In my opinion: The Israeli government is a fascist entity, driven by far-right religious fanatics, led by a war criminal, who are racist and the equivalent of Nazis. The huge number of war crimes against the Palestinians, including indiscriminate shooting, bombing of civilians, missile strikes on hospitals and massive destruction of civilian structures, along with starving children and depriving the population of food and water amounts to GENOCIDE!!! That is on a par with what the Nazis did in the holocaust! I am not alone in stating this and that does not make me Antisemitic. I have nothing against Jews.
I cite this: The question of whether the treatment of Palestinians constitutes genocide is a complex and ongoing debate. Accusations of Genocide:
Various groups, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, have declared that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide, citing systematic attacks, dehumanization, and deliberate conditions of life that threaten the survival of the Palestinian people.
Legal Framework: The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Scholars argue that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza align with this definition, particularly given the mass killings, dehumanization, and denial of basic necessities.
International Response: In January 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a provisional ruling that found there is a plausible right to protection from genocide in Gaza, requiring Israel to take measures to prevent such acts.1 Ongoing Legal and Human Rights Analysis: The UN Special Committee has also reported that Israel’s military actions in Gaza are consistent with the characteristics of genocide, highlighting the catastrophic impact on Palestinian lives.
The situation remains fluid, with ongoing legal and human rights analyses being conducted to determine the extent of these accusations and their implications.
Last night I listened to doctors talking about the Israeli tactics in Gaza, how they are deliberately starving the people and using food distribution as a way of murdering victims.
According to them the Israelis are then setting up just four aid distribution centres and then deliberately shooting young men. One doctor described how one day they aimed for the head, the next day it was the testicles, the day after the legs.
These soldiers have become so desensitised that killing and maiming Palestinians is a game.
Every day I hear word of more atrocities – babies starving to death, hospitals bombed, deliberate destruction of homes, shooting of innocent civilians, cutting off of water, using food as a weapon, hounding exhausted civilians from one place to another and the torturing of prisoners. One would imagine that survivors of the Holocaust, pogroms and centuries of unjust persecution would be more aware of the need for fairness and compassion. Revenge seems to have turned them crazy.
What Hamas did was atrocious. What Israel is doing is fifty times worse. I fear that Trump’s support of this far-right government is condoning war crimes and genocide.
It’s time the international community stepped in and put a stop to this insult to humanity.
It is currently 32 degrees in Gaza – very hot! I am reading reports that Israel has once again turned off the water supply. This impacts all people living there – women and children.
Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF official in Gaza, reported that 600,000 people who had regained access to drinking water in November 2024 are once again cut off. “It’s really vital for thousands of families and children to restore this connection,” she said.
What Hamas did was terrible but the ‘punishment’ for the whole Palestinian population is surely the biggest war crime of the century – up there with Putin’s actions in Ukraine!
To target children with a lack of water is horrendous. How can anybody justify that?
Israel is reaching new depths. They have bombed and shot the entire civilian population for years, driven them from one end of Gaza to the other, destroyed their homes, schools and hospitals on top of systematically starving them.
I don’t mind a heated rational debate. That’s what blogging is about.
Hamas as a deplorable terrorist organisation that deserves to be wiped out.
To take and keep hostages is disgusting. They should be returned immediately.
What Hamas did in their brutal actions is inexcusable. |Attacking and slaughtering, torturing and maiming. They are inhuman. IMO They are scum.
The Palestinians who support such actions are deplorable.
But I contend that Netanyahu with his extreme right-wing coalition are just as bad.
They have a right to fight and destroy Hamas.
They do not have a right to bomb civilians, hospitals and schools even if Hamas are hiding there!
They do not have a right to bomb civilians.
They do not have a right to starve people and deprive them of water.
They do not have a right to turn Gaza into one gigantic bomb site.
This is as bad as Putin in Ukraine.
Retaliation should be appropriate, justified and proportionate? I think not!
Anybody who defends the starving or deliberate murdering of women and children is, in my opinion, morally corrupt.
Anybody who tries to justify genocide of Palestinians because of the Holocaust, pogroms, antisemitism or past war crimes is despicable. Two wrongs never make a right. Disgusting things happened in the past; they do not justify equally disgusting things.
I’ve deliberately left the comments from our extreme right-wing ‘friend’ up on my site. You judge!
A clash of religions. A clash of cultures. A clash of ideologies.
Iran has been fermenting trouble with its proxy fighters.
The USA has been champing at the bit to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power.
There’s a power struggle in the Middle East.
The displaced Palestinians are a focus of discontent.
Many Arabs want the Jews kicked out and Israel destroyed.
Netanyahu is clinging to power through escalation and belligerence. He’s pulverized Gaza to dust. They are now turning their attention to Lebanon and Iran.
We’re in for an almighty war!
It’s been brewing but I can’t help thinking that this is exactly what Hamas wanted on the 7th October 2023.
‘What do you know about the pogroms?’ I asked with a twinkle in my eye.
‘How long have you got?’ John said, setting his plate and cutlery down on the table.
I eyed the today’s choice. John was known to put together some strange combinations but this looked fairly ordinary – fish fingers, baked beans and green beans. I raised my eyes and shrugged. We’d finished our duty. I’d made short shrift of my soup and was hanging out in the dining hall, helping to keep the lid on things.
‘Well,’ John said, starting into his meal. He alternated between chewing, swallowing and speaking. ‘The name itself is Russian, translating as destroy or devastate. The pogroms largely refer to the anti-Semitic riots in Russia in the 19th and 20th century,’ he waved his fork in the air as though conducting, ‘though you can trace it back to the very early days of the church and it goes on right to this day. I suppose, you could say that Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany in 1938 and then the Holocaust was the culmination of the pogroms. But it hasn’t stopped. Anti-Semitism is rife.’
‘So what was behind it?’
‘In the early days of Christianity there was a drive to gain converts and the Church sought to drive a wedge, to deliberately vilify Jews. They labelled them as Christ killers and claimed they held satanic meetings, sacrificed Christian babies and put their blood in their bread. That sort of stuff.’
I snorted. ‘But Jesus was a Jew. All his family were Jews. All his disciples and followers.’
John chuckled. ‘Yeah, but you don’t allow facts to get in the way of a good conspiracy.’ He was polishing off his meal in no time at all. ‘Mythology is not based around fact. The Church needed to establish itself. They demonised Jews.’ He shovelled in a mouthful and chewed pensively. ‘It wasn’t helped by the Church being firmly against usery. No Christians were allowed to lend money for interest. The Jews took over the banking and many of them became exceedingly wealthy. That created a lot of jealousy and outrage. Christian businessmen accused the Jews of running things for their own benefit and charging exorbitant rates.’
I frowned.
‘There have been many outbreaks of anti-Semitic riots throughout Europe and in England. Jews were vilified and persecuted. The Church stirred it up and did nothing to suppress the depiction as Christ killers and unscrupulous, miserly bankers. Religions like to malign the opposition. It animates the faithful.’ He grinned. ‘There have been numerous examples of Jews being targeted and driven out, synagogues burnt, murder, looting.’ He shrugged. ‘You only have to look at the actions of the Crusaders. They went out of their way to massacre Jews on the way to the Holy Land. Saw it as a holy act. I suppose it came to a head in Germany. The Nazis blamed the Jews for the loss in the First World War.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘There was the stab in the back myth,’ John explained. ‘It was believed that Germany lost the war, not through military defeat, but because internal forces, including the Jews, were actively stabbing it in the back.’
‘No truth in that?’ I queried.
‘I suppose every government has their dissenters and forces at work trying to undermine it, but no, nothing majorly untoward. The main thing was that, following the war, everyone was suffering extreme hardship but a number of prominent Jewish businessmen were seen to be prospering. Like many, they had made profit out of the war. The Nazis seized upon that to scapegoat them using the underlying anti-Semitic sentiment to unify their party in a common cause. Just like the right is doing with immigrants today. They built this up as ‘The Jewish Problem’ and then ‘The Final Solution’. Every movement needs its nemesis. The Jews fitted the bill.’ He pushed his plate to one side.
I glared at a student who was threatening to throw a chip at another boy. He saw me glaring and ate the chip, looking as innocent as could be.
‘At first Hitler was all for shipping all the Jews out to Palestine and setting up a Jewish state, but that idea soon went out the window. The mood turned. They planned out the Holocaust and decided to eradicate all the Jews once and for all.’
This is Haifa – delightful –Here we are – into the melting pot of Jerusalem where the fanatics push the populace into more extremes and competition. What a mixture of sympatric separation.I was converted.I hadn’t expected much – just religious extremism and over the top architecture as the three branches of the same religion vie for prominence. Our cynical guide peppered the commentary with humour tinged with fears for the future. The Third World War will start here he told us. He might well be right. The most holy of mosques deliberately built on the most holy Jewish temple. Crusader churches built on temples, holy places commandeered and desecrated, and the populace adopting more extreme forms of dress and lavish ritual in response; each more devoutly proclaiming their branch is right. It was all a clamour and melee – the loudness of the call to prayer, the bashing of heads on the wall and the kneeling, kissing and singing before the tomb of Mary. Koptic Christians in medieval garb, fundamental Jews and Muslims – shawls, hats, turbans, veils, robes, black suits, locks of hair, boxes of bibles strapped to the head, texts gripped in hands, rocking back and forth, muttering prayers, singing, chanting, calling to god – all proclaiming theirs is the true way and all else are false. Very colourful. It was amazing watching humans with all their emotions and zeal.Yet Jerusalem cannot fail to be interesting. Such a diverse mixture of contrasting people, together yet completely separate – such a blend of old and new – such a hotchpotch of architecture of lavish churches, temples and synagogues, cemeteries, tombs and ancient streets – such beauty of embellishment, icons, paintings, architecture. All spray-painted with myth.Armed guards, soldiers and security, separation of men and women, you take your hats off here and put them on there, shoes off here, on there. You put your left leg in, you take your left leg out.This was the place that both Jesus and Mohamed are supposed to have risen to heaven, where David and Mary are buried. Well who knows? It’s certainly full of history and myth.The Mount of Olives, David’s tomb (one of them), the room of the last supper (maybe), Mary Magdalene’s tomb (maybe), the wailing wall, golden domes, minarets, Roman market forum, the old city road, churches and gardens (Gethsemane) – all much more interesting than I thought was going to be the case. We even looked over at Bethlehem and saw the wall, complete with electrified fence and armed patrols, that has been built to separate the Muslims from the Jews. A bit of a Trump solution.One wonders how all this hatred and lack of trust can be resolved. I’m not sure it can be solved with walls.Well once again we saw nothing untoward, none of the tensions spilt over.Off back on the waves towards Malta.Still in the sunshine for a little while longer.
