State Dept. Says It Condemns Political Violence, and Then Backs It.

When I draw attention to the contradiction, spokesperson refuses my followup, even though several other reporters are yielded to when they try to follow up. State clings to fake "ceasefire" narrative.

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State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller began the news conference Monday with a statement regarding the shooting at the Trump rally: “We condemn this attack and all political violence, strongly and unequivocally, just as we condemn political violence in any country.” He spoke of “core values that we share as a nation: a commitment to democracy; a respect for the rule of law.”

In response to a question by Said Arikat of Al Quds about “the attack on al-Mawasi that killed close to a hundred Palestinians” — and if that didn’t indicate that Israel had the posture that it could kill Palestinians at will and undermining any good faith negotiations, “‘You can go fly a kite,’ so to speak, when it comes to negotiations?” Miller responded: “If you were the representative of the Palestinian people charged with negotiations for this ceasefire, is the idea that the loss of civilian life would make you less committed to reaching a ceasefire?”

Miller was effectively saying that mass violence against the Palestinians should make Hamas more conciliatory to Israel, effectively giving an incentive to Israel to be more and more murderous to gain advantage in “negotiations”.

So I pointed this out when Said Arikat was finished, beginning with “If I might follow up on that —” I said to Miller: “Didn’t you just justify political violence? … You said Hamas should negotiate because Palestinians are being slaughtered.”

But Miller would not engage with this. He called on another reporter, Al Jazeera correspondent Ahmed Alhazeem, who insisted on proceeding.

Several other times in the course of this very briefing, other reporters were yielded to when they requested a follow-up. But not me. None were denied, other than myself.

On my way out of the briefing room, I talked with Ahmed Alhazeem who repeatedly falsely insisted that he began speaking before me. The audio clearly shows me beginning to speak first.

Israel claimed that the attack on al-Mawasi was an attempt to assassinate al-Qassam leader Mohammed Deif. The US government has indicated it is helping Israel to target Hamas leaders in Gaza for political assassination.

In “The Only Kind of ‘Political Violence’ All U.S. Politicians Oppose,” Natasha Lennard recently wrote: “The problem is not so much one of hypocrisy or insincerity — vices so common in politics that they hardly merit mention. The issue, rather, is what picture of ‘political violence’ this messaging serves: To say that ‘political violence’ has ‘no place’ in a society organized by political violence at home and abroad is to acquiesce to the normalization of that violence, so long as it is state and capitalist monopolized.”

In response to other questions, Miller repeated his claim that “We continue to see far too many civilians killed in this conflict. We want to see civilian casualties completely ended. It’s why we are pushing so hard to a ceasefire.”

As previously noted, the “ceasefire” effort is a scam to prevent the implementation of the International Court of Justice orders which resulted from the South African genocide case against Israel — that is, to undermine the rule of law. I questioned Miller about that last month: