### Does Israel have a right to exist? We have to revisit that question, and at the same time ask another question: does Palestine have a right to exist?
![netanyahu_small.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcHSecDJw92dFAGbTXk9BomqzDLx9bsarfsPyjTVi4myr/netanyahu_small.jpg)
_{source: [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooYFgQ0DoCk)}
The mess we're witnessing, and have been witnessing for 75 years with the Israel-Palestine question, is the result of colonial arrogance. First, the arrogance of the British colonial Empire, which decided to promise a part of their realm to European Zionists. And then the arrogance of the Zionists who took that twice-promised land, first by God, then by the British, as their settler colonial project to create a Jewish ethno-state in a place where Arabs already had lived for thousands of years. Contrary to what the mainstream wants us to believe, the Israeli Zionists have been the aggressors in this tragedy from the beginning, 75 years ago. Until that time there existed a country called Palestine. In that area exists a country called Israel as an apartheid state. This is the reality on the ground; without understanding or knowing this, it's impossible to come to terms with what's happened on and since October 7. When I'm watching the mainstream news on this topic I ask myself how it's possible that still so many people buy the nonsense that's being peddled about the involved parties. Israel has been portrayed, for my whole lifetime, as this tiny, innocent country that's been on the defense against the surrounding barbaric Arab nations. In true David-versus-Goliath-style they always miraculously survive and even come out as the undisputed victors, grabbing some extra land here and there. The Biblical undertones used to describe this conflict aren't accidental but are used as a recurring strategy. It's the "children of light" against the "children of darkness", as stated by Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu on several occasions since October 7. They are Amalek, he says, referring to all of Gaza. The nonsense story about beheaded and burned babies is still used today by the defenders of the Israeli response to October 7, even though it's been thoroughly debunked, like all the other attempts to depict the Palestinian freedom fighters as unconscionable Jew-hating beasts. I've just listened to an [interview with Osama Hamdan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kth_d8mboIk), a senior member of Hamas' political bureau, who described the October 7 attacks as a "military operation" with the political goal of putting the Palestine question back on the global political agenda, and as their right to defend themselves against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This interview was broadcast by the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, and not by any Western broadcast company I know of.
_{Why did Hamas attack Israel on October 7?}
During the past two months, it has become abundantly clear that the Israeli deaths on October 7 were caused in large parts by friendly fire. The latest figures on the October 7 deaths that I know of are as follows: 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces (58 police, 10 members of internal security service Shin Bet, and 305 soldiers) and 71 foreigners (mostly Thai workers), giving a total of 1,139 ([source](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths)). Among them [the Israeli civilians] are 36 children, including 20 under 15 years old and 10 killed by rockets. The youngest victim was 10-month-old Mila Cohen, shot and killed at Kibbutz Beeri. Every civilian death is one too many, but this gives us a total of one killed, not decapitated, baby. The Israeli government's official Twitter account reported on October 10 that 40 babies were murdered at the Kfar Aza kibbutz, while the youngest of the 46 civilians killed there was 14 years old. Also, some quick maths tells us that one in three deaths on that day were legitimate targets for the insurgents while the IDF, according to its own estimates, killed 5000 Hamas "terrorists" when the total number of Gazans killed stood at more than 15,000. That's also one in three, only those figures are much harder to believe as two-thirds of Palestinians killed are women and children, which would make every Palestinian male of fighting age a Hamas operative. I call bullshit, again. Now, this says nothing about Israeli civilians killed by friendly fire on and in the days after October 7, but from the evidence presented so far it's reasonable to assume that those are many. Read, for example [Another Israeli witness confirms Israeli tanks killed own citizens on Oct. 7](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/another-israeli-witness-confirms-israeli-tanks-killed-own-citizens-on-oct-7/3079514). In this article, and in many others, you can read how Israeli houses were shelled with hostages as well as Hamas fighters in them, how Israeli attack helicopters shot at people without knowing whether they were Hamas or civilians, and how the fighting at the much-discussed Rave party only began half an hour after that party was over. Many of the victims on October 7 were burned beyond recognition, as well as vehicles with people in them; > ***One by one, Tel Aviv’s stories claims of deliberate atrocities by Palestinian fighters — beheading children, raping women, using hospitals as military bases — have been debunked.

[...]

The narrative now being pieced together is that Israeli forces fired a huge amount of ordinance indiscriminately from tanks and U.S.-supplied Apache helicopters on towns as well as on cars either fleeing a rave concert or driving towards Gaza with hostages, indiscriminately killing both Palestinian fighters and the Israeli civilians. This was a desperate attempt to contain the Palestinian surprise assault and to prevent the fighters from taking live Israeli hostages. The death toll was then added to those killed by Palestinian fighters and Hamas was blamed.

By the military’s own admission, Israeli pilots could not distinguish clearly between Palestinian combatants and Israeli civilians but decided to open fire anyway. Apache helicopter pilots fired continuously without intelligence on targets. Tank crews were ordered to shell homes, even though Israeli hostages might be inside. A military commander even ordered an air attack on his own base when he learned it had been overrun by Palestinian fighters.***
_{source: [Liberation News](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art)} You can watch the video, released by the Israeli army, showing the helicopers firing at cars and persons [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed0-OxNO_bQ). It's more than likely that many victims, on both sides, who were burned beyond recognition, even to the point that their flesh had been melted together with parts of cars they were seated in, were hit by hellfire rockets, as Hamas simply doesn't have the weaponry capable of inflicting such wounds. All the stories of Hamas binding whole families together and then burning them are rendered unbelievable, now that we know most of them were probably victims of the heavy ordinance employed by one of the world's best-equipped militaries. And they've admitted as much: just read [“Shoot at everything”: How Israeli pilots killed their own civilians](https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/shoot-everything-how-israeli-pilots-killed-their-own-civilians). All this can be found in many credible sources, even in more liberal Hebrew sources like Haaretz, just not in mainstream Western sources, not in the first two months after October 7. Only in the past two or three weeks, we get some droplets. But still, every interview with someone who speaks for the Palestinians starts with the question: "Do you condemn Hamas?" Now, you may ask what's wrong with that? To show what's wrong with the constant focus on the wrong picture of what happened on October 7, I'll just ask you to watch this video, in which a Christian asks that very question of three Muslims:
_{He Asked Us to Condemn H@m@s, then this happened!}
What has become perfectly clear in my mind over these past two-and-a-half months, is that this latest conflict is just the next stage in Israel's ongoing project to rid the entire region of what once was Palestine of the Palestinians. This was the goal of its Zionist founders, and it's the goal of the current government, as well as all of the in-between governments. From the 1947 [United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine) (Resolution 181) onwards, Israel has always stepped out of the boundaries of what was assigned to them, and at no point have the Palestinians ever been offered a sovereign state of their own. Even the much discussed [Oslo Accords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords), which are universally seen as the closest Palestinians have come to an acceptable resolution, consisted only of a gradual transition at the end of which the Palestinians perhaps would be granted sovereignty. It says in the Wikipedia article: "The Oslo Accords did not create a definite Palestinian state." In the so-called transition period, Israel ramped up the expansion of illegal settlements in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: Israel has never been a serious partner for peace. What we have here is a people who have lived under constant violent oppression, occupation, siege, and blockades for 75 years. In practice, there already is one state "from the river to the sea", which is the apartheid state of Israel. So, does Israel have a right to exist? The answer can be only "no, certainly not in its current form." Does Israel have a right to defend itself? I'm sorry, but no, they don't. It's the Palestinians who have every right, under international law, to defend themselves against their brutal and unlawful occupier. Anyone who still defends the actions of the Israeli government and military is, in my opinion, a supporter of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The IDF not only fires and bombs indiscriminately, killing scores of innocents, women, and children, it also targets all the facilities needed for the survival of Gazans, to the point even that they bulldoze crops:
_{It's happening}
Israeli officials openly stated, from the beginning, that famine and disease are to be used against the Gazans. From the beginning, IDF soldiers released videos of them planting Israeli flags in conquered territories, and an Israeli real estate company published ads for beachfront homes in Gaza, showing a clear intent to re-occupy the territory. Just to be fair, Haaretz published an article explaining these ads was meant as a "joke", but I'll quote a response to that article which shows the consensus on the "joke theory": > ***The journalist writes: "The real estate company's ads for 'presale' lots in Gaza and plans to 'prepare the groundwork for a return' to the enclave were meant to be 'a joke' for its followers, but inadvertently caused an international scandal" Yet the reporter's conclusion rest solely on the testimony of the CEO of the company. We are being asked to take the CEO’s version of events at face value. Surely, the journalist should have written something like: The CEO of the real estate company which published "ads for 'presale' lots in Gaza and plans to 'prepare the groundwork for a return' to the enclave" CLAIMS they "were meant to be 'a joke' for its followers, but inadvertently caused an international scandal" The reporter is taking the CEO's version of events at face value and asking us to do so as well. Why is that?***
_{source: [Haaretz](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-20/ty-article/.premium/no-an-israeli-real-estate-company-is-not-selling-beachfront-homes-in-gaza/0000018c-86d1-d60e-afdf-e6df243a0000)} The question we should all be asking by now is this: do Palestinians have a right to exist in their own sovereign country? According to the Israeli officials they don't, they've stated this publicly and abundantly, after 75 years of disingenuously playing along with a charade meant to cover up for the gradual disenfranchisement of Palestinians in their own state. This clip of the Israeli ambassador to the UK, rejecting a two-state solution, went viral two weeks ago:
_{‘Absolutely not’: Israeli ambassador to UK rejects two-state solution}
Reactions to this admission were mostly of surprise, showing just how badly people in the West are informed about this conflict. This is no surprise whatsoever. The genocidal intent of the Zionists was clear from day one, 75 years ago, even before that; just read my previous articles on this tragedy. Are the Palestinians perfect then? No, of course not. Is Hamas perfect? Surely not, they also have broken many international laws and have committed crimes against humanity. But they're also not the genocidal beasts, animals, demons, and terrorists who go around, aimlessly decapitating babies, mass-raping innocent women, and so on. But they're in a war. A war for their freedom. And as the Israelis like to say so often: in war, innocents die. The difference between the Israeli army and terrorists is just a technical one; in the law, a state can not be a terrorist. Since Hamas isn't recognized as a government of an actual state, the state Palestinians have systematically been refused, it can be labeled as a terrorist organization, and the IDF can not. In my mind, however, it's clear which of these two are the true terrorists, and it's not the Gazans or Hamas. I'll leave it here for now, as I just wanted to share what's known about the facts regarding the October 7 attacks, but, as always, I got carried away somewhat. Here's another good video to get a picture of what's been happening in and between these two peoples since 1948, as well as some more sources I've used.
_{What’s Happening in Israel and Why with Nathan Thrall - Factually!}
[On 1948 | Ilan Pappe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHI7Eel48mc) [Israel brutally kills beloved Christian woman in Gaza](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfpI1k6Kdf0) [Israeli Apache helicopters killed own soldiers, civilians on 7 October: Report](https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/11993)
_{Does Israel Have a Right to EXIST? (w/ Miko Peled)}
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