THE GAZA CAUSE: A PHENOMENON WE HAVE SEEN BEFORE

Jew hate can occur when men and women become so caught up in a cause they are blinded to all sense of decency.

I have watched, listened and read commentators who have expressed bewilderment at how events in Palestine, thousands of miles away, have filled our streets and social media with so much anger directed at Israel, and become the number one issue especially for the younger generation. But this phenomenon of a foreign country cause before all else, is nothing new in western society.

The cause this time come from all the events and actions that have flowed from the hours on 7^th October 2023 when Hamas committed atrocities when killing Israelis, and engaged in the foul practice of taking human beings as hostages, with the Amalek policy response of utter destruction and high number killing by the Israeli government – all embraced in the history of how Israel was created at the expense of dispossessed Palestinians, and the permanent conflict that has followed.

Now and again an issue emerges that a generation believes captures all the principles, ethics, morality and justice that are crucial to their view of the world that should be and isn’t, and so but must be at the forefront of everything else. Gaza and Israel is the latest.

Earlier examples are the “morale crusade” led by Gladstone in 1876-80 against the Ottoman Empire’s atrocities committed in putting down a Bulgarian rebellion. ‘There is now,’ said Gladstone,’ for the first time in a good many years a virtuous passion’ let loose. In the 1930s it was the Spanish Civil War, when a generation, again the younger one, desperately tried to prevent a victory for fascism. Then there was the Vietnam war, when in the USA, Europe and the UK people, especially the younger generation, erupted in anger at the superpower bombing and killing at will a people who sought to unify their country and bring an end to its colonial submission. There was a riot in the London.

In all three examples, as is the case of Gaza, a generation picked a side, ignored any unpleasant facts that might not readily keep their side on the high pedestal they had placed it on, concentrated on the wickedness of the other side; and elevated their crusade as the one that mattered most in the world, well above anything else that was happening. Today, look at Sudan where mass rape and murder with millions displaced and hungry is a day-to-day situation. Or the Congo where M23 backed by the Rwanda government is doing the same. Yet there are no worldwide protests.

In Gladstone’s crusade, that the Bulgarians committed atrocities in the rebellion were swept aside. In the Spanish Civil War those participating on the government side had engaged in atrocity, and the international brigades knew, but kept quiet until afterwards, that Stalin’s agents were taking time out to kill followers and suspected followers of Trotsky. North Vietnam was not a democratic paradise. It was a harsh communist regime that didn’t hesitate to kill its internal opponents. It didn’t recognise downed US pilots as prisoners of war, and treated them accordingly. Yet Jane Fonda, a leading anti-war activist didn’t give a second’s thought to the propaganda value to the North when visiting, to sitting, helmet on, manning an anti-craft battery aiming at the sky where her American compatriots flew their planes.

And so it is with Gaza

Two years ago Hamas organised an atrocity which involved mass slaughter, rape followed by murder of the victims, torture and inhumane treatment of the hostages, all done with glee and recorded on their bodycams by those engaged in this horror. Greta Thunberg, the first time she was detained by Israel, refused to look at the unedited Hamas bodycam videos. She didn’t want to see anything that would disturb the position she had taken. And so it is with so many others. Hamas an Islamist fundamental organisation, like its sponsor the Iranian regime, is opposed to every western value. But the 7th October and the reality of the Hamas set of Islamic anti-western beliefs don’t matter.

Those who speak and write in favour Israel in this war wring their hands, then raise them to heaven in frustration and ask why no-one but them reacts against a Hamas that is capable of such brutality and savagery. Why they ask isn’t what happened on 7^th October at the forefront of every mind in the world. Why is the biggest outrage against Jews since the Nazis not given the consistent condemnation that it calls for? Why is it that for those demonstrating in country after country Israel is the target?

Step Forward Netanyahu

One man, Netanyahu, and his proto-fascist cabinet colleagues is the answer. That Israel would retaliate to Hamas atrocity was a given. But as the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister pointed out, Israel has a proven ability to strike at its enemies with precision, and has since 7^th October done so in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, only failing in Qatar. But Netanyahu decided, not only on getting Hamas, but on wanton destruction of the homes, businesses, institutions and cultural heritage of the Palestinians in Gaza; a policy that was founded on inhumane treatment of a mass of people in which high levels of civilian deaths was inevitable.

What has happened in Gaza is not mission creep. It is the policy set out by Netanyahu in his letter to each member of the IDF and security forces before they went in. Let me quote:

“The current fight against the murderers of ‘Hamas’ is another chapter in the generations-long story of our national resilience.

‘Rember what Amalek did to you.’”

In ancient times the Amalek were enemies of the Israelites who ambushed them on their way out of slavery in Egypt, and fought and oppressed them. Retribution came when Israel not only defeated the Amalek but killed every man, woman, child and their livestock. The message to the IDF when invoking Amalek was clear: unleash unrestrained power irrespective of who the casualties are.

In that letter Netanyahu not only invoked Amalek, but dehumanised those the IDF was about to attack: “This is a war between the children of light and the children of darkness.” That covered all Palestinians.

The Israeli massacre of the Amalek was a genocide. By giving Amalek emphasis in one separate line in a long letter, Netanyahu cannot complain when the UN and others now describe events in Gaza as a genocide, while the scale of Israel’s war crimes allow the anti-Israel demonstrations to evade facing what Hamas did on 7^th October.

Netanyahu is a tragedy for Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

Israel’s prime minister boasts about his state’s military prowess, its assaults on its enemies, and asserts it as the hegemon of the Middle East. Yet nothing except one factor has changed. Israel remains a small country surrounded by states that know they are in no position to oppose it effectively, but continue to intensely dislike it, and who have populations seething with anger over its occupation practices in the West Bank, and want to settle scores over Gaza. That means the future for Israelis will be a mirror of the past – a permanent target of terror and insecurity.

The factor that has changed is world opinion. If Israel is not yet in everyone’s category of a pariah state it is dangerously near to being held as such. Its strongest surviving link is the United States, but given how the view of Israel has been changing there among tomorrow’s leaders, it could prove in a few years to be its weak link. Despite what Netanyahu says about Israel “standing alone” that will never be true without the so far unconditional backing of the USA, and that is a long-term doubt.

Right now there is pressure on those European countries that have recognised a Palestinian state to go further by applying sanctions on Israel. The logic of those arguing for sanctions is “you have recognised a Palestinian state where one part is under attack and the other part under brutal occupation, so you must apply the only weapon available and that is sanctions.” The answer to that will not be made in public. It is that with Trump in the White House, EU or UK sanctions on Israel would invite massive tariffs imposed on them by the Trump USA, with millions of jobs at stake. But the public pressure for sanctions will grow, and Trump will not always be president even if he hopes so.

The disaster for our Jewish communities

The other Netanyahu disaster is for Jews who live in countries outside Israel. People dodge this, but given the centuries of hate directed at them, the Israeli state was established so that all Jews have a place to go to, the only place to go to, where they can be guaranteed to be free from persecution for no other reason than being Jewish. Israel’s “right of return” is an open door to everyone who is a Jew. That gives every person who is a Jew a stake in the continued existence of Israel, and unfortunately by association in the mind of others, a degree of responsibility for what Israel does.

That of course is grossly unfair. Many, many diaspora Jews are critical of Israeli governments (as are Jews within Israel) and there are many today who do not hesitate to describe Israel as committing genocide. It is unfair, wrong, but association is a reality. Were it not so, our Jewish communities would have no need to formally organise security for their schools and Synagogues, and be free from fear.

Netanyahu should know that you cannot create a specifically Jewish state, reach out to and expect Jewish communities in the western world for continued support for all Israel does, as exampled by AIPAC in the USA and some bodies in Europe, without making those communities targets for the anti-Semites when Israel’s actions cause worldwide revulsion.

I cannot help come to the conclusion that Netanyahu and Hamas are two sides of the fanatic’s coin.

Hamas don’t care about Palestinian casualties as the more deaths the greater is the anger and desire for revenge upon which they can recruit and rebuild. Hamas, which didn’t build one single shelter for the people it governed, could have ended the carnage by releasing all hostages, thus denying the Netanyahu government of a principal reason for continuing an Amalek policy, allowing western pressure, which at the start still had leverage on the Israeli government, to limit its actions.

Netanyahu’s Amalek war crimes assault on Gaza has caused immense problems and threats to Jews in the diaspora, and he has used those threats to bolster his claim that they are proof of a world showing its true anti-Semitic colours, thereby justifying his actions as vital for Israel’s security as the only safe homeland for all Jews.

The old poison is back

Between them, Hamas and Netanyahu’s government have let loose an old poison into the world’s politics and people: Jew hatred. Look at the words shouted loudly by students at Glasgow University on the anniversary of 7^th October 2023: we “Celebrate the glorious Al-Aqsa Flood which permanently crippled the Zionist entity.” That was the same language used by Hamas to describe the atrocity it conducted against Jews. No pity from Scottish students for the terror of a young woman being raped and realising during it that she was to be murdered, or for a mother seeing her baby killed? Instead celebrate it. No wonder Jews in Scotland are afraid.

Where Jew Hatred has already led

As previous articles show, I am a long- time critic of Israel and its conduct towards the Palestinians. In my days as a newspaper columnist, and politician, I have clashed with Jewish groups over Israel’s policies and been described by them as anti-Semitic. They had taken a position, as had AIPAC in the USA (the most powerful lobby in that country) to support Israel on whatever it did. In Scotland we called them Likud’s Scottish platoon. I never rose to the bait about being called anti-Semitic because of criticism of Israel. It might have brought comfort to them, but it was false.

For someone of my generation, who even as a child could not but be aware of what Nazi Germany had done to the Jews of Europe, it should be impossible, as it is for me, to hate a human being who is a Jew no matter what stand they take in respect of Israel.

I come from a generation of Scots who believed grown men should not cry. That was one of a number of our foibles that thankfully no longer apply. But I did cry when I was 22, on reading a book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L Shirer, published in 1960. It recalled an affidavit from a German civilian read to the Nuremberg Trial of the Nazi war criminals, by Sir Hartley Shawcross the UK chief prosecutor. Here is a section.

It began by recording that Jewish men, woman and children were forced to fully undress and went on:

“Without screaming or weeping these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewell and waited for a sign from another S.S. man who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand. During the fifteen minutes that I stood near the pit I heard no complaint or plea for mercy.

An old woman with snow white hair was holding a one-year-old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it. The child was cooing with delight. The parents were looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed to the sky, stroked his head and seemed to explain something to him. At that moment the S.S. man at the pit shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted off about twenty persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound…I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair, who, as she passed close to me, pointed to herself and said ‘twenty-three years old’. I walked around the mound and found myself confronted by a tremendous grave…….I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an S.S. man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling in the pit. He had a tommy-gun on his knee and was smoking a cigarette.”

Sir Hartley Shawcross made no prior statement. He just read it. First to stunned silence, then to the sound of tears as even the hardest men in the court began to cry.

That obscene scene, replicated across killing grounds in Europe, is what Jew hate can come to if men and women become so caught up in a cause they are blinded to all sense of decency.