Gaza: The crimes we're talking about
Some information, historical details and referential documents to help understand the situation in Palestine.
Dear all,
After my previous post, the Israeli operation in Gaza has only worsened and intensified.
Over 8000 died in Gaza, half of them children.
And apart from two women freed by Hamas itself, no hostage has been retrieved.
It even seems like the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is refusing all forms of negotiation.
Tonight, as I write (on Monday 30 October 2023, 9pm Central European Time), he even said he would not agree to any ceasefire in Gaza, adding 'this is a time for war'.
Instead, Israeli forces have been attacking north Gaza's main city from two directions, as reported by Reuters and other media.
These choices have dramatic consequences.
For civilians, and especially children:
According to the NGO Save The Children, the number of children reported killed in just three weeks in Gaza is more than the number killed in armed conflict globally—across more than 20 countries—for the last three years.
“Since October 7, more than 3,257 children have been reported killed, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel, according to the Ministries of Health in Gaza and Israel respectively. The number of children reported killed in just three weeks in Gaza is more than the number killed in armed conflict globally—across more than 20 countries—over the course of a whole year, for the last three years.”
One child is now being killed every 10 minutes in Gaza, according to the NGO. And out of the 20,000 civilians that had been injured, one in three of them was a child, the charity’s Palestine director, Jason Lee told the BBC.For journalists:
An investigation by Reporters Without Borders showed that the strikes in Lebanon that killed a journalist from Reuters news agency and wounded six others two weeks ago were deliberate and targeted.For the future of the region:
With attacks on Lebanon, disputes with Egypt, and high tensions with Iran.
According to Associated press, an Israeli ministry, in a ‘concept paper,’ has even proposed transferring Gaza civilians to Egypt’s Sinai.
*
As the British filmmaker and writer Asif Kapadia, born in London in 1971 into a Muslim Indian family wrote on social media: these “past few weeks have shown how little people know about Gaza, West Bank & the everyday life of Palestinians under occupation. Because once you know you can never go back, hence PR, lobby groups make it appear ‘complicated’ or threaten to call decent people racist to keep them away.”
So here is a little contribution to more knowledge.
*
First, an important note.
This conflict is not about which “side” you or me are on.
It is not about religion, not all Muslims support human rights, and not all Jews, not all Christians… It is not about roots, ethnicity or identity.
It’s about political values.
Judith Butler is among the Jewish intellectuals in the US caring for human rights, offended by their violation, even more so because her ancestors went through horrible genocidal crimes.
*
Now, some history.
As a reminder, to understand the conflict, the history of the region helps tremendously, but not if you start in 1948, with Israel declaring its creation.
You must at least know that the Zionist movement was born in the 1890s, and that Palestine became disputed with the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, of which it was a party.
It is important to know that other projects were discussed to create a “Jewish State”, including in the United States, in Uganda, in the USSR, and in other locations.
Before 1939, the largest concentration of Jews in the world was to be found in territories which today are Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, in northeastern Europe.
In the case of a settlement in Palestine, here are some of the key dates, linked to the evolution of the Ottoman and British Empires.
For more history, and from the voice of a Jewish physician who survived the Holocaust himself as a baby, here are explanations by Gabor Maté:
And for more history in details, go to this page:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide
If you prefer the video-recorded form, here is one:
*
Now, about the crimes themselves.
An attack against civilians by an armed group is a crime.
And the 7 October attack launched by Hamas militants against Israeli citizens near Sderot is definitely a very serious crime.
It can qualify as ‘crime against humanity’, in some circumstances, according to international rights lawyers and prosecutors. It depends on the investigation, the motives, the events, the context…
Attacking civilians during conflict definitely qualifies as ‘war crime’.
Crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing are not tied to a group or another.
They are criminal offences, as defined by the law, by human societies.
Israel has launched large propaganda to capture the terms ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’.
For more on this, you should read the Israeli scholar of genocide Raz Segal, who wrote in the Guardian, see here: "Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust," criticising this dangerous use to justify Israeli mass violence against Palestinians.
Here is an extract:
A powerful state, with powerful allies and a powerful army, engaged in a retaliatory attack against stateless Palestinians under Israeli-settler colonial rule, military occupation and siege, is thus portrayed as powerless Jews in a struggle against Nazis. This historical context in no way justifies or excuses the mass murder of 1,500 Israelis on 7 October, which constitutes a war crime and crimes against humanity. This was the single largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, which deeply shocked Jews and many others around the world. The context of the Hamas attack on Israelis, however, is completely different from the context of the attack on Jews during the Holocaust. And without the historical context of Israeli settler colonialism since the 1948 Nakba, we cannot explain how we got here, nor imagine different futures; Biden offered us, instead, the decontextualised image of “pure, unadulterated evil.”
And:
This weaponisation of Holocaust memory by Israeli politicians runs deep. In 1982, for instance, in the context of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, the Israeli PM, Menachem Begin, compared the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Beirut to Adolf Hitler in his bunker in Berlin at the end of the war. Three decades later, in October 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu took this weaponisation to new levels when he asserted in a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem that the Palestinian grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini planted the idea to murder Jews in Hitler’s mind. And last Tuesday, Netanyahu described Hamas in a press conference, together with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as the “new Nazis”.
European Jews, yes, of course, have been the victims of horrible crimes in the 1940s. Crimes qualified as ‘crimes against humanity’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’. By the law, by investigators, by researchers and later historians, and by some tribunals.
Tragically many other people have:
-the Hereros in Namibia at the beginning of the 20th century,
-the Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire,
-the Cambodians inside their own land,
-the Tutsis and some moderate Hutus in Rwanda,
-the Bosnians during the Balkans wars.
And sadly even others have and are still dealing with ethnic cleansing, more Armenians, Congolese, Burundians, some Ethiopians, Sudanese people especially in Darfur, etc.
Here is the official, lawful definition of ‘ethnic cleansing”:
Rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group, which is contrary to international law.
For more on how these crimes could apply in the current war, read the best source, the reports by the excellent and flawless non-profit organisation Human Rights Watch, like this one:
How Does International Humanitarian Law Apply in Israel and Gaza?
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/27/how-does-international-humanitarian-law-apply-israel-and-gaza
*
Importantly, (tough there could be more to discuss, but enough for today), the conflict around Palestine is not even about “peace” and reconciliation:
You cannot reconcile with your oppressor in a situation of oppression.
Peace could only occur if the oppression ended, which is why peace never happened in Israel and Palestine, because Israel’s oppression against the stateless and powerless Palestinians and the increasing occupation of Palestinian territories has only increased, especially since 1995 and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish and Zionist extremist.
*
For details about the borders proposed for the states of Palestine and Israel by the United Nations and key partners, from 1948 and later, and how they evolved, see here:
Israel-Palestinian peace: What is the two-state solution? (Le Monde in English)
Two-state solution (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
10 maps to understand Gaza's tumultuous history
*
NB. Just a note that sounds important to me: Can people stop saying that the Palestinians ‘don't have a voice’ or are ‘voiceless’?
Everyone has a voice.
The Palestinians have wonderful Palestinian voices speaking for them. I share some of them on my social media, Twitter and BlueSky.
You can always amplify them if you think you're so powerful yourself in this complicated world...
Here is what's happening: 'The media’s silencing of Palestinians'
Let's help 'un-silencing', do not speak for them, give them some space, the floor, repost... There are many ways.
Read / listen to this for instance :
The media’s silencing of Palestinians - by The New Humanitarian
*
Thanks again for reading, and if you feel courageous enough, sharing.
With my best thoughts to all the sufferers, and hoping some people might at least gain knowledge from these horrors.
Best,
melissa
-
Melissa Chemam
Writer & Journalist
My website: https://sites.google.com/view/melissachemam