Zachary Foster Profile picture
Oct 12, 2023 13 tweets 4 min read Read on X
A brief history of Gaza, 1967-present. A 🧵
In 1967, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip.

There was no Hamas. No suicide bombings. No rocket attacks. No mass killings.

So WTF happened?
In Aug 1967, Israel issued military order 101: It became illegal to hold a Palestinian flag; publish anything political; organize 10 people for a political cause; make art of green/red/black/white; use the word 'Palestine' in the name of org. b/c it “endangered Israel's security" Image
In 1982, Fathi Ghabin painted a picture of his slain nephew, Suhain, who was shot & killed by the Israeli military at a demonstration. Ghabin was sentenced to 6months in prison b/c he pained the sweater green & white his trousers black & his blood red. wow pretty f--ing dangerous Image
Meanwhile, Israel arrested anyone who rejected occupation, deporting 615 Gazans from '68-'71. Israel expelled 100s of families from the Jabaliya refugee camp in '71. In the 1970s, Israel destroyed thousands of refugee dwellings to build 200miles of security roads in Gaza. Source: Image
In '76, Israel detained 33,000 Gazans (only charging 8,000 of them) b/c of Israel’s indiscriminate mass arrests policy. In ‘82-’83, Israel uprooted more Palestinians to build a 50m wide zone at the Egyptian border; Israel denied all family reunification requests b/w Gaza-Israel. Image
Overall, from 1967-1987, Israel killed 650 Palestinians in the occupied territories (West Bank + Gaza), an average of 32 per year (source: Neve Gordon, Israel's Occupation, p. xvii).

Still, there were no terrorists, no suicide bombings no rocket attacks & no mass killings. Image
Israel also censored textbooks, magazines, newspapers & banned > 1,600 books. In 1982, Israel shut down a Palestinian Press service. They jailed Palestian journalists. They heavily censored the Arabic newspapers published in the OPT. They denied millions the right to free speech
Anger was mounting. By the '80s, Palestinian workers in Israel reported constant verbal & physical abuse in the workplace, being cheated out of wages, forced to work under inhumane conditions, feeling humiliated & dehumanized at checkpoints.

Still, no terrorists. source: Image
In a 1986 poll: 48% of families in the OPT reported political arrest; 51% physical abuse or threats; 56% harassment at checkpoints; 22.8% land confiscation; 34% ban on travel abroad; 74% curfew; 18% demolition/ sealing of homes; 16% deportation/arrest; 38% fines by military court Image
Then, in '87, an Israeli truck driver struck & killed 4 Palestinians near a checkpoint in Gaza.

Palestinians revolted in a series of daily strikes, protests, riots, boycotts of Israeli rule, and infamously, stone-throwing children.

It was known as the First Intifada:
175K Palestinians spent time in Israeli jails; 30K Palestinian children needed medical care after being beaten, 10K had broken bones; 1/5th of the injured were under 5; 23K subject to “harsh interrogation”; Israel killed 1,200 Palestinians, Palestinians killed ~160 Israelis.
Still, no terrorism. I will finish this thread tomorrow, covering 1987-present

Remember that history did not start on Oct. 7th, 2023. To develop a better understanding of what is happening in Israel/Palestine, you can also subscribe to my newsletter:

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More from @_ZachFoster

Jun 26
Some of @PeterBeinart's best clips on the relationship between Zionism & the Jewish tradition. Trigger warning if you are a Zionist. A 🧵
How political Zionism is inherently oppressive:
How the institutional American Jewish life can no longer be considered Jewish:
Read 6 tweets
Jun 17
A brief history of Israeli leaders saying Iran = Nazis 🧵.
June 16, 2025: “We’ve targeted their top nuclear scientists ... it’s basically Hitler’s nuclear team.” -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internati…
June 12, 2025: “Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime...today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime.” -Netanyahu msn.com/en-ca/news/wor…Image
Read 10 tweets
May 25
A brief history of Israeli Jewish support for mass murder in the Gaza Strip. A 🧵
In March 2025, a poll revealed Israeli Jewish society's support for genocide:

→ 82% support the forced expulsion of residents of Gaza
→ 47% believe the Israeli army should “act like the biblical Israelites under Joshua in Jericho—killing all inhabitants of a conquered city"
haaretz.co.il/magazine/2025-…
A Jan. 2024 poll found 95% of Jewish Israelis thought the Israeli military was using either the "appropriate" amount of force or "too little" force in Gaza at a time when Israel had already killed >25,700 Palestinians in Gaza. en-social-sciences.tau.ac.il/sites/socsci-e…Image
Read 8 tweets
May 14
Zionism was unpopular among most Jews for the first six decades of its Jewish existence, 1870s-1930s.

Anyone who tells you anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism apparently believes that the overwhelming majority of world Jewry were themselves anti-Semitic from 1870-1940. A 🧵
Before WWI, the overwhelming majority of US American Jews were non-Zionist or anti-Zionist: Image
Even in the 1920s and 1930s, most US American Jews were still non- or anti-Zionist: Image
Read 16 tweets
Jan 26
Breaking: the President of the International Court of Justice (@CIJ_ICJ), Julia Sebutinde, plagiarized sections of her dissenting opinion (icj-cij.org/node/204162) in which she voted against all provisional measures of South African's case of Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

On p. 6, Sebutinde writes: ""The name “Palestine” applied vaguely to a region that for the 400 years before World War I was part of the Ottoman Empire."

This sentence was plagiarized word for word from a 2021 article published by Douglas J. Feith by the @HudsonInstitute titled, "The Forgotten History of the Term "Palestine," (hudson.org/node/44363) in which he writes:

"“Palestine” applied vaguely to a region that for the 400 years before World War I was part of the Ottoman empire."

It gets worse. Sebutinde plagiarized the next two sentences as well. She writes:

"In 135 CE, after stamping out the second Jewish insurrection of the province of Judea or Judah, the Romans renamed that province “Syria Palaestina” (or “Palestinian Syria”). The Romans did this as a punishment, to spite the “Y’hudim” (Jewish population) and to obliterate the link between them and their province (known in Hebrew as Y’hudah). The name “Palaestina” was used in relation to the people known as the Philistines and found along the Mediterranean coast."

These 2 sentences were also plagiarized from the same Feith piece, in which he writes:

"In 135 CE, after stamping out the province of Judea’s second insurrection, the Romans renamed the province Syria Palaestina—that is, “Palestinian Syria.” They did so resentfully, as a punishment, to obliterate the link between the Jews (in Hebrew, Y’hudim and in Latin Judaei) and the province (the Hebrew name of which was Y’hudah). “Palaestina” referred to the Philistines, whose home base had been on the Mediterranean coast."

Sebutinde make a pitiful attempt to change a word here or there, but this is a textbook case of plagiarism. Feith's piece is not cited in her legal opinion, even though she copied and pasted multiple sentences from the piece.

What a joke of judge. She's making a mockery of the ICJ and should be removed immediately.Image
Image
It gets worse. She also plagiarized at least 4 sentences from The Jewish Virtual Library (jewishvirtuallibrary.org/myths-and-fact…).

Here are the 4 sentences from Sebutinde, and then the 4 sentences from the Jewish Virtual Library immediately following:

1. Sebutinde: "Prior to the establishment of “British Mandatory Palestine”, Palestinian Arabs viewed themselves as having a unified identity with the Arabs in the subregion until the twentieth century.
1. Jewish Virtual Library: "Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity."

2. Sebutinde: "When the distinguished Arab American historian, Professor Philip Hitti, testified against the Partition of Mandatory Palestine before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he remarked: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history; absolutely not.”"
2. Jewish Virtual Library: "When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not."

3. Sebutinde: "In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."
3. Jewish Virtual Library: "In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.""

4. Sebutinde: "The first Palestine-Arab Congress which convened in Jerusalem from 27 January to 10 February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, adopted a resolution in which it, inter alia, considered Palestine as an integral part of Arab Syria."
4. Jewish Virtual Library: "When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time.

Needless to say, Sebutinde is a pathetic excuse for a judge. If you are going to plagiarize, at least do so from a reputable source. At least, that way, you may be a dishonest person, but at least you'd get the facts right? The insanity of plagiarizing from the Jewish Virtual Library here is that she is both dishonestly representing other people's work as her own, while also spreading misinformation.

How the heck this person is the world's top judge is truly mind-blowing.
Correction: In the first tweet in this thread, I should have noted, the dissenting opinion (w/the plagiarism) was with regard to the "Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem." I incorrectly implied it was on the genocide opinion. My apologies.
Read 5 tweets
Jan 25
The president of the International Court of Justice (@CIJ_ICJ) is Julia Sebutinde.

She was the only judge (of 17) to vote against all provisional measures of South African's case of Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

Her dissenting opinion is replete w/lies & distortions. A 🧵
In the opinion, she includes a 785-word section on the history of Palestine before WWI. 90% of it covers the period of ancient Israelite history, 10% covers all other periods, i.e. Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusaders, Mamluk & Ottoman. here's a sample: icj-cij.org/node/204162Image
Leaving aside the insanity of writing biblical history in a legal opinion about genocide, she propagates multiple myths, including the myth that the Romans vengefully replaced the name 'Judaea' w/Palestinian Syria after crushing the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE.

She writes: "In 135 CE, after stamping out the second Jewish insurrection of the province of Judea or Judah, the Romans renamed that province “Syria Palaestina” (or “Palestinian Syria”). The Romans did this as a punishment, to spite the “Y’hudim” (Jewish population) and to obliterate the link between them and their province (known in Hebrew as Y’hudah). The name “Palaestina” was used in relation to the people known as the Philistines and found along the Mediterranean coast."

This is not history she is telling, it's Zionist mythology, which I debunk at length in my ph.d dissertation, and summarize the findings in this twitter thread: x.com/_ZachFoster/st…
Read 6 tweets

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