess is the attendees will be chanting, “keep going, keep killing kids!” but I can’t be certain.