A great part of the Israeli public has known all about the genocide in Gaza, delighted in this knowledge, and screamed for more – throughout this so-called ‘war’. Every image on social media of, for example, a girl in Gaza murdered by bombs or snipers, immediately elicits an enormous number of replies from Israelis shouting that this isn’t nearly enough, that they want to see all her sisters, cousins, schoolmates and neighbors also dead, that not a single child should be left alive. There is, indeed, an unfortunate tendency among the citizens of many countries to ignore or deny reports about atrocities committed by their armed forces; but this is absolutely not the main problem here in Israel.
The following post from The Daily Politik responds to the excuse now increasingly being offered, that “Most Israelis are not aware of what is going on in Gaza, and what is being done in their name”:
“Do you guys remember when Israel first cut off drinking water to Gaza in October 2023, and Israelis started making videos on social media of them wasting water? Leaving their taps running down the sink. And pouring clean water into the gutter while smiling at the camera and blowing kisses?
Or the ‘Pallywood’ video series, where Israelis posted videos on social media where they put flour and chalk on their faces and mocked Palestinians stuck under the rubble in Gaza?
Or the videos Israeli soldiers were sharing videos with their fellow Israelis of themselves blowing up Palestinian homes, mosques, universities, schools, water purification infrastructure, agricultural land, essential infrastructure etc?
Or the videos the tank driving battalions shared of them slowly rolling over and crushing the dead bodies of Palestinian children and their families in the streets, showing only callous disrespect for dead civilians. (Lots of war crimes caught on tape in this series)
Or the videos of Israeli soldiers destroying Palestinian homes, hanging little girls dolls by nooses for them to find if they ever return home, putting racist graffiti on the walls of their homes, looting their valuables, wearing the women’s lingerie. Not to mention the sniper targeting competitions seeing how many kids they can pick off – more points for babies hearts, smaller targets.
How can Israelis possibly even try to pretend that they had no idea of the depravity their own brothers and sisters and families were committing as members of the IDF. They cannot even try to feign ignorance on this, the world’s first broadcasted genocide. Even their news anchors and guests were calling for genocide. We have seen the social media videos they saw. And we knew as a result what was and is happening. So they certainly knew too!”
[I would just add to the examples mentioned in the text quoted above:
There were also the videos on TikTok in which Israeli mothers mocked the wailing of Gazan mothers over their dead children; Israeli children also participated in these videos, acting the roles of the dead children.
And there was the very recent trend among Israeli children and teens of making prank phone calls to the parents of their friends and other adult acquaintances, in which the prankster pretends to be someone who is collecting donations for the starving children of Gaza, and the person who receives the call inevitably responds furiously to such a request. The premise of this prank, on the part of the pranksters, is that any desire to help these starving children is both hilarious and infuriating].
Additional clarification/explanation: My purpose in this post is not to engage in useless moral denunciation. I’m just trying to spread the following message – only massive external pressure (arms embargoes, economic sanctions etc.) will put a stop to this genocide. You cannot rely on any moral awakening on the part of the Israeli public; you just have to continue demanding that your governments and all other institutions do whatever they can in applying sheer force. (Of course, all governments and most institutions in the West haven’t even begun doing this, and are thus totally complicit in the genocide).
Source facebook : a large part of this post is a quotation from “The Daily Politik“.
The power dynamics are similar as well: dozens of people against one driver, like the best-equipped army in the world against a helpless Gaza population
The far-right supporters group La Familia attending a Beitar Jerusalem match at Teddy Stadium. Credit: AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
They kicked him and beat him, threw objects at him and butted him as he lay injured and helpless on the floor of the bus. A crowd of people stood around him: Some cheered, others were silent, and a few were stunned.
Like a model village, a scaled-down version that is strikingly similar. In Israel, the model drew more opposition than the original, but the war in Gaza is infinitely more brutal than the attack in Jerusalem.
The hooligan fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team don’t need a reason to beat up an Arab bus driver who provides them with service, but this time they had one: Zahi Ahmed, an Arab player, had the audacity to score a goal against Beitar, helping his team, Hapoel Be’er Sheva, win the Israel State Cup in the final.
To Beitar’s hooligans, a goal by an Arab player, especially in the cup final, is almost October 7. It cannot be ignored. Like after October 7, an immediate response is necessary. The way they see it, the league should have been Arab-free long ago; the chutzpah of an Arab player scoring against the most Jewish team – in the cup final, to boot – could not go unanswered.
If you were stunned by the assault, how can you not be stunned by the war?
Both the assault and the war had a pretext. Not that one can even begin to compare the horrors of October 7 to a soccer goal, but neither can two injured bus drivers be compared to a thousand dead babies. October 7 was a horrific crime. In the eyes of La Familia, an ultra group that supports Beitar, an Arab scoring a goal against a Jewish team is also a crime that cannot be brushed aside.
Beitar Jerusalem assaulting an Arab bus driver in Jerusalem on Thursday.
From here on out, the similarity only increases. In both cases, the response was unlawful, illegitimate and completely disproportionate. Calling the war in Gaza a just war – “the most just war in our history” – is as crazy as saying the Beitar fans had a reason for beating up the drivers. These drivers have as much of a connection to Beitar’s loss as the children of Gaza do to October 7.
To say that the objective of the war is to free the hostages and defeat Hamas is as ridiculous as thinking that assaulting a bus driver will prevent Arab players from scoring goals. The hooligans thought to deter players by assault, and Israel thinks it will deter Gaza by genocide. The thirst for revenge is also similar.
In both cases, there was no restraint, neither legal nor moral. Beating without mercy is like bombing and shelling without mercy. In both cases, most of the victims are innocent. The power dynamics are also similar: dozens of people against one driver, like the best-equipped army in the world against a helpless population. A brutal assault on Gaza. Bombing and shelling it, even when it is already lying on the ground, sick, hungry and bleeding, just like kicking the driver as he lies bruised and bleeding.
The assaults were not the first of their kind in Jerusalem, nor will they be the last; according to the Bus Drivers Union, every day there are at least two attacks on Arab drivers in Jerusalem. The current attack on Gaza is also not the first, of course, nor the last.
As for the surrounding crowd. “Oh, Oh,” the bystanders shout, whether in shock or excitement. No one came to the drivers’ defense, not even a single righteous person in Jerusalem. The two drivers won’t recover quickly from the trauma, and it’s doubtful they’ll ever be able to drive a bus in this fascist city again. Gaza won’t recover either. It will remain forever stunned by what Israel has done to it.
Look at the assaults in Jerusalem and see Israel; look at the passive bystanders shouting “Oh, Oh” – and see us, almost every one of us
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