The Electronic Intifada:
"Yasmin Porat, a survivor of the bloodshed at Kibbutz Be’eri, near the boundary with Gaza, says many Israeli civilians were killed by Israeli forces. An Israeli woman who survived the Hamas assault on settlements near the Gaza boundary on 7 October says Israeli civilians were 'undoubtedly' killed by their own security forces.
It happened when Israeli forces engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters in Kibbutz Be’eri and fired indiscriminately at both the fighters and their Israeli prisoners. 'They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,' she told Israeli radio. 'There was very, very heavy crossfire' and even tank shelling.
The woman, 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat, said that prior to that, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians for several hours and treated 'humanely.' She had fled the nearby 'Nova' rave. A recording of her interview, from the radio program Haboker Hazeh ... has been circulating on social media. The interview has been translated by The Electronic Intifada.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861
-->First is was Hamas cutting off the heads of babies, which turned out to be completely untrue. Then it was the Hamas slaughter of the Israeli dancers. An Israeli witness has now come forward to say that Hamas was not guilty of this atrocity either. And where is the US media when another wartime lie is being spread world wide? Why it is where you might expect it, in the pocket of our Pentagon war machine.
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The Guardian UK
"Widespread attempts to suppress pro-Palestinian views in the US after the Hamas attack on Israel have forced the cancellation of major conferences, prompted demands for the dismissal of workers who express support for Palestinians and led to intimidation campaigns against Arab American voices critical of Israeli policies.
Earlier this week, a leading US Jewish group forced the cancellation of a major Palestinian campaign organisation’s national conference by alleging it was a front for Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis and abducted about 200 people in its attack from Gaza.
Palestinian American activists say television networks also have censored or cancelled interviews. NPR and the BBC pulled advertising for a widely praised new book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a campaign of 'listener complaints'. The Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce has declared a 'victory' after pressuring Hilton hotels into cancelling the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights event in Houston later this month at which the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was to be the main speaker."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/21/israel-hamas-conflict-palestinian-voices-censored
-->Readers will have to go to the UK to understand the assault on free speech now going on in the US. I blame the apartheid state of Israel for its control over our media, over our colleges, and over our political caste. Israel is a greater threat to our democracy than Hamas ever was.
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The Intercept:
"The U.S. government may be complicit under international law in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people, a group of legal scholars warned the Biden administration and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the dire warning to President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a 44-page emergency brief on Wednesday, on the heels of Biden’s trip to the Middle East. There, Biden reiterated his administration’s unwavering support for Israel — even as the Israeli government wages an unprecedented bombing campaign on the occupied Gaza Strip in retaliation for a horrific attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israeli citizens.
'Israel’s mass bombings and denial of food, water, and electricity are calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza,' Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney with CCR and a legal representative for victims in the pending ICC investigation in Palestine, told The Intercept. 'U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it.' "
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-biden-genocide-war-crimes/
-->The American Empire doesn't care about international law or war crimes. It makes up its own laws, and decides for the whole world who lives and who dies. Someday, the empire itself may come to an end. And I fervently hope that its leaders face justice for their crimes against humanity.
