Israel Today

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

Many of us know, if only by a glimpse, the dreadful fate of the Palestinians, a people who have suffered by occupation and oppression for nearly a century by the zionist settler state of israel. Therefore, we know that tens of thousands of them have been killed by israeli bombardments, bombings, and bullets. The number provided by media reports, some 40,000 men, women, and children, is believed to be an extreme undercounting, and, as such, is disputed.

Meanwhile, what’s up with israel? Since the incursion by Hamas on October 7, 2023, israel has quite literally gone mad. It has waged war against the Palestinian people, its civilian population, and killed and tortured with impunity.

It has been said that war has no limits, and here we see the truth of that axiom.

For israel, there are no limits. For israel, there are no red lines. All wars are descents into hell. This war is a descent into madness.

Palestinians have been taken to military detention centers where they have been tortured systematically. They have been beaten, had bones broken, cuffed so tightly that they have had their limbs amputated, and at the Sde Teiman military base were raped and gang raped by israeli soldiers. Men gang raped by soldiers! When several soldiers were arrested for such acts, a right-wing mob attacked the arresting soldiers and supported the rapist soldiers. Indeed ministers of israel’s right-wing government, ministers in office, have called these rapist soldiers heroes for their acts at Sde Teiman.

Several weeks ago, the international court of justice, the ICJ, ruled that israel has been in violation of international human rights law by its occupation of Palestinian territories for decades. For decades! And that it should pay reparations to Palestinians and withdraw. Israeli officials, like Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, have denounced the ruling as “biased.” This same government, by the way, is claiming its right to rape.

With love, not fear, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 Reprinted from Prison Radio.