We’ll have to wait for history to judge us

I really hope that, if we continue to apply pressure to get what we want, that it will bear fruit. Although it’s easier to retreat into the reassuring hopelessness of cynicism, I do wonder whether something might be categorically different this time. The rulers have lost control of the narrative, at least to some degree. They’re making a lot of unforced errors that they haven’t made before. Consider the stink of desperation in the coverage of the Olympics—we are a powerful sports nation!—in the campaign for president—we are a democracy!

Continued pressure is a good recommendation. Continue to make them say the quiet part out loud. At least some part of history will record it, and perhaps make them pay. Although it’s hard not to let the cynicism creep back in. You know the one. It’s the cynicism engendered by knowing how it went down the last ten times. The one that feels like realism during the long dark teatime of the soul.

The article Gaza Delenda Est by Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch) from February describes, for example, when, during a genocide, the west cut off funding for the primary aid organization keeping people alive in Gaza.

“UNRWAThe Israeli dossier against UNRWA was based largely on interrogations, likely involving torture, by Mossad and Shin Bet of Gazans seized on October 7. The allegations had not been verified when they hit the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times; yet, the US immediately suspended funding for UNRWA, the primary source of food and shelter for 1.6 million displaced Gazans. The US’s rash decision was swiftly followed by 14 other nations.”

It’s the result that Empire and its vassals was looking for. The Empire hasn’t gotten the memo yet that, what to them looks like legitimate and solid evidence and proof, looks like a fantastical and ludicrously unbelievable web of lies and fabrications to everyone who’s not drunk the Kool-aid. No-one with a modicum of sense—or who is at-all interested in what is actually happening rather than having their bellies rubbed by Israel—believes anything the Mossad, Shin Bet, or any part of the IDF has to say. They may have actually tortured people into saying the things that they reported that they heard said. But that seems like an awful lot of work when you could just make up whatever you want and it will be reported just as loudly and unquestioningly. So, just do that, instead. You get to go home earlier.

The important thing is that you’ve all pretended to care about having justifiable reasons for cutting off funding for the only aid organization which has had any ability to get food, water, sanitation, and medical assistance to the population of Gaza. They all clap each other on the back for a job well done in ensuring that the people of Gaza will starve or dehydrate or die of otherwise easily treatable diseases and medical conditions. It’s a lot more efficient to let nature claim their failing bodies than to shoot each and every one of them. Biden can only sneak so many munitions past Congress.

Even stupid Switzerland cut off funding, probably because it’s afraid of being accused of being a bunch of terrorist-loving anti-semites. Belgium didn’t cut off funding and their entire building in Gaza was coincidentally bombed by Israel a couple of days later. No-one died because they’d pulled out their staff two weeks ago, but now they definitely don’t have a place to back to. Was it a strategic target? No, not a classically strategic target in that it could have served any Palestinian military purpose, but it was a powerful message to send to the other countries that those who don’t follow along with the Don’s orders will pay the consequences. Pay your protection money and nothing will happen to you.

St. Clair listed the countries that have cut off aid funding to UNRWA in Palestine based on an Israeli allegation:

1. United States, $343.9 M
2. Germany, $202.1 M
3. European Union, $114.1 M
4. Sweden, $61 M
5. Japan, $30.2 M
6. France, $28.9 M
7. Switzerland, $25.5 M
8. Canada. $23.7 M
9. United Kingdom, $21.2 M
10. The Netherlands, $21.2 M
11. Australia, $13.8 M
12. Italy, $18 M
13. Austria, $8.1 M
14. Finland, $7.8 M
15. New Zealand, $560.8 K
16. Iceland, $558.7 K
17. Romania, $210.7 K
18. Estonia, $90 K

It’s kind of sad to see the sweet naivité of these poor, deluded nations that still believe everything that Israel says without any proof. But the person being scammed always kind of wants to be scammed, especially if they keep falling for it.

And what’s really going to be fun is having to put up with all of the hand-wringing years from now, about how no-one could have known how bad it was or how bad is was going to get. That they’d been duped, despite their best intentions. They’ll demand forgiveness for all, and no loss of status or fortune for anyone important. ‘How could this have happened?’ they’ll ask in plaintive tones. How could Israel have fooled us so badly? No-one could have guessed how this would turn out. It will be so very tiresome as we watch every one of these reprehensible people fail upward into every more powerful and well-remunerated positions.

“Israel has destroyed all of Gaza’s hospitals, schools, clinics, water treatment plants & 60% of its homes, but 80% of the “tunnels” it claims to be targeting remain intact, according to the Wall Street Journal. I guess the tunnels need to remain intact to justify bombing the rest of Gaza’s homes.”

What if Hamas were to arrange to hand all of its hostages over to NATO or some other coalition that represents most, if not all, of Israel’s enablers? The hostages are a moral liability for Hamas right now. But they can’t just give them back to Israel because Israel will just continue with their bombing and nothing will have been won with the hostages’ return.

What could be won, though? Holding onto them is moral blight, and it’s not winning them anything. They got a few hundred prisoners back, but Israel just kidnapped even more people the next day. That’s a dead-end. Giving them back is a dead-end. But turning them over to, say, Germany, England or the U.S. would put the recipient into a bit of a quandary, no? Their instinct would be to just return them to Israel, but they couldn’t just do so without gaining even more opprobrium from the rest of the rest of the world. They would be even more complicit if they just handed them back to Israel without extracting any promise of a ceasefire—since, without the hostages, Israel would no longer have a reason to continue their assault.