by Branko Marcetic, Jacobin, May 9 https://jacobin.com/2024/05/israel-palestine-cease-fire-us-media
*Israeli officials just rejected a cease-fire deal that could have brought hostages back because Israel wants to continue waging war. This should be a scandal — but American mainstream media isn’t reporting on it.* Yesterday, Israel began its long-threatened attack on Rafah, the southern Gaza city that 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been corralled into over the past half year on the basis that it would be safe from Israeli attack. Israel began this offensive shortly after its officials across the political spectrum rejected a cease-fire agreement put forward by Qatar and Egypt, mere hours after Hamas agreed to it. The deal would have led to the release of Israeli hostages in return for an indefinite end to the war, but Israeli officials charged that its terms were “far from” their “obligatory demands.” That was two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu anonymously told the press on May 4 that “Israel will under no circumstances agree to end the war as part of an agreement to free our abductees.” Now, without even hiding behind anonymity, Netanyahu has unabashedly and publicly vowed to go into Rafah “with or without a deal.” One US official told Reuters that Israeli officials “have not appeared to approach the latest phase of negotiations [with Hamas] in good faith.” . . . Norman Finkelstein: Build a Majority for Palestine by Norman G. Finkelstein, Jacobin, May 9 https://jacobin.com/2024/05/norman-finkelstein-student-protests-gaza-free-speech On April 21, 2024, Holocaust scholar and prominent pro-Palestine activist Norman Finkelstein visited the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University. Finkelstein expressed his support and admiration for the student protesters, urging them to focus on bringing in the widest possible constituency into the Palestine solidarity movement and insisting on the vital importance of free speech and academic freedom for the Palestinian cause. We reprint his remarks here; the transcript has been edited for length and clarity. . . . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30283): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30283 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/106011091/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
