Condemning Palestinians is contemptible
Condemning Palestinians is contemptible
British and EU representatives are siding with the oppressor.
I learned the word “condemn” at an early age. It was used constantly on Irish news bulletins in the 1980s.
In theory, “condemn” is a verb that may be applied to any act that triggers feelings of strong disapproval. In practice, it is used more to oppose violence by the oppressed than the oppression which causes that violence.
The partition of both Ireland and Palestine was ushered in by Britain.
As well as carving up both countries, Britain pursued similar policies in both situations.
People of one ethnicity and religion were encouraged to discriminate – systematically – against people of another. In both cases, the discrimination took place in a context of settler-colonialism.
With that history having consequences that endures to this day, Britain ought to be condemned routinely by everyone who opposes injustice.
If the media actually did their job and exposed Britain’s crimes, then comments made over the past few days by James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, would have zero credibility.
According to Cleverly, Britain “unequivocally condemns the horrific attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians.” Britain, he added, “will always support Israel’s right to defend itself.”
The “attacks” to which he alluded were actually a response to the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people. Britain set that subjugation in motion as far back as 1917, when Arthur James Balfour, one of Cleverly’s predecessors as foreign secretary, signed his infamous declaration supporting the Zionist movement and its colonization project.
Right to defend?
All talk about Israel’s “right to defend itself” is utter bollocks – if I may use a term with which Cleverly is undoubtedly familiar.
Israel – which has subjected Gaza to a total blockade since 2007 and bombarded its people with frightening regularity – does not have the right to defend itself. The truth is that Palestinains have a right – recognized by the United Nations General Assembly – to defend themselves against Israel’s military occupation and all its attendant aggression.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, tried to sound even angrier than Cleverly. She fulminated against “the attack carried out by Hamas terrorists,” labeling it “terrorism in its most despicable form.”
Needless to say, von der Leyen had nothing to say about how the European Union mollycoddles Israel – actively seeking closer relations with that state, even as its government assumes an overtly fascist character. Von der Leyen herself has implicitly endorsed the ethnic cleansing on which Israel was founded in 1948 by praising the Zionist dream of making “the desert bloom.”
With that record, it is not surprising that von der Leyen is selective in her outrage.
Ariel Kallner, a member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), reacted to the Hamas-led operation by calling for a new Nakba.
The Nakba – Arabic for catastrophe – involved the expulsion of approximately 800,000 Palestinians from their homes. Kallner advocated a “Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ‘48,” contending “there is no other way.”
Kallner chairs a committee in the Knesset handling Israel’s relations with the EU. Yet his call did not elicit any comment from von der Leyen or other senior players in the Brussels bureaucracy.
Von der Leyen’s reticence is consistent. If she gave her blessing to the first Nakba, then why would she have any qualms about a new one?
read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/condemning-palestinians-contemptible
archive: https://archive.ph/O9zPI
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Settlers aren't civilians. They are non combat support for the occupation that the international courts have declared illegal. They are paid by the state of israel to squat on land they have stolen.
How dare they not just lay down and die.
civillians like the fucking general they captured in the military compound they also raided as part of a larger military plan?
You are a fucking FOOL
But OP was saying Palestinians not Hamas?
Not that I supposed attacking civilians, but there's basically nothing else to do. Terrorism has proven time and time again to be a tool of the oppressed who can't win in a straight fight.
Refusing to condemn Hamas when they intentionally target civilians for atrocities won't win Palestinians any supporters outside largely irrelevant internet communities. Israel does things that are clearly in the wrong all the time, and so does Hamas. It would be nice if people could hold the extremists on their own side to a minimal standard, even when it's uncomfortable, but that lack of accountability is why we're here.
Yup, this is fascism vs terrorism. My only empathy is for all of the innocent people from both sides caught in the middle.
Palestinians have the right to revolution just like the Americans, French, and Chinese did. That revolution might be bloody, but the fight for sovereignty and equality is rarely peaceful.
MFW American settlers went door to door executing British families and taking children hostage.
I'm done with both sides; I've sympathised with the Palestinian people in the past - to a large extent Hamas is not the Palestinian people but is still the goverment the people voted in. Both sides have committed atrocious acts of violence and its got them nowhere in 75 years.
The situation cannot continue as is and Hamas has burned bridges it couldn’t have afforded to burn.
Israel is very capable of walking over the Palestinian territories and occupying them indefinitely, the only thing holding them back has been international pressure - which has now been released due to the recent attacks.
I'm ready as is most of my generation I believe, to see the next iteration of the middle east however that turns out.
I just feel sorry for those who are going to be rolled over.
"Both sides"
However, recent data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows that since 2005, 96% of deaths have been Palestinian.
Every time the oppressed fight back, libs immediately start to create a false equivalence with the oppressors.
Exactly. The continuing conflict is what's condemnable. And only Israel has the means to end it permanently. In the long run, that's the better solution now. Just get it over with.
Thank you for putting to words what I couldn't.
This is not Putins war on Ukraine. There's no clear victim and aggressor here, and any time someone talks about it as if it's not extremely complicated, they just make it sound like they have no idea what they're talking about in the first place.
Forcibly taking land from one group and giving it to another is not cool but neither is randomly lobbing rockets onto the civilians.
There’s no clear victim and aggressor here
Decades of Palestinian occupation by colonial forces called. They'd like a word.
What are you talking about? The Palestinians have been emprisoned in an open air concentration camp for 70 years, their children being regularly bombarded, their houses stolen, their women raped, their food and water taken away by the occupying military.
It's crystal clear who the aggressor here is, the situation in Palestine is very straight forwards compared to the one in Ukraine.
The Palestinians have been emprisoned in an open air concentration camp for 70 years, their children being regularly bombarded, their houses stolen, their women raped, their food and water taken away by the occupying military.
This is all true. What is also true is that Hamas has been firing rockets indiscriminately towards the Israeli civilian population and to my knowledge they would like to wipe out all jews off the face of the earth very much like the nazies would have. That's just few reasons as to why this is extremely complex issue and I can't take seriously anyone who claims otherwise.
I'd love to hear how you think this conflict is more straight forward than the one going between Ukraine and Russia. What could possibly justify what Russia is doing?
Please explain this complexity we are talking about here.
I don't pretend to be any kind of an expert on the subject. This is one of those things, that the more you read, the less it feels like I know.
I used to default to the Israeli side, but then I heard Netanyahu on a podcast and that guy could not sound more like an aspiring dictator so I looked into it a bit more, and now I just choose to observe this fiasco from the sidelines and not form strong opinions about a subject I don't understand.
How long did it take you to craft the most inane take possible?
"The partition of both Ireland and Palestine was ushered in by Britain" far more than that and more than just britain. All the colonial countries ended up making artificial borders. I mean the india/pakistan thing is from it. Pretty much all of africa, america, and a lot of asia are all sorta artificial borders dictated by colonies and then rearranged in war.
Ursula von der Leyen said the exact same stuff about anti apartheid forces in South Africa that she is saying now about Hamas and Palestinians, research the von der Leyen tapes. This is the second time she is going on record to support an apartheid state.
Thank you
At this point I see two solutions:
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just ignore it. there's nothing we can do about it anyway
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plant a doomsday device that will go off at any new hostility. Like a huge nuclear bomb that will turn entire Israel into radioactive desert if any side launches any new attack. Give them a week to figure out how they will work together to prevent it. If they can than great, no more aggression. If they can't than great, radioactive desert and no more aggression.
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LOLZ! Did you try to blame Britain for the Arabs and Jews not getting along?