The problem is the west established a state in the middle east which holds as its foundational ideology that the people who were living there before that state was created are less than human.
Benny Gantz, then chief of general staff of the IDF and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting in 2013. (Prime Minister of Israel, Flickr)
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article
The only real benefit to this latest western “recognition” of Palestine is that it drew out high-profile Israeli politicians to explain to western liberals in plain English that the entire state of Israel stands opposed to their vision of a two-state solution.
Former Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz has an op-ed in The New York Times where he explicitly states that opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state is “the heart” of a national consensus among Israelis across the mainstream political spectrum, and that this isn’t an obstacle that will go away once Netanyahu is out of power.
“Too often, Western leaders view our policies in this war not through the lens of national security, but through the prism of individuals?—?and, in particular, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,” Gantz writes.
“The conversation is often framed as a question of what serves the prime minister, as if Israel’s national security begins and ends with one man. This view is mistaken and counterproductive to global stability, regional normalization and Israel’s own security.”
“I myself have been a vocal critic of Mr. Netanyahu,” says Gantz. “But the nation’s core security interests are not partisan property. Today more than ever, they are anchored by a national consensus that is rooted in the hard realities of our region. Opposition to the recognition of Palestinian statehood stands at the heart of that consensus.”
He’s spelling it out in black and white. The Bernie Sanders-style framing of the nightmare in Palestine as a Netanyahu problem which can be remedied in short order by a two-state solution is a fairy tale that western liberals tell each other so they don’t have to face the cold hard reality that the problem is the state of Israel itself.
This comes after Netanyahu publicly stated that “There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” and after former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant proclaimed that “There will never be a Palestinian state.”
Israel is the problem. Not Netanyahu. Not Hamas. Not that both sides have tragically failed to sit down and find common ground in good-faith negotiations.
The problem is that the west established a state in the middle east which holds as its foundational ideology that the people who were living there before that state was created are less than human, and must never have access to the full spectrum of human rights.
The problem is Israel. A state which has always been a racist endeavor from its very inception. A state whose Jewish citizenry are indoctrinated from birth into accepting the hateful, supremacist worldview that is necessary for apartheid and abuse to be accepted as the status quo.
No solutions are going to emerge until the west gets real about this.
As long as western liberals are still buying into the fuzz-brained escapist fantasy that Israel is just an election away from a two-state solution if the U.S. simply keeps funding the Iron Dome and making nice with Tel Aviv, we’re going to continue seeing Israel inflicting the nonstop violence and abuse that is necessary for it to exist in its present iteration as a state.
Any actual, reality-based solutions are not going to make liberal Zionists happy like their daydream about a two-state solution does. Israel simply cannot continue to exist as a Zionist entity.
It needs to be disarmed, dramatically restructured, and comprehensively denazified as a society. This isn’t going to happen without force, and that necessary force isn’t going to be forthcoming from the western world as long as we are deluding ourselves with infantile fantasies.
The Israelis are telling us this is the case themselves, right to our faces. It’s time to wake up.
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This article is from Caitlyn’s Newsletter and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
I agree with Caitlin but was disappointed that she didn’t end by stating that the only solution, long term as it is, will be one state between the river and the sea, in which Israelis and Palestinians live as equals. I hope it will be called Palestine but the name is not of first importance.
Wars are always motivated by behavioral motivations of hatred of sub human beings as monsters and demons af all kinds with no souls.
It is so effective for political and religious motivational profit motives that is is taking over human civilization at the exact time our planetary existence requires rewiring for symbiosis for survival.
With great regard for your perspective and concerns, many of which I share, I would like to offer two books for your consideration along with a thought: I am strongly inclined to think that any “solution” to the ongoing genocide and the illegal founding of Israel must remain completely in the hands of Palestinians. I would respectfully suggest that the follow books are important references for all of us who share a profound concern for all Palestinians coupled with bringing an end to this genocide and a just outcome”
“Ten Myths About Israel” by Illan Pappe (2017)
“Sharing the Land of Canaan, Human Rights and he Issraeli-Palestinian Struggle” by Mazin Quimsiyeh ((2004)
Both predate the ongoing genocide. Thus, I wonder if either or both authors might now have both a different perspective, and different thoughts about a ‘just outcome’ – should one be possible in the context of the controls exerted by the US and its allies since the illegal and immoral founding of Israel.
Let us not forget that Gaza and the West Bank are NOT Contiguous. A Palestinian State would be cut in two resulting in having to traverse Israeli Land peppered with check points. How could a state operate that way? What is a solution to this?
I don’t know but do know that Israel has been given an advantage it doesn’t deserve. That cake can’t be unbaked.
“It needs to be disarmed, dramatically restructured, and comprehensively denazified as a society. This isn’t going to happen without force”
I’ve been saying exactly this for many years now. The only thing the Zionist supremacists respond to or react to or will make concessions to is force and violence. Their hubris and hegemonic ambitions know no other way.
Caitlin Johnstone has it absolutely right. The problem is not Netanyahu. The problem is Zionist Israel and the solution is the destruction of the apartheid state. Anything less than that is at best only a half measure, or fairy tale.
The Wests Ignominy is Undeniable yet…
A great tragedy for Europeans and their purported evolutionary civilizing practices; that have supposedly occurred, without blemish, throughout history globally, is the fact that the ‘West’ has now been symbolically branded with the catch-all for everything rotten in humankind.
Israeli state practices today will definitely leave yet another indelible, traumatic stain on history adding to humanity’s past historical murderous behaviors.
Perplexing question: Was western European culture the first and only culture to stumble on dehumanization?
The term “less than human” isn’t a single etymological term but a descriptive phrase rooted in the concept of dehumanization, where a person or group is stripped of their human qualities to justify their mistreatment.
This commenter begs to differ with the emphatic statement Caitlin Johnstone makes: ‘Israel’ less than 50% of modern-day world Jewry – in biblical mythology, the Jewish people, is “A state which has always been a racist endeavor from its very inception”.
Were the pre-WWII Jews of Europe discriminated against because of being a so-called different race – “less than human” or simply because of believing in the wrong god?
Anti-Semitism today is supposedly disparagement of the Jewish religion and not of the human beings born into and/or who still practice the religion of Judaism.
Jewish people in the U.S. today are being persecuted by their own government for acting and speaking out in support of the non-Jewish Semites cause, in Palestine. Fascist ideology is not here discriminating between ‘race’ and ‘religion’, rather they are using these categorizations of human beings to divide us one from the other, as per usual “for their own hideous ends”.
One of the earliest – in today’s terminology, genocides to occur was the frequently cited Roman Republic’s destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, ending the Third Punic War. Carthage was an ancient Semitic civilisation, based in North Africa.
Pre-colonial African societies practiced various forms of slavery and conflict-based enslavement (think here of “slave worker” open air concentration camps), which involved treating captured individuals from other groups as outsiders.
Not European – indigenous African states and groups, enslaved people from other ethnicities as a form of punishment, to acquire labor, or as a consequence of warfare rather than out of a belief in inherent racial inferiority, which was, and still is, a key feature of ongoing European racialized systems of bondage.
Some other incidental pointers:
Ancient Israel: The Hebrew Bible describes several massacres of rival groups, (many such groups/tribes in ancient Canaan; the Hebrews being but one of the many) such as the Midianites and Amalekites, (according to ancient biblical mythological stories, it was indigenous Semites against indigenous Semites) that contain genocidal elements. Some biblical scholars argue these massacres describe a desire to eliminate a group from existence.
The Melian massacre (416 BC): During the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian army demanded the surrender of the island of Melos. After the Melians (an ethnic group native to Europe) refused, the Athenians executed all the men and enslaved the women and children.
If not an attempt at genocide, it was a form of “ethnic cleansing” (then interbreeding and sharing genes)?
The Israeli regime today is yet one more despicable example of humanity’s abilities to deceive itself from its worst potential evil inclinations.
CJ offers a clear solution: Israel must be “disarmed, dramatically restructured, and comprehensively denazified as a society…with… force.” Does she expect Israel to exist without defenses? Would we be responsible for its defense? Or would we trust Palestine and its allies to …what? Enjoy a new and improved fantasy?
Well, what we have right now is genocide and ethnic cleansing, Rick; so, yes, disarmed and changed would seem the way to go. Things that can’t go on forever, don’t.
Perhaps go back to being run by the UN as a protectorate … may as well dream big.
“exist without defenses”, yes, like the Palestinians have been doing for decades.
Methinks CJ is advocating the end of Israel as we know it….and that it has forfeited it’s right to exist.
The vast majority of the world seems to agree with her.
The only solution is one state from the river to the sea with equal rights for all, including the right to vote for all Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and all refugee camps. Only in a democratic state can there be peace and justice. Of course, once democracy is finally established, “Israel” will become Palestine again. Zionists fake Jews will be compelled to leave, but real Jews will be welcome to stay and live peacefully with Muslims and Christians as they have for hundreds or even thousands of years in Palestine.
Make “Israel” Palestine Again!
May I politely suggest to you a small thought experiment:
Exchange the word ‘Israel’ with ‘violent home invaders’* and the word ‘Palestine’ with your own family name and home address.
Then, ask yourself if you would still be as happy to play Devil’s Advocate as they ransack your own abode and attack your own children.
I can only assume you would fight back rather than let them steal your property and destroy your family so completely and, in such a case, I would also expect kindly offering the invaders* the ability to defend against the repossession of your own things to be the furthest notion from a rational mind.
*Invaders to some, rightful claimants to others. For the sake of this excercise please consider the home invaders were given spurious legal ownership of your home and property by [insert a country you strongly dislike here], without your knowledge or consent.
Israel has never fulfilled the conditions to be accepted in the UN and should be expelled . Why is it allowed to remain ignoring all requirements and allowed to act as no other country is permitted to?? The USA of course is the reason and it too is given special privileges because it is powerful and bullies the rest of the world by using its veto power
Thank you Caitlin. You make it abundantly clear to me that all this talk about a two state solution is not realistic. But it lulls the populace into thinking that something positive is being done about it. It calms our conscience, we can enjoy our comforts again without the pangs. Later we will understand why thàt never would have worked anyway, but for now it “looks good”. Your last two paragraphs say it head on and a recent opinion piece in Russia Today (which is not Putin’s voice!) agrees with you. This Zionism needs to be stopped with force, everything else has failed.
The USA has committed far more crimes even than “Israel”. Both countries need to be expelled from the UN if the organization serves any purpose at all.