On Gaza [Note: Content Warning - discussion of, links to reports on, oppression, violence, war, and human rights abuses. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are (when I remember) shown in green.

 

Before I post the link to an article, I want to make a few points: 

• my standard introduction to anything on Gaza used to be following, and I may resume adding that to all these posts:  
  (i) I do not give violent extremists/other mass murderers the oxygen of publicity, nor the satisfaction of using the t word;   (ii) _____ have for many years been identified as genocidal;   (iii) I consider a safe place for Jewish people must exist because of the world's collective failures on antisemitism - everywhere, not only Germany of the 1930s/40s, but the Arab nations’ proposal for a single nation with Arab and Jewish provinces should have been given more consideration, IMO;   (iv) now, Israel's existence can ONLY be morally justified as part of a two state solution where Palestine becomes a modern, functional, prosperous sovereign nation-state;   (v) I note   https://theconversation.com/when-is-criticism-of-israel-antisemitic-a-scholar-of-modern-jewish-history-explains-220995   on when criticism of Israel becomes antisemitic;   (vi) Israel’s conduct since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the collapse of the Oslo Accords has been both devastating to its victims and damaging of its standing, and its conduct now risks an even more self-damaging Pyrrhic “victory”;   (vii) note that the ICJ has issued preliminary directions, but not made a formal finding regarding genocide; 

• before 7^th October 2023, _____ were estimated to have 40,000 “fighters”, and somewhere around 4-10,000 are estimated to have been killed (for more on this, see here and here). It is important to note this for a few reasons, including:   
• not all Palestinian deaths are civilians;   
• Israel has lost around 3-400 soldiers since 7^th October 2023, and they are not dying of accidents. In addition, tank losses have been severe enough to impede Israeli training of new crews. _____ have been fighting in Gaza against the Israeli military - that is NOT propaganda;   
• when speaking out against a second war in Lebanon, Israeli vets have confirmed that the organisations they were fighting against in the 1980s used human shields. This is not new in that region - the British did that as part of suppressing a Palestinian uprising for freedom in the 30s, and - deplorable as it is - the tactic has been used elsewhere. In my opinion, this also shows that _____ are the ultimate expression of narcissism, as human shields are but one of the things they have done that have caused massive harm to Palestinians for no gain (7^th October 2023 being an obvious example of another such problem);  
  

• before considering the topic of genocide, it should also be noted that International Humanitarian Law applies - and bans both things like human shields and things like a disproportionate response/not preventing civilian casualties. This means that, even if these events are found by the ICJ to NOT be genocide, there are still legal humanitarian considerations (incidentally, the Cambodian genocide does not strictly meet the definition of genocide, as none of the actions were aimed at eliminating a different race/ethnicity to those committing the wrongs - and religion was irrelevant; however, common usage has adopted the phrase to quickly convey an accurate impression); 

• with regard to genocide, a key aspect is that of intent.
  Much as the difference between murder and manslaughter is intent, where the former involves prior actions such as getting weapons and preparing, so too is the intent aspect of genocide typically shown by prior stages of genocide such as classification, discrimination, dehumanisation, and preparation, etc.
  Some of those are unquestionably present in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and have been for years if not decades, but not all of the usual prior steps were existent prior to Israel’s response to 7^th October 2023.
  That does NOT mean the subsequent response was not genocidal - especially given some of the calls for extermination since then, but it should be noted that the ICJ has not made a determination on this aspect yet, and a number of commentators have pointed out that the case against Myanmar/Burma for their “alleged”genocide of the Rohingya is stronger, and my opinion is that, in the latter case, prior intent was more clearly established. We will have to wait for the ICJ to finish its deliberations to know.
  

Having made those points, the following article is critical of the Israeli response in Gaza, and in particular criticises misinformation / disinformation - so, for instance, just because human shields were used before, that does not always mean they will be again (although in this instance, my opinion is that they have), and that does not mean claims regarding the scale or details of those are accurate - which is a key aspect of this article. In turn, that aspect should be assessed as objectively and accurately as possible, as should the possibility that what is being allegedly legally justified by Israeli propaganda is a - still deplorable - breach of international humanitarian law, but not actually genocide, and that the language may be inflammatory. 

I have done so, and have my own opinion on all that, but I will leave you, Dear Reader, to make up your own mind:

“A Legal Justification for Genocide”   https://jewishcurrents.org/human-shields-gaza-israel-a-legal-justification-for-genocide   “By expanding the human shielding charge to every inch of Gaza, Israel is using a familiar strategy at an unprecedented scale.”     

 

 

PS - note that the ICJ case regarding alleged genocide is separate to a case which the ICJ is about to announce it*s findings on, which started before 7^th October 2023 and is for: 

“Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”   https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186      

PPS That has now been announced: 

“Israel’s settlement policies break international law, court finds | Israel | The Guardian”   https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/19/israels-settlement-policies-break-international-law-court-finds     

In addition, these articles should be noted: 

“Hamas’ War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity (HRW)”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/07/crimes-against-humanity.html      

“Neo-N_zi leader charged over alleged plot to poison New York Jewish children | New York | The Guardian”   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/16/neo-nazi-charged-new-york     

 

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below. 

Note that, as with my main blog [see here], I am cutting back on aspects of my posts.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/