New anti-Semitism and moral casualties of Gaza war
By Prof. Ali A. Mazrui
Who were the losers in the Gaza war prior to the changing of the guards in Washington and Israel? The most tragic casualties were of course the people of Gaza who were killed in their hundreds.
The next losers were the majority of Israelis who supported one of the most inhumane conflicts even by the Middle East standards.
The Israeli army took full advantage of its superiority in range of weapons and its capacity to destroy and gave real meaning to the concept of ‘state terrorism.’ Many of the Palestinians killed were innocent civilians, mostly women and children.
The Nazis in occupied France during WW II used to threaten villagers, “If you kill a single German soldier, we shall come and select at least 20 of you for execution.”
In Gaza the Israelis outperformed the Nazis in occupied France. For every Israeli killed in that Gaza war, the Jewish war machine literally killed one hundred Palestinians. Indeed, some of the 13 Israeli casualties were victims of friendly fire.
The Gaza war tarnished Israeli reputation more than almost anything else the Jewish state has ever done. In the 1967 six-day war, and in the Entebbe raid in Idi Amin’s Uganda, Israelis emerged as spectacular heroes.
But in the Gaza war the Israelis were seen worldwide as cruel military bullies, recklessly bombing the homes and schools of a relatively defenseless population.
The third category of losers in the Gaza war was the Jews of the world. This latest war has been another trigger of new forms of Judeophobia in Europe, Asia, Africa as well as the Middle East. When comparing anti-Semitism in the first half of the 20th century and the new anti-Semitism of the new millennium, a painful paradox emerges.
In the 20th century the Jews were unjustly hated for their creative talents. Universities like Harvard and Columbia in the US had quotas for a number of Jews admitted because so many young Jews were intellectually successful and qualified for competitive vacancies.
In European capitals Jews were often envied because of their economic achievements. In Western high culture like musical composition, opera, theater, literature and ballet, European Jews excelled disproportionately.
In the sciences Jews won a remarkable number of Nobel prizes. In the professions of medicine, law, and academia, Jews were both admired and envied.
The anti-Semitism of those years was partly rooted in professional jealousies, born out of Jewish creative achievements.
Unfortunately, the anti-Semitism generated by Israeli militarism is derived from Israeli destructive power. Jews were once envied because they were creators of culture and exemplary in invention and innovation.
Israelis are now hated because they excel in targeted assassinations and large-scale destruction of their neighbours.
The anti-Semitism of the 20th century was doubly unjust. It hated Jews partly because they were innovative benefactors of the human race.
The new anti-Semitism is a child of the brilliance of Israelis in annihilating hundreds of their neighbours collectively, and sometimes in murdering them one by one in their beds at home.Whenever Israel commits war crimes and crimes as it has done in Gaza, it narrows the moral distance between itself and the Nazis.
When the Israeli military goes to the disproportionate degree of killing one hundred Palestinians for every Israeli killed, that army is drifting towards what Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem once called ‘Judeo-Nazism.’ He was cautioning fellow Israelis against giving meaning to such an unthinkable concept.
The fourth casualties of the Gaza war are Arab moderates in the Middle East, both in government circles and among intellectuals. It has become less and less respectable to regard Israelis as viable partners for peace.
An influential Saudi Prince, Prince Turki al-Fasal, wrote an unprecedented article in the Financial Times of London, warning the new administration in Washington, DC that Arab governments could no longer accept American indifference to reckless Israeli destruction of Arab lives.
The Americans added insult to injury when the US Congress voted almost unanimously in support of what Israelis were doing in Gaza.
The pro-Israeli atmosphere in Congress intimidated honest Congressmen and Senators from voting according to their conscience. Has excessive support for Israel become a threat to American democracy?
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