Naturally it is politics, not justice or morality, that strongly influences how ICJ judges will decide on Israel's genocide. Exactly the same reason is behind the impotence of the UN. Germany, still racked with guilt over the holocaust, is expected to side with Israel, when the real lesson of “never again” is that no people should exterminate another people, in whole or in part, which is clearly what Israel is doing. Germany looks at the past rather than what is happening now in order to decide on what is happening now. How things will look is all important, not the slaughter of tens of thousands of the faceless.
This is exactly what Israel wants all but its antagonist(s) of the moment to be blinded by and it has worked well. Israel does not want its citizens to be called Israelis, but Jews, for this very reason, to maintain the status of victimhood even when slaughtering those helpless to defend themselves.
Suppose you were on the street and you heard someone shout “They’re killing the Nigerians!” and compare it to how you would react emotionally if instead someone shouted “They’re killing the Jews!” Isn’t simply reading that repellent and evocative? There is no comparison because of all that is known about the holocaust, precisely the reason that so many states have made it law that the holocaust be taught before high school in American public schools. Who knows or cares about Nigerians?
The plain fact is that Jews are no more or less human than any other group. Praise is in order for good deeds and condemnation in order for bad deeds. But, here again, imagine someone saying “the Nigerians were condemned by the ICJ!” vs “the Jews were condemned by the ICJ!” Our emotions respond to what we know about history. Americans know nothing about Nigerians or Nigeria, they know, or at the very least have heard about Jews, Judaism, the Bible, the holocaust, the plucky “story of Israel” that is entirely a tale that Israelis want Americans to hear, they have seen movies with Jews and about Jews, produced by Jews, they have heard stories about Jews, plays about Jews, TV series about the holocaust and they know Jews as neighbors and public figures. Howard and Sarah Greenblatt down the street have been to Israel and they loved it. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis are just two examples of the glitterati who were Jews. Wow, wasn’t Spartacus a great movie! How about beautiful Natalie Portman and Gal Gadot, not only is Gal a Jew but an Israeli.
And the Palestinians? They are just more crazy Arabs, violent, prone to using terror, suicide bombers, Arabs killed a bunch of Americans in Iraq, hit the US on 9/11 and most of all, though one or two might own a quickie mart nearby, are not neighbors, nor public figures, nor featured in media except in stereotypical roles. If you want to see the very worst of this, view the opening scene of the old movie “Cannonball Run II” that could not be more offensively bigoted, under the thin cover of humor, with Ricardo Montalban as an Arab Sheik. It is extremely hard to watch. The Nazis practiced such open bigotry against Jews and we can be thankful that against Jews it would not be tolerated in the US, but with Arabs, who will object?
All this exposure to one group in positive ways and to another solely in negative ways. Is it any surprise who Joe Biden said “we” are standing with before ignoring Congress and illegally committing our military? I have no doubt many ignorant Americans cheered at that and now we are the invincible sword of Israel (the force of light against the force of darkness) in the war of a foreign country against groups (with more likely to come) that did not declare war on us and were not out to get us, but will be in response to our attacks.
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