At the start of the Nakba, Zionist forces ethnically cleansed Palestinian towns and villages. Aerial imagery from before 1948 and from google maps today allows us to see the erasure. On this #NakbaDay I'm sharing some of these before and after images below...
The location of erased Palestinian towns and villages are easy to spot on a modern google map. Odd looking formations that don't match their surroundings maintain the perimeter of the villages like the chalk outline of a murder victim.
Here is a before and after shot of al-Maghar. You can see where the village was and see how it has been covered with trees.
Here is the village of as-Sawafir. You can see all the village homes were razed.
Beit Daras is another example. You can see clearly here the formation of the village surrounded by square agricultural plots.
Here is Beit Jibrin. You can see how big and densely populated this village was before it was entirely erased from the map.
Burayr is another example. Once again, an oddly shaped outline surrounded by squarely shaped agricultural plots now obscured by trees.
Asdud, a large Palestinian town, similarly erased
Qaqun as well, once again, oddly shaped plot covered in trees.
The evidence of ethnic cleansing is literally all over the map. You just need to look. ~500 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated at the start of the Nakba, now in its 74th year.
Most were erased from sight but the evidence of these crimes is so obvious, it can be seen from space. If there are those who still don't see it, it is only because they choose not to. /end
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A few thoughts on a ceasefire agreement which seems to be reached, perhaps even to be announced from Doha in the coming hour….
Thank God! The 2 million people in Gaza who have paid the highest price over the last 15 months desperately need this evil genocide to come to an end. From mass killing, to starvation, to ethnic cleansing and displacement, what they have endured is not something anyone should have to endure. The world has failed them time and again and we must hang our heads in shame for these failures before them.
The effects of the genocide over the last 15 months, and lets hope the bombs stop permantly now, will still be killing Palestinians for years to come. From unexploded ordinance to the destruction of the health system to the cancer causing poison that has saturated Gaza’s landscape from Israeli bombs, the mass killing of Palestinians is likely to continue even if it shifts forms.
One of the interesting things we are seeing being demonstrated again as the public begins to react to Ta-Nehisi Coates' latest book is how tightly the discourse around Palestine is policed, especially in the US.
There is no other issue in American mainstream discourse, no matter how divisive, where the barrier for entry is so high.
The amount of people who get on TV and say absolutely ahistorical and transparently stupid stuff about other parts of the world are rarely held to account and routinely invited back for "analysis"
Don’t tell me you support reproductive rights when maternity wards, fertility clinics and thousands of frozen embryos have been destroyed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Don’t tell me you stand for labor when the Israeli military has destroyed every industry in Gaza and unemployment is and will be through the roof for years.
Don’t tell me you support free breakfast and lunch for kids to have full bellies in school when thousands of kids in Gaza have no food, no schools and for so many, no bellies either.
What explains this bizarre US policy of claiming the Israelis support a ceasefire proposal that their officials keep saying they oppose? What is up with all these theatrics? Here is one possible explanation:
Netanyahu is a craven politician (Chickenshit might be the preferred term in DC) and he does not have the courage or political will to come out and own this deal because the terms are far worse for him than he wants to be associated with.
He also needs his Kahanist political allies to stay on board and they have threatened to bolt the coalition government if the war stops.
The whole point of trying to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, as backers of Israel's apartheid regime do, is to turn opposition to Zionism into opposition to Jews and as such frame it as discrimination to circumvent free speech protections. The entire aim is repressive.
If you listen to Israeli apartheid backers explain their thinking it is quite clear what the intentions really are. Here, I'll show you.
This is Alyza Lewin. She is President of something called the Brandies Center which is an organization that has active in using lawfare to press universities to crack down on Palestinian rights activism. This is a US based organization.
A few key things to understand about the significance of South Africa's legal claim against Israel over Genocide in Gaza....
First, why South Africa? Well, as a state party to the Genocide Convention, South Africa can do this and indeed sees it as a responsibility to do so. Legally, this status matters but politically I think there are more important things to note.
South Africa knows all too well the costs of inaction in the international system to address grave human rights abuses. How many South African lives could have been saved under apartheid if other states took action earlier?