Immediately in the wake of Biden's call to #Netanyahu, raising the scary specter of the US actually complying with its own aid conditions meant to avoid arming war criminals, as many have begged for months, Israel announces it will open the Erez crossing for 1st time in 6 mos.
I predict it'll help some, but won't shift in Netanyahu's genocidal aims or plans to starve #Gaza. His govt will still do everything it's doing at other points, to thwart entry of food, water, & medicine to #Palestine.
So the question is, what will it take to rein in Netanyahu's #genocide that is being carried out by the IDF?
Because this phone call isn't going to be enough. The genocide has been underway for months. Genocide's soldiers, primed with Bibi's #Amalek speech & sent into the ground invasion, will not turn on a dime.
US citizens still want a #ceasefire, an end to war crimes, an end to starvation. The US will need to stop sending them weapons. So call your reps & tell them that.
Right-wing pop star Kobi Peretz is outraged that the IDF is not allowing him to perform in front of soldiers as they did in the past. One can only wonder what has changed.
Translation is challenging, but here we go:
"You're not cool with me singing about Gaza and all those terrorist scum should be wiped off the face of the earth? That I wish to wipe out the memory of #Amalek? That's what's not okay? Are you kidding me? Is this how the IDF wants to win? Is this our fighting spirit? What's our combat legacy - to show mercy to the most vicious evil and pray for peace and olive branches? The shame is not on me, but on the country, and also on the commanders of the Israel Defense Forces, especially that pathetic, insolent commander who disgraces the uniform from that base. Today you're the ones enabling this despicable weakness against our enemy, as if we learned nothing from the events of October 7th."
Since the outbreak of the war, Peretz has performed at various military bases. In October, he was filmed performing in front of soldiers and singing with them "May your village burn, may Gaza be erased." Footage of this performance (as well as genocidal talk by Israel’s president Herzog and other Israeli figures) was presented in South Africa's indictment against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, as part of "genocide rhetoric in Israeli society."
Great editorial by Gideon Levy, award winning journalist and on the editorial board at Haaretz, regarding the genocide in Gaza, Israel's slanted media and lack of coverage, and the trial at the ICJ
When you hear #Netanyahu & his RW extremist governing coalition members in #IsraelPalestine, talk about "the Palestinian question" - please do remind yourself that "the Jewish question" was the term used by the Nazis when they spoke about the Jewish people within Germany & under their control in the German-occupied territories, during the 1930s - World War II.
This is obviously, obviously, so obviously true if, like Netanyahu, you send your entire army a letter invoking G-d's command to commit genocide on an entire people - right before sending them into the Gaza strip.
When you, like the coalition of RW cabinet members in #Israel, describe Palestinians as animals, as complicit, as collectively culpable for Hamas, as #Amalek. When you signal they are animals by cutting off water, food, electricity, when you target their hospitals. Signals received.
Yesterday as Israel launched a ground invasion of #Gaza, he sent a letter to IDF soldiers invoking 10/7 & repeating "Remember what Amalek did to you" & "This is a war between the children of light & the children of darkness."
Biblical verses re Amalek "are among its most violent—& have a long history of being used by Jews on the far right to justify killing Palestinians.
God commands King Saul...to kill every person in Amalek"