Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

What I read today:

Israel's Minister of Heritage, Amihai Eliyahu, posted a video of a bulldozer clearing wreckage in North Gaza. The caption, in Hebrew, reads: "The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever”, “blow up and flatten everything, delightful. After we are done, we allocate the lands of Gaza to the soldiers fighting and the settlers who lived in Gush Katif. It was corrected on another social media site (the Nazi website Twitter) that the first lines of his post were from a piece of poetry. I found the original post, and read some of the comments as translated by Google. The most consistent tone of the posts was from individuals telling Eliyahu to step down, to resign his position, because apparently he historically voted against increased funding for the IDF; he is not seen as hawkish enough.

It is interesting to me that last Sunday I spent much of the day refreshing and refreshing to see if Israel was actually going to follow through and fire missiles at al-Quds hospital. Today, three hospitals were hit. And a school, 50 reported killed (by the Hamas-run health ministry) in the latter instance.

It is also interesting that on Wednesday, when the Jablaiya refugee camp was hit, it was seen perhaps as "now? is this the turning point? now? surely ~this~ is a war crime, no?" and the same refugee camp was bombarded twice more, and two others, since then.

I guess my internal voice is parsing all this information much more quickly than anything I'm posting here, but I am very, very scared; I am scared of what I see is "the worst case scenario" which is "other nations entering into this war". Regardless of whatever outcome of such an event, this would absolutely mean "the most lives lost". As the bombardment of Gaza continues, the very idea that seemed "unthinkable" just a week ago, a few days ago-- that Netanyahu and his cabinet intend to annex Gaza-- it is not only becoming "the more overwhelmingly likely intention of all of this", and also, notably, "no longer the worst case scenario". As Gaza becomes bombarded to complete irreparability, and the Palestinian people are exploded and traumatised in unthinkable ways, the very idea that the population might be permanently evacuated (to Sinai, for now, and then probably a joint re-settlement program worked out between Egypt and UK and US and Canada and prob Germany and prob Qatar and maybe Saudi, too, in the end) seems merciful, rather than disastrous, to consider. I genuinely feel that this is Netanyahu's tactic; USA might be saying "no" to the idea today, but as time passes and the bombardment increases, it will eventually prove to be the most humanitarian option.

As for what's going on in West Bank, idk what to say. Haaretz, the "reliably left" Israeli paper, described yesterday the increase in the settlement efforts as being "good news"; the sight of Ben-Givr smilingly handing out rifles to civilians back on Oct 10, reading that this idea that "illegal settlement of the West Bank is OK" has been proudly stated publicly by Israeli officials for years, and years. My own seemingly-sensible argument for a secular democratic confederacy of Israelis and Palestinians, that none of my now ex-friends have been able to assail with any real factual responses or any arguments that don't eventually fall back on "it says in the Bible", it's becoming increasingly myopic in my eyes, like: just because I don't personally value the life of one ethnic group over another doesn't mean this attitude is shared by the rest of the world.

https://truthout.org/articles/israel-is-arming-fascist-militias-to-suppress-dissent-knesset-member-warns/

Thank you for the link, appreciated

Echo that thanks.

I have seen a few bits of dissent within Israel by Israelis, a few videos of that about.

Al-Azhar University in north Gaza has been bombed. No universities left.

Read it and weep.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1720588042451218918.html

This doesn't relate to "other countries" so much, so I'll put it on here: excerpts from Reuters report, minus some detail re immediate aftermath of bombings, statements of survivors, also of political and military figures (for all that, follow link at end of this):

...Palestinian witnesses said Israel hit Al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia, where thousands of evacuees were living, on Saturday morning.

The Israeli military said a preliminary inquiry suggested it had not targeted the location "but the explosion may have been a result of IDF fire aimed at another target". The circumstances were "under review," it added...

Reuters footage of the aftermath showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, patches of blood on the ground and on food, and people crying.

Juliette Touma, director of communications for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), confirmed the U.N-run school, which is in the Gaza City area, had been hit.

"At least one strike hit the schoolyard where there were tents for displaced families. Another strike hit inside the school where women were baking bread," Touma said by phone.

The ministry of health in Gaza said another Israeli missile strike killed two women at the door of the Nasser Children's Hospital. Several more people were injured, it said. There was no immediate Israeli response to that report.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a press conference that Israel's forces had delivered a "hard blow" to Hamas, destroying communications hubs, bunkers and tunnel networks over the past two days and killing 12 commanders since the start of the war.

Israel last month ordered all civilians to leave the northern part of Gaza, including Gaza City, and head to the southern part of the enclave.

The military said it would enable Palestinians to travel on a main Gaza highway, the Salah a-Din road, during a three-hour window on Saturday afternoon. "If you care about yourself and your loved ones, heed our instruction to head south," it said in a social media post in Arabic.

Several residents told Reuters they were too afraid to use the road. Many posted warnings on social media that Israeli tanks were stationed there.

U.S. Special Envoy David Satterfield said in Amman that between 800,000 to a million people had moved to the south of the Gaza Strip, while 350,000-400,000 remained in northern Gaza City and its environs.

srael has imposed a full blockade on Gaza and allowed very little aid in from Egypt, saying it fears it would be stolen by Hamas. Satterfield said there were no recorded instances of Hamas seizing aid.

In what appeared to presage a widening of Israel's ground offensive, the military issued footage showing armoured bulldozers churning up northern Gaza areas in what it described as "creating access routes for forces".

A combined tank and combat engineering unit carried out a "pinpoint raid" in the southern Gaza Strip "to map out buildings and neutralise explosives", it said.

Azad Essa
@azadessa
·
5h
According to this report, the Israeli Builder's Association has asked India to send 50,000-90,000 workers to replace the Palestinians whose work permits were revoked. Palestinian workers make up 25% of the sector in Israel. The sector is preparing for a world without Palestinians

There’s also a lot of talk about oil and liquid natural gas rights in what is now Palestinian territory.

https://unctad.org/news/unrealized-potential-palestinian-oil-and-gas-reserves

I went to the rally in Toronto today. It was my second rally, but the last one I had my dog with me and errands to run and so I could only stay briefly. This time I went and brought a bunch of donuts and was giving them out to friends and strangers. I saw friends marching with Artists For A Free Palestine, and friends marching with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.

I was most interested in meeting up with my friend D. He doesn’t live in Toronto any more, but had driven down for the rally. We didn’t end up connecting. D is Jewish and has taken a lot of flak from his friends and family for his vocal protests against the bombardment of Gaza. He has a very sympathetic approach in the videos he makes and the things he posts on Facebook, he is very adamant that he desires to prove to his Jewish community that the protests are not in any way anti-Semitic. He made a sign that said “I am Jewish. I support you. We are cousins.” He made a series of videos today, he was so welcomed and celebrated by everyone he met.

The rally was hoping to attract 100k, and it attracted at least that. The Jewish groups that were attending said that they estimated there were 500 Jews in attendance, but I think that estimate was low. There were secular Jewish people, Orthodox Jews, everywhere. There was a group of Hasidim who were wearing full-body signage, they got up on a construction barricade and were shouting arm-in-arm with Arabs wearing keffiyehs. It was extremely moving to see. Considering that the vast majority of my engagement with news of this conflict happens alone, at home, while on my phone or on my computer, it made me emotional to be around a large group of people chanting and marching in solidarity.

I was there for three hours. I did not see a single pro-Hamas sign, I did not hear a single pro-Hamas chant, I did not see or hear anything even remotely hateful. Across the board, the intention of this rally was calling for a ceasefire, most importantly. Arab protesters were protesting on behalf of Palestinian lives and Israeli lives. I spoke to about a dozen people who were from Palestine, or children of displaced Palestinians, and they all stated a desire for a united country where Jews and Arabs could live together with equal rights.

D said, in one of his videos, that he was certain that there were extremist anti-Semites at the rally, because there were extremists everywhere, but that he said he at-no-time felt unsafe, quite the opposite, he felt nothing but solidarity. D wants to change the dialogue from being about “Jews vs. Arabs” to being about “extremists vs. moderates”, which he feels is the root issue with problems in discussing this conflict.

I had a chat online with a hawkish friend today, who lived much of his life in Israel. We are politically in opposition, he believes that any such rally, whether being “pro-Palestine” or “pro-ceasefire” is by definition anti-Semitic. He’s a wonderful guy despite the fact that we exist on opposite sides of the spectrum, politically. He has been a valuable person to speak to about Israeli politics. I asked him today if he’d read the following article, which has been circulating. It attempts to delineate Netanyahu’s rise to power, and his explicit support of Hamas over the years— both as a method of inflaming Israeli nationalism (which works in Netanyahu’s favour), as well as diluting the power of more moderate Palestinian ruling bodies. Here’s the article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/netanyahu-israel-gaza-hamas-1.7010035

Considering the severity and scope of this article, and the fact that it was written by “some Canadian” (Evan Dyer is a decorated reporter up here), I was curious about what my hawkish friend would think of it, if he’d dismiss it (as he has of other articles I’ve shared) as being “left-wing bullshit” or “racist lies”. He read it, and said, “this is all true”, and went more into detail about his opinions on Netanyahu. He doesn’t see Netanyahu himself as “the baddest apple” but rather as “the poison at the roots”; he is far more critical of people like Ben-Givr and Benny Gantz. Anyway, I’m glad he read the article and voiced his opinions on it, it makes me feel more comfortable sharing it here, today.

Link to many hundreds of books and academic articles on Palestine-Israel, from Herzl to Pappé and Said and many in between.

right here

And a link to a Doc with more than 100+ Palestinian films, either linked or available for download.

here

Excellent

Verso Books made several ebooks free, too

https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/solidarity-with-palestine-free-resources-and-further-reading

^^ thank you for that, fgti

Yeah, thanks fgti, good to hear about people coming together... makes me feel a little more hopeful...

fgti, I have a similar friend — one who works in the world of international relations and who has a much, much, much broader and deeper knowledge of such things than I. All of this seems very clear to me — that despite Hamas’ reprehensible actions, Israel’s reaction has been many times worse, and that the Israeli state is committing heinous atrocities that must stop immediately — but he brings up the arguments that there is a disproportionate scrutiny of Israel, that the international community turns a blind eye to worse crimes elsewhere, that Israel is held to a double standard, and that this is due to antisemitism.

I find it hard to argue, partly because I just don’t have the depth of knowledge, and partly because he’s at least partly right. I keep wanting to ask, “Can’t the world hold Israel to account without also having to hold all other countries/governments to account at the same time?” and as I type this I stop and think, why should we? why do we insist that Israel specifically must be held to account while we’ve practically ignored the ongoing disaster in Yemen, for just one example? Why have as many UN resolutions been raised against Israel as the rest of the world combined? — there’s no way that Israel is such a monstrous regime that it’s crimes can be compared to those of the rest of the world combined…

Yet holy shit, Israel’s actions in their offensive here are so clearly and deeply wrong and fucked, how can you shrug them off?

he brings up the arguments that there is a disproportionate scrutiny of Israel, that the international community turns a blind eye to worse crimes elsewhere, that Israel is held to a double standard, and that this is due to antisemitism.

I would argue that the "worse crimes elsewhere" he refers to take place in parts of the world that are nowhere near so well-integrated into the global economy as Israel nor receive foreign aid subsidies in amounts comparable to Israel. If Myanmar, the Congo, or Sudan had as many connections to the western financial system and as much influence over western electoral politics as Israel exerts, I suspect they'd get more scrutiny and criticism for their atrocities. It's because they're at the far periphery of world influence and importance, not because they are not jewish.

maintaining instability and slavery in the DRC is absolutely essential to the world economy in its current form (esp to the tech industry) - I wish more people cared more about that beyond using it as a gotcha but it's even harder to know what everyday civilians can do to change the situation there - putatively "pro-palestinian" and "anti-imperialist" regimes depend on the subjugation of that region as much as everyone else

So I suppose human life and holding countries and governments to account is less important in those places? That implies the lives lost are less important. At some point the loss of lives is a loss of lives. We're all humans. The hypocrisy pointed out above is enlightening.

And for many of the locations you specifically mentioned, they are likely getting their weapons imported. Outside of North Korea none are truly isolated. Where are the mass protests of 100k plus for the Chinese Uighers?

Sorry xp

hard to believe you give a shit tbh

sick of this disingenuous bullshit

I think it’s a good question tbh

It’s just too late for me answer tonight and I wanna discuss with a couple people before giving a good answer

@tamars
GAZA November 5

50 people killed, including 17 children, and families still under the rubble, after IAF airstrike on a residential square in Al-Maghazi camp, central Gaza Strip.

To answer v generally as to why this is getting a protest movement going around the world as opposed to say, Chinese Uyghurs is surely to do with how this started. Oct 7th is a pretty unique moment of a major fuck-up by the Israeli government, and is a shocking instance of a technologically superior power failing to secure it's people. That is a story that is going to be front page news.

Then you have it's response which is very much televised. We can see the rubble, the pictures, etc. People in the West can see it and want to do whatever little they can (going to a march) or contributing money to aid efforts. And in that I would see it partly in continuum with things like famines or pretty sudden disasters around the world, such as flood or fires or Tsunamis.

This is crossed with the long history of actions by the PLO over decades in the West and the long history of the Western world trying to broker a deal between Palestinians and Israel.

Israel has continuously been in breach of UN resolutions concerning the occupation since 1967, and been protected in doing so by the most powerful nation in the world, that's a pretty unqiue situation I'd say.

"What about the uyghurs?" really really doesn't work - western pols talk about their plight all the time, media reports on them extensively, celebs do not sign letters stating that they stand with China, China is not frequently upheld as a shining beacon of democracy in its region. Be serious.

To answer v generally as to why this is getting a protest movement going around the world as opposed to say, Chinese Uyghurs is surely to do with how this started.

the other part beyond just visibility is that israel is a major american/western ally. of course, there are other major western allies that are oppressive regimes that regularly commit atrocities (say, saudi arabia), which generally don't get enough attention, but the difference there is visibility and israel's determination to pretend it is a normal western liberal democracy.

Perhaps the reason that the international community turns a blind eye to atrocities elsewhere is that the international community benefits from those atrocities, but unlike in the mines of the DRC or Uigher reeducation camps or small hamlets in the Bolivian altiplano, the benefits that many countries derive from their relationship with Israel are much more visible, and thus the atrocities are much more visible, too.

In my purview, any greater-than-average scrutiny that applied to Israel may be the result of, in fact, the opposite of anti-Semitism, rather a “we expected better of our Jewish friends” feeling. I mean, I’ve been surrounded by Jews my whole life, (my ex-in-laws excluded) I have far more Jewish friends than Catholic friends. I work with Jews, I work for Jews; my “hawkish friend” I mentioned is actually my boss, and I’m glad he can say dumb shit like “what is happening in Gaza is necessary” and I can say dumb shit like “I marched today and chanted that Israel was illegally occupying Palestinian land” and neither of us are going to try and blacklist the other

I think the feeling of scrutiny is akin to the horror of realizing “oh wow, that white gay guy is actually a total racist monster?” Like yeah white gays are frequently the worst; me saying this is not coming from a place of homophobia, it’s that I hoped my fellow cocksuckers might not be such shitheads when it comes to race

Anyway I have to think about it more tho that’s not my real answer, just my initial intuition

why do we insist that Israel specifically must be held to account while we’ve practically ignored the ongoing disaster in Yemen, for just one example?

a minor point, but Yemen is such a bad example to choose that I'm confused about your friend's larger argument

A better example I’ve heard: “why doesn’t the West march for the Kurds in Turkey”. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable line of query

is there a thread that is current about how ppl otherize cultures and then set expectations and budgets from those levels of otherization

i was in the process of posting about it in accord with fgti's but will hold with "my expectations for israel are what they are. but they are obv not politically or even socially serious about a peaceful future with palestinians."

Arguably the British should care about this conflict in particular because of their special responsibility in initiating it and giving it momentum; the Americans should care because of their special responsibility in perpetuating it since 1967; the Europeans should care because of their historic role in antisemitic murder and inequality that led to even pre-WW2 justifications for the creation of the state of Israel, and obviously strengthened after it. Thus "the west" is largely directly responsible in multiple ways for the history and policy of the modern state of Israel, and directly therefore for the plight of the Palestinians. A lot of what has happened in Israel and Palestine has and is therefore partly being drone in our name. Isn't this enough to feel a special emotional connection to this conflict, and special concern for its resolution?
It's a trusim that the imperial machinations of the colonial powers have lead to lasting problems in the 21st century; Hong Kong, Iraq, Syria, Yemen are all recent examples of this long-tailed phenomenon; Israel/Palestine should be included in that list.
And of course everything said above; allyship, proxy interests, global integration etc.

Some possible answers to hardcore dilletante’s question— I note that some of these explanations have already been stated:

- the greater number of people in the West with ties to the region— displaced Palestinians, the descendants of displaced Palestinians, Jews with direct ties to Israel, Jews with no direct ties to Israel— both groups forming their own opinions as to how Judaism interacts with the actions of the Israeli state (that is “not in my name” vs. “why aren’t Jews allowed to win a war”). I have friends who’ve sent their kids on Birthright trips, and I have friends who’ve lost family in Gaza over the past three weeks, this is a conflict that has an effect on people close to me, has an effect on family members

- the investment, financially and culturally, of Western nations into the economy and identity of Israel; there is a feeling of responsibility/culpability

- a kind of “Prime Directive” aspect; conflicts between Igbo and Yoruba populations in Nigeria seem like less of “the West’s business” than conflicts in Israel-Palestine

- anti-Semitism; both of the traditional neo-Nazi variety, also a kind of proxy form of anti-Semitism where Jews are reductively named as a force of Western Imperialism in the region; I say “proxy” but it is still anti-Semitism

- an illusion of specified scrutiny. This is not to say that “Israel is under no more (or less) scrutiny”, just that in the face of conflict, and protests about it, a group may feel unfairly targeted. I have vivid memories of my Serbian friends, 25 years ago, mounting counter-protests regarding the war in Kosovo, claiming that Serbia was a target of Western media propaganda

- a disproportionate amount of violence and aggression considering the population of the region

- a disproportionate number of displaced/refugee Palestinians compared to others of the world’s conflicts; it is often stated that “1 of 3 of the world’s refugees are Palestinian”. I can’t immediately confirm that this is the case, as the UNHRC (world except Palestine) and the UNRWA (only Palestine) are separate bodies with separate criteria for gathering this information, but on scanning the numbers it doesn’t seem to be that far off-base

- Iraq War / Afghanistan War hangover; left-leaning Westerners are already predisposed to oppose any further Western involvement in Middle Eastern conflict

- a response to the clearly hawkish statements made by the likes of Mitch McConnell, talking about how the US involvement in this conflict is “good for the American economy”

- a response to bald-faced Islamophobic opinions and statements made by Israeli extremists, these opinions and statements becoming more mainstream over the course of Israel’s existence

But in general my feeling, when posed this question, is “you’re right, we SHOULD care more about geopolitics”; to expand the breadth of one’s awareness rather than limit it

*dilettante, my apologies

I think "WHAT ABOUT YEMEN/KURDS/UIGHURS" is not a good argument for "shut up and don't protest, it's hypocritical" but it is a good answer to the question "How can people just be going about living their lives and not caring that a lot of people are dying in ways that they could be said to be partly implicated in," the answer being "everybody does that every day and it's part of being a human that doesn't require special explanation"

My government isn't sending $14bn to China specifically to aid in murdering Uyghurs. My government, in fact, passed a (toothless) law about tracking and reporting human rights abuses of Uyghur people.

Considering the real threat of anti-Semitism both at home and abroad, and the explicitly stated anti-Semitic mandates of various political groups in the reason (not the least of whom: Hamas), I don’t think it’s an unreasonable line of interrogation, here.

I do think this line of interrogation should be interrogated, accepted, and then resolved so it doesn’t threaten to obfuscate the critical present-tense need for an immediate ceasefire

said this before but it does bother me a lot that the UK left has both anti-israel and pro-british majorities - it feels like a total abdication of responsibility and a wilful ignorance of history (including the british left's long history of antisemitism)

it's also true that I have never knowingly met a uyghur but I have met many palestinians, israelis, and others with connections to that region - but has anyone tried asking uyghurs whether they think israel has a right to defend itself?

I have to assume the PRC has learned a lot from israel (as well as russia, syria, the US) since their use of the t-word has been very effective at damaging international solidarity with the uyghurs

Fgti, thank you for that post.

I will say that there are times when I am traveling in Europe and it comes up that I'm Jewish and I immediately get a side-eye and a question about Israel, and there I start to feel like I've walked into the beam of a laser focus on Israel that feels like it comes in part from underlying antisemitism. I don't get that as much in the US. So in the past, the question to me has been how much I want to let myself care about that, given that Israel has absolutely earned the criticism that comes its way. It always seemed better to overlook it than to let it push me to the right.

But right now I think we're past that, because a lot of the messaging that causes people to link together Israel and The Jews In General is coming direct from Israel and pro-Israel Jewish groups, on purpose, with no concern for how they are setting up Jews around the world for a rise in antisemitism. The corollary to "Israel = The Jews; if you are anti-Israel you are anti-Semitic" is "If Israel does something you have to take a stance against, then you may as well embrace antisemitism in general." And right now Israel is committing atrocities and the world is not going to forgive the Jews for that. It's been 2000 years and people are still saying "The Jews killed Jesus" - how long will "The Jews carried out an ethnic cleansing" be used as a weapon against the world's Jewish population? I was talking to my dad about this, and he pointed out that an explosion in global antisemitism means more Jews seeing Israel as the only safe place to live, which means more settlers, which is what Netanyahu wants, so why would he care about the safety of Jews worldwide?

I don't mean this to suggest that I'm looking at this whole conflict through the lens of "Is this good for the Jews?" My primary concern is for Gaza. But when I do take a moment to look through that lens, it is undoubtedly very bad for the Jews.

Good posts, Lily and fgti.

But right now I think we're past that, because a lot of the messaging that causes people to link together Israel and The Jews In General is coming direct from Israel and pro-Israel Jewish groups, on purpose, with no concern for how they are setting up Jews around the world for a rise in antisemitism

That's nothing new tbf. What I've noticed lately is a veritable torrent of strawmanning coming from Israeli and pro-Israel sources.

Younis Tirawi | يونس
@ytirawi
Gaza city is shaking.

Very, very violent Israeli attacks in the areas of West Al-Nasr, the vicinity of Al-Shifa, Tal Al-Hawa, Al-Jalaa, and most of Gaza’s neighborhoods, with unprecedented intensity and force.

Yes, Lily, my friend D has argued that there is no greater fomenting factor toward a rise of global anti-Semitism than seeing what Israel is doing in Gaza right now. "Do these acts make Jews of the world safer, or make them more endangered? Do these acts fight anti-Semitism or exacerbate it?"

I shared my long post above with my hawkish friend and he agreed with the vast majority of it, insofar as "reasons why the West pays greater attention to Israel than they do other global conflicts". His own assertion regarding pro-Palestinian rallies being "wrong" is rooted in what he considers to be "big picture" perspectives; that Hamas's purpose is solely to make its leaders rich off of the conflict. That protesting in favour of Palestine, demonising Israel, it only enables and validates Hamas's "big business" terrorism. He also continues to assert that Hamas was offered a ceasefire (conditional on the return of the Israeli hostages) but that this offer was refused; my own recollection was that a member of Netanyahu's cabinet stated "we don't negotiate with animals" in this regard. His present-tense view is that the world should "let the Israelis finish what they started in Gaza, eliminate Hamas with a minimal number of civilian casualties". My own feeling however is what I've stated before, that Netanyahu's "big picture" goal here is annexation.

thanks for that, Lily Dale— it clearly elucidates an issue that I wanted to ask about in the antisemitism thread the other day but was having trouble phrasing.

Not to be weird but again, it is important to remember that the Israeli government and Netanyahu himself fund Hamas. https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-to-hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-palestinians-divided-583082

like when Haaretz and other Israeli papers talk about the government not keeping Israel safe, this strategy is a part of what they’re talking about.