By Mohamed Harees –
‘You will be judged in years to come by how you responded to genocide on your watch’- Nicholas Kristof
Netanyahu essentially told Gazans to get out or die, a choice between expulsion and extermination, between ethnic cleansing and genocide – and while doing so has obliterated exit routes and fired on escaping convoys, leaving Gazans trapped. On October 20, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, stood on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, between Egypt and besieged Gaza. Guterres was not the only international figure to travel to the Gaza border, hoping to mobilize the international community in the face of an ongoing genocide, in an already impoverished and besieged Strip. Many others did too. These efforts, however, paid little dividends. The seemingly endless UN Security Council debates, General Assembly resolutions and calls for action did little to alter the tragic situation in Gaza in any meaningful way. Overall however, the invocation of “genocide” is always a fraught act, and all the more so when discussing the actions of the state of Israel.
This begs the question, what is the use of the elaborate international political, humanitarian and legal systems, if they are unable to stop, or even slow down a genocide that is being aired live on TV screens all across the world? The Palestinian slaughter is unfolding in Gaza while the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom are watching, not willing to condemn or stop it, and “calling it a humanitarian crisis, as if the weather caused it”, said Irish politician and European parliament member Clare Daly. There is no mistaking what this is: genocide. It may be the first genocide in history to be live-streamed on social media. Gazan impending genocide appear to have gone through the ‘10 stages of Genocide’ proposed by the Gregory H Stanton’s model on Genocide.
In previous genocides, whether those accompanying the Great Wars or that of Rwanda in 1994, various justifications were offered to explain the lack of immediate actions. In some cases, no Geneva Conventions existed and, as in Rwanda, many pleaded ignorance. But, in Gaza, no excuse is acceptable. Every international news company has correspondents or some presence in the Strip. Hundreds of journalists, reporters, bloggers, photographers and cameramen are documenting and counting every event, every massacre and every bomb dropped on civilian homes. Gaza has been turned into a Hiroshima as a result of Western bombs, moral support and the blank political check handed to Israel by Western governments and leaders from the onset of the war, in fact, 75 years prior. Nothing will ever alter this fact, and no ‘strongly worded’ future statements will ever help the West in particular (in view of its close relationship with the Zionist regime) and the world in general, redeem its collective moral failure.
On October 28, Craig Mokhiber resigned from his position as the Director of the New York office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights in protest of the UN’s failure to stop “a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza.” “The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt.” Mokhiber added: “This is text book case of genocide”.
On 14 October 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory warned against “a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale” as Israel carries out “mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war”. Nearly 800 lawyers, scholars, and practitioners, representing a diverse range of perspectives from academia and practice, signed a statement warning of the possibility of genocide in Gaza, Palestine. This open letter underscored the gravity of the situation, pinpointing multiple instances where the state of Israel appears to have breached international law, in full public view and frequently with the endorsement of a certain political class and a servile media.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
The indictments and the Nuremberg Trials that followed World War II made reference to “genocide” in the context of crimes against humanity, particularly in relation to the crime of persecution and murder. However, at that time genocide was not listed as a separate crime in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Charter) and was used as a descriptive rather than a legal term. The first time that genocide was codified as an independent crime under international law was in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereinafter, the Genocide Convention). According to Article I of the Convention, “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” The Genocide Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951.
All states are bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The International Court of Justice has affirmed that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is allowed. The Convention provides that individuals who attempt genocide or who incite to genocide “shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals”. Many experts on genocide studies are speaking out about the genocidal intent of the Israeli regime.
Alexander Hinton, UNESCO Chair on genocide prevention at Rutgers University in New Jersey, says genocide can be defined through three lenses: legal, social scientific, and conventional. However, experts say the legal definition is tricky because the threshold to prove genocidal intent is extremely difficult. Ernesto Verdeja, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in genocide says, “One has to prove that the perpetrator not only committed the actions, but they committed the actions with a very specific intention of destroying the group. That can be a high bar because very often people contribute to genocidal policies, even if that’s not their direct intention.”
However, the Israelis are not masking their language in any way. The New York Times reported on October 30 that “in private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II … to try to defeat those countries.” A few days later, Israeli Minister Amichai … has openly declared that nuking Gaza is an option in his country’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people. Then PM Netanyahu has repeated his promise that the mass death inflicted thus far is “only the beginning.” The Defence Minister said that the Gaza strip is under “complete siege, and cut off from electricity, fuel, food and water. A Knesset member openly called for a second Nakba, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948. Again, to deliberately create another Nakba would amount to genocide in Gaza. The rhetoric has made it down to the rank-and-file, too: an Israeli soldier said on national television that this war is not just with Hamas, but “with all the civilians.” This indiscriminate erasure of Palestinians in Gaza would, without doubt, be genocide – as an Israeli genocide scholar has himself stated. Even US voices are supporting the call for a ‘genocide’. A Florida state Republican lawmaker Michelle Salzman called for all Palestinians to die. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that the US should place “no limit” to civilian casualties Israel might inflict in Gaza in response to the Hamas terror attack.
The precursors to genocide are actively unfolding before our eyes. On 10 October, the head of the Israeli army’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed a message directly to Gaza residents: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell”. The same day, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari acknowledged the wanton and intentionally destructive nature of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza: “The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, concretely says it is a “textbook case of genocide.” Segal believes that Israeli forces are completing three genocidal acts, including, “killing, causing serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.” He points to the mass levels of destruction and total siege of basic necessities—like water, food, fuel, and medical supplies—as evidence. Israeli President Isaac Herzog during an Oct. 13 press conference said, “It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible”.Segal says that this language conflates all Palestinians as “an enemy population,” which could help prove intent. Israeli American scholar Omer Bartov, one of the world’s leading experts on the Holocaust, says Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip is at risk of becoming a genocide.
Hinton adds that the more colloquial definition for genocide focuses on the idea of “large scale destruction and acts perpetrated against a population”, like what happens in Gaza. Many may point to the Holocaust as the best example of this, though genocide, based on this broader definition, has happened many times over since, in places like Rwanda and Guatemala. Verdeja says Israel’s actions in Gaza are moving toward a “genocidal campaign.” City University of New York professor Victoria Sanford compares what’s happening in Gaza to the killing or disappearance of more than 200,000 Mayans in Guatemala from 1960-1996, known as the Guatemalan genocide. Sanford and Segal were two of more than a 100 scholars and organizations that signed a letter urging the ICC to take action given the “Israeli intention to commit genocide visibly materialising on the ground.” Sanford is also one of three scholars who signed a declaration in support of a lawsuit announced on Nov. 13 filed by the nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights. The war is one of asymmetrical counter-genocide,” wrote Martin Shaw, a distinguished genocide scholar, in New Lines Magazine. “
Of course there are few experts who differ. David Simon, director of the genocide studies program at Yale University, and Ben Kiernan, the director of the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University however opine do not meet the very high threshold that is required to meet the legal definition of genocide.” Some scholars, like Verdeja, say that debates on whether the current conflict can be called a genocide are a “bad use of focus.” Part of that is because proving whether something is a genocide takes time, and does not actually stop people from being killed. Hinton agrees, noting that because genocide is seen as the crime of all crimes, people focus too rigidly on defining a particular moment as such. May be, legal jargon could be restrained until a thorough investigation is conducted. But thorough investigations are rarely conducted when it comes to Israeli crimes in Gaza or anywhere else in Palestine. Segal clearly points to how the U.S. government refused to call crimes committed against the Hutus in Rwanda a genocide. Without sticking to the truth, we’ll never have a truthful reckoning of how we arrived at the seventh of October, and how we go forward,” Segal says. “We need to name it for what it is.”
It is imperative the world address these transgressions and hold accountable those who act with disregard for international law and for basic human decency, however flawed these might be. The world conscience cannot go numb and need to stop it. It is being marketed as Israel defending itself, even as the evidence tells us it is about collective punishment, real estate, ethnic cleansing and total annihilation of Gaza. When the West is complicit in the unfolding of the genocide, the rest of the world cannot watch. Colombia, Honduras and South Africa have all withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel, accusing its government of committing “genocide”.
It behoves on them to pressurize all relevant UN bodies, including the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, as well as the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to immediately intervene, to carry out the necessary investigations and invoke the necessary warning procedures to protect the Palestinian population from genocide. All States should take concrete and meaningful steps to individually and collectively prevent genocidal acts, in line with their legal duty to prevent the crime of genocide. The Iraq war was marketed as fighting terrorism, and bringing democracy, but we know it was all about oil and money. Gaza Genocide is no different. When it comes to genocide there is no grey area. You are either for or against genocide.
RBH59 / November 16, 2023
If It Is Not ‘Genocide’ In Gaza, Then What Should We Call It?
US does whatever and has justification Say Iraq, Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities, and being to seek a justification for his actions, Directing attacks against civilians
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SJ / November 17, 2023
We could call it “Zionist exceptionalism”
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Pundit / November 16, 2023
It is apartheid in its ugliest form sponsored by the US and its western allies.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 18, 2023
Author is a hypocrite exhibiting double standard, when he was blind to Genocide of Tamils aided and abetted by Muslims in Srilanka. There is genocide occuring in Pakistan where systematic ethnic cleansing of Hindus are taking place. Last month Azerbaijan Muslims committed genocide of Armenians of Nagarno- Karabarkh. Why is he silent on these matters. What is happening in Palestine is divine retribution to Arabs who joined Romans to commit genocide of Jews. Same thing will happen to Muslims in Pakistan for their crime against Hindus. It was Muslims who started the problem in Palestine by not accepting creation of Israel and going to war to destroy Israel. Qatar is trying to be funny with India in sentencing eight Indians to death for espionage. If they touch anyone of them, that will be the end of Qatar. There will be divine intervention to save Israel, and that could be in the form of India.
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Ajith / November 16, 2023
Lukman Harris,
Yes, It is Genocide. But, Are you saying this considering yourself as an Arab, Sri Lankan or Human?
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Kanapathy Varunan / November 16, 2023
Yes, it is genocide. How do you refer to the killing of 40,000 Tamils in the war without witnesses? Did the Tamil-speaking Muslims ever sympathize with the Tamils? Your so-called Muslim brothers surrounding Gasa and the 60 million Tamils Next door turned a blind eye to our agony.
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Pandi Kutti / November 17, 2023
They will never, as despite speaking Thamizh and of almost 100% Thamizh Dravidian origin, they have been brainwashed from small not to identify with their actual Thamizh ethnicity or origin by their largely power hungry, self-serving, selfish, peers, elite, mullahs and politicians, but only identify themselves solely with their religion and the large Islamic world, especially with the Arab world. To them everything remotely connected to the Arab is great, but anything connected to their rich almost 1000-year-old Thamizh Islamic culture is not. This is the reason they claim a blanket Arab origin for the entire community, that only around 5% of them partially have, that too a very distant male Arab ancestor centuries ago. They have brainwashed the entire community, especially the 100% Thamizh Muslim masses to believe in this Arab origin myth and despise their actual origin, and their fellow non-Muslim Thamizh. The Sinhalese Sri Lankan state also encourages this way of thinking and Arabization of these Sri Lankan Thamizh Muslims, as they want to divide and rule the Thamizh and muddy the waters for a Thamizh homeland, especially in the east, where they are found in numbers.
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Pandi Kutti / November 17, 2023
They also gave overt and covert support for their radicalization as this weaned and distanced them from their Thamizh Islamic culture, which was quite strong a generation ago. Other Islamic people may be fanatic and love their religion, but they also love their language, culture and ethnicity. You will never find a Malay, Turk. Kurd, or Iranian or Indian Muslim claiming to the Arab in the name of their religion. They have now become so radicalized and Arabized, especially in the east that recently a Mullah from the east, had openly criticized the ancient Thamizh classical dance Bharatha Natyam that is thousands of years old and world famous for its beauty as evil and should be banned. Reminds of the Taliban or the ISIS. They have no empathy feelings sympathy or brotherhood/sisterhood feelings for their fellow non-Muslim Thamizh or their plight, despite sharing so much with us, but largely consider as their enemies, despite all what we have done for them as fellow Thamizh. However, is the name of Islam have lots of sympathy for their fellow non Thamizh Muslims, especially the Arabs with whom, other than the slender thread of religion, they do not share anything else at all.
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SJ / November 17, 2023
A
Your comment “Are you saying this considering yourself as an Arab, Sri Lankan or Human?”makes me wonder if it is just as applicable to you, of course with a slight rewording.
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Ajith / November 17, 2023
SJ,
Sorry, I forgot you. It is applicable to you as well.
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SJ / November 17, 2023
Thanks, but you need to wait until I make a bigoted comment like yours.
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Mahila / November 20, 2023
All-inclusive, Sambol or SL ACHARU!!!?? Does it Matter at all??
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Nathan / November 16, 2023
Call by the same name you’d want to call what Hamas did inside Israel, Mohamed Harees. Simple, Easy, and Acceptable.
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SJ / November 17, 2023
Some fantastic sense of history and proportion!
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Mahila / November 20, 2023
NO!!! That’s different, because LIBERATION Movement!!!???
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Raj-UK / November 17, 2023
Seems the brutal murder of 1400 civilians & hostage taking, including small children, is not in the equation. Hamas triggered the ‘genocide’, obviously, knowing very well that Israel would retaliate with vengeance. Terror organisations survive as long as there is conflict. SL army did the same & by eliminating the LTTE, for which, the average SL citizen is eternally grateful.
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Siva Sankaran Sharma / November 17, 2023
The LTTE is the child of State sponsored Sinhalese racism/terrorism against the island’s Tamils and Indian opportunism. It was responsible for around 5% of the terrorism, and deliberate killings of innocent civilians committed on the island, whereas the Sri Lankan state its armed forces and the paramilitaries it operated were responsible for the rest especially. Under guise of fighting with the LTTE they deliberately bombed civilian targets like schools, churches, temples and orphanages, especially in May 2009 when they deliberately killed over 147000 Tamil civilians and later incarcerated over 300000 Tamil civilians in the Vanni in Nazi style concentration camps, where the intention was to keep them there permanently or long term and use them as some sort of slave labour, whilst their lands were to be colonized by outside Sinhalese.
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Siva Sankaran Sharma / November 17, 2023
They were forced to release them due to international pressure but still attempting to colonize their lands under various pretexts. Kurunthoor Malai is one of them. The UN has admitted to 40000-70000 killings and has declared it as war crime and is still investigating or pretending to. Cannot compare LTTE to Hamas or the Israel state to what Sri Lanka did and is still doing to the Tamils, with the overt and covert support of India and many other nations. The LTTE is no saint but the Sinhalese and Sri Lankan state and their supporters trying to compare them to Islamic extremist fanatical organizations, like Hamas/Hezbollah that are supported and funded by many Islamic nations, like Iran Turkey, Quater. Syria and Israel’s reaction Just to justify what the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan state did to the Tamils and are still doing. The LTTE’s fight was localized and 99% was confined to the Tamil areas of the island. Its aim was to liberate the island’s Tamils from state sponsored Sinhalese racism. It was secular and it encompassed all Tamils. Hamas and Hezbollah however have no intention of liberating the Palestinian Arabs but are using their plight to create Islamic extremism and fanaticism and spread Islamic extremism by terrorizing and killing innocent civilians Jewish or otherwise.
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Mahila / November 20, 2023
DUPLICITY
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Sura / November 17, 2023
Genocide? A big claim. Who’s committing it? Defending to stay alive and planning survival as a nation, can’t be genocide…
Al-Bahr Mosque – Tel Aviv…
Hassan Bek Mosque – Tel Aviv…
Mahmoudiya Mosque – Tel Aviv…
Siksik Mosque – Tel Aviv…
All religions have a place in Israel. Is it the same in Palestine or any other Muslim nation? Tell me how many synagogues you can find in the middle east except for Israel?
What did Egypt do for the Palestinians? What did Jordan do to the Palestinians?
Who was in control of Gaza until the 1970’s??
Have you read the Hamas pledge in regards to Death to Jews campaign?
Are you uniting to support Palestine or to eradicate the Jews?
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Native Vedda / November 17, 2023
Sura
–
Don’t start, “if you are not with us you are against us” kind of Bush’s very stupid admonition.
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Have you read ” The Israel-PLO Mutual Recognition Agreement”?
https://mesg.wordpress.hull.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/The-Israel-PLO-Mutual-Recognition-Agreement.pdf
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BLOWBACK: HOW ISRAEL WENT FROM HELPING CREATE HAMAS TO BOMBING IT
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
–
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Native Vedda / November 17, 2023
Sura
–
The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’
Hiram Johnson (1866-1945)
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Mahila / November 20, 2023
NV,
“Don’t start, “if you are not with us you are against us” kind of Bush’s very stupid admonition.”
That was JRJ’s famous in 1984/85!!! GWB copied it from the FOX!!!???
You are giving copycats undue prominence, instead of Our Own – Where is Patriotic Nationalism?
Sad to note NV!!?? Best wishes.
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old codger / November 18, 2023
Sura,
“All religions have a place in Israel. Is it the same in Palestine or any other Muslim nation? “
You need to do a bit more reading…….
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 18, 2023
There is no problem of having any number of mosques in Israel, but Al-Aqsa mosque which was built after demolishing a Jewish temple has to go. It is a symbol of aggression and provocation and has to be demolished. To justify this dastardly act, Muslims have concocted a story that Mohamed went to heaven in a chariot from that site. In modern times, can anyone with iota of sanity believe such canard. Jews will not do it as they say it will be destroyed by an act of God. Israel says that they want to offer jobs to Indians to work in agricultural field. They also could engage Hindus who have the expertise to demolish mosques, and say that God sent them to get rid of Ai-Aqsa mosque, which will fulfill Biblical prophesy of building the third Jewish temple on the mount.
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davidthegood / November 19, 2023
Sura, Your question has one answer, about supporting Palestine or eradicate the jews. The resurrected living Jesus was born a jew and is coming back to Jerusalem called the city of God Jehovah. He has paid the price to forgive all humans who draw to him. Ps.122 says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Cant eradicate eternal jews
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Native Vedda / November 17, 2023
Sura
–
The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’
Hiram Johnson (1866-1945)
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davidthegood / November 19, 2023
Sura, Your question has one answer, about supporting Palestine or eradicate the jews. The resurrected living Jesus was born a jew and is coming back to Jerusalem called the city of God Jehovah. He has paid the price to forgive all humans who draw to him. Ps.122 says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Cant eradicate eternal jews
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Champa / November 19, 2023
Nope, it is more than genocide.
The US and Israel are committing “democide” in the Gaza Strip right in front of the entire world.
What is democide?
1. Deliberately starving Palestinians to death by depriving them water, food, fuel, medicine and other essentials.
2. Deliberately burying and burning Palestinians alive by incessantly bombing refugee camps, general hospitals, children’s hospitals, schools including United Nations safe schools, residential buildings and bakeries where people gather in thousands.
3. Deliberately shooting unarmed civilians.
4. Deliberately targetting women, especially pregnant women and their unborns, newborns, infants and children, and killing them in thousands.
5. Deliberately obstructing and banning water, fuel and medicine supplies to Gaza hospitals and forcing medics, nurses and sick people to evacuate hospitals and bombing and raiding them to kill the remaining patients, newborns and infants.
(The photo that showed the number of newborns on one cot and others in incubators in the cold is heartrending. They are skinny to the ribs and some have even developed skin diseases. Wherever I go and whatever I do, this photo haunts me and makes me very sad. The world should be ashamed to witness this gruesome massacre everyday for 40 days and not do anything to stop it.)
1/4
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Champa / November 19, 2023
6. Forcibly displacing Palestinians from their homes and subjecting them to travel under inhuman conditions and environmental hazards, and thereby risking them physical injuries and loss of lives.
(My heart goes out to Palestinian families, especially little children, who are forced to walk four, five kilometers to Southern Gaza looking for shelter. I have never seen anyone even carrying a water bottle. I can’t be the only one crying whenever these photos and videos are shown in the media. Palestinians are forcibly displaced in their own country by the Israelists for no fault of their own.)
7. Deliberately bombing evacuation routes killing hundreds of Palestinians who were forcibly displaced.
What the US and its proxy killer, Israel doing in the Gaza Strip is democide, genocide, Infanticide, gynaecide, senicide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
2/4
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Champa / November 19, 2023
The United States is a cursed country, isn’t it? Look, how easily they plan to kill thousands of Palestinian civilians including innocent children to achieve their “ultimate goal” in the Gaza Strip? All US Presidents have blood on their hands. Mr. Biden is the worst of them all. He has the blood of the unborn, newborn, infants, children, women, old people and sick people of the Gaza Strip.
The US State Secretary Anton Blinken recently said that “too many Palestinians have been killed”. Too many! It is pretty obvious that the US had given a specific target for Israel to kill civilians and now they are not happy that Israel exceeded that number. Has anyone heard Mr. Biden or his officials tell Israel to not to kill Palestinians and their children? I haven’t. First, Mr. Putin took up the matter. Out of all western leaders, only the French President directly told the Israeli PM to stop killing babies, ladies and old people. Then the Canadian Prime Minister and the Brazilian President. That’s all from the “civilized” Global North. Maybe, they have no issue with the “colonial barbarism” happening in the Gaza Strip.
On behalf of the civilized world, I apologize to Palestinians for our Eastern and Western leaders’ inaction to save them from Israel’s cold-blooded savagery. But,
3/4
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Champa / November 19, 2023
Oh, didn’t I post 4/4?
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Champa / November 19, 2023
But, I give all my blessings to Palestine’s rightful resistance against the US’s proxy killer, Israel, to protect their children, people and the land.
I also wish the unseen powers of my ancestors be transmitted to Palestinians for added strength, courage, willpower and valour to free their land. Oh, it reminded me of something important.
I found the meaning of “Palestine”. Some were of the view that the original name of Palestine was “Filistine” but failed to give the meaning.
The word Palestine is derived from a Sanskrit word. According to British scholars, Sanskrit is the mother of all languages. Again, Sanskrit is not an Indian language. All Sanskrit words are Sinhala words and Indians have nothing to do with them. All Sanskrit palm books were written by Rawanas.
The original name of Palestine is the Sanskrit word “Phalasthana” or “Phalasthanaya” ඵලස්ථානය. “Phala” (ඵල) means fruits. “Sthanaya” (ස්ථානය) means the location or the place. So, “Phalasthana” which later became “Palestine” means the place where fruits are grown. I couldn’t find which fruit. It should be some special fruit native to Palestine. This is proof that Palestine existed hundreds of thousands years ago and there should be some special reason why my ancestors mentioned it. The fruit.
4/4
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Champa / November 19, 2023
Sanskrit “palm leaf books”
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old codger / November 20, 2023
Champa dear,
If you took your medication, you would help the Palestinians more.
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Mahila / November 20, 2023
C,
“They are now pushed to the wall.”
BS, across Red Sea and into Egypt!!! No Wall!!!???
Were you not domiciled in SL – 1979 to 2009!!!
During then DEMOCIDE in Sri Lanka???
YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN OF GREAT HELP TO HUMANITY
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Champa / November 20, 2023
Mahila
Exporting Palestinians to other countries is not the solution. They have their own land. Israel denied their right to exist and live in peace in their own land. The world should intervene to guarantee security to Palestinians. In fact, Israel is planning to establish a new “open-air-prison” for Palestinians in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
Show me your list of “democide”.
I have a list of LTTE terrorist massacres killing tens of thousands of Sinhalese until 2009.
1. Kent farm massacre
2. Dollar farm massacre
3. Kokilai massacre
4. Yal-Devi train massacre
5. Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi massacre
6. Air Lanka flight massacre
7. Havelock Road massacre
8. Aluth Oya (Habarana) bus massacre
9. Colombo bus station massacre
10. Aranthalawa massacre
11. Peliyagodalla massacre
12. Armour Street bomb massacre
13. Sinking of Navy Ship Sagarawardana off-coast Mannar
14. Thotalanga massacre
15. Kallarawa massacre
16. Eastern Province massacre (1995)
17. Kolonnawa and Orugodawatte massacre
18. Central Bank massacre
19. Dehiwela train massacre (1996)
20. Mullativu camp massacre
21. World Trade Centre massacre
22. Dalada Maligawa massacre
23. Gonagala massacre
24. Lionair flight massacre
25. Town Hall massacre
26. Ratmalana massacre
27. Katunayake Airport massacre
28. Kebithigollewa bus massacre
29. Digampathana bus massacre
30. Gomarankadawala massacre
31. Nugegoda shopping mall massacre
32. Okkampitiya bus massacre
33. Dambulla bus massacre
34. Fort Railway Station massacre
35. Weliweriya massacre
36. Piliyandala bus massacre
37. Dehiwela train massacre (2008)
38. Akuressa massacre
39. Colombo suicide air raid (2009 – the last one)
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Champa / November 19, 2023
After forcible displacement of Palastinians from Northern Gaza to Southern Gaza, Israel is now forcing Palestinians to evacuate from Southern Gaza, too!!!! Can you imagine? Where would they go? They are now pushed to the wall.
The US agenda in the Gaza Strip is very clear now. I feel sorry for some Arab leaders who sided with the US and Israel at the expense of Palestinians. After either massacring, expelling or subduing Palestinians, in a few years time, the US, UK and European countries will stop buying oil from Arab countries. By the time Arabs realize their folly, it would be too late for them. Too late. Remember, British East India Company? A similar corporation will be established in the Gaza Strip to exploit global trade.
Former CIA Director and US State Secretary Mike Pompeo once said “We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.” It is so easy to understand the CIA agenda in the Gaza Strip. I picked up clues from here and there and put them together. Let me explain it further.
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Mahila / November 20, 2023
C,
“They are now pushed to the wall.”
BS, across Red Sea and into Egypt!!! No Wall!!!???
Were you not domiciled in SL – 1979 to 2009!!!
During then DEMOCIDE in Sri Lanka???
YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN OF GREAT HELP TO HUMANITY
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Champa / November 20, 2023
I don’t understand this brouhaha about Anti-semitism.
The word “semitic” is NOT a synonym for Jewish people or Israelis. It is a language group. Jew is not a race. It is a religion.
Anti-semitic doesn’t mean Anti-Jewish because there are at least 50 semitic languages in the world including Arabic, ancient Hebrew, modern Hebrew (Israel), Ethiopian, Syriac, Yemeni, Maltese, Assyrian (Turkey, Iraq and Iran), Aramaic (spoken in Lebanon, Syria, Armenia, Southern Russia) and Tigre (spoken in Sudan). The phrase Anti-semitic can be applied to ALL the 350 million people in the world who speak semitic languages.
For the information of the Global North, semitic languages first originated in West Asia.
The first-most spoken semitic language in the world is Arabic. When you say Anti-semitic, it means, Anti-Arabic, too.
The second-most spoken semitic language is Amharic (spoken in Ethiopia). When you say Anti-semitic, it means Anti-Ethiopian, too.
For goodness sake, please grow up, Global North, and be civilized and embrace humanity. Stop waging bloody barbaric wars based on racism and skin colour. The State of Israel was established in 1948 (Source: Britannica). Israelis are Europeans. Semitic is a language group. Your history started only 250 years ago. But, there are other countries which existed hundreds of thousands of years ago.
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Pandi Kutti / November 20, 2023
The oldest semitic language is Akkadian and then Sumerian. The next oldest language would be Biblical Hebrew, which arose around 3000 years ago and belongs to the Northwest Semitic language group. What is now known as Old Arabic (the precursor to Classical and Modern Standard) first emerged around the first century CE Even Aramaic or ancient Syriac is older. Please get your fact correct.
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