Yossi schwartz ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 17.10.2023
The number of Israelis killed is about 1300 according to the Israeli government (breakdown not given). The number of Palestinians killed: more than 2000 (1/3rd women, 1/3rd children). Israel targeted a group of Journalists in Lebanon who are covering the events in the north killing one and injuring several. They also targeted ambulances and medical personnel in Gaza killing nine medics. Israel, having cut off water, medicine, food, fuel, and electricity to 2.3 million Palestinians, asked that 1.1 million of them leave their homes and head south (South Gaza and then to Egypt). The Israeli army then bombed those (a minority) who actually complied with their orders to leave thus killing 70 and injuring over 200 (again wiping out whole families trying to flee). The carpet bombing continues and as medicine, water and food run out, an environmental and health catastrophe is unfolding (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN, and the World Health Organization all warned of catastrophe). Meanwhile the Zionist US Secretary of State (he said he came to Israel as a Jew who supports Israel) bluntly supports Israeli actions that amount to genocide.
Not one of the Arab leaders Blinken met with so far (Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s king, etc,) was willing to publicly call a spade a spade (that the USA is a full partner in getting us where we are today and in the crime of genocide). Only Turkey’s Erdogan said something openly about this. Russian and Chinese leaders were diplomatically “neutral” and refused to jump on the propaganda bandwagon. The Zionist lobby having firm control on their lackeys in Western Governments and western mainstream media resorted to silencing the last remaining western opposition: the people. In Germany, Belgium, and France, governments tried to ban demonstrations calling to end the genocide and to comply with international law. Yet, millions took to the streets today in more than 40 countries around the world (yes even in Germany and France). Here in the West Bank 11 unarmed protesters were killed and dozens injured Friday (there is a video of Israeli settlers protected by soldiers murdering a young man protesting a settler incursion). The propaganda and attempts to suppress free speech are actually backfiring. Resentment is increasing globally and a global uprising has started. We just hope that it grows faster to limit the number of innocent children who will be murdered.
A. Gaza:
The entire size of the enclave is less than 200 square miles and 2.3 million people. 1.1 million in the north and 1.2 million in the south of the small enclave. One of the densest places on earth. Most are the families expelled in the ethnic cleansing of 1947-48 from their land and houses. After the war of 1967 additional Palestinians families were expelled. Neither they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return to their homes – Israel says this would overwhelm the country and threaten its existence as a Jewish state.
B. The Zionist mass killing of Gazans in the last 16 years Gaza under siege lived through 4 additional wars
“On Dec. 27, 2008, Israel carried out a large onslaught on Gaza over three weeks, named by Israel as “Operation Cast Lead” during which 1,436 Palestinians, including 410 children and 104 women, were killed. In response to the Israeli onslaught, 13 Israelis were killed in the Palestinian attacks” [1]
“Israeli forces launched a major military operation, code-named “Pillar of Defense”, on Gaza on 14 November 2012, beginning with an airstrike that killed the leader of the military wing of Hamas. In the following eight days, before a ceasefire was reached on the 21st of November with Egypt, some 150 Palestinians, including more than 30 children and approximately 70 other civilians, and six Israelis, including four civilians, were killed. Israeli forces, Hamas’ military wing and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes. The Israeli air force carried out bomb and missile strikes on residential areas, including strikes that were disproportionate and caused heavy civilian casualties. In some cases, Israel does not appear to have complied with its obligation to distinguish at all times between civilian objects and military objectives, launching some indiscriminate strikes which damaged or destroyed civilian property, media facilities, government buildings and police stations. The Israeli navy also shelled populated coastal areas with artillery in indiscriminate attacks.” [2]
“From 8 July until 26 August 2014, 2,251 Palestinians were killed; 1,462 of them are believed to be civilians, including 551 children and 299 women. 66 Israeli soldiers and five civilians, including one child, were also killed. Overall, 11,231 Palestinians were injured during the conflict, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children. Roughly one third of these children will have to cope with disabilities lasting throughout life as a result of their injuries” [3]
“In May 2021, Israel launched a devastating 11-day military offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip, the fourth major offensive launched by Israel on the Palestinian territory in 14 years. The assault killed at least 261 people, including 67 children, and wounded more than 2,200, according to the United Nations” [4]
C. Are the Israeli civilians innocent?
The war of 2023 began with Hamas’ attack on Settlements surrounding Gaza. Places that before the ethnic cleansing of 1947-8 belonged to the same Palestinian families in Gaza. For example, modern Ashdod was established in 1956 on the sand hills 6 km northwest of the historical Ashdod, then known as Isdud, a Palestinian town which had been depopulated in 1948. [5]
Or Ashkelon: “The modern urban development of the area began approximately 4 km inland from the ancient site as the Palestinian town of al-Majdal (Arabic: الْمِجْدَل, romanized: al-Mijdal; Hebrew: אֵל־מִגְ׳דַּל, romanized: ʾĒl-Mīǧdal). Its inhabitants were exclusively Muslims and Christians; on the eve of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the inhabitants numbered 10,000 and in October 1948, the city accommodated thousands more Palestinian refugees from nearby villages.[2][3] The town was conquered by Israeli forces on 5 November 1948, by which time much of the Arab population had fled,[4] leaving some 2,700 inhabitants, of which 500 were deported by Israeli soldiers in December 1948[4] and most of the rest were deported by 1950.[5] Today, the city’s population is almost entirely Jewish” [6]
Sderot: “The development was located on the land of the Palestinian village of Najd, which was depopulated during 1948 Arab-Israeli War] and served as part of a chain of settlements designed to block infiltration of the refugees from Gaza. Permanent housing was completed three years later, in 1954” [7]
Shamelessly the Zionist state settled new settlers’ colonialists in the area around Gaza and the settlers accepted it without any protest. The vast majority(if not all) of these colonialist settlers serve or their sons and daughters serve in the Israeli army inflicting more pains on the Palestinians and politically they support the right and the far right in Israel. Thus, are they innocent civilians? As much as the Germans who robbed Jewish properties and supported and participated in the killing of the people including of Jews.
D. Hamas attack on October 7 2023
On Saturday October 7 Hamas fighters entered places surrounding Gaza to capture Israeli prisoners, soldiers and civilians, while the fighters in Gaza kept shooting rockets. The fighters were told by the command to kill only soldiers, officers and police and not civilians. Hamas’ Head of Political and International Relations has told Sky News that no civilians have been killed by the militant group by order. [8]
Yet Israeli civilians were killed why? First many Gazans broke out from Gaza under 16 years of siege full of justified anger and it is possible that some of Hamas soldiers disobeyed the direction of the command. In any case the last people who have the right to complain about killing civilians are Israel and its imperialist friends.
On Saturday on Reshet B radio at around 10 o’clock in the morning a woman told how she was afraid of being killed by Hamas fighters but was told not to be afraid Hamas does not kill civilians.
E. The Zionist lies
There are three main lies used by the Zionist government and the Zionist mass propaganda.
1. The First Lie: Israel was surprised by Hamas attack
At first Netanyahu denied that Israel Had knowledge of Hamas preparation to attack but he was forced to admit that 3 days before the attack he received information from Egypt of the coming big attack. This raises the question: why did he lie? Months before October 7th it was clear to anyone with eyes that a new war in the Middle East is on the way. We in the RCIT wrote on 10.8.23 “Thus, a new war in the region is a real possibility. Such a war is in the interest of the Netanyahu government in order to unite the Zionists.”
Even the BBC on 8.8 wrote: “The lack of a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians ensures that every ceasefire between the two sides is only temporary” [9]
Thus, Hamas acted in a preemptive strike. What shocked Israel is the strength and the detailed plans of Hamas that acted as a small popular army. So why did Netanyahu lie? He expected this attack from Hamas thinking it will be weak and will give him the chance to end the protests against him. Unite all the Zionists and form a unity government and carry out a mass killing and a new Nakba and maybe even drag the U.S to a war against Iran.
2. The second lie about the massacre of babies
This story appears in many western imperialist newspapers. But as the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus around 550 BC said: “The first casualty of war is the truth”.
This monstrous lie began by a report in I24 channel by an American Zionist er Nicole Zedeck who did not show any picture of such beheaded babies. She says in defense of her story that she was told about this killing by two Israeli officers.
“It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. You see the babies, the mother, the father, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists killed them. It’s a massacre,” IDF Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv told the outlet at the time the bodies were discovered:
“They chopped heads of children and women,” says David Ben Zion, Deputy Commander of Unit 71 to our @Nicole_Zedek, while reporting from the massacre in Kfar Aza in southern Israel” [10]
From Reuters:
“The video shown to NATO, apparently taken from a mix of social media published by Hamas and unidentified phone videos, showed the bodies of scores of dead civilians, as well as the body of an Israeli soldier in uniform with his head missing.
There were no images to suggest militants had beheaded babies — a particularly explosive accusation that first emerged in Israel’s media and initially confirmed by Israeli officials.
“The images of the dead infants were included in the video played to NATO. It was not released to the public, but was later seen by Reuters in Jerusalem. Reuters could not independently verify the material” [11]
“Despite international journalists and news agencies debunking allegations that Palestinian resistance group Hamas “beheaded babies” in Israel, the claim continued to make headlines on Wednesday in Israeli and Western media, receiving millions of social media views.
“Hours after Nicole Zedk appeared, Anadolu reporters contacted the Israeli military over the phone to ask about the claims, with their spokesperson unit saying: “We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that” [12]
“Following Anadolu’s reporting on the allegations, some international journalists posted on X confirming that the claim was untrue, showing how the misinformation propagates through social media” [13]
“A French reporter based in Jerusalem, Samuel Forey, said on X that he was in the Kfar Aza settlement, located less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from northeastern Gaza, on Tuesday but no one had mentioned the alleged decapitations” [14]
“Aren Ziv, an Israeli photojournalist, likewise said he saw no evidence of beheaded infants, while neither the Israeli army nor spokesperson also did not mention any such incidents” [15]
Thus, there is no proof Palestinian fighters ‘beheaded’ babies. The only source is a radical settler. This is a similar to the allegation of rape by Hamas:
“In a historic, impassioned speech expressing unbridled U.S. support for Israel on Tuesday, President Joe Biden listed among the atrocities Hamas had committed that women “were raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”
“A White House spokesperson told the Forward that this assertion was based on a phone call earlier that day in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told Biden that Israeli women had been “brutally raped and murdered.” Similar characterizations have been included in condemnations of Hamas by columnists, celebrities and editorial boards“.
“But the source of the rape allegation remains murky. While sexual assault is a common feature of violent conflict worldwide, the Israel Defense Forces told the Forward Tuesday night that it does not yet have any evidence of rape having occurred during Saturday’s attack or its aftermath. And most mainstream media outlets have avoided mention of rape, with the Los Angeles Times and NBC News specifically stating they have been unable to verify the claims. He then went on to list various names and their ties to the Israeli military” [16]
“British-Iraqi activist Kareem Dennis of MintPress News, an independent US-based watchdog journalism organization, claimed that i24 “has employed at least 35 veterans of the Israeli occupation forces as staff
Channa Rifkin is an i24News correspondent who transitioned from the channel’s Social Media editor to the Israeli military, then returned to work for i24News.”
“David Matlin, the host of a daily flagship show on i24News, is a former Israeli military sergeant and the regional director for Israel lobby group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).” Matlin is also a founding member of the channel.
“Eyal Pinko, who was the head of intelligence in the Israeli Navy before becoming the head of division in the Israeli prime minister’s office, is another correspondent for the channel,” Dennis said in the X thread.
He also mentioned Daniel Tsemach, a former i24 journalist who joined the channel after serving as a social media manager for the Israeli military. Tsemach recently left his position at i24 to join Israel’s state-owned defense company, Rafael” [17]
In addition, the Israel Today daily has a list of those who were killed by Hamas mostly of the Zionist armed forces and no baby picture or name appear in this list. Jerusalem Post has a similar list but only of the Zionist armed forces. No baby appears on this list.
These are the alleged Israeli babies that Netanyahu claimed Hamas beheaded.
However, if you look closely, you will realize that these are large plastic death begs and cannot be of babies. Lies have short legs.
C. The third lie is that Israel ordered the 1.1 million Palestinians from the north of Gaza to move south in order to save their lives.
“A second Nakba’: Echoes of 1948, as Israel orders Palestinians to leave
Thousands of people have moved to southern Gaza after the order, but others say there is no place safe from Israel’s bombings and that they would rather die at home” [18]
The United Nations has called the move “impossible” and warned of “catastrophic consequences”, while the government media office in Gaza commented that this Israeli decision unveils the true “criminal face” of Israel.
That order led thousands of people in Gaza to move towards the Strip’s south on Friday. But Israeli warplanes targeted two trucks and a car at three different points on the Salah al-Din and al-Rashid streets. The vehicles had families who were on their way to the southern Gaza Strip.”At least 70 Palestinians were killed in the attacks, mostly women and children, Gaza’s government media office said, and more than 200 were wounded.” Yet, while thousands of people are evacuating, many others refuse to do so – and overall support for armed resistance to Israel’s attacks appears intact. Crowds thronged the streets in different parts of Gaza on Friday, chanting slogans and insisting that they will not leave their homes. The bombings of the convoys of people leaving for the south have reinforced those sentiments. “If they are bombing us anyway everywhere, then why should we leave? We are staying home and we want to die at home” [19]
F. The Israeli prisoners in the hands of Hamas
Hamas holds between 100-150 prisoners. Some of them were killed in the Zionist bombing of Gaza. Hamas holds them for exchange of prisoners but if Israel will attack and destroy South Gaza chances are that they will die in the hands of the Zionist criminals. There are around 5000 Palestinian prisoners among them 120 children and 70 children that are forced to sleep on the floor. One in every five Palestinians has been arrested and charged under the 1,600 military orders that control every aspect of the lives of Palestinians living under the Israeli military occupation. That incarceration rate doubles for Palestinian men — two in every five have been arrested.
“By comparison, in the United States, the country notorious for the world’s largest prison population, one in 200 people is imprisoned. The imprisonment rate among Black Americans is more than three times the overall rate — but even then, is a tiny fraction of an average Palestinian’s likelihood of spending time in jail” [20]
G. The friends of the Zionist apartheid, and those of the Palestinians national liberation struggle
It does not come as a surprise that Western imperialism led by the U.S defends and supports the Zionist apartheid state. After all Israel is the front line of the imperialists in the region. Biden is not only spreading the lies of Israel but providing her with more weapons to be used against the people of Gaza and for the planned ethnic cleansing.
On the other hand in the semi colonies and in the Arab states the masses support Hamas. There are huge pro Palestinians in the Arab states by the popular Masses and even in countries like England and in the US.
In Al Jazeera the journalist Andrew Mitrovica writes: “This is not ‘righteous’ payback or vengeance. It is – I repeat, for the legion of complicit hacks and stenographers who, remarkably, have never noticed, let alone given a damn, about the perpetual suffering and trauma of Palestinians – a genocide.
If my blunt indictment stings, I challenge any of the historically illiterate columnists and American TV news celebrities who have rushed to Israel to burnish their credentials as “foreign correspondents” – with their hairstylists, makeup artists and writers in tow – to disabuse me, and much more importantly, the Palestinian diaspora and their allies, of our belief that a murderous genocide is unfolding in that besieged enclave” [21]
These insufferable hypocrites are again tarring Palestinians as “evil predators” while praising Israelis as “solicitous saints” for warning grateful Palestinians in Gaza that they’re going to kill them en masse.
G. The Arab states
Were not the local rulers so afraid of the Western imperialists and their own people they would not sit on their hands but provide Hamas more weapons and enter the war rather than look how Israel is acting to genocide of the people of Gaza.
Tens of thousands have marched in support of Palestinians in cities around the world calling for an end to Israeli bombing of Gaza.
“Supporters of the Palestinian people hold a rally and march called a ‘Day of Action for Palestine’ as the conflict between Israeli and Hamas continues, near the White House in Washington, DC to chants of “Free Palestine” as the death toll continued to climb in the conflict between Israel and Hamas” [22]
“Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in the US capital on Saturday, marching past the White House. Across the country, Americans have held pro-Palestinian protests with crowds gathering in Los Angeles, New York and Dearborn, Michigan – home to one of the largest populations of Arabs and Arab diaspora in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, rallies took place in Manchester in northern England, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, and London, amid police warnings that anyone showing support for the armed group Hamas could face arrest. Protesters marching through the heart of the British capital were shadowed by a heavy police presence of more than 1,000 officers.
Demonstrations in support of Palestine also took place in Switzerland’s capital Geneva, in Turin – northwestern Italy, and in the Irish capital, Dublin. In Morocco’s Rabat, thousands marched in solidarity with the Palestinian people.” [23]
H. The Israeli prisoners in the hands of Hamas
There are 120-150 such prisoners of different ages. Some of them were killed by Israeli bombing. Invasion of the enclave most probably will end with the death of these prisoners. The families of these prisoners who demand to invade Gaza are taking responsibility for their death.
I. The centrists and the war :
The ISA as truly right wing centrists put on the same level the oppressor and the oppressed and defend shamelessly the right of self determination of the Zionist settler colonialists:
“Solidarity with those who have lost their loved ones and with ordinary men and women from all communities, on both sides of the fence, who face the horrors of war and the acts of massacre At the heart of the ‘failure’: the arrogance of the government’s “conflict management” policy and the normalization of the occupation and siege led to war . What’s needed is a struggle to stop the deterioration and to end the siege, occupation and poverty, as part of a struggle for a root solution to the endless rounds of conflict, within the framework of socialist change, on the basis of equal rights to existence, self determination, and life with dignity and welfare” [24]
The IMT of Woods has a better position and they side with the Palestinians. However as long as they recognize the right of self determination of the zionist settler colonialism and call for a federative state they are on the wrong side.
The British SWP has a good position of being on the side of Hamas without giving it political support. They say: “Today much of the left says it can’t support the resistance because Hamas is “backward” or uses violence. The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin faced the same argument in 1916 when the Irish Republicans rose against British rule. They used armed struggle, and many of those involved were heavily influenced by religion and cross-class nationalism.”
But Lenin pointed out, “To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, is to repudiate social revolution.” [25]
And that article does not provide a program for the liberation of Palestine as a one, red and free state from the river to the sea!
This is the time for Iran, Hizboolah, and the Huties to join the struggle of the Palestinians and for the Palestinians in the West Bank to join the military struggle against the Zionist state and the PA that collaborate with the Zionist state.
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/2008-gaza-wars-effects-continue-to-resonate-for-palestinian-resistance-expert/2481959
[2] https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-188596/
[3] https://www.unrwa.org/2014-gaza-conflict
[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/10/year-on-war-gaza-frustrated-slow-reconstruction
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashdod
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkelon
[7] “Gimme shelter”. Heebmagazine.com. March 24, 2009
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egipqa0ZhUk
[9] Israel-Gaza: Unusual pre-emptive hit by Israel pays off – BBC News
[10] https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/there-is-no-proof-palestinian-fighters-beheaded-babies-the-only-source-is-a-radical-settler/
[11] https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-ministers-shown-horrific-video-hamas-attack-2023-10-12/
[12] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/despite-refutations-from-israeli-military-headlines-that-hamas-beheaded-babies-persist/3016167
[13] Ibid
[14] Ibid
[15] Ibid
[16] https://forward.com/news/564318/sexual-assault-rape-proof-hamas-idf-israel-gaza/
[17] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/netanyahu-s-office-shares-pictures-of-bodies-of-infants-to-back-israeli-claims/3017579
[18] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/14/a-second-nakba-echoes-of-1948-as-israel-orders-palestinians-to-leave
[19] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/14/a-second-nakba-echoes-of-1948-as-israel-orders-palestinians-to-leave
[20] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/why-are-so-many-palestinian-prisoners-in-israeli-jails
[21] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/14/this-is-genocide
[22] Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters Published On 15 Oct 2023
[23] https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/15/palestinian-support-demonstrations-around-the-world
[24] https://socialism.org.il/maavak/2023/10/%D7%9C%D7%A2%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A8-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%94
[24] https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/free-palestine-why-we-say-by-any-means-necessary/
