Patti Smith -- the singer-songwriter and rock legend -- has long warned about the bees dying out. Lavender is a plant that bees like and that nourishes them. In addition, butterflies (also in lower numbers than they should be) benefit from lavender as well. So if you were going to only plant one thing -- either in the ground or in a pot -- I would recommend that you plant lavender for those two reasons.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
The University of Turin is suspending a collaboration agreement with Israeli universities and research institutes after a wave of student protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
The school’s academic senate voted on Wednesday to ban participation in an initiative financing joint research projects between Italy and Israel, while rejecting calls for a broader cessation of ties with Israeli universities.
The decision has raised concerns among Italian Jewish leaders even after the university’s rector emphasized that collaboration currently in place would continue.
Police have arrested 19 people after they gathered at Sydney’s Port Botany to protest the arrival of an Israeli cargo ship they accused of transporting weapons and supplies for the country.
Hundreds of protesters, joined by federal Greens senator and deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, began protesting close to the facility on Sunday evening before marching across Penrhyn Road, the main access point out of the city’s port facility.
Hundreds of people, including members of dozens of faith communities, walked 22 miles from Berkeley to Alameda on Saturday to advocate for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The 22-mile journey was intended to mirror the distance that those fleeing Gaza must travel to reach the Rafah crossing, where more than half of Gaza’s population has taken refuge, according to the Associated Press. The East Bay demonstration was one of more than 150 planned across cities in 19 countries in recent weeks, according to the Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage, an organization connecting churches and other faith groups to organize the demonstrations.
In addition to a cease-fire, the protesters are calling for the immediate release of all hostages, the flow of food, water, aid, fuel and humanitarian assistance, and the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza.
More and more people speak out. Saturday, Philip Dewey (WALES ONLINE) reported:
Charlotte Church performed as part of a group singing in support of Gaza at Barry Island Promenade. The Welsh singer has lent her voice to a number of pro Palestine causes, calling for an immediate ceasefire on the Gaza Strip.
The Big Sing for Gaza event took place on Saturday at the popular tourist attraction, with fundraised for the Middle East Children's Alliance. Church led a choir on the promenade, singing "Let Gaza live", with the event also including kite flying, sand art and floral tributes.
Speaking at the event, Church said: "It's been a beautiful event, I feel very passionate about whatever I can to raise my voice to call for a ceasefire and to call to end the occupation of Palestine. What we're seeing happen in Palestine, what we're seeing happen to civilians, to children to babies, to birthing mothers, it's unbearable, it's unbearable to witness and I just (feel) like I have to do whatever I can as one small human to be with these other wonderful humans whose hearts are breaking over what is happened and what they are seeing, and what's being allowed to happen.
"Our government is complicit, America's government is complicit, and other world governments who are complicit in this and are still sending money and weapons to Israel. As a mother it's just too much, it needs to stop, it needs to end. I'll keep coming out until it does. Not just a ceasefire but an end to the occupation. Palestine has been under an apartheid system and a military occupation in Gaza since the 60s, and a really violent military occupation.
VATICAN NEWS reports that Cardinal Gianbattista Pizzaballa has termed the Gaza situation "objectively intolerable" and "Everyone -- religious, political, and social communities -- must do everything possible to put an end this situation." AP notes U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called it a "moral outage." Former UK Prime Minister David Miliband, International Rescue Committee president, terms it "a failure of humanity" -- see video below.
And AOC started the weekend calling it "an unfolding genocide." Lauren Aratani (GUARDIAN) reports:
Progressive US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Israeli military campaign in Gaza an “unfolding genocide” in a scathing speech that demanded the Joe Biden White House suspend aid to Israel’s armed forces.
“As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine’s door,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor on Friday.
Citing 30,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and noting 70% were women and children, she continued: “A famine … is being intentionally precipitated through the blocking of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the Israeli government. This is a mass starvation of people, engineered and orchestrated.
“This was all accomplished – much of this was accomplished – with US resources and weapons. If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes.”
Friday marked the first time the congresswoman has publicly called the ongoing violence in Gaza ― where more than 30,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces ― a genocide. Of those deaths, more than 25,000 have been women and children, killed in an offensive launched in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel." She continued speaking out as the weekend ended. Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday reiterated her description of the Israeli military's actions in Gaza as a "forced famine" and pushed back on the Netanyahu government's claim that it is targeting militants who carried out the October 7 attack.
"There is no targeting of Hamas in precipitating a mass famine of a million people, half of whom are children," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN's Jake Tapper just two days after she delivered a floor speech characterizing conditions on the ground in Gaza as "an unfolding genocide."
The New York Democrat said Sunday that she believes the Israeli government's conduct in Gaza—from obstructing aid shipments to bombing densely populated areas—"have crossed the threshold of intent," a necessary condition of genocide.
"It is horrific," she said, noting that the even U.S. State Department has admitted the Israeli government is intentionally stonewalling aid deliveries, fueling starvation across the territory.
Asked to respond to the Israeli government's claim that the war would end within a day if Hamas released all the remaining hostages and dropped its arms, Ocasio-Cortez said, "The actions of Hamas should not be tied to whether a three-year-old can eat."
"The actions of Hamas do not justify forcing thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to eat grass as their bodies consume themselves," she continued. "The Israeli government has a right to go after Hamas, but we are talking about a population of millions of innocent Palestinians. We are talking about collective punishment."
AOC appeared Sunday on CNN. What gets covered and what doesn't get covered matters. Jessica Cobertt (COMMON DREAMS) reports on footage most outlets have not shown:
Adding to the mountain of evidence that Israel is engaged in a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera on Thursday aired footage of what the news outlet reported was an Israeli drone targeting four Palestinians in Khan Younis last month.
Those killed by the unmanned aerial vehicle in the rubble of the
southern Gaza city appear to be unarmed teenagers or young men.
According to a translation of the coverage, they were not identified in the reporting.
While Al Jazeera deemed footage "too graphic" to be included on its daily live blog covering the war, a clip of it quickly spread on social media, where critics of the Israel Defense Forces operation expressed outrage.
"OUTRAGEOUS even after months of outrages," declared Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer. "This video shows an Israeli military drone literally stalking four unarmed civilians posing no threat and eliminating them one after the other!!!"
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Al-Shabaka's U.S. policy fellow, said: "This is among the worst footage I've seen. Not only were these boys clearly unarmed and present no threat whatsoever, but they were struck multiple times even after stumbling/crawling away. There is no way they could have been considered combatants. This is unreal."
Also on the media, Robin Andersen (FAIR) looks at the way the media covered The Flour Massacre:
Over 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded on February 29, when Israeli snipers opened fire on people approaching a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed supplies of flour. The attack was quickly dubbed the flour massacre.
Corporate media reporting was contentious and confused, mired in accusations and conflicting details that filled the news hole, even as media downplayed the grave conditions in Gaza created by Israel’s engineered famine. With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in media’s facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.
Linguistic gymnastics
This New York Times headline (2/29/24) was described as “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”
On the day of the massacre, the New York Times (2/29/24) published this contrivance:
“As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll”
It was met with ridicule as it slid across online platforms. Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/1/24), author and research director at the Iranian American Council, called the piece of work “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”
Another Times headline (2/29/24) read, “Deaths of Gazans Hungry for Food Prompt Fresh Calls for Ceasefire.” Nima Shirazi, co-host of the podcast Citations Needed (Twitter, 3/1/24), noted that “the New York Times just can’t bring itself to write clear headlines when Israeli war crimes are involved.” Shirazi offered this revision: “Israel Slaughters Starving People as It Continues Committing Genocide.”
Professor Jason Hickel (Twitter, 2/29/24), along with Mint Press‘s Alan MacLeod (2/29/24), flagged the use of the neologism “food aid–related deaths” when it turned up in a Guardian headline (2/29/24): “Biden Says Gaza Food Aid–Related Deaths Complicate Ceasefire Talks.” MacLeod noted, “Virtually the entire Western media pretend they don’t know who just carried out a massacre of 100+ starving civilians.”
Linguistic gymnastics—a longstanding plague pervading Western media coverage of Palestine (FAIR.org, 8/22/23)—were so popular in news headlines and reporting that Caitlin Johnstone (Consortium News, 3/1/24) compiled a list of them, adding “chaotic incident” (CNN, 2/29/24) and “chaotic aid delivery turns deadly” (Washington Post, 2/29/24) to those already mentioned.
Sana Saeed, media critic for Al Jazeera, decoded the latter kind of construction for AJ+ (3/29/24), arguing that such passive language has been used “consistently to sanitize the violence that a powerful state is unleashing against civilian populations.”
As the genocide enters its sixth month, media analysts, investigative reporters and social media users have become adept at recognizing pro-Israeli contortions and patterns of language that justify Israel’s war on Gaza. This has become an essential aspect in exposing Israel’s genocide.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 171 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." ALJAZEERA notes, "The number of people killed in Israel’s war on Gaza has increased to 32,333, according to the Health Ministry in the enclave. At least 74,694 people have also been wounded by Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
Al-Shifa Hospital has been under attack by Israeli forces for a week now. Sunday, the assault increased a as two more hospitals came under attack. Lauren Izso, Abeer Salman and Tim Lister (CNN) report:
Israeli forces have surrounded two more hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said, describing intense shelling and heavy gunfire.
Months into the conflict, fighting is still raging across Gaza, despite international pressure on Israel and ongoing efforts for a ceasefire and hostage deal.
The PRCS said Sunday that Al-Amal Hospital and Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza were both encircled.
“All our teams are in extreme danger at the moment and are unable to move at all. They are also unable to bury the body of our colleague Amir Abu Aisha inside the hospital courtyard.”
THE NEW ARAB notes, "The UN humanitarian office OCHA said 'health workers have been among those reported arrested and detained'." Australia's ABC adds, "The reported hospital battles came as the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said that Israel had informed the UN that it will no longer approve UNRWA food convoys to the north of Gaza."
We'll wind down with this from Nesrine Malik (GUARDIAN):
Now imagine an act of aggression that had no such universal, full-throated condemnation, no pledges of large aid packages and no support or schemes for refugees. In fact, imagine one where the aid and military support is being provided, but it is to the party that is killing civilians and invading their territory. How much harder is it then, to maintain that sense of urgency and outrage? To keep it in the headlines? To keep the pressure up on politicians? To keep it even alive in your heart? It has been almost six months since Israel launched its assault in Gaza. But even as the images of dead children buried in rubble give way to those of dead children emaciated from hunger, there is an unmistakable sense of fade.
Some of that fade is by design. Why would a matter that raises awkward questions for politicians be kept in the spotlight by those same politicians who have either supported Israel’s actions or dragged their feet in condemning them. The result is not just avoidance, but dilution. The scale of the crisis in Gaza is not brought to us from the lecterns of the US president or his spokespeople, the sort of representatives who (still, jarringly) speak about Russian war crimes and how they must not be tolerated or normalised. On the first anniversary of the Ukraine invasion, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, addressed the United Nations security council and said: “Day after day of Russia’s atrocities, it’s easy to become numb to the horror, to lose our ability to feel shock and outrage. But we can never let the crimes Russia is committing become our new normal. Bucha is not normal. Mariupol is not normal. Irpin is not normal. Bombing schools and hospitals and apartment buildings to rubble is not normal.”
Gaza is not normal, but you won’t hear Blinken pleading that you not become desensitised to it. Instead it will come from human rights organisations, experts, reporters and aid workers who warn that what amounts to “utter annihilation” is not only exceptional, it is beyond description. But their collective efforts, admirable and credible as they are, catch in a bottleneck when they reach the powers that can do anything about them.
So the fact that the assault on Gaza has resulted in the “biggest cohort of paediatric amputees in history”, or that if things remain as they are, Gaza will fall to “the most intense famine since the second world war”, will not be acted upon by supporters and underwriters – both practical and moral – of Israel’s offensive, beyond what are increasingly farcical requests that the Israeli government behave more reasonably. The volume at which such historic horrors are amplified is always artificially set to one that is much quieter than it should be – which at this point, is nothing short of at maximum.
That silencing also smothers and makes harder the work of those members of the general public who have, for months now, through protest and campaigning, tried to keep that volume as high as it can be; to simply state that this is not normal. But not only is their message being ignored, it is being actively suppressed through attempts to ban protest altogether, or imply relentlessly that it is about something else – anything else, rather than anger and worry about the fate of those in Gaza. An almost eerie outcome is that as hundreds of thousands pound the streets around the world on a weekly basis and tell their representatives how they feel, their voices are muted, or others speak for them; they become ventriloquist dummies for politicians who present them as parodies of threat and menace.
Then there is just the fatigue. Fatigue from anger, from being given the run around by politicians, from exposure to events that no human can witness for an extended period of time without some sort of numbing, self-defence impulse kicking in. A double whammy burnout that comes from exposure to scenes and statements, casually posted by Israeli officials or sourced from their own cameras, of unarmed civilians being killed by drone missiles – but also the silence about them from official parties, even as the footage tears through WhatsApp messages and social media timelines. The problem when unheard-of things happen, is that once they do, they are then heard of.
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A much needed laugh8 hours ago
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She Migrates3 days ago
