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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Alright, cool! What is your strategy for the Palestinians to get their land back?
They peacefully protest - they get shot. They don’t even protest at all - they get shot. Do you want them to vote? Should the Palestinians call their representatives in Tel Aviv and say that they won’t be voting for them if they don’t end the occupation? Oh, I know - they should try to elect a third party to the government!
I don’t know at this point. But I know one thing: pouring gasoline on fire is not a strategy for extinguishing it.
I’ll ask you a non-rhetorical question: What were Hamas’ leaders hoping to accomplish when they sent gunmen to shoot civilians attending a rave party? What’s their strategy?
To demoralize Israel. Which it has been, severely.
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It was already being razed in slow motion. It was an open air prison in desperate poverty. It was a concentration camp that the demons in charge of Nazi Germany would have given their fullest approval.
Dunking on them, or doing idiotic “play stupid games, win stupid prizes!!!” shit is like watching Jewish people trying to escape the Warsaw ghetto in an uprising and then watching the Nazis exterminate them and then saying “Well! If they didn’t want this to happen, the Jews shouldn’t have resisted! They should have calmly and peacefully allowed themselves to be taken to the concentration camps!”
Palestine had the choice of a guaranteed slow death by drowning, or a quick end to the conflict - one way or another. Decades have gone by and nobody outside of the Middle East (apart from the DPRK and a couple others) really give a shit about Palestine. All the back and forth of “ohh where should we put our embassies? ohoho, should we acknowledge that Palestine is a state? ohoho!” achieved nothing. Ten million people could have protested across Europe every single day for decades for the liberation of Palestine, and it would have accomplished less than a single Palestinian soldier making a single rocket to be shot down by the Iron Dome. All the diplomatic shit means nothing. It has meant nothing for decades. Even peaceful protest of Israel in the form of BDS is basically outlawed in some places, and largely ineffectual regardless.
Palestinians shouldn’t, and almost certainly don’t, give a shit about the condemnations of western countries. About what western politicians are saying about them. It means nothing. Their strategies should be independent of “how it looks to outsiders”. A Palestinian could throw a pebble in the vague direction of an Israeli soldier and receive more condemnation from the media than Israel murdering a hundred thousand Palestinian civilians in bombing raids in retaliation. “If you didn’t want the bombing raid, you fucking stupid idiot, then MAYBE you shouldn’t have thrown that pebble! Play stupid games!” Who gives a shit about “how it looks” anymore.
I do have a question for you: let’s say Russia takes, say, Kramatorsk, surrounding it such that no civilians could escape. Imagine those civilians resisted, made Molotovs, fired improvised explosions at the Russians, and the Russians responded by carpetbombing Kramatorsk. Hundreds of civilians dead every single day. I then say “Well, looks like the civilians have guaranteed their own deaths, then. Well done, fucking idiots. Shouldn’t have fired those rockets at the Russian military if you wanted to live.” Would you be in my position, angry that you could possibly think that about a group of people valiantly resisting? How you could possibly look at the buildings being toppled by Russian bombs and think that was justified?
It’s not as black and white as this though. The Jews never claimed to want to genocide the Germans as Hamas does with Israel. Arafat had been using violent methods since he came to power in 1969, and Hamas continued his legacy.
It is no surprise that the other party also responds with violence. But Israel is not any less moral. It is simply more capable of violence.
Someone is stabbing you in the stomach. Do you struggle and fight back or do you lay down and die? If you fight back you might have a chance to make them stop, or you might get stabbed more and die quickly. If you lay down and die, you are sure to bleed out and die. You want to guarantee the genocide of the Palestinians by telling them to not resist.
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you disgust me
I don’t know what hamas’ strategy is. I will say this attack will absolutely make settlers second guess whether they want to leave their comfortable life in Brooklyn to set up a new life on stolen land. Is that a good enough reason? I don’t know for sure, but to pretend that this is completely pointless violence is bullshit
Shooting children through a fence has been a pretty good strategy for Israel, why not give that one a go?
Yes, everyone in the world on any side of any conflict wants power and power only. They have no picture of what they will do with that power or broader projects other than to have it. I say this over and over and over every time anything happens ever. It’s just a hard, thought-terminating truth but I’m willing to repeat it.
you are ridiculous, fuck you forever for telling oppressed peoples they’re fighting off their slavers improperly.