Carwil

@Carwil@mastodon.online

anthropologist, revolutionary, #professor, #photographer, translator, father, dancer, lover of #streetart and human connection — research: #Bolivia, #IndigenousRights, the state, mass #SocialMovements, #tactics, #violence, #PublicSpace, #Territory — book: http://bit.ly/SovStreet

Carwil Bjork-James conducts immersive and historical research on disruptive protest, grassroots autonomy, state violence, and indigenous collective rights in Bolivia.
#anthropology #fedi22 #tfr

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Carwil, to random

The idea that Israelis have the right to self-defense against terrorism, but Palestinians do not enjoy the same right to self-defense against overwhelming devastation is either blind to human suffering or catastrophically racist or both.

Carwil,

Nothing would have saved more lives in the last two months than a robust air defense system in Gaza, and yet nothing would have been so demonized as a government, any government, providing one to the least armed people in the Middle East.

Carwil,

For an entire generation, final status talks / two-state solution visions have presumed that Israel would remain militarized while even an independent Palestinian state would be demiltarized.

In light of the 16,000 Gazans killed, that is morally injustifiable.

Carwil,

The 2023 conflict demonstrates that neither the US nor the European Union can credibly promise security to a future Palestinian state. Only armed deterrence by Palestine itself* could do so.

Carwil,
  • Or an allied regional power, but the performance of the "Axis of Resistance" also suggests this is insufficient to protect Palestinian lives and cities given Israel's qualitative edge in military force.
Carwil,

@oakster
In the 1980s, two governments with air forces and repugnsnt politics, Baathist Iraq and Khomenei's Iran went to war.

Both countries' civilians were unequivocally better off because they had anri-aircraft defenses to deter and resist mass bombing of cities.

The politics of the regime is immaterial.

Carwil,

@oakster Light weapons only.

Relevantly for this conversation: "Israel shall continue to carry the responsibility for defense against external threats, including the responsibility for protecting the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, and for defense against external threats from the sea and from the air."

Carwil,

@oakster
The primary threat to Palestinian civilian infrastructure is clearly the Israeli military.

Carwil, to random

I spend a lot of time considering the political motivations of people who authorize and enable mass state killings.

But the null hypothesis should be this: they are racists who view the victims as less than human.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxmwe/stuart-seldowitz-halal-cart-harassment

Carwil, to random

Half of Northern buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-maps.html

Carwil,

Gaza joins Aleppo and Raqqa (Syria), Mosul (Iraq) and Grozny (Chechnya) in list of cities largely destroyed in recent wars

https://time.com/longform/mosul-raqqa-ruins-after-the-war-of-annihilation/
https://www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/part-2/10-bandarin/
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2022/12/16/26-cities-destroyed-by-war/

Carwil,

Gaza City is the largest Palestinian city on Earth.

Under Israeli bombardment and invasion, it's largely evacuated.

Under Israeli bombs and tanks, it's mostly destroyed.

Carwil, to Israel

In 31 days, the death toll in – war blew past the genocidal massacre in Srebrenica, civilian deaths in the invasion of Ukraine, and all prior Israeli–Palestinian conflict deaths since 1987.

https://woborders.blog/2023/11/08/the-scale-and-pace-of-death-in-israel-gaza-war-are-staggering/

Carwil,

@Alon
You're right on Ukraine, a place where I had assumed that Ukrainian prosecutors' office estimates would be the higher end. Instead they are confirmed and named totals, which we should expect to be low.

I'll pull the comparison from the chart.

The scale of the undercount has sharply shifted in that office's statements. In Feb 23, they were envisioning 100k total, but in June 23 they estimated 50k. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230606-10-368-the-incomplete-count-of-ukraine-s-civilian-dead

Carwil,

@Alon
I was well aware that the massacre in the small town of Srebrenica was not the entire Bosnian war. But it (and 9/11 for 7 Oct) is one of the few comparable events with the same short length as the Gaza conflict so far.

Carwil,

@Alon
It would be a very good thing if daily deaths are actually trending down, but with Gaza City surrounded there may also be the same kind of reporting challenges that interfered in Mariupol.

Still not yet a very promising curve.

Carwil,

@oakster
Demographic data suggest not many of those reported killed in Gaza are combatants. https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/on-palestinian-figures-an-absolute

Carwil, to Israel

This is NOT just another cycle of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The intensity and pace of death vastly exceeds all events since the 1967 war.

Deaths in October exceed all conflict deaths since 2008, or the two Intifadas combined, or two 9/11 attacks.

Carwil,

This huge quantitative shift cries out for explanation. Here's my take on the Israeli side: https://mastodon.online/@Carwil/111336259874812462

Carwil,

@Alon
Yes, clearly the massacres of October 7 are the turning point that makes the latest escalation possible.

And a "gloves are off" public mentality has clearly been translated into policy, leading to harsher military actions.

But I perceive a "destroy and reoccupy" or "expel and reoccupy" strategy visible in the current blitz on Gaza.

Carwil,

@Alon
As in the US wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, the nature of the war doesn't owe so much to public enthusiasm as to official planners' vision and strategy.

The fact that the Gaza invasion is proving much deadlier to civilians than the Iraq war (even w/o adjusting for Gaza's much smaller population) strongly suggests that damage is part of the plan. https://twitter.com/iraqbodycount/status/1719417486133678413

Carwil,

@Alon Without disputing the grieviously vicious nature of the Rave and Kibbutz massacres, the 1956 Khan Yunis massacre is somewhere in the three worst single episodes of violence list. And possibly the 1948 Lydda massacre as well.

The tendency for these events to have a cloud of dispute over them reflects so much on the ability of the conflict to subsume knowledge production itself.

Carwil,

@Alon IBC is doing a day-for-day comparison. So the first 24 days of each incursion.

Carwil, to Israel

We need to take more seriously the policy proposals from the Right in Gaza: expulsion, destruction, and re-occupation.

An internal Israeli government document of Oct 13: https://www.972mag.com/intelligence-ministry-gaza-population-transfer/

A Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security researcher: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-768771

Carwil,

And how we must interpret the reported threat “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings" from an Israeli security official.

https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/israeli-official-says-gaza-will-be-made-a-city-of-tents/

Carwil,

In separate statements, UN Secretary General António Guterres and US Senator Bernie Sanders have warned Israel against letting "blind rage" guide military actions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/israel-gaza-united-nations.html

https://x.com/SenSanders/status/1719731559618494742?s=20

I am worried about something worse, that a policy of deliberate cruelty and genocidal aspiration—to eliminate Palestinians as a threat, and as a people within part of their homeland—may be guiding military actions instead.

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