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Benjamin and his band of Barbarians and the ever green genocidal light

Israel has taken hooliganism to unimaginable levels in the last few days. The latest being the attacks on the World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers, the attack on the Iranian Embassy in Syria and the massacre at Al Shifa Hospital. It has brazenly ignored the United Nations ceasefire resolution and continues to slaughter women and children every day. It laughs in the face of the International Criminal Court and continues to use starvation as a weapon of war as it repeatedly bombs aid convoys and prevents humanitarian aid from entering into Gaza.

This one is big, too big even for spin master Mark Regev.  It requires the spinning of the biggest barbarian, Benjamin himself. Netanyahu tried to spin himself and Israel out of the latest barbaric attacks on the World Central Kitchen aid convoy. His explanation commences with reference to “A Strike” implying a singular strike. A blatant lie which most western media outlets appear to parrot when they describe it as “A Strike”. It was not “A Strike”, it was three separate strikes one after the other. One bomb may be dropped mistakenly by a drunk zionist but three separate attacks? When the WCK passengers in the first armoured vehicle was hit by the Zionists, they disembarked from the vehicle and went into the other vehicle. The second vehicle was hit, the survivors went into the third vehicle. Israel struck the third vehicle.

The head of the World Central Kitchen, Chef Jose Anders says that the Israeli Defence Forces deliberately targeted the aid workers and intentionally killed them.  “What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, non-stop. This was over a 1.5, 1.8 kilometres with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs on the top” He blasted the Zionist regime for killing not only the seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen but also the more than 190 other Palestinian aid workers killed since the 7th October that did not get any condemnation from America and the rest of Israel’s western allies. Israel has made its position clear, it is starving the people of Palestine and it will not allow anyone to interrupt its starvation policy even if they are citizens from their allied countries. Seven committed humanitarians were martyred by the IDF. All these martyrs except one who was a Palestinian interpreter are of western background, 3 British, Polish, Canadian-American and Australian.  There are almost two hundred other aid workers that were martyred by Israeli hooliganism and none of them made the headlines in the western cable networks or the front pages of its print media because they are Palestinian. The crux of the problem is the perpetual green light that the Western media and governments give Israel to massacre Palestinians.

The Israeli Minister of War Gallant verbalised Islamophobic hate speech when he referred to Palestinians as animals. The Prime Minister Hertzog said that there is no distinction between the civilian population of Gaza and the military wing of Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Am Alek verses for the IDF to go completely hooligan in Gaza. The Western Governments and their media, parroted the narrative of Benjamin and his barbarians (IDF) and provided them with political, diplomatic and military support throughout the six months of genocide.

Benjamin and his barbarians initially bombed the Al Ahly hospital, an atrocious massacre. A red line crossed. Not according to America and Israel’s western allies. Israel went on to attack 36 Palestinian hospitals. Green light still. Israel massacred more than a hundred civilians queuing for food in what is known as the flour massacre. Still no red light. Israel violently prevents food aid and medicine from entering the Gaza strip to create a famine. Every day Palestinians are dying of malnutrition and dehydration. Children are having their limbs amputated with no anaesthesia. The light remains green.  In the last two weeks, Israel attacked Al Shifa Hospital and the witness reports and video footage describe an atrocious massacre of unbelievable horrors. Medics report about how civilians were executed and how Benjamin’s barbarians deliberately destroyed every facet of Al Shifa Hospital, burning it to the ground.  The light still remains a genocidal green for Benjamin and his band of barbarians.  Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah, a surgeon who has treated patients at both Al Ahly and Al Shifa Hospital and was elected as the Rector of Glasgow University (a position once held by anti-apartheid veteran Winnie Mandela) told Amy Goodman of Democracy now “I blame the Western Journalists who perpetuated the narrative that militarized the hospital as a justifiable and acceptable target”. The lie spoke about Hamas militants operating from Al Shifa with command and control centre.

Abu Sittah is mourning the death of his colleague Dr Ahmed Muqademeh, a surgeon and his mother who was massacred along with hundreds of other innocent Palestinian in the two week attack on Al Shifa hospital. The Zionist soldiers have thus far killed over 345 doctors, nurses and paramedics. Abu Sittah says that Shifa hospital served approximately 30% of Gaza’s health capacity. The entire hospital has to be rebuilt and will take approximately 3 to 5 years. This deliberate targeting of the hospital is part of the settler colonial project to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and make it uninhabitable.

Benjamin and his barbarians bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria in complete contravention of the Geneva Convention but the United States and the western countries did not even condemn this audacious act of barbarism. Imagine if Iran were to bomb the Israeli embassy in America. Is there any western country that will not condemn the act and refer to it as an act of terrorism? But terrorism is exclusively used to describe Muslims and Arab national liberation movements.  Now in the month of Ramadan an Israeli Knesset member calls for more killing of Palestinians while they are fasting and IDF soldiers laugh and celebrate as they slaughter Palestinians. The light remains green for Benjamin and his barbarian to go around slaughtering Arabs and Muslims in other countries.

There is a consistent pattern here. Israel commits outrageous acts of barbarism and no western government calls Israel out on it, instead they all continue to support the Zionist state. Even after the killing of their own citizens they have allowed the light to remain a genocidal green. Despite the huffing and puffing, none of these western governments are holding Israel to account by imposing sanctions and suspending the sales of weapons to the Zionist state.

What can we expect when it remains all go, genocidal green for Benjamin and his barbarians? How far will Israel be allowed to go? One hundred thousand Palestinian casualties of war is not enough to trigger red. Will a million Palestinian casualties be enough to trigger the red light?  Or will it be a regional and possibly nuclear war? Will there ever be a red line for Israeli barbarism?  Or can we only expect some more huffing and puffing with a mixture of crocodile tears and weapons sales from America and Israel’s western allies when Benjamin and his band of barbarians go on the massacre in Rafah or uses its unlawful nuclear weapons?

Iqbal Suleman

Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria.

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