As I've emailed President Biden to cease the USA moral and material support of Netanyahu's genocidal slaughter, I've said there is no way I can/will vote for a person who actively aids a genocidal slaughter. No matter who the opposition candidate is.
I have sent the same letter to Biden letting him know that, for me, there is no more pressing (and telling) issue. He alone has received nearly 5 million from the Israeli lobby. The worst part for me is his hypocracy in stating that he is the democracy candidate, supporting democracy here and in Israel -- Israel- a fascist and brutal occupier. As you suggest, he and his cronies are banking on our being so afraid of the opponent that we will hold our nose and vote for him. I will not come what may.
To vote for Biden would be a double betrayal of what we hold dear. Biden. The democracy candidate⁉️A screw is loose. Probably, more than one. The ones pointing to reality.
I agree, and I hope you don’t vote for Donald Trump, either, after he told Israel he is their best friend, hoping to get the vote of every Jew and conservative Christian in America.
Forgive me, Chris, I realize that you are a Presbyterian minister but this will be proof that there is no god. The international agencies will do nothing under pressure from the United States. Yes, there will be long term negative consequences for Israel but that will be nothing compared to the consequences for the real innocents here – the Palestinians who's only crime was to be living where their ancestors had lived for thousands of years when a horde of war crazed European Jews descended upon them hell bent on killing them and stealing their land.
Just as Hamas extremists demonstrate the corruption of the the human mind under excessive trauma, Biden and Netanyahu demonstrate the corruption of the human mind under excessive power.
You are right. Humans are moral creatures, the question is whether morality comes from God or from natural selection. Of course natural selection does not rule out God; God may have created natural selection as the mechanism for life on this earth, something hinted at obliquely in Genesis.
Unlike many religious prophets who claim some special knowledge of God, I would say this is hubris, we cannot know the mind of God, we may be made in His image, but we cannot know his mind. To know the mind of God would presuppose our own omnipotence which humans do not exhibit.
And yes we are far from home. We are hunter gatherers whose lives are rooted in the here and now and small groups of a hundred or so people, but find ourselves in increasingly complex societies alienated from our true nature. All of our civilisations have developed a social pyramid where "elites" climb on the backs of the mass of ordinary people and ultimately destroy them. When our current civilisation falls as Hedges has pointed out, we will take the whole planet with us.
Morality comes from natural selection, in my opinion. The problem is that the biological rule of the survival of the fittest (including morality) has been interpreted by the elites as the survival of the fatest.
Gets tricky - the proof thing. Your assumption is that God always does what is good, controls the outcome by our mortal time schedule. Like spell check on the computer. Maybe God doesn't take this human experiment quite as seriously as we humans do. Various species have died off the tree. Given the human's seduction by material excess and its buying powers (greed, avarice, power by possession, addiction), perhaps our consciousness or rather ego has to suffer repeated defeats before we take seriously the beckoning of our evolutionary brain to try out frames of collaboration that are not hierarchical and zero sum. Imagine: no one owning Congress! the Presidency! the Supremes!
God may be in fact, this amazing Earth. I read a book recently that reaffirmed my pagan sense of belonging here........its called ENTANGLED LIFE. It's about fungus' primarily, but the story is told in such fascinating chapters that at times I was close to tears, at other times close to a kind of mental ecstasy.
This Earth is alive from top to bottom......with life forms very other than us, but sometimes smarter as well. If god was the earth, he'd be a very great mother....beginner of all things.
Likely not male, though maleness is essential to the weave of life. But if its life on this earth that's God.......we're neck deep in Sin.
How to get out of that, would be to start living as you describe. Everywhere, people are trying to do just that....we are all in this together.
Thanks for the turn on of a fine book, Ingamarie. I’ll check it out. You might find An Immense World by Ed Yong down your alley. Fantastic exposition of the extraordinary powers and gifts of earthly creatures. Blew my conceptions to bits. Such wonders all around us!
Agreed. I will start calling the Big Bang mother Goddess. I recently read the book "God: A Human History" by theologian Reza Aslan. There he concludes that Pantheism although an old concept might be right: " I have spent most of my spiritual life trying to bridge the chasm that I imagined exists between God and me, either through faith or scholarship or some combination of the two. What I believe now is that there is no chasm because there is no distinction between us. I am, in my essential reality, God made manifest. We all are."
And it is fertility that sustains the living web we're part of.......fertility and an infinite willingness to change...grow.....transform ourselves into beings more capable of nurturing life, rather then ending it.
Were we worshippers at the feet of the Great Mother, we'd be more careful what our love of force destroys. Just now, we are likely literally bombing the ground out from under all our feet....it's not just Palestinians being genocided.
I actually make a number of assumptions but I'm only going to comment on the tail end of your post. In the book 1491 which is nominally about the "new world" preColumbus, the author talks about the attitudes of the colonialists and their interactions with the Indians after the invasion. He relates problems the bunch from the Mayflower (I think) had with the Indians who simply would not accept having a leader even among themselves and certainly not a leader from the Mayflower.
I've also read a few years ago that the number of colonists who went AWOL is far higher than conventional history reports.....many chose to become Indian, and live better.
Don't kid yourself. This is a no-lose from the position of Israel.
As Ed Snowden pointed out, the US exerts considerable pressure on the ICJ to ensure that it doesn't issue rulings that the United States doesn't like. So if the ICJ bows to American pressure and rules in favor of Israel, or tries to split the baby or bounce the hearings on procedural grounds, Israel will claim vindication. "See, even the do-gooder wimps at the ICJ endorse this genocide!" The killings will continue.
If the ICJ admits the obvious and rules against Israel, Israel will scream antisemitism and its American thug will ensure that no country dares enforce that ruling. The killings will continue.
Force is the only way to deal with a sociopath. Quote Bible verses all you want and an armed robber will laugh in your face, delighted in your impotence. Hold a loaded .357 to his head and that same robber will change his tune, right quick.
You have endorsed the core American Belief, and done it very well.
This is exactly the philosophy your country has followed in bullying the planet into submission.
I've followed America's dirty work around the planet.........since I first tuned into Vietnam as a young grad student from the backwoods of Canada.
Trouble is Feral.......your logic says that no matter what, Israel is going to Win.
And that's just dead wrong my friend. No matter what the decision of the court, Israel is going to Lose. The only message the court's decision will send is to the world..........either there is an international body that can rule on what's obvious to everyone with eyes..........or there is no international body brave enough to hold America and Israel to task.
Whether the court agrees with South Africa or not.......the whole world's attention has been brought onto the question of WHAT THE WEST (AMERICA) THINKS GENOCIDE IS.
And mark my words: IT WILL BE WORSE FOR ISRAEL, AND AMERICA......IF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE DECIDES FOR THEM.
For America and its proxy state in the Middle East....what's coming is Lose-Lose.
If under those conditions, the genocide continues....the days of our western values superiority are numbered.
Nowhere is it written that the good guys win or that truth and justice prevail.
I can wish otherwise, but wishing doesn't make it so.
"The only message the court's decision will send is to the world..........either there is an international body that can rule on what's obvious to everyone with eyes..........or there is no international body brave enough to hold America and Israel to task."
I think you are getting warmer, there. But even if the ICJ does stand up to Israel, the United States will simply ignore the ruling and remind its puppets, lackeys, satraps and vassals that they had best do the same, if they know what's good for them. Europeans just love being slaves, and cannot wait to polish American boots.
Well it may be written no where my friend.....but that doesn't say it doesn't happen. I've been a student of history long enough to know that some stories, the old boy's network, leaves out.
And you may be glossing over a bunch of American losses.........and hard won victories for the other side.
My chief quarrel though is with your assumption base: It simply isn't true that only force wins.
I'm with Chris......in the short term it isn't going to get much better for Gaza...but in the longer term the force goons in the USA and Israel are going to pay dearly for their worship of the Death God. There are signs your own country is imploding from its excessive use of force......all around the world.
All empires eventually fall. They just eventually get replaced by other empires. The neighborhood dogs die or move, and other dogs take their place. I still need to eat, and the local rodents, rabbits and songbirds are my meals. Eventually, I will go the way of the dogs.
n.b. the attacks on Yemen are a not-so-subtle reminder that any country that dares pipe up will get the same.
And if you were Ghandi, you'd have a better understanding of what it means to be a human being, rather than imagining yourself an animal you likely have very little first hand knowledge of being....lol.
Yes, but despite the improbable condemnation of Israel by the ICJ, We the People of the world have already convicted it of Genocide. The damage to the reputation of USA and Israel will be felt in future elections everywhere. We can exercise pressure to those governments like the letter sent by Roots Actions signed by many of us to members of the ICJ urging them to support the SA effort.
It has long obvious to anyone sort of honest and kind of paying attention that Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza and broadcasting it live and in real time.
We didn't need the ICJ to tell us that, and even if the ICJ were to rule that everything Israel ever did or does could ever always only be of the highest moral and legal standards, that would tell us about the ICJ more than Israel.
We the honest people didn't need the ICJ, but the fascists needed a remainder that we all are watching and there will be consequences to their actions.
Israel takes the position that they will continue to do what they do, regardless how the ICJ rules, and their American bullyboy will, unfortunately, back them up.
Two things will come out if ruling is not in favor of South Africa. One, Israel will hit with impunity like no tomorrow and the massacre will accelerate. Two, the whole region could implode bringing us much closer to W W III
You amplified my fears that pro-Zionist western nations- the United States above all others- will actively seek to thwart the independence of the ICJ’s decision-making. Ain’t it the utmost hypocrisy to be running a political campaing based on stoking fears over Donald Trump upending the rule of law while at the same time seeking to undermine the independce of an international judicial body?
I will not vote for Joe Biden- or any politician who supports Israel’s genocide in Gaza. That yields me very few options at the ballot box. So be it. My eyes can not unsee what they have seen, and my ears can not unhear what they have heard. I have difficultly sleeping as it is.
We need an awakening. Joe Biden and his accolytes have lost their humanity. I am clinging to mine. Neither my vote- nor yours- is as cheap as these pathetic actors.
I guess MSM CNN, ABC and CNBC has completely blanked out any mention of the ICJ Genocide hearing. Zionist censorship is in your face! Every time they mention the Houthi's they call it an IRAN Proxy, underlined and in capital letters. Like Hamas and Hezbollah. But the US and Israel aren't trying to expand the war. While they bomb and assassinate at will, and chuckle Iran won't knock over the apple cart. Remind me "who are the terrorists again"? The Iranian "backed proxies" look like moderates in comparison! Oh well Viceroy Baghdad Bob Blinken will save the Day!
A ruler in favor of South Africa and failure to comply by Israel should bring the security council to a vote. The United States will then have to veto against the ICJ. A record for eternity.
Yes, perhaps in your life time...but the structures setting today's status quo are getting pretty wobbly ....the power relationships shifting....and as the attitudes of participants - (countries in the UN and citizenry in the USA) - change and intensify the existing containers will break...and the new evolve...The composition of the UN Security Council is as lousy and unfair as the USA Senate...
On a news program, the French UN representative said that France will abide by whatever the ICJ ruling is. So perhaps they would not veto any resolution upholding the court's decision.
Chris, you are right about Biden's cynical expectation that he can get away with genocide in Gaza, and anywhere else he fancies, because a majority of Americans won't vote for a Trump dictatorship. You're also right that genocide is a crime greater than all other crimes, hence, a vote for Biden is a vote for genocide and utter immorality. Humankind will truly have hit its end if the ICJ rules in favor of Israel, or, in some highly legalistic way, side-steps any kind of judgement. If the ICJ allows Israel and Biden to continue their genocide in Gaza we will know that there are now no laws in the world, anyone and any country can do anything they want to do and there will be no one or no thing which will stop them. Biden is a monstrous man. A disastrous man for this country and for all other countries.
It's very unlikely that Israel will ever be held to account; it never has been. The US provides its veto in the UN, and uses its influence to dissuade other countries from labeling Israel for what it is -- a state that has total impunity based on the Holocaust. The complicity of the US has sickened me for decades. Israel is also immune to any criticism. Ask the former President of Harvard University.
The US role in this horrible conflict is revolting and unacceptable. I do not see a bright future for the US. Just look at the individuals who are running for the presidency in 2024. They all appear to be psychopaths.
What apathetic response by the best "legal" minds for Israel. Their tired old hasbara repeated again and again. Those speeches have been repeated hundreds or thousands of times in every slaughter and attack in Gaza and the West Bank! The ICC should have used the "Mowing the Lawn" trope! They should have opened with the smiling cute 10 year old girls singing the Genocidal Racist Nursery Song "The Friendship Song 2023" A few lines is more than enough to make you sick to your stomach " In another year there will be nothing there" " Within a year we will annihilate everyone" "And we will remember everyone THE PRETTY AND PURE" "We will show the world how to destroy our enemy"! It is pure hate speech, and if you changed a few words pointing it at Jews, the Police would be knocking on your door immediately! Our illustrious sycophant PM Justin Trudeau gave his disgusting support for the Judeo Fascist Likud Neo-Kach regime of Netanyahu, and his terrorist ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir! What a hideous JOKE! P.S. I have sent e mails to him and Melanie Joly since the Genocide began!
Thank you Mr Hedges for your excellent work. Canada has joined the ranks of craven cowards, subservient to the Jewish Lobby, The Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs. "Anti-Semitic" is hurled at anyone who dares to criticize Israel's behaviour. Diamond and Diamond, a Toronto law firm, has launched a class action suit against 6 Canadian universities because Jewish students don't feel safe!
" Six prominent Canadian universities are facing a series of proposed class-action lawsuits with claims that Jewish students are unsafe on campus. The list includes Queen's University, York University, Concordia University, Toronto Metropolitan University , McMaster and the University of British Columbia"
"You should not be allowed to bring the Hamas flag to a university," Diamond and Diamond lawyer Sandra Zisckind told CTV News. "These are basic, basic tenets of human rights." {this baffles me} and then she says "You can disagree with Israel, you can say there needs to be a ceasefire, those are things that are tantamount to free speech, but you cannot say we need to kill the Jews,” she explains."
I don't know who has said we must kill Jews. Jews must stop killing others, which is what started this tit-for-tat environment, decades ago.
Here at US, we have the same problem and universities are being forced by the government to cancel the pro-Palestinian student organizations. And I have not heard of any Jew being murdered because of this conflict, but five Muslims were attacked three of them died while the press is crying that antisemitism has increased.
Chris: You cannot write more plainly than you have here. I have just written a message to my local MP - here in Australia - a Minister in the current ALP government which is now implicating our entire nation in war crimes against Palestinians and also in the blatant illegal attacks against Yemen. The only reason I could see for the ICJ to NOT find against Zionist Israel is if Mossad, the CIA (?) or MI6 were to suborn the judges - you offer other reasons - but to NOT find Zionist Israel guilty of genocide would be to say that there is NO justice for any country attacked by the bullying US (or others of the same ilk) as another writer I admire (Bill Wolfe) has pointed out. And from the apartheid days of the early 1970s when I taught Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country - how far - on some levels has Suid-Afrika progressed to now take this position. Countries CAN turn around - Australia proving it indeed by now being little more than a spear-carrier for the US (always on the wrong side of history at least from the time of the Korean war onwards)! Or as some might justifiably point out - continuing its own invasion colonial settler ethnic cleansing character established from the late 18th century. Therefore of course supporting the genocidal Zionists and the attacks on Yemen - preparation for a Taiwan/China embroilmernt? How galling it is to come to this realisation.
American voters face a serious dilemma in 24. Vote for the Democrat Joe Biden who is a war criminal, or the Republican tRump who is a seriously mentally ill crime boss.
Israel has so swallowed the Stockholm Syndrome, has so embraced the idea of a "final solution," is so cruelly cynical, that the only solution is to de-power or eradicate Israel's Nazi leadership and population, and this can mean eliminating the country as a power. Bloody catastrophe may be the only path to this: either that or watch the horror play to out, and then try to call it realpolitik.
After WWII Spain's fascists escaped because of a veneer of neutrality during the war. Now the US is not neutral in Gaza. The US provided great portion of the bombs and shells for the specific purpose of killing Palestinian civilians. The consequences won't stop at the shores of the Mediterranean.
As I've emailed President Biden to cease the USA moral and material support of Netanyahu's genocidal slaughter, I've said there is no way I can/will vote for a person who actively aids a genocidal slaughter. No matter who the opposition candidate is.
I have sent the same letter to Biden letting him know that, for me, there is no more pressing (and telling) issue. He alone has received nearly 5 million from the Israeli lobby. The worst part for me is his hypocracy in stating that he is the democracy candidate, supporting democracy here and in Israel -- Israel- a fascist and brutal occupier. As you suggest, he and his cronies are banking on our being so afraid of the opponent that we will hold our nose and vote for him. I will not come what may.
To vote for Biden would be a double betrayal of what we hold dear. Biden. The democracy candidate⁉️A screw is loose. Probably, more than one. The ones pointing to reality.
I agree and all those people calling everyone to Vote blue?
Fuck that noise.
n.b. not aimed at you, Jenny.
I agree, and I hope you don’t vote for Donald Trump, either, after he told Israel he is their best friend, hoping to get the vote of every Jew and conservative Christian in America.
With you 100%.
Agree 💯
Forgive me, Chris, I realize that you are a Presbyterian minister but this will be proof that there is no god. The international agencies will do nothing under pressure from the United States. Yes, there will be long term negative consequences for Israel but that will be nothing compared to the consequences for the real innocents here – the Palestinians who's only crime was to be living where their ancestors had lived for thousands of years when a horde of war crazed European Jews descended upon them hell bent on killing them and stealing their land.
Humans are moral creatures, even without God.
It is just that we are very far from home.
Just as Hamas extremists demonstrate the corruption of the the human mind under excessive trauma, Biden and Netanyahu demonstrate the corruption of the human mind under excessive power.
From the neuropolitical perspective: https://meyerja.substack.com/p/a-measure-of-democracy
You are right. Humans are moral creatures, the question is whether morality comes from God or from natural selection. Of course natural selection does not rule out God; God may have created natural selection as the mechanism for life on this earth, something hinted at obliquely in Genesis.
Unlike many religious prophets who claim some special knowledge of God, I would say this is hubris, we cannot know the mind of God, we may be made in His image, but we cannot know his mind. To know the mind of God would presuppose our own omnipotence which humans do not exhibit.
And yes we are far from home. We are hunter gatherers whose lives are rooted in the here and now and small groups of a hundred or so people, but find ourselves in increasingly complex societies alienated from our true nature. All of our civilisations have developed a social pyramid where "elites" climb on the backs of the mass of ordinary people and ultimately destroy them. When our current civilisation falls as Hedges has pointed out, we will take the whole planet with us.
Morality comes from natural selection, in my opinion. The problem is that the biological rule of the survival of the fittest (including morality) has been interpreted by the elites as the survival of the fatest.
Yes, humans have not yet passed the evolutionary test called 'excessive wealth'.
Ant colonies die out all the time because of this.
I believe we will figure it: I have two kids.
Humans are moral creatures in spite of God
Gets tricky - the proof thing. Your assumption is that God always does what is good, controls the outcome by our mortal time schedule. Like spell check on the computer. Maybe God doesn't take this human experiment quite as seriously as we humans do. Various species have died off the tree. Given the human's seduction by material excess and its buying powers (greed, avarice, power by possession, addiction), perhaps our consciousness or rather ego has to suffer repeated defeats before we take seriously the beckoning of our evolutionary brain to try out frames of collaboration that are not hierarchical and zero sum. Imagine: no one owning Congress! the Presidency! the Supremes!
God may be in fact, this amazing Earth. I read a book recently that reaffirmed my pagan sense of belonging here........its called ENTANGLED LIFE. It's about fungus' primarily, but the story is told in such fascinating chapters that at times I was close to tears, at other times close to a kind of mental ecstasy.
This Earth is alive from top to bottom......with life forms very other than us, but sometimes smarter as well. If god was the earth, he'd be a very great mother....beginner of all things.
Likely not male, though maleness is essential to the weave of life. But if its life on this earth that's God.......we're neck deep in Sin.
How to get out of that, would be to start living as you describe. Everywhere, people are trying to do just that....we are all in this together.
Thanks for the turn on of a fine book, Ingamarie. I’ll check it out. You might find An Immense World by Ed Yong down your alley. Fantastic exposition of the extraordinary powers and gifts of earthly creatures. Blew my conceptions to bits. Such wonders all around us!
And we persist in thinking its force that sustains them!!!
Agreed. I will start calling the Big Bang mother Goddess. I recently read the book "God: A Human History" by theologian Reza Aslan. There he concludes that Pantheism although an old concept might be right: " I have spent most of my spiritual life trying to bridge the chasm that I imagined exists between God and me, either through faith or scholarship or some combination of the two. What I believe now is that there is no chasm because there is no distinction between us. I am, in my essential reality, God made manifest. We all are."
And it is fertility that sustains the living web we're part of.......fertility and an infinite willingness to change...grow.....transform ourselves into beings more capable of nurturing life, rather then ending it.
Were we worshippers at the feet of the Great Mother, we'd be more careful what our love of force destroys. Just now, we are likely literally bombing the ground out from under all our feet....it's not just Palestinians being genocided.
It's also our one and only, common home.
I actually make a number of assumptions but I'm only going to comment on the tail end of your post. In the book 1491 which is nominally about the "new world" preColumbus, the author talks about the attitudes of the colonialists and their interactions with the Indians after the invasion. He relates problems the bunch from the Mayflower (I think) had with the Indians who simply would not accept having a leader even among themselves and certainly not a leader from the Mayflower.
I've also read a few years ago that the number of colonists who went AWOL is far higher than conventional history reports.....many chose to become Indian, and live better.
"God is a concept by which we measure our pain." -- John Lennon
Don't kid yourself. This is a no-lose from the position of Israel.
As Ed Snowden pointed out, the US exerts considerable pressure on the ICJ to ensure that it doesn't issue rulings that the United States doesn't like. So if the ICJ bows to American pressure and rules in favor of Israel, or tries to split the baby or bounce the hearings on procedural grounds, Israel will claim vindication. "See, even the do-gooder wimps at the ICJ endorse this genocide!" The killings will continue.
If the ICJ admits the obvious and rules against Israel, Israel will scream antisemitism and its American thug will ensure that no country dares enforce that ruling. The killings will continue.
Force is the only way to deal with a sociopath. Quote Bible verses all you want and an armed robber will laugh in your face, delighted in your impotence. Hold a loaded .357 to his head and that same robber will change his tune, right quick.
You have endorsed the core American Belief, and done it very well.
This is exactly the philosophy your country has followed in bullying the planet into submission.
I've followed America's dirty work around the planet.........since I first tuned into Vietnam as a young grad student from the backwoods of Canada.
Trouble is Feral.......your logic says that no matter what, Israel is going to Win.
And that's just dead wrong my friend. No matter what the decision of the court, Israel is going to Lose. The only message the court's decision will send is to the world..........either there is an international body that can rule on what's obvious to everyone with eyes..........or there is no international body brave enough to hold America and Israel to task.
Whether the court agrees with South Africa or not.......the whole world's attention has been brought onto the question of WHAT THE WEST (AMERICA) THINKS GENOCIDE IS.
And mark my words: IT WILL BE WORSE FOR ISRAEL, AND AMERICA......IF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE DECIDES FOR THEM.
For America and its proxy state in the Middle East....what's coming is Lose-Lose.
If under those conditions, the genocide continues....the days of our western values superiority are numbered.
Nowhere is it written that the good guys win or that truth and justice prevail.
I can wish otherwise, but wishing doesn't make it so.
"The only message the court's decision will send is to the world..........either there is an international body that can rule on what's obvious to everyone with eyes..........or there is no international body brave enough to hold America and Israel to task."
I think you are getting warmer, there. But even if the ICJ does stand up to Israel, the United States will simply ignore the ruling and remind its puppets, lackeys, satraps and vassals that they had best do the same, if they know what's good for them. Europeans just love being slaves, and cannot wait to polish American boots.
Well it may be written no where my friend.....but that doesn't say it doesn't happen. I've been a student of history long enough to know that some stories, the old boy's network, leaves out.
And you may be glossing over a bunch of American losses.........and hard won victories for the other side.
My chief quarrel though is with your assumption base: It simply isn't true that only force wins.
Force loses more often than you might imagine.
If they have force on their side, then it only depends on how much the bad guys want to prevail.
I'm with Chris......in the short term it isn't going to get much better for Gaza...but in the longer term the force goons in the USA and Israel are going to pay dearly for their worship of the Death God. There are signs your own country is imploding from its excessive use of force......all around the world.
Would to God that you prove correct.
All empires eventually fall. They just eventually get replaced by other empires. The neighborhood dogs die or move, and other dogs take their place. I still need to eat, and the local rodents, rabbits and songbirds are my meals. Eventually, I will go the way of the dogs.
n.b. the attacks on Yemen are a not-so-subtle reminder that any country that dares pipe up will get the same.
What the Zionist Israelis fear more than force is BDS.
If that were the case, Israel would have folded decades ago.
Without the support of the American government, and the bullying of the Zionist mafia, BDS could do for the Palestinians what it did for South Africa.
Yup, but for. And if I were a Royal Bengal Tiger, that Doberman would think twice about trying to chase me.
And if you were Ghandi, you'd have a better understanding of what it means to be a human being, rather than imagining yourself an animal you likely have very little first hand knowledge of being....lol.
Even if I weren't a cat, it would change nothing.
Don't misunderstand me - take away its American thug and Israel would get a whole new attitude. The question is how to do so in concrete terms.
And I’m inclined to agree with that pugilist- philosopher Mike Tyson about a good punch in the face.
The killings will continue....until morale improves.
Vote for Shawn Fain for president of USA.
Yes, but despite the improbable condemnation of Israel by the ICJ, We the People of the world have already convicted it of Genocide. The damage to the reputation of USA and Israel will be felt in future elections everywhere. We can exercise pressure to those governments like the letter sent by Roots Actions signed by many of us to members of the ICJ urging them to support the SA effort.
It has long obvious to anyone sort of honest and kind of paying attention that Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza and broadcasting it live and in real time.
We didn't need the ICJ to tell us that, and even if the ICJ were to rule that everything Israel ever did or does could ever always only be of the highest moral and legal standards, that would tell us about the ICJ more than Israel.
We the honest people didn't need the ICJ, but the fascists needed a remainder that we all are watching and there will be consequences to their actions.
Israel takes the position that they will continue to do what they do, regardless how the ICJ rules, and their American bullyboy will, unfortunately, back them up.
Good point.
Two things will come out if ruling is not in favor of South Africa. One, Israel will hit with impunity like no tomorrow and the massacre will accelerate. Two, the whole region could implode bringing us much closer to W W III
As I said in an earlier post......for America and Israel at this point.......its Lose-lose.
A masterful essay. Thank you Chris.
You amplified my fears that pro-Zionist western nations- the United States above all others- will actively seek to thwart the independence of the ICJ’s decision-making. Ain’t it the utmost hypocrisy to be running a political campaing based on stoking fears over Donald Trump upending the rule of law while at the same time seeking to undermine the independce of an international judicial body?
I will not vote for Joe Biden- or any politician who supports Israel’s genocide in Gaza. That yields me very few options at the ballot box. So be it. My eyes can not unsee what they have seen, and my ears can not unhear what they have heard. I have difficultly sleeping as it is.
We need an awakening. Joe Biden and his accolytes have lost their humanity. I am clinging to mine. Neither my vote- nor yours- is as cheap as these pathetic actors.
Do consider, Dr Cornel West, Jill Stein, or Claudia de la Cruz, all of whom are on the moral-side of history on this issue.
Absolutely 👍
I guess MSM CNN, ABC and CNBC has completely blanked out any mention of the ICJ Genocide hearing. Zionist censorship is in your face! Every time they mention the Houthi's they call it an IRAN Proxy, underlined and in capital letters. Like Hamas and Hezbollah. But the US and Israel aren't trying to expand the war. While they bomb and assassinate at will, and chuckle Iran won't knock over the apple cart. Remind me "who are the terrorists again"? The Iranian "backed proxies" look like moderates in comparison! Oh well Viceroy Baghdad Bob Blinken will save the Day!
A ruler in favor of South Africa and failure to comply by Israel should bring the security council to a vote. The United States will then have to veto against the ICJ. A record for eternity.
Yes. Then we will truly understand capitalism.
Yes, perhaps in your life time...but the structures setting today's status quo are getting pretty wobbly ....the power relationships shifting....and as the attitudes of participants - (countries in the UN and citizenry in the USA) - change and intensify the existing containers will break...and the new evolve...The composition of the UN Security Council is as lousy and unfair as the USA Senate...
Don't kid yourself. The US' British and French puppets would also veto.
On a news program, the French UN representative said that France will abide by whatever the ICJ ruling is. So perhaps they would not veto any resolution upholding the court's decision.
In other words, the fix is in,.or at least they think it is.
Good think Germany does not have Veto Power
Chris, you are right about Biden's cynical expectation that he can get away with genocide in Gaza, and anywhere else he fancies, because a majority of Americans won't vote for a Trump dictatorship. You're also right that genocide is a crime greater than all other crimes, hence, a vote for Biden is a vote for genocide and utter immorality. Humankind will truly have hit its end if the ICJ rules in favor of Israel, or, in some highly legalistic way, side-steps any kind of judgement. If the ICJ allows Israel and Biden to continue their genocide in Gaza we will know that there are now no laws in the world, anyone and any country can do anything they want to do and there will be no one or no thing which will stop them. Biden is a monstrous man. A disastrous man for this country and for all other countries.
It's very unlikely that Israel will ever be held to account; it never has been. The US provides its veto in the UN, and uses its influence to dissuade other countries from labeling Israel for what it is -- a state that has total impunity based on the Holocaust. The complicity of the US has sickened me for decades. Israel is also immune to any criticism. Ask the former President of Harvard University.
The US role in this horrible conflict is revolting and unacceptable. I do not see a bright future for the US. Just look at the individuals who are running for the presidency in 2024. They all appear to be psychopaths.
If the ICJ judges let Israel off the hook on this one they might as well shut down the court. Another victim of Empire's craven despotism.
What apathetic response by the best "legal" minds for Israel. Their tired old hasbara repeated again and again. Those speeches have been repeated hundreds or thousands of times in every slaughter and attack in Gaza and the West Bank! The ICC should have used the "Mowing the Lawn" trope! They should have opened with the smiling cute 10 year old girls singing the Genocidal Racist Nursery Song "The Friendship Song 2023" A few lines is more than enough to make you sick to your stomach " In another year there will be nothing there" " Within a year we will annihilate everyone" "And we will remember everyone THE PRETTY AND PURE" "We will show the world how to destroy our enemy"! It is pure hate speech, and if you changed a few words pointing it at Jews, the Police would be knocking on your door immediately! Our illustrious sycophant PM Justin Trudeau gave his disgusting support for the Judeo Fascist Likud Neo-Kach regime of Netanyahu, and his terrorist ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir! What a hideous JOKE! P.S. I have sent e mails to him and Melanie Joly since the Genocide began!
Thank you Mr Hedges for your excellent work. Canada has joined the ranks of craven cowards, subservient to the Jewish Lobby, The Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs. "Anti-Semitic" is hurled at anyone who dares to criticize Israel's behaviour. Diamond and Diamond, a Toronto law firm, has launched a class action suit against 6 Canadian universities because Jewish students don't feel safe!
" Six prominent Canadian universities are facing a series of proposed class-action lawsuits with claims that Jewish students are unsafe on campus. The list includes Queen's University, York University, Concordia University, Toronto Metropolitan University , McMaster and the University of British Columbia"
"You should not be allowed to bring the Hamas flag to a university," Diamond and Diamond lawyer Sandra Zisckind told CTV News. "These are basic, basic tenets of human rights." {this baffles me} and then she says "You can disagree with Israel, you can say there needs to be a ceasefire, those are things that are tantamount to free speech, but you cannot say we need to kill the Jews,” she explains."
I don't know who has said we must kill Jews. Jews must stop killing others, which is what started this tit-for-tat environment, decades ago.
Thanks for being the voice of sweet reason.
Here at US, we have the same problem and universities are being forced by the government to cancel the pro-Palestinian student organizations. And I have not heard of any Jew being murdered because of this conflict, but five Muslims were attacked three of them died while the press is crying that antisemitism has increased.
Chris: You cannot write more plainly than you have here. I have just written a message to my local MP - here in Australia - a Minister in the current ALP government which is now implicating our entire nation in war crimes against Palestinians and also in the blatant illegal attacks against Yemen. The only reason I could see for the ICJ to NOT find against Zionist Israel is if Mossad, the CIA (?) or MI6 were to suborn the judges - you offer other reasons - but to NOT find Zionist Israel guilty of genocide would be to say that there is NO justice for any country attacked by the bullying US (or others of the same ilk) as another writer I admire (Bill Wolfe) has pointed out. And from the apartheid days of the early 1970s when I taught Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country - how far - on some levels has Suid-Afrika progressed to now take this position. Countries CAN turn around - Australia proving it indeed by now being little more than a spear-carrier for the US (always on the wrong side of history at least from the time of the Korean war onwards)! Or as some might justifiably point out - continuing its own invasion colonial settler ethnic cleansing character established from the late 18th century. Therefore of course supporting the genocidal Zionists and the attacks on Yemen - preparation for a Taiwan/China embroilmernt? How galling it is to come to this realisation.
American voters face a serious dilemma in 24. Vote for the Democrat Joe Biden who is a war criminal, or the Republican tRump who is a seriously mentally ill crime boss.
Israel has so swallowed the Stockholm Syndrome, has so embraced the idea of a "final solution," is so cruelly cynical, that the only solution is to de-power or eradicate Israel's Nazi leadership and population, and this can mean eliminating the country as a power. Bloody catastrophe may be the only path to this: either that or watch the horror play to out, and then try to call it realpolitik.
After WWII Spain's fascists escaped because of a veneer of neutrality during the war. Now the US is not neutral in Gaza. The US provided great portion of the bombs and shells for the specific purpose of killing Palestinian civilians. The consequences won't stop at the shores of the Mediterranean.