Our Wednesday News Analysis | Israel-Palestine war: How Gaza changed global politics

Pro-Palestinian protestors gather outside of the New York Times building to protest the newspaper’s coverage of Israel's war on Gaza on 11 December, 2023 in New York City (AFP)

"The buzzword at Doha was "multipolar" -
a polite way of saying that the age of US dominance is over."

Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, is an unlikely revolutionary.

But the 73-year-old former Portuguese prime minister is on a mission to achieve the sort of change that Che Guevara only dreamt of: overturning the US-led world order.

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Editor’s Note |

The truth is the 20,000 Palestinian dead pales in comparison to the official US government figures of 219,000 Iraqis slaughtered as collateral damage. Others say that the figure exceeds millions more:

432,093 civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the U.S. post-9/11 wars. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.

Civilians Killed & Wounded | Costs of War

https://watson.brown.edu › costsofwar › costs › human

The difference between now and then is that everyone who is anyone carries a smartphone.

People everywhere, just regular Joes and Joannes,
are now part of the conversation.

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Guterres did not mention US President Joe Biden by name in his electrifying opening speech at the Doha Forum last weekend. But he did not need to as he expressed his revulsion at the consequences of the US decision to veto last week’s ceasefire resolution.

"I urged the Security Council to press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe and I reiterated my appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared." Translation: "If a genocide occurs in Gaza it’s on you, Joe Biden."

Some are starting to call the US president "Genocide Joe"...

Read more: Israel-Palestine war: How Gaza changed global politics

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TO CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS FROM PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS: ENOUGH COMPLICITY WITH ISRAEL

Source: The New Arab
https://www.newarab.com/opinion/christian-zionists-palestinian-christians-enough

By Ryan Al-Natour
Published December 23, 2023

Opinion: On Christmas, a reminder that Christian Palestinians, like Palestinians of all faiths, are killed in Israel's war, a fact ignored by Christian Zionists

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK - This year, instead of a Christmas tree, the church had a decoration made of rubble. It represented the destruction in Gaza.

"The Christian Zionist approach weaponizes Western racism, Orientalism, and Islamophobia, which are the antithesis of peaceful co-existence. Christians of Palestine are being subjected to the same anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic racism as our Muslim compatriots.

Christians are dying in Gaza under Israel's indiscriminate bombing campaign. In the West Bank, Christians face an assault on their persons, neighborhoods, and churches from Israeli settlers.

Yet racist right-wing media claim Palestinian leaders canceled Christmas 'in honor of Hamas martyrs' as Israel continues to battle terrorists in Gaza.' But the martyrs we're talking about are thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children whom Israel murdered, many Christians.

Western Christians have had a unique, often contradictory fascination with Palestinian Christians.

Some of them are surprised to find out that we exist;
others claim the Israeli state is there to 'save’ us.

Then, others watched our genocide and supported the Zionist state in the hope of the Messiah's 'second coming.’

It is perplexing to see how some Christian Zionists think that the return of a Palestinian Jew (Jesus Christ) who founded Christianity

would somehow be 'pleased' that they cheered the onslaught of
twenty thousand Palestinians and counting."

In Bethlehem, Christian leaders in the town where Jesus was born made a heart-breaking announcement in mid-November 2023: Christmas would be cancelled this year in Palestine...

Read more: To Christian Zionists from Palestinian Christians: Enough complicity with Israel

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ANALYSIS | HAMAS, HASBARA AND THE HOLOCAUST: WHAT LEFT AND RIGHT GET WRONG ABOUT THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR, AND WHY

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-20/ty-article/.premium/hamas-hasbara-and-the-holocaust-what-left-and-right-get-wrong-about-the-israel-gaza-war/0000018c-8841-d60e-afdf-ec4f738d0000

By Dahlia Scheindlin
Published December 20, 2023

Tribal thinking about Israel and Palestine is causing both left and right to make colossal mistakes about the situation, which will perpetuate horrors upon them that will reverberate around the world

Credit: Photos: Win Mcnamee/Getty Images via AFP; Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters; Roy Boshi; Christophe Ena/AP Photo; LIAL/ Shutterstock, Screenshot from the YouTube channel "Tov.” Artwork: Anastasia Shub

Long resentful of Israel's well-greased propaganda efforts at the best of times, the left knows that wartime puts ’hasbaristas' (Israeli propagandists) into overdrive, and demonizing international organizations has long been a dark sport in the "whole world against us" narrative.

If the maxim "in war, truth is the first casualty" sounds quaint, that's because it is attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus, who lived over 2,500 years ago when things were … different.

Nowadays, the word "truth" alone sounds quaint. In the current Israel-Hamas war, our ability to see, gather information, consider and decide our positions – in other words, to think – seems to have been irreparably damaged. And after 10 weeks, I believe it wasn't the gun, the tank or the RPG that killed clear-headed thinking. It's tribalism.

It would be foolish to expect people to rise above tribalism in wartime, or ever. Liberal universalists and nativist Trumpians alike all have loyalties to some club; human beings always see our side of the matter first. But natural, even healthy, affiliations turn sour when we ignore things we don't like or take positions by rote because they align with our group, rather than judging right or wrong independently.

There are examples big and small, but it's the secondary themes and daily conversations I've been noticing lately – and let's start with where the left gets it wrong.

After October 7, left-wingers confronted hypocrisies too big to ignore, like allies in the progressive communities who lost their North Star to excuse, downplay or openly support Hamas' actions...

Read more: Analysis | Hamas, Hasbara and the Holocaust: What Left and Right Get Wrong About the Israel-Gaza War, and Why