[Previous: Netanyahu speaks the language of genocide]
There was a moment when Israel had the whole world’s sympathy.
That moment was right after the October 7 attacks, when Hamas massacred hundreds of defenseless civilians and took hundreds more hostage. It was the single bloodiest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. However, Hamas’ violence was indiscriminate, and the victims weren’t just Israelis. They were from many countries, including Thailand, Argentia, Germany, France, Russia, China and America.
Immediately after that brutal assault, it’s fair to say the world was on Israel’s side. Hamas committed an act of war, and no nation would have blamed Israel for responding in kind. If they’d gone after Hamas in a targeted and proportionate way, they could have had an international coalition to support them.
But Israel’s government has utterly squandered that sympathy. Instead of trying to limit civilian casualties – or even pretending to – they’re engaging in massive and indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. They’ve destroyed homes, hospitals, refugee camps, entire neighborhoods. It’s an unprecedented act of collective punishment.
Even worse, the Israeli military has blockaded Gaza, cutting off food to the Palestinian people. It’s a deliberate effort to create famine, and it’s working:
On October 9, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, declared a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Since then, the Israeli bombing campaign has destroyed Gaza’s agriculture and infrastructure, and Israel has restricted aid coming from outside the Strip.
…In February, the deputy executive director of the World Food Programme, Carl Skau, announced that one out of every six Gazan children under the age of 2 was acutely malnourished.
That brings us to this week, when Chef José Andrés of the charity World Central Kitchen says that Israel intentionally bombed a convoy of volunteers delivering food aid, killing seven:
“This was not just a bad luck situation where, ‘Oops, we dropped a bomb in the wrong place,'” Andrés told the Reuters news agency, stressing that his team’s vehicles were clearly marked and “it’s very clear who we are and what we do.”
“They were targeting us in a deconflicting zone, in an area controlled by IDF. They, knowing that it was our teams moving on that road… with three cars,” he said, adding that he believed the seven aid workers killed by the strike in Gaza were targeted “systematically, car by car.”
Whatever crimes Hamas has committed, there’s no possible justification for preventing the delivery of supplies to starving people. This, more than anything else, shows that Israel’s plan is to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. I don’t use that word lightly, but there’s no other that fits.
I agree with Bernie Sanders’ remarks:
“Too many people do not understand that the Israel of today is not the Israel of…20 to 30 years ago,” Mr Sanders told news outlet Crooked Media. “It is a right-wing country, increasingly becoming a religious fundamentalist country where you have some of these guys in office believe that God told them they have a right to control the entire area.”
… “So bottom line, Hamas committed an atrocity in my view, Israel certainly had the right to defend itself, but it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people,” Mr Sanders continued. “Two-thirds of the casualties and deaths are women and children. Unacceptable.”
Israel has even lost Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the most senior Jewish elected officials in America and for a long time one of its staunchest defenders. In a blistering speech, he called Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and argued that Israel is making itself a pariah state:
“I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.
He has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.”
(If you don’t know these names: Itamar Ben-Gvir is an Israeli politician who heads a party called Jewish Power, and the ideological descendant of a Jewish supremacist named Meir Kahane who called for ending democracy and replacing it with theocratic law based on the Torah. Bezalel Smotrich is a religious nationalist who advocates illegal settlements in both Gaza and the West Bank and expelling all Palestinians who object. Netanyahu has brought both their parties into his coalition, forming the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.)
The bleak irony is that none of this death and destruction is likely to break Hamas’ grip on power. Israel doesn’t even appear to have a plan for accomplishing that. It’s tempting to view their attacks on the Palestinians as motivated by sheer rage. It’s destruction with no goal other than “you made us suffer, so we’ll make you suffer more”.
However, I can’t help wondering if there’s a strategy behind all the bloodshed – a bottomlessly cynical and cruel strategy, but a strategy nonetheless. It’s not about getting rid of Hamas. It may be an attempt to create an us-against-the-world mentality.
It could well be that Netanyahu’s goal is to make Israel – and by extension, all Jewish people – so despised that Jews everywhere will feel as if they have to suppress their own opinions and throw their support to Israel, because they’ll have no other allies anywhere. It allows him to say, “The world will always hate you, and only strong leaders like me can protect you.” Or at least, if this isn’t his goal, he may view it as a beneficial side effect.
War is a potent driver of tribalism; that’s one reason why fundamentalists and fanatics glorify it. It coerces everyone to fall in line and obey, to keep the boundaries between Us and Them sharp and unbridgeable. It tamps down empathy and discourages people from trying to understand different viewpoints. Whether they’re Jewish or Muslim, Israeli or Palestinian, or for that matter American, Russian, evangelical Christian or Orthodox, all warmongers desire a world where everyone outside their own tribe is an enemy to be oppressed or destroyed without mercy. It serves the interests of the worst people on every side.