The forthright branding of Israel as an apartheid state by Human Rights Watch could be a watershed moment in mainstream acceptance of what Israel has become. Human Rights Watch is not an outlier or left wing organisation. It is very much a part of the establishment in the United States and is not generally associated with hard hitting criticism that conflicts with the promoted interests of the American state. Kenneth Roth, the Human Rights Watch CEO who has been in power longer than Putin, is a darling of the New York liberal and Democratic Party Establishment. That is an important financial source for HRW and includes many members of New York’s highly altruistic liberal Jewish community (who I should declare have frequently hosted me).
Shortly before I formally left the FCO in 2005, I was shortlisted for a position as Global Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and flown to New York to be interviewed by Kenneth Roth in their offices – which if memory serves were very plush and actually in the Empire State Building. Having worked closely with Human Rights Watch in Uzbekistan and elsewhere, I was reasonably confident, and I was surprised when the interview was cold and almost hostile. Kenneth Roth asked me questions exclusively about Israel. I very distinctly recall that he said that I had been describing human rights abuses as perpetrated by governments, but did terrorist offences not also grossly violate the human rights of their victims? He specifically referenced Palestinian terror attacks as being detrimental to the human rights of Israelis.
I replied to the effect that terrorist offences were to me a matter of criminal law as any other assault or murder, whereas human rights abuses were perpetrated by governments or sometimes, in conflict situations, others wielding control and authority. I also referenced the need to bear in mind the imbalance in Israeli/Palestinian infliction of violence. A number of other Israel specific questions followed, which were increasingly unfriendly, and it was plain that Roth was looking for an expression of firm condemnation of the Palestinians, which I did not give, while I did state that violence against innocent civilian targets was never legitimate.
Anyway, I did not get the job which went, perhaps significantly, to an ex US State Department employee with no visible record of dissent. I remember pondering, on the flight back across the Atlantic, that I had been a civil servant for 22 years and forbidden from expressing political opinions. I had said nothing which was not British government policy on Israel since 1984. You would have to go back to my student days and membership of Friends of Palestine to find in public any private views of mine on the Middle East (which from pre-internet days would not be readily discovered). I was wondering who had briefed Roth, and my thoughts turned in obvious directions.
I give that background so you understand how much it has taken for Human Rights Watch to conclude that Israel is now an apartheid state and how far they have come. This cannot be dismissed as “the usual suspects”. Furthermore, the report is a formal legal analysis of what constitutes the crime of apartheid and whether Israeli actions and statutes meet that bar, and it concludes that Israel is an apartheid state not as a matter of political categorisation, but in a formal, legal sense. Roth is respected as a lawyer and Human Rights Watch is an organisation to which people, not just in State Department but at senior levels of the Biden Administration, genuinely listen if not always taking heed.
It is worth reproducing the Human Rights Watch Press Release in full:
BEGINS
Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The finding is based on an overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.
The 213-page report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” examines Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. It presents the present-day reality of a single authority, the Israeli government, ruling primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, and methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the occupied territory.
“Prominent voices have warned for years that apartheid lurks just around the corner if the trajectory of Israel’s rule over Palestinians does not change,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “This detailed study shows that Israeli authorities have already turned that corner and today are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
The finding of apartheid and persecution does not change the legal status of the occupied territory, made up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, or the factual reality of occupation.
Originally coined in relation to South Africa, apartheid today is a universal legal term. The prohibition against particularly severe institutional discrimination and oppression or apartheid constitutes a core principle of international law. The 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court (ICC) define apartheid as a crime against humanity consisting of three primary elements:
An intent to maintain domination by one racial group over another.
A context of systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group.
Inhumane acts.
The reference to a racial group is understood today to address not only treatment on the basis of genetic traits but also treatment on the basis of descent and national or ethnic origin, as defined in the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. Human Rights Watch applies this broader understanding of race.
The crime against humanity of persecution, as defined under the Rome Statute and customary international law, consists of severe deprivation of fundamental rights of a racial, ethnic, or other group with discriminatory intent.
Human Rights Watch found that the elements of the crimes come together in the occupied territory, as part of a single Israeli government policy. That policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. It is coupled in the occupied territory with systematic oppression and inhumane acts against Palestinians living there.
Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies, and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials, and other sources, Human Rights Watch compared policies and practices toward Palestinians in the occupied territory and Israel with those concerning Jewish Israelis living in the same areas. Human Rights Watch wrote to the Israeli government in July 2020, soliciting its perspectives on these issues, but has received no response.
Across Israel and the occupied territory, Israeli authorities have sought to maximize the land available for Jewish communities and to concentrate most Palestinians in dense population centers. The authorities have adopted policies to mitigate what they have openly described as a “demographic threat” from Palestinians. In Jerusalem, for example, the government’s plan for the municipality, including both the west and occupied east parts of the city, sets the goal of “maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city” and even specifies the demographic ratios it hopes to maintain.
To maintain domination, Israeli authorities systematically discriminate against Palestinians. The institutional discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face includes laws that allow hundreds of small Jewish towns to effectively exclude Palestinians and budgets that allocate only a fraction of resources to Palestinian schools as compared to those that serve Jewish Israeli children. In the occupied territory, the severity of the repression, including the imposition of draconian military rule on Palestinians while affording Jewish Israelis living in a segregated manner in the same territory their full rights under Israel’s rights-respecting civil law, amounts to the systematic oppression required for apartheid.
Israeli authorities have committed a range of abuses against Palestinians. Many of those in the occupied territory constitute severe abuses of fundamental rights and the inhumane acts again required for apartheid, including: sweeping movement restrictions in the form of the Gaza closure and a permit regime, confiscation of more than a third of the land in the West Bank, harsh conditions in parts of the West Bank that led to the forcible transfer of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, denial of residency rights to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their relatives, and the suspension of basic civil rights to millions of Palestinians.
Many of the abuses at the core of the commission of these crimes, such as near-categorical denial of building permits to Palestinians and demolition of thousands of homes on the pretext of lacking permits, have no security justification. Others, such as Israel’s effective freeze on the population registry it manages in the occupied territory, which all but blocks family reunification for Palestinians living there and bars Gaza residents from living in the West Bank, use security as a pretext to further demographic goals. Even when security forms part of the motivation, it no more justifies apartheid and persecution than it would excessive force or torture, Human Rights Watch said.
“Denying millions of Palestinians their fundamental rights, without any legitimate security justification and solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish, is not simply a matter of an abusive occupation,” Roth said. “These policies, which grant Jewish Israelis the same rights and privileges wherever they live and discriminate against Palestinians to varying degrees wherever they live, reflect a policy to privilege one people at the expense of another.”
Statements and actions by Israeli authorities in recent years, including the passage of a law with constitutional status in 2018 establishing Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” the growing body of laws that further privilege Israeli settlers in the West Bank and do not apply to Palestinians living in the same territory, as well as the massive expansion in recent years of settlements and accompanying infrastructure connecting settlements to Israel, have clarified their intent to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis. The possibility that a future Israeli leader might someday forge a deal with Palestinians that dismantles the discriminatory system does not negate that reality today.
Israeli authorities should dismantle all forms of repression and discrimination that privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians, including with regards to freedom of movement, allocation of land and resources, access to water, electricity, and other services, and the granting of building permits.
The ICC Office of the Prosecutor should investigate and prosecute those credibly implicated in the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. Countries should do so as well in accordance with their national laws under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and impose individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on officials responsible for committing these crimes.
The findings of crimes against humanity should prompt the international community to reevaluate the nature of its engagement in Israel and Palestine and adopt an approach centered on human rights and accountability rather than solely on the stalled “peace process.” Countries should establish a UN commission of inquiry to investigate systematic discrimination and repression in Israel and Palestine and a UN global envoy for the crimes of persecution and apartheid with a mandate to mobilize international action to end persecution and apartheid worldwide.
Countries should condition arms sales and military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps toward ending their commission of these crimes. Countries should vet agreements, cooperation schemes, and all forms of trade and dealing with Israel to screen for those directly contributing to committing the crimes, mitigate the human rights impacts and, where not possible, end activities and funding found to facilitate these serious crimes.
“While much of the world treats Israel’s half-century occupation as a temporary situation that a decades-long ‘peace process’ will soon cure, the oppression of Palestinians there has reached a threshold and a permanence that meets the definitions of the crimes of apartheid and persecution,” Roth said. “Those who strive for Israeli-Palestinian peace, whether a one or two-state solution or a confederation, should in the meantime recognize this reality for what it is and bring to bear the sorts of human rights tools needed to end it.”
ENDS
I regret to say that because I am extremely preoccupied with my own legal case (which is of course largely its purpose) I have quickly read through the 223 page full report but not had time fully to study and analyse. It contains some very powerful graphics.
The strength of the report lies in its systematic comparison of the structural system of Israeli rule with the formal definition of the crime of Apartheid in the Statute of Rome and the Apartheid Convention, both widely ratified and important documents of international law. This perforce leads to less concentration than is possible on the outrageous acts of individual cruelty, but shows them to be systemic and part of a much wider design.
The Statute of Rome defines the international crime of apartheid as:
inhumane acts… committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
The Apartheid Convention defines apartheid as:
inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.
I do not believe anybody can sincerely deny that the situation in Palestine meets these criteria, even if attempts are made to justify how we got here. If you have not done so, you may like to read my previous personal article on why Israel is an apartheid state, which draws on my experience as FCO Desk Officer for South Africa when it was the original apartheid state.
———————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
Israel is both a client state and scapegoat for the USA. We should be addressing the root of the evil, which is the American state and their war crimes across the world over the last decades, which are on a far greater scale than those of Israel. The USA establishment uses Israel and anti-semitism as a cover to destroy leftist opposition leaders like Jeremy Corbyn, while spreading anti-semitic propaganda via the alternative media as a distraction. Those of on the left should devote our efforts to toppling Johnson’s Washington-controlled Tory government, and their various excuses for the CIA’s disaster capitalism (eg covid and Brexit), not becoming obsessed with Israel, unacceptable as the Palestinian situation is.
I agree, Tom74.
All powerful nations like Russia, China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc., are guilty of human rights abuses but the USA is the root of most evil and is the most dangerous because it is the most powerful and is such a crazy nation run by big business and psychopaths.
The real danger is that the US becomes increasingly unstable as it pursues the irrational Neo-con dogma that is simply unsustainable and is now seen to be unravelling and causing such divisions in society as in the UK.
I’m no Cassandra but I see a continuing increase in public discontent and violent uprisings in the future and I believe that Covid is just part of a continuing nightmare that will not end while a few thousand unelected, unaccountable, super-rich control freaks set the agenda for the billions of the rest of the world’s population.
I hope to see more and more angry protests but I fear that these will be met by increasing violence by the state – a state that continually breaches its own laws – as well as International law – as pointed out by Craig Murray.
Facts are becoming increasingly Orwellian – they are whatever the State and complicit mainstream media say they are.
State propaganda has really achieved Full Spectrum Dominance now. This is the New Normal…
TOM 74,
“…their various excuses for the CIA’s disaster capitalism (eg covid and Brexit), not becoming obsessed with Israel, unacceptable as the Palestinian situation is.”
But – why not focus on all the evils and attach all?
Surely – if you don’t – then one or more get away with evil; right?
Tom74,
I agree it is important to identify the root of the evil. Without that, it leads to all sorts of falsehoods — deflections, distractions and obsessions. When it comes to the question of who is the most evil of them all (the US, Israel or UK), it is helpful to recognize that it is the same band of people who rule them all.
Ok I think I am getting a whiff of where this is coming from…
It seems to be linked to the Trumpian hold over the grassroots of the Republican Party and a move to keep the Democrats secure at the next election, as the drooling demented current muppet is inevitably seen to be incapable as he has been for a few years now steadily losing the plot and will probably not get through his first outing at the G7 in a months time.
‘Woke’ Kamala will easily fail to win a term on her own without the ‘radical’ vote! And a supposed standing up for Palestinian rights and against Israeli Apartheid without actually DOING anything about it is the start of the next Presidential Campaign to re-elect Harris!
What dyall think ??
It is very possible that they will not have to re elect her, she might just be taking over one day, as successor to a former president.
“If I don’t steal it, someone else gonna steal it…”
Israeli settler says to a Palestinian woman after stealing her house: https://twitter.com/MuhammadSmiry/status/1388783170011729921
Insufferable and painful exposé – Is this a ‘chosen’ human called by some divine force or ignored?
“Israeli settler”; an American colonist perchance?
AmericanUSA colonist? The perpetrator may be from the USA, but that’s unlikely to be an important identity for them. Passport of convenience, more like.As for “chosen”, why oh why do most monotheists (including Christians and Muslims) believe that God “chose” one people above others? That belief isn’t even proper monotheism. It’s like saying they think God’s a Crip, or that he used to be a Crip.
He and many others seem to believe they have a God-given right to indulge in God-forbidden actions. Cut us some slack, we’ve had a hard time. Do they think that the awfulness of the Holocaust entitles them to punish their fellow man with impunity until the debt is paid?
The debt will never be expunged. It is eternal. That is the point.
It’s nothing to do with the 1940s. It’s just THUGGISH THIEVING, with the attitude “You’re in no position to take it back from us, you losers!”
Another video of the same genre. The guy calls the people who are trying to expose his theft “Nazi”, but those who belong to his part of his religion call others in the same part of it “Nazi” all the time.
The State of Israel was founded on the twin cornerstones of Terrorism and Ethnic Cleansing. Unsurprising that it has “become” an Apartheid State. It has been so for many years.
With reference to the “Occupied Territories” Palestinians rightly regard Israel, as well as the West Bank, as being an occupied territory.
The Palestinians must pay the price for crimes committed by Europeans and in turn have crimes committed on them. Given how Jews have suffered have they sympathy for Palestinians? A few left wing Jews here and there perhaps, but not many.
“With reference to the “Occupied Territories” Palestinians rightly regard Israel, as well as the West Bank, as being an occupied territory.“
Excellent point. The term “occupied territories” when applied to the West Bank only, or even to the West Bank plus East Jerusalem, is basically a Zionist propaganda term. The same goes for the word “settlement”, as if Zionist towns and villages on territory occupied in 1967 are essentially different kinds of entity from Zionist towns and villages on territory occupied in 1948. As for “kibbutzim”, Aryan-supremacist Nazi-German compounds of similar ilk in places like Chile didn’t use such effective PR at all.
Off topic but important!: Craig needs to update the Doune the Rabbit Hole festival advert.
The new line up is incredible and the date in August sits better with this family.
On topic, it appears to be a massive shift. My optimistic view would be that there’s going to be a reckoning for the Netanyahu clique(s) and with that some hope for a humanitarian ‘dividend’ and also a damning recognition of ‘the state of’ the State of Israel. Of course, things are looking pretty effing bleak in global polity on every facking corner so this may well be just a power surge to push the old guard off the platform while there’s ‘time and money’… Benjamin and Boris are the foam flecks in the mouth of a big greedy monster. How long will they last, clinging on, tasting the power as if it were their own mouth that was eating the goodness out of our poor souls?
They both have staying power (like shit on a bog brush or dog shit on one’s plimsoles) that’s for sure but they deffo ain’t immortals…
This HRW move appears to be (sadly) a mere dose of Gaviscon, self administered, as that particular monster needs an urgent nap. (What can happen when a monster sleeps? I’m thinking Harry Potter here).
“When you see others have parted ways with their friends
Recall your own close relations.
When things suddenly happen to others against their will
Remember that such things could happen to you as well.
Self and other—everything—is as a dream;
There isn’t even the slightest thing which is truly established”.
— Lodrö Thayé
People ought to remember that less than two years ago there was a major political party in a country with a seat on the UN Security Council, a party that had won 40% of the voteshare two years before that, which promised to
“(r)eform the international rules-based order to secure justice and accountability for breaches of human rights and international law, such as the bombing of hospitals in Syria, the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip“
– the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.
Whichever way we look at it, talking about crimes against humanity needs to lead to calls for the prosecution of those who are believed to have committed such crimes. There are several countries that operate a “universal jurisdiction” in this area – or supposedly at least. It shouldn’t only be the ICJ in the Hague that criminals against humanity should have cause to worry about. They should be liable to arrest and prosecution in all countries – even if they are current government ministers, trade officials, or diplomats. That’s kind of the point.
Oh wait…look what happened to Labour before the election…
TO ALL:-
This article is highly perceptive and well informed:-
https://electronicintifada.net/content/warnings-israeli-fascism-should-be-heeded-not-condemned/32836
Any thoughts on the competence of the Palestinian Authority? I don’t hear much about them.
That was another Labour promise in 2019 – “we will recognise a Palestinian state as soon as we take office”.
The PA hardly ever gets reported in the western media to create “balance” in an article, or to talk about what’s best for the security of the Palestinians – only in reports of how from a position of having been beaten to their knees by the Zionists they may be about to make some big concessions that will semi-satiate the Zionists until the time comes for the next massacre, all the while as settlement or “aliyah” continues and whatever bantustan or similar the PA is allowed will never be allowed an airport, a seaport, a border under its own control, or even any anti-aircraft guns.
Worth reflecting today on the centenary of another little apartheid statelet that Britain established, just across the Irish Sea. Its democratic legitimacy, Orange settler hegemony, and geographic and historical logic no more defensible today than a hundred years ago. Something you would never glean from another century of British media coverage.
Was it born or was it the rump?
With its built in Throwbacks of Belgian mercenaries who first landed on the British isles as Billy the Bastard son of Falaise’s invaders? These mercenaries were given Ireland whilst the Normans kept England – there was never a union, just mercenaries … and these who paid them. The further Dutch Billy the King’s rabid mercenaries and their even more demented inbred religious hatred of ‘natives’ followed.
As always follow da money.
And 100 days of Dementia later where are the great reversals of Trumpian gambits?
Has the move of the Embassy to Jerusalem been cancelled?
No, I’m referring specifically to the British government creation of 1921, the entity being celebrated today. How does its creation square with Britain’s self-image as a pillar of democracy committed to equal rights? Not a question you will ever hear posed by the BBC.
The land that time forgot. Lets see what transpires now that Arlene has had to stand down. Brexit, the protocol and how the new DUP leader handles that will have an impact.
Keep an eye on Traditional Unionist Voice.
Let’s hope EU officials in Northern Ireland ports, or who work in connection with Northern Ireland ports, have adequate physical protection. The loyalist murder of one of them could have major consequences.
It’s hard for anyone who’s even slightly sane to get their head around the fact that the DUP supported Brexit and leaving the EU single market and customs union and at the same time they wanted an open border with the Republic and also “no border along the Irish Sea”.
When was the last time a major British newspaper published a piece recognising where these ultra-bigoted nutters are coming from – why they “think” crazy self-contradictory things like that, why they supported Brexit in the first place? It wasn’t just because they were taking a rake-off from the money that went through Northern Ireland to Vote Leave. They hate the EU because they think the EU is a front for the Roman Catholic church. “Hate” is the correct terminology here. I know for a fact that some of them have the Book of Revelations going through their head a lot right now because of the pandemic.
There have been times when fascist old reactionary bigoted scumbags have had a lot of influence over younger people who were originally fairly liberal, exuberant, and even outward-looking. Gotta hope that isn’t going to happen again.
Look what they did was exactly how India was partitioned in 1947: you know, where the majority were Muslim was West- and East Pakistan; where the majority were Hindus, it was India.
In Ireland, they called the area with a protestant majority ‘Northern Ireland’ and the rest was Eire.
The discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland disappeared decades ago. OK, it lasted quite a while, but it’s gone now.
To be honest, the sectarianism in Glasgow and its southern outposts was every bit as bad as that in Northern Ireland when I lived up there in the late 1980s and early 1990s….
Craig’s latest post here is stunning. Powerful words and haunting images put together flawlessly for perfect strength and intuitive power. A great achievement from a man who’s way of life hangs in the balance. That to me is so brave, so courageous.
I hope that courage transfers to those that deserve it. Lionhearted is a key to prevent a disaster when Boris ‘teflon’ Johnson hits a brick wall… henceforth blue can turn to red and spawn the Israelization of British politics.
Of course Sir Starmer is minor league when the entire perspective, the master plan if you will, unfolds, and, major war, struggle, bloodshed, all inevitable, unavoidable. irrevocable, indeed, even destined.
The Israeliization of British politics surprises me enormously. I thought at first that this might be due to the large number of Jewish population in your country, but Wiki gives the following figures:
Israel: 6,772,000
USA: 5,425,000 – 6,814,000
France: 478,000
Canada: 380,000
UK: 290,000
Russia: 190,000
Argentina: 181,500
Germany: 108,000
Australia: 112,500
Brazil: 85,200
The USA hosts the same quantity as Israel. I see the USA are very, very much supportive of Israel, but at the same time they don’t have that many Friends of Israel in Parliament, as the UK has.
The UK Jewish population is 20 times less than the USA’s or Israel’s, and you have your whole Parliament made of Friends of Israel!
Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrat_Friends_of_Israel
Labour Friends of Israel
“As of July 2020, it comprises around one quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party and one third of the Shadow Cabinet.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Friends_of_Israel
Conservative Friends of Israel
“By 2009, according to the Channel 4 documentary ‘Dispatches – Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby’, around 80% of Conservative MPs were members of the CFI.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Friends_of_Israel
There are 10 times more Russians in the world than Jews, but I do not see a single group in your Parliament who would take up relations with Russia! What are your parliamentarians doing in general? Is the development of Israel their only task there? Don’t you have problems with other countries in the world?
–
half serious, half absurd:
If the Holocaust argument is being used by Israel, then perhaps the Russians should remind people of their own much greater sacrifice?
If the death toll is the price of the state, then let’s count all dead Soviet soldiers and restore the territory of the Soviet Union.
Israel believes that the loss of about 6 million people in World War II gives them the right to an area of about 21 thousand square kilometers. If we calculate on the basis of this ratio, then Russia, as the successor state of the USSR, is missing today about 90 thousand square kilometers.
I propose to count in the Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and there would still be a large uncompensated piece. Then I suggest a piece of Finland for their joining Hitler in the blockade of Leningrad. Good thing would be also to add a piece from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, for the reason that they are rabid Russophobes and cannot take control of their neo-Nazis.
Tatyana, this is exactly the point I make when debating the hypocrisy of “hate speech” laws in Europe, especially in Germany where I live. You can deny any WW2 crime that occurred on the territory of the USSR, e.g. you can claim that not a single Soviet civilian died during the siege of Leningrad, without any fear of repercussion. Try quoting a Holocaust death toll that deviates 1% from the official number and you will be reported to the police and prosecuted. Europe has no concept of free speech whatsoever.
You also have to realise that the guiding principle of the Western world’s relations with the rest of the world, including Russia, is Western supremacy. These countries haven’t reached the level of civilisation yet that would allow them to view the rest of the planet without racist prejudice. They have practiced genocidal colonialism for hundreds of years and bad habits die hard. So expect more unhinged anti-Russian and anti-Chinese hysteria and sanctions from the US and its NATO satraps. Just to give you an example, the EU is headquartered in Belgium, a country which still holds the two golden teeth that was yanked out of Patrice Lumumba’s skull by Belgian soldiers after his body was dissolved in acid and before his bones were ground. It was news a couple of months back that Belgium might, just might, try to return the teeth to Lumumba’s relatives for a proper burial. This the EU in the third decade of the 21st century.
We are all prisoners of our past. Look how England’s imperial past has dragged it disastrously out of the EU and hoisted into power a pack of ruthless con men and women positioned somewhere to the right of Oswald Mosley (whose black shirts were sent packing in Cable Street about 85 years ago: would not happen today. The police would pile mob-handed into the anti fascists and claim they were inconveniencing Mosley and his followers).
Tatyana, the reason for the slavish devotion to all things Jewish is because AIPAC has the US political system by the balls and the US has the UK political system by the balls.
There is no democratic mandate for the UK nonsense about Israel in general and Jews in particular. We aren’t anti-semitic in the UK, but a minority of Jews behave just like a minority of woke activists: peddling victimhood for favours. I am white, born middle class, prefer the opposite sex and was regularly beaten up at school for several years. Did anyone care? No. Why? Because I was male and white.
If I had been gay, a woman, Jewish, a Moslem, or any other badge of victimhood, I would have been front page news.
But as a white male?
Acceptable collateral damage.
Just the ‘hurly burly’ of normal life, as the UK wimmin call it.
hey, nobody talks about racism, or victimhood. I’m just trying to find at least some kind of logic in this parliamentary imbalance.
You don’t even have a border with Israel. Jewish population is less than 0.5%
I’m trying to extrapolate this to my country and I can’t get it right in my head. For example, Armenians in Russia make up almost 1%, and our states have a common historical past. But if 80% of United Russia and 1/3 of the Communists suddenly became Friends of Armenia … well … I don’t know … Putin would be asked why we are actually paying salaries to our deputies.
Tatyana if you try to apply logic to the ‘jewish’ issue you will fail, there is no logic.
However, for fun, you may want to apply a weighting to different ethnic groups to assess their ‘worth’.
The zionist ‘worth’ scale running from virtual God to virtual scum states: one Jew is worth 100 Palestinians.
Now we have to figure where do we all fit on this scale …
And as an aside, the six million jews killed in the holocaust is a politically derived figure – millions were killed and the holocaust did happen but we’ll never know the actual figures – and we cannot question or discuss it.
Well just as I had thought with the replies to my posting of a few days ago, a bunch of talking points that have been going on for years, here and other sites as well. As some would say typical mob actions against someone else.
And to answer someone who asked a question, yes the currency of the time was the Shekil, a couple of Kings of Israel were David and Solomon, just examples.
I could go on and on, but I fear that it would fall upon tone-deaf ears. What I do notice and have noticed is the lack of empathy on subjects as this: Slavery at the hands of Muslims in Sudan, some 2.5 million murdered, and some 200,000 keep in slavery: let us also look at Mauritania, as the numbers there are around 500,000 plus and growing, at the hands of Islamic Master. Same with Algeria and Libya, the enslavement and sex trafficking of Black Africans trying to go through to Europe, and put into being slaves. Is this not Apartheid?
Where is the outrage with these countries, where is criticism Craig of these areas? Israel bashing is in fashion now I guess.
As I said, I could go on and on but would be a waste of time, as it would fall upon deaf ears. Accompanied by comments by those with feeble minds who feel important, writing their comments on a keyboard, and doubt they could have the same conversation “in person”.
So say what you will, for it bothers me not, as I also said it is what makes the world go round.
You believe a lot of fake news. Slavery was not a mass industry in medieval times, as it became with the export of Africans by Europe across the Atlantic. The numbers were minimal, but you don’t even know this basic fact.
Laguerre
I think Chuck Harrill is talking about present day slavery in sudan and Mauritania etc. It would be a double standard to condem Israel but not condem slavery in Sudan and Mauritania, at least if you know about both of them. But avoiding a double standard doesn’t require listing every similar wrong in the world every time the subject of a particular wrong comes up. Mauritania and Sudan aren’t trying to influence our internal politics, don’t go on about being democracies and don’t want us to fight their enemies for them.
Enemies which they have worked hard to make, I might add.
You’re right. I was confused by the fake figures, nearly more than the total population of the countries concerned.
IMO the whole black/white slavery thing has been hyped out of context and skewed as oppression of the blacks by the whites. To keep the slavery thing in context, I believe, it is important to look at the treatment of the indigenous people in Britain. Rich landowners/Royalty/Politicians used the population of Britain (England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland) like their own private work animals who could be worked to death, executed, transported, tortured as they desired just to increase their wealth and support their lifestyles. Some things don’t change.
The rich aren’t racist – they’ll exploit anyone and anything to maintain their position – the enemy isn’t defined by colour they’re defined by greed.
You are always guaranteed a response to your letters, Chuck, wherever, regardless of in which country you are told to respond to criticism against the Apartheid criminality and Islamophobia that is meted out by Zionists in occupied Palestine.
When the world community decided to grant Israel the right to live in cooperation and harmony with the people in Palestine, not many knew of the Haavara agreement, or the Yishuv terrorists who decided to bite the British arm that fed them, they were innocent to the violent Zionist terrorism that let the first settlers set up a state within a state and commit genocide against Palestinians they agreed to live next to in harmony and with equal rights.
In your rant through the ages against the excesses of slave drivers you forgot to mention that rampant hatred of Islam underpins every stealing of land and runs like a bleeding wound through Israel.
I suppose that you have not come to grips, as yet, with the colonizing violence in your own country, whether it is the slaughter of millions of native Americans by violence and greed, then, nor do you seem to mention the utter polarization that exists today between the African Americans and the ruling immigrant class, the up-to-now fettered upper middle class in their gated ghettos – why is that Chuck?
Should we not all try and sort out this infiltration of our national politics with violence and strife of others who are undermining/infiltrating our politics with racialism and violence?
The rogue state without declared borders should not be a member of the UN, but again, the arm twisting belittling good ideas, behind this now hollow organisation, always hampered by the backstabbing of members who refuse to pay their dues unless the UN does as they want, makes it useless and unyielding to what this world needs.
But I’m sure that my reply to you will fall on deaf ears and feeble minds. Taking on religious fascism into their world of politics, using Islam and its various violent groups to fight other Islamic groups for USUKIS and their money to further their causes, has poisoned the middle east.
Iran and Syria will not succumb to the pirates that want to shape the world. Israel’s Islamophobic Government and expansionary violence can’t continue, nor can its undermining and usurping of sovereign states foreign and internal policies continue.
Have a great day on your keyboard Chuck and never forget what the world has shown, i.e. that we are an unsustainable species living it up on the resources the world provides with no regard to the consequences, a cancer to the world, eating itself up from inside.
“Whataboutery” is so transparent. Do you seriously think it’s an advanced arguing technique?
When some Jews act like scum and someone talks about how they’ve acted, pleading “You’re only saying that because you’re anti-Jewish” is pathetic and lazy, and for you to think your own mentality is anything other than willingly “deaf” would be funny if the issues weren’t so serious.
I never heard a supporter of white supremacism in South Africa talk like that, accusing their critics of only carping on about it because they were anti-white. They’d probably have either been too ashamed or they wouldn’t have thought they’d get away with it. Zionists don’t have either of those problems – they have no shame, and they think they can get away with almost anything.
You’re just like a white Nazi who believes white native British people are oppressed by black people and by non-white Muslims and that “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”.
Some Zionists say things like Germany today has a racist policy on citizenship, so why talk about Israel’s. Sure, but the German regime hasn’t stolen the land of the indigenous inhabitants, terrorised large numbers into fleeing from where they were born, and made several million of them into refugees, while propagandising around the world to say that said refugees and any remaining people of that ethnicity in their homeland are a non-people because the country they are from “isn’t a country”, and screaming that denying their little heavily-armed dictatorship the “right to exist” is the wickedest terrorist crime imaginable, have they? Eighty years ago, mind. But that was a different German regime. And those who criticise Israeli crimes DO tend to be negative about the crimes of THAT German regime – and without having forked tongues about it.
Did Mauritania come up as a talking point on your wee hasbara app, Chuck?
Don’t you find it ridiculous to claim others people land based on 3000 years old story?
Sign me in. I don’t find it ridiculous.
Moreover, I feel much respect for Jewish will and strength to preserve themselves as an ethnicity, given they were conquered and enslaved and scattered for so many centuries. And still remained as a nation with their unique history, language and religion.
I believe they have all the ground to live in their historical motherland and have their home country. To claim they should remain homeless, because the land is currently occupied by other people – that would be ridiculous.
The problem is that the land is home for the both Jews and Arabs. The UN decision looked like good solution, and it could have turned good solution – even their respective religions are based on the same holy story and recognise the same saints.
What went wrong is the hostility. That I said previously and still keep to it, every time some elderly person starts to calculate offences and losses, teaching the youngers how to hate. Bringing their Montagues vs Capulets wars into the new generations.
Jews were and are not homeless, they all had and have a passport and nationality before moving to Palestine. It’s the Palestinians who are homeless. In fact, one of the reasons Israel is rightfully accused of running an apartheid system is the fact that it denies Palestinians to acquire a nationality, either Israeli or Palestinian.
Of course it’s completely ridiculous to claim somebody else’s land based on thousand-year old religious mumbo jumbo. Everybody else would be laughed out of town with such claims. But the West atones for its historical antisemitism by giving away Palestine to mostly European settlers, including one family from the street I grew up.
They claim the land of theirs own, not somebody else’s one. Based on thousand year old HISTORY, not mumbo jumbo 🙂
Akhenaten tablets must be the first record about them. I’m sure you’ll find many other in ancient sources of neighboring states *of course if those learned to write by that moment 🙂 For sure in Roman historians – those guys were great in recording all the lands and peoples they conquered.
Tatyana
how can someone that has lived for hundreds of years in Russia claim land in Palestine?
Palestinians have been there for centuries together with Palestinian Jews and others. Whether European Jews originate in Palestine is irrelevant.It is not their land. In 1947 there were about 500,000 Jews and 1million Palestinians
and the land was “divided” about 50/50. Look how much land is under Israel control now.
Pigeon English
Absolutely, why not? If they are a Jew and there is a Jewish state welcoming them.
Also, I dare say that calculating the quantity of relatives that native Jews wish to invite, as well as trying to control the quantity of children they wish to have – that’s pretty nasty, if not Nazi.
—
As long as I know the very name Palestine appeared when some Roman emperor conquered the Jewish state. He ordered to call this province ‘Syrian Palestine’. I guess it lasted up to the date it was conquered by Ottomans.
My country was under the Golden Horde rule for about 400 years, but still it’s Russia. Britain was under the French for about the same period of time, but still is Britain.
I suggest stop digging into the history and take things as they are today. Israel is supported by Western countries and this creates a disbalance in wealth, military power and influence in the wider world. Arabs react to this by hostility and terrorism.
We have seen it many times in different parts of our planet, but few of us learned how to deal with it.
Akos Horvath
I’d like to comment, a passport and a nationality is not a home. Maybe it’s so for a British in the USA, or for an Ukrainian in Canada.
Not for a Jew in Europe, not for every Jew in every country.
Tatyana, everybody comes from somewhere. At the most basic level we all come from Africa, yet we can’t just emigrate and take the land and homes of people who are living there.
Hungarians come from the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains and had “stops” at a couple of other places as they migrated to the Carpathian basin, yet we cannot claim all those lands in Russia based on our “historical” roots there. This is complete nonsense in the 21st century and had already been nonsense in 1948 when European guilt handed Palestine to mostly European Jewish settlers.
And I’m sorry, but a Hungarian passport holder Jew’s home is Hungary. Not feeling at home in our country of birth and citizenship happens to everybody at some point, but this does not give one the right to just make up a fairy tale story and take somebody else’s house in a foreign land. Settler colonialism was already not acceptable in 1948.
I am really confused, are you saying that Palestinians living in Palestine should just accept being ethnically cleansed by incoming Jewish settlers? Because this is happening right now, you can find a bunch of online videos of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Palestinian families are being thrown out of their homes, which are given to Jewish settlers. Israel is a rogue apartheid state protected by the US and the EU.
Tatyana @ 1.34
Where did I mention number of children or present number of Israelis?
To be honest your arguments are very close to the Nazis.
Claims that Germany, Russia or Hungary is not home for Jews or that Jews do not feel at home in their nation countries is “pretty nasty if not Nazi”!
Read my post again and have a look at the map of Palestine partition in 1947 1967 and now.
Tatyana @ 1.34
BTW limiting number of children is not Nazi policy it was the other way around.
He encouraged mothers to have as many children as possible.
Does it sound familiar?
a) it is mumbo jumbo
b) you can claim 2 “royalties”. One as Magyar and one as Horvath.
c) how about being a king of Croats? I am sure your family/tribe led them to Iliria after leaving you, in Hungary?
Tatyana
Superficial google search shows that before arrival of Kievan Rus( 7th century)your region was inhabited by Turkic people(Khazars)
.Does Turkey has a claim on your land and most of Asia?
Do Kagan Khagan etc have claim to Azov sea region because in Turkic means Ruler?
Pigeon English
I’ve got an excellent proposal on this problem:
if today you find living Khazars, then tell them to send their claims to Veneda, Sklavina and Anta, if you can find one who were not dissolved and assimilated. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? 🙂
How far in history should we go?
Should Khazars claim back where you live?
How old the world is?
Should we believe in Genesis and other BS?
Should I move back to Kavkaz as “Caucasian”
Should Palestine belong to Israel or British Empire or Ottoman Empire or Romans or Persians or to people that lived there for Centuries ?
They might have same Saints but Prophets are a problem not to mention who is son of God?
I see no problem with this difference 🙂 I’m Russian. We have all sorts of religion here, for centuries, and still continue as a state for every.
Just want to say that is a great comment and observation Tatyana, thanks.
This is not about religion or Semitic Peoples of different religions.
It is about these two things being abused by Robbers in these disguises.
Ask a nazi how they did it to Germans in the 30’s.
Ah, thank you!
I’m trying to say the idea was beautiful, the implementation was bad.
If you want to bring your child and your step-child to one house and if you expect them share the home and be brothers, then you should be a wise parent, right?
It’s not like buying luxury clothing and iphones etc. for one kid, while the other is starving. No wonder the latter be aggressive. In Israel’s situation it’s even more like parents organise boxer competition for their kids, one of them is barefoot and the other comes to the ring with a rifle.
It might be a beautiful idea to you but what matters is whether or not the Palestinians already living there find it beautiful too. I can have all sorts of ideas about what other people should do but I have no right to forcefully implement them. Powerful Westerners imposing beautiful ideas on natives is just plain orientalism.
It is de rigueur for some of them to praise everything Tatyana writes, no matter how obnoxious it might be. I think they believe they will eventually get some! ?
Akos Horvath
The Golden Horde aka Crimean Tatars who seized the peninsula also considered it their home. Later, they did not find neighborhood with the Russians a good idea, but they found it extremely correct to collaborate with Hitler. The Ukrainians did this too, although these are generally part of the Russian people. The Chechens also decided to make the Caucasus Emirate for themselves and for no one else. Terror, murder, violence. All this is under the banner of a righteous struggle for freedom and independence. There was an IRA in your part of the world. I also see a tendency for eastern migrants to set up segregated communities with Sharia law within European countries.
The Palestinian “three NO to Jews” and the Arab League’s attempts to destroy Israel are no better than the Jewish desire to seize all the land for themselves.
None of them are better than the other.
Nobody’s violence is more justified.
It’s extremely foolish to look for excuses in history, because as you yourself agree, at the end of the path we all came out of the same root and we are all invaders of someone’s land.
About 400 thousand new people are born in our world every day – just think about it. Do you believe it’s fair that they should fight for the unresolved contradictions of their distant ancestors? In my opinion, peace and joint development is a much better option.
—
And for the commentator Reza, I know a Russian expression, but as a well-mannered person who respects people and the rules of this site, I certainly will not bring it here.
But I assure you, it is loaded with no less sarcasm and disdain than your undoubtedly the most valuable comment in the whole discussion.
Which one?
Tatyana, I think you are wrong by equating the settler oppressors with the natives defending themselves. It wasn’t the Palestinians who committed crimes against Jews, it was mostly the Europeans. A nuclear armed rogue state, which has been deemed an apartheid regime by Btselem, HRW, and Desmond Tutu, is of course more to blame than caged-in people throwing rocks and trying to defend themselves. It appears to me that in your view Palestinians simply have no rights whatsoever, other than to roll over and be ethnically cleansed from their homes.
I don’t know in which part of Russia you live, but if it’s one of the areas Hungarian tribes called their homeland a few thousand years ago, would you accept my demand to vacate your home and hand it to me, because I feel a historical right to it? If not why not? And how is it different from European and North American Jews stealing the property of Palestinians, as it is being reported on Twitter daily?
Akos Horvath
I believe you are confusing a few basic concepts together.
Those ethnic groups that were the ancestors of the Hungarians were nomads. By the time they adopted a setttled lifestyle and became an established stable ethnos, by that time they occupied a part of our planet as their home, protected and cultivated their piece of land. That country and that ethnic group continue to this day as Hungary and the Hungarians.
The position of the Jews is different. They were not a handful of nomadic tribes, they were already an established stable ethnos with their own country, history, religious buildings, ancestors’ graves etc. They had their own home by the time they were expelled from their land.
People in the West don’t see this logic. For example, you may protect the Crimean Tatars, who appeared in the Crimea as invaders at a time when the Russians had long been an established ethnic group with our state, language, religion and history. I’m extremely surprised, by the way, by the position of Mr. Murray, who considers the Tatars to be the real indigenous population of the Crimea.
Tatars have Tatarstan, like Hungarians have Hungary. You see? There’s a homeland for nearly every living nation in our modern world.
—
Actually, if we all were striving for peace for all, then these historical facts wouldn’t matter today. Except perhaps that it’s impossible to deny the right of the Jews to consider Israel as their homeland.
You seem to think that I deny any rights of the Palestinians? No, that’s not true. I have repeated many times in this discussion that I see all the inhabitants of that region as equal.
I continue to believe that the idea of giving a homeland to both was the right one. And I continue to think that the way it’s implemented is bad. And I continue to believe that preferences to One are inevitably discriminatory against the Other.
A piece of philosophy from me – preference and discrimination are two sides of the same coin, like heads and tails. The key to Peace is balance, a position when neither side feels disadvantaged. Keeping a coin on the edge is difficult, but possible.
You upset this balance by your wrong arguments, denying the Jews’ of their right to this land. By justifying the Palestinians’ right to “be protected from invaders” you also upset this balance and inspire further violence.
Taking one side or the other doesn’t help the balance in any way. You won’t come to Peace with this. You are only feeding the current unbalanced process, without helping to return to a peaceful rut.
Well Tatyana, you don’t really have any arguments that follow morality or international law, you simply claim Jewish supremacy over the stateless, caged in and largely unarmed Palestinians based on ridiculous religious mumbo jumbo. I guess you must be rejoicing as the Israeli apartheid state is conducting the latest round of massacres, or mowing the lawn as these racists call it, in Gaza and other parts of occupied Palestine.
I have to admit, you have proven to be a huge disappointment. Some of your posts suggested you have progressive ideas, but you seem to be just as racist as the Israelis.
Tatyana @ 7/5 8.44
There is very controversial Hypothesis and research called “Khazarian Hypothesis” and controversial research by Eran Elhaik (Israeli-American geneticist) linking Eastern European Jews to Caucus people and Khazars (allegedly converts to Judaisn).
According to research they have more genetically in common with people from Caucus than with Middle East people.
So if Eastern European Jews wanted to claim “Khazaria” they would have some good arguments.
IMO that is more plausible than East European Jews descending from Palestine.
Did Christians moved to Russia or Russians embraced Christianity?
So maybe there are Khazars after all and will claim your land! (I would rather live in Khazaria then Palestine but I am neither Jew or religious).
Pigeon English
I really cannot get what’s your question? Khazars could claim the country for themselves? Then I’d like to see the UN mandate. Khazars may like to settle here? Welcome, perhaps you are not aware, there’s an Autonomous Jewish Region in Russia, established by USSR back in ’30s before the WW2. A piece of my country was especially allocated to be the place where Jewish people can feel like having a home, long before the UN arranged the British mandate for Israel/Palestine. We also have regions with mostly Turkic ancestry population, welcome!
So, as I said earlier, there’s place for everyone in my country.
If you mean they might claim governing the country, then I must say ‘no’. Our government is elected by majority.
—
I recall someone asked on this blog about Khazars already. I’ll google for that discussion and link you to it tomorrow, ok?
I mention Khazars!
I am aware of Jewish region in USSR.
Topic was who can claim land inhabited by other people and you support East Europen Jews claiming Palestine as their own land based on questionable ancestry.
I know that Russian Federation is multi ethnic and muti religious country and to be honest I was surprised by images and number of Muslims celebrating Ramadan in Moscow.
My analogy is how would you feel if you become Second class citizen in your own region based on spurious and 2000 old claim.
At lest we agree no one should be second class citizen anywhere in the world and we hope that Palestine becomes peaceful place.
I really don’t know how would I feel. I’ve never lived in a national state. I was born in the USSR. I live in the Russian Federation. It’s extremely hard for me to imagine people arguing on who owns the country. I don’t understand what is the meaning of ‘to claim the land’. What does it mean? To live here?-welcome! To govern it?- welcome! Stand as a candidate and be elected. We had Viking kings, Asian khans, German tsars, Georgian Stalin, Ukrainian Khrushchev and people talk about Chechenian Kadyrov may be good option after Russian Putin 🙂 no problem with it as long as they are citizens of this country, working on making this country better.
The only problem might be here if our fantasy Khazars wanted to make a religious state, out of Russia. That hardly would be welcomed. We are secular state.
Of course, all religions are respected here, e.g. my local store have just stopped selling Easter eggs and already gets prepared for Uraza Bayram.
But expectations of, you may know, the Crimean Tatars to govern the whole peninsula in their traditional way, with imams in the parliament and the like – that was not supported by the majority.
You don’t need a conspiracy theory to understand why the UK and US media turn a blind eye to Israel’s apartheid. Hated of Arabs is the dominant form of racism in the Western world. It was pretty dominant before 9/11; since then it has become all consuming. At the same time Western media have fostered a sentimental myth of Jewish culture that represents Jews as possessing some kind of spiritual genius. The veneration paid to the Old Testament, ithe suffering of the Holocaust and the creation of Israel have all fed into this myth. In the middle ages Jews were reviled as the ones responsible for the Crucifixion, but that aspect of the new testament has been largely erased in the popular imagination. These popular myths have made it virtually impossible for the Palestinians to get a fair hearing. This process has been consolidated by Western governments, who view Israel as a bridgehead into the middle east. By and large, the mass of people don’t think for themselves: they buy the popular line wholesale. When the facts on the ground demand what ought to be cognitive dissonance, they adopt a double standard without questioning it. Love of Brexit, Trump and Johnson, contempt for Corbyn and Assange — these are all aspects of the same malign phenomenon.