For me, war is not a textbook or an imaginary experience. Yes, as a primary school kid, I lived through a 3-year old war (oxymoronically called a civil war), but there was nothing civil about the deaths, the bombs from air-raids, the missiles from advancing enemy infantry, the living on-the-edge mode of existence, the food and medical shortages, and other basic life necessities' shortages that came with it.
I experienced off-and-on air-raids and their bombs and rockets from the air. Besides unpredictable and indiscriminate air-raids even on marketplaces, on homes, on schools, which could occur at any time of the day or night, we also lived in constant fear of an ever-approaching enemy infantry that tended to fire off shells (now called missiles). As they advanced, we had to flee, not through an Uber, but on foot with loads on our heads, trekking to nowhere but away from the advancing troops, and, from time to time, having to run-off the roadsides into the bushes to escape from incoming air-raids.
We lived through food shortages caused by a sea blockade imposed by a federal side which justified it by a famous (or rather infamous) Machiavellian assertion that "starvation is a justifiable instrument of war."A little baby sister of mine died of kwashiorkor. As we lived through all this hell on earth, I often pestered my over-stretched parents with a question of "when will this war end?"
War is the opposite of civilization as we know it. And peace is the most essential pillar of social life. Where there is no peace, there is no life. Ladies and gentlemen, I can concretely relate to the pains, the anguish, the uncertainty, the fear-riddled life of the Palestinians! I have been there, done that!
On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 6:27 PM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:I wonder what Hamas hoped to achieve.Israel, as presently constituted, could easily have been predicted to do what it is doing now.Is Hamas sacrificing Palestinian lives, in a manner of speaking, and risking it's own destruction, in the name of what it sees as a larger, currently unfolding endgame, as some argue?As it is, the end of this war will mean Hamas is not likely to be able to operate publicly again, as it's destruction is central to the Israeli/Western agenda.Netanyahu's political future and that of his governing coalition is likely destroyed and irrecoverable since the extremist stance they are described as dedicatedly cultivating did not prevent the Oct 7 anti-Israel horror- as seen by many- and Palestinian triumph- again as seen by many.At times distance from the savagery of war enables one see it like a game, an approach perhaps also useful in planning military strategy, while factoring in various imprecisions also critical in war.As I lie comfortably in bed under a thick blanket, my only concern the mosquitoes I will have to rise to eliminate with insecticide, the darkness soft with assurance of safety as a predictable, peaceful future stretches into the horizon in which creative plans unfold, I try to imagine what it could be like to live under an unending cascade of bombing."It seemed liked the world had ended" a survivor of the refugee settlement bombing described the experience.ThanksToyin--On Fri, Nov 3, 2023, 5:23 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:--I mostly agree with victor's heartfelt assessment. There are some points that could be quibbled with. The oslo accords gave the palestinians their state, but arafat rejected them. That was a mistake. We can argue the accords were lopsided, but not that israel denied statehood to palestinians. I agree with victor that the attack on the palestinians is abhorrent. To me it matters that so far 9000 palestinians have been killed in the bombing.But the hamas attack, that killed 1400 and kidnapped 250 was also abhorrent. The israelis have always relied on the use of disproportionate bombing to subdue the palestinians, and this time it isn't working and, in all events, is wrong, is a terrible policy. It isn't true that israeli losses are being reported; i see them today in the nytimes, 23 soldiers so far. Maybe more. How many hamas soldiers? No one will ever know.
Is this any way to eliminate a political party? Hamas was voted into office in gaza, it is not a "terrorist" group, it is a political party. At this point a terrible party, but nonetheless, that is what it is. The use of the term "terrorist" is nowadays a political move, not a meaningful designation.
Bottom line: victor's sense of the horrors of this bombing is right, it is what i think we all should feel if we care at all about human lives. Peace can't come from brute force.Ken
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From: 'Victor Okafor' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 3, 2023 2:54:50 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel's Latest Carnage in Jabalia Camp: 400 Palestinians Affected, Dead and Injured--I find it abhorrent and sickening that any student of African history would attempt to embellish with his/her pen on this forum, the inhumanity and genocidal wanton destruction of life and property that are being visited upon a hapless Palestinian community in revenge of a callous but frustration-and-long-years-of-oppression-induced Hammas' deadly assault of October 7, 2023. Two wrongs never make a right, never! This perpetration of an act of collective punishment sullies all the progress we thought global humanity had achieved in the realm of human rights, in the realm of civilization, in the realm of a belief in the equality of man/woman, and in the realm of international law. The disproportionality of the consequential Israeli genocidal fightback is condemnable and cannot be justified as an act of self-defense.
Has anyone noticed that this so-called war is producing a one-sided casualty list? As we are daily told about thousands of Palestinian deaths, has anyone heard about any Israeli loss or losses of life on the so-called Gaza battlefield? Had Israel, all these years, worked out a peaceful two-state based co-existence with Palestinians—instead of an imperious occupation and continual annexation of the latter's already-squeezed neighboring space, perhaps none of the wanton and barbaric bloodletting and property destruction that we are witnessing would happen. Perhaps, there would not have been an October 7, 2023 in the annals of the history of the troubled region.
The complicit mainstream media continue to parrot the facade of "a war" between "Isreal and Hammas," ignoring the fact that this is in reality an asymmetrical, might-makes-right bloody ethnic cleansing that is unfolding as the same powers-that-be that could not intervene in the 1994 genocidal orgy in Rwanda are busy either financing the emergent genocidal orgy in Gaza or are bombarding the airwaves with an aiding-and-abetting Pontius Pilate narrative. Look, everyone in this physical realm called earth shall eventually account to the Lord for every and all his/her deeds while sojourning here! The wicked shall never go unpunished!
Many Thanks, OLUWATOYIN, for having a heart, unlike the blocks, the stone, and the "worse than senseless things"
Here's something : https://www.youtube.com/@MiddleNation/videos
--On Thursday, 2 November 2023 at 10:52:05 UTC+1 Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:
There might not be much truth in this-
"HAMAS...using protected places like hospitals, churches, mosques, refugee camps, etc as war operations areas"
Israel has a long history of general bombing in Gaza, not attacking only Hamas war posts.
Thanks
Toyin
On Thu, Nov 2, 2023, 8:55 AM Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Shouldn't we tell HAMAS without mincing words that they should cease using protected places like hospitals, churches, mosques, refugee camps, etc as war operations areas.
If we don't tell them that, in future, organizations like HAMAS would make it an attitude to use such protected places as war operations areas and we will continue to blame the other parties, whom they take aggressions to.
Israel's Latest Carnage in Jabalia Camp: 400 Palestinians Affected, Dead and Injured--
The Israeli war machine is talking about a long war against little Gaza: the longer the war lasts the more the anti-Apartheid and the people of the anti-colonial Liberation Struggles will wholeheartedly support the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli oppression.
South Africa recalling their Ambassador fromIsraelwouldbe significant step
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Sincerely,
Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.Professor and HeadDepartment of Africology and African American StudiesEastern Michigan UniversityEmail: vokafor@emich.edu
Tel: 734.487.9594Food for Thought:"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass
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----Sincerely,Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.Professor and HeadDepartment of Africology and African American StudiesEastern Michigan UniversityEmail: vokafor@emich.eduTel: 734.487.9594Food for Thought:"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass
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