I have encountered many individuals who seem misguided in their opinions of me and my beliefs. One major point of contention with these people tends to be my views on Israel. It is my firm belief that over the past forty years the state of Israel has systematically committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinian people. Every credible legal authority in the West has concluded that Israel constantly breaches international law regarding "settlements" in Palestinian lands. The settlement policy on its own constitutes genocide. In every conflict since the 1970s Israel disproportionately kills civilians in their military campaigns through "collateral damage" (we need only look at the most recent Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip for evidence of this). If Israel were a signatory of the International Criminal Court then they would undoubtedly have leaders regularly on trial for their actions. Let me include the internationally recognized definition of genocide as agreed to by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (of which Israel is one of the original signatories):
"Article II: In the present Convention, 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:
Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
- (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;
- (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
- (a) Genocide;
- (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
- (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
- (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
- (e) Complicity in genocide. "
I charge that the state of Israel is guilty of genocide based on points a, b, and c of what defines genocide and a, b, d, and e of acts punishable as genocide.
Killing members of the group:
Israel kills Palestinians all the time, and often for trivial reasons. Palestinians show up to protest the Israeli occupation, they get shot. Palestinain children venture too close to an Israeli area, they get shot. Palestinians are regularly killed by the Isreali Defence Force all the time. And that does not include the targeted killings of women and children in UN run facilities during the most recent conflict in Gaza which is a blatant affront to international conduct in war.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group:
Well I'd say this includes death but Israel also has systematically blockaded supplies from reaching the West Bank and Gaza Strip which has led to poverty and starvation on a mass scale. Israel has also prevented Palestinian fishermen from fishing in bountiful waters that territoriality belong to Gaza thus preventing the Palestinian people from being able to provide for themselves. Countless Palestinians die from lack of medical care and starvation. When Israel occupied the Palestinian territories, they implicitly took it upon themselves that by controlling the territory that they would be responsible for the well being of the Palestinian people. They have failed on a systematic level to take care of the Palestinians. At the same time they have denied the Palestinian people the ability to form their own state capable of providing for them. This double edged blade means that Israel, both actively and passively, is causing harm and mental distress to every Palestinian in the occupied territories.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part:
As stated previously, the blockade of Palestinian lands has had the effect, or at least the intent, of debilitating the Palestinian people into a state whereby the Israelis can get anything that they want out of the Palestinians. The state of Israel believes that since the God gave them the land of Israel that they, and only they, are entitled to it. Anyone else is simply there by the grace of the Israeli state to serve, in one manner or another, the Israeli people. Implicit in this goal is the unstated goal of removing the Palestinian people from land that they have lived in for millennia.
Acts punishable as genocide:
Genocide:
The above actions, at least in my mind and the minds of many others, constitute a full blown genocide. Maybe not as calculated and deliberate as the Holocaust, but still just as evil in its outcome.
Conspiracy to commit genocide:
By undertaking the actions it has already taken, the state of Israel can be said to have conspired to commit genocide in order to gain their "Promised Land" from the "invading" Palestinian peoples.
Attempt to commit genocide:
By actually undertaking their conspired activities and killing and forcibly taking land from the Palestinians, the state of Israel have attempted, whether actively or indirectly, to commit genocide.
Complicity in genocide:
At the very least, by not preventing their own armed forces and radical religious elements from committing genocidal acts against the Palestinians, the state of Israel has been complicit in the genocidal acts committed by those sections of their society without punishing them or forcing them to stop their heinous activities.
For all of these reason it is my earnest belief that the state of Israel is a criminal state whose leaders should be tried for numerous crimes.
Now for the clarification. My beliefs about the state of Israel does not make me anti-Semitic. I know and am friends with many Jews. They are wonderful people. Their faith is beautiful and has a prominent place in the history of western civilization's development. Jews have had many crimes committed against them because of their faith both in modern times and in the past. I sympathize with all the victims of the Holocaust and cry every time I think of the horrible things done to the Jews by the Germans in the name of "racial purity." No one can deny that the Holocaust was the single most horrible thing committed by man against his fellow man. I also know that not all people in Israel agree with the actions their government is taking against the Palestinians and I urge them to continue their fight against injustice in their country. My anger and hatred is directed only against those leaders of the state of Israel, and those elements of Israeli society, that actively push for the destruction of the Palestinian people in order to form a "perfect Israel." It is my belief that too often the Israeli right uses the Holocaust as a crutch to try and remove blame for their own actions and sometimes even justify their actions. The minute you claim to be against the Israeli, or even more alarmingly for the Israeli right for the Palestinians, they label you an anti-Semite who wishes to renew the Holocaust and that is simply not true. If the state of Israel went out tomorrow and tore down all their settlements in the West Bank and the wall along their border, removed their troops from Palestinian lands, and gave the Palestinian people the right to form an independent nation then I would have nothing to complain about. The problem I have is that Israel is doing exactly the opposite. They oppress the Palestinian people at every turn and in every way possible. Until the Israeli state ends its policy of genocide and oppression I, as a Marxist, cannot and will not, under any circumstance, support the Israeli state. I urge the Palestinian people to continue their fight for freedom and justice and I also urge the people of Israel to fight the against the injustices being committed in their names. We must work to end all oppression, wherever it manifests itself.
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