Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Consider your complicity in Gaza genocide this Eid

Viktor Orbán will this week host Benjamin Netanyahu on a five-day visit to Hungary, becoming the first European leader to defy the International Criminal Court arrest warrant on the Israeli premier for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Germany’s expected next chancellor Friedrich Merz said after the general election last month that he would find the “ways and means” to have Netanyahu visit. “I think it is a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany,” Merz said. Financial Times , 30 March 2025

No one wants to hear what the people of Gaza actually want . The anti-Hamas voices in the West only amplify their suffering when it serves their agenda. They were silent when Gaza was screaming in agony, in mourning, in starvation.  They want to use our voices when we chant against Hamas, but they mute us when we cry out for our murdered families. They never want to hear us demand an end to Israel’s slaughter.”

During a closed-door meeting  with the local Jewish community in Innsbruck on Thursday, Roet said that "there should be a death sentence" for teenagers for "holding a gun" or a "grenade".  He provided no evidence of children carrying weapons in Gaza.”  Has Austria expelled him? No. Envoy suggests executing Gaza children

“The book suffers from American exceptionalism that sees Trump as an aberration of the post-WWII order.”

A genocidal state says the truth: The "world map won’t change if all the people of Gaza were to vanish.” "No one will notice you, no one will ask about you. You are left alone to face your inevitable fate," the leaflets read . "Neither the US nor Europe care about Gaza. Even your  Arab states  don’t care, they are now our allies, they provide us with money, weapons and oil. They only send you shrouds."

“The myth of ‘Western values’ died in Gaza. Myths do not die. They are debunked or refuted. They often persist for a long time and are adaped to new contexts; they are part of a belief system. I remember well after Iraq and Afghanistan how people invoked ‘democracy’ and ‘Western values’ in a way not dissimilar from what the Bushes and Blairs and later the Obamas and Bidens articulated them. Recently, a student at the ‘best’ European university in social sciences told me that the myth of sectarianism in the Middle Ast is still being repeated. A white liberal, ‘MeeToo’ English woman what Russia was doing in Ukraine was ‘a Russian thing. It's in their history’. Zelenskyy's recent rise in ‘popularity’ among many is built upon ‘the myth of Western values’ defending Ukraine against an authoritarian Russian regime. Myths are strentghned through amnesia. History is brushed aside and Pavlovian conditioning is enforced.  We should remember how the emergence of ISIS was analysed. How ...

A diary from Gaza

“[O]ver time, Holocaust memory in Germany progressively transformed into a policy of unconditional support for Israel. What was once an example of historical reckoning has become a framework that, in my view, contributes to the erasure of critical perspectives and enables actions that contradict the very principles of justice and accountability that this memory was meant to uphold. “The focus on the Holocaust, while important, has overshadowed or minimized the memory of colonialism, creating a tension that became more apparent after October 7. “This ‘aporetic’ memory politics is the premise for ignoring the colonial dimension of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. In the German and Western European discourse, Netanyahu is depicted as the representative of the Jews as victims. Therefore, Palestinians are not a dispossessed people, but a new embodiment of antisemitism. “Germany is today complicit in the genocide in Gaza, just like France, Italy, and the UK. However, Germany’s ...

From Democratic Mass Killing to Democratic Ethnic Cleansing Trump called Gaza a "demolition site" and said he had spoken to Jordan's King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of the territory.  "I'd like Egypt to take people. And I'd like Jordan to take people," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that he planned to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Sunday. "You're talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing," Trump said of Gaza, whose population is about 2.4 million, adding that "something has to happen".  "I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,"  Trump said , adding that moving Gaza's residents could be "temporary or could be long term".   The US, EU,Egypt, Jordan, Gulf countries should accept displaced Israelis

The BBC, for instance, has excelled in its racism towards the released Palestinians prisoners. One has only to count the number of pictures of the released Israeli hostages in comparison to the ones of the Palestinians released from Israeli jails.. Fania Oz-Salzberger’s stand as a 'leftist' is worse that what Sinan Antoon has reported . “[S] etting hundreds of terrorists free, is the result of Israel’s failure in 7 October. It is also the result of the Israeli government’s failure to release our hostages “by military pressure“, as its head frequently promised, for 470 days. We must pay this price. And then elect a new leadership, which would    make sure that neither Hamas nor any other subhuman would ever be able to repeat 7 October.  How?  By learning from our military mistakes, rebuilding both security and solidarity, and offering a political horizon for Israelis and Palestinians. Also by never forgetting a vile murderer’s face. Enough said, at this point.” Note...

Myth 1: Trump put pressure on Netanyahu. That has been depicted by many as if it was him who arm-twisted the Israeli genocidal leader to put an end to the war. Myth 2: The depiction of the current truce as a victory for Hamas. by  Gilbert Achcar

Myth 1: Trump put pressure on Netanyahu. That has been depicted by many as if it was him who arm-twisted the Israeli genocidal leader to put an end to the war. Myth 2: The depiction of the current truce as a victory for Hamas.  أسطورتان متعلقتان بوقف إطلاق النار في غزّة 

As ‘a ceasefire’ has been reached, here is a genocidal view on why it shouldn’t happen and why state terrorism should continue. “The IDF concurs that fighting against Hamas will resume in the foreseeable future. Hamas will not be disarmed, remaining a persistent threat that must be addressed. Even if combat initially remains aerial after Phase II of the hostage deal, a military foothold will persist. Forces will operate in a reinforced buffer zone, which will serve as a launchpad for raids deeper into Gaza when needed—and such operations will be necessary .” I do think that Israeli violence with its different forms by the state and the settlers will continue in the form of war or in other means for the simple reason that Israel has not achieved its ‘stragetical objectives’.

Gaza and censorship Related The new German chauvinism:  An essay in two parts

As a world, you told us to endure the worst terrors and humiliations of the occupation, without turning to violence. You told us to teach our children love and science, even if Israel has bombed every school. You told us to sing and smile and cook through our suffering. You told us not to be beggars, nor to starve in silence. You told us to resist, but without any weapons. To count on your “eyes” to defend us. Chef Mahmoud did all of those things. And was assassinated by drone strike. Are we your perfect victims now?  In memory of  Mahmoud Almadhoun

No news here, but a norm France’s double standard

“The Israeli authorities’ organized, violent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, who are members of another ethnic group, is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors. Such actions of the Israeli authorities amount to ethnic cleansing .”

A retired NHS surgeon returns from Gaza with a testimony

“Liberals are losing their minds and blaming Muslim, Arab, and anti-genocide voters for the outcome. They refuse to take the responsibility.” "Liberals jump for 'women's rights' but refuse to listen to the voices of Palestinian women who suffer under the occupation.”  Liberals, and a few conservatives, have waged a jihad ‘to save Muslim women from brown Muslim men’ in Afghanistan and Syria (think Yazidi women, for example), LGBT people in the MENA region, the ban on the headscarf in France, etc. now they can see how Palestinian women have been liberated once and for all: we have less of oppressed Muslim women wearing the headscarf. What the IDF has achieved in a year, Western missionaries and liberal jihadist have been unable to achieve in decades. Expand: liberals and capitalist exploitation, dispossession, racism, etc. Related Martin Kettle on the Guardian  blames the voters “Kettle cannot hold back on his bitterness toward US voters - a very liberal take on the Demo...