I denounce the unprecedented violence Hamas has just launched against Israel.
Violence is evil and us at our most failed and flawed.
Hamas must limit its actions to legitimate military targets of the Israeli Occupation or else become the very monster they accuse Israel of being.
The butchery to date by Hamas has been an atrocity beyond justification.
However.
I also acknowledge there are many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many reasons that have led up to this attack by Hamas, and if we want an end to this obscene violence, then those reasons must be examined to form the response, because all violence at this level does now is beget more violence.
Israeli provocation:
No serious commentator is surprised by this attack by Hamas.
I was writing about the likelihood of this in January…
Israel’s brutal and illegal occupation of Palestine is always obscene, but you know shit just got real when ever Israel’s own retiring Military Chief is attacking the new Israeli Government as extreme
Israel’s outgoing army chief rebukes far-right government
IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speaks during a candle lightning ceremony with Israeli soldiers on the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem, on Nov. 29, 2021. Kochavi on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023 warned against plans by Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition to grant more control to pro-settler lawmakers and make other changes to the Israeli security establishment, joining a loud chorus of criticism against the new right-wing government.
…Israel’s new far right Government are Zionist Fascists who have been ratcheting up more extreme violence against Palestinians and the threat of a new intifada is brewing…
Speculation that Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are on the brink of a third intifada, or Palestinian uprising, surfaces whenever there is a rise in violence in the decades-long conflict. Unfortunately, the convergence of several different elements means that this grim possibility is more likely in 2023 than ever before.
According to the UN, this year has been the deadliest for Palestinians living in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank since the organisation started counting fatalities in the territories in 2005, with 140 Palestinians killed.
Most have died in an Israeli campaign of near-nightly raids, which began in March and shows no sign of slowing down or stopping. The bloodshed is galvanising a new generation of Palestinian fighters who are too young to remember the peace process of the 1990s.
A surprise three-day aerial offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip this summer killed another 49 Palestinians, and Palestinian terrorist attacks have killed 30 Israelis – the highest number since 2008.
Other developments this year that hark back to the violence of the 2000-2005 intifada include Israel’s return to targeted assassinations in the West Bank, the use of sieges on Palestinian neighbourhoods and entire cities, and the first bus bombings in Jerusalem in years.
On the political front there is also a marked deterioration of affairs. The elderly Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, is in ill health, and his death is expected to further destabilise an already combustible situation.
In Israel in November, the most rightwing coalition in history won national elections: many soon-to-be cabinet ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming government are bent on expanding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, loosening the rules of engagement for the Israeli police and army, and provoking the Palestinians by expanding the Jewish presence on Jerusalem’s sacred Temple Mount.
With a weak and divided opposition in the Knesset, there is little to stop them.
…the escalating spitefulness of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine has reached new levels of malice because the far right Israeli Government has manufactured a level of cruelty into the Occupation that goes beyond provocations by Orthodox Jews at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Israel has continued building settlements on Occupied Palestinian Land and new restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were the straw that broke the camels back.
Lack of American Leadership:
America has allowed Israels far right Government to continue punishing the Palestinians while cutting deals with other Muslim Regimes to normalise relations. This has left the Palestinians with no hope and fermented a rage that only violence can sate.
Internal Israeli dissent:
This all is happening at a time of enormous division in Israeli society as the far right lunatic fringe attempt to remove Judicial oversight. This has been met with months long protests as more rational Israelis recoil in disgust at the corrupt authoritarianism the far right Government attempts to ram through.
Geopolitical Tensions:
By signing normalisation treaties with other Muslim Nations, the Palestinians have been ignored and forgotten and my deep suspicion is that Russia through Iran has enabled what Hamas has managed to achieve with this attack because Putin wants to expand the conflict line and take attention from the Ukraine.
The enormous intelligence failure this attack represents suggests a level of sophistication that reeks of Russia.
Will Xi seize this moment to assert Chinese authority in the Pacific?
Conclusion:
Israel will be shellshocked by this attack and will want to get eye for an eye Old Testament vengeance, but surely it’s that violence and total refusal to create a two state political solution that has created this violence in the first place, so more violence can’t be a solution here, particularly if Russia’s intention is to sow chaos and disorder while they continue pushing their war in the Ukraine.
The Root of Violence Is Oppression and right now the brutal occupation of the Palestinians is harvesting an obscene wrath.
This violence and hatred is us at our worst as a species.
New Zealand must call for an immediate cessation of all hostilities, the immediate negotiation for the return of hostages and a peace summit to ensure previous roadblocks to the 2 State solution are legitimately removed.
The alternative is a river of blood that never ends.
The possibility of this spinning out of control is very real.
We need peace. Lord do we need peace.
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Cant help but feel Hamas have fufilled the role of useful idiot here, Iran wants to skewer the Israel Saudi deal, Russia will be quite happy that this conflict will take eyes off Ukraine and tie up the yanks and Benjamin Netanyahu personally and his govt were in deep need of a distraction. The cynic in me thinks that Benjamin Netanyahu knew this was coming and let it happen, its very hard to believe the intelligence apperatus got caught with its pants down
Wrong on most points.
Hamas did it to lead/mobilise opposition to the SA Israel peace deal. Yes it diverts attention from Ukraine. While it places pressure on US capability to supply munitions, the GOP will now end its government shut down to enable aid to Israel (and thus more Ukraine aid is back in play).
It’s easier to believe they got got complacent, the chance of Netanyahu getting away with complicity (without being exposed by the intelligence elite) is zero.
Yes I think that is true. Netanyahu wants the spotlight off his management of Israel and deciding who will be judges etc. And he knows that this will give him carte blanche by the zionists to bomb indiscriminatly the Palestinians and the world won’t give a F!
Gaza is a 21st century mid East equivalent of the WII Warsaw Ghetto. Penned in, horrific living conditions, and they are told to “evacuate” by Netenyahu as the Israeli military prepares to destroy the place. Gaza residents have no where to go because of the Apartheid state where Palestinian mobility is strictly controlled by pass laws, gates, walls and fences.
I really do not want to use this term, but Netenyahu may see his final solution here. Nothing less than the destruction of all Palestinians is what the extreme Israelis desire.
What can NZers do? BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) at the very least, and have your say in the media channels putting the Palestinian view. Pressure politicians to stop looking the other way or toadying to US Imperialism.
I don’t support the religious side of Hamas or armed violence, but what do you expect after a brutal 75 year occupation.
This began because Arab nations refused to accept a Jewish majority state in the area – Hamas still does not and Iran and its Hizbollah proxy has the same aim, elimination.
People have various takes on this, and some go back to the Balfour Declaration, The Nakba (expulsions and worse of Palestinians in 1948), and others even to biblical times–but what is also known is that a lot of effort has been put into solutions by various nations and negotiators.
The disapointing thing is that hundreds of UN Resolutions and various summits and agreements have been steadfastly ignored by Israel. If obeyed, Jewish settlements would not have spread, there would have been right of return for exiles, return or compensation for seized homes, and a civilised place for Palestinians in all aspects of life.
The bottom line is the Israeli State and Military do not want to share–as long as they are a moneyed up and heavily armed US proxy in the mid East.
“No serious commentator is surprised by this attack by Hamas.” Martyn Bradbury.
Confirming that she is not a serious commentator, Gabrielle McCulloch writes of a surprise assault.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/300985267/live-at-least-1100-killed-in-war-between-israel-and-hamas
“Israel formally declared war against Hamas, opening the way for a major escalation in fighting, a day after a surprise assault killed at least 600 Israelis.” Gabrielle McCulloch
What did McCulloch think Hamas was going to do after weeks and months of Israeli escalation?
Did McCulloch think Hamas was going to sit this one out while more Palestinian homes are being demolished, more Palestinian land is being occupied, and more Palestinians are being killed in Israel’s recent escalation of violence?
Israel conducts rare drone strike in West Bank, escalating already high tensions
Barak Ravid
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/21/west-bank-escalation-jenin-raid-attack-settler-rampage-israel
Israel launches most intense military operation in West Bank in years; at least 8 Palestinians dead
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/palestinians-killed-israel-launches-large-scale-raid-west-100602432
10 Palestinians killed, 100 hurt in Israel West Bank raid in Nablus, 2000 new settler homes reportedly approved
AP
By Aref Tufaha and Josef Federman
These are only a few of the headlines leading up to the latest violence that serious commentators would have noted. What did McCulloch think was going to happen. Maybe McCulloch simply wasn’t paying attention.
Imagine your living in your neighbourhood and at the end of the street there’s a barbed wire fence keeping you prisoner. There is a nearby beach but you can’t take your boat out to go fishing without being shot at or blown up. The only water and power supply is controlled by a government that keeps randomly turning it on and off. If you want to leave your neighbourhood and pass through the barbed wire fence you are racially profiled and subject to apartheid pass laws. That’s a day-to-day life that would keep you continuously massively pissed off. (That’s without even thinking about your human rights or land rights.)
Peace In The Middle East.
Imagine having to do that because on leaving the area sans settlements the locals decided to build up a supply of rockets to fire at a state it did not recognise as having a right to exist. And it includes people who come out to take hostages and now to kill civilians wherever it finds them.
Sure. And as one Palestinian said the stage they’re all now at is hostages taking hostages. Peace In The Middle East.
Imagine if Maori had the backers and the weapons to re-take New Zealand. They could offer overseas Maori prime lands in Orakei to re-settle as of their birth right.
So your solution is to indiscriminately gun down young people at a music festival? Being “pissed off” allows you to drag dead civilian bodies through the streets while your mates spit at them?
Check out the moral equivalence on Joseph…
That chaos here assists Russia, is not reason enough to suspect their involvement. It also assists China too, but … .
So onto the Iranian regime, it blocks US security guarantees to SA and thus places them in position to secure dominance of the Gulf and then drive Turkey from the north via the Iraq/Syria to secure regional hegemony and thus promote their revolutionary cause by which they continue to subordinate Iranian domestic population and to secure continuance of their leadership.
They know the interests of Russia and China and their own converge.
So their political connections and their military intelligence connections to Hamas are relevant.
So Hamas would have been encouraged to seek solidarity for the Palestinian cause by acting in a way that would provoke Israel to war.
“New Zealand must call for an immediate cessation of all hostilities, the immediate negotiation for the return of hostages” Martyn Bradbury
Calling on only one side to release its civilian prisoners is meaningless.
What about the Palestinian unarmed protesters, human rights activists, journalists and Palestinian children in indefinite being held by Israel in indefinite ‘Administrative Detention without trial? What about calling for their return?
To achieve the return both sets of captives to their families as quickly as possible only an immediate exchange of Hamas’ hostages for the Zionist’s captives, will gain the hostages release. Without such a prisoner exchange, I can’t see this hostage situation being resolved. Ever.
Hamas have gained a powerful lever to secure the release of Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel. Hamas will never release their Israeli prisoners without Israel agreeing to release Palestinian prisoners in an exchange.
Israel’s policy of administrative detention, which is to say of military detention without charge or trial, rarely attracts mainstream media coverage in the West. To the extent that it is covered, it is usually only given airtime when individuals engage in a hunger strike in protest of their detention…..
…..Although Palestinians from the West Bank constitute the overwhelming majority of administrative detainees, it is important to note that Israel also uses the practice on Palestinians who hold residency status in occupied East Jerusalem, and on Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship….
This approach of focusing on highly visible and particularly egregious cases risks losing sight of the bigger picture: Israel’s use of administrative detention is a violation of international law and is used by the Israeli authorities as a systematic, foundational, and racialized tool in the suppression of Palestinian political organizing and resistance to occupation….
…..Administrative detention is most widely used against Palestinians from the West Bank, where the Israeli regional military commander can issue detention orders for up to six months at a time. These orders are renewable, which means that a Palestinian’s detention without trial can be extended indefinitely….
….A surge has occurred in 2022 in both the number of administrative detention orders issued by occupation authorities as well as the number of Palestinians being held in administrative detention. By mid-September 2022, Israeli authorities had issued 1,365 detention orders
I wonder, if we were treated in this way. How would we react?
The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Natanyahu has said he will do anything he can to gain the release of the Israelis held by Hamas and return them to their families.
Netanyahu is a liar.
Netanyahu’s actions in escalating the crisis by bombing Gaza and killing over 200 Palestinians does nothing to gain the release of the Israelis held by Hamas.
Maybe Hamas should offer for trial those who killed people in their homes or at the dance in return for negotiations over the release of prisoners for all those in Israeli custody not guilty of any crime of violence.
What side is Zelensky on:
Israel or Palestine?
Zelensky’s First Statement On Israel-Hamas War After Putin Calls For ‘Independent Palestine’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCyiMFGIsas&t=3s
I imagine that President Zelenksy like most Western aligned leaders will side with Israel.
This will strengthen the Kremlin’s narrative amongst the Russian people and soldiers that Zelensky is a puppet of the West, this will endanger the Ukrainian people by strengthening the will of the Russian people to support the war Ukraine.
On the other hand Zelensky cannot afford to alienate the right wing pro-Israel Republicans in the US who are already against the US giving support to Ukraine.
The world is in turmoil.
(Relatively) smaller conflicts continue without any resolution in sight. And as long as they continue they threaten to join up into a much larger conflagration.
What can New Zealand do?
One thing we must not do, is take the side of the aggressor in any of these disputes. Otherwise we are just fueling the cycle of violence.
“In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.”
Time to break out the nukes and destroy these terrorist monsters once and for all. Palestinian governments have had decades to come to the table for peace and have rejected every possible opportunity to do so. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. Fuck ‘em!
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