The three young Israeli men, shirtless and dirty, ran carrying the remnants of a white t-shirt tied to a skinny stick.  The men knew that if they were shirtless, the IDF might recognize them as captives, not fighters.  At least one of the men called out in Hebrew.  No matter. Blam. Blam.  Blam.

So sorry, “my heart is broken,” said Israel’s Prime Minister  Netanyahu. It was the Israeli Defence Forces ( IDF) snipers that shot them to death –without a second thought.

According to the CBC news, Israel claims that Hamas “terrorists” disguise themselves to look like civilians.  Israel justified the murders because they were in northern Gaza, after all—a war zone. The killings of three Israeli hostages “couldn’t be helped”.  Yet Israel has not been able to rescue even one of the 239 hostages.  Of course there will be an inquiry; of course Netanyahu is all choked up.  Of course, it’s a tragedy. 

But the same day of that attack, two women were killed and seven others seriously wounded at the Holy Family Catholic Parish Church in Gaza.  There was no warning of an IDF attack.  A daughter saw her elderly mother shot by a sniper, as she exited the main building to use a washroom. The younger woman went to help and was killed—both their bodies were strewn across the courtyard.  More than 500 people (60% women and children) are sheltering in the church—some say the world’s oldest Christian community.  The Israelis then shot out the church’s water tanks and solar panels. 

Earlier that same Friday (Dec. 16), the Israelis shelled the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa in Gaza.  Fifty-four disabled people lived there. Now there is nothing left, and those on oxygen or life support are doomed.   The Red Cross has asked the Pope to urgently intervene.

None of these individual details are meant to  diminish Israel’s murder of 20,000 people, (two-thirds or about 13,000 women and children), and the serious and catastrophic injuries to more than 52,000 in Israel’s 73 days of relentless and illegal war on Gaza.  You won’t soon forget CNN’s 14-minute video by Arabic-speaker Clarissa Ward that shows her speaking to injured children in a field hospital set up by the UAE in southern Gaza here.

Israel: The Country That Wouldn’t Grow Up

Israel is the country that wouldn’t grow up. 

As historian the late Tony Judt pointed out in an article in Haaretz in 2006, “By the age of 58, a country –like a man—should have achieved a certain maturity.” Judt continued, 

“What looks from abroad like a self-indulgent, wayward country – delinquent in its international obligations and resentfully indifferent to world opinion – is simply an independent little state doing what it has always done: Looking after its own interests in an inhospitable part of the globe.  Why should embattled. Israel even acknowledge such foreign criticism, much less act upon it.  … Why should Israel change?”

Tony Judt from “The Country That Wouldn’t Grow Up“

Israel is now 75 years old, and still  little more than a teenager—acting out in rage when transgressed or even questioned, and taking the position it can do what it wants whenever it wants.  Israel knows it has a “lock” on more than $14 billion a year.   In November, the US sent Israel 2,000 Hellfire missiles, mortars, ammunition, 36,000 rounds of 30-mm cannon ammunition and 1800 M-141 bunker-buster munitions that allow Israel to continue to bully and lash out. 

The country wants its cake and eat it too, as the old saying goes.  When Israel breaks international law in the Occupied Territories, when the IDF kills and maims unarmed Palestinians; when Israel destroys tens of thousands of their home; when it humiliates and terrorizes  the people whose land it has confiscated and colonized; when it jails, and even tortures, up to 700 Palestinian children between ages 12 and 17 every year—often with no access to their parents or a lawyer  — Israel responds to the criticism with cries of “antisemitism”. Therefore  Israel’s actions are not actions by a state, but actions taken by Jews.   So if  a state or government criticizes Israel, criticism of Israel is considered antisemitic. 

As some teenagers tend to blame everyone but themselves for neglecting their homework, breaking their curfew, or forgetting to do their chores – Israel says because it is  the Jewish State – supposedly a home for all the Jews — calling out Israel is antisemitic.  

We know that high school is a great leveller, where all students must complete their assignments and write their exams.  But we also understand there is a percentage of students who do not do what they are asked, and they blame others for their shortcomings. 

Really, Israel is a state like all others. It is the state of Israel, its army, its secret service, its IDF, its arms trade which are doing the damage.  At the same time, the state of Israel believes it is entitled to conduct its affairs how it wants and subjugate and murder Palestinians, as it likes. And if the rest of the world complains, it’s because the rest of the world hates, not Israel, but the Jewish people.

What Israeli Politicians Say

Israeli political leaders and “thought” leaders are clear—their desire to “wipe out”  the Palestinians is reminiscent of teens who read too many comic books or fantasy novels.  

Item:

1. Ariel Kallner, a member of the Israeli parliament for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, recently demanded a repeat of the mass expulsion of Arabs in 1948 known to Palestinians as the Nakba or Catastrophe.  He tweeted, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948.”
2. David Mizrahy Verthaim, an Israeli journalist and TV presenter said,

“We need a disproportionate response … If all the captives are not returned immediately, turn the strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls from their head – execute security prisoners. Violate any norm, on the way to victory.”

[Do the Israeli soldiers who killed the three Israeli hostages deserve the same fate?]

3. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip with “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”  Gallant is  frequently interviewed on CBC News: The National. Just four days ago, in a CBC interview on The National, Gallant insisted that the bombing and ground campaign will last more than several more months. He said, “We will win and we’ll destroy them.” 

“The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. [The books]describe [Palestinians] as vile and deviant and criminal…people who don’t want to develop.”

Education professor Nurit Peled-Elhanan, in her research on the content of school textbooks in Israel

In her 2003 study of Israeli textbooks, education professor, Dr Nurit Peled-Elhanan notes what children in Israel learn from their textbooks.  First, she explains that they are never called Palestinians, merely called “Arabs.”  She writes about the school textbooks that show, 

“The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them [Palestinians] as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don’t pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don’t want to develop.”

Peled-Elhanan goes on, “The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer.”

Is it any wonder that growing up with years of these depictions of Palestinians dehumanizes them? Maybe it means when young people age 18 years do their military service, they have no respect or interest in Palestinians. They are less than human?

A free-for-all for Israel; a bloodbath for Palestinians

What we see is a free- for- all – for Israel. A bloodbath for Palestinians. Yet the Israeli military and media keep feeding western media lies—and even fantasies.

First there were the 40 headless babies, that US president Biden still refers to–  though there is absolutely no truth to it. Biden publicly repeated it as recently as Dec. 12. Yet Israel and ally Pres. Joe Biden are in denial. 

Just as there is no truth to the Jewish baby baked in an oven by Hamas.  It was first revealed in The Jewish Chronicle in the UK – “The World’s Oldest Jewish Newspaper. Since 1841”.

The photo of a pregnant woman butchered at one of the Kibbutzim was not taken there; it probably didn’t happen. Some people have tracked the image to the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in Lebanon in 1982.

The dead babies hung from a clothesline was an invention of Lt Col. Yaron Buskila, of the IDF Gaza Division – the Israeli journalist who first published Buskila’s report on Nov. 26 was disgusted that Buskila would make something up.  

 Yet Israel and ally Pres. Joe Biden are in denial. 

They are self-referential to the extreme. 

No responsibility, no apology, and no desire to stop. Why is Israel talking about two other tacks– the first is to pump gas into Gaza’s tunnels, the second to flood them with seawater? Won’t either put the remaining Israeli hostages’ lives at risk?  Is Israel willing to suffer the backlash at home and abroad? 

Where will this end? I don’t think Israel is going to grow up anytime soon. But if the US insists on loving Israel then better it should be “tough love” — the US should cut off Israel’s allowance.

Featured photo at the top: Palestinians look for survivors of the Israeli bombardment in the Maghazi Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, Nov. 5, 2023. (photo credit: Hatem Moussa/AP Photo)