Why Has Israel Lost The World?
We are condemned to stand by and watch deepen the reservoir of hate from which both sides drink.
In a previous article I sought to set out the decision making by Hamas and the Israeli government that caused the events of 7th October 2023, and the reaction. There is some reference from that article in this one, in that Israel’s Amalek policy is underlined, and the nature of the Hamas atrocities is again spelled out. I do so because it seems to me that hardly any attention has been paid to Netanyahu’s letter to the IDF soldiers, and that outside of Israel and Jewish communities elsewhere, Hamas has not been called to account, and when its leaders have been questioned on the things done, they dodge and lie.
Israel speaks truth with its claim that any state whose citizens were victims of atrocity by a non-state terrorist organisation, would respond with military power to eliminate them; and that no other state would tolerate 10,000 missiles launched against it over one year by another non-state actor, without a powerful violent reply aimed at ending their ability to continue.
So, why does the Israeli UN Ambassador, and other spokespeople, berate the international community for putting aside what happened on 7th October and, instead, call for Israel to desist in Gaza and Lebanon? Why did the UN Security Council, in a private meeting on 8th October, the day after, fail to agree on a resolution condemning Hamas? Why did the General Assembly reject a Canadian amendment condemning the Hamas atrocity? Why, with few exceptions, has Israel lost the world?
We could cite history soaked in bloody reasons from 1920 onwards, but today’s episode in the extraordinary application of state violence has, in my view, three main reasons why Israel faces antagonism at the UN and in the international community: its conduct as the occupying power in the West Bank since 1967, its consistent record of rejecting, often with contempt, UN criticisms and Security Council resolutions, and the Israeli government’s choice of “Amalek” as the response to the Hamas action of 7th. October.
Israel is a democracy. But when it comes to occupying another unwilling people, democracies employ the same oppressive brutality as authoritarian regimes do to maintain control. The Hola death camps in Kenya, Amritsar in India are two examples of democratic Britain in the occupancy role. Another is the US repressing the Huk rebellion in the Philippines. Israeli human rights groups have catalogues of their own government’s gross abuses of Palestinians, but I need refer only to the second Intifada in 2000 as an example, when then Israeli Defence minister Yitzhak Rabin instructed his soldiers to use “force, might, beatings” which included the cold-blooded breaking of children’s bones for throwing stones. There were videos of these actions on you Tube, since taken down. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group estimate 2,000 Palestinians were killed, as the IDF used live ammunition against demonstrators. Israel’s violent repression has never let up. Part of it is unrestrained settler violence.
West Bank occupation came as the result of the 1967 six-day war in which Israel demonstrated its superior military power and leadership against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel had to fight and win that war, and the world was impressed. Victory was followed by mistake born of a new thing: Israeli arrogance and a sense of absolute superiority which led it to maintain occupation of conquered land and people, and start a settler building movement designed to prevent any genuine Palestinian state. That mistake is not an outsider’s view. It is held by many Israelis.
Israel’s diplomacy within the UN is abysmal. It almost falls into the category of “You don’t like us, and we don’t care.” It refuses to comply with UNSC resolutions under Chapter VI which are mandatory, but carry no penalty for non-compliance, knowing there will never be a Chapter VII resolution that does come with severe penalties (ask Iraq) because the US will veto it. Even when the US does not veto a Chapter VI, as with 2334 in 2016 calling for settlements to stop, Israel’s answer was to build more. Years of “up yours, we are immune” are now being repaid by hostility from the international community.
But above all, it is the Amalek policy with its wanton destruction of Gaza and its death toll, that has turned other states and peoples everywhere against Israel. There was an alternative. Israel has demonstrated time and again, most recently in assassinating the Hamas leaders, decapitating the Hezbollah leadership and emasculating its members, that it is the master of devastating focused action. Why choose Amalek and not that policy?
Because this Israeli government, driven by what journalist Paul Nuki calls its “Messianic Right” wanted revenge on a Biblical scale. Netanyahu, on the eve of the invasion of Gaza, sent a letter to IDF soldiers invoking the story of Amalek where ancient Israelis were instructed in fighting the enemy to “Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep and camels and asses.” That was a licence for IDF destruction of Gaza and its people. The world is appalled, and Israel’s supporters (Democrats US, Labour UK) are gripped in nervous anxiety about the consequences for them at home.
By applying Amalek retribution Netanyahu has taken Hamas off the hook it should be impaled upon. Banners in our streets claim it is not terrorist. It is. Many in the Arab world, and here, are so blinded by their hatred of Jews they declare atrocity allegation is Israeli propaganda. It is not. Hamas planned and executed terror at a new and higher level: rapes, desecration of the victims’ corpses, babies killed, young and old slaughtered, and exultation by the criminals by what they were doing, all recorded by Hamas operatives themselves. Ordinarily the taking of hostages would meet with universal revulsion, but Hamas get a pass on that.
Being a democracy, with accountability at its core, Israel will hold inquiries into security failures, and the choice of Amalek policy. But what of Hamas? Who will it be accountable to for the nature of its attack on Israelis, a provocation it must have known would produce the most violent response from a Netanyahu government? It volunteered the people of Gaza for what was likely to come, just as Hezbollah volunteered the Lebanese for conflict with Israel.
Israel’s Messianic Right is matched by Messianic Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. These three intend to destroy Israel, while it is now taking on all of its enemies. In this reality, where neither side sees advantage in halting the present violence, diplomacy has no chance of success. We are condemned to stand by and watch deepen the reservoir of hate from which both sides drink.