Justifying Genocide – Shir Hever pt 2

Paul Jay

Hi, welcome to theAnalysis.news. I’m Paul Jay. In a few seconds, I’m going to be back for the next segment of my interview with Shir Hever about the conflict in Gaza, and I should say, more specifically than conflict, what has turned into what I think is a savage attack on the population of Gaza. Not to say there wasn’t a terrorist attack on Israeli Jews, there was, but there is something completely out of proportion, what’s taking place now.

There’s a very interesting quote from the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. He says, “What’s a proportional response to the killing of innocent children and babies.” Well, it seems the Israelis think a proportional response is to kill Palestinian children. If that’s what they think, well, that’s a definition of collective punishment. It is a definition of a war crime. We’ll be back in just a few seconds.

Now, joining me again to continue our conversation is Shir Hever. Shir is living in Germany, but he grew up in Jerusalem. He works at BDS in Germany. I urge you to watch the first part of the interview because we’re going to pick up where we left off.

Shir, just to continue what I was saying. To my mind, at any rate, I visited Israel once. It’s about almost 18 years ago, I guess. I’m sorry, it is more like 30 years ago. God, I’m getting old. The extent to which the Israeli population seems to be on board with this attack on Gaza. There’s a report in the Washington Post today that some of the young activists have been involved in what they’re calling a democracy movement in Israel, opposing Bibi Netanyahu’s judicial reforms and opposing the far-right government in Israel. Even these young people have said, “Okay, we’ll continue our fight with Netanyahu and the far-right after Hamas has been eradicated.” It seems to be the vast majority of Israeli society is on board with what has turned into a vicious attack on Palestinian civilians.

We know 40% of Gaza are children. We know many, many of the deaths in the last few days have been teenagers, children, and babies dying in incubators because hospitals have no fuel. How did Israeli society get to be a place that accepts such things?

Shir Hever

Yeah, the Israeli society is at its lowest point ever, and in many ways, it stopped functioning as a society. What we see here is not unity around this single idea. The hatred and the violence and the desire to destroy Gaza, to kill everybody there, to kill the civilians, does seem like a unifying force for many factions of society. But in fact, there is a disintegration into atomic elements where every group wants to lay the blame on other groups and use this moment as justification for anything.

The atrocities we see in Gaza are reaching the level of genocide because it’s an intention, and it’s a clearly stated intention, to destroy that population, to kill as many Palestinians as possible, and to prevent Gaza from existing anymore. It’s not just killing people, but it’s also making it impossible for those who are escaping to ever come back and drive away the survivors. They’re trying to drive them now into Egypt. Egypt is not accepting this, of course, but there is a think tank, an Israeli think tank, that has come up with a detailed plan on how the United States will support Israel in bribing Egypt into opening its borders and allowing Palestinians to escape into the Sinai Peninsula. This will give Israel the ability to simply wipe the whole city of Gaza off the map and prevent anyone from ever coming back. This is one plan by one faction, but every other faction has different plans.

At the same time as we’re seeing this, the settlers in the West Bank are running amok, and they’re completely out of control. They have killed about 100 people in the West Bank since the attack on Gaza began. The Israeli military is not doing anything to stop them, to rein them in to control this. In fact, in many cases, they’re helping them.

Now, as you know, there are more than 200 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Every reasonable person would say that Israel should do everything to get them back to negotiate with Hamas, a prisoner exchange deal. There is a negotiation happening with the mediation of Qatar, but every part of the Israeli society is doing something in a different direction, which undermines those negotiations.

The Israeli Prison Authority, which is in charge of keeping Palestinian prisoners, there are now more than 10,000 political prisoners held by Israel, and they’re the bargaining chip with which Israel hopes to barter for the release of the hostages, so hostages on both sides. The Israeli Prison Authority has killed two Palestinian prisoners who are affiliated with Hamas. It was probably torture. They were killed by torture because they were trying to interrogate them to get information. One of them was in his 50s, and one of them was in his 20s. They were not people who were particularly old or frail. What message does this send when you’re trying to negotiate a prisoner exchange and, at the same time, you’re killing your own hostages? What message does that send to Hamas? This is the disintegration of society that we see.

The news in Israel is no longer able to report that. That’s a thing that I’ve never seen before. Even in the darkest moments of Israel’s history, I’m thinking about the war of 1973, which is often compared to the situation now. In the 1973 war, there were a lot of people who believed that the state of Israel might be destroyed in the war and might lose the war. Even then, there was a lot of satire. There was a lot of humor. There was some respect for the Egyptian and Syrian militaries for their prowess and their strategic planning. There was a little bit of self-critique. There was some reflection. There was some interest in how this was seen by the world and how the international community is going to address this.

You mentioned the Israeli ambassador to the UN, and he said some other things. He said, for example, that the General Secretary of the UN, [António] Guterres, has to step down. The reason that he has to step down is because he dared utter the words that the attack against Israel on October 7 did not occur in a vacuum. He dared to remind people that history doesn’t begin on October 7. There is already a reality in which Guterres really didn’t go into much detail about the occupation, the apartheid, the settler colonialism, and the ethnic cleansing. He didn’t list all those things, but he dared mention that there might be some background, and that was enough for the Israelis to simply refuse to engage with him. They said, “Guterres is not welcome to visit Israel.” He’s dead to them. That is just an indication of this inability to hear other voices. It’s not just to the outside; it’s also inside. It’s also inside.

Paul Jay

He said another word you’re not supposed to say: ceasefire. Just for Guterres saying, there should be at least a humanitarian ceasefire, that’s another reason he should have to resign. The thing is, I think most of the world, in fact, outside of the Biden administration, almost the entire world seems to get what’s wrong with this response of Israel. The Biden administration seems, to some extent, inexplicably gone further than they needed to.

The Israeli government reminds me of… they don’t like making references to the Nazis, but I’m going to. In 1940-1941, from what I’ve read, it was pretty clear to any thinking German elite that Germany was going to lose the war. But they didn’t stop. There was almost a metaphysical side to it, a fanaticism to it that didn’t have much to do with rationality about what was even good for the German state. It has some of that feeling to it. The fanaticism has just taken over.

Shir Hever

Well, usually, it’s true that the Israeli society is very averse to those Holocaust comparisons and to comparisons with Nazis. Right now, you hear it 24-7. People are basically saying, “Oh, the Hamas are Nazis,” which is complete nonsense and also a complete misunderstanding of the power relation between the occupier and the occupied. I think there are many examples like this. 

Because you spoke about the United States and why the United States goes so far; the United States is the empire, not Israel. Israel is like the colony at the edge of the empire that causes the downfall of the whole empire because it’s overinvested in one battle. It’s like the Roman Empire with Britain, which was an empire that sucked in all the resources of the empire and caused corruption and collapsed.

Now, think about this: Gerald Ford aircraft carrier group that Biden sent to the Red Sea, which is now positioned between Yemen and Israel. The Houthis in Yemen have apparently fired a couple of rockets towards Israel. Not many, but they were intercepted by the Gerald Ford carrier group. Israelis were writing in a very naive way. Isn’t it wonderful and lucky that the carrier got there on time? Completely misunderstanding the situation. The Houthis waited for the carrier to be there because now they’ve stuck it in place. Now, one of the fleets of the United States is stuck in the Red Sea, and they can’t leave because if they leave, well, then they won’t be able to intercept the next rocket. This is how an empire loses control over the situation.

Now, Biden wants to bring to Congress a bill for $106 billion for Ukraine and for Israel, and it’s all more weapons and more brutality and more killing. That’s not going to make the U.S. stronger in the region. It’s only going to unify every country that is opposed to the United States hegemony. We’re already seeing that. We’re seeing that the organization of Islamic countries has said what Israel is doing is genocide. President Lula of Brazil said it, that this is genocide. South Africa is saying this, it’s genocide. Turkey as well, and Turkey is important because it’s a member of NATO. Really, this whole empire is falling apart because of this. You talked about fanaticism. This is the fanaticism. It’s complete, reckless, and not intelligent or stupid support for a country that is in a state of downfall.

Paul Jay

The extent to which it seems the majority, as I said, Israeli population seems to be on board with, quote-unquote, “eradicating Hamas,” which means bombing the shit out of Gaza, at least so far, that’s what it means. It could mean even worse if or when the ground invasion takes place. Clearly, it’s civilians that are bearing the brunt of getting killed. They’re not the ones down in the tunnels. They’re the ones in the buildings getting bombed.

I’ll ask again. In the United States, after 9/11, there was fury about 9/11. The media was rapidly… nobody wanted to talk about root causes. If you said U.S. foreign policy had anything to do with 9/11, they would try to shut you down. But still, there were significant voices of opposition to invading Afghanistan. There was certainly a massive protest against the invasion of Iraq, even though the Bush administration tried to tie Iraq to the 9/11 attacks and so on. You don’t see that in Israel. This is a process that’s been going on for decades. It didn’t begin, as you say, on the seventh.

I was there for a film festival, as I said, years ago. Then later, I visited again, a little more quote-unquote, recently more like, I don’t know, 14 years ago, maybe. I was in Ramallah, and I came back, and I was in Israel. I was in a store. I had mentioned to the storekeeper to see how she responded, “I just came from Ramallah.” The vile that came out of this ordinary person’s mouth against the Palestinians, I don’t think I would have heard it in the worst racist Southern United States. There would have been at least some self-censorship, even if they thought the same things. They would have been a little muted talking to a foreigner in such overt racism. That was years ago, and it seems to me like it’s gotten worse.

Shir Hever

Well, if we had this conversation a month ago, I would strongly argue with you and say, “No, no, it didn’t get worse. It actually got better. There are other voices that you hear now.” But now that we’re having this conversation, I’m forced to agree with you. It has gotten much, much worse.

Let me also say the comparison to 9/11 is something the Israelis repeat a lot because it does serve their own interest. The one thing about the attack of 9/11, it was perceived as something that was unprovoked, coming out of nowhere. The attackers came from another country and crossed the ocean to come to the United States in order to make the attack. Of course, all these things are not a good description of what happened on October 7. These are not people who came from across the ocean. They are the indigenous population of Palestine. Even if what they did is inexcusable. A lot of people in Israel who would agree, like Ehud Barak, he said it himself, the former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, who said, “If he was a Palestinian, he would also join a terror organization.” Those were his words. Because, of course, that was the level of empathy with your adversary that made it possible for Israelis to be such effective colonizers and such effective occupiers. Their ability to see things from the side of Palestinians and to Israeli intelligence, learning Arabic and learning Palestinian culture and history and so on.

Some people would say, “How dare you go to Ramallah and make various racist comments about Palestinians?” But if you look at previous generations and the older guard of Israeli officers and intelligence, they would be very offended by such talk. They would say, “No, we have to know our enemy. We have to respect them, and we have to understand them.” All of this is gone. It’s now pure colonial arrogance. Because of that, they have no idea anymore. Because of that, they were also taken by complete surprise. This is what’s making them even more furious.

You must have heard those comparisons of Israelis saying this was the worst time for Jews since the Holocaust, which is simply not true. But if you really think what was the moment in Israel’s history after the Holocaust, in which the largest number of Jews were killed, we are back to the War of 1973. That was really a moment that was very scary for Jews in Israel. That war caused a response, not of rage, but of fear, because people didn’t know if they were going to make it through. Now, the fear is gone because in order to be able to fear Palestinians, you have to respect them. Instead, you only have this rage. But actually, you do have some fear, which is the fear of realizing how this thing looks from the side.

What I see now is Israelis writing letters to Jewish communities in the world and saying, “How dare you say that Palestinians also have the right to live? How dare you.” This is coming from people who call themselves leftists. The people who were writing about the occupation and writing against the government. You mentioned the movement for democracy, but the movement for democracy and the protest against Netanyahu was not the Israeli left. I’m talking about people who are from the left who said, “Yes, Palestinians must have rights.” Now you hear them changing their tone completely. Those who don’t, those who stay by their principles that human beings are equal and Palestinians have the right to live, and killing children in Gaza is no solution and no suitable punishment; those people are getting arrested. That is another thing that I haven’t seen, at least in my adult life.

Paul Jay

Now, is the Israeli media covering what’s going on? I’m surprised the American media has changed its tone. They were, of course, outraged about the initial Hamas attack, and so they should be. They have switched now and seem quite outraged by what’s going on in Gaza, and there’s a lot more emphasis on that. Is the Israeli media reflecting the severity of the attack on Gaza?

Shir Hever

No, they’re not reflecting this. There’s only one liberal newspaper in Israel, which is Haaretz. I think you’ve had Haaretz journalists on your show as well. This is the only newspaper that allows different opinions to be voiced. There are also very right-wing people who write there, but also left people. Haaretz still has, once in a while, an article that describes the humanitarian disaster in Gaza as if it’s a force of nature, without mentioning that this is a war crime and without talking about the, even from the purely Israeli interests, what it means for the legal culpability of officers and soldiers who participate in those war crimes. But then you have many, many more articles that are expressing surprise. Oh, look at this betrayal by Harvard University because they dared utter a statement that spoke about both sides. Or how dare the Jews from Jewish Voice for Peace betray us like this and have a demonstration against genocide? They keep getting surprised more and more without realizing that it’s the whole world. They are completely isolated.

Paul Jay

Is Israeli television showing the images of the destruction of homes, hospitals, children, and so on? Are people seeing what’s going on?

Shir Hever

No, they can read about it in the newspaper, or if they have access to international channels, they can watch it on international media, but they’re not going to watch it on Israeli television.

Paul Jay

They’re not going to see it [crosstalk 00:21:58]. They’re watching it on international channels.

Shir Hever

Yeah, then they need to know English. A lot of Israelis can speak English, but no, they won’t see it in Hebrew. Absolutely not. The Israeli government is now moving to close the offices of Al Jazeera. They’ve already arrested a few Palestinian journalists for just reporting. I’m talking about Palestinian journalists who have Israeli citizenship. They’re Israeli citizens. They’re, of course, not allowed to go into Gaza and record the devastation and the killings that are happening there. But they are trying to cover protests within Israel, protests against the war. For that, they are being arrested as well. Now, no, Israelis just simply don’t have access to this information.

Paul Jay

All right, let me go back a little to the bigger picture. If this was a normal capitalist country, Israel, you would think it would have been more prudent to have a more South African-style solution here. In other words, incorporate the Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza into Israel. One person, one vote, and then dominate the politics through your money, corrupt Palestinians and bring a handful into the elites, and manage that way. You’re not in endless war. You have a big source of cheap labor and do it that way instead of this endless struggle.

When I was at that film festival, and let me say, I went because there were supposed to be a lot of Palestinian filmmakers that were going to go, and then they pulled out in the last second, which I didn’t know, but anyway. But I was told when I was there that if it wasn’t for the threat, existential, quote-unquote, “threat of the Palestinians,” Israeli society would explode. The differences between the secular and the Orthodox and the various other fractures in Israeli society are so severe that without that Palestinian external threat, there could be a civil war in Israel. Is that true? Is that one of the reasons why this never got solved in a more neoliberal way? Well, let me stop there for now.

Shir Hever

Yeah, there is something a little bit odd about thinking of the indigenous population of the country as an external threat. If anything, the Israelis are the external threat. They’re the ones who…

Paul Jay

I said existential, not external. Existential. Maybe they call it external.

Shir Hever

I think it’s the other way around. I think that, like many settler colonies, capitalism is not the goal but a means to an end. Israel started with a social democracy. I don’t know if you know this, but David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister, went to the Third International and held a picture of Stalin in the streets of Tel Aviv. That’s where his political upbringing comes from.

Paul Jay

I think the Soviet Union was one of the first countries to ratify the existence of Israel to the United Nations.

Shir Hever

Yes. It was Ben-Gurion’s choice to then ally with the United States instead of with Russia, with the Soviet Union. This choice was taken by surprise by many Israelis. It wasn’t clear that this was the way he was going to go. Capitalism was not a given for that state. Of course, in order to be an ally of the United States, they have to be capitalist. That much is clear. But it is, of course, settler capitalism, meaning that the secret police are checking who the owners of capital are and can disqualify certain people from buying certain property. Money doesn’t solve everything. There are certain laws and instruments in Israel. There’s this fear, what if the Saudis will come and buy everything and then give it to the Palestinians and there won’t be a Jewish state anymore, which I’m sure the Saudis will never do for Palestinians, but it is nevertheless reason for the Israelis to make these laws.

Your question about the South African model, I remind you that the South African model wasn’t adopted willingly by the white population. It was enforced upon them by a resistance movement that fought for many, many decades until they were able to win their freedom. Rational voices aside, there is no way for a settler colony to simply better itself but decide to do good.

Paul Jay

There are voices in Israel from the right who have actually advocated this. I’ve seen that there are right-wing, hawkish voices that have actually promoted this as an idea. Let’s get this over with by incorporating them and then dominating them. There is a Palestinian population that is citizens of Israel; they’re citizens, but they’re second class.

Shir Hever

There are many clever caveats that are put into this. One of them, for example, is when you’re thinking about the previous President, Reuven Rivlin, who said, “Yeah, Palestinians should have Israeli citizenship and be allowed to vote, but not the ones in Gaza. This way, we still have a Jewish majority, and the Palestinians remain an oppressed minority. The world cannot say we’re an apartheid state anymore because Palestinians are citizens. Gaza will continue to be an open-air prison, and the people there will not have citizenship.”

Yeah, that’s one of those suggested caveats. He’s from the right. There are also those that I would say are not the hawkish right, but the very religious right that says the state, the Jewish state, is not a holy thing. The Jewish land is a holy thing, which means that as long as we get to live in the land in places like Hebron, deep in the occupied West Bank, but these are holy sites to Jews, then the most efficient way of doing that is to live in a state where Palestinians are also citizens. Even if the Prime Minister happens to be Palestinian, we have to stay here at all costs. That’s another argument that is made.

These voices are very weak right now. Right now, the strong voices are those who say, “If Palestinians are simply gone, then it doesn’t matter. We’re not an apartheid state if there are no Palestinians.” Of course, that’s not a realistic, not a rational thing to say. It’s also very dangerous to say that sort of thing because that means that investors are running away. That means that the strongest allies of Israel are turning their backs on Israel.

I’m speaking to you from Germany, which is really trying in the ugliest way to remain committed to Israel to the last drop of Jewish blood because they have no problem with Jews dying for the glory of the state of Israel as long as they don’t want to come and live in Germany. I also think that at some point, Germany has laws that forbid state institutions from assisting in the committing of genocide. I don’t think that German politicians who say, “Oh, we are all Israelis. We stand with Israel,” are willing to go to prison for this. There is a moment in which they would say, “Well, a line has been crossed, and we cannot do this anymore.” The people who have no idea about this line and don’t seem to care are the Israelis.

Paul Jay

What I’m getting at is a little bit about what we talked about last time, and you just mentioned it earlier in this discussion. Netanyahu, and not only Netanyahu, but he seems to be one of the main architects, wanted Hamas. They wanted this type of Islamic, which has become more and more extreme because it becomes a target and it becomes a distraction. They don’t want to have to negotiate with the Palestinians towards any legitimate two-state solution. They certainly don’t want to negotiate any democratic solution. This is part of this need to suppress contradictions within Israel.

Like I was just saying, I take your point that the democracy movement was never about democracy for Palestinians. In fact, I know last time, there was a big rising in the democracy movement. There was a big argument within it amongst a group that wanted to make democracy for Palestinians an issue, and they lost because it was called a distraction. The way they’ve shut down now it’s just another example of how this Hamas threat helps to suppress dissent within Israel and strengthen the right. Anyway, go on.

Shir Hever

From a historical perspective, you and I remember a time when there was no Hamas. There was still occupation and apartheid at that time, and there was still resistance also at that time. When the Israeli government said, “Oh, our problem is with Fatah because it’s a socialist and democratic movement, a progressive movement which is allied with the Soviet Union, so we should cultivate opposition groups because they are conservative and Islamic, and they would be our allies in this divide and conquer scheme.” Those groups then developed to become the Hamas movement. I’m not saying that Israel created Hamas, but they tolerated Hamas in the beginning because of that. Then, suddenly, the world changed. The Soviet Union collapsed. Now, socialists are not so scary anymore. The new enemy is the Islamic groups.

Paul Jay

Yeah, but Fatah, in those earlier days, was also involved in a certain amount of armed struggle. There was a certain amount of terrorist tactics, which they later decided for themselves it was counterproductive and became more and more open to a legitimate negotiation. Then, the Israelis weren’t interested in that negotiation and preferred a Hamas type.

Shir Hever

Yeah, absolutely. It is true that this idea of an existential threat has been used mainly by Netanyahu, more than any other politician, as a unifying force, as a way to gather popular support. The Israeli society is indeed severely divided. These divisions only became deeper and deeper over time.

Yes, Netanyahu always said, “We have to protect ourselves, and we have to sacrifice certain freedoms and standard of living and things like that in the name of security and so on.” That’s why he loves talking about Iran because Israelis learned to view Palestinians with contempt and didn’t see them as enough of a threat. That’s why Netanyahu said, “Oh, we need a bigger enemy. We need somebody who can really scare people.” He started this whole campaign about Iran. Now, they don’t need Iran anymore because Palestinians have shown that they actually understand how the Israeli military functions.

Paul Jay

Well, they’re tying it together to Iran, so we’ll see. They may not have given up on trying to start something with Iran here as well.

I saw a talk by Gideon Levy, who was one of the most progressive writers on  Haaretz. He was speaking in Washington a few years ago, and he said that he personally had given up on Israeli society. He just did not see any force within any strength to deal with this type of rising fascism. I don’t know if he used the word rising fascism. He might have, but something akin to that. He said only the United States could intervene and needs to intervene. Otherwise, if it’s left just up to Israel, it’s just going to get worse. Is he right? Do the Americans have to really, American people, particularly, because the Biden administration seems to feel no pressure at this moment?

Shir Hever

Well, first of all, let me ask you this. Can you give me a historical example of a colonial empire, an occupying force that has decided from the inside to heal itself?

Paul Jay

Yes, I can. Yes, Britain. Britain reached a conclusion about it, certainly Canada and some of its other colonies, that it was way too expensive to directly occupy, and it was way better to use neocolonial, recruit local elites, and rule through them, which is what Israel, to some extent, tried to do with the PA and the West Bank, I guess you could say. Yeah, Britain divested itself of the Commonwealth in terms of direct colonization in India. In fact, the British, I think it was Lord Durham talking about Canada, but it applied to India as well. They called direct colonialization a millstone around our neck. It’s just way more expensive. You can see from the American empire, it’s very rare the Americans, especially in modern times, directly try to occupy somewhere. They rule through local elites on the whole.

Shir Hever

Yeah, ruling through local elites, absolutely. I would say that the Commonwealth is exactly that. If it’s Canada or Australia, it’s all colonies where the white elite, the European elite, which is closely allied with Great Britain through trade and so on, were allowed to [crosstalk 00:36:10]. 

Paul Jay

Now it’s America.

Shir Hever

The indigenous population had no say in this. I don’t think that is a counter-example. In fact, if you’re saying this is something that Israel was trying to do with the West Bank, well, there was a time, of course, when the Israelis thought that the Palestinians would gladly accept Jewish white colonizers in the West Bank and in Gaza, which would become plantation owners and would manage the population and that would increase their status of living. Palestinians should be grateful for this benevolent European rule that has been forced upon them. They’ve been disinvested of those illusions very quickly, and so they thought we need elites from within the Palestinian society, which will become our subcontractors, and that’s the Palestinian Authority to a large extent, but that’s also collapsing now. It’s also completely failing.

The Palestinian Authority is in a state of paralysis because they don’t dare open their mouth. Some Israeli generals say, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we just give Gaza to the Palestinian Authority as a way of getting rid of Hamas in Gaza.” This is another example of this distorted colonial thinking, as if they could do something like this, as if the Palestinian authority could come into the ruins of the Gaza Strip and the two million people who’ve lost their homes and didn’t have enough to eat and don’t know where to bury their dead, and they would be happy to accept those Palestinian Authority officers who are now in the West Bank busy trying to suppress Palestinian demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza, including arresting and torturing Palestinians in the West Bank. That is an absurd idea.

My answer to you is that Israeli society is hopeless simply because the only people who can liberate themselves are Palestinians. Israelis are not going to liberate them. I don’t agree with Gideon Levy at all that hope comes from the United States because the United States has been very consistent in the idea that it doesn’t support Israel because Israel is a Jewish state. It only supports Israel because it’s an occupying state.

Until 1967, when Israel conquered the West Bank in Gaza and some other territories from Syria and Egypt, the United States didn’t choose Israel to be its largest recipient of military assistance in the world. Now, no country in the world receives more military financing than Israel because these are weapons that are showcased, U.S. weapons showcased against civilians. Israel projects imperial power in the Middle East. That’s why Henry Kissinger famously said, “For every tank we give to Israel for free, the neighbors of Israel buy four American tanks.” That’s how the empire functions.

Paul Jay

Okay, now, to be fair to Gideon, he was addressing the American people. He was saying the American people should demand a different U.S. policy towards Israel. The American people should demand the American government stop this one-sided support for Israel, and especially in this moment, while his speech was a few years ago, I’ll paraphrase him; especially at this moment, the Americans should demand that this ceasefire and that this assault end. Gideon, I don’t think, had the expectation that the American government was going to change.

Shir Hever

Right. I would love to see a strong moral, ethical stance from the American people saying that our government needs to stand on the right side of history and not support genocide. I would really love to see that. At the very least, let’s ask the American people not to allow their government to drag them into yet another war in the Middle East, which is something that also costs a lot to American citizens. Why should American soldiers die for Israel’s foley? Why should American taxpayers pay so much money into those weapons that are given to Israel in order to kill civilians? Why should the U.S. lose its ability and its influence in the world because it’s the one vetoing ceasefires when the rest of the world is calling for humanity? This is a severe loss of power and also to the basic values, I think, of the United States.

Paul Jay

Well, I don’t know about the basic value. I’m not sure about the basic values if the basic values are defined by the American elites. Even from a geopolitical perspective, it’s nuts. If your main problem in the Middle East is how the Saudis and others are inching a little closer towards China, and then you pursue this policy, it makes no sense.

Shir Hever

Of course. Clearly, this onslaught on Gaza is something that completely changes the perspective on the war in Ukraine. If the U.S. thought that the war in Ukraine would be their way to crush Russia, they can forget about it now. Especially the Global South, which has already been very critical of the way that NATO handled the war in Ukraine and the hypocrisy of people. Civilians need to be protected from a foreign occupier as long as those civilians happen to be white. This hypocrisy is now shouting to high heaven. The Global South is now speaking with a stronger voice, and they do have the power to intervene. They do have the power to demand a ceasefire, and to impose sanctions on Israel, and to make sure that the criminals will be charged in the International Criminal Court. Then, they can stop this genocide.

Paul Jay

Thanks very much, Shir. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for joining us on theAnalysis. Please, again, as we head towards the new year, if you’re thinking about donating at the end of the year, we are a 501(c)(3) in the U.S., and we can only keep doing this if people donate. You can come to the website is the easiest thing, theAnalysis.news, and click on the donate button. Thanks again for joining us.