Israel's new hate paradigm – the institutionalization of terror

As Israel’s war machine continues to advance unabated against Gaza, ravaging neighbourhoods, indiscriminately claiming lives, the world has begun to wake up from its media-induced stupor, so bloody and harrowing have been the crimes of Israel.

Worse maybe than the butchering of children, the targeting of schools and hospitals, most shocking than the vicious slaughtering of defenceless civilians, it is Israel’s desire to rationalize its war on Gaza that many have found most troubling.

Fed on hate, raised on propaganda, Israel’s contempt for all things Arab and all things Muslim has become embedded in its national identity, the cornerstone of its belief in an all mighty Jewish state. Blinded to their own folly, Israel’s neo-cons, the architects of Israel’s fascist narrative, have managed to institutionalize terror to such an extent that the Israeli nation can no longer imagine its existence without the complete and utter obliteration of Palestine.

Israel has reached such depth in its radical rationale that it can no longer comprehend the idea of a Palestinian state, let alone tolerate it. But in its psychosis, Israel aims still to justify its crimes, Israel aims still to assert the righteousness of its decisions and aims still to defend the morality of its choices.

But as Gaza stands knee deep in the blood of its children, there is no longer a moral ground to be had; as Gaza sky grows darker yet under the fire of war, the air filled with cries of agony and despair, there is no righteousness to be claimed.

But Israel sees not the blood, the pain and the evil its army is inflicting on a people. Israel sees only its hate; Israel knows only its disgust for Palestine.

For all those who have stood by Israel through the wars and the human rights violations, determined to deflect all blame onto monstrous Hamas and its click of radicals, forever spinning the wheels of Israel’s right wings politicians, forever feeding the propaganda monster; the truth has become a heavy burden to bear.

As the world watched sickened by the calculated destruction of Gaza, the cold-blooded murder of Palestine’s children, Israel can no longer hide its murderous streak; the evil which has grown under Israel shadow wants now to stand in the light, unashamed and proud.

Israel’s new hate paradigm, the expression of its desire to annihilate not the Hamas but rather all Palestinians can be found in the comments of its leaders and politicians. Let it be known that Israel no longer calls for the dismantlement of the Hamas, a party it has defined as a terror group; instead it cries out for Palestine genocide.

Earlier this month Ayelet Shaked could not help but spit more of her venom onto Palestine; determined as she was to clarify her stance on the whole Palestinian issue. She calls on her Facebook page for murdering the mothers of what she terms Palestinian “terrorists” so that they cannot give birth to more “little snakes” – since all who oppose Israel are by definition terrorists; let’s just say that the term is inherently broad.

In case you misunderstood her intentions, she added, “They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists. They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists. … [The terrorists] are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

In another example of Israel’s pervert narrative against Palestine, Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer on Arabic literature at Bar Ilan University, suggested that Hamas terrorists would only ever be stopped if they knew that their sisters and mothers would be raped. He explained to his audience, “A terrorist, like those who kidnapped the boys [in the West Bank on June 12] and killed them, the only thing that will deter them, is if they know that either their sister or mother will be raped if they are caught. What can we do? This is the culture that we live in.”

As noted by Jonathan Cook, an award-winning journalist based in Israel, “This psychosis is not going to get better on its own. In fact, it’s going to get much worse. How much worse will depend entirely on the continuing inaction of western leaders.”

As Gaza’s descent into hell unfolds before our TV screens, beyond the many attempts exerted by some media to rationalize the bloodshed and justify the senseless murdering of women and children, it has become difficult to not draw parallels in between Gaza and Warsaw, Israel and Nazi Germany.

In a blog entry in Jews sans frontiers Levy9909 makes a very good point when he wrote, “The pain, confinement, fear and premature and violent deaths of those forced to live within the walls of any ghetto under bombardment are immediately comparable and yet Zionists are beside themselves that the obvious comparison is being made between the Warsaw and Gaza ghettos.” And indeed, while Gaza is not yet Warsaw and Israel not just yet Nazi Germany, Israel carries within its irrational hatred of Palestine the same genocidal streak.

But why debate when Israel has already, in its own words, made its intentions clear to the world … if only we cared to read.

Following is a translation of Ayelet Shaked’s Facebook rant:

“The Palestinian people has declared war on us, and we must respond with war. Not an operation, not a slow-moving one, not low-intensity, not controlled escalation, no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings. Enough with the oblique references. This is a war. Words have meanings. This is a war. It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to define reality with the simple words that language puts at our disposal. Why do we have to make up a new name for the war every other week, just to avoid calling it by its name. What’s so horrifying about understanding that the entire Palestinian people is the enemy? Every war is between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, that whole people, is the enemy. A declaration of war is not a war crime. Responding with war certainly is not. Nor is the use of the word “war”, nor a clear definition who the enemy is. Au contraire: the morality of war (yes, there is such a thing) is founded on the assumption that there are wars in this world, and that war is not the normal state of things, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.

And the morality of war knows that it is not possible to refrain from hurting enemy civilians. It does not condemn the British air force, which bombed and totally destroyed the German city of Dresden, or the US planes that destroyed the cities of Poland and wrecked half of Budapest, places whose wretched residents had never done a thing to America, but which had to be destroyed in order to win the war against evil. The morals of war do not require that Russia be brought to trial, though it bombs and destroys towns and neighbourhoods in Chechnya. It does not denounce the UN Peacekeeping Forces for killing hundreds of civilians in Angola, nor the NATO forces who bombed Milosevic’s Belgrade, a city with a million civilians, elderly, babies, women, and children. The morals of war accept as correct in principle, not only politically, what America has done in Afghanistan, including the massive bombing of populated places, including the creation of a refugee stream of hundreds of thousands of people who escaped the horrors of war, for thousands of whom there is no home to return to.

And in our war this is sevenfold more correct, because the enemy soldiers hide out among the population, and it is only through its support that they can fight. Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Actors in the war are those who incite in mosques, who write the murderous curricula for schools, who give shelter, who provide vehicles, and all those who honour and give them their moral support. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.