As long as the state of Israel exists, there will be war in Palestine- it's in the three Abrahamic religions' Scriptures and genes

    In 2002, I got involved in a Christian Science Monitor online discussion of whether America should invade Iraq, which was alleged by the second President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell to have weapons of mass destruction. People who participated in the discussion used a fake name (avatar). Mine was Resist Not Evil.

    I pissed off a lot of Christians in that forum, who were ignoring what Jesus said in the Gospels: resist not one who does evil and turn the other cheek. I pissed off a lot of American war veterans by saying Iraq was a trap, which was not worth one killed, wounded or battle-shocked (PTS) American soldier. 

    A coalition of America and other nations' troops invaded Iraq, won a quick victory, and the trap was sprung by Islamic insurgents. Hell was in session. No weapons of mass destruction were found. Iraq had been an American ally against Iran. America's only ally over there today is Israel, which has nuclear weapons.

    As long as the state of Israel exists, there will be war in Palestine- it's in the three Abrahamic religions' Scriptures and genes. It looks to me that American Christians, who want America to keep sending Israel money and weapons, do it because Jesus was crucified in Palestine at the behest of Jewish religious leaders, and they want Israel to protect the Christendom's Holy Land. Yet, I don't see those American Christians dropping everything to rush over to Israel and take up arms to help Israel fight adversaries who are not afraid to die, because they believe they are going straight to Paradise. It looks to me the only solution is for America to offer every Israeli sanctuary in America, in exchange for the state of Israel ceasing to exist.

    This below was is my email account this morning from the highly respected American war correspondent Chris Hedges, who risked his life many times on the front lines. I joined in the discussion and selected several jolting remarks from other readers.

The War According to Hamas

The Palestinian resistance understands its enemy. It has learned through experience how to fight it. This is not good news for Israel.

CHRIS HEDGES

NOV 12, 2023 

CAIRO, Egypt: Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian resistance leader, shortly before Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, laid down the fundamental rules for warfare against the Israel. 

The rules by al-Araj, not a member of Hamas, provide the Palestinian lens for the incursion by Israeli forces in Gaza. While Israel’s superior firepower — its air force, missiles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, drones, naval forces, mechanized units and artillery — make it possible to inflict huge numbers of Palestinian casualties, most of them civilians, while Israel can level whole neighborhoods and turn hospitals, schools, power stations, water treatment plants, bakeries, mosques and churches into piles of concrete, this does not translate into a defeat of the Palestinian resistance groups. 

Al-Araj argued that the fight with Israel cannot be measured with body counts. The Israelis will be able to kill far greater numbers of Palestinians. Resistant movements, he wrote, always suffer disproportionate losses. In the independence war in Algeria, between 1954 and 1962, upwards of 1.5 million Algerians —  or around 10 percent of the population —  were  killed by the French.  In the airport in Algiers, the country’s capital, is a huge sign that reads: “Welcome to Algeria. Land of a million Martyrs.”

“We are far more capable of bearing the costs, so there is no need to compare or be alarmed by the magnitude of the numbers,” he wrote.

Al-Araj, who led hunger strikes while in Palestine Authority prisons, was long a target for Israel. Israel’s counter-terrorism unit, Yamam, pursued him for months before raiding his home on March 6, 2017 in el-Bireh. After a two-hour gun battle, Israeli forces, which fired rockets into the building, burst inside and executed him at close range. He was 31.   

The fight with Israel, al-Araj reminded Palestinians, must “follow the logic of guerrilla warfare or hybrid warfare, which Arabs and Muslims have become masters of through our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza.” Never defend “fixed points and borders.” Draw the enemy into an ambush, accomplished by light resistance and tactical withdrawals. Strike the flanks and the rear. The calculus of asymmetric warfare is very different from conventional war. And what Israel defines as success, including the seizing of territory, numerous deaths and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings, matters little to the resistance fighter.The goal of Palestinian fighters is to remain elusive, to carry out lightning strikes and recede back into the rubble or the vast tunnel network under Gaza. 

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, says it partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 27 tanks and vehicles in the past two days. On Nov. 11, the Al-Qassam Brigade says it lured Israeli soldiers to a burning car in the West Bank and blew up their vehicles with an IED. On Nov. 10 the Al-Qassam Brigades, Saraya Al-Quds, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, say they allowed the Israelis to advance without significant opposition during the day. In the evening they ambushed the Israeli forces west of Tal al-Hawa, in the areas around Al-Shifa Hospital, west of the Al-Shati refugee camp and west of Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Gaza strip. Israel unleashed a heavy bombardment, the Palestinian fighters said, in an attempt to rescue its soldiers. Israel reportedly suffered high numbers of casualties. On Nov. 9, Al-Qassam Brigades say they ambushed Israeli soldiers in Juhr al-Dik, targeting them with an anti-personnel rocket. The Israeli soldiers were killed, they said, at “point blank range.” On Nov. 6, the Al-Qassam Brigades say they destroyed five Israeli tanks with Yassin 105 rockets in northwest Gaza City. On Nov. 2 Al-Qassam Brigades claimed they destroyed six tanks and two military vehicles in one hour northwest of Gaza City.  “The number of casualties is significantly higher than what the enemy’s leadership has announced,” said Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Al Qassam Brigades. 

Israel has banned the foreign press from reporting from Gaza. It has killed over 40 Palestinian journalists and media workers. It also has instituted prolonged blockages of the internet and cell phone service. No doubt, this heavy handed censorship is done to limit the horrific images of civilian casualties. But I suspect it is also intended to block images of a ground offensive that is tougher, more protracted and more costly than Israel anticipated.

Israel invests tremendous resources in its propaganda campaign, getting networks such as CNN to repeat back its talking points. Jake Tapper should be an honorary Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman. 

Al-Araj warned about the attempt by Israel to demoralize fighters by posting photos and videos of Israelis occupying landmarks and public spaces. 

A video being shared on social media shows the raising of the Israeli flag on a beach in Gaza. A group of soldiers surround the flag and sing the Israeli national anthem. 

In October last year, Jewish settlers occupied the Ibrahimi mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron, where a Jewish settler, Barach Goldstein, gunned down 29 Palestinians in 1994 as they prayed. The settlers held a music festival and dance party in the mosque. They hung an Israeli flag from the roof. Videos have circulated that denigrate and ridicule Palestinians.

Al-Araj wrote that Israel’s propaganda is designed to instill panic, demonize Palestinians and spread defeatism.

“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” said Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land in 1948, facilitated by massacres, the raping of Palestinian women and girls, and the razing of entire villages by Zionist militias.  “From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war — as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza — with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.” “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end,” he concluded.

Israel equates the Palestinians with the Nazis. Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former Prime Minister, in an interview on Sky News on Oct. 12 said, “We’re fighting Nazis.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Hamas in a press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as “the new Nazis.” 

The IDF posted a tweet that read: “Never again is NOW. IDF forces discovered a copy of Hitler’s infamous book ‘Mein Kampf’ — translated into Arabic — in a child’s bedroom used as a Hamas terrorist base in Gaza. The book was discovered among the personal belongings of one of the terrorists, featuring annotations and highlights. Hamas embraces the ideology of Hitler, the one responsible for the annihilation of the Jewish people.”

The message is clear. Palestinians embody absolute evil.

Israel releases images that show Palestinians and Palestinian prisoners being denigrated and abused by Israelis. At the same time, Israel presents itself as compassionate.

A video titled “IDF Soldiers Give Gazan Civilians Water After Hamas Refused,” was recently circulated. The video, clearly staged, reminded me of the footage of the Bosnian Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic who handed out candy to children in Srebrenica in 1995 before overseeing the execution of 8,000 men and boys.

“The enemy will carry out tactical, qualitative operations to assassinate some symbols [of resistance], and all of this is part of psychological warfare,” al-Araj wrote. “Those who have died and those who will die will never affect the resistance’s system and cohesion because the structure and formations of the resistance are not centralized but horizontal and widespread. Their goal is to influence the resistance’s support base and the families of the resistance fighters, as they are the only ones who can affect the men of the resistance.”

In every war, information is weaponized. But to rely exclusively on the Israeli narrative is to be deceived, not only about the war crimes Israel carries out but the nature of the war itself. The Palestinians understand their foe. They have had a lot of experience. They knew this was coming. I suspect the fighting in Gaza will continue for a long time. Israel paid a high price on Oct. 7 when Palestinian fighters breached its borders. It will pay an even higher price in Gaza.

 

Sloan Bashinsky

I subscribed to your newsletter, Chris, maybe two weeks ago, because of your reputation as a war correspondent, who goes where the bullets, grenades, rockets and bombs are flying and colliding with human beings.

You clearly do not like Israel. I don't care for Israel, either. Yet, I disagree that Hamas is a resistance organization. It is a terrorist organization, because it burrows in and hides behind and underneath civilians. And it kills civilians in Israel.

Hamas knew what would happen after the October 7 attack, which, oddly, is my birthday. Hamas knew many civilians in Gaza would be killed. Hamas views the dead civilians as martyrs, who went straight to paradise and Allah.

While you, and many, view the dead civilians as victims of Israeli genocide. 

Hamas loves you for taking their side against Israel.

Both sides are led by religious zealots, and God only knows, or maybe God has no clue, how it will progress from here.

It's a crying shame that America did not welcome the WWII European Jewish refugees into America. Perhaps it's time America offers sanctuary to every Jew living in Israel today, in exchange for Israel standing down, packing up, and leaving Palestine.

I can't imagine why former President Trump and the Republicans in the U.S. Congress, and the Christian right ministers in America are not already making that America's top priority. The American Christian right believes in Armageddon and that it will come out of Palestine. Even though they believe they will be taken up in the Rapture, they sure as hell don't have any interest in doing it that way.  

J C7

Sloan: You make some good points. I find that making enemies creates a hate-filled future. The revenge factor is constantly perpetuated. I feel sad for ALL the innocents that are and will pay because these power and money hungry humans refuse to STOP THE KILLING! We were taught to use our words as children.

We do need to separate these parties by enacting true human rights for all. 

Violence and global capitalism will never support such a peace. 

Sloan Bashinsky

How can Hamas (Islam) and Israel be separated, unless all the Jews in Israel are taken in by America, or by some country not dominated by Islam, and the state of Israel ceases to exist? 

Israel has nuclear weapons, and if Israel feels sufficiently threatened, it will detonate its nukes where it thinks best for Israel. 

I think America made a grave mistake supporting Israel with money and weapons, and I think it happened because American Christians view Palestine as Christianity's Holy Land, and how better to defend it, than to arm Israel to the teeth. 

In olden times, at the Vatican's behest, Western European countries sent mercenaries called crusaders to defend the Holy Land from Islam. I see no way the religious war in Palestine will ever resolve as long as the state of Israel exists.

Paul

A revolting excuse for the butchery of 850 Israeli civilians. Yes, the fury and blood lust of Hamas was actually cultivated by the Netanyahu fascist regime in his desperate but losing effort to hold power. But the slaughter of 10,000 Gazan civilians apparently means as little to Hamas as to Israel's zionists. Moreover, the concept that it doesn't matter if millions of Palestinian civilians are killed while your guerilla force kills off 50 is idiotic. The first rule of guerilla warfare is the unity and material support of the much larger mass of oppressed civilians. The only military hope for a free Palestine lies in the military commitment of its middle east supposed allies. US imperialism has made clear that it will attack from Iran to Yemen against any such attack. The demand for a lasting ceasefire and the renewal of the two independent states are the only demands that stands a real chance of being effected. 

Sloan Bashinsky

Do you think Hamas is concerned about the American fleet, or with Israel, which Hamas baited into doing exactly what it is doing? Do you see any possible resolution short of Israel being relocated to America, or somewhere far from Islamic countries? 

Jim

You had better read a book, Paul. Your diatribe lacks historical fact. The 2 State solution is no more than an INSIDE JOKE in Israel, the UN and the US. Blaming the enemy for Israeli deaths and their own deaths is ridiculous! The use by MSM time and time again of THE UNPROVOKED ATTACK is the biggest lie of all since Oct7. As Chomsky said, when leaders call anything an UNPROVOKED ATTACK MEANS IT WAS DEFINITETLY PROVOKED! Read Ilan Pappes "Ten Myths about Israel" or Chomsky's "Fateful Triangle" for a true history of Palestine/Israel.

    

Debsisdead  

I wish I could be as sanguine about this as you Mr Hedges but I fear that the fact Palestinians have released a piece on the rules their fighters should adopt kinda says it all. Palestinians have rules about what they do but as we have seen with the recent and entirely unsurprising revelations that the bulk of the so-called atrocities on zionist civilians were committed by the idf to prevent hostage taking says it all. the zionists have no rules, the nonsense pushed out by zionists as revealed in Israel Shahak's tell all Jewish History, Jewish Religion (see Jewish History, Jewish Religion The Weight Of Three Thousand Years By Israel Shahak 126pgs : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive ) shows that as far as recreating 'greater israel' zionists have no rules. Any amount of killing, rape, desecration is A OK as long as the jew doing it is doing so to bring about the seizure of all lands zionists believe was 'gifted' to them by their particularly cruel & asinine god.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion The Weight of Three Thousand Years by Israel Shahak 126pgs   

eg:

“…various rabbinical commentators in the past drew the logical conclusion that in wartime all Gentiles belonging to a hostile population may, or even should be killed. Since 1973 this doctrine is being publicly propagated for the guidance of religious Israeli soldiers. The first such official exhortation was included in a booklet published by the Central Region Command of the Israeli Army, whose area includes the West Bank. In this booklet the Command's Chief Chaplain writes:

When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even should be killed ... Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilised ... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good.’” 

No wonder these people seek to drag up Hitler on any occasion, zionists' beliefs are even worse than anything that mob of nazi thugs ever dreamed up.

Jon 

Far far more innocent people have lost their lives because of the Jewish God than for any other historical reason. Abrahamism is the killingest set of ideas ever invented. 

Sloan Bashinsky

Er, Mohammed descended from Abraham's son, Ishmael, who was called a wild donkey of a man, who didn't get along well with other people. In Genesis, God told Abraham that Ishmael's seed would become a great nation and would cause Isaac's seed trouble. Looks like islam took that to heart. Moses descended from Issac, and much later came Jesus. Today's Christians often behave a lot more like Moses, Joshua, etc., than Jesus.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com