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Guest post - Date published:
2:22 pm, November 8th, 2024 - 31 comments
Categories: gaza, genocide, israel, Peace, racism, war, Zionism -
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Cross-posted from Pearls and Irritations by Eugene Doyle
The West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. “They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination…”
Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the Axis of Genocide. With increasing frequency I hear commentators on West Asia/Middle East news sites hold the collective West responsible for the genocide. It’s a big come-down from the Global Labrador Puppy status New Zealand enjoyed recently. Australia too has a record of being viewed as a country with soft-power influence, albeit while a stalwart deputy to the US in this part of the world. That is over.
Regrettably, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to support US-Israel in the Red Sea (killing Yemeni people), failed to join the ICJ case against Israel, shared intelligence with the Israelis, trained with their forces, provided R&R to soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Gaza whilst blocking Palestinian refugees, and extended valuable diplomatic support to Israel at the UN. British planes overfly Gaza to provide data, a German freighter arrived in Alexandria this week laden with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of explosives to kill yet more Palestinian civilians. Genocide is a collective effort of the Collective West.
Australia and New Zealand, along with the rest of the West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. What our governments do is at best “light condemnation” he says, but when it counts they will be silent.
“They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination,” Marandi says. Looking at our performance over the past seven decades and what is happening today, it is an assessment I would not argue against.
But why should we listen to someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran, you might ask. Who are they to preach at us? I see things differently. In our dystopian, tightly-curated mainstream mediascape it is rare to hear an Iranian voice. We need to listen to more people, not fewer. I’m definitely not a cheerleader for Iran or any state and I most certainly don’t agree with everything Professor Marandi says but he gives me richer insights than me just drowning in the endless propaganda of Tier One war criminals like Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Antony Blinken and their spokespeople.
Marandi, Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, is a former member of Iran’s negotiating team that brokered the break-through JCPOA nuclear agreement (later reneged on by the Trump and Biden administrations).
He is no shrinking violet. He has that fierceness of someone who has been shot at multiple times. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Marandi was injured four times, including twice with chemical weapons, key components of which were likely supplied by the US to their erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein.
Marandi was in South Beirut a few weeks ago when the US-Israelis dropped dozens of bombs on residential buildings killing hundreds of civilians to get at the leader of Hezbollah (a textbook war crime that will never be prosecuted). It killed people he knew. To a BBC reporter who said, yes, but they were targeting Hezbollah, he replied:
“That’s like saying of 7/7 [the terror bombings in London]: ‘They bombed a British regime stronghold.’ How would that sound to people in the UK?”
Part of what people find discomforting about Marandi is that he tears down the thin curtain that separates the centres of power from the major news outlets that repeat their talking points (“Israel has a legitimate right to self-defence”, etc).
The more our leaders and media prattle on about Israel’s right to defend itself, the more we sound like the Germany that terrorised Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And the rest of the world has noticed. As TS Eliot said: “Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.”
To his credit Piers Morgan is one of the few who have invited Marandi to do an extended interview. They had a verbal cage fight that went viral.
Marandi has been masterful at pointing out the racism inherent in the Western worldview, the chauvinism that allows Western minds to treasure white lives but discount as worthless hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
“There is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilised manner. Iran is prepared for the worst,” he says.
“In this great moral struggle, in the world that we live in today – meaning the holocaust in Gaza – who is defending the people of Gaza and who is supporting the holocaust? Iran with its small group of allies is alone against the West,” he told Nima Alkhorshid from Dialogue Works recently.
Marandi draws a sharp distinction between our governments and our populations. He is entirely right in pointing out that the younger people are, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the more likely they are to oppose the genocide – as do growing numbers of young Jewish Americans who have rejected the Zionist project.
“All people within the whole of Palestine must be equal – Jews, Muslims and Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Zionist regime to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza.”
I heard Mohammad Seyed Marandi extend an interesting invitation to us all in a recent interview. He said the Axis of Resistance should be thought of as open to all people who oppose the genocide in Gaza and who are opposed to continued Western militarism in West Asia.
I would never sign up to the policies of Iran, especially on issues like women’s rights, but I do find the invitation to a broad coalition clarifying: the Axis of Genocide versus The Axis of Resistance. Whose side are you on?
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz.
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Long term.
I am on the side of the Arab League asking Iran to recognise Israel within 67 borders to delegitimise Israeli opposition to a 67 border Palestine state.
While Iran seeks the end to Israel, they and Hezbollah and Hamas will be cited as the security cause for IDF WB occupation.
Short term
Biden should ban new arms to Israel, if there is no cease-fire and focus on aid delivery until Jan 20 (conditional on no Hezbollah military actions).
Oh. Right. So of course this is all the fault of Iran??
When is Israel going to recognise the illegality of their occupation? When is Israel going to be held responsible for their ongoing genocide? When is Israel going to tear down the walls of their rascist apartheid state?
Speaking of standing on the side of genocide, statements like
are the sort of cover being run by the west that Prof Marandi is so sick and tired of listening to.
It doesnt take much to find the video footage of the apocalypse that Jabalia has become. 80% of bombs dropped by Israel land on family homes taking out or burying in rubble, the whole family including very young children. The 1.5 m2 of Jabalia camp is completely surrounded by the IDF using starvation, dehydration and the constant bombing of homes schools and hospitals to create sufficient terror to drive citizens south. This is what the occupation which you use the victims to blame, consists of.
You have nicely encapsulated the entire point being made in this post by making excuses for the inexcusable. The proper response to genocide is a resounding no that does not include weasel words.
From Jabalia:
At the entrance of our alley, tanks were amassed, and a large number of soldiers. The scene resembled a slaughterhouse – men were gathered, stripped to their underwear, their hands tied behind their backs, and then blindfolded. Nearby was a deep pit where the mothers were held without their children, while the children cried and screamed from a third area.”
There was a fourth area, she added.
“There was a fourth pile – a heap of bodies piled at the entrance of my neighbors’ house, more than fifty near-naked corpses executed earlier. I wish I hadn’t seen this.”
A soldier called to Nadia over a loudspeaker.
“He ordered me to move south and threatened to kill me if I didn’t move fast. When I ventured to ask him about the children and my daughter and daughters-in-law, he allowed me to take them with me. But all the men were left behind, their fate unknown, in the hands of killers.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/tales-terror-jabaliya/49771
Just out of interest what are all the super wealthy Arab Muslim countries that are in the same area as Palestine doing about it?
Today, nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, 20% of Jordan's population are Palestinian refugees, and another 3 million or so live in the Gulf states, North Africa and the West.
Why would any country assist Israel with it's *Stalinist population transfer policies?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/06/palestinians-will-not-be-allowed-to-return-to-homes-in-northern-gaza-says-idf
(*Six million of the estimated twenty million victims of Stalin's brutal population transfer policies were Soviet Russian citizens.)
I was thinking more direct action rather than refuge.
bwaghorn @2
8 November 2024 at 5:03 pm
Just out of interest what are all the super wealthy Arab Muslim countries that are in the same area as Palestine doing about it?
Reply
8 November 2024 at 6:02 pm
Today, nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan,….
Reply
9 November 2024 at 7:56 am
I was thinking more direct action rather than refuge.
In answer to your question waghorn;
What the Arab and Muslim countries 'in the same area as Palestine are doing about it', is typified by the schizophrenic actions of Egypt and Turkey.
Both Egypt and Turkey have filed briefs in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide, in support of South Africa's case against Israel,
On the other side of this schizoid response, both Egypt and Turkey have actively helped Israel enforce the blockade that allows Israel to commit this genocide.
When Israel violently seized control of the Egyptian controlled Rafah crossing, killing one Egyptian soldier in the process. Egypt acquiesced to Israel's illegal seizure and closure of the last remaining fully open crossing into Gaza sealing off Gaza to the outside world. The Egyptian authorities in talks with Israel agreed to "downplay the incident" including the killing of Egyptian soldier 22-year-old Abdullah Ramadan.
And Turkey blockaded aid ships from leaving for Gaza.
In some ways, the Turkish and Egyptian response to the Genocide being committed in Gaza is similar to that of the US, condemn it on paper and in words but actively help commit it.
As for the motive for this schizoid response?
My guess, neither Turkey or Egypt want to offend their US ally. And on the other hand the memory of the Arab Spring, the region wide popular revolt against autocracy and dictatorship, is still fresh in the memory of the Turkish and Arab rulers.
Egypt and Turkey are between a rock and a hard place, mollify their people, witness to the genocide, and at the same time be careful not to actively act against the US hegemon in the region.
Most of them are allies and clients of the US hegemon, so the answer to your question, is nothing.
The one exception, Syria is a virtual client state of the Russian Federation.
3,196 Syrian Palestinians Were Killed by Syrian Regime Forces, including 491 Due to Torture, Between March 2011 and July 2020, and 49 Appeared in the Caesar Photos
One man identified in the video taken of the Tadamon massacre was a Palestinian,
Oppressive local powers and their imperialist backers faced with popular revolt or an insurgency that will not quit, have only two options, concede, or commit genocide. In the case of Assad and Netanyahu, they chose genocide.
The Arab and other allies of their respective imperialist backers know, without being told, it is in their interest to look away.
I'm not sure what your point is but I believe you have offered opinion in the past against the approach being taken by Yemen. And what about Hezbollah? Are you in favour of that approach? Iran sending missiles into Israel? The same with Iraq?
Because resistence is only happening in the neighbouring countries, and if you expect rich oligarchic states to support Palestine then I suggest that they are following the lead of rich oligarchic states in the west. Super rich people support oppression is probably a useful general rule. Its how they got rich
My point is to answer Waghorn's question; What are the wealthy Arab and Muslim states doing about it?
I think I have answered that pretty clearly. They are all neo-colonial proxies of the US, they won't do anything 'about it' without the approval of the US. The one exception, and not so wealthy, is Syria which is a neo-colonial proxy of the Russian Federation, they won't do anything 'about it' without the approval of the Russian Federation. (even when being regularly bombed by Israel),
Hi Jenny. The comment was a reply to bwaghorn. You need to check the numbers at the top right to figure out who it is replying to. In future I will put the name of who I am replying to to save confusion.
Russia destroys UNESCO- protected sites in Ukraine
Israel backed by the Western powers set the precedent
Israel destroys UNESCO-protected sites in Gaza
Coming to a future war zone near you
The genocidal nature of Israel's total war on Gaza, approved and supported by the Western powers, is precedent setting for how all wars in the 21st Century will be fought.
The invasion of Ukraine was in early 2022
The precedent for Gaza, was in Syria and Ukraine and Islamic State in Iraq (and some earlier looting after the regime change) and Taleban in Afghanistan.
Good post (and readable this time).
This is fundamentally illustrates what I have a problem with Israeli and US policies.
Israel is clearly running a war of extermination against Gazan civilians, targeting 70% women and children, in an clear effort to exterminate the future population of an occupied territory.
Israel is claims 'self-defence' as its reason in doing this in an attempt to wipe out a armed force in an occupied territory.
In my view and that of international law there is absolutely no difference between having troops in a direct occupation, and Israel running a decades long blockade with a repeated deliberately very imprecise terrorist attacks by the IDF. Self-defence is a concept that cuts both ways.
The problem is that there has been no end to the war in Palestine since 1948 for Palestinians or Israelis. Palestinian mandate still only has a single state in it, that of Israeli which occupies the whole territory covered by the 1947 resolution of the UN.The Israelis claim occupation of the Palestinians parts of that resolution.
If I recognise Israeli self-defence against attacks that hit civilians, then I have to view Israeli attacks that hit civilians as being a cause for Gazan self-defence against their Israeli occupation. Occupation means that attacks by forces in a occupied territory are inherently self-defence against occupying or blockading forces.
In practice I don't see any self-defence by Israel. What I see if outright aggression against a civilian population under occupation.
Israel have had 50 years since the Yom Kippur war in 1973 where they gained full possession of the West Bank and Gaza from the armies of Arab states to negotiate a peaceful settlement. They simply have never seriously tried.
Each 'negotiation' has only been about how much land and resources the Israelis can steal from Palestinians.
Israel as a state, and the IDF have the morals of a barbarian horde – they should be treated by the international community as such. NZ should not be prepared to support further extermination policies or population displacement by the Israelis.
At this point the only viable solution that I can see is to put in a armed UN force with orders not to just defend themselves, but to attack any IDF or Palestinian incursions on the other. Ideally on the borders mandated by the 1947 resolution on Palestine.
The other alternative would be to reverse that resolution and to remove Israel before they open their death camps – a course that they are clearly on the path towards.
the morals of a barbarian horde
Seems clear to me that both semitic sides exhibit that. I suspect an evolutionary theorist would envisage a `kill the non-conforming semite' gene to explain the reciprocity. I've been reading evolutionary psych texts since the '90s and not observed any of the authors doing that yet but congenital timidity is academic tradition.
However I largely concur with your analysis re the distant descendants of the conquerors of the promised land. As a kid I read in the Bible that it was the land of milk & honey when they did the original genocide in the Bronze Age.
Occupants since their removal turned it into desert but when I put that to a young Israeli at our national permaculture hui yesterday morning he said it is mixed nowadays and I'm aware that communes/kibbutzes have been extending habitat into reclaiming desert since the restart of Israel. We must remember too that fundamentalist jews rule there now so the Israeli peacemakers are rendered impotent by democracy.
Far right slur against Palestinians, and Jews,
Dennis Frank suggests that Palestinians and Israelis have to quote hin, a `kill the non-conforming semite' gene as an explanation and justification for both October 9 and Israel's genocide in Gaza
That the ancestors who conquered the land, whom Palestinians are the distant descendants of. committed genocide against the Israelis in the Bronze age.
From my reading of lprent's comment; lprent never said, or even inferred, such a thing.
But whether or not lprent said or even inferred it The underlying argument that a genocide, that may, or may not, have happened thousands of years ago in the Bronze age, is a valid reason for what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians now, is not a moral or even logical argument.
The other Zionist myth encapsulated in Dennis Frank's comment, that the Palestinians had made a land of milk and honey into a barren wasteland, a wasteland that the Israelis are rehabilitating.
To understand the roots of the current conflict we need to ditch the Zionist myths and look at the economic and political reasons for the conflict.
Rather than hallucinating and misinterpreting what someone writes, why not pay attention instead?
I would appreciate it, if you could, point out where I have made an error.
Maybe we could both learn something.
Anyone who does massacres is motivated by barbarian morals. Since both semitic sides in the conflict have done so, both fit that description. Since when has accuracy been a slur?? And I've lost count of the times onsite here when I have declared that I comment as a radical centrist. Not rightist even, let alone far right, so to see such balanced centrism as coming from the far right, as you put it, really is hallucinating.
You didn't even try to justify your irrelevant quotes of eugenics/racism, so I'll skip over that. Then you try to twist my condemnation of the original genocide campaign led by Joshua, according to the Bible, that resulted in the Israelites who escaped Egypt, a generation later, killing all the indigenous folk in Canaan. The jews are indeed descendants of the killers, and I agreed with his critique of their current behaviour.
The Bible has God telling them to do the genocide because it is a land of milk & honey & he promises it to them. Occupation since then by an endless stream of invaders & settlers transformed it into a desert (mostly) from which it is now recovering. History & geography inform us of all this.
I'm on record as opposing the zionism used to dispossess the Palestinians in various prior comments. I'd credit the Palestinians with returning the desert to crops & pasture if I saw evidence of them doing so but haven't noticed anyone providing such yet.
Heard of the phrase, a book to learn from, not believe in?
6.There is no evidence (not even a singular one) that natural events are caused by God to kill anyone. Not by rising sea level, nor by local rivers moving into flood plains.
There is no evidence of the death of the first born in Egypt, nor of any conquest of Canaan (and elimination of the population).
7.There is no evidence that a mans wife, or a later King committed adultery. The book only says so, after all these false claims of murder, enough to clue you up?
8.Theft, and the third cross …
9.False Witness and 3 crosses .. enough?
Judge not lest you be judged. No justice no peace, no peace no justice.
What made you assume I believed in the Bible? Hallucination must be contagious today. Nonetheless, the Bible is part of history and the historical impact of all that mythologising remains extensive. Israel's govt & their political majority base still believe the Bible gives a true account of history. That makes it a primary determinant of political behaviour in the region. Any postmodern relativising of the thing by you or I is water off a duck's back to true believers.
Then stop writing stuff like this.
As for this
Can you cite the polling?
You really don't believe that jews are descendants of Israelites?? You must be the first person in history to achieve such a feat of mental acrobatics. Pollsters are unlikely to waste money researching something that everyone knows is true, right? Since reportage has stressed that the current leader remains in power due to his fundamentalist support base continuously in recent years, dunno why you think anyone would waste money seeing if people agree with such common knowledge. Why pretend ignorance?
@Dennis
What a ridiculous statement. Your "theory" buys into the Zionist trope that because Jews don't proselytise, they remained there own pure ethnic selves. However, this is completely untrue and it is well established in academia that new racial lines were established as the Jewish religion spread to Eastern Europe precisely through proselytising.
Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to Italians than Semites so you will need to now extend your antisemite racism to include the barbarity of Italians. Perhaps you could justify this in your normal sweeping brushstrokes to the Ruthless Romans?
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/11/18/truths-facts-and-facts-on-the-ground/
And for genetic research on origins of EEJ (Eastern European Jews:
Stop with attempt at a devious crawling away – there is nothing radical about that.
You claimed to not believe the bible accounts, then labelled today's Jews descendants of killers.
This made a joke of your earlier words
As for this latest post
AI noted
Detail
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/03/08/key-findings-religion-politics-israel/
While I quote them to show how secular 50% of 81% of the population is. I'd note Pew seems to conflate those in Israel by law of return (Jewish greatgrandparent test) are Jews. Many of these people cannot marry in Israel, because they do not qualify as Jewish and thus cannot have a synagogue marriage.
Whatever.
An irrelevant aside, so you can hide from accountability for your specious narrative.
It is your black mirror.
Since when, you went further than that, to suggest that Semites have a genetic propensity to barbarism.
Would you make the same suggestion for non-Semites?
Would you make the same suggestion that Germans have a gene that makes them commit, or support genocide?
Germany committed two genocides in the 20th Century, and is now supporting a third in the 21st Century
Namibia:
Europe:
Gaza:
To understand the real causes of genocide, we must dismiss totally the anti-Semitic and supremist race theories of the Eugenicists that were used to justify the crimes of the German imperialists in Africa and Europe. And not just Germany; The same race theories have been used by every other imperialist and colonialist nation, to justify their crimes against the indigenous people's of the world.
'
The Excess of Genocide
The Tasmanian genocide (1825 – 1832) Perpetrators, British Empire
The Trail Of Tears genocide (1830 -1850) Perpetrators, United States
The Circassian genocide (1864 -1867) perpetrators, Russian Empire
The Namibian genocide (1904 – 1908) Perpetrators, German Empire
The Armenian Genocide (1915-16) Perpetrators, Ottoman Empire
The Holodomor (1932 – 1933) Perpetrators, Soviet Empire
The Holocaust (1941 -1945), Perpetrators the German (Nazi), Empire
Guatemalan genocide (1960–1996) Perpetrators United States
The Cambodian genocide (1975 – 1979) Perpetrators Khmer Rouge, supported by US, China. (and NZ)
East Timor genocide (1974 – 1999) perpetrators Indonesia
The Rwandan genocide (1994) Perpetrators Hutu extremists "enabled" by Hutu ally, France.
Uyghurs genocide (1997 – present) Perpetrators China
Syrian genocide (2011 – present) perpetrators, Assad regime supported by Russia, Iran.
Sudan genocide(s) – (2004 – present) perpetrators, two proxy factions, RSF, Sudanese Army, supported by various opposing foreign powers.
Gaza genocide (2023 – present) perpetrators, Israel, supported by US and other Western nations.
Genocide machines.
The only weapons system the US has put a block on supplying to Israel. It has to be pretty horrible for the US to put a block on it.
Jared will be disappointed.
/
Jared Kushner has praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev
The Excess of Genocide
I don't think it is clarifying at all.
Who for instance is in this broad coalition? Eugene Doyle doesn't tell us who is in this Axis that he thinks we should join. Or even who is in the Axis of genocide that we should avoid?
Who is in the Axis of Resistance?, is Iran in it? Is Syria in it? Is Russia, is China?
For their involvement in the atrocities committed in Syria by the Assad regime, if there is such a thing as an axis of genocide, Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah are all card carrying members of the Axis of Genocide.
If there is an axis of resistance, Iran is not in it. Iran helped suppress the Arab Spring, in Iran and in Syria. Iran helped Assad commit genocide against his own people.
If you don't support what the Western axis is doing in Gaza then you must support an axis of resistance with Iran.
Give me a break.
I have watched the video Eugene Doyle supplied of Seyed Marandi confronting Pierce Morgan, it is compelling and every word of it is true. I would recommend watching it. Here
But German newsreels of the 1930s exposing the grotesque crimes of the British Empire were just as compelling, and every word of that was true too.
But the message was; If you don't support British Imperialism then you must support German Imperialism
Personally I am sick and tired of this binary bullshit.
If I don't support Russian imperialism, then I must support US imperialism?
If I don't support what the Western Axis is doing in Gaza, then I must support an Axis of resistance with Iran?
Give me a break.
It is imperialism itself that is the enemy of humanity and we are all guilty of allowing it to continue. it will be the ruin of us all.
Abby Martin talks to ordinary Israeli citizens and gets their opinions of Palestinians.
Endorsement of violence, apartheid, colonisation, and ethnic cleansing. Xenophobia, prejudice, and total ignorance of history.
And a violation of their own commandments against murder, to live in peace, and the most ancient traditions of hospitality. (Yes there are other, darker ways of reading the Scripture, but those are wrong)