#this is primarily about the israeli occupation of palestine

[secondwhisper]

I know this is so extraordinarily beside the point but the sheer number of times I've had to see the phrase "competing claims of indigeneity" just drives home how frequently indigeneity is reduced to a moral rather than material position, and how so many people (well-meaning in pursuit of decolonization & self-determination, or not) have never actually read a single fucking thing about indigeneity written by any indigenous scholars.

Multiple peoples can be indigenous to the same place, and if you see someone arguing "Group A is native to this place ergo those Group B can't be" that should make you respect their argument less.

[halalchampagnesocialist]

How to spot Liberal Zionist Propaganda 101

This post is by no means exhaustive at all. There are many Liberal Zionist talking points but these are just some of the most common ones. While on the surface they seem a little naive and hopeful at best, they are very much harmful. If you claim to be an ally to Palestinians, this post is primarily for you!

For starters, liberal Zionists will often try to both-sides the issue of Palestine, talk about how it's complicated, they'll claim that the conflict hurts both Israelis and Palestinians, how the only way forward is one where Jews and Arabs "just need to get along," amongst other things. They also often like to centre themselves, even when acknowledging Palestinians as the victims of Israel or this "conflict." From time to time, they also like to engage in tokenising certain Palestinians whose views tend to more or less align with theirs. Here are some common arguments you may hear from them:

1. Any form of justifying Israel's existence or claiming that the only solution is two states

It does not really need to be said why justifying Israel's existence is harmful but justifying its continued existence also means legitimising Israel's land theft, its expulsions of Palestinians, and its ongoing harm to Palestinians and other populations. Reducing any sorts of “solutions” into a binary is unhelpful. Needless to say, a 2ss would not even address any legitimate concerns Palestinian have, such as the right of return, and would only legitimise Israel’s colonialism. Talking about a two-state solution also implies that the root of the conflict lies in Palestinians not having their own state rather than being an occupied people. It is very much also possible to construct a paradigm where Jews and Palestinians both live together on the same land as equal citizens that doesn't involve two separate states, much less an ethnostate.

2. Security for Israel could only come through peace

This is a similar talking point to the one above. Not only does it centre Israeli safety and security above Palestinian liberation but it mistakenly assumes that once Israel makes peace with Palestinians, it'll achieve security. The reality, however, is that Israel's imagined security has quite often come at the expense of peace. In fact, "peace" has just acted as nothing more than a smoke-screen for Israel to carry out its expansionist policies, particularly in the West Bank. When liberal Zionists talk about peace juxtaposed with Israeli security, they're talking about attaining a negative peace rather than a positive one.

3. Israelis are not their government.

This point does nothing to actually help Palestinians. It is also an incredibly tone-deaf thing to say when Israel has targeted many Palestinian civilians by having alleged proximity to Hamas, such as being family members of militants or leaders (inc. children!), civil servants in a Hamas-led government, or even any male above the age of 15 they consider to be a potential combatant! It also deliberately erases Israeli civilians' support of and culpability in Israel's actions towards Palestinians.

4. Netanyahu and/or the Israeli right are the source of conflict.

While it is true that things have gotten inadvertently worse under Israel's various right-wing governments, they are not the source of conflict, but rather a product of extremist nationalism and Jewish supremacy perpetuated by the system. Both the 1967 occupations and settlements were undertaken under centre-left governments in Israel, and Israeli policy under non-right wing governments has been just as harmful towards Palestinians and has paved the way for where we are today. Blaming Netanyahu just also obscures the violent nature of Israel's military occupation over Palestinians which long precede him coming into power.

5. Netanyahu and Hamas are two sides of the same coin

I don't think I've seen any allies give validity to this claim but it's an extremely reductionist claim and is sort of similar to the one above. Groups like Hamas are merely a response to the Israeli occupation while Netanyahu is a byproduct of it. While some Israelis may see Hamas or their actions as an "obstacle to peace," Israel's actions and policies long pre-date Hamas and how Israel is currently responding to Hamas is no different to how Israel has engaged with Palestinian militant groups in the past, regardless of political affiliations or political goals. It is also important to note that Hamas has agreed to the establishment of a state along 1967 borders while Netanyahu aims to prolong the occupation and empower the settler movement (some of whom are part of his coalition government) as much as possible.

6. Israel is not a settler-colonial state.

While it is indisputable that Jews have historical connections to Palestine, that doesn’t automatically make you Indigenous or negate Israeli settler-colonialism. Colonialism in particular describes a relationship of exploitation. There are many cases of this, but we most clearly see this in the West Bank where Israel exploits natural resources on occupied Palestinian territory for its own political and economic gains. In terms of settler-colonialism, it is widely known that Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for Jewish refugees and migrants to the new state of Israel, and is still actively facilitating Jewish migration to Israel today while denying Palestinians their right of return.

7. (X) doesn't help Palestinians.

It is not up to anyone to determine whether certain tactics or strategies are helpful or not. This point only seeks to discredit pro-Palestine organising. Only Palestinians get to decide what is actually helpful for the cause or not.

8. Any sort of Hamas-blaming.

On the surface it may seem like there’s nothing wrong with this, but this point is often harmful and usually lends itself to right-wing talking points because its objective is to deflect blame away from Israel. Certain arguments blaming Hamas also aim to minimise Palestinian suffering perpetuated by Israel. It also paints Israeli violence as retaliatory to Palestinian violence which only obfuscates Israel’s (and by extension, the US’) role in its state military apparatus and the differing power dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians. In other contexts, this point seeks to also legitimise certain opposition, such as the Palestinian Authority. Hamas-blaming also tends to sometimes lead to racist diatribes about Palestinians and their culture.

9. Al-Jazeera is not a credible news source.

Al Jazeera is a news source like any other. It has varying editorial policies and therefore will have equally good reporting on certain issues while having terrible reporting on others. The difference is that Al-Jazeera's news on Palestine is credible because it comes directly from their Palestinian reporters on the ground and first-hand eyewitness accounts. Western news sources are no more or less credible than al-Jazeera. Compare this to CNN, NYT, and any other Western news sources where Palestinian voices are often entirely missing from the narrative.

10. Overemphasis of antisemitism on the left

Antisemitism is a real issue and has the potential to fester in left circles if not directly addressed head on. Combatting antisemitism is extremely important, however, it is not an issue exclusive to the left. There is also a double standard in that no one expects Zionists to call out Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Certain accusations of "antisemitism" also seek to distract from what's going on in Palestine by making it about Jewish comfort and feelings. Combatting antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism etc is always important as the basis of good politics.

Last but not least, be wary of native collaborators or any sort of normalisers! They are Palestinians or Arabs who try very hard to appeal to Western liberal consensus and can end up perpetuating a lot of harm to the cause and/or other activists. You will know them when you see them.

[fiercynn]

poetry outlets that support a free palestine

after finding out that the poetry foundation/POETRY magazine pulled a piece that discussed anti-zionism because they "don't want to pick a side" during the current genocide, i decided to put together a list of online outlets who are explicitly in solidarity with palestine where you can read (english-language) poetry, including, except where otherwise stated, by palestinian poets!

my criteria for this is not simply that they have published palestinian poets or pro-palestine statements in the past; i only chose outlets that, since october 7, 2023, have done one of the following:

published a solidarity statement against israeli occupation & genocide

signed onto the open letter for writers against the war on gaza and/or the open letter boycotting the poetry foundation

published content that is explicitly pro-palestine or anti-zionist, including poetry that explicitly deals with israeli occupation & genocide

shared posts that are pro-palestine on their social media accounts

fyi this is undoubtedly a very small sample. also some of these sites primarily feature nonfiction or short stories, but they do all publish poetry.

outlets that focus entirely on palestinian or SWANA (southwest asia and north africa) literature

we are not numbers, a palestinian youth-led project to write about palestinian lives

arab lit, a magazine for arabic literature in translation that is run by a crowd-funded collective

sumuo, an arab magazine, platform, and community (they appear to have a forthcoming palestine special print issue edited by leena aboutaleb and zaina alsous)

mizna, a platform for contemporary SWANA (southwest asian & north africa) lit, film, and art

the markaz review, a literary arts publication and cultural institution that curates content and programs on the greater middle east and communities in diaspora

online magazines who have published special issues of all palestinian writers (and all of them publish palestinian poets in their regular issues too)

fiyah literary magazine in december 2021, edited by nadia shammas and summer farah (if you have $6 usd to spare, proceeds from the e-book go to medical aid for palestinians)

strange horizons in march 2021, edited by rasha abdulhadi

the baffler in june 2021, curated by poet/translators fady joudah & lena khalaf tuffaha

the markaz review has two palestine-specific issues, on gaza and on palestinians in israel, currently free to download

literary hub featured palestinian poets in 2018 for the anniversary of the 1948 nakba

adi magazine, who have shifted their current (october 2023) issue to be all palestinian writers

outlets that generally seem to be pro-palestine/publish pro-palestine pieces and palestinian poetry

protean magazine (here's their solidarity statement)

poetry online (offering no-fee submissions to palestinian writers)

sundog lit (offering no-fee submissions to palestinian writers through december 1, 2023)

guernica magazine (here's a twitter thread of palestinian poetry they've published) guernica ended up publishing a zionist piece so fuck them too

split this rock (here's their solidarity statement)

the margins by the asian-american writers' workshop

the offing magazine

rusted radishes

voicemail poems

jewish currents

the drift magazine

asymptote

the poetry project

ctrl + v journal

the funambulist magazine

n+1 magazine (signed onto the open letter and they have many pro-palestine articles, but i'm not sure if they have published palestinian poets specifically)

hammer & hope (signed onto the letter but they are a new magazine only on their second issue and don't appear to have published any palestinian poets yet)

if you know others, please add them on!

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

As a Jewish advocate for Palestinian rights, let me tell you something. I’m fucking hurting right now.

I hate Hamas because they have made the plight of Palestinians so much worse with their actions in that now even fewer people will be willing to acknowledge their 70 years of suffering.

I hate that they will be used as an excuse to demonize all Palestinians, and the US is already upping their already astronomical military funding for Israel.

I hate that they’ve committed unforgivable violence in the name of a cause that is just.

I hate the Israeli government and the IDF for creating the conditions for this tragedy and countless others stretching back to the Nakba.

I hate how they have perverted my culture into a settler-colonial ideology and perpetrated on the Palestinians the very kinds of pogroms my own family fled Europe to escape.

I hate that so many Jews in Israel and throughout the diaspora face ostracism from their communities and families for speaking out against the atrocities Israel has been committing against Palestinians.

I especially hate how many of my fellow Jews have bought into an ideology that can handwave the bulldozing of homes and schools, the imprisonment of children, the bombing of residential homes, the displacement, the massacres. Virtually all things we have suffered as Jews at points in our history.

My heart aches for the innocent people murdered across the board - no matter who the bombs came from. Even though part of me thinks settlers aren’t innocent, what can you really do if you just happened to be born there? And even if you moved to Israel, do you really deserve to die? No.

But neither do all the children in the Gaza Strip currently being bombed in a revenge attack that, with the denial of food, water, and medical aid, violates the Geneva convention.

But to everyone who is posting now about Israel and these “unprecedented tragedies” - yes, these are tragedies, and my heart is so heavy with them. But they are not unprecedented. Where were you when the same things were happening to Palestinians for decades upon decades? There’s a monumental amount of video evidence of atrocities against Palestinians, but somehow people have managed to miss all of that. If you’re only paying attention to the suffering of certain people, ask yourself why.

If you’re only now posting about “of course Palestinians should be free” in posts primarily about mourning the killing of Israelis, where were your voices before now? Those of us trying to organize and fight for Palestinian human rights could have used you.

If more people had spoken out against our government’s support of what Amnesty International and countless other human rights organizations have called an apartheid regime, who knows what could have been possible.

Edit: Since this is getting a little traction, I wanted to leave these links here. Both are very reputable organizations that are providing humanitarian aid:

[centrally-unplanned]

This article about Hamas's strategic planning in the lead up to the October assault was at least a partial mind-changer for me. So far I had been viewing Hamas as executing a "bait" attack on Israel for international & domestic political reasons. Kill enough Israelis, and in particular take some hostages, to force Israel to invade Gaza; which you want because that will re-inflame radicalism, tank Israel's growing coziness with Arab states like the Gulf Monarchies, and keep the Palestine Question front-and-center on people's agendas.

What it was not about was achieving any sense of a military victory; Hamas did not think they would be able to defeat the IDF on the field, or even truly hold them back. They thought they would do better than they have in defending Gaza, to be honest, but the goal wasn't to "win" in that way or anything. The actions of Israel, in their inflamed bloodlust, would be the fulcrum of progress for Hamas. It was the most logical interpretation of their strategy, because tbh its working, Israel's strategy void has bungled this war at every level. Of course if it is "worth it" is a completely separate question - Hamas is playing a game from deep, deep in the red, if you aren't going to fold and pack it up from that position these are the hail mary plays you make.

This article, a long (and sometimes overly windy) interview with two career members of the Palestinian governing orgs (primarily Fatah), shines a very different light on that. They outline that over the past ~decade, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar coalesced power around his own faction of highly fundamentalist adherents that convinced itself that divine favor was shining on them and they would be able to actually defeat Israel in the field. The most compelling evidence for this is a conference they held planning the post-conquest occupation of Israel:

So detailed were the plans that participants in the conference began to draw up list of all the properties in Israel and appointed representatives to deal with the assets that would be seized by Hamas. "We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them," Obeid told the conference.

They even called people up to ask if they would take the job of governor of this-of-that province! This was not a bored-Friday white paper by any means. They discussed defensive plans and counter-offensives like that was on the table. Sinwar outlined conquest as the goal.

If we accept this premise, it naturally lends itself to the question "okay how did they get the rest of Hamas to go along with this?" Because Hamas is not all These Kinds of People, its a governing state that does politics on the international stage after all. One of the reasons I leaned towards my interpretation was that, for the past ~decade, Hamas has actually been doing a glam-up rebranding of the org to make it more moderate & respectable in international eyes. The 2017 Charter Revision is the biggest example, which included say disavowing the idea that this was a religious war (distinguishing between zionism & judaism), and loosely admitting to the idea that they could recognize Israel as a country if terms were met. Actions like these show actors who are pretty level-headed. Were they inauthentic? Did they change their mind?

Maybe a bit, but its more than they aren't the same people. Right alongside the build-up to the October attack was a purging & sidelining of whole swaths of Hamas leadership. Many were not even informed of the attack - though they knew something was coming. Apparently it leaked on October 2nd, and a bunch of leaders just immediately fled the Strip for safety. This one is the most amusing:

Haniyeh's eldest son took a similar course of action. Around midday on October 2, Abed Haniyeh chaired a meeting of the Palestinian sports committee, which is headed by the minister of sports, Jibril Rajoub. Suddenly he received a phone call, left the room for a few minutes and then returned, pale and confused. He immediately informed the committee – whose members were in a Zoom conference with counterparts in the West Bank – that he had to leave for the Rafah crossing straightaway, as he had just learned that his wife had to undergo fertility treatment in the United Arab Emirates. (He was lying.) He granted full power of attorney to his deputy and left the Gaza Strip hurriedly.

That is one way to duck out of a pointless meeting, take notes people!

So instead of my hail mary politics play, what you have is a story of an institutional coup by a radical faction - which for extremist resistance groups is an ever-present threat. None of this means the "bait" strategy part is wrong of course, that was definitely still the point - but this argument here claims that goal of the bait was to bring the IDF into Gaza where it could be defeated in the field with their extensive fortifications, and then presumably inspire others like Hezbollah to jump on the moment of weakness and besiege Israel proper.

So....is this true? There are two gigantic caveats on this article: the first is that the people being interviewed do not primarily work for Hamas - they are members of Fatah, the leading faction of the PLO. They hate Hamas, they are not Hamas leaders themselves, they have every incentive to paint Hamas as irredeemable. You really can't take this story simply at their word. But they aren't outsiders - they hate Hamas but they work with them constantly, that is how it works, people rotate around in the Palestine orgs. They have met personally and worked with dozens of Hamas leaders; one of them was even called to be offered one of those post-war occupation governorships! (He said no lol) So its a big red flag but not a damning one. And things like the fleeing leaders, the conference on the occupation, those all 100% happened. They released press on it, they weren't hiding it.

The second caveat is that its just really not uncommon for large organizations, particularly extremist ones, to engage in mainly performative actions at scale. The South Korean government still maintains a department that plans for the administration of North Korea for example! Not totally useless ofc, but it writes exactly the reports you think it does that get put in a bin and never touched. Sometimes its appeasing internal factions, sometimes its PR, sometimes its just institutional inertia. Its absolutely believable that Hamas would make a big plan for how they would conquer Israel because otherwise...what do you tell the commanders, exactly? Why are they fighting again? A significant percentage of the lower-level fighters need that belief, so you give it to them. While certainly there is a fundamentalist faction in Hamas, are they ones winning? Or are they just another faction being played against?

I don't see enough evidence to say, but there is enough to make me pause. I'm not sold on it in the end, that is my final conclusion. I think more brains than Sinwar were involved in this and they had more realistic aspirations. And yet the level of commitment and disorganization does suggest that at least some of what was pushing events forward was a group immune to doubts being at the wheel. Certainly interested in researching more.

[eretzyisrael]

Human Rights Careers is a website to help aspiring human rights workers learn more about the field, provide online courses and showcase various job opportunities.

It also showcases how much anti-Israel propaganda.is an inherent part of the larger human rights community.

Very few articles on the site target any specific country. There are passing mentions about human rights in Iran buried in much longer articles. But three of their articles are primarily written with Israel in mind.

One of them is explicitly pro-BDS and calls Israel genocidal, making Israel the only country in the world that these human rights professionals say they want to boycott. 

The title is "Academia in Times of Genocide: Why are Students Across the World Protesting?  There is not one word against Hamas or even mention of Hamas, starting off with, "Protest encampments have sprung up at university campuses around the world in recent months, calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and atrocities committed in Gaza. The protests have been sparked by the events following the attack on October 7th, 2023, which led to a severe military response from Israel. "

Some people did,....something.

The article praises the students for their actions, not saying a word about their antisemitism and targeting of Jews on campus. The article then castigates the London School of Economics for refusing to accede to student demands to boycott Israel. 

There are no articles calling for LGBTQ rights in Muslim majority countries. But there is one that somehow pretends that the bogus charge of "pinkwashing" in Israel is a human rights issue. 

[transmutationisms]

Hey I usually like your posts and the stuff you reblog but I was not a fan of one that came across to me as Hamas attack minimization. I know the babies thing is fake and based in Islamophobic stereotypes but civilians actually were killed by Hamas, some brutally. There's testimony from people who were actually raped; it's not really surprising or farfetched, as rape often happens when civilian populations are proximate to combat. You don't need to minimize the Hamas attack on Israel to support and fight for ceasefire, the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and Palestinian liberation, just like you don't need to condemn Hamas to do the same.

I do know that Israel is wielding the language of Islamophobia to justify their genocide in Gaza. But there's got to be a better way to talk about that then simply saying "well, Israel was mostly lying about the Hamas attack", when it seems to me what they're doing is looking at fucked up things that really did happen -- that happen regularly to civilians in combat, in fact -- and saying "this is unique to those savages and we could never do that" even when they definitely do. If you do know of sources that are exposing Israeli disinformation, I think it would be cool if you could share some of those...it just doesn't sit right with me, the way that post was framed.

i don't think that saying "here is the narrative the idf has been pushing to justify committing genocide, and parts of it are false" is "minimising" the deaths of israeli civilians. indeed, the deaths that have been systematically "minimised" are those committed by idf forces, both on 7 october and for the entirety of the occupation of palestine (over 10,000 palestinians have been killed since 7 october alone).

i think we can all agree it is generally bad when civilians die. i also think it matters that the narrative pushed by israel and its allies, particularly the us, is inaccurate and intended to stoke outrage in order to manufacture consent for the ongoing genocide of palestinians.

i am fully aware that rape and sexual violence frequently occur in tandem with (ie, as part of) combat violence. the specific claims in dispute are narratives that hamas used rape as a systematic, widespread tactic in the 7 october attacks. this is a narrative that, since day 1, has been pushed by the idf in order to play off fears of violence toward settler women, and us media in particular have happily run with it, spreading a racialised notion of palestinian fighters' 'barbarism' against settlers. this is despite the fact that, as of 5 days ago, israel was still investigating "several cases" (per the headline; the article states that israel will not even name a number of how many cases at this point) of sexual assault and rape, and that these investigations are "complex" and could take months to resolve. this is also despite the fact that joe biden 'condemned' hamas for committing widespread rape on 7 october before the idf itself officially stated it had happened.

i think this goes beyond "wielding the language of Islamophobia". this is a specific and established narrative portraying settler women as a priori innocent victims, who are uniquely in need of being protected by settler men against the threat of brutalisation by racialised, colonially occupied populations. indeed, although islamophobia is certainly present in a lot of coverage and commentary, this is not primarily a religious conflict; it is a colonial occupation. we have seen versions of this specific narrative of sexual violence in many, many settler-colonial states before; just look, for example, at the settlement of what is presently the us, where the violence of the act of occupation was (and frequently still is!) discursively elided in stories about native 'savagery' and attacks, including via the supposed threat of systematic sexual violence against white women. countering such narratives is not equivalent to claiming that rape and sexual assault could not occur or never have occurred, including in combat.

here is an article about the music festival claims specifically, and here is one (from the new york times, no less) confirming that the official 7 october death toll has been lowered to 1,200.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Yesterday an active-duty Air Force soldier named Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy. His last words were “Free Palestine.” Of the cops responding to the scene, some pointed guns at him while others sought to extinguish the flames; the image of a cop pointing a gun at a man on fire is the most American thing I have ever seen.

On June 11th, 1963, a Buddhist monk named Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon). In South Vietnam, Buddhists were an oppressed majority, ruled by a Catholic minority—the Buddhist flag was banned, Catholics were chosen for all the better jobs, and protesting Buddhists were being murdered in the streets or sent to concentration camps.

So Thích set himself on fire and calmly burned in front of hundreds of spectators on a public street. There’s a film of it, and I’m not big into “watch people die on film,” but some moments in history are worth seeing. He didn’t cry out; he just sat in lotus position, engulfed in flames. Afterwards, the cops tried to take his remains, but thousands of angry protestors took him back, and they re-cremated him for a proper funeral. His heart didn’t burn. It solidified in the fire. Today it is today a sacred relic. I have no explanation for this.

Other monks in Vietnam followed his example. By the end of the year, the CIA led a coup and toppled the Catholic dictator of the country. This isn’t “the US being good,” mind you, they’d been propping the asshole up in the first place. Thích’s sacrifice is often credited as what brought down that regime.

Two years later, the first American set herself on fire in protest of the Vietnam war. Alice Herz was a German Jew, 82 years old. She’d seen some shit. She’d fought for feminism in 1910s Germany, helped bring about the Weimar Republic, fled Germany to France only to end up in a Nazi concentration camp. Survived. Made it to the US. Lived in Detroit and became a Unitarian. Then one day she wrote a letter about how horrible the Vietnam war was, went out to the street, and set herself on fire. She wasn’t the last. In South Vietnam and the US alike, Buddhists and Quakers and Catholics set themselves on fire in service of the same cause.

When a 16 year old Catholic named Ronald Brazee set himself on fire in October 1967, a Catholic Worker named Father Daniel Berrigan wrote a poem for him called “In the Land of Burning Children”

He was still living a month later I was able to gain access to him I smelled the odor Of burning flesh And I understood anew What I had seen in North Vietnam I felt that my senses Had been invaded in a new way I now understood the power of death in the modern world I knew I must speak and act against death because this boy’s death was being multiplied a thousandfold

The Dutch resistance to the Nazi Occupation was characterized by a unique nonviolence, focusing primarily on hiding Jewish people and acts of sabotage. This wasn’t necessarily an ethical or even strategic decision, but one forced onto them by circumstance—according to one resistance fighter, since the Dutch government maintained a firearms registry before the invasion, the Nazis were able to acquire that list and go door-to-door to disarm the Dutch population.

But what the Dutch resistance lacked in firearms it made up for in mass participation. Roughly a million people were involved in sheltering people, secreting people away, striking, or helping those who were doing such things. The two most active groups were churches and communist organizations.

The Nazis responded with collective punishment. The occupiers cut off food supplies inside the Netherlands, blockading the roads between farms and cities. The entire population of the country went hungry during what’s called the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945. Between 18-22,000 people starved to death. Four-and-a-half million people were living off of something like 600 calories a day each. A whole generation of children born or living at the time suffered lifelong ailments. Audrey Hepburn grew up in Occupied Netherlands (and as a preteen performed ballet to raise money to support the resistance). Her time in the hunger winter left her with lifelong ailments like anemia.

In case the parallel I’m drawing is not obvious, Gaza is currently being starved by the Israeli government.

Quite notably, quite worth understanding in the modern context, the Hunger Winter persisted despite relief efforts until the Allied forces liberated the Netherlands from the fascists in May 1945.

Aaron Bushnell was twenty-five years old when he died. He sent a message to media outlets before his act: “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

He posted on Facebook: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

His last words, engulfed in flames, were “Free Palestine.”

I know that what stopped US involvement in Vietnam was the military victory of the Vietnamese people against US forces, combined with the direct action action efforts of the American Left that made the war harder to execute. I know what ended the Nazi occupation was the Allied invasion. I know what stopped legal chattel slavery in the US was the deadliest war in our country’s history. I also know that what stopped Jim Crow was… nothing. Nothing has stopped it, not completely. The long, hard, thankless work of a combination of reform and direct action has mitigated its effects somewhat.

I can’t say I think others should follow Aaron’s example. I doubt he wanted anyone to. An act like this needs attention, not imitation. What we can follow is the moral courage. What we need to decide for ourselves is how to act, not whether or not to act. I don’t have any answers for me, and I don’t have any answers for you.

I can say that he shouldn’t be forgotten, that he ought to be remembered when we ask ourselves if we have the courage to act.

I can also say that it takes an incredible number of people doing an incredible variety of work to effect change. That poet, Father Daniel Berrigan, did a lot more than write poetry. He and others in the broader Catholic Left raided draft offices and burned records, directly impacting the US’s ability to send young men off to die in an imperialist war. A group of people who came out of their movement (but were primarily Jewish and/or secular) raided an FBI office and uncovered the spying and disruption that was done of the peace movement under the name COINTELPRO.

A vibrant and militant counterculture sprang up, drawing Americans away from the clutches of conservative propaganda. They built nationwide networks of mutual aid and they helped draft dodgers escape the country.

An awful lot of American soldiers in Vietnam directly defected, enough that “fragging” entered the English language as a verb for throwing a grenade at your commanding officer.

As for the Hunger Winter, it was not ended until the Nazi party was ended through force of arms, but its worst effects were alleviated by the bravery and thankless work of uncountable people who cobbled together meals from nothing or who organized to bring food aid in across German lines.

In the US now we’re seeing a growing movement opposed to our country’s collaboration with the genocidal regime in Israel.

It’s impossible to know if it will be enough. When you pile straw onto the proverbial camel, you never know which straw will be the last. We just keep piling.

And in the meantime, we remember names like Aaron Bushnell, Ronald Brazee, Alice Herz, and Thích Quảng Đức.

[mywingsareonwheels]

Small action suggestion to support Palestinians:-

Please sign this petition by the Refuser Solidarity Network, an Israeli anti-war and anti-occupation organisation, which primarily helps to support those resisting conscription into the IDF due to their support for Palestine (many of whom have been imprisoned for it). Resistance against the occupation and especially the current genocide from within Israel is so fricking crucial and one of the few things that's giving me hope. The RSN are big damn heroes, as are their offshoot Voices Against War, who have been organising a lot of protests all over Israel. <3 If you're in a position to donate to them, that might also be worth considering. The petition is to Biden, specifically, so if you're in the US it may have additional impact (though it's open to sign wherever you are).

A quote from the website about Voices Against War:- "Voices Against War (VAW) is a social media initiative of the Refuser Solidarity Network established in October 2023 to amplify the voices of Israelis resisting the Gaza war. By exposing millions of people around the world to these voices, the goal is to achieve an end to the bombardment of Gaza, the entry of aid and restoration of vital resources like water and electricity, and safe return of all hostages. The long term goal is to end the Israeli occupation and establish equal rights for all people who live here."

[canichangemyblogname]

——————

It *is* a 3000-year-old embroidery art, but it being 3000 years old and Jews having lived in that land 3000 years ago (and some Jews living there continuously over 3000 years) does not mean the embroidery art isn’t a part of the Palestinian people’s cultural inheritance. Also, something originating in an areas where Jews live/lived does not inherently make it Jewish. Location is not the sole determiner of whether a group “owns” a practice, otherwise I could claim the practices of Irish Travelers because they originated in the same location as where my ancestors were born and lived under Irish governance.

Additionally, something can be practiced by more than one group of people. Ancient Jews practicing a form of needlework does not negate the fact it is a part of Palestinian culture. It’s not an either-or situation. Something having Jewish practitioners does not mean it can’t be culturally significant to another ethnic/national group. People in a region can and will have shared practices. This would be like saying hummus is *exclusively* Jewish simply because some Jews eat hummus (as opposed to saying that hummus is a common dish in the SWANA region and is a staple of many SWANA Jewish households).

Also, most Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites. So, Palestinians *have* been living in Palestine for 3000+ years and *are* among the modern descendants of the ancient people who lived there. Them being Arab or having a diverse history does not mean they have no claim to self-determination in the region. And while Palestinians do have genetic links to ancient Canaanites as well as the ancient Samaritans, slaves from ancient sub-Saharan Africa, *and* the Arab tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, the Palestinian people’s Arab identity primarily comes from a linguistic & cultural connection.

(I’d hate to see what the OP would have to say about Jews from the SWANA region— what do you think they spoke, what cultural practices do you think they enjoyed, and what traditions do you think they observed before being expelled from Yemen, Syria, or Egypt? You think they were eating German Carp and primarily speaking Dutch? Have you considered that they know and have spoken Arabic and danced Dabke? Like… maybe, maybe an Arab linguistic and cultural connection doesn’t invalidate a people’s sovereignty, national identity, or right to safety and self-determination? Or are you also going to argue that mizrachim Jews are Arab invaders and conquerors because they share linguistic and cultural and genetic connections to non-Jewish Syrians and Yemenis and, once long ago, those tribes from that Peninsula?)

The Levant has been occupied by several empires over the millennia and has undergone a lot of political, cultural, and demographic change, whether from wars, immigration, or occupation. So, the region has experienced great change and a lot of diversity throughout the ages. The people who have lived in this region have thus formed their own unique national, ethnic, and cultural identity. Diversity in the region or among a people does not negate someone’s history in a region or their identity as a people. Nor does it negate the fact that they will have their own unique or specific cultural practices. Jewish people, for example, are still a people with their own unique cultural traditions despite having great diversity.

Palestinian families have been living under various different occupations for thousands of years, including Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, English, and Israeli. Living under occupation does not negate that Palestinian people exist and have a long history in Palestine. Living under occupation for millennia also does not invalidate a people’s cultural inheritance, their connection to a land, their national identity, or the uniqueness of their cultural and national identity. Jewish people, fore example, still have their own unique cultural and ethnic identity, connection as a people, local and cultural traditions, and a spiritual connection to the Levant despite also experiencing several millennia of ethnic cleansing, genocide, forced displacement, and occupation.

Tatreez is a form of traditional Palestinian embroidery recognized by UNESCO as an important intangible cultural heritage. Tatreez is the romanized version of an Arabic word, تَطْرِيز, meaning embroidery or needlework, so it is quite literally not Hebrew, linguistically. Written accounts of tatreez date back as far as the 1700s, long before English and Israeli occupation, and long *after* they were first occupied by an Arabic-speaking group in the 7th century. Each village in occupied Palestine had/have their own tatreez patterns, with unique designs telling stories about the local people. It has been used as a means of preserving Palestinian culture and history, offering a people who have also been victim of ethnic cleansing and genocide over several millennia solace and connection. They are stitching their national and ethnic identity. Tatreez has become an important symbol of resistance, women’s economic autonomy, and the diaspora’s connection to their ancestral homeland from which they and their family were displaced. Due to ongoing ethnic cleansing, genocide, and occupation, tatreez is endangered.

Read more about tatreez below:

[mariacallous]

(New York Jewish Week) – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the prominent progressive Democratic New York congresswoman from New York City, condemned a pro-Palestinian rally that took place over the weekend in Times Square, calling it “unacceptable and harmful.”

“It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement on Monday night. “That is a core tenet of solidarity. The bigotry and callousness expressed in Times Square on Sunday were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment.”

The rally on Sunday came as news was still emerging of widespread atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel, killing more than 900 people, wounding more than 2,000 and taking more than 100 captive. It coincided with a pro-Israel rally taking place outside the United Nations.

The pro-Palestinian rally has drawn criticism from a broad swath of city and state officials. Mayor Eric Adams posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that “it is disgusting that this group of extremists would show support for terrorism.”

But Ocasio-Cortez’s condemnation of the rally is notable because of her frequent criticism of Israel as well as her membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, a far-left group that endorsed Sunday’s rally. The group’s New York chapter posted on X on Saturday that the gathering was “In solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist 75 years of occupation and apartheid.”

In her statement, Ocasio-Cortez said the rally “also did not speak for thousands of New Yorkers who are capable of rejecting both Hamas’ horrifying attacks against innocent civilians as well as the grave injustices and violence Palestinians face under the occupation.”

Earlier this year, Ocasio-Cortez skipped President Isaac Herzog’s address to Congress during a visit to Washington, D.C. In 2021, she switched her vote from “no” to “present” during a Congressional vote to approve $1 billion in new U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. That same year, during a previous conflict with Hamas, she called Israel an “apartheid state.”

She wasn’t the only vocal progressive official in the city to denounce the rally. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish and has previously identified as a member of the DSA, called the rally “abominable.” “Today’s DSA rally – which effectively celebrated Hamas’ murder & kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli civilians, including children & grandparents – was abominable. There is no place for glorifying terror, left, center, or right,” Lander said in a statement.

Jamaal Bowman, another member of New York’s congressional delegation who belongs to the DSA, has not commented on the rally but released a statement condemning Hamas’ attacks on Israel. 

“I strongly condemn the horrific attacks by Hamas and am saddened by the loss of precious lives, especially on the holy day of Simchat Torah,” said Bowman, whose congressional district includes parts of Westchester County and the Bronx, in a statement.

“We need a way to end this deadly violence that is killing and traumatizing generations of Israelis and Palestinians alike—including the blockade of Gaza. I have been to the Gaza border and know that Israelis and Palestinians are constantly living in fear. We must work harder to ensure peace in the region,” his statement added.

Ocasio-Cortez released a similar statement — separate from her comments on the rally — about the attacks on Monday. Others in the group of progressive congress members known as the “Squad,” including Missouri’s Cori Bush and Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, released statements that primarily attributed the blame to Israel.

“Today is devastating for all those seeking a lasting peace and respect for human rights in Israel and Palestine. I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

She also called for an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation in the region. 

“No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region,” the statement read. 

[readingsquotes]

A few weeks ago, Mondoweiss (the Israeli newspaper!) reported that the IOF killed Israeli civilians and military personnel on and after October 7th. The Israeli hostages are another perfect example of people who are willing to call Netanyahu out and have even asked for what most Palestinians have been asking for as well: free Palestinian land, free all political prisoners, permanent ceasefire and end the occupation now. Yet, all we are ever told, or hear from Isaac Herzog or whatever puppet wants to be the genocidal mouthpiece for the Israeli government, is that the Palestinians always break their promises, while the Israelis speak of peace talks and build new settlements. I am thinking of the infamous Ghassan Kanafani quote: “You don’t exactly mean “peace talks,” you mean capitulation, surrendering.” We have always been told that the Palestinians resort to violence… but as Kanafani also said once, in the same interview, “People usually fight for something.” Through all the lies the Israeli government has been propagating, for decades now, while completely evading international law or critique, this is the story we’ve been told again and again: that Palestinians bring it on themselves. That they’re so violent, uncivilized savages who can’t even work toward peace! They can’t even stop fighting! This is while the IOF destroys hospital after school after hospital after school after hospital after refugee camp, again. They release prisoners, many of whom were literal children and teenagers (or what The Guardian calls them, “people under 18”) while they take even more children as prisoners in the West Bank. Interestingly enough, Human Rights Watch published this in August, so months before October 7th, that there was an uptick of arrests among children in the West Bank. According to Defense for Children of Palestine, “Each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone throwing.” It’s interesting how Israel always disputes these numbers, especially anything that comes out of Palestine. If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because the IOF has strong ties to police departments in America. This Times of Israel piece about the ADL funding such trips is a great start! Much like how primarily Black (and Latinx) communities are targeted in America, with higher arrest rates for petty crimes, like drug or marijuana use or possession, all of these discretionary measures we are told are “law.” We also know that this is a way you keep a community small, you criminalize them, and you keep their necks under a very large and powerful shoe, justifying it by saying the people you oppress and repress are savages.

On Making Art During Genocide how are you doing? Fariha Róisín Dec 2, 2023

[maklodes]

Not really endorsed:

One case that you could make that I haven't really seen is that Zionism was a mistake -- but it was a mistake that should be understood as belonging to a whole family of mistakes relating to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

I.e., Israel, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc: none of them ought to have been created. The victorious WW1 allies were, firstly, harsh in their terms of peace -- harsh to Germany with all those reparations demands (widely regarded as being a factor precipitating the second world war), yes, but even harsher toward the Ottomans, ripping them apart wholesale! Secondly, they were convinced that nation-states like France were the way of the future: that a just world consisted of independent nation-states (although the implications of this for the Allies' own empires, like British India, were deferred for a later date), and that as such empires such as the Ottomans and Habsburgs should be carved up -- and if those new nation-states didn't exactly have a populace uniformly supportive of these arrangements -- say, if some people in the newly-minted Czechoslovakia would rather have been Germans -- well, France wasn't built in a day. (Or rather, all the Bretons, Occitanians, etc, didn't become French in a day.)

This division of the Ottoman Empire lead to some problems in the former Ottoman Vilayet of Beirut and Mutasarrifate of Jersusalem, which would later be called the British Mandate of Palestine, and still later be called Israel. Lots of the people living there were killed and exiled by victorious Zionists, and others were relegated to second class citizenship or indefinite occupation. And now the parts that were subject to occupation are subject to brutal -- possibly genocidal -- war in Gaza, and a more gradual but seemingly-inexorable wave of dispossession and terror in the West Bank.

Looking at other parts of the former Ottoman Empire, though, one is hard pressed to call the case of the Vilayet of Beirut/Palestine/Israel unique. Syria (once the Damascus Vilayet, Mosul Vilayet, Aleppo Vilayet, etc) recently underwent a brutal civil war following decades or repressive authoritarianism. Lebanon endured horrific sectarian violence in the late 20th century. Iraq (once the Baghdad Vilayet, Basra Vilayet, etc) has endured vicious tyranny, war with Iran, invasion, and a chaotic aftermath -- although obviously the United States of America is primarily to blame for at least the later part.

As for Turkey, well, the Armenian genocide did take place during the reign of the last Ottoman Sultan, but the people really driving it were the modernizing Turkish nationalists who would later create Kemalist Turkey -- people who were more in accord with the modern ideas being espoused by people like Woodrow Wilson than with the traditional governance of the Ottoman Empire. (Although this is not by any means to claim traditional Ottoman governance was particularly humane or enlightened.) The Greeks and Turks also jointly agreed to expel their respective minority populations to each others' states. (The Turkish expulsion of ethnic Greeks in 1922 displaced about 900,000, the Israeli Nakba of 1947 displaced about 750,000, and the Greek expulsion of ethnic Turks displaced about 400,000.)

Could Jordan be a qualified example of a post-Ottoman success story? I'm not really entirely sure how bad Black September was. Jordan did completely cleanse territories it occupied in wars with Israel of Jews, but whatever.

One can think of idealistic, utopian alternatives to nation-states, of course: a global democratic federation, or some such. However, one needn't blame the victorious allies of the First World War for failing to pursue such lofty goals. One need only blame them for pursuing their own idealistic, utopian program of carving old empires into nation-states (Woodrow Wilson's "national self-determination," "making the world safe for democracy," Fourteen Points, etc), rather than the more staid, conservative policy of reforming the existing institutions of empires like the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary, to build on what already worked about them and cautiously, incrementally modify what didn't. It's not surprising that the decision to rip up the order that had prevailed in the Middle East since the Ottomans had subjugated the Mamluks four centuries earlier lead to some upheavals.

This is, of course, an apologia for imperialism, but I don't think all imperialism is the same. The Ottoman Empire did involve Turkish domination over Arabs, Greeks, Jews, etc, but I don't believe the differentiation between colony and metropole was as stark in the Ottoman Empire as in some empires. For example, elections to the Ottoman general assembly were not fully democratic, but were not limited to a Turkish electorate. (The U.K. dominated Nigeria, and within the UK England dominated Scotland, but the status differential was really very different between the two cases. I believe the Ottoman Empire was somewhere between these two, but perhaps closer intra-UK case than to the case of the British Empire in Africa.)

Of course, even if we accepted this argument, it's hard to know what implications to draw from it. We can't go back in time to prevent the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, nor can we restore it.

(Note: I'm not endorsing this argument, primarily because I'm not sure that any path existed toward a "good" ending for the Ottoman Empire. A lot of subject peoples were sick of Turkish rule regardless of what the Allies wanted. (Even if T. E. Lawrence drowned in a bathtub as a baby, Arab nationalism would not be easily quelled.) Autocratic rule was dysfunctional, and attempts to get onto a kind of glide-path toward a more constitutional monarchy that might have hypothetically ended with a more functional and democratic Ottoman Empire with the sultan/caliph becoming a figurehead and symbol of Sunni unity ended up empowering forces like the CUP, which endorsed a bunch of revanchism, Turkish supremacism, and ultimately genocide.)

[fiercynn]

The Freedom Theatre is not a radical organization, but as an American Jew taught to unequivocally support Israel, the talk was eye-opening. Afterward, I spoke to three Israeli classmates of mine who were studying abroad and they educated me further. They had served in the IDF but now denounced their service. They confirmed the talk we had just attended was not false propaganda, but a mild sample of the horrors they’d witnessed. I signed up for The Freedom Theatre’s mailing list and made it a goal to learn more about the occupation. I’d been raised to study the Holocaust and say, “never again.” The realization that “never again” only meant “never again for Jewish people” was harrowing. After nearly a decade, I’m still pursuing my goal to learn more about the occupation. I do not think it is uniquely complicated, but I do think our world is always complicated, and there’s always more to learn. During a fraught conversation with a family member this week, it became clear that I’m far more knowledgeable about the last two decades of the occupation than I am the early years of Zionism and the 20th century violence in Palestine. That is a gap I hope to fill in the coming months and years. But a lack of expertise should not be an excuse to turn away; it should be an invitation to learn. The only thing I was taught in my childhood that wasn’t pro-Israel  was that “the Israel/Palestine conflict” was just too complicated. If this is how you feel — as friends and family and voices you trust post conflicting statements — I’d encourage you to learn more, not less.

- drew burnett gregory for autostraddle on october 17, 2023; this article primarily links to other good pieces to read on anti-zionism and palestinian liberation

[baraquiojoashbentley]

It's all about Israel vs Palestine war.

Before we proceed to our topic, let's first define how it all started. how the war started from israel and palestine.

"The Conflict of Religion"

Several religious factors pertinent to Islam and Judaism dictate the role of religion as the main factor in the conflict, notably including the sanctity of holy sites and the apocalyptic narratives of both religions, which are detrimental to any potential for lasting peace between the two sides. Extreme religious Zionists in Israel increasingly see themselves as guardians and definers of the how the Jewish state should be, and are very stringent when it comes to any concessions to the Arabs. On the other hand, Islamist groups in Palestine and elsewhere in the Islamic world advocate the necessity of liberating the “holy” territories and sites for religious reasons, and preach violence and hatred against Israel and the Jewish people.

Religion-based rumors propagated by extremists in the media and social media about the hidden religious agendas of the other side exacerbate these tensions. Examples include rumors about a “Jewish Plan” to destroy al Aqsa mosque and build the Jewish third temple on its remnants, and, on the other side rumors that Muslims hold the annihilation of Jews at the core of their belief.

In addition, worsening socio-economic conditions in the Arab and Islamic world contribute to the growth of religious radicalism, pushing a larger percentage of youth towards fanaticism, and religion-inspired politics.

The advent of the Arab spring, ironically, also posed a threat to Arab-Israeli peace, as previously stable regimes were often challenged by extreme political views. A prominent example was the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who after succeeding to the presidency in 2012, threatened to compromise the peace agreement with Israel based on their religious ideology – even if they did not immediately tear up the treaty.

The next one is the "Border" of Israel and Palestine.

The 1949 armistice lines served as Israel’s effective borders until 1967 — which is why they are known as the 1967 lines or Green Line. From 1949 – 1967, Jordan controlled the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, but Israel gained control of those areas in the 1967 war. Palestinians and much of the international community consider these areas to be under Israeli military occupation. In 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began to shift from its demand for 100 percent of the land to a state based on the 1967 lines — 22 percent of historic Palestine. Palestinians view this shift as their ‘historic compromise.’ Today, Palestinians see their 22 percent shrinking, as Israeli settlements expand across the West Bank.

Many Israelis do not consider the 1967 lines as a basis for drawing borders, seeing them as arbitrary armistice lines that separated the Israeli and Arab troops in 1949. Additionally, many Israelis reject the characterization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied” by Israel. Others argue that borders based on the 1967 lines are not defensible and ask, why should Israel return territory that it won in defensive wars?

Primarily, the driving considerations for Israel on borders are security and demographic realities on the ground — specifically, Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and Israeli settlements in the West Bank, that were built since Israel took control in 1967. In total, there are approximately (630,000+) Israelis who live beyond the 1967 lines–the vast majority in communities adjacent to the 1967 lines.

Often, Israelis do not distinguish between Israeli communities within the 1967 lines and those beyond them that are close by.

The next issue is all about the "Territory".

Populations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory endure recurring war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the crime of apartheid.

Palestinian territory encompassing the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Since then, the Israeli government has established a two-tiered legal and political system that provides comprehensive rights for Jewish Israeli settlers while imposing military rule and control on Palestinians without any basic protections or rights under international law. The Israeli government has also engaged in a regular practice of inhumane acts, as well as extrajudicial killings, torture, denial of fundamental human rights, arbitrary detention and collective punishment. The UN Human Rights Council-mandated Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem, and Israel concluded in June 2022 that continued occupation, as well as discrimination against Palestinians, are the key causes of recurrent instability and protraction of conflict in the region.

According to a March 2022 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the OPT, Israel’s political system of entrenched rule in the OPT satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the crime of apartheid. The Special Rapporteur determined in July 2021 that Israel’s occupation since 1967 has been characterized by settlement expansion that aims to permanently alter the ethnic demographics of East Jerusalem and amounts to a war crime. The UN Security Council (UNSC) previously adopted a resolution in December 2016 reaffirming that Israeli settlements in the OPT violate international law. The CoI reached similar conclusions in September 2022, reporting that the Israeli government’s policies and actions have led to the permanent occupation and de facto annexation of Palestinian territory, likely constituting crimes under international law, including war crimes. Both the CoI and Special Rapporteur have reported that this ongoing coercive environment has prevented Palestinians from fulfilling their right to self-determination and other fundamental human rights. In December 2022 the UN General Assembly requested the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s ongoing occupation.

Palestinians are regularly subjected to violence by Israeli settlers, including physical attacks, shooting with live ammunition, torching of fields and livestock, theft and vandalization of property. Israeli security forces also perpetrate widespread attacks against Palestinians, particularly in occupied territory, which often lead to deadly escalations, including regular aerial bombardments of the Gaza Strip. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians residing in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 2005, with over 150 Palestinians, including 26 children, killed by Israeli security forces.

Meanwhile, Israel’s air, sea and land blockade of Gaza has been in place since 2007 and has inflicted collective punishment on 2 million Palestinians, facilitating a humanitarian crisis. Israeli authorities periodically shut down the crossings into Gaza, preventing the flow of people, medical cases and essential commodities, including food. Hamas’ security forces have also committed grave abuses against civilians in Gaza, including arbitrary arrests, summary executions and torture.

"Resources"

GENEVA (18 March 2019) – Israel’s exploitation of natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for its own use is in direct violation of its legal responsibilities as an occupying power, says UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk.

For nearly five million Palestinians living under occupation, the degradation of their water supply, the exploitation of their natural resources and the defacing of their environment, are symptomatic of the lack of any meaningful control they have over their daily lives,” Lynk said presenting a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Israel’s policy of usurping Palestinian natural resources and disregarding the environment has robbed the Palestinians of vital assets, and means they simply cannot enjoy their right to development.

Its approach to the natural resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been to use them as a sovereign country would use its own assets, with vastly discriminatory consequences.”

The report, focusing on the impact of the occupation on the environment and natural resources, said people living under occupation should be able to enjoy the full panoply of human rights enshrined in international law, in order to protect their sovereignty over their natural wealth.

However, Israeli practices in relation to water, extraction of other resources, and environmental protection, raise serious concerns.

With the collapse of natural sources of drinking water in Gaza and the inability of Palestinians to access most of their water sources in the West Bank, water has become a potent symbol of the systematic violation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the Special Rapporteur said.

As of 2017, more than 96% of Gaza’s coastal aquifer – the main source of water for residents of Gaza – has become unfit for human consumption. The reasons include over-extraction because of Gaza’s extremely dense population, contamination with sewage and seawater, Israel’s 12-year old blockade, and asymmetrical wars which has left Gaza’s infrastructure severely crippled and with a near-constant electricity shortage.

The Rapporteur said natural and mineral wealth from the Dead Sea, which is partly within the occupied West Bank, were being extracted by Israel for its own benefit, while the Palestinians were denied any access to those resources.

"The Origin Of The People."

The social geography of modern Palestine, especially the area west of the Jordan River, has been greatly affected by the dramatic political changes and wars that have brought this small region to the attention of the world. In the early 21st century, Israeli Jews constituted roughly half of the population west of the Jordan, while Palestinian Arabs—Muslim, Christian, and Druze—and other smaller minorities accounted for the rest. The Jewish population is increasingly composed of persons born in Israel itself, although millions of immigrants have arrived since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The Arab population is descended from Arabs who lived in the area during the mandate period and, in most cases, for centuries before that time. The majority of both Jews and Arabs are now urbanized.

According to Jewish nationalists (Zionists), Judaism constitutes a basis for both religious and national (ethnic) identity. Palestinian nationalists usually emphasize that their shared identity as Arabs transcends the religious diversity of their community. Both Muslim Arabs, constituting about 18 percent of the Israeli population, and Christian Arabs, about 2 percent, identify themselves in the first instance as Arabs.

The Arab majority resident in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the still larger number of Arab Palestinians living outside the area (many in nearby countries such as Lebanon) have strongly opposed Israeli control and feared an eventual annexation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel. Many ideological Jewish Israeli settlers support such an annexation and think those lands properly belong to Israel. In 2005 Arab concerns were partially assuaged when Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and handed over control of the territory to the Palestinians, but the Israeli settlement population in the West Bank nearly doubled between 2005 and 2019.

Both Zionists and Palestinian Arab nationalists have at various times since the 19th century claimed rightful possession of the area west of the Jordan River. The rivalry between the two groups and their claims have been major causes of the numerous Arab-Israeli conflicts and the continuing crises in the region. Some members of each group still make such sweeping and mutually exclusive claims to complete control of the area, whereas others are more willing to seek a peaceful compromise solution.

"The Nova Music Festival"

Several hours after the gates opened for the Israeli music festival Supernova, Amit Bar and her boyfriend Nir Jorno arrived with their friend Ziv Hagbi, excited for the event. The devoted electronic music fans had traveled from Matzliah, some 60 miles away. “We really waited for this event,” the 27-year-old Bar says. “It was supposed to be a really good one – really fun, lots of people.”

The gathering promised to be the highlight of the year, especially for those who loved psychedelic trance, or psytrance, the intense and celestial dance music subgenre. “[The music] is based on a philosophy of life,” says veteran British DJ Martin Freeland, who performs as Man With No Name and was scheduled for late Saturday morning. “It’s Woodstock with electronic music. It’s that kind of mentality: a hippie culture, but the music is different. These are the sweetest people. They would never harm anybody.”

Between 3,000 and 4,000 attendees flocked to an open-air space in Israel’s Negev Desert – about three miles from the Gaza border – where 16 DJs from around the world were set to spin in darkness and light for 15 hours straight. The event was timed to the end of Sukkot, a week-long celebratory Jewish holiday commemorating the harvest and the period after Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.

Supernova, produced by Israel-based Nova Tribe, also doubled as the Israeli edition of Brazil’s popular Universo Paralello festival, a biannual nine-day event that has hosted electronic, reggae, and hip-hop artists near the country’s southern beaches for 20 years. It was set to take place Oct. 6 and 7, although its producers wouldn’t reveal the exact location to ticketholders — which included many teenagers able to get around the minimum age requirement of 23 — until shortly before it began. All anyone knew was this: “The event will take place in a powerful, natural location full of trees, stunning in its beauty and organized for your convenience, about an hour and a quarter south of Tel Aviv.” Attendees were prohibited from bringing weapons including guns and sharp objects.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/hamas-israel-nova-music-festival-massacre-1234854306/amp/

I'm Pro-Israel

because Pro-Israel supporters argue for a variety of reasons. One common perspective is centered around Israel's right to exist as a Jewish homeland, based on historical and religious ties to the region. They often highlight Israel's democratic values, technological advancements, and contributions to various industries such as medicine, technology, and agriculture.

Additionally, proponents of the pro-Israel stance underline the ongoing security concerns faced by Israel due to conflicts and threats in the region. Supporters believe that Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism and military aggression, as it has faced numerous wars and acts of violence throughout its history.

Furthermore, some pro-Israel advocates argue for the recognition of Israel's commitment to human rights, emphasizing the country's protections for religious freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, and equality for its citizens – which they perceive as unique within the Middle East.

It is important to note that the pro-Israel viewpoint is not universally endorsed, and counterarguments exist. Critics of the pro-Israel stance often highlight the Israeli government's policies towards Palestinians, citing concerns about human rights violations, military occupation, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They advocate for a fair resolution that addresses the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.

When forming an opinion, it is crucial to examine multiple perspectives, engage in civil discourse, and consider different narratives presented by individuals with various backgrounds and experiences.

[learnwithmearticles]

How Far Can Israel Go

At the end of 2023, Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine turned into an onslaught of assaults in reaction to an attack from Hamas in October. Because of this, global attention finally turned towards the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Most countries around the world agree that Israel should cease their assault on Palestinians, while a few of the global superpowers disagree. The government of the United States of America, primarily, continues to provide materials to Israel, and claims pro-Palestinian support to be antisemitic.

How far will this conflict spread?

Multiple countries, including South Africa, Spain, and Mexico, have taken action within the UN and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to have Israel’s actions acknowledged as genocide, and for intervention to take place.

Other countries are already involved in other ways. For example, Israeli airstrikes in April killed aid workers from Britain, Australia, and Poland. Other various humanitarian efforts from foreign nations have been interrupted or delayed due to those attacks as well as continued pressure from Israel.

The ongoing tension between Israel and Iran has worsened in this time. In April, Israel struck the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing an Iranian officer, causing the cold war to become an active one. The following exchange of attacks in April 2024 is considered “the most dangerous round of conflicts between the two countries in decades” 4. While this conflict then cooled down, it might be about to resurge.

On July 14th, 2024, Israel launched another airstrike on Damascus, Syria, the location of the Iranian embassy where an officer died in April. This attack caused the death of one Syrian soldier and injuries to three others. It was launched from an Israel-occupied region that used to be part of Syria. Due to the alliance between Syria and Iran, this furthers hostilities with both nations.

These are not the only important attacks on Syria, though. Israel has been launching strikes on them over the past decade, and they increased in frequency since October 2023.

We have seen footage again and again both in the past year and over the decades demonstrating the willingness of Israel’s government to target and kill civilians. They have chosen the desire to kill Palestinians over caution, and over peace with surrounding nations.

Israel’s violence is not limited to Palestinian people, yet it has been allowed to continue and even been supported largely because the USA also dislikes its targets. While their targets regarding Iran, Syria, and Lebanon have been military or militant areas, they cannot correctly claim the same towards Palestine.

As attacks continue and worsen in the Middle East, we can only wonder what the final straw will be that might bring the whole world into action.

Additional Resources

1. USA supporting Israel

2. Action in the ICJ

3. Humanitarian Deaths

4. April Iran Attack

5. July Attack on Damascus