Israel’s Tents Massacre in Rafah Is a Heinous War Crime

1. And the bombs dropped by Israel came from the US—-Biden & Co./AIPAC Horrific.

2. It’s very easy to shoot fish in a barrel, and its also very easy for malevolent so-called leaders to abuse their positions and use their power to commit terrorism as we see in Gaza. The area is small, and Israel has the Palestinians essentially locked down. And if this is not ethnic cleansing or genocide I don’t know what it. When I close my eyes and think of humanity, no color or ethnic distinctions exist. We are of one shared DNA, the currency of the cosmos, yet evil tendencies creep into the minds of those who hate. It is said that Netanyahu funneled money to Hamas, so as to instigate some act of aggression, thereby giving him the right to retaliate, which he did. He provoked this insanity, and now he and his people must live with his decision. Is it so hard or difficult to put down the weapons, and hold out ones hands in support and trust of an oppressed people? Is it necessary to retaliate? Strength is not in the act of killing, it is in the refraining of causing harm to another that is most powerful. When we say Namaste to each other we recognize the real person as the Divine being of light within, the same light all human beings share as being parts of God Consciousness. So why would anyone seek to kill that which is divine? We must awaken to the truth that all we need to know is inside. And start living that way. Namaste, and may God bless all. Edward William Case

   1. Thanks, Edward. I was searching for that expression on the tip of my mind. Agree with what you are saying, but Israeli children are educated (at home and school) to denigrate the Palestinians, as though part of a cult. Chris Hedges did an interview with Israeli activist Miko Peled (former soldier and son of Israeli general) which describes this:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU0Uc-PKe9Y
      Video title: How Israel indoctrinates its people

      1. I grew up in the old American South. Heard to the old-school, deep-south racsim from the seat of my tricycle.

         Years ago, I was hearing a ‘debate’ on CNN, between an Israeli official and a Palestinian official. If I substituted the old ‘n-word’ for Arabs in this speech on tv, it was very clear that the Israeli official was spouting the same racist hate I’d heard in my tender, young ears.

         A lot of Israelis do not regard Arabs as being humans, not really. Listen closely, and you’ll hear it all the time.

         Its a rather predictable end of all who think of themselves as “Chosen” or “Exceptional”. That sort of thinking almost always leads to others being seen as “Inferior”. Its very hard to go very far thinking that you are superior without believing that others are below you, and then a rather short distance to their lives not mattering.

      2. All primitive peoples see themselves as special/ exceptional/ chosen to their God. Generally it is a harmless hubris, since backwards people generally are not powerful.

         • Killing, maiming and displacing the untermenschen is what Israel and the US always do; they have taken the mantle of NAZI Germany.

3. In the Top UN Court Orders Israel to Immediately Halt Rafah Assault in Landmark Ruling article I made the prediction:

   The Israelis will ignore the order, or up the ante as they did before and get even more savage.

   It appears that is exactly what they are doing. Will the world community respond impotently, as I also predicted, or are they going to use this latest massacre as a goad for real action to deter and stop the Israelis?

   The world waits for justice, when it needs to act for justice.

4. But, but, but according to BiBi it was simply a “tragic mistake.” Sure it was. Liar, Liar, Liar. Along with his good old buddy Biden supplying all these massive bombs and weapons to enable and ensure these “tragic mistakes” continue unabated. BiBi and Biden are two fucking sociopathic genocidal loving monsters reigning hellfire upon the Palestinians.

5. And from the paymaster of it all, Genocide Joe Biden, silence while he thinks up some justification.

   1. The silence has been broken: Further clarification from Biden’s Department of Double Speak has announced that since this was an “air strike” and not a “ground invasion” no redlines were crossed and therefore the USA will continue its complete support for Israel’s actions and the continued endless flow of weaponry to it’s terrorist twin. The continued massacre of Palestinians are a-okay just as long as it is done by dropping 2000 lb. bombs and not with troops on the ground in Rafah. You just can’t make up this insane logic coming out of Biden and his henchmen these days.

6. Long after WWII ended, Americans used to commonly employ the lacerating phrase, ‘Good Germans’ … a denigrating reference to all the normal German citizens who had passively allowed the FINAL SOLUTION to proceed apace while they quietly went about their daily lives.

   Of course, there was the implied understanding embedded in that insult that WE ( American citizens ) were naturally endowed w/ a superior grade of moral fiber that would have spurred us to stop any such monstrous project dead in its fascist tracks.

   Now… awaking everyday to the unkind awareness that I am a ‘Good American’ & that our miserable North American pro-consuls, Biden & Trudeau would endeavor to capture/neutralize a latter day Sophia Scholl ( see: White Rose Society ) as diligently as the Gestapo hunted down that inspiring young student ( & prototypical good German citizen) , I am overtaken by nausea & disgust.

   -JJ ( anybody but Biden, Trump , or RFK union member @ Detroit near Canada, Michigan )

   1. John, you do electricians proud (I hope I got that right). Very well said.

   2. Every single day I am sickened that this is the answer to the question I asked myself from the time I first read The Diary of Anne Frank: what would we do? “We” meant my parents (I was 10 or 11 and did not see myself as separate). That was sixty years ago.
      I experienced my own outrage when I was a bit older and watched VietNam on the news every night.
      Now I ask myself: so what? So what that I believed these things would never happen again? So what that I felt outrage? So what that I was absolutely certain I would not stand by and do nothing?

      1. Not only is it OK (apparently) to do nothing (get over / learn to ignore your outrage) but to be really cool = don’t even talk about the genocide – now that’s some kind of evolution ! The silence I experience these daze is beyond shameful.

      2. It’s up to you, but you can search for ways to add condemnation of genocide and find out who is protesting/mobilizing against these decisions by US govt. You aren’t responsible for your govt or culture or society. If you can think of a way to be active, all the better, but don’t beat yourself up. The current US govt and Israel are part of a long line of imperialism and conquest stretching back all the way to Spanish and British empires. If I may paraphrase another commenter, Roundball Shaman, human history is one long battle over the divine within each of us, whether to recognize and cherish this divinity or not.

      3. My dismay is probably not as noble as it should be. Understanding the reality of historical context doesn’t assuage the heartsick despair.
         But I appreciate your words, and the only thing that offers me any sense of self-respect is that i go to whatever lengths I can afford, whether it is financially or the dwindling resource of an old body, to live responsibly.

   3. Jill Stein for president!

7. The Masks that may have concealed the true identity and character of ‘The Chosenites’ as well as ‘The Indispensable Nation’ are being ripped off with vigor and painful clarity every day that this ongoing genocide goes on.

   No longer can these Global Posers try to con the World into thinking they are something other than what everyone with open eyes can plainly see in brutal clarity and horror.

   Any shred of moral standing or position that They have tried hard to convince the World that they may have had has been fulled obliterated. All that is left is for the World to wonder just how much further this depth of depravity will descend further into hell and for how long before something puts a stop to this abomination. 

   Those who continue to support and endorse what ‘The Chosenites’ and ‘The Indispensable Nation’ are doing will fully share in the karma that awaits everyone that has caused, aided, and abetted this orgy of death and inhumanity.

   Truly, some of the darkest days ever seen on Planet Earth. A Planet that for many is beginning to more resemble Hell itself with each passing hour.

8. Apart from all the other things to be said about this, it renders the discussion about which candidate to vote for meaningless. Genocide is ultimate evil, and no practitioner of it is ‘lesser’. Any energy expended on supporting any candidate other than one with no chance of winning this rigged election is far better spent on overthrowing the system that does this.

   1. We wonder in the UK election as well. Sunak is disgustingly supportive of anything Israel does, and “Labour leader” Starmer is as bad.People need to vote for the Workers’ Party, as George Galloway is the only decent possibility for change.

   2. Tried to write several comments, but settled on this ……

      Democracy and Capitalism Do Not Mix.

      Capitalism is a dog-eat-dog, no rules, fight for supremacy, with the weak ground beneath the treads of the victor, with only very limited room at the top.

      Democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

      Democracy and Capitalism don’t mix, and appear to be opposites of each other.
      The American Elites have obviously picked Capitalism.
      If the American people want Democracy, they’ll have to earn it the old fashioned way.

   3. Agreed but easier said than done. First, it takes awakened and united citizens. Second, as history has shown, it;s much easier to bring a system down than to replace it or prevent a resurgence of the worst — as in Egypt of the Philippines..
      I wish we could even unite around a candidate like Jill Stein or Cornel West in sufficient numbers.

      1. I’m responding to all three, with agreements to all of you. One of the points of the Russian revolution was that capitalism cannot fulfill its democratic promises. Surely overthrowing it is easier than building socialism, a point I’ve often made; the USSR is a perfect example. I also wish we could unite around a single candidate, but than usually results in a lowest common denominator with the important issues left in the wilderness. More important is building a party of the working class on a united front basis. As we should know, if it is to be effective such an effort would be fought with all the resources the ruling class can bring to bear. It would take a quantum leap in consciousness. This is a very big subject, and I wish we could discuss it more in this forum.

      2. Good point about building a working class party and united front. I’ve been encouraging the CPUSA to coalition with the Socialist Party and DSA among others of like mind to build that necessary united front. They already are active in Labor..

         As for taking a quantum leap in consciousness, culture is a vital part of shaping and building that. The corporate ruling class know this as do its most reactionary elements. we do not own or control mass media but we have talented radical writers, poets an musicians and must use every venue we can for outreach, education and building the militant working class consciousness needed to achieve the successful abolition of corporate rule and our ability to build working class democracy. I do my part in publishing the Blue Collar Review but we all have to find how we can actively contribute our talents and skills to building the next system in the present to deafest and replace the globocidal monstrosity of capitalism.

      3. I wasn’t aware that the CP was actually functioning. Most of what I see from them is support for mainstream demos. When they endorsed Hillary over Bernie they completely lost me. They need to show up and fly their colors; and warmongers can’t be in their program or they are nothing more than a social club for old foggies with a militant sounding name.

         DSA shows promise, but can’t break with the demos, either. Their initial resurgence seems to have hit its logical plateau. I heard a well informed rumor that they were ready to make that break, and an expulsion of AOC was part of it. Then the rumor fizzled. DSA also shows intolerance of left tendencies and denies internal democracy to them. They need to make a choice: a left party to challenge the establishment, or a pressure group to it. The latter leads to a dead end. Debs was right.

         I concur with your general perspective that seems to be a united front strategy, but I see other groups, those further left, in that. But they tend to create circular firing squads. The antiwar coalitions around ANSWER and UNAC are old and do too much talking to themselves. They can’t even unite on antiwar issues. I know too many of them and I’m not holding my breath.

         Maybe Labor Notes would take the initiative. The Labor Party effort of a couple of decades ago seemed to center on the efforts of Tony Mazzochi, and he seemed stuck in first gear. Once he passed the whole thing passed with him. A similar effort should be tried, but who will do it? The urgency of antiwar politics, and the energy of youth around that and race issues, seem to suggest it will grow out of that if anything. If that happens, the best of DSA will join them.

         The old labor perspective we have seems to have lost the spirit. Just read the crap we see here and you can throw up your hands in frustration. And then youth seems to waste half their energy by not using it to build a larger movement. I keep urging a broader strategy through the few I know, but they have their own agendas. That’s usually something narrow, like virtue signaling. You, of all people, know who I mean.

         I’m retired and out of touch with those who lead from the campuses, so I’m left to advocate in forums like this. I wish we could have a real discussion about it, but recent discourse suggests too many barriers to it exist. I also wish like minds could connect, but my last effort to do that backfired. If you or anyone else of similar thought is in the bay area, please sound me out. I’m open to another attempt.

      4. I mostly agree with you and share your frustration The CP. is somewhat improved but still not able to disconnect from the Dims every four years. A broad front alliance could change that but it seems unlikely. There are a lot of progressives out there. likely a majority, but it takes some kind of catalyst to unify a movement as well as the principles and organization to maintain it. I’m also frustrated by crippling flaws of the left; sectarianism, divisive identity obsessions and the need to included every issue all the time for the sake of über-correctness at the expense of a rational prioritized ability to focus on an issue and make basic demands. Ergo a poem I wrote called

         Sixty-Nine & Counting

         Count me out
           of corrupt partisan politics
           the blood furor of
           patriotism, nationalism, tribalism and
           flags with which to
           cover coffins

         Count me out
           of religion — of invisible invented deities —
           the grudge feuds and atrocities
           the guilt fostered by imposed limitations
           on life, on thought and inquiry

         Count me out
           of dogmas on
           nit-picking ideological sectarianism

         Count me out
           of egotism and
          self aggrandizement
          that does harm to others
          to the living earth

         Count me out
           of mass culture fads
           and shallow, empty truisms
           the stubborn ignorance and denial
           that attempts to justify
           the unthinkable

         Count me in
           on caring for each other 
           on Beloved Community
           jaundiced as I am
           in the wake of disappeared ‘friends,’

         Count me in
           on authenticity, on integrity
           on consistent stubborn
           Activism
           in the struggle
           for sanity —
           a livable world,
           for enlightened civilization

9. I don’t understand what the Israelis hope to accomplish: to take Gaza they really have to push out or obliterate the Gazans. Do they really think the world will forget if they massacre or starve millions of people? I was overhearing the monopoly case against Ticketmaster by the US Dept of Justice: is this how Biden buys off and distracts the American people from the horrors in Gaza, by making their concerts cheaper?

   For my part, if the UN is toothless and cannot send a multi-national force to protect the Palestinians, then the other countries of the world should take up the mantle of the Statue of Liberty, and

   “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
   With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
   Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
   The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
   Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

   I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

   1. It is not only Gaza. East Jerusalem and the West Bank are also ruled and terrorised by the Zionist murderers

      1. The whole country has lost any delusion of credibility and has become a monstrosity the world can see. It must be de-recognized and dissolved with recognition going to Palestine.

   2. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to celebrate the end of Slavery in the US.

      It was “culturally appropriated” by Emma Lazarus, a Jewess whose family made their fortune from slave labor. She initially turned down the offer to write the poem since she could not write a paean to glorify the end of slavery. Instead, she was allowed to write the “New Colossus” befitting her pet project of bringing European Jews to America.

      Seems apropos to today’s America.

      1. Thanks michael, I did not know this history and its irony. Still, I find the words extremely moving, whatever her family’s history.

10. Guernica, Chungking, Rotterdam, Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, Baghdad and now Gaza. The crime list just grows…..

    1. Curious why you omitted cities in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Bosnia/ Kosovo/ Serbia, Somalia/ the Sahel, Latin America and of course Iraq and Afghanistan and so many other modern and ongoing examples?

       Just look at the Americans who are glorified: Madeleine Albright, Hillary and Bill Clinton, John McCain and Lyndsey Graham, Nikki Haley, Biden, Blinken and Sullivan, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, and so many more. Most of these people belong in an institution for the criminally insane.

    2. https://countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm

11. “Even if it avoids civil war, Israel’s final crisis looks cataclysmic” says Giorgos Mitralias on Counterpunch this morning (May 28). This Greek journalist has studied the internal contradictions of the Zionist ethnostate for decades and says there are two opposing Jewish factions about to unleash the same kind of violence on one another as they are using on Palestinians. Israel has been an unstable fringe state barely able to stay afloat for 80 years and now it is imploding. He calls the genocidal faction Judea, and the morally indifferent materialist faction Israel. (All this is new to me but sounds plausible because I live among Jews in North Carolina who are telling me similar things.Most of us here would welcome a secular country where all residents are equal… an end to apartheid and land seizure.) You’ve got to examine what the USA did to LIbya and Syria and is doing to Georgia to see the tragedy of supporting extremist leadership. And really, we in the USA are in a similar situation, with Oligarchs narrowing the political spectrum to two types of fascism, creating a cage match to distract from a critical mass rebellion that has been building for decades.
    I live with my elders in their garage apartment, and I’m showing films and having discussions in the driveway on non-rainy weekends. I have been encouraged by a cross section of people in my neighborhood eager to discuss in person. If Americans can still talk there is hope for peace in these pivotal areas, but not if our military industrial complex and CIA/NED keep agitating from outside. The shadowy parasites running our nation need genocide to maintain control, and they will use it as needed.

12. I just saw something that says that the US policy towards Israel will not change and the weapons will keep flowing. Apparently Biden’s “redline” regarding Rafah is so far up BiBi’s ass that Biden can’t even find it as he crawls deeper into BiBi’s intestinal fortitude to kill every Palestinian in Gaza. Gotta steal the last remaining land once and for all and build all new condos for the chosen people to bask near the sea. I’ve loathed the country of my birth since my high school days and I am 69 years old now. The USA is the world’s biggest terrorist nation since the days it began and its terrorist twin are skipping happily along on their genocidal path.

    1. Further clarification from Biden’s Department of Double Speak has announced that since this was an “air strike” and not a “ground invasion” no redlines were crossed and therefore the USA will continue its complete support for Israel’s actions and the continued endless flow of weaponry to it’s terrorist twin. The continued massacre of Palestinians are a-okay just as long as it is done by dropping 2000 lb. bombs and not with troops on the ground in Rafah. You just can’t make up this insane logic coming out of Biden and his henchmen these days.

       1. Ah, well, thanks for clearing that up.

13. Our mainstream media, embedded in the Pentagon and the IDF, are doing everything possible to invent justification for this monstrous crime and to blame it on Palestinians. Meanwhile the bombs used are American made and from Biden’s continuing supply even as he denies there is an ongoing military assault on Rafa. Some ask where his “red line” is. I have to ask where our red line is given the criminal actions of a sitting President actively perpetrating a genocide.

14. This is a moment in time when saying nothing does not necessarily mean complicity. It means this act is so far beyond anything humans have ever experienced that it takes not only one’s breath but one’s ability to speak away.

    We would need to quickly create an impromptu language to accommodate what the US and Israel have done in Rafah. But who, other than the US and Israeli monsters ordering the attack, could even begin to think up new words to wrap around the deed?

    And any words the US and Israel could possibly come up with would be the equivalent of a Happy Face.

15. The seven 2000 pounds bombs must be false, as in that case the number of the actual dead would be thousands. What was first shown and than quickly removed from site was a strike made with thermobaric missiles.
    The thermobaric or vacuum bombs vaporize bodies, and that is what looks like took place.
    If indeed 7 2000 bombs were used on the refugee camp, than the death tool must be in the thousands considering that each bomb has a kill range of over 300 meters and lethal to close to lethal range of over 800 meters, specially on a flat area with no buildings to brake the blast wave.
    See for your self
    https://substack.com/@1sol1x/note/c-57485984

    1. Agreed. They’re testing those thermobaric bombs on Palestinians.

16. All of those responsible for what is happening in Gaza should be rounded up, thrown into concentration camps and left to ROT!

    1. They should be rounded up and shipped to the Hague to stand trial for their crimes.

       1. Yes, the world needs a Nuremburg 2.0 trial over this entire campaign of killing, which includes those in other nations who are complicit. A permanent stain on a global scale.

17. Common Dreams ? Whatever !

    War is always a crime, get over it. To war is human. How about other wars ? Cover them will you !

    1. An occupation plus a resistance plus a genocide do not equal a war. Two sides fairly equally matched fighting each other is what a war looks like.

       What’s happening in Palestine defies definition in ordinary terms. Besides which, the two parties committing genocide (the US and Israel) do not get to call their atrocities “war” – that right belongs to impartial observers. If anything, it is a holocaust – far from unique perhaps, but worthy of special consideration.

    2. So being human is a crime. I guess you aren’t one for law and order.

    3. This sounds pretty dismissive. You won’t win friends with it. But underneath it you have a point. I sometimes look at what’s happening in Gaza and wonder how others don’t feel the outrage I do. Then I read those who seem to think this is a singular event and wonder why they don’t understand the ‘other wars’ you mention. I think part of the answer lies in the attention span, or lack of it, created by our culture. Every war has this horror, and if we lived through enough of them, or studied history enough to know about them, or actually were in them where the blood flowed (few of us can really make that claim), we know that war is simply destruction of the common folk for the benefit of the rich and powerful. And it’s as ugly as it gets. If we knew what actually happened in these wars of colonialism or imperialism, which almost all of them are on some level for centuries, we would find that there have been many Gazas, and many Holocausts; and while it is necessary to stop this one, ASAP, there is that other one that is threatening nuclear Armageddon. Yes, let’s try our best to stop this one. But at the same time, let’s really try to grasp why these keep happening and change the system responsible. First clue: it has nothing to do with Judaism. Thinking it does is not finding the solution; it’s perpetuating the problem.

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