The Middle East Eye news website published an article that included a scathing attack on the West because of its support for the “genocide” committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The article, written by British-Israeli journalist Jonathan Cook, said that the “desperate” smear campaign to defend Israel’s crimes highlights a mixture of “harmful lies” that have been the foundation of the liberal democratic system for decades.
The writer mentioned a British comic scene that took place during World War II, in which a Nazi officer near the front lines turns to a colleague, and in a sudden and comic moment of self-doubt, he asks: “Are we the bad guys?”
Cook said that we and many of us “felt as if we were living that same moment, which extended (for us) nearly 3 months, although there is nothing to laugh about.” He added that Western leaders, in their statements and speeches, not only supported the genocidal war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip, but also provided diplomatic cover, weapons and other military assistance.
The writer considered that the West is fully complicit in the “ethnic cleansing” of about two million Palestinians, in addition to killing more than 20,000 and wounding tens of thousands, the majority of whom are women and children.
Western politicians insist on “Israel’s right to defend itself” even though it destroyed the infrastructure in Gaza, including government buildings, which led to the collapse of the health sector, and famine and diseases began to destroy the rest of the population.
Vile acts
According to the article, there is nowhere for the Palestinians of Gaza to flee to, and no hiding place to protect them from the bombs that the United States provides to Israel. If they are eventually allowed to flee, they will have no recourse other than neighboring Egypt, which will be their permanent “exile” after decades of displacement from their homeland.
While Western capitals try to justify what they call Israel’s “despicable” actions by blaming the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Israeli leaders allow their soldiers and state-backed settler militias to invade the West Bank – “where Hamas does not exist” – to attack and kill Palestinians. .
Cook continues his frenetic attack, saying that Israel is waging an old-style “colonial war without shame” against the indigenous population, of the kind that preceded international humanitarian law, and Western leaders are applauding it. He wonders: Are we sure that we are not the bad guys?
He says that the Israeli attack on Gaza disgusts many people, and reveals what is “primitive and ugly” in the behavior of the West, which has been obscured for more than 70 years by deceptive manifestations of progress, by talking about the primacy of human rights, about developing international institutions and rules of war, and about claims of humanity.
Yes – Cook continues – these allegations have always been “false”, and nothing is more evident than the lies that promoted the wars in Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine.
The real goal of the United States and its NATO partners was to “plunder” other people’s resources, maintain Washington’s position as a world leader, and enrich Western elites.
But more importantly – in the opinion of the British-Israeli journalist – the “deception” was a comprehensive narrative that dragged many Westerners behind it, claiming that the wars were aimed at confronting the threat of Soviet communism, Islamic “terrorism,” or renewed Russian colonialism. It also aimed – ultimately – to liberate oppressed women, preserve human rights, and strengthen democracy.
Genocidal war
The writer believes that this narrative cover on the part of the West to justify its actions is of no use this time… “There is no humanity in bombing civilians trapped in Gaza, and turning their small prison into rubble, reminiscent of seismic disaster areas, but this time it is a man-made disaster alone.”
He denied that Hamas had the ability to send any type of warhead to Europe, adding that the Gaza Strip was never – even before its destruction – the heart of an Islamic empire preparing to attack the West and subject it to the provisions of Islamic Sharia. It is also almost impossible for Hamas, which consists of several thousand fighters stationed in Gaza, to pose a real threat to the way of life in the West.
According to the article, questioning Israel’s right to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza, chanting a slogan calling on the Palestinians to break free from the occupation and siege, and demanding equal rights for everyone in the region, are all things that the West and the Israelis view as anti-Semitism.
Cook pointed out that the British House of Representatives passed, by an overwhelming majority, a resolution equating anti-Zionism – which in this case applies to those who oppose the “genocidal war” launched by Israel against Gaza – with anti-Semitism.
He described the collective smear campaign in the West as “so unleashed” that the Western elites began on their own to curb freedom of expression and thought in the institutions in which they are supposed to enjoy strong protection.
He concluded that the Gaza Strip is not only a front line in the genocidal war waged by Israel against the Palestinian people, but also a front line in the Western elites’ war on “our ability to think critically in order to develop sustainable ways of living, and to demand that others be treated with the dignity and humanity that we expect for ourselves.” . Kokak concluded by saying: “Yes, the battle lines are drawn, and anyone who refuses to stand with the evil ones is the enemy.”
