This is one of the deepest darkest days in years in the annals of Israeli-Palestinian relations. An independent Gaza initiative tied to the Nakba commemoration and the 1976 murder of Palestinians known as Land Day, called the Great March of Return, met the stone wall of Israeli resistance. Even before the march began, Israel announced it would use live fire to suppress the unrest. This is something unheard of not just in Israel-Palestine relations, but in the annals of all colonial struggles: the colonizer/oppressor announced in advance t planned to kill protesters in cold blood, while armed with little more than a rock, a tire or a slingshot.
Israel knew it could get away with perpetrating a massacre because the Trump administration Middle East policy has been hijacked by a pro-settler cabal run by Jared Kushner, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt, all of whom offered generous financial support to settlements before they entered the White House. It’s ironic that they in particular have risen to such positions of influence in the Trump administration due to their sworn, ferocious allegiance to Trumps financial interests before he became president. Trump admires Jews like them because they fulfill all the Jewish stereotypes: they’re tough, they’re mean, they’re protect his money. In any other context, we’d call that anti-Semitism.
But given that Trump seems to hate everyone who isn’t white, his stereotyping of Jews gets lost in the mix.
Hamas is encouraging a hostile march on the Israel-Gaza border. Hamas should focus on desperately needed improvements to the lives of Palestinians in Gaza instead of inciting violence against Israel that only increases hardship & undermines chances for peace.
— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 30, 2018
With the U.S., not only not saying a peep about this bloody massacre, but siding with Israel, it’s hard to see what constructive role we could play even in we wanted. In fact, Greenblatt tweeted falsely that the Gaza protest was sponsored by Hamas (it isn’t) and blamed it on the Gaza militant group. We’re on Israel’s side. Even when Israel murders Palestinians in cold blood, we stand with Israel. It’s a shameful abnegation of moral responsibility. And a betrayal of forty years of U.S. policy, which in itself was never terribly critical of Israel. But at least it maintained a semblance of balance.
Today’s protest brought 17 Gazans killed and over 1,400 injured. Over 50,000 demonstrators braved the Israeli mayhem to join in the protest. A remarkable show of unity in an enclave that often seems shorn of hope.
Tonight we eat the bread of affliction with Palestinians
Today is also the first day of Passover. It is the holiday of freedom (at least for Jews). It marks the liberation of the Israelites from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. The most dramatic part of the Biblical story pictures 600,000 Israelites massed on the shores of the Red Sea with thousands of the Pharaoh’s chariots rapidly closing in. Just at the moment everything seems hopeless, the winds rise to ferocious gales, the seas part and the Israelites walk to freedom.
As the Israelites are crossing, the Egyptian forces charge into the parted waters, which suddenly begin to close upon them. All of Pharaoh’s army is drowned in the raging water while the Israelites escape to safety on the other side.
In Gaza today, Palestinians did what the Israelites did 1,200 years ago. They massed in their thousands at the border separating Gaza and Israel. Their purpose: to reclaim the land stolen from them in the 1948 Nakba. But instead of God opening the border fence and allowing the Palestinians to pour through, He stood by as the latter-day equivalent to Pharoah’s army mowed them down in the thousands. God, it appears, remains on the side of the modern Israelites, even though they have assumed the mantle of the Egyptian oppressors.
Hamas tells the world about a peacful protest, it should be called a violent riot pic.twitter.com/RFjEP1dBnL
— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) March 30, 2018
The Intercept reports, based on eyewitness accounts, says that Israeli snipers felled protesters far from the fence. In other words, they were not protecting Israel’s border. They were engaging in target practice. Shooting birds in a barrel. The very first Gazan killed yesterday was a farmer working his fields. He was struck by an Israeli tank shell. Imagine that, Israel needs a massive tank shell to take out a single man working his fields. Why not drop one of Israel’s 200 WMD devices on Gaza and be done with it? Pamela Geller and Daniel Pipes have already suggested something similar. So this is nothing shocking or new.
I’ve embedded this feeble IDF propaganda tweet which typically shears all context from the Palestinians protests and their comparison to other peaceful protests elsewhere in the world. When Palestinians protest, they’re not met with the NYPD (which in itself can be pretty brutal) or a London bobbie. In this case, they’re not even met with Israeli police. They’re met with the full force of the army bearing its most advanced weapons. This is not a protest in a western capital. This is a protest in the capital of Israeli Occupation and oppression. So please excuse the fact that Gazans don’t go to their protests bearing gifts for their oppressors and placing daisies in the barrels of their guns.
Note that the peaceful western panel features the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty in its background. While the Palestinian panel shows violent protesters with a mosque in the background. This little Islamophobic gem implies that it is Islam which stokes the violence of Palestinians. Instead, it is Israel’s brutal Occupation which does so.
Another further irony, there is a third panel missing from this tweet: the one which shows what the IDF brings to its protests. Snipers, drones firing tear gas, tanks, artillery, and sometimes even helicopter gunships.
Today’s tragedy indicates the total breakdown in Israeli tactics. They have no other mode than full-on assault. It also points to the U.S. inability and unwillingness to tamp down Israel’s worst impulses. This is a perfect storm of murder and dysfunction, which can only lead to far darker places. Mark my words.
The world will sit back and do nothing. The United Nations? Impotent. Not to mention that old U.S. Security Council veto. The European Union? Occupied with far weightier problems far closer to home, like Brexit and the Russian spy scandal. The Arab world? The Saudi Crown Prince was in Seattle today, where he created massive traffic jams as his retinue drove through the city. The region’s corporate élite rolled out the red carpet because it knew he had his checkbook open and was ready to buy Boeing planes and meet with Boeing founder, Bill Gates. Not a word about Palestine on the agenda.
Little to no attention in media, just a tiny detail …
Jewish Bride Taken By Prophet Muhammad (pboh)
Just a reminder for the Jewish tribes of the Arabian peninsula …
“Our country doesn’t have a problem with Jews. Our Prophet Muhammad married a Jewish woman. Not just a friend—he married her.” [Source: Arabian Prince Salman interview with The Atlantic while traveling the New World – sightseeing new WTC building perhaps?]
‘Little to no attention in media, just a tiny detail …
Jewish Bride Taken By Prophet Muhammad…’
So are you celebrating the tolerance of Muhammed or protesting the defilement of Jewish womanhood?
Thanks Richard for the excellent deconstruction of the odious IDF propaganda tweet, particularly the missing third panel about what the IDF brings to a peaceful demonstration. You nailed these hasbara bastards precisely. I wish this critique would appear in mainstream western media, but of course it won’t.
…and evidently, Bernie Sanders has decided he won’t be running for President in 2020. At any rate, he certainly won’t be winning.
‘…Bernie Sanders has condemned the killings, in a tweet this afternoon.
The killing of Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli forces in Gaza is tragic. It is the right of all people to protest for a better future without a violent response…’
@ Colin WRight: Bernie’s tweet, while decent, was decidedly milquetoasty when it came to the Israeli siege of Gaza. He wrote that the U.S. should try to be helpful to Israel in ending the siege. What the hell does that even mean? My hunch is that it was written by his lib Zio Israel foreign policy staffer, Matt Duss.
…and Israel formally agrees that for her, it’s normal to shoot down unarmed demonstrators.
‘Israeli minister rejects calls for investigation into Gaza killings, applauds army instead’
In context, not a crime at all. I’m inclined to agree; accept Israel for what it is, and there’s no reason to even raise an eyebrow.
Of course, I feel all commercial and diplomatic ties to Israel should be suspended. Pending the introduction of an egalitarian state, the sole form of permissible contact should be that airliners could go in empty and come out full.
But no, I wouldn’t call Israel’s actions a crime. For Israel as it is currently constituted, this is normal behavior, and ‘crime,’ after all, is a term that is defined relative to the norms of a society. In the US, beef-eating isn’t a crime; in Israel, killing Palestinians isn’t a crime.
I accept that. I understand completely.
“the sole form of permissible contact should be that airliners could go in empty and come out full.”
Like boxcars in, boxcars out, Colin?
Assuming the boxcars went in empty, you’d have an analogy!
‘…Beyond me why RS keeps such a rabid anti-semite posted.’
Okay. I’m an anti-semite — who lionizes Israel. Have I got this right?
‘“Seriously, guy…
I think you need to learn how to use a dictionary or get a better one. The usage is correct’
Amazing. So you’re seriously insisting that I’m an admiring and uncritical supporter of Israel, given to heaping it with unqualified praise?
Re my point about how a critical distinction is that what may occur elsewhere but is a crime there is just mighty fine on Planet Israel.
‘Netanyahu Blasts Erdogan, Praises Israeli Army after Gaza Killings ‘
Find the bit about Nixon praising the National Guard for shooting down the students at Kent State.
This just in:
‘Rights groups slam Israeli ‘crimes’ in Gaza, say ‘shooting unarmed civilians illegal’ ‘
? Surely not if the killers are Israeli?
RE: “. . . Trump administration Middle East policy has been hijacked by a pro-settler cabal run by Jared Kushner, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt, all of whom offered generous financial support to settlements before they entered the White House. It’s ironic that they in particular have risen to such positions of influence in the Trump administration due to their sworn, ferocious allegiance to Trumps financial interests before he became president.” ~ R.S.
MY COMMENT: Can you imagine the mountain of dirt Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt must have on Donald Trump? Easily enough (not incuding any priviledged information) to put him in prison for the rest of his life, I would think.
…and my entry for the prize video from Friday’s festival of murder.
link to mobile.twitter.com
An Israeli sniper shoots a Palestinian while he is praying.
I suspect there isn’t one, but if there is, I wonder what God thinks of people who shoot people while they are praying?
What does He think of people who support shooting people while they are praying? As I say, people support Israel as it actually is are beyond the Pale.
‘Not all of us can be native speakers.’
Yeah, I regret some of that post, and I’d have edited it if I’d had the option — but ‘lionize’ when he means ‘vilify’? That was a bit much. Speaking for myself, I try to avoid using words if I don’t know what they mean.
Then too, I feel little compunction about how I treat hasbarists. I try to be nice to anyone who lies within the Richard-you span — really, I do try. However, those who outright support Israel just as it is are another matter.
It’s not God that is on the side of the Israelis, it is Satan and they are evil beyond redemption
‘It’s not God that is on the side of the Israelis, it is Satan and they are evil beyond redemption.’
I have tried that line of reasoning with my personal Evangelical. Maybe ‘Israel’ is a perversion dreamed up by the anti-Christ? Isn’t he supposed to come before the actual Messiah and pervert his word?
Theologically, it seems to fit the facts.
Give me a break Linda: Most of them are just scared and brainwashed. Pure evil usually has little to do with people doing bad things. You can leave Satan out of this.
‘Give me a break Linda: Most of them are just scared and brainwashed. Pure evil usually has little to do with people doing bad things. You can leave Satan out of this.’
It’s an interesting point, actually. Evil is at least conceptually meaningful — and sometimes Israel and Israelis seem to incarnate it.
Often, words aren’t so much accurate or inaccurate as useful or not useful. For example, talking about ‘nations’ such as France and Germany in the context of the Middle Ages isn’t particularly useful; it becomes very useful if we’re discussing the late nineteenth to late twentieth century.
I think ‘evil’ at least arguable starts to become a useful and valid paradigm when it comes to modern Israel. After all, let’s reverse your argument: in what sense is Israel NOT evil? Can’t evil be a reality, and Israel embody it?
‘Give me a break Linda: Most of them are just scared and brainwashed. Pure evil usually has little to do with people doing bad things. You can leave Satan out of this.’
There’s another way of looking at this, too.
Many people aren’t going to ‘leave Satan out of this.’ They’re going to insist on viewing Israel in religious, eschatological, millenial terms — as the site of Armageddon, the Messiah’s return, and so on.
And in a way, they’ve got a point. After all, if it weren’t for all of that, Palestine would be of no more significance to anyone than Lebanon, or for that matter, Albania. The Zionists are there in the first place because of Palestine’s religious significance — else they’d have settled on a bit of South Australia.
So okay — discuss it in their terms. And in their terms, I could see the modern state of Israel as embodying good, or as embodying evil.
I’ll take evil — and I’ll try to convince them of that. The alternative is to leave them to pursue their millenial dream without you offering anything meaningful at all to counter it.
Elisabeth: Agreed. All of the theological bashing about ‘Satan’ and ‘hell’ that thrives on both sides leaves me cold.
‘Elisabeth: Agreed. All of the theological bashing about ‘Satan’ and ‘hell’ that thrives on both sides leaves me cold.’
However, a critical point is that the Satan and hell angle doesn’t leave others cold, and if you’re ever going to get anywhere, you’re going to have to address the conflict in their terms as well as yours.
You can cite Israel’s crimes to an Evangelical until you’re blue in the face; as long as he’s convinced Israel’s a fulfillment of biblical prophesy, you’re not going to make much headway. Now, get him thinking that maybe the state that calls itself ‘Israel’ isn’t what Jehovah had in mind, and you’ve made progress.
The most critical element in US support for Israel right now are the millions of Evangelicals who think it’s the fulfillment of God’s plan. That certainty has to be shaken if US support for Israel is to be undermined.
‘…Trump admires Jews like them because they fulfill all the Jewish stereotypes: they’re tough, they’re mean, they’re protect his money. In any other context, we’d call that anti-Semitism…’
Oh I think you’re behind the times, Richard. Away with all that sensitivity and compassion and victimhood.
The new UBERJEW is the MASTER. He wears big boots and stomps and stomps and stomps and stomps…
It’s really pathetic — or would be, if it weren’t so evil. To think that a self-image could degenerate to something as shallow and vile as this. I mean, stand up for yourself — by all means. However, don’t deny your own humanity. Stormtroopers sweeping through the Ukraine isn’t ACTUALLY the apex of the human condition.
This is one of those trains of thought that leads me to decide I’m better off being gentile. It’s bad enough bearing the responsibility for Israel that comes with being American. I’d hate to be Jewish to boot. Think of being literally related to the creatures that revel in it.
‘…Think of being literally related to the creatures that revel in it.’
Sigh. It just dawned on me that I am related to ‘the creatures that revel in it.’
Look at all those Evangelical Christians. They’re all for Israel — and the bloodier, the better.
My. There’s a pleasant surprise. The Guardian — which I thought had long since been brought to heel — has actually gotten up on its hind legs.
‘Strip Mourns Dead after Protest is Met with Bullets.’
Kind of sad this is actually noteworthy, but it is something.