I. Terror and Jubilation
When I was a graduate student many years ago, I got to spend time in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Life in the camp was challenging, but community bonds were strong despite the adversity. Internal tensions existed, but return to Palestine served as a unifying principle.
It was an active era of Palestinian resistance—what Western journalists and intellectuals lazily refer to as “Palestinian violence.” A major tactic at the time was the suicide bomb. Sometimes the attacker would go after a military installation. At other times, he (or she) targeted public spaces. Western pundits and intellectuals, along with a fair number of their counterparts in the Arab World, declared the tactic a byproduct of atavistic evil and collected the usual plaudits in return. To even suggest the possibility of sociological factors was a monstrous breach of professional standards. According to the orthodoxy, Palestinian behavior was rash and unreasoned.
As in many neighborhoods around the region, television sets in the camp often streamed a news channel, if only as background noise. Whenever the presenter reported on a new operation, cheers emerged from the crowded flats throughout the camp. The reaction didn’t bother me—they were living in squalid conditions, after all, and their cause was undeniably just—but I didn’t fully understand it, either. I simply registered the cheering as a notable memory.
At the time, I had a vague but definite sense that the jubilation wasn’t an expression of bloodlust. That kind of interpretation seemed to me simplistic and ungenerous. I had experienced too much warmth and hospitality to ascribe any evil to my hosts. Besides, I knew why the people surrounding me were refugees. I knew the history of massacres spread over two countries. I knew the stories of torment and humiliation, of yearning and exile, of loss and agony. Bromides wouldn’t do.
In time, I came to understand that the jubilation was largely an expression of hope. And a simple hope, at that: the deeply human desire to return home. Every operation against the colonizer represented a possibility of return. The Palestinians weren’t looking at the situation through an abstract or idealistic lens. They were consummately practical.
Nobody wanted to live in a refugee camp anymore.
*****
Earlier this month, the Palestinian resistance in Gaza launched a remarkable offensive, unprecedented in its scope and design. Hundreds of rockets bypassed Israel’s ballyhooed Iron Dome and landed everywhere from Ashqelon to Tel Aviv. Simultaneously, Hamas operatives stole into southern Israel and captured various civilians and IOF personnel. Fighters infiltrated Zionist settlements, leaving behind dozens of casualties. One of the operations targeted a music festival near the Gaza Strip. For the first time in decades, Palestinians controlled land inside the so-called Green Line between Israel and the Occupied Territories.
The resistance called on its allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Iran to join the operation, setting up the possibility of a regional war. The world’s attention was again focused on Palestine.
Israel’s response was exceptionally brutal, surpassing the horror of its protracted assaults on Gaza in 2009 and 2014.
The music festival would become the main rationale for that brutality. Western media falsely reported that Palestinians were dismembering babies and practicing widespread rape, falsehoods repeated by the president of the United States.
The IOF indiscriminately targeted civilians, cut gas and electricity, locked down the West Bank, engineered mass displacement, eviscerated rescue workers, shut off internet, bombed hospitals, and refused to allow aid from Egypt. In a colonial project that has spent over a century committing atrocities, the so-called war on Hamas was one of its ugliest episodes.
*****
In corporate media of the anglophone world, siding with Palestinians, even haltingly, wasn’t an option. Quashing pro-Palestine sentiment has always been the norm in these environs, but the suppression in this case was harsher than usual. Politicians on both sides of the aisle rushed to condemn Palestinian terrorism. Corporations performed their usual gestures of anguish and concern. And in a type of pandering that came across more as cruel than vapid, a long list of celebrities pledged support for Israel.
Had this embargo on sympathy for Palestinians not existed, then more Americans might have learned useful context and considered some of the meaningful questions arising from Palestinian resistance.
Useful context begins with the nature of the Israeli state, an avatar of belligerence and inequality. Beyond its role as a force of extraction in the global nexus of U.S. imperialism, Israel was founded by conquest which has yet to be rectified. That conquest included mass displacement of Palestinian Arabs, theft of land, murder of entire villages, appropriation of resources, and destruction of the natural environment.
Given this context, the notion of “self-defense,” the Zionist’s discursive go-to, becomes more complicated. How can an occupying power be in a position of subjection or helplessness? Only in unusual circumstances does the historical oppressor get to claim self-defense. This isn’t one of those circumstances: Israel’s hostility as an occupying power is entirely routine. Checkpoints are aggressive. Border crossings are aggressive. Military patrols are aggressive. Embargoes are aggressive. Home demolition is aggressive. Settlement construction is aggressive. Extraction of land and water is aggressive. One cannot invoke self-defense as a counterpoint to nonstop aggression.
In short, there is no such thing as Israeli self-defense. It is a categorical impossibility.
Then again, maybe the problem with Americans isn’t ignorance or lack of information. Maybe they know damn well that Israel kills in great numbers and are glad of it. Maybe they’re acclimated to the spectacle of colonial violence. Maybe they see it as a benefit to humanity. Maybe they perceive in bloodshed the world as it ought to be. Maybe they know all they need to know about Israel, which is that it acts as a mirror for their own fantasies of heroism and probity.
II. Why the Violence
Israel’s trance community had gathered in the desert near the settlement of Re’im a few miles from the Gaza Strip. They were there to enjoy a psychedelic festival of techno-electronica music, Nova, one stop among an itinerant lifestyle of sensuality and peaceful vibes.
Nova. The name evokes stargazing, wanderlust, possibility. It is mysterious and fascinating, a portal to a different world, one that promises escape from the drudgeries of this deteriorating planet. Just out of the ravers’ view were two million people of the Gaza Strip, consigned to the drudgery of sanctions, immobility, and military occupation. They too dreamed of another world. But that world didn’t exist in the cosmos. It is already here, on this earth, in the homeland from which they were expelled.
These dreams of different worlds were in unavoidable conflict. Each world required the disappearance of the other. The Israeli ravers thought they had already achieved their goal and had only the heavens to contemplate. But the people in Gaza haven’t consented to that destiny.
This contrast calls to mind Frantz Fanon’s observation that “the colonial context is characterized by the dichotomy it inflicts on the world.” If nothing else, the operation from Gaza was profoundly Fanonian—or perhaps we can say that Fanon accurately described the inevitable logic of Indigenous resistance.
There is plenty of temptation to wag fingers in the aftermath of the operation, but surely that task is not the domain of academics and activists in the metropole. Nor should it be the priority of diaspora Palestinians (among whom I include myself). In our environs, filled with their own kind of hostility, the priority should be to defend Palestinians against the torment to which they have been subjected by the entire industrialized world. Among politicians, artists, celebrities, and intellectuals, Palestinians have no shortage of critics happy to cosign Zionist genocide. Those critics don’t need or desire our validation, anyway. Abandoning our brethren in order to appease the Zionist establishment will deliver no accolades. In the end, the aspirant to respectability is left only with the shame of conciliation.
Palestinians are perfectly capable of formulating strategy and thinking through complex problems without the guidance of outsiders; they certainly don’t need half-baked moralism from dorks and social climbers in the West. The Palestinian story isn’t esoteric or inaccessible. In fact, one can discover the rationale for Palestinian violence anywhere in the great mass of revolutionary writing from Amilcar Cabral to Bassel al-Araj. That intellectuals who have made lucrative careers with tough-sounding buzzwords were so eager to condemn an actual instance of Indigenous resistance is a damning (and in my mind permanent) indictment of Western academe.
It didn’t take long, in any case, for many of the early reports of Palestinian savagery to prove false or exaggerated. Israeli babies weren’t beheaded and the mass rape event turned out to be complete nonsense. At least two Israeli captives gave interviews stating that they were treated humanely. Israeli police and military personnel hid among civilians and were responsible for some of the casualties attributed to Palestinians. Nevertheless, the story of Palestinian depravity continued to circulate as Israel killed innocents by the thousand and turned significant portions of the Gaza Strip into rubble.
Israel’s response thus illuminated the rationale for the Palestinians’ operation. Everyone expected maliciousness. That expectation didn’t arise from thin air. The operation wasn’t some random expression of hatred. It was a tactical counterpoint to the colonizer’s systematic malice.
The Palestinians, like all colonized people, have to measure a hunger for dignity against the agony of retribution. They cannot sit passively while the oppressor inflicts continuous misery and they refuse to accept an ethno-religious narrative in which they exist only to be vanquished. What, then, is left for them to do? They must fight. The fight might be ugly in accordance to the situation imposed by the occupying power. It might challenge observers’ perception of victimhood. Sometimes it might even transgress the boundaries of what Western intellectuals consider proper civil etiquette.
The psychic characteristics of the fight provide the dignity unavailable in the colonizer’s fantasy world. Thus it is a cause for jubilation. A few months ago, a group of unruly white revelers jumped a Black dock worker on the Montgomery (Alabama) waterfront. It was a familiar scene: a bunch of Southern preppies with enormous entitlement visiting aggression on a scapegoat for their racial animus. The worker fought valiantly but was badly outnumbered. Soon, though, dozens of bystanders came to his defense, by land and water. They walloped the white offenders in a chaotic scene captured by multiple camera angles. Their resistance was intense. One white woman was whacked on the head with a folding chair. One of the white men ended up in the river.
On social media (and beyond), there was great celebration by Black users. They quickly made memes of the violence and handed out nicknames to participants in the brawl. This mass of users was, in a word, jubilant.
The jubilation lasted more than a week.
It conveyed a distinct message: “we are no longer defenseless.”
For Palestinians, resistance delivers a similar message: we will not sit passively in these concentration camps and get starved and bombed into oblivion. They are moved by the desperation of survival, for if their colonizer gets to decide then they will disappear from the earth. Their supposedly irrational violence is the very definition of self-defense.
The violence isn’t purely psychological. It has material purposes, as well. The idea is that the settlers can never be comfortable, for it is in comfort that the settlers feel as if they have accomplished their objectives. The land is theirs. The natives did indeed forget. History has finally ended.
Palestinians are inviting Israelis to abandon the romantic idea of their colony. It is not your exclusive utopia. It will never be a place of respite. You cannot be secure and prosperous at our expense.
And so no small number of Palestinians were jubilant when they saw Israeli settlers boarding airplanes to somewhere else.
III. Compulsion to Genocide
Commentators in the West have taken to describing the current situation as the “Israel-Hamas war.” The term is inaccurate on two counts. First, it suggests a kind of equivalence that papers over economic and technological disparities between Israeli and Palestinian societies. And second, Israel isn’t on the offensive against a political party; it is waging war on the entire Palestinian populace.
Israel’s goal isn’t merely to defeat Hamas. It wants to eradicate Palestine altogether. When Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that Israel would treat Palestinians like animals, he was conveying, in clear and direct language, a compulsion to genocide.
By calling Palestinians animals, Gallant, along with many of his colleagues, may think he is describing Palestinian inhumanity, but in fact he is presupposing and thus justifying their violence. Zionists, after all, introduced the concept of race to which Palestinians have been acclimated (through suffering and exclusion). Zionists set up and maintained the dichotomy between human and animal. As a result, Zionists invented a Palestinian subject they could never subsequently control. They had no choice. The settler is nothing without the animalistic native. In the final balance, Gallant was subconsciously endorsing suicide.
IV. The Professional Left Accedes
One can discern the seriousness of an insurgency in the Global South or in the ghettoes and reservations of North America by the type of reaction it inspires among the progressive intelligentsia. If the insurgency promises to inflict real damage on the oppressor, then members of that intelligentsia will rush to condemn it on moral grounds.
It happened in the United States with the usual politicians and public intellectuals: Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Naomi Klein, Jamelle Bouie, and on through the Rolodex. Slightly more surprising was Judith Butler’s insipid reflection on the unwillingness of Palestinians to make liberation more comfortable for their oppressor.
Many of us have always known that shitting on Palestine is a rite of passage for aspirants to political office or cable news studios. We therefore understand that for the wannabe influencer both Israeli and Palestinian death isn’t actually a moral concern; it is a professional opportunity. Here we see the pitiful upshot of “resistance” as an online brand: total abandonment of an encaged population to genocide.
Knowing that the approval or even the comprehension of the professional classes will never be forthcoming is one reason why violence is essential to national liberation. Palestinians have determined to proceed without their Western custodians. Decolonization is a grueling project, generally beyond the acumen of those weaned in comfort.
The professional classes are stuck in bourgeois abstractions (from which they derive so many rewards) or profess a material politics they don’t in reality support. They demand a bloodless liberation, but only without the colonizer’s blood, even as the native bleeds out in full view of the world. They demand a revolt without consequence, a caucus of pristine victims politely asking to stay alive. They have taught Fanon but ignored his observation that decolonization “cannot be accomplished by the wave of a magic wand, a natural cataclysm, or a gentleman’s agreement.”
These erstwhile liberals don’t need to consult Palestinians to see how wrong they are. Zionists have been explaining for decades that Israel must be defeated by force.
V. Palestine Tells All
Palestine is the canary and the coal mine. It forces self-professed radicals to admit that they are furtively liberal. (Ideology: the coal mine. Liberalism: its noxious gasses.) It gives lie to the Western lionization of free speech as a means to assert civilizational superiority. (Free speech: the coal mine. Racial supremacism: its noxious gasses.) It reveals which governments around the world are serious about human rights. (Governments: the coal mine. Human rights: its noxious gasses.)
Whenever Palestinian resistance threatens to gum up imperialism, cities throughout the democratic West readily enact fascist policies, shutting down protests, firing or arresting dissenters, doing away with civil liberties, and demanding obedience. In the immediate aftermath of the Palestinian operation, media outlets across the spectrum deployed a vocabulary that would facilitate Israeli genocide. The little bits of sympathetic coverage took the form of Jews talking to other Jews about Israel, which further consigned Palestine to a place of foreignness and unfamiliarity (the conditions for genocide in the first place). Boardrooms enacted swift discipline. University presidents made clear that Palestinian students and employees were prohibited from speaking.
The real conflict doesn’t exist between civility and terrorism; it exists between Palestinian fortitude and Western anxiety.
*****
I remember those days in the refugee camp with fondness. Its scenery is forever imprinted in my brain: the weathered buildings more askance as they grew taller; the noise of children in every alcove and stairwell; the scent of hot oil, thyme, and untreated water; the alleyways scarcely wider than a set of shoulders.
The camp was precarious. Even in times of joy it was tense. That’s the nature of any ghetto or shanty. At any moment it can be overrun by violence. A refugee camp is filled with surplus for whom important people spare no concern. The Israelis could come, or the Lebanese military, or the U.S. Marines. There could be a siege. There could be an internecine war. There could be a food shortage. There could be untreatable disease. Possibility itself was a source of constant stress.
But just down the coast was Palestine.
What would it take to get there? People spent surprisingly little time on this question, probably because everyone already knew the answer.
“Whatever is necessary to return.”
A reckoning
There is official Israel
With its secrets
There is official Hamas
With its tunnels
And then there is
You, me, and the olive tree
And yonder children
No secret
Absolutely excellent piece of thought. How I wish this statement could be read and understood by more than it will be. This writing will someday be seen as the very best about the events of October 2023.
I say, as a Palestinian, that way you glibly glossed over the mind-numbing atrocities committed by Hamas during this ‘remarkable offensive’ is absolutely stomach-turning. They didn’t merely ‘leave behind casualties,’ as you so vaguely described, obviously eager to get this obligatory concession out of the way so you can more comfortably talk about liberation.
They slaughtered entire families in the most sadistic ways imaginable. Yes, they burned them alive. Yes, some children were found beheaded. Yes, the bodies in these massacres displayed grotesque signs of torture. Yes, this has been confirmed. This isn’t a propaganda piece, this has been confirmed by the civilian volunteer force that had the grim task of recovering the bodies. This wasn’t an act of resistance, or liberation: this was blood-thirsty sadism of the worst order. It was a level of barbarism, of cruelty that staggers the imagination.
And the closest you can apparently come to even suggesting that these abominable atrocities were utterly unjustified is a limp allusion to not finger wagging. Suggesting we ought not ‘finger wag’ when militants torture and dismember families in the name of ‘liberation.’
Israel is currently doing what Israel always does- take a legitimate basis for defense against terror and using it as a pretext for collective punishment and to assert further dominion over Palestinians. The number of Palestinian deaths as always vastly outnumbers those that the Israelis have suffered. This is no doubt made possible by Hamas’ full awareness of this military response, and by their deliberate preventing of Palestinians attempting to flee Gaza- because they’re more valuable to them as human shields.
But if your chief response to the blood-thirsty butchering of civilians- of men, women, children, the disabled, the elderly- is to shiftily sidestep it and frame it within the context of liberation, you are an absolutely monster of a human being. No liberation no homeland is worth torturing children to death.
read the article again
What utter nonsense. Regurgitating atrocity hasbara doesn’t make it true.
What on earth are you talking about?
The above accounts are not IDF propaganda, or sensationalist headlines. They’re accounts that have been confirmed and corroborated by recovery teams who were tasked with retrieving the bodies, and medical examiners who have determined their causes of death-scores of which still cannot be identified because they were so savagely brutalized.
A few key excerpts from the above named sources (I’d link the full article but I don’t know his policy on linking to outside websites):
“Two spinal cords—one belonging to an adult, one to someone young—a parent and child bound together by metal wires in a final embrace before being set alight.”
“I’ve seen many things in my 31-year career, but the magnitude and the cruelty [here] is terrible“
“The proportion of bodies we’ve received who are charred is high,” Kugel explained. “Many have gunshot wounds in their hands, showing they put their hands up to their faces in defense. Many were burned alive in their homes. … We know they were burned alive because there is soot in their trachea, their throats—meaning they were still breathing when set on fire.”
Kugel also explained that the age range of the victims spans from 3 months to 80 or 90 years old. Many bodies, including those of babies, are without heads.
According to Bublil, “This was not combat, or a military conflict, or a state conflict, or a political conflict. [Hamas] enjoyed the murders so much that they did everything they could do to celebrate the killing. They celebrated burning houses with civilians inside who didn’t do anything to them. They enjoyed grabbing an 18-year-old girl from a party, a festival, dragging her to a car, and taking her to Gaza. And who knows what happened [to her] in between. They enjoyed and celebrated the death. … These are monsters. They’re not human… They weren’t merciful to anyone. No one who was alive and encountered them remained alive. No one.”
What more reliable sources and credible evidence do you need?
If you’ve read this, and still believe it’s a hoax, then you just can’t be reached.
If you accept that it happened, but believe it was justified, then you just can’t be helped.
So it turns out your quotes are from a right-wing website – The Media Line – run by, surprise surprise, Zionists who are heavily connected to multiple Israeli propaganda outlets. “Confirmed” indeed! No wonder you were so reluctant to link it. The only way Zionists can produce such horrific slander is because those are actions they dream of doing – and in several cases have done – to your “fellow” Palestinians.
Chen Kugel is the director of Israel’s national institute of forensic medicine, and has been cited in other sources- and even appeared in a video- documenting and detailing the same atrocities reported in Media Line article from which those quotes were pulled.
But let’s even set that aside for a moment. A couple of days ago, the Israeli military screened about 45 minutes of raw, unedited footage recovered from body cameras of Hamas’ militants for several dozen journalists, and they depicted the same level of sadism and depravity as described above. Here’s a link to the article, with, again, some excerpts:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67198270.amp
“It contained clips of Hamas gunmen cheering with apparent joy as they shot civilians on the road, and later stalking the pathways of kibbutzim and killing parents and children in their homes.”
“ Another sequence showed one Hamas gunman shooting the apparently dead bodies of civilians inside a kibbutz in a celebratory manner, and an attempt to decapitate someone who appeared to be still alive using a garden hoe.”
“ One traumatic sequence, taken from home cameras inside of a kibbutz, showed a father rushing his two young boys into an above ground shelter, seconds before Hamas attackers threw a grenade in, killing the father and wounding the boys.
One of the boys cried to his brother: “Daddy is dead, this is not a prank,” and repeated “Why am I alive?” His brother was apparently blinded by the grenade. The military spokesman present at the screening was unable to say whether they survived.”
Between this and the credibility of the sources confirming all the additional atrocities I mentioned, there is no compelling reason to dismiss this as mere propaganda, and every reason to accept these accounts as the grim reality of what actually happened.
As the full extent of the absolute Hamas’ atrocities slowly comes to light, you simply cannot afford this level of denialism. It is undeniably apparent that what Hamas did was not in the name of liberation or resistance- it was an act of sadistic indulgence, one of merciless retribution, that they did because they wanted to.
Israel’s continued ruthless occupation and continuous assault on Gaza is utterly monstrous in its own right, but any assessment of this situation- pro Israel or pro Palestinian- must factor into it the appalling events of October 7th, and that’s going to start with a sobering acceptance the horrors that happened that day.
Your skepticism of my Palestinian identity was all but unavoidable, but it’s enough for me to say that I, a Palestinian, make no apologies for condemning the merciless monsters who would inflict such unconscionable cruelty on defenseless people. And I truly don’t care if this paints me as sympathetic with the occupiers of my homeland, as I would rather give up my right to a homeland than to have it bought with an unconscionable price like this.
Tell that to all the prisoners, men, women and children rotting in Israel’s prisons. Tell that to the Palestinians imprisoned on administrative detention. Tell that to the relatives of the Medics, the press, and the innocents murdered by IOF snipers at the Gaza fence in 2018/19. Tell that to the thousands maimed at the same time at the same fence
What kind of a Palestinian are you Rami? Don’t go around attacking the messenger.
No. You’re not going to do this. You’re not going to ‘what about’ your way through sadism of this magnitude. You’re not going to sidestep or rationalize the unconscionable suffering Hamas inflicted on these people by alluding to the daily misery and brutal oppression Israel inflicts on its Palestinian subjugates.
I will talk about Israel’s documented and continued practice of atrocity and displacement against Palestinians who live under their thumb as second class citizens. I will talk about the atrocities and violence committed by Hamas against the Israeli population in their ideological bent to ultimately expunge them from the region. But what I will not be doing is using one to craft sympathetic understanding for the other.
I’m not talking about what Hamas did last year, or what Israel did the year before. I’m talking about what these men chose to do on the day they stormed a music festival, stormed residential communities, and slaughtered people in the most hideous ways imaginable. What they did was not an act of resistance, liberation, or strategy. What they did, they did because it made them feel good.
Hamas are not my people, Hamas does not speak for me, and you- a Breathnach- do not get to ask me what kind of Palestinian I am. Sit down.
Israel has been getting away with slaughtering Palestinians for over half a century, and you just want to talk about the slaughter on October 7th.
Okay, Hamas did commit a war crime, a slaughter, I have never denied that. What do you call what Israel is doing right now? They are slaughtering Innocent Palestinians by the thousands, and all you want to do is attack Stephen Salaita.
In another post I made here, an Israeli tells the truth about Israel’s crimes.
Journalist Israel Frey fled to a hiding place after hundreds of right-wing bullies attacked his home and attempted to harm him for speaking the truth. We won’t stop fighting until people like Frey can express their opinion in democratic Israel without fear.
https://x.com/magiotsri/status/1714670449844478334?s=46&t=0qyJenYG9dPyLO1ulAGvsA
It’s not that I ‘just want to talk about October 7th,’ it’s that October 7th was immediately and perversely picked up as a Free Palestine rallying cry, the events of which Salaita is specifically situating within the oppressor/oppressed framework, dramatically downplaying, and is at best asserting it as something we have no business moralizing over.
Naturally, I’m going to be talking about October 7th, and this doesn’t come at the expense of talking about the decades of ruthless Israeli state and sometimes civilian violence against Palestinians. But when you react to a condemnation of Hamas atrocities by quickly pointing to Israeli one’s, then you’re either imploring me to not forget about the latter (I never have), or using it as a whatabout-ism to justify the former (it absolutely does not).
And when I refer to Israeli violence as ruthless, I mean absolutely ruthless, continuous, and relentless, no doubt perhaps best evidenced by the overwhelmingly destructive campaign of slaughter they are currently inflicting on an already devastated population. That does not and has never escaped me, and my remarks about October 7th stand with all of this in mind.
I’m giving you a different perspective here from someone who has his pulse on Israel/Palestine. Jonathan Cook never pulls any punches in his writing.
Let me know what you think.
The West’s hypocrisy towards Gaza’s breakout is stomach-turning
8 October 2023
There will be little sympathy in the West as, yet again, besieged Palestinians are bombed by Israel, their immense suffering justified by the term ‘Israeli retaliation’
Middle East Eye – 8 October 2023
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2023-10-08/west-hypocrisy-gaza-breakout/
Well it’s not really a different perspective, but rather a larger one, and is in many ways not fundamentally different from my own. Yes, the Israeli state is brutally repressive toward its Palestinian subjugates, and is currently waging a wildly over the top campaign to crush Hamas once and for all, willing to murder countless Palestinians in the process- and that includes the scores they are in all likelihood killing as an act of collective punishment. And, to his point, the West is, and has historically been, infuriatingly indifferent to the ongoing suffering and slaughter of Palestinians while mourning the loss of those 1,400 Israelis. None of this is anything I have or would contest.
When I talk about the horrors of October 7th, I am talking about them apart but not *unmindful* of the ongoing suffering Palestinians endure on a daily basis. I am talking about the decisions that these men made on that day to cause helpless people to suffer in the worst ways imaginable as an act of retribution. We can zoom out and situate this within a larger historical and contemporary context, which may help explain *why* these men did what they did, but when we talk about *what* they did, it’s immediately clear that this was not the ‘craving for freedom and dignity’- this was sadistic, vengeful blood lust.
And we have to also realize that the devastation that Israel is inflicting on Palestine is also on Hamas’ head. Hamas was no doubt aware of just how violent and brutal Israeli retaliation would be in response to October 7th, particularly to their facilities that they deliberately build and hide in civilian areas. They decided to poke the bear by slaughtering 1,400 of their citizens in an operation with no strategic importance and took back around 200 hostages in the hopes of possibly securing a prisoner exchange- hostages that they’re not willing to release in exchange for a stop to the bombing that they could have avoided in the first place. All of this for the destruction of Gaza. All Hamas has gained was a momentary taste of revenge, at a terrible price.
And this is to say nothing of how Hamas is actively preventing Palestinians from fleeing Gaza, as they are clearly more valuable to them as human shields. Hamas has unilaterally decided that Palestinians are expendable in this operation. Yes, the reckless and disproportionate Israeli military response (and they are entitled to *some type* of military response) is what they have *chosen* to do, but it is in what Hamas chose to do that made this all but inevitable.
Hostages that they are (reportedly) now* willing to release in exchange for a stop to the bombing.
In any case, you’re welcome to reply back, but I don’t have much else to say that I haven’t already said, and am past discussing this article now. Please be well.
I agree, we have come to the end of this debate, but I will leave you with this debate between Piers Morgan and Basim Youssif on the Hamas attacks and Israel’s revenge attacks. I found it interesting.
https://youtu.be/4idQbwsvtUo?si=2C8B3T4QxeenVmtF
and I reckon your actual name is not Rami
Fuck off. you are no Palestinian. This asshole should not be allowed to post utter nonsense.
said as a zio – w * ore w*uld
You work for the Israeli governmnet obviously. FUck off.
Excellent post.
Clearly noone is preventing you from speaking your mind, but accept that privilege by not lying about being Palestinian.
I suppose a post like this was inevitable.
Troubling and tragic that you apparently can’t conceive of a Palestinian who would repudiate the sadistic torture and slaughter of entire families without him in fact being a Zionist mole (and yes, I do so with the equally engaged reposition of the appalling suffering the Israeli state and some of its citizens have inflicted on Palestinian families).
It’s an unsurprising reaction, as it’s easy to envision Palestinians as monolithically united behind the acts done in the name of liberation- even when those acts are utterly indefensible- and cast rebuking voices as outsiders who are unsympathetic or actively hostile toward that liberation.
Call me a traitor, call me a Zionist whore, but I would rather renounce my right to a homeland than to live in one that was bought with the horrors that those men did that day. What they did at the music festival, what they did to the men, women, and children in their homes- in front of each other- was absolutely monstrous, at an incomprehensible level of cruelty. They didn’t do it as an act of liberation, they did it for their own pleasure.
Hamas are not my people, and if you’re going to cheerlead their atrocities as resistance, then neither are you.
Every society has traitors. Every marginalized and discriminated against minority has members who so desire to be accepted by the ruling elite of their overlords that they become class or race traitors. In the US there are at least three anti-nigger niggers who join the Republican party. In Australia there are at least two who blame the Australian Aboriginal underclass for their own misery and not 235 years of institutional bullying by the master race.
I guess stupid people can’t understand your excellent article, Steve. Thank you so much
I read this in Feb ’24 and wonder if you’ve reconsidered your comments now that the atrocities you indict have been disproven, now that Israel’s genocidal intent is clear and indicted by the ICJ, now that so many statements of murderous and sadistic intention and deed by Israelis have been published.
He needs to man up and apologize–ss
Beautiful and illuminating. Thanks
Yes, “the fire this time” is an inevitable product of the imperialist-backed settler-colonial occupation and genocide against Palestine.
On the strategy for liberation, I urge a reading of a statement by four Iranian rebel groups in support of the Palestinian people:
https://www.freeiranspoliticalprisonersnow.org/global-mvmt-news/palestinian-people-are-not-animals-fascists-have-no-place-in-this-world
They call for a revolutionary approach in the interests of all oppressed people and the majority of humanity. It is a historic rupture with the vision & method of groups such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah, an Hamas.
While this article does a good job refuting moralistic condemnations of violence, it fails to provide a political analysis of violence. Both Israel and Hamas’ actions are abstracted from their concrete historical context and treated as typical repetitions of a generalized colonizer-colonized binary. There is no consideration of whether Hamas’ actions were actually effective at achieving the goal of Palestinian liberation, nor could there be without a concrete analysis of contemporary, global capitalism, and(neo)imperlism. The article remains, instead, within the same moralistic frame as its opposition, seeing violence not as a tactic within a specific strategic terrain with both possibilities and drawbacks for achieving political goals (Palestinian liberation), but as in itself strategic through its relation to a depoliticized experience of hope (is hope strategic? When? Why? Balanced against what?). This is classic Fanon, a remnant of his Hegelian ahistoricism.
I don’t know whether Hamas’ violence was strategic or not. I’m just pointing out that this kind of approach is too abstract to answer that question in a political way. But again, it’s great if consider solely as a critique of moralistic condemnations of subaltern violence.
This article is worth a read.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, they make a vortex of horror
Justine McCarthy Oct 13, 2023 Irish Times
During the slaughter at the Nahal Oz kibbutz last Saturday, terrified residents hiding from Hamas killers pleaded for help on their WhatsApp group. When their phones started pinging with messages in Hebrew telling them the attack was over and it was safe to come out, and they duly did, the gunmen were waiting outside to mow them down. It transpired the killers had used the phones of earlier Israeli victims to lure the people to their deaths.
Within 48 hours, on the other side of the border In Gaza, 260 children lay dead amid the rubble and smoke of Israel’s counter-attack.
Two wrongs do not make a right. What they make is a vortex of reprisals that erode the humanity of enemies. There is a saying attributed to a Japanese proverb that, when you are seeking revenge, you should dig two graves – one for yourself.
True friends would caution the aggressors in what we used to call the Holy Land that the way to a genocidal cul-de-sac is paved with retaliation. Two eyes for one eye; two teeth for one tooth. Instead, Joe Biden in Washington sent Israel a warship after Hamas unleashed its savagery on Saturday. While Israel’s prime minister was vowing to exact “mighty vengeance”, Rishi Sunak in London said: “There are no two sides to these events. There is no question of balance. I stand with Israel.” In Dublin, Leo Varadkar said the Irish Government supports Israel’s right to self-defence but that it should not be disproportionate.
What constitutes disproportionality? Is it acceptable for Binyamin Netanyahu’s government to massacre the same number of Gazans as the number of Israelis massacred by Hamas? Is mass murder tolerable but near-annihilation a step too far? How can anybody even calculate the rate of death when the rest of the world is unable to see up close and personal the horrors now being wreaked upon Gaza from the sky above it that Israel controls? Without electricity, Gazans cannot charge their phone batteries, thus ensuring the detail of what is happening in the tiny territory remains invisible.
As in every war, it is the people without the power to stop it who are being sacrificed. They are the fodder for the guns and rockets, the collateral damage tolerated by the so-called “international community”. Hamas exploits injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people to further its own agenda to destroy Israel. The Israeli state endangers its citizens by provocatively breaking international law while its purported friends in the international community look, determinedly, away.
Pursuit of justice
If there are wickedly-motivated people on all sides, there are good people too, such as Rabbis for Human Rights and Combatants for Peace. These people risking their own lives in pursuit of justice are being put at greater risk by the obdurate blind eye of Israel’s so-called friends. Some of their volunteers were interviewed by John McColgan of Riverdance fame for a film he made on behalf of Trócaire called This is Palestine. It is worth watching, if you are not one of the million people who have seen it already. It ought to be compulsory viewing for Britain’s prime minister to disabuse him of the fallacy that there is only one side. There are four sides, at least – two viciously warring enemies, the multitudes of innocents trapped between them, and an outside world more concerned with the tactics of geopolitical poker.
Among the 2.3 million people squashed into the 25-mile long Gaza Strip – a coastal ribbon less than half the size of Ireland’s smallest county, Louth – McColgan met the parents of three little children beheaded or left with their brains blown out by Israeli state forces who, post facto, claimed they were terrorists. He met a young boy who had been rendered speechless after witnessing his playmates on the beach being exterminated by Israeli gunboats. The boy had not uttered a word in the years since the atrocity.
Across the border in Israel, regular practice drills for rocket attacks and the wailing of sirens warning people to drop to the ground in self-preservation are part of normal life. Everyone suffers while the war mongers square up and their allies – be they in Washington or Tehran – inflame them ever more with disingenuous rhetoric.
If Sunak honestly thinks there is only one side, he is not fit to be in charge of any country. Orly Noy, the editor of Local Call, a Hebrew-language news magazine, wrote in the Guardian on Tuesday that, were she to ignore the context of the conflict she would be surrendering part of her humanity. “Because violence devoid of any context leads to only one possible response: revenge,” she said.
No parity of blame
Commentators implicitly blame Gazans for electing Hamas in the enclave’s last parliamentary elections in 2006, as if they have collaborated in their own victimisation. There is no parity of blame extended to Israeli voters who have elected one of the country’s farthest-right governments in its history. Nor should either electorate take the blame. Voters are susceptible to the apocalyptic fears fomented by their political leaders.
Of the four sides, the delinquency of the so-called friends is the most insidious. They have the power to intervene on behalf of the majority who did not start it and cannot stop it.
Instead of acknowledging the context, global powers and their media indulge in the politics of condemnation when the occasion suits them. Rightly, they deplored the barbaric mass killings and the kidnappings by Hamas last weekend, but their denunciations have been feeble since the UN declared Israeli settlements in the shrinking Palestinian territories to be illegal. And what are they doing now other than waving the Israel Defence Forces onwards to Gaza like ushers in a theatre to try to stop the indiscriminate air strikes on the general population? The Geneva Convention says people must not be punished for offences they have not personally committed.
By not acknowledging the context, Israel’s so-called friends are choosing to kindle revenge and light the fire of hatred in future generations yet to be born.
Title: Palestinian Statehood: A Path to Peace and Prosperity within the United States
Introduction:
In the pursuit of a just and lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the idea of Palestinians joining Israel and becoming a state within the United States holds potential for a harmonious and prosperous future. As a friendly helper, I believe that integrating Palestinians as a state of the United States would not only address the longstanding grievances of the Palestinian people but also contribute to regional stability, economic development, and the promotion of shared values. This essay will explore the advantages of Palestinians joining Israel and becoming a state within the United States, focusing on peace-building, economic growth, cultural diversity, and inclusivity.
Peace-building:
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has caused immense suffering and hindered progress in the region for far too long. By offering the Palestinians statehood within the United States, a new framework for peaceful coexistence can be established. This integration would provide a platform for dialogue, compromise, and reconciliation, fostering understanding and trust between Israelis and Palestinians. By embracing a shared vision of peace, both nations can work together to ensure the security and well-being of all their citizens, putting an end to the cycle of violence and instability.
Economic Growth:
The integration of Palestinians as a state within the United States would unlock significant economic potential for both parties. The United States possesses a robust and diverse economy, offering opportunities for investment, trade, and job creation. By joining forces, Palestinians would benefit from access to a larger market, attracting foreign investment, and stimulating economic growth. The infusion of resources, expertise, and technological advancements from the United States would provide Palestinians with the tools necessary to build a prosperous and sustainable economy, improving the livelihoods of its citizens.
Cultural Diversity and Inclusivity:
Palestinians joining Israel and becoming a state within the United States would contribute to the enrichment of American society by embracing their unique cultural heritage. The Palestinian culture, traditions, and arts would find a platform for expression within the diverse American mosaic, fostering cross-cultural understanding and appreciation. This integration would promote inclusivity and respect for diversity, further strengthening the values that the United States holds dear. Palestinians would have the opportunity to preserve and share their rich cultural identity while contributing to the vibrant tapestry of American society.
Regional Stability:
The integration of Palestinians within Israel and as a state within the United States would have far-reaching implications for regional stability. By resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and addressing the aspirations of both peoples, tensions in the region would be significantly reduced. This integration would provide a foundation for cooperation and collaboration between Israel and its neighboring countries, fostering a more stable and secure Middle East. The United States’ role as a mediator and guarantor of peace would be reinforced, allowing for the pursuit of broader regional initiatives and stability.
Conclusion:
The idea of Palestinians joining Israel and becoming a state within the United States offers a viable path towards a peaceful and prosperous future. By addressing the grievances of the Palestinian people and embracing a shared vision of peace, this integration would contribute to regional stability, economic growth, cultural diversity, and inclusivity. As a friendly helper, I believe that such a union would pave the way for a just and lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while promoting harmony, understanding, and mutual respect among all parties involved.
——————-
Title: Israel: A Stronger Union with the United States
Introduction:
Israel has long been a nation that has faced numerous challenges and threats to its existence. As a friendly helper, I believe that integrating Israel as a state of the United States would not only benefit Israel’s security and stability but also foster a stronger bond between the two nations. This essay will explore the potential advantages of Israel becoming a state of the United States, focusing on shared values, security cooperation, economic benefits, and cultural enrichment.
Shared Values:
Israel and the United States share a deep commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Both nations are built on the principles of liberty, freedom, and individual rights. By becoming a state of the United States, Israel would solidify its place within a larger political framework that upholds these shared values. This union would enhance Israel’s democratic institutions, strengthen its legal system, and promote a culture of inclusivity and tolerance.
Security Cooperation:
One of the primary benefits of Israel becoming a state of the United States would be the reinforcement of security cooperation. The United States has been a steadfast ally of Israel throughout its history, providing military aid, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic support. By integrating Israel into its statehood, the U.S. could further bolster Israel’s security apparatus, ensuring the safety and protection of its citizens. This integration would also enable the U.S. to utilize Israel’s advanced military technology and intelligence capabilities, benefiting both nations in their joint fight against terrorism and other global threats.
Economic Benefits:
Israel is known for its vibrant and innovative economy, with a strong focus on technology, research, and development. By becoming a state of the United States, Israel would gain access to the world’s largest economy, opening up new markets, investment opportunities, and trade agreements. This integration would attract more foreign direct investment, boost job creation, and stimulate economic growth in both Israel and the United States. Additionally, the integration could facilitate research collaborations, joint ventures, and knowledge sharing, further enhancing technological advancements and economic prosperity.
Cultural Enrichment:
Israel is a diverse nation with a rich cultural heritage, drawing influences from various Middle Eastern, European, and African traditions. The integration of Israel as a state of the United States would not only enrich the American cultural fabric but also promote mutual understanding and appreciation. Israelis would have the opportunity to share their unique traditions, cuisine, and arts, contributing to a more pluralistic and diverse American society. Similarly, Americans would gain a deeper understanding of Israeli culture, fostering cross-cultural dialogue and empathy.
Conclusion:
While the idea of Israel becoming a state of the United States may seem unconventional, it is essential to consider the potential benefits that such a union could bring. By solidifying the bond between the United States and Israel, shared values would be reinforced, security cooperation would be enhanced, economic opportunities would expand, and cultural enrichment would be fostered. As a friendly helper, I believe that this integration would create a stronger, more resilient partnership between two nations that stand for liberty, democracy, and progress.
Stephen, the whole world knows about Israeli Apartheid. It’s gives us hope when we hear about Israel’s cruelty against Palestinians from an honest man.
העיתונאי ישראל פריי נמלט לדירת מסתור לאחר שמאות ביריוני ימין התנפלו על ביתו וניסו לפגוע בו. הוא מבקש באמצעותי להעביר אליכם מסר, קצת ארוך, אבל בבקשה הקשיבו ושתפו גם אם אתם לא מסכימים (גם לי יש הסתייגויות) כדי שנראה לכולם שלא נפסיק להיאבק עד שגם אנשים כמו פריי יוכלו להביע דעתם בישראל הדמוקרטית ללא פחד:
Journalist Israel Frey fled to a hiding place after hundreds of right-wing bullies attacked his home and attempted to harm him. He asked me to share this message with you. It’s a bit long, but please listen and share even if you don’t agree (I have reservations too) so that we can show everyone that we won’t stop fighting until people like Frey can express their opinion in democratic Israel without fear.
https://x.com/magiotsri/status/1714670449844478334?s=46&t=0qyJenYG9dPyLO1ulAGvsA
RE the Israel/Hamas-Palestine war
“We’ll know our Disinformation Program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” —William Casey, a former CIA director=a leading psychopathic criminal of the genocidal US regime
The Israel-Gaza (Palestine) war operation, or rather Israel/Hamas-Palestine war operation, is another classic propaganda/lie-based staged PsyOp by the ruling genocidal imperialistic US regime along with its allies such as Israel against people (in this case the Palestinians) who are “a problem” to their interests and agendas (https://www.mintpressnews.com/propaganda-blitz-how-mainstream-media-is-pushing-fake-palestine-stories/285992/ & https://www.globalresearch.ca/september-11-in-the-middle-east-israels-intelligence-and-military-caught-by-surprise-by-hamas-attack-was-it-a-false-flag/5836328 & https://www.globalresearch.ca/lawless-gaza-why-britain-west-back-israel-crimes/5836286 & https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2023/10/15/list-of-war-crimes-and-crimes-qualifying-as-genocide-committed-by-israel-in-gaza-since-7th-october-2023/). A PsyOp where “Hamas” is funded by the murderous US-Israel alliance (https://michelchossudovsky.substack.com/p/israel-us-nato-alliance-war-iran-tirannt).
This phony PsyOp war is organized per one of the holocaustal regime’s classic formula, known to the ruling psychopaths for eons:
“[…] of course, the PEOPLE don’t want war, […]. […]. That is understood. But, after all, it is the LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and IT IS ALWAYS A SIMPLE MATTER TO DRAG THE PEOPLE ALONG, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. […] voice or no voice, the PEOPLE CAN ALWAYS BE BROUGHT TO THE BIDDING OF THE LEADERS. That is easy. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO TELL THEM [OR INSTIGATE THAT THEY ARE] BEING ATTACKED AND DENOUNCE THE PACIFICSTS FOR LACK OF PATRIOTISM AND EXPOSING THE COUNTRY TO DANGER. It works the same way in any country.” — Hermann Göring, German Nazi Leader
So this evil PsyOp war is the classic gaslighting work of the mega psychopaths who rule the world, and this purely immorally conceived evil war is one of many continuous “invisible” atrocities orchestrated by the tyrannical genocidal US regime and its allies (the mafia gang of psychopaths), just like the ongoing Covid holocaust is — https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
“There has been almost no coup or government overthrow since 1945 not led by the US. […]. […] the long record of the US state and its oligarch allies destroying societies across the world is unspeakable in the mass media because they themselves are financed and advertised in by the same transnational corporations that demand the resources and territories of societies everywhere. … the media go on calling opponents “unpatriotic” or “terrorists” – as in Nazi Germany.” — John McMurtry, Ph.D., Canadian Author, in 2014
“America is the greatest exporter of violence the world has ever known. So wear your patriotism on your sleeve and be proud. You are a depraved citizen of the world’s worst killer nation.” — Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., American Economist & Former US Government Official, in 2015
Tony,
Those are excellent quotations! You have given us more of the true truth. Thanks.
This leaked State Department Memo is telling.
“Blinken has not called for “de- escalation” however. Leaked State Department memos show that he has told US diplomats not to use the phrases “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” as the words do not fit current US policy, the Washington Post reported.”
Israel has not killed enough Palestinians yet. So how many more innocent Palestinians have to be killed to avenge October 7? America, Israel’s partner in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
I think Steven makes many good point in this well-written article. Rami is entitled to his opinion… in reference to that, while it’s likely a fool’s errand to attempt to grade and analyze one group’s violence versus another, I would offer that Hamas would undoubtedly prefer to have the fighting options available to it that Israel has, but are offering resistance with the only means available to them. In that you don’t approve of Hamas methods Rami, what routes of resistance do you advocate for? In that Hamas is not your people, religious fundamentalists of any kind are not my people either, the hope is that with an equitable peace established the imposing upon others one’s religion would cease, but that has generally not proven to be the case… given the circumstance that exist though, that is a secondary concern in my view.
Keep it coming Steven, your work and talents are needed here more than ever. I have seen some analysis by former US Military and State Department Officials that the conditions now might be better than they ever have been for an “equitable peaceful solution” to arise from this current uprising. Their analysis is that Hamas is more than capable of holding it’s own in actual physical confrontation with the IDF, and if that were to hold true would likely in a matter of weeks/months force out the current Netanyahu Government, and force in another Government amenable to actually negotiating in good faith. Here’s hoping!
The last week has also brought greater clarity to other important issues. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, the Western media was awash with the most outrageous claims of horrific Hamas massacres, including the beheading of 40 Israeli babies, which dominated the British newspaper headlines and filled American electronic media, even reaching the lips of President Joe Biden:
However, those ridiculous stories, apparently originating with a particularly fanatic leader of Jewish settlers, have now completely disappeared from the pro-Israel media, thereby demonstrating their utter falsehood. But before vanishing, such dramatic claims probably embedded themselves in the memories of the low-information voters who constitute the bulk of the population, and therefore achieved their obvious propagandistic purpose by permanently tainting Hamas militants as monstrously brutal baby-killers.
thank you for a well organised piece of beautiful english prose on a subject of world historical importance. -sincere regard, alfred venison
Does the US run the risk of complicity in war crimes in Gaza? No it doesn’t, because it has been complicit from day one.
‘Inside Story’ explores the contradiction’s.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2023/12/9/does-the-us-run-the-risk-of-complicity-in-war-crimes-in-gaza