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2 months agoWith the news of Google’s new deal with Israel, I was considering Nebula. That is sad to hear.
Say no to authoritarianism, say yes to socialism
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Joined 11 months ago
Cake day: August 18th, 2023
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Occupation:Amnesty Report, HRW Report, AIDA Report, OCHA Report 2017
Forced Displacement of Palestinians continue to this day: 972mag, MEE, Haaretz
Israel’s declaration of independence recognizes the equality of all the country’s residents, Arabs included, but equality is not explicitly enshrined in Israel’s Basic Laws, the closest thing it has to a constitution. Some rights groups argue that dozens of laws indirectly or directly discriminate against Arabs.
Israel’s establishment as an explicitly Jewish state is a primary point of contention, with many of the state’s critics arguing that this by nature casts non-Jews as second-class citizens with fewer rights. The 1950 Law of Return, for example, grants all Jews, as well as their children, grandchildren, and spouses, the right to move to Israel and automatically gain citizenship. Non-Jews do not have these rights. Palestinians and their descendants have no legal right to return to the lands their families held before being displaced in 1948 or 1967.
Statistics from IDI show that Arab citizens of Israel continue to face structural disadvantages. For example, poorly funded schools in their localities contribute to their attaining lower levels of education and their reduced employment prospects and earning power compared to Israeli Jews. More than half of the country’s Arab families were considered poor in 2020, compared to 40 percent of Jewish families. Socioeconomic disparities between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens are less pronounced in mixed cities, though a government audit in July 2022 found Arabs had less access to municipal services in those cities.
Land policies in more recent years have not only failed to reverse the earlier land seizures, but in many cases further restricted the land available for residential growth. Since 1948, the government has authorized the creation of more than 900 “Jewish localities” in Israel, but none for Palestinians except for a handful of government-planned townships and villages in the Negev and Galilee, created largely to concentrate previously dispersed Bedouin communities.
Arab Israelis are second class citizens including Education (2001 report)
Palestinians denied civil rights including Military Court
Palestinian Prisoners in Israel including Child abuse
Human Shields including Children (2013 Report)
Settler Violence Torture and Abuse in Interrogations No freedom of movement Water control
1948 to 1967:Officially adopted on March 10, 1948, Plan Dalet specified which Palestinian cities and towns would be targeted and gave instructions for how to drive out their inhabitants and destroy their communities. It called for:
>>“Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously >>“Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”Three quarters of all Palestinians, about 750,000 people, were forced from their homes and made refugees during Israel’s establishment. Their homes, land, and other belongings were systematically destroyed or taken over by Israelis, while they were denied the right to return or any sort of compensation. More than 400 Palestinian towns and villages, including vibrant urban centers, were destroyed or repopulated with Jewish Israelis
Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948)
The Governments of the Arab States hereby confirm at this stage the view that had been repeatedly declared by them on previous occasions, such as the London Conference and before the United Nations mainly, the only fair and just solution to the problem of Palestine is the creation of United State of Palestine based upon the democratic principles which will enable all its inhabitants to enjoy equality before the law, and which would guarantee to all minorities the safeguards provided for in all democratic constitutional States affording at the same time full protection and free access to Holy Places. The Arab States emphatically and repeatedly declare that their intervention in Palestine has been prompted solely by the considerations and for the aims set out above and that they are not inspired by any other motive whatsoever. They are, therefore, confident that their action will receive the support of the United Nations as tending to further the aims and ideals of the United Nations as set out in its Charter.
Arab League advocating for Unified Binational State 1948
The IDF’s meticulous preparations to conquer the territories had already begun early in the 1960s. They were, in part, the product of the short and bitter Israeli experience in the conquest — and subsequent evacuation — of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip in the Sinai War of 1956.
It’s against this background that we should understand the document titled “Proposal to Organize the Military Government,” written by IDF head of operations, Col. Elad Peled, in June 1961, and presented to Chief of Staff Tzvi Tzur. Six years before the Six-Day War, the proposal consisted of detailed initial planning for the forces that would be needed to rule in what would become the occupied territories.
Military administrative government was in effect from 1949 to 1966 over some geographical areas of Israel having large Arab populations, primarily the Negev, Galilee, and the Triangle. The residents of these areas were subject to martial law. The Israel Defense Forces enforced strict residency rules. Any Arab not registered in a census taken during November 1948 was deported. Permits from the military governor had to be procured to travel more than a given distance from a person’s registered place of residence, and curfew, administrative detentions, and expulsions were common. Although the military administration was officially for geographical areas, and not people, its restrictions were seldom enforced on the Jewish residents of these areas. In the early 1950s, martial law ceased to be in effect for those Arab citizens living in predominantly Jewish cities of Jaffa, Ramla, and Lod, constituting a total of approximately 15% of the Arab population of Israel. But military rule remained in place on the remaining Arab population elsewhere within Israel until 1966.
This period is remembered for its extreme crackdown on political rights, as well as unaccountable military brutality. Most political and civil organization was prohibited. Flying of Palestinian flag, as well as other expressions of Palestinian patriotism were prohibited. Furthermore, despite theoretical guarantee of full political rights, military government personnel frequently made threats against Arabs citizens if they did not vote in elections for the candidates favored by the authorities. Perhaps the most commemorated incidence of military brutality in this time period was the Kafr Qasim massacre in 1956, in which the Israel Border Police killed 48 people (19 men, 6 women and 23 children aged 8–17) as they were returning home from work in the evening. The Israeli army had ordered that all Arab villages in the proximity of the Green Line be placed under curfew. However, this order came into effect before the residents of these localities, including residents of Kafr Qasim, were notified.
Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations practiced in the occupied territories after 1967
British Mandate Period:The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948
It should not be imagined that the concept of transfer was held only by maximalists or extremists within the Zionist movement. On the contrary, it was embraced by almost all shades of opinion, from the Revisionist right to the Labor left. Virtually every member of the Zionist pantheon of founding fathers and important leaders supported it and advocated it in one form or another, from Chaim Weizmann and Vladimir Jabotinsky to David Ben-Gurion and Menahem Ussishkin. Supporters of transfer included such moderates as the “Arab appeaser" Moshe Shertok and the socialist Arthur Ruppin, founder of Brit Shalom, a movement advocating equal rights for Arabs and Jews. More importantly, transfer proposals were put forward by the Jewish Agency itself, in effect the government of the Yishuv.
The Zionists were tireless in their efforts to shape the Commission’s proposals, meeting not only with the Com mission members themselves, but with statesmen, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, and senior officials at the Foreign and Colonial Office with whom the Commission members were likely to consult before formulating their recommendations.15 At these meetings the idea of a popu lation transfer was promoted in conjunction with the parti tion of the country, the partition idea apparently was first suggested by a member of the Commission itself. Professor Reginald Coupland, during a private meeting with Weizmann in Palestine. The prospect of official British recognition- hitherto steadfastly denied-of Jewish sovereignty and state hood, even in only part of Palestine, represented a tremen dous, and at that stage unhoped for, advance for the Zionist movement.
Palestinian Arab Congress advocating for Unified State 1928
Transfer Committee and the JNF led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate.
1929 Riots: Forward and 972Mag
Memorandum of the Arab Higher Committee advocating for Unified State 1937
Of course the partition of the country gives me no pleasure. But the country that they [the Royal (Peel) Commission] are partitioning is not in our actual possession; it is in the possession of the Arabs and the English. What is in our actual possession is a small portion, less than what they [the Peel Commission] are proposing for a Jewish state. If I were an Arab I would have been very indignant. But in this proposed partition we will get more than what we already have, though of course much less than we merit and desire. The question is: would we obtain more without partition? If things were to remain as they are [emphasis in original], would this satisfy our feelings? What we really want is not that the land remain whole and unified. What we want is that the whole and unified land be Jewish [emphasis original]. A unified Eretz Israeli would be no source of satisfaction for me–if it were Arab… My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning.
- Ben-Gurion 1937
The Peel Commission, a British inquiry launched following the breakout of the Palestinian strike, officially called for the first time in 1937 for a partition of Palestine into two states. Palestinians widely rejected the plan, as it would involve the transfer of more land, and entail the forcible displacement of some 225,000 Palestinians, compared to 1,250 Jews. Meanwhile, Zionist leadership was split, with some arguing that all of historic Palestine should become the state of Israel.
1936-1939 Revolt: JVL, Britannica, MEE
In 1933 Ghazi took control of Iraq and promoted Nazi Propaganda, leading to targeted attacks against Jewish people and the killing of hundreds of Jewish people in 1941.
Irgun and Lehi terrorist activities against Palestinians and Jewish people in Arab countries.
The Grand Mufti connection to Nazi Propaganda: Time, Haaretz, WaPo
12,000 Palestinians fight against Nazi Germany WWII: Haaretz, JPost
You have a very revisionist understanding of the history of Israel-palestine. None of the New Historians that have thoroughly researched the history agree with you, not even Benny Morris. Many of the links I provided already debunk most of this, but I can go into more detail.
Prior to MandateThe origins of Palestinian as an ethnicity goes back very far, as far as the 7th or 4th century. Palestinian Nationality developed largely during the British Mandate, but has roots back to the 16th century under the Ottoman Empire, and has always included Palestinian Jews and Christians. Rashid Khalidi stresses that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with “Arabism, religion, and local loyalties” playing an important role. He (Khalidi) acknowledges that Zionism played a role in shaping this identity, though “it is a serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism.”
A thorough and comprehensive study of how Palestinian nationalism arose before the arrival of Zionism can be found in the works of Palestinian historians such as Muhammad Muslih and Rashid Khalidi.5 They show clearly that both elite and non-elite sections of Palestinian society were involved in developing a national movement and sentiment before 1882. Khalidi in particular shows how patriotic feelings, local loyalties, Arabism, religious sentiments, and higher levels of education and literacy were the main constituents of the new nationalism, and how it was only later that resistance to Zionism played an additional crucial role in defining Palestinian nationalism.
- Ilan Pappe
If you have read any of the works by New Historians you would find the development of Palestinian Nationalism began before Zionism entered the scene. You would also find that it was/is then about the opposition to the settler colonialism of Zionism. Your insistence that its antisemitism is untrue, ahistorical, and revisionist.
Zionists Leadership (including the Ben-Gurion quotes you ignored), the Shaw and Peel Commission, and Palestinian Leadership have all understood that the issue was with Settler Colonialism and not from antisemitism. If it was antisemitism, Palestinians wouldn’t have advocated for a Unitary Binational State for decades during the British Mandate, which they did. It was partition that was a deliberate tactic of the Zionist Leadership to expand its Settler Colonialism and Expulsions of Palestinians. This is extensively documented.
Origin of the Palestinians Palestinian Nationalism Antisemitism in Islam, the Arab World, and Europe
You’re that wrong
Most Palestinians Believe Hamas Should Change its Position on Eliminating Israel - WPO March 2, 2006
Most Palestinians agree that Hamas should recognize Israel’s right to exist. Two-thirds (63 percent) of those polled Jan. 27-29 by Near East Consulting said Hamas should change its position calling for the elimination of Israel. Even among those who voted for Hamas, only 37 percent support Hamas’ position that Israel does not have the right to exist.
Apparently the vast majority of Palestinians did not vote for Hamas because of its political goals but because of their desire to rid the Palestinian Authority of corruption, a theme Hamas campaigned on. Among those polled by JMCC who said they voted for Hamas, only 12 percent said they did so because of Hamas’ political agenda. A plurality of 43 percent said they voted for Hamas because they hoped it would end corruption.
Furthermore it should be noted that Hamas did not receive the majority of the popular vote. With the Palestinians’ mixed system of proportional representation according to party support for half the seats and district seats based on population for the other half, Hamas was able to take 58 percent of all seats with only 45 percent of the overall popular vote (the 58 percent includes three independents who campaigned with Hamas).
The Israeli imposed closure on Gaza began in 1991, temporarily, becoming permanent in 1993. The barrier began around Gaza around 1972.
Between July 1971 and February 1972, Sharon enjoyed considerable success. During this time, the entire Strip (apart from the Rafah area) was sealed off by a ring of security fences 53 miles in length, with few entrypoints. Today, their effects live on: there are only three points of entry to Gaza—Erez, Nahal Oz, and Rafah.
Perhaps the most dramatic and painful aspect of Sharon’s campaign was the widening of roads in the refugee camps to facilitate military access. Israel built nearly 200 miles of security roads and destroyed thousands of refugee dwellings as part of the widening process.'* In August 1971, for example, the Israeli army destroyed 7,729 rooms (approximately 2,000 houses) in three vola- tile camps, displacing 15,855 refugees: 7,217 from Jabalya, 4,836 from Shati, and 3,802 from Rafah.
- Page 105
Through 1993 Israel imposed a one-way system of tariffs and duties on the importation of goods through its borders; leaving Israel for Gaza, however, no tariffs or other regulations applied. Thus, for Israeli exports to Gaza, the Strip was treated as part of Israel; but for Gazan exports to Israel, the Strip was treated as a foreign entity subject to various “non-tariff barriers.”‘°° This placed Israel at a distinct advantage for trading and limited Gaza’s access to Israeli and foreign markets. Gazans had no recourse against such policies, being totally unable to protect themselves with tariffs or exchange rate controls. Thus, they had to pay more for highly protected Israeli products than they would if they had some control over their own economy. Such policies deprived the occupied territories of significant customs revenue, estimated at $118-$176 million in 1986.!°! (Arguably, the economic terms of the Gaza—Jericho Agreement modify the situation only slightly.’°)
- page 240
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development - Third Edition by Sara M. Roy
History of Hamas:Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
What Is Hamas? - Council on Foreign Relations
What Does Hamas Actually Want? - NY Mag
Hamas Election - Snopes
Hamas 1988 Charter and Revised 2017 Charter
The 1988 Charter, which is certainly unreasonable in its fundamentalism with Sharia Law and is antisemitic, does not call for the extermination of all Jewish People. The 2017 Revised charter accepts a Two-State Solution of the 1967 Borders. Check Article 7 and 13 of the 1988 Charter to see yourself, compare it to Article 20 and 24-26 in the revised charter
The slogan From the River to the Sea is about Palestinian liberation that started in the 60s by the PLO for a democratic secular state, not Genocide. The Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in 1966 maybe, but he’s not Palestinian.
Human Shields:When it comes to human shields, the only independent verification back in 2014 (Amnesty link) is of Weapons (not rockets) hidden at a vacant school, situated btwn 2 UNRWA schools housing displaced people, by a Palestinian armed group.
The Guardian journalists had encountered a couple individuals in 2014 too.
HRW on Laws-of-War Violations 2009
Amnesty on Hamas War Crimes 2023
Yet none of those come remotely close to making hospitals and schools bombing targets. Even if all the IDF claims were true, that does not exempt those hospitals and schools as protected under international law.
Additionally, let’s look at how the IDF uses Human Shields including Children (2013 Report)
Hamas committed multiple war crimes with ‘indiscriminate’ rockets and mortars
It’s almost like Human Rights Organization hold everyone accountable, it’s just that Israel does magnitudes more war crimes and violations of international law for longer than the existence of Hamas.
What a wild way to justify Occupation, Apartheid, and Genocide.
No the quote is a valid quote, but it doesn’t represent what you said at all. It’s stating that Palestinian nationalism only began in response to Settler Colonialism.
You’re wrong about how the war started, the founding of Israel, and what happened to the Palestinians that survived the ethnic cleansing campaign. I’ve already provided links for all of those above.
Genocide:Year before Oct 7 - Jewish Voice for Peace
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) and Summery by the International Court of Justice
Guerrilla Warfare isn’t a new concept. Especially when fighting in home territory.
That’s insane and completely ahistorical. Even the leaders of Zionism didn’t hide their intentions of Settler Colonialism. Herzl was very open about it being a colonist project. You’re at odds with every New Historian who actually have researched this history.
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” - David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.” — David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
There is no justification for ethnic cleansing and stealing people’s homes. Justifying it with a history 2000 years removed makes zero sense. Palestinians also did have a cultural identity. It was never nationalized before Zionism because none of the regime changes before displaced Palestinians and put them under permanent occupation.
Before 1948, Palestinian Leadership repeatedly advocated for a Unitary Binational State for decades.
Palestinian Arab Congress advocating for Unified State 1928, Arab Higher Committee advocating for Unified State 1937, Arab League advocating for Unified State 1948.
The concept of Transfer in Zionist thought and the displacement of Palestinians since the 1920s culminated into a full fledged ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948. Partition and later the Two-State Solution have been wielded by Israel to covet and annex as much Palestinian land as possible with the least amount of Palestinians.
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948
Transfer Committee and the JNF led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate.
Plan Dalet and Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948)
After the 1948 ethnic cleansing, the remaining Palestinian population within now Israel were subject to Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations, later practiced in the occupied territories after the 1967 war: Haaretz, Forward
Even today Arab Israelis are discriminated against as second class citizens including Education (2001 report). Not nearly as brutal as Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or Gaza, but they all live under Israeli Military Control. This is Apartheid, by international definitions.
Amnesty Report, HRW Report, AIDA Report, OCHA Report on the details of the daily violence Israel uses to enforce the apartheid. Gaza Blockade is still Occupation
After the founding of Israel, the Two-State Solutions were utilized to further annex the Palestinian Occupied Territories and enact military control over Palestinians while denying them human and civil rights. Despite this, both Fatah and later Hamas have accepted a Two-State Solution on the 1967 borders, with the two most important factors being the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees and an end to the permanent occupation.
You mean Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted in an Israeli Military Court, where palestinians are presumed guilty with no rights or representation, after being tortured into a confession?
Palestinians denied civil rights including Military Court
One of the most problematic practices of military courts is the use of remand in custody until the end of proceedings. This means that a person whose interrogation has been completed and who has already been formally charged is kept in detention until the legal proceedings are over. These individuals are not serving a prison sentence, have not even been sentenced, and should be presumed innocent until proven guilty… A direct outcome of this policy is that the vast majority of military court cases end in plea bargains in which the defendants plead guilty (usually in return for the prosecution dropping some of the charges). Defendants prefer to avoid a lengthy evidentiary trial, knowing that in most probability, they would be held in remand for the duration of the trial, such that even if they are ultimately acquitted, their time in detention would exceed the sentence they would receive in the plea bargain. As a consequence, the prosecution is seldom required to go through a full evidentiary trial, in which it must present evidence to prove a person guilty. Instead, the outcome of the case is decided at the time remand is granted, rather than on the basis of evidence against the defendant. And so, a pretrial decision to remand a defendant in custody before conviction renders the judicial proceeding meaningless.
Palestinian Prisoners in Israel including Child abuse
Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity
Particularly harsh are methods used by the Israel Security Agency to obtain information and “confessions”, practices well documented by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. Methods reported by Palestinian detainees include painful shackling and binding; immobilization in stress positions; sleep deprivation; the use of threats, including against family members; sexual harassment; the extensive use of prolonged solitary confinement; and verbal abuse. All these methods amount to torture or other ill-treatment. Interrogations under torture can last for weeks, with the detainee routinely denied access to a lawyer. Torture and other ill-treatment are frequently inflicted with the complicity of medical professionals, especially on detainees staging prolonged hunger strikes.
None of the members of JVL are antisemitic. Anti-zionism and criticisms of the (apartheid) State of Israel are not remotely the same thing of antisemitism. Israel never has and never will represent all Jewish people. Your conflation of the two is genuine antisemitism, the actions of Israel in no way reflect on all Jewish people.
This technology has and will continue to be used to justify attacks on civilians by calling them terrorists.
I’m sure you also have an issue with B’TSelem and Breaking the Silence. JVP does very credible work and has consistently advocated for peace and coexistence. But here, take those facts from these other sources instead if you don’t like JVP.
UN report: 80% of Gaza inhabitants relied on international aid before war - The Guardian
2023 marks deadliest year on record for children in the occupied West Bank - Save The Children - Sept 18, 23
2023 is ‘deadliest year’ for Palestinian children say human rights groups - New Arab - Oct 6, 23
I’ve put together a long list of historical events of the conflict here if you’re interested. The concept of Transfer in Zionism goes back to the late 1800s while the dispossession of Palestinians started around the 1920s.
Israel considers all Palestinians terrorists, that’s part of their justification for genocide.
Year before Oct 7 - Jewish Voice for Peace
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) and Summery by the International Court of Justice
And they deliberately target civilians.
‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).
Although it is unprecedented for the Israeli army to attack more than 1,000 power targets in five days, the idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed by the so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” from the Second Lebanon War of 2006.
Latest humanitarian food insecurity assessments – the IPC classification index which is used as a reference by aid agencies – indicate that the entire population of Gaza – 2.2 million people – face “crisis” levels of food insecurity, the OCHA spokesperson said. Of that number, around 1.17 million face “emergency” levels of food insecurity, and the plight for another 500,000 is “catastrophic”
Israel has had a permanent occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967, maintaining an apartheid state through direct and indirect violence.
Hamas began twenty years into an Occupation enforced with direct and systemic violence, with the goal of ending the occupation.
What Is Hamas? - Council on Foreign Relations
What Does Hamas Actually Want? - NY Mag
Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
Hamas Election - Snopes
Intel too