Nina-Bytes: Warning Shots and Tidal Forces

NinaIllingworth May 21, 2025May 23, 2025 Apartheid Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, blog, Canada, colonialism, diplomats, Donald Trump, FA1, Famine, Foreign Affairs, France, Gaza, genocide, IDF, Imperialism, IOF, Israel, Mike Huckabee, MP6, Nina Illingworth, Nina-Bytes, Palestinians, Politics, Propaganda, Racism, settler colonialism, UK, United Nations, war, War Crimes, WD7, West Bank, white supremacy

Editor’s note: Nina-Bytes is a regular blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today.

On A Knife’s Edge

I guess the question on my mind right now is: at what point do you lose your capacity to be shocked and outraged in the middle of the most horrifying event you’ve ever watched unfold in real time? After nineteen months of analyzing a livestreamed genocide being conducted by Israel against Palestinians, I have seen and learned about atrocities that will stay with me for the rest of my days on this green Earth. At this point I feel like I’m too numb to be shocked anymore and yet the crass inhumanity and openly homicidal racism of the Netanyahu government as well as its Western establishment supporters, continues to find new ways to lower my opinion of the fascist monsters perpetrating and enabling these crimes against humanity. No matter how jaded I’ve become however, and no matter how inhumane and bloodthirsty I think the brutal IOF and the genocidal Netanyahu government is, I did not have “firing live rounds at foreign diplomats on a fact finding mission in the West Bank” on my bingo card.

As international pressure opposing Israel’s ongoing engineered famine in Gaza grows, IOF troops fired “warning shots” at an international delegation of foreign diplomats from 24 countries; including representatives from the UK, Canada, and France, which are all countries that have recently criticized Israel’s ongoing and accelerating US-backed genocide in Gaza.

Outrage After Israeli Occupation Forces Shoot Live Rounds at Foreign Diplomats in West Bank

“Palestinian officials were briefing a group of more than 20 diplomats about the crisis in the illegally occupied West Bank—where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians including hundreds of children since October 2023 while pushing ahead with massive land theft and colonization—when they came under fire.

According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the delegation “deviated” from the route approved by Israeli occupation authorities “and entered an area where they were not authorized to be,” prompting Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers to fire “warning shots to distance them away.”

“The IDF regrets the inconvenience caused,” the ministry added.

Israeli media reported IDF troops fired shots in the air. However, video footage of the incident appears to show soldiers aiming their guns and firing straight ahead in the direction of the diplomats as they scrambled for cover. Israeli officials have often been caught lying about the actions of IDF troops in Palestine.

The delegation included diplomats from the European Union and countries including Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.”

It’s time to grab your asses folks because the ride is about to get bumpy; there is absolutely nothing normal about firing live ammunition in the general direction of foreign diplomats your government depends on for international credibility while you’re committing crimes against humanity. The pro-Israel, pro-genocide propaganda machine in both the US and Israel is already working overtime to minimize this incident, but let me assure you that shooting at diplomats is traditionally considered an act of war and despite IOF claims that troops were firing in the air, we know they weren’t because that shit is on video. Furthermore, even if you accept the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s lies about live ammunition “warning shots,” they’re still admitting to openly threatening the representatives of sovereign, even allied nations, for getting too close to evidence of the Netanyahu government’s crimes and talking to refugees displaced by violent Israeli oppression. This is obviously an act of retaliation designed to intimidate foreign governments that are increasing pressure on Israel to end its genocidal campaign in Gaza, and human rights abuses against Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in general; particularly the three G7 governments that informally condemned Israel’s engineered famine in Gaza on Monday.

Look, I don’t blame folks for being skeptical of the idea that Pig Empire politicians that have actively enabled Israel’s genocidal war of extermination in Gaza for the past nineteen months actually care about Palestinian lives; they demonstrably do not. Public opinion across pretty much all of the Western world, however, has now swung so hard against “starving babies to death”, that the very same governments that enabled this nightmare are now trying to distance themselves from the slaughter they’ve helped create before it topples them. Time is running out for team genocide. While I realize that the Netanyahu government is jam-packed to the gills with emboldened, bloodthirsty racists, this is an unprecedented act of diplomatic aggression that is going to live in infamy right alongside the genocide Israel is conducting against Palestinians in Gaza; the multiple US governments who’ve made all this carnage and murder possible will be similarly remembered. Zionists have lost their fucking minds if they think they can bully the whole world at once; the tide is turning against Israel and Netanyahu, which is why they’re trying to wipe out all the Palestinians in Gaza as fast as possible, before anyone works up the courage to actually try and stop them.

All of which might cause you to ask where exactly Israel’s most powerful enabler, the US government, stands on all of this? Well, as it turns out US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was only a few miles away, speaking to the media from Tel Aviv in Israel proper. Was Ambassador Huckabee on hand to pressure Israel to stop slaughtering innocent Palestinian civilians, or starving newborn babies to death in Gaza? Absolutely not. In fact the former US Senator was there to express his outrage at Canada, Britain, and France for criticizing Israel, even as the settler colonial nation is murdering hundreds of Palestinians via airstrike every week, and intentionally starving to death every man, woman, and child in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador Huckabee is ‘outraged’ at European leaders for condemning Israel

“The new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told NPR he is “outraged” at the leaders of Britain, France and Canada for condemning Israel’s new military offensive in Gaza.

“ The prolonged suffering for everybody is on Hamas, and I’m outraged that the U.K., Canada, France, they’re blaming the wrong perpetrator,” Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, said in an interview Wednesday at a U.S. Embassy office in Tel Aviv.”

So, let’s make sure we all understand the situation here. Israel is bombing hospitals, and refugee camps night after night killing hundreds of Palestinians every couple of days. The IOF is enforcing a blockade around Gaza preventing food, water, and medical supplies from reaching the starving population in an act of engineered famine; which is a crime against humanity. In response most of the planet has turned against Israel’s genocide, forcing even Pig Empire governments that have actively enabled the slaughter to raise objections through diplomatic channels, to which the IOF has now responded by firing “warning shots” at foreign diplomats. Yet somehow our man on the ground in Israel, a devout Christian Zionist I might add, thinks the behavior of Britain, Canada, and France is outrageous and the Palestinians are the side who are like the Nazis in WWII in this scenario? Sorry Mike, in the age of iPhones and TikTok, “don’t believe your lying eyes” is no longer a viable messaging strategy.