Zionists are having a hell of a time explaining away the overwhelming photographic evidence of Israeli war crimes & genocide in Gaza. After three weeks of damning Hamas for thousands of rockets they still can’t come up with documentation of property damage in Israel that would hold up in petty claims court.

Not unlike US rationalizations for Afghanistan & Iraq, media–from main stream to the most crackpot Zionist–are fumbling for explanations that will fly & when they can’t find one, they just improvise & make stuff up. Fiction competes with farce because Zionism has reached the limits of credibility.

Originally Israel justified genocide by claiming it had to stop those Hamas rockets. Now the Associated Press (AP), relying on sources like the Israeli military & Netan-psycho-yahu, tells us the bombing & ground invasion were necessary to take out Hamas tunnels. Not the smuggling ones between Gaza & its border with Egypt (which Egypt long-since destroyed by flooding with sewage) but tunnels between Gaza & its border with Israel. Netan-psycho told Ban Ki-hopeless-moon that Hamas built “terrorist tunnels” under Gazan hospitals, mosques, schools, homes to penetrate Israeli territory & kill or kidnap Israelis.

The editorial board of The Washington Post will not be outdone by flunkeys from the AP & elaborated on the tunnel defense for genocide. The editors claim Hamas tunnels leading from Gaza to kibbutzim in Israel have entrances in residential areas like the Shijaiyah district of Gaza City. That’s why last week Israeli bombs leveled the district, leaving hundreds of bodies buried in cement rubble or lying on the streets. That’s why they shot at medics trying to rescue the survivors & gather the remains. The editors claimed Israel found another tunnel underneath al-Wafa hospital, along with a Hamas command post & weapons arsenal. That’s why they had to take the hospital out too.

The editors allege these tunnels are constructed with cement but didn’t explain where in the hell Hamas got the cement since the Israeli blockade prohibits building materials, specifically cement, & has only allowed entry to a small tonnage earmarked for UN projects. Is the UN now working with Hamas in building those tunnels?

The Washington Post editors don’t know when to stop & they go on: “The depravity of Hamas’s strategy seems lost on much of the outside world, which–following the terrorists’ script–blames Israel for the civilian casualties it inflicts while attempting to destroy the tunnels.” Take a moment to catch your breath here from the stinking cynicism of that complaint. But at least they acknowledge growing squeamishness about leaving the streets of Gaza running in blood to take out imaginary tunnels–though the editors aren’t squeamish in the least.

Hasbara tests the limits of credulity though. The editors claim Hamas leaders are hiding out in those tunnels while Gaza goes up in flames. With Israel going after those tunnels with bombs, tanks, & infantry it’s hard to imagine a place less safe than those tunnels–unless you’re a child in Gaza.

Left-wing Zionist media does a lot of hand-wringing, regretting genocide whilst damning Hamas rockets more. The differences among left-wing Zionists are fracturing & though they all adhere to a Jewish-only state, many in Israel & around the world are protesting the massacre in Gaza. In Israel, in particular, they courageously defy state repression & goon squad violence. Others like the group J Street are involved in pro-Israel rallies & need to be exorcised as indistinguishable from Netan-psycho-yahu.

Right-wing Zionist media is completely unhinged. You only wish you could write them off as crackpots & misanthropes. The Jewish Press (JP), which comes out of Brooklyn, NY, claims Israel did not bomb the UN refugee center (a vacant schoolhouse) in Beit Hanoun yesterday; it was destroyed by a misfired Hamas rocket & says an errant IDF artillery shell from combat in the area might also have hit. The JP also said Israel gave ample notice to evacuate the school. How the hell would Israel know in advance about a misfired Hamas rocket? This contradicts reports from UN representatives on the scene that there were no warnings despite repeated requests to Israel by UN workers.

The far-right Zionist blogosphere is afire today with the headline from the Jewish Telegraph (out of England): “Their God changes the path of our rockets in mid-air, said a terrorist.” If there weren’t a genocide involved, this would be farcical. An unidentified Hamas guy says God made that Hamas rocket misfire, reverse direction, & take out the school in Beit Hanoun? The Zionist writer who started this nonsense quoted David Ben Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister) from a 1956 interview when he said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” Are miracles the same as farce? Are evil fairies from outer space possibly involved?

Photos of the Beit Hanoun school bombing are far too gruesome to post, showing dozens of children & others being treated for massive shrapnel injuries & in shell shock. This photo is of Israeli airstrike damage in Gaza City–ostensibly to take out those tunnels underneath the ground where children play.

(Photo by Hatem Moussa/AP)

Israel is targeting children in Gaza & there’s no mystery why. When the Knesset politician called Palestinian children “little snakes” & called for their genocide she was expressing the colonial & racist mind that sees young among the oppressed as the enemy. This is not unique to Zionist racism & Palestinian children but is inherent to the psychology of racism.

Prior to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in the US, racism toward Blacks, Latinos, & Native Americans had many cultural expressions–from playground games (like “eeny meeny miney mo”) to the cowboy & indian genre of film & comic books, to an entire catalog of insulting epithets, & to what was called pickaninny art. Pickaninny art wasn’t art at all; it was hate-mongering propaganda & it appeared in cartoons, postcards, venues of all sorts–& for decades. White kids grew up on this crap. What typified it was images of tiny Black children, infants really, in the most dire & threatening situation. Most commonly, it depicted a pudgy Black child hanging by one hand from a tiny branch over an alligator pit. When you look at this stuff, you get the willies; you understand you’re looking at evil, at hatred, at psychopathology.

What purpose could this stuff possibly serve & what’s the psychology behind it? Well if racism is institutionalized, as in the US & Israel (& everywhere else), then every new generation of the oppressed has to be broken & inculcated with self-hatred, trained to be obsequious & docile, chastened of every instinct of dignity & rebellion. It’s a never-ending process as long as the oppressed keep having babies. The oppressing apparatus hates this task & hates the children–but it fears them more. And they express that fear of youthful defiance in perverse cultural forms–like pickaninny art. The Civil Rights Movement swept this rubbish away (including the cowboy movies) & it did so in short order.

So it’s no wonder at all Israel is targeting children with its bombs & DIME shrapnel & flechette shells. It’s out to kill them, plain & simple. It doesn’t plan on living in peace or next door to Palestinians; it just wants them gone. But images of the mangled bodies & terrified faces of little Palestinian kids have gone round the world. Twitter accounts & social media are bursting with these images & there isn’t a way in hell Israel can control that or put their evil genie back in its stinking bottle.

Take a look at these little kids. They aren’t just the next generation of intifada; they are the downfall of Zionism, exposing its barbarisms & racist hatred for all the world to see. It’s all over for Israel; a fatal blow has been struck by innocent children seeking shelter from bombs. The end of Zionism won’t come easy & it won’t be soon but this murderous campaign marks the beginning of the end & the hope for Palestinian justice.

Join the rallies demanding “Stop the massacre in Gaza!”; honor the economic boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729); support the cultural boycott of Israel.

Long live intifada! Palestine will be free!

(Photo of children fleeing the bombing by Sergey Ponomarev/NY Times)

And while Gaza grieves & flees from ethnic cleansing, Palestinian intifada defies the jackboot occupation of the West Bank to rally in defense of Gaza. These young men stand with rocks & block the road with burning tires against one of the most barbaric military forces in the world. They rally outside Ofer prison near Ramallah where Israel warehouses hundreds of Palestinian activists who will not bend the knee to Israeli apartheid.

Israel cleared Zionist settlers out of Gaza in 2005 ostensibly to generate peace but it is now eminently clear it was to isolate & exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza. These young men would face the same fate as Gaza if Israel weren’t concerned about damaging Zionist settlements in the West Bank.

The international solidarity movement is now an essential part of Palestinian intifada & must carry the banner for those now fighting for their lives. For those who cannot join the hundreds of solidarity rallies around this world to demand “Stop the massacre in Gaza”, you can participate by honoring & promoting the economic boycott of all Israeli goods (barcode beginning 729) & supporting & building the cultural boycott of Israel.

(Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)

Netan-psycho-yahu belongs to that league of politicians who will forever stand in ignominy because the scale of their crimes is so immense & the very mention of their names sends shivers up our spines: Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Omar Suleiman, Sisi, Kissinger. Netan-psycho thinks he’s riding high since he’s got Obama, Kerry, Harper, & Cameron in his back pocket defending Israeli genocide on the talk show rounds but one is more contemptible than the other.

Kerry expressed US commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself on Fox news &, not a bit squeamish, praised Netan-psycho for a “pinpointed” operation. Was he referring to the flechette shells employed by Israel? Flechette munitions are anti-personnel weapons fired by tanks which explode in the air & release thousands of small metal darts. Or is he referring to shrapnel coming from DIME explosives? Both weapons are flooding the hospitals, morgues, & streets of Gaza with bodies.

In a media interview, Netan-psycho once again accused Hamas, who he called “genocidal terrorists,” of using “civilians” as human shields. And in a statement that will forever shame his sorry ass, he said, “They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead, the better.” We stand mute before such sociopathic hatred–which has become the hallmark of Zionism.

So where are the Palestinian Authority & the less than redoubtable Mahmoud Abbas in all this? And where is the UN–other than in opening abandoned schoolhouses in Gaza to accept refugees? Schoolhouses, it might be added, that are not off-limits to Israeli bombers. Abbas, Ban Ki-moon, Egypt’s al-Sisi, & Kerry are flying all over the place trying to come up with a cease fire plan. It’s the busy work of diplomacy without a shred of validity because the only peace plan worth a damn is a condemnation of Israeli ethnic cleansing & massive international diplomatic pressure on Israel to cease. But they cannot bring themselves to do that since they represent neoliberal business & political interests in the region & that means they support Israel. Maybe they’re getting a little squeamish about the lengths Israel is going to, maybe they’re afraid Israeli overkill will turn world opinion off the official Zionist narrative that has served them all so well for 66 years. But they will not turn their back on Israel–even as it self-destructs.

We hope the Guardian UK loses some of it’s patina as the voice of reasoned liberalism for it’s equivocations & worse on Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing. One writer complained about the volume of gruesome photos from Gaza inundating Twitter & social media. We understand her horror but she cannot hide that her squeamishness has more to do with covering for Israel than revulsion at its crimes.

We also think a steady barrage of mangled children, though intended to inspire justice, is not the best tool. So we post this photo of a wheelchair-bound women in Gaza who fled her house during Israel’s ground offensive & sought refuge in this bereft UN-run schoolhouse in Rafah. True, she’s not dead, but is she telegenic enough for Netan-psycho to justify continued barbarism?

(Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)