Bombed If You Do, Bombed If You Don’t
Category Archives: Palestine
Disposable Villains
No one to play soldier now, no one to pretend
–Metallica, “Disposable Heroes”
Having read maybe scores of articles on the ongoing disaster in Israel and Palestine, I want to hold off indefinitely on offering up any commentary, and restrict any posts I write to news items with distinctive informational value, particularly items describing events that are not being reported in the mainstream media. These two are from +972 Magazine, “an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists.” Continue reading
A Plea for Ceasefire and Hostage Exchange
I posted this on my Facebook page this past Tuesday (slightly reworded here). It’ll be my last post on October 7 here at PoT as well, at least for awhile. I’d prefer to take some time and process the event before I say very much more.
I’m getting off of Facebook for awhile. It’s a cesspool at the moment, and I’m sick of it.
Just to clarify my own views before anyone decides to put any in my mouth while I’m gone: I do not accept the legitimacy of the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel. I believe in a right of self-defense and of resistance, but I don’t regard this attack as an instance of those things. I know enough about suicidal behavior to recognize it when I see it. This is an enactment of murder-suicide. It’s not liberation. There is nothing here to valorize. If you feel differently, feel free. But don’t expect my support. It’s not forthcoming. Continue reading
Apocalypse Now
This morning’s Hamas attack on southern Israel is being portrayed, predictably, as an initiatory act of aggression by Hamas, and a total bolt from the blue. It’s no such thing. The situation in Gaza has been decades in the making. Israel conquered Gaza in an act of aggression in 1967, occupied it, settled it, de-developed it, then abandoned its settlements there, falsely to proclaim its occupation of Gaza to have ended. Since then Israel has besieged Gaza, bombed it, raided it, and murdered and maimed its inhabitants at will. No one should venture comment on the situation in Gaza without engaging with the authoritative work of writers like Amira Haas, Sara Roy, and Norman Finkelstein, of human rights organizations like B’Tselem, or before viewing films like “Tears of Gaza,” which depicts ordinary life there. And this is to set aside the treatment of Golan, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Continue reading
Innocents Abroad
From a story in NorthJersey.Com, a local New Jersey paper (subscription required to read the whole article, and see the photo of burning village):
Afif Alasmar traveled to his vacation home in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, a popular destination for Palestinian Americans, as he does every summer. He was eager to relax, visit family, check on his land and attend three nephews’ weddings.
“The town grew in the last 10 to 15 years with new, beautiful homes and beautiful farms,” said Alasmar, a Clifton business owner. “It’s known for its olive oil and has about 10,000 acres of farmland. Even though they live in the United States, people are very attached to the town.”
Lately, though, Alasmar and other families have become uneasy about their summer haven amid a spike in West Bank violence, including a June 21 rampage by hundreds of settlers who set fire to dozens of homes and cars in Turmus Ayya. One person, 27-year-old Omar Qattin, was shot and killed in the attack while trying to help his injured cousin (Hannan Adely, “NJ residents say US turned its back on them when they were attacked on vacation,” NorthJersey.com, July 6, 2023).
It’s an interesting but largely unasked question whether Americans are attacking one another in the armed clashes taking place in the West Bank, but it’s entirely possible, and well worth considering. Continue reading
“Death, Desolation, and Tyranny”: Israel in Jenin
If the people of Jenin were Americans facing the British in 1776, we would be celebrating the revolutionary war they began. If they were Ukrainians facing the Russians, or Afghans facing the Soviets, we’d be sending them heavy arms to fight a proxy war against our common enemy. But because they’re Palestinians facing our ally, Israel, we arm the power that occupies them, anathematize their resistance, and watch with cold indifference or grim satisfaction as the refugees of yesteryear are made refugees once again, driven out of the refugee camp that until recently was their home.
The Freedom Theatre of Jenin Refugee Camp in happier times, August 2019.
All Normal on the American Front
Sometimes American foreign policy speaks for itself. From “Blinken to Talk to Saudis about Normalizing Ties with Israel,” The New York Times, June 6:
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Monday that he planned to talk to Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials this week during a visit to Saudi Arabia about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel. The Biden administration supports such a move, but it should not come at the expense of “progress between Israelis and Palestinians” and a two-state solution, he said.
“The United States has a real national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Mr. Blinken said at a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “We believe we can and indeed we must play an integral role in advancing it. Now, we have no illusions that this can be done quickly or easily.”
“All Aboard!”
I asked a bunch of New Jersey state legislators–Andrew Zwicker, Roy Freiman, and Mitchelle Drulis–where they stood on S.1923, which “[p]rohibits investment of pension and annuity funds by [the] State in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses,” and A.3882, which establishes the State’s official definition of anti-Semitism. I also asked each of them for an explanation of why they hold the view they hold. Never got an answer from any of the three, so I’ve decided to return the favor in the upcoming primary election by voting against them, even if they’re the only choices on the ballot. Hard to vote for people who insist on turning the state legislature into a forum for the defense of an apartheid state, but can’t be bothered to explain what they’re doing or why. Continue reading
The Writing Not on the Wall
Note: I’m going to leave this post as is, but I intend to re-write it and re-post it this weekend. All of the relevant information is here, but it was recorded as I learned new facts in real time. As a result, some information is in the original post and some is in the comments, making it hard for the average reader to follow. My bottom line view: Hicks is flat-out lying, Freiman is grandstanding in an intellectually dishonest way, and Balhorn’s view is as unjustifiable as I said it was, for just the reasons I gave.
It’s kind of sad that neither party to the dialogue of the deaf below–Stephen Hicks or Jacobin–shows much awareness of the fact that an “ugly, menacing,” and for many non-citizens “no doubt heartbreaking” wall has stood for 20+ years between Israel and Occupied Palestine, with armed guards and barbed wire, intended precisely to contain and control people.*
An Open Letter to the Jewish Community of Northern New Jersey
An Open Letter to the Jewish Community of Northern New Jersey
From Jewish Voice for Peace of Northern New Jersey
May 5, 2023
Massive demonstrations have been taking place in Israel over the future of its judiciary amid rising authoritarianism. Democratic activism is most welcome, but, overwhelmingly, the protests do not focus on the more than half-century occupation that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people or the continued second-class status of those Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. Still less do the demonstrations draw attention to the Nakba (the “catastrophe”), the ethnic cleansing that the indigenous Palestinian population experienced seventy-five years ago at the founding of the Israeli state. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 