More tut-tut-ery in Gaza

Fighters of the 13th Fleet, underground activity and achievements that cannot yet be talked about: a snapshot from Rafah
16.6.2024 / 20:00

For more than 20 years, Hamas has built smuggling tunnels, hiding places and command centers in the Raffia area. Now, Division 162 deprives the Raffia brigade in the city of all its capabilities. While more than 500 terrorists were eliminated and 100 significant tunnel shafts were located, security officials say: "This is a tough fight that has no equal in the world"

Despite the hard fighting and the heavy cost to the lives of fighters , sources in the defense system say that the fighting in Raffia led to achievements that will serve Israel well in the future. "Division 162 does an excellent job in complex spaces. The activity brings achievements that cannot be talked about yet." Among the units operating in the area, the 13th Fleet also participates in the intense fighting in Raffia.

According to the security sources, Division 162 operates in Raffia with the aim of dismantling infrastructure that Hamas has built for more than 20 years. The same infrastructures are not only used to smuggle weapons and raw materials into the Strip, but also for more advanced military purposes such as storing weapons, hiding places and command and control centers of the Raffia Brigade. By the end of the maneuver, the 162nd Division must dismantle the Raffia Brigade of all its assets, and kill most of its operatives.

 

I'm wrong. According to wiki, it's "Filistin". But with an "F". You'll find the same thing on Mandate coins.

Prior to WWI, the area was part of Ottoman Syria so if there was no "Palestine" there was also no "Israel".

As for Lerner, that's what the "ignore" tag is for. Who needs it.

 

Certainly the UN, utterly worthless but legitimate for all that, adopted a partition plan in 1948 that explicitly recognized the existence of Palestinian Arabs. They didn’t pretend (as we did in the 1900s) that the territory was empty.

 

Until the late 19th century, the term Palestinian was used as a regional term.

Residents living in the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean identified themselves primarily in terms of religion: Muslims felt far stronger bonds with remote co-religionists than with nearby Jews and Christians. Living in that area did not imply any sense of common political purpose or sense of discrete peoplehood or nationhood.

An identity as a people is one precursor to nationhood. And nationhood is the presence of common identity together with the three key elements of sovereignty, self-determination and self-sufficiency.

The “Palestinians” have never had this, and they still don’t have it. The concept that such a people exists is being forced on the world to achieve a base political goal.
In actual fact, the deliberate creation of the “Palestinian people” as a discrete entity in 1967, and the political group known as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964 was for the political purpose of destroying a sovereign and legally mandated Jewish state.

Till that point in time, nor, it will be shown, after that time, was there ever ANY sense or mention of a “Palestinian” people or nation.

The term Palestinian was ALWAYS followed by a descriptive noun – Arab; ie Palestinian Arab.

According to Palestinian historian Muhammad Y. Muslih, during the entire 400 year period of Ottoman rule (1517-1918), before the British set up the 30-year-long Palestine Mandate, “There was no political unit known as Palestine.”

On a related tangent, in 1948, the invasion of Israel by 6 pan-Arab armies had NOTHING to do with creating an Arab Palestinian state but ALL to do with a classic imperialist Muslim scramble for Palestinian territory. Had they succeeded, as the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdel Rahman Azzam, admitted to a British reporter, Transjordan “was to swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the Negev. The Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to Lebanon.”

Had Israel lost the war, its territory would have been divided among the invading Arab forces. The name Palestine would have vanished into the dustbin of history.

So, are the “Palestinians” an invented people for purely political purposes?


Well, even Mandate Palestinian Arab leaders during the British mandate era (1920-48) who, as products of the Ottoman imperial system where religion constituted the linchpin of the socio-political order of things, had no real grasp of the phenomenon of nationalism. Hence, they had no interest in the evolution of a distinct Palestinian nation, or acknowledging a Palestinian “people”, because there simply wasn’t one.

As an example that there was no concept of “Palestinian” nationhood or peoplehood, the April 1920 pogrom in Jerusalem was not in the name of independence of the “Palestinian people” of the Mandate area, but under the demand for its incorporation into the (short-lived) Syrian kingdom, headed by Faisal ibn Hussein of Mecca….

In 1926, the Arab Executive Committee still referred to Palestine as the unlawfully severed southern part of “the one country of Syria, with its one population of the same language, origin, customs, and religious beliefs (emphasis mine), and its natural boundaries, as I pointed out earlier.

In July 1937, the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) justified its rejection of the Peel Commission’s recommendation for the partition of Palestine on the grounds that “this country does not belong only to [the] Palestine Arabs (that qualifying noun again….) but to the whole Arab and Muslim Worlds (emphasis mine).”

And finally, as late as August 1947, three months before the passing of the U.N. resolution partitioning Mandate Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, the AHC’s mouthpiece, al-Wahda, advocated the incorporation of Palestine (and Transjordan) into “Greater Syria (emphasis mine).”

No, there was no concept of a “Palestinian people” but rather, always one of Palestinian Arabs who were part of the wider Arab Muslim ummah.

How did they then suddenly appear as homogeneous ethnic group in 1967 when not even the Arab High Commission had ever heard of them?

There are undereducated misconceptions too that pan-Arabism was of no consequence in the dialogue surrounding the authenticity of the “Palestinian” “people”. This is untrue.

Even the younger generation of post 1948 Arab activists supported this ideal as evidenced by Ahmad Shuqeiri, a Lebanon-born politician of mixed Egyptian, Hijazi, and Turkish descent who served as the Arab League’s deputy secretary-general. As he put it, “Palestine is part and parcel in the Arab homeland.”

Asked to clarify which part of the “Arab homeland” this specific territory belonged, he added that Palestine “is nothing but southern Syria.”

And so, it is no surprise that Yasser Arafat, the (Egyptian born and educated) father of the “Palestinian people” followed this pan-Arab line. The 1964 PLO charter defined the Palestinians as “an integral part of the Arab nation”, rather than a distinct nationality (emphasis mine) and vowed allegiance to the ideal of pan-Arab unity – that is, to Palestine’s eventual assimilation into “the greater Arab homeland.”

In 1996, even that bastion which proclaims itself as the leader in the “struggle” for the Palestinian “people”, Hamas, said this, “Islamic and traditional views reject the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state … In the past, there was no independent Palestinian state. … [Hence] our main goal is to establish a great Islamic state, be it pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic… This…land…is not the property of the Palestinians…. This land is the property of all Muslims in all parts of the world.” (senior Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar, 1996)

And finally, on this line of reasoning, it is not possible to go past the words of Azmi Bishara, founding leader of the nationalist Balad Party (with seats in the Israeli parliament since 1999). In a statement he made in 2002 he said: “My Palestinian identity never precedes my Arab identity…. I don’t think there is a Palestinian nation, there is [only] an Arab nation…. “

Arguably, the international community’s enabling and legitimizing of the wishes of a group of people with such an open hatred of a neighbouring sovereign state of Israel may be down to simple things: Oil, wilful naiveté, anti-semitism, and a politically correct unwillingness to offer any challenge to such falsehoods.

In the end though, it matters little. The modern re-constituted Jewish State of Israel and the Jewish people are celebrating 74 years of existence as contributing members of the family of nations; without the need to revise, falsify or fabricate its 3000 year old history.

The same cannot be said for the Palestinian “people”.

 

Well, okay, "legitimate" in the sense that most countries participate as members. Otherwise, I agree. I'd drown the UN in the bathtub if I could.

Perhaps I should have written "recognized".

 

Now to be fair, this is not Lerner's invention. He posted a video (in another thread IIRC) that was repeating the same things about the Palestinian people that he's been saying. They were far right-wing Israeli radicals talking about it being impossible for there to be genocide in Gaza. That is because for it to be genocide it had to be directed at a known group and the folks in Gaza are not a known group. So wiping them all out wouldn't be genocide.

 

Yeah...so all those dead bodies aren't really there? All those destroyed buildings are a figment of our fevered brains? Refugees are really kids selling Girl Scout cookies?

An Arab community exists in the Gaza Strip with its own identity different from communities in the surrounding area. Destroying that community is genocide.

Now whether military necessity is a defense we don't know yet and probably won't know until after the war. Hamas is still fighting hard. How much Israeli force is necessary to defeat Hamas and how much is directed to eradication isn't easy to say. But statements and actions by the current Israeli Government are consistent with their using the Hamas terrorist attack as an opportunity to destroy the Gazan Arab community outright.

 

Gaza attacked Israel multiple times, if they can't live in peace with Israel, then Israel can't be attacked all the time.
Gaza is shooting rockets to destroy Soutern Israel, Jews, Beduins they don't care.
Gaza had an oportunity to become striving economy.
They choose to become death cult.
Gaza can have great life ,just like Israeli Arabs.
Gaza should become Israel.
Since it can't coexist in peace and attacking Israel.
Also 300,000 Gazans migrated to Turkey, and other places, Canada is willing to accept. Not forceful but volunteer relocation with Quatari will fund, since they have billions to spend on tunnels, rocket manufacturing and other terror funding.
Each entity that attack Israel should have consicquences for it.

Nazareth has long history and triving comunity, Israel is not destroying it because it's Arabic.
So is for any peaceful city, entity that is peaceful.
Any one who attacked Israel and threatening it security, wanting to murder Israelis will loose their land until they can live in peace.

 

Okay I’m not saying the UN isn’t worse-than-useless but it does have some positives. It gives us something to talk about and there was that priceless incident where Trump was addressing the UN body. He was bragging about what a great President he was and the crowd burst out laughing. Trump was obviously expecting applause and cheers. PRICELESS

 

Trust me. Trump HEARD applause and cheers, if only after the fact.

 

I agree, maybe I should use other Arab city in Israel.
Peace is responded with peace.
That's the point.
I hope there will be reasonable diplomatic solution to stop the war.
But everything is pointing to war with Lebanon and Iran.

 

Raz Segal is an Israeli historian residing in the United States who is Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University, where he also directs the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies program. He has stated that what is occurring in Gaza is genocide. Which, of course, caused much upset in Israel.

This recent attempt by the IDF to pause fighting to allow more humanitarian aid in is encouraging. We will see. The far right-wing of the Israeli government is upset about it. They just want genocide to progress as quickly as possible. Unfortunately that is what is causing all the bad publicity and growing upset around the world against Israel. They were at their peak of world popularity and positive reputation on October 7 but the horrible leader Netanyahu has squandered it all.

 

There is no Genoside in Gaza.
Never was one.
So yes, humanitarian aid is welcomed, even if it's stollen by Hamas because IDF is moral army and aiming at hostile combatants not the civilians.

Israwl plans to complete Raffia stage in a week or so.
The right don't want geneside of Gazans.
They don't want hostile terrorists constantly attacking Israel.

The divisions and infighting in what is now narrow coalition picked today.
This may lead to coalition falling apart and early elections.

 

He is indirectly serves the efforts of Hamas and all those who are against Israel, obviously Raz Segal is wrong.
Maybe if he lived in Sderod he would have been more objective.

 

Raz Segel is one of the world's top experts on genocide. He knows what he's talking about. He is most definitely not serving the interests of Hamas. He's a Jewish Israeli. He's well aware of what Hamas is. His opinion should not be automatically discarded. All criticism of Israel shouldn't be viewed as serving Hamas.

 

Raz, also, may suggest Israel to capitulate to Hamas and let the Arabs take all the land of Israel?
When the US was attacked on 9/11 it took the war to the enemies and fought al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
When Israelis defends his country his people, his home against the enemy, this academic only makes it worse. He supplies amo to the haters of Israel. And he is wrong, entangled in traps.
Israel was attacked in the most horrible way, the border cities were harassed by Gaza terrorists often. Israel has no choice but to provide security to the Southern And Central of the country.
Late, yes, should have done it years ago, yes.
But now they have no choice.
Hamas is not releasing the remaining hostages, Hamas is still able even if wounded.