Israeli and the american officials, like many of their supporters, called the Hamas attack “Israel’s 9/11” on Saturday, drawing parallels between Hamas and al-Qaeda and Israel and the US.
“If the United States had gone through what Israel has gone through,” said President Joe Biden, “our response would be swift, decisive and overwhelming.” Hamas’ “brutality” and “bloodthirstiness,” he added, “bring to mind the worst massacres of ISIS.” He too repeat sensationalist and baseless Hamas fighters say they “raped women” and “beheaded babies”.
Major European capitals reinforced the false analogy of 9/11 and the dangerous notion of “us vs. them” by covering their most iconic buildings with Israeli flags as if to proclaim “everyone is Israeli” – with disastrous consequences. “everyone is American” after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC.
Like a well-rehearsed orchestra, the Western powers condemned the “unprovoked” attacks on civilians and expressed their unconditional support for the fanatical Israeli government to do whatever it takes to “defend” its people against the “evil”.
The levels of hysteria and hypocrisy are staggering, as reckless as they are stunning.
Some of the images from Israel are certainly horrific, but the images from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc. have not been so horrific. Western and Israeli wars in the Middle East over two decades have resulted in thousands and millions of Arab and Palestinian deaths.
In front of the West, apparently, Israel has a “duty” to defend its people, but the Palestinians have no right to protect them as if they were the people of a lesser god! Israel also has the right to defend and even expand its occupation and apartheid regime, apparently, but the Palestinians have no right to express their frustration or struggle for freedom and justice after seven decades of dispossession, oppression and siege.
For the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, “Against Russia’s civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, water, electricity… are acts of pure terror.” But Israel doing the same thing against the Palestinians in Gaza is legitimate self-defense! That is the embodiment of hypocrisy and double standards.
To be clear, Hamas is an Islamist group that has used and continues to use controversial and inappropriate methods to advance its agenda. But like other anti-colonial movements that used questionable methods, it is first and foremost a nationalist movement that has long condemned Al-Qaeda and ISIL, and has never attacked outside of historic Palestine. Unlike al-Qaeda, Hamas won a majority in the parliament in the last legislative elections in Gaza in 2006, and after surviving an orchestrated American coup – has acted as the de facto government of the besieged list.
Above all, the hysterical comparisons between Hamas’ operation on Saturday and 9/11 are irresponsible and downright dangerous, serving to manufacture the case for a wider war, as we saw with false intentions before the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. . Such comparisons help demonize Palestinian leaders and dehumanize the Palestinian people, paving the way for a genocidal war, starting in Gaza. Sure, demonizing other leaders is ugly politics, but dehumanizing an entire people is racism, plain and simple.
In this way, this false and hysterical analogy gives the green light for Israel to continue its illegal siege and indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip with an even more terrifying land invasion that would destroy the more than two million Palestinians who live there.
Indeed, after four wars and a 17-year siege failed to reduce Hamas, the Israeli government now seems determined to destroy Hamas, both politically and militarily, through the invasion and re-occupation of Gaza.
For this purpose, it has already recalled some 350,000 military reservists pile up 100,000 soldiers and even some tanks on its southern border. Meanwhile, attempts to create a humanitarian corridor to send people from Gaza to Sinai to keep them “safe” and facilitate the invasion of Israel. reject Just another excuse for the Palestinian and Arab leaders to expel the Palestinians from their homeland.
A ground invasion of densely populated Gaza, with no means of escape for the people living there, will result in tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinian deaths over weeks or months of fighting, especially if, as expected, Israel uses heavy weapons. and heavy bombing to try to reduce casualties among his forces. Indeed, Israel’s invasion of Gaza will become the bloodiest urban conflict since World War II, an armageddon with disastrous regional implications.
Even if Israel successfully reoccupies the Gaza Strip, albeit at great cost, and destroys Hamas’ military and administrative infrastructure, so what? Will it simply hand over to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah after the Israelis have paid a heavy price for taking it over, as they have done in the past? Will it maintain the Gaza strip forever, providing food and services to its residents? Will it be able to end the idea of Hamas as a resistance movement against the occupation?
Israel does not seem to have an answer to these thorny questions about “the day after.” Indeed, there is no telling what will happen in Gaza, Palestine or the region in general after such a genocidal invasion and occupation.
There are already signs of war spreading to the north and east, forcing Israel to expand its circle of destruction, or rather. This could easily lead to the United States and its newly deployed navy entering another devastating war in the region, as if two decades of perpetual wars weren’t enough.
Israel and the United States must not repeat the same mistakes over and over again as if they have learned nothing from the war, occupation and human suffering caused by their bungles. It is time for the Western powers to start acting like adults and stop appropriating Israel’s reprehensible lies and clichés. Make no mistake, there is no military answer to the Palestinian tragedy, only a political and diplomatic solution.
