Avi Shlaim discute de son expérience de Juif d'Iraq en Israël et de sa vision historique d'Israël

Les juifs européens avaient tendance à nous considérer comme socialement et culturellement inférieurs. Ils attachaient également des connotations négatives à la langue arabe. Non seulement l’arabe était la langue de « l’ennemi », mais elle était généralement considérée comme laide et primitive.

[Ma] famille a été contrainte de quitter le pays [l'Irak], notamment parce qu’en facilitant la prise de contrôle de la Palestine par les sionistes, la Grande-Bretagne a contribué à alimenter l’hostilité des musulmans à l’égard des juifs dans l’ensemble du monde arabe.

Le sionisme a mis l’accent sur le lien historique du peuple juif avec sa terre ancestrale au Proche-Orient, mais il a donné naissance à un État qui s’identifiait presque exclusivement à l’Occident dans son orientation culturelle et géopolitique. Israël se considérait, et il était considéré par ses ennemis, comme une extension du colonialisme européen au Proche-Orient, comme étant « dans » le Proche-Orient, mais pas « de » lui. Dans ce type d’État eurocentrique, il était difficile pour des personnes comme mes grands-mères de se sentir chez elles.

Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds. Memoir of an Arab-Jew, juin 2023.
(Extraits traduits en français par Orient XXI, 18 juillet 2023)

Ou quand la sérénité réussit à transmettre des évidences.

En paraphrasant en partie George Orwell, nous écrivons parce qu’il y a un mensonge que nous tenons à balancer, des faits remarquables, omis ou tenus en demi-silence, sur lesquels nous voulons attirer l’attention. Dans ce sens, les paroles d'Avi Shlaim valent littéralement la peine, constituent une crème contre les rides, les oublis, les manipulations et les impostures dans un sujet central pour l'humanité, la cause palestinienne. Son témoignage personnel est celui, plus qu'éloquent, d'un Juif mizra’h transplanté en 1950 dans la nouvelle et délirante entité sioniste, et soumis à son aberration en marche. Son récit analytique est celui d'un historien irako-israélien —richissime en vie et en études, débiteur aujourd'hui notamment de Ella Shohat, Edward Saïd ou Orit Bashkin— qui après avoir appliqué pour de bon la méthode historique la plus rigoureuse, est parvenu à dévoiler une formidable mystification mondiale, le narratif sioniste destiné, d'un côté, à rendre patte blanche à une opération coloniale, raciste et génocidaire de nettoyage ethnique, de l'autre, à flétrir la réputation des victimes (des massacrés, spoliés, bannis, humiliés, écroués, mutilés et torturés) : les Palestiniens. Témoignage et récit qui en disent long sur les mythes d'Israël et du Sionisme, entité et idéologie coloniales brutales, et sur l'enterrement criminel des droits palestiniens les plus élémentaires depuis notamment 1947.

Disons par ailleurs que sa déclaration et son parcours personnel ressemblent énormément à ceux de Naeim Giladi (1), Juif irakien devenu anti-sioniste, comme Shlaim, à force d'expérience et de recherches. Au bout du compte, l'organisation sioniste en castes ab ouo, théorisée et pratiquée, aux effets (relents) sociaux, politiques, économiques et culturels toujours persistants, toujours persistants, est hors de doute.

Même si je ne suis pas ou je n'ai pas toujours été d'accord avec cet homme honnête (2), honneur à Avi Shlaim pour beaucoup de choses et, concrètement, pour son discours dans cet entretien. Né en Iraq, au sein d'une famille irakienne, émigré en Israël à l'âge de 5 ans, britannique aujourd'hui. "Il parle à TRT World de la façon dont les Juifs vivaient en paix dans le monde arabe et musulman avant le Sionisme et l'importation de la judéophobie de l'Europe." Une vingtaine de minutes à ne pas rater.

TRT World, 16 févr. 2024
British-Israeli historian Professor Avi Shlaim was born in Iraq to Jewish parents in 1945, and moved to the newly established State of Israel as a 5-year-old. He speaks to TRT World about how Jews lived peacefully in the Arab and Muslim world before Zionism and the import of anti-Semitism from Europe.

00:00:00 - 00:02:03 Introduction and Overview

00:02:03 - 00:05:02 The New Historians and Revisionist History

00:05:02 - 00:08:01 Personal Journey: From Iraq to Israel

00:08:01 - 00:11:03 Zionism and Its Impact

00:11:03 - 00:14:07 Disenchantment with Israeli Policies and the 1967 War

00:14:07 - 00:17:12 Final Observations and Reflections

00:17:12 - 00:20:16 Concluding Remarks

___________________________________
(1) Entretien avec Naeim Giladi, le 11.07.1994, lorsqu'il était le président de The World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC), l'Organisation mondiale des Juifs des Pays Arabes :

Naeim Giladi (Hebrew: נעים גלעדי‎) (born 1929, Iraq, as Naeim Khalaschi) is an Anti-Zionist, and author of an autobiographical article and historical analysis entitled The Jews of Iraq.[1] The article later formed the basis for his originally self-published book Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews.

Giladi was born in 1929 to an Iraqi Jewish family and later lived in Israel and the United States.[2] Giladi describes his family as, "a large and important" family named "Haroon" who had settled in Iraq after the Babylonian exile. According to Giladi his family had owned, 50,000 acres (200 km²) devoted to rice, dates and Arab horses. They were later involved in gold purchase and purification, and were therefore given the name, 'Khalaschi', meaning 'Makers of Pure' by the Turks who occupied Iraq at the time.[1]

He states that he joined the underground Zionist movement at age 14 without his parent's knowledge and was involved in underground activities. He was arrested and jailed by the Iraqi government at the age of 17 in 1947.[1] During his two years in the prison of Abu Ghraib, he was expecting to be sentenced to death for smuggling Iraqi Jews out of the country to Iran, where they were then taken to Israel. He managed to escape from prison and travel to Israel, arriving in May 1950.

While living in Israel, his views of Zionism changed. He writes that, he "was disillusioned personally, disillusioned at the institutionalized racism, disillusioned at what I was beginning to learn about Zionism's cruelties. The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the "Oriental" Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948".[1]

I organized a demonstration in Ashkelon against Ben Gurion's racist policies and 10,000 people turned out."[1]

After serving in the Israeli Army between 1967-1970, Giladi was active in the Israeli Black Panthers movement.

(2) Exemple terrible, lu dans le quotidien El País le 19.11.2003, mis à part ses liaisons très dangereuses :

Shlaim coincide con la tesis defendida ayer, por el ex presidente del Gobierno español Felipe González y el ex ministro de Exteriores israelí Shlomo Ben Ami, durante la presentación de El muro de hierro, de que la única solución al conflicto de Oriente Próximo pasa por una intervención internacional, siendo las partes incapaces de llegar a un acuerdo por sí solas. "Alguien tiene que imponerles una solución. Y tanto Israel como Palestina deben aceptar que alguien les imponga un acuerdo". ¿Quién es ese alguien? "Sin duda, EE UU. Es el único país que tiene poder sobre Israel. El problema es que no ejerce ese poder y que Sharon ha logrado convencer a Bush de que la lucha contra el pueblo palestino se enmarca dentro de la lucha contra el terrorismo global", asegura.

Le renard dans le poulailler ? Aucunement. Le roi des États coloniaux et génocidaires serait l'arbitre dans un cas de colonialisme et d'épuration ethnique ? Sommes-nous devenus fous ? Je veux croire, au demeurant, qu'Avi Shlaim ait changé d'avis là-dessus au moins ces derniers temps —déjà à l'époque, c'était fort de café que de proférer une telle position. Entre Avi Shlaim et moi, il y a d'autres divergences d'importance ; il prône, v. g., une (pour moi très fausse) solution à deux États, qui, à mes yeux, nuit aux victimes et exonère les agresseurs coloniaux.
Voir à ce sujet la One Democratic State Campaign ou bien la très récente intervention de l'historien, ancien diplomate et recteur écossais Craig Murray, un homme engagé et admirable, lors d'une conférence à Genève sur le génocide à Gaza le 22.02.2024 :

The notion that all military action by Palestinians is Terrorism and the de-legitimization of self-defence by Palestinians is fundamental to the denial of Palestinian sovereignty, and I want very briefly, and I promise I'll be very brief, to come to the idea of the two-state solution and what Biden and Netanyahu were discussing two days ago; where Netanyahu, having ruled out a two State solution, Biden got him to agree that there's a possible thing called a two-state solution, where Palestine has no military and no army, and no sovereignty. And I want to tell you this: there is no two-state solution to this problem. The idea of a two-state solution is nonsense. The people who put forward the two-state solution do not actually even believe in it. What they want is what we had with apartheid South Africa, with the idea of the so-called homelands. If you remember, Botswana was declared an independent Homeland, and these are puppet states which have no military, no independent foreign policy, no control of their own borders or populations, and which are used simply to deprive voting rights from, in that case for black population, and to be used as a source of cheap labour for people coming in to the Metropolitan State. That is what they are trying to repeat in Israel with the so-called two-state solution. It is not the end of Israeli apartheid; what they think of as a two-state solution in which Palestine is a demilitarized, controlled puppet state: that is the entrenchment of Israeli apartheid, not the end of Israeli apartheid. You cannot have a two-state solution where Palestinians are deprived of 85% of their land and only have 15% of the land, where they are under control, where they are cut off from sources of natural resources and where their lands are not contiguous. It is a nonsense. There is only one solution to this question in the Middle East and that is a single, independent state of Palestine covering all the lands of Palestine and Israel, which is democratic, and secular, and blind to race and ethnicity: that is the answer we must support.

En français :

L'idée selon laquelle toute action militaire des Palestiniens relève du terrorisme, tout comme la délégitimation de l'autodéfense des Palestiniens, est fondamentale pour le déni de la souveraineté palestinienne, et je vais un peu aborder l’idée de la solution à deux États dont Biden et Netanyahou ont discuté il y a deux jours. Netanyahou avait exclu cette possibilité, mais Biden lui a fait accepter qu'il existe une chose possible appelée une solution à deux États où la Palestine n’aurait ni militaires ni armée ni souveraineté. Cette solution n’est pas envisageable. Cette idée ne tient pas la route. Ceux qui la prônent n’y croient vraiment pas. Ils cherchent à établir un système similaire à celui de l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud, avec l’idée des soi-disant « terres natales » (homelands, bantoustans). Si vous vous souvenez bien, le Botswana a été déclaré « terre natale » indépendante, et ce sont des États fantoches sans armée, ni politique étrangère indépendante, ni contrôle sur leurs propres frontières ou populations, et qui sont utilisés simplement pour priver, dans ce cas, la population noire du droit de vote et fournir une main-d'œuvre bon marché aux gens arrivant dans l'État métropolitain. C’est ce qu’ils tentent de répéter en Israël avec la soi-disant solution à deux États. Ce n’est pas la fin de l’apartheid israélien ; ce qu’ils considèrent comme une solution à deux États, dans laquelle la Palestine serait un État fantoche démilitarisé et contrôlé, c’est le renforcement de l’apartheid israélien, et non la fin de l’apartheid israélien. Vous ne pouvez pas avoir une solution à deux États où les Palestiniens seraient privés de 85 % de leurs terres et n’en auraient que 15 %, où ils seraient sous contrôle, où ils seraient coupés des sources des ressources naturelles et où leurs terres ne seraient pas contiguës. C'est une absurdité. Il n'y a qu'une seule solution à cette question au Moyen-Orient et c'est un État de Palestine unique et indépendant couvrant toutes les terres de Palestine et d'Israël, qui soit démocratique, laïc et aveugle à la race et à l'appartenance ethnique : voilà la réponse que nous devons soutenir !

Voici la vidéo intégrale des 16 minutes de son intervention, très informative et en plein dans le mille, sous-titrée en français par Investig'action :

AJ+ : les pays génocidaires avec Israël

La chaîne qatari tape dans le mille et vient d'offrir un bref parcours historique qui aide à la compréhension de ce qui se passe en Palestine : en effet, on vérifie que ce sont les gouvernements des grands pays à tradition génocidaire (ce qui inclut les prestations de Winston Churchill : demandez à Tariq Ali) qui soutiennent Israël, qui restent de fait ardemment aux côtés d'un régime génocidaire. Leur pouvoir nous fait froid dans le dos d'autant que l'on constate leur suite historique dans les idées génocidaires —récidive particulièrement rédhibitoire. 
Parmi eux, le dévergondage des décideurs allemands est particulièrement gonflé et écœurant : comme les Nazis ont massacré industriellement plus de 5 millions de Juifs, les Merkel, Steinmaier, Habeck et autres Scholz veulent se refaire une sainteté sur le dos et le martyre des Palestiniens, et ils s'évertuent par-dessus le marché à nous matraquer —c'est moi qui traduis le vrai sens de leurs mots— que la sécurité et l'existence d'Israël en dehors d'Allemagne sont la raison d'État de l'Allemagne —et que, donc, il faut comprendre leur contribution à l'extermination des Palestiniens afin qu'Israël existe et passe son existence à se défendre (???????) d'une manière carrément offensive contre les gens qu'il a délogés et massacre régulièrement, car telle est la manière de se défendre des puissances coloniales génocidaires contre l'envie de vie de leurs opprimés.
En janvier, Hage Geingob, Président de la Namibie, s'est vu contraint d'intervenir attendu l'aplomb abominable des autorités allemandes :

« L’Allemagne ne peut pas exprimer moralement son engagement envers la Convention des Nations Unies contre le Génocide, ni expier son génocide en Namibie tout en soutenant l’équivalent d’un holocauste et d’un génocide à Gaza. » (13.01.2024)

Al Jazeera m'a piqué l'idée et tant mieux : ils disposent de plus de moyens et la vidéo qu'ils ont réalisé s'avère nickel : du ciné vérité en court métrage. En plus, ils m'ont évité une sale tâche [1]. Oui, c'est incomplet, on n'y dit rien, que sais-je, de Henry Kissinger, par exemple, mais c'est un concentré de 9 minutes et Yasmina Bennani, la journaliste, n'arrête pas de parler, et sans erreur. 

AJ+, mes compliments et merci beaucoup !

_______________________

[1] Au demeurant, ce blog contient bon nombre de billet abordant la matière à perspective variable. Cf. ici, ici, ici, ici, ici ou là

Gaza : les 10 dernières infos pas vues à la TV - Michel Midi

Sur son site indépendant Investig'action, l'infatigable journaliste à une retraite très active Michel Collon nous propose un menu engagé, varié et toujours intéressant. Il comprend depuis quelques mois un vieux projet bien chéri, Télé Palestine. 

Michel Collon présente directement une émission qu'il appelle MICHEL MIDI et qui lui sert à analyser l'actualité. Il a mis cette rubrique à jour il y a deux heures et sa proposition, concernant le martyre de Gaza par l'incessante activité génocidaire d'Israël, est éloquente. Ce crime atroce comporte des actions et une narration truffée de mensonges et d'omissions destinée à déshumaniser les victimes, les Palestiniens, et à justifier leur massacre ordinaire. Cette abomination traîne depuis plus de 75 ans avec la complicité cruelle et cynique des États-Unis et de ses misérables valets, y compris l'Union Européenne. Mais l'enjeu est plus complexe...

Écoutez-visionnez la présentation de Collon :

Gaza : les 10 dernières infos pas vues à la TV - MICHEL MIDI

La Palestine et son droit d'exister au Parlement européen

Honneur à la Gauche dans le Parlement Européen (THE LEFT in the European Parliament), car elle vient de nous proposer une table ronde sur la Palestine d'une importance énorme. Une table ronde nécessaire, pressante, lumineuse —aux effets, espérons, multiples : sans espoir, la résistance s'avère impossible— concernant la Palestine, son martyre interminable et son droit d'exister. 

Cet objectif exige, comme le signalait le sous-titre de la table ronde, et notre solidarité envers un peuple qui souffre d'une manière extraordinaire et notre lutte contre l'impunité de l'État colonial et génocidaire d'Israël.
Je me permets néanmoins d'exprimer une distance vis-à-vis de la formulation présentant cette table ronde. La "solution" à deux États —fausse, injuste, coloniale, aujourd'hui d'ailleurs irréalisable ; c'est Israël qui a tout fait pour la rendre absolument non-viable— n'est pas la mienne, ne l'a jamais été, et je la conteste —comme c'est le cas, j'en suis persuadé, de plusieurs des invité.e.s à cette tribune bruxelloise —ou de la One Democratic State Campaign. 

Je comprends que le plus urgent aujourd'hui, c'est d'en finir avec le massacre en cours et de secourir les Palestiniens de Gaza, en détresse absolue, sans oublier ceux de la Cisjordanie, harcelés, expulsés et tués tous les jours par les colons et l'armée sionistes, sans oublier ceux d'Israël et Jérusalem, sans oublier les réfugiés palestiniens, citoyens de deuxième classe au Liban, en Syrie ou en Jordanie, ou dans la diaspora. 

Ceux-ci, les réfugiés palestiniens à l'extérieur, tout comme les Palestiniens mal-habitant en Israël, sont d'ailleurs majoritairement partisans d'une solution à un seul État. Au bout du compte, ladite "solution" à deux États a toujours été en elle-même une spoliation. Mini-digression en rapport : Craig Mokhiber et Phyllis Bennis ont publié le 8 janvier 2024 un article splendide intitulé A Crack in a 75-year-old Wall of Impunity: South Africa Challenges Israeli Genocide in Court, FPIF.org. Je traduis en français son premier paragraphe, tout à fait pertinent :

1948 fut une année d’ironie tragique.
Cette année-là a vu l’adoption de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme et de la Convention des Nations Unies pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide, promettant ensemble un monde dans lequel les Droits de l’Homme seraient protégés par l’Empire de la Loi. La même année, l’Afrique du Sud a adopté l’apartheid et les forces israéliennes ont exécuté la Nakba, la violente dépossession massive de centaines de milliers de Palestiniens. Les deux systèmes s’appuyaient sur le soutien colonial occidental. (...)

Retournons à notre table ronde dans le Parlement européen. Voici d'abord la vibrante intervention de Miko Peled, frère de Nurit (cf. ICI et LÀ), Israéliens absolument et justement excédés. Écoutez-la très très attentivement [transcription complète en bas de billet], car elle jaillit des entrailles mêmes de la connaissance du sujet, de la dignité et de la plus juste indignation humaines. Honni soit qui en dise du mal :

Voici, ensuite, la vidéo complète de cet événement bruxellois ainsi que quelques éléments de contexte.

PALESTINE: THE RIGHT TO EXIST. SOLIDARITY & STRUGGLE AGAINST ISRAEL’S IMPUNITY
Le 31 janvier 2024, , de 15:16 à 18:58
European Parliament – Brussels
15:00 – Spinelli 1G2 “Manolis Glezos”
Over 24,000 Palestinians have lost their lives in Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza. Since the beginning of these still unfolding horrors, The Left in the European Parliament has been constantly calling for a ceasefire. Lasting and fair peace in the region must be achieved in line with international law and human rights based on UN resolutions. This event brings together voices from the ground, from Israel and Palestine, advocating for peace based on a two-state solution.

Plus de 24 000 Palestiniens ont perdu la vie lors de l'actuelle attaque israélienne contre Gaza. Depuis le début de ces horreurs qui continuent de se dérouler, La Gauche au Parlement européen n’a cessé d’appeler à un cessez-le-feu. Il faut instaurer une paix durable et juste dans la région conformément au droit international et aux Droits de l’Homme, sur la base des résolutions de l’ONU. Cet événement rassemble des voix sur le terrain, en Israël et en Palestine, plaidant pour une paix basée sur une solution à deux États.

PROGRAMME (TBC)  

15h00 Welcome by Manu PINEDA / Idoia VILLANUEVA.

15h15 Opening by Francesca Albanese (UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories) and Ilan Pappé (both will participate remotely)

15h30 “What is happening in Palestine?

Moderator: Idoia VILLANUEVA.

• Khadeja Ibrahim, The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy – MIFTAH – Gender impact

• Khaled Quzmar, Defense for Children International – Palestine – The Children.

• Yousef Habash, Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS). – Journalists.

• Ahmed Abou Foul, Al-Haq. Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation

17h15 Palestine’s right to exist.

Moderator: Manu PINEDA.

• Olga Rodríguez. Journalist.

• Miko Peled. Israeli author and peace activist.

• Sahar Francis. Addameer. Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. – Arbitrary Detentions/Hostages.

• 18h30 Debate and closing by Mick WALLACE.

________________________________

TRANSCRIPTION DE L'INTERVENTION DE MIKO PELED (les liens et crochets sont de mon cru) :

Thank you for inviting these excellent Palestinian voices that we heard in the previous panel. I want to echo something that my colleague just said, but also that was said by our brother Yousef Habash, who was up here earlier, that Palestinians are fighting not only for their own human rights, but for ours; not only for their own dignity, but for ours, and how are we going to face our children and our grandchildren when they ask us how did we allow this to happen on our watch? How did we let this happen? Where were you? Where were we and where did we stand?
This is happening not only in our watch, this is happening in broad daylight, this is happening with the full support of our elected officials, full support of our elected officials. How do we let this happen?
When I was listening to Francesca Albanese remarks, it sounded a lot like… a list of the successes of the state of Israel. These are all things… all the things that she mentioned were things that Israeli public figures claim with pride: the hunger, the disease, the deaths, the destruction… these are all things that they are proud of: they claim them that not only do, they not deny them, they claim them on a regular basis, publicly, and they do this with pride. These are things that are being broadcast openly and… major Israeli figures, policy makers, government ministers are discussing very openly, and in great detail, the forced transfer of millions of Palestinians, and they discuss this as though… as a matter of fact, openly.
I remember hearing, as a child growing up, about Freedom Fighters, the resistance, the partisans… fighting fascism, fighting Nazis, fighting dictatorships, fighting against apartheid… the Algerian resistance… and I don't recall, and I may be wrong, but I don't recall ever anyone saying yes, these were very brave, but we need to denounce them first. I don't ever being… I don’t recall anybody saying we condemn the resistance fighters who fought the dictatorships, and the Nazis, and the fascists, and apartheid and so on; I never heard that until it came to the Palestinians, that's the first time I've ever heard and again, I may be wrong, but this is the first time I've ever heard that there's a need to condemn and say yes, but, of course, they're suffering, but first, we need to condemn. Are we out of our minds condemning the resistance of the people who are being oppressed and killed, [Applause] subjected to genocide for 75 years??? Are we out of our minds?????? Are we out of our minds???? Are we outside of our minds when we let this ridiculous narrative take hold and spread, and then, participate in it, nodding our heads like sheep??? Oh, and, by the way, yes, there is a genocide going on, and it's terrible, but, first, we have to condemn the Palestinians who dare to stand up, Palestinians who’ve shown an ability to sacrifice and amounts of courage that, as far as I can remember, are unprecedented, facing this horrific, horrific oppression.
But what are we really talking about? Again, we've heard lists and lists and lists of crimes committed by the state of Israel, lists and lists of crimes against humanity. And there's always seems to me like there's a little bit of a sense of surprise, a little bit of shock, a little bit as though… this was somehow not predictable. What we are seeing now in Gaza was not only predictable, it was preventable, and we did not prevent it. The previous massacre in Gaza was predictable too, and that was not prevented. And we can go on and on and on and on back 75 years, because what could possibly be expected from an apartheid regime, established after a massive campaign, open, massive campaign, of ethnic cleansing, massacres and the beginning of a genocide that is still going on today, what could possibly be expected??? That was the founding moment of the state of Israel, close to a million people forced out of their land, God knows how many were massacred. And that was the beginning!!!!! That was 1948!! So, now, we're shocked? All these lists and lists and lists and lists: there's nothing new about them! except, this time, the numbers are higher, this time the numbers are the… you know, even by Israeli standards, it is shocking. But this was predictable, and this was preventable. And every time something happens, we rise, we protest, we demand, and we forget. Instead of standing there and demanding an end, an absolute end to the oppression and the killing of Palestinians, an end to it. Not a ceasefire to it, an end to it! A political solution that will guarantee the lives, the security, the safety of Palestinians: that has never been discussed. I don't recall it ever being discussed, that guarantees need to be put in place, guarantees need to be put in place! For the life and security and the safety of Palestinians, because Palestinians have been living in a state of Terror for 75 years, not just now, but for 75 years living in a state of Terror, whether in the West Bank, whether they're in the Gaza Strip, whether they're citizens of the state of Israel, or so-called citizens, they have been living in a state of Terror and they still do today, granted the level of Terror has increased since October the 7th. Are we going to prevent the next death? Are we going to prevent the next assault, the last… the next savagery by Israel? —that we know is going to come, we know it's coming, of course; this chapter hasn't ended yet. Are we going to prevent it? Are we going to allow the Israeli flag to still fly in capitals in Europe? This flag that represents hate, murder, genocide… How long are we going to allow representatives, diplomatic representatives, economic representatives, cultural representatives, academics and on and on and on… of the apartheid state to sit among us, like equals? Because they too have a right. How long? Because as long as we allow them to sit here, they will continue to kill, they will continue the genocide and, by the way, of course, we're all very grateful to what South Africa has done, but what has it taken for the world to finally take Israel to Court on the crime of genocide? It's taken 75 years plus close to 30,000 deaths that we know of now. 30,000 deaths!! I've lived in cities that have less than 30,000 people in them. Wiped out!! gone!! Entire families, as we know, completely erased from the registry. And, once again, I ask what are we expecting? What did we expect? Three years!! Three years!!!!!! after the end of the genocide of Jews in Europe, three years after the end of the Holocaust, the world allowed the genocide of the Palestinian people to commence. In 1948! the world allowed an apartheid regime to take hold in Palestine. Not some remote place that maybe people didn't know about: in Palestine!!!! What is a three hours flight from here.
The world allowed an apartheid regime to take hold, the world allowed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing, and the world allowed the genocide to commence.
All three crimes against humanity… to commence against the Palestinian people... What are we expecting? What are we expecting? As long as that regime is permitted to continue to exist, THIS… WILL… CONTINUE. If we do not put an end to it, we will see more Palestinians die, more Palestinians suffer, more Palestinians arrested and tortured.
There's a tendency to focus on the West Bank and Gaza, maybe to mention Jerusalem from time to time. You know, Palestinians in Jerusalem, right now, Palestinians right now are prohibited from entering the old city of Jerusalem, their own capital!!! Settlers who arrived yesterday, as colonisers, parade through the old city. Palestinians, some of whom have families that have resided in The Old City for 800 years, 500 years, can lose their status like that! and their property. I've been gone for over 25 years: I can go back tomorrow. I don't have that kind of history in Palestine. Settlers parading in Al Aqsa, while Palestinians have less and less and less rights to enter. Tens of thousands of home demolitions in the Negeb, where some 300,000 Palestinian Bedouins, citizens of Israel, reside in some of the poorest conditions, while Israeli settlers enjoy in the Negeb some of the highest standards of living. And again, home demolitions, arrests of activists… this is nothing new. Armed militias terrorizing Palestinians in Lid, in Ramallah [al-Ramla], in Jaffa. Increased numbers of hate crimes in Haifa. By the way, all Palestinian cities occupied in 1948, where the Palestinian communities suffer enormous discrimination and, again, live… and have been living under a reign of terror for over 75 years.

Issa Amro, which I'm sure many of you know, human rights defender, recognized by the EU. He was kidnapped and tortured on the 7th of October. Every morning, I wake up wondering if his son Watan is an orphan. He now lives in hiding, he had to cover his windows with cement blocks. Where are we? Why are we not protecting him? Where are we? Why are we not making sure that his son will not be an orphan? Where are the guarantees to his life? A man who has dedicated his life not only to the freedom of his people and his community, but to unarmed resistance!! dedicated!! almost religious dedication to unarmed resistance!!! where are we? Why are we not there in the midst, between him and the settlers, and him and the Israeli army that want to kill him? I have seen, with my own eyes, soldiers and settlers openly!! in front of cameras!! threatened to come and kill him in his home. Where are we?

Bassem Tamimi —I'm sure many of you know, another heroic figure— dedicated his life to an unarmed resistance, is now in jail. His daughter Ahed —which, again, I'm sure you know — was arrested again and then, released [among those freed as part of truce agreement between Hamas & Israel]. And, you know, it was quite telling when she was arrested a few years ago for daring! daring!!! to push a soldier, an officer out of her home. Daring!!!!! A 17-year-old who for her whole life has seen the army kill her family members, invade her home, invade her privacy… She finally pushed a soldier away, and was arrested and, of course, we all saw her as a hero. It wasn't her job, it was our job!!!! It was our job to keep those soldiers out of her home, out of her village, not hers: it shouldn't be the job of a 17-year-old girl to do this! That was our responsibility and we failed. So, she had to be in jail and be tortured by the Israelis, by the people who murdered her family and terrorized her village. Of course, we made big posters of her, and sweatshirts and t-shirts of her, were solidarity with her… Where were we when it counted?
The only reason those soldiers feel comfortable doing what they do is because they know we will never act. That's why they do it. Or, if we act, our actions are limited. We do not go all the way when it comes to Palestinians.
You may recall in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, an Algerian athlete competed in Judo; Fethi Nourine [il fut suspendu par la Fédération internationale de Judo pour avoir refusé d’affronter un Israélien]. We all know how hard it is, how hard an athlete has to work to make it to the Olympics. When he was called up to compete against a member of the Israeli team, he put his career on the line and said “no”!!!!! He was kicked out of the Olympics and prohibited, prohibited!!! from competing in Judo by the Judo Federation for 10 years, which is an entire career. Of course, he was received in Algeria as a hero, but that was not his responsibility, it was ours! He should not have to risk his career for standing up: we need to demand the Olympic Committee never allow Israel to participate, because it is an apartheid state and, by the way, that was after Amnesty came out with the apartheid report. Let's say before the apartheid report, people could say well, we didn't know. Amnesty's Apartheid report was already out, there is no justification for allowing Israel to participate in the Olympics, or any other Arena, by the way, athletic or otherwise. It's our responsibility and we're failing every day. It's our responsibility and we are failing every day: what are we going to tell our children and our grandchildren? Why didn't we try harder? Why is there this gap, this glass ceiling between voices of the people that we see in the streets, granted only when there's a catastrophe, but they're out in the streets, and the halls of power and the decision makers? Why is that message not getting through and what do we need to do more, to demand of our elected officials? Because we all have elected officials. So, they understand: if they support Zionism, they lose their job!!!! How dare they claim zero tolerance for racism and then allow Israel to participate? and then support Israel and Zionism? Zero tolerance to racism means zero tolerance to Zionism! It is a racist ideology [Applause] that produced an apartheid, genocidal State!!!

People talk about solidarity. We are past the point of solidarity, we are past the point of solidarity, we need to be part of the Palestinian resistance. I'm not saying we need to all pick up arms. There are many many forms of resistance. We must make sure that no Israeli Zionist presence is allowed in any public Arena, absolutely not allowed, not tolerated, that's it!! There has been a genocide going on for 75 years, and apartheid regime going on for 75 years, an ethnic cleansing campaign going on for 75 years. It's up to us to stop it. Palestinians are doing everything they can, and above and beyond [qui va au-delà de toutes les attentes], they've showed an ability, like I said, to sacrifice and to demonstrate courage that is above and beyond. It's our time, it's our job now.

People like to fall back on this idea of a two-state solution. I don't want to… being insensitive here to anyone, but two-state solution is something that people fall back on when they either don't want to tell the truth or they are not in possession of the information, and I'm saying it delicately. And I'm being very delicate here. The two State solution is what people fall on when they either don't want to tell the truth, or they are not in possession of all the information. Those are the only two types of people that talk about two states. There are two options for Palestine: a single state apartheid, which is what we have now, and we see where that's leading, or a free Democratic Palestine from The River To The Sea! That's it! [Applause] Where do we stand? Where do we stand? Where do we stand? This is not a difficult question, where do we stand? It's not a question of politics, it's not a question of religion, where do our values lead us? You ask the question of yourself. Do we support racism, apartheid and genocide? Then, yes, support Israel, because that's only Israel there is! Or do we believe in justice, in humanity, in democracy, in human rights…? In which case, we need to do everything we can to dismantle the apartheid state and allow for a free Democratic Palestine to take its place, and the sooner the better! Because Palestinians are being killed. That's the only question we need to ask of ourselves and then we need to demand this, not ask it, demand it of people in the halls of power, demand it of our elected officials, and if they choose to support Israel, they should lose their job, they will not get our vote, they should be ashamed. Because supporting racism and violence, supporting apartheid and genocide is no longer acceptable, and they need to get it. And, like I said, so far, they don't get it.
You know, I want to… I'll say just a couple more things, my time's probably up soon. People always ask me these questions: will Israelis agree? Who cares if Israelis agree? Nobody ever agrees: fascists, racists, racist societies… never agree. It's not up to them to agree! It's up to us to force them to agree. It's not about agreement. You know, I'm not one to promote the idea of, you know, military intervention, but why is the US Navy not blockading Israel? Why are they not supporting providing humanitarian aid in Gaza? Why are they not imposing a no-fly zone over Gaza? Why? There's no explanation, there's no reasonable explanation. Why is it that there is no demand for no-fly zone over Gaza? Demand for immediate humanitarian aid! Even if it means involving a military force, enough is enough! enough is enough!

People also ask what Israelis think. Well, if you want to know what Israelis think, we have a 75-year history. They thought it was okay to do what was done in 1948, they thought it was okay to maintain this apartheid state and to maintain the ethnic cleansing and genocide for 75 years. They still think it's okay! [cf Abby Martin’s interviews for Empire Files]. Look at the makeup of these Israeli Knesset, look at the makeup of the Israeli government and look at Israelis, how they behave now. We know what Israelis think, it's not a mystery, it's not up to them and we know… Even Haaretz newspaper, which many people think is this wonderful liberal publication, they had a cartoon the other day showing an UNRWA uh… you know, somebody with a UN uniform riding a motorcycle and, behind him, there was a Hamas fighter, and the caption was “Well, the poor guy needed a ride to go to Be’eri, which is one of the kibbutzim that was taken; in other words, they are saying that UNRWA is complicit in the attacks, Haaretz is saying this in a cartoon, you know, what can we expect from the rest of the state of Israel…? I want to invite everybody here to stop talking about Israel and the occupied territories. There is no Israel and the occupied territories, there's one occupied Palestine. [Applause] It's been subjected to genocide, [Applause] it's been subjected to ethnic cleansing, it's been subjected to an apartheid regime. It's up to us to stop it, it's up to us to stop it. And for no other reason, so that we can face our children and our grandchildren, and our Palestinian brothers and sisters, and say honestly, we are doing everything we can, cause at this point we're not.
Thank you very much.

Gaza, une étude de cas sur le génocide

Conférence organisée par CRI-Voix des victimes (CH) et Investig'action (Belgique), en partenariat avec la Commission des droits de l'homme islamique (IHRC), la Coordination des organisations islamiques suisses (COIS) et la Fondation islamique culturelle d'Ahl-El-Beit à Genève (FICA).
Elle a été tenue à Genève le 20 janvier 2024, avec Jacques Baud, Rania Madi, Haim Bresheeth, Ilan Pappé, Christophe Oberlin, Gilles Devers et Craig Murray.

INTERVENTIONS :

00:00 Jacques Baud en français

20:32 Rania Madi en anglais / in English

33:47 Haim Bresheeth en anglais / in English

53:50 Ilan Pappé en anglais / in English

1:22:56 Christophe Oberlin en anglais / in English

1:33:00 Gilles Devers en français

2:05:06 Craig Murray en anglais / in English

2:21:27 Questions-réponses, avec Ilan Pappé, Gilles Devers, Rania Madi et Haim Bresheeth.

2:48:40 interventions de Farhad Afshar, président de la COIS, puis du président de l'IHRC.

Vidéo : J. Friedli avec Neyar-prod
Montage : J. Friedli

Toutes les interventions ont été extrêmement pertinentes. Comme aide à la compréhension, je transcris pour l'instant celle —historique, analytique, prospective et de bon conseil— d'Ilan Pappé, qui a parlé en anglais à partir de 53:50. Liens et crochets sont de mon cru. Attention, transcription urgente, elle pourrait contenir des inexactitudes :

"First of all, I want to thank the organizers for inviting me, and it's great to see so many people. And I also want to thank the translator. I don't know who he is, but he's done an incredibly good job so far, so I want to encourage him to continue… and… it's a tough task to follow the fantastic interventions so far without repeating so many important points that had already been made. But I was invited as an historian and I would like to try to give an historical context, although I do think that part of that context was already covered by the excellent interventions that we heard before.

You probably all remember that, when the Secretary General of the United Nation said that although he condemns part of what the Hamas did, nonetheless he wanted to remind people that the actions of the Hamas were not done in a vacuum, and immediately he was branded as an antisemite by the Israeli foreign Ministry. It is not surprising that Israel wants a narrative that has no historical context for the 7th of October, that it should be seen as violence for the sake of violence and unheard of violence of people who have no good reason to do what they did, and therefore Israel is justified, as Rania [Madi] has explained, through their own quotes in doing what it can, because it's faced with this unexplained, unprecedented violence for the sake of violence.

And the fact that Israel wants this narrative to be accepted is not surprising. What is surprising is that the global North, especially the United States, but quite a lot of countries in Europe, are accepting this Israeli idea that you can dehistoricize, decontextualize the events of the Seventh of October and what is even more depressing… is that not only politicians are accepting this idea (that there is no historical context), but also academics, especially heads of universities, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Belgium, in France, in Britain, in the United States… people who are supposed to give us free spaces for expressing our opinions, presenting our research, are telling us not to use the word “context”. I witnessed in the University of Marburg a guidance that was sent to the faculty members of the Marburg University saying to academics there: you cannot use the word “but” after you condemn the Hamas. Unbelievable! They also… the University of Marburg told students not to use my books in the courses. And, as you know, Fayard in France banned my book, as well, on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine… It's just one step before burning books and we know who burned books in the past in Europe.

The fact that intelligent, educated Europeans and Americans are willing to accept that there is no context to the 7th of October can only be explained by one of the two reasons: either they are totally ignorant of what goes on, which I don't believe, or they have no shame and they have no moral backbone, and they are willing to say things that they don't believe in, because they are afraid of someone, someone has paid them, they are… I don't know… Each one of them probably has their own explanation for the most shameful moral position I ever heard in Europe by academics who should… Their job is to give context to everything that you see. So, let us give some context here without being afraid of the University of Marburg.

There are two historical contexts which I think are important not only because History helps to explain what happened on the 7th of October, unfortunately also helps to explain what is going to happen next year, and hopefully also helps to explain a bit of a better future, in the more distant future. It is important because it helps us to understand the nature of the Zionist movement, the nature of the state of Israel, and this is something that would be very important for us if we want to be engaged, in whatever way we want to be engaged, in changing the reality on the ground. You have to understand the very nature of Zionism, you have to understand the very structure that is called the state of Israel in order to be able to contribute, directly or indirectly, as a Palestinian or as a member of solidarity with a Palestinian, to end the oppression, the colonization and the ethnic cleansing.

So, let's start with a more distant historical context. Not many people remember that before 1948 there was no Gaza Strip. The strip, the strip itself, is an Israeli invention. Gaza was a cosmopolitical town on Via Maris, the road from Alexandria up to Alexandretta, in Turkey, and because it was the main road on the sea, many people from different countries and cultures passed through Gaza and left an impact that turned it into one of the most cosmopolitical towns before 1948. It also had a very good system of coexistence between Muslims, Christians and Jews. Just recently a friend of ours found an interesting declaration in 1905 by the three heads of the religions in the city of Gaza expressing their delight in 1905 and how well are the three communities deal with issues of friction, disagreement, and conflict.

Israel created the Gaza Strip because, unlike other places into which it could push the many Palestinians it expelled during the Nakba, during the 1948 catastrophe, unlike other countries, such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, that were willing to receive the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that Israel expelled, Egypt closed its border, Egypt refused to accept even one Palestinian, and because of that, the leader of Israel, the great architect of the ethnic cleansing of 1948, David Ben Gurion, who ashamedly has a boulevard named after him in Paris, he is a war criminal, and he decided that Israel is willing to give 2% of historical Palestine in order to turn it into the biggest refugee camp in the world. And that's how the Gaza Strip was created, by the Israelis, as a kind of rectangle structure, a geometric kind of structure, into which Israel pushed the Palestinians from the central of Palestine and from the South that Egypt was unwilling to accept. The last group of Palestinians who were pushed into the Gaza Strip were those living in 11 villages on whose ruins, on the ruins of these villages, Israel built the settlements that were attacked on the 7th of October by the Hamas.

So, the Hamas attacked settlements built on the ruins of the last villages of Palestine that were destroyed by the Israeli army and expelled to Gaza. In the Israeli archive, we have a very known document called order number 40 [cf. 1:04:00]. Order number 40 is from the 25th of November 1948 and it was sent by the Israeli Central Command to the Commander in the area of Gaza, and it has the name of the 11 villages, and the order says, and I quote literally what the order says: “Occupy the village, expel all the people to Gaza, burn the houses and demolish the stone houses”, because some of the houses of the Palestinian villages in 1948 were built of hut, of mortar and straw, and therefore it was possible to burn them, but the stone houses had to be blown up by the Israeli army. So, one historical context we have here is a generation of grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, grandchildren that live, either directly or indirectly, the Nakba of 1948 in a very vivid way on a daily basis, not only because they are thinking about Jaffa, or they are thinking about Beersheba, or any other place from which they were expelled, but also by watching the Israeli settlements on the other side of the fence from which most of their parents and grandparents came from. And Rania mentioned the March of Return in 2018: this was exactly one of the objectives of the March of Return, to remind the world that the settlements on the other side of the fence, the ones who would be attacked on the 7th of October, were Palestinian villages destroyed through the ethnic cleansing of 1948.

We have of course also a more recent historical context, and that includes 56 years of occupation and it doesn't matter whether you live in Gaza or in the West Bank, whatever the Israeli occupation of 1967 brought with it, it affected you whether you lived in Gaza or in Ramallah, it's one big family, it's one big society, it's one United Nation, and therefore these years of oppression, with all the crimes that were so pedantically recorded by Human Rights organizations, were also part of the history that is relevant to what happened on the 7th of October. More importantly is the last 17 years of Siege, and this was already mentioned, but it's important to mention it again. Most of the young… most of the people who were involved in the operation on the 7th of October were in their early 20s. This generation of Palestinians from Gaza knew only one reality: the reality of Siege. A reality in which Israel decided what food they are having, what medicine they are getting, whether they are allowed to leave, whether they are allowed to return, and they were exposed four times to bombardment from the air, from the sea and from land; even one moment of bombardment by an F-16 on your house can traumatize you for life, but if you are experiencing it four times, you are traumatized on levels that are unimaginable to anyone who has not been through such an experience. When I'm in Israel, I live not far away from an Air Force Base, and even the take-off of an F-16 near the house traumatizes me, and that's just the noise, and I'm not afraid that this noise will turn into a bomb on my house. This will… I know exactly how a bomb would sound when it falls and dropped on a civilian place.

The connection between all these historical contexts is that already in 1948, and even before that, because of the nature of Zionism, which is a settler Colonial movement, namely a movement of Europeans who were not wanted in Europe, but wanted to create a new Europe somewhere else, but always sought places where other people lived, and whenever they encountered the native people, they decided to remove them either by genocide, as happened in North America, or by ethnic cleansing, that recently has turned into a genocide in Palestine. And this kind of project of displacement of the local people and replacing them with the immigrants or settlers from Europe has to include the total dehumanization of the native people. And if you look at the Israeli documentation and, before that, of the Zionist documentation, and not just documents that are in the archives: if you look at fiction, folklore, memoirs, paintings, plays, early movies of the Israelis, every Palestinian village, every Palestinian neighbourhood is a military outpost, it's not a civilian space. And therefore, the babies, the women, the old people are the enemy in the military outpost. And this was very important for me, because I never understood why my Israeli friends, who are historians like I do and have seen the same documents as I did, said oh, no, come on, this is self-defence in 1948, we attacked the village of that, the village of that, but I said they attacked a village, they did not attack a military outpost, and then, you understand that the same happened in Lebanon when Dahiya, the southern part of Beirut, was treated as a military outpost and wiped out. And then, Gaza was treated as a military outpost and wiped out, as was Janine in April 2002. So, this dehumanization is a very important structure feature of the way Israel prepares its attacks, its military operations; this is how the soldiers are being indoctrinated and this is how we can understand what happened on the 7th of October.

If I have another 3 or 4 minutes, I would like to leave something optimistic, because we are depressing ourselves and I think this is exactly because Israel is a settler colonial state, we have to be very worried about the next three, four or five years, and because Israel is a settler colonial state, it committed these crimes against humanity we were talking about, that's the bad news. The good news is, and this is really good news, a settler colonial movement, a project that tries to create a nation out of a religion is not going to work in the 21st century. We are witnessing the beginning of the end of Zionism, there is no doubt about it. I'm not saying it as a prophecy, I'm not saying it out of a wishful thinking, I'm saying it as an expert on Israel, as an academic expert on Israel, and I'm building my thesis here on research, not on wishful thinking. There are clear indications that the state of Israel is going to, first of all, implode from within. We already saw the struggle before the 7th of October: the secular Israelis, most of them of European origin, have nothing in common with the settlers who come from the West Bank and a lot of other people who stick to Judaism as a religion or a tradition. The cement does not keep these two groups together. The only thing that keeps them together is war, violence, existential danger. A vision of the next 50 years for the children of Israel, for the grandchildren of Israel, that you would live from one war to the other —even if you win all the wars—, from one war to the other, one cycle of violence to the other, is a vision that most young Israeli Jews, who have a different passport, who have known other places, would not remain in Israel. You don't stay for 50 years in a place that is going from one war to the others, even if you think that you are on the winning side, because, as we know, nobody is on the winning side when it comes to wars. So, that's one indication, and very important one, of the implosion from within the Israeli society. Economically, Israel is playing a very interesting game with economists in the world. It only points to the macroeconomic performance of Israel. Macroeconomic performance of Israel is impressive. It is impressive. However, what matters in life is microeconomics, not macroeconomics. Microeconomics is the gap between those who have and those who don't have. Microeconomics is the number of people who are finding themselves below the poverty line in Israel. And the numbers are growing: most Israelis cannot afford to buy a house, even a flat. Many of them cannot afford to rent a place, and the unemployment is rising, and there is this idea that the American Financial Aid, which is huge, will continue forever. Well, listen to Mr Trump and you will understand that the Republicans, who are on the ascendants in America, are going to adopt an isolationist policy in the future and would not like to spend money even on the state of Israel. So, it's very important also to see the economic erosion of Israel as part of the indicator of the disintegration of the Zionist project. To this, we can add a new generation of Palestinians who, I think, are far more united, are far more consensual, are far less fragmented than the present leadership of the Palestinians, partly because it's easier for them to communicate in this age of Internet and partly because they had enough of Party politics that divide and weaken the Palestinian people. And anybody who knows young Palestinians know that there is a vision there, that there is a consensus there, there is a determination there, and it is the youngest society on Earth; the Palestinian society is the youngest society.

So, this will also contribute to the disintegration.

And finally, and we talked about it, the big move in the civil society in support of Palestine, what I call Global Palestine. Global Palestine is this amazing alliance of people who believe that their own struggle against Injustice is the same as the Palestinian struggle against Injustice, and they will begin to have an influence on the governments —and I think the ICJ is one of these places to watch. So many of those of us who are involved in solidarity are part of the BDS movement, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions; boycott and divestment is actions of civil society. That's not enough to stop the oppression, the colonization, and the ethnic cleansing. We need to move to the S, to the sanctions, but this also happened in the solidarity movement against Apartheid in South Africa, it took time to move from the B and D to the S, and I'm sure that this is also going to happen.

Let me finish by saying that what is really worrying is that from history we know that the disintegration of regimes like Israel is usually the most dangerous period for everyone concerned, because the regime is fighting for its life. This is true about South Vietnam; this is true about Apartheid South Africa… So, I'm warning us all, and we know that, I'm sure, we know that, that we are into five or six years of particular existential danger for the Palestinians, that's why we have to double and triple whatever we do legally, politically, economically to try and limit the destruction that Israel plans for Palestine and the Palestinians. However, we should not forget that this is not the end of the story, that the end of the story is what will happen afterwards, and the disintegration of a project like Zionism that is not valid morally, conceptually, ideologically, philosophically, economically, and politically, this project is going to disappear: there's no doubt about it, like the Crusaders disappeared from Palestine. The question is who would fill the void? Because once a certain structure disappears, there is a void. And if you are not ready as a Palestinian national movement to take over the space, the chaos continues, and we can see it in Syria, we can see it in Iraq, we can see it in Libya, and I would send…, and by saying this… Palestine is not just a problem of Britain, Zionism, Christianism and so on. We keep forgetting the more regional context. One of the reasons you could create a racist settler colonial state in Palestine is the Sykes-Picot agreement after the First World War. The colonialist idea that you can take the Westphalian European idea of a nation state and impose it on a place that was blessed by being a mosaic of coexistence under the Ottoman Empire, by believing that instead of having this respect for collective identities that know how to coexist, you replace them with nation states, this is the big project that is going to collapse; it's already collapsing. Syria is gone; Lebanon is the next; Iraq is hardly keeping together itself; Libya… look at this… All these places are disintegrating because they are based on an European model of nation state that is not relevant for the Eastern Mediterranean, the Mashreq. It should be replaced by things that we have from the past in the Middle East, in the Arab world. There are excellent models for building a coexistence that respects collective identity, tradition, religion, modernity… a very difficult mix to navigate, but one that is the only dialogue that is worth having in all order for people to live as much as possible in peace and in prosperity. And the Arab world deserves the prosperity. And there's one human capital that has the potential to help the rest of the Arab world, to move into a non-European, non-Western model of political structures, of social structure, and these are the Palestinians: they have a huge human capital for one reason, because they've never had a state. So, they're not corrupted by state. I know some people in Ramallah think that they have a state, but we can send them the bad news that they don't have a state in Ramallah. So, the Palestinians never had state and because of that, so many of us believe that they have the potential to provide us with a postcolonial reality that gives decolonization a good name, because so many decolonizing projects in Africa, in Latin America, in the Arab world, were not something to write home about, as the British say; they were not really a Humane successive successful replacement of the colonialist structures. Palestine can learn from the mistakes, including the ones that are made in South Africa, and create a postcolonial free Palestine from the river to the sea that would have a huge positive influence on the Arab world as a whole.

Thank you."

Réformes biocides et pognon de dingue à ciel ouvert

Un exemple tout frais extrait de l'actualité. Thomas Gibert, paysan et secrétaire national de la Confédération paysanne, évoque le toupet Attila d'Attal et ses services —dans ce cas— à la pompe de l'agro-business :

@glupatate

"Ce n'est pas un paysan !" Le patron de la FNSEA se fait démonter par Thomas Gibert #agriculteur #FNSEA #Attal #gouvernement #Gibert #ThomasGibert

♬ son original - Glupatate

« Je pense qu’on est à un moment de la mobilisation où il faut qu’on se pose des questions importantes. Est-ce que le gouvernement a les bons interlocuteurs ? Aujourd’hui, il se tourne presque exclusivement face aux représentants de la FNSEA. Aux représentants de la FNSEA ! Je n’ai absolument rien contre les adhérents et les adhérentes de la FNSEA, on a le même métier, on est des paysans et des paysannes. En revanche, ces représentants, notamment Monsieur Arnaud Rousseau, c’est pas un paysan !!! C’est un agro-manager à la tête d’une immense ferme de 700 hectares, président du groupe AVRIL, grand groupe industriel. Et, donc, il a bâti sa fortune sur la spéculation des matières premières agricoles. Donc, son intérêt à lui, personnel, qu’est-ce que c’est ? C’est que le libre-échange perdure.

— Après, c’est lui aussi qui appelle à poursuivre le mouvement, donc, il joue le jeu…

— Mais attendez, c’est pour ça qu’on obtient rien sur le revenu de concret. C’était quoi les annonces de Gabriel Attal ce matin ? On va réautoriser les néonicotinoïdes, les pesticides extrêmement dangereux pour l’environnement. Mais… c’est au service de qui ? C’est au service de l’agro-industrie !! C’est pas au service des paysans et des paysannes, c’est au service de l’agro-industrie ! Parce que le problème des normes, c’est pas qu’il y ait des normes. Les normes, c’est important, elles peuvent nous protéger. Le problème aujourd’hui, c’est que l’immense majorité des normes, elles sont au service de l’agro-industrie et du libéralisme, alors qu’elles devraient être au service des paysans et des paysannes pour qu’ils puissent exercer leur métier correctement. »

Arnaud Rousseau est un céréalier francilien de 50 ans qui fait cultiver colza, blé, tournesol, betterave, maïs, orge et légumes de plein champ pour produire, entre autres, huiles, agrocarburants, nutrition animale et chimie.
En effet, depuis avril 2023, il est le président du Groupe Avril, fleuron de l'agro-business français multinational.
« Fumiger la terre » n’est pas forcément leur raison d’être, mais juste un moyen d’empocher, par exemple, 6,9 milliards d’euros en 2021 ou 9 milliards en 2022, progression forbésienne commandant un jargon prédictible truffé de bobards bien creux et modulables genre innovation-au-service-de-la-compétitivité-mission-urgence-climatique-protection-ressources-naturelles-biodiversité-agriculture-respectueuse-de-la-planète-valeur-durable-volet-de-performances-démarche-RSE-dénommée-SPRING-alimentation-saine-tracée-pratiques-durables-et-rémunératrices-biomasse-biosourcées-aux-dérivés-du-pétrole-performance-et-préservation-de-la-planète-performante-et-engagée-chacun-le-leader-de-son-développement-et-de-sa-performance-quel-que-soit-votre-toupet-potentiel-devenez-avec-nous-acteur-de-votre-carrière-à-ciel-ouvert.