In which the pond tries to have a snooze fest with prattling Polonius, but is forced to study garrulous Gemma ...

 

The pond is still gently easing its way into the new year and what better way to ease into a somnolescent Sunday than with a serve of prattling Polonius ...

The quest, as always, is to see how often the ABC cops a mention, a bucket, or a serve ...and the header offered fair promise, because the deviant, devious cardigan wearers are likely to be the ones being wrong ...

Peter Dutton proves the press gallery pundits wrong

Those bloody cardigan-wearing press pundits ...

That header was accompanied by a snap showing Captain Spud attempting to smirk ...

That rare, astonishing sight was accompanied by a smiley text ...

The opposition leader’s lot is rarely a happy one, but at least Peter Dutton is in the pilot’s seat and not experiencing much turbulence, writes Gerard Henderson. Picture: David Crosling

The pond was anxious to get past the byline...

By GERARD HENDERSON
12:00AM JANUARY 6, 2024

... and get into the meat of it, and straight away Polonius scored ..

As the saying goes, it’s unwise to make predictions, especially about the future.

Or, as others might say, as the unrepentant, rampant cliché goes, a Polonial prediction about the future could possibly be as funny as George and Weedon Grosssmith scribbling The Diary of a Nobody ...

Why should I not publish my column? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see—because I do not happen to be a ‘Somebody’—why my column should not be interesting.

Carry on Polonius, in a Pooterish way ...

At the beginning of 2023, a clear majority of members of the Canberra press gallery were of the view that Anthony Albanese and the Labor government were riding high and set to be in office for at least two terms, perhaps more. Few hold this position now as the Albanese government approaches its midterm, with an election scheduled for mid-May next year.
Around the same time, it was the almost universal view among political commentators that the Coalition in general and Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton in particular were in a disastrous state – unelectable in the view of many. Strength was given to this position by Labor’s victory in the Aston by-election on April Fool’s Day last year. It was the first occasion in a century that an incumbent federal government had won a seat from an opposition in a by-election.
Not long after, Dutton announced the Liberal Party would be advocating a No vote to enshrine an Indigenous voice to parliament and the executive in the Constitution. This decision was not only widely condemned in the Canberra press gallery as being bad policy, it was also regarded as bad politics. The Nationals had taken a similar stance some months earlier.
Perhaps the most vocal critic of Dutton was David Crowe – the chief political correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, who is a regular panellist on the ABC TV Insiders program. On April 19 last year, he wrote that “the opposition leader has seen no dividend from his decision to fight hard on the Indigenous voice”.

There, right there, the unforgivable sin, the unforgettable crime.: "...a regular panellist on the ABC TV Insiders program".

How can anyone forget that Polonius was cast aside, spurned by those wretched cardigan wearers and now he must howl in the wilderness at their perfidy. 

Let's face it, anyone who prefers the cawng Crowe to the crowing Polonial caw is living in bizarro world ...

See how the magisterial Polonius takes him down ...

According to Crowe, “the approach is certainly keeping Dutton and his colleagues in touch with their base – by pointing their aircraft towards the ground and hitting the accelerator”. The Nine journalist concluded with this warning for Dutton: “The only rational response is to change course; otherwise, the ground awaits.”
This was hopeless advice. Whatever the merits or demerits of the Yes case, Dutton had little option but to oppose it. For starters, he had to appeal to the Coalition’s base. Moreover, the Albanese government had not done enough to explore the case for Yes. As well, there had not been a constitutional convention leading up to the referendum, which had been the situation with the 1999 referendum on the republic.
The government’s position on the voice was that it was a generous offer by Indigenous Australians to have special access to proffer advice to the government.
But it was more than this. In a speech at the Australian National University last October, Indigenous leader Stan Grant said: “The voice was never a modest ask, it was monumental. Perhaps this was the opportunity lost by the Yes campaign, to not let the voice truly speak.”
It is far from clear that, if the Liberal Party had supported the Yes case, the proposal would have received an overall majority in a majority of states. After all, most referendums go down and Labor has presided over just one referendum victory. Agree with his stance or not, the Opposition Leader made the correct political decision.
The Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy, who is also an Insiders regular, wrote on October 14: “Dutton’s decision to say no, and help flood the zone with shit, was certainly part of the reason public support for the voice tanked.”

There, yet again, a hit, a palpable hit ... "who is also an Insiders regular". It's bad enough with that Nine mob, but to have turned to the Graudian for a regular when Polonius must put on an outsider sulk ... where's the humanity?

Oh the shame, to have once been an insider, and now an outsider, pissing back into the tent ...but our Polonius knows how to do it, he's been trained in the warrior ways since the days, long ago, when he travelled with B. A. ...

This misses the point that backing for Yes in the polls was never high enough. It needed an initial lead better than 60 per cent to 40 per cent since support for referendum proposals invariably declines during the campaign. Moreover, it’s just barracking to maintain that No succeeded because of the alleged misinformation and disinformation of Dutton and the Coalition.
The defeat of Yes has damaged the Prime Minister, in the short term at least. And it has strengthened Dutton’s position. Many commentators have overlooked the fact that the Opposition Leader’s smartest move was to make the (then) backbencher senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price the opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman.
It was also brave because the resignation from the shadow ministry by Julian Leeser, a Yes supporter, created a Liberal Party vacancy. But Dutton replaced Leeser with Price, who sits in the Nationals partyroom – a decision capable of upsetting fellow Liberal MPs hoping for advancement. Price became a leading No campaigner assisted by Liberal Party senator Kerrynne Liddle, who was also promoted by Dutton.
Certainly, Dutton and his colleagues are in a far better position than they were when Crowe wrote them off less than a year ago. It remains to be seen how the Liberal Party will perform in the forthcoming by-election in the southeast Melbourne seat of Dunkley. It has been a Labor seat in recent years, so a Liberal victory would be a surprise.

As for Aboriginal people? Pish tosh, simply no concern of Polonius ... let someone else supply the rations of flour, sugar, tea and 'baccy ...

The problem, as always, is those bloody Victorians ...

The Albanese government faces numerous problems with respect to the cost of living. Also, its increased regulation with respect to areas such as industrial relations, aged care and workplace harassment will be resisted by many in small business. And then there is rising energy prices and more besides.
A recent Newspoll suggests that the Coalition’s position is improving in NSW and Queensland. And also among women, after many female voters deserted the Coalition in the 2022 election. But Labor remains in front on a two-party preferred measurement and Albanese is still preferred prime minister.
In addition, Victoria remains a weakness for the Coalition despite the fact the Victorian Labor government presides over a massive state debt along with a bloated public service, funded by taxation hikes. Victoria is Australia’s most left-wing state with a strong Socialist Left faction in Labor and a significant support for the Greens party in Melbourne, which preferences Labor over the Coalition.
Meanwhile the teals (who present as independent) hold seats that were recently Liberal in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
The opposition leader’s lot is rarely a happy one. But at least Dutton is in the pilot’s seat and not experiencing much turbulence. Moreover, contrary to the predictions of some (false) prophets, he has not seen reason to change course.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Splendid stuff, and so to the bonus, and here the pond must admit to a thought crime, to having been tempted to shirk its herpetology studies ...

The pond would rather be scribbling about conspiracy theories, with plenty around at the moment ...

When the pond went looking at The Denver News, there was a story in depth, (outside the paywall), with all sorts of clippings, though the nub of it was pretty straightforward ...

...The revelations provide further proof that the false elector certificates advanced in seven battleground states, including Michigan, were not organic efforts by local Republican officials to question the election results in their states, but part of a larger scheme by Trump's campaign to maintain power.

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro sent a message to Boris Epshteyn, a campaign adviser for Donald Trump, on Jan. 1, 2021, about his plans for challenging election results.

While the strategy of interfering with states' certified results was unsuccessful in 2020, it could return for a future election. Michigan will have three statewide elections this year.

More than 2.8 million Michigan voters cast ballots for Biden in the November 2020 election. More than 2.6 million voted for Trump.

Trump's campaign didn't respond Thursday to a request for comment as he seeks the Republican nomination for president again this year.

The pond could have been quite happy wandering down that path, but because the site is devoted to summer school herpetology studies, the pond had to torture itself with a serve of garrulous Gemma ...

Maniacal hatred of Jews festers in cocoon of denial

There was a snap, accompanied by text ...

Mia Schem’s testimony says what history taught us, writes Gemma Tognini.

And a byline ...

By GEMMA TOGNINI

12:00AM JANUARY 6, 2024

And then it was on with the torture ...

In the hazy, floating, no-man’s land between Christmas Day and the new year, I read two books: one by a former journalist at this newspaper, Dan Box, called The Man Who Wasn’t There. I highly recommend it. The other, by best­selling children’s author Alex Ryvchin, isn’t for kids, though perhaps in hindsight a modified version should be.

Ryvchin’s The 7 Deadly Myths, chronicles and attempts to explain anti-Semitism from the time of Jesus to today.

I’m pretty well versed about the scourge of anti-Semitism in current times but my historical knowledge was shamefully non-existent. The book methodically outlines the most wild and mind-boggling stories of Jew hatred through the ages. The most fantastical, maniacal unthinkable tales, all historically documented, have been used to persecute Jews and no sane person reading about it can make it make sense.

What about the Enlightenment, I thought? What about the Renaissance? What about civilised minds of the 20th century?

Timing, as they say, is everything and I was halfway into The 7 Deadly Myths when The New York Times, well known as a predominantly left-leaning paper (that’s important, stay with me) published a devastating feature about the weaponisation of sexual violence by Hamas.

This long-form feature is the result of interviews with more than 150 people, including survivors and witnesses to the slaughter of October 7. It cites first-hand accounts and multiple primary sources, and meticulously explains how facts were verified. I don’t know how they managed. I could barely get through it. Their words dripped with grief, measured yet urgent with the weight of responsibility. The cadence of every line whispered: the world must know, the world must know.

Reading the responses to this article were an exercise in despair. Almost all expressed horror at the savagery of what had been documented, and thanked the reporters and the paper for bearing witness. Many more concurrently dived into the filthy waters of moral equivalence; this was savage and barbaric, they said. But, also, Israel sort of deserved it.

I realised in that moment there is a bloodstained thread that bound Ryvchin’s book to the article and the comments that followed. Denial. Denial of truth. Denial of facts. Denial that a moral centre has been violated.

I see no difference in the societal elites who centuries ago concocted the most ridiculous blood libel tales to violently enact pogroms on Jews across Europe and those who today are responding to the unthinkable sexual violence of Hamas with, well, Israel really is the oppressor.

Surely this thinking is a kind of sickness?

Meanwhile, on another planet, in the NY Times no less ...

When Ghada Abu Samra leaves the room in Rafah where she, her mother and brother have been living between their searches for food and clean water, she sees more Gazans packing in to the already overcrowded southern city.

“Every day the numbers grow in a massive way,” said Ms. Abu Samra, a 24-year-old web development student who has been in Rafah for weeks. “There is no place for anyone except to sit in the streets and build a tent.”

As almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes by Israel’s nearly three months of airstrikes and evacuation orders, Rafah, once a city of 300,000 people, has become the main refuge for those displaced. More than 1 million people are squeezed into the city, in a tiny corner of the enclave on the Egyptian border, the United Nations said this week.

People are struggling to find the materials to make even the most makeshift tents, which spread in rows across sandy ground. The misery is compounded by the spread of disease and an already overwhelmed health system, according to the United Nations. The city is not safe either: Airstrikes are pummeling all of Gaza, including areas that the Israel military has called on Gazans to flee to.

Israel launched the war after Hamas, the political and armed group that controls the territory, carried out an attack on Oct. 7 in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

With Rafah’s increasingly dense population, the potential death toll of a single strike is high, noted the Al Mezan Center, a Gaza-based human rights organization, on social media.

More than 160 people were killed by airstrikes across Gaza in the previous 24 hours, the Gazan Health Ministry said Friday. The death toll over three months has surpassed 20,000 people killed, many of them women and children, according to the ministry.

On Thursday, the Gazan government media office said that Israeli strikes in six locations in Rafah had killed dozens over the previous three days.

“Rafah is not safe at all; on the road I pass through every day, three rockets hit yesterday, killing 10 people,” said Ms. Abu Samra, who added that her family had been displaced seven times since the war began. “In any moment I can be killed. You don’t know whose turn is next.”

“The places that the Israelis say ‘this area is safe, go there,’ nowhere is safe,” she said.

But still more are expected to flee to Rafah. On Wednesday, the Israeli military dropped leaflets on residents of two blocks in the city of Deir el-Balah, an area that is home to 4,700 people in central Gaza, ordering them to leave for shelters, according to the United Nations. But many people have chosen to head straight to Rafah, worried that they will just have to flee again.

“The situation in Rafah is a total misery,” said Mohammed Shaath, 68, a retired engineer from the southern city of Khan Younis who has been helping a group with aid distribution in Rafah, including helping to cook hot meals.

“There is no single empty inch in Rafah,” he said. “Tents everywhere. And by tents, I don’t mean the proper tents people are familiar with. It is simply anything that covers one’s head.”

France and Jordan have responded to the dire situation in Gaza by airdropping aid, according to a video posted on social media Friday by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. Reuters reported that on Thursday night the two nations dropped seven tons of humanitarian and medical aid for the battered city of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

People sign up to receive a tent from the United Nations or Palestine Red Crescent, he said, but receiving one can take a long time and people can’t wait, especially in miserable winter conditions. Consequently, many use old wooden beams, plastic and nylon from greenhouses nearby to build any sort of shelter, he said.

Finding the materials to make even the most ramshackle of shelters has become a daily routine for many in Rafah, he said.

Despite the conditions, Mr. Shaath said he is preparing to move with his family there even though he doesn’t know where they will live. He said the Israeli military recently warned residents of a city block near his home in Khan Younis and those sheltering there to flee.

He fears their block will be next.

“I have no other option for myself and my family,” he said. “They will bomb us here in Khan Younis.”

“I am not worried about myself,” he added. “I am 68 already. I am worried about the children. They are the future.”

— Raja Abdulrahim and Abu Bakr Bashir

Apparently garrulous Gemma reads the NYT ...

The NYT report details verified images of women’s corpses with nails driven into their thighs and groins. It verified a video showing two dead female IDF soldiers who had been shot directly into their vaginas. They interviewed a survivor who, hidden and feigning death, watched Hamas fighters mutilate a woman’s breasts while she was being raped.

I don’t want to go on, to keep recounting these horrors, but we must, as long as there are still people whose response is conditional. Who respond with, yes … but.

Let’s bring this closer to home and tease it out further, because we must. Nobody wants to have their world tipped upside down. Denial is a form of weakness. It is the ultimate form of self-preservation. It’s the person who stays with a cheating partner, ignoring the signs because the pain of dealing with it seems greater than the humiliation of the status quo. It’s the parent that refuses to accept their child is on drugs.

... but only selectively, since she seems to have missed other kinds of stories...

Under the cover of the war in Gaza, Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank have carried out a “surge” of unauthorized moves to expand their footprint in the territory, according to a report by Peace Now, an Israeli advocacy group that opposes settlements and tracks their progress.

éPeace Now’s settlement watch team said it had recorded the establishment of nine new so-called wildcat settlement outposts, not authorized by the Israeli government, which appear to be mostly made up of temporary structures. The team also said it documented the creation of more than a dozen new dirt paths and roads.

In addition, the report found, settlers have been fencing off open areas in the part of the West Bank that is under complete Israeli control in order to block access to Palestinian herders. Several of the outposts and roads are on privately owned Palestinian land, the report said, in violation of Israeli law.

The activities add fuel to what are already unusually high tensions in the West Bank, where violence and Israeli military raids have spiraled over the past year. Palestinian militias have carried out shooting attacks against Israelis; frequent raids by the Israeli military have produced thousands of arrests and have often turned deadly; and extremist Jewish settlers have rampaged through Palestinian villages, setting fire to property.

While the settler actions documented by Peace Now are not approved by Israel, the far-right coalition that took power in December 2022 supports settlement expansion, and includes extremist settlers who want to annex some or all of the West Bank. Israel has in the past retroactively authorized settlements it had previously seen as illegal.

Most countries view all settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be a violation of international law. Israel captured those areas from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians see that land as part of a future independent state, made steadily less viable by settler expansion.

“The three months of war in Gaza are being exploited by settlers to establish facts on the ground,” Peace Now said in a statement, citing what it described as a “permissive military and political environment” that allowed land seizure to go “almost unchecked, with minimal adherence to the law.”

— Isabel Kershner reporting from Jerusalem

At this point, the reptiles interrupted with a link ...

Media-link

Emotional reunion between hostage abducted from music festival and her family in Israel

It's usual at this point in both siderist life to note that the pond has no time for fundamentalist Islamic thinking. The pond and partner would be off to the beheading arena ...

But at the same time, that puts the pond in a bind, because it has no time for fundamentalist Jewish thinking either ... and in recent times that fundamentalist thinking has been making things tricky for the United States ... again per the NY Times ...

As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed back to the Middle East on Friday in the latest U.S. effort to ease regional tensions, a new postwar plan floated by Israel’s defense minister has laid bare the divisions in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over “the day after” fighting in Gaza ends.

The proposal by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a moderate member of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, was widely seen as a trial balloon, but it showed the pressure the prime minister was facing as Washington and others press for a shift to a less intense phase of the war.

The Biden administration wants Israel to plan for “the day after,” meaning how Gaza will be governed when fighting ends, though analysts say that to keep his far-right allies from leaving his governing coalition, Mr. Netanyahu has delayed any serious domestic discussion or diplomatic effort around such a plan.

Mr. Gallant’s proposal shared on Thursday at a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet is predicated on the military defeat of Hamas. It calls for maintaining Israel’s military control of Gaza’s borders, while a “multinational task force” oversees reconstruction and economic development in the territory.

Under his plan, Gazan Palestinians who do not have ties to Hamas, which the United States and European countries have designated as a terror organization, would administer civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip, according to details of the cabinet meeting leaked to Israeli media. But there would be no role for the Palestinian Authority that runs the occupied West Bank, and there would be no resettlement of Israelis in Gaza.

Mr. Gallant’s proposal appeared to be an effort to stake out middle ground. It rules out involvement of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises authority in parts of the West Bank, in administering Gaza after the war. The Biden administration has called for the authority to play a postwar role in the territory, viewing it as a path toward a two-state solution that would create a Palestinian state consisting of both Gaza and the West Bank, which many politicians on the Israeli right oppose.

But the Gallant plan also rules out resettling Gaza with Israelis, an idea that far-right Israelis espouse.

In recent days, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, have advanced the idea of encouraging Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to countries willing to grant them entry. The State Department sharply rebuked the comments, issuing a statement that criticized both by name and called their comments “inflammatory and irresponsible.”

In a Facebook post, Mr. Smotrich criticized the plan floated by Mr. Gallant, suggesting that it risked a repeat of the Hamas attacks, and reiterating his call for “voluntary emigration” of Gazans.

The Israeli news media described the meeting of the Israeli security cabinet on Thursday as stormy and said it had ended in a blowup after several ministers assailed the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzl Halevi, for forming a committee of inquiry to investigate the failures that led to the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7.

General Halevi said a limited investigation would yield lessons that would be helpful in the current conflict.

On Friday, Benny Gantz, a centrist who crossed party lines to join Mr. Netanyahu’s war cabinet after Oct. 7, sharply criticized the ministers who attacked General Halevi, calling their attacks politically motivated.

“We are in the most difficult war of our history, on several fronts, and we need to form a single united fist against them,” he said. But he went on to blame Mr. Netanyahu for avoiding a serious discussion about the war’s strategy and aftermath, saying: “He has the responsibility to fix this, and to make a choice — between national unity and security, and politics.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition holds only a fragile majority, with 64 seats in the 120-seat Parliament. Mr. Gantz and other centrist rivals who joined him to form the broader emergency government have not signed onto any coalition agreements, and have indicated they would leave the government when they see fit.

With his popularity at a new low, in large part because of the security failures of Oct. 7, Mr. Netanyahu is loath to face elections anytime soon and must keep his governing coalition together in order to stay in office.

— Roni Caryn Rabin reporting from Tel Aviv

Meanwhile, back with garrulous Gemma ...

In corporate life, where I spend 99 per cent of my days, it’s the dysfunctional board that denies the existence of red flags, hiding behind the notion of stability, unable to acknowledge that this stability is a Band-Aid by another name.

It’s in myriad situations in everyday life where denial has consequences at only a personal level.

But, as a friend of mine said earlier in the week, what we’re seeing here is so different. It is uniquely directed at Jews, and at Israel and its right to exist. I can’t recall any other manifestation of hatred and denial on this scale.

French-Israeli hostage Mia Schem has given details of her ordeal during her 54 days held in Gaza. She was held captive by a Palestinian family. She talks of being confused – why is there a woman here? Why is there a family here? Then the penny dropped.

The same media that have been so swift, say, to believe all women, believe any woman who says anything about sexual violence, published an insulting disclaimer to Schem’s words, saying her account was yet to be verified. By all means, pop over to Gaza and ask the family that held her. I’m sure they will be honest and transparent.

Ah, but to believe Mia Schem means a brick in the protective wall of ideology comes down. Perhaps the wall itself. To deny her story is to stay in the same cocoon that refuses to accept a ceasefire, without Hamas surrender and the safe return of the still living hostages, is a fool’s errand.

How many would need to completely reframe their political thinking, perhaps even parts of their identity? Mia Schem’s testimony says what history taught us. Just as not every German was a Nazi, there were many enthusiastic Nazis in German society. Not every Gazan is Hamas, but only the greatest fool would deny that a proportion of everyday Gazans are complicit. That they know where the hostages are, and are happily complicit.

Denial feels safe, but it never is. It simply postpones the inevitable pain of realising what was there all along. To the many who continue to say, oh but sexual violence has always been a weapon of war, you are in denial. You are minimising the most atrocious acts of femicide in our times.

The blood of every innocent civilian life lost in Gaza is on Hamas. Not only has it rejected every ceasefire offered, refusing to release the living hostages, it has promised it will repeat October 7 until Israel, Jews and Christians are wiped from the map. Hamas is not denying this and neither must democracies in the West.

Ah, there's nothing like a little collective punishment, nothing like collective guilt, nothing like apartheid and the gulag ... per the Graudian ...

The Biden administration has previously taken credit for coaxing Israel on several aid issues, including allowing limited fuel and commercial trucks to enter the Gaza Strip. This week Israeli officials suggested further entry points from Israel may be opened to allow more aid to reach northern Gaza.

Gallant also indicated a more precise approach to targeting Hamas fighters and their leaders, in what appears to be another response to pressure from Washington.

The US has been pushing Israel to shift to lower-intensity military operations in Gaza that more precisely target Hamas, which took over the territory in 2007. In rare public criticism, Biden warned last month that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing”.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 22,400 people, more than two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory, with thousands more thought to be buried under rubble and tens of thousands wounded.

The offensive was launched after Hamas sent thousands of militants into southern Israel, who killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 240 others.

Gallant’s statement said that in northern Gaza, Israeli forces would shift to a “new combat approach”, which would emphasise raids, destruction of tunnels, “air and ground activities and special operations”.

It was not immediately clear how this might differ from current operations, though Israel’s recent troop withdrawal from Gaza may signal an imminent change in tactics.

Palestinians said there had been no let up in Israeli airstrikes and shelling since the announcement, with planes and tanks intensifying attacks on the densely populated areas of Maghazi, Bureij and Nuseirat in the centre of Gaza.

In southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have moved on Israeli advice, six Palestinians were killed in a strike on Khan Younis, local health officials said.

And again ...

Another concern for the Biden administration has been calls by far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet for Palestinians to be encouraged to leave Gaza en masse.

On Sunday Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who has been excluded from the war cabinet and discussions of day-after arrangements in Gaza, called for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”.

A day later, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, said the conflict was an opportunity to “encourage the migration of the residents of Gaza,” which he said would be “a correct, just, moral and humane solution”.

Such statements, coming amid unconfirmed reports in Israel of proposals to convince other countries to accept large numbers of Palestinians, have created fears in much of the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians off land where they want to build a future state, repeating the mass dispossession of Palestinians in the wars surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.

Rwanda on Friday described reports by an Israeli news outlet of talks between Rwanda and Israel on the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza as “completely false disinformation … [that] should be ignored”.

Smotrich, whose hard-right Religious Zionism party draws support from Israel’s settler community, has made similar comments in the past, angering the US. Biden is believed to have made clear to Netanyahu that he holds him responsible for ministers’ statements.

“We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel,” Miller, of the state department, told reporters.

In a further apparent effort to reassure the US as Blinken’s visit approached, Gallant said that though Israel would reserve its right to operate inside the territory, his plan foresaw “no Israeli civilian presence in the Gaza Strip after the goals of the war have been achieved”.

Some in Gaza are reluctantly considering leaving the territory in the future.

“I know it is what the Israelis want but I think about my children’s future and wonder where we could go. I would never want to leave in ordinary times but there is nothing here now: no schools, no roads, no house,” said one UN administrator who has been living in a crowded shelter near Khan Younis since his home was destroyed a little more than two months ago.

Much of northern Gaza is in ruins. About 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and are being forced to live in ever smaller areas. A quarter of the population is now starving because not enough supplies are entering, according to the UN.

Nope, there's not enough death and destruction on the killing fields for the likes of garrulous Gemma ... and yet ...

Yes, it's tricky times when you indulge in mass slaughter, no matter the initial mass slaughter that triggered it ... per the Graudian ...

The trouble of course is that - if not evidence of genocidal intent - there's certainly plenty of evidence of collective punishment and a concerted attempt at ethnic cleansing ...

Another concern for the Biden administration has been calls by far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet for Palestinians to be encouraged to leave Gaza en masse.

On Sunday Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who has been excluded from the war cabinet and discussions of day-after arrangements in Gaza, called for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”.

A day later, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, said the conflict was an opportunity to “encourage the migration of the residents of Gaza,” which he said would be “a correct, just, moral and humane solution”.

Such statements, coming amid unconfirmed reports in Israel of proposals to convince other countries to accept large numbers of Palestinians, have created fears in much of the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians off land where they want to build a future state, repeating the mass dispossession of Palestinians in the wars surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.

Meanwhile, there's another war going on, which the reptiles, together with the GOP, seem to have forgotten about entirely ... and you won't find the likes of garrulous Gemma blathering about it either ...