W.J. Astore
100 Kilotons Is Roughly Seven Hiroshimas
The annihilation of Gaza is staggering.
Israel has dropped more than 100,000 tons of bombs on Gaza. That’s 100+ kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb was roughly 15 kilotons. That means the small area of Gaza has been punished by bombing that is the equivalent in explosive force to seven Hiroshimas.
More than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza are confirmed dead; the actual number of dead may be twice or three times that number. The number of wounded is likely more than 100,000. (Who can say, exactly, given the level of destruction and disruption in Gaza?)
How is this level of destruction in any way justifiable or defensible?
Gaza is already almost destroyed. The Israeli government’s intent is clear: after rendering Gaza uninhabitable, the Palestinians remaining there will be pushed out, displaced, removed. Or they will die, in place, from more bombing as well as starvation and disease.
The U.S. government has enabled this by supplying Israel all the bombs it needs to pulverize Gaza. The U.S. government has also provided diplomatic cover as well as military protection as Israel implements its final solution to the Gaza question.
Some claim this isn’t genocide because Israel isn’t marching Palestinians to gas chambers. But there are many forms of genocide, many ways to kill massive numbers of people.
In The History and Sociology on Genocide (1990), Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn define genocide as “a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator.”
One-sided mass killing: yes.
Intent to destroy a group: yes.
Gaza and its people are being destroyed before our very eyes. A large part of the effort is being funded directly or indirectly by U.S. taxpayers. Yet we are told it is all the fault of Hamas. That Hamas is making the Israeli government kill and wound hundreds of thousands of people.
One thing is certain: The Israeli government couldn’t perpetrate this genocide without massive military support from the United States.
Perhaps one day, as Omar El Akkad wrote, “everyone will have always been against this” [the ongoing genocide in Gaza]. The question remains: Why now are so many, especially in the Israeli and U.S. governments, still eagerly perpetrating and defending this?
Bracing Views 
“The question remains: Why now are so many, especially in the Israeli and U.S. governments, still eagerly perpetrating and defending this?”
One answer might be this: The originators of the Zionist project creation myth, and its caretakers since then, have been extremely – and ruthlessly – skillful, resourceful, and successful in crafting, perpetrating, perpetuating, modifying, associating, inveigling, reinforcing, dispatching, and refining the narrative for consumption by the entire world, including their own citizens, but especially by the U.S. The indoctrination of Israeli/Zionist schoolchildren is notorious for its fabrications, supremacism, and racism; it continues into adulthood.
Succinctly, it comes down to this, “If you repeat a lie enough times, it eventually becomes Israel” [Sadly, not original with me].
An effect of this phantasm has been statements such as these:
“I have no doubt that what needs to be probed will be probed, but I also have no doubt in my heart that the IDF is the most moral army in the world,” by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
“We are now entering the second phase of the war, which its objectives are clear: destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the return of the hostages back home . . . In the last couple of days, I have met with our soldiers in the bases, in the field, in the north and in the south. Remember what Amalek has done to you. We remember, and we are fighting. In front of our brave and hero soldiers there is one prior mission: to defeat the murderous enemy and secure our existence in our land . . . The IDF is the most moral army in the world, the IDF does everything to avoid harming the uninvolved . . .” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, submitted before the International Criminal Court by Tal Becker, Legal Adviser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel.
“It is impossible in today’s global reality to wage war – no one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until they return our hostages,” by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024,” by the International Criminal Court, in charges against Defendant Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defence of Israel at the time of the alleged conduct.
“It’s now quite clear that there are simply no facts at all—none—that will alter the fixed narrative of lies, distortions and blood libels with which the liberal internationalist order is demonizing and delegitimizing Israel. The claim that Israel is starving the civilians of Gaza and causing an imminent famine has been pumped out incessantly since soon after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war,” Melanie Phillips, columnist for Jewish News Syndicate.
“I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist,” by President Joe Biden.
“If you want pilots to be able to fly and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the [politicians] making those decisions,” by Shira Ettig, an Israeli pilot.
“L’chaim!” by an Israeli Air Force pilot upon dropping U.S.-supplied 2,000 lb. bombs on children/terrorists [Well, I made this up, but it’s more than conceivable].
One has to hand it to them, the originators and caretakers of the Zionist project have done an incredible job in unleashing it upon the world.
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The “originators…” included Ben Gurion. He clearly knew what he was doing. Here are a few quotes that reflect his attitude to “Arabs”:
In his diary on 12 July 1937: he wrote: “the compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the projected Jewish State…. We have to stick to this conclusion the same way we grabbed the Balfour Declaration, more than that, the same way we grabbed at Zionism itself.”
(Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p. 299)
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.”
— David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
Modern Orthodox philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz considered Ben-Gurion “to have hated Judaism more than any other man he had met”. Ben Gurion was proud of the fact that he had only set foot in a synagogue once in Israel…
Israeli historian Benny Morris has written of the massacres of Palestinian Arabs in 1948, and has stated that Ben-Gurion “covered up for the officers who did the massacres.”
Nahum Goldmann criticised Ben-Gurion for what he viewed as a confrontational approach to the Arab world. Goldmann wrote, “Ben-Gurion is the man principally responsible for the anti-Arab policy, because it was he who molded the thinking of generations of Israelis.” Nahum Goldmann, The Jewish Paradox A Personal Memoir, translated by Steve Cox, 1978, ISBN 978-0-448-15166-3, pp. 98, 99, 100
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Golda Meir famously said of the Palestinians, “we can forgive them for killing our children, but we cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children”
Could there be a better example of blind self-righteousness? This is exactly the same thinking exhibited, as you mention, in claiming that Hamas is forcing Israel to kill Palestinians.
A few days ago, there was an article in Haaretz about how 50% of Israeli youth admit to hating Arabs. We know this must be true because of the joy seen in IDF troops as the rampaged in Gaza as at last they were released to kill and destroy with abandon. Israeli society is sick, Zionism the disease.
Today I stood on the streetcorner with my sign that says, “Israel is NOT in the Pledge of Allegiance. I want my country back, don’t you?”
Zio-mania has to come to an end and with a president that always responds to money and is surrounded by Zionists, it isn’t going to come from the top.
Every American should be thinking of what he/she can do that goes beyond talking to friends about how awful things are. All need to take at least a small risk, to forget about what the neighbors would think and make some noise for the sake of our almost lost country.
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