the exploited, weak, oppressed, and victims of state-sponsored violence, including genocide, NOT the oppressors, exploiters, and murderers. It’s really that simple. That black and white. There are no gray areas. There is no moral equivalence here. What Hamas did last October was barbaric but the 2.1 million people living in Gaza are not Hamas. The attack merely created an opportunity, an excuse if you will, for Israel and the IDF to shorten the long game, a modern-day version of the need and desire for Lebensraum.

When you “Stand with Israel,” does that mean you stand for genocide? Does it mean you don’t care about the tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, children who have been displaced, injured physically and psychologically, and slaughtered? Are their lives of less value than those of Israelis? Are they of no value? (One crystal clear indication of this is the raid that killed 274 Palestinians to rescue four hostages.)

Jeff St. Clair summed it up perfectly in this excerpt from No Way Out in Nuseirat: the Great Hostage Rescue Massacre (14.6.24):

When the Israelis finally left with the four rescued hostages, who’d been captured by Hamas on October 7 while attending the Nova rave just outside the Israeli security fence that pens in and isolates northern Gaza, they left behind 274 dead Palestinians, including 64 children and 57 women. They left behind 700 wounded, many in critical condition, many of whom seem likely to die in the coming days and weeks.

The reference to colonization in Wikipedia’s definition of Zionism is spot-on. (Italics are mine.)

“Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people through the colonization of a land outside of Europe, with an eventual focus on Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition.”

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is Israel’s “final solution” in “cleansing” the country of Palestinians. (Note: As a student of German history, I don’t use this term lightly.) The persecuted have come full circle by becoming the persecutors whereby the ends always justify the means. As some commentators have observed, Palestinians have become the Jews of the 21st century.

Here’s the latest statistical update from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (Geneva) from 07 October 2023-12 July 2024. Read it, weep, and act.

Peace, MAA