38 Comments

“Against the grain”? you write articles like cut ups of the posters you see at mob rallies. Poorly.

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"Shame and dishonour" indeed. It's taken, what, 1 1/2 generations for the refugees from genocide to become the genociders. Historically, that's some turnaround.

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Should not International Holocaust Remembrance Day, (which also formally includes the historic genocide in Ruanda), now be extended to the Massacre of the Innocents of Gaza?

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Better watch that kind if talk, sir. You’ll be getting a call from Jonathan Greenblatt if you’re not careful.

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Being identified as mass murderers isn’t what is upsetting the Israelis so much, they know that can be quashed by tossing around cash at the media. What has them in paroxysms of anguish is the fear of losing the greatest grift inhuman history.

Without muh Holocaust©️ they lose their power.

Dropping bombs on concentration camps never even occurred to Himmler. The optics are real bad, and Greenblatt et al already have full plates trying to keep the doddering meat puppet in office.

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Agree. Even the Nazis cared about the optics and even euphemistically called it ‘the final solution’ rather than spell out. As for the Israelis, they readily dispense with management speak and simply cut to the chase, as has the South Africa case meticulously laid out. It’s like you can’t make up this sh%# even if you tried. Maybe they’re just sadistic and proud..

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Sadly, “the US and other nations’ suspension of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) finance, an act perceived as a measure to overshadow Israel’s apparent setback at the ICJ.” https://ejmagnier.com/2024/01/27/a-bittersweet-victory-palestine-at-the-icj-and-the-uncertain-fate-of-unrwa/

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Russia is celebrating the lifting of the Leningrad blockade

that took the lives of a million Russians. At the hands of the German Nazis – whose values are, sadly, reflected in the combined West today.

The Russians understand something the West will never understand, namely, what Nazism looks like up close and what it does to its victims. And it is something horrible beyond description. They learned this lesson well during the siege of Leningrad. And the US-backed Israeli regime is teaching us this again.

The abysmal ignorance of Westerners about Nazism/fascism is what allows hopelessly naïve Americans to gush over Zelensky, the consummate Nazi (who grabs his citizens off the street and sends them to the meatgrinder to die), and to allow the Washington regime to fleece them shamelessly to send their hard-earned tax dollars to an openly Nazi regime.

If Americans knew. If they only knew.

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Jonathan Cook’s

article sets out the dilemmas that the ICJ’s ruling has created for the Zionist regime, its imperialist sponsors in the west, and the assorted media apologists on behalf of both.

It does so however by examining the ramifications of that ruling only from an evidentiary and judicial standpoint.

Equally if not even more important is the vindication and encouragement it has delivered to the enormous and growing global movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people and their abiding resistance, 75 years of brutal oppression notwithstanding.

I and others believe that this movement has the power to alter the course of history far in excess of that wielded by a row of bewigged judges.

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The lack of coverage by mainstream media isn't surprising, and I'm waiting to hear more weasel words like 'it's anti-semitic to accuse Israel of genocide', etc.

But we the people know genocide when we see it, and we need to double down on our protests, boycotts of Israel and creative activism that impedes our governments' efforts to enable Israel's genocide of Gaza.

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The day after the ICJ ruling, Israel accuses the UNRWA staff of being involved in the Hamas attack. Coincidental timing? The US has described the South African case at the ICJ as meritless yet it reacts immediately to the Israeli allegations against the UNRWA by withdrawing funding from the UN body.

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Yes Israel has lied so many times and yet so many countries immediately withdrew funding from UNWRA before any proof was offered. Also UNWRA is the main agency supplying food to Gaza and they cannot continue that without funds

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I was a bit too optimistic yesterday morning when I concluded that the justices of the International Court of Justice had overcome the manipulative system pursuant to which they were selected (i.e., the Security Council’s role in the selection process). They did something but still managed to sell out. Perhaps we are witnessing something that will help us understand how the Nazis were able to overcome opposition to their own final solution so easily, and how the war criminals on the Allied side, Harry Truman chief among them, so easily avoided prosecution at Nuremburg. Something is something, but I doubt that would satisfy the victims of the Nazis final solution, or that it satisfies the victims of the Israeli final solution. Justice is blind they say, but it was not supposed to mean that it can’t tell right from wrong.

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The Nazi Germans were a notch better than the Israelis. Heck, their gas chambers were off the beaten path, in the woods and outside of Germany even. The average Hans didn’t get to see the daily gassing of the Jews.. they were tucked away and it was hush hush. The full horror only came out after the war. The Israelis can see it on a daily basis and if we, around the world, can see the daily carnage in Gaza they can too. This is a far worse genocide in the sense that Israelis see it and endorse it. The Hannibal Lecters in Washington/London/Berlin, etc are making it happen. Genocide Joe will die before any legal accountability comes to bear but his name will forever be tarnished by it. This will usher in the death spiral of the liberal west...you can’t wash away this stain.

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The ICJ has however called unequivocally for an immediate end to the killing even if not using the words cease fire. https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/icj-israel-genocide-gaza

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author

Has it? Or has it warned Israel not to carry out any acts that would constitute genocide? What constitutes genocide? The court is now going to debate that for the next few years. This is undoubtedly a shot across Israel's bows. But let's not read more into the ruling than there actually is.

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Can you explain why it will take the court years to decide the case? I see people saying that, but I’ve never seen an explanation for why it takes so long.

Any bets that it comes to a quick decision on the Russia accusations? Even the ICC made its decision pretty damn fast.

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The ICJ likewise decided that "Israel must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip".

"Israel must also take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of ... the Genocide Convention against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip" the Hague added.

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So then Israel accuses UNWRA workers of being Hamas and many countries discontinue funding for UNWRA before the case is even investigated

UNWRA is the main agency supplying food and supplies to Gaza so instead of insuring that Gazans don't starve to death, Israel is making sure that no aide will be going to Gaza. Since the ICJ decision Israel has cut off communication networks in Gaza. They have threatened more journalists with death. They have increased the intensity of their bombing. We on the US have been lobbying Congress not to approve more weapons and aide for Israel. The Biden administration just illegally goes around Congress. I don't think the people of Gaza can hold out much longer. I feel a profound sense of grief. The defunding of UNWRA is worse than immoral but I don't know the word for it

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Israel is completely boxed in, running out of options. Its day's are numbered. The global majority are in ascendence and the Empire is crumbling. There will be much pain, but it has to happen.

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the ICJ stated that "Israel must, in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of ... (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part".

The Hague emphasized that "Israel must ensure with immediate effect that its military forces do not commit any of the above-described acts", and that "Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip".

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Yes it has- with' immediate effect' Israel must ensure that it's military does not kill members of the group-Palesitinians -nor cause serious bodily or mental harm

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Great writing as always! Meanwhile, here in the US, liberal panic would have us endorse genocidal Biden to avoid- Trumpian fascism. Completely amazing how the US, UK and Germany are all endorsing genocidal Zionism in the "fight" against antisemitism. This is the climatic denouement of empire.

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Bibi $€€ Wor£d Service and Radio 4 seem to have been finally swallowed whole and unchewed by the Zionist GoebelldigooKKK hasbara crew.

The IDF musty be delighted with these accessories, before during and after the globally visible facts on the pulverised and blood-soaked ground

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👏👏👏

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Superlative analysis and commentary by Mr. Cook!

I can "see" it coming -- even though this is an atrocity of a slightly more elevated order: the Colonial Zionist ideological monster personified in Netanyahu, Biden and Blinken (+ many others) will now really stick it to the Palestinians. It/They will *double down* their raining of bombs and artillery shells and snipering to wholesale "blizzard" proportions. If -- if -- it/they (specifically, the Zionist regime's civilian and military psychopaths) find it necessary, because of the ICJ, to back off and return, say, to "simple" Apartheid vs. the hapless Palestinians, they will have murdered and maimed countless other innocents during the days or weeks getting there. I've "seen" this Zionist tactic in one form or other -- always bounded by extreme vindictiveness and "You can't dictate to us; we, after all, are the victim here and forevermore" -- for, I'm sure, all of the decades since the 1960s (I studied the Arabic language and culture as a US Army enlisted soldier at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA, 1964-5) that have pained me so much and diminished me personally as an "(even inadvertent) cog in the Colonial Zionist wheel of evil." Watch for it: I "see it coming." Palestinians, be very afraid--terrorized, as you become even more the victim of massively applied state terror and crimes against humanity committed with untold/untellable ferocity by the jackal-like monster. The rest of the world: be very ashamed, because it will have been done on our watch.

Viva Palestine! O Falasteen....

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American neocons are as guilty as anyone.

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Surely you're right. The neocons first came to my attention about 1985 when Richard Perle was probably its leading "light" (aka "darkness"; I believe he was termed "The Prince of Darkness" then for the views he expressed and actions he advocated, always nibbling around the edges of evil as a functionary [I think AsstSec)] in WashDC's DoD). He and his cohorts, mostly Jewish and Zionist, developed The Project for a New American Century and other neocon wet dreams...always with Colonial/now-Genocidal Zionism and its locus Israel as their grounding point. Perle was a warmonger who had a lot to do with Dubya's illegal war on Iraq starting 2003. All in all, the neocons are bad news, although I sense that they've gone underground a bit while continuing to push their agenda and influence policy via thinktankdom etc.; after all, almost everyone in today's Zionist-Occupied WashDC -- including Genocide Joe and Blinken -- is on the bandwagon of militarism and "full spectrum global dominance"...based, of course, on the "rules-based order."

Above all, pity the Palestinians.

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There is no doubt neocons are in Israel’s pocket.

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Surely now we have an interim acceptance of genocide - and a de facto call for ceasefire (as the only plausible method of ensuring no more dead civillians) - all populations whose states who have signed up to the Genocide Convention can withdraw taxes if their tax money is going to provide Israel with arms or militarty help?

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