To those of you who believed that Israel is a great democracy and that the IDF is the most moral army in the world, that the destruction of Gaza and the massacres in the West Bank are the result of the terrorist attacks of October 7, read the following facts, which are proven, solid, demonstrated, and documented, and form your own opinion.
When a map of the genocide is visible, showing how this war, like no other, is a veritable urbicide (1)
When, during a “ceasefire,” 153 tons of bombs are dropped on Gaza, after an attack that since October 7 has resulted in probably hundreds of thousands of deaths (an estimate that includes those under the rubble), 167,000 wounded, 4,000 children amputated, 154 children who have starved to death, the murder of Hind Rajab (7 years old), which was almost filmed, with the destruction of the ambulance that came to rescue her and 450 bullets fired at her, 34 hospitals destroyed, 1,722 health workers killed, and almost 300 journalists killed,” said an elected representative in the Strasbourg Parliament. “Perhaps it is time for the EU to stop supporting this genocide,” concluded the MP (2).
When a member of parliament of Moroccan origin from the poor neighborhoods accuses Netanyahu in the Knesset of “being responsible for October 7, of financing Hamas, of opposing a commission of inquiry because he would be removed from office, dozens of hostages have died because of you, you are racist and have turned half the country into hostages, I, a poor Moroccan woman, will not let you go until your corruption is exposed.” (3)
When soldiers admit to shooting and killing anything that moves, children, adults, the elderly, because their orders are to kill and use Palestinians as shields to invade homes, (4,5)
When independent official United Nations reports highlight that the Israeli army is among the most criminal in the world (6)
When the army’s chief ethics officer is dismissed and imprisoned for denouncing the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners, and these soldiers are welcomed as heroes in court (7)
When Israelis are held hostage and thousands of Palestinian prisoners are treated like cattle, no better than in Iranian prisons (7)
When amputee children bear witness to the cruelty of the army with images that are unbearable for anyone with a shred of empathy (8)
When a former CIA agent denounces in detail the abuses and destruction in the West Bank occupied by settlers, and these are filmed and documented (9 and 10)
When Israel starves a population by allowing only a trickle of trucks to pass through, which are then looted by Israeli extremists (see my previous posts), and the government makes the passage of trucks conditional on the return of the bodies of hostages who died in detention (11)
When a former senior official in the Ministry of Defense and Israeli ambassador to Great Britain declares, “Even if it meant killing a million Palestinians, it wouldn’t keep me awake at night. It’s a decision that a leader must make to resolve this conflict.” This is something that has been said and repeated by several ministers and senior officials in this government, including the president, who stated that there are no innocents in Gaza (12).
When hundreds of homes are destroyed and tens of thousands of olive trees are uprooted, knowing how attached Palestinians have been to this culture for thousands of years, settlers from the US or France consider that this land belongs to them (God would have decided so) or destroy important facilities (13).
Finally, for those who still have doubts, I would remind you that this occupation dates back to 1947, that 800,000 Palestinians were driven from the territory to populate the slums of Sabra and Shatila and elsewhere, and to claim that Israel and its army, among the most powerful in the world are the victims and the Palestinians the executioners is simply absurd and does not stand up to five minutes of reflection (14) (read the books/documentaries by E. Siwal, I. Pappé, S. Sand, H. Laurens, E. Sanbar, etc.). We must not forget that anti-Semitism is a Christian invention; pogroms, massacres, and the Holocaust did not take place in Islamic lands.
This war reinforces anti-Semitism (15) and by defending Israel whatever it does in this war—which is ultimately a colonial war, not a religious war—we validate the equation Jew = pro-Zionist/pro-Israel and justify Muslims hating us, with all that that implies.
When I was very young in Cairo, my mother took me to visit my family by train from Cairo to Beirut via Jaffa! Let’s imagine for a moment that Israel had accepted the proposals, notably from Saudi Arabia, to return to the 1967 borders (with Israel occupying 78% of the land of former Palestine). We would have peace throughout the region, no Hezbollah or Hamas, and Israel playing a bridging role between North and South for the benefit of the whole world, rather than this transformation of the project in which many of us believed into a kind of theocratic Sparta!
1. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/svestkapeter_freepalestine-ugcPost-7393977051319279618-M25u
3. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matanuziel_israel-knesset-hamas-ugcPost-7393962635320446976-Tbks
11. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hanslak_unrwa-activity-7383880456129368065–Bw2
12. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hanslak_israel-apartheid-activity-7393351203969159169-hVLE
13. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/66L0UasZTEA
Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash
