Genocide in Palestine

Genocide in Palestine

By Ranting Panda, 13 November 2023

Yet again, Israel is portraying itself as the innocent victim and justifying its genocidal campaign in Gaza. 

Certainly, the attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023 targeting Israeli civilians and tourists were reprehensible. Unfortunately, these attacks were only ever going to result in one thing: Israel's disproportionate retaliation. The predictable Israeli response was swift, brutal and inhumane. The Israeli retaliation includes multiple war crimes. It has displaced more than one million people, and the deaths of more than 10,000, many of them children. 

Is Israel innocent in this? Israel claims it has a right to defend itself. This may be true if attacks by Hamas or other Palestinians were unprovoked, however, Israel has been murdering innocent Palestinians almost every single day of this year, and throughout every year since its illegal creation in 1948. In fact, prior to the Hamas attacks, 2023 had already been the deadliest year on record for children in the West Bank, with Israeli military forces murdering 38 children there (ReliefWeb, 2023a).

Israel has massacred more than 4000 Palestinian children in four weeks

How can Israel call this self-defence?

How can the world stand-by and tolerate Israel's crimes against humanity?

If Israel has a right to defend itself, then so does Palestine. 

Israel claims that it is only targeting Hamas and that any killings of Palestinian civilians are incidental. Yet, in the four weeks since Israel's retaliation, more than 4237 children in Gaza have been murdered by Israel (Defence for Children International 2023). Those are not incidental killings, they are not accidental killings. Israel's attacks on Gaza are deliberate and indiscriminate. Children represent almost half of the genocidal attack on Gaza, with more than 10,000 people massacred by the murderous Israeli regime. 

Israel prevents food and humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza. It deliberately punishes all of Gaza for the crimes of Hamas. This is collective punishment, which is a war crime (Human Rights Watch, 2023). 

The war crimes committed by Israel far outweigh anything being done by Hamas. Israel is also deploying white phosphorous in Gaza and Lebanon (Human Rights Watch, 2023). White phosphorous is a powder that sticks to skin, burning it off. The pain is excruciating and the injuries last a lifetime.  White phosphorous is illegal under international law. Israel has been using white phosphorous for years on civilians in Palestine without criticism from the international community. 

Any other country would be sanctioned and even find themselves before the Hague. More people have been murdered in Gaza in the last four weeks, than were killed in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Srebrenica resulted in numerous officers of the Bosnian Serb forces being found guilty of genocide and war crimes at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Former Yugoslavian president, Slobodan Milosovic was found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, following the war between 1992 and 1995, which included the massacre at Srebrenica. 

When it comes to Israel's genocide in Palestine? Tumbleweeds from the international community. Netanyahu has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, while overseeing the ongoing displacement of Palestinians and theft of their lands for the purposes of moving illegal Israeli settlers in. This is a flagrant violation of international law, particularly article 49 of the Geneva Convention, and constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Amnesty International, 2019). Numerous UN resolutions have been issued against Israel for these ongoing crimes, but the international community does nothing to stop Israeli aggression and war crimes (ReliefWeb, 2023b). 

The international community ignores Israeli aggression

Israel accuses Hamas of using Palestinians as human shields, however, when these allegations have previously been investigated by human rights organisations, there were found to be false. Israel, on the other hand, puts its own people in harm's way (Peled, 2023). Israel uses its illegal settlers as human shields. It empowers them to steal land from Palestinians in the West Bank, to murder Palestinians without legal repercussions, to destroy or steal Palestinian homes. When Palestinians strike back ... Israel knows it will be the settlers who will be targeted because of their occupation
and theft of Palestinian areas. 

None of the excuses used by Israel resonates with any modern definition of human rights. Israel was founded on a Zionist lie that Palestine was a 'land without a people' and that the Jews were a 'people without a land'. Complete rubbish. Palestine had existed under that name for thousands of years. The Palestinians have millenia of heritage, and this included some of the Jewish tribes living in Palestine. However, the Zionist invasion that began in the late 19th century, was not from indigenous Jewish groups, but from European Jews whose ancestors were not from the Middle East. European Jews were predominantly descended from Ashkenazi Jews who had settled in Central and Eastern Europe, spreading into Russia and most of the European continent. They were not the Oriental Jews of the Middle East. Their ancestors were not from Palestine or any part of the Middle East. There is evidence many of them were descended from converts in Europe and Central Asia. The idea of a Jewish 'race' is fabricated with the only common denominator being their religion and their scriptures. Zionists, both Jewish and Christian, refer to their scriptures to justify modern Israel. Most of those scriptures are pure mythology. There is no evidence that the Jews were enslaved in Ancient Egypt. There is little evidence to support the existence of King David, who at best, was a minor tribal leader. There is no reliable evidence that King Solomon existed. For someone who was supposed to be so wealthy and powerful, surely there would be clear evidence of his existence. There is no evidence that Palestinian Jews were exiled by Rome. Some may have been moved to other parts of the Roman empire following the various rebellions, but there was no wholesale exile of all the Jews in Palestine.  

And even if todays Israelis were from the Middle East and even if the scriptures were true, so what?

It doesn't justify the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It doesn't negate millenia of history of people living in Palestine. 

There's no excuse for genocide. Not religious. Not political. No excuse!

Israelis and Zionists will claim that it is to ensure there's never another Holocaust ... all the while, they are unleashing their own Holocaust on Palestinians, massacring thousands of people every year, displacing millions. While no-one wants to see another Holocaust unleashed against Jews, we don't want to see it perpetuated against anyone. 'Never again' extends to all people.

End the Occupation of Palestine!

End the war crimes, end the ethnic cleansing, end the genocide in Palestine.

Free Palestine!

References

Amnesty International, 2019, Chapter 3: Israeli Settlements and International Law, 30 January, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/01/chapter-3-israeli-settlements-and-international-law, accessed 4 November 2023.

B'Tselem, Statistics, https://www.btselem.org/statistics, accessed 4 November 2023.

Defence for Children International, 2023, 4,237 Palestinian children killed as Gaza becomes “graveyard for children”, 7 November, https://www.dci-palestine.org/4237_palestinian_children_killed_as_gaza_becomes_graveyard_for_children,  accessed 11November 2023.

Britannica, Bosnian War, https://www.britannica.com/event/Bosnian-War 

Britannica, Srebrenica massacre, https://www.britannica.com/event/Srebrenica-massacre

Human Rights Watch, 2023a, How Does International Humanitarian Law Apply in Israel and Gaza?, 27 October, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/27/how-does-international-humanitarian-law-apply-israel-and-gaza, accessed 4 November 2023.

Human Rights Watch, 2023b, Israel: White Phosphorous Used in Gaza, Lebanon, 23 October, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/israel-white-phosphorus-used-gaza-lebanon, accessed 11 November 2023.

Masalha, N, 2018, Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, Zed Books.

Peled, M, 2023, Thoughts from Amman, Jordan, 3 November, https://www.patreon.com/posts/thoughts-from-92204866, accessed 5 November 2023.

Reliefweb, 2023a, 2023 marks deadliest year on record for children in the occupied West Bank, 18 September, https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/2023-marks-deadliest-year-record-children-occupied-west-bank, accessed 4 November 2023.

ReliefWeb, 2023b, Settlement Expansion in Occupied Palestinian Territory Violates International Law, Must Cease, Many Delegates Tell Security Council, 27 September, https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/settlement-expansion-occupied-palestinian-territory-violates-international-law-must-cease-many-delegates-tell-security-council, accessed 4 November 2023.

Sand, S, 2009, The Invention of the Jewish People, Verso Books, 1st Edition.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2023, Data on casualties, https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties, accessed 4 November 2023. 

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