On Friday, 4 December, an Israeli soldier shot a 15-year-old boy, Ali Ayman Saleh Abu Alia, in the stomach. The youngster died soon afterwards in hospital in Ramallah. Ali had been watching, but not participating in, protests being held at the entrance to Al-Mughayyir village. As was to be expected, Israeli Occupation forces lied when confronted with the crime. The Army claimed that its soldiers did not fire live ammunition in the assault on protesters but used only rubber-coated steel bullets and US-made Ruger rifles. However, the Rugers were actually firing live 22-calibre rounds and Israeli forces have used live ammunition to kill five children so far this year. In October, the soldiers also beat up a 16-year-old youth, Amer Abdel-Rahim Snobar, who died later from (as a post-mortem found) asphyxiation.
Since its founding in the UK in 1919, Save the Children (SC) has worked tirelessly in defence of children worldwide who have been, and are still being, subjected to cruelty and neglect through war and politics. An SC report, published in October this year under the heading “The impact of the Israeli military detention system on Palestinian children”, is a shocking addition to, and confirmation of, numerous UN reports concerning Israel’s shameful abuses of human rights. This one tells of more than 470 children, taken prisoner (most often at night) living under Israeli military control in the West Bank, having endured many breaches of “rights enshrined in international law”, including physical and mental abuse.
Population control and home invasion
For Israel, control of a subject population requires intimidation, starting from childhood. The Zionist regime employs its courts and the terror of captivity to break the spirit of youngsters and force them into submission. Imagine any child being awakened from its night’s sleep by armed Israeli soldiers, then abducted, blindfolded and forced into a military vehicle! Moreover, nearly all the children interviewed had been strip-searched. Israel complains that it is unfairly singled-out for criticism but it chooses to be the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children through military courts. The system works well for Israel of course; the Ofer Military Court, for example, records a conviction rate of 99.74%. No wonder the children believe it better to simply plead guilty, in the hope of being sentenced to less time in captivity!
Three Israeli human rights groups have condemned Israeli Army invasions of Palestinian homes, with over 250 being carried out at dead of night – every month! The Guardian newspaper has published an article that includes evidence from Israeli soldiers expressing shame and regret – and one Palestinian family member telling the Observer newspaper that he had lost count of the number of invasions their home had been subjected to: “On one occasion, I remember I had gone to the mosque for the first early morning prayers. When I came back, the soldiers were in my house. They had put all of my family in the kitchen. When I went into my bedroom I found three soldiers resting on the bed.” He said he felt that the invasion of privacy was in order to “control and humiliate.”
The title of an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “Dogs, shooting, explosions at 4am: Just another routine night of Israeli raids” really says it all: With a stun grenade launched and detonated inside their house, the family of a man and his pregnant wife suddenly found themselves threatened by dogs unleashed by the Israeli Shin Bet ‘security‘ service. The couple’s four-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter, as well as their 70-year old grandmother, were terrorised by men, in black uniforms, also menacing surrounding homes. A Shin Bet officer told the family, including the children, that their home was going to be blown up.
Last month, eleven Palestinian families were left homeless in the Jordan Valley, seeking shelter for themselves, as well as their sheep and newborn lambs, upon which their livelihood depends. The Israeli Army had driven them from their homes. Day after day, night after night, it continues, the Palestinian victims of this brutal oppression being persecuted because their homeland is coveted by others and because they do not possess the foreign regime’s required ethnicity.
Manipulation of language
The abundant evidence of its crimes against humanity is potentially devastating for the racist Zionist enterprise, which is why it seeks to manipulate news media reporting of its conduct, with silence being the most easily-acquired form of complicity. The fact that Israel has for so long been able to violate the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, without being called to account, demonstrates another ugly reality – it has allies in the highest places, including governments across the world, most notably among New Zealand’s Five Eyes partners. The US and UK are particularly staunch in their complicity with Zionist ambition – and the reason for that is self-serving. Zionism entices the rich and powerful with the prospect of successfully undermining every aspect of true democracy. They dream of imposing a world with fake freedoms based on ideological falsehoods. In this, they rely on mainstream news media and public institutions, rendered subservient for fear of being branded ‘anti-Semitic’.
When war was considered to be a normal component in the exercise of international relations, those ministries involved were honestly named ‘war’ ministries. But with the end of the Second World War, a thoroughly war-weary humanity wanted nothing other than peace. And so ‘war’ ministries became ‘defence’ ministries – much easier to sell and therefore profit from; watch out for politicians’ circumlocution, there’s a lot of it about! Zionism is not just a threat to Palestinians, it menaces the world through service to greed and alliance with kleptocracy. So long as Zionism holds its place and influence, there can be no hope for world peace or justice.
Confusion
The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines the term Semite as follows:
“Semite, member of a people speaking any of a group of related languages presumably derived from a common language, Semitic (see Semitic languages). The term came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, Hebrews, some Ethiopians, and Aramaean tribes. Mesopotamia, the western coast of the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa have all been proposed as possible sites for the prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking peoples, but no location has been definitively established.”
Instead of directly, and clearly, accusing Israel’s critics of being anti-Jewish, Zionists use the misleading term ‘anti-Semitic’ in order to exclude from the public mind the very existence and right of the long-suffering indigenous Palestinian people to live, in peace, in their homeland. Zionism’s conduct and use of terminology leaves it open to the same criticism that it aims at its victims. According to its own logic, Israel’s contemptuous denial and prevention of Palestinian self-determination is, in itself, ‘anti-Semitic’. A big step forward in disabling this weaponised Zionist terminology would be for Palestinian human rights supporters never to use it themselves but to always refer to it in single quotes – that is, as ‘anti-Semitic’.
Denying the truth
An article, dated 3 December, originally published by Stuff.co.nz, and also by the Israel Institute of New Zealand, far from apologising for Israel’s barbaric abuses of human rights, actually goes to the extreme of denying the UN-recognised right of return to their homeland for ethnically-banished Palestinian refugees. To quote from the article: “. . .while there is a claim to return, there is no such right in international law.” The Zionist mind would have us believe that there was no Nakba (Catastrophe) and no United Nations resolution 194, passed in 1948, that stipulates the rightful return of all Palestinians to their homes. The Right of Return is a universally-recognised right in international refugee law that is also provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13), in major treaties protecting the rights of refugees in times of armed conflict under humanitarian laws, in core human rights conventions governing states’ obligations and duties. It is consistently referred to in UN resolutions. The cold indifference to the plight of refugees expressed in the article illustrates very clearly the inhumanity embedded in Zionist ideology.
The piece also lambasts John Minto, personally, for his appeal to our Government to both “finally join the right side of history and the majority of humanity by recognising the state of Palestine” and to “make its relations with Israel conditional on Israeli compliance with international law.” The coldness of Zionism is again expressed in the article with the declared hope that there would be a growing “realisation by Arab states that their interests lie much more in pursuing normal trade, cultural, diplomatic and political relations with Israel.” Greed and profit far outway humanitarian considerations, in the Zionist world view.
A video of a debate last year in London on the proposal that Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism is a telling example of the Zionist ideology’s remoteness from reality. Journalist and author, Melanie Phillips, together with an Israeli politician, Einat Wilf, spoke for the proposal, while Israeli Professor at Exeter University, Ilan Pappé, and Al-Jazeera journalist, Mehdi Hasan, countered with an argument against, calling for equality and respect for Palestinian human rights. It is fair to say that the debate ended with the Zionist proposal truly defeated! At the beginning of the evening, opposition to it was at 59% – by the end of the debate that had grown to 76%. Significantly, the ‘undecided‘ total had shrunk from 26% at the start to just 5%.
Recognition of Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Our new Foreign Affairs Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, has stated that this country needs to “remain committed to a multilateral rules-based trade system that works for New Zealand.” In March 2019, as Māori Development Minister, she announced a Government plan of action to drive and measure New Zealand’s progress towards the aspirations of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 2010 she spoke in Parliament regarding the National-led Government‘s decision to ratify the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, criticising Government caution in weakening the document presented to Parliament as non-binding and merely aspirational. Mahuta told MPs that the occasion was “not a time for window-dressing, empty promises, or hollow gains” declaring also: “In Labour we are proud to say what we mean and to do what we say.” We look forward, therefore, to a clear declaration of policy towards Israel and Palestinian human rights from Nanaia Mahuta that reflect and reinforce the values outlined above.
At an event to mark International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people three New Zealand MPs took a pledge to form a new parliamentary Palestine friendship group and to “. . . raise the voices of Palestinian people in New Zealand’s parliament”. Will Nanaia Mahuta express solidarity with this move in defence of the indigenous Palestinian people’s human rights? Israel’s profiteering from enterprises, such as arms sales and population-control technology, was acceptable to Ron Mark and the ‘Defence’ Force who, as John Minto wrote, “were oblivious to any moral issues”, with Mark simply saying that the purchase of “niche” military equipment overrode other concerns. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade informs us that “New Zealand was pleased to play a role as UN Security Council president in adopting UNSC Resolution 2231” The Resolution was passed to oversee an exclusively peaceful Iranian nuclear programme following the country’s co-operation with international supervision and inspection. As is well known, Israel, the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, refuses any such openness regarding its own nuclear weapons programme.
Action
In the UK, a movement to Pressure Israel to allow international inspection of its nuclear sites – Petitions (parliament.uk) has been launched. For anyone not familiar with Israel’s secretive nuclear arms programme it would be a revelation to read about the brutally-treated, heroic whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu who, in 1986, informed the UK Sunday Times of what Israel was so secretly up to. Will the New Zealand Government be as pleased to pressure Israel to allow international inspection of its nuclear sites as it was to support UNSC Resolution 2231 and sanctions against Iran?
Zionism would not survive if world governments were to join together in adopting ethical foreign policies, aligned with international law and United Nations resolutions. With a great working majority, our Government now has an opportunity to set the world an inspirational example of rational foreign policy; one that recognises international law and human rights as paramount, and essential for the creation of a just and peaceful future.
Great yet saddening Post @ LB.
There’s ‘good coin’ in global on-going conflict and war, unfortunately for the Palestinians.
More one-sided drivel from Bravery, who, as usual shows not a jot of concern for Israelis’ human rights to live in peace in their ancestral homeland without facing constant, unprovoked, genocidally inspired attacks from their Arab neighbours. Does Bravery think no Jewish kids have been killed by Palestinian terrorism? Between 2003 and August 2020, no fewer than 1,650 israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, many of them children, like 4-day old baby, Amiad Israel and 13-year old Hallel Yaffa Ariel, who was slaughtered in her own bedroom. As for the Encyclopedia explanation of ‘semitic’, it has no bearing on the definition of the word ‘antisemitism’ which any dictionary will tell you refers exclusively to Jews ever since the Germans coined the word.Twisting the truth to malign the world’s only Jewish state makes clear where Bravery falls in the definition. Sounding more and more like a stuck record, this endless litany of hate has no impact on Israel which continues to go from strength to strength, while the Palestinians have been left behind mired in racial hatred and violent rejectionism.
Oh for fucks sake you racist, war criminal supporting arsehole Gaby – fuck off. Here is what you are fueling! With the likes of the Committee of Deputies writing their own perverted rules without legitimate legal acceptance, it has got to the point that no-one will be regarded as Jewish unless they are card carrying Zionists – even if they believe that Palestinians are entitled internationally accepted human rights, as are they. Increasing numbers of us are becoming edgy about maintaining our friendships with non-Zionists of the Jewish faith because of the perverted views you endorse and espouse. The upshot is that you and your fellow travelers are potentially seeding the next Jewish holocaust. The likes of ZSNZ and IINZ that ‘mini-me’ AIPAC and no end of other international self-masturbating Zionist dick-heads who are buoyed by Zionist exceptionalism may ultimately only be stopped by hate-crime laws that few people want to see enacted. The Israeli tail that wags the US dog and the mental midgets that think that bribing Arab states into mythical ‘lasting’ peace deals in the face of most of the worlds opinion need to take a running jump into oblivion before they consign undeserving Non-Zionist Jews and their religion to the dustbin of history. Fortunately, your disingenuous irresponsible criticisms of well researched, rational dissertations by the likes of Leslie Bravery are turning the spotlight off the multitudinous NZ secret services off Muslims (fueled by their shameful Christchurch fail) and on to fuckwits like YOU!
I think our secret services would be more interested in evil bigots like you who advocate genocide for an entire nation.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that there are five or more midget minded hasbara agents in Te Aviv who hide under the guise of Gaby. If so, the team are exhibiting poor comprehension skills today. Genocide is a Zionist forte, as it seems that every Gaby signed contribution is supportive of the mass murder of Palestinian civilians by illegal settlers or the IDF. If you are just a single contributor based in NZ Gaby, do you suffer from a multiple personality disorder? The style and content of your writing shows so much variation that it is hard to accept that you are not of a dissociative personality.
Gaby does appear elsewhere under a different name but still with Zionist racism crying victim.
For a start Paslestine never was the ancestral home for most Israelis.
Having an “ancestral” home gives no right to take up occupation so both myths are just propaganda.
Try another view, not necessarily mine but coherant and based on the facts surrounding that 0.2% of the worlds population control 90% of the MSM and close to 99% of the financial institutions.
Its called a caball, very powerful but only exists because of propaganda it spews out 24/7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy43zYo33Dg
It was Ali Abu Alia’s s birthday. A dinner party was planned for him that night.
The vicious cruelty of the Israeli IDF continues unabated.
Credit to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem . They protest against the IDF’s use of the deadly weapons but to no avail. They are a voice crying in the wilderness.
But a murdered Israeli child upsets you not at all, does it Lois? Who started the conflict? Who prolongs it? Your moral selectivity is sickening.
Sympathy for dead Palestinians does in no way exclude sympathy for dead Israelis — but you know that, don’t you, you disingenuous shit.
https://youtu.be/1Rk1dAIhiVc
Wensleydale, do you really give Gaby credit for having even a modicum of self-awareness or empathy? The impression is that he has difficulty on both scores. You must be of an exceedingly generous nature.
I try to think the best of people until they give me a reason to think otherwise. Gaby does tend to give me a slew of reasons to think otherwise.
“I try to think the best of people …..” Not according to the psychologically impaired ‘Mr. False Equivalence’ otherwise known as Gaby of course.
If you have to rely on insults and obscenities you destroy your credibility…but no one on this website has any anyway! You don’t have any case against Israel except your sick hatred of the Jews.
Once again Gaby – you have demonstrated your inability to comprehend the English language. Is it you second language as part of a Tel Aviv based hasbara team or, if in NZ, would it help for you to attend remedial language classes. So far, no one on this site, from memory, has ever demonstrated anti-Jewish sentiments. That is, unless a right-wing extremist has slipped through – in which case it would be expected that the comment(s) would have been soundly opposed. On the other hand, your racist rants are very graphic. It would also help if you disposed yourself of the false equivalence of the terms Jewish and Zionist. By standard definition, one can be Zionist and most likely Jewish but by a long way, not all Jews are Zionist! This should be abundantly clear. What you refer to as insults (presumably you meant personal) has been generally mild mannered criticism of your comments. Unqualified ad hominem epithets are generally one of your enduring trademarks. What you do find on this site, are specific challenges to Zionist exceptionalism and its political ethos and practices, backed with sound objective information that supports any claims that are made. You however have a tendency to regurgitate easily demonstrated propagandist statements and links. An objective review of contributions by regular site contributors shows that, in the main, they express opposition to Israel being given a free reign to maim, psychologically abuse, dispossess, imprison without charges or even slaughter Palestinian civilians. Please note: being Palestinian does not equate to being a terrorist!
As an observation, those of us who were conscripted for military training in the NZ military post-WWII prior and up until it was abolished in the early 1970’s are horrified with the way young Israelis are psychologically indoctrinated during IDF training, as is evidenced by reports of conscripts and ex-service personnel and regularly reported on – often by Israeli civil rights organisations.
If you find the Daily Blog so objectionable, you are invited to mind-screw your brain elsewhere – your comments are generally an unnecessary distraction to informed and important discourse anyway!
Palestinians deserve a lot of credit as they move along their journey. There’s plenty of hate and destruction thrown there way and always the complete denial that comes along with it. We will remember.
Both sides have tried to make peace. Izhack Rabin was murdered by a jewish extremist. Anwar Sadat was murdered by muslim extremists. It’s true before the wall went up innocent jewish people including children were blown up. It’s an impossible problem. Somehow living together must be found. It is a war crime to shoot Gaza protesters in their limbs for approaching the separation fence. Israel mini nuked beirut beacause of Hezbollah the Lebanese have the right of self defence. Israel is the agressor and commiter of war crimes. The zionist crims blew up the King David hotel. The palestinians have legitimate claims and grievances. And bombing Gaza is a WAR CRIME.
But Gaby you agree with an eye for an eye. Sicko.
Israel’s isolation of Palestinian child prisoners amounts to torture
By Defense of Children International
December 13, 2020 “Information Clearing House” – Ramallah, December 2, 2020—Israeli authorities routinely detain Palestinian children in isolation solely for interrogation purposes, a practice that amounts to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, Defense for Children International – Palestine said in a report released today.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56029.htm
Israeli troops beat the Palestinian teen, shattering his jaw. Then they cuffed him to the hospital bed
Soldiers bashed a Palestinian teen with their rifles, breaking his jaw. When finally taken to the hospital, 20 hours later, he was in shackles. His father waited in the hall for three days before he could hug him
https://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//.premium.MAGAZINE-israeli-troops-beat-the-palestinian-teen-then-they-cuffed-him-to-the-hospital-bed-1.9363512
I watched the debate between Melanie Phillips/Einat Wilf versus Mehdi Hasan/Ilan Pappe, and Phillips and Wilf were clear winners facing an audience of simmering hostiles. Melanie, as always, nails it with this statement: “The aim to be free of Jews now takes the form of the aim to be free of the Jewish state. Anti-Zionists treat Israel as the Jew among nations, to be uniquely vilified, slandered and exterminated. That is why anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism.” Got that right! Anti-Zionism IS antisemitism.
For those who may be tempted to take Gaby with more than a grain of salt:
1. Melanie Phillips – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Phillips#International_issues
2. Einat Wilf – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einat_Wilf
3 – Mehdi Hassan – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Hasan
4. – Ilan Pappe – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Papp%C3%A9
So, four people, some more stridently opinionated than others have licence to create their own definitions and expound on positions with no compulsion to reference facts or realities, in a forum designed for entertainment, not enlightenment. On the basis of the conjecture of the participants, the indefatigable contributor Gaby concludes that the world must agree with the preposterous proposal that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”. Hopefully he would be less cavalier about equating fascism with progressive democratism, an equally absurd notion.
Oh dear! What a quandary for you and yours! The CEO of Pfizer, the company now distributing the anti-Covid vaccine, is a Jew! Doctor Albert Bourla is the son of Holocaust survivors. He lit the menorah candles at a Hanukkah celebration organised by the Israeli Embassy in Washington this week. Now we’ll see the true hypocrisy of the BDSers! Heh heh heh.
How is that a quandary? His Jewishness has zero to do with his company’s work on the Covid vaccine. It’s utterly irrelevant. You sound unhinged, incidentally. A bit like Melanie Phillips — a sort of ‘economy brand’ Margaret Thatcher.
What the fuck is the point of this inane and unbelievably stupid comment. Just where is there any hypocrisy? Are you claiming that because Doctor Albert Bourla is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors he is also politically a Zionist war criminal who in his spare time acts as a sniper who kills children who are behind the wire at Gaza? What an insult!
You’re too easy to wind up, atom. Actually, Melanie Phillips, a truly brilliant journalist, has called anti-Zionism “the fig leaf for antisemitism”….brilliant.
Rubbish Gaby. The Chinese have 4 successful so far with more in trials, vaccines all made by teams of non religiously affiliated scientists and trials showing them to be superior so far and without need for special extreme sub zero refrigeration. China will supply some free to underdeveloped communities.
Pfizer is another money grubbing US big pharma setting up to make billions from misfortune.
Rubbish Westy, NZ is receiving the Pfizer vaccine, no others. Tough choice for you antisemites, eh? He heh heh.
Do a bit more research Gaby. As usual, you are wrong – or is this dishonesty another of your pathetic ‘wind-ups’ – the use of which is the first defense of a pathetic soul who can’t formulate convincing narratives in the face of intelligent discussion. Your sign-offs, “He heh heh” and “Heh heh heh” only cement the impression of someone who is pathetically childish.
NZ purchases of vaccine have little to do with production but a lot to do with the influences pressing NZ to buy from big Pharma.
Who owns Big Pharma Gaby.
NZ has purchased from more than Pfizers with its expensive to store vaccine, so you are well out of date and obviously live in a different country.
Your “Antisemitism” seems very confused but your Zionist propaganda serves to show anyone in doubt, just how much Zionism relies on propaganda and lies.
Gaby can you read or are you just willfully ignorant.
Gaby’s a troll who probably believes s/he’s doing God’s work for his/her Zionist masters. It’s quite sad, to be honest. Anyone saying anything vaguely disparaging about the Israeli government is apparently a screaming anti-Semite — which is patently absurd, but that’s the line they’re taking these days.
More good news; the IHRA definition of antisemitism is having a big impact.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-campus-anti-israelism-is-dying?fbclid=IwAR0cVfPL8EbDSenbQcPsaFbDhPs1Vn3EGPGmiLeq05-TYnEX6S7LwCqXQTE
Really Gaby, quoting Avi Benlolo who claims to be a human rights activist but denounces the rights of others to be afforded basic respect for their human rights while the co-writer is through is activities, a demonstrable opponent of free speech unless one supports the increasingly fascistic trajectory of political Zionism, is just the start. The diatribe of sliding definitions, untruths and distortions of reality reek through the commentary. One then looks at the credentials of the organ’s publisher and the politics of the financing family. Really – where could one find such a classic case of mind-rotting propaganda. You really are a piece of work trying to get away with presenting such a bullshit load of codswallop as credible. Once again, please make an effort become conversant with some basic definitions for the likes of the following: Jewish, antisemitic, Zionism, non-Zionist Jew, human rights and war-crimes would be a start. Once you have done that, brush up on the difference between such things as conjecture, credible comment, evidence and constructive criticism. If you get there, perhaps you will understand why the propagandists you invariably site such as the much discredited Melanie Phillips have little credibility outside your echo chamber.
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