huh, tom fuller? today is 21st april 2024, and your comment from the fall of last year just appeared in my inbox this morning. not being apprised of what you are referring to, your comment is a nescient one. if it's about dictionaries, yes, i have buried myself in them since the age of 5, particularly ones related to science and technology. i am an 82-yr-old retired marine, lacustrine, riverine, and estuarine invertebrate zoologist, not an historian. to what 'historical' evidence are you referring that shaped your comment? in what context is that evidence related to my comments and in what manner or aspect is that evidence relevant to jonathan cook's supernal article?
And Netanyahu actually empowered Hamas, didn't he, in order to divide and the rule the Palestinians, or so that diabolical crook seemed to think. Something the genocide and ethnic cleansing-supporting western media ignore, of course
Great insight into the settler-colonial state. Thanks, Jonathan.
I read this after reading your latest piece on the nauseating Jonathan Freedland. He makes my skin crawl.
Anyway I wrote a few paragraphs on the US as mentor to Israel on colonising and hope you don't mind me re pasting it below where it might be more apposite:
PS:
"Yes, it lives with a degree of insecurity – the price it pays, as do all settler-colonial societies until they 'finish the job'"
And they could seek no better advice and support than from the ghouls who run the US. There's not space here other than to remind people what the Europeans did to the indigenous population there as they moved West like colonies of ants: no immunity to European diseases assisted them but then we have the previously mentioned "Trail of Tears in the 1830s to the mass slaughtering of millions upon millions of buffalo in the last quarter of the nineteenth century deliberately, thus targeting Native Americans' food supply and forcing them onto reservations. They ''finished the job" enough to live in no fear whatsoever from those whose land they stole.
They then disseminated endless films from Hollywood throughout the twentieth century, featuring the likes of John Wayne killing "savages" etc. This ideology of good v bad permeates Western brains from childhood playing cowboys v Indians and so on.
I write this not to stain the names of the many brave Americans (and Jews) who continue to push back against Zionism, but to point out that the numerous strategies employed by those who took over America means Israel couldn't have a better sponsor.
Many people are waking up to the nonsense we in the West have grown up with. The internet, new technologies, international travel and so on mean more people can see the deceitful myths of Western virtue we've been fed.
This mass of humanity must increasingly form a tidal wave and stop this relatively small group of Western-led, international psychopaths from operating. Overthrow them. Prevent them from allowing Palestinian Genocide to continue but also from increasingly imprisoning us all in a world the likes of H.G. Wells, Alduous Huxley and George Orwell have already warned us about.
I don't know how you can keep up with these post and still maintain your composure. The Line by line truth just hurts me to the point of looking for the nearest hole in the ground. I am sick to the core at this continual destruction and murder done by people and the insane ones cheering it on. Hopeless, helpless? I don't really want to just give up though because these criminals need to be brought to justice and there needs to be an end to this nightmare so I will keep reading and do what I can to help stop the madness (which isn't much) as long as you keep telling the truth.
It’s hard to be heard when minds find solace in out of context facts rather than the larger perspective of truth. Still; we must try with the approach that works to be heard…
Not sure that South Africa has moved away from apartheid. I stand to be corrected but it seems like the wealthy white ruling class have incorporated the black political class.
Understanding the theme of this article is why saying that you oppose all violence and therefore writing off Hamas doesn't lead anywhere other than complicity with our ruling class and its complicity with genocide. To oppose our ruling elite on this is not to condone Hamas regardless of what you or I think of their actions, it is to stand with those who are being oppressed with the support of our own ruling elite, be it Tory or Labour. At a time of an intense media blitz supporting the current massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, of which The Guardian is just one source, the PSC demonstrations in London and the various other demonstrations set the lie to unanimous support for apartheid Israel. What we can do to oppose the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Palestine is actively oppose our own government's support of Israel.
please deign to read my other comments on this site, 'almost home', about hamas and its inchoate funding by the israeli govt. i and many of my consociates have long agonized over the relentless decimating of the palestinian people by zionists who have endlessly, inexorably run amok w/ impunity... to the point that palestinian refugees are suicidal... just as you and i would be under a verisimilitude of circumstances. i understand you have your own perspectives and experiences from which you have drawn your conclusions. i suspect mine have been stark divarications from yours, having volunteered in palestinian refugee camps, as have our children, for decades... all during our years in the HK of jordan, egypt, lebanon, syria, the golan heights, and, of course, palestine. i am now 82 years old, and nothing has changed except to induce more suicidal behaviours among palestinians, more deterioration of their hopeless circumstances, and more utter despair. i have lived and worked in 37 different countries since my 1st contract in japan in 1962, and i can unequivocally asseverate that nothing i have experienced in all those decades leads me to feel such intense levels of anguish and hopelessness as i do for our palestinian victims of such egregious levels of hatred and violence against them as they have endured by the israelis and their power-elite patrons in the US, UK, and europe.
my unmitigated, unwavering, categoric, unalloyed gratitude for your understanding, empathy and support, 'ingamarie'. [you can deduce why my profs invariably denounced me for being a tiresome, adjective-obsessed wordsmith].
no, it does not, 'almost home'. the hamas charter, divulgated in 1987, pronounces that: “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Je haad.” In the 2017 version of its charter, Hamas claimed to reject the “persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.” PLEASE ALSO NOTE THE 2 DEFINITIONS OF 'JE HAAD: "a struggle or battle against the enemies of Islam. the arabic word also refers to "the spiritual struggle within oneself against sin." nowhere in the hamas charter, especially in the most recent 2017 version, is the death, murder, genocide, or killing of any kind promulgated. it is defined as a struggle against one's enemies, or resistance against one's oppressors... a categorically comprehensible position for a besieged and beleaguered group of people. the word has been transmogrified by israel and its US/UK/european patrons. over our professional lifetimes as environmental consultants, our family has lived in many islam-practicing countries: the hashemite kingdom of jordan, egypt, malaysia, indonesia, oman, bahrain, brunei, bangladesh... as well as worked among muslim minorities in nepal, cambodia, sierra leone, the philippines, and morocco. several of our bantlings [all grown now] became fluent in arabic. our son firth still is.
What you fail to talk about is The Arabs started the genocide in 1947 and lost that round. When you said Palestinian up until the mid 1950’s you meant the Israelis as the Arabs still called themselves Arabs. Most of the Arabs in the Mandate in 1947 were visiting workers NOT natives. Most of the Arabs who left in 1947 did so at the urgings of the Arab forces. Their was never any country called Palestine there was only the Mandate, and before that the Ottoman Empire, and before that the Caliphates, add the Crusader states, the Arab/Muslim invasion, and the Greco/Roman Empires. Who are the indigenous people? It was be just as true to call today’s “Palestinians” the Settler/Colonials because they were just another wave of conquerors.
"The Palestinians have it within them to rise up against Hamas to free themselves. Or Hamas can willingly surrender. Two real choices there."
This is really lazy thinking based on a lack of understanding of the geo-political history of Palestine, no doubt enforced by the propagandist bullshit spread by the establishment media.
I'm in no mood to mince words having been called an old and ugly Marxist, because I called out some twat for his Islamophobia and ahistorical, anti-intellectual, well, I was about to say rhetoric, but that would be far too generous a term to describe the abject trollsprachscheisse I was subjected to.
And I'm guessing this is not far off what Jonathan has had to deal with.
I should read the article first so will just say at this point, the question is why is it left to Palestinians to dismantle the only organisation that is prepared to face off against Israeli brutality.
Do these well meaning liberal, and not so well meaning reactionaries seriously think that Israel will play nicely if Hamas' militant wing is disbanded?
huh, tom fuller? today is 21st april 2024, and your comment from the fall of last year just appeared in my inbox this morning. not being apprised of what you are referring to, your comment is a nescient one. if it's about dictionaries, yes, i have buried myself in them since the age of 5, particularly ones related to science and technology. i am an 82-yr-old retired marine, lacustrine, riverine, and estuarine invertebrate zoologist, not an historian. to what 'historical' evidence are you referring that shaped your comment? in what context is that evidence related to my comments and in what manner or aspect is that evidence relevant to jonathan cook's supernal article?
And Netanyahu actually empowered Hamas, didn't he, in order to divide and the rule the Palestinians, or so that diabolical crook seemed to think. Something the genocide and ethnic cleansing-supporting western media ignore, of course
Great insight into the settler-colonial state. Thanks, Jonathan.
I read this after reading your latest piece on the nauseating Jonathan Freedland. He makes my skin crawl.
Anyway I wrote a few paragraphs on the US as mentor to Israel on colonising and hope you don't mind me re pasting it below where it might be more apposite:
PS:
"Yes, it lives with a degree of insecurity – the price it pays, as do all settler-colonial societies until they 'finish the job'"
And they could seek no better advice and support than from the ghouls who run the US. There's not space here other than to remind people what the Europeans did to the indigenous population there as they moved West like colonies of ants: no immunity to European diseases assisted them but then we have the previously mentioned "Trail of Tears in the 1830s to the mass slaughtering of millions upon millions of buffalo in the last quarter of the nineteenth century deliberately, thus targeting Native Americans' food supply and forcing them onto reservations. They ''finished the job" enough to live in no fear whatsoever from those whose land they stole.
They then disseminated endless films from Hollywood throughout the twentieth century, featuring the likes of John Wayne killing "savages" etc. This ideology of good v bad permeates Western brains from childhood playing cowboys v Indians and so on.
I write this not to stain the names of the many brave Americans (and Jews) who continue to push back against Zionism, but to point out that the numerous strategies employed by those who took over America means Israel couldn't have a better sponsor.
Many people are waking up to the nonsense we in the West have grown up with. The internet, new technologies, international travel and so on mean more people can see the deceitful myths of Western virtue we've been fed.
This mass of humanity must increasingly form a tidal wave and stop this relatively small group of Western-led, international psychopaths from operating. Overthrow them. Prevent them from allowing Palestinian Genocide to continue but also from increasingly imprisoning us all in a world the likes of H.G. Wells, Alduous Huxley and George Orwell have already warned us about.
I don't know how you can keep up with these post and still maintain your composure. The Line by line truth just hurts me to the point of looking for the nearest hole in the ground. I am sick to the core at this continual destruction and murder done by people and the insane ones cheering it on. Hopeless, helpless? I don't really want to just give up though because these criminals need to be brought to justice and there needs to be an end to this nightmare so I will keep reading and do what I can to help stop the madness (which isn't much) as long as you keep telling the truth.
‘Silence is complicity’
It’s hard to be heard when minds find solace in out of context facts rather than the larger perspective of truth. Still; we must try with the approach that works to be heard…
Not sure that South Africa has moved away from apartheid. I stand to be corrected but it seems like the wealthy white ruling class have incorporated the black political class.
Understanding the theme of this article is why saying that you oppose all violence and therefore writing off Hamas doesn't lead anywhere other than complicity with our ruling class and its complicity with genocide. To oppose our ruling elite on this is not to condone Hamas regardless of what you or I think of their actions, it is to stand with those who are being oppressed with the support of our own ruling elite, be it Tory or Labour. At a time of an intense media blitz supporting the current massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, of which The Guardian is just one source, the PSC demonstrations in London and the various other demonstrations set the lie to unanimous support for apartheid Israel. What we can do to oppose the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Palestine is actively oppose our own government's support of Israel.
from a consociate global nomad, your comments are valued.
appreciate your equiponderent comment, von.
please deign to read my other comments on this site, 'almost home', about hamas and its inchoate funding by the israeli govt. i and many of my consociates have long agonized over the relentless decimating of the palestinian people by zionists who have endlessly, inexorably run amok w/ impunity... to the point that palestinian refugees are suicidal... just as you and i would be under a verisimilitude of circumstances. i understand you have your own perspectives and experiences from which you have drawn your conclusions. i suspect mine have been stark divarications from yours, having volunteered in palestinian refugee camps, as have our children, for decades... all during our years in the HK of jordan, egypt, lebanon, syria, the golan heights, and, of course, palestine. i am now 82 years old, and nothing has changed except to induce more suicidal behaviours among palestinians, more deterioration of their hopeless circumstances, and more utter despair. i have lived and worked in 37 different countries since my 1st contract in japan in 1962, and i can unequivocally asseverate that nothing i have experienced in all those decades leads me to feel such intense levels of anguish and hopelessness as i do for our palestinian victims of such egregious levels of hatred and violence against them as they have endured by the israelis and their power-elite patrons in the US, UK, and europe.
my unmitigated, unwavering, categoric, unalloyed gratitude for your understanding, empathy and support, 'ingamarie'. [you can deduce why my profs invariably denounced me for being a tiresome, adjective-obsessed wordsmith].
no, it does not, 'almost home'. the hamas charter, divulgated in 1987, pronounces that: “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Je haad.” In the 2017 version of its charter, Hamas claimed to reject the “persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.” PLEASE ALSO NOTE THE 2 DEFINITIONS OF 'JE HAAD: "a struggle or battle against the enemies of Islam. the arabic word also refers to "the spiritual struggle within oneself against sin." nowhere in the hamas charter, especially in the most recent 2017 version, is the death, murder, genocide, or killing of any kind promulgated. it is defined as a struggle against one's enemies, or resistance against one's oppressors... a categorically comprehensible position for a besieged and beleaguered group of people. the word has been transmogrified by israel and its US/UK/european patrons. over our professional lifetimes as environmental consultants, our family has lived in many islam-practicing countries: the hashemite kingdom of jordan, egypt, malaysia, indonesia, oman, bahrain, brunei, bangladesh... as well as worked among muslim minorities in nepal, cambodia, sierra leone, the philippines, and morocco. several of our bantlings [all grown now] became fluent in arabic. our son firth still is.
As usual, very well said, and penetrating insights. Thank you.
Ireland has been the £aboraTory for these p£antation genocides and jU$tifications for almost the full mi££ennia£ reich of the Brutish Vampire.
The p£anetary consumption needs arresting.
Mobilise.
What you fail to talk about is The Arabs started the genocide in 1947 and lost that round. When you said Palestinian up until the mid 1950’s you meant the Israelis as the Arabs still called themselves Arabs. Most of the Arabs in the Mandate in 1947 were visiting workers NOT natives. Most of the Arabs who left in 1947 did so at the urgings of the Arab forces. Their was never any country called Palestine there was only the Mandate, and before that the Ottoman Empire, and before that the Caliphates, add the Crusader states, the Arab/Muslim invasion, and the Greco/Roman Empires. Who are the indigenous people? It was be just as true to call today’s “Palestinians” the Settler/Colonials because they were just another wave of conquerors.
"Hamas is a symptom of the decades of trauma Palestinians in Gaza have been through, not the cause of that trauma."
This ^^^
It's what so many fail to understand.
Before I even read the article:
"The Palestinians have it within them to rise up against Hamas to free themselves. Or Hamas can willingly surrender. Two real choices there."
This is really lazy thinking based on a lack of understanding of the geo-political history of Palestine, no doubt enforced by the propagandist bullshit spread by the establishment media.
I'm in no mood to mince words having been called an old and ugly Marxist, because I called out some twat for his Islamophobia and ahistorical, anti-intellectual, well, I was about to say rhetoric, but that would be far too generous a term to describe the abject trollsprachscheisse I was subjected to.
And I'm guessing this is not far off what Jonathan has had to deal with.
I should read the article first so will just say at this point, the question is why is it left to Palestinians to dismantle the only organisation that is prepared to face off against Israeli brutality.
Do these well meaning liberal, and not so well meaning reactionaries seriously think that Israel will play nicely if Hamas' militant wing is disbanded?
How fucking naïve can you get
SMH