James Petras

Introduction: Outside of Israel and its organized supporters in the major Zionist organizations, world public opinion and most experts in international law see the Jewish State’s invasion of Gaza and its systematic attack on civilians and basic infrastructure as a crime against humanity.

The purpose of this essay is 4-fold: 1. To identify the nature of the crime – the genocidal character of the armed assault and the sequence leading up to it; 2. To identify the direct perpetrators of the war crimes and their domestic and international accomplices; 3. To explain the ties binding leaders, policymakers, propagandists, accomplices and followers, including their ideologies, material interests and organizational structure which make these crimes not only possible, but met so far with impunity and 4. To identify the larger imperial interests with which Israel allies with the US, and in pursuit of which, the Gaza assault is a horrifying dress rehearsal.

The ‘Morality’ of Prison Guards in a Genocidal State

Policymakers in the genocidal state run a highly militarized society where citizens and soldiers, criminals and professionals, torturers and sociopaths can and do coexist within the same person. Cold rationality is harnessed to mass murder, technology to massive devastation, language to euphemisms and executioners parade themselves as victims (and vice versa). Moral precepts become debased and supplanted by the ethics of mass murder. Moralists, rabbis and ethical philosophers all join to bless the bombs dropped on hospitals and schools and homes and all living things – even the dead and buried do not rest in peace when the cemeteries are bombed.

Rulers, imbued with a genocidal vision, see only military objectives – an oppressed people do not exist - all human existence and institutions in the target areas are to be demolished. The destruction of human life, of Palestinian daily existence has become the ultimate goal of this obscene operation. The practical decision to exterminate Palestinians was conscious, planned and pursued with implacable resolve at the very top and carried out with savage enthusiasm by Israel’s ‘citizen army’.

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William Blum

During Cold War One those of us in the American radical left were often placed in the position where we had to defend the Soviet Union because the US government was using that country as a battering ram against us. Now we sometimes have to defend Russia because it may be the last best hope of stopping TETATW (The Empire That Ate The World).

Yes, during Cold War One we knew enough about Stalin, the show trials, and the gulags. But we also knew about US foreign policy.

E-mail sent to the Washington Post July 23, 2014 about the destruction of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17:

Dear Editor, Your July 21 editorial was headed: “Russia’s barbarism. The West needs a strategy to contain the world’s newest rogue state.” Pretty strong language. Vicious, even. Not one word of hard evidence in the editorial to back it up. Then, the next day, the Associated Press reported:

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for ‘creating the conditions’ that led to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but they offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement. … the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the passenger jet came from Russia.

Where were these words in the Post? You people are behaving like a rogue newspaper. – William Blum

I don’t have to tell you whether the Post printed my letter. I’ve been reading the paper for 25 years – six years during Vietnam (1964-1970) and the last 19 years (1995-2014) – usually spending about three hours each day reading it very carefully. And I can say that when it comes to US foreign policy the newspaper is worse now than I can remember it ever was during those 25 years. It’s reached the point where, as one example, I don’t take at face value a word the Post has to say about Ukraine. Same with the State Department, which makes one accusation after another about Russian military actions in Eastern Ukraine without presenting any kind of satellite imagery or other visual or documentary evidence; or they present something that’s wholly inconclusive and/or unsourced or citing “social media”; what we’re left with is often no more than just an accusation.[1] Do they have something to hide?

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Stephen Lendman

Washington bears responsibility for supporting Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and backing Kiev fascist forces against Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters. Committing high crimes against peace is official US policy. So is partnering with rogue state allies doing the same thing.

Israel is a lawless, racist, apartheid terror state. Its Operation Protective Edge Gaza war is one of history's great crimes. Another 72-hour ceasefire sham changes nothing. It bears repeating what previous articles stressed. Israel is all take and no give. It demands unconditional acceptance of terms favoring its interests. It offers virtually nothing in return. When concessions are made, they're not worth the paper they're written on. Multiple violations occur straightaway.

Hellish status quo conditions remain. Gaza is still besieged. Palestine remains occupied. Land theft continues. So do the worst of overall nightmarish conditions. No relief is in sight. Long denied justice prevails.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The consequence of Washington’s reckless and irresponsible political and military interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has been to unleash evil. The various sects that lived in peace under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad are butchering one another, and a new group, ISIS, is in the process of creating a new state out of parts of Iraq and Syria.

The turmoil brought into the Middle East by the Bush and Obama regimes has meant death and displacement for millions and untold future deaths. As I write 40,000 Iraqis are stranded on a mountain top without water awaiting death at the hands of ISIS, a creation of US meddling.

The reality in the Middle East stands in vast contradiction to the stage managed landing of George W. Bush on the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln where Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on May 1, 2003. The mission that Washington accomplished was to wreck the Middle East and the lives of millions of people and to destroy America’s reputation in the process. Thanks to the demonic neoconservative Bush regime, today America is regarded by the rest of the world as the greatest threat to world peace.

The Clinton regime’s attack on Serbia set the pattern. Bush upped the ante with Washington’s naked aggression against Afghanistan, which Washington clothed in Orwellian language–”Operation Enduring Freedom.”

Washington brought ruin, not freedom, to Afghanistan. After 13 years of blowing up the country, Washington is now withdrawing, the “superpower” having been defeated by a few thousand lightly armed Taliban, but leaving a wasteland behind for which Washington will accept no responsibility.

Another source of endless Middle East turmoil is Israel whose theft of Palestine is Washington-enabled. In the middle of Israel’s latest attack on civilians in Gaza, the US Congress passed resolutions in support of Israel’s war crimes and voted hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for Israel’s ammunition. Here we witness Great Moral America 100 percent in support of unambiguous war crimes against essentially defenseless people.

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Finian Cunningham

A wounded girl receives treatment in the emergency room of
the Shifa hospital in Gaza City. (Photo: Khalil Hamra/AP)

The Israeli regime is cynically using “humanitarian ceasefires” as a way of luring Palestinian civilians into further killing zones with the diabolical aim of “improving” its genocidal operation, which has been dubbed with the Orwellian name “Protective Edge.”

On Friday morning, the Tel Aviv administration of Benjamin Netanyahu had declared a 72-hour truce. But the so-called cessation of Israeli violence was no reprieve for the death-trapped Palestinian population. Far from it.

In the next hours more than 40 Palestinians were slaughtered when Israeli tanks and soldiers started firing on the Rafah Crossing on the Gaza border with Egypt.

In another location, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, a whole village was flattened by Israeli tanks, also on Friday. The number of dead is not yet known but media reports described the “stench of death everywhere.” In other words, a day of supposed “peace” was just another day of killing, wounding and destruction by Israeli forces.

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Stephen Lendman

Again my great thanks to the many friends, colleagues and readers welcoming me back, sending me get well wishes from around the world. It means so much to me. I thanked everyone and will ahead. Support messages mean so much emotionally and physically. I continue my recovery as an outpatient. It's my top priority. I hope to write and do media work as able. It's what I love best. - Stephen Lendman

It was agonizing being silenced during the worst of Israel's genocidal slaughter of non-combatant men, women, children, infants, the elderly and infirm. The mass destruction of their neighborhoods, homes, property, vital infrastructure, loved ones and everything they hold dear. The cruel, calculated, premeditated state-sponsored aggression by one of the world's most powerful, ruthless military killing machines against near defenseless people is indefensible. The murder of nonviolent West Bank protesters compounded the outrage.

Israel is a rogue terror state. It thrives on violence and instability. It aims to be the sole regional power. It's the only country without fixed borders. It wants them expanded. It wants regional lines redrawn. It wants current Middle East states balkanized. It wants added territory at the expense of other nations. It's mindless of international law, norms and standards. US tax dollars support its lawless agenda.

The sham ceasefire and go nowhere peace talks were dead on arrival. Longterm all talk, no give, is official Israeli policy. Israel's only enemies are ones it invents. The same is true for America.

Gazans want long denied justice. They won't tolerate more of the same. Nor should they. All Palestinians want the same thing - lifting the lawless siege Israel by its own admission says is political, not security related. Palestinians are systematically denied. They want Gaza's siege lifted. They want occupation ended. They deserve real, universally recognized self-determination. The right of return. Jerusalem as Palestine's exclusive capital. The release of thousands of political prisoners. The end of future mass arrests, torture, imprisonment, and land theft.

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Gabor Steingart

Introduction by Paul Craig Roberts: Finally an independent voice has come out of Europe. The publisher of Handelsblatt, Germany’s most important newspaper, has criticized both the German press for serving as a ministry of propaganda for Washington and criticized Washington’s policy toward Russia as a failure to think. This is a very hopeful article–what I have been waiting to see and no doubt Putin also. Unless Washington can quickly divert attention from Handelsblatt’s criticism of Washington’s militarism in place of diplomacy, perhaps by shooting down another airliner, Europe will begin to understand that European subservience to Washington is all cost and no benefit and that the cost of being Washington’s vassals is rising.

The West on the wrong path

In view of the events in Ukraine, the government and many media have switched from level-headed to agitated. The spectrum of opinions has been narrowed to the width of a sniper scope. The politics of escalation does not have a realistic goal – and harms German interests.

Every war is accompanied by a kind of mental mobilization: war fever. Even smart people are not immune to controlled bouts of this fever. “This war in all its atrociousness is still a great and wonderful thing. It is an experience worth having“ rejoiced Max Weber in 1914 when the lights went out in Europe. Thomas Mann felt a “cleansing, liberation, and a tremendous amount of hope“.

Even when thousands already lay dead on the Belgian battle fields, the war fever did not subside. Exactly 100 years ago, 93 painters, writers, and scientists composed the “Call to the world of culture.“ Max Liebermann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Max Planck, Wilhelm Röntgen, and others encouraged their countrymen to engage in cruelty towards their neighbor: “Without German militarism, German culture would have been swept from the face of the earth a long time ago. The German armed forces and the German people are one. This awareness makes 70 million Germans brothers without prejudice to education, status, or party.“

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Gilad Atzmon

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the London Times refused to run an ad featuring Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields.

The ad’s headline reads: “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn.” Wiesel’s statement is a blatant lie and the London Times knew it.

Jews have never stopped sacrificing their children. The Hannibal Protocol is an IDF directive that orders soldiers to take ‘necessary measures’ to prevent their comrades from being captured by enemy forces. ‘Necessary measures’ include risking the life of the Israeli soldier and anyone who happens to be in his vicinity. Similarly, the Kastner Affair shows that at the peak of the Shoah, Ben Gurion and the Zionist establishment were willing to sacrifice many Jewish lives on the altar of the Zionist goal.

The growing number of genocides and massacres committed by Jews in the last hundred years suggest that at least some Jews are pretty careless with other people’s children. Wiesel should examine the Holodomor and the role of ‘Stalin’s willing executioners’ as Jewish American historian Yuri Slezkine elucidates in his invaluable book The Jewish Century. Wiesel can also read Israeli Sever Plocker’s declaration that “some of (the) greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish.” Just a few years after the Holodomor, the Yiddish speaking International Brigade murdered Catholics and burned their churches in Spain (1936). The tragic and violent circumstances in which the Jewish State was born didn’t sate the lust for violence among some of its Diaspora supporters, quite the opposite.

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The Saker

I just took a short break from my life in "meatspace" to comment upon the great news of the day: Russia is introducing a full 12 months embargo on the import of beef, pork, fruits and vegetables, poultry, fish, cheese, milk and dairy products from the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada and the Kingdom of Norway. Russia is also introducing an airspace ban against European and US airlines that fly over our airspace to Eastern Asia, namely, the Asia-Pacific Region and is considering changing the so-called Russian airspace entry and exit points for European scheduled and charter flights. Furthermore, Russia is ready to revise the rules of using the trans-Siberian routes, and will also discontinue talks with the US air authorities on the use of the trans-Siberian routes. Finally, starting this winter, we may revoke the additional rights issued by the Russian air authorities beyond the previous agreements. This is such an interesting and major development that it requires a much more subtle analysis than just the crude calculation of how much this might cost the EU or US. I will attempt no such calculation, but instead I would point out the following elements:

First, this is a typically Russian response. There is a basic rule which every Russian kid learns in school, in street fights, in the military or elsewhere: never promise and never threaten - just act. Unlike western politicians who spent months threatening sanctions, the all the Russians did was to say, rather vaguely, that they reserve the right to reply. And then, BANG!, this wide and far-reaching embargo which, unlike the western sanctions, will have a major impact on the West, but even much more so on Russia (more about that in an instant). This "no words & only action" tactic is designed to maximize deterrence of hostile acts: since the Russians do not clearly spell out what they could do in retaliation, God only knows what they could do next! :-) On top of that, to maximize insecurity, the Russians only said that these were the measures agreed upon, but not when they would be introduced, partially or fully, and against whom. They also strongly implied that other measure were under consideration in the pipeline.

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Gilad Atzmon

A short interview with «Ο Φιλελεύθερος», Cyprus

Do you have any comments on the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip?

Gilad Atzmon: It is agonizing to watch the brutality of the Israelis, but it was predictable. Israeli genocidal inclinations are entirely consistent with Jewish supremacist culture and Old Testament barbarism. The fact that 91% of the Israeli population supports the IDF massacre confirms that we are confronting a murderous collective that is a grave threat to world peace.

What is Israel trying to achieve in the region? Is it possible it is acting to insure its control of energy resources that may exist off the Gaza Strip?

GA: It is possible that the massacre in Gaza has been lightly influenced by geopolitical considerations. However, the Israeli lust for violence and its broad support from Jewish institutions around the world suggests that the motivation to kill and destroy other people is embedded in Zionist culture. Its homicidal impulses may relate to the manner in which modern Jews interpret their sense of ‘choseness.’

You have often expressed your support of Islamic organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas that have resorted to violence as a means of achieving their objectives. Do you believe that resorting to violence is an acceptable way to achieve political results?

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Stephen Lendman

My great thanks to everyone now wishing me well. I was offline, unconnected with no email addresses so unable to communicate until now. Physically for a good while I wasn't in good shape enough to do it. Now I'm back. My output won't be my customary 2 articles a day. I'll do what I can as health and strength permits.

I've been ill and unable to do what I love best for 2 months. Yesterday, August 6, I came home for the first time since hospitalized on June 4.

At the time, I posted a brief message on my blog site. I expected a few days of treatment. Then home to resume my writing and media work.

Things didn't turn out that way. I owe my friends, colleagues and readers an explanation. Multiple problems developed. One rather serious one. Thankfully they were resolved. But it took time - 2 weeks at Northwestern Memorial Hospital followed by 6 weeks at Warren Barr rehab facility.

The experience was life changing. I wondered at times if I'd ever be me again. I still have lots of recovery to go as an outpatient. I worked very hard with good therapy people helping me daily. I'm deeply grateful to them for taking me from a very low point to going home yesterday.

It never felt so good to walk through my front door. I began emailing friends and colleagues to explain. More emailing coming. Wonderful responses came. Means so much to this old guy - age 80 in mid-August. Still with so much I want to do - articles, media work and another book or 2 - maybe more as able.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Russia’s best weapon can be used to peacefully resolve the conflict that Washington has orchestrated

More evidence, about which I hope to write at length, is piling up that Europe has acquiesced to Washington’s drive to war with Russia, a war that is likely to be the final war for humanity. By Russia’s low key and unthreatening response to Washington’s aggression, thereby giving the West the mistaken signal that Russia is weak and fearful, the Russian government has encouraged Washington’s drive to war.

It appears that the Russians’ greatest weakness is that capitalism has raised enough Russians to a comfortable living standard that the war that Washington is bringing to them is scary, and they want to avoid it in order to continue living like decadent Western Europeans.

The same thing happened to the once fierce Vandals in North Africa in the 6th century when the Vandals were exterminated by a small force from the Eastern Roman Empire.The Vandals had lost the valor that had given them a rich chunk of the Roman Empire.

Russia needs to save the world from war, but the avoidance of war requires Russia to make the costs clear to Europeans. - Faced with economic sanctions, essentially illegal and warlike actions, applied to various Russian individuals and businesses by Washington and Washington’s EU puppets and by Switzerland, a country taught to be more fearful of Washington than of Moscow, Russian President Putin has asked the Russian government to come up with countermeasures to be implemented in response to the gratuitous sanctions imposed against Russia.

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Richard Seymour

A degree of caution is necessary. Just because a ceasefire is announced is no surety in this conflict that it will be adhered to. However, making the plausible assumption that this ceasefire marks the end of Operation Protective Edge, I want to make a few observations about what the outcome means for Israel.

1. Israel has achieved none of its stated objectives. It has certainly not destroyed Hamas militarily, and nor has it weakened Hamas politically. Israel still demands the demilitarisation of Gaza in negotiations, but that isn't going to happen. Insofar as that is the case, this is first and foremost a political and diplomatic defeat for Israel, and secondarily a military defeat. That is not to downplay the ingenuity displayed by Palestinian fighters, but if the military struggle was dominant then Israel would have won already.

2. Israel comes out of this war with its global supporters in Europe and North America sending relatively strong signals that it has over-stepped. The qualms of Israel's allies and sponsors are articulated in a moral idiom, because that is how hegemonic languages work, but moral concern would not explain why these massacres, and none before, have so seriously rattled Israel's allies. This is a real strategic fracture.

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Nick Barrickman

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden highlight the extensive collaboration between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Israel’s SIGINT National Unit (ISNU). The documents were published in The Intercept by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

One document, dated April 13, 2013, shows that the NSA works with ISNU to collect and analyze raw data, including data acquired from US citizens. According to the document, the NSA “maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit, sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”

“This SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.” “The Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access to world-class NSA crypto analytic and SIGINT engineering expertise, and also gains controlled access to advanced US technology and equipment via accommodation buys and foreign military sales.”

The same document shows that the NSA and the ISNU work together to acquire intelligence on targets in North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia and the former Soviet Union, sharing “a dedicated communications line” for the “exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical correspondence.”

“The single largest exchange between NSA and ISNU is on targets in the Middle East which constitute strategic threats to US and Israeli interests…Within that set of countries, cooperation covers the exploitation of internal governmental, military, civil and diplomatic Communications.”

Documents leaked by Snowden also expose the substantial support enjoyed by Israel from Western intelligence as it coordinates war crimes against the Palestinians.

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John W. Whitehead

“Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little” ~ “Rough Justice in America,” The Economist

Why are we seeing such an uptick in Americans being arrested for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room? Mind you, we’re not talking tickets or fines or even warnings being issued to these so-called “lawbreakers.” We’re talking felony charges, handcuffs, police cars, mug shots, pat downs, jail cells and criminal records.

Consider what happened to Nicole Gainey, the Florida mom who was arrested and charged with child neglect for allowing her 7-year-old son to visit a neighborhood playground located a half mile from their house.

For the so-called “crime” of allowing her son to play at the park unsupervised, Gainey was interrogated, arrested and handcuffed in front of her son, and transported to the local jail where she was physically searched, fingerprinted, photographed and held for seven hours and then forced to pay almost $4000 in bond in order to return to her family. Gainey’s family and friends were subsequently questioned by the Dept. of Child Services. Gainey now faces a third-degree criminal felony charge that carries with it a fine of up to $5,000 and 5 years in jail.

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