Children
Well over 100 civilians murdered as Israeli tanks, gunboats fire on crowd waiting for aid delivery
Terror and chaos in Gaza City after IDF ‘trap’
Injured wait on lorries and a donkey cart (social media image)
More than a hundred Palestinian civilians have been slaughtered and many more injured, after Israeli tanks, gunboats and armoured vehicles opened fire on a crowd of people waiting for a scheduled aid delivery to arrive. The Israeli military has admitted opening fire, claiming that troops felt ‘endangered’. The IDF also tried to blame the civilians for their own deaths, saying some were trampled – presumably as terrified people tried to escape the fire zone.
Some reports have put the death toll at 170, with more than a thousand wounded. Social media posts show the carnage and the attempts to evacuate the injured. The Al Jazeera news service reported that the victims had fallen into a ‘trap’ set by the Israeli military:
Palestinians who witnessed the Israeli attack on aid seekers in Gaza city say it was a trap.
According to human rights group Euro-Med Monitor, Israeli forces have killed almost 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October last year, the vast majority of them civilians and a large majority women and children, and have wounded more than 70,000 others, many of them severely. The World Health Organization and others have reported that more than a million people are in, or at imminent risk of, starvation because of Israel’s blockade and military assault, and victims of starvation have already died.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Israel supporters shamelessly smear Bushnell with ‘dead jews’ claim. It’s an outright lie
US serviceman whose self-immolation resonated around the world did not say ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews are dead’, as multiple pro-Israel accounts have claimed
Supporters of apartheid Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinian civilians have begun spreading a claim that Aaron Bushnell, the US serviceman who died this week after setting himself on fire outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, posted a comment to his Reddit account that ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews [sic] are dead’.
The image has been touted by accounts well known for dismissive and often racist commentary about Palestinians as a means of trying to justify Israel’s war crimes. ‘Comedy’ writer Lee Kern was one of the most prominent:
Kern not only propagated the fake claim but described the whole of Palestine as a ‘racist hate movement’
Kern described the whole of Palestine, not just a resistance group, as a ‘suicide death cult’
Writer Kern’s 2021 comment appears to have been deleted but was commented on as early as 2021 and he does not appear to have made a denial to the many times it has been thrown at him
A careful examination of Bushnell’s Reddit account by fact-checker Snopes, over a wider period than the two months ago that the image shows – including using a service that records deleted posts – showed that no such post had ever been made by Bushnell and the image is completely fake. A reverse image search also revealed no other instances before the image began to be circulated by propagandists.
Bushnell’s shocking protest has focused even greater attention on Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. The attempt by supporters of the slaughter to divert from his aim in his terrible protest by posting an outright lie about him after his death is shameful and entirely unsurprising.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Contesting Moralities: Roma Identities, State and Kinship – review
In Contesting Moralities: Roma Identities, State and Kinship, Iliana Sarafian challenges established scholarly practices that attempt to define Romani identity, instead exploring how individuals navigate societal constraints with agency and resilience. Deftly combining ethnographic research, anthropological theory and personal reflection, this is an essential read for understanding the complexities of lived Roma experience, writes Martin Fotta.
The past decade has seen the publication of several high-quality monographs in various languages focusing on the lives, histories, and experiences of Romani people. While several have provided new insights into social processes, deconstructed existing preconceptions, or both, rarely has a book so subtly yet vehemently demanded that readers rethink their habits of thought about classical topics in Romani-related scholarship. This relatively short book by Iliana Sarafian, a talented anthropologist of Romani descent, does precisely this; it asks scholars to stop ruminating on who the Roma are and the character of ethnic boundaries, instead urging them to focus on how Romani individuals thrive within constraints and how they attempt to create spaces of survival for themselves and their families. It calls for exploring “experiences from the margins of Roma-ness” (98), but without presupposing to know what the core of Romani culture is.
Experimental in style and voice, Contesting Moralities is located within the ongoing effort to decolonise academic knowledge. The book is unique, however, in how the push to redefine the terms of representation in academic discourse is combined with solid ethnographic grounding and a commitment to anthropological theorisation. Weaving in self-reflection and personal narratives, it sheds light on broader social processes – on how racism, historical legacies, cultural traditions and social dynamics intersect in the lives of Romani individuals. It foregrounds individuals’ agency and the multifaceted nature of Romani experiences.
Weaving in self-reflection and personal narratives, [the book] sheds light on broader social processes – on how racism, historical legacies, cultural traditions and social dynamics intersect in the lives of Romani individuals.
The book is based on research in two pseudonymous Bulgarian Romani neighbourhoods – Radost and Sastipe – as well as in various state and non-state institutions. Sarafian is open about how practical circumstances and her position as a Romani woman influenced her research. For instance, she was assigned the role of a daughter when she first settled among non-kin and shut out from conversations of sexuality and intimacy among married women, as ignorance on such matters is expected from unmarried young Romani women. She does not treat these moments as constraints, however, but uses them as an opportunity to ponder social processes and patterning.
Sarafian is open about how practical circumstances and her position as a Romani woman influenced her research.
The main theme running throughout the book examines how Romani subjectivities are moulded by the state and its policies as they interact with values, practices, and relationships of kinship. The book focuses on a set of selected sites where the state has tried to interfere with Romani kinship, some of which are highly politicised and visible in everyday discourse: assimilation policies, control over fertility, disciplining of motherhood, and education of children. The book documents the scope of the state’s intervention and its violence past and present. “[T]here was no child in her Roma neighbourhood not going to some form of pansion [orphanage or a boarding school],” one of her research participants observes about life under the state socialism (85). The book charts the clash of state and kinship moralities and the contradictions this generates “inside” kinship relationships. It also documents various ways through which kinship resists the state or assimilates its initiatives.
Kinship, however, is not treated as a cultural artefact or tradition. Rather, the point that Sarafian tries to convey is that Romani kinship is oriented toward the future: weddings serve as communal projections of the potential for a better future, and childbearing reproduces this projection in the form of children. The concomitant aspect of this focus on becoming is Sarafian’s careful tracing of personal agency and capacity to aspire, even in moments where these could be the least expected, such as early marriages. At times, this struggle for self-determination is shown to be self-defeating. Such is the case of children, who take it upon themselves to protect their siblings and families from discrimination and racism, but in the process become further alienated from the educational system.
Romani kinship is oriented toward the future: weddings serve as communal projections of the potential for a better future, and childbearing reproduces this projection in the form of children.
The book is also a meditation on how, for people like Sarafian – who, in a move reproductive of antigypsyism, are sometimes dismissed as “Roma elite” – involvement in scholarship or activism becomes a mode to pursue authenticity and reflects their concern with the survival of Romani people. This dynamic generates its own contradictions, however. It threatens to co-opt Romani activists and scholars into co-constructing a figure of vulnerable and impoverished “hyper-real” Roma that would be legible to the state or development agencies. For many, in the context of racism and exclusion, these might be the only viable alternatives to achieve self-realisation while simultaneously connecting to their communities and responding to expectations from their families; for Sarafian, the book also becomes a way to connect with her family and community and to comprehend their position in contemporary Bulgaria. In a surprising twist, after she had been denied a job as a nurse at a local hospital, moved to work for an NGO, and then shifted to academia, Sarafian came to see a structural continuity between Romani activists, herself, and a woman who managed to become a doctor, but ruptured all relationships with her kin in the process: “I wanted to visit Ekaterina in Sofia to share that she was not alone, that there were other Roma who had managed to navigate the world within and outside of the Radost neighbourhood” (79).
The book’s style replicates its focus on the unfinished and ambiguous nature of social forms and processes, as well as the open-endedness of people’s aspirations. Rather than following one case study throughout the book or even through a chapter, each chapter is organised around a series of ethnographic stories and viewpoints. Some readers might find such a narrative approach difficult and desire some kind of synthesis or resolution. However, this is a deliberate writing strategy: “[W]hat there is still to say goes beyond the limits of this book” (101). The juxtaposition of fragments propels Sarafian’s description, sharpens her analysis, and invites future interpretations. Through ethnography, by highlighting particularities of various identifications or adding caveats to descriptions of kinship and state moralities, she constantly tries to re-articulate those social aspects that make a difference, often in ways she had not anticipated: “I found spaces, stories and examples of the everyday that challenged my preconceptions about Roma identifications” (11).
The chapter on education […] makes visible how any state effect is produced: in day-to-day interactions, in the intermeshing between institutional actions and everyday racialisation
My main objection to the book is that the state often comes across as a monolith. The only exception is the chapter on education, which makes visible how any state effect is produced: in day-to-day interactions, in the intermeshing between institutional actions and everyday racialisation, and in how teachers, directors, and schools translate policies, respond to economic constraints, and in turn shape the educational outcomes, and thus the futures, of Romani children – for better or worse. The book would have been much richer if such an approach had been reproduced in other chapters.
Sarafian is unapologetic and does not try to hide her motivations: “I wrote as I did because of the idiosyncrasies that have shaped me” (98). The result is a timely, readable book and an essential example of Romani autoethnography. Unlike Black autoethnographic writing, this genre remains underdeveloped in Romani-related scholarship, even in its critical iteration aimed at amplifying marginalised voices and empowering communities through challenging established forms of knowledge production. Contesting Moralities will therefore be of interest to those keen on understanding the complexities of being Romani in different contexts and to anyone interested in critical commentary on pressing social issues.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image Credit: Brum on Shutterstock.
Starmer admits spoke to Israeli president before torpedoing SNP Gaza motion. Sky deletes vid
Starmer’s admission too hot for Sky News to handle?
Keir Starmer admitted today that he had spoken to Israeli president Isaac Herzog before embarking on the parliamentary manoeuvres – including alleged threats to Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, though Starmer has since denied it – that torpedoed the Scottish National Party’s motion calling for a full ceasefire in Gaza and condemning Israel’s war crimes.
Starmer quickly attempted to row back on his comment to Sky’s interviewer and tried to replace it with ‘to the people who are actually involved’ – which means the same thing, since Starmer certainly didn’t get the Palestinians’ ok to his betrayal – but the words were captured loud and clear:
The short clip was published by musician and pro-Palestinian campaigner Lowkey, but a fuller excerpt shows that it was not misleadingly edited:
It seems the admission was too explosive for the ‘mainstream’ broadcaster, since the clip appears to have been deleted.
Starmer may well deny ever saying this – after all, he denied saying Israel had the right to cut off food, water and fuel from the people of Gaza, even though he said that on camera too. He went on to say that Hoyle did the ‘right’ thing in caving to his bullying urging. Hoyle was, of course, breaking Parliamentary protocol and depriving the SNP of a vote on their motion, even though it was their ‘Opposition Day’, so that Starmer could replace their clear wording with a spineless, Israel-friendly version that gave the apartheid state a veto over any ceasefire and made the whole thing about Israel’s rights instead of Israel’s war crimes. Hoyle now rightly faces a no-confidence motion by SNP and Tory MPs.
Israel has murdered some 35,000 civilians in Gaza so far and maimed tens of thousands more, with 1.5 million on the verge of famine and dying from disease after the destruction of their healthcare system. The regime is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
The Arizona School Setting Kids With Autism Up for Success
Like many students across the country, 16-year-old Ayden von West has high hopes for his education and career once he graduates from high school. “I want to get into engineering,” he says. “I’m probably going to go to college for aerodynamics or aerospace engineering because I want to get more into the engineering and flight design of drones.”
Statistically, however, von West faces a more difficult path than most do when it comes to achieving his dream. That’s because von West is autistic.
Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face tough odds after high school: According to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics in 2012, only 35 percent of 18-year-olds with ASD go to college, and of those who graduate, only 15 percent are employed. More recent studies have similar findings: Only 36 percent of young adults on the spectrum attempt postsecondary education, including two- and four-year colleges or vocational schooling. Of those who do, only 38.8 percent will complete their degree. This means that only about 14 percent of students with autism go on to graduate from college.
High school math teacher Supreet Kaur, AZACS’ STEAM and Innovation Director, leads students in coding and robotics using Go Pi Go. Courtesy of AZACS
In many cases, what stands in the way is not the youths’ intellectual faculties or physical capabilities but instead the lack of specialized education and transitional support services.
In Phoenix, Arizona, one woman — and one school — is seeking to change that.
Diana Diaz-Harrison is the founder of Arizona Autism Charter School (AZACS), the first and only autism-focused charter network in the Southwest.
A former teacher, Diaz-Harrison was working in broadcasting and Spanish-language media when her son, Sammy, was diagnosed with autism at age two. Finding it difficult to access quality public education or affordable private schooling as he got older, she immersed herself in his care and the educational best practices for the disorder.
Courtesy of AZACS
“People who don’t have expertise in the neurodiverse, or autism, might look at Sammy and think, ‘Just keep him busy; make sure he doesn’t get in trouble.’ But he can do better than that.” –Diana Diaz-Harrison, AZACS founder
“I did pay for private school for a couple of years, but that was not sustainable,” she recalls. “I learned that there were autism charters in other states, and I thought, ‘You know, somebody here in Arizona should start a tuition-free autism charter school in the state.’ After a lot of knocking on doors, I realized that that person had to be me.”
In 2014, Diaz-Harrison established the first AZACS campus for kindergarten through fifth grade. In its first year, the school served 90 students. Today, AZACS has expanded to almost 900 students across four campuses in greater Phoenix, including a high school and a fully accredited online component. And, in fall 2023, it opened a campus for grades six through twelve in Tucson.
Crushed by negative news?
Sign up for the Reasons to be Cheerful newsletter.
[contact-form-7]
With an average student-to-faculty ratio of three to one, AZACS is set up to help students master the foundations in reading, math and science and help them develop behavior and social skills that will benefit them long after they leave the classroom. Learning modules based on Woz ED, an individualized STEM curriculum designed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, teach both academic and social skills. Students can also participate in sports, fine arts, dance, gardening — they can even take care of the school’s two desert tortoises.
Caring for the school’s desert tortoises is among the activities open to students. Courtesy of AZACS
Nisha Sharma has been teaching middle school math at AZACS for three years. “AZACS takes a much more rounded approach to the education of our students,” she says. “I’ve worked in schools where they were very much targeting just ELA (English language arts) and math. We use a lot of hands-on tools, and we have smaller class sizes, which allows more one-on-one contact with our students and allows us to better prepare them for all those different fields.”
An elective culinary program offers high school students the opportunity to work in a professional commercial kitchen. Upon completion of the course, the students can receive their food handler’s certification, which helps to qualify them for jobs in the restaurant industry. The school also operates a student-run coffee shop, Puzzle Press, that provides drinks to the teachers and other staff members.
“Kids make the coffee. They learn measurements, payment, money skills,” Diaz-Harrison explains as she sips from a to-go coffee cup, the label of which showcases a puzzle piece logo. “Autism is a spectrum. There are some kids who are very intellectually impacted like my son. Yet he can be productive. He helped make this coffee. He made the label. People who don’t have expertise in the neurodiverse, or autism, might look at Sammy and think, ‘Just keep him busy; make sure he doesn’t get in trouble.’ But he can do better than that. Every human needs a certain level of feeling productive, having a reason to get up in the morning.”
Courtesy of AZACS
“Maybe they want to go into web design or the more technological aspects of the career paths, and here they get that option before venturing out into the real world where even we, as neurotypical people, struggle with the day to day.” –Tyler Sherrill, AZACS middle school science teacher
School initiatives like Puzzle Press are aimed at improving employment prospects for individuals with ASD — prospects that are statistically as dismal as those for higher education. A 2015 Drexel University report found that “only 58 percent of young adults on the spectrum worked for pay outside the home between high school and their early 20s.” Those who do work often hold low-skill, low-paying jobs.
To date, AZACS has produced two small graduating classes: four students and six students, respectively. “We just had our first kiddo who went on to a four-year college, to Grand Canyon University. He’s in a special program there, but he’s doing well,” Diaz-Harrison notes with pride. Other graduates have gone on to attend Scottsdale Community College or join the workforce. One entered his family’s auto mechanic business.
“We’ve come a long way in providing education, but there’s a lot of work to be done regarding what happens post-school,” Diaz-Harrison explains. “It’s amazing that some of our kids can go to college or other career paths and have that intellectual ability. They just need help with executive functioning and social skills, but they can be trained on that and be wonderful. That’s why we’re taking matters into our own hands and building something that’s a good bridge between when they age out and we technically can’t serve them as a school.”
Supreet Kaur shows a high school student how to correctly use code to control the dancing robot as part of AZACS’ Woz ED curriculum. Courtesy of AZACS
In Arizona, charter and public schools can only serve students in grades K through 12. However, students with special needs can remain in school until they turn 22. AZACS’ culinary program and coffee shop are part of the school’s Post-Secondary Innovation and Entrepreneurial Career Education (PIECE) Academy, which provides career and vocational training for students ages 18 to 22. It includes a specialty STEAM lab where students such as von West learn how to do things like design, 3-D print and fly drones — and at the end of the module are eligible for an FAA drone license. A vocational lab and internships with local businesses also are part of the academy and help make students work-ready.
And recently, AZACS was awarded a new state contract that allows it to offer supported employment for young adults past age 22.
Become a sustaining member today!
Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can.
“That’s a very vulnerable time for [young people], because for those who are not necessarily eligible to go to college or need supported employment, there’s not much for them to do after 22,” Diaz-Harrison says. “Our students who age out or graduate can flow into this if it’s a good fit for them.”
To that end, in 2023, AZACS purchased the building that houses its administrative offices. On the ground floor of the structure, which is adjacent to the school’s main campus in midtown Phoenix, it will open four businesses that will serve the public: a shipping and receiving depot, similar to a UPS store; a community-facing branch of Puzzle Press; a retail shop that will produce and sell branded items, such as shirts and jackets; and a coding and gaming design studio called Game Changer Studio. Students and graduates will operate the businesses.
A rendering of the future public-facing Puzzle Press branch. Courtesy of AZACS
“A lot of times as teachers, we hear the questions, ‘Why does this matter? Why do I need to know this?’” says middle school science teacher Tyler Sherrill, who has been with AZACS for four years. “These businesses will let us say, ‘Here are four opportunities where you can use these skills.’ They will allow the kids to branch out and see where they want to go — do they want to be in the back of a company, such as with our T-shirt-making business, or do they want to be up front dealing with customers at our Puzzle Press coffee shop? Maybe they want to go into web design or the more technological aspects of the career paths, and here they get that option before venturing out into the real world where even we, as neurotypical people, struggle with the day to day.”
According to Diaz-Harrison, the businesses, complete with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, will open on June 15 — Sammy’s 22nd birthday.
“Part of my goal is changing the narrative and showing the world what students with autism can do and flipping that narrative,” Diaz-Harrison says. “Yes, the challenges are real, but these guys with the right support can overcome them and do amazing things.”
The post The Arizona School Setting Kids With Autism Up for Success appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
Breaking: 55 MPs (so far) sign motion of no confidence in Speaker Hoyle
Wednesday’s farce and chaos after Speaker allowed Labour to ‘hijack’ SNP’s opposition day motion calling for Gaza ceasefire leads to ‘Early Day Motion’
Fifty-five MPs – and counting – from the SNP and Conservative parties, plus one independent, have signed a motion of no confidence in Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle this morning, including more than half of the SNP’s Westminster MPs, after last night’s fiasco in which Hoyle broke parliamentary protocol to allow a Labour amendment to enter the debate and derail the SNP’s ‘Opposition Day’ motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Labour’s amendment, which watered down a motion condemning Israel’s war crimes in Gaza into an Israel-friendly version that gave the apartheid regime an effective veto over any ceasefire, should have been ruled out by the government’s own attempted amendment, leading to a straight fight between the SNP and Tory versions. But Hoyle – allegedly under threat by Labour whips of removal under a Labour government – allowed Labour’s amendment to stand. It passed without a formal vote after Tory and SNP MPs stormed out in protest amid chants calling for the return of Hoyle’s predecessor John Bercow. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said last night he would ‘take significant convincing’ to believe it was tolerable for Hoyle to remain in the role.
The Speaker position is held during a parliament until death or resignation, but a large proportion of the Commons signing the motion would be likely to put immense pressure on Hoyle to step down. His position already looks untenable after he allowed Keir Starmer to hijack a vote on a situation in which some 34,000 Palestinian civilians have been murdered and hundreds more are being killed each day.
Update: in the few minutes since this article was published, the number of MPs has risen to 57.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Starmer tries to make SNP Gaza ceasefire motion all about Israel’s feelings
Labour amendments betray Gaza’s murdered and oppressed civilians and uses classic asymmetric language to value Palestinian life less than Israeli
Keir Starmer – after days of posing to try to bring Muslim and other decent voters onside by mouthing ceasefire language – has yet again betrayed the two million people in Gaza suffering violence and starvation and the more than 100,000 people murdered and maimed by Israel.
While the ‘mainstream’ media speculated whether Starmer would order MPs to support the SNP’s motion demanding a ceasefire, which is being debated in Parliament tomorrow, more realistic observers knew it was inevitable that Starmer would do the minimum he hopes will fool voters opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while protecting the interests of the pro-Israel right.
And so he did: Labour has tabled amendments to the original motion that gut it of its impact and has gone as far as making the motion more about Hamas’s supposed guilt and the feelings of Israel and its supporters. And the amendment uses the classic tactics of politicians and ‘mainstream’ media to present Israeli lives and suffering as more valuable than Palestinian.
In Starmer’s worldview, Palestinians are not being murdered by Israel – their lives are just ‘lost’, as if to a natural disaster and not to a campaign of mechanised mass murder. The sheer number of their deaths is presented as ‘intolerable’, but the loss of Israeli lives to Palestinian resistance is ‘horror’. Israelis have the ‘right to assurance’ against attack, but there is no mention of a Palestinian right not to be murdered by the occupation regime. Israel ‘cannot be expected’ to stop fighting if Hamas does not stop – but there is no acknowledgement that Hamas’s violence takes place against a backdrop of decades of wanton violence and oppression by the occupiers. Israel must be ‘safe and secure’ – but a Palestinian state only merits ‘viable’.
The SNP motion is an exemplar of directness and simplicity and rightly focuses on the many tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered by Israel, as well as on the forced displacement of 1.5 million Palestinians into Rafah, where they remain under constant bombardment and the threat of an all-out ground assault:
Labour’s lickspittle version calls resistance ‘terrorism’ but does not mention the Israeli terror state’s genocide and other war crimes, or the fact that so many are dying in Rafah because they were forced to cram there under bomb and bullet – and clearly hasn’t even been proofread, calling for ‘the UN Security Council to be meet urgently’:
Starmer is trying to mask his support for Israel’s war crimes and hoping that the millions in this country disgusted by that support will be fooled. His disregard for the true plight of Palestinians and his complicity in the war crimes being perpetrated against them by Israel is beyond contemptible.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
UN human rights office ‘appalled’ at rape and execution of women and girls in Gaza
‘Credible’ reports of war crimes against Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers detailed in UN OHCHR statement – yet ignored by western ‘msm’
The horrific treatment of women and girls by Israeli soldiers – including rape and execution – has been condemned by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in a damning statement today from the ‘Special Procedures’ group of human rights experts, saying that the actions of the IDF are likely to amount to prosecutable war crimes.
The statement says that the group:
expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received.
“We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.
The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.
“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
The experts expressed concern that an unknown number of Palestinian women and children, including girls, have reportedly gone missing after contact with the Israeli army in Gaza. “There are disturbing reports of at least one female infant forcibly transferred by the Israeli army into Israel, and of children being separated from their parents, whose whereabouts remain unknown,” they said.
“We remind the Government of Israel of its obligation to uphold the right to life, safety, health, and dignity of Palestinian women and girls and to ensure that no one is subjected to violence, torture, ill-treatment or degrading treatment, including sexual violence,” the experts said.
They called for an independent, impartial, prompt, thorough and effective investigation into the allegations and for Israel to cooperate with such investigations.
“Taken together, these alleged acts may constitute grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and amount to serious crimes under international criminal law that could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute,” the experts said. “Those responsible for these apparent crimes must be held accountable and victims and their families are entitled to full redress and justice,
While Israel’s atrocity propaganda claiming ‘systematic’ use of rape as a weapon of war have been characterised by an absence of evidence and a demand to be believed regardless how lurid and unfeasible the claims have been, and have quickly collapsed under scrutiny – yet have been propagated by western media and governments anyway – the UN experts’ sober claims carry weight and a call for serious investigation, but has been entirely ignored so far by the UK and US ‘mainstream’ media:
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Video: Palestinian ambassador breaks down as he tells ICJ of plight of children under occupation
Court hearing evidence of effects of Israel’s illegal occupation
Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour broke down today near the close of his presentation to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as he spoke of the effects of Israel’s illegal occupation in Palestine on his nation’s children and on the human rights of its people. The hearing is being televised live by Al Jazeera English:
The court is hearing evidence from over fifty countries about the illegal occupation. Earlier, Mansour and others had spoke of the 1948 Nakba, in which almost 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes with many massacred, and the world’s decades-long indifference – and of the impacts of Israel’s current genocidal campaign in Gaza.
As Mansour spoke, UK news channels covered a variety of items but did not stream the court hearing. In January, the ICJ put Israel formally on trial for genocide and ordered the apartheid regime to protect Palestinian lives. The slaughter of civilians continues unabated.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Unite’s Graham slammed for silence over Gaza
GS silence and ongoing ban on Unite banners at Gaza demos infuriates officials and members as Unite Scotland passes ceasefire motion
A search of Sharon Graham’s Twitter account reveals no mention of anything related to Gaza
Unite members and officials are infuriated by union general secretary Sharon Graham’s continued silence over Gaza, with even previously ardent supporters demanding to know why she is completely absent from the fight for peace and justice for Palestinians.
Skwawkbox has previously reported an effective ban by the Unite management on the participation of the union’s officers, and the use of official union banners and paraphernalia, in marches and rallies. This ban appears to be ongoing. The ban is matched by a complete lack of comment from Graham on her social media or other appearances on the issue of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians, even after the International Court of Justice put Israel formally on trial for genocide and ordered the state to protect Palestinian lives, an order the regime has flouted.
Unite members are now demanding to know whose side Ms Graham is on, as in the example shown above. But even formerly entrenched supporters have lost patience, such as the activist behind this account – who has previously attacked Skwawkbox for scrutinising and exposing the general secretaries actions and alleged actions:
Original tweet and video here.
But the criticism is widespread, as the representative examples below demonstrate:
Where's your support for Palestine #GazaGenocide
— #EnoughisEnough #FreePalestine #FreeJulianAssange (@carolehope2) February 6, 2024
I too am a member of Unite but not for much longer @UniteSharon @unitetheunion I am appalled at your lack of Solidarity with the other unions and Palestine
— Jezzabeau C. #GazaGenocide (@JezzabeauC) February 3, 2024
@UniteSharon not one post on her feed about palestine in recent days. Disgusting.
— Traderboy (@Aminthegreat4) February 13, 2024
I too am a member of Unite but not for much longer @UniteSharon @unitetheunion I am appalled at your lack of Solidarity with the other unions and Palestine
— Jezzabeau C. #GazaGenocide (@JezzabeauC) February 3, 2024
Your silence on Palestine goes against Unite policy.
— Mike (@Fleabag2016) January 23, 2024
Unite’s democratically-decided policy is to support the international ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ movement against Israel’s oppression, apartheid and illegal occupation. Yet members in Ireland have been forced to demonstrate against Unite’s use of Israeli-linked firms, entire regional groups have condemned the lack of support and solidarity for Palestinians, and members have accused Graham of using proxies to ban pro-Palestine events on union premises and even to try to cancel a solidarity event organised by union officials at Labour’s 2023 conference.
And while other unions have been clear in their solidarity with Palestinians facing the genocidal assault of the occupying Israeli regime, Unite – at least at an organisational level – appears determined to say nothing that will upset Keir Starmer’s Zionist apple cart.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.