Israel mass killing by no means guarantees victory in the Middle Eastern cauldron

If victory was simply handed to the side responsible for the highest death toll, then Israel’s terrifying ability to kill and maim would see it declared winner in all of its endless battles.

As we have seen, day after day, in recent months, they use their multi-billion dollar arsenal of mainly American-supplied weapons to devastating effect, snuffing out human life round the clock.

Civilian apartment blocks are razed, along with hospitals, mosques, businesses, universities, schools and refugee camps. Sudden death or severe injuries are the consequences for all targeted by the Israeli war machine and not just extra-judicial priority targets, such as Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. For every Nasrallah, thousands of men and women, children, the old and the sick, medics, aid workers and journalists are liquidated with impunity.

All hits are justifiable, is the Israeli argument, because everyone might in some way be linked to “the terrorists”. Hence, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister and an indicted criminal suspect blamed for the Gaza genocide, clenched his meaty fists during a speech to the United Nations and declared: “We are winning.”

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The notoriously cruel warmonger, who speaks about terrorists while spreading absolute terror across the Middle East himself, added pathetically: “We want peace.” As the rest of the world looks on with escalating horror, there is particular disgust at such grotesque double-speak. It is the kind that fits in with the rhetoric of one of Netanyahu’s predecessors, Ukraine-born Golda Meir, who claimed that Arabs somehow force Israelis to kill Arab children, in a binary contest between the forces of light and darkness.

The truth is that Zionist paramilitary groups, such as Haganah and Irgun, used the most abhorrent terrorist methods possible to create Israel in 1948, and it has been at war ever since. It has amassed the most devastating weapons known to humanity including nuclear ones, and it clearly has no intention of ending the fighting.

Rather than attempting to resolve problems through negotiation – prioritising swapping Israeli hostages with thousands of unlawfully detained Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of women and children, and dealing with Arab territorial grievances, for example – the missile and the machine gun are unleashed instinctively. The Israeli extremists would much rather continue on their destructive path, while relying on demonic propaganda to try and mitigate their actions.

Note how there was not a single word of remorse by Netanyahu at the UN for the 50,000 plus killed in Gaza alone, let alone the tens of thousands more wounded and displaced. There has rightly been widespread condemnation of the atrocities that took place during the Hamas raid on Israel on 7 October last year, but it has by no means been reciprocated.

No, Netanyahu is well satisfied with the never-ending revenge carnage, just like his supporters who gloated when pagers and other electrical devices, including cash machines and microwave ovens, exploded across Lebanon, killing 30 people including boys and girls, and permanently blinding and otherwise mutilating thousands of others.

All were, once again, portrayed as being close to “terrorists” by those who inhabit a sinister moral universe where flesh being ripped apart is a time for cheering and joking. The sadism was a prelude to Israeli air strikes across Lebanon, where the latest death toll is 1000 dead and counting, to add to more than 5000 injured and one million people displaced.

As with the extermination of Palestinians – all of whom are depicted as being inextricably linked with Hamas – the justificatory jargon is as ruthlessly cynical as it is macabre. Bombastic propagandists line up to claim “the right to defend ourselves”, while conducting devastating military offensives on illegally occupied land, many of them supporting settlers stealing land in the West Bank.

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They highlight the need for “targeted assassinations” – the phrase for unlawful killings in a sovereign state which evidently result in the mass slaughter of innocents including newborn babies. Israel’s much vaunted “Iron Dome” is praised for nullifying the vast majority of missiles threatening Israeli civilians, yet Israeli missiles that actually kill Arab civilians indiscriminately are never cancelled out.

Enemies are routinely accused of wanting “to wipe out Israel”, while Israel is actively already wiping them out, along with their land and homes. Meanwhile, the propagandists never once raise the root cause of Israel’s never-ending war, which is the millions of dispossessed Palestinians. Those in the Occupied Territories are deprived of their right to sovereignty or self-determination, and they are persecuted to the point of being murdered or imprisoned without trial, before their homes are bulldozed into dust. They are up against an Israeli regime which turns a blind eye to rape and torture, and other forms of systematic abuse against them.

Meanwhile, the Israel apologists in western countries, including Britain and America, champion the Israeli “allies of civilisation” fighting “barbarians” who threaten “western values”. All these expressions are regularly employed by the enablers who reject a two state solution out of hand, and who would rather see Israel imposing its might through mowing down neighbours. Supporters of Israeli aggression might adhere to a rules-based order in every other aspect of life, but not in relation to Israel. International Criminal Court (ICC) rulings on men like Netanyahu and his cronies are ignored and mocked, as the Israelis are allowed a pass on all the fundamentals of international and humanitarian law.

Yoav Gallant, the current Israeli “defence” minister and also subject to an ICC arrest warrant, has described his Palestinian enemies as “human animals”. Collective guilt is a given – no distinction is made between peaceful Palestinians or Lebanese, and the far smaller number of mainly young, angry men who resist. “If you strike us, we will strike you,” Netanyahu said at the UN, without once acknowledging the logical corollary, which is that if an expansionist Israel strikes, then dissenters are presumably allowed to strike back.

This is all while Israelis portray themselves as being the “victims” of Arabs whose land and livelihoods were taken away at gunpoint to make way for what many, along with international courts and rights bodies, perceive as a settler-colonialist project. Whatever anybody’s views on such a loaded subject, it is indisputable that the principal casus belli – dispossession – is the same as it ever was.

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There is certainly no sense of proportionality in the Israeli response to resistance – the “Greater Israel” dreamt of by numerous extremists requires the wiping out of all of historic Palestine. Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, no less, is typical of the many who want to annex all Palestinian Territories, saying: “This land is ours. All of it is ours.” By the by, Hotovely also regularly uses genocidal language. When asked about the possibility of destroying the whole of Gaza, she replied: “So, do you have another solution, on how to destroy the underground tunnel city?”

Constant references to the “underground city”, the “battalions” and the “command centres” are all aimed at elevating Hamas fighters to a sophisticated modern army. It is all part of the propaganda designed to legitimise the flattening of entire communities, and Hotovely revels in such deceit. She is meant to be a high-profile “diplomat”, too, remember – one who in fact personifies an Israel that is rapidly turning into an international pariah. Netanyahu himself has been avoiding prosecution for corruption while keeping the war going, and he displays zero qualms about the consequences.

As it stands, some 46,000 Israeli businesses have closed over the past year, Israel’s credit rating has been lowered, and foreign investment has collapsed. Tourism – so often the acceptable face of Israel – is also in crisis, with hotels facing closure and international airlines suspending flights.

Just as significantly, ordinary Israelis are protesting against having to play an active part in the forever war.

Many are losing their full-time civilian jobs because of the time they spend away with the military, and some 10,000 have asked for mental health support. The crisis has led to some simply refusing to turn up for duty, as the young, in particular, question a life spent fighting. Attitudes have changed enormously in recent years, as the world becomes smaller through new technology and easier travel.

There is particular anger at the way rabble-rousers like Netanyahu and Hotovely eschew diplomatic solutions to anything, preferring to deploy high-impact weaponry. Such ghouls rejoice in turning to violence at every opportunity, especially because of Israel’s world-beating reputation for taking lives. But – despite their bombast – as the body toll mounts and goodwill vanishes, perceived victories will rapidly turn to dust, and the misery of defeat will prevail.

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