| Rahul Goswami via nettime-l on Mon, 16 Oct 2023 18:41:28 +0200 (CEST) |
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| Re: <nettime> silence on Palestine? |
During the last 3-4 days there have been comments on my posts by Allan Siegel, Ted Byfield and David Opp. What links their comments is the legitimacy of the state of Israel and the presence of the Jewish people. There is undoubtedly a historical record that stretches back to remote antiquity. Insofar as it can be telegraphed, the Hebrews entered the land of Israel about 1300 BCE, living under a tribal confederation until being united under the first king, Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 BCE. David’s son, Solomon, built the Temple soon thereafter. Of all the people who lived in the area at that time - such as the Phoenicians, Moabites, and Philistines - only the Jews remain today.
To better understand the Jewish attachment to the land, this is a passage from a fairly recent volume. "In 1921, the Jewish National Fund had purchased large tracts of land in the Valley of Jezreel known as the Emek. The region was swampy and ridden with malaria and blackwater fever. It had to be drained and cultivated. Merhavia, the kibbutz which Golda chose because some Americans who had come over with the Jewish Legion had settled there, was one of the oldest cooperatives in the Emek. Originally founded in 1909 by members of the legendary Second Aliyah, it had proved to be a difficult spot. After ten years most of the marshland was drained, but the original group had been physically broken in the process." (From 'Golda Meir, Israel's Leader', Marie Syrkin, G P Putnam's Sons, 1969.)
Keith Sanborn has asked: "What is the difference between an attack and a terrorist attack? Wholesale vs retail?"
Reliable sources are to be found in the legal texts on International Humanitarian Law. Hamas, even if taken to be a non-state entity or part of a non-state entity, is considered by all accepted criteria to be fully accountable under International Humanitarian Law for its actions in terror attacks (it is a listed terror organisation by the European Union and by the USA) against Israeli civilians and using its own civilians (Arab Palestinians) as human shields. Its leadership, commanders, and fighters are therefore punishable for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The indiscriminate firing of more than 3,300 rockets into Israel’s towns and villages violates the rule of distinction in international humanitarian law, which requires combatants to limit attacks to legitimate military targets, and there is the difference about which you ask.
Furthermore, also consult (a) Yoram Dinstein, 'The Conduct of Hostilities Under the Law of International Armed Conflict' (Cambridge UP, 2004), (b) Jean-Marie Henkaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, 'Customary International Humanitarian Law' (ICRC, Cambridge UP, 2005). (c) First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (1977), W J Fenrick, 'The Rule of Proportionality and Protocol I in Conventional Warfare' (98 Mil. L. Rev., 1982).
Sanborn: "No one has ever tried to sanitize this."What happened on 7 October 2023 was the biggest massacre in one day of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust, and it is the second highest death toll because of terrorist action after the events of 11 September 2001 in USA. The death toll is now above 1,300, the count of the injured is much higher than that number, and there are nearly 200 hostages still held by Hamas. No amount of academic and activist justification can obscure or distort these facts.
In a previous post I had written, "In a number of cities in Europe, North America and Australia, later on 7 October and during the days following, 'celebrations' for the attack were on public display by supporters in those cities of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian "resistance"." Sanborn asked "I wd like to see some references substantiating this."
Here they are: https://news.sky.com/story/london-protest-thousands-attend-pro-palestinian-march-amid-escalating-israel-hamas-conflict-12984380 https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-break-up-banned-pro-palestinian-rally/a-67104373 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/12/scholz-pledges-zero-tolerance-as-antisemitic-incidents-rise-in-europe https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-police-ban-palestinian-solidarity-rallies-in-berlin/3015651https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/israel-palaestina-konflikt-bw-100.html (protets forbidden in German cities)
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-gerald-darmanin-aims-to-ban-all-pro-palestine-protests/https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/les-enseignants-en-premiere-ligne-face-a-la-terreur-islamiste-20231015 (Teachers on the front line of Islamic terror)
https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/barbarie-islamiste-mecanique-mortifere-20231015 https://www.dutchnews.nl/2023/10/10000-demonstrate-in-amsterdam-in-support-of-palestine/https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/judenhass-im-herzen-wiens-wer-hinter-den-demos-steckt/402631148 (Jew hatred in Vienna)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/10/12/hamas-attack-harvard-students-blame-israel/71152750007/ Rahul Goswami -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: https://www.nettime.org # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org