A Blog from David Crump
Mr. Beinart was once a staunch Jewish Zionist — read his book The Crisis of Zionism.
More recently, he has changed his mind. Now he strongly advocates for Palestinian human rights and an end to the Occupation.
Today he was interviewed by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now where he criticizes Israel’s slaughter of innocent Palestinians. Take a listen:
Rob Dalrymple has become a good friend of mine, so it was fun to do this interview with him. We began with a few technical difficulties, but it smooths out quickly.
We discuss several different but related topics: Palestinian life in the Occupied Territory of the West Bank; Christian Zionism and its relation to the modern state of Israel; the current war against Gaza; and the ethical demands for citizenship in the kingdom of God today.
I hope you find this conversation interesting, challenging and educational. I pray that it will move you to action in protesting the current war, calling for a ceasefire and negotiations.
Call you elected representatives and ask them to please demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Avi Dichter is Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. In this interview he candidly admits that the final goal of Israel’s bombardment campaign is the ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian population from Gaza.
Nakba is the Arabic word for “catastrophe.” It is the standard reference to the first ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the war of 1947-49 when upwards of 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes.
To refer to the current war in Gaza as a second Nakba is to admit that Israel intends ethnic cleansing once more.
This war is about vengence, destruction and the elimination of as many Palestinians as possible. This ethnic cleansing will continue apace in the West Bank as it proceeds in Gaza.
The video speaks for itself. When it is combined with the numerous statements of Israeli politicians who have be advocating for genocide, it is not hard to see why Israel behaves as it does.
Journalist Ian Sinclair has an interview with Marjorie Cohn, an expert on International Law. It is posted in an article at ScheerPost.
In fact, given the current relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, including those in Gaza, Israeli has no “right” to defend itself against Palestinian attacks according to International Law.
Here is an excerpt of that article:
. . . For an armed attack to give rise to the right of self-defence, it must be directed from outside the territory under the control of the defending state. A state cannot invoke the right of self-defence to defend against an attack which originates inside a territory it occupies. Because Israel has continued to occupy Gaza, it has relinquished its right to claim self-defence in response to the Palestinian attacks.
In its 2004 advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) established the non-applicability of “self-defence” under Article 51 in the situation between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Israel remains an occupying power in Gaza despite its unilateral removal of settlements. After the 2006 election of Hamas, Israel imposed a blockade against Gaza which is specifically listed as an act of aggression under UN general assembly resolution 3314.
An occupying force has a duty to protect the people it occupies; it cannot claim self-defence against the occupied. Actions taken by Palestinians to resist the blockade are not “acts of aggression” so they do not allow Israel to claim it is acting in self-defence.
Aside from the illegality of targeting and killing civilians, what does international law say about Palestinians resisting the occupation, including with armed force?
Whether the use of force in the first instance is lawful is a separate question from how that force is carried out. For targeting and killing civilians and taking hostages, Hamas leaders can be charged with war crimes.
The Palestinians, however, have the right to self-determination and the right to resist Israel’s occupation of their territory, including through armed struggle.
In 1983, the UN general assembly reaffirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”
Gaza, together with the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is part of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The Occupied Palestinian Territory is a single territorial unit over which the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination is enshrined in international law, according to the ICJ’s Wall decision.
The legal test for occupation is “effective control,” which exists if the military forces of the adversary could assume physical control of any part of the country at any time. . .
You can read the entire article here.
Aida Refugee Camp is where Terry and I live when visiting the West Bank and Israel. It is filled with children.
Yesterday we received the following email informing us that one of these children had been murdered by Israeli soldiers.
As shocking as this story may be — and I hope it does shock you — I am sorry to say that its details are not unusual. We live in a cruel world where average, ordinary people commit horrible acts of cruelty every day.
Below is the email. (Emphasis is mine):
Dear friends,
This morning, just after fajr prayers, the seventeen-year-old
Mohammed Ali Aziah from Aida camp was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Mohammed, who was in his last year of high school, was shot when he
was on the roof of his house to study. The occupation soldiers raided
the camp, and placed snipers of rooftops and the watchtower next to
the UNRWA school and clinic.
After Mohammed was shot in the chest, the occupation army
prevented the Red Crescent ambulance from entering the camp, and
instead moved Mohammed’s critically injured body near the great key
of return. He had to wait there until the occupation authorities
arrested him and took him away. Mohammed died from his injuries
shortly after.
We are devastated by the senseless death of Mohammed, who was still
a child and had a bright future ahead of him.
During the raid that killed Mohammed, five people from Aida camp
were arrested, bringing the total of arrests from Aida and Al-Azza camp to 65. One of them is 32-year-old Hanin Al-Massaeed. She is the
first woman who was arrested from our community, and we are
worried about her well-being after worrying reports of physical
violence against women in Israeli prisons.
Please keep calling out to politicians and institutions in your country to
release Palestinian political prisoners, and end this injustice and
suffering.
Best wishes,
Anas Abu Srour
Director of Aida Youth Center
Last October 19th Jewish-Israeli historian Ilan Pappe gave a lecture at the Berkley Law School explaining the historical background to the October 7 attack by Hamas as well as the ongoing bombing of Gaza.
Professor Pappe has devoted his entire career to studying the history of his country and the effects of Zionism. He is a world-renowned authority on these subjects. He is also as much a prophet as he is an academic.
An historian with a heart and a conscience is the best sort to learn from in my view.
The video is one hour and a half long. If you don’t have time or inclination to listen to it all, I suggest beginning at the 20 minute mark where he begins to speak specifically about the current cirumstances.
Please, enjoy, listen and learn.
Greg Khalil is a Palestinian American who is also a graduate of Yale Law School. In the early 2000s he was a negotiator with the Palestinian team talking with Israeli negotiators about peace in Israeli-Palestine.
Drawing from his family background and his own first-hand experience, Greg discusses the history of Gaza, Hamas, the American church, and possible pathways forward towards an end to the current bloodshed.
I have recently attended and participated in several online seminars that thankfully included Palestinian Christians from the West Bank.
These brothers and sisters in Christ were offering their observations and feelings about the ongoing war against their people in Gaza (and the West Bank; yes the war has expanded beyond Gaza).
I am grateful for such opportunities because, when witnessing such horrendous tragedy, it is vital that we hear the voices of those who are actually enduring the suffering. We must listen to the words of the persecuted, the victims, those who are experiencing abuse, those who weep and mourn, those for whom imminent death is a real possibility.
Their voices are essential to understanding any conflict.
At the same time, I feel the need to humbly express a note of reservation about one theme that I see threading its way throughout the several webinars I have seen. Several Palestinian speakers have referred to the special spiritual connection that Palestinians typically feel toward their land.
I have noted two written instances hinting at such “blood and soil” sentiments below. (The second example was written on a PowerPoint slide without a reference):
We affirm that every citizen must be ready to defend his or her life, liberty and land (Kairos Palestine Document, para. 4.2.5)
Our land is meant to be a witness to God’s love manifested on the cross for all the people of the earth…
If I am misunderstanding the meaning of these oral and written references, then I invite correction. If a Palestinian believer can address my misunderstanding, please do.
Otherwise, I must voice my concerns.
For I fear that two errors are waiting to pounce on those believers who hold such convictions about their spiritual connection to the land of Palestine:
First, political Zionism (which is the basis of the Israeli state) is founded upon just such a purportedly psychic, spiritual, even ontological connection between the Jewish people, on the one hand, and the land of Israel, on the other.
This imagined, age-old people/land connection lays the cornerstone to their conviction that the land belongs exclusively to the Jews. For the land and the people are eternally bound together, according to political Zionism.
In this way, political Zionism reveals its roots in European blood and soil ethnic nationalism, the 19th century, Romantic philosophical belief that “the soul” of a national people-group was intertwined with the geography and landscape from which they trace their origin. So the Scots are bound to the land of Scotland; the Welsh are bound to Wales; etc.
This blood and soil ideology was the basis for Adolf Hitler’s Aryan doctrine and his horrific efforts to purify German territory of all non-Aryans/Germans. The parallels with Israel’s current work to “Judaize” the West Bank (and Gaza?), replacing Palestinians with Jewish settlers, are crystal clear to anyone who knows this history.
Nazism and political Zionism are kissin’ cousins.
Therefore, I cannot see the usefulness of the church of Jesus Christ adopting the language of blood and soil ethnic nationalism as its own.
Second, the New Testament clearly teaches God’s people that this world is not our home. No matter the warm memories created by lovely times of togetherness at hearth and home in our native vale, followers of Jesus Christ have no homeland in this fallen world. Rather, we are “aliens and strangers in this world” (Heb. 11:13, 16; 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:11).
Therefore, there is no spiritual obligation for Christians to defend their land. Nor did Jesus ever appoint the “holy land” to be a witness to God’s grace. This is a secularization of both the gospel and the meaning of our citizenship in the kingdom of God.
Yes, we must resist and condemn injustice.
When people are beaten and murdered, their homes demolished, families displaced and land stolen, then the prophets call us to protest, to cry out for justice, even to non-violently resist the oppressor. But this happens because injustice is sin. Oppression is wickedness.
Imputing imaginary spiritual qualities to one’s homeland is neither the answer nor a proper motivation to resist oppression because it is not biblical. And the history of its application shows damning results.
Zionist ethnic nationalism cannot be defeated by Palestinian ethnic nationalism. Nor do Christians have any business allying themselves with the toxic ideology of blood and soil, ethnic nationalism.
That is the error of Jewish-Christian Zionism, where Jews who say they follow Jesus compromise their allegiance to God’s kingdom – a global, multi-ethnic, international kingdom – by taking up the secular, ungodly standards and constraints of Zionist blood and soil nationalism.
Therefore, I ask my Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ to reconsider their current flirtations with blood and soil, ethnic nationalism as they justly resist Zionist efforts to rob them of what is theirs.
In his latest article for Consortium News, veteran journalist Chris Hedges gets the story exactly right when describing Israel’s genocidal plans for
both Gaza and the West Bank.
When a sociopath like Bibi Netanyahu (and members of his coalition government) repeatedly tell you that he/they plan to murder you and steal your home, it’s best to take them at their word.
Below is an excerpt of the article titled “Israel’s Final Solution.”
I covered the birth of Jewish fascism in Israel. I reported on the extremist Meir Kahane, who was barred from running for office and whose Kach Party was outlawed in 1994 and declared a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.
I attended political rallies held by Benjamin Netanyahu, who received lavish funding from rightwing Americans, when he ran against Yitzhak Rabin, who was negotiating a peace settlement with the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s supporters chanted “Death to Rabin.” They burned an effigy of Rabin dressed in a Nazi uniform. Netanyahu marched in front of a mock funeral for Rabin.
Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995, by a Jewish fanatic. Rabin’s widow, Lehea, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters for her husband’s murder.
Netanyahu, who first became prime minister in 1996, has spent his political career nurturing Jewish extremists, including Avigdor Lieberman, Gideon Sa’ar, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked.
His father, Benzion — who worked as an assistant to the Zionist pioneer Vladimir Jabotinsky, whom Benito Mussolini referred to as “a good fascist” — was a leader in the Herut Party that called on the Jewish state to seize all the land of historic Palestine.
Many of those who formed the Herut Party carried out terrorist attacks during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook and other Jewish intellectuals, described the Herut Party in a statement published in The New York Times as a “political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to Nazi and Fascist parties.”
There has always been a strain of Jewish fascism within the Zionist project. Now it has taken control of the Israeli state.
“The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here,” Zeev Sternhell, a Holocaust survivor and Israel’s foremost authority on fascism, warned in 2018, “the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people.” Sternhell added, “[W]e see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.”
The decision to obliterate Gaza has long been the dream of Israel’s crypto-fascists, heirs of Kahane’s movement. These Jewish extremists, which make up the ruling coaltion government, are orchestrating the genocide in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians are dying daily. They champion the iconography and language of their homegrown fascism. Jewish identity and Jewish nationalism are the Zionist versions of blood and soil.
Jewish supremacy is sanctified by God, as is the slaughter of the Palestinians, who Netanyahu compared to the Biblical Amalekites, massacred by the Israelites. Enemies — usually Muslims — slated for extinction are subhuman who embody evil. Violence and the threat of violence are the only forms of communication those outside the magical circle of Jewish nationalism understand. Millions of Muslims and Christians, including those with Israeli citizenship, are to be purged.
A leaked 10-page document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence dated Oct. 13 recommends the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
It is a grave mistake not to take the blood curdling calls for the wholesale eradication and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians seriously. This rhetoric is not hyperbolic. It is a literal prescription. Netanyahu in a tweet, later removed, described the battle with Hamas as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”
These Jewish fanatics have begun their version of the final solution to the Palestinian problem. They dropped 12,000 tons of explosives on Gaza in the first two weeks of the assault to obliterate at least 45 percent of Gaza’s housing units, according to the U.N. ‘s humanitarian office. They have no intention of being detoured, even by Washington.
“It became evident to U.S. officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign,” The New York Times reported.
“In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II — including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — to try to defeat those countries,” the paper continued.
The goal is a “pure” Israel, cleansed of Palestinian contaminants. Gaza is to become a wasteland. The Palestinians in Gaza will be killed or forced into refugee camps over the border in Egypt.
Messianic redemption will take place once the Palestinians are expelled. Jewish extremists call for the Al-Aqsa mosque — the third holiest shrine for Muslims, built on the ruins of the Jewish Second Temple, which was destroyed in 70 CE by the Roman army — to be demolished.
The mosque is to be replaced by a “Third” Jewish temple, a move that would set the Muslim world alight. The West Bank, which the zealots call “Judea and Samaria,” will be formally annexed by Israel. Israel, governed by the religious laws imposed by the ultra-orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, will be a Jewish version of Iran.
You can read the entire article here.