W.J. Astore
A Few Thoughts and Questions on Israel, Gaza, and the USA
- As Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza, the United States is ethically cleansing Israel. It doesn’t matter what Israel does to the Palestinians in Gaza. War crimes or genocide, it’s all ethically justifiable, according to U.S. government officials.
- Never conflate the Jewish people with the deeds of the Israeli government. Many Jewish people have bravely spoken out against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Holocaust survivors have powerfully said that “Never again!” applies just as much to Palestinians in Gaza (or anyone else for that matter) as it does to Jews.
- Is any entity harming the Jewish tradition as much as the hardline Israeli government that is destroying Gaza? Is anything more anti-semitic than associating Zionism and Jewish identity with mass murder?
- A Republican U.S. Congressman essentially said he reaches out to AIPAC to tell him how to vote on any bill related to Israel. How is that representative of the will of the American people?
- As a college professor, I taught a course on the Holocaust. In my research, I recall finding a two-volume encyclopedia on genocides throughout human history. A two-volume encyclopedia! When will it ever end?
- It’s always struck me that debate about Israel and its actions is far more intense, diverse, and contentious within Israel than it is within the United States.
- Israel is, according to the U.S., a wildly successful democracy, a rich country with national health care for all. Why does such a rich and successful country need so many scores of billions in aid from the American taxpayer?
- Speaking of U.S. aid, it curiously seems to provide the U.S. with absolutely no leverage over the actions of the Israeli government.
- Whether you support Biden, Trump, or RFK Jr., it doesn’t matter. All three of them are committed to issuing blank checks of support to Israel. As is Congress, which has yet again invited Bibi Netanyahu to address a joint session. What has Bibi done to deserve such an honor?
- There are many reasons to hate war, and one of the leading ones is how war facilitates, enables, and seemingly justifies the very worst crimes against humanity. Basically, “We’re at war” is a cry being used by Israel to justify genocide in Gaza.
- If Hamas surrendered en masse today, does anyone think Israel would rebuild Gaza for the Palestinians?
- When I took a seminar on the Holocaust with Henry Friedlander, he taught me that “You don’t kill the people you hate; you hate the people you kill.” It’s a powerful sentiment that captures something awful about human nature.
- As a college professor, I taught a course on the Holocaust. In my research, I recall finding a two-volume encyclopedia on genocides throughout human history. A two-volume encyclopedia! When will it ever end?
Bracing Views 
With each news report of the daily Palestinian death toll from unrelenting Israeli bombardment, I feel a slightly greater desensitization and resignation. I’ve noticed this disturbing effect with basically all major protracted conflicts internationally, including present Ukraine, ever since I began regularly consuming news products in 1988.
Clearly, human lives on this planet are not perceived as being of equal value/worth when, morally speaking, we all definitely should and even could be.
In fact, human beings can actually be perceived and treated as though they are disposable and, by extension, their suffering and death are somehow less worthy of external concern, sometimes even by otherwise democratic and relatively civilized nations. … It’s like an immoral consideration of ‘quality of life’.
A somewhat similar inhumane devaluation is observable in external attitudes, albeit perhaps on a subconscious level, toward the daily civilian lives lost in protractedly devastating war zones and famine-stricken nations. The worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the protracted conditions under which it suffers; and those people can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page of the First World’s daily news.
At the same time, with this conflict there has been widespread partisanship via Internet and news commentary. The politics of polarization outside of Israel and even the Middle East, perhaps in part for its own sake, has gotten quite disturbing. Especially on social media are the angry and thoughtless two-dimensional views amplified, including the majority posted by non-Jews and non-Palestinians.
It arouses a spectator-sport effect or mentality, with many contemptible trolls residing well outside the region yet actively supporting the ‘side’ [via politicized commentary posts] that they hate less. I anticipate many actually keep track of the bloody match by checking the day’s-end death-toll score, however extremely lopsided those numbers.
LikeLike