Lest we have forgotten, life is a precious gift. And among the living, human life is the most precious. That precious gift cannot be sustained without peace. And peace stands on four values: truth, justice, compassion, and empathy. Excessive deprivation or selective application of these values due to race, faith, politics, or exploitation leads to cynicism and ultimately violent resistance. History is full of haunting experiences and unlearned lessons.
On October 7, ‘1400’—later revised to 1200 Israelis—were killed and more than 200 were taken as hostages by Hamas fighters in an unprecedented, highly coordinated attack. While targeting soldiers of an occupation is considered a fair game under international law, targeting civilians of any age is an act that is considered war crimes and crimes against humanity. Having said that, I will be remis if I don’t underscore the fact that some Israeli survivors who were interviewed by Israeli State Radio and Haaretz newspaper have contradicted certain aspect of the official narrative of mass execution. They shared eye-witness accounts confirming that some Israeli commanders on the ground has given the order to take out Hamas fighters together with their hostages by shelling houses to the ground.
Contrary to the propaganda run amok, there were no 40 beheaded children ever found. Ask the President of United States who humiliated himself in front of the world by making such fabricated assertion only to withdraw it shortly after. Also fabricated is the widespread claim that the 1400 killed were mostly innocent civilians at a musical party and others in their homes. Thanks to the political opposition groups, media and human rights groups that pressured the Israeli government to reveal the names of the dead, now we know more than two/thirds were Israeli soldiers, not civilians. And ten of them were children between the ages of 15 and 4.
Genocide of the ‘human animals’
The sadistic temper tantrums exhibited by Netanyahu since October 8 is neither new nor is it an isolated case. It is the final phase of a systematic genocide that started in 1948. Unlike any violence in recorded history, Israel has turned Gaza into an ‘extermination camp’ and hospitals in Gaza as children slaughter houses where footages of severely traumatized children that are agonized by the severe burns caused by white phosphorus illegally used by Israel emerge in real time.
On October 28, as Israel was launching ‘the second phase’ or the ground invasion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a religious genocidal war on the entire people of Gaza. Invoking a biblical verse to justify his intent for genocide to the Jewish settler zealots, Biden’s neocons, and right-wing Christian evangelicals, Netanyahu asserted: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” This was in reference to an Old Testament narrative of the Amalekite genocide “ Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” Was this Netanyahu’s public expression of intent? Absolutely, yes. You may call it belligerence of impunity.
Israel has a long rap sheet of war crimes and crimes against humanity that extends more than seven decades. And today, that genocidal ideology is openly endorsed by extremist Rabbis such Rabbi Yaron Reuven who quotes verses out of the Torah and claims that “God commands (Israelis) to kill children.” So far, Israel has killed more than 12000 civilians; more than 4000 being children.
In his own words, Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, said: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed….We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” Since Israel has been using starvation as a weapon of war in the past 16 years, this latest order meant to takes that war crime to a new level; and that is what we have been witnessing. Israel has been targeting ambulances, first responders, and critical civilian infrastructures including the 25 hospitals in Gaza. And who could forget the missile attack on Al-Ahli Hospital that killed 1000 people. With absolute impunity guaranteed by the US, Israel continues its rampage to deliberately bomb electric grids, water supplies, schools, bakeries, mosques, and to kill “40 journalists,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Those whom they fail to kill, they assassinate their family members.
After Wael Al-Dahdouh of Al Jazeera’s family were killed—wife, son, daughter, and grandson—he led the funeral prayer on them before he wiped his tears and went on to resume his duty of reporting others’ suffering. “I felt that it was my duty, despite the pain and open wound, to get back in front of the camera, and to communicate with you on social media as soon as possible,” Al-Dahdouh said.
It was just a year ago when US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, condemning Russia’s attack on Ukraine energy infrastructure. Cutting “heat, water, electricity for children, the elderly, the sick” is a “barbaric” war crime. But when it comes to Israel’s decades long genocidal war crimes and crimes against humanity rhetoric is softened, rules are bent, and impunity is reinforced by presenting Israel as the victim. For decades, the victimhood spin or perception management talking point has not changed: Israel has the right to defend itself.
The Real Estate Inheritance Strategy
Zionists introduced ethnic supremacy and neo-religious nationalism whose core objective was to establish a Jewish state in a “land without people” through systematic genocide of the indigenous population- Palestinians. These Palestinians lived in harmony with the Jewish community of Palestine many who were anti-Zionists. Being anti-Zionist meaning opposing the genocidal policies of the Israeli regime. Zionists, though they have little to do with religion, claim that God gave them the Holy Land because they are His chosen people.
A recently leaked document confirmed Israeli’s plan to expel Gazans to Egypt. The Israeli
government dismissed the roadmap as a merely “a concept paper” proposed by its Intelligence Ministry. But the world has been witnessing the relentless barbaric attacks on Gaza confirming that Israel has installed a turbo engine on its old locomotive of systematic genocide. This latest would have marked the third expulsion of Palestinians after 1948 and 1967.
The Tragic Comedy
In what might have been the most dramatic theatrics of victimhood and moral blackmail ever staged at the UN, Israel’s Ambassador and his team wore yellow star of David at the Security Council. The Ambassador asserted that he and his team will continue wearing them to shame the UN Secretary General who said what any informed leader with moral courage would have said: Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” So, why was the Ambassador overreacting to that extent? Because such statement has the potential to encourage others to seek the critical context and the cause that Hamas is fighting for.
Professor Norman Finkelstein whose parents were holocaust survivors had this to say about that diplomatic melodrama: “Now these executers of evil of a very high order walk into the UN as their government of which they are members are carrying out a mass extermination and they pretend to pristine virginal innocence. It is such a disgusting grotesque mockery of the Nazi holocaust for them to place themselves in the same category as my parents’ respective families.”
Finkelstein has been critical of the Zionist moral hypocrisy that rejects comparing the genocide suffered by the Jews under Nazism to any other in human history lest the fair-minded or people of conscience may draw a parallel with the systematic genocide the Palestinian people have been undergoing for more than 75 years. “Do not compare” is the mantra of moral blackmailers,” Finkelstein wrote in his book The Holocaust Industry that unveiled Zionism’s powerful chokehold on the West.
The Last Breath
Contrary to public assertions that some American politicians, lobbyists, and misinformed activists have been making, anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, and the death of Zionism does not mean death of the Jews. The Jewish people have existed before Zionism, and they will continue to exist long after that genocidal ideology is buried.
Zionism is an ungodly movement to cleanse one ethnic group to accommodate another. It is an open membership elite political club to institutionalize policies of exceptionalism for Jews and to demonize Palestinians with disinformation. It is a multi-ethnic, multi-race, multi-faith, multi-interest, and multi-national network system of ‘end justifies means. And as the world has been witnessing since Oct 7, it is a first-class ticket to the dark side of the human soul.
As the US founding fathers accepted centuries ago, power must be kept in check. Because
unchecked power is the most addictive and indeed deadliest of all drugs. It has a sadistically psychedelic effect that causes those under its influence to hear blood like music and smell torture like perfume. They remain functional in that state of mind till they reach their delusional nirvana- impunity is an eternal exceptionalism and a perpetual privilege that only they deserve.
Though it is an epic oppression that is thoroughly covered in the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an, denying the genocide suffered by the Jewish people under Pharoah’s bondage does not get one stigmatized as an anti-Semite, nor does it get one censured, nor to lose a job, nor to be subjected to legal prosecution in countries where holocaust denial is illegal. But, as ironic as it may sound, publicly denying the holocaust is likely to subject one to all or most of the above.
Through disinformation, coercion, and enticement people are herded into an Orwellian mindless jingoism: Israel-first by any necessary evil. But they have forgotten that there remain people who adhere to this universal value: He who has no empathy for others deserves none, and he who has no compassion for others deserves none.
The massive protests around the world that are being led by ‘That’s Not Fair’ generation of all faiths, races, ideologies, and nationalities mark the end of an era. They are driving the last yellow nail into the Zionism coffin.