Israel massacred 60 Palestinians on Monday, including seven children, bringing to 101 the total number of Palestinians Israel has killed since Palestinians began the Great March on March 30. In that period, Israel has killed 11 Palestinian children, two journalists, one person on crutches and three persons with disabilities.
Monday’s casualties included 1,861 wounded, bringing total injuries inflicted by Israel to 6,938 people, including 3,615 with live fire. Israel is using bullets designed to expand inside the body, causing maximum, often permanent damage: “The injuries sustained by patients will leave most with serious, long-term physical disabilities,” says Médecins Sans Frontières (Ha’aretz, 4/22/18).
On the 70th anniversary of Israel’s so-called “declaration of independence,” the United States opened its new embassy in Jerusalem—a city Israel claims as its own, despite what international law says on the matter—and Palestinians undertook unarmed protests in reaction to the move and as part of the Great Return March. Although to this point, the only Israeli casualty during the entire cycle of demonstrations has been one “lightly wounded” soldier, considerable space in coverage of the massacres is devoted to blaming Palestinians for their own slaughter.
NBC (5/14/18) mentions “what Palestinians refer to as their ‘right of return'”; actually, it’s what international law calls it, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights‘ proclamation that “everyone has the right…to return to his country.”
Two of the first three paragraphs in an NBC report (5/14/18) provided Israel’s rationalizations for its killing spree. The second sentence in the article says that the Israeli military
accused Hamas of “leading a terrorist operation under the cover of masses of people,” adding that “firebombs and explosive devices” as well as rocks were being thrown towards the barrier.
A Washington Post article (5/14/18) devoted two of its first four sentences to telling readers that Palestinians are responsible for being murdered by Israel. Palestinian “organizers urged demonstrators to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them,” read one sentence. “At the barrier, young men threw stones and tried to launch kites carrying flames in hopes of burning crops on the other side,” stated the next one, as though stones and burning kites released by a besieged people is violence remotely equivalent to subjecting people to a military siege and mowing them down.
The New York Times (5/14/18) said that “a mass attempt by Palestinians to cross the border fence separating Israel from Gaza turned violent, as Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire,” painting Israel’s rampage as a reaction to a Palestinian provocation. Like FAIR (2/21/18) has previously said of the word “retaliation,” “response” functions as a justification of Israeli butchery: To characterize Israeli violence as a “response” is to wrongly imply that Palestinian actions warranted Israel unleashing its firing squads.
A Yahoo headline (5/14/18) described “Violent Protests in Gaza Ahead of US Embassy Inauguration in Jerusalem,” a flatly incorrect description in that it attributes the violence to Palestinian demonstrators rather than to Israel. The BBC (5/15/18) did the same with a segment called “Gaza Braced for Further Violent Protests.”
In Bloomberg‘s account (5/14/18), the fence seemed to be the real victim.
One Bloomberg article (5/14/18) by Saud Abu Ramadan and Amy Teibel had the same problem, referring to “a protest marred by violence,” while another one (5/14/18) attributed only to Ramadan is headlined “Hamas Targets Fence as Gaza Bloodshed Clouds Embassy Move,” as though the fence were Monday’s most tragic casualty. Ascribing this phantom violence to Palestinians provides Israel an alibi: Many readers will likely conclude that Israel’s lethal violence is reasonable if it is cast as a way of coping with “violent protests.”
The second paragraph of the Bloomberg article solely written by Ramadan says that
Gaza protesters, egged on by loudspeakers and transported in buses, streamed to the border, where some threw rocks, burned tires, and flew kites and balloons outfitted with firebombs into Israeli territory.
This author—like the rest in the “Palestinians were asking for it” chorus—failed to note that Israel’s fence runs deep into Palestinian territory and creates a 300-meter “buffer zone” between Palestinians and Israeli forces, which makes it highly unlikely that the kites and balloons of the colonized will have an effect on their drone-operating, rifle-wielding colonizers, let alone on people further afield in Israeli-held territory.
The New York Times editorial board (5/14/18) wrote as though Palestinians are barbarians against whom Israel has no choice but to unleash terror:
Led too long by men who were corrupt or violent or both, the Palestinians have failed and failed again to make their own best efforts toward peace. Even now, Gazans are undermining their own cause by resorting to violence, rather than keeping their protests strictly peaceful.
The board claimed that “Israel has every right to defend its borders, including the boundary with Gaza,” incorrectly suggesting that Palestinians were aggressors rather than on the receiving end of 100 years of settler-colonialism.
Moreover, like the Times and Bloomberg articles discussed above, the editorial attempts to legitimize Israel’s deadly violence by saying that it is defending a border that Palestinians are attempting to breach, but there is no border between Gaza and Israel. There is, as Maureen Murphy of Electronic Intifada (4/6/18) pointed out, “an armistice line between an occupying power and the population living under its military rule” that Palestinians are trying to cross in order to exercise their right to return to their land.
The Washington Post (5/15/18) condemned the “cruel, cynical tactic” of trying to exercise the internationally guaranteed right of return.
A Washington Post editorial (5/15/18) called the Palestinians hunted by Israel “nominal civilians.” Apart from being a logical impossibility (one either is or isn’t a civilian), the phrase illuminates how too much of media think about Palestinians: They are inherently threatening, intrinsically killable, always suspect, never innocent, permanently guilty of existing.
A Business Insider piece (5/14/18) by columnist Daniella Greenbaum described “Palestinian protesters who ramped up their activities along the Gaza strip and, as a result, were targeted by the Israeli army with increasing intensity.” Greenbaum’s use of the phrase “as a result” implies that it was inevitable and perhaps just that Palestinians’ “ramped up activities” led to Israel mowing down a population it occupies, 70 percent of whom are refugees Israel refuses to allow to return to their homes.
Greenbaum then climbs into the intellectual and moral gutter, claiming that
absent from the commentary that children have unfortunately been among the injured and dead are questions about how they ended up at the border. On that question, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the extent to which Palestinians have glorified violence and martyrdom — and the extent to which the terrorist organization Hamas has organized the “protests.”
In her view, dozens of Palestinians died because they are primitive savages who take pleasure in sacrificing their own children, not because Israel maintains the right to gun down refugees in the name of maintaining an ethnostate.
In a rare instance of a resident of Gaza allowed to participate directly in the media conversation, Fadi Abu Shammalah wrote an op-ed for the New York Times (4/27/18) that offered an explanation of why Palestinians are putting their lives on the line to march. Life for the people of Gaza, including for his three young sons, has been “one tragedy after another: waves of mass displacement, life in squalid refugee camps, a captured economy, restricted access to fishing waters, a strangling siege and three wars in the past nine years. ” Recalling the concern for his safety expressed by his seven-year-old child, Shammalah concludes:
If Ali asks me why I’m returning to the Great Return March despite the danger, I will tell him this: I love my life. But more than that, I love you, Karam and Adam. If risking my life means you and your brothers will have a chance to thrive, to have a future with dignity, to live in peace with all your neighbors, in your free country, then this is a risk I must take.
Palestinians have a right to liberate themselves that extends to the right to the use of armed struggle, yet as Shammalah wrote, the Great Return March signifies a “nearly unanimous acceptance of peaceful methods to call for our rights and insist on our humanity.” Nevertheless, based on media coverage, readers could be forgiven for concluding that it was Palestinians, not Israel, who carried out what Doctors Without Borders called “unacceptable and inhuman” violence.
it is no doubt interesting that the u s has never really been an honest broker in this conflict and has only played at being in that role by having captured that role it is able tout out the notion everything would work well if only these pesky palestinians would only lay down and play dead. in that way it can appear to be impartial. however the prior administration ticked off the jewish vote in florida and new york by being a bit tougher on the israelis than is usual but not to an extent that is meaningful. did obama dare to cut the annual subsidy to israel? no that would have needed more courage than was available. real action is no where to be seen in this area from any u s administration over the last seventy years. sad.
I’ve seen quite a few of my friends trying to defend Israel over their IDF massacring protesters, children & reporters … I support Israel, but this goes well beyond the pale … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS9CgHH_EFo
Israel has lost all credibility with me. I felt guilty about for a while. Now I’m guilt free.
massacre – an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people,
I think you have the shoe on the wrong foot. Israel does whatever it can to avoid civilian casualties, while Hamas does whatever it can to interpose civilians into every conflict and confrontation. Israel’s reaction, broad as it is, is not indiscriminate, and it is not a slaughter. It looks brutal only because of the situation Hamas puts it people in. Hamas’s stated goal has never changed, the destruction of Israel … never a thought for peace, or even a cease fire.
While the 0.1% if Gaza Palestinians travel the world eating the finest food, and receiving education at the best universities, the 99.9% of Gazans are stick in a war zone chosen by their leaders. They are immersed in hate and intolerance from the moment they are born. You people who condemn Israel have no idea what any other country would do faced with the same situation, and you don’t seem to understand or have followed the history of this 70+ year old conflict.
I used to support the state of Israel and have been following its history for a long time. Knowing that history, I no longer support Israel in it’s current state. And I do know what other states have done “when faced with the same situation.” They try to exterminate the indigenous people, who are defending their own lives and rights. Just look at the history of the genocide of Native Americans by European settlers. The settlers thought that God had given them the land, and the Indians were threatening, less than human beings, who did not deserve to live on their own land. This is the same attitude the Israeli government has toward Palestinians. If you don’t think this is true, perhaps you should read the statements from respected Israeli leaders, past and present. Many Israelis and American Jews do not support the actions of Israel. Are they ignorant? Are they antisemitic? Your defense of the 0.1% of Israel, who are living it up at the expense of working class Jews and Palestinians, show you have no concern for Palestinians. You are just propagandizing, trying to justify the genocide. Anyone with an understanding of history sees this for what it is: a crime against humanity.
LIAR — ) http://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/influential-soldiers-genocide/ Rabbi Ophir Wallas of the Bnei David Military Mechina was caught on video teaching young would-be soldiers that Israelis are, from the halachaic point of view, permitted to wipe out Palestinians, and that only fear of massive retaliation prevents that.
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” ” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
7. “There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.” Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969
8. “The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war.” Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha’aretz, 19 March 1972.
9. David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti – Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
10. Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 : “We must do everything to insure they ( the Palestinians) never do return.” Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes. “The old will die and the young will forget.”
11. “We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.
12. “Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” – Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio. (Certainly the FBI’s cover-up of the Israeli spy ring/phone tap scandal suggests that Mr. Sharon may not have been joking.)
13. “We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.” Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces – Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
14. “We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return” David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
It’s a major tragedy. The lack of any protests or media attention in the west is a crushing defeat to the idea that massive non-violent protests would help. They just tried massive non-violent protests, about a dozen dozen of them (unarmed protestors) were killed by snipers and the western populations just yawned and went back to oogling the royal wedding. If you’re a Palestinian you’re facing certain death anyway from the contaminated water if nothing else, you can’t even become a refugee because you live behind a sealed border so what do you do? Your going to die sooner than normal anyway and non-violent protests didn’t work. The logical next step is not real hard to figure out. The generalized apathy of the western populations is going to have major costs at some point. Not to be cynical but hopefully it’s limited to the slaughter of the Palestinians as opposed to a war between the great powers that kills functionally everybody. When nobody cares about anything world leaders feel they have license to do anything they want. The predictable consequences are pretty clear cut.
> A Washington Post editorial (5/15/18) called the Palestinians hunted by Israel “nominal civilians.” Apart from being a logical impossibility (one either is or isn’t a civilian),
Lets understand words for the meaning… nominally means “by name”, “named that”, they’re saying people are calling them civilians, but they’re not.
Of course, it is not like we have armies gunning down football hooligans either, and we don’t have discussions if they’re civilian or not. And they have far smaller grievance to say the least. It is a dehumanizing attempt to make Palestinians look dangerous.
> It is a dehumanizing attempt to make Palestinians look dangerous.
The sure look dangerous to me, and the stories of them murdering people with knives in the streets, cheap rockets, or bombs dropped from kites also make them more than seem dangerous.
Dunno, the Israelis look pretty dangerous to me, with their drones, guns, white phosporous, nuclear weapons, and Mossad.
No wait, i should worry about knives, cheap rockets and.. kites.
The Palestinians in the West bank are seeking a road to peace. The Palestinians in Gaza are not at all. Gaza is run and supported by Hamas, as the Palestinians in Lebanon, called Hezbollah, are supported by Iran. In order to harm a minimal amount of people IDF aimed low and shot people in the legs. There were terrorists in the crowd, and we all know it. Israel should not have to devote huge amounts of it manpower to trying to plan out every move from Hamas so as to cause the least amount of damage .. which is what they have been doing. Hamas has figured out all the ways to blame and bleed Israel, and Israel is sending a message that it will not play along. What kind of a country forces its civilians into being human hostages in an illegal and immoral war? Palestine.
Hamas knows how to stop this any time they decide they want peace more than they want to destroy Israel, until then, do not kid yourself, it is a full-blown war, and Israel has the right to defend itself.
I am in total agreement with almost every Leftist policy, but this close up support of the Palestinians have always been something I could never understand why the Left took this on. Palestinians are not Liberal, the Palestinians are not democratic, Palestinians are totalitarian, tyrannical and terroristic.
It makes me feel worse for the innocent people who cannot escape from this region, but not enough to recognize any legitimacy in their government or Iran, their supporters. They are hate=filled religious fanatics.
The conditions in Gaza are deliberately created to cause suffering. There is almost no other comparable example on the planet that I can think of that is undertaken in this open manner. Your inability to see Palestinians as even approaching anything like the same level of humanity as yourself speaks volumes to the value you place on their lives and the universality of international law. If only the IDF massacred “people” you liked and valued then you would be free to feel sympathy for those being killed and degraded. Being deprived of your ability to “feel” the smallest amount of real empathy is is course the “fault” of primitive and savage “Palestinians” whose bodies aggressively attack live ammunition being fired in “legitimate” self-defence.
I am more and more appaled by the hypocrisy of the USA in regards to the plight of the Palestinian people. But then, that is not surprising when you look at who controls the american administration, i.e. the jewish lobby. American neutrality in this case is an outright farce. The next time american interests are hit, don’t wonder why. Look at yourself in your deflected mirror!
Saudi Arabia has much more investement and lobbying power in the US than Israel, and Irish, British, Italians and many others have just as much influence domestically. Those kind of comments are the same kind of viciousness as race-baiting,
Fair,
You’re not “fair” you’re biased – anti-Israel. The only obvious conclusion to Hamas inciting Palestinians to riot and race through the border fence was so that they would be killed but Israeli forces who they knew would protect their border at all costs. Once a few Palestinians got through without deterrent force, thousands more would have rushed across to the nearby Israeli settlement and would have overrun it and killed the inhabitants. You know this to be true from the past yet you ignore it. A secure border is the only safe border. Hamas uses it’s people like Pawns to persuade global opinion against Israel. Welcome to being a another pawn while not being “Fair.”
Just outrageous. Nobody at the protests had weapons. They were shot by snipers and it’s Hamas’ fault for sending them to protest at the walls of the open-air prison that is Gaza. Anyway, when they think they have sufficient political cover Israel will depopulate (read that kill everyone within) the entire area. That will of course be Hamas’ fault as well.
Ghandi was a terrorist. Just ask the prime minister.
Sorry spp Gandhi
March Turns Violent At Auschwitz Resettlement Camp (Special To Das Reich, August 12, 1943)
A large number of residents of the Auschwitz Peaceful Resettlement Camp conducted disgraceful acts of vandalism and attempted violence against staff Monday, camp staff reported.
The residents, egged on by Jewish troublemakers, streamed to the fences, provided for their convenience, and attempted to damage them, while some threw rocks or sticks at camp personnel. Some thousands of the residents were unfortunately electrocuted on contacting the fences, electrified to prevent bears from entering the camp. Some thousands of others ignored warnings to avoid the fences and were shot for their own protection.
“There have been some unfounded rumours that executions have been taking place in the camps,” said adminstrator-for-making-Jews-Comfortable, Hans von Witzleben. “These rumours are entirely false. This camp is here for the benefit of the people lucky enough to be chosen to reside here. Residents who spread such rumours will of course be dealt with harshly.”
Victims of the unfortunately violence have been interred in mass graves in ditches that were luckily already available near the camp.
“It’s hard to understand why people would behave this way,” observed von Witzleben. “But they are Jews. And they are a violent people.”
Auschwitz is now again peaceful.
The worst monsters in history
What do you expect from the Zionist media?
In France, people are prosecuted for wearing BDS T shirts.
In Britain, we have the “anti Semitic” smear campaign against Corbyn from the Board of Deputies.
The aim is to criminalise any criticism of Israel.
Trump is inciting another war for Israel, against Iran, to keep Adelson and his Zionist billionaire donors happy.
1. Create a problem.
2. Blame the victim.
3. Enforce the problem on the victim.
4. Profit from the problem.
The formula used by your “masters.”
ISRAELI PROPAGANDA TALKING POINTS :
HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS HAMAS
REALITY : “Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesperson of the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, has reported Sunday that Israeli soldiers have killed 112 Palestinians, and injured 13,190 since the Great Return March protests started on the Palestinian Land Day, March 30th, 2018. Dr. al-Qedra said that the soldiers killed 13 Palestinian children, and injured 2096 others, in addition to wounding 1029 women. He added that 332 of the wounded Palestinians suffered life-threatening injuries, 3,422 suffered moderate wounds, 9,436 suffered mild injuries, and 5,572 suffered the effects of teargas inhalation. Dr. al-Qedra said that:
502 Palestinians were shot in the head and neck.
283 were shot in the chest and back.
225 were shot in the abdomen and pelvis.
938 were shot in the arm.
325 were shot in the leg.
1,117 suffered various cuts and bruises to several parts of their bodies.
He also said that 27 of the wounded Palestinians suffered amputations in their legs, one in his arm, and four others had some fingers severed by Israeli fire. Dr. al-Qedra added that the soldiers also shot and killed one medic, and injured 323 others with live fire and gas bombs, in addition to causing damage to 37 ambulances.”
It is so sad and frustrating that U.S. politicians and media simply echo Israel’s rationalizations for its actions. Israel has the fourth largest military in the world. (Thanks to the U.S. taxpayer.) It does not hesitate to use police and military force against Palestinians, particularly in Gaza since 2006, when Hamas won free and fair elections. Israel has imposed a blockade which they have called “a diet”, allowing into Gaza only enough for Gazans to survive, but not prosper. Israel has carried out bombing campaigns every few years which they call “mowing the lawn”. These target civilian areas and infrastructure — including waste & water treatment facilities; schools and hospitals — including those run by the U.N. refugee relief agencies. All of this has been documented, but when it gets raised at the U.N., the U.S. quashes investigations or vetoes Security Council resolutions that would sanction Israel. Our lock-step support for Israel contravenes international law, and will never lead to peace in the area. In fact, we should be careful that it does not lead us into war with Iran.
Just thought I’d mention here that I had written an article about a peaceful, beautiful component of the recent Gaza protests that had been virtually ignored by the media: “Doves transport peace notes from Gazans at Israeli border” (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/6/1762112/-Doves-transport-peace-notes-from-Gazans-at-Israeli-border – but please note that The Daily Kos is primarily a site for Democrats, hence the references to Democrats in my article).