Already in its third week, Israel’s war against Gaza has so far killed more than 5,600 Palestinians, injured thousands more and displaced more than a million. Although some parties have called for a ceasefire, there seems to be no end to the suffering of the two million residents of Gaza.
With the dehumanization of the Palestinians long overdue, Israeli society is filled with rage and a drive for revenge over the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas fighters on October 7th.
This blind rage is now channeled into the narcissism and genocidal extremism of one man: Benjamin Netanyahu, a double-faced and pathological liar who has done anything and everything to stay in power.
Netanyahu’s arrogance, corruption and brutality are to blame for the country’s political and military defeat that led to the October 7 attacks. He thought he could transform all of historic Palestine into the Greater Land of Israel, making the occupation of the Palestinian territories permanent and keeping millions of Palestinians in an open-air prison in Gaza and segregated Bantustans in the West Bank – without them all. echoes
On October 7th arrogance finally caught up to him, because arrogance breeds stupidity. Hubris became humiliation, and fiasco became farce, or as the Israelis say, using the Arabic words, fashla (failure) became fadiha (scandal).
And while Israel’s military and intelligence chiefs have accepted responsibility for their failures to prevent the attacks, Netanyahu has not accepted any responsibility, even as most Israelis blame him for their national tragedy.
Instead of resigning, the shameless and shameless prime minister the wartime leader has waged a sadistic war without a clear strategy or end.
In his genocidal offensive, Netanyahu has been aided and abetted by former Western detractors, who until recently expressed “concern” about his intention to undermine Israel’s judiciary, through his coalition of fanatics and fascists, in order to stay out of prison.
Among them, first and foremost, is US President Joe Biden, who embraced and shielded Netanyahu from Israeli and Arab anger for much of the year since his overthrow.
Biden has committed America to Netanyahu’s genocidal war in Gaza, offering American weapons, tactical support in urban warfare, and diplomatic leverage. He has ordered the deployment of two aircraft carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean to protect Israel and prevent the likes of Iran from intervening in the conflict.
Likewise, European leaders, who for much of the year also gave Netanyahu the cold shoulder, are now calling for a show of support for his government and the war against Gaza. They have refused to call for a cease-fire, and have continued to justify Israel’s war crimes as an exercise of the “right to self-defense.”
Righteous Westerners in Israel misrepresent international law. Israel, in fact, has the right to self-defense, but it does not have the right to defend decades of brutal military occupation, which the Western powers have long allowed. It is the occupied and victimized Palestinians living under Israel’s racist apartheid system who have the right to face their suffering under international law.
The ongoing genocidal war – led by a failed prime minister and supported by morally suspect Western allies – is not self-defence; rather, it is a war of self-deception. Israel falsely believed that it could achieve safety by the sword.
But when has killing more Palestinians resulted in better security for Israeli society? He has never had; it will never be done.
By imposing a hermetic blockade on Gaza and unleashing a bombardment to pave the way for a ground invasion, Israel will deal dangerous blows to the region. In its genocidal drive, it may, as some fear, drag the US into World War III.
By feeling falsely Comparing Hamas’s attacks on Israel to those carried out by Al-Qaeda in the US in 2001 will not help. The US’s global “war on terror” killed even more Americans than the 9/11 attacks, with hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim victims. He sowed chaos in the last two decades of not being able to stop more wars and more troops.
Well, the “war on terrorism” proves that war crimes, collective punishment and other violations of international law do not mitigate extremism; they perpetuate as they feed cycles of violence – UN Special Rapporteur on Terrorism Fionnuala Ni Aolain he insisted Israel’s recent press conference focused on the Gaza war.
As the Israeli army commits more war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza, Israelis need to take a hard look at where colonialism and occupation have taken them. Israel’s continued oppression, racism and killing of Palestinians have created the conditions for greater instability, extremism and violence in Palestine and the region.
A genocidal war in Gaza will not bring peace and tranquility to Israeli society, nor to the West.
