Me neither. I can take that and $5 to *bucks and get a latte.
There’s an awful lot of wheel-spinning in Malinowski’s article and in the comments. People are starving. How does the international community get food to them?
Netanyahu is a shameless man impervious to pressure. The means for food distribution that Israel has set up is a sick joke. Hamas seems to want people to starve. The few U.N. trucks that arrive are being (understandably) mobbed and looted. In theory, the U.N. could force the issue and provide security, which means boots on the ground. I doubt that any country has the requisite internal political capital to send their citizens to Gaza. What practically is to be done?
Malinowski, Jennifer Rubin, Norm Eisen won't say 'genocide' - here's a small sample of some that do:
Human Rights Organizations:
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
University Network for Human Rights
B’Tselem
Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
Subscribed
Genocide Scholars and Experts
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Omer Bartov, Israeli-American professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University
Amos Goldberg, Israeli professor in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Raz Segal, Israeli historian and associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and endowed professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University
Shmuel Lederman, professor specializing in political theory and genocide studies at the Open University of Israel
Martin Shaw, emeritus professor of International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex, research professor at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals, and author of War and Genocide, What is Genocide, Genocide in International Relations
William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and author of several books on international law, including Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes
Dirk Moses, international relations professor at the City College of New York and author of The Problems of Genocide
Daniel Blatman, Israeli historian specializing in the history of the Holocaust and head of the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Lee Mordechai, Israeli historian and associate professor at Hebrew University
Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
Uğur Ümit Üngör, professor of Genocide Studies at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies and the University of Amsterdam
There are people in Israel who are calling it genocide. It is clearly a crime against humanity. The United States is providing the weapons. The United States is complicit, and could stop it instantly. I communicated my observations to my Senators today
This is basically just a summary Tom Malinowski's comments on "Coffee With the Contrarians" from Monday.
As he does there, he puts most the blame on Hamas, rather than the government and military that has been oppressing and brutalizing Palestinians for most of living memory, since long before Hamas existed. ...He does mention Netanyahu, but he does not mention Netanyahu's even more bloodthirsty cabinet and advisors, he does not mention the majority of the Knesset that have openly spoken of removing all the Palestinians from Gaza by force, he doesn't mention the daily war crimes committed by the IDF since long before the past few months...and he entirely omits the ongoing and crucial bipartisan support for Israel's war crimes by the US government, with plenty of help from US media.
Nowhere does he say the word "genocide' - I will add a partial list of the organizations that have concluded Israeli's committing genocide in a separate comment.
He goes out of his way to say how much he supports Israel, while saying that Hamas is 'evil'.
If Hamas is 'evil', what does that make the government that has intentionally starved an entire population? What does that make those responsible for the killing over 60,000 people (the actual number is certainly tens of thousand greater than that)? What does that make the Israeli ministers who say that there are no innocent people in Gaza, that it is 'just and moral' to starve an entire population, as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said over a year ago?
What does Malinowski have to say about those that intentionally target doctors, aid workers, journalists...? About an army that has created the most child amputees anywhere in the 21st century?
Malinowski does not mention anything about the West Bank, where Israel has greatly escalated its campaign of apartheid and violence in the past two years. 2022 was already one of the most deadly years in the West Bank in decades, and it has only gotten worse.
He says nothing of the fact that just days ago, a huge majority in the Knesset voted to outright annex the entire West Bank.. Is this a reflection of the Israeli 'values' he claims to honor? Can this all be blamed on Netanyahu? The IDF just raided yet another aid flotilla in international waters, for the crimes of trying to bring food and baby formula to Gaza... will Malinowski say only 'but, Hamas!'?
Israel has killed several Americans over the past couple years, including aid workers and journalists, and many more before then. Crazed 'settlers' just beat an American to death in the West Bank days ago...any comment from Malinowski?
Contrary to Malinowski's assertions here, a large majority of Israelis — 82 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by Pennsylvania State University — want their government to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza. In another recent survey released by the aChord Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, three-quarters of Jewish Israelis, and 64 percent of all Israelis, said they largely agreed with the statement that “there are no innocent people in Gaza” — nearly half of whom are children.
Like Norm Eisen does in the discussion he shared with the author, Malinowski's primary concern is clearly for Israeli lives. Palestinian lives are at best only a factor in what happens to Israel.
It's time to stop giving primary concern to the effects on the country committing the genocide, and focus on the people who have faced one of the worst ongoing atrocities in decades, one that the US is directly responsible for creating and supporting.
Jason, thank you for adding facts to this piece by Malinowski. It's difficult to find people who are willing to actually share the full truth of more than 75 years of abuse and brutal occupation by Israel. Sadly too many people accept the Zionist perspective and completely ignore the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people.
I wrote and mailed a letter to the Israeli Consulate in NYC and told them as a 71 year old Jew to feed Gaza. That what they were doing was unfathomable to me as someone who was raised in the aftermath of WWII.
I was going to say to myself, when I saw this article: finally, the Contrarians could become a pro democracy reform - up to now, this was a mockery, a false cry for democracy. After all, months and months of genocide of biblical proportions, enabled directly by the American taxpayers - and yet, total silence, complicit in every sense. Alas, this is a frightening propaganda pamphlet, twisting everything, facts, history, justice. Please read this and reflect: '...the suffering of Gazans must be addressed, but Hamas could end it today by releasing its hostages and dropping dead.' What in the world has Hamas to do with this? Israeli prisons have been full of hostages much before October 7, and worse, 2 millions Palestinians in Gaza are basically all hostages, being exterminated after all of theirs destroyed: homes, schools, hospitals, universities, monuments, you name it. The history of Palestinians tragedy, the ethnical cleansing started decades before Hamas - Hamas is a response, not a cause. We talk of 77 years of occupation after the Nakba, that saw 750000 Palestinians lose their land, never to be allowed to go back. Moreover, Hamas was directly created by Israel, which wanted at all cost to diminish the PLO role (this is well documented). Israel is a frightening state, a ethnocracy which gives a Jew the right to immigrate no matter where they are from, and settle on the land of people that have been expelled. It preaches and practices the insane zionist program of a divine right to a land lost thousands years ago, while at the same time negating Palestinians the right to remember the 77 years of constant occupation? But whatever the past was, today we speak of at least 60000 people killed - almost 20000 being children, and as many maimed, mutilated, burned. This is a vast undercount, for some 340000 people are missing, and the forced starvation is now threatening to wipe off the entire population.
The world is ready to stop the genocide, and the only true problem is the direct US support - and tragically, most of the support comes from the Democrats. Even Trump spoke finally about the starvation today, but not Obama, not Clintons, not Biden, not Harris, not anybody that matters in the party echelons, with noble exceptions of Sanders and AOC. We can understand the politicians that have been the artefacts of the genocidal policies of Israel - but how in the world can this platform, free from political pressures, a platform whose role is to protect democracy, stays silent? I can accept - although I cannot comprehend it for the life of me - that people behind it, and those that read this, have no solidarity with people whose very existence is threatened. I can accept that one has no empathy for the victims, although I will never understand it - for why in the world do people cry over Trump's crimes, his attacks on democracy and the rule of law, if they do not care about democracy and rule of law? They believe that it does not apply to indigenous people like Palestinians? But, whatever one feels about Palestinians, how in the world doesn't one see that the Gaza genocide is a main threat to American democracy? It's where it all starts and ends - one can still speak and act openly in the US, except when it comes to Palestine. Defending the right of Palestine to exist can out your job to risk, even your freedom - and the only reason is the complicit silence of democratic forces. If people cared enough, and of enough people cared, the genocide could be stopped today.
I see now the comments of Jason below, who says it all, more completely and more eloquently than me. Please read him and reflect. I personally have trouble expressing myself with clarity for I am heartbroken by what is going on.
I appreciate your mention of my comments, but I think your comment here is perfectly 'complete and eloquent'. I am glad someone else in The Contrarian comment section finally mentions that (most) Democrats are culpable for this abomination.
I would add to Bernie and AOC a couple of other noteworthy representatives in Congress that have been consistent in their criticisms of Israel's crimes and US support - Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib .. there have been a (very) few others too, such as Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, both of whom were attacked by AIPAC and primaried for their advocacy.
Same here, I am really happy to see others show solidarity with the Palestine cause. The Palestine tragedy has been troubling me all my life, but the last 2 years are simply unbearable, heartbreaking.
Regarding US politicians condemning Israeli genocide, ironically is Marjorie Taylor Greene. It tells us how tragic the situation is with the Democrats - most of them are not yet endorsing Mamndani, who to me embodies the hope to salvage democracy - only because je supports the right of Palestine to exist.
It is something with Taylor-Greene. I still think those Democrats that are against genocide in Gaza need to be really careful aligning themselves with her. Her position on this doesn't erase her whole career of doing and saying awful things.
Still, it is quite telling that in this case, Taylor-Greene is more accurately describing what is happening than the writers of The Contrarian, and most Democrats in Congress.
Precisely. I find it, not only ironic, but also heartbreaking. I have been encountering phenomena I call collective madness - example say nazism - before, especially with the destruction of my country of Yugoslavia, and they are very painful when even close people must adhere to groupthink or groupdo (I coined this common behaviour when practice or support wrong because others in their group do). The Gaza situation is even more amazing, the level of collective madness in the US is really hard to comprehend, with all my experience. I understand Israel, it al started wrong and they cannot stop, not after committing unforgivable crimes. One thing that bothers me: I understand that there are many pro Israel, people who even look down at Palestinians - but you should stop the genocide to save Israel, not just Gaza. And maybe secondary at this point of such enormous human tragedy, American democracy too depends on the US stopping to enable the destruction of Gaza. The destruction of Iraq was already a great blow to both American economy and democracy. Our sins haunt us, life teaches us that much.
If Malinowski won't use the word genocide he can say ethnic cleansing.
What the Netanyahu government has done in Gaza is shameful.
A nation founded yo provide a safe homeland for survivors of the Holocaust is now acting in what I can only call an inhumane,calculated manner.
The death toll is now approaching sixty thousand, and even if Israel begins allowing much more humanitarian aid into Gaza the death toll due to malnutrition and starvation will rise, because there're people who are too far gone.
I don't see how this disaster is going to give Israel more security.
An excellent comment. I would just beg to disagree about: ‘A nation founded yo provide a safe homeland for survivors of the Holocaust…’. Israel was founded on the idea of Zionism, which is basically a fascist movement believing in race superiority, and it literally required from the outset robbing Palestinian of their land. It is not surprising that Palestinians call their tragedy of 1948 the Nakba - or catastrophe in Arabic - for it was a catastrophe of biblical proportions. Some 750 000 people were expelled or displaced, with no right to ever go back. This itself is a crime against humanity, and it is not surprising that it took us, slowly but surely, to the genocide of today. The reason Israel was created by UK and US principally was surely partially a sense of guilt, for having denied hundreds of thousands of Jews - if not millions - visas during the Holocaust, and thus indirectly having supported it. And the whole idea, criminal beyond comprehension, to create a country by eliminating the natives - you can understand that centuries ago in Americas, but in modern times, with ideas of autonomy, freedom, equality already present after the French Revolution? And after the Holocaust, to start another biblical mass persecution? Both mind boggling and heartbreaking.
I reject your characterization of Zionism as a fascist movement based on race superiority. Your comment will be dismissed as anti-Jewish (rightfully so) and surely will do nothing to persuade more Americans to fight for an end to the war in Gaza.
If you truly cared, in my opinion, you would make sure what you wrote moved toward a solution instead of created more problems.
I am not sure why you reject my description of Zionism, so it is not easy for me to debate it - and you could be right. Where you are surely wrong is to dismiss it anti-Jewish - actually, you have it totally wrong. To identify a Jew - or a group of Jews - with all Jews is to be anti-Jewish, since that deprives a person of (or a group) od their identity. Just like racism that deprives a person of a certain race to be denied an identity. Moreover, this is the main source of the whole problem, of the destruction of Gaza, the unimaginable, heartbreaking, mind twisting crime against humanity - the weaponisation of anti semitism. I am not allowed to criticise the GOP - that makes me anti American? Where in the world you saw me being anti Jewish? Who gives you the right to equate Zionism with Jewishness? If Norman Finkelstein is anti Zionist - and many other great scholars and so many of my Jewish friends - is Finkelstein anti Jewish? Are my Jew friends anti Jewish?
Finally, when I, or you for that matter, criticise Hamas, do we become anti Palestinian - rightfully so, according to you? This harrowing agenda - which lies at the heart of Zionism - to shut up every critique by a diabolical (and deeply anti Jewish, as I explained) use of anti Jewishness, should stop now. Just like the genocide of Gaza. Now. Enough is enough - to destroy people and their land is unbearable and unacceptable as it is, but to play a victim at the same is lacking all humanity and all decency. All.
Now, nobody knows how a cause is won, so I for one believe in sticking to fundamental values of humanism and truth. What I said, every word, was carefully chosen, after months and months of deliberation and reflection. and I am willing to debate it ad infinitum. Especially the truth. Truth is all we have, literally, and searching for truth and fighting for it, makes it all worthwhile- to me, at least.
What people are demanding is Israel leaves Gaza completely that is part of Palestine. We need the UN and other nations in there to feed people to reestablish the growth and development within Gaza completely separate from Israel and the same actually needs to occur on the West Bank.
We also will need war crimes tribunals on the level of Nuremberg trials for what Israel has done in Gaza.
Even two Israeli human rights agencies have officially accused Israel, their own country, of genocide. This comes after months of almost anybody in the world saying it, one scholar after another, one human rights group after another, one country after another. Is it possible that only people refusing to show solidarity and empathy will end up being Americans, i.e. the majority of Americans? Is it possible that the self-proclaimed progressives and democrats, people fighting the GOP fascist takeover, will keep supporting, better yet enabling, the nazi regime of Israel to keep committing the greatest imaginable official systematic long term ethnical cleansing, and finally extermination of entire people? Is it possible that fascists like Tucker Carlson are showing more solidarity with Gaza than Democrats and democrats generically? It is not enough to see all that suffering, land turned into dust and rubble, children killed, maimed, mutilated, burned, starved to death? I cannot for the life of me comprehend and accept this heartbreaking reality, it is beyond my capacity of imagination. I know of course that this is not the first time, after all we had Holocaust, the greatest crime against humanity - but I have been troubled by this all my life, wondering how inn the world it was possible for so many to remain silent for so long. Today however I am a witness, and unlike nazi Germany, one is not risking one's life by defending the right of Palestine to exist - and moreover, we cannot pretend not to know, we are all witnesses in real time. There is no excuse whatsoever, especially when one preaches solidarity, democracy and rule of law. Fighting Trump and his cronies, but enabling the genocide of Gaza is a mockery of democracy, of human rights and civil liberties - and it is a text-book example of the lack of humanism and empathy. Especially with all the knowledge of the Holocaust and the promise: Never again. Never again means never again. I urge the Contrarians to finally take a stand that will put us one right side of history, and enable us to stop then endless suffering of Palestinians. Palestine must be free like all of us.
I think you have gone to the heart of the matter here. I also see clearly delineated just how easily America has warmed up to its new role as a country of Autocratic Fascism, heavily complicit in murder.
" Americans must speak out on the catastrophe in Gaza."
No! Americans must speak out on the GENOCIDE in Gaza. So must The Contrarian. If you won't acknowledge this for what it is, please make that official and tell us subscribers what stance The Contrarian will take.
The world has recognized, finally, that Israel is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians. The world must also recognize that while yes, Hamas is guilty of its own barbarity, in no small part October 7, 2023 was a response to the decades of Israel's unlawful, destructive occupation and settlements in Palestine. Like more than 140 other nations have already done, the US must recognize the state of Palestine immediately. To do so might coast DJT his sweetheart deal with Netanyahu for Gaza, so our president will push back on this, as will his Congressional lackeys.
It can't take months or years for us to recognize Palestine's sovereignty. When we want to, we the US can make things happen quickly. (Look at the dastardly things this president has made happen at speed.) So do it "tomorrow."
Yes to recognizing Palestine's statehood. No No No to any more money or arms to Israel until there is peace and security in the State of Palestine.
Sadly our current administration is led by a President who would not act unless there was something in it for him. I fully agree with your article today and feel strongly that despite the inherent good in the State of Israel, that country’s leadership and government is dreadfully deadlocked at dealing with Gaza and Hamas. What’s going on is unfathomable and despite the hew and cry about how terrible the Holocaust was, apparently there needs to be an important lesson to be learned: The Holocaust was wrong. So are the current events in Gaza. It’s time for a change in leadership in Israel and the sooner the better.
Unfortunately most of the politicians in US and EU support the genocide - and in the US it is most of Democrats, too. Obama, Clintons, Biden, Harris .., the list is endless - those that oppose the genocide are just a handful, incredibly enough.
"Famine did not come to Gaza as an inevitable side effect of war. It came because of a decision in March by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to block international agencies from delivering aid".
That statement, and your whole article, for that matter, leads me to believe that anyone who would actually think about the picture your article paints would rightly conclude that Netanyahu coldly calculated the murder of what amounts to, as of this writing, of over 60,000 men, women and children.
I can see him as none other than a murderer exactly the same as other cold, calculating murders that have gone before him (think Hitler, etc.).
And, like Hitler, he has used the vote (the power of the people) to justify his ghastly perversion.
And, finally, I cannot see America as anything other that Netanyahu's accessory to genocidal murder.
Yes, I believe Israel has a right to exist.
No, I do not believe Israel has the right to commit GENOCIDE in Gaza, as they've been and are doing, not just since October , but long before then.
No, I do not believe Israel has the right to treat its Arab citizens different than their Jewish citizens.
No, I do not believe the radical Jewish groups in the West Bank have the right to kill Palestinian land owners and steal their land.
Me neither. I can take that and $5 to *bucks and get a latte.
There’s an awful lot of wheel-spinning in Malinowski’s article and in the comments. People are starving. How does the international community get food to them?
Netanyahu is a shameless man impervious to pressure. The means for food distribution that Israel has set up is a sick joke. Hamas seems to want people to starve. The few U.N. trucks that arrive are being (understandably) mobbed and looted. In theory, the U.N. could force the issue and provide security, which means boots on the ground. I doubt that any country has the requisite internal political capital to send their citizens to Gaza. What practically is to be done?
Malinowski, Jennifer Rubin, Norm Eisen won't say 'genocide' - here's a small sample of some that do:
Human Rights Organizations:
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
University Network for Human Rights
B’Tselem
Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
Subscribed
Genocide Scholars and Experts
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Omer Bartov, Israeli-American professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University
Amos Goldberg, Israeli professor in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Raz Segal, Israeli historian and associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and endowed professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University
Shmuel Lederman, professor specializing in political theory and genocide studies at the Open University of Israel
Martin Shaw, emeritus professor of International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex, research professor at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals, and author of War and Genocide, What is Genocide, Genocide in International Relations
William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom, professor of international human law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and author of several books on international law, including Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes
Dirk Moses, international relations professor at the City College of New York and author of The Problems of Genocide
Daniel Blatman, Israeli historian specializing in the history of the Holocaust and head of the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Lee Mordechai, Israeli historian and associate professor at Hebrew University
Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
Uğur Ümit Üngör, professor of Genocide Studies at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies and the University of Amsterdam
We had all better stop talking about this and start getting together to fight the dissolution of our democracy.
Tell me you are a company that stands behind DEI and show me concrete ways that you are fighting the the trump insurrection, and I will buy from you.
May all that is right damn to burn in the lowest pits of hell those "American" cowards wo are currently on their knees kissing the ring.
There are people in Israel who are calling it genocide. It is clearly a crime against humanity. The United States is providing the weapons. The United States is complicit, and could stop it instantly. I communicated my observations to my Senators today
Great!
Where to start....
This is basically just a summary Tom Malinowski's comments on "Coffee With the Contrarians" from Monday.
As he does there, he puts most the blame on Hamas, rather than the government and military that has been oppressing and brutalizing Palestinians for most of living memory, since long before Hamas existed. ...He does mention Netanyahu, but he does not mention Netanyahu's even more bloodthirsty cabinet and advisors, he does not mention the majority of the Knesset that have openly spoken of removing all the Palestinians from Gaza by force, he doesn't mention the daily war crimes committed by the IDF since long before the past few months...and he entirely omits the ongoing and crucial bipartisan support for Israel's war crimes by the US government, with plenty of help from US media.
Nowhere does he say the word "genocide' - I will add a partial list of the organizations that have concluded Israeli's committing genocide in a separate comment.
He goes out of his way to say how much he supports Israel, while saying that Hamas is 'evil'.
If Hamas is 'evil', what does that make the government that has intentionally starved an entire population? What does that make those responsible for the killing over 60,000 people (the actual number is certainly tens of thousand greater than that)? What does that make the Israeli ministers who say that there are no innocent people in Gaza, that it is 'just and moral' to starve an entire population, as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said over a year ago?
What does Malinowski have to say about those that intentionally target doctors, aid workers, journalists...? About an army that has created the most child amputees anywhere in the 21st century?
Malinowski does not mention anything about the West Bank, where Israel has greatly escalated its campaign of apartheid and violence in the past two years. 2022 was already one of the most deadly years in the West Bank in decades, and it has only gotten worse.
He says nothing of the fact that just days ago, a huge majority in the Knesset voted to outright annex the entire West Bank.. Is this a reflection of the Israeli 'values' he claims to honor? Can this all be blamed on Netanyahu? The IDF just raided yet another aid flotilla in international waters, for the crimes of trying to bring food and baby formula to Gaza... will Malinowski say only 'but, Hamas!'?
Israel has killed several Americans over the past couple years, including aid workers and journalists, and many more before then. Crazed 'settlers' just beat an American to death in the West Bank days ago...any comment from Malinowski?
Contrary to Malinowski's assertions here, a large majority of Israelis — 82 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by Pennsylvania State University — want their government to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza. In another recent survey released by the aChord Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, three-quarters of Jewish Israelis, and 64 percent of all Israelis, said they largely agreed with the statement that “there are no innocent people in Gaza” — nearly half of whom are children.
Like Norm Eisen does in the discussion he shared with the author, Malinowski's primary concern is clearly for Israeli lives. Palestinian lives are at best only a factor in what happens to Israel.
It's time to stop giving primary concern to the effects on the country committing the genocide, and focus on the people who have faced one of the worst ongoing atrocities in decades, one that the US is directly responsible for creating and supporting.
Jason, thank you for adding facts to this piece by Malinowski. It's difficult to find people who are willing to actually share the full truth of more than 75 years of abuse and brutal occupation by Israel. Sadly too many people accept the Zionist perspective and completely ignore the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people.
History will bear this out.
Intentional starvation is a crime against humanity, and a sin (not a word I use often nor lightly)against whatever deity one purports to serve.
I don’t care who is guilty of it, it’s wrong in the deepest sense of the word.
I wrote and mailed a letter to the Israeli Consulate in NYC and told them as a 71 year old Jew to feed Gaza. That what they were doing was unfathomable to me as someone who was raised in the aftermath of WWII.
Thank you
I was going to say to myself, when I saw this article: finally, the Contrarians could become a pro democracy reform - up to now, this was a mockery, a false cry for democracy. After all, months and months of genocide of biblical proportions, enabled directly by the American taxpayers - and yet, total silence, complicit in every sense. Alas, this is a frightening propaganda pamphlet, twisting everything, facts, history, justice. Please read this and reflect: '...the suffering of Gazans must be addressed, but Hamas could end it today by releasing its hostages and dropping dead.' What in the world has Hamas to do with this? Israeli prisons have been full of hostages much before October 7, and worse, 2 millions Palestinians in Gaza are basically all hostages, being exterminated after all of theirs destroyed: homes, schools, hospitals, universities, monuments, you name it. The history of Palestinians tragedy, the ethnical cleansing started decades before Hamas - Hamas is a response, not a cause. We talk of 77 years of occupation after the Nakba, that saw 750000 Palestinians lose their land, never to be allowed to go back. Moreover, Hamas was directly created by Israel, which wanted at all cost to diminish the PLO role (this is well documented). Israel is a frightening state, a ethnocracy which gives a Jew the right to immigrate no matter where they are from, and settle on the land of people that have been expelled. It preaches and practices the insane zionist program of a divine right to a land lost thousands years ago, while at the same time negating Palestinians the right to remember the 77 years of constant occupation? But whatever the past was, today we speak of at least 60000 people killed - almost 20000 being children, and as many maimed, mutilated, burned. This is a vast undercount, for some 340000 people are missing, and the forced starvation is now threatening to wipe off the entire population.
The world is ready to stop the genocide, and the only true problem is the direct US support - and tragically, most of the support comes from the Democrats. Even Trump spoke finally about the starvation today, but not Obama, not Clintons, not Biden, not Harris, not anybody that matters in the party echelons, with noble exceptions of Sanders and AOC. We can understand the politicians that have been the artefacts of the genocidal policies of Israel - but how in the world can this platform, free from political pressures, a platform whose role is to protect democracy, stays silent? I can accept - although I cannot comprehend it for the life of me - that people behind it, and those that read this, have no solidarity with people whose very existence is threatened. I can accept that one has no empathy for the victims, although I will never understand it - for why in the world do people cry over Trump's crimes, his attacks on democracy and the rule of law, if they do not care about democracy and rule of law? They believe that it does not apply to indigenous people like Palestinians? But, whatever one feels about Palestinians, how in the world doesn't one see that the Gaza genocide is a main threat to American democracy? It's where it all starts and ends - one can still speak and act openly in the US, except when it comes to Palestine. Defending the right of Palestine to exist can out your job to risk, even your freedom - and the only reason is the complicit silence of democratic forces. If people cared enough, and of enough people cared, the genocide could be stopped today.
I see now the comments of Jason below, who says it all, more completely and more eloquently than me. Please read him and reflect. I personally have trouble expressing myself with clarity for I am heartbroken by what is going on.
I appreciate your mention of my comments, but I think your comment here is perfectly 'complete and eloquent'. I am glad someone else in The Contrarian comment section finally mentions that (most) Democrats are culpable for this abomination.
I would add to Bernie and AOC a couple of other noteworthy representatives in Congress that have been consistent in their criticisms of Israel's crimes and US support - Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib .. there have been a (very) few others too, such as Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, both of whom were attacked by AIPAC and primaried for their advocacy.
Thanks for your comment.
Same here, I am really happy to see others show solidarity with the Palestine cause. The Palestine tragedy has been troubling me all my life, but the last 2 years are simply unbearable, heartbreaking.
Regarding US politicians condemning Israeli genocide, ironically is Marjorie Taylor Greene. It tells us how tragic the situation is with the Democrats - most of them are not yet endorsing Mamndani, who to me embodies the hope to salvage democracy - only because je supports the right of Palestine to exist.
Agreed.
It is something with Taylor-Greene. I still think those Democrats that are against genocide in Gaza need to be really careful aligning themselves with her. Her position on this doesn't erase her whole career of doing and saying awful things.
Still, it is quite telling that in this case, Taylor-Greene is more accurately describing what is happening than the writers of The Contrarian, and most Democrats in Congress.
Precisely. I find it, not only ironic, but also heartbreaking. I have been encountering phenomena I call collective madness - example say nazism - before, especially with the destruction of my country of Yugoslavia, and they are very painful when even close people must adhere to groupthink or groupdo (I coined this common behaviour when practice or support wrong because others in their group do). The Gaza situation is even more amazing, the level of collective madness in the US is really hard to comprehend, with all my experience. I understand Israel, it al started wrong and they cannot stop, not after committing unforgivable crimes. One thing that bothers me: I understand that there are many pro Israel, people who even look down at Palestinians - but you should stop the genocide to save Israel, not just Gaza. And maybe secondary at this point of such enormous human tragedy, American democracy too depends on the US stopping to enable the destruction of Gaza. The destruction of Iraq was already a great blow to both American economy and democracy. Our sins haunt us, life teaches us that much.
Goran, you've been eloquent! Thank you.
The article is very good;
If Malinowski won't use the word genocide he can say ethnic cleansing.
What the Netanyahu government has done in Gaza is shameful.
A nation founded yo provide a safe homeland for survivors of the Holocaust is now acting in what I can only call an inhumane,calculated manner.
The death toll is now approaching sixty thousand, and even if Israel begins allowing much more humanitarian aid into Gaza the death toll due to malnutrition and starvation will rise, because there're people who are too far gone.
I don't see how this disaster is going to give Israel more security.
An excellent comment. I would just beg to disagree about: ‘A nation founded yo provide a safe homeland for survivors of the Holocaust…’. Israel was founded on the idea of Zionism, which is basically a fascist movement believing in race superiority, and it literally required from the outset robbing Palestinian of their land. It is not surprising that Palestinians call their tragedy of 1948 the Nakba - or catastrophe in Arabic - for it was a catastrophe of biblical proportions. Some 750 000 people were expelled or displaced, with no right to ever go back. This itself is a crime against humanity, and it is not surprising that it took us, slowly but surely, to the genocide of today. The reason Israel was created by UK and US principally was surely partially a sense of guilt, for having denied hundreds of thousands of Jews - if not millions - visas during the Holocaust, and thus indirectly having supported it. And the whole idea, criminal beyond comprehension, to create a country by eliminating the natives - you can understand that centuries ago in Americas, but in modern times, with ideas of autonomy, freedom, equality already present after the French Revolution? And after the Holocaust, to start another biblical mass persecution? Both mind boggling and heartbreaking.
I reject your characterization of Zionism as a fascist movement based on race superiority. Your comment will be dismissed as anti-Jewish (rightfully so) and surely will do nothing to persuade more Americans to fight for an end to the war in Gaza.
If you truly cared, in my opinion, you would make sure what you wrote moved toward a solution instead of created more problems.
I am not sure why you reject my description of Zionism, so it is not easy for me to debate it - and you could be right. Where you are surely wrong is to dismiss it anti-Jewish - actually, you have it totally wrong. To identify a Jew - or a group of Jews - with all Jews is to be anti-Jewish, since that deprives a person of (or a group) od their identity. Just like racism that deprives a person of a certain race to be denied an identity. Moreover, this is the main source of the whole problem, of the destruction of Gaza, the unimaginable, heartbreaking, mind twisting crime against humanity - the weaponisation of anti semitism. I am not allowed to criticise the GOP - that makes me anti American? Where in the world you saw me being anti Jewish? Who gives you the right to equate Zionism with Jewishness? If Norman Finkelstein is anti Zionist - and many other great scholars and so many of my Jewish friends - is Finkelstein anti Jewish? Are my Jew friends anti Jewish?
Finally, when I, or you for that matter, criticise Hamas, do we become anti Palestinian - rightfully so, according to you? This harrowing agenda - which lies at the heart of Zionism - to shut up every critique by a diabolical (and deeply anti Jewish, as I explained) use of anti Jewishness, should stop now. Just like the genocide of Gaza. Now. Enough is enough - to destroy people and their land is unbearable and unacceptable as it is, but to play a victim at the same is lacking all humanity and all decency. All.
Now, nobody knows how a cause is won, so I for one believe in sticking to fundamental values of humanism and truth. What I said, every word, was carefully chosen, after months and months of deliberation and reflection. and I am willing to debate it ad infinitum. Especially the truth. Truth is all we have, literally, and searching for truth and fighting for it, makes it all worthwhile- to me, at least.
Thank you for your comment. I made my comment based on how the founding of Israel has been presented and understood.
What people are demanding is Israel leaves Gaza completely that is part of Palestine. We need the UN and other nations in there to feed people to reestablish the growth and development within Gaza completely separate from Israel and the same actually needs to occur on the West Bank.
We also will need war crimes tribunals on the level of Nuremberg trials for what Israel has done in Gaza.
Even two Israeli human rights agencies have officially accused Israel, their own country, of genocide. This comes after months of almost anybody in the world saying it, one scholar after another, one human rights group after another, one country after another. Is it possible that only people refusing to show solidarity and empathy will end up being Americans, i.e. the majority of Americans? Is it possible that the self-proclaimed progressives and democrats, people fighting the GOP fascist takeover, will keep supporting, better yet enabling, the nazi regime of Israel to keep committing the greatest imaginable official systematic long term ethnical cleansing, and finally extermination of entire people? Is it possible that fascists like Tucker Carlson are showing more solidarity with Gaza than Democrats and democrats generically? It is not enough to see all that suffering, land turned into dust and rubble, children killed, maimed, mutilated, burned, starved to death? I cannot for the life of me comprehend and accept this heartbreaking reality, it is beyond my capacity of imagination. I know of course that this is not the first time, after all we had Holocaust, the greatest crime against humanity - but I have been troubled by this all my life, wondering how inn the world it was possible for so many to remain silent for so long. Today however I am a witness, and unlike nazi Germany, one is not risking one's life by defending the right of Palestine to exist - and moreover, we cannot pretend not to know, we are all witnesses in real time. There is no excuse whatsoever, especially when one preaches solidarity, democracy and rule of law. Fighting Trump and his cronies, but enabling the genocide of Gaza is a mockery of democracy, of human rights and civil liberties - and it is a text-book example of the lack of humanism and empathy. Especially with all the knowledge of the Holocaust and the promise: Never again. Never again means never again. I urge the Contrarians to finally take a stand that will put us one right side of history, and enable us to stop then endless suffering of Palestinians. Palestine must be free like all of us.
I think you have gone to the heart of the matter here. I also see clearly delineated just how easily America has warmed up to its new role as a country of Autocratic Fascism, heavily complicit in murder.
Precisely, and it breaks my heart.
" Americans must speak out on the catastrophe in Gaza."
No! Americans must speak out on the GENOCIDE in Gaza. So must The Contrarian. If you won't acknowledge this for what it is, please make that official and tell us subscribers what stance The Contrarian will take.
The world has recognized, finally, that Israel is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians. The world must also recognize that while yes, Hamas is guilty of its own barbarity, in no small part October 7, 2023 was a response to the decades of Israel's unlawful, destructive occupation and settlements in Palestine. Like more than 140 other nations have already done, the US must recognize the state of Palestine immediately. To do so might coast DJT his sweetheart deal with Netanyahu for Gaza, so our president will push back on this, as will his Congressional lackeys.
It can't take months or years for us to recognize Palestine's sovereignty. When we want to, we the US can make things happen quickly. (Look at the dastardly things this president has made happen at speed.) So do it "tomorrow."
Yes to recognizing Palestine's statehood. No No No to any more money or arms to Israel until there is peace and security in the State of Palestine.
100%
Sadly our current administration is led by a President who would not act unless there was something in it for him. I fully agree with your article today and feel strongly that despite the inherent good in the State of Israel, that country’s leadership and government is dreadfully deadlocked at dealing with Gaza and Hamas. What’s going on is unfathomable and despite the hew and cry about how terrible the Holocaust was, apparently there needs to be an important lesson to be learned: The Holocaust was wrong. So are the current events in Gaza. It’s time for a change in leadership in Israel and the sooner the better.
The plan all along has been genocide, to remove the Palestinian people from the land. That has been clear from the beginning of this war.
Question to one of those "hero" soldiers of the IDF: "But why are you starving toddlers?"
"hero" soldier: "The toddler is hiding a hamas fighter and if the toddler is starving there is less to hide behind".
Sick joke?
What is really sick is that Bibi is ordering the starving.
What is really sick is that you still have "politicians" in the US and the EU who defend the Gaza genocide.
We all have, certainly, become VERY, VERY sick.
Unfortunately most of the politicians in US and EU support the genocide - and in the US it is most of Democrats, too. Obama, Clintons, Biden, Harris .., the list is endless - those that oppose the genocide are just a handful, incredibly enough.
"Famine did not come to Gaza as an inevitable side effect of war. It came because of a decision in March by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to block international agencies from delivering aid".
That statement, and your whole article, for that matter, leads me to believe that anyone who would actually think about the picture your article paints would rightly conclude that Netanyahu coldly calculated the murder of what amounts to, as of this writing, of over 60,000 men, women and children.
I can see him as none other than a murderer exactly the same as other cold, calculating murders that have gone before him (think Hitler, etc.).
And, like Hitler, he has used the vote (the power of the people) to justify his ghastly perversion.
And, finally, I cannot see America as anything other that Netanyahu's accessory to genocidal murder.
Netanyahu has cloaked all of mankind in shame.