Israel’s twisted torturing of Gaza
In other words, by the twisted logic of Zionism: Israel can impose a blockade on Gaza that systematically starves civilians, leaves them to die without medicine, destroys their sewage and power systems, leaves them utterly dependent on international aid delivery which it imposes the most grotesque restrictions on; then it can demonise and assault an aid flotilla intended to break the blockade, fire on the residents, murder people in their sleep, the better to deter anyone from attempting to violate its supremacy in Palestine again; then it can manufacture whatever story it requires to force a hostile world to accept its actions, muddy the waters, juggle narratives, befuddle and confuse people, following up one bit of legerdemain with yet another and another, etc; and it can do all this while remaining the perpetual victim (remember Sderot!)
By Richard Seymour on Monday, May 31st, 2010 - 784 words.
The Israeli government and media has been vilifying the Free Gaza movement in a rabid build-up for weeks, but who would have anticipated this bloody culmination? Who would have expected this act of high seas piracy? Israeli claims that they were fired at, or even attacked with “knives” and “other cold weapons” when they illegally boarded the flotilla, before going on to stalk the sleeping and the innocent can surely be dismissed as vulgar propaganda. From the people who gave us the fastest re-definition of the term ‘civilian’ of any belligerent state in recent history, such talk is emetic. The idea that there was a “fight”, any kind of meaningful combat, between unarmed peace activists and trained killers is just absurd. But let’s note a few things. For a start, it is Israel’s official contention that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that their murderous blockade has no severe consequences for the people of Gaza, even at the same time as their official spokespersons speak of Gaza explicitly in the language of genocide. This after the Goldstone report and a mountain of evidence compiled by relief agencies and NGOs documenting the effects of Israel’s blockade. It is, of course, absurd and despicable, but it should remind us what kind of state we’re dealing with, what kind of logical somersaults it is capable of performing while maintaing perfect equanimity.
Now recall that for weeks the Israeli state has been declaring that the aid flotilla constitutes a violent attack on Israeli sovereignty, though Israel has no sovereign right to police the borders of Gaza. They claimed that the convoy was bringing assistance to terrorists, and warned that it was being funded by the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. They claim that such aid vessels help keep Hamas in power and Gilad Shalit (who he?) locked up. They claim that the convoy, rather than the blockade itself, constitutes a violation of international law. Israel’s ability to exhale falsehoods and absurdities seamlessly, poker-faced, and then to suddenly and without missing a beat alter its story when it becomes clear that not even its loyalist drones are gullible enough to believe it, is not unique but it has a unique pedigree. For the Israeli state is singular in its self-righteousness. This is built in to official doctrine and practise, entrenched in its forms of governmentality. It is always the victim, no matter what it’s doing today – whether slaughtering refugees in Sabra and Shatilla, or murdering sleeping families in Dahiya, from Nakba to Cast Lead – it is always on the precipice of being exterminated by a new wave of Arab Nazis. Given this, any effort to undermine its ‘defensive’ actions is an attack not only on its expansive notions of sovereignty, but on the ‘Jewish state’.
By the logic of Israel, any abridgment of its right to murder Palestinians constitutes an act of antisemitism, an existential attack on the Jewish people, whom they represent by proxy. Its job, then, is to do whatever it deems fit in discouraging and punishing said ‘antisemites’ while aggressively retailing whatever they do to an increasingly hostile world which, at any rate, they insist is driven by exterminationist antisemitism anyway. If the two ends – the violent preservation of Israeli supremacy in the Middle East, and the global PR – increasingly come into conflict, this is only because of a ‘new antisemitism’, not because of anything Israel actually does.
In other words, by the twisted logic of Zionism: Israel can impose a blockade on Gaza that systematically starves civilians, leaves them to die without medicine, destroys their sewage and power systems, leaves them utterly dependent on international aid delivery which it imposes the most grotesque restrictions on; then it can demonise and assault an aid flotilla intended to break the blockade, fire on the residents, murder people in their sleep, the better to deter anyone from attempting to violate its supremacy in Palestine again; then it can manufacture whatever story it requires to force a hostile world to accept its actions, muddy the waters, juggle narratives, befuddle and confuse people, following up one bit of legerdemain with yet another and another, etc; and it can do all this while remaining the perpetual victim (remember Sderot!), while doing nothing more than defending itself, defending its famed “right to exist”, and by proxy the right of the Jewish people to exist. That, the logic of Zionism upon which the Israeli state is founded, alone explains the insane combination of thuggishness, deceit, secrecy and sanctimony that has always characterised Israel’s conduct.
Meanwhile, the British government is rapidly moving to fulfil its promise to make it possible for Israeli war criminals to visit the UK without being disturbed by Inspector Knacker.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...One Comment
Leave a Reply
Articles by this author
-
The class basis of the UK's Conservative Party
Unless there is a revival of class struggle which plays out inside the parliamentary system, the franchise is liable to become once more the property of the ruling class, with the sharp-elbowed middle classes that David Cameron speaks of bargaining for largesse. On the other hand, to the extent that Labour is successful in rebuilding its support, business may well transfer its loyalties to Labour the better to manage the fall-out. Indeed, as in 1945, it may be that an upsurge in class struggle gives Labour the opportunity to be the agent of that new economic paradigm that the more far-sighted capitalists are looking for in vain
-
Public opinion does not exist
Public opinion is an "artifact, pure and simple, the function of which is to dissemble that the state of opinion at any given moment is a system of forces and tensions and that nothing is more inadequate for representing the state of opinion than a percentage".
-
Epochal nature of financial crisis must be grasped by unions
The truly epochal nature of this crisis needs to be registered before a proportionate response can be mustered, and I have the sinking feeling that as far as the labour movement is concerned, the last people to get it will be the union bureaucracy
-
Britain's nasty government
At the moment, polls show that the government's strategy is working, and that most people acquiesce in the cuts agenda. I would say 'support', rather than acquiesce, but this would imply that the agenda was being approved rather than met with terrorised compliance
-
Chinese workers kick back
The Chinese working class is on the move: there is a wave of strikes taking place across China, and they're winning. Workers at Honda have won a 30% pay increase in the latest strike affecting that company, while workers at FoxConn have reportedly been offered a 100% increase in 'basic pay' (with strings attached) after strikes and a string of employee suicides
-
George Osborne and UK cuts to public services
However, financial capitalists are fighting hard to limit this, and the signs are that Osborne is prepared to fight their corner. To that extent, the cuts policy points to the continued ability of the financial fraction of capital to assert its hegemony. Especially since manufacturing and services capital is heavily financialised and depends for a considerable portion of its profitability on the City, which redistributes global surplus values to the benefit of UK capital
-
Chutzpah and hasbara
-
Israel's twisted torturing of Gaza
In other words, by the twisted logic of Zionism: Israel can impose a blockade on Gaza that systematically starves civilians, leaves them to die without medicine, destroys their sewage and power systems, leaves them utterly dependent on international aid delivery which it imposes the most grotesque restrictions on; then it can demonise and assault an aid flotilla intended to break the blockade, fire on the residents, murder people in their sleep, the better to deter anyone from attempting to violate its supremacy in Palestine again; then it can manufacture whatever story it requires to force a hostile world to accept its actions, muddy the waters, juggle narratives, befuddle and confuse people, following up one bit of legerdemain with yet another and another, etc; and it can do all this while remaining the perpetual victim (remember Sderot!)
-
Willie Walsh is trying to bust the union
The cabin crew staff, for their part, have been patient and tolerant. They have accepted voluntary redundancies and wages cuts. BA workers have even worked for free when asked to do so. That is a staggering act of generosity toward their employers, an investment in the future of the company, which has been rewarded with outright malice and contempt. It is all the more astonishing when you consider that cabin crew salaries start at £12k a year, which is just on the poverty threshold. They have sought agreement at every stage and have been consistently rebuffed, and their good faith betrayed. They are at the end of their tether, forced to strike action by an aggressive management intent on smashing the union
-
Labourism and the working class
So don't believe the hype - New Labour is not so much dead as undead. Like the zombie banks, it will roll ahead on life support for the foreseeable future, even as it further hacks away at its base, the very support system that keeps it animated. It is not about to emerge from a period of chrysalis as a beautiful, vibrant new life form. The secular trend remains for Labour to increasingly erode its position in the working class, for party identifications to decrease, for exclusively parliamentary politics to become less and less relevant
-
Immigration and the BNP
Strategically, then, one obvious response is to mobilise the anti-fascist vote in the short-term, and combat the broader climate of racism in the medium-term. Long-term, we have to be about rebuilding the Left in those areas, getting workers in the new industries organised, and (re)constructing a radical left-wing electoral challenge to New Labour
-
Revolution in Kyrgyzstan: nothing to do with tulips
If the 'Tulip revolution' wasn't a precise replica of its Georgian and Ukrainian cousins, this revolt is as different as can be. Despite an extraordinarily violent crackdown by Bakiyev, the grassroots insurgency prevailed. Protesters succeeded in taking over police stations, weapons, even winning police over to their side. They have demonstrated that the state does not possess a tight control over the means of violence, and that therefore popular demands cannot be ignored or suppressed. The Social Democrats, despite attempting to take the reins of power, still don't really control the country. If they attempt to control it with violence, they may face the same end as Bakiyev and Akayev
Your one-sided story against Israel is typical of liberal news….Why don't you get both sides first before rushing to judgement against Israel??? Of course you can't do that because it might look like you are giving Israel to much credit—and that just might put you in jeporady with the Whitehouse…Who cares, just print the damn truth instead of trying to make Israel look bad..That is the trouble with all you writers for the media, whether it is by paper, television, magazine or Internet, you always give a one-sided view…That is why FOX is the most watched News Outlet due to your incompetence in printing the truth….