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At 5:40 a.m. on Aug. 10, the IDF Spokesperson sent a message to reporters informing them of an Israeli airstrike on a “military headquarters located in Al-Taba’een school compound near a mosque in the Daraj [and] Tuffah area, which serves as a shelter for residents of Gaza City.”
Shortly after this announcement, shocking images from Al-Taba’een school circulated around the world, showing piles of dismembered flesh and body parts being removed in plastic bags. The images were accompanied by reports that around 100 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli attack, with many more hospitalized. Most of those killed were in the middle of fajr, or dawn prayers, at a designated space inside the school compound.
The IDF announcement explicitly stated that the school “serves as a shelter for residents of Gaza City,” meaning that the IDF knew refugees had fled there in fear of the army’s own bombings. The statement did not claim that there was any gunfire or rocket attacks from the school, but that “Hamas terrorists … planned and promoted … terrorist acts” from it. Nor did it claim that the civilians who took refuge in the school were given any warning, only that the army had used “precision weapons” and “intelligence.” In other words, the army bombed a populated shelter knowing full well the deadly repercussions its assault would inflict.
This dehumanization has reached new heights in recent weeks with the debate over the legitimacy of raping Palestinian prisoners. In a discussion on the mainstream TV network Channel 12, Yehuda Shlezinger, a “commentator” from the right-wing daily Israel Hayom, called for institutionalizing rape of prisoners as part of military practice. At least three Knesset members from the ruling Likud party also argued that Israeli soldiers should be allowed to do anything, including rape.
But the biggest trophy goes to Israel’s Finance Minister and Defense Ministry deputy, Bezalel Smotrich. The world “won’t let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he lamented at an Israel Hayom conference earlier this month.
White supremacists want a “homeland” too. Do you think they would be justified in carrying out a genocide to get one? Israel was created through colonialism and terrorism, and is maintained through apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and outright genocide. Is this “homeland” worth the bloodshed?
Your argument would make tons of sense theoretically if there wasn’t a long history of real discrimination and pogroms in Europe and also Muslim societies (e.g. jizya) against jews that justify wanting a haven state where the laws and the people will never turn against them.
And so just because there existed discrimination against Jewish people that justifies stealing the land of Palestinian to give them their own state? Why wasn’t one founded anywhere else? Why not colonize somewhere in the middle of Europe? Why not somewhere with sparse population? Why is it fine for them to take Palestinian land and homes and drive them out?
Jewish people are not the same as Israelis. Most Israelis are Jewish, but there are many jewish people who are not Israelis and who are anti-zionist. Colonialism isn’t fine because the colonizers were facing discrimination. That doesn’t justify them committing atrocities and stealing the land of others.
Who is Israel a colony of? And what would the decolonization you want look like?
Zionists? It was zionists who colonized. They did so with the intention of creating a Jewish state.
Decolonization would be… decolonization. Return Palestinian land to the Palestinians. There are still plenty of people alive from the first Nakba. They all deserve their land back. A dissolution of the Israeli state and the creation of a new state of Palestine. Which would necessitate a total dismantling and withdrawal of the entirety of the Israeli state. An international criminal Court to prosecute all crimes against humanity that have ever been committed by the Israeli state. Redistribution of wealth from the Israeli state. How to handle things from there should be up to the new state of Palestine. They have a right to self-determination. Through mediation, but still it should be up to them. It was their land. They have the right to decide what happens with it.
I’d say at the very least the Zionists should go. The entire Israeli state is not composed of zionists. But the entirety of anyone who has ever served in the IDF or the Israeli government should at the least be sent back to the countries they or their fathers came from. Anyone who has participated in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Anyone who has murdered Palestinians. They don’t have a right to be there. But, like I said that’s just what I would think is just. It shouldn’t be up to western white people to decide. Palestinians deserve the right to choose what happens with their homes.
I would say the same thing about America or Canada, to be clear. That decolonizing them would be to return land to the Natives and allow them to form their own states and determine what happens with their land. It’s a more complex question of what they should do from there, but it was always their land and they deserve the power to say what happens with it.
And, to be clear, I’m not saying I believe this is what will happen. Merely what I’m saying ought to happen. What actual justice would look like.
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Actual justice to you is deporting all people without sufficient/correct bloodline from Israel to Europe, and the Americas back to Europe, Africa, and Asia, to return those lands to their “correct” ethno states? I assume you would include Australia and New Zealand, and Africa as well. Very “sins of the father to the third and fourth generations”.
You’ll note that I didn’t say that. I said that zionists have no right to be there. They stole Palestinian land, murdered their people, and reduced them to living in a giant open air prison from which they terrorized and bombed them. They deprive them of food water and electricity. They have done their absolute best to eradicate the Palestinian heritage and way of life. They’ve taken again and again and again. They’ve broken every single promise for coexistence. They have no right to be there.
Also, Israel isn’t even a hundred years old. Not even 80. There are original settlers still alive. Most people are second or third generation. It’s not the same as Australia, which was colonized over 200 years ago.
And I’m not proposing that all Israelis be made to leave. In my view zionists and anyone who has been actively involved in the persecution of Palestinians, or in the destruction of the Palestinian nation and heritage, should be made to leave. But I don’t think it should be up to me. It should be up to the Palestinians to determine what happens on their land. And the land that was stolen from them should be returned.
You indicated that anyone that is Zionist and anyone who has served in the IDF should be deported to wherever they came from or wherever their father’s family line last held citizenship. With the IDF being mandatory service, that is basically the majority of able bodied people.
You also said the same should happen with the US and Canada, which are over 200 years old, so I am not sure why Australia gets a pass. Better optics on treatment of aboriginals than first nations and native Americans?
I said that it would be just for that to happen, and I would agree in the case of Australia too. Power to decide what happens with their land should be returned to them and it should be up to them ultimately.
This “solution” makes about as much sense as shipping all black Americans to Africa.
Yea, that was tried before and is the origin of Liberia. Not recommended. But now you can’t simply undo it.