I have written several articles about Gaza in the aftermath of the tragedy that was October 7th. I compared the relentless and brutal Israeli response with Guernica, Dresden, and the Warsaw Ghetto. I also mentioned the unfulfilled dream of Emanuel Ringelblum, a secular Marxist Zionist who wanted to create a Palestine shared with Arab citizens. I also tried in my own way to lay out a plan for a better, safer, and more prosperous region built on a two-state solution where all children could dream about a future free of violence and a future built on hope.
I was always cynical about Netanyahu’s commitment to a ceasefire, as his political survival is more important than the killing of the “odd child” or the bombing of the “odd hospital”. In addition, do Israelis really believe Netanyahu gives a dam about the remaining hostages? The killing of innocent women and children by the IDF continues with the blessing of Donald and his praying for Armageddon Christian fundamentalists, who are akin to America’s equivalent of ISIS.
I am exhausted and bewildered by the scenes of destruction and the killing of civilians in Gaza, and further dismayed by the failure of the Israeli electorate to stand up against the sheer scale and brutality of their government and the IDF response. It seems that a ratio of 1:50 is not enough. Here again, you can draw a parallel with many Germans who were aware of the evolution of Hitler’s Holocaust but did nothing to stop it. It also seems that many Israelis see their Prime Minister, now charged by the ICC with war crimes and crimes against humanity as a badge of honour, a decision which also reinforces their sense of victimhood.
A conflict where Israel, a democracy, has broken international humanitarian law on a scale that has not been seen for many years. The Israeli government have used food aid, water, medical aid, and energy as weapons of war, murdering tens of thousands of Gazans, including 30,000 women and children and hundreds of aid workers and journalists. Many Israelis have embraced the chant “From the river to the sea, not a Palestinian will be seen.” All this is backed by an administration led by Trump and his desire to build a new Riviera.
The sad thing is our government, and other European democracies have been mealy-mouthed in condemning the Jewish state’s blatant breaking of international human rights law and its ongoing ethnic cleansing of both Gaza and the West Bank. Continued “Post Holocaust Guilt” of many European countries has allowed criticism of the Israeli government and their murderous ethnic cleansing campaign to be conflated with antisemitism.
Netanyahu, Gvir, Smotrich, Katz and Galant are names that will sit alongside Assad, Ratko Mladić, Slobodan Milošević, Franco and Pinochet, to name a few. Who knows, history in the future may also see Netanyahu sit alongside the names of Himmler, Eichmann, and Speer. To be clear, this comparison is not about numbers but about how you perceive your fellow human being. I am an atheist, a person with no faith in an imaginary friend in the sky; however, what the conflict in Gaza has done to me is that my faith in humanity has been severely dented.
Finally, in a drama called “The Trial of God”, a group of Jewish intellectuals who were imprisoned in a death camp during the Second World War put God on trial. The case against God was that, if we are God’s chosen people, why is this happening to us? Today’s question could be, if we are God’s chosen people, why are we doing this?
Suneil Sharma
24th March 2025
The Gob 
Leave a Reply