Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 29,448]

“Israel Needed War” Slavoj Žižek Meets Yanis Varoufakis (Part 3)

 

[Vesper 29,448]

Optimism or Pessimism? | Slavoj Žižek Meets Yanis Varoufakis on the Future (Part 4)

 

[Fulham Broadway 17,092]

Israel closing down the media and free press. They want to control the internet like in China and Russia

 

[Vesper 29,448]

Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza Revealed Through Evidence and Analysis

 

[KEVINAA 110]

Interesting stuff going on in Romania.

 

 

[Vesper 29,448]

How the Conservative Party lost their religion to the pull of the market.

https://www.the-fence.com/jacob-rees-mogg-god/

 

Asking what the point of the Conservative Party is has long been a dangerous exercise. What we can definitely identify – albeit with the aid of those pesky historians – is what it was for.

 

The Church of England (CofE) was once referred to as the ‘Tory Party at Prayer’, which remains the case in the emptying pews of the rolling shires. But in the vicarages and bishops’ palaces, a quiet revolution has long taken since taken place. Openly Tory clergy are an endangered breed, and openly Tory bishops have gone the way of the dodo. Institutionally speaking, the Church of England and the Conservative Party have been engaged in open warfare since the days of Thatcher. It was then, memorably, that Alan Webster, dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, conducted a piece of Premier League trolling by proposing that the Lord’s Prayer be spoken in Spanish at the Falklands War victory celebration service.

 

However, in recent years this fraught relationship has taken an even more invidious turn. For the latest episode of Toryism’s religious psychodrama isn’t being played out among the marble colonnades of St Paul’s, but witnessed in the decrepit church halls of places like Burnley, Doncaster and Everton. The Conservative Party might currently appear to be run by horny, malign Beano characters, yet Toryism’s mutation from shire-reaction to libertarian front is an episode with religion at its core. And it all goes back to the foundation of state care for those in greatest need:

 

The first task of the Church is to inspire the State, which after all very largely consists of the same persons as itself, with the desire to combat evil; and the second is to counteract the one great difficulty which the State experiences. When the State takes up such work as this, there is one thing which we all fear: ‘Officialism.’ What is ‘Officialism’? Simply lack of love; nothing else in the world. It consists in treating people as ‘cases,’ according to rules and red tape, instead of treating them as individuals.

 

So wrote William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the man who popularised the concept of a ‘welfare state’. In the early to mid-twentieth century, the CofE began lobbying for a more compassionate face to government. It invested in housing projects, clinics and food programmes – models they actively encouraged the state to imitate. One of Temple’s best friends was William Beveridge – he of the report. The rest is history (or, at least, soon will be).

 

[The State] provides a basic level of welfare… but on some occasions that will not work, and to have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good compassionate country we are.

 

Thus spoke Jacob Rees-Mogg. His quote perfectly summarises the new Tory relationship to the Church, while providing a perfect model of that ‘lack of love’ that Temple identified a century or so before. In this vision, the Church is a convenient vehicle for respectable altruism that can, if stretched far enough, cover those areas which the state has decided it is no longer worth its while to engage with. Rather uplifting indeed!

 

The Church of course, is stuck in a Catch-22 situation. The government knows full well that they will support society’s poorest as best they can. It is, or ought to be, against the Church’s very raison d’etre to refuse to help. So, the government can make a very cynical calculation about what aspects of the Church they can bolster. Of course, plenty of other faith groups and secular charities are involved in front line provision of services, but the CofE’s presence across the whole of England (and, in a different, disestablished form, across Wales too) and the weird, obsessive energy the Conservative Party gives off in its dealings with it, means that its involvement is often more co-ordinated, more political and can seem more personal as well.

 

In the churches I have been attached to or involved with in Manchester, Liverpool, Oxford and London over the past decade or so, the following initiatives, inter alia, have been launched:

 

– Lunch and breakfast clubs to ensure at least one hot meal for people a day.

 

– Foodbank collection and distribution to ensure minimum nutrition for those on the breadline.

 

– Direct grants of cash to cover heating and electricity bills.

 

– Social spaces for those who are often forgotten: pensioners, the lonely, refugees and asylum seekers.

 

– Reading clubs/in-school volunteers sent in to plug gaps in defunded literacy programmes.

 

All of these might reasonably be described as constituting parts of ‘a basic level of welfare’ – which it is claimed should be provided by the state. In very considerable areas of this country that is manifestly not happening. And the Church is stepping in. So, what’s going on?

 

The shift to Universal Credit, the hostile environment for those within the Home Office’s immigration system, the gig economy, the vast regional inequalities that have emerged in the post-industrial economy, the cutting of local authority funding – the list stretches on and on. All flagship policies for the last decade of Conservative rule, all creating a greater level of work for the Church.

 

Interestingly, all have been opposed by bishops in Parliament – each time drawing a howl of ‘get religion out of politics’ op-eds, tweets, and rants in parliamentary bars by Tory backbenchers who consider themselves unimpeachably ‘sound’ on the historic principles of their party. As the famous mixer of Anglican religion and Tory politics, Jonathan Swift, once observed: ‘I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them unashamed’.

In essence, the wider structure of the welfare state is being treated by those in power as an elaborate game of Jenga – relying on forces, such as the Church of England, that can be taken as read, keeping an increasingly fragile skeleton standing while any support that can be removed is quietly and carefully taken away. The question is, of course, how long can that continue?

 

The CofE has enough on its plate with congregational challenges, internal fights, a clergy retirement time bomb and so on. But it also faces one grim fact. In birthing the welfare state, it surrendered a considerable part of its infrastructural ability to deliver the exact services it’s being called upon to deliver today, time and time again. On a local level, amenities that had come about through the great efforts of brash, confident Victorian religion – wash houses and housing projects and poor schools – were, by the merits of the welfare state, no longer needed. They are now trendy apartment conversions or Wetherspoons or rubble.

 

Put simply, the Church of England is no longer the Tory Party at prayer, but she is also no longer the confident religious hegemon she was even a century ago. It is less confident in its own ability to deliver the goods, and it has good reason to be so. It didn’t think it would be required to do so again.

 

At root, the clergy are desperate not to have to run foodbanks or nursery schools or anti-loneliness initiatives. Anyone who has worked on them will know they are often very far from being ‘rather uplifting’. William Temple’s vision, that the Church should counteract the ‘lack of love’ found in the structures of the state is still, for many, the ideal approach. But as that lack of love strips those structures away, a weaker, less confident Church is being relied upon – not least by those in power – to step into the breach. How long it can stand there is another question.

Fergus Butler-Gallie

[Fernando 6,534]

  On 06/12/2024 at 20:35, Vesper said:

Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza Revealed Through Evidence and Analysis

 

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D and e are not what Israel are doing. 

You can say yes to the other but the context is key as well. They did that because of Hamas terrorists attack them.

That's different then just going up there for no reason and start killing them. 

Still don't see the genocide, just the world hating Israel as usual. Want to fight the rights of the Palestinians because they hate Israel but don't care about doing the same in other parts of the world. Hypocrisy at its best. 

[Vesper 29,448]

  On 07/12/2024 at 13:16, Fernando said:

Still don't see the genocide

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Because you do not want to see it.

You are a zionist apologist (this has been thorougly shown by now), they can do little to no wrong in your eyes, no matter what actions they take.

They are permanently the victims in your eyes, even when they rape, kill tens of thousands of civilians, and grab an ever-increasing share of the Palestinian's land.

I do not support terrorism of any kind, I condemn Hamas, and I certainly am aware of the horrid beliefs that the Islamic religion's followers far too often take (far from limited to the Palestinians), but I also look at the ultra RW zionists' actions and I am appalled.

[Fernando 6,534]

  On 07/12/2024 at 13:38, Vesper said:

Because you do not want to see it.

You are a zionist apologist (this has been thorougly shown by now), they can do little to no wrong in your eyes, no matter what actions they take.

They are permanently the victims in your eyes, even when they rape, kill tens of thousands of civilians, and grab an ever-increasing share of the Palestinian's land.

I do not support terrorism of any kind, I condemn Hamas, and I certainly am aware of the horrid beliefs that the Islamic religion's followers far too often take (far from limited to the Palestinians), but I also look at the ultra RW zionists' actions and I am appalled.

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They do wrong and they should get punish. Theirs some war crimes committed. 

But genocide, please. 

[Fulham Broadway 17,092]

  On 07/12/2024 at 15:07, Fernando said:

They do wrong and they should get punish. Theirs some war crimes committed. 

But genocide, please. 

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Terminology at the end of the day. It is slaughtering women children on an industrial scale. Daily. It will be seen in history as genocide whether evangelical christians are  hoodwinked or not. 

There is no argument to be made, there is the oppressor and the oppressed. The oppressed are the indigenous people of Palestine, and the oppressors the settler colonial visitors from Eastern Europe and the USA (thats why they dont allow DNA testing in Israel). 

The oppressors are systematically murdering, so they can steal their furniture, their houses, their olive groves, their hills, streams, livestock, their land and birthright. 

It is not difficult to understand. It is not a war. It is a genocide. 

Real Christians know this, if they truly look in their hearts rather than listen to some Evangelical millionaire charlatan

 

 

[Fernando 6,534]

  On 07/12/2024 at 15:32, Fulham Broadway said:

Terminology at the end of the day. It is slaughtering women children on an industrial scale. Daily. It will be seen in history as genocide whether evangelical christians are  hoodwinked or not. 

There is no argument to be made, there is the oppressor and the oppressed. The oppressed are the indigenous people of Palestine, and the oppressors the settler colonial visitors from Eastern Europe and the USA (thats why they dont allow DNA testing in Israel). 

The oppressors are systematically murdering, so they can steal their furniture, their houses, their olive groves, their hills, streams, livestock, their land and birthright. 

It is not difficult to understand. It is not a war. It is a genocide. 

Real Christians know this, if they truly look in their hearts rather than listen to some Evangelical millionaire charlatan

 

 

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What real Christians your talking about? 

Some are against Israel. Others are and as Vesper says they can do no wrong. 

I support Israel but in no way I'm blinding accepting everything they do as good. They are human and still make mistakes. 

Similar in Christianity, just because they call themselves Christian they don't get a free pass. Christian can still do dumb stuff. 

Just because I voted for Trump does not mean I'm a favor of everything he does. What is wrong is wrong and I will say it. 

Blind support is what some maga do and as well blind supporters for the left. 

Humans are not perfect and no matter what side they will make mistakes and do wrong. 

With Israel that they done some wrong yes I agree with that. I put it on the war crime level. 

But genocide? Please that is nonsense and made up because people hate Israel. 

Edited December 7, 2024 by Fernando

[Fulham Broadway 17,092]

  On 07/12/2024 at 17:04, Fernando said:

What real Christians your talking about? 

Some are against Israel. Others are and as Vesper says they can do no wrong. 

I support Israel but in no way I'm blinding accepting everything they do as good. They are human and still make mistakes. 

Similar in Christianity, just because they call themselves Christian they don't get a free pass. Christian can still do dumb stuff. 

Just because I voted for Trump does not mean I'm a favor of everything he does. What is wrong is wrong and I will say it. 

Blind support is what some maga do and as well blind supporters for the left. 

Humans are not perfect and no matter what side they will make mistakes and do wrong. 

With Israel that they done some wrong yes I agree with that. I put it on the war crime level. 

But genocide? Please that is nonsense and made up because people hate Israel. 

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It has an ultra right wing government. They advocated 'killing all the human animals'. Cutting off electricity, water, food, destroying all the buildings - today they destroyed the last hospital killing 29 medics, women and children. Every day they kill and lie. I am sorry it is a genocide, and no I dont hate Israel - their government has endless weapons, money, from US taxpayers. No way is it just 'mistakes'. 

[Vesper 29,448]

  On 07/12/2024 at 15:07, Fernando said:

They do wrong and they should get punish. Theirs some war crimes committed. 

But genocide, please. 

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Netanyahu mulls plan to empty northern Gaza of civilians and cut off aid to those left inside

https://apnews.com/article/hamas-israel-generals-plan-eiland-gaza-219d7eb9a3050e281ccc032d5a56263c

 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas militants, a plan that, if implemented, could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes.

Israel has issued many evacuation orders for the north throughout the yearlong war, the most recent of which was Sunday. The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament by a group of retired generals would escalate the pressure, giving Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.

Those who remain would be considered combatants — meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them — and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to The Associated Press by its chief architect, who says the plan is the only way to break Hamas in the north and pressure it to release the remaining hostages.

The plan calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.

There has been no decision by the government to fully carry out the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” and it is unclear how strongly it’s being considered.

When asked if the evacuation orders in northern Gaza marked the first stages of the “Generals’ Plan,” Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said no. “We have not received a plan like that,” he said.

But one official with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan are already being implemented, without specifying which parts. A second official, who is Israeli, said Netanyahu “had read and studied” the plan, “like many plans that have reached him throughout the war,” but didn’t say whether any of it had been adopted. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because the plan isn’t supposed to be discussed publicly.

On Sunday, Israel launched an offensive against Hamas fighters in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of the city. The amount of aid reaching the north has declined significantly since Oct. 1, according to the U.N.

The U.S. State Department spokesperson has said Washington is against any plan that would bring direct Israeli occupation in Gaza.

Human rights groups fear the plan’s potential toll on civilians

Human rights groups say the plan would likely starve civilians and that it flies in the face of international law, which prohibits using food as a weapon and forcible transfers. Accusations that Israel is intentionally limiting food to Gaza are central to the genocide case brought against it at the International Court of Justice, charges Israel denies.

A coalition of Israeli NGOs on Monday urged the international community to act, noting that “there are alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement” the plan.

“States have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer,” they wrote, warning that continuing a “‘wait and see’ approach will enable Israel to liquidate northern Gaza.”

So far, very few Palestinians have heeded the latest evacuation order. Some are older, sick or afraid to leave their homes, but many fear there’s nowhere safe to go and that they will never be allowed back. Israel has prevented those who fled earlier in the war from returning.

“All Gazans are afraid of the plan,” said Jomana Elkhalili, a 26-year-old Palestinian aid worker for Oxfam living in Gaza City with her family.

“Still, they will not flee. They will not make the mistake again ... We know the place there is not safe,” she said, referring to southern Gaza, where most of the population is huddled in dismal tent camps and airstrikes often hit shelters. “That’s why people in the north say it’s better to die than to leave.”

The plan has emerged as Hamas has shown enduring strength, firing rockets into Tel Aviv and regrouping in areas after Israeli troops withdraw, bringing repeated offensives.

After a year of devastating war with Hamas, Israel has far fewer ground troops in Gaza than it did a few months ago and in recent weeks has turned its attention to Hezbollah, launching an invasion of southern Lebanon. There is no sign of progress on a cease-fire in either front.

Israel’s offensive on the strip has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

People in northern Gaza could be forced to ‘surrender or starve’

The Generals’ Plan was presented to the parliament last month by a group of retired generals and high-ranking officers, according to publicly available minutes. Since then, officials from the prime minister’s office called seeking more details, according to its chief architect, Giora Eiland, a former head of the National Security Council.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu told a closed parliamentary defense committee session that he was considering the plan.

Eiland said the only way to stop Hamas and bring an end to the yearlong war is to prevent its access to aid.

“They will either have to surrender or to starve,” Eiland said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to kill every person,” he said. “It will not be necessary. People will not be able to live there (the north). The water will dry up.”

He believes the siege could force Hamas to release some 100 Israeli hostages still being held by the group since its Oct. 7 attack that triggered Israel’s campaign. At least 30 of the hostages are presumed dead.

Human rights groups are appalled.

“I’m most concerned by how the plan seems to say that if the population is given a chance to evacuate and they don’t, then somehow they all turn into legitimate military targets, which is absolutely not the case,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians’ right to move freely within Gaza.

The copy of the plan shared with the AP says that if the strategy is successful in northern Gaza, it could then be replicated in other areas, including tent camps further to the south sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

When asked about the plan Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. was going to “make absolutely clear that it’s not just the United States that opposes any occupation of Gaza, any reduction in the size of Gaza, but it is the virtual unanimous opinion of the international community.”

In northern Gaza, aid has dried up and people are trapped

The north, including Gaza City, was the initial target of Israel’s ground offensive early in the war, when it first ordered everyone there to leave. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble since then.

About 80 trucks carrying aid have entered through crossings in Gaza’s north since Oct. 1, down from roughly 60 trucks a day previously, according to the U.N. website tracking deliveries. A senior U.N. official said one small shipment of fuel for hospitals has entered the north since Oct. 1. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.

COGAT, the Israeli body facilitating aid crossings into Gaza, denied that crossings to the north have been closed, but didn’t respond when asked how many trucks have entered in recent days.

The U.N. official said that only about 100 Palestinians have fled the north since Sunday.

“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X Thursday. “With almost no basic supplies available, hunger is spreading.”

Troops have already cut off roads between Gaza City and areas further north, making it difficult for people to flee, said two doctors in the far north — Mohammed Salha, director of al-Awda Hospital, and Dr. Rana Soloh, at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“North Gaza is now divided into two parts,” Soloh said. “There are checkpoints and inspections, and not everyone can cross easily.” ___

[Vesper 29,448]

  On 07/12/2024 at 17:04, Fernando said:

But genocide? Please that is nonsense and made up because people hate Israel. 

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Israeli finance minister: we will half Gaza’s population in 2 years

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly called for the permanent military occupation of Gaza in order to depopulate the enclave of Palestinians. Smotrich also called for the same to happen in Lebanon and the West Bank, in what many critics are saying is a direct call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Arabs.

 

[Vesper 29,448]

A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel's War Crimes in Gaza

A woman with a child is shot while waving a white flag ■ Starving girls are crushed to death in line for bread ■ A cuffed 62-year-old man is run over, evidently by a tank ■ An aerial strike targets people trying to help a wounded boy ■ A database of thousands of videos, photos, testimonies, reports and investigations documents the horrors committed by Israel in Gaza

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/massive-database-of-evidence-compiled-by-a-historian-details-israels-war-crimes-in-gaza/00000193-979b-d408-a7d3-bfdbf1410000

 

Footnote No. 379 of the carefully researched, wide-ranging document that historian Lee Mordechai has drawn up contains a link to a video clip. The footage shows a large dog gnawing something amid bushes. "Wai, wai, he took the terrorist, the terrorist is gone – gone in both senses," says the soldier who filmed the dog eating a corpse. After a few seconds the soldier raises the camera and adds, "But what a gorgeous view, a gorgeous sunset. A red sun is setting over the Gaza Strip." Definitely a beautiful sunset.

 

The report Dr. Mordechai has compiled online – "Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War" – constitutes the most methodical and detailed documentation in Hebrew (there is also an English translation) of the war crimes that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. It is a shocking indictment comprised of thousands of entries relating to the war, to the actions of the government, the media, the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli society in general. The English translation of the seventh, and to date latest version of the text, is 124 pages long and contains over 1,400 footnotes referencing thousands of sources, including eyewitness reports, video footage, investigatory materials, articles and photographs.

 

For example, there are links to texts and other kinds of testimony describing acts attributed to IDF soldiers who were seen "shooting civilians waving white flags, abuse of individuals, captives and corpses, gleefully damaging or destroying houses, various structures and institutions, religious sites and looting personal belongings, as well as randomly firing their weapons, shooting local animals, destroying private property, burning books within libraries, defacing Palestinian and Islamic symbols (including burning Qurans and turning mosques into dining spaces)."

 

One link takes readers to a video of a soldier in Gaza waving a large sign taken from a barber shop in the town of Yehud, in central Israel, with bodies strewn around him. Other links are to footage of soldiers deployed in Gaza reading the Book of Esther, as is customary on the festival of Purim, but every time the name of the wicked Haman is uttered, instead of simply shaking traditional noisemakers, they fire a mortar shell. A soldier is seen forcing bound and blindfolded prisoners to send regards to his family and to say they want to be its slaves. Soldiers are photographed holding stacks of money they plundered from Gazan homes. An IDF bulldozer is seen destroying a large pile of food packages from a humanitarian-aid agency. A soldier sings the children's ditty "Next year we'll burn the school" – while a school is seen in flames in the background. And there are plenty of clips of soldiers modeling women's underwear that they looted.

 

Footnote No. 379 appears in a subsection titled "De-humanization in the IDF" that's included in the chapter called "Israeli discourse and de-humanization of Palestinians." It contains hundreds of examples of the cruel behavior displayed by Israeli society and the state's institutions vis-à-vis Gaza's suffering inhabitants – from a prime minister who talks about Amalek, to the figure of 18,000 calls by Israelis on social media to flatten the Strip, to Israeli physicians who voice support of the bombing of Gazan hospitals, to the stand-up comic joking about the death of Palestinians, and includes a chorus of children sweetly singing, "Within a year, we will annihilate everyone and then we will return to plow our fields," set to the melody of the iconic War of Independence-era song, "Shir Hare'ut" (Song of Camaraderie).

 

The links in "Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War" also lead to graphic footage of bodies strewn about, in every possible condition; of people crushed under rubble; of puddles of blood; and of the cries of people who lost their entire families in an instant. There are items attesting to the killing of disabled people, humiliation and sexual assaults, the torching of homes, forced starvation, random shooting, looting, abuse of corpses and much more.

• Why there's no excuse for Israelis not knowing what's happening in Gaza
• Rashid Khalidi: 'Israel has created a nightmare scenario for itself. The clock is ticking'
• The chilling testimony of a U.S. neurosurgeon who went to Gaza to save lives

Even if not each and every one of the testimonies can be corroborated, the picture that arises from them is of an army that in the best case has lost control of many units, whose soldiers proceeded to do whatever struck their fancy, and in the worst case is allowing its personnel to commit the most atrocious war crimes imaginable.

 

Mordechai cites evidence of the horrific predicaments the war has forced upon Gazans. A physician who amputates his niece's leg on a kitchen table, without anesthesia, using a kitchen knife. People eating horse flesh and grass, or drinking sea water to ameliorate their hunger. Women compelled to give birth in a classroom crowded with people. Doctors helplessly looking on as wounded people die because there's no way to help them. Starving women being pushed in a chaotic line outside a bakery; according to the report, two girls, 13 and 17, and a 50-year-old woman were crushed to death in the incident.

 

In the DP camps in the Strip in January, according to "Bearing Witness," there was an average of one toilet cubicle for every 220 people and one shower for every 4,500. A significant number of physicians and health organizations reported that infectious diseases and skin disorders were spreading among a great number of Gazans.

 

More and more children

 

Lee Mordechai, 42, a former officer in the IDF Combat Engineering Corps, is presently a senior lecturer in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose expertise is human and natural disasters in the ancient and medieval eras. He has written about the Justinianic plague in the 6th century and the volcanic winter that struck the northern hemisphere in 536 C.E. He approached the subject of the Gaza disaster in an academic-historical way, with dry prose and few adjectives, availing himself of the greatest possible diversity of primary sources; his writing is devoid of interpretation and open to review and revision. Which is precisely why the faces reflected in his text are so utterly appalling.

 

"I felt that I couldn't go on living in my bubble, that we're talking about capital offenses, and that what's going on is just too large, and contradicts the values I was raised on here," Mordechai says. "I'm not out to confront people or to argue. I wrote the document so it would be out there. So that in another half a year or year or five years or 10 or 100 – people will be able to go back and see that this is what was known, this is what it was possible to know, as early as this past January, or March, and that those among us who didn't know, chose not to know.

 

"My role as a historian," he continues, "is to give voice to those who cannot sound their own voices, whether they were eunuchs in the 11th century or children in Gaza. I deliberately seek not to appeal to people's emotions, and don't use words that may be controversial or unclear. I don't talk about terrorists or about Zionism or about antisemitism. I'm trying to use as cold and dry a language as possible, and to stick to the facts as I understand them."

 

Mordechai was on sabbatical in Princeton when the war broke out. When he woke up on October 7, it was already afternoon in Israel. Within hours he grasped that there was a disparity between what the public in Israel was seeing and reality. This understanding stemmed from an alternative system for receiving information that he'd created for himself nine years earlier.

 

"In 2024, during Operation Protective Edge [in Gaza], I returned from my doctoral studies in the United States and from conducting research in the Balkans. I felt then that there was no open discourse in Israel; everyone was saying the same thing. So I made a conscious effort to access alternative sources of information – [based on] foreign media, blogs, social media. It's also similar to my work as a historian, seeking out primary sources. So I created for myself a kind of personal system in order to understand what was happening in the world. On October 7, I activated the system and realized quite quickly that the public in Israel was experiencing a delay of hours – Ynet carried a bulletin about the possibility that hostages had been taken, but I'd already seen clips of abductions. It creates a dissonance between what's being said about the reality of the situation and the actual reality, and that feeling intensifies."

 

The report contains over 1,400 footnotes referencing thousands of sources. It details instances of Israeli troops shooting civilians waving white flags, abusing individuals, captives and corpses, randomly firing their weapons, gleefully destroying houses, burning books and defacing Islamic symbols.

Indeed, the disparity between what Mordechai discovered and the information appearing in both Israeli and foreign media has only grown. "The most prominent story at the beginning of the war was the one about 40 Israeli infants decapitated on October 7. That story generated a lot of headlines in the international media, but when you compare it with [National Insurance's official] list of those killed, you realize very quickly that it didn't happen."

 

Mordechai started to follow reports from Gaza on social media and in the international media. "From the start I got a flood of images of destruction and suffering, and you grasp that there are two separate worlds that aren't talking to one another. It took me a few months to figure out what my role was here. In December, South Africa submitted its formal claims of genocide against Israel in 84 detailed pages with multiple references to sources that could be cross-checked.

 

"I don't think everything has to be accepted as evidence," he adds, "but you have to grapple with it, see what it's based on, consider its implications. Early on in the war, I wanted to return to Israel to do volunteer work on behalf of some sort of civil society organization, but for family reasons I couldn't. I decided to use the free time I had during the sabbatical at Princeton to try to enlighten the public in Israel that consumes only local media."

 

He published the first version of "Bearing Witness," just eight pages long, on January 9. The number of those killed in the Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, officially known as the Palestinian Ministry of Health – Gaza, stood at 23,210 then. "I do not believe anything written here will lead to a change of policy, or convince many people," he wrote at the beginning of that document. "Rather, I write this publicly as a historian and an Israeli citizen in order to state for the record my personal position regarding the horrible current situation in Gaza, as events are unfolding. I am writing as an individual, partly because of the disappointing general silence regarding this subject on the part of many local academic institutions, especially those that are well-positioned to comment on it, even as some of my colleagues have bravely spoken out."

 

Since then, Mordechai has spent many hundreds of hours collecting information and writing, continuing to update the document that appears on the website he's created. Since embarking on this project, he has improved the way he works: meticulously compiling reports from different sources on an Excel spreadsheet, from which, after further examination, he selects the items that will be mentioned in the text. He uses a wide variety of sources: footage shot by civilians, media articles, reports by the United Nations and other international organizations, social media, blogs, and so on.

 

While he acknowledges that some of the sources are not committed to proper journalistic or other ethical standards, Mordechai stands by the credibility of his documentation. "It's not like I copy-paste everything that someone else comes up with. On the other hand, it's clear that there is a gap between what exists and what we would actually like to see: We would like every incident in the Strip to be examined properly by two independent and non-dependent international organizations, but that's not going to happen.

 

"So I examine who's reporting, whether they've been caught lying, if there's some nonprofit or blogger who conveyed information that I can prove is incorrect – and if so, I stop using them and delete them. I give greater weight to neutral sources, like human rights organizations and the UN, and do a sort of a synthesis between sources to see whether it [the information] is consistent. I also work very openly and invite anyone who wants to check me. I will be very happy to see that I was wrong about things I wrote, but that's not the case. Until now I've had to make very few corrections."

 

A perusal of Mordechai's report helps to disperse the fog that has blanketed Israelis since the war broke out. A case in point is the number of fatalities: The October 7 war is the first war in which Israel is not making any effort at all to tally the number of those killed on the other side. In the absence of any other source, many people around the world – foreign governments, media outlets, international organizations – rely on the reports of the Palestinian Health Ministry – Gaza, which are believed to be quite credible. Israel tries to make a point of denying the ministry's figures. Local media outlets usually note that the source of such data is "Hamas' Ministry of Health."

 

Open gallery view

Palestinian children at a food distribution center in Deir al-Balah, last week. Mordechai says more children have been killed in Gaza than all the children in all the wars in the world, in the three years preceding Oct. 7.Credit: AFP/OMAR AL-QATTAA

However, few Israelis know that not only do the IDF and the government of Israel not have their own, alternative figures regarding the number of fatalities, but that senior Israeli sources, lacking no other data, end up effectively confirming that published by the ministry in Gaza. How senior? Benjamin Netanyahu himself. On March 10, for example, the prime minister stated in an interview that Israel had killed 13,000 armed Hamas militants and estimated that for every one of them, 1.5 civilians had been killed. In other words, up to that point, between 26,000 and 32,500 people had been killed in the Strip. On that day, the Palestinian ministry issued a figure of 31,112 fatalities in Gaza, within the range cited by Netanyahu. At the end of that month, Netanyahu spoke of 28,000 dead – about 4,600 fewer than the official Palestinian figure. In late April, The Wall Street Journal quoted an estimate by high-ranking IDF officers that the number of dead was approximately 36,000 – more than the number published by the Palestinian ministry at the time.

 

Mordechai: "

 

It seems as if, on the Israeli side, they're choosing not to deal with the figures, although Israel could ostensibly do it – the technology exists, and Israel controls the Palestinian Population Registry.

 

 The defense establishment also has facial images; they could cross-check them and see that someone who may have been reported dead has gone through a checkpoint. Come on, show me! Give me proof and I will change my approach. It will make my life more complicated, but I will be a lot less upset.

 

"I think we must ask ourselves what 'bar' of evidence is required in order for us to change our views about the number of Palestinians who have been killed. That's a question that each of us needs to ask themselves – maybe for you the evidence I'm citing isn't sufficient – because there must be some sort of realistic stage in the accumulation of evidence at which we will accept the numbers as reliable.

 

"For me," he explains, "that point arrived long ago. And after one does the dirty work and understands the numbers a little better, the issue starts to be not one of how many Palestinians died, but why and how the Israeli public continues to doubt these figures after more than a year of hostilities and contrary to all the evidence."

 

In his report, he quotes Palestinian ministry's figures that cite – among those killed from the time the war broke out, up until this past June – 273 employees of the UN and aid organizations, 100 professors, 243 athletes, 489 health workers (including 55 specialist physicians), 710 children under the age of one year and four preemies who died after the IDF forced the male nurse who was caring for them to leave the hospital. The nurse was caring for five preemies and decided to save the one who looked as if he would have the best chance to survive. The decaying bodies of the other four were found in incubators two weeks later.

 

The footnote in Mordechai's text dealing with those infants does not reference a tweet by a Gazan or a pro-Palestinian blog, but an investigation by The Washington Post. Israelis who may question "Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War" on the grounds that it relies on social media or on unverified reports must realize that it is also based on dozens of investigations by almost every self-respecting Western media outlet. Numerous outlets have examined incidents in Gaza using rigorous journalistic standards – and came up with evidence of atrocities. A CNN investigation corroborated the Palestinian claim about the "flour massacre," in which about 150 Palestinians who arrived to collect food from an aid convoy on March 1 were killed. The IDF declared that it was the crowding and stampeding of the Gazans themselves that killed them, not warning shots fired by soldiers in the area. Ultimately, CNN's investigation, based on careful analyses of documentation and 22 interviews with eyewitnesses, found that most of the fatal casualties indeed stemmed from the shooting.

 

Asked which image has had the greatest impact on him, Mordechai mentions a photo of the body of Jamal Hamdi Hassan Ashour, 62, who was reportedly run over by a tank, his body mangled beyond recognition. The image was posted on an Israeli Telegram channel with the caption, "You're going to love this!"

The New York Times, ABC, CNN, the BBC, international organizations and the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem published results of their own investigations of incidents of torture, abuse, rape and other atrocities perpetrated against Palestinian detainees in the IDF's Sde Teiman base in the Negev and other facilities. Amnesty International examined four incidents in which there was no military target or justification for attack, in which IDF forces killed a total of 95 civilians.

 

An investigation in late March by Yaniv Kubovich in Haaretz showed that the IDF created "kill zones" in which many civilians were shot after crossing an imaginary line demarcated by a field commander; the victims were categorized as terrorists after their death. The BBC has cast doubt on the IDF's estimates of the number of terrorists its forces have killed in general; CNN reported extensively about one incident in which an entire family was wiped out; NBC investigated an attack on civilians in so-called humanitarian zones; The Wall Street Journal verified that the IDF was relying on reports of fatalities in Gaza that were published by the Palestinian Health Ministry; AP claimed in a detailed report that the IDF had presented only one reliable piece of evidence showing that Hamas was operating on the grounds of a hospital – the tunnel that was discovered in the yard of Shifa Hospital; The New Yorker and The Telegraph published the results of extensive investigations of cases involving children whose limbs had to be amputated, and there is much more – all of it mentioned in "Bearing Witness."

 

Not included is a report published just this week by the Palestinian Health Ministry – Gaza, stating that since October 7, 1,140 families have been totally wiped out of the local population registry – most likely victims of aerial bombings.

 

Mordechai cites numerous items relating to the IDF's lax rules of engagement in the Gaza Strip. One clip shows a clutch of refugees with a woman in the front, holding her son in one hand and a white flag in the other; she is seen being shot, probably by a sniper, and collapsing as the child drops her hand and flees for his life. Another incident, widely reported in late October, shows 13-year-old Mohammed Salem crying for help after being wounded in an air force attack; when people approach to offer aid, they are targeted by another such attack. Salem and another youngster were killed, and over 20 people were wounded.

 

Mordechai acknowledges that watching the visual testimony from the war has hardened his heart – today he can view even the most awful scenes. "When the ISIS videos were posted [years ago], I didn't watch them. But here I have felt that it's my obligation, because this is being done in my name, so I must see it in order to convey what I've seen. What's important is the quantity; it's children and again children and once more children."

 

Open gallery view

Mordechai. "I wrote this so that in another half-year or in 100 years, people will go back and see that this is what it was possible to know, as early as January, and that those among us who didn't know, chose not to know."Credit: Olivier Fitoussi

Asked which of the thousands of images, whether videos or stills, of dead, wounded or suffering people have had the greatest impact on him, Mordechai thinks and mentions a photo of the body of a man who was later identified as Jamal Hamdi Hassan Ashour. Ashour, 62, was reportedly run over by a tank in March, his body mangled beyond recognition. A zip tie on one of his hands attested to the fact that he had been detained beforehand, Palestinian sources say. The image was posted on an Israeli Telegram channel with the caption, "You're going to love this!"

 

"I have never in my life seen anything like that," Mordechai tells Haaretz. "But worse than that was the fact that the image was shared by soldiers in an Israeli Telegram group and got very favorable reactions." Besides the information about Ashour, "Bearing Witness" provides links to images of a number of other bodies whose condition suggests that they were run over by armored vehicles. In one case, according to a Palestinian report, the victims were a mother and her son.

 

One case mentioned only in a footnote attests to issues relating to Mordechai's methods and to the dilemmas he has faced. At the end of March, Al Jazeera ran an interview with a woman who arrived at Gaza's Shifa Hospital and said that IDF soldiers had raped women. Shortly afterward, the woman's family denied the allegations she had made, and Al Jazeera deleted the report, but many people had lingering doubts.

 

"According to my methodology, after Al Jazeera's deletion, it's not credible and it didn't happen," Mordechai says. "But I also ask myself: Maybe I'm participating in the silencing of that woman? And the silencing is not for reasons of honoring the truth, but in the name of her and her family's honor. Is it perfect? It's not perfect, but in the end I am a human being and I have to decide. So in a footnote I explained that it was one woman's allegation and I added [that it was] 'almost certainly false' to express my reservations.

 

"I don't guarantee that each and every testimony is completely reliable. In fact, no one knows exactly what is happening in Gaza – not the international media, certainly not the Israelis and not even the IDF. In 'Bearing Witness,' I argue that the silencing of voices from Gaza – restriction of the information coming out of there – is part of the working method that is making the war possible. I stand behind the synthesis that I am using, and I wish I was wrong. But from the Israeli side there's nothing. I'm talking about proof – bring me proof!"

 

One case described in the document, even though many Israelis will have a hard time believing it, relates to the IDF's use of a drone that emitted sounds of an infant crying in order to determine where civilians were located and perhaps draw them out of their shelter. In the video referenced by the link Mordechai gives, crying is heard and the lights of a drone can be seen.

 

"We know there are drones with loudspeakers, maybe some bored soldier decides to do it as a joke and it's perceived by the Palestinians to be horrific," he says. "But is it really so far-fetched that some soldier, instead of being filmed with panties and bras or dedicating the detonation of a street to his wife, would do something like that? It might be made up, but it's compatible with what I am seeing." This week Al Jazeera broadcast an investigative report about the so-called crying drones and claimed that their use had been confirmed by a number of eyewitnesses who all related the same story.

 

"We may still argue about anecdotal testimony of that kind, but it's harder to do so when faced with mountains of more substantiated testimony," Mordechai notes. "For example, dozens of American physicians who did volunteer work in Gaza reported that almost every day they saw children who had been shot in the head – how can that be explained? Are we even trying to explain or to cope with that?"

 

More children have been killed in Gaza than in all the wars in the world in the three years preceding October 7. In the first month of the war the number of dead children was 10 times the number of those killed in the Ukraine war over the course of a year.

One of the heights of Israeli military brutality in Gaza was evident during the second major raid on Shifa Hospital in mid-March, the historian adds; indeed, he devotes a separate chapter to it. The IDF claimed that the hospital was a hub of Hamas activity at the time and that there had been exchanges of fire during the raid, after which 90 Hamas personnel had been arrested, some of them high-ranking.

 

However, the IDF's occupation of Shifa went on for about two weeks. In that period, according to Palestinian sources, the hospital became a zone of murder and torture. Apparently 240 patients and medical staff were locked into one of the buildings for a week with no access to food. Physicians on the premises reported that at least 22 patients died. A number of eyewitnesses, including staffers, described executions. A video shot by a soldier shows bound and blindfolded detainees sitting in a corridor, facing a wall. According to the sources, after the IDF withdrew from the hospital, dozens of bodies were discovered in the yard. There are a number of clips documenting collection of the bodies, some of them mutilated, others buried under rubble or lying in large pools of clotted blood. A rope was tied around the arm of one of the dead men, possibly showing that he was tied up before being killed.

 

Other heights of brutality have been reached during the past two months in the rolling military operation still underway in the northern part of the Strip. The operation began on October 5. The IDF cut off Jabalya, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun from Gaza City, and inhabitants were ordered to leave. Many did, but many thousands have remained in the besieged zone.

 

At that stage the army launched what former IDF chief of staff and defense minister Moshe Ya'alon this week called "ethnic cleansing" of the area: Aid groups were banned from entering the area, the last depot of flour was burned down and the last two bakeries shuttered, and even activity by civil defense teams who evacuated casualties was prohibited. The supply of water was disrupted, ambulances were disabled and the hospitals were attacked.

 

But the army's main effort has centered around aerial raids. Almost every day Palestinians reported dozens killed when residential buildings and schools, which had become DP camps, were bombed. Mordechai's report cites dozens of well-documented accounts concerning bombing campaigns – families collecting the bodies of loved ones among the ruins, funerals at huge mass graves, wounded people covered in dust, adults and children in shock, people crying out with body parts strewn around them, and so on.

 

Open gallery view

The aftermath of the IDF's two-week operation in Shifa Hospital, in April.Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

In a video clip from October 20, two children are seen being pulled out of the rubble. The first looks stunned, his eyes bulging, and totally covered in blood and dust. Next to him a lifeless body, apparently of a girl, is removed.

 

In the past two weeks, Haaretz, for its part, has sent queries to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit concerning some 30 incidents, most of them in Gaza, in which many civilians have been killed. The unit responded that it has classified most of them as unusual events and they have been referred to the General Staff for further investigation.

 

Mordechai rejects out of hand the commonly heard claim by Israelis that what is happening in Gaza isn't so terrible when compared to other wars. "Bearing Witness" shows, for example, that more children have been killed in Gaza than all the children in all the wars in the world in the three years preceding the October 7 war. Already in the first month of the war the number of dead children was 10 times greater than the number of those killed in the Ukraine war over the course of a year.

 

More journalists have been killed in Gaza than in all of World War II. According to an investigation that Yuval Avraham published on the Sicha Mekomit (Local Call) website, about the AI systems used in IDF bombing campaigns in Gaza, authorization was given to kill up to 300 civilians in order to assassinate high-ranking Hamas figures. By comparison, documents reveal that for America's armed forces that figure stood at one-10th of that number – 30 civilians – in the case of a murderer on a larger scale than Yahya Sinwar: Osama Bin-Laden.

 

There don't have to be death camps for it to be considered genocide. It's all boils down to the commission of acts and the intent, and the existence of both has to be established.

Lee Mordechai

An investigative report by The Wall Street Journal states that Israel rained down more bombs on Gaza in the first three months of the war than were dropped by the United States in Iraq over six years. Forty-eight prisoners died in Israeli detention facilities in the past year, compared to nine in Guantanamo in its entire 20 years of existence. The figures are also telling when it comes to the data concerning fatalities in other countries' wars: Coalition forces in Iraq killed 11,516 civilians in five years, and 46,319 civilians were killed in the 20 years of the war in Afghanistan. According to the most lenient estimates, some 30,000 civilians have been killed in the Strip since October 7, 2023.

 

Mordechai's report reflects not only the horrors that are occurring in Gaza but also Israel's indifference to them. "At the start there was an attempt to justify the invasion of Shifa Hospital; today there isn't even that pretense – you attack hospitals and there is no public discussion. We are not coping in any way with the implications of these operations. You open up social media and you're flooded by the dehumanization. What is this doing to us? I grew up in a society with a totally different ethos. There were always rotten apples, but look at the No. 300 bus case [an event in 1984, in which Shin Bet agents in the field executed two Arabs who had hijacked a bus] and see where we are now. It's important for me to hold up a mirror, it's important for me for these things to be out there. That's my form of resistance."

 

A dark secret

 

In the more recent versions of "Bearing Witness," Mordechai has added an appendix that explains why, in his opinion, Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide, a subject he expounds on in our conversation. "We need to disconnect the way we think of genocide as Israelis – gas chambers, death camps and World War II – from the model that appears in the [1948] Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," he explains. "There don't have to be death camps for it to be considered genocide. It's all boils down to the commission of acts and the intent, and the existence of both has to be established. In regard to committing acts, it's killing, but not only – [there is] also wounding people, abduction of children and even just attempts to prevent births among a particular group of people. What all these acts have in common is the deliberate destruction of a group.

 

"People I speak to generally don't argue about the actions taken; they argue about the intent. They will say that there is no document showing that Netanyahu or [IDF Chief of Staff] Herzl Halevi ordered genocide. But there are declarations and there are testimonies. Lots and lots of them. South Africa submitted a document of 120 pages that contained a great many testimonies proving intent. The journalist Yunes Tirawi collected declarations about genocide and ethnic cleansing from social media of more than 100 people with connections to the IDF – apparently many reserve officers.

 

"What are we doing with all this? From my point of view, the facts speak. I see a direct line between those declarations, an absence of trying to grapple with those declarations, and the reality on the ground that corresponds to the declarations."

 

The English-language version of "Bearing Witness" refers to articles by six leading Israeli authorities, who have already stated that in their view Israel is perpetrating genocide: Holocaust and genocide expert Omer Bartov; Holocaust researcher Daniel Blatman (who wrote that what Israel is doing in Gaza is somewhere between ethnic cleansing and genocide); historian Amos Goldberg; Holocaust scholar Raz Segal; international law expert Itamar Mann; and historian Adam Raz.

 

"The definition is less important," Mordechai says. "What's important is the actions. Let's say that the International Court of Justice in The Hague declares in another few years that it's not genocide but almost genocide – does that make it better? Does that attest to a moral victory by Israel? Do I want to live in a place that perpetrates 'almost genocide'? The debate over the term draws attention, but the things happen one way or the other, whether they reach the bar or not. In the end we must ask ourselves how we stop this and how we will answer our children when they ask us what we did during the war. We must act."

 

But the definition is important. You are telling Israelis, "Look, you're living in Berlin 1941." What is the moral imperative for people who lived in Berlin then? What is a citizen supposed to do when his state commits genocide?

 

"A moral stance always carries a price. If there is no price, it's just an accepted, normative stance. The value of a thing for a person is expressed in the price they are willing to pay for it. On the other hand, I realize that people also have other considerations and needs – to bring food home, to preserve ties with their family – everyone has to make their own decisions. From my point of view, what I do is to talk and to go on talking, whether people listen to me or not. This consumes endless time and mental strength, but I've reached the conclusion that it's the most useful thing I can do."

 

After we parted, Mordechai sent me a last link. This one was not related to testimony of atrocities in Gaza, but to a short story by the late American novelist Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." The story is about the city of Omelas, where people are beautiful and happy, and their lives are interesting and joyful. But as adults the citizens of Omelas gradually learn their city's dark secret: Their happiness depends on the suffering of a child who is compelled to remain in a filthy room underground, and they are not allowed to console or assist her/him. "It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children," Le Guin writes.

 

The majority of Omelas' residents continue to live with this knowledge, but from time to time one of them visits the child and does not return, but instead keeps walking and abandons the city. The story concludes: "They walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go toward is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going."

 

The IDF Spokesman's Office commented in response that the IDF "operates only against military targets, and takes a variety of precautions in order to avoid harm to noncombatants, including issuing warnings to the citizenry. In regard to arrests, any suspicion of a violation of orders or international law is investigated and addressed. In general, if there is a suspicion of untoward conduct on the part of a soldier, of a possible criminal nature, an investigation is opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division."

 

Edited December 7, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 29,448]

  On 07/12/2024 at 17:04, Fernando said:

Just because I voted for Trump

Expand  

would love to see you square that (voting for the most 'anti-Christ-natured' US President ever, a creature of nothing if not pure HATE)

with the most fundamental of Christ's teachings (God is LOVE, love one another)

 

The Sermon On The Mount is literally one of the most devastating critiquess of Trumpian behaviour ever written

 

 Matthew 5

1: And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

2: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

3: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4: Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5: Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6: Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7: Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8: Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9: Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10: Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12: Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

13: Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14: Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15: Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

17: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

18: For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19: Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20: For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

21: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.

22: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

23: Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

24: Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

25: Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

26: Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

27: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery.

28: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

29: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

30: And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

31: It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.

32: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

33: Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

34: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

35: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

36: Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

37: But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

38: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40: And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.

41: And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

42: Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

43: Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

45: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

46: For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?

47: And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Matthew 7

1: Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2: Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

3: But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

4: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

5: And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6: But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

7: But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8: Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

9: After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11: Give us this day our daily bread.

12: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

14: For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

16: Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

17: But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;

18: That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

19: Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

20: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

21: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

22: The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

23: But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

24: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25: Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26: Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27: Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28: And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30: Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31: Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32: (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33: But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 7  

1: Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2: For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4: Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

6: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

7: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

8: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

9: Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

10: Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

11: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

12: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

13: Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

15: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16: Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17: Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18: A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19: Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20: Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

21: Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23: And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

24: Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

26: And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

28: And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:

29: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

[Fernando 6,534]

  On 07/12/2024 at 18:41, Vesper said:

would love to see you square that (voting for the most 'anti-Christ-natured' US President ever, a creature of nothing if not pure HATE)

with the most fundamental of Christ's teachings (God is LOVE, love one another)

 

The Sermon On The Mount is literally one of the most devastating critiquess of Trumpian behaviour ever written

 

 Matthew 5

1: And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

2: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

3: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4: Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5: Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6: Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7: Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8: Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9: Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10: Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12: Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

13: Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14: Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15: Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

17: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

18: For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19: Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20: For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

21: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.

22: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

23: Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

24: Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

25: Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

26: Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

27: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery.

28: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

29: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

30: And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

31: It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.

32: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

33: Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

34: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

35: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

36: Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

37: But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

38: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40: And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.

41: And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

42: Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

43: Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

45: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

46: For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?

47: And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Matthew 7

1: Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2: Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

3: But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

4: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

5: And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6: But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

7: But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8: Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

9: After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11: Give us this day our daily bread.

12: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

14: For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

16: Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

17: But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;

18: That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

19: Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

20: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

21: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

22: The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

23: But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

24: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25: Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26: Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27: Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28: And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30: Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31: Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32: (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33: But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 7  

1: Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2: For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4: Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

6: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

7: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

8: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

9: Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

10: Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

11: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

12: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

13: Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

15: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16: Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17: Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18: A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19: Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20: Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

21: Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23: And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

24: Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

26: And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

28: And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:

29: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

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I agree but it was that or Harris.

Like I have said I don't agree with everything with trump. 

[Fernando 6,534]

  On 07/12/2024 at 17:55, Vesper said:

 

Israeli finance minister: we will half Gaza’s population in 2 years

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly called for the permanent military occupation of Gaza in order to depopulate the enclave of Palestinians. Smotrich also called for the same to happen in Lebanon and the West Bank, in what many critics are saying is a direct call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Arabs.

 

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War crimes seems to me. 

They should face justice for that.