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“Shall” in a legal instrument creates a mandatory legal obligation or duty. Bear in mind that Prof. James Crawford represented Palestine in the 2004 Wall case and also authored “The Creation of States in International Law”. He explained that Israel and Transjordan were not created in accordance with the terms of the UN Plan for Partition and Economic Union of Palestine.

But neither Transjordan nor Israel could become members of the UN, until after the British Mandate or the UN Trusteeship Truman proposed had been terminated. Unlike the “recommendations” made in UN General Assembly resolution 181(II), the clauses regarding the termination of the Mandate, and the Declaration acknowledging the Minority Protection Plan were separate mandatory legal obligations:

Part I. – Future Constitution and Government of Palestine
A. TERMINATION OF MANDATE, PARTITION AND INDEPENDENCE
The Mandate for Palestine shall terminate as soon as possible but in any case not later than 1 August 1948.

B. STEPS PREPARATORY TO INDEPENDENCE
The Constitutions of the States shall embody Chapters 1 and 2 of the Declaration provided for in section C below and include, inter alia, provisions for: …

C. DECLARATION
A declaration shall be made to the United Nations by the Provisional Government of each proposed State before independence. It shall contain, inter alia, the following clauses:

General Provision
The stipulations contained in the Declaration are recognized as fundamental laws of the State and no law, regulation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations, nor shall any law, regulation or official action prevail over them. et. seq.

Chapter 4: Miscellaneous Provisions
The provisions of chapters 1 and 2 of the declaration shall be under the guarantee of the United Nations, and no modifications shall be made in them without the assent of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Any Member of the United Nations shall have the right to bring to the attention of the General Assembly any infraction or danger of infraction of any of these stipulations, and the General Assembly may thereupon make such recommendations as it may deem proper in the circumstances.

Any dispute relating to the application or interpretation of this declaration shall be referred, at the request of either party, to the International Court of Justice, unless the parties agree to another mode of settlement.

Bcg, I’ll start with your second question , regarding the Canaanites. It so happens that the moral issue here was even raised by Rashi in his commentary on the very first verse in the Bible (“In the Beginning…), Genesis 1:1.
In the beginning.  Said Rabbi Isaac: It was not necessary to begin the Torah except from “This month is to you,” (Exod. 12:2) which is the first commandment that the Israelites were commanded, Now for what reason did He commence with “In the beginning?” Because of [the verse] “The strength of His works He related to His people, to give them the inheritance of the nations” (Ps. 111:6). For if the nations of the world should say to Israel, “You are robbers, for you conquered by force the lands of the seven nations [of Canaan],” they will reply, “The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whomever He deemed proper When He wished, He gave it to them, and when He wished, He took it away from them and gave it to us.
In any case, such ethnic cleansing probably never took place in reality.
As to the killing the firstborn of Egypt, yes, it’s deeply troubling according to our human morality and sensibilities and not a problem that I would presume to solve. It’s presented as God’s judgement , executed by God (not by the Israelites) . 

Re: The most formally defined “Minority Protection Plan” related to Palestine …

Nope. The British Mandate is a PCIJ treaty instrument registered with the ICJ that implements the Balfour Declaration and contains a compromissory clause. The 2007 ICJ Territorial and Maritime Dispute case between Nicaragua and Honduras was based upon an older 1894 treaty and compromissory clause that was still justicable.

The minority treaty declarations were an obligation established as part of customary international law in the 19th century. The terms were identical to the later League of Nations Minority Treaty clauses approved by the PCIJ. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) described the League of Nations Mandates—including the Palestine Mandate—as unique legal instruments that are partly in the nature of a treaty and partly in the nature of a constitution in the International Status of South-West Africa, Advisory Opinion (1950). The Mandate for Palestine was legally binding on the British government and included a minority-rights compromissory clause, providing for rights of petition and adjudication by the World Court, which fits this “mixed” description.

The British Mandate could only be terminated prior to independence by a declaration made by the new governments of the territories when they acknowledged the undertaking of a permanent regime of religious, minority, and linguistic protections. That requirement was adopted by a resolution of the LoN Council as a prerequisite step for termination of the mandate regimes. It was also a provision in Article 28 of the Palestine Mandate. It was not part of the recommendations for the Plan of Partition and Economic Union. Territories under trusteeship or mandate were not eligible for UN membership, and the Representative of Cuba demanded evidence the required legal undertaking had been supplied. Abba Eban was required to submit one and make an oral declaration that is part of the verbatim record cited in General Assembly Resolution 273 (III) and the footnotes.

The rights of the Palestinian Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities and custody of their Holy sites were formalized by the 1852 Sultanic Firman and placed under international guarantee by the Sultan’s Declaration on equal civil and political rights of minorities and the right of transit for pilgrims in Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin, ratified by the Concert of Europe in 1878. Arab Jews could unilaterally declare a state (e.g. Kosovo).

This OpinioJuris article days before the passage explained the draft legislation had lost its legal basis. See the full article here: Legitimacy Foreclosed? The De-Hybridization of the October 7 Special Court and Lessons of the Iraqi High Tribunal

The synopsis: “The legislation’s earliest iterations presented the October 7 Court as a hybrid tribunal in all but name. What was proposed was a special judicial body, separate from both civilian and military courts, engaging international experts to help prosecute alleged acts of genocide. Legislative revisions, however, have systematically stripped away these “internationalising” features. What began as a sui generis court of mixed domestic and international composition has been reshaped into a military tribunal embedded within existing, and controversial, state structures.

The October 7 Court’s legislative trajectory closely mirrors that of the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) which likewise began as a partially internationalized experiment in post-conflict justice before retreating into a domestically controlled (and deeply contested) forum. In both cases, hybridization initially bolstered credibility and signaled adherence to international standards; in both, these safeguards were progressively eroded, diminishing the tribunals’ overall legitimacy.”

In the Gulf War the U.S. deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure, but in those days our rulers were smart enough not to brag openly about their war crimes.

https://www.hrw.org/reports/1991/gulfwar/CHAP4.htm

The most formally defined “Minority Protection Plan” related to Palestine was incorporated into the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (Resolution 181) in 1947. This plan aimed to create separate Jewish and Arab states while providing detailed safeguards for the minorities that would reside within them.

This alleged plan is a fraud because the UN GA had no power to partition a Class A Mandatory State under the UN Charter. The claim of such a plan is part of the pervasive white racism that pervades the treatment of Palestinians in contrast to the coddling and impunity that white racist states have given to white racial supremacist European Zionist colonial settler invaders since the end of WW2.

Keep in mind that Talmudic and Zionist legends have never consistently corresponded to any of the ancient monumental or scriptural texts in the first place. The Deir Alla Inscription revealed that “Balaam” worshipped many other Gods. He was not a Prophet of the God of Israel. Like the association of Mordechai and Esther to names of pagan Gods, the name “Beth-peor” translates to “house of Peor,” indicating its connection to the Moabite deity Baal-peor. See also “The Alleged ‘Beth David’ in the Mesha Stele: The Case Against It” and A Faience Head Of A Bearded Male From Tel Abel Beth Maacah: Iconography, Technology And Context. The Neo Hittite heads of winged lions excavated at Tel Dan or Tel Abel Beth Maacah were pagan sites in the era of “David”. So the “beloved house” inscription, may only have been a referenced to a pagan cult site, place name (e.g. Beth Leham), or temple.

The Septuagint version of Esther, describes Haman as a “Macedonian”, not a Persian or Amalekite. We have no idea where the original mythical story of Esther originated or what religion or nationalities the fictional characters were supposed to be in the original. In the Septuagint copies of the story the King said Mordechai and Esther were “good Persians”. So the villain’s Greek nationality may have changed from the Persian’s conquerors, Alexander the Great and the Ptolomies, to Amalikites sometime afterward in the redactions made by the Maccabean or medieval Masoretic texts. While Cyrus and Darius the Great left Cylinders and the Behistun Inscriptions which prove the descriptions of both men giving praising or obeying Yahweh in the Hebrew scriptures to be unhistirical fabrications.

I’m hesitant to say that DNA is proof of a population group’s “homeland” or “origin”, when the oldest fossil remains of homo sapiens (so far) are estimated to be 300,000 years-old and the ancient DNA tests of the group that became the Medes, et.al. in Iran are only 40,000 to 77,000 years old. I have no idea where they came from before that time, what language they originally spoke, or what religion (if any) they had. The only thing I’m sure of is that many of the consensus and scholarly views held in the past were wrong, and the same will almost certainly be the case with regard to the present ones.

October 7 was a mass atrocity— if they had focused on IDF targets with some civilian deaths as collateral damage that would be legitimate ( I think) under the laws of war, but they didn’t. They also intentionally kidnapped civilians— if they had only sought to capture IDF soldiers that would be legit. The whole operation as carried out was chiefly a war crime.

To make the analogy with Israel, one could imagine Israel reacting to Oct 7 by carefully targeting Hamas fighters, taking great care to avoid killing civilians though some would die as collateral damage but it is obvious that Israel did nothing of the kind, often deliberately killing civilians and otherwise using indiscriminate bombing that would destroy entire buildings filled with civilians. I suspect they saw that as a positive. The very name “ Where’s Daddy” suggests people who think it is funny to wipe out families.

There are two Latin phrases I don’t recall, one about whether the war itself is just and the other about whether the conduct of the war is just. Palestinians are the ones with a just cause. Israelis do not. But in theory they could try to fight ther unjust war by taking care not to kill civilians, but they prefer killing civilians.

The Palestinians have a just cause but Hamas fight using criminal tactics.

As for front page posts, I can’t point to specific ones because I don’t keep notes or memorize them, but as a general rule of thumb, if someone speaks about Hamas “resistance” and never condemns the killing of civilians I assume they are fine with it, just as the people who speak of Israel’s right to defend itself but never mention its horrific record of atrocities can be assumed to be atrocity deniers or sometimes atrocity advocates.

I am now, once and for all, dropping this sub thread.

I can assure you that I observe Passover traditions without burnt-offerings and sacrifices.
We have a traditional Seder, remember and celebrate our delivery from bondage to freedom. (While the Iranian regime and Hizbullah made an effort to kill Jews celebrating the holiday…)

Ok, thanks for clarifying that you don’t think Hamas are the good guys.
You did write that Hamas attacks were on a smaller scale, which implies that they are the lesser criminals, and caused me to write my question.

The war is going very badly for the US (perhaps not so much for Israel).

There are lots of things about the shooting down of the F15 and the humungous rescue effort that don’t pass the smell test. The plane was apparently brought down not far from Isfahan, where Iran may be keeping some of its nuclear material (though that has been disputed). The second crewman is a colonel, so what was such a senior officer doing on such a risky mission? The operation has entailed the loss of an F15, an A10, two C130 transports and at least four helicopters. It has involved US “boots on the ground” and a firefight with Iranian forces. The whole episode has “fiasco” written all over it.

And let’s hear from Robert Pape, an expert on air war at the University of Chicago:

The War Is Turning Iran Into a Major World Power……A fourth center of global power is quickly emerging — Iran….The strait had long been an international waterway through which ships from all countries could travel. But the joint military campaign that the United States and Israel began waging against Iran this year has prompted Iran to create a selective military blockade of the strait….If disruption to the energy supply persists, the effects will be widespread. Higher insurance and freight costs will raise prices. Trade balances will worsen. Currencies will weaken. Inflation will rise. Energy dependence will begin to shape policy. Governments will prioritize access to energy. Diplomatic choices will narrow. Actions that risk further instability will become harder to sustain. A 1970s world in which oil shocks lead to years of stagflation will no longer be a distant memory but a nearing reality…..Again, Iran will benefit…. This is a transformational war, and if these changes continue for even a few years, the global order will change irrevocably.

Opinion | The War Is Turning Iran Into a Major World Power – The New York Times

Thank, Bibi and Donald.

How is the war going? There is a consensus that we’ve actually killed off the more moderate Iranian leaders and they’ve been replace with more hardline people. Should we laugh or cry? Let’s hear from Danny Citrinowicz, who was an Iran specialist for Israel:
Iran regime collapse could unleash nightmare scenario for Israel.…Should the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) dramatically eclipse clerical authority, Tehran might abandon Khamenei’s comparative caution, embracing aggressive postures regarding both nuclear advancement and direct confrontation with Israel….Another crucial reality: despite Israel’s recent campaign, Tehran retains substantial missile inventories plus nuclear infrastructure theoretically enabling enrichment of remaining uranium stocks to 90% weapons-grade purity – a dramatic leap toward bomb production….This proves especially perilous because Tehran’s leadership, despite its dogmatism, has maintained relatively methodical, cautious strategic decision-making. Regime transformation scenarios raise alarming prospects of more extreme factions – the Revolutionary Guards foremost – seizing these capabilities and deploying them without hesitation….Post-Khamenei realities could confront Israel with complex, dangerous circumstances – potentially worse than present conditions.

Iran Regime Change Could Worsen Nuclear Threat to Israel | Israel Hayom

Once again, everything that is being discussed here has been punishable under the US law that our Constitution delegated to Congress and required them to establish. Article I requires the legislative branch to set penalties and punish piracy, felonies on the high seas, and violations of the law of nations in our own municipal law. Nowadays that’s usually covered in Title 18 of the US Code. I’ve pointed out United States v. Percheman, 32 U.S. 51 (1832), was a landmark Supreme Court case authored by Chief Justice John Marshall that prohibited confiscation of homes and ethnic cleansing. It established private property rights under the takings clause of the 5th Amendment and the law of nations when sovereignty changes.

So of course synagogues and other religious institutions can be prosecuted for any agreement between two or more people to commit an illegal act, accompanied by an overt act in furtherance of that goal. Criminal conspiracies to commit murder, wire, mail, internet fraud, bribery, pillage, etc. are punishable crimes. It isn’t lawful to engage in intentional schemes to murder, deport populations across international borders, defraud others of money, property, or honest services.

Phil, there is no agreement on a legal definition in the US Code or in Israeli law for the term “Jew” or “Judaism”. So the use of undefined terms, such as “the Jews” and “Jewish” in “The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism” are alright as philosophy, but they are unconstitutionally vague.

When Chip Roy introduced anti-Sharia legislation, Jamie Raskin nixed the scheme, based upon the nature of the proposed legislation. Raskin cited all three clauses of the US Constitution regarding religion, including the absolute prohibition of any religious tests. See: Jamie Raskin Throws MAGA Stooge’s BS Back in His Face — YouTube.

But when Raskin co-sponsored the Countering Antisemitism Act, there was no mention of the constitutional prohibition of religious tests. In fact, he wrote that “H.R. 6090 would require the Department of Education to continue taking into consideration the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in enforcing federal civil rights law on campus. He noted “Department of State has used the IHRA’s non-exhaustive ‘working definition, along with examples,’ of antisemitism since 2010. The Department of Education has used it for the last six years, since 2018.”

Raskin ignored the fact the definition had already resulted in civil and criminal penalties and the appointment of both federal and state official antisemitism code enforcers. He wrote: “The IHRA ‘definition’ literally does not define antisemitism” and “In a legal sense, for the purposes of enforcing criminal law or civil rights law against individuals, the IHRA definition is plainly unconstitutionally vague. It could never withstand a rigorous due process analysis for individual punishment because it does not give a reasonable person particular notice of what the proscribed speech or conduct is in even the most rudimentary sense.”

The unconstitutional law was retained, without justice for The Irvine 11. He suggested “The Jerusalem Declaration” be added as a further test for racism (which is a legally protected characteristic). But that just goes full circle to the original problem. It remains unconstitutional, because it simply substitutes one undefined term for another. It also attempts to define changeable Zionist religious views as if they are an immutable racial characteristic. Anti-Zionist Jews, Muslims, and Christians have rights too, e.g.: Converts to Zionism in the American Reform Movement — Brandies

jon s: “I’ve always condemned crimes perpetrated by Israel ….”

You did. Except the crimes you prefer do deny which explains why you never could list the top 3 crimes against the Palestinians

“… and I’m active in the Left Opposition in Israeli politics.”

You are as left as the workers union Histradut, whose purpose was to remove non-Jewish workers and replace them with Jewish workers. In fact, you are so “left” that you deny Palestinian workers their “opposite-of-left” to return.

In other words, you are “left” as defined by Zionist right extremists who openly support some of the crimes you need to deny.

“Israel has made horrible mistakes like the settlements …”

Aah, only a “horrible mistake” and most surely only the settlements after 1967, right? Why? Because they are not good for the Jews?

“… and is responsible for a brutal Occupation…”

In which territory?

“… and human-rights violations. .”

Like the right to self determinations of all Palestiinians in 1948 in their country? Or expulsion and the denial of the right to return? In other words creating a Jewish state through war and ethnic cleansing?

“The research is interesting for the scholars and experts … it’s not an historical event, it’s a mythic event, but a hugely important one…”

Interesting. Jewish narratives shape identity or events even when they’re not historical or factual, but hugely important. Does that explain the countless myths of Zionism and why so Jews have to deny what not only Jewish genocide and holocaust scholars and experts call a Genocide in Gaza?

Donald Johnson: “Thomas, I was responding to your own misreading of my earlier comment—I said nothing against the right to resist, but condemned murder of civilians committed in the name of resistance.”

We can surely drop the issues as such, since we seem to agree at least to most (if not all), but most surely when it comes to both sides murdering civilians or counting as “civilians”, even if they joined the hostilities beyond their own immediate self defensive paramenter (home, family, etc.) and will never admit, how many real civilians were uninentionally killed in a crossfires, friendly fires or intentional within the Hannibal directive.

But allow me to make just one final claryfing statement. Since our comments are public (at least within MW) I was having a problem with your wording:

You equated “treat Oct 7 as resistance” on the one hand with “defend Israeli atrocities as ‘Israel having the right to defend itself’” on the other. That’s not equivalent to “treat/defend Palestinian atrocities as Palestinians having the right to resist” but seemed to inherently equate “Oct 7” with “atrocities” and not with “resistance, despite including atrocities”.

And I haven’t verified your claim, that some MW articles were treating Palestinian atrocities as resistance, rather than being commited within the framework of the right to resistance.

Michael Bornstein was raised in the USA. After graduating from Colombia University with a BA and Masters in 1978, he went to work for the Israeli delegation at the UN. He made Aliyah to Israel, changed his name to Oren, became a Paratrooper, and invaded Lebanon by 1982. He served in the reserves during the Second Lebanon War (2006), then became an IDF propagandist during the 2008–2009 Gaza War. In 2024–2025, Oren rejoined the IDF reserves to serve in northern Israel.

I sat down once with the Nuremberg Charter and Oren’s book “Six Days of War” to compare the two plans, to prepare, initiate, or wage a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances”. He wrote that Israel had started the war in 1966, when it launched the invasion and attack on the West Bank village of Es Samu. The UN Security Council had condemned Israeli for UN Charter and Armistice agreement violations. Jordan joined the regional mutual defense treaty with Egypt to obtain protection from a recurrence. Oren also wrote that Israel launched an (illegal) preemptive strike against Egyptian units while they were on their own territory in the Sinai. That triggered Jordan’s obligations to come to the aid of the Egyptians. Oren also wrote that The National Unity Government had planned to acquire more Arab territory when the opportunity presented itself.

In the 2004 ICJ Wall case the Court explained that Israel’s demolition and construction of the barrier inside Palestine, its associated Jewish settlements, and administrative regime were illegal. It stipulated Israel could not excuse the wrongfulness of its belligerent occupation by claiming necessity or the right of self-defense. Israel used home demolitions as collective punishment in Gaza, and committed acts of homicide, like Rachel Corrie’s in 2003.

In 2009 the “United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict”,(Goldstone Report) was published, Oren was invited to speak at UC Irvine in 2010. He was interrupted when he contradicted the ICJ and Goldstone panel of experts findings of fact to tell the Palestinians in the audience that Israel has the sovereign right of self-defense and can enter Gaza or designate areas as kill zones and murder their family members. Goldstone reported unarmed groups had been summarily executed, while waving white flags. The victims of those “true threats” and “fighting words” were arrested by the University instead of Oren.

Perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize would be at least some compensation for this true, self-sacrificing hero’s punishment at the brutal hands of Zionist Israel.

When in a hole, stop digging. Israel has no Left. That is a comforting fiction in which you blanket yourself to avoid confronting the horrific reality of Zionism and its offspring, apartheid, genocidal Israel. Israel doesn’t make ‘mistakes’; it commits deliberate crimes in its long-standing, openly stated aim to create a Jewish-supremacist state and to erase the entire Palestinian people by any means necessary, the crueller the better.

Your loyalty as a socialist is not to Israel any more than the Bolsheviks in 1917 had loyalty to the Russian state and monarchy. Your task lies in the working class to build a movement amongst Palestinians and Israelis to overthrow the brutally exploitative, capitalist state and replace it with a workers’ socialist state. Israel was never worth saving; there is no electoral path to socialism in Israel.

Part 4

You need to remember that complete list of crimes that you constantly publicly deny, condone, and trivialize before you claim to condemn crimes committed by your side..

In recent oral arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Professor Philippe Sands KC represented the State of Palestine, while Ralph Wilde spoke on behalf of the League of Arab States (Arab League), both men presented the argument that the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent League of Nations Mandate were legally flawed and “beyond the powers” of those bodies. They argued they violated the prohibition of usurpation of sovereignty during an occupation, and the right of self-determination. They called for refusal to recognize the Zionist state, and restoration of the State of Palestine within its 1924 borders.

In any event, your denial of the right of expelled or deported Palestinians to return to their homes and lands, denial of the ICJ and ICERD 2004 and 2024 determinations regarding violations of the prohibitions of apartheid, illegal forced population transfers, murder, the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, water, clothing and housing; and the right “to be free from hunger” amounted to the use of starvation as a weapon of war, extermination, and persecution according to the ICJ and ICC.

Part 3

When Donald Trump asks why Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark? One answer is because the Permanent Court of International Justice settled the territorial dispute between Norway and Denmark based upon the oral declaration Norwegian Foreign Minister Ihlen made on the topic of Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland in 1919. 

Note that the USA and Israel went to war on the basis of their written Declarations, but both claim they are not legally enforceable. In fact Israel’s is still a UN minority treaty instrument that was required acceptance in order to terminate the British Mandate. Once Abba Eban provided the required Declaration, Israel could not opt-out. The terms stipulate that the agreement cannot be altered without the consent of the UN General Assembly, and any unresolved dispute regarding them can be referred by any party to the ICJ for a legally binding decision . See: Prior Consent by States to the Jurisdiction of International Courts and Tribunals in Inter-State Disputes, Zachary Vermeer and Dapo Akande

Page 65 para 171 explains the list of ICJ registered instruments is usually incomplete: ‘[t]he fact that a treaty is or is not included in this section is without prejudice to its possible application by the Court in a particular case.’ In fact, there are a number of relevant treaties which have not been on the list. Page 74 para 194-195 explains that some compromissory clauses allow the parties to opt-out. The clauses in the Palestine Minority Protection Plan is not one of those agreements. It was cited as the only UN minority rights legal instrument in a 1950 Secretary General Report.

Akande is a member of the UN International Law Commission and the UK government has announced they will nominate him to serve as a Judge on the International Court of Justice next term.

Part 2

Just to be clear, those aren’t “mistakes”. In 1948 Under Secretary of State for UN Affairs, Dean Rusk, and US Consul General in Jerusalem, Thomas Wasson, both documented Jewish Agency officials and terrorist militia taking part in crimes of aggression. They documenteed it in real time after the Deir Yassin Massacre. In 1967, Rusk advised the Government of Israel that the establishment of Nahal settlements was a war crime that violated Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. The Security Council and General Assembly have both advised the annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and the occupation of Arab lands and blockade of Gaza are crimes of aggression.

They were the very same crimes listed in the 1919 Commission findings about penalties for crimes. caused by usurpation of sovereignty during occupations, starvation, mass murder of civilians, wanton destruction of property, confiscation of property, pillage, and etc. We are still pursuing and prosecuting WWII Nazis on the basis of those same violations of the laws and customs of war. FYI, the Judgement : The Law of the Charter employed by the Nuremberg Tribunal explicitly stated that any country could do the same thing acting alone:

“The Signatory Powers created this Tribunal, defined the law it was to administer, and made regulations for the proper conduct of the Trial. In doing so, they have done together what any one of them might have done singly; for it is not to be doubted that any nation has the right thus to set up special courts to administer law.”

The prohibitions and penalties from 1919 did not require a new signature when they were codified and included in the UN Charter, the 1949 Geneva Convention, the 1977 Additional Protocol, or the Statutes of the ICTR, ICTY, or ICC. It was already a crime to deport civilians, starve a population, impose collective punishments, attack fishing vessels and relief ships, or destroy hospitals, schools, and places of worship. When the IDF bulldozed or bombed homes in Gaza and committed homicides against protestors, like Rachael Corrie in 2002 or children during the Great March of Return in 2018. Nothing prevents any country from taking action against the perpetrators. See for example “The Roger Lumbala Trial – Analysis of a Landmark Universal Jurisdiction Case” and Starvation: Vital Amendment to the Rome Statute Unanimously Passes the Assembly of State Parties to the International Criminal Court, 2019

Jon S, is that deliberate bad faith trolling or do you not read anything I have ever written here or do you have the memory of a goldfish? Or maybe this reflects your own moral reasoning. I am sorry, but it is one of the four.

As I have said ad nauseam, even in this very thread, both Hamas and Israel murder civilians, Israel doing it on a much larger scale. Somehow you think this means that in my view that Hamas are the good guys.

Maybe this is your own projection of how you think. Maybe you think that in a war between murderers one set of murderers has to be the good guys. I never said this ,never hinted at it, and obviously don’t think this and yet there you are, scratching your head, pretending that logically I must think it.

But I think it is trolling, frankly. You prefer to argue against people who condemn Israeli war crimes but deny or support the crimes of its enemies. You can comfort yourself with the thought that it discredits everything they say. You don’t know what to do with people who condemn war crimes committed by both sides, so you pretend they fall into the category of Hamas supporters. I hate to burst your bubble— well, no, I don’t— but to me the Israeli government, the Iranian government and Hamas leaders ( or the ones who planned Oct 7) are all murderers and belong in prison. So do American politicians of both parties who either supported Israel’s genocide or this current war in Iran.

Then why not just accept the truth that the author of Jeremiah made in the Bible and abandon your false Passover traditions? i.e.: “For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jeremiah 7:22

I suspect that 99 percent of Jews don’t read “The Bible” and just consult the Talmudic legends and myths.

No, two wrongs don’t make a right. Israel is a state party to the Genocide Convention, but has never formally charged Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or Palestine with genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

OTOH, The ICJ, by eleven votes to four, allowed Russia to proceed with its counter-claims that Ukraine has committed genocide, attempted genocide, is complicit in genocide, conspired to commit genocide, incited genocide, failed to prevent, investigate, and punish genocide, and failed to enact necessary legislation and provide effective penalties for genocide. As Russia further requested the Court to order Ukraine to make full reparation for its alleged violations of the Genocide Convention, now, even more than before, ‘Ukraine has to defend itself against the allegation of genocide, rather than the other way around’ (Weller). – See: Another Setback for Ukraine? The ICJ Declares Russia’s Counter-Claims in the Ukraine v. Russia Genocide Case Admissible” — EJIL: Talk!

The research is interesting for the scholars and experts . For 99.9% of the people who read the Megillah and celebrate Purim every year, what matters is the story as it is in the Bible. When we read it and discuss it and celebrate the holiday, we look at it as a story , not as an accurate historical event. Like the story of the Exodus, which we read and celebrate these days on Passover, many of us realize that it’s not an historical event, it’s a mythic event, but a hugely  important one.

jrg’s comment was correct. Accusing Israel of genocide while supporting Hamas and Hizbullah and the Iranian regime.

Thomas, I was responding to your own misreading of my earlier comment—I said nothing against the right to resist, but condemned murder of civilians committed in the name of resistance. There was no false equivalence— you attributed a bunch of positions to me that I don’t hold.

Since we both agree that both Hamas and Israel murder civilians and agree that Palestinians have the right to resist and probably agree on most or maybe all the issues here ( including what you say here) , I am going to drop this or we will start agreeing at the top of our lungs.

Donald, I don’t pretend to be an objective observer. I live here, the issues are ,for me, literally matters of life or death . You seem to be saying -correct me if I misunderstood- that Israeli operations caused more casualties than Hamas operations, therefore …what? Hamas are the “good guys”?

I’m not surprised that once again you’ve dodged my question .
I’ve always condemned crimes perpetrated by Israel and I’m active in the Left Opposition in Israeli politics. I codemned the killing of Hind Rajab. Do you condemn the killing of the Kedem-Siman Tov family?

You may not have read or remembered all of my comments. Since ther’s no longer an archive on MW I often “save” my comments . Here’s an excerpt :
I’m active on the Israeli Left, I’ve always supported Palestinian rights and yes, there are “root causes” of the situation in Gaza and we could conduct a symposium on root causes going back to Adam & Eve. Israel has made horrible mistakes like the settlements, and is responsible for a brutal Occupation and human-rights violations. ..

If I may, I’d like to pose a question to my fellow Jews this Passover: according to one of the foundational mythologies of Judaism, God, as part of a long running campaign to convince the Pharoah to free the Jews, killed all the firstborn in Egypt. Isn’t that, like, a war crime?

And according to another foundational mythology of Judaism, didn’t the Jews ethnically cleanse the promised land of Caananites** – another war crime?

Seriously, ethnic cleansing is part of our DNA:

Why the Passover story is a colonialist myth…..[ Passover is ] the tale of an oppressed, subjugated people that stands tall and liberates itself from bondage….The Palestinian intellectual Edward Said was less enthusiastic about the Exodus. In an article he published in 1986, a response to Michael Walzer’s book “Exodus and Revolution,” he offered a reading of the story from the viewpoint of the people living in the Land of Canaan. The exodus episode manifests solidarity with the oppressed, he acknowledged, but it also contains a dark side. If the exodus from Egypt is a revolution, it also harbors a violent element of oppression: the oppression of those who worship the golden calf, and no less, of “the unfortunate native inhabitants [of the Promised Land] who by definition are not members of the Chosen People.” In Said’s view, “The text of Exodus does categorically enjoin victorious Jews to deal unforgivingly with their enemies, the prior native inhabitants of the Promised Land.” The basic approach is: “get rid of the natives.”.. the independence of one people comes at the expense of victims among other peoples. From the vantage point of the original occupants of the land, the exodus from Egypt is a chronicle of conquest and annihilation….Future historians might look at Israel in the same way. They will see in the Zionist movement a singular success story of a persecuted people that rose from the ashes. But at the same time, it is a story of dispossession and occupation that has no end. Heroism and oppression are not separate stories, they are one story. That stems from the necessary structure of every “exodus”: when you leave one country, you enter another country. And people lived in that country, too.

Why the Passover story is a colonialist myth

**
Book of Joshua – Wikipedia

BBC: Israel’s Secret Weapons [2003] [Full documentary film]

“Which country in the Middle-East has NO outside inspections?”

“Israel’s nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities have remained un-inspected.”

“Meanwhile Mordechai Vanunu has been imprisoned for 16 years for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear bomb factory to the world. Vanunu is seen as a traitor in his own country. He has been abandoned by most of his family and has spent 11 years in solitary confinement.

Today only an American couple, who have legally adopted him, are among the few visitors he is permitted. This film is the story of the bomb, Vanunu and Israel’s wall of silence.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckPmAqG8Zyo

Part 1

Re: I’ve consistently condemned crimes commited by “my side”.

I beg to differ. The civilian community and political wing of the Hamas party are recognized belligerents with the unqualified right to trial by regular courts, and of return to their homes, and private property in Israel. Collective punishment is prohibited.

The State Department published A Digest of the International Law of the United States Taken from Documents Issued by Presidents and Secretaries of State, and from Decisions of Federal Courts and Opinions of Attorneys-general. Based on the principles outlined in Wharton’s Digest of the International Law of the United States—which reflects the 19th-century classical doctrine of civil war—a belligerent community (or recognized belligerent) is a group of insurgents engaged in a civil war that has achieved a specific level of organization and control, warranting recognition of belligerency by third states or the parent state.
Belligerency is the condition of being in fact engaged in war. A nation is deemed a belligerent even when resorting to war in order to withstand or punish an aggressor. That model of international law, goes back to the US civil war during which it was affirmed by the US Supreme Court in the 1862 Prize Cases and then codified in the 1863 Lieber Code.

The Report Of The Commission On The Responsibility Of The Authors Of The [First World] War And On Enforcement Of Penalties (29 March 1919) stated: Every belligerent has, according to international law, the power and authority to try the individuals alleged to be guilty of the crimes of which an enumeration has been given in Chapter II on Violations of the Laws and Customs of War, if such persons have been taken prisoners or have otherwise fallen into its power. Note: POWs are not hostages.
Its list included 32 offenses from the Hague Convention including: Usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation, starvation of civilians, pillage, deportation of civilians, Imposition of collective penalties, Confiscation of property, Imposition of collective penalties, Deliberate bombardment of undefended places, Directions to give no quarter, Destruction of merchant ships and passenger vessels without warning and without provision for the safety of passengers or crew, Destruction of fishing boats and of relief ships, Deliberate bombardment of hospitals, Wanton destruction of religious, charitable, educational, and historic buildings and monuments.

From a Guardian report today:

Taybeh, a small hilltop town in the heart of the West Bank is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. After increasing attacks from Israeli settlers it now feels itself under siege and is fighting for its very existence.

The town’s ancient Greek name was Ephraim where, according to the gospels, Jesus hid with his disciples from the Jewish religious hierarchy, the Sanhedrin, before making his final fateful trip to Jerusalem.

A church was built here in the fifth century, and the entirely Christian community survived the crusaders, conquest by Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub or Saladin, the Ottoman empire, the British empire, and three Arab-Israeli wars, but its inhabitants say its long-term future is in question.

There are four substantial Israeli settlements around Taybeh, and countless unofficial outposts have also sprung up on the steep hills overlooking the Jordan valley. They have been set up by messianic Jews who send their young people, the “hilltop youth”, to harass and intimidate local Palestinians in the surrounding countryside.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/05/israeli-settlers-driving-christians-out-west-bank

Well, you took your time condemning one of your state’s crimes. You have not consistently done so. Most of your comments condemn resistance against your criminal, apartheid state and its agencies. Next: will you reject the racist ideology of Zionism which underpins all the crimes that Israel is committing against Palestinians, Lebanese and other? One step at a time in your progress back to humanity…

As for your original question, as others are telling you: Israel has since its founding vehemently rejected the concepts you demand I accede to. Do you therefore reject Israel’s foundational principles?

The Purim story was not even part of the original text. See: How the Book of Esther Changed, Several Greek versions of the Purim story survive, along with the biblical text we read today, By Adele Berlin, Professor of Biblical Studies Emerita at the University of Maryland

The 2nd century fragments (200 BCE to 101 BCE) do not contain the verse you are quoting. It goes without saying that being a returning exile was a sine qua non of Talmudic Judaism. An Am Haaretz, (Hebrew: עם הארץ), meaning “people of the land, meant an “ignoramus”—one uneducated in Torah law and non-observant of ritual purity laws. Your medieval Masoretic text produced from an 11th century CE scroll or the 14th century CE complete Bible were redacted many times and are not authoritative or definitive.

David J. Zucker notes ‘[A]s Adele Berlin in this very fine (Jewish Publication Society: Esther Commentary) points out, the story of Esther is probably made up of whole cloth; it is not history in any sense of that word as used in common parlance. The book of Esther is imaginative and comedic, it is “meant to be funny,” to provoke laughter (xvii). It is also a book with some very deadly serious sides as shall be noted later. Berlin describes Esther as a kind of farce, written in the manner of burlesque with exaggerated caricature types, broad verbal humor, and filled with satire. The book vulgarizes Persian court life. There are “ludicrous edicts . . .an endless hierarchy of officials, and a wooden adherence to nonsensical laws.” Low comedy is characterized by “exaggeration, caricature . . . coincidences, improbabilities, and verbal humor . . . Most of these features are prominent in [the book of] Esther” (xix).’

The medieval Hebrew texts have been redacted and 8 major passages exist in the Greek texts written a millennium earlier.

FYI, the Hebrew doesn’t actually say Mordecai was in exile: “The question here is thus: who went into exile? Was it Mordecai, the noun standing at the front of this long phrase begun in v. 5, or Qish, the closest available and appropriate potential head? For the various arguments for each option, including discussion regarding the identity of Qish (i.e., was this Saul’s father or simply Mordecai’s great-grandfather who also had that name?), we suggest consulting the standard commentaries.” See Esther 2:5-10 in Ancient Hebrew Grammar, Robert Holmstedt, PhD professor of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations at the University of Toronto.

The steady barrage of bloviating threats coming from the very stable genius would lead anyone to believe that tr…p either needs another MRI, or he is completely off his meds. The administration has made a laughingstock of the US, with its ever-changing rationale for why this illegal war was commenced. One unassailable reason stands out from the others: the deranged old man was easily duped into doing Israel’s bidding as exemplified by the unceasing lobbying done by Nutsanyahoo.

The lengthy list of Israeli war crimes is staggering. When will this rogue nation have to answer for their decades of illegal brutality?

“Good option”? Just stop the bad act you have started.

In the Book of Esther 2:5-6 Mordecai’s identity is specifically given as an exile.
There was a Jew in Shushan the capital and his name was Mordecai son of Jair son of Kish, a Benjaminite man who had been exiled from Jerusalem with the group of exiles that was exiled with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had exiled. (Robert Alter translation)

The Purim story itself describes the Jews as a minority threatened by a premeditated genocidal plot. Not the situation one would usually associate with living comfortably in your homeland.

This Wreckage, Why not answer my question? Do you agree with those statements or not?
Of course I condemn the murder of Hind Rajab. I’ve consistently condemned crimes commited by “my side”.

Finally the MSM is realizing the Palestinians are people too. Such MSM sensitivity has been absent for many decades.
Now the MSM should acknowledge the rogue state of Israel is the real terrorist in the Middle East.

“Now, as Israel escalates its war on Lebanon, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz has made Israel’s plans clear: implement the Gaza model of total destruction and ethnic cleansing.”

Israel deliberately targeting medical facilities in south Lebanon, say health workers…Medics and officials say there is systematic use of double-tap strikes in campaign to make the south uninhabitable…Since the war began on 2 March, Israel has struck at least 128 medical facilities and ambulances across south Lebanon, killing 40 healthcare workers and wounding 107, according to the Lebanese ministry of health….Israel has also carried out at least five double-tap strikes, a tactic in which an initial strike is followed by a pause, allowing medical workers to arrive before the area is bombed for a second time….The Israeli military accused Hezbollah of using ambulances for military purposes last week, saying it would “act in accordance with international law” if the practice continued. The Israeli army made the same accusation in 2024; it has not provided any evidence or proof for its claims.

Israel deliberately targeting medical facilities in south Lebanon, say health workers | Lebanon | The Guardian

Over the course of two years, Israeli forces systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip’s health system. Their attacks in Iran and Lebanon follow a disturbingly similar pattern….On Friday, March 13, nearly two weeks into the Lebanese front of “Operation Roaring Lion,” Israeli forces bombed Burj Qalaouiyah, a village in the country’s south. The strike destroyed a health care center, killing twelve doctors, paramedics, nurses, and patients…Since the start of Operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury, critics have charged that Israel is expanding its Gaza doctrine—a combination of mass displacement, mass killing, and mass destruction of civilian infrastructure

The Gaza Doctrine | Neve Gordon | The New York Review of Books

“Every war that Israel has conducted in Gaza and Lebanon over the last 20 years has failed, Anthony said. Now there is an opportunity to eliminate the threats posed by Iran’s nuclear capability, its missile capabilities, and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah”

You see this time it’s going to work

I wasn’t responding to his quote, but to what I saw as a justification for the next generations of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing.

But regarding his quote, you are not only deliberately omitting the word ‘new,’ but also the context (‘deprives them of the right to return home’) in order to invent the literalist misinterpretation that ‘is populated’ can only mean ‘is populated exclusively” and distract from your spinning by projecting it unto me.

Imagine a Zionist non-Jew converting to Judaism, immigrating to Israel, illegaly settling in the Westbank and then asking for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from his “ancestral homeland”, because the land was promised to him thousands of years ago.

Will yet another invasion and occupation of Lebanon go any better for Israel than the previous ones? Has Israel at long last overreached?

Hezbollah has been the most effective Arab fighting force, which is why the idea of the Lebanese government waltzing in and disarming them is fanciful nonsense. If the IDF can’t do it (and they can’t), there’s no chance of anyone else doing so. And, as both Israel and the US are discovering, Iran is a foe that can hit back hard.

Donald Johnson: “In your comment there was a handwave at the fact that nobody has the right to commit atrocities without actually saying that Hamas commits atrocities. Well, they do.”

That’s an argumentum e silentio fallacy. But absence of a statement is not proof of denial. By the same faulty logic, your comment also doesn’t list atorcities by Jewish non state actors aka settler terrorists, but it wouldn’t be reasonable to assume you deny their atrocities and add: “Well, they do.”

This is what I wrote April 3, 2026 9:20 pm, before your response April 3, 2026 10:50 pm to jon s just a few posts below:

“Glad to see that you condemn all deliberate/indiscriminate attacks on civilians whether Hamas or IDF denies/lies about that they were deliberate/indiscriminate or not or if the victims were civilians or not.”

What do you infere from this statement?

“Hamas could have planned an Oct 7 attack aimed only at Israeli military targets ( with possible civilian deaths occurring by accident as happens in war), but they didn’t do that.”

True, but lets not forget that Israel knew this plan and its exact timing, did nothing to prevent it, redeployed troops days before the attack, ordererd a stand down of the border police an hour before the attack and without any explanation. And it still refuses a national, fully independent, authoritative, comprehensive official investigation. Why? To justify its genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians and distracting from the fact that they would sacrifice Jewish civilians to implent its goals.

On Friday, April 2, the PBS Newshour aired a 10 minute segment titled “Palestinians in occupied West Bank face growing violence from Israeli settlers”:
Palestinians in occupied West Bank face growing violence from Israeli settlers | PBS News

This has now become a topic in the mainstream media.

The only way Trump can escape the impending catastrophe is to purge his administration of self-declared Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists. Appoint a qualified Secretary of Defence, rather than keeping the current Secretary of War Crimes. Bring in genuine, competent patriots into the administration and tell the Adelson-types to F off. It won’t happen, of course. In the highly unlikely event of him taking such action, one would have to posit that he’d be putting his personal safety at risk.

I recommend following the blog of British Jewish anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein and his book ‘Zionism During the Holocaust’.

You don’t, judging by your entire comment history. Stop demanding of others what you don’t expect of yourself or your accomplices in the worst crimes for which there are laws. Israel was founded on the racist ideology of Zionism which explicitly – through its laws, government policies, policing, military aggression and other means – denies humanity to Palestinian people, as has been intensively reported in detail by B’Tselem and many others.

Do you condemn the murder of Hind Rajab aged five by Jewish Israeli tank gunners in Gaza on 29th January 2024 while she was in her family’s car, surrounded by their murdered corpses and calling for rescue? And the murder of two Palestinian medics in their ambulance while on the way to help her?

One expression of fanaticism is a refusal to admit the wrongs of one’s own side. Even Hamas is willing to allow the ICC to investigate all crimes committed on 7th October 2023. Israel is not.

An Englishman becomes Israeli, then asks for Palestinians ethnic cleansing from their land because he now feels unsafe. Everything is upside down these days.

I agree with that, Jon S, but now the next question or question set is this—

Do you agree that Israel is guilty of such attacks on a massive scale and Hamas on a much smaller scale?

The problem is you can get many people agreeing with the general principles and then they will turn around and deny that their preferred side is guilty of this, except maybe for some bad apples.

“This sounds like a false equivalence.”

In your comment there was a handwave at the fact that nobody has the right to commit atrocities without actually saying that Hamas commits atrocities. Well, they do.

Now one true equivalence doesn’t mean universal equivalences in every respect.

Israel is in fact the aggressor, the settler colonialist state, the practitioner of apartheid and the side with overwhelming power guilty of genocide, so you can think, as I do, that the Palestinians are the ones with a just cause, while also recognizing that Hamas deliberately murdered civilians, which is a crime. And you can also recognize that on an individual level, an Israel shooting at Hamas invaders killing civilians would be someone acting in self defense or the defense of others. This could happen in every war— it is probably never the case where one side is purely innocent and the other purely guilty. ( I suppose someone might jump in and mention the Hannibal directive. Yes, that happened too on some scale I don’t know. It doesn’t negate my point.)

Hamas could have planned an Oct 7 attack aimed only at Israeli military targets ( with possible civilian deaths occurring by accident as happens in war), but they didn’t do that.

Outside the realm of the ideologues, and there unfortunately a lot of them, everyone who pays attention to this subject and has a functioning brain and a normal level of human decency knows that Israel is guilty of massive atrocities , and Hamas is also guilty of atrocities on a far smaller scale.

And the U.S. is deeply implicated in Israel’s crimes— they couldn’t have done what they have done without us.

Re; Up to a point. The Roman Empire has left its mark on much of Europe.

LOL! Okay here is another ironic fact. Just as I noted in another thread about ancient inhabitants of the Iranian Zagros mountains, a 2021 PNAS study confirmed that Anatolia has experienced long-term genetic continuity (>15,000 years), with limited input from Central Asian Turkic or Arab migrations. These Anatolian ancestors still have descendants there today. They are genetically linked to the Neolithic farmers who migrated and shaped the genetics of every other European country today. Yet other Europeans refuse to admit them to the EU and consider them undesirable immigrants.

The Dust and Data Channel has been around since 2008. They use annoying AI production voices and video, and sensational headlines and narratives a bit too much IMHO. But are well sourced and generally are informative. They have one video for the Anatolian and another for the Zagros Mountain hunter-gatherers and their descendants. See: Why Are Turkish People Genetically Different from Arabs? and Scientists Found A Ghost Population In Iran That Nobody Can Explain

“ But emblematic of Zionists’ disdain for actual Jewish people was the American Zionist campaign to end the popular boycott of German goods in the 1930s which had been motivated by public horror at reports of Nazi atrocities against Jews. Zionists were working with Nazis to ensure a privileged few Jews were enabled to emigrate – but only to Palestine.”

Would you be able to make suggestions about where I can read credible information about this?

Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me join the fun.

I initially wanted to ask “How many Israeli Jews …”. Now I’m regretting that I didn’t, because the proportionality/scaling is obviously misleading, when it comes to the question how many Jews would deserve the death sentence according to Israel’s punishing logic against Palestinians.

What a shameful conversation. Cultivating more hateful actions. Supporting genocide. Israel has sadly become comfortable with their apartheid genocidal state.

Re: “Native-born” just means place of birth

That phase is meaningless legal tinsel. The State of Israel still has Ashkenazi (German) and Sephardi (Iberian) Chief Rabbis. They still exercise rabbinical jurisdiction over conversions, aliya, and the Jews who enjoy citizenship in those foreign Jewish communities (under European Law of Return legislation that doesn’t involve immigration) See: Why European Citizenship Matters for Jewish Families – Atlanta Jewish Times

None of the founding US colonists were citizens at birth, so they made an exception for themselves that allowed them to hold office.

Palestinians born in East Jerusalem, and Native Americans born in the USA had no citizenship. Our Supreme Court Justices and the US Solicitor General discussed The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act a few days ago, but still could only guess whether or not that had retroactively granted them 14th Amendment Birthright citizenship. (Note that indigenous persons should have enjoyed it all along). Conversely, Samoan American National parents still cannot create “anchor babies” via 14th Amendment Birthright citizenship here in their own homeland. That situation applies regardless of their place of birth within the USA, loyalty to the US government, or the fact they are born, raised, and always domiciled under the exclusive jurisdiction of US Courts.

John McCain, Ted Cruz, and many of my own family members were born to US citizens living in other countries. They are treated as “natural born citizens”, despite the fact that Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 has never been amended to provide for that practice. OTOH, Barrack Obama’s White, Kansas-born mother was a citizen, so like Cruz, McCain, and my grandchildren didn’t need to produce a Hawaiian birth certificate (which he did). But even after that, his birthright natural born citizenship and religion remain the subject of bigoted conspiracy theories.

@ Jon s “I condemn all deliberate attacks on innocent civilians: Jews, Palestinians and everyone else.”

Glad to see that you condemn all deliberate/indiscriminate attacks on civilians whether Hamas or IDF denies/lies about that they were deliberate/indiscriminate or not or if the victims were civilians or not.

“All innocent lives have equal value: Palestinians, Jews, everyone else.”

That does also count for non-“innocent” lives under Conventions that Israel denies being applicable.

“All people should enjoy equal rights, regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality and race”

Sure, but this wouldn’t be the last time that a Zionist would fail to make a case for Zionism, a ‘Jewish’ homeland or a ‘Jewish’ state while disregarding ‘ethnicity, religion, nationality and race’ and instead inventing ludicrous non-civic rights and entitlements for every individual in the world, simply because they share this one specific ‘ethnicity, religion, nationality or race,’ and also while simultaneously denying individuals who don’t fundamental human rights (like the right of return). And they, of course, deny the right to resist occupation in general, even when members and military installations are attacked, because of the one specific ‘ethnicity, religion, nationality or race’ of those who are resisting or those who are being attacked.

But good to know that you are an antizionist Jew who doesn’t need to play this racist and dishonest charade of pretending to be for equal rights, “regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality and race” while considering themselves to be more equal than equal.

Racism dominates the zionist movement in Israel and the United States.
This is a godless action.

Okay Mr. President, please quit. There has just been too much winning. Seriously, I oppose the war crimes and bloody murders being committed against victims on both sides of this conflict. At some point, the community of nations will get fed-up and form an alliance to bring the perpetrators to justice. Experience shows that usually happens after excess destruction and bloodshed.

Today Haaretz reported French-owned Container Ship Crosses Strait of Hormuz, First Since War ‘This Strait must be reopened … but only in consultation with Iran’ French Prime Minister Macron said. (I suspect France isn’t using US dollars or observing US sanctions).

Pete Hegseth shouldn’t have bragged about loitering over the skies of Iran and raining down death. He lost and F-15, and A-10, and got a C-130 and a pair of Air Rescue helicopters shot-up. The day is not over. Even Maga-friendly constitutional lawyers are saying Trump and Hegseth will be impeached for war crimes, and its just a matter of time and a question of how many other administration officials are going down with them.

The Hindustan Times is reporting that Iran’s allies have employed a new missile with a 1-ton warhead to severely an Israeli research and development base, and that North Korea has signaled that it has joined the Iran war logistical supply effort.

HolyCow: “There was no substance to dodge. And its laughable to imagine getting out of saying something dumb by pretending it was an experiment.”

It’s obvious that one can’t fool someone as witty and knowledgeable as you, given your academic background in Research Design.

Indeed, it wasn’t a real experiment, but a fake one created to distract from the real meta-experiment that was designed to test if Zionist apologists would dodge substance by truly laughable and dumbly pretending there was no substance, and also dodge sarcasm aimed at them by equally laughable and dumbly pretending there was no sarcasm either.

If the test were successful, this would psychologically lead to accusations of ‘lame excuse’ or of ‘getting out of saying something dumb,’ which make no sense to all, unless one recognizes that these accusations could indicate the first fragile signs of self-awareness and that they are psychological projections to dodge the shame that comes from recognizing their own behavior while laughably and dumbly pretending it was that of the tester.
A secondary reaction could be that they will never forgive the tester for forcing them into these projections. Fortunately it was ruled out that this would have led to torturing his children to make him confess that the accusations were actually true and sign a confession in Hebrew, which isn’t his native language.

But this design was abandoned, because experience had already suggested that it would likely produce even more shockingly inconclusive results than the fake one, wouldn’t you agree?

Up to a point. The Roman Empire has left its mark on much of Europe. The Latin language has given birth to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, Catalan, Occidan, Ladino and other tongues. Roman law is the basis of much European law. But crucifixion, gladiatorial combat, chariot racing and garum (fish sauce) have fallen by the wayside. Some great European cities began as Greek or Roman colonies: Naples (Neapolis), Nice (Nike), Lincoln (Colonia Lindum) and Köln (Cologne, Colonia Agrippina). The Roman town of Eboracum fell to the Vikings and became Jorvik, and after the kingdom of England emerged, ended up as York. Some effects of those ancient conflicts and conquests have been lasting; others are interesting historical footnotes.

The important thing today is that – apart from in places like Israel-Palestine – the violence and injustice that shaped those changes have ceased, often over a thousand years ago.

Feel free to point that out to the author above. My part in this is simply pointing out the obvious falsehood.

Not being immigrants individually does not contradict the claim about the population’s origin.

It had nothing to do with origin. The author specifically states that present day Israel (now) is populated by East European immigrants. A claim that remains categorically false despite your inventive spinning.

Re: “Trump faces a disaster of his own making in Iran”. So does his delusional friend PM Netanyahu, who keeps blathering from his underground bunker about emerging from the rubble as a “Global Superpower“.

I watched the interrogation footage from The Bibi Files documentary, and the news coverage of the carnage overhead, while Israelis spent their holiday in bomb shelters. It looks like the smart money says “Exile” anywhere else in the “Diaspora” is the best choice to avoid an encounter with the Angel of Death (tis the reason for the season).

Meanwhile Haaretz reported yesterday that “Iran and Oman drafted a protocol to monitor traffic in Strait of Hormuz,” that sounds to me like the Petro-Dollar and USA are not the top priority in their decision making. Today Haaretz reported Disarming Hezbollah Can Only Be Done by Lebanon, IDF Officials Say and Leaders of Northern Israeli Communities Slam IDF for Saying It Can’t Disarm Hezbollah.

I other news the Trump DOJ refuses to rule out Second Amendment right to own your own nuclear weapons. I’ve noted before that Reid v Covert explained it’s axiomatic that neither the President nor the US Congress has the power to do anything beyond the US borders that is prohibited by the Constitution. So without gettings the States to ratify an Amendment, where does Trump get his magical power to disarm Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas? It’s not looking like the USA or Israel could accomplish the task, even if there weren’t any legal hurdles.

Sadly, the US has no good options for getting rid of Trump.

Also from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

Analysis: Iran likely transferred highly enriched uranium to Isfahan before the June strikes…Why it matters. The visual and technical analysis suggests that Iran may have transferred a large portion—potentially all—of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at 60 percent to Isfahan on June 9. If correct, this analysis would mean the enrichment vaults at Natanz and Fordow were probably empty before the June strikes, raising questions as to whether there is any enriched uranium “under the rubble” at facilities the Trump administration claimed it “obliterated” in June.

Analysis: Iran likely transferred highly enriched uranium to Isfahan before the June strikes – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has a few comments on the Iran war –

How the Iran War undermines the nuclear nonproliferation regime – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, he cracked the brittle foundation of the global nonproliferation regime based on the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)….The US and Israeli leaders who pushed withdrawal from the JCPOA, including President Trump, did not know or care much about the NPT. Israel saw the Iranian nuclear program as an ipso facto direct threat, not as something that could be managed through the treaty’s core bargains….After the CIA helped overthrow the Mossadegh government in 1953, the Shah’s regime became the United States’ leading ally in the Persian Gulf. Iran duly signed the NPT, but the Shah also had ambitions for a big nuclear energy program that made little economic sense at the time. Then came the revolution in 1978 and the hostage crisis in 1979, followed by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980. That war lasted until 1988 and killed at least 500,000 total, with many more wounded.[1] The United States, the Soviet Union, France, and the United Kingdom helped Saddam. America assisted in targeting chemical weapons on Iranian cities.[2] It was then, according to later IAEA investigations, that Iranian leaders secretly initiated work on uranium enrichment to produce an option to make nuclear weapons if Iran ever again faced a threat of massive aggression….Now that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have attacked Iran without regard for international law or Iran’s rights under the NPT (and the UN-supported JCPOA), many commentators say nuclear weapon proliferation will be more likely. They say, the “lesson” of Iran today, like that of Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine—contrasted with North Korea—is that a country should acquire nuclear weapons if it doesn’t want to be attacked by a big nuclear power.

If ancestors intentionally conquered land, displaced or killed ethnic groups, that shapes the structures, property relations, and social order in which their descendants live today. Therefore, one cannot simply say ‘place of birth doesn’t matter’: the actions of ancestors have lasting consequences

Not being immigrants individually does not contradict the claim about the population’s origin. It simply reflects generational turnover. The question is not where they were born, but how that population came to exist there in the first place.

Thank you Phil, Another question would be how did the MirYam Institute donate $1.8 million to Emory’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion in 2021, when no such grant/gift exists on MirYam’s tax returns?

+ Fall 2021, Emory reports:

“The Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR) has received a $1.8M charitable gift from the MirYam Institute to fund a new program called The MirYam Project on International Ethics & Leadership: Law, Religion, Health & Security.”

“This four-year undertaking will be led by Dr. Ira Bedzow, in collaboration with the Jewish Legal Studies Program at CSLR, directed by Emory Law professor Michael J. Broyde. The project will develop future leaders in public service, government, industry, health care, and community by providing students with exceptional curricular and extra-curricular programming, mentoring, and international travel to Israel. Students will interact with top academics and industry/social leaders from the United States, the State of Israel, and throughout the globe.”

https://law.emory.edu/lawyer/issues/2021/fall/worth-noting/emory-laws-center-for-the-study-of-law-and-religion-receives-gift-for-international-ethics-and-leadership-development/index.html

+ MirYam Institute tax returns show NO grants/gift listed:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/800546666/202213189349312631/full

+ MirYam Institute’s Instagram/fb pages amplify the March 13 Rotterdam Jewish School explosion; could they be “little Mossad helpers” ?
    How A Fake Iranian Terror Group Was Invented To Proscribe IRGC in Europe – The story of Ashab al-Yamin   
https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-a-fake-iranian-terror-group-was-invented-to-proscribe-irgc-as-terrorist-org-in-europe-amid-iran-war-the-story-of-ashab-al-yamin/290779/HOW A FAKE IRANIAN TERROR GROUP WAS INVENTED TO PROSCRIBE IRGC IN EUROPE – THE STORY OF ASHAB + AMossad and its network of little helpers, the Sayanimhttps://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/mossad-and-its-network-of-little-helpers–the-sayanim

+ Apparently Benjamin Alexander Apfel forgot to pack his Israeli blue KKK hood when he told Rabbi Cosgrove: ‘Southern Universities have less “jew hatred” on their campus b/c Civil Rights laws were already on the books.’

+ We “watched the crowd” including Emory Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt cheer the pager bombings.

Do you agree with the folowing statements:?

I condemn all deliberate attacks on innocent civilians: Jews, Palestinians and everyone else.

All innocent lives have equal value: Palestinians, Jews, everyone else.

All people should enjoy equal rights, regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality and race.

Re: I am not happy with Eran Elhaik’s critique of Carlson’s interview of Huckabee, but the critique is worth watching.

I agree with most of his criticism of Huckabee and Carlson, but agree with you that he was not discussing his theories or recent developments and discoveries that have been made the last decade. After all geneticists just officially discovered that Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals and share DNA in 2010. Robert Reich argues that early human populations were dynamic and constantly in flux, challenging the idea that Neanderthals or Denisovans were a completely separate, or vanished species.

In any event, DNA might establish some evidence about a few of our ancestral origins, but it is more likely that it will not be of any help at all in identifying the majority of our ancestors or distant relatives. It is a bit of a misnomer to say that a person is not a relative, because they have “no matching DNA”. In fact most of everyone’s DNA is identical and gets ignored by DNA testing companies.

We do not inherit half of the autosomal DNA from our own mothers or half of the autosomal DNA from our own fathers. You can only test the DNA a person inherits, so it’s absence does not prove anyone is unrelated. It obviously can’t identify anyone’s religious beliefs. Here is a breakdown of how the different types of DNA factor in. See Cousin Statistics:
*Autosomal DNA (DNA matches): About 85–90% of your 5th cousins will not share detectable matching autosomal DNA. If they do, it is usually a very small segment (typically less than 6–20 cM).

*Y-Chromosome (Y-DNA): This is only shared through a direct, unbroken male line (father-to-son). A 5th cousin is only likely to share your Y-DNA if you both share the same patrilineal surname. Most 5th cousins are not on this specific line.

*MtDNA (Mitochondrial DNA): This is only shared through an unbroken maternal line (mother-to-child). A 5th cousin is only likely to share your mtDNA if you both descend from the same direct, all-female line.

FYI, it’s ironic the so-called “Jews” are always an admixture that includes ancient ancestors from the haplogroups that migrated from the Zagros Mountains of what became Iran, and that we are still related. Behavioral geneticist have concluded “The Twin Studies” and Twin Registries reveal that many of our personality traits are inherited. That may explain the mutual dislike of religious Jews, Arabs, Christians, and Iranians. YMMV. 🤪

“Native-born” just means place of birth

It also means they are not immigrants from East Europe.

I wanted to test a hypothesis…

There was no substance to dodge. And its laughable to imagine getting out of saying something dumb by pretending it was an experiment.

Where people are born and where their ancestors came from are irrelevant. It’s how people behave that matters.

Courageous woman. Would be less frightening if one had confidence in policing and judicial institution to not have been compromised in deference to powerful Israeli lobbies.

Donald Johnson: “Some of the articles have been explicitly pro Hamas and treat Oct 7 as resistance, which is like Zionists who defend Israeli atrocities as “ Israel having the right to defend itself.”

This sounds like a false equivalence. Surely there is no right to commit war crimes (“atrocities”) on both sides. But that does not diminish the right to resist occupation and for example attacking soldiers and military bases of the occupying forces. On the other hand, there is no right to maintain an illegal occupation or to collectively punish civilians through an illegal blockade which are permanent war crimes against every civilian. (Not to mention framing genocide and ethnic cleansing as “self defense”.)

I hope my children won’t get tortured for admitting this, but I wanted to test a hypothesis about how predictably Zionist apologists need to dodge the substance when faced with the pathological, narcissistic, wannabe-victim, and sadistic-psychopath nature of their supremacist ideology. The results so far are shockingly inconclusive, wouldn’t you agree?

“Native-born” just means place of birth, not indigenous status or continuity of origin. The “native-born” descendants of European settlers in America would never be considered “natives of America” either.

For a moment I thought that if a state wanted to weaken an adversarial, oppressive regime, it might rely on fairly standard tools. Intelligence operations, covert presence on the ground, maybe even encouraging unrest when it aligns with strategic goals. Nothing particularly exotic in international politics.

In fact, I vaguely remember a certain intelligence service publicly telling protesters in another country that ‘we are with you in the field’.

But then again, I forgot the real analytical framework: Asma al-Assad buying shoes in Europe. Clearly the more decisive variable when assessing complex geopolitical conflicts.

Let us remember that Zionists don’t care about the safety and well being of most Jewish people, only about their elite Israel project. Israel’s economy is in tatters, with working class Jewish poverty and vast inequality – far worse, of course, for Palestinian Israelis. But emblematic of Zionists’ disdain for actual Jewish people was the American Zionist campaign to end the popular boycott of German goods in the 1930s which had been motivated by public horror at reports of Nazi atrocities against Jews. Zionists were working with Nazis to ensure a privileged few Jews were enabled to emigrate – but only to Palestine. They did not want that relationship spoiled by a boycott, so they worked hard and succeeded in ending it. That helped start the Israel project for real in 1948 but showed the disgusting lack of morality at the centre of Zionism. A racist ideology no matter what England’s Green Party leader Zack Polanski says.

Re: It’s even funnier when you realize that ‘Jews’ were originally almost exclusively the descendants of exiled Israelite families returning from Babylon to Judah.

Nope. Its funnier than that. We are descendants of the Persians. The inhabitants of the Zagros Mountain region of modern Iran, came to be known as Medes. Unlike the subsequent Parthian and Aryan migrants to Persia from the steppe, two ancient DNA studies revealed in 2016 that they have been settled there for at least 40,000 years. See: * The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran; * Ancient Farmers Had Two Distinct Roots; and Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent. They were the cradle of Middle Eastern expansion, not the Anatolians or Indo-Europeans.

Their modern descendants are Jews, Kurds, Christians, and Yazidis, They didn’t originally speak an Indo-European or the ancient Hebrew language. They represent a high percentage of the ancient admixture of the Levantine Canaanites and Egyptian populations of the Western Dead Sea Rift, located on the African tectonic plate. The oldest fully sequenced Egyptian DNA, from 4800 year-old remains revealed a 20% admixture from Iran and 80% from North Africa.

You are correct that they invented Zoroastrian related myths, burning bushes, altars with sacred fires, Magi, adopted several languages, worshipped pagan triads including Yahweh, Anat Yahu, and Anat Bethel. The returning exiles disowned the indigenous Judeans, just like today’s Zionists have disowned the indigenous Palestinians. See The Evolution of the Goy: From “Holy Nation” to “Gentile” | Prof. Ishay Rosen-Zvi – YouTube and Gad Barnea’s restoration of an Achaemenid Persian court-tale found in Qumran (4Q550) The heroes, a Jewish prophet by the name of Bagsaro and his righteous father Patriza save Xerxes I from a conspiracy.

Most of the Judeans had simply chosen to migrate to Egypt and North Africa in any event. Josephus records that Alexander and the Ptolemies colonized Egypt with Samaritans and Judeans. They flourished, despite Jeremiah’s false prophecy they would be destroyed. The real 2nd Jewish Revolt occurred when the Romans attacked their Parthian kin in Mesopotamia, and “Jews” from Morocco, Libya, Egypt and Cyprus staged an uprising. That was put down by a Moroccan-born Berber General recruited by the Emperor Trajan.

Just for the record I never did. I suspect the site co-founders and publishers have never killed any Palestinians either.😝

Re: 80% of Jewish Israelis are native born.

Only because they invaded, and ejected the existing Palestinian majority. Ben Gurion noted during the Knesset debates on the armistice agreements that Israel was required to adopt proportional representation in the Constituent Assembly. The Arabs would have vetoed any proposed legislation on the Jewish Right of Return, so they had to be killed or expelled. Since 10 percent of the illegal settlers are reportedly US citizens, the proportion who are native born Israelis probably approaches 80 percent in that case too. There’s nothing to brag about in either instance.

Why would anyone need Catholics for that job, when Zionist Jews prevented Jewish refugees in displaced persons camps from going home again or to other countries after WWII? Moshe Sharett recorded that policy in his diaries. Likewise, when too many “refugees” from the Soviet Union were welcomed into Germany, the WZO and Israeli officials demanded legislation be imposed to turn them away. Even Huckabee recently complained that the Netanyahu regime was employing visiting American Jews as human shields and imposing travel restrictions that prevented them from getting evacuated to their actual homeland.

Since the terrible Supreme Court Citizens United Decision opened the flood-gates more than a decade ago, large sums of “dark money” have become a bigger and bigger corrupting influence in America elections. Big corporations and moneyed billionaires can give massive amounts of anonymous money to political candidates. It is a serious problem that is exploited by organizations like AIPAC.

This gift article from Haaretz addresses the same situation as the New Yorker article bcg cited: ‘A Critical Mass of U.S. Jews Is Now Disgusted With Israel’ – Haaretz Jewish World. FYI, that viewpoint is perfectly legal, not antisemitic, and cannot be lawfully suppressed by government appointed official gatekeepers. They are prohibited from discriminating against persons with confirmed recent common ancestry.to protect persons with merely a “perceived” ancestry, based upon a metaphysical conversion.

“What Jewish Currents editor Arielle Angel has to say about Israel is tough to hear. But she reflects a growing anti-Zionist movement aiming to dismantle the Jewish-American establishment and rebuild it around a new vision: Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel. “Israelis have committed genocide. This needs to be accepted. There needs to be truth and reconciliation. Until that happens, I feel it’s my job to help spur the divorce.” 

It would be a mistake to suppose the “Jews” of the Colonial Era here in the USA (who rejected a return to Palestine or the Mosaic Laws) were not White Nationalists, racists or supporters of secret societies that aimed to impose slavery and minority rule, ethnic cleansing, pillage, genocide, territorial aggrandizement, and imperialism. Secular and Religious Jews embraced “Manifest Destiny” and claimed the USA was their new Zion.

The recent Berkely Consent Decree imposes a patently unconstitutional religious test and appoints a government official to impose its terms. Government officials, both high and petty, have always been prohibited from attempting to prescribe political or religious orthodoxy in our public schools. This and the California Regents Consent Decree punish faculty and staff, expel students, and prohibit educational materials about colonialism, apartheid, and mass murder. That is illegal viewpoint discrimination in support of a so-called “Zionist” or “Jewish” State of Israel. The definition of Antisemitism that Jewish Currents, JVP, Neturei Karta, Haredi, and Palestinian Christians and Muslims – all with shared recent Judean ancestry – roundly reject See: Settlement Agreement And General Release, Berkely and The California Regents Consent Decree. When will MW finally write about these government officials with magical powers to impose religious tests? ‘Inquiring minds want to know” if that issue is at least on the back burner yet?

I think it is significant that not even the usual minimizers of Israel’s crimes or apologists for Zionism among this sites commenters could bring themselves to say anything about this article. Germany is not only the largest economy in Wester Europe, but also the second largest exporter of weapons to Israel and is well on the way to destroying its “democratic” foundations as it suppresses pro-Palestinian expression. But that does not really seem to interest the largely US based readership, or is the topic too hot to handle.

Looking in from the outside, into the wacky world of US politics, one of the most depressing aspects is what is considered important and newsworthy.

MONEY

The first paragraph of any coverage seems always to be how much money the candidates have raised. This is followed by (if they are known) a list of major donors: AIPAC, fossil fuel interests, pharmaceuticals, arms manufacturers, etc. So we know (sometimes) to whom the candidates are beholden.

If we’re lucky, there might be a sentence or two waaaay down the report mentioning in passing a policy favoured by the candidate.

I know I’m probably being unfair. But I would like to know what politicians intend to do for the people who vote for them, as opposed to the people who fund them.

Israel, the country now populated by new East European immigrants

80% of Jewish Israelis are native born.

It depends. No dual citizenship is equal..

How many Jews didn’t kill Palestinians with the intent of ending Palestine’s existence since 1948?

Imagine if a prominent catholic church had hosted a presentations on why Germany’s non Jews should support the ethnic cleansing of Germany.

Oh, you are right. 

Really? Was your comment not a sarcastic reference or rhetorical question or some other lame excuse for what it really was?