The problems posed by Palestine and the wider world of the Middle East are massive and intractable, many of them. They can't be solved by the methods advocated by Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East - the suggestions of the well-meaning MP's and the demands of the hard core. This page gives a comprehensive account, with arguments and evidence which show, I'd claim that the well-meaning MP's as well as the hard core MP's are very mistaken in their views of Israel and the Palestinians.
In this column:
Musheir El-Farra, Chair of Sheffield Palestine
Solidarity Campaign and aerial bombardment
Israeli-Palestinian relations: the case
for Israel
The need for comparative knowledge: killing of
civilians in other conflicts
About the transformed images and copyright
Musheir El-Farra, Chair of Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign and aerial bombardment
I begin with information about Musheir El-Farra but go on to criticize the 'leaders of Gaza civil society' (he was one of them) who signed an 'important statement' which achieved nothing. The section includes material on his personal loss. I provide an account which he and any other member of Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign can freely criticize, if they want to. The section includes material on warfare and the rules of war, including the intentional and non-intentional killing of non-combatants. There's ] more information about these matters in my page on other pages of the site, in particular, the page on Israel.
In this section, I provide some historical background - this account was written before the Hamas actions of October 7 2023 and the Israeli response - and draw conclusions from these earlier events. To summarize, Palestinians have repeatedly failed to learn from earlier events. It was unthinkable that Israel would go under when attacked on October 7. It was unthinkable that they would fail to retaliate. They did retaliate and the military action they took was in accordance with the rules of war. The Palestinian civilian casualties would not have occurred if Hamas had not taken their horrific action on October 7. The earlier events are described below in much more detail than this brief summary.
The poet Richard Eberhart:
'You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would arouse God to relent ... '
Or furious criticism arouse the Israelis to relent?
On 5 August 2014, the Daily Mail' published a piece on the aerial bombardment of Khan Younis in Gaza. These are some extracts:
'The misery of Palestinians in Gaza has been brought home to the UK after a Yorkshire man lost 11 members of his family to a single Israeli air strike.
'Musheir El-Farrah, a civil engineer from Sheffield, learned on Friday morning that his cousin's home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, was hit by a warplane overnight.
'Five children, aged from four to 15, are among the dead. Five of Mr El-Farrah's relatives - including his cousin Mahmoud El-Farra - are fighting for their lives in intensive care.'
The deaths and injuries took place just an hour before a ceasefire was due to take effect.
Musheir el-Farra is the chair of Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Is this not conclusive evidence that Musheir El-Farra is right to oppose Israel and that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is right to oppose Israel? I sympathize with his loss but I give reasons for strongly opposing Musheir El-Farra's view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's view of the conflict.
Harrowing experience is no guarantee that response to the experience, interpretation of the experience will do anything to make these terrible events less likely in the future. Politicians and other people who want to end a humanitarian catastrophe and to make similar humanitarian catastrophes less likely in the future have to be guided not just by intense emotion.
Rockets have been fired at Israel many times. The rockets have targetted civilians. Israel has retaliated, to protect itself. Palestinian casualties would have been very light - non-existent - if Hamas had learned this lesson: stop firing rockets. Stop breaking ceasefires.
Musheir El-Farra's relatives were killed 'just over an hour before a ceasefire was due to temporarily halt the relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip.' But Musheir El-Farra had already opposed ceasefires, except on terms which would make a ceasefire impossible.
Musheir El-Farra's relatives were killed or injured on 1 August, 2014. Just over a week before, on 23 July, an 'Important Statement' was published in various places, signed by a large number of 'Gaza Civil Society Leaders,' including Musheir El-Farra and his sister Mona El-Farra. To summarize, at a stage in the conflict between Israel and Gaza when casualties were still relatively light, these leaders of Gaza civil society declared their support for Hamas' policies in the conflict, which included the use of indiscriminate weapons, the rockets aimed at Israel, and Hamas' futile insistence on ceasefires which were unrealistic, certain to be refused by the Israelis, certain to lead to further casualties in Gaza. A ceasefire was eventually accepted by Hamas under terms almost identical to the early ones.
These leaders somehow failed to see what was staring them in the face. They failed to see that refusing a ceasefire would be followed by unnecessary casualties. If they were taken by surprise, they should not have been. An object released falling to the ground by the action of gravity would be no more surprising.
The signatories showed monumental political obtuseness. Their support for the continued firing of rockets into Israel - not counting the ones which fell short and landed in Gaza - if the unrealistic demands were not accepted amounted to an ethical failure.
The signatories are at one with Hamas in rejecting the ceasefire offered. If an early ceasefire had been accepted, then the relatives of Musheir El-Farra would not have been killed, with so many others. The statement makes this claim:
'Hamas represented the sentiment of the vast majority of residents when it rejected the unilateral ceasefire proposed by Egypt and Israel without consulting anyone in Gaza. We share the broadly held public sentiment that it is unacceptable to merely return to the status quo – in which Israel strictly limits travel in and out of the Gaza Strip, controls the supplies that come in (including a ban on most construction materials), and prohibits virtually all exports, thus crippling the economy and triggering one of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the Arab world.
'To do so would mean a return to a living death.'
There was absolutely no prospect that Israel would agree to the preconditions demanded by the signatories, such as this: 'Unlimited import and export of supplies and goods, including by land, sea and air.' To include them was to guarantee failure, was to guarantee that there would be no ceasefire. Unlimited import means unlimited import of weapons for attacks on Israel, unlimited import of construction materials for building tunnels for attacks on Israel. This is the work of political innocents, people with a faint sense of realities.
Their failure to learn from the conflict between Israel and Gaza of 2008 - 9, when Israel undertook Operation Cast Lead, is astonishing. Then, the conflict began when Israel attempted to stop the firing of rockets into Israeli territory and to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza. Operation Cast Lead proved, if proof were needed, that Israel would stand firm and show vast military superiority in future conflicts, unless circumstances were to change dramatically in the interim. There were no dramatic changes which would make it in the least likely that Israel would accept rocket attacks and flow of weapons into Gaza in 2014. The signatories should have realized this at the very beginning of the recent hostilities. This is inability to learn from experience on a grand scale - or grandiose scale.
After hostilities ended in 2009, ' ... the European Union, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and over 50 nations donated humanitarian aid to Gaza, including the United States, which donated over $20 million. On January 7, a UN Relief Works Agency spokesman acknowledged that he was "aware of instances where deliveries of humanitarian aid into Gaza" were diverted by the Hamas government, though never from his agency.'
After hostilites ended in 2014, governments and non-governmental agencies must again donate on a massive scale to a territory which never seems to learn. A familiar dictum of economics is: 'Scarce resources and infinite wants.' The desperate needs of the world can never be met, and why the needs of Gaza should have priority is a mystery. Will Palestinians continue to fire rockets and continue to invite certain retaliation and continue to expect foreign aid for reconstuction at frequent intervals? Perhaps the donors will eventually draw conclusions and become less generous and decide to give their money to other causes.
The ceasefire which was eventually accepted in 2014 met none of the demands of the signatories, as could have been predicted.
Musheir El-Farra and the other signatories should have been exerting as much pressure as they could on Hamas to accept a ceasefire and to keep to the ceasefire. As I put it publicly at one of Sheffield Solidarity Campaign's events, 'Stop firing rockets. Stop breaking ceasefires.'
The Important Statement contains this:
'With temporary shelters full and the indiscriminate Israeli shelling, there is literally no place that is safe in Gaza.'
Since Hamas hasn't provided shelters for all the population, all the more reason not to fire rockets and invite certain retaliation. Where would rockets fired in the future be fired from? As in the case of the rockets already fired, very often from sites near to residential buildings and such buildings as schools. All the more reason to do everything possible to avoid Israeli attacks on launching sites. Hamas is a terrorist organization which has carried out many suicide bombings in Israel, which has built a network of tunnels to attack Israel, and which declares that its objective is to destroy Israel. Given the fact that the Hamas personnel who are legitimate targets of the Israelis are very often to be found in close proximity with the general population, this is a further reason to avoid Israeli action by avoiding firing rockets.
If Musheir El-Farra and the others can't realize the obviousness of these considerations and their extreme importance, then these representatives of Gazan civic society are doing nothing for the reputation of Gazan civic society. As for the claim of 'indiscriminate' Israeli shelling, then their knowledge of military history, the broad history which is essential for context, essential to provide comparisons, is dangerously lacking. Warnings of impending attack were evidently not given in all cases or most cases but they were given in very many cases, by phone message or by non-lethal blows to the roof of a building. In the history of warfare, this is very, very uncommon. People who fail to concede obvious points and to make any necessary qualifications are liable to see their credibility lost, although not in gullible circles, such as the branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
The reports of the deaths of the relatives of Musheir and Mona el-Farra omit - and this is completely understandable - the military situation in the town. In the Gaza conflict, a main Palestinian weapon is the IEF or improvised explosive device, familiar from operations in Afghanistan. Familiar too are the fearful injuries to British soldiers when these devices have exploded.
Khan Younis has been a major centre for operations by the IDF against Hamas operatives, who have planted innumerable IED devices in the area.
A report on operations:
'Inside Gaza, Hamas has booby-trapped hundreds of homes and installations with improvised bombs. One such IED killed three Israeli soldiers on Wednesday [30 August, a few days before the relatives of Musheir and Mona el-Farra were killed] in a building labeled as an UNRWA clinic in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, where IDF soldiers were searching for a tunnel shaft. IDF’s Gaza Division commander, Brig. Gen. Micky Edelstein, told journalists that in one Khan Younis street he encountered, 19 of the 28 homes were booby-trapped, ready to explode over IDF soldiers who enter them.
The claim is made that there was no warning before the operation which killed the relatives of Musheir and Mona el-Farra, but operations in Khan Younis have been preceded by warnings. In a report in the New York Times for July 8:
'The call came to the cellphone of his brother’s wife, Salah Kaware said Tuesday. Mr. Kaware lives in Khan Younis, in southeast Gaza, and the caller said that everyone in the house must leave within five minutes, because it was going to be bombed.
'A further warning came as the occupants were leaving, he said in a telephone interview, when an Israeli drone apparently fired a flare at the roof of the three-story home. “Our neighbors came in to form a human shield,” he said, with some even going to the roof to try to prevent a bombing. Others were in the stairway when the house was bombed not long afterward.
'Seven people died, Mr. Kaware said, a figure also stated by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, which also said that 25 people were wounded. The Israeli military said that targeted houses belonged to Hamas members involved in launching rockets or other military activity, and that they had been used as operations rooms.'
The Important Statement has its quota of distortion and falsification, for example this: 'As academics, public figures and activists witnessing the intended genocide of 1.8 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip ... ' The familiar misuse of the word 'genocide.' The Nazi genocide was an attempt to kill every Jew in Nazi-controlled territory. To suppose that Israelis intend to kill every Palestinian they can is psychotic rubbish. Whereas the Nazis set up gallows and gas chambers and used firing squads, the Israelis have never used the death penalty in the history of the modern state, with one exception, the Nazi Eichmann. (The Palestinian territories make use of the gallows and firing squads.)
Without a constant barrage of simplifications, evasions, distortions and falsifications and the repetitive, debased language used to express them, the Palestinian ideology would be lost.
The statement refers to 'basic freedoms that have been denied to the people for more than seven years.' These 'basic freedoms' apparently include the freedom to import materials without restriction, including the freedom to import materials for constructing new tunnels for attacks on Israel and materials for constructing rockets for attacks on Israel. What of the basic freedoms which are denied by Hamas and not acknowledged by the majority of Palestinians, such as the basic freedoms of gay people and Christians to live their lives without fear? What of the basic freedom to express opinion freely, including criticism of Hamas?
The Important Statement mentions poverty and unemployment in Gaza. Discoverthenetworks.org 'A Guide to the Political Left' has a significant discussion of these very topics, adapted from 'Who is Really Oppressing the Palestinians?' by David Meir-Levi.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
viewSubCategory.asp?id=82
'How did the Palestinians reach their current tragic state? Are the
Israelis responsible? What part of the blame falls on the other Arab states
and the Palestinians’ own leaders?
These are important questions. The
answers are complex, requiring a historical literacy and a willingness to go
beyond the simplistic notion of the international media that the Mid-east
conflict is a matter of conflicting rights and Israeli “occupation” of
Palestinian lands.
'Within a few days of the June 10 cease-fire
following Israel's victory in the Six Day War of 1967, Abba Eban, Israel’s
Ambassador to the UN, made his famous speech offering to negotiate the
return of captured territories in exchange for three Arab concessions:
diplomatic recognition of Israel; negotiations to decide on universally
recognized borders and other issues; and peace as a final outcome. Western
countries expressed amazement that the victor was offering to negotiate with
the vanquished and was willing to make concrete concessions (return of
territories) in exchange for symbolic and diplomatic ones.
'To
formulate a response to this unexpected new reality, the Arab states called
a summit meeting in Khartoum (capital of Sudan). The result was the now
infamous three Khartoum NOs: no recognition, no negotiations, no peace.
Thus Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was caused first by Arab
aggression and then by Arab refusal to negotiate a peace after the Arab
armies had been vanquished.
'After the war, Israel began what is
sometimes called its “mini-Marshall plan” for the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip, investing hundreds of millions of dollars to bring them both into the
20th century with regard to infrastructure, roads, sewerage, electricity,
phones, radio and TV broadcasting, water purification and water supply.
World Bank records indicate that the GDP of the West Bank grew at the
average rate of 13% per year between 1967 and 1994. Tourism skyrocketed,
unemployment almost disappeared as hundreds of thousands of Arabs worked
in Israel’s economy earning far more than their counterparts in other Arab
countries ...
'And, perhaps most telling of all, free and
unencumbered access to Israel’s medical infrastructure resulted in a
declining infant mortality and a rise in longevity ...
'All this
time, the Arab nations remained formally at war with Israel. In
1979, Egypt alone among the Arab states agreed to sign a peace treaty
with Israel. In response to Egypt’s willingness to sign the peace, Israel
withdrew its forces and settlements in the Sinai.
When the 1993 Oslo
Accords allowed Yasser Arafat to set up shop in the West Bank as the head of
the newly created Palestinian Authority, the existing robust economy created
in partnership between Israel and the Arabs ground to a halt and then went
into a steep decline. By 2002, the West Bank’s GDP was one-tenth of what it
had been in 1993.
'Data provided by the UN Human Development program
of 2005 indicate that the economic difficulties experienced by the
Palestinian Arabs were largely the result of policies of the Arafat regime
and not from any oppression by the State of Israel. Looking at what it calls
“The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT),” the UN report notes, for
instance, that the second Intifada beginning in September 2000 resulted “in
a sharp deterioration in living standards and life chances.” The poverty
rate nearly tripled from 20% in 1999 to 55% in 2003. In one telling example,
the report notes that because of the Intifada, the town of Nablus -- a
prosperous commercial hub prior to September 2000 -- became an economic
basket case. Shops were closed; to survive, workers had to sell their tools,
and farmers were forced to sell their land. It was Arafat’s war, not Israeli
rule, that destroyed Palestinian prosperity and bled its people.
'Israel is the scapegoat for the plight of the Palestinians, but from the
19th century onward, Arab leaders, both local and external, have betrayed
the Palestinian Arabs, forced them into poverty, cheated, intimidated, and
oppressed them, condemned them to serfdom and stolen the land out from under
them. Every opportunity for statehood was squandered by leaders who chose
war and terrorism over peace and cooperation and thus condemned their people
to poverty.'
BBC Watch on life in the Gaza strip:
http://bbcwatch.org/2013/01/01/life-in-the-gaza-strip-according-to-the-bbc/
Even with the corruption, mismanagement and incompetence of the Hamas administration, to describe life in Gaza as a 'living death' is flagrant exaggeration. Compare life in Gaza with life in the Warsaw Ghetto.
One magazine chosen for publication of the Important Statement, 'The Revival,' is one of the more enlightened Islamist publications, but not nearly enlightened enough. It attacks terrorist actions by Moslems which take place in this country - good, obviously - but where Israel is concerned, nothing but the blackest of blacks, nothing but the most absolute of condemnations, nothing but unflinching and complete criticism will do. Another outlet chosen for publication was the Freedom Flotilla Foundation's 'Gaza's Ark.'
Musheir el-Farra is the author of 'Gaza: when the sky rained white fire.' The book is about the effects of Operation Cast Lead. The 'white fire' of the title is a reference to phosphorus munitions.
The 2008 - 2009 Israeli operations in Gaza, operation 'Cast Lead,' were intended to stop rocket attacks on Israel and to prevent the flow of weapons into Gaza. From the Wikipedia entry on operation 'Cast Lead:'
'After watching footage of Israeli troop deployments on television, a British soldier who completed numerous combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Intelligence Corps defended the Israeli Army's use of white phosphorus. The soldier noted, "White phosphorus is used because it provides an instant smokescreen, other munitions can provide a smokescreen but the effect is not instant. Faced with overwhelming enemy fire and wounded comrades, every commander would choose to screen his men instantly, to do otherwise would be negligent."
'Colonel Lane, a military expert testifying in front of the fact-finding mission in July 2009, told that white phosphorus is used for smoke generation to hide from the enemy. He stated, "The quality of smoke produced by white phosphorus is superb; if you want real smoke for real coverage, white phosphorus will give it to you."
'Professor Newton, expert in laws of armed conflict testifying in front of the committee, said that in an urban area, where potential perils are snipers, explosive devices and trip wires, one effective way to mask forces' movement is by white phosphorus. In certain cases, he added, such choice of means would be less harmful for civilian population than other munitions, provided that the use of white phosphorus withstands the proportionality test. In discussing the principle of proportionality he said that the legality of using white phosphorus in an urban setting could only be decided on a case by case basis taking into account "the precise circumstances of its use, not in general, generically, but based on that target, at that time".
Gaza' would be well advised to do so by offering constructive criticism, since 'saving Gaza' is much the same as saving Gaza from its own mistaken acts and policies, the dangerous delusions which fester in Gaza. Whenever healthy self-criticism is lacking, the best course of action is to offer healthy criticism, in the hope that the capacity for self-criticism will take root. All the same, Gaza is hard and unpromising ground.
He stressed that the humanitarian implications were vital in this assessment giving the example that using white phosphorus on a school yard would have different implications to its use on another area. He also said that in his view white phosphorus munition is neither chemical nor incendiary weapon and is not intended to cause damage. He said its use was not prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention.
'An article by Mark Cantora examining the legal implications of the use of white phosphorus munitions by the IDF, published in 2010 in the Gonzaga Journal of International Law, argues that Israel's use of white phosphorus in Gaza was technically legal under existing international humanitarian laws and "Therefore, it is imperative for the international community to convene a White Phosphorus Convention Conference in order to address these issues and fill this substantial gap in international humanitarian law."
Runa Khan, a mother of six, was sentenced in December 2014 to more than five years
imprisonment in this country for promoting terrorism. There are many, many
Palestinian mothers (and fathers) who promote terrorism and extremist views. Runa Khan's views pervade Palestinian society.
Runa Khan openly supported suicide bombings, amputation as a punishment and
stoning to death. Palestinian majority opinion supports suicide bombings,
amputation as a punishment and stoning to death. Palestinian society isn't
shocked, on the whole, to find that a mother wants her children to become
suicide bombers. Wafa al-Bass, who was treated at an Israeli hospital for
severe burns after a household accident, hasn't been condemned in the
Palestinian media for putting on a suicide vest and attempting to bomb the
hospital where she was treated.
From the BBC news Website article on Runa
Khan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30439913
She
had 'posted a picture of a suicide vest' on Facebook. '... police had found
photos of Khan's children holding guns and swords.' She had 'posted a
message on an extremist website, saying she wished her son would one day
become a jihadi.' 'Prosecutor Paul Jarvis said Khan held "extreme Islamist
views."
Judge Peter Birts QC described her as an "avowed fundamentalist Islamist holding radical and extreme beliefs".
He said: "You hold to an ideology which espouses jihad as an essential part of the Islamist obligation.
"I sentence you not for your beliefs, abhorrent though they are to all civilised people, but for your actions in disseminating terrorist material with the clear intention of radicalising others."
Referring to her online activities, he said: "Your purpose was to encourage and promote your particular brand of violent fundamentalism. This brand of violent fundamentalism is commonplace in Palestinian society.
"You were deeply committed to radicalising others, including very young children, into violent jihadist extremism.
The judge added: "You appear to have no insight into the effect of radicalising your children, having selfishly placed your own ideology and beliefs above their welfare in your priorities." Runa Khan gave her own children toy guns. On the streets of Gaza, children are given real guns.
How could whoever posted the image above imagine that 'saving Gaza' would save humanity at the same time? (or perhaps a little later.) 'Saving Gaza' is difficult enough, whatever the interpretation of 'saving,' but 'saving humanity' is impossible.
Did the person who posted the image believe that a Gaza without Israeli actions would be a guarantee of peace and stability? Did this person imagine that all terrorist organizations, ISIS included, would leave the infant state in blissful contentment and have no interest in easy pickings? What was the identity of this person? What sort of person? I found it was someone called Yasir Mukhtar, an Indonesian Moslem whose blog isn't entirely in the same rarified realm. It even makes concrete claims, all false, including these. The last two are laughable, the first is despicable:
'There is a heavy indoctrination in Israel, from an early age in
schools, which uses the holocaust to create paranoia and fear against ‘the
enemy.’
'All media in Israel has to go through the IDF [Israeli
Defence Force] censorship.
'All police departments in the US are
trained by the Israeli military and are taught the same brutal tactics used
against Palestinians.'
This mixture of mawkish-ethereal
claptrap when the subject is Gaza and shameless distortion and falsification
when the subject is Israel is a familiar one.
Israeli-Palestinian relations: the case for Israel
This section appears on my other pages on Israeli-Palestinian issues.
For a fuller discussion of the issues, including the rules of war, treatment of non-combatants and genocide, please see my page on Israel.
Human values, humane values can sometimes only be safeguarded by harsh action, including harsh military action. This was the case during the Second World War, a conflict which was obviously more wide ranging by far. But the savagery displayed in the recent terrorist attack on Israel was as bad as any of the atrocities which took place during the Second World War. Allied forces defeated genocidal Nazi Germany not by displays of naive, utopian, superficial thinking but by tactical and strategic thinking which resulted in hard military action, including the use of bombardment.
After D-day, villages, towns and cities in France, Belgium and the Netherlands were liberated by British and other allied forces. Very often, they were liberated by military action which included bombing and artillery fire and very often with civilian casualties. For example, Caen in Normandy was liberated only after being heavily bombed. About 80% of the town was devastated and 3000 civilians were killed.
Around 60,000 French civilians had been killed by allied bombing by the time France was liberated. To use only ground forces was out of the question. Nazi occupied Europe could never have been liberated in this way. Anyone who claims that allied forces were 'no better than Nazis' for frequent killing of civilians is failing to take into account Nazi killings of civilians, which belonged to a different order of reality - reprisal executions, the mass executions of the Einsatzgruppen and, of course, the Holocaust, the worst set of war crimes in human history.
In extreme circumstances, to overcome fanatical opposition, the armed forces of democratic states often have no alternative but to use extreme force – but not ‘extremist force,’ the methods used by fanatics. To use slight force would be to guarantee defeat. Although technological advances have vastly increased the precision of bombing, these cannot overcome all difficulties, for example those arising in very densely populated neighbourhoods such as Gaza.
A stark fact: the families of all the terrorists killed or injured in these horrific attacks in Israel will receive large cash payments from the Palestinian Authority, which calls them ‘Martyr payments.’ The families of Palestinian terrorists killed or injured whilst committing previous acts of terrorism already receive these payments, a reward for spreading death and destruction. ‘Martyr payments’ are also made to the families of terrorists imprisoned by Israel for politically motivated violence, often lethal violence.
Basem Naim, Head of Political and International Relations for Hamas, claimed in an interview not long after the attacks on Israeli civilians that none of the people taken hostage at the time by the terrorists (obviously, he never used the word ‘terrorists’) are civilians! According to this tainted source of information, the child hostages are not civilians and neither are the children killed! This is a claim that deserves to be treated with contempt and revulsion.
He also claimed that it was an absolute necessity to attack Israel. The alternative, he said, would be ‘to die silently by malnutrition.’ Later in the interview, he claimed a Palestinian malnutrition rate of 55% He intended to present a deeply distressing picture of starving Palestinians, deprived of food by the Israelis, but he surely knew that the Palestinian malnutrition problem is obesity, not starvation. There have been a number of studies. A study of 2019 found that among adults 18 years and older, 64% of males and 69.5% of females in the Palestinian territories were overweight. Hamas has a record of using distortion, exaggeration, selectivity, general falsification, often taking grotesque forms - tactics which appeal to credulous people.
Badly needed: a deeper and wider understanding of the Palestinian society which gives such widespread support to Hamas. A clear sighted, fair-minded and comprehensive view of Palestinian society should amongst other things take into account information such as findings of the Pew Research Center. A few examples: stoning to death for adultery may not be practised in the Palestinian territories but 84% of Palestinians support the punishment. The conviction that a woman must always obey her husband is widely held, with 87% support in the Palestinian territories.
Homosexuality is illegal in Gaza, although not in the West Bank. Homosexuality isn’t illegal in Israel, of course. The Gay scene in Israel is a very flourishing one. The Tel Aviv Gay Pride event is one of the largest in the world. As for Iran, the supporter of Hamas, this is a country in the grip of a horrific regime. Homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and political dissidence are amongst the many offences which can be punished with the death penalty.
A society which is liberal, tolerant and open has to have a whole range of other strengths. Essential: alertness to forces that can damage it very severely, perhaps irreparably. A society has to be willing and able to defend itself or risk being damaged or destroyed by ruthless outside forces - with the exception of states which rely upon other states for their defence, generally mistakenly, but not in the case of very small states such as San Marino.
If, hypothetically, Palestinians were granted a state, is it likely that their relations with their neighbour Israel would be harmonious? If, hypothetically, Israel were ever to be wiped out, the new state would be very vulnerable. Its survival could never be guaranteed. It could easily be invaded by a powerful and ruthless adversary that would like to take its territory. As it is, superior Israeli military power guarantees the security of the Palestinian territories, just as the neutral Republic of Ireland was protected against German invasion by the military power of Britain and its allies during the Second World War. The protection against potential aggressors provided by Israel's superior power is a massive advantage for the Palestinians.
The practical problems confronting Hamas were avoidable but Hamas chose not to avoid them. In fact, the problems can only be solved if Hamas is eliminated. Democratic states and organizations should do nothing which helps to save Hamas, directly or indirectly. There are many, many countries in the world facing acute problems to do with basic needs. It’s impossible to give effective help to all of them. The basic economic problem is the problem of scarcity: unlimited wants and finite resources.
Why should Gaza be regarded as not just a deserving cause but a deserving cause which should have absolute priority? Israel and Ukraine deserve the support of the free world, not so Hamas-controlled Gaza. The international community's contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza should only be offered under the most stringent conditions..
Hamas is a basket case and has ruined Gaza, with the support of far too many Palestinians. But in general, they don't deserve a regime as bad as Hamas. The 'they' is a generalization, of course, There are deserving and undeserving Palestinians.
If, with the aid of the horrific Iranian regime (which sentenced 51 people to be stoned to death for adultery in 2022), Palestinians in Gaza had been able to amass a formidable force of multirole combat aircraft, then there can't be the least doubt that they would have done everything in their power to use them for the destruction of Israeli hospitals, homes and schools, as well as Israeli Defence Force positions, without the least concern for 'International Law.'. They have been able, with the aid of the horrific Iranian regime, to equip themselves with rockets and they have used them to attack Israeli civilians on many occasions in previous years and now on a much bigger scale.
The damage from Israeli counter-attacks against Gaza after these previous rocket attacks should have taught Hamas this simple lesson. If you don't want war damage in Gaza and want to protect civilians in Gaza, stop firing rockets and stop breaking ceasefires. But Hamas are very slow learners.
If it wanted to, Iran, a big country, could aid the Palestinians not just by providing them with supplies but by offering them some Iranian territory for a new Palestinian homeland. Would the Palestinians be glad to go there, to live in a place free of Israeli influence? I doubt it. If the barbarity of Hamas (and the Iranian regime) is obvious to anyone with any sense, the stupidity of Hamas (and the Iranian regime) should be obvious to anyone with any sense too.
The need for comparative knowledge: killing of civilians in other conflicts
Great Britain and Nazi Germany were not equal and opposite - equal, that is, in guilt. Great Britain made mistakes in its conduct of the war and was guilty of excesses, but the excesses of Nazi Germany were on a different level. Nazi Germany could not have been defeated without the deaths of many, many civilians. There were, and still are, no methods which can clinically target combatants and remove them whilst leaving civilians untouched in all circumstances. The circumstances in which civilians are unavoidably killed are very, very common.
In the later stage of the war, Great Britain used its growing military strength to exact very large scale damage on Nazi Germany. After years of sacrifice and horrific losses, the overwhelming priority was to bring the war to an end as soon as possible, but Nazi Germany was determined to resist. There were attacks which can't be justified by the military gains.
W.G. Sebald, in his book 'On the Natural History of Destruction' writes,
' ... about 600,000 German civilians fell victim to the air raids [widely varying figures are cited in the literature] and 3 - 5 million homes were destroyed, while at the end of the war 7.5 million people were left homeless, and there were 31.1 cubic metres of rubbly for everyone in Cologne and 42.8 cubic metres for every inhabitant of Dresden ... [these precise figures can't be accepted as they stand.]
One of the most devastating area bombardments of World War II, was carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) on 23 February 1945. Nearly one third of the town's population, 17,600 people, were killed, and about 83% of the buildings in Pforzheim were destroyed.
From the Wikipedia account of the attack:
'People died from the immediate impact of explosions, from burns due to burning incendiary materials that seeped through basement windows into the cellars of houses where they hid, from poisonous gases, lack of oxygen, and collapsing walls of houses. Some of them drowned in the Enz or Nagold rivers into which they had jumped while trying to escape from the burning incendiary materials in the streets, but even the rivers were burning as the phosphorus floated on the water.'
Unlike the Nazis, Great Britain observed the rules of war in the majority of cases. The incendiary bombs and other bombs which were used in the attack were fully permitted by the rules of war.
This shows the devastation in a small area of the town:
In this photograph, taken after a bombing raid on Cologne, the bodies are the bodies of school children.
Cologne was bombed by the RAF in 262 air raids during the Second World War and 20,000 civilians were killed by bombing. Below, Cologne in 1945.
Mistakes in war are inevitable. Below, the Bezuidenhout in Belgium, bombed by mistake during the Second World War.
Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli forces by mistake. To claim that these killings are evidence of malign intent, that this is proof that the Israelis are heartless killers, is wide of the mark. Yet again, it's grossly inadequate knowledge of the realities of war which lead to the making of such claims as these.
Recommended, a reading of the Wikipedia article on 'friendly fire,' a different kind of mistake, leading to the killing of soldiers on the same side as the forces which mistakenly did the killing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly
_fire_incidents
An instance of civilian loss of life (and injury) which was mistakenly carried out by allied forces during the Second World War, the Bombing of the Bezuidenhout. Again, the Wikipedia article can be recommended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_the
_Bezuidenhout
An extract:
The bombing of the Bezuidenhout (Dutch: bombardement op het Bezuidenhout) took place on 3 March 1945, when the Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in the Dutch city of The Hague resulting in the death of 532 citizens.
...
The British bombers were intended to bomb the Haagse Bos ("Forest of the Hague") district where the Germans had installed V-2 launching facilities that had been used to attack English cities. However, the pilots were issued with the wrong coordinates (vertical and horizontal interchanged), so the navigational instruments of the bombers had been set incorrectly, and combined with low fog and clouds which obscured their vision, the bombs were instead dropped on the Bezuidenhout residential neighbourhood. Eventually, a wind force of 9 instead of the expected 5 added to the catastrophe.All bombs missed the rocket installations in the 2.4 km (1.5 mi) x 0.8 km (0.50 mi) forest target (Haagse Bos) by 1.2 km (1,300 yd) ... and hit the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood instead.
About the transformed images and copyright
Blockhead image above, Annie O' Gara
addressing the faithful few outside Sheffield Town Hall.
More on Annie O' Gara and her distinctive method of
avoiding photographs in the section
About the transformed images and copyright which
also explains the alteration of aspect ratio in the larger photographs
above.
Unflattering caricatures and cartoons can be used to represent people. Pro-Palestinian protesters can be shown in unflattering ways. They hate being shown in simple photographs, if the photographer happens to be opposed to their views. Again and again, they panic or become aggressive. Taking photographs of pro-Palestinian protesters showing them in a state of panic or responding aggressively when they realize they're being photographed is perfectly legitimate, a lawful activity, freely permitted. They like to suppress legitimate, lawful activities when it suits their purposes. But my purposes are very different, my way of thinking is very different, as they will have noticed.
In a world where people take photographs very, very often with their phones (I'm not one of them - I use photography far less often, in a far more restricted way, always with a camera, not a phone) then their ban on photographs of themselves is ridiculous - rather, their attempted ban is ridiculous. If they think they can defend it they should go ahead and give their reasons.
The images are also on the Home Page I'll be able to photograph and to film Julie Pearn and the Tadhamon Singers - as they take part in protests, all I have to do is to attend and take the pictures but it may be quite a long time before there's a suitable opportunity. Julie Pearn and the Tadhamon Singers have a public role - but a very, very minor role - and they have to accept that images of them can be taken and published. I've contacted the two organizations to bring the issues to their attention.
I take care not to infringe copyright. I claim that I don't infringe the copyright of the owners of the original images because I claim that the modified images used here are 'transformative.'
UK copyright law allows 'transformative' use and so a defence for 'fair dealing', as set forth in Section 30 of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ('the Act', or 'UK Act').
A transformative work is one that transcends, or places in a new light, the underlying work on which it are based. Transformative uses include parodying the original work. The two images are explicitly intended to be parodies of the base images.
Copyright problems are also avoided by making use of a simple technique I call a 'blockhead image,' used in the case of Annie O' Gara. When I've taken a photograph of Ms O' Gara, I'll remove the blockhead and replace it with a photograph. She's fairly prolific, performing often in public - although her political activities in public benefit nobody - and it shouldn't be difficult to find an occasion for the necessary photographic work or to film her in her role as demagogue. As a public figure, who has performed in various You Tube videos, she has a no right to make yet another demand - that photographs of her should only be taken by people who think like her. I think it's very likely that Julie Pearn would make the same demands, which have absolutely no legal force. I can photograph both of them freely.
The repertoire of methods used by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign members to avoid being photographed or filmed are varied, including physical attack, intimidation, obstruction, the refusal to allow free movement in a public space, barriers - putting a hand or hat or piece of keffiyeh cloth in front of the face - or scattering, fleeing the scene as soon as they see that a camera is about to be used.
On the two occasions when I've tried to take a photograph of Ms O' Gara, she has used a different technique - rotation. She quickly rotates to present the back of her head to the camera and not her face. Councillors and MP's who tried this tactic to avoid lawful photography would be ridiculed and Ms O' Gara deserves to be riduculed, and all the other like-thinking people who use these pathetic methods. I only took a couple of photographs of Ms O' Gara - the back or side of the O' Gara head - and deleted them.
