Tag: Israel

Munther Amira’s Statement after Prison Release #Palestinians #Israelioccupation

I am happy to say that my friend, Munther Amira, was released from an Israeli military prison about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Munther released a thank you statement on Facebook yesterday, and I want to share it with any of my readers who may have participated in the “free Munther” actions I posted here.

Recall that Munther was arrested for quietly, non-violently protesting Israel’s policy of imprisoning children in its military prisons. He was peacefully walking down the street in his own neighborhood holding up a picture of the Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi, who remains in prison for the “crime” of slapping one of the soldiers who shot her young cousin in the head.

Here is Munther’s letter:

JUN 17, 2018 — My dear friends,

I would like to start my message “post” by thanking each and every woman, man, organization, union, and group for your tremendous support and solidarity. My imprisonment is no more than one small event in the series of the long lasting occupation’s violations of human rights. Since the beginning of occupation 70 years ago, the violations of human rights never stopped. They just varied in shape from cold blood killing, to injuring or imprisoning. They included land confiscation, home demolitions, road blockage, siege, exile, individual and public punishments, all of which contribute to a system of ethnic cleansing. All of which destroy human lives, deprive freedom, erase dignity, end lives, kill hope, and steal childhoods.

My short, but tough and humiliating, six month imprisonment empowered me and strengthened my convictions. Since the beginning I knew that the nonviolence approach I adopted to defend Palestinians human rights, dignity, and freedom will be difficult. This is still true and was confirmed by the violence of the Israeli occupation’s response to my, and many other activists, nonviolent resistance. Your solidarity and support makes it easier for me and others like me to lead this every day fight.

This support will empower the nonviolence movement in Palestine in this long-term endeavor. I hope this support will continue and grow in scale and forms.
During my imprisonment I met with comrades, spending, 36, 30, 28 or 26 years in Israeli political prisons. A lifetime of prison is their fate on this earth. Each of them has their own heartbreaking and incredibly strong story. I listened to them tell me about their dreams, feelings, and hopes for freedom. I learned from their enthusiasm and was stunned by their positive, ongoing energy. They have an incredible discipline and are eager to learn and to teach each other. In prison, I attended lectures discussing global sustainable environments, social sciences, human rights, and international humanitarian laws. It was not – and is still not – easy for me to grasp the source of their hope, their energy, and their ability to think about things like economics and the environment, all while living in a 9 square meter cell.

I saw them touch the glass separating them and their mothers during the monthly visits, imagining they could actually feel them.
I admire their spirit, and hope that one day, sooner rather than later, they will wake up outside, next to their loved ones. As a human rights defender, activist, social worker, father, and most importantly as a human, I and many others in and outside of Palestine will continue our peaceful fight for justice, dignity, freedom and a brighter future.

Finally, I would to like to thank you all again, and to extend my gratitude to all your tremendous support during my time in Israel’s kangaroo courts, which fail to meet the basic standards of fair trial and due process.
These military courts are designed to criminalize Palestinian rejection of the occupation and punish Palestinians for demanding their basic human and national rights. They are a conveyor belt of convictions and injustice that prosecute between 500 and 700 Palestinian children every year, with a near 100 percent conviction rate.

I would like to thank all who demonstrated in the streets, and those who were punished for it. Thank you to the 15,000 people who signed the petition for my freedom. I wish I could thank them all one by one. Thank you to all human rights defenders, unions, human rights NGOs, grassroots NGOs, journalist, bloggers, individuals and groups.

Last but not least I would like to thank my family who has stood by me in this dangerous endeavor from the very first day.

Munther Amira
Aida Refugee Camp
Occupied Palestinian Territories

(Posted on Facebook on 17 June 2018)

Israel, the Great Western Narrative and the Kingdom of God #zionism #jonathancook

Jonathan Cook, a British journalist living and working in Nazareth, Israel.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist living and working in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001.  You can find his biography and CV, including his many books, here.

I read Mr. Cook’s blog regularly. I also check out any of his articles or books whenever I come across them.

Yesterday, The Greenville Post (another excellent website I read regularly) published a Cook article entitled “How the Corporate Media Enslave Us to a World of Illusions.” Cook describes the slow evolution of his own social, political and historical consciousness as his work in journalism taught him to recognize something he calls the “Great Western Narrative.”

I hope you will take the time to read Cook’s article.  He is extremely insightful.  I have posted an excerpt below with a link to the entire article.

Cook’s analysis can be particularly challenging for Christians. He not only diagnoses the ways in which western Christians succumb to establishment propaganda, just like everyone else — no, brothers and sisters, we are not immune to the dangers of brainwashing —

But Cook’s advice for breaking free of the “Great Western Narrative” and learning to understand and engage in this world from a more humane perspective, is very similar to the argument I tried to make for Christian readers in my book I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

Christian disciples can only perceive this world aright, that is, from a New Testament, heavenly perspective, when we learn to replace the Great Western Narrative with Jesus’ own Narrative of the Kingdom of God.

That should be a lifetime goal for every follower of Jesus.  Yet, it is so much easier to live as loyal Americans than it is to be faithful citizens of God’s kingdom on earth.

This, in a nutshell, is the goal of my blog. Everything I write at HumanityRenewed, is something (I hope) that will help us to peel off the worldly consciousness — the Great Western Narrative — that works overtime to hold us captive and cripple our ability to live out God’s Kingdom citizenship in the here and now.

Nowhere is the evangelical church’s idolatry of the Great Western Narrative, coupled with its abandonment of Jesus’ Narrative of the Kingdom of God, more evident than in its blind devotion to Christian Zionism and the state of Israel, whatever its crimes.

Here is the excerpt:

“Israel is enthusiastically embraced by the Great Western Narrative: it is supposedly a liberal democracy, many of its inhabitants dress and sound like us, its cities look rather like our cities, its TV shows are given a makeover and become hits on our TV screens. If you don’t stand too close, Israel could be Britain or the US.

“But there are clues galore, for those who bother to look a little beyond superficialities, that there is something profoundly amiss about Israel. A few miles from their homes, the sons of those western-looking families regularly train their gun sights on unarmed demonstrators, on children, on women, on journalists, on medics, and pull the trigger with barely any compunction.

“They do so not because they are monsters, but because they are exactly like us, exactly like our sons. That is the true horror of Israel. We have a chance to see ourselves in Israel – because it is not exactly us, because most of us have some physical and emotional distance from it, because it still looks a little strange despite the best efforts of the western media, and because its own local narrative – justifying its actions – is even more extreme, even more entitled, even more racist towards the Other than the Great Western Narrative.

“It is that shocking realisation – that we could be Israelis, that we could be those snipers – that both opens the door and prevents many from stepping through to see what is on the other side. Or, more troubling still, halting at the threshhold of the doorway, glimpsing a partial truth without understanding its full ramifications.”

You can read Cook’s entire article here.

Noura Erakat Explains Gaza Protests & Palestinian Grievances on CBSN #gazakillings #zionism #nouraerakat

Professor Noura Erakat

Last week I came across an excellent CBSN interview with Noura Erakat talking about the recent protests in Gaza and the massacre of unarmed Palestinians there.

Ms. Erakat is a Palestinian-American human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at George Mason University.  You can check out her impressive professional biography at her webpage here.

Two things about this interview were unusual:

First, the newswoman asking the questions was respectful and allowed Professor Erakat to give her responses fully without interruption, both rather unusual behaviors during those rare occasions when Palestinians appear on US corporate media.

Second, Ms. Erakat’s answers offered one of the most articulate, detailed and knowledgeable presentations of Palestinian suffering and their right to self-determination that I have ever seen on American television.

Your time will be well rewarded by taking the 8 minutes needed to watch. Just click below:

“PROPAGANDA 101: HOW TO DEFEND A MASSACRE,” A Superb Deconstruction of a Zionist Attempt to Justify Israel’s Slaughter of Palestinians

Current Affairs online magazine has an excellent article by Nathan J. Robinson entitled “PROPAGANDA 101: HOW TO DEFEND A MASSACRE.”

Recently, the New York Times — a staunchly pro-Zionist newspaper —  published an op-ed from Jewish Journal editor Shmuel Rosner entitled “Israel Needs to Protect Its Borders. By Whatever Means Necessary.”

Rosner is a typical apologist for political Zionism, evincing all the heartlessness and ideological blindness we have come to expect from such defenders of the indefenseless.

Mr. Robinson provides a text-book lesson in how to read as a critical thinker.  He does a marvelous job of deconstructing Rosner’s propaganda line-by-line.

I encourage  to read the entire piece. It will reward your effort many times over. Just click on the title above.  Thanks.

Learn to See Through Israeli & Christian Zionist Propaganda #christianzionism #memri #gaza

I looked in on the CBN website today just out of curiosity.  There I found an article on the many Palestinian people killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza under this headline:   ‘Hamas Sacrificing Children’: Why Gaza Clashes Aren’t Peaceful Protests but a Hamas-Inspired Death Cycle (dated 5/17/18).

Knowing that CBN is a major provider of “Christian news” in the US, and that an article like this will (mis)inform many, many more people than will ever read even-handed reports on what has happened in Gaza, I decided to use this article as an exercise in how to deconstruct propaganda.

This article is  pure propaganda for a Christian Zionist readership, intended (a) to tell people what they want to hear and thereby (b) reinforce what they already believe.  There is nothing informative about it.

  1. First, notice the headline.  The Hamas organization is mentioned 3 times.  In Zionist parlance, Hamas is nothing more than a deranged terrorist organization intent on destroying Israel by any means possible.  Thus, the headline immediately paints the past 7 weeks of protests as an exclusively Hamas-controlled, “terrorist” event designed somehow to destroy Israel.

Note the phrases “cult of death” and “sacrificing children,” both implicit references to the repeated Israeli refrain that all Palestinians — especially Hamas — raise their children to hate Jews; that they have no appreciation for life but only yearn to die as suicide bombers attacking Israelis.

So, the stage is set. This is a story about the irrational hatred of people whose only goal is to “drive Israel into the sea,” as Zionists love to repeat.

2. Second, notice that all the embedded videos, ostensibly providing evidence for the many inflammatory claims made throughout the article, come from MEMRI TV.

So, let’s check out MEMRI.  What is this organization? Where does it come from?  Who is behind it? A little investigation (take some time to read this investigative article from The Guardian newspaper by Brian Whitaker) will quickly reveal that MEMRI is a “non-profit institute” located in Washington, D.C. (subsidized by US tax dollars) established by former members of the Israeli intelligence services, i.e. it is a strongly Zionist outfit that exists in order to promote political Zionism in the English-speaking world.

It seems that MEMRI’s “research” method is to watch and read Arabic and Farsi (otherwise known as Persian; the language of Iran) TV, magazines and newspapers.  They find the most outlandish public statements possible — without providing any context, so the reader/viewer has no way of judging how representative the statements may be — and then disseminate those statements as if they represent the widespread views of the average Palestinian, Arab or Iranian.

THAT is a dishonest, misrepresentation of the facts, and it makes me angry to know that my tax dollars (and yours) are subsidizing this stuff!  It is not hard to find a convenient wacko saying something stupid wherever you look. (I am tempted to say, “Just turn on Christian TV.”) But using those kinds of words to depict an entire group of people as equally wacko is not only dishonest; it is also slanderous and racist, things that every Christian ought to stand against, call out and reject whenever possible.

3. Once we get into the body of the article, its first major point is that:

“…one Hamas official admitted that 50 of the 62 people killed were Hamas members, a group labeled a terrorist organization by the US State Department.”

Let’s ask a few questions about this statement:

(a) 62 people were killed on Monday, May 14 alone.  The total number of dead over the entire period of the protests was 112 – 120, while the wounded were 12,000 – 20,000.  The article deliberately fudges the death toll and fails to mention the injured in order to downplay the vast numbers of people shot by Israeli soldiers.

(b) Is the so-called “Hamas official” a genuine Hamas spokesman? I don’t know. That needs investigation.

(c) If he is, does he know what he is talking about? Is he telling the truth? Or is this another example of an organization taking credit for something it didn’t really do? That happens often. This also needs investigation.

(d) Reminding us that Hamas is “labeled a terrorist organization by the US State Department” is intended to give the claim special authority, legitimizing it.  However, our State Department works in lockstep with the Israeli government and its own views on its “enemies.” So, this assertion is nothing more than a tautology, i.e. the US government is repeating Israeli assertions. It has no independent value.

4. Yes, indeed, Hamas has committed past acts of violence against Israelis, though nothing of significance since Gaza was cordoned off in 2011. (We don’t have time or space here to address the claims of “rockets fired” from Gaza into Israel or the horrific genocide committed by the Israeli military against civilians in Gaza.  I urge you to watch the new documentary, “Killing Gaza”, by the journalists Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen).

But, within Gaza, Hamas functions largely as a political organization which many people join because they need connections to get a job, or they are involved in Hamas-sponsored community/youth activities. Also, not every member of Hamas is involved in their military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.  In fact, the majority of Hamas members are not part of its military wing. They are two different things.

5. But even if all of the people shot and killed by Israeli snipers in Gaza were members of Hamas, since when does membership in an organization frowned upon by the government give the military permission to kill unarmed people — unarmed men, women and children often standing hundreds of yards away?  Is it permissible to shoot anyone simply because they are/may be members of Hamas?

6. The article continues to misrepresent what actually happened in Gaza, as all major US media outlets have also done.  So we read that these deaths resulted from“confrontations with Israeli troops as they [the Palestinians] tried to breach the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.”

Yes, even this man was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper while sitting in his wheelchair.

(a) Go scan the net. Watch the many videos now available about the Gazan Land Day Marches.  I have.  I have not seen a single one that merits the label “confrontation.” That word implies close contact between two groups, which would require Palestinians to be on the opposite side of their fence, able to make physical contact with Israeli soldiers.  I have not seen or heard of any place where this happened.  In fact, even Israel admits that not one single soldier along the fence was injured in any way. There was no “breach” of the “border” anywhere.  Period.  There were no “confrontations.”  There were only unarmed people being shot dead by army snipers positioned many, many, many yards away.

Neither have I see anyone throw a bomb or Molotov cocktail or shoot a missile.  Though these charges are often repeated, I have yet to see a scrap of evidence to substantiate them.  Have you?

Norman Finkelstein is an historian with a special focus on the history of Israel-Palestine. He is the son of Holocaust survivors.

(b) As Norman Finkelstein has ably explained (here, here, and here ) the huge fence surrounding Gaza is not a border. The fence is not delineating two countries.  It is a prison boundary, unilaterally and arbitrarily constructed by Israel to confine the Palestinians living there.  It is ghetto fence; something that should haunt every Jew who aims a rifle into it. Palestinians hate this fence because it keeps them confined like animals in a cage.

Followers of Jesus Christ are supposed to be supremely devoted to telling the truth and eschewing lies.  That includes a refusal to spread misinformation.  Furthermore, everyone, but especially those who claim to be God’s people, need to exercise the common sense of reading responsibly, evaluating our sources of information, and testing the veracity of claims made by so-called “authorities.”

Shame on CBN for spreading lies and misinformation about the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Shame on all Christian Zionists for holding their Zionist ideology as more sacred than Jesus’ own convictions about truth, honesty and justice.

Scot McKnight’s Post About Israel, Christians and Palestinians #Gaza #Christianzionism #courtevangelicals

Scot McKnight has a good blog post today criticizing Israel’s brutality in Gaza this past month.  He also takes the opportunity to respond to his “hate mail” (why don’t I ever receive hate mail?) from fellow Christians (why is anyone claiming to be a Christian sending hate mail?) condemning him for failing to support Israel as he should.

Scot’s response is spot on.  Here is an excerpt, but I do recommend reading it all at his blog, Jesus Creed:

“It was a shameful thing for evangelical pastors to be celebrating the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem while just a few miles away the Israeli army was killing dozens of Palestinian protesters against Israeli policies. (The death toll stood at 60 as of Tuesday, Palestinian officials said, and more than 1,700 people had been hospitalized.) It’s shameful, not only because they use their theology to make the moving of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a matter of “eternal” significance, but also because they refuse to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, some of whom are themselves evangelical Christians.

“Do I fear being cursed by God for saying that it was a shameful thing for these two pastors to join in the celebration at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy? No, because those who so easily invoke that ancient promise fail to think about what it covers. I do want God to “bless” Israel, as did the ancient prophets who regularly delivered divine messages to their compatriots.

“But those prophets never called for an uncritical acceptance of whatever happened to be the current policies and practices of Israel’s leaders. Here, for example, is a typical one of those ancient messages from the Lord: “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice” (Malachi 3:5)…”

Gideon Levy, 60 Dead in Gaza and the End of Israeli Conscience #Zionism #Gaza

Gideon Levy of HAARETZ continues to speak as the prophetic conscience for an inhumane, Zionist Israel.  Today, one day after the Gaza Land Day protests, he writes a lament, a funeral dirge, for the final burial of his nation’s conscience.

I have excerpted his Opinion piece below, but please be sure to read the whole thing.  It merits pondering and prayers for our humanity.

He predicts, correctly I believe, only dark days ahead, unfolding predictably from the dark decades past.

The verdict of “heartless persecutor, shameless executioner,” has been passed on the American establishment as well as Israel.  America funds Israel’s military, provides their weaponry and then bites its tongue whenever Israel goes on another blood-curdling rampage, leaving shredded, dismembered Palestinian bodies in its wake.

None of us should have any time to waste on the self-righteous debates about “even-handedness,” on the importance of seeing both sides of this “complicated story.”  It is meaningless platitude advanced by shallow thinkers that only obscures the truth of history.

I have no more time for David Gregory’s condescending smirks on CNN as he so graciously allows Diana Buttu a few moments (though he can’t stop from interrupting) to “share her perspective” on the Gazan slaughter.

Thank you CNN. A statement of facts is only a “perspective.”

I have no more time for the arrogance of Thomas Friedman and his ilk (in the White House and beyond) who continue to blame the victims as if they were mindless robots programmed by Hamas master-minds, with no personal agency and too  bloody impatient to wait for the Utopia that could be Gaza if only the people would stop shitting in their own nest. (Has Friedman never cracked open a book not written by a propagandist for political Zionism?)

The moral insouciance of these self-important talking heads is infuriating.

Remember when Friedman urged the Palestinians to mimic Gandhi and adopt his methods of non-violence? (If you don’t remember, I have written about Friedman’s piece with links to his article here.)  From his over-stuffed office chair, Friedman urged Palestinians, young and old, to sacrifice their lives for freedom, promising a compassionate Israeli response.

We have all now seen how Israeli compassion deals with massive non-violent marches.

But even worse is the evangelical/fundamentalist obsession with an embassy in Jerusalem while, on the very same day, more than 60 unarmed people are assassinated, and thousands more maimed for life, by the most immoral army in the world.

The silence of American evangelicalism screams an eternal accusation, “Here we are, a godless people; bloated by comfort; hardened by selfishness; ignorant by choice; disinterested by design…and guilty as hell.”

“When will the moment come in which the mass killing of Palestinians matters anything to the right? When will the moment come in which the massacre of civilians shocks at least the left-center? If 60 people slain don’t do it, perhaps 600? Will 6,000 jolt them?

“When will the moment come in which a pinch of human feeling arises, if only for a moment, toward the Palestinians? Sympathy? At what moment will someone call a halt, and suggest compassion, without being branded an eccentric or an Israel hater?

“When will there be a moment in which someone admits that the slaughterer has, after all, some responsibility for the slaughter, not only the slaughtered, who are of course responsible for their own slaughter?

“Sixty people killed didn’t matter to anyone – perhaps 600 would? How about 6,000? Will Israel find all the excuses and justifications then also? Will the blame be laid on the slain people and their “dispatchers” even then, and not a word of criticism, mea culpa, sorrow, pity or guilt will be heard?…

 “The truth is that Israel is well prepared to massacre hundreds and thousands, and to expel tens of thousands. Nothing will stop it. This is the end of conscience, the show of morality is over. The last few days’ events have proved it decisively. The tracks have been laid, the infrastructure for the horror has been cast. Dozens of years of brainwashing, demonization and dehumanization have borne fruit. The alliance between the politicians and the media to suppress reality and deny it has succeeded. Israel is set to commit horrors. Nobody will stand in its way any longer. Not from within or from without….
“We’re already there. That moment is here. Rwanda is coming to Gaza and Israel is celebrating. Two million human beings we’ve imprisoned already, and their fate matters to no one. The pictures that occasionally flicker of children without electricity and parents without water, of crippled people being shot to death and of leg amputees, all children of refugees from the 1948 disaster we landed on their heads.
“What has that to do with us? It’s Hamas’ fault. Sixty individuals killed in one day, and not a shred of sorrow has been sighted in Israel. From now on, it never will be.”

Moshe Dayan Boasted About Israel Being a Settler-Colonial Enterprise

Joe Lauria has an excellent article today at Consortiumnews.com entitled “U.S. Media Whitewashes Gaza Massacre.”  The entire article is well worth reading.  It includes a well known statement by Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician, who was never ashamed about telling the truth concerning the creation of the state of Israel:  it was a a settler-colonial enterprise accomplished by military conquest.

Calling Israel “a settler-colonial” enterprise is not anti-Semitic, nor is it an ahistorical mischaracterization as pro-Zionist propaganda would have you believe.  It is the truth.

You can read the excerpt containing Dayan’s statement below”

“Deflecting blame from Israel is one thing. But projecting it onto the victim is quite another. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon on Monday called for the U.N. Security Council to, “Condemn Hamas for their war crimes,” because “every casualty on the border is a direct victim of Hamas.” 

“He said in a statement released by Israel’s U.N. mission:

“Condemn Hamas for the war crimes they commit. Not only does Hamas incite tens of thousands of Palestinians to breach the border and hurt Israeli civilians, but Hamas also deliberately endangers Palestinian civilians. The murder of Israeli civilians or deaths of the people of Gaza – each one of them is a desirable outcome for Hamas. Every casualty on the border is a victim of Hamas’ war crimes, every death is a result of Hamas’ terror activity, and these casualties are solely Hamas’ responsibility.”

“That’s one way to wash the Israeli government’s (blood-soaked) hands of the matter. Especially if you fear Israel will be accused of war crimes itself for its actions on Monday. Danon mentioned “breaching the border.” But it is virtually impossible to get in or out of Gaza without Israeli permission. Burning kites lofted over the barrier that pens in nearly two million Gazans subject to an internationally unrecognized economic blockade, supposedly constitutes “breaching,” in Danon’s mind.

“He would do well to consider the words of Moshe Dayan, one of the Israel’s Founding Fathers, who said in 1956:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.” He went on: “We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.”

Words of Sanity About Gaza from Today’s HAARETZ

To read the entire Haaretz opinion piece, go here.

“Protesters in Gaza lobbing rocks and Molotov cocktails or cutting through the fence are far from the textbook definition of “peaceful protesters” engaging in civil disobedience.

“But neither do they present a lethal threat to 13 battalions of Israel army forces.

“Indeed, to call every teenage protester a terrorist recruited by Hamas bent on murdering Israelis flies in the face of truth. For Jared Kushner to say, in the day’s sole mention of the day’s accumulating death toll, that Gazan protestors were “part of the problem, and not part of the solution” is to fail to recognize that Gazans themselves – yes, flesh and blood humans living just over hour southwest of Tel Aviv – must be part of the solution. 

“The feeling of being forgotten and caged in is part of the reason they are protesting, most of them with full knowledge that reaching the homes of their grandparents, rusty old keys in hand, is a symbolic show rather than a realistic goal. 

“Do we really imagine this so-called “March of Return” to be an existential threat to the strongest army in the Middle East? Demonstrators might be wild with rage and even psyched up by Hamas slogans, but they’re not armed and equipped to take on Israel. 

“Are we to the point where the IDF is more worried about the optics of setting a precedent – a Gazan reaching Israeli soil – than the loss of life?

“Hamas may as well be sending young demonstrators into a firing squad. But does that mean Israel has no choice but to keep pulling the trigger?”

Ilene Prusher is a journalist, columnist and author. She teaches journalism at Florida Atlantic University. Twitter: @ileneprusher

Today’s Slaughter in Gaza May Be Followed by Even Worse Tomorrow, Please Pray That Doesn’t Happen

There appear to be no limits to either Israel’s lust for Palestinian blood or American indifference to an ally’s crimes against humanity.

A young boy overcome by tear gas.

Of course, the ongoing crime scene is Gaza.

Today alone, Israeli soldiers have killed 58 people, bringing the total death toll thus far to 107.  2,700 people, men, women and children, were seriously wounded today, bringing the total number of crippled and maimed to 12,000.

One of Monday’s victims.
Israeli civilians watch the protests and the shootings as sightseers.

Not one single Israeli soldier has been injured or killed by these unarmed protesters.  In fact, so sleight is the “threat” that for some Israeli civilians, watching Palestinians get shot inside the Gaza fence has become a leisure time activity.  Pack up a picnic box and relax for a few hours while cheering for the bravery of “the world’s most moral army.”

Please, let those figures sink in.

107 people dead. 2,700 additional human beings wounded.  Why?

Gazan town after Israeli bombing

Because they want to be treated like human beings.  They want freedom of movement; to decide for themselves where they will live; to gain an education and seek employment as they please; to carry themselves with dignity without the constant fear of being shot by an irritated Israeli sniper.

Palestinian refugees 1948

Tomorrow the massacre may become even worse.  Tuesday is Nakba Remembrance Day. May 15, 2018 will mark the 70th anniversary of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by Israeli military forces in 1948.

I have heard that there may be a plan for the protesters to throw themselves en masse against the prison fence confining them to Gaza.

I have no idea if this is true.  Norman Finkelstein reported that he was told by leaders in Gaza that it may be a possibility.

Please pray that this will not happen. Pray that the leaders of these protests will decide against that action, if they haven’t already (if it was ever a real possibility). — (And NO, the Gaza marches have NOT been organized by Hamas, nor is Hamas using them for “terrorism.” This is pure propaganda. The council of organizers for these marches has one Hamas representative, where he is outnumbered by numerous other community representatives.)

Remember that this famous fence that Israel guards so fervently is not a border crossing. It is not an internationally recognized territorial, state or national boundary.  It is a prison fence.

The people of Gaza are not a population of illegal aliens hoping to immigrate into Israel.  They are 1.8 million prisoners, confined against their will to 141 square miles of territory.  Barred from a place they once called home.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated pieces of real estate on the planet.  Israel makes life insufferable there.

Gaza is a prison.  Israel is the jailer.  The precious “fence” keeps Gazans in a cage like animals.  Who wouldn’t want out?

If you have absolutely no control over your manner of living, and you have no hope of planning for a better future because everything about your world is controlled by the indiscriminate violence of a heartless occupying power, then maybe dying as a martyr in the cause of winning freedom for the next generation is the best way, the only way, to give your life meaning.

I can understand that.

I bet you could too if you found yourself imprisoned in a place like Gaza.

Remember this when you next hear Israeli and American propagandists demonize the people of Gaza for their “failure to value life.”