Alert: Friedman’s Vermin Analogies Echo Pro-Genocide Propaganda

https://popularresistance.org/action-alert-friedmans-vermin-analogies-echo-ugly-pro-genocide-propaganda/







By Jim Naureckas, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. February 9, 2024



New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman had a piece in the Point (2/2/24), an online Times feature the paper describes as “conversations and insights about the moment,” that compared the targets of US bombs to vermin. It’s the sort of metaphor that propagandists have historically used to justify genocide.

Friedman’s piece compared the nation of Iran to “a recently discovered species of parasitoid wasp,” which (according to Science Daily) “injects its eggs into live caterpillars, and the baby wasp larvae slowly eat the caterpillar from the inside out, bursting out once they have eaten their fill.” Friedman asks:


Is there a better description of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq today? They are the caterpillars. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the wasp. The Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and Kataib Hezbollah are the eggs that hatch inside the host—Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq—and eat it from the inside out.

Is there a better way to describe distinct political movements in four different Mideast nations, each with a social base in a minority or majority population of those countries, than by comparing them to flesh-eating parasites injected by a foreign insect? Well, yeah—lots of them.

But Friedman’s framing of Iranian allies as vermin naturally leads him to call for an eliminationist solution: “We have no counterstrategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle.”
‘Analogies From The Natural World’

Friedman was not done with his vermin analogies. Hamas is not only a parasitic wasp larva, he wrote, but is also “like the trap-door spider,” since they are “adept at camouflaging the doors of their underground nests, so they are hard to see until they’re opened.” (Elsewhere—New York Times, 12/1/23—Friedman has argued that the war against Hamas has already succeeded, since Israel has made its point that if “you destroy our villages, we will destroy yours 10 times more”—a suitable message for the Middle East, he suggested, which “is a Hobbesian jungle…not Scandinavia.”)

Comparing various Muslim political movements to creepy invertebrates was part of Friedman’s musings about how he “sometimes prefer[s] to think about the complex relations between [Mideastern] parties with analogies from the natural world.” Strikingly, however, the comparisons to loathsome arthropods were reserved for nations and militant groups—like Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iranian allies in Iraq and Syria—that US-made bombs are currently falling on.

The US itself appears in the column as an “old lion,” “still the king of the Middle East jungle,” but with “so many scars from so many fights” that “other predators are no longer afraid to test us.”

And Benjamin Netanyahu, who as prime minister of Israel is responsible for killing more than 27,000 people, most of them civilians, and wounding nearly 67,000 more, is compared to a lemur, because he’s “always shifting side to side to stay in power.”
Conceived As Subhuman

The comparison of official enemies to vermin is a hallmark of propaganda in defense of genocide. The group Genocide Watch lists “dehumanization” as the fourth of ten stages of genocide, in which members of a targeted group “are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases” in a process that “overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder.”

“It’s very difficult, psychologically, to kill another human being,” David Livingstone Smith, author of a book on dehumanization called Less Than Human, told NPR (3/29/11). “When people dehumanize others, they actually conceive of them as subhuman creatures,” Smith said, allowing would-be genocidaires to “exclude the target of aggression from the moral community.”

Thus the Nazis compared Jews to an array of despised creatures, including spiders and parasitic insects. In Rwanda, the radio station RTLM paved the way for mass slaughter by repeatedly referring to the Tutsi minority as “cockroaches” and “snakes” (Atlantic, 4/13/19). In Myanmar, the anti-Rohingya agitator Ashin Wirathu compared Muslims to snakes, dogs and invasive catfish (Daily Beast, 10/13/17).

Surely editors at the New York Times are aware of this history. Given that the International Court of Justice recently ruled that it’s “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (NPR, 1/26/24), shouldn’t the Times avoid echoing the arguments that have historically been used to make genocide more palatable?

Action Alert:

Please ask the New York Times why it allowed Thomas Friedman to use analogies that have repeatedly been used to justify genocide.

Contact:

Letters: letters@nytimes.com
Readers Center: Feedback

Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.

Venezuela Presents Anti-Blockade Policies To Burkina Faso Delegation

https://popularresistance.org/venezuela-presents-anti-blockade-policies-to-burkina-faso-delegation/







By Ariadna Eljuri, Orinoco Tribune. February 9, 2024



This Wednesday, Venezuelan vice minister for anti-blockade policy, William Castillo, made a presentation to the visiting delegation from Burkina Faso. Castillo’s presentation covered the impact on Venezuela’s economy of the illegal coercive measures—euphemistically referred to as “sanctions”—imposed by the US and its vassals and spoke about how Venezuela has overcome them.

In a statement, Castillo wrote that both parties agreed that “the sanctions are part of an illegal and criminal foreign policy and of a model of neocolonialism that uses attacks on the economy as a spearhead for the geopolitical control of free nations.”

Burkina Faso also faces sanctions imposed by the European Union.





The vice minister affirmed that the unity of the people of Africa is necessary in order to confront the constant attacks from the West and its allies.

“The people of the south must unite to reject this threat to the peace and freedom of the worthy people of Thomas Sankara,” Castillo added.

The two countries signed 20 agreements in various sectors during the Burkinabé delegation’s visit to Venezuela.

In September, 2022, President Ibrahim Traoré took power in Burkina Faso. Since then, he has adopted Sankarist positions, donning the traditional red beret frequently worn by famed Marxist Burkinabé revolutionary Thomas Sankara and earning praise for his courageous speeches in world forums.

Democrats And The Mediocre Black Misleaders

https://popularresistance.org/democrats-and-the-mediocre-black-misleaders/







By Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. February 9, 2024


The Democrats offer nothing but fake opposition and the duopoly is splitting.

The chosen Black spokespeople are predictably hacks who get paid to spout meaningless drivel.


“There are people who say, ‘We would like choice.’ To those people I say yes but now is not the time. Like I would like to be a size 6. Ok but that means I got to go to the gym. That means I can’t eat them oreos at night. That means I probably need to not put no sugar in my coffee.” – Symone Sanders Townsend , MSNBC

“Those folks who were in bondage, the progeny of the folks who picked cotton, now those folks won’t be picking cotton, but will be picking presidents.” – Jaime Harrison , Democratic National Committee Chair

The Democratic Party shows its contempt for the Black voters they depend upon in a myriad of ways. They talk a good game and pretend to do what Black people want while also engaging in duopoly treachery, falsely pointing to republicans as the obstacle to doing what the people want. “But Trump!”, will be their most popular expression in 2024. This year will present numerous occasions for patronizing treachery against the people whose support they need the most.

One would think that as Joe Biden struggles to reach an approval rating that would ensure re-election success that he and the rest of the party establishment would choose better people to represent them in the group most likely to vote for democrats. They don’t because they are on the horns of a dilemma. They don’t really want to be too closely identified with Black people, the group they need most. They also can’t be in conflict with the oligarchs who make all of the political decisions in the country. The end result is a parade of foolishness meant to keep Black people in support of a party that actively works against their interests.

In 2024 democrats put the South Carolina primary first, pushing it past New Hampshire, where they didn’t even bother with a primary campaign. As in the rest of the south, registered democrats in South Carolina are usually Black. The decision to have an early contest in a southern state is politically sound but nothing comes out of it for Black people except photo ops with the likes of Congressman James Clyburn, a leader of the congressional establishment who has been falsely portrayed as an independent actor, a kingmaker.

It is true that Biden recently won in South Carolina overwhelmingly with 96% of the vote, but with only a 4% turnout of registered voters. One can hardly blame those who chose to stay home. He had no credible competition and the fix, as they say, was in. But that doesn’t excuse the likes of Jaime Harrison from using one of the most trite and offensive stump speech lines about picking cotton and picking presidents.

Not to be outdone, Symone Sanders, once a press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016, and an adviser to Biden’s 2020 campaign, who then moved on to work for Vice President Kamala Harris, added to the tomfoolery by telling viewers that wanting to have a choice other than Biden is akin to going on a diet.

The quadrennial election process is a grifter’s dream come true. The democrats throw money around to anyone who is willing to repeat the party line, and if the grifters in question are Black, they lower the standard even further. The electoral propagandists don’t need to be smart or offer anything new. In fact, that is the last thing their patrons want. Any skills or intelligence go out the window and we are left with sad analogies about picking cotton. Doing otherwise would rock the political boat and expose the fakery that is rife in American politics.

Of course, this is a difficult moment as the ruling classes are openly splitting on key issues. The Democratic Party is saddled with an unpopular president and a discredited former president who is still managing to lead in the polls. Democrats gave away the store as the saying goes in coming up with an immigration bill that republicans demanded. The border wall, which liberals were supposed to revile, was back yet again, along with other measures intended to stem the flow of asylum seekers at the southern border. Republicans were on board until Donald Trump told them to scuttle the bill, and scuttle it they did.

Republicans held military spending for Ukraine and for Israel hostage, claiming they would give billions of dollars more if they got the border bill they wanted. But Trump spoke and the wheeling and dealing fell apart. Enter Symone Sanders Townsend . “In a world where the U.S. doesn’t fund Ukraine, Taiwan & Israel as well as provide $$ needed for border security…more people will die, Putin will win, the Chinese government will follow Putin’s lead and America is no longer a reliable partner.” This sort of word salad is all that is left of what passes for Black leadership. The misleaders are even worse than they used to be.

Hoping for a better class of party hacks is a loser’s game but they must be exposed nonetheless. It is vital for Black people to see what kind of games are being played against them. Democrats offer nothing but quieter Trumpism and that is why a Black media personality like Sanders Townsend will make silly statements about Russia and China. It is what she is being paid to do after all and the people doing the paying are scoundrels and hacks themselves.

Cop City: Federal And State Police Raid Three Homes In Atlanta

https://popularresistance.org/cop-city-federal-and-state-police-raid-three-homes-in-atlanta/







By Sean Summers, Unicorn Riot. February 9, 2024


One Arrested Amid ‘Cop City’ Investigation.

Atlanta, GA — A multi-agency task force raided three homes in Atlanta early Thursday morning as part of an ongoing investigation surrounding resistance to ‘Cop City.’





At around 6:00 a.m., law enforcement agents with the Atlanta Police Department, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Patrol, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and FBI carried out search warrants at three separate homes across the city seeking evidence related to a July 2023 arson targeting police motorcycles at an Atlanta police precinct.

One 30-year-old Atlanta local, John Mazurek, was arrested and charged with first-degree arson in connection with the 2023 sabotage. Another unidentified person has been in police custody since the raids, though they have not been charged or booked, sources told Unicorn Riot.

Police detained residents of the homes and searched the people and property at the locations, sources in one of the homes raided told Unicorn Riot.

Unicorn Riot spoke to two residents from one of the houses. One resident described being woken up by a housemate who alerted him to the raid. After getting partially dressed, he could hear police entering the home while he was in his room.

“I told them I was coming out before I opened the door,” the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Unicorn Riot.

He opened his bedroom door and was met with lasers from police guns on his body and the sounds of a barking police dog. Officers told him to lie down and crawl toward them before grabbing him by the hair and dragging him outside, he said.

Once on the back porch of the home, officers continued to shake the resident by the hair until he lost his glasses. He was then detained for nearly three hours while agents searched the home.

Another resident described a similar experience. After hearing sirens and an announcement over a loudspeaker, the resident saw police from Georgia State Patrol approaching the structure she lives in, behind the house.

After watching police break open the home’s back door and throw a concussion grenade inside, the resident was met with flashlights and lasers from police guns shining through her window, she said.

She was searched and detained for about three hours while police searched her home and car. Despite asking several times, police never showed her a copy of the warrant they said they were executing, she told Unicorn Riot.

Once released and back inside the house, residents found their home tossed and disheveled. Police seized computers from the home. One resident said police had removed a revealing Polaroid picture of herself, which she had kept in storage under her bed, and put it “on display” in her room.

A copy of a warrant served at a separate raided home, shared by Atlanta Community Press Collective, shows that police took computers, cell phones, and data storage devices among other things.  

A copy of a warrant served at one of the three homes raided early Thursday shows police seized computers, electronic equipment, and stickers and fliers against ‘Cop City’ as evidence.

At a press conference Thursday morning, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum did not comment on what, if any, evidence related to the July 2023 arson was found during the raids.

While police from multiple agencies participated in the raid, the two residents told Unicorn Riot that it seemed clear that the ATF was leading the operation.

Once the raid itself was done, state and local agents left, but ATF agents remained to continue searching the home, the residents said. The federal agency is often tasked with arson investigations that span state lines.

The raids come on the heels of an escalation in Atlanta and beyond to find people who have carried out a string of clandestine attacks against those involved in the creation of ‘Cop City’ — including the Atlanta Police Department, contractors hired to construct the facility, and financial backers of the project.

In January, the Atlanta Police Department announced a national billboard campaign, funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation, seeking information on arson attacks against the facility. The billboards offer rewards of up to $200,000 for information leading to arrests and convictions related to attacks against the facility.

Six days before the raids at the three Atlanta homes, flight data obtained by Unicorn Riot shows an Atlanta Police Department helicopter circled the residences targeted with search warrants.

Those in the movement against ‘Cop City’ began coordinating responses to the early morning raids in the hours afterward.

Supporters have called for a rally outside the Atlanta Police Foundation’s headquarters Thursday afternoon to support Mazurek and denounce the raids, while others have called for further attacks in response to the raids.

A message circulating among movement-adjacent chat loops reads:


“[I]f you have been working on a plan with your comrades, now is the time to execute it. If you have not, without hesitation or impediment, now is the time to make a plan with your comrades that you can put into action immediately. The contractors, politicians, and their support networks must have consequences for what they’ve done this morning. If you are unable to mobilize in that way; organize fundraisers, make propaganda, mobilize media contacts, and do research than can undermine the police and contractor’s initiatives.”

Schierbaum told reporters at a press conference Thursday that there will likely be more arrests in coming weeks as the investigation continues.

Arab World Calls US Top Security Threat, No Peace With Israel

https://popularresistance.org/arab-world-calls-us-top-security-threat-no-prospect-of-peace-with-israel/







By News Desk, The Cradle. February 9, 2024


A staggering 94 percent of people living in West Asia and North Africa called Washington’s Gaza policies ‘bad.’

More than half agree the US is the top threat to peace in the region.

A new opinion poll conducted in 16 Arab countries shows that Washington’s continued support for Israel’s campaign of genocide in the Gaza Strip has dramatically hurt its image across West Asia and North Africa, as 94 percent of respondents describe the US position as “bad.” At the same time, more than half say the US poses the biggest threat to regional security.

Other western states fared almost as poorly, with more than three-quarters of those polled saying the position of the UK, France, and Germany in relation to Gaza is “bad” or “very bad.”

In contrast, Iran received a surge in recognition, with 48 percent of respondents expressing a positive view of the Iranian position, while 37 percent held a negative view. Despite Ankara’s increasing trade ties with Tel Aviv, Turkiye got a similar response – 47 percent perceived the country’s position positively, and 40 percent perceived it negatively.



To make matters worse for Washington, 51 percent of respondents agree that the US is currently the biggest threat to peace and stability in the region – marking a 12-point jump from 2022. Israel trails behind with 26 percent, a 15-point drop from 2022.



The survey, conducted by the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) in cooperation with The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), also asked respondents their opinions on prospects for peace with Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza.

Fifty-nine percent answered with certainty that there can be no possibility for peace with Israel, while 14 percent reported having serious doubts, and nine percent said they did not believe in the possibility of peace with Israel in the first place.



Furthermore, 89 percent of Arab citizens say they oppose official recognition of Israel, with only four percent favoring it. This marks the lowest level of recognition since the question was first asked in 2011.

When asked what actions regional leaders must take to stop the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, 36 percent said governments should suspend relations or normalization agreements with Israel, 14 percent said aid must be delivered to Gaza regardless of Israeli approval, and 11 percent said oil exports should be used to put pressure on Israel and its western backers.

A large majority of respondents also agreed that the US is not serious about working to establish an independent Palestinian state under the 1967 borders with occupied Jerusalem as its capital.



“This is a historic moment in some very important ways,” Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland, said at an event presenting the survey findings on Thursday. “The scale of what we have seen and the role the US has played in this deeply painful crisis has been so large and been perceived to be so large that it’s going to leave an imprint on the consciousness of a generation in the region that is going to outlast this administration and outlast this crisis.”

Questions about Washington’s alleged commitment to democracy and regional stability have been growing steadily in the Arab world for several years. According to a Gallup poll conducted in April 2023, a great majority of citizens in 13 countries across West Asia and North Africa said they did not trust US claims about “encouraging the development of democracy” or about “improving the economic lot of people.”

A few months earlier, the ACRPS revealed the results of the largest opinion survey conducted in the Arab world, showing that 84 percent of Arabs reject recognizing Israel for political and cultural reasons.

US Anti-War Activists Confront Senators Over Support For Israel

https://popularresistance.org/us-anti-war-activists-confront-senators-over-support-for-israel/







By People's Dispatch. February 9, 2024


The US government pushes for further escalation while the Palestine solidarity movement organizes for peace.

On February 7, activists with feminist anti-war group CODEPINK confronted several US Senators who have been doubling down on their support for Israel throughout the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

“Killing Hamas makes Israel safe,” said Florida Senator Ted Cruz to an activist who told him that “the war does not make Jews safer.” Cruz has received over one million dollars from the pro-Israel lobby since 1990, receiving USD 489,419 from 2019 to 2024. Cruz’s top pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) donors are the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Republican Jewish Coalition. “Killing 30,000 civilians doesn’t make anyone safe,” the activist responds.

An activist implored Marco Rubio, who has also received over one million dollars from the pro-Israel lobby, that she has a baby dying in Gaza. Since 2019 along, Rubio has received USD 321,728 from the lobby, with top PAC contributors being the Pro-Israel America PAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which have given him USD 104,800 and USD 72,736 respectively since 2019. Rubio responded, “Yeah, Hamas is responsible for killing all of those children.”

“I wanna help Israel destroy Hamas,” he continues.





Both Rubio and Cruz are some of the most conservative lawmakers in the Senate, but unconditional support for the Zionist state extends throughout both major parties. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who ran as a “progressive” candidate, has displayed some of the most dramatic support for Israel, waving the Israeli flag at protests from the roof of his home, even breaking with his progressive image over his support for Israel. CODEPINK also confronted Fetterman, who filmed the activists on his phone and pumped his fist at them.

These lawmakers’ unconditional support for Israel are compatible with the White House’s outright rejection of a ceasefire, as well as Western nations and Israel’s escalation of the conflict. The United States is now bombing three separate countries in West Asia: Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, in direct retaliation against the people of those nations acting against Zionism and imperialism. Israel rejected Hamas’ latest ceasefire proposal, following a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and bombed Syria on February 7. “The ‘day after’ is the day after Hamas. All of Hamas,” Netanyahu said after rejecting the proposal. He added, “There is no alternative for the military collapse [of Hamas]. There will not be a civilian collapse of [Hamas rule] without a military one,” according to Times of Israel.

Let Them Eat Dirt

https://popularresistance.org/let-them-eat-dirt/





By Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. February 9, 2024


The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun.

The international community does not intend to stop it.

There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed.

Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza.

UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.”

UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused UNRWA after the ruling of providing false information to the ICJ. Already an Israeli target for decades, Israel decided that UNRWA, which supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East with clinics, schools and food, had to be eliminated. Israel’s destruction of UNRWA serves a political as well as material objective.

The evidence-free Israeli accusations against UNRWA that a dozen of the 13,000 employees had links to those who carried out the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which saw some 1,200 Israelis killed, did the trick. It led 16 major donors, including the United States, the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan, to suspend financial support for the relief agency on which nearly every Palestinian in Gaza depends for food. Israel has killed 152 UNRWA workers and damaged 147 UNRWA installations since Oct. 7. Israel has also bombed UNRWA relief trucks.

More than 27,708 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, some 67,000 have been wounded and at least 7,000 are missing, most likely dead and buried under the rubble.

More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N. Starvation will soon be ubiquitous. Palestinians in Gaza, at least 1.9 million of whom have been internally displaced, lack not only sufficient food, but clean water, shelter and medicine. There are few fruits or vegetables. There is little flour to make bread. Pasta, along with meat, cheese and eggs, have disappeared. Black market prices for dry goods such as lentils and beans have increased 25 times from pre-war prices. A bag of flour on the black market has risen from $8.00 to $200 dollars. The healthcare system in Gaza, with only three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals left partially functioning, has largely collapsed. Some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians live on the streets of the southern city of Rafah, which Israel designated a “safe zone,” but has begun to bomb. Families shiver in the winter rains under flimsy tarps amid pools of raw sewage. An estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.

“There is no instance since the Second World War in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed,” writes Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” in the Guardian. “And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.”

The United States, formerly UNRWA’s largest contributor, provided $422 million to the agency in 2023. The severance of funds ensures that UNRWA food deliveries, already in very short supply because of blockages by Israel, will largely come to a halt by the end of February or the beginning of March.

Israel has given the Palestinians in Gaza two choices. Leave or die.

I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs, scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not. The international community, as is in Gaza, did little to intervene.

The precursor to starvation – undernourishment – already affects most Palestinians in Gaza. Those who starve lack enough calories to sustain themselves. In desperation people begin to eat animal fodder, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from diarrhea and respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it.

Soon, lacking enough iron to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, they become anemic. The body feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs – brain, heart, lungs, ovaries and testes — atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.

It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates.

I saw hundreds of skeletal figures, specters of human beings, moving forlornly at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never gotten up. Many were the remains of entire families.

In the abandoned town of Maya Abun bats dangled from the rafters of the gutted Italian mission church. The streets were overgrown with tussocks of grass. The dirt airstrip was flanked by hundreds of human bones, skulls and the remnants of iron bracelets, colored beads, baskets and tattering strips of clothing. The palm trees had been cut in half. People had eaten the leaves and the pulp inside. There had been a rumor that food would be delivered by plane. People had walked for days to the airstrip. They waited and waited and waited. No plane arrived. No one buried the dead.

Now, from a distance, I watch this happen in another land in another time. I know the indifference that doomed the Sudanese, mostly Dinkas, and today dooms the Palestinians. The poor, especially when they are of color, do not count. They can be killed like flies. The starvation in Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is Israel’s masterplan.

There will be scholars and historians who will write of this genocide, falsely believing that we can learn from the past, that we are different, that history can prevent us from being, once again, barbarians. They will hold academic conferences. They will say “Never again!” They will praise themselves for being more humane and civilized. But when it comes time to speak out with each new genocide, fearful of losing their status or academic positions, they will scurry like rats into their holes. Human history is one long atrocity for the world’s poor and vulnerable. Gaza is another chapter.