U.S. Pushes to Shape Israel’s Rafah Operation, Not Stop It + Washington sends Israel more city-busting bombs to level Rafah

U.S. Pushes to Shape Israel’s Rafah Operation, Not Stop It

Rafah has been at the center of a growing rift between Israeli and U.S. political leaders. Those tensions boiled over on Monday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a visit to Washington by top aides to discuss U.S. concerns over the planned offensive on Rafah, where Hamas fighters are making a final stand. The tit-for-tat move was in response to the U.S. abstaining from a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for an immediate cease-fire while also demanding the release of hostages.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, however, proceeded with his meetings at the White House and Pentagon on Monday and Tuesday, which had been previously scheduled. Gallant is part of Israel’s three-member war cabinet that includes Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, the prime minister’s chief political rival.

Both sides also agreed that the Hamas battalions in Rafah must be dislodged so that the militants cannot attempt a comeback or continue to smuggle weapons into the enclave, which are prerequisites for ending the war and paving the way for a new political authority in Gaza. And that means trying to find ways to work with Israel on its Rafah strategy, for lack of better options.

Related:

Washington sends Israel more city-busting bombs to level Rafah

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The “Human Rights Industry” and Nicaragua

Why do United Nations human rights bodies focus on some countries, but not others? Why do organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International appear to ignore important evidence presented to them? And why do the media repeat stories of human rights abuses without questioning their veracity?

The “Human Rights Industry” and Nicaragua

Related:

Babies die, patients shot as Israel besieges hospitals in Gaza’s north

Rumble

Israel has besieged hospitals in the northern half of the Gaza Strip since Thursday.

Medical facilities have been “under relentless bombardment” for the past 24 hours, Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday.

Babies die, patients shot as Israel besieges hospitals in Gaza’s north

Previously:

How the U.S. Drove Venezuelans North

A migrant father from Venezuela feeds his 15-month-old son in the lobby of a police station where their family has been staying since their arrival to Chicago on May 9, 2023. PHOTO BY SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

How the U.S. Drove Venezuelans North

When they request asylum in the United States, migrants have to say something against their government. But everyone in the Venezuelan community knows that it’s a lie. Venezuelan comedians in Florida, like George Harris, joke about the Venezuelans lying to the migration people just in order to receive asylum.

And now, we have the current decision of the Biden administration to issue Temporary Protected Status only for foreign nationals from Venezuela, leaving out migrants from many other countries that have arrived in Chicago in the last few months, including large numbers from Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Honduras, Angola and Mauritania.

Related:

U.S. to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil for freer presidential election

The agreement comes days before Venezuela’s opposition parties plan to hold a primary vote to choose a single candidate to back against Maduro. The front-runner in the unofficial primary, María Corina Machado, is one of several opposition leaders the Maduro government has barred from running for office. The disqualification was sharply condemned by the U.S. government.

The Maidan Massacre, Censorship & Ukraine: Interview with Ivan Katchanovski

Genocide Joe and Porky Poroshenko.

By Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News, 10/20/23

Canadian-Ukrainian professor Ivan Katchanovski’s investigation of the Maidan massacre in Kiev in February 2014 found an organized mass killing of both protesters and the police, with the goal of delegitimizing the Yanukovych government and its forces and seizing power in Ukraine, as he wrote for Consortium News in an in-depth article in 2019. (On Wednesday three policemenwere sentenced for the massacre, one was acquitted and one was released for time served. The official investigation ignored Katchanovski’s academic research.)

The Maidan Massacre, Censorship & Ukraine: My Interview with Ivan Katchanovski