1974 Quneitra; Technique Practiced, Applied ever since.

In the final days of the 1967 "6-Day War", Israeli forces advanced on Damascus. At the centre of the Golan Heights stood the city of Quneitra, the capital of the province of the same name, and home to around 20,000 people. With the Israeli army advancing and with conflicting messages from the Syrian military high command, the city was abandoned by the Syrian army on the final day of the war.

This was a war of aggression, waged by Israel against its Arab neighbours, with the explicit purposes of territorial expansion and the destruction of the military capabilities of those who would oppose the Zionist state.

Quneitra was not returned to Syrian control until June 1974, when a destroyed shell was returned. Following the 6-Day War, Israel stripped Quneitra of anything of value, shipping it to Israel to be auctioned off. The contents of the hospital were shipped to Israeli hospitals, and the building was used for assault training. The bullet holes merged around windows, turning formerly square openings into curved corners and almost round forms. The stairs inside the building were also pockmarked and were no longer safe to walk on, for fear they would collapse.

Throughout the city, over 4,000 structures, mostly houses and shops, were demolished in the months leading up to the handover. While Israel claimed that the damage was due to shelling and combat during the October/Yom Kippur War, the post-war investigation by engineers appointed by the UN discounted that claim. The damage came from the systematic destruction of buildings, with supports pulled out by tractors or dynamited. 

The intent was clear: to make Quneitra uninhabitable and therefore unable to serve as any kind of administrative or market centre for the Golan, paving the way to claim the Golan is unpopulated and therefore available for settlement by Israel.

When I went to Quneitra as a teen in the late 1970s, the grass was growing around the demolished buildings, and trees were beginning to grow through destroyed roofs, obscuring the remaining doorframes and garden walls. 

At the time, there wasn't an expression for what they did. We learned a new expression during the Yugoslavian civil war: Ethnic Cleansing. The removal of entire populations and by so doing attempting to demographically, and permanently, erase a population from an area. Is it genocide? Maybe a sub-genocide, or genocide-lite.

The ongoing Liquidation of the Gaza Ghetto is a form of genocide, of that there can be no doubt. Entire families killed, almost every school destroyed, libraries, museums, hospitals, mosques and churches, administrative buildings, tens of thousands of homes. All destroyed. 

Every family photo, gone. Every memento, from parents and grandparents, every keepsake, almost all documentation proving who anyone is and their relationship to each other and to places, destroyed. That favourite serving dish. The carpet from the living room. The posters from the children's walls. Destroyed. The plants on the balcony, the trees in the garden and parks, destroyed. A people, defined by their culture and their documented heritage, erased. 

That is genocide.

Israel, as I write, is now doing the same thing in South Lebanon. BBC today reports that over 1400 buildings have been destroyed, probably many more.

Towns and villages in southern Lebanon are being levelled by Israeli demolitions, satellite images and videos obtained by BBC Verify reveal.

BBC Verify analysis found more than 1,400 buildings had been destroyed since 2 March based on verified visual evidence.

This is just a snapshot of the overall damage caused by Israeli air strikes and demolitions, because of limited access on the ground and available satellite imagery. The true scale is likely to be much higher. 

In 1974 and 1975, the UN voted to condemn the Israeli destruction of Quneitra. The US voted against both resolutions. Israeli learned then that not only could they carry out Ethnic Cleansing, but refined their techniques for doing so.

My visit to Quneitra was disturbing then. The fact that Israel continues to follow this model is more than disturbing; it is an indictment of the Zionist state. Human rights violations are part of the DNA of the Zionist state, and there is nothing that will change that.

On a hopeful note: there may come a time when no person who has served in the IDF for the past three years will be able to leave Israel for fear of an international arrest warrant waiting for them, for crimes against humanity at worst, and as an accessory and material witness to crimes against humanity. I look forward to that day.

Sources:

1. Personal memories

2. The Gun and the Olive Branch, David Hirsh, 1978

3. Six Days of War, Michael B. Oren, 2002

4. The Yom Kippur War, Abraham Rabinovich, 2004

5. BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxkk1vnp57o accessed today)

6. Who can do anything without a little Wikipedia?

Ireland shows how easy it is to fight Zionism

 I think Israel has just shown the world exactly how to fight Zionism: support the ICJ. 

 

There are few things that Israel does better than intentionally conflate justifiable disgust at Zionist genocide with anti-sematism against Jews. The two are not the same, but Israel desperately wants to pretend they are. This makes it quite natural that any support for international justice, or even the functioning of a justice process, would earn the ire (pun intended) of the Zionists in charge of the state of Israel.

It might be minor news in the grand scheme of things today, maybe. Israel is closing its embassy in Ireland because Ireland “its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the ICJ, accusing Israel of ‘genocide’.” (Guardian online https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/15/israel-to-close-dublin-embassy-after-ireland-supports-icj-genocide-petition). 

 

And in a scathing denunciation, Israel’s Foreign Minister said: 

 

“Ireland has crossed all red lines in its relationship with Israel. Israel will invest its resources in promoting bilateral relations with the countries of the world according to priorities that are also derived from the attitude of the various countries towards it. 

  

“There are countries that are interested in strengthening their ties with Israel and do not yet have an Israeli embassy,” Sa’ar continued, adding that Israel planned to open a new embassy in Moldova, which is seen as being more friendly to Israel.” 

 

Wow! That’s telling the international community just how serious Israel is about protecting its good name and opening embassies in countries that actually want an embassy (probably for their own legitimisation), like Moldova. Yes, that bastion of liberal Western thought and defender of democracy, that bulwark of defence of Zionism and the potentially huge trading partner.  That economic powerhouse and entry point to the European continent.

 

I can see why Moldova would be a better pick for Israel (and I’m not insulting Moldova, I promise). The comparisons between Moldova and Ireland make it pretty obvious. 

 

	Moldova	Republic of Ireland
Population	2,423,300	5,380,300
GDP/person	$7,368 (92nd)	$103,500 (2nd/3rd)
GDP (nominal)	$45.407	$560.566
Imports from Israel	$39.18 Million	$3.9 Billion

 

https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/imports/israel 

https://tradingeconomics.com/moldova/imports/israel 

 

So, sure. Tout that you are going to open an embassy in a “friendly” country that wants more trade and relations, and it currently imports 1% as much as Ireland, has a total economy that is 7% of Ireland’s, with a population that is 40% of Ireland’s. 

Israel, this isn't the burn of Ireland that you think it is.

Personally, I think Ireland (and the rest of us) should just cut off all imports from your nasty little genocidal regime until you halt the Liquidation of the Gaza Ghetto and start reparations and rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinians.

 

Amerika, Anti-semitic, but Pro-Israel. Why?

Why does Amerika support Israel so unreservedly? Amerika is, in parts, a deeply antisemitic country. But not just antisemitic; it is a profoundly racist, nationalist, and religious country. A hint: Amerikan support for Israel has nothing to do with the ”Jewish vote” or the "Jewish lobby". Both are massively overrated in terms of size or power.  

 

After all, it did not take a huge effort for Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) to get an Amerikan audience to sing “Throw the Jew down the Well”.

Naturally, the US is now sending a missile defence system and troops to Israel. Oh well. Because, well, because Iran might fire more missiles at Israel, no doubt after Israel retaliates for the last bunch of missiles that Iran fired, in response to Israel killing their proxies in Beirut. If it sounds like this is a circular event caused by a previous event caused by the event before that, stretching back to an unknown “original” event, well, that is because it is. 

 

And Amerika has taken a side, and while it is difficult to contemplate a situation in which the US did not “side” with Israel, there will be repercussions. No genocide will be too much. No school or hospital bombed will be one too many. No journalist assassinated for reporting about how Israel is treating Palestinians in the West Bank.

 

The unspoken reason the US (and Western Europe) “must” support Israel has nothing to do with the lie of supporting the sole democracy in the Middle East. It has to do with the alternative, which is the ultimate sacrifice of Israel to the Arab states that surround it, and the consequent destruction of (another core group of) the Jews.  

 

The ”River to the Sea” is, on the one hand, a chant for Palestinian independence and recovery or their lands and right of return. On the other, darker side, it is a call for the “cleansing” of the land of Jews. A genocide. Of course, the Jews of Israel would be welcomed into Western countries, unlike the time of the Nazis, when those who could see what was coming tried to get out. This time, the doors would open. Certainly, the doors would open more readily for Jews than for Muslim refugees and economic migrants “breaking into” Europe. 

 

The United States supports Israel for many reasons, but the overriding reason is internal Amerikan politics and the politics of racism. 

 

Amerikan rednecks and religious nuts (so roughly 50% of the country) have grown up with their churches telling them that the bible says that the Jews are “God’s chosen people”. This provides a very difficult conundrum for the religious right evangelical and white supremacist congregations and individuals. Jews are, by definition, not good Christians, even if they are “white”.  

 

Jews have set themselves apart, or been forced apart from the rest of society, for as long as there has been a Jewish Diaspora. Their apart-ness has enabled them to retain their culture and traditions, and to pass from generation to generation their religion and teachings. Throughout European history, Jews have been a necessary component of societies, mostly providing a community that could perform tasks or professions that others were either unwilling or unable to accomplish.  

 

In country after country, Jews were excluded from full integration (and excluded themselves from full integration). Professions were closed, channelling them into other professions. Where they were not allowed to teach they traded. Where trading and shop owning was illegal, they provided legal services. Where legal professions were closed to them, they provided banking and money lending – as Christians were not allowed to charge interest, Jewish moneylenders provided the services required by kings, princes, and the wealthy and traders.  

 

And always, they were segregated, by choice or by force or by culture.  

 

Pogroms followed them everywhere, culminating in the greatest pogrom of them all, the Holocaust of the 1940s.  

 

Jews in Amerika have been subject to the same discrimination as other minorities, and their historic retention of their cultural independence has meant the discrimination has continued. The Irish, by contrast, became “American” and through time and assimilation, stopped being a target of discrimination. The same has happened with the Italians.  

 

The Blacks of Amerika cannot escape the historical discrimination and oppression simply because no matter how much they choose to integrate; they will always be visibly different from Whites. Prejudice based on the visible difference between individuals and cultures is deeply, I believe genetically, imprinted on all humans. This occurs purely as a gene-level protection of the “in-group vs out-group" from our ancestors when communities were rarely larger than 100 to 150 individuals. Anyone not known to the group would be suspect and treated as such.  

 

Let me, at this point, state clearly that one of the objectives of “civilisation” needs to be to teach each person to look beyond and reject the biological and gene-level prejudices to make and support freer and more equitable societies. The role of education should, in part, be to teach acceptance and embracing of differences because it is right to afford all people equal respect. Only then can society function more smoothly and with actual equality. The rejection of prejudice is not only “good for society”; it is just and right for each of us to pursue. Discrimination and bigotry have no place in civilised societies.

 

Jews have retained their independent culture and traditions, some visible while others are internal, encouraging an in-group/out-group response at the biological level from those around them. I’m not making a value judgement on either. Should Jews integrate at the cost of their identity? Of course not. Should society allow a group within it to espouse and perpetuate behaviours that society has determined are detrimental to the whole? Of course not.  

 

But that is not the world we live in.  

 

White, Christian (in name, anyway) Amerikans are a pretty prejudicial lot. Assimilation is the only way toward acceptance, be that through the joining of their church or churches, common dress and attire, and the pursuit of common cultural activities and statements of support for cultural norms. This is the road to cultural integration on their terms, and any group that does not conform is subject to expulsion, nominally culturally but eventually physically, from the community. 

 

The continued adherence to non-norms appears as a threat to the supremacy of the norm and, through that, a threat to the continued ability of members of the community to prosper. “They" are taking the jobs. "They" want to tax us to spend the money on “them” and the other’s priorities. And in a zero-sum-society, any money spent on “them” will diminish the value or benefit owed to “us”. 

 

So where does that leave the Jews and “Amerikans”? Many Jews have assimilated, some to the point where their Jewishness is simply a historical marker and, in some cases, indeed only a genetic marker. But to many, aspects of their Jewish culture and religion remain a critical part of themselves and their families. And some of those markers are visible. Even if not visible, they are known to the community, by the synagogue they attend and the church they do not attend. Christmas decorations in windows versus the menorah. 

 

And so, as with their treatment of other minorities, the White Christian would never (or very rarely) openly state that the Jews must leave, that they are not welcome, but they will happily think it and say it to each other. Jews are not welcome. Well, okay, if they are already here and they are providing services that we cannot otherwise access, sure, they can stay. But we will not encourage them to move here. 

 

And after all, the “Jews killed Jesus”. This goes beyond simple in-group/out-group dynamics. Here, finally, we have the answer to why Amerika will support Israel no matter what. Amerikan “Christians” have been taught, and many grudgingly believe, that the “Jews are God’s Chosen People”. And good Christians do not oppose God’s will, and certainly not his chosen people. But do they really need to live here with us? 

 

For Israel to exist and be the global home for the Jewish People is a solution that Amerikan Christians fully support. They support “God’s chosen people”, especially if they are “over there” in the Holy Land. That’s what they are taught on Sunday and by the preachers who want to control them (oops, help them live a life closer to Jesus). 

 

Rejecting Israel is tantamount to rejecting God’s chosen people. And that is not what “Good Christians” do. Of course, since we don’t want them living here, having them all over there is a great solution. We get to be racist and xenophobic without being anti-God. 

 

So how can Amerika be both antisemitic and pro-Israel? By being “pro-God’s chosen people” while also not wanting them in their own communities. Therefore, support Israel, but keep the Jews away from me. 

 

And with God on their side, it would be foolish not to hedge your bets, especially if someone else’s tax money and someone else’s moral compass is offended. 

 

Christians (or self-professed Christians) comprise a huge voting block and constituency across the US. While there are a plethora of issues that will bring them to the poles, no politician will risk being labelled as anti-Israel and, therefore, anti-God. The lengths politicians across the spectrum go to appear devout and “Christian” means that they cannot afford to break with Israel. 

 

Even Donald Trump (#TRE45ON), that great paragon of Christian virtue, knowing full well that the Jewish vote will never be his, promises any and all support for Israel. Fully 70% of Amerikan Jews vote Democrat, and there is no electorate in which their numbers realistically represent a swing voting block. Meanwhile, 85% of White Evangelicals vote Republican. That is a voting block that no one wants to alienate.  

 

Even Democrats will try to avoid alienating that voting block. 

 

Every single Israeli politician knows this and exploits the evangelicals. When Netanjahu addressed the US Congress, he was not speaking to Amerikan Jews; he was speaking directly to Amerikan evangelicals. In effect, he was there to remind them that the Jews, embodied by Israel, are God’s Chosen People. He didn’t need to use those words. He could fluff it all up in sweet words about democracy (Israel) and terrorists (all Arabs), and civilisation and culture. What he really said, the way a mob boss might, was: “Nice electoral majority you have here; shame if something were to happen to it”. 

 

One day, however, that won’t work. One day, the genocidal actions of the Israeli government will be enough to force an Amerikan administration to say “Enough”. Some day. But when that day comes...