The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
“But
October 7 changed everything” is a common retort to those pointing out
that a cease-fire framework exists and ought to be used as a basis to
end the current slaughter. “Israel simply cannot let Hamas survive after
what they did,” one often hears.
Again, this is one of
these Very Serious statements people make without really thinking it
through. It just sort of sounds profound and meaningful. But Israel
cannot and will not “eliminate Hamas” from Gaza in any meaningful sense.
Even the most generous estimates
show Israel killing two civilians for every Hamas fighter—a ratio that
suggests that Hamas would not be wiped out without an even more
intolerable level of civilian death than exists already. Israel cannot
kill 9,000 children, create 25,000 orphans, and expect the remaining
population to renounce violence and all become compliant fishermen and
NGO employees. This is an underlying reality of the conflict even the
former head of Israeli security service Shin Bet, Yaakov Peri,
acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times on November 9, “We’ll be fighting [the Hamas fighters’] sons in four or five years.”
Israel
cannot bomb its way out of the underlying issues of apartheid,
dispossession, and occupation, and more indefinite slaughter won’t
change this fact. That is, unless Israel’s goal is to remove all or most
Palestinians from Gaza. Sanders’s clarity about the folly of endless war was one of his main selling points during his presidential campaigns. Now that clarity appears to have deserted him.
Christopher Gunness, the former chief spokesperson for the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
(UNRWA), accused the UNSC resolution of “greenlighting genocide” in a
statement to Al Jazeera. Gunness said the massacre in Gaza is “an American-Israeli genocide—it’s not just an Israeli genocide.”
“Just
as America provides Israel with $4 billion of military support per
annum, it’s also—as we’ve seen tonight—providing Israel with diplomatic
and political cover to continue with a genocide which is marked by the
wholesale and industrial ignoring of international humanitarian law,”
Gunness told Al Jazeera.
Gunness is correct. In a press
briefing on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Blinken was asked to
comment on the world seeing Israel’s onslaught on Gaza as “America’s
war.” Blinken did not object to this characterization, instead declaring
that the US government is “intent on seeing this through to
completion.”
We look at how even basic statistics prove to be too much for a network news department that would rather just use WIKIPEDIA as a source than do actual fact checking.
We (Ava and C.I.) did this as a top ten list. Stan, Rebecca, Trina and Ann joined us to work on the edition after this post went up at THE COMMON ILLS (and we thank them for it). They suggested 23 shows for 2023 and added to this ist.
We have a right, as Americans, to expect that media in a democracy is truthful and honest. Hopefully, Gaza coverage has made clear just how far we are from having an honest media.
CBS NEWS demonstrated just how shoddy journalism is today. It happens 30 seconds into the segment above that was aired last week.
It was garbage. And they got away with it. We waited for someone to call them out.
What's the problem with the above, Dionne Warwick is not the woman with the second most singles to make BILLBOARD's pop chart ("the second most charted vocalist of the rock era"). Some would say the first is Aretha. If you're focusing solely on the 20th century, yes, the first is Aretha Franklin -- though not mentioned by CBS NEWS in the segment above, Aretha does have the most. Dionne is not second to Aretha even if you focus only on the 20th century. Let's do that for a moment, focus only on the 20th century.
Does it matter?
Well if ESPN had someone declaring Alex Rodriguez to hold the title for most homeruns, we think most baseball fans would object (Barry Bonds holds the title, Alex isn't even second).
Where do these lies come from? CBS is a major network and its news division has a huge payroll.
But apparently, they're all too busy playing games on their computers to do actual work.
She has charted 69 times on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, making her the second-most charted female vocalist during the rock era (1955–2010), after Aretha Franklin.[1]
That is a lie. It was put out by a press relations company that Dionne had just signed with.
CRAPAPEDIA is crap but if CBS NEWS knew how to do math, they could have looked at the discography CRAPAPEDIA provides -- all of Dionne's singles. It would have taken them some work, but they could have counted and they would have counted fifty-six. She sang lead or co-lead on 56 singles that charted on BILLBOARD's Hot 100 singles chart (the pop chart).
We're getting really sick of liars. Dionne is not a close second to Aretha. Aretha landed 73 songs on BILLBOARDS Hot 100. There are many artists between the two women. But the one actually after Aretha?
In 1993, the Guinness Book of World Records declared Ross the most successful female music artist in history, having had more hits than any female artist in the charts, a career total of 70 hit singles with The Supremes and as a solo artist. This year Diana Ross celebrates her 75th birthday and Diana Ross: Her Life, Love and Legacy will be simulcast to over 250 UK cinemas on 26 March.
Need it on video? About three minutes and ten seconds into the video below, you'll see Diana be presented with her plaque from GUINNESS.
In 1994, Aretha would tie Diana with the release of "A Deeper Love" and then surpass Diana with "Willing To Forgive," "A Rose Is Still A Rose" and (her last Hot 100 chart entry) "Here We Go Again.
Again, you really should utilize the primary source. Here for the Supremes -- there are 45 songs that made the hot 100 -- 30 are sung -- lead vocal -- by Diana. The other 15 are after she left the group. If you're not familiar with the Supremes, the easiest way is to look at the release date on BILLBOARD's chart. Anything from 1970 and after on that chart was after Diana left the group. So 30 as lead singer of the Supremes. Solo career here -- and her solo total is 40. 70 total which puts her three behind Aretha. Dionne, again, has only 56.
Maybe if CBS NEWS actually grasped that they are supposed to get facts right, they'd have known that.
Here's some more reality for them? Aretha's no longer number one. Readers of CRAPAPEDIA will falsely be told Nicki Minaj is now the number one female artist with songs placed in BILLBOARD's Hot 100. Per BILLBOARD, she's the lead on 147 songs. That's huge but it doesn't make her number one.
She's a rapper. Some argue that rappers are not vocalists (some don't -- we're among those who consider rappers vocalists). So why are we arguing with CRAPAPEDIA? Taylor Swift. She's now charted 232 songs in BILLBOARD's Hot 100.
If you want to reduce it to singers, and just focus on the 20th century, Aretha's number one and Diana comes in right behind her.
We could use other measures on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 charts to determine most popular female singer of the 20th century. Want to go by numbers ones? Diana has 18. Aretha has 2. Dionne has 2. Want to go by top ten hits on the Hot 100? Diana Ross sang on 30 top ten hits, Aretha on 17 and Dionne on 12.
But we really believe the best measure of which of the three singers was the most popular and heard the most is the number of weeks they spent with songs in the Hot 100. Check our math but these are the numbers we came up with (again using BILLBOARD since it is the primary source).
Dionne charted on the Hot 100 for 376 weeks. That puts her in third. Aretha for 574. Diana? 789 weeks. That means Diana dominated the charts.
There is no measure by which Dionne Warwick comes in second to Aretha.
What if we leave pop (Hot 100) and go over to R&B? That chart matters too. So let's look at that Aretha has 92 songs that charted on the R&B charts in the 20th century. Diana has 79. Dionne has 56. If we include the 21st century, Aretha's number jumps to 97; however, Diana and Dionne's numbers stay the same.
Dionne Warwick is a great singer and we're glad that she was honored by The Kennedy Center (CBS will broadcast the ceremony on December 27th). Like Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin who were earlier honored by The Kennedy Center, Dionne deserves it. She's a great singer, a one-of-a-kind vocalist.
The Kennedy Center notes "more than 60 charted songs" for Dionne. 56 on the Hot 100. 57 if you include "We Are The World" -- but if you do that, add one more to Diana who also sings on that song. Maybe they're pulling from pop and her R&B and AC chart singles that didn't make the Hot 100? Possibly.
She has not one but two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has won
a Tony and a Golden Globe, she has been nominated for a dozen Grammys,
and she was named "Entertainer of the Century" by Billboard magazine,
and the Guinness Book of World Records declared her the most successful
female musical artist of the 20th century-with 70 hit singles. It's no
exaggeration. "Diana Ross long ago moved from mere success to the status
of a classic," The Washington Post once stated and concluded that Ross
and the supremes, together with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, were
America's strongest and most successful line of the defense against the
powerful music of the British Invasion.
Dionne's more than talented enough that people don't need to spread lies. She's got tremendous talent and has had amazing success. When you tell a lie to make her look better, you only make her and yourself look worse.
And can you imagine if they did about an athlete? They would be held accountable. CBS NEWS and CRAPAPEDIA need to be held accountable.
The illegitimate and crooked Supreme Court, constant attacks on LGBTQ+ people, school shootings, Ron DeSantis insisting that slavery was nothing more than a needed trade school, the assault on Gaza and so much more helped make 2023 a really bad year -- one worth escaping from at any chance you were given. Here are twenty-three TV shows that provided release in the last 12 months.
1) FELLOW TRAVELERS (SHOWTIME)
2) THE NIGHT AGENT (NETFLIX)
3) FARGO (FX and HULU)
4) CUNK ON EARTH (NETFLIX)
5) A MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD (FX and HULU)
6) NIGHT COURT (NBC)
7) GEN V (AMAZON PRIME)
8) WOLF PACK (PARAMOUNT+)
9) UNPRISONED (HULU)
10) LOPEZ VS LOPEZ (NBC)
10) REACHER (AMAZON PRIME)
11) TWISTED METAL (PEACOCK)
12) THE NEIGHBORHOOD (CBS)
13) I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE WITH TIM ROBINSON (NETFLIX)
There are many things wrong with broadcast TV. But there are two fixes that could be applied which would greatly improve TV.
Sam Elliott needs to leave FAMILY GUY. He's done fifteen episodes so far, mainly as the Mayor Wild West. He adds nothing to the show and, in fact, his voice over really brings the show down -- he doesn't sound smart and he can't handle comedy.
Equally true, the show has far too many male characters. Southern idiot Wild West adds nothing to the show. In the fifth season of the series, Lois was mayor for one episode. So the writers are aware that women can be mayors.
They really don't need to hire any other male for a voice role until they hire some more women.
Two more who need to be let go? Michael Che and Colin Jost. If they're behind the WEEKEND UPDATE desks next fall, that will be ten years of their being a team. That's far too long. It's not supposed to be geriatric show, it's supposed to pull in a young audience. Che is already 40 and Jost if 41. In the old days of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, both would've been kicked off the show at that age (to be clear, we just want them kicked off the WEEKEND UPDATE desk). That was considered way too old to be a cast member.
For those who fear we're just calling for people to be let go, here's a call for an addition: COMEDY CENTRAL, stop dicking everyone around and hire Leslie Jones to be the regular host of THE DAILY SHOW.
A lot of time and energy and, yes, money went into making THE COLOR PURPLE which was released today. The Broadway musical was far truer to the novel Alice Walker wrote so many of us have hoped it would be turned into a film. Thanks to Oprah Winfrey, it has been.
But, no surprise, Taraji P. Henson has been a storm could hanging over it. "More trouble than it's worth," Rickie Lee Jones sings in "Living It Up" and she might as well have been singing about Taraji.
When the focus should have been positive and upbeat ahead of the film's Christmas Day release, Taraji took it to the gutter -- as she so often does. See Stan's "Taraji competes with Jennifer Love to see who can be most whiny." Karen Hunter and so many others have been running with a 'beef' between Oprah and Taraji and how Taraji was ripped off and poor Taraji.
Taraji's always been a mess on any set. She's been a diva and a disappointment.
Oprah shouldn't have hired her to begin with.
Taraji cried on camera last week --boo hoo -- about pay inequity.
She didn't correct when people included her salary for THE COLOR PURPLE in the discussion. Why not? She always needs attention.
Taraji insists that she's not paid what she's worth.
And that's true if you buy the inflated opinion that she has of herself.
That inflated opinion led her to declare repeatedly in 2017 that she was about to become a movie star. Didn't happen. Instead, 2018 and 2019 saw her onscreen in lead roles in one film after another -- every single one flopped in the United States: PROUD MARY ($21 million), ACRIMONY ($46 million), WHAT MEN WANT ($54 million) and THE BEST OF ENEMIES ($10 million) -- no, those totals are not the totals for hit films. She had one live-action flop after another. And her most recent live-action film went straight to streaming.
B-b-b-b-but she is a TV star.
Was. EMPIRE started airing in 2015 and it was a huge hit for the first two seasons. Then it fell from being the fifth most watched series in the second season to the 22nd most watched in the third. As bad as that was, it was only about to get worse. Season four found it to be the 52nd most watched show. A huge fall off. More would take place in season five when Jussie Smollett pulled off his hoax (he staged a crime against himself in real life). Before the hoax, it was getting a little over five million viewers a week. After the hoax -- and after America learned Jussie not only made it up but paid off his 'attackers' - the show never got five million again and ended the season as the 68th most watched show. Could it get any lower? Yes. In the sixth and final season, it fell to the 80th most watched series. And all the production staff are very clear that they could have ridden out Jussie if Taraji hadn't kept lying for him. She insisted he was a victim, when he got convicted, she continued to whine for him, when he was put behind bars . . .
America hates her. That's the reality.
She fired her entire staff -- and bragged about it -- after EMPIRE ended because she didn't have jobs and endorsements lied up. The reason was because America hated her. She was a liar and some suspected she was in on it with Jussie insisting why else would she keep claiming he was innocent?
Taraji hasn't delieved a TV audience since 2017. She hasn't been in a hit film -- the ensemble piece HIDDEN FIGURES -- since 2015. And she's never carried a hit film.
There is no product endorsement because of the way she polls with Americans as a result of her Jussie nonsense.
She's damn lucky that Oprah gave her a supporting role in THE COLOR PURPLE but, being Taraji, gratitude isn't in her makeup.
So she's caused a cloud to move over the sunny day that the release of THE COLOR PURPLE should have been.
If she was underpaid -- we don't think she was, especially since she was lucky just to be hired -- that's on her at this point.
You say "no." You set your figure. If you think you're worth more, insist for more.
Sometimes the power of "no" is the only power you have.
Most actresses learn that before they hit 30. But Taraji's 53 and never learned it. Just like she never learned that, historically, no actress becomes a film star after the age of 36. In other words, Taraji long ago reached the highest rung she was going to. Sad that the industry grasped what she couldn't.
Oprah got the musical made, with a budget of $100 million. It's time for Karen Hunter and everyone else to stop trashing Oprah for the awful career that Taraji created for herself.
New film documents Bayard Rustin—a lesser known civil rights organiser we should remember
Bayard Rustin organiser of the march on Washington
Rustin, the new Netflix film, documents Bayard Rustin—a lesser known Civil Rights organiser but one of huge significance. Martin Luther King is widely seen as the hero of the US Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.
Rustin was a leading organiser and activist against racial
segregation in the US. But he was also a gay man fighting against
homophobia, inside and outside the movement.
It focuses on Rustin’s brilliant organisational role in building the
March on Washington in 1963, which involved 250,000 people. This was
where King made his “I have a dream” speech.
Rustin aimed to put pressure on the wavering Democratic president
John F Kennedy and the US establishment to pass the Civil Rights Act
that year.
The march was Rustin’s brainchild and he led the planning of it.
Yet he had to fight to even get the project off the ground and was
regarded as a pariah by some. The unity of the oppressed was not
automatic.
The director George C Wolf dramatises the contradictions in Rustin’s position. He had been involved in the Montgomery bus boycott and was the organiser with the most creative flair in the anti-racist movement.
But he was an openly gay black man with a previous conviction in a period where gay relationships were illegal.
Therefore, he was targeted not only by Republican reactionaries, but
also by some leading, “respectable” black members of the Democratic
Party.
They included Adam Clayton Powell (Jeffrey Wright) and the more
conservative elements of the NAACP civil rights organisation, such as
Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock).
He was attacked because he was an ex-Communist, keen to involve
unions in the march. He had refused the draft because of his non-violent
beliefs. Blackmail, slurs and lies become an everyday threat.
Colman Domingo plays Rustin emphasising his wit, humour and
rhetorical skills that defeat his enemies and win influential
friends. The relationship between Rustin and King (Aml Ameen) is
beautifully crafted.
The moment in the film when King publicly defends Rustin from
homophobic insults is a brilliant vindication of Rustin’s importance to
the movement.
As one character says about King and Rustin, “Together… you are
fire.” The uneasy alliance against racism becomes a committed and united
fight against bigotry.
The representation of Rustin’s two relationships with men in the film is cleverly used to show other contradictions.
His off/on relationship with a white activist explores the
difficulties placed on monogamous gay relationships with the divisions
of race and sexuality in the 1960s.
His relationship with an NAACP black Baptist minister reveals the
fears about coming out and the religious pressures on black gay men.
This was the era before Stonewall Riot of 1969. The film rises to a
victorious, emotional conclusion with the successful March on
Washington.
The final scene presents Rustin as a man who recognises his own class
background and his belief in a grassroots movement. The film
successfully presents an inspirational character who was determined to
fight back despite the dangers.
Therefore, it only touches on the limitations of a non-violent
strategy when some characters oppose Rustin’s pacifism with the Malcolm
X’s ideas at the beginning of the film.
But it’s important to see Rustin as a radicalising influence at the
time, who took the struggle against racism forward. Rustin is a
fascinating and moving account of the fight against oppression.
As Rustin says to his black male lover, “You have the right to love and be loved.”
And the answer is because Israel has lied at every turn before & after Oct. 7 and hasn’t presented evidence only sensationalist allegations you are all too ready to accept because of your racist beliefs about Palestinian Muslim men. pic.twitter.com/LahJHSIsUN
Last weekend, the news was that the United Nations Security Council
would vote Monday on a cease-fire. Monday saw the vote postponed to
Tuesday. Tuesday came and it was kicked to Wednesday. You can guess
that happened Wednesday and the same thing took place Thursday.
The U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday
calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate
civilians in Gaza but without the original plea for an “urgent
suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.
The
long-delayed vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United
States and Russia abstaining. The U.S. abstention avoided a third
American veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7
attacks inside Israel. Russia wanted the stronger language restored; the
U.S. did not.
Amna Nawaz (PBS NEWSHOUR) notes, "The U.S. abstained from the vote, which did not demand a cease-fire." ARAB NEWS adds,
"The failure of the UN Security Council to agree on a permanent
ceasefire
in Gaza is equivalent to providing Israel with a 'license to kill,'
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has said." BBC NEWS recounts:
Friday's resolution was introduced by the United Arab Emirates.
Minutes
before the vote, Russia - one of the five permanent members of the
council - introduced an amendment to revert to an earlier draft calling
for an immediate ceasefire. It argued the text gave Israel freedom of
movement to further clear the Gaza Strip.
The
Russian amendment was defeated and both Russia and the US went on to
abstain, while the other 13 members of the council backed the text that
now calls for creating conditions "for a sustainable cessation of
hostilities".
Mallory Moench (TIME magazine) notes, "Global organizations have criticized the U.N. Security Council resolution
that called for more humanitarian aid without demanding an immediate
ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war to facilitate its delivery." CNN adds, "The Security Council's call for pauses will be 'nearly meaningless' to the lives of civilians in Gaza, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement slamming the compromise resolution." Australia's ABC notes
that Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the UN, disagrees that
the resolution was "watered-down" and insists instead that it is
"strong,"; however, the network concludes, "But
it was stripped of its key provision with teeth -- a call for 'the
urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered
humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable
cessation of hostilities'." Phyllis Bennis (COMMON DREAMS) explains:
The bottom line of the just-passed resolution at the UN Security Council
is that it is NOT a cease-fire resolution. It is not even a “suspension
of hostilities” resolution, which reflected the first major concession
to Washington’s demands. That would have turned the resolution into a
repeat of last month’s temporary pause – potentially useful for allowing
in some additional humanitarian aid, perhaps another
hostages-for-illegally-held-prisoners swap, and a few days respite for
the millions of people in Gaza dying under Israeli bombardment before
Israel’s full-scale war started again. But this resolution does not even
do that. Despite misleading headlines in way too much of the mainstream
media, the only mention even of “humanitarian pauses” appears in a
reference to the Council’s November resolution that did call for such
temporary halts to the fighting – and only mentioned in the preamble,
not anywhere in the operative paragraphs of the new resolution.
The operative paragraphs do not call for pausing, suspending, ending,
easing or ceasing hostilities – meaning Israel can continue its deadly
assaults by air and land without violating the Security Council’s
fought-over resolution. The vote was 13 in favor, with the U.S. and
Russia abstaining. (Moscow had proposed an amendment returning to the
“suspension of hostilities” language, but despite 10 votes in favor and 4
abstentions, the amendment was rejected by a U.S. veto.)
Instead the final text “calls for urgent steps to immediately allow
safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access” without defining
those steps, and without any acknowledgement that the crucial “step”
would require Israel to stop its bombing campaign and end its ground
assaults. That means Israel, the overwhelmingly stronger party
responsible for the deaths of 20,000+ Palestinians, overwhelmingly
children and women, can decide when or if its bombs, drones, tank
assaults decimating the Gaza Strip and its people should be paused or
stopped or suspended.
"Genocide Joe" has been a common chant at rallies, and a trending tag on social media. The White House says it's inappropriate. But for many, the moniker has stuck.
And so, as he battles to counter that perception, the way Biden talks about Israel has been changing.
[. . .]
Biden's complaint about
indiscriminate bombing is his strongest public criticism of Israel since
October 7. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited by international
humanitarian law.
But his comments were generous, too — particularly his insistence that Israel enjoyed most of the world's support.
Within
hours of that comment, 153 nations had demanded an immediate ceasefire
via a UN vote. The resolution expressed "grave concern over the
catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip". Just 10
countries — including the US and Israel — voted against it, and 23
abstained.
[. . .]
The US gives $US3.8 billion ($5.6
billion) in military aid to Israel every year. After October 7, Biden
asked congress to approve an extra $US14.3 billion ($21 billion).
Its
approval has been held up, but only because it's become tangled with
unrelated political fights over Ukraine funding and domestic spending.
It has broad support from both parties in both houses.
And the State Department's move to bypass congress resulted in a fast-tracked sale of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition.
On Friday, the New York Times and CNN
both reported the US has now also sent Israel more than 5,000 MK-84
munitions — 900-kilogram bombs whose impact is so devastating, they're
rarely used by Western militaries in populated areas. Satellite images
suggest bombs of that size have been dropped in densely populated Gaza
hundreds of times.
AP reported today, "More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family,
were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes, rescuers and hospital
officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that
nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s offensive is creating 'massive
obstacles” to distribution of humanitarian aid'." Yes, Gaza remains under assault. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is now well over 18,000. NBC NEWS notes, "The vast
majority of its 2.2 million people are displaced, and an estimated half
face starvation amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis." ALJAZEERA notes, "On Friday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 20,057 Palestinians
have been killed and 53,320 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7,
when the current conflict broke out." In addition to the dead
and
the injured, there are the missing. AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." And the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War." Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three
of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of
destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by
Israeli forces."
Authorities
in Gaza have announced the killing of Ahmad Jamal Al Madhoun, the
deputy director of the Al Rai Agency, in an Israeli air attack.
His death brings the total number of journalists killed in Gaza since
October 7 to 101, according to the Gaza government’s media office,
while more than 50 media offices have been completely or partially
destroyed by Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman Samer Abudaqa is among the dead.
Tim Dawson, the deputy general secretary at the International Federation of Journalists, told Al Jazeera
of the “extraordinarily high number” of journalists killed in Gaza. He
said that we haven’t “seen a death toll of journalists to this
concentration in any conflict that I can think of”.
[. . .]
The killing of Ahmad Jamal al-Madhoun brings the total number of
journalists killed in Gaza to 101, says the Gaza Government Media
Office.
