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In the small town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, where I live, during Israel\u2019s destruction of the Gaza Strip, a Democratic Party activist hung a flag of the state of Israel across the way from the only grocery store in town \u2014 so that almost every member of the community would see it.<\/p>\n
As if to say \u2013 \u201cwe stand with the genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just small town Democrats who are clueless.<\/p>\n
Take DC Democrats, like former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz.<\/p>\n
Speaking before the Jewish Federations of North America annual meeting in Washington, D.C. in November 2025, Hurwitz waved her rhetorical Israeli flag in a speech that went viral on the internet, but pretty much stayed out of the mainstream media.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you have TikTok just smashing our young people\u2019s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza,\u201d Hurwitz said. \u201cAnd this is why so many of us can\u2019t have a sane conversation with younger Jews because anything that we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing in their minds carnage and I sound obscene.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes you do, Sarah. You sound obscene. But since this is a TikTok free zone, let\u2019s go to the \u201cdata and information and facts\u201d you say you want.<\/p>\n
On January 29, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran an article under the headline\u00a0IDF Accepts Gaza Health Ministry Death Toll of Over 71,000 Palestinians Killed During the War.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe Ministry\u2019s tally includes only those killed directly by Israeli military fire in its tracking, not people who died of starvation or from diseases exacerbated by the war,\u201d the paper reported.<\/p>\n This after years of Israeli officials saying the Hamas figures were unreliable, untrustworthy, and unbelievable.<\/p>\n And former British Labor Party leader and current Independent Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn pointed out the obvious Sarah \u2013 \u201cThere\u2019s only one reason the IDF accepts this figure \u2014 they know the real number is much, much higher. Palestinians tried to tell the world. Shame on all those who discredited them. By hiding the genocide, you fueled the genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n As we have pointed out repeatedly over the last year in the Capitol Hill Citizen, Israel has killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, not the tens of thousands as now both Hamas and the IDF say. (See for example,\u00a0The Vast Gaza Death Undercount: Hamas Says 66,000, It\u2019s More Like 600,000<\/em>\u00a0by Ralph Nader, November\/December 2025\u00a0Capitol Hill Citizen<\/em>, page 30.)<\/p>\n As we go to press, Zeteo is publishing a three-part investigation by California surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa titled The Truth About Gaza\u2019s Dead.<\/p>\n On direct deaths from violence, Sidhwa writes that \u201cthe number is likely between 120,000 and 215,000, representing one out of every 10 to 18 people in Gaza, but may be significantly higher. It is extremely unlikely that fewer than 120,000 Palestinians have been killed, and it is unlikely that more than 437,000 have been killed directly by US-Israeli military violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Sidhwa is working on a final paper that looks at indirect deaths \u2013 deaths from unsanitary conditions, disease, lack of medical facilities, malnutrition, starvation and exposure to the elements. Epidemiologists often use a ratio of four indirect deaths for every one direct death in such conflicts, which would place the toll much higher than current reported figures \u2013 somewhere in the neighborhood of the more than 600,000 Nader has estimated.<\/p>\n Nor will you see reporting on the fact that Israel has destroyed the vast majority of mosques and olive trees in Gaza.<\/p>\n According to Fayyad Fayyad, the head of the Palestinian Olive Council, Gaza\u2019s olive sector is \u201calmost completely destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no olive season this year,\u201d Fayyad told Drop Site News. \u201cWe estimate that nearly one million of Gaza\u2019s 1.1 million olive trees have been destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2022, Gaza produced about 50,000 tons of olives. This year, Fayyad said, the total will be well under a thousand.<\/p>\n \u201cThe destruction is deliberate,\u201d Fayyad told Drop Site. \u201cIsrael aims to eliminate the agricultural sector, including olives. What remains are scattered trees \u2013 not groves, not production.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe olive trees have become firewood now,\u201d 75-year-old farmer Hajj Suleiman AbdelNabi told Drop Site. \u201cI feel pain with every cut \u2013 not just for the loss, but because these trees are life itself. For Palestinians, they are a symbol of steadfastness. When they die, it feels like another disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the Gaza Ministry of Endowments, Israel has also destroyed more than 800 mosques in Gaza \u2014 or 79 percent of the mosques in the Gaza Strip \u2013 and completely demolished three churches. More than 150 mosques have been partially damaged.<\/p>\n \u201cThe targeting of mosques and places of worship by the occupation forces is a clear violation of all sanctities, international law, and human rights law,\u201d the ministry said. The Israeli army has also targeted 32 of Gaza\u2019s 60 cemeteries, completely destroying 14 and partially damaging 18, the ministry said.<\/p>\n Was any of this destruction of mosques and olive trees reported in the mainstream news in the United States? Not that we could find. (If you find it, we\u2019d like to know.)<\/p>\n And what happens when a Westerner tries to bring this to light?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take the case of Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Palestine.<\/p>\n Last year, the Trump administration placed Albanese on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list \u2013 usually reserved for terrorists and money launderers \u2013 six days after the release of her report that documents U.S. corporate support for Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n It was this report \u2013 fingering as it does the powerful American corporations and institutions\u2013 including Palantir Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, International Business Machines Corporation, Caterpillar, Microsoft Corporation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology \u2013 that led to the Trump administration sanctioning Albanese.<\/p>\n \u201cFar too many corporate entities have profited from Israel\u2019s economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now, genocide,\u201d Albanese wrote in the report. \u201cThe complicity exposed by this report is just the tip of the iceberg \u2013 ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility \u2013 each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people\u2019s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.\u201d<\/p>\n The independent journalist Chris Hedges reports that as a result of the sanctions, Francesca\u2019s assets in the U.S. have been frozen, including her bank account and her U.S. apartment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sanctions cut her off from the international banking system, including blocking her use of credit cards,\u201d Hedges writes. \u201cHer private medical insurance refuses to reimburse her medical expenses. Hotel rooms booked under her name have been cancelled. She can only operate using cash or by borrowing a bank card.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cInstitutions, including U.S. universities, human rights groups, professors and NGOs, that once cooperated with Francesca, have severed ties, fearful of penalties established for any U.S. citizen who collaborates with her. She and her family receive frequent death threats. Israel and the U.S. have mounted a campaign to get her removed from her U.N post.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrancesca is proof that when you stand steadfastly with the oppressed, you will be treated like the oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n