Another Day, Another Assassination
I find browsing the Israeli media nauseating. It is worse than reading our own media, or rather disturbing in a different way. It is convenient to have a national language that no one else in the world speaks. You can hide so much from outside scrutiny, most importantly you can hide the true nature of your country, and cultivate whatever image you want the world to have of you.
A great deal of what is published in the Israeli media is not translated into English, and this is, of course, deliberate. Gideon Levy’s articles are translated because Ha’aretz is useful for Israel’s image. (Ha’aretz has very small Israeli readership. Whatever you read on Ha’aretz in English, is not read by most Israeli Jews). Ha’aretz makes Israel look like a bastion of Western democracy, where dissent is not only tolerated, it is welcomed, and defended. The newspaper itself may not intentionally have this agenda, but I have no doubt that Israeli governments have long recognised its usefulness for Israel’s image-creation. For now, Ha’aretz is allowed to continue to operate, and journalists like Levy are still walking free. Whenever Levy is interviewed on TV channels around the world, Israel hijacks Levy’s public appearance to further its image. I have no doubt that they smugly think or say to themselves, ‘You see what a great democracy we are? How can anyone say we are bad, when our own people are free to think for themselves, and criticise their own country’? The Israeli Ambassador to Australia said as much, when many years ago I was interviewed on ABC Radio, and they invited him to comment on what I said (they wanted to be ‘balanced’). He ignored the content of what I said, and used the very act of me speaking out as evidence of Israel’s democracy, and free speech. It was then that I began to grasp the extent of Israel’s cunning, and deliberate deception, and subterfuge.
Three days ago, we woke up to the news of another assassination, this time of Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and his personal bodyguard. According to the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, (here is the link if you happen to read Hebrew), Haniyeh lost three of his children, two grandchildren, and his sister in Al-Shati (Arabic: مخيم الشاطئ) refugee camp, which the Israeli media refers to as Shati. Of course, they do not say ‘we killed his family’. But there is no question they were murdered by Israel, possibly even targeted deliberately, which is consistent with how Israel operates.
The report was matter of fact. There was no empathy there. Can you imagine what this man must have felt losing such close members of his family, his own children and grandchildren? Can you imagine what every Palestinian feels? The losses and pain that every Palestinian has to live with under Israel’s genocidal, and advancing settler-colonial programme are beyond comprehension. The scale, and depth the human suffering that Israel has been inflicting systematically and deliberately on the Palestinian people for the past seventy six years, is unfathomable.
In Israel these days, even the mildest form of human sympathy for the Palestinians invites vicious attacks, and accusations of ‘supporting terrorism’, and treachery. In this kind of atmosphere it is natural that there is plenty of self-censorship. No one in the mainstream Israeli media would take the risk of expressing sympathy for the Palestinians (Ha’aretz is not mainstream). Soon it will become illegal to express sympathy for the Palestinians under a new euphemistic law that is going through the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) that will make it a crime to express ‘support for terrorism’. The equation is: empathy for Palestinians = support for terrorism. But for now, conformity in Israel is still largely enforced informally by society itself.
In Israel there is no such thing as Palestinian human beings. There are only Palestinian ‘terrorists’ (me’hablim). The truth is there are no Palestinians at all, just Arabs (aravim). Palestinian children and babies are not human, they are potential terrorists, which is why the media there do not shed any tears about the tens of thousand of murdered Palestinian children in Gaza, or the sexual abuse, and traumatisation of Palestinian children held in adult Israeli prisons, in blatant and brazen violation of international law. The dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israel has always been extensive. If you do not read Hebrew, you would find it hard to believe the profound lows this has been reaching.
If you want to understand Israel better, you can always refer to history. You can find many examples of how colonialist, settler-colonialist, genocidal regimes have always dehumanised their victims. Victims must be dehumanised to make it easier to torture, and kill them, and to justify those acts. In places where people are dehumanised, where their lives are declared worthless, real psychopaths have free reign. In these environments, you do not just see killings, but depraved acts of rape, torture, abuse of all kinds, just for fun, just because the perpetrators can. As soon a person or a group is regarded as worthless, as just an object, an ‘other’, and are no longer protected by society, anything and everything can be done to them. It happens at all levels of society, and in many contexts, such as school bullying, domestic abuse, rape, slavery, institutional abuse, and pedophilia. Objectification and dehumanisations are a prerequisite in massacres and genocides. Israel’s dehumanisation of the Palestinian people is so embedded in the Hebrew language, that most people in Israel never stop to think about what it is they are reading or saying.
‘Nothing new under the sun’…
One of Israel’s myths and points of deception has been that they have ‘no partner for peace’. They can say this because over the past several decades Israel has assassinated anyone with whom they could potentially negotiate. The real point is that Israel had never had any intention of negotiating anything. Israel does not want ‘peace’. Israel wants all the land and resources without the people, and to them this is not negotiable. Pretending that there is some scope for negotiations has been buying Israel precious time to advance its project and create more ‘facts on the ground’. As a good example of how this works, I recommend the eighth chapter in Ilan Pappé’s Ten Myths About Israel, ‘The Olso Mythologies’. Real negotiations can only be held between parties with equal power. Where there is imbalance of power, the pretence of negotiations is used to further the interests of the more powerful side, increase their control, and make the power structure permanent. This is why no ethical therapist would ever engage in relationship therapy where there is domestic abuse/coercive control. Everything Israel has done has always been intended to maintain the upper hand, and increase its power and control over the Palestinian people.
To achieve its goal Israel has to eliminate any resistance to its settler-colonial aims. Israel murders those who represent the real interests of their people. They keep alive those who can be bought and manipulated into betraying their people. The latter do not get in the way of a setter-coloniser’s goals, because they do not offer any resistance. There is ‘nothing new under the sun’. Colonialist societies have always done this. The US has a long history of interfering in countries whose democratically elected leaders are not useful to the US, and threaten to resist its imperialist aspirations. Israel might have a ‘specialness complex’, but it has not invented anything new.
Enmeshment and its dangers
Israel is a small pressure cooker, with a tightly knit society. It is what we call in family therapy, ‘an enmeshed system’. In an enmeshed system everyone is in everyone else’s business, and real privacy is difficult to maintain. Anyone who is not prepared to play a part in enmeshed human systems, either leaves, or remains on the fringes. Few people can remain on the fringes of an enmeshed system without paying a heavy price, and not just psychologically. Groups and societies can make it difficult for people to live their ordinary lives. Getting a job, or a mortgage in Israel can be difficult if you have not served in the military, or are a dissident.
Einat Weizman, a Jewish Israeli actress, playwright, and director has experienced first hand what happens when you dare to expose what Israel does to the Palestinians, and dare to show empathy. Weizman’s plays cannot be shown in Israel, but have found a home in Japan. They have been translated into Japanese and are shown all over Japan. Weizman’s work has been banned in ‘democratic’ Israel, and she has been accused of ‘glorifying terrorism’. She could not get an acting job in Israel from the moment she first expressed sympathy to the Palestinians publicly by wearing the ‘wrong’ t-shirt. The link above leads to a fascinating report on NHK World Japan. You will see how Einat Weizman, whom I have never met, validates everything that I have been saying. Israeli Jews know everything I know. This is why when someone from Israel ‘airs the dirty laundry’, the story you hear is always the same.
In Israel it is hard to keep secrets. It is the nature of that society that everyone talks, and everyone knows something. It is impossible not to know what is going on, when, directly or indirectly, almost everyone contributes to the ‘defence’ industry, aka the settler-colonial project. If you do not have direct access to information, then your neighbour does, or your daughter’s boyfriend, or one of their relatives. I believe that Israelis know far more about what their country is doing than do citizens of other countries know about theirs. The apologist idea that a ‘government might be bad, and just leads its good people astray’, does not apply in Israel.
Enmeshment is not the same as being close. Real human closeness is based on a genuine interest in, and a willingness to act for the benefit of everyone’s growth towards their human potential. The focus of enmeshed systems is the (perceived) survival of the group, the family, or society. Enmeshment is a common human group response to existential threat (real or perceived). But humans cannot just exist, which is why members of enmeshed groups, or families almost always suffer from chronic anxiety. It is well-known in family therapy literature.
Staying alive is a prerequisite for growth and development towards our innate potential, but just staying alive is not life. Chronic anxiety is therefore inevitable, where there is no growth towards potential, and people spend their entire energy just existing. (The real cure for anxiety is to grow towards your potential).
It is not surprising that the general state of mental health in Israel is horrendous. This is important, because when people are chronically stressed and anxious, they can be dangerous. Some people might collapse inwardly. But many can be put to ‘good use’. All that adrenaline and tension has to be discharged somehow, and oppressive societies know how to make use of it. Enmeshed systems do not care about the cost to individual mental health. In oppressive, cult-like societies the collective is always more important than the individual. Individuals only matter as agents of the collective, who each play their role in preserving the collective, and furthering its goals.
Israel cultivates and nurtures this kind of stress-based, urgency and emergency cultural psychology, and the fanatical loyalty that it breeds and demands. Their media are thick with fear, mixed with arrogance, overconfidence, smugness, and sickening zeal, and fanaticism. These feelings might seem contradictory, but they do co-exist, especially in pathological systems. For example, narcissists feel fear and insecurity, but can present as overconfidence, and arrogant. For the first twenty-seven years of my life I lived and breathed this atmosphere. I could not have recovered from trauma, or grown, had I remained in Israel.
A bit more about the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
Shortly after the assassination in Tehran, the Israeli cabinet issued a gagging order prohibiting Government Ministers from reacting to the assassination publicly. But the gagging order came in a tad too late for three ministers who tweeted gleeful, ecstatic statements (in Hebrew), dripping with inflammatory Biblical quotes. This is one of the reasons the gagging order has been put in place. Even Netanyahu knows he has not-very-bright, loose cannons in his cabinet. He did not want the world to see the kind of religious fanaticism and psychopathy expressed by those three ministers. It is bad for Israel’s carefully crafted image as a ‘Western, liberal, secular democracy’. Fortunately for Netanyahu, most of the world does not read Hebrew.
The official reason for the gagging order as reported in the Israeli media is that the Israeli government wants some time to ‘evaluate’ the situation. In reality, Israel wants to see how things play out, and which direction the wind blows, before they decide on their next move. I have no doubt Israeli officials keep pulling strings behind the scenes.
Another reason for the gagging order might well be to protect the US from exposure. Loose canons can reveal secrets you do not want the world to know. According to the Israeli media, the assassination of Haniyeh was carried out by a missile strike from ‘another country’ (quote). You can certainly fire a missile from Israel all the way to Tehran. But you cannot guarantee an accurate hit. The longer the distance to the target, even the tiniest shift in angle, would translate to a considerable distance on the ground. It is simple geometry. Sadam Hussein learned this the hard way back in 1991, when he tried to target Israel’s military headquarters in the centre of Tel Aviv. It was clear what the general aim was, but from 1000 kilometres away, every slight change in angle meant that the scud missiles fell on either sides of the tall, and (deliberately) thin antenna complex towering over Israel’s not-so-secret underground central military HQ. Scud missiles are old technology. Modern missiles are far more advanced. But geometry is still geometry. It is likely the missile was launched from ‘another country’ much closer to Iran than Israel, in order to hit a target sufficiently precisely to assassinate a specific person. Israel probably has bases in Iraq in collaboration with the US, and some of their allies in that part of the world. It is quite likely that the missile was fired from one of those bases. No missile can be launched in the Middle East without US surveillance planes and satellites knowing about it. It is more than likely that the US would have known about this launch, and of its intent.
The fact that the attack was so accurate, also tells you a great deal about Israeli espionage in Iran. There is no doubt that Israel has spies in Iran who provide intelligence, both to Israel and the US. You would have to have up-to-date, and precise intelligence on the ground to pinpoint exactly where someone is, and when in order to hit them with such accuracy.
This assassination, and all other targeted assassinations carried out by Israel should be a great source of concern to everyone. They demonstrate how Israel approaches foreign policy. They provide clear evidence that Israel is not serious about ‘peace’ or ‘negotiations’. Israel is a single-minded state, determined to complete its settler-colonial project — take all the land, without the people — by any means possible. Targeted assassinations are an inseparable means by which Israel hopes to achieve its purpose.
It is also important for people to understand that the vast majority of the Israeli population are behind the settler-colonial project. They have been extensively indoctrinated to believe that unless their country is exclusively Jewish, and is controlled only by Jews, they will never be safe. The Israeli media reflect this mindset internally, but the image creators and promoters continue to deceive the rest of the world. This is why I tell people to focus on what Israel does, not on what it says. Israel would say anything to help advance its interests and achieve its ultimate goal, but its words are worthless. Focusing on actions not words, is also the basis for legal action. This is why the work of the ICC and ICJ are important.
Do the countries that support Israel genuinely not know that Israel is a settler-colonial state? Do they really not understand its ultimate aim? Or, perhaps, they do know, but continue to participate in Israel’s farce for their own reasons of greed and profit and the control they required.
I do not know which one is worse. If the great ‘movers and shakers’ of this world, with their heavily funded, multi-layered intelligence agencies really do not know what Israel is, what does this tell us? Perhaps that they are not as competent as people hope they are. Or maybe it tells us something about how good Israel is at deception; that it is so adept, it can even successfully deceive entire world governments and their agencies.
The more likely scenario is that the governments that support Israel know precisely what Israel is, and what its goals are. But to stand up to Israel and call its bluff, countries with a colonial and settler-colonial past (often not even so distant), would have to own up to their own dirty history, and foreign policy practices. The leaders our countries produce, on all sides of politics, are not decent or courageous enough to do the right thing. Instead, they cynically sacrifice yet another group of indigenous people, the Palestinians, just to avoid their own countries’ responsibilities. It is like a bad movie where a person commits their first crime. Then in order to avoid capture, they commit more and more crimes, and engage in greater and greater deception, just to cover up the original crime. The web tends to get more complex, and more hideous over time.
If a courageous and truly honourable leader did appear somewhere and tried to do the right thing, I am sure their actions would not be welcomed by large sections of their society. We cannot just blame useless leaders for all the woes of the world. How the world is, is everyone’s responsibility. None of us can wash our hands off it. People do not just ‘get the leaders they deserve’. They choose them, democratically or not.
Nasty and immoral cycles and patterns continue from one decade to the next, from one generation to the next, until someone decides that it has to stop. The only way to stop destructive cycles is by facing the truth, and owning up to our past. How long will the world continue on its destructive roller coaster depends on each one of us, and on all of us together. I am not naive enough to think that we can unite the whole of humanity — although that would be really nice. But history has shown repeatedly, that a sizeable minority can change the course of history for better, or for worse. Either way, we each carry responsibility.
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