Underneath all this there is a menacing silence. The catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, if it is mentioned at all, appears to Israelis only as a “challenge”: a PR challenge in international media, a legal challenge in the Hague, a diplomatic challenge in meetings with foreign officials. For the Israeli public, there are merely appearances of suffering in Gaza. Just as Palestinian existence and experience have been erased over the decades from Israeli consciousness, so is the reality of current Palestinian death and loss being denied and concealed. There is no tolerance for the mention of the nearly 2 million internal refugees in Gaza, of widespread starvation, of disease, of the destruction of around 70 percent of the houses in the Gaza Strip, of the incredible proportion of civilian deaths, of whole families that have been wiped off the face of the earth. Any serious consideration of Palestinian loss is perceived as a distraction from the suffering of Israelis, as an affront and a failure of loyalty.
From December:
Protester sets themself on fire outside Israel consulate in Atlanta, Georgia
In a statement, the consul general of Israel to the south-east US, Anat Sultan-Dadon, said that the diplomatic mission is “saddened to learn of the self-immolation at the entrance to the office building”.
“It is tragic to see the hate and incitement toward Israel expressed in such a horrific way,” she added.
This is Trump-like narcissism.
This is an excellent article. Thank you for posting this. It’s refreshing to see a nuanced take that does justice to the complexity of this situation.
