Nesrine Malik has a powerful article in the Guardian this morning in which she discusses the normalisation of the genocide in Gaza, as represented by the multiple standing ovations in the US Congress for Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu last week.
As she notes:
[This normalisation] looks like accepting that there are certain groups of people who can be killed. That it is, in fact, reasonable and necessary that they should die in order to maintain a political system that is built on the inequality of human life. This is what the philosopher Achille Mbembe calls “necropolitics” – the exercising of power to dictate how some people live and how others must die.
Necropolitics creates “deathworlds” where there are “new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to living conditions that confer upon them the status of the living dead”. In those deathworlds the killing of others, and the destruction of their habitat through epic military capabilities whose impact is never experienced by the citizens of the countriesresponsible, confer even more value on the humanity of those in the “civilised” west. They are exempt because they are good, not because they are strong. Palestinians die because they are bad, not because they are weak.
And as she concludes:
The result is a world that feels as if it's in the jarring middle of that transition. Where political events move forward with speed, folding Gaza into the normal. ...
What world emerges after this? The war on Gaza is simply too big, too live, too relentless for its forced normalisation to occur without unintended consequences. The end result is all of humanity degraded; the end result is a world in which when the call comes to aid people in need, no one will be capable of heeding it.
Why refer to this, apart from highlighting the obvious quality of Nesrine Malik's thinking, writing and humanity?
I had four reactions. First, that I am not mad to not accept this situation. None of us should.
Second, my revulsion at Netanyahu's reception is justified.
Third, that this is how fascists work. They want us to accept that the elimination of the ‘other' is normal when in reality it is not just abhorrent; it is also a crime.
And fourth, we need to shout about this. So I am.
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“Dead-in-the-Water Starmer will soon be appointing a task force or commission to consider whether it really is genocide!
Perhaps also worth reading is an article in Aljazeera, Gaza is the fate of humanity. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/7/28/gaza-is-the-fate-of-humanity
Thank you and well said, Richard.
I am surprised by how long this story has taken to get an airing. I mentioned it last week in a reply.
UK, EU and NATO officials attended the speech, endorsing Netanyahu’s sentiments.
The rest of the world is aghast at western duplicity and getting on with measures to promote multipolarity, developments the MSM don’t want westerners to hear about. Increasingly, the west means dispossession, death and destruction. What did Gandhi say about western civilisation?
While the rest of the world rightly backs Palestine, there seems some acknowledgement of pro-Palestinian views.
China Daily in May applauded France
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202405/14/WS6642bd80a31082fc043c6f34.html
and In Feb the Wire was complaining that Gaza was being ignored by the Indian press.
Al Jazeera is a channel I watch a few times a week. I find some of the discussions are very informative.
As human beings, we cannot afford to watch the Levant passively.
This is an essential post. We need to be reminded of this global disaster very frequently.
I recently encountered a discussion of life under Nazism post 1933 which described that system as ‘pitiless’ – and that inhumanity permeated every aspect of life, reducing existence to survival mode.
Pitiless seems to be a single word that simultaneously describes both the perpetrator and their actions in fascism.
If ‘any man’s death diminishes me’, then the Gazan war dehumanises all of us, victims, executors and observers.
Being human really does make demands on all of us.
I do not want to be forced into a state of necropolitics, which seems to be but another manifestation of colonialism, but feel powerless to intervene.
Zionism is proving to be as evil a death cult as any other pitiless order, and its psychopathic drivers are emboldened by the passive assent they have received.
At the present time we only have the UN and all its agencies, and the international charity sector behaving with humanity.
All others, including the UK, but especially the Americans, seem to be validating the pitiless cruelty that is every day Israeli policy and practice.
Such is ‘Pax Americana’.
Netanyahu has had a tame uncritical audience for years. The Republican Senators and Congress people were keen to be seen by their constituents applauding him but a number stayed away and there were protests outside. Described as ‘anti-Semitic’ but i don’t think many accept this any more.
Polls tell us young people in the US and elsewhere are less likely to buy the ‘stand by Israel’ line. The religious justification for that is without foundation and has less traction with the young.
In Feb we heard that hundreds of EU, UK and US officials signed a letter saying their countries were in grave danger of complicity in war crimes. This, as far as I know, is unprecedented in modern times. I think we assume there are many more who won’t speak out. We have not been allowed to see the letter.
People who have no knowledge of the history are seeing-nightly- further death and destruction. The politicians and media don’t reflect the view of many people. I won’t exaggerate the importance of Labour refusing to object to the ICC indictment of Netanyahu but it is a step.
The ice sheets of public opinion are beginning to break. Sometimes it takes an age but at others, it can happen quickly. It needs courageous people to lead. Often they appear as if from nowhere.
this was in May https://www.map.org.uk/news/archive/post/1585-new-poll-shows-sustained-british-public-support-for-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza-and-the-suspension-of-uk-arms-sales-to-israel
I had better tread carefully here………………
Before Gaza, there was Yemen which was bad enough and criminally under reported and made me feel sick as it was.
We know why this kicked off in Gaza but ‘an eye for an eye’ in this conflict is not at all what this is about anymore. Israel’s response has gone far beyond that, and stinks of opportunism as well.
Why?
Consider this very well written, reasonable reflection from the Jewish Left here – a voice that is too often crowded out and one which our anger must not make us deaf or blind to either (the Israel we see is not just Netanyahu’s version):
https://jacobin.com/2020/07/israel-palestine-anti-zionism-history-left
I understand that some sections of the Jewish left may have also supported Zionism but not in Palestine and not in the way it has actually worked in the modern age.
I think Balthaser’s writing above is full of the self awareness as you would expect from someone who see’s themselves as one of God’s children sharing the world with others that God had made as God had intended. Until the Christian’s messed it up of course.
Steve Bannon’s great ‘Judeo-Christian partnership’ – my arse – what of the crusade engorged ‘Christians’ burning Jews in Clifford’s Tower, and Catholics mowing down Jewish innocents at Babi Yar and too many other places with ‘Gott Mit Uns’ (God with Us) imprinted on their belts. The hypocrisy! Talk about re-writing history.
Whilst away from this blog, I reflected more deeply about Zionism, and with the help of Abbey Innes I can only conclude that Zionism is an expression of Jewish materialism in its religion.
The obsession with land – or shall we say ‘real estate’ – is the really dark secret within Zionism, because at its heart real-estate is a great source and driver of wealth and economic power. This is not living space – it’s economic space Israel is after at any cost and any excuse. It is as far away from spirituality as could imagine.
The other thing I think Zionism is, is that it is anti-Semitic in itself.
Why? Because Zionism plays on the West’s own Christian based anti-Jewish tradition and gives its Western supporters what it wants – Jews not living next door to them. Perfect! Jews anywhere but here in the West? I think Zionism cynically exploits this, I really do.
And why might that be?
Well, there is another honourable tradition in Jewish history and that is their prominent involvement in the development of the Left. Maybe this is why Jews have paid such a heavy price more recently in their history and why they are ‘feared’ by the Right in the West?
Convincing? Who knows? But the relationships between the principals is so complex it cannot just be that Israel gives the U.S. a toe hold in a region where there is a lot of coveted oil.