Gaza Changed Everything: Things Cannot Stay the Same after Israeli Genocide
24 September 2014
By Ramzy Baroud
After every bloody episode of violence perpetrated by
Israel, media spin doctors are often deployed with one
grand mission: to absolve Israel of any responsibility
in their acts of carnage.
Not only do these apologists demonize Palestinians,
but anyone who dares to take a stand on their behalf.
The main staple of this Israeli strategy has been
blaming the victim. Such a tactic is nothing new in
the way the so-called "Arab-Israeli conflict" has been
presented in Western media, whose narrative has been
much closer to that of Israeli official and media
discourses than that of Palestinians. This continued
despite the decades-long military occupation,
successive wars, and countless massacres.
Specifically, since the Israeli siege on Gaza,
following the democratic elections that brought Hamas
to power in January 2006, Israel needed all of its
hasbara savvy, alongside that of its backers in
western countries to explain why a population has been
brutalized for making a democratic choice. The sheer
amount of deception involved in the cleverly knitted
story which purposely mixed between Hamas and al-Qaeda
(as they once did between late Yasser Arafat and
Hitler), among other ruses was a new low, even by
Israel's own standards.
While the media demonized Hamas, the resistance and
all the other "bad" Palestinians who voted for the
movement, it intentionally ignored the fascism that
was taking over Israeli society.
For the bad – as in "radical," "extremist," anti-peace
– Palestinian to exist, they have to be juxtaposed
with the good Palestinian, represented in Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and any faction,
person or leader willing to, practically speaking,
co-exist with the Israeli occupation. The PA went even
further, by cooperating with Israel to ensure the
demise of the Palestinian "radicals," as in those who
insist on resisting the occupation.
Thanks to the PA, the price for the Israeli occupation
has never been so cheap. Despite repeated attempts at
re-activating the so-called peace process, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always found a way
to torpedo such efforts, even those promoted by his
closest allies in Washington. "Peace" is a major risk
for Netanyahu, whose government is sustained by Jewish
nationalists and extremists, who feel no particular
need to end their colonization of the West Bank. Abbas
had done a great deal to ensure that Israel feels no
pressure to negotiate. Every attempt at resistance,
even by standing peacefully with placards and banners
in Ramallah's al-Manara Square was crushed; often
brutally.
Gaza, however, remained an exception. Israel's
brutality there has reached unprecedented levels,
especially after Israel's Cast Lead Operation, which
killed and wounded thousands. Many predicted that the
crimes in Gaza would turn the tide against Israel, but
they didn't. Israeli influence over the media was
still tight enough that somehow they managed to, at
least, neutralize the impact of Cast Lead. The advent
of the Arab Spring and the devaluing of human life, as
happened in Syria, Libya and Egypt, somehow buried the
Israeli crimes in Gaza; however temporarily.
But Israel's latest war on Gaza mounted to a genocide.
Israel's argument that it was "defending itself" was
no longer a sufficient excuse. No amount of hasbara
was enough to explain the burying alive of entire
families, the summary execution of civilians, the
pulverizing of entire neighborhoods, the gunning down
of fleeing children playing at the beach during a
deceptive moment of "lull," the destruction of dozens
of mosques and churches, the killing of civilians
hiding in UN schools-turned temporary shelters.
It was particularly embarrassing for Israel, but also
telling, that the Gaza resistance, which stood alone,
fighting tens of thousands of well-armed invaders from
tunnels, killed 64 Israelis. All but three were
soldiers, mostly killed inside Gaza.
As the world was awakened to the level of devastation
created by Israel in Gaza, many also became aware that
such wrath is not independent from the fascism that
has gripped Israeli society for years. In Israel,
there is no longer room for dissent, and those in the
highest positions of power, are the ones who openly
and freely preach genocide.
In his excellent article in the American Conservative
on August 06, Scott McConnell, wrote, "All societies
have their hate groups and extremists, but nowhere in
the democratic world are they nearer to the center of
power than Israel." He elaborated, "In the 1980s Meir
Kahane had a small following in Israel, but his
pro-ethnic cleansing party was made illegal. Now
Kahanists are in the center of the country's ruling
ideology."
This was discussed in context of statements made by
Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset and a
"top player in Israel's ruling Likud Party." Fieglin
called for Palestinians from Gaza to be resettled in
concentration camps, and all of Hamas and its
supporters to be "annihilated." Who can now, with a
good conscience, protest those who infuse the Nazi
analogy to what is happening in Palestine?
Meanwhile, in this age of social media, where
mainstream news networks no longer have complete
command over the narrative, no self-respecting
intellectual, journalist, official or any citizen with
a conscience can plead ignorance and stand on the
fence of neutrality.
Gaza has indeed changed everything. Israel's
criminality and fascism should no longer be open for
vibrant media debates, but it must be acknowledged as
an uncontested fact. Our language, as in our
perception, must also change to accommodate this
uncontested reality.
To end the Israeli genocide and occupation, the wheel
of continuous action must turn and keep on turning.
Those who support Israel must be exposed, and those
who facilitate the Israeli occupation and sustain its
war machine are partakers in the war crimes committed
daily in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. They must be
boycotted. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
movement must grow and serve as the main platform for
international solidarity.
Time for clever words and no action are long gone, and
those who remain "soft" on Israel, for whatever
reason, have no place in what is becoming a global
movement with uncompromising demands: end the
occupation, punish its sustainers, halt ethnic
cleaning and genocide, end the siege, and bring
Israeli and other culprits to the international
criminal court for their massive war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
- Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People's History
at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor
of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an
internationally-syndicated columnist, a media
consultant, an author and the founder of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father
Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto
Press, London).
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