UN Photo/Loey Felipe
UN General Assembly adopts a resolution on “Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations” during the 45th plenary meeting of the resumed 10th Emergency Special Session.
Houston dentist Lonnie E. Smith, plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Smith v. Allwright, casts his ballot in the 1944 Texas Democratic primary election (July 22, 1944).
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President of Russia Vladimir Putin[8] (who has explicitly supported the forced adoptions, including by enacting legislation to facilitate them)[9] and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement.[8] According to international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group.[10][a]
such acts constitute genocide
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has placed Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on its wanted list, according to the Interior Ministry’s wanted persons database on Dec. 15.
“Moralism looks very nice when you’re a Western liberal and decide that the consequences of the positions you take are irrelevant. But the question of consequences is also a moral question.”
Hen Mazzig makes the case a ceasefire is calling for the GENEOCIDE of all Jewish people wherever they are found – and is ANTICEMITISM? He too attacks the “Western liberal” for wanting – MORE PEACE? The United Nations called for a CEASEFIRE that is being DEMONIZED as we come close to the Birth of Jesus ‘The Son of Peace’. Due to the violence, Christmas has been CANCELED in Jerusalem. Does Mazzig – CARE?
I will try to keep this post simple. My objectives are to take away the Four Holy Ghosts of Holy War.
Ghost One: Hamas has no chance of defeating the Israeli army, on the sea, and in the air!
Ghost Two: Hamas does not FIGHT IN THE OPEN because Israeli jets and helicopters would destroy this non-professional force - in hours! How about the guns on Israeli naval ships?
Ghost Three: Hamas does not HIDE behind women and children, thus the Israeli Airforce has the right to bomb civilian targets – INCLUDING WOMEN AND CHILDREN!
Ghost Four: Western Moral Liberalism is referring to Thirty million Black Voters – and the Black Church. Putin, Kirill, and the Netanyahu Zionists HATE Black Democrats – who did not steal the election from Donald Trump – the racist they wanted to win – and still do!
I call upon Hamas to release all Jewish Children because they are guilty of genocide!
I demand Zionists Propagandists STOP using FAKE MORAL MIND CONTROL to take away THE OPINIONS of American Voters, so they can empower the Republican Party. The Zionist War Machine is after SWING VOTERS, and the vote of Jewish Americans.
I call upon every Zionist in Israel to SIGN a statement declaring President Biden – DID NOT STEAL THE ELECTION! Write your elected officials. and withhold FUNDING for Israel until this Nation – DECLARES BIDEN THE RIGHTFUL PRESIDEND OF THE UNITED STATES!
John Presco
These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.
Pressuring Israel, which is on a rescue mission to release its citizens from captivity and bring a group of barbaric death agents to justice, will do nothing to bring peace of mind to humanity or peace to the region.
I am certain that this is clear to many of those calling for a ceasefire. But much like the chant “from the river to the sea,” the calls for “a ceasefire” have turned into another thinly veiled euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish state that is meant to fool the American public.
At the same time, Israeli leaders know they must maintain strategic ties with Russia. Israel is unique among Western countries in that it does not see Moscow as an adversary, and Russia does not feel threatened by Israel. Though Israel proved itself willing to kill Soviet soldiers and pilots during the Cold War, today the situation is quite different.
Though he was silent as Russian forces built up on the Ukraine border, last Thursday Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned the “Russian attack on Ukraine,” calling it “a serious violation of the international order.”
“Moralism looks very nice when you’re a Western liberal and decide that the consequences of the positions you take are irrelevant. But the question of consequences is also a moral question.”
During the Russo-Ukrainian War,[5] Russia has forcibly transferred thousands of Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.[6] The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes.[6][7] The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President of Russia Vladimir Putin[8] (who has explicitly supported the forced adoptions, including by enacting legislation to facilitate them)[9] and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement.[8] According to international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group.[10][a]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_Act
U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) sued former president Donald Trump and his sometimes personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in federal court on Tuesday morning under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The lawsuit also names the far-right Proud Boys street gang and the Oath Keepers, a leading right-wing militia movement, as defendants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_Mazzig
Hen Mazzig (Hebrew: חן מזיג) is an Israeli writer, speaker, and activist. He is a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute.[1][2][3][4][5]
Mazzig is of Mizrahi Jewish (Iraqi Jewish and Tunisian Jewish) descent.[6] He is a Zionist.[7] In 2020, Mazzig was named by the blog Jews of NY one of the Top 50 NYC Jewish LGBTQ+ Influencers.[8]
Activism[edit]
In August 2020, Mazzig started a viral movement, #JewishPrivilege, with Jews telling personal stories of discrimination and abuse.[9] In November 2020, Mazig criticized a student BDS resolution passed at San Francisco State University.[10] In December 2020, Mazzig spoke to the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, commemorating the plight of 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab lands.[11] He was a panelist, along with Arizona State Rep. Alma Hernandez, discussing antisemitism.[12]
Mazzig has written op-ed pieces that have been featured in The LA Times, The Vancouver Sun, and The Yonkers Tribune among others[citation needed].
In October 2022, Mazzig’s first book, The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto was published by Wicked Son Press.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144717
Member States adopted a resolution, demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and well as “ensuring humanitarian access”.
- It passed with a large majority of 153 in favour and 10 against, with 23 abstentions
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people[a] in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.[1][2]
The Political Instability Task Force estimated that 43 genocides occurred between 1956 and 2016, resulting in about 50 million deaths.[3] The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been displaced by such episodes of violence up to 2008.[3] Genocide, especially large-scale genocide, is widely considered to signify the epitome of human evil.[4] As a label, it is contentious because it is moralizing,[5] and has been used as a type of moral category since the late 1990s.[6]
Climate activists raise banners and the colours of the Palestinian flag, during a joint ‘climate justice’ and ‘ceasefire now’ march, demanding an end to the violence in the Gaza Strip, at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai on December 9, 2023.© Giuseppe CACACE / AFP
As an Israeli Jew who helped Palestinian civilians during my five year service in the Israeli Defense Forces, I would love nothing more than for our two peoples to live side by side in peace. Innocent Palestinians deserve every freedom and to realize their national aspirations. Sadly, the only thing standing between us and a ceasefire is Hamas, a terrorist organization whose raison d’etre is to eliminate Israel and kill Jews.
For this reason alone, calls for a ceasefire are neither a commitment to human rights nor an effort to preserve life. Instead, they are a demand that Jews not defend themselves from genocide.
To pretend that this isn’t the case not only ignores the reality on the ground but is deeply antisemitic and an outright denial of the Indigenous connection and national rights that Jews have to Israel.
Public demands for a ceasefire will do little more than serve an aggressor who has violated past ceasefires at will, including on Oct. 7 when Hamas violated an existing ceasefire in order to kill, torture, rape, and kidnap thousands of innocent people. In 2014 alone, Israel agreed to nine truces were implemented during a 51-day conflict. Even a poll from the Washington Institute of Near East Policy on October 10th showed that a majority of Gazans themselves did not support breaking the latest ceasefire agreement, something Hamas leadership did without regard to the agreement or the lives of citizens on both sides.
Rashida Tlaib Makes Emotional Plea For Gaza Ceasefire
One can criticize Israel without being antisemitic, the pro-Palestinian faction says. I agree with that statement. But calling for a ceasefire at this juncture is not criticism; it’s a dogwhistle, a demand that Jews to lay down and accept the attacks against them.
Calls for ceasefire also conveniently ignore the connection between Israel and Jews. Zionism is a movement for the re-establishment of the Jewish nation of Israel following centuries of Jewish diaspora. Formally established in 1948, Israel became a beacon of hope for Jews worldwide experiencing persecution.
My own family exemplifies this reality. Concurrent with the Holocaust in Europe, Jews in the Middle East faced violent dispossession just for being Jewish. My Iraqi grandmother was just a child in 1941 when she experienced the Farhud, a two-day pogrom against the Jewish population of Baghdad. During these days of antisemitic violence, my grandmother witnessed her best friend being raped and murdered in the streets of Iraq, just for being Jewish. Meanwhile, Tunisian Jews like my paternal grandfather were conscripted to detention camps and forced labor in a gulag, where conditions were barbaric.
Even though we and the world have seen all this before, Israel nevertheless committed to a ceasefire on November 21, an agreement that included an exchange of all hostages taken on October 7 as well as Hamas putting a stop to all missiles launched into Israel. Predictably, Hamas began firing rockets into Israel fifteen minutes into that ceasefire. They also slaughtered four Israelis on Nov. 30 in Jerusalem, and continued attacking Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
To those with genuine hearts who just want the suffering and carnage to stop, know that I am with you. I understand the hurt you are feeling and pray every day for an end to this war so we can begin the difficult process of healing and peace.
As hopeful as I am, I am also realistic: Hamas started this war on Oct. 7, and the only thing that guarantees an end to all the pain and suffering for Israelis and Gazans is for Hamas to lay down its weapons and release the 135 hostages.
Pressuring Israel, which is on a rescue mission to release its citizens from captivity and bring a group of barbaric death agents to justice, will do nothing to bring peace of mind to humanity or peace to the region.
I am certain that this is clear to many of those calling for a ceasefire. But much like the chant “from the river to the sea,” the calls for “a ceasefire” have turned into another thinly veiled euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish state that is meant to fool the American public.
Hen Mazzig is a Senior Fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute and the author of The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (C) speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) while accompanied by Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin who acted as a translator at Putin’s residence in Sochi, Russia on October 22, 2021. (Kobi Gidon/GPO)
Even before Russian troops rolled into Ukraine from three directions last week, Israel was in an awkward diplomatic situation.
It is no secret that the United States is far and away Jerusalem’s closest ally. Israel also enjoys deep and varied ties with individual European states, and in many regards with the European Union as an institution.
Israel’s relationship with Ukraine is robust as well. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian IT professionals work for Israeli companies, and Ukraine is one of Israel’s main suppliers of wheat, eggs, and other staples. Ukraine would also like nothing more than for Israel to sell it advanced weapons systems, and has hinted it would recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital if the defense relationship were enhanced.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.609.0_en.html#goog_1944089189
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.609.0_en.html#goog_1944089190
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.609.0_en.html#goog_1944089191
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At the same time, Israeli leaders know they must maintain strategic ties with Russia. Israel is unique among Western countries in that it does not see Moscow as an adversary, and Russia does not feel threatened by Israel. Though Israel proved itself willing to kill Soviet soldiers and pilots during the Cold War, today the situation is quite different.
Since September 2015, Russia has maintained an active military presence over Israel’s northern border in Syria to support the Bashar Assad regime.
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With Israel carrying out its multi-year “campaign between the wars” against Iranian entrenchment along its borders, the presence of Russian forces is a significant complication, one that must be taken into consideration every time Israeli jets fly over Syrian airspace.
Israel’s political and military leadership has – rather impressively – managed to walk the tightrope of operating effectively against Iranian, Hezbollah, and Syrian targets while mostly managing to avoid angering Russia. There have been occasional tensions, especially surrounding the September 2018 downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane by Syrian anti-aircraft forces trying to target Israeli F-16s. Moscow blamed Israel publicly, and shortly thereafter announced that the Syrian army would be receiving advanced S-300 air defense systems.
But even that turbulence in the relationship didn’t come close to causing a dangerous fraying of ties. Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Putin regularly, accompanied by Ukraine-born minister Ze’ev Elkin. Bennett, too, had a warm face-to-face meeting in October, with Elkin at his side, finding himself stuck in Sochi for Shabbat when the conversation ran well over time.
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Israel’s relationship with Russia is no doubt at the front of Israeli leaders’ minds as they craft their public statements on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Though he was silent as Russian forces built up on the Ukraine border, last Thursday Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned the “Russian attack on Ukraine,” calling it “a serious violation of the international order.”
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid during a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on February 27, 2022. (Yoav Ari Dudkevitch/POOL)
Still, there is dissonance in the official Israeli response. On three separate occasions Bennett has avoided any condemnation – or any mention of Russia at all – instead expressing sympathy for Ukrainian civilians and offering humanitarian aid.
“If in two years from now we sit under a barrage of Iranian-supplied high-accuracy rockets killing our citizens because we’ve been denied the capacity to prevent this from happening, that’s also a moral question
Though sources in both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry assured The Times of Israel that the statements are closely coordinated, Lapid is unhappy with the messaging, according to Israeli media reports on Sunday.
“Israel must be on the right side and condemn dictators who attack democracies,” he said in a private meeting, according to Army Radio.
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Eran Lerman (Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security)
But not all experts agree.
“If in two years from now we sit under a barrage of Iranian-supplied high-accuracy rockets killing our citizens because we’ve been denied the capacity to prevent this from happening, that’s also a moral question,” said Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and past deputy national security adviser.
“Moralism looks very nice when you’re a Western liberal and decide that the consequences of the positions you take are irrelevant. But the question of consequences is also a moral question.”
Then-national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat during a ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport prior to visiting Bahrain to sign a series of bilateral agreements between Jerusalem and Manama, October 18, 2020. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL via FLASH90)
Meir Ben-Shabbat, visiting senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and a former national security adviser, said that “Israel does not need to prove what worldview, which ideological outlook, and which values it is close to. This is quite clear to everyone.
“Everyone also is aware that Israel and the US have relations that are called, not by chance, a ‘special relationship.’ Along with this, Israel has additional interests it must take into consideration.”
It might not even be especially advantageous to Ukraine if Israel alienates Russia. If Putin does want a mediator at some point – and it may well be that there is no endgame other than negotiations – Israel is one of the few options that both sides would be comfortable with.
Russia won’t go to a major Western capital, and Ukraine sees Belarus as too pro-Russian to go back to Minsk. Along with Geneva or Vienna, Jerusalem is a leading option. Ben-Shabbat said that it is perfectly conceivable that Israel could mediate talks, but “the question of hosting is secondary.”
“The more important question is assessing the conditions and the chances of producing agreement between the sides,” he said.
“The fact that we have a decent working relationship with Russia could be beneficial to both countries, not least of all to the Ukrainians who have no other wish at this point than to resolve around the table and not in the streets of Kyiv,” said Lerman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Defense_Forces
The new army organized itself when the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine escalated into the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which saw neighboring Arab states attack. Twelve infantry and armored brigades formed: Golani, Carmeli, Alexandroni, Kiryati, Givati, Etzioni, the 7th, and 8th armored brigades, Oded, Harel, Yiftach, and Negev.[10] After the war, some of the brigades were converted to reserve units, and others were disbanded. Directorates and corps were created from corps and services in the Haganah, and this basic structure in the IDF still exists today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931948_civil_war_in_Mandatory_Palestine
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.[5]
During the civil war, the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine clashed (the latter supported by the Arab Liberation Army) while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order,[6][7] organized their withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis.
When the British Mandate of Palestine expired on 14 May 1948, and with the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, the surrounding Arab states—Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq and Syria—invaded what had just ceased to be Mandatory Palestine,[8] and immediately attacked Israeli forces and several Jewish settlements.[9] The conflict thus escalated and became the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Background
Under the control of a British administration since 1920, Palestine found itself the object of a battle between Palestinian and Zionist nationalists, groups that opposed both the British mandate and one another.[citation needed]
The Palestinian backlash culminated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, a deadly civil conflict that saw the deaths of nearly 5,000 Palestinian Arabs and 500 Jews, and resulted in much of the Palestinian political leadership, including Amin al-Husseini, leader of the Arab Higher Committee, being driven into exile. Britain also reduced Jewish immigration in response to the violence, as legislated by the 1939 White Paper. It also prompted the reinforcement of Zionist paramilitary groups.[citation needed]
After World War II and The Holocaust, the Zionist movement gained attention and sympathy. In Mandatory Palestine, Zionist groups fought against the British occupation. In the two and a half years from 1945 to June 1947, British law enforcement forces lost 103 dead, and sustained 391 wounded from Jewish militants.[10] The Palestinian Arab nationalists reorganized themselves, but their organization remained inferior to that of the Zionists.[citation needed]
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