Random talkback on Israeli news sites in response to current events.
This one in response to Foreign Minister Eli Cohen attack in UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after his remark, in a speech to the UN Security Council, saying Hamas' attack did not happen in a vacuum.
“If our public face, advocacy and status rests on one sentence replete with historical truths and one sentence said by a redeemed female captive whose unhealthy husband and hundreds more are still held in Gaza - then we are the opposite of a wonderful nation. This is a weak, miserable, pathetic nation, managed by a gang of fascist garbage, that is more excited about volunteers feeding soldiers hamburgers than about human blood flowing like water with no hope.”
Raz Segal (associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University): #Israel must stop weaponising the #Holocaust
“A powerful state, with powerful allies and a powerful army, engaged in a retaliatory attack against stateless Palestinians under Israeli-settler colonial rule, military occupation and siege, is thus portrayed as powerless Jews in a struggle against Nazis.”
“More and more Holocaust and genocide studies scholars are refusing to allow the continuation of the dangerous use of the Holocaust to distort the historical reality of the Holocaust and Israeli mass violence against Palestinians.“
Public Statement: Scholars Warn of Potential Genocide in Gaza
"Palestinian human rights organisations, Jewish civil society groups, #Holocaust and #genocide studies scholars and others have by now warned of an imminent genocide against the Palestinian population in #Gaza. We emphasise the existence of a serious risk of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip."
Netanyahu attempted sometime ago to connect the Palestinian national leader (~1920-1940s) Hajj Amin al-Husseini to #Germany’s Final Solution plan for the Jewish Problem. His unscrupulous and cynical weaponizatipn of the memory of the holocaust forced #YadVashem scholars to publicly correct the record. Professor Dina Porat said #Netanyahu was “completely erroneous, on all counts”, while Professor Dan Michman wrote “The Mufti was not in a position to ‘convince’ Hitler, nor did the Mufti actually suggest #genocide on this occasion Amin-Hitler meeting, a photo of which is often used by Jewish ultranationalists in their [#disinformation campaigns].”
Zionism's colonial "sugar daddy" 🧐 ... Some Israeli, including in academia, get really upset when #Zionism is classified as Settler-Colonialism ...
Weizmann requests following the Zionist Commission's visit to #Palestine in 1918 (after the publication of the infamous Balfour Declaration):
"...[But] we find among the Arabs and Syrians, or certain sections of them, a state of mind which seems to us to make useful negotiations impossible at the present moment, and so far as we are aware – though here our information may be incomplete – no official steps have been taken to bring home to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His Majesty’s Government has expressed a definite policy with regard to the future of the Jews in Palestine”
Military Governor, Colonel (later Sir) Ronald Storrs reply to Weizmann indicates that, at least at this stage, the British thought they should not disturb the status quo of a Muslim majority territory:
“Speaking myself as a convinced #Zionist, I cannot help thinking that the Commission are lacking in a sense of the dramatic actuality. Palestine, up to now a Moslem country, has fallen into the hands of a Christian Power which on the eve of its conquest announced that a considerable portion of its land is to be handed over for #colonization purposes to a nowhere very popular people. The dispatch of a Commission of these people is subsequently announced … From the announcement in the British press until this moment there has been no sign of a hostile demonstration public or private against a project which if we may imagine England for Palestine can hardly open for the inhabitants the beatific vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The Commission was warned in Cairo of the numerous and grave misconceptions with which their enterprise was regarded and strongly advised to make a public pronouncement to put an end to those misconceptions. No such pronouncement has yet been made; …”
British Government, Public Record Office Cabinet No. 27/23 (1918). In Ingrams, Doreen. 1972. Palestine Papers, 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict. London: J. Murray. pp. 25-26.
The paradox of the infamous "Blafour Declaration" (1917):
“The most significant and incontrovertible fact is, however, that by itself the [Balfour] Declaration was legally impotent. For Great Britain had no sovereign rights over #palestine it had no proprietary interest, it had no authority to dispose of the land. The Declaration was merely a statement of British intentions and no more”.
Sol M. Linowitz. 1957. “Analysis of a Tinderbox: The Legal Basis for the State of Israel.” American Bar Association Journal 6 (43): 522–25.
Anyone knows whether Daniel #Peretz “served” in the #apartheid forces? #Zionist celebs often brag about it and tell their unit, rank and possibly even their ID, but little seems to be known about his involvement. In any case he came from one of the most #racist clubs in subdued #Palestine, #Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The #couple has made a #choice not to take a stand in the right way, therefore implicitly continuing their support for #crimes against #humanity and #war crimes against #Palestinians and others.
#tv “Aljazeera World” is a very impressive documentaries series, with lots of original content exploring #MENA. Edward Said’s documentary “Out of Place” (2006) aired couple of days ago. It comes across somewhat hagiographical… with many of his colleagues singing his praise, including Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, Ilan Pappe and more.
What caught my eye was the archive material, especially audio/visual from his family home in upscale Talbiya (الطالبية, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in #Jerusalem still today) makes the phrase “A land without a people for a people without a land” (which was allegedly coined by a Christian #Zionist) sound VERY cruel.
Excerpt from "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story"
"Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of #Jerusalem, but tragedy awaits: his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, rushes to the chaotic site, only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad's fate, navigating a maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a #Palestinian."
About the Palestinian children Israel sent to jail. An edited extract from “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story”, published by Allen Lane on 3 October.
A unique coming-of-age story from the lost world of #ArabJews
Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad and grew up in Israel. He is a Professor of International Relations at St Antony's College, Oxford. His previous books include the critically acclaimed The Iron Wall and he writes regularly for the Guardian, Middle East Eye and other outlets.
In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing from their beloved Iraq into the new state of Israel. Now the rump of a once flourishing community of over 150,000, dating back 2,600 years, has dwindled to single figures.
For many, this tells the story of the timeless clash of the Arab and Jewish civilisations, the heroic mission of Zionism to rescue Eastern Jews from their backwards nations, and unceasing persecution as the fate and history of Jewish people. Avi Shlaim tears up this script. His mother had many Muslim friends in Baghdad, but no Zionist ones.
The Iraqi Jewish community, once celebrated for its ancient heritage and rich culture, was sprayed with DDT upon arrival in #Israel. As anti-Semitism gathered pace in #Iraq, the Zionist underground may have inflamed it – deliberately.
This memoir celebrates the disappearing heritage of Arab-Jews – caught in the crossfire of secular ideologies.
Digging Up the #Nakba... on the violent erasure of Palestinian villages after 1948, to prevent its inhabitants to return to their lands. Case study of #Qadas (قدس), now in the Tel Qedesh National Park.
“The destruction [in 1966] was so violent that we cannot identify even the foundations of many of the buildings. I can find walls that are from 3000 B.C.E. that are in better condition,”
@serge@histodons@israel@palestine seems like any engagement with @babka.social, a site claiming to be inclusive to all streams and colors of #Judaism, gets you immediately blocked and posts removed (!?!?!) if you self identify as an #ArabJew ... I'm wondering if @babka is an #ADL puppet, payed to increase statistics of so called #antisemitic hate speech. The immediate removal of any interaction not aligning with their world view is interesting.
@serge the therm #Mizrahi is in fact a repurposed term, #Ostjuden, used by #Ashkenazi Jews to refer to #Yiddish speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. The preferred term by so Israelis and non Israeli is #ArabJews. Like European Jews, Russian Jews, Eastern European Jews.
Further education, if I may:
How the Polish Peddler Became a German Intellectual: Orientalism, Jewish Identity, and the Antecedents to Social Closure in Israel
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: #Ashkenazi Jews 'are NOT Semites'
Zionist leader Arthur Ruppin: German #Jews are NOT Semites but Aryan.
Yet Abbas in an antisemite, even though this idea is not really new (research: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3543), while Israel is naming buildings after the #Zionist leader Ruppin, who personally met with Himmler's mentor, Hans F. K. Günther.
Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race
In: Amos Morris-Reich, Israel Studies , Fall, 2006, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 1-3.
Exactly.
Had no choice.
I seemed like a paradise compared to what was before.
It’s easier to criticise retroactively what was wrong in the process.
Did they have the Palestinian people in mind when left their left their land?
Exactly.
Had no choice.
It seemed like a paradise compared to what was before.
It’s easier to criticise retroactively what was wrong in the process.
Did they have the Palestinian people in mind when they left Europe?
TIL that the term "Mizrahi" is a reclaimed term, originally a racist term and slurrish, it's since been reclaimed by those Jews as a way to self-identify, especially for those Jews who live in Israel.
I've only heard it in the context of its reclaimed use, but knowing the history is important.
@josephramoney well we have those as well… Baruch ashem … 🙏 the #Ashkenazi eugenicist Arthur Ruppin, for example, a prominent #Zionist leader who met with Himmler's mentor, Hans F. K. Günther. Ruppin was also Ben Gurion’s mentor, so I guess the ethnic cleansing of #Palestine was not an accident.
More information here:
Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race
In: Amos Morris-Reich, Israel Studies , Fall, 2006, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 1-3.