How Should One Deal With A Psychopathic State?
THE TRAGEDY UNFOLDING in Gaza poses the question: How should one deal with a psychopathic state?
Israel was founded in violence and dispossession. Many of its founding fathers were active members of terrorist organisations with blood on their hands. A much larger number came to the British mandated territory of Palestine from Europe in the years immediately following World War II – the deeply traumatised survivors of Nazi Germany’s attempt to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth. It is difficult to imagine a less auspicious beginning for any nation state. That it would grow into a trusting, generous and peace-loving member of the family of nations was always a very long shot.
The problem confronting Israel’s neighbours has always been one of determining how best to deal with this extraordinarily vicious cuckoo in the Palestinian Arab’s nest. Unsurprisingly, the first response of the nation’s adjoining the State of Israel was to answer its violence and dispossession in kind. Unfortunately for the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians, the Israeli armed forces proved extremely difficult to overcome. Even worse, in repelling the Arab armies, the Israelis came to the unshakeable conclusion that they constituted an unappeasable and existential threat to the survival of their state.
The hatred bubbled away furiously on both sides of Israel’s disputed borders, poisoning the minds of every combatant. Even more tragically, however, it poisoned all hope of peace for the Palestinians who now found themselves cast as the wronged victims of Zionism; the people for whom the rest of the Arab world was pledged to drive the Jews into the sea. Not fighting the Israelis was unthinkable: honour demanded that the struggle for Palestine – by Palestinians – must not cease until, finally, they and their children were free to return to their olive groves and pastures and reoccupy the houses and shops of their stolen inheritance.
For Israel, a nation founded by terrorists, the emergence of armed Palestinian militias and terrorist cells came as absolutely no surprise. They had driven the British out of Palestine by employing all the techniques of terrorism: bombings, assassinations, kidnappings. Not only did they know what to expect, but they also knew how to resist it. Decency, fair-play, the traditional rules of war: these were what the British had at least paid lip-service to in their fight against Irgun and the Stern Gang. The Israelis, however, knew exactly what those who attempted to fight terrorism with a rule book were called – The Losers.
In the aftermath of the Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games, the Israeli Prime Minister gathered her military and intelligence advisers around her and ordered them to hunt down and kill every member of the Palestinian “Black September” organisation involved in planning the attack. Not one of the planners survived. When a Palestinian fighter was captured by the Israelis, he or she was by no means the only person to be punished. The perpetrator’s family’s house would be bulldozed flat by the Israeli army and their farms and businesses destroyed. The price paid by the Palestinian people for their unceasing war against the State of Israel climbed higher and higher. With deadly symmetry, the terrorist responses of the Palestinians became commensurately lethal and indiscriminate.
After 70 years, the question must surely be asked: can Israel be defeated by force? Protected as it is by the most powerful nation on earth, is Israel even the most appropriate object of the Palestinian people’s quest for nationhood and freedom? If the withdrawal of United States support is the absolutely unavoidable precondition for Israel negotiating a viable “two-state solution” to the conflict, then the place where Palestinian statehood will ultimately be won is in the living-rooms of ordinary, decent Americans. But to win there, the Palestinians must first reinvent themselves entirely: forsaking forever the techniques of terrorism in favour of a political narrative stressing peaceful co-operation and mutual respect.
As part of that process, Palestinian leaders must give up the tactic of launching tens-of-thousands of young people against the border-fence separating Gaza from Israel. The deepening psychopathology of the Israeli state makes its response to such tactics as predictable as it has been deadly. In persisting with its campaign to send the inhabitants of Gaza “home”, the Palestinian leadership is displaying either the most reckless ignorance, or, the most chilling cynicism. If it is the former, then the first incoming live rounds from the Israeli Defence Force’s snipers should have wised them up. If it’s the latter, then these demonstrations are nothing more than invitations to martyrdom. The watching world recoils in horror from the actions of both antagonists.
On one side of the border fence stands the army of a psychopathic state which regards the pitiless murder of teenagers as the only viable means of guaranteeing Israel’s national security. On the other, a national liberation movement utterly convinced that the only hope of healing the broken body of Palestine is by nourishing it constantly with the blood of its children.
I am surprised this tactic has taken this long to emerge. These people have nothing to lose. The west don’t care. The Americans are happy to have their 51st state. Given that business interests here have been championing trade with Israel don’t expect anything significant from us either. It is interesting that centrists within UK Labour started an anti antisemitism campaign against Corban a few weeks before this happened. Thus silencing one of the few western politicians who may have spoken out. Israeli policy for some time now has been advocating Palestinians being moved into neighbouring countries. Negotiations up to this point have simply been cover for a land grab.
“Israeli policy for some time now has been advocating Palestinians being moved into neighbouring countries”
I believe the term you’re looking for is ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Bearing all that in mind, if Iran comes close to developing The Bomb, that’ll send the Israeli warmachine into a frenzy.
The question is how Putin will respond if their ally, Iran, is attacked?
Bit this latest protest *was* a non-violent protest. No guns and no rockets, just a few young men opting for slings and molotof cocktails. No Israeli’s were killed and only one soldier received a minor injury.
It’s already making a difference to how people are perceiving things – or so I thought. The Israeli snipers were methodically shooting people with bullets designed to inflict the most damage to protesters, and yes they did shoot people who were trying to climb the fence but they also shot people who were just standing still watching what was happening. They must be the most cowardly military force in the world.
Logically speaking peaceful resistance is the way forward but it’s a hell of a thing to ask of a people.
Two sides of the same Zionist Coin. In this video link Ron Paul explains where Hamas came from. Israel created it to destroy secular nationalist Palestinian resistance. Goyim are just their cattle to use and abuse as they like as homo sapiens are easily manipulated, but who, or rather what, is really behind this reality?
https://t.co/PycezyqUzJ
How should one deal..? I assume you are asking, how should we in NZ deal with Israel? Haven’t you heard of the BDS movement , non-violent help from the outside world, requested by so many Palestinian groups since 2005?
My reading tells me that the Great March of Return is not under orders from Hamas but rather a peoples’ movement, copying South Africa by reminding the world that they still exist , and appealing to the world’s conscience. Sometime ago a UN report stated that Gaza would be unlivable in 2020. Yet so many today state that Gaza is unlivable already.
How should NZ deal? At least we could expel the Israeli Embassy. We could support the next Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, already on its way, and supported by Noam Chomsky.
If the West continues to look the other way, the West is telling Gazan-Palestinians that they should shut up , lie down and die quietly. Journalist Jonathan Cook fears that the message from the West is “The only legitimate struggle for Palestinians, it seems, is keeping quiet, allowing their lands to be plundered and their children to be starved.” Note he says Palestinians not Gazans. All Palestinians are suffering. While the focus is on Gaza, nasty things are happening in the Negev, Jordan valley, West Bank and East Jerusalem.
To: Chris Trotter
The Gaza strip is a true Tragedy. I appreciate that you dealt fairly with the situation Chris.
It was perhaps a shame you did not mention the hundreds of Jews killed by palestinians over the years. But you did draw attention to the Hamas Propaganda effort to use the children as lambs at the border. Sadly 51 Persons killed.
I am not a Jew. Nor am I Pyschopath. But no Arab State has had any success in restraining the Arabs who now describe themselves as “Palestinians”. Not even Egypt or Turkey.
The determination of Jewish people; their thoroughness; intelligence; and achievements will not be given up. Never. They will never trust English, Germans, Arabs, or Americans.
Like Churchill, they will fight them in the air, on the beaches – on the land. For the Jews are not a rabble. No Race has ever tried so hard for Peace for so long – and been denied it by lesser inhumane humans.
If Israelis don’t like being killed, they should not invade other nationalities land, don’t you think?
Hi Brigid
I think that Israelis have a right to homeland existence – as do Arabs.
Many Arabs live and work within Israeli territory, as you know Brigid.
It is a pity that the Hamas secular rulers require their Arab subjects to put little children up as propaganda. Reminds me of all that the Germans did in between 1936 – 1945.
But blood and war will not solve anything. So why would you want want Arabs to kill people ? Wherever they live.
NUKE IT!
Israel’s only great ally is US imperialist rotten empire, this is why I HATE the US Imperialist Empire, beyond other stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq_wgy65bzE
“Hamas told them to be cannon fodder”
And they went???!
Have these people no agency? No personal fury, frustration and despair that would drive them to places of hazard?
Jews are not a race. They come from many countries and reflect the ethnicity of those countries. It is a religion with a set of laws. That religion can be set aside, moderately followed, or be strict and extreme. It is not a homogeneous whole. Which is why we have American Jews protesting in Washington against this ongoing massacre.
Within Israel itself there is this nasty little core of fanatics/idealists and yes, terrorists, who are equally poisonous with the like of Daesh.
Observer Tokoroa mentions the hundreds of Israelis killed by Palestinians maybe. There is a certain hush about the equal hundreds of Palestinian kids held in Israeli prisons. Or about the walls put up blocking families from their grazing, harvests, livelihoods.
This is like Ireland – and that inbred loathing may never be expunged – even if the religious versions pass into history. Papists and Proddie Dogs. To this day, despite the Good Friday accord – that fight continues.
If the Israelis are so peaceful – restore the electricity and sewage systems. Remove the daily humiliation at the borders. Cease from excessive force, intimidation and wrongful imprisonment.
America – butt out – unless it’s offering a ‘homeland’ for all the emigrant Jews. The fifty-first state and the right to freely travel to holy lands – just like the Christians and Moslems. Europe – butt out.
The insanity of trying to cram zillions of urban-usually people onto a fragile landscape with limited water – will no one think of the consequences? Clearly not a certain core of Israelis.
And – just when are we going to acknowledge Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and other neighbouring countries for taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees from conflicts not of their making – including Palestine? For decades. It may not be great – yet it’s many times more ‘peaceful’ than poor little Israel. They probably need to be at the peace party. After all – they’re supporting many, many Palestinians already.
Wonder why they haven’t launched all out war on the mighty midget. Perhaps there’s more to the story than we’re hearing.
Ostracize it. Eject diplomats. End cultural exchange programs. Stop trade. This has got to stop. Has NZ had any reaction to the slaughter?
how to deal with Israel? they won’t even let humanitarian aid through to Gaza, so sod ’em, New Zealanders with any empathy should deal with them like we did Apartheid era South Africa
–Cultural and sporting boycotts–Lorde really stung them!
–ramp up BDS to hurt the Israeli economy and finance capital
–pressure govt. to expel Israeli Ambassador and close Embassy
–ban Israeli military from holidaying in NZ,
–answer and confront Israeli apologists and supporters in all forms of media
I don’t accept the premise that sending people to the border fence to remind the world that two thirds of those in Gaza are refugees is a provocation.
It is a legitimate form of protest. That Israel is prepared to shoot unarmed people does not change this – and there has been no evidence of any terrorist act by the protestors during the weeks concerned.
Saying that, because Israel imprisons (and sometimes kills) protestors on the West Bank where there is occupation and kills those in Gaza behind the security fence, continued protest is “reckless/futile” martyrdom is to surrender to the jackboot that would remain on their neck forever.
The American public would not care any more about them if they stopped drawing attention to their oppression, they would just celebrate the Israelis crushing them successfully – end the Oslo Accords, call for talks between Jordan and Israel over borders and effectively turn Arab areas of the West Bank into local council bantustans and call for the UN to administer Gaza.
History is irredeemable, like a river it courses, flowing around obstacles or sweeping them away sometimes. When the river is FIERCE we are as mere pebbles with even less hope of disrupting the flow. But after consulting with the council of pet rocks and pinecones I bring you the goods again, have no fear. The only answer is WU WEI the art of non action, which is an answer found in purposeful absence from doing. This is at once the subtlest and most terrible solution depending on what it comes to mean, as anyone who ever cried for help and DIDN’T RECEIVE IT comes to know… when the time is ripe. This is the harnessing of natural karma…
There can be no resolution to this on-going catastrophe until two highly unlikely conditions are met. The fundamental requirement is that the internal politics of the Israeli state/government/people shift drastically away from its hardline/fascist/ultra-Zionist position to a more liberal, tolerant and accommodating position – something that has actually had some glimmers in the past. The second is the position of the USA – it has to move from its total commitment to Israel (“totus porcus”, at the moment). Even if the first is met – the US has other geopolitical reasons for keeping the pot boiling. Unbelievably tragic. I can see my entire life spent with this horror rolling along.
Over on Whaleoil he has a more pro israel report with some different facts.
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2018/05/10-things-about-the-gaza-clashes-that-the-mainstream-media-wont-tell-you
Everything else on the site may be crap but he does have a point here.
Nope. Not on that either. Remember that Slater was paid by the Israeli government to travel there to be “informed” by them. Therefore he is a shop-bought mouthpiece.
Jews had an experience of meek submission in the 1930s-40s. They learned a lesson.
What are you referring to Tom.
HOW SHOULD ONE DEAL??
1) HOW does our (Sophisticated as in 21st Century ?) Criminal justice system deal with criminals who present a constant danger/threat to public ?
THEREIN LIES YOUR ANSWER.
DOES ONE REALLY NEED TO ASK ??
TROUBLE IS …the famous & hugely indoctrinated “ANTI SEMITIC” Label.
OH WHAT A TERRIFYING WEAPON IT IS TODAY.
You’re a Kiwi –
You know, I never thought that otherwise ordinary decent Kiwis could get sucked in by rabid Arab Propaganda of the sort operated by Hamas and similar Arab enforcement regimes.
Horrific Regimes directed at weak minded westerners.
As you know, only the Arabs are worthy of being allowed to Live. For they are pure and innocent. They never harm or kill. Not ever. They are Beautiful like your sister. Nowhere do Arabs cause any harm at anytime.
Do they ?
So, my fellow Kiwis, get over to Jerusalem (where Israelis lived for centuries) and politely kick the Jews out. Lock stock and barrel. After all, you have been promoting that idea month after month. Year after Year. Go and Dine on the Propaganda of Hamas.
You are the greatest soldiers as you tell us every Anzac day, who ever marched on the this planet. So, quietly removing the Jewish will be a walk in the park.
You have called the Jews for everything. Absolutely Everything. Every Dirty thing is Jewish. Get rid of it. Like you say in your comments. Go and create Peace.
OT. You surprise me.
Some feast on Zionist propaganda it may seem..