There was a new "war" that just opened up a few days ago. Before I get into this, I'll go ahead and explain the history a little bit for those who are only vaguely familiar with what this is all about.
The state of Israel was formed in 1948, on the winds of a movement called Zionism. Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to their own state, defined as Israel. Zionism and Judaism are two separate things. There are many prominent rabbis out there who are adamant anti-Zionists, many proclaiming that it actually defies the Torah.
The movement for the creation of Israel didn't start in 1948, it goes all the way back to the late 1800s. It started to pick up steam in the 20th century, was then put on a temporary hold during World War II, and subsequently kicked into overdrive following the holocaust. The UN, with a huge push from Britain, established the state of Israel in 1948, as a home for the Jewish people, who just suffered one of the most horrific genocides in human history.
There was a pretty significant problem with this -- there were already people living there. In 1922, Palestine was carved out of the former Ottoman Empire, which crumbled following World War I. There had already been Jewish immigrants living here among Arabs, often peacefully, and often with violence. But when Israel was formed in 1948, it set off a fucking shitstorm. Most Arabs felt (with some degree of accuracy) that Zionism was just another form of imperialism. They had just managed to break free of imperialist rule, and now here's this fucking Israel dragging them back down.
Immediately upon Israel's creation, five separate Arab nations allied themselves with Palestine, and initiated war. Israel shocked the world by handing their asses to them completely on its own.
There were many other conflicts I should probably talk about, but I'm going to skip all of it and talk about the catalyst -- the Six Day War of 1967. Nearly everything we need to know about the modern Middle East originates with this war. By this time, Arab nationalism was a behemoth. Most of the Arab world -- nations like Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia -- felt like they were one people, who only became divided thanks western imperialism. And the embodiment of western imperialism -- Israel -- was not only existing where it shouldn't, but it also displaced and humiliated their fellow Arabs, the Palestinians.
As much as I sympathize with the Palestinian cause, the Arab leaders during this time were really driven by a very dangerous extremism. They spread around racist anti-Semitic propaganda stoking the flames, and gave frightening speeches about literally annihilating the Israelis. We'll never know if they sought out a completely new genocide, since they never got the chance, but the danger was certainly there. However, a lot of this rhetoric was just for show, for politics. A few of the Arab leaders, Nasser in Egypt particularly, often struck secret deals with Israel and kept relations open behind close doors. Underlying this effort to free the Palestinians was the constant need to appease their people -- and with military coups happening every other year, the people needed to be appeased.
Tensions between Israel and its neighbors got so high that another war became inevitable. This happened in 1967, when virtually the entire Arab world declared war on Israel all at once. Their humiliations in the 1948 war, and then in the Suez Crisis in 1956, were seen merely as temporary ceasefires in their effort to liberate the Palestinians. By this time, Israel had been cozying up to Cold War politics, and had been receiving substantial military aid from the United States. Once again, Israel absolutely demolished the Arabs. It only took six days.
I don't take sides when reading about these old wars, because it's sort of hard to. Both "sides" were just assholes. You can sympathize with the Israelis because they didn't want to be utterly annihilated from the face of the earth, and you can sympathize with the Arabs because what the Israelis did to the Palestinians fit the definition of ethnic cleansing. It just depends on which ethnic cleansing you preferred -- that of Palestinians, or that of Israelis.
It's extremely important to understand what Israel did after this victory in 1967. They were in total control, and could do whatever the fuck they wanted.
There was this stretch of land on the west bank of the Dead Sea, on the eastern side of Israel. Since 1948, Jordan possessed this land. In 1967, Israel took it -- along with the 600,000 Palestinian refugees who lived there. Israel never annexed this land, so it's not technically part of Israel -- it's only a "territory.". Since 1967 to this very day, the West Bank Palestinians have been living under Israeli military occupation.
On the western side of Israel was another stretch of land, part of Egypt, called Gaza. Israel acquired this too. The United Nations Security Council soon passed Resolution 252, which demanded that Israel withdraw "from territories occupied" in 1967 and "the termination of all claims or states of belligerency," which Israel has yet to abide by.
Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Since their withdrawal, Hamas -- considered a terrorist organization by western powers -- was democratically elected, and currently holds power in Gaza.
Though Israeli troops withdrew, a naval blockade was put into place. This has forced the Gazans to dig smuggling tunnels beneath the border with Egypt to receive vital supplies for basic survival.
In my opinion, the creation of Israel was one of the worst mistakes of the 20th century. I am an anti-Zionist, and I do not believe the state of Israel has a right to exist. However, if we want a solution to this, that obviously isn't going to work, we need to be realistic. Israel was created generations ago, there are people and families living there who know no other home. Therefore, the two-state solution is the only possible option -- give Palestine full statehood. Some who advocate this position demand that Israel abide the border agreements set up by the UN in 1947, but others are more forgiving, and simply want the borders to return to 1967. If you ask me, after everything that's happened, the Palestinians deserve much more. Plus reparations.
There. History done. Here's where I throw objectivity out the window and start yelling at shit. For all the abuses and crimes Israel has committed throughout its history, it has at the very least been open to discussion through all of it. There were some considerable strides made in the 90s (and there would've been more if Israel and the U.S. hadn't sabotaged it every step of the way). But as things stand now, Israeli politics is completely dominated by right-wing extremists, and they need to be stopped. There will never be any hope for peace in the Middle East as long as these racists and fascists are running Israel.
Without any notice, Israeli soldiers will force Palestinians out of their homes, which are then demolished to make way for Israeli "settlements." According to the United Nations, the settlements are entirely illegal. These settlements have been encroaching into Palestinian lands for decades, systematically shoving these people away from water and farmland. More than any other single factor, water is what determines Israel's policy.
This is unquestionably ethnic cleansing, which is the "policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to purposely remove by violent and terror-inspiring means as well as deportation and killing the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas." Many argue that it's an outright genocide. Whatever the case, ethnic cleansing is definitely a step towards genocide. Here's the opinion of a woman named Suzanne Weiss:
I am a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust, the Nazis’ mass murder of Europe’s Jews. The tragic experience of my family and community under Hitler makes me alert to the suffering of other peoples denied their human rights today — including the Palestinians.
True, Hitler’s Holocaust was unique. The Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Hitler started with that, but went on to extermination. In my family’s city in Poland, Piotrkow, 99 per cent of the Jews perished.
Yet for me, the Israeli government’s actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family’s experiences under Hitlerism: the inhuman walls, the checkpoints, the daily humiliations, killings, diseases, the systematic deprivation. There’s no escaping the fact that Israel has occupied the entire country of Palestine, and taken most of the land, while the Palestinians have been expelled, walled off, and deprived of human rights and human dignity.
Documentary filmmaker John Pilger has a film called "Palestine is Still the Issue." He talks to Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, along with many Israelis who oppose what their government is doing. If you want any understanding of what the Palestinians go through under military occupation -- humiliation, death, racist apartheid -- you should watch this. It's up on youtube.
The Palestinian resistance have every right to fire back at Israeli soldiers, in the same way that the uprising in Warsaw had the right to fire back at their Nazi occupiers. Which is why it makes me so nervous to see Hamas in power in Gaza, who don't seem to have any problem with firing at civilians. But it's important to remember that these are incredibly desperate acts of people who have had everything taken from them. The brutality of the occupation itself created Hamas. It's also important not to confuse Hamas with Gaza, like what the racists in Israel have done. The election that brought Hamas into power was actually fairly close, and a good portion of Gazans did not vote for them. It's similar to why the Taliban has so much popular support in Pakistan. No one has any great love for the Taliban or their fascist philosophy, it's just that they're the only group that's organized enough to fight back against imperialists bombing their homes.
Israel attacked Gaza only four years ago, with Operation Cast Lead. This was in response to rockets being fired into Israel, which Hamas said was done to lift the naval blockade. Israel hasn't yet led a ground invasion into Gaza in the recent outbreak of violence, but they did during Cast Lead. 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Cast Lead -- one thousand of these were civilians. 13 Israelis were killed. 4 of these were from friendly fire. Cast Lead was a fucking massacre, and countless war crimes were committed by Israel. Wikipedia:
On March 24, a report from the UN team responsible for the protection of children in war zones was released, it found "hundreds" of violations of the rights of children and accused Israeli soldiers of using children as human shields, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier. One case involved using an 11-year-old boy as a human shield, by forcing him to enter suspected buildings first and also inspect bags. The report also mentioned the boy was used as a shield when Israeli soldiers came under fire. The Guardian has also received testimony from three Palestinian brothers aged 14, 15, and 16, who all claimed to have been used as human shields.
The Israelis also used white phosphorus munitions, which is a war crime. Israel claimed they were only used as "smoke screens."
In 2010, activists from around the world boarded six ships full of humanitarian aid, and attempted to break the blockade. The Israeli Navy responded by boarding the ships and murdering nine activists.
Throughout all these atrocities, America has stood virtually alone defending Israel, as the rest of the world looked on in horror. And the war that Israel just instigated is no different.
Five days ago, Israel began yet another senseless assault on Gaza, Operation Pillar of Cloud. Every explanation Israel has been feeding the media to justify this atrocity are complete lies, and it is driving me absolutely insane to see these fascists repeating them over and over and over again without being questioned.
Israel says this was to prevent Hamas from launching rockets into their territory. This makes no sense, because there had been no rockets launched into their territory for two full days before they started this war, and Hamas had just agreed to a truce.
This whole thing started when Israeli soldiers murdered two innocent Palestinians. On November 5th, Israeli border guards shot and killed a 23-year-old mentally challenged man when he approached their fence. On November 8, eight tanks and four bulldozers invaded southern Gaza. A 13-year-old boy playing football was shot to death.
Hamas retaliated. They attacked a military truck, and a number of Israeli soldiers were wounded. Then they started launching rockets into Israel, none of which hit anything because all the rockets they have are shit.
Then a ceasefire was called. There were talks. Ahmed Jabari, second-in-command to Hamas' military wing, received the draft to a more permanent truce, and it appeared he was going to sign it. Jabari was a very cautious person, and he would not have been outside travelling around if a ceasefire had not been called. A few hours after he received the draft, Israel pinpointed his car and assassinated him, breaking the ceasefire, and instigating the war. The Israeli negotiator who had been mediating between the two parties has come out and said these things himself.
Over and over again, I see Israel and the US push these lies about Israel's "right to defend itself." This is not a war of defense. Israel broke the ceasefire and started the war. Chomsky:
"When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing... You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying someone else’s land. That’s not defense. Call it what you like, it’s not defense."
This is utter insanity. Gaza is not some secret terrorist moon base out to conquer the planet and kill all the Jews. It is a mass of 1.6 million refugees crammed into a 25 mile long strip of land. It is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. Over half of the people living there are under the age of eighteen. To purposefully initiate war and mass bombings on such an area is a genocide. Gaza is not a nation. It does not have any sort of organized army, or any means to defend itself. It is nothing more than a massive open-air prison -- arguably a concentration camp. Israel possesses the 4th most powerful army on the planet, and it is backed by the 1st. In only five days, the death toll in Gaza is at 75, a full third of them children. Six hundred people have suffered injuries -- nearly half of them children. The hospitals are reaching their breaking points, and since Israel bombed the smuggling tunnels and closed off the border, they have no means to get resupplied. According to Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the goal is not to "defend" Israel against anything, the "goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages." The Nazis also thought they were the "chosen people." They also started wars for "defense."
I have been unable to turn away from my computer screen since this massacre began. I've found a guy named Harry Fear, and he's gone viral. He's a reporter living in Gaza, and he's been feeding the world constant updates about Israel's crimes. I've watched his follower count rise from a couple thousand, when this first started, to 19,000 right now. If you're interested, his live feed is here, and his twitter is here.
When Harry sleeps, he leaves the audio of his feed on, so that you can tune in and listen to the sounds of the massacre. It is a never-ending buzz of drones constantly flying overhead. Occasionally a bomb explodes. Gazans are unable to leave their homes, as the Israelis drop bombs on everything that moves around in the streets. These are the conditions in which people have had to live for the past few days -- they are stranded in whatever shelter they can find, endlessly tormented by the nonstop buzzing of low-flying drones. The sound is still in my head, and I can't get it out.
Last night, around 3 or 4 am Gaza time, I was listening to these gutwrenching sounds as I followed the #GazaUnderAttack tag on twitter. The Israel Defense Force initiated the heaviest bombardment that has yet happened in the last five days, and I got to listen to it and see the reactions of Gazans on twitter, in real time. It was one of the most horrifying experiences of my entire life.
Remember: I was listening to this whole attack take place. I couldn't stop shaking. I'm still jittery, all these hours later. I felt a weird mix of helplessness and uncontrollable fury. I wanted to be there so I could fight with them. I wished the Israeli army would somehow be smashed so this slaughter would end. Above everything, I didn't want to feel so useless. I sat there crying, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from losing control and breaking down altogether. I think all these sounds and emotions flooding in at once may have triggered my fight or flight instinct. I have the luxury of being completely safe behind a computer screen. I can turn it off whenever I want. Palestinians live with this constantly. And I don't know how.
You get these smug idiots pretending to be above the fray, endlessly exclaiming that "both sides" need to calm down. This is basically an admission of their ignorance about what's happening. Israel started the war. Israel is massacring people. The Palestinian resistance is fighting in defense, it couldn't be more clear who the aggressor is. But it's even worse when some stupid fuck actually tries to defend Israel. I want to grab them and shake them and yell in their stupid fucking faces. Why are they acting like they know what's going? They don't know. They have absolutely no idea what's happening.
Israel's propaganda war has been flawless. They've really been hitting twitter.
The Israeli people are bombarded with a nonstop message of fear, and it's working. The last poll of Israelis I saw showed that around 90% of them supported the war, and 75% wishes for it to continue. IDF propaganda is reminiscent of the Cold War.
I tried to watch CNN earlier. The anchor was interviewing one of the few antiwar members of Israel's parliament, and I couldn't pay attention anymore after about five seconds in -- the anchor referred to the Gaza Strip as Israel's "neighbor." That is the word she used. I was floored. Everything else said afterwards was just white noise. This is the context in which the Israel-Palestinian conflict is brought into American homes -- no mention of Israel's brutal 45-year military occupation. No mention of the blockade. No mention of the demolition of homes. No mention Israel's or America's nonstop blocking of Palestine's UN request for statehood, year after year after year. Gaza and Israel are "neighbors." That's all we need to know. The end.
Israel is completely dominating the propaganda war. I mention Chomsky's "propaganda model" from Manufacturing Consent sometimes in this blog, and what we're seeing here couldn't be a better example of his premise -- there is a set narrative that the media is supposed to stick to. For days, the media shouted about the three Israelis that were killed -- a tragedy, to be sure -- and one or two rockets that were harmlessly shot out of the sky by Israel's Iron Dome over Tel Aviv. Nobody talked about the attack I just described. No one's talking about the sheer terror that's engulfing the people of Gaza, or how disproportionate Israel's use of force actually is. Israel is the eternal victim.
Literally every foreign policy expert I've seen talk about this (note: I do not watch cable news) has been openly wondering about what Israel's real goals are. Not a single one of them is taking Israel's narrative seriously. A lot of people are saying it has to do with Iran. Hamas is allied with the Irani regime, which gives Israel a pretext to kill them. They've been calling Gaza Iran's "front line." There's also the fact that elections are coming up, and war never fails to shift the entire country to the right -- a coalition Israel will need if it wishes to pursue a war on Iran.
Norman Finkelstein, who is probably the most important voice alive on this conflict, doubts that there will be a ground invasion. Harry Fear has been saying on his feed that this is exactly how Cast Lead started, and that a ground invasion is imminent. Nobody knows what's going to happen because nobody can tell what the fuck Israel is doing.
If you ask me to speculate, the whole operation almost looks like practice. Iran is the most powerful nation in the region after Israel, and no one is seriously contemplating a major ground invasion. If there's going to be a war, it will be from the air. This assault on Gaza has been almost entirely air raids. It almost seems like Israel is giving its military some practice. American and Israeli armed forces just completed the largest joint drilling exercise ever. It "ended" just a single day before Israel began its assault on Gaza.
But even this needs to be taken with a grain of salt, because it was very clear in the leadup to the election that the Pentagon did not want a war with Iran. Whether they wanted it at all, or they just thought was bad timing, remains open to speculation. But as Netanyahu has made clear in the past (when he didn't know he was being recorded), he really doesn't give a shit what America thinks, or the United Nations for that matter. This video is years ago.
"America won't get in our way. It's easily moved."
It's easy to see why the U.S. and Israel are such strong allies, and why both are universally hated by every other nation on the planet. It's because our government acts exactly like this. America, like Israel, has no "friends." Only interests.
Whatever Israel's reasons for doing this, they did it knowing they're going to be in it for the long haul. Ahmed Jabari, the man Israel assassinated, was one of the few people who could keep all the different militant factions in Gaza in line. With him dead (and with his death brought about in such a cowardly way), there is no hope whatsoever for peace in the near future. And Israel was well aware of this.
I am furious. I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe the world is sitting back and watching another western power commit yet another genocide in the year 2012. I can't believe how much racist support this genocide has around the globe. This cannot continue. The United Nations was formed to prevent this from happening again, and if it doesn't step up and do something, there is a very real risk of an all-out Hitler-esque genocide in the coming decades. Chris Hedges' words about Operation Cast Lead a few years ago couldn't possibly be more relevant right now. Please take a few moments to watch this.
