Well, yes. There are bound to be burst water pipes and dangling live cables in there, and bodies decomposing under the rubble. Cholera or other diseases will kick in at some point.
Meanwhile they've been storming the aid centres for food and supplies - can't blame them.
I made the mistake of donating to the Red Cross during the Bosnia conflict and they bombarded me after that pretty well every month with letters and emails. They ignored all my requests to stop sending letters and unsubscribe. It took a threat of legal action to get them to stop, and I would never give money to them now in an identifiable way. They can have the odd cash donation but they aren't getting my name or any contact details.
<snip>
Point taken re Red Cross, though I've not been unduly bothered by their email updates (about once a month).
As I said, I've been a contributor for a while, but I'd welcome any useful suggestions as to another aid agency which might be helpful in Gaza - Medecins Sans Frontieres, perhaps?
Whatever Hamas had in mind, their actions were unjustifiable and horrific, as it seems to me are the actions being taken by the Israelis as they make people suffer from the bombardments, the lack of the basic necessities of life, and with little chance of medical assistance.
In a talk I listened to a few years ago by a peace worker, he said that the three religions had lived side by side for centuries and that there was a lot of respect between them. The issues are entirely political.
On the one side, he said, are people who are being taught from a young age that the holocaust could happen again and that their enemies are all around them. On the other side are people who are taught from a young age that their homeland was taken by people who drove their families into the desert and who have oppressed and controlled them ever since in the enclaves they were driven to.
This was probably oversimplified, but it helped me to understand.
Violent action taken by either side will surely only serve to lengthen any peace process, leading me to wonder whether Hamas wanted this.
Violent action taken by either side will surely only serve to lengthen any peace process, leading me to wonder whether Hamas wanted this.
Will it? The peace process has been stalled for 20 years. Even if the Palestinians all sat on their hands singing "Give peace a chance" how long would they have to wait for Israel to stop bulldozing their homes, stealing their land and blockading their tiny remaining Bantustans?
Violent action taken by either side will surely only serve to lengthen any peace process, leading me to wonder whether Hamas wanted this.
Will it? The peace process has been stalled for 20 years. Even if the Palestinians all sat on their hands singing "Give peace a chance" how long would they have to wait for Israel to stop bulldozing their homes, stealing their land and blockading their tiny remaining Bantustans?
And to the point of 'what were members of Hamas thinking?' the status quo in Gaza was that they died slowly with no hope and no future in an location that had been 'de-developed' to use the term coined by the political economist Sara Roy. With Israel restricting even access to food and water. They'd tried non-violent means in 2018 and it had failed, apart from the fatuous idea that they should somehow create a Gandhi figure what practical steps did West have to offer them?
The attacks were despicable, but the world at large seemed quite happy to leave them to slowly die from deaths of despair (around 40% of Gazans are clinically depressed).
And it should be noted that Palestinian attempts at mobilising peaceful action on their behalf through the BDS movement has met with screams of "anti-semitism" and even attempts to make participation illegal. There are real questions for supporters of Israel to answer about what kinds of effective resistance to the occupation are permitted.
Exactly. And surely it's not a total coincidence that the references to a promised land were written by a people in exile? A dream which did not become a reality.
ETA: I'm probably derailing the thread, and in that case I apologise, but it strikes me as an important aspect to address.
I'm reading some distressing things from people in Gaza who are now managing to get messages out. It really doesn't get any better, but until this is verified I can only say that some think that phosphorus bombs are being used.
This is, however, one of the more media-intense wars, with a great cloud of information, supposition, rumours and deliberate misinformation flying about. Sometimes it's hard to know what to believe.
Well, murdering civilians and taking hostages thereby provoking apocalyptic bombing in retaliation hardly seems like 'effective resistance' to me.
Others will correct me if I'm wrong but haven't Hamas rejected various deals in the past?
Netanyahu is and always has been a nasty piece of work so his deployment of violent tropes from the Hebrew scriptures should come as no surprise, particularly as the lethal Hamas incursion occurred under his watch.
As for what the West and others can do about it ... I wish I knew. We're going to see Gaza pulverised, vicious urban warfare and street to street, rubble heap to rubble heap and tunnel to tunnel fighting, hostages and their captors killed, Israeli soldiers killed, the prospect of thousands upon thousands of Palestinian deaths from disease, malnutrition and war.
And when it finally ends generations of Palestinians traumatised and radicalised still further and launching revenge attacks on Israel and on anyone who supported its actions for decades and decades to come.
I don't see anything positive that Israel's most vocal supporters have to offer other than constant warfare and the suppression of Palestinians however militant or moderate - whether Muslim, Christian or of all faiths or none. Equally, I don't see what those critical of Israel have to offer other than the pious hope that sooner or later both sides will sit down and talk.
Sure, we can cite the Peace Process in Northern Ireland and the Peace and Reconciliation process in South Africa. But in neither of these places did we see massive aerial bombardments of urban areas or miles and miles of tunnels to be taken yard by yard.
I'm not sure I can think of any analogous situations. Vietnam?
Well, murdering civilians and taking hostages thereby provoking apocalyptic bombing in retaliation hardly seems like 'effective resistance' to me.
We're paying attention, aren't we? And the normalization of Arab-Israeli relations is paused, at the very least. I bet Hamas thought they were doing what they've previously done, just on a larger scale, and didn't anticipate all-out war.
I agree. Opposition to Israel is not allowed, except on the street, and even here it is under attack. This is democracy, folks.
Anti-BDS laws are on the books in 35 US states, despite majority opinion being against them.
To me, a Brit, this is hard to comprehend, mind-blowing. I mean I had never heard this before. So Israel can't be held to account by the USA because otherwise the politicians would get voted out?
Others will correct me if I'm wrong but haven't Hamas rejected various deals in the past?
Did any of those "deals" actually involve a free, independent Palestinian state in control of its own borders and not sliced and diced by illegal settlements? I think we all know the answer to that. In any case, my recollection is that Israel has always demanded that Hamas recognise Israel before any negotiations, which is a neat way of demanding your opponent surrender before you discuss terms. Meanwhile the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has become merely a puppet regime of Israel.
In any case, my recollection is that Israel has always demanded that Hamas recognise Israel before any negotiations, which is a neat way of demanding your opponent surrender before you discuss terms. Meanwhile the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has become merely a puppet regime of Israel.
Well, murdering civilians and taking hostages thereby provoking apocalyptic bombing in retaliation hardly seems like 'effective resistance' to me.
We're paying attention, aren't we? And the normalization of Arab-Israeli relations is paused, at the very least. I bet Hamas thought they were doing what they've previously done, just on a larger scale, and didn't anticipate all-out war.
Come on. Israel has launched large scale attacks inside Gaza before now. Not on this scale admittedly. But they've launched airstrikes and ground invasion before now.
But are you seriously suggesting they hadn't anticipated a similar reaction?
I wouldn't be surprised if the Israeli body count exceeded Hamas's expectations but they would surely have expected to inflict considerable casualties given the scale of their operation. And they'd have known that Israel would retaliate and do so very hard.
I'm no apologist for Israel. It's illegally planted settlements and thrown its weight around for decades.
But I not an apologist for Hamas either.
They launched a larger scale operation and would have expected a larger scale reaction. Perhaps not on this scale admittedly but they can hardly have expected Israel to have simply lobbed a few missiles over as a token gesture.
I remember a pro-Palestinian speaker at an event when the various 'intifadas' were deadly, but not on anywhere near the scale of the current conflict, saying that Palestinian youths chucking stones and using slings weren't out to harm anyone. It was a form of 'performance art.'
You don't have to be pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian to see how daft a claim that was. Draw attention to the inequalities and the lack of symmetry by all means - slings and stones against a heavily armed IDF - call it protest most certainly, but don't try and make out it was a form of street-theatre.
I remember a Loyalist paramilitary making that claim when he was foiled in an attempt to shoot up Stormont.
None of this justifies the bombing and potential starvation of 2.7m people of course or the ignoring of UN calls for restraint.
And if 'We're paying attention aren't we?' is a patronising remark aimed at me then I may be tempted to try some street theatre of my own and call you somewhere hot.
I don't know what 'effective resistance' looks like. It can't possibly look like this.
Meanwhile, something has to be done to get aid to the people who need it and to stop the wholesale massacre of Palestinian civilians.
I agree. Opposition to Israel is not allowed, except on the street, and even here it is under attack. This is democracy, folks.
Anti-BDS laws are on the books in 35 US states, despite majority opinion being against them.
To me, a Brit, this is hard to comprehend, mind-blowing. I mean I had never heard this before. So Israel can't be held to account by the USA because otherwise the politicians would get voted out?
A while ago at the start of working on a project with a client in the States, his company sent us, in the UK, a pre-contract form requiring that our company would not boycott Israel for the duration of the project. I can believe the above.
But are you seriously suggesting they hadn't anticipated a similar reaction?
...
And if 'We're paying attention aren't we?' is a patronising remark aimed at me then I may be tempted to try some street theatre of my own and call you somewhere hot.
I'm quite serious, and I did not intend the remark to sound patronizing.
There are several hundred children imprisoned in Israeli prison at any one time, apparently around 700 a year because they usually have short periods of imprisonment.
Which is a lot, given that they're usually caught throwing stones.
On the other hand, there are 3 million people in the West Bank, about 45% of which are under 15. So let's say at least 1.5 million are under 18.
It's a terrible thing to imprison children for throwing stones, no question. But let's not get carried away thinking it is a lot of Palestinian children who are doing this.
If my mathematics are correct it's like 0.05% of all West Bank Palestinian children are in an Israeli jail in any year.
Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response.
There are several hundred children imprisoned in Israeli prison at any one time, apparently around 700 a year because they usually have short periods of imprisonment.
Which is a lot, given that they're usually caught throwing stones.
On the other hand, there are 3 million people in the West Bank, about 45% of which are under 15. So let's say at least 1.5 million are under 18.
It's a terrible thing to imprison children for throwing stones, no question. But let's not get carried away thinking it is a lot of Palestinian children who are doing this.
If my mathematics are correct it's like 0.05% of all West Bank Palestinian children are in an Israeli jail in any year.
Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response.
That's an interesting definition of "performance art"
But are you seriously suggesting they hadn't anticipated a similar reaction?
...
And if 'We're paying attention aren't we?' is a patronising remark aimed at me then I may be tempted to try some street theatre of my own and call you somewhere hot.
I'm quite serious, and I did not intend the remark to sound patronizing.
If it aid's your understanding, @Gamma Gamaliel , I believe @Ruth is saying that Hamas's actions were at least "effective" in drawing attention back to the conflict. I think it's probably stating the obvious to say that no Palestinian group has ever been in a position to secure a free Palestine from Israel by military force. Consequently whether an action is effective (leaving aside moral considerations) surely depends on its ability to force the international community to put pressure on Israel for peace.
There are several hundred children imprisoned in Israeli prison at any one time, apparently around 700 a year because they usually have short periods of imprisonment.
Which is a lot, given that they're usually caught throwing stones.
On the other hand, there are 3 million people in the West Bank, about 45% of which are under 15. So let's say at least 1.5 million are under 18.
It's a terrible thing to imprison children for throwing stones, no question. But let's not get carried away thinking it is a lot of Palestinian children who are doing this.
If my mathematics are correct it's like 0.05% of all West Bank Palestinian children are in an Israeli jail in any year.
Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response.
That's an interesting definition of "performance art"
Is it? The performance is the children can never beat a heavily armed military force and they're never going to inflict any real damage throwing stones.
It's a performative act of defiance. I don't understand what is hard to understand about this definition.
But are you seriously suggesting they hadn't anticipated a similar reaction?
...
And if 'We're paying attention aren't we?' is a patronising remark aimed at me then I may be tempted to try some street theatre of my own and call you somewhere hot.
I'm quite serious, and I did not intend the remark to sound patronizing.
If it aid's your understanding, @Gamma Gamaliel , I believe @Ruth is saying that Hamas's actions were at least "effective" in drawing attention back to the conflict. I think it's probably stating the obvious to say that no Palestinian group has ever been in a position to secure a free Palestine from Israel by military force. Consequently whether an action is effective (leaving aside moral considerations) surely depends on its ability to force the international community to put pressure on Israel for peace.
I don't think Hamas is interested in the "international community", these actions are clearly aimed at provoking a very specific audience. Namely others in the region.
There are several hundred children imprisoned in Israeli prison at any one time, apparently around 700 a year because they usually have short periods of imprisonment.
Which is a lot, given that they're usually caught throwing stones.
On the other hand, there are 3 million people in the West Bank, about 45% of which are under 15. So let's say at least 1.5 million are under 18.
It's a terrible thing to imprison children for throwing stones, no question. But let's not get carried away thinking it is a lot of Palestinian children who are doing this.
If my mathematics are correct it's like 0.05% of all West Bank Palestinian children are in an Israeli jail in any year.
Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response.
That's an interesting definition of "performance art"
Is it? The performance is the children can never beat a heavily armed military force and they're never going to inflict any real damage throwing stones.
It's a performative act of defiance. I don't understand what is hard to understand about this definition.
What's hard to understand is your introduction of "delinquency" into the definition.
There are several hundred children imprisoned in Israeli prison at any one time, apparently around 700 a year because they usually have short periods of imprisonment.
Which is a lot, given that they're usually caught throwing stones.
On the other hand, there are 3 million people in the West Bank, about 45% of which are under 15. So let's say at least 1.5 million are under 18.
It's a terrible thing to imprison children for throwing stones, no question. But let's not get carried away thinking it is a lot of Palestinian children who are doing this.
If my mathematics are correct it's like 0.05% of all West Bank Palestinian children are in an Israeli jail in any year.
Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response.
That's an interesting definition of "performance art"
Is it? The performance is the children can never beat a heavily armed military force and they're never going to inflict any real damage throwing stones.
It's a performative act of defiance. I don't understand what is hard to understand about this definition.
What's hard to understand is your introduction of "delinquency" into the definition.
Most Palestinian children have extended family networks which values education - Palestinians have one of the highest rates of literacy and university education in the region.
Children involved in these kinds of attacks often do not have family ties for whatever reason. Hence delinquency.
Is that not delinquency? In this case he has parents but the father is refusing to pay for legal fees because he says the child should have been in school.
Ok well then perhaps there is a miscommunication about the definition of the word.
Wikipedia says
"Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority.[1] The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way."
Ok well then perhaps there is a miscommunication about the definition of the word.
Wikipedia says
"Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority.[1] The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way."
By Israeli definitions behaving in an unacceptable way would seem to include "living in Gaza" or "having parents who own land settlers want".
Ok well then perhaps there is a miscommunication about the definition of the word.
Wikipedia says
"Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority.[1] The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way."
By Israeli definitions behaving in an unacceptable way would seem to include "living in Gaza" or "having parents who own land settlers want".
I'm not talking about Gaza. I was very specifically talking about the West Bank.
There are no children in Israeli jails from Gaza - for one thing the law which West Bankers live under doesn't apply to Gaza.
Ok well then perhaps there is a miscommunication about the definition of the word.
Wikipedia says
"Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority.[1] The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way."
By Israeli definitions behaving in an unacceptable way would seem to include "living in Gaza" or "having parents who own land settlers want".
I'm not talking about Gaza. I was very specifically talking about the West Bank.
There are no children in Israeli jails from Gaza - for one thing the law which West Bankers live under doesn't apply to Gaza.
The latter of the two I mentioned very much include the West Bank.
Is that not delinquency? In this case he has parents but the father is refusing to pay for legal fees because he says the child should have been in school.
Whether or not that's delinquency is not my point; the fact that you defined "performance art" in terms of delinquency when you said "Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response" is the issue.
Is that not delinquency? In this case he has parents but the father is refusing to pay for legal fees because he says the child should have been in school.
Whether or not that's delinquency is not my point; the fact that you defined "performance art" in terms of delinquency when you said "Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response" is the issue.
Well I'm sorry if it offends you, but my understanding is that this is a reasonable description.
Of course I suppose my years of trying to understand the issues and the multiple trips traveling to the West Bank and talking to people there could be wrong.
Is that not delinquency? In this case he has parents but the father is refusing to pay for legal fees because he says the child should have been in school.
Whether or not that's delinquency is not my point; the fact that you defined "performance art" in terms of delinquency when you said "Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response" is the issue.
Well I'm sorry if it offends you, but my understanding is that this is a reasonable description.
You think the definition of "performance art" involves delinquency? So all "performance art" has to involve delinquency? There cannot exist non-delinquent "performance art"?
Because that's what you implied.
Frankly, I don't think you actually understand what I'm challenging you about because you keep on going on about how throwing stones is delinquency, which is not actually the point I'm getting at. I'm getting at the point that you appear to define "performance art" as "delinquency". That has in itself nothing to do with the West Bank and is solely about the definition of the term "performance art". I thought the term meant "Artworks that are created through actions performed by the artist or other participants, which may be live or recorded, spontaneous or scripted". Sure, you could do performance art that involved delinquency, but it's not an essential part of it, which is what your sentence implied.
Nope, I'm not saying all performance art is delinquency. I'm saying in this particular instance the children are throwing stones.
This is considered to be performance art by some who encourage it (older people, other youths) because everyone knows it has zero positive effect and only results in negative ones (children are shot and imprisoned). The "performance art" aspect is that it is a performative act of defiance.
It is associated with delinquency in the West Bank for reasons I've explained before - the vast majority of young people don't do it, many parents don't accept it (or think it has any value over going to school and believe it causes families unnecessary extra hardship), many of those imprisoned have other issues etc.
From my conversations with adults in the West Bank, there are at least a proportion of people who think the children who do this are delinquents (and they talk about them as people in my town talk about young people who joyride cars and then set them alight).
Of course if you have better information about the public understanding of how stone-throwing children end up in Israeli jails, I would be pleased to hear it.
Nope, I'm not saying all performance art is delinquency. I'm saying in this particular instance the children are throwing stones.
This is considered to be performance art by some who encourage it (older people, other youths) because everyone knows it has zero positive effect and only results in negative ones (children are shot and imprisoned). The "performance art" aspect is that it is a performative act of defiance.
It is associated with delinquency in the West Bank for reasons I've explained before - the vast majority of young people don't do it, many parents don't accept it (or think it has any value over going to school and believe it causes families unnecessary extra hardship), many of those imprisoned have other issues etc.
From my conversations with adults in the West Bank, there are at least a proportion of people who think the children who do this are delinquents (and they talk about them as people in my town talk about young people who joyride cars and then set them alight).
Of course if you have better information about the public understanding of how stone-throwing children end up in Israeli jails, I would be pleased to hear it.
I don't and never claimed to. I was merely questioning your definition of "performance art" because the way you phrased it implied that "delinquency" was part of the definition. I'm glad you've clarified that that wasn't what you meant.
But are you seriously suggesting they hadn't anticipated a similar reaction?
...
And if 'We're paying attention aren't we?' is a patronising remark aimed at me then I may be tempted to try some street theatre of my own and call you somewhere hot.
I'm quite serious, and I did not intend the remark to sound patronizing.
If it aid's your understanding, @Gamma Gamaliel , I believe @Ruth is saying that Hamas's actions were at least "effective" in drawing attention back to the conflict. I think it's probably stating the obvious to say that no Palestinian group has ever been in a position to secure a free Palestine from Israel by military force. Consequently whether an action is effective (leaving aside moral considerations) surely depends on its ability to force the international community to put pressure on Israel for peace.
Ok. I get that.
I also understand how seriously @Ruth is taking the issue and respect that. I may have misinterpreted her comment. I certainly don't want to start a stone-throwing contest here, 'performance art' or otherwise.
I made the mistake of donating to the Red Cross during the Bosnia conflict and they bombarded me after that pretty well every month with letters and emails. They ignored all my requests to stop sending letters and unsubscribe. It took a threat of legal action to get them to stop, and I would never give money to them now in an identifiable way. They can have the odd cash donation but they aren't getting my name or any contact details.
<snip>
Point taken re Red Cross, though I've not been unduly bothered by their email updates (about once a month).
As I said, I've been a contributor for a while, but I'd welcome any useful suggestions as to another aid agency which might be helpful in Gaza - Medecins Sans Frontieres, perhaps?
The Bishop of Norwich has an appeal for the hospital in Gaza which was bombed - details on the diocesan website. He visited the hospital just before this kicked off.
I think what's really hard is for people to recognize where they are vis a vis the situation and very openly own their self interest. I think as a white American I have a self interest in not being responsible for this bloodbath. But I also feel that if Israel were to be cut off from military aide, we'd be seeing another kind of bloodbath, and I think folks who live in the territory of Israel must feel this viscerally, if they're at all aware. I've heard this report from folks who visited the place, even in quieter times.
And so for an American, at least in my situation, all I can feel is a kind of grief. Also, I took a course in ethnic conflict in undergrad and...it all feels really predictable. It's like an older generation set up two train lines that were guaranteed to slam into each other, and now all we can do is watch inertia take its terrible course. Being a political science geek, there's something fascinating about it, but it's also horrifying.
Not sure how this feeds into the general thread, but that's a thought on how to talk about it.
I think what's really hard is for people to recognize where they are vis a vis the situation and very openly own their self interest. I think as a white American I have a self interest in not being responsible for this bloodbath. But I also feel that if Israel were to be cut off from military aide, we'd be seeing another kind of bloodbath, and I think folks who live in the territory of Israel must feel this viscerally, if they're at all aware. I've heard this report from folks who visited the place, even in quieter times.
The US hands over billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and apparently puts no restrictions upon its use. We're totally complicit. The US wouldn't have to cut off military aide entirely; we could back off from our usual shoulder-to-shoulder no matter what stance. But considering the many shitty things we do, I'm not holding my breath.
I only visited Israel once, in 1996, right before the first Palestinian elections. I was definitely pro-Israel prior to that visit; my parents had a good friend who had lost her entire family in the Holocaust, and I was brought up with a view of Israel as very heroic in the face of danger from all sides. And coming from a big state in a big country, when I visited I was struck by how small it was and how close together everything was. We went to the Golan Heights, and I saw how Syria is right there. Nothing like being in the US where we're surrounded by Canada, Mexico and oceans. But going through all the checkpoints that separated Arab areas and neighborhoods from Jewish ones and seeing the differences in the way they looked really changed my view -- I know ghettos when I see them.
I think what's really hard is for people to recognize where they are vis a vis the situation and very openly own their self interest. I think as a white American I have a self interest in not being responsible for this bloodbath. But I also feel that if Israel were to be cut off from military aide, we'd be seeing another kind of bloodbath, and I think folks who live in the territory of Israel must feel this viscerally, if they're at all aware. I've heard this report from folks who visited the place, even in quieter times.
The US hands over billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and apparently puts no restrictions upon its use. We're totally complicit. The US wouldn't have to cut off military aide entirely; we could back off from our usual shoulder-to-shoulder no matter what stance. But considering the many shitty things we do, I'm not holding my breath.
I only visited Israel once, in 1996, right before the first Palestinian elections. I was definitely pro-Israel prior to that visit; my parents had a good friend who had lost her entire family in the Holocaust, and I was brought up with a view of Israel as very heroic in the face of danger from all sides. And coming from a big state in a big country, when I visited I was struck by how small it was and how close together everything was. We went to the Golan Heights, and I saw how Syria is right there. Nothing like being in the US where we're surrounded by Canada, Mexico and oceans. But going through all the checkpoints that separated Arab areas and neighborhoods from Jewish ones and seeing the differences in the way they looked really changed my view -- I know ghettos when I see them.
I could say a lot, but I don't really know how. I definitely wouldn't go near calling myself pro-Israel at this point. I think "apartheid" is probably a fair analogy for what's going on, and it might be like the Native Americans. It's not that Israelis hate Palestinians, but given the way the state is established, they're a nuisance at best, the usual trap that you can't have Israel be simultaneously a Jewish state and a proper secular Democracy.
And so Palestinians are forever identified as "a problem."
At the same time, per an expression I recently picked up, "this house is haunted, but there are children inside." You can't just pluck Israel off of the map without and big bloody displacement, another echo of what Jewish people have been going through since forever.
I can't really support anyone in this situation, as identity groups. Palestine becoming a country would probably involve another round of ethnic cleansing as angry people finally got to vent their anger as illustrated in Psalm 137, and I don't want to watch that show either, even if I could understand exactly why they'd do that.
My dark joke, which would probably tick off everyone involved, would be to slap down a new secular country with the strict removal of all religious identity and call it Hamartia.
It also personally bugs me because I have friends, generally decent people, on both sides of the argument and I can't help but empathize. It all just sucks.
It's usually not particularly useful to talk about internal motivations and it's probably not useful to discuss whether the Palestinians are hated, nevertheless it's clear that there are an increasing number of politicians in Israel who see the Palestinians as a problem and express that thought in increasingly dehumanising ways, this applies as much to the center as to the right (the Labor leader has talked about the Palestinians as a demographic threat within the past year).
The current status quo condemns Palestinians to slow extinction as a people, and everyone who essentially counsels doing nothing is culpable in their demise. Furthermore it is incredibly dangerous to tell a people that every single path to their liberation is racist/anti-Semitic.
"Slow" extinction, after today's attack on a refugee camp, killing and injuring (according to Sky News) hundreds? I don't know why Netanyahu thinks this will be a "long war".
There are vigils and
(link to organisation calling for demos removed see host post)
protests scheduled nationwide
in Britain for this weekend. I'd expect the mood, particularly in the London one, will be very angry.
I wonder if Israel has a target in mind, I mean like 20 000 Palestinian dead? No idea, but presumably they will eventually stop killing. I suppose 20 000 isn't enough. 40 000?
Comments
Meanwhile they've been storming the aid centres for food and supplies - can't blame them.
Point taken re Red Cross, though I've not been unduly bothered by their email updates (about once a month).
As I said, I've been a contributor for a while, but I'd welcome any useful suggestions as to another aid agency which might be helpful in Gaza - Medecins Sans Frontieres, perhaps?
In a talk I listened to a few years ago by a peace worker, he said that the three religions had lived side by side for centuries and that there was a lot of respect between them. The issues are entirely political.
On the one side, he said, are people who are being taught from a young age that the holocaust could happen again and that their enemies are all around them. On the other side are people who are taught from a young age that their homeland was taken by people who drove their families into the desert and who have oppressed and controlled them ever since in the enclaves they were driven to.
This was probably oversimplified, but it helped me to understand.
Violent action taken by either side will surely only serve to lengthen any peace process, leading me to wonder whether Hamas wanted this.
Will it? The peace process has been stalled for 20 years. Even if the Palestinians all sat on their hands singing "Give peace a chance" how long would they have to wait for Israel to stop bulldozing their homes, stealing their land and blockading their tiny remaining Bantustans?
And to the point of 'what were members of Hamas thinking?' the status quo in Gaza was that they died slowly with no hope and no future in an location that had been 'de-developed' to use the term coined by the political economist Sara Roy. With Israel restricting even access to food and water. They'd tried non-violent means in 2018 and it had failed, apart from the fatuous idea that they should somehow create a Gandhi figure what practical steps did West have to offer them?
The attacks were despicable, but the world at large seemed quite happy to leave them to slowly die from deaths of despair (around 40% of Gazans are clinically depressed).
This is why biblical fundamentalism of all kinds is poisonous shit. It doesn't all literally lead to murderous nonsense, but the highlights tend to.
On that note; Netanyahu compared the Palestinians to Amalek yesterday.
ETA: I'm probably derailing the thread, and in that case I apologise, but it strikes me as an important aspect to address.
Yes, I posted a link to that on the previous page.
I'm reading some distressing things from people in Gaza who are now managing to get messages out. It really doesn't get any better, but until this is verified I can only say that some think that phosphorus bombs are being used.
This is, however, one of the more media-intense wars, with a great cloud of information, supposition, rumours and deliberate misinformation flying about. Sometimes it's hard to know what to believe.
Others will correct me if I'm wrong but haven't Hamas rejected various deals in the past?
Netanyahu is and always has been a nasty piece of work so his deployment of violent tropes from the Hebrew scriptures should come as no surprise, particularly as the lethal Hamas incursion occurred under his watch.
As for what the West and others can do about it ... I wish I knew. We're going to see Gaza pulverised, vicious urban warfare and street to street, rubble heap to rubble heap and tunnel to tunnel fighting, hostages and their captors killed, Israeli soldiers killed, the prospect of thousands upon thousands of Palestinian deaths from disease, malnutrition and war.
And when it finally ends generations of Palestinians traumatised and radicalised still further and launching revenge attacks on Israel and on anyone who supported its actions for decades and decades to come.
I don't see anything positive that Israel's most vocal supporters have to offer other than constant warfare and the suppression of Palestinians however militant or moderate - whether Muslim, Christian or of all faiths or none. Equally, I don't see what those critical of Israel have to offer other than the pious hope that sooner or later both sides will sit down and talk.
Sure, we can cite the Peace Process in Northern Ireland and the Peace and Reconciliation process in South Africa. But in neither of these places did we see massive aerial bombardments of urban areas or miles and miles of tunnels to be taken yard by yard.
I'm not sure I can think of any analogous situations. Vietnam?
To me, a Brit, this is hard to comprehend, mind-blowing. I mean I had never heard this before. So Israel can't be held to account by the USA because otherwise the politicians would get voted out?
Did any of those "deals" actually involve a free, independent Palestinian state in control of its own borders and not sliced and diced by illegal settlements? I think we all know the answer to that. In any case, my recollection is that Israel has always demanded that Hamas recognise Israel before any negotiations, which is a neat way of demanding your opponent surrender before you discuss terms. Meanwhile the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has become merely a puppet regime of Israel.
And of course Israel has supported Hamas in the past as a means of weakening the various secular groups against the occupation - this includes the current PM.
[Yes, I'm repeating myself, but to consider Hamas as a sui generis movement does a disservice to the complexity of the situation].
Come on. Israel has launched large scale attacks inside Gaza before now. Not on this scale admittedly. But they've launched airstrikes and ground invasion before now.
But are you seriously suggesting they hadn't anticipated a similar reaction?
I wouldn't be surprised if the Israeli body count exceeded Hamas's expectations but they would surely have expected to inflict considerable casualties given the scale of their operation. And they'd have known that Israel would retaliate and do so very hard.
I'm no apologist for Israel. It's illegally planted settlements and thrown its weight around for decades.
But I not an apologist for Hamas either.
They launched a larger scale operation and would have expected a larger scale reaction. Perhaps not on this scale admittedly but they can hardly have expected Israel to have simply lobbed a few missiles over as a token gesture.
I remember a pro-Palestinian speaker at an event when the various 'intifadas' were deadly, but not on anywhere near the scale of the current conflict, saying that Palestinian youths chucking stones and using slings weren't out to harm anyone. It was a form of 'performance art.'
You don't have to be pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian to see how daft a claim that was. Draw attention to the inequalities and the lack of symmetry by all means - slings and stones against a heavily armed IDF - call it protest most certainly, but don't try and make out it was a form of street-theatre.
I remember a Loyalist paramilitary making that claim when he was foiled in an attempt to shoot up Stormont.
None of this justifies the bombing and potential starvation of 2.7m people of course or the ignoring of UN calls for restraint.
And if 'We're paying attention aren't we?' is a patronising remark aimed at me then I may be tempted to try some street theatre of my own and call you somewhere hot.
I don't know what 'effective resistance' looks like. It can't possibly look like this.
Meanwhile, something has to be done to get aid to the people who need it and to stop the wholesale massacre of Palestinian civilians.
A while ago at the start of working on a project with a client in the States, his company sent us, in the UK, a pre-contract form requiring that our company would not boycott Israel for the duration of the project. I can believe the above.
I'm quite serious, and I did not intend the remark to sound patronizing.
Which is a lot, given that they're usually caught throwing stones.
On the other hand, there are 3 million people in the West Bank, about 45% of which are under 15. So let's say at least 1.5 million are under 18.
It's a terrible thing to imprison children for throwing stones, no question. But let's not get carried away thinking it is a lot of Palestinian children who are doing this.
If my mathematics are correct it's like 0.05% of all West Bank Palestinian children are in an Israeli jail in any year.
Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response.
That's an interesting definition of "performance art"
If it aid's your understanding, @Gamma Gamaliel , I believe @Ruth is saying that Hamas's actions were at least "effective" in drawing attention back to the conflict. I think it's probably stating the obvious to say that no Palestinian group has ever been in a position to secure a free Palestine from Israel by military force. Consequently whether an action is effective (leaving aside moral considerations) surely depends on its ability to force the international community to put pressure on Israel for peace.
Is it? The performance is the children can never beat a heavily armed military force and they're never going to inflict any real damage throwing stones.
It's a performative act of defiance. I don't understand what is hard to understand about this definition.
I don't think Hamas is interested in the "international community", these actions are clearly aimed at provoking a very specific audience. Namely others in the region.
What's hard to understand is your introduction of "delinquency" into the definition.
Most Palestinian children have extended family networks which values education - Palestinians have one of the highest rates of literacy and university education in the region.
Children involved in these kinds of attacks often do not have family ties for whatever reason. Hence delinquency.
I'm not sure what else to tell you.
Is that not delinquency? In this case he has parents but the father is refusing to pay for legal fees because he says the child should have been in school.
Wikipedia says
"Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority.[1] The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way."
By Israeli definitions behaving in an unacceptable way would seem to include "living in Gaza" or "having parents who own land settlers want".
But even there, the majority of people in the West Bank think it is a pretty crazy way to behave and serves no purpose.
At least the ones I've spoken to when I went there.
I'm not talking about Gaza. I was very specifically talking about the West Bank.
There are no children in Israeli jails from Gaza - for one thing the law which West Bankers live under doesn't apply to Gaza.
The latter of the two I mentioned very much include the West Bank.
Whether or not that's delinquency is not my point; the fact that you defined "performance art" in terms of delinquency when you said "Performance art is exactly what it is. Delinquency encouraged by others in order to provoke a response" is the issue.
Well I'm sorry if it offends you, but my understanding is that this is a reasonable description.
Of course I suppose my years of trying to understand the issues and the multiple trips traveling to the West Bank and talking to people there could be wrong.
You think the definition of "performance art" involves delinquency? So all "performance art" has to involve delinquency? There cannot exist non-delinquent "performance art"?
Because that's what you implied.
Frankly, I don't think you actually understand what I'm challenging you about because you keep on going on about how throwing stones is delinquency, which is not actually the point I'm getting at. I'm getting at the point that you appear to define "performance art" as "delinquency". That has in itself nothing to do with the West Bank and is solely about the definition of the term "performance art". I thought the term meant "Artworks that are created through actions performed by the artist or other participants, which may be live or recorded, spontaneous or scripted". Sure, you could do performance art that involved delinquency, but it's not an essential part of it, which is what your sentence implied.
This is considered to be performance art by some who encourage it (older people, other youths) because everyone knows it has zero positive effect and only results in negative ones (children are shot and imprisoned). The "performance art" aspect is that it is a performative act of defiance.
It is associated with delinquency in the West Bank for reasons I've explained before - the vast majority of young people don't do it, many parents don't accept it (or think it has any value over going to school and believe it causes families unnecessary extra hardship), many of those imprisoned have other issues etc.
From my conversations with adults in the West Bank, there are at least a proportion of people who think the children who do this are delinquents (and they talk about them as people in my town talk about young people who joyride cars and then set them alight).
Of course if you have better information about the public understanding of how stone-throwing children end up in Israeli jails, I would be pleased to hear it.
I don't and never claimed to. I was merely questioning your definition of "performance art" because the way you phrased it implied that "delinquency" was part of the definition. I'm glad you've clarified that that wasn't what you meant.
Doublethink, Temporary Epiphanies Hosting
Ok. I get that.
I also understand how seriously @Ruth is taking the issue and respect that. I may have misinterpreted her comment. I certainly don't want to start a stone-throwing contest here, 'performance art' or otherwise.
The Bishop of Norwich has an appeal for the hospital in Gaza which was bombed - details on the diocesan website. He visited the hospital just before this kicked off.
And so for an American, at least in my situation, all I can feel is a kind of grief. Also, I took a course in ethnic conflict in undergrad and...it all feels really predictable. It's like an older generation set up two train lines that were guaranteed to slam into each other, and now all we can do is watch inertia take its terrible course. Being a political science geek, there's something fascinating about it, but it's also horrifying.
Not sure how this feeds into the general thread, but that's a thought on how to talk about it.
The US hands over billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and apparently puts no restrictions upon its use. We're totally complicit. The US wouldn't have to cut off military aide entirely; we could back off from our usual shoulder-to-shoulder no matter what stance. But considering the many shitty things we do, I'm not holding my breath.
I only visited Israel once, in 1996, right before the first Palestinian elections. I was definitely pro-Israel prior to that visit; my parents had a good friend who had lost her entire family in the Holocaust, and I was brought up with a view of Israel as very heroic in the face of danger from all sides. And coming from a big state in a big country, when I visited I was struck by how small it was and how close together everything was. We went to the Golan Heights, and I saw how Syria is right there. Nothing like being in the US where we're surrounded by Canada, Mexico and oceans. But going through all the checkpoints that separated Arab areas and neighborhoods from Jewish ones and seeing the differences in the way they looked really changed my view -- I know ghettos when I see them.
I could say a lot, but I don't really know how. I definitely wouldn't go near calling myself pro-Israel at this point. I think "apartheid" is probably a fair analogy for what's going on, and it might be like the Native Americans. It's not that Israelis hate Palestinians, but given the way the state is established, they're a nuisance at best, the usual trap that you can't have Israel be simultaneously a Jewish state and a proper secular Democracy.
And so Palestinians are forever identified as "a problem."
At the same time, per an expression I recently picked up, "this house is haunted, but there are children inside." You can't just pluck Israel off of the map without and big bloody displacement, another echo of what Jewish people have been going through since forever.
I can't really support anyone in this situation, as identity groups. Palestine becoming a country would probably involve another round of ethnic cleansing as angry people finally got to vent their anger as illustrated in Psalm 137, and I don't want to watch that show either, even if I could understand exactly why they'd do that.
My dark joke, which would probably tick off everyone involved, would be to slap down a new secular country with the strict removal of all religious identity and call it Hamartia.
It also personally bugs me because I have friends, generally decent people, on both sides of the argument and I can't help but empathize. It all just sucks.
The current status quo condemns Palestinians to slow extinction as a people, and everyone who essentially counsels doing nothing is culpable in their demise. Furthermore it is incredibly dangerous to tell a people that every single path to their liberation is racist/anti-Semitic.
There are vigils and
in Britain for this weekend. I'd expect the mood, particularly in the London one, will be very angry.