Notices by Benjamin Balder Bach (benjaoming@social.data.coop)

This could be you. Think about it. This is what our countries are supporting when they say "Israel has a right to defend itself": Killing innocent people who are seeking safety and treatment in a fucking hospital tent.

»A 20-year-old Palestinian man who was confined to a hospital bed and connected to an IV drip burned to death after an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital courtyard where displaced people had been seeking shelter.«

We need to protest until this stops.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/10/15/palestinian-man-burned-alive-after-israeli-strike-on-hospital-courtyard

@aral Oh interesting that it used to be open source and isn't anymore. I've seen other open source 1-person sideprojects developing their business side to a worrying degree. Of course, the person doing it needs an income... but changing the license and selling it is not it.

@aral here's an alternative with an Open Source license: https://dgrm.net/ (I've tried it for a few small things and it's great)

Western leaders should have taken a timeout to think before sending all their auto-responses in support of Israeli aggression:

Israel doesn't have the right to *indiscriminately bomb civilians*.

The bombings of Gaza are collective punishment, and it's spelled out directly by Netanyahu. To him, all 2.3 million people in Gaza are enemies that "will pay an unprecedented price".

Everything about this is horrifying.

Context: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/12/germany-cancels-pro-palestine-event-bars-entry-to-gaza-war-witness

930 police officers to close an event with 250 people. The event was a joint initiative between Jüdische Stimme für Gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East) and DiEM25, a party that promotes democracy in Europe, founded by Yanis Varoufakis, also a party that runs for EU Elections in 4 countries.

Europe isn't headed to a dark place. It IS in a dark place.

https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/112263156445431817

Guterres waited and spoke wisely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOZfbzDH1NU

The UN Security Council vote on ceasefire has been postponed *again*. The Brazilian text was supposed to have been resolved Monday but is now delayed until later today (Wednesday).

The US doesn't want to vote until Biden has concluded his visit in Israel:

> It was unclear if the United States, a veto-power who traditionally shields its ally Israel from any Security Council action, would allow the resolution to pass.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-vote-wednesday-israel-gaza-conflict-2023-10-17/

In a social media post, Israel Katz said no "electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter" until the "abductees" are free.

Israel has now taken the entire population of Gaza as hostage. This includes everyone, also the Israeli hostages.

To me, it seems like a completely irrational and blind revenge. A true friend of Israel would tell them to stop.

https://journa.host/@fulelo/111220941415465904

The US has vetoed the UN Security Council's text on ceasefire.

12 of 15 members voted in favour of the Brazilian text, one (US) voted against, and two (Russia, and the United Kingdom) abstained.

(...)

> China's U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun accused the United States of leading council members to believe the resolution could be adopted after it did not express opposition during negotiations. He described the vote as "nothing short of unbelievable."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-vetoes-un-security-council-action-israel-gaza-2023-10-18/

Israel has shown (once again) that "defending" themselves includes war crimes and mass-murder.

Not calling for an immediate ceasefire puts blood on Western leaders' hands. Western leaders should do what they can to stop this, instead they were busy handing out encouragements of shear impunity to Israel.

Voting down the Russian text in the UN Security Council was also ice-cold geopolitics.

We'll see what the next 24h hold 😢

Antonio Guterres made another appearance: This time at the border crossing at Rafah (Egypt).

Even if the speech was improvised, the fact that he addressed the whole world right at the Rafah crossing is really saying for how horrific the situation is.

A prison of 2 million people detained without food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity.

Look at the truck lines that are supposed to get in 😢

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbwEHoJPv7E

Full details with each country's statement about the Russian ceasefire proposal from yesterday: https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/4-members-favour-5-against-security-council-rejects-russian-federations-resolution-calling-immediate-humanitarian-ceasefire-israel-palestine-crisis

There's a Brazilian text which will hopefully be adopted by the UN security council today (Tuesday).

Here you can see what your country voted in the question of accepting Palestine as a member of the UN.

Note 1: Biden, Netanyahu, Milei (that new right-wing nut job in Argentina), Victor Orbán and Czechia (center-right Christian government) stand alone, voting No.

Note 2: Speaking of imperialism and occupation, seems the US owns 4 small Pacific countries' votes.

Note 3: Not much solidarity from Ukraine (abstention)

Full news: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149596

Watch the livestream of the ICJ trial against Israel, for crimes of genocide - on Al Jazeera ( https://www.aljazeera.com/ ) or DR ( https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/live-krig-mellem-israel-og-hamas )

What South Africa has done, all other countries of the world are guilty of NOT doing.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Israel almost definitely has an end-goal to annex Gaza, no?

Forcing all residents to flea to Egypt will make the Palestinian refugees an issue of the international community.

But if Israel annexes Gaza and forces 2.2 mio people into exile (on top of a genocide), the whole Western block would unite against them? 🤷

The West would say "enough is enough" and end all support and alliance?

Actually Israel's policy is based on the exact opposite...

https://thewire.in/world/israeli-government-population-transfer-gaza-strip

Western leaders are pressuring Israel by reminding them to obey the rules of war? A court ruling on war crimes generally takes years.

This opens up an enormous room for speculation. Just call it war crimes (Macron sort of does), we can see the results already.

Meanwhile, the message from Israel's Defense Minister is "interesting"?

»What we can do in Gaza, we can do in Beirut«

In this logic, is Beirut full of human shields or Gaza never was?
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-772795

Imagine working in the Gaza hospitals.

1) No supplies, improvise all the time, everything is on the brink of collapse.

2) Too many patients, many in critical condition, constant prioritization, constant stress.

3) Then add the stress from being hit by an airstrike since hospitals are bombed and frequently warned that they will be bombed.

Tonight, hundreds more were killed and injured despite the health system collapsing.

This is Israel defending itself.

Today's front page of CNN says a lot about the sort of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that Israel is committing.

They are committing these crimes in Gaza, an ICC territory. And in brought daylight.

This includes criminalizing their own alliances (since they have signed conventions to prevent this).

I hope that it will not be long until leaders of the Israeli government are in the same ICC prosecution list as Putin and Assad.

Yesterday's speech by Antonio Guterres was historic. And congratulations with the United Nations Day, 78 years.

Today's world hasn't deserved such a good leader figure, but we certainly need one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKSQMYsQEg4

(not surprisingly, Israel's nutcase response to this reveals exactly why the speech is so good and powerful)

I would also like to recommend this week's interview with the former ICC chief prosecutor.

Not only does it illustrate the seriousness of Israel's crimes, but it also concludes that the world is on a very very dangerous discourse if no one will step up to prevent these crimes from happening.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/upfront/2023/12/1/former-icc-chief-prosecutor-israels-siege-of-gaza-is-a-genocide