Home » Posts tagged 'Israel'
Tag Archives: Israel
Disproportionate slaughter?
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, says “There is nothing more atrocious and preposterous” than the lawsuit filed in the international court of justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocidal actions against Palestinians in the Gaza war.
Israel is a Jewish state. The Nazis committed genocide against the Jews, murdering 6 million of them. That historical tragedy is called the Holocaust – with a capital H.
I say there is nothing more atrocious and preposterous than Israel doing the same to the Palestinians.
Some have said the Israeli response to the Hamas attack is “disproportionate”. That’s not good enough, is it? We’ve all seen what it is: it’s a holocaust. Even if they haven’t reached 6 million.
We should call it by that name. And Israel should be held accountable.
No justice, no peace: but will Netanyahu ever have to answer for his actions?
A warning from Shakespeare’s King Henry V for Netanyahu. Williams, a soldier on the battlefield, is talking about who will be held responsible, on the day of judgment, if the King is leading them to fight an unjust war (although Williams doesn’t realise he’s talking to the king himself):
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. (William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 4:1.)
Netanyahu may not be worried by this ghoulish Christian view of the final judgment. For one thing, he may have a different tradition in mind:
Thus says the Lord of Hosts, “I will punish what Amalek did to Israel in opposing [the Israelites] on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling ox and sheep, camel and ass. (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, 1 Samuel 15:2-3.)
But I somehow doubt he’s thinking of that either. He just wants to kill Palestinians. And there’s nobody to hold him to account for that.
Certainly not the UN.
Telling the truth: the undiplomatic diplomat
Following the horrors of the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s collective punishment of innocent civilians in Gaza in response, Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights until yesterday, has said four things some of which, up to now, have been almost unmentionable. But, daring to say them, he is certainly a hero.
He has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. You’re not allowed to even suggest that Israel could ever be guilty of genocide or ethnic cleansing, after the mass slaughter of the Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. But Mokhiber says what is happening in Gaza is “a textbook case of genocide”, and he also accuses the UN of failing to prevent it.
He accuses “the US, the UK and much of Europe” not only of that failure but also of “arming Israel’s assault and providing political and diplomatic cover for it.”
He says:
The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt.
He suggests a solution:
We must support the establishment of a single, democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews … and, therefore, the dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.
These are the things he’s said.
He’s a hero.
Top UN official in New York steps down citing ‘genocide’ of Palestinian civilians: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/un-official-resigns-israel-hamas-war-palestine-new-york?embed=true
You’re fired! But why?
Here are some of the words of Maxine Peake in her interview with Alexandra Pollard in The Independent. Sharing the article and praising Peake cost Rebecca Long-Bailey her job as Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary:
“We’ve got to save humanity. We’re being ruled by capitalist, fascist dictators. It’s entrenched, isn’t it? We’ve got to the point where protecting capital is much more important than anybody’s life. How do we dig out of that? How do we change?”
Sounds like a good aim. Sounds like a couple of good questions. Nothing here that shouldn’t be shared.
“Sin is but a word,” says Thomas [a character in the film Fanny Lye Deliver’d, in which Peake starred], an imposter of the rich to get poor men in order.” “Well,” says Peake, “if you talk about the formation of religion, it’s about control isn’t it? And with what’s happening in America at the moment, it’s about financial control. It’s about keeping the poor in their place.”
If you “Like” this, and share it, and make a positive comment about it (“Maxine Peake is a gem” I think it was), there’s no reason why you should get the sack. Peake’s view on religion is quite common and has a lot going for it. She went on:
“I don’t know how we escape that cycle that’s indoctrinated into us all. Well, we get rid of it when we get rid of capitalism as far as I’m concerned. That’s what it’s all about. The establishment has got to go. We’ve got to change it.”
Nobody should get the sack for approving of this, surely. But actually, as we all now know, Long-Bailey got the sack because the article contained the following:
“Systemic racism is a global issue. The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”
Was it really these words that got Long-Bailey the sack? Well, yes, it was. Because Keir Starmer said they were antisemitic, and she had to go. But they weren’t antisemitic, were they? Criticising the Israeli state, or one element of the Israeli state in this case, isn’t antisemitic. There are many Jews who don’t always support Israel, and many who don’t support Israel at all, some for political reasons, some for religious reasons. When I worked for a Jewish organisation in London, we had, on either side of us as neighbours, two ultra-orthodox Jewish groups. On our right, an organisation that supported Israel; on our left, an organisation that was opposed to Israel (as it happens because they believed that Israel should not be brought into existence until the Messiah has come). The two organisations used to demonstrate against each other in the street outside and along the road. On one of these occasions, one of the managers in our office (she was Jewish) watched the anti-Israel group forming outside with their banners and slogans. “Look at them,” she said. “They’re so antisemitic.”
This is a recurring theme, that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. It isn’t. Starmer should understand this. He should realise that if he wants the support of a broad range of Jewish voters he will have to listen to more voices than the Board of Deputies of British Jews or the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He should recognise his mistake in sacking Long-Bailey, reinstate her, and apologise.
He won’t, of course. Repeated accusations of “antisemitism”, however ill-founded, will help him destroy the left in the Labour Party, as will other convenient accusations as time goes on. We shouldn’t allow him to do any of it.
Bob Mouncer's blog 