Denial, Spin and Desperation – Is Gaza Killing Israel’s Future?

Denial, Spin and Desperation – Is Gaza Killing Israel’s Future?

“But most of [the visuals from Gaza are] fake — fake — distributed by Hamas… It’s a campaign. Unfortunately, some of the Israeli media, including some of the international media, is distributing this information and those false pictures, and creating an image of starvation which doesn’t exist.” 

Gaza Strip, Effie Defrin, a commanding officer and Israel Defense Forces spokesman, July 27th

“Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry… They have to get food and safety right now… That’s real starvation… I see it, and you can’t fake that.” 

Donald Trump, July 28th responding to Netanyahu’s statement on July 27th that “there is no starvation in Gaza.”

The United Nations (UN) Defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The above definition is incorporated wholesale into Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It should be noted that mass killings – including the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the waning month of WII – are differentiated from the targeted destruction of an identifiable ethnic, political, racial or religious “group” – as that word is used above context. The intent of the attackers is, thus, at the core of the controversy, even though the result of “mass killings” and “genocide” are often identical.

The biggest question revolves around Israel’s response to the Hamas-led carnage and hostage-taking across the border into northern Israel on October 7, 2023, an attack that killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 individuals hostage, noting that some of the remaining hostage survivors are still Hamas captives. Has Israel’s response against two million Gazan, only a small fraction of which are affiliated with Hamas, devolved into “genocide,” a particularly salient question to a nation born of Hitler’s WWII Holocaust (which exterminated approximately six million regional Jews), almost universally described as “genocide”? What do you believe?

There has always been a lingering sentiment among many that question Israel’s legitimacy, based on the formation of that Jewish state in 1948 by occupying land (labeled the “Nakba” by many regional Muslims) that belonged to Palestinians. Numerous wars between Israel and neighboring Arab states since have almost all been repelled by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The words “from the river to the sea” have often been used by angry Palestinians and their sympathizers (like Iran) to justify the total destruction of Israel, returning all that land to the Palestinians who lost it 77 years ago. To many Jews (and their supporters), that lingering hatred and dedication to Israel’s destruction has always justified Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians and military responses to any challenges to its control of is current borders, both external and internal. But Palestine is not the first nation to lose territory to an invader, and the potential acceptance of that reality among regional Arab states should begin to sink in to all of the relevant factions there.

The impact of these confrontations, the war of political labels, has fired up younger generations attending college with significantly Jewish contingents. Some believe that Zionism (the absolute defense of Israel without question) is an essential and necessary part of Judaism itself. Others separate a religious belief from the political reality of “Israel” as a nation state. Campus protests here have led to cries of “antisemitism” as anti-Israeli protesters have shut down prominent American Universities. The Trump administration has used this cry to justify attacking universities and defunding major Research grants. But the constant and growing flow of images like those above, coupled with accusations of Israeli intentional policies of imposing starvation on Gaza, are changing minds. Many in Israel still view the war in Gaza as a justified response to the deadliest attack in the country’s history and not an attempt at extermination. But…

Until the recent rather graphic images of starvation in Gaza, the killing of Gazans lined up to access food, US policy has favored Israel’s spin of the situation there. With a mounting death toll north of 60,000, rapidly growing statistics showing the starvation deaths of children, even US hardliners who have blindly supported Israel are beginning to push back. Even Donald Trump (see above statement) and powerful voices within Israel itself: “Two prominent Israeli rights groups on Monday [7/28] said their country is committing genocide in Gaza, the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations against Israel during nearly 22 months of war… The claims by B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel add to an explosive debate over whether Israel’s military offensive in Gaza … amounts to genocide.” Associated Press, July 28th.

But there is an even bigger question for Israeli politicians: is Israel’s denial of starvation, the constant images of death and destruction from Gaza, beginning to create a permanent disdain for Israel among Gen Z and younger that will carry into future US-Israeli relations… even as Israel is relenting slightly on allowing food and medical supplies to move more efficiently into Gaza? Writing for the July 29th Newsweek, its director of politics and culture, Carlo Versano, writes:

“I don't hang out with a lot of Zoomers. My social circle consists mostly of 3- and 4-year-olds, and their views on the Mideast are muddled at best. But I do come across members of Gen Z in the wild, and it's being majorly underpriced right now the degree to which this entire generation is being radicalized against Israel. I'm not just talking about privileged college students wearing keffiyehs on campus and screaming ‘Globalize the Intifada’. Those people are idiots. I'm talking about normal, otherwise apolitical—even right-leaning—kids who are being inundated all day with images of women and children being blown up, shot by the IDF while waiting in line for food, and starving to death. And their response is to be revolted by Israel's behavior. How could it not be? How is that going to materialize when these kids get a little older and start running for office, or otherwise having political influence? Entire generations of goodwill toward Israel are being wiped out... and for what? For who? A right-wing Israeli regime seemingly hellbent on exterminating an entire civilian population? If I were an American Jew, I would be absolutely enraged by this! (And to be clear, many of the Jews I know are.)

“There's some reason to believe we are at or near a tipping point here, the point at which Netanyahu will actually be forced to back down from his increasingly maniacal perch. President Trump is not an ideologue, and he is obviously disgusted with what he is seeing just like any normal observer would be.” No other nation is willing wholesale to allow this Palestinian populations to leave Gaza and move to another nation. The West Bank is erupting as well. The pressure for an independent Palestinian state has become a very loud international chorus. But there is a change, and the word “genocide” is being used increasingly globally to described Israel’s “obliteration” of most of the structures in Gazan cities and the unceasing politics of death that define that response.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I do not understand how Netanyahu does not see the rising generational negativity among America’s rising voters and its likely impact on Israel’s increasingly isolated future.