Israel’s onslaught on Gaza: Why Arab lives should matter
Israel’s onslaught on Gaza: Why Arab lives should matter
As Israel’s war on Gaza rages on, Western powers aiding & abetting the atrocities committed reinforces how expendable Palestinian and Arab lives are. Nabila Ramdani explains how the killing of Palestinians is "justified" by Israel for its defence.
6 min read
15 Nov, 2023
As Israel's war crime allegations mount, the grotesque claim by their government is that all humanityin Gaza can legitimately be destroyed, writes Nabila Ramdani. [GETTY]
If you want to get a realistic impression of hell on earth, then you don’t have to look any further than thenever-ending onslaughtonGaza. Themassacre, which has so far claimed more than 11,200 Palestinian lives, including more than 4,200 children, often alongside their mothers,is relentless.Daily videos show dismembered infant corpses, usually surrounded by bloodied, screeching adults who – like the dead – have absolutely nothing to do with what drives this carnage.
The actual belligerents are easy enough to identify. On one side, there is the armed wing of Hamas – the group that carried out violent attacks during a raid into Israel thatclaimed . The world continues to mourn and express outrage at the killing, wounding and capture of those targeted.
Hamas’ Qassam Brigades' principal foe is the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) which is by far themost heavily armed military force in the Middle East with its own .
''The macabre mannerinwhich killing methods are graded is particularly disturbing.It’sas if a row of mutilated Palestinian corpses is somehow not comparable with othervictims, because the Palestinians have been torn apart by“defensive” weaponspaid for by theWest.''
As Israel's mount, the grotesque claim by their government is that all humanityin Gaza can legitimately be destroyed, becauseit includesa limited number of armedmilitants. Israeli defence ministerYoav Gallantsaid:“We are fightinghuman animalsand we are acting accordingly.”
Many of the civilians who manage to avoid theindiscriminate bombardments and shootings,including under the cover of a complete blackout,will succumb to a range of other deadly factors enforced by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).These include blockades of vital supplies. “We are putting a complete siege on Gaza … No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” Gallant .
FormerIsraeliprime minister Naftali Bennettevenfaked a malign adhesion to the, openly admitting:“we’re allowing civilians to evacuate before ”. Bennett’s successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, boasted of“raining down hellfire”on Gaza.
Thereare alwaysperfunctoryadditionstotheGazaslaughterclichésthathave been reeled out for decadesduring suchasymmetrical conflicts. Encouragingpeopleto move south fromGaza City,on roads that will be bombed anyway,will not stopwhat is already being described as .Palestinianvictims are simply dehumanised –all aretreated asexpendable nonentities who deserve collective punishment.
organisations andtheUnited Nationshave expressed fears of . Thisevokesthepost-(catastrophe), whenat least 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and lands,andsome15,000werekilled by paramilitaries, so as to create space for the new state of Israel.
As always with Israeli offensives, there is aglobalmass 徱貹 aimed at “justifying” them. Expressions such as “Israel defending itself” are continually used. If there is any objection to what is going on, then the word “Hamas” is deployed, as if the group’s very name has the power to absolveanyoneofcrimes against humanity.
Even the most destructive IDF weapons, such as the new Iron Sting mortars, are described as being “defensive” ones, despite the way they have – once again – rapidly turned Gaza into a rubble-strewn tomb. The use ofthis“defensive”vocabularyby anoccupying armywhich puts“Defence” in itsvery nameis meant to numb any sense of outrage, and anyone who disagrees is accused of “condoning terrorism”.
Words are extremely powerful, and in this case,they belie the fact that multiple IDF operations over the decades,which have included ground invasions,have been offensiveones with one primary objective: to wipe outArab Muslim life.
Creating the consensus for suchactionamongWestern allies is never difficult. Hastily arranged press conferences have linked Hamas with every atrocity imaginable, including the use of chemical weapons. The cross-borderraiders allegedly carried“official” in Englishon launching a cyanideattack,according to the President of Israel. Meanwhile, thedistinction betweenISIS, Al-Qaeda,and Hamasand millions of ordinary Palestinians is conveniently blurred.
American President Joe Biden is certainly unconcerned at the difference. He just wants the “pounding” to go on and on. Biden has even sent the USA’s mostsophisticated warships, including its newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to assist Israel in case its own arsenal proves insufficient.He refers to “teams”, as if it was all one big sporting event, while designating,much of itto be spent on weaponry.
Making chronically enflamed situations infinitely worse by pouring arms and ammunition on to them is appalling at the best of times, but in a Middle East cauldron blighted by years of injustice it guarantees endless war.
Despite the hellscape images pouring out of Gaza, Biden even made a disgraceful claim that Palestinians might not be “telling the truth about how many people are killed,” while : “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s a price of waging war.But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and decades of Occupation arecrucial to understanding the situation.This is whyFrancesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to and the Naksa (setback),which led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, displacing 350,000 Palestinians.
Ms Albanese :“There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again…Again, in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.”
Even the resolutely one-sided Biden admits thatillegallandand homegrabs, the destruction of Palestinian farms, and the killings, injuring,forcible displacementand imprisonment Palestinians have been suffering for generationsis critical.
“I continue to be alarmed about extremist settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank,” Biden. Likening such behaviour to “Pouring gasoline on fire”, he stated:“They’re attacking Palestinians in places that they [the Palestinians] are entitled to be, and … it has to stop now.”
TheIDFregularly works witharmed settlers to persecute and terrorise Palestinian communities.Thisincessantviolation of international lawwithin an amounts to apermanent war against the Arabs.
This iswhy so many far-right commentators, including in the British media, evoke great replacement – theracist conspiracy theory that suggests thatMuslimsmight eventuallydominateWesterners, making genocidal wars of civilisation entirely justified.The mass killings are necessary, the argument goes, as ameans of “protecting” Western culturefrom the“human animals”.
The macabre mannerinwhich killing methods are graded is particularly disturbing.It’sas if a row of mutilated Palestinian corpses is somehow not comparable with othervictims, because the Palestinians have been torn apart by“defensive” weaponspaid for by theWest.
Palestiniansand those who support them arefrequently deemed worthless. Even the hundreds of thousands who take to the streetsof London, Paris and numerous other citiesto protest against atrocities in Gaza,as well as Israel,are portrayed as terrorist sympathisers. Conservativeswho would normally be in favour of free speech about anything, scream for the censoring of anyone who might express support for Palestine.
What is certain is thatthe cycle of violence will be endless while supposedly civilised governments, including Britain’s, consider that the destruction of one set ofoppressedhumans is necessary, so as to ensure thesecurityof another.
Weasel words ultimately championing death and destructionfromBidenand UKPrime Minister Rishi Sunak have been another low-point of thisperiod. A change of mindset is urgently required, and this includes accepting the idea thatArab livesare as sacred as any other.
Nabila Ramdani is a French journalist and academic of Algerian descent, and author ofFixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republicpublished by PublicAffairs and Hurst.
Follow her on Twitter:@NabilaRamdani
Have questions or comments? Email us at:editorial-english@newarab.com
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of , its editorial board or staff.
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