Comment by Riaz Haq on November 12, 2023 at 4:58pm

Ishaan Tharoor
@ishaantharoor
"We're rolling out Nakba 2023" — Israeli minister just flatly says it, while many in the West tie themselves up in knots to avoid seeing things as they are

https://x.com/ishaantharoor/status/1723712055021105388?s=20

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https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-12/ty-article/israeli-s...

'We're Rolling Out Nakba 2023,' Israeli Minister Says on Northern Gaza Strip Evacuation
Likud Minister Avi Dichter says that 'war is impossible to wage when there are masses between the tanks and the soldiers.' While Netanyahu does not support resettling the Gaza Strip, he says will not give up security control over it 'under any circumstances'

Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud) was asked in a news interview on Saturday whether the images of northern Gaza Strip residents evacuating south on the IDF’s orders are comparable to images of the Nakba. He replied: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war – as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza – with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.”

When asked again whether this was the “Gaza Nakba”, Dichter – a member of the security cabinet and former Shin Bet director – said “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”

When later asked if this means Gaza City residents won’t be allowed to return, he replied: “I don’t know how it’ll end up happening since Gaza City is one-third of the Strip – half the land’s population but a third of the territory.”

The Gaza Strip’s settlements were evacuated by Israel in 2005 during a unilateral disengagement helmed by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. Following coalition members’ declarations regarding reversing this move,

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked on Friday if he supports Israeli resettlement in the Gaza Strip after the war. “No, I don’t think so,” he answered, “I said I want full security control. Gaza must be demilitarized. I don’t think (resettlement) is a realistic goal, I’m saying it plainly.”

Netanyahu, who spoke at a press conference alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz, added that he won’t give up control over security in Gaza “under any circumstances.”

In response to a question about the war’s aftermath and the possibility of the Palestinian Authority controlling the Strip, he said: "I repeat, we will have total security control, with the ability to enter whenever we want to eliminate any terrorists who re-emerge. I can say what won’t happen – there will be no Hamas."

"I can say what else will not happen – there will not be a civil authority there that educates its children to hate the State of Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel. There cannot be an authority there that pays the families of murderers. There cannot be an authority there whose leader has not yet condemned the terrible massacre more than 30 days after it occurred," added Netanyahu.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 13, 2023 at 10:57am

From Ahmad Faruqui:

FIVE ISRAELI ANALYSTS CRITIQUE ISRAEL FOR THE CURRENT CRISIS AND A PUBLIC OPINION POLL SHOWS THAT ISRAELIS ARE FED UP WITH NETANYAHU

ONE

In an interview with POLITICO, Ehud Olmert argued Netanyahu suffered a “nervous breakdown,” as he sought to avoid being thrown out of office for failing to safeguard national security in the murderous Hamas attacks of October 7. Olmert added, “Bibi has been working all his life on the false pretense that he is Mr. Security. He’s ‘Mr. Bullshit.’

TWO

Professor Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who teaches at the University of Exeter in the UK, states that despite claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is only a democracy for its Jewish citizens and not for its Palestinian citizens.

THREE

Professor Avi Shlaim, an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, says: “There is no denying that the establishment of the state of Israel involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. Three-fourths of a million Palestinians, more than half of the Arab population, became refugees, and the name Palestine was wiped off the map."

Turning to recent events, in another conversation, he said: “Israelis claim that they gave the Palestinians a chance to turn Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East. But they did nothing of the sort. They turned Gaza into an open air prison. The media attention has been on the Hamas attack and on Israel’s response, which is out of all proportion. I condemn both. I condemn the Hamas attack because it was against civilians. And killing civilians is wrong, period. But the Israeli response has been brutal and savage and out of all proportion. And revenge is not a policy. And what Israel is doing is state-sponsored terrorism. Or state terrorism. It’s on a much more serious scale than the attack on Israel.

“The point I really want to emphasize is that the conflict didn’t start on October 7. People don’t ask why did Hamas launch this attack. And the answer is to be found in the context. And the context is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967.”

FOUR

In 2015, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and said Israel’s right wing extremists had perfected the art of playing victim. In their eyes, they were God’s chosen people and could only do good. That gave them the right to dehumanize the people whose land they were now living on (and this was reconfirmed recently by the Israeli defense minister when he called them “human animals”). They could kill them at will without a pang of guilt.

Levy said he asked Ehud Barak, later prime minister, what he would have done if he had been born into a Palestinian family. The truth came out when he said that he would have grown up to be a terrorist. On November 9, Levy wrote in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper that he edits, that unless Israel examines its failings, soon it will be fighting another war.

FIVE

A former Israeli general, Noam Tibon, told NPR: “Benjamin Netanyahu cannot stay even one more day on the chair of the prime minister.  He is a failure and he must go.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 14, 2023 at 11:52am

Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
I grew up in a Zionist household, spent 12 years in a Zionist youth movement, lived 4 years in Israel, and have friends and family who served in the IDF.

When that is your world, it's hard to see apartheid when it's happening.

1/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
I grew up in France, in a Jewish community where the norm was unconditional love and support for Israel. Zionism wasn't even named because that's all we knew. Jews were nearly wiped by pogroms and repeated holocausts, and a Jewish state was the only way to keep us safe.

2/16

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aphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
All Zionism is rooted in trauma and fear. It is first and foremost an ideology of self-liberation. It's about love Jewish people, survival for Jewish people. But Zionism is like any other ethnic nationalism, it's about prioritizing *our* safety and well-being.

3/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
Like all nationalisms, we were fed a historical narrative completely divorced from reality: that Palestine was a largely uninhabited piece of desert before we settled it; that in 1948 Palestinians willingly left because they were making room for Arab armies to...

4/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
..."throw Jews to the sea"; that Arab leaders turned down all Israeli and US peace offers and were unwilling to share the land; that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East; that despite terrorism, the IDF upholds the highest moral standards; so on and so on.

5/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
So the first reason that Israelis will never willingly make peace with Palestinians is that Israelis (and Zionist Jews around the world) live in a parallel world. They know alternate historical facts that feed more nationalism, militarism, and extremism.

6/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
So when the IDF bombs Gaza and kills children, the average Israelis thinks that 1) it is the Palestinians' fault--for not agreeing to peace, for continuing to threaten and attack Israel, etc 2) Israel is merely defending itself and that there is simply no alternative.

8/16

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 14, 2023 at 11:52am

Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
The same rationale justifies Gaza's open-air prison; military checkpoints in the West Bank; bulldozing homes; etc. Israelis even made up the term "Pallywood", because for them, it's all a show to turn the world against Israel. The suffering is either fake or self-inflicted.

9/16


https://x.com/RaphMim/status/1392323085718589443?s=20

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
Of course, there are some Israeli leftists and anti-Zionists who fight for Palestinian liberation. But it's a tiny, and shrinking, minority. Most Israelis don't consider what it means for Palestinian freedom, dignity, and physical well-being to be systematically erased.

10/16


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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
Israel is, by every definition, an apartheid state: if a Jew and an Arab commit the exact same crime in the West Bank, they will face two different legal systems. The Jew will face a civil court, the Arab will face a military court. Two legal systems for two ethnic groups.

11/16


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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
But Israelis can't fathom that this is unjust. When they fight against people calling the occupation of the West Bank "apartheid", it's because Israelis genuinely believe that it's all self-defense and needed and legitimate.

12/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
These two factors (alternate history and dehumanization) mean that it is *physically impossible*--and I mean that in the most literal way--for Israel to willingly end the occupation and agree to a just solution to the conflict. Peace cannot come from within Israel.

13/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
Israeli society is getting more extreme, more nationalistic, more violent, and more entrenched in its own historical narrative & its own self-victimization. At this point, it is simply delusional to expect that things change will come from Israel.

14/16

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Raphael Mimoun
@RaphMim
That means consumer boycott of Israeli goods, corporate boycott of Israeli technology, and sanctions by Israel's main trade partner and political supporters, the US and EU. Those are the only measures that can meaningfully push Israel toward ending the occupation.

16/16

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 14, 2023 at 4:08pm

William Dalrymple
@DalrympleWill
Few know the history of the violent explusion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948: it is not taught in schools, and instead many- myself included- were taught outright lies about Palestine being an empty desert, "a land without a people for a people without a land." As ideas for a second Nakba are being drawn up right and discussed right now, as you read this post, it is vitally important we remember this terrible history, and Britain’s role in it, and do everything in our power to stop it being repeated, with the full support of our ignorant, bigoted, cowardly and sometimes outrightly Islamophobic leaders.

https://x.com/DalrympleWill/status/1719597794322006502?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 14, 2023 at 4:11pm

S.L. Kanthan
@Kanthan2030
Israel's propaganda ("hasbara") rests upon two fake logic:

🔹"Israel is defending itself"

🔹"Genocide in Gaza is justified because Hamas is using civilians as a human shield"

First, no country has a right to self-defense when it's occupying others and depriving them of basic rights. In fact, it's Palestinians -- the victims -- who have the right to use force as self-defense.

Second, Israel needs to show proof for each case of destruction of civilian infrastructure. Otherwise, wantonly bombing schools and hospitals is just genocidal and murderous.

https://x.com/Kanthan2030/status/1724454149579026883?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 14, 2023 at 4:16pm

John Oliver on Israel-Hamas war: ‘Any conversation around this has to begin with empathy’ | John Oliver | The Guardian


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/nov/13/john-oliver-on...

Oliver sought to zero in on “one of the biggest misconceptions” bandied about over the last month: “The tendency to collapse leaders and citizens when discussing this. To assume that Netanyahu speaks for all Israelis, or that Hamas speaks for all Palestinians, because that is emphatically not the case.”

Oliver started with Hamas, which was founded in 1987 and has been in charge of Gaza for 17 years. Many commentators in Israel and the US have dismissed all Gazans as supportive of Hamas with the claim that Gazans elected them to power. “It is true that at one point, Gazans did elect Hamas,” Oliver noted, “But if you think that makes them all complicit in war crimes their government commits, then boy do I have some bad news for you about decades of US foreign policy.”


And Netanyahu has covertly funded Hamas to play them off their more organized and legitimate rival, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. “Netanyahu took the risk of betting that he could control Hamas, and use them to his own ends, and he was horribly wrong about that,” Oliver explained.


In sum, “Palestinians and Israelis have both been relentlessly let down by their leaders and the result has been a decades-long cycle of extremism, violence, retaliation and more extremism,” Oliver said. Palestinians have experienced that twice over – “subject to the inadequacies and cruelties of a Hamas government and the punishing isolation and daily miseries of an Israeli one”, trapping them in what has been called an “open air prison” by many humanitarian groups.



——-



And the US has “emphatically picked a side” with $3.8bn in annual aid to Israel, including many, many weapons used to bomb Gaza. Oliver refused to show any footage of the atrocities in Gaza, and instead played clips of displaced Palestinian children expressing their confusion in a refugee camp. “It should be impossible to see those kids and not feel shattered,” he said. “There is a natural human impulse to protect children – to grab a toddler you don’t know if you see them running into traffic. And if that impulse is broken or dis-incentivized by a government, then there is absolutely a humanitarian crisis no matter what any asshole has to say about it.”

Oliver didn’t have a solution for peace in the Middle East, and acknowledged that even if he did, “this really would be the worst voice in which to relay that message. But it does seem to me personally that a ceasefire has to be the first step,” he said. “Continuing down this path only creates more extremists, which is the last thing that anybody needs.


“Any conversation around this has to begin with empathy, or we’re just fucked,” he concluded. “We know that dehumanizing people leads to violence. We know that violence leads to even more brutality and destruction, and we know that crucially, breaking that cycle is unfortunately going to require leadership significantly different than the ones currently in place.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 15, 2023 at 10:32am

John Oliver on Netanyahu and Hamas:

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/tv-series/israel-hamas-war-last-week-...

the truth is, Netanyahu has been struggling to hold office in the last half-decade. Voters there actually endured five elections in just four years, because neither Netanyahu nor anyone else could form a stable majority. He only made it back into power last year, by forming a coalition with those on the furthest right wing of Israeli politics — leading to the most right-wing government in the country’s history. His cabinet is stocked with extremists. Take Itamar Ben-Gvir. He’s been convicted on at least eight charges, including supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism. He was once considered so fringe, the Israeli army rejected him from mandatory service. But he’s now Netanyahu’s minister of national security. Meanwhile, his current finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has said, “Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There is none. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” He’s also advocated for “victory through settlement,” very basically seizing land in the West Bank, and driving Palestinians from their homes to the point where, quote, “I abort their hopes of establishing a state.” Settlements are widely understood to be against international law, yet Smotrich wants a massive expansion of them, and Netanyahu gave him a special role in charge of settlement affairs. But perhaps the most surprising way Netanyahu has jeopardized Israel’s safety is that, for years, he deliberately used Hamas as a way to undermine the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas, which administers parts of the West Bank and has much more legitimacy on the world stage. Experts say the idea was basically divide and conquer — if Palestinian leadership remains split, and one of the main parties at the table has a terrorism label on it, it’s going to be much easier for Netanyahu to refuse to engage with them, and say he has “no partner for peace.” Here’s Smotrich explaining that strategy out loud in 2015.

The Palestinian Authority is a burden and Hamas is a terrorist organization that no one will recognize, and no one will give it status in the ICC. No one will let them lead a decision in the security council. The main pitch we are playing now is international delegitimization. Hamas at this point, in my opinion, will be an asset.

John: “Hamas is an asset.” If you’re calling the group that has repeatedly killed your people an asset, it shows pretty clearly that what you care about isn’t safety, but total control. And for years, Netanyahu’s government was actually allowing suitcases of cash to be delivered to Hamas, something by the way that earned suitcases of cash the title “most morally disreputable way to transfer money” for the nine hundredth year in a row. When the scandal broke, Netanyahu insisted that that money was for humanitarian aid. Which still doesn’t explain why it had to be delivered in luggage in the back of a fucking car. The point is, Netanyahu took the risk of betting that he could control Hamas, and use them to his own ends. And he was horribly wrong about that, to the point that his ministers are now getting screamed out of hospitals. So, to recap so far: Palestinians and Israelis have both been relentlessly let down by their leaders, and the result has been a decades-long cycle of extremism, violence, retaliation, and more extremism. And Palestinians have been on the receiving end of that extremism twice over — subject to the inadequacies and cruelties of a Hamas government and the punishing isolation and daily misery of an Israeli one. Because Israel’s approach to Gaza has been truly punishing — fencing people in, limiting exits, and trapping them inside of what has been called an open-air prison by many human rights organizations. Life under a blockade there has been hard for a long time, even when there aren’t bombs flying.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 15, 2023 at 4:56pm

Al Jazeera English
@AJEnglish
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, says that Israel cannot claim the right of ‘self-defence’ under international law because Gaza is a territory which it occupies


https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1724872397801902304?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 20, 2023 at 11:35am

From Ahmad F:

I COULD HARDLY BELIEVE WHAT ISRAEL'S FOUNDERS AND RULERS HAD TO SAY ABOUT PALESTINIANS, ARABS AND MUSLIMS -- Each quote one is more shocking than the previous quote

Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country.
--David Ben-Gurion, 1956

We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.
—Moshe Dayan, April 1956

As soon as we have a big settlement here, we’ll seize the land, we’ll become strong, and then we’ll take care of the Left Bank [of the Jordan River]. We’ll expel them from there, too. Let them go back to the Arab countries.
—Jewish settler, 1891

[We] must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to hate us.
—Israel Zangwill, 1905

Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English, or America is American.
—Chaim Weizmann, 1919

I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral.
—David Ben-Gurion, 1938

Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.
—Benny Morris, 2004

Maybe England will chance upon an empty piece of land in need
of a white population, and perhaps the Jews will happen to be these whites . . .
—Chaim Weizmann, 1914

We welcome the friendship of Christian Zionists.
—Theodore Herzl, 1897

The entire Christian church, in its variety of branches . . . will be
compelled . . . to teach the history and development of the nascent Jewish state. No commonwealth on earth will start with such propaganda for its exploitation in world thought, or with such eager and minute scrutiny, by millions of people, of its slightest detail.
—A. A. Berle, 1918

Christian Zionists favor Jewish Zionism as a step leading not to the
perpetuation but to the disappearance of the Jews.
—Morris Jastrow, 1919

Zionism has but brought to light and given practical form and a
recognized position to a principle which had long consciously or
unconsciously guided English opinion.
—Nahum Sokolow, 1919

Christian Zionism and Jewish Zionism have combined to create an
international alliance superseding anything that NATO or UN has to
offer.
—Daniel Lazare, 2003

Put positively: Other than Israel’s Defense Forces, American Christian Zionists may be the Jewish state’s ultimate strategic asset.
—Daniel Pipes, 2003

US prestige in the Muslim world has suffered a severe blow, and US
strategic interests in the Mediterranean and Near East have been seriously prejudiced.
—George F. Kennan, January 1948

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