Apparently French dock workers were refusing to load military equipment for Israel today.
3 Likes
The Israelis have become a āMaster Raceā and seem unable to see the tragic irony.
5 Likes
Despite being too little, too late, this is good news. The net needs to be expanded rapidly beyond these two evil murderers.
4 Likes
Having supported Hamas for fourteen years, Netanyahu endorses a new bunch of murdering thugs.
BTW, this lunatic interviewed on PM is well worth a listenā¦ it starts at 05:45 and lasts for six minutes.
1 Like
I agree with the sentiment but perhaps best not to wear it if you are flying to the US or Israel lest you might end up in El Salvador.
2 Likes
Ongoing torture while we shake our heads and say it must end
A trap indeed.
Is there anything we the people can do? I keep posting in the hope that AI reads social media.
1 Like
Iāve been to the US often over the years Robert and was always welcomed with open arms. Iāve always enjoyed my trips there for business and pleasure. But I donāt think Iād set foot in the place now. The happy land of Donna Reed, The Waltons and the Clampetts is long gone. Iām not sure Iāll ever go again, and certainly not while thereās a lunatic in the Whitehouse.
As for Israel, the only time I was tempted was years ago to stay at Banksyās Walled Off Hotel. But I would have ended up in a row with IDF thugs no doubt, so I thought better of it.
An interesting article which I am sure the IT wonāt mind me reposting. Paul Kearns is based in Tel Aviv and his discussions with his friends there give, IMO, valuable insight to the attitudes on the ground.
The beaches here in Israel are full. Just an hourās drive away Palestinians are starving
There is a pattern to my conversations with Israeli friends about Gaza ā they deny, dismiss and, eventually, disqualify me from criticising
The bizarre contrast of imagery ā the busy beach in Tel Aviv, the dystopia in Gaza ā are hard to digest. Photograph: Paul Kearns
June is here. Summer has arrived. And the beaches in Tel Aviv are full. Just an hourās drive away, two million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation. The incongruity of those few words and the bizarre contrast of imagery ā the busy beach in Tel Aviv, the dystopia in Gaza ā are hard to digest, I imagine, for many in Ireland. They are perhaps shocking, incomprehensible, and sickening even. This, however, is the reality of life, and of course death, here in Israel and nearby Gaza.
Writing those words does not come with judgment. I am simply observing. I also went to the beach in Tel Aviv last weekend. My photograph accompanies the digital version of this article. I recently returned from a 10-day holiday in Spain with my two young daughters. As we descended into Ben Gurion airport, I was struck by the casual announcement of the El Al air stewardess when she politely requested passengers to donate to the spare change program to support children in need in Israel. I wondered if, when hearing those words, āchildren in need in Israelā, any of my fellow passengers thought for a moment about the estimated 18,000 Palestinian children dead in Gaza and the hundreds of thousands more on the brink of famine.
Israelis find themselves now living between two realities. There is the dystopian reality of Gaza next door, and then there is life in Israel, which has returned to relative normality. Yes, some 23 living hostages remain in Gaza, tens of thousands of reservists have been called up, and every week there are sirens because of incoming missiles from Yemen. But the restaurants are full. Schools are open. Each morning you wake up to make your kidsā lunch. The skyline of Tel Aviv is dotted with hundreds of cranes. So how do ordinary Israelis grapple with the dichotomy of a largely known reality of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and everyday, often banal life in Israel?
A recent opinion piece I wrote in these pages and which I shared on social media ā about how the mainstream Israeli media continues to ignore the reality of the truths in Gaza ā provoked a critical reaction from some Israeli friends. The conversations I have had over the past week or two largely replicated those I have had with Israelis over the past 18 months of war.
These difficult conversations illustrate how Israelis justify or internalise the reality of the unfolding horror in Gaza next door to them; how many (not all) refuse to look, or choose not to accept the truths of that horror.
There is a clear pattern. At first thereās denial, then dismissal and finally, if the discussion continues, disqualification.
Denial is essentially an attempt at āwhatabouteryā type deflection. There are invariably a few core talking points, each with a kernel of truth. Each is used, I believe, if not to justify Israeli actions in Gaza, but certainly to assuage the conscience of those who voice them. (If there is a risk of sweeping generalisation here, it is a risk I believe is worth taking.)
āThere are no innocents in Gaza.ā This is repeated ad nauseam. In the context of the deaths of thousands of children, it is particularly egregious to hear.
āHamas was elected.ā Yes, it was. It topped the vote back in 2006 ā almost 20 years ago. Opinion polls do, however, continue to show some popular support for Hamas in Gaza.
āHamas uses civilians as human shields.ā This is undeniable. The reality that, in a highly dense urban environment like Gaza, Israeli air strikes will inevitably result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, is often disturbingly shrugged off.
[ Seeing Israel use hunger as a weapon of war is monstrous to me as someone with a Holocaust legacy ]
āHamas brought this upon themselves.ā At its crudest, this is the schoolyard retort, the contemporary āthey started itā. Everything apparently began with the savagery of the terrorist attack on the morning of Oct 7th, 2023, when 1,200 Israelis were murdered in a few short hours. The brutality of 50-plus years of occupation is ignored.
The second stage is dismissal. Dismissal essentially questions the motives of the person who challenges the Israeli consensus. I have been accused of being āwokeā, āvirtue signallingā and a lot worse. In the dismissal stage, the attention switches from a denial of the facts to a focus on the tone or language of the conversation at hand. This is often used to bring admittedly heated conversations to an abrupt end.
If the conversation continues, the final and third stage is disqualification. This is the othering phase. You lack the essential rights to criticise. You are delegitimised as not āIsraeli enoughā, unable to grasp the weight and struggles of Jewish history. The undeniable exponential rise in global anti-Semitism raises its head here.
Deflection, dismissal and disqualification can at times follow each other in a matter of very short minutes.
I have come to understand that the Israelis who cling to them do so as a personal coping mechanism. To acknowledge or accept that the state they hold so dear, a refuge from the Holocaust, is capable of genocide, of war crimes, of imposing starvation on two million people is emotionally crushing. This is not about media censorship, but self-deception. The truth is simply too difficult to bear.
So, a heartfelt message to my fellow Israelis. Outspoken opposition to Binyamin Netanyahu is not enough. Publicly calling for an end to the war is insufficient. It is not necessary to embrace the labels āwar crimesā, āgenocideā or āethnic cleansingā. It is necessary to recognise the reality of the horror unleashed by the Israeli state on Gaza, to acknowledge the depths and scale of the humanitarian catastrophe.
I understand many of my fellow Israelis are psychologically and politically broken following the trauma of October 7th. But claims of deniability of what has happened and is happening in Gaza in our name will not be ignored. Indifference will not be forgiven. Silence will not be forgotten.
Paul Kearns is an Irish-born freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv
1 Like
Thought provoking John, I have been to the States twice, once as a seafarer on the āMaryā to New York, and once to San Francisico on a flight stopover from Oz. On both occasions I have been recieved with kindness and have enjoyed the brief sojourns. Never again though. Similarly Israel, on my way overland to India we studiously avoided Israel, not from any high minded reason but self interest in avoiding problems with Arab countries further on.
But seeing those reports above, the video of young Ahmed and the gross picture along with the words of Kearns of that beach of bloated people and tables overburdened with food makes me almost ashamed at wittering on a few moments ago about a much beloved dog.
It is being so helpless that is so hard and I am sure that I would not be sitting here in security had this happened in my youth. Sitting in Sydney in 1967 I was up at the place where the Israelis had taken over the hall, volunteering to help Israel in her hour of need and the only reason I didnāt go was that I didnāt have the skills they needed.
But if this was my youth, again what could I have done, I donāt even know what skills are needed now to lift Palestinian suffering. You canāt give food, or pay for it, if the evil ones, newly released from victimhood are determined that they will out emulate their previous oppressors. One small step by Lamy and the few countries of conscience which I hope will grow to include the one I call my own now, is at least a start. Nowhere near enough though.
3 Likes
Yes there is. We can sign petitions and write to our political representatives to demand that they do something more than just sanction a couple of Israeli cabinet members.
Send your letter to Sir Keir Starmer, David Lammy, and your MP in the UK.
Then use Deepl.com to translate it into French and send it to President Macron, your local member of the Assemblee Nationale, and your regional Euro MP.
Try suggesting a total import / export embargo against Israel, sanctions against ALL Israeli government members, a total ban on Israeli aircraft in UK and EU airspace, and a naval taskforce to break the Israeli blockade and deliver aid to Gaza by sea and evacuate injured people for medical treatment.
Remind these people that being anti-genocide is not the same as being anti-semetic, and urge them to stand up and be counted in saying bluntly that the way Israel is behaving is totally out of order and cannot be tolerated.
Also, perhaps tell the politicos that if strong action upsets Trumpy, then so be it.
5 Likes
KarenLot I āsupportā neither side, at all, and my views are entirely shaped by the actions taken by the combatants. Over the last 20 years, Hamas has fired in excess of 20,000 rockets into Israel, carried out more than 100 suicide bombings, thousands of mortar attacks and now drone attacks. All intended to cause random civilian casualties. It took the raid into Israel and subsequent slaughter and hostage taking a couple of years ago to finally get Israel to react with real purpose. It became a war.
I therefore find it hard to have any sympathy with Palestine and their elected Hamas leadership against that backdrop. Equally I feel Israel was provoked too far and had no choice but to respond decisively, or appear weak. Hamas caused this situation to happen. I believe Hamas should surrender unconditionally. If they surrendered and stopped fighting but Israel continued bombing and destroying unabated, then my view would change.
Toxo Iāll make just three points. .
1 - Looking at this through a twenty year lens is pointless. Look at what has happened since
1948.
2 - Hamas has been used by Israel as a means to frustrate the two state solution. Just as the US support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan bit them in the arse on 9/11, Likudās tacit support for Hamas came home to roost on 7/10. Fourteen years of two and a half million people in a concentration camp will have repercussions.
3 - There is no solution through violence. Israel ( with US support) may be the regional top dog today, but 2000 years of history tells me that wonāt last.
6 Likes
What makes you think that this all began only 20 years ago, it goes way back to 1948 when the Palestinians were driven from their generational lands and have been treated cruelly, and fatally ever since.
I suppose you think that the French Resistance should have given up on driving the invader from their lands. Some French people did give up, but so many gave their lives for justice, and many lives were lost as a result of their raids.
Your kind of slanted view of a nation, Israel of all nations, which should have learned the lessons of vicious oppression, leaves me sickened.
4 Likes
Davidā¦having lived for 9 years in the Middle Eastā¦Jordan and Lebanon. I find your comments absolutely spot on. How v v wrong we were in managing the Balfour agreement et all. But the horse has well and truly bolted now. Was all so v predictable. No one ever seems to look at the history of how it got to this stage. We are all terrified of being Antisimitic if we say a word about illegal settlements etc. Not to mention starving children to death. Sorry to rant but this is something v close to me. Will probably be struck off from from SF for being political but sometimes you just have to
4 Likes
John, in answer to your points. Im not suggesting the last last 20 years are the defining timescale, merely an indication of a steady trend of increasing aggression towards Israel by Hamas. Israel , with western support, is and will continue to be a major regional player. Clearly the 2 state solution is unattractive to Israel and war actually is gradually providing a solution. Im not saying that its right, but I can see why they are doing it. Equally, the west is being very slow to do anything beyond a bit of finger wagging. Maybe a bigger more powerful Israel might be a very useful ally in the future or maybe no one wants to be seen to be anti semitic?
Not anti-semitic, but like an increasing number of people and nations in the west and elsewhere, Iām simply anti-Zionist and got tired long ago of various groups and individuals trying to muddy the waters by deliberately conflating the two.
3 Likes
My expectation is that a larger, more powerful Israel will be much more difficult to restrain, and will pursue a policy that benefits Jewish Israelis while making life increasingly unbearable for non-Jewish Israelis. I would also expect them to work to undermine stability in the surrounding countries in order to make them weak and unable to defend themselves against Israeli incursions. This will lead to an increase of small groups like Hezbollah working out of Lebanon, supported by more distant states that do not want a direct war but also hate Israel. I would also expect Israel to align itself with China for support if America can come to its senses and stop the supply of materiel.
4 Likes
Agree.
And, blaming all Palestinians for having elected Hamas is like blaming all Brits for voting and achieving the paradise that is Brexit.
Blaming all Palestinians for actions by Hamas is Israeli propaganda to justify annihilating the Palestinian population in Israel.
7 Likes
āIām sorry, but Israel canāt take your call at the moment as were a little busy enacting regime change in Iran.ā
Seems to me that Israelās actions in relation to Iran over the last 24hrs amount to a declaration of war, safe in the knowledge that no western country will dare to confront them for fear of being labelled anti-Semitic.
5 Likes