For years we’ve been telling readers that Israel is monstrous toward Palestinians, and for years we have been smeared as antisemites and haters for giving that news. Still we have borne witness to unending human rights atrocities, and today it’s with the most miserable pride that I see the world coming round to that understanding. Miserable because Gaza is today in the abyss, experiencing a nightmare of assault that reflects images from World War II.
Though the world is finally seeing it. Demonstrations in our country against Israeli aggression and calls for ceasefire recall the uprisings after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and offer what little hope anyone can have right now for a major shift in U.S. attitudes (and, one day, policy).
Even supporters of Israel are terrified of its conduct. Tom Friedman all but stated that Netanyahu’s cabinet is consumed by bloodlust, and he writes that vengeance and apartheid are “completely incoherent policy.” The Israelis don’t care. One Israeli ambassador has likened Gaza to Nazi Germany and said that Germany’s defeat required killing 600,000 civilians. While the Israeli columnist Caroline Glick has said that 40,000 Hamas members need to be eliminated.
This psychosis permeates the government. Israel has dropped more bombs on the tiny Gaza Strip in two weeks than the U.S. dropped on Afghanistan in a year. Netanyahu has rationalized genocide, saying this “is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.”
And that is the fascistic leader Biden flew out to embrace. While every other leader in the region refused to meet the president. The diplomatic failure on the president’s part is spectacular. And his active complicity in what many call a genocide– he appears to be bargaining with Netanyahu on the acceptable number of civilian deaths– has galvanized actual resistance to Israel inside the establishment. While the progressive Democratic base is the only address for sanity in U.S. politics today, leading demonstrations for a ceasefire.
I’m proud of our unceasing and unblindered coverage during this terrible crisis. Hear Yumna Patel and Faris Giacaman explain the effect of the Israeli genocidal actions in the West Bank and the region. See Michael Arria’s dogged reporting on the political fallout of Israel’s conduct in the U.S. mainstream and left.
And please keep Tareq Hajjaj’s voice in your thoughts this weekend. His family is sheltering in the south of Gaza against unimaginable force and horror. His house back in Gaza City is in rubble.
Yes, this is a nightmare for sympathizers in the U.S., but our pain is largely vicarious. Their lives, their homes, their children, their dreams are in that fiery abyss. The world’s late awakening is just another layer of cruelty.
I had a sense of relief to read Tareq’s latest report this morning.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/opinions/israel-hamas-gaza-pogroms-holocaust-kibbutz-troen/index.html
Personal disclosure: I studied under Prof. Troen at BGU and was acquainted with his murdered son in law.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161617348379769&set=a.10151850715784769
It’s no coincidence that the language and phrases that have been used by Israel and immediately adopted in the US have been scientifically tailored to preempt, foreshadow, and justify exactly the type of mass murder, mass transfer of people, and wanton destruction we are now seeing.
The almost immediate invoking of 9/11 on Oct 7th wasn’t just a red flag, but a blaring klaxon. Since then they have systematically invoked, appropriated, and repeated on blast, terms like “this is worse than 9/11”, “this is our Pearl Harbor”, “Hamas is ISIS”, “Axis of Evil”, “they are human animals”, “Gaza is like Nazi Germany”, “Palestinians are like Nazi sympathizers”, “Gaza will look like Dresden”, not to mention Netanyahu’s constant and insufferable invoking of Winston Churchill.
This is not by accident. These very specific terms are, by design, crafted for western audiences to telegraph and justify very specific actions and responses by Israel. Which is “We will do anything! We will invade! We will occupy! We will kill by the thousand! We will level entire cities, people included. We will displace millions! We will even drop an atomic bomb if it comes to that.”
What gives away the game and the blatant weaponized language and propaganda targeting western audiences? Almost none of these terms and phrases are used by Netanyahu and his ilk when speaking in Hebrew to the Israeli people. Also by design. This is so that, like in post war Germany, after the dust has settled, the Palestinians in Gaza (and maybe the West Bank too) have been suitably cleansed, the genocide completed, and the mass graves and abject horror uncovered, the Israeli people can turn around after the fact and claim “…but how were we to know?”