Bibi - Israel - Always the Victor?

 

Bibi Harim responded to a posting of mine on Medium.   I believe that I won’t misquote his words, by using all of them in this writing.

Based upon searching the internet, I’m guessing that Bibi Harim is shown below in a few ways from his self-disclosures.   Unlike nearly all those who respond negatively to my writings related to Israel and the Palestinians, Bibi makes some specific statements, allowing me to respond below.

 Bibi – I’m open to dialogue – and also will be happy to correct any factual errors I may posit below.  The best way for us to dialogue would be via email.  My email address is my last name – followed by the first three letters of my first name – and it’s with gmail.   I might even be open to a joint posting which would obviously show both differencs and perhaps even common ground we might have.

 

You:

Intro

Author at Self-Employed

Worked at Hard Knocks University

Studied Aero Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Lives in Southport, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

From Southport, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Single

Need music lessons for keyboard for 65 ,yo man – October 22, 2025 – perhaps you.

 

Me:

George Marx

Retired from (U.S.) Federal Employment – June 30, 2006

Studied:  Elementary Education – University of Wisconsin, Madison, Counselor Education – Northeastern IL University, Chicago

Live in Richmond, California, USA

Born in Michigan, grew up in Indiana

Partnered with a Black, Female – who converted to Judaism well before when I met her

Paternally:  German Jewish background – father born in Berlin, Germany, left at age 9 in 1927

Maternally: Russian/Polish Jewish – grandparents emigrated prior to World War I

Will have 75^th birthday in mid-2026

Trips to Israel – below:

First arrived in Israel – via a Zim (Israeli) boat – the day Pesach began at sunset in 1963

Second trip: August, 1968 with maternal grandfather on his first trip to Israel – below – I’m at The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem on that trip:

 

Subsequently I visited Israel twice including in 1981 and another year near then.   I learned a lot about my father’s family from Gerschom Scholem^{, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershom_Scholem , whose memoir  https://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Jerusalem-Memories-My-Youth/dp/1589880730}  mentioned his friendship with my grandfather in Berlin after World War I.    I also recall celebratory times with family on Israeli Independence Day.    For me this day was Not (yet) Nakba Day, as it would become, beginning a few years later.

 In my younger years I’d read a lot about Israel and its noted leaders such as David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir.   In the years following this, I began listening to the words of Noam Chomsky, and other Jews, whose views differed from my solidly pro-Zionist visions.  I recall in 1987 getting a letter from The Israeli Consulate in San Francisco in response to my letter to them.   I was informed that I was “listening to too much Arab propaganda”.   I laughed then.  I wasn’t reading Edward Said or Mahmood Darwish.   Many years later Rashid Khalidi became significant in my life.   Two of his books:

https://www.georgemarx.org/2024/02/the-hundred-years-war-rashid-khalidi.html and

https://www.georgemarx.org/2022/12/the-iron-cage-must-read-on-palestine.html in recent years have meant a lot to me.   

Peter Beinart - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EDypq6cKDM  interviewed Khalidi early in 2024  .  I recall in this interview the latter spoke of growing up in Mt Vernon, New York where he said a majority of his friends were Jewish.   Beinart’s parents were immigrants from South Africa, where you reside.  

 Beinart, a far more learned man than I am, is quite religious.   I hope to meet him for a walk in Central Park (NY, NY) in May on Shabbos for the first time.  Seeing him is a prime reason why I am going to NYC for my 75^th birthday.   His book –

https://www.georgemarx.org/2025/09/being-jewish-after-destruction-of-gaza.html - is excellent!  

 Peter Beinart and I both were Zionists.   We’ve both changed significantly related to the Palestinian People and our concerns for a Just, Lasting Peace!   Beinart – is a far better researcher and writer than I am.

Bibi – and others – my writings are easily locatable on my personal blog at:

https://www.georgemarx.org/2022/12/palestine-israel-judiasm-posts-links-my.html .

Related to “my work” I emailed both Peter Beinart and Rashid Khalidi seeking a good book to read on Hamas some time ago.   Only Khalidi responded.   One of the books he recommended I’ve reviewed:

https://www.georgemarx.org/2024/02/hamas-contained-tareq-baconis-excellent.html .

 Critics such as Mr. Harim make clear (negative) statements about Hamas!   I’ve read two books on Hamas  -

 

https://www.georgemarx.org/2025/01/understand-hamas-excellent-read.html

 and have further reading planned on Hamas and Gaza.    It’s quite easy to blanketly condemn!

It’s more challenging to read and read and read – and not simply the propaganda of Israeli and U.S. leadership, and/or the words of the “featured authorities” of mainstream organizations/media sources like: CNN.    I listen (some) to such sources.   I also listen to people like Chris Hedges.   Hedges has PTSD from his work related to the genocidal wars in the former Yugoslavia.   He’s no “one issue” individual!

 Aharon Dardik is another great example of one I admire greatly.   I first heard of him watching as Peter Beinart interviewed him.   He’s a “peacenik” (my word here) at Columbia University.   His father, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Oakland, California took their family (permanently/Aliyah) to The West Bank leading his new congregation there close to 11 years ago.   Aharon has spoken of how his views changed significantly living in “Greater Israel”.

 In my gap year program, also known as seminary, I also learned of a boy who had attended the Yeshiva down the block for two years before being drafted into the army. His name was Aharon Dardik, and he became a kind of mythical figure, because we had all heard that he’d been in military prison, but few of us actually knew why. We also knew that he’d been dating someone from my seminary. When I returned to New York in the fall of 2021, equipped with a new understanding of the Israel/Palestine conflict, I learned that Dardik had moved there as well, and I wanted to talk to him and learn about his ideology and his experiences.

Aharon Dardik during his stint in the IDF in 2020. (Courtesy of Aharon Dardik).

“They believed I was a soldier, and I believed that I was not.” 

Not every pro-Palestine campus activist has actually been court-martialed by the Israeli Defense Forces. But Aharon Dardik—who today serves as the president of Columbia University’s Jews for Ceasefire chapter—is such an activist. Dardik is 24 years old, stands over six feet tall, wears a Kippah he describes as the smallest in the world, and is majoring in philosophy and political science. “When people ask, I say I was involved in a protracted dispute with the IDF,” he says of his court-martial and subsequent imprisonment. “They believed I was a soldier, and I believed that I was not.”

https://momentmag.com/fomerly-imprisoned-american-israeli-columbia-student-calls-for-ceasefire/

 

--I've never read such bosh in all my life. Did Germany or Japan have to admit anything before they could move forward? No, they were militarily defeated. Israel will never be militarily defeated. Did the USSR have to admit anything? No, it was a victor. Israel is always the victor. Live in the real world please, and stop feeding us bosh.

Germany was humiliated after World War I – at the “Peace Conference” in 1919.   It was blamed for World War I and ordered to pay reparations.   The only way it could pay these reparations was by printing more and more German currency, which resulted in massive inflation.

Germany gradually moved into a divided country as radical right and left wing forces gained more and more influence.   Common to Fascism – (see: U.S.A. 2025 heading towards 2026) “the money” went with the Right Wing.

Hitler – built on the fears and hatreds – of German’s Christian population, at least close to 99% of the population.   A few spoke out on  Anti-Semitism along with targeting – the Roma (gypsies), and other non-advantaged groups.  

Most of my father’s family safely left Germany and survived the Holocaust.  

Was the rise of Hitler justifiable?   No, but it’s more helpful for me to look at some of the
“Why’s?”, including why Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his administration failed in so many ways!  

Hitler – hid his efforts – during the 1936 Olympics, but rarely besides then.   Yes, Hitler didn’t announce that he was going to kill over six million people because of their identities as Jews, Roma, etc.  At the same time the blatant Anti-Semitism demonstrated through both words and action should have been apparent to others in Europe, The United States and elsewhere.

Did the USSR have to admit anything? No, it was a victor. Israel is always the victor. Live in the real world please, and stop feeding us bosh.

-I’m not clear how the USSR has been “a victor”.   It’s perhaps been a victor in how many people it (needlessly) killed in the period proximate to 1917 and moving forward over the decades.  

Israel is “a victor” in – “winning wars”.    If the U.S. ever stops funding Israel, its dominance in the Middle East will rely upon its possession of nuclear weaponry.   It’s bombs and missiles will no longer be affordable.   I highly doubt that the U.S. will greatly care about Israel once Middle East oil starts running out.

Israel has not become and likely will not win the current conflict.   The resistance is Not ending.  It is not a “war”.   The primary weapons used by one side are re-purposed from captured Israeli weapons and limited weaponry gotten from the outside.   Hamas and its allied forces have no air force.    Their funding is minimal compared to Israel’s “gifts” from The U.S.

Israel is “the victor” in the sense that Donald Trump was elected president and he succeeded presidents who’ve largely supported Israel consistently since 1948-9.   Great Britain, with all its inconsistencies, certainly supported the Jews of Palestine far, far more than it supported The Native Palestinian population.

Worse, you are requiring Israelis to admit to things that never happened. Good luck with that.

I’m not requiring The Israelis (meaning Jewish Israelis) to do anything.  I would suggest that Israel has incredible support and possibilities IF it were to seek a lasting, just peace with the Palestinians now!   There is No Way that Israel’s Jewish population will ever again have greater “power” if seeking peace.   It seems logical to presume that either The Palestinian Cause – will dissipate – which I believe is highly unlikely, or more likely:

1.     Resistance to Israel – will build – often starting from The Global South.    Over time India will no longer be a strong supporter of Israel as it is now.   Pakistan and China won’t either.   Within Western Europe there are “cracks” in the unquestioned support of Israel including major union efforts related to shipping and specific countries such as Ireland, where the voices opposing Israel’s genocide are rising,

2.     Israel’s bargaining position will move at least minimally in more of the direction – where the Palestinian People are at over the coming months and years.

I would also note that Israel is increasingly facing internal divisions between its quite religious residents and others who share less of a religious (only) identity.   Israeli Jews are leaving Israel for Germany and other parts o Western Europe, as well as other places such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc.   Those leaving and many others priorities seem to differ significantly from yours.

Some of these people are afraid.   Their fears of the Palestinian People, of Muslim (religion) people, that Iran will (soon) have nuclear weaponry, and/or that Saudi Arabia can’t be counted on, etc. are building.

But think about what you're doing. You're saying that the Gazans will never have peace until Israelis are humiliated. Effectively condemning them to purgatory (of their own making) forever. Yes, this is the policy of Hamas. Gazans have the right to live to live in violence, tyranny, and horror, but stop blaming Israel.

“the Gazans will never have peace until Israelis are humiliated”.

For you, as well as many Israelis, admitting that they were wrong and have been explicitly and implicitly causing genocide in Gaza should result in feelings of shame.    While I wouldn’t label you personally as being “homicidal” or “sadistic”, it seems obvious to me that you believe that Gazan residents (not the Israelis now who have taken over more than half of Gaza directly since “the ceasefire”) share some common trait that is far, far, far from neutral or positive.

Hamas is both a political and military entity.   I know of no one who believes that even if “Hamas wins” – whatever that might mean??? – that Hamas will remain as the dominant force within Gaza, greater Palestine or elsewhere related to Israel.   In a way similar to how Israel’s leader has maintained power by sustaining the “war” (were the resisters in the Warsaw ghetto an army?), Hamas remains the only true source of resistance, because the leadership of Abbas and his allies is similar to – President von Hindenburg in Germany in 1932, being token and highly ineffective.   Israel consistently assassinates or imprisons (generally without charges) potential leaders for The Palestinian People.  

Marwan Barghouti (also transliterated al-Barghuthi; Arabic: مروان البرغوثي; born 6 June 1959), sometimes known by the kunya Abu Al-Qassam (أبو القسام), is a Palestinian political leader…

Despite his imprisonment, Barghouti has consistently topped opinion polls asking Palestinians whom they would vote for in a Presidential election, ahead of both current Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and leaders of Hamas. Several prominent supporters of a resumption of the Israel-Palestine peace process view Barghouti as the leader most able to unify the Palestinians and negotiate a compromise with Israel. He has been referred to as "the Palestinian Mandela".^{[8][9][10][11]}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwan_Barghouti

I have never heard anyone accuse Marwan Barghouti of being a Hamas leader!

The truth is that NO MATTER WHO DID WHAT TO WHOM WHEN, if you want peace going forward, you can have it, just embrace it and let the past go. That's equally true for both sides.

I find such a statement either naïve or bizarre!   By similar logic, I doubt that you would say Jews whose relatives were killed by the Nazi’s should “let the past go”.   In the sense that they might now (finally) visit Berlin, as my father (born there) would never have done, that makes sense.  My father had no feeling of forgiveness/acceptance for the German People.  

My father died in 1964 (he was 46 years old then).  We traveled through Germany on trains while in Europe in 1962-3, but didn’t stop anywhere to revisit the country of Dad’s birth.  We didn’t go to Spain or Portugal, “boycotting” the countries due to their Fascist leadership of Franco and Salazar.  

I’d imagine if my father had lived into the 1980’s and 1990’s, his perspective might well have changed with forgiveness and acceptance.   Ireland, though not fully equal beforehand, has evolved into a united country.

South Africa is much more complex.   Some believe that its white minority has not (fully) acknowledged the harm of the former apartheid, and has far too much power/wealth now.

To equate the harm done to the Palestinian People with that done to the Israeli (Jewish) People seems wildly unfair to me.    The Palestinian People have been treated as both second class citizens (as well as stateless people), and as being basically sub-human.   There were major restrictions of Palestinian Israeli citizens until shortly before the 1967 War.    Those expelled from their houses and lands have human rights – some from 1947-8-9, and others from 1967 through the present.

Many honestly say that the Palestinian People have been treated worse than Black People in the U.S. post 1865.    Having separate roads on the West Bank, separate court systems (Jews nearly 100% innocent of crimes against Palestinians in civil courts, and Palestinians nearly 100% guilty of crimes against Jews in military courts)… these are signs of Apartheid.

You can put forth more and more and more protestations of the dangers to Jews, the horrors done to Jews, and more.  I don’t buy it.  I will listen to your specifics, however the data – beyond individual actions – seem obvious to me – not  state of fairness/equality.

You (Bibi) seem to support both:  “Might makes right” and “Jewish Supremacy”.   Through that logic, I’m not a “real Jew” – because I’m a “traitor” – not supporting Jews simply because they are Jewish.

Pappe is mad. There is no colonization, therefore no decolonization future, and the coexistence he means - Jews living under Muslim rule - is nightmarish fantasy.

I read my history in a very different way than you do!   I’ll leave this debate for another time.   I’ve written about such issues extensively in prior writings.

I find it peculiar, though I know it’s common to link “Palestinian” with “Muslim”.   While a substantial majority of the Palestinian population is nominally of the Muslim faith, the two are not the same in the same.   

I would similarly argue that in the past and increasingly now as 2026 beckons I live in a “Christian State” living in the United States.   The increasingly Fascistic voices speak openly of the superiority of Christianity – as a Political Vision.   Such voices talk over and over again about Anti-Semitism, while they demonstrate Anti-Semitism far, far too frequently.  

Stephen Miller (born August 23, 1985) is an American political advisor serving as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor since 2025. He previously served as senior advisor to the president and director of speechwriting from 2017 to 2021 during the first Trump administration.  ….

Miller is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.^[7] His great-grandparents who inhabited the Pale of Settlement escaped Russian pogroms and the Holocaust.^[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller

Miller is strongly pro-Israel + Anti-Muslim + Anti-Palestinian + supporting the rise of Fascism, one of its key leaders, in the U.S. today.   Anti-Semitism is part of his core message, while he speaks against it (hollow words)

We Jews will never deliver our autonomy to anyone. When we had no autonomy we had thousands of years of murder, pogroms, holocausts, and attacks. No we have terror and wars. We'll take it, with autonomy.

You speak truth about the history of rabid Anti-Semitism dating back well over a thousand years, in Russia and Eastern Europe, in the shtetls of Russia-Poland that my maternal grandparents escaped from in the early 1900’s.

I think that you are naïve in thinking that you are “autonomous”, unless you believe that “your” (Israeli) nuclear weaponry – will protect you – indefinitely – with the threat of the destruction of the world being “your protector”.

Israel today among its Jewish population faces increasing disparaties between “haves” and “have nots”.

You can't vote us out of existence, even with every seat at the UN. Why do you think you can argue us out of existence?

You won’t be “voted out”.   Arguments – aren’t viable, sensible or helpful.   You won’t most likely even hear my words.   I’m NOT writing this for you!   You chose to read my writing and respond to it.  I didn’t force you to do anything and wouldn’t want to, even if I was able to.

Let me repeat. No matter how eloquently or truthfully you argue, we're not going to surrender Israel. Ever. Your arguments are of course libels and your history manufactured, and your recommendations or suggestions nightmarish horror. We're not eating your crow. So you must be feeding our enemies.

Regardless of whether you are Israeli or not, I have no idea what will come in the future.  I’m not “God”!   I find all the conclusions of the latest quotes from you bizarre and funny in  a very sick way!

So you people are simply creating arguments for Israel's enemies to eat spite for breakfast, hate for lunch, and death for dinner, and live impoverished lives. Carry on, but how dare you blame Israel.

You have tacitly made me into your enemy.    A block from my house in Richmond, California, USA is a mid-sized grocery/liquor store.   It’s owners are two generations of Yemeni-American men.   They are much appreciated by all of us in our neighborhood.   We are Black, white, Brown.   Several blocks away on one side of the street is a church will services in English and Tongan.   On the other side the languages are English and Portuguese – for the Brazilian-Americans of the community.

Richmond California was the first city in the United States to have its city council vote calling in 2023 for a ceasefire in Gaza.   By a 5-1 City Council vote a few months ago:

https://www.georgemarx.org/2025/09/richmond-im-proud.html

the Palestinian flag (above) was indefinitely voted to be placed in front of our City Hall above the Richmond and California flags.    A United States flag is on a separate flag pole.

I’m proud!

I don’t hate you!

I don’t want to be your friend and we aren’t allies!

We know you hate Jews. Yawn. How boring. I accuse you of hating Arabs. You condemn them to have no future. Suit yourselves, but as an Israeli, I will not bear the blame.

I have no idea who “we” is?   I read writings from one individual – Bibi.   If you speak on behalf of others, I can only presume that you believe you speak on behalf of others – presumably Israeli Jews.    I’ve never heard a single, unified Jewish Israeli perspective.   You can accuse me of anything you wish to accuse me of.   I lack the power over “Arabs” – that you at least symbolically give me with your words (above).

I’m unclear if you are Israeli, South African, both or neither?   If I have the wrong individual (the pictures seem to show one, not two individuals on Facebook and Medium), you can, if you choose correct me.

--

With my grand-daughter who is now seven years old

Most commonly responders responding negatively to my writings on Israel-Palestine say things like:

The way it is described here, it sounds like the author has done nothing but repeat the perspective of many Palestinian and Iranian apologists, while also ignoring a little over half of the history involved.

Why would I buy the book? I read all of that here every other day!

It's difficult to substantively respond to such words!    My critics, when not bots, are generally white, Jewish men.    While I question the perspectives of Bibi, at least he/you spoke words I can respond to.

I grew up in a quite dysfunctional household as a child in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.   Emotional learning – was non-existent.   Both my parents loved me, but didn’t understand me at a deep level.  I had no true friends.   Only very recently have a had my first real best friend of my life.  He is a gay man who is nine years younger than me.    We are very different from each other, but listen and respect each other a lot!

My father taught me to think for myself and to care about lasting justice for all. 

(Menachem) Imanuel Marx – (June 29, 1918 – November 13, 1964) - Thanks dad!