Nobody's "Obsessed" With Israel — It's Just A Uniquely Horrible Country
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has accused Spain of an “anti-Israel obsession” for its criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran and its refusal to allow its airspace to be used in the onslaught, a perceived slight to which Israel has responded by banning Madrid from participation in a coordination center for the oversight of the so-called “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.
We’ve been hearing this “obsession” talking point from Israel and its apologists a lot lately. A recent article from the Jewish News Syndicate carries the headline “Why is the media obsessed with violent Israelis?”, bizarrely trying to argue that the western press likes to “smear Israelis” in order “to distract attention from Palestinian terror.” The other day right-wing pundit Meghan Murphy had a strange conversation with Tablet Magazine editor Jacob Siegel about our society’s “recent insane obsession with Israel,” speaking as though everyone just randomly began fixating on this genocidal apartheid state out of nowhere a short while ago, for no valid reason.
The argument, as I understand it, is that Israel is just a normal small country like any other small country, and any special focus on it suggests a sinister desire to single out Jews for discrimination.
But have you ever noticed how the same people who accuse Israel’s critics of “obsession” with a tiny insignificant country will also fall all over themselves to tell you that Israel is an indispensable ally whose interests are inextricably intertwined with the interests of western civilization?
When Israel is being criticized they try to frame it as unworthy of special attention; when alliances and military aid for Israel are being criticized they frame it as worthy of all our resources and energy. When Israel’s evil actions are making headlines, its apologists try to frame it as an itty bitty country the size of New Jersey trying to mind its own business while being victimized by obsessive hatred from the entire world because its inhabitants happen to be Jewish. When people question why their tax dollars and military resources need to support that small nation in west Asia, suddenly the argument pivots in the exact opposite direction: Israel is massively important, and is absolutely central to the wellbeing of the west.
You can claim Israel is a crucial ally in the middle east, OR you can claim it’s discriminatory to focus more on Israel’s crimes than the abuses of other countries. You can’t claim both are true, because they’re contradictory. Israel can’t be (A) immensely significant and intimately involved in the fate of our own society, and also (B) insignificant and unworthy of special attention. It’s either A or B. It can’t be simultaneously deserving AND undeserving of special treatment.
In reality, everyone in the world has every right to focus their attention on Israel — especially right now while its efforts to sabotage the ceasefire with Iran threaten to cause a global fuel crisis. You don’t get to cause a global fuel crisis and then act like you’re just an uwu smol bean who’s being singled out because of your religion.
But really Israel has always been worthy of critical attention in the west, exactly because it is so intimately intertwined with western power structures. Its genocide in Gaza is our genocide. Its abuses are our abuses. Its wars directly impact us. The aggressive push from its lobbyists to stomp out free speech throughout our society is taking away our rights.
Israel is our business, and it always has been. We are right to spotlight its criminality, and the complicity of our own western governments in those crimes.
Israel supporters will tell me “Oh yeah well how come you don’t criticize Egypt’s humanitarian abuses, huh? How come you’re not tweeting every day about the human rights violations of Iran? Something in particular about this one specific middle eastern country that draws your attention, is there? Perhaps you just HATE JEWS??”
But the reason I criticize Israel more than Egypt or Iran has nothing to do with religion. Egyptian aggressions aren’t starting wars of immense consequence which directly affect me. Nobody’s trying to make it illegal to criticize Iran in my country. My government is providing material and diplomatic cover for wars and genocides for this one country in particular, and eroding my free speech rights in order to protect its information interests. This would be true regardless of what religion or ethnicity happens to be favored in this one particular nation.
I’m not “obsessed” with Israel. Does it look like I’m having a great time talking about this horrible apartheid state every day? Does it look fun having people call me a Nazi in my replies all the time?
I wish I could ignore Israel completely. If it were up to me, I would. But because my own society is so complicit in its abuses, and because its abuses affect my society directly, I have an obligation to call out its wrongdoing. And so does every other westerner.
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How can anyone take time to notice, let alone criticize, a genocidal, racist, thieving, blood-thirsty warmongering Israel?
Israel is a quiet classy place that deserves to exist and be a member in good standing at the UN.
Here is why Israel thinks that is so:
1) I torture UN workers
2) I bomb embassies
3) I refuse to declare my official borders as I want more and more of other countries' (plural) land
4) I openly interfere in the affairs of other countries.
5) All criticism by any member of the World Community just reinforces my sense of privileged Victimhood
6) I never tell a lie as I have no concept. I only know what serves me.
7) I invented the Samson Option and will take the rest of you with me.
8) I commit collective punishment
9) I kidnap thousands, including children, with no judicial oversight
10) I will commit torture if I see fit and even if I don't
11) I oppress occupied inhabitants and enjoy doing so
12) I commit rape with impunity against mine enemies
13) I shoot little boys in the genitals
14) I steal land with impunity
15) I murder with impunity
16) I commit premeditated Genocide
17) I look forward to war and prod my neighbors for more
18) I need money, send a check
19) I commit false flags and if friends or even my own people are sacrificed so be it.
20) I implement the Hannibal Doctrine
21) Treachery and betrayal of my own people are a means to an end
22) I support and conduct terrorism.
23) I attract starving civilians, women and children, with food aid and then murder them in cold blood.
24) I know that I can count on other amoral nations to support my wars, oppression and theft.
25) I know that the World Community will not stop me as I commit future Genocides
26) I target aid trucks and kill their workers;
27) I especially target hospitals;
28) I kill civilian prisoners, women and children and old people.
29) I use my lobbyists to attack, intimidate and silence freedom of speech
30) I torture and kill UN workers and their dependents
31) I protected Zionist perpetrators of the Holocaust and lie about their role.
32) I cannibalize living Palestinian captives for their internal organs
33) I use human shields
34) I kill and kill and kill as many journalists as I can find
35) I am a refuge for criminals; not limited to: fugitive pedophiles and US traitors
36) I take delight in being a hyper-sadist and proudly boast of it; "1 shot 2 kills"
37) I use starvation as both a tactic and for my strategic goal of Genocide.
38) I use chemical and biological weapons on Palestinians and my neighbors.
39) I burn babies alive with impunity.
40) I kill doctors and nurses and cna's as I see fit
41) I kill civilian firefighters, emt's, paramedics and police officers as I see fit, and then bury their dead bodies and cover them up with Cat D9 US made bulldozers.
42) I kill civilian water and sewer workers and their families and in doing so I destroy Gaza's fresh water supplies and endanger basic sanitation.
43) I will target and kill parishioners at Holy Name Catholic Church and St. Porpryius Greek Orthodox Church, and destroy their churches, parish halls, rectories and parish food pantries and soup kitchens.
44) I will engage in Orwellian doublespeak in order to cover my war crimes against humanity.
45) I will target hospitals with tank fire, drones and airstrikes and SOC raids and murder patients in their beds.
46) I will bomb elementary schools and murder teachers and children and war refugees.
47) I will kill on sight and any civilian employee of Gaza civilian administration and their families, even in their own homes and apartments.
48) I will murder foreign aid and health care volunteers in their tents.
49) I will use bomblets to kill civilians in refugee tent cities (especially journalists).
50) I will attack US allies with impunity (and craven US support).
51) Most of my people support mass murder, racism and theft, and thus make known the true nature and meaning of Israel.
52) I spray like the skunk that I am.
53) I make ceasefires if they permit me to continue slaughtering civilians.
Those that would make it illegal to protest against Genocide support the Psychopathic Genocidal Entity that <B>has given voice to the urge to kill us all (Samson Option).</B>
Israel is madness.
Israel conflates "upset" with"obsessed", a straw-man argument.