Our Wednesday News Analysis | How the ‘fight against antisemitism’ became a shield for Israel's genocide

Pro-Israel supporters protest in Trafalgar Square, London, 14 January 2024 (Henry Nicholls/AFP)

Israel needs antisemitism. And armed with a ludicrous redefinition adopted by Western allies that classify as Jew-hatred any opposition to its crimes - any rejection of its bogus claims of “self-defense” as it crushes resistance to its occupation and its oppression of Palestinians - Israel has every incentive to commit more crimes.

If you read the establishment media, you might conclude that Israel and its most ardent supporters are waging a serious battle to tackle an apparent new wave of antisemitism in the West.

In article after article, we are told how Israel and western Jewish leadership bodies are demanding our concern, and outrage, at a rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents. Organisations such as the Community Security Trust in the UK and the Anti-Defamation League in the US produce lengthy reports on the relentless increase in antisemitism, especially since 7 October, and warn that action is urgently required.

Undoubtedly, there is a real threat of antisemitism, and as ever it comes largely from the far right. Israel’s actions – and its false claim to be representing all Jews – only help to stoke it.

This moral panic is transparently self-serving. It directs our attention away from the pressing, all-too-concrete evidence that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza - one that has slaughtered and maimed many tens of thousands of innocents.

It redirects our attention instead towards tenuous claims of a deepening antisemitism crisis, one whose tangible effects appear limited and for which the evidence is all too clearly exaggerated...

Read more: How the ‘fight against antisemitism’ became a shield for Israel's genocide

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Dr. Mads Gilbert on Israel’s “systematic strategy” to destroy Palestinians

Source: Peace and Planet News
https://peaceandplanetnews.org/dr-mads-gilbert-on-israels-systematic-strategy-to-destroy-palestinians/

Video by TRT World Digital

Editor’s Note |

A Life-giving and Life-changing Video Worth Watching.

Norwegian physician and professor emeritus Mads Gilbert opens up about his decades-long experience working in the occupied Palestinian territories and how the current situation is — in terms of Israeli brutality against Palestinians — unlike any other he’s witnessed in an exclusive interview with TRT World Digital. He also reflects on his activist side, inviting viewers to consider our shared humanity and what is required on the part of the international community, however challenging, to end Israel’s genocidal assault against Gaza.

Dr. Mads Gilbert is a Norwegian physician, humanitarian, activist, and politician for the Red Party. He is a specialist in anesthesiology and head of the emergency medicine department at the University Hospital of North Norway and Professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø. Since the 1970s, he has been actively involved with solidarity work concerning Palestinians, and has served as a doctor for several periods in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. His book on the Gaza War, Eyes on Gaza (2009), has been translated into several languages. He has been the subject of controversy for his political activism. In November 2014, Israel indefinitely banned Gilbert from entering Gaza, officially for security reasons. The decision sparked outrage and the Norwegian government subsequently requested that the decision be reversed. The Israeli Foreign Ministry later clarified that the ban regarded setting foot in Israel, not Gaza. Israel, Haaretz wrote, is the only available transit point for entering the Gaza Strip when the Rafah border from Egypt is closed.

Read more: Dr. Mads Gilbert on Israel’s “systematic strategy” to destroy Palestinians

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Remembering the beauty of Ramadan in Gaza

Source: Al-Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/11/remembering-the-beauty-of-ramadan-in-gaza

By Eman Alhaj Ali
Published March 11, 2024

Israel’s genocidal war has destroyed the joy of the holy month. Now only our happy memories remain.

A Palestinian family shares a suhur meal during the holy month of Ramadan in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip on March 25, 2023 [File: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa]

During better times:

Then, the time came to prepare food for the Iftar meal. The hour before sunset, the whole neighborhood would be filled with the delicious smell of various foods. The kitchen in every home would be full of people working hard: one would be making the maqlouba (a meat dish with rice and vegetables), another the musakhan (a chicken dish), and still another the mulukhiya (jute soup).

Meanwhile, a neighbor may drop by and bring a platter full of the food his family had just made; he, of course, would not be allowed to go home empty-handed.

With sunset approaching, the iftar table would be laid, and everyone would sit down. Soon, the call from the mosques to breakfast would come, accompanied by the melody of habitat. Everyone would share the delicious food, chatting joyfully and laughing.

The holy month of Ramadan has started. Muslims worldwide are fasting, spending time with their families and dedicating themselves to prayer and worship. But for us, the Muslims of Gaza, this holy month is filled with heartbreak and mourning.

For more than five months now, we have endured massacres, disease, starvation and thirst at the hands of the Israeli army. Its violence and brutality have not stopped or lessened as Ramadan begins.

As many of us struggle to put food on the table to break fast or to find a safe place for prayer, the memories of past Ramadans keep us warm. Amid the buzzing of Israeli drones and the sound of explosions, I close my eyes and remember the splendour of Ramadan in Gaza...

Read more: Remembering the beauty of Ramadan in Gaza