#Its about the hypocrisy of the palestinian movement

[ace-hell]

I think someone didn't understand my post lmfao💀

It's December next month and the yearly "jesus was a balestinian" propaganda is going to come up so remember! If jesus was a palestinian then that means that all the people there were palestinians and that means that the palestinians killed jesus!

Good night

[snailygoon]

BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE POINTS IN THIS VIDEO A LOT. ESPECIALLY AFTER SEEING SO MANY ISREALI SETTLERS SITTING SAFE IN THEIR HOMES, CALLING THE FREE PALESTINE MOVEMENT “SICK" WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY HAVING THE PRIVILEGE TO BE FLEEING THE COUNTRY BECAUSE THEY FEEL UNSAFE. WHILE JUST A MILE OVER PALESTINIAN PEOPLE ARE LOCKED IN GAZA, BEING MURDERED BY THE THOUSANDS. NO FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT. NO FOOD, NO WATER. JUST CARNAGE. BROUGHT ON BY THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT/MILITARY. IT'S JUST CRAZY TO ME THAT SO MANY PEOPLE CANT SEE THE HYPOCRISY OF IT ALL. ESPECIALLY THOSE CLAIMING TO BE LIBERAL MINDED.

PUSH PAST YOUR PREJUDICE OF ARAB PEOPLE. LISTEN TO PALESTINIAN VOICES. KEEP SHARING THEIR STORIES. AND INSTEAD OF CLAIMING YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY IN THE PAST. BE ON THE RIGHT SIDE NOW! THERE IS NO NEUTRAL STANCE IN A GENOCIDE

ALSO THINKING ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF ZIONISTS I'VE SEEN PUSHING PROPOGANDA. ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE SUPPOSED HORRIBLE THINGS THEY'VE SEEN HAPPEN IN ISREAL INSTEAD OF SHOWING THE WORLD. ALSO THE DEBUNKED AI PHOTOS AND REPORTS. WHILE AT THE SAME TIME I'VE SEEN SO MUCH REAL FOOTAGE OF MANGLED PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. MANGLED CHILDREN KILLED BY ISRAELI FORCES. NOTHING BUT ACTUAL FOOTAGE FROM PEOPLE ON THE GROUND IN GAZA. MEANWHILE THE ISREALI GOVERNMENT HAS TO PAY PEOPLE TO SPREAD LIES THAT THEY CANT BACK UP. ITS SO CLEAR WHATS HAPPENING AND IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO SEE IT THAN I DONT KNOW HOW TO HELP YOU

TO THE ISRAELI PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN RISKING THEIR LIVES PROTESTING THEIR GOVERNMENTS ACTIONS. EVEN BEING THREATENED BY THEIR OWN POLICE FORCE TO BE SENT IN TO GAZA TO DIE FOR VOCALIZING THEIR SUPPORT OF PALESTINIANS. I WISH NOTHING BUT SAFETY FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES.

AND TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. THOSE IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK AND THOSE OUTSIDE OF IT. IM SO SORRY FOR THE UNIMAGINABLE HORRORS YOU ARE FACING. I’VE SEEN FOOTAGE THAT IS SEERED INTO MY MIND. AND IT'S NOT EVEN A FRACTION OF WHAT YOU ARE BEING SUBJECTED TO IN PERSON. WISHING ETERNAL PEACE FOR THE THOUSANDS OF MARTYRS LOST IN NOT JUST THE PAST 17 DAYS, BUT IN THE PAST 75+ YEARS OF OCCUPATION AND FOR THOSE STILL FIGHTING, I WISH FOR YOU TO SEE A FREE PALESTINE IN YOUR LIFETIME. IM SO SORRY.

#FREEPALESTINE 🇵🇸

[jewishbarbies]

You should watch Israelism. And “Tantura : The Untold story of the 1948 massacre,” its on YouTube. Tantura literally traumatized me. It’s a documentary where journalists interviewed soldiers who “served” in the village of Tantura. They recall the mass rapes, torture and massacres committed against Palestinians there. How they burned them for fun. How they were jealous of them because they lived in beautiful houses. Beautiful clothes. All that with big smiles…

To think human beings, blessed with thought and free will would consciously make the decision to be this evil. How sadistic, How messed up do you have to be to still support those gen0cidal maniacs ? Truly disgusting. The fact that the Brits helped those Europeans Jews do their massacres just proves how much Israel is essentially a colonial project.

Israelism is also a documentary who uniquely explores how Jewish attitudes towards Israel are changing dramatically, with massive consequences for the region and for Judaism itself. It was directed by two first-time Jewish filmmakers who share a similar story to the film’s protagonists, it was produced by Peabody-winner & 6-time Emmy-nominee Daniel J. Chalfen (Loudmouth, Boycott) along with activist and filmmaker Nadia Saah (Mo, Omar, 5 Broken Cameras), executive produced by two-time Emmy-winner Brian A. Kates (Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Succession, The Plot Against America).

Synopsis: “When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the brutal way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns.

They join a movement of young American Jews battling the old guard to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.”

I know a Palestinian girl whose grandmother was a Jewish Palestinian killed during the Nakba. Europeans considered her "too Arab," especially since she was married to a Palestinian Muslim. Interfaith marriages were common in Palestine back then and still are among Christian and Muslim Palestinians. It's a tragic reality that the racism against Arab Jews is often overlooked by many Zionist Jews today.

Recently, I read an article by an Iraqi-American Jew about how Palestinian Jews were pressured by Europeans to be "more civilized like them”. That just shows the colonial mindset that they had (and still have).

Finally, I’d like to call your hypocrisy on saying that Palestine never existed. Just because they were colonized doesn’t mean they never existed. It’s like saying “Algeria never existed before the French came and colonized them”, same goes to Morroco, Tunisia, Libya ect.

It’s their land whether y’all like it or not, they welcomed you even though they had nothing to do with the Holocaust. What did they got in return ? Ethnic cleansing, Gen0cide and oppression. Denying their right of return is just the cherry on top of the cake.

Israel is a prime example of why reparations are a terrible idea. All it does is spark new conflicts from old sins. And even then, you can give reparations without creating a colonial apartheid state. Reparations would have been rebuilding Jewish neighborhoods and providing social programs for their residents instead of shipping them off to be someone else's problem.

The fact that Palestinians have to pay for the European crimes is disgusting.

Shame on the US and European countries for denying Palestine right to establish sovereign nation. And shame on you for supporting that colonial and genocidal state.

[cazort]

I saw a post celebrating how IDF members returning from Gaza are being plagued by a suicide epidemic and I can't express how twisted it is to celebrate something like this.

Like what the IDF is doing here is horrific, I think we all agree on that.

But stop and think about what is going on here. People don't choose where they are born. Military service in Israel is mandatory and there are weak to completely absent protections for conscientious objectors, it's not like the US, like by comparison it is much harder to get out of IDF service than it was to be a conscientious objector during the Vietnam draft, and even that wasn't easy. (Talk to some people who objected to the Vietnam draft and find out. Then go online and research refusal to serve in the IDF and you will see that it's a movement that has near-zero political support in Israel.) People who refuse to serve are often jailed, typically as teens. Furthermore, people who refuse service in the IDF face lifelong stigmas and consequences; they are typically branded for life and barred from an overwhelming majority of the jobs in Israel.

I have close friends who have served in the IDF and they are some amazing people. They are also some of the most staunch critics of Zionism and of the Israeli state I have ever met. One of them spoke out against what has been going on in Gaza recently so vocally that he was fired and barred from working in most employers, and he faced such harassment that he fled the country.

Israel flouts itself as a "democracy" but has many of the characteristics of an authoritarian state, and the way it forces almost all its citizens into mandatory military service and brainwashes and coerces a significant subset of those people to commit atrocities is not something to celebrate.

The members of the IDF are people, just like you and me. They did not choose where they were born.

Also, the people who are most struggling with depression and suicide are disproportionately the people who have become most aware of the problems and hypocrisies with what Israel has been doing.

These people who are dying in this suicide epidemic, whether or not they have committed any war crimes (and many have not), are potentially some of the strongest allies in the fight to break down the system of US-funded Israeli oppression and destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people.

I want us to be mourning these deaths just as we mourn each and every person killed by the IDF, each and every building destroyed. It's all horrific. Israel has been killing both Palestinians, and its own people. The Netanyahu regime shows no regard for human life on either side of this conflict. This is not a problem of Israelis vs. Palestinians. It is a problem of a rogue authoritarian state that is willing to throw anyone under the bus who challenges it, and that is willing to send even its own citizens to death to serve its own interests...whether that be IDF soldiers killed in combat, IDF soldiers who commit suicide, Israelis killed by Hamas, or even Israeli hostages killed by IDF strikes. They have shown no caring whatsoever.

Just because there is a severe power disparity between Israel and Palestine does not mean that all individual Israelis are powerful and have agency here. Most of the people fighting in the IDF have little agency and are themselves victims of this whole system. Celebrating these people's suicide is sick. A lot of these people are being driven to suicide specifically because they are waking up and seeing all the harm being done and because they find themselves totally isolated in a society that forces extreme stigma on them when they speak out.

If we want to solve the problems in the world we need to root out the sickness in our own thinking first. We cannot bring about peace and we cannot end something as horrific as what is happening in Israel and Palestine right now unless we first get into a better mindset ourselves.

The core thing that is wrong with Israel is that they have created a propaganda machine that supports an us-vs-them mindset. The solution here is not to reinforce that mindset by celebrating IDF deaths. That's reinforcing the problem here. We need to break down the systems that are holding up the violence and oppression. And we do that by seeing everyone involved as people.

We need to be reaching out to these people at risk of suicide. They are potential allies. We need to be providing support to help them fight the system from within. There is a resistance within Israel and it is much weaker and more marginal than any resistance has ever been in the US, in part because Israeli is a less free society.

Please see these people through this lens because it is much more truthful than the rhetoric circulating celebrating these deaths. No suicide is ever worth celebrating. And when you feel tempted to celebrate it, it's a sign of a need to root out a problem from your own thinking.

[good-old-gossip]

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai have made their Broadway production debut this month with the musical Suffs.

However, news of the show was not music to everyone's ears. Critics took to social media to accuse the pair of double standards and “silence” over the plight of Palestinian women in Gaza amid ongoing Israeli bombardment, while producing and promoting a musical about the early 20th-century suffragette movement in the US.

“Malala co-producing a musical about the American women's suffrage movement while being silent about the horrific atrocities being committed against women and girls in Gaza & actively collaborating with a vocal champion of Israel,” posted one user on X, formerly Twitter.

“Irony has never been more stark.” Clinton, who ran for president in 2016, has promoted herself as an advocate for feminism and women’s rights.

This has prompted many online users to highlight what they say is the "glaring hypocrisy" of Clinton’s backing of Israel despite several reports on Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls, including sexual abuse. Yousafzai, on the other hand, became a household name in the fight for girls’ education after she was shot in 2012 for speaking out against the Pakistani Taliban’s restrictions on girls’ access to education.

At 17, she became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate in 2014 for her activism. Social media users expressed their disappointment with her collaboration with Clinton amid Israel’s targeted strikes on educational institutions in Gaza and the violence that has forced schools in the occupied West Bank to close and turn to remote learning.

“Malala herself has been relatively muted on the devastation of the education system in Gaza. Whatever little she’s said, has been muted platitudes,” said one user. Social media users have also criticised Yousafzai for partnering with “warmonger” Clinton, who as secretary of state under President Obama oversaw deadly drone strikes that killed hundreds of civilians, including children, in the activist’s native Pakistan.

“Malala said drone attacks are fueling terrorism and killing innocents. She's now partnering with Hillary Clinton, who oversaw the drone campaign,” said one user.

“She exposed her double standards with Palestine and can safely be called a pawn for the imperial powers.”

Suffs has made its Broadway debut amid tension and fierce criticism of the country's unwavering support and arming of Israel’s war in Gaza as the US gears up for presidential elections later this year. Israel's assault has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, 70 percent of whom are women and children.

In February, UN experts said they had received reports of Palestinian female detainees being subjected to “multiple forms of sexual assault” in Israeli detention since 7 October. The experts added that hundreds of Palestinian women and girls have been arbitrarily detained since the war started. ✍️ by: Mera Aladam

[thatdebaterguy]

'Queers For Palestine'

I saw this amazing post about Israel and its history with gender and sexuality and in my eyes it really outlines the hypocrisy of the queers for Palestine movement.

The whole idea is that supporting Palestine stops a genocide, which has zero evidence that it's even happening, but supporting Hamas in any way shape or form, even by protesting for the Palestinian government, will lead to a very real possibility of an actual genocide on the open, free and respected queer community within Israel, which as this person says, is much more accepting than many other governments, especially that of Hamas.

There is no protection against this violence, in fact, when the Hamas takeover occurred, they attempted to pass legislation for flogging for adultery, especially among homosexuals. By protesting a non existent genocide you increase the possibility of a real one. Yes it's highly unlikely Hamas will ever rule over Israel, which is incredible, but the possibility is there.

[eretzyisrael]

by Gil Troy

That few feminists, especially gender studies professors, have denounced this familiar yet deplorable evil exposes a darkness deep in their soul. It is part of a broader scandal in higher education some are now, belatedly, starting to recognize. Call it fruits from the poisoned Ivies. For years, America’s most elite universities have been cultivating a generation of grievance junkies—dividing the world into “the oppressed,” who are forever blameless, and “the oppressors,” who are forever guilty. Those deemed “oppressors” are often accused of enjoying “privilege,” although those grade-grubbing radicals dining out on their parents’ Black AmEx card as they pay $70,000 university bills, somehow don’t count themselves as “privileged” either.

Since Oct. 7, these fanatics have emerged as Ivy League jihadis, leveraging the Palestinian brand as the world’s most oppressed and blameless people, suffering from the evils of Zionist colonialism, to silence condemnation of inhumane butchery.

The feminist blindness to these crimes is particularly outrageous given gender studies’ stated commitment to eradicating rape culture, with its silence, its skepticism, its victim-shaming, and its victim-blaming. But this violation also points to a deeper, endemic scandal the feminist movement has suppressed, namely, many radical feminists’ instinctive aversion to Jewish women and Jewish issues.

Even though many Jews launched the women’s movement, feminism has long had a Jewish problem. From Betty Friedan to Bella Abzug, Jewish women were among the most visible forces in American feminism—even as feminists often rendered invisible their particular challenges as Jewish women facing sexism and antisemitism.

In June 1982, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of Ms. magazine, interviewed 80 Jewish feminists about their experience as Jews in the movement. Her bombshell “Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement,” anticipated today’s hypocrisy. Struck by the “invisibility” of Jewish issues, noticing how “the feminist litany of the ‘oppressed’” omitted Jews, Pogrebin challenged her sisters. “When did anti-Semitism turn into a ‘balanced issue,’” she wondered. The opposite of being against antisemitism, she noted, is not being pro-Palestinian but being “for Jew-hating.” And why, she asked, would anyone expect Israel “to commit suicide for the sake of Palestinian liberation?”

Pogrebin later recalled realizing that “to feminists who hate Israel, I was not a woman, I was a Jewish woman.” Today, 41 years later, to feminists who hate Israel, the women that Hamas targeted were not women but merely Jews—or subhumans—not worthy of solidarity.

[readingsquotes]

"The violent crackdown on students protesting against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza reveals the stark hypocrisy of political and academic leaders at our colleges and universities, including my own. Instead of first turning to dialogue and debate – the very skills and values universities should promote – school administrators have turned to police, extreme discipline, and complying with a mainstream consensus that seems more interested in suppressing criticism of Israeli and American policy than protecting students.

From Columbia University to my own University of Southern California, peaceful student encampments in common university areas have been dismantled by city police, with hundreds of students arrested. Some have been suspended, evicted from dormitories, and threatened with expulsion and criminal conviction. At UT Austin, state troopers threw a Fox cameraman to the ground and arrested him. At Emory University, the chair of philosophy, Noelle McAfee, was arrested by a police officer wearing a balaclava, as if he were conducting an antiterrorism raid. Another Emory professor, Caroline Fohlin, who sought to protect students being arrested, was wrestled to the ground by two police officers, handcuffed, and charged with battery.

These student protests against a war that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, at least two-thirds of whom are women and children, are what professors and administrators love to call a “teachable moment.” Unfortunately, most universities and colleges are failing their academic principles, their students, and their faculty. I wish I could say I was surprised, but after three decades in academia, I am not.

...

On my own campus, the USC administration canceled the speech of its valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, after pro-Israel groups on and off campus labeled her antisemitic for including a link on her Instagram to a website that called for the abolition of Israel. Tabassum minored in resistance to genocide, offered through the Advanced Center for Genocide Research. The center’sfounding director, Wolf Gruner, called Tabassum one of the most empathetic students he had ever taught. Tabassum said she planned to speak to the commencement audience about hope and human rights. She might or might not have brought up Gaza and Palestine, war and genocide, but even if she did, should that have been a reason to cancel her?

The university administration offered unspecified threats to safety so severe that it felt it could not protect Tabassum or the commencement ceremony, even though former President Barack Obama had attended the commencement the year before and presumably required heightened safety measures. It is difficult not to believe that safety was a pretext for the university to avoid controversy that might antagonize pro-Israel students, family members, and outsiders. But the real consequences of such a controversy would not have been community protest; instead, it would have been political blowback from Congress, donors, and trustees. 

....

In universities, the lack of democracy and transparency is more of a norm than an exception. Faculty and students are routinely ignored by university administrations when it comes to the most serious issues, which is to say those that involve money. This is perhaps why students have felt that their only recourse when it comes to demanding divestment and the end of military aid to Israel was through protest, carried out in public spaces, rather than the futile road of privately appealing to administrators. 

The student protesters are on the right side of history, as they were in the 1960s and 1970s, demonstrating against the immoral and racist war the U.S. was waging in Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia. The students were right again in the 1980s, campaigning against apartheid and forcing universities to divest from South Africa. 

It is amazing how institutions teach idealism, including these cases of opposition to war and apartheid, and are then astonished that students are idealists. We are now witnessing a student rebellion against the hypocrisy of their elders and the powerful, who tell them they have to accept the lesser of two evils, and who weaponizeantisemitism to justify genocide."

[mithliya]

Don't be a pendant and a hypocrite. On the one hand you always accuse Israelis of being Europeans (European Jews who lost two thirds of their population) and now you are pretending Israelis (almost 75% Jewish) were affected by holocaust is a lie. And if you are going to deflect by pointing out that Israel has unequal wealth distribution (like literally every other country in the world) to criticize Israel, meanwhile Hamas has a revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars and their leaders are billionaires yet Gazans rot in poverty. And there's a difference between Israel attacking Hamas targets hiding among civilians too take them out vs Hamas attacking Israeli civilians because they want to genocide the Jewish population. You don't understand the difference between war and genocide and everytime someone points out the double standards you tokenize a few Jews to keep doing the hypocrisy.

i wrote a whole thing but tumblr glitched out and honestly someone as dishonest as u doesnt deserve my time so let me summarise

true: israel was formed by european jewish people, and zionism is a european ideology.

false: israel was formed by holocaust survivours

also false: zionism was formed by holocaust survivours

also false: zionism was an ideology that came as a result of the holocaust

true: there are holocaust survivours & their descendants who live in israel today

false: the holocaust was an attack on israelis, a group of people who didnt even exist when the holocaust was ongoing

true: a huge percentage of the european jewish community was killed in a genocide (the holocaust)

false: a huge percentage of the israeli population, who again didnt exist as an entity during the holocaust, were killed in a genocide.

to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, theres an obvious distinction between claiming israel lost 2/3rds of its population to the holocaust and claiming european jewish people, many of whom are not israeli, lost 2/3rds of their population to the holocaust. the former is intentionally misrepresenting history to justify an ongoing genocide, the latter is the reality of the situation.

when you can only justify israel by pointing at hamas, then you’ve already lost. i already oppose hamas, so your counterargument doesnt work. if the bar is so low that you can only justify yourself by pointing to an extremist islamist group then perhaps you already know how morally decrepit you & your genocidal movement are. dismissing the same holocaust survivours you pretend to care for by saying its mere “income inequality” that 1/3rd of holocaust survivours in israel are impoverished shows exactly how much you care about holocaust survivours. its beyond sick using survivours of a genocide to justify another genocide, while proving that you actually dont care for those survivours to begin with.

hamas didnt exist when israel raped and massacred and expelled palestinians in 1948. it doesnt exist in the west bank, where thousands of palestinians were kidnapped & 100s killed & thousands displaced due to settler violence that is backed by the IDF. israel choosing to attack UN buildings, schools, residential buildings, hospitals, and the same “safe routes” they tell palestinians to do to with no attempts to minimise civilian casualties isnt somehow justifiable when you pretend its all done to get hamas. israel killing palestinians and injuring many more in 2018 when palestinians protested peacefully cant be justified by hamas. starving all of gaza and withholding water & fuel & electricity cant be justified by hamas. several israeli politicians outright calling for the genocide of palestinians in gaza isnt somehow justified bc of hamas.

“few jews” please keep pretending like jewish people are all pro-genocide and occupation while pretending like im the unreasonable one here.

people like you who justify genocide in the face of this much evidence are monsters, plain & simple. you are disgusting.

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Israel lobby’s attack on Kostakidis threatens everyone’s right to free speech

以色列遊說團體對科斯塔基迪斯的攻擊威脅到每個人的言論自由權

By Greg Barns Jul 17, 2024

☆ Greg Barns SC 他是澳洲律師聯盟國家刑事司法發言人

Greg Barns SC is National Criminal Justice Spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance

👆 📣 Well said 👍

這正所謂言論自由和公平正義都不應該以「雙重標準」狡猾的方式進行運作 ，當然所有言論也必要受法律之約束下；不可無限上綱。為什麼看著全世界各地專搞民主、民權和民運之士，多數走到最後幾乎都如出一轍、千篇一律的教人心寒和唾棄與失望，人性的醜陋。 😣😔 所以我欽佩這位律師，敢於言，匡正大眾視聽而盡一己之力。謝謝! Lan~*

This is what the so-called freedom of speech and fairness and justice should not operate in a cunning way of "double standards". Of course, all speech must be subject to the constraints of the law; it cannot be unlimited. Why do people all over the world who specialize in democracy, civil rights and democratic movement, most of them are almost the same in the end, causing people to feel chilling, despised and disappointed? This is the ugliness of human nature. 😣😔 So I admire this lawyer who dares to speak out and do his part to correct the public’s hearing as well. Thanks! Lan~*

瑪麗·科斯塔基迪斯是澳洲最優秀的記者之一，但更重要的是，她也堅決反對壓迫和不公義。

Mary Kostakidis is one of Australia’s finest journalists, but more than that, she also resolutely stands against oppression and injustice.

═════════

加薩衝突顯示澳洲的言論自由和表達自由是多麼脆弱。這再次暴露出，如果沒有憲法保障的言論自由權，我們的法律和政策就可能被想要封住對手嘴巴的利益集團所顛覆。

The Gaza conflict has shown how fragile freedom of speech and freedom of expression is in Australia. It has exposed yet again that without a constitutionally protected free speech right, our laws and policies can be subverted by interest groups who want to tape the mouths of their opponents.

═════════

在本分析中，我不會對卡蘇托投訴提出任何法律觀點，特別是據稱使用《聯邦種族歧視法》第18C 條，該法禁止做出合理可能「冒犯、侮辱、羞辱或恐嚇」的行為“基於種族或民族的人。”

I am not, in this analysis, offering any legal views on the Cassuto complaint, particularly the purported use of s18C of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits the doing of an act that is reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone on the basis of their race or ethnicity.”

順便說一句，雖然具有諷刺意味，但考慮到這個國家的極右翼的嚴重虛偽，他們沒有為科斯塔基迪斯女士辯護，這並不奇怪。極右翼人士討厭第 18C 條，因為他們說該條對他們進行審查。但當適合他們的時候，他們很高興看到以色列遊說團體和他們支持的其他事業訴諸這一條款。

As an aside however it is ironic, but not surprising given the gross hypocrisy of the hard right in this country, that they are not coming to Ms. Kostakidis’ defence. The hard right hates section 18C because they say it censors them. But when it suits them they are happy to see the Israel lobby and other causes they support, resorting to this provision.

═════════

但首先，我們要對針對言論自由和表達自由的攻擊進行一些一般性觀察，這種攻擊隨著加薩衝突在澳洲的上演而不斷發生。

But first some general observations about the attack on freedom of speech and freedom of expression which is coming thick and fast the way the Gaza conflict is playing out in Australia.

☆ 呼籲消滅以色列並不比聲稱對巴勒斯坦人進行種族清洗是可以接受的更加可憎。然而媒體似乎更關注後者而不是前者。

To call for the eradication of Israel is no more odious than statements that ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is acceptable. Yet it seems the media focuses on the latter rather than the former.

═════════

雖然媒體「追捕」像科斯塔基迪斯女士和該國其他知名人士這樣的人，他們從反對以色列及其行動的角度出版和轉載材料，但對那些支持以色列的人卻很少或根本沒有同樣的抗議。屬於國際刑事法院程序和國際法院裁決主題的犯罪行為。

我們什麼時候看到澳洲媒體或政治機構騷擾這些人？絕不。

但我們從澳洲當權者那裡聽到和讀到的是，批評者是「反猶太主義」的。這是一個使用如此頻繁的誹謗，它重新定義了“過度使用”一詞。它旨在進行審查。總理阿爾巴尼斯先生通過將納稅人的資金花在特別專員身上來迎合澳大利亞的親以色列團體，從而推動了這一進程？為什麼不設立一個專員來保護亞裔澳洲人或來自非洲國家的人呢？

While the media ‘goes after’ people like Ms. Kostakidis and other high profile individuals in this country who publish and republish material from the perspective of those opposed to Israel and its actions, there is little or no equivalent outcry over those who are endorsing Israel’s crimes. Crimes which are the subject of the International Criminal Court process and rulings from the International Court of Justice.

When do we see the Australian media or political establishment harass these people? Never.

But what we do hear and read from the Australian establishment is that critics are ‘antisemitic’. This is a slur which is so frequent in its use, it redefines the term ‘over used’. It is designed to censor. And the Prime Minister Mr Albanese has given it a boost with his pandering to the pro Israel groups in Australia by spending taxpayers funds on a special commissioner? Why not a commissioner to protect Asian Australians or those from African countries?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Heather Mac Donald

Published: Dec 11, 2023

Liz Magill was forced to resign Saturday as president of the University of Pennsylvania—by all indications because, at a congressional hearing, she could not bring herself to declare that calls for the genocide of Jews are punishable speech. She would more justly have lost her job for being a bald-faced hypocrite when it comes to campus free expression. The future of higher education depends on which of these motives governs such decisions in the future.

Magill was part of a triumvirate of college presidents who testified before a House committee last week. Magill, Harvard president Claudine Gay, and MIT president Sally Kornbluth had been called to discuss the anti-Israel hatred embroiling their universities since the October 7 terror attacks on Israel. To call their performance robotic would insult robots. When asked a repeated question after their first evasion did not satisfy the questioner, these intellectual role models repeated their first evasion verbatim, maybe adding a cryptic non sequitur.

Congressman Jim Banks (R., Indiana) grilled Magill, for example, about a conference on Palestinian culture that the University of Pennsylvania had hosted two weeks before the Hamas terror attacks. Critics had demanded that Penn cancel the conference, due to the presence of alleged anti-Semites among its speakers. Penn allowed the gathering to continue, however, citing academic freedom.

Banks focused on invitee Roger Waters, founder of the rock group Pink Floyd and a vocal proponent of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement: “Why in the world would you host someone like that on your college campus to speak?” he asked.

Magill: “I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this. Antisemitism has no place at Penn.”

Banks: “Why did you invite Roger Waters? What did you think you would get out of him?”

Magill: “Antisemitism has no place at Penn, and our free speech policies are guided by the United States Constitution.”

It was on the question of condoning the “genocide of Jews” that the presidents were not only robotic but breathtakingly duplicitous.

Congressman Elise Stefanik (R., New York) parlayed this line of interrogation into national fame. Stefanik to Harvard president Claudine Gay: “Can you not say here that [calling for the genocide of Jews] is against the code of conduct at Harvard?”

Gay: “We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It’s when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment.”

Stefanik: “Is that speech according to the code of conduct or not?”

Gay: “We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable.”

The other two presidents took the same substantive position: whether speech constitutes actionable conduct depends on the context, including whether it is targeted at specific individuals.

Stefanik to Magill: “I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment,”

Magill: “If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.”

Stefanik: “So, the answer is yes.”

Magill: “It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.”

Stefanik’s questioning was relentless, but was it fair? As MIT president Kornbluth noted plaintively, she was unaware of anyone at MIT calling for the genocide of Jews. Stefanik was extrapolating from the ubiquitous student chants of “intifada” to explicit calls for Jewish genocide, but the former expression is more ambiguous, especially in the mouths of ignorant American students.

Nevertheless, Stefanik’s interrogations went viral. “American college presidents tongue tied regarding the genocide of Jews!” was the common takeaway, even among liberal defenders of academia, such as Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe.

And this failure to agree that alleged calls for the genocide of Jews should be banned appears to be what did in Magill. (Penn’s chairman of the board also resigned on Sunday, a shake-up as momentous for the future of university governance as Magill’s departure.) Sensing her imminent peril, Magill released a video a day after the hearing reversing her position on punishable speech. A “call for genocide of Jewish people [is] harassment or intimidation,” she stated—and thus, subject to prior restraint or retroactive sanction.

The problem, Magill explained, was the Constitution: “For decades, under multiple Penn presidents and consistent with most universities, Penn’s policies have been guided by the Constitution and the law. In today’s world, . . . these policies need to be clarified and evaluated.” Penn would be initiating a “serious and careful look” at those constitutionally inspired limits, in order to provide what Magill called a “safe, secure, and supportive environment [where] all members of our community can thrive.”

In other words, though Penn had heretofore chosen to abide by constitutional norms (though as a private institution, it was not mandated to do so), it would now put those norms aside to ensure that students feel “safe.”

The presidents’ refusal to declare hypothetical calls for the genocide of Jews punishable conduct has been portrayed as the greatest scandal of the hearing. It was not.

The real scandal was the presidents’ duplicity in citing a “commitment to free expression” as the reason why they needed to give “wide berth to . . . views that are objectionable,” as Gay put it.

GOP congressmen demolished the presidents’ protestations of free speech loyalty, providing example after example of faculty members and outside speakers who had been muzzled, punished, or banned because of views contrary to campus orthodoxy. Those views included the assertion that sex is biological and binary, that racial preferences harm their beneficiaries, that the diversity bureaucracy inhibits academic freedom, and that an open-borders immigration policy damages the country.

It was those fantastically counterfactual assertions of loyalty to academic freedom that should have doomed Magill and the other two presidents. On any common understanding of truthfulness, their claims to protect “objectionable” views were flagrantly contrary to the facts. Having been exposed as hypocrites, dissemblers, and enforcers of politically correct thinking, they should all be fired as unfit to lead institutions ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the transmission of knowledge.

Ironically, however, it was their one correct stance during the entire hearing debacle that put them in peril. However woodenly they asserted their alleged reason for not shutting down the pro-Hamas demonstrations, that reason should have been controlling. Speech should be protected unless it crosses the line into direct threats to individuals or incitement to imminent violence. Student parroting of Islamist slogans does not meet those tests. Allowing a central authority to ban speech that it declares injurious to the common good is a license for precisely the abuse of power that has been the norm throughout human history, a norm that the Founders were so insistent on overturning. Moreover, it has been in the name of creating what Magill called a “safe, secure, and supportive” campus “climate” that universities have suppressed unwelcome facts and unpopular speakers.

Of course, even the presidents’ explanation for why they tolerate the pro-Hamas demonstrations is likely a lie. The real reason for their equivocation is fear of the campus Left—or, in the case of the diversity bureaucrats who often took the lead in responding to the terror attacks—agreement with the campus Left that anti-Israel terrorism is merely a matter of Palestinian self-defense.

Critics of the American university have seized on what they perceive as the most efficacious means for discrediting academia. But though accusations of tolerance for the genocide of Jews guarantees the most media coverage, conservatives are making a mistake in highlighting that alleged tolerance as the main reason to revamp the university. This mistake will come back to haunt them.

Absent a complete turnover of university personnel, a renewed authority to limit speech will be used overwhelmingly against conservatives. Even now, Penn is weighing sanctions against law professor Amy Wax for her challenges to campus orthodoxy. Had the public consensus been that the universities’ mistake was in not extending the same tolerance they showed to the pro-Hamas demonstrators to dissenters from leftist nostrums, Wax could have argued that she is entitled to the same protections for controversial speech. Now, with renewed support, even from the right, for student “safety,” Penn can argue that its newfound concern for Jewish student safety requires it to intensify its solicitude for the “marginalized” groups whom Wax allegedly jeopardized with her contrarian opinions.

A colleague of Wax’s has published an op-ed in the Washington Post unironically headlined: “To fight antisemitism on campuses, we must restrict speech.” “Isn’t it time for university presidents to rethink the role that open expression and academic freedom play in the educational mission of their institutions?” asks law professor Claire Finkelstein. However fanciful the question’s premise—that universities currently honor academic freedom—it is chilling that the answer is increasingly affirmative, even from many on the right.

[heavenlyyshecomes]

If the Jewish-only trade unions and kibbutzim were the organizations of the Zionist “left,” then Revisionism, under the leadership of Vladimir Jabotinsky, formed the right wing of the movement. Jabotinsky called his faction Revisionism because it “revised” what he saw as the weaknesses of the movement, its willingness to negotiate with British imperialism, to accept concessions on key questions like immigration and land seizure. In particular, Jabotinsky was quite open and blunt about how Zionists should deal with “the Arab question”: “Thus we conclude that we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say “no” and depart from Zionism. Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population—an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.” Revisionists were openly sympathetic to fascism. Betar, the Revisionist youth movement, admired Mussolini. They wore brown shirts and did the fascist salute. The Revisionist newspaper carried a regular column called “From the Notebook of a Fascist,” and on one occasion when Jabotinsky came to Palestine, the newspaper ran a column titled, “On the Arrival of Our Duce.” In 1933 a columnist wrote, “Social democrats of all stripes believe that Hitler’s movement is an empty shell [but] we believe that there is both a shell and a kernel. The antisemitic shell is to be discarded, but not the anti-Marxist kernel.” The Labor Zionists tried at times to distance themselves from the actions of the extremist paramilitaries. But when the time came for united action, they showed that their squabbles were all in the family. As Jabotinsky put it, “Force must play its role—with strength and without indulgence. In this, there are no meaningful differences between our militarists and our vegetarians. One prefers an Iron Wall of Jewish bayonets; the other an Iron Wall of English bayonets.” It was Jabotinsky who founded the Haganah and the Revisionists who formed the paramilitary organizations—the Irgun as well as the fascist Stern Gang. In 1945 the Revisionists and the Labor Zionists united to form the Resistance Movement to wage war against the British and then the Palestinians. The Irgun and the Stern Gang were responsible for the infamous massacre in the village of Deir Yassin in 1948. At least until the 1980s, veterans of the Irgun still returned to Deir Yassin to commemorate their “heroism.”

—Sumaya Awad & Annie Levin, ‘Roots of the Nakba: Zionist Settler Colonialism’ in Palestine: A Socialist Introduction ed. Sumaya Awad and brian bean

[lachlanthesane]

There are a couple of things about Eurovision which make this decision, unfortunately, unsurprising.

The list of states who are allowed to participate in Eurovision is determined their membership in the European Broadcasting Union. It's not about EU membership or geographical location -- the TV stations who organise Eurovision are the ones who get to decide who's in and who's out. Israel gets to be in Eurovision because the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation are a full member of the EBU.

One political stance that Eurovision has historically taken is that any kind of separatist movement from its member states is to be excluded. They don't allow the flags of Basque, Kosovo, or Independent Crimea to be flown at Eurovision, because those all represent movements that want to be independent from EBU states. And unfortunately, from the perspective of Israel, the Palestinian flag also represents a separatist movement that wants to be independent from an EBU state, so the Palestinian flag has also been banned in Eurovision for years. Palestine doesn't have any television stations in the EBU -- the Palestinian Broadcasting Association were associate members for a while but they didn't meet the requirements for full membership because Palestine doesn't have a stable state government (and whose fault is that) -- so Palestine is considered a separatist movement, not a member state.

Now, you might ask "Why would the EBU allow Israel to remain in Eurovision when it kicked Russia out after the invasion of Ukraine" -- well, it's because both Russia and Ukraine were EBU members. Russia and Belarus got kicked out of Eurovision for supporting the invasion of Ukraine, but Palestine don't have any EBU membership and so they can't defend themselves to the EBU board. The EBU board's line in the sand is that its members are to be protected and its non-members are to be ignored.

So hell yes, you should boycott Eurovision in 2024 if they continue to allow Israel to participate. You should absolutely fly Palestinian flags as much as security will allow, and you should absolutely storm the stage and ruin the Israeli singer's performance. But you can't nail the EBU board on hypocrisy here. They're not applying different moral standards to two invading nations, which would be hypocritical: they're treating their member nations as explicitly better than non-members, which is evil.

the bds movement has officially called for a boycott of eurovision 2024.

[tmarshconnors]

Political Hypocrisy

I find it absolutely appalling that countries like Ireland, Norway, and Spain are stepping out of line to recognise a Palestinian state. This move not only undermines the sovereignty and security of Israel, a democratic nation but also sets a dangerous precedent in international diplomacy.

Let's be clear: these countries are making a reckless and one-sided decision without considering the complex realities on the ground.

Firstly, Ireland's stance is especially infuriating. It's ironic that a country which has its own complicated history with terrorism and political violence would support an entity that has been involved in acts of terror against innocent Israeli civilians. Ireland should be the last to throw stones when it comes to matters of national security and conflict resolution.

Norway's decision is equally baffling. As a country that prides itself on peace and diplomacy, they are now supporting a narrative that negates the legitimate concerns of Israel regarding its security. By recognising a Palestinian state unilaterally, Norway is effectively ignoring the fact that Hamas, a recognised terrorist organisation, holds significant power within the Palestinian territories. This is not just a matter of statehood, but of ensuring that any future state does not become a launching pad for further violence against Israel.

And then there's Spain, a country that has its own regional separatist movements. How hypocritical can they get? By recognising a Palestinian state, Spain is essentially endorsing unilateral declarations of independence. How would they feel if Catalonia or the Basque Country were given the same recognition by other nations? It's a double standard that reeks of political pandering and a complete disregard for the rule of law.

Moreover, these countries are ignoring the numerous peace initiatives that Israel has put forward, which have been repeatedly rejected by Palestinian leaders. They are turning a blind eye to the incitement and glorification of violence that is pervasive in Palestinian society. This isn't just about borders; it's about fostering a culture of peace and coexistence, something these nations are jeopardising with their premature and misguided recognition.

In essence, Ireland, Norway, and Spain are making a huge mistake. They are not only compromising the peace process but also aligning themselves with a narrative that refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and defend itself. It's a slap in the face to every effort made towards achieving a just and lasting peace in the region. These countries should seriously reconsider their stance and recognise the full implications of their actions on both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

[garudabluffs]

In the Cities of Killing

The Hamas massacre, the assaults on Gaza, and what comes after.

By David Remnick October 28, 2023

Before we went our separate ways, Sari Nusseibeh said he thought that Arab rulers, despite it all, had no taste for a multifront war, one that might pull in the United States. This was not the mid-century, when many Arab leaders still thought of Israel as temporary. But he was hardly optimistic—not in the short run, anyway. “I think people are crazy,” he told me. “Especially people in positions of power. They are crazier than the average person and can easily lead populations to war.”

"For (Sam) Bahour, there was nothing utopian about demanding a political solution; it was only its denial that was impractical, as well as unjust. “We don’t ask for the moon,” he said. “We ask for a military occupation of fifty-six years to end. My fear is that this round, as much as it’s doing tremendous damage, physical damage, to Gaza and to the people of Gaza, it is also exposing the hypocrisy of the West and the international community. And, if we go on doing that, it’s a free-for-all.”

"_ _ _Frantz Fanon’s line that “the colonized is the persecuted person who is always dreaming of becoming the persecutor.”

"And so what would come in return? The air strikes on Gaza were proceeding at an unprecedented pace every night—lethal and incessant—and a ground incursion could lead to a hellscape of urban warfare, another Fallujah. It was a familiar nightmare, reminiscent of what followed 9/11, in which a stronger nation pursues a policy that, while trying to defeat an enemy for carrying out an unspeakable massacre, kills countless civilians and ultimately inflicts untold and lasting damage on itself."

Listen to this story  1:06:51 READ MORE Transcript https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/israel-gaza-war-hamas

David Remnick Reports on Grief and Rage in the Middle East November 3, 2023

1. David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, on striving to balance perceptions and narratives, and the challenges posed to a reporter covering the Israel-Hamas war.

It’s been nearly a month since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, in which around 1,400 people were killed. Since then, the Israeli army has killed around 9000 people in Gaza. Hamas and Israel continue to launch rockets regularly into each other’s territories as Israel begins a ground operation in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will not agree to a ceasefire as his government seeks to eradicate Hamas. David Remnick, the Editor of The New Yorker, speaks to the profound strife of the moment in his recent piece for the magazine, In The Cities of Killing. The piece is a range of conversations, part reporting and part history, that strives to balance perceptions and passions. He sat down with Brooke Gladstone to discuss his reporting trip in Israel, and why reporting on this region, and this conflict, is uniquely difficult. 

This is a segment from our November 03, 2023 show, Warring Narratives in the Israel-Gaza Conflict and a New #MeToo Movement.

Nov 3, 2023 Why this is perhaps the hardest story to report. 

Listen 20:56 https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/david-remnick-reports-grief-rage-middle-east-on-the-media

Is there a Path Forward for Gaza and Israel?

After returning from a week of reporting in Israel, David Remnick has two important conversations about the conflict between Israelis and Arabs both in and outside of Gaza. First, he speaks with Yonit Levi, a veteran news anchor on Israeli television, about how her country is both reeling from the October 7th terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and grappling with how to strike at Hamas as the country prepares for an invasion that would be catastrophic for Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh maintains that peace is possible, if the influence of Hamas and the Israeli far right can be curtailed. 

David Remnick’s Letter from Israel appears in The New Yorker, along with extensive coverage of the conflict. 

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/is-there-a-path-forward-for-gaza-and-israel October 27, 2023

[delicatephrases]

First Declaration of War

Here I learned that the hundred years' war on Palestine dated so far back to late 1870s-1890s, the time of the arrival of the first European Jewish Settlers. The mayor of Jerusalem at that time was welcoming. He said Zionism in principle is a pure, natural idea: to have a place for your own people. But he stated that Palestine already had its own indigenous people, we wouldn't want to be superseded. The mayor pleaded that Palestine be left alone. The leader of the early Zionism movement, Theodore Herzl, ignored the plea, he said, they would come to Palestinian land bringing their wealth and intelligence and so it will benefit the Palestinians. Contrary, in his diary, he wrote about how important it is to have land for his own people and get rid of Palestinian's poor society.

In around 1917, British took over Palestine from Ottoman Empire, then came out the Balfour Declaration which in summary stated that UK was all in for the creation of a Jewish State in the land of Palestine, not regarding the fact that there were already people living there. Also in irony, that same UK Govt was the one who made 1905 Aliens Act to "control" the immigration of Jews from Russia who needed help, to the Britain.

In the 1920s, it became clear how unfair the world leaders were acting. The British government especially was very keen on supporting Zionism. They allowed unlimited immigration of Jewish people to Palestine, and yet their own country did not accept immigration. The author made notes of the hypocrisy, and so did notable Palestinian journalist at that time, Isa Al Isa.

Additionally, in the 1920s, the League of Nations issued on Mandate which was so clearly not in Palestine's favour. The mandate helped the Zionism agenda to grow, while depriving Palestinian of its own freedom. For example, the mandate allowed Jewish immigrants to get Palestinian nationality but did not allow Palestinian who emigrated to other country the same nationality when they came back.

The elite politicians of Palestine tried to negotiate or such with British government but they were ignored. All their demands were not listened. Things got worse for the Palestinian. In the countryside, Jewish could buy land which was already inhabited by native Palestinian, taking over the land, leaving the Palestinian homeless.

At some point, rebels and revolts were born, which of course led to violence being thrown back at them again by the British government who was in charge.

Palestine at that time was triple-binded, by the Zionism movement, by the British government who fully supported the Zionsim (making rules, providing armies and such), and even by League of Nations via its mandate.

Second declaration of War

It talked mostly about events leading to the Nakba and what happened after it.  Israel was heavily backed by UK and then the US. At first, international intervention offered a partition resolution, separating Palestine into a Jewish state and Arab state, obviously unfairly, they wanted to turn a mostly Arab parts of Palestine into a Jewish state. The resolution did not take place. Then Israel did raids and stuff, forcing a lot of Palestinians to flee their homes, becoming refuges and being scattered all over the world. The lands owned by the Israelis were unfairly brought or even stolen. The author drew a clear contrast between Palestine and Israel: Palestine severely lacked resources, no unity, no strong institution, no strong understanding of global politics and such (and I think it's because the Palestine was not even given the chance to self-govern). While Israel do, and thus they managed to get attention from the western world.

Other Arab countries were not supportive of the Palestine cause either, some even blatantly side with Israel because of their own agenda.

There were resistance from the Palestinian (most notably the founding of Fatah, a Palestinian National Liberation Movement). There were discreet attacks by Palestinian activist, but of course Israel always retaliated and at the end Palestine remained the losing side.

Third declaration of War

Here the author explained the machinations behind 6-Day War. A war in which "Israel defeated three Arab armies, gained territory four times its original size, and became the preeminent military power in the region.

During that time, Israel was so good at playing victim. " "Yet the myth prevails: in 1967, a tiny, vulnerable country faced constant, existential peril, and it continues to do so. This fiction has served to justify blanket support of Israeli policies, no matter how extreme, and despite its repeated rebuttal even by authoritative Israeli voices."

This chapter also talked about the establishment of Palestine Liberation Organization, an organisation founded by the Arab League to control Palestinian activism. It initially wanted to create an Arab state in all of Palestine including the ones that were taken by Israel, but then it's open to the creation of Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Fourth Declaration of War

This chapter broke me so profoundly. It talked about the events prior to Sabra and Shatila Massacre. In 1982, PLO occupied Beirut, Lebanon, home to Palestinians refugee and Lebanese. Around that time, Lebanon civil war was also raging on. Israel wanted to abolish PLO once and for all. At the end, PLO surrendered but they asked for reassurance of protection for the inhabitants there. PLO then moved away, leaving the habitants there defenseless. But then, Israel, via Lebanese Force still slaughtered innocent civilians in the area because they thought PLO was still there, which was not the truth. This action was approved by the US. Lebanese Forces carried out the massacre while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had the Palestinian camp surrounded, leading to the death of hundreds to thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese civilians.

Fifth declaration of war

1987, the rising of the first intifada, which is a Palestinian resistance against Israeli Occupation. The youth of Palestines threw protests and the uprising was mostly nonviolent. "From the beginning of the First Intifada to the end of 1996—nine years, including six when the intifada was ongoing—Israeli troops and armed settlers killed 1,422 Palestinians, almost one every other day. Of them, over 20 percent, were minors sixteen and under. One hundred and seventy-five Israelis, 86 of them security personnel, were killed by Palestinians during the same period. That eight-to-one casualty ratio was typical, something one would not have known from much of the American media coverage."

The rising of the intifada shifted public opinion on Palestine, because finally the world was seeing Israel's true color. Palestinian leaders at that time, the PLO, took this chance. They sought to be given a chance for their voices to be heard. They were invited to Madrid Conference that resulted in the Oslo Accord. The first agreement between Palestine and Israel. Sadly, the agreement was more like a trap, because it was mostly designed by Israel itself.

Sixth declaration of War

Here the author explained further about the situation in Palestine after the Oslo Accord.

The Oslo Accord actually allowed Israel to broaden their occupied territories and "strengthen" security against Palestinian who lived in Israel area, Gaza and the West Bank. It gave more chance for Israel government to treat Palestinians as if they're second-class citizen. This left Palestinian to be disappointed in their own leaders (who agreed to Osco Accords) and that left room for Hamas to gain Palestinians support.

Hamas mindset was different than other Palestinians organisations. It resorted to violence more. They did suicide bombings in Israel area, which was an act of revenge, but in the opinion of the author, did nothing to help the Palestinian cause. Obviously Israel always retaliated in a much worse way, resulted in hundreds or thousands of innocent Palestinians death. And obviously, it is still only Hamas that's labeled as terrorist.

This chapter explained the situation in Palestine in 2000-2014 which was still similar to today's situation. Palestinians living in their own land not having a decent life, treated as if they're beneath Israelis, depriving them of the life they deserve, beating them, putting them in jail and such. Hamas resisting through violence. Israel retaliation which was and is always a genocide. A totally disproportionate "war."

With public opinion slowly shifting towards Palestinian side, yet the world leaders and those who can intervene...still choose not to do anything.