'Not even a faint reservation was heard from the IDF's general staff in November, when the commander of the army's 36th Armored Division, Brig. Gen. David Bar Kalifa, issued a handwritten battle directive to his troops, calling on them to take revenge on the Palestinians.
'...Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram not only ordered his troops to open fire on Israeli civilians and blew up a Palestinian university in Gaza without permission, but also stated in an interview with journalist Ilana Dayan right as the war started that Israel's political leadership should refrain from any prospect of a political solution to the crisis. The IDF's chief of staff didn't say a word then either.'
'Iran has shown caution. It has made it known that, at least for now, it wants to avoid a wider war. One reason is that their nuclear programme is not too far from developing a weapons capability but is not quite there yet. This is another legacy of Trump’s foreign policy as he pulled out of a deal that had been negotiated under the Obama Administration that held back Iran’s uranium enrichment. Trump promised that he had better ways to deal with the threat, which unsurprisingly he didn’t. Part of the Iran’s response to Soleimani’s assassination was to announce that it would no longer restrict its uranium enrichment. The Biden Administration was trying to revive the deal, but this needed Russian cooperation and it all fell away in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.'
2. These people include the 400 who signed a petition against Jonathan Glaser, to a Zionist right-wing journalist who spoke at the 92nd St Y, to an Atlantic writer to a student from 'Bears for Israel" claiming that people are yelling at her because they are anti-semitic.
3. What all these people have in common is a strange childishness- an inability to imagine that they could be part of anything wrong. A total inability to be self-critical.
4. Repeatedly each of these people claim that they are being "yelled out" and the only reason this could be happening is because they are Jewish. The only thing they can imagine is anti-semitism, because they cannot conceptualize themselves as doing anything justifying criticism
5. Well, I feel like saying to each of these people: "The reason you are being criticized, the reason people are yelling at you, the reason you are being protested, is because you are part of a killing machine, murdering tens of thousands of people, and that is the only reason."
6. I am just as Jewish looking and sounding as they are. I have two Jewish names, and a thick Jewish accent and the people who are yelling at them are not yelling at me. So, clearly it is really about politics and values
7. Yes, I do get messages on social media constantly calling me a Nazi and a "Kapo" but that is because I opposed Jewish supremacy, and they can't stand that.
8. You are not being persecuted. What is happening is that you are supporting a genocide and history will understand this as a genocide, and your selfish, shallow refusal to see yourself realistically, - these crimes will follow you for the rest of your life.
9. You are lying to yourself. It is too bad that magazines and cultural institutions and companies and universities are supporting the distortions in your self-perceptions, but what they are doing is unethical and cruel and absolutely wrong.
10. And history will ask you about what you have said and done today.
So, look in the mirror and see the pain you have created and justified and you
will see yourself.
"It's a satanic state"
ReplyDeleteNorman Finkelstein
https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1768915127162802204?s=20