By Rohini Hensman –
Rohini Hensman
On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive attack on Israeli territory, killing over 1300 people, many of whom were civilians; the Israeli state has responded by bombing the Gaza Strip, in which Hamas has its headquarters and over 2.3 million civilians have their homes, starving inhabitants of food, water, medicines and fuel. But why did this happen? And what can be done about it? On these questions, there is no agreement whatsoever.
Who is to blame?
In its editorial of 8 October 2023, the Israeli paper Haaretz was unequivocal in assigning responsibility for the death and destruction resulting from the Hamas ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’:
The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister… completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians…
In the past, Netanyahu marketed himself as a cautious leader who eschewed wars and multiple casualties on Israel’s side. After his victory in the last election, he replaced this caution with the policy of a “fully-right government,” with overt steps taken to annex the West Bank, to carry out ethnic cleansing in parts of the Oslo-defined Area C, including the Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.
This also included a massive expansion of settlements and bolstering of the Jewish presence on Temple Mount, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as boasts of an impending peace deal with the Saudis in which the Palestinians would get nothing, with open talk of a “second Nakba” in his governing coalition. As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier.
Eighty six per cent of Jewish Israelis shared the opinion that Netanyahu and his government were to blame for the attacks, according to a Dialog Center poll. The criticisms of some might have been limited to the epic failure of Israeli intelligence and security agencies, but many would have in addition been revolted by the domination of the government by right-wing extremists openly pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Gideon Levy, a well-known Israeli columnist who is on the Editorial Board of Haaretz, went further. He blamed
Israeli arrogance, the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it… We’ll arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers busy with their pogroms… We’ll fire at innocent people, take out people’s eyes and smash their faces, expel, confiscate, rob, grab people from their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and of course continue with the unbelievable siege of the Gaza Strip, and everything will be all right…
On Saturday, they were already talking about wiping out entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, about occupying the Strip and punishing Gaza “as it has never been punished before”. But Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears very great responsibility for what happened… but it didn’t start with him and it won’t end after he goes. We now have to cry bitterly for the Israeli victims, but we should also cry for Gaza. Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees created by Israel. Gaza, which has never known a single day of freedom.
Levy is referring to the ‘Nakba’ (Catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias in 1948. Most of these Palestinians ended up in refugee camps in other parts of Palestine or in neighbouring countries. But how did this happen? We need to go back further to find that out.
Historical background
In the late 19th century, Palestine was a thriving part of the declining Ottoman Empire with aspirations for independence. At the same time, a European Jewish nationalist movement – Zionism – was searching for a land to colonise. In 1920, after the Ottomans were defeated, the League of Nations, established by the victorious powers of World War I, created a system of ‘mandates’ to replace them in the countries they had colonised. The British received Palestine.
The agenda was supposedly to prepare Palestine for independence, but the British imperialists treated their mandate as a colony; indeed, they had already, through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, agreed to the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine by the Zionist Organisation. A lengthy and thorough historical and legal examination by the UN on the origins and evolution of the Palestine problem establishes that this plan was opposed by many Jews, including Sir Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish member of the British cabinet. Yet it was eventually pushed through by the British government and accepted by the League of Nations, contrary to its own principles. As international law expert Professor Cattan, cited in the UN legal examination, says,
The Palestine Mandate was invalid…
The first ground of invalidity of the Mandate is that by endorsing the Balfour Declaration and accepting the concept of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine it violated the sovereignty of the people of Palestine and their natural rights of independence and self-determination. Palestine was the national home of the Palestinians from time immemorial. The establishment of a national home for an alien people in that country was a violation of the legitimate and fundamental rights of the inhabitants. The League of Nations did not possess the power, any more than the British Government did, to dispose of Palestine, or to grant to the Jews any political or territorial rights in that country. In so far as the Mandate purported to recognize any rights for alien Jews in Palestine, it was null and void…
The UN noted, ‘That the Jews deserved sympathy was unquestionable. Even before the Nazi terror, this sympathy existed for the Jewish people among the Palestinian Arabs. The absence of racial rancour before the Balfour Declaration received emphasis in virtually every official report.’ Historian Arnold Toynbee, also cited in the UN study, remarked, for the next 30 years, under the protection of ‘British military power,’ Jewish immigration and land acquisition enabled the Jewish population to grow from less than 10% of the population to nearly a third, and their land ownership from 0.025% to 6.2%, displacing large numbers of Palestinians and leading to conflict. It enabled the immigrants to arm themselves with tanks and planes. Thus, British imperialism played a key role in all the violence that has followed.
Mahatma Gandhi, despite his profound sympathy for persecuted Jews – which even extended to abandoning his rigid adherence to non-violence to argue that a war against Hitler would be justifiable – was adamant that it would be a crime against humanity to hand over Palestine to the Zionists.
The two-state ‘solution’
When Britain handed over Palestine to the UN in 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine recommended partitioning Palestine into a Jewish state on 56% of its territory and an Arab state on 43%, with an international enclave around Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
The Arab states opposed the proposal on the grounds that it violated the UN Charter, and indeed if Britain had no right to gift Palestine to Zionist settler-colonialists, neither did the UN have the right to gift more than half of Palestine to them. Yet when the proposal was put before the UN General Assembly as Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947, it passed with 33 votes for, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. (India voted against.) Far from bringing an end to the violence, this resolution was followed by the Nakba and violence that continues to this day, for which, therefore, the UN too bears responsibility.
Realising that the problem continued unabated, the UN appointed Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat, who had arranged the release of around 31,000 prisoners from the German concentration camps of the Second World War, to find solutions. His peace plan had three components: the right of return of Palestinian refugees, Jerusalem to be under international control, and permanent borders to prevent Israel from expanding. He submitted the proposal to the UN General Assembly on 16 September 1948, and the very next day was assassinated by Zionist terrorists of ‘Lehi’ aka the ‘Stern Gang’. His peace plan was never implemented and the assassins rose to prominent positions in Israel, but in December 1948, Resolution 194 of the UNGA incorporated the right of return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with already-established international law (Boling 2001).
Settler colonialism differs from other types in that it strives to settle the colony with its own people by expelling and killing the indigenous people, and this was the stated objective of Zionism. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe (2006) explains that its ‘main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state,’ and describes in detail the gruesome massacres by means of which almost 800,000 indigenous Palestinians – more than half the population – were driven from their homes. Their livelihoods, villages and urban neighbourhoods far beyond the area allotted by Resolution 181 were seized or destroyed, starting after the partition resolution in 1947 and peaking during the Nakba in 1948. Since then, ethnic cleansing – defined as a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) – has been carried out continuously by the Israeli state in Palestine. By 1949, Israel had annexed 78% of Palestine.
Those who could not be expelled and became residents of Israel were subjected to an apartheid regime of discrimination, also a crime against humanity. In the 1967 war, the remaining parts of Palestine – the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – were occupied by Israel. Negotiations between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Israeli government resulted in the Oslo Accords, in which Palestinian self-government in 22% of Palestine was promised in exchange for Palestinian collaboration in ensuring Israeli security. However, annexation of Palestinian land never stopped, and the Palestinian Authority, set up to implement the accords, became an object of contempt for many Palestinians. The Gaza Strip, with over 70% of its inhabitants refugees from ethnic cleansing elsewhere, became an open-air prison with Israel controlling all its borders. Jewish settlements gradually took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, converting the remaining Palestinian residential areas into ghettos and making a two-state solution impossible.
The genocidal logic of settler colonialism
Moshé Machover, a founding member of the Israeli socialist group Matzpen, explains that the structural racism of the Israeli state is an inevitable consequence of its settler-colonial project, but the government formed by Benjamin Netanyahu in December 2022 is more extreme than most previous governments. Machover quotes two Israeli experts on the history of fascism and Nazism: Professor Zeev Sternhell, who says that in statements made by two senior Israeli politicians, ‘we see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages’; and Professor Daniel Blatman, who quoted Deputy Knesset Speaker Belazel Smotrich saying that Palestinians would become subjects without rights, and if they objected would be cleansed, and if they refused to leave would be exterminated, concluding that ‘I think it is Nazism in every way and fashion, even if comes from the school of the victims of historical Nazism.’ In fact, Netanyahu had already begun this process in 2018 when he passed the ‘Nation-State Law,’ which closely follows the Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Characterisation of this state as a fascist one has been widespread among Israeli left-wingers and left-liberals before and after the Hamas attacks.
In the Genocide Convention (1948), as in the Rome Statute of the ICC (2002), ‘genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…’ Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared the intention to destroy the Palestinians in no uncertain terms on October 9th: ‘We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly’. When 2.3 million Palestinians in a sealed space, half of them children, are bombed relentlessly, including hospitals, schools, churches and UN shelters, this begins to look like the Nazi final solution.
Gallant’s statement also reveals his endorsement of the barbaric doctrine of collective punishment, which was used so pervasively by the Nazis. This is supplemented by the systematic use of ‘the big lie’; as Hitler explained, the very boldfaced nature of these fabrications renders them among the most powerful forms of public persuasion. Who could believe that when the Israeli military systematically targets hospitals, when Netanyahu’s aide Hananya Naftali tweeted that the ‘Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza’, when lies by Israeli officials have been exposed in the past, that they didn’t carry out the airstrike on Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza which killed almost 500? The Anglican Church running the Al Ahli Hospital knew better.
What about Hamas?
The complete failure of the Palestinian Authority even to stem the deteriorating conditions of Palestinians led to various alternative initiatives, one of which was the establishment of Hamas, an Islamist national liberation group, in 1987. It had previously launched rockets into Israel, but the scale of the attack on 7 October was unprecedented. What does international law say about this?
The UN affirms ‘the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle,’ so resorting to armed struggle does not in itself outlaw Hamas. However, even a national liberation war must abide by international law, which protects civilians, making Hamas’s attack on civilians a war crime. Is it terrorism? Yes, it is terrorism, defined as acts or threats of violence against unarmed civilians in pursuit of a political goal. These crimes and its right-wing Islamist ideology make it impossible for progressives to support Hamas.
However, according to this same definition, the Israeli state was established by acts of terrorism and has continuously been engaged in terrorism to this day. Moreover, it has violated international law on a vastly greater scale than Hamas, committing crimes against humanity and genocide rather than mere war crimes. In the words of Holocaust survivor Dr Gabor Maté: ‘The disproportion of power and responsibility and oppression is so markedly on one side that you take the worst thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.’
International reactions
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza sparked Palestine solidarity demonstrations throughout the world. Arab leaders who had done nothing to promote Palestine’s liberation for decades and had been normalising relations with Israel were jolted into putting this process on hold for fear of infuriating their people. The Chinese and Russian regimes, which have made clear their rejection of universal human rights and international law, nonetheless called for a ceasefire to allow for humanitarian aid. The UN, especially its Human Rights Council, spoke up for the human rights of Palestinians.Western leaders, headed by Joe Biden and including Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and Justin Trudeau, stated that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’, and in some cases pledged military supplies. Volodymyr Zelensky agreed that ‘Israel’s right to self-defense is indisputable’. There were a few – like EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell – who criticised Israel for violating international law, but the rest gave a green light to the slaughter of Gaza’s civilians.
Two things make this position bizarre. First, while the vast majority of Israelis blame Netanyahu and his government for the attacks, these leaders endorse Netanyahu’s extremist regime. Second, they all back Ukraine in its national liberation struggle against Russian colonialism, yet the positions of Ukraine and Palestine are almost identical. Putin denies the existence of Ukraine and is attempting to erase it from the face of the earth by ethnic cleansing and genocide just as Netanyahu denies the existence of Palestine and is attempting to erase it by ethnic cleansing and genocide. The timelines are different: the Zionist assault on Palestine started in 1920, whereas Putin’s assault on Ukraine started in 2014, although there were earlier bouts of genocide in Ukraine and Crimea, under Tsarism, Stalin and the Nazis. And the Ukraine struggle is led by a democratically-elected government whereas there is no such government in Palestine. Yet the similarities are striking.So anyone who argues that the Israeli regime colonising Palestine has the ‘right’ to defend itself from a national liberation struggle by killing Palestinians in Palestine would logically have to argue that the Russian regime colonising Ukraine has the ‘right’ to defend itself from the national liberation struggle there by killing Ukrainians in Ukraine. The only explanation for the blatant double standard involved in supporting the colonial regime in Palestine and the liberation struggle in Ukraine is racism: Ukrainians are predominantly white, Palestinians are not. And this is a reminder that ‘Western values’ include fascism and Nazism, racism and White supremacism. Biden’s reaction is particularly ghoulish. With the US already having provided billions of dollars that have been used to slaughter thousands of Palestinian children, he wants US taxpayers to fund more weapons to slaughter more children.
The Western reaction to the Israeli assault on Gaza is a severe setback to the Ukrainian struggle for freedom, because it undermines its moral legitimacy in the eyes of many by associating it with support for a genocidal fascist state. It is also a setback for universal human rights and international law, because it supports impunity for egregious violations of human rights and international law.
What is to be done?
Anyone who talks about the two-state solution as a formula for ‘peace’ is guilty of rank hypocrisy, because today it can only be achieved by waging a bloody war to evict Israeli settlers while the apartheid state of Israel supports them with all the weapons at its disposal. There are far better non-violent alternatives.
In 2005, 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organisations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society organisations called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complied with international law by meeting three demands: (1) Ending Israeli occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian Occupied Territories and dismantling the ‘apartheid’ wall that cuts deep into Palestinian land; (2) Recognising the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; (3) Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. All these demands are supported by international law; to say that Palestinians are not entitled to these universal rights is racist.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement describes itself as ‘an inclusive, anti-racist human rights movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia,’ and is completely non-violent. Yet a vicious campaign against it has been waged in the name of countering antisemitism as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. It is indeed important to condemn and combat antisemitism, one of the oldest forms of racism that is still rampant today, but combating it effectively requires an accurate definition of it. The IHRA definition is vague, open-ended, and includes ‘claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’ and ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’.
On 25 March 2021, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) was presented by a group of over 200 eminent Jewish scholars of antisemitism studies and related fields, who felt that the IHRA definition weakened the fight against antisemitism by causing confusion and generating controversy. They defined antisemitism as ‘discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish),’ and made it clear that ‘while antisemitism has certain distinctive features, the fight against it is inseparable from the overall fight against all forms of racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender discrimination’. They specifically excluded ‘Supporting the Palestinian demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights… Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism… Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state’ and comparing ‘Israel with other historical cases…’ and ‘ Boycott, divestment and sanctions’ against Israel as instances of antisemitism.
Jews are human beings like everyone else, they range from the best of humanity to the worst. There are Jewish writers and human rights activists, including rabbis, who deserve gratitude and admiration for their steadfast pursuit of truth and justice in Palestine. But there are also Jewish fascists like Netanyahu and his cabinet who deserve prosecution in the ICC for crimes against humanity and genocide. Acknowledging that is part of the fight against antisemitism.
A concerted campaign to implement BDS and universalise the adoption of the JDA definition of antisemitism can bring about peace.
References
Boling, Gail G. (2001) ‘Palestinian refugees and the right of return: An international law analysis,’ BADIL – Information and Discussion Brief Issue No. 8, January. https://www.badil.org/phocadownload/Badil_docs/Working_Papers/Brief-No-08.htm
Institute of Palestinian Studies and Palestinian Museum, Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestinian Question, ‘UN Partition Plan, 1947: Paving the Way to the Impending Nakba.’ https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/159/un-partition-plan-1947
Pappe, Ilan (2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications Limited, 2006. https://oneworld-publications.com/work/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine/
United Nations, ‘The Question of Palestine: Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917–1947, Part 1.’ https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-i-1917-1947/
*Rohini Hensman is a writer, independent scholar and activist who has worked on labour movements, feminism, minority rights, globalisation, and democracy movements, and has been published extensively on these issues. A version of this article has been first published by The India Forum.
nimal fernando / November 1, 2023
“Palestine & Israel: Historical, Legal & Moral Issues”
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Where were all these until Hamas attacked – at the risk of annihilation – and drew attention to the plight of the Palestinians? ……. Forgotten? ……. In nice comfortable obscurity, for the moral-brigade?
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I just want to puke on the rug – at the risk of my wife killing me.
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Rohini Hensman / November 1, 2023
You can save your wife’s rug, Nimal. I – and many others – have been on countless Palestine solidarity demonstrations over decades. Way back in 2009, I published this article, with very similar arguments: https://www.countercurrents.org/hensman060109.htm
What have you been doing for Palestinian liberation?
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leelagemalli / November 1, 2023
Ms Hensman,
Thanks for the very informative balanced essay. I did not know many in Sri Lanka at least fought for the Palestinians, but our Honorable Ms. Manel Fonseka is one of the few people I know who has been fighting against the atrocities faced by the Palestinians since the crisis was conceived. Even today, she wholeheartedly connects with articles about the injustices they face. I really appreciate you and your voice on this matter.
About me, I have participated in several discussions and demonstrations in EUrope against the injustices that Palestinians constantly face in that country. I am always with my Palestinian colleagues *many of whom studied in Europe and work in European hospitals and research institutes*. During my time in the hostel from the mid-90s to 2005, I have lived with several Palestinians.
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nimal fernando / November 1, 2023
Rohini,
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Please don’t take it personally ……. I was addressing a wider group
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“What have you been doing for Palestinian liberation?”
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I am trying to point out the futility of it all ……… in spite of all the protests, talking, conferences, articles, pontificating in the UN, etc. etc. ………. where are the Palestinians today? ……… And where will be them tomorrow?
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It’s the inevitability of it all ……. one can take a long winding road or the shortest path …….. to realization ……….. it’s a personal choice
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You’re a write/novelist/activist …….. I’m a realist …….. another personal choice ……..
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nimal fernando / November 2, 2023
Discarding all the hoopla ……. this is the stark reality ……. one has to face ……. all else doesn’t matter because it hasn’t mattered!
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If no greater-force force Israel to stop …… Israel will go on its merry way that it has been going since its – recent – inception …….. the only country that is a threat to Israel is Iran, that’s why the US is imposing sanctions on Iran: not because Iran is a threat to the US.
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Protests can bring some feel-good consolation ………. but do nothing to bring justice for the Palestinians.
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That’s the truth/reality ……. facing it is a personal choice.
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In spite of well camouflaged pseudo-“civilizing” …….. force/violence is how people prevail ……… open your eyes and look: that’s all you gotta do
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What people don’t realize is …….. it’s the violence/burnings on the 9th of May last year ……. that compelled Gota and Mahinda to run away …….. not any of the peaceful protests/activity that preceded the violence
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What did all the protests achieve for the Tamils? ……. What did Prabakaran achieve through violence? ……… Equal treatment with the Sinhalese government in the South? ……. Then he was dislodged by who could marshal greater force/violence.
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nimal fernando / November 2, 2023
cont
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I’m not advocating peace or violence ……. but just pointing out …… how the world is ……..
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It’s one’s personal choice to take off the rose tinted glasses ……… or not ……..
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There are historians, essayists, writers, authors, peaceniks, activists, …… aplenty …….. there also should be room for realists ……… at least for one ………..
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 1, 2023
Please state facts correctly. Palestine and Lebanon belong to Canaanites who are being kept suppressed by Arabs Both Jews and Palestinians are immigrants from North Africa and are not the rightful owners. Bible clearly says that Moses led his people to escape persecution in Egypt into Jerusalem. Jesus Christ is a Jew who lived 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. So Jews have every right to call it their home. Palestinians committed crime by getting together with Romans is driving the Jews out, and are not innocent. Israel was created at the same time and on the same principle as Pakistan. One cannot be wrong and other right. Hindus accepted Pakistan for the sake of peace, while Arabs did not accept Israel, went to destroy it and failed. Thus Arabs are the cause of the problem making them aggressors and Jews the defendants. They say thousands of Palestinians were displaced in creating Israel, but no one talks of millions of Hindus who were killed and driven out of Pakistan. Hindus must get the same justice as for Palestinians.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 1, 2023
Al Aqsa mosque was built after demolishing Jewish temple. To justify that a canard is being spread that prophet Mohamed went to heaven in a chariot from that site, and thus it is the third holiest for Muslims. Can anyone with iota of sanity believe that a human being could do that. This is like Mahawamsa saying that Buddha made three flying visit to Srilanka. Now by archaeological excavation the presence of Jewish temple below Al Aqsa mosque. Demolishing other religious places and building mosque over them had been practiced by Muslims all over the world. Correct justice is to demolish Al Aqsa mosque and build the original Jewish temple in that place. One of these days God will make sure that misguided bomb from Iran will destroy Al Aqsa mosque, in a similar mass what happened to hospital in Gaza by Hamas rocket fire.
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SJ / November 1, 2023
“Al Aqsa mosque was built after demolishing Jewish temple. “
Another figment of imagination!
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“From the days of Constantine until the Arab conquest in 637/38, despite intensive lobbying by Judeo-Byzantines, Jews were forbidden to enter the city. Following the Arab capture of Jerusalem, the Jews were allowed back into the city by Muslim rulers such as Umar ibn al-Khattab.”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Jerusalem#:~:text=Following%20the%20Arab%20capture%20of,the%20region%20jockeyed%20for%20control.}
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a14455 / November 2, 2023
Gana
Dont you know that the Bible and the Koran and the Torah are mythical garbage written by idiot peasants in the middle ages. None of these are proof of anything . You cant uproot people from where they live because you are the so called chosen ones ? Chosen by who ? Some idiots who thought they would fall off the edge of the earth ?
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Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
My case, honestly by 1970s, I was not fighting along with Hamas. But supporting the Federal Party’s Federalism, until SJV came out with Vattakottai Convention and self-rule for Tamils; then I re-positioned myself to self-rule, along with TULF. In 2009, protested in New York streets & in front of UN office against UN’s cheating of Tamils a war without witness. Then, from 2010 worked with TGTE for a few years. Our efforts made the UN to investigate it and confessed that more than 100,000 Tamil civilians were killed in Mullaitivu, but the UN failed to do anything about it that time. That was a success story for Tamil making the UN accept that it did not for us what they could have done.
In Tamil they say “Thaanamum Tharmamum Than Thanakku Minchinathu. (Charity and donation are whatever one didn’t use for one’s need.)” So, practically my life as refugee in Western countries, is on borrowed fund. So, I resisted pretending I am a great Physiotherapist! Langkang activists will be better if they do not start to shine like moon. The moon has so many dark spots on it. But attempts to clear the darkness on the faraway sister, the earth.
If we are honest, what can we do to the Israel and Palestine problem that we badly missed to do for us? Just pompous dupes!
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Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
Rohini Hensman,
Could I ask you a question. Do you have any links to show what you were doing to solve the Tamils problems? I just want to check your opinion on that as it was, before today.
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sonali / November 2, 2023
Thanks to the author for collating and presenting data on the Gaza Strip issue. Length and detours got in the way however.
An opportunity for writers to be recognised and insert their own partialities on related matters is presented during such eruption. A fast internet speed is essential for such inquiry and journalism.
The writer linked the Palestinian and Ukrainian issues, and amid other misinformed statements says “the Chinese and Russian regimes have made clear their rejection of universal human rights and international law”.
US and NATO races become darlings when reading is limited to mainstream western media and minds have been “whitewashed”.
Then US and NATO and millions murdered can be ignored and limited only to the 1950s, beginning with Vietnam and ongoing after Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan. All for “universal human rights and international law”. No. Not for oil and resources. Jayawewa!
Honoured murderers like Lt. William Calley live contentedly, having killed countless Vietnamese women and children, but only charged for 22.
In closing: Chinese and Russian tourist now keep alive our tourism. They are glad to go back home where supposedly universal human rights and international law are ignored.
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Nathan / November 1, 2023
Thank you, Rohini Hensman.
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old codger / November 1, 2023
“The League of Nations did not possess the power, any more than the British Government did, to dispose of Palestine, or to grant to the Jews any political or territorial rights in that country.”
It was Nazi Germany that carried out genocide against the Jews. The right thing to do would have been to hand over a small part of Germany to them.
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leelagemalli / November 1, 2023
Dear OC,
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“It was Nazi Germany that carried out genocide against the Jews. The right thing to do would have been to hand over a small part of Germany to them.”
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I am in full agreement with u regarding ur proposals above.
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BUt i do believe, GErmanys Nazi parties *AFD* would not even let anyone talk about jews today. Right these days, GERmans are somewhat like injected mice in labs. HOwever, i believe, not only in GErmany, but Nazi supporters are scattered also in Poland, Croatia, Serbia and many other countries yet today.
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Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
Nazi Germany did not expel Jews from Israel.
They inhumanly attempted to purify their land, when it was not hurting them to share it with the Israeli refugees.
And it was not just Nazis, the whole Europe did it, but less aggressively than Nazis.
When I was in Canada, I was working under a Jewish Boss, in a Jewish fall owned business. He has been traveling all over the world on Business matters. But I came to know that he had never gone to Germany. I asked him about that. He replied: “Why would I go there? you know they didn’t like us (Jews). This is my country, and I am safe and happy here”. Everybody is entitled to have their own feelings, their opinion and their little, tiny philosophy (principle) in their life. You don’t reject them because they are not thinking in line with your own analysis.
But his family migrated from the Balkan States during the war.
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old codger / November 2, 2023
Malli,
“Nazi Germany did not expel Jews from Israel.”
No, because the current state of Israel didn’t exist at the time.
It was European Chrisians who persecuted Jews most, not Arab or other Muslims.
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leelagemalli / November 2, 2023
bro,
urs appears to be an isolated INCIDENT. Most of them are more superstitious than anyone else. It is unique to them. I have worked with colleagues FROM a healthcare company in Tel Aviv, whose representatives were Jewish, however based on the facts they were not easy to deal with. They are easily offended and are very temperamental in nature. This blood must be the reason for that. For them to be that cruel, their DNA and that of other Homo sapiens would have to be quite different. With more deaths especially all infant and child deaths together my heart questions today if there is justice in this world. We are forced to believe that people are becoming more civilized with industrial advancement, however, today we are forced to watch on television screens the opposite. In 1991 it was a big mistake of the UN to cancel that contradiction regarding the nature of Zionism/ethnicity.THat gave them the licence to continue their gains by hook or by crook.
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whywhy / November 2, 2023
o c ,
From time immemorial , Jews have a history with the Arabs and
Persians and they lived scattered all over Arab and non-Arab
former kingdoms . The issue here is not why they were allowed
where they are today but How it was done , by whom and the real
strategy behind the move . For anyone seeking knowledge on how
this world is running , in my view , Israel-Palestine is an inevitable
treasure of knowledge . All world bodies are expected to react on
their case , it is a world issue waiting or fighting for justice . We are
today watching all over the world , peace is becoming pieces and
people are killing each other under different pretexts unacceptable
to the standard of any civilisation we claim we belong to .
/
Lasantha Pethiyagoda / November 1, 2023
A brilliantly compiled essay and an example of refined analysis with good research and facts to support a very fair argument although the comparison between Ukraine and Palestine seems misguided.
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chiv / November 1, 2023
Agree. Most balanced article, I have come across till today. Though facts are retrospective, history is presented from author’s perspective.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 1, 2023
Lasantha Pethiyagoda, in a comment to another article in Colombo Telegraph you said that Israel has no right to exist. I could not reply to it as the comments were closed. On the same token, Pakistan also has no right to exist as both were created on the same principle. Even Srilanka has no right to exist as the land of Kuveni and her people (Dravidian ethnicity) was usurped by a bunch of criminals from Bengal, who set up their kingdom. First look into the injustice being done on Tamils before venturing on matters abroad.
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Pandi Kutti / November 2, 2023
Well has looked at it and decided like many of the Chingkalla and Muslim hypocrites here that what happened and is happening to the island’s Thamizh at the hands of the Chingkalla Sri Lankan state is very trivial and commented so in another article, however the same thing happening to Palestinians is a tragedy and against human rights. Proves the racist mindset of most Chingkallams and the selfish opportunistic mindset of most of the island’s Muslims, actually Thamizh but pretend not to be but claim everything else as their origin, Arab, Camel, Budgerigar, African Love Birds, as long as it is not their actual Thamizh origin. They trivialize the marginalization and structural genocide of the island’s Thamizh as both these people benefited and are still benefiting, and they are the perpetrators of this marginalization and genocide.
/
Pandi Kutti / November 2, 2023
Rohini Hensman it is nice and heartening to see you concerned and demonstrating for the Palestinian cause, but what about showing the same concern to the plight of your own Thamizh people who are facing the same situation on the island and doing something about it. After all charity begins at home not elsewhere, your own people are facing the same situation but looks like this is not a concern to you but going around crying about others who do not care about your plight. This is like a mother not caring for her own starving children, goes around distributing food and her love to other children. Are you aware that the Palestinian government that cries about the structural genocide of its own people, supports the Sri Lankan state in the structural genocide of the island’s Tamils, your own people and votes in favour of Sri Lanka in the UN
/
leelagemalli / November 2, 2023
Dr G,
/
As a moderate Sri Lankan born in the island nation, I am against any form of fundamentalism. Be it from LTTERs, JVP, Hamas or Jewish governments it must be stopped. Having said this, if you say that Sri Lanka has no right to exist, then the entire countres in Europe, Asia and other continents has no right to exist. Why those levels are lowered and downplay the actual crimes committed by some fundamentalists is a bigger question for me. i never thought u the kind of learned men would fall to this levels.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 3, 2023
I only made a comparison to the comment by Lasantha Pethiyagoda in another article in Colombo Telegraph, saying that Israel should not exist. Problem in Srilanka is the Sinhala claim to ownership and rule over the entire island. Archaeologically and genetically both Sinhalese and Tamils are descendants of Dravidians who inhabited this land.
/
leelagemalli / November 3, 2023
“Archaeologically and genetically both Sinhalese and Tamils are descendants of Dravidians who inhabited this land.”
.
i wish i could get the links from u. Please provide us with the information that both are common descendants / thank u ..
/
Lionel Bopage / November 1, 2023
It is true the current round of hostilities began with Hamas attacking Israelis and taking them hostage. Hamas needs to be condemned for their terror campaign. Similarly, Israel’s collective punishment imposed on Palestinians by indiscriminately bombing of Gaza; prohibiting of food, water, medicine and electricity; and locking down of the West Bank need to be condemned. Last February, Ben Gvir, who is comparable to the likes of Gnanasara and Priyasad in Sri Lanka, was appointed chair of a task force to punish Palestinians. He has been convicted in the past of incitement against Arabs. His ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party is in Netanyahu’s govt. Even the Police Commissioner of Israel went against Gvir’s proposition to impose collective punishment against Palestinians. Last February, even Shin Bet chief warned Ben Gvir about the ongoing crackdown against the Palestinians. He told Gvir: “Your activity is creating a feeling of collective harassment. This is agitating [East] Jerusalem and may cause a broad flare-up at this sensitive time”. Gvir reportedly dismissed Bar’s warnings. Hamas terror occurred in this social and political context. An immediate ceasefire with an end to the siege, with all hostages held by both sides released, there could be a way forward.
/
Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 1, 2023
Tamils in Srilanka are facing worst plight of murder and ethnic cleansing. Deportation of Indian Tamils and murder and driving out of Ceylon Tamils constitute genocide. Lands of Tamils are being appropriated by Sinhalese and Muslims, Buddhist temples are being built in areas where there are no Sinhalese, Tamils are being constantly threatened by Sinhalese and Muslims. Would you ever dare to write an article : Sinhala and Tamil nations : Historical, Legal and Moral issues. It has been proved archaeologically and genetically about presence of Tamils in ancient times, and denial of land to Tamils is racism. worst racism is Muslim claim to eastern province, where it is in black and white that they went there as refugees 500 years ago. Can you please give your hones opinion as to what Srilanka government do if LTTE fired 5000 rockets on Colombo, killed 1000 unarmed Sinhalese mostly women and children and abducted 200 more. If you dodge the question, then you are a hypocrite.
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 1, 2023
Author: “The only explanation for the blatant double standard involved in supporting the colonial regime in Palestine and the liberation struggle in Ukraine is racism: Ukrainians are predominantly white, Palestinians are not.”
There is no racial basis for the West supporting Israel in its present conflict with Hamas. If you want a reason for the western countries supporting Ukraine and Israel in their respective conflicts other than their moral justification for it, then it is the fact that both Ukraine and Israel are their allies. Russia has traditionally been the West’s enemy from the time of the Communist takeover (though an ally in the second world war). Israel has considerable support in the U.S. (the principal backer of Israel), not least from the Evangelicals, and is the closest country to the West in the Middle East in terms of democratic and cultural values.
Actually, both the Jews and the Palestinians share similar physical characteristics, including complexion, and the Palestinians are no less white than the Jews on average.
/
old codger / November 1, 2023
LJ,
“Israeli Arabs, who are citizens of Israel, have the same rights, political and otherwise, as the Jewish Israelis. “
I don’t know how you can keep on defending an apartheid state, when even Benjamin Netanyahu disagrees with you:
“Israel is not a state of all its citizens… [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them”
Israel’s then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (message posted online in March 2019)
Nobody can argue with that.
“Actually, both the Jews and the Palestinians share similar physical characteristics, including complexion”
Surely you jest. Are you suggesting that, for example, Ethiopian Jews, Indian Jews, and German Jews (all imported at various times) look alike?
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
OC:
“I don’t know how you can keep on defending an apartheid state, when even Benjamin Netanyahu disagrees with you….”
I thought I had addressed this point in comments posted under other recent articles and silenced you but this topic seems to be a particularly obstinate bee in your bonnet. As I have said before, Israeli Arabs, who are citizens of Israel, have the same rights, political and otherwise, as the Jews with, as I far as I know, the following differences:
1. Only Jews and their descendants have the automatic right to immigration and immediate citizenship.
2. Only the Jews are required by law to enlist in the IDF (and so subject to conscription), it being voluntary for non-Jewish citizens. (This is, of course, a duty rather than a right.)
Some Israeli Arabs do complain of systemic discrimination against them just the same way that some blacks do in the U.S. in spite of one of their number, Obama, being elected to the highest office in the land twice. But systemic discrimination is not apartheid.
Continued.
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
Continued from above post.
The residents of the “occupied territories” are not Israeli citizens and their unequal treatment by Israel is due to that and not their race, so no apartheid either in Israel or the occupied territories.
In Sri Lanka, we often hear it said by prominent personalities that this country is “Sinhala Buddhist” but, at a practical level, what rights do the minorities not have?
/
old codger / November 2, 2023
LJ,
“at a practical level, what rights do the minorities not have?”
Ah, at a “practical level “, can a minority person, even a Sinhala Christian like yourself get himself elected nowadays as PM or President? I am aware of Sir John, but that was a different era. There are other things too, that are not available to minorities at a “practical level” that are available in the Constitution. I happen to live in Sri Lanka.
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
This will be my last comment under this thread because you seem to be just going round in circles. I am talking about RIGHTS (apartheid relates to rights), not how people may vote, etc. There is no legal impediment to a Tamil or a Christian being nominated for the Presidency but no chance in hell, for example, a Tamil to be actually nominated or elected President if he espouses a separatist agenda. A “Christian” like Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith who puts Buddhism above Christianity may not have much difficulty in being elected President. Jackson Anthony was accepted by Sinhala Buddhists as one of their own because, though he was born Catholic and had a Catholic funeral, he was, by his own admission, culturally Buddhist. In the U.S. an atheist has practically no chance of being President, even if he is the whitest person on earth.
/
old codger / November 3, 2023
LJ,
Sure, there is no legal impediment, but would you explain why practically all senior Police officers, even in the North, are Sinhala Buddhists, like the vast majority of SLAS officers too?
Ethnic distribution in state employment
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Recruitment-of-Sri-Lanka-Administrative-Service-grade-III-officers-with-reference-to_tbl1_304583836
https://www.police.lk/?page_id=1085
https://www.police.lk/?page_id=3370
You see, I have done the research, and the proof of systematic discrimination is undeniable.
Now, don’t run away accusing me of going in circles.
/
Mahila / November 3, 2023
OC,
You have forgotten, What about Dudley Shelton Senanayake or Junious Richard (Dicky). They too are Sir John’s Kinsmen!!! Anglicised “RICE CHRISTIANS”, for existential needs!!! Difference is they went “down on all fours”, when visiting Kelaniya or Kandy, which the Army Colonel veteran refused to do – exception!!!??? Same as Lakhsman Kadir – seated always 1st Pew at the cathedral but “anointed” as “Best Foreign Minister Lanka ever Had!!!??? Deprived by accident, or intentional PM and/or President!!!??? “Appey Miniha Navey”!!!??? Match over
/
old codger / November 2, 2023
LJ,
#1)Who can immigrate into Israel without restriction? Only Jews, of whatever ethnicity, from African to Latin American. Not Christians, not Muslims.
#2Who can immigrate into, say USA or Norway? Anybody
#3Who can immigrate into a Muslim country like, say UAE or Saudi Arabia? Only Muslims.
So, how can Israel portray itself as belonging to class#2, (liberal democracy) while being more akin to class#3 (theocracy)?
“Only the Jews are required by law to enlist in the IDF”
Isn’t that a nice way of saying that the rest cannot be trusted?
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
OC: “Who can immigrate into Israel without restriction?…”
You have “weaponised” a concession I made in my comment to which are responding. If all you have to say is what you just learned from me here, on basis did you say in comments posted under earlier articles that Israel was an apartheid state?
Actually, according to Wikipedia, “Non-Jewish foreigners may naturalize after living in the country for at least three years while holding permanent residency and demonstrating knowledge in the Hebrew language,” so it doesn’t seem to be that restrictive.
You: “’Only the Jews are required by law to enlist in the IDF’
Isn’t that a nice way of saying that the rest cannot be trusted?”
You ignore the second part in my comment: “it being voluntary for non-Jewish citizens.” Non-Jews may enlist in the IDF voluntarily. ( I have already stated this in an earlier exchange with you. This is not the first time that I have got the impression that at least sometimes you don’t read comments that you interact with carefully.) If I were a non-Jewish citizen in Israel, I would have thought it a cool arrangement.
/
leelagemalli / November 3, 2023
Dear Codger,
/
I’m not a history student to know the bits better how it came about, however, I was curious enough to read up on the history of Europe to understand who was to blame in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
.
Now I am gradually realizing that it is none other than the Britain that they created by going back to the past. THeir emprialistic involvement created various kind of conflicts globally. That is why the UK today is on the brink of collapse economically and in other areas.
/
https://youtu.be/hOJqLTc6RkU?si=Iq3vWKKjAzA8g5uQ
/
Please read the comments on the video carefully
/
leelagemalli / November 3, 2023
It is clear to anyone who dives into history that the Jews were hated by all other people in previous centuries because of their religious fanaticism and traditions. Therefore, they are considered a unique group of people. So the human conflict between Arabs and Israelis is complex and we cannot easily explain its end.
/
As an expatriate Sri Lankan, I am very angry at the way our Sinhalese Buddhists are ruled by myths, yet today’s powerful Europe is ruled by even more primitive myths then. Their wars were based on myths and some immoral claims, be it religious fanaticism or something else. However, even today I am forced to observe how some religious fanatics deal with their religious beliefs and how some Jews bang their heads against the walls of synagogues. They appear to be intoxicated in their moments of prayer hypnotizing their own psyches in their mental asylums. This is also true of some Christians in the United States and Arabs in Islamic countries.
/
It ended for germany with Hitler’s troops killing 6 million in Germany. Hitler’s Goebbels guided society can be somewhat similar to recent politicis abused by Rajapakse’s public speeches, while his racism and blatant lies were not overlooked in his stage speeches. Viewers and listeners become easily caught by those falsehoods.
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
OC:
“Surely you jest. Are you suggesting that, for example, Ethiopian Jews, Indian Jews, and German Jews (all imported at various times) look alike?”
I was referring to the general appearance of the Jews and the Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories as observed, for example, in street scenes shown on YouTube, etc. I used the word “on average.”
I was responding to the author’s view that the different treatment by the West of the Russia-Ukraine issue and the Israel-Palestine issue was racially based. She wrote that both issues shared a parallel (with Palestinians in a parallel situation to the Ukrainians) but the Israelis were favoured by the West over the Palestinians because the latter were not “white” (unlike the Ukrainians). I was just pointing out that both the Jews and the Palestinians shared roughly the same physical characteristics for the most part and that the the Palestinians were no less “white” than the Jews, so what is basis for this alleg is the “racism”?
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
Sorry. I accidentally posted the above comment before it was ready for it. The last words of the above comment should correctly read, “…the Jews, so what is the basis for this alleged “racism”?
/
old codger / November 3, 2023
LJ,
Palestinians are no more “white” than yourself. Youtube isn’t a very good source for that sort of data.
Try the New Yorker :
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/31/among-the-settlers
Apparently settlers call Arabs “sand niggers”
https://m.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57783046
If that doesn’t convince you, how about Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel?
“Chaim Weizmann who was to become the first President of Israel, about indigenous Palestinians, Weizmann quoted the British and said that there were about some “hundred thousand niggers (Kushim for Negroes in Hebrew) of no value”.
https://palcit.net/article-784-there-are-some-hundred-thousand-negroes-and-for-those-there-is-no-value
Leonard, if the President of Israel calls Arabs “niggers”, (and implicitly you and me), who are we to argue with him?
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 3, 2023
OC:
I prefer to trust my eyes than what some old farter may have said a very long time ago.
I recommend to you this article, written by a Jew:
https://www.thecrimson.com/column/dining-on-sacred-cow/article/2012/11/16/Lispon-Israel-race/
Some extracts:
“However, a growing contingent on the left has taken to caricaturing the conflict as one between white Israeli colonists and brown Palestinians indigenes [sic] at the mercy of an empire.” (The present author belongs to this “contingent.”)
“Aside from the unexamined fact that many Israelis are browner than many Palestinians….’
“…[A]n uninformed observer at a Jerusalem market would be hard-pressed to tell apart similarly dressed members of the two ethnic groups.”
“I carry an Abrahamic pride in the fact that I have been mistaken for Palestinian; it suggests that I have an extra obligation to figure out a way for my people to share the land with our not-so-different cousins.”
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old codger / November 3, 2023
LJ
Why not use non-Jewish sources for your “data”?
Plus, you didn’t seem to have any problem with what an old fart called Mark Twain said even earlier.
Of course many Israelis are browner than Palestinians because they immigrated from places like Ethiopia and India. And many Israelis are blond and blue eyed because they came from Europe.
“similarly dressed members of the two ethnic groups.”. How can Ethiopians, Indians, and Swedes be members of one ethnic group?
Israel is a settler state, there is no doubt about it.
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RBH59 / November 1, 2023
Who is to blame?
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor, International reactions say that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’, and China and global view changed now it says Israel’s actions in Gaza are ‘beyond self-defense’ as U.S. chases to avert wider conflict
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Cicero / November 1, 2023
This is a balanced review. The US, Uk and EU take positions that Israel is exercising its right of self-defence against the 7 October attack by Hamas. As Rohini Hensman points out, it is the Palestinians who have been subject to aggression with their homelands progressively diminishing through illegal occupation of their lands. (Very much like the occupation of the Tamil areas in Sri Lanka). It is the Palestinians who should have the right of self-defence, if at all. This cruelty must end. The Holocaust does not give Israel an indefinite right to use violence against others. They are progressively loosing the goodwill they may have had through the brutalities they now heap on the civilians of Gaza. They should stop supporting Nazis like Netanyahu lest they be branded a nation of war criminals.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 1, 2023
Palestinians are receiving divine retribution for the atrocity committed by their ancestors on Jews by joining with Romans to effect ethnic cleansing. Arabs are racists. Egypt belongs to Coptics, who have been driven to the south by Arabs. Syria belongs to Assyrians who were murdered by Ottoman Turks and and is being occupied by Arabs. Canaanites who are the owners of Lebanon are being kept suppressed by Arabs. Will all of them get justice. Turks are another bunch of racists. They murdered one million Armenians in first world war. Few days ago they have helped Azerbhaijan Muslims to ethnically cleanse of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh region.They have committed ethnic cleansing of Greeks from Constantinople and northern Cyprus. Iranians are guilty of genocide on Elamites and ethnic cleansing of Zorastrians. God will punish all of them for their crime.
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Leonard Jayawardena / November 1, 2023
Author:
“In the late 19th century, Palestine was a thriving part of the declining Ottoman Empire with aspirations for independence. At the same time, a European Jewish nationalist movement – Zionism – was searching for a land to colonise.”
Actually, accounts of visitors to Palestine in the 19th century would indicate that the land was sparsely populated and undeveloped. Jewish settlers, through hard work, ingenuity and enterprise made it prosperous, which attracted many Arabs from surrounding countries to migrate to Palestine in search of work and better life in the same way Arabs today migrate to prosperous western countries for the same reason.
Does any one seriously think that Palestine would be a truly thriving and prosperous country today if not for the Jews?
/
Kanapathy Varunan / November 1, 2023
lEONARD!
I think if China comes into further occupation of Sri Lanka it will be a thriving prosperous Country- perhaps with no electricity hikes, water hikes, fuel hikes etc, etc
Would you like it, sir?
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Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
Kaney:
Your comment is both interesting and instructive at a number of levels.
First, why China? A country like Britain or the US is more like Israel in their shared ideals. How about being ruled by those countries?
Second, unlike any of these nations, the Jews had a kingdom in Israel for over a thousand years in Palestine until they were exiled and driven out. However, a remnant has always remained in the land, so that they are not an alien power.
Third, your comment displays the mindset of native bigots of many countries who would tolerate poverty and being whipped in the backside daily by native despots but would complain and rebel if a foreign power who rule benevolently and deliver prosperity so much as pinch them.
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Leonard Jayawardena / November 1, 2023
Further to my above comment, I don’t know the percentage but many Arabs in that land who now call themselves “Palestinians” are in fact descendants of the Arabs who later migrated to Palestine in search of work, not descendants of the indigenous Arabs.
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srikrish / November 1, 2023
The Palestinian problem is a creation of the United Nations with partial solutions, after the end of the Second World War, UN should solve the issue once and for all to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The people have suffered too long and continue to suffer.
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SJ / November 2, 2023
“The Palestinian problem is a creation of the United Nations”
The UN was only an instrument,
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Native Vedda / November 3, 2023
srikrish
–
“The Palestinian problem is a creation of the United Nations with partial solutions,”
–
It is not a Palestinian problem but a combination of many problems, Western Zionist Ethnic cleansing , British colonialism, European genocide, …………. Terrorism by Irgun
and Stern Gang, …..
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Manel Fonseka / November 2, 2023
Mr Jayawardena re “At the same time, a European Jewish nationalist movement – Zionism – was searching for a land to colonise.”
Well, it so happened that the US, too, was on the lookout for somewhere “useful” in the ME Vide William Yale of the US State Dept who wrote in 1919:
“An Eastern race well versed in Western culture and profoundly in sympathy with Western ideals will be established in the Orient. Furthermore, a Jewish state will inevitably fall under the control of American Jews who will work out, along Jewish lines, American ideals and American civilization.”
—
Countries like the US and Britain also contributed to the Holocaust by closing their doors to Jewish immigrants who were desperate to get out of Germany and other countries.
—
I’d be interested to have some sources for ” accounts of visitors to Palestine in the 19th century would indicate that the land was sparsely populated and undeveloped….which attracted many Arabs from surrounding countries to migrate to Palestine in search of work…”
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leelagemalli / November 2, 2023
MF,
let s look back how UN supported the zionism of jews time to time. What caused them to behave against humanity. ?
THe UN resolution which was passed against the racial nature of Zionism in 1975 was revoked by UN and several other countries by 1991.
Revocation
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86, adopted on 16 December 1991, revoked the determination in Resolution 3379, which had called Zionism a form of racism. Israel had made revocation of Resolution 3379 a condition of its participation in the Madrid Peace Conference, in progress in the last quarter of 1991
.
The resolution was raised under pressure from the administration of US President George H. W. Bush The text of the revocation was simply:
.
“The General Assembly Decides to revoke the determination contained in its resolution 3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975.”
.
The motion was supported by 111 (including the 90 nations who sponsored the resolution), opposed by 25 nations and abstained by 13 nations
THIs was made under Bush rule in 1991.
https://web.archive.org/web/20121206052903/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/761C1063530766A7052566A2005B74D1
SRILANKA s stand CONTINUED to be against a jewish state. THat is a thing to be proud of. hOwever our people~s curse to our politics made them depenedent of any country as of today, with 8000 lanken workers now in ISRAEL as guest workers.
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Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
MF:
“I’d be interested to have some sources for ‘accounts of visitors to Palestine in the 19th century would indicate that the land was sparsely populated and undeveloped….'”
Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1867 and his account of what he saw is recorded in his book “The Innocents Abroad.”
Some extracts from Chapter 56:
Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince… Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes…
Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed…
Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village…
Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the “desert places” [allusion to the NT] round about them where thousands of men…sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes…
Palestine is desolate and unlovely…
There were other travelers to the Holy Land who confirm Mark Twain’s observations.
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SJ / November 2, 2023
Did Mark Twain comment on why it was in such a state?
So, is the suggestion that settling Jews there made the region an oasis?
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
SJ:
I was responding to the author’s following assertions:
“In the late 19th century, Palestine was a thriving part of the declining Ottoman Empire with aspirations for independence. At the same time, a European Jewish nationalist movement – Zionism – was searching for a land to colonise.”
SJ: “So, is the suggestion that settling Jews there made the region an oasis?”
Isn’t it a historically established fact that the settler Jews made the country prosperous?
Also, compare Israel with the surrounding Arab nations. Palestinians in the occupied territories travel to Israel regularly for work. Even in the middle of the war, some Sri Lankans tried to enter Israel illegally. Why?
/
old codger / November 2, 2023
LJ,
Since you choose to quote Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) on Palestinians, you should consider some of his writings on Ceylon:
“Just then, into this dream of fairyland and paradise, a grating dissonance was injected. Out of a missionary school came marching, two and two, sixteen prim and pious little Christian black girls, Europeanly clothed—dressed to the last detail, as they would have been dressed on a summer Sunday in an English or American village.”
Here, Twain’s distaste for the “grating dissonance” between the locals in Western dress and his ideal of “fairyland and paradise” is made explicit. This dissonance, however, is articulated by Twain, and not the locals. The “black girls” cannot be clothed in the way of an “American or European,” is “masking” some inherent primitive truth. Twain exclaims in disgust that the girls’ clothes were “unspeakably ugly!/ugly, barbarous, destitute of taste, repulsive as a shroud.”
https://thuppahis.com/2017/11/22/famous-authors-dwelling-on-ceylons-attractions-read-against-the-grain-please/
It is naive to read too much into the opinions of 19th century Westerners into things Eastern.
On the other hand, here are some actual photographs of 19th and early 20th century Palestine.
http://www.medmem.eu/en/notice/INA00213
An ugly desert full of uncultured nomads? You tell me.
/
old codger / November 2, 2023
LJ,
“Also, compare Israel with the surrounding Arab nations. Palestinians in the occupied territories travel to Israel regularly for work. Even in the middle of the war, some Sri Lankans tried to enter Israel illegally. Why?”
If your argument is that Sri Lankans go to Israel because the Jews created a Paradise there, how do you explain the fact that 13 Sri Lankan women who were EMPLOYED IN GAZA have arrived at Rafah crossing?
Is that because the Palestinians created a Paradise in Gaza? Surely you jest again?
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 3, 2023
OC:
But I think hardly any one would want to work in Gaza to the point of trying to illegally enter there.
Just answer this. If you were given a choice between living and working in Gaza and Israel, which would you choose?
Do you deny that the Jews have made Palestine prosperous to a degree that would not have been possible if they were not there?
Just take a look at, for example, the per capita income. It is up there with the first world countries. Compare with the surrounding Arab countries. Notice any difference? For a better comparison, take away the oil from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. Israel with no oil and largely arid land has made flowers bloom in the desert and created a first world country for themselves basically from scratch.
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old codger / November 3, 2023
LJ,
What you or I think is irrelevant. The fact is that 13 Sri Lankans have been living in the Gaza Strip:
https://www.newsfirst.lk/2023/11/3/13-sri-lankans-in-gaza-arrived-near-rafah-crossing.
As to “taking away the oil”,
In case you haven’t noticed, Arabs in Dubai have a per capita income only slightly lower than Israel, without oil.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Dubai-United-Arab-Emirates/Economy
You gloss over the fact that the US has financially aided Israel for many years.
“has made flowers bloom in the desert and created a first world country for themselves”
You could say the same for South Africa too, but that ended badly because the West stopped being godfather.
/
SJ / November 3, 2023
OC
Mark Twain has also his mad moments
Innocents Abroad was one.
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 3, 2023
OC:
I don’t see what relevance your quotation from Mark Twain has to our subject.
My original assertion was that Palestine was a sparsely populated and undeveloped place when Jewish migration began in a large scale. This is supported not only by Mark Twains observations in 1867 (although some of them may be exaggerations and inaccurate) but other travelers to Palestine in the 19th century. My assertion was in response to the author’s assertion that Palestine was a “thriving” place when the Jewish “colonisers” arrived. In fact it is the latter who made it a thriving (meaning ‘prosperous and growing, flourishing’) place and it is indisputable to any one except a very biased person.
The first moving pictures were produced in the 1890s and your film would probably have been produced in the early 20th century. Without subtitles in English, not possible to watch it meaningfully.
/
old codger / November 3, 2023
LJ,
Relevance lies in the fact of Clemens saying similar racist things about both Palestinians and Ceylonese. Since we know a bit about our own country, we can safely assume that what he says about other “orientals” is equally biased. 19th century white writers were much more convinced of their superiority than in earlier centuries.
The movie does have subtitles.
/
SJ / November 3, 2023
OC
MT was a Southerner. He was not visibly racist. But some of the South’s racist bias is hard to shed.
In Puddin’ed Wilson, I remember that he satirizes racism.
In contrast, Innocents Abroad, although it made amusing reading, very cruel in places.
/
old codger / November 4, 2023
SJ,
As I said before, most 19th century writers had a superior attitude towards “Asiatics”, unlike earlier ones who came from (at the time) poorer societies.
/
SJ / November 4, 2023
oc
I do not dispute it.
The Empire conditioned even liberal minds.
/
leelagemalli / November 3, 2023
“I don’t see what relevance your quotation from Mark Twain has to our subject.”
/
How did Mark Twain change the world?
Twain’s written works challenged the fundamental issues that faced the America of his time; racism, evolving landscapes, class barriers, access to education and more. He is celebrated for works such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and his memoir, Life on the Mississippi (1883).26 Nov 2018
/
Manel Fonseka / November 2, 2023
Ah, yes, Mr J, I had forgotten Twain’s travel journals. But I still need to investigate this assertion. Not that I believe that what may have been a largely nomadic people at the time, without lasting architecture, means that their land can be invaded and taken over. But I am still looking for more e evidence of yr assertion.
—
And I wd also like to draw attention to a chronology for the regionthat a US univ historian has proposed.
—
https://www.juancole.com/2010/03/top-ten-reasons-east-jerusalem-does-not.html
/
Leonard Jayawardena / November 2, 2023
MF:
You might find this article, which confirms and supplements my comment, informative:
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-700904
/
SJ / November 3, 2023
manel
There is a lot of Zionist myth that has been propagated by the media to justify the stealing of land from Arabs and the violence of the settlers.
Positions that people take on this subject are most revealing of attitudes.
Empathy with the aggressor has emotional roots. You cannot argue away bigotry.
/
leelagemalli / November 2, 2023
Fundamentalism in any religion does not bring peace to sustain normal life. I have seen Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists behaving like blind machines at the walls of synagogues and churches across Europe. Why don’t they go after the quiz, get their clans together and practice what they practice. Be it Hinduism, Sinhala/Buddhism, Islam, Judaism or Christianity, it is the foundation. If people expand their knowledge through education from a young age, all this is less likely to get worse.
/
Over 270 innocent devotees were brutally killed and hundreds injured on April 21, 2019 in our Rajapaksa/ruined country, due to religious fundamentalism and multiple other reasons, but the story behind the disaster was the conviction that fundamentalism was where everything was weak. However, the UN as a peace body has failed to contain the human toll, with numbers rising as dramatically as the covid death rate in Israel/Palestine today. No matter what anyone says or does, the hypocrisy of the powerful nation is directly involved in these innocent deaths. Are there all divine powers _ I hardly believe in them.
/
SJ / November 3, 2023
“Palestine would be a truly thriving and prosperous country today if not for the Jews?Palestine would be a truly thriving and prosperous country today if not for the Jews?”
But very many people would have their homes and as many their lives.
/
Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / November 1, 2023
Lasantha Pethiyagoda, in a comment to another article in Colombo Telegraph you said that Israel has no right to exist. I could not reply to it as the comments were closed. On the same token, Pakistan also has no right to exist as both were created on the same principle. Even Srilanka has no right to exist as the land of Kuveni and her people (Dravidian ethnicity) was usurped by a bunch of criminals from Bengal, who set up their kingdom. First look into the injustice being done on Tamils before venturing on matters abroad.
/
Native Vedda / November 3, 2023
Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam
–
“….. the land of Kuveni and her people (Dravidian ethnicity) was usurped by a bunch of criminals from Bengal, …”
–
If you believe this you would believe anything.
Udaya Gamanpilla is prepared to sell Sri Pada / Adam’s Peak for an undisclosed price. He will throw in Sri Dalada Maligawa as well.
Would you like to buy?
–
/
Plato / November 1, 2023
Easily one of the best accounts of the Palestinian issue by Rohini Hensman.
The British Historian Arnold Toynbee quoted in this essay had this to say….
………..The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the world ,because it is an injustice that is a menace to world peace…….
But the powerful states are backing Israel. More or less a one sided affair and Palestine is at the receiving end. Would Palestine withstand the assault?
Another of those instances of the tragedy of British Imperialism.
The forthcoming weeks or even months would decide whether Palestine and Gaza would remain on the world map. whilst the world has not woken up to this tragedy of
this century………..
/
SJ / November 1, 2023
“In the past, Netanyahu marketed himself as a cautious leader who eschewed wars and multiple casualties on Israel’s side. After his victory in the last election etc.”
I cannot see how this reconciles with the information below:
“Gaza has paid the heaviest price during Netanyahu’s second, nine-year stint as premier. It was he who ordered Israel’s devastating “Pillar of Defense” and “Protective Edge” operations in 2012 and 2014.”
[https://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2018/12/26/netanyahus-premiership-clouded-by-palestinian-bloodshed]
i expected greater care from the author
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
“So anyone who argues that the Israeli regime colonizing Palestine has the ‘right’ to defend itself from a national liberation struggle by killing Palestinians in Palestine would logically have to argue that the Russian regime colonizing Ukraine has the ‘right’ to defend itself from the national liberation struggle there by killing Ukrainians in Ukraine.”
That is an extremely flawed logic. Author here equals, like in the Panchatantra story of “Aanaikku Paanai Saman” (Pot = Elephant) that Russian aggression deserves the same treatment with the Israeli- Hamas quarrel.
Before one call oneself as activist, one needs to understand what one stands for. Otherwise, it will be a serious damage to the general welfare of everyone. Activists often select a party to support and justify their party with all possible rhetoric. That doesn’t mean their minds are not biased. By whoever’s mistake it happened, but it has happened. Now both Israel and Palestinians are fearing seeing each other. They are in war believing they are fighting only a defensive war. Israel is overtly getting help from the West who was a party to this conflict by tolerating antisemitism for centuries in their countries. Hamas is being used by Iran, Syria like anti-democratic evil forces as proxies to fight their war with the US.
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
Still, the war is intended to be kept in the Middle East and it is in the Middle East. Is that how the Ukraine -Russia situation is going too?
President Putin started Russia’s new history as a humble republic, liberated from long spray after heavy rain during the Stalin era. Putin used his acolyte Prime Minister Medvedev to dodge the constitutional term limit- two terms. Then he collected 2/3 and changed the constitution and made him the permanent president. Now, Russia is a big bully, Polar Bear. Putin’s dream is starting with Georgia, hopping to Crimea, mounting on Ukraine, climbing on the ramp of Eastern European countries, and then racing in Europe. Of course, he wants to see the backyard fireworks with Georgia, light the night sky & shine into a world war. Nobody who reads or watches the news media could have fallen behind on this. Then how did it happen to activists?
Russia is the world’s most heavily armed nuclear arsenal country. It has a junior partner, North Korea. A deed in the oven to make an Olympic partnership with China. (Mrs. Gandhi was very close to the USSR, but Putin banned the Hindu scripture Geetha saying it is war mongering, Mr. Modi is not that too close to him). When Langkang was rated as the 174th country In Media Men safety, Russia was even below it.
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
The Russian opposition leader is in prison. Putin has a flourishing Plutonium Caffe shop in Britain and frequently ends up in newspapers’ headlines. Putin has already white-vanned more passengers to the upper world than Netanyahu planes have bombed out in Gaza. Putin’s passenger list includes activists, media men, opponent politicians, business competitors, non-obedient service personals, employees, military friends, even provocatively attractive birdies, who don’t know how to fly away, but stand in front & causes irritable jealousy in his mind.
Is that why the author re-inventing Einstein Equation as “Israel = Russia”. Man, it is a true Comedy Thamai!
As a matter of fact, at the start of this round of conflict, Abbas stated that Hamas is not a party within Palestinians solution, though the important one in the problem. Hamas was elected by 75% of the Palestinians, in 2006. A democratic ruling body needs to possess many features so that it can be implied in its going on operation as still representing the population it is ruling. So, the democratic governments have a term limit and elections need to be held within that time limit.
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
Author has said Netanyahu is rejected by 86% of the Israelis. (My private opinion matches with Israelis opinion on that, but removing Netanyahu in the middle of the game can force Israel spiral down into a situation like what is going through in Langkang, the South Asian Chinese province, where every successive governments come to power after 1948 were doubly worse than the incumbent was leaving and the throne, Langkang, which was hailed as Switzerland of East now stands accused of Genocide/ War crime and Economic crimes. The elevated or enhanced new generation of politicians and citizens are cases like Amipita Sumanan Rathinam, Anuradha, Diana, Rear Admirable, Lemon Puff, Mervyn de Silva, Rowdy Royals, Evil Emperor….) So, qualifying Netanyahu with 85% is an irrelevant statement here because any compromise and peace deal with Israel only has to come from Netanyahu’s administration, at this time of the history. Period! But Hamas lacks that entitlement; didn’t conduct election for entire population of Palestinians and establish its legitimacy; trying to keep out PLO; declaring there is no state as Israel, so nobody on the other side to deal with Hamas; without having authority to fight for Palestinians, sowing violence & practicing terrorism in Israel and Gaza Strip.
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
So, the honest boon prayed for is Hamas has to be ousted before Netanyahu’s coalition government is defeated, to bring some hope for a negotiation table to be set up for peace. Singing the same line repeatedly as “I carry the honor of knowing better” history will not improve the situation. There was already a compromised solution arrived at by the UN. But both parties have long crossed that, refusing to respect it. He did it-me did it, he did it me did it always the common feature of all long-protracted conflicts. Like the UNP – SLFP double acting teams, all parties in conflicts ensure the other receives all needed impunity so to them to keep their relationship will and enduring. Did you guys see the UNP-SLFP doubles are killing each other for the minister positions, which is only paid from the funds allocated for the canceled elections. Any land on the earth is nobody’s property. For the theist, it was created by the god and retained by him. For the atheist, by nature it was there for 4B years, never claiming any ownership until the greedy homo sapiens (Latin for crooked species) evolved. Not just two persons, not even one has right to own it. But the unfortunate situation now is that Palestinians and Israelis will have to share the land, called Israel, a tiny spot, in the earth.
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
By sharing the land justice can have served them both for their suffering of the past. Reading and memorizing the Koran or Torah scroll as many times wanted can bring no deviation to this simpleton’s, nincompoop solution. Once the ownership has allocated them both, singing history to show one knows better cannot help. The only way is they both recognizing each other’s needs and sharing it. By watching what is going on now, Gaza seems to be too small for 2.5M to move around and take care of their life. Then the displaced refugee need land in Gaza and Westbank tooWarring parties cannot compromise within them, without suspecting each other. The middle persons cannot be some activists, who are only the incarnation of Zionist. They need to, without pouring more fuel, try to bring both parties to sit at the same table. Since President Clinton’s administration, the American government has been trying this. Even Obama could not achieve anything substantial in his 8 years. Israel fears the united 1/3 population of the world, the Muslims. China, Russia all is fighting extremely cruel wars against their countries’ Muslim population and keeping the Muslim population in their countries’ open and closed prisons. But opportunistically, dishonestly meddling in Hamas- Netanyahu war.
/
Mallaiyuran / November 2, 2023
Some sample opportunistic actions: Langkang Muslim MP, many time UNP-SLFP minister, a hero in political somersaults, Hakee, recently declared the 4/21 Easter Sunday attack was organized by Israel. This is why the organized propagandists discredit the opposition. Russia handed over all info of an Israel plane that was landing and organized a thug’s group to attack the Jewish passengers in that plane and later accused it was Western countries’ plot, only to defame Russia’s honorable name!
The UNGA frequently gets voting for many things. In the UN, there are110 LDC countries. They wait for the developed nations’ handouts for those countries’ politicians to make deposits in their foreign bank accounts. One cannot lazily sit and keep demanding that in UNGA a democratic resolution was passed. That is not a democratic, equally assigned collegiate represented forum. If one keeps braying like that, the countries who are feeding the LDC are not going to heed that call. If Hamas is going to have its grip on Gaza, the two-state solution will not work, it has to have a three-state solution. So, everybody knows what is the possibility of achieving a solution while Hamas controls Gaza.
/
ramona therese fernando / November 2, 2023
Terrible as what these Israelis are, the Palestinian Authority is outright complicit. They prefer to indulge in Eye for an Eye; Tooth for a Tooth; Virgins in Heaven over peace, diplomacy, and concrete solutions for their people.. Let’s face it : Islamic world is reveling in the Carnage!
–
All are monkey tactics- the Israelis ponding their chests in power and glory; the US and Western nations taking their chance to sell weaponry so they can indulge in all kinds of…..liberations; the Islamists enjoying giving their children wings into Islamic heaven with Jews going to hell; Iranians aroused by the idea of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Jews ; world bodies enjoying taxpayer money to attend round-table discussions to discuss the issue; Jews reveling in control of the global banking-systems to include all of these. Everybody is play-acting a part (actually once saw Jews in the Jewish quarter of New York, running around in panic with stars on their arms and those curved wicker shopping baskets they used to use in the 1940s, acting like they are in Holocaust times).
/
ramona therese fernando / November 2, 2023
–
In the meantime, our Ranil instead of getting down to the nitty-gritty of looking after the Lankan masses, is holding his own roundtable discussions with world bodies, trying to see if he can make an easy buck out of the whole global charade. What a Loser!
/
leelagemalli / November 2, 2023
Dear Ramona and other jokers,
.
I think u the kind commenters that constantly share their prevarications should rather watch the following yt video. 😉 I assume u are proficient in Sinhala.
.
Honorable MP, Dew G is sharing his honest views on today’s bankruptcy of our nation.
.
https://youtu.be/ZvTNQ4pq4Ck?si=l3BbIrp5f2pxonwo.
.
May out people be blessed 🙌 with brains 🧠 😉😉😉😉
/
ramona therese fernando / November 3, 2023
leelagemalli,
–
MP. Dew G is a communist guy of the old school who like Ranil, wants to whip the already suffering masses into hard labor, except with the hammer and sickle. Doesn’t understand how the wheels of economy work; doesn’t understand our people have worked for generations in hard labor camps of the Middle East; hasn’t a clue on how to tax the rich; hasn’t a clue on how to utilize the billions that poured into our country from the hard work of our masses and was placed in offshore accounts. Anura KD is quite different from MP. Dew G, and is a far younger, modern-educated, Socialist leader who has deep respect for the Lankan masses and their hard work.
/
ramona therese fernando / November 2, 2023
Finally some clarity from Bernie Sanders, a US Jewish Senator (leftwing democrat). Should become next president (if the Nazi Zionists don’t kill him first).
–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQJxNBOOGHw
/
a14455 / November 2, 2023
He tried many times and failed
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ramona therese fernando / November 3, 2023
This time he’ll pass.
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ramona therese fernando / November 3, 2023
And also the Christian Zionists dancing singing and in ecstasy at the goings-on, eagerly awaiting the final rapture.
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Native Vedda / November 3, 2023
ramona therese fernando
–
“And also the Christian Zionists dancing singing and in ecstasy at the goings-on, eagerly awaiting the final rapture.”
–
Then there isn’t much difference to their fellow Sinhala/Buddhists Zionists in Sri Lanka, rejoicing in the victory over LTTE and Tamil speaking people.
/
ramona therese fernando / November 3, 2023
NV,….difference is the SB’s are the Palestinians.
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leelagemalli / November 3, 2023
RAMONA,
All religious sentiments in fanatic form are cancer to humanity and other living beings. The longer you ferment with it, the worse the result will be. Some countries with high school illiteracy lead their people astray forever. This is also happening in many Islamic countries in this century.
/
Besides, these are just beliefs, and people should live with them as they walk the middle path. Depending on the person’s mood levels, how deep they fall determines destiny. Unlike many Arab countries, Buddhist-dominant settlements would provide proper guidance to their people, however, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism do not seem to do so today.
/
However, Hinduism and Sinhala/Buddhism are not far from those imaginary beliefs. Going back to my student dormitory days, black Americans, mesmerized by certain sects of Christianity, made every effort to instill Christian fundamentalism in me. I was surprised to be forced to look at how blindly they conducted their preaching sessions. Some came after me to ask God to enter my heart…….can you imagine guys?
/
My way is true Buddhism*dont mix it up with sinhala/buddhism*, following the true teachings of the Buddha, which is the only way of life that anyone should follow if they follow it correctly.
/
ramona therese fernando / November 3, 2023
leelagemalli,
–
They asked to accept Jesus into your heart? What a sweet thing ❤. Holy Spirit would have given you great clarity. Not only Black Christian ask of this – All Christians ask this. And Black Christians are very deep in their spirituality. Not political at all. Why didn’t you just do it – accept Jesus into your heart? This is quite different from The Christian Zionists (mostly White) shouting praises each time a bomb is dropped saying, “Yes, Lord, Yes Lord,” with bright shiny beaming faces and smiley eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRzI8y-EJJ0
/
leelagemalli / November 4, 2023
Ramona,
Listen, it’s like this. It is all about a black american pastor harassed me to join his weekly church sessions. I was not even 23 years old then, and everyone had not learned about other different cultures, so he and his colleagues kept me and some other students asking, “Do you want the Spirit of God to enter your heart?” I was not familiar with that before.
/
No different than some Jews standing before the walls of their synagogues in prayer and blindly raising their heads. Even our blind Sinhalese/Buddhists climb ADAM~S peak and hit their heads on cold rocks…. I wanted to describe how some prayers behave blindly.
/
leelagemalli / November 4, 2023
Ramona,
Listen, it’s like this. It is all about a black american pastor harassed me to join his weekly church sessions. I was not even 23 years old then, and everyone had not learned about other different cultures, so he and his colleagues kept me and some other students asking, “Do you want the Spirit of God to enter your heart?” I was not familiar with that before.
/
No different than some Jews standing before the walls of their synagogues in prayer and blindly raising their heads. Even our blind Sinhalese/Buddhists climb ADAM~S peak and hit their heads on cold rocks…. I wanted to describe how some prayers behave blindly.xxxx
/
ramona therese fernando / November 5, 2023
Leelagemalli,
–
Hey, that pastor must have seen you doing something very sinful and was concerned for your immortal soul.
–
These innocent people that you mention are beseeching for guidance and/or forgiveness from within and above. Quite different from the Christian Zionists eagerly waiting for the bombs to drop. Some are excitedly awaiting a space-ship to whisk them away from a self-fulfilled and self- delivered nuclear Holocaust.
/
leelagemalli / November 6, 2023
Ramona,
/
baldedesh, how can you underestimate me as a sinner? I was a freshman in Europe at the time and delighted in the eyes of my professors at university. They welcomed me as “the charming black-haired young man from Sri Lankan paradise”. Back then the country was called “Bandaranayake land”. In the early 80s it was though known as the number one gay paradise for Europeans. They told me all this. However, even today, with our so called “2500 year old heritage”, we repeatedly mislead the vulnerable for their power / greedy tactics.
Besides, if one thinks I am a sinner, he or she must be a sinner a thousand times over.
/
Mahila / November 6, 2023
Racist and “Apartheid Remark against a SECT of people’, who this moment virtually under SEIGE”!!!???
If this is not!!!??? WHAT then qualifies as APARTHEID and ‘considered’ “AS APARTHEID”!!???
/
Sinhala_Man / November 4, 2023
Not “ ferment” ; the word that you ought to have used is “ foment” .
.
But LM may not thank me for pointing that out.
.
The fellow hates being corrected. But actually, that’s an understandable confusion.
.
Panini Edirisinhe of Bandarawela.
/
leelagemalli / November 4, 2023
Frankly, I don’t mind if one fixes the other, but I meant “fermented” in my previous comment. I always want others to correct our typos so CT readers can benefit. So as usual this devil is spreading lies about me. THat actually causes me hypertension.
/
He can better fix his god AKD who is currently on a round/robin tour across the US. Poor AKD is said to have misrepresented the facts about MINIRAN, known to the world as graphite. If done so, his fans would have been more happy. Thank you.
/
/This is the definition of Ferment
/
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ferment
/
Ferment is excitement and trouble caused by change or uncertainty.
The whole country has been in a state of political ferment for some months.
Synonyms: commotion, turmoil, unrest, turbulence More Synonyms of ferment are found in the dics.
/
Sinhala_Man / November 4, 2023
Not so quick, my ex-friend:
.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/ferment-vs-foment-usage-difference
.
Read that entry.
.
Also, I’ve just now done some hunting and found this:
.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-to-ferment-and-to-foment-Can-both-go-withviolence-as-in-to-stir-up-violence
.
It’s this sort of thing that makes English a difficult language to teach, and a nightmare for the learner!
/
leelagemalli / November 5, 2023
Dear Fact/checkers,
“This is what makes English a difficult language to teach and a nightmare for learners!”
/
This is not unique to English. Many other European languages, such as German, French , Dutch and Italian, have diverse meanings for many whole words.
/
Those who do not have distant thoughts about it should better refrain from incoherent comments. People who have never been out to europe or any western coutnries and explored the world should not have know/all nature.
/
Instead, they should learn to apologize if a mistake is made. So I obviously used the term “ferment” knowing its figurative use, however, the man who calls himself ” English God” never got around to saying “sorry for the confusion.”
/
The general nature of senior Sri Lankans is an open secret. Many people who behave like empty vessels do so to stand out in a stagnant society.
/
whywhy / November 4, 2023
L M ,
” My way is true Buddhism ” . Even before money ? World has
replaced religions with Money . Money is the new world
religion . Everybody’s way is that now . People kill each other
for money but in the name of religion .
/
leelagemalli / November 5, 2023
WW,
/
If you focus on the “economically” lower class of society, you may be right. I posed the question to young Chinese traveling in Europe and many of them said the same thing. They all come from rural corners of China.
However, we are very clear that money cannot solve everything. There are times in the minds of middle-class people that you are doomed to fail to understand the meaning of ordinary life. You are helpless there. Good-natured religious beliefs give you some direction. You should use them to your advantage. If you are healthy enough to face it, the true teachings of Buddha as teacher will guide you well. Buddhism in its true form is a teaching that you have to practice yourself without the support of others. Unfortunately, this is not found in Sinhala/Buddhism, another subsidiary sect of Hinduism. Even the monks who claim to be famous monks do not observe the five precepts which are the fundamentals of true Buddhism.
/
old codger / November 5, 2023
WhyWhy,
“Money is the new world”
Money isn’t everything. It’s only 99%.
/
Rajash / November 2, 2023
Gaza strip will now be taken over by Israel.
Israel settlers are already taking over the houses abandon by the Palestinians.
Jews from all over the world can fly in to Israel and forcibly take over a house belonging to a Palestinian family, kicking out the entire family including children this is happening on an ongoing basis. But the west keep quiet
The next target of Israel is the west bank. They are already creating small settlements around the outskirts of west bank.
Israel is provoking Palestinians. They want Palestinians to attack the settlement around west bank.
Then cry baby..for the west to support them in bombing west bank
The ultimate goal is for Israel to take over all of Palestine.
This not a 10 year plan or a 20 year plan but long term plan.
The west is being taken for a ride by the Israel.
Israel/jews are the victim not the aggressor
The west just fall on their feet and pray
/
SJ / November 2, 2023
“Israel settlers are already taking over the houses abandon by the Palestinians.”
In Gaza?
Where did you read this?
/
LankaScot / November 2, 2023
Hello SJ,
When I was Teaching IT for a UK Government Dept one of the departments representatives in the West Bank and Gaza had the same name as me. Consequently I used to get emails meant for him and without disclosing any secrets, I can assure you that these practices by settlers happened constantly.
Best Regards
/
SJ / November 3, 2023
Greetings LS
I would never have thought that you are so gullible.
/
LankaScot / November 3, 2023
Hello SJ,
I worked for 11 years in Qatar on a contract for the Qatari Armed Forces. I worked every day with Qatari senior officers that were of Palestinian descent. I went to the wedding of one of the Brigadier’s sons where I met the Brigadier’s father, aged about 90, who was a victim of the Israeli al-Nakba. I also dealt with Egyptians, Moroccans, Lebanese and other North African and Middle Eastern personnel. Some of my Indian colleagues were in Kashmir and witnessed first-hand the atrocities committed by Modi’s invasion. I also met survivors of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s crackdown in Egypt. I had met one of them (who demonstrated in Tahrir Square) previously during the Arab Spring and warned him not to trust the Egyptian Army. My next door neighbor, in Doha Al Jadeed, was a Journalist for Al Jazeera and shared many of his experiences with us. Of course you will tell me that the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh by the IDF didn’t happen and that father and son Ibrahim Wadi, 63, and Ahmad, 26 from Qusra were not killed, at a funeral, by settlers on 12/10/2023 and I am gullible to believe it.
Best Regards
/
SJ / November 3, 2023
This was the subject:
“Israel settlers are already taking over the houses abandon by the Palestinians.”
In Gaza?
*
If you believe that this is happening right now in Gaza based on a ‘reliable’ witness (?) good for you.
I find it very had to believe.
Even a most travelled person can lose his way easily.
/
LankaScot / November 5, 2023
Hello SJ,
Many Sri Lankans don’t know the difference between West Bank and Gaza in their relationship to Israel. My point is that the settlers are of the persuasion that Palestinians are occupying their “promised” land and they have every right to force them out by whatever means (supported in the main by the IDF). You asked Rajash “In Gaza?” however he did not say explicitly that the settlers were taking over Gazan abandoned houses. They certainly are in the West Bank and other places.
The question that all contributors should be asking themselves; is this collective punishment and the killing of civilians (men women and children) justifiable and if not, what can be done to stop it. History is currently irrelevant, right now humans are being indiscriminately killed in an increasingly larger scale by the Israelis.
They are not colonising Gaza (yet) – they are destroying it and their inhabitants. The bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes committed during the 2nd World War. Now, in Gaza, it is the duty of the occupying force to protect civilians, not kill them.
Best Regards
/
Rajash / November 3, 2023
Where did you read this?
=====
Its all over the social media,
======
you mean right wing news media will publish such stories?
/
Native Vedda / November 3, 2023
Rajash
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Forget SJ for a minute who is too lazy to read, learn, remember old as well as new events, unless it is published in Chinese: 人民日报; pinyin: Rénmín Rìbào (The People’s Daily) is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
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Please treat him gently.
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SJ / November 3, 2023
So the settlement has started while the battle is still on?
I am generally sceptical about the social media. Nothing to do with politics.
This particular story cannot be right wing by any chance.
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Wonder why any mainstream medium has not picked it up.
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SJ / November 3, 2023
“In 1981, as part of a peace treaty with Egypt, the last settlements of the Sinai were destroyed, and some Jews moved to the Gaza area. Israeli settlers reside in 18 percent of the 363 square kilometer area. They are sparsely settled in the area as compared to the density of the Palestinian regions in the Gaza Strip.”
This is the best that I got by Google search.
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Are settlements in progress in Gaza now?
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Rajash / November 5, 2023
Yes In Gaza and West Bank.
The motive of Israel backed by the west is pretty obvious.
Kick the Palestinians out and take over Gaza as well as West Bank .
No Arab countries will take the Palestinians.
so Nuking Gaza is on the card.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/far-right-minister-nuking-gaza-is-an-option-population-should-go-to-ireland-or-deserts/
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Native Vedda / November 3, 2023
Rajash
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Please watch these clips
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https://www.facebook.com/reel/1052253939110242
An Israeli Jewish Historian Speaking the Truth.
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https://www.facebook.com/reel/1721369081680122
Jimmy Carter is interviewed by Piers Morgan
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Please ignore SJ, who does not live in this planet.
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Rajash / November 3, 2023
Thanks Native
did you watch Piers Morgan interview with Bassem Youssef
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Anpu / November 6, 2023
Thank you Native.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/11/4/israel-bombs-un-school-in-third-major-attack-on-gazas-jabalia-refugee-camp
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide
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Champa / November 2, 2023
I was struggling to write a comment. My mind became numb at the sight of the carnage in Palestine’s largest refugee camp, Jabalia, which was attacked by Israel twice. This is the most horrible and cruel terrorist attack that happened in front of our own eyes which should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The target should be journalists, their families and Palestinian women and children as a whole.
Israel and the US child mass murderers have no regard for human lives or human rights. The American trumpet of human rights that we hear every day is silent now. The report that a child in Gaza is killed every 10 minutes is heartrending. Prior to the Jabalia terrorist attack where hundreds were killed/injured, within three weeks, over 8,300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli terrorist attacks.
Civilized countries should detach from Israel. Some countries have already done that. Israel should be diplomatically frozen. Its non-stop terrorist attacks on Palestine should be stopped. The Israeli Prime Minister is already unpopular. He is irritable and disoriented. His elite forces are killed in Northern Gaza. His military is in disarray. His US masters are also confused because their opponents are unpredictable.
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sonali / November 3, 2023
Presenting collated data on the Gaza Strip issue is welcome.
Here’s an opportunity for writers to seek recognition and insert biases.
Such articles will be held in esteem by readers without fast internet.
There will be invention and misinformation of course, such as: “The Chinese and Russian regimes have made clear their rejection of universal human rights and international law”.
If we back the US and NATO – the “World” as often claimed – and our minds have been thoroughly “whitewashed”, we can then ignore the eras of slavery and colonialism.
And bombs and massacres in Vietnam, still ongoing after Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan. That’s limiting ourselves to the beginnings of the 1950s.
All that, supposedly to impose “universal human rights and international law”, not for oil and resources.
It’s very necessary for aspiring political writers to broaden their knowledge when dipping a toe into global politics.
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Sinhala_Man / November 4, 2023
Many make statements because they are expected.
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However, here we can hear genuine feeling:
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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xwMymTZA4c0
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Thanks.
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