Where is the limit for Israel's mass murder in Gaza?

 

 

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Gaza  

Where does Israel's mass murder draw the line?  

 

Jan Guillou  

 

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.  

 

Published 06.17  

 

A man mourns his dead relatives in Khan Younis, Gaza. Photo: Fatima Shbair/AP  

 

There was a time when Israel and all of Israel's defenders pushed the line that Palestinians did not deserve democratic freedoms and rights. The Palestinians misbehaved, it was claimed. The Palestinians repeatedly manifested, in the most inappropriate ways, their dissatisfaction with being occupied. Consequently, it was the Palestinians' own fault that the occupation had to continue and that no independent Palestinian state could be established. Otherwise, it was the solution to the conflict that every single liberal politician in the Western world devoted at least a lip service to.  

 

Although no sane politician could have believed that it could become a reality. As the occupied population constantly misbehaved, protesting land thefts, complaining about being evicted from their homes, throwing stones at the police and on a couple of occasions attempting to riot, resorting to violence and widespread vandalism.  

  

Thus, Israel must shoulder the heavy burden of continuing the occupation, investing heavily in police and security forces, and filling its prisons with the worst troublemakers, with or without legal procedures.  

 

Behind this bulwark of political hypocrisy, Israel consistently and methodically worked, decade after decade, to colonize and build up the occupied West Bank (“West Bank”) to ultimately render impossible any practical possibility of a two-state solution. The world allowed it to happen, even though this was precisely the often and bluntly stated goal of Israel's governments.  

 

Thus, the argument that it was the Palestinians' treachery that made an independent Palestinian state impossible had served its purpose. The matter was settled, the occupation permanent. All hope was lost and then, with willing Israeli assistance, the terrorist organization Hamas was born in the cut off and walled open air prison of Gaza.  

 

Hamas also did not want a two-state solution. They wanted to destroy Israel. Which suited the Israeli regime just fine. They agreed. No two-state solution, just war. Strongest wins.  

 

For Israel's supporters, it was no longer possible to pretend to believe in peace. Then a new argument was needed to defend Israel's territorial conquests. It became the Palestinians' hatred of the occupying power, which could be said to be anti-Semitic, since the occupiers are Jews. Like all criticism around the world against Israel's rigid ruling line could be dismissed with the same argument. 

 

Since anti-Semites are morally disqualified, there was no longer any valid criticism of Israeli policies of conquest. Incidentally, the Palestinians could be described as the most inveterate anti-Semites of all. Therefore disenfranchised.  

 

Hamas' terrorist attack on October 7 this year went further in spectacular cruelty and ruthlessness than ever before. In total and calculating cynicism, Hamas must have anticipated how Israel would react. It would be the most extensive retaliation ever, by bombing Gaza and killing tens of thousands of civilians. Possibly Hamas thought that when Israel killed so many unarmed men, women and children that the Arab and Muslim world could not stand it, it could lead to a major war through a concerted attack on the war criminal state.  

 

Such cynical and anti-human calculations are only possible under the cover of religious fanaticism. The mass-murdered Palestinians will, in Hamas' fantasy world, come to the Kingdom of Heaven as martyrs, it is God's will that Israel be destroyed, etc.  

 

After the first month's revenge war in Gaza, the death toll stands at 1,400 Israeli murder victims against 14,000 Palestinian murder victims. And that's just the beginning. Because Israel's stated goal is to partly wipe out Hamas from the face of the earth, and partly to free roughly 200 Israeli hostages. These are incompatible goals, probably also unattainable.  

 

But even trying to achieve these goals leads to mass murder of unimaginable proportions. The question then becomes how far on that journey to hell Israel has with it the support of Europe and the United States. 

 

The Swedish government's position so far is that Israel's mass murder is "proportional" and therefore part of Israel's right to defend itself. But when the death toll in Gaza exceeds 50,000? And where is the line for Joe Biden? It remains to be seen.  

 

And what about the Swedish core squad of Israel's defense lawyers on culture and leadership pages, how many maimed and killed Palestinian children can they stand? Quite a few, it seems. The whole gang has long since retreated to defending Israel with the argument of anti-Semitism. Pretty much every liberal editorial writer and cultural journalist has written their own song about the anti-Semitic plague, regardless of how little they know about the Palestine issue. They see antisemitism everywhere. No ever-so-small observation of real or alleged anti-Semitism is too insignificant not to be presented by cultural writers as indirect defense of Israel's bombings.  

 

It is a double political disaster. For this time, anti-Semitism really flared up in the wake of Israel's war on terror. Therefore, it is terrible, a veritable calamity, if the fight against this spiritual poison is sabotaged by desperate defense of a genocidal war.

Furthermore, I believe that…

... Ebba Busch, that accident, not exactly unexpectedly embarrassed herself the most in the anti-Semitic hunt in her accusation against Magdalena Andersson that "it is she who has paved the way for the anti-Semitic wave that we see in our streets and squares". 

 

...it is possible to explain why the Palestine issue is world politics' most intractable problem. It is a conflict between two parties where both are right. I will tell ​