Dr Daire Higgins

@njuki @AP This is appalling

Women and children of Gaza are killed less frequently as war’s toll rises, AP data analysis finds apnews.com/article/israel…

@alon_mizrahi You are absolutely correct.

Life should be brought to a standstill. As the US approves some 26 billion more for the continuation and widening of the genocide, by now it is clear beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that no one is stopping this, or even intends to. The UNSC isn't stopping it. The ICJ isn't stopping it. The ICC isn't stopping it. The General Assembly isn't stopping it. The American president, Congress, courts, or anyone else in power in the American system - are not stopping it. The European Union isn't stopping it. The UK isn't stopping it. - No one is stopping it, and therefore public activity must escalate, with the aim of bringing the West to an absolute standstill. Western leaders should know that if they continue to do genocide they will have an uncontrollable mess under their hands: no education, no commerce, no transportation, no stock market, no normal online activity, no culture or sporting events - nothing should be able to function normally when the West authorizes the extermination of a group of people and is actively participating in it. We need to get serious about our opposition and be willing to pay a price for our principles. Life in the West should be dramatically, drastically disrupted, and brought to a standstill. And I think that in the coming months, this is exactly what's going to happen. Because they are not going to stop until forced to.

@alon_mizrahi I was recently thinking about the submersible that disappeared off the coast of Canada in 2023 with several rich white people, and how the world waited with bated breath to hear about their well being. How have we fallen so low? I despair.

Remember how, in July of 2018, the whole world followed breathlessly the story of 12 Thai boys who were trapped in a cave? Remember the sense of international solidarity and care? We can't have that ever again. Israel kills 10 times that number of children, boys and girls daily, and the West legitimized it, and no child's life will ever be sacred again for a long long time. It will take forever, and a real deal of effort, for childhood to mean something again. One of humanity's most sacred concepts has been desecrated and corrupted. An incident like the the Tham Luang cave rescue cannot happen today, and cannot be told today with nothing like the native solidarity of the original story. The Gaza genocide murdered the innocence of the entire international community

@alon_mizrahi This is truly horrific.

As an Israeli in this dark disgusting inhuman time, there are many things I see and hear and can tell you about and are worthy of research and serious consideration, but there is one part of it that is so uncanny, so disheartening, so extraordinary, that I can hardly describe it, and you won't get it. Because it's so hard to believe, or conceptualize. I'm referring to the total and complete lack of public debate in Israel about any of this. Try to get this to your head: for Israelis, the genocide is not happening. The war is not real. Even the low-intensity conflict with Hizbullah up north is not real. How can I explain something that doesn't exist? But it doesn't. Can you believe it? No one argues about any of this, and no one weighs the pros and cons of any single part of it. It is not talked about. Israel has captives in Gaza, but no one knows why, or as part of what. It is not talked about. It is forbidden to talk about this, or about starvation, of the scale of death and destruction in Gaza. Moreover: it is forbidden to talk about Palestinians in general, so they are never mentioned, and haven't been mentioned in 20 years at least in Israeli media. So if you try to talk to Israelis about Palestinians, they will not know what you're referring to. They will think you only say it because you hate them. Could you believe it, that the most crucial element of a society's situation can be disappeared from its conversation, its consciousness and its politics. But for Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians don't exist, I'm telling you. If they ever do exist, it is in the moment before being shot to death by a soldier or police officer - and then they die, and vanish once more. There is no genocide, no Gaza, no Palestine, no occupation, no starvation, no dead children, no pregnant women in unimaginable distress. None of it exists. It is all, 100% of it, ancient antisemitism's new clothes. You cannot truly comprehend it. It is too much to believe, I know it. I live it and can't believe it. But it's true. Israel's management of consciousness has become so expert, its propaganda skills, so profound and total, internalized so fully, that Israelis have no idea - no idea at all - where, when, and how they exist. Absolutely zero idea. And it is this component of Israel that will stay with me, and I will marvel at, and continue to always think about, and grapple with. This is the truly incredible part of it. If you told me this, or if I read it in a book, I would not believe the extent to which thought control is possible. But now I do.

@johncusack An absolute disgrace and shocking for anyone who believes in impartial and unbiased journalism.

Well - New York Times ? Who gave the order? Who at the top- gave the order to assign a story of massive significance- of THE most explosive damming crimes imaginable - ones used to justify mass atrocities -- New York Times - who gave the order to inserted an unqualified biased propagandist - who has connections to Israeli intelligence on her Wikipedia page ? How MUCH contempt for the truth do you have - Who was it ? That’s the story -

@alon_mizrahi You are so right.. we mustn’t lose hope when the Palestinians are getting through each day as best they can under terrible circumstances.. I hope at least immediately we can get more Aid in!

Two more quite convincing reasons why we must not despair, even when exposed to so much pain and misery: First, if the Palestinians themselves do not despair, through all their hardships, we certainly don't have that privilege. Palestinians doctors, nurses and paramedics still treat people in the actual heart of darkness, and journalists still report when they know they can be executed any minute. Mothers and fathers take care of their children, and brothers and sisters take care of their orphaned siblings. Simple people, fatigued, hungered, bombarded, rescue their fellow humans from under rubble with no equipment but their hands, and share whatever bread they have left with a stranger. So who are we to despair, exactly? We have no such privilege. - Second, we are fighting for freedom against institutional, large scale evil (or as I called this "organized evil on a scale we only read about in books"). You are the abolitionists, anti-apartheid, freedom fighters of today, and there is no greater honor or a higher purpose in life than to help free a slave, or an otherwise oppressed human being. This is the pinnacle of humanity. A whole world of establishments conspires against the Palestinians, trying with all its money and might to legitimize a system of subjugation and sadism. But we are not allowing it to take root. We will uproot this evil a trillion times if we need to. No human must ever be allowed to legally torture another human, or another human. It won't pass. So this is making history, and we are all - all who speak up, sit in, walk out, shout at them, organize - we are all fighting for the soul of humanity itself. This is what this is. I am not even slightly joking or exaggerating: we are fighting and speaking up to save other people from harm and to stop and defeat organized, malicious evil. Pained as we definitely are, I think we should also relish the opportunity. This is no time to despair. This is time to make a whole lot more noise..

@PhilipProudfoot I’m with you. Insane.

Have I gone insane? I really feel like I’ve gone mad. How will we recover from the shame of what our governments have done in our name?

An entire catalogue of evidence that Israel has committed war crimes, genocidal statements from those in the chain-of-command, 150 UN workers killed, countless journalists murdered, children blown to bits and a genocide trial at the ICJ. Western Leaders: “we are urging Israel to abide by international law” … Israel: “we have reason to believe 12 UNRWA staff were involved in October 7 attack. Western leaders: “ok, no more funding for UNRWA. Don’t worry about an independent investigation or anything”

@alon_mizrahi I’m really no expert, but all I’ve seen or heard from Palestinian people is not hatred, but patience and sorrow and pain but never hatred. They also seem to me to be extremely well educated and articulate and in many cases poetic. After all they have been through for decades..

If Arabs and Muslims hate Jews so much, please explain the amounts of love and the embrace I'm openly getting from every corner of Arab and Muslin world Because to me it looks Like Arabs are the most loving people on this planet. And I never once heard an Arab (Palestinian, Egyptian, Iraqi, wherever) say something not nice about Jews or the Jewish community of their native town or village. Never once. After all that's happened, Arabs still speak fondly of memories of a common existence. Which goes to show European language and psychology just doesn't apply here, and makes no sense

@RnaudBertrand Pelosi said it’s Russia’s fault, NYT say it’s Chinas fault.. make up your mind who to project blame on to! And my lord are they completely delusional?!! No one believes this nonsense anyway, why don’t they just stop it, and go hand the election to Trump.

This New York Times article is mind-blowing and illustrates the insane extent to which America has escaped reality. They literally blame China - of all countries - for the Middle East crisis, writing that "the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East shows how ineffectual Mr. Xi’s promotion of peace and tranquillity has been, and it’s coming back to bite China." When everyone who lives in the real world understands that the root of the current issue is OBVIOUSLY Israel's decades-long occupation and progressive annexation of Palestinian land, with full US backing. And the detonator of the crisis was the Biden administration's efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia by sidestepping the Palestinian issue. The Palestinians were effectively put in a position where - in the words of Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet - they felt "alone and abandoned" and as a result "chose the Samson option" because "they felt that they had nothing to lose and this was the only way for them to show to the world 'you will not be able to create stability in this region if you will bypass Palestinians.'" China did undertake its own normalization efforts - between Iran and Saudi Arabia - and this occurred without a hitch, entirely peacefully, and has held since. So much so that both countries just joined the BRICS together. So the fact is: China did improve peace and stability in the region substantially - reconciling the two historic enemies of the region was no mean feat - whilst America managed to trigger YET ANOTHER major war in the Middle East, creating untold human suffering and dramatic region-wide repercussions as we can see with Yemen. The contrast between both countries' respective impact on the region just couldn't be starker. The article also makes the laughable claim that China should share America's "burden" (some significant "white man's burden" vibes overall in this article...) of keeping the Red Sea route open by fighting Ansar Allah (the Houthis). This is a complete misunderstanding of the situation, and of China. Almost no-one joined America in this effort - and especially not countries in the region - because everyone understands that what Ansar Allah is doing is a legitimate effort to put pressure on Israel to stop its assault on Gaza. Why on earth would China - who fully and openly agrees that Israel does need to stop its assault, and that Ansar Allah is imposing the blockade for that very purpose - side with America and thereby completely undermine its own diplomatic line? The article's author claims that China should do so because "a prolonged regional crisis could heighten pressure on the Communist Party at home" but that betrays a complete misunderstanding of the Chinese public: the Chinese government would face enormous backlash if it suddenly decided to side with American imperialism for a military crusade in what would in effect be an action against the Palestinian cause, which is massively supported by the Chinese public. Especially: why do that when Chinese ships are actually NOT affected by the blockade, and thereby have been served a competitive advantage on a silver platter? It makes just about zero sense. Lastly, cherry on this big cake of delusion that is this article, the author claims that "China’s seeming indifference to the Red Sea crisis reinforces the United States’ role as the world’s predominant power". The cringe is almost painful... The truth is that the Red Sea crisis, and the war on Gaza, is yet another immense blow to America's standing in the world and effectively relegates them to pariah status alongside Israel. Just look at the votes in the UN, or look who actually wanted to join "operation prosperity guardian" in the Red Sea: almost no-one is on America's side anymore, except maybe a handful of historic vassal states who can't do otherwise (and have joined mostly symbolically, without meaningful military participation). And it's failing, big time: far from being "deterred" as was the stated purpose of the operation, Ansar Allah is actually stepping up its attacks. So far from showcasing America as "the world’s predominant power", it just showcases its weakness and the fact it's become utterly incapable of achieving just about anything, at home or abroad. The message this sends to the world is therefore that we've firmly entered a new phase, a multipolar world, where the US is but one power among many. And I'm afraid that the overwhelming perception - reinforced by these tragic events - is that America's influence on the world is very much for the worse, and therefore should be reduced. This is the article, by the way, in case you want to have a good laugh: nytimes.com/2024/01/26/opi…

@PhilipProudfoot It’s shocking.

All large scale humanitarian operations and projects I’ve ever investigated have had allegations thrown at them — corruption, political infiltration, assumed biases, etc. But I am not aware of any case, like UNRWA, where donor funds has been entirely pulled based on those allegations. And I’m also not aware of any cases where when individuals are investigated and found guilty, donors then pulled funds. Rather, the response is removing alleged individuals, investigating what went wrong, and finding a means to prevent it in the future. Not ever collectively punishing all those who rely on aid. Palestine truly proving to be the graveyard of the Western international order.

@homerslimpson @alon_mizrahi It is.

@alon_mizrahi This whole war was a watershed moment for Western morality. When 12 white people are killed in France, it's terrorism. When 178 white people are killed in Bucha it's a genocide. When 12,000 brown kids are killed, it's part of war and Hamas' fault. Western human rights is a sham.

Remember how western leaders gathered in Paris for a show of indignation and moral superiority in response to a tragedy that cost the lives of 12 people?

@alon_mizrahi @n1nacriedp0wer I agree.

@n1nacriedp0wer Frankly I think it's too late for even that to work. The animosity created by this war will not subside. People will not forget and will never trust Israel again

Thanks to the brilliant, courageous support of proud American Zionists who dismissed a ceasefire as antisemitic, no less, 24 Israeli soldiers lost their lives just in the past 36 hours. Having no sense of morality or humanity whatsoever never ever results on inflicting pain and injury only on a designated enemy. It always, inevitably, as certain as gravity or death, comes back to destroy you too. (A special curse on the heads of those who accept dead children as normal, everyday collateral damage. You are all psychopaths) But American (and British, and French, and German) so called "supporters of Israel" would have none of that. They will "support Israel" into any and every catastrophe imaginable. They will applaud it into a genocide case at the ICJ and in popular opinion. They will push it into inextricable humane, diplomatic, reputational disasters. They will cheer on Israel's sending its young men to die, and its society and economy into paralysis. They will thumb up its leadership as it leads its population into a dead end on every front. And they will be handsomely rewarded for their conman's "support". Absolutely nothing will be gained for Israel by this criminal, stupid, unwinnable war. And no one has done more harm to Israel than its supporters in the west. Maybe we should start asking them why they hate Israel, and Jews, so much

@aaronjmate @DrGaborMate Amazing. Happy Birthday Gabor

Today we are celebrating my dad @DrGaborMate's 80th birthday. He was born in Budapest on January 6th 1944, two months before Nazi Germany occupied Hungary. He was able to escape the Jewish ghetto after his mother, Judy, gave him to a stranger on the street, who agreed to take him to cousins in a safer area. Staying in a cold, overcrowded flat, they kept him warm by sleeping on each side of him. After reuniting with his parents, who managed to survive, they fled to Canada along with his brother Janos in 1956. Living in Vancouver, he became a student activist, writer, high school teacher, doctor, healer, and renowned author. He and my mom Rae taught me and brother Daniel and sister Hannah from an early age to be uncompromising about the truth, both the personal and political, and to stand up for the oppressed, especially the Palestinians occupied in our name. On his 80th birthday, I honor his life and all that he has given to me and to the world. And my wish is that today's modern-day Jewish ghettos — the Gaza death camp and occupied West Bank — will be liberated from today's modern-day Nazis, the Israeli government, so that every Palestinian can have the same freedom to follow their life path that my dad has been fortunate to have.

@PhilipProudfoot Shocking.

Ok, so why are there 22,000 dead in Gaza?

@Jasleenks I think that we do feel deep empathy for Palestinians and understanding of their plight .. and the longer this goes on the stronger (and angrier) we feel about the parallels with our own history and we will stand firmer and stronger with them. Free Palestine.

I’ve noticed I’m having very different conversations with my white friends to the ones I’m having with my non white friends about #Gaza. I can’t do thought experiments and academic debates on Gaza anymore. Notice that when you talk to your Black, Brown and non white friends, they may be struggling to talk about Palestine in the same way that we might talk about other political issues. It is because we are in pain. It’s because what’s happening has reminded all of us that everything we’ve been taught about equality and justice for all - all of it is a lie.. we aren’t equally human in the eyes of the people that rule us. We never were. In the UK, we grew up with the myth that there was some acknowledgement of the crimes of colonialism in the world, some repentance - but the state and power structures around us cannot possibly have any shame for the crimes of the past when they continue to commit them in the present day in real time, to the extent of a live streamed genocide. What is happening in Palestine has opened up generational colonial wounds. Many of us are as close to the ethnic cleansing, murder of half our families, and mass displacement of our people - as a Jewish person to the Holocaust, and Palestinian to the Nakba (that has never ended). Colonialism ripped our parents, and grandparents worlds apart and we grew up with the scars. Colonialism never ended. We are all Palestinian right now.. it’s deeply personal and painful - and I cannot imagine the suffering of Palestinian friends and colleagues to carry not only the weight of history, but of love and loss with no justice in sight. These dispassionate debates are painful to me, I can only imagine what it must be like for my Palestinian friends to have the existence of your people discussed so coldly, as collective governments gaslight, lie and profit from genocide… Remember it is - or should be - personal to us all. #freegaza #EndTheGenocide #ceasefirenow

@fredfredbleu @Jasleenks @MassActivation Very racist Fred.

@Jasleenks @MassActivation What he is trying to say is you need more lobotomised traitors Irish friends.

@CalltoActivism Beautiful couple ❤️

“Today my daughter changed her profile picture. After maybe 5 minutes I get a text..” I didn’t know she was dating a black boy, did you? It took me all day to think up a response, which I didn’t send personally but thought I would share for anyone else that “may not know” Yes in fact I did know, but the color of his skin doesn’t define who he is. What does define who is he is how he treats my daughter. I see my daughter dating a boy that comes to my house and shows me nothing but respect (a big deal in my book). It’s always Yes Ma’am, No Ma’am, we talk about football and baseball, he tells me bye when he leaves, and has not once shown me a lack of manners or respect. I see my daughter dating a boy who treats her good. He takes her on dates, to ballgames, out to eat..not to a club or partying on the weekends. I see my daughter dating a boy who takes her to church with him. Every Sunday. He plays in the band, she sits with his family. How many young men these days make church a priority? None of the others have. He doesn’t hit her, cuss her, lie to her, or make her cry. Would I rather her date a white boy that did, to keep from her dating another race? Absolutely not. So that’s my response to the question I was asked. And I know people have their own opinion, but at the end of the day, the fact that my daughter has someone that loves her and treats her like a queen makes me happy. That’s something I’ve never had in my life and I’m glad she does.” Credit: Heather Boyer

@AntoninusM @caitoz @georgegalloway Really?? Tell us more!

Unfuckingbelievable. It is unfuckingbelievable that it's 2024 and the US-sponsored incineration of Gaza is still going on. They're just looking us dead in the eye and doing the worst things humans could possibly do, right in front of us. Against all laws. Against all opposition.

@caitoz Ffs 🤦‍♀️

South Africa has launched a case at the UN's international court of justice accusing Israel of genocide. Israel has responded by (deep sigh) accusing South Africa of "blood libel". Blood libel, for those who don't know, refers to the way medieval Europeans would falsely accuse Jews of murdering Christians in blood sacrifices in order to justify persecuting them. Which is to say, Israel has responded to South Africa's accusations by accusing South Africa of anti-semitism. False accusations of anti-semitism are all Israel and its defenders have left. It's the only tool left in their toolbox. Once you've exhausted the "But Hamas!" and "But October 7!" excuses they make for Israel's deliberate butchery of civilians via airstrikes and siege warfare, false accusations of hating Jews is all that remains. And it's so sick, because it exploits a healthy impulse in those of us who oppose racism and genocide, and does so *in order to defend racist acts of genocide*. It causes people who care deeply about human rights to take a step back and say "Hold on, am I guilty of embodying the same hateful prejudices which led to the Holocaust?" and shuts us down and shuts us up, even as Israel rolls out its own holocaust against Palestinians. It exploits a noble, healthy inclination we cultivate in ourselves in good faith in order to support the horrific genocidal nightmare in Gaza in entirely bad faith. It exploits our good nature to advance a profoundly evil cause. It's despicable. It's depraved. But fewer and fewer people are buying it. There's only so many times the boy can falsely cry wolf before the villagers stop running to his defense. Hopefully this desensitization that Israel and its apologists have created doesn't have dark consequences in the future. It's just one more ugly thing they have birthed into the world that the rest of us will have to bring consciousness to.

@caitoz Hope so.

We could have been so much more. We have the ability to create a healthy and harmonious world and collaborate to give everyone on earth everything they need, and instead we’re killing the biosphere while arguing about whether or not it’s anti-semitic to oppose an active genocide. We could have peace on earth and move from competition-based systems to collaboration-based ones to maximize our creative and innovative potential and spend our existence exploring the outer universe and the universes within ourselves, and instead we’re ramping up brinkmanship between nuclear-armed states and arguing about whether or not it’s ethical to rain military explosives on a giant concentration camp full of children. We have the technology to let every scientist on earth share ideas and information with each other around the world in real time in any language, and instead we’ve fractured scientific development into atomized little echo chambers of closely-guarded secrets in the name of profit generation and “national security”. How did we get here? How were we duped into trading paradise on earth for this lunatic dystopia? How did we allow ourselves to give up everything our species has the capability to be in exchange for this nightmarish paradigm of endless ecocide and exploitation and oppression and war and militarism? Near as I can tell, it’s ultimately because our species evolved these massive brains very quickly which we still haven’t learned how to use in a mature way, like a kid learning to ride a bicycle right after the training wheels have been removed. This has allowed us to dominate the planet while still ourselves being dominated by primitive fear-based impulses which were much better suited for our early evolutionary ancestors as they strived to survive the dangerous plains of Africa as small prey animals. We develop egos in early childhood to help us feel safe and secure in a confusing world full of giants, which most of us go on to use in highly maladaptive ways throughout the remainder of our lives. Our psychology is riddled with cognitive biases, which the clever manipulators among us can use to dupe us into mass-scale behavior which benefits them rather than behaving in a way which benefits each other and our ecosystem. The most clever of these manipulators are able to use their cleverness to rise to the top of our political, governmental, commercial and financial systems around the world, and they use increasingly sophisticated methods of propaganda to dupe the rest of us into moving in alignment with their will. And their will is not wise or intelligent; it’s driven by the same primitive fear-based impulses that the rest of the humans trapped in egoic consciousness are driven by. So here we are. That’s why we now find ourselves in this profoundly dysfunctional civilization where the biosphere is treated like an enemy and human beings are treated like fuel and minds are being marinated in an increasingly vapid mainstream culture where everything is fake and stupid. That’s why we don’t have paradise on earth, and that’s why the bombs are falling on Gaza today. But it is just a phase. A kid who’s learning to ride a bike doesn’t remain on wobbly wheels forever. Eventually we’ll get the hang of this thing. Eventually we’ll grow into these giant new brains of ours and become a conscious species. Assuming we don’t wipe ourselves out first, of course.