Suppose the US government claimed that Isis had some ammunition hidden in a Toronto hospital. We could blow up the hospital, kill everyone in it, and destroy the ammo. Any other course of action, and Isis would retrieve the ammo.
Should we blow up the hospital? Does any part of you think we should? Can you think of many American religious or political leaders, as remorseless as they are, who would publicly say to blow up the hospital? It might be fun to say “Trump would do it” or “Pat Robertson would do it,” but we know they wouldn’t, if only for fear of backlash. But there is a country where the opposite is true, and the default reaction is, “of course you blow up the hospital.”…
Americans grow up on a diet of propaganda. You just have to take a step back and think for it to fall apart. Like, we “can’t afford” universal healthcare, though every other wealthy country can because it is cheaper.” Another common story is that the most powerful nation on earth is constantly kicking the crap out of much weaker countries in self-defense. Whether we massacred civilians directly, or by using death squads or installing dictators or using sanctions to starve innocent people because their leader pissed off Wall Street, we were acting in self-defense against: Vietnam, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Libya, Iraq, Grenada, Nicaragua, Cuba and so on.
A multi-billion dollar infrastructure of think tanks, corporate media, PR firms, lobbyists and crooked politicians builds a consensus wherein ordinary people come to think things like, “Normally I believe war should be a last resort. But after reading some NYT articles and watching cable news, and being a smart and sophisticated adult, I now realize we should murder a bunch of civilians because their leader is bad.” (Because he nationalized their oil.)
You ever know a guy who has been in like 20 bar fights and thinks the other dude started them all? That guy is the U.S. Or, it would be, if he would be if he only fought women.
Faced with severe problems of homelessness, suicide, corruption, overdoses, incarceration, debt, crumbling and outdated infrastructure and poverty, as well as confronting environmental catastrophe, we send billions upon billions to our great ally Israel. They buy weapons from US arms dealers who then cut the politicians in on the profits. Is Israel “defending themselves?” What are they doing?
By all accounts, Israel has bombed every hospital in Gaza and is now chomping at the bit to bomb hospitals in Lebanon. They assassinate and torture healthcare workers. They also execute children , rape, starve and torture prisoners many of whom are never charged or tried, and use bulldozers to drive over masses of living people mixed with corpses . They have assassinated or scared off almost every journalist in Gaza. While Israel claims, without proof, that doctors, medics, journalists UN workers and academics are all terrorists who must be assassinated, Israeli journalists openly commit war crimes.
Perhaps the crowning “achievement” of the IDF is the systematic sexual abuse of children. In addition to blowing up hospitals, Israel has targeted schools and Christian churches. There are many Christians in the area, and they are not being spared, which is odd if the target is Hamas. For example, cousins of former Congressman Justin Amash were killed by Israel while taking refuge in a church.
Israel has also assassinated and tortured American citizens for protesting or for doing journalism that is critical of Israel, with a vigorous thumbs up from the Biden administration.Its actions are condemned by Amnesty International, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, Save The Children, the UN and dozens of similar organizations.
Let’s go back to that hospital argument. Israel is only blowing up hospitals to get at weapons, or gold, or tunnels, so that makes it OK.
What if the horrific drug cartels of Mexico were storing gold at a hospital? What if, for some reason, the KKK had a tunnel running under a hospital in Atlanta? For whatever reason, the only way to neutralize these resources is to blow up the hospital, and all the patients and workers. Why would this be the only way? Good question. But let’s just pretend.
You probably think the drug cartels and KKK are bad, but it wouldn’t be worth killing all those innocent people to deprive a nefarious organization of some resources. You see this differently than the Israeli right and their supporters because you are making different assumptions. You assume the people in the hospital are human beings deserving of moral consideration. The right in Israel views other people as deserving no moral consideration. This is the same logic some Israeli Rabbis use to argue that Jewish soldiers should be allowed to rape with impunity. We will discuss these claims below.
Some of you might be saying “Israel is lying about the tunnels. They just want to blow up the hospitals.” That is true. These lies often sound like a child made them up. Much like, “The US is defending itself against Iraq,” they fall apart with a moment’s consideration. But they know our politicians and media will go along anyway because their cash registers chime with every bomb dropped.
If you’ve never looked into this matter at all, you might be thinking, “Doesn’t Hamas use civilians as human shields?” This is always the argument for indiscriminate massacre during an insurgency. The Vietcong “hid” in villages because that is where they lived. As in the American Revolution, or The Maccabean Revolt, the powerful military always feels that the only fair thing for insurgent forces to do is to stand in a field and be killed. Why don’t Hamas all just stand on some open piece of land holding pistols so that they can be droned? Why didn’t the Maccabeans line up and charge the Roman legions?
Moreover, the more powerful forces often use human shields proper. Israel has certainly done so. Using children as human shields is a longstanding practice in Israel. There is, however, no evidence that Hamas has ever used human shields. The worst that has been documented is that they have operated in civilian areas which, again, is more or less inevitable. It is Israel that does things like tie Palestinian children to police trucks, using them as human armor.
The main point, however, is that even when Israel concocts a rationalization for killing, the assumption that their victims are worthless is baked in, as it often has been in American propaganda. e.g. if there is any chance at all that Iraq might attack the US one day, we are justified in killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians today. However, Israel is much more upfront about it. For example, here are a couple of excerpts eulogizing an Israeli hero who was recently killed.
…
Let’s have a look at this great ally who shares our values.
The Shas party in Israel received 400,000 votes in the last election. That would be like an American party receiving 13 million votes. Here is the founder of that party, Ovadia Yosef. He did not say this in 1953. He said it in 2010.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”[87]
In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,” Yosef said.
“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.”
That is why gentiles were created”[87]
Setting aside the current conflict, one might question the wisdom of taking money out of our schools, crumbling infrastructure, and threadbare safety net and giving it to people who view 97% of us as subhumans, created by God to be their servants. If you think this is an isolated remark, or that Yosef was not a mainstream figure, disabuse yourself by reading the wiki or other sources.
Of course, this is not the only party in Israel. There is also the Jewish Power party, which is a bit less popular. Quoth wiki:
The party advocates for the deportation of those who they consider to be the “enemies of Israel”, and leader Itamar Ben-Gvir was associated with the original Kach movement, though he now disagrees with the stance of deporting all Arabs from Israel.[13] The party has been widely described in the international press as an extremist, ultranationalist, and racist organisation supporting Jewish supremacy and has been described by multiple sources, including the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz, as a “Jewish fascist group”.[24]
The head of the party, Ben-Grvir, has been convicted, in Israel, of inciting racism, and of terrorism. He is currently part of Netanyahu’s cabinet, in charge of domestic law enforcement.
Combined with a 3rd group, The Religious Zionist Party, 19% of the seats in the Knesset are occupied by openly Jewish supremacist parties who freely speak of inherently inferior races.
This is how Wikipedia describes the RZP. Note that the critics quoted on both the RZP and Jewish Power party are Jewish themselves. Just as the KKK doesn’t represent all whites, and many whites fought against it at its peak, many of the sharpest critics of the Jewish supremacist ideology that plagues Israel and lingers elsewhere are Jews.
“Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg has stated that the Religious Zionist Party’s “platform includes things like annexation of West Bank settlements, the expulsion of asylum-seekers, and political control of the judicial system”.[2] He further described the Religious Zionist Party as a political party “driven by Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab racism“.[2] The party has been assessed by The Middle East Journal as “militantly anti-Arab” and far-right.”
Then, you have Netanyahu’s party, the Likud, which is more like right-wing Republicans. They work together with the openly Jewish supremacist parties and, as we shall see, include many of their most extreme members in the cabinet.
Like Jewish Power member and cabinet member Amihai Eliyahu. He has suggested using nuclear weapons to eliminate the Palestinian population, so they can be replaced by Jews. Though he is also open to deporting them, a notion the Nazis also kicked around for a while.
After Israeli prison guards were recorded raping male prisoners, Eliyahu helped lead a riot in support of the rapists. Amilhai’s father, a prominent Rabbi who’s salary is paid by the state, shares his affinity for raping inferior races.
He argues that: If you forbid him the Comely Woman, and he is enchanted by wily charms, he’ll think about her constantly and may reach the point where the People of Israel will be defeated. What would you gain by that? That thousands of Jewish women will be raped by the accursed evildoers. Therefore, the Torah said: in this case, if you’re so enflamed – take the Comely Woman!!
The same man led a campaign of harassment and threats against a holocaust survivor who rented rooms to Arab-Israeli nursing students. He also favors lynching cildren. Again Eliyahu is a prominent figure, whose salary is paid by the state. He is a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council, a national panel of 16 top Rabbis.
Here is another Rabbi arguing that Jewish soldiers may rape non-Jewish women. He became the chief Rabbi of the military. Another Rabbi, Eli Ben-Dahan, says of Palestinians, “To me, they are like animals, they aren’t human.” He became a member of the Knesset and then deputy minister of defense.
There are many other examples and, if you start searching these figures, you will find all you can handle. The right dominates Israeli politics with popular support. But sticking with people I’ve covered, here would be a roughly analogous situation in The United States if it had a parliament.
At least 19% of the legislature is controlled by overt white supremacists, in the fashion of David Duke. The head of the DOJ is a Nazi skinhead with a terrorism conviction. Other cabinet members say it is OK for white soldiers to commit rape against lesser races as a morale booster. Famous clergy, like Joel Osteen, advocate lynching children. Prisoners, including children, are held without trial, or even charges and are systematically tortured, starved and raped. Clergy and political leaders lead riots in favor of raping prisoners. Many openly say we should exterminate the population of Mexico and take their land. A preacher, who becomes Deputy Secretary of Defence, declares that Mexicans are “not human.” That’s Israel under the current government, and that’s your tax dollars at work.
Jewish Supremacism is much less common outside of Israel, but hardly unknown. This is Rabbi, Manis Friedman, popular on youtube, with over 400,000 followers. He is based in Minnesota.
“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),” https://www.ajwnews.com/rabbi-manis-friedman-denounced-for-his-article-on-waging-war-the-jewish-way/
It almost feels antisemitic to quote these guys at times. I don’t wish to harm or offend Jews by posting that killing children is “the Jewish way.” But, I am just copying and pasting the words of a man who is famous, widely respected and has a platform far bigger than my own. I think this is why many people say, “Zionism is antisemitism.” Such people live down to the worst stereotypes and it often sounds like they are shills being scripted by Goebbels.
…
I use the term Jewish supremacism rather than Zionism because 1) I’m not an expert on Zionism and 2) I know some people consider themselves Zionists, but oppose these views. It’s better to just use direct language.
We must be careful because antisemites and Jewish supremacists ironically share a lot of ontological overlap. Antisemites claim that ALL Jews hold views like this, or that it is innate to their nature. Jewish supremacists claim that anyone who rejects Jewish supremacism is an antisemite, including millions of other Jews. So they largely agree on what it means to be a Jew.
They form a perverse partnership. Each despises the other. But antisemites can point to the statements above and say that they characterize all Jews. Jewish supremacists can point to antisemites as evidence that their extreme views are justified and they are just acting in self-defense.
Another twisted partnership exists between Jewish supremacists and some Christian fundamentalists. The fundamentalists believe that the Jews are so bad that an all-knowing and perfectly just God will choose to torture them for all eternity. But they also believe a Jewish state in Israel enables certain prophecies to be fulfilled, which is necessary for Jesus to return. This is why much of the American religious right supports Israel so fervently. It’s not that they love the people of Israel. The fundamentalists want to hasten the day when they can look down from heaven at Jews justly roasting in hell. But, for now, they are allies.
These views feed off each other and thrive as never before. I grew up in an area with many Jews. So the Gentiles in my area all interacted with Jews regularly. But I never knew a serious antisemite. There were, of course, bigots who thought Jews were cheap or whatever. People often told racist jokes back then, against Jews and others. But the idea that Jews control the world for their demonic purposes was relegated to freak show day time TV, where Montel or Geraldo would dig up skinheads from a pool that numbered in the 100s nationwide. Most people thought it was comical that anyone could hold such silly beliefs.
Today, public figures like Dan Bilzarian, Jake Shields and Kim Dot Com share insane theories about global domination and “the Jewish media” to the approval of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.
Supremacist views are widely rejected outside of Israel. A good demonstration is this Reddit thread reacting to Rabbi Friedman’s call to murder children in R/Jewish.
The vast majority condemn the remarks, as well as remarks about child abuse and his bizarre, victim blaming of Jews killed in the holocaust. But, there is a smattering of supporters. And, of course, AIPAC exists.
Many Jews in The US and elsewhere fight the good fight. The Israeli Rabbi who wants to lynch children is barred from entering the US because of the efforts of Reformed Jews. Bernie Sanders is one of the only American politicians to oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing and said that Netanyahu is “beholden to extreme racists,” presumably referencing the cast of characters above. Woody Allen and Phillip Roth have heavily criticized what currently animates Israeli politics. Noam Chomsky and a thousand less-known Jewish critics have tried to hold Israel and The United States accountable. Einstein opposed the early versions of this thinking. Americans know that, here, Jews have historically been champions of the underdog, for example, during the civil rights movement. This is part of why it is sad to see what Israel has become.
Maybe you’re wondering why you haven’t heard this information before. Do “they” control the media? Jews have far more cultural influence in the US than do Muslims or Arabs and it would be silly to pretend that is not a factor. It can also be uncomfortable to criticize Israel and Jewish supremacism because of centuries of European antisemitism. And because of that weird overlap with Jewish supremacists and antisemites. It feels like “punching down.” We can understand why the Jewish people might feel they have been backed into a corner over history.
But mainly, this is just part of the American propaganda program. The American press were the ones who told us Iraq was a threat because of leftover mustard gas from WW1, dirty bombs (which do not actually do anything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb) and because Saddam was making undetectable nukes in the back of invisible RVs that were driving around in the desert. These people are just stenographers for the government, whose foreign policy is largely dictated by arms dealers and other war profiteers.
To these minds, a profitable war is always a good thing and they won’t undermine it. So Israel is a wonderful, flourishing, tolerant, liberal democracy and Palestinians are just crazy people who hate them for no reason. But, if Israel pissed off Wall Street enough, American politicians would suddenly be giving speeches about how they are a “threat to democracy.” Remember, we once armed Iraq and Bin Laden. There are people with deeper pockets than AIPAC.
Have the often despotic Arab countries, as well as Iran, mistreated Palestinians and used them as pawns? Yes. And they have played a role in creating this situation. This is sort of like observing that American Indians often brutalized each other before Europeans showed up, or that Africans sold other Africans into slavery. The people from victimized groups are not morally perfect. Some would be just as bad as their victimizers if roles were reversed. But the issue here is not whether Israelis or Jews are inherently evil and Arabs or Muslims are inherently good. Only fools think that way. The issue here is that American tax dollars are being used for ethnic cleansing.
Is Islamism also bad? What about the Hamas attack? Islamism is also bad, but most Americans who know what it is understand that. Really, we are programmed to believe Muslims are dangerous fanatics much more often than is true. If many Americans recognized the evils of the Israeli right and thought Islamist terrorism was no biggie, or didn’t even know it existed, this article would be explaining the problems of Islamism. If the US government’s response to the attacks on October 7th was, “wow, that’s great! Please take 10s of billions of dollars and kill as many more Israelis as you want,” this article would be about how I don’t want my tax dollars to be used for the ethnic cleansing of Israel.
There is a discussion to be had about how Israel fell into the control of genocidal, Jewish Supremacists. Certainly, decades of conflict with Arabs, who were often in the wrong, played a role. Just as a vindictive armistice in WW1 created great suffering in Germany and fertile ground for Nazis. If not for that, and the subsequent holocaust, it seems unlikely that the current conflict would even exist. Violence, brutality, and hatred cycle through the centuries and few are immune. To paraphrase Devon Pack, if you were born to a wealthy plantation-owning family in 1820, you’d probably have supported slavery. We don’t have to hate individual people because they were born into pernicious ideologies. But these ideologies must be resisted. I don’t want my tax money going to Nazis, or Isis or to cartels. And I don’t want it going to Israel under the rule of Jewish Supremacists who starve, rape, murder and torture civilians.
Israel has a right to exist, but not in its current form. South Africa exists, as do Germany, Japan and formerly Confederate American states. They were welcomed back into the world community after repudiating their supremacist ideology. Almost nobody hates the Germans, or Japanese of today for the crimes of their grandparents. If Israel follows suit, the same will be true for them, and antisemitic nuts can be pushed back into the margins of society, to be dismissed as buffoons and ridiculed on daytime TV.
Leave a Reply