Zionism’s aims in Palestine, its deeply-held conviction that the Land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people as a whole, and the idea of Palestine’s “civilizational barrenness" or “emptiness” against the background of European imperialist ideologies all converged in the logical conclusion that the native population should make way for thenewcomers.

The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat.

An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem ”-the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land" and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.

Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.

This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.

• The Transfer Committee, and the JNF Ethnic Cleansing, which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba

The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:

• Plan Dalet
• Declassified Massacres of 1948
• Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948) .

Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:

• Haaretz, Forward

While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements

• (Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ).

The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.

The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.

• https://m.btselem.org/settler_violence

Amnesty Report

Human Rights Watch Report

B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer

Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution

How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

One State Solution, Foreign Affairs

Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.

• https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-07-23/rivals-hamas-and-fatah-sign-a-declaration-to-form-a-future-government-as-war-rages-in-gaza

• Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha

• The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha

• A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe

• The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi

• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe

• The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim

• The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe

• The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy

• 10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)

• De-Gaza: A Year of Israel’s Genocide and the Collapse of World Order - Euro-Med Monitor Report see Chapter 2 and 3

Our first-hand observations of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe inflicted on Gaza are consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organizations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.

• Doctors Without Borders: Life in the death trap that is Gaza

It examines the killing of civilians, damage to and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcible displacement, the obstruction or denial of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, and the restriction of power supplies. It analyses Israel’s intent through this pattern of conduct and statements by Israeli decision-makers. It concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

• Amnesty: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza Revealed Through Evidence and Analysis Video and Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory: ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza Report

On 26 January 2024, the ICJ said that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention. As an emergency measure, it ordered Israel ensure that its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians.

The ICJ reported, as part of its decisions in March and May, that the situation in Gaza had deteriorated and that Israel had failed to abide by its order in January.

• Israel’s war on Gaza: What the international courts have said

So, when we look at the actions taken, the dropping of thousands and thousands of bombs in a couple of days, including phosphorus bombs, as we heard, on one of the most densely populated areas around the world, together with these proclamations of intent, this indeed constitutes genocidal killing, which is the first act, according to the convention, of genocide. And Israel, I must say, is also perpetrating act number two and three — that is, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating condition designed to bring about the destruction of the group by cutting off water, food, supply of energy, bombing hospitals, ordering the fast evictions of hospitals, which the World Health Organization has declared to be, quote, “a death sentence.” So, we’re seeing the combination of genocidal acts with special intent. This is indeed a textbook case of genocide.

• “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza

More than 800 scholars of international law and genocide have signed a public statement arguing that the Israeli military may be committing genocidal acts against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the total siege and relentless airstrikes continue to inflict devastation on the occupied territory.

• 800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza

An independent United Nations expert warned Monday that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western governments, corporations, and other institutions keep up their support for the Israeli military, which stands accused of grave war crimes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

• UN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank

Our documentation encompasses over 500 incitements of violence and genocidal incitement, appearing in the forms of social media posts, television interviews, and official statements from Israeli politicians, army personnel, journalists, and other influential personalities.

• Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated

I, Lee Mordechai, a historian by profession and an Israeli citizen, bear witness in this document to the situation in Gaza as events are unfolding. The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. I explain why I chose to use the term below. Israel’s campaign is ostensibly its reaction to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, in which war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed within the context of the longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that can be dated back to 1917 or 1948 (or other dates). In all cases, historical grievances and atrocities do not justify additional atrocities in the present. Therefore, I consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 utterly disproportionate and criminal.

• Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War by Lee Mordechai

Others: AP News, Time, Reuters, Vox, CBC

From 2014, the U.S. and NATO began to pour arms into Ukraine — advanced weapons, military training, joint military exercises, moves to integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command. There’s no secret about this. It was quite open. Recently, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, bragged about it. He said: This is what we were doing since 2014. Well, of course, this is very consciously, highly provocative. They knew that they were encroaching on what every Russian leader regarded as an intolerable move. France and Germany vetoed it in 2008, but under U.S. pressure, it was kept on the agenda. And NATO, meaning the United States, moved to accelerate the de facto integration of Ukraine into the NATO military command.

In 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming majority — I think about 70% of the vote — on a peace platform, a plan to implement peace with Eastern Ukraine and Russia, to settle the problem. He began to move forward on it and, in fact, tried to go to the Donbas, the Russian-oriented eastern region, to implement what’s called the Minsk II agreement. It would have meant a kind of federalization of Ukraine with a degree of autonomy for the Donbas, which is what they wanted. Something like Switzerland or Belgium. He was blocked by right-wing militias which threatened to murder him if he persisted with his effort.

Well, he’s a courageous man. He could have gone forward if he had had any backing from the United States. The U.S. refused. No backing, nothing, which meant he was left to hang out to dry and had to back off. The U.S. was intent on this policy of integrating Ukraine step by step into the NATO military command. That accelerated further when President Biden was elected. In September 2021, you could read it on the White House website. It wasn’t reported but, of course, the Russians knew it. Biden announced a program, a joint statement to accelerate the process of military training, military exercises, more weapons as part of what his administration called an “enhanced program” of preparation for NATO membership.

It accelerated further in November. This was all before the invasion. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed what was called a charter, which essentially formalized and extended this arrangement. A spokesman for the State Department conceded that before the invasion, the U.S. refused to discuss any Russian security concerns. All of this is part of the background.

On February 24th, Putin invaded, a criminal invasion. These serious provocations provide no justification for it. If Putin had been a statesman, what he would have done is something quite different. He would have gone back to French President Emmanuel Macron, grasped his tentative proposals, and moved to try to reach an accommodation with Europe, to take steps toward a European common home.

The U.S., of course, has always been opposed to that. This goes way back in Cold War history to French President De Gaulle’s initiatives to establish an independent Europe. In his phrase “from the Atlantic to the Urals,” integrating Russia with the West, which was a very natural accommodation for trade reasons and, obviously, security reasons as well. So, had there been any statesmen within Putin’s narrow circle, they would have grasped Macron’s initiatives and experimented to see whether, in fact, they could integrate with Europe and avert the crisis. Instead, what he chose was a policy which, from the Russian point of view, was total imbecility. Apart from the criminality of the invasion, he chose a policy that drove Europe deep into the pocket of the United States. In fact, it is even inducing Sweden and Finland to join NATO — the worst possible outcome from the Russian point of view, quite apart from the criminality of the invasion, and the very serious losses that Russia is suffering because of that.

https://chomsky.info/20220616/