It needs to be said that the genocide of Gaza is an American operation, funded and equipped by America and protected diplomatically by an automatic and unconditional veto in the UNSC.
Israel is but the edge of a razor, or an axe, wielded by the US and slashing Palestinians. So why is the US wanting to aid while mass-murdering Palestinians? Here are some reasons.
1. Management of image. The US wants to appear moral and merciful, or at least capable of deviating from the AIPAC line. So it does so mechanically, with stress on display and symbolism, as is usually the case with fake identities such as the white colonizer. It doesn't know that to normal people this only accentuates the monstrosity, and by no means the humanity of the US.
2. Management of consciousness. As part of an ongoing psychological warfare to weaken and confuse people, Western powers always talk from two opposing perspectives. Killing while providing aid to them is a prime example of that. You can not effectively fight what you cannot grasp.
3. Helping Israel (to complete its genocide). By providing aid the US is mitigating mounting pressures to stop the Gaza holocaust.
4. Sadism. The US wants Gazans to not know what to make of food air-dropped followed by bombers, or maybe even delivered at the exact same moment, by the exact same hand. This excruciating and debilitating confusion brings sadistic joy to the US, and it is also used to prime Gazans for annihilation.
5. Strengthening the place charity has in the colonialist capitalist order. By portraying the murderer, enslaver, and exploiter as a savior through charity, capitalist colonialism, the basis for American political culture, can continue applying systemic injustice while reaping both unimaginable financial rewards and reputational benefits. Charity is a pillar of capitalist greed, corruption, and enslavement. - Two facts to keep in mind:
A. Throughout its millennia of existence, Gaza never needed aid before Zionism (read: white capitalist colonialism).
B. About half of Gazans originate from families and communities ethnically cleansed from 1948 Israel in the Nakba.
Another aspect of just how ridiculous and divorced from reality this airdropping is: Gaza is a coastal city with direct access to the Mediterranean since ancient history. It is an hour's drive from Tel Aviv, and less than that from Ben Gurion airport. It is 20 kilometers away from Ashdod sea port, Israel's largest.
Gaza can be accessed by land and sea easily. It has dozens of entry points. It is inseparable from the history and geography of the Mediterranean region, with Alexandria, Malta, and Crete just a few hours away by ship (maybe a day). But airdropping aid into Gaza makes it look like an isolated, exotic, far-off island. Somewhere between the Easter Island and Antarctica, and undergoing an alien invasion, and not an insane, delirious, hazy slaughter at the hands of America's closest bestest ally in the world, smack at the heart of civilization. This is also how you estrange a people and a struggle.
Colonialist cinema, that's what this is.
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Alon Mizrahi is an Arab Jew, author, blogger, public speaker and anti-Zionist. |
...or it's an obvious outworking of having so many Jewish people at the heart of US government, State Department and the various intelligence agencies many of whom may not be Zionists but certainly have familial ties to Israel or who lost family in the camps. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteQuestion; what exactly would have been an appropriate response by Israel to Oct 7th? Yes I know it's been going on for decades before but what would have been an appropriate response by any state who just had a major attack on it's people and by those who even the UN claim used rape as a weapon?
Steve - worthwhile question which defies facile answers. Jonathan Freedland outlined a way Israel could have behaved and conducted a war but opted for mass murder instead. History is replete with lessons: when a state sends in Einsatzgruppen there can only be atrocity and appalling crimes against humanity.
DeleteKnow what you mean. But can't see what the alternative for them would have looked like. If they had sat back and tried to look rationally at the attack they would have looked weak to their people and to their neighbours. Freedland also makes the point that now months into the war Israel perceives protests in the West to what's going on as further evidence of how out of touch the West is. Hamas's stated aim is the destruction of Israel. What country would have stood for an attack by those who want their destruction and not responded? Did the US sit back after 9/11?
DeleteI thought this was a telling paragraph in a Freedland piece for the Guardian..
"The result has been an Israeli onslaught that has already taken some 9,000 Gazan lives, destroying entire families at a stroke. Though in explaining that appallingly high figure, here too Hamas offered some assistance. One Hamas official was asked by a TV interviewer if the organisation’s more than 300-mile network of underground tunnels could not perhaps shelter civilians. No, no, the Hamas man explained: “The tunnels are for us [Hamas]. The citizens in the Gaza Strip are under the responsibility of the United Nations.”
Coupled with a recent article I read stating that the reason the latest truce attempt broke down is because Israel demanded the release of the female hostages in exchange and Hamas refused, fearing the backlash among the rest of the Arab world when it became apparent that the women were eyewitnesses to rape as a weapon. Horrific times.
The most pressing alternative was sitting in front of their noses. The logistics is another matter. War with Hamas that did not involve genocide and crimes against humanity. An occupying force has a duty towards the civilian population of the country it invades. These people are at heart Nazis. Bleakley summed it up with his reference to a superior race infuriated that the Untermensch shows disrespect. This perspective informs the sociopathic hatred and targeting of Palestinian children with their Letby brigades.
DeleteThey could also have got rid of Netanyahu before they took military action. As Freedland said he had a motive for going to war and making it last - giving the Israeli far right a war it had long wanted.
But if we even go there and fail to think of what other way they could have responded, we have to make the same allowance for Hamas on October 7. And I decline to do that. There were around 240 IDF and settler murders in the West Bank in the 10 months up to October 7. No international outcry or citing it as context for October 7.
And given that Netanyahu was structurally complicit in October 7, the onus was on the Israeli state to exercise restraint, deal with him and then explore an international strategy for dealing with both Palestine and Hamas. But when did Nazis ever consult international opinion or defer to international law?
There may have been rape on October 7. There have been plenty of allegations about it. Just as there are allegations of rape and sexual violence against the IDF. The thing about the mass rapes of October 7 is the amount of stories that have pulled by the NYT and other outlets because they could not be stood up begs the question.
But are all Israelis at heart nazis? All serve via conscription in the IDF does it necessarily follow they are all the same? Or were you referring to the government solely?
DeleteSteve - it would be wrong to characterise all Israelis as Nazis just as it would be wrong to characterise all Germans in the Hitler era as Nazi although Daniel Goldhagen did his best to portray the Germans as such in his fascinating book Germany's Willing Executioners. But there is a pressing need for the international society to de-Nazify Israeli society.
DeleteThe role of the IDF is pretty much like that of the Wehrmacht, Shin Bet the Gestapo, and their specialist murder squads would be akin to the SS. The attitude of the political elite in Israel in respect of war crimes, genocide, atrocity, mass infanticide, land theft, colonialism is much the same as the Nazis.
Could you really say that you are confident that they would not resort to gassing Palestinians and citing the Holocaust as the very thing that permits them to do so?
Can you think of one IDF officer who has the moral integrity of the Wehrmacht officer Helmuth Groscurth who stood up and forcefully challenged the Wehrmacht mass murder of Jewish children? Child murder seems to make the penises of the IDF feel funny.
Possibly targeted strikes on Hamas leaders and installations. The Israeli cabinet should have waited for a period of two to three weeks to fully assess it's options and built a coalition of sympathetic allies. After all, revenge is never a dish served hot. But tbh, it is not an easy question to answer. But there's no question that Israel has taken a great reputational hit.
ReplyDeleteIsrael has been traumatised to such an extent by the 7/10 attacks that few are able to put their head above the parapet and speak out about the conduct of the war and the appalling human suffering it has occasioned. Media coverage does not show the realities of the conflict.
ReplyDeleteBarry I don't mean this in a glib way but do you not think Palestinians are traumatised by the 40,000+ killed and streets razed by Israel in Gaza these past few months? Thousands of them little children? Or the hundreds killed by Israel in the West Bank pre October in 2023, the deadliest in many years?
DeleteOr the homes demolished and land stolen continually in the West Bank? Or the blockade on Gaza? Or the thousands of protestors against the blockade killed or seriously injured by the IDF in 2018? Or the "mowing the grass" wars of the past 15 years where Israel freely bombs the sh*t out of Palestinians for a few weeks or months?
I was once an Israel supporter. I was passionately making the same arguments you're making in this thread. But none of it stood up to objective analysis and as I actually became better informed my view changed. The realities of the conflict is that overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, Palestinians have borne the brunt of terror and violence. It's not a 2:1 or even 5:1 split of suffering it's more like 100:1.
It's not "complicated". Israel is the aggressor, Israel is the occupier, the entire Israel project is inextricably rooted in chauvinism, religious extremism, ethnoracial supremacy and settler colonialism. The West's bankrolling all this is frankly, disgusting.
Of course Palestinians or Palestine are historically a traumatised people who have suffered exile and dispossession due not least to disastrous decisions taken by their leadership in 1948, by the corruption of the PA leadership on the West Bank and the tyranny of Hamas and betrayals by regional powers such as Syria. I am neither Israel right or wrong or Palestine right or wrong. As a matter of interest what prompted your change of perspective,
ReplyDeleteI did come across a bit aggressive in my previous comment, pardon me.
Deletere: change in perspective trying to remember but I think the 2021 Israeli bombing of Gaza was the tipping point.
Obviously miniscule in scope compared to the wholesale slaughter of recent months but like 2023-2024 it was so obvious to me that there was no legitimate military reason to just wantonly kill people, disproportionately children, and it was a violent expression of Israeli dominance and the psychological impulse to retaliate against perceived disrespect of Israeli superiority by "inferior" Palestinians. No longer could I bring myself to repeat the sick cliche "Israel has the right to defend itself".
In my teenage internet rows I always used to fall back on Israel Is A Democracy but frankly that's not true. It's as much a democracy as Northern Ireland was in the 20th century. Yes, you superficially have free and fair elections but they rest upon excluding millions of people. If Israel is a democracy why cannot it not tolerate Arabs winning a democratic majority?
Another cliche I had swallowed was that Israel was uniquely persecuted at the UN or subject to unfair criticism with anti-semitic undertones. I was so ignorant; there isn't really an equivalent to the West Bank in terms of colonial projects in the world today bar recently Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That states shall not colonise is supposedly a pillar of the post-WW2 order yet Israel is free to flout it.
The Holy Land is split between three ancient religions. Yet one religion is being propped up artificially with foreign guns and money and given carte blanche by powerful foreign interests to lord over the other two. It's a perverse situation.
Israel is artificial. Yes, surely on some level all states are artificial. But settler colonies are different. Everyone living in them knows it in their bones. You see it in ordinary Israelis instinctive need to have a foreign passport as a backup plan. You see it in Hebrew language spaces online, always either pivoting between bravado ("we're here to stay, nobody likes us and we don't care") or deep anxiety. You see it in the the insistence that critics of Israel first affirm that "Israel has a right to exist" (does it?).
Regrettably I don't feel qualified to give a proscription for the conflict. A two-state solution seems the most realistic solution but seems unlikely. From what I can see though Israel is in for a relatively difficult period. American isolationism, fading emotional attachment, and a growing hostility from American progressives. The Gaza massacre has created a hostility towards Israel unprecedent in recent memory and brought the Palestinian cause back to the table.
@ Steve R
ReplyDeleteRe an appropriate response. Israel could have played a long game and targeted those who didn't die on the day but were involved, just like they did with Black September. And avoid slaughtering civilians.
It would have wrongfooted all their enemies and gained israel new supporters.
I think Israel is killing itself as they murder others.
Bleakley, when you say that Israeli democracy relies on the exclusion of millions of people are you referring to the Arabs who live in the Occupied Territories. Because that appears to be a call for Arabs in the Territories to be given by the vote by Israel which would in effect be an annexation of them. Genuinely puzzled
ReplyDeleteBarry, Israel is annexing the West Bank with Jewish settlers who are subject to Israeli civil law and can vote in Israeli elections. The Arabs whose land they are stealing in violation of international law are subject to martial law and cannot vote. Apartheid.
DeleteHow practically can the international community "deNazify Israeli society"?
ReplyDeletePutting the bell around the cat's neck is always more difficult than suggesting that the bell be placed there.
DeleteWe have a template for it: In the same way it moved to de-Nazify German society and Rwandan society. It should be isolated as a rogue state, made an international leper, all financial and military support withdrawn from it, its leadership and numerous IDF war criminals put on trial, ban apartheid, prevent it from being a Jewish state for Jewish people and in its place work to ensure it is an Israeli state for all Israeli citizens regardless of religion.
When the world is confronted with a Nazi type regime it has to coalesce around core anti-Nazi principles.
Bleakley, Israel's right to exist behind the Green Lane rests on the UN General Assembly Partition Resolution of November 1947 which brought into existence the state of Israel.
ReplyDeleteBarry,
DeleteFirstly in principle I'd dispute the right of any state to exist. Rhodesia, the USSR, and Yugoslavia are no longer with us.
On the 1947 partition plan specifically, what was envisioned was a two-state solution with Jerusalem under a special international administration. This is a far cry from the boundaries of Israel today. Current day Israel grossly violates the 1947 scheme; from where does it derive its legitimacy? Furthermore it's not as if the 1947 partition plan was benign or uncontroversial; ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs began immediately after UN Resolution 181 was passed and war ensued.
The current internationally recognised borders of Israel emerged from the 1948 armistice yet Israel has little time for those. How can a state not even recognise its own borders?
The entirety of Palestine is either under full Israeli (legal) Israeli sovereignty, under illegal Israeli military occupation, or defacto controlled through Israeli muscle. What respect for the 1947 UN resolution does this situation have?
Yes Barry, the occupiers of Palestine are sticklers for observing UN Resolutions, ahem.
ReplyDeleteI have always opposed the Occupation of the West Bank not that you give a toss about the truth, Skin.
ReplyDeleteBleakley, agree totally on the iniquity of the separate civil and military arrangements on the West Bank. Palestinians need to be given their first opportunity to elect their Authority since 2006. Two state solution will involve removing at least 200,000 settlers according to David Cameron.
ReplyDeleteBarry,
DeleteI sincerely don't mean this in a snide or cutting way but your support for Israel seems to depend on imagining some sort of better, not aggressive, colonising or discriminating Israel in compliance with international law.
Yet plainly this Israel does not exist and has shown zero signs of emerging. It would be antithetical to the entire Israel project. How do you say "I support Israel, just not the fundamental facets of its state and society or its policies"?
Rwanda under Paul Kagame'repressive regime is hardly an ideal template for a post -genocide city. Denazification of post war Germany by no means fail to do dislodge the thousands of former Nazis in the judiciary, health and civil services. It
ReplyDeleteThoroughly agree - but it was the former leader of the British Labour Party who was one of Kagame's great advocates. But it did de-Nazify Rwanda and the Hutu Power movement.
DeleteAnd the same problem will exist in de-Nazification of Israel as existed in Germany: but few would describe Germany as a Nazi regime despite genocidal impulse still being in its veins.
Behind the Green Line, Israel does function as a state for all its citizens including it's 20 per cent Arab minority not withstanding the Nation State Law and the rise of the populist nationalist far right.
ReplyDeleteBarry - Amnesty International's response to that:
DeleteIsrael imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.
Barry - hopefully you get something out of these discussions and no longer feel that people are ganging up on you. Your position is not a popular one but you are entitled to advocate it while hopefully not seeing your detractors as anti-Semites merely because they ask legitimate questions of Israel.
DeleteBleakley, I don't "support"
ReplyDeleteIsrael and I don't "support" Palestine no more than I "supported" the blacks or whites in Apartheid South Africa. I opposed Apartheid on antiracist and human rights grounds and I oppose the Occupation and the Likud/far right coalition and the conduct of the war.
Asking legitimate questions of Israel, subjecting it to the same types of criticism as that aimed at other states and evaluating Israel against its professed Jewish and democratic values is never antisemitic as the IHRA's definition makes clear.
ReplyDeleteas has been long pointed out the IHRA bureaucracy is a propaganda body. As Professor Avi Shlaim from Oxford explained: “a definition intended to protect Jews against antisemitism was twisted to protect the State of Israel against valid criticisms that have nothing to do with anti-Jewish racism.”
DeleteExactly how was the definition twisted to protect the State of Israel against valid criticisms. It might help to check my piece on the genealogy of the IHRA.
ReplyDeleteBy equating Zionism with Jewishness. “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” - this statement alone has caused it to be slammed as propaganda. While, I enjoy your writing Barry I prefer to read the report to your genealogy given that in my view you have bought into so much of the Zionist propaganda.
DeleteRegarding Amnesty's report, it is an expression of an opinion not a definitive statement of fact. There are parallels between the Occupation regime and the former Bantustans in South Africa but the full fat version of Apartheid such as the pass laws, separate municipal facilities Group Areas Act, bans on inter racial sex and marriage doesn't pertain in Israel itself.
ReplyDeleteJust that Amnesty is not given to issuing ill founded opinions on human rights abusers. Why be quick to quote the mere opinion of the IHRA but dismiss the opinion of Amnesty? Many South African victims of Apartheid including Desmond Tutu have actually described Israeli apartheid as worse than their own.
DeleteI initially thought genocide was a hyperbolic term. I don't now. The Israeli operation is one of extreme collective punishment approaching significant extermination.
ReplyDeleteThey are committing the equivalent of a dozen Shankill bombs or Kingsmills a day in a population of a comparable size. There is absolutely no difference between today's IDF and the Waffen SS in Oradour-sur-Glane.
They chose this insane course of action. The west's weak and supine governments chose to allow it. Damn them all.