Five weeks into its siege of Gaza, Israel appears wedded to a policy of scorched earth, with Prime Minister Netanyahu promising to defy the world if need be. Apart from the acute and unrelenting threat from shelling and bombardment, fathers are now unable to find milk for their toddlers, mothers are forced to drag their kids to safety without access to clean water, and the dead are eaten by dogs. Yet in the "crisis of humanity" unfolding before us, some dangers are not confined to Gazans or to Palestine.
It is unlikely that Israel's destruction in Gaza, described by French President Emmanuel Macron as the "permanent bombing of civilians," will contribute to the meaningful safety of Israelis and Jews. Most immediately, the Israeli hostages, whose predicament as captives in the clutches of their sworn enemies is distressing enough, must also somehow survive the IDF's indiscriminate bombing of the small territory in which they are concealed, in the name of rescuing them.
Then there are the non-Israeli Jews worldwide who want no association with what some term "genocide," yet must grapple with the Israeli leadership's vision of Israel as "a nation state of the Jewish people," and the ease with which ethnicity, faith and homeland are conflated by hateful antisemites.
As for Israelis themselves, they will soon have to confront new waves of Palestinians embracing a more militant posture towards Israel and the occupation, as an inevitable consequence of the bewildering numbers of children knowingly killed in Israel's repeated bombing raids.
As a society, Israelis will also have to process the moral injury emerging from their government's campaign in Gaza, in particular the overt racism and dehumanization attendant to it and the echoes with a terrible history. In addition, they must contend with the wholesale alienation of Israel from many of the Arab peoples and governments with whom they share the region.
It is also worth remembering the moral harm being done to young Israeli soldiers who must risk their lives on the frontlines of a maximalist war with unachievable goals, that is exacting a devastating toll on children and infants, and has redefined ceaseless attacks on schools, homes, hospitals, ambulances, journalists, UN staff, and bread queues as acceptable.
This violence is pulling the region itself towards a dangerous cliff-edge, not only on account of the potential expansion of the war to surrounding countries, but also because the perceived double-standard over Israel/Palestine has long forced Arabs to hold back from fully "drinking the Kool-Aid" of the U.S.-led world order.
The open sores of hypocrisy, occupation, indignity and civilian killings, in peace as in war, are also the cornerstones of most if not all of the radical Islamist ideologies and movements that have terrorised and victimised many more Arabs and Muslims than Israelis or Westerners.
Also at risk is global faith in the rules-based system that both reflects and preserves our democracies. This was already stressed by the suspension of the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, as well as the calamitous invasion of Iraq which followed, widely seen as war of aggression that spawned countless atrocities.
This trust was strained anew with the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the reconsolidation of Taliban rule, when the United States seemed to signal that it was no longer willing to defend its values overseas and that many of the Afghans it had encouraged to live by them would be forsaken.
The IDF's suspected war crimes in Gaza heap another burden onto the West. Despite its violent and discriminatory treatment of Arabs, for much of the world, Israel still functions as an avatar for the morality and credibility of democracy itself.
But more than the sins of Israel's assault, the silence and complicity of leaders from flagship democracies may be remembered as a major inflection point in the global crisis of democracy. From the confabulation inhering in President Biden's parallel between Israelis and Ukrainians, to the contortion of public compassion for besieged civilians into racist hatred by the British home secretary, the war on Gaza has asked of democratic governments questions about the consistency and strength of Western values, and the answers have been wanting.
Also counterproductive is the automatic embrace of the Israeli government's analogy between Hamas and ISIS. Though ISIS is also a despicable terrorist organization, it is a messianic death cult seeking to resurrect the Caliphate while rejecting entirely the political language of modernity. However murderous and unsavoury, and however monstrous its many crimes, Hamas is ultimately a territorially based, ethno-nationalist group that grew from the ribs of an independence movement, which took part in elections and which negotiates. This means that the pathway to disarming and uprooting Hamas is in essence political and only achievable through a partnership with the Palestinian people.
The violations of international humanitarian law, of human dignity and of basic decency in Gaza degrade us all. So does the dishonesty in attempts to veil the fact of the occupation as both the strategic context and the ultimate driver of all this bloodshed. By demanding a ceasefire, negotiating to free the desperate hostages, and then sponsoring a good-faith political process to end Israel's occupation, Western leaders will be protecting Israelis, Palestinians, the rights of all civilians caught up in future wars, and the fading promise of the liberal world order.
Dr. Alia Brahimi is a specialist in the politics of the Middle East and North Africa and the author of Jihad and Just War in the War on Terror (OUP).
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Liberalism's Reckoning in Gaza
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0
17.11.2023
Five weeks into its siege of Gaza, Israel appears wedded to a policy of scorched earth, with Prime Minister Netanyahu promising to defy the world if need be. Apart from the acute and unrelenting threat from shelling and bombardment, fathers are now unable to find milk for their toddlers, mothers are forced to drag their kids to safety without access to clean water, and the dead are eaten by dogs. Yet in the "crisis of humanity" unfolding before us, some dangers are not confined to Gazans or to Palestine.
It is unlikely that Israel's destruction in Gaza, described by French President Emmanuel Macron as the "permanent bombing of civilians," will contribute to the meaningful safety of Israelis and Jews. Most immediately, the Israeli hostages, whose predicament as captives in the clutches of their sworn enemies is distressing enough, must also somehow survive the IDF's indiscriminate bombing of the small territory in which they are concealed, in the name of rescuing them.
Then there are the non-Israeli Jews worldwide who want no association with what some term "genocide," yet must grapple with the Israeli leadership's vision of Israel as "a nation state of the Jewish people," and the ease with which ethnicity, faith and homeland are conflated by hateful antisemites.
As for Israelis themselves, they will soon have to confront new waves of Palestinians embracing a more militant posture towards Israel and the occupation, as an inevitable consequence of the bewildering numbers of children knowingly........
© Newsweek
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