Israel “permanently losing public support and influence in Europe and the USA over escalations”

Israel destroyed a 12-story tower block in Gaza housing the offices of the U.S.-based Associated Press and other news media on Saturday, saying the building was also used by Hamas. 

“Bombing the mediabuilding isn’t an act of defense. It’s a disgraceful attempt at cutting off the world from witnessing its crimes.” 

“The attack on the building that we have seen is a shocking and, it seems to me, catastrophic attempt to shut down media, to silence criticism, and worst of all, to create a cloak of secrecy around this conflict,” said Aidan White, founder of the Ethical Journalism Network, a network of global journalists and press rights groups.

The president and CEO of the Associated Press, Gary Pruitt, said the news agency was “shocked and horrified” by the strike, saying the Israeli military has “long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there”.

Israel becoming the only apartheid-state in the world

A stated aim of the Israeli government is to ensure that Jewish Israelis maintain domination across Israel and the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory). The Knesset in 2018 passed a law with constitutional status affirming Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” declaring that within that territory, the right to self-determination “is unique to the Jewish people,” and establishing “Jewish settlement” as a national value. To sustain Jewish Israeli control, Israeli authorities have adopted policies aimed at mitigating what they have openly described as a demographic “threat” that Palestinians pose. Those policies include limiting the population and political power of Palestinians, granting the right to vote only to Palestinians who live within the borders of Israel as they existed from 1948 to June 1967, and limiting the ability of Palestinians to move to Israel from the OPT and from anywhere else to Israel or the OPT.

Will the US, AIPAC and Israel fall together?

Until this day, the US continues to block United Nations’s statements to condemn Israel’s military response or the call for a ceasefire. Until 2018, Jewish advocacy organization AIPAC has consolidated the acceptance of US foreign policy concerning Israel. However, since the rise of the BDS-movement, social media and documentaries made by Al Jazeera Networks, AIPAC is quickly losing grip on Washington. 

‘As the left progressive flank of the Democratic Party grows, which it clearly is, that means that there’s also going to be less support for groups like AIPAC’  Beth Miller, JVP Action

Al Jazeera’s documentary, dubbed “The Lobby (USA), recently deleted from the official AJ Outlets and online media, uncovers the false tactics, adheret to by the Israeli online campaign to defend it’s actions.

The Lobby is a series of documentaries produced by Al Jazeera that investigate the influence of the Israel lobby in the United Kingdom and the Israel lobby in the United States and their relationship to the BDS movement.

‘AIPAC’s language is intended to demonise, not elevate a policy debate. Vile attacks such as this may be commonplace in the Trump era, but they should never be normalised’ – Betty McCollum, congresswoman

Turkey, Pakistan and Qatar’s international roaring strengthens the silence of the UAE and Saudi-Arabia

Turkey’s TRT World and Qatar’s Al Jazeera have both launched a counter-media offensive on the reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian aggression.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi met his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Ankara and discussed ways to stop Israeli atrocities in Palestine.

“The Foreign Minister is visiting Turkey to exchange views on the worsening situation in the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories,” a statement issued by the Foreign Office said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, many question the silence of the KSA-UAE block on the matter. The majority of the GCC-countries did not officially comment on the altercations in the Gaza-strip and Jeruzalem. 

“No matter what your national priorities are at the moment or regional priorities are at the moment, when stuff like this happens, the Palestinian issue comes back and hits you,” Emirati political analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said.

Still, the open calls for Palestinian rights and condemnation of Israel voiced by countless Gulf Arab citizens have largely mirrored official statements from their governments, all of which have condemned the violence in some form. Some have gone further, and Abdulla said he’d hoped the United Arab Emirates’ most recent statement calling “on all parties” to cease fighting had been bolder and named Israel as the aggressor.

In speaking out, Gulf citizens are challenging the official narratives around normalization with Israel.

In Bahrain, civil society groups signed a letter urging the government to expel the Israeli ambassador. In Kuwait, protesters held two rallies and are demanding permission to hold more. In Qatar, the government allowed hundreds to protest over the weekend as Hamas’ top leader delivered a speech. In the UAE, some have openly donned the black-and-white checkered Palestinian keffiyeh on Instagram while others have tweeted under hashtags supportive of Palestinians.

Last year, the UAE became the first Arab country in over two decades to establish ties with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994, respectively. It was a brazen move that bypassed the Palestinians, who slammed it as treason and a stab in the back.