Yves here. It seems inadequate to simply keep chronicling the atrocities Israel continues to commit in Gaza. Far too many brave and ethical souls, from medics to journalists to aid workers, have gone to Gaza to try to intervene, and too often wound up dead or tortured or tortured before dead. It would be one thing if these personal sacrifices had made a difference, but like Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation, they appear not to have affected the course of events.
Admittedly, other measures are damaging Israel, even if not quickly enough to save the lives of Gazans. Israel was suffering a food crisis, described in those words even by sympathetic outlets, as of October 2024; Lawrence Wilkerson said in one of his recent YouTube talks that the situation was getting worse. The Houthis are continuing to block Red Sea shipments. Sadly, the BDS movement is having little impact economically but the reputation efffect may still matter. From New Arab:
The pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement appears to be working, with Israel ranking bottom in a recent global brands index list, according to reports.
Israel came in last place in the 2024 Nation Brands Index (NBI) published recently, based on surveys gathered from 40,000 respondents in 70 countries last year by the Anholt Nation Brands Index.
Perhaps more important, Israel is not set up to engage in long-run, open-ended conflict, which is the fix it is in now. The political, economic, and societal fissures are all rising as Netanyahu continues to use escalation as his guarantee of security (as in literally staying out of jail). This is not sustainable, but as we have too often witnessed, seemingly untenable situations can persist well beyond what ought to be their sell-by date.
And in the meantime, the genocide continues.
By Brett Wilkins, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.
“Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” Katz said. “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”
Katz had initially said that Israel would eventually allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but later clarified his remarks following outrage from far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Israel’s defense ministers can’t stop publicly confessing to war crimes:
Israel Katz: “No humanitarian aid is about to enter Gaza and preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it against the population in Gaza.” pic.twitter.com/hYFY8J2ZSb
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) April 16, 2025
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, warned against repeating what he called the “historic mistake” of letting any aid into Gaza, where a “complete siege” declared in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 has fueled widespread starvation, sickness, and other crises.
“It’s a shame we don’t learn from our mistakes. As long as our hostages are dying in the tunnels, there is no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza,” Ben-Gvir said on social media.
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar also discussed the policy Wednesday, asserting that “the despicable murderers in Gaza deserve no humanitarian assistance from any civilian or military mechanism.”
“Only hellfire should be poured on the makers of terrorism until the last hostage returns from Gaza,” Zohar added.
Israeli media reported Wednesday that senior government security officials believe Gaza will run out of humanitarian supplies and food in about a month.
Legal experts say the siege is a war crime, and United Nations experts and human rights groups have called Israel’s blockade and use of starvation as a weapon of war acts of genocide.
The International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—last March issued a provisional order to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Many critics say Israel has ignored the directive.
Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who ordered the siege, are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued warrants to arrest the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the siege.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which advocates for people kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, on Wednesday accused the Netanyahu government of “choosing to seize territory over hostages.”
“The time has come to stop the false promises and slogans. It is impossible to continue the war and at the same time release all the hostages,” the group added, echoing the growing anti-war sentiment among Israeli troops and the general public.
Human rights groups around the world have condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza. On Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières called on the Israeli government to “immediately lift the inhumane and deadly siege on Gaza, protect the lives of Palestinians and humanitarian and medical personnel, and for all parties to restore and sustain the cease-fire” that Israel unilaterally broke last month.
Amande Bazerolle, the medical group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement that “Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance.”
“We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Bazerolle added. “With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.”
Mothers in Gaza, like Hanadi, are salvaging edible bits from mouldy bread to feed their children.
The lack of aid for over a month is having horrific effects on families.
UNICEF continues to call on parties to reinstate the ceasefire and allow the entry of humanitarian aid. pic.twitter.com/8OHSEJuhQC
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) April 16, 2025
Katz also said Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops would remain in so-called security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria for an indefinite period.
“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” and “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza—as in Lebanon and Syria,” Katz said.
Earlier this month, Katz said Israel will be “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements,” a reference to plans by far-right members of Netanyahu’s government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza.
Israeli soldiers have blown the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by IDF troops in what some call the “kill zone” along the border with Israel, including indiscriminate killing and wholesale deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Recent reporting has also revealed the IDF is planning to take as much as 20% of Gaza, including the entire depopulated city of Rafah. U.S. President Donald Trump has also proposed an American takeover of Gaza, the expulsion of its Palestinians, and the development of the “Riviera of the Middle East” in the coastal strip.
Almost all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s onslaught, some of them multiple times. The 558-day assault has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according officials there.
When strategists appear OK with the effects of refugees flooding Europe, and the manipulators who help arms industry keep apocalyptic horrors going in Sudan and Haiti, it looks like black people in Sudan are kept in death spirals so by comparison the Gaza genocide doesn’t seem so bad… to indifferent media.
Why am I reminded of the siege of Leningrad, widely considered a strategic error of the German / Nazi invasion as well as a war crime?
I am also reminded of those who asserted that their god was dead in Auschwitz because their god is still dead in Gaza. The discovery of the death of the deity in Auschwitz meant that German Lutheranism and a considerable portion of Catholicism went into a well-deserved moral crisis. I have yet to see the beginnings of a well-deserved religious crisis in the Anglosphere.
(Conversely, living in the Rainy Undisclosed Region, I am seeing strong condemnation from the Pope and from individual Italian bishops of the depredations of the Civilized West.)
As to Yves Smith’s comment up top: Inadequate? No. There has to be a record of the suffering. Otherwise, we are back to Hitler’s famous comment, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
And still another reason for chronicling and recording:
In 2014, Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish responded to Hitler’s Armenian reference in a poem:
“Who Remembers the Armenians?”
I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I’m drinking it with them
You, murderer –
Who remembers you?
— Nothing More to Lose (2014)
In basic, physical terms, Israel has become a feedback loop with no circuit breakers. An echo chamber. Microphone up to the speaker, shriek going parabolic. A cult. Jim Jones on steroids and speed. An addict needing more to get the high.
This doesn’t end well for anyone. The spiral is only going to get ever tighter, sucking the weak minded in and ostracizing any who fight it. Trump and the Crusader Bros are pouring gas on it.
Israeli hubris might well lead to their implosion. How many new jihadists have they created, people who won’t forget this endless slaughter? But unfortunately, in the process, there is the untold suffering of thousands of innocents. And we, in the U.S., with our billions and billions of dollars for weapons, are rapidly losing what’s left of our humanity.
DJG quoted Hitler that “Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians.” There are lessons from a comparison of the remembrances of the WW II Nazi and Armenian Genocides. The Armenian Genocide was the first large genocide of the 20th century, and the Israeli backed American genocide of Gaza is the first large genocide of the 21st century. It is as much an American as an Israeli genocide. Sadly, since it is done by Israel without accountability, barbarisms like torture, famine and starvation and terror bombing of civilian populations such as in Beirut as weapons of war are normalized and will be repeated.
Efforts to disseminate the lessons of the of the Nazi Holocaust to prevent future atrocities are international. Here in the U.S., the message is aggressively promoted in popular culture, by private organizations and governments. There is a national Holocaust remembrance museum on the National Mall and others in various cities big and small across the country. There have been rare complaints that the suffering of Holocaust victims has been exploited, and this was the subject of a satiric novel, “My Holocaust” by the wife of a former national Holocaust Museum director.
According to Wikipedia’s “Laws requiring teaching of the Holocaust”, 23 states have laws requiring the teaching of Holocaust history in their public schools. The Wikipedia piece has a table with a summary of information for each state including dates of law enactment, a link to the statutes and brief citations of the relevant parts of each law. A few states’ statutes state that other genocides other than the Nazi Holocaust could be included. The Michigan statute, MCL-Section 380.1168 is the only one that specifically mentions and requires instruction in the Armenian Genocide. It states, “Social studies curriculum for grades 8 to 12 includes age-and grade- appropriate, including, but limited to the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. The legislation recommends a combined total of 6 hours of this instruction during grades 8 to 12.” It is reasonable that the Palestinian Gaza Genocide should also be added and taught in Michigan public schools.
The inclusion of the Armenian Genocide was the result of the active advocacy of the Michigan Armenian community and the Michigan chapter of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANC- Armenianweekly.com/2023/05/24/armenian-genocide-education-in-michigan-from-law-to-curriculum-to-training/). There is continuing advocacy that includes the Armenian Genocide Education Committee (AGEC) that is a nonprofit 501c.
There are the Armenian Gate and Quarter in Jerusalem. Armenian Christians have had a centuries long place there. It is another Christian community that is being pressured to leave. Many Armenian Genocide victims sought refuge in Syria.
I’ve done this without result, but I suggest that those concerned write their state legislators and Congress persons to request that the Gaza Genocide be included in any state act including education similar to that of the Nazi Holocaust.
I also suggest if they have not yet done it, that Arab American organizations and office holders take lessons from the Armenian community to promote their cause. This should also be the cause of non-Arabic Americans. We should not shut up.
I suggest we do not use the term “Gaza genocide”.
First, because it is the Palestinians who are being exterminated, not Gaza; we speak about the Armenian genocide, the Tutsi genocide, the Hama and Herero genocide, the genocide of Tasmanians, the genocide of the Jews, etc, so let us say: the genocide of the Palestinians.
Second, because exactly the same procedure is being applied, in the background, at a still smaller but growing scale, to the West Bank; look for videos and photos of Jenin and Tulkarem, and other places such as Tubas and Nur al Sham: the same endless perspectives of cities razed to the ground, people killed, survivors displaced, civilian infrastructure deliberately destroyed. And then there is everything happening in the countryside — to summarize: stealing land and cattle, cutting down trees, polluting fields, expelling inhabitants.
I already stated it, but the only two modern equivalents I can think of regarding the Israeli operation of annihilation in Gaza are (1) the rape of Nanking by the Japanese in 1937-1938; and (2) the destruction of Warsaw by the Germans in 1944 (with the destruction of the ghetto in 1943 as a prelude). This is a comparison that should be widely propagated.
I don’t recall any lasting impression in my education of the Native American Genocide. A few paragraphs perhaps, but it has been mostly white-washed from history (pun imtended).
Even Slick Willie appologized to the Hawaiin people for what the US did to their way of living.
> It would be one thing if these personal sacrifices had made a difference, but like
> Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation, they appear not to have affected the course of events.
Self-immolation, hunger strikes and other actions where the actor-victim voluntarily chooses the violence that is inflicted are arguably still within the realm of non-violent protest. Stokeley Carmichael, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — think of him what you may — made a comment in the ’60s that should be equally relevant today:
‘In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience.’
It should be, except for the fact that we are now, obviously, well into the post-conscience era of human history.