121 Comments

Not sure how MSM and everyone else conveniently overlooks the way the IDF has been abusing the people in Gaza for years. Calling the attack “unprovoked” would be hysterically funny if it wasn’t so blatantly sick. You beat a dog for months and then when it finally bites you, you blame the dog. Clown world.

Expand full comment

Same logic applies to Ukraine/Russia. Since 2014 Ukraine has been abusing Donbas, 14,000 killed, water cutoff to Crimea, and on and on. All the while building itself up to confrontation with Russia with the help of NATO.

Surely Russia's response was unprovoked.

Expand full comment

russian_bot: As former President Herbert Hoover said after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, "If you poke a rattlesnake long enough, he'll strike."

Expand full comment

It's beyond belief that this tactic seems to work every time!

Expand full comment

William,

"You beat a dog for months",.......the beating started in the 1960's, at that time culminating in Zionists attack on the USS Liberty, an American ship and crew, Still waiting for that to be reconciled.

That single act that showed the Israel government that they could control the USA.

They've done it.

Expand full comment

William Jeffreys: Some people blame the stick used to beat the dog.

Expand full comment
founding

All of this sounds anti Zionist to me and I know that Zionism is the one true religion of the one true Zionist God.So if God told them to blow up a hospital full of sick people mostly women and children then those people must have been agencies of the devil. The rule is simple; to criticise Zionists or their actions is to criticise the people of the one true god. See any basic text of Judaism. The Christian Old Testament is as good a starting place as any .

Expand full comment

Nice sarcasm!

Expand full comment

Jack Lomax: Zion National Park is a beautiful place in Utah. I suppose some may think the Mormons are not the one true religion. Perhaps some may not believe that Joseph Smith found the buried Gold Tablets from God in Pennsylvania.

Perhaps the Gold Tablets told the People of Zion to blow up the hospital.

What amazes me is that both the Zions of Utah and the Muslims of Gaza believe in polygamy.

Isn't that a unifying factor?

Expand full comment

This is why I dont like reading the comment section.

Expand full comment

What you said is literally what the Norwegian Refugee Council told the world six years ago:

https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/

“….More than 50 years of occupation and 10 years of blockade have made the lives of 1.9 million Palestinians living inside the Gaza Strip unbearable. That is why they now are protesting and risking their lives….

….Palestinian children and youth grow up in a society characterised by fear, lack of security, hopelessness and the lack of work, medical services, food, freedom of movement and other essentials. Today many refer to the Gaza Strip as the world’s largest open-air prison, where the prison guard is Israel…..

…A 2012 UN report predicted the Palestinian enclave would be “unliveable” by 2020 if nothing was done to ease the blockade, but in June 2017 a UN report on living conditions in Gaza stated that all the indicators are going in the wrong direction and that deadline is actually approaching even faster than earlier predicted.….”

Expand full comment

At a time when Palestinians are being called human animals by their captors, perhaps using a metaphor that equates the position of those trapped in Gaza with that of a dog, which, btw, is considered a highly offensive insult in Islam, may not be the best way to make your point.

Expand full comment

Joy, I’ve always maintained that animals are better people than people. If the Palestinians are “animals”, this certainly proves true that animals are far superior to certain groups of so-called “people”.

Expand full comment

I understand your point, and I may well agree with it, given the non-stop predations of our human species in the post-Agricultural-Revolution era. Unfortunately, it may not come across as was intended, and during this fraught time, it might not be a bad idea to tread lightly on such imagery. We know what equating humans to animals has led to in the past. I shudder whenever I see anything that, even unintentionally, may reinforce that idea.

Expand full comment

I agree Joy that the IsraHellis certainly did not intend that remark in a good way.

But the IsraHellis have little respect for non-human life. According to the Humane Society of the United States, IsraHell’s method of dealing with strays is poisoning them.

Most Gazans keep cats to keep the vermin away, since they are not allowed proper sanitation. I own eight cats and until very recently, a mare. I feel worse for the lives lost of cats, horses and donkeys in Gaza than I do for any IsraHelli life. The animals are innocent; the Zios are not.

Expand full comment

War is a racket. General Smedley Butler tried to warn us: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/smedley-butler-smash-the-war-racket

Expand full comment

I'm also a devote' of Smedley Butler and his thesis. Pleased to meet you Yuri.

Expand full comment

Then maybe The Business plot 1933/34 involving the above mentioned character as well as banksters from WallStreet including a sitting president should be familiar to all of you ... if not look it up the rabbit hole is miles deep!

Expand full comment

You got that right.

Expand full comment
Oct 20, 2023Liked by Caitlin Johnstone

Spot on as usual. It is heavy work criticizing the empire, being a voice in the wilderness. Thank you for what you do. Make sure you are keeping some balance with your poetry and other forms of expression.

Expand full comment
author

Ugh I really want to but there's just SO much going on right now with this issue. I feel like I just gotta give myself to this thing with all I've got for the time being. It's exhausting and painful but it beats being in Gaza.

Expand full comment
Oct 20, 2023Liked by Caitlin Johnstone

Perhaps now you need to more than ever. This is all alot. Everywhere we look innocents are suffering. Keeping up with every moment as you do, comes at a cost. But as you said, it beats being in Gaza. There are many places in the world I would not want my children to be. We can be better than this. One day.

Expand full comment

May the Goddess bestow upon you all her blessings, dear Caitlin!

Expand full comment

You've been in Gaza?

Expand full comment

Exactly. There are people getting off the crazy bus, though:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/19/why-i-resigned-from-the-state-department/

And I dont think that’s an isolated incident.

Expand full comment

The flag thing is bizarrely Orwellian. I wonder what flag next year people in the US will be obliged to replace the Israeli flag with.

Expand full comment

It's the same playbook over and over.

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Gen. Phil Sheridan of the Union Army had their troops rape, pillage, and burn the South in the American Civil War. If an American complained about these atrocities he was a "Rebel Lover" or a "Nigger Lover".

After the Civil War, Generals Sherman and Sheridan took their Union Troops out into the Great Plains and their troops raped, pillaged, and burned the American Indians. If an American complained about these atrocities he was called an "Injun Lover".

There was a new wrinkle though. The American Indians had their land stolen and were put on reservations.

Adolph Hitler studies all this and copied what Presidents Lincoln and Grant had done.

Now, the Zionists copy Hitler.

It's the same old playbook.

Expand full comment

Actually, the reports of Union troops raping Southern women were mostly false, and it was the Confederates who started the Atlanta fire, not Sherman's troops. Sherman DID order Columbia, South Carolina burned to the ground.

The bit about the Indians is, of course, accurate.

Expand full comment

I believe you have mistaken the blueprint used over and over by THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN for its own ends under different disguises since THE GARDEN OF EDEN ... for an "innocent" copycat, as per your comments logic.

Expand full comment

One Existence: Send me the address of the Synagogue of Satan and I'll check it out on my next road trip.

Expand full comment

NO-ONE needs an address for it as it is (potentially) amongst EVERYONE.... meaning those HUMAN MINDS asking for an address are more than likely "knee deep" in the MENTAL MORRAS - THE DARKNESS - that THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN is referring to!

Expand full comment

One Humorless Existence: A synagogue has an address. The address is in the property tax records down at the County Seat.

Expand full comment

You are fighting the good fight. It seems like the world has accepted the invasion of Gaza as inevitable. Imagine what it is like for fellow parents in Gaza who have to prepare for death because there is nowhere to hide. Let's keep screaming our opposition to this injustice.

Expand full comment

"“Honey I took down the Ukraine flag to put up the Israeli flag, where should I put it?”

I about split my gut laughing when I read this dialogue! I swear, Caitlin, you must have planted a secret mic at some Neoliberal couple's house and recorded them talking. I can see it happening--I may have seen it happen already. Oh... I just can't stop laughing.

Thanks. I needed it after so much stress lately. Off to march in a Free Palestine parade tomorrow. We shall overcome!

Expand full comment

If being against genocide makes me an antisemite then so be it

Expand full comment

I know what you mean, but don't play into the propagandists' hands by accepting their cynical labelling

Expand full comment

if you look closer at my comment its really calling them genocidal

Expand full comment

Right, but being against Israeli genocide actually doesn't make you an antisemite. That's what I meant by cynical labelling

Expand full comment

Which is why THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN will never be able to overcome its hatred for JESUS CHRIST!

Expand full comment

Dear Caitlin, hope you are keeping well.

Brilliant about the flags. Once visiting the US, when I queried from my host ( pretending to be innocent), why most houses had the the American flag flying, I was told for " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Things soured a bit when I asked ' at whose expense?'.

Expand full comment

What a great response on your part! 😁

Expand full comment

You are priceless Caitlin and I adore you. Thank you for always speaking the truth and for exactly zero sugarcoating of it. These are pills that must go down the throats of clueless empire Muppets dry and bitter. And somehow you're still nicer than I am when I make the same points. Never stop.

Expand full comment
Oct 20, 2023·edited Oct 20, 2023

"... and empire simps can’t handle it."

Cue in Jack Nicholson: "You can't handle the truth!"

Expand full comment

My soul and stomach have been churning in disgust this past few days reading and watching the genocide inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza — questioning whether humanity even exists among the Western leaders. Your prolific writing helps to calm me down. Thank you!

Expand full comment

Biden totally supports two Nazi-dominated governments -- this will end BAD...

Expand full comment

"Israel apologists who are getting frustrated that nobody’s buying their “criticism of Israel is anti-semitic” routine anymore can thank the smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn a few years ago. It opened a lot of eyes to how cynically that accusation is used."

I would say that the cynical smear campaign opened a lot of people's eyes to how much power the Israel Lobby has and that they dare not cross it.

Expand full comment

So far as politicians and public figures go, sure. It doesn't seem to be working too well with those American Jews who occupied a Capitol office building demanding a ceasefire, though.

I think we're going to see that influence take a big hit.

Expand full comment

Since when did public opinion start to matter, when people of influence and authority have already made up their minds?

Expand full comment

We are witnessing the death throes of an empire lashing out at a world it no longer controls and is being left behind. It is in the blind rage of an infantile futility trying to avoid the judgments of history-- inevitably served... "whom the gods destroy they first of all make mad."

The question remaining now is how much more collateral damage will it inflict on itself and the world community before it exhausts its rage. The world has never seen such a pitiful and grandiose self-immolation.

Everything blown up will have to be rebuilt, so it is with compulsive human folly.

It is only a matter of time before the sane and just multipolar world rises tall from the ashes of another dead empire.

Expand full comment

It would be one thing if online critics were simply Empire simps, but last I knew there were 80,000 CIA agents with online responsibilities.

So I just generally assume that when I see someone out of place in comment sections whose only agenda seems to be to discount, ridicule and/or convince people how wrong or stupid they are to see what can be blatantly seen, that they are a CIA or other government shill.

Government propagandists whose responsibility is to tell us that we are spreading propaganda that is not the accepted propaganda. So easy to spot once you know what you're looking at.

Expand full comment

It's got to be more reassuring to believe that I'm sure. I lean far more towards the public being intellectually lazy in the extreme. Completely incapable of logic or critical thinking, disdainful of knowledge, completely ignorant of the world beyond their selfie sticks, and prideful about all of that. The kind of people who only had history books open in class to hide their hands while they rolled joints.

Expand full comment

Possibly it's not either/or?

Expand full comment

I wouldn't rely on history books lol.

My "knowledge" comes from watching and observing and exploring non-official sources.

There are plenty of people who just believe what they're told.

For a propagandist it's shooting fish in a barrel.

The ones I'm talking about stick out like a sore thumb being in places they don't belong and shouting and insulting. If you see one, you'll know it.

Expand full comment

This is why the online censorship complex is so ludicrous.

Shrieking about regular people spreading misinformation while they are doing exactly what they are purportedly protecting us against.

This is also why it is so important to trust our gut and intuition.

Ask questions of yourself - get answers.

Expand full comment