You share many valid thoughts and observations but I feel the need to call you out on a key one where this (pro Israeli) reader feels you misrepresent: Immediately following the genocidal belief based massacre by Hamas Israel did indeed decide to block the flow of goods and services into Gaza coming through crossings and channels it controlled. Since the Rafah crossing is an undeniable fact and it, along with many kilometers of borders leads to Egypt, you cannot however talk of a blockade and allude to genocidal motives.
Israel simply decided that “enough was enough” - despite years of upon year of rocket attacks and cross border raids from Gaza into Israel, Israel had continued to supply many of the the goods and services that Gazans (who strongly support those same Hamas militants carrying out those attacks) relied on for their day to day existence. Gazans crossed into Israel to work, to shop, to receive medical care. I for one fully supported Israel’s decision then to make the point that you “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and make Gaza Egypt’s problem (aka “Let’s see how they like that”). You can argue that this was cold hearted, cynical, cruel even (note: war is all of that - welcome to the result of your actions Hamas & co.) but not genocidal, nor borderline so.
Thanks for the comment :) I sincerely welcome constructive criticism, and appreciate the civility of your tone. If I am wrong on any point, I want to know about it.
The longstanding blockade prior to October 7 means that Gaza was dependent on Israel for food, water and other essential supplies in a way that most nations are not dependent on another. It is not the equivalent of (say) England being required to provide aid to Germany during World War 2 which would be absurd. But the circumstances here are different. Israel had imposed a blockade of Gaza for many years meaning that Gaza was dependent on Israel for food and water. Although that blockade was in my view justified, the other side of the coin is that in wartime it is therefore wrong to immediately cut off all food and water to a civilian population without organising alternative means of getting aid into Gaza, given that Gaza has come to be dependent on Israel for these necessities.
That is regardless of whether there was a crossing which was not controlled by Israel, given that the complete cutoff of food and water to Gaza in the crossings which Israel did control was going to result in starvation. Rafah was ill-equipped for vast amounts of aid to suddenly be transported through it as it was ordinarily simply a pedestrian crossing, and for much of the duration of the closure of Israel's crossings (which was mercifully short) no humanitarian aid at all went through Rafah: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/egypt-rafah-crossing-gaza-palestinians-mime-intl/index.html
Edit: I should add that (for example) Israel controlled Gaza's tap water, which was entirely cut off for a period. Quite apart from the crossings being closed cutting off running water to civilians is morally wrong.
Thanks Lucy - I appreciate your effort trying to enlighten me (and you do).
Despite the case(s) you present I still keep coming back to the fact that the Rafah crossing is with Egypt and that Gaza is not wholly surrounded (by land) by Israel. Unless there was/is an undertaking by Egypt to Israel that it will not provide (internationally funded no doubt) food and water supply infrastructure to Gaza to ensure Gaza remains at Israel’s mercy ( I am unaware of one but I am unaware of many things) I have no problem with Israel cutting Gaza off like it did (and has) for the reasons it did last year (and has in the past) while the Gaza regime (and majority of its population) are hell bent on Israel’s total annihilation and openly have been for decades. Back to : Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
I know the history behind this is a minefield - emotional and complex with lots of finger pointing and heartache on both sides - but at some point it comes down to having to cut through all that and make the tough decisions when you’re back is slowly but surely being forced to the wall as Israel’s has been once again for the past decade (Syria, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon) .
The Levant will never be a peaceful Garden of Eden - it never has been - and Israel is fighting for its very existence once again, preemptively neutralising a major threat, embedded like a tick, on one highly vulnerable flank before the rockets and tanks start coming over its borders from multiple other directions.
So I say - Let the Arab nations step up and feed and water the Gazans : The fact that the world has grown to expect one state to keep the taps running and the foodshelves stocked of a neighbouring state that is its arch enemy and just can’t help itself when it comes to committing atrocities against Israeli civilians month after month after month is a failure on the part of ever country but Israel of monumental proportions.
The fact that those same countries are now wringing their hands, lamenting the “human cost” as Israel digs the disease that is Hamas out from underneath the civilian population that Hamas uses as unwilling human shields (which I believe is a war crime unless one agrees those civilians are willingly acting as shields in which case imo they are enemy combatants) is as far as I can tell due to a combination of short sightedness, previous lack of interest, and current day hypocrisy on their, not Israel’s, part.
I am not suggesting that Israel should provide tap water (or other supplies) to Gaza longterm. The Arab countries can do that. But it should not cut off tap water to 2 million people including civilians before setting up an arrangement with friendly Arab countries for them to provide those services instead.
But Israel _has_ been providing consumables lifelines to Gaza longterm. The Palestinian people’s international sponsors have had more than a decade to shift Gaza’s significant dependence away from Israel controlled supply lines. Problem is that Hamas is a globally denounced terrorist organisation and because the Palestinian population of Gaza insisted, or subjected itself, to living under its rule it is now paying the price for that.
The blame for Israel having the capacity to throttle Gaza’s food and water lifelines lies with the international community. The blame for Israel turning of those supply lines lies with Hamas and its sponsors (including the population of Gaza which is largely supportive of Hamas and as such in my view can’t moan amd groan about the consequences of their own actions). No amount of handwringing, lamenting the “human cost” and bringing cases to the ICC changes that.
"But Israel _has_ been providing consumables lifelines to Gaza longterm." --- I know. So now it should rearrange for Arab nations to do so now. I acknowledge that it has no obligation to do so forever.
A fair and balanced summation of the situation. I have a friend living in Israel who has an underground bunker with half a metre of steel and concrete protecting him and his family. He says they have endured years of spasmodic rocket attacks - some day several and close by. He claims Israel plays down the casualties and damage done by these attacks to convince Hamas they are not worth the cost.
Have you considered going back prior to 1948 and the partition looking at what is enmity that has endured for hundreds, even thousands of years? It is difficult to find any basis for optimism and a permanent solution.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, a number of people have raised the fair criticism that I should have covered the history prior to 1948. There are limits to what I can cover in the space of a blog post, alas. Even this one had to be divided into two parts.
Lucy Rogers writes ... "As to the method of the killings: if Qanta Ahmed said she saw beheaded children, I believe her."
Qanta Ahmed has said quite a bit about beheaded children ....Q A-" Never forget: In slaying forty babes even perhaps as – God help us – their mothers looked on, Hamas has brought God’s war against themselves, Hamas that showed unfathomable cruelty to pious souls even in their cradles. " ,,,
... what Qanta Ahmed said/wrote in that quoted sentence of hers is long dis-proven Israeli war propaganda, more specifically it was 'atrocity propaganda' ,,, literally a cynical deliberate lie that never happened,,, said and spread to justify/excuse the deliberate mass killing and imposed suffering upon tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands of children, by Israel ,,,
IDF/Israeli atrocity propaganda is particularly evil given what it's used to sell ... Qanta Ahmed may have been 'tricked' into believing that Hama's beheaded 40 babies ,, But preceding and leading onto her, 'Never forget: In slaying forty babes' falsehood,,,,,, she wrote this ....
... Q A-"The IDF goes with God. Alongside you, beside you and above you, and beneath you, within you and surrounding you My LORD is your Lord, He is your Shade, your Shelter, your Commander. You are invincible because so is Our Lord. You are victorious for He will triumph."....... amen to that say Destiny church and Brian Tamaki.
Q A- " Tonight Hamas does not know its war is with God. But soon it will be revealed. "
I also note both Lucy Rogers and her trusted source Qanta A are both big pushers of another Israel atrocity propaganda campaign, coming from the same folks who brought us those '40 beheaded babes'
and a cast of liars ,,,, "Government officials were particularly incensed that Elkayam-Levy spread discredited claims that a Hamas militant cut a fetus from a pregnant woman before raping the woman – a lie first spread by confirmed fraudster Yossi Landau of the scandal-stained ZAKA organization. “The story about the pregnant woman who had her stomach cut open – a story that was proven to be untrue, and she spread it in the international press,” " https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/25/israeli-propagandist-hamas-grifter-fraud/
The One Video Israel REALLY Doesn't Want You To See https://youtu.be/-mxfnya3ZRc?t=461 --"widespread rape has a particular resonance it's particularly triggering the Israeli government and its supporters when they justify the brutality of the subsequent bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip,, again and again and again what they always reference is babies and rape young girls who were raped and then murdered, women brutally raped and murdered little kids who are beheaded ' ....
I suspect Lucy Rogers is what the internet calls a 'concern troll' ,,,
I find it amusing that despite 'sticking it to Minto', the main reaction to her at KiwiBlog was abuse of her 'woke' language,,, and the 'concern' part of her trolling was only excused by them due to her hating on Hamas so much, and affirming what evil evil terrorists they are.
As the greatly lucky Donald Trump once said ,,,,,' You've got to go after the terrorists family's as well' ,,,,, the KiwiBlog readers and posters largely agree.... Genocidal anti-semitic pack raping Palestinians ,,, or not
My impression of you being dishonest is reinforced by you immediately using a straw-man argument in your reply ,,, "Are they part of the global Jewish conspiracy as well?" you ask this in bad faith,, as you're the only one to bring up "the global Jewish conspiracy",, and your insinuating I believe in nonsense which is no more credible than the rubbish I've quoted Qantan as saying ,,,, and yet you believe what she says.
Regarding the UN,,, "UN Commission finds no evidence for rape claims
The UN independent Commission of Inquiry reports that it sent a request for information to Israel seeking “additional information in relation to rape and other forms of sexual violence, including evidence of any instructions provided to the perpetrators responsible for the attack on 7 October 2023 to carry out such acts, or information on specific cases of gender-based crimes on 7 October 2023, including cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence.”
Not only did Israel not respond, but according to the report, investigators face “active attempts by Israeli authorities to obstruct the Commission’s access to information related to sexual violence. Such measures include instructing medical professionals not to cooperate with the Commission.”
Like other investigations, the Commission notes “the absence of forensic evidence of sexual crimes committed on 7 October.”
It also reports that it “reviewed testimonies obtained by journalists and the Israeli police concerning rape but has not been able to independently verify such allegations, due to a lack of access to victims, witnesses and crime sites and the obstruction of its investigations by the Israeli authorities.”
The Commission states emphatically that it “was also unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and genital mutilation.”
The Commission says it “viewed reports asserting that documents found on militants who were killed or arrested contain alleged instructions to undress civilians and/or commit rape or other forms of sexual violence during the attack on 7 October.”
But it reports that it was “unable to obtain copies of these documents and was unable to verify their authenticity.”
And just like the report issued in early March by Pramila Patten, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, the Commission of Inquiry debunks some of Israel’s most lurid claims." ...
Speaking of lurid claims ,,, I've never heard of a broken pelvis being the type of injury that even gang rape could or would cause,,,, I've also never even heard this claim made among the buckets of war/atrocity propaganda that Israel has slopped out and people like your 'trusted' Qantan's repeat ,,,, so given the lies that Israel has told when blaming Hamas for People the IDF themselves have killed, ie " the massacre at the Pessi Cohen house. ,,, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/how-israel-massacred-israeli-children-then-blamed-it-hamas ,,, then perhaps it was a Israeli tank that caused your broken pelvis from rape injury.
Lucy claims to want peace for Palestinians ,,,, yet links to and repeats the most lurid Israeli Atrocity propaganda regarding Hamas,,, that is used by Israel to incite support for their genocide on the Gaza Strip....
....And it backs up Lucys position that Hamas are evil Jew hating genocidal terrorists ,,,,
... all while she takes the position that Israel is not Genocidal.... which many Israel leaders themselves contradict ,,, by both their words and actions https://isitgenocide.com/
Atrocity propaganda underpins her claim for Hamas being Genocidal evil pack raping terrorists ,,,,, Dirty politics Farrar has a long and exposed history
of using dishonest smears to sway opinion,,, and he is about as (non) credible in stating the Hamas position or motivations as Lucy ,,,, or Jpost.
It appears she wants to disrupt protests supporting Palestinians that are criticizing Israels war crimes of mass civilian slaughter/murder, starvation and ethnic cleansing.
Her sign and message was a bad 'free speech 'joke ,,, Minto is probably sensible enough to ignore her as the see through pro-Israel farce that she is.
Come out of the closet Lucy ,,, shed the fake concern from your trolling,,,
Hamas are evil Jew-hating terrorists, S W H S P A.
Accusing me and Qanta Ahmed of being in cahoots sounds pretty conspiratorial to me. If that's not what you meant then of course I retract it. You're still accusing me of knowingly pushing propaganda which is also conspiratorial.
I'm not sure where any of my signs have referred to free speech per se.
There you go again ....I never said you and Qanta Ahmed were in cahoots did I ? ,,,,,
I quoted her own words, spreading the most outrageous emotive but also long dis-proven Israel atrocity propaganda,,, You yourself wrote that you believe what she says...
So you personally vouch for her honesty and credibility ,,, and you link to her spreading a pack of lies,,,
Now you can either be honest and add some corrections ,,, or you can stand by her and deny there is anything delusional or dishonest in what she posts on the internet ,,,
You could be a one-eyed clown who believes every bit of propaganda you spread ,,, but I doubt it.... anyway at present you are factually spreading propaganda.
Also you are a example of failing to shit stir, or shit on, a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest ,,,
,,,, Resulting in 'free speech' court action from a fake union that you are reportedly a member of .... "The Free Speech Union has filed a suit against the Attorney-General in the Wellington High Court on behalf of Lucy Rogers, a Union member who was wrongfully arrested last year while peacefully protesting."...
To many it would appear you were trying to disrupt, rark up, and make unpleasant a peaceful protest,,,,
Obviously if you tried to organise your own genuine stand alone counter protest,,, it would be very very small,,, wouldn't that be so Lucy ?.
************************************************
The vast majority of Hamas, be they health workers, Kindergarten teachers, soup Kitchen cooks, council workers etc etc, are obviously not "evil Jew-hating terrorists" ,,, despite Lucy stating her prejudices as fact,,, that they are all evil ...
.. Thats plainly bullshit tailored to back up her Oct 7 was a genocide garbage ,,,, You need a lot of atrocity propaganda to maintain that Zionist crap.
Some observations to finish with .... 1) Israel rapes the truth ,
,, 2) Gaza is a war-sore ghetto ..
.3) Lucy is a good DP by proxy fit at Kiwi blog,,, although I bet her Maori word count reduces in any further writing she does at dirty Davids site :)
************************
I'll finish up by saying I've wasted enough time on back and fourth with Lucy for now ,,,
I'll copy and paste up some of this exchange at TDB ,,, between her, KiwiBlog, the free speech union which is not a union , etc, etc .... it's quite topical for AoNz political blogs...
I stood silently and peacefully at a pro-Palestine protest and was assaulted and arrested by police. That is not "shitting on" anyone, nor was it disruptive. Kia pai to rā. Ma te Atua koe e manaaki.
Lets start with the premise that there are many good people in both Israel and Palestine/Gaza.
Then look at the politics.
Its the politics that caused this conflict.
While I disagree with some of the detail of your descriptions. The trend of your writing seems to be appropriate. On one point I don't agree however is with your reference/ belief in Qanta Ahmed.
First you say she is a Muslim as tho validating her opinion. She in fact stopped practicing as a Muslim in 2011 and has been an Israeli supporter for many years.(Check her Wikipedia).
Qanta says in the referenced piece
I Saw the Children Hamas Beheaded With My Own Eyes
This is blatantly untrue and pure headline theatrics. Even the Israeli s admit that no Babies were beheaded, Qanta says she arrive a few days after October 7th. So again the headline is provably incorrect.
Another point for clarification that most if not all main stream media miss is: that while HAMAS appears to be the organiser of the Attack, they were not the only participants. From Palestinian Jihad to various rogue groups the 1500-2000 (estimated) attackers were not all HAMAS. Some reports say that HAMAS were a trained military group in uniforms with a military code of conduct. Not true of the other participants.
Also you say it was an anti sematic attack. Firstly HAMAS is ant Zionist not Anti Semitic.
The HAMAS primary objectives were military, they destroyed a number of military and police positions. I have no idea who(which group) were responsible for the shootings at the festival and the other reported atrocities. Keeping in mind that a number of fatalities were caused by IDF responses.
Having been in a war zone. I can understand friendly fire incidents.
The timing and scale of the attack was a terrorist attempt to involve the world in the Palestinian situation. Not Simply an anti Semtic raid as you infer.
Trumps Abrahamt accords were close to getting Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to sign up to ""peace"" normalization agreements with Israel. Those acts would have buried the Palestinian cause.
Some large and dramatic action (and its predictable Netanyahu response) was required to bring the Palestinian problem in to world focus.
This has happened and the humanitarian disaster has resulted.
Going back to my first point.
Its the average Israeli and Palestinian who suffer while sadly politicians ""play power games""
1. Wikipedia expressly states that Qanta Ahmed still considers herself to be a Muslim, albeit of a liberal variety.
2. Ahmed said she saw the "children" beheaded with her own eyes, not the babies, so I need not explore the issue of beheaded babies. In any event I have personally seen footage and still images of murdered children and babies from October 7. The exact method of their demise is not important.
5. The October 7 massacre did serve a political goal but that does not mean that it was not an obscene act of anti-Semitic racial hatred. If Hamas (and other jihadis) had not hated Jews then October 7 would never have occurred.
Yes some young children (1-10) died, some at the hands of IDF forces.
Am a bit disappointed that you reference a magazine article (theatlantic) when life has moved on and HAMAS updated its charter in 2017. In part this was to eliminate some commenters interpretation of HAMAS anti semitic attitudes and Genocide. (Picked up by media) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter
Your comment:
If Hamas (and other jihadis) had not hated Jews then October 7 would never have occurred.
In my view this has no substance in fact.
Perhaps a more accurate statement MAY have been
If Hamas etc had not hated the Israeli administration October 7th would never have happened.
I am always open to opposing points of view as they add to my knowledge.
Debate leads learning.
In my retired I spend the majority of my time reading opposing view on major events. It is time consuming but educationally rewarding for me.
In my naivety I try to point out what I believe are unreasonable rhetoric and beliefs.
To be honest I think we're quibbling the definition of "baby" at this stage. When I watched the footage etc I saw more than one very small child murdered. I'm not particularly concerned if they were more or less than one year old. An 18-month-old child dead in a cot is close enough in my eyes.
As to the method of the killings: if Qanta Ahmed said she saw beheaded children, I believe her. I cannot read the Haaretz article as it is behind a paywall.
I do struggle to understand how gang rape, torture, immolation, etc etc by gleeful fanatics is not an act of racist hatred.
I was aware that Hamas has altered its charter. That is why I was careful to specify that I was referring to the 1988 version of its charter. Alas I nevertheless struggle to believe that Gaza has abruptly transformed into an enclave of progressivism. I quote from the same Wikipedia article you have just referenced:
While the 1988 Hamas Charter had been widely criticized for its antisemitism, the 2017 document stated that Hamas' fight was not with Jews as such because of their religion but with the Zionist project. However, Hamas fell short of repudiating the original, 1988 charter, saying it was a document of its time and the new document represented Hamas's position for now.
Views on the 2017 document varied. While some welcomed it as a sign of pragmatism and increased political maturity, and a potential step on the way to peace, many others dismissed it as a merely cosmetic effort designed to make Hamas sound more palatable while changing nothing about Hamas' underlying aims and methods.
Lucy Rogers has fallen far too far down the rabbit hole of postmodern guff, using phrases like “Terrorism recontextualised”,” It should inform our willingness to believe” and “Bias is polarising the discourse”.
I suppose that’s the defence lawyer speaking, trying to build a case acceptable to the court. But this is all mirrors looking at mirrors looking at mirrors trying to look at reality and all through a very thick fog of war. This is not an attempt to find baseline reality.
The situation is obviously bigger than just Gaza and is enormously complex. Perceptions, cultures and narratives do affect human actions, but they don’t MAKE reality.
What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force?
Well obviously, either the object will move, or the force will be resisted. Just because they are called “immovable” and “irresistible” doesn’t make them so, that will be determined by reality not by names. This also applies to names such as “Democracy” “Rights” and “Genocide”.
Getting back to the matter at hand, for at least the last 50 years, Israel has based its defence on a strategy of being the pre-eminent military force in the region, having enough power to defeat any possible combination of actual or potential enemies. All backed up and underwritten by the superior position of the American military-industrial complex.
This can’t possibly last.
It is already slipping away, like a certain conjunction of planets in the solar system, together for a brief time but now spinning away through space.
If Israel is to survive (and I’m totally agnostic on this point, I don’t believe I’m under any obligation at all, political, moral or spiritual to support Israel and a “Nation’s Right to Exist” is pure fiction) then it will need a totally new strategy.
One last point, scripture tells us,
“When a man’s ways please the LORD he will cause even his enemies to be at peace with him”
Proverbs 16:7
It’s a good piece and works even if you don’t believe that things are sorted out by an Abrahamic deity but only by the natural laws of the universe.
It also implies, by the transitive property, that if your enemies are NOT at peace with you (for example by fighting over the same patch of dusty ground for the last 75 years) then your ways have NOT pleased the Lord.
Actually, I said that some pro-Palestine supporters were seeking to recontextualise the terrorist acts of October, not that I agreed with doing so. I was sharply critical of contextualising gang rape as you can see in this very article. I quote:
October 7 was not a justified act of resistance to Israeli occupation provoked by oppression but a genocidal act of anti-Semitic racial hatred. To describe mass rape so brutal that it broke women’s pelvic bones as having “context” is utterly shameful and pro-Palestinian supporters ought to stop saying that.
Genocidal rape has no mitigating context.
As to your other points:
1. Although I consider myself leftwing I do not share a postmodern view of truth. I have a BA/LLB majoring in philosophy and I am well aware that the idea that truth is subjective is incoherent nonsense.
2. Respectfully, you are a little quick to conclude that "this is not an attempt to find baseline reality".
3. I have no idea what Israel's future holds. The collapse of support for Israel in the West does not bode well for it but the Western world is in itself collapsing. Who knows what international geopolitical dynamics will look like in 50 years?
4. What the Bible has to say about the conflict is not of particular concern to me as nothing in this article relies on religious reasoning. If your point is simply that Israel like every other nation on Earth has engaged in seriously reprehensible behaviour since 1948, well, I concur.
Ok, that's a helpful analysis of views expressed in the local scene; but will you commit yourself to any specific viewpoint? Can you show any firm convictions?
I reject the false binary that you either have to be pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. I know that human beings have a tendency to like straightforward and non-complicated narratives but I think that dividing the world into good guys and bad guys has done immense damage to truth and to the kōrero. Life is always more complex.
You share many valid thoughts and observations but I feel the need to call you out on a key one where this (pro Israeli) reader feels you misrepresent: Immediately following the genocidal belief based massacre by Hamas Israel did indeed decide to block the flow of goods and services into Gaza coming through crossings and channels it controlled. Since the Rafah crossing is an undeniable fact and it, along with many kilometers of borders leads to Egypt, you cannot however talk of a blockade and allude to genocidal motives.
Israel simply decided that “enough was enough” - despite years of upon year of rocket attacks and cross border raids from Gaza into Israel, Israel had continued to supply many of the the goods and services that Gazans (who strongly support those same Hamas militants carrying out those attacks) relied on for their day to day existence. Gazans crossed into Israel to work, to shop, to receive medical care. I for one fully supported Israel’s decision then to make the point that you “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and make Gaza Egypt’s problem (aka “Let’s see how they like that”). You can argue that this was cold hearted, cynical, cruel even (note: war is all of that - welcome to the result of your actions Hamas & co.) but not genocidal, nor borderline so.
Thanks for the comment :) I sincerely welcome constructive criticism, and appreciate the civility of your tone. If I am wrong on any point, I want to know about it.
Gaza prior to October 7 had been subject to a blockade for decades. I have written elsewhere on why that blockade was justified: https://thebluereview.substack.com/p/why-liam-hehir-is-an-idiot-part-2
The longstanding blockade prior to October 7 means that Gaza was dependent on Israel for food, water and other essential supplies in a way that most nations are not dependent on another. It is not the equivalent of (say) England being required to provide aid to Germany during World War 2 which would be absurd. But the circumstances here are different. Israel had imposed a blockade of Gaza for many years meaning that Gaza was dependent on Israel for food and water. Although that blockade was in my view justified, the other side of the coin is that in wartime it is therefore wrong to immediately cut off all food and water to a civilian population without organising alternative means of getting aid into Gaza, given that Gaza has come to be dependent on Israel for these necessities.
That is regardless of whether there was a crossing which was not controlled by Israel, given that the complete cutoff of food and water to Gaza in the crossings which Israel did control was going to result in starvation. Rafah was ill-equipped for vast amounts of aid to suddenly be transported through it as it was ordinarily simply a pedestrian crossing, and for much of the duration of the closure of Israel's crossings (which was mercifully short) no humanitarian aid at all went through Rafah: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/egypt-rafah-crossing-gaza-palestinians-mime-intl/index.html
Edit: I should add that (for example) Israel controlled Gaza's tap water, which was entirely cut off for a period. Quite apart from the crossings being closed cutting off running water to civilians is morally wrong.
By the way, I did not myself accuse Israel of "genocide". I said that Israel was perceived as committing genocide by its critics, and explained why.
Thanks Lucy - I appreciate your effort trying to enlighten me (and you do).
Despite the case(s) you present I still keep coming back to the fact that the Rafah crossing is with Egypt and that Gaza is not wholly surrounded (by land) by Israel. Unless there was/is an undertaking by Egypt to Israel that it will not provide (internationally funded no doubt) food and water supply infrastructure to Gaza to ensure Gaza remains at Israel’s mercy ( I am unaware of one but I am unaware of many things) I have no problem with Israel cutting Gaza off like it did (and has) for the reasons it did last year (and has in the past) while the Gaza regime (and majority of its population) are hell bent on Israel’s total annihilation and openly have been for decades. Back to : Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
I know the history behind this is a minefield - emotional and complex with lots of finger pointing and heartache on both sides - but at some point it comes down to having to cut through all that and make the tough decisions when you’re back is slowly but surely being forced to the wall as Israel’s has been once again for the past decade (Syria, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon) .
The Levant will never be a peaceful Garden of Eden - it never has been - and Israel is fighting for its very existence once again, preemptively neutralising a major threat, embedded like a tick, on one highly vulnerable flank before the rockets and tanks start coming over its borders from multiple other directions.
So I say - Let the Arab nations step up and feed and water the Gazans : The fact that the world has grown to expect one state to keep the taps running and the foodshelves stocked of a neighbouring state that is its arch enemy and just can’t help itself when it comes to committing atrocities against Israeli civilians month after month after month is a failure on the part of ever country but Israel of monumental proportions.
The fact that those same countries are now wringing their hands, lamenting the “human cost” as Israel digs the disease that is Hamas out from underneath the civilian population that Hamas uses as unwilling human shields (which I believe is a war crime unless one agrees those civilians are willingly acting as shields in which case imo they are enemy combatants) is as far as I can tell due to a combination of short sightedness, previous lack of interest, and current day hypocrisy on their, not Israel’s, part.
I am not suggesting that Israel should provide tap water (or other supplies) to Gaza longterm. The Arab countries can do that. But it should not cut off tap water to 2 million people including civilians before setting up an arrangement with friendly Arab countries for them to provide those services instead.
But Israel _has_ been providing consumables lifelines to Gaza longterm. The Palestinian people’s international sponsors have had more than a decade to shift Gaza’s significant dependence away from Israel controlled supply lines. Problem is that Hamas is a globally denounced terrorist organisation and because the Palestinian population of Gaza insisted, or subjected itself, to living under its rule it is now paying the price for that.
The blame for Israel having the capacity to throttle Gaza’s food and water lifelines lies with the international community. The blame for Israel turning of those supply lines lies with Hamas and its sponsors (including the population of Gaza which is largely supportive of Hamas and as such in my view can’t moan amd groan about the consequences of their own actions). No amount of handwringing, lamenting the “human cost” and bringing cases to the ICC changes that.
"But Israel _has_ been providing consumables lifelines to Gaza longterm." --- I know. So now it should rearrange for Arab nations to do so now. I acknowledge that it has no obligation to do so forever.
A fair and balanced summation of the situation. I have a friend living in Israel who has an underground bunker with half a metre of steel and concrete protecting him and his family. He says they have endured years of spasmodic rocket attacks - some day several and close by. He claims Israel plays down the casualties and damage done by these attacks to convince Hamas they are not worth the cost.
Have you considered going back prior to 1948 and the partition looking at what is enmity that has endured for hundreds, even thousands of years? It is difficult to find any basis for optimism and a permanent solution.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, a number of people have raised the fair criticism that I should have covered the history prior to 1948. There are limits to what I can cover in the space of a blog post, alas. Even this one had to be divided into two parts.
Lucy Rogers writes ... "As to the method of the killings: if Qanta Ahmed said she saw beheaded children, I believe her."
Qanta Ahmed has said quite a bit about beheaded children ....Q A-" Never forget: In slaying forty babes even perhaps as – God help us – their mothers looked on, Hamas has brought God’s war against themselves, Hamas that showed unfathomable cruelty to pious souls even in their cradles. " ,,,
... what Qanta Ahmed said/wrote in that quoted sentence of hers is long dis-proven Israeli war propaganda, more specifically it was 'atrocity propaganda' ,,, literally a cynical deliberate lie that never happened,,, said and spread to justify/excuse the deliberate mass killing and imposed suffering upon tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands of children, by Israel ,,,
IDF/Israeli atrocity propaganda is particularly evil given what it's used to sell ... Qanta Ahmed may have been 'tricked' into believing that Hama's beheaded 40 babies ,, But preceding and leading onto her, 'Never forget: In slaying forty babes' falsehood,,,,,, she wrote this ....
... Q A-"The IDF goes with God. Alongside you, beside you and above you, and beneath you, within you and surrounding you My LORD is your Lord, He is your Shade, your Shelter, your Commander. You are invincible because so is Our Lord. You are victorious for He will triumph."....... amen to that say Destiny church and Brian Tamaki.
Q A- " Tonight Hamas does not know its war is with God. But soon it will be revealed. "
I also note both Lucy Rogers and her trusted source Qanta A are both big pushers of another Israel atrocity propaganda campaign, coming from the same folks who brought us those '40 beheaded babes'
The mass rape fraud,,, uncorroborated would be putting it kindly,,, considering Israels blocking of independent investigations ,,, along with 'confessions' obtained under torture, ,,, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/white-house-screen-palestinian-torture-confessions-push-mass-rape-lie
and a cast of liars ,,,, "Government officials were particularly incensed that Elkayam-Levy spread discredited claims that a Hamas militant cut a fetus from a pregnant woman before raping the woman – a lie first spread by confirmed fraudster Yossi Landau of the scandal-stained ZAKA organization. “The story about the pregnant woman who had her stomach cut open – a story that was proven to be untrue, and she spread it in the international press,” " https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/25/israeli-propagandist-hamas-grifter-fraud/
The One Video Israel REALLY Doesn't Want You To See https://youtu.be/-mxfnya3ZRc?t=461 --"widespread rape has a particular resonance it's particularly triggering the Israeli government and its supporters when they justify the brutality of the subsequent bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip,, again and again and again what they always reference is babies and rape young girls who were raped and then murdered, women brutally raped and murdered little kids who are beheaded ' ....
I suspect Lucy Rogers is what the internet calls a 'concern troll' ,,,
I find it amusing that despite 'sticking it to Minto', the main reaction to her at KiwiBlog was abuse of her 'woke' language,,, and the 'concern' part of her trolling was only excused by them due to her hating on Hamas so much, and affirming what evil evil terrorists they are.
As the greatly lucky Donald Trump once said ,,,,,' You've got to go after the terrorists family's as well' ,,,,, the KiwiBlog readers and posters largely agree.... Genocidal anti-semitic pack raping Palestinians ,,, or not
https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/truth-about-october-7-filmmaker-richard-sanders-discusses-his-al-jazeera-film-peter-oborne
https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/gaza-war-lies-genocide-al-jazeera-shown-how
It's like I've touched a nerve.
A UN report said Israeli women were raped on October 7. Are they part of the global Jewish conspiracy as well?
My impression of you being dishonest is reinforced by you immediately using a straw-man argument in your reply ,,, "Are they part of the global Jewish conspiracy as well?" you ask this in bad faith,, as you're the only one to bring up "the global Jewish conspiracy",, and your insinuating I believe in nonsense which is no more credible than the rubbish I've quoted Qantan as saying ,,,, and yet you believe what she says.
Regarding the UN,,, "UN Commission finds no evidence for rape claims
The UN independent Commission of Inquiry reports that it sent a request for information to Israel seeking “additional information in relation to rape and other forms of sexual violence, including evidence of any instructions provided to the perpetrators responsible for the attack on 7 October 2023 to carry out such acts, or information on specific cases of gender-based crimes on 7 October 2023, including cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence.”
Not only did Israel not respond, but according to the report, investigators face “active attempts by Israeli authorities to obstruct the Commission’s access to information related to sexual violence. Such measures include instructing medical professionals not to cooperate with the Commission.”
Like other investigations, the Commission notes “the absence of forensic evidence of sexual crimes committed on 7 October.”
It also reports that it “reviewed testimonies obtained by journalists and the Israeli police concerning rape but has not been able to independently verify such allegations, due to a lack of access to victims, witnesses and crime sites and the obstruction of its investigations by the Israeli authorities.”
The Commission states emphatically that it “was also unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and genital mutilation.”
The Commission says it “viewed reports asserting that documents found on militants who were killed or arrested contain alleged instructions to undress civilians and/or commit rape or other forms of sexual violence during the attack on 7 October.”
But it reports that it was “unable to obtain copies of these documents and was unable to verify their authenticity.”
And just like the report issued in early March by Pramila Patten, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, the Commission of Inquiry debunks some of Israel’s most lurid claims." ...
"The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor, who is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Palestinian leaders, accusing them of various war crimes and crimes against humanity, also found no evidence to support the mass rape narrative, as indicated by court documents." https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/white-house-screen-palestinian-torture-confessions-push-mass-rape-lie
Speaking of lurid claims ,,, I've never heard of a broken pelvis being the type of injury that even gang rape could or would cause,,,, I've also never even heard this claim made among the buckets of war/atrocity propaganda that Israel has slopped out and people like your 'trusted' Qantan's repeat ,,,, so given the lies that Israel has told when blaming Hamas for People the IDF themselves have killed, ie " the massacre at the Pessi Cohen house. ,,, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/how-israel-massacred-israeli-children-then-blamed-it-hamas ,,, then perhaps it was a Israeli tank that caused your broken pelvis from rape injury.
Lucy claims to want peace for Palestinians ,,,, yet links to and repeats the most lurid Israeli Atrocity propaganda regarding Hamas,,, that is used by Israel to incite support for their genocide on the Gaza Strip....
....And it backs up Lucys position that Hamas are evil Jew hating genocidal terrorists ,,,,
... all while she takes the position that Israel is not Genocidal.... which many Israel leaders themselves contradict ,,, by both their words and actions https://isitgenocide.com/
Atrocity propaganda underpins her claim for Hamas being Genocidal evil pack raping terrorists ,,,,, Dirty politics Farrar has a long and exposed history
of using dishonest smears to sway opinion,,, and he is about as (non) credible in stating the Hamas position or motivations as Lucy ,,,, or Jpost.
It appears she wants to disrupt protests supporting Palestinians that are criticizing Israels war crimes of mass civilian slaughter/murder, starvation and ethnic cleansing.
Her sign and message was a bad 'free speech 'joke ,,, Minto is probably sensible enough to ignore her as the see through pro-Israel farce that she is.
Come out of the closet Lucy ,,, shed the fake concern from your trolling,,,
Hamas are evil Jew-hating terrorists, S W H S P A.
Accusing me and Qanta Ahmed of being in cahoots sounds pretty conspiratorial to me. If that's not what you meant then of course I retract it. You're still accusing me of knowingly pushing propaganda which is also conspiratorial.
I'm not sure where any of my signs have referred to free speech per se.
There you go again ....I never said you and Qanta Ahmed were in cahoots did I ? ,,,,,
I quoted her own words, spreading the most outrageous emotive but also long dis-proven Israel atrocity propaganda,,, You yourself wrote that you believe what she says...
So you personally vouch for her honesty and credibility ,,, and you link to her spreading a pack of lies,,,
Now you can either be honest and add some corrections ,,, or you can stand by her and deny there is anything delusional or dishonest in what she posts on the internet ,,,
You could be a one-eyed clown who believes every bit of propaganda you spread ,,, but I doubt it.... anyway at present you are factually spreading propaganda.
Also you are a example of failing to shit stir, or shit on, a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest ,,,
,,,, Resulting in 'free speech' court action from a fake union that you are reportedly a member of .... "The Free Speech Union has filed a suit against the Attorney-General in the Wellington High Court on behalf of Lucy Rogers, a Union member who was wrongfully arrested last year while peacefully protesting."...
To many it would appear you were trying to disrupt, rark up, and make unpleasant a peaceful protest,,,,
Obviously if you tried to organise your own genuine stand alone counter protest,,, it would be very very small,,, wouldn't that be so Lucy ?.
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The vast majority of Hamas, be they health workers, Kindergarten teachers, soup Kitchen cooks, council workers etc etc, are obviously not "evil Jew-hating terrorists" ,,, despite Lucy stating her prejudices as fact,,, that they are all evil ...
.. Thats plainly bullshit tailored to back up her Oct 7 was a genocide garbage ,,,, You need a lot of atrocity propaganda to maintain that Zionist crap.
Some observations to finish with .... 1) Israel rapes the truth ,
,, 2) Gaza is a war-sore ghetto ..
.3) Lucy is a good DP by proxy fit at Kiwi blog,,, although I bet her Maori word count reduces in any further writing she does at dirty Davids site :)
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I'll finish up by saying I've wasted enough time on back and fourth with Lucy for now ,,,
I'll copy and paste up some of this exchange at TDB ,,, between her, KiwiBlog, the free speech union which is not a union , etc, etc .... it's quite topical for AoNz political blogs...
What will the punters
I stood silently and peacefully at a pro-Palestine protest and was assaulted and arrested by police. That is not "shitting on" anyone, nor was it disruptive. Kia pai to rā. Ma te Atua koe e manaaki.
Criticism for speaking Te Reo bounces off, by the way. I'm not hoha (bothered).
Lets start with the premise that there are many good people in both Israel and Palestine/Gaza.
Then look at the politics.
Its the politics that caused this conflict.
While I disagree with some of the detail of your descriptions. The trend of your writing seems to be appropriate. On one point I don't agree however is with your reference/ belief in Qanta Ahmed.
First you say she is a Muslim as tho validating her opinion. She in fact stopped practicing as a Muslim in 2011 and has been an Israeli supporter for many years.(Check her Wikipedia).
Qanta says in the referenced piece
I Saw the Children Hamas Beheaded With My Own Eyes
This is blatantly untrue and pure headline theatrics. Even the Israeli s admit that no Babies were beheaded, Qanta says she arrive a few days after October 7th. So again the headline is provably incorrect.
Another point for clarification that most if not all main stream media miss is: that while HAMAS appears to be the organiser of the Attack, they were not the only participants. From Palestinian Jihad to various rogue groups the 1500-2000 (estimated) attackers were not all HAMAS. Some reports say that HAMAS were a trained military group in uniforms with a military code of conduct. Not true of the other participants.
Also you say it was an anti sematic attack. Firstly HAMAS is ant Zionist not Anti Semitic.
The HAMAS primary objectives were military, they destroyed a number of military and police positions. I have no idea who(which group) were responsible for the shootings at the festival and the other reported atrocities. Keeping in mind that a number of fatalities were caused by IDF responses.
Having been in a war zone. I can understand friendly fire incidents.
The timing and scale of the attack was a terrorist attempt to involve the world in the Palestinian situation. Not Simply an anti Semtic raid as you infer.
Trumps Abrahamt accords were close to getting Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to sign up to ""peace"" normalization agreements with Israel. Those acts would have buried the Palestinian cause.
Some large and dramatic action (and its predictable Netanyahu response) was required to bring the Palestinian problem in to world focus.
This has happened and the humanitarian disaster has resulted.
Going back to my first point.
Its the average Israeli and Palestinian who suffer while sadly politicians ""play power games""
1. Wikipedia expressly states that Qanta Ahmed still considers herself to be a Muslim, albeit of a liberal variety.
2. Ahmed said she saw the "children" beheaded with her own eyes, not the babies, so I need not explore the issue of beheaded babies. In any event I have personally seen footage and still images of murdered children and babies from October 7. The exact method of their demise is not important.
3. Genocide is expressly written into the 1988 Hamas charter: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/what-would-hamas-do-if-it-could-do-whatever-it-wanted/375545/ I think it is hard to deny that it is anti-Semitic.
4. A UN report confirms that on the facts both hostages and victims of October 7 were raped: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/4/reasonable-grounds-to-believe-hamas-committed-sexual-violence-un
5. The October 7 massacre did serve a political goal but that does not mean that it was not an obscene act of anti-Semitic racial hatred. If Hamas (and other jihadis) had not hated Jews then October 7 would never have occurred.
I stand corrected. I should have said no children were beheaded. Not no babies were beheaded.
There was one baby shot by the attackers.
Haaretz has done a great job of listing all those on the Israeli side who have died from and including the 7th of October attacks.
https://www.haaretz.com/haaretz-explains/2023-10-19/ty-article-magazine/israels-dead-the-names-of-those-killed-in-hamas-massacres-and-the-israel-hamas-war/0000018b-325c-d450-a3af-7b5cf0210000
Yes some young children (1-10) died, some at the hands of IDF forces.
Am a bit disappointed that you reference a magazine article (theatlantic) when life has moved on and HAMAS updated its charter in 2017. In part this was to eliminate some commenters interpretation of HAMAS anti semitic attitudes and Genocide. (Picked up by media) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter
Your comment:
If Hamas (and other jihadis) had not hated Jews then October 7 would never have occurred.
In my view this has no substance in fact.
Perhaps a more accurate statement MAY have been
If Hamas etc had not hated the Israeli administration October 7th would never have happened.
I am always open to opposing points of view as they add to my knowledge.
Debate leads learning.
In my retired I spend the majority of my time reading opposing view on major events. It is time consuming but educationally rewarding for me.
In my naivety I try to point out what I believe are unreasonable rhetoric and beliefs.
Thank you for your article and response.
Thank you for your replies.
To be honest I think we're quibbling the definition of "baby" at this stage. When I watched the footage etc I saw more than one very small child murdered. I'm not particularly concerned if they were more or less than one year old. An 18-month-old child dead in a cot is close enough in my eyes.
As to the method of the killings: if Qanta Ahmed said she saw beheaded children, I believe her. I cannot read the Haaretz article as it is behind a paywall.
I do struggle to understand how gang rape, torture, immolation, etc etc by gleeful fanatics is not an act of racist hatred.
I was aware that Hamas has altered its charter. That is why I was careful to specify that I was referring to the 1988 version of its charter. Alas I nevertheless struggle to believe that Gaza has abruptly transformed into an enclave of progressivism. I quote from the same Wikipedia article you have just referenced:
While the 1988 Hamas Charter had been widely criticized for its antisemitism, the 2017 document stated that Hamas' fight was not with Jews as such because of their religion but with the Zionist project. However, Hamas fell short of repudiating the original, 1988 charter, saying it was a document of its time and the new document represented Hamas's position for now.
Views on the 2017 document varied. While some welcomed it as a sign of pragmatism and increased political maturity, and a potential step on the way to peace, many others dismissed it as a merely cosmetic effort designed to make Hamas sound more palatable while changing nothing about Hamas' underlying aims and methods.
Lucy Rogers has fallen far too far down the rabbit hole of postmodern guff, using phrases like “Terrorism recontextualised”,” It should inform our willingness to believe” and “Bias is polarising the discourse”.
I suppose that’s the defence lawyer speaking, trying to build a case acceptable to the court. But this is all mirrors looking at mirrors looking at mirrors trying to look at reality and all through a very thick fog of war. This is not an attempt to find baseline reality.
The situation is obviously bigger than just Gaza and is enormously complex. Perceptions, cultures and narratives do affect human actions, but they don’t MAKE reality.
What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force?
Well obviously, either the object will move, or the force will be resisted. Just because they are called “immovable” and “irresistible” doesn’t make them so, that will be determined by reality not by names. This also applies to names such as “Democracy” “Rights” and “Genocide”.
Getting back to the matter at hand, for at least the last 50 years, Israel has based its defence on a strategy of being the pre-eminent military force in the region, having enough power to defeat any possible combination of actual or potential enemies. All backed up and underwritten by the superior position of the American military-industrial complex.
This can’t possibly last.
It is already slipping away, like a certain conjunction of planets in the solar system, together for a brief time but now spinning away through space.
If Israel is to survive (and I’m totally agnostic on this point, I don’t believe I’m under any obligation at all, political, moral or spiritual to support Israel and a “Nation’s Right to Exist” is pure fiction) then it will need a totally new strategy.
One last point, scripture tells us,
“When a man’s ways please the LORD he will cause even his enemies to be at peace with him”
Proverbs 16:7
It’s a good piece and works even if you don’t believe that things are sorted out by an Abrahamic deity but only by the natural laws of the universe.
It also implies, by the transitive property, that if your enemies are NOT at peace with you (for example by fighting over the same patch of dusty ground for the last 75 years) then your ways have NOT pleased the Lord.
Ironic, no?
Actually, I said that some pro-Palestine supporters were seeking to recontextualise the terrorist acts of October, not that I agreed with doing so. I was sharply critical of contextualising gang rape as you can see in this very article. I quote:
October 7 was not a justified act of resistance to Israeli occupation provoked by oppression but a genocidal act of anti-Semitic racial hatred. To describe mass rape so brutal that it broke women’s pelvic bones as having “context” is utterly shameful and pro-Palestinian supporters ought to stop saying that.
Genocidal rape has no mitigating context.
As to your other points:
1. Although I consider myself leftwing I do not share a postmodern view of truth. I have a BA/LLB majoring in philosophy and I am well aware that the idea that truth is subjective is incoherent nonsense.
2. Respectfully, you are a little quick to conclude that "this is not an attempt to find baseline reality".
3. I have no idea what Israel's future holds. The collapse of support for Israel in the West does not bode well for it but the Western world is in itself collapsing. Who knows what international geopolitical dynamics will look like in 50 years?
4. What the Bible has to say about the conflict is not of particular concern to me as nothing in this article relies on religious reasoning. If your point is simply that Israel like every other nation on Earth has engaged in seriously reprehensible behaviour since 1948, well, I concur.
Ok, that's a helpful analysis of views expressed in the local scene; but will you commit yourself to any specific viewpoint? Can you show any firm convictions?
I reject the false binary that you either have to be pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. I know that human beings have a tendency to like straightforward and non-complicated narratives but I think that dividing the world into good guys and bad guys has done immense damage to truth and to the kōrero. Life is always more complex.
As for firm convictions, I was arrested for silently and peacefully protesting the bias and one-sidedness of a pro-Palestine protest and refusing to leave when ordered to be a police officer: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-lawyer-arrested-at-pro-palestine-protest-lucy-rogers-claims-police-misused-power/AMN2QZVPX5DJ5KE44KNX7AUCGQ/ I have plenty of strong beliefs (I would not have risked arrest otherwise) but often those beliefs are a strongly held view that an issue is not straightforward.
Why should she?