Like all oppressors, the zionist entity displays two contradictory traits: extreme cruelty toward the Palestinians under occupation and fear of their resistance. This has led some Israeli officials to express deep concern about its survival. Take Ehud Barak. He is no pacifist or alarmist since he had served as both the country’s army chief and as prime minister. He has said that the zionist entity may not live to see its eightieth birthday.
The ‘80-year curse’, as it is called, is part of Jewish history. No Jewish state has lasted longer than 80 years. There is no reason to believe its present iteration would live past this timeframe. There are good reasons for this grim prognosis. There are both internal and external reasons for this.
The vast majority of Israeli citizens do not believe it would last long. This explains their obsession with getting a second passport, mostly of some European country. Clearly, they do not believe an Israeli passport provides enough security. When Tel Aviv airport was opened for international flights soon after the Israeli onslaught on Gaza ended in May 2021, some 50,000 Israeli citizens fled the country!
In addition to their historical fear—and it may well come to pass—there are also more pressing immediate concerns. One is the Palestinians’ refusal to be cowed down despite the zionists’ extreme brutality and its brazen support by western regimes.
The latest example of this was witnessed in the execution-style killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11. She was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper outside Jenin refugee camp despite wearing a jacket clearly marked in bold letters as ‘PRESS’. Western regimes led by the US and joined by others like Canada, Britain and a host of Europeans, merely called for an ‘investigation’ into the ‘death’ of Abu Akleh. They could not even bring themselves to admit that she was murdered. By saying she ‘died’, it gave the impression as if this was something natural.
The New York Times (NYT) put a similar misleading headline (May 12) about her execution-style killing. It said, “Shireen Abu Akleh, Trailblazing Palestinian Journalists, Dies at 51”. Compare this to its headline of March 13 regarding Brent Renaud. “Brent Renaud, an American Journalist, is killed in Ukraine”.
Shireen Abu Akleh was also an American citizen but such information was largely missing from media or even official US reports. Why the contrasting descriptions? Further, the Times merely regurgitated Israeli propaganda that there was firing between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli forces. This has since been debunked by eyewitnesses as well as CNN.
Renaud died when the car he was travelling in came under fire at a checkpoint at Irpin, Ukraine. Abu Akleh was specifically targeted by an Israeli sniper. He knew precisely what he was targeting. The bullet was fired using a US-supplied M-16 rifle with a telescopic sight that fired at the small opening between Abu Akleh’s steel helmet and her bullet proof collar. It was a targeted killing. Under netizen pressure, the NYT corrected its headline (see also here) but its pro-Israel bias was clearly evident.
Let us, however, return to the issue of fears about Israel’s survivability. Several factors can be cited. While indulging in extreme cruelty against the Palestinians—targeted killings, home demolitions, night raids on Palestinians’ homes to arrest people, and imprisoning thousands of Palestinians including women and children—it has successfully peddled a narrative of victimhood. The western corporate media simply parrots this nonsensical lie.
Western regimes led by the US but now joined by Britain, France, Germany and Canada among others have also launched vicious campaigns criminalizing calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). In the Queen's speech in parliament last month, the Boris Johnson regime declared it would ban local councils and other public bodies from participating in boycott and divestment campaigns. France has banned marches that criticize Israeli crimes and invasions. Similar restrictive policies have been implemented in Germany.
Both in the US and Canada, similar campaigns have been launched to stifle criticism of Israeli crimes. For instance, 27 states in the US have forbidden companies and educational institutions from joining the BDS campaign.
In Canada, both the federal government and the Ontario provincial government have signed on to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition that equates criticism of Israel with ‘anti-Semitism’. It has faced pushback from academic institutions as well as from many fair-minded Jewish groups. Why are these regimes so desperate to ram down the throats of their citizens policies that clearly violate the fundamental rights of the people? They are supporting an oppressive colonial settler entity in the Middle East.
Therein lies the crux of the matter. Despite being the most ruthless military machine in the Middle East and beyond, the western regimes see in Israel their own past. Canada and the US are colonial settler entities. The European settlers perpetrated genocides against Indigenous peoples in North America. Most of them came from Britain, France, Spain and Portugal.
They do not see anything wrong with Israel indulging in similar genocide of the Palestinian people. In fact, they applaud such despicable conduct because it validates their own past behaviour. The challenge that zionist Israel faces today is that it is virtually impossible for it to wipe out the Palestinians as was done by the European settlers many centuries earlier.
The socio-political and information environments are very different today. The alternative media continues to expose the ugly face of zionism and its barbaric practices against the Palestinian people. Amnesty International has exposed the apartheid nature of Israel, as has the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) in its annual report into human rights violations in Palestine and other occupied Palestinian territories.
The UN report follows the publication of similar findings of Israeli “apartheid” by Human Rights Watch, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, and Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem, Yesh Din, and many other international and regional human rights organizations. Not surprisingly, the zionist regime clamped down on Palestinian human rights organizations for documenting its violations of human rights of the Palestinians and advocating for accountability by all duty bearers. In October 2021, Israel outlawed six Palestinian human rights organizations, accusing them of aiding and abetting “terrorism”.
Concurrent with these, the Resistance Front is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Comprising Islamic Iran, Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Palestinian Islamic groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Syria, Ansar-Allah in Yemen and resistance groups in Iraq have all become formidable opponents of the zionist entity.
It is, however, the solidarity of movements in western countries and the growth of BDS movements on campuses that frightens Israel so much. Similarly, its own population has no confidence in its long-term survival.
The end of Israel is writ large on the wall. The zionists have a simple choice: they can live as normal human beings with the Palestinians or seek alternative destinations to escape to. If they choose to stay, the Palestinians will show magnanimity despite the zionists’ decades of barbaric oppression.