Attempting to correct sync with lemmy.world

@bifouba@kolektiva.social cover
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

bifouba

@bifouba@kolektiva.social

Mathematician/computer scientist/statistician turned social scientist with a focus on international educational development and demography. Critical realist epistemology: facts are constructed, but not out of nothing.

Stale-ish (pulling off the grey melange, and in better cardio shape than at 20) pale-ish (Euro-Arab, “gelernter Österreicher”) male | late-dx ND

Interested in almost everything. Serial monotropist (not always in a good way).

I do not suffer fools. This is not a challenge.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

Sherifazuhur , to israel group
@Sherifazuhur@sfba.social avatar

Says It Will Execute ICC Warrant on Netanyahu (I’ll believe it when I see it) @israel

https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/benjamin-netanyahu-icc-israel/2024/05/22/id/1165798/

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Sherifazuhur @israel “Oh no, he got away! We were JUST about to arrest him, honest! Maybe next time we invite him it’ll work out. But you know, the police had to stop en route to beat up some climate activists, what can you do?…” 🤷🏻‍♂️

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

At this stage the "official" estimate of casualties in Gaza is obviously a grotesque undercount.

But what's the alternative? Do we have to choose between only counting bodies with name tags in front of us and leaving the final assessment "to the historians" on the one hand or making a wild stab in the dark "guesstimate" on the other?

Unfortunately, the challenge of counting and estimating civil casualties in armed conflict is not a new one, but at least this means that there are established best practice approaches for coming up with numbers that go beyond what is known with certainty but are nevertheless "scientific".

A thread... 1/N

@palestine

Hat tip to @katzenberger whose comment prompted me to write this up... https://social.tchncs.de/@katzenberger/112423693157772836#.

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Note the nuance in the 's statement, which again completely eschews any mention of “right to self-defence” in favour of “a right to take action to defend its population”.

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state

Those two things are not the same, and Khan obviously knows exactly why he used one instead of the other.

More evidence (if you need it) that Israel — as the occupying power — having a right to law enforcement but no “right to self-defence” against the occupied territories in a military ius ad bellum sense is so well-established in international law that the relevant institutions don't even bother mentioning it anymore.

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

A fascinating article about the difference between Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivors and Hebrew-speaking Zionists in how they redirected their desire for revenge against the Germans towards Palestinians. The former were more reluctant to do so and had more qualms about it even when they did, but in the end the latter won.

https://aeon.co/essays/what-role-for-revenge-in-jewish-life-literature-and-culture?utm_source=rss-feed

»The fact that vengeance looks backwards and seeks to cancel out past actions is one reason why the relationship between revenge and justice is complex. Revenge can indeed be the opposite of justice, a product of utter despair, a kind of empty and final gesture toward restoring one’s shattered self-respect […] Most modern systems of law claim authority by distinguishing themselves from revenge, though conceding that feelings for revenge cannot be eradicated. Scholars of politics and law seem to agree that there is no place for revenge in modern international relations.
[…]
In an important 1996 paper, the American Jewish philosopher Berel Lang asked: […] How did the desire for vengeance, Lang wanted to know, influence the memory of the Holocaust? Lang wondered because there were few attempts (and even fewer successful ones) of revenge by Jews following the Holocaust. It would be wrong to say there was no discussion, however.
[…]
[Abba] Kovner, who wished to avenge by killing as many as 6 million Germans, is an extreme figure, but he is not exceptional […] Kovner stands as a bridge between Holocaust survivors, most of whom spoke, read and wrote in Yiddish, and people from the Brigade, who represented the Hebrew Zionist Yishuv. [… Kovner is] a symbolic and transitional figure because his words and actions during the 1948 war show a profound change: the transition from revenge as a response to the Nazis and Germans to revenge against Arabs. As […] a commander in the Palmach, wrote years after about the 1948 war: ‘We fixed our guns on the Arabs, we pulled the trigger … and we imagined to kill Nazis.’
[…]
There are key differences between what people who did not directly experience the horrors of the Holocaust wrote in Hebrew, and what survivors and refugees who arrived in Palestine/Israel after 1945 wrote in Yiddish. Avrom Karpinovitsh’s Yiddish story ‘Don’t Forget’ (1951) deals with a Jewish soldier who arrives in Palestine from a displaced persons camp directly into the battles of 1948 [and] finds himself alone and disoriented after capturing a Palestinian Arab […] The captor is terrified but hopes that, if he manages to bring the captive to his commander, he will finally be able to transform himself from a disgraced refugee into a ‘real Israeli soldier’ […] The Holocaust survivor who becomes an Israeli soldier, in his imagination, turns the Nazi into a Palestinian and brutally kills the captive. At that moment, something gnawed at his heart […] The protagonist is disgusted with the act of violence and the futility of displaced vengeance.
[…]
During [a vengeful act that became part of the norms for Unit 101], IDF soldiers blew up 45 houses in the village with their occupants, and 69 residents of Qibya, mostly women and children, were killed. Many Yiddish writers were shocked and responded to the massacre. In a New York Yiddish journal in 1964, Glatstein […], who’d written about Jewish revenge against the Nazis and Germans in 1944, is furious about the Israeli displacement of vengeance.
[…]
First, we must acknowledge that vengeance is a human emotion, and it is inescapable – not an alien element, but rather a part of modern Jewish culture. Second, vengeance may lead to collective memory as well as to a cycle of bloodshed. We observed the historical displacement of a desire for vengeance against Nazi Germans, mostly expressed in Yiddish during and after the Second World War, for revenge against Palestinian Arabs, mostly expressed in Hebrew and in Israel around and after 1948. This displacement has existed ever since then and has played an important role in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians […] Because of the displacement of modern Jewish vengeance from Europe onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the vengeful war taking place since 7 October is even more dangerous and tragic.«

@palestine @israel

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

I suppose the charging them is one of the better arguments Israelis have that they are not actually White.

@palestine @israel

faab64 , to palestine group

It's not going to happen, but it's a step towards the right direction.

Judging by the way charged , every ranking military serving in Gaza to be charged with , just like they did with those in and .

But sadly, just and were those they could dare charging.



@palestine @israel

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@faab64 @palestine @israel I'm not sure and can see how one might make the opposite argument: it's good that they did not "bad apple" the Israeli crimes by charging some specific Israeli soldiers with documented blood on their hands, but by charging Netanyahu and Gallant, they clearly signalled that the crimes are deliberate policy. Which is much more valuable support for the parallel ICJ process too.

bifouba , to palestine group German
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Kommt jetzt eigentlich eine Entschuldigung von den rassistischen Arschlöchern, die “israelische Kriegsverbrechen” immer in Anführungszeichen gesetzt haben?

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

These points regarding Germany's pathological approach to are have by now been made by several observers, but this article from January puts it particularly well and serves as a nice summary:

»For Germany, its commitment to Israel is offered as a test of whether the country has overcome its Nazi past. This is politics as psychology or, better, put, psychoanalysis. There are no limits of prudence or public reason. Reality is of no consequence, what matters is redemption. As Daniel Marwecki argues in his Germany and Israel, Israel serves “as displacement object onto which different ideas of German national identity can be articulated.” It serves as “a form of reconciliation that seeks to cleanse Germany of antisemitism, which time and again seems to creep back into view.” This catechism, as Dirk Moses calls it, implies a redemptive story in which the sacrifice of Jews in the Holocaust becomes the myth of origin for a new Germany: “Having undergone the most thorough working through of history in history, Germany can once again stand proud among the nations as the beacon of civilization, vouched by approving pats on the head from American, British and Israeli elites.” Modern Germany needs to believe that Israel's creation was a "happy ending" to the horrors of the gas chambers.«

https://time.com/6553708/gaza-end-of-western-hypocrisy-essay/

@palestine

bifouba , to Random
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

An excellent older (2015) piece by David Graeber full of insight.

On the logic of the settlements:

»First, the settlements. They were originally the project of a relatively isolated, if well funded, collection of religious zealots. Now everything seems to be organized around them. The government pours in endless resources. Why? The answer seems to be that since at least the ‘90s, rightwing politicians in Israel have figured out that the settlements are a kind of political magic. The more money gets funneled into them, the more the Jewish electorate turns to the Right. The reason is simple. Israel is expensive. Housing inside the 1948 boundaries is exorbitantly expensive. If you are a young person without means, you increasingly has two options: to live with one’s parents until well into your 30s, or find a place in an illegal settlement, where apartments cost perhaps a third of what they would in Haifa or Tel Aviv—and that’s not to mention the superior roads, schools, utilities, and social services. At this point the vast majority of settlers live on the West Bank for economic, not ideological, reasons. (This is especially true around Jerusalem.) But consider who these people are. In the past, young people in difficult circumstances, students, well-educated young parents, have been the traditional constituency of the Left. Put these same people in a settlement, and they will, inexorably, even without realizing it, begin to think like fascists. Settlements are, in their own way, giant engines for the production of right-wing consciousness. It is very difficult for someone placed in hostile territory, given training in automatic weapons and warned to be constantly on one’s guard against a local population seething over the fact that your next-door neighbors have been killing their sheep and destroying their olive trees, not to gradually see ethno-nationalism as common sense. As a result, with every election, the old Left electorate further dissipates, and a host of religious, fascist, or semi-fascist parties win a larger and larger stake of the vote. For politicians, who can barely think past the next election, the lure is inescapable.«

https://davidgraeber.org/articles/hostile-intelligence-reflections-from-a-visit-to-the-west-bank/

1/3

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

An utterly fascinating document, even almost 100 years after it was published.

»Yiddish Anarchists’ Break Over Palestine

An exchange in the anarchist newspaper Di fraye arbeter shtime after the 1929 Hebron massacre offers a case study in Jewish discourse and political reaction after immense violence.«

https://jewishcurrents.org/yiddish-anarchists-break-over-palestine-1929

@palestine

Miro_Collas , to palestine group
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

No child should experience ‘absolutely terrifying’ journey out of Rafah - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrDtwqKdxFc


@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Lassielmr @Miro_Collas @palestine Partly it’s just demographics. Gaza has a real population pyramid that is very narrow at the top. When half your population are children, the share 60+ is quite small. Not to diminish the fact that ax you say the elderly are more likely to have died or to be too weakened to walk around.

Miro_Collas , to palestine group
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

Gaza ministry revises down figures for women and children confirmed killed | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/13/gaza-ministry-revises-figures-for-women-and-children-killed

"According to those criteria, 7,797 children – rather than 14,500 – are listed as confirmed killed, while confirmed fatalities among women account for 4,959 deaths, rather than 9,500, as previously recorded."

"The overall death toll in Gaza – including militants and male civilians – remained largely unchanged at about 35,000."


@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Miro_Collas @InternetDev @palestine But the article you link and the quote you pulled out are straight up lies. Every single one of the 35k is “confirmed to have been killed”, with a body in hand. The lower number is how many have been IDENTIFIED by name. A nameless corpse with a sniper headshot is obviously still confirmed to have been killed. The Guardian distortion is pure propaganda.

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Miro_Collas @InternetDev @palestine The “the lower number is the number confirmed to have been killed” is still a distortion of the truth, and this “clarification” makes it sound like the difference is explained by everyone else being combatants.

oatmeal , to palestine group
@oatmeal@kolektiva.social avatar

/ UN says Gaza death toll still over 35,000 but not all bodies identified

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last week changed the breakdown of fatalities it publishes from Gaza, based on official sources in the Strip, so that the number of women and children killed was cut in half. The UN explained this evening (Monday) that the change stems from the fact that in recent reports it relied on a breakdown from Hamas' Ministry of Information, but at the end of April it received an updated breakdown from the Gaza Ministry of Health. However, the UN emphasized that the overall death toll of around 35,000 remains the same (not including missing persons).

Israeli media is celebrating this updated report while omitting the important parts:

[1] OCHA is doing its job and updating its statistics when more data becomes available,

and most importantly,

[2] OCHA numbers now only include IDENTIFIED bodies it receives from the Gaza Ministry of Health,

[3] the overall death toll of people killed by IDF has not changed and it is still and astonishingly 35,000 … a testament to the barbaric nature of the indiscriminate revenge attack on Gaza by Israel.

[…] Haq said those figures were for identified bodies - 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men - adding: "The Ministry of Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details of the casualties is ongoing."

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-says-gaza-death-toll-still-over-35000-not-all-bodies-identified-2024-05-13/

https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

@israel
@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@oatmeal @israel @palestine Worth emphasizing that even the 35k is still only the ones where the have (seen) a corpse. So there is zero question that the “unidentified” ones are dead, there’s a body.

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

The Palestine discourse in Germany has reached escape velocity from reality and has entered an orbit of pure self-referentiality.

There are now serious people talking about how,
even if don’t agree with them,
people shouldn't be slandered for voicing their opinion that,
even if you don’t agree with them,
the authors of an open letter shouldn't be slandered in the press and threatened by politicians, whose letter said that,
even if you don’t agree with them, student protesters shouldn't be brutally beaten up by police for saying that,
even if you don't agree with Hamas,
children in Gaza shouldn't be starved to death…

@palestine

bifouba OP ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@jmcs @palestine It's definitely true that German public discourse about anything tends to be extremely self-obsessed and parochial. Still, even with respect to Russia, they are at least talking about the thing, albeit from a self-obsessed perspective. With respect to Palestine, they are not talking about the thing at all, they are literally talking about how people talk about how people talk about how people talk about the thing itself.

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Have you noticed how Israel is the Trump of countries in its communication style?

Not: “We are innocent!” but: “How dare you suggest the law applies to us!”

Not: “We are trying hard to minimise civilian casualties,” but: “This is the most perfect casualty-minimising war in human history, performed by the most beautiful army you have ever seen.”

And so on.
Then again, they've been doing this for decades, so in a way it's Trump who is the Israel of US politics.

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

In case you think that the Israelis demonstrating against the Netanyahu government before and after Oct 7 can be relied on to actually object to his treatment of Palestinians, note that those demonstrators included the like of Eylon Levy (yes, that Eylon Levy, the erstwhile government spokesperson who quickly became infamous for his mind-bending contortions defending Israel's genocidal racism).

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/passion-eylon-levy/678342/?utm_source=feed

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

If anyone has even a remotely credible argument or evidence that the Palestinian response to the Nakba and occupation would have been any different in practice if Israel claimed to be a Zoroastrian or Taoist or Rastafarian state, let's hear it.

@palestine

Miro_Collas , to palestine group
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

The Commonwealth of The Bahamas Formally Recognizes Palestine As A State – Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Commonwealth of The Bahamas
https://mofa.gov.bs/the-commonwealth-of-the-bahamas-formally-recognizes-palestine-as-a-state/


@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Miro_Collas @palestine That's Nr. 144 then, right?

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Miro_Collas Well it's gone up by 3 or 4 in the last month, and I seem to remember Jamaica was .

bifouba , to palestine group German
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Im Februar gab Frau Baerbock zu Protokoll, eine »Israelische Offensive in Rafah wäre nicht zu rechtfertigen«. Wohlgemerkt: nicht nur “nicht gerechtfertigt” sondern "nicht zu rechtfertigen”!

Jetzt da Israel jetzt genau dies tut, ein Kriegsverbrechen mit Ansage also, wird die @Bundesregierung endlich Konsequenzen ziehen? Oder alle bestätigen, die die Aussage schon damals als leeres Gerede abgetan haben, und ihren Mangel an Glaubwürdigkeit offiziell machen?

https://www.rnd.de/politik/baerbock-verurteilt-plaene-fuer-israelische-offensive-in-rafah-und-lobt-demos-gegen-rechts-MZOWKBOGBFBP7E4T47ELJA5JYY.html

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Next time some clown denies that Israel practices , just ask them to answer the question which jurisdiction and body of laws apply if person A shoots person B in the West Bank — without knowing the religion of either person.

@palestine

oatmeal , to palestine group
@oatmeal@kolektiva.social avatar

/ RSF World Press Freedom: Israel: 101 (-4), Qatar: 84 (+21)

[...] In the Middle East and North Africa, the situation is “very serious” in nearly half of the countries. The United Arab Emirates joins the eight other countries in the red zone on the map: Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestine, Iraq, Bahrain, Syria and Egypt. Palestine, occupied and under bombardment by the Israeli army, and the deadliest country for journalists, is also at the bottom of the Index. Qatar is now the region’s only country where the situation is not classified either as “difficult” or “very serious.”

[...] Occupied and under constant Israeli bombardment, Palestine is ranked 157th out of 180 countries and territories surveyed in the overall 2024 World Press Freedom Index, but it is ranked among the last 10 with regard to security for journalists (see the 2024 World Press Freedom Index security ranking).

https://rsf.org/en/2024-world-press-freedom-index-journalism-under-political-pressure?data_type=general&year=2024

@israel
@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@faab64 @oatmeal Not to defend the index or anything, but as a partial explanation for counterintuitive rankings: the legislative environment is only one of the dimensions.

Sherifazuhur , to palestine group
@Sherifazuhur@sfba.social avatar

Mai El Sadany: This is 34 yr old Baraa Odeh who works for @giz_gmbh and whose husband is a German national.

While returning home to Ramallah from a work trip, Israeli border guards detained her. She's been sentenced to 3 months in administrative detention without charge & beaten in custody. @palestine @israel

https://x.com/maitelsadany/status/1786814639105282175?s=12&t=uM8me4uwdP7D0z4nanVVuw

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Sherifazuhur @palestine @israel Don’t expect the racist German state to lift a finger.

faab64 , to palestine group

During his intense interview with journalist Yama Wolasmal, Israeli Government Spokesman David Mencer highlighted that "Jews face an unreasonable burden of proof" regarding the journalist's request for evidence of Israeli bombings of hospitals in .


@palestine @israel

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@faab64 @palestine @israel Utterly failing to note that this burden of proof is literally defined in international law, not some conspiracy against them. Yes, the law does say that the fucking attacker does have the burden of proof that the target represented a direct military threat and that attacking it is proportionate and that if in doubt you cannot attack. He is literally saying that they feel unreasonably burdened by international law.

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

A very special perspective by Peter Maass:

»How does it feel to be a war-crimes reporter whose family bankrolled a nation that’s committing war crimes?

I can tell you.

I covered the genocide in Bosnia for The Post, wrote a book about it, and reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, among other conflict-ridden countries. Also, my ancestors were key funders of Jewish immigration to British-controlled Palestine.
...
When Israel bombs and shoots civilians, blocks food aid, attacks hospitals and cuts off water supplies, I remember the same outrages in Bosnia. When people in a Gaza flour line were attacked, I thought of the Sarajevans killed waiting in line for bread, and the perpetrators who in each case insisted the victims were slaughtered by their own side.
Atrocities tend to rhyme.
…
I noted in my Bosnia book how being a Jew and seeing an actual genocide made me understand, more than before, the precariousness of minorities and the necessity of speaking out as atrocities emerge. That imperative strengthens if your government abets the crimes or your tribe commits them.
…
It’s evident that war crimes were committed by Hamas … That does not give Israel a pass to respond as it pleases. An eye for an eye — or a hundred eyes for one eye — is not a thing in international law.
…
The victims of genocide — which Jews were in the Holocaust — are not gifted with the right to perpetrate one. … Holocaust levels of killing are not required to reach the legal standard.
…
My Jewish identity was always a bit vague because my ancestors were German Jews who assimilated at the speed of cultural sound; when I was growing up, we even had a Christmas tree. … I began to feel more Jewish while covering the genocide of Bosnia’s Muslims. What Levin points to — the defense of Palestinians increasingly being an act of Jewish identity, particularly for younger Jews — feels right for me, too.«

https://archive.ph/2024.04.10-173152/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/09/israel-gaza-war-crimes-genocide/#selection-1563.0-1571.27

@palestine

The Levin book referred to is: "Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978”, published last Nov.

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

»When warplanes screamed overhead, everyone braced for a particularly loud and powerful explosion. The timing of these attacks always coincided with “iftar,” when families in this overwhelmingly Muslim county broke the daily fast of Ramadan and were most vulnerable.

We walked through the wards and immediately found evidence of horrifying violence deliberately directed at civilians and even children. A three-year-old boy shot in the head, a 12-year-old girl shot through the chest, an ICU nurse shot through the abdomen, all by some of the best-trained marksmen in the world.
…
As humanitarian trauma surgeons we have both seen incredible suffering. Collectively, we were present at Ground Zero on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on the first day of these disasters. We have worked in the deprivation of southern Zimbabwe and the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Together we have worked on more than 40 surgical missions in developing countries on three continents in our combined 57 years of volunteering.
…
But that was before coming to Gaza. Now we know the pain of being unable to treat a child who will slowly die, but also alone, because she is the only surviving member of an entire extended family. We have not had the heart to tell these children how their families died«

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/surgeons-cruelty-israel-gaza

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

One of the best (short but insightful) threads about the terminology that I've read.

@palestine https://mastodon.social/@tess/112367201785405963

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Fun fact: if UNWRA were abolished, its beneficiaries would automatically become UNHCR refugees, which would then only exclude those who obtained citizenship in their host country or elsewhere AND “enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality”.

Chapter 1.D of the 1951 Refugee Convention that established UNHCR reads:
»This Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or assistance. When such protection or assistance has ceased for any reason, without the position of such persons being definitively settled in accordance with the relevant resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, these persons shall ipso facto be entitled to the benefits of this Convention.«

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Beggars can't be choosers and in Germany we have to put up even with mind-bending fuckery from the self-congratulatory "fair and balanced” crowd (such as there is), because at least they're not actively pro-genocide and we have to take what we can get.

True story:

Palestinian civil society, journalists, and aid organisations: »We're at the hospital and the Israeli soldiers are executing people in the yard and burying others alive! ... They’ve left and we are now digging up the people we saw them execute and bury alive. Here are the bodies. PLEASE COME AND INVESTIGATE!«

Israeli military: »We've looked into this Khamaas accusation for half an hour and no-one we asked around the press office remembers having done this, so there. DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO INVESTIGATE or we'll ban you from entry for life or kill you or both.«

"Neutral" German: »Well, looks like we got a classic case of “she said, he said”... Too bad there's no way to tell who's lying. 🤷‍♂️«

@palestine

Miro_Collas , to palestine group
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

Hamas official says group would lay down its weapons if a two-state solution is implemented | AP News
https://apnews.com/video/palestinian-territories-government-hamas-israel-hamas-war-khalil-al-haya-war-and-unrest-e4202235f636430bb9546f6abefaa004

Why is this not making major headlines?


@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Infoseepage @Miro_Collas @palestine I think that's a misunderstanding about what “pre" 1967 means. It means the borders that were in place "in" 1967 when the Six-Day-War started and that have not been in place since then. In other words, they are talking about the “Green line” and not the proposed 1947 partition borders or anything like that. This usage is acknowledged even by Zionist Israelis: »typically described as the “1967 or pre-1967 border.”« https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-1967-border-the-quot-green-line-quot?utm_content=cmp-true

bifouba , to palestine group German
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Noch gibt es sehr lesenswertes von Qantara. Kein Wunder, dass diese Redaktion mundtot gemacht werden soll…

«Nichts kann so bleiben, wie es ist, wie es war. Das gilt für Israel, für die Besatzung, für die sklerotische Autonomiebehörde, aber es gilt ebenfalls für Deutschland, für ein Verständnis von Staatsräson, das unserem Land, unserem internationalen Ansehen und unseren gesellschaftlichen Möglichkeiten beträchtlichen Schaden zufügt.
…
Was ist geschehen? Deutschland ist auf die abschüssige Bahn eines falsch verstandenen Exzeptionalismus geraten … wir haben das Recht zu beleidigen, denn wir sind als Ex-Böse die einzig wahren Guten. … Das Bekenntnis zu historischer deutscher Schuld ist zur Versicherungspolice mutiert: Ich bezeuge meine Reinheit, indem ich andere denunziere. ... Manches bei uns wirkt nur lächerlich, erratisch, armselig. Aber da ist etwas Dunkles, Beunruhigendes; zu oft straft das herrische Gutsein prominente jüdische Frauen ab.
…
So macht sich Deutschland dümmer, als es sein müsste, während zugleich der Bedarf wächst, sich in der neuen Komplexität der Verhältnisse zurecht zu finden. … Als israelische Oppositionelle von jüdischem Fundamentalismus, gar Faschismus, sprachen, hielt sich die deutsche Politik die Ohren zu.

Es ist an der Zeit wahrzunehmen, wie in den USA große Minderheiten junger Jüdinnen und Juden auf Distanz zur israelischen Politik gehen, die Zustände in der Westbank umstandslos Apartheid nennen … Der Begriff "ethnische Suprematie“ ... dient vielen, sogar Israelis, zur kritischen Beschreibung der Realität eines jüdischen Staates, der Nichtjuden Gleichheit verweigert.
...
Alles könnte so anders sein. Tausende in Deutschland verfügen über jahrelange Erfahrungen in Israel-Palästina, durch kirchliche Initiativen, NGOs, als menschenrechtliche Beobachter. Unter uns leben 200 000 Palästinenserinnen und Palästinenser sowie geschätzt 30 000 Israelis. Welche Ressourcen! Und welch spektakuläre Verschwendung, sie nicht zu nutzen.

Statt durch intoleranten Moralismus aufzufallen, könnte Deutschland der Ort sein, an den alle gehen, um offene, kreative, konstruktive Debatten zu führen. Public Diplomacy zu Israel-Palästina mit allen Beteiligten; eine machbare Utopie. Und es entspricht einer inklusiv gedachten historischen Verantwortung, Israel, Palästina und Deutschland als Dreieck zu verstehen.»

https://qantara.de/artikel/deutsche-debattenkultur-zum-nahostkonflikt-die-glocke-von-gaza

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group German
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Der Denkfehler — oft im Brustton der arrogant uninformierten Überzeugung getätigt — «Israel kann gar keine Apartheid praktizieren, da gibt es ja sogar arabische Parlamentsabgeordnete!» ist exakt auf dem gleichen intellektuellen Niveau wie «Obamas Wahl zeigt, dass es in den USA keinen strukturellen Rassismus gibt!» 🤦‍♂️🙄

@palestine

oatmeal , to palestine group
@oatmeal@kolektiva.social avatar

/ Hamas Official Offers Truce and Disarmament in Exchange for Palestinian State

A senior political official, Khalil al-Hayya, has suggested the group would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.

The offer includes the formation of a unified government with the rival faction and the acceptance of a fully sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Hamas Official Says Group Would Lay down Its Weapons If a Two-State Solution Is Implemented.” AP News, 25 Apr. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/hamas-khalil-alhayya-qatar-ceasefire-1967-borders-4912532b11a9cec29464eab234045438.

@palestine
@israel

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@oatmeal @palestine @israel Let's hear it from the “This will all stop the moment Hamas surrenders" crowd!

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

The Israeli leadership is making the inhumanely cynical argument that pictures of children playing at the beach in Gaza somehow prove that there can be neither atrocities nor famine happening.

The absurdity of this claim is illustrated by a picture of »Children playing in the Lodz ghetto 1941«: https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/the-legend-of-the-lodz-ghetto-children.html

Note this picture is not part of the propaganda material the Nazis produced to demonstrate that life in the ghettos was all dandy, but has been vetted and published by the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Center Yad Vashem as part of their article about the harsh daily life of children in the ghetto.

If anyone wants to respond with knee-jerk accusations of “Holocaust inversion", the joke's on you: the argument »If even during the Holocaust children were playing, then why wouldn't they play in Gaza despite everything« gets STRONGER, the MORE you think the Holocaust was incomparably worse…

@palestine

bifouba OP ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@kiki_mwai_mwai @palestine Oh look, another loser troll.

bifouba OP ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@kinyutaka @palestine Exactly!

Miro_Collas , to palestine group
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

UK unlikely to make snap decision over Unrwa funding | United Nations | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/uk-unlikely-to-make-snap-decision-over-unrwa-funding

Disgusting, but predictable.


@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Miro_Collas @palestine But they already did make a snap decision... 🤔

yassin , to palestine group German
@yassin@tilde.zone avatar

"These people there (in Gaza) deserve death. A hard death, an agonizing death. And instead we see them enjoying on the beach, having fun... There are no innocent people there in the Strip... They are now enjoying on the beach, instead of starving, being jerked around, being severely tormented and hiding from shelling... We should have seen a lot more revenge, a lot more rivers of Gazans' blood."

Yehuda Schlesinger live on Channel 12, the most watched TV channel in Israel.

@palestine

video/mp4

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@yassin @palestine Gegen ihn ist sicher von der @Bundesregierung ein Einreise- und Betätigungsverbot verhängt worden, wegen tatsächlichem Aufruf zum Massenmord, nicht wahr?

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention:

»A slow, structural genocide targeting Palestinians in the West Bank has been in place for decades. It is now escalating against the backdrop of the genocide in Gaza. The Lemkin Institute has been consistent in labeling Israel's war on Gaza as genocidal and in pointing out the genocidal structural dynamics of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. It is misleading to separate the Israeli campaign in Gaza from its actions in the West Bank. The tactics employed by Israel in both locations are part of the same eliminationist, genocidal campaign.«

https://www.lemkininstitute.com/active-genocide-alert-1/israel-is-committing-genocide-across-palestine%3A-active-genocide-alert-condemning-ongoing-violence-in-the-west-bank

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

It's funny how some people will both categorically deny that Israel practices Apartheid AND at the same time happily argue that denying the right of return to Palestinian refugees after the Nakba was a legitimate necessity in order to preserve a Jewish majority — without realising that in doing so they are ADMITTING the crime of Apartheid.

As the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) explicitly states, “denying to members of a racial group … THE RIGHT TO LEAVE AND TO RETURN TO THEIR COUNTRY” for the purpose of establishing or maintaining domination by one racial group over another, that is an act of Apartheid.

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

»The death rate in Gaza has equaled or exceeded that in three other recent cases that US presidents did call “genocide”«

As for the “self-defense” excuse, »historically the vast majority of genocides, unlike the Holocaust, similarly have been responses to rebel or terrorist attacks – including in the three most recent cases.«

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/16/gaza-civilian-deaths-genocide

@palestine

faab64 , to israel group

Some 52 years ago, when I was in 4th grade of primary school, I found a book "who put glasses on the kid's eyes" in a small book shop in open bazaar of my hometown Ahvaz in khuzestan province of Iran.

A few days later, we had to bring a book to school and read it in front of the class. Happy as I was to have found a great book, I took it to school and read it in front of the class.

I couldn't understand why my teacher was acting so scared and stopped me before I had finished the book and sent me to the principals office.
I was nervous, didn't know what I had done wrong and our principal, who was a really nice man, and went to the same university as my oldest sister took the book and asked me where I had bought it. I knew something was wrong, so I said I bought it at the book store of our local mosque, to protect the guy who was my source of cheap and lovely books and would buy back my old ones to help me afford buying new ones.

In the evening my father came home, agitated and clearly upset. Asked me what I have done and I explained the situation, including the fact that I lied about wher I had bought the book. Told him the highlight of the book about a happy child who was living in a town with happy people who were all wearing glasses.

He was seeing flowers, colorful houses. Nice people and happy children all around him, birds flying in the sky and everyone were so friendly to him.

Until one day he fell of and his glasses broke. He couldn't believe his eyes, the flowers, colorful houses and happy people were all gone. All he could see was a run down city, with piles of garbage everywhere, people wearing worn out clothes, looking hungry and sick.

He was nece happy after that, he couldn't believe that everyone were walking around with glasses and we're happy all the time. But he was sad and miserable, because he had seen his town without those glasses.

Anyway. My father took me to a building close to the main police station on the other side of the Karun river, he spent almost entire day in a room where I could people screaming at him and a few times someone his the table very hard. But couldn't hear what they were saying.
My dad came out. Pulled my hand without saying a word, we walked for an hour to get home, didn't take taxi as we used to do.

He didn't say a word during the whole day and told me to go over my books and bring all the books I had bought from that shop, he through them in a metal bucket and poured some fuel over it, set them on fire and waited until they were completely burned, mixed the ashes to turn them into dust, filled the bucket with water and through it in the toilet.

He told me to never go back to that shop and be careful to take any books to school from now on.

That' was my first interaction with the notorious Savak police of Shah of Iran. In the next days, all the 4 book stores in our town were raided. Books confiscated and doors locked. Never heard about any of them again.

Reading the comments of pro Israeli accounts on mastodon reminded me of that book and that experience that changed my life when I was only 8 years old.

This post specially triggered those memories. Unlike the kid in my book and the people living in the town, these people know very well tat what they are posting is not true, they have seen the horror of the past 76 years of occupation, they have seen the 66 times they were subject to UNSC charges, and 45 that were vetoed by the US..

But they don't care, they see themselves as victims. They don't see the millions of starving palestinians, or the millions living in refuge camps around the world as worthy of their empathy or cause of why Palestinians and some of the world is fed up with their out of control criminal behavior

They don't have glasses on their eyes, they have chosen to be selective and above the laws of the world.

@palestine @israel

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@finche @faab64 @palestine @israel No-one gives a fuck whether you are willing to call the occupation by that name. Every country and every international organization in the world recognize Israel as being an occupier, including Germany and the US (who merely claim the occupation is legal, not that it’s not occupation). So your admitting that you are in denial of reality.

bifouba , to palestine group German
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Um eine offen faschistische israelische Regierung zu decken, schafft Deutschland gleich mal den eigenen Rechsstaat ab.

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

There are many interesting points in this article (and the title is misleading regarding the contents), but the following observations perhaps serve as a reality check with respect to the anti-government protests:

«During protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem this weekend, the global condemnation of Israel’s tactics in Gaza didn’t seem to matter to anyone I spoke with ... Many Israelis have been horrified by the deaths of Palestinian civilians, but in the protests, I heard relatively few voices expressing that concern»

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/six-month-mark-israel-war-gaza-withdrawal/678018/?utm_source=feed

@palestine

bifouba , to palestine group
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

Well worth reading on how abuse of evidence and denial of evidence with respect to Oct 7 interact:

https://jewishcurrents.org/weaponization-and-denial

@palestine

Miro_Collas , to palestine group
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

Khan Younis ‘destroyed beyond recognition’ - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdAPf5pqmA

All costs of reconstruction should be paid by Israel!


@palestine

bifouba ,
@bifouba@kolektiva.social avatar

@Miro_Collas @LALegault @palestine While it's become clear that the ICJ case will do little to help on the ground right now, one tangible effect that a proper ruling would still have even if it comes too late is to make it far easier to force reparations.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • news
  • movies
  • leopardsatemyface
  • stillalive
  • ServerNonsense
  • istillthinkofyou
  • oneorangebraincell
  • MBBS
  • All magazines
    •