“It’s absolutely mind-numbing. One genocidal statement after another genocidal statement after another genocidal statement after another, another, another. So, here’s the thing: Israel, if you look at what they write in their newspapers, what they post on Facebook, what they Tweet, what they say on public affairs, radio and TV programs.
They aren’t in the least hiding the fact that they are committing genocide.
They are proud of it.
They are boasting about it.
They relish it.
They mock every child, woman and man killed.
I find it personally disgusting the way there’s this distinction between women and children killed versus men killed, as if every man is a deserving target in Gaza. We should never use that phrase. It’s not just women and children. The men don’t deserve to live in Gaza? They boast about the homes they destroy. They take videos of the universities they pulverise. They relish and mock the dead as they take their bulldozers, not just to bulldoze homes but to roll over the bodies that they have killed.
So, it’s not as if we’re relying, even though it’s enough, on the human rights organisations. It’s not just as if we’re relying only on what the World Health Organisation has to say, what UNESCO has to say, what UNICEF has to say, what CARE has to say, what Save the Children has to say, and on and on and on.
I say, and I repeat, every humanitarian organisation is saying the same thing about what’s going on or what has gone on in Gaza. It is not controversial. But even for argument’s sake, if there were doubts about it, maybe they’re all anti-Semitic. Maybe CARE is anti-Semitic. Maybe UNICEF is anti-Semitic and maybe this organisation is anti-Semitic. OK, maybe that’s true for argument’s sake. But then how do you explain all the statements that are made by the senior government officials? By the most influential figures in Israeli civil society.
There are times when it’s warranted, when it’s justified to make the distinction between the state and society because there are times when the state does not accurately represent the feelings, the sentiments of society in general. I am old enough to have lived through the Vietnam War in my country, and there was a period, you could say during the height of the Vietnam War where the actions of our state, our government did not reflect the feelings and sentiments of a large part of our society.
However, that cannot, and I don’t say this gleefully, I don’t say it happily, but that cannot be said of what’s happened in the past 16 months. The destruction, the extermination, the genocide in Gaza is not a state project. It’s a national project. The entire Israeli society with its eyes open, with clear presence of mind, with full knowledge of what’s going on. They see it in those Facebook postings. They see it in the tweets. They see it everywhere in the full knowledge of what’s going on. They have reached a consensus that it must be that by the end of this conflict, Gaza will be no more. That’s the consensus. It’s not just Mr. Netanyahu or the former Defence Minister, Mr. Gallant. Now, some people like to say, it’s the Far Right, one of those favourite expressions. Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben-Gvir. No! First of all, the whole country is the Far Right. There is no Far Right. And, across the board, from one end of the political spectrum to the other and from the top to the bottom, it’s a national project to, for once and for all, liquidate Gaza.
-Norman Finkelstein
