Our Wednesday News Analysis | “Why Should I Care About Gaza?”

The other day someone on Twitter asked me why he should care about what’s happening in Gaza, saying, “Why should I care about anyone that isn’t in a 20 mile radius of where I live?”

I was a bit taken aback by this. I must confess I live in a bit of an echo chamber when it comes to caring about the world; most people I interact with from day to day either agree with me or disagree with me about the abusive nature of the empire and what our problems are and what should be done about them, but the one thing they all have in common is that they care. Outside my little bubble I suspect this “why should I care?” sentiment is probably pretty common, though.

There’s a 2017 Huffington Post article by Kayla Chadwick titled “I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People” which expresses frustration at this type of attitude, because it is very difficult to argue against. If you’re not already the sort of person who would naturally care about the death and suffering in Gaza, it’s going to be hard to get you to see why you should. If you’re missing the part of yourself which hurts when it sees children ripped apart by Israeli bombs, you’re going to have a hard time understanding the value of that part.

But I like a challenge. So I’ve had a bit of a think about it, and I’ve come up with the most honest and complete answer to this question that I am able to produce right now. It might not convince anyone, but it is a well-reasoned answer.

Why should you care about Gaza? Because we can’t keep living like this. Our species cannot continue living on this planet as though what happens to other people and other organisms around the world has nothing to do with us. We don’t live in that kind of world anymore.

For better or for worse, we now live on a planet with eight billion humans who are no longer separated by distance in the way we used to be. This species which spent so much of its development relating to itself in units of small tribes is now an intimately networked global community whose behavior is literally altering the face of this planet, and we need to start acting like it. We need to start doing what Einstein called “widening our circle of compassion” beyond our small tribal units of people we personally know and like, or we simply won’t be able to survive and thrive on this planet...

Read more: “Why Should I Care About Gaza?”

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ISRAELI TORTURE CHAMBERS AREN’T NEW. THEY ARE WHAT PROVOKED THE VIOLENCE OF OCT 7

Source: Jonathan Cook Blog
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-09-07/israel-torture-october-7/

By Jonathan Cook
Published September 7, 2024

If you can’t see the causal link between the Israeli abuse of generations of Palestinians and Hamas’ crimes, then you have no insight into human nature. You don’t understand yourself

For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire.

Footage uploaded to Israeli media depicts Israeli occupation forces collectively torturing Palestinians held in Megiddo prison.

The video shows prisoners lying face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, while being terrorized by dogs. pic.twitter.com/mZOIC1Glj8

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 6, 2024

There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the western media, say these Palestinians have been “arrested”, as though Israel is enforcing some kind of legitimate legal procedure over oppressed subjects – or rather objects – of its occupation. In truth, these Palestinians have been kidnapped.

The prisons are invariably located close to major roads in Israel, presumably because Israelis find it reassuring to know Palestinians are being locked up in such large numbers. (As an aside, I should mention that transferring prisoners out of occupied territory into the occupier’s territory is a war crime. But let that pass.)

Even before the mass round-ups of the past 11 months, the Palestinian Authority estimated that 800,000 Palestinians – or 40 per cent of the male population – had spent time in an Israeli prison. Many had never been charged with any crime and had never received a trial. Not that that would make any difference – the conviction rate of Palestinians in Israel’s military courts is near 100 per cent. There is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, it seems.

Rather, imprisonment is a kind of terrifying rite of passage that has been endured by generations of Palestinians, one required of them by the bureaucracy managing Israel’s apartheid-occupation system.

Torture, even of children, has been routine in these prisons since the occupation began nearly 60 years ago, as Israeli human rights groups have been regularly documenting...

Read more: Israeli torture chambers aren’t new. They are what provoked the violence of Oct 7

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HAARETZ TODAY | NETANYAHU'S MAP SHOWS ISRAEL 'FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA.' IT'S NO ACCIDENT

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2024-09-05/ty-article/.highlight/netanyahus-map-shows-israel-from-the-river-to-the-sea-its-no-accident/00000191-c2a8-d09f-ab91-debc90e60000

By Dahlia Scheindlin
Published Sptember 5, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands before a map, as seen in a screenshot taken from a video posted on Wednesday by the official X account of the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.Credit: X

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airwaves this week to justify his decision to avoid a hostage release and cease-fire deal. In two press conferences in Hebrew and in English, Netanyahu made his most recent case for rejecting an agreement, which cost the lives of six precious hostages.

Israeli analysts quickly dubbed the first appearance Netanyahu's "Philadelphi" speech, since it was focused on what he deemed Israel's existential security need: to control the Gaza-Sinai line. But there was another message that few noticed, though it was not at all hidden.During the speech, he displayed a large, weirdly empty map of Gaza and Israel, with pictograms of rockets symbolizing how they were smuggled from Philadelphi over the years. Netanyahu loves these splashy, dumbed-down props, but one would have to be very dumb not to notice that on his map of Israel there was no Palestine at all. The word "Israel" stretched from the river to the sea, and Netanyahu even used this phrase in his geography lesson.

The Israeli press corps found it unremarkable. But in the foreign press event, a reporter for Sky News asked about the map. Netanyahu's answer – a word salad including the International Criminal Court, Palestinians wishing to push Israel into the sea, a great democracy fighting a just war and Israel being pilloried – was too convoluted to reproduce. Netanyahu kindly offered to hold a separate press conference to discuss the issue and practically spit out verbal quotation marks around the phrase "the West Bank."

There is nothing new about Israel erasing Palestine. The historian Adam Raz found archives showing that within six months of the 1967 war, the Israeli government, led by Labor, began discussing dropping the Green Line in official publications, and subsequently did so. The line was also deleted from public school textbooks and maps...

Read more: Haaretz Today | Netanyahu's Map Shows Israel 'From the River to the Sea.' It's No Accident