Category: Israel Palestine

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire has been all but universally welcomed but, as with all ceasefires, it will end, probably in failure. That problems with the agreement have surfaced before it was even implemented, in particular over the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, did not bode well for its longer term success. (more…)

Joe Biden’s inaction and diffidence has made him a party to Israel’s atrocities. (more…)

Imprisoned Palestinian leader tops list of political prisoners whose potential release is being discussed. (more…)

Gaza has become a killing field—that is the view of a well-informed Israeli veteran who was an enthusiastic supporter of the initial Israeli response to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. He believes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the mastermind of the all-out retaliatory bombing and ground attack there, is now a contemporary Colonel Kurtz, the psychotic killer of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, the famed Vietnam War movie of 1979 based on Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness.

What began as a retaliatory war by the internationally revered Israel Defense Forces against a disciplined Hamas guerilla force turned into the systematic starvation of a society whose civilian survivors—men, women, and children—are the victims of an Israeli military whose combat units are often led by the second generation of Israeli settlers. These officers, increasingly prominent as the war in Gaza goes on, are religious zealot majors and lieutenant colonels who believe it is their calling to shoot and kill any Palestinian who moves, whether combatant or civilian.

There are more than 120 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including fifteen in East Jerusalem. There are also more than two hundred illegal outposts that are supplied with weapons by the increasingly radical Israeli government while not officially sanctioned by that government. Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has grown steadily, including Israeli Air Force bombing missions.

The IDF recruiting pattern explains the growing violence against Palestinian men, women, and children in the war. I was told that 40 to 45 percent of today’s higher officers in the IDF come from settler families in the West Bank who combine “deep religiosity with Netanyahu’s political fervor.’’ The Israeli veteran told me of watching in horror, with colleagues, as Israeli bombings and earth-moving machinery were continuing to, as he put it, “level” north Gaza and turn it into a dead zone. He said that there “have been more and more reports of colonels and even generals issuing orders to kill every Palestinian you see and destroy every building still standing. Israel’s war in Gaza has become fanatical. It’s apocalypse now. Killing for killing’s sake. It is corruption like never before.”

He was referring to a devastating article published in December by Haaretz, the liberal Israeli daily that is under increasing attack by the Netanyahu administration. The article focused on the Netzarim Corridor, once a narrow partially paved road separating north and south Gaza that has since the 10/7 attack been expanded by the IDF into a two-and-a-half-mile wide safe zone that runs the entire four-mile width of the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of nearby buildings, including a hospital, were bulldozed to clear space for the IDF. The zone is commanded by more than a few officers who, Haaretz reported, routinely order IDF soldiers to execute Gazans, including those who come with children in tow, seeking food and safety.

Many have been summarily executed on the order of senior officers who deemed them to be terrorists. IDF soldiers on duty at the corridor told Haaretz that, at best, one in every twenty of those Gazans looking for any kind of help was a “terrorist” but all were routinely gunned down. One commander at the corridor called it “the line of dead bodies,” where, because bodies were not collected, there are “packs of wild dogs who come to eat them.”

It was explained that the area was a “kill zone,” and anyone who entered without permission was to be shot. There was inevitable competition among the various units assigned to guard the corridor, a recently discharged IDF officer told Haaretz. He also said that the kill zone extended as far as a sniper could see. “We’re killing civilians who are then counted as terrorists.” If one perimeter defense unit has 150 kills, “the next unit aims for 200.”

The competition was very familiar to this reporter. I reported often and mercilessly about the competition for body counts among companies in combat during the Vietnam War. There were benefits for killing the most Vietnamese: a weekend far away from the war with an all-you-can-eat barbeque for the winning unit, complete with a constant flow of beer and, on special occasions, a busload of Vietnamese prostitutes brought by bus from a local city. Once grand but decaying armies, whether in Gaza or Vietnam, fall into the same patterns.

There are other voices—moderate but far from radical—to be heard. Momentmagazine, founded in 1975 for the American Jewish community by, among others, the late Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, published an interview last month with Israeli General Yair Golan. A paratrooper who retired a decade ago as the IDF’s deputy chief of staff, Golan was then elected to the Knesset, where he served as deputy minister of the economy.

Golan is the leader of the newly formed Israeli Democrats Party, a liberal Zionist group that could capture, the magazine reported, ten seats in a future election. He is a modest man with modest views. He said he believes—the interview took place in November—that a ceasefire with Hamas is feasible but Netanyahu “prefers to keep the war going so as to appease the far-right members of his coalition who want to rebuild settlements in Gaza.” Settlements in north and south Gaza for the religious zealots who support Netanyahu? It’s in the plan.

Golan said that there are at least four different tribes in Israel: ultra-Orthodox Jews, Orthodox Jews, secular Jews, and Arabs. He added: “We need to bridge the gaps in our society between these groups and should foster judicial equality and equality of opportunity for all.”

Asked how to end the war In Gaza and free the remaining 10/7 hostages, Golan said: “Netanyahu knows that all that is needed is a hostage deal to move in a positive direction. But he does not want it. Why? The war in the south provides the opportunity to convince the Israeli people that we are in a time of emergency and only he can save us.”

Asked about strategic issues, Golan said: “We often need to choose between bad and worse. Here we need to choose between good and bad. But this government prefers the bad. This is its main crime. This government ignores the interests of Israel and serves only the personal and political interests of its members. . . . The alternative to Netanyahu must be a unified government coalition.”

Asked how Israel should deal with Donald Trump, he said, “It is very difficult to predict the policy of the new American administration. In any event, to have a regional front against Iran we need the United States. To reach a new peace agreement with the Palestinians, we need the United States with us. A new Memorandum of Understanding with America is required by 2026. This MOU must clearly state that America supports the security of Israel.

“The worst-case scenario for Israel would be if Donald Trump takes office and says something like, ‘It is too hard to deal with you. You are not a good partner.’”

Modest man. Modest ideas. Common sense. If modern history tells us anything, it is: don’t bet on it.

Republished from Seymour Hersh Substack, 10 January, 2024

Palestinians and Israelis are breathing sighs of relief that after fifteen months of killing, famine, torture and destruction across Gaza, the Israeli Netanyahu government and representatives of Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire. (more…)

After 15 months of the most horrific live-streamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has been forced into an interim ceasefire. How long it will last is anyone’s guess but Israel’s contempt for any restraining agreements doesn’t offer much hope. (more…)

Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a ceasefire and hostage deal, which is scheduled to take effect January 19. The deal as written is apparently virtually identical to the one Hamas agreed to last May, which Netanyahu then sabotaged with the complicity of the Biden administration. (more…)

From Arab governments to the UN Secretary General, forces must mobilise to halt Israel’s detrimental expulsion of UNRWA, writes Chris Gunness. (more…)

For most of the post-war years, there was bipartisan support for Israel in Australia, with the ALP especially proud of H.V. Evatt’s role in the establishment of the Jewish state at the United Nations. And there has always been an influential pro-Israel faction within the party. The Liberals were never hostile to Israel but, for most of this period, they were not the natural home for Australian Zionists. (more…)

Israel chose the wrong way to deal with its enemies. For a better way, it could have borrowed a leaf from China. (more…)

Ice Hockey Australia’s decision to withdraw from hosting a lower-tier men’s world championship event citing safety concerns, has been denounced by Jewish and Israeli organisations as antisemitic, yet there’s no evidence of this. What is evident is that red flags are now appearing when Israeli national teams seek to participate in international sporting events.

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Tuesday night’s Australian ABC news had me outraged with the story about Dreyfus going to Israel to – what? Mend bridges? (more…)

In the 15th century and during the Renaissance, arenas in territories under the Roman Empire witnessed bloody and unequal battles. These arenas were often used by the wealthy and influential as a stage to showcase their power, secure their influence, and gain popularity among the public. At that time, the poor, prisoners, and the weak were forced to fight in these arenas as gladiators, often to the death – either as punishment or as a form of entertainment.

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There are few UN positions that provoke as much scrutiny and criticism as the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. It plays an important role: it catalogues Israel’s violation of Palestinian human rights, provides factual information for advocates and activists, and helps to keep Palestine firmly on the agenda at the UN. (more…)

It seems like Western countries cannot draw lessons from their shameful past. Just as they appeased the Nazi and apartheid regimes, they are repeating their mistake by appeasing the Zionist regime in occupied Palestine while it’s waging a war of genocide against the Palestinian people.

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In December 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, warned in relation to the situation in Gaza that “the practice of medicine is under attack” and “we are in the darkest time for the right to health in our lifetimes”. More than a year later, and with the killing by Israel of more than 1000 Palestinian health professionals and near total destruction of a whole healthcare system, that catastrophic reality now casts an even greater shadow over humanity. (more…)