What a disappointing night and broadcast. Rebecca's "1 of the worst academy awards ever" captured the broadcast early on.
Oppenheimer was the usual overpraised garage from Christopher Nolan. A bad, poorly thought out film that could have said something but that would have required telling the true story -- and that would have required including the story of the Japanese. Instead, i twas another offensively White film. That's all MAGA Nolan ever has to offer.
Yet the garbage won Best Picture and Best Director.
I was okay with Robert Downey Jr.'s win for the film because he's long overdue. Also he didn't have a lot of competition. Robert De Niro in another ridiculous role. Everything since Cape Fear has been an embarrassing career low point.
Best actor, however, did have some strong competition. I was rooting for Colman Domingo, then Jeffrey Wright and the Paul Giamatti. And would have been happy if any one of the three had won. I would have even been okay if Bradley Cooper had won. But an ugly male modle who lost his ooks and we're supposed to pretend that passes for acting? I guess an aged trick needs something to prop up a sad career and maybe the award will do that for Cillian Murphy?
Best Actress? I was rooting for Annette Bening. I was also okay with Emma Stone winning. She did. Good for her. Just glad it wasn't Lily Gladstone. Supporting actresses do not belong in the Best Acress category. Fatty wasn't a lead actress -- not by screen time, not by the focus of the script. Fatty took up a spot that a real actress could have had. Fatty Gladstone took the nomination that should have gone to Fantasia, Halle Baily or Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor -- among others.
Fatty Gladstone played a supporting role in the film. When you're a fatty, the Academy apparently feels sorry for you and pretends you're playing a leading role and that you're playing it well.
Best supporting actress? I was fine with Jodie Foster or Da'Vine Joy Randolph winning so I had no problem when Da'Vine won.
But the effort to pretend that the paint-by-number Oppenheimer was 'about something' when it was just more of grown White men playing little boys and the sexist response to Barbie? That really captured how disgusting the presentation was.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, March 8, 2024. Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union
Address, Gaza remains his biggest problem, while he scored some
successes last night and delivered the remarks perfectly he has still
not seriously addressed Gaza, though the media hasn't noted it, Super
Tuesday wasn't a bad day for Marianne Williamson, and much more.
In the US last night, President Joe Biden delivered the Constitutionally mandated State of the Union Address. How was it?
For Joe, pretty damn good.
It could have been the night he was destroyed. Some might feel it should have been.
Yesterday's snapshot
was up about a half hour before the first call came in -- from a DNC
friend -- asking, "What the hell are you talking about?" I explained
the FOX NEWS headline. We walked it through and it would have been the
end of Joe's chances at re-election.
Fortunately
for Joe Biden, the GOP is a bunch of idiotic malcontents. They had the
way to take him down last night. They were too interested in
performative and not in action.
Joe has a month
or two where he can end the assault on Gaza (and should end it today)
but if not don't be surprised if even idiots like the current make up of
the Republican Party stumble upon to a victory strategy.
How can Joe demand a cease-fire, how can he make it happen?
That's what I heard over and over in the calls that followed.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were all pretending we still had our virginity.
Take
Netanyahu out. That doesn't mean murder. That means we have
information, we have a spy network, he's a shady character already
facing corruption chares in his own country. He grows increasinly
unpopular. Political murders are no longer done with bullets, they're
done with gossip.
Tut-tuting from the newly
chaste was the response -- to which I replied, "So you don't want to be
part of my dinners this month?" That's right. That's where I go to DC
and drop gossip.
For example?
You:
A Republican star in Congress. So thrilled and focused on your
future. Me? The celebrity you bothered at a wedding back when you were
a young man. The celebrity your boyfriend bothered. Although I felt
sorry for him because he was a little younger than you and I got the
distinct impression that you affair began while he was underage. Donna
the disgusting women who kept trying to get you in pictures with me. I
meet millions of people. The joke is I know everyone. I don't. And I
don't remember everyone. But too bad for you, you made it into a recent
snapshot and there I was just spit balling, doing a little parody of
you in the snapshot, giving you a home town in the snapshot and the
person I'm dictating the snapshot to asks for a pause and he looks it up
and that is your small town. How did I know it? That's when it all
comes rushing back to me. And I have the photos. I don't throw out
photos. I put them in my journals. I was there for a friend's wedding
And you were there with your fifty-something hag and your boyfriend.
And I have the pictures. I'll be dining out with various politicians
over the next few weeks explaining who you really are when you're not
verbally attacking LGBTQ+ people. Every time you speak to attack them,
you're going to know that your colleagues know your full of crap and,
most importantly, they're going to conclude -- like I have -- that your
young life affair continues to this day since your lover is still around
though you pass him off as something other than your lover of several
decades. I like doing this. It tends to make the target a little jumpy,
tends to hem them in and make them watch their vile little mouths a
little more closely. Now at some point, this always happens, someone
whispers to the press. That's not my problem. I didn't whisper to the
press. I just made sure everyone knew that the man screeching about gay
people was in fact a gay man himself -- despite the wife.
That's what I like to do.
I
use the truth. (I used a lie once, for the Iraq War, I've told this
story here before, we needed to remove a newspaper's support for Bully
Boy Bush and I said we could do it in one dinner. On a dare, I proved
it. But, yes, I did lie then. Again, we've talked about that before.
The only time I've used a lie but we needed to strip him of support on
the Iraq War and when I said how it could be done and several Dem
heavyweights scoffed it became, "Oh, you think you know better than me?
Let me show you how it's done." It took one dinner only. The paper
immediately dropped its support for Bully Boy Bush and his illegal
war.)
So the point is, I don't want to hear anymore excuses from or for the White House.
The
assault needs to end. Netanyahu is in a weak position. Confront him
with possible exposure over whatever US spy agencies have on him (I have
no idea what they have him on but I know they've got stuff).
The US government regularly pressures leaders in Haiti to step down, they can manage to twist Netanyahu's crooked wrist.
And if they don't?
Republicans
these days are very stupid but even they are eventually going to catch
on with how to end Joe's political career. He dodged a bullet last
night. I don't think he'll be that lucky again.
Could
be wrong, though. Wouldn't have thought Marjorie Taylor Greene would
show up to the State of the Union looking like the butchest lesbian at a
tailgate party but there she was last night working some intense LOVE
LIES BLEEDING mood..
Making a spectacle out of herself. The way the woman in Texas did. That's the loser that
Elaine was writing about this week.
I was able to call that race a few weeks ago because it was so
obvious. You're a conservative woman and you're hating a man and
forgetting the place you try to consign women to in your conservative
world.
I'm a feminist. I believe women can do anything.
Marjorie's
not a feminist and she is not for women's rights and does not believe
in equality. Her core audience supports her on that. So when 'the
little woman' forgets her place in public and starts booing and hissing a
man, it doesn't always play the way they think. She was the fat girl
getting laughs but now the pep rally's over and she has to deal with the
fact that none of the guys like her or find her attractive in any
manner.
Watching her act that way in public
-- even forgetting that embarrassing outfit -- you really have to marvel
over the self-denial of Marjorie Taylor Greene that allows her to think
she can court the crowd she does while acting the way she does.
Jill
Dutton thought just like Marjorie. She thought she was coming on
'ballsy' or something. Nope. She just looked like a woman attacking --
and, yes, nagging -- a man (Brent Money). These anti-women women don't
seem to grasp that their natural constituency expects them to be
'respectful' of men and to 'know their place.' They get out there in
the real world and want to act like fully empowered people. But their
political statements and stances make that impossible for them to do.
Jill came off like the nightmare image of every conservative man and she
thought that was going to deliver her votes?
Here's Paul Rudnick's take on the the State of the Union Address.
Joe
promised ROE V WADE would be restored -- most likely by codifying it --
if he were elected. That's a promise he better be held to. Barack
Obama promised codifying ROE would be the first thing he did if elected
president but he left the White House after eight years of being
president without ever having even attempted to codify it. Joe gave a
promise that the cost of a month's insulin would be brought down to
thirty-something dollars a month. His speech had strong moments (and his
delivery of it was perfection).
Daniel Villareal (LGBTQ NATION) reports:
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address told transgender
Americans, “I have your back.” He also spoke against book-banning and
“erasing history,” and told Congress to pass the Equality Act,
legislation that would enshrine LGBTQ+ civil rights into federal law.
“Stop denying another core value of America our diversity
across American life,” Biden said, about midway through his speech.
“Banning books — it’s wrong! Instead of erasing history, let’s make
history! I want to protect other fundamental rights! Pass the Equality
Act, and my message to transgender Americans: I have your back!”
His speech starkly contrasted the American “core values” of “honesty,
decency, dignity, [and] equality” with that of “resentment, revenge, and
retribution” held by “some other people my age,” a veiled reference to
former President Donald Trump (whom he never mentioned by name).
“I know the American story,” Biden said. “Again and again, I’ve seen
the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our
nation: between those who want to pull America back to the past and
those who want to move America into the future.”
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and
democracy been under assault at home as they are today,” he noted. Then,
after mentioning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued invasion
of Ukraine — something Putin has justified with anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry —
Biden then mentioned the January 6, 2001 insurrection at the U.S.
Capitol carried out by Trump’s followers.
“Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at
the throat of American democracy,” Biden said. “We all saw with our own
eyes these insurrectionists were not patriots. They had come to stop the
peaceful transfer of power and to overturn the will of the people. “
“January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to
steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the
Civil War,” Biden continued. “But they failed. America stood strong and
democracy prevailed.”
Progressive Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush
raised signs calling on President Joe Biden to "stop sending bombs" to
the Israeli military as he pledged during his State of the Union address
Thursday night to provide more humanitarian aid to Gazans and decried
the war's grisly death toll.
"This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza
combined. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom
are not Hamas," Biden said. "Thousands and thousands of innocents, women
and children. Girls and boys also orphaned. Nearly two million more
Palestinians under bombardment or displacement."
As expected,
Biden announced that the U.S. military will construct a temporary port
on Gaza's coast to facilitate the delivery of food, water, medicine, and
other humanitarian assistance as Israel obstructs aid shipments on the
ground, fueling the spread of malnutrition and disease. Critics blasted
the plan as a PR stunt that wouldn't do nearly enough to relieve one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in modern history.
"A
U.S. port delivering meager amounts of humanitarian aid and empty
rhetoric mean nothing when they are delivered alongside U.S. bombs," said Jewish Voice for Peace Action late Thursday.
The
president also called for a six-week cease-fire—far from the "lasting
cease-fire" that Tlaib and Bush demanded during Biden's speech.
"The only cease-fire that is morally acceptable is a lasting cease-fire," Bush wrote on social media. "It is inhumane to pause the violence for six weeks and then continue sending bombs right after."
While decrying the immense suffering
in Gaza as "heartbreaking," Biden did not acknowledge the critical role
that U.S. weapons have played in Israel's monthslong assault. Since the
deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, the Biden
administration has quietly approved more than 100 separate arms sales to the Israeli government, which has used American weaponry to massacre civilians.
Ahead
of Biden's speech, hundreds of activists demanding an arms embargo on
Israel blocked the route of the president's motorcade as he traveled to
the U.S. Capitol.
Gaza is not going away and needs to
be addressed. Joe's speech succeeded because the GOP is so damn stupid
and because he had certain things he needed to convey and did so. But
Gaza is not going away. And
this summary sentence from NBC NEWS highlights
why Joe can't sell his actions on Gaza to the American people, "Biden
also called for an immediate, temporary cease-fire in Israel's war
with Hamas and pointed to hostages' families in attendance at the
speech, but hopes for a new truce deal by the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan have faded after no breakthrough in the talks in Egypt." He's
calling for an immediate, temporary cease-fire. It's a pause, not a
cease-fire, stop lying to us.
President Joe Biden cruised to victory in Hawaii’s presidential caucus
on Wednesday, receiving 66% of the vote with 99% reporting. However,
just over 1,500 residents cast ballots, and “uncommitted” received 29.1%
of the vote, the highest percentage in any statewide contest thus far.
While
Hawaii Democrats acknowledged that Biden would almost certainly win the
party’s nomination, the select handful of voters who took to the polls
described the contest as a “referendum.”
IN THESE TIMES notes
that March 12th will see the state of Washington vote in their primary
and that "uncommitted" is on the ballot as it will be for the Democrats
Abroad.
In
Hawaii on Wednesday, Marianne got 3.2% of the votes. She could be
relaxing by the pool. She knows she's not going to win. She didn't get
back in to win, she got back in to make sure that certain issues are
being raised.
Marianne
Williamson: The possibilities are enormous. We have everything we
need in this country. The possibilities are endless. We have the people
and the best practices and the projects. People who know how to do
organic and regenerative farming, who know how to reclaim the Earth,
who know how to reclaim our food, who know how to reclaim our land, who
know how to repair us after the ravages of 50 years of corporate
dominance in which the very thought that short term corporate profits
should take precedence over our safety, our health and our well being,
that those economic ideas -- soulless as they are -- should take
precedence over the will of the people. To the point that in the last
50 years there has been a transfer of wealth to the tune of
fifty-trillion dollars. And it has ravaged American middle class. As
soon as they started with this 'trickle down' economic paradigm and as
soon as CITIZENS UNITED Supreme Court decision, gave those corporate
interests the power to basically buy and sell and turn Washington into a
system of legalized bribery. All that money was transferred into the
hands of 1% of Americans. At this point, that level of economic
injustice has ravaged us. It has ravaged our middle class. It has
ravaged our environment. It has put carcinogens in our food, toxins in
our air. We don't have universal healthcare like every other advanced
democracy does because of the insurance companies. Over a million
people in the United States, ration their insulin. You don't have that
in any other advanced democracy because they have universal healthcare.
But all of that because of the greed of the pharmaceutical companies.
Look what has happened to Iowa because of the greed of Big Agriculture
and big food companies and big banks. I don't need to tell you that
there is no state in this country that is not experiencing the ravages
of an old way of doing things and the possibilities of something new.
It's
amazing that she's not news to the media. In Virginia this week? She
got 7.8% of the vote. Do you realize how many Republicans who never
got anywhere near that much have been shoved down our throats by the
media? In Utah this week, she got 5.2% of the vote. 4.3% in Vermont,
4.5% in Texas, 9.12% in Oklahoma, 1.4% in Minnesota, 3.2% in
Massachusetts, 2.9% in Colorado, 3.4% in California, 4.8% in Arkansas --
how is this not news?
It's
not just better than she did in 2020 on Super Tuesday, it's better than
Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, the repellant Tulsi Gabbard and others
did in 2020 on Super Tuesday.
Hopefully,
poli sci students are paying attention -- especially graduate students
because this is a good topic for political science journals. This
weekend, Marianne will be in Atlanta:
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
Over the past few weeks, the Biden administration has been publicly
voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, calling on
Israel to protect civilians and allow in humanitarian aid. But behind
the scenes, the Biden administration has quietly approved and delivered
more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five
months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions,
small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid, this
according to a new investigation by The Washington Post.
AMY GOODMAN:
Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made
public since the launch of Israel’s assault on October 7th, amounting to
over $250 million worth of tank shells and ammunition, which the
administration authorized using emergency authority to bypass Congress.
But in the case of the hundred other weapons sales, known as Foreign
Military Sales, the arms transfers were made without any public debate,
because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the
executive branch to individually notify Congress.
For more, we’re joined by Josh Paul, a veteran State Department
official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to
increase arms sales to Israel amidst its assault on Gaza. Josh Paul is
the former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau
of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, where he worked
for 11 years. He’s now a nonresident at DAWN — that’s Democracy for the Arab World Now. He’s joining us from New Haven, Connecticut.
Josh, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the significance of this Washington Post exposé,
what we’ve learned about the U.S. flooding Israel with weapons as
President Biden talks about saying he’s putting pressure on Israel to
let food aid in?
JOSH PAUL: Thank you, and thank you for having me.
I think what we’ve learned from this story shouldn’t be a surprise to
anyone. It is that the president continues to facilitate the flow of
arms to Israel despite a change in tone. You know, we have certainly
heard the administration call for more humanitarian assistance, for, you
know, at least a temporary ceasefire. But at the same time, it
continues to provide the arms that enable Israel to continue its
operations. So, I think that’s pretty consistent, frankly, with what the
White House has said, including John Kirby from the podium this week,
that this remains U.S. policy.
I think many of your viewers may be shocked to hear that there have
been a hundred sales in the last few months since October 7th. But here,
I don’t think anyone in the State Department will be particularly moved
by this story. Much of the process does, unfortunately, move like a
production line when it comes to cases that do not require, under law,
congressional notification. So what we really have here is both a policy
problem but also a lack of transparency that is built into the system,
and which can only be remedied by a change in law.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
Well, let’s go to what national security communications adviser John
Kirby said. He was questioned at the White House by the journalist
Andrew Feinberg, a correspondent for The Independent in Britain.
ANDREW FEINBERG:
What is preventing the president from communicating to the Israeli
government that if they don’t allow aid, we will not continue supplying
weapons? Why is that not a fair trade: no aid, no bombs?
JOHN KIRBY:
Because the president still believes that it’s important for Israel to
have what it needs to defend itself against a still viable Hamas threat.
Maybe some people have forgotten what happened on the 7th of October,
but President Biden has not.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Josh Paul, your response, both to the question and to Kirby’s response?
JOSH PAUL:
I mean, there you have it. And I think the question could also have
noted that under U.S. law, under Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance
Act, it is actually illegal to provide military assistance to a country
that is restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance. And we know
that this is the case with Israel, because Jake Sullivan himself, the
national security adviser, has said that this is a problem, and, of
course, we would not be airdropping aid into Gaza, were we leaning on
Israel to open the humanitarian aid routes. So, you know, I think there
is a clear case to be made here that we are not in accordance with U.S.
law, certainly out of step, I think, with international law. And at the
same time, the Biden administration position remains: We will continue
to provide arms to Israel, whatever it requests and requires.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
Well, if you could explain, Josh: How much does this differ from the
procedure that’s been in place regarding U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine?
I mean, in this case, as we’ve said, only two approved foreign military
sales to Israel have been made public. What about to Ukraine?
JOSH PAUL:
Yeah. So, for the most part, the procedures and processes through which
we provide arms to Israel versus Ukraine are different. Ukraine
requires an authorization under presidential drawdown authority, as well
as new and novel funding to, for example, Department of Defense’s
Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Those have expired. We are out
of, essentially, both of those. And so, without additional funding, we
will not be able to provide arms to Ukraine.
Israel, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of using its own
money to procure weapons through the Foreign Military Sales system,
through the direct promotional sales system, which, by the way, The Washington Post
didn’t touch on. And it’s quite possible that there’s a hundred more
sales through that other channel to Israel that we don’t know about.
And, of course, you know, we are providing Israel with military ground
assistance, which it can also tap into and knows that it will be able to
tap into, because it has a 10-year commitment from us to continue
providing billions of dollars a year, unlike Ukraine. So it’s a slightly
different situation and much easier, I think, for Israel to continue to
receive weapons even in the absence of a supplemental, unlike Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Colorado Congressmember Jason Crow told The Washington Post
the Biden administration should apply, quote, “existing standards”
stipulating that the United States, quote, “shouldn’t transfer arms or
equipment to places where it’s reasonably likely that those will be used
to inflict civilian casualties, or to harm civilian infrastructure.”
Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Post,
“I am concerned that the widespread use of artillery and air power in
Gaza — and the resulting level of civilian casualties — is both a
strategic and moral error.” Now, Crow is not usually a dove on all of
these issues, but it’s very interesting to see him talk about his
response, his critical response to the U.S. when it comes to Israel.
And this is particularly interesting on the day of President Biden’s
State of the Union address tonight. We don’t know exactly what he’s
going to say. We know there are a number of Americans who have family
members who are being held hostage in Gaza. We don’t know if the Biden
family or the administration will be inviting any Palestinians, and that
Biden wanted to be able to announce a ceasefire tonight, which is
clear, it looks like, will not be happening. But your response to all of
this and how these weapons sales, do you feel, perpetuate the war?
JOSH PAUL:
Yeah, I mean, I think that people who have served in the military or
worked in the Middle East, people like Representative Crow, also,
frankly, like Secretary of Defense Austin, understand that what Israel
is doing is not going to lead to success on Israel’s own terms, as
Secretary of Defense Austin has said. It will lead to strategic failure.
And that is why I think the same is true on the Israeli side, where you
have former heads of Mossad, for example, saying that this is a
dead-end road, that what they are doing is damaging to their own
interests.
But I think that is separate from the political question here. And
the political question is one in which we have a president and, you
know, a set of policies and, frankly, a Congress, as well, for the most
part, that remains set on this course, regardless of the harm it is
doing to Israeli security and to American global interests and, of
course, to so many Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN:
Josh Paul, you were in the State Department for 11 years, and you were
involved with these kind of arms deals. You resigned in protest of a
push to increase arms to Israel. But I wanted to ask you: How much does
protest on the ground affect what’s going on in the State Department, in
the White House? How much do you hear it? I mean, there is a massive
amount of protest in the United States. And no matter who wants to
insulate Biden from it, almost everywhere he goes he is hearing the
chants of “ceasefire.” I mean, tonight, one of his guests will be the UAW President Shawn Fain. The UAW was one of the early unions to call for a ceasefire. How much does it matter?
JOSH PAUL:
I think protest is very important, I think particularly protest when it
manifests at the ballot box, in terms of, for example, the
“uncommitted” vote or the “other” vote that we have seen in states and
will continue, I hope, to see in the coming days, because that signals
to the Biden administration that they really have a political problem
here. And that is really one of the only means we have of getting this
administration to change course in the time that it has left. So I think
that is very important. I think it’s most important when it manifests
directly in the political process, and when it comes with organization. I
think there is a momentum around this issue now, and we have to
maintain that momentum for the, frankly, months and years ahead, because
this is not going to be a long-term pole to shift where American policy
is and has been for many years.
AMY GOODMAN:
Finally, you were inside for years the State Department. Now that
you’ve resigned — and we sort of ask you this every time since then —
how many people inside the administration have reached out to you? Do
you feel that that’s increasing? And how many times do they tell you
that they’ve been discussing this with Biden or the inner circle of
Biden, and what their views on this are? I mean, Biden was no fan of
Netanyahu from the beginning. And so, yet he is embracing him now. What
they are saying?
JOSH PAUL:
Yeah, I mean, I’m still hearing from people I had not heard from
previously, to be clear, who are saying that, you know, “This is not
working. I feel sick to my stomach of being involved in this. And, you
know, I’m trying to make changes, and it’s just not working.” I had
several of those conversations just in the last week with people I’ve
not spoken to before on this issue. So I think the internal pressure,
the internal disgust, frankly, is still there.
But I think, you know, the White House and the president have
surrounded the president with, you know, a council of advisers who are,
for the most part, like-minded with him. And I don’t know how much of
that dissent is actually breaking through, and, even if it did, how much
it would change the president’s decision-making. I think he is where he
is. And, you know, absent significant political pressure, that is not
going to change, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN:
Josh Paul, we want to thank you for being with us, veteran State
Department official, worked on arms deals, resigned in protest of a push
to increase arms sales to Israel and its siege on Gaza. He’s the former
director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, where he worked for
11 years, now a nonresident fellow with DAWN — that’s Democracy for the Arab World Now.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 154 of the assault in the wave that began in October.
Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."
CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is '
the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."
ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."
NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war,
according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service.
Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have
condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.
United Nations Women noted,
"More than
1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza --
have
been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million
women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million
people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."
ALMAYADEEN notes, "The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported on Friday that 30,878
Palestinians have been killed and 72,402 wounded by the Israeli
occupation as the genocide enters its 154th day." Months
ago,
AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."
February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained
on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000
Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of
their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe
Lazzarini Tweeted:
And the area itself?
Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s
military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells."
Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a
new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of
45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War."
At
least 9,000 women have been killed in Gaza since October 7, the
Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said in a statement Friday.
Here's what else the statement said about the conditions of women in Gaza:
- About 60,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip suffer from "malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of appropriate health care"
- About 5,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip give birth every month in "harsh, unsafe, and unhealthy conditions"
The
UN's Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is the main aid agency in
Gaza, also posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter), saying an average
of 63 women are killed in the enclave per day. "On
#InternationalWomensDay, the women in #Gaza continue to endure the
consequences of this brutal war," it said.
UNRWA's
Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said more work is required to
support and protect women. "An immediate ceasefire is the minimum," he
wrote.
The following sites updated:
