Since 10/07/23, most Western governments have assisted Israel’s overt genocidal intent in Gaza with logistical support or diplomatic cover. What is the unquestioned narrative justifying their subversion of democracy’s core values?
The content table will be completed as this post’s publication progresses.
Introduction
When a femicide is perpetrated, the murderer’s heartfelt excuse is always something to the effect of “She made me do it!” Glossing over his relentless abuse and harassment, he is totally dishonest and entirely sincere at the same time. In his mind, he is the victim. The self-reinforcing pattern of reactive emotions he has regularly indulged in has shaped the reality of his life—or what seems like it to him.
All war propaganda efforts in history rely on this powerful capacity for self-delusion. If people are convinced of their righteousness or victimhood, the most brutal violence will easily appear legitimate. This is why a country’s alleged right to defend itself must answer a clear aggression and respect proportionality between military targets and collateral civilian damage. If a government does not conform to this bare minimum, its behavior is akin to that of a psychopath unable to relate to anyone but himself.
Israel’s supporters and allies argue that since it is a democracy, the country necessarily fights the good fight and merely defends itself against its aggressors. This is forgetting that Zionism—Israel’s foundational principle—runs at the exact opposite of the democratic ideal. Settlers logically enjoy full citizenship from the state that represents them, but natives are either second-class citizens or live under apartheid while their land is continuously stolen from them. Whether at a low or high level of intensity, war is thus inherent to Zionism’s colonial endeavor, whose violent history did not start with the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, 2023.
Since that fateful day, however, the genuine perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has revealed itself in a crude light. Not only have Gazans been the target of an avowed genocidal intent, but in the West Bank, Israeli settlers, backed by the army, feel emboldened to harass, kill, and steal Palestinian properties at an unprecedented rate and are just waiting for the full annexation of the whole territory. In South Lebanon, more than a million people were displaced in November 2024 due to heavy bombardments by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), which does not seem ready to leave the place any time soon in spite of previous accords with Lebanese authorities. And yet, Israel is the innocent one, allegedly perpetrating all of the above for its very survival.
The question, then, would be: Its survival as what? Democracy is founded upon universal and unconditional moral principles; how could it prevail through the indefinite and exclusive use of violence? If it really were about Israel’s security, peace would have been built long ago to ensure it. In the story that has unfolded for more than a hundred years, Zionists eerily look like the crazed psychopath alluded to, claiming for the sake of their own endeavors that there can be no goodwill on the other side. Whether or not they buy the charade, Israel’s “allies” behave like the helpless psychopath’s partner accepting to be bullied—in their case, into ever more destruction and suffering for a vast majority of innocent people. Why, in their hearts and minds, do they endorse a narrative that equates war to peace? One thing is for sure: We owe the children of Gaza the courage of lucidity.
1. Deafeating Hamas
a. Duplicity
Given the little chance most of them had to come back alive, the Hamas militants who committed the slaughter of hundreds of Israelis and abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip on 10/07/23 likely were unmarried young men. This means that they had spent almost all of their lives in what some Israeli officials themselves called a “concentration camp,” referring to the blockade put in place by Israel after Hamas was elected as the governing body of the Gaza Strip in 2006. 10/07/23 did not happen in a vacuum, and the fact that Gazans have lived for years on end in an open-air prison gives the event of that day its definite context.
To understand more precisely how, let’s remember that a blockade is aimed at creating a state of deprivation, obstructing all opportunities for economic development, and barring people from moving outside of the blocked area. Concerning the Gaza Strip, moreover, it had constantly been maintained at the highest level of severity possible, to the point that the Israeli administration used to joke about putting Gazans “on a diet” by periodically restricting food aid to the least amount of calories humanly viable.
Another aspect is as crucial. Since Gazans were trapped in an open-air prison, they were also left at the mercy of their wardens. “Mowing the lawn” was another amusing way for the Israeli administration to label what it saw as a duty: the collective punishment of Gazans in retaliation for Hamas’ sporadic attacks on Israeli citizens. These killing sprees resulted in thousands of Palestinian deaths between 2008 and 2022. The blueprint of savagery had thus been handed down to the 10/07/23 perpetrators. Deprived of a decent future and with no choice other than a slow or quick death under Israeli rule, what did they have to lose?
This context explains what happened; it does not justify it. Nothing can. Strangely, however, the Israeli government holds that this self-evident moral principle can work in reverse according to who it is applied to. Nothing can justify the October 7th, 2023 massacre, yet the event of that day justifies everything in Gaza.
How can the universality of moral values be enforced in polar opposite ways? Quite simply because, as the then Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, said at the outset of Gaza’s destruction, Israelis are facing “human animals.” The classic excuse for genocide indeed, which in the present occurrence leads to coordinating the shelling of an entire civilian population (including in designated “safe zones”) with their deprivation of food, fuel, water, and electricity. More than direct killings, starvation, added to the spread of diseases due to the destruction of all sanitary infrastructure, will surely “finish the job.” Used by the present Israeli government, this expression refers to the ethnic cleansing of approximately 750,000 Palestinians that took place following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. When watching the sick videos casually shared on social media by Israeli soldiers today, there is no doubt that the enthusiasm for the job is as high as ever.
Likely caused by deep ideological brainwashing, the moral depravity displayed by Israeli officials trying to justify the unjustifiable when it comes to Palestinian lives ignores even the bounds of logic. If the assumption is that there are no innocent Palestinians, as President Herzog sternly stated, why should there be innocent Israelis in the eyes of Palestinians? Wouldn’t the same type of hallucinated conclusion find even more apparent legitimacy in what has been done to them for decades in the Israelis’ name? As for Hamas, how can one lament after 10/07/2023 that the organization failed the most basic principles of morality when the Israeli government had maintained an entire population of 2.3 million people for 17 years, by then, at the mercy of its wrath under a state of humiliating deprivation? Logic does not take sides.
As for facts, the table below shows how the numbers stack up for Palestinians in the four military assaults on Gaza that Israel had previously launched.
| Fatalities | Injuries | |
| 2008-9 (lasted 23 days) | 1,385 | 5,300 |
| 2012 (lasted 8 days) | 168 | 1,046 |
| 2014 (lasted 50 days) | 2,251 | 11,231 |
| 2021 (lasted 11 days) | 261 | 2,211 |
Data are from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA).1 The total number of Israeli fatalities in the West Bank and Israel for the same period (2008-2021) is 344, compared to 7,118 Palestinian deaths with Gaza included (both numbers include civilians and fighters). If only for coherence’s sake, there again, when the most potent contender kills 20 times more on average,2 it cannot feign surprise that its lesson will be duly taken.
What is the point, then, of using violence far beyond the practical necessity of self-defense? The answer lies in the fact, as we all know from experience, that violence can easily acquire the symbolic value of “teaching a lesson.” With a 20/1 rate of fatalities over the years, it is obviously that second dimension that plays itself out, indicating that the purpose in the use of violence is not about something that could ultimately be rationally defended but something that bears no questioning. Violence becomes speech, symbolically telling Palestinians that there is nothing they are morally founded to argue about. In that sense, the more bullets and missiles fired at them, the clearer the subliminal message that “human animals” should know their place.
In the context of the open colonial war led since 1948 by an Israeli state that never found the resources to think of itself as anything other than Zionist, the phrase “human animals” is not an unfortunate slip of the tongue; it directly echoes the old European colonialist rationale. Natives on “uncivilized” conquered land were assumed to be inapt to self-determination because they could only be brought to reason, not reason by themselves. Thus, coercing them was legitimate, and using violence was a necessary evil against unruly savages prone to it.
The moral framing behind that view was that those sitting at the height of humanity’s achievements did a favor to those who, by contrast, were devoid of technology, written knowledge, as well as modern legal and political institutions. If it weren’t for the white man, they would scrape by indefinitely in their ancestral way. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that the heavily biased and far too narrow concept of civilization purporting the legitimacy of European colonization was scientifically debunked. Yet, the prejudice persists in Israeli schoolbooks. Even though Palestinians inherited the cultural brilliance of an Arabic civilization that easily compared with Europe for centuries, they are never pictured too far away from a camel or some other sign of a backward way of life.
In reality, self-justified by a mere sense of entitlement, the mental scheme of colonization uses logic and morality in reverse. Starting with the sought-after result or gain in mind, it works its way back from the flawed premise of some people’s unquestionable intellectual and moral supremacy over others. Since this premise is beyond rational justification, a creative stream of excuses, pretexts, and false reasonings will readily come to the rescue whenever the premise is challenged. The point is not to be intellectually correct but to look good in one’s eyes. Unfortunately, since words cannot make sense in what amounts to nothing more than an incantatory process, the more colonial claims are questioned and opposed, the more violently colonizers will defend them.
*
It is no surprise, therefore, that despite all its posturing about being the innocent victim of retarded savages who just “hate us,” Israel has a coherence issue when it comes to the universality of moral principles. To avoid openly self-contradicting itself by trying to explain why its citizens can enjoy peace, security, and freedom only if these fundamental human rights are simultaneously denied to Palestinians, the Israeli government must resort to the trick used by dictatorships and warmongers of all stripes: playing the “terrorist” card.
Labeled as such, opponents a government does not want people to hear or question about are upfront denied any legitimacy. All there is to know about them is that they are “terrorists,” which means that they simply need to be eliminated. Because it is purposely vague but emotionally powerful, the “terrorist” label can moreover be used pretty extensively. After all, Nelson Mandela stayed in jail for 27 years because he allegedly was a terrorist.
Still, even though this name-calling can prove surprisingly efficient in masking genuine political issues, it necessarily leads to patent inconsistencies. Let’s look at three main ones.
First, all resistance movements anywhere in the world have, at one point or another, been designated as terrorists. Whether innocent people are killed or not, if you bear arms to fight for your cause, you are prone to end up as a terrorist for anyone who does not share your views.
The second inconsistency is forgetting that the definition of terrorism is to inflict terror, namely on civilian populations. In this regard, state terrorism can turn out to be immensely more destructive than strikes from loose networks of fanaticized individuals. A state has institutional legitimacy, which, for many citizens, grants free rein regarding the means used to subdue an alleged enemy. A state has the firepower of an army at its disposal. And when its objectives are deemed of national interest, it also has time on its side.
At first glance, therefore, the contrast could not be sharper between a bunch of lunatics hiding away from sight to kill random people when they can and a political state that is, by definition, in charge of protecting its citizens. But when government officials decide to bomb entire populations elsewhere for weeks, months, or years on end, what can this indiscriminate use of the most brutal violence be characterized by, other than state terrorism? This is blatant in Gaza, where inhabitants are trapped under total siege while being methodically slaughtered wherever they seek shelter.
The third inconsistency is that since the “terrorist” label is supposed to say it all and can be applied to virtually anyone, a state with criminal intents has all interests in killing “terrorists” left and right until the level of their physical elimination is judged satisfying. In its course, such a strategy provides the double benefit of triggering acts of desperation—further justifying the continuation of the state’s killing policy—and the eventual extinction of all competent voices to defend their people’s rights. This is the plan applied by the Israeli state since its creation, eventually turning its use of the terrorist bogeyman into a clear illustration of might making right.
Unsurprisingly, this is also the exact narrative and strategy used by Putin in his aggression against Ukraine, as it was by Nazi Germany in territories it occupied, or the US in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent history. From an aggressor’s standpoint, peace is defeat. Why would you go to war if you admit that there are serious interlocutors on the other side? For the aggressor, this is beyond the point. The point is to fabricate an “enemy,” a formless entity whose defining characteristic is to live in a parallel universe from yours. This is how, in the case of Israel, actual terrorist attacks serve as a pretext to terrorize an entire population the Israeli government has always considered did not belong to the land anyway. Let’s have them gone, or placed under total submission, or dead for what one cares in Israel.
Indeed, even though the present administration is undoubtedly more open and brutal about its end game than others in the past, one must recognize that all Israeli governments have tackled the Palestinian issue, first and foremost, as a terrorist one. This has not only been the alleged reason for constantly refusing direct negotiations with Palestinian representatives but has also shaped the optics of what is to be discussed. Officially considering Palestinians as irrational actors always susceptible to fits of terrorism implies that their claims are likely as unfounded as their actions and that, by contrast, Israeli concessions stem from pure goodwill and generosity. Despite its often fervent and solemn demeanor, colonization is nothing more than bullying practiced by grown-ups. The name of the game is to dishonestly assert the terms of the debate and rip the practical benefits initially sought.
Predicated on the idea that a country can be decreed regardless of the cultural and historical heritage of existing populations, Zionism logically overlooked the reality of what was then called Palestine. In his fascination with the concept of a nation-state, Theodor Herzl, the movement’s founder, forgot that there is much more to a country than a formal government. It is worth noting, in this regard, that the necessity of claiming a cultural and historical lineage to the colonized land was not part of his original theory. The main idea was simply that a nation-state is the best form of protection one can live under and that its political formula distinguishes civilized people from primitives. This view was broadly shared among European powers at the time, who were delineating the rest of the world into a flurry of new “countries” to settle their respective colonial interests under the moral edges of civilization. In the case of Israel, colonialism took the more vindictive form of settler colonialism since Jews had no country of their own. It was not just about exploiting resources for one’s exclusive benefit but replacing the native populations, such as what was successfully done in North America, New Zealand, and Australia.
It is so good to feel right. If European colonization over the world was ever possible, it was because it functioned in a closed mental loop, a short-sighted and biased view of “civilization” auto-justifying the expansion operated in its name. Based on a mere sense of entitlement, this logic crumbles as soon as it is confronted with the universality of the human genius; this is why it must function in absolute terms. The colonial mindset is that of a mythological fight between human progress and the whims of an indistinct crowd who never bothered to be a country—according, that is to say, to the European standard of the nation-state. It naturally followed that for lack of one or all of the defining traits of “civilization”—technology, formal political institutions, or a written culture—natives’ voice could only come second, if at all. Their cultural, social, and genuine political legacy had no bearing and natives could only be grateful for the benevolence of civilization coming on their shores to steal and kill them.
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In a contemporary echo to this same colonial mentality inherited by Herzl, we were told after October 7th, 2023, that there is no “moral equivalence” between terrorists massacring innocents on Israeli soil and the IDF preparing to do the same to a much broader extent in Gaza. When Hamas kills, it is terrorism, when we do, it is self-defense. Why? Because on one side is the enraged violence of savages; on the other, the innocence of civilization bearers. How could anyone miss that?
True to the image of the civilized ones, when the Netanyahu cabinet announced to the world Israel’s imminent retaliation in the aftermath of 10/07/2023, it specifically said that Hamas and Hamas only was the target. Yet, like the broad use of “terrorists” when it comes to Palestinians, or “Hamas sympathizers” for those denouncing Israeli apartheid and voicing concerns about the obvious genocidal intent against the population of Gaza, the “defeating Hamas” talking point rings hollow. It suggests the presence of two forces with comparable means at their disposal, facing each other on the same battlefield. But Hamas comes undeniably nowhere close to Israel’s firepower with its tanks, bombs, and fighter jets.
Most of all, fighting terrorism is intelligence work. In opposition to heavy bombardments on infrastructures that seek to incapacitate the enemy in conventional wars, chasing terrorists is efficiently done on an individual basis. Though each type of war is led at an entirely different level than the other, Benjamin Netanyahu did his best to deny it, potentially assimilating all infrastructures sustaining cultural and physical life in Gaza to terrorist assets. If anything, this is how you sign a genocidal intent.
Spin doctors in Israeli headquarters know that. This is why they shamelessly used the phrase “precise targeting” at the beginning of the operations in Gaza while, at the same time, Daniel Hagari, the IDF’s spokesperson, was officially trumpeting that “the focus is on destruction, not accuracy.” The discrepancy only implied that since the “most moral army in the world” could not conceivably “focus” on anything other than defeating Hamas, the blame was to be put solely on that organization for what was to happen to women and children in Gaza.
Why should an army that labels itself as the most moral one in the world bother providing definite proof that it duly and exclusively targets Hamas’ bases or militants? As anyone could have predicted, it rarely did. “Terrorists” is the magic word that justifies and explains everything. To the IDF’s credit, however, aside from one-ton dumb bombs used to flatten out entire building blocks, precise targeting is nevertheless involved as well, albeit against ambulances, UN compounds, schools, mosques, and hospitals—all systematically aimed with precision-guided missiles. As for particular individuals who could have a voice, such as intellectuals, medical staff, and—expectedly so—journalists, they have also been methodically and precisely targeted. For ordinary people, finally, there seem to be no particular killing rules—satellites’ imagery of the Gaza Strip speaks for itself—though children (“little snakes”) seem a prized target of Israeli most sophisticated weaponry.3
Turning Gaza into a parking lot is the vivid image some officials in Israel and the US immediately used after 10/07/2023. Sadly but predictably, it has become the reality of the situation today. Along with other rhetorical gimmicks, “precise targeting” was consequently to be soon discarded by Israeli spin doctors. As with any army in any conflict, the IDF’s talking points are not meant to tell the truth but to draw a line between what must and must not be said to characterize the situation on the ground. And as with any conflict, institutional idiots in the political and media world are eager to comply. This makes it all the more urgent and necessary to undo the public distraction mechanism at play.
Concurrently with “terrorists” and “precise targeting,” another talking point favored as an excuse for the massacre of entire families is “human shields.” This is, it is assumed, something that terrorists typically do. In reality, the British initiated the practice of human shields during the Palestinian revolts at the end of the 1930s. It then consisted of tying up someone on the hood of a military truck to minimize the risk of an attack. Hamas militants don’t do that, but it is enough for the Israeli government that they simply live among the population, shielding Israel, as it were, from its own moral obscenity of blaming others for the crimes it commits.4 The logic is that since Hamas nefariously hides among the population of Gaza, the rule of proportionality in military actions is almost inapplicable. Consequently, it is Hamas’ fault if women and children become fair game in the fight against terrorism. Per this “human shield” bogus logic, the weakening of Hamas’ capabilities thus becomes proportionate to the number of civilian deaths. And who could blame the IDF for piercing through as many shields as it takes in the battle for civilization against terrorism?
To assess the level of duplicity in this light-headed subversion of moral values, you can ask yourself a simple question. Suppose that a devastating strike happened on a military compound near Tel Aviv and that no regard at all was given to the surrounding population. How would Israelis take it if told that a staggering number of people were killed because of the sheer calculation of their government, which used them as “human shields”?
*
Contrary to the formula Western mainstream media complacently hide behind, there is no such thing as a “war between Israel and Hamas.” The literal meaning of the word “war” refers to armies facing each other, and it does not take much journalistic scrutiny to see that the situation in Gaza is nothing like a confrontation of tanks and fighter jets between warring parties. All Hamas can do is launch rockets and terror attacks—the 7th of October 2023 being its highest achievement in ignominy. But how does this justify following the Israeli narrative, absurdly stating that in the gruesome consequences of the so-called war, one in three people killed in Gaza is a Hamas fighter? This would then mean that since men, women, and children are killed at the same rate, all males above fifteen years of age are terrorists.
By labelling what has been happening in Gaza as “the war between Israel and Hamas,” the Western establishment shows that, as long as this supposedly serves the cause of Israel, it has no qualms obscenely endorsing any kind of nonsense. Sheepishly arguing that Hamas started it does not make the case of our elected officials and media pundits any stronger. Given the proclaimed intent of genocide by Israel on day one, such an argument is not only morally irreceivable, it also illustrates what war is fundamentally about from the standpoint of the aggressor: making believe. Rewriting history in people’s minds is where victory ultimately lies in a war of aggression. Especially when, as at present, the aggressor goes against all Geneva Conventions by viciously depriving an entire population of humanitarian aid and cutting off water on a whim, on top, obviously, of destroying civilian infrastructures and systematically targeting journalists and medical staff.
The shock indignantly expressed at the suggestion that Israel is the chief aggressor only proves that erasing history works. The 10/07/2023 massacre is supposed to have happened independently of a context and just because Hamas is a terrorist organization. But there was no peace before 10/07/20235 and in a historical perspective, there are always questions to be answered. Notably, who terrorizes who most constantly? In what proportion? And who decided that the cause defended by Hamas, however blamable the recourse to violence might be, should be thoroughly obfuscated under the label terrorism?
In reality, 10/07/2023 was not just a shock; it was a humiliation for a country used to pride itself in the near-perfect effectiveness of its security and used, as well, to control all aspects of Palestinian lives when not ruthlessly oppressing them. If only the real question for the Israeli government were about defeating Hamas,6 and for “the most moral army in the world” to monitor its possible excesses. Instead, as the “sub-humans” that many Israelis take them for, Gazans had to be taught a lesson. “Defeating Hamas” was from the start a code word for killing as many as possible, while Westerners would pretend to believe the fallacy of a “war” in Gaza.
Still, how to explain the latter’s indifference toward Palestinian lives, most shockingly displayed by the fact that Israeli hostages in Gaza always have a name in mainstream media, but none of the victims of constant war crimes, crimes against humanity, and overall genocide taking place there? Why is it accepted as a mere fact of life that no independent journalist or humanitarian organization is allowed to stay in Gaza for some length of time and do their job? No other country than Israel could get a pass in Western media for doing so. How come do they not see the contradiction and the blatant hypocrisy of branding their own governments as the refuge of democracy and defender of human rights when Palestinians are, at best, just numbers to them?
It is not uncommon to trumpet moral values and betray them in the same breath. Duplicity, after all, can become as natural a reflex to the human psyche as one’s breathing is to our bodies. But it is not just an individual matter. Since war is fundamentally a lie, powers on the offense have a vested interest in conditioning our lack of self-awareness so that it becomes a permanent pillar of their conquests. It follows that, as in the case of the psychopath’s partner, the oddity of Israel’s unwavering support from its allies may very well indicate the submission of their judgment to a brain-washing enterprise that goes way back in time.
To be followed.
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Footnotes
- Data on casualties. This interactive map allows filtering the number of casualties by time, area, context, and affiliation.
- Not so incidentally, disproportionate retaliation was formalized as the Dahiya doctrine by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot during the 2006 Lebanon War
- Surgeon breaks down in parliament explaining how IDF drones target children. Ex-NHS surgeon Nizam Mamode on YouTube.
- As for the practice of “human shields,” this is exactly the kind of practice the IDF has resorted to for a long time. See, Israeli high court bans military use of Palestinians as human shields, The Guardian, Chris McGreal, Fri 7 Oct 2005; ‘I had hoped to be dead’: Palestinian man used as a ‘human shield’ by Israeli forces, Al Jazeera, Jun 23, 2024.
- See Countdown to genocide: the year before October 7, Jewish Voice for Peace; What Life Looked Like for Palestinians Before October 7, by Amira Hass, Bashir Abu-Manneh October 7, 2024, znetwork.org.
- On that note: Why Israel’s Netanyahu encouraged suitcases of cash for Gaza, by Peter Weber, The Week US, published December 11, 2023; Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided, by Lahav Harkovmarch 12, 2019, in The Jerusalem Post.