Our Wednesday News Analysis | Seven (7) things Palestinians want Americans to consider about US role on Israel’s offensive on Gaza

Oct 7 Anniversary — Suad Amin, a Palestinian graduate student, notes a growing optimism among Palestinians that American sentiment is shifting. Recent polling by the Institute for Global Affairs shows that majorities of Democrats (67%) and Independents (55%) now believe the U.S. should either end support for Israel's military efforts or condition that support on a ceasefire, reflecting a potential change in the public’s stance.

"Amin, … know that the American position, which is biased toward Israel, will not change overnight through a protest or a strike. Yet, she remains hopeful that the conflict will eventually influence public opinion in a more favorable direction.

Sari Jaradat, a West Bank-based Palestinian teacher, asserts, 'The American protests can exert pressure on their officials through their votes in elections. It is an opportune time for Americans to raise their voices against their governments and leaders that are not caring about humanity in the world, particularly in Gaza and the Palestinian territories.'

Jaradat, who was detained by the Israeli army for over three years, adds, 'I believe that humanity will win, and none of the criminals in the world will maintain their power. So, as Palestinians, we are looking forward to seeing the real impacts of the U.S. protests through witnessing changes in U.S. policy towards the Israel-Palestine conflict based on justice.'

Ibrahim al-Husaini, a Jerusalem-based Palestinian, shares this sentiment, emphasizing that 'this is the best time for the American people to raise their voices against the killings, destruction, and violations. They must prove to the Middle Eastern people that the American population still believes in humanity and in defending the right of self-determination for all peoples worldwide.'”

As the conflict in Gaza continues, Palestinians are urging Americans to consider their perspective on US involvement, particularly as the US elections’ date approaches, which could impact the Israeli war in Gaza.

Some Gaza residents believe that both major US political parties, Republicans and Democrats, are motivated to end the conflict to secure votes, but are constrained by pro-Israel lobbying efforts...

Read more: Seven (7) things Palestinians want Americans to consider about US role on Israel’s offensive on Gaza

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FROM ETHNIC CLEANSING TO GENOCIDE

Source: Mondoweiss
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/from-ethnic-cleansing-to-genocide/

By Salman Abu Sitta
Published October 7, 2024

I am a survivor of the 1948 Nakba who lived to witness the 2024 genocide. I may not live to see justice be made, but I am certain our long struggle will be rewarded. Our grandchildren will live at home once again.

A Palestinian man sits on the rubble of a destroyed house after Israeli warplanes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 4, 2023. (Photo: © Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa via ZUMA Press APA Images)

"There is another difference between 1948 and 2024. On May 14, 1948, we were attacked in Al-Ma’in, my birthplace, by 24 Israeli armored vehicles. They destroyed every structure and killed anyone they found. On that day, I became a refugee. On that same day, Ben-Gurion declared his settler state of Israel.

Nobody in the West knew about us.

There were celebrations of victory in Tel Aviv and New York,
hailing the triumph of the minority of fighting Jews defending themselves against "the majority of savage Arabs trying to kill them."

I am a survivor of Al Nakba of 1948. Since then, for the last 76 years, I spent my life pondering over this tragedy, documenting it, telling people around the world about it, and making plans to reverse it by implementing the Right of Return. Little did I know that a bigger and more bloody event was awaiting us in the yearlong campaign of Genocide in Gaza.

How do these two events compare for someone like me who lived to see both?

Both events lasted a year, at least so far. Al Nakba of 1948 started in March 1948 when the Haganah, the Zionist militia, started to invade Palestine before the state of Israel was declared. It was concluded by signing armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who sent forces to save Palestinians but failed. Syria signed the agreement four months later.

It was an uncontested campaign. Haganah forces, consisting of 120,000 soldiers, some of whom were WWII veterans, formed nine brigades and carried out 38 military operations. On the defending side was a motley group of Arab forces, not exceeding 10,000 fighters operating under different commands.

The result is clear. The Zionist forces occupied 20,500 km2, or 78% of Palestine, depopulated 530 cities and villages of its people, and made two-thirds of Palestinian refugees until today...

Read more: From ethnic cleansing to genocide

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'NOT ALL JEWS LONGED FOR A JEWISH SUPREMACIST STATE IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL'

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-09-27/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/not-all-the-jews-longed-for-a-jewish-supremacist-state-in-the-land-of-israel/00000192-2e77-d76c-a3fe-7fff069d0000

By Ronen Tal
Published September 27, 2024

Israeli soldiers abhorred violence, the Arabs didn't want to throw the Jews into the sea. Through letters written in real-time, a historian sets forth what those who fought on both sides in the 1948 war actually thought

Hazkani. "To be an Israeli is to be an outcast."Credit: Limor Edrey

"The surroundings here are full of ruined Arab villages," the soldier wrote. "We were always taught that we won over the Arabs because we loved the land more, and that it's ours. But when I walk around, and see all these mountains covered with [agricultural] terraces, I can see it's a lie… People used to live in these ruins. Maybe they loved and hated like we do, and now – who knows where they are.”

Just before the disengagement, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, got underway officially, Shay Hazkani, at the time a military correspondent for Channel 10 News, was assigned to accompany the last Israel Defense Forces armored personnel carrier to leave the Strip. For a few hours he roamed around amid the ruins of the houses in the Katif Bloc settlements, as military vehicles crammed with equipment cruised by on their way out. One of the officers asked him if he'd like a souvenir. Hazkani took a pen from the Gaza Coast Regional Council; the cameraman accompanying him found a notebook from a dismantled army command post. A few hours later, he gave that to Hazkani. "Take it, it's probably of more interest to you than it is to me," he said.

"There were numbers and reports in the notebook that I didn't understand at first," Hazkani relates. "But then I saw that officers from Unit 8200 [signals intelligence] who had been stationed at a command post in Gaza reported on their monitoring of Palestinians' phone calls. There were militants there from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, politicians and also ordinary people. The officers wrote a few words about what those people did or said. Some of the texts spoke about intentions to strike at soldiers and settlers, but there were also a lot of sex stories and items of gossip."

Hazkani was surprised to discover that the list also contained phone numbers with Israeli area codes. Today, following Edward Snowden, Pegasus spyware, and the revelations about Shin Bet security service tracking during the pandemic, his surprise might come off like a vestige of childlike naïvete. But in 2005 he could only have wondered whether Israel was systematically engaged in human rights violations and even surveilling its citizens. He began to investigate.

"There were people in Intelligence who wanted to talk, and who told me about a system of eavesdropping and monitoring of emails of Jews and Palestinians by 8200 and the Shin Bet, with very few restrictions or supervision," says Hazkani. "They also told me about the recording of sex conversations between Hollywood stars. It turns out that Israel was one of the first countries capable of doing that. By pressing a button they could read any electronic correspondence or listen to any electronic communication in the world. That was the level of Stasi work they did there."

Hazkani began working on an investigative report together with the muckraking television journalist Raviv Drucker. At a certain stage they submitted a first draft to the military censor's unit. The text was so heavily redacted that it was effectively unusable. An appeal to the Committee of Three – a secretive body consisting of the IDF chief of staff, a representative of the media-based editors committee, and a representative of the public, which in certain circumstances has the authority to reverse decisions of the military censors – wasn't successful. The committee's opinion was that exposing the capabilities of 8200 would constitute a danger to national security...

Read more: 'Not All Jews Longed for a Jewish Supremacist State in the Land of Israel'