Michael Moore asks: “How many more Palestinian civilians need to be executed?”
JVL Introduction
Michael Moore, the American film maker and author known for trenchant social and political critiques from Bowling for Columbine in 2002 to Trumpland in 2016, devoted his Cbristmas message this year to Israel’s war on Palestinians. We are grateful for his permission to republish it below.
Moore begins by remembering two Catholic women, a grandmother aged 70 and her 50-year-old daughter, killed by the Israeli Army while attending Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City in December 2023. A year later, Gazan Christians are still living in fear, along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians.
He goes on to condemn “ the entire assault on the civilian population of Gaza” as “one act of terrorism after another — ethnic cleansing, genocide, forced mass starvation, obliterating nearly every hospital, school, and apartment building.”
Finally, he excoriates Israel’s vengeful bloodlust and the US role in supporting it, asking, “can you please just give me a number as to when your thirst for revenge/blood will be satiated? … how many more Palestinian civilians need to be executed?”
See also his gracious reply to a reader displeased by what he had written.
NWI
This article was originally published by Michael Moore on Thu 26 Dec 2024. Read the original here.
In the Holy Land, Just a Couple of Dead Catholics
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“the 1,200 slaughtered by Hamas fighters on 10/7/23” ~ such a pity that this number has entered mythology.
As the cars carrying festival goers and others were quickly disposed of, many clearly destroyed to Hellfire missiles from IOF helicopters, we may/will never know how many were killed by the Israeli mass Hannibal.
I’ve even seen the same number repeated in other JVL posts. This is how history comes to be distorted.
“the IDF had in practice applied the Hannibal Directive from noon of 7 October, ordering all combat units to stop “at all costs” any attempt by Hamas militants to return to Gaza with hostages. IDF helicopters fired on cars trying to cross into Gaza. …. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli soldiers inspected around 70 vehicles on the roads leading to Gaza that had been hit by a helicopter, tank or UAV, killing all occupants in at least some cases.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire_during_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
Is it just me, or is anyone else shocked to see that photograph? Israel and its allies have been so successful in dehumanising the people of Gaza that it is strangely surprising to see faces (and names) of the IDF’s victims. These are real people.
An excellent reply too to Aron. Refreshing to see a prominent American challenging the narrative that most of his countrymen (and ours) have been happy to accept.
You always quote 1200 killed by Hamas but not that Israelis killed their own people on that day
I remember it well. Christian Palestinian women were murdered, as they were attending church, in Gaza, by the Israeli Army. It was part of the genocide of the indigenous Palestinian people by the terrorist state of Israel. It is backed by the USA. Israel is also supported by the government of our own country. Most people in Britain are horrified by the genocide and are opposed to it.
Mr Moore is asking the wrong question. For some people, the thirst for blood is never satiated: it grows stronger. The terror in France only ended with the fall of Robespierre. The terror in the Soviet Union only ended with the death of Stalin.
Great post but even Michael still states that “Of the 1,200 slaughtered by Hamas fighters on 10/7/23 . . . . . .”
Haaretz News and Jewish Organisations now acknowledge that the IDF killed over half of them with Apache helicopters and tanks.
No trying to diminish the war crime committed by Hamas but let’s get it right once and for all.