OMNI
GAZA ANTHOLOGIES
# 10
October 23, 2023
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of
Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(#1: 3-3-08; #2 Nov. 16, 2012; #3 Nov. 17, 2013; #4 May 31, 2014; #5 July
28, 2014; #6 August 30, 2014; #7 April 8, 2015; #8 May 13, 2021; #9, October
15, 2023).
CONTENTS
GAZA #10
Rabbi
Arthur Waskow. “Solidarity with Israel / Palestine.”
AFSC and other Quaker
organizations call for end to the violence. To
end violence in Palestine and Israel we must address root causes.
Abel Tomlinson. “Palestine Peace Protests: Stop the
War, Stop the Genocide.”
Raz Segal. “A textbook case of genocide.” Jewish Currents
Chris
Hedges. “Israel’s Culture of Deceit.”
Chris
Hedges and Norman Finkelstein. The Chris Hedges Report with Professor Norman Finkelstein on Israel's
genocidal campaign in Gaza, the world's largest concentration camp.
Mondoweiss. ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 12:
Calls For Gaza Ceasefire Mount.”
Counterpunch. The Palestinian Cause
Counterpunch. Israel's Genocidal War
Counterpunch. Che and Gaza
Counterpunch. The Border Machine
Consortium
News. Decency Becomes Indecent
Consortium News. Backing the
Slaughter & Silencing the Critics
Consortium News. Corporate
TV Skeptical of Israeli Hospital Bombing Story
Consortium News. Atrocity
Propaganda
Consortium News. Israel
Ready to Arrest Journalists for Reporting Facts
Consortium News. Israel’s
Official Ethnic Cleansing Program.
Consortium News. Hezbollah
Defeated Israel in 2006 — Can It Again?
Counterpunch:
Feeling the Pain: Our backs are against a wall..
Counterpunch:
Roaming Charges: Gaza without mercy.
Counterpunch:
This is Genocide: All out to end the war on Gaza.
Counterpunch: Operation
Al-Aqsa::
Counterpunch:
The Savagery of War: The
ruin of Gaza. Counterpunch:
Manufacturing Consent: The failures of the Press.
TEXTS
Tikkun Statement: Solidarity with Israel / Palestine
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The Chris Hedges Report with
Professor Norman Finkelstein on Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza, the
world's largest concentration camp.
October 18, 2023.
On October 7 Hamas fighters broke through the
security barrier separating Gaza from Israel. They attacked army outposts,
villages, an outdoor concert venue and Kibutzim. Some 1,300 Israelis, many of
them civilians, were killed. Some 150 Israelis, in cluding women, children and
the elderly, were taken as hostages and transported back to Gaza. Israel
says 1,500 Hamas militants, most young men who most likely had never been out
Gaza, were killed. Israel has ordered some 1.1 million Palestinians in
northern Gaza to evacuate. The north includes Gaza City, the most densely
populated part of the strip, with 750,000 residents. It also includes Gaza’s main
hospital and the Jabalia and al-Shati refugee camps. Gaza is one of the
most heavily populated spots on the planet with 2.3 million people. Its borders
are sealed by Egypt and Israel. There is no sanctuary with a tiny land mass 25
miles long and only about 5 files wide. Israel has cut off food, fuel,
water and electricity, provoking an appalling humanitarian crisis. Joining me
to discuss the crisis in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is the
Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein. Norman has written numerous books on
the Middle East including “Gaza: an Inquest into its Martyrdom.”
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Gfbvt7
fgv© 2023 Chris Hedges
San Francisco, CA 94104
Raz Segal. “A textbook case of genocide.” Jewish Currents (October 13, 2023). Editor.
mronline.org (10-19-23).
Israel
has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world
listening?
Originally published: Jewish Currents on October 13, 2023 by
Raz Segal (more by Jewish Currents) | (Posted Oct
18, 2023)
History, Movements, Strategy, WarGaza, Israel, Middle East, PalestineNewswire
ON FRIDAY, Israel ordered the besieged
population in the northern half of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south,
warning that it would soon intensify its attack on the Strip’s upper half. The
order has left more than a million people, half of whom are children,
frantically attempting to flee amid continuing airstrikes, in a walled enclave where no
destination is safe. As Palestinian journalist Ruwaida Kamal Amer wrote today
from Gaza, “refugees from the north are already arriving in Khan Younis, where
the missiles never stop and we’re running out of food, water, and power.” The
UN has warned that the flight of people from the northern part
of Gaza to the south will create “devastating humanitarian consequences” and
will “transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.” Over
the last week, Israel’s violence against Gaza has killed more than 1,800
Palestinians, injured thousands, and displaced more than 400,000 within the
strip. And yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised today that what we have seen is “only the
beginning.”
Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and
potentially expel them altogether into Egypt—is yet another chapter
in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their
homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But
the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case
of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of
genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against
Palestinians. I have written about settler colonialism and Jewish supremacy in Israel, the distortion of the Holocaust to
boost the Israeli arms industry, the weaponization of
antisemitism accusations to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, and
the racist regime of Israeli apartheid. Now, following Hamas’s attack on Saturday and the
mass murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the worst of the worst is
happening.
Under international law, the crime of genocide
is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in
the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this
intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are
imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.
Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act
accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing
Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law
that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of U.S. President Joe
Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European
Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly
calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the
assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas
militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization
and occupation.
The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that
fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in
Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to
members of the group. 3. Deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account,
has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most
densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the U.S. dropped on all of Afghanistan during record-breaking
years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used
included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings,
creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This
demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting
individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence
against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide
Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a
“complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly
indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic
destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them,
starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals.
It’s not only Israel’s leaders who are using
such language. An interviewee on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 called
for Israel to “turn Gaza to Dresden.” Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news
station, published a report about left-leaning Israelis calling to “dance on
what used to be Gaza.” Meanwhile, genocidal verbs—calls to “erase” and “flatten”
Gaza—have become omnipresent on Israeli social media.
In Tel Aviv, a banner reading “Zero Gazans” was seen hanging from a bridge.
Indeed, Israel’s
genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators
of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there
are exceptions. In the early 20th century, for example, German colonial
occupiers perpetrated a genocide in response to an uprising by the Indigenous
Herero and Nama populations in southwest Africa. In 1904, General Lothar von
Trotha, the German military commander, issued an “extermination order,”
justified by the rationale of a “race war.” By 1908, the German authorities had
murdered 10,000 Nama, and had achieved their stated goal of “destroying the
Herero,” killing 65,000 Herero, 80% of the population. Gallant’s orders on
October 9th were no less explicit. Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians
of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our
responsibility to prevent them from doing so.
Correction: An earlier
version of this piece said that Israel dropped more bombs on Gaza this week
than the U.S. dropped on Afghanistan in any single year of its war there. In
fact, the U.S. dropped more than 7,000 bombs on Afghanistan in both 2018 and
2019; at the time of publication, Israel had dropped an estimated 6,000 bombs
on Gaza in less than a week.
Raz Segal is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide
studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern
genocide.
Monthly
Review does not
necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR
Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our
readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.
‘Operation
Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 12: Calls For Gaza Ceasefire Mount
By Yumna Patel, Mondoweiss. Popular Resistance.org (10-19-23). Calls
for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza are mounting, in the wake of a devastating
Israeli hospital bombing on the night of Tuesday, October 17, which Gaza health
officials have described as a “massacre.” United Nations Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire on Wednesday
morning, October 18, as he condemned the “collective punishment” of Palestinians.
Along with calls for a ceasefire, Guterres called for the immediate entrance of
emergency humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been prevented by Israel for
more than a week, despite numerous warnings from UN and human rights...
-more-
The
following 4 entries are from CounterPunch
(10-18-23).
Ramzy
Baroud. “The Palestinian cause belongs
to the world.
Eric
Draitser. “The necessity of solidarity
with Palestine.”
“idan
Ratchford. “Remembering Che's visit to Gaza.”
Todd
Miller. “Biden never stopped building the wall.
The
following 3 entries are from Consortium News (10-18-23).
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PATRICK LAWRENCE:
Backing the Slaughter & Silencing the Critics
Corporate TV Skeptical of Israeli Hospital Bombing
Story
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Join the national march in solidarity with Palestine! NOV. 4
Now
is the time to stand with the besieged people of Palestine! Gaza is being
bombed by the hour. Its people are denied
food, water and electricity by Israel. Tens of thousands more people are
likely to die. We must ACT! People are in the streets everyday in their local
cities and towns. Now we must UNITE! Join the tens of thousands people, from
every corner of the United States, who are converging for a truly massive
National March on Washington D.C. on Saturday, November 4.
Today,
the Israeli military deliberately bombed a hospital where thousands of people
had taken refuge. The death toll is staggering and the Biden administration has
announced that it is preparing 2,000 troops to support Israel after having
already deployed an aircraft carrier battle group and war planes.
Israel,
with the full backing of the U.S. government, is carrying out an unprecedented
massacre in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians are being killed with bombs,
bullets and missiles paid for by U.S. tax dollars. This is the latest bloody
chapter in the colonial project of Israel, founded with the objective of
dispossessing Palestinians from their land.
Join
us in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, November 4 at 1pm to demand: End the Siege
of Gaza! End all U.S. aid to Israel! Free Palestine!
Initial
co-sponsoring organizations:
Palestinian
Youth Movement
ANSWER
Coalition
American
Muslim Association
The
People’s Forum
National
Students for Justice in Palestine
Al-Awda:
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Party
for Socialism and Liberation
U.S.
Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
U.S.
Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR)
Maryland2Palestine
Endorse
the march here
Buses
and transportation centers are being organized in cities and towns across the
country. Check back here for updated information about transportation options.
Please
make an urgently needed donation to support solidarity work with Palestine in
this pivotal moment
Israeli
Progressives Speak Out on War
Rabbi
Arthur Waskow via uark.onmicrosoft.com
The
Shalom Center
If
you are a leader in any form of Jewish spiritual or other organizational life,
please preserve this statement. We will be back to you for a possible support
statement in the next couple of days.
Israeli Progressives Speak Out on
War
We
emphasize: there is no contradiction between staunchly opposing the Israeli
subjugation and occupation of Palestinians and unequivocally condemning brutal
acts of violence against innocent civilians.
We,
Israel-based academics, thought leaders and progressive activists committed to
peace, equality, justice, and human rights, are deeply pained and shocked by
the recent events in our region.
We
are also deeply concerned by the inadequate response from certain American and
European progressives regarding the targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas, a
response which reflects a disturbing trend in the global left's political
culture.
On
October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that included mass murder
of innocent civilians in their homes, indiscriminate violence towards women,
the elderly, and children, and mass kidnappings of Israeli citizens. Entire
families were wiped out in this carnage, whole communities were reduced to
ashes, bodies were maimed, infants were massacred. It is impossible to
overstate the damage caused by these events, both on a personal and a
collective level. The traumatizing events of that Saturday in October will
leave a lasting mark on our hearts and memories.
As
expected, in response to Hamas's actions, the State of Israel launched a
massive military operation in Gaza. We
still cannot estimate the death toll of these attacks, but it is likely to be
higher than anything we have witnessed heretofore. This cycle of aggression
severely undermines our long-standing struggle against oppression and violence
and in pursuit of full rights and equality for all residents of
Israel-Palestine. At this moment, more than ever, we need support and
solidarity from the global left, in the form of an unequivocal call against
indiscriminate violence towards civilians on both sides.
Many
of our peers worldwide have expressed strong opposition to Hamas's attack and
have offered unambiguous support for its victims. Prominent voices in the Arab
world, too, have made it clear that there is no justification for sadistic
murder of innocent people. However, to our dismay, some elements within the
global left, individuals who were, until now, our political partners, have
reacted with indifference to these horrific events and sometimes even justified
Hamas's actions. Some have refused to condemn the violence, claiming that
outsiders have no right to judge the actions of the oppressed. Others have
downplayed the suffering and trauma, arguing that Israeli society brought this
tragedy upon itself. Yet others have shielded themselves from the moral shock
through historical comparisons and rationalization. And there are even those –
no small number – for whom the darkest day in our society’s history was a cause
for celebration.
This
array of responses surprised us. We never imagined that individuals on the
left, advocates of equality, freedom,
justice, and welfare, would reveal such extreme moral insensitivity and
political recklessness. Let us be clear: Hamas is a theocratic and repressive
organization that vehemently opposes the attempt to promote peace and equality
in the Middle East. Its core commitments are fundamentally inconsistent with
progressive principles, and thus the inclination of certain leftists to react
affirmatively to its actions is utterly absurd. Moreover, there is no
justification for shooting civilians in their homes; no rationalization for the
murder of children in front of their parents; no reasoning for the persecution
and execution of partygoers. Legitimizing or excusing these actions amounts to
a betrayal of the fundamental principles of left-wing politics.
We
emphasize: there is no contradiction between staunchly opposing the Israeli
subjugation and occupation of Palestinians and unequivocally condemning brutal
acts of violence against innocent civilians. In fact, every consistent leftist
must hold both positions simultaneously.
The
seventh of October is a dark day in the history of Israel-Palestine and the
lives of the peoples of thisregion. Those who refuse to condemn Hamas's actions
do immense damage to the prospects of peace becoming a viable, relevant
political option. They weaken the left’s ability to present a positive social
and political horizon, turning it into an extreme, narrow, and alienating
political force. We call on our peers on the left to return to a politics based
on humanistic and universal principles, to take a clear stance against human
rights abuse of any form, and to assist us in the struggle to break the cycle
of violence and destruction.
Prof.
Aviad Kleinberg, President of the Ruppin Academic Center ,קליינברג אביעד' פרופ
Avirama
Golan, author and journalist ,גולן אבירמה
Ibtisam
Mara'ana, Former MK, Labor Party ,מראענה אבתיסאם
Adam
Raz, Historian, Human rights activist ,רז אדם
Prof.
Eva Illouz, Directrice d’études EHESS Paris, Membre of Institute for Israeli
Thought ,אילוז אווה' פרופ
Dr.
Ofek Birnholtz, Bar Ilan University ,בירנהולץ אופק ר"ד
Ortal
Ben Dayan, Social Activist ,דיין בן אורטל
Ori
Ben Dov, Social Activist ,דב בן אורי
Uri
Weltmann, National Field Organizer - Standing Together ,וולטמן אורי
Ori
Kol, Social Entrepreneur ,קול אורי
Dr.
Orit Sônia Waisman, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem
,ויסמן סוניה אורית ר"ד
Eilon
Tohar, Social Activist ,טוהר אילון
Iris
Leal, Author ,לעאל איריס
Alon-Lee
Green, National Co-Director of Standing Together ,גרין לי -אלון
Dr.
Eli Cook, Head of the General History Department, Haifa University ,קוק אלי
ר"ד
Dr.
Almog Kasher, Bar Ilan University ,כשר אלמוג ר"ד
Prof.
Orna Ben-Naftali, the College of Management Law Faculty and the Van Leer ,נפתלי
-בן ארנה' פרופ
Jerusalem
Institute
Josh
Drill, Social Activist ,דריל וש'ג
Ghadir
Hani, peace activist, Standing Together ,האני גדיר
Prof.
Gila Stopler, Faculty of Law, College of Law and Business ,סטופלר גילה' פרופ
Prof.
Galia Sabar, Tel Aviv University. Former President of Ruppin College ,צבר גליה
פרופ׳
Dr.
Dov Khenin, Former MK, Hadash, Tel Aviv University ,חנין דב ר"ד
David
Grossman, author ,גרוסמן דויד
Dorit
Hadar Persky, M.A teacher for special education, David Yellin Academic College
of ,פרסקי הדר דורית Education, Jerusalem
Prof.
Danny Gutwein, Haifa University ,גוטוויין דני' פרופ
Prof.
Dani Filc, MD PhD, Standing Together ,פילק דני פרופ׳
Dr.
Hagar Gal, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem ,גל הדר
ר"ד
Vered
Livne, former Director General of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel
(ACRI) and ,ליבנה ורד leadership member of Standing Together
Taleb
el-Sana, Former MK, Arab Democratic Party, Head of High Committee for Arab
Citizens ,סאנע-א טלב of the Negev
Yoav
Hareven, leadership member of Standing Together ,הראבן יואב
Prof.
Yoav Goldberg, Bar-Ilan University ,גולדברג יואב' פרופ
Prof.
Jonathan Rubin, Bar Ilan University ,רובין יונתן' פרופ
Yossi
Sucary, Author ,סוכרי יוסי
Dr.
Yofi Tirosh, Tel Aviv University ,תירוש יופי ר"ד
Prof.
Yael Hashiloni-Dolev, Ben-Gurion University, Sociology and Anthropology ,דולב
-השילוני יעל' פרופ Department
Dr.
Yael Sternhell, Tel Aviv University, שטרנהל יעל ר"ד
Dr.
Yiftah Goldman, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem ,גולדמן
יפתח ד״ר
Dr.
Carmel Shalev, Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University ,שלו כרמל ר"ד
Dr.
Lisa Kainan, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem ,קינן ליסה
ר"ד
Prof.
Meir Yaish, Haifa University, יעיש מאיר' פרופ
Mossi
Raz, former MK, Meretz ,רז מוסי
Dr.
Meital Pinto, Zefat Academic College, Ono Academic College ,פינטו מיטל ר"ד
Meital
Peleg Mizrachi, Postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, environmental justice
,מזרחי פלג מיטל researcher
Mickey
Gitzin, New Israel Fund, Executive Director in Israel ,גיצין מיקי
Dr.
Miri Lavi Neeman, Arava Institute for Environmental Studies ,נאמן לביא מירי
ר"ד
Nadav
Bigelman, Social Activist, member of Standing Together ,ביגלמן נדב
Prof.
Noam Zohar, Bar Ilan Univesity ,זהר נעם' פרופ
Niv
Meyerson, Social and environmental justice activist ,מאירסון ניב
Sally
Abed, Member of national leadership, Standing Together ,עבד סאלי
Dr.
Adi Makmal, Engineering Faculty, Bar-Ilan Uni. Israel ,מכמל עדי ר"ד
Odeh
Bisharat, Writer ,באשארת עודה
Prof.
Eran Dorfman, Literature Department, Tel Aviv University ,דורפמן עירן' פרופ
Prof.
Amit Schejter, department of communication studies, Ben-Gurion University,
chairman ,שכטר עמית' פרופ of ACRI
Dr.
Anat Herbst-Debby, The Gender Studies program, Bar-Ilan University ,דבי-הרבסט
ענת ר"ד
Dr.
Ofri Ilany, Van Leer Institute, historian and journalist ,אילני עפרי ר"ד
Eran
Nissan, Mehazkim, CEO ,ניסן ערן
Tzlil
Rubinshtein, Social Activist ,רובינשטיין צליל
Ran
Heilbrunn, Writer ,היילברון רן
Dr.
Ronit Donyets Kedar, College of Law and Business ,קידר-דוניץ רונית ר"ד
Prof.
Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law ,קדרי-הלפרין רות'
פרופ
Dr.
Raphael Zagury-Orly, Institut Catholique de Paris ,אורלי- זגורי רפאל ר"ד
Dr.
Shlomit Aharoni Lir, Bar Ilan University ,ליר אהרוני שלומית ר"ד
Prof.
Sharon Armon-Lotem, Bar-Ilan University ,לוטם- ערמון שרון' פרופ
Tom
Yagil, Social and Environmental Justice Activist ,יגיל תום
Dr.
Tamar Ascher Shai, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem ,שי
אשר תמר ר"ד.
The following 4 articles are from Consortium
News.
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“Atrocity Propaganda.”
Consortium News (10-17-23).
Israel and its
supporters in the West are helping to provide psychological cover for an
ongoing massacre of Palestinian civilians, writes Elizabeth Vos. Read here... “Israel Ready
to Arrest Journalists for Reporting Facts. “ Consortium News (10-17-23). info@consortiumnews.com
via salsalabs.org |
||||||||
“Israel’s Official Ethnic Cleansing Program.” Consortium News (10-17-23).
It’s been playing out in slow motion for more than 100 years, writes Jonathan
Cook. Read here...
“Hezbollah
Defeated Israel in 2006 — Can It Again?” Consortium
News (10-17-23).
The welter of analyses by pro-Israel think tanks across the West on the coming
conflict between the Shia resistance movement and the IDF has missed a crucial
factor, writes John Wight. Read here...
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END GAZA ANTHOLOGIES #10
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