‘Flat packing them’: British soldier says S.A.S. described killing Afghans in casual way

Inquiry hears elite forces had a ‘kill all males on target whether they posed a threat or not’ policy in Afghanistan Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor Afghans who were killed by members of the SAS in Afghanistan were described dismissively as having been “flat packed” according to revealing testimony given by a former member of the elite… Read More ‘Flat packing them’: British soldier says S.A.S. described killing Afghans in casual way

Oblivion Culture: Countering the German taboo on Palestinian trauma

A decisive part of the trauma experienced by Palestinians in Germany comes not only from its being rendered taboo, but also from what Pierre Bourdieu calls symbolic violence. The term describes the violence of those discourses that normalize and legitimize systemic violence…. Symbolic violence justifies the expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians and the seizure of… Read More Oblivion Culture: Countering the German taboo on Palestinian trauma

Gideon Levy on Israel’s ‘Moral Blindness’: Gaza Babies Freeze, Strikes Kill Medical Workers, Reporters

This war should have ended a long time ago, and Israel continues and continues, really now without any purpose except of mass killing — killing and killing and killing for the sake of killing: Gideon Levy In northern Gaza, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital says five medical workers were among 50 people killed… Read More Gideon Levy on Israel’s ‘Moral Blindness’: Gaza Babies Freeze, Strikes Kill Medical Workers, Reporters

Reading Vasily Grossman’s ‘Stalingrad’ and ‘Life and Fate’

War heightens the kaleidoscope of temporality. That you might say is the premise of Grossman’s entire book. It is an effect of combat and of the proximity of death. There would be other such moments in World War II – Bagration, Normandy, and the Battle for Berlin come to mind. But perhaps never again, indeed… Read More Reading Vasily Grossman’s ‘Stalingrad’ and ‘Life and Fate’

A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza

NB: This is the most painful thing I have ever posted on Palestine, and is painful reading, but it needs to be circulated. It is to the credit of the Israeli historian that he has done this work. We can only bow our heads to the victims. DS A woman with a child is shot… Read More A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza

Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, Amnesty International report finds / Former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing

Human rights group says Israel ‘brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell’ on strip’s 2.3m population A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organisation in the 14-month-old conflict. The 32-page… Read More Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, Amnesty International report finds / Former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing

President of Refugees International Condemns Biden Admin for Role in Gaza

By Diego Ramos Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, an independent humanitarian organization, and former head of disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, penned a fierce essay criticizing the Biden administration’s year-plus-long failure to hold Israel accountable and enforce the very measures it imposed on the Netanyahu government. Beginning with the Biden administration’s most… Read More President of Refugees International Condemns Biden Admin for Role in Gaza