When you can't live without bananas

Get email updates of new posts:        (Delivered by FeedBurner)

Tuesday, July 09, 2024

Links - 9th July 2024 (2 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

International group walks back famine warnings in Gaza - "After several months of warnings that a “famine is imminent” in the Gaza Strip, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) walked back its claim in its latest report... “The available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring,” the IPC, a group comprised of a partnership between humanitarian groups, food experts and the United Nations, reported... Part of IPC’s revision stems from its earlier reliance on “assumptions and inference” to “address major gaps in publicly accessible evidence,” the body acknowledged earlier this month... David Adesnik, a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said that IPC’s changing tune is “one of the greatest slanders of the last eight months,” referring to the beginning of hostilities in October when Hamas invaded Israel. “After months of hearing that Israel was blocking the delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza, we now see that Israeli authorities facilitated a massive increase in shipments of both aid and commercial goods, alleviating shortages in Gaza while Israeli forces continued to prosecute the war against Hamas,” Adesnik said in an email to National Post. “This is a decisive rebuke to malicious claims that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war against the people of Gaza.” International media reports have heavily relied upon IPC projections in their reporting of the conflict. Several reports published in March, ahead of Israel’s military operations in Rafah, warned that the situation was “ catastrophic ” based on IPC’s forecasts. “Over one million Gazans are estimated to be starving,” the Wall Street Journal reported in mid-March, citing IPC’s earlier report at the time. Similar sentiments were echoed by the UN’s World Food Program (WFP), which warned that northern Gaza was beset by a “ full-blown famine ” in May. Such allegations, in turn, framed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in May, which accused both of leveraging the “s tarvation of civilians as a method of war.” A June study by academics at Columbia University found “sufficient amounts of food are being supplied into Gaza” and dismissed accusations of Israel depriving Palestinians of food as “a myth.”"
Terrorism supporters have been claiming all along that there is already famine, so this won't stop them

No, Israel is not starving the people of Gaza - "This may come as some surprise, but only three per cent of the residents of Rafah, in Gaza, were poorly fed in May, according to the United Nations. In Khan Yunis and the central town of Deir al Balah, that figure stood at six per cent. The biggest challenges were faced by those who had failed to evacuate from the north at the start of the campaign. There, 13 per cent were found to be hungry. The overwhelming majority of Gazans had “acceptable” quantities of food.  Now consider the situation before Hamas brought catastrophe to Gaza. Despite billions of dollars of aid money pouring into the Strip, 14 per cent of the population faced hunger in 2022, according to a contemporaneous study by the World Food Programme. So it appears that provisions are better now than they were when Hamas was in charge.  Not that you’d know it from the reporting. In its analysis, the UN grudgingly concluded that it was “unable to endorse” the classification made by the likes of the head of the World Food Programme, who had claimed that Gaza had entered a “full-blown famine”. Was there an apology? Nope. The new line, spun by the UN and amplified by the BBC and fellow travellers, was that Gazans faced “catastrophic levels” of hunger.  Without wishing to minimise the deprivations of war, here was an object lesson in propaganda in the age of mass media.  Step eagerly forward the Guardian, which on Tuesday published an article headlined “The starvation of Gaza is a perverse repudiation of Judaism’s values”. The author, John Oakes, is a radical American intellectual, whose authority appears to rest on his book about the history of fasting. Whether he knows anything about the conflict or Judaism, or has ever met anybody from Gaza, is unclear. According to his website, his second book will be about the nature of intelligence...  I spoke to a friend in Gaza whom I made during my time as a foreign correspondent. He telephoned me from his stifling tent in Deir al Balah, which had been donated by the Saudis.  “Food is available, everything is available,” he told me. “Meat, chicken, vegetables. It is not aid. It is coming from Israel, brought in by private people through the Keren Shalom crossing and sold to us as a business. The prices are much better, just a little bit higher than before the war.”  This was a relief, he added, as for seven months, Hamas had been stealing humanitarian aid and selling it to the population at exorbitant rates. Now, goods are being bought and sold as normal. Everybody he knows hates the jihadists with a passion, he remarked, scoffing at polls showing widespread support for the group in Gaza. A former BBC executive told me this week that the intensity of Israelophobic bias there after October 7 meant that he would have handed in his notice had he not already left the corporation. At least two Jewish journalists have resigned from the Guardian in disgust, while many of those who remain have accepted Faustian conditions.  Sometimes it seems that western progressives have more sympathy for Hamas and a greater alignment with its goals than those who have actually experienced jihadism in Gaza."

Media Fail to Report Officials Got It Wrong Over Gaza "Famine" - "“Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity,” the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) claimed in a special brief published on March 18.  Following its release, major news organizations jumped at the opportunity to include the word “famine” in their headlines. However, a new report released on June 4 by the IPC’s Famine Review Committee (FRC) uncovered several flaws in the original data published in March, leading them to amend their original claims. Ultimately, the FRC concluded that they cannot consider the situation in Gaza a “famine.”... While the corrected data from the FRC is receiving publicity on various X (formerly Twitter) threads, major news organizations seem to be ignoring its release... Even more dangerously, on June 16, almost two weeks after the new data was released, The New York Times still referenced the outdated, invalidated claims. Why hasn’t The New York Times consulted the new data and instead continues to link false information in its articles?  The new report from the FRC states that it is impossible to determine the number of people who are completely unable to access food in Gaza, and it is inaccurate to continue to say that Gaza is under threat of “imminent famine.” This is not to suggest that there are not serious problems distributing food in a war zone. But 32 deaths attributed to malnutrition do not exceed the threshold necessary to be considered a “famine,” and most of those suffered from pre-existing conditions.  Instead, the updated data has barely elicited a ripple from the mainstream media, with only Fox News giving the story the attention it deserves. Like many others, The New York Times’ choice to ignore new data contributes to a media environment that villainizes Israel, and contributes to the accusations in places such as the International Court of Justice that Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians."
Terrorism supporters still claim the media is biased against Palestine

Canary Mission on X - ""Whose streets? Our streets!" @WOLPalestine protesters in NYC, June 29, 2024. @NYCMayor: Why are you allowing this to happen?"
Brianna Wu on X - "When I was at Ole Miss, the KKK came to campus. And one of my favorite moments of living in Mississippi was seeing hundreds of conservative Republican frat boys come out to boo them. The jeers were deafening.  These signs read, "Globalize The Intifada," "Resistance Until Return," and "By Any Means Necessary." These are anti-Jew, pro-violence, pro-terrorism slogans.  Those conservative frat boys were more willing to call out organized hate than many Democrats."

Rahim Mohamed: The Gazan dissidents standing at the to replace Hamas - "he told me Hamas is far less popular in Gaza than what’s been reported in the media. He estimated that just five per cent of his fellow Gazans still support the territory’s ruling party. He blamed foreign media outlets for perpetuating misperceptions about support for Hamas among Gazans, singling out Qatari state broadcaster Al Jazeera as the source of much of this misinformation. He also indicated that Qatar is funding much of the junk polling that has come out of Gaza in recent months. (Bethlehem-born Azmi Bishara, formerly the head of a far-left pro-Palestinian faction in Israel’s Knesset, now runs the Qatar-funded Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (also called the Doha Institute), overseeing region-wide opinion research on the war in Gaza in this capacity.) Not mincing words, the activist said that Doha is playing a “cancerous role” in the region’s politics by giving Hamas legitimacy and, by extension, prolonging the suffering of Gazans. He was also critical of the western media for mostly ignoring internal resistance to Hamas within Gaza, noting that the 2019 youth-led “We Want to Live” protests, which he helped organize, barely received any international coverage. According to the U.S. State Department, Hamas subjected peaceful protesters affiliated with the “We Want to Live” movement to “torture and degrading treatment, including severe beating, breaking limbs, stripping their clothes off, and waterboarding.” My contact said he was jailed by Hamas for his role in the protests... One recurring theme of our conversation was a growing inter-generational divide within Gaza, with Gaza’s youth becoming increasingly disconnected from both Hamas and moderate rival party Fatah. “Fatah is the party of retirees,” he told me, adding that they’ve shown little interest in addressing the economic concerns of younger generations — youth unemployment is a major structural challenge in both Gaza and the West Bank, with four in 10 Palestinians under the age of 25 unable to find a job. He also said that many in Gaza still feel “abandoned” by Fatah, which disengaged from the territory in 2007 following bloody clashes with Hamas. While he had little faith in either major party, the activist was more optimistic about the prospects for grassroots local governance in a post-conflict Gaza. He stressed that Israel could help get the ball rolling by establishing so-called “Hamas-free” enclaves in Gaza governed by local community leaders. Such self-governance zones would resemble other democratic enclaves in the region, such as the autonomous territory of Rojava in northeastern Syria. “My message (to the international community) is to exert pressure on the government of Israel to set up Hamas-free zones in Gaza,” he told me in no uncertain terms... Hamas’s open attacks on aid convoys have pushed many to a breaking point, saying he regularly sees “masked militants” loot trucks carrying humanitarian supplies in full view of the public."

Alex on X - "🚨 BREAKING: Pro-Palestine Mob Targets congressman @RepSchneider  home in @HighlandParkIL  Highland Park, IL at 3 AM Friday June 29, (last night) in the woodland neighborhood.   ⚠️ Organized Harassment.  📰 A group of around 30 Palestinian protestors targeted the Home of congressman Brad Schneider @RepSchneider  in the woodland neighborhood of Highland Park IL.  Another failure of @Eric4LakeCounty .  @LMCScanner    The sociopathic protestors, after arriving in a van, began screaming anti-Semitic slogans disturbing the neighborhood at 3 am June 29 2024 violating noise ordinances and intending to cause fear amongst a Jewish neighborhood that already suffered from the Parade shooting #HPStrong.  ✅ Stay Informed.   Recognize anyone? DM.   🎥 (Local anon source)"

Murtaza Hussain on X - "These are obviously leftist women not Islamic extremists. Because they’re increasingly bankrupt and ideologically out of ideas however Israeli officials now need to encourage the idea of global race war in order to keep engaging in Apartheid at home."
Haviv Rettig Gur on X - "They’re flying Hezbollah flags and a banner reading “globalize the intifada,” but it’s the Jews - sorry, Israelis - who “encourage the idea of global race war.” The whole shebang in a nutshell: Jews are whatever bad thing you refuse to see in yourself."

Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "October 7 taught me that all these far-left decolonial talking points about how countries like Australia are supposedly inherently genocidal evil settler colonies - it’s blood libel designed to prepare the road for terrorist violence in the West. It’s blood libel meant to justify violence to destroy liberalism and democracy"
Betz on X - "This is the Kulak-isation of the whole Middle Class at work They practice on Jews, but history tells you what follows"
Joel Preisler on X - "Yes but Arab and Russian colonialism and Chinese ethnocentrism are all A-OK because the Arabs and Russians and Chinese say they are."

Aviva Klompas on X - "This is of concern. An El Al plane that took off from Warsaw made an emergency landing in Antalya, Turkey, after a passenger needed urgent medical treatment. Turkish authorities are not allowing the plane to refuel so it can depart for Israel."
Fred Aaron is Pops Culture 🇺🇸✡🇮🇱 on X - "This is a clear violation of the Open Skies Treaty. It is crucial for Biden as US president & de facto head of NATO to get on the phone & read Erdogan the riot act. Turkey must refuel the plane regardless of national origin & allow it to complete its flight unmolested."
Aviva Klompas on X - "Update: the El Al flight was allowed to take off for Rhodes to refuel before flying to Israel. Turkey handles its global affairs by being a petty bully to families and tourists."

Meme - Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼 @DrewPavlou: "I received this disgusting reply today gloating over the rape of Jewish women on October 7.  Anti-Zionism is a disgusting racist movement"
prawntron28: "oct 7 was a blessing. many jewish girls received their first orgasms"

Shimon Koffler Fogel: The push to define anti-Palestinian racism is not about fighting discrimination - "Developed by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA), APR’s origin is cause for concern, with the concept not having been independently vetted, and instead advanced by groups pushing a specific political agenda. The term is also redundant because, while not all Palestinians are Muslim, APR largely overlaps with Islamophobia and national origin-based discrimination. Importantly, APR violates Canadians’ freedom of expression, as it provides no exception for those expressing differing opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is especially problematic, given the ACLA report supporting APR’s one-sided positioning of political and historical issues that are subject to legitimate debate (it discusses “settler-colonialization of Palestine” and “apartheid”). With a recent survey published in the Canadian Jewish Studies journal showing that more than 90 per cent of Canadian Jews support the existence of the State of Israel and only three per cent do not, adopting APR would incite discrimination against Israelis, Jews and Zionists, preventing them from expressing their views on the conflict. Simply asserting the fact that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Israel for more than 3,000 years — debunking the idea of Israel being a settler-colonial state — would, under this definition, be considered racist. That APR opposes Canadian government policy is significant. The federal government and eight provinces have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism . Contravening IHRA, the entire ACLA document is premised on denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination by claiming that Israel is a racist endeavour... APR also contradicts established Canadian foreign policy. Not only is the “settler-colonialism” framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict factually inaccurate, the related Palestinian demands for the “right of return” and “decolonization” also effectively call for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state."

Israel orders Palestinians to flee Khan Younis, signaling likely new assault on southern Gaza city
Clearly, they only order them to flee so they can "genocide" them more efficiently

Boys accused of raping 12-year-old Jewish girl, in an act of antisemitism in France - "Antisemitic acts surged in France immediately following Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza."

MP Anthony Housefather denounces poster telling him to ‘get out of Canada’ - "Liberal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather is denouncing a poster that appeared on a Montreal lamppost asking him to “get out of Canada.” “My family has been here since the 19th century and we have indeed helped build this country,” Housefather said in a post on the social media site known as X. “I am not going anywhere. Sorry antisemites. You may not like what I have to say but I will keep saying it and I will keep being a proud Jew and a Zionist.” Images of the poster online showed it displaying the Israeli flag next to the flag of Nazi Germany, calling Housefather a “neo-Nazi” and describing Zionism as “terrorism.”... Housefather has been working with parliamentarians on a committee study into antisemitism on Canadian campuses, amid rising fears from students who have said they feel unsafe... Earlier this year had said he was reflecting on his future within the Liberal party after an NDP-sponsored motion on the Israel-Hamas conflict passed with significant Liberal amendments on March 18... "I believe my greatest value to Canadians is staying in caucus to advocate for the centrist classical Liberal party that I believe in.”"
When was the last time the Liberal party was Classical Liberal?

Jewish teachers file antisemitism complaint against B.C. Teachers' Federation - "before the meeting, the union's president sent members anti-racism training materials that didn't mention antisemitism but provided a link to material including a poster that said "Zionists F*ck Off." The group claims the meeting focused on "anti-Jewish and anti-Israel" voices and "excluded, bullied, silenced, and prevented" Jewish teachers from speaking out against "antisemitic motions" proposed at the meeting."

'No evidence' of rapes: Roger Waters blames Israel for October 7 massacre - "Regarding the evidence of testimony of rape and sexual abuse by Hamas of its captors, Waters said, “There was no evidence. You can say anything that you want, but there is no evidence.” He called those who claimed otherwise "filthy, disgusting" liars... Waters has a longstanding record of criticizing Israel, and making antisemitic comments. Polly Samson, wife of Waters’ former Pink Floyd bandmate Dave Gilmour, and a former Pink Floyd lyricist, once described him as "antisemitic to the rotten core." The popular Morgan promoted the show’s episode by tweeting "I interviewed Pink Floyd star @rogerwaters yesterday, after calling him ‘the world’s dumbest rock star’ and a ‘complete and utter moron'. "It went as well as could be expected.” At one point in the heated interview, Waters appeared to be talking to himself, saying “'Roger, Roger calm down. Don't sink to his level, alright I won't. Stop shouting. Stop shouting back. Let him interrupt you as much as he wants.”"
Believe Women - unless it hurts the left wing agenda

Meme - ‌Himdad Mehristani @Mehristani: "Turkey has cut off water to 1.5 million people in Hasakah, Rojava–Northeast Syria.  People are falling sick from hunger & thirst, & famine is imminent. Where are the protests? Where is the world's outrage for these innocent people being exterminated by Turkey in this brutal way."
Turkey is a democracy and a Western ally too. I wonder what the difference could possibly be?

McGill encampment refusing a planned fire inspection : r/montreal - "They get so mad over some petty vandalism they wish for anti-genocide protesters to get arrested, fined, deported, beaten up or even killed by vigilantism work. Try speaking in the language they understand the best:  “If you don’t like living in a country with the right to peacefully protest, just leave!!!”"
""Why are the jews complaining that their schools are getting shot at and their synagogues and community centers firebombed? Theses fucking kks should know their place"  3 synagogues firebombed, 3 schools shot, 17 cases of vandalism/breaking and entering, and countless amounts of harassement. I think we're allowed to complain a bit about your protests and want the SPVM to do something about it before you kill someone in your self-righteous fury."
McGill encampment refusing a planned fire inspection : r/montreal - "At the very least they’re aware, in this case at least, that people have a right to peacefully protest and that it’s not worth staining their already frail image by tear-gassing people who have done nothing wrong.  God this sub is becoming a cesspool of right-wing trolls and pro-genocide brigading."
"I'm truly amazed how people like you can look at these protesters, with their banners calling for Intifada in giant painted letters, and think to yourself, "yup, these are the people who are anti-genocide".  What do you think Intifada means??! Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians were killed during the two Intifada periods."

Meme - Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas: "You can dislike war. You can critique how a war is fought. You can grieve innocent civilians.   But when you take your protest to a Holocaust museum, you are no longer engaging in political protest. You are sending the message that 6 million dead Jews wasn’t enough."
"Sunday, JULY 14 3PM. Protest & Demand END GENOCIDE. 28145 Orchard Lake Rd at 12 Mile, Farmington Hills. In front of Zekelman Holocaust Museum. Bring your own flags & signs. Open mics."
The biggest dog whistle in the world is not a dog whistle, because that hurts the left wing agenda

Thread by @just_whatever on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "How an egregious lie is born and then spread like a wildfire on @X in 4 steps and with screenshots of all accounts who jumped on this lie to deliberately spread it and make viral. I am talking about “Lancet has published an article proving there are more than 186,000 death in Gaza as a conservative esitmate”. Anyone who spreads a lie like that is a dishonest person who you should never trust on Israel/Palestine ever
Step 1: take something that used to be a respected journal, like @TheLancet
Step 2: find 3 partisan people (like this letter chief signatory Rasha Khatib who already hates Israel and glorifies murder of Israelis) who will send a letter in a correspondence section
Step 3: pretend it’s an article with peer review (it is not) and not a letter from readers
Step 4: use dishonest agents from ultra left and ultra right accounts (including several UK MPs) who do not care about the truth who pretend it is an article and use it as a reliable source to prove their point...
First of all, here is the upper part of the Lancet Article that clearly indicated it is a letter from the correspondence section, not a peer-reviewed article, a part that can easily be missed (I missed it when I first opened it and that is what those who spread it want to achieve) and a pure speculations on numbers of casualties (just take what Gaza Ministry of Health reported to the UN and multiple by 4) – screenshots 1&2  Second, here are 2 signatories of this letter who already have anti-Israel bias and should not be considered as a fair and reliable source – screenshots 3&4"

Thread by @Aizenberg55 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "🧵Widely cited letter in @lancet ridiculously implies total Gaza fatalities could be 186,000. Close review shows this short piece is based on junk research citing unreliable sources, gross misrepresentations, errors & omissions. This is a bad look for Lancet. Analysis:
Piece starts by citing Hamas number of 37,396 fatalities citing UN OCHA – but negligently omitting that OCHA takes these numbers from Hamas. To back this number authors claim the figures are “accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services” – but this claim is false. Authors cite as only evidence a Vice article citing a Mekomit article claiming unnamed Israeli “intelligence sources” found Hamas numbers reliable. Author's admit “Israeli authorities” reject Hamas numbers, yet still rely on a fringe news item based on unidentified sources. Next paragraph of letter is filled with falsehoods. First, Gaza Health Ministry did not augment body counts from “reliable media sources” but unnamed media including social media, none of which can be called “reliable.” Real int’l media has almost zero presence inside Gaza. Next, there is zero evidence that some Gazan “first responders” are counting bodies in addition to “Gaza Health Ministry,” this concept is made up by the authors. In fact, deaths are “augmented” by a Google Form open to anyone, which the authors omit. The shoddy research of the "correspondence" is highlighted when authors claim UN estimated 35% of Gaza had been “destroyed” – but the UN study the authors cite says only 12% "destroyed." Did authors bother to review the original source? (35% refers to destroyed & damaged). Now to preposterous claim: "it is not implausible" that 186,000+ deaths "could be attributable" to conflict in Gaza, based on authors' "research" that “conservatively” there are 4 indirect deaths per direct death, so 37,400 x 5 =187,000. Where does this concept come from? Source is Global Burden of Armed Conflict document published by group called the “Geneva Declaration”; but concept of "indirect deaths" is a post-conflict event due to the breakdown in services, lack of food; NOT part of the active phase of the war, see below from p. 53. Thus implying that in Gaza today perhaps 4x indirect deaths may have already happened is a gross & deliberate misrepresentation of "indirect deaths" as explained in Global Burden of Armed Violence. This is specifically a number that can only be assessed in post-war future. We again see shoddiness of research, as citation for Global Burden of Armed Violence is strangely to "UN Office of Drugs and Crime" that links to the 2008 World Drug Report. I found the actual document elsewhere; note Geneva Declaration is not a UN entity as endnote implies. Authors also deliberately omit IDF estimate of 17,000 combatants killed while arguing Hamas number is accurate, falsely claiming Israel agrees. Amazingly, in assessing total casualties, many concepts & statistics are discussed, but this it somehow irrelevant to authors. Authors inflate war fatalities using misrepresented & unreliable evidence, argue that Hamas numbers are fact, omit IDF numbers of combatants killed & ignore key statistics like civilian/combatant ratios & IPC data on starvation mortality (almost zero). Junk in Junk out. In Dec 23 Lancet published another letter claiming Hamas numbers were accurate (now you know how to get published in Lancet) using UNRWA workers killed as a proxy. But if this correlation is true, then today Hamas has overstated fatalities by 14,000. END
@martinmckee did not like being exposed for fraudulent research *blocked*  Now @martinmckee is explaining that the 186,000 fatality figure is "purely illustrative" which means it's serving as an example, not meant to be real. So why so vague in the article?"

blog comments powered by Disqus
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Latest posts (which you might not see on this page)

powered by Blogger | WordPress by Newwpthemes