Israel targeting, censoring journalists for covering assault on Gaza

Kathleen Martin

On Wednesday an Israeli airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the south of Gaza targeted and killed the family of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh. The victims of Dahdouh’s family include his wife, his high-school-aged son, seven-year-old daughter, and a grandson. According to reports from Al Jazeera, 12 members of the Dahdouh family are dead, nine of whom were children, and others are still missing.

The family was staying in the camp, having fled to the south of the Gaza strip after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets in the north urging civilians to evacuate. Dahdouh remained behind to continue covering the bombardment. Al Jazeera’s Walid al-Omary told the press that the murders were part of Israel’s “relentless targeting of Palestinians,” and stated that in spite of the fact that the family had evacuated, the “Israeli army targeted them. This is proof that there isn’t a single safe zone in Gaza.”

Al Jazeera released a statement condemning the targeting of journalists and their families, and encouraging “the international community to intervene and put an end to these attacks on civilians, thereby safeguarding innocent lives.”

The murder of Dahdouh’s family followed reports on Monday that just two weeks ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Qatar to “tone down” the state-owned news network’s coverage of the slaughter in Palestine. 

Axios reported that three sources who attended a meeting with Blinken “said he asked the Qataris to ‘turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage because it is full of anti-Israel incitement.’”

Shlomo Karhi, Israel’s communications minister, has been pushing for harsh censorship measures through emergency regulations to tamp down on opposition to Israel’s massively unpopular assault on Palestine. “Al Jazeera’s broadcasts and reports constitute incitement against Israel, help Hamas-ISIS and the terror organizations with their propaganda, and encourage violence against Israel,” he said.  

According to the draft emergency regulations, titled “Limiting Aid to the Enemy through Communication,” any media outlet deemed a threat to “national security” will be shut down. On October 20, the Israeli government signed off on the regulations. Karhi then announced he would bring forth a formal proposal to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel altogether at the next security cabinet meeting.

According to Haaretz, the emergency regulations “will apply to both the general public and the media, as well as both local and foreign media (in contrast to the stated objective to limit Al Jazeera). It will also apply to the publication of factually correct statements, at the minister’s discretion… The draft defines ‘aiding the enemy through communication’ as the dissemination of information that ‘undermines the morale of Israel’s soldiers and residents in the face of the enemy,’ or information that ‘serves as a basis for enemy propaganda, including the spreading of the enemy’s propaganda messages,’ or information that ‘aids the enemy in its war against Israel, its residents, or Jews.’”

The publication later notes in the same article that it is “unlikely” to be approved by the government’s legal counsel as it conflicts with Israel’s “democratic values.”

The targeting and censorship of journalists is a longstanding policy of the Israeli regime in its effort to cover up and whitewash the crimes committed by the IDF against Palestinians. 

In May 2022, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was targeted and gunned down by the IDF while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Her murder was an open attempt to prevent objective reporting on the brutal suppression of Palestinians, which has now escalated to open genocide.

The International Federation of Journalists reports that at least 23 journalists have been killed since October 7 as of this writing. Dozens more have been injured and more are missing. The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate reports that in addition to the deaths, injuries and missing journalists, over 50 media institutions have been destroyed in the airstrikes which have targeted the homes of journalists, and a further 30 journalists have been arrested in the West Bank.

A Palestinian journalist comfort his niece wounded in an Israeli strike on her family home in Nusseirat refugee camp, in a hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023 [AP Photo/Ali Mahmoud]

Late Wednesday night, two more journalists, Saed al-Halabi and Mohammed Labad, were killed in a targeted attack. “[T]he Israeli occupation army continued to target the houses of journalists, where the bombing of the house of journalist Said Al-Halabi led to his martyrdom,” according to a press release from the Forum of Palestinian Journalists (PJS). 

Al-Halabi worked for Al-Aqsa TV and was killed at his home in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip. Labad was killed in a blast near his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. 

Motaz Azaiza, a photojournalist on the ground in Palestine with over 8.7 million followers on Instagram, has had his X/Twitter account shut down this week for “violating rules.” Following a devastating video posted to the journalist’s Instagram account on October 13, showing the ruins and rubble after an IDF bomb destroyed residential buildings, his Instagram account was suspended and not reinstated until days later. His X/Twitter account currently remains suspended.

Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, released a statement last updated on October 18 blatantly denying censorship, insinuating that posts showing the devastation of Palestine and the murder of civilians equates support for terrorism and are therefore not allowed. “[C]ontent containing praise for Hamas, which is designated by Meta as a Dangerous Organization, or violent and graphic content, for example, is not allowed on our platforms,” it says. 

Language from the original statement published October 13 places blame for the Israeli attack on Gaza on the October 7 Hamas “terrorist attack.”

“Like many, we were shocked and horrified by the brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas, and our thoughts go out to civilians who are suffering in Israel and Gaza as the violence continues to unfold,” it reads. “Since the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on Saturday, and Israel’s response in Gaza, expert teams from across our company have been working around the clock to monitor our platforms, while protecting people’s ability to use our apps to shed light on important developments happening on the ground.”

The massive international outrage over the brutal assault by Israel on Palestine has gone beyond the control of the ruling class and its mainstream media outlets. Photos and videos of the bombings and deaths, and of the protests against it, have been shared widely on social media platforms in spite of the lack of mainstream media reports.

The hashtag “Genocide Joe” has been trending on X/Twitter, following US President Joe Biden’s open embrace of Netanyahu and call for $105 billion to escalate war efforts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as workers and young people view with horror and disgust content from accounts like Azaiza’s, which show the reality of the situation in Palestine.

Right-wing US Army soldier massacres 18 people in Lewiston, Maine

Jacob Crosse

At least 18 people are dead in Lewiston, Maine, with another 13 injured, following the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the state Wednesday night. As of this writing, at least three of the injured are in critical condition, and the suspected shooter, 40-year-old Robert C. Card, remains at-large more than 24 hours after the mass killing.

Security footage of the Lewiston shooter released by police from inside the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley

According to emergency services, after 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, police began receiving calls of an active shooter at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston, which is about 30 miles north of Portland, the largest city in the state.

Lewiston, with a population of roughly 36,000, is the second largest city in Maine. Police claim the shooter killed at least seven people at the bowling alley.

Shortly after 7:00 p.m., emergency services began receiving phone calls of a second mass shooting taking place at Schemengees Bar & Grille, a restaurant located roughly four miles south of Just-In-Time and also in Lewiston. Police report at least eight people were killed there.

Following the two shootings, the suspected mass murderer, Card, a Sergeant First Class in the US Army Reserve, evaded police capture and went on the run. For over 24 hours a “shelter-in-place” order has been in effect for Lewiston and Androscoggin County, home to over 111,000 people.

On Thursday, all of the schools in the Lewiston were closed, while Bates College, with an enrollment of some 1,800 students, remained on lockdown.

Since the shooting transpired, hundreds of police, federal agents and para-military assets have flooded into the town. Videos shared on social media show drones, helicopters, armored police vehicles and camouflaged agents with helmets and rifles patrolling major streets and businesses. Despite hundreds of people and millions of dollars worth of equipment, state and federal agents have been, as of publication, unable to locate the shooter.

On Thursday, US government officials warned Canadian border patrol to be on the lookout for the “extremely armed and dangerous” Card.

Wednesday’s carnage took place at two public establishments, where Card, a resident of Bowdoin, located 15 miles east of Lewiston, had recently complained to family members and friends that he was hearing menacing voices.

“In the past year, he had an acute episode of mental health, and it’s been a struggle,” Katie Card, who is married to Card’s brother, told the Daily Beast in a Thursday interview. Katie said her brother-in-law has had hearing loss and recently purchased hearing aids. For months, she says he has been hearing “voices” attack him while in public.

“He truly believed he was hearing people say things,” Katie Card told the news outlet. “This all just happened within the last few months.”

In a separate interview with NBC News, Katie Card said the family had previously reached out to the Army Reserve base where Card worked and local police because they had grown “increasingly concerned” with Card’s mental state. Katie said Robert complained that the voices made “horrible” comments about him.

Katie Card also confirmed a previous CNN report that Robert had recently lost his job at a recycling center. She said that Robert was currently unemployed and that he had previously been a truck driver at a warehouse distribution center.

Officials with the Veterans Administration (VA) confirmed on Thursday night that Card was not enrolled in or using VA health care.

Cards’ mental state was well-known to police and military officials prior Wednesday’s massacre. On Thursday, the Associated Press confirmed that in mid-July while training at the US Military Academy at West Point in New York with the rest of his unit, the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment, Card’s commanders became “concerned” because he was acting “erratically.”

The official confirmed to the Associated Press that military commanders called police and had Card transferred to a medical facility, where he was committed for several weeks.

Card has been in the US Army Reserves for over two decades, having first enlisted in December 2002. The US Army has confirmed that he was a petroleum supply specialist, who had not previously served any combat deployments. As a petroleum supply specialist, Card would have overseen the transfer and storage of fuel and other liquids for his unit. JP-8 is the most widely used jet fuel used by US military vehicles. Previous studies have shown that the exposure to the fuel can cause hearing problems, as well as “headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, general weakness, trouble concentrating, forgetfulness, and trouble gripping things.”

While there is no current motive at this time, a review of Card’s social media accounts, specifically his Twitter/X account, reveals his far-right leanings. Before the account was suspended, it showed that Card had followed several far-right figures, including Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk, and regularly “liked” posts from Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro, and convicted felon/conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza.

In one of the Trump Jr. posts “liked” by Card, the ex-president’s son asserts falsely that due to the “incredible rise of trans/non-binary mass shooters in the last few years ... maybe, rather than talking about guns we should be talking about lunatics pushing their gender affirming bulls*** on our kids.”

Card also “liked” posts that encouraged motorists to run over anti-police violence protesters and denied the existence of COVID-19.

His fascist politics were well-known to some members of the community. In an interview with NBC, local resident Liam Kent said that the Card family lived on “basically a compound” in Bowdoin.

“The family and Robert, they’re all gun fanatics,” Kent told NBC. “For all intents and purposes, they are very much associated with right-wing militias. It’s known in the town to stay away from them and not approach them.”

Kent recalled when he was younger going to the store as a child and seeing Card at a nearby weigh station with a dead deer. Kent said Card was “grinning, covered in blood with a gun still strapped to his body.”

“[T]hey would shoot guns all the time” he added. “You could hear them every day after school. It was like clockwork.”

According to the Gun Violence Archive, which categorizes any incident in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are injured or killed as a “mass shooting,” 2023 is on pace to set the record for most mass shootings ever recorded by the tracker. At the current pace, 2023 will end with some 700 mass shootings, or just under two a day. As of this writing, there have been at least 566 mass shootings this year, a figure higher than the total tracked in 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019.

While officials have yet to name the victims, several have been identified by friends and family on social media, including Michael Deslauriers II, Tricia Asselin and Bob Violette.

In a Thursday night statement, Bath Iron Works confirmed that 40-year-old union pipefitter Peyton Brewer-Ross was among the victims. Brewer-Ross, like several other patrons, was playing in a cornhole tournament at Schemengees Bar & Grille when the shooting started. He was the father of a two-year-old girl.

Joseph Walker, 57, was a manager at Schemengees Bar & Grille at the time of the shooting. In an interview with the New York Times, Leroy Walker, Joseph’s father, said police told him that his son “died a hero” because he armed himself with a butcher knife and attempted to subdue the gunman.

Following the latest mass shooting, as usual, none of the capitalist politicians, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have sought to provide an explanation for the increasing frequency of mass killings in the US. Instead of an explanation, they once again offered their “condolences” and “sorrow.”

Given that Biden, who along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is currently overseeing the genocide of the Palestinian people, these “emphatic” statements ring completely hollow.

In his statement Biden called on Congress to pass an assault weapons and high-capacity magazine ban. Besides the fact that this will never pass the Republican-controlled House, it further does nothing to address the root cause of gun violence, which is not ultimately found in the individual psychology of the shooter no matter how deranged but in American capitalist society. A wealthy ruling class that is currently funding and overseeing a genocide abroad in pursuit of its imperialist interests cannot, and will not, stop the massacre of children and workers at home.

Erdoğan denounces Israel as onslaught on Gaza sets stage for war across Middle East

Barış Demir

The support of Washington and the European powers for Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians in Gaza and the looming prospect of a US war with Iran have provoked a desperate crisis in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.

After the Israel-Gaza war broke out on October 7, Erdoğan initially tried to block a mass movement against Israeli bombings in Gaza. Turkish riot police assaulted solidarity protests with Gaza, as Erdoğan called for “de-escalation” and a “ceasefire,” equating the violence of the Palestinians with the imperialist-backed Israeli state. On Wednesday, however, as the Israeli regime ignored his calls for “restraint” and outrage mounted in the overwhelming majority of the Turkish people, he was forced to suddenly shift his policy.

In a speech at a meeting of his party, Erdoğan said: “We have made every effort in order for this crisis to not further escalate, and will continue to do so … We have clearly stated that we never approve of any acts against civilians, including Israeli civilians, no matter who carries these acts out.” He added: “We do not have any problem with the State of Israel, but we never have and never will approve of Israeli oppression and their course of action, which resembles that of an organization rather than a state.”

In this February. 5, 2020 photo, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds up a placard with a series of maps of historical Palestine, the 1947 United Nations partition plan on Palestine, the 1948-1967 borders between the Palestinian territories and Israel, and a current map of the Palestinian territories without Israeli-annexed areas and settlements, during a speech at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey. [AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici]

Having stated that he has no problem with the Zionist regime, whose existence is based on the dispossession and now the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Erdoğan continued: “Israel has since October 7 been conducting one of the bloodiest, the most hideous and the most violent attacks in history against the innocent people in Gaza… Merely this fact is enough to show that the intention is not to protect themselves but a brutality aimed at committing a deliberate crime against humanity.”

Erdoğan had recently re-developed diplomatic ties with the Israeli government to share Eastern Mediterranean energy reserves and exclude the Palestinians from them. Now, however, he accused Tel Aviv of abusing his good intentions and cancelled a previously-scheduled visit. He announced that the first mass rally protesting the Gaza war by his Justice and Development Party (AKP) will be held on October 28, in Istanbul.

In his speech, Erdoğan rejected one of the imperialist powers’ main justifications for the Israeli massacre in Gaza. He said, “This Israel is killing children, we have seen the condition of these children, and we will never allow them to be torn to pieces because we have a share in humanity… Hamas is not a terrorist organization; it is a group of liberation and mujahedeen fighting to defend its lands and citizens.”

On his X/Twitter account, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat condemned Erdoğan’s remarks. Haiat wrote: “The Turkish president’s attempt to defend the terrorist organization [Hamas] and his provocative words will not change the brutality and the absolute truth that the whole world has seen: Hamas is equal to ISIS,” the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The Israeli state and the imperialist capitals clearly sense that Erdoğan’s speech threatens their policy in the region. Indeed, having already criticized the US deployment of aircraft carriers to the region, Erdoğan pointedly attacked Washington, saying: “All actors should act responsibly to prevent the spread of war, and extra-regional powers should stop adding fuel to the fire in the name of solidarity with Israel.”

Indeed, the Turkish government is dismayed by the imminent prospect of the imperialist powers plunging the entire Middle East into war. As Erdoğan spoke, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan went to Doha, Qatar, where he said: “Our region is literally at a tipping point. The current conjuncture will either lead to a greater war or a greater peace. All those I speak to share this assessment, even if they do not say so publicly.”

The NATO imperialist powers’ support for genocide in Gaza and their threat to attack Iran present the Turkish bourgeoisie with an impossible dilemma. On the one hand, it has the closest ties with imperialism and for decades has asserted its foreign policy interests through NATO. On the other, it is virtually impossible for the Turkish government to join the other NATO powers in supporting a genocide in Gaza and waging a US-led war on Iran.

Firstly, such an utterly criminal policy must be rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Turkish people—above all, by the working class. Moreover, it would also threaten fundamental interests of the Turkish ruling class.

Turkey, which shares a long land border with Iran, is home to the US-NATO Incirlik air base in Adana and the Kürecik radar base in Malatya. These bases could easily become the targets of Iranian strikes, should war break out between the United States and Iran.

The Turkish bourgeoisie fears that a victory in a Middle East war of Washington and Tel Aviv, both of whom back Kurdish-nationalist militias on Turkey’s borders in Iraq and Syria, could lead to the formation of a Kurdish state. However, the Turkish bourgeoisie has historically been willing to take the most far-reaching measures to block the emergence of a Kurdish state and maintain the oppression of the Kurds inside Turkey.

Leading Turkish officials are therefore discussing military intervention against Israel or other NATO allies in the region.

In his speech, Erdoğan warned that Turkish military intervention is on the table, stating: “We, as a country and a nation, will continue to shout the truth and to use all political, diplomatic and, if necessary, military means to this end.”

On Sunday, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) that is the de facto coalition partner of Erdoğan’s AKP, called for military intervention in Gaza. He stated: “If a ceasefire cannot be achieved within 24 hours, if the attacks do not stop, if bombs continue to be dropped on the oppressed, Turkey must quickly step in and do whatever is required by its historical, humanitarian and religious responsibilities. Undertaking the mission of protecting and protecting Gaza is the legacy of our ancestors.” 

Erdoğan tied his criticisms of the imperialist support for Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza to planned attacks on Kurdish militias in Syria or Iraq that he denounces as terrorist.

He said, “With the operations we carry out by saying ‘We might come one night all of a sudden,’ we will foil the projects sought to be realized through terrorist organizations and crush their heads. … Although they do not abide by what statecraft and international law require, we will never give up on fulfilling what our dignity requires us to do. We will continue to destroy the terror corridor sought to be established along our borders, and to stand up against the dirty campaigns conducted against our country and faith.”

The imperialist powers’ green light to the Israeli regime for genocide in Gaza is tearing apart the institutions through which imperialism has dominated the region for decades. More perceptive imperialist commentators are warning of a possible collapse of the NATO alliance. 

Commenting on Erdoğan’s speech, retired US Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor said: “He’s warning the Israelis and he’s warning us that you’re playing with fire, and you’re going to get a full-scale war. That’s the message. I hope we get it. We, by putting an aircraft carrier … in the Eastern Mediterranean and another one either in the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea, are attempting to provoke people like President Erdoğan and the mullahs that run the government of Iran.”

MacGregor added that the war escalation poses serious dangers for Israel: “It’s really setting the stage for a larger regional war that’s the issue right now. And we always tend to forget the Turks have the largest army in NATO, a very large air force. They don’t have as many missiles and rockets in their arsenal as Iran does. But if you put Iran together with Turkey and they end up in a coalition that includes the Peninsula Arabs … then, you know, the stage is set for something that I think could end up destroying the Israeli State.”

US surges troops to Middle East in threat against Iran

Andre Damon

Amid the largest US naval buildup in the region in decades, the United States is continuing to surge troops, warships and aircraft to the Middle East in an overt threat against Iran. The US military escalation takes place as Israel continues its unrelenting airstrikes against civilians sheltering in Gaza, bringing the death toll of its genocide against the Palestinians to over 7,000.

The USS Gerald R. Ford steams alongside the USNS Laramie during a fueling in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, October 11, 2023. The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is currently operating in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense. [Photo: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jacob Mattingly ]

On Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that another 900 US troops had been deployed or were deploying to the Middle East, joining the more than 10,000 sailors, airmen and soldiers that have been sent to the region since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

On Wednesday, Biden publicly threatened Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, “My warning to the Ayatollah was that if they continue to move against those troops, we will respond. And he should be prepared.” On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken threatened, “If Iran or its proxies attack U.S. personnel anywhere, make no mistake. We will defend our people.”

On Thursday, the US officials claimed that US troops had come under attack 12 times in Iraq and four times in Syria. As a result, the US claimed, 21 American troops have suffered minor injuries from these attacks. Under conditions in which the United States has declared a vast array of political forces throughout the Middle East to be Iranian proxies, these alleged attacks could serve as a direct casus belli for a US attack on Iran.

On Wednesday, retired Gen. Joseph Votel, whose final posting was as head of U.S. Central Command, urged Biden to use military force against Iran in response to the alleged attacks. “We will have to do that,” Votel said. “I think we are at the point where we can probably do that now, and we should.” He added, “We can and should respond more directly to these threats on our troops.”

Iran’s foreign minister, meanwhile, warned at the United Nations Thursday that Iran would be drawn into a war with the US if Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians continued.

Hossein Amirabdollahian warned Thursday at the United Nations, “I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire.”

USNI News, the official publication of the US Navy, wrote Thursday, “The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is more than halfway across the Atlantic on its way to join the mass of U.S. naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.” It added, “Within the next few days, the carrier and its escorts are expected to transit the Strait of Gibraltar.” The Eisenhower’s carrier strike group includes two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, as well as its carrier air wing.

The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, meanwhile, is stationed in the Mediterranean, providing support for Israel’s massacre of the Palestinians. USNI wrote, “Initially tasked to operate in tandem with the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, Ike will instead travel through the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal to the Middle East to operate in U.S. 5th Fleet.”

Haaretz speculated, however, that the true destination of the Carrier strike group may be the Persian Gulf.

It will be operating alongside the US amphibious warships, effectively mini-carriers, USS Bataan and USS Carter Hall, which are currently in the Gulf of Aden and approaching the Red Sea. Another amphibious assault ship, the USS Mesa Verde, arrived in the eastern Mediterranean last week.

USNI News reported, “The collection of ships will be among the largest mass of U.S. ships in the region in decades,” citing the comments of Adm. James Foggo, who said it was “probably more ships that we’ve had in that area since 1993.”

This massive US armada is joined by the French Mistral-class amphibious warship Tonnerre, along with two other French guided-missile frigates. The British Royal Navy has also sent two warships to the region.

On Thursday, Haaretz reported, “Over the past two weeks, close to 80 U.S. military cargo planes have landed in the region, in addition to dozens of civilian aircraft retained by the U.S. and Israeli defense establishments.”

The Israeli newspaper continued: “Open-source information reveals even larger numbers of U.S. military transport aircraft being used to deploy troops, equipment and armaments throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. They show that eight heavy-cargo planes that took off from supply depots in the United States and Europe have landed at a Jordanian base. Two U.S. fighter squadrons of F-15E fighter-bombers and A-10 attack planes have also been deployed at the base, as have Florida-based special forces.”

On October 16, the World Socialist Web Site warned, “The dispatch of an armada of over a dozen warships to the Middle East is not simply to threaten Hamas, which has no navy. The United States is preparing for a much broader conflict in the Middle East, including war with Iran.” We added, “The US is using the present crisis to put into effect longstanding plans for a war with Iran, as the Middle Eastern front of the US war with Russia and war plans against China.”

The rapid escalation of US threats against Iran takes place amid a dramatic acceleration of Israel’s bombing campaign, whose aim is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinian people.

On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres accused Israel of carrying out the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

The next day, Martin Griffiths, the UN’s humanitarian aid chief, warned that “20 days on, heavy bombardments on Gaza continue and are getting worse, even in areas supposed to be safer… The world itself is failing to meet the bare entitlements of a part of humanity. The rules of war are clear: Civilians must be protected and have the essentials to survive.”

On Wednesday, the international charity Oxfam condemned Israel for using mass starvation as a “weapon of war.” Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s regional Middle East director, said, “The situation is nothing short of horrific—where is humanity? Millions of civilians are being collectively punished in full view of the world, there can be no justification for using starvation as a weapon of war.”

And in response to the statement of President Joe Biden Wednesday, declaring he did not have any confidence in the numbers of dead in Gaza being reported by the health ministry, because it was run by Hamas, the agency released a list of 6,747 people killed so far by Israeli bombing, with their age, gender and ID number. Another 281 bodies had been recovered which could not be identified, the ministry said, bringing the total to 7,028. Of these, 2,931 were children.

New Reserve Bank of Australia governor warns interest hikes could continue

Nick Beams

In her first major speech since becoming Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Michele Bullock insisted that the central bank will continue to lift interest rates no matter what the consequences for families under increasing financial stress because of the rapid rise in mortgage payments.

Michele Bullock [Photo: X/Twitter @RBAInfo]

Bullock warned of further interest rate rises in an address to a Commonwealth Bank conference on Tuesday evening. She made clear there would be no let up on interest rates while inflation remained above the bank’s target range of between 2 and 3 percent.

While it was possible this could be achieved with the RBA cash rate at its present level there were risks it would come down more slowly than current forecasts, she said.

“The Board will not hesitate to raise the cash rate further if there is a material upward revision to the outlook for inflation.”

Evidence of an upward movement came yesterday with the news that consumer prices in the third quarter had risen 1.2 percent compared to 0.8 percent in the second, on the back of increased electricity and petrol prices. The next rise in rates could come as early as next Tuesday when the RBA board next meets.

Bullock said it might have been possible to bring inflation down by raising the cash rate more sharply, but this would have caused “greater hardship for households and businesses and ultimately higher unemployment” and the costs outweighed the gains.

Eager to establish her authority with financial markets, she quickly added: “At the same time, the Board has been clear that it has a low tolerance for allowing inflation to return to target more slowly than currently expected. Accepting this risk would risk eroding public credibility in our commitment to low and stable inflation.”

The RBA’s rate increases have already had a major impact on living standards. It is estimated that a family trying to pay off a $750,000 mortgage is at least $1800 per month worse off than when rate rises began in May last year. Such huge mortgages were unthinkable not so many years ago but are now a commonplace under conditions where the median price for a house is above $1 million in many areas.

The RBA is well aware of the impact of its decisions. Bullock even provided some figures in her speech showing their effect.

She said that, on average, households with a mortgage “have experienced a significant decline in spare cash flows” and that “higher interest costs have reduced their cash flow by more than the rise in inflation.”

According to RBA data, 5 percent of all borrowers on a variable rate “are estimated to be paying more for essential expenses and housing than they receive in income.” This rises to about 25 percent for highly leveraged borrowers, defined as those with loans amounting to at least four times their income, not an unusual situation.

Under conditions where house prices are continuing to rise and wage increases are being suppressed, above all because of the actions of the trade union apparatuses in imposing sub-inflation wage agreements, this cohort is likely to be increasing.

Data gathered by the Roy Morgan research group published earlier this month showed that in August a record high of 1.57 million people, representing nearly a third of all mortgage holders, were now at risk of mortgage stress.

The level for August surpassed the previous record set in July and the research found the number would rise to 1.65 million in the event of another rate increase.

Presenting its latest findings, Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said of even more concern than the overall increase was the number of mortgage holders considered to be “extremely at risk.” Now standing at 1.066 million for August, it had doubled since the RBA began its rate rises.

In its report on the Bullock speech, the Australian cited the findings of a survey conducted by JWS Research. It found that eight out of 10 adults chose cost of living in their top five issues and 56 percent said it was among their top three, up from 43 percent in June.

The survey reported that “there is a sense that cost of living is now a challenge for ‘most’ households, impacting not just low-income earners but also Middle Australia.” There was a “frustration at increases in essential services expenses outstripping rises in their income, limiting their ability to maintain their standard of living and to save for their future.”

The view is sometimes put forward that the RBA is not aware of the social consequences of its policies and that, if only it were, things might be different.

That is not the case as Bullock indicated in her address. She said the RBA spoke directly to organisations that provide debt advice and mental services. They “are hearing that many households are under significant stress” and this was discussed “regularly in Board meetings.”

However, she continued, while the RBA recognised that interest rates were a “blunt instrument” it had to set its policy to “serve the welfare of Australians collectively.”

Such phrases are aimed at covering up the real agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. Policies which reduce real incomes for swathes of working-class families by $22,000 a year and more are not “collective welfare” but rather the collective punishment of the population for the ills of the profit system.

The so-called fight against inflation has got nothing to do with tackling its real causes. These include the vast profiteering by food, energy and financial speculators, as acknowledged in a recent report by the United Nations and other analyses, but specifically denied by the RBA.

The interest rate hikes are aimed at only one price, the wages of the working class. The objective is to suppress wages struggles as workers seek compensation for the largest price hikes in four decades by slowing the economy and ending what the RBA, along with its international counterparts, continually refers to as “tight” labour market.

Bullock’s first speech as RBA chief after being appointed to the post by federal Labor government Treasurer Jim Chalmers made clear that, no matter what the economic social distress, there will be no letup in its class war agenda.

Fossil discovery in China raises intriguing questions for human evolution

Frank Gaglioti

Analysis of a jawbone in the Hualongdong cave in eastern China dated at 300,000 years old has shown an intriguing array of features both archaic and modern. The nearly complete mandible together with a partial cranium has overall been labelled HLD 6. 

The analysis was presented in an important paper by Professor Xiujie Wu, at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) at the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, and her team, published in July in the Journal of Human Evolution: “Morphological and morphometric analyses of a late Pleistocene hominin mandible from Hualongdong, China.”

Professor Xiujie Wu

Wu et al wrote: “Results indicate that the HLD 6 mandible exhibits a mosaic morphological pattern characterized by a robust corpus [body of the mandible] and relatively gracile symphysis [mandible median line marked by a thin ridge] and Ramus [movable hinge on either side of head]. The moderately developed mental trigone [the overall structure of the lower jaw] and a clear anterior mandibular incurvation of the HLD 6 mandible are reminiscent of Late Pleistocene hominin and recent modern human morphology.”

In hominin evolution robust features are considered indicative of more archaic human forms, while gracile (delicate) features indicate modern evolutionary traits.

Analysis of the fossil’s cranium published in 2021 showed a similar combination of archaic and more modern features.

“I’ve came across some materials about this latest finding, and couldn’t agree more on believing this finding can show the tendency, and a time point, that since 300,000 years ago, there was a transition that East Asian man experienced evolving from ancient to modern man,” a paleontologist Wang Xiong told the Global Times. Scientists have speculated on the significance of these fossils for human evolution, they may represent a new lineage entirely. How HLD 6 fits into the evolution of modern man, Homo sapiens, is not clear.

“The Hualongdong people could represent a previously unknown ancestor or close relative of early Homo sapiens,” a palaeoanthropologist who was part of the team led by Xiujie Wu told Nature.

The Hualongdong cave, located in the Dongzhi county of the west China province of Anhui, is an important fossil site. Scientists have been investigating there since 2013. Earlier fossil finds included a Homo erectus skull named Dongzhi man, described in 2015, identified from two skull fragments and two teeth. It is between 150,000 and 412,000 years old. Scientists unearthed human bone fragments belonging to at least 16 individuals, including a child approximately 12 to 16 years old and numerous stone tools. Along with the human artefacts, 6,000 fossils of vertebrate animals, including stegodon (an elephant ancestor), giant tapir and giant pandas were discovered. The animal fossils show signs of cut marks indicating human butchery.

Dali Man

“Together with the animal bone fossils and the stone implements, we assume the site was the home for a relatively mature human community,” the IVPP researcher in charge of the excavation, Liu Wu, told the People’s Daily.

H. erectus is thought to have originally evolved 2 million years ago. The species is one of the most widespread, with fossils found in Africa and across the Eurasian landmass to China and southeast Asia (Java man). The species is thought to have become extinct 117,000 years ago, based on a fossil found in Ngangdong, Java in 2019.

Previously the hominin fossils from this period were considered as intermediate between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens but the plethora of Chinese discoveries is challenging this view.

“The hominin fossil discovery and related studies in the last decade have changed this traditional view on the evolution pattern of the late Middle Pleistocene hominins in China radically,” Wu and her team stated. “The hominin fossils from this time period, such as Dali, Jinniushan, Maba, Tongzi, Xujiayao, Xuchang, and Xiahe, exhibit high morphological variability and are not easily allocated to the existing taxonomic groups.” 

All the fossils mentioned were discovered in China and are intermediate between H. erectus and H. sapiens, but not enough information is available to characterise their species denomination. Clearly the late to middle Pleistocene was a period of great flux in human evolution.

Dali man, comprising of an entire fossilised skull of a young male, a typical representative of this period, was discovered by a geologist from the Shaanxi Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Liu Shuntang, in 1978 in Dali County, Shaanxi province, China. It is 209,000 years old. 

A paper published in 1981 in Scientia Sinica by palaeontologist X. Z. Wu describes “a well-preserved cranium of an archaic type of early Homo sapiens from Dali, China.” Wu analysed that “It has many characters identical to those of early Homo sapiens or intermediate between Homo erectus and modern man. It possesses also some features similar to those of modern man, and close to Homo erectus in some respects. So it probably belongs to an archaic type of early Homo sapiens.”

An article published in Nature in September drew parallels with fossil remains discovered at the Jebel Irhoud archaeological site in Morocco, found during the early 2000s, that may provide insights into the significance of HLD 6 and the other undesignated Chinese fossils. 

The Jebel Irhoud human remains are thought to belong to one of the earliest members of the evolutionary lineage that includes Homo sapiens. Jebel Irhoud is a cave located 50 km southeast of the city of Safi. It is an important paleontological site discovered in 1960 where several human fossils have been unearthed, as well as a stone tool industry and the remains of several animal species indicative of a steppe ecosystem.  

The fossils were originally dated as 40,000 years old and were classified as Neanderthals, but more accurate work at the site dated the fossils as 300,000 years old. A skull designated as Jebel Irhoud-1 is considered the most important find.

In a comment by professor of anthropology at the Natural History Museum in London Chris Stringer and anthropologist at New York University Julia Galway-Witham in Nature in June 2017, “On the origin of our species,” stated that the “approximately 350,000–280,000-year-old fossils from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco that could represent an early stage in Homo sapiens evolution. The facial shape of a Jebel Irhoud fossil previously discovered at the site shows similarities to the structure of more modern humans, such as the presence of delicate cheekbones. However, the shape of the braincase (the section of the skull enclosing the brain) is archaic in form, and has an elongated shape that is less globular than the structure of more modern H. sapiens.”

The emergence of modern humans was a very complex and contradictory process. The first fossil considered to represent true humans, Herto Man discovered in 1997 in Ethiopia, is 160,000 years old. Yet genetic evidence suggests that humans may have emerged at least 500,000 years ago.

Stringer and Galway-Witham continued that these findings “suggest that clear-cut boundaries in H. sapiens evolution, such as the descriptions of fossils as ‘archaic’ or ‘anatomically modern’, are likely to fade as the fossil record improves. They are probably right, although their evidence adds to the picture of an extended temporal overlap of archaic and more-modern-looking forms across the continent (Africa)...”

A paleoanthropologist at the National Research Center On Human Evolution in Spain, Maria Martinón-Torres, who was involved in the analysis of HLC-6, told Nature, “More fossils and studies are necessary to understand [the Hualongdong people’s] precise position in the human family tree.” She pointed out that proteins extracted from bones could shed further light on how the Hualongdong people are related to modern humans, as well as to more archaic species. 

The hominin fossils from China will play a critical role in the elaboration of how modern humans evolved.

Israel and the Palestinians: A state founded on dispossession and ethnic cleansing—Part Two

Jean Shaoul

The Greater Israel policy

The 1967 war was a turning point in the development of a Greater Israel policy of permanently annexing the land seized.

Israeli tanks advancing on the Golan Heights during the Six Day War, June 1967 [Photo by Government Press Office (Israel) / CC BY-SA 4.0]

The war extended Israel’s de facto boundaries and created new waves of refugees and internally displaced people. The national unity government, headed by Labour Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, established colonial-style settlements in the newly conquered territories in defiance of international conventions. The settlements in turn created a social layer that had a vested interest in Israel’s expansionary policy, providing a pole of attraction for some of the most reactionary forces, whose fascist heirs are in government today, dictating policy. These forces moved Israeli politics rapidly to the right in the 1970s, increasing social instability and ending Labour’s grip on government.

From left, General Uzi Narkiss, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and Chief of Staff Lt. General Yitzhak Rabin—later to be an Israeli Labor Party prime minister—in the Old City of Jerusalem after its fall to Israeli forces in the Six Day War. [Photo by National Photo Collection of Israel, Photography dept / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Repression to enforce the occupation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza was ramped up through the imposition of military rule, collective punishment, house demolitions, forced deportations and detentions without trial, while the Palestinians became a pool of cheap labour to be brutally exploited by Israeli employers. The Palestinian leadership moved first to Jordan, until it was driven out in a savage war by Jordan in 1970, and then to Lebanon.

Following the 1977 election victory of Likud leader Menachem Begin, Israel launched a murderous expansionist policy in Lebanon, with a series of raids, incursions and covert operations in alliance with Lebanese fascist forces against the Palestinians and their allies during the country’s 15-year-long civil war. These wars and covert activities were to continue for 30 years.

Aftermath of massacre of Palestinians directed by Lebanese Forces with the complicity of senior members of the Israeli Cabinet and Defence Forces and conducted by Christian Phalangists and members of the South Lebanon Army in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. [Photo: Robin Moyer, USA, Black Star for Time. Beirut, Lebanon, 18 September 1982. ]

An estimated 32,000 Palestinians and an untold number of Lebanese were killed at a cost of around 1,500 Israeli lives during operations that included the massacre of 3,000 Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, by Israel’s Phalangist allies under the protection of the IDF in September 1982.

The Fraud of Oslo

Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in Lebanon and its growing violation of human rights in the Occupied Territories gave rise to the first Intifada, the spontaneous Palestinian uprising of 1987-93 that erupted outside the control of the PLO. It was brutally suppressed by Israel at a cost of more 1,000 Palestinian lives, more than 6 times the number of Jewish Israelis killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, US president Bill Clinton, and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, September 13, 1993

This led to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 by Israel’s Labor Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat on the lawns of the White House, with Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreeing to recognise Israel and renounce terrorism.

The Accords were supposed to usher in a Palestinian statelet with its capital in Abu Dis, a suburb in East Jerusalem the so-called two-state solution. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority would take over Israel’s role in controlling the Palestinian masses in a bifurcated state, composed of non-contiguous Bantustans, that would be separate from but contained by Israel. This precluded any possibility of democracy for the Palestinians.

Israel’s ultranationalists and their political representatives in Likud and other far-right and religious parties rejected even this mockery of a Palestinian state on land they coveted. Just two years later, in October 1995, right-wing religious nationalists, egged on by war-mongering opposition leaders Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced Rabin as a traitor at an angry demonstration in Jerusalem. One month later, a religious zealot assassinated Rabin.

Israel used the Oslo Accords to expand the settlements in the West Bank faster than ever, take control of water and other resources, build roads and install more than 600 checkpoints, disrupting movement throughout the region and wrecking its economy. The settlements, now home to at least 500,000 Israelis, or nearly 20 percent of the population, control a far greater percentage of the land, including the most fertile and productive.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem, part of the West Bank, in breach of international law, with its Palestinian residents now only a bare majority following the building of some 200,000 settler homes. In recent years, there have been repeated clashes between the Palestinians and the police over the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighbourhoods at the behest of far-right and religious groups led by Ben-Gvir.

Faris Odeh, a 14 year-old boy who was killed in early November 2000—during the Second Intifada—throwing a stone at an Israel Defense Forces tank in the Gaza Strip. This photo was taken on October 29, 2000, and Odeh was shot dead 10 days later on November 8, while again throwing stones at Israeli troops. [Photo: Associated Press/Laurent Rebours)]

These conditions gave rise to the second Intifada in September 2000, after Ariel Sharon’s provocative march through the Al Aqsa mosque compound under military escort to assert Israel’s control over Islam’s third most holy site. The Intifada was as much an uprising against the PLO leadership that had sanctioned the disastrous Oslo Accords. Between 2000 and 2008, Israeli security forces killed nearly 5,000 Palestinians, around five times the number of Israelis killed by the Palestinians.

The Separation Wall and the Gaza blockade

Sharon then ordered the building of the infamous Separation Barrier that stole a further 10 percent of Palestinian land to wall off Israel from the Palestinians and cut off thousands of Palestinians from their families and workplaces. Targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders became routine, amid far-right demands for “population transfers” and measures aimed at effecting ethnic cleansing to counter the “demographic timebomb.” The number of Palestinians now exceeds the number of Jews within Israel’s internationally recognised borders and the Occupied Territories.

Early Israeli construction of West Bank barrier, 2003 [Photo by joeskillet/Flickr / CC BY 2.0]

In 2005, Sharon closed 14 Israeli settlements and withdrew the army from the Gaza Strip, while maintaining control of entry by land, sea and air. This masked a far more significant land grab in the West Bank that was given the green light by the Bush administration.

Two years later, following Hamas’ defeat of an attempted coup by Fatah forces, Israel imposed a suffocating blockade that has turned Gaza into an impoverished ghetto, devastating the lives of its residents. It denies Gaza any independence, providing only the bare minimum of essential services such as water and electricity—after destroying much of its public infrastructure and residential buildings, hospitals, schools and mosques following murderous assaults on the enclave, which it characterises as “mowing the grass”. These include Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), Operation Pillar of Defence (November 2012) and Operation Protective Edge (2014). The combined toll of Palestinian deaths in more than seven major assaults on Gaza by the mightiest air force in the Middle East was at least 4,164—with a loss of just 102 Israeli lives.

Israeli Air Force, dropping a white phosphorus cluster bomb on a populated area in Gaza during Operation "Cast Lead", December 2008/January 2009 [Photo by Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository / CC BY 3.0]

Unable to carry out any reconstruction, Gaza’s economic situation was dire well before the present assault. About three quarters of Gazan households are dependent upon some form of aid from the United Nations and other agencies, that the European Union has said is now “under review.” In 2012, the UN predicted that the besieged enclave would be uninhabitable by 2020, only to revise it in 2017 to warn that “de-development” was happening even faster than predicted.

The situation within Israel for Palestinian citizens, who form 20 percent of the population, is precarious. Home to some of the poorest people in the country, their communities face official neglect and budgetary discrimination. Such are the levels of poverty and unemployment that rival criminal gangs have taken control of the Arab towns and villages, leading to more than 180 killings since the start of the year.

In May 2021, Israel’s Palestinian citizens took to the streets in strikes, protests and riots that were triggered by the violent police storming of the Al Aqsa Mosque and brutal acts of ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem. This was the first time they had joined in a general strike with Palestinians in the occupied territories to protest the assault on Gaza and against Israel’s apartheid-style constitution. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition plans to disqualify Palestinian Knesset members from serving in the Israeli parliament and to ban their parties from standing in elections.

A revolt of the oppressed

It is this immense suffering that led to the Palestinians’ action of October 7-9. Tantamount to a mass suicide mission, it was the revolt of an oppressed people determined to escape the concentration camp in which Israel, with the support of all the major powers, has confined them.

Fire and smoke rise from an explosion on a Palestinian apartment tower following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. [AP Photo/Adel Hana]