Raghad's uncle, Mohammed, told his family he would open the door and talk peacefully with the soldiers, explaining to them that there were only civilians in the house.
“He courageously went outside, with a white flag, just to talk with them saying, 'I am a peaceful man and have only women, children and elderly here'," Raghad said.
Her uncle, Mohammed, usually based in Spain, showed the soldiers his Spanish Permanent Residency card (he also held a resident permit) and spoke to them in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish. He told his family that using the languages would help to avoid any misundertandings.
He moved closer, speaking softly and politely in all four languages.
”Please don’t shoot me," he said.
Suddenly, a muffled shot came from a short, blonde-haired, blue-eyed soldier holding an M-16 in his shaking hands. He was only about 20-years-old, Raghad said.
“I looked the soldier in the eye and his eyes seemed wet," she said.
“My father only said, 'Please don’t shoot us, we are peaceful people'," his 35-year-old daughter, Buthina Qudeh, said in despair. "But the soldier shot him anyway."
Raghad is still in shock. She never imagined Israeli troops would kill an unarmed civilian man.
“I understand them killing a resistance fighter from close range, but to kill an innocent old man who was kind?” she said.
Buthina said, “Usually my dad was a bit tougher with troops yelling at them to stop using offensive, ethnic slurs, but this time he seemed to realise that caution would protect the lives of those in the family with him."
“It was a cold-blooded killing, just a human killed in front of our eyes, without reason," said Raghad, a 1st-year English-Language college student.
Helen Hintjens, a Hague-based human rights lecturer, said incidences during the current war in Gaza like the one described by Raghad, when people shelter for safety and are attacked, remind her of the Rwandan genocide.
"There too women, children, old people and civilian men, not taking part in any fighting at all, were slaughtered in places of safety, churches, hospitals, schools," Hintjens said. "It is very reminiscent of the genocide. It looks like another genocide, for all intents and purposes."
'Your bullets forced us to stay inside'
After the soldier shot her father, Buthina said, all three soldiers backed away and threw tear-gas at the family.
Raghad and her family ran indoors, as tear-gas made it difficult to breathe, or even see Mohammed's body.
Minutes later, the same three soldiers came into the house again.
“Why didn’t you leave the house?” they asked the family.
“'We tried'," Raghad said she told the troops, "'but you were shooting at us, your bullets forcing us to stay inside'.”
Raghad retells the events of that day outside the same home which used to be a small farm with goats, doves, chicken and dogs. All of the farm animals have been killed, their bodies scattered around what used to be a lovely garden amid a stench of dead meat. One can’t tell if this comes from the animals or the human dead bodies next door.
Raghad said she communicated with a soldier in English, explaining why they hadn't left the house, but the soldier who executed her uncle, Mohammed Qudeh, did not say any word. He still had his hands on the gun, ready to shoot anyone.
“I told them, we are children and women—my cousin spoke in Hebrew, I spoke in English and downstairs the children were screaming, in Arabic,” she recounted.
“After they executed my uncle, they told us go,” she said. Ordered by the soldiers, Raghad and her family had to go back to her parent's home, leaving the body of her uncle bleeding with his mouth open.
While Raghad and her family walked home to their house, many of the male members of the family, including Mohammed Qudeh's son, Ramadan Mohammed Qudeh, were kept behind.
For several hours, Ramadan said, the soldiers moved him and other relatives from room to room around the home, using them as human shields as they shot from windows.
At the time, there weren't any fighters returning fire at the soldiers, but the tactic scared Ramadan all the same.
"We could have been killed at any moment," he said.
Under the staircase
As Raghad and her family walked back to their home, soldiers standing about two meters away fired bullets around the feet of all children and women, a common practice used to scare civilians.
“We are used to them bombing us from above, demolishing our homes with bulldozers, or firing tank shells—but to break into your home, and execute you in front of your family is something we have never seen -we are simple people, who don’t deserve this," she said.
“There is no humanity in them, they are cruel and heartless," she said while holding tears behind her voice staying strong.
When they returned to her parents' home, the family hid under the staircase, the only place they felt was still safe. Raghad told her dad and everyone to pray and prepare to die from the Israeli bullets.
Suddenly, a bulldozer made a hole in the fence of the home and bullets were fired at the staircase, she said.
A gun came through the hole that Raghad had made to try to see what was happening. A soldier screamed, “Raghad, come here… who is inside?”
"Just my family," she said. The soldier demanded they all come out, one by one.
Her father, in his 60s, was pushed around by the soldiers using the butts of their guns. “I felt so sad for my dad, and old wise man being hit by them," she said.
The family was taken again to the house they were hiding in before. When Raghad asked where her uncle was, the soldiers said they had given him first aid and he was okay. “I felt relieved when they told me he was alive," she said.
The children were screaming, asking for water but two blonde-haired soldiers couldn’t care less about us and refused to let us use toilets or drink water, she said.
"We were held at gunpoint, unable to do anything," Raghad said.
Only one Druze soldier came to them with a bottle of water. Speaking Arabic, he told them to cover their ears from the explosions.
Raghad’s brothers were handcuffed, their eyes blind-folded and they were taken to an unknown area. They screamed to the soldiers, “We did nothing, for God’s sake”, as smoke came out of nearby buildings.
Every time Raghad said she asked a soldier when they could leave and use the toilet, they responded, “Ask Hamas."
One of the soldiers wearing a dark-blue yarmulke told Raghad to say where the tunnels were in exchange for her safe haven. She told him she didn't know anything about Hamas.
“When women were finally allowed to use the toilet, the soldiers came inside the toilets to observe us," she said.
Military dogs passed by the children to scare them, while soldiers refilled guns, making noise similar to the sounds the family heard when their uncle, Mohammed, was shot.
"Someone will come to give you instructions on what to do," a soldier told Raghad and her family.
Moments later, Raghad’s dad, Ramadan, came in and told her, “They have ordered us to leave one way, not look to the side or argue with the soldiers."
“'Please be quiet," Ramadan told his daughter, confirming to her that her uncle had been killed. "Go quietly and say goodbye to him.'”
A final look and a question
All of the children and women ran up to the body which lay in a pool of blood. Some held onto their uncle and grandfather by his phenomenal moustache. They had a few seconds for a final look, some kissing his hands, others kissing his forehead and legs, but trying not to make a sound so that the soldiers wouldn't shoot them.
“I kissed him and told him how very proud I am of him," Raghad said.
The family was allowed to flee, but Mohammed‘s body was left behind. As they left, she lingered to ask one of the soldiers - who spoke in British-accented English - a question.
“Why did you kill my uncle, a peaceful man?” she asked.
“Tears fell from the soldier's face as he turned away," Raghad said.
The Israeli wrath inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza, two-thirds of whom are refugees, entitled to the right of return, comes within an ideological context of tribal bigotry, racism, and exclusivism. In 2004, Israeli Professor Arnon Soffer, Head of the Israeli Occupation Force’s National Defense College, and advisor to Ariel Sharon, spelt out Israel’s macabre expectation from the unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza (2005) in an interview with The Jerusalem Post:
“[W]hen 1.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today,... The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day...If we don't kill, we will cease to exist…Unilateral separation doesn't guarantee "peace" - it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews”
...And we, Palestinians, have decided to respond to the Zionist kick in the way we see fit! And for that, we need the support of the freedom-loving “every man and every woman”, as opposed to the complicit, official world leaders who have chosen to support oppression and blame the victim. Now is the time for global civil society to help us end Israeli racism and genocide. The only way to ensure a just peace and redress for Palestinian dispossession is for global civil society to intensify the boycott of the apartheid Israeli state, and by advocating for divestment from Israel and sanctions against it
Go to Gaza, see for yourself In the absence of hatred, one can understand the Palestinians. Without it, even some of Hamas’ demands might sound reasonable and justified.
Rafah, August 5, 2014. Palestinians search destroyed cars in Rafah's district of Shawkah in the southern Gaza Strip. August 5, 2014. / Photo by AP
By Gideon Levy Published 06:28 10.08.14 Can we possibly conduct a discussion, however brief, that is not saturated with venomous hatred? Can we let go for a moment of the dehumanization and demonization of the Palestinians and speak dispassionately of justice, leaving racism aside? It’s crucial that we give it a try.
In the absence of hatred, one can understand the Palestinians. Without it, even some of Hamas’ demands might sound reasonable and justified. Such a rational discourse would lead any decent person to clear-cut conclusions. Such a revolutionary dialogue might even advance the cause of peace, if one may still dare say such things. What are we facing? A people without rights that in 1948 was dispossessed of its land and its territory, in part by its own fault. In 1967 it was again stripped of its rights and lands. Ever since it has lived under conditions experienced by few nations. The West Bank is occupied and the Gaza Strip is besieged. This nation tries to resist, with its meager powers and with methods that are sometimes murderous, as every conquered nation throughout history, including Israel, has done. It has a right to resist, it must be said.
Let’s talk about Gaza. The Gaza strip is not a nest of murderers; it’s not even a nest of wasps. It is not home to incessant rampage and murder. Most of its children were not born to kill, nor do most of its mothers raise martyrs — what they want for their children is exactly what most Israeli mothers want for their own children. Its leaders are not so different from Israel’s, not in the extent of their corruption, their penchant for “luxury hotels” nor even in their allocating most of the budget to defense.
Gaza is a stricken enclave, a permanent disaster zone, from 1948 to 2014, and most of its inhabitants are third- and fourth-time refugees. Most of the people who revile and who destroy the Gaza Strip have never been there, certainly not as civilians. For eight years I have been prevented from going there; during the preceding 20 years I visited often. I liked the Gaza Strip, as much as one can like an afflicted region. I liked its people, if I may be permitted to make a generalization. There was a spirit of almost unimaginable determination, along with an admirable resignation to its woes.
In recent years Gaza has become a cage, a roofless prison surrounded by fences. Before that it was also bisected. Whether or not they are responsible for their situation, these are ill-fated people, a great many people and a great deal of misery.
Despairing of the Palestinian Authority, Gazans chose Hamas in a democratic election. It’s their right to err. Afterward, when the Palestine Liberation Organization refused to hand over the reins of power, Hamas took control by force.
Hamas is a national-religious movement. Anyone who champions hatred-free dialogue will notice that Hamas has changed. Anyone who manages to ignore all the adjectives that have been applied will also discern its reasonable aspirations, such as having a seaport and an airport. We must also listen to scholars who are free of hatred, such as Bar-Ilan University Mideast expert Prof. Menachem Klein, whose reading of Hamas goes against the conventional wisdom in Israel. In an interview to the business daily Calcalist last week, Klein said Hamas was founded not as a terror organization but rather as a social movement, and should be viewed as such even now. It has long since “betrayed” its charter, and conducts a lively political debate, but in the dialogue of hatred there is no one to hear it.
From the perspective of the dialogue of hate, Gaza and Hamas, Palestinians and Arabs, are all the same. They all live on the shore of the same sea, and share the single goal of throwing the Jews into it. A less primitive, less brainwashed discussion would lead to different conclusions. For example, that an internationally supervised port is a legitimate and reasonable goal; that lifting the blockade on the Strip would also serve Israel; that there is no other way to stop the violent resistance; that bringing Hamas into the peace process could result in a surprising change; that the Gaza strip is populated by human beings, who want to live as human beings.
But in Hebrew, “Gaza,” pronounced ‘Aza, is short for Azazel, which is associated with hell. Of the multitude of curses hurled at me these days from every street corner, “Go to hell/Gaza” is among the gentler ones. Sometimes I want to say in response, “I wish I could go to Gaza, in order to fulfill my journalistic mission.” And sometimes I even want to say: “I wish you could all go to Gaza. If only you knew what Gaza is, and what is really there.”
The truth is, many children are harmed and even killed without any political connection. I feel the desperation of a parent who wants to, but is not able to protect his children. It is beyond my control — I am not the one that chose to shoot an innocent young boy. I am not the one that gave the order to shoot tear gas at peaceful demonstrators or to drop bombs on homes, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
This is our life living under occupation. My son is no different from the thousands of others who have been shot during this conflict. As a leader of popular resistance protests, my family joins with me in demonstrations, knowing that any one of us could be arrested, injured or even killed as a result.
But we do it anyway, because we have no other choice — we will never achieve our freedom unless we struggle for it and sometimes pay for it with blood and tears.
So we must continue to resist, for my children and for all our children, in the hopes that our efforts today will create a future for Palestinians in which we are safe and free.
You always have a choice. There is freedom in walking away, freedom in leaving - is there not? But i fear that you believe freedom can only come with "victory".
So, while you are "not the one" who dropped a bomb on a school, are you "the one" that hid arms and tunnels? Are you "the one" that condones Hamas's call for destruction?
Are you "the one" that sees only violence as the solution...as the only choice?
"The Israeli site +972 has blown that propaganda completely out of the water. A well-researched article in Hebrew that it translated from an educational worker near Gaza states that the tunnels do not appear to be targeted at civilians and they come out more than a mile from any kibbutz, let alone the kindergartens.
In short, the tunnels fear was hysteria, drummed up by the Israeli government to heighten war fever, and then purveyed by the New York Times and CNN.
The piece at +972 — which is headlined in part, “In reality, every tunnel so far has been used against military targets alone” — was published in Hebrew on “Local Call,” and written by Emanual Yelin, who lives in Be’er Sheva and is said to work near the Gaza border. Yelin is a full-on Israeli patriot, but he has no truck with the lies and propaganda disseminated around the tunnels.
...When can we expect the New York Times and CNN to publish updated articles pointing out the errors in their original reporting?"
I never noted (nor cared) what the purpose of the tunnels was beyond them obviously not being built for peaceful purposes. Which is sort of the point to all this. You have really just perpetuated a pot and kettle argument wherein you seem to think your shade of black is better than another's.
Nevertheless, the Palestinian problem is Hamas and the mentality by which it goes about problem solving...pure and simple. This is epitomized by its still-in-effect charter and by its day to day actions both withing its borders and without. Until you realize this you will never be free. Freedom, as we say in the US, comes with responsibility..which means one cannot simply blame their government and hide behind "innocent bystander" status. And Palestinians making an argument with the point of a bayonet is hardly sufficient on this matter.
As a mildly unrelated reference consider that you are pleading a case among many Americans, whom descended from a people that settled their land dispute in a similar manner.
Let's all regress to solve our land disputes to "similar" ways. After all as we might say in the USA that you have a direct access to our evil weapons of destruction if you are Israel!
This is something to behold --according to this article just published in WSJ, during their slaughter of Palestinians, the Israelis actually bypassed the White House and the US State Department and went directly to the Pentagon to replenish their arms and ammunition to kill more Palestinians -- the White House finally finds out . . . "Since then the Obama administration has tightened its control on arms transfers to Israel. But Israeli and U.S. officials say that the adroit bureaucratic maneuvering made it plain how little influence the White House and State Department have with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—and that both sides know it." HOW UTTERLY insane is that? Who is in charge "Mr President?"
Though it may be unpalatable, sides have been chosen. Your indifference to history or the transcendent qualities of mankind and societies will not resolve the facts. This recent cry of the "innocence" in Palestine is equally as remarkable as Israel's claim of being "hands off". So, when setting respective "claims" aside we can only rely on actions...and i dare say that the Hamas Charter does little to evoke "innocence" nor does it even merit one to preserve its way of thinking.
As an architect you should have long ago realized that destruction is an inevitable by-product of the profession - and yes, it can be a difficult process, but that does not change its inevitability.
As an architect you should have long ago realized that destruction is an inevitable by-product of the profession - and yes, it can be a difficult process, but that does not change its inevitability.
Interesting dilemma... In one hand gives credit to survival of the fittest idea, and on the other, it says, "let's keep annihilating Palestinians until they submit to our power of domination as to where we want them to be."
The latter is an absolute slavery and punishment.
ps,
As an architect you should have long ago realized
What is that supposed to mean? Let's not resort to personal projections here.
I read an article last night, a very respectable Palestinian writer asked Palestinians what they thought about Hamas, all agreed that they made a mistake in electing them. Hamas is to blame for Israeli anger. Hamas is taking the lives of their people and putting them on the line to continue some stupid grudge match. What kind of despicable people stand in a crowd of their own country as F-16's bomb the crowds searching for them? Keep in mind that this is all written by a Palestinian. Palestinians hate Israel, yet they are coming to hate Hamas even more.
while i would agree that hamas's actions are despicable, and partially to blame for the israeli's and palestinian's inability to find a peaceful resolution to their differences, you should know that it is only a small part of the complicated problems they're facing. israel certainly isn't blameless.
why not just vote to have hamas disarm, so peace talks can start? has orhan or tammuz considered a peaceful resolution that includes in part a cessation to violent action against israel, or would that 'submission to power and dominance' be too nonviolent to consider?
you know, there wasn't a blockade in gaza before hamas took power. there could actually be something there.
There it is. I agree Curt, but I stick with the fact that Israel is retaliating against previous attacks from Palestine. Palestine is predisposed to hate Israel so peace, to me, was never thought of as an option to Hamas and I think Palestine agreed. At first. But now that it has come to such extremes as this, people are dying over Hamas' actions. And Palestine hates it.
This is simply Pro-Israeli propaganda spewing from these Zionist pigs!
But seriously, this is the most sense anyone has made on this thread. tammuz and his cohort would rather hold their breath, hold their ears, and stomp around like a pissed off pre-teen girl than have an intelligent debate about the topic. Go ahead guys, proceed with your copy/paste/repeat plan to further bother archinect users.
saying 'hamas has played a role' or 'hamas is not blameless' or 'hamas is not the good guy' is different than saying 'it is hamas's fault.' it also doesn't mean it is not israel's fault.
peace won't come by launching rockets into israel from gaza. encouraging more rockets to be fired from gaza into israel will only result in more dramatic statistics and images for you to post on architect forums. that is not what i want to see happen. what's your goal? what do you want to see? More dramatic statistics and images to post on architect forums? is this really a valid path to whatever goal you have? that's messed up.
Do you understand the effect of terrorism on a population?
It has turned the US into a near-police state with local PD's equipped with tactical military gear.
Why would you think that much more insidious and constant terrorism of Israel would do anything but stoke support for the elimination of Palestine/ Palestinians? It may be criminal, but is not genocide. However, it is doing a great disservice to Rawanda, Liberia, South Africa, and Germany, Armenia, where actual large-scale genocide is confirmed to have occurred by constantly screaming GENOCIDE, GENOCIDE, OH THE HUMANITY!
Put yourself in the place of an Israeli citizen living in southwestern Israel. Do you feel safe? Do you feel inclined to drop less bombs or more after your previous attempt to stop the rockets failed?
It would be nice if this wasn't an issue and the world (and zionists) had respected the Palestinian people's territorial rights and integrity, but that isn't what happened. It would probably be best to address the reality of the situation, not some fantasy where we can go back to 1947 and have a do-over. Israel has NUCLEAR WEAPONS. They are never going away, so I suggest you, and everyone else, learns to live with them.
Real brilliant and telling about innards of the intention here in CAPS!! I have nothing left to say!!!!! Oh the humanity!
It would be nice if this wasn't an issue and the world (and zionists) had respected the Palestinian people's territorial rights and integrity, but that isn't what happened. It would probably be best to address the reality of the situation, not some fantasy where we can go back to 1947 and have a do-over. Israel has NUCLEAR WEAPONS. They are never going away, so I suggest you, and everyone else, learns to live with them.
"All colonial settler states are based on the violent dispossession of the native peoples – and as a result, their fundamental and overriding aim has always been to keep those native peoples as weak as possible. Israel’s aim for the Palestinians is no different. Palestinian statehood is clearly an obstacle to this goal; a Palestinian state would strengthen the Palestinians. Genuine sovereignty would end Israel’s current presumed right to steal their land, control their borders, place them under siege, and bomb them at will. That is why Netanyahu’s Likud party platform “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”; that is why Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated for even suggesting some limited self-governance for the Palestinians"
"...
Within three years of the 1993 Oslo declaration, for example, which promised self-governance for Palestinian areas, foreign minister Ariel Sharon was urging “everyone” to “grab as many hilltops as they can” in order to minimise the size and viability of the area to be administered by Palestinian Authority. The 1999 election of a Labour Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, made no difference, ushering in “a sustained commitment by Israel’s government to avoid full compliance with the Oslo agreement”, according to Jimmy Carter, most notably in the form of the greatest increase in illegal Israeli settlements that had yet taken place. The popular story that Barak had made a ‘generous offer’ on Palestinian statehood at negotiations in Taba in 2001, turned out to be a complete myth.
In the 2000s, the stakes were raised by the discovery of 1.4trillion cubic metres of natural gas in Gaza’s territorial waters, leading Israel to immediately strengthen its maritime blockade of Gaza to prevent Palestinian access to the reserves. But Palestinian sovereignty over this gas would obviously enormously strengthen the economic position of any future Palestinian state - and thus made the Israelis more determined than ever to prevent such a state from coming into being."
" Indeed, the image of the plucky little victim, besieged by ‘hostile enemies’ on all sides, is a fundamental plank of the Israeli national psyche, necessary to ensure the continued identification of the population with the militaristic state and its expansionist policies. And more importantly, in the zero-sum game of settler-vs-native politics, any Palestinian state, however toothless, represents an intolerable retreat for the Zionists."
"In 2006, following the election of Hamas, the US and EU effectively supported this line, and joined forces with Israel in refusing to recognise Hamas as the governing body of the Palestinian Authority. Likewise, when a unity government was formed with Fatah the following year (combining the two parties who together represented 86% of the popular vote), it was not recognised as legitimate by Israel’s international backers who instead supported a government led by Salam Fayyad, whose party had gained just 2% in the previous year’s election. However, reaction to the recent unity government announced in April this year was very different. A government of ‘technocrats’ – comprising not a single Hamas member – was endorsed by both Fatah and Hamas in an attempt to end the isolation and strangulation of the Gaza strip.
"Israel no longer had ‘Palestinian disunity’ as an excuse for refusing to engage in peace talks. Nor did they have ‘terrorism’ as an excuse, as Hamas had steadfastly stood by the terms of the 2012 ceasefire, not only ceasing their own rocket fire, but also successfully preventing rocket attacks by other Palestinian groups in Gaza. And all this despite continuous violations of the ceasefire by Israel beginning before the ink was even dry – from a refusal to lift the blockade (as required by the ceasefire terms), to continued attacks on Palestinians, killing 4 and maiming nearly 100 within the first three months of the ‘ceasefire’ alone. Even after Israeli attacks were stepped up over the past year, with four Palestinian children shot dead by Israeli forces between December 2013 and May 2014, including a 15 year old shot in the back from 100m, Hamas held their fire. Netanyahu’s narrative of negotiations being impossible due to Palestinian terrorism and disunity was being increasingly undermined by reality – and crucially, his US-EU backers were not buying it. The Israeli government responded to the unity government by “what can only be described as economic warfare. It prevented the 43,000 civil servants in Gaza from moving from the Hamas payroll to that of the Ramallah government and it tightened siege round Gaza's borders thereby nullifying the two main benefits of the merger” (Avi Shlaim). Still Hamas held their fire. What Netanyahu really needed was a provocation against Hamas to which they would be forced to respond. Such as response would again allow him to paint them as the bloodthirsty terrorists with whom one can never negotiate, would provide the opportunity for another wave of devastation in Gaza, and would exacerbate tensions within the unity government between Fatah and Hamas.
Nine days after the swearing in of the unity government, on June 11th, the IDF made a raid on Gaza in which they killed a 10 year old boy on a bicycle. But still Hamas held their fire. The following day, however, the apparent kidnapping of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank provided the opportunity for a provocation on an altogether larger scale. Having blamed the kidnapping on Hamas (without ever producing a scrap of evidence), Netanyahu used it as an excuse for an attack on the entire Hamas leadership in the West Bank, while his economy minister Naftali Bennett announced that “We’re turning the membership card for Hamas into a ticket to hell”. Operation Brother’s Keeper did precisely that, with 335 Hamas leaders arrested (including over 50 who had only just been released under a prisoner exchange scheme), and well over 1000 house raids (which left them looking “like an earthquake had taken place” according to one Palestinian activist). Noam Chomsky notes: “The 18-day rampage....did succeed in undermining the feared unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. According to Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians, including 335 affiliated with Hamas, and killed six Palestinians, also searching thousands of locations and confiscating $350,000. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing 5 Hamas members on July 7. Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, Israeli officials reported, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.” Thus having killed eleven Palestinians in under a month, Israel then used retaliatory rocket attacks which killed no one as an excuse to launch the biggest slaughter of Palestinians in decades. Operation Protective Edge went on to kill or maim over 12,000 Palestinians over the course of the month that followed. But for Israel, it allowed it to push forward its key aim - prevention the formation of a functioning Palestinian state – on a number of fronts."
In addition to attacks on water and electricity infrastructure, the private economy has also come under attack. The biggest factory in Gaza, a biscuit factory that had just won the contract to supply the UN in Gaza, was completely obliterated by Israeli shellfire, and even conservative British daily the Telegraph notes that “anecdotal evidence of the systematic destruction of Gaza's civilian economy and infrastructure is compelling”. The report continues: “Outside central Gaza City, a string of businesses with no obvious links to militant activities lie in ruins after being demolished by missiles or shells. They include a plastics factory, a sponge-making plant and even the headquarters of the territory's main fruit distribution near the northern town of Beit Hanoun, much of which has been levelled in the Israeli land invasion."
"Finally, as many commentators have noted, even if Israel were successful in its stated aim of destroying or weakening Hamas, this would only result in even more militant groups emerging, perhaps even Al Qaeda type groups such as ISIS, gaining support from a traumatised population by promising revenge attacks and uncompromising armed jihad. Whilst many have argued that this would somehow be against Israel’s interests, the reverse is likely to be true. Groups such as ISIS have played a key role in facilitating US and British policies in the Middle East in recent years, by weakening independent regional powers (or potential regional powers) such as Libya, Syria and now Iraq."
"Despite all this, however, all is not well for Israel. Despite everything, the unity government has not broken, and Fatah and Hamas are currently presenting a united front in the ceasefire negotiations. Likewise, Hamas has not been defeated, even militarily (let alone politically) by this attack, and has been able to continue its military resistance right up until the beginning of the ceasefire. If Kissinger is right that in asymmetrical warfare, “The conventional army loses if it does not win [whilst] the guerrilla wins if he does not lose”, then this is not a war that Israel has won. For all its delaying tactics, the Israelis cannot postpone forever Palestinian citizenship in one state or another – and if the Israelis make the creation of a separate Palestinian state impossible, they should not be surprised if demands shift instead to citizenship in a single state comprising the entirety of historic Palestine."
nice op-ed, but it was simply that. Is there not a more productive outlet for your propaganda? Do you really believe that this website boycotting Israel (however that would be implemented) is a part of the solution? Your insistence that Hamas should be validated and that this would "strengthen Palestinians" is precisely what is Palestine's undoing. As is evidenced by the desperate pleas we are reading here.
You try to infer that the current Palestinians are some sort of "native peoples" - balderdash! Under that thinking the Greeks should be complaining about the Battle of Yarmouk. The "native peoples" are Canaanites, my friend.
subgenius, excuse me for not humouring your idiotic attempt at derailing based on a few catchwords which you have no understanding of and that you use solely to suggest that Palestinians have not existed continuously over the stretch of centuries in Palestine - something that same cannot be said for a Ukranian jew or a British jew.
Gaza has indeed changed everything. Israel’s criminality and fascism should no longer be open for vibrant media debates, but it must be acknowledged as an uncontested fact. Our language, as in our perception, must also change to accommodate this uncontested reality:
First - military occupation must be fully and unconditionally rejected. Palestinians cannot be judged for defending themselves and for resisting Israel to end its military occupation, end the siege and achieve freedom. Armed struggle is a right defended by international law for people living under foreign occupation.
Second - as anti-Apartheid icon, Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” There can no longer be a place for neutrality when thousands of civilians are brutally murdered by an invading army. Neutrality in this context is outright intellectual cowardice, if not even support of Israel’s crimes.
Third - taboos placed on analogies comparing the Israeli occupation to apartheid, and Nazi conduct should be dropped. While the racist notions that enabled apartheid are practiced daily by Israel, the analogy should go much further, considering that genocide has in fact been carried out in Gaza.
Fourth – There can be no mutual blame as a way to avoid placing full responsibility on the Israeli occupation and military. Palestinian resistance that blocked the way of the Merkava tanks in Jabaliya and Shejaiya is a heroic expression of the valour of the Palestinian people. Armed struggle in World War II continues to be admired throughout the world. Palestinians should not be made an exception.
Fifth – There can be no bad vs good Palestinians. There are those who resist, and those who collaborate with the enemy; those who pay the price, and those who benefit from the occupation.
Sixth – Israel is a fascist state. It controls the media, and cracks down on dissidents. It uses violence to achieve political ends, and doesn’t shy away from genocide when it suits it interests. Reverting to “only democracy in the Middle East” statements is a sign of willful ignorance that can no longer be tolerated.
Seventh – The “Arab-Israeli conflict” is a misleading notion. The confines of misleading geography must end. Moreover, there is no conflict per se, but a military occupation and a state of one-sided war. Palestinians are fighting this alone, but are supported by people from around the world, from every color, race, religion and nationality.
Eighth – The Israeli siege on Gaza would have not been possible without full Egyptian support. Egypt is a culprit in the suffering of the Palestinians, and it must be recognized, condemned and held legally accountable for such a crime.
Ninth – Palestinian supporters should no longer view Palestinians with a sense of pity, but respect and admiration for their courage and heroism.
Tenth – And finally, to end the Israeli genocide and occupation, the wheel of continuous action must turn and keep on turning. Those who support Israel must be exposed, and those who facilitate the Israeli occupation and sustain its war machine are partakers in the war crimes committed daily in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. They must be boycotted. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement must grow and serve as the main platform for international solidarity.
The time for clever words and no action is long gone, and those who remain “soft” on Israel, for whatever reason, have no place in what is becoming a global movement with uncompromising demands: end the occupation, punish its sustainers, halt ethnic cleaning and genocide, end the siege, and bring Israeli and other culprits to the international criminal court for their massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People's History at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
It's obvious that reason left him some time ago. But it is interesting to see him reinforce why people give Israel guns instead of Hamas.... that and the terroristic acts against brevity.
Israel exports weapons, technologies, training, and techniques of violence for use by governments and corporations against populations around the world. The expertise on which it relies has been developed through its occupation of Palestine and parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, as well as its repression of and military aggression against the people living there.
The colonization of Palestine was once part of the British and French assault on the movement for Arab unity and independence that threatened European control of the region’s resources. The state of Israel is now a junior partner in the US-allied strategy for the same control of the region’s resources.
For Israel, this partnership has enabled the imposition and maintenance of a settler colonial state in Palestine. For its Western partners, Israel has ensured control of what F.D.R.’s administration once described as “the greatest prize in human history” – Arab oil.
The importance of Israel to the United States is a reflection of the growing significance of both oil and the arms trade to the world economy. The United States, the main arbiter of power worldwide, is Israel’s largest funder. The majority of US aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance. The US government gives Israel approximately three billion US dollars per year in financial aid and several billion more per year in military assistance and contracts. The United States provides eighteen percent, or nearly a fifth, of Israel’s military budget. From 1949 until 2011, the estimated cumulative total in US direct aid to Israel is between 115 and 123 billion U.S. dollars.
...Israel sells its weapons, technologies, training, and techniques of violence to those it considers allies and even to those whom it considers enemies. Israel sells or has sold to Islamist, communist, capitalist, dictatorial, and social democratic states. The driving force behind Israeli arms exports, in addition to the profit motive, is the need for a close and strong alliance with major imperialist powers that provide it with continuous military and diplomatic support, economic markets and access to power. Therefore, Israel has prioritized selling weapons to the allies and agents of these powers.
Israel Shahak’s 1982 book, Israel’s Global Role: Weapons for Repression, documents that “from Rhodesia to apartheid South Africa to the Gulf monarchies, Israel ties its interests not with the masses fighting for freedom, but with their jailers.”12 Despite competition and other conflicts between governments and regimes that rely on repression, those same governments and regimes have no trouble cooperating with one another against peoples’ movements.
In a moving letter addressed to the Israeli ambassador and published in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, he said: "For me to hold on to the honour granted by the State of Israel, under these circumstances, will be both an insult to the memory of my courageous mother who risked her life and that of her children fighting against suppression and for the preservation of human life as well as an insult to those in my family, four generations on."
Major Israeli food exporters are facing an unprecedented wave of cancelations in orders from Europe as a result of Israel’s most recent massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.
SuperValu, the biggest food distributor in Ireland, told the Irish media last week that it has withdrawn Israeli products from its shops.
And Israeli media reports suggest that other major European retailers have taken similar decisions without announcing them publicly.
Israeli fruit and vegetable exporters have faced cancelations from Scandinavia, the UK, France, Belgium and Ireland.
The cultural appropriation of books, music, art, cuisine and dress have been used by Zionists as a weapon against Palestinians
Stealing and appropriating the culture and history of indigenous peoples is a typical characteristic of all modern colonial-settler states, but usually accomplished once the indigenous people in question has been eliminated, dispossessed, or otherwise seemingly defeated therefore making it safe to do so. The colonial-settler state of “Israel,” established on the ruins of Palestine and through the expulsion of the majority of its indigenous population in 1948 and after, is no different.
The Israeli theft of all things Palestinian, however, does not simply come from misguided notions of nationalism or childish pride as is often argued by Western apologists, but is rather a conscious political policy of the state that seeks to erase Palestine from historical memory, particularly within Western discourse. Indeed, the continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland goes hand in hand with the theft of Palestinian land, homes, history, and culture. It is an essential part of the larger, long-term Zionist project of eradicating the Palestinian nation altogether, literally writing it out of history while simultaneously assuming its place.
This erasure has been correctly termed as memoricide by historian Ilan Pappe in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Nur Masalha, elaborating further, writes: “The founding myths of Israel have dictated the conceptual removal of Palestinians before, during and after their physical removal in 1948... The de-Arabisation of Palestine, the erasure of Palestinian history and the elimination of the Palestinian’s collective memory by the Israeli state are no less violent than the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 and the destruction of historic Palestine: this elimination is central to the construction of a hegemonic collective Israeli-Zionist-Jewish identity in the State of Israel” (The Palestine Nakba, 89).
Thus, the theft of Palestine and its culture has two essential and interwoven components, the removal/erasure of Palestinians and a concurrent assumption of nativity or “birthright” in Anglo-European Zionist terms. Over the last six and a half decades, this brazen erasure and theft has been achieved mainly through two methods: brutal violence (that is, terrorism) and mass media propaganda.
6th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
In al-Khalil (Hebron) on Sunday August 3rd, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy was walking to his home near the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba when the Israeli military shot him in the chest with live ammunition.
The following day, ISM volunteers went to visit the young boy in al-Mezan hospital. The young boy was in critical condition, and although doctors were able to save his life, the bullet remains in his left lung, as it is too dangerous to remove it.
His father told the ISM volunteers that a relative of the boy witnessed the shooting and that it had been a man in a soldiers’ uniform that shot him, without any visible motive. His father also pointed out that even if there had been a motive, such as if the boy would have been throwing stones, nothing could have justified this shot, which was clearly aimed at the heart of this 10-year-old child.
A funeral for a solder that died in Gaza was held in the Tel Rumeida area of al-Khalil between 1 AM and 3 AM last Sunday evening. The area was under heavy military presence, shop owners were forced to close down their shops early and Palestinians living in the area received orders stay in their homes and turn the lights off. Doctors at al-Mezan hospital have reported that in recent weeks there has been an increase in the number of bullet wounds resulting from live ammunition. Many of these wounds have been in the chest and abdomen, seemingly aimed to kill.
Immediately upon ethnic cleansing and destruction or repopulation of 531 Arab villages and 11 urban areas by Jewish terrorist militias before May 15, 1948 and the IDF following that date, Israel set about to cover up the evidence. This was usually done by bulldozing the structures and covering the rubble with conifers and cactus (see www.cactus48.com) or by replacing the Arab names of roads, streets and villages with Hebrew names. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls this "memoricide," intended to deny the prior existence and obliterate the cultural remains of the people they violently displaced.
This process has continued to the present. Most Israeli land was placed under the control of the Jewish National Fund or the Israeli Land Authority and given to Jews or turned into public lands such as parks. Non-Jews are prohibited from owning or leasing this land. Many historical markers have been installed by the JNF commemorating biblical references and sites of Jewish significance, while the many centuries of Arab history in Palestine have been wholly excluded from recognition.
An outstanding Israeli NGO, "Zochrot" which in Hebrew means "remembering" (in feminine, emotional voice) currently conducts awareness-raising tours to the sites of destroyed villages and renamed communities, leading combined groups of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. At these sites they place signs and markers with the original Arab names, often against significant local resistance, and are pressuring the JNF to also do so, sometimes successfully. (see www.zochrot.org). Zochrot has also done an extensive analysis of the feasibility of implementing the full right of return for Palestinian refugees, with hopeful conclusions.
Another outstanding American NGO, "Birthright Unplugged," conducts similar tours for American Jews to learn the truth about Israel's beginnings. They conduct similar tours for Palestinian children to visit and learn about the birthplaces of their elders, calling this program "birthright re-plugged." (see www.birthrightunplugged.org)
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Mon, 08/18/2014 - 13:51
A photo from the University of Haifa’s Facebook page shows the Eshkol Tower which was lit up as the Israeli flag, administrators said, to “express solidarity with Israeli soldiers.”
“The university is proud of all its students and thanks those who did reserve service,” writes Tel Aviv University dean Yoav Ariel in a 13 August email. “I wish us all a swift return to our blessed routine.”
Ariel’s email lays out some of the benefits Tel Aviv University is providing to students who took part in Israel’s military assault on Gaza, including a chance to retake tests.
For Palestinians in Gaza, especially children and university students, there will be no quick return to routine – blessed or otherwise – as the educational infrastructure has suffered devastation. University facilities have been bombed and dozens of schools run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, still house 218,000 people displaced by the Israeli assault just two weeks before the start of the school year.
At least 373,000 Palestinian children in Gaza “require direct and specialized psychosocial support,” the UN states. “Children are showing symptoms of increasing distress, including bed wetting, clinging to parents and nightmares. It is likely that every child in the Gaza Strip is affected by the crisis and will require some level of psychosocial support.”
Almost every Israeli university is bolstering its complicity in this horror by rewarding students who took part in the attack on Gaza, including those who might have participated in war crimes.
The international criminal court has persistently avoided opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza as a result of US and other western pressure, former court officials and lawyers claim.
In recent days, a potential ICC investigation into the actions of both theIsrael Defence Forces and Hamas in Gaza has become a fraught political battlefield and a key negotiating issue at ceasefire talks in Cairo. But the question of whether the ICC could or should mount an investigation has also divided the Hague-based court itself.
An ICC investigation could have a far-reaching impact. It would not just examine alleged war crimes by the Israeli military, Hamas and other Islamist militants in the course of recent fighting in Gaza that left about 2,000 people dead, including women and children. It could also address the issue of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, for which the Israeli leadership would be responsible.
@tammuz.
I am of the mind that after +700 comments, the Israel boycott is not going to happen.
But at this point, a boycott of Palestinian whitewashing might catch on.
Archinect, please boycott Israel (its about time!)
Again, that intelligent young man
'Please don't shoot me'
Raghad's uncle, Mohammed, told his family he would open the door and talk peacefully with the soldiers, explaining to them that there were only civilians in the house.
“He courageously went outside, with a white flag, just to talk with them saying, 'I am a peaceful man and have only women, children and elderly here'," Raghad said.
Her uncle, Mohammed, usually based in Spain, showed the soldiers his Spanish Permanent Residency card (he also held a resident permit) and spoke to them in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish. He told his family that using the languages would help to avoid any misundertandings.
He moved closer, speaking softly and politely in all four languages.
”Please don’t shoot me," he said.
Suddenly, a muffled shot came from a short, blonde-haired, blue-eyed soldier holding an M-16 in his shaking hands. He was only about 20-years-old, Raghad said.
“I looked the soldier in the eye and his eyes seemed wet," she said.
“My father only said, 'Please don’t shoot us, we are peaceful people'," his 35-year-old daughter, Buthina Qudeh, said in despair. "But the soldier shot him anyway."
Raghad is still in shock. She never imagined Israeli troops would kill an unarmed civilian man.
“I understand them killing a resistance fighter from close range, but to kill an innocent old man who was kind?” she said.
Buthina said, “Usually my dad was a bit tougher with troops yelling at them to stop using offensive, ethnic slurs, but this time he seemed to realise that caution would protect the lives of those in the family with him."
“It was a cold-blooded killing, just a human killed in front of our eyes, without reason," said Raghad, a 1st-year English-Language college student.
Helen Hintjens, a Hague-based human rights lecturer, said incidences during the current war in Gaza like the one described by Raghad, when people shelter for safety and are attacked, remind her of the Rwandan genocide.
"There too women, children, old people and civilian men, not taking part in any fighting at all, were slaughtered in places of safety, churches, hospitals, schools," Hintjens said. "It is very reminiscent of the genocide. It looks like another genocide, for all intents and purposes."
'Your bullets forced us to stay inside'
After the soldier shot her father, Buthina said, all three soldiers backed away and threw tear-gas at the family.
Raghad and her family ran indoors, as tear-gas made it difficult to breathe, or even see Mohammed's body.
Minutes later, the same three soldiers came into the house again.
“Why didn’t you leave the house?” they asked the family.
“'We tried'," Raghad said she told the troops, "'but you were shooting at us, your bullets forcing us to stay inside'.”
Raghad retells the events of that day outside the same home which used to be a small farm with goats, doves, chicken and dogs. All of the farm animals have been killed, their bodies scattered around what used to be a lovely garden amid a stench of dead meat. One can’t tell if this comes from the animals or the human dead bodies next door.
Raghad said she communicated with a soldier in English, explaining why they hadn't left the house, but the soldier who executed her uncle, Mohammed Qudeh, did not say any word. He still had his hands on the gun, ready to shoot anyone.
“I told them, we are children and women—my cousin spoke in Hebrew, I spoke in English and downstairs the children were screaming, in Arabic,” she recounted.
“After they executed my uncle, they told us go,” she said. Ordered by the soldiers, Raghad and her family had to go back to her parent's home, leaving the body of her uncle bleeding with his mouth open.
While Raghad and her family walked home to their house, many of the male members of the family, including Mohammed Qudeh's son, Ramadan Mohammed Qudeh, were kept behind.
For several hours, Ramadan said, the soldiers moved him and other relatives from room to room around the home, using them as human shields as they shot from windows.
At the time, there weren't any fighters returning fire at the soldiers, but the tactic scared Ramadan all the same.
"We could have been killed at any moment," he said.
Under the staircase
As Raghad and her family walked back to their home, soldiers standing about two meters away fired bullets around the feet of all children and women, a common practice used to scare civilians.
“We are used to them bombing us from above, demolishing our homes with bulldozers, or firing tank shells—but to break into your home, and execute you in front of your family is something we have never seen -we are simple people, who don’t deserve this," she said.
“There is no humanity in them, they are cruel and heartless," she said while holding tears behind her voice staying strong.
When they returned to her parents' home, the family hid under the staircase, the only place they felt was still safe. Raghad told her dad and everyone to pray and prepare to die from the Israeli bullets.
Suddenly, a bulldozer made a hole in the fence of the home and bullets were fired at the staircase, she said.
A gun came through the hole that Raghad had made to try to see what was happening. A soldier screamed, “Raghad, come here… who is inside?”
"Just my family," she said. The soldier demanded they all come out, one by one.
Her father, in his 60s, was pushed around by the soldiers using the butts of their guns. “I felt so sad for my dad, and old wise man being hit by them," she said.
The family was taken again to the house they were hiding in before. When Raghad asked where her uncle was, the soldiers said they had given him first aid and he was okay. “I felt relieved when they told me he was alive," she said.
The children were screaming, asking for water but two blonde-haired soldiers couldn’t care less about us and refused to let us use toilets or drink water, she said.
"We were held at gunpoint, unable to do anything," Raghad said.
Only one Druze soldier came to them with a bottle of water. Speaking Arabic, he told them to cover their ears from the explosions.
Raghad’s brothers were handcuffed, their eyes blind-folded and they were taken to an unknown area. They screamed to the soldiers, “We did nothing, for God’s sake”, as smoke came out of nearby buildings.
Every time Raghad said she asked a soldier when they could leave and use the toilet, they responded, “Ask Hamas."
One of the soldiers wearing a dark-blue yarmulke told Raghad to say where the tunnels were in exchange for her safe haven. She told him she didn't know anything about Hamas.
“When women were finally allowed to use the toilet, the soldiers came inside the toilets to observe us," she said.
Military dogs passed by the children to scare them, while soldiers refilled guns, making noise similar to the sounds the family heard when their uncle, Mohammed, was shot.
"Someone will come to give you instructions on what to do," a soldier told Raghad and her family.
Moments later, Raghad’s dad, Ramadan, came in and told her, “They have ordered us to leave one way, not look to the side or argue with the soldiers."
“'Please be quiet," Ramadan told his daughter, confirming to her that her uncle had been killed. "Go quietly and say goodbye to him.'”
A final look and a question
All of the children and women ran up to the body which lay in a pool of blood. Some held onto their uncle and grandfather by his phenomenal moustache. They had a few seconds for a final look, some kissing his hands, others kissing his forehead and legs, but trying not to make a sound so that the soldiers wouldn't shoot them.
“I kissed him and told him how very proud I am of him," Raghad said.
The family was allowed to flee, but Mohammed‘s body was left behind. As they left, she lingered to ask one of the soldiers - who spoke in British-accented English - a question.
“Why did you kill my uncle, a peaceful man?” she asked.
“Tears fell from the soldier's face as he turned away," Raghad said.
hah
From On Gaza and global rage:
The Israeli wrath inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza, two-thirds of whom are refugees, entitled to the right of return, comes within an ideological context of tribal bigotry, racism, and exclusivism. In 2004, Israeli Professor Arnon Soffer, Head of the Israeli Occupation Force’s National Defense College, and advisor to Ariel Sharon, spelt out Israel’s macabre expectation from the unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza (2005) in an interview with The Jerusalem Post:
“[W]hen 1.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today,... The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day...If we don't kill, we will cease to exist…Unilateral separation doesn't guarantee "peace" - it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews”
...And we, Palestinians, have decided to respond to the Zionist kick in the way we see fit! And for that, we need the support of the freedom-loving “every man and every woman”, as opposed to the complicit, official world leaders who have chosen to support oppression and blame the victim. Now is the time for global civil society to help us end Israeli racism and genocide. The only way to ensure a just peace and redress for Palestinian dispossession is for global civil society to intensify the boycott of the apartheid Israeli state, and by advocating for divestment from Israel and sanctions against it
HAARETZ
Go to Gaza, see for yourself
In the absence of hatred, one can understand the Palestinians. Without it, even some of Hamas’ demands might sound reasonable and justified.
Rafah, August 5, 2014.
Palestinians search destroyed cars in Rafah's district of Shawkah in the southern Gaza Strip. August 5, 2014. / Photo by AP
By Gideon Levy
Published 06:28 10.08.14
Can we possibly conduct a discussion, however brief, that is not saturated with venomous hatred? Can we let go for a moment of the dehumanization and demonization of the Palestinians and speak dispassionately of justice, leaving racism aside? It’s crucial that we give it a try.
In the absence of hatred, one can understand the Palestinians. Without it, even some of Hamas’ demands might sound reasonable and justified. Such a rational discourse would lead any decent person to clear-cut conclusions. Such a revolutionary dialogue might even advance the cause of peace, if one may still dare say such things. What are we facing? A people without rights that in 1948 was dispossessed of its land and its territory, in part by its own fault. In 1967 it was again stripped of its rights and lands. Ever since it has lived under conditions experienced by few nations. The West Bank is occupied and the Gaza Strip is besieged. This nation tries to resist, with its meager powers and with methods that are sometimes murderous, as every conquered nation throughout history, including Israel, has done. It has a right to resist, it must be said.
Let’s talk about Gaza. The Gaza strip is not a nest of murderers; it’s not even a nest of wasps. It is not home to incessant rampage and murder. Most of its children were not born to kill, nor do most of its mothers raise martyrs — what they want for their children is exactly what most Israeli mothers want for their own children. Its leaders are not so different from Israel’s, not in the extent of their corruption, their penchant for “luxury hotels” nor even in their allocating most of the budget to defense.
Gaza is a stricken enclave, a permanent disaster zone, from 1948 to 2014, and most of its inhabitants are third- and fourth-time refugees. Most of the people who revile and who destroy the Gaza Strip have never been there, certainly not as civilians. For eight years I have been prevented from going there; during the preceding 20 years I visited often. I liked the Gaza Strip, as much as one can like an afflicted region. I liked its people, if I may be permitted to make a generalization. There was a spirit of almost unimaginable determination, along with an admirable resignation to its woes.
In recent years Gaza has become a cage, a roofless prison surrounded by fences. Before that it was also bisected. Whether or not they are responsible for their situation, these are ill-fated people, a great many people and a great deal of misery.
Despairing of the Palestinian Authority, Gazans chose Hamas in a democratic election. It’s their right to err. Afterward, when the Palestine Liberation Organization refused to hand over the reins of power, Hamas took control by force.
Hamas is a national-religious movement. Anyone who champions hatred-free dialogue will notice that Hamas has changed. Anyone who manages to ignore all the adjectives that have been applied will also discern its reasonable aspirations, such as having a seaport and an airport. We must also listen to scholars who are free of hatred, such as Bar-Ilan University Mideast expert Prof. Menachem Klein, whose reading of Hamas goes against the conventional wisdom in Israel. In an interview to the business daily Calcalist last week, Klein said Hamas was founded not as a terror organization but rather as a social movement, and should be viewed as such even now. It has long since “betrayed” its charter, and conducts a lively political debate, but in the dialogue of hatred there is no one to hear it.
From the perspective of the dialogue of hate, Gaza and Hamas, Palestinians and Arabs, are all the same. They all live on the shore of the same sea, and share the single goal of throwing the Jews into it. A less primitive, less brainwashed discussion would lead to different conclusions. For example, that an internationally supervised port is a legitimate and reasonable goal; that lifting the blockade on the Strip would also serve Israel; that there is no other way to stop the violent resistance; that bringing Hamas into the peace process could result in a surprising change; that the Gaza strip is populated by human beings, who want to live as human beings.
But in Hebrew, “Gaza,” pronounced ‘Aza, is short for Azazel, which is associated with hell. Of the multitude of curses hurled at me these days from every street corner, “Go to hell/Gaza” is among the gentler ones. Sometimes I want to say in response, “I wish I could go to Gaza, in order to fulfill my journalistic mission.” And sometimes I even want to say: “I wish you could all go to Gaza. If only you knew what Gaza is, and what is really there.”
From Israeli soldiers shot my teenage son
The truth is, many children are harmed and even killed without any political connection. I feel the desperation of a parent who wants to, but is not able to protect his children. It is beyond my control — I am not the one that chose to shoot an innocent young boy. I am not the one that gave the order to shoot tear gas at peaceful demonstrators or to drop bombs on homes, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
This is our life living under occupation. My son is no different from the thousands of others who have been shot during this conflict. As a leader of popular resistance protests, my family joins with me in demonstrations, knowing that any one of us could be arrested, injured or even killed as a result.
But we do it anyway, because we have no other choice — we will never achieve our freedom unless we struggle for it and sometimes pay for it with blood and tears.
So we must continue to resist, for my children and for all our children, in the hopes that our efforts today will create a future for Palestinians in which we are safe and free.
@tammuz,
You always have a choice. There is freedom in walking away, freedom in leaving - is there not? But i fear that you believe freedom can only come with "victory".
So, while you are "not the one" who dropped a bomb on a school, are you "the one" that hid arms and tunnels? Are you "the one" that condones Hamas's call for destruction?
Are you "the one" that sees only violence as the solution...as the only choice?
From Tunnels-to-kindergartens propaganda Netanyahu peddled to NYT and CNN is exploded by Israeli news site :
"The Israeli site +972 has blown that propaganda completely out of the water. A well-researched article in Hebrew that it translated from an educational worker near Gaza states that the tunnels do not appear to be targeted at civilians and they come out more than a mile from any kibbutz, let alone the kindergartens.
In short, the tunnels fear was hysteria, drummed up by the Israeli government to heighten war fever, and then purveyed by the New York Times and CNN.
The piece at +972 — which is headlined in part, “In reality, every tunnel so far has been used against military targets alone” — was published in Hebrew on “Local Call,” and written by Emanual Yelin, who lives in Be’er Sheva and is said to work near the Gaza border. Yelin is a full-on Israeli patriot, but he has no truck with the lies and propaganda disseminated around the tunnels.
...When can we expect the New York Times and CNN to publish updated articles pointing out the errors in their original reporting?"
Video :Living under occupation: Daily Life in Occupied Palestine
Occupation 101 - the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Giving an oversight of policies and practices calculated to disenfranchise the Palestinians on their own homeland.
@tammuz
I never noted (nor cared) what the purpose of the tunnels was beyond them obviously not being built for peaceful purposes. Which is sort of the point to all this. You have really just perpetuated a pot and kettle argument wherein you seem to think your shade of black is better than another's.
Nevertheless, the Palestinian problem is Hamas and the mentality by which it goes about problem solving...pure and simple. This is epitomized by its still-in-effect charter and by its day to day actions both withing its borders and without. Until you realize this you will never be free. Freedom, as we say in the US, comes with responsibility..which means one cannot simply blame their government and hide behind "innocent bystander" status. And Palestinians making an argument with the point of a bayonet is hardly sufficient on this matter.
As a mildly unrelated reference consider that you are pleading a case among many Americans, whom descended from a people that settled their land dispute in a similar manner.
Let's all regress to solve our land disputes to "similar" ways. After all as we might say in the USA that you have a direct access to our evil weapons of destruction if you are Israel!
WSJ
I quote Mr. Hamid Dabashi again.
This is something to behold --according to this article just published in WSJ, during their slaughter of Palestinians, the Israelis actually bypassed the White House and the US State Department and went directly to the Pentagon to replenish their arms and ammunition to kill more Palestinians -- the White House finally finds out . . . "Since then the Obama administration has tightened its control on arms transfers to Israel. But Israeli and U.S. officials say that the adroit bureaucratic maneuvering made it plain how little influence the White House and State Department have with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—and that both sides know it." HOW UTTERLY insane is that? Who is in charge "Mr President?"
@Orhan
Though it may be unpalatable, sides have been chosen. Your indifference to history or the transcendent qualities of mankind and societies will not resolve the facts. This recent cry of the "innocence" in Palestine is equally as remarkable as Israel's claim of being "hands off". So, when setting respective "claims" aside we can only rely on actions...and i dare say that the Hamas Charter does little to evoke "innocence" nor does it even merit one to preserve its way of thinking.
As an architect you should have long ago realized that destruction is an inevitable by-product of the profession - and yes, it can be a difficult process, but that does not change its inevitability.
more or less how hamas and fatah tried to settle their differences in around 2007?
so is the idea that israel is treating the palestinians unfairly for no reason at all?
This frittata of a thread still going, huh?
it's going to keep going until there is peace in the mideast!
I wonder if the hours spent on this rant are being billed to a Zionist client.
As an architect you should have long ago realized that destruction is an inevitable by-product of the profession - and yes, it can be a difficult process, but that does not change its inevitability.
Interesting dilemma... In one hand gives credit to survival of the fittest idea, and on the other, it says, "let's keep annihilating Palestinians until they submit to our power of domination as to where we want them to be."
The latter is an absolute slavery and punishment.
ps,
As an architect you should have long ago realized
What is that supposed to mean? Let's not resort to personal projections here.
I am so glad to hear this. Vote Hamas out and problem is solved! Viola.
while i would agree that hamas's actions are despicable, and partially to blame for the israeli's and palestinian's inability to find a peaceful resolution to their differences, you should know that it is only a small part of the complicated problems they're facing. israel certainly isn't blameless.
why not just vote to have hamas disarm, so peace talks can start? has orhan or tammuz considered a peaceful resolution that includes in part a cessation to violent action against israel, or would that 'submission to power and dominance' be too nonviolent to consider?
you know, there wasn't a blockade in gaza before hamas took power. there could actually be something there.
There it is. I agree Curt, but I stick with the fact that Israel is retaliating against previous attacks from Palestine. Palestine is predisposed to hate Israel so peace, to me, was never thought of as an option to Hamas and I think Palestine agreed. At first. But now that it has come to such extremes as this, people are dying over Hamas' actions. And Palestine hates it.
What is this... some actual sense being injected into this thread?
Subgenius, Curt, CDArch, unfortunately your decent points will soon be pushed away by a barrage of copy-pasta.
This is simply Pro-Israeli propaganda spewing from these Zionist pigs!
But seriously, this is the most sense anyone has made on this thread. tammuz and his cohort would rather hold their breath, hold their ears, and stomp around like a pissed off pre-teen girl than have an intelligent debate about the topic. Go ahead guys, proceed with your copy/paste/repeat plan to further bother archinect users.
here is your copy paste. violent action against israel summarized below:
It is Hamas' fault. Israel was just a wee bit "heavy handed".
saying 'hamas has played a role' or 'hamas is not blameless' or 'hamas is not the good guy' is different than saying 'it is hamas's fault.' it also doesn't mean it is not israel's fault.
peace won't come by launching rockets into israel from gaza. encouraging more rockets to be fired from gaza into israel will only result in more dramatic statistics and images for you to post on architect forums. that is not what i want to see happen. what's your goal? what do you want to see? More dramatic statistics and images to post on architect forums? is this really a valid path to whatever goal you have? that's messed up.
Orhan,
Do you understand the effect of terrorism on a population?
It has turned the US into a near-police state with local PD's equipped with tactical military gear.
Why would you think that much more insidious and constant terrorism of Israel would do anything but stoke support for the elimination of Palestine/ Palestinians? It may be criminal, but is not genocide. However, it is doing a great disservice to Rawanda, Liberia, South Africa, and Germany, Armenia, where actual large-scale genocide is confirmed to have occurred by constantly screaming GENOCIDE, GENOCIDE, OH THE HUMANITY!
Put yourself in the place of an Israeli citizen living in southwestern Israel. Do you feel safe? Do you feel inclined to drop less bombs or more after your previous attempt to stop the rockets failed?
It would be nice if this wasn't an issue and the world (and zionists) had respected the Palestinian people's territorial rights and integrity, but that isn't what happened. It would probably be best to address the reality of the situation, not some fantasy where we can go back to 1947 and have a do-over. Israel has NUCLEAR WEAPONS. They are never going away, so I suggest you, and everyone else, learns to live with them.
Real brilliant and telling about innards of the intention here in CAPS!! I have nothing left to say!!!!! Oh the humanity!
It would be nice if this wasn't an issue and the world (and zionists) had respected the Palestinian people's territorial rights and integrity, but that isn't what happened. It would probably be best to address the reality of the situation, not some fantasy where we can go back to 1947 and have a do-over. Israel has NUCLEAR WEAPONS. They are never going away, so I suggest you, and everyone else, learns to live with them.
From Israel’s target is not Hamas, but Palestinian statehood
"All colonial settler states are based on the violent dispossession of the native peoples – and as a result, their fundamental and overriding aim has always been to keep those native peoples as weak as possible. Israel’s aim for the Palestinians is no different. Palestinian statehood is clearly an obstacle to this goal; a Palestinian state would strengthen the Palestinians. Genuine sovereignty would end Israel’s current presumed right to steal their land, control their borders, place them under siege, and bomb them at will. That is why Netanyahu’s Likud party platform “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”; that is why Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated for even suggesting some limited self-governance for the Palestinians"
"...
Within three years of the 1993 Oslo declaration, for example, which promised self-governance for Palestinian areas, foreign minister Ariel Sharon was urging “everyone” to “grab as many hilltops as they can” in order to minimise the size and viability of the area to be administered by Palestinian Authority. The 1999 election of a Labour Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, made no difference, ushering in “a sustained commitment by Israel’s government to avoid full compliance with the Oslo agreement”, according to Jimmy Carter, most notably in the form of the greatest increase in illegal Israeli settlements that had yet taken place. The popular story that Barak had made a ‘generous offer’ on Palestinian statehood at negotiations in Taba in 2001, turned out to be a complete myth.
In the 2000s, the stakes were raised by the discovery of 1.4trillion cubic metres of natural gas in Gaza’s territorial waters, leading Israel to immediately strengthen its maritime blockade of Gaza to prevent Palestinian access to the reserves. But Palestinian sovereignty over this gas would obviously enormously strengthen the economic position of any future Palestinian state - and thus made the Israelis more determined than ever to prevent such a state from coming into being."
" Indeed, the image of the plucky little victim, besieged by ‘hostile enemies’ on all sides, is a fundamental plank of the Israeli national psyche, necessary to ensure the continued identification of the population with the militaristic state and its expansionist policies. And more importantly, in the zero-sum game of settler-vs-native politics, any Palestinian state, however toothless, represents an intolerable retreat for the Zionists."
"In 2006, following the election of Hamas, the US and EU effectively supported this line, and joined forces with Israel in refusing to recognise Hamas as the governing body of the Palestinian Authority. Likewise, when a unity government was formed with Fatah the following year (combining the two parties who together represented 86% of the popular vote), it was not recognised as legitimate by Israel’s international backers who instead supported a government led by Salam Fayyad, whose party had gained just 2% in the previous year’s election. However, reaction to the recent unity government announced in April this year was very different. A government of ‘technocrats’ – comprising not a single Hamas member – was endorsed by both Fatah and Hamas in an attempt to end the isolation and strangulation of the Gaza strip.
"Israel no longer had ‘Palestinian disunity’ as an excuse for refusing to engage in peace talks. Nor did they have ‘terrorism’ as an excuse, as Hamas had steadfastly stood by the terms of the 2012 ceasefire, not only ceasing their own rocket fire, but also successfully preventing rocket attacks by other Palestinian groups in Gaza. And all this despite continuous violations of the ceasefire by Israel beginning before the ink was even dry – from a refusal to lift the blockade (as required by the ceasefire terms), to continued attacks on Palestinians, killing 4 and maiming nearly 100 within the first three months of the ‘ceasefire’ alone. Even after Israeli attacks were stepped up over the past year, with four Palestinian children shot dead by Israeli forces between December 2013 and May 2014, including a 15 year old shot in the back from 100m, Hamas held their fire. Netanyahu’s narrative of negotiations being impossible due to Palestinian terrorism and disunity was being increasingly undermined by reality – and crucially, his US-EU backers were not buying it. The Israeli government responded to the unity government by “what can only be described as economic warfare. It prevented the 43,000 civil servants in Gaza from moving from the Hamas payroll to that of the Ramallah government and it tightened siege round Gaza's borders thereby nullifying the two main benefits of the merger” (Avi Shlaim). Still Hamas held their fire. What Netanyahu really needed was a provocation against Hamas to which they would be forced to respond. Such as response would again allow him to paint them as the bloodthirsty terrorists with whom one can never negotiate, would provide the opportunity for another wave of devastation in Gaza, and would exacerbate tensions within the unity government between Fatah and Hamas.
Nine days after the swearing in of the unity government, on June 11th, the IDF made a raid on Gaza in which they killed a 10 year old boy on a bicycle. But still Hamas held their fire. The following day, however, the apparent kidnapping of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank provided the opportunity for a provocation on an altogether larger scale. Having blamed the kidnapping on Hamas (without ever producing a scrap of evidence), Netanyahu used it as an excuse for an attack on the entire Hamas leadership in the West Bank, while his economy minister Naftali Bennett announced that “We’re turning the membership card for Hamas into a ticket to hell”. Operation Brother’s Keeper did precisely that, with 335 Hamas leaders arrested (including over 50 who had only just been released under a prisoner exchange scheme), and well over 1000 house raids (which left them looking “like an earthquake had taken place” according to one Palestinian activist). Noam Chomsky notes: “The 18-day rampage....did succeed in undermining the feared unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. According to Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians, including 335 affiliated with Hamas, and killed six Palestinians, also searching thousands of locations and confiscating $350,000. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing 5 Hamas members on July 7. Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, Israeli officials reported, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.” Thus having killed eleven Palestinians in under a month, Israel then used retaliatory rocket attacks which killed no one as an excuse to launch the biggest slaughter of Palestinians in decades. Operation Protective Edge went on to kill or maim over 12,000 Palestinians over the course of the month that followed. But for Israel, it allowed it to push forward its key aim - prevention the formation of a functioning Palestinian state – on a number of fronts."
In addition to attacks on water and electricity infrastructure, the private economy has also come under attack. The biggest factory in Gaza, a biscuit factory that had just won the contract to supply the UN in Gaza, was completely obliterated by Israeli shellfire, and even conservative British daily the Telegraph notes that “anecdotal evidence of the systematic destruction of Gaza's civilian economy and infrastructure is compelling”. The report continues: “Outside central Gaza City, a string of businesses with no obvious links to militant activities lie in ruins after being demolished by missiles or shells. They include a plastics factory, a sponge-making plant and even the headquarters of the territory's main fruit distribution near the northern town of Beit Hanoun, much of which has been levelled in the Israeli land invasion."
"Finally, as many commentators have noted, even if Israel were successful in its stated aim of destroying or weakening Hamas, this would only result in even more militant groups emerging, perhaps even Al Qaeda type groups such as ISIS, gaining support from a traumatised population by promising revenge attacks and uncompromising armed jihad. Whilst many have argued that this would somehow be against Israel’s interests, the reverse is likely to be true. Groups such as ISIS have played a key role in facilitating US and British policies in the Middle East in recent years, by weakening independent regional powers (or potential regional powers) such as Libya, Syria and now Iraq."
"Despite all this, however, all is not well for Israel. Despite everything, the unity government has not broken, and Fatah and Hamas are currently presenting a united front in the ceasefire negotiations. Likewise, Hamas has not been defeated, even militarily (let alone politically) by this attack, and has been able to continue its military resistance right up until the beginning of the ceasefire. If Kissinger is right that in asymmetrical warfare, “The conventional army loses if it does not win [whilst] the guerrilla wins if he does not lose”, then this is not a war that Israel has won. For all its delaying tactics, the Israelis cannot postpone forever Palestinian citizenship in one state or another – and if the Israelis make the creation of a separate Palestinian state impossible, they should not be surprised if demands shift instead to citizenship in a single state comprising the entirety of historic Palestine."
@tammuz
Yawn.
nice op-ed, but it was simply that. Is there not a more productive outlet for your propaganda? Do you really believe that this website boycotting Israel (however that would be implemented) is a part of the solution? Your insistence that Hamas should be validated and that this would "strengthen Palestinians" is precisely what is Palestine's undoing. As is evidenced by the desperate pleas we are reading here.
You try to infer that the current Palestinians are some sort of "native peoples" - balderdash! Under that thinking the Greeks should be complaining about the Battle of Yarmouk. The "native peoples" are Canaanites, my friend.
Doctor, heal thyself.
subgenius, excuse me for not humouring your idiotic attempt at derailing based on a few catchwords which you have no understanding of and that you use solely to suggest that Palestinians have not existed continuously over the stretch of centuries in Palestine - something that same cannot be said for a Ukranian jew or a British jew.
From 10 things that have changed forever on Gaza
Gaza has indeed changed everything. Israel’s criminality and fascism should no longer be open for vibrant media debates, but it must be acknowledged as an uncontested fact. Our language, as in our perception, must also change to accommodate this uncontested reality:
First - military occupation must be fully and unconditionally rejected. Palestinians cannot be judged for defending themselves and for resisting Israel to end its military occupation, end the siege and achieve freedom. Armed struggle is a right defended by international law for people living under foreign occupation.
Second - as anti-Apartheid icon, Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” There can no longer be a place for neutrality when thousands of civilians are brutally murdered by an invading army. Neutrality in this context is outright intellectual cowardice, if not even support of Israel’s crimes.
Third - taboos placed on analogies comparing the Israeli occupation to apartheid, and Nazi conduct should be dropped. While the racist notions that enabled apartheid are practiced daily by Israel, the analogy should go much further, considering that genocide has in fact been carried out in Gaza.
Fourth – There can be no mutual blame as a way to avoid placing full responsibility on the Israeli occupation and military. Palestinian resistance that blocked the way of the Merkava tanks in Jabaliya and Shejaiya is a heroic expression of the valour of the Palestinian people. Armed struggle in World War II continues to be admired throughout the world. Palestinians should not be made an exception.
Fifth – There can be no bad vs good Palestinians. There are those who resist, and those who collaborate with the enemy; those who pay the price, and those who benefit from the occupation.
Sixth – Israel is a fascist state. It controls the media, and cracks down on dissidents. It uses violence to achieve political ends, and doesn’t shy away from genocide when it suits it interests. Reverting to “only democracy in the Middle East” statements is a sign of willful ignorance that can no longer be tolerated.
Seventh – The “Arab-Israeli conflict” is a misleading notion. The confines of misleading geography must end. Moreover, there is no conflict per se, but a military occupation and a state of one-sided war. Palestinians are fighting this alone, but are supported by people from around the world, from every color, race, religion and nationality.
Eighth – The Israeli siege on Gaza would have not been possible without full Egyptian support. Egypt is a culprit in the suffering of the Palestinians, and it must be recognized, condemned and held legally accountable for such a crime.
Ninth – Palestinian supporters should no longer view Palestinians with a sense of pity, but respect and admiration for their courage and heroism.
Tenth – And finally, to end the Israeli genocide and occupation, the wheel of continuous action must turn and keep on turning. Those who support Israel must be exposed, and those who facilitate the Israeli occupation and sustain its war machine are partakers in the war crimes committed daily in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. They must be boycotted. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement must grow and serve as the main platform for international solidarity.
The time for clever words and no action is long gone, and those who remain “soft” on Israel, for whatever reason, have no place in what is becoming a global movement with uncompromising demands: end the occupation, punish its sustainers, halt ethnic cleaning and genocide, end the siege, and bring Israeli and other culprits to the international criminal court for their massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People's History at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
you're wasting your time subgenius.
TAMMUZ won't bother to use any rationality in this.
It's obvious that reason left him some time ago. But it is interesting to see him reinforce why people give Israel guns instead of Hamas.... that and the terroristic acts against brevity.
This could be read in tandem with the News item "The Militarization of US Army" and the information presented therein.
From Israel’s worldwide role in repression
Israel exports weapons, technologies, training, and techniques of violence for use by governments and corporations against populations around the world. The expertise on which it relies has been developed through its occupation of Palestine and parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, as well as its repression of and military aggression against the people living there.
The colonization of Palestine was once part of the British and French assault on the movement for Arab unity and independence that threatened European control of the region’s resources. The state of Israel is now a junior partner in the US-allied strategy for the same control of the region’s resources.
For Israel, this partnership has enabled the imposition and maintenance of a settler colonial state in Palestine. For its Western partners, Israel has ensured control of what F.D.R.’s administration once described as “the greatest prize in human history” – Arab oil.
The importance of Israel to the United States is a reflection of the growing significance of both oil and the arms trade to the world economy. The United States, the main arbiter of power worldwide, is Israel’s largest funder. The majority of US aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance. The US government gives Israel approximately three billion US dollars per year in financial aid and several billion more per year in military assistance and contracts. The United States provides eighteen percent, or nearly a fifth, of Israel’s military budget. From 1949 until 2011, the estimated cumulative total in US direct aid to Israel is between 115 and 123 billion U.S. dollars.
...Israel sells its weapons, technologies, training, and techniques of violence to those it considers allies and even to those whom it considers enemies. Israel sells or has sold to Islamist, communist, capitalist, dictatorial, and social democratic states. The driving force behind Israeli arms exports, in addition to the profit motive, is the need for a close and strong alliance with major imperialist powers that provide it with continuous military and diplomatic support, economic markets and access to power. Therefore, Israel has prioritized selling weapons to the allies and agents of these powers.
Israel Shahak’s 1982 book, Israel’s Global Role: Weapons for Repression, documents that “from Rhodesia to apartheid South Africa to the Gulf monarchies, Israel ties its interests not with the masses fighting for freedom, but with their jailers.”12 Despite competition and other conflicts between governments and regimes that rely on repression, those same governments and regimes have no trouble cooperating with one another against peoples’ movements.
From Dutchman, 91, returns Holocaust honour to Israelis after six relatives killed in Gaza
In a moving letter addressed to the Israeli ambassador and published in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, he said: "For me to hold on to the honour granted by the State of Israel, under these circumstances, will be both an insult to the memory of my courageous mother who risked her life and that of her children fighting against suppression and for the preservation of human life as well as an insult to those in my family, four generations on."
From Ireland’s biggest food retailer drops Israeli produce as European boycotts surge :
Major Israeli food exporters are facing an unprecedented wave of cancelations in orders from Europe as a result of Israel’s most recent massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.
SuperValu, the biggest food distributor in Ireland, told the Irish media last week that it has withdrawn Israeli products from its shops.
And Israeli media reports suggest that other major European retailers have taken similar decisions without announcing them publicly.
Israeli fruit and vegetable exporters have faced cancelations from Scandinavia, the UK, France, Belgium and Ireland.
Israel’s Real Target is Not Hamas, It's Any Possibility of Palestinian Statehood - counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/
also, the US activism keeps growing,
US activists urge boycotting Israeli ships
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/08/14/375256/us-activists-urge-boycotting-israeli-ships/
I've only copied here the introduction of the below article but the entire article is, for those who don't know this already, very interesting.
From Stealing Palestine: A Study of Historical and Cultural Theft
The cultural appropriation of books, music, art, cuisine and dress have been used by Zionists as a weapon against Palestinians
Stealing and appropriating the culture and history of indigenous peoples is a typical characteristic of all modern colonial-settler states, but usually accomplished once the indigenous people in question has been eliminated, dispossessed, or otherwise seemingly defeated therefore making it safe to do so. The colonial-settler state of “Israel,” established on the ruins of Palestine and through the expulsion of the majority of its indigenous population in 1948 and after, is no different.
The Israeli theft of all things Palestinian, however, does not simply come from misguided notions of nationalism or childish pride as is often argued by Western apologists, but is rather a conscious political policy of the state that seeks to erase Palestine from historical memory, particularly within Western discourse. Indeed, the continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland goes hand in hand with the theft of Palestinian land, homes, history, and culture. It is an essential part of the larger, long-term Zionist project of eradicating the Palestinian nation altogether, literally writing it out of history while simultaneously assuming its place.
This erasure has been correctly termed as memoricide by historian Ilan Pappe in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Nur Masalha, elaborating further, writes: “The founding myths of Israel have dictated the conceptual removal of Palestinians before, during and after their physical removal in 1948... The de-Arabisation of Palestine, the erasure of Palestinian history and the elimination of the Palestinian’s collective memory by the Israeli state are no less violent than the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 and the destruction of historic Palestine: this elimination is central to the construction of a hegemonic collective Israeli-Zionist-Jewish identity in the State of Israel” (The Palestine Nakba, 89).
Thus, the theft of Palestine and its culture has two essential and interwoven components, the removal/erasure of Palestinians and a concurrent assumption of nativity or “birthright” in Anglo-European Zionist terms. Over the last six and a half decades, this brazen erasure and theft has been achieved mainly through two methods: brutal violence (that is, terrorism) and mass media propaganda.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays/stealing-palestine-study-historical-and-cultural-theft-1001196809#sthash.7zvowIdS.dpuf
go away
Hi backbay!
did you try fucking yourself before posting?
Give it a shot, next time.
musical interlude:
have some Bug:
fuck a bitch.
10-year-old child shot in chest with live ammunition
in Hebron, Reports August 6, 2014
6th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
In al-Khalil (Hebron) on Sunday August 3rd, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy was walking to his home near the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba when the Israeli military shot him in the chest with live ammunition.
The following day, ISM volunteers went to visit the young boy in al-Mezan hospital. The young boy was in critical condition, and although doctors were able to save his life, the bullet remains in his left lung, as it is too dangerous to remove it.
His father told the ISM volunteers that a relative of the boy witnessed the shooting and that it had been a man in a soldiers’ uniform that shot him, without any visible motive. His father also pointed out that even if there had been a motive, such as if the boy would have been throwing stones, nothing could have justified this shot, which was clearly aimed at the heart of this 10-year-old child.
A funeral for a solder that died in Gaza was held in the Tel Rumeida area of al-Khalil between 1 AM and 3 AM last Sunday evening. The area was under heavy military presence, shop owners were forced to close down their shops early and Palestinians living in the area received orders stay in their homes and turn the lights off. Doctors at al-Mezan hospital have reported that in recent weeks there has been an increase in the number of bullet wounds resulting from live ammunition. Many of these wounds have been in the chest and abdomen, seemingly aimed to kill.
al-Nakba: the Palestinian "Catastrophe"
Immediately upon ethnic cleansing and destruction or repopulation of 531 Arab villages and 11 urban areas by Jewish terrorist militias before May 15, 1948 and the IDF following that date, Israel set about to cover up the evidence. This was usually done by bulldozing the structures and covering the rubble with conifers and cactus (see www.cactus48.com) or by replacing the Arab names of roads, streets and villages with Hebrew names. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls this "memoricide," intended to deny the prior existence and obliterate the cultural remains of the people they violently displaced.
This process has continued to the present. Most Israeli land was placed under the control of the Jewish National Fund or the Israeli Land Authority and given to Jews or turned into public lands such as parks. Non-Jews are prohibited from owning or leasing this land. Many historical markers have been installed by the JNF commemorating biblical references and sites of Jewish significance, while the many centuries of Arab history in Palestine have been wholly excluded from recognition.
An outstanding Israeli NGO, "Zochrot" which in Hebrew means "remembering" (in feminine, emotional voice) currently conducts awareness-raising tours to the sites of destroyed villages and renamed communities, leading combined groups of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. At these sites they place signs and markers with the original Arab names, often against significant local resistance, and are pressuring the JNF to also do so, sometimes successfully. (see www.zochrot.org). Zochrot has also done an extensive analysis of the feasibility of implementing the full right of return for Palestinian refugees, with hopeful conclusions.
Another outstanding American NGO, "Birthright Unplugged," conducts similar tours for American Jews to learn the truth about Israel's beginnings. They conduct similar tours for Palestinian children to visit and learn about the birthplaces of their elders, calling this program "birthright re-plugged." (see www.birthrightunplugged.org)
On Palestinian detainees under Israel's Administrative Detention Laws
...
Why It's Hard to Believe Israel's Claim That It Did Its Best to Minimize Civilian Deaths
TL;DR
One of the reasons why Archinect should boycott Israeli universities
From “Warrior students”: How Israeli universities are supporting war crimes in Gaza
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Mon, 08/18/2014 - 13:51
A photo from the University of Haifa’s Facebook page shows the Eshkol Tower which was lit up as the Israeli flag, administrators said, to “express solidarity with Israeli soldiers.”
“The university is proud of all its students and thanks those who did reserve service,” writes Tel Aviv University dean Yoav Ariel in a 13 August email. “I wish us all a swift return to our blessed routine.”
Ariel’s email lays out some of the benefits Tel Aviv University is providing to students who took part in Israel’s military assault on Gaza, including a chance to retake tests.
The university had already announced last month that it would be providing one year of tuition stipends to soldiers.
Israel’s attack, which has killed at least 1,975 Palestinians including at least 459 children and caused unprecedented destruction in Gaza, was dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” in English, and in Hebrew, “Tzuk Eitan” – which translates as “Mighty Cliff.”
140804-islamic-university.jpg
The Islamic University of Gaza on 2 August after it was bombed by the Israeli military.
(Ashraf Amra / APA images)
For Palestinians in Gaza, especially children and university students, there will be no quick return to routine – blessed or otherwise – as the educational infrastructure has suffered devastation. University facilities have been bombed and dozens of schools run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, still house 218,000 people displaced by the Israeli assault just two weeks before the start of the school year.
At least 373,000 Palestinian children in Gaza “require direct and specialized psychosocial support,” the UN states. “Children are showing symptoms of increasing distress, including bed wetting, clinging to parents and nightmares. It is likely that every child in the Gaza Strip is affected by the crisis and will require some level of psychosocial support.”
Almost every Israeli university is bolstering its complicity in this horror by rewarding students who took part in the attack on Gaza, including those who might have participated in war crimes.
from Hague court under western pressure not to open Gaza war crimes inquiry
The international criminal court has persistently avoided opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza as a result of US and other western pressure, former court officials and lawyers claim.
In recent days, a potential ICC investigation into the actions of both theIsrael Defence Forces and Hamas in Gaza has become a fraught political battlefield and a key negotiating issue at ceasefire talks in Cairo. But the question of whether the ICC could or should mount an investigation has also divided the Hague-based court itself.
An ICC investigation could have a far-reaching impact. It would not just examine alleged war crimes by the Israeli military, Hamas and other Islamist militants in the course of recent fighting in Gaza that left about 2,000 people dead, including women and children. It could also address the issue of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, for which the Israeli leadership would be responsible.
@tammuz. I am of the mind that after +700 comments, the Israel boycott is not going to happen. But at this point, a boycott of Palestinian whitewashing might catch on.
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