Harsh Truths

Israel and the Palestinians Are Their Own Worst Enemies.

It has been a few days since Hamas launched a coordinated, combined arms, “hybrid” attack by air, land, and sea, against Israel, firing rockets, massacring civilians, taking hostages, and even expanding out of Gaza and conquering territory in the most devastating attack in 50 years. Despite it being the anniversary of another war in which Israel was caught completely off guard, the Israeli intelligence apparatus utterly failed in its primary purpose and did not predict, prevent, or even appropriately respond to the attack. The result thus far has been a death toll of over 1,000 Israelis. Israeli citizens continue to be caught in crossfires, face rocket attacks, and live in fear amidst rumors of a global uprising and massacre (which, outside of two incidents has yet to transpire).

I’m response, Israel has mobilized 300,000 reservists, declared a state of war, announced a campaign named “Swords of Iron”, and sworn a “complete siege of Gaza” and to strike back “like never before.” The country has already conducted hundreds of air strikes into Gaza and at the time of writing this over 1,600 Palestinians (a large number civilians) have been killed, and over 260,000 have been displaced due to essentially indiscriminate bombings. Within the next few days, Israel will likely launch a ground offensive to clear its territory, surround Gaza, and then move in and clear block by block in scenes reminiscent of the Battle of Fallujah. One would not be surprised if the Palestinians of Gaza were displaced for good and seaside resorts built in their place.

Depending on whom you ask these actions are justified or unjustified; depending on where one starts the story, this attack can be argued as provoked or unprovoked. But there can be no argument that either side is not committing, or has not long committed, atrocities. The only debate that can be had is who is more or less justified — there is no moral purity or innocence in this conflict.

But if you are one of those attempting to have that debate, to argue about whether the Palestinians’ barbarism or the Israelis’ larger-scale systematic cruelty are worse, then you are likely missing the point entirely and probably part of the real problem.

Such statements are sure to anger people on every side, because the only thing that both parties seem to hate more than their adversaries are those on their own side who point out the things that they themselves are doing wrong. Each party regularly demonstrates that it would rather face hatred and untruth than disloyalty.

But in pursuing the path of angering both parties, this is not mere trolling. Rather, we are following that route because it is probably the most propitious. As we have said before (and contrary to whatever game theory might tell you), the key to addressing issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not finding a course of action that they can both agree to — not when they would both rather than lose than see their adversary win — it is instead finding a course of action that they will both hate equally.

So, in that regard let us discuss the harsh truths that neither side wants to hear.

If you truly care about the Palestinian cause, then even from purely pragmatic grounds you should be condemning the approaches being taken — terrorism and crimes against humanity. Let us entirely ignore for a moment the fact that Hamas regularly uses its own people as shields, hiding among them and firing rockets from hospitals, etc. Putting that aside, it should be obvious that no one feels any sympathy for people murdering civilians, mutilating bodies, and parading victims through the streets. If Palestinians were at all capable of thinking rationally, they would recognize that such actions have always done more to harm their cause than any supposed inaction or appeasement has. Violence on their part has only ever catalyzed the oppression against them and the more despicable the violence they have perpetrated the more their oppression has been accelerated. Any successes they have had in the past have come from generating sympathy for their people in the international community, not disgust. Whatever the flaws of this approach — and there are many— that is the route they should be pursuing rather than focusing on generating terror in Israel. In the eyes of their adversary, with whom the Palestinians will necessarily have to come to an agreement if they are to get even a shred of what they desire, massacres like those currently ongoing only paint them as animals devoid of humanity, reason, or credibility; these actions portray them as savages who cannot be trusted or reasoned with but rather must be eradicated. Netanyahu himself has explicitly stated as much, “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.” To the rest of the world, Hamas’ actions paint the Palestinians in much the same light, as a people unfit for their own state and incapable of peacefully coexisting with their neighbors.

Palestinians will cry all day and night about how their heinous actions are justified by their oppressive treatment at the hands of Israel, but all this does is make them seem even more unreasonable to everyone else in the world that does not see butchery as an acceptable negotiation strategy. The Palestinian assumption that ‘the ends justify the means’ is an asinine proposition that equates to shooting themselves in the foot, destroying any chance they have at getting even a fraction of what they want, and only exacerbating their dissolution. Yet, they remain too obtuse to recognize that every murder of innocents makes the rest of the civilized world sympathize with them even less. Their actions are not justified, they are suicide.

This attack could end up providing Israel with all the justification and momentum it needs to completely reduce the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian presence (if it so desired — there is certainly an argument that Israel benefits from and deliberately perpetuates the frozen conflict there). This war has likewise given the exhausted international community all the excuses it needs to look the other way if Israel chose to do just that.

Policies must be evaluated and decided upon based not on what is most appealing to one’s level of outrage, but rather on their potential and likely impacts. For the Palestinians these actions will be nothing short of disastrous.

On the other hand, if you actually care about Israeli lives, then you must come to terms with the fact that the Israeli state takes actions every single day that predictably, directly, and inevitably lead to the precise violence and animosity it faces. Like it or not, Israel’s deliberate, intentional, and systematic policy of fracturing, colonizing, and subsuming Palestinian areas, of denying and expropriating Palestine resources, of impoverishing, oppressing, and killing the Palestinian people is by far the primary motivation for Palestinian violence against Israel and Israeli citizens. If you are not familiar with said policies, or are in denial of them, then you are simply not honest or informed enough to engage in this discussion.

And do not let anyone delude you, there is every bit as much hatred towards Arabs from Israelis as there is towards Israelis from Arabs — there are plenty in Israel who wish to completely consume all of the areas where Arabs live and rid themselves of them permanently. The Israeli side is simply more sensitive to how their actions would be perceived by the world, so they constrain and hide their crimes better than the Palestinians, who celebrate theirs. Having lived and traveled extensively across the world, we can say, with no exaggeration, that Israel is the most racist place we have ever experienced…and it is both sides that contribute to that condition.

The argument that someone else is more evil does not absolve oneself of evil . As history has shown time and time again, even the most innocent victims are capable of eventually resorting to horror. We should avoid the temptation of using too broad a brush when attempting to paint a picture of “our” side’s moral superiority. There are no ‘good guys’ here.

Now, this should not be taken as a normative statement that Israel “deserves” what is occurring. It is merely a statement of fact — that no one is innocent. But it is also a point about cause and effect, a statement of the obvious but often inappreciated fact that actions have consequences and that again, any policy must be judged by its actual results.

The reality is that for a very long time, Israel has held virtually all of the power in this relationship. And make no mistake, it has used that power offensively. Today, we are being bombarded by images, stories, and social media ‘reactions’ regarding the truly horrific actions of the Hamas, but much as a sudden deluge is more noticeable than a slow trickle of the same or an even greater volume of water, the world has become inured to the slower, longer, and less dramatic violence inflicted upon the Palestinians by Israel.

Again, this is not to say that Palestinian violence is justified, simply that it must be expected. As Lord Clifford warned, “the smallest worm will turn, being trodden on…” and it is utterly naive, arrogant, and foolish to think one can attempt to dissolve a population without generating blowback. As we say in the business, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

Thus, the only conclusion that one can make about Israeli policymakers is that they are either completely delusional and in denial of the vast evidence that demonstrates the costs of their policies or, perhaps worse, that they are indeed aware of the consequences of their policies and they are simply willing to accept, exploit, and even incite violence against their people in order to continue to pursue said oppressive policies. If this is the case then the leadership of Israel is either as incompetent or as callous as the Palestinian leadership is short-sighted, corrupt, irrational, and inept.

Of course, denialist ideologues on both sides will continue to claim that every heinous act by their side is justified, was forced upon them, and pales in comparison to what their enemies are doing to them. Such arguments are fallacious on their face (e.g. it is a fact that both the Nazis and the Soviets committed mass slaughter and genocide and deserve condemnation). This type of argument is merely ‘whataboutism’ at its purest and only serves to distract attention away from anything each party is doing to contribute to its own problems.

These fallacious arguments are enabled by the Manichaean perspective that the other side is wholly the manifestation of evil and is an existential threat that will not stop until it has eradicated all that one holds dear. This narrative engenders fear and urgency in the populace, distracts from actual drivers of violence, helps justify immoral policies, and enables the maintenance of control and power by the political leadership of both sides.

But there is usually some truth in every lie and when generations of indoctrination have embedded the code of amity and enmity in a population, the actions of extremists on both sides will readily provide enough evidence to validate it. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization with an expressed goal to eliminate Israel and kill the Jews — but outside of zealots, such goals don’t see nearly as widespread recruitment when homes are not being bulldozed and children are not being shot. There is a reason the so-called Global Day of Jihad amounted to two isolated lone wolf attacks— when push comes to shove, very few people are actually all that interested in killing Israelis or Jewish people simply for the sake of it. For all the extremists’ rhetoric, it is generally only those who are suffering and being oppressed that are actually willing to take action and trade their lives to kill others.

This then brings us to the ultimate point: Despite their hatred for each other , both parties are by far their own worst enemy and it is their choices and their actions which are the primary fuel that perpetuates the continual and cyclical violence between them. Actions have necessary consequences and in failing to anticipate and recognize those consequences, both parties are guilty . They both have blood on their hands, and the blood is mostly their own.

But let us not forget that the hands on the American home-front are not clean either — one can easily discuss how U.S. funding directly and indirectly enables the killing on BOTH sides. For most Americans, who are grossly uninformed or tragically misinformed, this issue merely serves as ammunition for ideological crusaders, a battlefield for inter-party political power struggles, or an excuse for self-indulgent moralizing and virtue signaling.

So, before taking to social media to rant about the atrocities of those you oppose while turning a blind eye to those committed by the side you favor, you should ask yourself what you really care about.

Because if you actually care about the lives of the people on the side you claim you support, if you actually care about better outcomes for the party that you favor — if you are not just virtue-signaling on social media or mindlessly preaching solidarity while endorsing policies that cause the very violence you condemn— then you should be criticizing the underlying drivers of these problems, their causes and not simply the symptoms.

Or to put it more simply, if you truly care about Palestinians, then you should be criticizing the inhuman murderers of Hamas and the animals who endorse and celebrate their atrocities just as much as you criticize those oppressing the Palestinians. Likewise, if you truly care about Israel, then you should be criticizing the callous or inept policymakers implementing its policy of ‘soft-genocide’ and the ignorant and racist populace that supports and enables that policy just as much as you criticize the monsters killing Israeli citizens.

Because if you are not doing so, then you are essentially a hypocrite who cares more about assigning blame than protecting lives.

It may seem cold-hearted to criticize people who are suffering, but it is far more heartless to ignore — due to ego, tribalistic loyalties, and all-rationalizing hatred — that they are suffering to a great extent due to their own choices and actions. Progress in a world of bias, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and narrative requires revealing truths, however harsh they may be.

-LM