From Vivienne H

Friday 13 September 2024

It's a strange sort of self-declared socialist who cites Margaret Thatcher as a moral authority, but it's unsurprising coming from someone who forgets to mention that al Haq, the "human rights organisation", is the Western-facing propaganda arm of the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - regarded by several countries as a terrorist organisation these last several decades, for its record of hijacking planes, murdering airline passengers and planting bombs in supermarkets, in order to achieve its aim of destroying the Israeli state. 

In 2011, the Al Haq leader Shawan Jabarin represented the PFLP at a meeting of the "Follow-Up Committee for Issues of Public Liberties and Trust Building".  This body served as a facilitator for reconciliation amongst  Hamas, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and other Palestinian factions. Al Haq has  been bringing legal actions against Britain for dealing with Israel since 2006. 

"Settler-colonialist apartheid state" is a description that could be applied to Pakistan, created in 1947 by the same colonial ruler who made space for Israel in the 30% of Mandate Palestine not carved out to create Arab Muslim Jordan. Indian Muslims flooded into what is now Pakistan, driving out Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis, atheists and Christians. Anybody can see what Pakistan has done, & is still doing, to the remnants of its tiny, wretched minority communities. They formed 23% of the population at the time of Partition, less than 3% now. 

Somehow self-proclaimed campaigners for Justice regard that with equanimity, just as they disregard the systematic Islamic persecution of Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Maronite Christians, Alawis, the Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christians of the Nineveh plain, the Rojava Kurds and the Yezidis. Nor do they mention that Arab states no longer oppress their Jewish citizens, simply because all their Jewish communities, in their entirety, have been killed or expelled. 

Yet wicked Israel has a population heading for 25% Arab, and more than half of Israeli Jews are not white. They're the Mizrahim driven from Arab countries, or the descendants of those who managed to maintain a presence in their indigenous homeland. Israel is the only country in the region where Arab Christians have not been driven close to extinction, and atheists are not in peril of death for blasphemy.

Israel is accused of  genocide, but again, it's an odd version of that crime which leaves the targeted Palestinian population 5 times bigger than it was at the start of its oppression. I don't think that's quite how genocide is supposed to work.

Allegedly apartheid Israel has had Arab judges who have tried, convicted and imprisoned both a former Israeli President, and a former Israeli Prime Minister. I don't remember any Black or Coloured judges being able to do that in South Africa. 

The Bedouin Arabs do not stand with Hamas. They provide trackers for the IDF. The Arab Druze have a consistent record of joining the IDF as soldiers, and often reach leadership positions in the army. When they are killed by Hamas, the Israeli newspapers include each of them in the Those We Have Lost columns. 

So it seems that terms such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, colonialism etc. have a rather different meaning when applied to Israel by those who never call out Hamas for its viciously racist, apocalyptic Charter, and Arabs who prefer to remain Israeli citizens no longer count as Arabs in the minds of Hamas supporters.

The separatist Palestinians could have stopped the war months ago by informing the international press or the IDF where the hostages were being held captive. Instead, 3 hostages were rescued from the private home of a  Gazan doctor and his neighbour. The 6 hostages murdered this week were in a stifling tunnel whose entrance was in a child's bedroom. Mickey Mouse on the wallpaper, slaughtered Israelis beneath, one of whom, Eden Yerushalmi, weighed 5 stones when she was finally killed. 

The IDF uncovered a Hamas command centre  with a bank of computers beneath the UNRWA HQ in Gaza. Of course, UNRWA has claimed to be entirely unaware that they were protecting the chief Hamas data centre. Just as they can't imagine that Hamas confiscates the aid arriving in Gaza, and uses its distribution,  or lack thereof, to control the Palestinians, shooting them if they approach the trucks. 

I agree with Allen on two points: we should not have invaded Iraq, and the carnage in Gaza is shocking. But Hamas could have protected Palestinian women and children by allowing them to take shelter in the network of tunnels built with all the stolen aid money funnelled into its pockets. 

Instead, the late unlamented Haniyeh went on TV to explain that "the blood  of the children, the elderly, the women, we are the ones who need this blood, so it arouses in us the spirit of resistance." Sinwar, likewise, said civilians are necessary sacrifices for the cause. But of course,  it's Israel which is inhumane, isn't it?  It is accused of harassing Palestinians, by sacrificing military advantage and phoning them to say which buildings it intends to bomb, asking them to remove themselves. What would it be accused of if it didn't?

The mercenary, egotistical Netanyahu, who panders to the Right to keep himself in power,  has led Israel down a disastrous path and, to the disgust of more than half of the Israelis, continues along it to postpone the day when he is brought to trial, something which would have happened months ago had it not been for the intervention of Hamas. Qatar and Iran continue to fund Hamas and Hezbollah, and these respectively Sunni and Shi'ite groups visited Moscow last year, and were reconciled in their joint aim to annihilate the Jews. 

I hope Josh Fenton-Glynn will consider all aspects of this horrifying war before voting to try to help Israel fail.

I myself have suggested to our MP that he set aside some portion of his constituency office as a warm centre this winter, to accommodate the pensioners who have had their Winter Fuel Allowance stopped, and don't qualify for Pension Credit because their small incomes are just above the PC threshold. That seems to me a more appropriate use of his time, and is something one might reasonably expect a socialist to be concerned about.

From Allen Keep

Wednesday 16 October 2024

Let me deal with Vivienne' response point by point. I have not done so until now as my first response was editorially rejected and I have since been on holiday - which was a welcome break from the daily trauma of witnessing Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Vivienne begins by failing to understand my rather obvious irony when referring to the "moral equivalence" of Thatcher versus Starmer. The point about Thatcher is that despite being a right - wing Tory she imposed sanctions on Israel following its atrocities in Lebanon in 1982. Starmer has no intention of doing anything similar.

Incidentally, Vivienne's preferred Jewish historian, Benny Morris (see earlier posts) served as an officer in the IDF in that campaign. He was there. Morris is no longer a credible historian and is now nothing more than a sorry propaganda mouthpiece for the Israeli state. He openly advocates a nuclear strike on Iran but refuses to admit that Israel has nuclear weapons which of course it has.

The "target" in 1982 was supposedly the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the "terrorist" organisation Vivienne mentions, which was in exile and heavily represented in Beirut's camps populated by refugees and descendants of refugees from Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine between 1947-49 or the "War of Independence" as Vivienne would probably rather describe it as. 

Vivienne refuses to acknowledge the Nakba that brought "democratic" Israel into existence forcing at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population to become refugees beyond the borders of the new Israeli state in which Zionist forces took more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, destroyed some 530 villages and towns, and murdered about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 recorded massacres.

By early September 1982 the PLO resistance fighters in the camps had vacated Beirut, following Israel's vicious and completely illegal invasion in June leaving behind refugee camps mostly populated by women and children who were assured of their safety on condition of withdrawal of the resistance. However, in 48 hours between September 16-18 (I remember the dates clearly) Israel facilitated the slaughter of up to 3500 civilians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by the fascist Phalange movement. 

Although Israel has murdered many, many times that number in a year in Gaza it remains the single greatest slaughter of civilians in any conflict between Israel and Palestine in history in such a short period (not, as we are constantly told, October 7th). These terrorist murders sponsored by Israel were accompanied by rapes and mutilations, all now part of the accepted historical record, amounting to a terrorist episode directly sponsored by Israel that simply dwarfs what occurred on 7th October.

I'd be happy for Vivienne to challenge these facts or perhaps take them up with Benny Morris who accepts and acknowledges these war crimes. At the time, there were huge demonstrations in Israel against the slaughter by people who, unlike so many Zionists today refused to be bystanders and apologists for Israel's barbaric actions and were still in touch with their humanity. 

Vivienne will know and possibly remember that the Israeli PM at the time was Menachim Begin a commander of the Zionist terrorist organisation the Irgun in the 1940's famous, amongst other things, for their terrorist bombing of the King David Hotel (the administrative HQ of the British Mandate Authorities in Palestine in 1946) and the instigation of the paramilitary ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own land.

So, it important to understand that Israel has quite the pedigree when it comes to terrorism but, of course, only Hamas and I assume Hezbollah are the terrorists today according to Vivienne. 

I'd love to hear what Vivienne's definition of terrorism is, if she would like to let me know?

Whatever Vivienne suggests, and as we come full circle, I'd therefore be really interested to hear how she would characterise Israel's actions in Lebanon since she wrote her response? 

Can the blowing up of pagers and walkie talkies in people's faces timed for the busiest part of the day in crowded markets and in schools and hospitals be described as anything else but terrorism Vivienne?

While the rest of the world is horrified, have you heard any words of condemnation from Starmer or Biden (assuming he can still construct a sentence) about this barbarism Vivienne? Where do you stand?

Where do you stand on the destruction of Southern Beirut Vivienne, particularly in Dahiya? Have you heard of the Dahiya doctrine? For those not familiar, it is explained here;

Israel's use of disproportionate force is a long-established tactic – with a clear aim - Guardian, 5 Dec 2023

Where Vivienne, do you stand on the forced, mass displacement of Lebanese civilians (good of Israel to try and text them first of course) or on the attacks on UNIFIL forces including with chemical weapons? 

Are the Blue Helmets human shields for Hamas now as Netanyahu claims and therefore, like the women and children of Gaza and Lebanon, legitimate targets?  I'll come back to Gaza later.

Vivienne's next point then involves an all too a familiar strategy from the Zionist playbook - try to discredit and smear your enemies, i.e. anyone and everyone who doesn't uncritically support Israel's genocide. She tells us that Al-Haq, who are bringing a legal case against the government over arms to Israel, are the propaganda arm of the "terrorist" PLO whose aim is to destroy the Israeli state.  

I think Vivenne must have copied and pasted this argument from something someone wrote in the 1980's. Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are widely, and rightly, seen by most Palestinians as collaborators with Israel, which has partly driven so many Palestinians to Hamas. The idea that the PLO represents any kind of threat to Israel is frankly laughable.

As for Al-Haq, they are vilified by Israel just as the UN and anyone and everyone who criticises or challenges Israel, as "terrorist supporters" or anti-Semites. Perhaps Vivienne thinks the same but she might note, as I think she well knows, that their legal case against arms sales to Israel is supported by literally hundreds of charities and humanitarian organisations including Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and Amnesty International to name but a few. 

Amnesty has repeatedly condemned Israel for its attack on Palestinian human rights organisations including Al Haq specifically. Are Amnesty International an example of "propaganda arms for the PLO", Hamas supporters, or simply Anti-Semites Vivienne? Do tell us.

Next up in the defence of the indefensible is Vivienne's quite bizarre argument about Pakistan. She says "settler-colonialist apartheid state" is a description that could be applied here. Well, theoretically it could of course, except that no one else does so. 

This is the tactic of distraction. Don't look here, look elsewhere but even if Vivienne's claim was historically and intellectually credible (it isn't) what difference does it make? Does the supposed existence of another settler-colonial state somehow absolve Israel from being such?  

This whataboutery is simply used to promote another standard Zionist argument i.e. to claim that opponents of Israel single the state out while they like to ignore oppression elsewhere, especially in "Muslim" or "Arab" countries. 

The subtext of the argument is that opponents of Israel are simply anti-Semites with an anti-Jewish agenda who don't care about the real horrors of the world which are, of course, largely perpetuated by Muslim states. The undertone of Islamophobia is unmistakable.

Vivienne goes on to paint a picture of Jews in fact being a victim of Muslims rather than the other way around. This of course ignores the fact those who oppose Zionism do not portray the oppression of Israeli state as Jews persecuting Muslims in the first place. It also ignores the fact that the vast, vast majority of those opposed to Israel, or "self-proclaimed campaigners for justice" as Vivienne describes us are opposed to all oppression whoever the perpetrators are and certainly do not disregard it. 

I, for one, have spoken out and campaigned against oppression all my life. I don't need to present my credentials but I profoundly resent that smear nonetheless.

Vivienne then moves on to the claim that Arab states have expelled or killed their Jewish population in their entirety. So, you see, it is "Arabs" not the Israeli state who are genocidal. This is a claim that Zionists repeatedly refer to. Vivienne doesn't provide the historical details/events in the particular countries she refers to, possibly as she views all Arab countries as the same, so it is difficult to pick apart this claim in any great detail. 

Are there however, examples of anti-Semitism towards Jewish populations in Arab countries before and after 1948. Of course there are. Did this amount to a systematic ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab states? No, it did not, it is a Zionist myth that serves to demonise the Arab/Muslim states in the region.

I would refer Vivienne and those who wish to examine this issue further to the work of the remarkable Avi Shlaim (You Tube is your friend). Shlaim knows a thing or two about the experience of Jewish people in Arab countries seeing as he himself is an Arab and a Jew (for many such people do indeed exist).  He grew up in Iraq before emigrating to Israel in 1951. He studied in England and returned to Israel in the 60's to serve in the IDF. Shlaim is now a distinguished Professor at Oxford University and probably has the best understanding of the post 1948 history of Jews in Arab states of anyone in the world. It's certainly much better than mine and definitely better than Vivienne's who doesn't seem to take that much notice of experts in their field as we will see later.

Vivienne then regurgitates a version of just how democratic Israel is compared to, well, any "Arab" state you 'd care to name it seems. Within "the only democracy in the Middle East" (itself an entirely euro-centric name) Arabs are apparently not discriminated against in Israel at all. Some of them are even judges you know. Israel, Vivienne helpfully points out, also has non-white people in who are not Europeans - who knew? The Mizrahim have therefore found justice and equality in Israel, of course they have, and even the Bedouin are totally onside with the Jewish state - well done lads. Druze Arabs fighting for the IDF (some of whom even get promotions in the "most moral army in the world") are actually recognised as soldiers, by name no less, when they are killed occupying Gaza. Heady stuff.

A democratic paradise on earth it must be and therefore to be defended at all and any cost, from the "vicious" "racist", "apocalyptic" (Vivienne's words) Arabs with their genocidal charter (please read Hamas' charter Vivienne) surrounding this tiny little state all hell-bent on destroying a very way of life according to their own indoctrinated Islamic beliefs. Again, that unmistakable undertone.

The reality of Israel to this white-washing is of course very different indeed. The Apartheid nature of Israel is so well documented, evidenced, verified and supported by numerous human rights charities around the world that I simply cannot be bothered to make the underlying argument yet again so I will be lazy and allow Amnesty Internation to put the case here:

Israel's apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty International, Feb 2022

As for the experience of both Israeli Palestinians (I prefer that to "Arabs" as Palestinians have a distinct identity which Zionists deny) and the marginalised Jewish ethnic communities in Israel their discrimination and oppression is also very well-documented albeit almost entirely unrecognised in the West and actively denied by Zionists and their delusional supporters who may unfortunately be suffering from what the great Jewish historian Norman Finklestein calls "Zionist dementia".

Indeed, ethnic division and oppression have been a significant factor in Israeli society since the inception of Israel. For example, Mizrahim Jews are now the largest Jewish ethnic group in Israel. The term means "those of the East". Mizrahi were initially referred to as "Oriental Jews" or "Moroccan Jews" within Israel and simply not seen as the same as the colonial-settler mostly Ashkenazi Jews whose heritage was European. 

David Grun from Poland, better known as David Ben-Gurion was the founding father and first Prime Minister of Israel. He famously described Mizrahim Jews settling in the new Israeli state in this way. 

"Those Jews from Morocco had no education. Their customs are those of Arabs. The Moroccan Jew took a lot from the Moroccan Arabs. The culture of Morocco I would not like to have here. We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are in duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant, which corrupts individuals and societies, and preserve the authentic Jewish values as they crystallised in the European Diaspora."

What has changed for Mizrahi Jews since 1948? Benjamin Mileikowski, sorry, Netanyahu (sounds so much better) also of Polish heritage appointed Dudi Amsalem of Moroccan heritage as a Junior Minister of defence after his last election. 

Amsalem is an interesting character and quite the political celebrity in Israel. He is vehemently anti-Palestinian and has campaigned for Israeli Palestinians, sorry, Arabs (sounds so much better) to be drafted into the IDF. He understands ethnic discrimination against Jews in Israel though and has spoken out against discrimination against Sephardic Jews much to the horror of the Jewish elite who somehow don't quite like him. He said the following just last year to those protesting against Netanyahu's judicial reviews who he sees as rich and privileged Ashkenazi Jews committed to the ongoing discrimination of Mizrahi Jews.

"Well, I have something to tell you. I also work, me, and another two and a half million people, we all work for the country, even though it's quite true that most of us work for you, cleaning your houses and gardens. I saw a lot of things glistening at the demonstration, and later I realised it was the Rolex watches worn by the protesters. Just go and see how many Mercedes they have. You're prepared to give us degrees and even cars, but not to allow us to rule. You never granted us that: not in the security forces, not in the judicial system, not in academia, not in culture, and certainly not in the Supreme Court and the state prosecution service. And in the Prisons Service, do you know who the wardens are? Moroccans and Druze.

Perhaps Vivienne would like to discuss further any number of examples of ethnic discrimination in Israel from the missing Jewish Yemeni children kidnapped from transit camps by the new Jewish state and given to childless Ashkenazi couples to the disgusting treatment of Ethiopian Jews in Israel more recently?

As for Israeli Palestinians, well, where does one start? One place might be their forcible and ongoing separation from their own people and their own families since 1948 or the fact that Palestinians in Israel lived under military rule until 1966. 

That's clearly not Apartheid. 

We might note that Palestinians inside Israel suffer systematic discrimination in every area of life despite having some Judges and a handful of MKs. The racist Jewish State Law was upheld by the Israeli supreme court in 2018 by a vote of 10-1. The 1 was the only Israel Palestinian representative on the court's panel despite being a member of a population accounting for 25% of Israelis. 

There's democracy for you.

The 2018 law enshrines Israeli Jews, even those who are not Ashkenazi as first-class citizens and Palestinians as official second-class citizens. It does so by defining Israel itself, all of it, as "the nation-state of the Jewish people" and helpfully points out that "Fulfilling the right to national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people."

That's clearly not an example of Apartheid either nor could anyone possibly describe this as supremacism. It is, in fact, a fine example of Israeli democracy. 

Again, the racist discrimination of Palestinian Israelis is incredibly well documented and evidenced not least within Israel itself. It is really impossible to deny but Vivienne somehow manages to do just that in her response.

Here's an excellent quite recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that I regularly read about the current Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinian Arabs in Israel. 

Israel's Government Is a Clear and Present Danger for its Arab Palestinian Citizens - Haaretz, March 2023

We move on from the whitewashing of Israel to the mandatory but, surely to most, entirely tedious demonisation of Hamas. 

Zionists just love to juxtapose the two which is unfortunate for them as I can't think of anything Hamas has done either in reality or according to Israeli propaganda that Israel has not been more guilty of apart from the heinous crime of building tunnels as opposed to using F35 jets perhaps.

But here come Vivienne's misconceptions about Hamas.

Firstly, we have the argument that Hamas or, as Vivienne would bizarrely prefer to call them, the "separatist Palestinians" can stop the war by kindly telling the IDF where the hostages are. So simple, isn't it?

It's not a war of course nor a defence of Israel, it's a defence of illegal occupation; but in any case, Netanyahu has said repeatedly that the release of the hostages by whatever means would not end the conflict at all. 

Any kind of hostage deal apart from the one that actually brought people home not in body bags has been continually rejected by Israel whose government simply abandoned the hostages long ago. The reason is that any concession would lead to the bringing down of the government by the fascists who prop Netanyahu up.

And yes, Vivienne, the deaths of hostages are horrific but spare me the images of Mickey Mouse wallpaper and so forth. For one, it's just nonsense that entrances to tunnels are in children's bedrooms when every one knows they are under every other house and all schools, hospitals and Mosques - I thought you knew that? 

As for the imagery, shall we talk about the images created by Israel destroying 70% of Gazan homes, 80% of Gazan hospitals,90% of Gazan schools and 100% of its Universities. Tell me Vivienne, do you think Palestinian children, 16000+ of whom, according to UNICEF, have been murdered by Israel have Mickey Mouse wallpaper in their bedrooms too?

And please, Vivienne, also spare me the job of having to deal with the endless lies about Hamas confiscating aid, failing to protect their own by not allowing women and children to shelter in tunnels (which displays a complete lack of knowledge of the construction and nature of the tunnels) and the supposed collusion of UNRWA.

In fact, I'm not going to bother for the simple reason that no one seriously believes this garbage anymore. 

More difficult to ignore is the argument Vivienne then puts that Israel should be defended from the claim that it is "harassing" Palestinians. 

Harassing? 

Have the opponents of Israel spent the last year  complaining about harassment? I mean, what a fuss. 

And yes Vivienne, in answer to your question Israel is entirely and utterly inhumane. The very idea that humanity equates to the "Gold Standard" IDF telling civilians in advance which house is gong to be bombed is frankly obscene not that Israel usually bothers anyway. Even if it did where are Gazans supposed to go? To the "humanitarian areas" that are then continually bombed or to school and hospital shelters that are also repeatedly and systematically bombed? 

On what planet does "being asked to remove themselves" make any sense whatsoever as some sort of humanitarian gesture made at the expense of "military advantage" by the IDF? 

And then we have the "left cover" in Vivienne's response - having a pop at Netanyahu. So called liberal Zionists love to do this. "We don't agree with Netanyahu you know; we are not like him or the fascists" And yet there is no call from such people for Netanyahu to simply stop the genocide or make a deal with the resistance. No call for him to end the illegal occupation of Gaza right now (as directed by the ICJ under international law) which would stop the "war" immediately, no argument that Netanyahu is a deranged war criminal rather than just a corrupt politician. 

Is that meant to be opposition to him?

Even when Vivienne refers to Netanyahu being corrupt, she can't help blame Hamas (it just becomes a habit after a while) as apparently Hamas is the reason he is still in power - even though Israel is a democracy and the people are entirely free to elect or remove who they want. 

Throw in the claim that the resistance forces, all of them, and by implication all Arabs simply want to annihilate all Jews and we are done here.

We are not done.

A key point of my message to Josh Fenton-Glynn which Vivienne responded to was this: I suggested he still has a choice to make and that I didn't believe he was a supporter or denier of genocide. I stated, in fact, that I was certain he doesn't want to be complicit in that genocide, that most serious of all crimes against humanity, even though his government most definitely is. I pointed out that the outcome of his choices will be judged by history and, for Josh, his own conscience.

Unfortunately, although Vivienne will ultimately be accountable to her own conscience she has already made her choice and is standing by it. This is not a question of ignorance, which I can always excuse, as Vivienne is clearly very well informed. It's also clearly not a question for Vivienne of political expediency or careerism. Vivienne's response contains a series of thought-out arguments, consciously and cogently put together, which is why I have respectfully tackled each and every one.

I will highlight just one sentence from Vivienne's piece to illustrate the choice she has made and for others to reflect on and perhaps unpick for themselves if they wish. It is a sentence which highlights the difference between unintentional complicity and collaboration with genocide which I reluctantly accuse Vivienne of. That line can be marginal but I believe Vivienne has crossed it. It gives me no joy whatsoever to say so.

It is this sentence.

"Israel is accused of genocide, but again, it's an odd version of that crime which leaves the targeted Palestinian population 5 times bigger than it was at the start of its oppression. I don't think that's quite how genocide is supposed to work".

It is a very important and revealing sentence because whatever one thinks of my arguments or Vivienne's surely all would agree that nothing can excuse genocide against a people. Nothing.

In writing this, Vivienne simply ignores the evidence I cited and the huge amount of evidence I did not cite but could so easily have done so that a genocide is taking place. I reproduce that evidence here, this time with a link to the article referred to:

The ICJ ruling that a "plausible" genocide is taking place will take years to legally prove but the case that a genocide is taking place is overwhelming. I will cite just one credible supporting opinion for my assertion to you. It is one I have chosen from so, so many, and is that of Omer Batov in an astonishing article in the Guardian on August 13th 2024 which, if you have not done so, I urge you to read.

As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel, Guardian, 13 Aug 2024

Batov is an Israeli/ American Jew who served in the IDF for 4 years including in the West Bank. He has family members who lived on a Kibbutz attacked by Hamas. Most importantly, he is a historian and Professor of Genocide studies at Brown University in the USA and regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on Genocide. 

Batov argues that "at least (my emphasis) since the attack on Rafah on May 6th 2024" Israel is waging a genocidal "war" against the people of Gaza. 

Here's how Batov described the outcome of that offensive:

"It is no longer possible to deny that Israel is engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. The ultimate goal of the entire operation is to make the entire Gaza strip uninhabitable. The rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since October 7th is now being translated into reality. As the 1948 Genocide convention puts it, Israel is acting with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian population in Gaza."

Vivienne however, has a different understanding of genocide which she expects us to accept as a means to have us believe that Israel is not committing a genocide at all. This understanding has no basis in history, evidence, research or international law. None. 

Vivienne argues that a genocide cannot be taking place if the targeted population is higher at the end of the genocide than at the beginning. 

In other words, if the Palestinians are breeding faster than Israel are killing them it is not a genocide.
I have no words that I am permitted to write here to describe that view adequately. 

Maybe Vivienne could identify the date, as Batov does, that this alleged but clearly not happening genocide began and justify the claim that the Palestinian population has multiplied by 5 in that time? How do we know, Vivienne, when the genocide that is not actually happening has finished -when all Palestinians are dead? 

Perhaps I could argue that there was not a genocide against the Jewish people as there are clearly plenty of Jews still living? That however, would be an obscene anti-Semitic statement wouldn't it?

In any case, since October 7th according to UNICEF approximately 20,000 children had been born "into hell" in Gaza by January 2024. I don't think anyone knows precisely how many have been born since. Israel has already murdered at least 16000 children so it is trying really hard to get that population rise to reduce.  As a result, Gaza is the most lethal place in the world for children according to Save the Children;

Gaza: at least 3,100 children aged under five killed with others at risk as famine looms, Save the Children, 10 Oct 2024

But this is not a genocide.

I will repeat the evidence I referred to on actual and expected excess deaths in Gaza since October 7th also ignored by Vivienne. 

According to an article in the Lancet on 10th July 2024, 6 days after Labour's victory, as of June 2024 at least 37,396 Palestinians had been killed since Israel's invasion. The article estimated at least 10,000 more were likely to be dead under the rubble, figures regarded as accurate by the UN and the WHO. 

The article then discussed "indirect", excess deaths likely due to Israel's invasion. Using what it referred to as a "conservative" estimate measure based on analysis of previous conflicts the estimated toll is more likely to be 186,000 people who are or will be dead in the very near future or 7.9% of the total population.

Does Vivienne believe that 186,000 people have been born or will be born in Gaza's near future?

But this is not a genocide.

Israel, today, right now, is now cutting off northern Gaza trapping 400000 people within a military siege in an area far less than the size of Calderdale and particularly targeting the Jabalya refugee camp. Israel has stopped all aid, forcibly evacuated the hospitals, assassinated journalists reporting on events, and destroyed numerous hospital and school shelters in an area it claimed to have had control over from Hamas nearly a year ago. People trying to leave are executed by Israeli snipers.

The UN described the situation today like this (reported in the Guardian)

The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday the Israeli military appeared to be "cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip."

"Amid intense ongoing hostilities and evacuation orders in northern Gaza families are facing unimaginable fear, loss of loved ones, confusion, and exhaustion. People must be able to flee safely, without facing further danger," Adrian Zimmerman, ICRC Gaza head of sub-delegation, said in a statement.

"Many, including the sick and disabled, cannot leave, and they remain protected under international humanitarian law all possible precautions must be taken to ensure they remain unharmed. Every person displaced has the right to return home in safety," he added.

But this is not a genocide.

It is also, according to Vivienne, not something that is really an issue for our MP. After all, we don't want to encourage him to "let Israel fail". Much better to ask him to let freezing pensioners into his warm space having voted to cut their winter fuel allowance. 

This is apparently really something "that seems to me a more appropriate use of his time, and is something one might reasonably expect a socialist to be concerned about".

I am concerned about both issues Vivienne and have, and will continue to fight on both these fronts. But I'm afraid no one can call themselves any kind of socialist or indeed any kind of humanitarian if they profess to care about the elderly here while colluding with the genocide of the elderly elsewhere in the world simply because they are members of a specific group of people. Not Arabs, Palestinians.

From Vivienne H

Tuesday 19 November 2024

First of all, Allen, thank you so much for explaining the PLO to me. 

Were you hoping that no one would notice that my comment on terrorists, which provided the convenient occasion for your diatribe, explicitly referred to the PFLP, a totally different organisation from the PLO?  The PFLP was secular, Marxist, violent and only briefly - 5 years or so - associated with the PLO in the early days, more recently allied with Hamas.

I was minded to ignore your remarks, especially after the announcement that you had to go on holiday to recover from the trauma of witnessing, from your armchair, genocide in Gaza. But if I don't respond, your inaccuracies go unchallenged.

I've asked you before to stop making up remarks & attributing them to me. I never said Benny Morris was my "favourite" Israeli historian. I wouldn't say anything so inherently childish. I commented that  Morris is more reputable and rigorous a scholar than your guru Ilan Pappé, which isn't setting the bar very high. 

Morris can, and does, read primary sources. He's changed his view over time as he's uncovered more evidence. Pappé's books and bibliographies are repetitive, shallow and  parasitic on the work of others, which he distorts to suit his own purposes. He pontificated, in book form, about  Ottoman backwater Palestine, a dusty corner of the province of Greater Syria, without a single visit to the Ottoman archives. He doesn't read Turkish. 

You always accuse Israeli historians, a priori,  of bias, but omit to mention that Pappé leads the University of Exeter Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, funded - for once not by Qatar, under the direction of the formidable Sheikha Moza - but by the United Arab Emirates: might there not be a tiny bit of encouragement to say whatever keeps the funding flowing? Kamal Salibi is an independent minded historian of the region, who annoyed everyone because he was beholden to no one. You'll have to tolerate my preference for scholarly integrity, and hence for Salibi over Pappé.

You refer to "historic Palestine". What exactly is that? Before the Mandate, we had 400 years of Ottoman rule, including over the province of "Greater Syria" of which the present Jordan and Israel were the backwater portions. During the Mandate period, British governance extended from the Egyptian border to the Syrian border. There has never been a separate, independent state of Palestine, & the Arabs didn't originally want one. They were demanding that Ottoman Greater Syria remain united, but under Arab rule. "The" Palestinian people was a Soviet invention in the 1960s. 

As PLO spokesman Zuheir Mohsen explained in the 1970s, "The Palestinian people does not exist … there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, & Lebanese…We are all part of one people, the Arab nation [...] Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons… Once we have acquired all our rights in all of Palestine, we must not delay for a moment the reunification of Jordan and Palestine".

You object to the bombing of Gaza, but equally to the precisely targeted explosion of pagers distributed to members of Hezbollah. So the Jews, to please you, should just walk singing to the gas chambers, as they have been invited to do on the streets of Europe recently - "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas"? Or "Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yehud/ Jaish Mohammed souf' ya'oud!" which reminds the Jewish people of their first annihilation at the hands of militant Islam, when  Mohammed decided no religion but his could exist in Arabia, and promises that the armies of Mohammed will return to repeat the ethnic cleansing. "Again and again" as Hamas promised after October 7th.

I have never denied that Palestinians fled and/or were driven out of what became Israel, though as an aside,  I note that owing to further documentary research, the story of Deir Yassin, where approx. 100 Palestinians were killed, has changed since I encountered it decades ago. I refer you to the instruction to broadcasters by Husain Fakri al Khalidi of the Arab Higher Committee, which was to say, falsely, that female villagers were raped. 

This was confirmed by Hazim Nuseiba of the Palestine Broadcasting Service. The Deir Yassin villagers denied the story from the beginning, but the broadcast threat of rape and thus the spectre of dishonoured women, caused a mass exodus.  Nuseiba went on record to admit it  was the biggest mistake he had ever made, because it turned the tide: instead of being stirred to fierce resistance,  as Arab leaders expected, areas just emptied of inhabitants. The Palestinian researcher Adil Yahya has written that the main cause of the 1948 exodus was the story of rapes at Deir Yassin.

My argument is not that expulsions and land seizure didn't happen. And doubtless other less formal horrors occurred, as they often do when unregulated militias encounter helpless women and houses to be looted. My point  is that 3/4 million Jews were likewise encouraged, by judicious slaughters and public hangings, to leave Arab countries. 

Israel's population  is 20+% Arab. There are no Jewish communities left in Arab countries, because al Husseini, fresh from his cordial visit to Hitler,  a tour of a concentration camp, and raising a Muslim SS battalion, had returned to Jerusalem and enthusiastically promoted the idea of Jew-free countries to his neighbours. You will recall that you previously announced you'd never heard of al Husseini & therefore he couldn't have been very important. He was.

I  distrust the honesty of anyone who complains about the injustice done to Arabs,  while remaining perfectly sanguine about the seizure, at the same time, in the same region, of land, homes, businesses, bank accounts and personal property, from Jews. No compensation has ever been offered. No UN agency supported the surviving displaced and dispossessed people, and their descendants, for 75 years. 

It's striking that of all the population exchanges which took place after two world wars, only this one is seized upon by you as an example of injustice done to one party. Turkey massacred a million Armenians, as well as more politely exchanging  its Greek citizens for Turks who'd been living in Greece. But as Hitler remarked, "Who now remembers the Armenians?" Indeed, even last year's ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Armenians from Muslim Azerbaijan attracted no attention. 

This isn't whataboutery. It's a genuine question about why Israel, uniquely, is demonised for declining to be eliminated, while on Islamic expulsions and killings, as well as the victims of totalitarian China and Russia, people  remain silent. Arabs control 99.82% of Middle Eastern territory, and all its oil wealth, yet the tiny group which claims the 0.18% in which it is indigenous, is the target of wrath. 

You denounce Israel's selfdefence, and never acknowledge that it is militant Islamic groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, supported by petro-dollars from Qatar and Iran, which have as their sole aim the abolition of the Israeli state and the extermination of the Jewish people. That is what genocide means. It is not the same thing as civilian casualties. If you believe socialists should support that, perhaps neo-National should be prefixed.

As for UNIFIL, it lost its credibility as a neutral observer when it failed to notice the construction of all the tunnels created by Hezbollah at the northern border, leading into Israel for the purpose of an larger scale October 7 assault. They were also supposed to ensure that Hezbollah, and any army except the national Lebanese one, pulled back to the Litani river as per the terms of the Israeli peace treaty with Lebanon. Again, complete ineptitude - or complicity.

You go on to excuse the atrocities of October 7 by referring to Sabra and Shatila, at the time when the PLO (not to be confused, remember, with the PFLP) was "in exile" in Lebanon. 

Tiresome though historical accuracy may be, let's remind ourselves that the PLO had just left Jordan, the Judenrein country formed from 70% of Mandate Palestine, which had given Palestinians who didn't want to accept Israeli citizenship Jordanian passports. 

After such heroic deeds as blowing up an Israeli school bus, the Fatah-dominated  PLO became a state within a state in Jordan. Eventually, they were expelled because they tried to assassinate the king. Supported by Syria, and Chinese & Soviet advisors, they caused a brief but  bloody civil war in Jordan, known as Black September, but were defeated. The commemorative group, Black September, went on to slaughter unarmed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, & kill the Jordanian PM. 

Once in Lebanon, the PLO proceeded to wreck that country too, causing another civil war before they were driven out. Once beautiful and cosmopolitan, Lebanon has never recovered: weak and fragmented, its confessional balance shattered, it became easy prey for Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. 

You mention the appalling killings of non-combatant Palestinians athletes at Sabra and Shatila, which the Israelis did not prevent. I agree it was a shocking incident, and Israel, having first said "The Christians kill the Muslims, and they blame the Jews", acknowledged it. Sharon was forced to resign. 

However, what you don't include is the fact that the Christian attackers were seeking revenge for the massacre by the PLO & its allies at Damour, where 15,000 people were ethnically cleansed from their village after PLO gang-rapes and the execution of whole families. Some 500 people were killed, including the family of Elie Hobeika, who led the vengeful attack on Sabra and Shatila. 

In Damour, the bodies of raped women and mutilated children were left lying in the street for days, as the Palestinians despoiled the cemetery, disinterring corpses and scattering the skeletons. Bashir Gemayel opposed Syrian control of his country, and had also warned the PLO that they should leave Lebanon, which then as now was being used as a base for attacking Israel,  before the Israelis came after them. Bashir, a friend of Hobeika and a popular, newly appointed young President, was assassinated before he had held power for a month.

So it's not that I ever wholly disagree with you, rather that I object to the way you selectively present facts: in creating significant omissions, pulling incidents out of context, you force the truth to function as a lie.

I shan't discuss your other points here - it would take a book & this comment is long  enough - except to say that Netanyahu was about to face charges in an Israeli court when Hamas attacked, so his prosecution has been suspended, temporarily. And yes, Israelis can and probably will vote him out as soon as possible, or else the few thousand secular Jews who create most of the country's wealth, now that Hamas and Hezbollah have destroyed their agricultural sector, will leave, because they abhor Smotrich and Ben Gvir and their vision of the country.