The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Distant, recent history and News

[Obamot]

Yes, we should put that in "Philosophy"your new oil can dispenser after jerking off (from door-busters)...

It's late, but it brings tears to my eyes (be careful not to be called "anti-myths") poof poof...

[GuyGadeboisTheBack]

(be careful not to be called "anti-myths") pouf pouf...

Well, what a crazy idea... what would such an accusation be based on? huh, huh, whoop huh ?

[GuyGadeboisTheBack]

Opinion. In Gaza, Netanyahu wants to create a “concentration camp”

The Jewish state is preparing to forcibly relocate 2 million Gazans to a restricted area of ​​the Palestinian enclave in preparation for a mass expulsion. This Israeli journalist offers a rare perspective: the goal is to “let hunger and despair do the rest.”


“One day, my son, all this will belong to you...” - “No, Dad! I want it all, right now!”


[In mid-March], right-wing journalist Yinon Magal posted the following message on X: “This time, the Israeli army plans to evacuate all residents of the Gaza Strip to a humanitarian zone that will be set up for long-term stays. […] This plan has the support of the Americans.”

That same day, Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested something similar in a video: “Residents of Gaza, this is the final warning. […] Listen to the advice of the President of the United States: release the hostages and expel Hamas, and other options will be open to you—including relocation to another country for those who wish. Otherwise, there will be total destruction and devastation.”
Also read: Maps. From corridor to corridor, the territorial fragmentation of the Gaza Strip is underway.

The conclusion is quite clear: Israel is preparing to forcibly relocate the entire population of Gaza to an isolated and possibly closed area through a combination of evacuation orders and intense bombardment.

Let's not mince words. This "humanitarian zone," as Magal kindly calls it, in which the army intends to corral Gaza's 2 million inhabitants, can be summed up in three words: concentration camp. This is not hyperbole; it is simply the most accurate definition of what awaits us.

“Voluntary departure” – an unrealistic concept
What's perverse is that this concentration camp project may reflect the Israeli leadership's realization that the "voluntary departure" of the population, which they have so vaunted, is unrealistic in the current situation. On the one hand, there are very few Gazans willing to leave, even with constant bombardments. On the other hand, no country would welcome such an influx of Palestinian refugees.

According to Dotan Halevy, a Gaza Strip specialist and co-author of Gaza: Place and Image in Israeli Space [in Hebrew, not translated into French], the concept of “voluntary departure” is based on an all-or-nothing principle.

“Let’s suppose it is decided,” Halevy tells me. “Ask Ofer Winter [the general who seemed poised to head the Defense Ministry’s ‘voluntary departure service’ at the time of our conversation] whether the evacuation of 30, 40, or even 50 percent of Gaza’s residents would be considered a success. What difference would it make to Israel if Gaza had 1,5 million Palestinians instead of 2,2 million? Would it fulfill the annexation fantasies of Bezalel Smotrich [Israeli Finance Minister] and his allies? The answer is almost certainly no.”

Halevy's book includes an essay by Omri Shafer Raviv on Israeli "plans" to "incentivize" Palestinians to emigrate from Gaza after the 1967 war. Entitled "I Dare Hope They Will Leave"—a quote from then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol—and published two years before Donald Trump announced his plan to turn Gaza into a resort city, it shows how deeply the transfer of Gaza's population is rooted in Israel's strategic thinking.

The article outlines the two-track approach that prevailed at the time: first, encouraging Gazans to move to the West Bank and, from there, to Jordan; second, finding South American countries willing to accept Palestinian refugees. While the first part achieved some success, the second completely failed.
Contain rather than disperse

This plan ultimately backfired, writes Shafer Raviv. While tens of thousands of Palestinians left Gaza for Jordan when Israel deliberately worsened living conditions in the enclave, most stayed. And the deteriorating living conditions sparked unrest and armed resistance.

Having become aware of the phenomenon, Israel decided in early 1969 to allow Gazans to work on its territory to improve their economic situation, which eased the pressure on them to emigrate.

In addition, Jordan began closing its borders, further slowing the departure of Gazans. Ironically, some of those who had settled in Jordan under the relocation plan subsequently, in March 1968, participated in the Battle of Karameh—the first direct military confrontation between Israel and the nascent Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—further dampening Israeli enthusiasm for emigration from Gaza.

Israeli security forces eventually concluded that it was better to contain the Palestinians in Gaza, where they could be monitored and controlled, rather than disperse them throughout the region.

According to Halevy, this conception guided Israeli policy until October 2023, which explains why Israel did not seek to force the Strip's residents to leave during the seventeen-year blockade. Indeed, until the beginning of the war, leaving Gaza was extremely expensive and difficult. The process was only accessible to those with wealth and connections who were able to contact foreign embassies in Jerusalem or Cairo to obtain a visa.

From contention to annexation
Israel appears to have completely changed its approach to Gaza: from containment and external control to total control, expulsion, and annexation.

In his essay, Shafer Raviv recounts a 2005 interview with General Shlomo Gazit, the architect of the post-1967 occupation policy and the first Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat). When asked about the expulsion plan he himself had helped formulate forty years earlier, he replied: “Anyone who mentions this possibility should be hanged.” Twenty years later, with the current right-wing government in power, one gets the impression that anyone who does not mention the “voluntary departure” of Gaza’s residents should be hanged.

Yet, despite this dramatic shift in strategy, Israel remains firmly trapped by its policy. For “voluntary departure” to work sufficiently to allow annexation and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in the enclave, at least 70 percent of the population would have to leave—more than 1,5 million people. This is a completely unrealistic goal given the current political situation in Gaza and the Arab world.

Moreover, as Halevy notes, the very act of debating this proposal could once again raise the question of freedom of entry and exit from Gaza. After all, if departure is “voluntary,” Israel should, in theory, guarantee that those who leave can also return.

An article published on the Israeli news website Mako [in late March] describes a pilot program that allows 100 Gazans to leave the enclave to work in construction in Indonesia. However, “under international law, anyone leaving Gaza to work must be allowed to return,” the article emphasizes.

Whether Smotrich, Katz, and [Eyal] Zamir [the new IDF chief of staff] have read Halevy and Shafer Raviv's articles or not, they probably know that the "voluntary departure" plan is not immediately feasible. However, if they truly believe that the solution to the "Gaza problem"—or to the Palestinian question in general—is to have no Palestinians left in Gaza, it certainly cannot be done all at once.

In other words, their idea seems to be this: first, confine the population to one or more closed enclaves and then let hunger, despair, and a lack of prospects do the rest. Those trapped inside will see that Gaza has been completely destroyed, their homes razed, and that they have neither present nor future in the Gaza Strip. At that point, they will be pressured to emigrate, and the Arab countries will be forced to accept them.

Significant obstacles
It remains to be seen whether the army—or even the government—is prepared to follow through with such a plan. It would almost certainly result in the deaths of all the hostages, which would have serious political repercussions in the country. Moreover, it would face fierce opposition from Hamas, which has not lost its military capabilities and could inflict heavy losses on the Israeli army, as was the case in northern Gaza until the days before the ceasefire.

Add to these obstacles the depletion of Israeli reservists and the “silent” or public refusal to serve in the army, a phenomenon that is causing growing concern and that civil unrest caused by the government’s aggressive attempts to weaken the judiciary will only amplify.

Let's also mention the firm opposition (at least for the time being) of Egypt and Jordan, which could go so far as to suspend or cancel their peace agreements with Israel. Finally, there is the unpredictable character of Donald Trump, who one day threatens to "open the gates of hell" on Hamas, and the next day sends delegates to negotiate directly with it and calls its members "super nice guys."

For now, the Israeli army continues to bombard Gaza and seize territory around its perimeter. The stated objective of this offensive is to pressure Hamas to extend Phase 1 of the agreement, that is, the release of the hostages without Israel committing to ending the war.

Hamas, aware of Israel's strategic limitations, refuses to change its position: any hostage agreement must be linked to the end of the war. At the same time, Zamir, who may genuinely fear that he no longer has enough troops to conquer Gaza, remains remarkably discreet and avoids any substantive statements about the army's intentions.

Meron Rapoport

https://www.courrierinternational.com/a ... ion_229699
The original article: https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-conc ... expulsion/

[Obamot]

It's so good to have more of these.”who think for you" ………………….. Finally

[GuyGadeboisTheBack]

Famine, I love you?

Images of the emaciated little faces of Gaza's children have become Israel's guilty conscience. But not to the point of troubling the Netanyahu government, which, by banning all humanitarian aid for the past two months, is pushing the children into the mass grave. Nor Hamas, which is using the massacre to fuel its propaganda.


Gaza cries out for famine
© Patrick Chappatte

"When you see a child with eyes sunken with fear and grief, and you think that the real injustice is that they attract the spotlight, what does that say about a society?" asks the left-wing daily Haaretz. The emaciated faces of Gaza's malnourished children have become Israel's guilty conscience. Should they be ignored on the grounds that they serve Hamas propaganda?

Since March 2, the IDF has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip. "The ban on humanitarian aid is pushing civilians to the brink," the United Nations has been declaring for several weeks. Gaza has become "a mass grave for Palestinians and those who come to their aid," added Doctors Without Borders. With pure cynicism, Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, admitted on April 16 that "the obstruction of humanitarian aid [was] a means of achieving the military objective" of the Jewish state. Starving the population, women and children first, in order to reduce Hamas, is totally "unacceptable," European countries are shouting in unison, but their protests, no more than the prosecutions by the International Criminal Court, do nothing to change the determination of the far-right government in power in Jerusalem.

The return of the occupation
Better still, Netanyahu announced on May 5 that the Palestinians in the enclave would be "displaced" to clear the way for the Israeli occupation army. The "conquest" of the Gaza Strip has begun, a prelude to the advent of the "Riviera" desired by Trump, who will visit the Middle East from May 13 to 16.

To hide the famine, which is attracting the "spotlight" despite the media ban in the enclave, the IDF is prepared to distribute aid to Gazans in centers it allegedly controls. The UN rejects this plan, denouncing "a military strategy" that "violates fundamental humanitarian principles." The famine will therefore have to wait (10 children are suffering from severe malnutrition, according to UNICEF). So will the Israeli hostages.

"The government admits that it is choosing territory over hostages, contrary to the wishes of more than 70% of the population," the families protested. They know that the massacre and famine will long fuel an inexhaustible hatred between the communities, synonymous with endless war.
Jean-Michel Thénard

https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/interna ... -vous-aime