Daily Times

Through indiscriminate bombardment, Israel wants to wipe out the Palestinians in Gaza to occupy the territory, a replica of Nazi’s Lebensraum. But killing 2.3 million unarmed people in the scrutinizing gaze of a highly polarized world will be a gory and uphill task if not an impossible one. The self-seeking puppets, the leaders of the surrounding Arab states, may have a lukewarm response to this human catastrophe but the people of the world, and especially of the Arab countries, are already up in arms. This can become an apocalyptic moment for the Arab ruling class much hated and intensely abhorred by its people.

Against the rabid assault of Israel, a strong reaction is pouring from the left. Chile’s President Gabriel Boric condemned Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, saying they entail “collective punishment” of Gaza’s civilian population. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said the country’s envoy cannot remain in Israel if the “massacre of the Palestinian people” continues…On Monday, Bolivia’s leftist government went a step ahead and announced the severing of ties with Israel over “the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive” in Gaza. While denouncing the Israeli state’s continued genocide against the Palestinians, a top UN official Craig Mokhiber has resigned from his post.

As if choking Gaza by halting the supplies of food, water, medicines, and other necessities of life was not enough, Israeli bombing is leading to an unprecedented carnage. Nothing is spared, schools, hospitals, and refugee camps, it is a killing spree unleashed on children, infants, women, and vulnerable aged people, because they are not human beings but animals in Adorno’s slaughterhouse. The US is defending not “human animals” but the only “democracy” of the Middle East. One fails to find any difference between the US and the Taliban, both fight for their ideologies rather than human beings.

Against the rabid assault of Israel, a strong reaction is pouring from the left.

Herbert Marcuse once wrote, “I see in the United States today the historical heir of fascism.” In America fascism would come under the flag of democracy, Adorno predicted. The US was always a semi-fascist state. Its constitution was written by eight slave-owning white men who massacred the natives. Controlling the people through mass culture, and its effective integration of society has successfully created a repressive unification in the US and other liberal democracies, a hallmark of fascism.

“In this [Nazi] analogy,” Samir Amin writes, “9/11 fulfills the function of the “burning of the Reichstag”, allowing the [US] junta to grant its police force powers similar to those of the Gestapo. They have their own Mein Kampf – the National Security Strategy, their own mass associations – the patriot organizations – and their own preachers.” To maintain its hegemony and dominance the US needed a fascist state in garb of democracy in the Middle East. Hence, Palestine was partitioned by Britain and was given to the Zionists – Lenni Brenner’s “Jackals of Nazism” – which were later adopted by the Americans.

“It is the darkest aspect of all history,” Horkheimer laments, “the darkest for both Judaism and Europe, that Zionism was proven to be right”. “The modern Jews gave up the better, the other, in order to accept the existing, the worse”. However, in the same breath, Horkheimer contradicts himself stating, “We do have to support Israel. For me personally, it is crucial that Israel provides asylum for many individuals”. When a human sheds his skin- his conviction, he is likely to give up the truth he lived for. No wonder when Horkheimer had to choose between Zionism and Marxism he preferred the former alleging Marx of betraying the Jews.

The Palestinians need not offer any excuse for their armed- resistance. Slaves have a sacred duty to break their fetters and if necessary, enchain their masters. The October revolt was carried out by the men who were not ashamed of themselves. While describing the latest Palestinians’ insurrection, Norman Finkelstein has revived Nat Turner’s memory whose historic Southampton insurrection in August 1831 led to the killing of 55-65 White people including women and children. Nevertheless, today his insurgency is considered a heroic struggle of blacks against the white usurpers.

Those who control the means of production determine the means of distribution, including death. Gaza is the latest example of this bitter reality. “Not those who die,” Marcuse said “but those who die before they must… those who die in agony and pain are the great indictment against civilization…. in a repressive civilization death itself becomes an instrument of repression. Whether death is feared as a constant threat, or glorified as a supreme sacrifice, or accepted as fate… it introduces an element of surrender and submission” and becomes “a token of unfreedom… it betrays the promise of utopia”.

The untimely horrible death of the Palestinians will leave civilization with accumulated guilt, a collective stain of shame that will not only blacken the face of entire humanity but also endanger the possibility of creating a civilization without repression. Alternatively, it may give rise to its opposite, a possibility of freedom from repression. Dialectic after all works in strange ways so does the human struggle against oppression.

(Concluded)

The writer is an Australian-based academic and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com