[Prefatory Note: This post was published in Middle East Eye on Nov 3, 2023 with the title “Israel-Palestine war: Israel’s endgame is much more sinister than restoring ‘security.'”]
\\Can Crimes of Resistance ever justify Genocide? The Tragic Reality of Gaza
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 terror 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 Palestinian fighters’ 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 assure that nothing comparable to 7 October could happen again?
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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 at its supposedly impenetrable border.
But what of others in Israel, and among its supporting governments? Undoubtedly, Israel is in all likelihood devoting all means at its disposal, with a sense of urgency, to close these incredible gaps in its intelligence system, and to beef up its military capabilities along Gaza’s comparatively short borders.
It is not necessary to be a security wonk to conclude that dealing reliably with these security issues would do more to prevent and deter future Palestinian fighters attacks, than this ongoing saga of inflicting devastating punishment on the Palestinian population of Gaza, very few of whom are involved with the military wing of Hamas.
Genocidal fury
Netanyahu has lent further plausibility to such speculation by presenting a map of the Middle East without Palestine included, effectively erasing Palestinians from their own homeland, during a September UN speech, where he spoke of a new peace in the Middle East amid the prospect of Israel-Saudi Arabia normalisation. His presentation amounted to an implicit denial of the UN consensus on the two-state formula as a roadmap for peace.
Meanwhile, the genocidal fury of Israel’s response to the Hamas attack is enraging people across the Arab world, and indeed the world over, even in western countries. But after more than three weeks of merciless bombardment, total siege and mass forced displacement, Israel’s discretion to unleash this torrent of violence on Gaza has yet to be challenged by its western supporters.
The US in particular is backing Israel at the UN, using its veto as needed in the Security Council, and voting with almost no solidarity from major countries against a ceasefire at the General Assembly. Even France voted for the General Assembly resolution, and the UK had the minimal decency to abstain, both likely reacting pragmatically to the populist pressures mounted by large and angry street demonstrations at home.
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 the predominant humanitarian catastrophe 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.
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Any man or woman on Earth with functioning critical thinking skill and/or operative discernment will understand what is being done now with unprecedented (ongoing) ruthlessness to the Palestinian people is genocide.
Hi Richard. Jim Harb here.
You write: “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.”
My take on things is that what’s really going on in terms of longer term Zionist machinations is that Israel is bombing and depopulating Northern Gaza so as to later annex the depopulated area and thereby set up justification for the claim that the oil and gas reserves off the coast of Gaza belong to Israel, not Palestine, due to the proximity of their newly annexed territory.
Do you share any of that perspective?
Troubling days, for sure. New territory for the human species as Western leaders openly cheerlead genocide, war crimes, and bombing of a captive and defenseless population.
Jim
Every time I heard Netanyahu telling the world that there can be no ceasefire, because Hamas will repeat the massacre of Oct 7, repeated by all the usual suspects, my blood boiled. This lie is just an excuse to obliterate Gaza and kill many more thousands of innocent Palestinians. Professor Falk’s analysis is spot on.
Dear Professor Falk,
Guterres was only doing his job, delivering his calm, balanced speech. Israel is the true ‘enfant terrible’ – a spoiled child of the UN; so very petulant, crying, disobedient. China looks down on her from an immense historical distance: 5000 years versus…created in 1948!? So the Chinese, in their subtle diplomacy, erased ISRAEL from THEIR maps.
The world will thank you for highlighting the escalation of settler violence in the West Bank, which is practically ignored in the media. Israel’s ‘final solution’ will be opposed by most nations on Planet Earth, any who have a shred of respect for the UN, Security Council resolutions, or International Law. The USA is also theoretically on board, so we must make sure that Washington DC doesn’t backslide on this also, as with NATO’s eastward expansion and other promises.
Zionist colonizers do NOT deserve “security” on robbed Palestinian land, ethnic cleansed from Palestinians. No more than French colonizers in Algeria, resisters in Algeria were accused of “crimes” too.
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.
Dear Professor Falk,
A note to Lidia:
Lidia,
How? How are you going to do that? Or how is that going to happen?
You will sow the grain, and you will unite Muslim Umma to liberate Palestine.
But from what? How are you going to do that?
I am asking some spiritual questions because it does apply to rational outcomes, results.
If everyone comes with fighting (as it is right now) don’t you think that it’s a bit crazy, and it getting crazier? Not only that, but no one is also doing anything that really matters, at all, because everyone is doing whatever they want.
They need to be in the Spirit of Mahdi, Imam Khalifah – who is Peace maker (not the fighter but Uniting the Muslim Umma). Fighting and Peace do not coexist.
It will never matter what those who are into entertainment, civil-ecclesiastic jokes and warfare do (you know what irrational and irresponsible are all about), as long as you do what you are supposed to be doing.
I am Roman-Catholic, and I can’t do it for you – I am limited.
You need to get the ear of every Muslim Believer and sovereign governments person who believes and come about the plan what can and what cannot be done in Holy Land/Palestine/ Land of Caninities/or he Land that is under the rule of the unbelievers and barbarians.
Children of Abraham (Spiritual and Natural) should be on the same page when comes to the human order and human continuity in Holy Land. Descendents of Judea will exist in Holy Land, and they will have security. Entire human continuation can depend on Jewish-Judeah in Holy Land.
All that – and This also includes strong diplomatic actions, and diplomatic consequences by and trough United Muslim Umma.
You need to know that Muslim Believers can and will do more for the wicked and accursed in the state of Israel and their children, then they are doing and can do it themselves. It’s in the Spirit of Believers.
I hope you can develop this further. It’s just an outline, and not complete.
Thank you,
K.F.
Dear Professor Falk,
This here:
K.F.