The ugly scenes of dying and destruction in Gaza are a reminder that for Israel, violence will not be incidental, unintentional or coincidental. It’s half and parcel of its colonial DNA.
Just like the French in Algeria, the Dutch in Indonesia and South Africa, the Belgians within the Congo, the Spaniards in South America and the Europeans in North America, the Zionists have additionally dehumanised the natives of the land as a precursor to or justification for guilt-free repression and violence. However colonialism should not be conflated with Judaism. If something, the Jews have traditionally been the victims of racism for hundreds of years, rendering lots of them anti-colonialists.
In 1948, Israel was established on the ruins of one other folks, the Palestinians. It was made right into a Jewish majority state by the deliberate ethnic cleaning of the land’s 750,000 Palestinian inhabitants. Since then, Israel has maintained safety by state repression, army occupation, bloody wars and numerous massacres towards civilians.
Nazareth, the town of my delivery, was one of many few to be spared from ethnic cleaning however solely as a result of a army commander named Benjamin Dunkelman, a Canadian Jew who led the seventh Brigade of the Israeli military, refused to hold out his superiors’ evacuation order for this Christian majority metropolis, as he later wrote, primarily out of concern of the worldwide repercussions.
About 400 different Palestinian cities and villages weren’t so fortunate. They have been all depopulated, and a majority was totally decimated. Their inhabitants have been both killed or kicked out. The properties in them have been both demolished or confiscated. They got new Hebrew names. These Palestinians who tried to return to their properties have been both shot or forcibly despatched to neighbouring international locations.
In his e-book, Sacred Panorama: The Buried Historical past of the Holy Land Since 1948, Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli political scientist, writes: “Not for the reason that finish of the Center Ages had the civilised world witnessed the wholesale appropriation of the sacred websites of a defeated spiritual group by members of the victorious one.”
Since then, Israel has set its eyes on the folks per se, no matter its management or theirs. Palestinians are seen by Israel both as an enemy from inside that have to be eradicated or as a demographic menace that must be eliminated. It’s no coincidence that since its inception, Israel has established an oppressive regime of “Jewish superiority”. This regime was prolonged after the 1967 battle and occupation to everything of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore the Palestinian cry, “From the river to the ocean, Palestine might be free.”
For many years, Israel has used disproportionate pressure and carried out numerous massacres towards Palestinian civilians as a type of revenge, punishment and deterrence. Final month, the Palestinians commemorated the seventieth anniversary of the bloodbath of Qibya, the place, in retaliation for a Palestinian assault on an Israeli settlement that killed three folks, together with two youngsters, Israeli forces beneath the management of Ariel Sharon attacked the West Financial institution village of about 2,000 inhabitants, killing 69 Palestinians, largely ladies and youngsters.
That very same vengeful mindset has been utilized 70 years later in Gaza. It’s a deterrence technique, intentionally geared toward harming civilians to distance them from their leaders and the teams preventing of their identify. In the present day, the Israeli propaganda machine is busy collating determined and indignant cries, actual and manufactured, from Gaza residents projecting blame on Hamas for bringing Israel’s wrath upon them.
Israel by no means accepts an “eye for a watch” in its confrontations with the Palestinians. It insists on a ratio of 1 to 10 or 20 on the subject of its civilian casualties vs Palestinian civilian casualties. Therefore, the Palestinian civilian should pay a heavy value in each conflict, no matter any ethical or authorized consideration.
Nowhere is the dissymmetry extra pervasive than in Israel’s 56-year army occupation of the West Financial institution and Gaza, which by its very nature is a perpetual system of violence towards civilians. Era after technology of Palestinians have needed to endure a racist, ugly and unlawful army occupation that has included each day humiliations, collective punishment, land confiscations, and the destruction of lives and livelihoods. For Gaza, this has meant a 17-year siege of the strip by a dreadful and inhumane army blockade, army incursions, bombings of civilian infrastructure and extra.
Though Israel claims it has “no alternative”, its occupation is in reality pushed by technique, not by necessity. All through the previous six many years, Israel has managed the Palestinian territories partly to colonise them by a whole bunch of unlawful settlements on stolen Palestinian lands, partly to carry their inhabitants hostage till their leaders settle for its political dictates, which is by definition a type of state terrorism, which suggests utilizing violence towards civilians for political ends.
One other essential issue behind Israel’s violence towards Palestinian civilians, as I defined right here, is hatred – hatred that’s propelled by concern, envy and anger.
Israel fears all that’s Palestinian steadfastness, Palestinian unity, Palestinian resistance, Palestinian poetry and all Palestinian nationwide symbols. Such concern generates hatred as a result of a state that’s at all times afraid can’t be free. Israel is indignant on the Palestinians for refusing to surrender or give in, for not going away – distant. They refuse to cede their primary rights, not to mention concede defeat. Israel can be envious of Palestinian interior energy and outward satisfaction. It’s envious of their sturdy beliefs and readiness to sacrifice.
In brief, Israel hates the folks of Palestine for impeding the realisation of the Zionist utopia over all historic Palestine. And it particularly hates these dwelling in Gaza, as I wrote final yr, for turning the dream right into a nightmare.
However the reply in Gaza and the remainder of Palestine can’t be extra killing and extra occupation. In reality, Israel’s ongoing industrial-scale slaughter and nationwide repression of the Palestinians, in retaliation of Hamas’s ugly October 7 assaults in southern Israel, is each completely felony and terribly silly. Israel has tried to stay by the sword for the previous 75 years, however it has sowed extra of the identical insecurity, infamy and anger. Repeating the identical technique time and again and anticipating completely different outcomes is certainly silly. If it continues to disclaim the Palestinians a life and a future, Israel additionally will find yourself with no life or future price dwelling on this Arab area.