A-Infos (en) France, OCL, CA #336 - Destroy a people - Destroy Palestinian society ---- Kill with impunity (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

These lines are written on December 23, when the bar of 30,000 
Palestinians killed in Gaza was crossed. ---- We are witnessing a war of 
annihilation against the Palestinian people. Benefiting from total 
impunity granted by Western leaders and protected by Joe Biden's veto, 
the occupier no longer even pretends to want to destroy Hamas. ---- One 
by one, hospitals in Gaza can no longer function. Mohammad Abou Salmiya, 
director of Al Shifa hospital, was arrested. The famous Hamas "tunnels" 
under the hospital proved to be as credible as Saddam Hussein's "weapons 
of mass destruction" which had served as a "pretext" for the destruction 
of Iraq. The Palestinian Red Crescent, some of whose teams remained in 
the north amid the rubble, was also attacked.
The occupier chooses its victims using artificial intelligence. The poet 
Refaat Alareer was killed on December 6 along with part of his family. 
His final lines were premonitory: "If I should die, let it bring hope, 
let it be a tale." In Gaza, poets are killed, in Jenin, the management 
of the Freedom Theater is arrested. Since the Palestinians are "human 
animals" as Israeli Minister Yoav Galant explained, their intellectuals 
are necessarily terrorists.
Witnesses to the ongoing genocide are embarrassing. On December 15, the 
occupier killed Samir Abu Daqqa (from Mariam's family), who worked for 
Al Jazeera. 66 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7. 
Curiously, Reporters Without Borders only counted 13.
One of the churches in Gaza was also bombed. Among the victims, faithful 
and refugees. The Pope was "moved".
From the start of the Israeli attack, the French Cultural Institute in 
Gaza was bombed. 112 French or dual nationals were able to leave Gaza 
before November 14. But Palestinian employees of the French Consulate 
were not allowed to leave. One of them was killed in Rafah. France 
(softly) protested.
90% of the population has left their homes and 70% of infrastructure is 
destroyed. Israel systematically bombs the places where its army had 
ordered the population of Gaza to take refuge. This is the case of the 
two large cities in the South: Khan Younis and Rafah.
Agricultural land was ravaged and equipment destroyed. In the Gaza port, 
only 7 boats remain. There were 96 before the war.

"The occupying army is in Khan Younis. The soldiers ask the population 
to move towards Rafah.
But the people don't want that: they know that there is no longer any 
possibility of shelter, they will be in the open air, and completely at 
the mercy of the mini-helicopters which I will talk about below.
So they try to go back to Deir-al-Balah and Nuseirat, and so there, the 
number of displaced people, already aberrant, constantly grows.
Surveillance of the Israeli army is carried out by a large number of 
very small helicopters and quadcopters. Of various sizes, very 
maneuverable, spying with cameras and photos, spotting faces, able to 
carry explosive charges or be equipped with automatic weapons. Commanded 
like the killer towers were from well-protected control centers. These 
machines sneak up to the windows. The soldier addresses people, gives 
orders, demands that windows be opened. And documents all movements with 
a live camera.
The families still in Khan Younis do not want to settle in the 
rectangle, completely bare and without the slightest infrastructure, 
declared a "safe zone" by the Israeli army (this zone, Al-Mawasi, 
extends from the edge of the governorate from Khan Younis to Rafah, 
along the coast, over a width of approximately 2 km). They are too 
afraid of the fact that there they will be fully visible, including 
their faces. They know quadcopters are extremely dangerous. We could see 
them acting on the Kamal Adwan hospital.
There are hundreds of these quadcopters above the Gaza Strip. I saw 
about twenty of them flying around my house.»

The media, faithful to the occupier's speech, relayed an image of Gaza 
that was as terrible as it was false. No, it is neither a population of 
fanatics ready to die for the cause, nor people submissive and 
terrorized by the dictatorship of the bearded. All opinions are freely 
heard in Gaza. We get into a shared taxi and immediately the discussion 
begins: "Long live Hamas". "Down with Hamas, they are corrupt." There 
are around ten political parties that express themselves legally, 
including Fatah. It is common in families to have people in different 
political parties. On the other hand, the Salafists who had tried to 
appear at the time of the caricature affair were repressed with great 
violence by the Hamas government.
Civil society is very "unobstructed". She criticizes parties for 
defending their own interests and wallowing in division.
Gaza is a very educated society. There are 1% illiterate compared to 35% 
in neighboring Egypt. There are 100,000 students in 6 universities and 
21,000 graduates each year even though university costs money and is 
sometimes very expensive. As there is very little paid work, graduates 
often agree to work for free: "we cannot let our society collapse. One 
day the blockade will end and as we have experience, we will have a job."
The great strength of Palestinian society is the hundreds of small and 
large associations that keep society from collapsing. There are local 
associations which provide pre-school and after-school care, 
neighborhood associations, popular committees of refugee camps, 
psychological support associations (the bombings traumatize the 
population as much). There are traditions of mutual aid, helping 
orphans, widowers, widows, and the injured. There are the families of 
prisoners. There are associations that help the crippled and disabled 
(350 dead and 10,000 "legs" often amputated during the peaceful return 
marches of 2018-19).
There are many women's associations that denounce patriarchy and 
domestic violence. There are several sports associations, including women's.
75% of the population are refugees (72% have UNRWA cards). In rural 
areas, Mokhtars (traditional chiefs) ensure social cohesion.
There are large associations, for example the PCHR (Palestinian Center 
for Human Rights) which lists all the human rights violations of the 
occupier but also of the two rival governments. There is the UAWC 
(agricultural and fishing workers union) or the PARC which ensures the 
transition between poor farmers and the population.

Until then, after each wave of bombings, farmers put their fields back 
into production, rebuilt their greenhouses and chicken farms. The 
fishing boats that were not confiscated returned to sea. And the 
population returned to crafts, to commerce, to educating children.
But this time, the destruction is irreparable. Famine sets in. The 
population of the north left without warm clothing or equipment.
The testimonies we receive are very worrying:
"When aid trucks are on the move, it can happen that they are attacked 
and their cargo stolen. In Deir-el-Balah, police in a truck opened fire 
and killed the thieves.
We must understand that there are thousands and thousands of hungry 
families. The highway robbers resell the loot at 200% of the price... 
Understand that we are in a situation of famine.
Powerful families, supported by 2000, 3000 people, organize themselves 
into mafias. The police cannot control everything. In Deir-al-Balah, 
police entered a shelter school and emerged with many people arrested.
Netanyahu said it: we will make Gazans eat each other.»

In Nuseirat, in the center of the Gaza Strip, the house of the UJFP 
correspondent in Gaza has become the refuge of hundreds of people, 
driven out by the destruction of their homes or buildings. The money 
sent was used to buy tents, warm clothes, children's shoes and blankets. 
A collective canteen was able to be organized. A bakery was planned. We 
had to find nylon to protect against humidity, jerrycans of water and a 
truckload of rice. This whole enterprise came to a halt on December 22. 
The Israeli army ordered all these refugees to leave. For where? For the 
moment, our correspondent was able to go to his daughter. For how long? 
It's raining and cold in Gaza.
Another team, that of the Ibn Sina association, had to leave the Jabalia 
camp (in the north of the Gaza Strip, everything was destroyed there) 
for Rafah. She was able to organize psychological help sessions for 
children, collective meals, and the provision of shelters. She is now 
building latrines because the refugees don't have them.

History has shown (Amerindians, Aborigines, etc.) that peoples can be 
defeated and reduced to situations such that they are no longer able to 
claim their rights.
Until now, the Palestinians benefited from the fact that their society 
had not collapsed, that they were as numerous as the Israelis between 
the sea and the Jordan. And they hoped that the solidarity movement 
would be strong enough to force complicit governments to sanction the 
occupier.
The fascists in power in Israel are determined to provoke a new Nakba, a 
new ethnic cleansing. The destruction of Gaza is accompanied by a 
widespread attack by settlers and the army on the West Bank.
They don't care about the thousands of deaths. They don't care that the 
Palestinians swore they would not leave, as they did in 1948. They don't 
care that no country is willing to take in new refugees.
By completely destroying Gaza and reigning in terror in the West Bank, 
they are "turning the tables". Zionists have always had two priorities: 
maximum territory and an ethnically pure state.
Gaza has gone back 75 years with hundreds of thousands of people outside 
or in tents and social ties destroyed.
A majority of the planet disapproves. But those who have the military or 
financial power let it happen.
Arab countries use neither the diplomatic weapon nor the oil weapon.
In Israel, no breakdown of the domestic front is in sight. There are 
indeed the families of Israelis held in Gaza who are protesting. But 
they have no way of forcing a stop to the killing. Television regularly 
gives voice to people who burst out laughing over the deaths in Gaza and 
who have "integrated" the fact that babies are also targets to be 
destroyed. After Yoav Galant ("the Palestinians are human animals"), the 
deputy mayor of Jerusalem outbid by proposing to "bury alive" the 
Palestinians. Without sanctions, there is nothing to hope for from 
Israeli society.
In the world, the far right, on the rise, has found a model in Israel.
Biden and liberal Europe, despite their public opinion, support and 
protect the fascists in power in Jerusalem. Between 4,000 and 5,000 
French people fight with impunity in the Israeli army. The movement in 
support of Palestine continues to be repressed.
This support for genocide implies the definitive destruction of "human 
rights" as they were defined after 1945. Certainly, they were regularly 
violated but the West continued to invoke them to denounce Russia, Iran, 
China.
The destruction of Gaza heralds a generalized law of the jungle. 
Societies in Western countries and the Arab world now have a major 
responsibility. The defeat of Palestine will be the defeat of us all.

Pierre Stambul,
December 23, 2023

"Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu!»
About the "Front page" of the latest Alternating Current

A person pointed out to us (on our site oclibertaire.lautre.net) that 
the first page of the December CA as well as the intro to one of its 
articles were likely to leave some ambiguities surrounding our positions 
on the question, and that they were contradictory to other previously 
published articles or editorials. We would therefore like to briefly 
re-state our positions here:

* The war taking place today in the Gaza Strip is yet another deadly 
episode among the wars that the Zionist State of Israel has been waging 
for a long time to annex all the territories where Palestinians live.
Claiming, as the media commonly do, that this is currently a war against 
Hamas is pure propaganda, and this presentation of the situation must be 
strongly denounced.
Firstly because the bombings and other attacks by the Israeli army 
against Gaza are intended to justify the abuses of the Jewish State and 
to put into the background the unprecedented offensive that it launched 
at the same time in West Bank, in order to establish new settlements and 
destroy Palestinian villages.
Then because Hamas is the ideal enemy for entire sections of 
international opinion to line up behind Israel, to the extent that the 
political project of this organization - a dictatorship based on Sharia 
law - obviously acts as a foil.
The project of Hamas, or any other Islamist group, cannot be a source of 
liberation or emancipation for the Palestinian population, but it is up 
to them to decide on the issue. And for us it is not a question of 
"liberating" her - it is she who is engaged in a fight for her survival 
against a particularly deadly colonialism - but of helping to denounce 
everything that is annihilating her.

* The State of Israel has always favored Islamism in Palestine, because 
it fears any Palestinian opposition from the base and/or claiming a 
"left", class or secular position.
Hamas is far from representing THE Palestinians, just as the Zionists of 
the Hebrew State are far from representing Israeli society, which has 
also been shaken recently by significant protest movements.
Class contradictions of course run through, as elsewhere, Palestinian 
and Israeli societies, and it is from them that we can really appreciate 
who are whose real enemies.
It is of the utmost importance to combat anti-Semitism everywhere, and 
to do this the fight against Zionism is decisive.
It is of the utmost importance to combat the "anti-Arab" racism 
expressed in France, and to do this, support for Palestinian resistance 
against colonialism is just as decisive as the struggles against racist 
laws promulgated by governments. successive French for decades.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4043
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