Saturday, 16 March 2024

FROM this week’s news ON: the war in West Asia [Content Warning - links to reports on oppression/bigotry/hate, violence including SA & CSA/abuse/war, genocide, language. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

Reporting on recent and currrently ongoing war in West Asia (I object to the colonial term “Middle East”), in imperialistic Israel, Gaza, and adjoining nations, includes the following: 

Note: as with other mass murderers/serial killers/and the like, violent extremists crave publicity, so I refuse to give that to them - I will avoid using their names (which is a policy adopted by good law enforcement and media for other mass murderers), and I will not give them the satisfaction of being described with the T word. 

This is explained further in my post at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2023/10/from-news-on-war-in-west-asia-content_25.html. 

Note also that the genocidal intent of the VE group I refuse to name is, and has been for some time, clear, according to this from experts in that topic. Information suggests that several thousand of the Palestinian deaths to date are likely to be from that group - maybe up to 20% (as a maximum) of the total: the rest - more than 80% - are innocent civilians, including babies, toddlers, and children. 

 In my opinion, a safe place for Jewish people has to exist because of the world’s collective failures in the 1930s and 40s (the problem was not only Germany, but every nation that rejected Jewish asylum seekers/refugees [including my nation - although Yorta Yorta man William Cooper was a notable “upstander”] or allowed antisemitism - and that continues now) ... but the Arab nations’ proposal for a single nation with Arab and Jewish provinces should have been given more consideration, IMO, and now that MUST be as part of a two state solution, lest Israel’s foundation and existence be inherently based on an injustice - which, as part of correcting an injustice, intrinsically morally weakens that foundation and existence.  

Note also:   this, on when criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism;   and   Israel’s conduct since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the collapse of the Oslo Accords has - in addition to devastating and often displacing and killing its victims - been damaging of its standing (and devastating to those people on the receiving end), and its conduct now risks an even more self-damaging Pyrrhic “victory”.

 

  • “The Double Standards Debate at the UN”   https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/israelpalestine/double-standards-debate-un   “The Gaza war has led to acrimony at UN headquarters, with critics accusing the U.S. and its allies of hypocrisy in dealing with international crises. The rows are indeed divisive, but many member states seem not to want them to obstruct all other diplomacy.   ...   Although Russia’s invocations of U.S. double standards may be cynical – some Arab diplomats feel Moscow is exploiting the Palestinian cause for its own ends – many Western observers concur that Washington has done itself diplomatic self-harm over Gaza.”   Seems to me to be a well written assessment    
  • “Aid Wars over Gaza: Resuming Funding to UNRWA”   https://theaimn.com/aid-wars-over-gaza-resuming-funding-to-unrwa/   “The bombast and blunder of the whole effort by Israel was further discoloured by claims that UNRWA staff had been victims of torture at the hands of the IDF in drafting the dossier. In a statement released by the agency, a grave accusation was levelled: “These forced confessions as a result of torture are being used by the Israeli Authorities to further spread misinformation about the agency as part of attempts to dismantle UNRWA.” In doing so, Israel was “putting our staff at risk and has serious implications on our operations in Gaza and around the region.””   The use of torture is an abomination - NOTHING can be trusted that comes out of it   


on peace/ceasefires:   


on human rights and human suffering (on both sides) aspects:    


on military aspects:    


regionally:    


internationally: 

  • The title of this is not correct (and is, in fact, somewhat nonsensical): other nations are allowed to do as they will, provided it does not breach INTERNATIONAL law: it is the USA that is breaching US law, not Israel:   “Israel is restricting U.S. humanitarian aid. They are breaking US law”   https://youtu.be/T1bSsFU4k4o?si=psn99YQggwesh74d   



My links for activism post may aid any activism you may decide to do on any/all of these. If you do, don’t get too fixated on specific instances of problems - important though they may well be: take a moment to also consider the broader issues these incidents and groups of incidents may suggest/reveal.

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

  • this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/  

 

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