Before the Holocaust, in 1937, Adolf Eichmann was assigned by the Nazi Party to negotiate with the Zionist security organization regarding the transfer of European Jews to another region, possibly Palestine. However, for various reasons, this plan could not be realized at the time, leading Hitler to implement his “Final Solution.” What the Nazis could not accomplish was later executed by other imperialist powers. The land of Palestine was allocated to Jewish refugees as a resolution to Europe's “Jewish problem.” In this manner, the Jewish issue was projected onto the Middle East, where it manifested as an apartheid and fascist regime imposing its will on Palestinians and other Middle Easterners.

This regime, which adheres to racial purity and superiority, openly articulates this ideology within its apparatus but is rarely labeled as fascist. It engages in warfare across Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, and nearly every country in the region, yet is not considered terrorist. It has usurped Palestinian lands and continues to expand but is not deemed an aggressor or usurper. It kills, imprisons, and tortures Palestinians, transforming their settlements into prisons and slums through wall-building and settlement expansion, yet it is not accused of human rights violations. Even after this year's list of crimes committed by Israel, which raised the voices of some human rights institutions and officials (for instance, the ICJ ruling in July 2024), no government or public force has been able to stop Israel even for a few hours. Thus, it remains the most egregious stain on the global conscience.

The issue is not about peace and tolerance. Who can engage in mercy and tolerance with an executioner? Nor is it merely a matter of extremism versus moderation. The essence of Israel is rooted in aggression. Whether religious or secular, extremist or moderate, the differences among them lie only in their methods of aggression. Even secular Israelis share the theological belief that the Holy Land was granted to them by God.^[1] However, it is understood that this grant is not theological but rather the historical result of actions taken by malevolent actors. Israel's crimes cannot be reduced to the extremism or moderation of its rulers and citizens. As Slavoj Žižek has noted, extremists tell Israeli moderates: "We are doing exactly what you want, just more openly and quickly. So, on what grounds do you condemn us?" The moderates respond: "Be patient; we are pursuing the same goals, but in a more reasonable and acceptable manner."^[2] Of course, Žižek later showed that he didn't believe his own writings. In the words of Gabriel Rockhill, he was just a "capitalist clown" who went so far as to not disturb the court's etiquette.

Our awareness is often heightened only when there is an overtly unequal conflict, yet even in periods of apparent calm, a grave reality persists—the gradual destruction of Palestine and Palestinians. In Palestine: The Everyday Occupation, Saree Makdisi writes:

Although the occupation of the West Bank is ultimately enforced through military might, it is accompanied by a creeping occupation via daily bureaucracy and paperwork. This soft brutality, manifested through permits, residency papers, and other documents, has reduced the lives of Palestinians to a slow death by installments. They must obtain authorization for virtually all movements and activities within their homeland, living in a Kafkaesque scenario within the world's largest open-air prison. Palestine—this name delineates the boundary between justice and injustice.^[3]

Arthur Schopenhauer once compared journalists to dogs, noting that they only bark when something moves.^[4] Reactions to the Palestinian issue are similarly sporadic, if not worse. It is only when Israeli fighter jets take to the skies and the bloody corpses and bombed homes of Palestinians are displayed that the world's attention is drawn to the situation. Even then, some absurdly blame the victims, referencing "Palestinian rocket fire" and calling for a "balanced" peace process. This position implicitly aligns with the Israeli aggressors. It is not until we observe the state of peace—or rather, the lack thereof—that the essence of the situation becomes clear; that is when there is no reported military conflict, the true nature of the ongoing struggle is revealed.

In such moments, we realize that the opposite of war is not peace but rather an invisible, everyday form of conflict. This silent war involves less visible bloodshed, where the suffering of Palestinians is systematic and bureaucratic. Israel, indifferent to international agreements and all parties involved, continues to expand its territory, build settlements, and confine Palestinians to increasingly smaller areas.^[5] In this context, the power dynamics are stark. Israel’s advanced military capabilities, including missile defense systems and influential lobbies in various countries, as well as Western and Arab support and media coverage, overshadow conventional notions of war and peace. The term "Palestinian rocket fire" can be interpreted, using Roman Jakobson’s linguistic theory, not as an informational act but as a mere signal of existence, akin to Steve McQueen’s desperate shout in the film Papillon: “Hey, bastards, I’m here.” The existence of Israel is realized through the non-existence of Palestinians. Palestinians can only "make peace" with Israel when they cease to exist, much like Jews could only have "made peace" with Hitler under similar dire circumstances. Erich Fried’s poignant reflection captures this sentiment:

When we were oppressed / I was one of you. / How can I remain with you / when you become oppressors? / Your longing was / to be like the other nations / that murdered you. / Now you have become like them. / You outlived those / whose cruelty you suffered. /Does not their cruelty / live on in you?^[6]

This cycle, referenced by Fried, is not merely poetic but reflects a profound reality. Dominico Losurdo’s book Western Marxism provides valuable insights into how distorted theories by figures such as Nietzsche, Arendt, Hart, Negri, Agamben, and others have been complicit in producing ideological confusion aligned with colonialism and imperialism.^[7] These writers, through their translations and representatives, have become intellectual proponents of the Iranian middle class, supplying theoretical fodder for their discourse.

Totalitarianism and Colonialism

Losurdo suggests that during the rise of Nazism, many analysts noted that Hitler represented a culmination of European colonialism and barbarism; fascism closely tied to colonial traditions. Initially, the concept of totalitarianism was used to elucidate the connection between Nazism and colonialism. Totalitarianism, the same brutality previously inflicted on colonized peoples, had now permeated Europe. Even Gandhi, despite his simplicity, recognized: “We have a form of Hitlerian rule in India, though it is disguised with different terms.”^[8] In this period, Hitler, influenced by “British India,” created a “German India” within Europe, based on racial superiority and employing methods similar to those used by the US against Native Americans. Karl Jaspers recounts an anecdote where US students were asked to devise a punishment for Hitler. A black girl suggested that they paint Hitler’s skin black and force him to live in the US.^[9]

Frantz Fanon articulated this connection with regard to France as well, questioning the difference between fascism and colonialism in a colony: “Yes, recently Nazism has turned all of Europe into a colony.”^[10] Hannah Arendt initially accepted this close association, describing Nazism during World War II as a “terrifying form of imperialism.”^[11] At that time, Arendt praised the Stalinist Soviet Union for its supposedly fair and modern handling of anti-Semitism and racism, lamenting that Soviet approaches to resolving ethnic and national disputes based on territorial equality were being overlooked by both friends and foes of the Soviet Union.^[12] After Hitler’s defeat, Arendt wrote: “Fascism has been defeated this time [though she does not specify who defeated it, how, or at what cost], we have not yet eradicated the root of evil, which is deeply entrenched in anti-Semitism, racism, and imperialism.” Arendt, in a letter to The New York Times, co-signed by Albert Einstein, protested the massacre at the village of Deir Yassin in Palestine and called for popular mobilization, condemning the actions of the Israeli regime as fascist.^[13]

In the third part of her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, however, Arendt obscured the connection between Nazism and colonialism, categorizing Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union under the concept of totalitarianism. When Arendt began writing this book, she referred to it as a work on “anti-Semitism and imperialism” and “racial imperialism,” positioning the Third Reich as the highest stage of imperialism, with the Soviet Union as the principal champion against it and an inspiration for global liberation and anti-colonial movements. However, in a questionable and absurd turn, by focusing on totalitarianism as a concept that equated fascism and communism, Arendt’s leftist deviations led her to align with right-wing perspectives. Her theories served only to justify and rationalize Western liberalism and its imperialistic-fascist crimes. This continues to this day, with her framing of totalitarianism have created flawed and confused dichotomies that obscure the reality of imperialist totalitarianism and its brutality while emphasizing its maladies and consequences. The totalitarianism of the market is concealed, and fragmented powers are held responsible. Political Islam, ideological and totalitarian communism, repressive and violent, are contrasted with the liberal West, portrayed as open, nice, free, and benevolent. In such foolish conceptualizations, Hamas, the Houthis, Gaddafi, and any force opposing Western dominance are labeled as the main evils and perpetrators of terrorism, while the US and NATO are hailed as human rights saviors and liberators. However, correct political action cannot be achieved through flawed conceptualizations.

According to Losurdo, one critical moment revealing the theoretical folly of figures who follow in Arendt’s footsteps, such as Michael Hardt and Anonio Negri, and their failure to understand Israeli crimes was the 2011 protests in Tel Aviv. During this period, thousands of Israelis took to the streets protesting high living costs, and Hardt and Negri, under the guise of Marxism and collective societal relations, praised these protests. The crucial point is that the Israeli protesters, unlike Hardt and Negri, were aware that their protests were not meant to disrupt Israel’s ongoing aggression against Palestine. An academic in Jerusalem wrote in a US journal that what concerns Palestinians is that Israel is ultimately tribal and racist, aiming to “suffer Palestinians so much that they will leave the region sooner or later,” a form of ethnic cleansing that Hardt and Negri downplayed by emphasizing the collective protests of Israelis.^[14] The polemics of Hart and Negri, beyond their extensive critiques of state sovereignty, ultimately exonerate the very states that dominate globally and engage in intervention and coercion. This reflects Marx’s observation about Bakunin, who, despite his radical anti-state stance, ended up excluding England, the capitalist state and the true spearhead of bourgeois society at the time, from his critique.

The Crime of Israel

Israel is not merely a state but an international terrorist organization headquartered in Palestine, engaged in daily terrorism and occupation that we, in the Middle East, have been grappling with under the guise of colonialism for centuries. Africa has faced similar forms of exploitation. As one Western official put it, Africa suffers from a lack of waste! This is how fascism manifests as imperialism; the West continually exports its capitalist contradictions to the periphery, sending its waste to Africa and its production to East Asia, secures resources from West Asia, and ensures its security by outsourcing insecurity globally. The issue of the Jews is addressed through their displacement to the Middle East and, in the final solution, the extermination of Palestinians. From this perspective, Israel is one of the most fundamental bases and guardians of the existing global order, a point where the world's blood and filth have spilled out. It shows how imperialism is nothing but fascism and what expropriation and forced labor camps truly mean.

Israel represents the pinnacle of capital, just as Palestine embodies the plight of workers worldwide—those dispossessed and rendered stateless, forced to remain in a concentration camp-like existence. Any perspective, even those sympathetic to Palestine, peace-loving, or critical of Israeli crimes that do not consider the very existence of Israel as a crime, plays a role in the occupied land of Israel. The issue is not merely to seek out Israel’s crimes but to recognize that Israel itself is a crime—a racist regime based on genocide, its existence dependent on the non-existence of Palestinians.

Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry for Ghassan Kanafani reflects that “a Palestinian is only a Palestinian in the presence of death.”^[15] Darwish inspires us to understand what it means to be Palestinian: not a specific ethnicity or religion, but anyone who lives in such a situation. Anyone living in the face of death, who has been stripped of everything, who has become stateless in their homeland, and who has nothing but a body to sell or lease. A person displaced either in their homeland or abroad carries the burden of a labor camp wherever they go. Darwish continues by urging everyone to return because Ghassan scattered the pieces of his body to create a new unity. This unity shows how every country and city contains Palestine, albeit a small one. Palestine represents a point where exceptional conditions are the norm for the oppressed. It illustrates that socialism is necessary to prevent such barbarism. International capital and imperialism ultimately manifest as fascism, with its essence concentrated and epitomized in Israel. Supporting Israel, being indifferent, or even advocating for peace and condemning both sides amounts to supporting barbarism and fascism and showing indifference to the fate of other humans.

Kanafani, when offered the opportunity to study in California by a friend, firmly declined and wrote, “I am striking out all our dreams and promises.” He had promised to become wealthy and successful, but after seeing his niece’s leg amputated in an Israeli bombing, he made his decision. He wrote to his friend that Nadia threw herself over her younger brother and sister to save them. She could have escaped and saved herself, but she chose not to. “No, my friend, I will not come to you. It is you who must return, see Nadia’s missing leg, and understand what life and existence truly mean.”^[16]

During his time in Kuwait, Kanafani sent money to his family, a reminder of his humanity and connections to others. He chose not to go to the US, stating that the escape needed was not from Palestine or being Palestinian but from selfishness, indifference, and personal success without regard to the interconnected fate of humanity. He sought to escape Israel’s form of Judaism, as the only way to save the world, including Judaism itself, is to free humanity from Israel and make Palestinian existence a universal cause that cannot be ignored.

Democracy and Imperialism

Marx emphasized that it is insufficient for theory to simply align with reality; reality must also align with theory. In recent years, this dynamic has become evident, revealing that democracy, rather than being a form of government that fosters freedom, is, as the most advanced form of bourgeois dominance, deeply entangled with aggression and colonialism. If Marx suggested seeking English democracy in India, we must now look for Western civilization, freedom, and democracy in Palestine. Just as India was England's India and Nazi-era Europe was Germany's India, Palestine can now be termed the United States’ India.

This perspective illuminates how the so-called "only democracy in the Middle East" reveals its true nature, demonstrating that these aggressions and crimes are not deviations but extensions of democracy, liberalism, and human rights. Influenced by Georg Simmel's dialectic, it becomes clear why human rights can mirror imperialist aggression. Both, beyond their apparent content, reduce humans not as ends in themselves but as objects and tools. Just as philanthropists who steal with one hand and give with the other, or those who advocate for women's rights while being abusers, reducing others to mere objects for provocation or pity, human rights can also be a discourse of aggression. It is no coincidence that when US planes flew over Afghanistan, people could not discern whether bombs or humanitarian aid would fall on them. This irony was even more pronounced in Palestine, where US humanitarian aid led to the death and injury of several Palestinians. Similarly, England uses some of its arms sales profits to Saudi Arabia to aid Yemeni children, and Germany hosts refugees displaced by its wars. Thus, wherever you hear about democracy and human rights, brace yourself for potential imperialistic slaughter and aggression—unless, like Hardt and Negri, you view NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia as a "human rights action."

Human rights, democracy, and civil institutions, along with many other bourgeois myths, act as missionaries of imperialism. At least in recent years, it has become clear how much "open," "democratic," and "non-totalitarian and non-ideological" societies seriously uphold "freedom of speech," "cultural diversity," and "non-interference of politics in sports and culture." All their festivals and awards are ideologically driven, repressive, and aggressive. From the boycott of Dostoevsky and Russian cats to the promotion of the most trivial and trashy works and celebrities as art and artists, simply because they create dub smashes for the Western powers.^[17] Concepts, institutions, characters, and performances that once had grandeur and splendor now only remain as a ridiculous spectacle with a bit of force. Let us not forget that Don Quixote's absurdity was not merely a personal trait but stemmed from the fact that he was a knight in an era when chivalry was no longer relevant. The transformation of declarations, treaties, festivals, and their sessions into a circus, and the emergence of clowns like Zelensky, Reza Pahlavi, Masih Alinejad, and Nazanin Boniadi, entirely reflect the obsolescence of these institutions, concepts, and their agents. Marx describes this wisdom: the old regime modernized is nothing but the clown of a world system whose real heroes are dead.^[18] History completes its work and, in transporting an old structure to the graveyard, goes through many stages. The final stage of a global-historical structure is its comedic phase. But why does history move this way? Because humanity must bid farewell to the past with a joyful face.

Arthur Miller has a short story called "The Bees." The story goes that one day a bee stings the hand of a family child. The father, seeking revenge, kills a few of them but discovers that they have a nest inside the wall of the room. He buys several cans of insecticide and pours them into the nest. For a while, there are no bees, but they reappear. An acquaintance suggests sulfur candles; even though he feels guilty about killing the bees, he does this as well. He does not stop there and pours another can of insecticide into the wall and seals all the cracks with cement and tar. The narrator recounts that after that incident, he sold the house and divorced his wife. One night, while having dinner with his new wife, a man rushed in and said he had bought a house that he might have owned once and asked if he had ever had problems with bees. The man tells him all the experiences and things he can do. But he adds that all of this is just to keep the bees away for a while; otherwise, it is better to sell the house. Whether or not to divorce his wife was not something he could advise, but leaving the house was the only possible way because he was sure that the house belonged to those bees. This is why Palestinians say that death will not overcome the US. The house belongs to them. Whether Israelis abandon their religion/ethnicity is not something we can advise them on, but the only way out for them is to leave Palestine.

Reactionary Ideology in the Export of Capital

Benjamin Netanyahu once claimed in an interview that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East. We stand as a bastion of freedom and democracy in a region that is dominated by tyranny. Our values are your values; our struggle is your struggle,” which Europe and the US must support against Islamic reactionaries.^[19] This positions Israel as an imperialist garrison in the region and a defensive wall of the civilized and progressive West against the reactionary and savage Middle Easterners. Such a false dichotomy has led many individuals and movements to either remain silent about Israel or even support it.

The prevailing dogma defines the West/Secularism/Liberalism as progressive and peaceful versus the East/Religion/Middle East as reactionary and terrorist. In his insightful article, “The Thrilling Romance of Orthodoxy,” Slavoj Žižek questions those who, in their opposition to religion and terrorism, become more dangerous than the terrorists themselves: “We neither praise nor forgive the fanatic who destroys this world for the love of another world. But what can be said about the fanatic who destroys this world out of hatred for another world?”^[20] One might further inquire: what about those who kill without any ideals or beliefs? While religious fundamentalist groups have clear agendas, what about military companies and states not generally classified as religious and ideological? The crimes committed by forces devoid of specific dogmas become utilitarian (in this case, war, killing, and destruction) in their dogma and ideology. Religious fundamentalism, in comparison, seems like petty mischief. Terry Eagleton criticizes the prevailing notion that the Soviet Union was entirely ideological and totalitarian, while the overthrow of Allende and Mossadegh by the US is seen as a “realistic adaptation to realities” and pragmatic politics aligned with national interests.^[21] However, Marx taught us that ideology is not merely a mental construct but is also embodied in the material world, where commodities are prioritized over human concerns to pursue profit. Marx posited that ideology is not just a distorted consciousness but also a distorted and fetishized reality.^[22] Religion, similarly, is viewed as a distorted consciousness of a distorted world.

Marx emphasized that our task is not to view earthly matters as if they are heavenly but to examine heavenly matters as earthly. Marx considered atheism a negative form of theism and a type of religion that is entirely distinct from communism.^[23] Michael Löwy notes that religion was not a major concern for Marx, who spoke less about it outside his early years.^[24] Engels showed more interest in religion and had a different stance, evaluating it in a political context that could intersect with political protests. Marx himself initially described religion as the sign of the oppressed and the spirit of a world without spirit before characterizing it as the opium of the people.

According to Alan Wood, Marx framed Feuerbach’s critique of religion in a materialistic vocabulary. Feuerbach argued that human essence in religion appears as an alien divine being that rules over people and makes them feel worthless and sinful.^[25] However, Marx believed that human essence is not merely a type of consciousness but social labor; the alien being, domination, and state of worthlessness are not just unpleasant illusions but horrifying realities. In Capital, Marx writes more explicitly that humans, just as they are dominated by the creations of their minds in religion, are under the domination of the creations of their own hands in the capitalist mode of production. From this perspective, Marx was anti-religious and opposed to the domination of the created over the creator. His solution, in the manner of the young Hegelians, was not just to critique false consciousness but to overturn the inverted situation where false consciousness is a delusional and gratifying representation.^[26]

Thus, for Marx, religion, ideology, despotism, totalitarianism, and other concepts are not approached with a simplistic liberal perspective. Institutions of society, its political forms, and its philosophical and religious ideologies must all be examined to the capitalist mode of production. This is why Bertolt Brecht observed: "Those who are against fascism without being against capitalism, those who lament the barbarity that results from barbarity itself, are like those who want their share of the calf but do not want the calf to be slaughtered. They want to eat the calf but not see its blood. They would be satisfied if the butcher washed his hands before dividing the meat. They are not against the relations that produce barbarity, only against the barbarity itself."^[27]

Marx repeatedly demonstrated how the excessive progress of capitalism not only ends up allying with the most reactionary forces but, due to its necessity for destruction for the sake of construction and the profit from warmongering and capital export, becomes the most reactionary and destructive force in the world—a Frankensteinian monster that builds with one hand and destroys with the other. Reaction and ideology are seen not in the export of revolution but in the export of capital. Even from a non-Marxist perspective, it can be noted that Netanyahu and those who speak of "Western values against the threat of Islamic fundamentalism" ignore the fact that Bush began the attack on Iraq with Christian verses and that Israel, founded on a religious narrative, justifies its massacres and invasions with reference to Judaism and ethnicity. It is only Islamic fundamentalism that is deemed dangerous and bad, while Christian terrorism, Jewish terrorism, or, more fundamentally, the terrorism of capital and market fundamentalism are not considered against the values of Western liberal democracy.

Israel and its criminal struggles, along with the implicit support for it, are central to such relations and such an era. Following Marx, just as the Pantheon of Rome contains the statues of all the gods of the nations, Israel embodies the sins and crimes of all governments. It is an exceptional state that compresses the general rule of bourgeois states; Israel not only simultaneously practices religious fundamentalism, racism, colonialism, territorial aggression, exploitation, expropriation of Palestinians, imprisonment, torture, forced labor camps, and bureaucratic policing to the highest degree, but it can also carry out these acts as an outpost of the US and Europe. Israel embodies and commits all these crimes, and the more it struggles, the deeper it sinks.

Israel’s Curse

In a story published in a Persian detective novel magazine many years ago, the narrator tells the story of a man named Bruce who sneaks out of his house at two in the morning, after his wife, Bessie, has fallen asleep, to meet his lover, Helen, as usual. He gets in her car and the conversation continues by saying that he cannot keep Helen without killing his wife. Bruce tells her to wait until he gets back. He goes home, and strangles Bessie, but when he returns he cannot find Helen. In anger and anxiety, he goes to the boarding house where Helen lives. She is not there either. In his surprise and rage, he beats the man next door and kills the woman who owns the boarding house. He looks for Helen all night, but when he returns home, exhausted, finds Helen next to Bessie's body, from where she states that she cannot be with him, someone who has committed murder. Bruce kills her to get her. Israel is also under such a spell. It wants to usurp Palestine, but to usurp it, it must kill Palestinians and destroy Palestine. For this crime to occur, crimes must have been committed in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and the entire Middle East. And the more crimes it commits, the more inevitable its own downfall becomes. Even if it kills all the people of Palestine, it cannot reach it. Because it does not belong to this region. Because it has no other meaning than being a US garrison and projecting the European Jewish problem onto the Middle East. The name of this story was "The End of Crimes," but there is no end to Israel’s crimes except Israel's end, for its foundation is based on crime.

There is a joke about Israelis that they say to Palestinians: "We will never forgive you for the crimes you forced us to commit against you!" This joke not only highlights their self-righteousness and charlatanism but is also somewhat frighteningly reminiscent of Hollywood! In Hollywood cinema, to justify violent and vengeful brutality, most of the film focuses on convincing the audience’s conscience that the person to be punished and killed deserves it, that they are vile and deserve the consequences of their actions, and so on. By the end of the film, the most violent acts are performed, and no one is upset; instead, everyone enjoys the sick satisfaction. After Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, pro-Israeli media engaged in a Goebbels-like propaganda campaign, attributing the most heinous crimes to the Palestinians, creating justification for the most brutal massacres. Under the guise of revenge, it turned into genocide. Under the pretext of fighting against Islamism, terrorism, and Hamas, it accelerated the process of cleansing Palestine of Palestinians. Ironically, this operation was presented by the Israeli state as revolutionary resistance against terrorism and fundamentalism.

Brecht, in his play Mother Courage and Her Children, writes in a dialogue between two characters: “But in war, the weak are killed. The weak are killed in peace as well.” This dialogue’s scenario applies nowhere more intensely than in Palestine. Therefore, the issue is not about peace at all. The establishment and continued existence of Israel are nourished by Palestinian blood. In a scene from the film Chinatown, after Jack Nicholson's character has his nose cut off during his search for truth, someone asks him if his nose bothers him. The detective humorously replies, "No, only when I breathe!" Similarly, discussing peace only in the context of Palestinian armed resistance while ignoring Israel's daily occupation and cleansing is nothing more than support for genocide.

The media coverage refers to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which involved Hamas and other Palestinian groups, as "Hamas's terrorist attacks on Israel." Conversely, Israel's attacks are reported as "Israeli strikes on Hamas positions." Hospitals, schools, and all of Palestine and the Middle East are portrayed as Hamas positions, allowing Israel to attack wherever it deems necessary. The mainstream media's depiction is not just distorted or misleading; it is a 180-degree reversal of the truth. Ironically, Hamas is portrayed as attacking Israel and occupying positions wherever it strikes.

Are There Good Israelis?

Yes, there may be good Israelis, but not good enough to leave Israel! One can only be good and honorable in a place established through occupation, aggression, and murder by leaving it. A good, decent person cannot live in such a bastion drenched in blood. Yes, there may be wealthy and respectable bankers and industrialists, but as Marx pointed out to Proudhon and others, the issue is not about the greed or decency of capitalists.^[28] The capitalist order is based on expropriation and exploitation through wage labor. If a banker or wealthy person willingly returns their wealth to society, if an industrialist hands over factory management to the workers, if a landowner voluntarily transfers private ownership to society, then there would be no problem. However, such occurrences do not happen because no owner or wealthy person will voluntarily return what they have stolen from society; rather, it must be forcibly taken from them. They can only be as good as they can afford to return a fraction of what they have stolen with reluctance. Similarly, Israelis may tell their government to occupy and kill less aggressively, but by remaining they ensure that the essence of occupation and cleansing is maintained.

Italian novelist Dino Buzzati wrote a short story about a soldier, Johannes, returning home from war. His mother, brother, and sister, after a long wait, joyfully embrace him. However, he is dazed. Even when told that his fiancée is waiting for him, he merely averts his sorrowful gaze and, with a bitter smile, says: "I must leave soon! My friend is waiting outside!" His mother asks why he doesn't invite his friend in, but the soldier refuses, saying it’s not possible. She insists on bringing some food and water for him, but he again declines and says he must go, bidding farewell. Johannes, in these fleeting moments, is indifferent to everything he once cherished—neither his favorite foods, his room, nor anything else. Johannes ultimately leaves with a man in black whom he had been hiding his wound from until the last moment. His mother realizes, as they head towards the horizon, that her son is embarking on an eternal journey, and the man in black is not a friend but an enemy who allowed Johannes to see his family only before death. The situation in Palestine bears a striking resemblance to this scenario. Advocates speak of peace or propose a two-state solution, much like an innocent, uninformed mother who doesn't realize that the one outside has come to slaughter her son. One cannot invite him in or offer him bread and water. Even in peace, he awaits to kill you. He is the enemy and the jailer; freedom cannot be achieved without killing him, as his existence is based on imprisoning, torturing, and destroying you. One cannot live, enjoy food, drink, or a beloved in moments of waiting for death and the jailer’s presence. One cannot live in a prison; it is impossible. In Kanafani’s words, negotiating and making peace with Israel is like negotiating and making peace with a sword at one’s neck.

A recently shared image from Palestine showed a mother washing her children amid the ruins and debris left by Israel. Herta Müller has a short story in which a family takes turns bathing; first, their newborn, then the mother, followed by the father, grandmother, and finally, the grandfather.^[29] Müller repeats that the tub was still warm for the next person. The family then sits together, clean, waiting for the Saturday night movie. In Palestine, however, from the eldest to the youngest, they bathe, and their cleanliness may well be a prelude to martyrdom. In a place called Palestine, where the world has watched nearly a century of invasion, crime, and barbarism in silence, where life flows alongside death, displacement, and captivity, it is uncertain how long the warm water will last for Palestinians to cleanse their children for martyrdom.

How many more generations will remain to drown in the world's filth? How many more will be forgotten in the cold of minds? How long can the heat of life and vitality cleanse and wash others from them? Both before and after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, during which Israeli slaughter and invasion of Palestine reached terrifying intensity, no international body has managed to halt Israel's crimes, nor any NGO. No treaty, resolution, or human rights organization has been able to pause the occupation of Palestine and the massacre of Palestinians because they are part of the problem. A multitude of media and organizations supported this apartheid by equating Hamas with Israel, and many others remained silent and started to make a fuss around it as a child play. Terry Eagleton provides an example: imagine a spokesperson from a board declaring, "If this strike continues, people in the streets will die from the lack of ambulances."^[30] This statement is true, but the striking workers have the right to view the spokesperson as a mere mercenary. The driving force behind this statement is "return to work," not humanitarianism. The ideological force behind such statements is also the silence and implicit support for Israel.

The issue of Palestine is not only incomparable in terms of its duration and severity with any other oppression but also its centrality as it reflects the symptom of the prevailing world order, a diagnosis that starkly shows our world. The Armageddon that Israel represents to others. The common understanding perceives crime only in terms of bombs and bullets. However, the other side of this issue involves violence as soft and gentle as a courtesan, yet it is committed with calm and kindness. This perspective sheds light on many issues and exposes numerous dualities. For example, when exaggerating Stalin's massacres, people often overlook the millions who died from unemployment, homelessness, and stress due to the abstract economic orders of capitalism. They ignore how many lives were shattered by the policies of the World Bank and the IMF. They label a dictator like Hitler as heartless, yet fail to see how Mr. Money and Ms. Capital have turned the world into a brothel. Lenin viewed revolution not as unchecked violence but as an end to structured and entrenched brutality. Those who suppress people under the pretext of violence and social collapse fail to see that the marginalized already suffer from continuous destruction and death. Similarly, those who advocate for peace between Israel and Palestine while blaming Hamas for the conflict do not understand that Israel not only kills like a military officer during war but also lives as a harlot even in peace.

In this context, Israel's Foreign Minister, without any pretense, referred to recognizing Palestine as a reward for terrorism, dismissing those who refuse to understand that Israel's existence depends on the non-existence of Palestine. Just as one could not say, "Some Nazis were nice," one cannot believe that some Israelis are good, peace-loving, freedom-seeking, or otherwise. Being in Israel means violating all of these ideals. As David Hume said, "time alone gives strength to authority and gradually influences people's minds, aligning them with any power and presenting it as just and reasonable." Israel hopes that time will cover up its original sin and legitimize it as a nation-state. This is not the case and will not be. According to Eagleton, their establishment remains alive in memory as rooted in displacement and occupation, thus facing special legitimacy issues. Like Macbeth, they are plagued by having come to power through illegitimate means, making their victory taste like ashes. And, like Macbeth, they will discover that power without security is meaningless and that security continually eludes them.^[31]

Their Morals and Ours

The ultimate victory of a discourse is when even its adversaries are compelled to use its vocabulary. We should not define ourselves by our enemy’s concepts or view the world from their perspective. Any discourse or force that reduces the issue to “war and peace,” “extremism and moderation,” “Islamic fundamentalism,” “Hamas and Israel conflict,” “terrorism and human rights and democracy,” and so on, has already sanitized Israel, accepting it as a “normal” state. Such interpretations and engagements with reality through these concepts are part of the problem, as they are complicit with imperialistic aggression rather than enabling resistance and struggle. Lenin pointed out that even the most liberal and radical men of free Britain became real Genghis Khans when in power in India. And hasn’t this formula been repeated ad nauseam in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and especially Palestine? The most democratic, communist, secular, LGBTQ-supporting, peace-loving, vegan, and colorful Israelis and their supporters become uniform in their approach to Palestine, behaving no differently from Hitler or Genghis Khan, sharing a conspiratorial nod and handshake over occupation and cleansing, otherwise, they would have left.

In his film titled A Short Film about Killing, Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski focuses more on the forces and factors that lead to murder, rather than the murderer himself, preparing the perpetrator for the act of killing. In other words, it moves murder away from being a unidimensional act and gives it social dimensions. Killing manifests as the outcome of a combination of forces, hence the murderer always has accomplices. Therefore, the religious notion emphasized in sacred texts—that killing one person is akin to killing all—takes on a new hue. In expanding this idea, one can say that it is not only the victim who possesses a collective aspect, but the murderer also acquires a social and collective nature; killing one person becomes an act committed by society, by creating such possibilities, through silence, inaction, and so on.

In the murder scene, which Kieslowski decides to depict with meticulous detail, the murderer tells the driver to stop in a secluded area. He wraps a rope around the driver's neck to strangle him. The driver struggles with all his might and honks the car horn as loud and long as possible, hoping someone might come to his rescue. Not far away, a man on a bicycle passes by calmly, indifferent. The horn is annoying, but no one hears it. Only a cow grazing nearby turns its head, serving as a rebuke to human society and its indifference to the surroundings. Let us not forget that later, the lawyer laments, "I was happy in the same café where the murderer sat mournfully, preparing for the kill." In any case, if at the moment of the murder, someone had stuck their head out the window and shouted, "Turn off that horn, you filthy nuisance," it could have been seen as a short film in the face of the longest crime in history committed by Israel; a murderer who is not alone but emerges from the dominant global order led by the United States and Europe, and carries out these crimes with their collaboration and the silence and inaction of others. And when the Palestinians honk the horn, saying, "A nation is perishing here," many poke their heads out of their private yards, saying, "Don't make noise, you troublesome terrorists."^[32]

In one of his epistles to the Corinthians, Saint Paul refers to the “crucified Christ,” asserting that he did not come with eloquence or human wisdom but chose to focus solely on the fact that “Jesus Christ was crucified.” Paul illustrates that Christian faith begins with recognition and devotion to this singular event. Similarly, Palestine as the “crucified” must be remembered; everything else must be forgotten except the reality that “Palestine is crucified.” By proclaiming that Palestine is occupied and Palestinians are being massacred, the concepts of justice and injustice become evident. Badiou observes that unlike other Gospels, which portray miracles and prophecies and reduce Christ to a mere magician, Paul emphasizes only the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. According to Badiou, other aspects serve as distractions that obscure the essence of Christ’s message. Without Paul's writings, the message of Christ would remain ambiguous. Notably, Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote a screenplay set in the contemporary world based on Paul’s words, but his murder, often attributed to fascists, prevented its realization. According to Badiou:

Pasolini saw the question of Christianity as intertwined with the question of communism, or, in other words, saw the question of sainthood connected with the question of revolutionary struggle. Paul sought, in a revolutionary manner, to dismantle a society founded on social inequality, imperialism, and slavery.^[33]

Albert Camus has a short story set in French-occupied Algeria. In this story, an Arab who has killed his cousin is handed over by a French gendarme to a French teacher named Daru, who is the principal of a school, to be turned over to a French court. Initially, Daru refuses, but he eventually relents out of necessity. He is uncertain and apprehensive, fearing that the prisoner might escape during the night. However, the Arab does not flee. The next morning, Daru provides him with provisions and shows him two paths: one leading to the courthouse and the other towards the Arab encampments where he could find refuge. The Arab chooses to go to prison. When Daru returns to the school, he finds the phrase "You delivered our brother; you will pay the price" scrawled on the blackboard in uneven handwriting.

It is not difficult to decode Camus's symbolism and realize that he intends to portray the misunderstood and isolated radical who, in his commitment to freedom, cannot be bound to either side of the conflict. Daru, or rather Camus in the story, remains indifferent to both the gendarme and the Algerian Arab. Throughout the story, he treats the "murderous Arab" with nobility and a sense of responsibility, aiming to teach him about freedom, responsibility, and choice, resulting in the Arab accepting his crime and choosing to face the court. Upon returning to the school and reading the message, Camus and Daru lament in their intellectual, radical, and freedom-loving manner that their revolutionary act has not been understood and they remain innocent and alienated. This reflects Camus's stance on French colonialism in Algeria and parallels the position of contemporary radical intellectuals or, as Lenin termed them, "passive radicals" regarding the Israeli aggression against Palestine.

By adopting a stance of neutrality and freedom, Camus and Daru align themselves with colonialism and subjugation. From the perspective of the colonized, they have betrayed their brother and must face the consequences of this folly or malice. The fact that the Arab man committed murder, or that Algerians might not be virtuous people, and that there are good and freedom-loving French people in Algeria who should act justly and peacefully, cannot justify passivity and neutrality. The central question is what the French are doing in Algeria. Peacefulness, freedom, justice, and radicalism must be evaluated in response to this question. As some Muslims argue, even prayer is not accepted in occupied land. This dual meaning is embedded in the title L'Hôte, which refers both to being a guest and a host. Why should the French, as guests/colonizers, regardless of their virtue or vice, seize the land, life, and judgment of the Algerians, who are the hosts/colonized, regardless of their goodness or badness? Other questions and issues will only arise after it is declared that France, as an occupier and aggressor, must leave Algeria, just as Israel must leave Palestine. Whether Hamas is a terrorist organization and not a true representative of all Palestinians, and whether it has committed terrorism and violence, is secondary. Such considerations, under the guise of radicalism and freedom, ultimately benefit the aggressor. In his article “Are All Terrorists Monsters?” Eagleton provides an illuminating example:

During the Northern Ireland conflict, the Irish Republican Army behaved almost in this manner. They could not defeat the British Army and did not see the need to achieve direct victories over British airborne infantry. They only needed to create enough carnage to make the British government believe that the blockade would last forever and decide to withdraw its troops. After a while, as the Irish Republican Army had anticipated, the English people would become so weary and disillusioned with the whole affair that they would withdraw their support. This was far more likely than the Irish Republican community withdrawing support from the Irish Republican Army, no matter how much they were criticized.

The Arab Algerian might be a murderer, and Hamas might not represent all Palestinians, but equating them with Israel is an egregious injustice. Our ethics, as Bertolt Brecht asserts, should guide us in aiding the oppressed.^[34] Trotsky wisely elucidates in “Their Morals and Ours” that:

The issue is not which camp suffered more or less. History will judge the cruelty of the North and the cruelty of the South in the American Civil War by different standards. Slavery, which shackles the slave through deceit and violence, is never equivalent to the slave who breaks the chains through deceit and violence. We will not allow the petty tyrants to teach us moral lessons and claim they are on par in the court of ethics.^[35]

1. I. Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications, 2006).

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2. Access at: https://www.lacan.com/essays/?page_id=261

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3. S. Makdisi, Palestine: The Everyday Occupation (University of California Press, 2014).

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4. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (Dover Publications, 1999).

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5. R. Falk and V. Tilley, Israeli practices towards the Palestinian people and the question of apartheid (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, 2017).

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6. E. Fried, Poems (Viking Press, 1974).

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7. D. Losurdo, Western Marxism: A Critical Guide (Duke University Press, 2011)

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8. M. Gandhi, Selected Letters of Mahatma Gandhi (Penguin Books, 1947).

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9. K. Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (Yale University Press, 1958).

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10. Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 1963).

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11. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951); One might question whether there can be a form of imperialism that is not terrifying; perhaps its terrors are highlighted because it occurred in Europe. Lenin famously described the pursuit of truth as being as narrow as a hair’s breadth. Even in the most elementary phrases and conceptual formulations, there seems to be a tendency toward deviation. The manner of criticism and the position of critique thus shape the process and alternatives in advance. See: V.I. Lenin, Left-wing communism: An infantile disorder (Progress Publishers, 1920).

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12. At this juncture, fascism, racism, and imperialism were grouped, while equality, coexistence of peoples, and communism were seen as separate.

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13. Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein, "Letter to The New York Times," New York Times, December 4, 1948; We should note, however, it is not only Israeli actions but the very existence of the state itself that embodies fascism and imperialism.

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14. G. Karmi, "The Palestinian Exodus 1948-1998," Journal of Palestine Studies 28, no. 2 (1999), 5-16.

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15. M. Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden (Bloodaxe Books, 2008).

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16. G. Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999).

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17. Dubsmash is a video messaging app that allows users to lip sync a scene from a movie, a sound, a song lyric, famous quotes or anything that can be lip synced or "dubbed."

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18. K. Marx, S. Srinivasan, and A. Blunden, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (2015).

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19. B. Netanyahu, "Address to the United Nations General Assembly," United Nations, 2011.

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20. Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (MIT Press, 2003).

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21. T. Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (Verso, 1991).

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22. K. Marx, E. Mandel, and B. Fowkes, Capital: Volume I (Penguin Books Limited, 2004).

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23. K. Marx and D.J. Struik, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (International Publishers, 1964).

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24. M. Löwy, "The politics of combined and uneven development: A Marxist critique of the neo-liberal order," Socialist Register 41 (2005), 138-156.

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25. A.W. Wood, Karl Marx: 2nd Edition (Routledge, 2004).

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26. K. Marx, Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1, (1867).

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27. Bertolt Brecht, "Fünf Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit," https://www.gleichsatz.de/b-u-t/spdk/brecht2.html.

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28. K. Marx, F. Engels, and H. Quelch, The Poverty of Philosophy (C. H. Kerr, 1920).

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29. H. Muller, Nadirs (University of Nebraska Press).

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30. Eagleton.

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31. T. Eagleton, "Are all terrorists monsters?," UnHerd, November 2, 2023, https://unherd.com/2023/11/are-all-terrorists-monsters/

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32. In reference to a poem by Nima yooshij titled: “Hey you people!”

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33. A. Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Stanford University Press, 2003).

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34. Bertolt Brecht and A. Tatlow, Bertolt Brecht’s Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2020).

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35. L. Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours: The Marxist View of Morality (Resistance Books, 2000).

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