I had hoped that ‘Notes on Exodus and Exile’ (April 2024), would be the last reflections on the Israel/Palestine conflict I would post on this site. I had thought there was nothing to add. But in the deepening horrors of the last few months, no other global issue has more heavily weighed on my mind…  Admittedly, I am an old man whose voice carries no authority. I have no recognized expertise to support my views. Yet I cannot keep to myself the following thoughts on the current catastrophe:

The extent of the devastation visited upon Gaza over the last twenty-two months are yet to be known.  The outside world had relied on the reports by a few brave Palestinians and NGO workers from within the besieged enclave. Many of their colleagues have been targeted and killed for defying Israel’s ruthless blackout of information. There can be no consolation in mass murder and starvation. Still, with the plight of Gazans momentarily at the center of global attention, perhaps for the first time–– meaningful political pressure from its staunchest allies can be brought to bear upon the Israeli government…

Understandably, much of the same world shocked by IDF’s onslaught in Gaza is still horrified by the deadly attack and hostage-taking by Hamas. Yet many westerners fail to recognize that Israel’s war on both Gaza and the West Bank did not begin on October 7^th 2023. It is also understandable why that point is stressed by Palestinians in the rare opportunities they get to speak for themselves…

In reaction to the current crisis, some western governments (including that of Canada) have pledged to recognize a “Palestinian state.” However empty a gesture, the fact that 147 of 193 member states of the UN have already conferred such recognition is not without significance. Moral support is no substitute for practical support. But it is better than nothing. Unfortunately, even token acknowledgement of a Palestinian identity is met with hostility by the government of the only country which has the power to make such recognition matter…

I will not opine here on the underlying reasons for the bonds between America and Israel. It is suffice to acknowledge that the alliance is deep and complex (‘A Personal Exodus’ was my modest exploration of that subject).  After only six months, the Trump administration has managed to elevate America’s traditionally “ironclad” support of Israel to unprecedented levels of what often seems subservient loyalty. Yet in so doing, Trump 2.0 may have set itself against shifting popular opinion.  

Not surprisingly, American mainstream media coverage of the Gaza war began with full-throated support of Israel’s right to self-defence. Yet the scale of brutality in Israel’s reprisals has tilted slightly towards a ‘both sides’ narrative. Gradually, American MSM is becoming a little bolder in deploring the conduct of the IDF.

Republicans who stray beyond Fox News cannot avoid images of Gaza’s starving children. Some Americans (just as a majority of Israelis) have little or no compassion for the offspring of supposed “terrorists.” Some evangelical Christian zealots have reportedly even prayed for the death of Palestinians in order to hasten bible-prophesized “End Times.”   Yet a few others–– even among Trump’s base–– are appalled by photos of Gazan anguish. It is yet to be known whether that flicker of cognitive dissonance will result in a questioning among Republicans of their traditional blind support of the Jewish state. Meanwhile, many Democrats and young Americans now have negative attitudes towards Netanyahu and the IDF.

Obviously, this shift in attitude is deeply alarming the mighty Israeli lobby. Predictably, legions of the beholden have been furiously pushing back. The arguments are familiar: 

…Israel is waging a struggle for self-preservation against a Jihadist death cult… The IDF has no choice but to clean out “the rats’ nest” in Gaza which will regenerate if the Hamas “vermin” are not utterly exterminated…  Israel has the military might to have done the job swiftly but their efforts to minimize civilian casualties is slowing the process down… Some unfortunate collateral damage is inevitable given a ruthless enemy nesting in deep tunnels and using its own population as hapless shields… The Hamas terrorists are entirely responsible for every Palestinian civilian death–– which they cynically exaggerate… Much of the world may be momentarily duped by Palestinian propaganda–– but Israel will not be deterred in its righteous struggle…

Many would agree here is no more passionate defender of Israel than Netanyahu himself–– particularly when speaking before an American audience. In delivering a speech to a joint session of Congress in July 2024, he proclaimed that Israel’s struggle is the struggle of civilization itself against barbarism. He mocked the pro-Palestinian protesters who are at best, naive dupes of Islamic terrorism. Normalizing anti-Israel protest, he warned, only intensifies attacks on all Jews in the age-old spirit of antisemitic hatred. Still, he avowed his supreme confidence than the alliance between righteous Israel and a righteous America will prevail. His address brought the floor to its feet in successive ovations.

On the eve of the onslaught in Gaza, Netanyahu and his cabinet repeatedly referred to Amalek, a tribal enemy of the ancient Hebrews. According to the Old Testament, Yahweh commanded his chosen to: ‘…smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman and infant…’

That biblical allusion was eagerly taken up within the IDF. There are videos of troops dancing in circles chanting racist slogans as they warmed up to wreak vengeance on “the seed of Amalek.”   After the massive bombing and drone strikes on Gaza, some Israeli soldiers filmed themselves in mopping up operations. Numerous images appeared on social media––presumably aimed to both thrill IDF fans and to taunt the enemy. Several clips and photos were posted of the infantry ‘clowning around.’ Among them were shots of soldiers sadistically grinning before ugly graffiti (e.g.: ‘good Arab = dead Arab’). There was one of an IDF prankster urinating amid the ruins of a mosque. One can only speculate on the depravity of images privately shared. 

Over subsequent months, IDF atrocities mounted while the Palestinians death toll climbed. According to the UN’s Human Rights office, about 70% of Gazans killed (61,000+ at this time of writing) have been civilians.

Five months ago, after breaking a cease fire with renewed bombing and drone strikes, Israel employed a new strategy. The delivery of food, fuel and medicine by international NGOs was blocked. The only food allowed into the ravaged enclave was distributed by the mysteriously funded ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,’ jointly operated by Israel and an American evangelical organization. The GHF set-up effectively forces desperate Palestinians to run gauntlets of IDF snipers and American mercenary guards for the chance of a paltry handout.

Throughout the siege, horrific reports have emerged from courageous medical workers in the barely functioning clinics that remain. The bullet wounds of victims––many women and children––evidence more of the precise aim of IDF snipers than accidental ‘collateral damage’ of war. The maiming of those who survive can only be intended to terrorize the remaining Gazan population. In March, ‘The Guardian’ cited a UN report estimating that more 14,500 children had been killed. At least 5,000 more children have had one or more limbs amputated. That was before the renewed bombing, the GHF gauntlet and the starvation campaign…

So, one may rhetorically ask: is all this justified by Israel’s supposed existential struggle for self-preservation? Is an IDF sniper who shoot a terrified child cowering over the body of her slain mother fighting for ‘civilization’?  

To most of the world––Israel’s war-making looks ever more like savage tribal vengeance exacted through twentieth-first century military technology. The weaponry, of course, is largely supplied by the leading power of the supposed ‘civilized’ world.

As for the atrocities committed on both sides since October 2023, the extent on one side vastly exceeds that of the other. The biblical ‘eye for an eye’ for modern Israelis seems to be interpreted as a thousand eyes of the enemy for a single eye of one’s tribe. For a both sides comparison of acts of barbarism, one might ask: are limited acts of hot-blooded savagery more barbaric than cold-blooded savagery of seemingly unlimited magnitude?

I ask such questions is awareness of the extreme sensitivity around criticism of Israel. I do not dismiss the possibility that some pro-Palestinian protesters have crossed a line into antisemitic slurs. Yet I suspect documented cases of such are far fewer than claimed. Indeed, I believe that the vast majority of anti-semites have always been racists of the far right. Yet many of those same traditional haters have a new-found love in an authoritarian Israel. Indeed, a perverse new alliance is emerging between white supremacists who hate Jews but who admire Netanyahu and his cabinet… 

I am particularly disturbed by the extent to which the Trump administration has weaponized antisemitism against the left. They have effectively adopted the claim of the right-wing Heritage Foundation that pro-Palestinian protest is inherently antisemitic. To quote from the mission statement of the HF’s Project Esther, supporters of Palestinian rights are: “anti-Zionist, anti-American… and part of a global Hamas Support Network (HSN)...” On that basis, the Trump administration is using the accusation of antisemitism as a tool in its broader authoritarian aim of squashing academic freedom and deporting “leftist” foreign students.

Aiding the Trump administration in rooting out the scourge of “antisemitic activism” are shadowy projects like Canary Mission. This private watchdog group compiles lists of thousands of students and professors, supposedly engaged in subversive “Hamas Support Network” activities.  In the Canadian section of their website, one gets the impression that the hotbed of antisemitism in this country is the University of Toronto. Also notable is how few right-wing extremists are profiled on the site. One would gather that from their point of view––white-supremacists and neo-Nazis are very small potatoes…

However, an anonymous old man who posts a blog essay critical of Israel is an unlikely target.. (I would be honoured to be placed in the illustrious company of Naomi Klein!) Plainly, the primary focus of such vigilante ‘doxing’ is on those who can be expelled from college, fired from their jobs or deported.  That is why most of the profiles are of young activists. Old people who speak out or who actively support Palestinian rights need not be nearly as courageous as the young.

My long-held views on Israel-Palestine have been shaped by a simple belief: equality in treatment under the law. I believe that political Zionism is incompatible with that basic principle. By its very nature, a Zionist Jewish state can never protect the legitimate rights and freedoms of non-Jews in territory it encompasses or controls.

While non-religious, I can appreciate the yearning for a spiritual return to a lost ‘homeland’–– as taken in a metaphorical sense. I also recognize that Judaism is not the only religion whose adherents regard themselves ‘a chosen people.’ For other examples, one might consider the Calvinist Boers, the Mormons, or the Rastafarians. In such regard, I have no issue with religious Zionism.

However, ‘a spiritual longing’ is utterly different from a religious belief that leads to claim of distant territory of which one’s imagined progenitors were believed dispossessed two thousand years ago.  In 2018 the Knesset passed a law reaffirming Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, with exclusive right to self-determination within its undefined borders. That declaration of exclusivity only sharpened the contradiction of Israel’s supposed commitment to democracy for its Jewish citizens in a state which systematically dehumanizes millions of non-Jews.

One wonders how nineteenth century Zionists–– or the Holocaust survivors who landed in Palestine in 1946––would have felt about the uber-militant ethnostate Israel has become. Could they have envisioned the entrapment in a vicious cycle of attacks and reprisals with the peoples dispossessed by Israel’s creation? The mounting evidence is that a defence of political Zionism is now inseparable from the defence of apartheid in Israel proper, genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the West Bank. Political Zionism has obviously been disastrous for Palestinians. Yet arguably, it also threatens the security of Jewish people everywhere…

Always wary of over-simplification–– I acknowledge that failing in attempting to summarize herein what is devilishly complex. I have the utmost respect for the regional histories and political analyses by innumerable experts. To be clear, I recognize the human rights of the people who identify as Israeli to the same extent as I recognize those of the dispossessed Palestinians.

Whatever my bias in reading the history of the Zionist movement, I acknowledge that the Jewish population who now inhabit the former Mandate for Palestine is an undeniable fait accompli. In any just dispensation, they would be entitled to the same peace and security which they now systematically deny Palestinians. Yet I strongly believe that ten million Israeli Jews can never really be free until five and a half million Palestinians gain their freedom “from the river to the sea…”

In defending the Dahiya Doctrine, by which Israel claims the right to use “massive disproportionate force” against Hamas, philosopher Sam Harris recently commented: “If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace in the region. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be a genocide.”

That claim ignores the fact that Israel has been offered recognition and peace by the Palestinians. The PLO, who officially represent the Palestinian people in the UN, have explicitly made the proposal to Israel in exchange for its acceptance of a Palestinian state. In past negotiations from the 1993 Oslo Accords to the Clinton proposals–– Israel has torpedoed trust with its last-minute demands. Then as successive Israel governments shifted from right to far right––any notion of a Palestinian entity in “the biblical Judea and Samaria” has been flatly rejected. In check-mating that possibility, illegal settlements on the West Bank have continuously expanded. Therein, police and IDF soldiers stand by while settler gangs terrorize Palestinian villagers.  Meanwhile, Israel’s vice-like external grip on fenced-in Gaza arguably led to the militarization of Hamas long before October 2023.

As for any expectation of Israeli open-handedness in response to passive resistance:  the Gazans had a taste of that in 2018-2019.  Their ‘Great March’ intended to peacefully protest the economic blockade was met by live IDF bullets. Scores of unarmed Palestinian marchers were killed. Hundreds more were maimed…  It seems that the Islamophobic Harris got his either/or statement assbackwards.

For its most zealous American defenders, the IDF is both vulnerable and invincible. On one hand, Israeli soldiers are brave little hobbits barely holding off the dark minions of Mordor. On the other, they are bad asses who “waste” terrorists with a Hell’s Angel attitude: ‘Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Death– I fear no evil. For I am the meanest sonofabitch in the valley!”

Like the rough-justice executions of Hollywood movie vigilantes, Israeli commandos carry out daring raids and assassinations in defiance of international law. A few months ago, Fox News was wild with praise for the “ingenuity” of Mossad in orchestrating the simultaneous explosion of hundreds of Hezbollah pagers. Trump himself was honoured in receiving from Netanyahu, a golden replica of one of the devices which blew off Lebanese hands and genitals.

The same admirers of Israeli chutzpa make the case that the IDF’s operations in Gaza cannot be genocide because the body count is “only” in the tens of thousands. If Israel really wanted to wipe out the two million Gazans, they say, the IDF had the power to do that in day #1…  Chillingly enough–– that may be true…

Israel often complains of its critics’ “double standard.”  The charge is that those who condemn the Jewish state for actions it deems necessary for its security, ignore egregious human rights violations elsewhere. Where is the outrage about Sudan?

Yes, there ought to be more outrage about Sudan. Yet atrocities committed in that failed state are not underwritten by massive western military and financial support of the perpetrators. Yes, there is a double standard. That double standard is in the exceptional tolerance which the international community has afforded Israel despite its defiance of international law. 

From its recognition by the UN in 1949, Israel has enjoyed strong alliances with western countries. The goodwill understandably began with sympathy for the Holocaust trauma of its founders. The early image of a plucky David holding off Arab Goliaths bolstered Israel’s support through the 1950s-1960s. Israel’s spectacular victory in the 1967 Six Day War was hailed by many (especially in America) as divine intervention. The fate of the inhabitants of the expanded territory Israel ‘conquered’ was hardly reported in the west.  Erstwhile “little” Israel’s subsequent emergence as one of world’s most formidable military powers was achieved not though divine intervention–– but through subsidization by the US taxpayer.    

For decades, Israel has received a kid gloves treatment within the international order it has routinely flaunted. Israel has never faced real accountability for its building of illegal settlements, extra-judicial executions and preemptive bombings. In response, the UN merely “urges” restraint. Even the Arab countries with whom Israel has diplomatic relations never recall its ambassadors or call for sanctions. Still, backed by big-brother America, Israel bitterly complains of international bias.

There are multiple reasons for the current erosion of the international order. Plainly, Israel’s interpretation of international law has not contributed to its strengthening. A hard question arises: Does intergenerational Holocaust trauma provide Israel eternal absolution for its illegal conduct?

It is revealing that Israelis have long shown a desire to be recognized as a normal country. They routinely participate in international organizations (with the notable exception of the International Court of Justice) and compete in international events. For such a small population, they comport themselves with distinction in the international arena, especially in the arts and sciences…

Yet Israel expects international recognition of its special status as a Jewish state with undefined borders. It expects international tolerance of official policy which welcomes all Jewish immigration but forbids entry to exiled Palestinians. What other country in the community of nations expects to be both normal and special? Many around the world whom Israel accuse of antisemitism simply wish for it to become a normal country…

As with all who wish for a change of heart in Israel, I applaud the brave voices who speak up for justice from within. Recently, two Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel did just that. Both issued statements that their country’s behavior in Gaza fits the legal definition of “genocide.”

Unfortunately, polls show that currently, many Israelis have little sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians. That apparent insensitivity is partly due to the Israeli media bubble. Few Israeli news sites (apart from Haaretz) report on the anguish transpiring less than seventy-five kilometres from living rooms in Tel Aviv. Of course, there is ready access to international news through the internet. Yet like their American counterparts in the Fox News bubble––the war in Gaza for most Israelis is only about their unreleased hostages and the ongoing trauma of October 7^th 2023. 

Still, an end to the Gaza war is apparently now supported by a majority of Israelis. There is anger against the Netanyahu government for prolonging the war. It is feared that an entire takeover of Gaza–– as currently planned by the IDF––will only seal the fate of the remaining hostages.  Public demonstrations against the government are growing. From messages on protest signs, one gathers that stopping the killing of more Gazan innocents is not a primary concern.

Reportedly, a few voyeurs have sometimes gathered in early evenings on a hillside near the Gaza border. There they have watched the IDF fireworks through binoculars. Then there are the settler activists who have blocked the few aid trucks heading towards the Gazan rubble…  

By and large it seems that the desire for vengeance has yet to be satisfied… 

Admittedly, over the last several decades I have been challenged in feeling much empathy for the Israelis. I do acknowledge their tragedies and grievances against the Palestinians. My sympathies, however, have naturally gone to the weak and forsaken.

Still, I wonder––what does it feel like to be an Israeli Jew? In the abstract, I know of their sense of vulnerability and the staunch belief in vigilance. I am aware that those feelings tend to be instilled from childhood–– even in the most secular Israelis. From that perspective, harsh criticism of Israeli policies must seem to many––personally threatening. Pro-Palestinian rallies, may even remind Israelis of mobs descending upon medieval Jewish ghettoes, howling for blood libel.  I certainly understand the vow of ‘Never again.’  So, in the abstract, I understand why Israeli Jews believe their nation is the final bulwark protecting Jewish survival.

Yet I cannot be convinced that barricading an ethnostate against those believed to be eternal enemies is justifiable. I see overwhelming evidence that Zionist policies–– ever more radically implemented by right-wing Israeli governments–– are pernicious and ultimately self-defeating.

The recent documentary, ‘Israelism’ (2023), reveals just how profoundly an identification with Israel in embedded in a majority of American Jews. For many, the indoctrination starts in kindergarten and continues through university. The process usually includes Hebrew language instruction, Jewish summer camp and a coming of age “birthright tour” of Israel. Many Jewish North Americans thereby come to regard support of Israel a personal duty. Many even do a stint with the “glamorous” IDF.

The film highlights the journey of Simone Zimmerman, a young American peace-activist raised in the American Jewish tradition, who comes to an epipthanic understanding of the Palestinian perspective. The pursuit of social justice, she discovers, is far more deeply embedded in her Jewish heritage than a blind commitment to the State of Israel. She goes to establish ‘If Not Now’, an organization advocating for a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

There are many younger American Jews like her. Many are leaders of Pro-Palestinian protests. For their activism, some have borne the bitterness of their families and former friends. Yet like Simone, they courageously persist in their commitment.  

These young activists are carrying on a long tradition of Jewish Americans. Many were at the forefront of the struggles for civil rights.  In the 1960s, some rabbis participated in marches against segregation–– linking arms with African Americans. The young pro-Palestinian activists of today regard their cause as deeply moral as the historic American protests against racism or against the Vietnam War. In such regard they are asking hard questions, such as:

Can progressive Americans continue to support an Israel so closely aligned with the Republican Party and so cozy with the world’s most far right regimes? Should American Jews be blindly loyal to an Israel whose defiance of international law is gradually turning it into a pariah state?  Is a growing global anger with the policies of the Netanyahu government not threatening to innocent Jews?

Just as premised in ‘Israelism,’ these young activists recognize that the best hope for justice in Israel lies primarily with American Jews. It is a demographic fact that American Jews are highly represented in journalism, the legal system, business and government. With their traditional ties to Israel, prominent Jewish Americans could be uniquely positioned to influence a new direction for US policy in the Middle East. 

Israel’s massive dependence on American aid ought to give America enormous leverage over its policies.  Yet for myriad reasons, few American politicians dare defy the powerful pro-Israeli AIPAC lobby. For example, AIPAC routinely targets politicians who vote against carte blanche military funding for Israel. They heavily fund their adversaries in primaries or in the general elections that follow. But AIPAC is itself dependent on its donors.  Could its prominent donors–– many of whom are Jewish Democrats–– not make their funding contingent on a new interpretation of Jewish American interests?

Support for Israel could be reinterpreted as administering ‘tough love’ intended to avoid the consequences of Israel becoming a global pariah.  Meanwhile, a resolution that aid to Israel be made dependent upon serious negotiation with Palestinians could pass––if known to be strongly supported by a majority of Jewish Americans…

In the current circumstances, all that seems wildly fanciful. No US ambassador before the current one has been a Christian Zionist who joins hands and prays with Israeli settlers on the West Bank. No U.S. State Department, before the current one would have barred the entry of Palestinian child amputees for treatment due to the alleged risk of a family connection with Hamas. No president before Trump would have approved the removal of Gazans from their demolished homeland while calling the Israeli Prime Minister a “war hero.”

Still, it the midst of this despair, it warms the heart to see Jewish Americans wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with: ‘Not in our name’. At this moment, that vow seems just as relevant as ‘Never again.’ 

In the short term, the pro-Palestinian activists are obviously fighting for an end to the horrific bloodshed in Gaza. But the key question remains:  How might greater justice in Israel/Palestine be achieved in the longer term?  

Even before Israel’s declaration of independence, the United Nations adopted a two-state solution for the territory of the Palestinian Mandate. It endorses the same concept to this day.

I am far from alone in believing––however unfortunately––that the opportunity for creating a viable state of Palestine has long passed.  The hopes for a Palestinian state was slowly extinguished by the methodical planting of Israeli settlers on the Occupied Territories. At present, half a million Israeli settlers live on the West Bank and more than 220,000 in East Jerusalem. Even if a few Israeli terrorists could be dragged away from their hilltop outposts, Israel would insist on retaining its built-up towns, chunks of surrounding territory and Israeli-use only roads that connect them.  The West Bank would be thus broken up into a Swiss cheese of tiny Palestinian cantons.

If the Palestinians were pressured to agree to such a ‘deal,’ Israel would insist on external controls. Such were the conditions of its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.  A scattering of unconnected villages on arid land of the West Bank would constitute no more a country than one of apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans. Those were the impoverished tribal territories given sham ‘independence’ only to serve racial separation.  In short, Israel would ensure the ongoing vulnerability and humiliation of inhabitants within its version of a Palestinian state.

Israel resents its comparison to apartheid South Africa. Israelis can certainly point out a few Arab members of the Knesset or the absence of ‘Jews Only’ signs in their public toilets. Yet through military checkpoints, unscalable walls and hi-tech monitoring––separation of Jews and Palestinians is as effectively maintained as once was apartheid in South Africa. Those in power may be sometimes inconvenienced by the system while the powerless suffer unending humiliation. That is the clear parallel by which the comparison is accurate.

In the 1980s, anyone who claimed that legal apartheid would be abolished in South Africa within a few years was thought hopelessly naïve. In briefly hitchhiking in that country at that time, I heard apocalyptical predictions of possible future black rule. Friendly (but racist) white drivers typically warned: “If the blacks got ever got power, there would be a communist takeover and a bloodbath. Whites would be driven into the sea!”

But in 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the first black president. How was such cataclysmic change possible?  It took courageous leaders, sanctions, and international good will in facilitating the transition. South Africa still struggles with many ills–––but only white supremacists insist it was a more just society prior to 1994…

Why not a secular state of Israel-Palestine?

The old fatalistic view is that Arabs and Jews have been at one another’s throats from time immemorial and will continue to be. Their enmity, so it goes, is rooted in religion and tribalism–– if not in the intractable flaws of human nature…  I reject that. As wild a dream as it may seem––a one state solution it is not politically impossible.

Without speculating on the constitution of a potential Israel-Palestine (or Palestine- Israel)–extremely painful compromises would be required. The Israelis would have to give up the underpinnings of a Zionist state. The automatic granting of citizenship to all immigrating diaspora Jews would have to cease. The Palestinians would have to give up ‘right of return’ of refugees from the 1948 Nakba. Freedom of religion and democratic rights would have to be protected for all citizens. As in South Africa, a “truth and reconciliation” process, would be required to start the healing from the age-old traumas. Once Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs started mixing a little in everyday life–– that would soon discover that neither are monsters…

By its very existence, a single state wherein one of the planet’s oldest tribal enmities was reconciled could be a bulwark against racism and antisemitism. Such a state would be joyously welcomed and embraced by the global community…

In the short term, it is very hard not to be pessimistic.  Current trends suggest that the far-right regime in Israel may well succeed in ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and in the West Bank…With their lives made intolerable–– as many Palestinians may leave their homeland in despair as those by forced evacuation. (Apparently, Israel is already in Gazan resettlement discussions with South Sudan).

Both removal of Palestinians and annexation of their lands could certainly be accomplished with complicity of the Trump administration. Arab petrostate plutocrats would probably be bribable with sufficient weapons and cash. Of course, they would initially kick up a pro forma fuss–– as would the UN and even Israel’s western allies.  But Israel would probably ride out the storm without facing serious consequences…

The Palestinian crisis would soon fall to the bottom of newsworthiness.  Media attention–– particularly in the US–– would likely move on to the next Trumpian outrage or pop culture scandal. To borrow the expression of MAGA guru, Steve Bannon: ‘the zone will be flooded with new shit.’   Yet Palestinians themselves–– although without the means to enshrine memories of their suffering in expansive museums––would never forget…

I cannot deny that in reaction to recent news from Gaza and the West Bank, I often feel rage. I now find unbearable the voices of Netanyahu and the coldly logical Israeli government spokespeople. I usually jerk down the podcast volume or switch off the TV.  Images of bloodied Gazan children make me feel the preciousness of my own grandkids…  If a killer drone could somehow spare one Gazan child by targeting me–– I would gladly wear a bullseye on my back…

A few months ago, the UN Secretary General, declared that the crisis in Gaza is: “a moral crisis that challenges the global conscience…”  The moral crisis will be not resolved so long as the core injustices continue to fester… 

–2025, August

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