Israel is in trouble.
‘Victory’ in the material sense of the word might be within reach: at least as far as land-grabs, geopolitical ambitions, and the like are concerned.
But it comes at a cost.
And its carefully-managed narrative – not to mention its global image – is in complete ruins: perhaps forever.
Nobody except the most devoted Zionist shills is still defending Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
And even they are struggling to remain coherent: witness the admittedly entertaining spectacle of psuedo-intellectual and Neo-Colonialist poser Douglas Murray being torn to shreds on the Joe Rogan show when attempting to maintain his well practised propaganda routine (link to full video here, because it’s worth watching).
No one is buying it anymore.
When even abject War Crimes apologists like British Foreign Secretary David Lammy are suddenly speaking out against Israel’s actions, it’s a clear sign that something is changing.
But why? Or, to be more specific, why now?
Why is it only now – after everything that has happened in Gaza for eighteen months – that everyone seems to be finding their moral objection all at the same time?
All of a sudden, the governments in Britain, France and Canada have issued joint ‘warnings’ to the Israelis over the humanitarian catastrophe.
Netanyahu predictably lashed out at his allies, proclaiming that they’re ‘on the wrong side of humanity‘.
All of a sudden, even Donald Trump is reportedly giving Netanyahu the cold shoulder, while leaving Israel off of his Middle East itinerary entirely and even engaging in direct talks with the Iranians recently.
Even in the media, Piers Morgan – a staunch defender of Israel’s actions on his hugely popular show – has apparently changed his tune, precisely at the same time as the British government.
It’s weird. Suddenly everyone has discovered their conscience in unison.
But why? What is Israel doing now that it hasn’t been doing for a year and a half already?
Is it about the aid blockade? This isn’t the first time that’s happened.
Is it the child deaths, as David Lammy suggested in his speech in parliament? But children have been dying in Gaza for many, many months.
Is it about the now openly-stated plan to occupy Gaza and empty it of its population? But this was already being telegraphed months ago: and surely, Israel’s allies like the UK and Canada were well aware of it.
The evidence of war crimes, of mass civilian casualties, of ongoing lies and deceptions, has been available for what feels like an eternity by now.
Most people haven’t been blind to it. And some of us have been speaking about it continuously.
So why was it all acceptable before, but not now?
Was it okay when they were bombing refugee camps and hospitals, attacking aid convoys, murdering journalists, snipering children, etc?
Was it okay when when all foreign journalists were banned from entering Gaza and being able to report on what was going on?
Was it okay when the International Court of Justice was being demonised for calling out War Crimes, or when warnings by countless aid agencies and international charities were being ignored?
All of that has been going on since the start of the ‘war’.
So why only now are people in positions of power or influence apparently getting the memo?
Are more and more political leaders, media figures and the like, becoming worried about their own complicity – and about the cover they’ve been providing for what most experts now agree is a genocide?
Are they simply scrambling to protect their own skins at the last minute?
Let’s look at the apparent timeline of where we are.
Israel’s extremist government appears to be entering its endgame in Gaza. Netanyahu has now openly stated the intent to seize full control of the territory and Israeli officials have flatly admitted they intend to rid Gaza of its population.
Aside from all the civilian death that is still going to be added to the existing death toll, a full ethnic cleansing of the area is apparently imminent.
It may simply be that various high profile figures in the West are aware that, in the final reckoning, they are going to be tarnished by association: their image irreparably damaged.
It is also possible that foreknowledge exists of some as-yet undisclosed crime or atrocity that might soon come to light – and they want to distance themselves in advance.
Though, given the things that have already happened in Gaza, it’s hard to imagine what crime could be considered so heinous all of a sudden.
But there’s no escaping the impression that Israel is presently being abandoned by erstwhile allies and enablers.
That’s the impression. Whether it’s actually true or not is less clear.
While its better late than never, the likes of David Lammy, Kier Starmer and others should not be suddenly treated as moral voices speaking up against the darkness.
They are nothing of the sort. Both Lammy and Starmer are deep friends of Israel and have been perfectly willing to defend and justify almost everything that has happened in Gaza until now.
If this is a late-hour attempt to appear to be on the right side of history, it’s far too little far too late.
More to the point, even as UK politicians are making high-minded speeches about morally opposing Israel’s actions, they’re still supplying the Israelis with weapons, logistical support and general assistance.
Declassified UK has done a great job for many months highlighting the UK’s continuous assistance to Israel’s operations – the complicity is indisputable.
There seems therefore to be a great deal of staged theater going on here.
And it’s doubtful that true moral outrage is really the thing going on right now – and more likely, again, just plain face-saving exercises by people suddenly worried about their own reputations.
Don’t look for genuine morality here – you won’t find it. Genuine morality would not have waited this long to say something.
Governments or leaders trying to distance themselves from an atrocity at the last minute, having previously tolerated and even enabled the same programme, are not something to applaud.
As for President Trump apparently being at odds with Netanyahu, I wouldn’t read too much into it.
President Biden was even more at odds with Bibi, but it didn’t stop the billions of dollars of aid and support flowing into Israel from Washington.
Yes, people lose their patience with Netanyahu, but it never really amounts to anything. Just in recent days, Trump was telling Syria’s new leader, former Al-Qaeda man ‘Ahmed al-Sharaa’ (Mohammad al-Julani), to ally with Israel – which the new Syrian government seems eager to do.
Trump and Netanyahu are far too closely involved with each other to have a true falling out of any real consequence.
As much as apparent strains in Israel’s relationships appear to be occurring, it still reads as though the script is playing out.
It’s highly unlikely that the likes of Britain, France and Canada will go much further than they already have in their apparent opposition to what’s happening in Gaza.
It’s all just about optics and image management, isn’t it?
Yes, I think we both saw this coming in many ways. Arguably it all began with 9/11. That’s when the West not just abandoned international law (something it only ever paid lip service to), but openly flouted it with “extraordinary rendition” and Guantanamo. But for a while there was still a semi-functioning fourth estate to keep the worst excesses of empire in check. The rise of fascism has also been evident for at least as long. And then a decade ago we sided with literal Nazis in Ukraine and most people barely noticed, and now the Zio-supremacists running Israel have been let fully of their leash. What is shocking is not that we got here, but that we got here so soon and with many people barely flinching. So I have a dreadful feeling that this time around no-one may ever be held to account, and I just hope that my growing despair is misplaced and the human spirit comes through this somehow. Thanks for replying.
In a word, THEATRE. I couldn’t agree more. These people are monsters in the quietest and most tedious of ways. They are the personification of a peculiar kind of hypocritical evil that Hannah Arendt encapsulates so perfectly in her famous ‘Banality of evil’ quote about Eichmann: “The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal,”
Just to witness this daily horror is simply unbearable if you have even a scintilla of humanity left. An unstoppable genocide that could be stopped literally in an instant by merely the halting of military aid and a simple phone call. This is a genocide that has made the word ‘genocide’ as commonplace as ‘hunger’ and ‘death’: the words it now daily replaces as all this eats away at our collective souls.
I have nothing left to say – my own blog has basically run to silence because I am literally out of words. There is only anger, a burning hatred for the murderers of mothers and children who prance around in the clothes of their victims, celebrating their crimes with selfies, and then the more deplorable evil of their slick but craven enablers.
There’s not even optics to save anymore. The image of America, Europe and the rest of collective West is rightfully in the gutter. That so many liberals still cling to the idea that we represent any kind of a civilisation is so deeply delusional and sad that it becomes laughable. And we have to laugh only because all other sorts of tears have been shed already.
In peace and sorrow, my friend. I am not a religious person, and yet I now pray for a better future.
Thanks you for commenting, James. I feel the same as you. Words, including ‘genocide’ seem to not mean anything anymore. International Law is also obsolete: which is something i predicted years ago was our direction of travel.
I wish that, when all is said and done, those who have enabled this to unfold are never allowed to forget it. The association should be attached to their names forever.