Jamal Kanj
CounterPunch / September 6, 2024
September 1, 2024, twenty-seven Palestinian families woke up to mourn their loved ones, including at least 11 who were killed at a “safe” shelter, Safad School in Zaitune neighborhood east of Gaza city. On the same day, the Israeli occupying army recovered the bodies of six Israeli captives, who died as a direct or indirect result of an Israeli incursion into a tunnel in Rafah.
By the end of the day, the smiling faces and names of these six Israelis were prominently featured across digital and print media, while the murdered Palestinians, were reduced to mere statistics, nameless and faceless. Both groups, however, share one tragic commonality: their demise was caused by the same killer. Bombing without discrimination is a murder without distinction.
Despite being warned of the risk of attempting to release the prisoners by force, Netanyahu opted to sacrifice the Israeli captives to eliminate a political burden that could be seen as an obstacle to achieve his “war goals.” Their disappearance⎯by a deal or death⎯would free Netanyahu’s hand and ease pressure from the public, who otherwise supports his war of genocide in Gaza.
Inarguably, there is an inherent interest for the Palestinian Resistance in protecting the life of the Israelis, simply to exchange them with Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails. On the other hand, the Netanyahu coalition government has a political motive to reduce the value of Israeli prisoners in the hands of the Palestinian, and their death could be an option.
The Israeli public protesting in the streets today, individually and collectively, are responsible for nurturing Netanyahu’s unrealistic war objectives. The findings in a Pew Research poll conducted last March and April revealed that 67% of Israelis supported Netanyahu’s “war goals.” In fact, a staggering 86% believed Gazans should not have self-governance, not even the Palestinian Authority. Less than half of Israelis supported prisoner exchange, and 60% opposed halting the war for any such exchange.
In December, 2023, support for Netanyahu’s war goals was even higher, between 76 and 84 percent. It’s significant to mention that the support for the war among Israeli Jews mirrored that of Jewish Americans. In the U.S. 62% of American Jews approved the Israel’s war conduct, compared to 38% of the general American population.
These statistics reflect a broader issue of deep-seated Israeli Jewish dehumanization of Palestinians. A bigotry germinated in the political Zionist culture, where in the Israeli religious and cultural plurality most Jews perceive themselves to be more equal than non-Jews. Before anyone from the professional victim pack cries out October 7, this predominant attitude among Israeli Jews is neither an anomaly nor a new phenomenon.
In a polling eight years ago, 2016, an undisputed majority of Jewish Israelis (79%) believed that Jews are entitled to “preferential treatment” over non-Jews. When asked if Palestinians should be deported from their homes, the majority of Israelis agreed.
Imagine, the American Jewish leadership protestation if 40% (1/2 of the Israeli percentage) of white or Christian Americans supported a preference over the other. In the meantime, progressive Americans can ruminate on their reaction if a similar percentage of Americans favored expelling Native Americans from their homes.
Palestinians need not imagen, for this is what they face under the American financed Israeli Jewish apartheid.
It is this Israeli public mindset that drove Netanyahu and his racist ministers to take a chance to recover the Israeli prisoners by force, calculating that success would yield significant political rewards from the same public who is protesting today. In case of failure, the retrieval of bodies reduces the value of the exchange for the Palestinian Resistance. In other words, the Netanyahu coalition favors to play victim over dead Israelis rather than releasing Palestinian hostages from Israeli jails.
Currently, there are approximately 97 Israeli captives held in Gaza, with 33 confirmed dead, most due to Israel’s indiscriminate bombings. Additionally, Netanyahu has “successfully” recovered the bodies of 37 dead settlers in the past eleven months. In spite of this blunder, Netanyahu capitalized on the innate anti-Palestinian Israeli Jewish bigotry to maintain strong support among Israelis, and American Jews for the war of genocide in Gaza.
This time, however, the same public who supported Netanyahu’s “war goals,” amassed in the streets of Tel Aviv blaming him for choosing to save his government coalition at the expense of Israeli prisoners. Even U.S. President Joe Biden broke his public silence blaming Netanyahu for not doing enough to reach a deal.
Biden’s latest remarks contradicted his own government officials who falsely absolved the Israeli prime minister regarding the ceasefire negotiation. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claimed Netanyahu had accepted the so called “bridging proposal,” while CIA Deputy Director, David Cohen blamed the Palestinian Resistance for the breakdown in ceasefire talks.
To contextualize the extent of the influence of the Israeli firsters within the Biden administration, consider recent developments in Israel. During last week’s Israeli cabinet meeting, the Minister of War stormed out accusing Netanyahu of endangering the lives of Israeli prisoners. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Israelis filled the streets protesting Netanyahu’s mercurial position on the ceasefire plan. This is while American officials and Israeli firsters, Sayanim, including Zionists like Blinken and Cohen, lie blatantly about Netanyahu’s acceptance of a ceasefire plan when in reality he added 11th-hour demands derailing the plan that was already agreed to by Palestinians.
Western appeasement of Israel, based on the flawed belief that this would give them leverage over Israeli leaders, is rooted in a corrupt philosophy promoted by Israeli firsters, Sayanim. Israeli firsters in the West use their positions to sanctify Israeli Jewish life while they demonize the Palestinian life. In the media, the Sayanim excuse Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, and as government officials, they sanitize Israeli malevolency by forging government expert’s reports helping Israel escape accountability and avoid global scrutiny.
Surrounded by Sayanim, Joe Biden has been beguiled by Israeli firsters throughout his political career. This is one of the many reasons the “sanctified” 6 Israeli Jews count more than the life of the 41,000 “dehumanized” Palestinians.
Jamal Kanj is the author of Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books
