https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html
I'd ask anybody who cares to read this. Genocide is the worst accusation you can level in the world, but it's important to read the authorities on this issue.
I have three major issues with this op-ed. 1. I don't think it's possible to wage a war like this without getting your hands filthy, and this is in no sense a war Israel chose to fight. What we call war crimes IS war, particularly when the enemy is a regime whose entire existence is devoted to the perpetration of war crimes. War is chaos, and whatever your intentions when you went in, they quickly fall by the wayside when you experience war's realities. And even if Israeli leadership pursues this war with the best intentions (and this one obviously doesn't), there will always be rogue units that disregard orders and kill without discrimination. 2. It's very easy to find a collection of alarming quotes and construe it as evidence that a leadership class of thousands means to perpetrate a genocide. For everybody who makes statements like these, there are leaders who say things in the exact opposite spirit - though, it should be noted, the vast majority of them are not in Netanyahu's cabinet. 3. It takes for granted that there is a political solution to this conflict when there is so little historical evidence that any solution yet exists. Israel tried all throughout the 90s, a series of offers made Israel ever more vulnerable, and in December 2000, after Ehud Barak offered Palestine 97% of the West Bank and complete control of Gaza, Arafat simply walked away without so much as a counteroffer - he literally walked away BECAUSE the Israeli offer was serious.
But you can't dismiss what this article says out of hand. Anybody who acts as though this is the Israel of the 20th century and worth defending with the passion we used to is only adding fuel to the fire and making the world's reckoning with the modern Israel worse. If you asked me if a genocide is taking place right now, I'd say 'absolutely not.' But were there no national unity government formed and just Netanyahu's band of scum left to themselves, if you asked me whether this government of villains is capable of perpetrating a genocide, I wouldn't even hesitate and neither should you.
This is not the 20th century Israel you remember, and sooner or later, we're all going to have to stop playing the farce that it is. This is the equivalent to a Donald Trump government, but without the civil checks on Trump's worst instincts that prevented him from pursuing his most murderous ideas without accountability. Forget the moral unfairness of the double standard against Israel. More important things are at stake: if pro-Israel Jews like us don't police this government now and keep calling it out for its mendaciousness, we are going to pay for it on the most unimaginable level soon, and if Israel falls because of international machinations, whatever is perpetrated in the former Israel will almost certainly be a genocide.
No comments:
Post a Comment