The only democracy in the ME, but also the only apartheid state in the world.
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The only democracy in the ME, but also the only apartheid state in the world.
Glad he’s ok. I’m sure he must be feeling some sort of survivor guilt. There’s a few medical personnel who have left Gaza feeling it.
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I genuinely seethe at the absolute injustice of this. Not just the injustice by itself, which is after all widespread across the globe. The injustices perpetrated with tacit or explicit approval of the West and vast swathes of its population. The fact that ethnic cleansing is talked about now, not in hushed tones by 'extremists' but by politicians with the power to make it happen, some with the cheek to frame it as a humanitarian effort to help Palestinians and others gaslighting by trying to shut down any talk of ethnic cleansing at all.
Awful stuff.
Sadly there are dozens such countries. Coloniality is prevalent throughout the world, and indigenous peoples suffer every day through normalised violence and oppression.
He's definitely got survivor guilt. The pictures, photos and voice notes he sent were harrowing. Even as a doctor, he's gone way above and beyond what most do to really help those in the greatest need across the world.
He'll feel awful that he can't help at this time of their greatest need. Sadly as I said though the attacks were too indiscriminate and he (and his bosses at MSF) didn't feel there was anywhere they could conceivably stay and continue to do their work safely. A real tragedy as I imagine there are very few doctors left in Gaza with his skillset.
Yep. I don't mean to be rude and repeat this but Europe has shaped the modern world in this image. There are literally 3 continents where Europeans progressively wiped out and replaced the indigenous population and took over their land, one of them being the biggest supporter of Israel today.
You aren't being rude. It needs repeating. Europe has done a good job at selective amnesia in relation to its colonial past.
Australia is particularly good at this.
There is the strategic victory of killing and displace all the Gaza population. And I think that is their ultimate goal. No Palestinians, no problem for israel
I think it's pretty clear how it makes a difference, you can have people in the same country that believe in different religions, and have completely different ways of viewing the world. Religions preach a defined way of life and view of the world for the most part, yes, you can have people that adhere to the principles more than others, but it's completely different to the former grouping.
Can anyone actually see this article on Haaretz?
You’ll need to be a subscriber to see it and it’s only available in Hebrew at the moment. There will be an English version of the article to follow.
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/poli...&utm_medium=Android_Native&utm_campaign=Share
True.
Yea, I can only imagine how conflicted he must be, and how difficult it will be to leave when the situation is still so desperate.
Ghassan Abu Sitta (Palestinian - English doctor) has also come back, and I know from seeing his videos how traumatised and distraught he is having to leave.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. Nationalism can in certain contexts demand a high level of homogeneity in terms of approach to certain issues, and subsequently can produce a certain orthodoxy that marks the mainstream. On the other hand religious traditions are often quite internally diverse, incorporating different approaches to the major questions that religion poses.
But even assuming you’re correct - Irish-Americans are pretty much all Christians of one denomination or the other, and are overwhelmingly Catholic. In this sense I would guess they probably display a greater level of religious homogeneity than do Jewish-Americans. And there was a time in American history when Irish-Americans in positions of power were considered suspect for this exact reason, and expected in some quarters to answer certain questions regarding the nature of their supposed loyalty to Rome. It’s a good thing those days are largely over for the Irish-Americans I’m sure you’ll agree.
By the way, according to Pew polling conducted in 2020, Jewish-Americans are far less religious than the average American:
“In general, Jews are far less religious than American adults as a whole, at least by conventional measures of religious observance in Pew Research Center surveys. For example, one-in-five Jews (21%) say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 41% of U.S. adults overall. And 12% of Jewish Americans say they attend religious services weekly or more often, versus 27% of the general public.
There are even bigger gaps when it comes to belief in God. A majority of all U.S. adults say they believe in God “as described in the Bible” (56%), compared with about a quarter of Jews (26%).”
"get back to reality, go to jordan" is both what this wannabe murderer said and current world policy towards gaza
RAF to fly over Gaza to help find Hamas hostages
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/02/raf-gaza-hostage-search-hamas-israel-war
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/02/raf-gaza-hostage-search-hamas-israel-war
Don't mean to be glib, but a lot of the Serious Writing on the subject (like the conclusion to this good article shared by @2cents ) takes it for granted that a distinct Palestinian identity will continue in Palestine, and I don't get the optimism.
I think Native Americans are a good comparison in some obvious and less-obvious ways. The obvious way is that both face superior and more cohesive settler enemies, and that in meaningful terms (rather than rhetoric), both natives then and Palestinians now are internationally close to alone. A slightly less obvious comparison is economic - Gaza has no economy, Israel controls the water of all of Palestine including the West Bank, and has waged war against traditional farming practices (poisoning wells, destroying olive groves) since 1948. Similarly, European settlers waged war on not just the native people but also their economic way of life by ending the ecology that supported them.
But I feel the comparison goes deeper.
The natives were no pushovers. Militarily they held on to increasingly smaller tracts of land for well over two centuries. Some of the early confrontations were won by natives. Though the introduction of new germs which wiped out the natives is supposed to be a decisive advantage for the Europeans, early settlements were death-traps wracked with tropical diseases too. It was a genocide, but it wasn't as straightforward and "easy" as the Holocaust.
And in terms of organisation, Native Americans eventually formed confederations with constitutions as "sophisticated" as those of the United States. The more "liberal" US politicians of the time saw these in particular as worthy of respect, and politicians of all types signed treaties multiple times....of course, in the end, social and economic imperatives for expansion matter more than some piece of paper. So, I don't think having an endowed chair at Columbia University or having eloquent journalists on Instagram or Channel 4 are a guarantee that Palestinians have reached some level of "civilisation" or widespread recognition that can prevent their destruction.
As a non-American, I had no idea about this aspect of native life, their adaptation to the norms of nation-states and appeal to American constitutional ideals, it seemed that (like some tribes in Indian forests, whose existence was ended to make way for mining and dams) they were hunter-gatherers or cultivators still organised on those lines, systematically defeated by a totally different "level" of enemy. Having learnt that this wasn't remotely the case, that they fought well and fully understood what threat they were facing, and were still destroyed, I don't see why the same cannot happen to Palestinian existence in Palestine.
I think Native Americans are a good comparison in some obvious and less-obvious ways. The obvious way is that both face superior and more cohesive settler enemies, and that in meaningful terms (rather than rhetoric), both natives then and Palestinians now are internationally close to alone. A slightly less obvious comparison is economic - Gaza has no economy, Israel controls the water of all of Palestine including the West Bank, and has waged war against traditional farming practices (poisoning wells, destroying olive groves) since 1948. Similarly, European settlers waged war on not just the native people but also their economic way of life by ending the ecology that supported them.
But I feel the comparison goes deeper.
The natives were no pushovers. Militarily they held on to increasingly smaller tracts of land for well over two centuries. Some of the early confrontations were won by natives. Though the introduction of new germs which wiped out the natives is supposed to be a decisive advantage for the Europeans, early settlements were death-traps wracked with tropical diseases too. It was a genocide, but it wasn't as straightforward and "easy" as the Holocaust.
And in terms of organisation, Native Americans eventually formed confederations with constitutions as "sophisticated" as those of the United States. The more "liberal" US politicians of the time saw these in particular as worthy of respect, and politicians of all types signed treaties multiple times....of course, in the end, social and economic imperatives for expansion matter more than some piece of paper. So, I don't think having an endowed chair at Columbia University or having eloquent journalists on Instagram or Channel 4 are a guarantee that Palestinians have reached some level of "civilisation" or widespread recognition that can prevent their destruction.
As a non-American, I had no idea about this aspect of native life, their adaptation to the norms of nation-states and appeal to American constitutional ideals, it seemed that (like some tribes in Indian forests, whose existence was ended to make way for mining and dams) they were hunter-gatherers or cultivators still organised on those lines, systematically defeated by a totally different "level" of enemy. Having learnt that this wasn't remotely the case, that they fought well and fully understood what threat they were facing, and were still destroyed, I don't see why the same cannot happen to Palestinian existence in Palestine.
Ah shite, was interested to read it. Cheers!
Calling Israel a 'colonial project' and implying that jews returning to their ancestral homeland is equivalent to say, Britain colonising South Africa, is a simplistic take that needs to be challenged. It is far more complex than that.
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It's not their ancestral homeland any more than the any of the other people that have lived there. You could make the same case for the ancient Canaanites, the Romans, the Macedonians, the Persians, Turkish, Egyptians etc. You get the point.
I wouldn't expect you to understand this given you were struggling to understand the read across from the Israeli and Gazan death statistics a few pages ago.
”An American study reveals: unusual transactions indicate that investors knew in advance about the massacre - and raked in millions”
Investors in the stock markets knew about the expected Hamas attack - and profited enormously
An American study reveals an unusual volume of transactions on the New York and Tel Aviv stock exchanges that gambled on the collapse of the Israeli stock market a week before the Hamas attack • According to the researchers
"the findings suggest that traders who knew about the expected attacks profited from the tragic events" • On October 2, about a quarter of a million transactions were made that expected a drop in Israeli stocks, compared to a few thousand per day in the previous
I honestly don't get how anyone in this century can talk about ancestral lands with any seriousness. There is no historical right to land, there is no religious right to land. Neither warrant any kind of blood shed or displacement of peoples. It's a very concerning position for anyone to hold.
I do believe there's plenty of room for the idea of Israel being located where it is (and certainly the 1948 borders) to be sound without requiring all that much 'displacement' at the time. A two-state solution with the original borders was feasible, and does differ quite a lot from comparing other true 'colonial' exploits. The majority of original 'Israelis' were displaced from that region, unlike pretty much all other colonial activities.
It's a totally fair point that it's quite different, and lumping it in with the other European atrocities isn't really fair on the Jews who were very much native to the area. What has happened in the last few decades in Gaza is disgraceful, but I think is a different concept from the original Israeli state.
Mizrachi Jews only started arriving in Israel en masse after 1948. The establishment of the state and the Zionist project as a whole was driven by European Jews.
I'm lost for words at this point for Israel and their crimes.
I think people are now getting into the unhelpful argument over definitions now. He called out settler colonialism, that is a distinct branch from economic/exploitative colonialism. The distinction you're calling out here is that difference, europeans did it for economic and trade reasons mainly so yes it's different but that's largely the motive of the coloniser and i'd argue is less relevant than the impact of the colonised people. I'm sure someone will point out that may be a simplified take but it has to be to avoid another twenty paragraphs.
The context of the times may have validated it's formation (an irrelevant discussion in truth because we respect current lands) but it was a settler colonisation and the only way to argue against that is to use the language of oppressors. I'm sure i don't need to point out that 'rights' to land because of blood lines, ancestral lands, religious rights are problematic in terms of historic usage. It's problematic to use that language now because once again the far right loons on both sides are using that language to suggest barbaric acts, that extends outside of this conflict so it's dangerous times for it to be normalised.
So Mehdi Hasan's show has been dropped and now a push to get Owen Jones fired... Yet Douglas Murray keeps being allowed to spit vomit. Bloody hell.
I'm South Africa is the homeland of the British if you go back long enough.
Israel weeks ago “leave the North, move South so we can eliminate Hamas… our mission”.
Israel now ….moving troops into the South and killing hundreds a day there
It’s almost like invasion, total takeover and genocide was their real mission from day 1?
At least I can rely on the UN and major Western powers to do something about it…. ….. ….. …..
Israel now ….moving troops into the South and killing hundreds a day there
It’s almost like invasion, total takeover and genocide was their real mission from day 1?
At least I can rely on the UN and major Western powers to do something about it…. ….. ….. …..
The thing that saddens and worries me more is that the UK and the USA - supposed supporters of freedom and democracy ,are supporting the genocide.
Feel so sorry Gaza, the world has forgotten them. May Palestine be free.
The majority of the pre 48 settlement and colonisation happened by Ashkenazi Jews. As far as Im aware and very happy to be corrected by @2cents on this, there was no widescale migration of Mizrahi Jews before then. This unfortunately ramped up significantly afterwards.
Why, other than the historical violence they suffered as a people and the (appropriate) sympathy they get as a response, and the fact they had a kingdom there a few thousands years ago, makes it that different to what happened in Australia for instance?
At this point, it's mostly an academic point because the Jewish Israelis there now are not going anywhere (nor should they be) but I don't think it contributes positively to the discussion to dismiss the enormity of what happened.
Think the Edward Said quote that 2cents quoted earlier is superb and basically sums up my feelings on it much more eloquently
Yes that is my understanding. There was some movement of Maghribi and Yemeni Jews to Palestine between 1880 and 1948, but it wasn’t really connected to Zionism and fits more into the centuries-long but small-scale tradition of Jews from all over the place settling in Palestine for religious reasons. Nowhere near the scale of European Jewish migration to Palestine during the same period, or Mizrachi migration after 1948.
I've always used the term Sephardic Jews to refer to the Middle Eastern / North African Jewish tribes. Is Mizrahi more accurate?
Currently reading this book which examines the nature of Jewish migration to Palestine during what’s referred to as the Second Aliyah (roughly 1904-1914). The Second Aliyah has been regarded as the most ideological of the waves of European Jewish migration to Palestine that took place from 1881-1948. It produced many of the first leaders of independent Israel, initiated the Kibbutz movement and the emphasis on Jewish labour, and kick-started the revival of Hebrew.
Nevertheless the book argues that the vast majority of European Jews who made their way to Palestine in this period were not primarily driven by ideology/Zionism. It claims that only about 10% of the 40,000 or so Jews who made the move in these years could actually be considered Zionist “pioneers” in the sense that they set out to establish settlements and work the land. Most were driven by the same factors that were, at the same time, prompting much greater numbers of European Jews to make their way to America and elsewhere, and most were only interested in pursuing whatever trade they had previously engaged in before leaving. Many of these eventually moved on.
It’s a valuable work because it suggests that it is misleading to understand every European Jew who moved to Palestine before 1948 as a “Zionist”, although by 1948 most of them had been absorbed into that camp and ethos due to the course of events under the British.
Nevertheless the book argues that the vast majority of European Jews who made their way to Palestine in this period were not primarily driven by ideology/Zionism. It claims that only about 10% of the 40,000 or so Jews who made the move in these years could actually be considered Zionist “pioneers” in the sense that they set out to establish settlements and work the land. Most were driven by the same factors that were, at the same time, prompting much greater numbers of European Jews to make their way to America and elsewhere, and most were only interested in pursuing whatever trade they had previously engaged in before leaving. Many of these eventually moved on.
It’s a valuable work because it suggests that it is misleading to understand every European Jew who moved to Palestine before 1948 as a “Zionist”, although by 1948 most of them had been absorbed into that camp and ethos due to the course of events under the British.
Mizrachi is a relatively new term, my understanding is that it wasn’t in use much at all before 1948.
Strictly speaking Sephardim refers to those Jews forced out of 15th and 16th Spain, who were subsequently dispersed around the Mediterranean and in particular North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. But it also came to be used as a catch-all term for all Jews of North Africa and the Arab Middle East until Mizrachi - literally “easterner” - came to be more commonly used.