Mass Graves in Gaza, Campus Courage, Horrifying U.S. Funding: Stark Realities Exposed
Free Palestine
I admit to being invigorated by the Gaza Solidarity Encampments popping up on college campuses and struggling to confront the discovery of mass graves at hospitals in Gaza showing that victims’ hands were tied and bodies stripped. It feels good to have a little bit of hope sometimes.
There’s nothing wrong with having hope and fueling the strength and awareness that’s coming from a generation that’s never going to allow Zionism to take over on their watch. Their eyes are open and they see that what’s happening and what’s being used to justify it is crazy and evil.
It’s okay to be interested in and alarmed at what’s going on on college campuses. What the students and faculty are doing is wonderful (keep going, I love you guys!). What's happening at the the hands of administrators, figures of authority, law enforcement, and some “intellectuals” is despicable.
What Chris Hayes tweeted today does not seem too far off of what’s next (Columbia has literally threatened it):
This happened at University of Texas Austin today:
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There’s a fair number of people who are angry that so many are focusing on the college protests at all.
I get the anger to an extent, after all there is a genocide going on and that’s the main point (the college protesters will readily redirect you back to that fact, by the way). But we are all smart people and we can care about multiple things at once. And I’d say that we’re all trying to do our best without falling apart at the seams.
We have fascistic displays of power happening at college campuses all across the country and It’s okay to care about and be alarmed about that.
We have genocide happening in Gaza.
And that’s what those in power want you to forget. That’s what those who are screaming “antisemitism on college campuses” at anyone who will listen want you to forget.
And so as a journalist, I feel it so necessary to cover what’s going on on our college campuses right now. It’s historic and beautiful and sad and scary and Columbia and UTAustin will proudly tell students 25 years from now they learned so much from this and they’ll never do this again (but then they will do this again if the halls of power are threatened)
But mass graves at hospitals?
Field executions? 400 missing bodies? Victims stripped naked with their hands tied? Evidence of the wounded and sick having been executed by the IDF? Bulldozer tracks left from Israeli equipment on temporary Palestinian family-made graves?
This deserves attention. And yet so much of the media and institutions would rather have you turn the other way to believe that a bunch of college students and faculty, many of them Jewish and standing in solidarity, have decided to put their entire futures on the line, sleep on the lawn, get arrested, and poke the eyes of people who are absolutely lying about what happened to them. And for what?
So none of us pay attention to mass graves
And who would want to? It’s so horrible.
And yet we have to. Because it’s so horrible.
We have to acknowledge that there is a genocide going on.
We have to acknowledge that Israel are war criminals.
If you’re standing with Israel, you’re blind or deeply misled or deeply evil.
It makes me sick now to think back to times at a company I co-founded as a journalist, believing I was doing everything I could to help fight for justice but ultimately not having the control I initially signed on for.
I’m haunted by the memory of the silver IDF tags clanking around the rearview mirror as we drove around the country reporting. If you watch back some of our in-car videos, you’ll probably hear them or maybe even see them.
I’m haunted too by being bullied into taking down the keffiyeh that draped my chair in videos in solidarity with Palestine. If you watch videos back, you’ll see it disappear at some point.
What you won’t see are the tears and the fights and the personal struggles that went on behind the scenes surrounding this and I am plagued with guilt that I gave in to save try to save myself from being considered antisemitic (absolutely untrue) and blacklisted. Reeducated. Begging to be allowed.
I know many are going through similar things right now.
We can’t let ourselves turn away or be told that we’re bad or wrong or antisemitic for supporting Palestine
Israel has shown their entire ass and their ass is genocidal. This is what Zionism is. And yes, this is what it always was. It can come at a personal cost to stand against what Israel is doing but the time is now. By the way the craziest thing ever to me is just how NEW Zionism is. Wild. The propaganda machine is so strong.
I think we can all remember when we first learned about the Holocaust.
I became obsessed as a child learning of it in school, unable to believe humans could do this to other humans. My grandfather, part Jewish, was a fighter pilot. And I remember sitting there in front of him as a little girl entranced by his story of helping to free one of the camps. I devoured every book about the atrocity I could get my hands on. I would close my eyes and try to imagine life as Anne, what she must have gone through. The fear she must have felt.
Just for being herself? Just for being born?
It didn’t make sense to me.
And it doesn’t now. She was just a girl.
How can people want to kill people just for being who they are?
But that is what Israel is doing right now. People can say whatever they want about Hamas - and yes I condemn Hamas - but that is not Palestine and that is not Palestinians. That is not the 70% of casualties since October 7th that have been Palestinian women and children.
I care about Jewish lives and I care about Palestinian lives. How can anyone believe that their religion or ideology or anything about themselves or their people or their anything trumps anyone else and gives them impunity to murder an entire people?
That’s Nazi thinking.
And, well.
That’s Netanyahu thinking.
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Mass Graves - Don’t Look Away
For some on-the-ground journalism regarding the mass graves that are now the subject of UN attention, please watch Palestinian journalist Bisan’s video on Instagram and follow her. It is extremely disturbing and triggering, fair warning.
Here is some reporting from CNN with some information and quotes from the Gaza Civil defense on the 300 bodies found in a mass grave at a Gaza hospital.
A Sky News report shows that Israel bulldozed mass graves at a Gaza hospital.
Some of the most disturbing reports come from the United Nations.
“Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.”
“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“The latest images [in Rafah] of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed, this is beyond warfare,” said UN human rights chief Volker Türk.
Hospitals are supposed to receive special protection under international law.
U.N. human rights chief Voker Türk: “Hospitals are entitled to a very special protection under international humanitarian law. And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are ‘hors de combat’ (incapable of engaging in combat) is a war crime.”
Joe Biden Just Sent $17 Billion to Israel’s War Chest and $9 Billion in Aid That Likely Won’t Reach Gaza
President Joe Biden purports to be a guy who cares about people, humanity, and doing the right thing and yet Amtrak Joe is funding a literal genocide. He and our electeds could choose not to do this.
They could choose to put any amount of pressure on Israel.
Yet, they fund genocide.
Genocide.
They just did it today.
Senator Bernie Sanders Says it well in this clip:
Transcript (note: both video and clip edited/condensed for brevity)
“Israel does not have the right to wage war against the entire Palestinian population, which is precisely what it is currently engaged in. As US taxpayers, we must question our involvement in supporting Prime Minister Netanyahu's unprecedented and brutal military actions against the Palestinians. This administration, marked by its extremist stance, is in clear violation of both US and international laws, rendering it unworthy of further US military aid.
International law mandates that warring parties must ensure the rapid and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in need. Israel has failed to meet this obligation. The Foreign Assistance Act explicitly prohibits US security assistance to any country that impedes the delivery of US humanitarian aid, a policy Israel has evidently violated. This has led to a dire humanitarian crisis, with widespread malnutrition and starvation among children—a situation acknowledged by various humanitarian organizations and even admitted by Israeli officials. The Israeli Defense Minister has declared a total siege on Gaza, stating, "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed."
For months, thousands of trucks loaded with lifesaving supplies have been unable to reach those in desperate need due to these blockades. It is illegal under current laws to continue military aid to Israel, especially an additional $9 billion without conditions.
Currently, in Gaza, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and 77,000 injured since the onset of the conflict, with 70% of the casualties being women and children. The psychological trauma inflicted on the 19,000 children who are now orphans is immeasurable. They have endured tremendous suffering—witnessing death, destruction, and displacement, and facing severe shortages of basic necessities.
This past weekend alone, 139 Palestinians were killed, and 251 were injured, including 29 in the Rafah area—among them, 20 children and six women, one of whom was pregnant. Approximately 1.7 million people, over 75% of Gaza's population, have been displaced, with satellite data showing that 62% of homes in Gaza have been either damaged or destroyed.
The infrastructure in Gaza is in ruins. There is virtually no electricity, most roads are severely damaged, and more than half of the water and sanitation systems are non-functional, leading to limited access to clean drinking water and widespread disease due to untreated sewage. The healthcare system is on the brink of collapse; 26 out of 37 hospitals are non-operational, forcing doctors to perform surgeries without basic medical supplies. The education system has also suffered heavily, with 56 schools destroyed and 219 damaged, and the last of Gaza's universities demolished in January, leaving some 625,000 students without access to education.
Mr. President, it is critical that we reconsider our role and complicity in these actions. The devastation and suffering in Gaza call for an urgent reassessment of our foreign policy and aid commitments.” ~ Senator Bernie Sanders
After Senator Sanders’ plea in this video, the Senate approved a package of bills to send many billions of dollars to fund Israel’s genocide.
Joe Biden signed it on 4/24/24. Again, money earmarked to fun humanitarian aid for Gaza is unlikely to reach them.
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There is Truly Evil in This World But We Can’t Stop Fighting
We have to keep going, we have to keep fighting, we have to keep making people aware.
It’s hard when there are new atrocities every day and when people you otherwise thought were good people are gaslighting you or burying their heads in the sand.
But we see what we see and we know what we know.
If the Holocaust was going on right now you and I would do what we could to stop it, to speak out.
The genocide on Gaza is going on right now and you and I are doing what we can to stop it, to speak out.
We’re imperfect and we feel useless but let’s keep fighting anyway. It’s what’s right. I do believe that with all of us and with the heart and fight of Palestinians, Palestine will be free.
~
Jenn Dize
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