Gazan Theater of Absurd: Executioner Playing Victim

By Bob Travica

I wouldn't change any point I made in my previous blog on Israel's invasion of Gaza weeks ago (1). Some things have changed though - both for better and for worse. As for the better, Israel's assessment of killed Israelis (used as the pretext for the aggression) was lowered by 200 down to 1,200; there was a temporary ceasefire with a release of around 100 hostages from Gaza and around 240 Palestinians from Israel's jails; and global humanity has spoken in favor of ceasefire, via mass protests and UN resolutions.

But there has been bad news too: the number of killed in Gaza went from 11,000 to over 18,000 (70% children and women), and Israel's relentless air campaign moved to the South of Gaza, which is packed with Gazans previously pushed from the North; everything collapsed in Gaza – the health system, infrastructure, and economy. Fighting guerilla-style fighters with an overwhelming military power, Israel's military is systematically turning Gaza into an unlivable rubble, torturing and massacring 2.3 million people. While apparently with no wider international support for this old-style colonial onslaught, Israel still has the support of the U.S., which keeps blocking ceasefire demands in the UN, and the EU, less decisive in support but still aboard. This is also bad news as well as is the survival of Israel's right-wing government: it is responsible for not preventing the October 7 massacre in Israel, cares not about hostages and human life on either side, tramples moderate Israelis,  and adamantly imposes an ethnic cleansing strategy on Gaza.

I finished my previous blog by citing a 2009 statement by Tel Aviv professor of social psychology Bar-Tal: "An analysis of the present situation indicates that except for a small minority, which is capable of looking at the past with an open mind, the general public is not interested in knowing what Israel did in Gaza for many years, why Hamas came to power in democratic elections; how many people were killed in Gaza from the disengagement (in 2005)…" (2)

In the present blog, I'll continue from this point.

Superiority of Eternal Victims

Bar-Tal's comment echoes today's situation. The minority he referred to is alive but less visible. Mainstream media rarely cover this side of happenings. However, social media transfer clips of Orthodox Jewish priests protesting against Israel's aggression in Gaza (3). There are videos of police beatings of anti-war protesters in Tel Aviv. Former Israeli soldiers are speaking against the war and some prominent public speakers are in agreement. However, reasonable Israelis with moderate political views are still marginalized. And so the question remains: Why is the general Israeli public not interested in knowing what Israel did and does now in Gaza? How come they can be blind and deaf to the unprecedented slaughter their military is committing upon their Arab civilian neighbors? Anytime Israeli officials or ordinary people are confronted with such horrific facts via social media, they resort to recalling the October 7 massacre, emphasizing graphic details as if the Gaza slaughter still pales against the magnitude of the crimes of Hamas/Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The well-known journalist and public speaker Gideon Levy provides an answer. He's argued for years that Israelis succumbed to "euthanasia of consciousness" over the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This is caused by deep beliefs that Jews are (1) chosen people, (2) the greatest and the only victim, and (3) superior to other people. (4) These three beliefs could be understood as being central to Israel's culture, defining the relationship between local Jews and a broad social environment and their place in history. Taking this as the lens, it may be possible to understand the attitudes and practices of Israelis who deviate from the moderate minority mentioned above. I recommend watching Levy's speeches for examples, and here are mine.

At the moment, some observers in the West agonize over the realization that half of the air bombs dropped on Gaza are "dumb" munitions designed to destroy indiscriminately whatever they hit. Why does Israel do that - wonder various commentators? The answer may be simple: Check Belief #3 above. The current government looks at Arabs/Palestinians as a lower race, sub-human, or as PM Netanyahu labels it "children of dark" who endanger "children of light" (Jews/Israelis). In my previous blog, I cited other derogatory, racist terms with which Israeli officials shower over the public. The superior people sentenced the inferior people to torture, purge, and annihilation, so the volume of casualties is irrelevant. An unpleasant reminiscence of what Jews experienced under Nazis in WWII.

In the U.S., some university administrators have been accused of tolerating anti-Semitism on university campuses; some were forced to resign by invisible players. Careful analysis of each act of students' political activism is undoubtedly needed to separate concern for basic humanity and civilian life from hate of Jews. But just listening to representatives of Jewish organizations reveals a belief that any opposition to what the official Israel is doing equals anti-Semitism. Why so? See Belief #2. Jews are always the victim, even when they victimize others.

A case in point: the UN is regularly accused by Israeli and Jewish officials for not condemning sufficiently October 7 crimes and for not initiating war crimes/genocidal proceedings over the terror inflicted on Israeli women, among other things. In a recent interview, an Israeli official asks herself why the UN acts that way and offers an answer: "Because those women are Jewish!" Again, the victim mentality surfaces as an instant explanation that preempts the space for odd details, analysis, and all that wasting of time.

I've argued from the start of this war that Israel's government has never had the liberation of hostages as a key goal. I reasoned that the invasion of Gaza was a way of covering up incompetence and mistakes that led to the security catastrophe on October 7. Instead of being sacked, Netanyahu becomes an irreplaceable war chief as long as the war runs. Then, the hostage release via negotiations happened and exposed the official swearing in the military solution to the hostage problem as a spin. The military hasn't liberated hostages, but killed three just recently, and who knows how many in total on October 7 and in Gaza tunnels. Therefore, hostages have never been a priority, and the Israelis with euthanized consciousness may not even blame the government for that. According to cultural belief #2, Jews always fall victim, and hostages are just one instance of such a destiny.

Chosen People

Belief #1, being God-chosen people, draws roots in the ancient Jewish religion: Jews are the people to whom God revealed himself and made a binding promise (covenant) with that they lead the world to the ultimate establishment of divine sovereignty over all humankind. The chosen people get rewards and punishment from God, and endure in the exclusive godly mission, waiting for the arrival of God's messiah and realization of absolute divine sovereignty. (5)

This belief may have helped Jews to survive in the diaspora under difficult and sometimes genocidal conditions; as well, it could have pushed capable individuals toward exceptional achievements of universal value. But it acquires a darker side when melted with political agendas. In particular, that of Zionism, a political movement that originated in the 19^th century in Europe, aiming at gathering Jews back in the ancestral land - today's  Israel/Palestine. Zionism unraveled a delicate balance between Jews and Arabs in the region.

After long Turkish rule was replaced by British control over Palestine, Jews from Europe poured in; in 25 years, their massive immigration changed the proportion of Jews to Arabs from 1:4 to 1:2 (6). Brits accommodated Zionists' strategy to get Jewish financial support for the U.K. effort in World War I (1914-1918); their rule in Palestine was filled with Jewish-Arab conflicts. Subsequently, Zionism was baked into the foundations of the modern Israel state and shaped its history. It triumphed right away with the expulsion of 700,000 Arabs from their homes in 1948 (nakba). Aggressive Zionism peaked again with the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by an Israeli settler, because Rabin worked toward the two-state solution (creating separate states for Jews and Arabs). Zionism has carried out Illegal Israeli settlements onward, but it took a hit with the government-arranged migration of Israelis from Gaza in 2005.

Last year, right-wing parties entered the government in coalition with Netanyahu's Likud party. Newly appointed National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, and Minister of Finance/Minister in the Defense Ministry Smotrich don't hide that Gaza is to be ethnically cleansed by expelling Palestinians to Sinai in Egypt and grabbing the land there for Israeli settlers. Smotrich heads the Religious Zionism Party which claims the entire region for Israel, based on an alleged religious mission (7). Orthodox Jewish priests consider the whole construct to be rubbish (3).

At the time being, however, Israeli extremists do manipulate the chosen people belief and claim the redemption of Gaza. The Israeli public is taken hostage by the extremist government, which stirs up pain and anger toward bloodthirsty revenge. Consequently, the chosen people are shocked at the world's denial of Israel's self-proclaimed right to do whatever it wants with Gaza, and can rationalize this only through the mantra "We are always the greatest and only victim!"

Follow the Money: Qatar, Hamas, and Chosen People

How come Qatar emerged as the key negotiator (alongside Egypt) in the hostage exchange? (Note: Palestinians in Israel's jails are also hostages since they've been jailed by the Israeli occupational force, and Israel has used them in bargaining for releases of captured Israelis in the past.) Qatar has been providing financial aid to Gaza for quite some time. It took over the support role and its money has covered civic and military needs in Gaza. This was done with the full awareness of Israeli authorities.

The eye-opening investigative reporting by the New York Times exposes the strategy of the Netanyahu governments to play Hamas against Fatah, the key political forces among Palestinians, with the chief goal of disabling the two-state solution (8). Palestinians are made to keep head-butting for power, while settlers grab more land in the West Bank and the Zionist agenda gradually comes to a full fruition. To these ends, Netanyahu's Israel assisted in the money transfer to Gaza, although some Israeli politicians and security officials objected. The more the chaos - the better, that's part of the old playbook for all aspiring autocrats. These developments have been missed by Western politicians and "experts" who fire at Iran as the main culprit behind the October 7 tragedy. (Note that Iran is a Shia theocracy that props the militant organization Hezbollah, while Hamas is a nationalist organization with no religious agenda; key Hamas leaders reside in Qatar.)

At this point, we are back to the belief of being chosen people. Its political manipulation currently produces unconvincing public narratives in the form of war propaganda and international PR. Israeli authorities expect the world to believe that a few guns, air pipes, and everyday objects found in tunnels under Gaza City hospitals "prove" that these were used as Hamas military facilities. Then, the enemy is a "coward hiding behind human shields" (instead of confronting face-to-face Israeli airplanes, tanks, and cannons with infantry arms). All the while, the Israeli military "tries to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza" by warning civilians before air attacks (provided the frightened, exhausted Gazans are tuned to a proper communication channel and can evacuate swiftly themselves and their livelihood)...

In general, these lame pitches are to be taken at face value because they come from the chosen people's army called Israel Defense Force (perhaps so because all its operations are by default "defensive", as the overused refrain goes - "Israel has the right to defend itself").  The world must condone all Israel does because it's fighting on behalf of humanity against sub-humans. It's humans vs. Morlocks, stupid! (as H.G. Wells presaged in the novel "Time Machine").

To avoid any misunderstanding, my intent hasn’t been to put Israeli cultural beliefs at the surgical table. The patient in need of surgery is the distortion of these for extremist political purposes. Paradoxically, Zionism may be shooting itself in the foot. As the world condemns the invasion of Gaza, the ugly face of Zionist racism is exposed. By getting Israel ostracized, Zionist policies could weaken precisely what they are trying to strengthen – the Jewish statehood. That process as well as the ongoing criminal war on Gaza can be stopped with a change of Israel's government that survives just owing to this war.

 

(1) Travica: https://cogito-bob.blogspot.com/2023/11/move-south-and-get-out-ethnic-cleansing.html

(2) Bar-Tal: https://tinyurl.com/jdnutrbs

(3) Rabbi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FNtMV2i8-8

(4) Levy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EtNFXL_ykg

(5) Britannica: http://bit.ly/3GK7KBd

(6) British survey: https://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/pdf/palestine1/Arabs-of-Palestine-British-Survey.pdf

(7) Jewish Library: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/religious-zionism  

(8) New York Times: https://bit.ly/3TvzalD