Turns Out "Israel Has A Right To Defend Itself" Meant "Israel Has A Right To Commit Genocide"
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Axios has a ridiculous new article out citing multiple anonymous US officials titled “Biden ‘running out’ of patience with Bibi as Gaza war hits 100 days”. The Biden administration keeps leaking to the press trying to put separation between their guy and the genocide in Gaza, and they are so fulla shit. Biden has had the ability to end this mass atrocity since day one. The slaughter continues because Biden wants it to. He owns this.
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Netanyahu delivered a speech commemorating 100 days of Israel’s war on babies and journalists and hospitals and residential buildings saying “We will restore security to both the south and the north. Nobody will stop us — not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.”
If I was standing on the right side of history, I don’t think the side I was standing with would be saying that not even The Hague can stop them from killing everyone they want to kill.
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Turns out “Israel has a right to defend itself” actually meant “Israel has a right to commit genocide, and no other countries have a right to stop it.”
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We’ve been seeing reports of Israeli sniper drones shooting and killing people in Gaza, which is probably a good time to note that Gaza has long been a live laboratory for the military industrial complex. Data is with absolute certainty being collected on all the newer weapons being field-tested on human bodies there — just like has been happening in Ukraine and in Africa — and that data will be used for the benefit of the war machine and the arms industry.
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It’s so dopey how Israel apologists will yell at you if you criticize Israeli criminality without mentioning Hamas and October 7. Literally everyone knows about Hamas and October 7. Literally everyone acknowledges that Hamas attacked Israelis out of hostility to the state of Israel. Everyone, including Hamas and its most enthusiastic supporters, fully acknowledge that this happened.
Meanwhile Israel and its supporters have adamantly denied the reality of what’s been happening in Gaza since October 7. The western press have been wildly biased in favor of Israel and have been guilty of mountains of journalistic malpractice with their pathetic coverage of the ongoing Gaza massacre. The majority of westerners are still ignorant of the extent to which Israel had been abusing and killing Palestinians prior to October 7.
It is therefore necessary to talk about these things to spread awareness and counteract the propaganda and distortion, and it is not necessary to continually mention Hamas and October 7 while doing so. Literally everyone acknowledges the occurrence of the October 7 attack, while a vast percentage of the population is either uninformed or actively lying about the occurrence of all Israeli crimes from the Nakba on. Only one of these two things requires more emphasis.
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Israel demanding that everyone condemn the Hamas attack is like a bunch of thugs punching a man in the face over and over and then demanding that everyone condemn him for hurting their hands. The Hamas attack was the natural result of Israel’s abuses upon the Palestinian people.
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In the mind of the empire simp, the violence of the empire’s enemies always comes completely out of nowhere, without provocation and for no reason. Ansarallah started attacking ships in the Red Sea because they’re pirates who hate freedom of navigation. Hamas attacked Israel because they’re evil and hate Jews. Putin invaded Ukraine because he’s evil and hates democracy. Grown adults portray the enemies of the empire the same way the children’s cartoon show Captain Planet portrayed its villains, cackling evilly about how they’re going to dump toxic waste into the ocean for no reason other than to hurt the environment.
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I’ve honestly never gotten used to being called an anti-semite, even after three months of getting it nonstop. It has never stopped being shocking to me that someone would accuse me of harboring the same prejudices which gave rise to the Holocaust in response to my criticisms of horrific mass atrocities backed by the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. It’s just absolutely deranged, despicable behavior, and I am consistently shocked to see grown adults behaving that way in public without the slightest hint of shame.
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Someone asked me if I have any advice for dealing with the anxiety which comes with discovering that the western empire is the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, and that we’ve been lied to about this our entire lives.
The painful emotions which come up when we discover an uncomfortable truth aren’t problems which need to be dealt with, they’re feelings which need to be felt. Let the grief, anguish, rage, shame, fear, or whatever it might be say everything it needs to say to you, in the same way you’d let a beloved child tell you about their feelings and concerns. You wouldn’t push the child away or treat them like a problem, you’d hear them out and give them a cuddle and let them know you care about them and that you’ll keep them safe. Once you’ve consciously felt a feeling all the way through and heard out everything it needs to say to you, its energy will dissipate.
Uncomfortable truths and uncomfortable feelings need to be met in the same way: head-on, with an open mind and an open heart. Moving into a truth-based relationship with life means wanting to see everything: uncomfortable truths about the world, uncomfortable truths about ourselves, and uncomfortable feelings we haven’t been allowing full expression to. It can be painful at times, even downright terrifying, but it’s also the only path to health for both our species as a collective and ourselves as individuals.
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In a former incarnation of myself, I accepted that Israel had a right to exist, always hoping that there was somehow a two -state, one-state, whatever-number-worked state solution to the apartheid, I was far too optimistic, just as I was coming away from the Vietnam era and hoping my country would somehow learn to curb its rabid imperialist urges.
No more, no more. Say what you will to me, Israel appears to be a mass cultural psychosis of a war state, and I no longer believe in its right to exist.
A rare deep understanding of Israeli society. See Hedges excellent interview. "Chris Hedges Report with Miko Peled, the son of an Israeli general who served in the Special Forces in the Israeli army, on the racist indoctrination and militarization of Israeli society." Peled woke up. Transformed himself. (chrishedges.substack.com) Activist and author.