After five months of backing a relentless bombing campaign of Gaza which has resulted in more than 30, 000 killed, more than 70, 000 injured, and tens of thousands more expected to perish from hunger and disease, the American President has finally decided to allow air drops of food packages into the Strip.
According to United Nations Security Council officials, at least 576,000 people are in immediate peril, being “one step away from famine.” That being said, humanitarian aid is desperately needed, but should the Gazans be appreciative of America’s apparent magnanimity at this late hour? Is it too little, too late, and is the gesture indeed humane, or just more politicking?
As you’ll see later, humanity may have had very little to do with the air drop, and even starving people know when they’re being mocked and gaslighted.
The decision to airdrop aid follows yet another cold-blooded massacre of civilians by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) late last week. This latest iteration in an obscenely long list of Israeli war crimes is being labelled as the flour massacre, and resulted in at least 112 deaths and 750 wounded. Some of the dead and injured were crushed by Israeli tanks driving over them. Surviving civilians describe how the IDF, in an alleged ambush, opened indiscriminate fire on starving Gazans who flocked to get food aid being delivered by trucks.
As anticipated, the IDF response to the worldwide condemnation of this latest atrocity was riddled with outright lies and contradictory statements by the Israeli propagandists spokesmen. Peter Lerner, from the IDF reported in an interview with CNN that of the dead civilians, many were killed in a stampede and crushed by the food aid delivery trucks, while in a separate incident others were shot while “posing a threat” to soldiers in tanks. Why starving Gazans on the brink of death from hunger would abandon their quest for food to “attack” armed soldiers in tanks is handily not explained.
In another CNN interview, Mark Regev, chief Israeli government spin-doctor, responded that the IDF was not involved directly with the incident, alleging that the deaths and injuries resulted from civilians “pushing and shoving” and being run over by the food aid trucks. He further alleged that the gunfire came from “Palestinian armed groups, Hamas or others.” He’d of course completely forgotten the Israeli claims that the IDF had eradicated Hamas and other insurgents from the area, so it would appear they materialized to conveniently fit his narrative.
I’ve had the misfortune of watching Mark Regev on numerous interviews, and a dead giveaway that he’s lying and making stuff up on the fly is when he frequently stammers the words “…eh, eh, ah, eh…” during the interview. Peter Lerner is also no slouch when it comes to making shit up, and has previously presented manufactured evidence for Hamas bases under hospitals, among other whoppers.
Prior to this barbaric incident, on Monday last week, President Joe Biden was filmed responding to journalists, flippantly promising a ceasefire while sucking on an ice-cream. That facetious promise however, was quickly recognized as a pathetic attempt by Biden to influence the expected Uncommitted Vote by angry Democrat supporters in the Michigan Presidential Primary election (which of course failed spectacularly). The resultant outcry from both Biden’s utter insensitivity and the subsequent Israeli massacre of civilians later that week, probably resulted in the US taking the usual shameless face-saving measures to divert from all the negative publicity. The air drop of food packages appears to have been part of that strategy.
Considering the billions of dollars of military and other aid that the US has provided to Israel, you would think that they could at least fork out a similar level of humanitarian aid for Gaza. You would be wrong!
The air drop consisted of 38, 000 prepared meals. It amounted to a humongous slap in the face for the starving Gazans. I would be willing to bet that the number of American bombs dropped over Gaza in the last five months exceeded that number. How can anyone not despise a country that creates the crisis and then supplies the “humanitarian” aid for it? It reminds me of this irreverent quote by Byron Danelius where one could easily substitute the USA for religion:
Religion provides the solace for the turmoil that it creates.
While the US embarked on this lame gesture, the IDF themselves have been actively blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the starving Palestinians in defiance of the January International Court of Justice ruling in the Hague. Worse, misguided Israeli citizens are themselves forcefully blocking food aid trucks from entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. These poor deluded souls are just victims of their country’s well-established indoctrination system. They are, naturally, being aided by the IDF and Israeli police. Great sociopathic teamwork. No surprises there!
If you don’t believe that the US administration, like the IDF, and even some Israeli citizens are toying with, or mocking the Palestinians, in some sort of sick, dystopian, game, hear it for yourself live-streamed by them out of Gaza:
The assault on the people of Gaza by Israel, with the explicit support of the USA, in an unambiguous disregard of international law, is by extension, an assault on all of us in the rest of the world. Today it’s the Palestinian people. Who knows who’s going to be the next victim of US imperialism?
lenny unencumbered 