Our Revolution Cambridge calls for a permanent cease-fire
Our Revolution Cambridge is horrified and heartbroken by the recent violence in Palestine/Israel. Our thoughts are with all of the innocent victims affected, and we condemn all forms of violence against civilians, without reservation: Israeli’s 50-plus years of occupation and apartheid regime in Israel and the Occupied Territories, Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, and Israel’s genocidal attacks against the civilian population of Gaza that have killed more than 14,800 Palestinians.
First, we welcome recent news of a temporary pause in the violence, which will help allow for the provision of humanitarian aid to the nearly 1.6 million internally displaced residents of Gaza and the return of some of the Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. We, however, recognize that Israel’s top ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defensive minister Yoav Gallant and foreign minister Eli Cohen, have committed to renewing the violence after the pause. Therefore the top priority must be enacting a permanent cease-fire and the continued provision of substantial humanitarian aid to residents of Gaza who have been undergoing immeasurable human suffering. Of the more than 14,800 Gazans who have been killed, two-thirds are women and children. At least 45 percent of the housing stock in Gaza has been destroyed or extremely damaged. Access to food, water, electricity, health care and fuel has been either extremely limited or nonexistent. Israel’s actions that have led to this humanitarian catastrophe are a clear example of collective punishment and a war crime.
In addition to an immediate cease-fire, we also call for the unconditional release of the more than 200 civilian hostages taken by Hamas, the taking of which is a clear war crime, and the unconditional release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners, many held without charge, by Israel. Our thoughts are with all families whose loved ones’ whereabouts are unknown and whose grief and pain are unimaginable.
We note that our call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and the release of hostages is not alone. It is the call of the United Nations General Assembly and the call of hundreds if not thousands of human rights organizations across the globe, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Unicef, United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, World Health Organization, World Food Programme, Save the Children, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, Rabbis for Human Rights, Norwegian Refugee Council, International Federation for Human Rights and many, many more.
Second, while a permanent cease-fire is the most urgent step, we also urge all parties to recognize that the status quo cannot be maintained. We call for an immediate end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and its system of apartheid in Israel and the occupied territories. To this end, we demand the United States end its unconditional military aid to Israel, which contravenes the 1997 Leahy Laws that forbid U.S. support of war crimes. A just and lasting peace can come only after the occupation ends.
Third, we are extremely disappointed that our local Cambridge City Council did not pass – or even debate – a recent policy order supporting U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s cease-fire resolution.
Detroit; Providence, Rhode Island; Oakland, California; and Seattle have joined the internationally supported cease-fire calls and passed cease-fire resolutions. After hours of impassioned comment by our community, councillors had an obligation to deliberate about the order and look for common ground. Instead, they voted to cut off council discussion without debate and defeated the policy order with two votes in favor, none against and seven voting present. We call on the council to take up a new cease-fire policy order and for our community to take action to encourage Massachusetts’ federal delegation to push for an immediate, durable cease-fire by supporting Pressley’s resolution. We thank councillor Quinton Zondervan and Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui for introducing and supporting the cease-fire policy order.
Finally, we denounce ongoing attempts to censor or silence individuals and groups who express moral outrage through written statements or nonviolent protest at the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza. We reject the claim that opposition to Israel’s policies is antisemitism and note that many Jewish people around the world and in Cambridge oppose Israel’s policies. At the same time, we are alarmed by the increase in antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate crimes over the past month and oppose each of these forms of bigotry in Cambridge and around the world.
We urge the Cambridge community to support a call for peace and justice in Palestine/Israel while treating each other with empathy and compassion.
Carolyn Magid and Henry Wortis, Our Revolution Cambridge
Please don’t whitewash your antisemitism.
It’s obvius you are condeming only one side.
Simply say “We hate Jews” and be done with it.
Ms Ackerman, I don’t see how calling for a cease-fire is anti-semitic. In fact, Israel’s right wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu just declared a multi-day cease fire which is now ending.
And if you read the piece carefully, you’ll see thorough condemnation Hamas throughout the letter, I’d encourage you to re-read it with a less emotional lens you’ll see that, even if you don’t agree with the authors’ conclusions.
It’s very clear only one side is committing genocide. Opposing that is not antisemitic, your equation of judaism with a mass murderous ethno-state is.
@ Refael Ackerman,
There is no use arguing with these people.
When “Our Revolution” brings up things like the UN General Assembly, they forget to mention that that same General Assembly made Iran the Chair of the UN Rights Council Social Forum.
Again, there is no use arguing with these people.
What we have to do is to make sure that the anti-Semitism that is appearing more and more in the U.S., doesn’t continue to spread e.g the Tree of Life Massacre.
I notice that you do not call on Hamas and others to recognize Israel’s sovereignty and basic right to exist as a Jewish state.
Until you do that, it’s difficult to read the rest of your goals as a sincere hope for a just solution
It’s hilarious using Oakland council as an example. I wonder if Our Revolution would like Cambridge City Council to look like https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1729674121381093660.
Please do not let our city council become a platform for pro-Hamas, antisemitic, conspiracy theory hate speech. Our Revolution is a disgrace.
The misguided people in “Our Revolution Cambridge” can go suck an egg…
I was mainly shocked by the Editor’s choice to “Push” this shameful rant via RSS and e-mail.
https://twitter.com/refack/status/1730672908442223093
@concerned43 Comparing opposition to genocide to the tree of life shooting is genuinely insane. You have no idea the damage you are doing in equating judaism and genocide.
@Perter G Do you call on Israel to recognize Palestinian sovereignty and right to exist? That’s the start of the issue here. As I posted on the other ceasefire article:
Hamas has been willing to negotiate along the lines of 1967 borders (the agreement under international law that Israel flagrantly violates with its settlements) for a two state solution: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-charter-palestine-israel-1967-borders
While the current governing coalition of Israel has this in their coalition agreements: “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land’ between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12071/1
And btw Netanyahu’s Likud party has this in their founding charter: “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party
“It’s Time to Confront Israel’s Version of ‘From the River to the Sea,’ Far from being a mere slogan, the phrase captures both the longtime ambitions of the Israeli right and the reality Israel has imposed on Palestine since 1967.” https://www.thenation.com/article/world/its-time-to-confront-israels-version-of-from-the-river-to-the-sea/
@cambridgevoter Again the idea that calling for a ceasefire is hate speech is genuinely insane and so dangerous if you actually want that applied legally.
@ Rafael Ackermann, Peter G, cambridge voter
When you see the mindset of people like Mr. Slaw, one thinks that he should go back and
stick to his ramblings about the situation of bike and bike lanes in Cambridge. He was good at conveying his hysterical rantings, even though his use of numbers, in trying to justify
his positions, was way off the mark.
Throughout his diatribes about the war, have you noticed that almost all of what I say (and to a certain extent what you say), are lies. Not only are they lies, but according to him, our recollection of history is wrong.
I’ve gone back to look at his many links. What I’ve found are these two things. Most of his sources are people, and particularly institutions, who, shall I say, would not hold up in a tenth grade high school discussion on the topic. But there they are, and we are supposed to accept them as gospel.
The other thing I did was to essentially “reverse engineer” his links. I put his key words in Safari and Chrome. What popped up, in many instances, were the first few links that Mr. Slaw posted. Perhaps, his knowledge doesn’t come from books, but from links that show what he wants to show.
Along those lines, I mentioned a book that he might read about the history and meaning
of the word genocide. Here is what Mr. Slaw said: ” I suggest you look into the history of Lemkin than the one book you read to understand the history of the term.”This is how Mr. Slaw seems to think and operate. The book, East West Street,
by Philippe Sands (a Professor of Laws at University College, London) is mainly about Raphael Lemkin.
The is no use arguing with Mr. Slaw and the people at Our Revolution (just keep
bring up Oakland California). They have their thoughts and we have ours. What is frightening
to me is that what is going on in Israel and Gaza is now morphing into anti-Semitism in the America. It’s one thing to be anti-Zionist… no problem if that is what you believe. When it becomes anti-Semitic, there is a big problem. I, and many others, are going to fight back.
It was one thing to read about it in Philip Roth’s, The Plot Against America. It’s another thing when a 19 year old Jewish girl at my alma mater, who is wearing (and has always worn) a necklace with a Star of David, is shouted down by pro Palestinian classmates, when she got up to speak in a class.
By the way Mr. Slaw, Hanukkah starts this Thursday, If you get on your bike and petal around Cambridge (but be careful of how you observe all the markings that are fouling our streets), you can find my wife and me… just look for the menorah in the window.
Israel is not perfect. Far from it. But, it is by far the closest thing we have to a democracy
in the middle-East. Mr. Slaw ,you’re on the wrong side of history.
Never again!
Slaw–
Yes, I believe in a two state solution. So of course this would include Israel recognizing a Palestinian state.
You ask your question as if I am the one who wrote a lengthy letter omitting the recognition issue. The authors owe us an answer on whether they believe Israel has a basic right to exist as a Jewish state, and now you owe us your own answer too.
With respect to all your quotes/citations, and also the ones in the letter. Jews and Palestinians have been coexisting and fighting over this land for millennia. So it’s kind of like The Bible–it’s so big and varied you can find a citation for anything you want. (You even found one for Hamas wanting to negotiate, ROFL) The real issue is how do we resolve this before another 1,000 years or so passes. My view is that only a two-state solution is viable. But conspicuously, the authors omit that, and still have not responded to my request
@concerne43 “almost all of what I say are lies.” Yes this is true. I have demonstrated as such with evidence. Something you still have not provided for a single one of your claims.
“Most of his sources are people, and particularly institutions, who, shall I say, would not hold up in a tenth grade high school discussion on the topic.”
This is another lie. Included in my sources are for example are reports from the New York Times, Washington post, and Haaretz and includes individuals like the UN high commissioner for Human Rights. these are reputable sources. Your dismissal of them is conspiratorial and comes across as something of a dogwhistle quite frankly.
“The other thing I did was to essentially “reverse engineer” his links. I put his key words in Safari and Chrome. What popped up, in many instances, were the first few links that Mr. Slaw posted. Perhaps, his knowledge doesn’t come from books, but from links that show what he wants to show.”
Oh no I provided relevant links for the subjects being discussed. This is such a nonsensical objection to Again I am the only one who has provided sources. If these sources are incorrect somehow you should be able to explain and provide evidence for how rather than doing whatever this is. That the truth, which you cannot actually refute “shows what I want to show” is not an indictment of me, it is an indictment of your lies.
“This is how Mr. Slaw seems to think and operate.”
Yes it is and I have no shame in that. You should read more than a single book to understand a subject. Especially one as important a contentious as genocide. The idea that you should read more than a single book, that as you frame it seems to not acknowledge Lemkin’s views on other genocides besides the holocaust. Encouraging you to engage the full extent of his work rather than saying “this isn’t the holocaust so it’s not a genocide” Is entirely reasonable.
“It’s one thing to be anti-Zionist… no problem if that is what you believe. When it becomes anti-Semitic, there is a big problem.”
Absolutely nothing I have said is antisemitic. (Anti-semitism is the nazi term btw the correct way to refer to it is without a hyphen because semitism isn’t a real thing as that hyphenated term implies). Again the attempt to equate opposition to genocide with antisemitism is vile, dangerous, and itself profoundly antiseptic. There is nothing Jewish about supporting genocide.
“Israel is not perfect. Far from it. But, it is by far the closest thing we have to a democracy
in the middle-East. Mr. Slaw ,you’re on the wrong side of history.”
Israel is literally an apartheid state according to the world’s leading human rights groups (HRW, Amnesty International, and the UN office of human rights) and even Israeli human rights orgs like B’Tselem. In the words of Ta-Nehisi Coats: “Israel is a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East, in the exact same way that America is the oldest democracy in the world” You could also say it is the only democracy in the Middle East in the same way apartheid South Africa was the only democracy in Africa. That is a “Democracy” That excludes millions of people it rules over from participation in the democratic process. Source: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/24/ta_nehisi_coates_and_rashid_khalidi
HRW: “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution” https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Amnesty International: “ISRAEL’S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS: A LOOK INTO DECADES OF OPPRESSION AND DOMINATION”
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
UN: “Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid” https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights
B’Tselem: Apartheid: https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid
“A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid” https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
“You ask your question as if I am the one who wrote a lengthy letter omitting the recognition issue.”
No I point out that the “recognition issue” doesn’t actually work the way you claim it does. As I pointed out above, the Palestinian factions, even Hamas (and it is far from a single source pointing this out as you suggest), have been willing to negotiate for a two state solution along 1967 borders. Israel is the one who refuses to do so.
Here that is again: Hamas has been willing to negotiate along the lines of 1967 borders (the agreement under international law that Israel flagrantly violates with its settlements) for a two state solution: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-charter-palestine-israel-1967-borders
It is Israel that refuses to recognize Palestinian sovereignty. The issue is completely the reverse from what you suggest.
Here that is again: the current governing coalition of Israel has this in their coalition agreements: “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land’ between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12071/1
And btw Netanyahu’s Likud party has this in their founding charter: “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party
“It’s Time to Confront Israel’s Version of ‘From the River to the Sea,’ Far from being a mere slogan, the phrase captures both the longtime ambitions of the Israeli right and the reality Israel has imposed on Palestine since 1967.” https://www.thenation.com/article/world/its-time-to-confront-israels-version-of-from-the-river-to-the-sea/
The problem is literally the opposite from what you suggest. I don’t blame you for thinking this, it is a common point of misinformation in the west but now you should know better and should stop doubling down on it.
“The authors owe us an answer on whether they believe Israel has a basic right to exist as a Jewish state, and now you owe us your own answer too.” Why? Truly what does that add to this? All the world’s empires already acknowledge that right. it is far from imperiled. It is the right of Palestine to exist that is actually in question, and which Israel in fact denies.
My personal view is that no one is entitled to an ethno-state. Not white supremacists, not Jews, and not Arabs. I support a single democratic state with equal rights for all citizens regardless of ethnicity or nationality. See “One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel” by Ghada Karmi.
The reality is that Israel through its constant building of settlements and sabotage of any expression of Palestinian sovereignty has destroyed the possibility of an independent and sovereign Palestine. They have imposed a single state of apartheid. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/israel-palestine-one-state-solution
So you are completely wrong in your assessment that “only a two-state solution is viable.” It has not been viable for several decades now. And Israel killed it. Basically all serious scholars of the subject and real peace activists recognize this. We don’t seem to acknowledge this in the west because for our politicians making vague appeals to a two state solution is useful cover for giving Israel whatever it wants.
The only actually viable resolution is a single state of equality, justice, and freedom for all people under it. A state for white South Africans with independence for the Bantustans was not the solution in South Africa (and many people did suggest it at the time) and it is not the solution here either.
“fighting over this land for millennia. So it’s kind of like The Bible”
This is a myth that only serves to obscure the political nature of the conflict. This is a fight between a settler colony and the people they are attempting to subjugate, eliminate, and expel. It is not a religious struggle between Jews and Muslims. There are in fact Palestinian Cristians and Jews as well. Look for example how Israel is currently treating Armenian Christians in Jerusalem. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-settlers-jerusalem-take-over-armenian-quarter-force
Or for another example christian Palestinians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_the_Church_of_the_Nativity
Israel’s problem with Palestinians is not that they are muslim, many aren’t, it is that they are on the land they wish to occupy and settle. Palestinians problem with Israel is not that they are Jewish, it is that they are oppressed, ethnically cleansed, and killed by Israel. Palestinians did not choose the identity of their oppressor.
The fight is also only about a century old, dating to the Balfour declaration. The attempt to make trace it back to biblical times is both completely wrong and obscures the actual stakes of the conflict. This is not in fact an ancient and perpetual conflict, it is a throughly modern one, with political solutions: https://decolonizepalestine.com/myth/the-conflict-is-ancient/
“Never again!” If you actually meant that you would be opposing the genocide of Palestinians not cheering it on as a necessity. https://jewishcurrents.org/never-again-after-october-7th
Never again for anyone: http://www.ijan.org/projects-campaigns/nafa/
Yes, Hamas. A group so willing to do so many despicable acts. Let us count the ways of October 7th.
Raping women and then killing them as they were being raped. Where are all you Cambridge feminists? Why aren’t you speaking up on this site and elsewhere?
Murdering babies in front of their parents.
Seizing nine month old babies as hostages
Burning families alive
Parading naked women victims through the streets of Gaza
Israel was struck on October 7th. It declared war on Hamas. If Hamas is not defeated, as Hamas said, it will do it again and again and again, until Israel is wiped from the map. And they will not stop at Israel. They, and their sponsors, as Hamas has said, will not be happy until most of the world, if not all of it, becomes an Islamic theocracy.
It is fitting that this week starts the holiday of
Hanukkah. This is when the Maccabees had their
victory. Hopefully (and I think it will), Israel is going to defeat Hamas and wipe out that execrable group.
As I said, first there and then here.
See what is happening and what is going to happen.
Yes, anti Zionism, soon becomes anti-Semitism.
But, just keep spouting your vile diatribes Mr. Slaw. You’re on the wrong side of history.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4341121-white-house-condemns-antisemitic-protest-outside-restaurant-in-philly/
Your depiction of what happened on 10/7 is highly propagandistic and does not accurately reflect the evidence that has been made public (and increasingly evidence is being hidden: or outright destroyed by Israel: https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2241270/israels-rabbanut-approves-cars-of-murdered-oct-7-victims-to-be-buried.html) but nonetheless it was clearly an insurrection that included massacres of civilians.
Perhaps if Israel were willing to negotiate along 67 borders, which again many sources illustrate Hamas has been willing to do but which Netanyahu rejected: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43106082
rather than holding a population of refugees, who they created by ethnically cleansing their villages, in the largest prison camp on earth: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Biggest-Prison-on-Earth/Ilan-Pappe/9781786073419
blockading them by land air and sea: https://www.oxfam.org/en/timeline-humanitarian-impact-gaza-blockade
restricting them to a starvation diet: https://imeu.org/article/putting-palestinians-on-a-diet-israels-siege-blockade-of-gaza
and periodically “mowing the lawn” (Aka massacring a large number of people): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_lawn#:~:text=Mowing%20the%20grass%20(Hebrew%3A%20כיסוח,militants%20in%20the%20Gaza%20strip.
10/7 may not have happened. The fact that it did is a tragedy. But it could have been prevented by ending the abusive occupation and domination of millions of people. Israel has consistently refused to do so.
When Palestinians protested peacefully to end the blockade Israel shot live ammunition at them, killing hundreds and injuring thousands: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/two-years-on-people-injured-and-traumatized-during-the-great-march-of-return-are-still-struggling/#:~:text=One%20in%20five%20of%20those,were%20injured%20during%20the%20demonstrations.
You cannot oppress a people indefinitely, while closing off any possibilities for a peaceful resolution, and expect them not to lash out. I echo William Lloyd Garrison in the wake of Nat Turner’s rebellion, which also included the massacre of civilians, here: http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1831/09/03/the-insurrection.phtml
“until Israel is wiped from the map” Again you act as if those in a concentration camp wanting to abolish the state holding them in one is worse than the state holding people in a concentration camp explicitly waging a war of extermination against them. There are many examples of high ranking Israeli officials very clearly calling to eliminate Palestinians not simply Hamas in this article: https://www.newarab.com/analysis/erase-gaza-how-genocidal-rhetoric-normalised-israel
You demonstrably see no issue with this. Very telling.
“Hamas has said, will not be happy until most of the world, if not all of it, becomes an Islamic theocracy.” Hamas has literally never said this. Again you can disagree with their actual stated goals but this is simply another outright lie. Hamas is an islamic group, yes, but they are not ISIS (who in fact they have been in direct conflict with and ISIS sees them as apostates). You should read what they actually think not just make things up. Here is their charter: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
points 8 and 9 are most relevant here:
“8. By virtue of its justly balanced middle way and moderate spirit, Islam – for Hamas – provides a comprehensive way of life and an order that is fit for purpose at all times and in all places. Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.
“9. Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry. It is the religion that inculcates in its followers the value of standing up to aggression and of supporting the oppressed; it motivates them to give generously and make sacrifices in defence of their dignity, their land, their peoples and their holy places.”
This is obviously extremely different from how you present the issue. Stop lying.
On top of this, Hamas makes no territorial claims to lands outside of historical Palestine, nor has it engaged in attacks outside of that territory. Again unlike Israel, which both refuses to define its borders: https://remix.aljazeera.com/aje/PalestineRemix/borders.html
and currently occupies part of Syria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Golan_Heights
and previously occupied parts of Egypt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Sinai_Peninsula
and Lebanon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon
Israel also has an assassination apparatus operating outside of its borders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations
It would also be a lot easier to view your concern over 10/7 as humanitarian if you were not using it to actively cheer on the fastest rate of killing at of any recent conflict: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html
which includes more children than have died in all the world’s conflict zones put together in any of the last few years: https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-11-1-2023-children-killed-4a352398b32887e60a658e0270f0a021#:~:text=More%20children%20have%20been%20killed,throughout%20all%20of%20last%20year.
It would be a lot easier to view your supposed concern over rape as anything other than justification for genocide (or you know remotely feminist) if you were also critical of the systematic use of rape by Israel against Palestinian prisoners (including children): https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/conflict-and-society/9/1/arcs090105.xml
You invoke feminism. I have already pointed this out to you but you ignored it completely:
Women and newborns bearing the brunt of the conflict in Gaza, UN agencies warn: https://www.who.int/news/item/03-11-2023-women-and-newborns-bearing-the-brunt-of-the-conflict-in-gaza-un-agencies-warn#:~:text=Women%2C%20children%20and%20newborns%20in,and%20Works%20Agency%20for%20Palestine
plus there are the horrific images of decomposing babies “who were left to die after Israeli forces ordered medical staff to evacuate and blocked access to the intensive care unit at the al-Nasr pediatric hospital” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/30/headlines/decomposing_bodies_of_premature_babies_discovered_in_besieged_gaza_hospital
Where is your phony feminism now? No wonder Cambridge feminists view you as full of it.
It would be a lot easier to meaningfully mourn the victims of 10/7 if their deaths weren’t being used as casus belli for a genocide and against the explicit wishes of the families of the victims:
“Not in My Brother’s Name: Sibling of Peace Activist Killed by Hamas Demands Israel Stop Bombing Gaza” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/23/noy_katsman_hayim_katsman_israel_hostages
Father of the girl taken hostage on motorcycle: “Also Gaza has casualties…mothers who cry…let’s use this emotion, we are two nations from one father, let’s make peace, a real peace”https://twitter.com/tamars/status/1710964645425467880
“Meeting Netanyahu, families of Gaza hostages urge ‘all for all’ prisoner swap” https://www.timesofisrael.com/meeting-netanyahu-families-of-gaza-hostages-urge-all-for-all-prisoner-swap/
“‘Humiliated’ hostage families demand to meet Netanyahu, say ‘any price’ for release” https://www.timesofisrael.com/humiliated-hostage-families-demand-to-meet-netanyahu-say-any-price-for-release/
There are actually quite a few other examples of similar statements if you bother to look.
You aren’t wrong about “first there and then here” but you are completely backwards about what that actually means. Israel is one of the largest exporters of weapons in the world: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-arms-sales-doubled-in-a-decade-hit-new-record-of-12-5-billion-in-2022/
It is the biggest exporter of drones: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/17/israels-weapons-industry-is-the-gaza-war-its-latest-test-lab#:~:text=Israel%20is%2C%20by%20far%2C%20the,over%20the%20previous%20three%20decades.
And the biggest exporter of surveillance tech: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-10-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israels-cyber-spy-industry-aids-dictators-hunt-dissidents-and-gays/0000017f-e9a9-dc91-a17f-fdadde240000
Israel places extremely few restrictions on these exports and is known for trading military technology with many of the most oppressive and repressive regimes in the world: https://www.972mag.com/israel-weapons-exports-activists/
Israel explicitly markets these technologies as “battle tested” against Palestinians: Good book on the subject: “The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World” https://www.versobooks.com/products/2684-the-palestine-laboratory
Summary/presentation by the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JZeHI9PerY
Notably this includes the United States police: https://deadlyexchange.org
In that sense the tools of oppression first utilized against Palestinians, are coming here.
That example you site in Philly, though, is yet another lie. Just because Biden is willing to lie about it too doesn’t change that. I’d point out Biden also lied about seeing the photos of beheaded babies which did not exist: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/white-house-walks-back-bidens-claim-he-saw-children-beheaded-by-hamas He has no shame in lying to support zionist narratives.
The protests in Philly, which by the way included many Jews, chanted “Goldie, Goldie you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” and put up some Palestinian stickers on a business owned by an Israeli who has donated proceeds from that business to Israel. He and his businesses were not targeted for being Jewish, they received some extremely minor pushback for actively fundraising for a genocidal campaign. Again the equation of Judaism with support for genocide is reprehensible and what is actually antisemitic. If you don’t want to receive pushback for supporting a genocide, stop fundraising for one.
Meanwhile while there is so much concern over an undamaged business of a genocide supporter multiple Palestinians in the US have been violently attacked:
“Landlord accused of killing 6-year-old Palestinian American boy pleads not guilty to murder and hate crime charges” https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/30/us/palestinian-american-boy-stabbed/index.html
“NYPD investigating potential ‘bias incident’ after father says he and his toddler were attacked, accused of supporting Hamas” https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/10/us/new-york-attack-investigation-father-son-hamas-accusation/index.html
“NYPD: Group waving Israeli flags accused of attacking 3 men in possible anti-Palestinian hate crime in Brooklyn” https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-group-waving-israeli-flags-attacked-man-who-yelled-free-palestine/
“‘I Am But One Casualty in the Much Wider Conflict’: Shot Palestinian American Student Speaks Out”https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/29/headlines/i_am_but_one_casualty_in_the_much_wider_conflict_shot_palestinian_american_student_speaks_out (two other Palestinian students studying in the US were shot in this attack, one is likely paralyzed)
You don’t seem to care about any of this though because you are a flagrant racist who thinks “never again” only applies to Jews.
BTW Biden is such a violently committed zionist that he has at points made Israeli leaders uncomfortable in his blood lust for Palestinians: “Biden, in Begin’s words, “rose and delivered a very impassioned speech” defending the invasion. Upon his return to Israel, Begin told Israeli reporters he was shocked when Biden “said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.” Begin said, “I disassociated myself from these remarks,” adding, “I said to him: No, sir; attention must be paid. According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war. Sometimes there are casualties among the civilian population as well. But it is forbidden to aspire to this. This is a yardstick of human civilization, not to hurt civilians.” Source: https://theintercept.com/2023/11/14/gaza-israel-genocide-biden-legacy/
It would be good if Cambridge Day had a word limit for comments (a generous one), coupled with a way for citizen-writers it chooses to publish and who feel constrained by that limit to post free-standing editorials. As things stand, meaningful conversations on any given article get short-circuited.
Sonny boy, you are simply unbelievable. I don’t believe anyone will bother to spend any time refuting all you said. You are sick, but perhaps you think it’s fun continuing to spout your disgraceful posts.
I’m sick? You are on here cheering on a genocide and proudly supporting dropping atomic bombs on civilians. You have absolutely no room to judge anyone. You have completely lost your humanity, so much that you see expressions of basic humanism as a sickness.
It’s telling that yet again you cannot refute anything I say (because it is true and supported by evidence) so you attempt to shame me into silence. I will not be silent in the face of genocide and shame on all those who are, even more on those like you who proudly endorse it.
@ Carolyn Magid and Harry Wortis
One of my cousins is the chief of cardiology at the second largest hospital in Israel. If, as you say, Israel is an apartheid regime, why, for more than forty-five years, has he treated tens of thousands of Israeli Palestinians and Palestinians who live in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan? He’s treated them at the hospital along side non Palestinian Jews. Does that sound like segregation on the basis of race?
Amazing that the moderator allows so much misinformation and bile.
Israel has every right to defend themself, they just dont need to use our tax dollars to do it and I’m not sure they need to kill so many brown skinned babies in the process.
And why on earth people are cheering on and even trusting netanyahu and his clowns at idf and shin bet and mossad who completely ignored months of warnings on the despicable events of october 7th, even hours after it began, as the ones to manage this war is beyond me.
hopefully the us and allies can stop funding the weapons that allow atrocities to happen on all sides of this horrific conflict.
may the people over there (and here) learn to live in peace and raise their children to love their neighbors.
I will take the word of human rights groups over an anonymous internet commentator’s cousin about apartheid. I will also take the proof of my own eyes. I have also been there myself, I have seen the reality of it first hand. It changed me just as it changed Ta-Nehisi Coats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_df_u7yJj3k
You cannot unsee it.
Here are those Human rights organizations again:
HRW: “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution” https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Amnesty International: “ISRAEL’S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS: A LOOK INTO DECADES OF OPPRESSION AND DOMINATION”
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
UN: “Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid” https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights
B’Tselem: Apartheid: https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid
“A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid” https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
And here is a report on racism in Israeli hospitals: https://www.shomrim.news/eng/healthcare-racism
(there is so much written about this too if you’d bother to look.)
“Does that sound like segregation on the basis of race?” yes.
@PeterG
Yes it is amazing how much completely uncited misinformation and bile about Palestinians has been allowed on this site. It seems that it is acceptable to present them as monsters and make up whatever horrible things you or your cousin can come up with against them in order to cheer on their slaughter. It’s truly sick.
@ Slaw
Peter’s cousin? I must have missed that. I thought it was my cousin. You seem to be very mixed up once again?
So, first hand, you’ve seen the apartheid in Israel?
Are these lies from the NYT article below, which was published today? Considering what you have said, perhaps you think them to be so because according to you, Hamas would never commit these atrocities.
“The body of one woman had “nails and different objects in her female organs.” In another house, a person’s genitals were so mutilated that “we couldn’t identify if it was a man or a woman.”
Simcha Greinman, a volunteer who helped collect the remains of victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on Israel, took long pauses as he spoke those words on Monday at an event at the United Nations.
“Horrific things I saw with my own eyes,” he said, “and I felt with my own hands.”
Shari Mendes, a member of an Israeli military reserve unit tasked with preparing the bodies of fallen female soldiers for burial, said her team saw several who were killed on Oct. 7 “who were shot in the crotch, intimate parts, vagina, or were shot in the breast.” Others had mutilated faces, or multiple gunshots to their heads.
Since the Oct. 7 attack, during which more than 1,200 people were killed and some 240 people were kidnapped, Israeli officials have accused the terrorists of also committing widespread sexual violence — rape and sexual mutilation — particularly against women.
Yet those atrocities have received little scrutiny from human rights groups, or the news media, amid the larger war between Israel and Hamas — and until a few days ago, they had not been specifically mentioned or condemned by UN Women, the United Nations’ women’s rights agency, which has regularly spoken out about the plight of Palestinian women and girls.”
“Hamas has denied that its fighters committed sex crimes, which it said would violate Islamic principles.”
“But ample evidence has been collected, like the bodies of women found partially or fully naked, women with their pelvic bones broken, the accounts of medical examiners and first responders, videos taken by Hamas fighters themselves”
Where are all the Cambridge women who look at this site. They rightly speak up against sexual crimes against women all over the world. In African countries and in Arab countries where too many women are sexual harmed. Why not
now? What possible reason could account for that? Many of us know the reason.
@Concerned43
It is really telling what you choose to respond to and what you don’t. When you are presented with evidence of systemic rape in the Israeli prison system, a specific case of how every aspect of the definition of genocide is in place in Israel’s assault on Gaza, or that every major human rights group saying Israel is an apartheid state you ignore it completely. But I am slightly unspecific about whose cousin I am referring to, that is unacceptable! I was clearly referencing your nonsense with that.
“So, first hand, you’ve seen the apartheid in Israel?”
As I said: I will also take the proof of my own eyes. I have also been there myself, I have seen the reality of it first hand. It changed me just as it changed Ta-Nehisi Coats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_df_u7yJj3k
You cannot unsee it. Not sure why you are acting like this isn’t clear.
Are these lies from the NYT article below, which was published today? You didn’t link the article but I found it: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-sexual-violence-un.html
Literally the only sources in the article are Israeli officials. I am sorry but I do not take Israeli officials at their word without actual evidence. They have lied repeatedly. From the “40 beheaded babies” claim that has been completely debunked, to the claim that Hamas had a command center under Al-Shifa hospital, which notably disappeared after Israel forced out the patients and staff and took over the hospital. Similar claims were made about Al-Nasr hospital, but again no evidence once Israel took it over, this time with decomposing babies inside.
Note Israeli officials deny that proven reality: “On Saturday, IDF Spokeswoman Doron Spielman appeared to cast doubt on the story during a live conversation on X, formerly Twitter: “There were no premature babies that decomposed because of the IDF; there were probably no babies that decomposed whatsoever,” he said.” Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/03/gaza-premature-babies-dead-nasr/
If Israel wants us to believe their extreme and specific claims they need to provide specific evidence for those claims. They have not done so, even in the screenings of atrocity porn that they have put on for sympathetic journalists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc5iG3DX7ho
If these things are true they are unconscionable and have no place in a resistance movement. It is hard to know what to believe though when the people saying it are proven liars who are using this to justify their own atrocities.
If you again want to play the “where are the feminists?” game I will again ask where are you in response to Israel systematically using sexual violence as a weapon of war against Palestinian captives? You have nothing to say about that, and therefore no room to accuse anyone else of hypocrisy.
This is now the third time I am sharing this with you: Women and newborns bearing the brunt of the conflict in Gaza, UN agencies warn: https://www.who.int/news/item/03-11-2023-women-and-newborns-bearing-the-brunt-of-the-conflict-in-gaza-un-agencies-warn#:~:text=Women%2C%20children%20and%20newborns%20in,and%20Works%20Agency%20for%20Palestine
plus there are the horrific images of decomposing babies “who were left to die after Israeli forces ordered medical staff to evacuate and blocked access to the intensive care unit at the al-Nasr pediatric hospital” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/30/headlines/decomposing_bodies_of_premature_babies_discovered_in_besieged_gaza_hospital
And more on the systematic use of rape and sexual abuse by Israel against Palestinian prisoners (including children): https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/conflict-and-society/9/1/arcs090105.xml
I know the reason you ignore this, you have said it basically explicitly. You view some lives as having more worth than others. You are a racist who thinks Palestinians deserve it.
Hadn’t realized I was a racist. Thanks so much for informing me.
In response to the above comments, Our Revolution Cambridge reiterates that we reject the claim that criticism of Israel is antisemitic, despite what some commenters seem to imply here. We encourage commenters to fully read what we have written, and what we call for.
Regarding the questions asked by PeterG; we are of course not calling for the destruction of Israel as a state, but an end to the current reality of Israel as an apartheid state within its borders and in the West Bank and Gaza. We concede your point that there are many opinions on the conflict, but encourage you to thoroughly review the detailed reports of the three major human rights organizations linked in the article, including B’Tselem, a human rights agency based in Israel, who all conclude the reality of apartheid.
Finally, about a solution; as we wrote in the article, we believe that an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and an end to the expansion of settlements, are essential preliminary steps for just negotiations. We respect those deeply embedded in the situation who believe that the current reality on the ground makes a two-state solution impossible, and also those who believe that the two-state solution is the only viable solution. We support the result of a negotiated solution between the current residents, as an important aspect of which is equal civil rights of all people in the resulting state(s).
Henry Wortis and Carolyn Magid,
on behalf of Our Revolution-Cambridge
Thank you to those with comments that have supported Israel. Anti-Semitism has been growing for years, particularly on elite college campuses. A cease fire with groups whose only stance is that you should be wiped out is impossible, so clearly this is what Our Revolution is supporting.