Bernard Spiegal

I’ve said it myself: ‘there is one person who can stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the West Bank too, simply by picking up the phone to Netanyahu.’ That is President Trump.

But that statement is not entirely correct, for there is another potential force that were it to be so minded has the capacity to call halt to Israel’s bloody campaign against Palestinians. That potential force comprises Jewish Israelis citizens refusing to serve in the IDF, be they conscripts or reservists now being called up in numbers, some 60,000 of them.

But that potential is not capable of being realised in part because Israeli society as a whole views Palestinians through the distorting lens of racism.  And, as will be seen below, Jewish Israelis would prefer an Israel absent Palestinians, an orientation that enables them to stomach the atrocities of genocide they perpetuate.

A consequence of this is that Israelis do not see Palestinians as people equal in worth to Israelis. This is the case both literally, and metaphorically.  Thus, Israelis can enjoy their espressos and falafels in the coffee bars of Tel Aviv, oblivious to their Jewish state conducting a genocidal war against Palestinians only some fifty miles away. A genocidal pursuit that many of our coffee-drinkers will shortly join.

The heroic pilots of the IAF can fire on their targets from up to 15 miles away. Thus, actual people, Palestinians, become unseen, intangible abstractions. We learn from TWZ, an arms company, that since October 2023, the [IDF’s] F-35Is have flown more than 15,000 operational flight hours, taking part in ’thousands of sorties in all theaters [sic].’  It is unlikely that any pilot will have seen the people they are maiming and killing.

This invisibility of Palestinians infuses the large, so-called democratic, street protests demanding that Netanyahu institutes a ceasefire in the war on Gaza not because the war is wrong in itself, but because, and only because, continued fighting puts the Israeli troops and hostages in danger.  These are not protests against the war as such. 

Above all, Israelis who have served or are serving in the IDF know what they have done. They know the atrocities they have committed.

Nineteen-year-old Yona Roseman, is one of seven courageous young draft refusers imprisoned in August for refusing military service in protest at Israel’s genocide and occupation. She is clear that:

True recognition of the scale of destruction that our state is sowing, of the suffering it inflicts upon its subjects, demands action accordingly,” she told the crowd before the protest was shut down. “If you see the magnitude of the atrocities and see yourselves as moral people, you cannot continue business as usual, despite the cost, whether social or legal.”

But there seems little prospect that Israel society is capable of seeing itself as it really is. This is depressingly confirmed in recent polling by Professor Tamir Sorek of Pennsylvania State University and Professor Shay Hazkani, published in Ha’aretz. They examined what they called ‘eliminatory’ attitudes among Jewish Israelis and their theological roots. The polling:

found that 82% of Israeli Jews support ‘the transfer (expulsion) of residents of the Gaza Strip to other countries.’ Fifty four percent of Jewish respondents were ‘very’ supportive.

Ha’aretz continues:

A majority of 56 percent of Jews supported the ‘transfer (forced expulsion) of Arab citizens of Israel to other countries.” And when asked directly whether they agreed with the position that the IDF, “when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, namely, to kill all its inhabitants?’ nearly half, 47 percent, agreed.

An essentially racist worldview informs the current Netanyahu government, this clearly finding echo in swathes of Israeli society. It is a toxic, profoundly prejudiced analysis, as reported by Ha’aretz:

Netanyahu attributed Israel’s isolation to two main causes. First: “unlimited immigration to Western European nations by Muslim minorities. They aren’t the majority yet, but [they are] a significant, very vocal and combative minority that bends governments. These things affect leaders. They don’t deny this in private conversations.”

Second, ‘countries like Qatar and China sway public opinion through significant investments in social media…‘It changes Israel’s international situation; we’ll need to invest huge amounts in this. Western Europe is being pressured by its Muslim minorities to join this siege on Israel.’

 These perspectives share an ideological home with the so-called Replacement Theory, the idea that white, western Europe will be replaced by black and brown Muslims.

The sense of being permanently under siege, being essentially alone in a hostile region leads Netanyahu to characterising Israel’s future as that of a Sparta, presumably meaning an Israel committed to pursuing for-ever military actions, near and far.

Thus has Israel constructed for itself a perceptual prison, one with high walls and few windows. Those windows allowing only an authorised  vista specifically designed to confirm what Israelis need to believe about themselves: that they are perennial victims; that antisemitism motivates criticism of Israel; that Israel must dominate the region; that a Jewish state is both right and necessary; it is God-promised even if many Israelis don’t believe in God. Other angles of view are closed off. 

And so Israel constructs for itself a form of self-entrapment. But the people who bear the cost of this, are the Palestinians.