Again and forever intergenerational warfare?

On the 7th Oct 2023, from the incarcerated Palestinian area Gaza, a contingent of Hamas ‘fighters’ planned, orchestrated and broke though the barriers of Israeli defences that caged in the peoples of the Gaza strip and carried out the horrendous massacre of unprepared, under-defended men, women and children of Israeli and Philippians worker residents. Some 1400 (unverified) people were killed with 200 (unverified) taken hostages and drag back into the Gaza strip by Hamas as hostages.

It was an unforeseen surprise attack that shook the Israeli populace from their belief that they were safe from any force that would endanger their life particularly via the extremism of Hamas etc. It seemed from this act that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) equipped with the most sophisticated surveillance tech, did not (apparently) detect any form of the preparation of the attack from Hamas and were slow with its own military assets to respond.

This initial act and the shock of being caught out by such manipulative ‘manned’ ground assault had stung the Israeli state government into ongoing retributive action. In the early few days most western politicians were continuing to express disgust, horror and support for the Israeli state to “Have the right to defend itself” under international law with “proportionate action” in response to that attack and reclaim those that had been taken hostage. General popular opinion also supported the right to self defense, as it would also apply to any self-governing country however there is a discernible shift in people’s attitudes that is some way off from that being continually expressed by political positions to date. It would seem that politicians are involved in echo chamber memes always spinning to the same defence of ‘Israel right to exist’ and its fight to do so, yet deliberately not see the same historical rights of other Semite Palestinian people who also have a right to fight. This disparity in context continues today increasing Palestinian anger to regain and have their land, to exist on. This land disagreement is something that has run for decades, after the UK/USA partition of Palestine, to create an Israeli state, effectively giving licence to Jewish ‘colonist’ to sequestrate existing occupied areas and in doing so they completely ignored, with Israel extremist Hasidic Jews, the virulently enacting opposition to the whole idea seeing any call of Palestinian rights valid.

There is no legal definition of what is deemed “proportionate action” in self defense; all civilians caught in known enemy attack positions or ‘assisting’ by enemy positions are able to be killed. Now after some 12 weeks of asymmetrical warfare onto the Gaza Strip some 18000+ (unverified) Palestinian have been killed, men, women, children and the near total destruction of all infrastructures – public buildings, homes, schools, hospitals, etc on the basis that they are ‘certainly’ locations of underground tunnel bases of Hamas. This certainty does seen strange, for IDF not being able to know the attack was being planned in the first place (yet there was over 3 years known evidence of Hamas practice barrier incursions) to now know the actual precise location of all these tunnels being built over many years, hardly seems credible. It is known that they have been built and are extensive; some under public structures, some built by Israel during its occupation from past conflicts and now Israel is massively aerial bombing “identified” Hamas ‘command position’ locations with some impunity. It just so happens that they are in and under heavily populated areas; which makes them, for the IDF legitimate targets on which to use any heavy aerial bombardment weapons as ‘ground clearance’ as “proportionate actions”.

It is not hard to understand the reason why this is the case, under the script of the ‘right to defend’ and ‘proportionality’; had Israeli ground forces immediately entered Gaza to chase down the terrorist, that may have been argued as being a proportional step of self defense reprisal but it was also a militarily personnel high risk strategy, fighting on unknown trapping ground; hence the option of softening up - ground clearance and engaging in multiple “whack a mole” actions and proportionality is being delivered in outright destruction. The resulting civil collateral damage to all supporting services in Gaza has many elements of what can be named as war crimes (UN has) and the usual key countries are not calling this act outrageous either, other than, O dear IDF don’t kill too many!

The level of destruction and the possible indiscriminate disregard of non-combatants being killed are changing the public perception of Israel’s right to defend by such overwhelming force. With its avowed intent to eradicate every last trace of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist group, and pacify the Gaza strip into its own image; the perception of what is justified as proportionate is hardening. Unfortunately although it is very clear that the initial action of one body – Hamas, is a unforgiving terrorist act for which the Palestinians are being made to bear the consequential destruction, the other body is engaged in war crimes with the initial, so far, blessing of the western politicians who are by some measure now out of step with what is taking place and in the perception of the wider public. From the destruction thus far inflicted on all the people of the Gaza Strip, creates a humanitarian aid catastrophe and the extremist in the Israeli state are being cynical in its so called mitigation measures to force people to continually move “elsewhere” for their own safety (areas which they then attack) while the largely unimpeded obliteration of Palestinian Hamas carries on. In this the Israeli state has adopted the mantle of becoming an actual terrorist state and discerning between the two actions of deadly intent and attitudes thereof now nullifies forbearance of proportionality.

The avowed aim now of the Israeli state is to eliminate Hamas (which long term observers believe is a vacuous aim) even though its existence in the Strip suited Israel as a caged and “managed” power within the Strip; it overlooked deliberately the reason for its existence and why it was voted to power within the Gaza Strip. Hamas demonstrates extremism but it is probably driven to it by the treatment meted out to Palestinians over the years and it (Hamas) offered a force to fight for its own right to exist. The scripted reaction when Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people was that it was immediately denounced and ruled irrelevant by the US and UK, giving to the Israeli state licence to ignore the recognised (by the UN) illegal land sequestration actions from there on in Gaza. Discounting Hamas as a popular choice, assisted continuing land grabs, building on Palestinian occupied long historically held land and allowed “settlers” ethnic cleansing the west bank as done elsewhere.

It seems obvious the west has created a problem in its uncritical support of Israel. It is built on the decades of history, and on one facet which is constantly raised on any and every opportunity to press the Holocaust button. From that comes the pernicious persecution they claim continues to threaten their existence in the created state of Israel and any current objections to their actions over pacifying all Palestine comes under the meme of being anti-Semitism. This history is always being used of as a baton to bash the consciousness of politics to give unqualified support for Israel in its ‘right to defend’ itself at any cost, at the same time avoid any mention of the Palestinian peoples having the same right to defend themselves of the same persecution and decades of land theft expulsions and oppression. People of a better age have absolutely no responsibly for the holocaust and hardly care, less still do they understand the reasons why or where the force for this war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank came from. In many ways the west – UK and USA seeded the modern foundation for this rolling expulsion and given the centuries of sect dogmas of the region, however warped righteous wars offers no hope for lasting peace.

One might express the view that with the current seeded war, “might is right”, as righteous sects would have it for their right to exist at any cost, which is patently wrong but for the west to be on side with a terrorist winner, or to offer uncritical succour to one over the other raises the dissents of discontented throughout the region and will extend and intensify additional unholy wars. For the moment the unappealing reality is that the Israeli state has been taken over by extremism, Zionist zealots, that will not to allow anything like a “two state” solution on any land that is deemed to be their god given land as assured in their Torah/Pentateuch; land that they see as currently unjustly occupied by Muslim heathen interlopers. So much faith is placed in the idea of god given Promised Land taken from scripted text, that even though such text was assembled over centuries by different instigators and adjusted to suit vague circumstances of the times from Persian, Egyptian to Roman; it is still an assemblage of various myth sources but used as legitimising power for Jews. This was done to retain power specialism and influence in a huge area of land that had consistent disruption in administrative forces, forces that did not recognise any god given rights of that created text. Now It may be that there is an element within the Israeli Jewish state, a developed psychological psychosis that will not allow them to step out of the historical narratives of “the chosen people”, covenant, persecution and the blind faith put in their binding scriptures; Cain and Abel and all that stuff.

Does the murderous act of elements of Hama's attack on the 7th with 1400 deaths and abductions seem now to be proportionately dealt with to the equally murderous ongoing action of the Israeli state on the whole Palestinian people? Blast bombing high density civilian areas, now killing 18000+ (daily increasing) injuring thousands of others and making social structures, home and utilities utterly destroyed, is this equitable? Such orchestrated state actions are now seemingly undertaken out of vindictive viciousness, devoid of all restraint to eliminate Hamas which is and probable will continue to be the front force of Palestinians right to its own land. Should continue killing of anyone in the Israeli states path to Pyrrhic victory also include the death and dismemberment of 30% (estimated) of children? With a highly concentrated population that live in the Gaza strip and with half of the Palestinians in Gaza under 18, this killing percentage etc may be eventually an underestimation. And in all this the Israel IDF have absolutely no idea how many of these killed were actually Hama's fighters but of course they were all declared legitimate targets for not moving, as told to, by IDF.

It is abundantly obvious that this latest conflict is by far the worst state of perpetrated war in this region. So far countries that have looked on over the decades have not done anything of lasting purpose to resolve the issues. International law is weak and it is ignored. Political capital by some countries is perverted for self serving needs and historic baggage is perpetuated beyond usefulness that will continue to cause these religious dogmas driven intergenerational Semite wars. Without facing up to the required hard prescription the same countries that helped initiate decades of turmoil are but vacuous witnesses, only able to help pick up the destroyed pieces, rebuild and wait for the next one!

Or is there a way out of the mess? Without a clearly expressed aim of future development which opponents to conflict want to see, the cultural pain can only fester built on the anger of those currently terrorised and it is likely to eventually explode again. As it is, at the moment one faction has at its core the desire to retake its land ‘from river to the sea’ with the total expulsion of the oppressors; the other has no intention of moving off anything and wants more. With this diametrical opposed stance, there is only one faction that can make a step difference to a ‘ultimate’ solution but to do so it has to reappraise its position in the region and part of this may be the need to reset the hard right from out of the Israeli government and reign in the "settlers" and the extremist or Hasidic Jews that control the historic discord of their out dated ideology of "God given rights". The other faction will have to do a similar de-radicalise change, realise it is unlikely to achieve expulsion and align with a legitimate authority (PA?). In any event, if no lasting peaceful accord is constructed soon, it may look like time is running out; environmental, geopolitical; demographics and regional dynamics are likely to generate forces of their own to make change.

Of course one might take the fixated view that what the Israeli state is doing is not just self defense, what they doing and carrying out is in accordance, opportunistically, with god's wishes, taking their god given right to the land that just happens to be occupied by Palestinians and others?. Responding to Hamas’s ‘terrorist‘attack, will have been justified with some measures but it shows the unrestrained evil that men can do when enmeshed in hatred with inspired egotistical beliefs and habituated cultural experiences. None can or should hide behind proportionality, but now has the administration of Israeli state also adopted terrorism of overwhelming force to shift those irritant Palestinian occupiers off all the “chosen land” and have no plan for what happens afterwards? Are the dispossessed, just going to forget?

Read all about it at your leisure, sources your choice but do it before it’s too late. In this age of heightened emotive sensitive’s and the obsequious deference being paid to anyone who is unfortunately given or takes unexpected offense albeit oftentimes unwittingly due one’s own lack of understanding of the moral, sociological, cultural, religious, gender background, race etc, etc, of the sensitivities of a recipient or any whom take virulent objections with above issues; one would like to offer ones profuse apologies should anything in this article give such unintentional offence. This too any that has had the misfortune to read it and to those that may never read it; just in case.

Renot 160016122023

(1) Haaretz Israel News: “A brief history of Netanyahu - Hamas alliance”

(2) Haaretz Israel News: “Why did Netanyahu want to strengthen Hamas?”

(3) www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/israel-disproportionate-force-tactic-infrastructure-economy-civilian-casualties. “Israel’s use of force a long established tactic- with clear aim”. Paul Rodgers.

(4) www.theguardian.com: “The war in Gaza has been an intense lesson in western hypocrisy. It won’t be forgotten” Nesrine Malik.

(5) Israel in Demise Jan 2009

(6) Psyche of Society and Holocaust, who care? Apr 2013