I’m sorry. I can’t rejoice over the New Year and all that stuff. How can we keep pretending – with bells and whistles and fireworks, and worthy preachings from pulpits and parliaments – that it’s all going to be better?
It’s not. It’s going to be worse. Many atrocities have occurred in the past – and we’ve been shocked to hear about them – afterwards.
Now the atrocity is going on – in Gaza – and we know all about it, while it is happening.
I just remember, when I was a little kid – seeing pictures of Auschwitz. How could people have been so cruel to other people? I couldn’t believe it.
I read The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, who died at 15 in Auschwitz. Anne Frank had written in her diary; “I still believe that people are really good at heart.” That quotation has sustained me for decades.
I wonder what Anne Frank would think about what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. Would she join the many Jews who are trying to make it stop – and are being called “anti-semitic”, some being arrested as “terrorists”?
Jonathon Cook, writing in Middle East Eye, describes how “the wilfully blind, which includes western politicians and their media, are still in denial.” “The West Yawns” as each new research report spells out the genocide that is continuing:
“Nearly 15 months on, the Gaza genocide has become entirely normal, it has become just another minor, routine news item to be buried on the inside pages.”
“… those accounts made no impact on the western political and media consensus. Nothing has stuck, even when it is the soldiers themselves documenting their atrocities, and even when it is Israeli Holocaust experts concluding that these crimes amount to genocide.”
The UN Special Committee found Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza to be consistent with genicide, including starvation as a weapon of war.
Amnesty published a 296-page report concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Human Rights Watch issued an 185-page report. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) issued its report, titled “Life in the Death Trap That is Gaza.”
Of course, the USA government immediately rejected the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. UK and other allies, and the global corporate media dutifully followed suit, and continue to do so.
In 2025, the genocide in Gaza draws to its final stages. It looks as if the global corporate media is going to sigh about it all, spout politicians’ pious statements about the suffering, remind us of the Hamas conducted atrocity in October 2023, and of Israel’s “right to defend itself”, and move on to more important news items.
Billionaire-run corporations already dominate the Western media. In the presidency of Joe Biden, it has been bad enough, as Biden continued to promote the export of U.S. weaponry to Israel, while his hypocritical Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said “all the right things” about seeking peace in Gaza.
I wish that I could predict an optimistic development for Gaza, given that there is so much international awareness of the genocide, so many respected researchers who expose it. But there’s the incoming Trump administration in the USA. Trump’s appointees regarding foreign policy and the Middle East form a string of longterm supporters of Israel. Mike Huckabee will be his ambassador to Israel, Marco Rubio his Secretary of State, Steven Witkoff Special Envoy to the Middle East. A further complication, however, might be Trump’s relationship and strong business connections with Saudi Arabia which is not Israel’s best friend and still does not recognize Israeli sovereignty.
The power and influence of a Trump administration over the media is sure to create confusion in the public mind, about many things, but especially about Israel and Gaza. Trump is supposed to have some sort of complex plan for ending Israel’s war on Gaza, but it seems to boil down to open slather on the people of Gaza.
Amidst the confusion, the media has a splendid ability to distract attention away from this Gaza horror, making us all, in a way, complicit.
Still there are millions, world-wide, who know that this evil should be named and stopped.
There will be continued international efforts, including legal ones, to demand a fair cessation of this war. Michael Lynk writes in AA about support for the Palestinians:
“… a global movement of solidarity – particularly among the young – that will continue to inspire courageous thinking and bold acts. Its lasting impact should never be underestimated.”
Michael Lynk is not optimistic, but I guess that he does offer some hope, for some decent outcome in 2025. Just not a lot to rejoice about.
Further reading: Climate Change and Genocide
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A holocaust in reverse. Descendants of the first emulate and surpass that
barbarity in the here and now. And most of the world’s governments – except Ireland’s – sit like rabbits in the headlights AND DO NOTHING !!
Is humanity suddenly a foreign concept ?
In 2000, Teaching a history unit on WWII concluded with a study on the holocaust.
We watched Schindler’s List, and at the conclusion of the unit I posed a rhetorical question to the students.
Showing maps depicting the expansion of Israeli territory and the ingoing marginalisation of Palestinians, the question asked was ‘Is Israel conducting its own holocaust on the Palestinian people.
The question was rhetoricl, my conclusion is yes.