Updated 15-May-2018
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (file photo)
Multiple sources report that Desmond Tutu has characterized yesterday’s act by Israeli authorities as a “massacre” (emphasis mine):
South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has condemned the killing of Palestinians by Israeli troops as a massacre.
The retired Anglican archbishop, 86, issued a statement from his Cape Town home on Tuesday about the killing of Palestinian protesters.
“I am deeply distressed and broken hearted by the massacre perpetrated by the State of Israel in Gaza yesterday,” said the statement. “I pray to God to open the eyes and hearts of all citizens of the Holy Land — and of political and religious leaders across the world — to assist them to recognize our common humanity and membership of God’s family. People who recognize the humanity in others do not author or perpetrate massacres.”
Tutu, who has been treated for prostate cancer and has been hospitalized several times for infections, occasionally issues statements on issues he believes are important. Last year he criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Tutu said that “God was weeping” at Trump’s decision.
“People who recognize the humanity in others do not author or perpetrate massacres.”
Exactly.
Original content
Israeli military attacks crowd (left), Ivanka Trump smiles (right)
Numerous sources report that the Israeli military terrorized Palestinian protesters today (emphasis mine):
RIGHT NOW Palestinian officials say at least 52 people have been killed in the latest round of protests.
• At least 1,700 Palestinian demonstrators were also wounded on Monday along the border fence with Gaza, the Health Ministry reported, as the mass protests that began on March 30 and that had already left dozens dead erupted anew.
• The protests took place as the United States Embassy was formally relocated to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, on the 70th anniversary of the formation of Israel, amid formality and celebration that created an almost surreal contrast to the violence raging barely 40 miles away.
…
By 7 p.m., 52 Palestinians, including several teenagers, were dead and at least 1,700 were injured in Gaza, the Health Ministry said. Israeli soldiers and snipers used barrages of tear gas as well as live gunfire to keep protesters from entering Israeli territory.
Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ivanka Trump, and others celebrated this “glorious day”.
As another participant has observed here, when the East German military shot and killed people attempting to cross the Berlin Wall, America was “horrified”.
When gunmen kill dozens of civilians, we rightly call it terrorism. Today’s murder of 52 protesters is no different.
Today is a dark day for America, and darker still for Israel. There is nothing “glorious” about today. Every American should be ashamed. Our president, his daughter, and his Collaborators join Stasi, Stalin, Duterte, and the other villains of history.
Shame on us for allowing this to happen. Shame on anybody who defends this behavior.
As the official BMG Group heretic on questions involving Israel, let me first say what I think SomervilleTom and I would agree on—we should all regret the loss of life.
Now, what is wrong with Tom’s post?
First, the comparison with East Germany and the Berlin Wall is absurd. The East Germans shot their own citizens trying to flee from East Germany. The Israelis were defending their own internationally-recognized border from a mob intent on breaching it. Now, maybe you think that it’s wrong for Israel to keep Gazans out of Israel because there should be a single state of Palestine “from the River to the Sea” and the Zionists are colonialist interlopers just as bad as the Nazis intent on killing off the Palestinians. (Of course, they would be the most inept genocidal maniacs in the history of the world, given that Israel’s population is 20% Arab and as of 2015 there were 17 Arab members in the 120-member Knesset. But leave that aside). I’m not saying that Tom thinks that, but plenty of people do. Well, that would be an honest view, though of course really wrongheaded. But if you think that Israel has a right to exist, at least within its pre-1967 borders, then you also must think that Israel has a right to control its border and control who crosses it. That’s what a border is. So I presume that anyone who thinks Israel has a right to exist wouldn’t say that the Palestinians in Gaza have a right to enter Israel, especially en masse. Anyone disagree so far?
Now, maybe you agree with what I’ve said but you think that Israel’s means were disproportionately violent. One approach is to ask whether in fact the Gazans massing at the border were all as peaceful as perhaps Tom thinks. Here is a quote from the article Tom cites:
If you believe that’s true, then perhaps you would also say that deadly force was appropriate at least to counter such acts of violence.
But maybe you are sick and tired of Israeli hasbara and don’t believe anything the IDF says. You instead believe Hamas, which rules Gaza and which both the United States and the European Union have designated as a sponsor of terrorism. Okay. Suppose that instead of a mix of violent and non-violent people hidden behind a dense screen of smoke created just for that purpose, you had a crowd of thousands approaching the border at a run who refused to stop and just kept running. Of course, if there were just one, or just a handful, they could be arrested as they crossed. But what do you do with thousands? Or to put it in perspective, suppose ten thousand Mexicans formed up in Tijuana and started walking briskly through the barriers into San Diego. Should the Border Patrol shoot them? I hope not! I hope there would be another way to stop them. But there’s no question that Israel is facing a very difficult threat, and one where there is no clear way to respond effectively without lethal force. Or at least if there is a way, I haven’t read about it. It’s easy to be an armchair general.
Two points in conclusion. First, even in light of everything I’ve written, I think there should be an inquiry about whether the use of force here was justified, and military justice should punish anyone who violated the laws of war. I don’t claim to know what answer such an inquiry should reach. One hopes the IDF will do a thorough and credible job. No doubt for some who distrust the IDF and Israelis completely, that’s a non-starter.
Second, I think you have to ask, “why did this happen today?” I think the article Tom cites makes that pretty clear. It happened because Hamas wanted it to happen.
I have said before that “the fear of Palestinian violence is real, and it would be prudent to delay a move [of the Embassy], to maintain the status quo, so as to avoid needless violence.” I think today showed, unfortunately, that I was right about that. Still, I fear that most people who will regard today as an Israel atrocity won’t ask the obvious question: was it also an atrocity to send people to the border, encouraging them to get shot by falsely telling them that “the fence had been breached,” for the purpose of “drawing the map of return in blood?”
So much noise, so little signal.
Why today? Because America chose to announce the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem today — on Israel’s Independence day.
You write:
Right. An “inquiry”. In other words shoot first and ask questions later.
I think you’re defending brutal, bloody, and callous murder. State-sponsored terror.
Will you make the same defense if (or when) America starts machine-gunning people attempting to cross Mr. Trump’s wall?
Your “regret” about the “loss of life” has approximately as much sincerity as the “thoughts and prayers” extended by NRA enablers each time kids are murdered in school.
I stand by my comparison to Stasi.
Hey, it’s a free country, and I respect what you think. I just think you might consider whether you are allowing your moral sense to be manipulated by folks in power who are willing to sacrifice the lives of their citizens precisely to get you to write a post like this. (Of course I don’t mean you specifically).
As for this:
I tried to specifically address this in my comment. Of course I hope that if a large mob stormed the US/Mexico border we could find some way to stop them without the use of lethal force. And I wish the Israelis had been able to do the same. But I don’t know what that way is. Perhaps you do?
Ted I respect your opinion, but I have to wonder how credible IDF’s characterization of the threat is — particularly since all the death seems to be flowing one way … as usual.
I’m not interested in which historical analogy is valid and which is not. It sure looks like a whole lot of unnecessary killing. Ha’aretz, NYTimes, NBC’s reporting are all saying more or less the same thing. And one must consider the context of life in Gaza.
I’m not going to defend American politicians if they have a typically reflexive pro-Israel take on this. That includes Sens. Markey and Warren, all of our House members, etc. This is bad business.
I agree with you, Charley, insofar as you are pointing out one of the paradoxes of modern asymmetric warfare—the stronger you are the more immoral you appear. So for example, when Iran fires twenty rockets into Israel, but sixteen go off-course and four are intercepted and destroyed, any military response appears to be draconian overkill. At least to those who have never had twenty rockets launched at them! This, by the way, is why the sympathies of the world were much more in favor of the Israelis when they were beset by enemies all around and fought back against apparently overwhelming odds, first in the 1948 war, and then again in 1967. The world loves an underdog.
Jeesh.
I don’t know about 1948, I wasn’t born.
In 1967, Israel was actually attacked, by actual guns, missiles, tanks, and so on. Today, Israel is murdering and maiming protesters. Are you seriously arguing that today’s protests by Palestinians are comparable to the Arab attacks of 1967? Really?
You also, apparently, feel that the Chinese were perfectly justified in opening fire on protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Most of the world despises heavily-armed troops who machine-gun protesters. Apparently you don’t.
You are plainly misreading my comment. I am just saying that the world roots for the weaker party, as a general rule. That was Israel in 1967. It is the Palestinians today.
I am, though, pleasantly surprised that your take on the 1967 war is that “Israel was actually attacked.” The usual view on today’s left is that “Israel started it.”
How have I misread your comment?
Are you claiming that killing more than 50 protesters and maiming thousands of others was somehow justifiable because 20 rockets were fired last week?
In 1967, Israel WAS beset by enemies all around.
What does that have to do with 2018?
I am not condemning Israel because of some misguided desire to root for the underdog. I condemn Israel because it is killing and maiming people.
The civilized western world was disgusted and appalled by the Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolt in 1956. Just as the world was disgusted and appalled by the murder by Stasi of East Germans attempting to flee Berlin. Just as the world was disgusted and appalled by the massacre in Tiananmen Square.
We are not discussing some kind of global sporting event with fans cheering the underdog.
We are talking about heavily armed troops following orders to massacre protesters.
Perhaps I confused you with the reference to the rockets. The military response to the rocket attack was an attack on Iranian positions in Syria, a few days ago, which was discussed in a prior post. So, no, I am not claiming that the deaths today were justified by the rocket attack.
I do not know what your basis is for asserting that the IDF was ordered to “massacre protesters.” I presume they were ordered to keep the protesters from crossing the border. I have heard no answer here to my question about what less violent means could have been employed to that end. Perhaps Israel could have built a wall? But of course, when it built walls in the West Bank in order to put an end to a rash of suicide bombings, the walls were branded “apartheid walls.”
A real question: do you think today’s deaths were what Israel wanted? Do you think, in other words, that Israel wanted to have as much negative and unflattering press coverage as it could muster, today of all days? Who do you think won the battle for the world’s opinion today? And what does that tell you about who desired today’s outcome and who didn’t?
@tedf:
“I do not know what your basis is for asserting that the IDF was ordered to “massacre protesters.”
As was noted in its own diary here and by jconway downthread — Israel knew this was coming for weeks and had ample time to prepare a non-lethal response.
“A real question: do you think today’s deaths were what Israel wanted?”
Yes indeed I do. I think this played out exactly the way that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump hoped it would.
It tells me that Israel and America have no regard at all for the lives of the Palestinian people. NONE. Do you really think that either Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Trump care one iota about world opinion? None of this would have happened if so.
I think this was EXACTLY the outcome that both men wanted. I think this was exactly the outcome that Mr. Netanyahu ordered. I think this was exactly the outcome that Mr. Trump and his deplorable base sought when they made the announcement to move the embassy.
I think your commentary and your defense of all this demonstrates how little you actually care about the lives of the 50+ people killed today.
“… what does that tell you about who desired today’s outcome and who didn’t?”
It tells me that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump join Mr. Duterte in actively seeking the attention that results from their brutality. It tells me that they are terrorists who WANT the world to fear what crazy thing they’ll do next.
In my view, anyone who actually values human life would join us in condemning these brutal actions (all while Ms. Trump is smiling with enjoyment) rather than defending them.
Also, just a personal point: I think you downrated me a few days ago because you thought my “delete your account” comment showed “hostility to a long-time participant of BMG.” Okay, accepted in the spirit in which it was offered. But by the same token, I wish you wouldn’t insinuate that my comment regretting the loss of life was insincere.
At last we’ve identified the real victim today.
For me the issue is that Israel has to decide whether Gaza and West Bank are part of it or not. They can’t have it both ways. Either they recognize a separate Palestine and relate to them as they would any of their sovereign neighbors, or they claim the territory AND recognize all residents thereof as equal citizens entitled to parliamentary representation and freedom of movement throughout the entire country. I personally prefer the latter, with some devolved powers and a unified Jerusalem be the eternal and indivisible capital of the whole country.
Ironically the binational solution was endorsed by many early Zionists, including Einstein and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold. President Rivkin is about the only Likud official honest and compassionate enough to argue that they are already on a path to a one state solution anyway, but it would conflict with Jewish and democratic values to deny them representation and equal citizenship.
It is also rich for TedF to site Arab party participation in the Knesset while the governing coalition has gone out of its way to pass legislation stripping them of that power and making it even harder for Arab permanent residents in Israel to become Israeli citizens. The state has become far less welcoming to Christians, women, secular Jews, and the LGBT community in the last decade and a half of hard right rule. The Haredi are increasingly calling the shots on domestic social policy as well as foreign policy and settlement policy. These are religious extremists who are not the kind of liberal Zionists we envision when we think of the historic promise of a secular, democratic, Jewish majority state in the Middle East.
Hamas and other Palestinian organizations are even open to a binational solution. The reason the Israeli’s are not is because of the demographic time bomb. They can be democratic or Jewish, they cannot be both. They are increasingly choosing the latter future over their former history. AIPAC endorsed diplomats from John Kerry to Dennis Ross would agree with that stark assessment. Carter was widely condemned when he published his book Peace or Apartheid at the time, but his warning was prescient. This is the choice the Israeli’s are facing. It is not the Palestinians who are continually refusing to share territory or create a separate state for them.
I agree with you about the dilemma, as do many Israelis. I think it would derail the comment thread to explain the history of peace negotiations, the Israeli offers and the Palestinian rejections, but if you like we could do that.
@ tedf: I appreciate your desire to remain focused on the topic of the thread — the decision by Israeli authorities to murder and maim protesters.
The “history of peace negotiations” is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Israeli government, Mr. Netanyahu, the American government, and Mr. Trump are making crystal clear that they care NOTHING about peace and that they view the Palestinians as nothing more than annoying animals to be slaughtered.
Can you elaborate on why they cannot be both democratic and Jewish? Those to me seem complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
I thought this was clear.
You said you prefer the following course:
If Israel takes this path, it will not remain Jewish because the non-Jewish (Palestinian) Israelis will eventually outnumber the Jewish (Israeli) Israelis.
The steadfast Israeli rejection of this path is just one clue to the emptiness of the claim that the claim that Israel is a “Jewish homeland” is anything but an assertion about religion.
I agree with you that the increased influence of Haredi parties in Israeli politics is bad.
I don’t know from heretic, but I do know that, whatever it is, it’s not official… not least because there is no orthodoxy you’re flinging yourself against.
Later in this thread you invoke the past sympathies of the world towards Israel, first in ’48 and then in ’67. The sympathies have not changed so much as the Israelis have: the ’67 borders continue to play an important part of narrative for a reason. And the sympathies of the world lay almost wholly with Yitzak Rabin, who was murdered in cold blood by an Israeli who is closer, ideologically, to Benjamin Netanyahu than is comfortable for many to say. So you invoke the sympathies of the world and ask why… Well, the standing in the way of Israeli peace is being done by many an Israeli, who make common, if violent, cause with Palestinians and the sympathy of the world wanes in strength, if it remains of a certain character.
The problem is this: No true democrat doubts the historical suffering of the Jews and the righteous idea of the State of Israel; this is the root of the sympathy felt… but the acts of Israel are a good deal less righteous in practice and people wonder if the Jews of Israel think their suffering justifies inflicting suffering on others. There is no thing, that I know of, that makes an oppressed people immune from being oppressors…
I didn’t mean much by the phrase, petr, but since you raise it, I will say that I agree with you that the institutional Democratic Party itself is not hostile to Zionism—far from it—but that it is clear to me that large swathes of “the left” are hostile to the very idea of a Jewish state. Examples available upon request, but I don’t know that you would reject this point.
I agree with you that the 1967 borders are relevant. The border between Gaza and Israel is the 1967 border. Urging its supporters to cross the border is to reject the Israeli state outright, which has been Hamas’s position all along. But I think the focus of this post should remain on the events of yesterday, not on the underlying rights and wrongs of Israel’s existence.
I enthusiastically agree with you that large swaths of “the left” are hostile to the very idea of a Jewish state. I certainly count myself among that group.
I have written here many times that I view any attempt to combine religious belief with national sovereignty is doomed to failure. It has been attempted countless times throughout history, and those attempts have always failed — often spectacularly.
It doesn’t matter whether we are discussing the “Holy Roman Empire”, the Crusades, the Spanish Empire, the various attempts at creating a Muslim state (including ISIS), or Israel — the result is the same.
The Abrahamic faith traditions in particular are toxic to the social structures that must form the foundation of any modern civilized nation. Even a casual read of the “holy scripture” revered by any of these traditions reveals the extreme danger of any attempt to enshrine those texts into law.
There is NO example of a nation founded as a Jewish, Muslim or Christian state that has succeeded (except by rejecting that founding premise).
America wisely chose to explicitly forbid any ties between US government and any religion in the Establishment Clause.
The history of Israel since 1948 is a case study in why attempting to create any religious state is doomed to failure.
Again, we are veering off the topic you said you wanted to discuss, but when we say “Jewish state,” the word “Jewish” is like the word “French,” not like the word “Christian.” Most Israelis are secular, and the state is secular (though it inherited from the British the idea that each person’s personal status would be governed by his or her own religious authorities, so that Jewish law governs marriage and similar issues for Jews, Muslim law for Muslims, etc.). The idea of Zionism, which as another commenter noted was originally a purely secular idea, is that the Jews should have a state and a right of national self-determination just like all other nations. There are today “religious Zionists” too, some of whom are on the left or the center but many of whom are on the right, so you are not entirely wrong.
Oh, get serious.
“Jewish” means Jewish. The Israeli government is not secular. The fight for Jerusalem is not secular. The geographical location chosen for the homeland is not secular.
The generations of bloody conflict between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations is not secular.
The very name “Israel” is rooted in Hebrew Scriptures (“He who wrestled with God, Gen 32:28):
The passionate support for Israel from American evangelicals, Donald Trump, and no small part of American Jewry is based on religious, not secular, aspects.
The murder and mayhem wrought by Israel yesterday was an act of religious state-sponsored terror.
I challenge you to name any other nation on earth for which you are prepared to say you understand its claim to nationhood better than it understands itself.
More bluster, and an attempted redirect. I’m not biting.
This conflict, and yesterday’s massacre, is rooted in religious hatred and bigotry. No amount of hand-waving will change that reality.
I will leave it to readers of this thread to decide who is guilty of bluster.
Fair enough.
Similarly, I will leave it to readers to decide whether this bloody massacre was secular or religious.
Palestine?
It is a fight over land and resources, not theology or religious practice.
This is another massacre in a religious war between Muslim nations and the “Jewish Homeland”.
Yes, of course it involves land and resources. The well-spring of the conflict is Islam vs Judaism. Pakistan has no stake in Israeli land or resources, and yet hates Israel and has for decades. Iran has no land or resources at stake — it shares no border.
Claiming that this conflict is about “land and resources” is like claiming that our Civil War was about states rights. Neither assertion withstands even superficial analysis.
I understand some nations take the side they do based on affinity (as it seems does the US on the other side), but the conflict itself has little to do with actual religion. Likewise in Northern Ireland Catholic and Protestant were convenient designations, but not truly apt. Irish and British were more accurate terms and likewise Israeli and Arab here.
The UK is officially Anglican with the sovereign the Supreme Governor of the Church, prelates nominated on the advice of the Government and then sit in the Lords. It is also pretty democratic these days and has as much free exercise as we do. A Jewish state would not necessarily be a theocracy, but their holidays would likely take national precedence.
@ Christopher: “The UK is officially Anglican …”
The UK was not created as a “Christian homeland” or even a “Protestant homeland”. The UK was created LONG before it adopted the Anglican tradition as its official state religion.
The dark history of religious oppression in the UK was a major driver in making sure that the Establishment Clause was in our constitution.
But it is a national church created specifically for England. My point is that is possible to have a state religion and be democratic.
“It is possible to have a state religion and be democratic”.
Of course it is, Europe is filled with examples. Nobody in this thread has asserted otherwise. It must be noted, of course, that it took a river of blood and the deaths of multitudes of innocents for Europe to discover that non-democratic attempts to impose state religions usually end badly. The era of the conquistador was not a time of religious enlightenment and peaceful coexistence.
The UK was never a religious state in the way that Israel is — “the Jewish Homeland”, The closest analog today is ISIS, which claims to be the first “Islamic State“.
This week’s massacre by the Israelis demonstrates the enormous gulf that separates the Israeli government from democratic states like Germany, the UK, and elsewhere.
I think Tedf makes a good point. Once you accept a theocracy and apartheid, today’s massacre is the logical result.
Sadly, I think you are exactly correct.
One side had rocks, kites, and sling shots while the other side had the most sophisticated lethal and non lethal weapons $500 billions of no strings attached American military aid can muster. The IDF had weeks to prepare a non-lethal response to this entirely predictable provocation and deliberately choose to use live ammunition and fire upon men, women, and children protesting a blockade that has deprived them of access to basic services like electricity and water.. Already one confirmed medical worker working for an international NGO is counted among the dead.
Hamas is a shell of its former self and has lost all credibility with residents of Gaza. It is shameful to see the IDF adopt and legitimize the tactics of its longtime foe. This is not how a democratic military of a democratic state ought to behave.