The real ‘Person of the Year’

 Al Jazeera English

It’s the end of the year, and you know what that means: lots of hubbub about Time magazine’s annual “Person of the Year,” a tradition that began in 1928 as “Man of the Year” but that now honours a “man, woman, group or concept.”

Given the ghastly course of 2023, it seems one obvious choice for “Person of the Year” would be the Palestinian doctors and medical personnel currently risking their lives to save others from Israel’s genocidal endeavours in the Gaza Strip.

Since October 7, the Israeli military has slaughtered more than 21,000 Palestinians in Gaza, among them at least 8,663 children. According to Healthcare Workers Watch – Palestine, an independent monitoring initiative co-launched by Texas doctor Osaid Alser, no fewer than 340 healthcare workers were killed by the Israelis between October 7 and December 19, including 118 doctors and 104 nurses. . . .

[Taylor] Swift may indeed be the current protagonist of a superficial world rapidly combusting in self-absorbed banality, one wishes more credit were given to real-world heroes. And as 2023 comes to a close with no end to genocide in sight, give me the people of Gaza as “Person of the Year” any day. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.

The US is no country for old men

 Al Jazeera English

Shortly prior to his death from prostate cancer in August of this year at the age of 72, my father emerged from a state of muteness to recite, with a burst of energy, the 1927 poem, Sailing to Byzantium, by William Butler Yeats, which begins: “That is no country for old men.”

My mother, my uncle, and I were present for the impromptu performance, which took place in my father’s bed in Washington, DC, where he had commenced in-home hospice care after the chemotherapy treatments that had been forced upon him by profit-oriented doctors had accelerated his demise. . . .

Counterproductive chemotherapy treatments were but one of the ways he had been milked for all he was worth, before being turned over as prey to the lucrative realm of funeral and cremation services.

For example, for a one-month prescription of the prostate cancer drug Xtandi, a medication developed with none other than US taxpayer money, my father had been charged $14,579.01 – ie, more than many people in the United States earn in several months. For folks lacking the means to pursue healthcare and other basic needs, US capitalism can be deadly, too. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.

Israel is taking scorched earth policy to a new level

 Al Jazeera English

In October, shortly after the start of the Israeli war on Gaza that has now killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, Israel pledged to wipe Hamas “off the face of the earth” – a project that would require Israel’s military “to flatten the ground” in Gaza, as an Israeli security source told the Reuters news agency.

And flatten they did; one month into the war, the military had already dropped the equivalent of two nuclear bombs on the diminutive and densely populated Palestinian coastal enclave. Now, as Israel continues to pulverise an already thoroughly pulverised territory, it seems the Israelis may be taking the concept of scorched earth policy to a whole new level. . . .

[T]he Washington Post recently confirmed that the Israeli military fired US-supplied white phosphorus rounds at southern Lebanon in October despite the use of such weapons in civilian areas being “generally prohibited under international humanitarian law”. As per the Post’s writeup, south Lebanese residents affected by the attack “speculated that the phosphorus was meant to displace them from the village and to clear the way for future Israeli military activity in the area”.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time – in Lebanon or in the Gaza Strip, which has seen its fair share of illegal white phosphorus bombardments by Israel. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.

Hollywood’s Israel problem

Al Jazeera English

It’s that time of year again: when Hollywood’s thought police undertake to ensure that American celebrity culture remains firmly in the service of the Zionist narrative.

In one prominent case, actress Melissa Barrera – a star of the horror film franchise Scream – was recently fired from her role in the next instalment of the series for posting on social media about Israel’s latest real-life horror show in the Gaza Strip.

Since October 7, the Israeli military has killed more than 16,000 Palestinians in Gaza, among them more than 6,000 children. Barrera’s crimes included calling for a ceasefire and quoting Israeli historian Raz Segal, an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, who has argued that Israel’s current behaviour constitutes a “textbook case of genocide”.

The Spyglass Media Group production company was responsible for the firing, contending that Barrera’s social media posts on Palestine were anti-Semitic. After all, there is nothing more anti-Semitic than quoting an Israeli genocide scholar on the topic of genocide. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.