The blindness of the comfortable
Ambivalence in the face of genocide amounts to complicity. Far right support betrays contempt for humanity.
If you’ve ever asked yourself what you’d have done in 1930s or 1940s France or Germany when the trains rolled past, the answer is: whatever you’re doing now.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has so far claimed more than 46,000 Palestinian lives. Over 100,000 have been injured and 11,000 remain missing, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
An article in The Lancet last year estimated that more than 186,000 people could die indirectly. The Israeli army has detroyed most of the hospitals. Disease, hunger, lack of shelter and cuts in humanitarian funding will kill many more than the bombs and snipers do.
On this basis it’s horrifyingly plausible that as much as 9% of the entire Gazan population could be exterminated. That doesn’t include Israeli politicians’ intentions to ethnically cleanse all 2.1 million Gazans as well as others from the West Bank.
Over 1,700 Israeli and foreign nationals have been killed in attacks in or originated from Gaza, according to Israeli sources.
The Palestine genocide is the most deadly conflict starting in the 21st century, which is why the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, alleging war crimes.
It’s not a war — it’s an attack on a largely defenceless population, resulting in the death, maiming and starvation of tens of thousands of children, women and men.
The West is complicit. The US and UK supply most of the weaponry. Western diplomats greenlight the violence. Many governments fail to condemn the invasion outright or to recognise Palestinian statehood.
Much of the media in countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany enables and facilitates the genocide by shaping the discourse.
When the media isn’t legitimating the war crimes of Netanyahu and co it’s ignoring them. The news cycle has moved on to Musks’s antics and cold weather.
Even worse is the whataboutery, with some supporters of Israel claiming that the news unfairly focuses on Gaza to the exclusion of equally important conflicts elsewhere like Sudan, where the most recent war has directly or indirectly claimed more than 60,000 lives.
I once visited a refugee camp in Maban, northern South Sudan. The misery and hopelessness in the aftermath of Darfur has stayed with me: the eyes of listless families merely surviving horror, with little hope of a human future.
It’s true — the latest Sudanese war is discussed less than Gaza. The lack of coverage is an injustice that might reveal more about our racist lack of concern about Africa (the whataboutists are usually strangely silent the continent) than moral inconsistency. That we don’t talk about Sudan doesn’t make Netanyahu right.
The issue can’t be used to rebut condemnations of Israel’s actions in Palestine. Ranking conflicts flies in the face of morality.
What are you doing now?
Many admirable figures — including some notable Israelis — are writing, protesting and taking direct action. Hundreds of thousands have protested against Israel’s actions in up to 100 countries. Students have conducted sit-ins and demonstrations.
Some voters worldwide rejected parties which explicitly or implicitly supported Israel’s role in the conflict, which influenced several elections this year. The UK Labour party lost four seats to independent pro-Palestine candidates.
The long-standing boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) movement has intensified. It aims to withdraw support from Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions, as well as from companies violating Palestinian human rights.
BDS supporters want financial entities to withdraw investments and to ban business with illegal Israeli settlements, end military trade and free-trade agreements, and suspend Israel's membership in international forums like UN bodies and FIFA.
UK protestors are even breaking into and occupying or damaging Israeli arms factories.
It’s vital to condemn the soldiers, politicians, companies and other institutions with blood on their hands. To actively oppose the destruction of Gaza is clearly to be on the correct side of history.
Too many are silent. Some seem not to speak out because it might cause arguments or affect their job prospects. Others resort to both-sideism, afraid of being called antisemitic. Others feign ignorance, saying it’s too complicated to understand. Many just don’t seem to care unless it affects them or their families.
In times of such atrocity, i’d suggest that most people have an ethical obligation to educate themselves and to engage in some way. Geographic distance or foreignness are no excuses. A dinner-party tiff is a price worth paying.
Apathy keeps the media in business and the governments in power. Whataboutery and silence amount to a pat on the back for the perpetrators. Much of the injustice is possible because ordinary people don’t speak up.
Some even perceive themselves to be benefiting from anti-Muslim propaganda.
These attitudes mirror 1930s Germany. Mary Fulbrook’s excellent book The Bystander Society shows how Germans understood and either acted upon or remained passive about what they knew; and how, in the process, became complicit. A courageous minority opposed the regime. Some pretended not to know or ignored the burning of Jewish businesses because it removed competitors. Others joined the pogroms.
I was shocked to see that 40% of anonymous respondents to a recent poll didn’t think the Israeli state had gone too far in Gaza. Some elitists seem actively to want those they perceive as useless out of the way.
One of Trump’s tricks is to test out his supremacist views on the campaign trail or in office, then use the ensuing hullabaloo and subsequent resignation of the right-minded to enact these ideas in some form. “Send them back” wasn’t just a slogan to get elected, it was a precursor to deportation.
His machinations encourage other far-right would-be or actual despots to attack minorities. The links aren’t only implicit or symbolic. Authoritarians, elitists and anti-democrats worldwide are working together to achieve their aims.
The Israeli state calls the shots, literally, in Washington. Its latest lobbying success was to secure an $8bn arms shipment to Israel from the outgoing Biden administration. Israel’s ruling party supports the far right worldwide. Netanyahu, Trump, Orban, Meloni and Le Pen share common cause.
If we begin to tolerate monstrosities, we become tainted. Next time the authoritarians will ratchet up their brutality. First Gaza, then Syria. Iran next? What will the resurgent far right do in Europe?
The most important thing is that the conflict ends, now. Palestinians matter first and foremost.
But for the rest of us, the genocide is a stain on our moral consciences and it affects everyone, everywhere. Morality applies to all — not one group more than others. The blindness of the comfortable facilitates the disdain that powerful elites feel toward those they believe to be expendable.
The genocide is an extreme manifestation of the violence that supremacists want to inflict on those they consider worthless or less human. The far right either encourage apathy about Gaza or actively support the aggression because it fits their own tyrannical impulses.
The genocide, in sum, symbolises the contempt that the all-powerful feel for the wretched of the earth.
Unless we do something, we’ll be next.
First they came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Martin Niemöller, 1946.