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- Redcuban1959 [any]·1 year ago
https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1714229860397142281
https://nitter.net/dancohen3000/status/1714229860397142281This is my interview with Israeli parliamentarian Ofer Cassif, who warns that Israel is about to explode into a Ukraine-like civil war, with Azov-style Kahanist militias hunting down and murdering Palestinians and leftist Jews.
Like the “pro-Ukraine” crowd that has watched the country be destroyed in war, the “pro-Israel” commentariat is cheering on its descent into madness.
What would be the response of the resistance if this were come to pass? Would Israel even be able to do a ground invasion of Gaza if it wanted to?
PW: The Palestinian struggle within Israel: Interview with the Communist Party of Israel
In the wake of the Hamas attacks of October 7th, the Communists and Hadash—as well as the broader Palestinian minority in Israel—have suffered a wave of repression and intimidation.
The CPI’s lone Jewish Member of the Knesset, Ofer Cassif, was suspended for 45 days in mid-October for criticizing the war on Gaza. In early November, leading CPI member and former lawmaker Mohammad Barakah was detained in Nazareth for announcing an anti-war demonstration, on the grounds that it could lead to “incitement.” Most recently, another CPI parliamentarian, Aida Touma-Suleiman, was sanctioned for two months for daring to decry the slaughter of innocents by the Israeli military.
As the first protests demanding a ceasefire and the return of hostages have started taking shape in Israel, People’s World met with the Communist Party’s International Secretary, Reem Hazzan, to ask her about the outlook for the coming period. Through it all, Hazzan maintains that she is still optimistic about a future of peace and equality.
...
"As a party, we say that this did not start on October 7th. If you take everything out of context, then nothing has any meaning. We cannot say that things suddenly erupted on one peaceful morning as if violence and oppression had not been the constant reality of Palestinians for decades.
Even if we don’t start with the Nakba of 1948, and begin with the occupation of the West Bank that’s been the reality since 1967, the problem is clear. We don’t have a Palestinian state. Gaza has been under siege for the last 16 years. The West Bank is being ethnically cleansed in a very methodical way. Nowadays, nobody’s paying attention to the increased violence against Palestinians in the West Bank because people’s eyes are fixed on Gaza. Settler violence has intensified, backed by the Israeli military forces.
If you ask me how Israel should have reacted, let me say that any peace-seeking country would not be engaged in an occupation to begin with. It wouldn’t take decades to solve, or we can say in this case to not solve. A normal government would not be in this situation in the first place. I think that Israel should have understood at that point that a political solution is desperately needed. But with such a far-right government, this means that the perceptions that should have changed on October 7th, did not. If you believe that military force is your only resort to begin with, then the only solution will always be military—more force, more violence."
...
"Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has been dreaming for the past two years about how to have armed mobs do his dirty work. They would call themselves a “civilian support force” for the police. This war gave him the perfect opportunity to actually make this happen. Now, you have over 600 groups of armed people, some of them civilians, some of them ex-military or ex-police. They go on patrol in our cities and towns. I live in Haifa, which is a mixed city of Arabs and Jews. These people go around carrying M-16s, saying that they are keeping the order or supporting the police force, but their main aim is to intimidate Arabs."
Brownshirts shit.
Ofer Cassif suspended by Knesset Ethics Committee for 45 days and no pay for 2 weeks after speaking out about the war on Gaza in relation to the genocidal policies of the Holocaust.
Hadash, his party, is the only Arab-Jewish party in a country where 25% of the population is Arab.
In April 2021, Cassif was assaulted by police officers at a protest against evictions in East Jerusalem. He was investigated for striking the policeman first.
in an interview with Haaretz, Cassif said: "I object to the ideology and practice of Zionism... it's a racist ideology and practice which espouses Jewish supremacy." Cassif identifies as a Marxist and a socialist.
In 2023, Cassif told Al Jazeera that his party had repeatedly warned that continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories would lead to events like the October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict, where innocent civilians on both sides pay the price. He called the Israeli government "fascist" and accused it of carrying out pogroms and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian population.
How is Ofer Cassif doing? Pretty sure he is like the only Israeli politician that was very open against the war and genocide. I think he was arrested and kicked out of congress?
The communist-led alliance has 6 seats in the Knesset. Their leader, Ofer Cassif, was banned from parliament for 45 days for saying that the current Israeli governement wants a 'final solution' for Palestinians. He joined the South-African case against Israel in the ICJ, for which zionist parties are trying to kick him out of parliament permanently. Members of their party are being arrested for their role in trying to organise protests for the rights of Palestinians and the police threatens everybody who's even vaguely associated with them. They support the right of return for every Palestinian (and their descendants) who fled since the creation of Israel.
So I wouldn't call them the 'moderate wing of fascism'. They have done a lot more than most and have done it in circumstances which are a lot tougher then many of us could handle.
The guy in the video is Dr Ofer Cassif, who is explicitly antizionist. Search Ofer Cassif on youtube, you will see that he has spoken against Israel on Middle East Eye, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, Majority Report and many other news networks. He was born in Israel and has devoted his life to ending the Zionist project. He helped South Africa take Israel to the ICJ.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/11/who-is-israeli-mp-ofer-cassif-why-is-he-backing-south-africa-at-the-icj
Editing my post to include that there have been many posts in support of Ofer Cassif on hexbear in the past. Even the beloved SeventyTwoTrillion wrote a news post about Ofer Cassif.
https://hexbear.net/search?q=ofer%20cassif&sort=TopAll
Theres literally only one good Isreali MP, Ofer Cassif, and he was literally almost kicked out of his seat for being against genocide and zionism.
People seem to say "critical support" as a joke a whole lot seem to never actually use critical support. I don't agree with everything he says. You can say that you don't agree with some things that he says and still appreciate that he has taken serious actions against Israel.
I don't agree with Norm Finkelstein about his anti-transgender beliefs but we still recognize that him as a prominent antizionist figure.
I watched the video and I see that Ofer Cassif says "We condemned totally condemned the massacre which took place" and he keeps using the word "We". It seems to me that he is using a metaphoric "We", (I don't think metaphoric is the right word). He's using "We" to say that the general public said that they condemned Hamas. He doesn't say "I condemn Hamas", he said "we condemned" as he is setting up a comparison. He is setting up a comparison. In his next breath, he says that what the Israeli government is doing to Gaza is far worse. He calls the Israeli government fascist. Then he says "I place the blame on the Israeli government". Why does he say "we condemned (oct 7)" but then he said "I place the blame on the Israeli government"? Because in the former instance he was expressing the opinion of the broader public and in the latter, he is saying his own beliefs.
I'm not aware of anything like this but I could be falling behind the news. Ofer Cassif narrowly avoided expulsion in February
Here you go! Found the original article:
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/israeli-communist-ofer-cassif-expelled-from-parliament-for-criticizing-war-on-gaza/