It's an expression we've heard a lot since Hamas fighters broke out of the Gaza concentration camp a year ago, and most recently repeated following the killing of Yahya Sinwar in Rafah. This coward's murder of the Resistance leader, referred to by the Murdoch Australian as "elimination" has empowered both the murderers and their quarry, for reasons only clear to the Palestinians and their supporters. They understand how Sinwar's last acts of defiance against the occupiers and invaders of their land has elevated him to hero status, including amongst bystanders who were not aware of his personal qualities and strength. For those now wanting to know more, this - his last will and testament, read out in English, gives a measure of the man. By contrast, the writers and readers of the Australian, and almost the whole body politic, remains ignorant of a reality that they would not want to see and could never admit to. Leading correspondents vie with each other in choosing suitable expletives and abuse to show their disdain for the "Terrorist leader", ascribing to him strange qualities and desires that suit the popular conception of such a person, should one exist. Sinwar's invisibility in Gaza has enabled this personality assassination, while suppressed frustration over the IOF's failure to find and 'eliminate' him has encouraged 'projection'; many of the qualities ascribed to him are actually those of the occupiers and aggressors, who become increasingly brutal and inhuman in the face of Palestinians' courage, tolerance and resistance. My leading photo illustrates the depths to which 'Israel' is sinking as it tries to break the people of Gaza, knowing perhaps subconsciously that this heinous and barbaric treatment of innocent and defenceless people will backfire like the killing of Yahya Sinwar did. They should see how the Nazis' treatment of Jews - the "Holocaust" - created sympathy for a cause on which Jews could rely for decades, while condemning the German government and their collaborators to universal opprobrium and exclusion - and the Nuremberg retribution. But to admit such a thing would be to acknowledge what is becoming increasingly clear - that there is little to distinguish the "Regime occupying Palestine" from the regime that took control of German minds in the 1930s, and led to the unrestrained aggression and slaughter of WW2. The stories and traumas of that conflict are still constantly played out and re-enacted in films, that one need hardly show examples of the Nazis' signature behaviours, such as collective punishment of civilians for collaborating with or sheltering resistance fighters, or extremes of torture of 'suspects'. It is enough simply to illustrate and document the crimes being carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces, and ask the question - how are these different from the crimes of the Third Reich? Take this short video clip of the forced evacuation of residents of Northern Gaza on October 20th:
In that clip, provided by the IOF and with commentary from SBS News, it was said to show residents who had 'heeded the call to evacuate', but the final shot gives the lie to this, as seen in this last frame of the video where the camera draws back to show a tank-mounted machine gun with a huge pile of spent bullet casings below:
And below a photo of the human tide of 'internally displaced people' forced from their homes and remains of their homes in Beit Lahia or Jabalia, to which they had returned from the South of the strip months ago, despite lack of supplies and assistance. Worryingly here the people seem to be only men, with reports that men were being separated and detained in the clearance operation, following instructions in Arabic from a drone overhead and shooting of 'stragglers', including children.
Those fears were confirmed the following day, with reports from the ground describing the frankly unbelievable cruelty and crimes being committed by the IOF as it pushes on with the total siege of Jabalia towards its stated goal - the complete clearance of Northern Gaza of its residents by 'slaughter and strangulation'. More drone footage of the 'operation' was released by the IOF, as shown in this part of a report from Channel 4's correspondent Padraic O'Brien, via local sources:
The latter half of the ten-minute report consists of an interview with a hostage relative whose partner remains in Gaza - a woman who we have heard and seen interviewed a dozen times, repeated as if to brainwash us into believing the ultimate exceptionalist Zionist narrative - that a single Israeli life is worth a thousand dead Palestinians. The apparent sympathy for the 'plight' of Palestinians subject to a Holocaust evaporates as Padraic O'Brien returns to his base - occupied Jerusalem. It seems incredible that this distorted Zionist narrative - that the little group of Israeli hostages held in Gaza should be 'released' without the slightest concession to Palestinian demands - is maintained and repeated without question by all Western leaders and media, even as Israel's live-streamed genocide intensifies and any possibility of negotiation is sabotaged by Israel's actions. As described above, these now include the looting and burning of what was left of people's homes in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, making it impossible for them to ever return to live there. Here is the sordid scene posted by a proud young soldier:
Worse is that the forced expulsion of people from their homes is nothing new - as I reported eleven months ago, when such a crime against humanity seemed even more outrageous, and was then unprecedented - except by events 80 years earlier in Germany. Which brings us to "Hateful Ideologies". In the ranting and raving of commentators noted above, and including those of politicians from both sides of Parliament, the description of Israel's enemies as terrorists is justified not by their actions but by their supposed 'ideology' - one of hatred for Jews. In the words of the Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan: "The essence of the man (Sinwar) was that he was a murderous terrorist leader, who espoused a hate-filled Islamist ideology, and who enjoyed inflicting pain on victims, especially Palestinians who didn't share the Hamas ideology." The point here is not to dispute Sheridan's framing of Sinwar, Hamas or Islam, as his incoherent and abusive rant is not worthy of criticism. Islam is not an 'ideology' any more than is Judaism. What Sheridan seems to be alluding to - or drawing a comparison with - is the hateful ideology of Nazism - an ideology of Arian exceptionalism and hatred for the other - whether Jew or Roma, gay or Communist. But what he seems unaware of is that the force behind the crimes against humanity and high-tech genocide happening now in Gaza is the equally hateful and hate-filled ideology of Zionism. This ideology runs contrary to the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity as well as of Islam, and embodies hatred of all those who dispute its exceptionalism, whether Arab or Persian, Muslim or Christian. And from what we have seen so far, and continue to see happening in Gaza, the treatment of the unwanted other by Zionists is more brutal, more determined and more irredeemable than that of the Nazis during the German occupation of France and in their ethnic and sectarian cleansing at home.
DM 24th October 2024