Nufar Shimony

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“.