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Official enemies and Western ‘Newspeak’ on Israel-Palestine
Creating ‘us’ and ‘them’ narratives is a staple for many governments—a convenient way of keeping things crudely simple and trying to unite a population at home that might be willing to focus negative feelings on external enemies rather than domestic concerns. Only by resisting such ploys can we play a small part in creating a more stable and just world.
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This way for the genocide, ladies and gentlemen
Israel taught the Palestinians to communicate in the primitive howl of hatred, war, death and annihilation. But it is not Israel’s assault on Gaza I fear most. It is the complicity of an international community that licenses Israel’s genocidal slaughter and accelerates a cycle of violence it may not be able to control.
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Hamas attacks on Israel inevitable
Israel strictly controls Gaza’s land borders, airspace and coastal zones with a combination of conventional military hardware and high-tech surveillance devices. It has also enforced a harsh import and export blockade since 2008. As Morgan Duchesney argues, the human costs of Israel’s brutal occupation always meant that a terrible retaliation by Hamas was inevitable.
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Stop the genocide in Gaza
It feels like 1939. A far-right regime is in the early stages of killing potentially hundreds of thousands of people or more. But instead of debating whether or not to enter the war, the ‘Allies’ are sending weapons and aid to that same regime—Israel—that is mobilizing its military to carry out a genocide, and criminalizing those at home who would speak out.
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Jeff Halper: Zionism has destroyed two peoples
In the end, Zionism has destroyed two peoples, the Palestinians and the Jews. But tonight we must all vow to do whatever is necessary to save the Palestinian people and restore their national rights. Forging a shared and inclusive and egalitarian state and society sounds absurd tonight, even a cruel, inappropriate joke. But that is where we must go.
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Reaping the whirlwind
Nothing excuses the murder of innocent civilians. But if that is true for Hamas, it is also true for the IDF. The numbers of dead prior to Hamas’s violent incursion speak volumes. Palestinians who live in Gaza and in the West Bank have been systematically murdered by a state that is determined to cleanse its lands of Palestinians and build a nation only for the Jews. Who will stop Israel?
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The savagery of the war against the Palestinian people
Gaza is a ruin populated by nearly two million people. After Israel’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza, the UN reported that “people are literally sleeping amongst the rubble; children have died of hypothermia.” A variation of this sentence has been written after each of these bombings and will be written when this one finally comes to an end.
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What do you expect?
If the diaspora really wants to take a shot at making things “normal” in Israel, it has two paths: to either fully back genocide or give up on Zionism and push Israel towards reconciliation and integration. I know it’s useless to type all this out. I don’t have much faith in the second option happening. My Zionist diaspora isn’t into it at all.
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Palestinians speak the language of violence Israel taught them
The indiscriminate shootings of Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations, the kidnapping of civilians, drone attacks on a variety of targets from tanks to automated machine gun nests, are the familiar language of the Israeli occupier. Regimes implanted and maintained by violence engender violence.
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Hamas campaign recalls Tet Offensive: Could this also be a turning point?
As in Vietnam in 1968, the lessons are there to learn, if people are prepared to learn them. When history presents us with parallels, albeit imperfect ones, we need to pay heed. One thing is for sure: Israelis and their allies can no longer ignore Palestine, pretending that the brutal occupation can continue with impunity.