Yves here. This post by Vijay Prashad sets forth, in stark terms, how the process of ethic cleansing of Palestinians was baked into the founding principles of Israel. Scott Ritter made the same point in his post, Why I no longer stand with Israel, and never will again. John Mearsheimer has similarly said a two-state solution is impossible; see a fresh version of him explaining why in John Mearsheimer: There is no two-state solution at Unherd.
By Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. was produced by Globetrotter.
In 1948, the Syrian historian Constantin Zurayk used the Arabic word Nakba (Catastrophe) to refer to the forced removal of Palestinians from their lands and homes by the newly formed Israeli state (in his August 1948 book, Ma’na al-Nakba or The Meaning of the Nakba). A decade ago, in Beirut, I met with the Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury—then editor of the Arabic-language Journal of Palestinian Studies, who told me that the Nakba of 1948 was not an event but part of a process. “What we have is a Permanent Nakba, which means that this catastrophe has been continuous for the Palestinians,” he said. Since 1948, Palestinian political movements and intellectuals have argued that the logic of the Israeli state has been to expel the Palestinians from the region between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. This policy of expulsion to create an ethno-religious Jewish State of Israel is what Khoury meant by the Permanent Nakba.
On November 11, 2023, Israel’s Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said something startling to the press. “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” he said. “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end,” said this former director of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet. In the first week of November, Israel’s Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu was on Radio Kol BaRama, whose interviewer ruminated about dropping “some kind of nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there.” Eliyahu replied, “That’s one way. The second way is to work out what’s important to them, what scares them, what deters them… They’re not scared of death.” Israel, the minister said, should retake all of Gaza. What about the Palestinians? “They can go to Ireland or deserts,” he said. “The monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves.” This language of annihilation and dehumanization has become normal among the cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from his cabinet, but he did not rebuke his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who called Palestinians “human animals.” This is the broad attitude of the Israeli high officials, who are now on record with this kind of language.
Israel’s army has advanced its execution of the “Gaza Nakba.” In the early stage of the attack, Israel told Palestinian civilians to move south within the Strip, along Salah al-Din Road, the north-south axis in this 40-kilometer-long area of Palestine that holds 2.3 million Palestinians. The Israelis said that they would largely attack northern Gaza, particularly Gaza City. Around 1.5 million Palestinians moved from the northern part of Gaza to the south, the Israelis having told them repeatedly that this would be a safe zone. Those who stayed experienced a level of bombardment not seen in Gaza in the past, which has been pummeled by the Israelis on a punctual basis since 2006 (the current war including deadly air strikes against highly congested refugee camps, such as Jabalia). In late November, five weeks into their brutal bombing in the north, Israel aircraft intensified the bombing of Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and began ground operations in the areas where they had told civilians to take shelter. By the first week of December, Israeli tanks surrounded Khan Younis, and Israeli aircraft began to bomb small towns in the southern part of Gaza. Having pushed 1.8 Palestinians into the south, the Israelis now began to bomb that part of Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient humanitarian aid to enter Gaza meant that nine out of 10 Palestinians are living without food for days on end (some told the UN World Food Program that they had not eaten in 10 days). This total war by Israel has pushed the majority of Palestinians in Gaza down toward the Egyptian border. Under cover of this war, the Israelis have also moved aggressively into the West Bank to deepen the Permanent Nakba in that part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
As early as October 18, long before the Israeli forces moved toward Khan Younis, the Israel military tweeted that it “orders Gaza residents to move to the humanitarian zone in the area of al-Mawasi.” Three days later, the Israeli military said that the Palestinians must move “south of Wadi Gaza” and go to the “humanitarian area in Mawasi.” Those who went to this small enclave (3.3 square miles) found it without any services—including no internet—and found that even here the Israelis were firing their weapons nearby. Mohammed Ghanem, who had lived near al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, said that al-Mawasi was “neither humane nor safe.” Palestinians in southern Gaza now hope that they can get out before the Israeli bombs find them. The death toll is now in excess of 18,000 dead. As one Palestinian friend wrote in a text, “If we do not leave our homes and go into exile, we will get killed here.” He sent this text just when confirmation arrived that more Palestinians have been pushed out of their homes and killed since October 7 than in the Nakba of 1948. “This is the Second Nakba,” he said to me from near the border between Gaza and Egypt.
A Vote for Annihilation
The ghastly Israeli attack on the Palestinians of Gaza provoked a call for a ceasefire from the second week of October. Israel’s immense firepower—provided by Western countries (especially the United Kingdom and the United States)—was used indiscriminately against a people who live in congested areas of Gaza. Images of that violence flooded social media and even the broadcast news, which could not ignore what was happening. These images overcame all the attempts by the Israeli government and its Western backers to justify their actions. Tens of millions of people joined various forms of protests across the world, but significantly in the Western states that back Israel, bravely confronting governments that tried to portray their solidarity with the Palestinians—unsuccessfully—as antisemitism. This attack was a cynical attempt to use the actual and horrible existence of antisemitism to malign the protests. It did not work. The call for a full-scale ceasefire increased, putting pressure on governments around the world to act.
On December 8, 2023, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) put a “brief, simple, and crucial” resolution for a ceasefire (the words are from UAE ambassador to the UN Mohamed Issa Abushahab). UN Secretary-General António Guterres invoked Article 99 of the Charter, which allows him to underscore the importance of an event through “preventative diplomacy” (the article has only been used three times previously, over the conflicts in the Republic of Congo in 1960, Iran in 1979, and Lebanon in 1989). Almost a hundred member states of the UN backed the UAE resolution. “The people of Gaza are being told to move like human pinballs—ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival,” Guterres told the UN Security Council. “Nowhere in Gaza is safe.” Thirteen members of the Security Council voted for it, including France, while the United Kingdom abstained. Only U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood raised his hand to veto the resolution.
Four days later, on December 12, the Egyptians tabled much the same resolution in the UN General Assembly, where Assembly President Dennis Francis (of Trinidad and Tobago) said, “We have one singular priority—only one—to save lives. Stop this violence now.” The vote was overwhelming: 153 countries voted for the resolution, 10 voted against it, and 23 abstained. It is instructive to see which countries voted against the ceasefire: Austria, Czechia, Guatemala, Israel, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and the United States. Many European countries—from Bulgaria to the United Kingdom—abstained. But matters are complex. Even Ukraine did not vote with Israel on this resolution. They abstained.
The U.S. veto in the Security Council and the votes against in the General Assembly are effectively votes for the Permanent Nakba of the Palestinian people, the No-State Solution. At least, that is how they will be read across the world, not only in al-Mawasi, as the bombs get closer, but also in the demonstrations from New York to Jakarta.
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In a TV interview in England a few days ago, the Israeli ambassador expressly stated on the question of a two state solution that ‘Palestine would never have a state, no’.
Clearly the two state solution is dead and has been for many years. The only possible solution is to make Israel a pariah state until both Jews, Muslims, and Christians living there have equal rights and are free from fear of being expelled or murdered.
While the US has Israel’s back, nothing will change, but if and when the US descends into civil war or worse, and can no longer support this spoiled brat that it can never say no to, only then can change and peace come.
Should Israel carry on its policies unchecked, I suspect Palestinians will meet a fate comparable to the one of Armenians in 1915-1920: slaughtered or expelled, surviving as a diaspora in far away countries, or as small minorities within larger neighbouring nations.
Israel has already started a vigorous ethnic cleansing of the West Bank in the background of the current Gaza crisis, and as soon as the latter is over, it will probably go on expelling Palestinians from Jerusalem. The big thing, and much more complex to achieve given their imbrication in Israeli society, will be the elimination of Palestinians in Israel proper.
Though I am worried too, I’m much less sanguine about Israeli potential for “victory”. Al-Qassam and others are dishing out devastating blows, Hezbollah has guaranteed Hamas’ survival, and the Yemeni blockade is being quite painful.
Though yes, the genocide follows apace, this is by no means 67 or 48.
Seconded. Israel is no Ottoman empire and while they can extinguish couple hundredths of thousands of Palestinians, I don’t think they will be able to execute “final solution” to the full extent. Even Biden will not want to sign off that.
Also on military front, the cheap and small drones are going to equalize things for guerilla factions. Israel is lucky that Hamas doesn’t seem to have much anything here, but if the plan is to evict Palestinians to some concentration camp in desert, there will be a lot of people with a lot of time and motivation to tinker with things.
There are good reasons to believe that the Israeli government will fail in its immediate aims, but they do not suggest that a great many more Palestinians and to a lesser extent Israelis will not die for no good reason. If Prime Minister Netanyahu insists on continuing the genocide, a wider war is extremely likely to happen, which will likely include a combination of some to all of Israel, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and the United States.
Gaza is now home to a man-made famine, an act of barbarism.
Well, at the current kill-and-maim rate it’ll take over six years for Israel to clear Gaza while it would suffer around 200,000 casualties itself. So, as the N***s found out, exterminating a “race” is darn difficult and more drastic methods are needed to achieve the
final solutionultimate “right to self-defense”.Sadly Israel doesn’t even need to continue its bombings and ground attacks. It could simply stop, keep the borders closed and wait for the Gazans to die from disease, starvation and dehydration. It wouldn’t take six years.
In fact, their aggressive actions could be seen as cover for their actual intent, the pretence of going after Hamas v the real plan of extermination or expulsion of the entire population.
Biden could stop the bombing but it would still take international action to bring food, water, medicine and fuel to the people – action each and every one of the 186 nations on this earth seem too cowardly or venal to take.
In Gaza the fuel has gone and now the trees are running out – Guardian
that’s a bit crazy. People will begin dying exponentially soon. they have no shelter, no food, no water, no fuel, no medicine. and now the cold and wet weather is coming. the streets of jabalia refugee camp are flooding. the people trapped under the rubble are condemned to an unimaginably horrific death. The holocaust did not happen in the opening months of WW2. What Israel is doing is an absolute, satanic nightmare. It is by far the worst thing i have ever seen in my lifetime. This is a holocaust and I couldn’t care less if calling it that offends anyone.
During World War II, British intelligence was fully aware of the Jewish genocide, but kept the fact secret for fear of an influx of Jewish refugees, allowing the Nazis to continue the Holocaust until defeat.
And now, Israel will complete the Nakba because no country will risk compromising its own interests to save the Palestinians.
IIRC two Jews busted out of Auschwitz, complete with a trove of stolen documents describing Nazi slave labor practices.
The two managed at great personal risk to smuggle themselves to neutral Switzerland and handed their documents over to British. British intelligence dismissed these as crude Jewish forgeries intended to keep the Allies on-side.
Of course, the documents were entirely genuine and the men’s testimony could not have been more awful than the truth.
Polish partisan Witold Pilecki did it: he deliberately got arrested to go to Auschwitz and managed to escape with a trove of documents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki
I was just imagining a timeline where the Egyptian gates are opened up and all the Gazans are forced out of their land in a sort of exodus as the IDF pushes and bombs them out. What does Israel imagine would happen then? Do they imagine that they can say to the world ‘Now that that unpleasantness is done with, let’s go back to normal relations, OK? And by the way, we will need tens of billions to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip so if you can get a move on now and send us that money, it would be very much appreciated.’ For Israel, they have crossed the line and now nothing will ever be the same for them again. They have become the people that persecuted them back in the 30s and 40s.
“They have become the people that persecuted them back in the 30s and 40s.”
Israel has learned from its history. The latest from Larry Johnson:
https://sonar21.com/israel-continues-to-shoot-itself-in-the-foot/
I think it’s even worse than this. So not only have the Israelis become the people that persecuted and murdered them, the Americans who so-called “liberated” the death camps at Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, etc., appear to now support the very concept of the death camp, with Gaza being a massive open-air death camp.
And also appear to support that human beings just meat to be processed and disposed of, life is no longer sacred or precious.
Further, the Americans now overtly support the idea of taking a whole population and divesting them of their citizenship, rights, ancestry and land, deportation en masse. These were the first steps the Nazis took against the Jews.
Any country which supports death camps, mass murder of innocents and mass deportation is, necessarily, the enemy of the humanity and the world. The world urgently needs to address this.
And this renders the so-called “liberation” of the camps moot. The so-called liberators did not liberate anything, after all. They were not there as liberators.
The world will not be the same after this.
>>>And this renders the so-called “liberation” of the camps moot. The so-called liberators did not liberate anything, after all. They were not there as liberators.
They did witness, however. I rather think that if my relatives, those of the “Greatest Generation” some of whom were among those who saw those concentration camps or ran the refugee camps the survivors wound up in, were still alive, it might more difficult for the American and Israeli governments to do what they are doing. But they are almost all now dead and can no longer personally speak about what they witness. So people like Netanyahu and Biden can want they want.
we are all witnessing it, though, live and 24-7. And still nothing is done.
what is the end-game ? when a regional war breaks out and their neighbours sense that Israel is bleeding, there will be a most savage reckoning.
Israel will do all that and America will be happy to enforce compliance.
If they will do it to two-year-old children, they will do it to anyone, and if they will do it to anyone, they will wind up doing it to each other, because they have lost their minds. I’m not talking about the Israelis.
I agree that Israel has crossed the line, and even their ‘amen chorus’ here in the US is turning against them.
I’ve been increasingly depressed these last few weeks as the Washington Post, per usual, has struggled to keep up its usual support for US/Israeli policy by insisting this is a “war on Hamas.” During this time it seemed that the WaPo commentariat was largely supportive of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” That all seemed to change today when the commenters in today’s edition suddenly changed to outright condemnation of Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing. I was shocked quite frankly, but also elated. I think the Biden administration is done for. The Biden team will forever be haunted by this genocide. They will never live this down.
Even Beau can’t stand the sight of his father. JB is just a ghost himself, sniffing the hair of corpses.
My feeling as well. Biden saying “I am a Zionist” could be the last nail in the coffin for Joe.
There is no walking back this infamy.
When I read the title, I thought no-state solution meant, no Palestine and no Israel. I still wonder how Israel can go on indefinitely being quite so detested by the people of the world, increasingly including the people of all its supposed allies, the US, the EU, Egypt. It depends not only on having a regime of intimidation at home but in those other countries.
When you continuously claim that you were chosen by God above everyone else, and act with impunity trampling everything around, and using killing, assasination, etc. to further your political goals, shrouded in God’s mantle, the multifaceted humanity cannot but recoil. Heck, a lot of Jewish people are recoiling.
And th tragedy is that while de-nazification could have some chances of success, the zionist idea is not solvable. I think Romans did have a good understanding of the human nature and fanaticism…
You think Romans tried to solve the Zionist idea?
I think they lost patience with that nonsense and laced it quite well…
Why go that far in history. Other players lost patience much more recently. Don’t be shy.
I see what you are doing, beside creating some straw men here. As all your other points, this one is also disingenuos.
No, you cannot put an equal sign between the Jewis Kingdom’s resistence to Roman occupation 2000 years ago with the life of Jewish diaspora in the various European countries in Europe in the last couple of centuries, and with the authorities using them as a scapegoat sometimes, to channel resentments.
I.e. Was it the Jewish property managers for absentee landlords in the Moldavian province of Romania, and their actions that led to the last great peasant revolt in Europe in 1907 (11,000 peasants dead), or the actual desinterest, greed, and lack of involvement, etc of the actual landlords?
There is a lesson there. The religious fanatics at the time pushed the Israelites into fighting the entire Roman Empire which led to their destruction and dispersal. I don’t care what religion it is, it is always the fanatics that cause so much pain and misery for everybody else.
In other news about this era, four Roman swords were found in a Dead sea cave that were in great preservation after being left from the fighting. How cool is that-
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/09/07/four-excellently-preserved-1900-year-old-roman-swords-discovered-inside-dead-sea-cave
You are talking about Iran I assume.
Actually Iran seems in some aspects to be more democratic and tolerant than a Netanyahu government. Go figure. For decades we have been told about the bogey-man of the mad mullahs with nukes but it looks like the real problem was the mad rabbis with nukes instead.
Is it the same country that sponsored the Holocaust cartoon competition?
Is that comparable with the “cartoon bomb” that Netanyahu showed to the UN a coupla years ago?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pms-bomb-explodes-online/
The guy is a clown-school drop out. Worse Israeli leader ever.
Accuracy and context count.
The contest you refer to was sponsored by a newspaper, not a country, and was a response to the publication of a series of Muhammad cartoons in the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten.
Michael Hudson should do a book on Judea and Palestine under Rome. There was definitely a lot going on in the various revolts and repressions. I just read that a big igniting factor for the revolt under Nero was Nero’s crushing increase in taxes. And later emperors became more punitive partly to burnish their credentials when Rome ran out of viable new lands to conquer. They could claim they were paying for building projects with wealth looted from Jerusalem (politics were different in those days).
Also important to note that many Jews stayed in the new Palestine and there was also a kind of Diaspora even before then, with large Jewish communities in Babylon and the city of Rome. And new Jews moved in when the Arabs took over, and then many were killed during the Crusades, and then new people moved in when Arab rule was restored.
The history of the area is long and winding and not at all like the caricature that gets taught in mainstream US media.
I think Judaism as a religion was still forming during Roman rule, the scriptures weren’t quite put together the way they are now, halakah was still WIP, and I’m not sure Jews of the time had yet developed this concept of being the chosen ones.
The Romans gave the entire populace of the area fairly good reason to revolt without needing to resort to supremacism.
Even so, the teaching re: being the chosen people was balanced out with having responsibility, duties, obligations. You weren’t special in that you were superior or unassailable, had license to kill. I seem to remember something about Israel being tasked, by God, to lead the way for all other nations by setting an example of charity, mercy, humility, goodwill, justice, fairness, equity, generally good and moral conduct. That was the idea behind being chosen. Welp…the Zionists are pretty much doing the opposite, aren’t they? This suggests they’re going counter to the idea, are not the chosen.
“God, to lead the way for all other nations by setting an example of charity, mercy, humility, goodwill, justice, fairness, equity, generally good and moral conduct.” This sounds exactly that the Greater Jihad Mohammed asked for. The thing is, the earthly powers never go for that…it is known…
After exchanging comments with Karlof1 at his Substack, we find ourselves on the same page in that the Zionists (Israeli and elsewhere) have pretty much “ pissed their own cheerios” in pursuing the genocide and eviction of Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank regions. John Helmer (Dances with Bears) has a recent and very troubling post detailing the radioactive contamination in Gaza and elsewhere from the use of DU munitions and possibly a neutron weapon ?! More secular Israelis are voting with their feet- many still retain Russian citizenship. He and I both independently got the notion that they would do well to emigrate to Ukraine – the native population has been badly reduced, and the new arrivals could be of great help in assisting Russia with the de-nazification of the remaining Ukraine territories. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
Given the prevailing political atmosphere in Israel, if Jewish-Russians immigrate to the Ukraine, they are not likely to to be interested in ‘de-Nazification’ – more in it’s continuance and siding with the Azov crew.
Oh yes they would be. Ukraine Nazis would kill Jews (and Poles and Russians).
Who are the people who make up the settlers and the kibbutz’s that continually squeeze the Palestinians… I believe many of them are Russian Jews…
I don’t think Russia would want these people; they are actively working to decrease all points of leverage on them from the West and its allies; this would include Israel.
The Israel defenders make their talking point “Israel’s right to exist” but when your right comes at the expense of somebody else’s right to exist then what kind of right is it other than the right made by might–the law of the jungle? You could say that America was just as bad to it’s natives but American politicians were often sincere in their desire to give the indigenous a place if not the same lifestyle. And America became the safety valve for the millions of poor and desperate of Europe who also claimed the right to exist whereas Israel came to be via the strategic calculation of imperialists. A Jewish nation could have been established in many other places.
Not that any of this matters when emotional arguments are the primary currency. And people like Netanyahu want to make sure that fear and anger are always in the driver’s seat and they want to make sure that applies to America as well. He applauded 9/11 as a good thing (for him).
Reason must prevail eventually and Bibi’s shelf life may be as short as Biden’s.
The deciding factor in where to site a “Jewish Homeland” is Jerusalem. From what I can glean from my reading, for observant Jews, the site of the Temple is the centre of their world, figuratively and literally. Muslims consider the place their third most holy site, but they have Mecca and Medina to fall back on in extremis. Christians are a mixed bag in this respect.
So, to eliminate the bone of contention between the competing factions here, why not just nuke Jerusalem and have done with it, at least for the half-life of the dangerous resulting nucleotides.
Then there is the Globalist Jackpot Program….
Speaking of which, isn’t it about time for some Club of Rome acolytes to begin distributing disease laden blankets to the homeless masses huddled under the highway underpasses?
The Samaritans were an old jewish sect that did not consider Jerusalem to be their central holy site and there were plenty of others before them, indeed they arguably represented (or at least were closer to) the “original” hebrew religion before it was centralized and anchored down in Jerusalem.
Establishing Jerusalem and it’s temple as all important be all end all was a political (and of course economic) project that had to be systematically enforced over many generations by kings and high priests for it to finally stick.
If Jerusalem was nuked, Jews, just as Muslims and Christians, could learn to do without it once more.
You probably mean nuclides.
Israel’s right to exist is not a talking point its a right. The law of the jungle is not bad compared to Oct 7. Jews forgot to ask you where to establish their nation.
Does Palestine have a right to exist?
Palestine means different things to different people. You have to be more specific.
Well, Israel means different things to different people too. Like, do we all agree on where its borders are supposed to be? Or who and under which laws should rule there? Yet it doesn’t stop people from giving straight answer.
So again. Does Palestine has a right to exist? Yes or no.
And when we are at it, does USA? Russia? China? Burundi? The Holy Roman Empire?
And yet you can state without reservation:
Does Israel include the West Bank and Gaza? Other annexed territories? From the river to the sea or from the sea to the river as Likud would have it?
How about from the Nile to the Euphrates as the “Chosen People” apparently believe their God ordained?
The point is both questions are ridiculous.
Israel has duties to occupied territories it is refusing to honor. Occupied people have a right to rebel and occupiers do NOT have a right to defense. So Otto needs to stop Making Shit Up and stop engaging in bandwidth-hogging. As Barry Ritholtz says in cases like his, GYOFB.
Tolerating smug high school debate talking points is admirable as an exercise, except when tens of thousands of civilians and other illegal “targets” as well as released hostages waving white flags are summarily killed.
Customary talking points for antidemocratic and supremacist positions lose their charm in such times as this.
For a bracing review of the realities and the needs, an authoritative talk in Melbourne by Miko Peled “turns the lights on.” It’s a long session, so skipping the intro to get straight into Miko’s insights is justifiable.
ConsortiumNews.com shares it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54RjY7cTt8w&ab_channel=ConsortiumNews
Please read our About section: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/about
First, Naked Capitalism is above all about critical thinking. Having readers consider and argue against what you deem to be “smug high school debate points” is a very useful practice, since the MSM regularly broadcast versions of these very same “smug high school debate points.” Readers are better able to contest them in real life. Even if the interlocutor won’t admit to being unable to defend their case, any onlookers might see the matter is more complicated than they thougt.
Second. you weirdly assume anyone here can influence what happens in Israel, or US official support of Israel. We can’t. This blog and its community are limited to being able to influence the debate in finance, where we have demonstrable expertise and a reputation, and maybe in Covid. where we have best of breed reporting, particularly on important studies and disease incidence (as best as we can figure it out) around the world.
Third, we gave Otto plenty of rope to hang himself, as he has. He broke house rules by engaging in bad faith arguments, particularly Making Shit Up.
Israel’s right to exist is God given. Its defenders should properly be saying Israel’s ‘divine right’ to exist. This would correctly elevate the Israeli state to the equivalent of Imperial Japan, or that of Egyptian Pharaohs.
Quite obviously, that trumps anything the Palestinians can offer in rebuttal.
/s
Gabor Mate explains how he sees the Palestine Israël conflict
Thanks for that. Remarkable. Really all that needs to be said.
Is it? People have a right to exist if you agree with Jefferson’s Declaration. Nation states–the political entities that people create and name to run their societies–have come and gone throughout history. You are merely making an assertion unless you want to point to the source of that right. The Bible? The UN? Harry Truman?
It can’t be international law because the Israelis have never shown much regard for that.
In fact some of us would contend that Netanyahu is doing everything in his power to destroy Israel as a respected and accepted nation state and therefore the greatest enemy of Israel’s right to exist may be him. Of course you don’t have to agree, but bald assertions require backing up. That’s my one and only point.
Which then can be boiled down to positive and negative freedoms[tm] associated with property rights. All made even more suspect by how any property rights laws are created then enforced or none at all and its all law of force at the end of the day.
I find this all very surreal considering the personal beliefs and opinions, over decades, coming out of some of the dominate Schools and Universities of economic thought/theory – no need to name them.
Just ask if Palestine has right to exists and demand yes/no reply. It’s fun.
Of course taken literally, the question if state X has right to exist doesn’t make sense. It’s like asking if rain has right to exist. States come and go, their borders and their leaders change, Soviet Union didn’t have some inherent right to exist and when it broke up, all the republics didn’t do “genocide” on it. But the real meaning of this question is to demand unconditional agreement with actions of Israeli governments from its creation all the way to present time, because for the fanatics Israel is Israel only if they are in charge, ruling over what they think is theirs, even if some other people happen to be there already. Except some PR guy told them saying it out loud explicitly doesn’t poll well with the world, so they cloak it in such verbiage and then try to play gotcha with “therefore you must agree to bomb Gaza/Lebanon/Iran as much as we like, if you just said you support right of Israel to exist”.
If you have a plan for ensuring that Israel is not threatened from Gaza/Lebanon/Iran that does not involve bombing, let the world know.
I have another perspective for you to consider Otto. What better way to bring together all the other ME states against Israel, due to this prolonged bombing/ground campaign, especially considering its political rhetoric on the topic.
Its already having a considerable international effect which will only grow with duration. That would seem an own goal and result in the opposite effect of achieving peace regionally/internationally wrt Israel.
The real downside too all this is how it enables religious zealotry on all sides, does not play out well historically = justification for all kinds of horrors.
The policy of appeasement attempted many times by various Israel governments. That includes the 2005 disengagement from Gaza which proved to be a mistake as viewed from 2023.
Yet land never stopped being annexed.
Your reply has nothing to do with what I said above or the long term consequences of Israel policies e.g. get rid of Hamas and everything is sweet.
If you are worried about religious zealotry at the very minimum you should see that there are multiple players involved. Yet you blame Israel. There is a name for this sort of one sidedness.
Off topic but a month or so back we were told that Israel had shut off the water to Gaza. How long can one live without water? 3-4 days?
The Gazans are still alive. Same with food. Israel supposedly cut off food supplies?
Yes, Israel deserves blame. It has engaged in a policy of grossly disproportionate punishment, directed nearly entirely at civilians, for decades, as a matter of explicit policy. Many Israel leaders have referred to Palestinians as sub-human or animals. Netanyahu by invoking Amalek called for their extermination.
Oh, and Netanyahu supported Hamas to weaken the more moderate and secular PLO, with which it was possible a two state deal could be worked out. But the PLO is very corrupt and Hamas got support for among other things being better at delivering services (a low bar, mind you).
So you are quite the fabulist.
I never said I was worried about zealotry, only noted its effects, nor did I blame all of Israel. Is everything with you post hoc ergo propter hoc to arrive at a determined outcome Otto.
My comment was about international ramifications which will reverberate around for sometime and how that might effect individuals or groups affiliated with Israel.
For myself its akin to how decades have unfolded in Afghanistan after the Russians were originally invited, only to end up with the Taliban and ISIS.
I guess some need terrorists[bad guys] or their whole narrative falls apart and with it their real agenda/s.
They pulled out the settlers but established a blockade, They regularly shot Gazan civilians.
Otto, that was not appeasement.
Gaza was occupied land
It belonged to the native Palestinians (who are refugees)
Israel settled there illegally, as they are doing in the W. Bank
At the time, it was too difficult to control the Gazans, so the Isr gov’t disengaged
They concentrated on settlement bldg in the W. Bank. Sharon thought that a more strategic move.
If by Israel here you mean what the fanatics mean, i.e. unimpeded conquest of territories of their choice, then I have no plan for that and don’t know why I should have one. I also don’t have plan for the neocons on how to win simultaneous war with Russia and China (now apparently with Arabs in the mix too) so they can keep dreaming about world spanning American Empire.
How is this for a plan. Israel divides itself in half, gives Palestine the other, better, half as good faith gesture, as movement toward peaceful coexistence, and as reparation. Further, allow Palestine statehood and encourage Palestine to become fruitful and prosperous. Remove the principle reason for the conflict, namely displacement. Have dinner at the same table, share the same food, drink the same wine, become brother and sister.
Of course, this will need one side in this conflict to overcome their views about miscegenation, intermarriage and mingling with the inferior caste. But as South Africa (and world history) shows, this can be overcome.
It is widely known that the Israel Lobby has inordinate influence over both political parties in Congress and the White House. And it is increasingly obvious that Israel is no longer a strategic asset but a strategic liability for the US.
For example, Iran made numerous overtures in the past to the US to resolve the issues between the two countries. Israel, however, wants to be the ME hegemon and Iran is the only country capable of standing in its way. Israel wants to prevent peace from breaking out between Iran and the US. Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza is making it more difficult, if not impossible, for the US to pursue its interests in the ME.
Congress passed legislation equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, basically making political speech illegal. Glenn Greenwald called this the Israel exemption to the First Amendment; a dangerous precedent.
Nonetheless, the Israel Lobby’s control over both parties is showing cracks among the Dems and 2024 is an election year. The Lobby can’t be as effective if it has unconditional support from only one party. Thus, supporters should realize the DP is held hostage by the Lobby and insist it remain free and independent, even if it means cutting the line holding on to the Biden lifeboat.
The Lobby is just one example of the institutional corruption and lawlessness of Congress and the US gov. Money is legally defined as “free speech” and unlimited political bribery is perfectly legal. I read the Israel Lobby and US foreign policy in 2006, before it became a book, and I agree with many points.
No doubt, Walt and Mearsheimer are correct in pointing out the disproportionate influence of the Lobby. However, we must consider the converging interests of other factions of oligarchy: the military/security/weapons/surveillance state, BigOil, BigFinance etc. These interests benefit from Israel policy as well. We need to see the Israel Lobby in context of bribery, corruption and the convergence of interests.
Israel was created to serve British imperial interests, and it serves the US as a “dagger aimed at the heart of the ME”. The “unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US” Israel policy is but one example of the rot and corruption in the US
Re: “disproportionate influence of the Lobby ” vs. “the converging interests of other factions of oligarchy: the military/security/weapons/surveillance state, BigOil, BigFinance etc. ”
I agree that both of those forces determine U.S. policy toward Israel. However, there are really two distinct policies at play here: one toward Israel per se, the other toward the Israel-Palestine conflict. Core U.S. oligarchic interests (to use your label) determine the basic U.S. pro-Israel stance. But there isn’t necessarily a U.S. oligarchic interest in, say, preventing a Palestinian state from coming into existence. U.S. policy could move in different directions in that regard. That’s where the Israel lobby plays its most critical role: making sure U.S. policy remains aligned with Israeli Zionist interests vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
All good points. The US has no problem with killing 100s of thousands of innocents in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan etc. so why should the US care about a Palestinians state? Long standing Orientalist and racist attitudes towards Arabs etc. play in here as well. Israel lobby or not, the US will try to maintain hegemony at all costs
The idea that Israel is an “unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US” is a lie used to pretend that the relationship is a mutually beneficial “alliance”. The US has air bases in Turkiye, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, but none in Israel. There are small contingents of US military personnel at a couple radar bases in Israel, but *no* major bases. IIRC, we have “supply bases” there, where we store ordnance, etc, for use elsewhere in the region, but often those supplies wind up getting transferred to Israel when they use up their normal allotment of bombs and bullets.
And during both US wars against Iraq, we had to explicitly exclude Israel from our “coalition” to avoid pissing off the Muslim nations where we do have air bases.
What we *do* get from our “alliance” with Israel is some high-tech (a two-way street, but US def gets some good MilTech there) and some good intel (though of course, they only tell us what they want us to hear).
US MIC certainly profits from the extra business, but they probably profit even more from weaponry we sell to other countries in the region; the MIC is not the reason that US politicians support Israel.
US Bases in ME:
https://www.americansecurityproject.org/national-security-strategy/u-s-bases-in-the-middle-east/
Yeah, the US has bases all round the globe. As I said, Israel does indeed enjoy disproportionate influence, and we forgot that Israel has nuclear weapons. Why did western powers help Israel develop nukes?
The US Congress is legally bribed and institutionally corrupt, that’s the bottom-line reason they support Israel, as well as the so-called evangelical types. The US will destroy itself from within, due to the rot and institutionalized corruption. I see The Israel Lobby is part of that. I don’t believe the US has any benefit from Israel, but the people in power do.
Iran made numerous overtures in the past to the US to resolve the issues between the two countries.
What would be an example of this?
Some examples
https://cis.mit.edu/news-media/news/2022/america’s-iran-follies
The Big Lie of Zionist Israel is that it is indispensable to the old Colonial West. Zionist Israel, as it ethnically cleanse Palestinians, is an embarrassing tumor that Western governments WILL excise from it’s purses and military arsenal. They don’t want to go down with the Zionist Israel ship.
Inevitably, like Nazi Germany and soon Ukraine, it will be de-nazified (Kahanism).
Germany, 78 years after Nazi Germany fell, still bares the stain of its ethnic cleansing and its holocaust.
A Story: During a soccer final that Germany won, as Germans gathered in the streets of Germany to celebrate like any proud nation would they joked, “If four Germans gather in public, the world assumes it’s a Nazi Rally.”
The German example is the burden of an old stain of an atrocity that will be bore for a long time, fair or not, by Israelis. They will spend their lives explaining: How did the Palestinian Genocide/ethnic cleansing (1948 – whenever it ends) happened? Where were they? Did they try to stop it?
The State of Israel is finished! A restored State of Palestine, or whatever it will be named by ALL equal citizens of the land. They will decide its name when the UN mandated is either withdrawn or revised.
This is a big statement, right? RIGHT!
THE OBJECTIONS BY THOSE WHO ARE STUCK IN 6 OCTOBER 2023
“But how can that happen,? US has a UN Security Council veto and will never allow it. Sorry, we are stuck with mandated Israel that just conducted a genocide, as awful as it was, and there is nothing we can do about it.”
FOR THOSE WHO UNDERSTOOD 8 OCTOBER – ON-GOING
Now the time is ripe to expel the United States from the United Nations via Article 6 of the UN Charter. An embedded provision to address nations who are on-going problem to the maintenance to world peace and security.
United States is a nation that has militarily invaded 250 countries in the last 30 years. Kind of destabilizing, right? No too peaceful!
For this vote, the US will be required to abstain at the UN Security Council vote on this question since the vote to remove the US is about the US.
The Unknown; Can the UK be corralled and tied down to not veto the matter? Are Russia and China motivated enough to lead the US Security Council expulsion of the US?
After all, the US is increasingly isolated on the world stage.
Finally, those 250 countries that have been invaded, couped, their best politicians assassinated by the US surely will vote “yes” at the final UN General Assembly on the matter?
[Expulsion of US idea came, not from me but I can invasion this movement for peace. From Middle Nation (Shahid Bolsen): “EXPEL THE US FROM THE UN” https://youtu.be/3H0gWukCGik?feature=shared
Thanks for posting this Yves, I agree with Vijay Prashad here, he has also written some more extensive articles on the subject. I recall about 20 years ago, Noam Chomsky predicted that the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine would continue and that Palestine would not have a state – a no-state solution. Sadly, Chomsky’s (and others’) prediction has held, so far.
As Dr. Prashad outlines, the US policy to veto any UN resolution or action, even symbolic, regarding Israel will not change (at least anytime soon). The US appears to be ready to risk escalation of war and alienate most of the world to protect Israel (and US perceived strategic interests).
As I have pointed out before (sorry to repeat but it seems important): the US has the Wolfowitz Doctrine and Nuclear First Strike Doctrine. The INF, ABM etc. treaties have been trashed and the threat of nuclear confrontation higher than ever in our lifetimes. This, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and other observers, I am sure Mearsheimer and others agree as well.
In short, the Palestinians will continue to be slaughtered, abused, and forced into smaller and smaller areas, even worse than the Bantustans in Apartheid South Africa. This, of course, is MUCH WORSE than Apartheid SA.
The US will continue to hold a nuclear gun to the head of the Global Majority. If any country tries to intervene, the US will escalate. Israel is not the only one with a Samson Option, the US does as well. The US appears to be headed by a bunch of nutcases with the finger on the nuclear trigger.
Hegemony or Total Destruction policy.
Do the people of the Jewish faith in the administration, and donations from supporters of Israel further a bias against the Palestinians?
My limited experience with a very small sample would suggest an institutional bias.
My family history provided much discussion and my direct experience to further confuse my personal feelings, and I generally keep silent on the topic.
Both political parties in the USA and, of course most of the political parties in the Euro vassal support any
And all Israeli policies. Most people, in the USA don’t like genocide but the politicians will continue to support Israel regardless what people think. That should tell us all we need to know about the Western “democracies.”
Israel has made it plain that it intends ethnic cleansing or, barring that, outright genocide for Gaza, all consciously aided and abetted by its American gorilla. October 7 is but the pretext.
The question is what to do about it. Moral arguments are wasted on sociopaths.
Not really snark, but definitely snark adjacent.
How about going all scientific here and proposing a “Quantum State Solution.”
As long as the “problem” was kept confined in a ‘narrative box,’ no one could be sure of it’s eventual resolution. Now, the Israeli Ultras have opened the box, and not only is the Palestinian state within dead, but also, Pandora’s final ‘gift’ has emerged. To we inheritors of the Ancient Greek Cynical philosophy, the last escapee of Pandora’s box, “Hope,” is also an evil spirit.
As an added bonus, the “Quantum State” guarantees lots of ‘entanglements.’ George Washington’s warning in his ‘Farewell Address’ has greater relevance now than ever.
And no one could tell if the Palestinian (state) cat was live or dead (well, officially, anyways)…
As noted in the comment above, the Israeli Ambassador to the UK said in effect that the world should stop asking for a two state solution because that will never happen. That’s Israel’s and the US lobby’s position.
With so many Lobby members in key cabinet positions, they not only have access to top national secrets, but are using it to frame US foreign policy. Not much difference between Blinken and savant Jared kushner or Victoria Nuland-Kagan. On the economic side, policy mirrors special interests: Janet Yelsin and her team at Treasury. In this sense, Netanyahu knows they own the US, thus the arrogance, cynicism and genocide campaign
Biden has called for a Gaza “humanitarian corridor “ for Palestinian movement to the south, only to be carpet bombed there too.
The holocaust has lost its power to blackmail, and the Hamas surprise rebellion upended Israeli/ Palestinian relations, with srael the loser. Without US military aid, the IDF is a paper tiger.
Now, US tax payers must take up their courage and let Wall Street bankster fraudsters know, “no mas”. That’s it with the exploitation. These people can’t be victims, when Edward Blum eliminated Affirmative Action- independent of how people feel about it; But, for jews – perennial victims- to do the attack? Hedge fund fraudster, Bill Ackerman has been campaigning for the removal of Harvard’s president because she, an African American, came out on the side of free speech in the genocide debate. Another Jewish hedge fund fraudster was able to remove U Penn president because she allowed protests against the aggressive Israeli genocide campaign.
The Sacklers are responsible for nearly one million deaths after they unleashed the OxyContin opioid epidemic that’s killed nearly one million Americans, yet they got to keep their blood money by devising a way to pay the penalties from interest on the principal.
Phillip Esformes, son of a Jewish orthodox Rabbi and founder of a Fl. nursing home co got indicted for having defrauded Medicare of $1B. – biggest fraud of its kind. Jared kushner got him a Trump pardon. Ditto other crooks, including his father. You can’t make this stuff up. And that’s not even considering the biggest scam in the nation’s history by cryptocurrency fraudster, Sam Bankman-Fried
Funny how the ascent of Kissinger and Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism in the 1970s/1980s launched the golden age of the bankster fraudsters , while causing the destruction and decay of this country.
AIPAC has launched a war against African American Congressional Representatives who called for a “cease fire,”. Is this fair?
The two state solution is the only way to bring humanitarian risks under control.
This is a misrepresentation of facts. Palestinians also oppose a two state solution. To treat people like Mearsheimer as AIPAC is a smear.
With the greatest respect I don’t think you can state it that baldly. When the options are so ill defined polling can’t give you an answer.
Beyond stopping the killing and maintaining the possibility that a Palestinian state can exist in some form or other I believe our duty is to support free and fair elections so the people can choose who they want to enter into negotiations on their behalf.
The current situation which excludes the Palestinians themselves from discussions because they have no legitimate representation cannot stand.
I suggest you look at polls. From Gallup, October 23:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/512828/palestinians-lack-faith-biden-two-state-solution.aspx
I did survey research in a past life. 24% is such a low number than no change in question phrasing will change it from majority non-support to majority support.
And the advantage of Gallup is it does administer the core questions with consistent wording over time.
As Maigret would say, There’s gotta be a reason for this. Except that what is happening is so extreme it precludes reason. “Excuse” is the word. Humans always excuse themselves. “Oh, pardon me! I just thought I’d prosecute a bloody war for Middle East oil and maybe build a pipeline from Baluchistan to Gaza. Israel is the perfect goat. And, I just don’t want to contend with a bunch of rabid little stateless terrorists blowing things up.” Not making excuses for the excuse here, I just can’t swallow any more of it.
Your diagnosis is way off base. Oil is anything but the reason why we support Israel.
To elaborate, the US supported Israel from the beginning despite vociferous objections from the US oil industry that it would threaten their investments in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
And I suppose that the fact that US politicians on both sides of the aisle get massive funding support from wealthy supporters of Israel has nothing to do with it. Yeah, and pigs can fly.
The US gets the best politicians that big money can buy, that is fundamentally why politics in the US is so FUBAR., and the American people are once again faced with a choice between an octagenarian political hack and an amoral neo-octagenarian narcissist who could not tell the truth to save his life.
Pitchforks, anyone?
Arabs have way more money than Israel. If you look at massive funding better check the US universities. Use your pitchfork wisely.
Thanks to the political clout of the NRA, if an uprising happens in the US it will probably involve assault rifles rather than pitchforks.
And I was talking about wealthy US supporters of Israel, not Israel itself.
“No-state” does not mean that you do not have an ethnic, personal, moral and/or spiritual position about politics. “No-state” means you are disenfranchised from your opinions ever making a difference, that you have become something like a political gypsy. Without the social apparatus, the politics, to guarantee your rights and your humanity. But if you existed previously without a political infrastructure, if you were tribal or nomadic, or just blissfully peaceful, you are SOL these days. So here’s a question: How does the US/ West negotiate with the Palestinians? We don’t have forever to resolve these oil issues. And it is a well established historical reality that when time runs out, we just kill each other. So maybe we do actually need to establish a new category of peaceful resolution, that of the No-state position. Could be a dangerous precedent. Eventually eliminating the ghastly dinosaur of national military force. But then we’d devolve into hideous little splinter groups of squalor and poverty and gum disease and fungal infections. And etc. But then again it could fit the paradigm for an ecological transformation which also had good dentistry, etc. It’s all nuts to me. Clearly, we’ve got choices to consider. Because this insanity going on for whatever reason in Gaza is totally unacceptable.
I am stunned at realizing how much harm Israel has done first to Palestinians but then to the Israeli state. The signs were all there for years, even to an extent from the beginning, but such a calamity could scarcely have been imagined.
Thank you, Ives and Vijay.
The least we can do is not vote for ANY sitting member of congress, nor for any candidate for any office the supports the nakba – this includes of most members of the Democrat and Republican parties. Might only be a feel-good act, but for some, the only way to express their disgust.
This is a painful reminder of the Vietnam war, when military analyses often revolved around the “kill ratio” – how many Viet Cong were killed vs how many Americans. Anything better than a ratio of 10:1 was considered OK.
15,000 or so Palestinians killed (plus who knows how many thousands more buried under rubble) as retribution for 1300 or so Israelis killed in the Hamas attack, plus many West Bank Palestinians (who had nothing to do with the Hamas attack) killed by Israeli settlers with the tacit approval of the ADF. This is all taking the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” mantra way too far, and almost ensures the establishment of widespread anti-semitism that Israeli politicians are prematurely using to label anyone who criticises their barbaric, heartless, chauvinistic and over the top response to the Hamas attack.
So, after centuries of being the abused , the abused have become the abuser; so much for the collective wisdom and self awareness of the ethnic group whose members include the so called Father of Psychology.
When orders were given for 1.5 million people to relocate and when it became clear that even relocation would not bring them to safety, Hamas should have released the hostages and surrendered.There would be no need for tanks or bombs had Hamas surrendered. The only explanation why the did not is that this is exactly what they wanted to happen. Every one of you who perpetuates the lies about ethnic cleansing and intentional killings of children is siding with Hamas and is a part of their plan.
You have that backwards. Israel is dropping the bombs and preventing supplies from reaching Gaza.
The only explanation why the did not is that this is exactly what they wanted to happen.
So Israeli government (and all the West) is just executing plan prepared for them by Hamas. They are literally doing what Hamas told them to do and whining the whole time they have no other choice than do as told.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subservience
Every one of you who points their finger should point their thumb at themselves
>When orders were given for 1.5 million people to relocate…
Forced displacement is a violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
>When orders were given for 1.5 million people to relocate…
Forced displacement is a violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
[ Thank you so very much for responding to the spate of offensive antagonism. ]
Obviously not when safety is the reason.
Not when Israel is creating the dangerous conditions forcing displacement it doesn’t.
Israel is creating the dangerous conditions forcing displacement…
[ Of course, and creating far worse than “dangerous” conditions. I can scarcely imagine the created conditions. I do not actually want to imagine the conditions. ]
Hiding terrorists and hostages in the tunnels deliberately created under civilian objects creates dangerous conditions.
For sure those hostages are far safer with Hamas than they are with the IDF. Three hostages came to the IDF as they had been freed. They had no shirts on to show they had no suicide packs and they were waving a white flag. The IDF immediately killed two of them and wounded the third who managed to duck into a building. He was calling out to the IDF in Hebrew to say that he was an Israeli and not to shoot. When he eventually emerged they IDF shot him dead as well. Obviously the IDF Rules of Engagement are to kill any male Palestinian then but ended up killing more hostages like they did in that raid the other day. This went down like a fart in an elevator in Israel so now the head of Mossad has now had to be sent back to Qatar to negotiate the release of more hostages.
One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. In my view the Zionists are the terrorists.
A terrible, terrible precursor:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/europe/germany-namibia-genocide.html
May 28, 2021
A Forgotten Genocide: What Germany Did in Namibia, and What It’s Saying Now
The German government agreed to recognize the killings of two ethnic groups in Namibia as genocide. What happened more than 100 years ago, why was it forgotten, and what is Germany doing to atone?
By Norimitsu Onishi and Melissa Eddy
It has been called the first genocide of the 20th century, the “forgotten genocide’’ and the genocide that was the precursor of the Holocaust. Tens of thousands of Africans were killed between 1904 and 1908 by German soldiers in what is now Namibia, a vast, arid country northwest of South Africa.
German soldiers targeted people of two ethnic groups — the Herero and the Nama — because they had resisted land grabs by German settlers….
Is this way of man? Man’s worst instincts? Did human kind get better in the 21st century? Are the institutions created after WW2 working or are they underminded by the very nation(s) that created them?
And if Hamas never does that, how far will Israel go?
What about those of us who use the terms you dislike and are therefore siding with Hamas, in your opinion? Does Israel’s safety require our elimination as well?
Israel clearly stated how far it will go with Hamas.
People who are genuinely concerned about Palestinian civilians should plea with Hamas to surrender. If that works, military action will not be necessary.
Hamas is an idea. An idea of liberation. If every last one of them were killed, in short order there would be another iteration of the same idea.
Right. I guess I was able to get my point across. People here who pretend to care about civilians actually like Hamas and consider their actions as an act of liberation.
You are once again looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The Palestinians are an occupied people, they have a right to resist occupation. The occupiers have no right to that occupation.
Hamas could surrender en masse tomorrow and Israel would still continue the bombing. They want that land with its access to offshore hydrocarbons too badly so the ethnic cleansing will continue. Genociders gotta genocide.
That’s “blood libel”
Translated, that means ‘Please pretend that the genocide that is taking place right in front of your face is not a genocide at all.’ Maybe you should read the words of Caitlin Johnstone here-
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/if-i-were-going-to-commit-a-genocide-6299aa6f53f9
“That’s “blood libel”
In which case we all look forward to defending your unsubstantiated allegation in the place appropriate to such action – if you’ve got the bottle.
The UN is not buying the garbage you are selling.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/11/gaza-un-experts-call-international-community-prevent-genocide-against
Fuck off.
Thank you Yves.
there can be peace anytime Israel ends the occupation….well, perhaps that ship has now sailed
I have a wildly speculative thought to offer.
What if the BidenAdmin has a deeply secret agenda of abolishing Israel without any BidenDem fingerprints on it through the mechanism of ” giving Israel enough rope” ? What if the BidenAdmin is secretly prepared to sacrifice the 2024 elections and sacrifice the Palestinians in order to sacrifice Israel?
Its a wild and crazy thought, but maybe it can help illuminate the more mainstream non-wild non-crazy thoughts.
The Zionists themselves may be on a self-destructive path along those same lines.
Perhaps on some level they want to be stopped, need to be stopped, can’t help themselves.
I fail to see any scenario playing out that Israel survives. They are tiny, isolated, and surrounded by enemies. Those pesky Houthis (heh heh) are wreaking havoc on shipping into the region using drones, which are cheap and (speculating) plentiful. Headlines from today, red sea shipping chaos as us military defends threat to commercial vessels, Bloomberg,Tensions Spilling Over From Gaza to Red Sea Escalate, NYT, and I find this one interesting, US Navy brags in game-day video a destroyer is 22-0 against the missiles and other threats Iran-backed rebels are throwing around, Business Insider. What happens when the Houthis get on the scoreboard? How and when will hyper-sonic missiles make the arena? How does a tiny, isolated country survive regional escalation? I just don’t see it.
a one-state solution is Israel’s only chance of survival, but how do you form a state with 98% of Israelis harboring genocidal opinions about the Palestinians (only 1.8% of Israelis polled thought the IDF was using too much firepower).
Rejection of a two-state solution puts Israel in open breach of its peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.
Totally pessimistic here. As always.
I think this blog forms a pocket of good perception, but the ‘Ottos’ are way in abundance.
The media is the message, and they perpetually corrupt the narrative. I imagine, that when a decent 3rd party candidate runs, the MSM will go into overdrive in a ‘Russia ate my homework’ theme. And ‘headline reading’ American public , like sheep, will be driven to the corner of the corral, that the Nat. Security State wants to station their perception.
Present state of the union to bring about growth? its printing money and using the military to control another countries natural resources.
33 trillion in debt, escalating at approx 1tr per 3months? and our Congress is supporting genocide. And we have a Biden/Newsom/Trump choice, i am 3.4 miles past pessimistic. color me blue.
America is now essential for the survival of Israel, Ukraine, Guyana, the EU, Taiwan, Australia, Sth Korea, etc, etc as long as the US can create money to pay there arms companies for overpriced weapons and gadgets this bizarre empire will continue and so will the associated conflicts and terror.
No, the overpriced weapons are visibly underperforming. This will put client and friendly states in a bind: why be exploited by buying feature heavy pricey toys that often don’t work in the field? Thailand just found a face-saying way to exit its agreement to buy F-35s.
The overpriced weapons are not performing because, as the Ukrainian exile Mr Arsestovich (as quoted by Simplicus recently) observed the only paradigm allowed by the Western Oligarchs and their client politicians – following the impractical and ideological dead end of Ayan Rand – does not work. It has no efficacy. It is a dead parrot perching.
To quote;
“Forty billion was thrown into a widely publicized microchip plant in Phoenix (Arizona), like a transfer from Taiwan.
The plant is standing still, there are no workers.
They tried to recruit Taiwanese, but it didn’t work either.
The Americans cannot launch the military-industrial complex, under the existing system, neither with Moroccans, nor with Mexicans, nor with dances, nor with tambourines.
The fundamental motivation of the market is financial speculation.
Arms companies show growth in capitalization, but never show growth in production (because there is practically none).
If production grows, it does so extremely slowly, so as not to break capitalization schemes.
Their task is to increase the value of shares, and not to create new equipment.
Tens of billions are being invested, but there is no growth in production.
And it won’t, for this it is necessary to change the entire paradigm, all the schemes that ensure his well-being.”
End of quote.
There is no functional and operational organisating principle across the Collective West beyond the reductive atomisation of everything. As laid out here:
https://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2018/01/31/in-the-eternal-inferno-fiends-torment-ronald-coase-with-the-fate-of-his-ideas/
A paradigm which literally parodies itself*. Which over a mere few generations has deliberately and systematically managed all competence (knowledge, skill, experience and expertise) out of its culture in order to enforce a fantasy reality of people you would not entrust with the task of counting the railings and who should be permanently locked away in a padded cell. Which, as Arsestovich observes, cannot even use competent immigrant labour to produce anything because financilisation and rent seeking is the only game allowed in town. A game these numpties want to impose across the entire planet.
Point being that if it was only weapons production being impacted in this way most sane people would not be too concerned. Unfortunately, the impact is system wide with no visible prospect of any internally generated and necessary change of course.
* Where the reductionist based atomisation which produces expensive weapons which don’t work operates at even the mundane everyday level. Apparently – at least in the UK (and I’m not making this up) – the simple task of buying a single rail ticket from A to C via B is complicated by the fact that it is cheaper to buy a ‘split’ ticket – on the same train mind – from A to B and then another ticket from B to C then it is to buy one ticket from A to C via B. As yet, you don’t have to get off the train onto the platform at B and then get back on the same train to carry on your journey to C. However, based on previous experience and observation, such a requirement may not be too far in the future.
As the actor Ricky Tomlinson might say; “Superior system my arse.”
1. Are Palestinians not Semitic people? So does anti-Semitism not apply to them?
2. This war is now covered some what by western media thanks to social media consumer journalism. So gazan’s plight is seen and read by people in the west. But hard liners run Israel and they do not realise damage done to good will of Israel in the global community
3, The worst of all are the Arab nations themselves. They simply do not care. their leaders are modern day Caligulas reveling in their excesses from oil profits.