Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

Meanwwhile, Ilan Pappe stopped and questioned for several hours at Detroit airport

https://x.com/jeremyscahill/status/1790874217828827473

tipsy probably knows more about it than me but my sister spent all night at the county jail supporting arrested protestors in Knoxville, including beloved falafel guy Yassin.

short documentary about him here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz4Q_SlbZgQ

Yeah, here's a little roundup we wrote on it today fwiw:

Yassin Terou, the well-known and widely lauded proprietor of Yassin's Falafel House, was reportedly arrested along with other pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of Tennessee on Wednesday evening.

WBIR-TV reported that Terou was part of a group taken into custody by UT Police. The group had gathered for a Nakba Day Vigil, remembering the expulsion of Palestinians by Israelis during the 1948 war that led to Israel's establishment. The event was organized by the People's School for Gaza, which has been leading protest efforts on campus.

Apparently the issue was where the protesters chose to assemble. UT had told the group it could conduct its protests on a plaza near the Student Union. Tisha Benton, vice chancellor of communications for UT Knoxville, told the News Sentinel that UT police attempted to move protesters away from the lawn in front of the College of Law on Cumberland Avenue and those who refused to leave were arrested.

UT confirmed 11 arrests last night, according to the News Sentinel. Observers on site — as well as news photographers — identified Terou as among those taken into custody.

Terou, a Syrian refugee who started his popular falafel chain 10 years ago after selling sandwiches outside a local mosque, has become a cultural fixture in Knoxville and beyond. He has long advocated for tolerance and inclusiveness of many kinds, has led food aid efforts after natural disasters, and recently started a nonprofit called Seeds and Bridges focused on helping people without housing.

In 2018, his restaurant was named the Readers Digest Nicest Place in America and was featured on ABC's Good Morning America. He served as master of ceremonies for Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon's 2019 inauguration ceremony.

He even serves on the Board of Visitors of UT's Department of Religious Studies. A profile of Terou on the department's website says, "We appreciate all that he has done and continues to do to strengthen our community and bring people together and we look forward to bringing his unique voice and boundless energy to our students."

Terou has also been active in pro-Palestinian efforts in recent months, calling for an end to the war in Gaza and providing food to protesters at public events.

"I'm doing my part at least, and I'm gonna be who I am," he told WBIR in an interview last week. "I'm gonna ask them to stop the killing of any civilians, any innocent people, anywhere."

damn. I love that falafel place.

May go there for lunch today. I doubt he'll lose much business over this, people who go there in general are probably sympathetic, but I'd like to show some support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNL_3kuGqz0

Worthwhile vid connecting what Adam Tooze has written about how badly Columbia’s endowments have been managed and connecting that up with how our ruling elite are completely incompetent now across the board

Also a shorter talk here on the cycles of left protest/recuperation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KelbwZUo_5o

Beautiful.

Absolutely LOVE this. Suella Braverman gets the silent treatment she deserves 😂

Not even worthy of a response. Bloody brilliant.pic.twitter.com/pobNu2Xxw2

— Bushra Shaikh (@Bushra1Shaikh) May 16, 2024

lol

Who is on the megaphone?

Oh, it's my son. pic.twitter.com/co4ZtdLgMe

— Claire Hopkin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@claireindubai) May 16, 2024

I'd camp anywhere for the chance to ice out Suella, congrats to those kids!

The Sonoma State president has been put on leave by the CSU for agreeing to protesters' demands:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/15/sonoma-state-president-leave-gaza-00158285

Meanwhile afaict the UCLA pres has suffered zero consequences for allowing a violent extremist mob to assault students for hours

Well.

America’s romantic mythology and wishful thinking about Israel encourage a tendency to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the main cause of the ruthlessness in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 35,000 people. The unpopular, scandal-ridden premier makes a convincing ogre in an oversimplified story.

But Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, the creeping famine, the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods — this, polling suggests, is the war the Israeli public wanted. A January survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis said the force being used against Gaza was appropriate or even insufficient. In February, a poll found that most Jewish Israelis opposed food and medicine getting into Gaza. It was not Mr. Netanyahu alone but also his war cabinet members (including Benny Gantz, often invoked as the moderate alternative to Mr. Netanyahu) who unanimously rejected a Hamas deal to free Israeli hostages and, instead, began an assault on the city of Rafah, overflowing with displaced civilians.

“It’s so much easier to put everything on Netanyahu, because then you feel so good about yourself and Netanyahu is the darkness,” said Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist who has documented Israel’s military occupation for decades. “But the darkness is everywhere.”

Have seen a few polls pretty much saying that the majority of the Israeli public are more than fine with what's happening. To place this solely on Netanyahu or the far-right is to not want to face this.

According to the poll cited:

Breaking down the Jewish sample by political orientation reveals that a majority of those on the Left support allowing international bodies to transfer humanitarian aid to Gaza (59%), while the Center is divided on this issue, and a large majority of those on the Right think that Israel should not allow the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents.

Regarding the transfer of humanitarian aid, a large majority of Arab Israeli respondents support it (85%).

grim stats

indeed

Beautiful.

🐦[Absolutely LOVE this. Suella Braverman gets the silent treatment she deserves 😂

Not even worthy of a response. Bloody brilliant.pic.twitter.com/pobNu2Xxw2🕸
— Bushra Shaikh (@Bushra1Shaikh) May 16, 2024🕸]🐦

"Can I ask what your view is of the events of October 7th?"

Former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman is crushed on GB News. pic.twitter.com/u6PGo9jatI

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) May 17, 2024

that is genuinely the best thing I've seen all year

Very good tick

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan during CNN interview today:

“I had some elected leader speak to me and be very blunt, this court [ICC] was built for Africa and thugs like Putin” pic.twitter.com/bsGi5s7ayX

— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws) May 21, 2024

The ironic thing is that, apparently, he is the ICC prosecutor due to nomination by the UK and strong support form Israel and the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/22/palestinian-state-recognition-ireland-spain-recognise-palestine

Pretty big deal for Spain to recognize anyone or anything

Maybe Trump supporters will vote for Joe now.

Biden administration signals it will support bipartisan push to sanction ICC https://t.co/RkHGbYKw1P

— Financial Times (@FT) May 21, 2024

Shameful.

This is probably a dumb question, but for countries that don't recognize Palestine do they say its part of Israel?

But if it were part of Israel then "occupied territories" makes no sense. Israel itself doesn't say the occupied territories are actually part of Israel. So who are they occupied from if there is no such thing as a Palestine to occupy?

The eternal logical conundrum. “Israel has a right to defend itself?” “From Palestine?” “There is no Palestine!” “So the people who live there are Israelis?” “No, they’re Palestinians!” “They live in Palestine?” “There is no Palestine.”

Etc

Not quite there's also "there's no such thing as Palestinians".

Right. But! Israel has a right to defend itself against them.

Ok, but whats the steel man position of it? Occupied Egypt and occupied Jordan, respectively? Do the countries that don't recognize Palestine categorize Gaza as occupied Egypt? They can't categorize it as part of Israel, as even Israel doesn't categorize it as part of Israel. Where is Gaza considered to be, legally, in the UK or US?

Well that's the thing, right? We just don't talk about it. I mean, as more or less official policy. Israel doesn't talk about it so we don't talk about it. You'd think you couldn't sustain that kind of obvious illogic for decades and decades, yet here we are. There's no solid position Israel's allies can commit to about the Palestinian territories that won't create problems for Israel, so we don't. The U.S. is officially against the expansion of West Bank settlements, but obviously all that ever amounts to is some tut-tutting, no one has ever suggested any kind of real consequences for it.

I need to deep dive on this more, I hadn't actually realized that when Egypt had it, they themselves did same thing as Israel in occupying but not annexing

Official U.S. policy (per the State Dept website) is that the U.S. still recognizes the Palestinian Authority as an official voice for people in the "Palestinian territories" and is committed to an eventual-someday-somehow two-state solution. But that language probably hasn't changed in 20 years and it implicitly just leaves the status of both the land and its residents in total legal limbo for the interim.

surprised the US and UK don’t call it “The Palestine”

The Pale of Stine

Gaza was not part of modern Egypt nor of any modern nation state. The West Bank was, relatively briefly, part of Jordan, but Jordan renounced its claims to the WB in 1988. So for practical purposes, both are stuck in limbo. Israel won't formally annex them presumably because of fears that legal status as part of Israel would strengthen the Palestinians' claims to full rights and the possibility of a demographic majority that could end Israel as a "Jewish state." Israel also won't recognize a Palestinian state, and on this I go back and forth about whether there's a single "real" reason - i.e. whether it's *really* about religious claims or *really* about military advantage or *really* about land/resources. Maybe it's really a combination of all of them.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in large part because it did not want its armed forces spread too thin in two non-contiguous occupations. I don't think there was any grand strategy prior to this war to reoccupy Gaza, but I do think it has strengthened the once fringe movement to do so. A lot of top military brass still seem to be against it, but I think it may be what Bibi now wants, esp since he rejects any other feasible option.

I heard it pointed out recently that "the Gaza strip" as opposed to the city of Gaza is kind of an artificial/historically accidental territory. It was part of a larger swath of land that was supposed to be the Arab state in the UN Partition Plan that Arabs rejected and that Zionists nominally accepted but didn't actually want and hoped to eventually push beyond. The borders of the states in the partition plan were of course ridiculous and it's not hard to see why no one actually wanted them. The "strip" doesn't really make sense as a territory and can't really sustain itself economically.

I was humming "On Jordan's Stormy Banks" to myself the other day (as you do) and the lyrics suddenly struck me with a completely new meaning. The language around "possessions". And even the fact that this land is "promised". The feeling of being separated from your home.

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.

I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound for the promised land;
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land.

what an absolute freaking weirdo the person running this account is pic.twitter.com/E7laXasdio

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) May 22, 2024

def a smart rhetorical gambit to appear to be spreading vile & bizarre misinformation

there are some very weird political dynamics going on. e.g., I found this story very depressing and also confusing in terms of the politics of the protesters: https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/05/21/newton-free-library-photography-exhibit

The U.S. is officially against the expansion of West Bank settlements, but obviously all that ever amounts to is some tut-tutting, no one has ever suggested any kind of real consequences for it.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, May 22, 2024 6:17 AM bookmarkflaglink

We discussed the US executive order targeting the settlers previously.

Not as many consequences as one might wish, but there is some reporting of implementations.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-sanctions-3-israeli-west-bank-settlers-and-their-outposts-for-violence-against-palestinians

Gaza was not part of modern Egypt nor of any modern nation state

I should have realised that, I knew Egypt had it but I hadn't fully appreciated it was never actually part of Egypt.

So for countries that don't recognize Palestine, the official position(s) are basically is that Gaza isn't part of any country, not even as a territory. That US State Department thing upthread seems to say a lot of nothing very much

Not as many consequences as one might wish, but there is some reporting of implementations.

Yeah, tho in extremely limited circumstances having to do with specific violent acts. There hasn't been any real consequences for just the ongoing expansion of settlements for the last few decades.

this human puke: https://newrepublic.com/post/182003/nikki-haley-signs-israel-bombs-gaza

elsewhere in American greatness: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c033m529ry0o

A temporary pier built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza has been damaged by heavy seas and will take at least a week to be repaired, according to US officials.

US forces began building the floating pier - which is attached to Gaza's shoreline by a temporary causeway - several weeks ago.

The causeway portion of the project has now reportedly broken off and will have to be repaired before being returned to its position.

Humanitarian organisations have warned that the amount of aid reaching Palestinians in Gaza is only a fraction of what is required to meet the needs of its population.

Not exactly "as it relates to other countries," but because it doesn't directly pertain to current events, I'm a little over halfway through reading Tom Segev's biography of David Ben Gurion, "A State At Any Cost," which I think is very good overall and very helpful in understanding the version of zionism that came to dominate by the time of the founding of Israel, including the role of explusion/population transfer. I wouldn't say it's exactly a favorable portrayal of the man, although it also complicates some of the worst things that are said about him.

I'm hoping to next do some reading on the early proponents of a binational state.

complicates some of the worst things that are said about him.

I should clarify that I mean stuff like "he didn't care about saving Jews."

Who's the largest buyer of Israel Bonds do you think? Surely a wealthy American businessman?

Wrong! It's the comptroller of Palm Beach County, who has apparently invested $700 million, 15% of the funds of a county of 1.5 million people, all public taxpayer dollars, into Israel. pic.twitter.com/tgSt7OlN2l

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) May 29, 2024

🚨POLICE STATION SUPPORT (PSS) NEEDED ACROSS LONDON ALL DAY🚨

At @PSCupdates Rafah Protest last night - 40 people were arrested and taken to 6 police stations.

We need more PSS volunteers ASAP

If you can help call 07946541511

The protest is not over until everyone is out 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/1REqjRau1O

— #BlackLivesMatterUK (@ukblm) May 29, 2024

I thought the 'argument' as to who the Palestinians were and why they didn't count was that they were just more of those amorphous nomadic arabs therefore didn't have a specific home or several thousand years of history there. Or well known food traditions in the area. Obviously one of the worst examples of racism trying to rewrite history. Sickening that that has been widely swallowed.

They're just Egyptians or Jordanians is a common narrative.