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LAST UPDATE | 29 Jun
THIS WEEK, THE UN reported that Israel had killed over 400 Palestinians as they attempted to access aid from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Though such a death toll is worthy of headlines and universal condemnation, it seems that Israel successfully diverted the world’s attention.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who has become the Middle East’s disrupter in chief, dived headlong into a fresh war with Iran, bringing misery and death to Iranian and Israeli civilians. This provided the type of global distraction that only he could dream up.
While Gazans starve and the West Bank faces unthinkable settler violence and erasure, I am struck by Israel’s representatives and supporters’ avoidance of meaningful dialogue, as they artfully skirt around facts, data and the moral implications of their actions. It seems that the concept of dialogue itself has been all but discarded in the recent chaos.
As the granddaughter of a Holocaust escapee whose family perished in Auschwitz, I was raised with the generational trauma that comes with profound loss and displacement. Growing up in the midst of Dublin’s tight-knit Jewish community, I learned early on about the threats of fascism, ethnic supremacy, systemic oppression and genocide. I learned about prejudice, exile and the miracle of Jewish statehood.
I never dreamed I would see the day that Israel would perpetrate such crimes against another group of people. I couldn’t have imagined it, because there were gaping holes in my education. Palestine was not mentioned in Hebrew school, unmarked on our map of Israel. The Nakba never featured in history class, and the nature of Israeli occupation was never explained. To dream of justice, one first needs to acknowledge injustice, something Zionist Israel has always been hell-bent on denying.
Each time I hear someone defend Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza, I am incredulous at their inability to answer the questions they are being asked with anything resembling sincerity. State the number of Palestinian deaths, and you are told that Hamas Ministry figures are unverifiable. Demand answers as to why Israel has denied Gazans food and medical supplies for nearly three months in an unjustifiable blockade, and you are told about Hamas’ ongoing theft of aid. Condemn Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s hospitals, schools and journalists, and you are told about the measures taken by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties. ‘Israel cannot be blamed for Hamas’ exploitation of their people as human shields’, they declare, despite Netanyahu’s determination to confine the already dense population of Gaza within smaller and smaller areas.
Just like their conflation of Zionism and Judaism, Israeli hasbara consistently fails to differentiate between the Palestinian militia and its civilian population. While criticising the international media’s lack of balance, Israel supporters often fail to reflect on the reality of the lived experience of Palestinians, their systemic oppression and the level of bias and censorship within Israel’s media outlets.
It should come as no surprise that Netanyahu’s outstanding legal charges include bribery and fraud, with prosecutors alleging deals with both Bezeq Telecom Israel and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in return for positive coverage.
There is a more than arguable case that Netanyahu broke the ceasefire in March in order to postpone his court hearing once again, a move that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians. Even now, those defending Israel claim that this war would have ended if only Hamas had released the hostages, despite the Israeli government’s recent admission that they intend to take full control of Gaza, whether or not the hostages are returned.
What Israeli government spokespeople and right-wing media cannot deny are the words of its ministers. Even if claims of food theft, inflated death tolls, and the use of hospitals as military bases by Hamas are true, Bezalel Smotrich’s plans to “conquer, cleanse and stay” in Gaza contravene the rules of war and the UN charter of human rights. Like Trump’s imagined future for Gaza as the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’, Smotrich’s hopes that Gazans ‘with God’s help, move to third countries’ leave little room for doubt as to his intentions. As abhorrent as Hamas’ actions may be, and they must always be condemned in the strongest of terms, Israel has long-lost the moral high ground as the ‘only liberal democracy in the Middle East’.
Israel’s legal system, in which Palestinians may be imprisoned under administrative detention without trial, hardly speaks of a robust democracy. Its well-documented and systemic torture of Palestinian prisoners at Sde Teiman is equally damning. Claims that Palestine survives on aid and is incapable of self-sufficiency are not prefaced with the fact that Israel has sold Palestine’s rightful natural gas supply out from under it, adding to the powerful lobby whose best interests are served by Palestinian suppression. Israel’s mythic transformation of the Negev, from desert to fertile, glosses over its diversion of the Jordan River and instead champions Israel’s horticultural ingenuity.
These truths have been spoken, researched and written about for decades by Palestinians as well as many highly regarded Israeli and Jewish scholars and activists, and yet they are conveniently omitted from the dominant Zionist narrative. Even within more centrist publications, Israel and the wider Jewish diaspora are often portrayed as a monocultural, politically hegemonic mass, despite the prominence of non-Zionist Jewish positions and counter-narratives of Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé, Naomi Klein, Norman Finkelstein, Gabor Maté and countless others.
Similarly, the media rarely focuses on organisations within Israel which attempt to enforce human rights and reform within the IDF. B’Stelem, the Human Rights Watch in the Occupied Territories, and Breaking the Silence, which publishes testimonials by IDF whistle-blowers, both highlight the systemic oppression of Palestinians, while Standing Together and Combatants for Peace are grassroots movements intent on forming Palestinian-Israeli solidarity and non-violent activism. Watching Rabbis for Human Rights help Palestinian farmers harvest their olives is an incredibly moving act of solidarity that sustains my faith in the true values of Judaism.
It is deeply important to fully understand the history that has led to this moment, acknowledging the grey areas that cannot be contained by soundbites and 280-character retorts. However, there are some facts that will forever remain black and white. The massacre of 1200 people and the kidnapping of a further 250 people on October 7th was horrific. The killing of 16,500 Palestinian children will forever mark the loss of Israel’s humanity and integrity as a state. The collective punishment and starvation of millions of civilians are morally indefensible. The unlawful occupation of the West Bank will always be unethical, no matter the legal loopholes and policies that Israeli lawmakers continue to devise.
No amount of deflection or censorship can alter the facts. With each passing month, each red line crossed and shred of human decency lost, this war has caused irreparable damage. Shouting each other down will not suffice. This is a time for listening, learning and holding those in power accountable for the atrocities which continue to be committed.
It wounds me to hear Israel referred to as a ‘Jewish’ State. Their actions are anathema to every Jewish value I was raised to live by. The Torah teaches us generosity, honesty, respect and love for our neighbours, as for each other. As Israel continues to debase our Jewish faith, history and identity, moral clarity is imperative. To criticise Israel is not anti-Semitic. No person of faith could possibly support a regime intent on such destruction.
Ria Czerniak-LeBov is a visual artist, writer and musician living in Dublin.
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