On the Israel-Gaza War 2023

 

ON THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR 2023

THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION

By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM October 22, 2023

It is safe to say that much of the world sympathizes with the State of Israel’s right to defend its existence. But Israel cannot hope to continue enjoying that sympathy if, in its fight for survival, it resorts to the same genocidal atrocities that it condemns in its enemies. Moreover, as recent events have shown, it will never feel secure so long as it denies the equal rights of Palestinians to self-determination. Succeeding generations of Palestinians are bound to carry on their elders’ struggle, no matter the cost, until their people can live in freedom. It is unfortunate that the various groups that have carried on this struggle through the years have been uniformly tagged as “terrorist” because of the methods some have used, thus stripping their cause of the legitimacy it deserves. Palestinians need to accept that they cannot gain much global support for their cause for as long as they premise their liberation on the destruction of Israel. The two-state solution that has been proposed by many, and most recently by United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, seems the most reasonable approach to this long-festering conflict. But it is not as easy to implement it as it may seem. Nor is it necessarily as just as it may appear at first blush.

The delineation of boundaries is perhaps the most contentious part, for we are talking of the same territory that is currently occupied by Israel, from which almost a million Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. At the minimum, Israel has to agree to withdraw from the Arab territories it captured during the 1967 Six-Day War—the Golan Heights on the Syrian border, the West Bank and East Jerusalem along the Jordanian border, and the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border. (The Sinai Peninsula was returned by Israel to Egypt in 1979 as part of the peace treaty between the two countries).

Together, these are called the “Green Line” or the “pre-1967 borders,” a demarcation line resulting from the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Withdrawal from the territories beyond the “Green Line” would mean that Israel must agree to remove the Jewish settlements it established south and east of the Green Line in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.

Israel undertook a similar dismantling of Israeli settlements in 2005 as part of its “unilateral disengagement plan” from the Gaza Strip, evacuating about 8,000 Jewish settlers, and leaving that heavily fenced narrow strip of land to serve as a home (some say prison) for more than two million Palestinian inhabitants. Far from being an Israeli concession to a Palestinian state, the Israeli disengagement from Gaza was intended primarily to consolidate Israeli territory under a Jewish majority population, while confining the Palestinians to their enclaves.

…Under the guise of giving Palestinians autonomy in their own territory, while keeping much of historic Palestine for itself, Israel enforces what amounts to an apartheid policy not unlike that which existed in South Africa. But rather than a negotiated partition of South Africa along racial lines, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress consistently called for a unitary South African state that would give every citizen one vote irrespective of race.

Toward the end of his life, the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, who had earlier pushed for a two-state solution, came to realize that a single-state solution, where Arabs and Jews alike would share the land and where equal rights were guaranteed to all citizens, might be a better option. This, as it turned out, was what the Israeli leadership feared more. In a one-man-one-vote polity, the Israelis would be easily outnumbered. As the former prime minister Ariel Sharon put it, in explaining the rationale for his 2004 disengagement plan for Gaza: “We cannot hold on to Gaza forever. More than a million Palestinians live there and double their number with each generation.” Shimon Peres, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former prime minister, offered the same thought more succinctly: “We are disengaging from Gaza because of demography.”

The problem is that Israel did not merely disengage from Gaza. It proceeded to lock up the Palestinians in their ghettos, perhaps in the vain hope that, in their impoverished condition and in their inability to agree among themselves, they would cease to be a threat to Israel.

public.lives@gmail.com

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/167370/the-palestinian-question#ixzz8O1QINNzr

A YOUNG FILIPINO-PALESTINIAN SPEAKS OUT

By: Ma. Ceres P. Doyo - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:11 AM October 20, 2023

…Today, I give a voice to Palestinian-Filipino pharmacy student Yasmin Abdel Khaleq with excerpts from her Facebook post. She gave permission for their use:

“During my four years of living here, I have received comments from fellow Filipinos, curious about where I come from … They would proceed to assume ‘From Israel?’ and I would say ‘Palestinian po ako’ and they would say ‘Ahh, Hamas.’ … for strangers, I would just say … “Pinoy lang po talaga ako” to end it there. I regret denying my roots … I am unapologetically Filipino-Palestinian.

“Everyone sees … the ‘Israeli-Hamas conflict’ or ‘war.’ No matter what history timeline you believe in, you cannot deny that the State of Israel was only established 75 years ago. If you read up on the diaries of the founders of Zionism, you will find out that the land where Israeli Zionists are settling in right now [had been] inhabited by the Palestinian people. No, it was not a desert. Zionism is a movement, a settler-colonial project, [aimed] to establish a Jewish nation-state in Palestine, now called the State of Israel. After World War I, in 1922, Palestine was under the British Mandate … considered ‘Class A’ mandate because of [its] advanced infrastructures … The Balfour Declaration [then promised] a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine. This helped the Zionist movement to further achieve its aims.

“There is nothing wrong with Jewish self-determination. What is completely wrong is the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the Palestinian people for the past 75 plus years just so the Zionists who came from all over the world could establish a homeland. We do not hate Jews, we hate Zionism … If you see the protests … right now, you will notice that Jewish people condemn the State of Israel and are ashamed of the Zionist Israeli settlers for using their name as Jews, for using the Torah, for using the name of God as an excuse to kill and displace Palestinians. A homeland is not built this way.

“My grandparents grew up [in Palestine,] so did our [family] line of Palestinians before 1948 … [But] ask any Israeli where they came from, they would say they [were] originally from Italy, Poland, France, Yemen, Lebanon, [etc.] The only thing they have in common is being Zionist settlers.

“The only reason why Hamas attacked is to free Palestinian prisoners, stop Israeli aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to break the siege on Gaza. Did you know that the release of one Israeli soldier frees approximately 1,000 Palestinian prisoners? Prisoners who were kept in cells unjustly and inhumanely, who did no wrong other than being Palestinian, prisoners who are women and children … The [Hamas] assault has led to nonstop Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, around 6,000 bombs the past week. Around 800 Palestinian children killed. Around two million Palestinians displaced once again.

“If you ask the people of Gaza if they support Hamas, they would simply say, they do not have a choice. Imagine living in an open-air prison for years with electricity and water allowed for only three hours a day? Sudden bombings here and there? … Wouldn’t you want to fight back? Fifty percent of the Gaza population are children [who witnessed] the killings of their sisters, brothers, parents … There are records of Palestinian children committing suicide because of this.

“You can advocate for the lives of Palestinians without advocating for Hamas.”

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/167311/a-young-filipino-palestinian-speaks-out#ixzz8O1S8WNmF

HOW HAMAS USED SEXUAL VIOLENCE ON OCTOBER 7TH  

Physicians for Human Rights Israel issued a report collecting evidence of sexual and gender-based violence. One of its authors lays out their findings.

By Isaac Chotiner

The New Yorker

December 10, 2023

Earlier this week, the Israeli government presented evidence at the United Nations about rape and mutilation committed by Hamas militants during the attack on October 7th, in which more than twelve hundred people were killed. “I was called down on October 7 to collect bodies and remains from the terror attack,” Simcha Greinman, a volunteer medical worker, said. “I saw in front of my eyes a woman. She was naked. She had nails and different objects in her female organs. Her body was brutalized in a way that we cannot identify her, from her head to her toes.” An Israeli police superintendent shared testimonies from eyewitnesses, including one who saw girls with broken pelvises from “repetitive rapes.”

While some accounts of the horrific violence have now been corroborated by reporting from the BBC and other news agencies, one of the first comprehensive examinations of the sexual and gender-based violence on October 7th was conducted by a nonprofit called Physicians for Human Rights Israel, whose mission is to combat medical discrimination and improve access to health care in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. In a position paper, published last month, the organization called for an investigation into “widespread” sexual violence. “Based on the currently available information and the accounts indicating that sexual and gender-based violence occurred across several locations,” the report states, “an inquiry must be conducted to examine whether their scope and manifestations amount to crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law.” (The Israeli government has criticized the United Nations, saying its women’s-rights agency remained silent about the accusations of sexual violence until almost two months after the attack. Hamas has denied that its fighters committed sexual violence.)

I recently spoke by phone with one of the paper’s authors, Hadas Ziv, who is the director of ethics and policy at Physicians for Human Rights Israel, and who lives in Tel Aviv. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why gathering information about sexual violence perpetrated on October 7th has been so difficult and contentious, how the report was put together, and the importance of collecting horrific stories to insure that survivors receive proper care.

What do we know about the sexual violence that occurred on October 7th?

Our position paper is based on materials that we collected from public media outlets and videos that we saw in groups on Telegram, as well as discussions with a legal adviser and a doctor who volunteers with a civil-society group that’s supporting the hostages and the families. We haven’t interviewed actual witnesses.

What I can say with a really high degree of certainty is that it wasn’t a few cases. It wasn’t here and there, or only on one occasion. There were many cases of different gender-based and sexual violence, and they were in the kibbutzim and in the Nova music festival: the most extreme gang rapes, mutilation of body parts, putting objects into women’s bodies, and having women paraded like trophies when they were taken into Gaza.

You say that you have not talked to the victims themselves. Is that because most of the victims are now dead? Are there people who are still alive who you’ve tried to talk to? I know this is very bleak and complicated. I’m just trying to understand.

Our decision was not to approach the actual victims or the eyewitnesses because we thought that this was too short a time afterward, and that we were not equipped to talk to them and treat them. Every time you ask them to tell the story, it’s opening up the trauma, and we are not professionals in this. What we wanted to do in this early stage was to try to portray the picture as we see it, and not leave the women’s groups alone on this—because we thought, It’s a human-rights issue, and it’s our obligation to look at what has happened. Actually, we issued two position papers after October 7th. One was about how Hamas specifically targeted rescue teams in order to prevent evacuation, prevent treatment; they shot paramedics, and they shot the tires of ambulances. The other issue was the sexual assault.

…I think one should have a big enough heart to look at victims anywhere. For me as a woman, it was extremely traumatic to see, and it was important to acknowledge it, to recognize what has happened, to call on our government not to abuse the victims as tools in propaganda but, rather, really look into what they need to regain control of their lives. This is what we wanted—to support them.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-hamas-used-sexual-violence-on-october-7th

I am from the Philippines and for decades have watched with great sorrow the inhuman violence and conflict taking place in Israel and Palestine. Please permit me to offer my views as a third party from the outside looking in.

Sometimes, war is necessary—a defensive war, for example—and sometimes peace is better than war. Peace is better in this case, it seems somewhat obvious to me, but it won’t happen unless both sides are motivated enough to make the necessary compromises.

To the Palestinians, I would say, Israel is there, there to stay for a very long time at least, and you aren’t going to remove them, short of genocide.

To Israel, I would say, peace is better than war, but you have to make some generous compromises.

There is more than enough hatred to go around. Both sides have to take steps over time toward building a spirit of peace—deep, overriding wishes for peace, feelings of goodwill. It won’t happen by shooting each other, much less by committing unspeakable atrocities. And if you will permit me, I don’t believe it helps to advance peace by continuing to build settlements on occupied land against international law.

I am persuaded that Israel should remove settlements in occupied land—East Jerusalem especially and then the West Bank—in order to make progress in the direction of peace.

I believe I understand the existential right of Israel and also of the Jews, and I fully sympathize. Unlike many Palestinians, I do recognize Israel’s right to exist, if only for the fact of international law. Moreover, the Holocaust should never occur again, among the Jews or among any other peoples, and the nation-state of Israel was born from the Holocaust—I grasp the existential imperative.

At the same time, I cannot deny the rights of the Palestinians who have been forced to abandon their original homeland. On the other hand, in no way do I condone or support the manner of conduct of the Palestinian war of liberation.

Today it appears that the Palestinians, or at least, a significant and substantial proportion of them, want war more than peace. They want to exterminate Israel.

“Hamas accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state separate from Israel —although only provisionally. Its statement on principles and policies said, “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas

—“Doctrine of Hamas,” Wilson Center, October 20, 2023

The war in Israel will not end until the Palestinians choose peace over war. Unfortunately, Islam does not encourage them to make peace but to fight wars.

“Since its creation in December 1987, Hamas has invoked militant interpretations of Islam to spearhead a Sunni extremist movement committed to destroying Israel. Hamas distanced itself from the longstanding Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—an umbrella organization for disparate Palestinian factions that ranged from Marxist to secular nationalists—by propagating resistance in the religious context of jihad, or a holy struggle and martyrdom. ‘Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes,’ Hamas said in its first statement in the late 1980s.”

—Ibid.

The Israelis are there, and you cannot remove them. Better to make peace than to continue all the killing and atrocities. To this end, the Israelis have to make key concessions, and the Palestinians have to make peace with Israel.

We aren’t moving in that direction but rather toward Israeli expansionism and deepening Palestinian hatred.

Also, it is very apparent that Israel is committing genocide.

“Grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians in the aftermath of 7 October, particularly in Gaza, point to a genocide in the making, UN experts said today. They illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to ‘destroy the Palestinian people under occupation’, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.”

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/11/gaza-un-experts-call-international-community-prevent-genocide-against

—United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, “Gaza: UN experts call on international community to prevent genocide against the Palestinian people,” United Nations, November 16, 2023

Christian fundamentalists—including benighted Roman Catholic priests—don’t help the matter, in my view, by thumping on the Bible to support Israel.

If you’re going to use religion—the Bible—to justify the occupation of Palestinian land, you’re treading on quicksand.

Religion is a dangerous thing. It uses the name of God to justify atrocities. It can be a very poor framework for addressing human problems.

Religion is in many important instances an inadequate framework by itself for addressing and dealing with human problems.

Religious professionals like to believe that religion has all the answers to life’s problems and difficulties. They make life worse for those forced to listen to them.

Endorsing from the pulpit Israeli occupation is a bad idea. It’s one egregious instance of how the pulpit is gravely abused by Roman Catholic priests.

Unfortunately, both the Palestinians and Israel are fighting on the basis of principle, which is why the war continues. The Palestinians say the land is theirs—they are right. Israel says the land is theirs—they are also right, although they also inhabit occupied land currently.

After the Holocaust, you can’t reasonably expect the Jews to give up what the Western powers and winners of World War II gave the Jews—at the expense of the Palestinians.

What is needed is agreement on a different set of principles in order for the war to stop.

Israel is run right now by a right-wing coalition, and many Palestinians follow the lead of the warring Hamas. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority cannot win the Hamas militants over. So, both warring sides take hard-line positions.

Unfortunately, history tells us that when two sides war based on principle, peace and the profession of a different set of principles arrive only after one side wins or both sides agree that peace on the basis of a new set of principles is the best way forward.

No one side is going to finally win this war, I’d say. Both sides must work toward peace, yes, but current political conditions do not promote or advance this movement.

No doubt prayer helps, especially for those who cannot do anything more.

No expert am I about this nightmare quagmire that spans lifetimes, but I do hope and pray for peace in a land 9,000 km away.