Unfortunately, after decades of racist distortions by Zionists and supportive imperial Western states, and given hard-to-avoid reliance upon a dominant and biased Western mainstream media; even consistent supporters of the Palestinian cause sometimes take, as fact, notions which have become generally accepted as \u201ctrue\u201d (unaware that critical investigation may disprove it).\u00a0 Consequently, mistakes can occur when there is rush to judgment and publication without questioning and scrutinizing so as to ascertain what are the relevant actual facts.<\/p>\n
ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT.<\/strong>\u00a0 The current Gaza War can be fully and accurately understood only when placed in the context of Jewish and Palestinian history.<\/p>\n Defining Palestine. <\/strong>\u00a0Prior to the 16th century BCE, the territory on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean was populated by small Canaanite city-states.\u00a0 In the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, 3 small kingdoms (Israel, Judah, and Philistia) occupied the territory south of the Lebanon.\u00a0 From the Assyrian conquest (BCE 8th century) until CE 1917 the territory was nearly always under the rule of a succession of tributary empires, the Ottoman being the last of those.\u00a0 Throughout those centuries, various episodes of oppression and revolt, as well as opportunities in other places, resulted in a large Judean\/Jewish diaspora.\u00a0 After the Roman Empire made trinitarian Christianity the established religion (CE 4th century), the population in Palestine began increasingly to convert (from Judaism, Samaritanism, paganism, other forms of Christianity, et cetera<\/em>) to the established faith.\u00a0 Similarly, following conquest by the first Islamic empire, the population gradually began converting to Islam, until it was more than 80% Muslim by mid-19th century.\u00a0 Imperial Britain, which conquered the country in 1917, was given a League of Nations Mandate over Palestine, specifically defined as the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea<\/a>.\u00a0 Since then, the term \u201cPalestine\u201d, despite Zionist objections (that a larger expanse of land is rightfully theirs or alternatively that there is no such country as Palestine and no such people as \u201cPalestinians\u201d), has generally meant the Mandate territory \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cJewish problem\u201d?<\/strong>\u00a0 European Jews had experienced centuries of persecution (segregation into ghettos, abusive impositions, and pogroms) under medieval Christian European autocracies.\u00a0 In the late 19th and early 20th \u00a0 centuries, Jewish activists responded to the most recent pogroms and other persecutions in two opposing ways: whereas anti-racist secularists (liberal democrats and socialists) strove, along with likeminded gentiles, for equal rights for Jews in their home countries; Zionists, defining Jewish presence in gentile countries as a \u201cJewish problem\u201d [1], embraced a racial conception of Jews and refused to do so [2].\u00a0 They sought instead to remove Europe\u2019s Jews to colonial settlements in Palestine where they intended to eventually displace the indigenous population in order to establish a \u201cJewish state\u201d [3].<\/p>\n Resistance to Judeophobia?<\/strong>\u00a0 Until the Axis War (1939\u201445), Zionist organizations routinely colluded with Judeophobe governments (including Nazi Germany) in facilitating Jewish removal (with preference for emigration to Palestine) [4].\u00a0 Moreover, in the face of extreme persecution in Nazi Germany (1933\u201439), the Zionist Organization (formed in 1897) discouraged efforts, as at the \u00c9vian Conference (1938)<\/a>, to obtain refuges for persecuted European Jews in countries (United States, Canada, Australia, Latin America, et cetera<\/em>) other than Palestine.<\/p>\n Jewish-Arab conflict.<\/strong>\u00a0 Unlike in much of Europe, Palestinian Jews (about 4% of the population in 1880) lived amicably with their Muslim and Christian neighbors until the in-migration of European Zionist colonizers in the early 20th century.\u00a0 Zionist settlement was sponsored by some European and American Jewish capitalists who provided money for land acquisitions (generally from absentee landlords who owned most of the arable land).\u00a0 The Zionists then evicted the indigenous Arab tenant farmers thereby violating the traditional rights of the latter.\u00a0 Moreover, the Zionist sponsoring organization (Jewish Agency) and its landholding body (Jewish National Fund) required that Jewish employers hire only Jews and prohibited the sale of any Jewish-owned land to Arabs.\u00a0 Such racial discrimination was standard practice within the Zionist settlements; and it quite predictably provoked Palestinian Arab resentment against the Zionist settlers. \u00a0[See UNISPAL: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917\u20141947 (Part I)<\/em><\/a> ~ <\/em>\u00a7\u00a7 V and VI].<\/p>\n Imperialism.<\/strong>\u00a0 After other colonialist powers had turned down Zionist applications; imperial Britain decided, with its Balfour Declaration (in 1917), to sponsor the Zionist project of establishing a European Jewish colonial settler state in Palestine [5].\u00a0 Britain visualized said state as developing into a useful protectorate [UNISPAL: The Origins \u2026 (Part I)<\/em> ~ \u00a7 II<\/a>] thru which to project British imperial and commercial power over a part of the world in which British capital and empire were already heavily invested (notably in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [now BP Inc.], Shell Oil, and the Suez Canal).<\/p>\n Democratic governance denied.<\/strong>\u00a0 Throughout its (1917\u201448) rule over Palestine, Britain, deferred to the Zionists by refusing to meet its obligations (pursuant to Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant), which required the Mandatory power to respect the wishes of the country\u2019s population and to prepare said country for independence by establishing a democratically-elected representative governing body [UNISPAL: The Origins \u2026 (Part I) ~ <\/em>\u00a7\u00a7 IV\u2014IX<\/a>].\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because such body would undoubtedly have opposed continued moves to transform Palestine into a Zionist nation-state and would have demanded an end to: unconstrained Zionist immigration, Zionist land acquisitions, evictions of Arab tenant farmers, and racially discriminatory employment practices.<\/p>\n Revolt.<\/strong>\u00a0 Throughout its first nearly two decades of colonial rule, Britain refused any consideration of mostly peaceful appeals and protests for redress of the foregoing Palestinian grievances.\u00a0 When Palestinians finally lost patience and revolted (1936\u201439)<\/a>; Britain armed, trained, and used Zionist militias to help put down said revolt with massively murderous violent repression, killing thousands of Palestinian Arabs.\u00a0 Said militias would be constituted, in 1948, as the Israeli army.<\/p>\n Partition<\/strong> [UNISPAL: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917\u20141947 (Part II) ~ <\/em>\u00a7\u00a7 I\u2014IV<\/a>].\u00a0 The then 57-member United Nations [UN], dominated by mostly European and American states ruled by white and\/or Eurocentric* elites, proposed (in 1947) a partition of Palestine<\/a> (then with a population 32% Jewish and 68% Arab) such that: a \u201cJewish state\u201d would have 55% of the territory, a Palestinian Arab state would have 42%, and 3% around Jerusalem would be under UN administration.\u00a0 Moreover, the \u201cJewish state\u201d was to rule over a huge Arab minority (more than 40% of Palestinian Arabs), while the \u201cArab state\u201d would have almost no Jews.\u00a0 Representative democracy was evidently deemed unacceptable where Arabs were the majority, but acceptable where Jews (mostly recent immigrant colonists from Europe) were the majority. \u00a0(* Note.\u00a0 Although most Latin American countries\u2019 populations were majority non-white [indigenous, mestizo, et cetera<\/em>]; in most of those, the ruling elites belonged to racial groups (white and\/or mestizo) which identified with their European ethnic heritage).<\/p>\n Nakba<\/strong> [UNISPAL: The Origins \u2026 (Part II)<\/em> ~ \u00a7 V<\/a>].\u00a0 The Zionist militias waged a terrorist war of conquest thru which they: massacred peaceful Palestinian villagers, seized and annexed (1947\u201449) half of the territory allocated by the UN for the Palestinian Arab state, and forcibly expelled over 80% of the Palestinians<\/a> (directly and\/or thru terrorist threat) from territory which came under Israeli control. four Arab states intervened militarily with mostly ill-trained and poorly-equipped military forces in ineffectual defense of the Palestinians.\u00a0 The Zionist state confiscated: all of the properties<\/a> of the expelled Palestinians (whom it barred from returning) and nearly 40% of the landholdings of the Palestinians who remained in its territory.\u00a0 It also subjected the latter to repressive military rule for the next 18 years [6].<\/p>\n Later conquests.<\/strong>\u00a0 Israel launched surprise wars of conquest (1956 and 1967).\u00a0 US pressure forced it to give up its 1956 conquests (Gaza and Sinai) and to abort its planned seizure of the West Bank and parts of Syria and Lebanon.\u00a0 US acquiescence, in 1967, allowed Israel to seize much the same territories which it had wanted to annex in 1956. \u00a0Subsequent Israeli rule<\/a> (over Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Syria\u2019s Golan, and Lebanon\u2019s Sheba\u2019a Farms) since 1967 has subjected their Arab populations to persistent violations of their human rights, continuing to the present day.<\/p>\n Subsequent aggressions.<\/strong>\u00a0 Murderous Israeli aggressions against its neighbors (especially Syria and Lebanon) persist until the present day.\u00a0 In addition to repeated violations of territory, said aggressions include multiple large-scale military invasions of Lebanon.\u00a0 These included using a false allegation, of PLO involvement in an assassination attempt on an Israeli ambassador, as pretext for invasion and occupation<\/a> (1982) of 40% of Lebanon in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to impose a subservient client regime.\u00a0 Death toll: Arabs (Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians) 14,000 to 19,000 (mostly civilians); Israelis fewer than 400 (mostly soldiers).\u00a0 Israel made partial withdrawals until 1985, but (despite most Palestinian resistance forces having been removed (in 1982) it occupied a swath of southern Lebanon<\/a> until persistent armed Lebanese resistance (by Hezbollah, Amal, and units of the Lebanese Army) induced its withdrawal (in 2000).<\/p>\n Holocaust weaponized.<\/strong>\u00a0 Ever since the Axis War (1939\u201445), Zionists and their supporters have manipulated popular sympathy for the Jewish victims of the European holocaust in order to obtain support for Zionism.\u00a0 They speak as though Jews were nearly the only victims of the deliberate Nazi mass murder (systematic mass killing plus intentional starvation programs in occupied territory and POW camps).\u00a0 In fact, the actual death toll was more than 17 million<\/a> (at least 11 million Slavs, some 5.9 million Jews, and probably more than 250,000 Romani).\u00a0 Zionists and supporters insist that the world must atone for the genocide of the six million Jews by granting them Palestine for a \u201cJewish state\u201d; but they evade the fact that justice would require any such compensation to be borne by Christian Europe, which perpetrated and\/or permitted the genocide, not by the Palestinian Arabs, who had no part in it.<\/p>\n Antisemitism?<\/strong>\u00a0 Zionists and their supporters routinely attempt to silence opponents of Zionism and critics of Israeli crimes against humanity by smearing said critics as purveyors of \u201cantisemitism\u201d, the word which Zionists and their allies use exclusively to mean Judeophobia (hatred of Jews), even though the Arab victims of Zionism are also Semitic in language and ancestral origin.\u00a0 When their critics are Jewish, as many are; Zionists routinely disparage and dismiss them as \u201cself-hating Jews\u201d.\u00a0 As Zionists obsessively smear their anti-racist critics, they generally give much less attention to actual Judeophobes.\u00a0 With growing popular opposition to Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, states abetting those crimes have increasingly enacted laws criminalizing free-speech activities in support of said Palestinians.\u00a0 Those enactments include: prohibitions against boycott and divestment [BDS] participation; and laws defining opposition to Zionism as \u201cantisemitism\u201d, using the Zionist IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition which includes, as \u201cantisemitism\u201d, opposition to the existence of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state.<\/p>\n HAMAS.<\/strong>\u00a0 Israel, its Western allies, and their mainstream media portray Hamas as a \u201cgenocidal\u201d \u201cterrorist\u201d organization.\u00a0 Relevant actual facts, listed below, mostly go unreported, distorted, or falsified.<\/p>\n Origin.<\/strong>\u00a0 Hamas originated (1987)<\/a> in Palestine as a transformation of Mujama al-Islamiya, which had been formed (1973) as a Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood.\u00a0 Hamas, unlike the Brotherhood, embraced a Palestinian national liberationist political orientation.<\/p>\n Governance doctrine.<\/strong>\u00a0 Like the Brotherhood, Mujama al-Islamiya adhered to a Salafist (patriarchal and theocratic) approach to governance<\/a>; whereas a majority of Palestinians preferred the progressive secularism of the Palestine Liberation Organization<\/a> [PLO].\u00a0 However, Western alliance and Israeli motivations for condemning Hamas have nothing to do with its Salafist leanings; they are solely on account of its militant resistance to Zionist oppression of the Palestinians.\u00a0 In fact, Western supporters of Israel make no complaints where autocratic Arab states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar), allied to the West, impose patriarchal and theocratic policies similar to those embraced in Brotherhood doctrine.\u00a0 It must be noted that Hamas\u2019 doctrine and actual practice (since obtaining governing power) have been inconsistent.\u00a0 For example, in Gaza, a local faction (along with some rival Islamist groups), has periodically attempted to impose the Brotherhood interpretation of sharia law (including hijab) thru religious coercions and persecutions, in defiance of the contrary policy prescribed by Hamas\u2019 more permissive leadership. \u00a0In fact, said leadership (though still embracing widely-held patriarchal views on the role of women) has not decreed any such imposition.<\/p>\n Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ].<\/strong>\u00a0 Most commentators make no effort to recognize the differences between PIJ and Hamas.\u00a0 PIJ (founded 1981) is<\/a>, unlike Hamas, a purely anti-colonial and anti-imperialist Palestinian national-liberation organization.\u00a0 Whereas Hamas is a multifaceted (political, religious, and social-welfare) movement; PIJ is strictly an organization of revolutionary activists.\u00a0 PIJ, in contradistinction to the theocratic faction in Hamas, has no interest in Islamist religious impositions; it is \u201cIslamist\u201d only in that it embraces the Islamic principle of struggle (jihad<\/em>) against injustice.\u00a0 As national liberation organizations, Hamas and PIJ, though their doctrinal and strategic visions diverge, largely cooperate in the common struggle against Israeli oppressin.<\/p>\n Muslim Brotherhood versus PLO.<\/strong>\u00a0 Gaza (along with the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria\u2019s Golan, and Lebanon\u2019s Sheba\u2019a Farms) had been, and remain, under repressive Israeli occupation since Israel\u2019s 1967 war of conquest<\/a>. \u00a0From its founding, Mujama al-Islamiya (as a Salafi Islamist organization) competed with the secular PLO for support among Palestinians, and their competition sometimes erupted into violent clashes.\u00a0 Israel exploited that antagonism by enabling the activities of the Islamist organization as an alternative to the far-more-popular PLO<\/a> which then represented the militant Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and persecution.<\/p>\n Intifada<\/em><\/strong> [Arabic for \u201cuprising\u201d].<\/strong>\u00a0 Ongoing Israeli repression (land seizures for illegal settlements, arbitrary detentions, torture of detainees, days-long curfews, indiscriminate killings, deportations, home demolitions, et cetera<\/em>) provoked a spontaneous mass resistance, the First Intifada (1987\u201493)<\/a>, which included: strikes, boycotts, mass protests, road-blocks, use of stone-throwing and petrol bombs against Israeli police using violence to suppress protests, and other acts of civil disobedience.\u00a0 Israeli government ministers responded with calls for wholesale expulsion of the Palestinian population (a policy too extreme to be condoned by Israel\u2019s Western allies in need of credibility with Arab states).\u00a0 Israel\u2019s indiscriminate intensified repression affected all Palestinians, Islamists and PLO-sympathizers alike.\u00a0 Some leaders of Mujama al-Islamiya, concerned that inaction would render it irrelevant, decided to join that militant resistance<\/a>; and they then created \u201cHamas\u201d (Arabic acronym for \u201cIslamic Resistance Movement\u201d). \u00a0For the first year of the Intifada<\/em>, there was a near-totally-adhered-to policy (prescribed by a soon-established PLO-influenced local leadership) of refraining from lethal attacks against Israelis.\u00a0 Nevertheless, Israel responded to the Intifada<\/em> with its \u201ciron fist\u201d policy including lethal force, ultimately killing 1,087 Palestinians including 240 children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Oslo peace process (1991\u201493).<\/strong>\u00a0 When the Fatah-dominated PLO agreed, in the Oslo negotiations, to recognize the \u201cJewish state\u201d on 78% of Palestine in return for duplicitous promises of negotiations toward the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 22% of Palestine then classified as Israeli-occupied territories; it effectively abandoned the demand for the human rights of all Palestinians throughout Palestine and in the diaspora.\u00a0 In fact, no Israeli government has ever been willing: to accept a genuinely independent and sovereign Palestinian state in any part of Palestine, or to grant equal rights to Palestinian Arabs in any part of the territory, or to permit the return of Palestinian refugees.\u00a0 The Oslo agreements<\/a> produced the Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Authority [PNA] (a quasi-government for the West Bank and Gaza) which has devolved into a corrupted client regime with no effective capacity to prevent: Israeli land grabs<\/a> (which every Israeli government has actively encouraged since the 1967 conquest), and the many other persecutions of the Palestinians whom it purports to serve.\u00a0 The Palestinian response to Oslo was divided with Hamas and allies (including PIJ), along with some factions of the PLO, refusing to concede legitimacy to the Zionist state.\u00a0 Whether we like it or not, Hamas soon thereafter became the leading organized force of the Palestinian resistance (which is why it won all-Palestine legislative elections in 2006).<\/p>\n Judeophobia?<\/strong>\u00a0 The US and its principal allies join Israel in branding Hamas as a Jew-hating \u201cgenocidal\u201d \u201cterrorist\u201d organization.\u00a0 It is true that Hamas first Charter (1988)<\/a>, advocating armed struggle to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation, embraced some discredited Judeophobe tropes (Articles 7, 22, 28, 32).\u00a0 However, pursuant to said Charter, Hamas: (Article 6) \u201cstrives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine<\/em> [so that] followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned<\/em>\u201d; and (Article 31) \u201cis guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions<\/em>\u201d (which would include Christianity and Judaism).\u00a0 Assertions, that Hamas wanted to kill all Jews or kill them because they were Jews, rest upon out-of-context interpretations<\/a> of references to ancient Islamic quotations pertaining to specific Jewish communities which were then at war with the Muslim community.\u00a0 Moreover, its revised Charter (2017)<\/a> drops the aforementioned Judeophobe tropes and clearly states (Article 16) that its fight is against Zionist oppressors and not against Jews in general.\u00a0 While Hamas believes that all of Palestine ought to be governed by an officially Islamic state; it embraces the Qur\u2019anic obligation (sura 2:62)<\/a> to respect the rights of peaceful non-Muslims (including resident Jews) to live and prosper in the land as long as they are not oppressing others.<\/p>\n \u201cTerrorism\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Until Israeli forces killed more than 20 unarmed Palestinians protesting the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre<\/a> of 29 Muslim worshipers (1994) by an Arab-hating Israeli extremist ; Hamas policy was to avoid targeting Israeli civilians<\/a>.\u00a0 Since then, Hamas, like Israel, has permitted its forces to attack any enemy target, civilian or military; whereas the Zionist state, throughout its existence, has routinely engaged in such indiscriminate killings of Palestinians.\u00a0 Moreover, Hamas has repeatedly offered to end violent attacks upon Israelis conditional upon Israeli reciprocation<\/a> which has never been forthcoming for very long.\u00a0 In Israel and its Western enablers: Hamas attacks are always branded as \u201cterrorism\u201d, while far more massive Israeli violence against Palestinians (including unarmed civilians of both sexes and all ages) never is.<\/p>\n Equating to the Islamic State [IS] or Al Qaeda [AQ].<\/strong>\u00a0 In 2008, a small group of AQ sympathizers organized in Gaza as Jund Ansar Allah<\/a> [JAA].\u00a0 They denounced Hamas: for being \u201ctoo lenient\u201d by not enforcing Sharia law, and for being \u201cno different than a secular nationalist state\u201d.\u00a0 JAA also executed violent attacks (including bombings) against those Gazans whom they deemed to be in violation of Islamist morality, and they declared an \u201cIslamic Emirate\u201d in Gaza.\u00a0 Hamas then took forceful action to suppress said JAA.\u00a0 Hamas has likewise opposed other Salafi-jihadist Gazan groups which embrace AQ or IS.\u00a0 Whereas AQ and IS oppose democratic elections and pragmatic political compromises, Hamas embraces<\/a> them.\u00a0 Whereas the former make war on alleged apostates and infidels and condemn Hamas for its tolerance; Hamas, in accordance with the Qur\u2019an, embraces (though some local supporters have sometimes acted otherwise) an acceptance of respectful religious diversity.\u00a0 Despite the actual facts, Israel and its apologists persist in propagating lies to equate Hamas with Al Qaeda et al<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Democracy.<\/strong>\u00a0 Hamas surprised Israel and the US by fairly winning Palestinian legislative elections (2006 Jan)<\/a> and thereby obtaining the right to lead the PNA.\u00a0 Obstruction by Israel and the West has prevented any subsequent Palestinian election.\u00a0 Israel and its Western allies responded to the 2006 election outcome by demanding that Hamas abandon its commitment to fundamental Palestinian human rights by legitimizing Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing.\u00a0 That demand was designed to produce a Hamas refusal, so that said refusal could then be used as pretext for acts designed to cripple Hamas efforts to govern.\u00a0 The US then pressured PNA President Abbas (of Fatah) to dismiss the fairly elected Hamas administration in defiance of the will of the Palestinian electorate.\u00a0 The Hamas Prime Minister (Ismail Haniyeh) attempted to overcome the hostility by asking Fatah to participate in a unity government (which Fatah refused), and by inducing Hamas ministers to formally resign their memberships in Hamas, all to no avail.\u00a0 Moreover, Abbas, under US pressure, provoked a power struggle (in Gaza)<\/a> over control of security services in a move to undermine and marginalize the Hamas administration.\u00a0 The resulting violent conflict ended: with Hamas firmly in control in Gaza; and with Fatah in partial control in the West Bank, most of which was and is under Israeli military rule.<\/p>\n Peace proposals.<\/strong>\u00a0 Hamas, has repeatedly (since 2006) proposed peace thru hudna<\/em><\/a> (Islamic decade-long renewable truce resolving issues upon which current agreement can be obtained while negotiating upon remaining issues in effort to reach a final peace agreement).\u00a0 Hamas\u2019 proposed truce terms would include provisional acceptance by Hamas of Israel as an existential current reality, in return for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories with East Jerusalem as its capital (same as PLO except that Hamas would not concede legitimacy to the ethnic cleansings of 1948 and 1967 nor to the racial supremacist and apartheid character of the Zionist state).\u00a0 Hamas would continue to seek eventual acceptance by Israel of all Palestinian civil and human rights (the effect of which would be to end its apartheid, its ethnic cleansing, its other persecutions, and its continuation as a \u201cJewish state\u201d).\u00a0 Israel, making Hamas\u2019 refusal to give de jure<\/em> recognition of the racist apartheid \u201cJewish state\u201d as its pretext, has consistently refused to negotiate toward any peace agreement.<\/p>\n GAZA.\u00a0 <\/strong>Since the end of the Second Intifada (2005), Hamas has repeatedly sought and, when possible, entered ceasefire agreements with Israel.\u00a0 In fact, since seeking a role in government, Hamas evidently took seriously its obligation to serve the people of Palestine.\u00a0 Other resistance groups, often in defiance of Hamas, have sometimes committed small-scale violations of ceasefires, generally in response to Israeli violence.\u00a0 Whereas Hamas has striven to preserve said ceasefires, Israel has repeatedly perpetrated major violations thereby provoking resumption of violent conflict.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Israeli response to 2006 election outcome.<\/strong>\u00a0 Israel and all significant Palestinian resistance factions (including Hamas) had agreed (2005 Feb and Mar) to a ceasefire under which the resistance would cease violent attacks upon Israelis on condition that Israel cease military operations against said resistance organizations.\u00a0 Despite Hamas having respected said ceasefire agreement, Israel responded to Hamas electoral victory (2006 Jan) by imposing, upon Gaza, a suffocating economic blockade (an act of war as well as an act of collective punishment which is illegal under international law).\u00a0 Said blockade ultimately included denial of access to 1\/3 of Gaza\u2019s already limited arable land and 85% of its fishing areas.\u00a0 Moreover, Israel blatantly violated the ceasefire by assassinating (2006 June) the Hamas-appointed security chief (Jamal Abu Samhadana).\u00a0 Hamas responded by resuming attacks against Israel<\/a>, which then commenced its \u201cOperation Summer Rains<\/a>\u201d bombing of Gaza.\u00a0 Death toll: 416 (mostly noncombatant) Gaza Palestinians and 11 Israelis.<\/p>\n \u201cCast Lead\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 A mediated 6-month ceasefire ended (2008 Nov 04) with an Israeli raid which killed several Palestinians in Gaza.\u00a0 Resistance organizations responded with rocket fire into Israel.\u00a0 Israel then commenced \u201cOperation Cast Lead<\/a>\u201d, bombing Gaza in December and invading in January.\u00a0 Israeli war crimes included using Palestinian children as human shields and use of white phosphorus weapons with indifference to its horrific injuries to civilians (both being war crimes under international law).\u00a0 Amnesty International and other independent investigators found no substantiation for Israeli allegations that Hamas: made a practice of using civilians as human shields, or used healthcare facilities as bases for military operations.\u00a0 Death toll: 1,400 Palestinians (85% non-combatants), 13 Israelis.<\/p>\n \u201cReturning Echo\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Israel not only refused to lift its suffocating economic siege of Gaza, it assassinated (2012 Mar 09, by airstrike) the secretary-general (Zohair al-Qaisi) of the Popular Resistance Committees (then the 3rd<\/sup> largest armed resistance group in Gaza) thereby provoking retaliatory rocket attacks by resistance groups in Gaza.\u00a0 Israel then commenced its \u201cOperation Returning Echo<\/a>\u201d (consisting of additional murderous airstrikes).\u00a0 Death toll: 28 Palestinians, no Israelis.<\/p>\n \u201cPillar of defense\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Repeated Israeli attacks (from 2012 July) upon Palestinian fishermen, farmers, and other civilians provoked some additional clashes.\u00a0 Hamas and PIJ proposed (Nov 12) discussions to establish a ceasefire.\u00a0 Two days later, Israel assassinated the Hamas military chief (Ahmed Jabari) in Gaza thereby provoking an escalation of attacks from both sides.\u00a0 Israeli forces followed with \u201cOperation Pillar of Defense<\/a>\u201d, a massive bombardment striking some 1,500 sites in Gaza (including residential apartment buildings).\u00a0 Death toll: 174 Palestinians (60% noncombatants) and 6 Israelis.<\/p>\n \u201cProtective Edge\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Hamas and Israel agreed to a mediated ceasefire (2012 Nov 21).\u00a0 Israel violated that ceasefire<\/a> the very next day, killing a Palestinian farmer and wounding 19 other Gazans.\u00a0 A week later Israeli forces opened fire on a peaceful Palestinian fishing boat.\u00a0 On Nov 30, Israeli soldiers killed another man in Gaza.\u00a0 On Dec 01, Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned that it would respond militarily to any further Israeli violations.\u00a0 In the first 3 months of the ceasefire, Israeli firing into Gaza killed 4 and wounded another 91; and there were 13 armed Israeli incursions into Gaza and some 30 attacks on Gazan fishermen.\u00a0 These attacks provoked rocket attacks from Gaza by PIJ and other resistance groups, attacks which Israel then used as pretext for further attacks and intensification of the blockade.\u00a0 Despite all of that, Hamas complied with the ceasefire agreement and acted, with some success, to minimize attacks by other resistance groups.\u00a0 After PNA President Abbas agreed to include Hamas in a unity government (formed 2014 June 02), Israel (opposed to any unified Palestinian leadership) acted to destroy it.\u00a0 Specifically, Israel stepped up its attacks upon Palestinians, thereby provoking more rocket launches from Gaza.\u00a0 Ultimately, Hamas, unable to persuade armed resistance forces to desist from retaliatory rocket attacks against Israel, abandoned (in early July) the already-ineffective ceasefire.\u00a0 Israel then responded (2014 July 08) with its (\u201cOperation Protective Edge<\/a>\u201d) ground invasion and bombing of Gaza.\u00a0 Death toll: 2,300 Gazans (65% civilian) and 73 Israelis (all but 5 being soldiers).<\/p>\n \u201cGuardian of the Walls\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Multiple Israeli provocations<\/a> (2021 Apr and May) in Jerusalem (including: ethnic-cleansing confiscations of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem<\/a> [in violation of international law], unimpeded settler violence, police harassment of Palestinian residents, and police invasions and denials of Muslim access at the Al Aqsa Mosque) provoked Hamas and PIJ rocket fire into Israel.\u00a0 Israel responded (2021 May 16\u201421) with a bombardment of Gaza (\u201cOperation Guardian of the Walls<\/a>\u201d). \u00a0Death toll: 256 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.\u00a0 72,000 Gazans were displaced by the Israeli bombing.<\/p>\n \u201cAl-Aqsa Flood\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Hamas and PIJ had demonstrated a willingness to establish and maintain truces (long-term and short-term) with the Zionist state.\u00a0 Israel, however, evidently expected, despite ceasefires in effect, to have impunity as it perpetrated attacks, including assassinations, upon Palestinian resistance organizations.\u00a0 Then, when resistance organizations responded with counter-attacks; Israel subjected Gaza to grossly disproportionate violence.\u00a0 Moreover, the current extreme racist Israeli government had increased its persecutions and violations of Palestinian human rights<\/a>: impunity for settler attacks upon West Bank Palestinians, stepped up grabs of land and water-rights, dispossessions and expulsions, arbitrary detentions, increased killings of unarmed Palestinians, blockings of Muslim access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, continued assassinations of resistance leaders, et cetera<\/em>.\u00a0 Finally, Hamas responded with its \u201cOperation Al-Aqsa Flood<\/a>\u201d (2023 Oct 07) against Israeli forces in areas around Gaza.<\/p>\n ATROCITIES?<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>The nature of warfare is such that, it would be unrealistic to presume that none of the October 07 Gaza fighters (some of whom were not<\/strong> affiliated with either Hamas or PIJ) committed excesses in violation of Hamas\u2019 rules of engagement or in the heat of the moment.\u00a0 That said, lurid sensationalized allegations of mass atrocities by those Gaza fighters are fundamentally false (refuted below and in the noted sources).<\/p>\n Numbers and identities.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201c1,400\u201d \u201cinnocent\u201d Israelis murdered (October 07) by Hamas?\u00a0 In fact, around 200 of the dead were apparently Gazan resistance fighters; and the actual number of Israeli dead as acknowledged by Israel has been revised down to \u201caround 1,200\u201d.\u00a0 Moreover, of the 1,133 identified and listed by Israel<\/a>, 369 (32%) were soldiers, police, and other armed security personnel (most of whom were enforcing the Gaza blockade and\/or had offensive or supportive roles in Israeli attacks upon Palestinians in Gaza).\u00a0 Further, more than 421 (another 37%) of the 764 listed as \u201ccivilians\u201d were of the age (20 to 40) at which most Israelis are obligated to be military reservists, and some of those were killed (often while resisting capture) at kibbutz<\/em>[es] (which are constituted as militarized settlements).<\/p>\n Killed by whom?<\/strong>\u00a0 A great many of the Israeli civilian dead were killed: in crossfire, others (including many of the dead at the music festival) by indiscriminate Israeli air attacks<\/a> failing to distinguish Israelis from Gazan resistance fighters, and some deliberately by Israeli forces to prevent their becoming captives<\/a> in Gaza.<\/p>\n Decapitated babies?<\/strong> \u00a0Israeli babies and toddlers decapitated by Hamas fighters? \u00a0Absolutely false allegation, subsequently retracted<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rape?<\/strong>\u00a0 We are asked to believe that Hamas and PIJ fighters, in difficult combat against Israeli armed forces, diverted their attention in order to amuse themselves by raping and murdering Israeli women, despite: that their essential objective was to bring as many captives as possible back to Gaza, and that such conduct would violate the Qur\u2019an[\u2019s] rules mandating humane treatment of captives<\/a>.\u00a0 Israel refuses: to provide real evidence or to permit any independent investigation<\/a> of this allegation.\u00a0 Moreover, accusers misuse photos and videos of scantily dressed woman captives as \u201cevidence\u201d, despite that some (including many participants at the music festival) were undoubtedly thusly clothed when captured.\u00a0 Israel evidently is using said allegations of mass sexual abuse as a defamatory racist portrayal of Palestinians<\/a> so as to excuse the very real atrocities currently being perpetrated by Israel against the people of Gaza.\u00a0 Meanwhile, captives released by Hamas generally report having been treated humanely.<\/p>\n Dehumanization and genocidal intent!<\/strong>\u00a0 In their propaganda war, Israel and its Western allies evade the injustices perpetrated by the Zionist state and falsely portray Palestinian resistance fighters as genocidal Jew-hating extremists.\u00a0 In actual fact, it is Israeli leaders and their Western apologists who routinely dehumanize and express genocidal intentions (including for ethnic cleansing and mass murder), not only against those who fight, but against an entire victimized population.\u00a0 Some examples.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s \u201cArab problem\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Despite Netanyahu\u2019s denial, Israel\u2019s policy vis-\u00e0-vis<\/em> Palestinians (whether in Israel, in the West Bank, or in Gaza) is to make their conditions as oppressive as possible<\/a> (within the limits to which its Western allies will acquiesce) so that said Palestinians will out migrate to other countries.\u00a0 That is in accordance with Zionist prescriptions from the time of Herzl (1890s) [7], to solve the \u201cArab problem\u201d thru \u201cpopulation transfer\u201d<\/a> (that is ethnic cleansing).<\/p>\n Media bias.<\/strong>\u00a0 In the first days after October 07, the Western mainstream media focused almost exclusively upon grieving Israelis<\/a>.\u00a0 It was only after the killings, destruction, and extreme suffering in Gaza became so unavoidably blatant and massive that it began reporting on that.\u00a0 The racist anti-Palestinian bias of the Western mainstream media is exemplified by its response to reports of the 3 Hamas-captured Israeli men (shirtless, hands raised, holding a white flag of truce, and speaking Hebrew) nevertheless killed (Dec 15) by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers<\/a>.\u00a0 That was treated as a horrific tragedy, but there was no thought to question how, with Israeli soldiers acting thusly with captured Israelis, do they act toward unarmed Palestinians.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s humanitarian concerns.<\/strong>\u00a0 US President Biden (along with most Congressional Democrats) expresses lip-service concern regarding Israel\u2019s mass murder of tens of thousands of Gaza Palestinians (no more than 3% of whom could be armed resistance fighters).\u00a0 Biden could force a stop to it by supporting deployment of neutral UN peace-keepers into appropriate locations in Gaza, with US guarantees of their safety, to protect: hospitals, schools, desalination plants, sewage treatment facilities, humanitarian aid shipments, food and water dispensers, and UNRWA relief operations.\u00a0 It is highly likely that Hamas et al<\/em> would welcome the introduction of such humanitarian intervenors as long as they are truly neutral.\u00a0 Meanwhile, for Israel to attack them would put it in armed conflict with the US (and its allies) upon which it is extremely dependent.\u00a0 Instead of intervening in any real way to save lives in Gaza, Biden (along with most of Congress) shows his true colors by sending munitions to Israel, by demanding billions<\/strong> of dollars for more no-strings military aid to the Zionist state, and by vetoing near-unanimous UN demands for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n CONCLUSIONS.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The conflict.<\/strong>\u00a0 The Zionists (seeking to build and expand their racist colonial settler state) and their imperial Western allies (serving the selfish interests of their war industries and other profit-producing commercial entities with interests in the region) have subjected the Palestinian Arabs to a century of systematic subjugation and persecutions.\u00a0 The Zionists\u2019 ultimate applicable objective is to eliminate the threat to Zionist Jewish supremacy by removing most of the indigenous Palestinian population: thru expulsion and mass murder whenever they can find pretext acceptable to Western allies, and by making life so difficult for Palestinians that they will choose to out migrate. \u00a0Systematic oppression always provokes resistance by the oppressed (including violent resistance when peaceful appeals prove futile), and Palestinians are no exception.\u00a0 The Zionist state has always responded to that resistance (even peaceful protests) with repressive violence, attempting to bludgeon the Palestinians into passive acceptance of their Zionist-intended fate.\u00a0 That fate: to be treated as subhuman, to be massacred, to be permanently expelled from their homeland, to be robbed of their property, to be denied their right to equal civil rights and democratic self-government, and (for those allowed at least temporarily to remain in Palestine) to be exploited as cheap labor to perform work which Israelis choose to avoid.<\/p>\n End.<\/strong>\u00a0 This conflict and the inevitable resulting violence will not end until: Israel has eliminated nearly the entire remaining Palestinian population; or its Western abettors have been compelled (by organized popular pressure) to cease enabling it (enabling: thru funding and arming the Zionist state, thru preventing Israel from being held accountable for its crimes, and by refusing to intervene in support of the victimized Palestinian population).<\/p>\n NOTED SOURCES <\/strong>(those which lack URL\u2019s).<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] Sachar\u2e30 Howard M [Zionist American historian]: A History of Israel<\/em> (\u00a9 1979, Knopf) ~ pp 10\u201417 [2] Brenner\u2e30 Lenni [American social-justice writer\/activist]: Zionism in the Age of the Dictators<\/em> (\u00a9 1983, Lawrence Hill Books) ~ pp 22\u201425, 29\u201432 [3] Morris\u2e30 Benny [Zionist Israeli historian]: 1948 \u2013 A History of the First Arab-Israeli War<\/em> (\u00a9 2008, Yale University Press) ~ pp 3\u20144, 18\u201419 [4] Brenner\u2e30: ~ chapters 5, 6, 7, 12.<\/p>\n [5] Sachar\u2e30: ~ pp 96\u2014109.<\/p>\n [6] Sachar\u2e30: ~ pp 386\u2014389.<\/p>\n [7] same as [3].<\/p>The post Gaza War: Deceptions, Distortions, Misperceptions<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Responses to the current violence in, and from, Gaza vary as follows. Israeli leaders, much of the Israeli public, and Zionists in the West, thirsting for vengeance, call for genocidal mass murder and\/or wholesale ethnic cleansing operations against the people of Gaza. Israel and its Western imperial allies (US et al) evade the actual causes [\u2026]<\/p>\n The post Gaza War: Deceptions, Distortions, Misperceptions<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13087,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185,284,81,1235,48,827,287,1659,1653,442,82,72338,51,289,272,9709,290,473,583,71415,196,224,3229,200,111,36,166,167,294,295],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13087"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1526341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526342,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526341\/revisions\/1526342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1526341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1526341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1526341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"\u2666\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/72x72\/2666.png\")
ISBN 0-394-73679-6<\/u>.<\/p>\n ISBN 0-7099-0628-5<\/u>.<\/p>\n ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9<\/u>.<\/p>\n