Opinion Archives - Page 22 of 23

Stop The Gaza Holocaust

CrossFireArabia
August 13, 2024

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Years from now academics from many different disciplines, will sit and examine what has now long become recognized as the Gaza Holocaust with its own dramatic features and tools, willingly and determinedly perpetrated by the Israeli military and political leaderships while the rest of Israeli society looked on and the world watched aghast, in complicity and helplessness.

Political scientists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and economists will seek to examine every aspect of horror committed by the Israelis against the Palestinian people of Gaza, in terms of destroying and ruining a functional Palestinian society that once existed but no more.

We are not allowed to use the words War Crimes.

We are not allowed to use the word Genocide.

We are not allowed to use the word Holocaust.

What do you call the massacre of over 40,000 civilians in Gaza in ten months then: pic.twitter.com/OngGcP61mU
— PalMedia (@PalBint) August 10, 2024

As well as death and murder, Gaza has become a rubble heap and an enduring wreckage with former buildings, towers and skyscrapers raised to the ground.

The Gaza holocaust will become a new term and course taught in world universities alongside traditional courses of holocaust studies committed by the Nazis in World War II.

Only this time, the Gaza holocaust will focus on how the Jews – now in the form of an Israeli state, institutions and a powerful military and security apparatus – turned from being the victim of racist, fascist horror, to those committing the worst massacres against Palestinian people.

The Gaza holocaust will be real-time, modern sets of murders and heinous acts of killing and destructions committed by what is regarded as a professional Israeli army with one of the most sophisticated technological gadgets in the world committing unspeakable crimes against women, children and the old in a tiny geographical strip and an enclave called Gaza.

The genocide in Gaza is also a holocaust. pic.twitter.com/f7J5JU1rqw
— Damian from Brighton (@damian_from) August 11, 2024

The Gaza holocaust will be about introducing new concepts, ideas, methods and methodologies about introducing new meaning to atrocities, extermination, destruction, elimination, eradication, genocide, slaughter, decimation, excision and obliteration.

All of the above words have become common currency in the new Israeli holocaust against Gaza plotted out by men in blue suits in Tel Aviv and occupied Jerusalem and willingly committed by officers and soldiers in uniform aided and abetted by a destructive machine of warplanes, tanks, missiles, artillery and naval ships.

Similar to the Nazis and Hitler, this Gaza Holocaust will be remembered for its external angle. Israel is committing murder with the help of the United States who are shipping the weapons – planes, tanks, artillery and mass bombs – to help the country bomb the Palestinian enclave to the ground.

History will show that the United States has been part-and-parcel of the Gaza holocaust, willingly arming Jewish state to the teeth and without it, Israel wouldn’t have been able to wage the war for so long, currently in its 11-month.

Similarly, other world states including the UK, Britain, France Germany, Italy and more like India has been willing partners in the supply of weaponry to beat the people of Gaza with while at the same time – and like Washington – professing peace talks, ceasefire and two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"STOP THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA!"

A Holocaust survivor Stephen spoke out about the Israeli atrocities being witnessed in Palestine, calling for an end to the genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza during the protests in London today. pic.twitter.com/fwF9IItEYo
— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) August 3, 2024

This Gaza holocaust, once entering the text-books for research, will be mind-boggling for its intensity of the ‘’kill factor”, huge bombs dropped on Gaza – 82,000 tons of explosives were hurled down on the Strip by the end of July starting from October, 2003 – and the enormous destruction this caused to the environment and ecosystem of a land that is no more than 364 square kilometers.

This mad holocaust – 2000 pound bombs, that’s two-ton bombs were willing and continuously dropped on residential squares – will take years to fathom, understand and put into perspectives with theoretical models that must be introduced to understand what and how it was triggered and how it was dealt with.

Opinion

Weaponizing food!

Saleem Ayoub Quna
August 10, 2024

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

Food is a major strategic weapon that can be used against one’s enemy. It can be applied in three cases: When consumed, boycotted or as a deprivation tool!*

Like other types of essential ammunition, soldiers need food to be able to keep on fighting and advancing. No better phrase can explain this idea than the famous quote attributed to Emperor Napoleon when he said: “Armies crawl on their bellies”!

But sometimes, when the other side, your opponent, is also smart and you have the capitalist system of franchising products working in every corner, unexpected things can happen!

This story can, one day, become a classical case study in politics, economics, sociology, psychology and warfare!

It all began in the first half of October 2023 when a franchised company in Israel, representing a famous world food chain, thought it would be a cool idea to photograph Israeli soldiers on the Gaza front, receiving nicely packed items of food produced by that company!

Its Israeli CEO, probably, wanted to demonstrate a symbolic gesture, rather than providing an irreplaceable type of food for the Israeli soldiers on that occasion. But he seemed to have forgotten or deliberately ignore that the same kind of food is available all over the world, including places, where his “enemies” and their allies, by the millions, live and regularly consume the same commodity!

Those millions on the other side of the front line were dismayed and felt offended by those carefully taken shots of the Israeli soldiers receiving their food packages.

The former did not know who was really behind this gesture. But they couldn’t not care less if the gesture originated from within Israel, or was inspired by the mother company in another faraway place.

So they, as a sign of protest of the war against Gaza, decided to boycott all products and services of this company in all of its branches.

They were also aware that the franchised branches play an important role in the local economy in each country. Thousands of young people are hired where unemployment rates are high; they also use subsidiary locally-produced items and so forth. But they had a choice to make. It was a hard one but less painful than acting as if they condone the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

The results of this world wide boycott movement, even in some European countries, proved catastrophic for all branches and especially for the Mother Company, since it’s the one who gets the lion’s share of the pie!

In addition to the symbolic meaning of this initiative which involves national dignity, exercising awareness, it was used as a last resort to fight back and defend their rights and beliefs.

Never take anything for granted, when you go to junk food eatery. Surprises can crawl out from the slices of bread!

*Deliberately depriving the enemy of food is tantamount to a flagrant war crime!

This opinion was especially written for Crossfire Arabia by Saleem Ayoub Quna who is a Jordanian author writing on local, regional and international affairs and has two books published. He has a BA in English Literature from Jordan University, a diploma from Paris and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He also speaks French and German

Opinion

License to Kill!

Saleem Ayoub Quna
July 30, 2024

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

The “next day” scenario for Gaza as outlined by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the wake of the Hamas surprise and bold assault on the Israeli settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023, did not sail the way he wished.

Instead, he and the Israeli establishment gradually came to realize that this war was more costly, complicated and longer than all previous wars Israel fought since 1948.

Even most Israeli pessimist strategists couldn’t have predicted a worse course of events!

Simultaneously, domestic and international pressure to free the 120-or-so remaining Israeli hostages, held by Hamas, by force or through negotiations, kept growing by the day.

Besieged by these mounting pressures and other legal problems at home, Netanyahu maneuvered his way to address a joint session of the American Congress on July 24, 2024.

Such a coup would be an additional mark of his statesmanship, he thought!

Aside from obvious theatrics and tactics including carefully-chosen vocabulary, Netanyahu feeling like he had hypnotized his listeners, received more than 50 “overdone” standing ovations during that showcase session!

Whether he was rightly shrewd or desperately wrong in this approach, i.e. in addressing a foreign nation’s elected assembly with such an aggressive language and style, rather than talking to his own constituency back home, is an open topic for debate by political scientists and historians!

But for the time being, let us look at some of Netanyahu’s main points.

No one can argue against Netanyahu’s own impression of himself. He only can admire the image reflected on his own mirror: A great leader whom destiny had chosen to play a big role in history!

Netanyahu in the 80's brags about how the Jewish lobby controls America.

"We own the senate, the congress, and we have a record strong Jewish lobby on our side.

We have a strong influence over the general support.

America won't force us into anything." pic.twitter.com/wZcWOIimlk
— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) May 8, 2024

Netanyahu Versus Churchill

I can only agree with one thing in common between Netanyahu and Churchill. Both addressed the American Congress, while their countries were engaged in a war with a third party in some faraway battlefields!

Britain then, was facing a dominant Germany which had all of Europe in its grip: Israel today, fighting a group of Palestinian militants known as Hamas, thriving in a besieged poverty-stricken, densely populated strip of land, that has been cut from the outside world for the last 18 years by a tight Israeli siege.

Comparing Germany of the 1940s to Gaza under Hamas in 2024, amounts to a flagrant insult to basic human intelligence!

Nevertheless, Netanyahu in his emotional address kept repeating that Israel was the most reliable ally of the US in the Middle East. By saying that he tried to insinuate to his VIP audience that they should not hesitate to take sides against his enemies, calling them barbarians!

In this regard, Gideon Levy, dubbed by Israeli right wing groups as Hamas Ambassador to Tel Aviv, in an article in the Ha’artz daily on July 28 2024, slammed those who attended the session.

Levy wrote: “Shame on you American legislators for applauding a man whom the International Court of Justice has recently declared as a war criminal”. Then he added “your support for this man means that you condone his crimes in Gaza, as if he was commissioned to do it in your behalf”!

Netanyahu then brought up one of his “favorite” haunting nightmares, “nuclear Iran”. He categorically attributed all Middle East problems to Iran. But no Congressman would have the courage to remind him, during the coffee break that the Middle East was never short of problems, long before the present regime in Iran came to power in 1979!

By addressing the UN Congress at this crucial moment, Netanyahu, aimed to bring home on his back, like an untimely Santa Clause, a bag stuffed with more illusions. Among these was a message to his home-based critics, that being the indispensable leader he is, he has influential allies abroad who share his concerns better than they do!

He also wanted to impress his friends and enemies alike, that he is that type of leader who combines word with deed to achieve political goals. In this regard, he managed, separately, to meet with the incumbent President Jo Biden, and the two other, potentially, would be leaders, Harris and Trump, in the near future.

Finally, Netanyahu’s ultimate unpronounced objective during his “last” visit to Washington, was to be able to continue the carnage in Gaza until his promised total victory was achieved; a goal that cannot be reached without the continuous flow of arms, ammunition and other types of financial and political support from the US.

“If you provide us with the arms we need, the fight against those barbarians, our common enemies, will continue on a faster pace and more efficiently”, he shouted!

It's a shameful day for America.

American President Netanyahu addressed the senators he bought at the congress today.

In every speech, senators bought by the Israeli lobby stood up and applauded Netanyahu. pic.twitter.com/lpdU8MZtCW
— Torah Judaism (@TorahJudaism) July 24, 2024

In brief, Netanyahu was begging the American people through their elected Congressmen for a license to kill as many Palestinian civilians as it takes, until his “next day” scenario for Gaza comes true!

Opinion

Trump: An Assassination Attempt with Theaterics!

Saleem Ayoub Quna
July 15, 2024

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

CROSSFIREARABIA – As if the Republican ex-President Trump, and today’s sole contender for the world’s number one job, against Joe Biden who is standing to be reelected, was short of theatrics, Donald’s Stars just framed him in a most dramatic, thrilling picture that will forever stick in US memory, and which only great Hollywood film-makers can come up with.

The assassin’s bullet that grazed Donald Trump’s ear thankfully missed its mark. But, as @AbramskySasha writes, that can’t be allowed to erase the long, ugly history of Trump’s dalliance with violence—from his flirtation with paramilitaries to January 6.https://t.co/0nm3Nh61L5
— The Nation (@thenation) July 14, 2024

What makes this picture unique, almost a satanic rival of the iconic Mona Liza, eternally and awesomely displayed in Le Louvre of Paris, is the traces of red blood on his cheek, while still hot! Add to that is the solid defying fist in the air, accompanied by a loud sound bite of: “Fight, fight, fight!”

Welcome once again to America!

Take me for an amateur, skeptic, or whatever you want to call me, I am not buying this story!

Yes, there was a person with a gun. Yes, there was a big crowd. And yes there was the most controversial public figure in the modern history of America with the name of Donald Trump on stage, celebrating the company of a mass cheering crowd.

Failed assassination attempt on President Donald Trump. How evil, desperate, ruthless can people be, when they want to hold on to power against the will of the people. What is Trump's sin? Just wanting to make his nation, "America Great Again" May God protect @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/VS6RSt0BCr
— Okafor Kingsley Nwachinemere Joseph (@OkaforK95467089) July 14, 2024

But a bullet that would just hardly scratch the upper tip of the right ear of the targeted man, who instinctively took cover behind the podium, is beyond comprehension! A clumsily used shaving blade or a big mosquito bite, could do more damage!

Mr. Trump was and still is a very successful businessman. One of the best in America and the world. He also served as the 45th US President from 2017 till 2021 and now is seeking a comeback to become the next 47th President of the United States.

Donald Trump was never a stranger to controversy; not in his private life nor public one. Actually, one day, he could be given the nickname of Mr. Controversy, which should not by any means hinder his strong chances of coming back to the White House next year.

BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump was shot in an assassination attempt during his rally, blood pouring from ear from apparent gunshot wound pic.twitter.com/fpVREpQ7n9
— BAY AREA STATE OF MIND (@YayAreaNews) July 13, 2024

Now the final and simple question is: Why did the young man aim at the upper tip of the right ear of Mr. Trump on that sunny bright day? What effect will this have on his followers or the supporters of his rival Mr. Biden?

And finally, what impact can a stray bullet have on deciding who to choose between two contenders who some cynics, local and foreign, like to identify one as a stubborn old man versus his rival a show off clownish figure?

We are here at the receiving end of such theatrics whilst having no part of it, except to pray for a miracle, as our ancestors used to do when facing such hardships!

Saleem Ayoub Quna is a Jordanian writer and published author who writes on local, regional and international affairs

Opinion

Israeli Maariv: There is no Alternative to Hamas in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
July 7, 2024

Any alternative to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is not realistic, as it has sovereignty and rule over the Gaza Strip, Israeli daily newspaper Maariv wrote about Israel’s options for the so-call “day after” in the enclave.

The newspaper stated Gaza is not the West Bank, explaining years after the Israeli invasion of the West Bank in 2002, the Israeli army is still waging ongoing battles with the Palestinians there.

Israel is moving the goal posts of its mission to eliminate Hamas bc it can’t win. Also cracks continue to emerge in the leadership https://t.co/SGYM9ly0Rr
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) June 20, 2024

The big difference is according to Maariv the military cells in the Palestinian Authority areas are not the party that controls security and civil affairs there; nor is it the “lions’ den,” nor even any other organization responsible for the daily life of the population.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reviewed Israel's options for the day after the war in the Gaza Strip, concluding that, regardless of the debate over who will run the Strip, any alternative to the Islamist group Hamas does not seem realistic, as it is the sovereign and the ruler.
— Ibrahim Abdallah (@islammov) July 6, 2024

It added unlike the cities and villages in the West Bank, the synergy between the military and civilian sides of Hamas in Gaza not only did it not disappear, but was not even dented, neither during the air aggression attack phase nor even after in the ground operation Israel waged on the Strip.

The daily referred to the issue of distributing aid in Gaza, which the Israeli government has repeatedly discussed but with no results. Israel does not want Hamas to be responsible for such aid but at the same time, it has no alternatives Maariv stated.

Angry Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his country there was no alternative but to stick to the goals of the war and pledged to defeat Hamas and bring the hostages back, hours after eight Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza.#israel #gaza #palestine #netanyahu pic.twitter.com/DiiGQsEETr
— CGTN Europe (@CGTNEurope) June 16, 2024

Maariv explained Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not have any answer or plan for a civilian alternative for the residents of the Gaza Strip, he never had! “Netanyahu only knows he does not want the Palestinian Authority to be in Gaza, because that mean embarking on the path that would directly lead to a political process based on the two-state solution.”

The daily pointed out “no force, body or state will agree to set foot in Gaza, neither physically nor with a commitment on paper, as long as Hamas remains in the field, alive, sovereign and actively distributing food to the tents of the displaced.”

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reviewed Israel's options for the day after the war in the Gaza Strip, concluding that, regardless of the debate over who will run the Strip, any alternative to the Islamist group Hamas does not seem realistic, as it is the sovereign and the ruler.
— Ibrahim Abdallah (@islammov) July 6, 2024

There is no alternative for Hamas, the newspaper stated, adding Israel stands in confusion regarding the day after plan and “there is no better way to describe the current situation than to say it’s a ‘dead end’. Hamas controls Gaza, because there is no alternative.”

Maariv quoted an anonymous senior Israeli officer as saying in one of the closed hearings of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset that eElections will be held in Israel before Netanyahu present to the public an alternative plan to controlling Gaza.

The Hebrew daily called on him to admit the truth, say it out loud that there is no realistic alternative, and Hamas will remain in Gaza.

It added even if Netanyahu loudly announces he is withdrawing his opposition to the Palestinian Authority as part of an alternative solution to Gaza, this would not change the reality.

The newspaper concluded Hamas leaders are pinning their hope on a prisoner exchange deal that will allow them to expel the Israeli army from the enclave, so that the movement will have sovereignty and rule, as it was before the war began.

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Stop The Gaza Holocaust

Weaponizing food!

License to Kill!

Trump: An Assassination Attempt with Theaterics!

Israeli Maariv: There is no Alternative to Hamas in Gaza

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