Tag archieven: Palestine

Article from Amira Hass/”If the Israeli army invades Rafah, what will be of more than 1.5 million Palestinians, who take shelter there?

Juli 2014. Het Israëlische leger bombardeert de Gazastrook.

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

Reuters

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

ICJ South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention)  CC-BY-SA-4.0

Foreword:

Dear Readers

On the request of drs J Wijenberg, former Dutch ambassador and

an important activist of the Palestinian Case, hereby I publish

the following article of another great advocate for Palestinian Rights:

AMIRA HASS:

The article is titled:

”IF THE ISRAELI ARMY INVADES RAFAH, WHAT WILL BE OF MORE

THAN 1.5 MILLION PALESTINIANS WHO TAKE SHELTER THERE?”

The article was published in the Israeli newspaper The Haaretz

SEE MORE ABOUT AMIRA HASS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amira_Hass

And see for more information about drs J Wijenberg 

OR

https://electronicintifada.net/content/former-dutch-ambassador-calls-sanctions-if-israel-refuses-comply-international-law/6034

Read further o Readers

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!

ASTRID ESSED

AND NOW THE AMIRA HASS ARTICLE!

IF THE ISRAELI ARMY INVADES RAFAH, WHAT WILL BE OF MORE

THAN 1.5 MILLION PALESTINIANS WHO TAKE SHELTER THERE?

AMIRA HASS

PUBLISHED IN THE HAARETZ

10 FEBRUARY 2024

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-02-10/ty-article-magazine/.premium/if-israel-invades-rafah-what-will-be-of-over-1-5m-palestinians-who-take-shelter-there/0000018d-9360-d443-a19f-fff113ba0000

PAGE 2

Since Yahya Sinwar, his close aides and Hamas militants have never been

found in Gaza City and then not in Khan Yunis, the Israeli army is

considering expanding its ground operation into the southern Gaza city of

Rafah. 

The army is doing so because it assumes that Sinwar and his aids

are hiding in the tunnels underneath this southern region of the Gaza Strip,

presumably holding on to the Israeli hostages who are still alive.

Most of the Gaza Strip residents, some 1.4 million people, are concentrated

in Rafah. 

Tens of thousands are still fleeing into the city from Khan Yunis,

where the fighting continues. The thought that Israel will invade Rafah and

that fighting will take place between and near civilians terrifies the city's

residents and the internally displaced persons. 

The terror they feel is

augmented by the conclusion that nobody can prevent Israel from carrying

out its intention – not even the ICJ ruling that orders Israel to take all

measures to avoid acts of genocide.

Military correspondents in Israel report and assume that the army intends to

order residents of Rafah to move to a safe area. Since the war started, the

army has been waving around this evacuation or

der as evidence that it is

acting in order to prevent any harm to ”uninvolved civilians”

This safe zone, however, which was bombarded and still is bombarded by

Israel, is gradually shrinking. 

The only safe zone that truly remains, and

which the IDF is now designating for the masses of people in Rafah, is Al-

Mawasi – a southern Gaza coastal area of approximately 16 square

kilometers (about 6 square miles).

It’s still unclear by what verbal measures the IDF and its legal experts

intend to reconcile this squeezing of so many civilians with the orders

given by the ICJ.

PAGE 3

”The humanitarian zone designated by the army is around the size of Ben-

Gurion International Airport (about 6.3 square miles)” concluded Haaretz

journalists Yarden Michaeli and Avi Scharf in their report earlier this week.

The report, titled "Gazans Fled Their Homes. 

They Have Nowhere to

Return to”, revealed the vast devastation across the Gaza Strip as captured

in Satellite images.

The comparison with Ben-Gurion International Airport invites one to imagine

a density beyond anything imaginable, but Israeli TV commentators don't go

much further beyond the deep insight that the ground invasion of Rafah will

indeed, ”won’t be that simple.”

Although it’s difficult, we must imagine what awaits the Palestinians in

Rafah if the army’;s plan is carried out. 

We must do so not so much as of humanist and moral considerations, which after October 7 aren’t that relevant to the majority of the Israeli-Jewish public, but because of the military, humanitarian, and -eventually- legal and political entanglementsthat are surely expected if we go down that road.
The compression

Even if ”only” about a million Palestinians will flee for the third and fourth

time into Al-Mawasi – an area which is already full of displaced Gazans –

the density will be about 62,500 people per square kilometer (about

157,000 people per square mile).

This will happen in an open area with no skyscrapers to house the

refugees, that has no running water, no privacy, no means of living, no

hospitals or medical clinics, no solar panels to charge phones, and all while

aid organizations will have to cross through or near battle zones in order to

distribute the small amounts of food that do enter the Gaza Strip.

It seems that the only position in which this narrow area could

accommodate everyone would be if they're all standing or kneeling.

Perhaps it’ll be necessary to form special committees that will determine

sleeping arrangements in shifts: a few thousand would lie down while the

rest continue to stand awake.

The buzzing of the drones above and below,

the cries of babies born during the war and whose mothers have no milk or

not enough of it – these will be the unnerving soundtrack.

From what we saw during the IDF’s ground raids and the battles in Gaza 

City and Khan Yunis, it’s clear, that the ground operation in Rafah if it

PAGE 4

eventually unfolds, will last many weeks. Does Israel believe that the ICJ

will consider the compression of hundreds of thousands or a million

Palestinians on a small piece of land a proper ”measure”; that prevents

genocide?

About 270 thousand Palestinians lived in the Rafah district before the war.

The one-and-a-half million who are currently staying there suffer from

hunger and malnutrition; they suffer from thirst, cold, diseases and

spreading infections, from lice in their hair and skin rash; they suffer from

physical and mental exhaustion and a chronic lack of sleep.

They crowd in

schools, hospitals and mosques, in tent neighborhoods that have sprung up

in and around Rafah, and in apartments that house dozens of displaced

families.

Tens of thousands of them are wounded, including those whose limbs were

amputated due to the army's attacks or surgeries that followed. They all

have relatives and friends – children, babies and elderly parents – who

have been killed in the past four months.

The houses of most of them were destroyed or badly damaged. All their

possessions are lost. 

Their money has run out due to the high and

exorbitant food prices. 

Many escaped death only by chance, and witnessed

the dreadful sights of dead bodies. They don’;t mourn the dead yet because

the trauma continues. 

Along with displays of support and solidarity, disputes

and fights also occur. Some lose their memory and sanity from all the

suffering.

As it has done in other areas in the strip, to maintain the element of

surprise, the IDF will issue a warning about two hours before a ground

invasion into Rafah. This will give the residents a time window of a few

hours that day to evacuate the city.

Imagine this convoy of refugees and the mass panic of people fleeing

toward Al-Mawasi in the west. Think of the elders, the sick, the disabled and

the wounded who will be ”lucky” to be transported in donkey carts or

makeshift wheelbarrows and in cars that run on cooking oil.

All the others – both sick and healthy – will have to leave on foot. They’;ll

probably have to leave behind the little that they’ve managed to collect and

take with them in previous displacements, like blankets and plastic sheets

for shelter, warm clothes, some food and basic items such as small

cookers.

This forced escape march will probably go through the ruins of some of the

buildings that Israel bombed not long ago, or the craters created on the

PAGE 5

road due to the attacks. The whole convoy will then stand still until a detour

is found. Someone is bound to trip; a cartwheel will get stuck in the mud.

And all of them – hungry and thirsty, frightened by the imminent attack or

the expected tank shelling – will continue going forward. Children will cry

and get lost. People will feel bad. 

Medical teams will struggle to reach

whoever needs care.

Only 4 kilometers (about 2.4 miles) separate Rafah from Al-Mawasi, but it’;ll

require several hours to cross. 

The people marching will be cut off from any

communication, if only because of the packed convoy and the

overcrowding. They’;ll fight over the area where they wish to set up a tent.

They’ll fight over who gets to be closest to a building or a water well. 

They’;ll

faint due to thirst and hunger.

The following image will repeat itself several times over the next few days:

A march of starving and frightened Palestinians starts fleeing in panic each

time the IDF announces another area whose residents are supposed to

evacuate, while the tanks and infantry troops advance toward them. 

The

shelling and ground troops will get closer to the hospitals that are still

functioning. Tanks will surround them, and all the patients and medical

teams will be required to evacuate to the crowded Al-Mawasi area.

The ground operation

It’;s hard to know how many of them will decide not to leave. 

As we learned

from what happened in the northern Gaza districts and Khan Yunis, a

significant number of residents prefer to stay in an area that is destined for

a ground operation. 

Among them will be tens of thousands of displaced,

sick and seriously wounded Gazans who are hospitalized, pregnant women

and others who will decide to stay in their own homes and the homes of

their relatives or in schools turned into shelters. 

The little information they

will get from the concentration area of Al-Mawasi is enough to discourage

them from joining.

IDF soldiers and commanders, however, interpret the evacuation order

differently: anyone who remains in an area designated for ground invasion

isn’t considered an innocent civilian; they aren’;t considered ”uninvolved”

Anyone who stays in their homes and goes out to fetch water from a city

facility that is still operating or from some private well, medical teams called

to treat a patient, a pregnant woman walking to a nearby hospital to give

birth – all of them, as we saw during the war and in past military campaigns,

are criminalized in the eyes of the soldiers. 

Shooting and killing them

follows the IDF’s rules of engagement.

PAGE 6

According to the army, such shootings are carried out in accordance with

international law because these individuals were warned that they must

leave. 

Even when soldiers break into houses during the fighting, Gazans,

mainly men, are at risk of death from gunfire. 

A soldier shooting someone

because they felt threatened or followed an order – it doesn’t matter. It

happened in Gaza City, and it might happen in Rafah.

Just as the aid teams aren’t authorized or are unable to reach the northern

Gaza Strip to distribute food, they won’t be able to distribute it in the fighting

areas in Rafah. 

The little food that the residents managed to save will

gradually run out.

Those who remain in their homes will be forced to choose the lesser of two

evils: either they go out and risk Israeli fire or starve at home. 

Most of them

already suffer from a severe lack of nutrients. In many families, adults are

giving up food so that their children can be fed. There’s a real danger that

many will starve to death while in their home as the fighting rages outside.

The bombings

Since the war started, the army bombarded residential buildings, open

areas and passenger cars in every location it had defined as ”safe” (that its

residents weren’;t required to leave). It doesn’t matter if the attacks target

Hamas facilities, the group’s officials or other members who were staying

with their families or have come out of hiding to visit them – civilians are

almost always killed.

The bombings didn’t stop in Rafah either. Overnight into Thursday, two

houses were bombed in the western Rafah neighborhood of Tel al-Sultan.

According to Palestinian sources, 14 people were killed, including five

children.

The sources also said that a mother and daughter were killed in an Israeli

attack on a house in northern Rafah on February 7 and that a journalist was

killed together with his mother and sister in western Rafah the day before.

Also on February 6, the sources added, six Palestinian police officers were

killed in an Israeli attack while they were securing an aid truck in eastern

Rafah.

These attacks indicate that the so-called collateral damage calculations

approved by IDF legal experts and the State Prosecutor’s Office are

extremely permissive. The number of uninvolved Palestinians that it is

”permitted”; to kill in return for hitting an army’s target is higher than in any

previous war.

PAGE 7

People in Rafah are afraid that the IDF will apply these permissive criteria

also in Al-Mawasi, and attack there as well if a target is in the area, among

the hundreds of thousands who take shelter. This is how an announced

safe haven will become a death trap for hundreds of thousands.

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Article from Patrick Lawrence/”Israel’s place in Global Public Space/The Zionist State, like the US, can’t survive in it”

Juli 2014. Het Israëlische leger bombardeert de Gazastrook.

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

Reuters

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

ICJ South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention)  CC-BY-SA-4.0

https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/29/patrick-lawrence-the-palestinians-won-in-the-hague-so-did-the-rest-of-us/

Foreword:

Dear Readers

On the request of drs J Wijenberg, former Dutch ambassador and

an important activist of the Palestinian Case, hereby I publish

the following article of another great advocate for Palestinian Rights:

PATRICK LAWRENCE

The article is titled:

”ISRAEL’S PLACE IN GLOBAL PUBLIC SPACE

THE ZIONIST STATE, LIKE US, CAN’T SURVIVE IN IT”

See more about Patrick Lawrence down below under his article [1]

And see for more information about drs J Wijenberg 

or

https://electronicintifada.net/content/former-dutch-ambassador-calls-sanctions-if-israel-refuses-comply-international-law/6034

Read further o Readers

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!

ASTRID ESSED

AND NOW THE PATRICK LAWRENCE ARTICLE!

ISRAEL’S PLACE IN GLOBAL PUBLIC SPACE”

The Zionist State, like the US, can’t survive in it

Patrick Lawrence

10 FEBRUARY 2024

PAGE 2

10 FEBRUARY

—At writing, it emerges that Israeli propagandists spun of whole

cloth the tales that Hamas militias engaged in “systematic” rape and sexual violence

when they breached the border between Gaza and southern Israel four months ago

this week. 

Many of these accounts were preposterously implausible, but never mind:

Many Western media reported on Hamas’s “weaponization” of sexual violence. The

phenomenon now gets its own acronym. Those who accept this stuff as credible now

take to calling it CRSV, conflict-related sexual violence.

It is enough to put you off acronyms altogether.

There have been powerful, persuasive exposés of this assembly line—Israeli

propaganda productions to Western correspondents to the eyes, ears, and minds of

their readers and viewers. Here I should single out the work of  Mondoweiss , which

covers developments in Israel and Palestine, and The Grayzone, which covers Israel,

Palestine, and a great deal more.

Let us rotate this phenomenon such that we see it

from another perspective. Let us then ask, to what extent does Israel pollute what I

will call global pubic space in the cause of its survival? Follow-on question: Can

Israel survive in global public space?

The International Court of Justice’s recent ruling on genocide in Gaza is a usefully

revealing place to begin seeking our answers.

PAGE 3

Two days before the ICJ ruled, on 26 January, that South Africa has presented

plausible evidence of Israel’s genocidal conduct in Gaza and a court case must

proceed, the Zionist government claimed it had declassified nearly three dozen

documents—cabinet minutes, internal orders, advisory notes—to suggest that its

intent all along has been to limit casualties among the Palestinians of Gaza. One of

these documents—these alleged documents, this is to say—reads in part:

The prime minister stressed time and again the need to increase significantly the

humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.

And from another:

It is recommended to respond favorably to the request of the U.S.A. to enable the

entry of fuel.

The Israelis allowed The New York Times to see copies of these texts—alleged copies

of alleged texts. So far as we know, no other person or organization other than the

ICJ has had access to them. The Times, as is its wont whenever it covers Israel,

reported on these alleged copies of alleged documents with wide-eyed credulity. It

never questioned their provenance or their authenticity—an omission that is easy to

understand but difficult to forgive.

Read these passages carefully. Can you imagine a circumstance in which an Israeli

minister or another government official would make such remarks in a closed-door

cabinet meeting or in an internal memorandum?

 I cannot.

I interpret this exercise in

“declassification” at the eleventh hour as crude propaganda in anticipation of The

Hague’s ruling. My prediction: We will never again hear anything about these

“documents,” references to which merit quotation marks.

Instantly after The Hague ruled against Israel, shortly after The Times’s report on the

alleged copies of the alleged minutes and memos, the apartheid regime asserted it had

evidence that a dozen employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which bears

responsibility for the welfare of Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere across the region,

participated in the incursions into southern Israel led by Hamas militias last October

7.

The evidence this time derives—the supposed evidence supposedly derives—from

several sources. There are the cellular telephone intercepts. Here are supposed

confessions of Palestinians the Israel Defense Forces captured during or after the

PAGE 4

events of 7 October. In addition, the Israelis claim to have cross-referenced a Relief

and Works Agency staff list with a list of Hamas members it claims to have found on

a computer in the course of its ground campaign in Gaza.

Again, no Western official or Western medium has raised even the mildest question

as to the verity of Israel’s “evidence.” The Israelis have a long, sordid record of

torturing confessions from captive Palestinians.

They operate a propaganda machine

the match of any nation’s and superior to most.

These realities go unmentioned.

No

one has yet proven Israel’s allegations to be true. Nonetheless, nearly 20

nations—Among them Britain, Germany France, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland,

Finland, Australia, Canada, Japan—have followed the Biden regime’s lead in cutting

off aid to Relief and Works.

On Saturday The Times published a piece quoting at length the director of Relief and

Works in Gaza, Philippe Lazarini, who gives a credible account of the circumstances

in which his agency works and the procedures it follows to prevent staff from

collaborating with Hamas.

Nonetheless, at writing the agency predicts it will be

unable to operate by the end of February.

Famine, starvation, disease, chronic

dehydration:

This kind of catastrophe is now very near. As Jonathan Cook notes in an

excellent commentary published 30 January, the U.S. and those acting with it are no

longer merely complicit in Israel’s genocide: They are now participants in it.

It is important at this moment to recognize what we know and do not know about

Israel’s reaction to ICJ’s judgment. We cannot be entirely certain that the Zionist

state has submitted falsified evidence at The Hague, although this is very likely the

case.

We are very unlikely ever to know the contents of any telephone intercepts, or if

there were indeed any such intercepts.

We cannot know with certainty how Israeli

interrogators obtained the confessions of captive Palestinians, or if they indeed

obtained any confessions, or if the IDF possesses any kind of Hamas membership list,

as the Israelis claim, and if they cross-referenced it as they also claim.

I confirm my

skepticism as to all of Israel’s accounts of these matters, but it is important also to

confirm that they remain too opaque to permit us to judge them with full confidence.

But the World Court’s ruling and Israel’s preliminary response are nonetheless

transformative—clarifying as a chemical agent turns a solution with suspended solids

transparent. We know two things now, as they are perfectly clear. One, Israel, with

PAGE 5

the backing of the U.S. and the various pilot fish that follow it, has begun—or

resumed, better put—a concerted attack on the U.N., global justice, and altogether on

international public space.

Two, if this strategy tells us anything, it is that neither the Israelis nor their Western

backers have any idea what time it is on history’s clock.

They do not understand that

the international public space just mentioned is undergoing a process of restoration.

John Whitbeck, an international lawyer and commentator in Paris, put last month’s

events in their proper historical context as well as anyone.

He subsequently wrote in

his privately circulated newsletter:

More so with each passing day, it appears that our world is restructuring itself for

the long term into two new geopolitical blocs, largely if not exclusively based on

historical divisions between colonizing states and colonized states and

ethnic/cultural divisions between “white” states and “non-white” states.

On one side is a New Evil Empire (the Israeli/American one), supplemented by its

faithful and obedient servants in Europe and the settler-colonial Anglosphere.

On

the other side is a New Free World, encompassing countries with widely varying

cultures and internal governance systems which are both willing and able to stand

up to and resist domination by the New Evil Empire and, more broadly, to assert

their own freedom, sovereignty and national preferences …

Itamar Ben–Givr, Israel’s national security minister and one of its more repugnant

public figures, went on social media after the ICJ announced its decision with two

words those who know Jewish colloquialisms will easily recognize: “Hague

Schmague,” Ben–Givr posted on the message platform known as X.

Apart from this degree of crudity coming from an official of cabinet rank, there is no

surprise here. Illegal settlements, the criminal mistreatment of Palestinians, incidents

of torture, assassinations and covert operations:

The list of Israel’s transgressions of

international law is long.

It has contravened more than 30 Security Council

resolutions since the Six–Day War in 1967.

As the Israelis ignore the ICJ ruling and

proceed with their campaign to exterminate the Palestinian population of Gaza, this is

entirely of a piece with “the Jewish state’s” conduct since its founding amid the

PAGE 6

massacres and forced removals—al–Nakba, “the Catastrophe,” as Palestinians call

it—that began 76 years ago (but has never ended).

It is a forlorn hope that Israel’s leadership, psychotically extremist as it is, could

recognize that the global order is changing, that the ICJ decision reflects this, and a

new set of responses is necessary.

There is no chance of this.

The bitter truth is that

Israel, as constituted in 1948, cannot survive in international public space.

It is too

committed to Zionism, which is precisely the racist ideology the U.N. proclaimed it

to be, not quite 50 years ago, in General Assembly Council Resolution 3379.

3379. Israel is

in consequence too reliant on unending war, repression, institutionalized

discrimination, and violence to count as anything other than a failed experiment. 

Resolution 3379, revoked in 1991 under heavy U.S. pressure, should be restored in

recognition of this reality.

Rejecting the validity of global public space is a considerable part of the bond Israel

enjoys—do I mean exploits?—with the U.S.

Where do we begin enumerating

America’s genocides—with Jackson’s Native American removals, the “Trail of

Tears,” in the late–1830s? Where its flouting of international law—with  with the

annexation of Texas and the Mexican–American War, 1846–48?

Closer to our time,

matters have become more explicit. In 2002, shortly after the U.S. invaded

Afghanistan, it passed the American Service–Members Protection Act, otherwise

known as the Hague Invasion Act.

It proclaimed unilaterally that American military

personnel were immune from prosecution in courts such as the ICJ. Joe Biden, then a

senator, was an enthusiastic supporter of this bill as it made its way into law.

Quickly after the events of 7 October, the Israelis took to calling it “Israel’s 11

September,” a reference to the attacks in New York and Washington in 2001.

This is

too histrionic a notion to take seriously, in my view, except for one thing these events

have in common.

Israel and the U.S. share an obsession with total security, both

believing they were impregnable against the intrusions of others.

The Events of 7

October shocked Israel out of this illusion, just as 11 September ended it for

Americans. Both discovered, on these dates, that there is no such thing as total

security or immunity from history and the tempests that are inevitably part of it.

Two nations with “chosen people” complexes, to put the point another way, found

they were no more chosen than anyone else. It is not difficult to imagine the

PAGE 7

psychological shocks that led both to extreme, irrationally violent reactions when this

consciousness was disturbed.

And in my read, Israel is about to begin struggling with

the same bitter lesson Americans have so far declined to learn: As there is no such

thing as total security, quests for it are not merely doomed to failure but also to

destroy the people or nation seeking it.

It is useful now to consider Zionism as a variant of America’s claim to

exceptionalism. And in their responses to the judicial ruling in The Hague two weeks

ago, Israel and the U.S. have signaled they intend to continue insisting that they are

exceptions to the international community’s laws and norms.

Sadly but not

tragically—tragedy implies a cleansing, suffering that leads to knowledge—they have

read our moment wrongly. Can Zionism survive this mistake? Only with more

extreme violence. Can Israel survive the mistake of Zionism? Should it? These are

our questions now.

An earlier version of this essay appeared in Global Bridge.

END OF THE PATRICK LAWRENCE ARTICLE

[1]

MORE ABOUT PATRICK LAWRENCE!

SEE THIS ARTICLE

PATRICK LAWRENCE: THE PALESTINIANS WON IN THE HAGUE: SO

DID THE REST OF US

PATRICK LAWRENCE

29 JANUARY 2024

https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/29/patrick-lawrence-the-palestinians-won-in-the-hague-so-did-the-rest-of-us/

The non–West has spoken, it has raised its voice.

Half a dozen years ago I sat in the lobby lounge at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan talking at length with Richard Falk, the scholar, lawyer, U.N. rapporteur, and advocate of Palestinian rights. Inevitably, the conversation turned for a time to international law, a topic on which Falk has long been a recognized authority. Here is a little of what he said as we took our afternoon tea:

When international law is on the side of the geopolitical actors, then they are very serious about its relevance. When the American embassy was seized in Tehran after the Iranian Revolution, they talked about the flouting of international law as if that was the most sacred body of law that ever existed. International law is used very instrumentally. If you’re protecting private investment in Venezuela or Chile, then it’s barbaric not to uphold it. But if it’s blocking the pursuit of some kind of interventionist project, then it’s flaky or irrelevant to talk about it …

I thought about that exchange over the weekend, as I considered the International Court of Justice’s ruling last Friday that the apartheid state of Israel may be guilty of genocide against Gaza’s Palestinian population, as South Africa charges, and that the case Pretoria brought last month must proceed. Later Friday, the estimable Phyllis Bennis quoted Falk in a piece she wrote for In These Times. Falk called the decision the court’s “greatest moment,” and went on to explain, “It strengthens the claims of international law to be respected by all sovereign states—not just some.”

Consistency of thought: It does not get more admirable than this.

There are many, many ways to look upon the ICJ’s ruling, many things worth saying. The very first of these is that the significance of the ICJ’s interim finding lies beyond dispute. Will the barbarities of a nation self-evidently suffering a collective psychosis now stop? No. What Dick Falk said six years ago still holds: Israel has already made clear it will ignore The Hague’s judgment. 

But what “the Jewish state” does this week or next is not for the moment our question. What are the enduring consequences of this ruling for the global order? How shall we situate the court’s judgment? Where does its importance lie? These are our questions. And Falk was right last Friday, too: The ICJ has begun the work—the long work—of restoring international law as a foundational feature of a world order worthy of the term.

Having made this point, I must immediately note the abject deflections we find in the reports of our corporate media—which, nearly to a one, urge their readers, listeners, and viewers to dismiss the ICJ’s interim finding as, borrowing from Falk, more or less flaky and irrelevant. In the second paragraph of its main story Friday, The New York Times, fairly bursting to get the point across, wrote, “The court did not rule on whether Israel was committing genocide, and it did not call on Israel to stop its campaign to crush Hamas…”

Three untruths here, straight off the top.  One, the South Africans did not ask The Hague to issue a ruling on genocide one way or the other. In the cause of expedience, to stop the savagery as quickly as possible, it asked for what it got—a swift interim judgment so the court could order Israel to stop the violence and that the larger case on genocide could proceed.

Two, a mountain has been made of the fact that the ICJ did not, in so many words, call upon Israel to cease fire in Gaza. This is preposterously misleading. Peruse the six stipulations that comprise the ruling, the first of which reads, “Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent all acts within the scope of Genocide Convention, Article 2.” Here I defer to Raz Segal, an Israeli historian who professes at Stockton University in New Jersey. This is from a segment of Democracy Now!, distributed last Friday:

We’re already seeing headlines in The New York Times today which frame this as, “The court did not issue an order for a ceasefire”—which, in effect, it actually did, because if it ordered that Israel should cease from genocidal acts, and it ordered Israel should facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, it actually said, “You have to cease fire because there is no [other] way of doing that.”

And three, what Israel is doing in Gaza—as any review of the daily death toll will make clear, any five minutes of video footage—can be characterized as “a military campaign to crush Hamas” only by those so abjectly committed to defending Israeli atrocities that all thought of honest reporting and writing is cast aside. 

Almost all major media have followed The Times’s lead, per usual. Among the exceptions—and I confess my surprise here—is National Public Radio. It got the no-ceasefire bit wrong, but it otherwise published a quite good, balanced report from London that included worthy material from its South Africa correspondent (unless NPR took this off the wires):

Since former President Nelson Mandela’s administration, South Africa has long supported the Palestinian cause, saying it sees echoes of apartheid in the situation between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“We, as South Africans, will not be passive bystanders and watch the crimes that were visited upon us being perpetrated elsewhere,” [South African President Cyril] Ramaphosa said Friday. He noted the ICJ affirmed South Africa’s right to take Israel to court, “even though it is not a party to the conflict in Gaza.”

But exceptions prove rules, let us not forget. For the sheer nonsense of its reporting, I have to single out—the envelope, please—the reliably egregious MSNBC. You may want to take a moment to read this twice. In its Friday evening newscast, it had it that the ICJ ruling is nicely aligned with the Biden regime’s calls to minimize civilian casualties. Further, we need to know what The Hague’s finding is not and what it does not do: It is not any kind of indictment of the Biden regime’s policy, no, and it does not make Biden and the U.S. complicit in genocide. 

It is and it does, in my view. 

The running theme in American media is that The Hague’s judgment has changed nothing. Who can be surprised? Nothing ever changes when these media are telling us about the world. America is never wrong. America never makes a mistake. America is never on the wrong side. America is always good. America never loses. 

Let us now consider what enormous changes occurred when Joan Donoghue, an American judge who currently presides at The Hague, read out the ruling.  

As the Israeli military and propaganda machines reached full throttle late last autumn, a friend sent me a video link to a film called Defamation, made in 2009 by an Israeli documentarian named Yoav Shamir. It is a strangely lighthearted but thoroughly serious treatment of how Israel drills into its people, youth and adults alike, the thought that the world, all of it, rages with anti–Semitism, that they are destined to be hated, that they must remain a people apart. My friend urged me to watch it amid the circus-like charges of anti–Semitism everywhere just then overtaking America. I found the film sad—as I do the cynical manipulation of history and memory by people who seem to think nothing of pimping their own past and the suffering of the six million. 

I watched Defamation again over the weekend. Here I transcribe a brief passage that features one Suzanne Prince and her husband, Harvey, who are active in the Los Angeles office of the American Defamation League. Shamir, who speaks from behind his camera, has asked them why the ADL makes incessant references to events that occurred many decades in the past:

S.P. To combat it [anti–Semitism] effectively you have to take responsibility for everything that happened in the past, then reach the present, and then go forward….

Y.S. Sometimes you need to give some slack to get what you want. 

S.P. No, no, absolutely not…. I bring up everything from the past…. We need to play on that guilt.

Y.S. Maybe the guilt trip we are giving them doesn’t help. Maybe we should give them some slack. 

H.P. Moderate.

S.P. The guilt of the father should not be visited upon the sons, true….

H.P. You cannot let it go down, but you can’t keep playing on it as heavily as some people do. You have to be moderate. 

This dialogue is now 15 years in the past. Until last Friday I would have said it is likely we are in for at least another 15 years of this kind of thing. We may be: The Israelis have already begun to sound the anti–Semitism bell in response to the ICJ decision. Over the weekend they accused a dozen U.N. employees—of 13,000 in Gaza—of collaborating with Hamas on October 7. I will believe this when I see evidence of it—evidence other than what the Israelis claim is evidence. The Zionist propaganda machine is now exposed. There is no air left in the tires of the Suzanne and Harvey Princes among us. At long last, the disgraceful decades of guilt-tripping is up and one can say so publicly. The Holocaust card, to put the point another way, is at last played out. 

Let us not miss the significance of this moment. As others have noted, 75 years of Israeli impunity will now draw to a close. Israel’s crimes can now be called Israel’s crimes.  Contempt for the Zionist state can now be legitimately expressed. I describe as best I can a change of consciousness, or of the rules of discourse, or both. All the rubbish condemning criticism of Israel as anti–Semitic can now be discarded for what it is. The ICJ, in the six stipulations it imposes on Israel, requires Tel Aviv to report to the court in one month of its efforts to “prevent genocide.” This is subtle, and very astute. It imposes a higher authority on the Israelis. It tells them, “You are answerable now to something other than yourselves (and, of course, the United States). You are answerable to the community of nations.”

There are many things that are for the moment unclear. If Israel ignores the court, as seems likely, and the U.N. Security Council convenes in response, what will the

Biden regime do? Veto a disciplinary resolution? Abstain? To what extent will Israel be isolated? And to what extent the U.S. with it? What about the Europeans? Will they act with some measure of autonomy in response to The Hague’s judgment? Cut off arms sales, scholarly and cultural exchanges? There are too many such questions to list. 

However such eventualities turn out, there are larger matters we must not miss. International law, as Richard Falk noted well, stands to count more now, even if the Israelis transgress it for the umpteenth time. Equally, or maybe this is a yet larger point, it is highly significant that it was South Africa that precipitated last week’s events. The South Africans have emerged over the past year or so, maybe a little more, as committed advocates of a new world order I will call post–Western. They have an enlarging identity as a non–Western power.  

We must all stand with the Palestinians, yes, however each of us is able to make this manifest. But we cannot isolate the ICJ’s ruling as a remedy for one incidence of genocide or one case of the aggression of Western power against the non–West. What happened last Friday in The Hague is best understood as a step, a big one, to ending half a millennium of genocides and violence. 

The non–West has spoken, it has raised its voice. And it will have ever more to say from here on out.

END OF THE ARTICLE

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Patrick Lawrence/”Israel’s place in Global Public Space/The Zionist State, like the US, can’t survive in it”

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Article from Electronic Intifada [2006]/Former Dutch ambassador calls for sanctions if Israel refuses to comply with International Law

Juli 2014. Het Israëlische leger bombardeert de Gazastrook.

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

ELECTRONIC INTIFADA

FORMER DUTCH AMBASSADOR CALLS FOR SANCTIONS IF

ISRAEL RFEFUSES TO COMPLY WITH

INTERNATIONAL LAW

19 JUNE 2006

https://electronicintifada.net/content/former-dutch-ambassador-calls-sanctions-if-israel-refuses-comply-international-law/6034

Some weeks ago I heard Jan Wijenberg, a retired Dutch Ambassador, speak about what the International Community could do to break with its complicity to the ongoing violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli regime. Wijenberg served over a decade as an ambassador for the Dutch government in Jemen, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. He regularly writes to Dutch ministers and politicians to remind them of the responsibility of the international community, and specifically of the Dutch Government and the European Union, to hold Israel accountable to international law. His views are expressed in this article.

Israel is the problem

Quite often is spoken about the conflict in the Middle East between the Palestinians and Israel. If we look at the situation more closely we can observe something different. The media in Israel provide a platform for unpunished, insane calls for murdering peoples and a nation. An example is offered by Professor Arnon Sofer talking about Palestinians living in closed-off Gaza, “…those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam… So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill we will cease to exist…..”1

In 2005 Ehud Barak stated on Dutch television2 that – in a secret and illegal retaliatory campaign against the Palestinian hostage takers at the Munich Olympic Winter Games – he personally had murdered thirteen innocent citizens. According to Barak this would teach the world not to fool around with Israel. Barak was and is not prosecuted for premeditated murder and could achieve the position of the country’s prime minister.

Among the settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are opportunists and extremely violent Israeli’s who aim to occupy East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Palestinians must be driven out of these territories by all means possible, including murder. The government of Israel supports the settlers in full while they lay there hands on Palestinian property and act out their violence on Palestinians.

The annexation of East Jerusalem by Ehud Olmert while he was the mayor of West-Jerusalem can according to the Fourth Geneva Convention be interpreted as a war crime. After the last elections in Israel Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party won the vote and he is now the Prime Minister of Israel.

Israeli policies are driven by the Zionist ideal of creating a Jewish state, including the Palestinian territories. Israel is aiming systematically at destroying the identity of the Palestinian people. The so called “conflict in the Middle East” between Palestinians and Israel does not exist. Zionist Israel is the problem.

Rogue state

Israel is the world’s sole remaining occupying colonial power. It systematically sabotages all international efforts to end the occupation. In its capacity of occupying power Israel violates numerous obligations emanating from Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. It also breaches the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The USA applies a doctrine and the US-administration labels selected countries as ‘Rogue states’. These countries possess weapons of mass destruction illegally, suppress large populations, torture, keep people in detention on a large scale and commit murder outside their national borders. Israel has adopted as a strategy the execution of land and water grabs, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure (including in education and health), the carrying out of extraterritorial executions, torture, and collective punishments and keeping thousands of Palestinians imprisoned indefinitely without charge or prosecution. On the basis of the definition by the USA, Israel has ever since its establishment been a monumental Rogue state and a highly active member of the Axis of Evil.

Letter to Dutch ministers

In February Wijenberg wrote to the ministers Bot, van Ardenne-van der Hoeven and Nicolaï, ministers of Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and State Secretary of European Affairs respectively. He reminded them that according to article 90 of the Dutch Constitution “The government nurtures the development of the international order of law”. So many previous Dutch governments violated this article when it concerns the Middle East. With referral to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004 Wijenberg calls upon the Dutch ministers to show the world that they are serious about international law, justice and democracy. A copy of the letter was sent to the prime minister Balkenende and the minister of Justice Donner. In his view the United States and the European Union – including the Netherlands – have for too long condoned Israels disrespect for international law.

In its response the ministry of Foreign Affairs replies that the Dutch government is actively engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Israel. Wijenberg questions this policy. “”Since when do we politely ask notorious violaters of international law to stop their daily terrorisation of the Palestinian civilians, with assassinations in broad daylight and theft of property, houses, land and water? Why aren’t the harshest peaceful means used to fight this?”

Cal for sanctions

In the view of Wijenberg the European Union and the Netherlands have become an instrument of Israels foreign policy by ignoring its own core values values and respect for international law and human rights. Europe can play a key role in achieving lasting peace for Israel and its neighbours. If Israel refuses to show respect for international law, heavy sanctions against Israel should be installed.

Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant and human rights advocate from the Netherlands.

Endnotes

[1] The Jerusalem Post, Up Front weekend supplement (21 May 2004)

[2] NOVA (15 December 2005)

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Electronic Intifada [2006]/Former Dutch ambassador calls for sanctions if Israel refuses to comply with International Law

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Article from Gideon Levy in the Haaretz/AN ISRAELI INCURSION INTO GAZA’S RAFAH WILL BE AN UNPRECEDENTED HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE

Juli 2014. Het Israëlische leger bombardeert de Gazastrook.

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

Reuters

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA

Foreword:

Dear Readers

On the request of drs J Wijenberg, former Dutch ambassador and

an important activist of the Palestinian Case, hereby I publish

the following article of another great activist for Palestinian human rights,

the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy

SEE ALSO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Levy

And see for more information about drs J Wijenberg the Electronic Initfada

article down Below the Gideon Levy article 

ARTICLE FROM THE HAARETZ

GIDEON LEVY

AN ISRAELI INCURSION INTO GAZA’S RAFAH WILL BE AN

UNPRECEDENTED HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE

11 FEBRUARY 2024

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-02-11/ty-article-opinion/.premium/an-israeli-incursion-into-gazas-rafah-will-be-an-unprecedented-humanitarian-catastrophe/0000018d-9435-d443-a19f-fcb529aa0000

All we can do now is to request, beg, cry out: Don’t enter Rafah. An Israeli incursion into Rafah will be an attack on the world’s biggest displaced persons camp. It will drag the Israeli military into committing war crimes of a severity that even it has not yet committed. It is impossible to invade Rafah now without committing war crimes. If the Israel Defense Forces invades

Rafah, the city will become a carmel house.

Around 1,4 million displaced people are now in

Rafah, sheltering in some cases under plastic bags that have been turned into tents. The

American administration, the supposed gatekeeper of Israeli law and

PAGE 2

conscience, has conditioned the invasion of Rafah on an Israeli plan

to evacuate the city. There is not and cannot be any such plan, even if

Israel manages to come up with something. 

It is impossible to transport one million entirely destitute people,

some of whom have been displaced two or three times already, from

one safe place to another, that always turn into killing fields. It is

impossible to transport millions of people as if they were calves

meant for shipment. Even calves cannot be transported with such

cruelty.

There is also nowhere to evacuate these millions of people. In the

devastated Gaza Strip, there is nowhere left to go. If the Rafah

refugees are moved to Al-Mawasi, as the IDF will propose in its

humanitarian plan, Al-Mawasi will become the site of a humanitarian

disaster the likes of which we haven’t seen in the Strip.

Yarden Michaeli and Avi Scharf report that the entire population of the

Gaza Strip, 2.3 million people, is supposed to evacuate into an area of

16 square kilometers (6.2 square miles), about the size of Ben-Gurion

International Airport. All of Gaza in the area of the airport, just

imagine.  

Amira Hass calculated that if only one million people go to Al-Mawasi,

the population density there will be 62,500 people per square

kilometer. There is nothing in Al-Mawasi: No infrastructure, no water,

no electricity, no homes. Only sand and more sand, to absorb the

blood, the sewage, and the epidemics. The thought of this is not only

bloodcurdling, it also shows the level of dehumanization Israel has

reached in its planning.

Blood will be spilled in Al-Mawasi, as it has been spilled recently in

Rafah, the penultimate safe haven offered by Israel. The Shin Bet

security service will come up with some beat officer affiliated with

Hamas who has to be eliminated by dropping a one-ton bomb on the

new tent camp.

Twenty bystanders, most of them children, will be

killed. The military correspondents will tell us, their eyes shining,

about the wonderful work the IDF is doing in liquidating the top

command of Hamas. Total victory is near, Israelis will be sated once

again.

But even through this force-feeding, the Israeli public must wake up,

and with it the Biden administration. This is an emergency more dire

than any other during this war. The Americans must block the

invasion of Rafah with actions, not words. Only they can stop Israel. 

PAGE 3

The conscientious sector of the Israeli public seeks sources of

information other than the cakes for soldiers stations here that call

themselves news channels.

 Watch pictures of Rafah on any foreign

network – you won’t see anything in Israel – and you’ll

understand

why it can’t be evacuated.

ll understand the war crimes that are

rampant here.

On Saturday, the body of six-year-old Hind Hamada – or Rajab, in

some news outlets – was found

The girl had became famous all over

the world after the moments of terror she and her family experienced

on January 29 in the face of an Israeli tank – moments that were

recorded in a phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent, until heraunt’s screams of terror stopped.

. Seven members of the family were

killed; only little Hind was saved, and her fate had remained a mystery

ever since.

Hind was found dead in her aunt’s burned car 

at a gas station in Khan
Yunis.

She had been wounded, covered by the seven bodies of her

relatives, and she bled to death before she could extricate herselffrom the vehicle.

Hind and her family had responded to Israel’s humanitarian call to evacuate.

Anyone who wants thousands more

Hinds should invade Rafah, whose population will be evacuated to Al-Mawasi.

END OF THE GIDEON LEVY ARTICLE

END OF THE GIDEON LEVY ARTICLE

DOWN BELOW THE GIDEON LEVY ARTICLE:

MORE ABOUT DRS J WIJENBERG

ELECTRONIC INTIFADA

FORMER DUTCH AMBASSADOR CALLS FOR SANCTIONS IF

ISRAEL RFEFUSES TO COMPLY WITH

INTERNATIONAL LAW

19 JUNE 2006

https://electronicintifada.net/content/former-dutch-ambassador-calls-sanctions-if-israel-refuses-comply-international-law/6034

Some weeks ago I heard Jan Wijenberg, a retired Dutch Ambassador, speak about what the International Community could do to break with its complicity to the ongoing violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli regime. Wijenberg served over a decade as an ambassador for the Dutch government in Jemen, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. He regularly writes to Dutch ministers and politicians to remind them of the responsibility of the international community, and specifically of the Dutch Government and the European Union, to hold Israel accountable to international law. His views are expressed in this article.

Israel is the problem

Quite often is spoken about the conflict in the Middle East between the Palestinians and Israel. If we look at the situation more closely we can observe something different. The media in Israel provide a platform for unpunished, insane calls for murdering peoples and a nation. An example is offered by Professor Arnon Sofer talking about Palestinians living in closed-off Gaza, “…those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam… So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill we will cease to exist…..”1

In 2005 Ehud Barak stated on Dutch television2 that – in a secret and illegal retaliatory campaign against the Palestinian hostage takers at the Munich Olympic Winter Games – he personally had murdered thirteen innocent citizens. According to Barak this would teach the world not to fool around with Israel. Barak was and is not prosecuted for premeditated murder and could achieve the position of the country’s prime minister.

Among the settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are opportunists and extremely violent Israeli’s who aim to occupy East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Palestinians must be driven out of these territories by all means possible, including murder. The government of Israel supports the settlers in full while they lay there hands on Palestinian property and act out their violence on Palestinians.

The annexation of East Jerusalem by Ehud Olmert while he was the mayor of West-Jerusalem can according to the Fourth Geneva Convention be interpreted as a war crime. After the last elections in Israel Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party won the vote and he is now the Prime Minister of Israel.

Israeli policies are driven by the Zionist ideal of creating a Jewish state, including the Palestinian territories. Israel is aiming systematically at destroying the identity of the Palestinian people. The so called “conflict in the Middle East” between Palestinians and Israel does not exist. Zionist Israel is the problem.

Rogue state

Israel is the world’s sole remaining occupying colonial power. It systematically sabotages all international efforts to end the occupation. In its capacity of occupying power Israel violates numerous obligations emanating from Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. It also breaches the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The USA applies a doctrine and the US-administration labels selected countries as ‘Rogue states’. These countries possess weapons of mass destruction illegally, suppress large populations, torture, keep people in detention on a large scale and commit murder outside their national borders. Israel has adopted as a strategy the execution of land and water grabs, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure (including in education and health), the carrying out of extraterritorial executions, torture, and collective punishments and keeping thousands of Palestinians imprisoned indefinitely without charge or prosecution. On the basis of the definition by the USA, Israel has ever since its establishment been a monumental Rogue state and a highly active member of the Axis of Evil.

Letter to Dutch ministers

In February Wijenberg wrote to the ministers Bot, van Ardenne-van der Hoeven and Nicolaï, ministers of Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and State Secretary of European Affairs respectively. He reminded them that according to article 90 of the Dutch Constitution “The government nurtures the development of the international order of law”. So many previous Dutch governments violated this article when it concerns the Middle East. With referral to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004 Wijenberg calls upon the Dutch ministers to show the world that they are serious about international law, justice and democracy. A copy of the letter was sent to the prime minister Balkenende and the minister of Justice Donner. In his view the United States and the European Union – including the Netherlands – have for too long condoned Israels disrespect for international law.

In its response the ministry of Foreign Affairs replies that the Dutch government is actively engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Israel. Wijenberg questions this policy. “”Since when do we politely ask notorious violaters of international law to stop their daily terrorisation of the Palestinian civilians, with assassinations in broad daylight and theft of property, houses, land and water? Why aren’t the harshest peaceful means used to fight this?”

Cal for sanctions

In the view of Wijenberg the European Union and the Netherlands have become an instrument of Israels foreign policy by ignoring its own core values values and respect for international law and human rights. Europe can play a key role in achieving lasting peace for Israel and its neighbours. If Israel refuses to show respect for international law, heavy sanctions against Israel should be installed.

Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant and human rights advocate from the Netherlands.

Endnotes

[1] The Jerusalem Post, Up Front weekend supplement (21 May 2004)

[2] NOVA (15 December 2005)

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Gideon Levy in the Haaretz/AN ISRAELI INCURSION INTO GAZA’S RAFAH WILL BE AN UNPRECEDENTED HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Christmas Sermon from Bethlehem by reverend Munther Isaac/Christ under the rubble

Screenshot 2023 12 14 at 16 46 20 o4jic5k5rvbyznqrzndl6kx2ce.jpg  jpeg image 1500   2000 pixels    scaled  44  .png?ixlib=rails 2.1

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Christ Under the Rubble.

We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.

More than 20,000 killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways, day after day. One-point-nine million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.

The world is watching. Churches are watching. The people of Gaza are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares. But it goes on.

We are asking here: Could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny, too?

We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called free lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing the political cover. And yet another layer has been added: the theological cover, with the Western church stepping into the spotlight.

Our dear friends in South Africa taught us the concept of the “state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.” It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.

Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us — our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the empire. Here we confront the theology of the empire, a disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover, using words like “mission” and “evangelism,” “fulfillment of prophecy,” and “spreading freedom and liberty.”

The theology of the empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It speaks of land without people. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. The concept of land without people, again, even though they knew too well that the land had people — and not just any people, a very special people. Theology of the empire calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, a “miracle,” or “a divine miracle,” as they called it. It calls for us Palestinians now to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan. Why not just the sea?

I think of the words of the disciples to Jesus when he was about to enter Samaria: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of the Samaritans. This is the theology of the empire. This is what they’re saying about us today.

This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it’s the color of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us. So they say if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant,” then so be it. We are not humans in their eyes. But in God’s eyes, no one can tell us that.

The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we’re not treated equally. Yet, on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.

To our European friends: I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not white, I guess. It does not apply to us, according to your own logic.

In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the empire has the theology needed. It is thus self-defense, we were told. And I continue to ask: How is the killing of 9,000 children self-defense? How is the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians self-defense?

In the shadow of the empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten — have we forgotten that the state they talk to, that that state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans? Have they forgot that?

We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear, friends: Silence is complicity. And empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action, all under the banner of complicity.

So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th, and the world was silent. Should we be surprised at their silence now?

If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.

If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire. I’m talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.

We will be OK. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we, the Palestinians, will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be OK.

But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won’t make a difference. And I know these words of shocks are coming. And I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won’t make a difference. Words of regret won’t suffice for you. And let me say it: We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, “Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?” …

In these last two months, the psalms of lament have become a precious companion to us. We cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?”

In our pain, anguish and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus himself became the victim of the very same violence of the empire when he was in our land. He was tortured, crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain, “My God, where are you?”

In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.

And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is not to be found on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. He’s in a cave, with a simple family, an occupied family. He’s vulnerable, barely and miraculously surviving a massacre himself. He’s among the refugees, among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is to be found today.

If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble. When we rely on power, might and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble. When we justify, rationalize and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.

Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and the displaced. This is his manger.

And I have been looking and contemplating on this iconic image. God with us precisely in this way, this is the incarnation — messy, bloody, poverty. This is the incarnation.

And this child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says, “Just as you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” “You did it to me.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them. He is the children of Gaza.

We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares their fate. He walks with them and calls them his own.

So this manger is about resilience. It’s about sumud. And the resilience of Jesus is in his meekness, is in his weakness, is in his vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this is very same child who rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires, to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness. This very same child accomplished this.

This is Christmas today in Palestine, and this is the Christmas message. Christmas is not about Santas. It’s not about trees and gifts and lights. My goodness, how we have twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was, by the way, in the U.S.A. last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights and all the commercial goods. And I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their lands. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.

Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a gospel message. It is a true and authentic Christmas message about the God who did not stay silent but said his word, and his word was Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized, he is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.

This message is our message to the world today, and it is simply this: This genocide must stop now. Why don’t we repeat it? Stop this genocide now. Can you say it with me? Stop this genocide —

CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Let’s say it one more time. Stop this genocide —

CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear, O God. Amen.

SOURCE:

DEMOCRACY NOW

”CHRIST IN THE RUBBLE”: WATCH PALESTINIAN

PASTOR DELIVER POWERFUL CHRISTMAS SERMON

FROM BETHLEHEM

26 DECEMBER 2023

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/26/christ_in_the_rubble_christmas_sermon

TEXT

In the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, city and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. We feature the Christmas sermon, “Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament,” delivered Saturday by Reverend Munther Isaac at the landmark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, which has received international attention for a nativity scene depicting the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble. “If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza,” preached Isaac, who condemned using theology to justify Israel’s killing of innocent civilians. “If we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.”


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in the occupied West Bank in the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. City and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities in the Holy Land this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. The landmark Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem created a nativity scene with the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble.

Later in the show, we’ll be joined by the church’s pastor, the Reverend Munther Isaac, but we begin by airing his Christmas sermon, which he delivered on Saturday.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Christ Under the Rubble.

We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.

More than 20,000 killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways, day after day. One-point-nine million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.

The world is watching. Churches are watching. The people of Gaza are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares. But it goes on.

We are asking here: Could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny, too?

We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called free lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing the political cover. And yet another layer has been added: the theological cover, with the Western church stepping into the spotlight.

Our dear friends in South Africa taught us the concept of the “state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.” It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.

Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us — our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the empire. Here we confront the theology of the empire, a disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover, using words like “mission” and “evangelism,” “fulfillment of prophecy,” and “spreading freedom and liberty.”

The theology of the empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It speaks of land without people. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. The concept of land without people, again, even though they knew too well that the land had people — and not just any people, a very special people. Theology of the empire calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, a “miracle,” or “a divine miracle,” as they called it. It calls for us Palestinians now to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan. Why not just the sea?

I think of the words of the disciples to Jesus when he was about to enter Samaria: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of the Samaritans. This is the theology of the empire. This is what they’re saying about us today.

This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it’s the color of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us. So they say if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant,” then so be it. We are not humans in their eyes. But in God’s eyes, no one can tell us that.

The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we’re not treated equally. Yet, on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.

To our European friends: I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not white, I guess. It does not apply to us, according to your own logic.

In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the empire has the theology needed. It is thus self-defense, we were told. And I continue to ask: How is the killing of 9,000 children self-defense? How is the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians self-defense?

In the shadow of the empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten — have we forgotten that the state they talk to, that that state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans? Have they forgot that?

We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear, friends: Silence is complicity. And empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action, all under the banner of complicity.

So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th, and the world was silent. Should we be surprised at their silence now?

If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.

If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire. I’m talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.

We will be OK. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we, the Palestinians, will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be OK.

But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won’t make a difference. And I know these words of shocks are coming. And I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won’t make a difference. Words of regret won’t suffice for you. And let me say it: We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, “Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?” …

In these last two months, the psalms of lament have become a precious companion to us. We cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?”

In our pain, anguish and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus himself became the victim of the very same violence of the empire when he was in our land. He was tortured, crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain, “My God, where are you?”

In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.

And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is not to be found on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. He’s in a cave, with a simple family, an occupied family. He’s vulnerable, barely and miraculously surviving a massacre himself. He’s among the refugees, among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is to be found today.

If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble. When we rely on power, might and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble. When we justify, rationalize and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.

Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and the displaced. This is his manger.

And I have been looking and contemplating on this iconic image. God with us precisely in this way, this is the incarnation — messy, bloody, poverty. This is the incarnation.

And this child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says, “Just as you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” “You did it to me.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them. He is the children of Gaza.

We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares their fate. He walks with them and calls them his own.

So this manger is about resilience. It’s about sumud. And the resilience of Jesus is in his meekness, is in his weakness, is in his vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this is very same child who rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires, to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness. This very same child accomplished this.

This is Christmas today in Palestine, and this is the Christmas message. Christmas is not about Santas. It’s not about trees and gifts and lights. My goodness, how we have twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was, by the way, in the U.S.A. last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights and all the commercial goods. And I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their lands. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.

Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a gospel message. It is a true and authentic Christmas message about the God who did not stay silent but said his word, and his word was Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized, he is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.

This message is our message to the world today, and it is simply this: This genocide must stop now. Why don’t we repeat it? Stop this genocide now. Can you say it with me? Stop this genocide —

CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Let’s say it one more time. Stop this genocide —

CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear, O God. Amen.

AMY GOODMAN: The Reverend Munther Isaac, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, delivering his Christmas sermon on Saturday. He titled it “Christ in the Rubble.” Coming up, Reverend Isaac will join us from Bethlehem in occupied West Bank. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Song to the World,” a version of the popular Christmas song “Little Drummer Boy” sung by the Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank. The three Palestinian college students who were shot in Burlington, Vermont, last month are graduates of the Ramallah Friends School and met there in the first grade. The three students who were shot now go to Haverford, Trinity and Brown in the United States. In the video shared by the school, current students sing in Arabic with English subtitles. The school wrote, “Our hearts come together in prayer for the safety of the children in Gaza. May our shared prayers echo for peace and justice, weaving a tapestry of hope that goes beyond borders, embracing the shared humanity we all hold dear.”

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Christmas Sermon from Bethlehem by reverend Munther Isaac/Christ under the rubble

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Astrid Essed stelt VOMAR opnieuw aan de kaak over de gecontinueerde verkoop van avocado’s uit Israel/VOMAR, hoe lang blijft u Bezettings en Uithongeringsstaat Israel nog steunen?

Vomar folder

https://aanbiedingen365.com/vomar/vomar-folder-627142/16/

AAN

SUPERMARKT VOMARFILIAAL AMSTERDAMSE POORT
Directie en Management


Onderwerp:

Uw aanbiedingsverkoop van avocado’s uit bezettingsstaat Israel


De walrus sprak:

De tijd is daar
Om over allerlei te praten”

Een schoen, een schip, een kandelaar,

Of koningen ook liegen

En of de zee soms koken kan

En een biggetje kan vliegen.
Uit het Engels vertaald uit:

 THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTERLEWIS CARROLL: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walrus_and_the_Carpenter

LEES BIJ TIJDNOOD ALLEEN:

”UITHONGERING BURGERBEVOLKING

MENSEN DRINKEN BRAK WATER!!!!!” en wat daaronder staat.

Geachte Directie

Geacht Management,

Zoals u zich wellicht kunt herinneren, heb ik u in de loop

der Tijden een aantal keren bestookt met mailbrieven met de

eis, geen producten uit Israel meer te verkopen! 

Mijn laatste mail aan u dateert van 23 april 2023!

Zie noot 1

Meestal ging dat om [tenminste, dat heb ik bij een bezoek

aan uw filiaal in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost geconstateerd] om mango’s

en/of avocado’s, die in de aanbieding waren [2]

Nu dacht ik eerlijk gezegd, dat u uw Leven gebeterd had, omdat ik

na mijn Brandmail van 23 april jongstleden [3], althans in uw

filiaal Amsterdam Zuid-Oost, geen avocado’s uit Israel meer

gezien had.

”YES!”, dacht ik

Eindelijk is de boodschap bij VOMAR aangekomen [hopelijk ben

ik namelijk niet de enige, die u hierover heeft aangeschreven] en

beseft de VOMAR, dat zij met de verkoop van producten uit Bezettings

en Apartheidsstaat Israel [4] moreel medeverantwoordelijk is

voor diens wandaden en bloed aan haar handen heeft.

Wie schetst mijn Woede en Verbazing toen ik gisteren [dd woensdag

1 november 2023] bij een bezoek aan weer uw filiaal Amsterdam

Zuid-Oost constateerde, dat u het heeft bestaan om in uw aanbiedingen

folder van 29 october tot 4 november [5] avocado’s in de aanbieding had

[en op dit moment van schrijven dus nog heeft] : twee pakken voor 4 euro en WEER afkomstig uit Israel!!

Ik had al een pakje gepakt [avocado’s zijn voor mij een delicatesse] en

toen ik zag, dat zij uit Israel kwamen, vol walging weer teruggezet.

Ik zeg het u eerlijk:

Als het geen voedsel was geweest maar een ander product, had ik het

op de grond gesmeten!!

Want dat u geen gehoor gegeven hebt aan mijn eis/oproep [en waarschijnlijk ook van anderen] om uw verkoop van Israelische

producten te staken [6] is Een Ding.

Dat u het Lef hebt om juist op dit dramatische Moment

van de Geschiedenis door te gaan, met droge ogen, Israelische

producten te verkopen, is ronduit schokkend

WAAROM JUIST NU?

Moet ik het u nog uitleggen?

Dat ga ik wel doen, al is het meer dan weerzinwekkend, dat het nog nodig is, sinds het feit, dat Israel een bezettings en apartheidsstaat is, die zich in

de loop der jaren heeft schuldig gemaakt aan onderdrukking, foltering,

administratieve detentie en apartheid [7] al genoeg zou moeten zijn.

Blijkbaar niet voor u!

MISDADIGE ISRAELISCHE INVALLEN IN GAZA

Sinds de verwerpelijke en bloedige 7 october aanval van

Palestijnse verzetsbeweging Hamas [8] heeft Bezettingsstaat Israel als reactie Gaza gebombardeerd [wat trouwens nog steeds doorgaat], waarbij

 waarbij

niet alleen Witte fosfor is gebruikt [kijk maar goed wat

Human Rights Watch daarover meldt, noot 9] maar ook geen enkel onderscheid is gemaakt tussen combatanten [militairen

en strijders] en non combatanten [burgers] [10], wat tot duizenden burgerslachtoffers

geleid heeft 

Meer dan 7000, volgens de Israelische mensenrechtenorganisatie

Btselem! [11]

En dat was een Btselem bericht van 27 october! [12]

Ondertussen zijn er veel meer doden bijgekomen, vooral ook

in vluchtelingenkamp Jabalia! [13]

Helaas zijn wij met deze Praktijken bij Israelische militaire

invallen in Gaza bekend [14]

Willekeurige militaire aanvallen, een groot aantal burgerdoden [15]

UITHONGERING BURGERBEVOLKING

MENSEN DRINKEN BRAK WATER!!!!!

Maar wat dit alles hier nog monsterachtiger maakt is, dat het hier niet

bij blijft! 

Want wat Israel ook heeft gedaan als reactie op de7 october Hamas aanval is een totale Blokkade van Gaza instellen, wat betekent, dat de

burgerbevolking geen gas, water, brandstof en medicijnen ontvangt! [16]

Moet ik uitleggen, dat dit monsterachtig is.

Moet ik uitleggen, dat dit kwaadaardig  is?

Moet ik uitleggen, dat dit als ”collectieve straf” internationaalrechtelijk

verboden is? [17]

Dat uithongering van een burgerbevolking een oorlogsmisdaad is?

[18]

Weet u, dat Gazanen wegens gebrek aan water BRAK WATER drinken

[19], wat natuurijk levensgevaarlijk is?

EPILOOG

Meer hoef ik er niet aan toe te voegen.

U verkoopt nog steeds, ondanks talloze opropoen,

dat niet te doen [20] producten uit een Staat, die sinds 1967 de

Palestijnse gebieden bezet, onderdrukt, zich schuldig maakt

aan foltering, administratieve detentie, landdiefstal via illegale

nederzettingen, apartheid.

En nu wordt de burgerbevolking in Gaza uitgehongerd, van toegang tot water, electriciteit, medicijnen en voedsel afgesneden, mensen

drinken brak water [21] en u hebt het Lef, nog steeds Israelische

producten te verkopen.

Walgelijk vind ik het en ik maak het overal bekend, daarop

kunt u rekenen, digitaal en anderszins.

Stop er dus direct mee, als u niet medeplichtig wilt

zijn aan het faciliteren van Bezettings en Uithongeringsstaat Israel.

EEN SCHANDE IS HET!!!!!

Vriendelijke groeten

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam 

NOTEN

VOOR UW GEMAK ZIJN DE NOTEN IN LINKS

ONDERGEBRACHT

NOTEN 

1 T/M 4

NOOT 5

NOOT 6

NOOT 7

NOTEN 8 EN 9

NOOT 10

NOOT 11

NOTEN 12 EN 13

NOOT 14

NOTEN 15 T/M 19

NOTEN 20 EN 21

Noten 20 en 21/Astrid Essed pakt VOMAR | Astrid Essed

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Astrid Essed stelt VOMAR opnieuw aan de kaak over de gecontinueerde verkoop van avocado’s uit Israel/VOMAR, hoe lang blijft u Bezettings en Uithongeringsstaat Israel nog steunen?

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Mail/Letter to the Editor to The Standard [newspaper from Gambia]/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Gratis foto vlag van palestina


Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Astrid Essed <astridessed@yahoo.com>

To:info@standard.gm


,

Tue, Oct 24 at 10:55 PM

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor

The 7 october 2023 surprise attack of Hamas on the South of Israel

with thousands of rockets codenamed ”Al-Aqsa Flood”, suprised me,

like doubtless many others, but I was not completely taken aback.

It was a bloody attack in which a great number of Israeli civilians

were killed [according to Israeli autorities at least 1200] or abducted and

at least 260 people were killed by the Hamas attack on a

Festival near kibbutz Re”im.

Of course this deserves strong condemnation, since targetting

civilians is not only inhumane, but prohibited by International

Humanitarian Law, declaring clear distinction between combatants

[soldiers and fighters, who are legitimate targets] and non-combatants [civilians,

who must be protected]

So I understand the common [especially Western] sympathy with the Israeli

victims, because I share the feeling.

But there my understanding stops.

Because the almost hysterical ”we stand with Israel” reactions, especially from

the Western World [USA,EU], completely with Israeli flags hanging from their

official buildings [luckily not in Scotland!] is not only hypocrite.

It is disgusting!

Disgusting, because it implies support to Israel as a State and that is, to say

it mildly, controversial.

Because the bloody 7 october Hamas attack and subsequent abduction-operation divert the attention of the important fact, that since 1967 Israel

is the occupying power in the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem and Gaza [still

occupied according to International Law since Israel controls the Gaza borders, airspace and territorial waters]

Not only Israel refuses to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories

despite UN Security Resolution 242 [1967], there is a decennialong brutal

oppression, Israel is guilty of torture of prisoners, administrative detention,

bloody military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, with as macabre result thousands and thousands civilian victims, the building [since end of the sixties]

of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory [land theft!], extrajudicial

execution, apartheid, etc, etc

En despite this brutal occupation the EU never took any sanction against

the State of Israel, which made them complicit in the Israeli occupation

and oppression.

According to International Law every people has the right to rise up against

an occupation, which includes armed resistance.

So Hamas, as any other Palestinian organisation, is in his right 

in this regard, but of course according International Humanitarian Law

Hamas must refrain from attacks on civilians.

By the way, I wonder whether the EU will also condemn Israel, which right

now launches a bloody attack in Gaza by bombing

Gaza for already two weeks, with more than 4000 deaths, as denying the Gazan population water, medicines,

fuel and food supplies, in the same strong terms as it condemned Hamas.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail/Letter to the Editor to The Standard [newspaper from Gambia]/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Mail/Letter to the Editor to The Express Tribune [newspaper from Pakistan]/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Gratis foto vlag van palestina


Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation


Astrid Essed <astridessed@yahoo.com>

To:opinions@tribune.com.pk

Tue, Oct 24 at 10:35 PM

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor

The 7 october 2023 surprise attack of Hamas on the South of Israel

with thousands of rockets codenamed ”Al-Aqsa Flood”, suprised me,

like doubtless many others, but I was not completely taken aback.

It was a bloody attack in which a great number of Israeli civilians

were killed [according to Israeli autorities at least 1200] or abducted and

at least 260 people were killed by the Hamas attack on a

Festival near kibbutz Re”im.

Of course this deserves strong condemnation, since targetting

civilians is not only inhumane, but prohibited by International

Humanitarian Law, declaring clear distinction between combatants

[soldiers and fighters, who are legitimate targets] and non-combatants [civilians,

who must be protected]

So I understand the common [especially Western] sympathy with the Israeli

victims, because I share the feeling.

But there my understanding stops.

Because the almost hysterical ”we stand with Israel” reactions, especially from

the Western World [USA,EU], completely with Israeli flags hanging from their

official buildings [luckily not in Scotland!] is not only hypocrite.

It is disgusting!

Disgusting, because it implies support to Israel as a State and that is, to say

it mildly, controversial.

Because the bloody 7 october Hamas attack and subsequent abduction-operation divert the attention of the important fact, that since 1967 Israel

is the occupying power in the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem and Gaza [still

occupied according to International Law since Israel controls the Gaza borders, airspace and territorial waters]

Not only Israel refuses to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories

despite UN Security Resolution 242 [1967], there is a decennialong brutal

oppression, Israel is guilty of torture of prisoners, administrative detention,

bloody military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, with as macabre result thousands and thousands civilian victims, the building [since end of the sixties]

of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory [land theft!], extrajudicial

execution, apartheid, etc, etc

En despite this brutal occupation the EU never took any sanction against

the State of Israel, which made them complicit in the Israeli occupation

and oppression.

According to International Law every people has the right to rise up against

an occupation, which includes armed resistance.

So Hamas, as any other Palestinian organisation, is in his right 

in this regard, but of course according International Humanitarian Law

Hamas must refrain from attacks on civilians.

By the way, I wonder whether the EU will also condemn Israel, which right

now launches a bloody attack in Gaza by bombing

Gaza for already two weeks, with more than 4000 deaths, as denying the Gazan population water, medicines,

fuel and food supplies, in the same strong terms as it condemned Hamas.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail/Letter to the Editor to The Express Tribune [newspaper from Pakistan]/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Mail/Letter to the Editor to The Irish Independent/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Gratis foto vlag van palestina

Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Astrid Essed <astridessed@yahoo.com>

To:independent.letters@independent.ie

Tue, Oct 24 at 10:20 PM

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor

The 7 october 2023 surprise attack of Hamas on the South of Israel

with thousands of rockets codenamed ”Al-Aqsa Flood”, suprised me,

like doubtless many others, but I was not completely taken aback.

It was a bloody attack in which a great number of Israeli civilians

were killed [according to Israeli autorities at least 1200] or abducted and

at least 260 people were killed by the Hamas attack on a

Festival near kibbutz Re”im.

Of course this deserves strong condemnation, since targetting

civilians is not only inhumane, but prohibited by International

Humanitarian Law, declaring clear distinction between combatants

[soldiers and fighters, who are legitimate targets] and non-combatants [civilians,

who must be protected]

So I understand the common [especially Western] sympathy with the Israeli

victims, because I share the feeling.

But there my understanding stops.

Because the almost hysterical ”we stand with Israel” reactions, especially from

the Western World [USA,EU], completely with Israeli flags hanging from their

official buildings [luckily not in Scotland!] is not only hypocrite.

It is disgusting!

Disgusting, because it implies support to Israel as a State and that is, to say

it mildly, controversial.

Because the bloody 7 october Hamas attack and subsequent abduction-operation divert the attention of the important fact, that since 1967 Israel

is the occupying power in the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem and Gaza [still

occupied according to International Law since Israel controls the Gaza borders, airspace and territorial waters]

Not only Israel refuses to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories

despite UN Security Resolution 242 [1967], there is a decennialong brutal

oppression, Israel is guilty of torture of prisoners, administrative detention,

bloody military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, with as macabre result thousands and thousands civilian victims, the building [since end of the sixties]

of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory [land theft!], extrajudicial

execution, apartheid, etc, etc

En despite this brutal occupation the EU never took any sanction against

the State of Israel, which made them complicit in the Israeli occupation

and oppression.

According to International Law every people has the right to rise up against

an occupation, which includes armed resistance.

So Hamas, as any other Palestinian organisation, is in his right 

in this regard, but of course according International Humanitarian Law

Hamas must refrain from attacks on civilians.

By the way, I wonder whether the EU will also condemn Israel, which right

now launches a bloody attack in Gaza by bombing

Gaza for already two weeks, with more than 4000 deaths, as denying the Gazan population water, medicines,

fuel and food supplies, in the same strong terms as it condemned Hamas.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail/Letter to the Editor to The Irish Independent/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Mail/Letter to the Editor to Al Ahram Weekly [Egyptian newspaper]/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Gratis foto vlag van palestina

Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation


Astrid Essed <astridessed@yahoo.com>

To:english@ahram.org.eg

Tue, Oct 24 at 9:54 PM

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor

The 7 october 2023 surprise attack of Hamas on the South of Israel

with thousands of rockets codenamed ”Al-Aqsa Flood”, suprised me,

like doubtless many others, but I was not completely taken aback.

It was a bloody attack in which a great number of Israeli civilians

were killed [according to Israeli autorities at least 1200] or abducted and

at least 260 people were killed by the Hamas attack on a

Festival near kibbutz Re”im.

Of course this deserves strong condemnation, since targetting

civilians is not only inhumane, but prohibited by International

Humanitarian Law, declaring clear distinction between combatants

[soldiers and fighters, who are legitimate targets] and non-combatants [civilians,

who must be protected]

So I understand the common [especially Western] sympathy with the Israeli

victims, because I share the feeling.

But there my understanding stops.

Because the almost hysterical ”we stand with Israel” reactions, especially from

the Western World [USA,EU], completely with Israeli flags hanging from their

official buildings [luckily not in Scotland!] is not only hypocrite.

It is disgusting!

Disgusting, because it implies support to Israel as a State and that is, to say

it mildly, controversial.

Because the bloody 7 october Hamas attack and subsequent abduction-operation divert the attention of the important fact, that since 1967 Israel

is the occupying power in the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem and Gaza [still

occupied according to International Law since Israel controls the Gaza borders, airspace and territorial waters]

Not only Israel refuses to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories

despite UN Security Resolution 242 [1967], there is a decennialong brutal

oppression, Israel is guilty of torture of prisoners, administrative detention,

bloody military attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, with as macabre result thousands and thousands civilian victims, the building [since end of the sixties]

of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory [land theft!], extrajudicial

execution, apartheid, etc, etc

En despite this brutal occupation the EU never took any sanction against

the State of Israel, which made them complicit in the Israeli occupation

and oppression.

According to International Law every people has the right to rise up against

an occupation, which includes armed resistance.

So Hamas, as any other Palestinian organisation, is in his right 

in this regard, but of course according International Humanitarian Law

Hamas must refrain from attacks on civilians.

By the way, I wonder whether the EU will also condemn Israel, which right

now launches a bloody attack in Gaza by bombing

Gaza for already two weeks, with more than 4000 deaths, as denying the Gazan population water, medicines,

fuel and food supplies, in the same strong terms as it condemned Hamas.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail/Letter to the Editor to Al Ahram Weekly [Egyptian newspaper]/Hamas attack on Israel/The Right to rise up against the Israeli occupation

Opgeslagen onder Divers