by Laurence Peterson
I think it was the news presenter and commentator Krystal Ball of Breaking Points who uttered this perhaps unfortunately vernacular but certainly correct characterization of the outrages being perpetrated against the Palestinian people, especially, but not exclusively within the uniquely abused Gaza Strip. The statement is true in a double sense: what remains of kind of feeling of benevolence to all our fellow human beings may have become so widely eroded, especially amongst the falling ranks of the truly powerful, that those of us who continue to refer to such a term will inevitably encounter serious confusion; or any conception of a unitary standard guiding our thoughts and intuitions regarding how we should think of, and behave towards, the species as a whole may become simply inapplicable in the light of incontrovertible events.
When I say “uniquely abused”, what can I mean? We all know of situations throughout the world today, and which regularly punctuate human history, even of the most recent sort, which strain comprehension to even begin to contemplate in terms of their obscene cruelty: Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Syria just a few years ago, Liberia and Sierra Leone at the turn of the millennium, and Rwanda and the Balkans ten and more years before that. Some of these have become widely or more-or-less uncontroversially recognized as genocides. In this piece I would like to suggest a few reasons why I think of Gaza as unique, and to encourage readers and everyone else to do everything in their power to resist and end the intolerable situation there.
The first reason I find the situation to be uniquely awful consists in the assertion that Gaza may provide the first instance in human history in which a genocide is being made unnecessary by an ethnic cleansing. The fact that Gaza’s exceptionally dense, rapidly growing population has been so thoroughly and increasingly controlled, within an almost incomprehensibly tiny space, by the Israeli authorities for decades, on all geographic sides, has rendered this population especially vulnerable to a kind of mass destruction and repeated, forced population transfers the like of which world has perhaps never seen before, involving people actively deprived of all the necessities of life—water, clean or otherwise, food, sanitation, air uncontaminated by debris and ordnance, medical supplies and personnel (the latter seemingly targeted by the Israeli military), communications, energy supply–all the while. The Israeli authorities have made no secret of their attempts to relocate masses of Palestinians from mass-refugee camps in isolated parts of Gaza into countries like Egypt, and even war-devastated nations like Sudan, and to encourage Palestinians with the means to do so to emigrate. If this isn’t ethnic cleansing, I don’t know what is; and if the Israeli government is allowed to get away with it, that will pre-empt any more intense form of genocidal activity that might be required if a large enough Palestinian presence were somehow to remain in Gaza, and Israel followed through on achieving the military and political goals it has been implementing with such determination for close to two years now, anyway.
And this, of course, is why the sentiment, most recently conveyed by Senator Lindsey Graham, that what is happening in Gaza cannot be a genocide, because Israel is militarily capable of committing a genocide in a single day, is so ridiculous. Israel’s government is relieved of this alternative precisely because it has unique means of getting Palestinians to migrate out of Gaza, especially given the increasingly-evident reality that death by extreme violence or starvation is the only option to leaving. Graham’s theological coda to the effect that withdrawal of support for Israel will induce God to “pull the plug” on us is interesting: God will yank our chain.
Of course, none of this could take place unless the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza were not utterly protected and promoted by The United States and not only its allies, but powerful bystanders like Russia, India, Turkiye and China (not to mention the regional powers like Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and all the rest, except perhaps Iran). But the clearly indispensable partner in war crime is America, ruled by both Republican and Democratic administrations. But here is where what I believe to be another important distinction applies. And here I must reluctantly resort to psychological analysis, always exceptionally suspect in political analysis. But, if anywhere close to true, the distinction may rightly provide us with reasons to view the situation in Gaza as uniquely horrible.
Under President Biden, the Netanyahu-led government of Israel, which included–and continues to include–internationally sanctioned war criminals in its highest posts, like Itamar Ben Gvir as Minister of National Security, and Bezalel Smotrich at the finance ministry, no less, clearly stated intentions involving mass destruction of the Palestinians and their way of life in Gaza, and the Biden administration supported Israel almost unconditionally regarding its treatment of Gaza. But it always seemed as though Biden was doing so due to a long-standing loyalty to the state of Israel and a particular view of the Zionist project. He also has been suspected of a keen aversion to the Palestinian people and their cause. Under President Trump, any such affective impulse has been reduced utterly to a question of convenience. Trump seems to have no particular affinity for the Israelis, except inasmuch as expressions of such serve to consolidate his Christian fundamentalist support base and sustain or increase contributions from important Republican donors. Nor does he seem to show any specific animosity towards the Palestinians, outside perhaps, of calling Biden and other opponents “bad” Palestinians for equally political reasons. So, Trump’s willingness to green-light the continuing and, indeed, intensifying slaughter in Gaza appears to be motivated simply and completely by indifference: he couldn’t be bothered to make any attempt to stop the mass atrocity. This, to me, suggests the existence of a depravity amongst the powerful unique in my lifetime, anyway.
And that brings me to the last reason I will mention in this piece, one that has been made many times before, but is not mentioned often enough. The American-led post-World War II order made much in its propaganda and even in reality of a commitment to universal human rights that organically included at a least highly publicized prohibition of genocide or ethnic cleansing as an integral part. That an American-sponsored state created–in however a haphazard way–precisely in response to a genocide can participate, in anything that smacks of ethnically-based mass violence, speaks of a moral or civilizational rot of a special kind. Only a much more vigorous resistance can deliver us from its seemingly inevitable spread.
***
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.