It is surely impossible that Israeli Jews do not know what is being done by their hand, and in their name, to the Palestinians of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
But the capacity to lie, to self-delude, to dissemble, feeds off itself behind a set of formidable psychic fortifications. Fortifications constructed, consciously and unconsciously, in pursuit of a singular enterprise: the promotion of the oxymoron that Israel can be a specifically Jewish supremacist state and yet at one and the same time be a bastion of democracy, liberal values, and moral integrity.
To sustain this fiction, a sophisticated ecology of Denial needs to be woven, such that even the glaringly obvious can be refuted with apparent conviction. A web of fabrication sustains the Jewish state, and its proponents.
But when the fabrication is exposed, the reaction is strong and vicious. This has been made only too apparent in Israel’s reaction of wounded horror[1], at the ‘betrayal’ by the twenty-four Intelligence Officers whose testimonies underpin the film, NAZA. The film was awarded the Venice International Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize.
NAZA is the Israeli army’s acronym for ‘collateral damage’. Bluntly put, it is the calculation of how many civilians it is deemed acceptable to kill in pursuit of an alleged terrorist target. It may be five. It may be fifty. AI assisted algorithms decide. It is of course also the case that the alleged terrorist may be no terrorist at all. (This article will not pursue the question of what can or should constitute a ‘terrorist’ event or person.)
But it’s human culpability
But behind the algorithm stand IDF Intelligence Officers. They are the ones that can tap into mobile phones, cameras, and microphones across Gaza to monitor targets and track their locations.
They are the ones that project the number of civilian deaths acceptable for each targeted strike.
They are the ones that map buildings and use surveillance to time attacks for when targets were inside their homes alongside their families.
As Peter Beinart[2] has pointed out, the demographic the intelligence officers hail from is broadly middle class, Ashkenazi (white European), highly educated, left leaning on social issues, such as Gay rights. It is this section of the population that considers itself liberal. Indeed, it is this section of the population that was strenuously vocal in its in opposition to Netanyahu’s proposed legal reforms. Reforms that if implemented would politicise still further Israel’s judicial system.
As to this cohort’s attitude to Israel’s sustained genocidal assault on Gaza, or the pogroms being conducted on Palestinians by Israeli Jewish West Bank settlers, aided or largely unchallenged by the IDF and police; and the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, on these matters, this ‘liberal’ cohort is largely silent. But by their silence, and in their choosing not to see, they are as culpable as the bulldozer driver destroying a Palestinian’s home; or the Israeli sniper aiming at a Palestinian child’s genitals or head.
As Daniel Levy [3]puts it:
The prevailing public mood remains one in which there is a consensus of anger against those who expose what has been done to Palestinians in the last three years rather than any questioning of the perpetrators – a reality stunningly brought to the surface by the widespread reaction around the recent NAZA documentary.
UK Jewish Establishment: a source of moral harm
Turning now to the UK, it is surely impossible to believe that the bodies comprising the UK Jewish Establishment (JE) – which falsely claims to represent all or a majority of UK Jews – do not know what Israel visits upon the Palestinians of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. Yet it turns aside, remains silent, claims not to see. Indeed, insists that everybody should un-see what is before their eyes – a monstrous, genocidal, state.
The JE is a source of moral harm to UK Jews. Its claim that the ‘Board of Deputies of British Jews is the voice of the British Jewish Community[4]…’ potentially plays to the antisemitic trope that all Jews think the same, act the same, and this for nefarious purposes.
It’s a logic that cannot be wriggled out of: take one noisily Jewish supremacist state, let it claim that it represents, and works on behalf of, ‘the Jewish people’ worldwide; and then insist the harming, law-offending, genocidal actions the Jewish state undertakes against Palestinians are for the benefit/safety of the said self-proclaimed Jewish state/people. Well then, you may end up being an antisemite too!
The need for fundamental reform of the Jewish Establishment is long overdue. Moral harm is corrosive.
Something is desperately wrong when self-proclaimed Jewish bodies claim fealty to a foreign state – Israel – that is guilty of offences under International Law and, arguably, is a perpetrator of genocide.
[1] https://zeteo.uk/p/naza-and-how-it-feels-to-be-an-anti?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
[2] https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/what-i-learned-from-watching-naza
[3] https://zeteo.com/p/october-7-three-years-on-israel-response-questions-gaza
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