Can't thank you enough for this article. Scholasticide deprives future generations of their culture, and sense of who they are. But that was the objective in Gaza.
If your enemy is using its schools and teaching its youth to hate you and kill you, then scholasticide is completely justified. If your enemy is using schools as military headquarters and supply bases then its completely justified to destroy the schools.
targeting schools and educators, as described in the article, is a surefire way to ensure cultural erasure, all while pretending it’s a military necessity rather than outright scholasticide
The accusation of teaching hate is often a convenient, self-serving rationalization. The hate unfortunately has been on both sides, but in Gaza and the West Bank only one has suffered generations of loss, isolation, oppression and now treatment as sub-human, while the other has been relentless for decades in taking land, water, demolishing homes and inflicting death at a rate more than 40 times what it has suffered. In the context of Gaza, the concept of hundreds of "military headquarters" is ludicrous. But again, one side prohibited independent verification and killed hundreds of journalists, teachers, doctors in relentless bombings.
Both sides prohibited independent verification. News organizations world wide accepted Hamas casualty figures, even though they didn't distinguish civilian from military casualties. And note that Hamas refused to let either the Red Cross or Red Crescent visit the kidnapped hostages.
Glad this historian is not just acknowledging the genocide in Gaza, but also holding the US government and the AHA leadership to account. It’s not just the US government, as I think the UK government, the EU leadership, the German government and some other European governments have made the genocide possible. (They always reflexively defend Israel’s right to defend itself without thinking whether Palestinians have a right to resist occupation. As an occupying power, Israel has obligations, not rights.) And it is not just the AHA. What about the editors of the FT, Economists, Washington Post, New York Times?
Bravo! Agree the US political establishment in particular has disgraced itself and the nation it leads. And even worse is likely yet to come. One hardly knows how best to respond.
And it’s very sad that 200,000,000 Arab Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa live on two dollars a day, suffer from such food insecurity, have no freedom, no political rights, no legal rights, no economic rights and 21 corrupt governments plus a few additional militant terrorist ones.
A little mention of the British imposition of English and the elimination of Irish as the native tongue during their extended presence there could show that an "enlightened democracy* can also pursue such a practice. The hedge school was the method of resistance but unfortunately??? Irish was eliminated as the principal language.
You forgot to mention or address the number of educational buildings which were used by Hamas as safe harbors or places from which to plan their attacks. Nor have you addressed the number of professors etc in Gaza’s educational system that were members of Hamas.
I wonder about you sometimes, Adam, but this article was very good and seems to be sincerely felt. You should speak on this topic more often and more prominently.
I wonder if we can start to talk about digital genocide. Where you can be denied access to digital media to present yourself, your cultural and human existence and suffering to the world your very physical presence can be eliminated by manipulation via AI or content moderators that is a form of cultural genocide and a prelude to full scale physical extermination.
In today's it's much easier to physically destroy a people who are already digitally invisible and arguably is an essential prerequisite and likely reason Israel and it lobbyists are investing so much to gain the support of the tech oligarchs.
This criticism of Israel in the language of genocide seems strange and hypocritical coming from the man who wrote: "To describe the destruction of Germany in 1945 in the language of the Holocaust is both obscene and inaccurate. This was a war, not a massacre of the innocents. It may have felt like slaughter to those on the receiving end, but this was an effect of the means used, not the ends intended. The Western Allies broke no law of war that not been breached by the Wehrmacht a hundred times over, The Red Army behaved barbarically in the territories jt occupied, but the Soviets did not perpetrate a genocide."
The entire essay shows the key differences. He even uses the counter example of Sudan. You can't engage with arguments seriously. The pattern of violence by Israel shows intent to destroy a people not simply win a military conflict.
Thank you! A moving condemnation of scholasticide as a crime against humanity.
Can't thank you enough for this article. Scholasticide deprives future generations of their culture, and sense of who they are. But that was the objective in Gaza.
If your enemy is using its schools and teaching its youth to hate you and kill you, then scholasticide is completely justified. If your enemy is using schools as military headquarters and supply bases then its completely justified to destroy the schools.
targeting schools and educators, as described in the article, is a surefire way to ensure cultural erasure, all while pretending it’s a military necessity rather than outright scholasticide
The accusation of teaching hate is often a convenient, self-serving rationalization. The hate unfortunately has been on both sides, but in Gaza and the West Bank only one has suffered generations of loss, isolation, oppression and now treatment as sub-human, while the other has been relentless for decades in taking land, water, demolishing homes and inflicting death at a rate more than 40 times what it has suffered. In the context of Gaza, the concept of hundreds of "military headquarters" is ludicrous. But again, one side prohibited independent verification and killed hundreds of journalists, teachers, doctors in relentless bombings.
Both sides prohibited independent verification. News organizations world wide accepted Hamas casualty figures, even though they didn't distinguish civilian from military casualties. And note that Hamas refused to let either the Red Cross or Red Crescent visit the kidnapped hostages.
Sides mean nothing in the context of radical asymmetry - where is your humanity - subjugated to racial identity?
I think you need to check in with humanity.
🤣🤡🤣
This was also Hamas's justification for attacking Israel...
All forms of *cide were implemented on the #BanuQurayza by the #PerfectBeing. And that was just the beginning.
Glad this historian is not just acknowledging the genocide in Gaza, but also holding the US government and the AHA leadership to account. It’s not just the US government, as I think the UK government, the EU leadership, the German government and some other European governments have made the genocide possible. (They always reflexively defend Israel’s right to defend itself without thinking whether Palestinians have a right to resist occupation. As an occupying power, Israel has obligations, not rights.) And it is not just the AHA. What about the editors of the FT, Economists, Washington Post, New York Times?
Bravo! Agree the US political establishment in particular has disgraced itself and the nation it leads. And even worse is likely yet to come. One hardly knows how best to respond.
An excellent essay. Thank you.
And it’s very sad that 200,000,000 Arab Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa live on two dollars a day, suffer from such food insecurity, have no freedom, no political rights, no legal rights, no economic rights and 21 corrupt governments plus a few additional militant terrorist ones.
A little mention of the British imposition of English and the elimination of Irish as the native tongue during their extended presence there could show that an "enlightened democracy* can also pursue such a practice. The hedge school was the method of resistance but unfortunately??? Irish was eliminated as the principal language.
You forgot to mention or address the number of educational buildings which were used by Hamas as safe harbors or places from which to plan their attacks. Nor have you addressed the number of professors etc in Gaza’s educational system that were members of Hamas.
I wonder about you sometimes, Adam, but this article was very good and seems to be sincerely felt. You should speak on this topic more often and more prominently.
Thank you for taking the time to highlight this issue for your audience!!
just as well you're not at harvard
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This fact filled, summary has opened my eyes to a deeper motive of the fascists.
America is its own barbarism.
I wonder if we can start to talk about digital genocide. Where you can be denied access to digital media to present yourself, your cultural and human existence and suffering to the world your very physical presence can be eliminated by manipulation via AI or content moderators that is a form of cultural genocide and a prelude to full scale physical extermination.
In today's it's much easier to physically destroy a people who are already digitally invisible and arguably is an essential prerequisite and likely reason Israel and it lobbyists are investing so much to gain the support of the tech oligarchs.
This criticism of Israel in the language of genocide seems strange and hypocritical coming from the man who wrote: "To describe the destruction of Germany in 1945 in the language of the Holocaust is both obscene and inaccurate. This was a war, not a massacre of the innocents. It may have felt like slaughter to those on the receiving end, but this was an effect of the means used, not the ends intended. The Western Allies broke no law of war that not been breached by the Wehrmacht a hundred times over, The Red Army behaved barbarically in the territories jt occupied, but the Soviets did not perpetrate a genocide."
The entire essay shows the key differences. He even uses the counter example of Sudan. You can't engage with arguments seriously. The pattern of violence by Israel shows intent to destroy a people not simply win a military conflict.
Don't talk about Sudan, talk about the Allies. Your claim that the Israelis have behaved worse than the Red Army is indefensible.