While I am not a military person, after years of studying history, it now seems to me that the reading of the tea leaves in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict foreshadow a changing of the meme. The leaves now seem to align to a conclusion that Israel may now be committing suicide. The myth cycle is turning against Israel.
Coming out of the holocaust, Israel had a huge moral benefit of western guilt that enabled it to expand within Palestine and to concentrate the Palestinian population into increasingly more restricted areas. The PLO’s support of violence, coming to the fore during the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the continuing Islamist violence thereafter gave Israel a free hand to fill nearly all of the lands of historic Israel without providing any real justice to the displaced Palestinians. Immigration from Russia strengthened Israel’s power by increasing its population beyond its existing birthrate. That population growth pressured the forming of the West Bank Settlements that devastated the life of the West Bankers.
As the decades passed, more Islamist violence further estranged western sympathy away from the Palestinians. Israel was able to cast itself as the David standing up to the Islamic hoard and thereby captured the unquestioning support of most of the American polity. The meme was supported by the accommodation of Egypt and Jordan who did not want the Palestinians interfering in their nations and eliminated thousands.
No fairness, justice, or recognized nationality was ever afforded to the Palestinians. The whole world just turned the other way and mostly ignored their plight. This lack of humaneness, fostered extreme violence in return, is the genesis of the current suicidal acts. The reciprical violence returned by the Palestinians convinced a complicit press that all were terrorists and furthered the David against the Islamic hoards meme.
Team Spirit prevented development of any compassionate meme within the Jewish or western polity. That same Team Spirit corrupted American politics, purchasing the loyalty of most American decision makers and convincing them to turn the other way from viewing the growing desperation of the Palestinians.
The suicidal behavior accelerated as Israel pressed settlements into the West Bank and the constructed the Wall. Human compassion has been abandoned by Israel in its treatment of the innocent and the resisters, alike, all who are subject to the compression of Israeli rule in Palestine and Gaza. As the Palestinians became more compressed and their population expanded, more Palestinians joined the Palestinian diaspora. Slowly, word of the Palestinian plight became visible around the world. The internet has greatly expanded the access to information about Palestinian life and circumstances.
The Palestinians and the Gazaians seem now to be reaching a point where it is absolutely clear that they are all going to finish their lives as prisoners in bondage unless their whole nation sacrifices the thousands necessary to convince the world that David has become the Herod who murders the innocents.
This is a historic response common to a fully powerless underclass.
As the economic pressure placed on Gaza by the blockade and the increasing encroachments of the West Bank settlements progresses, the desperation of Gazaians and the West Bankers increases exponentially to the point where unacceptable sacrifices have become acceptable in the form of taking losses of children and civilians.
Since the Palestinians are so weak militarily, it is only unilateral death and destruction by Israel that can save it. The only real way the Palestinians can now save themselves, is to provoke murder by Israel as an ultimate weapon of non-violent protest. While the Israelis would argue otherwise, tossing rocks at armored riflemen and shooting fireworks into the desert does not rise to the level true violence. It is just primate demonstration of dare and bravado in the face of overwhelming odds.
Dead infants, by their deaths, function as soldiers in opposition to Israel. All Palestinians, women, infants, children, boys, and men will increasingly function as soldiers to be sacrificed. Children bombed, viewed in pieces on the internet, will increasingly be seen as murder victims. The more brutal the Israelis become, the more valiant will be the services of the Palestinian infants will appear, each of whose death will have more effect than a dozen men killed in a firefight. It seems now, that the Palestinians no longer really have to fight, they only need to invite a response that kills children. If Israel invades, instead of fleeing, the Palestinians may fill the streets en mass to invite death.
The morbid arithmetic will move the meme. Ultimately, and perhaps very quickly, people worldwide will increasingly believe that Israel has become a monster nation with no interest in anything except further extermination of the Palestinian people. As I have written often here before, the myth ideas, or memes, can change almost instantly when people gain the words to express what they tacitly know.
To the extent that people in the greater world know about the plight of the Palestinian people and are informed of the way they exist, those really aware of the plight of the Palestinians tacitly know a horrible crime is in process against them. It seems to me that once the language is invented and learned, Israel will be in a huge hurt with few avenues for rescue. Unlike at the time of Israel’s formation when news was printed or broadcast by a few, the whole world is watching now and can see the full gore on the internet. The pictures will scream against Israel.
In reality, Gaza is now a death camp. The Gazaians are on an involuntary diet, subject to a malicious coriander blockade that deprives their entire society of any hope. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/17/israeli-military-calorie-limit-gaza Israel bombs and attacks helpless people with impunity, teased on by fireworks rockets that nearly never kill. Truly, Israel plays the role of the ultimate bully. It is just astounding that their leaders are so blind that they cannot see they are leading a Goliath to stand between the pillars.
Given the visual effect of tens of thousands of destroyed homes and pieces of dead children spread on the internet, soon the meme will grow that those who suffered the holocaust now are running their own death camp, devoid of human compassion. The world is not devoid of human compassion and once the meme changes, things will change rapidly.
My thought is that the whole people of Palestine know that protest by self imposed bombing of children is now the only way forward. Any “peace” on Israel’s terms means only self-imprisonment and ultimate self-annihilation. My prediction is that the fireworks-rockets will continue to fly. If Israel is suckered, we see more aerial bombing by Israel and it will cause the end of itself within a few months or years. If Israel invades, the Gazaians may, like the Blacks at the lunch counters in the 1960s, just stand quietly blocking the military targets, without resisting except by their physical presence, to be trampled or killed before the cameras.
Israel is acting suicidally. If it cannot learn how to change, it will kill itself. To survive, Israel must find a way to give justice to the Palestinians, starting immediately. Once the meme in America changes as it is now changing in Europe, Israel will have succeeded in destroying itself by its own hand.
Hopefully, the meme will change in Israel first, and the kind people there will regain control from the fanatics so the Jews can save themselves and their nation. If not, there will soon be another green revolution in the ME, the Coriander Revolution, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_scene_of_Coriander_leaves.JPG) and there will be a one state solution. Then, we will see whether the Jews in Haifa, Palestine get equal protection of the sharia laws.
Israel cannot win through suicidal activity. Israel desperately needs a suicide prevention counsellor.
All
That's what happens when the Egyptian-American journo told " how it happened" (got it via Angry Arab)
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/17/nbc-removes-ayman-mohyeldin-gaza-coverage-witnesses-israeli-beach-killing-four-boys/
What's her name, Mrs Greenspan was so tongue-tied yesterday when Ayman was telling the truth that the Zionists who owned the media must have complained ;-(
Truth hurts
Posted by: The beaver | 17 July 2014 at 02:58 PM
The Apaches did not have www video. Things might have been different if they had.
If the Israelis are the realists you believe them to be, there will be no more children killed in their homes for the next few months and the Gazians will see a relaxation of the blockade.
They will not stop. I just heard on the radio that three more children have been killed in their homes and that the Israelis have begun their ground offensive. It will not be long before it is all on YouTube--lots of infant body parts.
The Apaches died without anyone ever knowing. Few can stomach an hourly news feed of children bombed in their homes for long without reacting. Now the whole world sees the consequences of innocent deaths within minutes. The behavior is being noted and the dissonance will soon explode.
Israel is going to lose the American People.
Posted by: WP | 17 July 2014 at 03:53 PM
Matthew, whilst I don't disagree with your position, I think it is a bit skewed to the point. I was not discussing where Gazan kids play, I was discussing, as was the WP article, the strategy of Hamas throwing rockets into Israel in order to provoke an attack that will make Gazan children photogenic martyrs.
Here's the line from the article I had in mind:
"Dead infants, by their deaths, function as soldiers in opposition to Israel. All Palestinians, women, infants, children, boys, and men will increasingly function as soldiers to be sacrificed. Children bombed, viewed in pieces on the internet, will increasingly be seen as murder victims."
The tactic reminds me of the Cliven Bundy crowd putting their women and children between them and the US Marshals. It's called "cowardice." Anyone who intentionally and strategically jeopardizes their children's lives to make a political point can count me as their enemy, I don't care what the political point is.
So in this case, if that is what Hamas is doing, put me down as an enemy of both Hamas and GoI.
It is the Palestinian people, who are not privy to and who are not responsible for these strategic decisions by Hamas or GoI, who are paying the price with their children. I'm with them. I hope we all are.
Posted by: Denis | 17 July 2014 at 04:37 PM
I agree the Israeli government will continue to keep doing what they are doing.
They could have done so to relieve the burden of what is described above: a very lengthy and crushing period of living in camps within Israel.
Nobody was obligated to do this.
But with the talk of the world changing and refusing to tolerate what's been happening for years to the Palestinians, my point is: Look at what has been tolerated by their best supporters.
Posted by: jerseycityjoan | 17 July 2014 at 04:46 PM
I have turned some of my pasty white friends, who despite their ignorance, cultivated sympathies and aversions cannot deny the historical record or today's news if you can get them to listen for 5 minutes.
I like to posit to the them the spectacle, okay, fantasy, of The Rastafarian Republic of Canada seizing the lower 48 for a big Biblically ordained, nuclear armed grow op. They wholly get the concept of Hawaiians and Alaskans shooting at us with whatever they got for as long as it takes, and amending the Constitution to Blame Canada for the duration.
Posted by: Charles I | 17 July 2014 at 04:47 PM
You are bringing up good points.
I brought up the point about how the very people who have supported the Palestinians through the years in some ways have done very much in others. People are funny in how they accept the unacceptable. To me, the Israeli/Palestinian situation is a real example of that. I have real doubts that a big change is in the air, even though many of the things WP said seem reasonable.
We have had Arabs go to war and contribute how many fighters and how many millions -- if not billions at this point -- of dollars to "fight" on behalf of the Palestinians? How many Kuwaitis who supported expelling all the Palestinians after the Gulf War in the 1990s have contributed money to terrorists who claimed to be fighting defend the Palestinians, among other reasons? My guess is that there are more than a few.
You are quite right that I am concerned about the effect of mass migration on this country. I am not saying that any Arab country should have taken in millions of people they could not afford to help.
Quite honestly though, if we knew years ago what we knew today, if we'd have paid countries a million a head to take in every Palestinian willing to leave Israel, it would have been well worth it. It may have been a bargain at $5 or even $10 million a head. There were only around 2 million of them in Israel in 1990 and 3 million in 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories
Posted by: jerseycityjoan | 17 July 2014 at 05:34 PM
You are right. The obvious candidates in Europe had just participated in or tolerated the killing of millions of Jews. Who would have agreed to live in a new homeland in Germany?
Also the movement to Palestine had already begun in the 19th century and the UK had already issued some promises in the Balfour Accord.
Is it understandable that the people in the Middle East disagreed with and resented being made to provide the solution to European problems? Of course.
Posted by: jerseycityjoan | 17 July 2014 at 05:42 PM
A correction:
Second paragraph, First and Second Sentence above should have said: "I brought up the point about how the very people who have supported the Palestinians through the years in some ways have NOT done very much in others TO SHOW THAT [p]eople are funny in how they accept the unacceptable.
An addition:
Another ground war. I recall mentioning here that if the Jewish people in Israel really think they aren't safe there and won't be in the future, shouldn't they think about leaving?
What is the point of them and us defending something that is indefensible? I know no one in Israel is thinking that way but shouldn't they be? And if not them, how about us?
Posted by: jerseycityjoan | 17 July 2014 at 06:06 PM
Israel may (eventually) lose the American People, but Israel has not lost nor will, anytime soon, lose the American government.
That Congress just voted another half billion towards Israel. Israel continues to be rewarded for its violence. The more violence, the more money goes its way.
I think your reading of the historical narrative (meme) somewhat misguided. I wish I could believe in it.
Posted by: Castellio | 17 July 2014 at 08:39 PM
WP
"Israel is going to lose the American People "
Its already started - I see it around me everyday even here in Central Texas..people are questioning way we support Israel .
Posted by: alba etie | 17 July 2014 at 08:52 PM
All,
Israel attacks with pure moral clarity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-moral-clarity-in-gaza/2014/07/17/0adabe0c-0de4-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html?tid=recommended_strip_1
Prison guards rarely see the moral complexity of their relationship with their wards.
Posted by: WP | 17 July 2014 at 08:52 PM
The beaver
Her name is Andrea Mitchell .. bless her hasbara heart ..
Posted by: alba etie | 17 July 2014 at 08:53 PM
WP
I remember Krauthammer was a big cheerleader for Operation Iraqi Clusterf--ck - .It was amazing to hear the deafening silence from the neocons regarding Abu Gharib ..speaking of moral clarity and prison guards .
Posted by: alba etie | 17 July 2014 at 08:56 PM
Seamus Padraig
So whatever became of Abu Mazen ?
Posted by: alba etie | 17 July 2014 at 09:00 PM
AE
He is a dead dog unless he goes to share their fate. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 17 July 2014 at 09:05 PM
On the evening news, Brian Williams pointed out in the piece that the Gazaians "cannot leave".
In the face of massive bombing, they cannot flee as refugees. All they can hope is that fate favors them. Tonight, two million people, women, infants, and youth are fish in the barrel while the ilk like Krautheimer cheer their random punishment with moral clarity. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-moral-clarity-in-gaza/2014/07/17/0adabe0c-0de4-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html?tid=recommended_strip_1
Who are the terrorists?
Posted by: WP | 17 July 2014 at 09:14 PM
Children bombed, viewed in pieces on the internet, will increasingly be seen as murder victims."
As opposed to terrorists, or what?
Posted by: Charles I | 17 July 2014 at 11:14 PM
The American people have exercised their right to choose their representative freely, legally and democratically and those representatives have supported Israel for decades.
It is also clear to me that that the latest punitive expedition out of Fort Apache led by Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday or by Captain York will not end the war.
Again, Israelis know that they have US and EU in their back pocket, that there is no consequences to their actions, and that there is no power in the international scene that could threaten them to cease and desist.
They do as they please, also knowing that they are in a Forever War from which they do not wish be to be extricated.
They prefer it that way.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 18 July 2014 at 10:29 AM
People have a right to be wrong and indulge in their fantasy lives.
The only issue is when their fantasy lives could lead to World War III.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 18 July 2014 at 10:30 AM
Col Lang
I truly believe we have reached a tipping point in These United States in our unblinking , unilateral support of the Likud agenda. We shall see.
Posted by: alba etie | 18 July 2014 at 12:59 PM
I'm the most indulgent here, but the most intolerant of my friends, I'm afraid, just never met an underdog i didn't like.
Posted by: Charles I | 18 July 2014 at 04:58 PM