Image by Alisdare Hickson via Flickr
Updated: October 11, 2023
by Wim Laven
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
October 10, 2023
Turn on any mainstream news media and you are guaranteed to see grizzly details of violence transpiring in Israel and Palestine. Interviews with survivors and witnesses describing horrors; observers asking important question like “how could this happen?” and “why didn’t we stop it?” Sooner or later the politics, the leaders, and the responses become central to the story.
The New York Times reported: Israel’s defense minister said, “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza after an invasion by the militant group Hamas.
All I could think was “Not Again!”
I hate seeing the same failed responses. But breaking the narrative is a daunting task.
Attacks on civilians are morally reprehensible—always. Hamas, however, is not just repugnant in its horrific choice of tactics but counterproductive. Over and over, we see terror groups using violence against civilians; while it makes the news, it does not achieve desired outcomes.
Simply put, with rare exception, when Hamas targets civilians it is used as justification for an even more violent response, and one that much of the world supports.
No critique of grievances is necessary to make a full condemnation of the violent terrorism employed by Hamas, and the choice to target civilians makes it much less likely for those grievances to be considered at all. “Idiotic” understates the monumental stupidity in such a bad strategic choice.
Hamas, likely, just set the Palestinian resistance/struggle for legitimate grievances back several years. As usual. Once again.
But what is this about a siege of Gaza? “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” are you kidding me? Worse, Israel is bombing apartment buildings full of Palestinian families, and hospitals. How many children or suffering patients does Israel kill before the world throws up its collective hands and stops caring much about either side?
If the U.S. is any friend to Israel, then they must help them to avoid such an unforced error. There is no doubt that such a blockade would kill innocent civilians, they always do, and they place the most vulnerable at greatest risk. Grandparents and newborn babies have these survival needs; cutting off access to basic human needs … it is just as counterproductive for Israel as terrorism is for Hamas.
And the world sees the Israeli air strikes on civilians and asks, so how is that not terrorism?
Being a friend does not mean standing idly by while your friend makes bad choices. The U.S. has participated in such bad choices too many times, and we have learned these lessons. Killing innocent civilians, whether directly or indirectly tends to do several things: first, it undermines legitimacy; second, it is used as a recruitment tool for the opposition; third, it causes committed opposition to dig in and become even more entrenched.
The U.S. ought to tell Israel, “Believe it or not, when we dealt with the Taliban in Afghanistan, we always accomplished more with bridges than bombs.” It’s true, the innocent civilians provided great intelligence on the terror group when they came to see the U.S. for doing good. Never underestimate the achievements you can make when the choice is taking two steps forward instead of two steps backward; in this regard violence is always regressive.
Wim Laven, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, teaches courses in political science and conflict resolution.
Understanding the Rage and the Horror
by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
October 10, 2023
To my friends in Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank, I am hoping you all remain safe and unharmed. There are no speeches or platitudes that can airbrush the horror which has unfolded or which may come. And no person of conscience would celebrate the slaughter or suffering of anyone, especially of civilians.
But for those of us outside this region, it is urgent to see the context of how this all came about. None of this came about in a vacuum. This is not a justification for terrorism. Absolutely not. But if we truly care about peace, we should begin with understanding.
In much of the media, it is once again being portrayed as a conflict of equals. Of culture against culture, religion against religion. As two countries in some kind of eternal war. And this is a dangerous falsehood.
We can go back over 75 years and explore how following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate Palestine continued its colonial project which began the cycle of dispossession and violence. To the odious, centuries-long persecution of Jews in Europe which led to the Holocaust and the forced displacement of millions of Jews, many of whom fled to the Middle-East. To the UN partition of Israel/Palestine which was grossly unfair toward the Palestinians in land allocation and resources. To the Nakba, or Catastrophe, where scores were massacred and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their villages and homes by violent militias. To the repeated betrayal of Palestinian aspirations for self determination by American politicians and their biased and militarized foreign policy. To decades of entrenched discrimination, segregation and ethnic cleansing. But I think it is best to look at the past few decades instead.
In recent years, Israel has been designated an apartheid state by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and by Israeli human rights organizations like B’Tselem and If Not Now. Even President Jimmy Carter warned of this years ago, and the Israeli ex-Mossad chief Tamir Pardo called his country an apartheid state. Mossad is Israel’s intelligence agency. All of this is demonstrated to most reasonable people when presented with the facts on the ground.
Nearly 3 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem live under Israeli occupation. Israeli apologists claim that the Palestinian Authority is their government when, in actuality, it is merely a proxy government for the occupation. Thanks to the unfair Oslo Accords, Israel has been able to effectively divided the occupied West Bank into three administrative areas. In all but one of those zones, Israel has absolute control. Palestinians in the remaining area are still subject to the Israeli occupation by way of the administration of its proxy, the PA.
All Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem face home demolitions, walls, barriers, separate roads, scores of dehumanizing checkpoints, daily violence from illegal settlers that include being shot at and the burning of olive groves, and military tribunals instead of civil courts like their Israeli settler counterparts. Palestinian children are routinely spirited away in terrorizing night raids and taken to detention centers that are often undisclosed. There they often face abuse and neglect.
And over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, which has been blockaded and besieged for nearly 15 years, have absolutely no say regarding their unjustified imprisonment or the routine collective punishment meted out by the Israeli military. These Palestinians are subject to indiscriminate carpet bombing and are prevented from leaving the Strip by Israel and Egypt. Israel has historically targeted schools, apartment buildings, shelters, mosques and the press with indiscriminate bombs. And the UN has warned repeatedly that Gaza will be unlivable thanks to poverty, scant access to clean drinking water, and routine Israeli drone surveillance and bombardment.
Within Israel, towns and neighbourhoods have committees that have the right to exclude whomever they want on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Those that have a Jewish majority can effectively ban non-Jews from living where they want, echoing the redlining practices in the US that excluded Black Americans from purchasing homes in predominantly white, middle-class neighborhoods. Many Palestinian and Bedouin communities are disproportionately discriminated in building permits and are often disconnected from basic services like water and garbage collection. In fact, there are over 65 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel and it allocates only a fraction of its budget to Palestinian Israelis councils.
This context is vital to understand how persecution and dehumanization foment alienation and rage. It is also important to note that Palestinian civilian deaths far outweigh Israeli civilian deaths. Again, this is not a justification for terrorism. But it demonstrates the disproportionate amount of suffering in reality, opposed to how it is often represented in mainstream media.
The war Israel is going to wage on Gaza this time could be the most devastating one yet. Israel is now governed by some of the most far-right figures on the political spectrum and in the past few months they have used violence against their own citizens at peaceful protests. Some have faced criminal charges. Many have openly expressed racist sentiments and genocidal intent. All food, water and electricity to the small, walled-in enclave has been severely restricted or cut-off. In response, a cornered Hamas will likely become even more violent toward those it has captured.
Therefore, if we truly care for a just peace we must make our voices heard now. Western governments have direct impact on how this will unfold. Billions of dollars have been allocated for a military response to what is, by all accounts, a humanitarian disaster. We must not only demand a ceasefire, but a just peace. For Palestinians humanity to be recognized. For an end to the decades long oppression, dispossession and apartheid. And for a viable, fair path forward for Jews and Palestinians to live as equals and, hopefully, as brothers and sisters in that beautiful land.
Previously published on Kenn Orphan, Oct. 10, 2023
Updated: October 11, 2023
Israel’s 9/11?
by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
October 11, 2023
There are some are saying that the recent Hamas attack in southern Israel was that country’s 9/11. It’s hard to miss the inference there. A gruesome and “unprovoked” attack on innocent people. An outpouring of grief and international solidarity. A demand for retaliation. As in those attacks over 20 years ago, these were no less horrendous.
But after 9/11, the Bush regime used its muscle to severely curtail civil liberties and start a “global war on terror”. Muslims were demonized, surveilled, detained, often indefinitely. And the antiwar movement was castigated for being unpatriotic, or worse treacherous. How easy it was to distract the public from real threats like economic predation, corrupted social and political institutions and the accelerating perils of climate change.
Israel is in a similar position. The Israeli public has been deeply dissatisfied by its government and their extremist, far-right politics. In recent months, the country saw its biggest protests when Netanyahu’s coalition attempted to weaken the courts power. They were met with tear gas and water cannons. How easy will it be now to crush any opposition with the accusation of treason in a “time of war?” Who will take to the streets in Tel Aviv now to protest a government which becomes more and more fascist by the day?
In the months following 9/11, many were asking how the world’s most powerful nation was so ill prepared for these kinds of attacks. Similar questions are now being raised today. How is it that the strongest military power in the Middle-east was incapable of stopping this brazen invasion by a ragtag group that possess no army, navy or airforce? Where were its vaunted “Iron Dome” defenses against a bunch of paragliders? Israel is known for its surveillance technology which it exports worldwide. How could they have not adequately monitored one of the most watched cities in the world? And how come it took the military hours to reach the besieged enclaves near the Gaza border? These questions aren’t conspiratorial. Incompetence can be just as deadly as complicity. It demands critical review because the stakes couldn’t be higher. These terrible incidents are often used to advance the most odious of objectives.
As in the US, the left was always weak in Israel. It is now all but moribund as war hawks circle the open air prison of Gaza, meting out a bloody collective punishment to anyone on the ground. It matters not that half of the population are children. Everyone there has been dehumanized as a savage, or as one Israeli official said “animals.” That the rhetoric is blatantly genocidal is of no concern to American politicians. On the contrary, they are being encouraged to “finish them,” as presidential hopeful Nikki Haley tweeted.
No matter what one thinks of the politics of Hamas, its right to resist occupation, its ill-advised prison break, or its heinous rampage, the consequences for Palestinians will only become bleaker. Targeting civilians is only something Israel can get away with in the Western media. It can carpet bomb entire neighbourhoods, target hospitals, schools and UN shelters. It can cut off food, water, electricity and medical supplies. It can literally kill thousands of people. And it will all be forgiven as Israel’s “right to defend itself.”
Few to none in the mainstream press will talk about the blockade that has cut off Gaza from the rest of the world since 2007. Or about the crushing poverty. Or about the undrinkable water (Israel bombed the treatment facility years ago). Or about the bleakness of life in the occupied West Bank, where home demolitions, checkpoints, settler violence and night raids are a fact of everyday life. Few to none will discuss the fact that Israel has been designated an apartheid state by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. Or that the former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, among many other Israeli officials, agreed with these conclusions.
It is understandable why so many Palestinians feel hopeless. They have been among the most maligned, dehumanized and persecuted people on earth for the past 75+ years. Violently dispossessed of their land, treated as second-class citizens within Israel and backward savages in the occupied territories. Demonized in the Western press. When they’ve resisted their occupation, a right they are entitled to under international law, they are cast as genocidal monsters. When they resist nonviolently, as in the BDS campaign, they are cast as anti-Semitic. And now Arab countries are lining up to “normalize” relations with its oppressor. Is it any wonder why they would feel such desperation? How could any young Gazan have hope for a future when all they’ve known is brutal captivity?
The days ahead will be bleaker than any before for the Palestinians. The 9/11 narrative being employed today will be used in a similar manner to strip Israelis of whatever rights they may have left and strip Palestinians of their very lives. We can only hope that they will stop short of the unthinkable.
Kenn Orphan is a writer, artist, antiwar and anti-capitalist activist, hospice social worker and radical nature lover living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As an independent writer and artist Kenn Orphan depends on donations and commissions. If you would like to support his work and his blog you can do so via PayPal. He may be contacted at KennOrphan.com.
Previously published on Kenn Orphan, Oct. 11, 2023
See also:
A Statement from RootsAction on the Gaza-Israel War
For Gazans, Time is Running Out to Avert an Atrocity of Epic Proportions, by Kenn Orphan
From the archives:
Chris Hedges and Roger Waters: Ukraine, Palestine, Music and More
Roger Waters: The Occupation of the American Mind
Defending the Shame of Apartheid, by Kenn Orphan
Abby Martin Confronts Sec. of State Antony Blinken Over Israeli Murder of Shireen Abu Akleh
The Spotlight on Israeli Apartheid Must Not Fade, by Kenn Orphan
There is No Getting Around It: This Is Apartheid, by Kenn Orphan
Enough is Enough: It is Time for Apartheid to End, by Kenn Orphan
Abby Martin: Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019)
Chris Hedges: Israel’s Secret Weapons–“Combat-Tested” Against the People of Gaza
Dandelion Salad 
Israel has been one of the worst state terrorist state since its creation in 1948, closely following the footsteps of state terrorisms of US and European imperialisms, which have committed incomparably greater atrocities than Israel in rest of the world for centuries, and continue those. Wim Laven writes, “If the U.S. is any friend to Israel, then they must help them to avoid such an unforced error.” In view of all the well documented historical facts, this statement is astounding, to say the least. He also condemns Hamas for “terrorist” actions. In fact, what Hamas has been doing, like numerous other anti-imperialist organizations, is trying to counter the decades long extremist state terrorism of Israel. Its recent action in Israel has revealed the vulnerability of Israel, supposed to be the regional super-power in the Middle East, planted there by the British, US, and Western imperialisms. Where it will lead to depends upon the reactions of Arab countries and Iran, in addition to the totally predicable ones of the US and Western imperialisms. If the Arab countries and Iran decide to intervene militarily, Russia and China may also become involved in their support.
Kenn Orphan’s article is far more historically, factually, and logically accurate.
I appreciate the view from both sides and the showing that there are atrocities on both sides. It’s all heartbreaking and in 2023 should not be a world we are creating.
Thanks for commenting, DragonflyRose, so agree.