Our Wednesday News Analysis | ‘From Here, from Gaza’ – Enough, Stop the Genocide Now

Is the ICJ's ruling enough for Palestinians? (Image: Palestine Chronicle)

"… the seeds of genocide and ethnic cleansing were planted much farther back than in October 2023.

From here, from Gaza,
the quest for evidence of Israel’s genocide looks like a futile exercise.

Don’t we have all the evidence of our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to say:
ENOUGH| STOP NOW!"

For decades now, we Palestinians have realized that the closest parallel to the way we have been treated for 75 years is the apartheid regime in South Africa –a racialized system of segregation and exclusion that stripped people of economic opportunity, freedom of movement, and expression, self-determination, dignity and often life itself, based on the color of their skin.

Sure, there are some differences between the South African and Palestinian experiences. For example, in the case of Palestinians, the genocidal war against us is not only based on ethnicity, but also on religion.

However, there are also many similarities, such as the extreme brutality of the police towards black South Africans, which can be compared to the brutality employed by Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians.

Thirty years ago, a widespread, global movement began to pressure the government of South Africa to end this unjust system. That movement eventually succeeded.

Therefore, we Palestinians appreciate that it was South Africa which brought the case before the International Court of Justice seeking to hold Israel accountable for its genocide against innocent Palestinians...

Read more: ‘From Here, from Gaza’ – Enough, Stop the Genocide Now

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‘MY CHILDREN ARE CRYING FROM HUNGER. THIS IS A WAR OF STARVATION’

Source: + 972 Magazine
https://www.972mag.com/rafah-children-hunger-aid/

By Ruwaida Kamal Amer
Published January 31, 2024

With insufficient aid and skyrocketing prices across Gaza, Palestinians in the overcrowded city of Rafah are struggling to feed their families.

Palestinians wait for a hot meal prepared by volunteers in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, January 26, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

"Homeless
One meal a day if that
“For hours, I’m hungry every day.’"

Khalida Abu Ras, 55, is living in a tent in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. One of an estimated 1 million Palestinians — around half of the Strip’s population — now residing in the city, she was forced to flee her home in northern Gaza at the start of the war and has been homeless ever since. “I cannot describe the suffering we are experiencing,” she told +972. “We are living the worst days of our lives.”

Beit Hanoun, her former home in the northeastern corner of the Gaza Strip, was one of the first places to become uninhabitable when Israel’s bombardment began. “Belts of fire surrounded the area day and night,” Abu Ras recounted. “I fled from death with my five children and my grandchildren.”

Over the subsequent months, Abu Ras and her family moved from the very north of the Strip to the very south, but each place they stopped in had two things in common: there was no respite from Israel’s bombings or invading forces, and there was a severe lack of food. The same is true for Rafah: “Every three days we receive food assistance, but it is only assistance — a simple meal that does not satisfy a family of 15.”

Israel’s response to the Hamas-led October 7 attack on its southern communities involved swiftly shutting off the electricity and water it usually supplies to Gaza, as well as sharply restricting the entry of food, fuel, and humanitarian aid — thus intensifying an already crippling 16-year blockade. As a result, basic supplies across the Strip have dwindled while their prices have skyrocketed, rendering what little food is available unaffordable to many.

“A kilo of salt, which used to cost one shekel, now costs 20 shekels or more [around $5.50],” Abu Ras explained. “A box of yeast, which cost only 5 shekels, now costs 25 [nearly $7]. We cannot buy anything.”...

Read more: ‘My children are crying from hunger. This is a war of starvation’

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WAR ON GAZA PITS PALESTINIAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY AGAINST EVANGELICAL ZIONISM

Source: Middle East Eye
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-palestinian-liberation-theology-zionism-evangelical

By Hamid Dabashi
Published February 5, 2024

The whole world is now confronted with the savageries of 'Western civilization', though not just in political terms

A protestor holds a sign reading 'Without a free Palestine, our freedom is incomplete' during a rally called by students in solidarity with the Palestinians on 16 November 2023 in Barcelona (AFP)

“… the Bible is weaponized against us, our very own sacred text.
In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the Empire.
Here we confront the theology of the Empire - a disguise for superiority, supremacy, ‘chosenness’ and entitlement.”

The monumental atrocities that Israel is committing in Palestine on behalf of “Western civilization” are no longer measurable only in their savagery and calamitous consequences. There are equally important moral, philosophical, and theological issues at stake.

What kind of philosophy, theology, or moral imagination would we need to come to terms with the sheer barbarity of Israel as a settler-colonial project? Palestine, and Gaza in particular, is today at the epicenter of this question. Europe and Eurocentricity have long since lost any shred of credibility.

We must take the president of the Israeli settler colony at face value when he says:

               “This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas. It’s a war that is intended, really, truly, to save Western civilization and the values of Western civilization.”

He is right: slaughtering more than 27,000 Palestinians, many of them children, in nearly four months of the round-the-clock bombing
- a campaign now broadly recognized as a genocide -
is indeed a sign of “Western civilization” at its most barbaric

The world is now up against the savageries of "Western civilization", though not just in political terms. We must expose the rotten roots of the immorality and cruelty embedded in the very DNA of its theologies and philosophies.

“We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.” With these powerful words, Reverend Munther Isaac began his sermon the day before Christmas Eve, 2023, as Israeli forces continued to bomb Gaza.

Read more: War on Gaza pits Palestinian liberation theology against Evangelical Zionism