Former President Donald Trump continues to assert that the
Palestinian people will be forcibly expelled from the Gaza Strip, with
neighboring countries like Jordan and Egypt expected to absorb large
numbers of refugees. However, Palestinian-American journalist Dr. Ramzy
Baroud questions the plausibility of this claim, pointing out that if
Israel were capable of such ethnic cleansing, it would have done so by
now.
In a recent interview, Dr. Baroud emphasized that Trump holds no real
leverage over the Palestinian people. He argued that Trump is
attempting to pressure Arab nations, hoping they will convince
Palestinians to comply with his demands.
Dr. Baroud highlighted Gaza’s remarkable resilience, stating, “Gaza
has survived the Israeli genocide, resisted, pushed back, and in many
interpretations even defeated the Israeli Army—what no other Arab army
in the past has done.”
He also noted that Gaza achieved this despite being isolated from
both international and Arab support, while Israel fought with American
arms.
Peter Beinart’s latest book, ‘Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza’, makes for a perplexing read IMAGE/Azad Essa/MEE
Beinart’s latest book treats Zionism as a given, erases historical Jewish opposition to the racist ideology, and gives credence to a Jewish claim over Palestine
In the summer of 2010, the prominent Jewish American writer Peter Beinart dropped a bombshell on America’s liberal elite.
He observed, as Israel continued to build illegal settlements in the
occupied West Bank and completed the first round of what it called
“mowing the lawn” – the name given to the periodic bombing of Gaza –
that attitudes towards Israel were dramatically shifting among young
American Jews.
The winds were changing, Beinart noted in the New York Review of Books.
“Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral,” he wrote.
He cautioned that the American Jewish establishment’s refusal to change track on Israel’s brutal occupation of the occupied territories would alienate young Jewish Americans from the Israeli state.
The noted Jewish American scholar Norman Finkelstein wrote in his book Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End that
as an observant Orthodox New York Jew and renowned establishment
liberal with deep ties to both the mainstream media (he was the former
editor of The New Republic) as well as the Democratic Party
elite, “Beinart’s high profile defection signalled the further
decomposition of American Zionism, this time at its hard core.”
A few years later, Beinart would expand on his views with the book The Crisis of Zionism(Picador), in
which he described Israeli policies against the Palestinians as
threatening to “destroy the dream of a state that safeguards the Jewish
people and cherishes democratic ideals”.
He called on American Jews “to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late.”
But as Israel repeatedly bombed Gaza, settlements in the occupied
West Bank expanded, and normalisation deals in the form of the Abraham
Accords occurred, Beinart was forced to conclude in 2020 that democracy
was incongruous with Jewish supremacy.
Instead, he began advocating the idea of a one-state solution in
which the Jews and Palestinians would live together in a bi-national
state.
“Now liberal Zionists must make our decision, too. It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians,” he wrote in The New York Times, another harbinger of mainstream liberal opinion.
Meta’s reason in its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission:
“As previously disclosed, Meta Platforms, Inc. (the “Company”) maintains a Bonus Plan (the “Bonus Plan”) that provides variable cash incentives, payable annually, which are designed to motivate its executive officers to focus on company priorities and to reward them for company results and achievements.”
employees are fired for low performance
top executives are given bonus to motivate them
why not give bonus to “low performers” to motivate them?
because the motivation thing is baloney
low performance is an excuse to increase Meta profits
let’s say, Meta tells it executive officers to “work hard or get fired”
won’t they put more efforts?
of course they would — they have to because they can’t do anything else
unless they want to retire or have jobs waiting in companies
in that case, the world is full of people who could fill their shoes
The Lady and the Unicorn: Sight. IMAGE/Unknown/Musée de Cluny, Paris via Didier Descouens/Wikimedia Commons
Restrictions on medical care for transgender youth assume that
without the ability to medically transition, trans people will vanish.
As of 2024, 26 U.S. states
have banned gender-affirming care for young people. Less than a month
into office, President Donald Trump issued numerous executive orders
targeting transgender people, including a mandate to use “sex” instead of “gender” on passports, visas and global entry cards, as well as a ban on gender-affirming care for young people. These actions foreground the upcoming Supreme Court case of U.S. vs. Skrmetti which promises to shape the future of gender-affirming health care in the U.S., including restrictions or bans.
History, however, shows that withholding health care does not make
transgender people go away. Scholarship of medieval literature and
historical records reveals how transgender people transitioned even
without a robust medical system – instead, they changed their clothes,
name and social position.
Surgery in medieval times
Surgery was not a widespread practice
in the medieval period. While it gained some traction in the 1300s,
surgery was limited to southern France and northern Italy. Even there,
surgery was dangerous and the risk of infection high.
Cutting off fleshy bits is an old practice and, potential dangers
aside, removing a penis or breasts wasn’t impossible. But amputating
functioning limbs was nearly always a form of punishment.
Medieval people, including surgeons and patients, likely would not have
had positive views of surgery that involved removing working body
parts.
Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo during an Indigenous mobilization to protest oil drilling on ancestral lands in the Amazon rainforest. IMAGE/Amazon Frontlines/Matteo Barriga
Waorani leader and activist Nemonte Nenquimo’s book ‘We Will Be Jaguars’ is a journey through her life and the web that connects the Amazon to the fate of the world.
“For us, stories are living beings. They breathe life into our homes,
into our forests. They pulse in our blood, in our dreams. They stalk us
like jaguars, clack like peccary, sail like macaws, run like fish.”
With these words from the 2024 book “We Will Be Jaguars,”
Waorani leader, activist and mother, Nemonte Nenquimo shows
storytelling to be the beating heart of Indigenous resistance in the
Amazon. Story is the power that fuels social movements and brings forth
radical change. When languages, myth and ancestral stories are
interrupted, so too is the knowledge that keeps us connected. For the
Waorani peoples of the Amazon, spiritualism and stories are essential in
the struggle against colonialism.
With the help of Nenquimo’s husband, Mitch Anderson, “We Will Be
Jaguars” takes the reader on an expedition through the eras of her life
to help us understand the web that connects the Amazon rainforest to the
fate of the world — especially as we face a global climate emergency
and biodiversity collapse. Transforming their tactics from a warrior
tradition of killing outsiders to a multi-pronged approach, the
Indigenous resistance movements described in Nenquimo’s book utilize
methods of cultural revitalization, storytelling and strengthening
autonomy through direct action.
Waorani
leader Nemonte Nenquimo and community members handweave a bag using
palm leaves during a walk in the forest, Ecuadorian Amazon. (Amazon
Frontlines/Sophie Pinchetti)
Violent colonialism in the Amazon
As a young girl in the late 1980s and ‘90s, Nenquimo lived in the
Ecuadorian village of Toñampare alongside giant anacondas, pet
grasshopper-munching monkeys and friendly squawking parrots. At just
six-years-old, she understood the ominous danger that airplanes carried,
packed with traveling missionaries bringing gifts, curiosities and
death. She knew they came from the land of the white people, or cowori
as the Waorani call it. And yet, even through the violent
colonization of Nenquimo’s village, she fostered a deep, spiritual and
material relationship with the land. Her culture taught her everything
she needed to know about resistance and the fight that was to come.
d away at 90, learnt his craft in the most unlikely way.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Shyam Benegal’s
love for films started when he was a child. His appetite for them was
voracious. When he couldn’t afford to watch them, he befriended the
projectionist of his local cinema and watched them through his window.
Sometimes he and his friend wedged the door open a crack so he could see
the movie. It wasn’t comfortable but it didn’t matter. Those flickering
shadows held him in thrall.
When
Benegal grew up, he quickly realised he couldn’t make the films that he
wanted to, and so he waited until he could open new windows for
himself. And in the process, he changed Indian cinema in fundamental
ways.
While researching for my book on him, my publisher sent me
his number and asked me request him for an interview. He was busy with
post-production work on Mujib: The Making of a Nation, but graciously gave me a couple of days at his office in Tardeo, Mumbai. He patiently answered all my questions for hours.
Benegal was a man of quiet, unassuming erudition. Surrounded by books in his cosy office, he could easily be mistaken for an emeritus professor. After every question, he would pause, collect his thoughts before answering. While talking to him I was struck by a strange paradox: he had dedicated his life to making serious cinema but didn’t take himself or even the medium too seriously. When I asked him about the unavailability of many of his films, he chuckled and said that films are commodities with short lifespans. This strong streak of practicality is perhaps why his films are complex, thought-provoking but never pretentious.
Benegal’s love for the medium came first. His childhood was spent in
Trimulgherry, a cantonment in Secunderabad. It was here that he decided
he will be a filmmaker when he was just ten. He found films to be
extremely immersive, a form that can transport one into a different
world. It evokes immediate visceral responses, like when he witnessed
the first jump scare in cinema in Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People in 1942. Later, he made films with strong messages, but he never let it overwhelm the artistry of the medium.
He,
in fact, learnt the craft in the most unlikely way. His cousin, Guru
Dutt, who had made a name for himself in the industry, had offered him a
job as an assistant director. But he refused: he didn’t care much for
commercial cinema because it was, at best, a product of compromise or,
at worst, escapist fluff of no real value. Instead, he moved to Bombay
and joined the National Advertising Agency. He not only made hundreds of
ad films but was also asked to take them by road all over the northeast
from Jorhat, Assam. His knowledge of advertising distribution networks
came in handy when he had to bypass traditional film distribution
circuits for his first film.
Shyam Benegal wasn’t just a director; he was a storyteller who
reshaped the filmmaking in India. Recognised as a towering figure in
Indian cinema, Shyam Benegal passed away on December 23, 2024, at the
age of 90. According to his daughter, he succumbed to a chronic kidney
disease, a condition he had been battling for years. With his passing,
Indian cinema has lost a visionary director who gave voice to many
untold narratives.
Born on December 14, 1934, in Hyderabad (Telangana), Benegal
discovered his love for storytelling at a young age. When he was 12
years old, he had made his first short film, Chuttiyon Mein Mauj-Maza, which was shot on a camera gifted to him by his father.
This experiment was a small glimpse of the remarkable career that lay ahead of him. It would be a journey that would merge his curiosity about the human condition with his cinematic genius.
Benegal began his professional journey working in advertising,
directing commercials. This format allowed him to hone his skills before
he set out to follow his heart and try his hand at directing feature
films. His debut film, Ankur (1973), was an exploration of
caste and gender dynamics in rural India and introduced audiences to
Shabana Azmi, who would go on to become one of the most revered actors
in Indian cinema. The film’s unflinching honesty foretold Benegal’s
future as a formidable filmmaker.
After Ankur, his next works came in quick succession and cemented his legacy. There was Nishant (1975), where he explored the abuse of power by feudal lords and the resilience of ordinary villagers. Next was Manthan (1976), which became India’s first crowdfunded feature film. Some 500,000 farmers paid two Indian rupees each to help tell the story of a milk cooperative and the power of grassroots collective action. Bhumika (1977) was a raw portrayal of a woman’s journey of love, ambition and self-discovery. Each film touched on the social and political realities of post-Independence India, painting portraits of marginalised communities with sensitivity and authenticity.
Film posters in Benegal’s office in Everest building, Mumbai. IMAGE/Sohini Chattopadhyay
Ankur is regarded as a landmark film in what is known as the Indian New Wave movement dated to the ’70s – the coming together of film professionals trained in the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.
In that last light of day before it is all gone and the crickets have
begun calling, a man hurries through paddy fields swollen with the rain
that has fallen all day to a hovel that stands across his sturdy home,
the lantern in his hand casting a luminous, almost painterly glow in the
darkness. Inside the hovel, in the somewhat brighter light of the stove
in the enclosed space, he deflates a bit, as if his eagerness has been
caught out. “Who will make the tea?” he asks, looking suddenly
embarrassed at the banality of his words. “Who will cook the food? The
upkeep of the house – who will do that? Come to work from tomorrow,” he
says. And the young woman he addresses can’t help smiling at the man’s
artless plea.
Anant Nag, who plays the impulsive young man, is the son of the
big landlord in the village and mostly called sarkar for the duration of
his screen time here. It is one of Nag’s first films, he also debuted
in a Kannada film called Sankalpa made around the same time. He worked
on the stage before this. The young woman he hurries to, Lakshmi, is
played by a debutante Shabana Azmi. The year is 1974. It is Shyam
Benegal’s debut feature Ankur, based on a newspaper report that
Benegal had read about the Telengana Movement of 1946-1951 in which
peasants resisted the feudal extortion of landlords who owned obscenely
large tracts of land.
The landlord’s young son reluctantly returns from the city – with
a third-class degree – and is put to work looking after the estate by
his domineering father. Sarkar drives a motorcar through the unpaved
muddy roads of the estate and a tyre comes badly stuck in the mud. He
listens to songs from the cinema on his Long Play (LP). The young man is
remoulded a little by the changes he has seen in the city: he does not
believe in caste he says, although we shall see that this is not as true
as he thinks it is.
But he does make it a point to ask Lakshmi, the lower caste woman who serves him, to cook for him, eschewing the village priest’s offer to send him meals from his home. He is attracted to Lakshmi and enters into a relationship with her that cannot be called consensual, but he speaks with her with kindness. Her husband Kishtaiyya is a deaf-mute potter who has taken to drink, and sarkar assures her that he will take care of her. But he panics when he learns Lakshmi is pregnant with his child. The city-educated landlord wants to be different from his father but finds himself unable to be the man he thought he was, the old ways sucking him in like the slush on the ground slipping, tripping, tricking his beautiful motorcar. When his father, “the bade sarkar,” orders his young daughter-in-law to start living with the son, he abandons Lakshmi, pregnant with his child, and without a source of income. The young man’s guilt finds an outlet in Lakshmi’s deaf-mute husband Kistayya: at the film’s close, when he approaches the “sarkar” for a job, delighted that his Lakshmi will be a mother, the sarkar whips him. My reading is that Kistayya is well aware that he is unable to father a child.
Benegal tribute | Long live Shyam Babu. You are a story well told
by ATUL TIWARI
The late Shyam Benegal (Left) with his protege and writer Atul Tiwari (Right) on his 90th birthday. IIMAGE/Atul Tiwari
Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag, Smita Patil, Nasiruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Rajit Kapur and Irrfan Khan — there was the famous Benegal touch behind all of them.
The famous British film critic Derek Malcolm said, “Shyam Benegal’s
films provided a huge marker for other young directors of what was once
hopefully called the Indian parallel cinema.” Yet, Benegal himself used
to say, “I do not know if there is such a thing as a new wave. Let me
put it this way, some people now attempt to make films of their choice,
different from the industry’s mould…. And now there is wide range of
people, from one end of the scale to the other, who want to make their
own kind of films.”
This humility, this self-effacing attitude was the hallmark of this great man.
His undisputed greatness was recognized with his first film itself. In 1974, when Benegal’s Ankur
(The Seedling) sprouted, it brought a breath of fresh air with its bold
and incisive social critique, and its agency against inequality and
injustice born out of deep-rooted societal discriminations. The film,
which captured this friction caused by caste-distinction, unequal gender
relations, tension between modernity and ancient traditions, stands out
both artistically and aesthetically. Ankur remains a ‘tool-kit’ — to which Benegal went back again and again.
Apart from many new values that Ankur
brought to the world of Hindi cinema, it also brought a plethora of new
actors, which included a trailblazer who has remained active as an
actor and activist — Shabana Azmi.
A year later came Nishant, which in many ways was a sequel to Ankur.
Here the similar theme of feudal exploitation of the rural poor –-
especially women –- comes out even more brazenly, brutally, vividly.
With two gifted ladies Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil in the film, which
boasted of a hugely talented cast, Nishant actually brought a
new dawn in Indian cinema. It went on to be India’s official entry in
the competition section of Cannes Film Festival in 1976.
To complete an unintended trilogy Manthan arrived
in 1976. The film dealt with the churnings in similar social conditions
in a Gujarat village, but highlighted very different means employed to
bring about change. It explored the ushering in of change through a
co-operative society (Amul) for the milk producers of this impoverished
region. These milk sellers had till then been exploited by the middlemen
and big private companies who were milking these hapless men and women
dry.
These films highlighted Shyam the social historian who as
Benegal’s friend, critic and poet Anil Dharkar commented “looks at the
mass experiences of history, through his films”.
Early days and the Nehruvian worldview
Benegal
had been exposed to the world of visual images, art, painting,
photography and films from the very beginning of his life. His father
Shridhar Benegal had a small but well-endowed photography studio in
Secunderabad cantonment, close to the city of Hyderabad. Painting was
Shridhar Benegal’s other passion.
Shyam too was given an 8mm
camera to play with, and taught the skills of developing a film and
printing on photopaper. His friendship with the projectionist of the
Garrison Cinema, in Secunderabad, gave the young Shyam access to world
cinema – a la the protagonist in Cinema Paradiso.
Then
Shyam went to study economics at Nizam College in the wonderfully
charged atmosphere of those days, when as the nation was embracing
independence the Nizam and his Razakars refused to align with free
India. There were also the communists whose writ ran in the state at
night, especially in the Telangana region. In some other parts of the
Hyderabad state, the Hindu Mahasabha too had its hold.
It’s this
churn that shaped the political sensibilities of the young economics
graduate who saw the new India through the Fabian socialist, modernist,
egalitarian point of view of the first Prime Minister Nehru. These
values are well reflected in his cinema.
Women-centric films and the introduction of AR Rahman
In Bhumika
(1977), based on actress Hansa Wadkar’s biography, Benegal chooses to
reconstruct the past, harsh present and the make-believe film world in
three different tonalities and hues. This artistic decision was made to
make good use of the problem — of obtaining the supply of the rationed
raw-stock in mid-seventies. Benegal decided to use the Orvo, Geva,
Eastman-colour and black and white stock for different sections of the
film. These different hues delineate the lead character Usha’s private,
public and past persona very well.
Benegal’s two other films on performing public-women Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) are also in a league of their own. The use of music in all three is very evocative.
Zubeidaa saw
the introduction of AR Rahman for the first time in a Benegal film –
till then the inimitable music maestro Vanraj Bhatia had scored the
music for his films. A few people did criticise Benegal for having
drifted from the ‘parallel’ line towards the mainstream as he used two
mainstream actors –- Rekha and Karishma Kapoor — and a popular music
director in Zubeidaa.
‘A Gateway to film industry’
The Zubeidaa backlash
was in some ways expected as he had only used trained but unknown new
faces in his films till then. Indeed such had been his reputation that
Benegal was given the moniker of ‘A Gateway to film industry’, in the
manner of the famed ‘Gateway of India’ in Mumbai.
He had been
responsible for giving countless new actresses and actors to the Indian
cinema, a feat unmatched by anyone else in Bombay’s film world. These
include Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag, Priya Tendulkar, Smita Patil,
Nasiruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Savita
Bajaj, Nafisa Ali, Surekha Sikri, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Rajit Kapur,
Irrfan Khan and at least a hundred others when he made Discovery of India.
The 1983 film Mandi
marked a new chapter in Benegal’s oeuvre — comedy. Based on a story by
Pakistani writer Ghulam Abbas, it was inspired by an actual incident.
When Congressmen in Allahabad agitated to shift a red-light area from
the centre of the city, someone said, “If you shift a brothel from the
city, then the city would also shift itself to the bordello.” How one
wishes that even an iota of this pragmatism was to be found in today’s
duplicitous political leaders.
Coming back to the point of
comedies, whenever Bengal took that route to tell a story, he was able
to tickle the funny bone of his audiences. Apart from Mandi, Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008) and Well Done Abba (2009) served as good examples of this.
TV, The Discovery of India and his love for History
Shyam Benegal (1934-2024), who masterfully wielded cinema as an instrument of social change, passes away
FRONTLINE NEWS DESK
Shyam Benegal poses as he attends the screening of his documentary film The Master Shyam Benegal written by Khalid Mohamed and produced by Anjum Rizvi, at a function organised by The Asiatic Society of Mumbai and Mumbai Research Centre in Mumbai on March 20, 2014. IMAGE/FAP
Legendary filmmaker, who made classics like Ankur and Bharat Ek Khoj, revolutionised Hindi cinema with social realism and powerful storytelling.
Shyam Benegal, who heralded a new era in Hindi cinema with the ‘parallel movement’ in the 1970s and 1980s with classics such as Ankur, Mandi and Manthan, died on Monday, December 23, after battling chronic kidney disease. He was 90.
The
filmmaker, a star in the pantheon of Indian cinema’s great auteurs,
died at Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital, where he was admitted in the
Intensive Care Unit (ICU). “He passed away at 6.38 pm at Wockhardt
Hospital Mumbai Central. He had been suffering from chronic kidney
disease for several years, but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason
for his death,” his daughter Pia Benegal told media. He is survived by
his daughter and wife, Nira Benegal.
Just nine days ago, on his
90th birthday, actors who had worked with him through the decades
gathered to wish him on the landmark day, almost as a last sayonara to
the filmmaker who had given them perhaps the best roles of their
careers. Among those who had gathered were Shabana Azmi, who made her
debut with the powerful Ankur in 1973; Naseeruddin Shah, Rajit
Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Divya Dutta, and Kunal Kapoor. That
photograph of a smiling Benegal with his actors down the ages is his
last in public.
Many worlds, many forms
In his prolific, almost seven-decade career, Benegal straddled diverse worlds, diverse mediums, and diverse issues, right from rural distress and feminist concerns to sharp satires and biopics. His oeuvre encompassed documentaries, films, and epic television shows, including Bharat Ek Khoj, an adaptation of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India, and Samvidhaan, a 10-part show on the making of the Constitution.
And he wasn’t calling it quits anytime soon. “I’m working on two to three projects; they are all different from one another. It’s difficult to say which one I will make. They are all for the big screen,” Benegal said on the occasion of his 90th birthday. He also spoke of his frequent visits to the hospital and that he was on dialysis. “We all grow old. I don’t do anything great (on my birthday). It may be a special day, but I don’t celebrate it specifically. I cut a cake at the office with my team.” His films include Bhumika, Junoon, Suraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda, Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa, most counted as classics in Hindi cinema.
His biopics include The Making of the Mahatma and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero. The director’s most recent work was the 2023 biographical Mujib: The Making of a Nation. He was also keen to bring to life the story of Noor Inayat Khan, the secret WW II agent. That dream will sadly remain unfulfilled.
Benegal’s Manthan on Varghese Kurien’s milk cooperative movement in Anand, Gujarat, starring Smita Patil, Girish Karnad, and Naseeruddin Shah, was restored and screened at the Cannes Classics segment in the French Riviera town in May this year.
Tributes
Tributes to Shyam Babu, as he was
known to friends and colleagues, who rewrote the rules of Indian movies,
poured in. President Droupadi Murmu condoled the demise of Benegal and
said his passing away marks the end of a glorious chapter of Indian
cinema and television. Murmu said Benegal started a new kind of cinema
and crafted several classics. “A veritable institution, he groomed many
actors and artists. His extraordinary contribution was recognised in the
form of numerous awards, including the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and Padma
Bhushan. My condolences to the members of his family and his countless
admirers,” the President said in a post on X.
The Congress condoled the passing of Benegal, with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge saying his tremendous contributions to the art form, marked by thought-provoking storytelling and a profound commitment to social issues, left an indelible mark.
Burnt cars after the Nova music festival in Israel, 7 October 2023.
In an interview with Israeli television last Thursday, Yoav Gallant,
the former Israeli defence minister, confirmed that the so-called ‘Hannibal Directive’ was implemented by Israeli military forces on 7 October 2023, the day of attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters.
There had already been strong evidence, including reports by Israeli news media, that Israeli forces killed many Israeli civilians,
either in ‘friendly fire’ incidents or by implementing the deadly
doctrine, intended to prevent Israelis being captured alive and used as
bargaining tools for the release of Palestinians held in Israel.
In March last year, the Al Jazeera investigations team broadcast
a thoroughly researched account of what happened on 7 October,
debunking Israeli propaganda myths about ‘beheaded babies’ and ‘mass
rape’, and including expert analysis of the likely implementation of the
Hannibal Directive. Western media ignored the documentary’s careful
findings.
In this English subtitled clip
from Israel’s Channel 12 interview with Gallant last week, journalist
Amit Segal explained to viewers that ‘the Hannibal Directive says to
shoot to kill when there is a vehicle containing an Israeli hostage’.
Gallant did not dispute the point. The former defence minister, who was
sacked from his post by Netanyahu last November, went on to say that the
directive was issued ‘tactically’ and ‘in various places’ next to Gaza.
The interview was the first time a senior Israeli official had
confirmed that the Hannibal Directive was indeed deployed on 7 October.
This remarkable admission has seemingly been blanked by the entire UK
news media.
The original directive, which was kept secret and never published, was first implemented
during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 1986. It allowed the
Israeli military to use any force necessary to prevent Israeli soldiers
from being captured and taken into enemy territory, even if such action
would lead to those captives’ deaths. After being revised several times,
the directive was dropped in 2016.
However, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last July, it was once again implemented on 7 October 2023 and extended to the killing of Israeli civilians, if that was deemed necessary to prevent them from being abducted by Palestinian fighters.
In this new Israeli television interview, Gallant stated that the
directive was used in some places, but not in others and ‘that is a
problem’. However, in an article for Electronic Intifada, journalist Asa Winstanley pointed out that:
‘Contrary to Gallant’s statement that the Hannibal Directive was unevenly applied in different areas, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronotreported in January 2024
that at midday on 7 October, an unambiguous order was given from the
high command of the Israeli military to invoke the Hannibal Directive
across the entire region.’
According
to Israeli journalists Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun, the order was to
be followed, ‘even if this means the endangerment or harming of the
lives of civilians in the region, including the captives themselves’.
An investigation
published by Electronic Intifada on the first anniversary of the 7
October attacks concluded that Israeli forces, including tanks and
helicopters, may have killed hundreds of their own people. Al Jazeera reported that 28 Israeli Apache helicopters used all their ammunition and had to be reloaded.
On October 21, 2020, during Donald Trump’s first term as President,
former President Barack Obama delivered a speech at a Democratic
campaign rally in Philadelphia. During the remarks, Obama got to the
core of how the fossil fuel industry had shaped the Trump
administration. He stated:
“The Environmental Protection Agency,
that’s supposed to protect our air and our water, is right now run by an
energy lobbyist that gives polluters free reign to dump unlimited
poison into our air and water…
“The Interior Department, that’s supposed
to protect our public lands and wild spaces, our wildlife and our
wilderness. And right now, that’s run by an oil lobbyist who’s
determined to sell them to the highest bidder.”
During Trump’s first term, the fossil fuels industry and particularly
Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO of the fossil fuels conglomerate, Koch
Industries, were brazen in their control of the Trump agenda.
In November of 2017, the respected watchdog, Public
Citizen, reported that 44 Koch allies were staffing the White House and
other agencies. And as we reported at
Wall Street On Parade, that’s on top of the 12 lawyers from Jones Day,
Koch Industries’ long-time outside law firm, who took their seats in the
Trump administration on January 20, 2017 – the day of Trump’s
inauguration.
Trump had barely sat down at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office when a Koch front group, Freedom Partners, issued a list of regulations it
wanted gutted – like the Paris Climate accord (which Trump revoked on
June 1, 2017) and numerous EPA rules – and threatened those lawmakers
who didn’t get on board, writing that “Freedom Partners will hold
lawmakers who oppose regulatory relief accountable for their positions.”
That meant that they would run a challenger against them in the next
Republican primary.
Two other nonprofits that actively engaged in the 2016 presidential
election were Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners Action Fund.
Not only did the Koch network fund Americans for Prosperity and Freedom
Partners Action Fund to run ads portraying Democrats as reckless tax
and spend bureaucrats but the Koch-controlled i360 voter database and voter-targeting operations may have tipped the scales in voter turnout.
This time around, the fossil fuel industry has tried to hide in the
background and make it appear to the public that all those Executive
Orders from Donald Trump in subservience to their industry are a mandate
from his followers.
The reality that the fossil fuel industry is again cracking the whip
in Trump 2.0 is underscored by the fact that Trump took more than four
months to announce the U.S. was withdrawing from the Paris Climate
Accord in his first term. In Trump 2.0, he signed an Executive Order to
that effect on his first day in office, along with a slew of other
shocking giveaways to Big Oil.
During Trump’s inaugural speech on January 20, he said: “We will
drill, baby, drill. We have something that no other manufacturing nation
will ever have – the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on
Earth, and we are going to use it. We’re going to use it.”
“The heads of executive departments and
agencies (‘agencies’) shall identify and exercise any lawful emergency
authorities available to them, as well as all other lawful authorities
they may possess, to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting,
production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy
resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands. If an agency
assesses that use of either Federal eminent domain authorities or
authorities afforded under the Defense Production Act (Public Law
81-774, 50 U.S.C. 4501 et seq.) are necessary to achieve this
objective, the agency shall submit recommendations for a course of
action to the President, through the Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs.”
At the time of this Executive Order, there was no energy emergency in
the U.S. but there was clearly a climate emergency as thousands of
homes were lying in smoldering ruins in the second largest city in
America – Los Angeles.
Another day one Executive Order seeks to open up highly controversial
areas of Alaska to fossil fuel exploration. It reads in part:
“It is the policy of the United States to:
“(a) fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast
lands and resources for the benefit of the Nation and the American
citizens who call Alaska home;
“(b) efficiently and effectively
maximize the development and production of the natural resources located
on both Federal and State lands within Alaska;
“(c) expedite the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska; and
“(d) prioritize the development of
Alaska’s liquified natural gas (LNG) potential, including the sale and
transportation of Alaskan LNG to other regions of the United States and
allied nations within the Pacific region….”
Another order directs the Environmental Protection Agency to revisit
its finding that climate change poses a health risk and should be
regulated.
Not only did Trump’s day one Executive Orders boost the fossil fuel
industry but they brazenly constrained renewable energy. One executive
order barred the U.S. government from auctioning the rights to build
wind farms offshore and also temporarily blocked new rights for wind on
public lands. Trump also directed the U.S. Department of the Interior to
halt the construction of a wind farm in Idaho that was previously
approved under President Biden.
According to bombshell testimony delivered to a House Committee in
2019 by Sharon Eubanks, the former Director of the U.S. Department of
Justice’s Tobacco Litigation Team, not only has ExxonMobil and other
fossil fuel companies known for decades that fossil fuels have put the
planet on a catastrophic course, but they engaged in the same type of
RICO conspiracy as Big Tobacco to hide this information from the
American people.
Eubanks served as lead counsel in the federal government’s
racketeering case against the tobacco industry, which played out in 2004
and 2005 in the federal courtroom of Judge Gladys Kessler in the
District Court in Washington, D.C.
Somaliland
is pinning its hopes of recognition as an independent state on Donald
Trump, and Trump has suggested that the breakaway state accept
Palestinians exiled from Gaza.
Somaliland
declared its independence from Somalia in May 1991, and has
unsuccessfully battled for recognition ever since. Now, almost 34 years
later, Taiwan remains the only government that recognizes Somaliland,
and only 12 minor states, including a handful of South Sea islands,
recognize Taiwan.
Somalia
opposes the independence of its breakaway state, and it now holds one
of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for the 2025-26
term. The UN General Assembly votes on whether or not to grant statehood
if the Security Council recommends it.
Recognition
by powerful nations, however, can greatly add to an aspirant’s argument
for UN recognition, and Somalilanders are pinning their hopes on Donald
Trump, who has suggested that they accept some of the 2.2 million
Palestinians he proposes to exile from Gaza.
Now
right-wing Republicans are lobbying Donald Trump to recognize
Somaliland as a state independent of Somalia because of its strategic
coastline on the Gulf of Aden in the Red Sea region, an ideal location
for a US military base. In October 2024, long before Trump proposed
exiling Palestinians to Somaliland, Michael Rubin of the far right-wing
American Enterprise Institute argued that Somalilanders deserve a state more than Palestinians do.
On December 12, 2024, Perry Scott, a House Republican from Pennsylvania, introduced H.R.10402 – Republic of Somaliland Independence Act ,
which proposes that “all territorial claims by the Federal Republic of
Somalia over the area known as Somaliland are invalid and without
merit,” and “the President is authorized to recognize Somaliland of the
Federal Republic of Somalia as a separate, independent country.” The
bill has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
I spoke to Somali Kenyan scholar Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad about the dynamics of the Somaliland statehood struggle.
ANN GARRISON:
First, what do you think of Trump’s proposal to exile Palestinians to
both Somaliland and/or Puntland, Somalia’s other breakaway state? Though
not stated outright, this seems to be a proposed transaction in
exchange for state recognition. Puntland has already said no, but
Somaliland remains silent.
ABDIWAHAB SHEIKH ABDISAMAD: First
of all, the proposal to exile millions of Palestinians from their land
is wrong. It’s ethnic cleansing, and Puntland’s government is right to
say that they will not collaborate in this. Somaliland seems to be
silent because they don’t want to displease Donald Trump, whom they are
counting on to recognize them as an independent state.
However,
Somaliland will not accept millions or even hundreds of thousands of
Palestinian refugees, as that would cause a significant demographic
shift in a population of six million. Such a large, educated population
could overwhelm Somaliland.
AG:
Right-wing Republicans are pressuring Trump to recognize Somaliland,
and it has long been a project of the right-wing Heritage Foundation,
which included recognition of Somaliland among their Project 2025
proposals for the Trump Administration. In a section on “countering
malign Chinese influence” on the African continent, it recommends
“recognition of Somaliland statehood as a hedge against the U.S.’s
deteriorating position in Djibouti,” the tiny country of 1 million
people neighboring Somaliland.
