#reaffirming the state of israels right to exist

[decolonize-the-left]

The language (you can read it in full here on congress dot gov)

Resolved, That the House of Representatives— (1) reaffirms the State of Israel’s right to exist; (2) recognizes that denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism; (3) rejects calls for Israel’s destruction and the elimination of the only Jewish State; and (4) condemns the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel.

House Bill 888.

Posted December 3rd, 2023

All 435 house seats are up for grabs this election.

34 seats in the Senate are up for grabs.

[northern-passage]

No Pride with Genocide!

You have probably seen the grotesque images of jubilant Israeli soldiers holding the pride flag on top of our scorched Gazan lands infiltrating social media feeds last week. The Israel State cynically publishes on its Twitter account, “The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza,” as it proceeds with its genocidal crusade and its concomitant Zionist propaganda campaign. We view these images with immense feelings of frustration and uttermost disgust, and we see through their despicable tactics of weaponizing homophobia and queer violence for colonial means. The following are notes from Queers in Palestine, elaborating on what such imagery tries to accomplish and what underpins their production:

1. Zionist Colonization is Anti-Civilization 

Colonial and Imperial powers have long used their fabricated lies of “civilization,” “rights,” and “democracy” to justify their plunder, military rule, and capitalist accumulation. We learn this from global histories of European colonization across Abya Yala, Asia, Africa, Turtle Island, Aotearoa, and Australia. The Zionist colonization of Palestine is no different. Oftentimes, the pretext of all of these bloodied invasions is that the “civilized” world is invading racialized communities to bring culture, education, and liberalism and instill it in societies it deems barbaric, immoral, and uncivilized. The images of the LGBT flag supposedly claim to bring rights and liberties to Gaza, but unironically, the soldier stands on top of the debris of hopes, dreams, and human remains of Palestinians he himself and the army he serves bombed moments before. The flag merely stands to reaffirm the simulacrum of colonization, death, white supremacy, and destruction. 

2. Israel Erases Palestinian Queerness

The images of the Israel Pride Flag and the other with the text, “In the name of love” send a clear message: Israel will not allow queer liberation unless it’s through its settler-colonial genocidal project. To that, we say No! We queer Palestinians have a vibrant, diverse liberation movement that is part of the Palestinian anti-colonial movement. For decades, we have been tirelessly working on carving up and maintaining a space for Palestinian queer life amongst our communities and not despite them. We are everywhere: in schools, streets, prisons, hospitals, and at the forefront of every confrontation in every corner of Palestine, from the river to the sea. What we are working towards is a Palestine liberated from colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalist exploitation.

3. Queer Opacity in Times of Hypervisibility

In a time when Palestinians are being prosecuted without trial, student movements shut-down and students in universities suspended and detained, and solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians at large are attacked and criminalized, visibility has proven itself to be a frontline of resistance against the erasure of Palestinians worldwide. In Palestine, Israel’s surveillance apparatuses hunt any expression for Palestine’s right to exist as grounds to attack, incarcerate, and murder Palestinian life. This over-fixation on the supposed lack of Palestinian queer visibility steers the attention from Israel’s campaign against all Palestinians – workers, activists, students, feminists, queers, and otherwise. Israel and its allies dangerously decontextualize the violence queers suffer from its historical colonial roots, and dissociate it from the impacts of current settler-colonial violence. This is an attempt to portray Palestinian society as unsafe for queers to legitimize the annihilation of our people, and in turn our annihilation as queers. Under Israel’s surveillance & police state, visibility, opacity and invisibility are survival and resistance tactics we use interchangeably, and aren’t always a matter of choice. None of us is safe under settler-colonization.

4. These Images Endanger Queer People Worldwide

The Pride Flag has long been hijacked and homonationalised. It represents a narrow and limited understanding of gender and sexuality and excludes the myriad of sexualities in the colonized world. This homonationalism renders colonized sexual and gender attitudes illegible to the liberal gaze and forces us to speak a language that compromises our experiences. Under nationalist and colonial regimes, our bodies and sexualities will always be regulated. What the pride flag has come now to represent is a commercial, imperialist, and white supremacist sexual ideologies, and this, in turn, puts us queer people in danger. This homonationalist project hinders our fight against anti-queer violence within our communities because our identities and sexualities are constantly being hijacked by the empires and colonies that brought destruction upon us. We need to reject such associations that only strengthen queerphobia in colonized societies, especially during this time in Arab and Muslim communities, when the soldiers and armies that are destroying our homes and killing our parents, siblings, friends, and children are doing so in the name of LGBT rights. 

5. Colonialism & Empire are Anti-Queerness

In the past, colonial projects sought to eliminate any sex-gender organization systems that fell outside of the European binary patriarchal model of man-woman. We learn this from the British criminalization of the Hijra in South Asia, or British and French social organizing efforts to enforce a binary sex-gender system in Yoruba Land, or Portuguese and Spanish efforts to eliminate “two-spirit” indigenous North Americans – deeming all uncivilized in need of external civilization. This was also the case in Palestine under British-Zionist military occupation, as same-sex relations and other diverse gender practices became criminalized and demonized. All the current laws in Gaza that criminalize queerness are, in fact, British and are upheld by Zionism. However, it becomes evermore absurd that rhetorics of bringing queer liberation to Palestine have been now hijacked by Zionists and, for the most brutal reasons, in service of annihilation of Palestinian life and mass destruction. We, Palestinian queers, position our movement for liberation alongside anti-colonial and anti-racist movements globally, and we stand firmly in objection to any attempt to hijack our movements, or exploit our bodies.

In the name of revolutionary love, a love which fuels our struggle for liberation and yearning for freedom, rooted in our love for our communities and our land; we tell you, there is no pride with genocide, and there is no pride in settler-colonialism.

Our pride can only come through true liberation for all, for us and for all the peoples fighting worldwide.

A Liberatory Demand from Queers in Palestine | Pinkwashing - Decolonize Palestine

[intersectionalpraxis]

So, the House just passed H.Res.888 - Reaffirming the State of Israel's right to exist. 412 Yes (210 Republican, 202 Democrat) 1 No (Republican), 1 Present (Democrat), and 21 Not Voting (11 Republican, 10 Democrat). The text of it says "This resolution reaffirms Israel's right to exist. It also (1) recognizes that denying Israel's right to exist is a form of antisemitism; (2) rejects calls for Israel's destruction; and (3) condemns the Hamas-led attack on Israel." I HIGHLY suggest everyone contact their Rep and give them hell for this. Saying a genocidal apartheid state has no right to exist is NOT antisemitic.

I just looked up this resolution and I have screen-captured it here. I will transcribe it as soon as possible, I just wanted to post this, since it is urgent. Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention! Based on my understanding, it was introduced on November 21st.

This is full of genocidal apologism, ahistorism, and disavowing of it's settler-colonialism and systematic violence on Historic Palestine, and it COMPLETELY disregards the fact that the IOF has slaughtered over 15,000 Palestinian people in this past month and a half alone -most of whom are children, the elderly, women, and disabled folks living in Gaza.

This is a DANGEROUS slippery slope of a resolution, which seeks to demonize ANY and all calls for a permanent ceasefire, to say any demands to end of the IOF occupation is essentially illegal and unconstitutional, and hopes to denounce/demonize the Free Palestine movement by minimizing and trivializing zionism by saying that anyone who criticizes the IOF is antisemitic... absolutely ridiculous.

[dykemd]

hi bea! i so appreciate how much anti-zionist stuff you’re reblogging, And I want to let you know that this post with the twitter screenshot about the recently passed house resolution and the israeli anti-boycott act is super misleading to the point of misinformation. the recent house resolution (HR 888, “reaffirming the state of israel’s right to exist”) that all except two reps voted for is a non binding symbolic act on congress’s part. it does nothing to codify anything into law. it IS a horrible symbol that erases palestinian existence and i encourage americans to call their reps to express their disgust about it, but it does NOT carry the legal penalties included in the same screenshot of that post. the israeli anti-boycott act (HR 1697 S. 720) that the post also mentions is from 1979 and it was never passed on a federal level - it also would only have applied to government contractors (not individuals) were the law to pass. this is a horrible proposed law but it never passed on a federal level! and the screenshot including both of those separate pieces of legislation together suggests that it is now illegal to practice BDS in the US, which is not the case at all. there ARE a lot of anti-BDS laws, especially on the state level, but the penalties listed in that screenshot are not part of those laws. i worry that the equating of those two separate pieces of legislation could discourage people from engaging in BDS and other important acts of political protest. i fully agree with the addition in the reblog about the US being fully fascist, but the original post itself is super misleading and i would ask that you consider deleting your reblog so as to avoid spreading misinformation. thank you again for sharing such great posts and resources in support of palestine in general and i hope you have a great night!!! feel free to let me know if you have any questions or want more information about any of this, i’m a anti-zionist jew organizing around this and i would be happy to discuss it

thank u so much for letting me know!! will definitely delete it!

[dragoneyes618]

Let’s not get caught up in the details of the controversy that made headlines this past weekend about the fact that 12 employees of UNRWA—the U.N. refugee agency dedicated to assisting the Palestinians—took part in the Hamas pogroms in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The New York Times broke the story, and many of the governments that are the principal funders of UNRWA, including the United States, which is the largest donor giving $422 million to it in 2023, have since expressed various levels of concern or outrage.

No one who knows anything about UNRWA can pretend to be surprised by what happened. The notion put forward by some of its apologists that the people who took part in the terror attacks are just a tiny minority of its 13,000 employees is not to be taken seriously. As The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported, it is estimated that approximately 10% of UNRWA employees are either active members or have ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

For years, it has been well known that UNRWA facilities, including schools and other places that are supposed to be devoted to charitable purposes, have been used by Hamas to store weapons or otherwise assist terrorists. Its education programs are as bad as those run by Hamas or the Palestinian Authority when it comes to indoctrinating young Palestinians in hatred for Israel and the Jews. UNRWA’s creation in 1949, coupled with its actions and the infrastructure it has built up since then, is dedicated to perpetuating the conflict with Israel. Forget philanthropy or—as every other refugee agency in the world focuses on—resettling those displaced by war in some safe place where they can make a new start in life.

That said, the notion that anything is shocking about the fact that a few of the UNRWA staff were caught taking part in the Oct. 7 attacks, including direct participation in kidnapping and mass murder, is a joke.

Sadly, so is most of the discussion about holding UNRWA accountable.

An unaccountable U.N. agency

Much to the dismay of Israel-haters like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the Biden administration announced that it was suspending funding of UNRWA. But when the details are drilled down, it turns out that the United States is continuing to pay the money it already pledged but will only put a pause on sending cash for new projects. The same is true for Germany and Canada, as well as some other donor nations. The government of the Netherlands has suspended all funding but other countries, like Ireland, Spain and Turkey, are refusing to take any actions to hold UNRWA accountable.

If the past is any indication of the future, even those who have spoken out about this, like the United States, will eventually, even if quietly, resume full funding of UNRWA. As part of his policies that attempted to hold Palestinians and their enablers accountable for their support for terrorism and rejection of peace, former President Donald Trump cut all ties with and funding for UNRWA in 2018. Unfortunately, among the first actions when Joe Biden took office in 2021, he reversed that move and restored funding. Biden and his foreign-policy team are steadfast supporters of the United Nations and everything it does, regardless of the fact that it has long been a cesspool of antisemitism.

Even those administration officials who have been the most outspoken in reaffirming Israel’s right to self-defense—like John Kirby, the communications director for the National Security Council, who has also denounced Hamas and supported the goal of its elimination—also defended UNRWA. According to Kirby, UNRWA does “amazing work” saving lives. Incredibly, he even gave it credit for wanting to investigate the problem.

The reason for this is that UNRWA has made itself indispensable to the business of caring for Palestinians in Gaza. It is, as it has been for the last 75 years, the primary conduit of assistance to a population that has been made dependent on the international community for all services, including employment. As such, it can and does present itself to the world as the embodiment of philanthropy, providing sustenance to an enormous number of people in need.

That is why any effort to investigate its activities and penalize it for its close ties to terrorists is always derailed by invoking its good works and the notion that if it were shut down, millions would starve.

So, even when UNRWA is caught red-handed storing rockets to be fired at Israel or even having its staff actively taking part in the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the odds that its parent organization or the various nations that have spent billions of their citizens’ taxpayer dollars on funding it will do anything other than slap it on the wrist are negligible.

As with the rest of his policies that ignored the advice of the foreign-policy establishment and the “experts,” Trump had it right on UNRWA. The only theoretical hope for there to be peace between Israel and the Palestinians must start with the abolition of institutions that not only provide assistance and employment to terrorists but have as their purpose the perpetuation of a futile quest to destroy the one Jewish state on the planet. UNRWA must not merely be defunded. It must be abolished.

A world full of refugees

The very fact of its existence is a function of the way the international community has acted to prevent a resolution of the conflict.

When UNRWA was created by the United Nations in 1949, the plight of refugees was among the world’s most pressing problems. Up to 60 million people were displaced in Europe during and immediately after the Second World War.

That included those Jews who had survived the Holocaust seeking to go to Israel or the West, as well as millions of others who had been uprooted for one reason or another. Among them were ethnic Germans who were thrown out of their homes throughout Eastern Europe, including traditionally German regions like East Prussia. As Europe adjusted to new borders largely imposed by the demands of the Soviet Union, many people were forcibly evicted and told to move to places where their ethnicity would be welcomed. Any who resisted were not supported by the international community. They were violently repressed, imprisoned and forgotten.

Nor was Europe the only region where there was a refugee crisis. When Britain abandoned its rule of India, the subcontinent was partitioned into two separate nations—largely, Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The drawing of those lines on the map created 14 million people who found themselves on the wrong side of the new borders and became refugees. More than 1 million people died in the ethnic and religious violence there as massive populations scrambled to find new homes.

Arab and Jewish refugees

Coming around the same time as the catastrophe caused by the partition of India was the refugee problem caused by Britain’s leaving another of its former possessions: the Mandate for Palestine. The United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states: one for the Jews and one for the Arabs with Jerusalem being an international enclave. While the Jews accepted the partition scheme, the Arabs did not. The leaders of the Palestinian Arabs—like the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini—declared war on the Jews. Neighboring Arab nations supported them and invaded the newborn State of Israel on its first day of existence in May 1948.

The Arab war to destroy Israel not only failed; the fighting led hundreds of thousands of Arabs in the former Mandate to flee. A small minority were forced out by Israelis during bitter fighting in some areas. But most of them left out of fear of what would happen to them if they fell under the rule of Jews (and with the expectation that they would take over all the land once the Jews were “thrown into the sea”). That was mostly the product of projection since in many instances Jews captured by their foes were massacred. But it was also the result of propaganda from the Arab side in the fighting in which they sought to demonize their enemies and strengthen the will of the Palestinian Arabs to fight.

During the same period as approximately 700,000 Arabs became refugees, some 800,000 Jews either fled or were forced to flee their homes in the Arab and Muslim world where they had lived for centuries. The very different disposition of those two populations says all anyone needs to know about the next 75 years of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Jewish refugees were resettled in a massive philanthropic project funded by Jews around the world. Most of those refugees went to Israel, where they faced hardships in what was then a very poor and embattled country. Today, their descendants make up about half the Jewish population and have contributed enormously to its defense and flourishing as a modern state. Others found new homes in the United States and other parts of the world.

Unlike every other refugee population, the Palestinian Arabs were not resettled. They were kept in camps throughout the Middle East with the largest concentration in Gaza, which was controlled by Egypt from 1949 to 1967. They were prevented from finding new homes in Arab and Muslim countries, where they spoke the language and shared a common culture. Nor were they enabled to go elsewhere to make new lives.

Instead, they were kept in place to wait for the day when they could “go home” to their former villages in what was now Israel. Their leaders and the rest of the Arab world opposed their resettlement, doing all they could to prevent it.

And the agency that enabled this policy to continue for generations was none other than UNRWA.

It’s important to understand that at the time when all these refugee problems arose, the United Nations created two refugee agencies. One, UNRWA, deals only with the Palestinians. The other, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (or UNHCR) has the responsibility for all of the other refugees in the world.

The UNHCR has its flaws, but its job is to help the refugees by giving them not just immediate aid in surviving being displaced by wars and other disasters but also assistance in resettling in places where it will be safe for them. Their goal is to ensure that their problems are resolved and that their children will make new lives rather than continue to live in camps.

By contrast, the UNRWA exists solely to ensure that Palestinian refugees are never resettled. That’s why almost all of the people who are called Palestinian refugees are the descendants of the people who fled the war the Arab world started in 1948. Several generations have been born in the camps but, contrary to the way other populations are treated, all are given the same status as those who were the original 1948 refugees.

Of all the tens of millions of refugees of the 1940s, the only ones whose descendants have not been resettled are the Palestinians. A humane and rational policy would have led to their being absorbed into other populations. But that’s not UNRWA’s job. It operates the ultimate welfare state in which generations are kept dependent on charity. Worse than that, its programs and policies all encourage the Palestinians to go on believing that someday Israel will cease to exist, and then they can return to where their grandparents and great-grandparents lived three-quarters of a century ago. Though it pretends to be a humanitarian force, it encourages its charges to look forward to the day when Hamas’s genocidal objective—the mass murder of Israel’s 7 million Jews—will be achieved.

Therefore, it’s little surprise that UNRWA is riddled with supporters of Hamas and that among its staff are people who take part in terrorist atrocities. And that much of the aid it receives from the world goes to help Hamas continue to function. UNRWA allows the very people its donors think they are helping to be used as human shields in a cynical hopeless war.

So, let’s not waste much time arguing about the details of UNRWA’s complicity in Oct. 7 or other acts of terror. The only discussion that needs to be held is one about its abolition and replacement by a genuine refugee agency. The world needs one that can give Palestinians new homes rather than keep them in misery awaiting another Holocaust for the Jews that they’ve been led to believe will magically solve their problems.

[brightgnosis]

To Become A Noahide

In order to become a Noahide, one must accept upon oneself:

① To enter into the Covenant of Noah ② To follow the commandments of G-d / keep the seven laws of Noah: 1. Don't eat a body part of a live animal; 2. Don't curse God; 3. Don't steal; 4. Set up a justice system; 5. Don't serve idols or other Gods; 6. Don't engage in forbidden sexual relationships; and 7. Don't murder ③ To become part of one of 'seventy' legal systems (necessary for the law of setting up a justice system) ④ And accept the Rabbinic interpretation of scripture (At least concerning the existence of the seven laws).

They [the 7 laws] are more akin to 7 categories, since obviously each one needs more details (for example, what constitutes a forbidden relationship?).

Noachides are welcome to observe most other commandments as a means of coming closer to G-d. For example, a Noachide may choose to make blessings over food, or give charity.

A Noachide may also look to the Torah for spiritual guidance.

There is no need to formally convert to Noahidism in order to become a Noachide- though some Rabbis disagree somewhat.

One must remember that the Noahide declaration is not a conversion process. It is not marked with some right of passage, nor with some interrogation of proper dogma or belief. Rather it is a declaration of intent to uphold the seven laws and their details, to become part of the jurisdiction of their nation's Noahide courts, and acceptance of the authority of Rabbinic tradition in these matters.  

To be a Chasidei Umos HaOlam, or Righteous Gentile:

"I accept the authority of G-d in giving the seven commandments — which are: Prohibition of Idolatry, Prohibition of Blasphemy, Prohibition of Homicide, Prohibition of Sexual Immorality, Prohibition of Theft, Prohibition of Limb of a Living Creature, and Imperative of Legal System. I will be careful in all their subdivisions and details, including dinim — the laws of the courts  — to perform them; to live my life in such a way as not to break these laws because they were commanded by G-d. I recognize the spiritual component of these laws, including spiritual reward and punishment, revealed to us by the hand of Moshe Rabbenu through Rabbinic tradition; and that we were previously commanded in these things, reaffirming the ancient law & covenant."

To be a Ger Toshav, or Partial Convert:

"I accept these laws on myself in front of three judges. I recognize and submit to the authority of this court which is in "every place" — which some authorities understand to mean local rabbinical judges anywhere in the world."

The wording used in various Noahide pledges differs greatly, for example the Jerusalem Court for Bnei Noah at one time used a declaration similar to this:

"I pledge my allegiance to HaShem, G-d of Israel, Creator and King of the Universe, to His Torah and its representatives, this rabbinical court. I hereby pledge to uphold the Seven Laws of Noah in all their details, according to Oral Law of Moses under the guidance of this rabbinical court. May HaShem bless and aid me, and all B'nai Noach in all our endeavors for the sake of His name. Blessed are You G-d, King of the universe, who has caused me to live, sustained me, and brought me to this day"

There are some rabbinic opinions that one must observe the Seven Laws as a binding legal requirement. For Noahides in the United States, one way to do this is to register with the the United Noachide Council. The UNC functions as a complementary court system to the United States court system, and is registered to handle certain legal cases. The intention is to allow a Noahide to fulfill the Noahide Covenant.

From WikiNoah’s 'How to become a Noahite’ Entry + r/Judaism‘s ‘What is a Noachide?’ resource; modified as necessary to combine  (My Ko-Fi Here)

[news4dzhozhar]

H.Res.888 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Reaffirming the State of Israel's right to exist. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

The manipulation and weaponizing of words now on a Federal level is truly mindblowing to me. Legally requiring to say all the talking point that Israel repeats when they can't debate the actual issues. Equating things with antisemitism as a law is going way too far.

If you're interested to see who voted for and against it, here is the link below. AOC for example voted for it.

[gayegrimoire]

REALLY FUCKED THAT ALL BUT 2 IN THE HOUSE VOTED ON HOUSE RESOLUTION 888 REGARDING ISRAEL. Doesn’t seem to affect much at first glance until you remember that a House Resolution passed like this may as well be all our reps and their sponsors voicing a unified opinion for Israel as a whole. Of course, there are people doing good in Israel, just as there are people enacting harm in Palestine, but a move like this essentially endorses the Israeli government that has been and is currently committing atrocities upon Palestinian civilians, including children. There is always more nuance than what I’ve written here to any scenario, but this is certainly a look for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Bowman, and other Democratic “progressives” who voted yea on this, as well as some portion of the voters they represent, and certainly their sponsors.

Some parts of this House Resolution make a lot of sense, such as condemning the Hamas-led attack on Israelis, but it also never addresses the irreparable harm Israel has done to Palestinians and equates anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism. While I see how “anti-Israel” could be interpreted as “wanting to destroy Israel” and therefore being anti-semitic, I don’t think that’s how many interpret it, and those who do have lived through atrocities placed upon them by Israeli bombs and attacks. This isn’t a “one side wins all” argument, because there is no such thing as a black and white cause differentiation, but it is a call to attention to the USA’s continued policies of war for money, and continued support of Israeli military action.

This is a really good way to look at who voted what, a summary of the house resolution, and a lot of other info if you weren’t aware of it.

[cridhe]

While remaining ideologically inflexible, Hamas has offered pragmatic concessions when dealing with the three conditions imposed by the international community: renounce violence, recognize Israel, and accept past agreements. As various chapters in this book demonstrate, Hamas has issued repeated offers to end its violence in return for Israeli reciprocity. Throughout the years of the Second Intifada and afterward, Hamas intermittently held fire unilaterally in the face of rapid Israeli militarization. Israel has consistently ignored these overtures. Even after its takeover of the Gaza Strip, Hamas became increasingly effective at policing Gaza’s borders, yet calm interludes were systematically ignored by Israel, which maintained its violent chokehold and incursions into the strip. Hamas also made great strides with regard to accepting past agreements, offering to abide by whatever outcome a reformed and representative PLO puts forward. This concession has been made even as successive Israeli governments have themselves failed to respect or uphold past agreements. By 2007, when Hamas accepted the Mecca Agreement, the movement declared its willingness to respect international agreements and defer to the PLO in negotiations with Israel. These political concessions have consistently been deemed insufficient.

The issue that has proven most intractable is Hamas’s refusal to recognize Israel. In many ways, this is the backbone of Hamas’s ideology. It is both the final trump card before reaching a settlement and the last line that must be defended to safeguard the imagined purity of Palestinian nationalism. For decades, Hamas has explicitly and repeatedly indicated its willingness to accept the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, most recently by issuing a revised political manifesto in 2017. Even prior to its election victory in 2006, Hamas consistently explained that its use of armed struggle was limited to forcing Israel to end its occupation rather than the destruction of the state as a whole. Hamas’s leaders believe this would offer a peaceful settlement between Israel and the Palestinians and end the bloodshed. Israel is convinced this would be a temporary solution before Hamas rearms and attacks from a strengthened position. While Hamas may indeed continue to harbor ideological aspirations for the liberation of the entirety of Palestine after such a peaceful settlement, the likelihood that the movement would have popular backing for such a step is likely to be nonexistent if a just settlement is offered.

It is more likely the case that Hamas is simply maintaining this ideological intransigence as a negotiating tactic and a matter of principle, tying into the movement’s legitimacy and its effectiveness as an interlocutor. The movement believes that conceding the remaining cards that Hamas still clings to would ensure that Palestinian rights continued to be forfeited, as had happened following the PLO’s recognition of Israel. As one leader explained, “Why should we be forced to explicitly recognize Israel if we’ve already indicated we have a de facto acceptance of its presence?” Hamas’s implicit acceptance of Israel has gone far beyond what many Israeli political parties, including the dominant ruling Likud party, have offered Palestinians within their charters. With their refusal to recognize the right of Palestinian self-determination, their insistence that the Palestinian people never existed, and the intermittent resurfacing of the “Jordan option,” several Israeli political parties have long opposed the notion of a Palestinian state.

Hamas leaders consistently reaffirmed how their acceptance of the 1967 line is a negotiating tactic made in the full conviction that Israel itself refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of this border. Israel’s refusal to countenance Hamas’s repeated offers around the 1967 line re affirm this conviction. Israel’s demand for Hamas’s ideological concession prior to any form of diplomatic engagement is likely to remain futile. The PLO’s experience shows that Israel has hardly acted as a benevolent occupier. If Hamas were to shift its own policies and accept the Quartet’s conditions, it would lose valuable political capital and negotiating clout. Hamas has long called on Palestinian diplomats to hold on to their trump cards rather than negotiate in good faith. Should Israel ever choose to pursue a peace option or itself accept the legitimacy of the 1967 borders, admittedly an unlikely development given the current political climate in Israel, Hamas would present a powerful and effective counterpart. Yet rather than empowering its negotiating partners, Israel has historically pursued a self-fulfilling prophecy that ensures there is “no partner” by weakening its counterparts and undermining their legitimacy.

Israel’s refusal to deal with Hamas’s diplomatic signals is not solely the result of the movement’s use of armed struggle. Hamas’s political emergence within the Gaza Strip heightened Israeli worries by rupturing the continued subservience of the Palestinian institutions to the occupation. This compliance had become concretized in the body of the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo Accords. By resuscitating key Palestinian demands that the PLO had conceded, including the goal of liberating historic Palestine, Hamas has attempted to take Palestinian nationalism back to a pre-Oslo period. The Oslo Accords have facilitated the continuation of Israel’s occupation and have been followed by a failed peace process that has resumed for two decades at significant cost to Palestinians, while Israel expanded its settlement enterprise. Hamas’s efforts to undo the political structures that Oslo created challenged a status quo that has been sustainable, if not beneficial, for Israel and its colonization of Palestinian territories. In essence, Hamas’s takeover of Gaza marked the failure of Israel’s efforts to centralize Palestinian decision-making with compliant figures like Mahmoud Abbas, who in effect allow Israel to maintain its occupation cost-free.

Hamas’s fate is emblematic of Israel’s “decision not to decide” on the future of the Palestinian territories and its reliance on military superiority to dismiss the political demands animating the Palestinian national movement. Since the blockade was instituted, Israel’s strategy toward the movement has evolved. As a key member of Israel’s security establishment noted, “Israel needs Hamas to be weak enough not to attack, but stable enough to deal with the radical terrorist groups in Gaza. This line may be blurry but the logic is clear. The challenge lies with walking this blurry line.” Managing Hamas in this manner allows Israel to avoid risking another transmutation of Palestinian nationalism. Defeating Hamas militarily would, obviously, be one way of ridding Israel of its “Hamas problem.” But that would simply transport Hamas’s ideological drivers to another vehicle that would remain rooted in the key tenants of the Palestinian struggle.

from "Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance" by Tareq Baconi

[mental-mona]

[Excerpt below]

...a report by the commission of inquiry led by Navi Pillay into “alleged violations” of international law in “the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” was posted on the U.N. website.

...

A tissue of malevolent falsehoods, distortions and misrepresentations of international law, the report makes only passing reference to Palestinian terrorism and the thousands of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians which constitute actual war crimes. Instead, it suggests entirely falsely that Israel’s “perpetual occupation” is the root cause of the conflict.

It is, in short, little more than Hamas and Palestinian propaganda. This is hardly surprising since Pillay had consulted with Palestinian and Israeli groups dedicated to harming and destroying Israel.

Yet she has the gall to claim that her inquiry’s findings are “overwhelmingly directed towards Israel” because of the “asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one state occupying the other.” So she doesn’t even seem to grasp the basic fact that there is not and never has been a Palestinian state as “the other” for Israel to occupy.

Nor, of course, does she acknowledge that her own role is a key weapon in the war to destroy Israel through distortion, demonization and delegitimization.

She was chosen for this role because of her record of bigoted hostility towards Israel. Her two fellow commissioners, Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti, share her bias.

Pillay has repeatedly used the “apartheid” canard against Israel and called for it to be boycotted and sanctioned. She championed the U.N.’s Durban Review Conference in 2009, which sought to reaffirm the notorious 2001 Durban “anti-racism” conference that turned into a sickening anti-Jewish hate-fest.

...

Her commission of inquiry itself has all the trappings of a mind-twisting kangaroo court—verdict first, evidence to follow—straight out of the Soviet playbook.

For the United Nations gave it a mandate in perpetuity to report annually on alleged war crimes and discrimination going right back to the establishment of the State of Israel. Applied to no other country, the world body has thus singled out Israel for a permanent inquisition, which has already decided on its guilt by virtue of Israel’s existing at all.

The UNHRC itself has a long history of eye-watering hostility and injustice towards Israel. The infamous Item 7 on its standing agenda singles it out for a unique category of criticism in every session.

As a body ostensibly devoted to upholding human rights, the UNHRC is a farce. Tyrannies such as China, Russia, Cuba and Pakistan are among the 15 countries that have won seats on the council.

It routinely ignores violations by despotic regimes while perversely and egregiously targeting its condemnations instead at Israel. Since 2006, the council has adopted 90 resolutions condemning the Jewish state—more than all the resolutions against Syria, North Korea and Iran combined.

[andrewkantor]

ChatGPT solves the Israeli-Palestinian crisis

Humans have failed, so I prompted ChatGPT to “Act as a master diplomat and solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem.” That simple.

The response is actually damned good.

ChatGPT:

As a master diplomat, I approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with empathy, pragmatism, and a commitment to finding common ground. While this complex issue has deep historical roots, I propose a framework for dialogue and resolution:

Dialogue and Trust-Building:

Initiate direct, unconditional talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Establish a neutral mediation team to facilitate discussions.

Encourage people-to-people exchanges, cultural events, and joint projects to foster mutual understanding.

Two-State Solution:

Reaffirm the goal of two independent states: Israel and Palestine.

Borders based on pre-1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps.

Jerusalem as the shared capital, ensuring access to holy sites for all.

Security and Cooperation:

Develop a comprehensive security plan to address concerns on both sides.

Joint efforts to combat terrorism and ensure safety for civilians.

Economic cooperation, trade, and infrastructure projects to benefit both nations.

Refugees and Right of Return:

Acknowledge the pain of displacement for both Palestinian refugees and Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

Explore creative solutions, such as compensation, resettlement, or symbolic gestures.

Respect the right of return while recognizing practical limitations.

Settlements and Land:

Freeze further settlement construction in the West Bank.

Gradual withdrawal from isolated settlements, with compensation for settlers.

Preserve land for future Palestinian statehood.

International Support:

Engage regional and international actors (including the Quartet) to support the peace process.

Leverage economic incentives and diplomatic pressure.

Encourage investment in Palestinian infrastructure and institutions.

Public Diplomacy and Education:

Promote narratives of coexistence, tolerance, and shared history.

Revise textbooks to present balanced perspectives.

Engage civil society, religious leaders, and youth in peacebuilding.

Incremental Progress:

Recognize that lasting peace may require gradual steps.

Celebrate small victories and build momentum.

Maintain a long-term vision while addressing immediate needs.

Remember, as a master diplomat, my role is to facilitate dialogue, not impose solutions. The path to peace lies in genuine dialogue, compromise, and a commitment to a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.

But then….

I followed up with two other questions. First, why do you favor a two-state solution?

ChatGPT:

As a master diplomat, I advocate for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to several compelling reasons:

Historical Context:

The conflict has deep historical roots, including territorial disputes, identity, and competing narratives.

A two-state solution acknowledges the distinct national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Self-Determination:

Each people deserves the right to self-determination and sovereignty.

A separate Palestinian state alongside Israel allows both nations to govern themselves independently.

Security and Stability:

Two separate states can address security concerns more effectively.

Defined borders provide clarity and reduce tensions.

Demographic Realities:

Israel’s demographic composition includes both Jewish and Arab citizens.

A two-state solution ensures a Jewish-majority Israel while allowing Palestinians to establish their own state.

International Consensus:

The international community generally supports a two-state framework.

UN resolutions and diplomatic efforts have consistently aimed at this outcome.

Practical Viability:

Despite challenges, a two-state solution remains the most practical path forward.

It builds on existing institutions and infrastructure.

Shared Capital in Jerusalem:

Designating Jerusalem as the shared capital recognizes its significance to both Israelis and Palestinians.

Ensuring access to holy sites for all is crucial.

Economic Cooperation:

A two-state solution allows for economic cooperation, trade, and joint projects.

Shared resources benefit both nations.

Humanitarian Considerations:

Palestinians deserve a state where they can thrive economically, socially, and politically.

Israelis also benefit from a stable, peaceful neighbor.

Long-Term Peace:

While challenges persist, a two-state solution offers a path toward lasting peace.

It requires compromise, goodwill, and sustained efforts from both sides.

Remember, as a diplomat, my role is to facilitate dialogue and find common ground. The ultimate resolution must be negotiated by the parties involved, with international support and goodwill .

Me: In this scenario, who would govern or administer the shared capital of Jerusalem?

ChatGPT:

In the context of a two-state solution, the governance or administration of the shared capital, Jerusalem, would require delicate negotiation and creative arrangements. Here are some potential approaches:

International Administration:

Establish an international body or consortium to oversee Jerusalem’s administration.

Representatives from both Israel and Palestine, along with other relevant stakeholders, could participate.

This body would manage key aspects such as access to holy sites, infrastructure, and municipal services.

Joint Municipal Council:

Create a joint municipal council for Jerusalem.

Composed of elected representatives from both Israeli and Palestinian communities.

Responsibilities would include urban planning, public services, and cultural preservation.

Special Status Zone:

Designate Jerusalem as a special status zone.

Governed by a unique legal framework that respects the city’s significance to multiple faiths.

International guarantees would ensure equal access and protection of religious sites.

Shared Institutions:

Establish shared institutions for education, healthcare, and cultural exchange.

These institutions would promote mutual understanding and cooperation.

Funding and management would involve contributions from both sides.

Symbolic Leadership:

Consider a rotating symbolic leadership arrangement.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders take turns representing the city.

Practical governance would still occur through administrative bodies.

Security Cooperation:

Collaborate on security matters to maintain peace and stability.

Joint patrols, intelligence sharing, and coordinated responses.

Ensuring safety for residents and visitors alike.

Economic Integration:

Encourage economic integration between Israeli and Palestinian neighborhoods.

Shared business ventures, tourism, and cultural events.

Economic prosperity benefits both communities.

Remember, any solution must respect the religious, historical, and emotional ties to Jerusalem while ensuring practical functionality and peaceful coexistence. The specifics would require negotiation, compromise, and goodwill from both sides.

[arcticdementor]

On July 16, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a cable to American embassies across the globe with new instructions. In the face of what he described as the growing threat from authoritarian and populist forces emanating from countries around the world, he urged U.S. diplomats to actively “seek ways to exert effective pressure on those countries to uphold democratic norms and respect human rights,” and vowed that “standing up for democracy and human rights everywhere is not in tension with America’s national interests nor with our national security.” This, he specified, must apply even to America’s allies and partners, declaring that “there is no relationship or situation where we will stop raising human rights concerns.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has explicitly characterized his foreign policy as waging “a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies,” and described the world as at an “inflection point” that will determine for the future “who succeeded, autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake.” And while he has named China and Russia as the top threats to democracy, he has stated that, “in so many places, including in Europe and the United States, democratic progress is under assault.”

This kind of rhetoric has led many to describe Biden as gearing up to lead a new round of global ideological competition akin to the Cold War, and Blinken’s cable appears to be a step toward operationalizing this conception into everyday U.S. policy.

…

Blinken’s invitation had in fact been a response to a June 26 declaration made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, which itself followed the completion of a “comprehensive report on systemic racism,” which had unsurprisingly discovered its titular subject ingrained around the world – especially in the “excessive policing of Black bodies and communities” in the United States. In her statement, Bachelet castigated the West for a “piecemeal approach to dismantling systems entrenched in centuries of discrimination and violence,” declared that “the status quo is untenable,” and called instead for an immediate “whole-of-society” “systemic response,” with a “transformative agenda” to uproot systemic racism everywhere and implement the “restorative justice” urgently demanded by “the worldwide mobilization of people calling for racial justice.”

The Biden administration could hardly have responded with anything less than full-throated support for such an idea, given that battling the omnipresent specter of America’s “systemic racism” has become a core feature of the administration’s political identity.

And few administration officials have embraced this battle with as much personal zeal as Blinken, who moved immediately after his confirmation to not only install a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the State Department (in a powerful new position reporting only to himself), but ordered every bureau in the department to also appoint a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Diversity and Inclusion as well – with his stated goal being “to incorporate diversity and inclusion into the [State] Department’s work at every level.”

…

Speaking of that kind of thing, most of those upset about Blinken’s invitation of the UNHRC’s racism inquisitors strangely seem to have missed another development in a related front of the global culture war.

This despite the fact that the State Department is eager for you to know that, “On June 23, the United States led, and 20 countries co-sponsored, its first-ever side event on the human rights of transgender women, highlighting the violence and structural, legal, and intersectional barriers faced by transgender women of color.”

So there’s that. But side event to what? That would be the last session of the UNHRC, where the U.S. worked to address assorted “dire human rights situations” by helping to pioneer the launch of the “Group of Friends of the Mandate of the United Nations Independent Expert on Protection Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” (GoF IE SOGI).

Besides the United States, the inaugural SOGI Group includes: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Who is this Independent Expert with so many friends? That would be Víctor Madrigal-Borloz, Senior Visiting Researcher at the Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program.

After its formation, the Group’s first act was to consider a report produced for the UNHRC by Mr. Madrigal-Borloz titled “The Law of Inclusion.”

“The Law of Inclusion” states that all evidence necessarily “leads to the conclusion that all human beings live in gendered societies traversed by power hierarchies,” and declares that, as we all seek to “build back better” (here inexplicably adopting Joe Biden’s campaign slogan) the “adoption of gender-based and intersectional analysis” is “a fundamental component of a diligent discharge of [all countries’ human rights] responsibility.”

Crucially, an intersectional approach leads to a “recognition of how race is gendered and gender is raced, as well as the many other factors which affect how one is allocated rights.” Plus, as a bonus, “gender theory is also relevant as a tool to address, analyse and transform systems of violent masculinity.”

…

Ultimately, based on his intersectional analysis, the Independent Expert declares a new “fundamental duty of the State” based on his careful investigation:

To recognize every human being’s freedom to determine the confines of their existence, including their gender identity and expression.

(I don’t think you will find a more flawless one-sentence summation of the End-Stage Liberalism I’ve previously outlined, characterized by its endless quest to liberate us from any and all limits, than this, by the way.)

…

The United States and the rest of the SOGI Group immediately issued a statement fully endorsing the report, noting that they “would like to reaffirm” that: “As clearly demonstrated by the thorough analysis provided by the report, gender is a social construct”; that intersectional analysis has “proven to be fundamental to the design and implementation of inclusive public policies”; that they support “the importance of advancing legal gender recognition based on self-identification”; and that they “oppose any attempt to erase gender from international human rights law instruments and processes.”

I hope you will retain at least one takeaway from my subjection of you to this word salad of intersectional jargon on race and gender: that the distinctive language and doctrinal ideological concepts of the New Faith have extended far past the Harvard Quad, crossed the oceans, and have now, as the report puts it, thoroughly “permeated” themselves through elite-managed global institutions like the UN Human Rights Council.

Conservatives, in particular, are typically dismissive of the UN in general and the UNHRC in particular (President Trump officially pulled the U.S. out of the council in 2018, after which Biden rejoined as an observer), as they see it as a pointless talk-shop that spends a majority of its time criticizing the United States and its allies, though with little practical effect. This is a mistake.

What is happening here is the steady creation and entrenchment of new norms that aim to redefine what is considered the normal and acceptable window of cultural, political, and legal practice by countries the world over. The UNHRC may have no direct political power, but it is precisely the ignorance or flippant disregard for the transformative long-term power of norms that has so far lost conservatives every culture war battle they have fought. Somehow conservatives – and now Liberals – have been consistently blindsided by norms falling out from under them (gradually, and then suddenly) even as they have held positions of political power.

Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, Washington has now embraced this kind of norm-setting mechanism for remaking the world in its new and ideologically improved image.

…

Not every country is completely woke to the need for unlimited gender self-identification or a “whole-of-society transformation” to address its hierarchies of oppression, however.

International Expert Mr. Madrigal-Borloz has also noticed this problem, which is why he and the SOGI Group are producing a follow-up companion report to “The Law of Inclusion,” this time to be titled “Practices of Exclusion.”

…

Probably in most other contexts, when an external power or powers attempt to “deconstruct” and replace the “traditional values” and “cultural and religious” norms of a distinct people against their will, this would be called that what it is: imperialism (or, occasionally, worse).

Nonetheless, “Practices of Exclusion” is set to be published at the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York this September and will undoubtedly be endorsed by the U.S., U.K., and the other progressive members of the SOGI Group at that time – even as many of these same countries are actually still experiencing their own fierce bouts of “resistance” to its core ideas.

What does this all mean? In short, that the ideological battles of Cold War 2.0 are not going to be limited to categories similar to those which at least broadly seemed to characterize Cold War 1.0, or necessarily even uphold the classic conceptions of “liberal-democracy” and “authoritarianism” or “autocracy” with which we are familiar.

Instead, it should be understood that the Biden administration and its like-minded partners are now operating under a rather different ideological calculus about what “democracy” and “human rights” mean, even as, similar to the original Cold War, that calculus directly links domestic and international ideological foes.

In this worldview, in order for a democratic state to be a legitimate “Democracy,” it is not enough for it to have a popularly elected government chosen through free and fair elections – it also has to hold the correct progressive values. That is, it has to be Woke. Otherwise it is not a real Democracy, but something else. Here the term “populism” has become a useful one: even if a state is not yet authoritarian or “autocratic” in a traditional sense, it may be in the grip of “Populism,” an ill-defined concept vague enough to encompass the wide range of reactionary sentiments and tendencies that can characterize “resistance” to progress, as based on “traditional values,” etc. And ultimately, we are told, “Populism” is liable to lead to Autocracy – because if you aren’t progressing forward in sync with Democracy, you are sliding backwards along the binary spectrum toward Autocracy.

Moreover, as in the case of the struggle between Capitalist-Liberalism and Communist-Authoritarianism during the original Cold War, the insidious “forces” of Populism-Autocracy are present not only out in the undecided “Third World,” but even lurking inside Democracies in good standing – constantly threatening to tip them, like dominoes, into the opposite camp. Hence why Biden issues warnings like the one claiming that, “in so many places, including in Europe and the United States, democratic progress is under assault.” The fight against the perceived forces of Populism-Autocracy within the United States, or within the European Union, is not in this conception at all separate from the fight against the likes of China and Russia on the world stage; they are the same fight.

…

Exacerbating this sense of fear and division is the fact that a Democracy can’t just hold some of the correct values – it has to hold all of them, in toto. This is after all the prime conclusion of intersectional analysis: all injustice is interlinked, forming interlocking systems of oppression; therefore injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Intersectionality thus demands liberation in totality; there can be no pluralism – no one can simply be left alone or granted the slightest leniency, because no injustice in any place or of any degree can be suffered to exist, lest it pollute and threaten the entire system.

The conclusion is inevitable: the New Faith must be a missionary, evangelical faith. By its own internal logic, for its own survival, it must march abroad to convert the heathens even as it hunts heretics at home.

…

There are still plenty of countries out there – in fact, a vast majority of them – who think intersectional gender theory and other fruits of the New Faith are in essence stark raving mad, and are also rather attached to keeping their own cultures and traditions.

So even if you are a strong supporter of LGBT rights, feminism, or other liberal-progressive ideals (and yes, many countries around the world of course do treat LGBT people, women, and racial minorities terribly), it is still worth considering the practical consequences of Intersectional Imperialism. If the West makes ideological conformity an integral requirement for joining, receiving aid from, or even working with its Democracy bloc (as Blinken has implied), then many of these countries are liable to flee into the arms of China and other genuinely authoritarian but ideologically non-missionary states, despite the security concerns they may have.

…

At this time it was the Soviet bloc, including communist controlled Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia, who argued that freedom from discrimination should take precedence over the rights of freedom of expression and assembly.

And it was the Western liberal democracies, together with the Latin American states, that rose to (unsuccessfully) oppose this idea.

The “fundamental right of free speech” was, argued U.K. representative Lady Gaitskell, “the foundation-stone on which many of the other human rights were built,” and it was the U.K.’s position that, despite abhorring racism, “in an advanced democracy the expression of such views was a risk that had to be taken.” Hungary shot back that free speech and tolerance was pointless if “fascists” were tolerated anywhere.

When the U.S. delegation attempted to restrict the scope of speech defined in the law to that “resulting in or likely to cause acts of violence,” the move was blocked by the Soviet group, with Czechoslovakia countering that there could be no democracy if “movements directed towards hatred and discrimination were allowed to exist.”

…

Times have changed. As the European Union prepares to consider writing “hate speech” into the official list of EU crimes, tweeting “gender-critical” thoughts is already an arrestable offense in the United Kingdom, and the United States looks to enlighten the world about the dangers of oppressive microaggressions, one wonders if there is any country remaining, the world over, still willing to genuinely represent liberal values in these terms today.

Instead only the crusaders of the New Faith remain to march into battle against the Autocrats and their Populist allies, and you are either with them or against them. Welcome to the Woke Cold War.

[sartorialadventure]

Until the 1940s, traditional Palestinian clothing reflected a woman's economic and marital status and her town or district of origin, with knowledgeable observers discerning this information from the fabric, colours, cut, and embroidery motifs (or lack thereof) used in the apparel. 

The Thob (pronounced “thobe”) is a loose-fitting robe with sleeves. The cut of the garment varied by region. The qabbeh is the square chest panel of the Thob, often decorated.

 Foreign travelers to Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the clothing worn, particularly by the fellaheen or village women. Many of the handcrafted garments were richly embroidered and the creation and maintenance of these items played a significant role in the lives of the region's women.

1-2, 6. Ramallah/Rumi thob

You may have seen Palestine in the news lately...

Palestine was among former Ottoman territories placed under UK administration by the League of Nations in 1922. All of these territories eventually became fully independent States, except Palestine, where in addition to “the rendering of administrative assistance and advice” the British Mandate incorporated the “Balfour Declaration” of 1917, expressing support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. During the Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration, mainly from Eastern Europe took place, the numbers swelling in the 1930s with the Nazi persecution. Arab demands for independence and resistance to immigration led to a rebellion in 1937, followed by continuing terrorism and violence from both sides. UK considered various formulas to bring independence to a land ravaged by violence. In 1947, the UK turned the Palestine problem over to the UN.

After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the [British] Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947). One of the two envisaged States proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war involving neighbouring Arab States expanded to 77 percent of the territory of mandate Palestine, including the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half of the Palestinian Arab population fled or were expelled. Jordan and Egypt controlled the rest of the territory assigned by resolution 181 to the Arab State. In the 1967 war, Israel occupied these territories (Gaza Strip and the West Bank) including East Jerusalem, which was subsequently annexed by Israel. The war brought about a second exodus of Palestinians, estimated at half a million. In 1974 the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty, and to return. The following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and conferred on the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) the status of observer in the Assembly and in UN conferences.

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the declared intention to eliminate the PLO. A cease-fire was arranged. PLO troops withdrew from Beirut and were transferred to neighboring countries. Despite the guarantees of safety for Palestine refugees left behind a large-scale massacre took place in the Sabra and Shatila camps. In September 1983, the International Conference on the Question of Palestine (ICQP) adopted the following principles: the need to oppose Israeli settlements and Israeli actions to change the status of Jerusalem, the right of all States in the region to existence within secure and internationally recognized boundaries, and the attainment of the legitimate, inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. In 1987, a mass uprising against the Israeli occupation began in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (the intifada). Methods used by the Israeli forces resulted in mass injuries and heavy loss of life among the civilian Palestinian population. In 1988 the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers proclaimed the establishment of the State of Palestine.

A series of negotiations in the early 1990s culminated in the mutual recognition between the Government of Israel and the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, and the signing in 1993 of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP or “Oslo Accord”), as well as the subsequent implementation agreements, which led to the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, the elections to the Palestinian Council and the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority, the partial release of prisoners and the establishment of a functioning administration in the areas under Palestinian self-rule.

The visit by Ariel Sharon of the Likud to Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem in 2000 was followed by the second intifada. Israel began the construction of a West Bank separation wall, located mostly within the Occupied Palestinian Territory, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice. In 2002, the Security Council affirmed a vision of two States, Israel and Palestine. In 2002 the Arab League adopted the Arab Peace Initiative. In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlers and troops from Gaza while retaining control over its borders, seashore and airspace. After an armed takeover of Gaza by Hamas in 2007, Israel imposed a blockade. Escalating rocket fire and air strikes in late 2008 culminated in Israeli ground operation “Cast Lead” in Gaza. Violations of international law during the Gaza conflict were investigated by the UN (“Goldstone report“). In 2011 President Mahmoud Abbas submitted the application of Palestine for membership in the UN. UNESCO admitted Palestine as a Member. On 29 November 2012 Palestine was granted non-member observer State status in the UN. The General Assembly proclaimed 2014 an International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. (Source: United Nations)

Israel is holding a national election today, and one of the politicians running is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been PM of Israel for a decade. Under his regime, Israel has settled more and more Palestinian territory. Netanyahu has promised to seize more Palestinian territory, specifically pledging to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.  Such a move would represent a dramatic, far-right policy change for Israel, staking a permanent claim over lands Palestinians demand for their own state.

In one of the West Bank's tensest cities — where several hundred Israeli settlers live in guarded enclaves among some 200,000 Palestinians — Israelis dressed up in costume and paraded down the main street. It was the Jewish carnival holiday of Purim, but the settlers were celebrating more than just the religious festivities.

In January, they had successfully lobbied Netanyahu to expel an international observer group tasked with patrolling Hebron and making Palestinians in the city feel safe after an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinian worshippers there on Purim in 1994.  Some settlers at this year’s festivities, including a candidate in the national elections, dressed in costume as the expelled international observers. They also dressed up in costume as Palestinian Muslim women. (Source: NPR)

But Palestinian dress is not a funny costume. It is a symbol of an ancient culture that is being smothered under the oppression of Israel.

[ruminativerabbi]

West Bank Story

Is diplomacy merely the costume politics wears when it ventures out into the international arena? Or are diplomacy and politics entirely different fields of endeavor, the one “about” the translation of national principles into the stuff of international relationships and the other “about” the need at least on occasion to surrender those very same principles for the sake of attaining the power necessary broadly to implement them in the forum of national affairs? It’s not that easy to say!

These were the thoughts that came to me this last week when I read that the United States government has determined that there is no inherent illegality to the establishment of Jewish settlements on the land Israel took over from Jordan after the Six Day War in 1967. Of course, illegal and ill-advised are not the same thing—and it is more than possible for something to be technically legal but still a bad idea actually to implement. (It is, for example, fully legal in New York State to purchase cigarettes and to smoke them wherever smoking is permitted.) And, that being the case, asking whether Israel should continue to construct settlements on the West Bank or whether the path toward peace will be made smoother or more rocky by this specific policy shift on the part of the U.S. government—those questions remain on the table for discussion and no doubt prolonged, rancorous debate. And rancor—to say the very least—is surely what will presently ensue now that this week’s decision is in place.

The United Nations has expressed itself repeatedly to the effect that allowing Israeli civilians to live on territory Israel acquired in the Six Day War is a contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an international agreement to which both Israel and Jordan have been party since 1951. Leaving aside the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations and its decades-long history of unremitting and shamefully prejudicial hostility towards Israel, the issue here turns on the fact that the Convention in question specifically prohibits states signed on from moving civilians onto land seized by war, as might be done by a nation eager to establish an ongoing claim to the seized territory in question. But nothing in the Middle East is ever all that simple to unravel. (Also, it’s a good thing the U.S. only signed the convention in 1955—wasn’t Texas acquired by our nation in the Mexican War of 1848? Just sayin’.)

The territory in question on the west bank of the Jordan River was indeed part of sovereign Jordan before 1967. But Jordan only came to control the territory after the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 and its occupation of the territory was itself never recognized by a vast majority of the world’s nations. Furthermore, the land in question was specifically acknowledged as the heartland of the Land of Israel—the ancient homeland of the Jewish people—by the League of Nations in 1922. Most Americans will find it challenging to say whether any real importance should be ascribed to the decision of an organization that existed for a mere twenty-six years and which has been defunct since 1946. But for Jewish Americans, who come pre-equipped with much, much longer memories than their average co-citizens, the issue is rooted in a far older times than the Roaring Twenties anyway.

That the land on the west bank of the Jordan—called by many today by their biblical names, Judah and Samaria—that that land was part of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in antiquity is debated today by no reputable historian or political analyst at all. Nor, as I wrote in this space a few weeks ago, is at all in dispute the fact that the history of the land that followed the collapse of the Maccabean kingdom in the year 67 BCE was one of endless occupation—first by the Romans, but then by Iran (then called Persia), and then in order by the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim Caliphate, the Crusader Kingdoms, the Mameluke Sultanate, the Ottoman Empire and, finally, the British Empire (acting behind the fig leaf of its League of Nations mandate to rule over what had previously—and at that point for almost five centuries—been Turkish Palestine). That’s a lot of occupiers—thousands of years’ worth—and not a single one held back from settling civilians on territory gained by war. Nor, for that matter, did even a single one of the above— including any of the Muslim occupiers mentioned above—consider the land currently referenced as “the” West Bank distinct or different from the rest of the historic Jewish homeland. When Americans talk about “the” West Bank, therefore, as though it were akin to a state in the Union or a department of the French Republic, they are therefore setting themselves up not at all to understand the issue as it feels on the ground to the average Israeli. Or, for that matter, to the average citizen of any country possessed of a clear sense of the history of the territory in question.

All that being the case, the notion that the Fourth Geneva Convention can be simply be applied to the territory in question as though we were talking about the German occupation of Namibia—a place in Africa with no historical tie of any sort whatsoever to Germany—seems, to say the very least, facile.

And also worth noting—and stressing—is the degree to which I constantly see people with little or no background in the actual history of the region speaking or writing negatively about Israel’s presence on the West Bank at all.  The Balfour Declaration of 1917, for example, was an expression both of acceptance of the indigeneity of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and also of their natural right to establish a Jewish nation in their historic homeland. That, of course, was nothing more than an expression of British policy with respect to the eventual future of what was soon to become—at least slightly ironically—British Palestine. But dramatically less well known is that the San Remo Conference of 1920 that divvied up the territories of the nations defeated in the First World War among the victors formally affirmed the basic principles of the Balfour Declaration, speaking overtly “in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people.” There is not the slightest evidence of any sort that the participants at San Remo meant to exclude the land currently referenced as the West Bank in that thought.

I can’t recall hearing much about the San Remo conference lately, but even less about the Treaty of Sèvres that resulted from San Remo and which, as one of the final agreements that ended World War I, yet again reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration’s intent, and firmly, in these words:  “The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.” It was these words that the League of Nations affirmed and confirmed in 1922 when it adopted them into the formal mandate declaration awarded Turkish Palestine to the British.

All that being the case, to refer to the West Bank as being “occupied” by Israel because they wrested it from a nation that itself only ended up as its overlords because they managed to seize it militarily after the British withdrew their forces in 1948 and then had their overlordship of the region affirmed by the Armistice Agreement that ended the Israeli War of Independence seems, again to say the very least, forced.

Another point I generally hear made by none in this fraught context is that the United Nations Charter itself affirms the validity of all treaties entered into or brokered by its predecessor organization, the League of Nations. As a result, when the United Nations passed a scurrilous resolution in 2016 decrying all Jewish settlements on the West Bank as one large violation of international law, it was not only ignoring the specific details of the Oslo Accord of 1995 (which, pending a final peace treaty between Israelis and Palestinians, divided the West Bank up into three areas, innocuously labelled A, B, and C, and specifically awarded Israel the right to govern the Arabs and the Jews resident in Area C), but also its own historical obligations. That our government dishonorably allowed that resolution to pass without a veto was a betrayal not only of Israel, but of our own supposed devotion to the rule of law.

People talk about “the settlements” as an untraversable barrier preventing Israel and the Palestinians from moving forward towards a peaceful resolution of their dispute. But even that commonplace assertion only really works on the assumption that the presence of a relatively small Jewish minority in a Palestinian state is impossible to imagine. On the other hand, if Israel is able to pursue its national destiny as a Jewish state with 20% Arab minority, why shouldn’t Palestine also be able to move forward with a Jewish minority of about 380,000 people among its three million citizens? And that number is not even remotely correct because the chances of every single Jewish resident of the West Bank remaining in place after a declaration of Palestinian independence is zero, which would bring the percentage of Jews present in independent Palestine to less than 10%. To describe that as an intractable problem only really makes sense if it goes without saying that a future independent Palestine must be wholly judenrein, an opinion I find both odious and deeply offensive.

Our government acted in a principled and proper way to reject the notion that the presence of Jewish towns and villages on the West Bank is an ipso facto example of illegal settlement under the Fourth Geneva Convention. In a week already filled with cringe-worthy moments by the dozen, the Secretary of State’s announcement of this shift in American policy (which was really just a return to the policy adopted by the Reagan administration) was both welcome and just.

[eretzyisrael]

One place to begin examining the misconceptions surrounding BDS is with a long article written in The Guardian last August by the American journalist Nathan Thrall, which purported to explain the historical roots and current aims of the movement. In fact, Thrall’s thousands of words on the subject highlighted the fallacies animating the beliefs of progressive Americans on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 

Thrall mentions “two-states” 15 times in his Guardianarticle, but not even once does he mention “two-states for two-peoples,” which indicates his deep misunderstanding of the issue. Indeed, the Palestinian leadership is ready to have a “two-state solution” as long as it is not a “two-states for two-peoples, with a mutual recognition of their national identity” solution. The Palestinian narrative thus negates the existence of a Jewish people and of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine throughout history, and treats Zionism as a racist, colonialist movement created by the Europeans to promote Western interests. It therefore rejects the idea of a state for the Jewish people on any grain of soil in Palestine. 

This is the core of the conflict and has been so since this narrative was formed after the Balfour Declaration in 1917, since, before 1900, namely before the emergence of Zionism, the Arab residents of this piece of land did not consider themselves Palestinians. 

The two-state solution supported by the Palestinians speaks about a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 territories and a nonethnic state called Israel that is not the nation-state of the Jewish people (which does not exist, since, in their narrative, Judaism refers only to a religion and not to a people with their own nation). 

This is the implementation of the “phases theory”adopted by the PLO in 1974, namely that Palestinians should take from the Israelis whatever they can and then form a state that will keep struggling for the rest of British-mandate Palestine. Article 8 of this Ten Point Program stated that, “Once it is established, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity.” This is why the recognition of the Palestinian refugees’ “right of return” is more important than the return itself; it is considered a tool to bring about the demise of Israel as a Jewish state. 

Mahmoud Abbas’ speeches earlier in 2018, which Thrall mentions briefly, repeated this narrative and reaffirm his commitment to the ideas in his book Zionism, From Beginning to End, written in 1977 and never translated, which provides his full logic and recommended way of action for putting an end to the injustice represented by Zionism. Abbas may use occasionally the expression “two-states for two-peoples,” but the second “people” he refers to are actually the Israelis rather than the Jewish people; another way of denying the historical basis for Jewish nationhood within the borders of Israel.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Refuting Haaretz’s Publisher: Part III

IThe third instalment of my lengthy rejoinder against Amos Schocken, publisher of Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

Part I is here.

Part II is here. 

In Part II, we saw that Schocken accused the Israeli government of degrading non-Jewish Israelis to second-class citizens by means of its Basic Nationality Law. Does this claim hold water? After all, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had to meet with the Druze community shortly after enacting this law, in order to assure them that the Law did not infringe upon their rights and status in Israel. In addition, many Israeli Arabs alleged that the Law refuted their civil rights, also criticising the “special status”, as opposed to “official” status of Arabic. 

However, when clauses from Israel’s Nationality Law are held up in comparison to other national Constitutions and Laws, we see that Israel asserts similar self-evident truths about her own nationhood in similar ways to other nations. Several articles concerning Syrian nationhood, not called into question on account of Bashar al-Assad or ISIS, mirror those made by Israel. 

Other countries that similarly condemn Israel’s alleged “discrimination and/or racism” have similar Basic Laws. Saudi Arabia asserts itself as an Arab kingdom with Islam as the official (and only) religion, Islam as the rule of law, Arabic (only) as the official language, and Riyadh as its (uncontested) capital. Jordan, whose representatives at the UN regularly excoriate Israel, have similar clauses. According to its Basic principles, Jordan is a Hashemite kingdom, an Arab nation and will not cede any part of its territory as this belongs to the Arab nation. Again, Arabic is the national language, Amman is the capital, and its flag is carefully described. 

Granted, other nations do have several nationalities (Russia and China being such), and several official languages (Iraq), of which some are not indigenous to the nation (Nigeria, Ghana). 

But if Schocken’s contention is that affirming a national identity degrades minority groups to second-class citizens, then why criticise only Israel? Since Haaretz deals with Middle-Eastern affairs (hence the reference to Iran), Schocken should similarly scrutinise and dismiss the Syrian, Saudi, Jordanian, etc. Constitutions and Basic Laws as exclusionary and discriminatory. 

These values of nationhood, national self-determination, the right to choose an official language, a flag, to define borders, and protect the rights of settlement for its citizens, are not discriminatory. Rather, they affirm the human right and need for belonging and connection based on history, culture, identity, language, creed, practice, and geography. The Jewish people, just like the Arabic people next door, have the right to assemble, settle, and govern autonomously in their ancient nation. Unlike the Arabic people, the Jewish right to do all of the above was cruelly suppressed for almost 2000 years, and so the Basic Nationality Law reaffirms what the Jews had lost, and what every other nation affirms (including multinational nations like Russia and China). 

(I should also add that Israel’s Nationality Law specifies that the presence and use of Arabic prior to the Law will remain unchanged).

Back to Amos Schocken’s email:

Haaretz is the strongest advocate for an Israel that is a liberal democracy living in peace with its Palestinian neighbors and that guarantees equal rights for all its citizens.

Israel already fits this category. Nothing inside the Basic Nationality Law, even considering disputes over the wording and potential implications, prevents non-Jews from exercising their rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and association. 

In fact, I went onto the Knesset’s website juand they had Hebrew-Arabic education as one of their front line articles. This will significantly increase community cohesion, and is also necessary for Israel’s many fine academic institutions. 

In another example, point 10 of this Basic Law affirms the rights of non-Jews to observe their own Sabbath days. This complements the rights of non-Jews to establish places of worship, observe their religious teachings, speak Arabic (and other languages), and follow the non-Hebrew (Gregorian) calendar. 

These days are a critical period in Israel. Within three months, Israel will once again hold a general election and the next government will be determined. The real issue is whether Israel will stay a liberal democracy, or move further towards a fundamentalist and ethnocentric society.

It seems that Schocken opposes Jewish nationalism. Does he oppose the far more radical Palestinian Arab nationalism, which would see Jews expelled from a future Palestinian State or worse? Indeed, does he oppose all nationalism? 

His own newspaper stands as a testament to the premise of Jewish nationalism: reconstituting the ancient Jewish homeland as the nation-state of the Jewish people. I challenge Schocken to find anything malign or discriminatory inside such a premise. As mentioned before, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated that the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish citizens should not be prejudiced by the creation of a Jewish State. Israel’s society is incredibly rich, and there are many non-Jewish ethnic, national, and religious groups thriving inside the Jewish State. 

Schocken’s insinuations concerning “fundamentalism” are suspicious. What does he mean by this? Zionism is inherently fundamentalist, since it urges Jews to return to their ancient homeland, rather than remain assimilated and scattered abroad. The Zionist case is rooted in history, law, and the Jewish faith-- even though many Zionists are secular. The name of Schocken’s newspaper, Haaretz, refers to how Jews sought to settle and cultivate the land in order to build their state, just as they had done centuries ago, time and time again. So what Schocken labels as a “move further towards fundamentalism” is nothing more than affirming and promoting the essential creeds of Zionism.

Meanwhile, Schocken does not accuse the Palestinians of fundamentalism. They assert that they had a state stretching back to the Roman times and beforehand. This is categorically false. Schocken does not question this. They claim to want a state in which alleged Palestinian refugees (mostly living in Jordan), be allowed to return. They refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish State, nor Israel’s right to exist. Whilst their Western apologists insist that Jews would be allowed to live with Palestinians, actual Palestinian and Arabic media shows otherwise, with incitements to anti-Semitic murder routine and prominent in political discourse.

 All of this is fundamentalist-- Palestinian Arabic fundamentalism. Yet one may judge for themselves which, of the two, is based on moral right, and which is based on hatred.