Israel’s double standards and loss of moral compass
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
In an excoriating opinion piece in Haaretz, the doyen of Israeli satirists, B. Michael, lashes out in a fury at his country’s indifference, double standards and loss of moral compass.
In the face of this indifference, he poses many questions, not to get answers but as an abrasive, to irritate the thickened skin that has led Israelis to lose all sensitivity: “To once again expose the nerves.”
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Wed 17 May 2023. Read the original here.
75 years of Israeli cruelty have not deterred the Palestinians
Loading article text…
Reading the last paragraph of this article, my mind flashed to a (half-heard) programme on JB Priestley and his comment that human life was about Admiration, Hope and Love. The advice to “Hope” was offered “because Despair is useless”.
B. Michael’s continued questioning in the middle of rational despair is a practical demonstration of Hope in action, I think. Sometimes such transient flickers are all that we have. We have to trust they’ll be enough to build a better future.
These are the questions that should appear on the front pages of every country that sits in silence and sits complcit in the atrocities that have long been and continue to be perpetuated against the people of Palestine.Sadly they will not indeed they will be erased entirely from the MSM.
The money and weapons will flow into the country.the distasteful hypocritical fawning will continue and any criticim or form of punishment will be reserved in equal measure for those who dare to question why this is so.
I am sick and tired of being told that making any kind of comparison with the Germany of the 1920s and 30s is anti-semitic. The parallels are plain to see. They have been plain for a long time now, and this deeper descent into violence of the Israeli right does little more than underline those parallels. Where I come from there’s a saying: a spade is a spade, not a shovel. Israel is not,and has never been, what it has always claimed to be; but it has been able to delude many into thinking that it is. Now Israel is no longer making any serious attempt to conceal what kind of state it really is, it is time that drawing attention in this context to the history of Hitler’s Germany is not just permissible, but necessary: and those Jews who feel the connection between their history and that of the Palestinians should no longer be frightened of saying so. This treacherous Israeli state is betraying the history of the Jewish people as well as the future of Palestine. It is driving the Israeli people towards a very dangerous destination. Can we possibly hope that they will see what is being done to them before it’s too late? The Germans found no answer to the fundamental question Hitler was asking them: how far will you follow me in my search for racial supremacy? I hope against all hope that the Israelis find the right answer to the very similar question the tunnel-visioned zealots who now govern them are asking.
BRILLIANTLY PUT!
I want everybody to read it. The reported day to day horrors, allowed and respected by the conventions Western politics, is corrupting our humanity, our longing to speak truth to lies. I found it a relief to read this articulate expression of my on-going anger. We should never forget Rachel Corrie – that was 2003 – and a supposedly, a shocked world, which has done nothing to change what she gave her life for. Thank you, Michael Haaretz
It’s difficult to add more, either to B.Michael’s passionate piece or to the comments above. What I should like to do is pose the questions raised to the “third party Zionist”, Sir Keir, and ask him his views as a (supposed) human rights lawyer.