© ReutersYoung girls mourn the Palestinians killed during Israeli strike at a hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on 3 November, 2023
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was recently pilloried by Israel because he stated a truism, observing that the 7 October Hamas attack "did not happen in a vacuum".
Guterres was calling the world's attention to Israel's long record of severe criminal provocations in occupied Palestine, which have been occurring ever since it became the occupying power after the 1967 war.
The occupier, a role expected to be temporary, is entrusted in such circumstances with upholding international humanitarian law by ensuring the security and safety of the occupied civilian population, as spelled out in the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel reacted so angrily to Guterres's entirely appropriate and accurate remarks because they could be interpreted as implying that Israel "had it coming" in view of its severe and varied abuses against people in the occupied Palestinian territories, most flagrantly in Gaza, but also in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
After all, if Israel could present itself to the world as an innocent victim of the 7 October attack - an incident that was itself replete with war crimes - it could reasonably hope to gain carte blanche from its patrons in the West to retaliate as it pleased, without being bothered by the restraints of international law, UN authority, or common morality.
Indeed, Israel responded to the 7 October attack with its typical skill in manipulating the global discourse that shapes public opinion and guides the foreign policies of many important countries. Such tactics seem almost superfluous here, as the US and EU swiftly issued blanket approval for whatever Israel did in response, however vengeful, cruel or unrelated to restoring Israeli border security.
Guterres's UN speech had such a dramatic impact because it punctured Israel's balloon of artfully constructed innocence, in which the 7 October attack came out of the blue. This exclusion of context diverted attention from the devastation of Gaza and the genocidal assault on its overwhelmingly innocent, and long-victimised, population of 2.3 million.
Extraordinary lapses
What I find strange and disturbing is that, despite the consensus that the Hamas attack became feasible only because of extraordinary lapses in Israel's supposedly second-to-none intelligence capabilities and tight border security, this factor has rarely been discussed since that day.
Instead of the morning after being filled with vengeful fury, why wasn't the focus within Israel and elsewhere on taking emergency action to restore Israeli security by correcting these costly lapses, which would seem to be the most effective way to ensure that nothing comparable to 7 October could happen again?
I can understand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reluctance to stress this explanation or advocate this form of response, as it would be tantamount to a confession of his personal co-responsibility for the tragedy traumatically experienced by Israel when Palestinian fighters flooded over the border.
It has also been forgotten in reacting to Israel's tactics in Gaza that from day one, the extremist government has initiated a shocking series of violent provocations across the occupied West Bank. Many have interpreted this undisguised unleashing of settler violence as part of the endgame of the Zionist project, aimed at achieving victory over the remnants of Palestinian resistance.
There is little reason to doubt that Israel deliberately overreacted to 7 October by immediately engaging in a genocidal response, particularly if its purpose was to divert attention from the escalation of West Bank settler violence, exacerbated by the government's distribution of guns to "civilian security teams".
The Israeli government's ultimate plan seems to be to end once and for all UN partition fantasies, lending authority to the Zionist maximalist goal of annexation or total subjugation of West Bank Palestinians.
In effect, as morbid as it seems, the Israeli leadership seized the occasion of 7 October to "finish the job" by committing genocide in Gaza, under the guise that Hamas was such a danger as to justify not only its destruction, but this indiscriminate onslaught against the whole population.
My analysis leads me to conclude that this ongoing war is not primarily about security in Gaza or security threats posed by Hamas, but rather about something much more sinister and absurdly cynical.
Israel has seized this opportunity to fulfill Zionist territorial ambitions amid "the fog of war" by inducing one last surge of Palestinian catastrophic dispossession. Whether it is called "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide" is of secondary importance, although it already qualifies as one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes of the 21stcentury.
In effect, the Palestinian people are being victimised by two convergent catastrophes: one political, the other humanitarian.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.
Reader Comments
These people will stop at nothing to own you or destroy you.
That is a personal choice now for the individual. I'm one of the lucky ones in the way of knowing I am under no illusions about where we are, what is happening and why, I pray for my enemies now, no amount of reason can prevent the ambition of these people. The fog is going to get thick, it will undoubtedly serve as the reduction in vision they need to get past the nations.
Hiding Palestinian bodies in refrigerated lorries are the IDF fait accompli, but a brilliant way to hide them from UN inspectors. I wonder if they are going to do this again?
But using mercenaries, readily available from America show how weak the Zionist degenerates IDF military have become. But aren’t you glad the Zionists own the FED, own American politicians, own the military complex and own the American military, who use sons of America as there personally owned fodder.
israel is Zionists.
aye you know and understand the Talmud, shame on you.
In this case I suspect the "for or against" are both lies. The theatrics is all over the internet about this Gaza stuff and now people are asking why we are trusting either side, the communications legislation is being rushed in.
A guy online made a doc called "searching for war" about Ukraine war being faked to empty the area and another guy wandering about in Cyprus accidentally found a UN enclave used for film crews that looks exactly like Gaza, mention it anywhere and all you see are clown shoes and baloons.....
The stretch that Covid was fake but now the Ukraine and Gaza info-tainment channel is not (even though it relies on same trust principle, same medium, etc) is somehow not even worth serious debate says its best left alone for one reason only, anything easily debunked by verification is something to look out for.
Truth and freedom have never been on either side of false dichotomies.
scapegoat (n.) [Link]
“goat sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement as a symbolic bearer of the sins of the people," coined by Tyndale from scape, a shortening of escape (see scape (v.)) + goat; the whole word translating Latin caper emissarius, itself a translation in Vulgate of Hebrew 'azazel (Leviticus xvi.8, 10, 26), which was read as 'ez ozel "goat that departs," but which others hold to be the proper name of a devil or demon in Jewish mythology (sometimes identified with Canaanite deity Aziz).Jerome's reading was followed by Martin Luther (der ledige Bock), Symmachus (tragos aperkhomenos), and others (compare French bouc émissaire), but the question of who, or what (or even where) is meant by 'azazel is a vexed one. The Revised Version (1884) simply restores Azazel. But the old translation has its modern defenders:Azazel is an active participle or participial noun, derived ultimately from azal (connected with the Arabic word azala, and meaning removed), but immediately from the reduplicate form of that verb, azazal. The reduplication of the consonants of the root in Hebrew and Arabic gives the force of repetition, so that while azal means removed, azalzal means removed by a repetition of acts. Azalzelor azazel, therefore, means one who removes by a series of acts. ... The interpretation is founded on sound etymological grounds, it suits the context wherever the word occurs, it is consistent with the remaining ceremonial of the Day of Atonement, and it accords with the otherwise known religious beliefs and symbolical practices of the Israelites. [Rev. F. Meyrick, "Leviticus," London, 1882]The transferred meaning " one who is blamed or punished for the mistakes or sins of others" is recorded by 1824; the verb is attested by 1884. Related: Scapegoated; scapegoating.For the formation, compare scapegrace (which is perhaps modeled on this word), also scape-gallows "one who deserves hanging," scapethrift "spendthrift"
goat (n.)Old English gat "she-goat," from Proto-Germanic *gaito (source also of Old Saxon get, Old Norse geit, Danish gjed, Middle Dutch gheet, Dutch geit, Old High German geiz, German Geiß, Gothic gaits "goat"), from PIE *ghaid-o- "young goat," also forming words for "to play" (source also of Latin hædus "kid").They are sprightly, capricious, and wanton, and their strong odor (technically called hircine) is proverbial. [Century Dictionary]The word for "male goat" in Old English was bucca or gatbucca (see buck (n.)) until late 1300s shift to he-goat, she-goat (Nanny goat is 18c., billy goat 19c.). Meaning "licentious man" is attested from 1670s (hence goat-milker, name of a bird formerly believed to suck the milk from goats at night, but also old slang for "a prostitute," also "the female pudendum"). To get (someone's) goat is by 1908, American English, the source of many fanciful explanation stories; perhaps from French prendre sa chèvre "take one's source of milk," or more likely it is "to steal a goat mascot" from a racehorse, warship, fire company, military unit, etc.... to become separated from your goat is a thing no soldierman is willing to contemplate. ["Letitia, Nursery Corps, U.S.A.," in American Magazine, vol. lxiv, June 1907]scape (v.)early 13c., scapen, "to escape (siege, battle, etc.), depart from (confinement, etc.)," a shortened form of escape; frequent in prose up to late 17c. By late 14c. in the general sense "avoid death, peril, punishment, or other danger." Related: Scaped (sometimes 15c.-16c. with strong past tense scope); scaping. As a noun from c. 1300, "an escape."scapegrace (n.)"man of reckless or disorderly habits," 1732, from scape (v.) + grace (n.); as if it meant "one who escapes the grace of God." Possibly influenced by scapegoat.
Hence the Whore of Babylon deeper meaning & the Founding brothers of Rome were Romulus & Remus who were raised by a She-Wolf Luca which means Prostitute in Latin.
Cheers