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One is a State being created on top of and crushing another peoples why the other is an outside force actually defending people who no longer want to be part of a State who shows them nothing but violence. There is nothing to compare.

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Aug 8, 2022Liked by Esha

Israel is blockading food into Gaza. Russia is not.

Gaza has been under perpetual siege by Israel. The murderous escalations by Israeli forces against Palestinians are part that status quo. Russia's military operation is a genuine break from normal relations with a clear goal in mind that, despite how one may wish to believe otherwise, is not "the elimination of the Ukrainian people". Gaza's mere existence, on the other hand undermines Israel's legitimacy given its nature as a settler colonial state. As history has demonstrated numerous times, such states rely on ethnic cleansing/genocide of the indigenous to establish their legitimacy.

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Aug 8, 2022Liked by Esha

What a crazy comparison. The Palestinians aren’t a proxy for a malevolent superpower, quite the opposite, and the only ‘threat’ they pose to Israel is to it’s fascist nature.

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Palestine and Ukraine are not alike:

First, the operation in Ukraine is undertaken to restore soverign governance to Ukraine after the US couped it in 08 and 14. In Palestinians occupy the opposite position in this dynamic to the Ukranians. Their soverignty was robbed from them in the Nakba. Additionally the Israelis and the Ukranians are both client states of the US while the Palestinians and Russians are antagonized by the US.

Secondly, the modality of operations is quite different. Israelis target civilians as a matter of policy and the Russians took losses purposefully to minimize civilian casualties.

Third, the autonomy of the regions in which Russia acts is respected: the US news media is loathe to cover the many referenda taken in Donetsk and Luhansk where the population voted OVERWHELMINGLY to leave Ukraine and become independent. Likely they will seek to join the Russian Federation soon enough.

Fourth, the occupation has been ongoing in Palestine since the 40s and is basically new from 2014 in Ukraine. This shapes every aspect of the conflict. The Ukranians do not have the same level of apartheid established, though the leadership would have no problem. The fortifications of the Ukrainian army are not comparable to the separation wall and giant open air prison enclaves that de facto form Palestine's borders.

Fifth: the Russian operation shares with the Palestinians a counter hegemonic nature which Israel is in staunch opposition to as a barely disguised proxy of the US.

Sixth: the Ukranians receive major logistical support from the US as well as material and intelligence support. In the Palestine conflict, these are rendered to Israel.

The fifth point is perhaps the most easily understood and most critical: to compare Israel to Russia is to invert the position of oppressor and oppressed by considering extremely crudely the form of the military action Even the most brash and incendiary advocates of "Israel" would lack the verbiage to credulously deny this.

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Good post. Anyone - politicians, citizens who celebrate the interventions of the US in destabilizing other countries can expect the same continuing effects at home. We reap what we sow. Everyone needs to understand this is the true blowback. Think we can support insanity abroad and not suffer the same effects ourselves? No.

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Ukr/Rus is a proxy war that serves the West and the other is an apartheid of people supported by the West. About the only common thing about the two situations is the serve the West and capitalism.

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Aug 8, 2022Liked by Esha

I don't see how the two situations are much alike. Israel has been pulling an apartheid of the Palestinians and Russia invaded Ukraine because Russian speakers were being murdered in a civil war. The only thing "alike" is Israel and Ukraine who feel they are superior to the people they are persecuting.

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This kind of question can come only from a) a historically uninformed person or b) an ideological hack.

For the historically uninformed, Gaza is part of historic Palestine and Israel is the result of political Zionism, a settler colonial ethnic cleansing project hatched among non religious Jewish intellectuals as exactly such, settler colonial, within the logic of European settler colonialism. It was only possible with the collaboration of British imperialism in Palestine. We know that many parts of today's Ukraine were part of historic Russia and then USSR, we know that the lines after 1991 of Russia were haphazardly drawn, we know that the US qua US and as the head of NATO is absolutely interested in fragmenting any country that poses a threat to his imperial hegemony. I'm not going to rehearse that history, which is not an area of expertise. Rather I read and listen to people who know.

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Palestine has been on the receiving end of anglo-european military aggression. Ukraine, on the other hand, has been receiving military and financial support by the same anglo-european powers for the sole purpose of containing Russia and by extension - Eurasia. Simply Palestine and Ukraine are polar opposites. Anyone who says these two are the same either do not know any better or DO NOT WANT to know any better.

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Aug 8, 2022Liked by Esha

Israel occupies palestine based on pure historical claims, internationally accepted due to holocaust and existing for 75 years .

Ukraine is happening for current reasons .

russia gave up ukraine at a weak moment due to collapse of USSR and has not tried to take it back till EU / NATO made it a contest and wanted ukraine in EU and started their campaign of insults to memory of WW-2, Banning any thing russian/ communist ( already perfected in baltics,poland) to ukraine .

As putin explained, russia has nowhere to go .Also ukraine is the one who is killing people

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Ukraine: a US puppet state based around an extremely large Neo-Nazi kill squads tasked with ethnically cleansing to Donbass region to claim ownership of their industrial capital and function as NATO's staging ground for an array of nuclear capable mk. 41 VLS missile turrets trained on Russia with a ~5 minute flight time to Moscow, thus turning Ukraine into a literal doormat into Russia for US/NATO.

Palestine/Gaza: an indigenous community converted into an open air extermination camp by Israel with full and unconditional backing by the US in pursuit of beachfront property.

Granted it's a subtle difference, easy to miss but once you see it you can't stop seeing it. 🙃

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More like there's a similarity between Israel and Ukraine in that they get plenty of funding from the US for weapons and training and then when you call them out on the monstrosities the little minions and bots come out of the woodwork to whine and attack you for it.

Also I love that some of them think you're with Amnesty 😂🤣🤦

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The fallacy of Keith's question is that he totally ignores Donbass. Donbass fighting Ukrainian fascist government for 8 long years. And fighting for its independency from Kiev. On Feb 22 2022 Russia stepping in and recognizing LDPR. On Feb 24 2022 LDPR asking for military support and Russia as an ally stepping in. Simple as that.

If you want to draw a parallel it would be like: Kiev = Israel and Donbass = Palestine. Russia helping her small brother. But cancel culture within corporative MSM did its dirty job: Donbass as a topic has been totally ignored yet cancelled deleted since 2014.

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Aug 8, 2022Liked by Esha

This seems like a loaded question.

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Israel's assault on Palestinians is ethnic cleansing. They believe they are superior human beings endowed by God to murder Palestinians and steal their land. This very much resembles Nazi rhetoric of "ubermenschen". The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a very different thing. It would take too long to describe the situation, but basically it is a war engineered by the US . Forever wars are profitable for the oligarchs who actually control world politics. They pretend to care about civilian casualities when it promotes their agenda as in Ukraine, but in other situations as in Palestine, they do not.

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founding

What Israel “does” is different because the US Congress appropriates “aid money” to Israel each year when it authorizes a new US budget. This isn’t actually contradictory because our foreign aid to Israel directly increases *our* GDP, since it’s split into little pieces that can only be spent on, say, components for the Iron Dome or the bombs that killed 15 children in the last few days, and Congress further specifies the exact weapons manufacturers Israel may redeem this coupon and that coupon with. It’s like we send them a bunch of pre-filled personal checks from the Treasury to Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, etc, with what kind of deadly product each check is for neatly typed on the notes section of the check. In a real sense these are American air strikes, in which the munitions have been selected by Congress and paid for with funds procured by Congress supposedly from American tax dollars (though of course that’s not how the federal government experiences manipulating its own currency). Effectively though it’s not wrong to call it tax money siphoned from Americans directly to defense contractors to subsidize GDP by exactly the amount Congress wishes. When you watch a video of an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Gaza, you’re probably watching innocent people die, but you’re also viewing the result of an unthinkably depraved version of quantitative easing (which is already depraved enough IMO). Then the ruling class of America claps because the line on their stock portfolios goes up, and they’re fine with the consequences.

Note I’m not even getting into the most obvious difference, that Israel is an apartheid state literally founded alongside apartheid South Africa... It’s not worth wasting time explaining something so obvious, is it?

On the other hand, in Russia/Ukraine, Congress passed a new lend/lease act so Ukraine is receiving their deadly weaponry from the US defense industry like Israel except that it’s not at all like Israel because at some point they run out of stockpiles and start producing more and Ukraine legally by act of Congress and Biden’s signature sends them little IOUs with no expectation or real obligation or plausible ability to ever pay us back. Biden demands Congress provide more foreign aid to Ukraine for “defense” every couple weeks, but Zelensky doesn’t need to use it to purchase weaponry from the US. We can now “lend” the heavy equipment to Kiev... sorry, “Kyiv”... at no cost to them. I’m not sympathetic to capital, but the line on the élite’s portfolios doesn’t go up when Ukraine incinerates Russian infantry using our massively expensive drones strapped with explosives like kamikaze homing devices. You’d think capital would be more irritated by that--that when they see footage of Ukrainian heavy artillery it isn’t a visual of their wealth increasing in direct proportion to how big the smoke plumes are. It’s *not* quantitative easing with the unnecessary proxy war step included because our politicians think that’s sensible legislative text to include, the US is in a sense seizing profits and suppressing the contribution of the defense industry to GDP because Putin Bad, they’re nostalgic for the constant terror of the Cold War but don’t have much longer to live anyway so the risks aren’t real to them, whatever, take your pick, there isn’t a single rational choice theorist who can invent a plausible motivation for every DC Beltway ghoul on this one.

They’re very different! This is a rant about one facet of how different they are. Just... put the propaganda down and think for a second, seriously confused twitter user in Esha’s mentions! You’l come up with something from the dozens and dozens of differences, I believe in you.

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No one said there weren't Jews, Palestinian Jews and Jews from all over region and world. Don't confuse Jews with the European settler colonial Zionist project. My last comment to you.

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I see 2 justifications used by Israel. 1)

God promised them Palestine 4,000 years ago and it is still theirs. 2) They won the 1948 and 1967 wars and victory allowed them to claim the territory they conquered. This is 2022. Is an approximately 4000 year old promise by their God still good? Israel had sovereignty over Palestine for much less than 1/2 of that 4000 years. Jesus seems to indicate that the land promise lapsed in 67 AD because of bad behavior. As far as land being a spoil of war, that was definitely accepted through most of history. But modern international law and war crimes law has moved away from allowing the stronger nations from taking what they want from the weaker nations even if the weaker nations start the war.

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I am sympathetic to both Israel and Russia, but I think Israel can make a somewhat stronger case for its actions:

Gaza, like the Westbank, is allegedly populated by Palestinians.

Prior to 1967, Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the Westbank was controlled by Jordan

In those days, no one said that the arab states of Egypt and Jordan were standing in the way of Palestinian Soverrignity. (There is no Palestinian language or religion and there has never been a Palestinian state. Palestinian identity was a fabrication designed to undermine Israel. They are ARABS, they are not Palestinians)

In 1967, Egypt, Jordan and Syria sought to destroy Israel. Israel won in the 6 day war. In defeating her foes, she held on to territories she had taken.

She was entitled to hold on to those territories. Without the occupied territories Israel would be 9 miles thick at its point of greatest population concentration and vulnerable to swift annihilation in a renewed Arab attack.

NEVERTHELESS, Israel agreed to withdraw from Gaza.

And the barbarous Arabs of Gaza constantly send missiles North into Israel.

Before Israel vacated Gaza, they left factories and money-making assets in Gaza to assist the Arabs.

And the Arabs show their thanks by raining missiles on Israel.

Burn, Gaza, Burn

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Russia’s “military” response is an illegal invasion of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

In the case of Israel’s response it is legal under International law and UN rules for Israel to defend its territorial integrity because Israel is defending itself against rocket attacks FROM the Hamas terrorist organization. The aggressor in this particular case was and is not Israel, but the Palestinian Terrorist group. Furthermore, the Gaza Strip is NOT occupied by Israel, and Gaza itself is part of the disputed territories that await a final negotiated solution.

Why does your assumption in your question ignore Hamas’s offensive and illegal actions whilst blaming Israel for defending itself? Every country has a Right and a Duty to protect and defend its territory and its people. May I suggest you read up on the rules of war.

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yes!

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