From the River to the Sea 2

November 16, 2023November 16, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

” a) The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

This is the first tenet of the Nethanhayu’s Likud Party’s original Platform statement of 1977. Any claim by Zionists that From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free is a call to genocide is disingenuous and obfuscatory. In 1942, European and American Zionist’s set forth the seminal Biltmore Conference Declaration which laid claim to the whole of the British Mandatory Palestine for their new settler colonial state –

“8. … The Conference urges that the gates of Palestine be opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into Palestine and with the necessary authority for upbuilding the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world.“

Indeed, it is the Zionist version of From the River (the Jordan) to the Sea, that is founded on acts of ethnic cleansing, starting with the Nkabah of 1948 and continuing on through the last 75 years by way of sustained apartheid oppression, relentless settlement activity, crushing military rule, and murderous wars on civilian populations. It is Israel, that is an exclusive and exclusionary ethnocracy. Before the imposition of this Jewish state upon its territory, Palestine was a multiethnic, multireligious land of Arabs, both Christians and Muslims, Bedouins and Jews. There is nothing to suggest that either contemporary Palestinian national aspirations or the slogan uttered in this cause, is genocidal or hateful in any way. It is not a call for ridding the land of Jews. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free should be understood in the context of the above declaration and the second tenet of the Likud Party Platform which explicitly refuses the establishment of a Palestinian State anywhere on this land.-

” b) A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a “Palestinian State,” jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.“

While it must be acknowledged that a liberation slogan can mean different things to different people, From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free, when interpreted in its proper historical context, is simply a cry for freedom, across all the land, for all the people.

Ceasefire Now!

November 16, 2023November 19, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Come on Justin,
nearly there son.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Macron said it,
you can say it.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Too late for some,
but not for others.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Babies crying,
Babies dying.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Come on Justin,
where’s your conscience.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Just two words,
to stop the killing.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

You dont want no
part in war crimes
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Come on Justin,
you can say it.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/13/headlines/french_president_emmanuel_macron_says_its_time_for_ceasefire_in_gaza

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/canadian-lawyers-warn-justin-trudeau-they-will-seek-genocide-prosecution

Zionism ≠ Judaism

November 10, 2023November 10, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, who is the rabbi of a congregation in Queens, New York, explains the relationship between Judaism and Zionism, and sets out the basis of the Orthodox rejection of Jewish nationalism and the Jewish State. First, he defines the Jewish people as being a religious community as opposed to an ethnic or linguistic grouping. He then goes on to explain how Zionism was built on a self-loathing of Judaic piety, an atheistic nationalism, whose very secularism negates the claim to a promised land, and a Christian Zionist eschatology that predates the Jewish Zionist movement. Rabbi Shapiro shows how contemporary antisemitism is sustained by its tethering to antizionism and helps explain the West’s unwavering support of Israel, even as this support approaches complicity in genocide. As of November 9 (07:30 GMT), it is estimated that 10,812 Gazans (including 4,412 children and 2,918 women) have been killed in the ongoing Israeli invasion.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

Stop Antisemitismism

November 8, 2023November 9, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Renowned Israeli Historian, Avi Shlaim, who is an Emeritus professor of International Relations at Oxford University, makes the following distinction between antisemitism and antizionism.

Antisemitism is the hatred of Jews simply because they are Jews.

Antizionism is the opposition to one or more of the following –
1) the Zionist ideology
2) the official ideology of the state of Israel
3) the criticism of policies of Israel, particularly regarding the occupation of Palestine.

Shlaim goes on to state that while antisemitism is a very ugly thing that can never be justified, antizionism can be reasonable evidence-based, and legitimate. The problem, however, is that Israel and its allies deliberately conflate the two to besmirch assertions of antizionism, however legitimate, as being instances of antisemitism. This patently cynical obfuscation has been effective in silencing debate on the Palestinian question in Western nations. Given that current Israeli policy, arguably encompasses, genocide acts with stated intent, is time we denounce such antisemitismism.

From the River to the Sea

November 2, 2023November 10, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

The national motto of Canada, “A Mari Usque Ad Mare,” which translates to “From sea to sea,” marks the occupation of a land which the prior occupants still call Turtle Island. While this proprietary geographical imagery derives from the Biblical Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth,” its eschatological sense of “dominion” has been repeatedly transposed into an imperial one throughout the Common Era. The territorial imagery of “A mari Usque Ad Mare,” is evoked again in ‘America the Beautiful’, a popular patriotic song often confused with the American National anthem,

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

This proprietary boundary symbolism seems to be an identifiable feature of European settler colonial imagery and lore. Indeed, European settler colonialism can be said to have been inaugurated in 1452, when Roman Catholic Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Dum Diversas, authorizing King Afonso V of Portugal to subjugate the lands and the lives of non-Christians. While Zionism does not derive from this Christian ‘doctrine of discovery’, the founding of Israel in the violent displacement of native Palestinians by non-native European Jews, can be seen as the last significant instantiation of such an ethnopolitical ‘dominion’.

Given both the history of settlement and erasure of Palestinians from their lands and the fact that in the past month, 10,733 Palestinians have been killed (10,569 in Gaza and 164 in the West Bank, November 8, 10:50 GMT Update) with the complicity of the collective West, I wonder if it is a guilty self-projection that underpins the interpretation that the freedom slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as a call for genocide (mass killing or other form of eradication with intent)? In fact, as Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has recently explained, this is not a call for the destruction of the state of Israel, but “a call for freedom ‘from the river to the sea’ for everybody.

Image: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/from-sea-to-shining-sea.html

https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/dum-diversas/

https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/why-israel-isnt-a-settler-colonial-state/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the -palestinian-slogan-really-mean

The Nakba is Ongoing

October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Ilan Pappé notes, in an interview prefaced by a reference to the leaked Israeli document which outlines a plan to displace the entire Gaza population into the Sinai Desert, “what unfolds in front of our eyes is a genocidal situation …this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing of the population. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October but I think the real intention here is … to create new realities in historical Palestine.” He goes on to state that the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba.” Pappé is a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. See also an earlier interview here – Terrorism and Genocidal Revenge

Israel Invokes the Holocaust

October 31, 2023November 9, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, donned the despicable yellow star that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis to mark them out as such in Aryan society. After saying “From now on my team and I will wear Yellow Stars”. He stood up to put on his star, sat down again, and said, “We will wear this star until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.” The original yellow star had the word ‘Jude’ emblazoned across its center, while the ambassador and his delegation donned stars that said, ‘Never Again’. The Irony of this political theatre at the UN is that the Holocaust had already been invoked in the mediain a comparison with the contemporary Israeli persecution of Palestinians. Palestinian American celebrity Mohamed Hadid made a much maligned repost of a meme on X which itemised the 6 congruities between Israel and the Nazis . Hadid was accused of antisemitism and eventually removed his post. I have restated the correlations presented in the meme below –
1. an ideology/nationality based on racial supremacy,
2. the forced transfer of populations,
3. containment within ghettos and concentration camps,
4. the use of language to dehumanize,
5. collective punishment and
6. genocide by industrial means.

Image: https://staging-beta.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2023/10/31/israel-envoy-wears-yellow-star-at-un/

https://www.firstpost.com/world/staying-silent-in-face-of-evil-israel-envoy-to-un-vows-to-wear-yellow-star-until-un-condemns-hamas-atrocities-13323472.html

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/tierin-rose-mandelburg/2023/10/30/deport-him-bella-gigi-hadids-dad-roasted-comparing

Le Massacre des Innocents

October 26, 2023December 20, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

The Massacre of Innocents is a 17th-century masterpiece by Nicolas Poussin that crystalizes, in the portrayal of a single imminent action, an eternal image of child murder. According to the Bible, King Herod the Ascalonite, who was a vassal of Imperial Rome in Judea, feared the advent of a new ‘King of the Jews.’ Unable to ascertain the precise location or age of the new-born Jesus Christ, he decreed the collateral slaughter of all the babies under 2 years old in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1). This ancient specter of child murder has returned to haunt us today, both in the debunked (updated December 20) Israeli claim that HAMAS beheaded 40 babies in its fearsome raid on October 7th and, more concretely, in the number of dead Gazan children, laid waste in Israel’s fearful response.

UPDATE: The number of Palestinian children slaughtered stands at 8,663 (this figure is an estimate as of December 19).

STOP FEMICIDE

October 26, 2023October 26, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

7,028 people (3,129 women) killed by air strikes in the Gaza Strip. 26.10.2023.

Click to access %D8%AA%D9%82%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%87%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%A1-1.pdf

Shame on US

October 23, 2023October 26, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

The United States was the only member of the Security Council to veto a draft resolution put forward by Brazil at the UN Security Council calling for a humanitarian pause in the assault on Gaza. This vote, which took place on 18 Oct 2023 followed an earlier resolution that was voted against by France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for failing to condemn the HAMAS attack on Israel. Blocking this second, amended, call for a cessation of hostilities, which in fact specifically condemned “the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas,” enables, Israel to continue its slaughter of innocent Palestinians without the legal restraint of UN censure. CNN reports that the US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticized the resolution for failing to mention Israel’s right to self-defense, thereby perpetuating the Israeli conflation of the semantics of ‘attack’ and ‘defense.’ She also explained that the US wanted more time to let its on-the-ground diplomacy “play out.” It seems that the United States is enabling, even promoting, what Raz Segal has called a textbook case of genocide. Shame!

26. 10 2003 update: 7,028 people killed by air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Image https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/europe/us-veto-security-council-israel-gaza-war-intl/index.html

https://apnews.com/article/un-security-council-resolution-gaza-hamas-1c23913f8552f5379b2c158a83493835

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-death-toll-names-killed-released-biden-questions