a Tweet for your consideration

‘Timely UN report says IDF soldiers likely committed war crimes and worse against Gaza’s march’, Josh Ruebner, March 13, 2019, justworldeducational.org, (all content Creative Commons)

A few outtakes:

“At the end of February, a Commission of Inquiry established by the UN’s Human Rights Council issued a preliminary report on Israel’s response to the first nine months of the Gaza-based Great March of Return that stated that it had reasonable grounds to believe that during the march, “Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law,” some of which “may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity…”

The 3-member Commission was headed by Santiago Canton of Argentina. It urged Israel to investigate all the killings and injuries inflicted by its soldiers against participants in the march. But it also urged the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide the dossiers on alleged perpetrators to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other bodies.


The final report was published on March 18, 2019
at the OCHR website in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. The page features more info-graphics, videos, and a list of B-roll for broadcasters.

Warning: video contains disturbing scenes of protesters being shot and killed.

“In the preliminary version of the report, the Commission noted that during the period March 30 through December 31, 2018, Israeli soldiers had killed 189 unarmed demonstrators, 183 of them with live fire, and had injured 9,204 others, two-thirds of them with live fire. During the demonstrations, four Israelis soldiers were injured with stones or explosives.


Release of these two versions of the Commission’s report is extremely timely as March 30 will see several big actions in various locations to mark the first anniversary of the Great March of Return (GMR), a massive campaign of nonviolent citizen protests that demand the lifting of the siege that Israel has maintained around Gaza for 13 years, and the implementation of the Palestinians’ Right of Return.

Or, consider the fact that the commission received testimony from many young Palestinian men and women whom Israeli snipers shot in the lower abdomen and groin, rendering them incapable of having children. Was this pattern a coincidence or did certain Israeli soldiers view Palestinians in such a dehumanized and racist fashion as to judge their reproductive capacity a “demographic threat” to continued Israeli Jewish supremacy? [snip]

The deadliest day

On May 14, 2018, hundreds of US and Israeli officials and dignitaries jubilantly gathered outside of 14 David Flusser Street in Jerusalem to witness the Trump administration make good on a key campaign promise: to move the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That move upended seven decades of a bipartisan US policy that had consistently refused to recognize any country’s claim to sovereignty over the city and enraptured Trump administration figures, GOP donors, Members of Congress, and Bible-thumping televangelists who attended the ceremonial opening.

Just 60 miles away, in the Israeli-occupied and -besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip, an entirely different and horrific scene was unfolding. An estimated 35,000 to 40,000 Palestinians protested at 13 sites throughout the enclave in the planned culmination of the GMR, which had initially been planned to last only six weeks.

The GMR protests that day took on added urgency and intensity as the Palestinian demonstrators were also protesting the US putting its imprimatur on Israel’s exclusivist claims to Jerusalem and preparing to commemorate 70 years of the Nakba (“catastrophe”), the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian population and colonization of Palestinian land that has characterized Israel’s policies since 1948.” [snip]

Will Israel be held accountable? 

The Commission concluded that Israeli forces “killed and gravely injured civilians who were neither directly participating in hostilities nor posing an imminent threat,” which is a war crime. Moreover, these killings occurred “in the context of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy,” and may, therefore, constitute crimes against humanity as well, according to the commission.

It is no wonder that Israel refused to cooperate with the work of this Commission, as it previously refused to provide access to previous UN fact-finding missions investigating Israel’s earlier military assaults on the Gaza Strip and the seaborne attack Israel launched against a flotilla of civilian ships attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies.

However, Israel’s efforts to derail this Commission did not inhibit the Commission from conducting a comprehensive investigation. The Commission conducted 325 interviews with victims, witnesses, government officials and members of civil society and reviewed more than 8,000 documents, including affidavits, medical reports, open source reports, social media content, written submissions and expert legal opinions, video and drone footage, and photographs.”

Ruebner briefly chronicles the Obama administration’s efforts to collude with Israel to bury UN recommendations to hold Israel accountable for atrocities committed by Israel during Operation Cast Lead (including Susan Rice) and allowed Israel to investigate its own crimes during the 2010 Mavi Marmara aid for Gazans ship raid.

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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of Rep. Omar, but she doesn't work for Sam Husseini, she works for her constituents.

Why, in the first place, is it her job to push Husseini's views and agenda? Does he live in her district?

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Mary Bennett

wendy davis's picture

@Nastarana

following husseini's requests (nor arash azizi's for that matter), but in this case her 'constituents' are far broader than those in her district, esp. given the whole twitter flap over bibi refusing her (and the other muslim congresswoman, tlaib, iirc) permission to enter palestine, then giving it, and on and on. she's become the twitter poster child for anti-BDS and 'speaking truth to power' for criticizing israeli policy in the occupied areas, the unholy power of AIPAC. that's all.

as in: she's being harassed for what she has criticized, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'.
i wish bernie sanders would take a bold stand, as well.

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@wendy davis with the notion that members of Congress are just another part of the Celebrity Parade, along with Kardeshians and Rachael Maddow.

Did not the BDS movement predate Omar's election? Why does she need to be their poster child?

I don't do twitter, or faceplant, so I've not been following all this. Maybe I have an old fashioned idea of what congresspersons are for.

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Mary Bennett

wendy davis's picture

@Nastarana

but yes, she IS a celebrity, given her 1.5 million twitter followers, and the major amount of ink she generates at sites all over the web, as do AOC and tulsi gabbard.

but yes, she's become the poster child for anti-BDS, remember: 'it's all about the benjamins, baby?' she took such hell for?

my guess would be that she'd be eager to cite this report, and i was glad to read the synopsis myself. i.e., it's a very damning report and should be promoted for all who hate what's happening to palestinians in the occupied lands.

and consider what major pushback it would be to bibi, kushner, and trump's 'I/P deal of the century', leaked but not yet formally published.

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wendy davis's picture

@Nastarana

nutshells, even though this is an epic example of rubbish writing:

MSM hurls FAKE ‘anti-Semitism’ charge against Trump, rather than question his REAL loyalty to Israel’, RT.com today

'The media has willfully misinterpreted Donald Trump’s words to portray the most pro-Israel US president in history as an anti-Semite. It makes more sense to chide him for sacrificing US interests to please Benjamin Netanyahu.

Here is the full Trump quote from Tuesday, in which he rejected Democrat Bernie Sanders’ idea that Israel should stop accepting American aid, after its reluctance to let in congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who have publicly endorsed the BDS campaign.'

“The concept of even talking about this – even three years ago – of cutting off aid to Israel because of two people that hate Israel and hate Jewish people – I can't believe we're even having this conversation,” Trump said.
“Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gone where they're defending these two people over the State of Israel? I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat – it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”

and the only way i had any idea of when or where came that quote was due to the fact that a c99% denizen had featured this vote as 'bernie's chutzpah'.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=XstfNmY0dfM]

call me crazy, but bravery would have saying 'let's talk about providing those billions in military aid to israel. why are we doing it?'

but then i tried to find a 2018 tweet from him i'd used back in the day, but failed. BAR editor ad author margaret kimberly had referenced it on 04 Apr 2018

'The media covered up for Washington’s friends and politicians were silent. Bernie Sanders’ mealy mouthed response was one of the few to be heard. He called the shootings “tragic” and said that the IDF “over reacted.” Crediting him with these weasel words is damning with faint praise but this minimal response is not surprising given the degree of Israeli influence in American politics.'

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snoopydawg's picture

being committed by Israel so I don't understand why this dude was selective on which tweet he should highlight. There are many more of her speaking out not only about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians but to what is happening in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere where human rights abuses are happening. Including here at our border.

Maybe a better question is why aren't democrats speaking out about this? Nancy made her tweet more about what Trump did than Bibi's actions. She might not have wanted to upset the golden calf of money donations from Israel and AIPAC.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

with her 1.5 million twitter followers, shining a big spotlight on this UN HRC report could widen the discussion and debate immeasurably. husseini also respects what atrocities she's shone a light on.

thank you for considering the tweet, though; i just disagree with you. the report is quite damning, and during the more recent marches of return, and given trump's alliance with bibi, added to the US having voted to move its embassy to jerusalem as well, the IDF seem to get that it's open season on palestinians, and few will care.

this report seems to have pre-dated the snipers killing people in the medical aid stations, as well, although i haven't read the full report.

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snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

and yet no one in congress does anything to rein in Israel. Back in 2014 when Israel spent a month bombing Gaza no one in congress said anything about IIRC, but when they ran out of bombs every person voted to sell them more with just a few exceptions. Warren voted for it and said that Israel has a right to exist and to protect themselves. Israel ended up killing over 2,000 people including over 500 children. But it was Hamas' fault that they were killed according to some in government. This happened during Obama's tenure and as he was leaving he upped the amount of money Israel gets each year.

The point I'm making is that no one in our government or even other governments are saying a damn thing about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Any time some country tries to censor Israel there are more than one country voting against it. And as I said Omar has been tweeting and talking about what Israel has been doing, but then she gets lots of flack for everything she says about Israel. So again, why put this job just on Omar because she has so many followers? Pelosi and Schumer have just as many and instead of Nancy saying anything about that report she is bitching about Russia interfering with our elections still. When's the last time Chuck said anything about what Israel is doing?

For the record I'm very against the things Israel and Bibi have been doing for a very long time, but...

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

gain tractions and legs. but my reckoning, you're totally tangled up in blue, as in the Blue Team D's: who cares about pelosi and schumer, as they always genuflect before israel, and as indicated, so did the obomba administration? did you ever see hillary at AIPAC and CUFI? oh, my.... she had the fever!

but ilhan omar receives accolades for her 'speaking truth to power' all over the leftist internet sites, including ramzy baroud, jonathan cook, i forget who all. but i do remember (rather hazily) husseini saying that omar could fold, as AOC had, i assume on her interview with 'firing line', or go long and deep, maybe this is what he'd meant (truly challenge the power?

i'm totally baffled as to the reasons you find this so offensive, as you say: 'For the record I'm very against the things Israel and Bibi have been doing for a very long time, but...' do you think she would be risking too much? i just don't get it, i gotta say.

if she knew about this report, i'd wonder why she hadn't used it, and if she hadn't, i hope she does now, and will use it as ammo against the trumpeter, bibi and likud and the IDF, and even the sad and sick 'I/P peace deal of the century'.

but thanks for your amplification of your initial comment.

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"George Galloway vs the US Senate as a model. See video:"
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=HrdFFCnYtbk]

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wendy davis's picture

@artisan

thank you; husseni is a dedicated human rights activist, and very convincingly anti-nuclear, as his pinned tweet shows. i need to click through to see which senator he'd been
addressing. galloway rocks in so many ways.

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@wendy davis @wendy davis He was responding to Senator Coleman. He was at the hearing because he was accused of taking bribes from Saddam. Because why else would anyone oppose the war?

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wendy davis's picture

@artisan

why would anyone oppose that war save for being bribed. hello, colin powell; he used hand-drawn infographics and charts as well as bibi does. thanks for naming norm coleman, as well. i'd forgotten all about him, to say the truth.

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and I bet if you go back to that time period, she probably did. She's said a lot about Israeli atrocities. I don't think it is somehow suspicious if she didn't link to a specific report.

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wendy davis's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

as far as i know. but given the weight of the damning UN human rights commission's report, and all the testimony the panel had heard, wouldn't you think that if she knows about it now, she'd love to have such weighty evidence to tweet and otherwise convey?

i thought i was pretty current on palestine, but i'd not even been aware of this march report on the 2018 right to return protests.

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except in that I noticed a terrible war in Syria, and Yemen with untold thousands of lives lost. Hundreds of thousands maybe. I'm sure Israel has also had lives lost on both sides of their decades long conflict.

I wish our reps would do something more for their constituents than for issues overseas. Our society is coming apart at the seams, plenty to do here.

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wendy davis's picture

@ban nock

considering, and while i'm not clear on this: 'I'm sure Israel has also had lives lost on both sides of their decades long conflict', other than in hasbarist nonsense, israelis have lot very few lives compared to palestinins. there is no equivalence, imo.

but as i'd indicated, i'm not altogether sure what you'd meant. but certainly in yemen and syria it's so, and rubrics as to who the good guys and bad guys are in either...is in the belief on whichever corporate news convinces us.

but if you mean that imperial wars and military aid to X friends-of-the-empires nations waste so much money that could be used in the US for any number of healthy for-the- citizenry reasons, i'll agree with you in spades, ban nock.

from your fonts to the gods' ears.

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wendy davis's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iXadyBSiHQ]

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts
...

peace to all when you're able; g' night.

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Big Al's picture

Pretty amazing. Didn't know about this Husseini guy but a little checking, seems he's all right. Not sure what his aim with Omar is but prodding politicians to do more, say more, tell the fucking truth, isn't new or a bad thing to do. Hell, why don't they bring up Israel's role in 9/11 or the USS Liberty.
It's kind of humorous in a sick kind of way watching the right wing pony up to Israel because Trump is now the Zionist's best friend. A lot of the right wing pointed to Israel and Jews for controlling the federal reserve, the media, causing 9/11, but now they show their colors by agreeing with Trump that Omar is an anti-Semite because she dares to criticize Israel. What a conumdrum for part of the right. The only thing that saves Trump is the hate the right has for democrats and liberals. Hate drives everything.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

by tweet is pretty horrific, but...it's what it is now. i like the immediacy of it, though, as well as all the free (in the commons) art and images. never would partake except as an observer, though, as it looks far too easy to get a rage on. ; )

yeah, husseini's fine, but reading those words reminded me that consortium news had semi-recently carried something he wrote, maybe an interview, of his analysis of prez candidates. it seemed pretty ho-hum, plus not a subject of major interest to me.

but where he seems to be is that omar has the ears of the anti-zionists, and hopes she'll up her game to seriously challenge the power™. to me, the final section of ruebner's piece was:

Will Israel be held accountable?

could omar help to hold israel accountable? i'd like to think so, as does husseini. on israeli's nukes? forget about it, lol.

it's also too bad the most D elected officials have been pretty complicit in all of the hell on palestinians. light bulb: i did get to thinking that as far as 'constituencies' go, part of that cohort is also campaign contributors. i'd have thunk money might have poured into tlaib's and omar's coffers after trump's 'go back home' tweet.

nice to see you, stranger, and yes, it's tragic that hate drives so much.

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