Isabelle Defourny, the president of Doctors Without Borders France and one of the few people Israel has allowed into Gaza, this month delivered a rare and poignant account of what she saw there.
Despite her vast experience around the world covering war zones for more than two decades, she was struck by several factors that made the situation in Gaza worse. These included the state of total siege, the disproportionate number of children among the dead, and the hallucinatory scale of the destruction, with more than 80 percent of the territory’s buildings damaged or destroyed, including hospitals and schools.
Defourny also took note of how little humanitarian aid Israel was allowing into Gaza. In September, she said, UN officials only managed to bring in a fifth of the food supplies they had at the border – and the situation has since become a lot worse.
The last few days she was there, Defourny said that only seven trucks were allowed into Gaza, when a daily minimum of 500 is needed – and in the territory’s north, none whatsoever.
This in itself would be enough to confirm Israel’s genocidal logic and methods, as it continues to weaponise mass starvation and disease. Even Israeli Jewish historian Amos Goldberg, the chair of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has acknowledged that Israel is committing genocide.
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Thanks to the courageous testimonies of people like Defourny, along with journalists still present on the ground at great personal risk, and other documentation efforts – such as the recent Black Book of Gaza or The Lancet’s estimation that the Palestinian death toll, officially listed at around 43,000, could actually be in the hundreds of thousands – no one will be able to claim they didn’t know.
Despite the propaganda efforts of Israel, mainstream media and western politicians to put all the blame on Hamas for its 7 October 2023 attack, the main culprit remains Israel.
Decades of colonialism
Long before October 2023, Israel was already engaged in unfettered illegal colonisation of Palestinian land, illegitimate military occupation, and massive and permanent violations of international law. The Hamas attack was exactly the kind of inevitable, albeit unjustifiable, reaction bound to be provoked by decades of Israeli colonialism, destruction and killing.
Israel could have used its military victories and severe weakening of Hamas as an opportunity for a ceasefire, and to launch a new peace process leading to a durable solution – or at the very least, a genuine recognition of equal rights for Palestinians. This would be in Israel’s long-term strategic and domestic interests.
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Instead, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, supported by most of the Israeli population, who appear utterly indifferent to sufferings other than their own, is taking the country and the region in the opposite direction.
Through its settlers, military and extremist right-wing religious figures, Israel has launched a low-key war on the occupied West Bank to step up the processes of colonisation and annexation, profiting from the fact that all eyes are on Gaza.
Abroad, intoxicated by short-term “victories” like the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, Israel has lost sight of its own long-term interests, forgetting that you can win a few battles but lose the war; that military victories do not mean viable peace and safety; and that such tactical wins can even be counter-productive.
The proverbial ‘madman of the Middle East’ is now in the grip of a fantasy of omnipotence
Long before 7 October, Netanyahu had already been emboldened by a series of political and international victories.
These included the Abraham Accords promoting regional normalisation with Israel; the extreme success in the West of Israeli propaganda equating support for Palestine with antisemitism, which coupled with Holocaust guilt, has silenced or neutralised many critics; and continuing, unconditional support from governments in the US and Europe.
Netanyahu thus crossed a critical threshold in his hubris, further encouraged by his rising popularity rate among Israelis, who saw the recent assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders as avenging the debacle of 7 October.
The proverbial “madman of the Middle East” is now in the grip of a fantasy of omnipotence, attacking the United Nations, banning UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres from Israeli soil, threatening Lebanon with the same fate as Gaza, and even urging the entire Lebanese population to revolt against Hezbollah.
Dramatic overreach
Behind the escalation of its wars on Gaza and Lebanon, Israel’s larger medium-term goal is to reshape the entire Middle East through sheer brutal force.
This dramatic overreach corresponds to a strategic shift that was decided with the agreement of the US, as recently revealed to Politico by several Israeli and American officials speaking on condition of anonymity. It is thus no coincidence to hear Netanyahu using the same “axis of evil” rhetoric that former US President George W Bush used during the Iraq War, which itself was supposed to be a first step in the neoconservative Greater Middle East project.
Indeed, Netanyahu’s objectives go far beyond eliminating Hamas and Hezbollah.
They also include reoccupying Gaza after destroying it entirely, as both collective punishment for 7 October, but also to render a Palestinian state impossible, at least for decades; completing the annexation of the West Bank; eliminating Hezbollah and restructuring Lebanese politics to Israel’s benefit; and weakening, if not eliminating, the Iranian regime.
Netanyahu wants to achieve all of this while proving to his population, and the rest of the world, that Israel can afford to do anything it wants – including committing a genocide – without ever losing the full support of the US, the only ally that matters to his rogue state.
Evidently, this escalation also cynically serves Netanyahu’s own personal interests. He is now in full messianic mode, openly presenting himself as the liberator of both the Lebanese people (against Hezbollah) and the Iranians (against their own regime).
Capitalising on the genuine horror felt throughout the West over 7 October, he has also succeeded in changing the narrative from one about Israel’s illegitimate occupation and brutality, into a false, self-serving, Manichean “good versus evil” framing, casting Israel as the champion of “civilisation” fighting on behalf of the West against the forces of “barbarism and savagery”.
The West’s attack dog
Sadly, throughout the West, this operation has worked well. The western world, structured by centuries of colonisation and the notion of “inferior races”, including Arabs and Muslims, was always favourable towards such falsehoods.
Israel has always been the West’s main proxy to weaken and bully Arab states and populations. It is the West’s primary attack dog in the Middle East.
Indeed, this horrible massacre of Palestinians is not being accomplished by Israel alone, but by an axis of genocide. Western media have done a good job of concealing the responsibility of western countries in what will probably be the first true enterprise of mass extermination of a people in the 21st century.
Their mostly pro-Israel coverage and strategies of euphemisation have successfully spread the myth that the West is “unable” to pressure Israel to stop its killing and colonisation.
This is an outright lie. These countries have not suddenly been afflicted by powerlessness or a lack of influence. On the contrary, they have all the tools and leverage at their disposal to stop Israel in a matter of weeks, if not days.
An immediate and total embargo on Israel by western and Arab states could be put in place, with far more effectiveness than the ones against Russia or Iran. Israel is a tiny country that remains highly dependent on the West.
An embargo, which could end or be scaled down if Israel stops its genocide, could deprive it of necessary resources by ending imports and exports, stopping all financial transactions, halting trade agreements, and confiscating foreign assets. Some countries have already started to take such measures.
Further tools that western, Arab and other states could use, in whole or in part, include diplomatic and military isolation; ending all travel to and from Israel; and halting all visas and research cooperation. The first measure, however, should be a full and immediate stop to all arms sales.
If western leaders are not using any of these tools, it is not because they are powerless; it is because they don’t want to. The western world has thus rendered itself fully complicit in a genocide that could have been stopped months ago.
Indeed, in the struggle between “civilisation” and “barbarism”, it is the western axis of genocide that falls squarely in the latter camp.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.