Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Too much crazy

Garbage. What other term is there for the Congressional idiot Nicole Malliotakis?

This garbage from New York who is in the US Congress is smearing Congress women Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal.

She stated:

These are anti-American members of Congress, okay? They are communist sympathizers, and they go to Cuba, which is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but they side with our adversaries. They are in bed with Iran, North Korea, communist China, Russia. They allow for them to operate spy bases 90 miles from our shores. They have harbored fugitives. They have harbored terrorists. And it’s unconscionable that these members of Congress would go there trying to appease the government of Cuba. And then they go under the guise of wanting to do something about human rights.

I don't know what you do with crazy people like Nicole Malliotakis other than put them in a padded room.

Malliotakis emphasized that the members of Congress sided with oppressive regimes like Iran and North Korea.

“Do they know that the people in Cuba, including my relatives, earn about $15 a month, $15 a month? So they come here in the United States, they’re preaching about fair wages. Everyone should make a living wage. And then they go and support a government that pays its people $15. And you know why? It’s a farce,” Malliotakis said.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, March 5, 2024. A UN 'report' backs up Israel but are we the only ones who'll point out that the laughable report was written by a woman the Israeli government selected back in December (no, that's not how investigations work) and much more.

Where to start? Where to start?

How about with this: The First Lady of Israel was raped!

What's that? She wasn't. Then why does the UN offer speaking to her as proof of anything?

If you missed it, the UN sent a stooge with a team to Israel to supposedly learn if rapes took place October 7th. You or I might call that an "investigation." The UN didn't. That's your first raised eyebrow -- the repeated insistence that this is not anything to take seriously. If you wade through the actual . . . can we call it a 'report'? Is that okay with the UN? If you wade through it you find 23 pages of nothing.

They found no evidence as the Israeli government led them by the hand to various people (none of them rape survivors). They found no physical evidence.

They found nothing:

The main challenge was the limited number of and access to survivors/victims of sexual violence, and to survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks. While the mission team was able to meet with some released hostages as well as with some survivors and witnesses of the attacks, it did not meet with any survivor/victim of sexual violence from 7 October despite concerted efforts encouraging them to come forward.

They found nothing:

In the Nahal Oz military base, the mission team reviewed reports of sexual violence

including a case of rape and genital mutilation, neither of which could be verified. With respect

to the latter instance, while the forensic analysis reviewed injuries to intimate body parts, no

discernible pattern could be identified, against either female or male soldiers. However, seven

female soldiers were abducted from this base into Gaza.

They found nothing:

The mission was neither intended to, and nor could the mission team, in such a short

period of time, establish the prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence during and after the 7

October attacks. The overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would

require a comprehensive investigation by competent bodies

Yes, an investigation would require "competent bodies" and clearly the United Nations team sent in did not qualify.

The report is pathetic and laughable.

For the purposes of this mission and report, “conflict-related sexual violence” is defined

in accordance with the framing definition used in successive reports of the Secretary-General on

conflict-related sexual violence. The term thus refers to “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution,

forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and any other form of

sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls, or boys that is

directly or indirectly linked to a conflict.

Forced abortions? I'm sorry, is that supposed to suggest that Hamas was also carrying out field abortions during the October 7th attack?

The UN team can't get off the First Lady of Israel:

The mission team met with a wide range of national authorities including the President of

Israel and the First Lady, relevant line ministries including Foreign Affairs, Welfare and Social

Affairs, Health, and Justice.

Again, was the First Lady raped? Then why do you keep bringing her up. A ceremonial post with no power and you keep trying to inflate her. Reminder -- not all women are feminist and there's a reason that no one's ever called Pamila Patten a feminist. What is she? Someone that determined this March report would decide rape took place. She made that clear in repeated interviews going back to January. Here's YNET news reporting on from February 5th:

According to Pramila Patten, the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Envoy for Sexual Violence in Conflicts, she has been unable to sleep for a week since viewing the 47-minute video compiled by the IDF of the atrocities committed on October 7. The scenes continue to haunt her. "Only after I saw the video did I understand things that I didn't understand before in terms of the magnitude of the disaster that happened."

Poor Pramila, ugly and stupid.

(And she truly is ugly.)

Her laughable report fails to note so much. Such as the reality that Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR), repeatedly contacted the government of Israel to conduct an investigation into events and was refused. But the government of Israel asked for Pramila. Maybe they love eye bags or pinched faces or purple lips, who knows? But they asked for Pramila.

Oh, and they asked for her in December. January 9th, Dawn Clancy (PASS BLUE) reported:

She was invited by the government to visit the country more than a month ago to hear first-hand testimonies from Israeli survivors of sexual violence allegedly committed during the brutal Hamas and affiliated militia attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.

Patten, according to a press release in early December, had “responded positively” to the initial invitation to visit Israel. But it’s unclear if she will investigate alleged sexual violence and rape that was committed by the militias three months ago.

[Update, Jan. 10: UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters that Patten would conduct a “mission” to Israel and the West Bank at the end of the month “to gather information on sexual violence, reportedly committed in the context of the attacks of 7 October and its aftermath” The mission “will be conducted in the exercise of her mandate, in accordance with her standard UN methodology.” She’ll be accompanied by experts in “safe and ethical interviewing, forensic evidence, digital analysis, and accountability,” but she is not mandated to “investigate”]

[. . .]

Patten, a 65-year-old lawyer originally from Mauritius, said in another press release, on Dec. 21: “All forms of sexual violence and the taking of hostages are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian and human rights law. Accordingly, all the horrific reports of sexual violence allegedly committed by Hamas on 7 October must be promptly and rigorously investigated, and the United Nations reiterates its readiness to independently investigate any such violations.”

Is there anything sadder than a 65 year old whore? Well, a whore with a fish face but we already told you she's ugly.

So she didn't do an investigation. She spoke to no one of value and she was invited in by the Israeli government as it attacked other officials. Hmm. Also, don't claim you filed an ethical report when you failed to disclose in your 23 pages that the government of Israel invited you in and did so in December.

A lazy whore exposed herself and, at 65, no one wanted to see it. Sana Saeed dissects it in the following thread of Tweets.

In an unsigned, ridiculous report for the BBC, all claims are treated as researched and substantiated -- they are not -- yet there's no mention of my point above: The whore was invited in by Israel in December -- at a time when they were refusing requests from UN figures. It's a conflict of interest that needs to be noted. They selected her for a reason. People learning the unsubstantiated claims of her 'report' need to know that. It goes to trust and its unethical not to disclose it. It undercuts the claims so they want to keep it quiet but that's not journalism.

Oh, look, well known liar Richard Roth writes a 'report' for CNN that also hides the reality that Pramila was invited in by the Israeli government. If only all criminals could pick and choose who investigates them, right?

And let me add something else as a rape survivor. Five months? My what delicate flowers Israeli women must be. Five months after an alleged rape -- excuse me, rapes -- multiples -- none of the women can come forward. Help me out on that, I don't see myself as exceptionally strong. Other rape survivors, does that track for you because it doesn't for me. It does go the sexist mind set that would use claims of rape to sell a war. It does go to their injured manhood that would claim that a rape would turn a woman into a body of dysfunction to be shrouded and hidden away. Or maybe they all just had an attack of the meses? That's about the level of maturity Pramila and the Israeli government's nonsense reaches.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 151 of the assault in the wave that began in October. 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 grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." ALJAZEERA notes, "The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip says the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 7 has risen to 30,631, with 72,043 others wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

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."

Lets drop back to yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where Palestinian health officials say at least 16 children have died in recent days from starvation and dehydration as Israel’s assault continues. UNICEF warns the number of child deaths will likely “rapidly increase” unless the war ends.

Palestinians in Rafah searched Sunday under the rubble of a family home hit by an Israeli airstrike the night before that killed as many as 14 people, including a father and twin babies born in the last few months.

PALESTINIAN WOMAN: [translated] We want the United States to get away from us. We don’t want anything from them. We don’t want anything from the United States. They are lying and conspiring against us. God is my suffice and the best deputy.

AMY GOODMAN: Here in the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris Sunday called for a ceasefire in Gaza. She made the comments in a speech in Selma, Alabama, marking the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: And given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire, for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table. This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in. This would allow us to build something more enduring to ensure Israel is secure and to respect the right of the Palestinian people to dignity, freedom and self-determination. Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire. Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal. Let’s get a ceasefire. Let’s reunite the hostages with their families. And let’s provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Vice President Harris spoke three days after the United States blocked a U.N. Security Council statement condemning Israel after Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza City, in a massacre that left at least 118 people dead. On Sunday, officials in Gaza accused Israeli forces of killing and wounding dozens more aid seekers who had gathered at the Kuwaiti roundabout in Gaza City. Facing growing international criticism, President Biden Friday announced the United States would begin airdropping food aid into Gaza.

Negotiations for a temporary ceasefire faced another setback Sunday when Israel boycotted talks in Cairo after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accused Hamas of failing to provide a list of all living Israeli hostages.

Meanwhile, Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz is in the U.S. for what’s being described as an unauthorized trip to hold talks with Vice President Harris, Tony Blinken and other top officials. Gantz is seen as a rival to Netanyahu, who reportedly lashed out at Gantz for making the trip without his approval.

All of this comes as the official death toll in Gaza has topped 30,500.

For more, we go to Rafah for an update from Akram al-Satarri, the Gaza-based journalist.

Akram, your brother was at the aid convoy when Israeli soldiers opened fire. What did he explain to you happened, what’s being now called the flour massacre, for the flour that people were coming to get to make bread?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, my brother was one of the people who were targeted by the Israeli tanks and artillery fire in that area of al-Rashid Street, particularly al-Nabulsi roundabout, when they were trying to seek food for their children. To start with, it is the very personal story of my brother in mind, who was in direct contact with me, seeking to secure any help whatsoever for his children. He was taking that unsafe trip towards al-Nabulsi roundabout. He was waiting there. He was waiting from 3:00 in the afternoon. He was hoping that he would get at least some wheat flour for his children, because they have not eaten bread for around 25 days or even more than 25 days. He saw many people there coming from the Gaza north, as well, in the hope that they can secure some food for their children.

All of a sudden, the bombardment started — not the bombardment; rather, the tanks’ gunfire started. And, of course, the tanks are using 1.5-millimeter caliber guns, and those guns are very lethal. They can split a person into two halves. The fire started. The tanks never stopped shooting at them. And the observation that was — the observation that was made by the people who were there, including my brother, that the number of the tanks that were present in that particular time was [inaudible], in the sense that in the last few days they knew tanks were like there, but not in the large number that was in that particular day. The fire started. The fire never stopped. People were shot. People were falling on the ground. People were running. And some of the wounded people were grabbing the legs of the other people, asking them to save and help them. The ones even whose legs were pulled were shot, as well, and were killed. So, people were crawling. My brother told me that he was crawling for around 1.5 kilometers, from this al-Nabulsi roundabout up to al-Shalihat roundabout, which is an area that is around 1 kilometer or 1.2 kilometers far away from the area that they were in. The firing never stopped.

And to him, it looked like that was preplanned and that the massacre that was planned, according to the description of my brother and any other people, was intentional. And the firing never stopped 'til that very large number of people were killed. And a very large number of people also was injured. Some of them are dying every day. And this specific incident was replicated the day after this massacre took place and the day, three days or even four days after that. So it looks like this is a policy that is followed by the Israeli occupation army, and it looks like the objective is to continue the starvation of the people of Gaza and to kill them when they dare to think that they can secure something to feed their children. So they were killed when they're trying to get the wheat flour. They were killed while they were seeking life.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the Israeli military says it started a preliminary review and that Israeli forces did not attack the convoy, but that most of the fatalities were caused by a stampede. At the same time, the director of the Al-Awda Hospital told the United Nations some 80% of the wounded brought into the hospital had been shot. If you could respond further, Akram?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, according to the preliminary diagnoses of the hospital and of the people who were there, most of the people who were there were suffering from upper body parts injuries, which is indicative of the gun that was used, of the fire that was used against them. Some were hit also by shrapnel because of the — by artillery fire that was hit at them.

Of course, if I were Israel or if I were the occupation, I would tell the world that I have already started a preliminary investigation, and they might also [inaudible] came from us, and shoot the Palestinians, who were not using any arms and who were seeking to feed their children. That’s typical. That’s normal. This is the Israeli habit. They will say — because they targeted the Baptist Hospital, and they also said that was not them, that was an Islamic Jihad rocket, missile, that hit the people and killed around 600 people. That’s normal.

But the issue now, if the international community is failing to compel Israel to conduct a scrutiny into the things that happened, I think the international community failed before and is still failing to stop the ongoing atrocities and is helping somehow. When they are condoning the ongoing bombardment, they are failing to do justice for the people of Palestine, and they are failing to observe the international humanitarian law coordinates — the international humanitarian law dictates, that asks the government to take whatever precautions are needed to protect the civilian population, civilian population that is living in Gaza, extremely difficult conditions [inaudible] food [inaudible]. They were not [inaudible] in a fire exchange. They were seeking food for their families and for their children and for themselves, and they ended up being killed.

So, Israel will deny. And I wouldn’t be surprised also if Israel said that they were killed by other Palestinians. That is a scenario, I think, that is extremely acceptable for Israel. And Israel allies would buy anything from Israel. So, no need. The ones who were killed are just Palestinians, Palestinians who were treated as second-grade humans, who are still besieged, who are still starving, who are still killed, who are still displaced for around second or six or seven or eight times, and who are expecting more of the misery and the death and displacement.

So, the international community is failing, and I don’t think the Palestinians trust any statements made by the Israeli army about any preliminary investigation, because there were many preliminary investigations to be done, but they were never done, and there was many justice that is expected to be done for the Palestinians but was not done.

AMY GOODMAN: Akram, if you can comment on the United States working with the Jordanian Air Force, dropping 38,000 ready-to-eat meals, largely on the beach in Gaza? If you can respond to — we just played clips of mass protest, that there was protest around the world, but one person in Washington, D.C., commented on the fact that while the U.S. is providing, is dropping this food, they should stop providing Israel with the bombs they drop on Palestinians.

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: The clear analysis of this situation when it comes to the cause-and-effect relationship between Israel and the misery that the Palestinians have been living, the United States and the misery that Palestinians have been living, three C-103 planes were dropping food on the Palestinians, while countless number of F-16s, F-15s, F-22s and F-35s, also with the most advanced technology and with the ammunition that are provided by the United States to the Israel — so, in one hand, they are providing people with food, and in the other hand, they are providing people with death, taking their lives.

I think the United States should be reconsidering its position when it comes to providing Israel with killing ammunitions and thinking that they are providing people in Gaza with around 35,000 or 36,000 meals that are ready to eat. The Palestinians might not be able to eat them. And some of the airdropped assistance that was dropped in Gaza went to the sea. And one of the people that I was talking to, he was joking and mocking the whole situation we are living in. He was saying the fish is very grateful for the American administration because they dropped the food that was sent to Gaza to the fish in the Gaza Sea. And I think a president that is dropping the aid for the Ukrainians while the Gaza is the target is, in a way — needs to reconsider everything about that, and they need to make sure that they provide unhindered access through the recognized crossings of Gaza for the people who are displaced, in the Gaza south and in the Gaza north. So, somehow, it’s — Palestinians find it ridiculous. Palestinians find it a way that needs to be reviewed and changed.

AMY GOODMAN: What word are you getting of ceasefire negotiations? And also, what is happening on the ground where you are, in Rafah, right now? Al Jazeera reporting at least 11 were killed, 50 wounded, after an Israeli air attack on a tent housing displaced people next to an entrance to a hospital in Rafah city, not far from where you are standing.

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, the negotiations are still underway. It looks like Israel has some demands to make. Some of them were not agreed upon in the past, but now they are coming up with them. Palestinians don’t have high expectations when it comes to the negotiation.

Palestinians are extremely busy now trying to survive because of the expansion of the ground operation. In Khan Younis area, they have already targeted — the Israeli occupation targeted Hamad City area and also the al-Qarara area, which is an expansion of the ground operation that has been already starting in Khan Younis for the last — have been already rolling in Khan Younis for the last three months. The Israeli occupation forces targeted a tent by a hospital in the Rafah west area, and they also targeted a home. The number of people who were killed in Rafah for the last 24 hours is more than 50 people in different incidents taking place in different parts of Rafah.

So, the misery is continuous, and the bombardment is continuous. And the number of Palestinians who are killed because of that and the number of people who are displaced because of that is increasing, I would say, by the second, not by the minute.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has the negotiating team boycotting the negotiations now in — the ceasefire negotiations in Cairo, because he says Hamas has refused, as part of the deal, to provide the list of living hostages. Your thoughts on this and where these negotiations stand?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: As a matter of fact, that — I’ve been following the news about this from the Israeli media sources and from the Palestinian media sources, as well. That specific request was not made by the Israeli security forces, security agencies in the past. Now Netanyahu is inventing something new for the sake of just continuing the delay.

It looks like this delay is taking place for some purely political reasons where Netanyahu is interested in prolonging the war. They have disputes. They have issues. One of the top leaders is now in the U.S.A. Netanyahu is busy calling Blinken and calling other people, telling them that it is an unauthorized trip. It looks like there is something that is internally happening in the Israeli political arena that Netanyahu wants to stop and prevent from happening. And that’s why everything that he wants to do eventually reflects on the Palestinians, now more killing, more displacement, now refusing the request to provide some names — now asking to provide some names.

So, I think we will see a great deal of procrastination like the one that we have been seeing for the past few months. Netanyahu is interested in his personal safety when it comes to his political career, political life, and I think that’s why even the Israeli security forces, that are not being able to end this military confrontation with the Palestinian factions in Gaza, are now trying to, through the political means, to come to, I would say, honorable end for this, but they are failing to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about Benny Gantz being in Washington now to meet with today Kamala Harris, Tony Blinken — she’ll be meeting with — and other officials. I wanted to, finally, ask you about the issue of famine, about the number of children who are dying of hunger and dehydration, and how the Palestinians are dealing with this at this point.

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, according to the statistics that were released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, around 1 million Palestinians have developed some diseases of any kind, be them some diseases that have to do with the digestive system, with the respiratory system, with the upper respiratory system, which is indicative of the quality of life, where quality of life has reached in Gaza, and what is the situation of the public health. When you don’t have water desalination plants, when you destroy the water purification systems, when you destroy the solar panels that are on top of the houses of the people, when you destroy the heavy vehicles that are used by the municipalities to remove the waste, when you are destroying everything that has to do with the life of the Palestinians, this result is normal and is projected, and it will continue to deteriorate.

Now, with the children, 18 children have died in northern Gaza. More children are dying in southern Gaza. People cannot get decent food for their children. When people are drinking the water, the water is polluted, and it causes them some serious public health issues. And now the children are the most vulnerable people within the community. We have 1 million child in Gaza, 1 million child that do not have appropriate shelter, do not have appropriate feeding systems. They don’t have appropriate water systems, and they end up consuming water that is polluted, food that is polluted. They end up exposed. The twins that were killed yesterday, they were just twins. They were children. They were killed with their father. So they were deprived from the right to live, and they are still deprived from the right to access decent water, shelter and food supplies. So this is the situation in Gaza as it is. It is an ongoing suffering because of the fact that the Israeli occupation denied them the right to be treated as humans. This is the whole issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Akram al-Satarri, we want to thank you so much for being with us, a Gaza-based journalist, speaking to us today from Rafah. Please be safe.

Where's the video? We posted it yesterday. For a few hours you could stream it. YOUTUBE's now put a warning on it. The Israeli government can kill but YOUTUBE won't allow the damage to be shown.

This morning, Frances Vinall (WASHINGTON POST) notes:

A severe lack of food led to the deaths of 10 children at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, the head of the World Health Organization said Monday, a day after the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 15 children there have died of malnutrition or dehydration. Visits to two hospitals in the area — the first the WHO has been able to make since October — revealed “severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation, serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, hospital buildings destroyed,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Monday, March 04, 2024

Diana Ross, Raye, Cher

Diana Ross sent out that video to her two songs tonight. In other music news, BILLBOARD notes, "RAYE was the big winner at the 2024 Brit Awards, winning a record six awards – artist of the year, album of the year for My 21st Century Blues, song of the year for 'Escapism' (featuring 070 Shake), R&B act, new artist and songwriter of the year. This breaks the old record of four awards in one night, held jointly by Harry Styles (2023), Adele (2016) and Blur (1995). Adele and Styles had won artist of the year the last two years. RAYE is not yet in their league as a global superstar, but after this strong show of support in her home country, she is on her way,"

I think the iHeart Awards are the next musical awards. VARIETY reports:

The 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards will honor Cher with the Icon Award and a special musical tribute dedicated to her decades-long impact on music and pop culture. Cher will attend the show taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on April 1, where Justin Timberlake, Green Day, TLC, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Tate McRae and more are set to perform.

Cher — an Oscar, Emmy and Grammy Award-winning artist — joins Bon Jovi, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez and Pink as previous recipients of the Icon Award. In 2023, she celebrated the 25th anniversary of her classic album, “Believe,” which included her 1998 No. 1 hit of the same name. Cher is the only artist who has claimed a number-one single on a Billboard chart for seven consecutive decades.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, March 4, 2024. US Vice President Kamala Harris calls for a 'cease-fire,' the US government -- as they did when Nazi Germany caused starvation -- has resorted to airdrops of food, the assault on Gaza is never ending, THE NEW YORK TIMES and CNN stand accused of biased coverage and of refusing to listen to their own employees, and much more.

US Vice President Kamala Harris is in the news for remarks made Sunday in Selma. From the official White House transcript:

So, before I begin today, I must address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. (Applause.) What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed, women giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration.

As I have said many times, too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And just a few days ago, we saw hungry, desperate people approach aid trucks, simply trying to secure food for their families after weeks of nearly no aid reaching Northern Gaza. And they were met with gunfire and chaos.

Our hearts break for the victims of that horrific tragedy and for all the innocent people in Gaza who are suffering from what is clearly a humanitarian catastrophe. (Applause.)

People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act.

As President Joe Biden said on Friday, the United States is committed to urgently get more lifesaving assistance to innocent Palestinians in need.

Yesterday, the Department of Defense carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian assistance, and the United States will continue these airdrops. And we will work on a new route by sea to deliver aid.

And the Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. (Applause.) No excuses. They must open new border crossings. They must not impose any unnecessary restrictions on the delivery of aid. They must ensure humanitarian personnel, sites, and convoys are not targeted. And they must work to restore basic services and promote order in Gaza so more food, water, and fuel can reach those in need.

As I have said repeatedly since October 7th, Israel has a right to defend itself. And President Joe Biden and I are unwavering in our commitment to Israel’s security.

Hamas cannot control Gaza, and the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel must be eliminated. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that has vowed to repeat October 7th again and again until Israel is annihilated.

Hamas has shown no regard for innocent life, including for the people of Gaza, who have suffered under its rule for almost two decades. And Hamas still holds dozens of hostages, for nearly 150 days now — innocent men and women, including American citizens, who were brutally taken from their homes and from a concert.

I will repeat: The threat of — Hamas poses to the people of Israel must be eliminated. And given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire — (applause) — for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table.

This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in. This would allow us to build something more enduring to ensure Israel is more secure and to respect the right of the Palestinian people to dignity, freedom, and self-determination. (Applause.)

Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire. Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal.

Let’s get a ceasefire. Let’s reunite the hostages with their families. And let’s provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza. (Applause.)

That's not a cease-fire. It's a pause. Six weeks is not a cease-fire. A pause? A pause could allow medicines and food in an area sorely in need of both. But let's not pass a pause off as a cease-fire. This was rather weak but to get the White House to this point -- even to this point, the American people had to reject blind support for the government of Israel. Peter Guo (NBC NEWS) reports on a new Gallup poll whose findings are coming out this morning, "A total of 58% of Americans view Israel favorably, down 10% from last year, the poll found. It is the lowest rating to the U.S. ally in more than 20 years. "

Let's remember that not only is the White House refusing to call for a true cease-fire, they are continuing to supply weapons for the Israeli government to carry out killings. Joe Queally (COMMON DREAMS) explains:

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday accused Israel of standing in clear violation of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act by creating the conditions for mass starvation within the Gaza Strip as he called on the Biden administration to halt all military aid to the country until Palestinians are granted the life-saving humanitarian relief they urgently need.

"Starvation is taking place in Gaza," Sanders said in a statement. "Israel is prohibiting aid convoys from delivering desperately needed food and water."

While the U.S. government initiated airdrops over the weekend with the aim of providing tens of thousands of meals for those starving and suffering malnutrition in the besieged territory of Gaza, relief agencies said the effort was only a drop in the bucket of what is needed to stem what the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Sunday called a "hell on earth" situation.

Sanders on Friday was supportive of airdrops—an effort he said would "buy time and save lives"—but added that "there is no substitute for sustained ground deliveries of what is needed to sustain life in Gaza."

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Sanders, "must open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The United States should make clear that failure to do so immediately will lead to a fundamental break in the U.S.-Israeli relationship and the immediate halt of all military aid."

On Sunday, as Common Dreams reported, UNICEF issued a warning to the world that ten child deaths from starvation had already been documented, that others had likely occurred, and many more should be expected if conditions on the ground were not immediately addressed.

"Horrific reports confirmed that, over the last few days only, at least 10 children died of malnutrition in Gaza," the agency said. "These deaths are man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable."

Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, called the situation in Gaza an "engineered famine" created by Israel and its international allies who have stood aside or provided backing to Netanyahu.

[. . .]

As Sanders' office noted in its Sunday statement, Israel's ongoing blockade of food, water, medical supplies, and fuel as the civilian population suffers at such levels is a clear violation of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which states:

No assistance shall be furnished … to any country when it is made known to the President that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.

"Today," said Sanders, "I urge President Biden to implement this law and make it clear to Israel that, if aid access is not immediately opened up, he will impose consequences under the Foreign Assistance Act and stop military assistance to Israel."

Back to Kamala's speech.

"And convoys are not targeted."

That's probably the strongest part of the remarks. Last Thursday, over 100 people were killed by Israeli forces as they tried to get aid. NBC NEWS explains:

Rescuers continue to recover bodies from Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza City, where more than 100 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire near a crowd of Palestinians hoping to get food. The Israel Defense Forces both confirmed and denied shooting into the crowd and blamed most of the deaths on a stampede.

Aid agencies and health workers said “a large number” of the dead and injured from the aid convoy violence had gunshot wounds.

What a shocker. We're left yet again with the truth versus what the Israeli government says happened. A close reading of Kamala's remarks make clear that the US government has rejected the claims of the Israeli government. Among the many others pushing back on the Israeli government's lie? Amnesty International.

This morning, CNN's Helen Regan, Ibrahim Dahman and Amy Cassidy report:

A growing number of children in Gaza are dying from dehydration and malnutrition, the Palestinian health ministry said Sunday, amid desperate conditions due to Israel’s throttling of aid and destruction of the besieged enclave — reinforcing the urgency of this week’s ceasefire talks.

A Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson said the number of children who have died of dehydration and malnutrition in northern Gaza has risen to 15.

In the face of the starving taking place, US President Joe Biden decided to join with Jordan's King Abdullah II in providing aid to Gaza via an airdrop. Saturday, D. Parvaz (NPR) reported:

The U.S. military on Saturday said it began dropping food over the Gaza Strip, a war-torn enclave desperate for humanitarian aid.

A "a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Gaza" of over 38,000 meals along the coastline using C-130 aircraft was conducted by U.S. and Jordanian air forces, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

"We are conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions," CENTCOM said.

President Biden on Friday said the U.S. would carry out airdrops in coming days, "redouble our efforts to open a maritime corridor, and expand deliveries by land."

Claire Parker (WASHINGTON POST) notes, "The remarkable scene of American aid bundles floating down to starving Palestinians was the starkest illustration yet of the rift that has grown between the Biden administration and the Israeli government over the Gaza war. For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Washington to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave, even as it relies on U.S. bombs and diplomatic support to carry out its punishing military campaign there." Airdrops are nothing new, of course. Then a brutal regime -- the Nazis -- occupied the Netherlands, the US government resorted to airdrops to get aid in. For a little over a week, Operation Chowhound were carried out. Again, this was a brief operation and that was because it was seen as lacking so it was replaced with Operation Faust -- a ground operation.

The airdrop has been criticized by some as insufficient. Rebecca Gelpi-Ufret (ABC NEWS) reports:

Chef and humanitarian José Andrés, whose nonprofit World Central Kitchen has been sending significant aid into Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war, on Sunday pushed back on criticism that airdrops into the Palestinian territory are wrong because they are hypocritical and insufficient compared to broader solutions.

"We need to bring food into Gaza any way we can," Andrés told ABC News "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl, calling the situation there "desperate."

According to the U.N., more than 570,000 people in Gaza are on the brink of experiencing famine levels of hunger due to the continuing conflict.

While Andrés said the broader goal should be to simply allow a "daily, constant and massive" flow of trucks into Gaza, "I don't think we need to be criticizing that Jordan, America are doing airdrops. If anything, we should be applauding any initiative that brings food into Gaza."

As the assault on Gaza continues, people want a cease-fire. Again, a six week break is not a cease-fire. ALJAZEERA reports on Sunday remarks by Pope Francis:

Pope Francis has appealed for an end to the conflict in Gaza, urging the world to say: “Enough please! Stop.”

Addressing believers in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City, the pope expressed concern over the consequences of the conflict on children and asked for the release of all the captives taken during Hamas’s raid on October 7.

“Each day, I carry in my heart with pain the suffering of the populations in Palestine and Israel due to the ongoing hostilities, thousands of dead, injured, displaced,” Francis said.

“Do you really think you can build a better world in this way? Do you really think you will achieve peace? Enough please! Let us all say enough please! Stop!”

Also on Sunday, US Senator Raphael Warnock did not get a warm welcome in his home state of Georgia. The Democrat was sworn in as a US Senator back in 2021. The senator is also a Baptist preacher and he was delivering a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta that was also being livestreamed when people began walking out. Doha Madani and Tavleen Tarrant (NBC NEWS) report:

TikTok creator Erynn Chambers, whose username is @rynnstar, posted a video to her account of the group, whose members identified themselves as part of the protest. The video offers a clear angle to the back of the shirts, which say "Stop arming Israel" and "Permanent ceasefire now."

A representative for Chambers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An X user also posted what appeared to be the same video, saying the demonstration included various members of Atlanta's Black community, including students and alumni of the Atlanta University Consortium. The user did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The user wrote on X that they voted for Warnock because they believed he would stand for what's right but said Warnock has "failed the Palestinian people," as well as his constituents in Atlanta.

Warnock is among more than a dozen senators who signed a letter last month addressed to President Joe Biden, urging diplomatic efforts to ensure a cease-fire as well as a hostage release. He also called for a cease-fire as recently as last week in a speech on the Senate floor.

Gaza remains under assault. Day 150 of the assault in the wave that began in October. 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 grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." NBC NEWS notes, "Gaza’s death toll has passed 30,500 , according to the enclave's Health Ministry, amid surging fears of starvation in the north of the territory." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

In other news, THE NEW ARAB reports:

Employees at CNN have expressed their discontent with the channel’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza during a meeting with network executives, a leaked recording obtained by The Intercept has revealed.

The employees confronted a panel of executives during the meeting at CNN’s London Bureau on 13 February, berating the seniors and telling them they felt "devalued, embarrassed, and disgraced" by the channel's coverage of the war.

Among the staffers who criticised CNN was renowned news anchor Christiane Amanpour, who according to The Intercept, was identified in the recording after someone said her name.

CNN correspondents have been confronted in and outside Gaza for what Palestinians say is biased news coverage in Israel’s favour.

This, the employees said during the February meeting according to the leaked recording, was creating a "hostile climate for Arab reporters".

In other news of media bias, we're dropping back to Friday's DEMOCRACY NOW! where Amy Goodman, Ryan Grimm and Jeremy Scahill addressed the questionable 'reporting' of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The New York Times is reportedly conducting an internal investigation to identify the source behind leaked information about its coverage of Israel and Gaza. According to Vanity Fair, the internal investigation follows a report in The Intercept about the Times shelving an episode of its podcast The Daily over doubts regarding the accuracy of a highly controversial blockbuster New York Times article published at the end of December alleging Hamas members committed widespread sexual violence, weaponized it, on October 7th. Vanity Fair reports that in recent weeks management of The New York Times have questioned at least two dozen staffers, including producers of The Daily, the podcast, in an attempt to understand how internal details about the podcast’s editorial process got out.

Democracy Now! asked The New York Times about the internal investigation. The paper’s international editor, Phil Pan, said in a statement, quote, “We aren’t going to comment on internal matters. I can tell you that the work of our newsroom requires trust and collaboration, and we expect all of our colleagues to adhere to these values,” end-quote.

The New York Times article at the center of the controversy was published December 28th. It was headlined “'Screams Without Words': How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” In it, the Times reported they had found evidence of systematic sexual violence orchestrated by Hamas and that their two-month investigation, quote, “uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7,” unquote.

However, not long after the highly publicized article was published, major discrepancies began to emerge, including public comments from the family of a major subject of the article, contradictory claims from a key witness, and criticisms over a lack of solid evidence in the overall investigation. Then news emerged last week that one of the three authors of The New York Times piece, named Anat Schwartz, had liked multiple posts on social media advocating for violence against Palestinians, including one that called for turning Gaza into a slaughterhouse. Anat Schwartz is an Israeli filmmaker who had no prior reporting experience before she was assigned by the Times to work on the major investigation along with her relative Adam Sella and veteran Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman.

On Wednesday, The Intercept published another in-depth investigation that further questions the Times article and the reporting process behind it. It’s headlined “'Between the Hammer and the Anvil': The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé,” and the two Intercept reporters who wrote it join us today. Jeremy Scahill is a senior reporter and correspondent at The Intercept. He’s joining us from Germany. And Ryan Grim is The Intercept’s bureau chief in Washington, D.C., where he joins us from.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Jeremy, let’s begin with you. Can you lay out first the significance of the New York Times article that’s at the center of the controversy, and then talk about your latest piece, that looks into how it all came about?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Amy, in early December, you had the death toll skyrocketing in Gaza. You had a number of nations, including those that are allies with Israel, starting to speak out about the death toll among women, children, the elderly. And part of a pattern of what we’ve seen throughout the course of these five months of scorched-earth attacks against Gaza is that whenever Israel perceives itself to be losing the narrative war or when it needs to remind the public of its perception that Israel is the only victim in this story, they unload a new round of attacks against a variety of individuals or organizations that are working in Gaza or living in Gaza, human beings. We saw that with the attacks against UNRWA. We saw that with the attacks against Al-Shifa and other hospitals.

And in early December, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government really began an intense propaganda campaign to convince the world that Hamas had engaged in a systematic campaign of rape aimed at Jewish women and girls. And then they launched this fake criticism of feminist organizations, saying that they had all systematically failed to stand up and denounce this systematic rape regime that had been intentionally implemented by Hamas in the October 7th attacks. And on the day that Netanyahu made his most prominent statement about this, President Biden was at a fundraising event in Boston, and he issued — he made a statement at his speech that echoed what Netanyahu said, and said the world, you know, can’t turn away and ignore this.

Well, what was happening at that very moment was that The New York Times, with one of its most prominent international correspondents, Jeffrey Gettleman, he had recently hit the ground in Israel, and he was working — Gettleman enlisted the help of two individuals that were going to work with him there. And Gettleman had proposed three lines of investigation, and one of them was the issue of sexual violence. And the two individuals that Gettleman was working with, one of them is a very young person who’s only recently gotten into journalism, Adam Sella, and he had mostly been like a food journalist and has a background in looking at agricultural issues, etc. He had started to write some freelance pieces that were dipping into the waters of politics and the conflict, but a quite inexperienced reporter. And then, the other was someone with no reporting experience outside of making some documentary films, and that is Anat Schwartz. It’s unclear how Anat Schwartz, in particular, got involved with this project.

And as you mentioned, she had, early on in the Israeli attacks against Gaza, liked a tweet that actually was cited by the International Court of Justice as a potentially — a statement of potential genocidal incitement. She also liked the tweet from the Israeli government promoting the debunked allegation that 40 babies had been beheaded on October 7th, which is entirely false, as well as another tweet that said, “We must just refer to Hamas as ISIS.”

And so, they start off on this investigation, and our understanding from sources is that the overwhelming majority of the interviews and reporting that was being done on the ground was being handled by Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella.

And we discovered a podcast interview with Anat Schwartz in Hebrew that she gave, where she — it’s a shocking podcast in how much detail she offers about the process that they used when they were reporting it. And just to put it in a nutshell, she describes how the first thing that she did was start to call around to what she describes as all of the Israeli hospitals that have facilities that are called Room 4 facilities. These would be the intake places where people who have been victims of sexual crimes, including assault and rape, etc., where they would be examined or their cases would be referred. And she said that not a single one of them reported that they had any reports of sexual assault or rape on October 7th.

She then started calling around to a rape crisis hotline and describes how she had this, what she described as an intense conversation with the manager of the rape crisis hotline in that part of Israel, where she was dumbfounded when he was saying he didn’t have any calls reporting sexual assault or rape. And she’s saying, “How is this possible?”

And then she starts talking — she goes to a holistic therapeutic center that was established at a former high-end retreat center outside of Tel Aviv, where mostly people from the Nova rave, where there were attacks and where a couple of hundred people were killed — it was a place where people could do alternative medicine and yoga, relaxation therapy — I mean, people who were highly traumatized. And she goes there, and her characterization was that she sensed what she called a “conspiracy of silence” among the therapists, because none of them were telling her, “Yes, we’re treating people who were raped or had experienced sexual assault.”

And so, when she went through all the official channels, the places where you would reach out to see, if you’re exploring if there’s a pattern here, what then happened is she starts to look at who’s been interviewed about alleged rapes during the October 7th attacks, and ends up then going and reinterviewing a handful of people who already had made assertions that they witnessed rapes. And some of these people had told varying versions of their stories — which in and of itself does not necessarily mean that they didn’t witness something. I mean, these are people that were in the midst of an incredibly violent episode. But more central to that is that some of the people that The New York Times relied on to assert that there was a systematic, intentional campaign of rape weaponized by Hamas were people that have no forensic credentials, no crime scene credentials. These were people that are not legally permitted in Israel to determine rape, that they relied on these individuals to make this claim that there was a systematic rape regime implemented.

And some of those people, Amy, have well-documented track records of promoting very incendiary narratives about atrocities that occurred on October 7th that were flagrantly false. Just two examples. One of the most prominent or ubiquitous figures that has emerged in Israel’s narrative that Hamas committed systematic rape is an architect from New Jersey named Shari Mendes, who is living in Israel now and is a member of the Israeli Defense Forces rabbinical unit. And she was deployed to prepare women’s bodies for burial in the bases where Hamas attacked military facilities. And she’s been quoted widely saying that they saw widespread evidence of rape and that she personally saw it. She described broken pelvises, not just among, you know, soldiers, but among grandmothers and children. But Shari Mendes also was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying that a pregnant woman had a fetus cut out of her body and that the fetus was beheaded and then the mother was beheaded. This is entirely false. We’ve gone through all of the official records that Israel has put out on people who died that day. There was no pregnant woman killed that day. That’s been thoroughly debunked. She also relied on Yossi Landau, a senior official at Zaka. Zaka has been — it’s an ultra-Orthodox private rescue organization. It’s been exposed by Haaretz, the newspaper in Israel, as one of the leading promoters of false information and also that they contaminated the crime scenes by moving evidence around that actual professionals could have done. They also had promoted the beheaded babies stories, etc.

So, The New York Times, they can’t find anyone who works in the rape crisis centers, at the hospitals, among therapists, that are coming forward and saying, “Yeah, we saw this,” or “We have documentation of this,” so they go to people who already were known to have promoted false information, and then they start relying on their testimony to paint this tapestry, this notion that there was a systematic rape regime. And in the New York Times article, they do not ever disclose that their key witnesses have serious credibility problems. So, this is, at a minimum, we are looking at a New York Times piece that failed to inform its readers about severe credibility issues among some of its premier “witnesses,” quote-unquote, that it put forward in this story.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to part of a podcast interview that Anat Schwartz did on January 3rd, produced by Israel’s Channel 12. It was conducted in Hebrew. Here, Anat talks about the difficulties and pressures in reporting the story.

ANAT SCHWARTZ: [translated] Maybe the standard that we have to meet may not be realistic. Maybe it won’t be this complete big story that is told from beginning to end and is complex and has details and nuances and characters. And maybe we are aiming too high. Then there was the U.N. woman and the silence, and there was a lot of preoccupation with it. So, I said, “We’re missing momentum.” Maybe the U.N. isn’t addressing sexual assault because no outlet will come out with a declaration about what happened there, and that it will no longer be interesting. And at some point, after one of the rewrites, we said, “OK, that’s it.” And then I already informed all the people in the Israeli police who are waiting to see what was going on. What? Was The New York Times not believing there were sexual assaults here? And I’m also in this place. I’m also an Israeli, but I also work for The New York Times. So, all the time, I’m like in this place between the hammer and the anvil.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Anat Schwartz, speaking on a podcast on January 3rd. She said she felt “between the hammer and the anvil,” which, Jeremy, you choose as the title of your piece. Talk about the significance of that and, again, the relationship between Anat Schwartz and other reporter, the young reporter, Adam Sella.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, another part of this story is that one of the main victims that was featured in this is referred to as “the woman in the black dress.” Gal Abdush is her name. And, in fact, her family members are the individuals in the feature photo on the piece. And another thing that we’ve learned from Israeli researchers who published this is that when Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella went to a woman that had taken photographs of Gal Abdush that day, they told this photographer that it was her duty under Israeli hasbara to cooperate with The New York Times and let them have all of her photos. And ”hasbara” is the term for public diplomacy, but what it really is is the notion that Israel should engage in externally focused propaganda in order to win over international audiences, primarily Western, the United States and powerful countries, to Israel’s point of view. So, she is using this term, going and trying to encourage someone to cooperate with The New York Times, not because The New York Times is, you know, the most important news organization in the world, but because it’s their duty under Israeli hasbara. So, when she talks about being caught between the hammer and the anvil, what she’s saying is she’s caught between her duty to be honest and a journalist and her duty to serve the agenda of the Israeli state.

And her partner in this, Adam Sella, is the nephew of Anat Schwartz’s partner, and they’re not married. In fact, Amy, The New York Times, they requested a correction from us, because we had initially said that it was her nephew, which I think in the context of America and other countries you would say. If you’re somebody’s longtime life partner, you would say, “Oh, yeah, this is my nephew.” OK, they’re not blood relatives, and they emphasize that she’s not married. Fine, we corrected that.

My question is: Where are the corrections in The New York Times piece? The New York Times has grave, grave mischaracterizations, sins of omission, reliance on people who have no forensic or criminology credentials to be asserting that there was a systematic rape campaign put in place here. And to publish this article at a moment when Israel was intensifying, after that brief pause where captives were exchanged — intensifying its genocidal attack against the people of Gaza, this played a very, very significant role. And the more we learn about this, the more we discover that the reporting tactics that The New York Times used are certainly not up to the standards that the newspaper claims to be promoting. They will not issue any corrections on what has already been documented to be very problematic sins of commission and omission in this piece.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this conversation. We’re talking to Jeremy Scahill, senior reporter at The Intercept. Next up, he’ll be joined by Ryan Grim, who is the Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, and we want to talk to Ryan about what’s happening in The New York Times now in response to this story, and the leak investigation that’s going on, and why a podcast based on their story, their own podcast, The Daily, didn’t air. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “I’m from Here” by Amal Markus. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re speaking with Intercept reporters Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim about their exposé into The New York Times article that was published at the end of December. They published another one in January.

We asked The New York Times for a response to your article, and the international editor, Phil Pan, responded, quote, “Ms. Schwartz was part of a rigorous reporting and editing process. She made valuable contributions and we saw no evidence of bias in her work. We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation. But as we have said, her 'likes' of offensive and opinionated social media posts, predating her work with us, are unacceptable,” end-quote.

Ryan, if you can respond to this and talk about what’s going on internally in the Times, and also talk about this leak investigation that’s going on within the paper of record?

RYAN GRIM: [inaudible] by her own admission, in that podcast interview she had, significant violence, because there are two ways to think about what happened on October 7th. The first way is that it was a day of extraordinary mayhem and violence. The Israeli defenses melted away. Not only did you have several thousand Hamas fighters stream across the fence, but you also had hundreds of civilians, some associated with gangs, come across. And in that context, the idea that there would be no sexual assault is not taken seriously by pretty much anybody who understands kind of war and violence. That’s one way to think about October 7th.

The other way to think about it is that Hamas intentionally and systematically designed a kind of strategy of weaponizing rape and sexual violence. That was what Anat Schwartz and The New York Times kind of believed going into the investigation. And oftentimes as journalists, we have something that we think we’re going to be able to prove, we report it out, and then we can’t quite get it. Like, it just — we just don’t land the story. But what the Times did is they wrote the story anyway.

But that gets you then to The Daily episode. So, this article comes out at the very end of December. As The New York Times always does, its landmark pieces get turned into episodes of their flagship podcast, The Daily. But immediately after the story came out, it started coming under criticism, because, as Jeremy pointed out, a lot of the named subjects of the story have enormous credibility problems. And so this starts getting pointed out. Inside the Times, the producers of The Daily have their own kind of fact-checking process where they go over the stories. And the original script that was produced for that first episode had to be discarded, because the producers there couldn’t stand behind it, so they redrafted a second script, which had a lot of caveats and was closer to the first version that I laid out just now, which is an interesting podcast episode, and it’s something worth exploring. But if they had aired that, it would have raised questions about why they were walking away from the certainty of the original piece.

So, we reported on the kind of machinations inside The New York Times about this, the controversy, the disputes that were going on. And since then, as Vanity Fair reported, The New York Times has — rather than reviewing the kind of journalism that went into this, they are launching a leak investigation to try to figure out who’s talking to us.

AMY GOODMAN: In February, one of the reporters behind The New York Times investigation, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, spoke at a conference on conflict-related sexual violence hosted by Columbia University. He talked about the piece.

JEFFREY GETTLEMAN: I did some stories about hostages. And pretty soon, I mean, maybe, I don’t know, within the first few days of this attack, we were hearing reports of rape and mutilations of women. We heard it right away. And I don’t — maybe people in this room remember those videos of the female soldiers being taken away and the body of that one woman, Shani Louk, in the back of a pickup truck half-naked. Right away, it just — it just — there was obviously crimes against women that happened.

So, because, sadly, I have some experience doing this, I began looking to see what we could find out. And I worked with two other colleagues, and we interviewed almost 200 people over the course of two months. And what we found, I don’t want to even use the word “evidence,” because evidence is almost like a legal term that suggests you’re trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court. That’s not my role. We all have our roles, and my role is to document.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to get a response to what he is saying there. He’s talking, by the way, to Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta, Facebook. Jeremy Scahill, if you can talk about what he sees his role as a reporter?

JEREMY SCAHILL: I mean, this is an astonishing comment from Jeffrey Gettleman. I mean, what is he talking about, that it’s not the job of journalists to uncover evidence? If you’re going to have a headline that — by the way, let me just say this. The “Screams Without Words” headline comes from a source named Raz Cohen, who was at the Nova music festival, and he claims to have witnessed a rape of a woman that he said was — and he’s a special forces, Israeli special forces, veteran, and he has been very adamant that the people who he saw committing this crime were not Hamas, that they were ordinary people. And he has said that in numerous interviews. But to have, then — and he’s the one who said it was like “screams without words.” They’re using a headline from a person whose testimony undermines the thesis of their blockbuster story. So, just to put that on the table.

But for Gettleman to say that it’s not the job of journalists to produce evidence, when you’re going to say, in the middle of a war, where civilians are being starved and killed in an operation that is under review now by the International Court of Justice for genocide — if you’re going to then make an allegation that Hamas implemented a systematic rape campaign, and you say it’s not your job to produce evidence, then what is the job of a journalist in a situation like this? Because, honestly, if you really read their piece carefully, much of it is innuendo. Much of it is based on sources who have either credibility issues or lack professional credentials to weigh in on these matters. This is a grave, grave situation. This is one of the most important pieces of journalism that has been produced during this war, and one of the most consequential. And for the lead reporter, who himself has won the Pulitzer and is an experienced war correspondent, to say that it’s not the job of The New York Times to present evidence in an article asserting that Hamas systematically raped women, it’s astonishing. It’s astonishing.

AMY GOODMAN: And also, the prestigious Gorge Polk Award for Foreign Reporting this year was awarded to the staff of The New York Times, the citation reading, in part, quote “for unsurpassed coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas. Times reporters used firsthand accounts to demonstrate how brutal and well planned the Hamas attack was,” end-quote. And this article in question that we’re talking about, “'Screams Without Words,'” was apparently part of the package submitted by The New York Times that won the award. Ryan Grim, if you can talk about that and the dissent within the Times itself?

RYAN GRIM: Before I answer that, I did want to add one thing to what Jeremy was saying. It is remarkable that Sheryl Sandberg was on that panel with Jeffrey Gettleman, because on December 4th — and Jeremy talked about how this campaign was rolled out — on December 4th, Sheryl Sandberg and the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations hosted an event at the U.N. that launched the campaign against these feminist organizations for not standing up and condemning, you know, Hamas’s systematic use of rape. The next day, it was Bibi Netanyahu and then Biden who piled on that campaign. That same day, on December 4th, Sheryl Sandberg penned an op-ed in CNN. She also gave interviews or was quoted in The New York Times on that same day in an article by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella. So, they were all working together on December 4th to launch this campaign.

The December 4th article in The New York Times had a much softer headline. It said, you know, “What Do We Know About the Use of Sexual Violence” or “About Sexual Violence on October 7th?” And people can go back and read that story. They reported at the time that Israel had enormous amounts of forensic evidence that they were going through that would establish all of the claims that they were making. On December 8th or 9th, they very quietly corrected that story to say, “Correction: Israel does not have forensic evidence to back up these claims. It is relying on eyewitness testimony.” Anat Schwartz had previously reported in the Times that they had, quote, “tens of thousands of eyewitnesses” that they were going to bring forward to make these claims. So, they front-loaded this campaign with these major claims that there was forensic evidence and thousands of witnesses. Then their final article comes out at the end of the month, and, to a casual reader, you would come away from reading it, saying, “Well, they proved it. They made their case. This barbaric terrorist organization did use rape systematically against Israeli women.” And that was used to justify the continuation of the war on Gaza.

But then, as you said, when The Daily tried to look closer at the article, they realized they couldn’t actually stand up the claims that were being made in it. And so, inside the Times, you have this extremely intense debate going on. And I think leaders at the Times have been surprised. They’re used to external criticism, but the amount of internal criticism they’re getting has them on the back foot.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Jeremy, we just have 30 seconds, but even the use of the term “terrorist” within The New York Times and the stepping back of one of the leading editorial directors?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of — there’s a lot of concern right now, particularly among reporters who do work on an international level, that there has been a politicization of this war internally within the newsroom that is impacting the coverage. And I think it’s pretty clear. You can see that in some of the journalism. And now The New York Times — The New York Times has —

AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.

JEREMY SCAHILL: — has ended up walking back the major claim that they made, and now they’re saying hedge words: It may have occurred. That’s one of the most significant things we uncovered here.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim, they are the co-authors of the piece, “'Between the Hammer and the Anvil.'”

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