Israel A Safe Haven For Jews? Think Again.

"You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back." 

-----------------An old man's placard in Gaza 

"We are witnessing the sick relationship between the United States and Israel."

------Egyptian podcaster Rahma Zain

Hand-wringing about "the hostages" in Israel overlooks the fact that all residents in Gaza were already hostages on October 7, and had been for decades as a consequence of deliberate USraeli policy. This is what it means to live in colonial subjugation.

As for the recently kidnapped, one does not have to wish them any harm to point out that it doesn't really make much sense to build one's home on a volcano and then wax indignant at having lava in the living room. As a measure of the moral bankruptcy that prevails in Israel, consider the fact that the music festival that Hamas brutally attacked was dedicated to peace and love - just two kilometers from what Hebrew University sociology professor Baruch Kimmerling called "the largest concentration camp in the world" - in 2003, long before the siege of Gaza made the situation much worse.

Also, in a country as militarized as Israel, is it really appropriate to use the term "civilians" without qualification? Almost all Jews are either current soldiers, former soldiers, or future soldiers.

Furthermore, common references to "inhumane" conditions in Gaza, and "neglect" as a reason for them are drastically understated. Such allegedly non-partisan evaluations of Israel's policies of shooting at ambulances, leveling hospitals, and dropping white phosphorous bombs on civilian populations, among other horrors of the Holy State, are a total absurdity. It's like calling lynching an inadvertent unkindness.

It's time to face reality. As Egyptian podcaster Rahma Zain recently stated, the U.S.-Israel "special relationship" is sick. She points out that Washington has essentially raised a spoiled brat that it is unable to say "no" to, who has now grown into a sociopath.

The truth is that declaring Jewish sovereignty over Arab lands in Palestine was always a disastrous plan, even for Jews, who claim to be "redeeming" the land by taking it from indigenous Arabs. This wholesale robbery is seen as entirely legitimate in Israel's eyes. Prior to October 7, the only discussion related to apartheid in the Holy State was about what form it should take: messianic, religious, and theocratic, or secular, Western, and democratic. Palestinians had been completely forgotten.

Israel was supposed to be a safe haven for Jews, but by repeatedly doubling down on racist exclusion of the Palestinians, it has become the most dangerous place in the world for a Jew to be.

Epic fail.

Sources: 

Old man's placard in Gaza . . . Noam Chomsky, "Because We Say So," (City Lights, 2017) p. 77

Kimmerling quote from Norman Finkelstein interview with Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept, May 20, 2018

Music festival commentary from Ilan Pappe, "Crisis in Zionism, Opportunity For Palestine?" U.C. Berkeley Lecture, October 19, 2023

Rahma Zain quoted in You Tube video, "Netanyahu Gears Up For Ground Invasion," Novara Media, 10/26/23

For more than ample verification of Israel's crimes in Gaza, see Norman Finkelstein's fine work on the topic, which long pre-dates October 7, 2023. (For example, see "Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.")