Het is mij wederom een Eer, opnieuw een belangrijk stuk van oud ambassadeur en Palestina activist drs J. J. Wijenberg op mijn website te plaatsen.
Deze keer een artikel over de Vraag, of Iran werkelijk wel een dreiging
voor Israel is, zoals vaak wordt beweerd.’
Hierop heeft de heer Wijenberg, zoals we van hem gewend zijn, een
zeer verhelderende Kijk, die ik volledig kan wisselen
Zie ook onder het artikel meer informatie over de heer Wijenberg
ASTRID ESSED
HET ARTIKEL VAN OUD AMBASSADEUR DE HEER WIJENBERG:
IRAN, EEN EXISTENTIELE DREIGING VOOR ISRAEL?
Iran, een ‘existentiële dreiging’ voor Israël?
Het helikopterincident van 19 mei 2024 lijkt een noodlottig ongeval. Gelukkig maar. Maar
toch, is Iran werkelijk een ‘existentiële dreiging’ voor Israël?
De Verenigde Staten, samen met het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Israël, en dus ook met volgzaam
Nederland, kunnen het sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog slecht met Iran vinden.
In het overigens lezenswaardige artikel “Saoedische omhelzing voor Ahmadinejad” schreef
Carolien Roelants op 5 maart 2007 in de NRC:
”de president die Israël van de Midden-Oosterse kaart geveegd wil zien”
Wat beweerde de Iraanse president Ahmadinejad op 25 oktober 2005 in werkelijkheid?
De
Iraniër Arash Norouzi, hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Teheran: de Iraanse President zei
dat het ‘zionistische regime’ door het Westen aan de Islamitische wereld werd opgelegd als
een strategisch bruggenhoofd om de dominantie van de regio en haar rijkdommen zeker te
stellen.
Hij benadrukte dat Palestina de frontlinie in de strijd van de Islamitische wereld met de
Amerikaanse hegemonie vormt. De uitkomst daarvan zal gevolgen hebben voor het gehele
Midden-Oosten.
De eliminering van die krachtige greep op de regio via de zionisten lijkt onvoorstelbaar. Ahmadinejad herinnerde zijn toehoorders echter aan de ineenstorting van ogenschijnlijk sterke regimes en noemde drie voorbeelden: de sjah, de Sovjet Unie en het Zuid-Afrikaanse apartheidsbewind. In die context herhaalde de president de onvervulde wens van Khomeini:
”Iman ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.”
De Imam zei dat dit regime, dat Jeruzalem bezet houdt, moet verdwijnen van de bladzijde van de tijd.
‘Bibi’ Netanyahu heeft steeds nuttige vijanden nodig.
Driekwart eeuw gehersenspoelde, extreem angstige, extreem agressieve Joodse Israëliërs moeten bij de les gehouden worden. Iran is het perfecte slachtoffer.
De gewraakte passage ‘Israël van de kaart vegen’ komt in Ahmadinejad’s uitspraak niet voor.
Het woord ‘naghshe’ (kaart) is in het citaat niet terug te vinden.
Suggesties van een actieve Iraanse rol daarbij zijn niet aanwezig. De president citeerde de overleden Imam Khomeini: in Jeruzalem is ‘regime change’ nodig, aldus Prof. Arash Norouzi.
Het Israëlische regime beschikt over alle ingrediënten voor zelfimplosie.
Ahmadinejads veronderstelling dat de Verenigde Staten via Israël de regio willen domineren werd onmiddellijk bewaarheid.
Beide regeringen vervalsten zijn uitspraak. Meer en meer is deze valse bewering onderdeel van de westerse oorlogsretoriek.
Iran heeft, zoals alle VN-lidstaten, op grond van het Handvest, art. 51, het recht op zelfverdediging.
Wanneer de dreiging ook massavernietigingswapens omvat, zoals uit Israël en wellicht de VS, dient een verantwoordelijk handelende overheid daar geloofwaardige, ook nucleaire, tegenmaatregelen voor te treffen.
Een te beantwoorden vraag: wie in het Midden-Oosten is ‘de agressor’?
De Islamitische Republiek Iran is, evenmin als Israël, een heilstaat, maar ‘de’ agressor?
men ook van het Iraanse regime denken mag, het komt niet als verstandig voor om Nederland – na de soevereine staat Palestina – met ondeugdelijke argumentatie mee te slepen in een tweede riskant Israëlisch militair avontuur, nu tegen Iran.
Wie is “de” agressor? Na 7 oktober 2023 luid en duidelijk: het politiek-zionistisch Israëlische regime. Het geopolitieke machtsvoordeel ontslipt het westen voortvarend. Zie de stemverhoudingen op 10 mei jl. in de VN-Algemene Vergadering (AVVN).
Van de 193 stemgerechtigde leden stemden 143 voor versterking van de positie van waarnemer Palestina in de AVVN.
Nog 9 (negen) lidstaten steunen Israël: Argentinië, Tsjechië, Hongarije, Israël (!), Micronesië, Nauru, Palau, Papua Nieuw Guinea, de VS.
Nederland – recordhouder liefhebber gemengde politieke drop – onthield zich met 24 andere VN-lidstaten van stemmen. [En dan is de coalitie-in-wording nog niet eens aangetreden.]
Er waren 16 ‘no-shows’. Israël zou onze steun wellicht op termijn waard kunnen zijn, maar het politiek-zionistische regime zeker niet. regime zeker niet.
Iran moet van de EU sancties lijst af. Nú.
Jan Wijenberg Den Haag
AANVULLENDE INFORMATIE OVER DE HEER WIJENBERG
WIKIPEDIA
JAN WIJENBERG
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Wijenberg
ZIE OOK OP WEBSITE ASTRID ESSED
https://www.astridessed.nl/?s=Wijenberg
EN ZIE HIER EEN ARTIKEL OVER DE HEER WIJENBERG:
THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
FORMER DUTCH AMBASSADOR CALLS FOR SANCTIONS
IF ISRAEL REFUSES TO COMPLY WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW
Some weeks ago I heard Jan Wijenberg, a retired Dutch Ambassador, speak about what the International Community could do to break with its complicity to the ongoing violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli regime. Wijenberg served over a decade as an ambassador for the Dutch government in Jemen, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. He regularly writes to Dutch ministers and politicians to remind them of the responsibility of the international community, and specifically of the Dutch Government and the European Union, to hold Israel accountable to international law. His views are expressed in this article.
Israel is the problem
Quite often is spoken about the conflict in the Middle East between the Palestinians and Israel. If we look at the situation more closely we can observe something different. The media in Israel provide a platform for unpunished, insane calls for murdering peoples and a nation. An example is offered by Professor Arnon Sofer talking about Palestinians living in closed-off Gaza, “…those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam… So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill we will cease to exist…..”1
In 2005 Ehud Barak stated on Dutch television2 that – in a secret and illegal retaliatory campaign against the Palestinian hostage takers at the Munich Olympic Winter Games – he personally had murdered thirteen innocent citizens. According to Barak this would teach the world not to fool around with Israel. Barak was and is not prosecuted for premeditated murder and could achieve the position of the country’s prime minister.
Among the settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are opportunists and extremely violent Israeli’s who aim to occupy East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Palestinians must be driven out of these territories by all means possible, including murder. The government of Israel supports the settlers in full while they lay there hands on Palestinian property and act out their violence on Palestinians.
The annexation of East Jerusalem by Ehud Olmert while he was the mayor of West-Jerusalem can according to the Fourth Geneva Convention be interpreted as a war crime. After the last elections in Israel Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party won the vote and he is now the Prime Minister of Israel.
Israeli policies are driven by the Zionist ideal of creating a Jewish state, including the Palestinian territories. Israel is aiming systematically at destroying the identity of the Palestinian people. The so called “conflict in the Middle East” between Palestinians and Israel does not exist. Zionist Israel is the problem.
Rogue state
Israel is the world’s sole remaining occupying colonial power. It systematically sabotages all international efforts to end the occupation. In its capacity of occupying power Israel violates numerous obligations emanating from Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. It also breaches the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The USA applies a doctrine and the US-administration labels selected countries as ‘Rogue states’. These countries possess weapons of mass destruction illegally, suppress large populations, torture, keep people in detention on a large scale and commit murder outside their national borders. Israel has adopted as a strategy the execution of land and water grabs, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure (including in education and health), the carrying out of extraterritorial executions, torture, and collective punishments and keeping thousands of Palestinians imprisoned indefinitely without charge or prosecution. On the basis of the definition by the USA, Israel has ever since its establishment been a monumental Rogue state and a highly active member of the Axis of Evil.
Letter to Dutch ministers
In February Wijenberg wrote to the ministers Bot, van Ardenne-van der Hoeven and Nicolaï, ministers of Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and State Secretary of European Affairs respectively. He reminded them that according to article 90 of the Dutch Constitution “The government nurtures the development of the international order of law”. So many previous Dutch governments violated this article when it concerns the Middle East. With referral to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004 Wijenberg calls upon the Dutch ministers to show the world that they are serious about international law, justice and democracy. A copy of the letter was sent to the prime minister Balkenende and the minister of Justice Donner. In his view the United States and the European Union – including the Netherlands – have for too long condoned Israels disrespect for international law.
In its response the ministry of Foreign Affairs replies that the Dutch government is actively engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Israel. Wijenberg questions this policy. “”Since when do we politely ask notorious violaters of international law to stop their daily terrorisation of the Palestinian civilians, with assassinations in broad daylight and theft of property, houses, land and water? Why aren’t the harshest peaceful means used to fight this?”
Cal for sanctions
In the view of Wijenberg the European Union and the Netherlands have become an instrument of Israels foreign policy by ignoring its own core values values and respect for international law and human rights. Europe can play a key role in achieving lasting peace for Israel and its neighbours. If Israel refuses to show respect for international law, heavy sanctions against Israel should be installed.
Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant and human rights advocate from the Netherlands.
Endnotes
[1] The Jerusalem Post, Up Front weekend supplement (21 May 2004)
[2] NOVA (15 December 2005)
END OF THE ARTICLE
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Artikel van oud ambassadeur drs J.J. Wijenberg/Iran, een existentiele dreiging voor Israel?
Since Yahya Sinwar, his close aides and Hamas militants have never been
found in Gaza City and then not in Khan Yunis, the Israeli army is
considering expanding its ground operation into the southern Gaza city of
Rafah.
The army is doing so because it assumes that Sinwar and his aids
are hiding in the tunnels underneath this southern region of the Gaza Strip,
presumably holding on to the Israeli hostages who are still alive.
Most of the Gaza Strip residents, some 1.4 million people, are concentrated
in Rafah.
Tens of thousands are still fleeing into the city from Khan Yunis,
where the fighting continues. The thought that Israel will invade Rafah and
that fighting will take place between and near civilians terrifies the city's
residents and the internally displaced persons.
The terror they feel is
augmented by the conclusion that nobody can prevent Israel from carrying
out its intention – not even the ICJ ruling that orders Israel to take all
measures to avoid acts of genocide.
Military correspondents in Israel report and assume that the army intends to
order residents of Rafah to move to a safe area. Since the war started, the
army has been waving around this evacuation or
der as evidence that it is
acting in order to prevent any harm to ”uninvolved civilians”
This safe zone, however, which was bombarded and still is bombarded by
Israel, is gradually shrinking.
The only safe zone that truly remains, and
which the IDF is now designating for the masses of people in Rafah, is Al-
Mawasi – a southern Gaza coastal area of approximately 16 square
kilometers (about 6 square miles).
It’s still unclear by what verbal measures the IDF and its legal experts
intend to reconcile this squeezing of so many civilians with the orders
given by the ICJ.
PAGE 3
”The humanitarian zone designated by the army is around the size of Ben-
Gurion International Airport (about 6.3 square miles)” concluded Haaretz
journalists Yarden Michaeli and Avi Scharf in their report earlier this week.
The report, titled "Gazans Fled Their Homes.
They Have Nowhere to
Return to”, revealed the vast devastation across the Gaza Strip as captured
in Satellite images.
The comparison with Ben-Gurion International Airport invites one to imagine
a density beyond anything imaginable, but Israeli TV commentators don't go
much further beyond the deep insight that the ground invasion of Rafah will
indeed, ”won’t be that simple.”
Although it’s difficult, we must imagine what awaits the Palestinians in
Rafah if the army’;s plan is carried out.
We must do so not so much as of humanist and moral considerations, which after October 7 aren’t that relevant to the majority of the Israeli-Jewish public, but because of the military, humanitarian, and -eventually- legal and political entanglementsthat are surely expected if we go down that road. The compression
Even if ”only” about a million Palestinians will flee for the third and fourth
time into Al-Mawasi – an area which is already full of displaced Gazans –
the density will be about 62,500 people per square kilometer (about
157,000 people per square mile).
This will happen in an open area with no skyscrapers to house the
refugees, that has no running water, no privacy, no means of living, no
hospitals or medical clinics, no solar panels to charge phones, and all while
aid organizations will have to cross through or near battle zones in order to
distribute the small amounts of food that do enter the Gaza Strip.
It seems that the only position in which this narrow area could
accommodate everyone would be if they're all standing or kneeling.
Perhaps it’ll be necessary to form special committees that will determine
sleeping arrangements in shifts: a few thousand would lie down while the
rest continue to stand awake.
The buzzing of the drones above and below,
the cries of babies born during the war and whose mothers have no milk or
not enough of it – these will be the unnerving soundtrack.
From what we saw during the IDF’s ground raids and the battles in Gaza
City and Khan Yunis, it’s clear, that the ground operation in Rafah if it
PAGE 4
eventually unfolds, will last many weeks. Does Israel believe that the ICJ
will consider the compression of hundreds of thousands or a million
Palestinians on a small piece of land a proper ”measure”; that prevents
genocide?
About 270 thousand Palestinians lived in the Rafah district before the war.
The one-and-a-half million who are currently staying there suffer from
hunger and malnutrition; they suffer from thirst, cold, diseases and
spreading infections, from lice in their hair and skin rash; they suffer from
physical and mental exhaustion and a chronic lack of sleep.
They crowd in
schools, hospitals and mosques, in tent neighborhoods that have sprung up
in and around Rafah, and in apartments that house dozens of displaced
families.
Tens of thousands of them are wounded, including those whose limbs were
amputated due to the army's attacks or surgeries that followed. They all
have relatives and friends – children, babies and elderly parents – who
have been killed in the past four months.
The houses of most of them were destroyed or badly damaged. All their
possessions are lost.
Their money has run out due to the high and
exorbitant food prices.
Many escaped death only by chance, and witnessed
the dreadful sights of dead bodies. They don’;t mourn the dead yet because
the trauma continues.
Along with displays of support and solidarity, disputes
and fights also occur. Some lose their memory and sanity from all the
suffering.
As it has done in other areas in the strip, to maintain the element of
surprise, the IDF will issue a warning about two hours before a ground
invasion into Rafah. This will give the residents a time window of a few
hours that day to evacuate the city.
Imagine this convoy of refugees and the mass panic of people fleeing
toward Al-Mawasi in the west. Think of the elders, the sick, the disabled and
the wounded who will be ”lucky” to be transported in donkey carts or
makeshift wheelbarrows and in cars that run on cooking oil.
All the others – both sick and healthy – will have to leave on foot. They’;ll
probably have to leave behind the little that they’ve managed to collect and
take with them in previous displacements, like blankets and plastic sheets
for shelter, warm clothes, some food and basic items such as small
cookers.
This forced escape march will probably go through the ruins of some of the
buildings that Israel bombed not long ago, or the craters created on the
PAGE 5
road due to the attacks. The whole convoy will then stand still until a detour
is found. Someone is bound to trip; a cartwheel will get stuck in the mud.
And all of them – hungry and thirsty, frightened by the imminent attack or
the expected tank shelling – will continue going forward. Children will cry
and get lost. People will feel bad.
Medical teams will struggle to reach
whoever needs care.
Only 4 kilometers (about 2.4 miles) separate Rafah from Al-Mawasi, but it’;ll
require several hours to cross.
The people marching will be cut off from any
communication, if only because of the packed convoy and the
overcrowding. They’;ll fight over the area where they wish to set up a tent.
They’ll fight over who gets to be closest to a building or a water well.
They’;ll
faint due to thirst and hunger.
The following image will repeat itself several times over the next few days:
A march of starving and frightened Palestinians starts fleeing in panic each
time the IDF announces another area whose residents are supposed to
evacuate, while the tanks and infantry troops advance toward them.
The
shelling and ground troops will get closer to the hospitals that are still
functioning. Tanks will surround them, and all the patients and medical
teams will be required to evacuate to the crowded Al-Mawasi area.
The ground operation
It’;s hard to know how many of them will decide not to leave.
As we learned
from what happened in the northern Gaza districts and Khan Yunis, a
significant number of residents prefer to stay in an area that is destined for
a ground operation.
Among them will be tens of thousands of displaced,
sick and seriously wounded Gazans who are hospitalized, pregnant women
and others who will decide to stay in their own homes and the homes of
their relatives or in schools turned into shelters.
The little information they
will get from the concentration area of Al-Mawasi is enough to discourage
them from joining.
IDF soldiers and commanders, however, interpret the evacuation order
differently: anyone who remains in an area designated for ground invasion
isn’t considered an innocent civilian; they aren’;t considered ”uninvolved”
Anyone who stays in their homes and goes out to fetch water from a city
facility that is still operating or from some private well, medical teams called
to treat a patient, a pregnant woman walking to a nearby hospital to give
birth – all of them, as we saw during the war and in past military campaigns,
are criminalized in the eyes of the soldiers.
Shooting and killing them
follows the IDF’s rules of engagement.
PAGE 6
According to the army, such shootings are carried out in accordance with
international law because these individuals were warned that they must
leave.
Even when soldiers break into houses during the fighting, Gazans,
mainly men, are at risk of death from gunfire.
A soldier shooting someone
because they felt threatened or followed an order – it doesn’t matter. It
happened in Gaza City, and it might happen in Rafah.
Just as the aid teams aren’t authorized or are unable to reach the northern
Gaza Strip to distribute food, they won’t be able to distribute it in the fighting
areas in Rafah.
The little food that the residents managed to save will
gradually run out.
Those who remain in their homes will be forced to choose the lesser of two
evils: either they go out and risk Israeli fire or starve at home.
Most of them
already suffer from a severe lack of nutrients. In many families, adults are
giving up food so that their children can be fed. There’s a real danger that
many will starve to death while in their home as the fighting rages outside.
The bombings
Since the war started, the army bombarded residential buildings, open
areas and passenger cars in every location it had defined as ”safe” (that its
residents weren’;t required to leave). It doesn’t matter if the attacks target
Hamas facilities, the group’s officials or other members who were staying
with their families or have come out of hiding to visit them – civilians are
almost always killed.
The bombings didn’t stop in Rafah either. Overnight into Thursday, two
houses were bombed in the western Rafah neighborhood of Tel al-Sultan.
According to Palestinian sources, 14 people were killed, including five
children.
The sources also said that a mother and daughter were killed in an Israeli
attack on a house in northern Rafah on February 7 and that a journalist was
killed together with his mother and sister in western Rafah the day before.
Also on February 6, the sources added, six Palestinian police officers were
killed in an Israeli attack while they were securing an aid truck in eastern
Rafah.
These attacks indicate that the so-called collateral damage calculations
approved by IDF legal experts and the State Prosecutor’s Office are
extremely permissive. The number of uninvolved Palestinians that it is
”permitted”; to kill in return for hitting an army’s target is higher than in any
previous war.
PAGE 7
People in Rafah are afraid that the IDF will apply these permissive criteria
also in Al-Mawasi, and attack there as well if a target is in the area, among
the hundreds of thousands who take shelter. This is how an announced
safe haven will become a death trap for hundreds of thousands.
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Amira Hass/”If the Israeli army invades Rafah, what will be of more than 1.5 million Palestinians, who take shelter there?
Half a dozen years ago I sat in the lobby lounge at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan talking at length with Richard Falk, the scholar, lawyer, U.N. rapporteur, and advocate of Palestinian rights. Inevitably, the conversation turned for a time to international law, a topic on which Falk has long been a recognized authority. Here is a little of what he said as we took our afternoon tea:
When international law is on the side of the geopolitical actors, then they are very serious about its relevance. When the American embassy was seized in Tehran after the Iranian Revolution, they talked about the flouting of international law as if that was the most sacred body of law that ever existed. International law is used very instrumentally. If you’re protecting private investment in Venezuela or Chile, then it’s barbaric not to uphold it. But if it’s blocking the pursuit of some kind of interventionist project, then it’s flaky or irrelevant to talk about it …
I thought about that exchange over the weekend, as I considered the International Court of Justice’s ruling last Friday that the apartheid state of Israel may be guilty of genocide against Gaza’s Palestinian population, as South Africa charges, and that the case Pretoria brought last month must proceed. Later Friday, the estimable Phyllis Bennis quoted Falk in a piece she wrote for In These Times. Falk called the decision the court’s “greatest moment,” and went on to explain, “It strengthens the claims of international law to be respected by all sovereign states—not just some.”
Consistency of thought: It does not get more admirable than this.
There are many, many ways to look upon the ICJ’s ruling, many things worth saying. The very first of these is that the significance of the ICJ’s interim finding lies beyond dispute. Will the barbarities of a nation self-evidently suffering a collective psychosis now stop? No. What Dick Falk said six years ago still holds: Israel has already made clear it will ignore The Hague’s judgment.
But what “the Jewish state” does this week or next is not for the moment our question. What are the enduring consequences of this ruling for the global order? How shall we situate the court’s judgment? Where does its importance lie? These are our questions. And Falk was right last Friday, too: The ICJ has begun the work—the long work—of restoring international law as a foundational feature of a world order worthy of the term.
Having made this point, I must immediately note the abject deflections we find in the reports of our corporate media—which, nearly to a one, urge their readers, listeners, and viewers to dismiss the ICJ’s interim finding as, borrowing from Falk, more or less flaky and irrelevant. In the second paragraph of its main story Friday, The New York Times, fairly bursting to get the point across, wrote, “The court did not rule on whether Israel was committing genocide, and it did not call on Israel to stop its campaign to crush Hamas…”
Three untruths here, straight off the top. One, the South Africans did not ask The Hague to issue a ruling on genocide one way or the other. In the cause of expedience, to stop the savagery as quickly as possible, it asked for what it got—a swift interim judgment so the court could order Israel to stop the violence and that the larger case on genocide could proceed.
Two, a mountain has been made of the fact that the ICJ did not, in so many words, call upon Israel to cease fire in Gaza. This is preposterously misleading. Peruse the six stipulations that comprise the ruling, the first of which reads, “Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent all acts within the scope of Genocide Convention, Article 2.” Here I defer to Raz Segal, an Israeli historian who professes at Stockton University in New Jersey. This is from a segment of Democracy Now!, distributed last Friday:
We’re already seeing headlines in The New York Times today which frame this as, “The court did not issue an order for a ceasefire”—which, in effect, it actually did, because if it ordered that Israel should cease from genocidal acts, and it ordered Israel should facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, it actually said, “You have to cease fire because there is no [other] way of doing that.”
And three, what Israel is doing in Gaza—as any review of the daily death toll will make clear, any five minutes of video footage—can be characterized as “a military campaign to crush Hamas” only by those so abjectly committed to defending Israeli atrocities that all thought of honest reporting and writing is cast aside.
Almost all major media have followed The Times’s lead, per usual. Among the exceptions—and I confess my surprise here—is National Public Radio. It got the no-ceasefire bit wrong, but it otherwise published a quite good, balanced report from London that included worthy material from its South Africa correspondent (unless NPR took this off the wires):
Since former President Nelson Mandela’s administration, South Africa has long supported the Palestinian cause, saying it sees echoes of apartheid in the situation between the Israelis and Palestinians.
“We, as South Africans, will not be passive bystanders and watch the crimes that were visited upon us being perpetrated elsewhere,” [South African President Cyril] Ramaphosa said Friday. He noted the ICJ affirmed South Africa’s right to take Israel to court, “even though it is not a party to the conflict in Gaza.”
But exceptions prove rules, let us not forget. For the sheer nonsense of its reporting, I have to single out—the envelope, please—the reliably egregious MSNBC. You may want to take a moment to read this twice. In its Friday evening newscast, it had it that the ICJ ruling is nicely aligned with the Biden regime’s calls to minimize civilian casualties. Further, we need to know what The Hague’s finding is not and what it does not do: It is not any kind of indictment of the Biden regime’s policy, no, and it does not make Biden and the U.S. complicit in genocide.
It is and it does, in my view.
The running theme in American media is that The Hague’s judgment has changed nothing. Who can be surprised? Nothing ever changes when these media are telling us about the world. America is never wrong. America never makes a mistake. America is never on the wrong side. America is always good. America never loses.
Let us now consider what enormous changes occurred when Joan Donoghue, an American judge who currently presides at The Hague, read out the ruling.
■
As the Israeli military and propaganda machines reached full throttle late last autumn, a friend sent me a video link to a film called Defamation, made in 2009 by an Israeli documentarian named Yoav Shamir. It is a strangely lighthearted but thoroughly serious treatment of how Israel drills into its people, youth and adults alike, the thought that the world, all of it, rages with anti–Semitism, that they are destined to be hated, that they must remain a people apart. My friend urged me to watch it amid the circus-like charges of anti–Semitism everywhere just then overtaking America. I found the film sad—as I do the cynical manipulation of history and memory by people who seem to think nothing of pimping their own past and the suffering of the six million.
I watched Defamation again over the weekend. Here I transcribe a brief passage that features one Suzanne Prince and her husband, Harvey, who are active in the Los Angeles office of the American Defamation League. Shamir, who speaks from behind his camera, has asked them why the ADL makes incessant references to events that occurred many decades in the past:
S.P. To combat it [anti–Semitism] effectively you have to take responsibility for everything that happened in the past, then reach the present, and then go forward….
Y.S. Sometimes you need to give some slack to get what you want.
S.P. No, no, absolutely not…. I bring up everything from the past…. We need to play on that guilt.
Y.S. Maybe the guilt trip we are giving them doesn’t help. Maybe we should give them some slack.
H.P. Moderate.
S.P. The guilt of the father should not be visited upon the sons, true….
H.P. You cannot let it go down, but you can’t keep playing on it as heavily as some people do. You have to be moderate.
This dialogue is now 15 years in the past. Until last Friday I would have said it is likely we are in for at least another 15 years of this kind of thing. We may be: The Israelis have already begun to sound the anti–Semitism bell in response to the ICJ decision. Over the weekend they accused a dozen U.N. employees—of 13,000 in Gaza—of collaborating with Hamas on October 7. I will believe this when I see evidence of it—evidence other than what the Israelis claim is evidence. The Zionist propaganda machine is now exposed. There is no air left in the tires of the Suzanne and Harvey Princes among us. At long last, the disgraceful decades of guilt-tripping is up and one can say so publicly. The Holocaust card, to put the point another way, is at last played out.
Let us not miss the significance of this moment. As others have noted, 75 years of Israeli impunity will now draw to a close. Israel’s crimes can now be called Israel’s crimes. Contempt for the Zionist state can now be legitimately expressed. I describe as best I can a change of consciousness, or of the rules of discourse, or both. All the rubbish condemning criticism of Israel as anti–Semitic can now be discarded for what it is. The ICJ, in the six stipulations it imposes on Israel, requires Tel Aviv to report to the court in one month of its efforts to “prevent genocide.” This is subtle, and very astute. It imposes a higher authority on the Israelis. It tells them, “You are answerable now to something other than yourselves (and, of course, the United States). You are answerable to the community of nations.”
There are many things that are for the moment unclear. If Israel ignores the court, as seems likely, and the U.N. Security Council convenes in response, what will the
Biden regime do? Veto a disciplinary resolution? Abstain? To what extent will Israel be isolated? And to what extent the U.S. with it? What about the Europeans? Will they act with some measure of autonomy in response to The Hague’s judgment? Cut off arms sales, scholarly and cultural exchanges? There are too many such questions to list.
However such eventualities turn out, there are larger matters we must not miss. International law, as Richard Falk noted well, stands to count more now, even if the Israelis transgress it for the umpteenth time. Equally, or maybe this is a yet larger point, it is highly significant that it was South Africa that precipitated last week’s events. The South Africans have emerged over the past year or so, maybe a little more, as committed advocates of a new world order I will call post–Western. They have an enlarging identity as a non–Western power.
We must all stand with the Palestinians, yes, however each of us is able to make this manifest. But we cannot isolate the ICJ’s ruling as a remedy for one incidence of genocide or one case of the aggression of Western power against the non–West. What happened last Friday in The Hague is best understood as a step, a big one, to ending half a millennium of genocides and violence.
The non–West has spoken, it has raised its voice. And it will have ever more to say from here on out.
END OF THE ARTICLE
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Patrick Lawrence/”Israel’s place in Global Public Space/The Zionist State, like the US, can’t survive in it”
Some weeks ago I heard Jan Wijenberg, a retired Dutch Ambassador, speak about what the International Community could do to break with its complicity to the ongoing violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli regime. Wijenberg served over a decade as an ambassador for the Dutch government in Jemen, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. He regularly writes to Dutch ministers and politicians to remind them of the responsibility of the international community, and specifically of the Dutch Government and the European Union, to hold Israel accountable to international law. His views are expressed in this article.
Israel is the problem
Quite often is spoken about the conflict in the Middle East between the Palestinians and Israel. If we look at the situation more closely we can observe something different. The media in Israel provide a platform for unpunished, insane calls for murdering peoples and a nation. An example is offered by Professor Arnon Sofer talking about Palestinians living in closed-off Gaza, “…those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam… So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill we will cease to exist…..”1
In 2005 Ehud Barak stated on Dutch television2 that – in a secret and illegal retaliatory campaign against the Palestinian hostage takers at the Munich Olympic Winter Games – he personally had murdered thirteen innocent citizens. According to Barak this would teach the world not to fool around with Israel. Barak was and is not prosecuted for premeditated murder and could achieve the position of the country’s prime minister.
Among the settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are opportunists and extremely violent Israeli’s who aim to occupy East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Palestinians must be driven out of these territories by all means possible, including murder. The government of Israel supports the settlers in full while they lay there hands on Palestinian property and act out their violence on Palestinians.
The annexation of East Jerusalem by Ehud Olmert while he was the mayor of West-Jerusalem can according to the Fourth Geneva Convention be interpreted as a war crime. After the last elections in Israel Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party won the vote and he is now the Prime Minister of Israel.
Israeli policies are driven by the Zionist ideal of creating a Jewish state, including the Palestinian territories. Israel is aiming systematically at destroying the identity of the Palestinian people. The so called “conflict in the Middle East” between Palestinians and Israel does not exist. Zionist Israel is the problem.
Rogue state
Israel is the world’s sole remaining occupying colonial power. It systematically sabotages all international efforts to end the occupation. In its capacity of occupying power Israel violates numerous obligations emanating from Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. It also breaches the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The USA applies a doctrine and the US-administration labels selected countries as ‘Rogue states’. These countries possess weapons of mass destruction illegally, suppress large populations, torture, keep people in detention on a large scale and commit murder outside their national borders. Israel has adopted as a strategy the execution of land and water grabs, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure (including in education and health), the carrying out of extraterritorial executions, torture, and collective punishments and keeping thousands of Palestinians imprisoned indefinitely without charge or prosecution. On the basis of the definition by the USA, Israel has ever since its establishment been a monumental Rogue state and a highly active member of the Axis of Evil.
Letter to Dutch ministers
In February Wijenberg wrote to the ministers Bot, van Ardenne-van der Hoeven and Nicolaï, ministers of Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and State Secretary of European Affairs respectively. He reminded them that according to article 90 of the Dutch Constitution “The government nurtures the development of the international order of law”. So many previous Dutch governments violated this article when it concerns the Middle East. With referral to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004 Wijenberg calls upon the Dutch ministers to show the world that they are serious about international law, justice and democracy. A copy of the letter was sent to the prime minister Balkenende and the minister of Justice Donner. In his view the United States and the European Union – including the Netherlands – have for too long condoned Israels disrespect for international law.
In its response the ministry of Foreign Affairs replies that the Dutch government is actively engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Israel. Wijenberg questions this policy. “”Since when do we politely ask notorious violaters of international law to stop their daily terrorisation of the Palestinian civilians, with assassinations in broad daylight and theft of property, houses, land and water? Why aren’t the harshest peaceful means used to fight this?”
Cal for sanctions
In the view of Wijenberg the European Union and the Netherlands have become an instrument of Israels foreign policy by ignoring its own core values values and respect for international law and human rights. Europe can play a key role in achieving lasting peace for Israel and its neighbours. If Israel refuses to show respect for international law, heavy sanctions against Israel should be installed.
Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant and human rights advocate from the Netherlands.
Endnotes
[1] The Jerusalem Post, Up Front weekend supplement (21 May 2004)
[2] NOVA (15 December 2005)
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Electronic Intifada [2006]/Former Dutch ambassador calls for sanctions if Israel refuses to comply with International Law
All we can do now is to request, beg, cry out: Don’t enter Rafah. An Israeli incursion into Rafah will be an attack on the world’s biggest displaced persons camp. It will drag the Israeli military into committing war crimes of a severity that even it has not yet committed. It is impossible to invade Rafah now without committing war crimes. If the Israel Defense Forces invades
Rafah, the city will become a carmel house.
Around 1,4 million displaced people are now in
Rafah, sheltering in some cases under plastic bags that have been turned into tents. The
American administration, the supposed gatekeeper of Israeli law and
PAGE 2
conscience, has conditioned the invasion of Rafah on an Israeli plan
to evacuate the city. There is not and cannot be any such plan, even if
Israel manages to come up with something.
It is impossible to transport one million entirely destitute people,
some of whom have been displaced two or three times already, from
one safe place to another, that always turn into killing fields. It is
impossible to transport millions of people as if they were calves
meant for shipment. Even calves cannot be transported with such
cruelty.
There is also nowhere to evacuate these millions of people. In the
devastated Gaza Strip, there is nowhere left to go. If the Rafah
refugees are moved to Al-Mawasi, as the IDF will propose in its
humanitarian plan, Al-Mawasi will become the site of a humanitarian
disaster the likes of which we haven’t seen in the Strip.
Yarden Michaeli and Avi Scharf report that the entire population of the
Gaza Strip, 2.3 million people, is supposed to evacuate into an area of
16 square kilometers (6.2 square miles), about the size of Ben-Gurion
International Airport. All of Gaza in the area of the airport, just
imagine.
Amira Hass calculated that if only one million people go to Al-Mawasi,
the population density there will be 62,500 people per square
kilometer. There is nothing in Al-Mawasi: No infrastructure, no water,
no electricity, no homes. Only sand and more sand, to absorb the
blood, the sewage, and the epidemics. The thought of this is not only
bloodcurdling, it also shows the level of dehumanization Israel has
reached in its planning.
Blood will be spilled in Al-Mawasi, as it has been spilled recently in
Rafah, the penultimate safe haven offered by Israel. The Shin Bet
security service will come up with some beat officer affiliated with
Hamas who has to be eliminated by dropping a one-ton bomb on the
new tent camp.
Twenty bystanders, most of them children, will be
killed. The military correspondents will tell us, their eyes shining,
about the wonderful work the IDF is doing in liquidating the top
command of Hamas. Total victory is near, Israelis will be sated once
again.
But even through this force-feeding, the Israeli public must wake up,
and with it the Biden administration. This is an emergency more dire
than any other during this war. The Americans must block the
invasion of Rafah with actions, not words. Only they can stop Israel.
PAGE 3
The conscientious sector of the Israeli public seeks sources of
information other than the cakes for soldiers stations here that call
themselves news channels.
Watch pictures of Rafah on any foreign
network – you won’t see anything in Israel – and you’ll
understand
why it can’t be evacuated.
ll understand the war crimes that are
rampant here.
On Saturday, the body of six-year-old Hind Hamada – or Rajab, in
some news outlets – was found
The girl had became famous all over
the world after the moments of terror she and her family experienced
on January 29 in the face of an Israeli tank – moments that were
recorded in a phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent, until heraunt’s screams of terror stopped.
. Seven members of the family were
killed; only little Hind was saved, and her fate had remained a mystery
ever since.
Hind was found dead in her aunt’s burned car
at a gas station in Khan Yunis.
She had been wounded, covered by the seven bodies of her
relatives, and she bled to death before she could extricate herselffrom the vehicle.
Hind and her family had responded to Israel’s humanitarian call to evacuate.
Anyone who wants thousands more
Hinds should invade Rafah, whose population will be evacuated to Al-Mawasi.
Some weeks ago I heard Jan Wijenberg, a retired Dutch Ambassador, speak about what the International Community could do to break with its complicity to the ongoing violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli regime. Wijenberg served over a decade as an ambassador for the Dutch government in Jemen, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. He regularly writes to Dutch ministers and politicians to remind them of the responsibility of the international community, and specifically of the Dutch Government and the European Union, to hold Israel accountable to international law. His views are expressed in this article.
Israel is the problem
Quite often is spoken about the conflict in the Middle East between the Palestinians and Israel. If we look at the situation more closely we can observe something different. The media in Israel provide a platform for unpunished, insane calls for murdering peoples and a nation. An example is offered by Professor Arnon Sofer talking about Palestinians living in closed-off Gaza, “…those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam… So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill we will cease to exist…..”1
In 2005 Ehud Barak stated on Dutch television2 that – in a secret and illegal retaliatory campaign against the Palestinian hostage takers at the Munich Olympic Winter Games – he personally had murdered thirteen innocent citizens. According to Barak this would teach the world not to fool around with Israel. Barak was and is not prosecuted for premeditated murder and could achieve the position of the country’s prime minister.
Among the settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are opportunists and extremely violent Israeli’s who aim to occupy East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Palestinians must be driven out of these territories by all means possible, including murder. The government of Israel supports the settlers in full while they lay there hands on Palestinian property and act out their violence on Palestinians.
The annexation of East Jerusalem by Ehud Olmert while he was the mayor of West-Jerusalem can according to the Fourth Geneva Convention be interpreted as a war crime. After the last elections in Israel Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party won the vote and he is now the Prime Minister of Israel.
Israeli policies are driven by the Zionist ideal of creating a Jewish state, including the Palestinian territories. Israel is aiming systematically at destroying the identity of the Palestinian people. The so called “conflict in the Middle East” between Palestinians and Israel does not exist. Zionist Israel is the problem.
Rogue state
Israel is the world’s sole remaining occupying colonial power. It systematically sabotages all international efforts to end the occupation. In its capacity of occupying power Israel violates numerous obligations emanating from Security Council Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. It also breaches the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The USA applies a doctrine and the US-administration labels selected countries as ‘Rogue states’. These countries possess weapons of mass destruction illegally, suppress large populations, torture, keep people in detention on a large scale and commit murder outside their national borders. Israel has adopted as a strategy the execution of land and water grabs, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure (including in education and health), the carrying out of extraterritorial executions, torture, and collective punishments and keeping thousands of Palestinians imprisoned indefinitely without charge or prosecution. On the basis of the definition by the USA, Israel has ever since its establishment been a monumental Rogue state and a highly active member of the Axis of Evil.
Letter to Dutch ministers
In February Wijenberg wrote to the ministers Bot, van Ardenne-van der Hoeven and Nicolaï, ministers of Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and State Secretary of European Affairs respectively. He reminded them that according to article 90 of the Dutch Constitution “The government nurtures the development of the international order of law”. So many previous Dutch governments violated this article when it concerns the Middle East. With referral to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004 Wijenberg calls upon the Dutch ministers to show the world that they are serious about international law, justice and democracy. A copy of the letter was sent to the prime minister Balkenende and the minister of Justice Donner. In his view the United States and the European Union – including the Netherlands – have for too long condoned Israels disrespect for international law.
In its response the ministry of Foreign Affairs replies that the Dutch government is actively engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Israel. Wijenberg questions this policy. “”Since when do we politely ask notorious violaters of international law to stop their daily terrorisation of the Palestinian civilians, with assassinations in broad daylight and theft of property, houses, land and water? Why aren’t the harshest peaceful means used to fight this?”
Cal for sanctions
In the view of Wijenberg the European Union and the Netherlands have become an instrument of Israels foreign policy by ignoring its own core values values and respect for international law and human rights. Europe can play a key role in achieving lasting peace for Israel and its neighbours. If Israel refuses to show respect for international law, heavy sanctions against Israel should be installed.
Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant and human rights advocate from the Netherlands.
Endnotes
[1] The Jerusalem Post, Up Front weekend supplement (21 May 2004)
[2] NOVA (15 December 2005)
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Article from Gideon Levy in the Haaretz/AN ISRAELI INCURSION INTO GAZA’S RAFAH WILL BE AN UNPRECEDENTED HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE
De Verenigde Staten en Groot-Brittannië hebben in de nacht van 11 op 12 januari luchtaanvallen gelanceerd op Jemen. Doelwit zijn posities en bases van de Houthi-beweging. En jaweel, ‘Nederland ondersteunt’,(1) het zal weer eens niet. Het is een schandalige en misdadige escalatie, die we actief tegen horen te werken met protest en meer.
Waaar gaat het om? De Houthi’s vormen een gewapende beweging die een deel van Jemen beheerst, en van daaruit drone-aanvallen uitvoert op schepen die door de Rode Zee varen. Die drone-aanvallen zijn een uiting van woede over de Israëlische genocide in Gaza, van solidariteit met de Palestijnen die dag in dag uit door Israël gebombardeerd en uitgehongerd worden. Die Amerikaanse en Britse luchtaanvallen zijn een aanval op die solidariteit, en een onderstreping van een Westerse houding waarin transporten van goederen belangrijker wordt gevonden dan het opkomen voor mensen die doelwit zijn van genocide. Aan containers valt grot geld te ‘verdienen’, aan het redden van mensenlevens een stuk minder. Kwestie van prioriteiten. De luchtaanvallen zijn een koloniale strafexpeditie en een ondersteuning van die genocide. Protest en actief verzet tegen die luchtaanvallen zijn nodig. Snel en hard.
Over die Houthi-beweging – ook bekend onder de naam Ansar Allah – weet ik niet heel veel. Maar wel iets. Iran steunt ze, maar dat maakt ze nog niet tot Iraanse marionetten. In Jemen oefenen ze een redelijk autoritair en conservatief bewind uit in het gebied waar ze de baas zijn. Inhoudelijk is er niets links of radicaals aan de beweging te ontwaren. De solidariteit met de Palestijnen in Gaza waar de Houthi’s uitdrukking aan geven, heeft een binnenlands politieke component. De Palestijnse zaak leeft heel sterk onder de bevolking van Jemen. Dat blijkt uit soms gigantische pro-Palestijnse demonstraties in dat land. Wat de Houthi’s feitelijk doen is: die solidariteit omzetten in binnenlandse macht, door te laten zien dat ze het gewapenderhand opnemen voor de mensen in Gaza. Daarmee hoopt de beweging klaarblijkelijk haar eigen gelederen te versterken.(2) Cynische machtspolitiek ontbreekt hier dus bepaald niet. Het is dan ook nergens voor nodig om ons als anarchist of aanverwant linksradicaal persoon inhoudelijk met de Houthi’s te vereenzelvigen.
Maar laten we niet de klassieke vergissing maken hier. Laten we niet in de klassieke val trappen. De VS en Groot-Brittannië voeren hun luchtaanvallen niet uit omdat de Houthi’s autoritaire machtspolitiek bedrijven. De VS en Groot-Brittannië voeren hun luchtaanvallen uit omdat ze kapitaalstromen – goederenvervoer is daar een deel van – willen verdedigen. De VS en Groot-Brittannië helpen daarmee de genocidale Israëlische politiek. Want de druk die de Houthi’s met hun drone-aanvallen uitoefenen, is een serieuze bedreiging van de internationale scheepvaart die ook Israël nodig heeft om als maatschappij te blijven functioneren. Als allerlei scheepvaartmaatschappijen de Rode Zee gaan mijden, dan heeft zowel de VS als Israël daar last van. De Houthi’s hebben een effectief pressiemiddel ingezset tegen de genocideplegers onder Netanyahu’s leiding. Dat – en niet hun binnenlandse politiek of reactionaire ideologie – is hun misdaad in Westerse koloniale ogen.
De Houthi’s kunnen er best zonder luchtaanvallen toe worden gebracht om de drone-aanvallen te stoppen. Israël hoeft daarvoor slechts op te houden met haar aanvallen op Gaza. De VS kan dat gedaan krijgen, als de VS zou willen. De VS wil niet. De Amerikaanse president Biden hoeft maar te bellen met de Israëlische premier Netanyahu en elke leverantie van wapens aan Israël stop te zetten, en het is afgelopen met de Israëlische aanvallen op Gaza. Biden wil niet. Biden heeft liever een voortgaande genocide. Biden verkiest een escalatie en gaat samen met de Britse premier Sunak dus bommen gooien op Jemen. Het laat zien hoe ver de VS en het Verenigde Koninkrijk willen gaan om Israël de hand boven het hoofd te houden. De Westerse luchtaanvallen vinden plaats, niet vanwege wat de Houthi’s allemaal verkeerd doen maar precies vanwege wat ze – om wat voor reden dan ook – juist goed doen: de Israëlische genocide actief dwarsbomen. Dat daarmee een bondgenoot van Iran – een van de favoriete vijanden van Israël en de VS – wordt geraakt is mooi meegenomen. Misschien wel meer dan dat, en een grotere oorlog tussen de VS en Iran is bepaald niet uitgesloten.
Het is ook nodig om tegen die luchtaanvallen met de grootst mogelijke felheid te protesteren. Weg met deze luchtaanvallen, geen bommen en raketten op Jemen! En ja hoor, ook Nederland heeft intussen dus alweer steun betuigd aan deze koloniale onderneming. Weg met die Nederlandse steun! En ondertussen, dag in dag uit: Stop de genocide in Gaza, leve de Palestijnse vrijheidsstrijd!
OVER DE ISRAELISCHE GENOCIDE OP DE PALESTIJNSE BEVOLKING/BRIEF VAN OUD AMBASSADEUR DRS J. J. WIJENBERG AAN DE SECRETARIS-GENERAAL VAN HET MINISTERIE VAN BUITENLANDSE ZAKEN
VOORWOORD ASTRID ESSED
Beste Lezers,
Het is mij een Eer, onderstaande brief van oud ambassadeur en Palestina
activist drs J. J. Wijenberg op mijn website te plaatsen.
Deze is gericht aan de heer Huijts, Secretaris-Generaal van het Ministerie
van Buitenlandse Zaken.
De Inhoud [die u al gedeeltelijk kunt aflezen aan de titelkop] spreekt
voor zich en ik schaar mij er achter!
Uiteraard is deze Brief op mijn website geplaatst met toestemming
van en op verzoek van de heer Wijenberg
Zie ook onder P/S meer informatie over de heer Wijenberg
ASTRID ESSED
P/S
WIKIPEDIA
JAN WIJENBERG
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Wijenberg
ZIE OOK OP WEBSITE ASTRID ESSED
https://www.astridessed.nl/?s=Wijenberg
EN DAN NU DE AANGEKONDIGDE BRIEF VAN DE HEER WIJENBERG!
drs J.J. Wijenberg
s-Gravenhage
De heer P. Huijts Secretaris-Generaal Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken Postbus 20061 2500 EB Den Haag
Verzonden per e milbericht Samenvattend: “Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.” Dr. Munther Isaac, de Palestijnse dominee vanuit Bethlehem, 25 december 2023
Bijlage Jan Wijenberg, het VN-Handvest, de Grondwet, art. 94 en Israël, 2023-12-30 Den Haag, 3 januari 2024
Geachte heer Huijts, waarde collega, Enige jaren geleden werd de Informele Opening in de Scheveningse gevangenis – aka ‘het Oranje hotel’ en nu een museum – gehouden. Achteraf bezien lijkt het van een vooruitziende blik te getuigen. Wanneer de aanklachten tegen leden van het Israëlische regime en – voornamelijk – westerse verdachten bij het VN-Strafhof op gang zijn gekomen, is deze zelfs op loopafstand van de gevangenis bereikbaar. Maar dan schiet de capaciteit daarvan tekort. Het her integreren van het museum binnen de gevangenis zal een voor de hand liggende oplossing zijn. Het mag niet als uitgesloten worden geacht dat ook [voormalige] Nederlandse politici daar in afwachting van de behandeling van hun zaak in detentie worden gehouden. Sinds mijn pensionering in maart 2003 ontving ik een uitnodiging voor deze jaarlijkse Informele Opening. Deze aanvaardde ik steeds in dank en maakte er graag gebruik van. Inmiddels heb ik de bevestiging ontvangen van mijn aanmelding voor 28 januari 2024. Zeer tot mijn spijt moet ik jouw uitnodiging afzeggen. Participatie zou, het huidige Israëlbeleid in aanmerking nemend, strijdig zijn met mijn persoonlijke eed van trouw aan de Grondwet, in juni 1987 afgelegd ten overstaan van H.M. Koningin Beatrix. Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein en 25 rabbijnen uit New York vonden de ‘Partij van de Vrijheid’ van Menachim Begin, de voorloper van Likud en Kadima, fascistisch en vergelijkbaar met Nazi-Duitsland van rond 1930: a political party closely akin in its organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. […] until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions [o.a. de vernietiging van het Arabische dorp Deir Yassin] that the terrorist party betrays it real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future. [..] [The New York Times, 2 december 1948] Inderdaad.
Raphael Lemkin, de Pools/joodse rechtsgeleerde, formuleerde het juridische concept genocide in 1943. 1 Het huidige Israëlische bewind doet al decennialang zijn uiterste best om dit beeld in de gure werkelijkheid op de soevereine staat Palestina en de Palestijnen uit te voeren. Genocide werd en wordt één-op-één door alle politiek-zionistische coalitieregeringen in praktijk gebracht. Vanuit deze optiek is met de oorlog anno 2023/2024 van Israël tegen de Palestijnse staat en de bevolking zijn apotheose bereikt: levend of vermoord, het verwijderen van alle Palestijnen uit het illegale Eretz- of Groot Israël. DAT WAS, EN IS, DE KERN – DE POLITIEK-ZIONISTISCHE DOELSTELLING Dezer dagen trok de Turkse minister-president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wereldwijde aandacht met één vraag: Is er iets dat Netanyahu doet, dat minder is dan wat Hitler deed? Zijn antwoord was ‘Nee’. Dat klopt, Netanyahu is nog amoreler, nog cynischer dan Hitlder, zijn voorganger. Na een dagenlange reis in een veewagon werden de Joden bij aankomst in de waan gebracht dat zij een verfrissende collectieve douche zouden krijgen. Palestijnse kinderen schreven en schrijven na 9 september 2023 hun naam op hun huid. Zo zullen zij na hun vrijwel zekere dood tenminste geïdentificeerd kunnen worden. Artsen en verplegers, voor zover nog in leven en werkzaam in overgebleven ziekenhuizen in Gaza, ontvangen veel alleenstaande kinderen. Zij durven hen niet te zeggen dat hun beide ouders dood zijn. Netanyahu laat voor de gehele wereld zichtbaar en schaamteloos het zwaarste, door de VS geleverde, wapengeweld op deze weerloze kinderen los. Zelfs voor de min of meer zorgvuldige waarnemer is dit alles bepaald geen nieuws. De resterende vragen zijn nu of het Israëlische regime, of zelfs de staat Israël, deze misdaad zal overleven en met hoeveel meer bloedvergieten zich dit zal voltrekken. Mijn ontsteltenis wordt veroorzaakt door de politieke waan van de dag van onze nationale politiek. Deze was en blijft het fascistische Israëlische regime de facto steunen, zelfs met het sturen van stafofficieren naar de Rode Zee. Daar helpen zij één van de drie Noord- Jemenitische mega-stammen, de Houthi’s, te bestrijden. Dit is nota bene de stam die de met algehele vernietiging bedreigde Palestijnen met hun beperkte middelen te hulp schiet door aan het moorddadige zionistisch-fascistische bewind in verhouding een paar speldenprikjes uit te delen. Zo worden wij door onze hoogste politieke leiding een oorlog met wanstaltige doeleinden in gerommeld. Toch zijn de criteria, de basis van onze rechtsorde, glashelder: de Grondwet, art. 90 en 94 en in het verlengde daarvan het relevante internationaal recht, waaronder de uitspraak van 9 juli 2004 door het Internationaal Gerechtshof. Dat is niet slechts mijn opvatting. D eze criteria zijn zonder uitzondering niet voor discussie vatbaar. Deze waarden en normen gelden ‘voor allen die in Nederland verblijven’. Alle parlementsleden, alle bewindspersonen [en alle (gewezen) ambassadeurs] hebben de eed van trouw op deze Grondwet afgelegd. Dat schept verplichtingen, zou je zeggen.
1 Genocide betekent niet noodzakelijkerwijs de onmiddellijke ondergang van een natie …. Het betekent eerder een gecoördineerd plan van verschillende acties gericht op het vernietigen van het leven van nationale groepen, met als doel de ondergang van diezelfde groepen. De doelen van zo’n plan zouden zijn: het afbreken van de politieke en maatschappelijke instituten, van de cultuur, de taal, nationale gevoelens, religie, vrijheid, waardigheid en zelfs van de levens van de personen die tot zulke groepen behoren. Raphael Lemkin, de Pools-joodse rechtsgeleerde die streefde naar een Genocide Conventie. Zijn definitie is van 1943
De ontwikkeling van het recente kiesgedrag van de lidstaten in de VN-Algemene Vergadering toont de minieme, snel slinkende westerse steun aan dit politiek-zionistische regime aan. De AVVN heeft minder machtsmiddelen dan de disfunctionerende VN-Veiligheidsraad. Toch heeft de eerst genoemde de middelen ter beschikking om het Israëlische VN-lidmaatschap in het gehele systeem via een totale schorsing te neutraliseren. Geobsedeerd door binnenlandse politieke perikelen, staan alle grote Tweede Kamerfracties in verschillende gradaties achter dit pur sang fascistische, Israëlische bewind. De vraag – is de nationale politiek in overgrote meerderheid fascistoïde of wellicht ronduit fascistisch ? – doet er eigenlijk niet meer toe. “Waar je mee omgaat, daar wordt je mee besmet”, ook in de nationale politiek. De veronderstellingen dat de Raad van State over het primaat van onze rechtsorde geen of onvoldoende valide adviezen uitbrengt en dat in de komende maanden geen ingrijpende politieke omstandigheden aangaande Israël zullen plaatsvinden, zijn niet wereldvreemd. Dan dreigt de staatsrechtelijk rampzalige situatie te ontstaan dat alleen het staatshoofd het in-huis- bereide fascistische tij nog weet te keren. Op grond van zijn persoonlijke eed van trouw aan de Grondwet, zal de Majesteit daarop gebaseerde, gedetailleerde eisen moeten stellen aan het Israëlbeleid van de aankomende coalitieregering. Dat zal, alweer onder gelijkblijvende omstandigheden, een nodig novum in ons rechtsbestel inhouden. Het zal ook een eenduidige waterscheiding tussen onze rechtsorde met de huidige politiek en de nu levende politieke mentaliteit aan het licht brengen, maar niet per sé afwijkend zijn van wat in meerderheid onder de Nederlandse bevolking leeft. Bij een antidemocratische mentaliteit van toekomstige coalitiepartners, heeft de Koning geen optie dan weigeren het voorgestelde coalitiekabinet te beëdigen. Natuurlijk begrijp ik dat mijn procedureel besluit slechts een klein inhoudelijk gebaar van protest betekent, in de nationale context en wereldwijd. Ik hoop vurig dat deze brief en de bijlage als een dringende oproep tot staatsrechtelijke herbezinning zullen leiden. Ook begrijp ik dat de nationale politieke ‘klasse’ de SG van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken voor een als onmogelijk gehouden dilemma heeft geplaatst. Ambtenaren zijn ambtsedig verplicht de politieke prioriteiten getrouw uit te voeren. Maar er is één alles overheersend ‘mits’: mits dat politiek beleid binnen de Grondwet en het internationaal recht is vorm gegeven. Is dat in essentie niet het geval, dan heeft de DG maar één keus. Elke van beide opties hebben verstrekkende gevolgen: – verdedig ik, samen met mijn ambtenaren, een politiek zionistisch-fascistisch georiënteerde coalitieregering of – verdedigen wij gezamenlijk de Nederlandse rechtsorde, gebaseerd op de Grondwet en het internationaal recht? Waarde collega, Het is nu crisistijd, ook bij BZ. Ik wens je een, door jouw ambtelijke collega’s onderschreven, koersvast beleid toe. Dank voor jouw aandacht, met hartelijke en collegiale groeten, wg Jan Wijenberg
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor OVER DE ISRAELISCHE GENOCIDE OP DE PALESTIJNSE BEVOLKING/Brief van oud-ambassadeur drs J. J. Wijenberg aan de Secretaris Generaal van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken
We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.
More than 20,000 killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways, day after day. One-point-nine million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.
The world is watching. Churches are watching. The people of Gaza are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares. But it goes on.
We are asking here: Could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny, too?
We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called free lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing the political cover. And yet another layer has been added: the theological cover, with the Western church stepping into the spotlight.
Our dear friends in South Africa taught us the concept of the “state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.” It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.
Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us — our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the empire. Here we confront the theology of the empire, a disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover, using words like “mission” and “evangelism,” “fulfillment of prophecy,” and “spreading freedom and liberty.”
The theology of the empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It speaks of land without people. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. The concept of land without people, again, even though they knew too well that the land had people — and not just any people, a very special people. Theology of the empire calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, a “miracle,” or “a divine miracle,” as they called it. It calls for us Palestinians now to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan. Why not just the sea?
I think of the words of the disciples to Jesus when he was about to enter Samaria: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of the Samaritans. This is the theology of the empire. This is what they’re saying about us today.
This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it’s the color of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us. So they say if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant,” then so be it. We are not humans in their eyes. But in God’s eyes, no one can tell us that.
The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we’re not treated equally. Yet, on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.
To our European friends: I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not white, I guess. It does not apply to us, according to your own logic.
In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the empire has the theology needed. It is thus self-defense, we were told. And I continue to ask: How is the killing of 9,000 children self-defense? How is the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians self-defense?
In the shadow of the empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten — have we forgotten that the state they talk to, that that state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans? Have they forgot that?
We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear, friends: Silence is complicity. And empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action, all under the banner of complicity.
So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th, and the world was silent. Should we be surprised at their silence now?
If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.
If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire. I’m talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.
We will be OK. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we, the Palestinians, will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be OK.
But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won’t make a difference. And I know these words of shocks are coming. And I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won’t make a difference. Words of regret won’t suffice for you. And let me say it: We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, “Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?” …
In these last two months, the psalms of lament have become a precious companion to us. We cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?”
In our pain, anguish and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus himself became the victim of the very same violence of the empire when he was in our land. He was tortured, crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain, “My God, where are you?”
In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.
And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is not to be found on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. He’s in a cave, with a simple family, an occupied family. He’s vulnerable, barely and miraculously surviving a massacre himself. He’s among the refugees, among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is to be found today.
If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble. When we rely on power, might and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble. When we justify, rationalize and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.
Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and the displaced. This is his manger.
And I have been looking and contemplating on this iconic image. God with us precisely in this way, this is the incarnation — messy, bloody, poverty. This is the incarnation.
And this child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says, “Just as you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” “You did it to me.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them. He is the children of Gaza.
We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares their fate. He walks with them and calls them his own.
So this manger is about resilience. It’s about sumud. And the resilience of Jesus is in his meekness, is in his weakness, is in his vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this is very same child who rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires, to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness. This very same child accomplished this.
This is Christmas today in Palestine, and this is the Christmas message. Christmas is not about Santas. It’s not about trees and gifts and lights. My goodness, how we have twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was, by the way, in the U.S.A. last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights and all the commercial goods. And I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their lands. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.
Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a gospel message. It is a true and authentic Christmas message about the God who did not stay silent but said his word, and his word was Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized, he is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.
This message is our message to the world today, and it is simply this: This genocide must stop now. Why don’t we repeat it? Stop this genocide now. Can you say it with me? Stop this genocide —
CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Let’s say it one more time. Stop this genocide —
CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear, O God. Amen.
In the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, city and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. We feature the Christmas sermon, “Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament,” delivered Saturday by Reverend Munther Isaac at the landmark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, which has received international attention for a nativity scene depicting the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble. “If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza,” preached Isaac, who condemned using theology to justify Israel’s killing of innocent civilians. “If we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in the occupied West Bank in the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. City and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities in the Holy Land this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. The landmark Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem created a nativity scene with the figure of baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble.
Later in the show, we’ll be joined by the church’s pastor, the Reverend Munther Isaac, but we begin by airing his Christmas sermon, which he delivered on Saturday.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Christ Under the Rubble.
We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.
More than 20,000 killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways, day after day. One-point-nine million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.
The world is watching. Churches are watching. The people of Gaza are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares. But it goes on.
We are asking here: Could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny, too?
We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called free lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing the political cover. And yet another layer has been added: the theological cover, with the Western church stepping into the spotlight.
Our dear friends in South Africa taught us the concept of the “state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.” It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.
Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us — our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the empire. Here we confront the theology of the empire, a disguise for superiority, supremacy, chosenness and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover, using words like “mission” and “evangelism,” “fulfillment of prophecy,” and “spreading freedom and liberty.”
The theology of the empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It speaks of land without people. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. The concept of land without people, again, even though they knew too well that the land had people — and not just any people, a very special people. Theology of the empire calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, a “miracle,” or “a divine miracle,” as they called it. It calls for us Palestinians now to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan. Why not just the sea?
I think of the words of the disciples to Jesus when he was about to enter Samaria: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of the Samaritans. This is the theology of the empire. This is what they’re saying about us today.
This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it’s the color of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us. So they say if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant,” then so be it. We are not humans in their eyes. But in God’s eyes, no one can tell us that.
The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we’re not treated equally. Yet, on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.
To our European friends: I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not white, I guess. It does not apply to us, according to your own logic.
In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the empire has the theology needed. It is thus self-defense, we were told. And I continue to ask: How is the killing of 9,000 children self-defense? How is the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians self-defense?
In the shadow of the empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten — have we forgotten that the state they talk to, that that state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans? Have they forgot that?
We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear, friends: Silence is complicity. And empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action, all under the banner of complicity.
So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th, and the world was silent. Should we be surprised at their silence now?
If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.
If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire. I’m talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.
We will be OK. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we, the Palestinians, will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be OK.
But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won’t make a difference. And I know these words of shocks are coming. And I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won’t make a difference. Words of regret won’t suffice for you. And let me say it: We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, “Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?” …
In these last two months, the psalms of lament have become a precious companion to us. We cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?”
In our pain, anguish and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus himself became the victim of the very same violence of the empire when he was in our land. He was tortured, crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain, “My God, where are you?”
In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.
And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is not to be found on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. He’s in a cave, with a simple family, an occupied family. He’s vulnerable, barely and miraculously surviving a massacre himself. He’s among the refugees, among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is to be found today.
If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble. When we rely on power, might and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble. When we justify, rationalize and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.
Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and the displaced. This is his manger.
And I have been looking and contemplating on this iconic image. God with us precisely in this way, this is the incarnation — messy, bloody, poverty. This is the incarnation.
And this child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says, “Just as you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” “You did it to me.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them. He is the children of Gaza.
We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares their fate. He walks with them and calls them his own.
So this manger is about resilience. It’s about sumud. And the resilience of Jesus is in his meekness, is in his weakness, is in his vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this is very same child who rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires, to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness. This very same child accomplished this.
This is Christmas today in Palestine, and this is the Christmas message. Christmas is not about Santas. It’s not about trees and gifts and lights. My goodness, how we have twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was, by the way, in the U.S.A. last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights and all the commercial goods. And I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their lands. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.
Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a gospel message. It is a true and authentic Christmas message about the God who did not stay silent but said his word, and his word was Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized, he is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.
This message is our message to the world today, and it is simply this: This genocide must stop now. Why don’t we repeat it? Stop this genocide now. Can you say it with me? Stop this genocide —
CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: Let’s say it one more time. Stop this genocide —
CONGREGATION: Stop this genocide now.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC: This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear, O God. Amen.
AMY GOODMAN: The Reverend Munther Isaac, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, delivering his Christmas sermon on Saturday. He titled it “Christ in the Rubble.” Coming up, Reverend Isaac will join us from Bethlehem in occupied West Bank. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Song to the World,” a version of the popular Christmas song “Little Drummer Boy” sung by the Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank. The three Palestinian college students who were shot in Burlington, Vermont, last month are graduates of the Ramallah Friends School and met there in the first grade. The three students who were shot now go to Haverford, Trinity and Brown in the United States. In the video shared by the school, current students sing in Arabic with English subtitles. The school wrote, “Our hearts come together in prayer for the safety of the children in Gaza. May our shared prayers echo for peace and justice, weaving a tapestry of hope that goes beyond borders, embracing the shared humanity we all hold dear.”
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Christmas Sermon from Bethlehem by reverend Munther Isaac/Christ under the rubble
Aandacht afleiden, het onderwerp veranderen: het is een trucje dat pro-Israëlische genocide-supporters graag toepassen. Het gaat als volgt. Terwijl wij met solidariteitsacties aandacht vragen voor de genocide in Gaza, oproepen delen voor sit-ins voor Ceasefire Now en Free Palestine en dergelijke, komen Israël-fans aanzetten met berichten over wandaden en bloedbaden elders, met een uitdagend zinnetje erbij in de sfeer van ‘Wanneer worden hier nu eens sit-ins voor georganiseerd’? Ach ja. Als het maar niet over Gaza gaat, nietwaar?
De sneer is duidelijk. Wel sit-ins voor Gaza. Niet voor de Oeigoeren, de Rohinya’s, vervolgde christenen in Nigeria of wie dan ook. De mensen van de Palestina-sit-ins zijn duidelijk inconsequent en hypocriet, anders zouden ze toch voor die andere slachtoffers ook wel actie voeren? Het is een verdachtmaking, een indirecte, nogal achterbakse poging om activisten tegen Israëlische genocide en voor een vrij Palestina verdacht te maken.
De poging is nogal doorzichtig, hoongelach is een goede reactie, volledig negeren ook wel. Maar omdat het mensen toch op het verkeerde been kan zetten, omdat niet iedereen even stevig in de argumenten staat, kan het wellicht geen kwaad om de truc wat verder te ontrafelen. Dan zien we een paar dingen.
Allereerst is hier iets grappigs aan de hand. Door te suggereren dat we acties voor al die andere slachtoffers zouden moeten voeren om consequent en niet hypocriet ze zijn, erkennen degenen die dit trucje hanteren impliciet dat het op zichzelf terecht is om voor Palestijnen in Gaza op te komen! Ze stellen de andere genoemde verschrikkingen impliciet gelijk aan wat er op Gaza gebeurt. Ze beklagen zich vervolgens dat we alleen maar voor Palestijnen op komen, en niet voor de andere genoemde slachtoffers.
Ze zeggen niet ‘Vergeet de Palestijnen, doe iets voor de Rohingya’s!’ Nee, ze zeggen eigenlijk: doe ook eens iets voor die Rohinya’s. Aan het ontkennen van de verschrikking die de Palestijnen door Israël wordt aan gedaan, wagen ze zich niet. Ontkennen werkt niet, dus proberen ze de aandacht af te leiden van wat niet te ontkennen valt. Juist daarom komen ze met zo’n trucje.
Je ziet de truc in twee versies. Soms gaat het in het aangehaalde voo0rbeelden om slachtoffers die Moslim zijn, net zoals veel van de slachtoffers in Gaza. Dan is de suggestie: waarom komen jullie wel op voor Palestijnse moslims, en niet vort Moslims die het slachtoffer zijn van China of Myanmar?
Het onuitgesproken antwoord is dan de suggestie dat het solidariteitsactivisten niet zozeer om moslims gaat, maar om Israël-bashen. En waarin onderscheidt Israël zich van China en van Myanmar? Israël is een Joodse staat, exclusief Israël kritiseren voor dingen die andere staten ook doen, is langs deze weg neergezet als antisemitisme. We zullen zien dat deze vlieger helemaal niet opgaat. Maar eerst de andere versie.
De andere versie hanteert graag een voorbeeld waarin de daders moslims zijn en de slachtoffers juist niet. Voorbeeld: Nigeria, waar dorpen met christelijke bewoners doelwit zijn van bewapende groepen van wie gezegd wordt dat het moslims zijn. Dan is de hint: waarom komen jullie enkel op voor Moslims als slachtoffers, en niet voor Christenen als slachtoffers? Jullie willen zeker geen kritiek op Moslims? Hier wordt niet alleen de aandacht van Gaza afgeleid, hier wordt ook nog een lading moslim-bashen uitgekieperd. In deze versie zijn ze bij de Christen-Unie kennelijk gespecialiseerd: opkomen voor arme Christenen is daar net zo favoriet als opkomen voor arm zielig Israël.
Ik noem beide versies een truc. Niet omdat de bloedbaden naar verwezen wordt, niet bestaan. DE onderdrukking van – jazeker, genocide tegen – Rohinya’s is een feit, net als de soortgelijke immense repressie tegen Oeigoeren. Rohinya’s zijn in bloedige etnische zuiveringsoperaties door militairen en racistische milities in Myanmar verdreven. Oeigoeren zijn in enorme aantallen in kampen gestopt waar hun religieuze identiteit gericht tot doelwit wordt gemaakt in een vorm van heropvoering die genocidale dimensies heeft. Moordpartijen in Nigeria,(1) vaak maar lang niet altijd uitgevoerd door Boko Haram, een extreem-gewelddadige militie die zich ideologisch op de Islam beroept, kosten inderdaad honderden mensenlevens en ja, dat veel daarvan christenen zijn is noch onwaar, noch toevallig. Niet de feiten waar de trucjes naar verwijzen maken dat het trucjes zijn. Het zijn de bijbehorende insinuaties die dat doen.
De insinuatie is steeds dat mensen zich wel druk maken over Palestijnen in gaza, maar dat ze die andere slachtoffers van terreur zomaar negeren. Waarom voeren ze er anders geen actie voor? De insinuatie is, waar het Rohinya’s en Oeigoeren betreft, onzin. Het heeft de afgelopen jaren veroordelingen geregend van zowel de etnische zuivering van de Rohinya’s als van de gewelddadige ‘heropvoering’ van de Oeigoeren. Beiden zijn een internationaal schandaal, wat natuurlijk niet betekent dat beide groepen nu effectief worden verdedigd…
Het lot van de Oeigoeren heeft echter de aandacht van de machtigste mogendheid die er is, van de VS die er maar wat graag China mee om de oren slaat. Het lot van de Rohinya’s is onderwerp van een zitting van het internationaal gerechtshof geweest in 2019, en vervolgens is ook het Internationaal Strafhof zich over gaan buigen. In geen van beide zaken treden de VS op als hoofdsponsors van de genocidale geweld, zoals ze dat met Israël wel doet. In het geval van de Oeigoeren hoort de VS tot de critici. Dat doet ze om machtspolitieke redenen: om China in verlegenheid te brengen. Met principieel mensenrechtenbeleid heeft het niets te maken. Maar je kunt niet in alle ernst beweren dat de Oeigoeren door de wereldgemeenschap veronachtzaamd worden zoals de Palestijnen dat zijn.
Voor Rohinya’s geldt dat in zekere mate wel, afgezien van genoemde internationale gerechtelijke instanties. Maar ook hier blijft er een groot verschil. De VS is niet de belangrijkste wapenleverancier van Myanmar. De VS spreekt niet keer op keer haar veto uit in de VN-Veiligheidsraad als daar Myanmar veroordeeld wordt. Nederland levert geen F-35-onderdelen aan het Myanmarese leger. Rutte verdedigt de etnische zuivering van de Rohinya’s niet en pretendeert niet dat Myanmar het recht heeft om zichzelf tegen Rohinya’s te verdedigen. Wee hebben hier geen Centrum Informatie Documentatie Myanmar (CIDM) dat het ‘recht van Myanmar als boeddhistische staat’ loopt te verdedigen met de leugens, zoals het CIDI en haar supporters dat met Israël als joodse staat zo graag doen. Nederland en de VS vertonen simpelweg niet de mate van medeplichtigheid met het generaalsbewind van Myanmar die ze wel vertonen met de staat Israël, inclusief haar extreem-rechtse leiding, inclusief Netanyahu. Wie voor Rohinya’s opkomt hoeft niet tegen ‘Myanmarisme’ op te boksen, zoals pro-Palestijnse mensen dat wel moeten tegen tegen zionistische verdraaiingen en propaganda.
Opkomen tegen de genocide die Israël in Gaza bedrijft, gaat gepaard met verontwaardiging over de Westerse, met name de Nederlandse, medeplichtigheid: Rutte, schande, bloed aan je handen! Precies die openlijke medeplichtigheid van een regering waar we in Nederland rechtstreeks mee te maken hebben, waar we in zekere zin verantwoordelijk voor zijn – we immers betalen belasting, en we laten immers na die regering te verdrijven… – maakt het zo noodzakelijk om ons met acties uit te spreken voor de Palestijnen, en tegen een Israël dat door Nederland in haar genocide wordt gesteund. Niets van dit alles geldt op zo’n manier voor China en Myanmar. Het is dus volstrekt niet vreemd dat solidaire mensen juist voor Gaza opkomen, tegen Israël. Het is een kwestie van het nemen van een eigen solidaire verantwoordelijkheid. Met Israël-bashen vanwege de Joodse bevolking van dat land heeft dat niets te maken, met antisemitisme al evenmin. Het is een teken van deze verrotte tijden dat je zoiets zelfs nog dient te zeggen.
Eigenlijk geld voor de slachtingen in Nigeria net zoiets. Ik citeer eventjes Gert jan Segers, vroeger CU-aanvoerder. ‘En wie komt er op voor deze belaagde christenen in Nigeria?’, schreef hij op 27 december op Twitter, met een link naar een artikel dat berichtte over slachtingen waarbij 100 christenen werden vermoord.(2) Elders op zijn tijdlijn regent het verontwaardiging over Hamas en, wat indirecter, steunbetuigingen aan Israël. Het antwoord op de vraag van Segers : Wie komt er voor deze belaagde Christenen op? Op Twitter deed ik een poging tot beantwoorden. Aldus:
‘U. U voelt zich betrokken en bent goed op de hoogte. Daarom gaat u er ook sit-ins voor organiseren., en/of andere solidariteitsactiviteiten. Laat maar weten waar en wanneer.
Niet? Gebruik het dan ook niet voor uw doorzichtige politieke spelletjes.’(3)
Verder dan een verwijzing naar zijn steun voor een organisatie die opkomt voor vervolgde Christenen kwam Segers niet. Op een aankondiging van sit-ins of andere solidariteitsacties wacht ik nog steeds.
En ook hier snap ik het ontbreken van dit soort straatactie. Want ook hier ontbreekt de omvangrijke en evidente Nederlandse medeplichtigheid aan de bloedbaden – een medeplichtigheid die er wat betreft de Israëlische genocide tegen Palestijnen in Gaza zo overduidelijk wel is.
Reuters
Reuters
Vuur en rook boven Gaza-Stad na een Israëlische luchtaanval AFP