Today’s Observer features an opinion piece by British novelist and journalist, Howard Jacobson. Under the header – Victim-blaming is a crime to progressives. Except when it comes to … Jews 1– he opens with his grief for fellow Jews killed by Hamas. That’s a human reaction we can all understand, and I for one have no desire to slight or otherwise take away from its sincerity.
My issue is with two things. One is the extrinsic factor that Howard Jacobson’s point of view is of a piece with the overwhelming thrust of Guardian Media Group coverage this past week. It’s all very well pointing out, as two readers did yesterday, that GMG ran a pro Palestinian piece the same day by Sarah Helms. But as I wrote in response:
… the quantitative trumps the qualitative. A content analysis of Guardian coverage of Palestine this past week will show the Sarah Helm piece to be the exception proving the rule – that for every Guardian word in support of the Palestinian case there’ll be a thousand trashing or covertly denying it.
The other is intrinsic to Howard Jacobson’s words. This man grieves for his people, and in other circumstances would be entitled to leeway over arguments made in distress. But these are not other circumstances. He chose to vent his grief in a public and influential space even as a scale of slaughter already dwarfing the numbers slain by Hamas, a fact wholly consistent with body counts at large in the apartheid Jewish State …
…. was and remains in full swing.
Credit where it’s due, Mr Jacobson does have tears to spare for Gaza’s grieving, but see how he lessens and in effect undermines his own protestations of empathy:
And these are Gazans I am weeping for. For all I know, they were dancing in these now ruined streets when pictures of butchered Israelis went around the world. For all I know, they are crying today for terrorists – perhaps their own children or brothers – who didn’t make it back to boast of the number of Israelis they had killed. And it’s very likely they taught their children from the cradle to despise all Jews, for that was no occasional, skin-deep animosity in southern Israel last week. I am sorrowing for an old man and a distraught mother who think I am an animal and that my children are animals, too.
But for the very reason that I am not an animal I can see them only as people with feelings like my own. Grief is grief. Fear is fear. What we share we should not scorn. [emphasis added]
Of which I say three things:
- That “for all I know …” is a disgrace. For all I know, Netanyahu and Biden hook up every New Year’s Eve to dine on roasted Palestinian children. The statement adds nothing to our knowledge or understanding but does stoke bilious hatreds – again, under cover of grief and even empathy.
- Ditto the “it’s very likely …”. It deploys a key theme of Israeli apologetics: that antipathy to a racist state is at root itself racist, and not politically driven.
- Most extraordinary of all is his “I am not an animal …” That pretty speech by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, announcing Israel’s intent to commit the war crime of collective punishment, can hardly have escaped Mr Jacobson’s notice:
We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly. We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.
Later Mr Jacobson offers this:
… an educated Gazan woman tries my humanity to its limits when she assures [BBC] Newsnight that “Maybe Hamas killed Israeli soldiers,” but shrugs aside the suggestion they killed anyone else. She shakes her head. “No, we do not kill.” It’s impossible to know whether she is afraid to admit the truth or simply does not believe it. [emphasis added]
The “limits” to Howard Jacobson’s “humanity” are swiftly reached, if the free pass he in effect gives the collective lethal punishment of Gaza is anything to go on. But soon enough we’re back with the animal thing:
Who but a demi-wolf would tear the life out of sleeping babies? Not even if those babies are Jews? Not even if they illegally occupy Palestinian land? Now there you have me.
I shouldn’t be surprised that Guardian editors allow such incendiary licence. I’ve long known the “comment is free but facts are sacred” canard to be a hollow and selectively applied sentiment at GMG. Just for the record, here’s Al Jazeera on the subject:
When US President Joe Biden publicly expressed his outrage at Hamas militants who invaded southern Israel and beheaded babies they had killed at Kfar Aza kibbutz last weekend, the public shock was both extensive and understandable. The gruesome news spanned the world’s media in hours.
But subsequent reports revealed that no such beheadings have been verified by any Israeli or international source – probably because they never happened. This was just one dramatic incident of false reports spreading in the public sphere via mass media to denigrate one’s foes and support one’s allies. Thousands of other false reports like this circulate daily in the media – though not necessarily so savage, or spread by such luminaries as the most powerful man on Earth, at the height of an intense conflict in Palestine and Israel that has polarised global opinion.
The beheaded babies tale originated with a report on Israel’s i24News site by reporter Nicole Zedeck, from her interview with Israeli reserve soldier David Ben Zion. Max Blumenthal and Alexander Rubinstein reportedon October 11 that Ben Zion is a notorious radical leader in Israel’s West Bank settler movement. Among other things, he called on rampaging armed settlers earlier this year to wipe out the Palestinian village of Harawa, which settlers attacked and burned several times.
Media around the world quickly picked up the i24News report, and the Israeli Prime Minister’s spokesman said that babies and toddlers “with their heads decapitated” had been found at the site. CNN, among others, reported beheadings and “ISIS-style executions”. When journalists asked a spokesman for the Israeli military about the story, the reply was, “We cannot confirm but you can assume it happened.”
Within days the Israeli foreign ministry and armed forces and some correspondents said there was no evidence for the beheadings, and the White House said Biden was quoting press reports he’d read. It seemed clear by October 12 that no evidence existed to confirm the baby beheadings story. It was fake news, planted by an ideological warrior to stoke tensions in the heat of battle.
Moving on:
What we don’t know about the education of a terrorist we can guess. But those in European capitals who celebrated the slaughter of Jews of all ages present a greater challenge to comprehension. How does a feminist put aside all she believes to cheer on a rapist? Is rape in one cause allowably different from rape in another? How many lecturers in human rights partied through the night after being shown the footage of Israelis denied their right to live? [emphasis added]
Again, a few remarks:
- For light on the education of terrorists we might look to the training of an Israel Defence Force whose soldiers abet the atrocities of illegal settlers, take out journalists (for obvious reasons) and enthusiastically uphold the ‘right’ of a state meeting standard definitions of apartheid to oppress, humiliate and terrorise a people deemed inferior.
- Howard Jacobson doesn’t tell us who is celebrating the slaughter of Jews – as opposed to celebrating what, seemingly, was a remarkable operation of the kind routinely glorified when US Navy Seals, British SAS or crack Israeli units perform lethal acts with chutzpah. Either we condemn violence of any stripe, or refrain from pushing out absurdly one-sided drivel on the matter.
- Feminists cheering on rapists? Mr Jacobson: (a) offers zero evidence of rape (we might validly posit Hamas, for all its other sins, being less culpable here than other armies in the red mist of slaughter); (b) fails to identify – a recurring theme, this – which ‘feminists’ cheer it on.
- How many human rights lecturers partied through the night? Is Mr Jacobson wearing his story-telling or journalist hat here? Or does he think his very public grieving absolves him of all responsibility to differentiate?
Enough. It’s time we cut to the chase in the form of ..:
… the fallacious narrative that Zionists dropped out of a clear blue sky to occupy someone else’s country …
What a childishly strawman argument! No informed authority on what happened in 1948 and its run-up suggests Zionists dropped out of a sky of any hue. For what happened, try the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. 2 For why Western governments let it happen, try my review of Israel: a Beachhead. I’ve plugged it a few times this past week (though its author and I part company on that other WW3 flashpoint on Russia’s southwestern border) but make no apologies for that. As with Ukraine and Taiwan, arguments exclusively focused on the rights and wrongs at ground level too often miss the bigger picture …
Here again is the link to Howard Jacobson’s Observer piece.
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I’ll close with three picks from today’s other output on this subject. First, Seymour Hersh:
THE PLAN TO WIPE OUT HAMAS
As refugees crowd the border with Egypt, Israel prepares to hit Gaza City with US-supplied bunker busters
It’s been one week since the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel took place. The shape of what is to come from the Israeli armed forces is clear, and uncompromising.
Over the past week Israeli jets have conducted around-the-clock bombing of non-military targets in Gaza City. Apartment buildings, hospitals, and mosques were torn apart, with no prior warning and no effort to minimize civilian casualties.
By the end of the week Israeli jets were also dropping leaflets telling the citizens of Gaza City and its surrounding areas in the north that those who wished to survive had better start going south—walking if necessary—25 miles or more—to the Rafah border crossing leading to Egypt …
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Among other aspects of his post today – including not only his familiar turf of assessing balance of forces but, more unusually for him, a stab at media analysis – Simplicius the Thinker zeros in on the significance for Egypt of forcing more than a million collectively punished Gazaans down to the Rafah crossing:
Israeli Conflict Takes Eschatological Turn …
… Naturally, the northern Erez checkpoint is off limits, and they want Palestinians to flood south, eventually to use the Rafah checkpoint to clear out to Egypt.
The goal is for the IDF to storm northern Gaza and force everyone to the south. Once that’s accomplished, they will announce a new sector to be cleared, and continue pushing southward until every single Palestinian is ethnically cleansed and pushed out through Rafah into Egypt’s Sinai.
Don’t believe me? It was confirmed just yesterday in a brilliant verbal trap set by Marc Lamont Hill in his interview with advisor to Netanyahu, Danny Ayalon. Listen very carefully to the second half of the interview where Hill cajoles Ayalon into admitting the truth of their plans:
“We want to open a humanitarian corridor so they can leave…”
“Only through the Rafah border right?”
Ayalon gives a very unctuous smirk—he knows he’s been had. Flushing, he desperately tries to deflect to another topic.
It’s ironic, by the way, that Lamont Hill is the guy who was famously fired by CNN for making an “anti-Israel” statement.
It’s clear as day for anyone with eyes to see. Israel is blocking off the northern half of Gaza, bombing anyone who goes there, in order to push the entire population south into Egypt. It’s textbook ethnic cleansing and genocide …
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Israel has been struggling with a rapidly worsening PR crisis ever since Palestinians started getting internet access and smartphones with video cameras and exposing Israeli apartheid abuses. So if you’re wondering why they cut off Gaza’s internet and electricity, that’s why.
Studded as ever with insightful gems, my final choice for today is – surprise surprise – Caitlin Johnstone again. I’m replicating her post in full:
It’s Not The ‘Israel-Hamas War’, It’s The Israel-Gaza Massacre
Calling it the Israel-Hamas war creates the false impression that this is a war that is directed exclusively at Hamas when it’s really an ethnic purge that’s directed at all Palestinians in Gaza.
Stop calling it the “Israel-Hamas war”. It’s the Israel-Gaza massacre. Calling it the Israel-Hamas war creates the false impression that this is a war that is directed exclusively at Hamas when it’s really an ethnic purge that’s directed at all Palestinians in Gaza.
The child body count alone makes it clear that this isn’t a war against Hamas; I saw an anonymous account point out on Twitter that the number of children killed in this onslaught after one week already exceeds the total number of children killed after a year and a half of fighting in Ukraine, per the United Nations.
Laying complete siege to a civilian population and bombing anything that stands would be an extraordinary abomination in any war. And this is not a war, it’s an enclosed shooting range with military explosives and human targets.
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Americans should probably worry about the rapid legitimization of this idea that civilians who have a government that kills people are all legitimate targets.
According to the logic of collective punishment we’re seeing circulated with regard to Gazans and Hamas, all American civilians deserve to die horribly because they permit themselves to be ruled by a regime which is orders of magnitude more violent and destructive than Hamas.
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Hamas is responsible for Hamas’ decisions, Israel is responsible for Israel’s decisions. Hamas is responsible for the Hamas attack, Israel is responsible for provoking that attack via apartheid abuses and for bombing civilians in retaliation for it. It’s not actually complicated.
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Israel has been struggling with a rapidly worsening PR crisis ever since Palestinians started getting internet access and smartphones with video cameras and exposing Israeli apartheid abuses. So if you’re wondering why they cut off Gaza’s internet and electricity, that’s why.
Israel was 100% aware that cutting off power and internet to Gaza would prevent Palestinians from recording and publishing footage of its coming war crimes. They struck a fatal blow to citizen journalism in Gaza, thereby blinding the whole world to what’s happening there.
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The mass media asked you to believe the Hamas attack was “unprovoked”. Then they asked you to believe blatant babies-on-bayonets atrocity propaganda. Now they’re asking you to believe Jewish kids were in school before dawn on a Saturday morning in Israel. Western journalism, folks.
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The only reason so many Israel apologists scrambled to circulate unverified stories about beheaded babies and mass rapes instead of waiting for evidence was to make the real atrocities Israel is perpetrating and will continue to perpetrate in Gaza look reasonable and appropriate.
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After this current crisis is over I’m probably going to think a lot about the fact that MSNBC suspended three Muslim reporters during Israel’s Gaza assault because it didn’t want Muslims reporting on it.
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I used to think all genocidal massacres are bad but then some really smart Israel apologists explained to me that this genocidal massacre is completely different because this genocidal massacre’s perpetrators believe they are doing the right thing for a good reason.
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If there were two million Jewish people trapped by Christians in a giant open-air prison and placed under total siege, being told that half of them had 24 hours to relocate into the other half or be killed, nobody would have any confusion about what they were witnessing.
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Everyone’s got a serious case of 9/11 brain right now.
You know about 9/11 brain, kids? It’s when something scary happens and everyone goes insane and starts believing a bunch of lies and consenting to power-serving agendas that do exponentially more damage than the initial trauma.
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I keep getting people acting like it’s controversial or even outlandish to say that Israel is an apartheid state. It’s not. The leading mainstream western human rights groups say it’s apartheid, as does the top human rights group in Israel.
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They said we need more censorship because of Covid. They said we need more censorship because of Russia. They said we need more censorship because of January 6. Now they say we need more censorship because of the Hamas attack.
Maybe they just want more censorship?
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The primary job of Israel apologists in the coming days is going to be finding ways to spin this self-evidently terrible thing as perfectly fine and appropriate.
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Before engaging an Israel apologist in a debate about the ongoing Gaza purge, it’s probably a good idea to ask them to clarify whether there’s any amount of death and destruction Israel could inflict there that would cause them to stop supporting what Israel is doing. Is there a death count that they’d consider too much? How many dead Palestinian civilians are they willing to tolerate in this current operation? Tell them to give you a number.
If they can’t give you a number and place a limit on how much human butchery they’re willing to accept from Israel, that tells you they’re not actually defending Israel for reasons that have anything to do with humanitarian concerns or valuing human life. They’re saying they’ll defend Israel no matter what it does and no matter how many atrocities it commits, because their support for Israel is entirely based on ideology and/or religion. In which case there’s no reason to continue the debate, because you can’t debate someone out of their Christian fundamentalism or Zionism or Islamophobia or whatever it is that’s driving their support. They’re not arguing with you out of any interest in morality or justice or truth or facts, they’re arguing with you solely to advance an agenda.
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The greatest trick white anti-semites ever pulled was getting Jews to leave western society in droves and move to a far away country to spend their lives beating up Muslims.
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- As regards Howard Jacobson’s title, it’s my experience as a septuagenarian gentile that for liberal progressives the default position was one of sympathy for Israel on account of the Holocaust and, on shakier grounds, admiration for ‘making the desert bloom’ and a military derring-do showcased as David prevailing over Goliath. That tide of pro-Israeli sentiment began to turn in the 80s: its signature event the 1982 massacre at Shatila and Sabra.
- Since writing this post a reader has sent me a Scott Ritter piece – longer than any other I’ve read by him – of extraordinary compassion, depth and view-from-the-trenches detail. At 8,500 words it’s no five minute read but I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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