October 23, 2024
- Hezbollah says it fired “precision missiles” and launched new types of attack drones for the first time at Israel as the Lebanese group targeted Tel Aviv with a rocket barrage.
- Hamas says casualties inflicted in heavy fighting with Israeli troops near northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp as battles intensify in southern Lebanon with Hezbollah fighters.
- More than 770 Palestinians have been killed and 1,000 wounded after 19 days of Israeli military attacks and siege on Jabalia, Gaza’s government media office says.
- Hezbollah confirms top leader Hashem Safieddine killed in Israeli air attack several weeks ago.
- In Gaza, at least 42,792 people have been killed and 100,412 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks and more than 200 taken captive.
Yoav Litvin
October 23, 2024
( The New Arab ) – On October 7
2023, Hamas breached the 17-year-long Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip with a
brutal, coordinated attack on at least seven Israeli military installations
surrounded by more than 20 residential communities.
In a retaliatory frenzy, Israel
unleashed a mass Hannibal directive, with tanks and gunships firing
indiscriminately at both Palestinians and Israelis, foreshadowing its
deliberate criminal atrocities to come.
Netanyahu’s murderous rampage,
assisted by the manipulation of trauma with fabricated atrocity narratives and
debunked systemic rape allegations reminiscent of Jim Crow, aligns with the
Zionist ‘Greater Israel’ plans and practices of land and resource theft with as
few Palestinians as possible.
In contravention of international
law, Israeli genocidal expansionism knows no limits, as recently conveyed by
its Finance Minister who called for Israel’s borders to extend to Damascus.
Zionist genocide functions as it
always has, now supercharged by US imperial impunity. This emboldened
aggression allows for shameless expansion beyond Gaza, targeting the West Bank,
Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, with eyes on swaths of Saudi Arabia and
potentially Iraq and no signs of de-escalation in sight.
Shockingly, Israeli soldiers have
documented their own war crimes, flaunting them online for “likes,” seemingly
using these displays to gain attention, even from potential partners,
showcasing a disturbing normalisation and sexualisation of violence.
Zionist actions reveal a chilling
level of detachment, cruelty and a lack of empathy toward the Palestinian
“other”.
These can be witnessed in the
military through its genocidal campaign, which regularly targets women,
children, peacekeepers, journalists, academics, prisoners of war and medical
personnel, among others, and within Israeli society through countless examples
from the past 12 months, including numerous cases of Israelis mocking
Palestinians for their pain and loss.
These sectarian tendencies are
intrinsic to Zionism’s core design, rooted in its origins as a reactionary
movement which champions global apartheid.
From its start, Zionism relied on a
manufactured social identity built on misinformation, the dehumanisation of
“the other” and a commitment to expansion and dispossession.
The appeal of Zionism
In response to the wave of
antisemitic violence in the late 19th century in imperial Russia, Jewish people
defended themselves in several ways.
First, those with the means fled to
Western Europe, the Americas, Australia and other locations. Second, many chose
avoidance, further self-segregating within Jewish communities or shtetls.
Third, a minority opted for defensive aggression, organising self-defence units
to repel antisemitic attacks.
Zionism emerged during a time marked
by the rise of European colonial and nationalist movements, particularly in
reaction to the restrictive “May Laws” governing land ownership in Jewish
communities within the Russian Empire.
Like other fascist movements,
Zionism offered a romantic vision of heroism and valorisation of violence, in
its case, through the construct of the ‘new Jew.’
This narrative adopted the
antisemitic notion that Jews were responsible for their own suffering,
promoting segregation and land acquisition in a new homeland as the solution.
The allure of Zionism for Jewish
people lay in its promise of social cohesion and the narrative of “safety”
through land acquisition and segregation, at a time when they faced restricted
rights to own land and their social structure was under siege.
This period signified the moment
when Jewish Zionists began viewing themselves as a distinct marauding group of
colonists.
Zionist Partisan Identity
Zionist ideology and its associated
propaganda offer rewards of sociality, resources and empowerment, making it
particularly attractive to alienated people in a capitalist society that
victimises them.
However, it conditions the reward on
alternative truth, sectarianism and additional white supremacist, colonial
constructs.
The Identity-Based Model of Belief
explains how social identity, particularly partisan identity, influences
individuals’ beliefs and behaviours.
It suggests that people are more
likely to align their beliefs with their party or social group than with facts,
prioritising identity over accuracy when processing information and frequently
sharing negative misinformation about out-groups.
This model highlights the tension
between social identity and factual accuracy in addressing misinformation.
Research has even shown that perceiving others as part of one’s group activates
the brain’s reward system, fostering loyalty and preference.
Partisan identities, like all
identities, involve cognitive elements (self-perception, beliefs, shared
experiences, social norms) and motivational factors (belonging,
distinctiveness, status) that shape beliefs and behaviours.
When identity goals, such as
belonging, outweigh accuracy goals, individuals are more likely to adopt their
group’s views over factual information and in-group norms often dictate the
acceptability of spreading false or dubious claims.
While these dynamics help
individuals fit in and strengthen group cohesion, they can also lead partisans
to believe and disseminate misinformation. When enough partisans spread false
content, it becomes difficult for citizens to form accurate beliefs, undermining
a shared sense of reality and consensus.
The Identity-Based Model of Belief
can help decipher how for over 76 years, Zionists have consistently prioritised
partisan beliefs to defend their shared, manufactured identity. This has been
used as a tool to instil fear in the colonised Indigenous population, justify
genocidal policies and provide a legal cover for criminal actions, all while
rejecting any form of accountability grounded in facts or working-class
solidarity with Palestinians.
Further, apartheid and periodical
wars of aggression have served to entrench misinformation and violence in
subsequent generations.
Importantly, class oppression is far
more significant than identity-based divisions, which often serve to distract
from ruling-class exploitation.
In white-dominated societies, for
example, whiteness is used to placate the working class with the illusion of
superiority. This false sense of privilege tricks workers into acting against
their own interests, undermining solidarity with a broader, multiracial
workers’ movement that includes marginalised groups like people of colour.
This dynamic is why Zionist
institutions like the Histadrut went as far as excluding Palestinians,
reinforcing division rather than fostering true class unity.
Empathy and Prejudice
The relentless campaign by Zionist
leaders to dehumanise Palestinians has had two primary goals: first, to portray
them as a monstrous, uncivilised, unworthy threat which must be conquered and
exploited; second, to reduce them to a pitiable, fragmented state so weak and
disorganised that their displacement provokes no moral outrage.
Mental segregation works in tandem
with physical separation, i.e. apartheid. Indeed, studies demonstrate the
promotion of intergroup contact is the foremost strategy for reducing
prejudice, with apartheid serving the partisan agenda of reduced empathy leading
to land and resource theft with little moral qualms.
In the classic text The Nature of
Prejudice (1954), Allport conjectured that prejudice:
“may be reduced by equal status contact between majority and minority
groups in the pursuit of common goals. The effect is greatly enhanced if this
contact is sanctioned by institutional supports (i.e., by law, custom, or local
atmosphere), and provided it is of a sort that leads to the perception of
common interests and common humanity between members of the two groups. (p.
281).”
Lack of contact between groups
serves as a means to degrade empathy, boosting campaigns of dehumanisation,
like the one employed by Zionists following the October 7 Hamas attack.
Since then, Israeli military and
citizenry have valorised in-group soldiers who raped Palestinian prisoners, yet
lack any empathy for Palestinian people suffering through genocide, starvation
and displacement.
For Zionists to decolonise their
communal aggression and regain empathy for all humans, they must undergo a
process of desegregation, deprogramming and contend with capitalist oppression,
racism and fragmentation.
This would involve confronting the
truth about the history and nature of Zionism, committing to genuine
accountability, recognizing the humanity of Palestinians and understanding
their suffering.
Once co-resistance facilitates the
dismantling of the oppressive framework of Zionism, a path toward
rehumanisation and reconciliation can emerge through empathy, paving the way
for genuine coexistence.
True liberation, reconciliation and
an end to Israel’s genocidal violence can only be achieved through a steadfast,
anti-Zionist framework that aligns with broader leftist, antiracist and
anticolonial principles.
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