A leading British rabbi has publicly opposed an Israeli military offensive in Rafah, saying it is “impossible to remain silent”.
Jonathan Wittenberg, the senior rabbi of Britain’s Masorti community, said in a statement:
These words are written out of deep concern about Israel’s actions and potential actions in Rafah, making it impossible to remain silent.
The calculated barbarity and strategic cruelty of Hamas’s military, and the presence of its forces in tunnels beneath Rafah, are beyond doubt …
But over a million Palestinian civilians, many already in flight from the north of Gaza, are now trapped with nowhere to go. In countless references, Judaism has, throughout its history, stressed our duty to refugees and the helpless. How can we be unmoved by their grief and unbearable suffering? ….
I write out of horror at what may ensue and its potential consequences in unimaginable suffering. I write out of dread at the future hatred this is likely to engender, and out of fear that these actions may haunt us, and the good name of Israel and the Jewish People, for generations.”
The annual olive harvest in the West Bank is a key element of the Palestinian economy and a crucial source of income for tens of thousands of families. The World Bank and the Palestine Trade Center estimate that in good years, it injects almost 200 million dollars into the Palestinian economy. However, every year, Israel extensively restricts Palestinians’ ability to carry out the harvest, using official and unofficial means. In 2023, while the war in the Gaza Strip was underway, these restrictions reached new heights, leaving about 50% of Palestinian farmers unable to harvest their trees, according to estimates of the Palestinian Farmers’ Union.
“The Eurovision song contest is a non-political music event and a competition between public service broadcasters who are members of the EBU. It is not a contest between governments,” the EBU director general, Noel Curran, said in a statement.
Israeli government grants licenses to six Israeli and international companies to explore for natural gas in areas recognized under international law as Palestinian maritime areas
When has the ESC ever been non-political? Anyone can just look at past scoring records. Half the scores can be predicted in advance without ever hearing a note.
So basically, Sisi has talked a good game about not letting Palestinians get ethnically cleansed from their home, but he plans on giving the Israelis precisely what they want. Stupid fucker.
