Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives. That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that is what he now admits he has “always” talked about. It is about an unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty.
What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted.
I'm not a big fan of Israel - but Hamas are just as big pieces of shit. they use innocents as human shields hoping Israel retaliates. there's no win here - both sides are a bunch of assholes.
It is really interesting, I went back and read some detailed WWI/ interwar/ WWII history as it relates to the establishment of a Zionist state. That stuff was never covered in any history class I took in primary or secondary school. University was all about Architecture.
in spite of all whats been presented here, still there are some who will equate Hamas to Israel. In spite of all what the nature of Israel as a racist colony, its history of massacres perpetrated against the Palestinians throughout its repulsive history...
despite the most evident conclusion one can make from that to the effect that Hamas are a natural byproduct concocted to resist the Israeli occupation, the brainwashed idiocy disallows them to perceive this.
Despite the huge disparity between the number of Palestinian civilians killed and those of the Israeli civilians killed, some still equate Hamas to Israel.
Despite that Zionist terrorists have been displacing, deporting, killing, torturing, starving , oppressing Palestinians since after World War 2, these idiots still equate Hamas - a resistance movement- to Israel, the sister regime to the South African apartheid one.
Palestinians not only have to contend with the evils of a racist colony and the evils of its powerful backers but the idiocy of a large brainwashed part of the US audience.
Each time Israel attacks Gaza and massacres its trapped civilian population – at the end of 2008,in the fall of 2012, and now again this past month – the same process repeats itself in both U.S. media and government circles: the U.S. government feeds Israel the weapons it uses and steadfastly defends its aggression both publicly and at the U.N.; the U.S. Congress unanimously enacts one resolution after the nextto support and enable Israel; and then American media figures pretend that the Israeli attack has nothing to do with their country, that it’s just some sort of unfortunately intractable, distant conflict between two equally intransigent foreign parties in response to which all decent Americans helplessly throw up their hands as though they bear no responsibility.
Hundreds of Italians have signed an online petition slamming Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip as a “slow genocide” of the Palestinians and demanding a “Nuremberg trial” for Israel over the “destruction” of Palestine.
The petition was signed by 525 Italians, mainly academics, Haaretz reported. The signees say they are dismayed by the events in Gaza and accuse Israel of pursuing colonial policies and “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians.
Though Israel maintained its siege, Hamas observed the cease-fire, as Israel concedes. Matters changed in April of this year when Fatah and Hamas forged a unity agreement that established a new government of technocrats unaffiliated with either party. Israel was naturally furious, all the more so when even the Obama administration joined the West in signaling approval. The unity agreement not only undercuts Israel's claim that it cannot negotiate with a divided Palestine but also threatens the long-term goal of dividing Gaza from the West Bank and pursuing its destructive policies in both regions. Something had to be done, and an occasion arose on June 12, when the three Israeli boys were murdered in the West Bank. Early on, the Netanyahu government knew that they were dead, but pretended otherwise, which provided the opportunity to launch a rampage in the West Bank, targeting Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have certain knowledge that Hamas was responsible. That too was a lie.
One of Israel's leading authorities on Hamas, Shlomi Eldar, reported almost at once that the killers very likely came from a dissident clan in Hebron that has long been a thorn in the side of Hamas. Eldar added that "I'm sure they didn't get any green light from the leadership of Hamas, they just thought it was the right time to act.”
The 18-day Israeli rampage after the kidnapping, however, succeeded in undermining the feared Palestinian unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing five Hamas members on July 7. Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.
By July 31, around 1,400 Palestinians had been killed, mostly civilians, including hundreds of women and children. And three Israeli civilians. Large areas of Gaza had been turned into rubble. Four hospitals had been attacked, each another war crime.
Israeli officials laud the humanity of what it calls "the most moral army in the world," which informs residents that their homes will be bombed. The practice is "sadism, sanctimoniously disguising itself as mercy," in the words of Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "A recorded message demanding hundreds of thousands of people leave their already targeted homes, for another place, equally dangerous, 10 kilometers away.” In fact, there is no place in the prison of Gaza safe from Israeli sadism, which may even exceed the terrible crimes of Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009.
The hideous revelations elicited the usual reaction from the most moral president in the world, Barack Obama: great sympathy for Israelis, bitter condemnation of Hamas and calls for moderation on both sides. When the current attacks are called off, Israel hopes to be free to pursue its criminal policies in the occupied territories without interference, and with the U.S. support it has enjoyed in the past. Gazans will be free to return to the norm in their Israeli-run prison, while in the West Bank, Palestinians can watch in peace as Israel dismantles what remains of their possessions.
Here is a discussion that I c&p'd from facebook. I used initials only to keep the authors' privacy. Bit more thoughtful responses than architects, I should say.
Why Don’t I Criticize Israel? : : Sam Harris Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape. SAMHARRIS.ORG|BY SAM HARRIS LikeLike · · Share 7 people like this.
JT make art not war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday at 5:54am · Like · 1
SS Thanks for sharing, J. Yesterday at 7:24am · Like · 1
KA J I'm really surprised you posted this and I'm even more surprised you called it thoughtful and measured. The piece is full of error and misinformation, not to mention a healthy dose of Orientalist fear-mongering. Yesterday at 10:05am · Like · 5
AZ I have been thinking about the Sam Harris piece for a couple weeks. It's full of the kind of intellectual dishonesty that easily dupes people if they aren't listening/reading carefully. It's also troubling because Harris is a smart guy, which makes me question whether his errors are ignorance or intentional. Yesterday at 10:37am · Like · 5
JD I'm a bit confused by this piece, J. He claims not to criticize Israel, but at the same time does kind of criticize Israel. Harris seems a bit confused. As an American Jew, my responsibility is to engage in sober, clear-eyed criticism of any country whose government (and, occasionally people) engages in actions that I find questionable, or morally reprehensible. This applies equally to the United States, Israel, Hamas, etc., etc. Yesterday at 10:55am · Edited · Like · 4
MB Thanks for posting S. I always enjoy reading something by Sam Harris. To A and K, I found no "fear mongering" and maybe you could enlightening me as to the errors, misinformation and intellectual dishonesty you found. J, I though Sam's writing was clear. He did not come across as confused to me. And, I did not feel confused after reading it. Yesterday at 11:06am · Like · 2
AZ M, a good place to start is to read the link that EW posted above. Yesterday at 11:15am · Like · 1
J T. D. NJ, that was why I called it measured. Perhaps "ambivalent" is the better word, but I posted this after a long discussion with a friend who held essentially Harris's position without having read it, and Kamrooz, if it presents errors, they are of interpretation or opinion, not of fact, as far as I can tell, which Edward's own pointing to the Sullivan piece points out. Sullivan is strongest on the settlements and the west bank and Harris skipping of it, and he takes literally -- and so in bad faith I would argue -- Harris's closing comment about "we're all living in Israel." But the points Sullivan agrees on with Harris, and they are many, are the points I believed "thoughtful" and worthy of posting. If they are intellectually dishonest, Amir, explain. Sullivan certainly doesn't accuse Harris of the same. Yesterday at 11:38am · Like · 2
AZ I think that Harris' exclusion of obvious problems that Israel faces with inherent and institutionalized racism is just one place to scrutinize a bit. This is worth watching, partially because it broadens the scope of the artificial scenario that the media has created and Harris perpetuates that this struggle is between Israelis and Palestinians. It's much larger than that. The most appalling part is from about 3:00-4:00. Listen to that carefully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF0Wdjln7Eg Yesterday at 11:45am · Like · 1
J T. D. N, A, the only times Harris uses the words "extremist" or "extremism" they are preceded or followed by "Jews" or "Jewish". Granted that might be glossing over it in your opinion, but it's not an "exclusion." Yesterday at 11:57am · Like
JD J- I understand what you're saying, although I still prefer 'confused.' It's difficult for me to be measured or ambivalent about so much death and destruction. What is needed is for the extremists amongst both the Israelis and the Palestinians to enter into deep psychiatric therapy sessions. I'm not kidding. I'm also very concerned about the apparent overwhelming support of Israelis for the Gaza campaign - over 90% in some polls. Even the moderates seem to have gone underground in Israel, which is quite disturbing. Yesterday at 12:01pm · Like · 3
AZ Here's another example. Quote from Harris: "Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity." OK, let's take this apart a bit. Where is his evidence for the final claim? The thing he isn't saying is that other people around the world who's views evolve away from their religious identity give up that identity because it doesn't mean anything. If Jewish people who were atheists were to do the same, they would dissolve into the rest of the population and lose that source of their identity. So, it's not that there aren't many people on earth who were Muslims and Christians that evolved away from their narrow conceptions of god. It's that those people stopped calling themselves Muslims or Christians because those terms mean something and their identity is not tied to such labels. Harris' basically insinuates that there are 'enlightened' Jews, but not Christians or Muslims. Absurd. Yesterday at 12:11pm · Like · 3
Amir Zaki "So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders." - Please. Evidence? Yesterday at 12:12pm · Like · 3
AZ "We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. " - Evidence? Hyperbole? Yesterday at 12:13pm · Like · 1
AZ "So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable." - What???? What kind of logic is this? Harris is a 'philosopher', right? He basically contradicts himself in the course of 3 sentences. I'll stop here. His whole argument can be picked apart, largely for not citing his claims, making broad assertions, etc. Yesterday at 12:16pm · Like · 1
JD Yes, Roger has finally come to his senses. Yesterday at 12:22pm · Like
J T. D. But Meredith, I would 2nd what Cohen has to say too? What does that say about my politics? Yesterday at 12:52pm · Like
JTDN "...what Cohen has to say too." Didn't meant the interrogative. Yesterday at 12:54pm · Like
EW The points that weaken Harris' piece for me include:
1) he continually conflates "Hamas" with "the Palestinians" and suggests the Palestinian's voted Hamas into office because they supported Hamas' call for genocide
As Beinart noted, though, "To the extent American Jewish leaders acknowledge that Hamas won an election (as opposed to taking power by force), they usually chalk its victory up to Palestinian enthusiasm for the organization’s 1988 charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction (The president of the New York board of rabbis said recently that anyone who voted for Hamas should be considered a combatant, not a civilian). But that’s almost certainly not the reason Hamas won. For starters, Hamas didn’t make Israel’s destruction a major theme of its election campaign. In its 2006 campaign manifesto, the group actually fudged the question by saying only that it wanted an “independent state whose capital is Jerusalem” plus fulfillment of the right of return." [and] "So why did Hamas win? Because, according to Shikaki, only fifteen percent of voters called the peace process their most important issue. A full two-thirds cited either corruption or law and order. It’s vital to remember that 2006 was the first Palestinian election in more than ten years. During the previous decade, Palestinians had grown increasingly frustrated by Fatah’s unaccountable, lawless and incompetent rule. According to exit polls, 85 percent of voters called Fatah corrupt. Hamas, by contrast, because it had never wielded power and because its charitable arm effectively delivered social services, enjoyed a reputation for competence and honesty."
Where this conflation of Hamas and "the Palestinians" takes Harris to discreditable extremes is when he claims this : "What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself."
He asserts what "the Palestinians would do" if they had self-determining power, again, by conflating them with Hamas. In doing so, Harris over-steps here quite a bit, imo.
The fact that Hamas turned out to be not only also corrupt but so nihilistic was not as foreseeable in 2006 as was that they were offering new hope for law and order to the Palestinians. So distinguishing between Hamas and "the Palestinians" becomes paramount, and that in and of itself weakens a huge chunk of Harris' other arguments.
2) Harris drives home his moral inequality charge with this notion "Who uses human shields? Well, Hamas certainly does."
That is far from "certain" though. From The Independent :
"Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields. The Bani Sobeila area, near Khan Younis, where the Abu Jamaa deaths took place received leaflets dropped from the air last week warning them to leave.
But almost all stayed. One reason for that was many of the houses belonged to the Abu Jamaa clan who felt there was safety in staying together. Another reason was given by a neighbour, Abdullah al-Daweish: “Where do we go to? Some people moved from the outer edge of Khan Younis to Khan Younis centre after Israelis told them to, then the centre got bombed. People have moved from this area to Gaza City, and Gaza City has been bombed. It’s not Hamas who is ordering us in this, it’s the Israelis.”" [and] "There was denial of coercion by Hamas. “I am not going to go because I can do something Hamas cannot do”, maintained Nabil al-Masri. “I know from times before that if Israeli soldiers get into an empty house they will ruin it on purpose. Hamas cannot stop them going into my house if we leave, but, by staying here we can try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”"
So a very densely populated area gets bombed and the civilians have no where to go (or refuse to abandon their homes for fears of losing it or having it ransacked) and Hamas has no where else to fight from and then that makes it "certain" Hamas is using human shields? As one person in that Independent article says "If the Israelis have proof of this let them make it public."
Take those two parts out of Harris' article (or at least take them with a grain of salt) and much of the rest crumbles significantly.
Where I agree with Harris is that Hamas are indeed risking Palestinians lives in unacceptable ways. I'll go further and state that 1) terrorism tactics are NEVER acceptable...always condemnable...and entirely cowardly and 2) the fact that too many Palestinians do not tell anyone asking them to martyr themselves to go fuck (er...martyr) themselves first suggests a clear difference between their mind set and that of the Israelis, who clearly value the life of each member of their society. I'll go further and say I more closely identify with the values of the majority of Israelis than I do with Palestinians on issues of civil rights and other matters. I support Israel's right to defend itself, and hope someone with true leadership/diplomatic capabilities gets elected to replace Netanyahu soon.
I simply disagree that the picture Harris paints is accurate enough to accept his conclusion that Israel shouldn't be criticized. Yesterday at 1:15pm · Edited · Like · 5
AZ Thank's for your thoroughness, Edward. Very well put. Yesterday at 1:17pm · Like
KA Thank you, A and E for doing most of the work for me, as I don't have time to spend on facebook today. We could pick apart his writing for days. It is ultimately manipulative... taking on an anti-zionist stance to gain the attention of the "left" and then basically using language that at times is almost word for word hasbara propaganda. (i.e saying that Palestinians built tunnels to kid-nap Israeli children. Where's the evidence that these tunnels were built for this purpose? This paints a caricature of the evil Arab waiting to snatch your children in the night (fear-mongering). How can we prove that this was the purpose of those tunnels and not to simply get basic goods into the prison camp that is Gaza so that people don't starve?) He continues to paint a picture of the Arab as a violent and blood-thirsty, irrational, fanatic who wants to kill all Jewish people and take over the world, and then casually drops a George W. Bush style note: but I don't mean ALL Muslims, which he perceives to be his way out of being accused of Islamophobia. This is one of the most Orientalist pieces that I've read on the Gaza offensive. Yesterday at 1:38pm · Like · 3
JTD E, I'm in total agreement with your penultimate paragraph.
I think part of the problem here is that, as Harris says, his views are "paradoxical" and bound to offend "almost everyone," and so much of what he offers ping pongs back and forth between stating things like "There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could," and then, immediately following, "Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not," and so on. Yesterday at 4:22pm · Like · 1
JTDN K, I'm not convinced by the Orientalist argument. Why is the anti-zionist language proffered in bad faith and the anti-Islamist language authentic? I don't recognize your portrait of the "Arab" in Harris's writing, not least because he never uses the term, and is often explicitly identifying Islamist groups that wish to wipe out the Jews. Now, Edward's point about slipping back and forth between Hamas and "the Palestinians" might be well taken, but even there I'm not sure of what distinction could be made beyond the caveats that Harris provides. Yesterday at 4:30pm · Like
EW But this : "There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could," and then, immediately following, "Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not," and so on." is an extremely convenient rhetorical device. It amounts to writing: "I'm acknowledging that not everyone in this subset is guilty of this, but let me move forward having suggested that distinction doesn't matter, all the same." Yesterday at 6:20pm · Like · 4
Andrew To my mind, the piece is anything but measured. It seems prejudiced, illogical, and in places is demonstrably factually incorrect. Most of the important criticisms have been raised by E, A, and K above. I'm grateful for their patience and clarity! 19 hrs · Like · 4
EW This article offers a good example of why Harris' carelessness in distinguishing between Hamas and "the Palestinians" is worse than bad logic...it's also dangerous:
K ,A ,J, the anti-zionist language is in bad faith because he is essentially using the language of the Israeli right while saying he's against zionism. Its an absurd contradiction. He should just say "I'm not zionist, I'm just racist". The anti-Muslim language is what makes it Orientalist. As Apoints out, "Harris' basically insinuates that there are 'enlightened' Jews, but not Christians or Muslims." In other words, "they" are not like "us". He grants himself the license to represent Muslims to a Western audience however he sees fitting for his argument. This question of representation is at the core of Orientalism. 13 hrs · Like · 1
AZ Ultimately, Sam Harris, along with other 'New Atheists' suffer badly from a reduction and conflation of religions, religious institutions, cultures and spiritual ideologies (and their relationship to socio-economics). All of those are separate but related issues that need to be parsed out carefully and fairly. 12 hrs · Like
Bit more thoughtful responses than architects, I should say.
that's because this isn't really an open discussion forum. it's a place to paste information telling one side of a story. that was a good facebook discussion though.
your location is listed as Los Angeles... last time I checked we had not yet ceded it to Mexico or the Pacific Ocean.
Actions speak louder than words.... I think you should leave the United States if this country is such a stain on the earth.
How can you in good conscience remain here when the government is so complicit in this atrocity? Your tax dollars, just like everyone else's in this country, apparently go towards the support of this genocide.
How can you possibly remain here!!!!? Your conscience must be eating you alive.
To actively look for Israel's side in this story is to look for the story of a colonizer and a murderer. Yes, there are two sides: that of the colonized Palestinians and that of colonizing Zionism. To try and "see it" from Israel's point of view, whatever that means, is to accept that colonization, oppression of another people, murder, deportation are somewhat an acceptable position to be in.
To even dare suggest that Palestinian reaction to colonization, its resistance against it, is in any way morally equivalent to or approximates or even fractionally echoes Zionism and the murderous state of Israel (murderous by ideology, by policy) - a state that stole another people's lands in order to establish itself on- is tantamount to suggesting that a victim of rape's fighting back is equivalent to the rapist's violating advances: to state to the victim that the rapist also has a story to tell -i.e. that the victim was asking for it- is to join the side of the rapist and to participate in this act.
so, archanonymous, its not allowed to voice criticism, dislike. contempt for the US within the US? is this not a right within a democracy (if you think you live in one)? unless its just advice you're suggesting to (fellow?) US citizens...in which case, within a democracy, I'm sure one has the equal right to tell you to shaft yourself - I would offer you that advice freely from across the border, since Canada and US have a free trade agreement.
But if its about it not being advice but rather rights, well get the fuck out of the "US-A". It doesn't belong to you either.
absolutely not moran. instead it keeps me alive and fighting to make it better. you should try it too when you are done with patronizing other people's morality and citizenship. but it is all about one's capacity and knowing your place in relationship to where you are.
if you are not able to critique your position in relationship to your place, you are not doing your job as a citizen and as far as i am concerned you belong to some shopping mall looking for a discounted conscience 2 for 1 deal.
The argument over moral responsibility for civilian Palestinians often makes a fundamental mistake by assuming that culpability is zero-sum: that either Israel is responsible because it uses unnecessarily overwhelming force in civilian areas or Hamas is responsible because it attacks Israel from within civilian communities.
This fundamentally misses the point; both sides independently bear responsibility for the degree to which their tactics lead to civilian deaths. If one side abdicates that responsibility then this does not absolve the other. Both sides, by treating moral responsibility as zero-sum, are giving themselves permission to overlook their own role in driving up the civilian casualty rate, and thus continuing the killing.
More symbolically, treating moral responsibility as zero-sum — Hamas is free of blame because Israel bombs too much; Israel is free of blame because Hamas embeds itself among civilians — assumes that Palestinian civilian deaths only matter for the degree to which they make one side look better or worse. And that lack of regard for the hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed, the apparent sense that their lives only matter at the moment of their death so that it can be blamed on one side or another, is perhaps the most fundamental truth of the Israel-Gaza war.
isn't it enough yet? haven't enough people died for you to get over your hatred and obsessive notion of destroying israel, and instead start looking at paths to peace that might actually help the palestinian people?
Israel has no right to exist anyway, neither did the Apartheid, neither did Nazism. For those who drag me (or indeed Orhan or anyone else) and the issue of the US and Canada - which I still view as colonies, your Seattle is a colony, your New York is a Colony, your Toronto and Montreal are colonies- we can open up seperate threads for that if you like. Trying to muddle this issue with the subject here to disclose some hypocrisy on my part or anyone else's part really does nothing to your argument. To tell me that I concede to living in a colony does not detract from my criticism - that I am to some extent a hypocrite does not mean that I speak less truth - it just means that you are so bankrupt, you have to rely on personal accusations.
Aside....
Myth: Palestinian resistance fighters are extremist, anti-Semitic, and do not want to live in peace. The myth of “religious conflict” is central in propagating the notion that “dialogue” between “Israelis” and Palestinians can resolve “the conflict” and that people need to develop “an understanding” of one another. It is meant to undercut any discussion about the reality—a racist regime that continues to colonize indigenous land. This myth asks Palestinians to “put the past behind them” and build “a shared future” with the people who continue to murder their families, steal their land and destroy their homes. It implies that Palestinians should concede their basic rights, dignity and homeland. History: Palestinian people are fighting for their survival as a people against racism and genocide. Just as a New African should not be expected to make peace with a white racist, it is absurd to think that Palestinians should be motivated to make peace with their oppressors while Zionist colonizers still occupy Palestinian land. Palestinians have been legitimately resisting racism, colonization, and genocide since the 1920’s to the present day by any means necessary: general strikes, demonstrations, periods of non-cooperation, boycotts of Israeli products and services, refusal to obey military orders, refusal to vacate land confiscated for settlers, tax revolt, armed struggle, and martyrdom operations (called “suicide bombing” by Zionists). Any form of resistance to the settlement program has been consistently met with severe and brutal repression: aerial bombardment, military checkpoints, the “Iron Fist” policy of crushing the bones of Palestinian children’s hands, collective punishment, torture and mass detention (over 600, 000 Palestinians have been detained since 1967). Zionist propaganda blames resistance fighters for increased repression against the Palestinian people. In reality, Palestinian resistance is the only barrier stopping the Zionists from completely fulfilling their mission to annihilate the Palestinian people as a whole.
ya, i understand that hamas is fighting a propaganda battle to build support by showing how many innocent people have died. are you posting that because you want me to know that you haven't had enough? you want hamas to launch more rockets from schools, so you can post more statistics? you want more innocent people to die, because you haven't gotten what you want yet?
they're people tammuz. i'm pretty sure most of them are good people who shouldn't have to die because you and your militant groups want to destroy israel. i suppose that won't make sense to you if you've never felt empathy towards another human being. it isn't worth it.
i hope israel is held accountable for what they've done, but moreso i hope people like you give up on your empty quest to spread hate and revenge. i hope the attention you've gotten leads to a peaceful path for palestinians to set up their own government rather than more blind hatred and fighting to destroy their neighbors. peace doesn't come from launching rockets at people.
To repeat, for the thick in the head and the weak of sight
Just as a New African should not be expected to make peace with a white racist, it is absurd to think that Palestinians should be motivated to make peace with their oppressors while Zionist colonizers still occupy Palestinian land. Palestinians have been legitimately resisting racism, colonization, and genocide since the 1920’s to the present day by any means necessary: general strikes, demonstrations, periods of non-cooperation, boycotts of Israeli products and services, refusal to obey military orders, refusal to vacate land confiscated for settlers, tax revolt, armed struggle, and martyrdom operations (called “suicide bombing” by Zionists).
This phrase — “Israel’s right to exist” — is thrown around in American politics with such abandon that you’d be forgiven for thinking that a state’s right to exist is a fundamental principle of international relations (IR) that those stubborn Palestinians just refuse to acknowledge.
But there’s a problem.
It isn’t.
Not only is a state’s “right to exist” not a fundamental principle of IR, it’s a complete fiction.
That’s why you’ve never heard the phrases “the United States’ right to exist” or “Slovakia’s right to exist,” for example. The United States and Slovakia do not recognize one another by proclaiming each other’s “right to exist.” They recognize one another by engaging in diplomatic relations — by allowing each other to maintain embassies and by receiving each other’s ambassador. Further evidence of recognition can come in tacit forms such as trade agreements, security alliances, and mutual participation in intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations or the World Bank.
None of these activities constitute a recognition of each other’s right to exist, but rather simply each other’s existence as states in the international system. And for many centuries, this has been more than sufficient to engage in diplomatic relations and conduct foreign policy.
So when Palestinians are asked to recognize Israel’s “right to exist” as part of the dog and pony show known as the “peace process,” they are being asked to do something that in the long, storied annals of Westphalian-era diplomacy, no other state has ever had to do.
The kicker is that the Palestinians have already recognized Israel just as they would recognize any other state in the international arena.
But just for the sake of argument, let’s say the right to exist is an actual thing in IR. In which case, there is an obvious question that follows:
If the success of the peace process and the realization of a two-state solution are contingent upon Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist, why are they not also contingent upon Israel’s recognition of Palestine’s right to exist?
At no point has Israel acknowledged or been asked to acknowledge by the U.S., a Palestinian state’s right to exist. In fact, the U.S. and Israel have thrown international hissy fits at any prospect of Palestinian statehood that does not materialize with their direct blessing. In 2011 the U.S. withdrew funding from UNESCO because the organization overwhelmingly voted to grant membership to Palestine. The vote was 107 to 14 in favor, with 52 abstentions. Seemingly not without a sense of humor, the U.S. criticized the vote as a “unilateral” Palestinian attempt to achieve statehood.
only people i see here keep mentioning hatred are those personal attackers to tammuz and myself, blindly defending child killers because they are not so secretly hating muslims.
islamophobia... it stinks and very explicit here in this country just like the hatred of the black people and other others.
so far tammuz and i are the only ones who want 'sustainable' and 'just peace' in the region and the only ones who somewhat have a vested interest in it.
i seriously doubt your ability to practice architecture when there is a deficiency to see the obvious.
they do. they have as much right to exist as you do.
neither did the Apartheid, neither did Nazism
those were different. you're trying to associate their crimes with israel to make israel look worse, which really isn't necessary. instead of reading up on apartheid and nazis, read up on palestine and israel. you might find out why israel has as much right to exist where they are as you do living where you are or i do living where i am.
Trying to muddle this issue with the subject here to disclose some hypocrisy on my part or anyone else's part really does nothing to your argument.
you're right. we can accept that you're fighting someone else's colonial occupation instead of your own and leave it out of the israel/palestinian conflict, since britian's other examples of colonial expansions aren't relevant to this one.
Myth: Palestinian resistance fighters are extremist, anti-Semitic, and do not want to live in peace.
the world (europeans) got together and formed a solution that would let the palestinians live in peace, within their own borders, and with their own government (before that, when did the palestinians really have their own government, without british or turkish or mongolian or some other empire looming over them?). they didn't like that solution, because half the land was set aside to let the "european settlers" form their own government, so they would also be able to live in peace, away from the anti-semtism they fled from (which had already been going on for decades at that point). the palestinians grouped up with some of their neighbors and went to war the very next day. that is not the action of someone who wants to live in peace.
they have been attacking each other ever since then. it's going to be very hard for either side to work out an agreeable peace deal even with ideal conditions since they have 50 years of essentially guerrilla warfare between them. your solution is to destroy israel. israel's solution is to destroy palestine. israel has the upper hand, so that doesn't bode well for the palestinians. the third solution is to have them live together in peace, which is going to require both sides to stop fighting.
what do you have to gain by supporting hamas's attacks into israel? do you really think a protest in england will turn this war so much that it will mitigate israel's considerable advantage, and the palestinians will be able to somehow actually destroy their entire government?
if you cared about the palestinian people, it would be better to place their welfare ahead of your desire to destroy isreal, and promote a reasonable path to peace where both sides are allowed to live.
so far tammuz and i are the only ones who want 'sustainable' and 'just peace' in the region and the only ones who somewhat have a vested interest in it.
i advocate and end to the violence on both sides rather than just one side.
how is continued warfare a "sustainable and just peace?"
Just as a New African should not be expected to make peace with a white racist, it is absurd to think that Palestinians should be motivated to make peace with their oppressors while Zionist colonizers still occupy Palestinian land.
i believe Thabo Mbeki said, at mandela's 90th birthday, "we should build a South Africa that belongs to all, black and white, and therefore a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa"
they didn't kill off all the white people at the end of apartheid. that would not have helped them forward their cause.
Orhan, they see hate because they've been brainwashed to see this as hate.
Yesterday, after a long day at work, we marched - quebecois, arabs, orthodox jewish rabbis, leftists, simple concerned people, some people from the gay community- all marched through Montreal. The Orthodox jewish Rabbis were calling for the peaceful dismantlement of the colonial state of israel, something I completely support. I have no wish to see a drop of blood spilled...but this wish does not obfuscate that when someone commits a crime, there is no equivalence between the criminal and the resisting fighter, this wish does not contradict with the right to resist and fight off the oppressor, the violator. the jews amongst us, orthodox and secular, were the first to call Israel a terrorist state. where is the hate in that? people object to Israel because it IS a state of hatred, all racist ideologies are hateful.
This wish to excise Hamas or any other Palestinian resistance group from the Palestinian population is part of the brainwashing process. No, curtkram, the Palestinians deliberately conciously created Hamas military wing, the Islamic Jihad, the Fateh resistance brigades; the Palestinians are not sheep and are not civilian shields. They live such extraordinary circumstances - occupied, threatened on a daily basis, near starved, killed- that you, a person living in a very relaxed safe individualistic little bubble of comfort- cannot conceive of a people who are ready to sacrifice their own life in order to protect their future on this land, to protect their history and future, their right to exist free from the daily rape of the colonial state of Israel.
You have no idea of the culture, I do. Don't speak for them or about them; you have no knowledge- or exerted any effort to unbrainwash yourself- to have garnered that right to do so.
curtcrum... hence the criticism of the oppression by israel and the chokehold, stealing and repatriating land that doesn't belong to them, killing civilians indiscriminately and even rationing calorie intake of palestinians.
you ask a lot of questions but not very good ones.
we, tammuz and I, want an end to this war, return of palestinian lands, free movement and restoration of decent peaceful life without senseless murders.
israel creates the conditions of the 'warfare.' if palestinians accept those oppressive and inhumane conditions created by israel they would be submitting to outright slavery and imprisonment by the oppressor, to the thieves of their lives.
you don't advocate peace. so far from your posts, you hardly say anything other than condoning child killers' actions. shame on you. quit the denial just for once.
israel ends the apartheid, returns the land and recognizes Palestine and after that if hamas or anyone else attacks israel i for one will be very against that.
Constructed as an uncivilized, barbarous, terrorist organization, Hamas has been effectively de-humanized – along with all of the Palestinian people of Gaza, since they voted for Hamas in the elections of 2006. In contrast, Israel is juxtaposed as innocent, civilized and humane.
Projecting itself as a superior civilization, Israel attempts to immunize itself from human rights charges, since as a “civilized” (read “Western”), humane and rational society, Israel by definition cannot be accused of engaging in massive human rights violations?
Instead it is the actions of the Palestinian resistance fighters that are highlighted, because that resistance provides a convenient weapon in the narrative created by Israel of Palestinian “otherness” where their legitimate resistance is instead twisted into being further evidence of their sub-human status.
“Hamas has been effectively de-humanized – along with all of the Palestinian people of Gaza.”
According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natahuyu, the value of human life is different for Palestinians and their leadership who want more dead Palestinians so that they can use “telegenically dead Palestinians”iv for their cause. The logical corollary to this position is that it is perfectly understandable and justifiable that Israel is forced to kill hundreds of “them” in order to ensure Israeli security from these “barbarous” people who have a natural propensity towards violence, if they are not contained and periodically terrorized into submission.
For activists in solidarity with Palestinian desires for national self-determination, undermining the hegemony of the “innocent settler” narrative is imperative in order to counter the propaganda that justifies Israeli state and settler violence. To do so means centering colonialism and white supremacy as the grounding analytical categories and conceptual framework.
This is not necessarily a new argument or one that has not been embraced by some, but for various reasons, including bogus charges of anti-Semitism, many in the U.S. progressive and radical communities have eschewed this approach over the years.
The other challenge is that the “white supremacist” term has been domesticated and reduced to a crude and relatively simple notion of “racism.” In this context, white supremacists and white supremacy is represented by easy targets like Donald Sterling and Tea Party members, while racialized imperialism is overlooked.
In order to re-position Israel in the public imagination, activists must overcome both of these issues if movements for solidarity and justice such as the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement have any chance of being effective solidarity mechanisms.
Liberated from the racist bias of the colonial/imperialist lens that casts Israelis as victims, Israeli state actions and policies in Gaza are then stripped of the obfuscating claims of self-defense and concerns for Palestinian civilians. And ending ethical double standards by applying one standard informed by the principles of human equality and the rejection of all forms of dehumanizing oppression would clearly identify the real victims in the ongoing drama of the Israel/Palestinian conflict – and it would not be the state of Israel.
the israel-palestinian conflict has been going on for a long time. decades. it's not like it's stopped and started and this current case should be viewed in isolation without the context of how it got this far. the palestinians haven't always been in as bad of condition as they are now. it's gotten progressively worse for them because israel has always had the bigger army, and has mostly been able to strike back with bigger blows than they were hit with. of course that's because israel had greater financial and military assistance, primarily from the US. originally, i think the US and the rest of most of the world supported israel because that's what the UN decided on before the 1948 war.
it's gotten out of hand. i understand the palestinians created militant organizations to defend themselves against israel's attacks. i understand the need for them to do so. but if you look at the conditions of the palestinian people now compared to the 70's or 80's, it's getting a lot worse. what they're doing isn't working.
so, as a human being who really feels bad when so many people get hurt like this, i would like to see the suffering eased. you have to view this confrontation as a continuation of all the others right? this is as much about arafat and Yitzhak Rabin as it is about netanyahu. obviously i disagree with the way israel is handling this. i know they're bad people doing bad things. but a boycott, even if it's really big and really successful, isn't going to break them so bad that they can't afford to blow up the tunnels beneath gaza. even if there are 5 times as many protests as the occupy movement around the world, i don't see israel breaking up their government and just walking away. for one thing, they have nowhere to go. for another, their government was created because almost all of the people who migrated there did so because they were facing anti-semitism somewhere else.
instead of putting all this effort into destroying israel, i think the palestinians would actually be able to live better lives if the violence stopped and they were able to negotiate to get the right to live peaceably, with access to aid and open boarders and representation in government and all that. keep in mind that any negotiation between the israelis and palestinians is going to be in a room filled with people who know pretty much all of the horrible things they've done to each other. it's not just the palestinians who are currently the victim, but the generations of palestinians that led up the current situation. there is a lot of trust lost that would be need to be built back. that would be a good place to put your efforts, if you want to see palestinians live in peace with self-determination instead of a constant struggle to see if they can destroy isreal before isreal destroys them.
instead of putting all this effort into destroying israel, i think the palestinians would actually be able to live better lives if the violence stopped and they were able to negotiate to get the right to live peaceably
excuse me, but seriously, are you dumb? do you read?
one of the major points made here several times is that it is inherent to Zionism - in the manifest of its established ISrael- to eliminate Palestinian existence on Palestinian land, by deportation or by murder. and you're talking about pleeing to the rapist not to rape?
if Palestinians don't resist, they're doomed. and believe me, there is a better chance that Israel is doomed if they do resist.
right. instead of all the propaganda speak saying israel is evil and must be destroyed, and creating 'zionist' boogeymen, create some propaganda saying israel needs a centrist government that's willing to work with the palestinians on a sustainable peace accord where both people can live together. and create some propaganda so the palestinians will build a centrist government that's willing to work with the israelis.
obviously that would be hard to do. lots of people have tired. still, if you want to ease the suffering of the palestinian people, your odds are better building bridges than trying to see if you can destroy isreal before they destroy you.
and no, i haven't read the vast majority of your posts. i already told you that a long time ago. it's propaganda designed to get people angry and to spread hate, and i choose to live my life different than that. of course it's easier to play to people's emotions and get them all riled up like that - but please explain to me how that will create less suffering instead of more suffering for the people you think you're helping? i mean, you're kind of playing israel's hand; if the palestinians strike more often, the israelis strike back more, and that hastens their plans of ending this war the only way they know how.
Published Wednesday 06/08/2014 (updated) 07/08/2014 18:07
A Palestinian man mourns at the morgue of a hospital in Rafah over the bodies of some of the nine members of the same al-Ghoul family who were killed along with other Palestinians after their house was hit by an Israeli air strike on Aug. 3, 2014 (AFP Said Khatib)
RAFAH (AFP) -- For days bodies filled the morgues. Only since guns fell silent have volunteers come to dig graves in the sand in Rafah, Gaza's "town of martyrs," devastated by Israeli bombardment.
For three days the strategic southern town went through hell.
"The tanks came," says Mohammed Abu Luli, 50, who fled his home after the bombardment started.
"There were strikes from air, land and sea. The bombs rained down everywhere. I have never seen anything like it in all my life," he added.
In neighborhoods, houses lie flattened or ripped open by shelling. Asphalt on the road has been ripped up by the weight of Israeli tanks.
when you're just copying other people's content and images, it's not really coming from you anyway. i'm glad we were able to have a short exchange of actual opinions. good luck on your war against israel. i sincerely hope you can pull it off without compounding the suffering that's already occurred.
when you're just copying other people's content and images
what is that mean? is this a solo art show on object originality or something? that stuff is from reports from the grounds, well known writers, politicians etc. they are there because they are relevant to subject at hand. plus, if you read what's written so far in these 500+ posts there are a lot of original ideas, reviews and opinions as well.
oh, i forgot you don't read.
if you don't read someone's writing, opinions and what has been said, how can you call this person (implicitly or explicitly) hater, anti semite, warmonger, israel annihilator etc.., that is plain bigotry man... really...
5th August 2014 |Sarah Algherbawi | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
These are short stories from Gaza, a brief picture of our suffering. Reality is much more painful. The description under each photo consists of facts published on news agencies and social media. For each photo I also wrote a story. Some of the photographed people we have seen on TV, others I know their friends or relatives, and the narrative is mine from my knowledge of their circumstances.
Behind numbers, many stories are hidden and buried!
I was happy, a beautiful bride, preparing for my wedding and a house with my beloved fiancé, my soul mate…I was engaged for 13 months, and supposed to get married in August 2014. He promised to make me happy for the rest of my life…
Now, I’m alone. He never lied. He didn’t have the chance to meet his promised. He was killed.
I was happy with my wedding ring. I couldn’t believe that the woman I have always dreamed of was finally my wife. I even took a picture of the ring and put it as my profile picture on Facebook. I was going to be a daddy – my wife was pregnant when I was killed…
I wish that I could see my son. I wish he knew me. I don’t even know whether the baby is a boy or a girl… but I think he will be a boy and will hold the name of his father, Khaled…
I was a journalist, too. I was killed only for doing my job.
I had a brother. We used to fight too much. Mom had always begged us to stop fighting and making noise. We played together and spent a lot of time with each other. I never thought I would lose him this fast! I loved him very much. I didn’t tell him that. I thought I would have ages to do so…
I only wish I’d had the chance to tell him before he was killed. I can’t understand why he’s gone. He was just a kid like me. He didn’t do anything bad to others!
We witnessed a war. Our parents didn’t allow us to go out and play. We told them that we’re just children – why would they hurt us? We were very bored! We didn’t go out for weeks…
Dad told us to play on the roof. He thought it was a safe place. We had so much fun, before we were killed there.
We had a mom and a dad. They loved us very much. Mom was waiting for the war to end to take us to the market and buy us new uniforms for school and new clothes for Eid. They promised to teach us whatever we wanted, and take care of us until we grew up…
Mom always wished to attend our weddings and see our children…
The war is not over. Eid came, and they were not present. They were killed. We’re alone now. Who will take care of us?
I was pretty. My friends at school used to feel jealous of me. I always felt that I was a princess…
I don’t know what happened. I don’t even understand what they are saying. I heard doctors saying that something called fragments hurt me. I don’t even want to understand. I only want my beautiful face back!
I had a beautiful daughter. I spoiled her and loved her like no father in the world could do…
I always dreamed of her wedding day, how she would look. Would any man on earth love her the way I do?! I asked God to give me health and long age until that moment came…
It never came to my mind that she would die before I did.
Mr Efratri said: "These soldiers are deciding on a theoretical red line that nobody can pass. You can be killed for crossing this line. There is a video of a man looking for his family. Two soldiers ask if it is ok to shoot him."
He described what happened next: "The sniper is getting into position - he is asking his offcer, three, times 'when can I shoot him?'
"The officer tells them 'wait, wait, we need the man in the green shirt to cross the red line'.
'Revenge attack'
"The third time the officers tell him, 'you can shoot'.
"He shoots two more bullets into his body and kills him."
Mr Efrati confirmed: "I heard this testimony from three soldiers."
He added: "They were completely convinced that what they did was wrong. They were guilty. The man in the green shirt was not any threat to their lives.
"The officer allowed this revenge attack in the middle of Gaza."
israel ends the apartheid, returns the land and recognizes Palestine and after that if hamas or anyone else attacks israel i for one will be very against that.
you mean everything west of the jordan? or return all land in an equal amount to the 1967 or 1948 border?
it's curtkram. not curtcrum. you can see it printed right there. i'm sure that was a typo since most 6 year olds have enough maturity to refrain from that sort of attempt at name-calling, and i'm sure you were in a rush to not answer not good questions so those things happen.
another not good question, if you expect isreal to leave the mideast entirely. obviously all palestinians should be welcome back, in any peace agreement, one state or two. did you expect the 'european settlers' living there now to remain living there, but under a palestinian government (despite their history of anti-semitism and lack of representation in government; we could ignore that, but i'm certain they won't)? or do you kick them all out (peacefully) so they can start over somewhere like america?
i don't think they would give up everything they have because you want a palestinian state. this isn't a question of what's right or what would be best for everyone or even a question of punishing the aggressor. it simply doesn't make sense that they would do that voluntarily. so what do you think the impetus will be to cause the israelis to abandon their government and hand it over to people who have hated them for generations? a boycott? a protest? a bunch of rockets? do tammuz's posts make you optimistic that the assembly in britian and whatever other government body will get the UN to back a plan that actually ends israel, rather than the more tepid 2-state option that allows the people of israel to continue to govern themselves?
if you don't read someone's writing, opinions and what has been said, how can you call this person (implicitly or explicitly) hater, anti semite, warmonger, israel annihilator etc.., that is plain bigotry man... really...
mostly the thanksgiving posts. some other posts from before then too i think. we've all been here a long time.
Archinect, please boycott Israel (its about time!)
The NEW YORKER
JULY 29, 2014
Collective Punishment in Gaza
BY RASHID KHALIDI
Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives. That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that is what he now admits he has “always” talked about. It is about an unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty.
What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted.
(full article)
yeah - but when you fire rockets from residential areas minutes before ceasefire...
I'm not a big fan of Israel - but Hamas are just as big pieces of shit. they use innocents as human shields hoping Israel retaliates. there's no win here - both sides are a bunch of assholes.
It is really interesting, I went back and read some detailed WWI/ interwar/ WWII history as it relates to the establishment of a Zionist state. That stuff was never covered in any history class I took in primary or secondary school. University was all about Architecture.
Quite a sordid history all around.
in spite of all whats been presented here, still there are some who will equate Hamas to Israel. In spite of all what the nature of Israel as a racist colony, its history of massacres perpetrated against the Palestinians throughout its repulsive history...
despite the most evident conclusion one can make from that to the effect that Hamas are a natural byproduct concocted to resist the Israeli occupation, the brainwashed idiocy disallows them to perceive this.
Despite the huge disparity between the number of Palestinian civilians killed and those of the Israeli civilians killed, some still equate Hamas to Israel.
Despite that Zionist terrorists have been displacing, deporting, killing, torturing, starving , oppressing Palestinians since after World War 2, these idiots still equate Hamas - a resistance movement- to Israel, the sister regime to the South African apartheid one.
Palestinians not only have to contend with the evils of a racist colony and the evils of its powerful backers but the idiocy of a large brainwashed part of the US audience.
I will repeat this for their idiotic sake (note that "decent Americans" reads cynically here):
For those who wonder why this issue involves first and foremost the US and you, the US citizens amongst us:
Each time Israel attacks Gaza and massacres its trapped civilian population – at the end of 2008,in the fall of 2012, and now again this past month – the same process repeats itself in both U.S. media and government circles: the U.S. government feeds Israel the weapons it uses and steadfastly defends its aggression both publicly and at the U.N.; the U.S. Congress unanimously enacts one resolution after the next to support and enable Israel; and then American media figures pretend that the Israeli attack has nothing to do with their country, that it’s just some sort of unfortunately intractable, distant conflict between two equally intransigent foreign parties in response to which all decent Americans helplessly throw up their hands as though they bear no responsibility.
Online petition urges ‘Nuremberg for Israel’ over ‘genocide of Palestinians’
Hundreds of Italians have signed an online petition slamming Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip as a “slow genocide” of the Palestinians and demanding a “Nuremberg trial” for Israel over the “destruction” of Palestine.
READ MORE: Israel must be held criminally accountable for Gaza war crimes – HRW
The petition was signed by 525 Italians, mainly academics, Haaretz reported. The signees say they are dismayed by the events in Gaza and accuse Israel of pursuing colonial policies and “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank...
As Israel bombs Gaza, it kills Palestinians in the West Bank too
Palestine solidarity goes mainstream in UK as 100,000 march in London
Chomsky: The truth behind the Israeli War in Gaza
By Noam Chomsky • August 3, 2014
Though Israel maintained its siege, Hamas observed the cease-fire, as Israel concedes. Matters changed in April of this year when Fatah and Hamas forged a unity agreement that established a new government of technocrats unaffiliated with either party. Israel was naturally furious, all the more so when even the Obama administration joined the West in signaling approval. The unity agreement not only undercuts Israel's claim that it cannot negotiate with a divided Palestine but also threatens the long-term goal of dividing Gaza from the West Bank and pursuing its destructive policies in both regions. Something had to be done, and an occasion arose on June 12, when the three Israeli boys were murdered in the West Bank. Early on, the Netanyahu government knew that they were dead, but pretended otherwise, which provided the opportunity to launch a rampage in the West Bank, targeting Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have certain knowledge that Hamas was responsible. That too was a lie.
One of Israel's leading authorities on Hamas, Shlomi Eldar, reported almost at once that the killers very likely came from a dissident clan in Hebron that has long been a thorn in the side of Hamas. Eldar added that "I'm sure they didn't get any green light from the leadership of Hamas, they just thought it was the right time to act.”
The 18-day Israeli rampage after the kidnapping, however, succeeded in undermining the feared Palestinian unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing five Hamas members on July 7. Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.
By July 31, around 1,400 Palestinians had been killed, mostly civilians, including hundreds of women and children. And three Israeli civilians. Large areas of Gaza had been turned into rubble. Four hospitals had been attacked, each another war crime.
Israeli officials laud the humanity of what it calls "the most moral army in the world," which informs residents that their homes will be bombed. The practice is "sadism, sanctimoniously disguising itself as mercy," in the words of Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "A recorded message demanding hundreds of thousands of people leave their already targeted homes, for another place, equally dangerous, 10 kilometers away.” In fact, there is no place in the prison of Gaza safe from Israeli sadism, which may even exceed the terrible crimes of Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009.
The hideous revelations elicited the usual reaction from the most moral president in the world, Barack Obama: great sympathy for Israelis, bitter condemnation of Hamas and calls for moderation on both sides. When the current attacks are called off, Israel hopes to be free to pursue its criminal policies in the occupied territories without interference, and with the U.S. support it has enjoyed in the past. Gazans will be free to return to the norm in their Israeli-run prison, while in the West Bank, Palestinians can watch in peace as Israel dismantles what remains of their possessions.
still crying black & white nonsense?
just checking, carry on.
Here is a discussion that I c&p'd from facebook. I used initials only to keep the authors' privacy. Bit more thoughtful responses than architects, I should say.
Why Don’t I Criticize Israel? : : Sam Harris
Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape.
SAMHARRIS.ORG|BY SAM HARRIS
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7 people like this.
JT make art not war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday at 5:54am · Like · 1
EW a thoughtful and measured response: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/.../why-sam-harris-wont.../
Yesterday at 6:31am · Like · 2
SS Thanks for sharing, J.
Yesterday at 7:24am · Like · 1
KA J I'm really surprised you posted this and I'm even more surprised you called it thoughtful and measured. The piece is full of error and misinformation, not to mention a healthy dose of Orientalist fear-mongering.
Yesterday at 10:05am · Like · 5
AZ I have been thinking about the Sam Harris piece for a couple weeks. It's full of the kind of intellectual dishonesty that easily dupes people if they aren't listening/reading carefully. It's also troubling because Harris is a smart guy, which makes me question whether his errors are ignorance or intentional.
Yesterday at 10:37am · Like · 5
JD I'm a bit confused by this piece, J. He claims not to criticize Israel, but at the same time does kind of criticize Israel. Harris seems a bit confused. As an American Jew, my responsibility is to engage in sober, clear-eyed criticism of any country whose government (and, occasionally people) engages in actions that I find questionable, or morally reprehensible. This applies equally to the United States, Israel, Hamas, etc., etc.
Yesterday at 10:55am · Edited · Like · 4
MB Thanks for posting S. I always enjoy reading something by Sam Harris. To A and K, I found no "fear mongering" and maybe you could enlightening me as to the errors, misinformation and intellectual dishonesty you found. J, I though Sam's writing was clear. He did not come across as confused to me. And, I did not feel confused after reading it.
Yesterday at 11:06am · Like · 2
AZ M, a good place to start is to read the link that EW posted above.
Yesterday at 11:15am · Like · 1
J T. D. NJ, that was why I called it measured. Perhaps "ambivalent" is the better word, but I posted this after a long discussion with a friend who held essentially Harris's position without having read it, and Kamrooz, if it presents errors, they are of interpretation or opinion, not of fact, as far as I can tell, which Edward's own pointing to the Sullivan piece points out. Sullivan is strongest on the settlements and the west bank and Harris skipping of it, and he takes literally -- and so in bad faith I would argue -- Harris's closing comment about "we're all living in Israel." But the points Sullivan agrees on with Harris, and they are many, are the points I believed "thoughtful" and worthy of posting. If they are intellectually dishonest, Amir, explain. Sullivan certainly doesn't accuse Harris of the same.
Yesterday at 11:38am · Like · 2
AZ I think that Harris' exclusion of obvious problems that Israel faces with inherent and institutionalized racism is just one place to scrutinize a bit. This is worth watching, partially because it broadens the scope of the artificial scenario that the media has created and Harris perpetuates that this struggle is between Israelis and Palestinians. It's much larger than that. The most appalling part is from about 3:00-4:00. Listen to that carefully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF0Wdjln7Eg
Yesterday at 11:45am · Like · 1
J T. D. N, A, the only times Harris uses the words "extremist" or "extremism" they are preceded or followed by "Jews" or "Jewish". Granted that might be glossing over it in your opinion, but it's not an "exclusion."
Yesterday at 11:57am · Like
JD J- I understand what you're saying, although I still prefer 'confused.' It's difficult for me to be measured or ambivalent about so much death and destruction. What is needed is for the extremists amongst both the Israelis and the Palestinians to enter into deep psychiatric therapy sessions. I'm not kidding. I'm also very concerned about the apparent overwhelming support of Israelis for the Gaza campaign - over 90% in some polls. Even the moderates seem to have gone underground in Israel, which is quite disturbing.
Yesterday at 12:01pm · Like · 3
AZ Here's another example. Quote from Harris: "Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity." OK, let's take this apart a bit. Where is his evidence for the final claim? The thing he isn't saying is that other people around the world who's views evolve away from their religious identity give up that identity because it doesn't mean anything. If Jewish people who were atheists were to do the same, they would dissolve into the rest of the population and lose that source of their identity. So, it's not that there aren't many people on earth who were Muslims and Christians that evolved away from their narrow conceptions of god. It's that those people stopped calling themselves Muslims or Christians because those terms mean something and their identity is not tied to such labels. Harris' basically insinuates that there are 'enlightened' Jews, but not Christians or Muslims. Absurd.
Yesterday at 12:11pm · Like · 3
Amir Zaki "So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders." - Please. Evidence?
Yesterday at 12:12pm · Like · 3
AZ "We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. " - Evidence? Hyperbole?
Yesterday at 12:13pm · Like · 1
AZ "So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable." - What???? What kind of logic is this? Harris is a 'philosopher', right? He basically contradicts himself in the course of 3 sentences. I'll stop here. His whole argument can be picked apart, largely for not citing his claims, making broad assertions, etc.
Yesterday at 12:16pm · Like · 1
MD I hated that piece, but it really just depends on your politics, doesn't it? here is the one I shared:http://www.nytimes.com/.../roger-cohen-zionism-and...
Yesterday at 12:20pm · Like · 1
JD Yes, Roger has finally come to his senses.
Yesterday at 12:22pm · Like
J T. D. But Meredith, I would 2nd what Cohen has to say too? What does that say about my politics?
Yesterday at 12:52pm · Like
JTDN "...what Cohen has to say too." Didn't meant the interrogative.
Yesterday at 12:54pm · Like
EW The points that weaken Harris' piece for me include:
1) he continually conflates "Hamas" with "the Palestinians" and suggests the Palestinian's voted Hamas into office because they supported Hamas' call for genocide
As Beinart noted, though, "To the extent American Jewish leaders acknowledge that Hamas won an election (as opposed to taking power by force), they usually chalk its victory up to Palestinian enthusiasm for the organization’s 1988 charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction (The president of the New York board of rabbis said recently that anyone who voted for Hamas should be considered a combatant, not a civilian). But that’s almost certainly not the reason Hamas won. For starters, Hamas didn’t make Israel’s destruction a major theme of its election campaign. In its 2006 campaign manifesto, the group actually fudged the question by saying only that it wanted an “independent state whose capital is Jerusalem” plus fulfillment of the right of return." [and] "So why did Hamas win? Because, according to Shikaki, only fifteen percent of voters called the peace process their most important issue. A full two-thirds cited either corruption or law and order. It’s vital to remember that 2006 was the first Palestinian election in more than ten years. During the previous decade, Palestinians had grown increasingly frustrated by Fatah’s unaccountable, lawless and incompetent rule. According to exit polls, 85 percent of voters called Fatah corrupt. Hamas, by contrast, because it had never wielded power and because its charitable arm effectively delivered social services, enjoyed a reputation for competence and honesty."
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.608008
Where this conflation of Hamas and "the Palestinians" takes Harris to discreditable extremes is when he claims this : "What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself."
He asserts what "the Palestinians would do" if they had self-determining power, again, by conflating them with Hamas. In doing so, Harris over-steps here quite a bit, imo.
The fact that Hamas turned out to be not only also corrupt but so nihilistic was not as foreseeable in 2006 as was that they were offering new hope for law and order to the Palestinians. So distinguishing between Hamas and "the Palestinians" becomes paramount, and that in and of itself weakens a huge chunk of Harris' other arguments.
2) Harris drives home his moral inequality charge with this notion "Who uses human shields? Well, Hamas certainly does."
That is far from "certain" though. From The Independent :
"Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields. The Bani Sobeila area, near Khan Younis, where the Abu Jamaa deaths took place received leaflets dropped from the air last week warning them to leave.
But almost all stayed. One reason for that was many of the houses belonged to the Abu Jamaa clan who felt there was safety in staying together. Another reason was given by a neighbour, Abdullah al-Daweish: “Where do we go to? Some people moved from the outer edge of Khan Younis to Khan Younis centre after Israelis told them to, then the centre got bombed. People have moved from this area to Gaza City, and Gaza City has been bombed. It’s not Hamas who is ordering us in this, it’s the Israelis.”" [and] "There was denial of coercion by Hamas. “I am not going to go because I can do something Hamas cannot do”, maintained Nabil al-Masri. “I know from times before that if Israeli soldiers get into an empty house they will ruin it on purpose. Hamas cannot stop them going into my house if we leave, but, by staying here we can try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”"
So a very densely populated area gets bombed and the civilians have no where to go (or refuse to abandon their homes for fears of losing it or having it ransacked) and Hamas has no where else to fight from and then that makes it "certain" Hamas is using human shields? As one person in that Independent article says "If the Israelis have proof of this let them make it public."
http://www.independent.co.uk/.../israelgaza-conflict-the...
Take those two parts out of Harris' article (or at least take them with a grain of salt) and much of the rest crumbles significantly.
Where I agree with Harris is that Hamas are indeed risking Palestinians lives in unacceptable ways. I'll go further and state that 1) terrorism tactics are NEVER acceptable...always condemnable...and entirely cowardly and 2) the fact that too many Palestinians do not tell anyone asking them to martyr themselves to go fuck (er...martyr) themselves first suggests a clear difference between their mind set and that of the Israelis, who clearly value the life of each member of their society. I'll go further and say I more closely identify with the values of the majority of Israelis than I do with Palestinians on issues of civil rights and other matters. I support Israel's right to defend itself, and hope someone with true leadership/diplomatic capabilities gets elected to replace Netanyahu soon.
I simply disagree that the picture Harris paints is accurate enough to accept his conclusion that Israel shouldn't be criticized.
Yesterday at 1:15pm · Edited · Like · 5
AZ Thank's for your thoroughness, Edward. Very well put.
Yesterday at 1:17pm · Like
KA Thank you, A and E for doing most of the work for me, as I don't have time to spend on facebook today. We could pick apart his writing for days. It is ultimately manipulative... taking on an anti-zionist stance to gain the attention of the "left" and then basically using language that at times is almost word for word hasbara propaganda. (i.e saying that Palestinians built tunnels to kid-nap Israeli children. Where's the evidence that these tunnels were built for this purpose? This paints a caricature of the evil Arab waiting to snatch your children in the night (fear-mongering). How can we prove that this was the purpose of those tunnels and not to simply get basic goods into the prison camp that is Gaza so that people don't starve?) He continues to paint a picture of the Arab as a violent and blood-thirsty, irrational, fanatic who wants to kill all Jewish people and take over the world, and then casually drops a George W. Bush style note: but I don't mean ALL Muslims, which he perceives to be his way out of being accused of Islamophobia. This is one of the most Orientalist pieces that I've read on the Gaza offensive.
Yesterday at 1:38pm · Like · 3
JTD E, I'm in total agreement with your penultimate paragraph.
I think part of the problem here is that, as Harris says, his views are "paradoxical" and bound to offend "almost everyone," and so much of what he offers ping pongs back and forth between stating things like "There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could," and then, immediately following, "Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not," and so on.
Yesterday at 4:22pm · Like · 1
JTDN K, I'm not convinced by the Orientalist argument. Why is the anti-zionist language proffered in bad faith and the anti-Islamist language authentic? I don't recognize your portrait of the "Arab" in Harris's writing, not least because he never uses the term, and is often explicitly identifying Islamist groups that wish to wipe out the Jews. Now, Edward's point about slipping back and forth between Hamas and "the Palestinians" might be well taken, but even there I'm not sure of what distinction could be made beyond the caveats that Harris provides.
Yesterday at 4:30pm · Like
EW But this : "There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could," and then, immediately following, "Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not," and so on." is an extremely convenient rhetorical device. It amounts to writing: "I'm acknowledging that not everyone in this subset is guilty of this, but let me move forward having suggested that distinction doesn't matter, all the same."
Yesterday at 6:20pm · Like · 4
Andrew To my mind, the piece is anything but measured. It seems prejudiced, illogical, and in places is demonstrably factually incorrect. Most of the important criticisms have been raised by E, A, and K above. I'm grateful for their patience and clarity!
19 hrs · Like · 4
EW This article offers a good example of why Harris' carelessness in distinguishing between Hamas and "the Palestinians" is worse than bad logic...it's also dangerous:
http://religiondispatches.org/violent-genocidal-anti.../
13 hrs · Like
K ,A ,J, the anti-zionist language is in bad faith because he is essentially using the language of the Israeli right while saying he's against zionism. Its an absurd contradiction. He should just say "I'm not zionist, I'm just racist". The anti-Muslim language is what makes it Orientalist. As Apoints out, "Harris' basically insinuates that there are 'enlightened' Jews, but not Christians or Muslims." In other words, "they" are not like "us". He grants himself the license to represent Muslims to a Western audience however he sees fitting for his argument. This question of representation is at the core of Orientalism.
13 hrs · Like · 1
AZ Ultimately, Sam Harris, along with other 'New Atheists' suffer badly from a reduction and conflation of religions, religious institutions, cultures and spiritual ideologies (and their relationship to socio-economics). All of those are separate but related issues that need to be parsed out carefully and fairly.
12 hrs · Like
You may take the last strip of my land
You may ditch my youth in prison holes
You may plunder my heritage
You may burn my books, my poems
Or feed my flesh to your dogs
You may impose a nightmare of your terror
On my village
BUT I WILL NOT COMPROMISE
AND TO THE END
I WILL RESIST
by Palestinian poet: Samih Al Qasim
Bit more thoughtful responses than architects, I should say.
that's because this isn't really an open discussion forum. it's a place to paste information telling one side of a story. that was a good facebook discussion though.
you haven't brought in much except complaining about other people's posts. that discussion also starts with a link.
Discuss this:
Gaza is a crime made in Washington as well as Jerusalem .The carnage unleashed on the Palestinians is part of a decades-old routine that depends on western support
You should divest yourself from the United States if we are so utterly complicit in all of this.
Here we go... a USA "moran." Who is we?
Orhan,
your location is listed as Los Angeles... last time I checked we had not yet ceded it to Mexico or the Pacific Ocean.
Actions speak louder than words.... I think you should leave the United States if this country is such a stain on the earth.
How can you in good conscience remain here when the government is so complicit in this atrocity? Your tax dollars, just like everyone else's in this country, apparently go towards the support of this genocide.
How can you possibly remain here!!!!? Your conscience must be eating you alive.
To actively look for Israel's side in this story is to look for the story of a colonizer and a murderer. Yes, there are two sides: that of the colonized Palestinians and that of colonizing Zionism. To try and "see it" from Israel's point of view, whatever that means, is to accept that colonization, oppression of another people, murder, deportation are somewhat an acceptable position to be in.
To even dare suggest that Palestinian reaction to colonization, its resistance against it, is in any way morally equivalent to or approximates or even fractionally echoes Zionism and the murderous state of Israel (murderous by ideology, by policy) - a state that stole another people's lands in order to establish itself on- is tantamount to suggesting that a victim of rape's fighting back is equivalent to the rapist's violating advances: to state to the victim that the rapist also has a story to tell -i.e. that the victim was asking for it- is to join the side of the rapist and to participate in this act.
so, archanonymous, its not allowed to voice criticism, dislike. contempt for the US within the US? is this not a right within a democracy (if you think you live in one)? unless its just advice you're suggesting to (fellow?) US citizens...in which case, within a democracy, I'm sure one has the equal right to tell you to shaft yourself - I would offer you that advice freely from across the border, since Canada and US have a free trade agreement.
But if its about it not being advice but rather rights, well get the fuck out of the "US-A". It doesn't belong to you either.
The word is out: Israel is a lunatic state
The Last and Final Temptation of Israel
AUG 5 2014 @ 12:22PM
What is one to make of the fact that the deputy speaker of the Knesset has called for ethnic cleansing in Gaza?
absolutely not moran. instead it keeps me alive and fighting to make it better. you should try it too when you are done with patronizing other people's morality and citizenship. but it is all about one's capacity and knowing your place in relationship to where you are.
if you are not able to critique your position in relationship to your place, you are not doing your job as a citizen and as far as i am concerned you belong to some shopping mall looking for a discounted conscience 2 for 1 deal.
so, tell me about the "poor Israeli" side again?
To actively look for Israel's side in this story is to look for the story of a colonizer and a murderer.
so are you one of the 4% of aboriginal canadians tammuz? or are you an immigrant, kind of like the europeans in isreal?
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/30/5937119/palestinian-civilian-casualties-gaza-israel
The argument over moral responsibility for civilian Palestinians often makes a fundamental mistake by assuming that culpability is zero-sum: that either Israel is responsible because it uses unnecessarily overwhelming force in civilian areas or Hamas is responsible because it attacks Israel from within civilian communities.
This fundamentally misses the point; both sides independently bear responsibility for the degree to which their tactics lead to civilian deaths. If one side abdicates that responsibility then this does not absolve the other. Both sides, by treating moral responsibility as zero-sum, are giving themselves permission to overlook their own role in driving up the civilian casualty rate, and thus continuing the killing.
More symbolically, treating moral responsibility as zero-sum — Hamas is free of blame because Israel bombs too much; Israel is free of blame because Hamas embeds itself among civilians — assumes that Palestinian civilian deaths only matter for the degree to which they make one side look better or worse. And that lack of regard for the hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed, the apparent sense that their lives only matter at the moment of their death so that it can be blamed on one side or another, is perhaps the most fundamental truth of the Israel-Gaza war.
isn't it enough yet? haven't enough people died for you to get over your hatred and obsessive notion of destroying israel, and instead start looking at paths to peace that might actually help the palestinian people?
yet again, although the blind remain blind
Israel has no right to exist anyway, neither did the Apartheid, neither did Nazism. For those who drag me (or indeed Orhan or anyone else) and the issue of the US and Canada - which I still view as colonies, your Seattle is a colony, your New York is a Colony, your Toronto and Montreal are colonies- we can open up seperate threads for that if you like. Trying to muddle this issue with the subject here to disclose some hypocrisy on my part or anyone else's part really does nothing to your argument. To tell me that I concede to living in a colony does not detract from my criticism - that I am to some extent a hypocrite does not mean that I speak less truth - it just means that you are so bankrupt, you have to rely on personal accusations.
Aside....
Myth: Palestinian resistance fighters are extremist, anti-Semitic, and do not want to live in peace.
The myth of “religious conflict” is central in propagating the notion that “dialogue” between “Israelis” and Palestinians
can resolve “the conflict” and that people need to develop “an understanding” of one another. It is meant to undercut any
discussion about the reality—a racist regime that continues to colonize indigenous land. This myth asks Palestinians
to “put the past behind them” and build “a shared future” with the people who continue to murder their families, steal
their land and destroy their homes. It implies that Palestinians should concede their basic rights, dignity and homeland.
History: Palestinian people are fighting for their survival as a people against
racism and genocide. Just as a New African should not be expected to make
peace with a white racist, it is absurd to think that Palestinians should be
motivated to make peace with their oppressors while Zionist colonizers still occupy
Palestinian land. Palestinians have been legitimately resisting racism, colonization, and
genocide since the 1920’s to the present day by any means necessary: general
strikes, demonstrations, periods of non-cooperation, boycotts of Israeli products
and services, refusal to obey military orders, refusal to vacate land confiscated for
settlers, tax revolt, armed struggle, and martyrdom operations (called “suicide
bombing” by Zionists).
Any form of resistance to the settlement program has been consistently met with
severe and brutal repression: aerial bombardment, military checkpoints, the
“Iron Fist” policy of crushing the bones of Palestinian children’s hands, collective
punishment, torture and mass detention (over 600, 000 Palestinians have been
detained since 1967). Zionist propaganda blames resistance fighters for increased
repression against the Palestinian people. In reality, Palestinian resistance is the only
barrier stopping the Zionists from completely fulfilling their mission to annihilate the
Palestinian people as a whole.
ya, i understand that hamas is fighting a propaganda battle to build support by showing how many innocent people have died. are you posting that because you want me to know that you haven't had enough? you want hamas to launch more rockets from schools, so you can post more statistics? you want more innocent people to die, because you haven't gotten what you want yet?
they're people tammuz. i'm pretty sure most of them are good people who shouldn't have to die because you and your militant groups want to destroy israel. i suppose that won't make sense to you if you've never felt empathy towards another human being. it isn't worth it.
i hope israel is held accountable for what they've done, but moreso i hope people like you give up on your empty quest to spread hate and revenge. i hope the attention you've gotten leads to a peaceful path for palestinians to set up their own government rather than more blind hatred and fighting to destroy their neighbors. peace doesn't come from launching rockets at people.
Still here TAM?
You're not particularly bright so I don't know why I would expect any less.
To repeat, for the thick in the head and the weak of sight
Just as a New African should not be expected to make
peace with a white racist, it is absurd to think that Palestinians should be
motivated to make peace with their oppressors while Zionist colonizers still occupy
Palestinian land. Palestinians have been legitimately resisting racism, colonization, and
genocide since the 1920’s to the present day by any means necessary: general
strikes, demonstrations, periods of non-cooperation, boycotts of Israeli products
and services, refusal to obey military orders, refusal to vacate land confiscated for
settlers, tax revolt, armed struggle, and martyrdom operations (called “suicide
bombing” by Zionists).
That is fine, Non Sequitur, your contribution here is appreciated - for obvious reasons- ,inane and vapid as it might be.
From Why Isn’t Israel Ever Asked To Recognize Palestine’s “Right To Exist”?
This phrase — “Israel’s right to exist” — is thrown around in American politics with such abandon that you’d be forgiven for thinking that a state’s right to exist is a fundamental principle of international relations (IR) that those stubborn Palestinians just refuse to acknowledge.
But there’s a problem.
It isn’t.
Not only is a state’s “right to exist” not a fundamental principle of IR, it’s a complete fiction.
That’s why you’ve never heard the phrases “the United States’ right to exist” or “Slovakia’s right to exist,” for example. The United States and Slovakia do not recognize one another by proclaiming each other’s “right to exist.” They recognize one another by engaging in diplomatic relations — by allowing each other to maintain embassies and by receiving each other’s ambassador. Further evidence of recognition can come in tacit forms such as trade agreements, security alliances, and mutual participation in intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations or the World Bank.
None of these activities constitute a recognition of each other’s right to exist, but rather simply each other’s existence as states in the international system. And for many centuries, this has been more than sufficient to engage in diplomatic relations and conduct foreign policy.
So when Palestinians are asked to recognize Israel’s “right to exist” as part of the dog and pony show known as the “peace process,” they are being asked to do something that in the long, storied annals of Westphalian-era diplomacy, no other state has ever had to do.
The kicker is that the Palestinians have already recognized Israel just as they would recognize any other state in the international arena.
But just for the sake of argument, let’s say the right to exist is an actual thing in IR. In which case, there is an obvious question that follows:
If the success of the peace process and the realization of a two-state solution are contingent upon Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist, why are they not also contingent upon Israel’s recognition of Palestine’s right to exist?
At no point has Israel acknowledged or been asked to acknowledge by the U.S., a Palestinian state’s right to exist. In fact, the U.S. and Israel have thrown international hissy fits at any prospect of Palestinian statehood that does not materialize with their direct blessing. In 2011 the U.S. withdrew funding from UNESCO because the organization overwhelmingly voted to grant membership to Palestine. The vote was 107 to 14 in favor, with 52 abstentions. Seemingly not without a sense of humor, the U.S. criticized the vote as a “unilateral” Palestinian attempt to achieve statehood.
But really, to repeat, Israel has no right to exist.
only people i see here keep mentioning hatred are those personal attackers to tammuz and myself, blindly defending child killers because they are not so secretly hating muslims.
islamophobia... it stinks and very explicit here in this country just like the hatred of the black people and other others.
so far tammuz and i are the only ones who want 'sustainable' and 'just peace' in the region and the only ones who somewhat have a vested interest in it.
i seriously doubt your ability to practice architecture when there is a deficiency to see the obvious.
Israel has no right to exist anyway
they do. they have as much right to exist as you do.
neither did the Apartheid, neither did Nazism
those were different. you're trying to associate their crimes with israel to make israel look worse, which really isn't necessary. instead of reading up on apartheid and nazis, read up on palestine and israel. you might find out why israel has as much right to exist where they are as you do living where you are or i do living where i am.
Trying to muddle this issue with the subject here to disclose some hypocrisy on my part or anyone else's part really does nothing to your argument.
you're right. we can accept that you're fighting someone else's colonial occupation instead of your own and leave it out of the israel/palestinian conflict, since britian's other examples of colonial expansions aren't relevant to this one.
Myth: Palestinian resistance fighters are extremist, anti-Semitic, and do not want to live in peace.
the world (europeans) got together and formed a solution that would let the palestinians live in peace, within their own borders, and with their own government (before that, when did the palestinians really have their own government, without british or turkish or mongolian or some other empire looming over them?). they didn't like that solution, because half the land was set aside to let the "european settlers" form their own government, so they would also be able to live in peace, away from the anti-semtism they fled from (which had already been going on for decades at that point). the palestinians grouped up with some of their neighbors and went to war the very next day. that is not the action of someone who wants to live in peace.
they have been attacking each other ever since then. it's going to be very hard for either side to work out an agreeable peace deal even with ideal conditions since they have 50 years of essentially guerrilla warfare between them. your solution is to destroy israel. israel's solution is to destroy palestine. israel has the upper hand, so that doesn't bode well for the palestinians. the third solution is to have them live together in peace, which is going to require both sides to stop fighting.
what do you have to gain by supporting hamas's attacks into israel? do you really think a protest in england will turn this war so much that it will mitigate israel's considerable advantage, and the palestinians will be able to somehow actually destroy their entire government?
if you cared about the palestinian people, it would be better to place their welfare ahead of your desire to destroy isreal, and promote a reasonable path to peace where both sides are allowed to live.
so far tammuz and i are the only ones who want 'sustainable' and 'just peace' in the region and the only ones who somewhat have a vested interest in it.
i advocate and end to the violence on both sides rather than just one side.
how is continued warfare a "sustainable and just peace?"
Just as a New African should not be expected to make
peace with a white racist, it is absurd to think that Palestinians should be
motivated to make peace with their oppressors while Zionist colonizers still occupy
Palestinian land.
i believe Thabo Mbeki said, at mandela's 90th birthday, "we should build a South Africa that belongs to all, black and white, and therefore a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa"
they didn't kill off all the white people at the end of apartheid. that would not have helped them forward their cause.
Orhan, they see hate because they've been brainwashed to see this as hate.
Yesterday, after a long day at work, we marched - quebecois, arabs, orthodox jewish rabbis, leftists, simple concerned people, some people from the gay community- all marched through Montreal. The Orthodox jewish Rabbis were calling for the peaceful dismantlement of the colonial state of israel, something I completely support. I have no wish to see a drop of blood spilled...but this wish does not obfuscate that when someone commits a crime, there is no equivalence between the criminal and the resisting fighter, this wish does not contradict with the right to resist and fight off the oppressor, the violator. the jews amongst us, orthodox and secular, were the first to call Israel a terrorist state. where is the hate in that? people object to Israel because it IS a state of hatred, all racist ideologies are hateful.
This wish to excise Hamas or any other Palestinian resistance group from the Palestinian population is part of the brainwashing process. No, curtkram, the Palestinians deliberately conciously created Hamas military wing, the Islamic Jihad, the Fateh resistance brigades; the Palestinians are not sheep and are not civilian shields. They live such extraordinary circumstances - occupied, threatened on a daily basis, near starved, killed- that you, a person living in a very relaxed safe individualistic little bubble of comfort- cannot conceive of a people who are ready to sacrifice their own life in order to protect their future on this land, to protect their history and future, their right to exist free from the daily rape of the colonial state of Israel.
You have no idea of the culture, I do. Don't speak for them or about them; you have no knowledge- or exerted any effort to unbrainwash yourself- to have garnered that right to do so.
curtcrum... hence the criticism of the oppression by israel and the chokehold, stealing and repatriating land that doesn't belong to them, killing civilians indiscriminately and even rationing calorie intake of palestinians.
you ask a lot of questions but not very good ones.
we, tammuz and I, want an end to this war, return of palestinian lands, free movement and restoration of decent peaceful life without senseless murders.
israel creates the conditions of the 'warfare.' if palestinians accept those oppressive and inhumane conditions created by israel they would be submitting to outright slavery and imprisonment by the oppressor, to the thieves of their lives.
you don't advocate peace. so far from your posts, you hardly say anything other than condoning child killers' actions. shame on you. quit the denial just for once.
israel ends the apartheid, returns the land and recognizes Palestine and after that if hamas or anyone else attacks israel i for one will be very against that.
this is who uses Palestinians as human shields (AND targets)
From From Victim to Colonial Settler: Shifting the Paradigm on Israel
Constructed as an uncivilized, barbarous, terrorist organization, Hamas has been effectively de-humanized – along with all of the Palestinian people of Gaza, since they voted for Hamas in the elections of 2006. In contrast, Israel is juxtaposed as innocent, civilized and humane.
Projecting itself as a superior civilization, Israel attempts to immunize itself from human rights charges, since as a “civilized” (read “Western”), humane and rational society, Israel by definition cannot be accused of engaging in massive human rights violations?
Instead it is the actions of the Palestinian resistance fighters that are highlighted, because that resistance provides a convenient weapon in the narrative created by Israel of Palestinian “otherness” where their legitimate resistance is instead twisted into being further evidence of their sub-human status.
“Hamas has been effectively de-humanized – along with all of the Palestinian people of Gaza.”
According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natahuyu, the value of human life is different for Palestinians and their leadership who want more dead Palestinians so that they can use “telegenically dead Palestinians”iv for their cause. The logical corollary to this position is that it is perfectly understandable and justifiable that Israel is forced to kill hundreds of “them” in order to ensure Israeli security from these “barbarous” people who have a natural propensity towards violence, if they are not contained and periodically terrorized into submission.
For activists in solidarity with Palestinian desires for national self-determination, undermining the hegemony of the “innocent settler” narrative is imperative in order to counter the propaganda that justifies Israeli state and settler violence. To do so means centering colonialism and white supremacy as the grounding analytical categories and conceptual framework.
This is not necessarily a new argument or one that has not been embraced by some, but for various reasons, including bogus charges of anti-Semitism, many in the U.S. progressive and radical communities have eschewed this approach over the years.
The other challenge is that the “white supremacist” term has been domesticated and reduced to a crude and relatively simple notion of “racism.” In this context, white supremacists and white supremacy is represented by easy targets like Donald Sterling and Tea Party members, while racialized imperialism is overlooked.
In order to re-position Israel in the public imagination, activists must overcome both of these issues if movements for solidarity and justice such as the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement have any chance of being effective solidarity mechanisms.
Liberated from the racist bias of the colonial/imperialist lens that casts Israelis as victims, Israeli state actions and policies in Gaza are then stripped of the obfuscating claims of self-defense and concerns for Palestinian civilians. And ending ethical double standards by applying one standard informed by the principles of human equality and the rejection of all forms of dehumanizing oppression would clearly identify the real victims in the ongoing drama of the Israel/Palestinian conflict – and it would not be the state of Israel.
it's unlikely that i've been brainwashed
the israel-palestinian conflict has been going on for a long time. decades. it's not like it's stopped and started and this current case should be viewed in isolation without the context of how it got this far. the palestinians haven't always been in as bad of condition as they are now. it's gotten progressively worse for them because israel has always had the bigger army, and has mostly been able to strike back with bigger blows than they were hit with. of course that's because israel had greater financial and military assistance, primarily from the US. originally, i think the US and the rest of most of the world supported israel because that's what the UN decided on before the 1948 war.
it's gotten out of hand. i understand the palestinians created militant organizations to defend themselves against israel's attacks. i understand the need for them to do so. but if you look at the conditions of the palestinian people now compared to the 70's or 80's, it's getting a lot worse. what they're doing isn't working.
so, as a human being who really feels bad when so many people get hurt like this, i would like to see the suffering eased. you have to view this confrontation as a continuation of all the others right? this is as much about arafat and Yitzhak Rabin as it is about netanyahu. obviously i disagree with the way israel is handling this. i know they're bad people doing bad things. but a boycott, even if it's really big and really successful, isn't going to break them so bad that they can't afford to blow up the tunnels beneath gaza. even if there are 5 times as many protests as the occupy movement around the world, i don't see israel breaking up their government and just walking away. for one thing, they have nowhere to go. for another, their government was created because almost all of the people who migrated there did so because they were facing anti-semitism somewhere else.
instead of putting all this effort into destroying israel, i think the palestinians would actually be able to live better lives if the violence stopped and they were able to negotiate to get the right to live peaceably, with access to aid and open boarders and representation in government and all that. keep in mind that any negotiation between the israelis and palestinians is going to be in a room filled with people who know pretty much all of the horrible things they've done to each other. it's not just the palestinians who are currently the victim, but the generations of palestinians that led up the current situation. there is a lot of trust lost that would be need to be built back. that would be a good place to put your efforts, if you want to see palestinians live in peace with self-determination instead of a constant struggle to see if they can destroy isreal before isreal destroys them.
instead of putting all this effort into destroying israel, i think the palestinians would actually be able to live better lives if the violence stopped and they were able to negotiate to get the right to live peaceably
excuse me, but seriously, are you dumb? do you read?
one of the major points made here several times is that it is inherent to Zionism - in the manifest of its established ISrael- to eliminate Palestinian existence on Palestinian land, by deportation or by murder. and you're talking about pleeing to the rapist not to rape?
if Palestinians don't resist, they're doomed. and believe me, there is a better chance that Israel is doomed if they do resist.
right. instead of all the propaganda speak saying israel is evil and must be destroyed, and creating 'zionist' boogeymen, create some propaganda saying israel needs a centrist government that's willing to work with the palestinians on a sustainable peace accord where both people can live together. and create some propaganda so the palestinians will build a centrist government that's willing to work with the israelis.
obviously that would be hard to do. lots of people have tired. still, if you want to ease the suffering of the palestinian people, your odds are better building bridges than trying to see if you can destroy isreal before they destroy you.
and no, i haven't read the vast majority of your posts. i already told you that a long time ago. it's propaganda designed to get people angry and to spread hate, and i choose to live my life different than that. of course it's easier to play to people's emotions and get them all riled up like that - but please explain to me how that will create less suffering instead of more suffering for the people you think you're helping? i mean, you're kind of playing israel's hand; if the palestinians strike more often, the israelis strike back more, and that hastens their plans of ending this war the only way they know how.
then, if you don't read, on what basis are you arguing with me? how are you able to judge?
since you ignore me and my posts, allow me to pay you back in kind.
From Palestinians finally bury their dead in Gaza sands
Published Wednesday 06/08/2014 (updated) 07/08/2014 18:07
A Palestinian man mourns at the morgue of a hospital in Rafah over
the bodies of some of the nine members of the same al-Ghoul family
who were killed along with other Palestinians after their house was hit
by an Israeli air strike on Aug. 3, 2014 (AFP Said Khatib)
RAFAH (AFP) -- For days bodies filled the morgues. Only since guns fell silent have volunteers come to dig graves in the sand in Rafah, Gaza's "town of martyrs," devastated by Israeli bombardment.
For three days the strategic southern town went through hell.
"The tanks came," says Mohammed Abu Luli, 50, who fled his home after the bombardment started.
"There were strikes from air, land and sea. The bombs rained down everywhere. I have never seen anything like it in all my life," he added.
In neighborhoods, houses lie flattened or ripped open by shelling. Asphalt on the road has been ripped up by the weight of Israeli tanks.
when you're just copying other people's content and images, it's not really coming from you anyway. i'm glad we were able to have a short exchange of actual opinions. good luck on your war against israel. i sincerely hope you can pull it off without compounding the suffering that's already occurred.
when you're just copying other people's content and images
what is that mean? is this a solo art show on object originality or something? that stuff is from reports from the grounds, well known writers, politicians etc. they are there because they are relevant to subject at hand. plus, if you read what's written so far in these 500+ posts there are a lot of original ideas, reviews and opinions as well.
oh, i forgot you don't read.
if you don't read someone's writing, opinions and what has been said, how can you call this person (implicitly or explicitly) hater, anti semite, warmonger, israel annihilator etc.., that is plain bigotry man... really...
Home / Gaza / Short stories from Gaza
Short stories from Gaza
in Gaza, Journals August 5, 2014
5th August 2014 | Sarah Algherbawi | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
These are short stories from Gaza, a brief picture of our suffering. Reality is much more painful. The description under each photo consists of facts published on news agencies and social media. For each photo I also wrote a story. Some of the photographed people we have seen on TV, others I know their friends or relatives, and the narrative is mine from my knowledge of their circumstances.
Behind numbers, many stories are hidden and buried!
I was happy, a beautiful bride, preparing for my wedding and a house with my beloved fiancé, my soul mate…I was engaged for 13 months, and supposed to get married in August 2014. He promised to make me happy for the rest of my life…
Now, I’m alone. He never lied. He didn’t have the chance to meet his promised. He was killed.
I was happy with my wedding ring. I couldn’t believe that the woman I have always dreamed of was finally my wife. I even took a picture of the ring and put it as my profile picture on Facebook. I was going to be a daddy – my wife was pregnant when I was killed…
I wish that I could see my son. I wish he knew me. I don’t even know whether the baby is a boy or a girl… but I think he will be a boy and will hold the name of his father, Khaled…
I was a journalist, too. I was killed only for doing my job.
I had a brother. We used to fight too much. Mom had always begged us to stop fighting and making noise. We played together and spent a lot of time with each other. I never thought I would lose him this fast! I loved him very much. I didn’t tell him that. I thought I would have ages to do so…
I only wish I’d had the chance to tell him before he was killed. I can’t understand why he’s gone. He was just a kid like me. He didn’t do anything bad to others!
We witnessed a war. Our parents didn’t allow us to go out and play. We told them that we’re just children – why would they hurt us? We were very bored! We didn’t go out for weeks…
Dad told us to play on the roof. He thought it was a safe place. We had so much fun, before we were killed there.
We had a mom and a dad. They loved us very much. Mom was waiting for the war to end to take us to the market and buy us new uniforms for school and new clothes for Eid. They promised to teach us whatever we wanted, and take care of us until we grew up…
Mom always wished to attend our weddings and see our children…
The war is not over. Eid came, and they were not present. They were killed. We’re alone now. Who will take care of us?
I was pretty. My friends at school used to feel jealous of me. I always felt that I was a princess…
I don’t know what happened. I don’t even understand what they are saying. I heard doctors saying that something called fragments hurt me. I don’t even want to understand. I only want my beautiful face back!
I had a beautiful daughter. I spoiled her and loved her like no father in the world could do…
I always dreamed of her wedding day, how she would look. Would any man on earth love her the way I do?! I asked God to give me health and long age until that moment came…
It never came to my mind that she would die before I did.
They killed my daughter.
They took my soul.
I was scared to death!
From source
Mr Efratri said: "These soldiers are deciding on a theoretical red line that nobody can pass. You can be killed for crossing this line. There is a video of a man looking for his family. Two soldiers ask if it is ok to shoot him."
He described what happened next: "The sniper is getting into position - he is asking his offcer, three, times 'when can I shoot him?'
"The officer tells them 'wait, wait, we need the man in the green shirt to cross the red line'.
'Revenge attack'
"The third time the officers tell him, 'you can shoot'.
"He shoots two more bullets into his body and kills him."
Mr Efrati confirmed: "I heard this testimony from three soldiers."
He added: "They were completely convinced that what they did was wrong. They were guilty. The man in the green shirt was not any threat to their lives.
"The officer allowed this revenge attack in the middle of Gaza."
israel ends the apartheid, returns the land and recognizes Palestine and after that if hamas or anyone else attacks israel i for one will be very against that.
you mean everything west of the jordan? or return all land in an equal amount to the 1967 or 1948 border?
it's curtkram. not curtcrum. you can see it printed right there. i'm sure that was a typo since most 6 year olds have enough maturity to refrain from that sort of attempt at name-calling, and i'm sure you were in a rush to not answer not good questions so those things happen.
another not good question, if you expect isreal to leave the mideast entirely. obviously all palestinians should be welcome back, in any peace agreement, one state or two. did you expect the 'european settlers' living there now to remain living there, but under a palestinian government (despite their history of anti-semitism and lack of representation in government; we could ignore that, but i'm certain they won't)? or do you kick them all out (peacefully) so they can start over somewhere like america?
i don't think they would give up everything they have because you want a palestinian state. this isn't a question of what's right or what would be best for everyone or even a question of punishing the aggressor. it simply doesn't make sense that they would do that voluntarily. so what do you think the impetus will be to cause the israelis to abandon their government and hand it over to people who have hated them for generations? a boycott? a protest? a bunch of rockets? do tammuz's posts make you optimistic that the assembly in britian and whatever other government body will get the UN to back a plan that actually ends israel, rather than the more tepid 2-state option that allows the people of israel to continue to govern themselves?
if you don't read someone's writing, opinions and what has been said, how can you call this person (implicitly or explicitly) hater, anti semite, warmonger, israel annihilator etc.., that is plain bigotry man... really...
mostly the thanksgiving posts. some other posts from before then too i think. we've all been here a long time.
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