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Call Israel’s War Crimes and Genocide By Name

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The New York Times on May 3 ran simultaneous brief clips, as presented above, of six videos of dynamited Lebanese villages as released by the Israeli offensive forces.

On Tuesday the X account of Israel’s foreign ministry posted a nice little video and a cheery message about snow falling on Mount Hermon. “Snow… in May? In Israel?” the nameless poster wrote. Except that Mount Hermon is not in Israel. It is in Lebanon. It marks the border with Syria. Israel has occupied it since 1967, as it has the nearby Golan Heights. 

pierre tristam column flaglerlive.com flaglerlive The imperious lie about Mount Hermon is part of Israel’s method of subduing  geography to fabricated history as it demolishes and steals ancestral lands in orgies of war crimes that sometimes get reported by western news agencies–if reported at all–like fan fiction derived from Israeli army handouts. 

One of the fictions every news organization still perpetuates is the reference to one of the world’s most offensive, criminal and racist militaries–an enforcer of apartheid–as the “Israeli Defense Forces,” or IDF for short. There has been nothing defensive about the Israeli military since 1948. Even then, aside from battling ragtag and moronic Arab bands pretending to be armies that never put Israel in danger, it was mostly offensive as it took advantage of the lopsided war to expel two-thirds of the population, all of them Palestinians, to make room for the Jewish population.

Israel has rebranded illegal occupations in innocuous corporate euphemisms that, again, media blindly apply. It called the occupation zone in Lebanon a “security zone” or an “advanced defensive line.” It calls the occupied West Bank “Judea and Samaria,” erasing 3.3 million Palestinians eking out a living there under siege. The so-called “yellow lines” Israel drew in Gaza and South Lebanon are among the latest fabrications. Israel paints concrete blocks and sign posts yellow to mark off the Palestinian ghetto, and now the South Lebanon no-go zone, surely an inadvertent if ironic visual echo of the yellow star Nazis forced Jews to wear before their ghettoes were leveled and Jews exterminated. In Gaza, Israel is more than halfway there: Gaza has been leveled. Nearly 4 percent of its Palestinian population has been exterminated since October 2023, 12 percent if you include the maimed. The massacres continue. 

The Gaza line splits the strip in half, forcing what survives of 2 million Palestinians into a demolished area half the size of Palm Coast, without homes, hospitals or basic care. The United Nations used to refer to Gaza, before its erasure, as the world’s largest open-air prison. That dates back to 2007, when Israel started the blockade and crushed Gaza’s economy. Palestinians still had homes then. Now the half of Gaza where they live like dogs is the world’s largest tent concentration camp. It is still getting bombed. Israel occupies the other half of the Strip as it prepares to finally accomplish what it’s been planning for since 1948, when it first attempted to clear Gaza: annex and declare Gaza part of Greater Israel. 

In Lebanon, the yellow line marks the 10 percent of Lebanese territory Israel has stolen so far. As in Gaza, Israel has been dynamiting hundreds of villages and towns in South Lebanon, razing them from a history measured in millennia and spared that fate during the Crusades, during 400 years of Ottoman occupation, during the French mandate of the first half of the 20th century, even through the Israeli invasions of 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006, with several of those invasions resulting in lengthy occupations ended only in surrender to Hezbollah’s resistance. 

Israel has exterminated 75,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, about the number of Jews exterminated at the Lublin death camp during World War II, and coming up to 3,000 Lebanese. Israel’s morally bankrupt apologists continue to appear on western chat shows to accuse of antisemitism those who call it genocide. But the articles of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 didn’t define genocide only by body counts. Article II includes “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” That’s the systematic destruction of hospitals, houses, schools, libraries, businesses, religious buildings and heritage sites. That’s what continues to go on in Gaza and Lebanon. That, too, is genocide. 

In the calculus of war crimes where fabrication fills the void of destruction, there are only means to an end. All means are justified, whether through cute propagandistic videos of snow falling on stolen land or the collective punishment of entire peoples for the resistance of a few, because let’s not quibble over this: Hamas and Hezbollah, while not nearly as murderous as Israel–and on their grounds Hamas and Hezbollah are as regressive, racist and cruel as the Christian Inquisition–may be just as immoral. 

But like it or not, under the rules of war, they are the resistors. Israel is the occupier. As Omer Bartov, the Israeli historian of genocide, writes in Israel: What Went Wrong, his latest book, “resisting oppression and dehumanization, including by force of arms, is not only understandable but also legal under international law, especially when it forms part of a struggle for national self-determination. We can condemn the barbarity of the [Oct. 7] attack yet recognize the right to resist occupation, at least when it’s directed at legitimate military targets.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas committed unqualified atrocities and war crimes, if not crimes against humanity. Every day since, Israel has been committing unqualified war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon, if not crimes against humanity. Every one of these 944 days.  An Oct. 7 every two weeks for two and a half years. 

Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon seven weeks ago, the way it supposedly has in Gaza. Neither has been true. Thousands of Gazans have been massacred since the alleged cease-fire, as have hundreds of Lebanese civilians. The massacres continue daily. So does the destruction of villages and towns through means unseen since the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and before that, since World War II. Even then, but for the leveling of cities by the American and British air forces in Europe and Japan (the debate continues as to whether those were war crimes), the systematic erasure of cities and towns as collective punishment was limited: Nazis did their mass slaughters in camps. May 27, 1942, was an exception. The Czech resistance assassinated the Nazi governor of a Czech province. In one of the major atrocities of the war, the Nazis rounded up every living soul in Lidice in what is today the Czech Republic, murdered all 190 men and boys over 15, sent surviving women and children to death camps, and a few German-looking children to Germany for Germanification. The Nazis then dynamited every single structure in the town, erasing it from history. 

It is justifiably scandalous to compare Israeli violence in Nabkas past and present to Nazi Germany–in scale. Method, intent and ethno-ideology are another story. Israel is not hiding the Lidice tactic as it applies it systematically in Gaza and Lebanon. It celebrates it, arrogantly releasing videos of the dynamiting of dozens of villages, as it did in Gaza. It isn’t rounding up and murdering Palestinians and Lebanese. There has been no Deir Yassin this time, no Sabra or Shatila. But the erasure of Gaza is worse than all three of those massacres combined. It is what Israel did when it wiped out hundreds of Palestinian villages during the 1948 war, when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from Israel, some of them and many of their descendants the same Palestinians getting expelled from refugee camps in South Lebanon today. Raze everything. Leave nothing for the villagers to come back to. It is then easier to occupy, annex and declare the land part of Israel, like Mount Hermon. 

Joe Biden could have put a halt to it early on. He had that power, as has every American president to halt Israeli crimes, since we underwrite them, we arm them, we enable them. There would have been massacres. There would not have been a genocide. Among other failures that tarnished his presidency, embracing Benjamin Netanyahu’s butchery ruins Biden’s legacy. We could not expect better from Trump. Though he won in part by contrasting himself with war-loving Biden (it’s what won him Michigan’s gullible Arab vote), Trump doubled down on the butchery then allowed Netanyahu to sucker him into the war with Iran, creating a thicker smoke screen for Netanyahu’s designs on Lebanon. 

We Americans are complicit in all this with the weaponry and D9 Caterpillar bulldozers we keep shipping over to fuel the war crimes. We are complicit in our uncritical acceptance of Israel’s craven fabrications. And we are complicit with our silence, except to accuse of antisemitism, to fire, to slander, to blacklist or to deport those who call Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide by name.

Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.

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Comments

  1. Pogo says

    What is the name for this:

    As stated
    https://www.google.com/search?q=mutual+interests+of+hamas+hezbollah+islamic+republic+of+iran+with+russia+china+north+korea

    Ibid
    https://www.google.com/search?q=assad+family+era+war+crimes+and+terrorism
    https://www.google.com/search?q=hamas+war+crimes+and+terrorism
    https://www.google.com/search?q=Islamic+Republic+of+Iran+war+crimes+and+terrorism

    Ibid
    https://www.google.com/search?q=hamas+hezbollah+islamic+republic+of+iran+child+soldiers
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=assad+family+era+child+soldiers

    Ibid
    https://www.google.com/search?q=hamas+hezbollah+islamic+republic+of+iran+human+shields
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=assad+family+era+human+shields

    Will this ever appear on this site — or disappear as usual?

    EC: Copy

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  3. Joan of Arc says

    So the author is comparing the Jews to the Nazi’s? Race to the bottom. Disgusting. Shameless.

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    • Pierre Tristam says

      You might’ve from behind your mysticisms missed this line: “It is justifiably scandalous to compare Israeli violence in Nabkas past and present to Nazi Germany–in scale. Method, intent and ethno-ideology are another story.”

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    • PaulT says

      Your namesake Jeanne d’Arc would certainly not share your views.
      She dedicated and lost her life fighting against a cruel and powerful 15th century military occupation by English armies as they pursued historic and strategic claims to parts of her homeland, France.
      Her story and martyrdom have a lot more in common with those of the Palestinians and Lebanese people who are suffering under a similar onslaught by the State of Israel.

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    • Keenan Hreib says

      No the author is not comparing Jews to Nazis. Nice try Joan. Pierre is comparing Zionists to Nazis, in this case specifically Benjamin Netanyahu, members of his cabinet and the IDF. MONSTERS. I love the convenient conflation of Hamas and Palestinians to justify the unjustifiable. In the days following October 7, 2023 an opportunity to shut off water and electric in a territory you own and OCCUPY. The dye was cast and a 21st century HOLOCAUST was underway. One which was live streamed for the whole world to see, paid for with our tax dollars as the State Department can’t come up with any meaningful justifications for any of it.
      Israel proved that they could pin point kill Hamas negotiators in foreign countries like Iran, so carpet bombing everyone in Gaza with an industrial military against a militant faction that they say is hiding among civilians holds no water.
      Israel doesn’t want Hamas just like they don’t want a “TWO STATE SOLUTION”. These modern day NAZIS want everything starting with South Lebanon and whatever they can convince the U.S. to help them expand their control in the Middle East with. Getting really sick of having to explain this to RACISTS. There is a difference between a JEW, a ZIONIST, and a ISRAELI. People would do well to know it before using that all too over used ANTI-SEMETIC trope. You are losing the battle of popular opinion, the facts are not on your side, and Israel as a state is forfeiting it’s right to ever be one. Israel is the most destabalizing force in the Middle East. Aforce that won’t admit it has NUKES!

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  4. Mike Cocchiola says

    Netanyahu and Trump are international war criminals who deserve harsh justice. This is unlikely to happen in our currently cruel countries. Perhaps their judge and jury will be historians, and punishment will be meted out by the vilification of both monsters, both standing beside Hitler and Stalin, with hateful and bloody legacies as the world’s only memory of them.

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  5. Navy Corpsman says

    I Deployed in 2006 for Operation Iraqi and Enduring Freedom and saw first hand what Israel Does to their Neighbors.

    Truth Jews that have been generalationly living in the Middle East has lived with their Arab Neighbors in Palestine, Iran, Egypt and other Middle Eastern Countries without no Issues (Sometimes a Spat but not wanting to kill each other) it was Persia (Iran that took in the Hebrews (Jews)) that accepted the Hebrews because of War and this is the Reason Jews still live there today.

    In 1948 the British gave the Land to the European Jew Zionists, whom cannot really trace their linage back to the Middle East, You had a lot of Conversions, since the German Genocides and marking Jewish People in Germany and the hostilities from Russia they thought they can come and take Jerusalem from the Palestinian People when they have been living there since they are Descendants from the Canaanites (They are also Semitic) they believe their linage comes Abraham along with the Jews and Christians. If All three Pillars come from Abraham then they are all cousins. The European Jews has become Zionists and it doesn’t help when Christian Nationalists (Evangelicals) places thoughts in the head of Zionists that God Promised the Land of Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria to where Netanyahu has the US Government giving them everything in our Arsenal for their Genocide against the Arab People.

    On 1948 the European Jews (Zionists) attacked and killed Palestinians, they have been at war with the Arabs since they established their State because Evangelicals have been telling Israel they need to invade the Countries that God has promised them to bring the Jews back to Israel so that Christ can Return. I grew up in a Very Southern Baptist Church where they have
    Touted that Israel needs their Land that was Promised by God so that the Second Coming for Christians but the First Coming to the Jews.

    Israel has Not Existed since King Solomon, the Hebrews would sacrifice animals to their Gods, they sacrificed their children to the Gods, Israel broke the Promise to God to where they are not protected today.

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    • Jc says

      Of course you don’t know the full history like an American.

      After 1948, the majority of Mizrahi Jews from Africa and Asia got the boot from almost all the Arab Nations due to their anger against the foundation of the State of Israel. These were people who were treated as second class citizens in some of these countries and were looked with suspicion by many of the Arabs. They later went to Israel since there was a small land for the Jews in a region full of Arabs.

      In time, the Mizrahi Jews gain political power in Israel and were against the Socialist Zionism that founded the State of Israel, since they were treated like second class citizens by the European Jews that supported the Socialism Zionism. Mizrahi Jews were very conservative and were very Anti-Arab due to them getting the boot from those countries after their families been living there for generations. In other words, they kick us out so I don’t give a crap if they die.

      The Mizrahi Jews later got enough political power and started the path of Israel to start electing right wing governments with the Lukid party being on top for the first time in the 70s, which was called the Upheaval.

      Many generations later, the Jews learned about the horrors of what the Mizrahi Jews had went through over the years back in the Arab nations. I spoken with many of the older Mizrahi Jews who were born in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc. Almost all of them have terrible thoughts to the Arabs who kicked them out of the country only because they were Jews. Most of them were so upset that they didn’t mind if many of the Arabs got killed. Their mindset got spread for many generations and it will continue to do so.

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  6. nigel says

    1972 Munich olympics dubbed “the happy games” and then black September . didn’t see that in your time line

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    • Pierre Tristam says

      I see your 1972 Olympics and raise you a Baruch Goldstein, whose copycats are now a daily murderous mob in the West Bank. You really want to go down that ridiculous path?

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  8. JC says

    I’ll shut up about everything if the Lebanese government will give the Palestinians who live in Lebanon 100% Lebanese citizenship. Answer will be a 100% never.

    Arab nations love to do lip service for the Palestinian cause but they don’t want too many of them in their own country. Dirty Secret of the Middle East: The majority of Sunni nations don’t give two craps about the Palestinians at all and they secretly wish that the Palestinians are gone once and for all. Generations of Arabs learn to realize that Palestinians can’t be trusted after how much they screwed up in Jordan via Black September via the PLO, help triggered the Lebanese Civil War, and got booted out of Kuwait after they sided with Saddam’s invasion during the Gulf War. All of this is fact. This is on top of the same people who killed my family members. Me and others from the Middle East (who aren’t all from Israeli BTW, but even other Arab nations I met over the years) have the dark thought that the Palestinians continued to make bad decisions about everything and they should learn the decision of having terrible people that represent them on a government level, even if means their land gets destroyed.

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