British news agencies this week have been up in arms about a performer at famous music festival Glastonbury, Bob Vylan, for calling out death to the IDF and that free Palestine chanting is anti-semitic. Now he’s lost his agent, he’s banned from going to the US and is being investigated by the police.
Jewish people are scared of the wave of anti-semitism and are saying they can’t go to certain music gigs anymore and the festival had to make an official apology for broadcasting this chanting to the nation.
But let’s examine briefly what is going on in Palestine – a genocide. That surely conquers some hurt feelings.
Now, in an illuminating exposé IDF officials have told Haaretz that Israeli troops positioned at humanitarian aid distribution centres across Gaza were ordered to shoot into crowds to disperse them, despite these individuals posing no threat to the soldiers.
An organisation called GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) which is backed by Washington and Tel Aviv, is running aid sites. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed at these sites, and thousands have been injured.
These locations have been compared to killing fields and many of the Palestinians who arrive walk miles and knowingly risk severe injury or death in hopes of obtaining a box of humanitarian aid.
IDF soldiers who worked at these locations and one likened the shootings to the “Red Light, Green Light” children’s game.
One soldier told the paper;
We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces...I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons.
One Palestinian, 40, in Gaza City told Middle East Eye about his experience trying to get food at a GHF site:
I turned my head and saw soldiers, maybe 10 or 20 meters away. They were talking to each other, using their phones, and filming us. Some were aiming weapons at us. I remembered a scene from the South Korean TV show Squid Game, in which killing was entertainment—a game. We were being killed not only by their weapons but also by hunger and humiliation, while they watched us and laughed. I started wondering: were they still filming us? Were they watching this madness, seeing how some people overpowered others, while the weakest got nothing? We left the area just as the boxes had emptied.
Of course, killer-in-chief Netanyahu called the report a “blood libel”.
Jake Wood, the former head of GHF, resigned, stating that the organization will not be able to carry out the principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
Rev. Johnnie Moore, an evangelical Christian Zionist who has close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump and Netanyahu, was tapped to lead the GHF, which is the joint American-Israeli effort to go around the UN to distribute food and aid to Palestinians.
Critics say the foundation is a “militarized aid scheme” that helps Israel carry out its mission to ethnically cleanse the enclave of Palestinians by forcing them into small areas if they want to eat the bare minimum amount of food.
One soldier told Haaretz;
You know it’s not right. You feel it’s not right—that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands. But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don’t even stop to think about it.
Meanwhile, raising the question of what is going on – ie a genocide – is anathema to the powers that be – due to their complicity in the matter.
Following this debacle the British state have been able to proscribe a direct action group, known as Palestine Action., as terrorist. This group has targeted British factories of Israeli weapons.
Despite being arrested numerous times they have always been freed because they have had a higher purpose. However, now they are officially proscribed a terrorist group different criteria will be held against them ultimately meaning any further direct action will be chargeable under anti-terrorist legislation with little rights and lengthy sentences.
This has only been accomplished with a great deal of input from Israeli lobby groups. It is a huge step backwards for democracy in the UK, and shows how extreme lengths the state of Israel will go to to allow their genocide to proceed unopposed.
Still the weekly protests go on, the issue continues to be raised. As the chanting at Glastonbury reveals millions of people in this country feel differently to the state sanctioned line.