This is excellent but one statement is incorrect - Gaza also has a democracy and elected government.
A country under colonial occupation cannot be a democracy because it is ruled by the colonial regime. Israel processes ID cards for every single Palestinian including those in Gaza as stated by Amira Hass in Haaretz in February 2024. That alone says Israel is the governing power for all of Palestine including Gaza.
The 2006 Legislative election held in all of Palestine did see Hamas win most seats but the colonial ruler, Israel, overturned the election and rendered it null and void so Hamas was elected to nothing.
Gaza is a prison, a concentration camp set up in part of Occupied Palestine by the Israeli military colonial occupation rulers and it is not a democracy. In a democracy there are regular elections and every Palestinian, not just those in Gaza would have to vote. That does not happen and has not happened for 19 years because the colonial power, Israel, will not allow it.
The accurate response for Israel's claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East is that no democracy can be an apartheid State as Israel is.
And in a democracy everyone living in the State has exactly the same rights and that does not apply to Israel because non-Jews have inferior rights to Jews and always have had and since 2018 non-Jews are denied nationality because there is no Israeli nationality just religious, Jewish nationality.
Israeli is actually what is called an ethno-state:
An **ethno-state** is a state or political entity that is explicitly organized around the interests and identity of a specific ethnic group. In such a state, political power, cultural norms, and legal systems are often designed to prioritize and preserve the dominance of one ethnic group over others. This can manifest in policies that favor the majority ethnic group in areas such as citizenship, land ownership, language, education, and political representation, often at the expense of minority groups.
Key characteristics of an ethno-state may include:
1. **Ethnic exclusivity**: The state may define itself in terms of a single ethnic identity, often enshrined in its constitution or foundational laws.
2. **Discriminatory policies**: Laws and practices may systematically privilege the dominant ethnic group while marginalizing or excluding others.
3. **Cultural dominance**: The state may promote the culture, language, and history of the dominant group as central to national identity.
4. **Restricted citizenship**: Access to citizenship or full rights may be limited based on ethnicity or ancestry.
5. **Territorial claims**: The state may justify its existence or expansion based on historical or ethnic ties to a specific land.
### Examples and Controversies:
- **Historical examples**: Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany are often cited as extreme examples of ethno-states, where racial or ethnic hierarchies were institutionalized.
- **Modern example**:
States, such as Israel, exhibit and demonstrate blatantly strong ethno-national characteristics, due to laws and policies that prioritize Jewish identity and rights, particularly self-professed Zionist Jews. Supporters of Israel argue that they are democratic and inclusive, with protections for minority rights. Whilst this is generally be true within the current borders of the State of Israel, it is most certainly not true of the Occupied Territories, namely the West Bank and Gaza.
The concept of an ethno-state is controversial because it often conflicts with principles of equality, pluralism, and universal human rights. Ethno-states always lead to some degree of systemic discrimination, exclusion, and nearly always conflict, yet proponents claim they are necessary for preserving cultural identity and security in diverse or contested regions. The fundamental issue here is both racism and religious supremacy. Neither should have any place in our modern world!
States, such as Israel, exhibit and demonstrate blatantly strong ethno-national characteristics, due to laws and policies that prioritize Jewish identity and rights, particularly self-professed Zionist Jews. Supporters of Israel argue that they are democratic and inclusive, with protections for minority rights. Whilst this is generally true within the current borders of the State of Israel, it is most certainly not true of the Occupied Territories, namely the West Bank and Gaza.
The concept of an ethno-state is controversial because it often conflicts with principles of equality, pluralism, and universal human rights. Ethno-states always lead to some degree of systemic discrimination, exclusion, and nearly always conflict, yet proponents claim they are necessary for preserving cultural identity and security in diverse or contested regions. The fundamental issue here is both racism and religious supremacy. Neither should have any place in our modern world!
I know Israel is called an ethno- state but it is not, just as it is not a democracy. Israel is the land of lies and the concept of ethno-state is ridiculous.
Jews are a religion and no religion makes an ethnicity.
ethยทniยทcity
[ษฮธหnษชsษชti]
noun
the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common descent or cultural background.
And the definition of ethno-state - ethnostate
/หษฮธnษสsteษชt/
noun
a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group.
Makes it clear that it is another lie on which Israel sits. Jews are not a race and neither are they an ethnic group. No religion makes a race and no religion makes an ethnic group.
Jews do not have a common descent and the claim they do is mere religious metaphor. Jews comprise all races and hundreds of nationalities, do not have a common history and neither do they have a common language. The most common language for Jews is English, next the Hebrew re-invented in the late 19th and early 20th century, from the dead for more than 2000 years religious language and then Russian. There are many other languages spoken by Jews but they are the major three.
Someone with English Jews in their ancestry going back a thousand years has a totally different history and culture to someone who has Iranian or Indian Jews in their ancestry going back a thousand years.
An American Jew from New York has absolutely nothing in common with an English Jew from London or an African Jew from Addis Ababa except THE RELIGION. Such religious cultural connections apply to all religions but a Christian from Madras would never claim the same history as a Christian from Moscow. It would be ridiculous.
I know where you are coming from, but it claims and manifests itself as an ethno-state. No state or country is fully any one race or religion, regardless of what they say!
Clear and clean! Thank you for the indisputable description of a devilishly premeditated crime scene, which is intended to be the epilogue of a drama that beganโฆ a century agoโฆ
I am curious why you go along with the "october 7 was a genocide" scree, even in part?
In my view, which I think is rational, it's simply not. It was an attack on the architecture of apartheid and an operation to take prisoners to force a negotiation. It was an attempt to motivate external supporters to join in a military attack on the apartheid regime and, I think crucially, to defend the al-Aqsa mosque against Zionist intent to claim or it could even be said, to conquer it. All of that was in the manifesto.
The idea that any attack on Israel is a ludicrous paranoid fantasy and a claim that Zionists are (a) a natural distinct group of people like an ethnicity and not a political ideology, and (b) deserving of special treatment and special protective rules or norms beyond what other people can expect from the world (groups of people who form militarized collectives in order to oppress others can legitimately expect forceful pushback and that would be a normal outcome for humans).
I say it because it loosely fits the UN definition of genocide. Genocide is, in brief and in essence, the mass murder of civilians. It was absolutely not the Second Holocaust - that is in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. There are quite a few war commentators that say a nation pre-emptively commit a genocide in order to prevent one happening to their own nation.
I don't think it's a good fit. The word "civilians" is used by Israel to make us think that the inhabitants of Israel, especially in the kibbutzes which are used to hold down additional territory, are like the non-military citizens of the rest of the world's nations. They are not. And the charge is a serious charge. I don't think "loose" is good enough justification.
The entire state of Israel is built on a model unique in the world, which is that its entire Jewish population is considered part of the military, either presently active, presently reserve (the entirety of an adultโs physical prime), aged out of reserve, or future. The only exceptions are for those who argue their way out of serving, or who convert their service to producing the next generation, or who serve by pursuing ultra-orthodox studies as a sort of guiding light or moral compass for Zionism and for Israelโs perpetual project of self-legitimation.
On this page that I have linked, you will find the following quote
โGeneral Yadin famously characterized the Israeli reservist as a โsoldier on 11 months annual leave.โ 252โ
which is a shorthand for understanding that the Israeli conception of citizen is predicated on that citizen being a soldier, with again, the exit path from being a soldier being to serve the countryโs territorial ambitions in another way, which is by birthing and raising more citizens. The constant population anxiety which Zionists, and Israeli Zionists in particular, feel is rooted in their understanding that sheer numbers are part of what is required to hold and expand their territory. This Israeli report will tell you all about that societal attitude https://web.archive.org/web/20201030105332/https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/INSS%20memo159.pdf . I particularly recommend chapter 3, which discusses the tight integration of the IDF [IOF] into Israeli society as a deliberate strategy fundamentally relevant to Israelโs understanding of its citizens and itself as a militarized society, not a happenstance which can be dismissed.
Note also chapter 1, which discusses that analysis of Israelโs military goals and size of their military dictates that all Jewish citizens must, barring the goal-relevant exclusions I mentioned above, remain conscriptable, so that the military can organize its staffing by selection from the entire citizenry, and that this structure is understood by Israel to be unique in the world. On page 20:
โWhen the army examines its different tasks, it becomes evident that the regular armyโs human resources are insufficient to accommodate some of them. That is to say, those in favor of doing away with the reserve army or the model of the peopleโs army and support the model of conscription on a volunteer basis, disregard the minimum size necessary for the IDF. As of today, the armyโs minimum necessary size dictates conscription of all those whom the IDF truly regards as suitable for conscription for regular service, based on consideration of the needs of the reserve force that this framework must support.โ
As the IDF [IOF] is understood by Israel itself to be unique in the world and to be interwoven with the entire Jewish populace, to apply concepts such as โuninvolved citizenโ is faulty logic. This is true even though the Zionists try to make a lot of hay in the onlooking external world by claiming that their citizens are not part of their military. Thatโs just another piece of Zionistsโ โpublic diplomacyโ, which is simply propaganda aimed at the external world in pursuit of Zionistsโ war aims.
Then thereโs how the Palestinians might have understood the kibbutzes.
The kibbutzes named โNahalโ were military outposts from the start, so Nahal Oz began as a militarized kibbutz. Even though itโs claimed to have demilitarized at some point, if you look it up, you may notice that the timing on this demilitarization is a little vague. What I have observed is that when Zionists make claims about something like a status change, something that might be a sticking point for the outside world, and donโt give concrete details as to when it happened, the claim is suspect.
In all kibbutzes, the kibbutzim still see themselves as entwined with the settlement ethos, which is militarized. Even with anti-war sentiment rising and falling in the 70s (as worldwide) the kibbutzim by any other nationโs standards are essentially a type of almost fully militarized enclave, with percentage of young men joining in the mid-90% as of a decade ago https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.166?read-now=1&seq=22#page_scan_tab_contents .
The likelihood therefore that anyone in a kibbutz *isnโt* involved with the military, either as active duty or reservist, is pretty low. Furthermore even those who have aged out are likely to have servedโin fact even more likely to have served. The link above gives the service rates a decade ago as approximately 75% of young men. For Israel, this is a decline. For the rest of the world, it is almost unimaginably militarized. One thinks of Sparta, if Sparta had a habit of torturing its prisoners for fun.
Search this US government report on human rights for the term โcivilian guardโ. https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/israel-west-bank-and-gaza/west-bank-and-gaza/ The kibbutzes had civilians performing military functions. In such a militarized society, where is the distinction? Can one really be said to exist, or is it purely for public relations? The kitat konenut is the โrapid response teamโ or โcivilian security teamโ mentioned from time to time in articles about Oct 7. Here is a writeup from the inside, for friendly audiences, and itโs more honest about the degree of militarization these groups get up to https://archive.ph/De8R8 . Here are a few recent articles about this type of private military: https://www.jewishpress.com/tag/kitat-konenut/
Now that itโs clear that people who act like civilians can turn out to be armed quasi-military, or reservists, or IDF on duty guarding a place, how is Hamas supposed to distinguish between โciviliansโ and the โmilitaryโ?
Granted that the very aged and children are not in the military. I am not sure what I think about aged Israelis who were in the military. Palestine is under military occupation https://www.rulac.org/browse/conflicts/military-occupation-of-palestine-by-israel#collapse6accord and the purpose of the settlements is to hold the land, as is clearly documented. So for those soldiers who have aged in place, what is their status? The occupation goes on 24/7/365.
Iโm not even sure what I think about the Palestinians firing through security doors into safe rooms. When every person of fighting age is potentially an occupying soldier, and one is outnumbered by their numbers if not, as it turned out, by the number of potential soldiers who were actually armed in the moment, then is one supposed to ask them to line up and turn out their pockets? Leave them able and ready, turn oneโs back, and walk away?
Netanyahu et alโs claims about Israelis being civilians seem to have that expectation. Palestinians are not supposed to fight to *win*. Even if they break through the fences holding them in apartheid, they should fight by Queensbury rules. Meanwhile, Israelis are as covert as guerrilla resistance fighters dressed up as farmhands.
Iโve spent some time thinking about it and have come to the conclusion that this, like in every other claim made by the Zionists, is a deceitful manipulation, designed to give the Zionists the advantage.
The constancy with which this turns out to be the case, by the way, is one reason I think that no generosity should be extended, using "loose" definitions as though they might as well be applied. No, Israel needs to be held to rigorous, demanding standards. They have not been and it's a habit the world needs to break.
Yes, a few children died. Some were taken prisoner along with adults. The tragic case of the 3 family members killed by Israeli bombs was explained as, โthe children were taken out of sympathy for not separating them from their parentsโ. Iโm not sure what I think about that. Itโs not a familiar way of thinking about the problem to me. I donโt know what the situation was. If the rules are that they either capture or kill these potential soldiers, and the children were very young, I am not sure what else they could have done. I donโt think weโll get true information out of Israel, as to what the situation was at the moment of capture.
I donโt think anywhere near as many โciviliansโ were killed on that day as Israel says.
Now next we have to think about how many were killed by Israel. Some think it is most of them. I find those arguments somewhat compelling. I know the Palestinians killed a number of people, but they were not equipped to do a lot of what was done.
Wow! That is extremely thorough and comprehensive!
I am, therefore, adding a special disclaimer to three or so parts of my new book chapters - just one time - regarding Israeli civilian casualties.
I do remember a HAMAS spokesman saying, โ There are no civilians in Israel,โ but, at the time, he didn't clarify why, so I, like almost everyone, thought it was a misleading comment and bad excuse for murder of civilians.
Btw What is your name and can I use parts of your refutation in my book?
DM me? I am open but contemplating. I would also like to note a few more points. Out of academic rigor but also if you are putting this in a book there are sideways arguments that would be deployed and I would like to try to outmaneuver those in advance.
They are of the nature of english language op eds:
โwe are tired of being required to join the military we should pay for a professional armyโ writes a comfortable-class journalist, stamping her feet. A partial answer to that and similar โno our society has changedโ claims: a) Who is โweโ? The famous Jewish internal argumentativeness does not therefore lead to the outside world having to take as universal, any wrangling that happens to make the papers. People disagreeing about how the military demands on society should be met is a fractious disagreement of details that has existed since the start of the 20th century at least. b) A class of urbanites changing how they feel, about being responsible for holding weapons themselves, doesn't change that they are there because Israel decided to gather as many people as possible, specifically in order to hold more land than anyone would let them have by agreement of any type (sale, grant, gift, etc). They formulated and implemented this strategy deliberately against: first the Sultan and local Palestinians, then the British and the local Palestinians, then the UN and local Palestinians, and now just the local Palestinians on their own, who have abandoned by really-protective federal level governments, the only level that could be protective against a state recognized as a bation as Israel is, time and again. As well, delicate feelings of some of the service-hiring chattering class aside, as of its authorship a decade ago, only ยผ of new crop of youth were managing to either evade their duties or fail out of service, according to the kibbutz -related govโt analysis ref above. As well, some people seek (falsify) medical deferrals but these days a lot of ineligibility is for the same reason the US has had to lower its standards: severe lack of fitness physical and mental. The citation is somewhere in the recent analysis docs. Even so, with 2, 5, or 10 year wobbles in public sentiment going up or down over the years and not meaning any alteration in the fact of the occupation, it would be absurd to expect the Palestinian militias involved in any action to take opinion polls and guesstimate likelihood of commitment before determining whether a person in civvies is currently on active duty. Sentiment trend lines go up and down with Israelโs fortunes, and Oct 7 will produce some change: I predict a large fervor intensity increase among a good sized chunk, and a smaller group increased in commitment to refusal, so a bifurcation that might only harden and disambiguate preexisting divisions.
the fact of a rave being held in the line of fire, for example. That has been elevated as a โspecial moment, an innocent partyโ. No, Israeli youth are inveterate ravers. Lots of them go on the south Asia drug dance party tour after service and make it a lifestyle: โfull moon partyโ (a warm climate trance party phenomenon) is as known to them as the likelihood of someone pulling out a knife in an argument (itโs an honor culture not a dignity culture). Raves are only a holy, pure celebration for the lifestyle crowd that flies all over the world to attend them. This one was moved to the grounds of a military base and everyone was fine with that.
So please DM me?
As for the Hamas spokesman saying there are no civilians, I feel sick at heart to contemplate that.
The Arab world has continually failed to get a long form, psychosocial rebuttal of Zionismโs layers of hasbara into the onlooking worldโs frame of view. I am not sure that people stating the facts about Israel, in opposition to Israelโs claims, even see the extent of what they need to dismantle. They're honest.
I have some links to share with you from the Knessetโs foreign propaganda subcommittee meetings. They are not private Iโm just not in front of my bookmarks right now. The phone app is terrible for citing references.
If you remember where you read that Iโd be grateful?
That doesn't sound bad -- I think my followup point boils down to, Hamas et al (the other soldier groups brought in to Oct 7 or whatever other operations) are military and as such their analyses have to include and prioritize the stance of the Israeli state and their own military analyses and goals, which are consistent over time, barring any philosophical arguments common to any organization (those are arguments of detail not of the fundamental formation of the state). The hasbara arguments intended to persuade foreign publics (and governments, to the extent our politicians are lazy or willing collaborators) are primarily based on emotional pictures of "civilians" and "diverse views" which a) don't meaningfully exist in the state and b) don't have high numbers or meaningful implications for the garrison militarized society which Israel is. It's like the US government using a tiny selected set of citizens to give PR support for a partisan bill. The Palestinian militaries are criticized for not, I think, formulating a view of Israel that matches the false public hasbara image of "civilians". As a military outfit they can't do that, of course. But arguments against whatever you write would use that same hasbara tactic.
I think it's fair to assume that Palestinian military have been reading and contemplating Israeli military doctrine for as long as it's been visible to analysis. Our outside media does not bother with this except for maybe the most marginalized investigative journalists. Our outside military academics do from time to time, but who uses them as sources.
As for the children... the state of Israel views and socializes them as future soldiers, and not as we'd view children in a temporary conflict--"there's a war now but soon it will stop and the children will not persist the war". This leads to conclusions ugly to contemplate but set in motion by the state of Israel. Even so I don't think the children are treated as *soldiers* by Hamas, nor at least sometimes the women, even when they are. At least I think they might have made an oversight or two in recent prisoner exchanges. So I would like to offer a few sources showing this inculcation of values , not to argue that the children are complicit at their young age, to show how the state views them as objects of utility.
The barbarity of Israeli Jews is beyond anything we recognise as human. I wish they would find an empty island and leave our precious world alone. They are without doubt the cause of so much death and problems all over the globe. It makes the Italian mafia look like pussycats!
As for Orange head Trump; he is not a peacemaker as he claims. In fact he is a sinister liar and a murderer of children. His face is that of a serial killer. He is still sending huge bombs to kill, kill, kill. I think it is high time the UK must stop their help as the Palestinians have had enough and deserve to be a free and independent sovereignty. I would certainly book an Airbnb in a Palestinian home.
I'm so worried for them now.
What should we all do next, knowing that Israel wants to starve them to death with Trumps blessing ๐ก
This is excellent but one statement is incorrect - Gaza also has a democracy and elected government.
A country under colonial occupation cannot be a democracy because it is ruled by the colonial regime. Israel processes ID cards for every single Palestinian including those in Gaza as stated by Amira Hass in Haaretz in February 2024. That alone says Israel is the governing power for all of Palestine including Gaza.
The 2006 Legislative election held in all of Palestine did see Hamas win most seats but the colonial ruler, Israel, overturned the election and rendered it null and void so Hamas was elected to nothing.
Gaza is a prison, a concentration camp set up in part of Occupied Palestine by the Israeli military colonial occupation rulers and it is not a democracy. In a democracy there are regular elections and every Palestinian, not just those in Gaza would have to vote. That does not happen and has not happened for 19 years because the colonial power, Israel, will not allow it.
The accurate response for Israel's claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East is that no democracy can be an apartheid State as Israel is.
And in a democracy everyone living in the State has exactly the same rights and that does not apply to Israel because non-Jews have inferior rights to Jews and always have had and since 2018 non-Jews are denied nationality because there is no Israeli nationality just religious, Jewish nationality.
Very good points, thank you.
Israeli is actually what is called an ethno-state:
An **ethno-state** is a state or political entity that is explicitly organized around the interests and identity of a specific ethnic group. In such a state, political power, cultural norms, and legal systems are often designed to prioritize and preserve the dominance of one ethnic group over others. This can manifest in policies that favor the majority ethnic group in areas such as citizenship, land ownership, language, education, and political representation, often at the expense of minority groups.
Key characteristics of an ethno-state may include:
1. **Ethnic exclusivity**: The state may define itself in terms of a single ethnic identity, often enshrined in its constitution or foundational laws.
2. **Discriminatory policies**: Laws and practices may systematically privilege the dominant ethnic group while marginalizing or excluding others.
3. **Cultural dominance**: The state may promote the culture, language, and history of the dominant group as central to national identity.
4. **Restricted citizenship**: Access to citizenship or full rights may be limited based on ethnicity or ancestry.
5. **Territorial claims**: The state may justify its existence or expansion based on historical or ethnic ties to a specific land.
### Examples and Controversies:
- **Historical examples**: Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany are often cited as extreme examples of ethno-states, where racial or ethnic hierarchies were institutionalized.
- **Modern example**:
States, such as Israel, exhibit and demonstrate blatantly strong ethno-national characteristics, due to laws and policies that prioritize Jewish identity and rights, particularly self-professed Zionist Jews. Supporters of Israel argue that they are democratic and inclusive, with protections for minority rights. Whilst this is generally be true within the current borders of the State of Israel, it is most certainly not true of the Occupied Territories, namely the West Bank and Gaza.
The concept of an ethno-state is controversial because it often conflicts with principles of equality, pluralism, and universal human rights. Ethno-states always lead to some degree of systemic discrimination, exclusion, and nearly always conflict, yet proponents claim they are necessary for preserving cultural identity and security in diverse or contested regions. The fundamental issue here is both racism and religious supremacy. Neither should have any place in our modern world!
Continued...
- **Modern example**:
States, such as Israel, exhibit and demonstrate blatantly strong ethno-national characteristics, due to laws and policies that prioritize Jewish identity and rights, particularly self-professed Zionist Jews. Supporters of Israel argue that they are democratic and inclusive, with protections for minority rights. Whilst this is generally true within the current borders of the State of Israel, it is most certainly not true of the Occupied Territories, namely the West Bank and Gaza.
The concept of an ethno-state is controversial because it often conflicts with principles of equality, pluralism, and universal human rights. Ethno-states always lead to some degree of systemic discrimination, exclusion, and nearly always conflict, yet proponents claim they are necessary for preserving cultural identity and security in diverse or contested regions. The fundamental issue here is both racism and religious supremacy. Neither should have any place in our modern world!
The concept of an ethno state as you say has no place in a modern world. It is backward, primitive, tribal, unjust, undemocratic and racist.
I know Israel is called an ethno- state but it is not, just as it is not a democracy. Israel is the land of lies and the concept of ethno-state is ridiculous.
Jews are a religion and no religion makes an ethnicity.
ethยทniยทcity
[ษฮธหnษชsษชti]
noun
the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common descent or cultural background.
And the definition of ethno-state - ethnostate
/หษฮธnษสsteษชt/
noun
a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group.
Makes it clear that it is another lie on which Israel sits. Jews are not a race and neither are they an ethnic group. No religion makes a race and no religion makes an ethnic group.
Jews do not have a common descent and the claim they do is mere religious metaphor. Jews comprise all races and hundreds of nationalities, do not have a common history and neither do they have a common language. The most common language for Jews is English, next the Hebrew re-invented in the late 19th and early 20th century, from the dead for more than 2000 years religious language and then Russian. There are many other languages spoken by Jews but they are the major three.
Someone with English Jews in their ancestry going back a thousand years has a totally different history and culture to someone who has Iranian or Indian Jews in their ancestry going back a thousand years.
An American Jew from New York has absolutely nothing in common with an English Jew from London or an African Jew from Addis Ababa except THE RELIGION. Such religious cultural connections apply to all religions but a Christian from Madras would never claim the same history as a Christian from Moscow. It would be ridiculous.
I know where you are coming from, but it claims and manifests itself as an ethno-state. No state or country is fully any one race or religion, regardless of what they say!
Of course. Do any other States or countries claim to be fully any one race or religion?
Israel don't claim that, except when it suits their Anti-Semitic Zionist Narrative!
Clear and clean! Thank you for the indisputable description of a devilishly premeditated crime scene, which is intended to be the epilogue of a drama that beganโฆ a century agoโฆ
I am curious why you go along with the "october 7 was a genocide" scree, even in part?
In my view, which I think is rational, it's simply not. It was an attack on the architecture of apartheid and an operation to take prisoners to force a negotiation. It was an attempt to motivate external supporters to join in a military attack on the apartheid regime and, I think crucially, to defend the al-Aqsa mosque against Zionist intent to claim or it could even be said, to conquer it. All of that was in the manifesto.
The idea that any attack on Israel is a ludicrous paranoid fantasy and a claim that Zionists are (a) a natural distinct group of people like an ethnicity and not a political ideology, and (b) deserving of special treatment and special protective rules or norms beyond what other people can expect from the world (groups of people who form militarized collectives in order to oppress others can legitimately expect forceful pushback and that would be a normal outcome for humans).
I say it because it loosely fits the UN definition of genocide. Genocide is, in brief and in essence, the mass murder of civilians. It was absolutely not the Second Holocaust - that is in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. There are quite a few war commentators that say a nation pre-emptively commit a genocide in order to prevent one happening to their own nation.
I don't think it's a good fit. The word "civilians" is used by Israel to make us think that the inhabitants of Israel, especially in the kibbutzes which are used to hold down additional territory, are like the non-military citizens of the rest of the world's nations. They are not. And the charge is a serious charge. I don't think "loose" is good enough justification.
The entire state of Israel is built on a model unique in the world, which is that its entire Jewish population is considered part of the military, either presently active, presently reserve (the entirety of an adultโs physical prime), aged out of reserve, or future. The only exceptions are for those who argue their way out of serving, or who convert their service to producing the next generation, or who serve by pursuing ultra-orthodox studies as a sort of guiding light or moral compass for Zionism and for Israelโs perpetual project of self-legitimation.
Read this chapter of US analysis, โReserve Policies of Nationsโ. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep12108.14?seq=5
On this page that I have linked, you will find the following quote
โGeneral Yadin famously characterized the Israeli reservist as a โsoldier on 11 months annual leave.โ 252โ
which is a shorthand for understanding that the Israeli conception of citizen is predicated on that citizen being a soldier, with again, the exit path from being a soldier being to serve the countryโs territorial ambitions in another way, which is by birthing and raising more citizens. The constant population anxiety which Zionists, and Israeli Zionists in particular, feel is rooted in their understanding that sheer numbers are part of what is required to hold and expand their territory. This Israeli report will tell you all about that societal attitude https://web.archive.org/web/20201030105332/https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/INSS%20memo159.pdf . I particularly recommend chapter 3, which discusses the tight integration of the IDF [IOF] into Israeli society as a deliberate strategy fundamentally relevant to Israelโs understanding of its citizens and itself as a militarized society, not a happenstance which can be dismissed.
Note also chapter 1, which discusses that analysis of Israelโs military goals and size of their military dictates that all Jewish citizens must, barring the goal-relevant exclusions I mentioned above, remain conscriptable, so that the military can organize its staffing by selection from the entire citizenry, and that this structure is understood by Israel to be unique in the world. On page 20:
โWhen the army examines its different tasks, it becomes evident that the regular armyโs human resources are insufficient to accommodate some of them. That is to say, those in favor of doing away with the reserve army or the model of the peopleโs army and support the model of conscription on a volunteer basis, disregard the minimum size necessary for the IDF. As of today, the armyโs minimum necessary size dictates conscription of all those whom the IDF truly regards as suitable for conscription for regular service, based on consideration of the needs of the reserve force that this framework must support.โ
As the IDF [IOF] is understood by Israel itself to be unique in the world and to be interwoven with the entire Jewish populace, to apply concepts such as โuninvolved citizenโ is faulty logic. This is true even though the Zionists try to make a lot of hay in the onlooking external world by claiming that their citizens are not part of their military. Thatโs just another piece of Zionistsโ โpublic diplomacyโ, which is simply propaganda aimed at the external world in pursuit of Zionistsโ war aims.
Then thereโs how the Palestinians might have understood the kibbutzes.
The kibbutzes named โNahalโ were military outposts from the start, so Nahal Oz began as a militarized kibbutz. Even though itโs claimed to have demilitarized at some point, if you look it up, you may notice that the timing on this demilitarization is a little vague. What I have observed is that when Zionists make claims about something like a status change, something that might be a sticking point for the outside world, and donโt give concrete details as to when it happened, the claim is suspect.
In all kibbutzes, the kibbutzim still see themselves as entwined with the settlement ethos, which is militarized. Even with anti-war sentiment rising and falling in the 70s (as worldwide) the kibbutzim by any other nationโs standards are essentially a type of almost fully militarized enclave, with percentage of young men joining in the mid-90% as of a decade ago https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.19.1.166?read-now=1&seq=22#page_scan_tab_contents .
The likelihood therefore that anyone in a kibbutz *isnโt* involved with the military, either as active duty or reservist, is pretty low. Furthermore even those who have aged out are likely to have servedโin fact even more likely to have served. The link above gives the service rates a decade ago as approximately 75% of young men. For Israel, this is a decline. For the rest of the world, it is almost unimaginably militarized. One thinks of Sparta, if Sparta had a habit of torturing its prisoners for fun.
Search this US government report on human rights for the term โcivilian guardโ. https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/israel-west-bank-and-gaza/west-bank-and-gaza/ The kibbutzes had civilians performing military functions. In such a militarized society, where is the distinction? Can one really be said to exist, or is it purely for public relations? The kitat konenut is the โrapid response teamโ or โcivilian security teamโ mentioned from time to time in articles about Oct 7. Here is a writeup from the inside, for friendly audiences, and itโs more honest about the degree of militarization these groups get up to https://archive.ph/De8R8 . Here are a few recent articles about this type of private military: https://www.jewishpress.com/tag/kitat-konenut/
Hereโs another analysis that characterizes this type of armed individual. The analysis relates more to the West Bank, but the figures given here do not apply only to the West Bank. https://acleddata.com/2024/06/10/civilians-or-soldiers-settler-violence-in-the-west-bank/ Nothing has changed about their character since Oct 7, only the numbers of gun licenses, the fervor behind training, and that they now get reserve benefits when โcalled upโ which is to say, responding to an incident. https://barlaw.co.il/practice_areas/national-insurance-institute-nii/client_updates/reserve-benefits-for-serving-in-a-kitat-konenut It seems that they didnโt get reserve benefits before Oct 7, but thatโs because it was a volunteer duty. They donโt seem to have been thought of as any less military, though.
Now that itโs clear that people who act like civilians can turn out to be armed quasi-military, or reservists, or IDF on duty guarding a place, how is Hamas supposed to distinguish between โciviliansโ and the โmilitaryโ?
Granted that the very aged and children are not in the military. I am not sure what I think about aged Israelis who were in the military. Palestine is under military occupation https://www.rulac.org/browse/conflicts/military-occupation-of-palestine-by-israel#collapse6accord and the purpose of the settlements is to hold the land, as is clearly documented. So for those soldiers who have aged in place, what is their status? The occupation goes on 24/7/365.
Iโm not even sure what I think about the Palestinians firing through security doors into safe rooms. When every person of fighting age is potentially an occupying soldier, and one is outnumbered by their numbers if not, as it turned out, by the number of potential soldiers who were actually armed in the moment, then is one supposed to ask them to line up and turn out their pockets? Leave them able and ready, turn oneโs back, and walk away?
Netanyahu et alโs claims about Israelis being civilians seem to have that expectation. Palestinians are not supposed to fight to *win*. Even if they break through the fences holding them in apartheid, they should fight by Queensbury rules. Meanwhile, Israelis are as covert as guerrilla resistance fighters dressed up as farmhands.
Iโve spent some time thinking about it and have come to the conclusion that this, like in every other claim made by the Zionists, is a deceitful manipulation, designed to give the Zionists the advantage.
The constancy with which this turns out to be the case, by the way, is one reason I think that no generosity should be extended, using "loose" definitions as though they might as well be applied. No, Israel needs to be held to rigorous, demanding standards. They have not been and it's a habit the world needs to break.
Yes, a few children died. Some were taken prisoner along with adults. The tragic case of the 3 family members killed by Israeli bombs was explained as, โthe children were taken out of sympathy for not separating them from their parentsโ. Iโm not sure what I think about that. Itโs not a familiar way of thinking about the problem to me. I donโt know what the situation was. If the rules are that they either capture or kill these potential soldiers, and the children were very young, I am not sure what else they could have done. I donโt think weโll get true information out of Israel, as to what the situation was at the moment of capture.
I donโt think anywhere near as many โciviliansโ were killed on that day as Israel says.
Now next we have to think about how many were killed by Israel. Some think it is most of them. I find those arguments somewhat compelling. I know the Palestinians killed a number of people, but they were not equipped to do a lot of what was done.
Wow! That is extremely thorough and comprehensive!
I am, therefore, adding a special disclaimer to three or so parts of my new book chapters - just one time - regarding Israeli civilian casualties.
I do remember a HAMAS spokesman saying, โ There are no civilians in Israel,โ but, at the time, he didn't clarify why, so I, like almost everyone, thought it was a misleading comment and bad excuse for murder of civilians.
Btw What is your name and can I use parts of your refutation in my book?
DM me? I am open but contemplating. I would also like to note a few more points. Out of academic rigor but also if you are putting this in a book there are sideways arguments that would be deployed and I would like to try to outmaneuver those in advance.
They are of the nature of english language op eds:
โwe are tired of being required to join the military we should pay for a professional armyโ writes a comfortable-class journalist, stamping her feet. A partial answer to that and similar โno our society has changedโ claims: a) Who is โweโ? The famous Jewish internal argumentativeness does not therefore lead to the outside world having to take as universal, any wrangling that happens to make the papers. People disagreeing about how the military demands on society should be met is a fractious disagreement of details that has existed since the start of the 20th century at least. b) A class of urbanites changing how they feel, about being responsible for holding weapons themselves, doesn't change that they are there because Israel decided to gather as many people as possible, specifically in order to hold more land than anyone would let them have by agreement of any type (sale, grant, gift, etc). They formulated and implemented this strategy deliberately against: first the Sultan and local Palestinians, then the British and the local Palestinians, then the UN and local Palestinians, and now just the local Palestinians on their own, who have abandoned by really-protective federal level governments, the only level that could be protective against a state recognized as a bation as Israel is, time and again. As well, delicate feelings of some of the service-hiring chattering class aside, as of its authorship a decade ago, only ยผ of new crop of youth were managing to either evade their duties or fail out of service, according to the kibbutz -related govโt analysis ref above. As well, some people seek (falsify) medical deferrals but these days a lot of ineligibility is for the same reason the US has had to lower its standards: severe lack of fitness physical and mental. The citation is somewhere in the recent analysis docs. Even so, with 2, 5, or 10 year wobbles in public sentiment going up or down over the years and not meaning any alteration in the fact of the occupation, it would be absurd to expect the Palestinian militias involved in any action to take opinion polls and guesstimate likelihood of commitment before determining whether a person in civvies is currently on active duty. Sentiment trend lines go up and down with Israelโs fortunes, and Oct 7 will produce some change: I predict a large fervor intensity increase among a good sized chunk, and a smaller group increased in commitment to refusal, so a bifurcation that might only harden and disambiguate preexisting divisions.
the fact of a rave being held in the line of fire, for example. That has been elevated as a โspecial moment, an innocent partyโ. No, Israeli youth are inveterate ravers. Lots of them go on the south Asia drug dance party tour after service and make it a lifestyle: โfull moon partyโ (a warm climate trance party phenomenon) is as known to them as the likelihood of someone pulling out a knife in an argument (itโs an honor culture not a dignity culture). Raves are only a holy, pure celebration for the lifestyle crowd that flies all over the world to attend them. This one was moved to the grounds of a military base and everyone was fine with that.
So please DM me?
As for the Hamas spokesman saying there are no civilians, I feel sick at heart to contemplate that.
The Arab world has continually failed to get a long form, psychosocial rebuttal of Zionismโs layers of hasbara into the onlooking worldโs frame of view. I am not sure that people stating the facts about Israel, in opposition to Israelโs claims, even see the extent of what they need to dismantle. They're honest.
I have some links to share with you from the Knessetโs foreign propaganda subcommittee meetings. They are not private Iโm just not in front of my bookmarks right now. The phone app is terrible for citing references.
If you remember where you read that Iโd be grateful?
I was planning to pretty much use all of your first post verbatim. It's 520 page book and totally pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide
That doesn't sound bad -- I think my followup point boils down to, Hamas et al (the other soldier groups brought in to Oct 7 or whatever other operations) are military and as such their analyses have to include and prioritize the stance of the Israeli state and their own military analyses and goals, which are consistent over time, barring any philosophical arguments common to any organization (those are arguments of detail not of the fundamental formation of the state). The hasbara arguments intended to persuade foreign publics (and governments, to the extent our politicians are lazy or willing collaborators) are primarily based on emotional pictures of "civilians" and "diverse views" which a) don't meaningfully exist in the state and b) don't have high numbers or meaningful implications for the garrison militarized society which Israel is. It's like the US government using a tiny selected set of citizens to give PR support for a partisan bill. The Palestinian militaries are criticized for not, I think, formulating a view of Israel that matches the false public hasbara image of "civilians". As a military outfit they can't do that, of course. But arguments against whatever you write would use that same hasbara tactic.
I think it's fair to assume that Palestinian military have been reading and contemplating Israeli military doctrine for as long as it's been visible to analysis. Our outside media does not bother with this except for maybe the most marginalized investigative journalists. Our outside military academics do from time to time, but who uses them as sources.
As for the children... the state of Israel views and socializes them as future soldiers, and not as we'd view children in a temporary conflict--"there's a war now but soon it will stop and the children will not persist the war". This leads to conclusions ugly to contemplate but set in motion by the state of Israel. Even so I don't think the children are treated as *soldiers* by Hamas, nor at least sometimes the women, even when they are. At least I think they might have made an oversight or two in recent prisoner exchanges. So I would like to offer a few sources showing this inculcation of values , not to argue that the children are complicit at their young age, to show how the state views them as objects of utility.
The barbarity of Israeli Jews is beyond anything we recognise as human. I wish they would find an empty island and leave our precious world alone. They are without doubt the cause of so much death and problems all over the globe. It makes the Italian mafia look like pussycats!
As for Orange head Trump; he is not a peacemaker as he claims. In fact he is a sinister liar and a murderer of children. His face is that of a serial killer. He is still sending huge bombs to kill, kill, kill. I think it is high time the UK must stop their help as the Palestinians have had enough and deserve to be a free and independent sovereignty. I would certainly book an Airbnb in a Palestinian home.
I'm so worried for them now.
What should we all do next, knowing that Israel wants to starve them to death with Trumps blessing ๐ก
Zionist Jews, non-religious Zionists and Christian Zionists. They are not true Jews!!!