This time Israel has gone too far and is losing everything
JVL Introduction
This article looks back to 2006 and links with the horrors of today. The rise of the far right in Israel, as in so many other places, has been part of the reality there. Of course, appalling treatment of Palestinians has never been only a project of the far right and Labour paved the way for normalising the extremism of the current government of Israel, where it is possible for one of its most senior ministers (Smotrich, Minister of Finance) to publish his belief that blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is “justified and moral” even if it causes 2 million civilians to die of hunger, adding however that the international community won’t allow this to happen. Times of Israel (Aug 5th 2024)
Mizraji here argues that there is no coming back from where we are now when aid lorries are blocked and protestors demand the right to rape and torture prisoners; all pretence that Israel is a “sane democracy” has become ridiculous.
But in this process of demise, how many more Palestinians will be murdered, injured, displaced, incarcerated, tortured? There is no let up to standing for Palestine and it is part of the same existential struggle as standing with Muslim communities under attack in the UK and elsewhere.
There is no choice but to continue the fight for justice and equality, for decency, for humanity.
LL
This article was originally published by Alon Mizraji Blog on Tue 30 Jul 2024. Read the original here.
Israel Is Already Over
What is left is contaminated memories, apparitions and foreign interests
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I really hope so! One of the only sane articles to have been written about this never ending genocide and war mongering Israel.
This is truly a terrifying account. I can’t fault it but I dread the future as much as I abhor the present. As long as the US and the U.K. and many European countries continue to give support and cover, the pain looks to be drawn out which can only be devastating for Jews and Arabs in Palestine, alike.
Starvation is genocide. When Israeli Government ministers propose committing genocide, no-one complains. It is within their capability to do so. The entire Palestinian population is said to back Hamas’ call for the “destruction” of Israel, something which would entail taking on the might of the USA, UK, Germany, France, the whole EU, Australia…… (You get the picture). Palestine doesn’t even have a real army and no air force or navy. (Can you see the picture yet?). Israel is committing ethnic cleansing and genocide. Do we have to wait until most Palestinians are DEAD or ejected from their homeland before we complain that a genocide has taken place with acts of ethnic cleansing; germ warfare (polio); “indiscriminate” bombing and sniping (targeted at civilians), although we don’t know how we missed such acts!
‘Israel has failed in everything it set out to achieve: it did not establish ‘a safe haven’ for Jews, it did not make Jews just one more nation out of many, and it did nothing to improve the way Jews are perceived by other peoples.’ This has been obvious for many years, yet there are still too many people, Jews and others, who are so blinded by the notion of Israel being the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ they just cannot see the reality. But they will not be able to avoid the truth for ever, and then they will have to find a new justification for Israel’s behaviours. But I wonder: I have seen too much of the propaganda currently pouring like sewage into the social media; much of it is set on avoiding every issue of genuine importance and concentrating on the Israeli project as if life in Israel was normal. There will be those who want to believe that it is, or would be but for those pesky Arabs, and so will believe it, regardless of what they might actually know.
First.. the International Community did let Israel deliberately starve 2 million Palestinians and STILL is..
Secondly.. Netanyahu is NOT the first or the only Genocidal Megalomaniac to lead Israel.. EVERY Israeli leader since its creation has been a Genocidal Megalomaniac.. Naftali Bennett escalated the violence , but seemingly not fast enough for the majority of Israelis who then voted Netanyahu back in .. Israel signed contracts with BP for the Gaza Gas field over TWO years ago.. getting on for THREE now.. The Times Of Israel reported weeks ago that Hamas had offered to release ALL the Hostages on Oct9th.. Oct9th.. Israel said NO.. The Hostages are the excuse needed to annihilate Gaza & take possession of the Gas Field.. Sunak’s father in law has shares in the company involved..(INFOSYS).. and The West want that new source of fossil fuel.. .
So if it’s true that “Israel is over” or it will be soon, then what for the Jews everywhere, whether they’ve been Zionist, anti-Zionist, or simply uncommitted? Of course it might realise the dream of a single state for all its citizens, but even with the best will in the world, how long is that going to take? If even recovery from such an appalling past is ever possible.
But alternatively, might there be, throughout the diaspora, an overwhelming sense of humiliation, even of nihilism? The people who got their whole sense of being Jewish through identification with the Zionist state? Almost back to a post-Holocaust nullity and vitiation, lamentation, the return of a lachrymose history. Defeat, despair, existential depression.
Or a countering, vengeful explosion?
But then suppose the USA must try to not let Israel “be over”, well, that could be the last hurrah of that dying empire, overextended, exhausted, impoverished. And how much of the rest of the world will it take with it?
A further thought: I forgot that things will be different for the ultraorthodox antizionist Jews who always wanted the end of the “idolatrous, blasphemous” Israeli state, so they’ll (I suppose) feel happy and vindicated in seeing God’s wishes implemented through the workings of history. Or something like that.
At the other end of the religious spectrum, progressive, reform and liberal, Jews will also set about rebuilding and restoring the public affirmation of Jews’ good name, because they (we) too will feel vindicated. A lot of hard work ahead.
As stark and powerful summation of the dread reality of Israel with its mask ripped away as I have read.