The Illegality And Immorality Of The Israeli Annihilation Of Gaza - A Thread By Ori Goldberg
18 August 2024
1/ I received this today. I have no wish to pick fights with a specific person so no mentions. The text is a very articulate version of an argument we've been hearing since October 8th, 2023. On the verge of October 2024 I find that this line of thought gives me chills.
![](https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2408/ql-qsgoa6p0z3zzl.jpg)
2/ First, there's the need for "new and surprising" as a prerequisite for changing one's mind. My original tweet, the one that produced this response, showed a 2+ minute video of the desolation that is now northern Gaza. My tweet was "weird", due first to a lack of innovation.
3/ I think this gives a demonstration of how we have been denying the very passage of time and its effects. Over the past ten months we have destroyed Gaza. Over ten months we have destroyed it completely. The regularity is the crime. The accumulative effect is the crime.
4/ It is illegal and morally corrupt to bring about such annihilation as "collateral damage" incurred in "the destruction of Hamas". It is criminal and morally corrupt to continue to kill civilians after ordering their evacuation to "safe zones" that grow smaller and smaller.
5/ It is illegal to systematically destroy all infrastructure in the Gaza strip. It is illegal to destroy schools and medical facilities and to kill their staff. The fact that Israel says it is "justified" because Hamas must be "destroyed" does not make it so.
6/ It is illegal to kill bystanders unless their deaths prevent military damage on a much greater scale. Hamas has not been a threat to Israel for months, yet Israel continues to claim an "existential threat". The responsibility has been Israel's for a long, long while.
7/ And the cherry on top is the claim that Hamas launched an attempted genocide and is simply being answered in kind. It is easy to disprove this lie, as Hamas has never been even theoretically accused of genocide by international authorities.
8/ That is no coincidence. Hamas carried out an atrocious massacre, a crime against humanity. It was not an attempt to kill as many Jews as possible with the hope of killing us all. That has been established by every authority except for Israeli ones.
9/ By juxtaposing October 7th and the Shoah Israel seeks retroactive vindication for its genocide. The most maddening aspect of this rhetoric is that Israel's security and general state has deteriorated because of this war. We have lost all credibility and all standing.
10/ Still, we stick to our guns. We deny the passage of time. We deny context and consequence. We deny the reality of anyone but us. We stand alone, above and beyond history. We are the ultimate (and only) victims and aggressors. In our half-life, death is the only currency.
Original X post:
1/ I received this today. I have no wish to pick fights with a specific person so ne mentions. The text is a very articulate version of an argument we've been hearing since October 8th, 2023. On the verge of October 2024 I find that this line of thought gives me chills. ---> pic.twitter.com/0qQ4Hw5LEC
— Ori Goldberg (@ori_goldberg) August 18, 2024