#israeli settler militias

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇱 🚨

ISRAELI SETTLERS STORM UNRWA HEADQUARTERS IN OCCUPIED AL-QUDS

📹 Scenes of Israeli colonial settler militias storming the UNRWA headquarters today in the Shiekh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Meanwhile, UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, reported today that the humanitarian organization has been subjected to 368 attacks by the Israeli occupation army, while at least 429 displaced Palestinian civilians have been killed while seeking shelter in the agency's buildings since the start of the war.

#source

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[childoftimeandmagic]

A dear friend of mine asked me today to be in her wedding.

A different friend took her three week vacation time to visit her grandmother in Khan Younis at the end of September. I lost contact with her in November. Her mother believes she's dead.

I got a client out of county who should have never been there in the first place today.

Mothers I will never know watched their children burn to death not even two weeks ago and I'm forced to do my job like the world's nor actively destroying us.

My sister's girlfriend is all moved into my sister's apartment today after a year and a half apart.

Queer Palestinians are once again facing a pinkwashed genocide.

My cat is turning 21 this year. She's been with me since I was nine.

How many families in Gaza have had to abandon their pets who they loved as fiercely as another family member to save the rest of their loved ones?

My best friend has been dead for the last three years. Her husband still cries on her headstone everyday, like she died yesterday.

How many husbands, fathers, sons, men have no place safe to grieve tonight in Gaza? How many graves have been destroyed, how many partnerships, families, and communities torn and shredded asunder???

I'm 5,634 mi or 9,067 km from Gaza but its pain, it's plight, it's heartache, it's destruction paid for by my taxes and with my elected officials gleeful greedy cheers is never more than a thought from my mind.

[esyra]

Killing 1300+ Jews in barbaric ways does not make you the good guys. Israel retaliating is Hamas’ fault. Hamas surrendering would mean peace. Israel surrendering would have more dead Jews. But i guess that’s the end goal.

No, we're always the barbaric terrorists. Israel is the good guy for killing 9,000+ Gazans the past 25 days, and trapping 1,000+ under the rubble which will definitely turn out dead if they ever get the proper equipment to lift it off them. Israel is the good guy for killing Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel is the good guy for killing Ahmed Erekat. Israel is the good guy for killing Nadim Nuwarah and Mohammed Salameh. Israel is the good guy for opening fire on 2,400 protesters and killing 52. Israel is the good guy for holding over 1,000 Palestinians as "administrative detainees," meaning they are held indefinitely without charges.

In fact, Israel has been the good guy ever since they got the British to help them colonize Palestine and get rid of the Arabs, as they admitted to wanting it themselves. After all, as Winston Churchill said himself, the colonization of Palestine was righteous because as the Red Indians of America, and the black people of Australia, "a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Palestinians, be it on Gaza or the West Bank, can never retaliate or defend themselves. We're to either die and be violated quietly or we are terrorists which will be gleefully eradicated with the help of every colony-based State in the world. Otherwise, we'll disturb the comfortable privilege your racism and religious intolerance ensures.

When Hamas didn't existed the occupation began and the British violently suppressed anyone who opposed. When Hamas didn't exist the Nakba happened. When Hamas didn't exist the Deir Yassin massacre happened. But, you know, that one's fine because it happened after Israel had made Palestine agree to a peace pact, and they would never act unfairly so the brutal murder of over 100 Palestinians is obviously being misunderstood. Hamas doesn't operate in the West Bank, but they're still expelled from their homes, brutalized and murdered. Since October 7, West Bank had 115 killed, more than 2,000 injured and nearly 1,000 others forcibly displaced from their homes because of violence and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers. They'll bomb mosques with exit points created to save people from settlers' violence, then claim they were used for terrorism. Proof? They don't need it. They'll bomb first then ask questions later.

Do people who blindly defend Israel do anything other than victimize yourselves? Do you even read any actual Israeli news that said the IDF "shell[ed] houses on their occupants," because they're too incompetent to do anything other than bombing everything? Do you ever wonder why the people Israel swears were burned and beheaded always came from reports from houses absolutely destroyed by what could only be shelling? Do you ever hear testimonies from survivors of the massacre saying IDF shoot at their own civilians? Do you ever read about past al-Qassam attacks and noticed they've never had mass casualties because IDF never responded like this? Do you even know what al-Qassam is or do you live to regurgitate whatever you're fed and being spoon-fed your information?

If Hamas' militia surrenders, Gaza will be wiped out and Gazans — those who are not murdered — will be exiled into Egypt's Sinai. That's the end goal since 1948, and that's what you're defending. But who cares? Arab blood is cheaper and racism is always fashionable.

[determinate-negation]

Vigilante violence is at an all-time high in the occupied West Bank. Emboldened by the war in the Gaza Strip and backed by the military, Israeli settlers aiming to annex more and more of the Palestinian territory have launched hundreds of attacks, displacing people from at least 17 communities over the past month, while soldiers and settlers have killed nearly 200.

And at least three New York nonprofit organizations are calling on donors to help outfit those settlers with combat gear, in a fundraising blitz funneling millions of tax-deductible dollars to the West Bank aggression.

By chipping in to a “thermal drone matching campaign,” donors can help the Long Island–based One Israel Fund buy remote-controlled aerial vehicles for settler militias. With a contribution to the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim’s “security projects,” they can equip settlers with accessories for their guns and tools to keep an eye on “Arab thugs” in occupied east Jerusalem. Donating to the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund’s “Israel Is Under Attack” campaign helps expand one of Israel’s most extensive local surveillance networks. If New Yorkers contribute by the end of the year, they can write it off on their 2023 tax returns.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which killed around 1,200 Israelis, the New York–based nonprofits have raised millions for tactical equipment for settlers across the West Bank. The organizations—right-wing groups dedicated to Jewish rule over the Holy Land—work directly with the Israeli military and with the settlements, which are illegal under international law.

“The ties between New York state and war crimes being carried out by Israeli settlers are egregious,” said Jay Saper, a New York–based organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace. “It’s long overdue for the state to take action.”

[i-am-aprl]

In 1948, as Zionist militias displaced 750,000 Palestinians from their homes during the Nakba that created the Israeli state, South Africa's Nationalist Party formally instituted a program of apartheid. The two communities--Black South Africans and Palestinians--have a long history of solidarity informed by their shared experiences of settler colonialism and apartheid. The latest chapter unfolded today, as South Africa argued before the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing acts of genocide against Palestinians.

"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians." -Nelson Mandela, 1997

[former-leftist-jew]

“Jews are willing to give up land for peace.” Bull fucking shit!!! Have you seen what’s happening to the West Bank??? Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers? In settlements that are internationally recognized as illegal!!! This isn’t just an Israeli thing either. Diaspora Jews are being recruited to move to the West Bank but Israeli real estate agents.

“We are NOT willing to bare our necks before the executioner's axe just because Islamists demand it.” But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I see you didn't read or watch a single source I gave to back up my claims, and didn't cite any sources to back up your claims either.

Since you're not going to bother to read, I'll keep it brief:

Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers?

And are you aware of how many Jews were violently driven out of their homes due to Islamic aggression after WWII--mostly in retaliation for Israel being formed?

Are you aware that Jews were living in and around the "West Bank" (historically Judea and Samaria) for centuries before Arab Jordinians invaded and violently expelled all the Jews living there in 1948?

Are you aware that most so-called "illegal settlements in the West Bank" are places where previous Jewish communities were forcibly expelled by Arab armies or militia, and many "Israel? (Or slaughtered, like Jewish community of Hebron in 1929?)

Are you aware that about 2 out of 9 million Israeli citizens are Israeli Arabs--most of whom are descended from Arabs who chose not to leave to make it eas

Meanwhile, most of Israel's current 2.2 million Israeli Arabs are descended from Arabs who chose not and annexed

But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

No, I just want them to stop attacking and trying to kill all Israelis/Jews already.

Like the so-called "moderate" Palestinian Authority's infamous "pay to slay" Martyr Fund, which incentivizes West Bank Arabs to attack and kill Israelis/Jews, since they get more money for every act of violence they commit against "the state of Israel."

Like Hamas firing rockets Israel non-stop after the latter completely withdrew from Gaza and effectively gave them a Palestinian state to run as they please, without Israeli.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I want you to stop and think about that for a moment.

What logical sense does that make? "Yeah, Jews were victims of violent persecution throughout history, but THIS TIME all the evil things people say about you and do to you are totally justified!!"

a) Isn't that what antisemites say every time they attack Jews?

b) Have you ever considered that maybe the said extensive history of violent antisemitism might have contributed to Palestinian Arabs being complete hostility towards and refusal to accept a Jewish homeland?

For example: After the Ottoman Empire lost against the European Allies in WWI and ceded territory to the victors, France gained control of "Greater Syria" while Britain gained control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

About the same time that Britain thought about dividing Mandatory Palestine into an Arab State for the Arab Muslim majority to the east and a Jewish state for the (existing) Jewish minority to the west...

France was ALSO dividing Greater Syria into a larger Arab State for the Sunni Muslim majority, and a smaller state for the Maronite Christian and Druze minority.

Yet, no one ever questions why Arabs grudgingly accepted a state for the Maronite Christian/Druze minority, but threw a raging bitch fit against a homeland for the Jewish minority?

No one ever accuses Maronites/Druze of "stealing Syria land!" but they do constantly accuse Jews of "stealing Palestinian land!"

Speaking of, roughly 3/4 of the original Mandate for Palestine became what is now Jordan, yet no one ever accuses Jordan of "stealing Palestinian land"?

IF NOTHING ELSE, I would like you to AT LEAST read this detailed and well-researched article about historical attitudes and treatments towards Jews in Islamic lands, and how those same attitudes and treatments carried over into the Islamic world's reaction to Jews emigrating to and eventually creating Israel.

[fairuzfan]

Pisses me off the way they think Palestinians are the only ones who are ever violent and Israelis didn't have terrorist militia ethnically cleanse nearly 1 million Palestinians. No the settlers in the west bank are not "Jewish hamas" they're keeping in line with a decades old tradition of Israelis killing Palestinians.

[apas-95]

Why are liberals constantly likening themselves to fascists, constantly creating hypothetical scenarios to voice their support for Hitler? Don't they care how they sound?

No, they dont.

Fundamentally, there is an absolute limit to any sort of referential argument - of saying 'the zionist settler-occupation of Palestine is like the rhodesian settler-occupation of Zimbabwe', or 'the logic that justifies this type of transmisogynistic statement is the same logic that justifies this type of racist statement', or, yes, 'you are literally comparing yourself to Hitler'. That limit is precisely in the fact that you are relying on the argument against the referent to already have been made for you.

Plenty of people were and are fine with the colonial occupation carried out by Cecil Rhodes - including the founders of the israeli occupation state. Plenty of people still wholeheartedly agree with racist logic and hold racist views. These are not problems that are 'solved', squared away in the records of history to be referred back to - it was the prevailing opinion among liberals in the 1920s and 1930s that Hitler and the Nazis were basically great guys, opposing the authoritarian menace of the communists. It should not be surprising that the liberals who - right this moment! - send donations to neonazi militias in the Ukraine, to buy more sonnenrand patches, are fine with comparing themselves to Hitler!

Referential arguments are not enough. An actual, substantive argument, built of Marxist theory, is what is required in all cases, and simply hoping one has already been provided cannot do. You are watching, in real time, as the liberal position explicitly reverts to 'fascism is an acceptable alternative', and you can do nothing but guffaw and say 'but that's fascism!' as if they don't know. It cannot do. Study, discuss, and come to a proper understanding of the matter. Lives depend on it.

[magz]

Palestine related news summary from LetsTalkPalestine, May 1 to May 4, 2024.

[Ways to help, sources, and more: LetsTalkPalestine Linktree]

May 1.

(Instagram reel of UCLA protest. Includes footage of treating n washing a pro-palestine protestors' bloody head)

Day 208

🇨🇴 Colombia to cut diplomatic ties w/ Israel

•⁠ ⁠33 killed, 57 injured in the last 24 hours. Real number likely higher

⚖️ US lobbying ICC not to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, after Israel's threat to respond by retaliating against Palestinian Authority for sparking ICC investigation

🇫🇷 France denies selling weapons to Israel used in Gaza, claiming what's sold will be re-exported to 3rd countries via Israel, but did supply Israeli Iron Dome defense system

🇹🇷 Turkey set to follow Columbia & Nicaragua by joining South Africa's ICJ case against Israel

🎓 Zionist mob attacked Palestine protestors at UCLA w/ fireworks & pepper spray for 3 hours, police didn’t intervene (📹👆). Columbia & CUNY asked NYPD to raid & arrest 280+ student protestors. New encampments across UK, Tunisia & Canada

🚚 First aid trucks enter through Beit Hanoon crossing to north Gaza despite Israel's promise to open 1 month ago. Nearly half of aid convoys to north Gaza denied by Israel.

May 2.

(Instagram post, news update. The Israeli occupation has killed Palestinian Dr. Adnan Al-Barash.)

Day 209

• 28 Palestinians killed, 51 injured in last 24 hours. Note that the toll is underreported.

🏥 Dr. Adnan al Barash killed in captivity after IOF abducted him in Dec (📷👆)— 496 medical personnel killed in Gaza + 309 in captivity

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia arrests many for anti-Israel online posts, incl. an executive & media figure. Timing suspicious w/ reports of renewed normalization talks

• IOF attacks aid convoy, killing 1

🇹🇷 Turkey stops all trade w/ Israel after banning 54 exports to Israel

🇺🇸 US House pass “antisemitism awareness” bill using repressive IHRA definition of antisemitism despite antisemitism covered in anti-discrimination law. Why is IHRA definition problematic? See tinyurl.com/ynsfy8sx

• IOF airstrike in central Gaza killed 5, incl. a child

🪨 37m tons of rubble in Gaza, heavy contamination w/ unexploded ammunition & 800,000 tons of asbestos

🎓 Columbia & Emory University face federal investigation for anti-Muslim discrimination, reports of doxing & harassment

May 3.

Day 210

• World Press Freedom Day: Israel killed 100+ journalists since Oct 7 + holding 53 captive

• 26 killed, 51 injured in the last 24 hours. Note the toll is underreported.

• Israel attack on Rafah killed 7, incl. a mother & her children — the children’s bodies were shredded by the airstrikes

🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago recognizes the State of Palestine as West Bank & Gaza

🇬🇧 UK sanctions 2 Israeli groups + 4 settlers for violence in West Bank, warns of more sanctions if no Israeli action against settler attacks

• Israeli strike on Bureij camp killed 5, incl. a child

💰 UN estimates cost to rebuild Gaza at $40bn; more than post-WWII reconstruction

🎓 Goldsmiths University students in London win & obtain demands after occupying library — @ goldsmithsforpalestine on instagram for details

🎓 University encampments for Gaza go global spreading to 🇨🇦 🇮🇳 🇳🇿 🇪🇸 🇦🇷 🇯🇵 🇰🇼 🇱🇧 🇹🇳 🇯🇴. US crackdown w/ 2,200 students arrested

• Iran-backed Bahraini militia launches attack at southern Israeli port Eilat

May 4.

Day 211

✝️ Israel blocks entry of many Palestinian Christians to Jerusalem for Holy Saturday celebrations

•⁠ 32 Palestinians killed, 41 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours. Toll underreported

•⁠ ⁠IOF killed 5+ in 15-hour siege on Tulkarem (West Bank) & clashes with Hamas resistance fighters. IOF targeted fighters’ homes w/ women & kids inside, demolished homes trapping many under rubble

•⁠ ⁠Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 11 incl. 3 in bombings of tents in Rafah

•⁠ Head of UN WFP says north Gaza experiencing “full-blown famine” and it’s only a matter of time before south Gaza faces same level of starvation

🇫🇷 British-Palestinian @ dr.ghassan.as denied entry to France for Senate address as witness of Gaza Genocide as Germany put year-long ban on his entry to Europe (Schengen)

🇺🇸 88 US lawmakers warn Biden that Israeli aid blockade violates US ‘foreign assistance’ law

•⁠ IOF abducts 5 overnight in West Bank

🎓 Uni encampments spread to Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Cuba & Costa Rica

[soon-palestine]

America’s goal in establishing a seaport is primarily military & political, not humanitarian: - Gain control over Gaza’s gas resources - Establish US-Israel military presence - Dismantle UNRWA & have aid distributed through local militias. - Isolate Gaza from the Palestinian body

Gaza City has a long history as a crossroad of regional trade & travel. As a port city, Gaza was a stop on the Incense Road. In more recent history, until WWI, Gaza seaport was a main hub for import & export trade to southern Palestine, & its hinterland, including Jordan and Iraq

Since 1967, Israel has exercised full control of Gaza’s 43km coastline and territorial waters, blocking ships from reaching the city. Gaza seaport is the only Mediterranean port closed to shipping, because of Israeli colonization and continued destruction.

Between 1967 and 1994, the existing infrastructure was severely neglected. Railways, air and seaports were no longer at the free disposal of Palestinians and were only there to serve Israel, its army and its settlers.

As part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Netherlands & France governments committed $42.8m to the reconstruction of the Gaza seaport and to the training of port personnel. A Dutch-French consortium that specialises in seaports signed a construction contract in July 2000 with the PA.

The seaport was scheduled to be completed by August 2002. But Israel being Israel, in 2000, Israel halted any construction & in 2002, Israeli navy attacked the PA naval patrol boats in Gaza, causing extensive damage and no further implementation of the project was allowed.

Since 2007, Israel has repeatedly bombed Gaza’s seaport, which only now serves Palestinian fishermen. It has repeatedly shot & killed fishermen and destroyed their boats. Israel is also imposing a maritime sea blockade on Gaza for more than 60 years. Israel is cutting life short.

In June 2010 the EU Parliament urged EU Member States to “take steps to ensure the sustainable opening of all the crossing points to and from Gaza, including the port of Gaza, with adequate international end-use monitoring”.

Establishing a maritime window from Gaza to the outside world is possible, if the focus is put on ending Israel’s state violence, war crimes & genocide. What the Americans are now doing isn’t providing LIFE to Palestinians, but actually entrenching Israeli colonization.

[queenpinkireellylikethisname]

BREAKING: Israeli settler militias are trying to storm the UNRWA headquarters in occupied Jerusalem.

Source: Quds News Network. As of May 8th 2024.

[opencommunion]

"What is this force, these human beings, referred to in this word – resistance? 

First, literally, we refer to the achievement of the poorest and most strategically disadvantaged people on the planet. Within the encircled and immiserated Gaza Strip, many of the Al-Qassam fighters are orphans. Amidst closure and de-development, the popular resistance has been able to consolidate an arsenal and bring 1.5% of its population into a guerrilla force of 30,000-40,000 men that can – man for man – outmatch nearly any in the world. 

The resistance, secondly, has alloyed ideological commitment, willingness to sacrifice for their people, and technological ingenuity into armed capacity capable of going head-to-head with a nuclear power from underground tunnels, the ‘rear base’ and physical strategic depth needed for guerilla insurgency. The concrete is their mountains. From there they have imperiled an enemy with orders of magnitude higher GDP per capita – Israeli GDP is at $52,000 a year, with arsenals worth billions.

Third, the resistance, in launching its October 7 operation, is an example to the world that post-Soviet asphyxiation and extermination procedures, sanctions and terror lists and aid-based countermeasures, could not prevent the rise of a disciplined and new national movement from raising its head to the sky. 

Fourth, the popular cradle brings the word resistance beyond armed men to doctors going to their deaths in lieu of abandoning their patients and women and men in the Gaza Strip’s North – facing white phosphorus rather than abandoning their homes. It is precisely the strength of the civilian commitment to the national project that provokes US-Israeli extermination: ‘the 'civilian' officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population’ are, as a result, the targets – not out of cruelty but to break Hamas by breaking its cradle. 

Fifth, through these achievements, the Palestinian resistance has been able to present an acute threat to the settler-capitalist property structures called Israel, to militarized accumulation, to the world’s workshop for counterinsurgency technology, and to the entire architecture of regional repression with its associated petrodollar flows, treasury and security purchases, and arms merchandising. For capitalism is not just the smooth clockwork of accumulation through generalized commodity exchange and labor exploitation, it is the machinery of violence – its technology – which ensures the smooth running of the clock, the thingification of its human elements, the political decisions to maintain and rework the machinery of monopoly accumulation, and the waste of human lives which is increasingly the core Arab input into global capitalism. 

More worryingly from the perspective of monopoly power, the Palestinian resistance is not alone. It is part of a regional populist resistance enfolding the poorest people on Earth. ... It is unimaginable that the neocolonial authoritarian states nor their US benefactor would remotely tolerate massive working-class militia which speak a language of justice and republicanism and raise arms against those states’ sponsors. In turn, it is as natural as the sun rising in the East that the US, the UK, Germany, France, and their Gulf and Arab satraps would converge on support for Israel as the spear’s tip of the assault on the surrounding Arab popular militia. 

And because Israel is the keystone of the regional imperialist order – maintained not by hegemonic consensus but the brutality of Apaches and Merkavas – it is as natural as water falling from clouds that what has developed in the Gaza Strip, as soon as it mobilized politically and militarily, would incite the Western reaction to wipe it from the face of the Earth and impose unimaginable horror to terrify the Palestinian, Arab, and Third World people to never again raise their heads.

The October 7 operation has perhaps overcome the central role of the Israeli state in accumulation on a world scale: ingraining a state of defeat amongst the Arab working classes, as part-and-parcel of the post-Soviet ideological defeat imposed by capital upon labor globally. Deterrence is the form that defeat takes when pushed to the military plane, and Israel openly admits that its deterrence has been shattered.

Seen from this perspective, the risks run by the western capitalist states – their imposition of fascist regulation against freedoms of speech and assembly, their backing for genocide, their desperation to see the Palestinian armed militia wiped from the face of the Earth – is logical, reasonable, and rational in its sociopathy. It is the logic of monopoly attempting to defend itself and the consciousness which bodyguards it with fire from the sky. It is a logic which fills graveyards, and a logic which makes orphans, and it is a logic which might yet meet its end in that crossroads of continents – that salient, and city and their camps and their people."

[papasmoke]

The projected number of Palestinians living in State of Palestine at the end of 2015 is 4.75 million: around 2.90 million reside in the West Bank and 1.85 million in Gaza Strip

The population growth rate stands high at 2.8% and it is expected to remain stable due to decline in mortality rates while fertility rate remains one of the highest in the Arab region standing at 4.06, with high disparity between Gaza and West Bank, 4.5 and 3.6 respectively.

The average age of population is increasing; the proportion of children below 15 declined to 39%, while the working age population is increasing reaching 57% in 2014.

https://palestine.unfpa.org/en/population-matters-0

https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/Press_En_InterPopDay2022E.pdf

The second link is the government of palestine. It shows no mass population decline, the sort of small drop in average family size as people become more well off and stable, and a decrease in illiteracy and childhood problems.

Literally the opposite of a genocide. There is no jewish run genocide you're just a jew hater, mad at your parents or society in general, projecting and spewing terrorist propaganda

White supremacist obsession with non white birthrates being used as pretext for genocide denial. "Look how many kids theyre having! We can't be killing and displacing them." Nazi rhetoric. Southern white slaver rhetoric. Half of Gaza's population is children, everyone knows this, fears about Palestinain birthrate outstripping Israei birthrates is one of the central neuroses fueling modern Zionism and you repeat it like it's exhonerating. You type this out while Israeli military and government officials explicitly state their intention to depopulate Gaza, while racist right wing extremist settler militias commit pogroms across the west Bank with the backing of the IDF and with the tacit approval of Europe and the United States.

[bfpnola]

updated! ID by @swosheep

ID 1: all images are screenshots of an Instagram post by letstalkpalestine. The first is a title slide and reads "lets talk: Why does israel colonize Palestine? Explaining Zionism and Settler Colonialism".

ID 2: the second image reads: "What is misleadingly termed by israel and its Western allies the "israeli-Palestinian conflict" is a single, long-running process of the Zionist colonization of Palestine. This understanding is not new, and was in fact first understood by early Zionist leaders themselves, but has only recently been accepted by Western historians. To understand why the Gaza Genocide and everything else is happening, we need to understand Zionism and why experts consider it a form of settler colonialism."

ID 3: the third image is titled: "But what is settler colonialism?" The body text reads: "We can understand it by comparing it to classical colonialism: Classical colonialism is when a dominant power or empire establishes control over the people of an area for exploitation and expansion. Examples: British control of India and Egypt. Settler colonialism aims to eliminate indigenous populations and replace them with an invasive settler society that develops its own identity and sovereignty. Examples: the United States, Canada & New Zealand."

ID 4: the fourth image is titled: "Settler colonialism is different from classical colonialism in 3 main ways:". There is a table comparing the ways. One column of the table is titled: "Settler colonialism" and the 3 points are: "1. Only temporarily & initially relies on the empire for support. 2. Motivated by desire to take over land. 3. Treats new land as a permanent national homeland for settlers." The second column of the table is titled: "Classical colonialism" and the 3 points are: "1. Always dependent on mother empire. 2. Motivated by exploiting natural resources. 3. Uses new land and its resources to serve the empire."

ID 5: the fifth image is titled: "So What's Zionism?". The body text reads: "It's an ideological movement founded in the 1880s in response to European antisemitism. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, called for a national Jewish homeland in the form of an exclusive ethno-state. Needing European support, Herzl approached Britain because it was the "first to recognize the need for colonial expansion". In 1902, Herzl wrote a letter to Cecil Rhodes, the British leader who colonized modern-day Zimbabwe, saying: 'You are being invited to help make history. It doesn't involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor.. How then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out of the way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.' But Zionism had a problem: Palestine was already inhabited."

ID 6: The sixth image is titled: "Zionism & Palestinians". The body text reads: "To establish a Jewish state (israel) in Palestine, Jewish people had to constitute the majority of the population. [quote] 'Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state.' [unquote] -[a quote from] Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. But Palestinians were the majority at the time. For Zionism to succeed, non-Jewish people had to be removed from Palestine and, in turn, Jewish settlers had to take their place. [quote] 'We must expel the Arabs and take their place' [unquote] -[a quote from] Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. This was implemented, and in 1947-1949, Zionist militias conducted a mass campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians - the Nakba. 80% of Palestinians in the heartland were expelled to create Israel's Jewish majority."

ID 7: The seventh image is titled: "1. Initial & temporary reliance on the empire". The body text reads: "To colonize Palestine, Zionist leaders knew they needed the support of an empire. Zionists secured British support with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. This alliance protected the project from Arab opponents, facilitated mass settlement, provided state lands & allowed the creation of Zionist militias. But during World War II, Zionist attempts to accelerate the process of statehood clashed with British interests. Zionist militias began carrying out attacks against the British and, in 1948, Britain withdrew from Palestine. Like European settlers who revolted against Britain in the American Revolution to establish their own independent settler colonial state, Zionists also revolted against Britain to establish their own settler colonial state."

ID 8: The eighth image is titled: "2. Desire to take over land & eliminate the native population". The body text reads: "The Zionist movement aims for as much Palestinian land as possible with as few Palestinians as possible. Zionism inherently opposes Palestinian freedom, because its vision of 'Jewish self-determination' needs the exclusion of non-Jewish people. Since nobody would willingly accept exclusion from their own land, Zionism needs the violent persecution and elimination of the existing population in order to fully succeed. [quote] 'If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct.' [unquote] - [a quote from] Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism".

ID 9: The ninth image is titled: "3. Permanent homeland". The body text reads: "Zionism's goal wasn't to establish a temporary base for an empire but a permanent homeland for a new settler population. To create a new society in a populated country, Zionists claimed Palestine by moral & divine right, an example of the 'Logic of Elimination'. A pillar of settler colonialism, the 'Logic of Elimination' is when settlers develop moral justifications to eliminate the native population. Zionist talking points like - 'Palestine doesn't exist'; - 'israel made the desert bloom'; - 'israel is technologically advanced'; are used to justify the elimination of Palestinians. Such points were used in other cases of settler colonialism like South Africa, with the 'Empty Land' myth arguing that Black people arrived in South Africa at the same time as white settlers."

ID 10: The tenth image is titled: "Zionism Today". The body text reads: "A Jewish state was created, but the Zionist project isn't fully realized - Palestinians remain & resist, asserting a threatening national identity. In response, israel has doubled down on its attempts to eliminate the Palestinian people while colonizing more land. Home demolitions, ethnic cleansing, segregated settlements, erasing culture, and apartheid are methods of the Logic of Elimination rooted in Zionism as a settler colonial movement. 'But Zionism is just Jewish self-determination.' All settler colonial movements aim to advance the settlers' 'self-determination' by eliminating the natives. It's never justified. Palestinians are resisting the most aggressive ongoing settler colonial project in the world. Freedom, justice & equality are impossible without dismantling Zionism, a form of: Settler Colonialism."

[gothhabiba]

Ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta reaches unbearable level: Call to Action

Colonial violence and ethnic cleansing is quickly escalating in Masafer Yatta, a rural region south of Hebron, in the West Bank.

Settler militias are terrorizing Palestinians by invading their villages during pogroms, armed with assault rifles, often wearing Israeli army uniforms and accompanied by Israeli soldiers. Palestinians and ISM activists have reported and documented cases of settlers beating up Palestinian residents, including women, children and the elderly; settlers and soldiers shooting towards Palestinian houses and houses, destroying water pumps and electric grids, uprooting trees and taking up Palestinian fields, planting Israeli flags on Palestinian land and houses, and even forcing Palestinians to sing pro-Israel chants and to wave an Israeli flag while holding them at gun-point and filming them.

Last night [October 29, 2023], settlers and soldiers invaded the village of Susyia and threatened residents that if they don’t leave within 24 hours, they will be back and start killing Palestinians in the village. A similar threat to residents of the village of Khirbet Zanuta has already resulted in the community leaving the land in order to save their families.

CALL TO ACTION: Residents call on people around the world to “check in” to Masafer Yatta on FB and Instagram in solidarity with the villagers facing imminent violence. This will throw off Israeli security forces tracking the online activities of both Palestinians and local solidarity activists speaking out against settler violence. It will also show settlers and soldiers that the world is watching and that the residents of Masafer Yatta are not alone.

Check out the hashtag #savemasaferyatta and share content on Masafer Yatta from pages like:

Youth of Sumud

Masafer Yatta (Instagram)

ISM Instagram, ISM Facebook , ISM Twitter

What follows is just a summary of some outstanding cases of settler violence

On October 25th Israeli settlers and soldiers invaded the land belonging to a Palestinian family in Tuwani and used a bulldozer to uproot trees and destroy the family’s garden.

The soldiers then shot a half a dozen warning shots towards ISM and Israeli activists who were filming the scene.

On October 13th, an Israeli settler invaded Tuwani and shot a Palestinian man in the stomach at point blank range, while being protected by an Israeli soldier. The day before, Israeli settlers dressed in Israeli army uniforms had invaded Palestinian agricultural land, planted Israeli flags and started shooting towards Palestinians and solidarity activists. Israeli soldiers robbed ISM activists of their phones.

On October 26th, a resident of the village of Khallet al-Dabaa was arbitrarily arrested by Israeli soldiers. When he was released two days later, he showed clear signs of abuse and turture on his body.

On October 26th, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) flew drones over villages in Masafer Yatta transmitting the following message in Arabic: “We can see you everywhere. Wherever you are, we are coming for you”.

On October 27th, Settler militias destroyed over 200 trees, along with irrigation pipes, water pumps, electrical cables, and a water tank belonging to local Palestinian residents in the Al-Ain Al-Bayda village in Masafer Yatta.

They also severed the water supply pipeline for the community in Saddet al-Tha’ala village, while making death threats against local residents.

The same day, a large group of settlers attacked residents in the village of Susiya, who confronted the colonists and forced them to run away after an outbreak of a fistfight. Several people suffered bruises. The settlers threatened that they would come back at night with Israeli soldiers, and they did.

On October 28th, armed settlers forcibly removed a Palestinian man from his car, in the village of Umm Al-Khair, and then destroyed his car by throwing large rocks and by shooting at it.

On the same day, two armed Israeli settlers dressed in Israeli army uniforms assaulted and detained 6 Palestinians, including a 16 year old girl, who got her hand broken by the settlers during the attack.

On October 29th, armed settlers and soldiers raided the village of Susiya again and threatened Palestinians there that if they did not leave the village within 24 hours, they would come back and start shooting and killing residents.

The same day, armed settlers invaded the village of Khirbet Zanuta and told residents: “If you don’t leave, we’ll do to you what we are doing in Gaza”. The community decided that they had to leave to save their families, knowing that they have nobody to protect them.

The same day, armed settlers raided the village of Tuba and stole 6 sheep from a Palestinian family, as well as a gas cilinder, a phone and a sheep feeder. A few days earlier, settlers had entered Tuba during the night and damaged the water tanks with knifes. Palestinians and ISM activists in Tuba have reported that the settlers appear to be building a new illegal outpost just meters away from the houses of Palestinians in Tuba.

On October 29th, armed settlers invaded the village of Umm Al-Khair and forced some Palestinians to raise the Israeli flag over their houses and to record videos of themselves in which they spoke against Palestinians in Gaza. The settlers then said that they would come back the next day and that if they did not see the Israeli flags on people’s houses, they would displace Palestinian families.

--International Solidarity Movement, October 30, 2023

Stop the Wall ("Palestinian grassroots anti-apartheid campaign") is calling for a "world tour" for Masafer Yatta: plan an educational activity, demand your government defund Israeli apartheid, and pressure corporations and institutions to stop funding Israeli apartheid (BDS).

[hyperions-fate]

I hope this comes across as a genuine query, and not aggressive. You say ‘unwavering’ support, which seems oddly without finer distinction for you. But perhaps you have your reasons so let me ask, how do you personally feel about Hamas, and Hezbollah too, if you’re willing to finesse this ‘unwavering support’ you feel we all should be giving the various resistance groups, as well as terrorist organisations, against Israel? I ask because they seem entirely antithetical to what seems to be your core values, apart from the reviling Israel part of course.

Also, again if you’re willing to be questioned further (and again, in the spirit of genuine curiosity and disputation – and also forgive me asking this in anon, I’d rather you not block me: I enjoy your blog, despite feeling very uneasy, whenever you talk about Israel the way you do), I never saw your thoughts on the recent and sustained huge mass rallies of the Israeli people against the enormities of their own government, which I thought was curious: I’d’ve thought you’d’ve supported that greatly, praise where it’s due, no? Not violent enough, perhaps?

Anyway, speaking of violence, Israel and its recent hard right government now has casus belli to do what they’ve been itching to do for years: they’re about to walk right through Gaza and the West Bank with massive irresistible military retaliations, and Lebanon too, and any other Arab neighbour, should they get involved. I just, personally, reckon that’s worth thinking about before ‘celebrating’ days like today.

I appreciate the frankness, but the premise of your questions are false. Every victim of occupation and ethnic cleansing, regardless of their ideology, has a legal right to resist the states that oppress them. The reason why Hamas has any currency among Palestinians is because they are willing to fight back. Few Palestinians align with their ideology, but all, including Palestine's socialists, trade unions, and civil society, support their commitment to the resistance.

Imagine yourself in their position: you live in a besieged refugee camp; your family had their homes and communities destroyed or depopulated by Jewish militias in 1948; you are under military rule, subject to airstrikes, detention without charge, settler pogroms; you have no democratic rights, and you are essentially an unfree stranger in your own land. Finding yourself in that situation, would you simply do nothing and rely on the goodwill of feckless Israeli liberals to save you? You talk of the mass rallies against the Israeli government, but omit how every major organisation and movement involved in the protests supports the occupation and opposes the right of return. They dislike the current government merely because it is too close to the religious right, not because of its colonial policies.

The mainstream in Israeli society, regardless of political affiliation, is an uncompromising anti-Arab racism; they simply don't want to share the land as equals. Why should Palestinians and Arabs respect an apartheid state that sees them as slaves? Why is the onus on them to be meek and pure in the face of state power?