Category: Israel and/or Palestine Page 8 of 10

Last week, I argued you couldn’t be Jewish (in any religious sense) and defend Israel’s actions.

The great Rabbi Hillell, challenged to teach the Torah while standing on one leg, said:

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”

It should then be obvious that stealing people’s houses, beating them, destroying their orchards, and killing them is in complete opposition to the whole Torah.

Now everyone who isn’t a bald-faced liar or a fool knows that Israel uses its “Jewish” status as a shield. If you criticize Israeli crimes against humanity or war crimes, you are called an anti-semite. Lives are destroyed, routinely, by accusations of anti-semitism.

Meanwhile, we have actual anti-semitism caused by the reaction to Israel’s crimes. People get mad, and a very few attack Jews.

“Somebody in one of the cars driving by started throwing glass bottles or glass cups at the tables and they shattered everywhere,” she said. A bunch of the cars stopped, and maybe 30 of the men in the cars got out, started running towards the tables and asking indiscriminately, ‘Who’s Jewish?’”

No one was seriously hurt. Los Angeles police said they are investigating this as a hate crime, with five victims who were either punched or injured by broken glass.

Obviously this is horrible, though nothing near as bad as what is happening to Palestinians as I write. But it could be a precursor of far worse actions.

Anti-semitism is terrible. It shouldn’t be tolerated.

And Israel creates it on a vast scale by claiming to be a Jewish state, then committing atrocities, then using that they are Jewish as a shield from criticism or change.

In effect, Israel claims that its crimes are Jewish crimes. To criticize them is to criticize Jews.

This is bullshit. Israel is a settler apartheid state, but it’s not Jewish except somewhat ethnically, because what it does routinely; what it did to create itself (cleanse Palestinians at its birth, and steal their homes) is against the whole Torah.

Israel isn’t Jewish. They’re an evil state who has stolen the cloak of a great religion, which under Rabbinical guidance has largely been peaceful, and used abhorrence of the Holocaust and anti-semitism to allow them to steal and murder.

Stealing and murdering aren’t Jewish, they are what Judaism stands against.

The way forward is simple: Jews and non-Jews need to push back, at every chance, when Israel claims to be Jewish. It isn’t

When it is seen that it isn’t, this will both make Jews outside of Israel (and within Israel who oppose Israel’s crimes) safer, and make a one-state settlement which makes everyone in Israel-Palestine a citizen and equal before the law more likely.

If Israel isn’t Jewish, then it’s no big deal to have Palestinians be citizens.

Israel as a state that claims to be Jewish, and uses its supposed Judaism as a shield against criticism of its crimes, needs to end.

What will remain is a state that by treating everyone equally (do not do to your fellow what is hateful to you) will be more Jewish for proclaiming it less.

May God, in all his forms, bless those who seek equality and peace and cast his gaze upon Israel, who claim to be his children, and bring to them Justice with Mercy.

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After bombing the shit out of Gaza, the ground incursion has begun.

The strikes were so strong that people inside the city, several kilometers away, could be heard screaming in fear…

…Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll has climbed to 103 Palestinians, including 27 children and eleven women, with 530 people wounded. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have confirmed 20 deaths in their ranks, though Israel says that number is much higher. Seven people have been killed in Israel, including a six year-old boy.

Let us remember the sequence. Israeli settlers stole homes in Jerusalem, and Israeli troops attacked peaceful worshippers in al-Aqsa mosque, then Hamas fired missiles after this had been going on for days and the government showed no sign of stopping.

Hamas exactly knows Israel’s weakness: Israelis are paralyzed by the fear of having soldiers taken captive, because the Israelis have become cowards: they have spent over 40 years killing and hurting and dispossessing the weak, and like all bullies, they can’t stand anyone who doesn’t cower in front of them. Remember that Hezbollah beat them in the last war, and even defeated them in the electronic warfare theater (which takes some doing since Israel has the best US equipment). Israel is too scared to patrol near Lebanon, because Hezbollah has told them that if they do, they will grab the first soldiers they can find.

Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida said the group was not afraid of a ground invasion, saying any invasion would be a chance “to increase our catch” of dead or captive soldiers.

Catch ’em. Send them through the tunnels to safe houses.

The Israelis, of course, have many many prisoners, but Palestinians expect that, are used to it, and know it is a cost of resistance.

I will not cavil or “both sides” this. The Palestinians, as an occupied people, have every right to resist the occupiers, and the Israelis, as the occupiers, are the people committing the serious crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hamas can’t “win” this. They are too outgunned and outnumbered.

But because they know the weakness of the Israelis, because they know the Israelis cannot bear one-one hundredth of the pain they routinely inflict on Palestinians, Hamas can make Israel pay.

Israel, as a Jewish-ethnic state, is an ongoing crime against humanity. The two-state solution is dead. Israel needs to become a single state, with everyone being a citizen with equal rights, and all stolen property needs to be returned to those from whom it was stolen.

To do otherwise is unworthy and pathetic; it shows that Israel learned the exact wrong lessons from the Nazis and the Wehrmacht. It is terrible and sad.

There is no good end here for Israel without doing the right thing. The only other option is to finish their wholesale ethnic cleansing and show that, while not strictly speaking genocidal, they truly are Hitler’s bastard children.

If that’s not who they want to be, then for once in Israel’s existence, it must do the right thing by those it has wronged. There is no other good path out; no other path worthy of a God served by Rabbi Hillell:

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”

The Israelis claim to be Jews. If I were a Jew, I would claim that no one who supports the actions of Israel towards the Palestinians can be Jewish, for they do not follow the whole Torah. God and all the prophets can only curse their names for doing their evil and cloaking in God’s name.

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I’ll be plain here: As a religious ethnic state which prefers Jews, I do not grant that Israel has the right to exist. (Wonder how many subscriptions that statement just cost me?)

As a state where everyone has equal rights, it has every right to exist, and all its residents should be left in peace.

Palestinians and non-Jews like Muslims are humans. As humans, they should be treated with the same rights as every other human.

What is happening right now is that Palestinian homes are being stolen by force. When the law is used (it often isn’t), it applies one set of laws to Palestinians, and another to Israeli Jews.

Meanwhile, at al-Aqsa mosque, entirely peaceful worshipers are being gassed and beaten. One signature move is “knee on neck,” of George Floyd fame, which is how fascist cops give the middle finger to everyone decent in the world, now. There are videos of this, with millions of views.

If you are a humanist who believes in universal human rights, you cannot support the existence of Israel as a Jewish ethnic-state. It was created by taking the lands and homes of other people, and it exists by keeping those people and their descendants a second class residents, often with great violence. Nor have its crimes ever stopped.

Map Story of Palestine

What this map should tell you is something simple: There is no possibility of a two-state solution; there is no viable Palestine without removing large numbers of violent settlers. Those settlers would assassinate any Israeli leader who tried, and odds are the army and police would help them.

What it also tells you is that Palestinians are still being ethnically cleansed. This is not a historic crime, long or short in the past, it is an ongoing crime.

 Two-state is dead. There are only two ends to this: The Israelis finish ethnic cleansing the Palestinians, or they give them full rights and citizenship and end the Jewish-ethnic nature of Israel.

It is very odd that cleansing Palestinians is, sub-voce, justified by the Holocaust. Being genocided does not give a free “ethnic cleansing” card, and if it did, one presumes it would be against those who genocided you. I, as someone of primary Irish descent, would presumably get one against the English (and, Lord, if anyone deserves it, the English are high on the list, but I will not descend to their level and kill vast swathes of innocents).

If Israel was “justice” for the Holocaust, then it should have been created by ethnically cleansing Germans out of Prussia.

But the issue here is that Israel is a religious-ethnic state where almost half the population (and yes, Palestinians are ruled primarily by Israel, not by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, don’t make me laugh) are not even second-class citizens. It is an apartheid state, just not yet one with percentages as bad as those in South Africa.

Israelis of good conscience or good sense, know the horror they now face. What lessons did they learn from the Nazis? Who have they become? What is the state of their souls, should souls exist?

Van Creveld, an Israeli military historian and hardly a bleeding heart:

They [Israeli soldiers] are very brave people… they are idealists… they want to serve their country and they want to prove themselves. The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose-lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel… if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape. Now the Israeli army has not by any means been the worst of the lot. It has not done what for instance the Americans did in Vietnam… it did not use napalm, it did not kill millions of people. So everything is relative, but by definition, to return to what I said earlier if you are strong and you are fighting the weak, then anything you do is criminal

Israel, so far, has done great criminal acts. But yes, it has only ethnically cleansed, it has not committed genocide.

For their own sakes, I hope that Israelis will realize the precipice upon which they stand and see how they have let a combination of fear, power, and greed for a homeland convince them that a Jewish ethnic state is worth what it is costing them.

The next play is to bring down al-Aqsa mosque, and rebuild the Temple. Be very clear that that is where this is going.

May God, if he exists and is beneficient and not a monster, extend his blessings over all involved, that they see the hell they live in, and the worse hell they are charging towards. To live in peace, under just and kind laws applied evenly to all, is to live in heaven. To deny that peace or equal law, is to deny God.

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So, Palestinians protested moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, and Israel shot and killed somewhere between 52 and 60 of them, and injured hundreds more.

The rule of international law (yes, I know, a dead letter) is that force must be proportional to threat.

This is disproportionate.

The simple fact is that too many Israelis now think of Palestinians as sub-human; animals to be killed if they are inconvenient.

Israel is an apartheid state. A large chunk of the population is denied their rights–including their right to vote. And both the West Bank and Gaza are, yes, open air prisons.

The two state solution is dead. I’m not sure it was ever viable, but it no longer is. Israel will either have to cleanse Palestinians from its territory (something the de-humanization is clearly working them up to) or Israel as a religious-ethnic state will, inevitably, end.

It is well noted that those who are abused tend to become abusers. The applicability to Israel is obvious and sad.

Still, while tragic, today’s events pale in comparison to what Saudi Arabia, with America’s assistance, is doing in Yemen.

Plenty of tragedies to go around on Earth.

1) The causus-belli, the kidnapping and death of three Israeli teenagers was false.  This has now been admitted by Israeli officials. There was never a scrap of proof, only supposition.

2) Bibi said Hamas did it, and started a war based on that, for vengeance.

3) Ooops.

4) Except that we all know it was just a pretext.  Doing it based on a lie just rubs that in.

5) Hamas has been fighting better than last time, inflicting enough Israeli casualties to matter.

6) Israel has been deliberately leveling large parts of Gaza.  The damage is much worse than Cast Lead.  Most refugees will have no home to go back to.

7) Israel wants truces now, but by and large it’s Hamas who is refusing them.

8) Why?

9) Because the status-quo ante is unacceptable. Gaza was under siege, unable to bring in most goods, food, water and so on and most residents could not leave, even for life-saving medical care.

10) Hamas’s condition for the end of the war is substantially “life the siege”.  If the siege is not lifted, the parts of Gaza which have been flattened cannot be rebuilt, because the equipment needed cannot enter Gaza.

11) Israel can inflict as much collective punishment (a war crime) as it likes on the Gazans, but it can’t make Hamas stop fighting, or shooting missiles.

12) Israel also wants, as part of a condition for peace, for Hamas to let it keep hunting down the tunnels. In other words, it wants Hamas to allow Israel to destroy its ability to fight back even a little.

Israel has a problem.  It takes two to make peace, and Hamas won’t.  Israel could re-occupty Gaza, of course, but that leaves them with occupation troops in Gaza indefinitely, and while they’ll eventually root out Hamas, they’ll take significant casualties doing so.  Plus, then, they have to run Gaza rather than just try to starve it into submission.

Though I know of no polling, I have seen more than one interview where non Hamas Gazans have supported Hamas continuing the war until the Israelis lift the siege.  The general consensus seems to be that living in Gaza is death already.

The larger problem is simple enough.  Israel is an apartheid state which wants to pretend it doesn’t rule its Bantustans while at the same time slowly strangling them to death, and in the case of the West Bank, continuing to settle them.

This is an unsustainable position.  Israel needs to either become a secular state with equal citizenship for all residents regardless of religion or ethnicity; or the logic of situation will require them to remove the Palestinians once and for all.

As a bleeding ulcer, Israel does not work.  More and more diaspora Jews are turning away from it.  At some point the foreign aid it requires to exist will go away.

Israel was always a profoundly ill-considered venture: the idea of giving Jews a homeland by pushing current residents out, in many cases literally, of their homes, could only be an ongoing war crime and this is no longer the great colonial era, where genocide to create settler states is acceptable (nor is there a great plague to target only Palestinians and wipe out 90% of their population, as with the Native Americans.)

Israel is a state which, as currently constituted can only continue to exist by engaging in regular and ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Its right to exist is irrelevant, its ability to exist is the question.  Israel will either engage in as great a crime as was used to justify its existence after World War II, or it will become a secular state.  The two state solution is dead.