Global

This article was originally published by The Nation.

The whole thing may appear to be an exercise in futility, but there is a point why Palestinians are keen on releasing their prisoners, despite the heavy price they continue to pay for their freedom. 

 It may seem rational to ask the question: what is the point of releasing a few Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, if the price of doing so is the death of over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza?

In most media coverage of war — including the hell in the Middle East, where World War III looms —the unexamined assumption is that we, the readers, are spectators, looking on as the missiles fly (mostly in one direction) and Good dukes it out with Evil yet again,

Paradoxically, Good and Evil are in complete agreement at least about one thing: The only way to deal with conflict is through violence.

The last thing either side wants is for this to be questioned — no matter this is the nuclear age and the future of life itself is up for grabs.

The USA dominates the COP28 summit in UAE (28th year of "talking" about
climate change) . The US ($23 trillion economy/GDP - the biggest
contributor to climate change causing greenhouse gases) pledged a tokenism
of $17 million (!) to help developing countries "adapt" and "mitigate"
climate change while pledging $14.3 billion in weapons to Israel (in
addition to billions more already given) and hundreds of billions to the US
military. Note that the US and Israeli militaries are the biggest polluters
of the environment which is producing millions of climate refugees. This is
HYPOCRISY. The problem with COP28 is the problem of the previous 27 COPs:
they are meetings of government officials beholden to lobbies and lobbyists
for the biggest polluters (2400 lobbyists attending this year'*). If
anything the quality of these participating officials (environmental
ministers etc) has gotten worse. As Greta Thunberg said, they go 'bla bla
bla" while our world is being destroyed. While there were attempts to
challenge the US hegemony with groups like BRICS and ASEAN, the Us still

Covert, Michigan and Washington, D.C., December 6, 2023--A coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future, has submitted

Americans remain largely ignorant about the extent to which foreign influence pervades the United States government, and I am not referring to the fraudulent claims made by Hillary Clinton that Russian has interfered materially in US elections. The real threat comes from elsewhere. Few outside the government itself are likely to be aware of the extent to which the state of Israel and its domestic affiliate-lobby operating out of Washington and New York have corrupted the United States political system, to the point where nurturing and enabling the Jewish state in its ambitions to dominate much of the Middle East has become effectively US policy. As the exchanges surrounding the recent fighting in Gaza, rightly referred to as a war crime and ethnic cleansing, perhaps even the first steps in a planned genocide, demonstrate that even when the US has genuine interests at stake Israel believes itself empowered to say “no” to the president of the United States. The assault on Gaza and the ongoing killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians started again on Friday after a week long pause for hostage/prisoner exchanges.

PLEASE keep acting, forwarding, demonstrating, speaking out. It does make a
difference.

The president of the Islamic University of Gaza Prof. Sufian Tayeh and his
family were killed in Israeli bombing in North Gaza (Jabalya) 2 December
2023. I updated the detailed post on attacks on institution of higher
education including the call that was signed by Prof. Sufian few days
before he was killed:
https://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2023/12/assault-on-education.html

Here are videos you won't see on western controlled media
-Six residential towers leveled in Khan Younis