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Category: War

In a shift, U.S. Jewish lawmakers ramp up criticism of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza

In a shift, U.S. Jewish lawmakers ramp up criticism of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza

The Times of Israel reports: In the span of two days, one Jewish lawmaker became the first to call on Israel to ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, another called the Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war “unacceptable,” and a third said suffering in Gaza was a “moral failure.” On Wednesday, Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has been a consensus-seeking voice on Israel within the Democratic party and who has carefully avoided overly criticizing the Jewish state since entering Congress in…

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Here’s what the mass violence in Gaza looks like to a scholar of genocide

Here’s what the mass violence in Gaza looks like to a scholar of genocide

Raz Segal writes: I cannot stop thinking about the dozens of Israeli children held in captivity by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in underground tunnels in Gaza, while above them Israel’s attack has killed, so far, nearly 4,500 Palestinian children. Stopping the violence, and returning the hostages, is urgent for any person who values all lives. That it is very difficult to imagine how this happens tells a terrible truth: Those with the most power to effect change refuse to…

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Nakba generation relive trauma of displacement in Gaza

Nakba generation relive trauma of displacement in Gaza

The Guardian reports: Umm Ghadeer’s earliest memories are of the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948 in which about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland after the creation of Israel. She was three years old. Last month she was forced to abandon her home all over again, fleeing Shejaiya, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. “I cried very hard because I relived the experience of displacement when we fled our homes in…

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Israel has killed more children in Gaza than have died in all other conflict zones globally over the last year

Israel has killed more children in Gaza than have died in all other conflict zones globally over the last year

The New York Times reports: Barefoot and weeping, Khaled Joudeh, 9, hurried toward the dozens of bodies wrapped in white burial shrouds, blankets and rugs outside the overcrowded morgue. “Where’s my mom?” he cried next to a photographer for The New York Times. “I want to see my mom.” “Where is Khalil?” he continued, barely audible between sobs as he asked for his 12-year-old brother. A morgue worker opened a white shroud, so Khaled could kiss his brother one final…

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Israel could lose

Israel could lose

  Jon B. Alterman writes: Israel’s army has a remarkable record of winning. It won conventional wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973; it forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to give up armed struggle in 1996; and it has deterred Hezbollah since a 2006 campaign laid waste to the group. The military is strong not merely because of U.S. support, but also because everything about Israeli military—from its doctrine, organization, and training to its leadership and personnel—makes it by far the…

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These evangelicals are cheering the Gaza war as the end of the world

These evangelicals are cheering the Gaza war as the end of the world

Talia Lavin writes: On Tuesday, approximately 300,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to show their support for Israel in an ongoing war that has claimed the lives of thousands of people. The lineup of speakers at the March for Israel included Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Jewish-American celebrities like Debra Messing and Tovah Feldshuh, as well as rabbis and cantors. It also included an evangelical Christian pastor from Texas, infamous for his fire-and-brimstone prophecies about the end of…

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Israel’s ludicrous propaganda wins over the only audience that counts

Israel’s ludicrous propaganda wins over the only audience that counts

Jeet Heer writes: On November 11, an Arabic-language Twitter account maintained by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a video purporting to be a selfie by a nurse in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, a major battlefield in the current conflict that was taken over by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) a few days later. In the startling video, as bombs went off in the background, the tearful nurse warned Gazans to heed the call of the IDF to flee to…

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Israel fails to produce evidence supporting its claim that Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital sits atop Hamas’s HQ

Israel fails to produce evidence supporting its claim that Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital sits atop Hamas’s HQ

The Washington Post reports: The Israeli raid of the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital stretched into its second day Thursday as troops searched for evidence of the extensive Hamas infrastructure that Israeli and U.S. officials have said lies beneath the facility. The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that searches had uncovered the body of a captive Israeli woman in a house near the hospital, along with weapons. On Wednesday, the IDF released photographs and video of small caches of weapons it…

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Progressives warn Jeffries: AIPAC poses a threat to the Democratic Party

Progressives warn Jeffries: AIPAC poses a threat to the Democratic Party

Politico reports: Progressive Democrats who’ve condemned Israel over its war offensive in Gaza are demanding that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries do more to protect them against primary challenges from pro-Israel Democrats. In a closed-door meeting at party headquarters last Thursday, the three lawmakers who lead the Progressive Caucus’ PAC met with Jeffries and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the head of House Democrats’ campaign arm. They told the Democratic leader he needed to keep the influential American Israel Public Affairs…

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AIPAC wants to show progressives that ‘no one is safe from their wrath’

AIPAC wants to show progressives that ‘no one is safe from their wrath’

Slate reports: One of the biggest, bitterest, and most expensive political battles of the 2024 election cycle has emerged: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful, best-funded influence operations in Washington, is planning to go all out to knock the famed “Squad”—the small group of highly visible and popular progressive legislators of color, most of them women—out of office. The most outspoken and unapologetically leftist contingent of the Democratic Party in national office, the Squad has…

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Israel’s comically bad disinformation effort proves they’re losing the PR war

Israel’s comically bad disinformation effort proves they’re losing the PR war

The Daily Beast reports: Israel’s official Arabic account affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a selfie video of a Palestinian nurse condemning Hamas for taking over al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip on Nov. 11. But some things about the video didn’t add up. Everything about it smacked of high school theater—from the botched accent that sounded like it was straight out of an Israeli soap opera to the perfectly scripted IDF talking points rolling off her tongue….

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Top German journalist received €600,000 from Putin ally, leak reveals

Top German journalist received €600,000 from Putin ally, leak reveals

The Guardian reports: A leading western journalist who has long been considered one of Germany’s top independent experts on Russia received at least €600,000 (£522,000) in undisclosed offshore payments from companies linked to an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, leaked files have revealed. Hubert Seipel, an award-winning film-maker and author, was paid money in instalments, which documents suggest was to support his work on two books he wrote that chart Putin’s rise to power and offer portrayals described by many…

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Putin wants the West to give up on Ukraine

Putin wants the West to give up on Ukraine

Anne Applebaum writes: They planned to take Kyiv in three days, the rest of Ukraine in six weeks. More than 21 months later, Russian forces have withdrawn from half the territory they occupied in February of last year. At least 88,000 Russian soldiers are likely dead—a conservative estimate—and at least twice as many have been wounded. Billions of dollars worth of equipment, Russian tanks, planes, artillery, helicopters, armored vehicles, and warships have been destroyed. If you had predicted this outcome…

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Israeli strikes hit maternity ward in Gaza’s largest hospital, evidence indicates

Israeli strikes hit maternity ward in Gaza’s largest hospital, evidence indicates

The New York Times reports: Minutes after 1 a.m. Friday, as active fighting raged between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, a projectile streaked over Gaza’s largest medical complex and crashed into the center of the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, a place where thousands of displaced Gazans had sought shelter. It landed just a few feet from Ahmed Hijazi, a social media personality who has been documenting the conflict. He filmed a video of the projectile flying in, and then of…

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The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine

The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine

+972 Magazine reports: Six years ago, Bezalel Smotrich, then a young Knesset member in his first term, published his “Decisive Plan” — a kind of “endgame” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the far-right lawmaker, who now serves as Israel’s finance minister and the government’s West Bank overlord, the inherent contradiction between Jewish and Palestinian national aspirations does not allow for any kind of compromise, reconciliation, or partition. Instead of maintaining the illusion that a political agreement is possible, he…

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