Yesterday I did a post on Jewish identity saying that American Jews are by and large in denial of the horrifying scale of the occupation. A friend wrote to me:
(1) The sad, resigned permissiveness toward suffering that “my people” inflict, brings out the deep immorality of tribalism. Only through tribal morality am I relieved of responsibility for suffering I cause or condone at the present time. My people suffered too, and suffered even more, it is said, and it is right to weigh those past irremediable sufferings in the scale against these present ones. But moral right is about the things I do or fail to do–not about what was done to my parents or grandparents in earlier times. Conscience is not a respecter of “stories”; tribal consciousness knows nothing higher than its own story.
(2) The occupation is no longer an occupation. It needs another name. I don’t have a word or a phrase, but an accurate description of the policy now in force would be: “expulsion by attrition and gradually compelled transfer of population.” Every day, the parallels grow more pronounced with what the U.S. did to American Indians over the course of the 19th century.
The Jewish prison
Ah, wonderful comment-very suiting for the liberal site like this. And of course there is absolutely no antisemitism here whatsoever!
The occupation is a mental and ideological prison for Jews, Dim
It’s the opposite of Tikkun Olam.
I see you read it as a prison run by Jews. Very interesting.
Thank you for the clarification-now that your comment states that it would be a prison for Jews, let me ask you how is the state that supports all forms of Jewish thought, arts, religion and culture can be considered a prison for Jews?
BTW Tikun Olam is not the goal itself, as I see it, if it comes prior to the needs of Jewish society.
Dim
Over to Shulman
The occupation is systemic in every sense of the word. The various agencies involved—government bureaucrats and their ministries and budgets, the army, the blue-uniformed civilian police, the border police, the civil administration (that is, the official Occupation Authority), the courts (in particular, the military courts in the territories, but also Israeli civil courts inside the Green Line), the host of media commentators who toe the government line and perpetuate its regnant mythologies, and so on—are all inextricably woven into a system whose logic is apparent to anyone with firsthand experience of it. That logic is one of protecting the settlement project and taking the land.
As Ali Abu Awwad, one of the leaders of the new generation of Palestinian nonviolent resisters, often says: “The Jews are not my enemy; their fear is my enemy. We must help them to stop being so afraid—their whole history has terrified them—but I refuse to be a victim of Jewish fear anymore.” He’s right to refuse. But I think the reality we inhabit and have largely created by our own actions has more to do with the story we Israelis tell ourselves about who we are—a powerfully dramatic story that, like many such mythic stories, has a way of perpetuating itself, at continually escalating cost to those who tell it.
Thanks, dimadok, for your honesty. So, in your conviction, the notion of an an ethical/moral duty to “repair the world” takes second place to whatever the most powerful of Jewish society say the Jews need. Now that’s a real “light to the world,” which is mostly non-Jewish. I think the Germans had the same notion as most influential for a dozen years, yes? Imperial Japan had your top priority too, and so did Stalin and Mussolini. If we’re lucky, all the peoples of the world will think just like you, from their own shoes of course, not yours.
Seafoid, you’re being like Obama’s paster Wright “Them Jews won’t let me speak with Obama.” He meant to say Zionists as did you, as not all Jews are Zionists.
Have Jews been constrained, even punished, by their own ideas of identity ? In a provocative personal inquiry the author posits a challenging idea. By considering themselves God’s chosen people the Jews have imprisoned themselves. “The Jewish prison” carefully considers Israel both as a state and an idea and its influence on the worldwide Jewish community.
link to amazon.com
This is a huge topic. The fetish for the land is driven by the Torah. The Ziobots know the Diaspora know the Torah and they drag more or less the whole community along with them because they have appropriated ownership of Jewish identity.
When ordinary US Jews turn up at the Presbyterian convention or read newspaper reports of it and they hear what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and they feel that is not a fair reflection of Israel, THAT is the Jewish prison.
Nope, none. The israelis are the ones who insist that what they imposed on Palestine is not just a state, but a “Jewish state.” Why do you complain when someone who believes they imposed not a state but a prison follows their lead and calls it a “Jewish prison”?
“Ah, wonderful comment-very suiting for the liberal site like this. And of course there is absolutely no antisemitism here whatsoever!”
There’s probably some anti-Semitism expressed here. So what? First of all, you never do a damn thing about it. Oh, you are ever on the look-out for anybody who might say something true about Israel and Zionism, but I have never seen you confront an anti-Semitic comment head on. You can’t. As far as I can see, and I’ve been looking for a long time, both anti-Semites and Zionists have pretty much the same opinion of both Jews and ‘the Jews’.
In fact dimmy, you’re the worst off. You embrace all the anti-Semitic conceptions concerning pre-Zionist Jews, and you embrace all the anti-Semitic conceptions (in fact you laud them) of Zionist and Israeli Jews. You are in a hell of a spot, and I wouldn’t trade places with you for anything. And, you do live in Israel, don’t you? Wow, hard to think how things could be worse for you. And believe me, it shows in every one of your comments. One long cry for help. One long exposure of your own essential unhappiness, too.
Yes, I know, dimmy, anybody can see from your comments and your relationship to this website how happy you are. Sure, dimmy, whatever you say.
History’s largest open air concentration camp!
Apartheid
Even that misses the point in some key ways.
The Afrikaaners knew that they could never expell the blacks because there would be no labor, no economy and ultimately no state.
Therefore the goal was always suppressing them, but still appeasing them sufficiently to quell the most obvious reasons for rebellion.
This is also why they created the bantustans, because giving local chiefs the illusion of power and letting them squabble over small patches of land allows people to get greedy and think of themselves first and foremost.
Still, all this required the building of hosptials, schools, roads and bridges. The Apartheid system actually invested in the black, native population and never tried to expell them. True, the investments were kept at a minimum but it was nonetheless far more than Israel does.
Israel doesn’t try to improve life at all. It actively brutalizes the native population, steals their farms, their water, kills their cattle, lets the settlers run wild and plague and torment the farmers while the IDF soldiers watch on(or even join in, laughing).
This is a slow-motion ethnic cleansing which is different from Aparthied South Africa. That’s why the freedom fighters who fought Apartheid have said time and again that what is happening in Palestine is worse than what went on in South Africa, as bad as it was.
Phil’s friend is right. Aparthied is the most vaguely proximate term available but it even it does not capture the full brutality of the Jewish state towards it’s non-Jewish population in the West Bank.
Krauss, your comment is exactly to the point. I’ve copied it and reproduced it at my blog as an example of how comments can greatly enhance a topic.
“This is a slow-motion ethnic cleansing”
It’s a failed slow motion ethnic cleansing. The Ziobots believe that if they pauperise the Palestinians they will leave. The Palestinians have learnt from 1948 and they are not going to leave. Israel can’t do a Milosevic because it is a democracy or for PR or whatever. Milosevic would just laugh at them. Facts on the ground are no good unless you clear out the natives. He did it. Israel can’t.
So the Ziobots go round in circles with their compulsive, heartless, dynamic pointlessness.
Apartheid
Correct.
The occupation is no longer an occupation. It needs another name. I don’t have a word or a phrase, but an accurate description of the policy now in force would be: “expulsion by attrition and gradually compelled transfer of population.”
The “Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” provides that “No statutory limitation shall apply to the following crimes, irrespective of the date of their commission”:
Crimes against humanity whether committed in time of war or in time of peace as they are defined in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Nurnberg, of 8 August 1945 and confirmed by resolutions 3 (I) of 13 February 1946 and 95 (I) of 11 December 1946 of the General Assembly of the United Nations, eviction by armed attack or occupation and inhuman acts resulting from the policy of apartheid, and the crime of genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, even if such acts do not constitute a violation of the domestic law of the country in which they were committed. — link to www1.umn.edu
I would also add that after nearly 90 years of effort, the international community of states adopted a criminal statute in 2010 that made any occupation in violation of the UN Charter a constituent act of the crime of aggression and that the UN General Assembly has repeatedly affirmed that Israel’s continued occupation of Arab territories captured in 1967 a) violates the UN Charter; and b) constitutes aggression. See
*General Assembly Resolution ES-9/1 link to un.org
*General Assembly resolution 39/146 link to un.org
There is another name-it has been used for the last 100 years, in case you’ve missed it.
It is called national conflict or civil war. Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them-one side is winning, another one is losing. Re-branding the nature of the conflict wouldn’t help-understanding of the REALITY will certainly do. You may call Israel any names you want-it will go on, the question what would be left of the Palestinians and how their tormented society will grow.
you are confusing the conflict with the oppressors solution to the conflict. the occupation is the system imposed by the oppressors. occupation is too nice a word because it doesn’t incorporate the ethnic cleansing and acquisition/theft of territory.
Four years to the day: we rock, they suck. But skipping steps is a bad application, dim.
I’m asking again-what use would be in name calling? How it will affect the situation in Israel or Palestine?
“I’m asking again-what use would be in name calling?”
How right you are, dimmy! So from now on, in order to positively “affect” the situation (I notice you don’t even hope to effect it) we should call it “The Great 1938 German Free-Vacation Plan for Jews”!
>> Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them-one side is winning, another one is losing. Re-branding the nature of the conflict wouldn’t help-understanding of the REALITY will certainly do.
And yet here you have rebranded the conflict from one of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, land theft, colonization, expansionism, Jewish supremacism and a decades-long oppression of Palestinians to one of two parties squabbling over some land. Nice.
Of course, this is not the REALITY of the conflict, but because framing it this way helps to obscure the enormous – and ON-GOING – immorality and injustice of the Zionist project that is Israel, I can understand why Zio-supremacists would have others believe that it is.
“There is another name-it has been used for the last 100 years, in case you’ve missed it.
It is called national conflict or civil war. Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them-one side is winning, another one is losing. Re-branding the nature of the conflict wouldn’t help-understanding of the REALITY will certainly do. You may call the Third Reich any names you want-it will go on, the question what would be left of International Jewry and how their tormented society will grow.”
It’s a perfect fit.
“would be left of International Jewry”
So Dimmy, you are convinced there is an international cabal of Jews? Another anti-Semitic concept, duly noticed in a Zionist.
Not my comment you’re replying to.
Do you really think I care? Please disabuse yourself of that notion. And you know damn good and well that if you didn’t say it, you meant to! Ha!
So, dimadok, a civil war is when colonial oppressors, settlers fight each other? Who was the colonial oppressor in the American Civil War? And, was the American-Indian wars a civil war?
“Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them – one side is winning, another one is losing.”
Spoken like a true Nazi.
So the suffering of palestinians must be OK. Since they are losing?
Two nations were fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them – one side won (for a while), another one lost. (big time).
The surviving losers ran away to take revenge and win aganinst innocent new losers.
“Re-branding the nature of the conflict wouldn’t help-understanding of the REALITY will certainly do.”
REALITY?
Ethnic clensing by “all means available to them”.
Do you mean: Zionism = Nazism?
The Winner Takes It All?
(Horrible song).
I think the new name should be: The Zionst invasion of Palestine.
I wonder if dimadok is a member of JDL.
A graffiti “artist” member.
“Arabs to the gas chambers! JDL”:
link to inminds.com
No I’m a member of Hasbara Central Command. Major -9 years in the service.
yup, about 9 years old seems accurate. When are Zionists going to remember to just take the foreskin, and leave the cerebellum alone?
There is another name-it has been used for the last 100 years, in case you’ve missed it.
It is called national conflict or civil war. Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them-one side is winning, another one is losing.
You seem to be suffering from schizophrenia. When two nations are fighting, that is by definition an “international conflict”, not a civil war. See the subsection of the Israeli Supreme Court ruling under the heading “The General Normative Framework, A. International Armed Conflict” and try to get your stories straight before you make even bigger fools out of yourselves than you already have.
Israel / Palestinians is a “conflict between two nations” the same way that Germany was merely “a conflict between Aryans and Jews” (in which Jews lost). Gosh Zionists with their ridiculous world view. What planet do you live on? There are no “equal sides to a conflict”. There is an oppressor and oppressed, occupier and occupied, ethnic cleanser and ethnic cleansed.
dimadok July 18, 2012 at 12:05 pm
“There is another name-it has been used for the last 100 years, in case you’ve missed it.
It is called national conflict or civil war. Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them-one side is winning, another one is losing”
Uh? Civil war is contained to the sovereign territory of ONE nation or state, amongst the population of that nation or state.
Is there no education where you live? Or is it the ziocaine?
How about ethnic cleansing, genocide, a permanent pogrom?
I would say simple colonialism, but that doesn’t capture the full spectrum of activities by any means. Certainly the campaign of increasing and increasingly brutal attacks by the settlers, all done with a wink and a nod from the government, is best described as a pogrom. The ethnic cleansing aspect encompasses the government action, destruction of homes and livelihoods, and also gets to the brutal campaigns again immigrants, Bedouin, and others inside Israel proper. But this cleansing is much slower than some other comparable examples in history.
Do you need the word “ethnic” even? Is Judaism a race, religion, ethnicity or what? Perhaps this is simply the cleansing of Palestine, without the ethnic term.
Well, the cleansing of Palestine raises the question: who is being (slowly and craftily in this day of more independent and fast world communication) cleansed? One thing those being cleansed have in common is that they are not Jewish. Coincidence or power policy? And by whom?
What is really going on is, of course, fascism. Attacks on Arabs, other minorities, immigrants, religious communities, and leftists, while constantly concentrating everything in the hands of a state focused solely on the question of “security.” The perfect example of the last clause is from a Haaretz column yesterday: link to haaretz.com
It purported to discuss education: “The achievements of pupils in basic core curriculum subject.” But it could only discuss education in terms of the point that there are too many Arab and Haredi children, leading to a “Third World economy” which can’t support a “First World military,” which is the whole point of the state. This is a classic example of fascist thinking.
But does it really help to just call the whole thing fascism? It’s perfectly accurate, but it’s as loaded a term as ethnic cleansing, and has the danger of turning people’s minds off. You need an entirely new term.
“You need an entirely new term.”
This is getting ridiculous. The term is there it’s always been there, and nothing needs to replace it. The term is “Zionism” and the people who do it are “Zionists”. What will change are people’s perception of the word, and their reaction to it. That’s already in progress.
Want an example? Okay, think of the different ways Americans have reacted to or conceived of the word “Japanese” and “Japan” between 1850 and 1950. Or for that matter “Russian”. And what about a fairly innocuous word like “liberal” ? Look at the permutations of meaning over time with that one.
No, the word is “Zionist” You can’t do much with the “Z” but you can hiss the hell out of the “s” in “ist”. It’ll be an oath, a swear word, before its all over.
Yousef Munayyer just wrote a column on trying to find a more apt term than “Occupation.” link to thedailybeast.com He suggests “Zionist Apartheid”:
thanks David
David, how specifically does your notion distinguish between Zionist Apartheid and Jim Crow? We all know what is de facto similar in results, but what is the specific differences?
OK. I get that “Apartheid” has a caché of success and recognition to it, but, nobody adopted Segregation in the US sense to apply to the SA practice/policy of Apartheid. The US civil rights struggle of the 50′s through 70′s against Segregation also had name recognition and success attached to it. But in the struggle against Apartheid, the actual SA term was used.
Hafrada is the actual Israeli policy of total separation (Apartheid was never about total separation). If one wants to throw in the Z-word, call it Zionist Hafrada. There can be no debate about its applicability and Hafrada, being a Hebrew word, carries a stigma that might be a spur to solve this problem, lest the name stick (…Ghettoization, Segregation, Apartheid, Hafrada).
For some reason there seems to be a reluctance to use Hafrada.
I think the reluctance is misplaced.
The question was discussed here back in 2010 (link to mondoweiss.net). Given that the word ‘hasbara’ has caught on in wider circles to describe Zionist propaganda techniques, I wouldn’t see the foreignness of ‘hafrada’ as an obstacle. The term is theirs, not ours and thus excludes the sophistic Zionist arguments against the use of ‘apartheid’ (See Richard Witty’s comments in my link.). This, I think, puts them on more of a back foot than ‘apartheid’: THEY own the word; THEY have to defend it. No matter its accuracy, ‘apartheid’ sounds shrill to many ears, and shrill wins no hearts and minds. It is no great logical leap to explain ‘hafrada’ as an Israeli form of apartheid, so I think we lose nothing by using the foreign/more precise term.
Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling used the term politicide in his book “Politicide: Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians” and in his articles. He defines it as “the politicide of the Palestinian people, a gradual but systematic attempt to cause their annihilation as an independent political and social entity.”
Ziocide
This gets my vote. Succinct.
I actually like “occupation”–in part because it so discomfits the other side. It also may draw in a potentially broader constituency than “apartheid”. Americans fought to liberate Europe from “occupation”; the struggle against “apartheid” was something most of us watched from the sidelines.
Ziontheid…Zioncide
Ziobotulism
Here is Israeli academic Oren Yiftachel on what he terms “Mass Incarceration” – link to bit.ly
Whatever, I think the key feature of the historical semi-analogies is that, unlike, say Communism, the structural and cultural set-up gives a pre-selected group of people under state police & economic power control many rights, or at least privileges, that are not earned except by the quality of being born into a certain racial and/or ethnic and/or religious group. The key point is that if you are born into a state that supports such discrimination, you are entitled to better treatment and help or less, simply because you were born. And you get shitty treatment, comparatively, if you were born into the human group that is not so entitled. Communism in theory only posits all our born with equal opportunity to serve all who need help.
The revenge of Amalek
Ziohubris
‘Apartheid’ actually substantially understates the evil of Jewish policy in the West Bank. The Zionists have no intention of permitting the formation of bantustans.
Jewish policy in the West Bank is in fact very similar to Nazi Policy in Western Poland, 1939-1944. Everything — from the ideological justification to the actual implementation — is an excellent fit. Admittedly, some German officials took the easy way out and just declared the Poles who were there anyway to be Germans — which I can’t see the noble warriors of Zion doing — but in principle, it was the same undertaking. Clear the land by any means necessary and resettle it with the master race.
If anyone finds the comparison infuriating, tough. It’s the best fit.
‘Apartheid’ actually substantially understates the evil of Jewish policy in the West Bank.
That particular regime combines all of the crimes that were conjoined in the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations: “eviction by armed attack or occupation and inhuman acts resulting from the policy of apartheid, and the crime of genocide”. It’s no accident that those were the very same totalitarian policies and practices that were employed by the 2nd Reich and the Afrikaners against the Herero people of the German colony of Namibia and by the 3rd Reich against the peoples of Europe.
The South African HSRC study highlighted a regime of “Occupation, Colonialism, and Apartheid”, which are all illegal in their effects: link to electronicintifada.net
Hafrada describes it because it’s the actual Israeli policy. Total Separation (with strong incentive to leave; e.g. separating people from their resources resulting in continually thirsty children).
I kinda like that a Hebrew word could become a new historical label for this kind of thing. It would be a source of perpetual shame and future warning for the perpetrators (as is Apartheid, as is Segregation/Jim Crow in respective SA and US history).
The other argument for using ‘hafrada’ is legal: down the road we as a species are going to want to be able to list this specific form of oppression alongside classic apartheid in the statute books as a crime against humanity.
Good points, Darcha.
The Nullification of Palestinian Peoplehood.
The Serbs gave us the term “ethnic cleansing”. Maybe Israel will provide a good name. Sometimes they describe the occupation as “Judiazation”. Politicide is an intriguing term. The 10th Crusade? The Palestinians are being “disappeared”? I have a hard time thinking of a word that captures what is happening.
Edward Q,
Is Germanification, or Nazification the same as Judization”?
Indeed, what word captures what the Israeli Jews are doing to the native Palestinians?
On June 30, 1941, Stevan Moljević, a lawyer from Banja Luka who was also an ideologue of the Chetniks, published a booklet with the title “On Our State and Its Borders”. Moljević asserted:
“One must take advantage of the war conditions and at a suitable moment seize the territory marked on the map, cleanse [očistiti] it before anybody notices and with strong battalions occupy the key places (…) and the territory surrounding these cities, freed of non-Serb elements. The guilty must be promptly punished and the others deported – the Croats to (significantly amputated) Croatia, the Muslims to Turkey or perhaps Albania – while the vacated territory is settled with Serb refugees now located in Serbia.” Is that the Israeli idea? No wonder the Israelis regime wants a war on Iran, and at USA expense.
“One must take advantage of the war conditions…”
Netanyahu made a statement along these lines in reference to the Gulf war or maybe another war. When there have been wars Israel has used the opportunity to expel Palestinians. I think Israel does basically have a fascist program.
Israelis will call it- “solving the demographic threat”
Golden Calf 2.0
CJLFS – Crazy Jewish Land Fetish Sh*t
Masada redux
Cossackstan
Ziocide is pretty good, it may be the one
(names the oppressor/aggressors and explains what is taking place)
here is another:
The Charam
found definition online:
The Hebrew verb charam (חרם and its cognate noun חֵרֶם, cherem, pronounced with a guttural ch, as in loch)
Yossi Crow
Annexation of land (plot by plot) and Ethnic Cleansing of a non-people (one by one).
Terrorization.
Israeli terrorization of Palestinians.
Antebellum-Semitism?
Attrition means that the number of Palestinians is being reduced to lower than what it was previously. Is this true? Certainly policies limit the growth of Palestinian populations by incentives of avoiding oppression and limitations on reentry (with Jerusalem this is famous, with the rest of the West Bank, such information is not widely known, including by me). But what are the raw numbers?
@ yonah
It was in Haaretz :
link to haaretz.com
link to prc.org.uk
“Attrition means that the number of Palestinians is being reduced to lower than what it was previously. Is this true?”
No, Israel is sending them all generous checks, and coupons for free spa-treatments. In fact, those videos they show on Mondoweiss are really films of Israelis pushing over their own houses to give the Palestinians room to build. Why if the Palestinian population isn’t growing by leaps and bounds, it’s no body’s fault but their own.
Yup, in Israel, most people are kosher, and won’t eat pigs. Besides, it’s much more fun to watch them fly.
According to an article today by Jonathan Cook, Israel wants to reduce the Palestinian population in area C, in preparation for annexation. He contends the Levy report is part of the ground work for this. Currently, less then 150000 Palestinians live in area C and they could be absorbed by Israel without ending the Jewish majority.
link to counterpunch.org
Certainly policies limit the growth of Palestinian populations by incentives of avoiding oppression
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
raw numbers? i recommend : “Look over there! All eyes on Iran as Israel quietly devours Area C”
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to jpost.com
“Danon touts bill to annex Judea and Samaria”
Since the beginning of the occupation, in 1967, the Palestinian population has increased, their standard of living has risen and so has their level of education.
Not that I want the occupation to continue.
Since the beginning of the occupation, in 1967, the Palestinian population has increased
That’s not relevant. The UN Secretary General, the Special Rapporteurs for food, housing, and human rights, international aid organizations, neighboring states, and the ICJ have all determined that Israel created walled-off enclaves that were denied access to adequate sources of food, water, and health care. See the findings of fact contained in paragraphs 132-134 of the ICJ Advisory Opinion. link to icj-cij.org
Unharvested crops died or were destroyed in the fields while a significant proportion of the children suffered stunted growth and permanent disabilities from malnutrition, which included premature death. That is by definition genoicide and/or apartheid ipso jure:
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Article II
For the purpose of the present Convention, the term “the crime of apartheid”, which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them:
(b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
Ahmad Hajihosseini, Observer for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), advised the UN Security Council that the form of apartheid Israel practised against Palestinians fulfilled all elements of the crime as defined under the 1976 apartheid Convention. In their final communique on 30 September after their annual coordination meeting in New York, the OIC Foreign Ministers had condemned the building of the expansion wall, which involved the confiscation of Palestinian land; the isolation of Palestinian villages, towns and cities; and the destruction of Palestinian property and livelihood. — link to un.org
Written Statement of Lebanon to the ICJ:
“The construction of the wall and the resulting situation correspond to a number of the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid, as enumerated in Article 2 of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the General Assembly on 30 November 1973: that is to say, the denial of the liberty and dignity of a group, the deliberate imposition on a group of living conditions calculated to cause its physical destruction in whole or in part, measures calculated to deprive a group of the right to work, the right to education and the right to freedom of movement and residence, the creation of ghettos, the expropriation of property, etc. Such actions constitute measures of collective punishment.”
link to icj-cij.org
My goodness Jon, at this rate the Palestinians will soon outstrip the Israelis. No wonder you don’t want the occupation to continue.
It seems to me that if an occupying power has been perpetrating a policy of “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” for over 40 years, then the occupied population, the victims, should have decreased in numbers and should be a lot worse off.
Any data that I would provide would probably be considered “unreliable”, “Zionist propaganda” –so here’s a challenge for anyone with the ability and the time:
Check the figures for:
• Population: what was the population of the WB and Gaza in 1967 and what it is today?
• Economic indicators: GNP, per capita income, or any other accepted indicator, then and now.
• Education: literacy rates , % of high-school graduates and college graduates, the number of universities in the territories in 1967 and now.
• Health care: infant mortality, life expectancy, number of doctors and hospitals.
It seems to me that if an occupying power has been perpetrating a policy of “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” for over 40 years, then the occupied population, the victims, should have decreased in numbers and should be a lot worse off.
Then you aren’t very familiar with the social indicators or population data for places like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. They also experienced local population growth despite the loses experienced from genocide. e.g. link to issafrica.org
“It seems to me that if an occupying power has been perpetrating a policy of “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” for over 40 years, then the occupied population, the victims, should have decreased in numbers and should be a lot worse off.”
Tens of millions of people died because of the policies of Mao Zedong. And life expectancy doubled during his rule. And the population skyrocketed.
I’m not comparing Israel to Mao’s China and personally I don’t use the term “genocide” for what Israel does, but your reasoning is faulty.
Zionist ENIGMA (I like the 4th definition of enigma the best from dictionary.com)
“Trail of Tears”?
Yes, slow-motion ethnic cleansing (which can shift to fast-motion when opportunity arises). The main method is to make life so difficult and miserable for the targeted population that they go away “voluntarily.” Away can mean out of Palestine or (as an intermediate step) into the overcrowded reserved areas or ghettoes. We Jews were the targets of a very similar policy in tsarist Russia. With few exceptions we were only allowed to live in the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Pobedonostsev formulated his “solution to the Jewish problem” as follows: one third will perish, one third will emigrate, one third will convert. The difference here is that the Palestinians do not in practice have the option of conversion.
Gradual annexation.
“Gradual annexation.”
Which is, of course, just fine, a recognised and just process and honored by all other States in the world.
I’ve never had a cuck-oo clock, but know I know what’s it’s like. My apologies to all avian species, of course.
The occupation doesn’t need a new name.
Just needs expanding to bloody destroyer of life and human dignity.
The upcoming session of the Russell Tribunal, set to take place in New York in the beginning of October, will apply the term of ‘sociocide’ to the current system Israel applies to the non-Jewish population of historic Palestine.
‘The ultimate aim of sociocide is not the physical destruction of peoples, or of a loosely defined culture, or of a State, as it is sometimes confusedly said, but rather the destruction of the relationships between the different groups constituting a society. This is what governments of the United States have done in Iraq, what Western governments encouraged in ex-Yugoslavia, what the Zionists did in Palestine. If “ethnic cleansing” in all its physically and culturally destructive forms can contribute to sociocide—the destruction of social bonds between diverse groups—the way is clear for colonial or imperialist domination and exploitation of a region, whether it be for expropriation of the land, exploitation of its economic resources or occupation of its strategic location.’
Via link to divergences.be
I have been considering the relations between Zionism and Capitalism. Both political-economic structures favor a specific class (ethnic Jews and the wealthy, respectively), at the expense of the non-privileged classes. Whereas the normative society for each political-economic system accepts each paradigm (thus, Jews and non-Jews are able to exist in Israel, and the wealthy and the poor exist in the United States), the system cannot normatively function when there are those who refuse to abide by the presumptions of the respective political-economic system.
And thus, both systems favor the absolute destruction of alternative political-economic systems. Both Zionists and Capitalists have relied on militarism without exception as a means of imposing their political-economic structures on indigenous populations.
So whereas there are Zionists and Capitalists, for those who don’t abide by the two systems, they are seen simply as Fascists imposing their ideologies by force and violence.
I have been thinking about the conflict in terms of capitalist expansion as well.
Israeli companies sell their products to a literally captive market and at profit margins they can’t make in Israel. Palestinians are not allowed to be consumers .
It is a very specific Zionist form of capitalism. The doctrine of security is used to separate two populations . The first has a standard of living 15 times that of the second. When Israelis say they are happy with the status quo what they mean is that they love the cashflow.
In other variations on capitalism war is used to stimulate growth, to destroy excess stock so that it can be rebuilt but for Israel war is used to pauperise. All capital flows must lead back to Israel. No Palestinian companies may emerge that could threaten Jewish control of the economy. This is what the checkpoints and customs levies are so important.
But the weakness of the Israeli system is the need for growth.They can’t reverse because they have built in so many conditions that prevent this. So they have to go forward. The longer the occupation drags on the more friction it causes and the higher the cost. The presbyterian General meeting is an example. Israel spends more and more on the settlers at the expense of its own poor. It is like a set of plates spinning. So far the plates are intact but the outlook is shaky.
The logic of capitalism is stronger than the logic of Zionism. Israeli Jews are consumers before they are Zionists. So capitalism will win at the expense of Zionism.
Graber, get a haircut, huh? This is not 1972. BTW, ever consider that the exploitation takes place between different classes of Jews within “Zionism” (which besides being a way of dealing with the Palestinians, is a way of dealing with Jews, too).
“means of imposing their political-economic structures on indigenous populations.” You know, a guy (who had a decent haircut) could extend that analysis to Mizrahi and other poorer Jews without too much difficulty. No, not as bad as the Palestinians, but I don’t think it would be too hard to define a dividing line other than Jew-Palestinian in that type of analysis..
Okay then Graber, don’t do anything too make an old, balding guy feel any better, just keep shoving those magnificent locks into my face. I won’t feel any resentment, not me.
How about the “Nakba.” Or the Continuing Nakba. Or the Nakba, 63 years and counting. It is of course unique. Why not honor these unique victims by using their word for it.
Mandela said, we must not only free the blacks from Apartheid, but also free the whites from their fear. Similarly, we must not only free the Palestinians from the continuing Nakba, we must free the Israelis from their fear of being over-run by the more numerous Arabs and Muslims. This is what US policy should be focused on.
Or Nakba Phase II: 1967-present
I actually like this a lot David. It should be called what it is: a “catastrophe.”
occupied palestine, the israeli vise of torment & terror
occupied palestine, israel’s slow motion genocide experiment
Necrotising Hafrada.
From Greek “nekros” death, dying,
Necrotising: resulting in death
So: separation so total, that it results in destruction and death.
Necrotic Hafrada would also work
Ziophiocordyceps.
With YESHA as the fungus
link to guardian.co.uk
The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns ants into zombies and makes them stagger to their death has been uncovered by scientists.
The finding shows that parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control the creatures they infect in the distant past, even before the rise of the Himalayas.
The question now is, what are the triggers that push a parasite not just to kill its host, but to take over its brain and muscles and then kill it.” He added: “Of all the parasitic organisms, only a few have evolved this trick of manipulating their host’s behaviour. Why go to the bother? Why are there not more of them?”
PALOCAUST
“PALOCAUST”
Okay, it’s got zing, its got snap, but on second thought, thank you, but no.
Strangulating Hafrada. It has a certain pythonesque mercilessnes to it that feels right.
I like “hafrada”, too. But it’ll be a more difficult one than “apartheid” to make stick. “Apartheid” contains the English word “apart” which gives almost instant access to the meaning. With “hafrada” as good as it is, first they have to be taught what it means, and then to revile it. Two-step process. Although, to tell you the truth, I was of an age at the time that I heard the word “apartheid” for years before I knew what it meant, and knew to revile it.
How to takeover a country in post-Nazi-times.
How about “RAPE.” Both the Palestinians and their land are being raped by Israel.
Used literally or figuratively, the word is apt. It’s a horrid crime. It’s forced on someone without their consent and against their will – especially by the threat or use of violence against them. It’s the wanton destruction of a place or area. To spoil or destroy. Its late Middle English origin denoted violent seizure of property.
Nobody wants to be associated with a rapist. What accomplice wouldn’t want to distance themselves from that label?
@ sidestreetwalker
Speaking of rape:
I guess once you start a regime of violence, it eventually turns around and gets your own as well.
A light unto the world…