Hi all, I am deeply frustrated by the whole discussion. I am coming to Nettime because I like to listen to a group of people who have expertise in internet/tech/media, not for rehashing generic political discussions that I can have in the news or on social media.
As for the nettime angle: What happened in Israel/Palestine is notable because the Israel/Gaza border is one of the most technologized and surveilled border in the world. Supposedly Israel has spies all over Gaza and supposedly they are very good at forcing petty criminals into spies. And yet, the attacks did take the IDF by surprise and yet it took the IDF a long time to reach the places of the massacres. How was this possible? What does it tell us about the border technology, about Hamas, about the Israeli security state? What good is the Israeli tech industry, if all their Pegasus and other trojans did not manage to intercept the plans of Hamas? Did Hamas plan this without computers and smartphones? Or did they manage to keep the spyware off the phones and computers of hundreds of their people? If there was “silence on Palestine” I was hoping to hear from some of the people with knowledge of the situation to hear some context to how the above could happen. What does it mean for the future of the conflict? What will follow from this in the medium term for the conflict, once the slaughter is over? Will the border become even harder? But how and with what consequences? Instead we got into a historical tit-for-tat and who started first and who is worse. If anyone is interested, there are plenty of relevant books on the history of the conflict and we all know that neither the Hamas attacks nor the answer of the IDF have improved the situation, quite to the contrary. We also know that neither Hamas nor the current Israeli government are actors who have a serious interest in bringing peace, and rehashing historical tit-for-tat on nettime will do very little to bring leftist actors together to help solve the situation (if that matters at all). I am extremely grateful for David Opp pointing to a land for all, a proposal whose existence speaks insistently against historical tit-for-tat and whose proponents demonstrate that it is possible to move away from historical accounting. But please, can we hear the wisdom of Nettime too? best Michael On 17 Oct 2023, at 04:16, Keith Sanborn via nettime-l <[email protected]> wrote: To clarify: there is no direct reporting of such incidents, though one report suggests they may have taken place in one locality. What they do say is that police forces are ramping up their presence in France, Germany and Austria because of the perceived possibility of anti-semitic attacks in connection with Palestinian rallies. Checked out Rahul’s references. I guess the bot he is or is using isn’t too good of a reader in English German or French. None of them say what he purports them to say. I suggest we waste no more time with this entity which has no presence on the net, has never, to my recollection, posted previously on other topics, and is wasting value intellectual bandwidth on this list. Keith > On Oct 16, 2023, at 5:44 PM, Brian Holmes via nettime-l > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Rahul, first of all, I too am thankful that we can actually discuss these > issues on nettime, because in the world at large, the space for discussion > is narrow, while the space for bitter animosity seems almost infinite. > > As stated in an earlier post, I think we are before a tragic situation > which ensnares all participants in a trap not of their own making. This is > why I don't justify one population over the other in this conflict. To me, > what would be important is not that one side wins. What's important is to > get out of the trap. > > Anyway, there is a point which needs to be clarified. I think we all > understand that under the norms of international law, Hamas is a terrorist > organization, whereas the IDF upholds, or at least claims to uphold, the > humanitarian rules of military engagement. > > However, the analysis of the people who disagree with you - including > myself on this point - is that since 1987 at least, the disproportionality > of Palestinian deaths compared to Israeli deaths indicates a failure of > humanitarian law as applied by the IDF. In the previous conflicts involving > Gaza, the Palestinian death toll is on the order of twenty times higher, at > least. This is due to the vast inequality in terms of weaponry, > institutional structure, international support and logistical resources - > exactly the inequality that has made it possible for Israel to hold two > million people in an open-air prison, and to pursue the takeover of > Palestinian land on the West Bank. It is impossible to see the humanitarian > character of military operations that result in such large numbers of > civilian deaths. > > The disproportion is well known and can be seen in the chart on this page: > > https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1352614/how-many-people-has-the-hamas-israel-war-killed-so-far.html > > A humanitarian law that allows a country to slaughter civilians at that > level of disproportionality appears first of all to contradict its own > tenets, and more importantly, it looks like a transparently false > justification for violent domination. Already in the current conflict, we > are seeing twice as many Palestinian deaths. If the number rises to ten or > twenty times as many, the trap will be complete. Not only the Arab world > will look on Israel and the US as mortal enemies, but the entire Global > South will come to see the Western alliance system as a hypocritical force > of bloodthirsty domination. And so we will fight wars until the flames of > climate change consume us. > > Despite the grief and rage, Israel should exercise restraint now, before > the situation becomes terminally polarized. As the more powerful party, the > country should analyze its own role in producing the conflict - just as the > US should have done after 9/11. Not to do so is a failure on every level, > including that of military strategy. Netanyahu's government is directly to > blame for this strategic failure, and it looks very likely that he will be > blamed for it by a majority of Israelis. Supporting them does not imply > anti-Semitism, nor even less, justification of Hamas. It's just being > against the war party. > > Anyway, in terms of the discussion here, I wanted to clarify what looks to > me like a fundamental point of disagreement. > > best, Brian > -- > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: https://www.nettime.org > # contact: [email protected] -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: https://www.nettime.org # contact: [email protected] -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: https://www.nettime.org # contact: [email protected]
