Burned alive for a Greater Israel

Shaban Al-Dalou, 19 years old, burned alive by IDF airstrike on refugee tents at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Gaza, October 14

Nine days ago, on October 6, Guardian Media Group – still seen as more or less progressive by a liberal intelligentsia – saw fit to publish an extraordinary exercise in genocide apologetics by the Zionist novelist and journalist, Howard Jacobson. I’ve twice written about him – on October 15 last year, eight days after Al Aqsa Flood, and four days ago apropos that October 6 piece – and want here to quote at some length from the latter.

After declaring extensively documented evidence of infanticide by the Israel Defence Forces to be of a piece with the infamous blood libel of mediaeval Christendom, Jacobson says:

Ask why they would want to target innocent children and make themselves despised among the nations of the Earth and no one can tell you. Hate on this scale seeks no rational explanation …

To which I responded:

This is either incredibly obtuse or fiendishly clever. First, Israel’s far right leadership has shown in a thousand ways it no longer cares whether it is “despised among the nations of the Earth” so long as it has the material support of US regimes of red stripe or blue. Second, that biblical way of putting things is bad salesmanship when Netanyahu told the nation not three weeks after the Gaza breakout that:

You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.

If the Amalek reference passed you by, [see] First Book of Samuel, Chapter 15, verses 1 through to 33 [or] my recent post, Israel as the end-times fanatics see it.

It seems to have escaped Jacobson’s notice – or he’s peddling sophistry – that Israel is steered by men and women who sense that the prize of a Greater (Biblical) Israel is in the eschatological grasp of True Believers for whom October 7 was a literal God-send; a now or never constellation of circumstances favouring that paradigm leap from ‘mowing the lawn’ once in a while to a final solution of the Amalekite Problem.

Now attack Amalek, and destroy all they have. Kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child …

1st Book of Samuel, 15:3

I followed with a fifty-eight second clip of IDF soldiers dancing around a smiling rabbi as they chant their intent to “Occupy Gaza” and “wipe off the seed of Amalek”. One line, repeated, declares chillingly that that “there are no uninvolved civilians …”

… hence this next clip, which – I warn you now – contains horrific footage.

How could we not see the second video as consequent on the first? But let’s set to one side the ravings of an insanely wrathful sky god, as conjured up in a three and a half thousand year old text. They may provide insights into the why, but for the how – as in, how does Israel get away with it? – we must look elsewhere. There’s one reason alone why this racist, terrorist state can with impunity defy international law and all standards of morality.

That reason being the unconditional backing of a superpower.

(OK, there are other reasons. A West fast shrinking – witness Europe’s economic suicide over Ukraine, and Australia’s self-harming to help the US contain China – from junior partner to vassal of Washington is equally supportive of the genocide. ¹ And there’s the flagrant bias and gaslighting of systemically corrupt corporate media. But these are secondary, corollaries of the truth that Israel’s licence to kill begins and ends in Washington DC.  )

The day The Observer ran Jacobson’s apologetics, I wrote a post on whether Israel rules the US or vice versa. I agreed with Matt Hoh (the former US Marine then State Department Official in Afghanistan who resigned over that war’s escalation by Barack Obama) that this is a chicken-and-egg question. At the same time I made clear my take, first set out in a book review more than five years ago – Israel: a beachhead in the middle east – that while its formidable Lobby is a powerful driver of US foreign policy, Israel enjoys such licence first and foremost because its interests align closely with those of the US ruling class.

But that post – Does Israel dictate US foreign policy? – was general in nature. My next will show how the vision of a Greater Israel, espoused by end-times fanatics like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvr, ² is in a marriage of convenience with the more secular vision of America’s Neocons as set out twenty-three years ago, twelve days after 9/11, to General Wesley Clark.

* * *

1. Other factors constrain moves against Israel in the global south. A piece today in Naked Capitalism – Nicaragua Severs Ties With Tel Aviv While Germany Creates “Genocide Clause” to Justify Sending More Arms to Israel – cites:
   • Fear of US-led retaliation. The US may be a hegemon in chronic decline but can still bully other countries. Witness the US Congress’ proposed US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act following Pretoria’s proceedings in the ICJ. The bill accuses South Africa of anti-Semitism and calls for a reassessment of US relations with it.
   • Fear of economic reprisals. When Ireland considered recognising Palestinian statehood this year, Israel’s ambassador in Dublin warned about worrying Israeli investors — a clear threat to some $5 billion in annual trade. To its credit, Ireland, like Spain and Norway, stood firm, and in May became one of the first Western European nations to recognise Palestine.
   • The risk of Israel suspending sales and support services for its high-tech weaponry. A case in point is Colombia, one of the few countries to have severed close ties with Israel. For decades Colombia has used Israeli cybersecurity systems, surveillance systems and other products to fight drug cartels and rebel groups. But when President Petro compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi concentration camps, Israel ceased military trade with Colombia. Petro hit back by suspending all arms purchases from Israel.
   • The threat of Israeli retaliation against politicians who fall out of line on Gaza and other issues. Israel, through UK-based proxies, played a lead role in the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn.

2. It’s a sign of the contempt in which Israel’s leadership holds its own citizens – akin to that of Europe’s leaders re the price its citizens are paying for America’s proxy war on Russia in Ukraine – that Finance Minister Smotrich is unbothered by Israel’s economic freefall. Such things are trifling overheads in the pursuit of Jehova’s Will. Meanwhile his cabinet colleague Itamar Ben-Gvr, charged with national security, has not only armed the illegal settlers of the West Bank. He has built a private militia, its prime loyalty not to Israel or even the IDF but to him in person, from their ideological vanguard. Since the settlers are 800,000 strong, and regard the Bible as a deed of entitlement to the land they stole, any attempt to enforce UN Resolution 2334 will – when military wisdom requires an attacker to outnumber a determined defender three to one – call for a force of some 2.5 million.