"Israel Is Only Defending Itself"
The disgusting apologia for the crimes of Israel against the Palestinians
A few days ago, another “conflict” broke out between Israel and the Palestinian people. A compound near the Al-Aqsa Mosque (a major religious site for Islam, as it is said to be the place where Muhammad ascended into Heaven to meet and talk with God) was burned downed and Israelis celebrated with chanting and singing. Israeli rockets fired into Palestinian territory. Palestinians are dead from Israeli rockets while few Israelis have even been harmed thanks to their Iron Dome defense system. Every time a “conflict” like this develops, Palestinians are disproportionately killed and affected, and Israel continues its aggressions unpunished.
But all of this is OK. Afterall, “Israel is only defending itself”.
This is the defense people have used for Israeli aggression (including the fraud and grifter Andrew Yang (who’s now running from questions about this)). This has been used before. Back in 2014, Israel bombarded Gaza. Over 1400 Palestinians were killed, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, compared to only 59 Israelis (56 of whom were military casualties). The bombardment destroyed hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. In addition to that, Israel, both before and after the bombardment, closed its borders with Gaza, blockaded the Gaza Coast, control the airspace, and controlled the food and medicine going in. But that was all OK, because as Zionist apologists argued, “Israel is only defending itself”. (Or they just lied about this).
Conservatives and right wingers and Zionist apologists who defend Israel are saying this, as well as the all so popular “If you criticize Israel you’re an anti-Semite”. People from Jeremy Corbyn to Ilhan Omar have been accused of anti-Semitism. This is all done despite the fact that criticism of a country’s government or its policies doesn’t make one a bigot. And it’s also said despite the fact that some of the biggest supporters of Israel are anti-Semites and that some of the most critical voices of Israel and the Zionist Occupation of Palestine are Jewish, such as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Glenn Greenwald.
Israel is building settlements in the West Bank in direct violation of international law and are driving out Palestinians. They are doing this under the justification of, “This is my land. God gave me this land.” In other words, Zionists are deciding that they get the land based on an ancient religious texts that were written thousands of years ago by multiple different authors, and in different historical, cultural, political, and theological contexts that just don’t apply nowadays (and the fact that these events evidently never happened, as I mentioned in my previous post).
There are of course plenty of other ridiculous defenses. “Israel has a right to exist” (then why don’t the Palestinians), “You’re defending Hamas” (even though I’m pretty clearly not), and others. Even the one this piece is mocking “Israel is only defending itself”, doesn’t make sense (do the Palestinians also have the right to defend themselves, and if not, then why not). Israel is carrying out human rights abuses, colonialism and ethnic cleansing.
As Caitlin Johnstone said:
#FreePalestine