The first year of World War III?

The past year in the Middle East has been more devastating than the sum of its parts

Most Americans either ignore news from other countries entirely, or else relate to it as if it resembles something akin to a cinematic drama: objects of potential interest divorced from meaningful impacts on our lives, to be debated as fodder for polite conversation at social gatherings.

Those who do dare to open their eyes tend to do so through a lens skewed by propaganda. Media sources across the U.S. share a disproportionate representation of violence committed by the least powerful actors in the region, while suppressing news about state violence committed by Israel and enabled by Washington. Ultimately, the American predisposition for military-industrial responses to security problems acts as a filter through which even critical minds receive only some information, while the disturbing facts are widely suppressed.

But the reality is far darker than what Americans are led to believe. It points to an ominous future, and holds crucial implications for Americans who imagine that we live in a democracy.

This week, I aim to publish a series of articles explaining what news coverage of Israel’s escalating and expanding terrorism has tended to obscure. Let’s start at the beginning….

When did this start? 2023 or 1948?

I’m writing this post on the anniversary of a series of attacks by Hamas that shocked the world and dragged the Israeli security establishment out of a sense of false security that it had established over the course of decades.

But October 7 was not actually the beginning of tension or violence in the Middle East. It was merely the first time in decades that dispossessed Palestinians managed to inflict consequential loss on the settler-colonial state that has long denied their human rights. 

This conflict started in 1948, when a campaign of coordinated terrorism established Israel in the first place, murdering Palestinians by the thousands, seizing their land, and driving them off in order to create a safe haven for Jewish refugees from around the world. Ilan Pape’s book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” explores this violent history of forced expulsion and appropriation.

Palestinian refugees walking from Jerusalem to Lebanon on Nov. 9, 1948

The attacks by Hamas a year ago today were not preceded by peace. They were preceded by mass violations of Palestinian human rights, including restrictions on travel, work, and civil rights, as well as state violence including mass murder with impunity, and official deference to vigilante violence by right wing settlers. The Zionist project of the Nakba has continued in every month of every year since it began 76 years ago.

Over the years, violence tended to subside during periods when hope emerged of a resolution. For instance, the Oslo accords signed in 1993 and 1995 brought the First Intifada to an end. Yet any hope placed in international agreements has generally proved to be fruitless. Despite international recognition of basic human rights supposedly enjoyed by all people, Palestinians have watched the world bury its head in the sand while Israel has continued to marginalize, displace, jail, terrorize, and murder peaceful Palestinians by the thousands.

On the rare occasion when the international community has stepped forward to support Palestinian calls for equal justice, it has encountered unapologetic Israeli belligerence. For example, prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought arrest warrants this summer for the arrest of Israeli leaders alongside their Palestinian counterparts, while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling requiring Israel to minimize civilian casualties.

Tel Aviv ignored each of these processes, while demonizing the institutions calling for Israeli restraint and leveraging Washington to undermine them. After Netanyahu rejected the legitimacy of the ICC, he gained support from his enablers in Washington across the political spectrum.

For instance, defying the myth that Washington is seized by gridlock, Congress managed to display a revealing moment of bipartisan consensus in June, voting 247-155 to sanction the ICC for daring to pursue its mission. Biden described the ICC’s independence as “outrageous,” before he was then characterized by Trump as insufficiently supportive of Israeli belligerence.

American leaders today actively compete over who can better embody the fascism that drove millions to their graves a century ago. As outrageous as it might be that a country would so viciously turn its back on its own legacy in so short a time, it may be even more alarming that so many Americans today remain oblivious to that turn of events.

One hopes that Israel’s escalating and expanding attacks on targets from Lebanon to Yemen might shock enough observers out of their stupor to finally force some modicum of accountability on Washington & Tel Aviv.

But don’t hold your breath. As disturbing as American history may be when viewed without blinders, we’ve been down this road before.