The evil of Israel must be erased

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

Israel still believes it can live by the sword alone. A reckoning is due​

Gideon Levy

On the country's Independence Day, the nostalgia of liberal Israelis for a better, earlier state is a comforting illusion. The Nakba and the occupation were there from the beginning.

srael is celebrating its 78th Independence Day this week. This will not be among the best of its independence days, in a country that is no longer young.

In my childhood, this day was, for new Israelis, a day of pride and joy.

As a son of the state's first generation, just a few years after the state's founding, I remember my father taking the folded national flag out of the cupboard and hoisting it on the balcony of our flat.

All the surrounding balconies flew flags, except for the Lebel family's - they were ultra-Orthodox and did not raise the flag of the Zionist state. I felt a sense of pride in both my father and the flag.

At the time, we knew nothing about the Nakba. No one told us about it, nor about the military rule under which Israel's Arab citizens lived.

We never asked ourselves who had lived in the ruined houses by the roadside, or what had become of them. We looked at the remains of Palestinian villages and neighborhoods as if they were part of the landscape. In the evening, we would go out to celebrate in the city streets.

Independence Day eve was the only night of the year when our parents allowed us to stay out late without restriction. Independence Day was a holiday.

Decades later, everything looks different. The word Nakba has gradually entered public consciousness, even if among a small minority of Israelis, and alongside the historical guilt felt by even fewer of us. Meanwhile, events of recent years have led some among us to feel ashamed of our state.

It took me some years more to understand that these events, however recent or long past, cannot be separated.

At the beginning of this state was the Nakba: our day of celebration was the day of another people's historic catastrophe, a people who were here before us. Everything since has been bound up with what came before. What began in 1948 has not ended, not even in 2026.

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

From the Nakba to today, the basic principles by which Zionism operates have not changed, nor has the policy of successive governments of the Jewish state.

The Nakba has never ended; it has merely altered in form.

How disheartening it is to think that the values that led to the Nakba 78 years ago are still driving the State of Israel in 2026 - the same principles, the same objectives, the same methods.

Now a regional power and the closest ally of the most powerful superpower in the world, nothing has changed in Israel's overall outlook since it was a day-old state.

It still believes it can live by the sword - and only by the sword - and that it has no alternative but a life sustained by the sword.

It still sees military force as the sole guarantee of its existence and security. It still advances a policy of absolute Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan.

It still casts itself as a victim - a regional power speaking of existential threats. It is still convinced that absolute justice is on its side.

The same beliefs, the same principles as then, in 1948.

And beneath the surface, religious beliefs continue to ferment; indeed, they have grown much stronger over these 78 years: God gave the land to the Jews, to them alone, and this biblical promise is the title deed to the land - divine proof of exclusive sovereignty, even in the eyes of Jews who define themselves as secular.

While the principles have remained the same, Israel has also changed over the years of its independence. Very few of those changes have been for the better.

After 1948, after 1967, 7 October 2023 marked Israel's most fateful turning point yet.

In the two and a half years since then, Israel has eliminated a large part of the region's leadership, invaded and bombed nearly every neighboring country, and unleashed its military force without any sense of proportion, committing war crimes on a wide scale.

On this 78th Independence Day, only a few in Israel acknowledge this.

Here, it seems, there will never be a truth and reconciliation commission. There is no genuine reckoning, not even over Israel's transformation into a pariah state.

"Why does the world hate us?" is dismissed as an illegitimate question in the public conversation. The world is antisemitic, full stop. This is the prevailing mood on this Independence Day.

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

Israeli democracy was never a true democracy - and this 78th Independence Day is as good a moment as any to say so plainly.

The only time Palestinians were not subjected to Israeli military rule was for a few months between 1966 and 1967.

Until then, it applied to Israel's Arab citizens; since 1967, it has applied to the occupied territories.

A state with a permanent military regime is not a democracy.

The same is true of apartheid: it was not established in recent years. It dates back to the early days of the state, with a strong push for its consolidation after the occupation of 1967.

Throughout its history - before the 1967 occupation and certainly after it - Israel has never accepted the premise that Palestinians are entitled to equal rights between the River Jordan and the sea.

More fundamentally, Israel has never regarded Palestinians as human beings equal to Israeli Jews. That was, and remains, the root of the problem - and barely anyone addresses it.

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

Israel evidently believes that everything is permitted. Now it recognizes no limits - not in the unrestrained use of its military power, nor in its lack of respect for the sovereignty of other states in the region.

On this Independence Day, a heavy cloud hangs over Israel's darkening skies.

The society is polarized almost entirely around a single issue: Netanyahu - yes or no. Almost everything else is barely mentioned.

Despite the absence of any serious debate or soul-searching, there is a sense that the skies are darkening.

Even the most strident propagandists of the fascist right are beginning to grasp the scale of the threat facing today's Israel, after it has opened too many war fronts and failed to achieve its objectives in any of them.

Gaza and Lebanon are not success stories but unnecessary and criminal wars, which have brought Israel no gains - only high costs that it may struggle to sustain over time.

The United States is gradually slipping from Israel's grasp; Donald Trump may yet turn against it, and in any case, the president who replaces him in less than three years - Democrat or Republican - will pursue a different policy.

Europe, too, is waiting for a signal from the United States that will allow it to shift its own policy towards Israel. There, as well, patience is running out with an Israel that is seen as occupying, aggressive and megalomaniacal.

Israel has not fared well in recent years.

The more wars it has waged, the more territory it has occupied and the more people it has driven from their homes - there are now some six million displaced in the Middle East as a result of Israel's actions, some of whom have nowhere to return to - the more rapidly its international standing has deteriorated.

A state that has systematically thumbed its nose at every institution of the international community - at every resolution, at international law, and at the opinions of its closest allies - is charting a course towards the isolation of apartheid South Africa.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Israel still believes it can live by the sword alone. A reckoning is due​

Gideon Levy

On the country's Independence Day, the nostalgia of liberal Israelis for a better, earlier state is a comforting illusion. The Nakba and the occupation were there from the beginning.

srael is celebrating its 78th Independence Day this week. This will not be among the best of its independence days, in a country that is no longer young.

In my childhood, this day was, for new Israelis, a day of pride and joy.

As a son of the state's first generation, just a few years after the state's founding, I remember my father taking the folded national flag out of the cupboard and hoisting it on the balcony of our flat.

All the surrounding balconies flew flags, except for the Lebel family's - they were ultra-Orthodox and did not raise the flag of the Zionist state. I felt a sense of pride in both my father and the flag.

At the time, we knew nothing about the Nakba. No one told us about it, nor about the military rule under which Israel's Arab citizens lived.

We never asked ourselves who had lived in the ruined houses by the roadside, or what had become of them. We looked at the remains of Palestinian villages and neighborhoods as if they were part of the landscape. In the evening, we would go out to celebrate in the city streets.

Independence Day eve was the only night of the year when our parents allowed us to stay out late without restriction. Independence Day was a holiday.

Decades later, everything looks different. The word Nakba has gradually entered public consciousness, even if among a small minority of Israelis, and alongside the historical guilt felt by even fewer of us. Meanwhile, events of recent years have led some among us to feel ashamed of our state.

It took me some years more to understand that these events, however recent or long past, cannot be separated.

At the beginning of this state was the Nakba: our day of celebration was the day of another people's historic catastrophe, a people who were here before us. Everything since has been bound up with what came before. What began in 1948 has not ended, not even in 2026.

All sock puppets are evil.

Time until Damo force bans me from his GF again: 10...9...8....

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

US-Israeli aggression against Iran cause of insecurity in Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz​

 

[serenity]

Palestinian women and girls face brutal abuse in Israeli jails​

More than 700 have been arrested since the Gaza genocide began, enduring brutal conditions of starvation, isolation and humiliation.

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is marked every year to spotlight ongoing human rights violations - and today, conditions are worse than ever.

Since the launch of the Gaza genocide, starvation, isolation, humiliation, strip searches, torture and overwhelming fear have become constant realities for Palestinian women in Israeli prisons.

As much as their own tribes treat them cradle to grave? what happens to a female questioning their own religious leadership?

bet your answer is "they know better than to try.".

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

Italy replaces crucifix smashed by Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon​

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

Lebanese journalist who defied Zionist death threats was then killed by Israel​

Amal Khalil was a devoted journalist who also rescued animals while on the job in southern Lebanon.

She refused to stop her work even after receiving death threats from an Israeli phone number.

On April 22, Israeli forces reportedly chased her into a building, then killed her in a “double-tap” strike.

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

UN chief says attacks in southern Lebanon ‘must stop’​

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that he is “saddened to learn that another Indonesian UNIFIL peacekeeper has succumbed to his wounds following an incident in March, when a shell fired from an Israeli Defense Forces tank struck a UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon, according to UNIFIL’s preliminary findings.”

The UN chief noted that “six peacekeepers serving with UNIFIL have now been killed and several more have been seriously injured by the Israel Defense Forces.”

He concluded by stating that “these attacks must stop.”