Our Wednesday News Analysis | Why Israel wants to erase context and history in the war on Gaza

Palestinians carry their possessions, as they flee from there homes in Al-Jalil in 1948 [File: Reuters]

On October 24, a statement by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres caused a sharp reaction by Israel. While addressing the UN Security Council, the UN chief said that while he condemned in the strongest terms the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, he wished to remind the world that it did not take place in a vacuum. He explained that one cannot dissociate 56 years of occupation from our engagement with the tragedy that unfolded on that day.

The Israeli government was quick to condemn the statement. Israeli officials demanded Guterres’s resignation, claiming that he supported Hamas and justified the massacre it carried out. The Israeli media also jumped on the bandwagon, asserting among other things that the UN chief “has demonstrated a stunning degree of moral bankruptcy”.

This reaction suggests that a new type of allegation of anti-Semitism may now be on the table. Until October 7, Israel had pushed for the definition of anti-Semitism to be expanded to include criticism of the Israeli state and questioning the moral basis of Zionism. Now, contextualising and historicising what is going on could also trigger an accusation of anti-Semitism...

Read more: Why Israel wants to erase context and history in the war on Gaza

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THE MORAL FAILURE OF WESTERN INSTITUTIONS ON GAZA IS UNPARALLELED

Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2404376?fbclid=IwAR2D4saGG3ZBg5szZ4tEEtEPkyDC8YxQYFxjjoA8x_AIxEv-w_5AvhwKF0E_aem_AWOAPezw0xqOdO-AajeeJvpxD3_HHrXsbA7PuQpCZSlYqwK1s_nkkiXysKxK4qAS7KU

By Ramzy Baroud
Published November 6, 2023

Gaza has been turned into a Hiroshima as a result of Israeli bombs and the blank political check handed to Israel. (AFP)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month stood on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and besieged Gaza. Guterres was not the only international figure to travel to the Gaza border in the hope of mobilizing the international community in the face of the ongoing genocide in an already impoverished and besieged Strip. “Behind these walls, we have 2 million people that are suffering enormously,” Guterres said. These efforts, however, paid little dividends.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement on Oct. 24 that the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza was “too slow (for it to) change the reality” on the ground. This means that the seemingly endless UN Security Council debates and General Assembly resolutions and calls for action have done little to alter the tragic situation in Gaza in any meaningful way.

So, what is the use of the elaborate international political, humanitarian and legal systems if they are unable to stop or even slow down a genocide that is being aired live on TV screens all across the world?

During previous genocides, such as those accompanying the world wars or that of Rwanda in 1994, various justifications were offered to explain the lack of immediate action. In some cases, no Geneva Conventions existed or, as in Rwanda, many pleaded ignorance...

Read more: The moral failure of Western institutions on Gaza is unparalleled

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ISRAEL VOWS TO TAKE 'SECURITY RESPONSIBILITY' OF GAZA AFTER WAR

Source: The Japan Times
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/11/07/world/politics/israel-gaza-pause-aid-hostages/

By JT staff
Published November 7, 2023

An Israeli military unit fires from an undisclosed location near the Gaza Strip border on Monday. | REUTERS

JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday that Israel will take control of "overall security" of besieged Gaza after the war, as the Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll has surged past 10,000.

Resisting calls for a cease-fire, Netanyahu said there would be no letup in the war to destroy Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attack left 1,400 dead in Israel, most of them civilians.

The Palestinian militant group also took more than 240 people hostage, including children and elderly people, in an attack that prompted Israel's massive bombardment of Gaza and an intensifying ground offensive.

One month since the war began, the Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll in Gaza had surpassed 10,000 people — more than 4,000 of them children.

With international criticism of Israel's conduct of the war mounting, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza was becoming a "graveyard for children."

More than 1.5 million people in densely packed Gaza have fled their homes for other parts of the territory in a desperate search for cover, with critical aid only trickling in.

But Netanyahu told ABC News the war would continue until Israel had restored "overall security" control of Gaza...

Read more: Israel vows to take 'security responsibility' of Gaza after war