They're trying to deport vigils for murdered Palestinian kids

Here is a hideous example of how defenders of Israel's genocide have turned the world upside down

Targeting a vigil for a murdered 5 year old girl in an effort to get those who attend the vigil deported. Yes, this is real.

I’ve said consistently from the start of Israel’s genocide: never ever stop being shocked, never ever let this be normalised. That includes being shocked at the sheer depravity, the moral bankruptcy of the cheerleaders of this horror.

Yesterday, there was a vigil for Hind Rajab, the 5 year old Palestinian girl who almost exactly a year ago, was butchered alongside her cousins, her aunt and her uncle, as well as the paramedics who were sent to rescue her.

It was in Zuccotti Park, in New York, organised by a coalition of groups including Writers Against the War on Gaza, City Workers For Palestine and Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organisation in New York. The poster for the event featured a picture of Hind Rajab, smiling before her murder, in a pink t-shirt and track suit bottoms and flowers on her head. It urged those attending to bring candles, flowers and art.

Enter a Zionist movement named Betar US, named after the Russian Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, who died in 1940, who helped found the Zionist terrorist group the Irgun. It claims to be working with ICE - that is, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement - to deport supporters of Palestinian rights in the US.

For context, Donald Trump has signed an executive order which claims to ‘combat antisemitism’ by exploring ways to deport pro-Palestinian activists. This is the guy, of course, whose most influential ally, Elon Musk, just did two Nazi salutes in full view of the world.

Yesterday they tweeted about the Hind Rajab rally:

Join us at the jihad rally as we assist ⁦@ICEgov⁩ in deportation efforts. We will document all attendees and even those in keffiyahs and masks will be identified thanks to ⁦@terrorwatch613. Betar will submit names of attendees to ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩! Get out now

Where to begin. The so-called ‘Terror Watch Agency’ says it is monitoring, tracking and exposing terrorist supporters, hateful acts and antisemitism worldwide, claiming to be using Artificial Intelligence to identify activists who covering their faces with scarves, keffiyehs or masks. In response to Betar’s post about getting attendees at a vigil for a murdered 5 year old girl deported, they tweeted in Hebrew:

Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, who has given us life and established us and brought us to this time.

Betar offered their own poster, labelled A COUNTER PROTEST, and in big letters STAND AGAINST THE PEOPLE WHO USED HIND AS A HUMAN SHIELD IN ORDER TO FAKE A GENOCIDE, with the hashtag #JEWSFIGHTBACK

As Palestinian political analyst Khalil Sayegh put it:

How despicable and morally bankrupt you have to be to target people over a vigil mourning a five-year-old murdered by the Israeli military. This is an organization claiming to work with the administration to report names of "Hamas supporters."

They also repeatedly tweeted about handing $1,000 cash to anyone who handed a Palestinian activist a pager, referring to Israel’s exploding pagers which killed and mutilated thousands in Lebanon last year. They filmed themselves trying to hand pagers to activists, stating ICE would deport the activists and they would give them a bleeper on the way.

Now as a reminder, as evidence by experts at Forensic Architecture conclusively shows, Hind Rajab and her family - and the paramedics sent to save her - were deliberately killed by the Israeli army as they tried to flee their homes for safety. It was broad daylight, the Israeli tank which murdered them was just a few metres away, the car was repeatedly fired upon, with at least well over 300 bullets. The idea soldiers in that tank had no idea who was in a car which was right next to them is clearly insulting to anyone’s intelligence. As for the paramedics - they coordinated their movements with the Israeli Defence Forces.

This one atrocity offers a hideous insight into the genocidal carnage that is Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. Hind became a symbol because there was a recording of her on the phone to the Palestine Red Crescent begging for her help, terrified, before she was killed.

We don’t know how many Palestinian children have been killed, including by last August 2,100 infants and toddlers aged under 2. We know that, as Oxfam found last September, more women and children were killed in the first year of genocide than in any other recent conflict in a single year. We know there is overwhelming testimony - including from dozens of US-based medics who served in Gaza - of small Palestinian children being repeatedly, deliberately shot by Israeli snipers in the head and in the chest.

And yet we have the likes of Betar working with the US authorities to deport the people protesting against the hideous violent killing of small children.

Just so we are aware of exactly what we are dealing with here, a couple of weeks ago Betar US, in reference to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, tweeted: “Which civilians? Gaza has none.”

These are self evidently disgusting anti-Palestinian racists, who are apologists for one of the worst crimes of our age. They are attempting to terrorise those who quite literally want to remember 5 year olds who have been shot to death by tanks.

Here is a striking example of how the world is turned on its head. Israel’s government from the start made it clear they saw Palestinian civilians as fair game, calling them “human animals”, declaring all of them were guilty, that they would be deprived of the essentials of life, and that Gaza would be reduced to a “city of tents”, as one Israeli official put it. They proceeded to wipe Gaza from the face of the earth and slaughter its people, many of them children, as they promised.

Those in Western societies who supported this self evident abomination, and indeed armed and facilitated it, were treated as the respectable, mainstream moderates.

Those who opposed the mass butchery of tens of thousands of innocent people, including little kids like 5 year old Hind Rajab, were demonised, hounded, sacked, silenced, and now face being deported.

Meanwhile Donald Trump, a man defined by racism, is allowed to dress himself in the garbs of anti-racism, declaring in the name of fighting antisemitism that he is going to wage war on those who oppose murdering children. This is a man who has made repeated antisemitic comments as well as promoting far right extremists.

The world turned on its head. Now I wish I could say for certain that one day history will look back at all this in disgusted astonishment, but we don’t know what our future will be. It could well be one of fascist barbarism. That’s where we’re currently heading. And that’s why it’s so important to keep protesting and yes attending the vigils of 5 year old little girls whose bodies were riddled with bullets. We have either fight for a future which cherishes humanity, or we will all perish.