At 5:40 a.m. on Aug. 10, the IDF Spokesperson sent a message to reporters informing them of an Israeli airstrike on a “military headquarters located in Al-Taba’een school compound near a mosque in the Daraj [and] Tuffah area, which serves as a shelter for residents of Gaza City.”
Shortly after this announcement, shocking images from Al-Taba’een school circulated around the world, showing piles of dismembered flesh and body parts being removed in plastic bags. The images were accompanied by reports that around 100 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli attack, with many more hospitalized. Most of those killed were in the middle of fajr, or dawn prayers, at a designated space inside the school compound.
The IDF announcement explicitly stated that the school “serves as a shelter for residents of Gaza City,” meaning that the IDF knew refugees had fled there in fear of the army’s own bombings. The statement did not claim that there was any gunfire or rocket attacks from the school, but that “Hamas terrorists … planned and promoted … terrorist acts” from it. Nor did it claim that the civilians who took refuge in the school were given any warning, only that the army had used “precision weapons” and “intelligence.” In other words, the army bombed a populated shelter knowing full well the deadly repercussions its assault would inflict.
This dehumanization has reached new heights in recent weeks with the debate over the legitimacy of raping Palestinian prisoners. In a discussion on the mainstream TV network Channel 12, Yehuda Shlezinger, a “commentator” from the right-wing daily Israel Hayom, called for institutionalizing rape of prisoners as part of military practice. At least three Knesset members from the ruling Likud party also argued that Israeli soldiers should be allowed to do anything, including rape.
But the biggest trophy goes to Israel’s Finance Minister and Defense Ministry deputy, Bezalel Smotrich. The world “won’t let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he lamented at an Israel Hayom conference earlier this month.
When was Syria last a state before 1918? I agree that the Israeli government should not have stopped anyone from returning to their homes in the Nakba and that should have been fixed since, but the region made that hard to negotiate.
But I do not see a problem with a government by jewish leadership reviving historic Israel any more than by Hashemite Arab kings reviving historic Syria, Iraq, Arabia.
Those were based on people and cultures that were already there. They were not imported from Europe.
You keep pushing this narrative that’s only half complete and hoping nobody notices. It’s ridiculous.
Ah, so as long as you push a people/culture out of a region long enough, they no longer count as having been there. Or are you saying that the Jewish people interbred with Europeans too much after the Roman diaspora and thus Jews are no longer of middle eastern descent? Is there an argument that the Jews originated in Europe or elsewhere and not from the region surrounding Jerusalem?
I am ignoring the entire subject of the state of Israel, I’m just trying to understand the logic on the Jewish people and culture not being “already there” in the region.
Yes, 2000 years means you’re not from a place anymore.
And don’t bring Arab Jews into this like they aren’t discriminated against.