1/ I must have been cast into the outer darkness because I find myself agreeing with my prime minister. As he rants, cartoonish in his purple hair and belabored table smacks, he makes one crucial point. This is not really about him. It is about the entire state of Israel. --->
2/ Of course, he makes this point for all the wrong reasons. He froths at the mouth as he calls Karim Khan an antisemite. He talks about the perennial persecution of Jews and tries to make Israel the current link an a neverending chain. That is, simply, a lie. --->
3/ Israel has not simply "fought a war". Israel fought two wars over the past seven months. It lost the first one, a one day war waged on October 7th. The massacre was horrific and atrocious, and it was a criminal act of war. It was an all-out attack and it succeedes. --->
4/ The second war, the one fought against the physical space and the people of the Gaza strip (under the fictitious pretense of "destroying Hamas") began as an act of biblical vengence. Gaza was Sodom, a lair of sin annihilated by fire from above. This was an illegal war. --->
5/ An occupying power cannot go to war with the people it occupies. But that is not the main point. This second war was an immoral war for two reasons. First, as the IDF "destroyed Hamas" according to its orderly lists it ignored the reality generated by this destruction. --->
6/ Tens of thousands of civilians died as collateral damage. Whole cities were flattened and burned. The IDF "powered on". The second reason for the war's immorality was the intentional lack of an endgame. Netanyahu was torn between competing political agendas. --->
7/ His settler supporters wanted to occupy Gaza. His critics in the center wanted to free the hostages. The competition was skin-deep. Beneath it, and this is Netanyahu's mad genius, lay a broad consensus supporting the war. Some support was reluctant and some enthralled. --->
8/ Still, the support was there. It was as though the stars had aligned for Israel's subconscious. This was the jackpot. "They" clearly attacked "us", maliciously and atrociously enough to give us the right to do anything we wanted for as long as we wanted. --->
9/ This is pattern that lies at the heart of the Jewish Israeli mainstream. We are unique in our suffering and unique in our anger. We go where no one has gone before in both pain and punishment. None of our past wars had provided us with such a perfect showcase, we thought. --->
10/ We are waking up from our destiny high, from the cosmic sense of familiarity we had when we saw ourselves pillaging Gaza, a familiarity we could not deny even if and when it made us uncomfortable. We had never been comfortable. This was us. Netanyahu got it. --->
11/ He left the "war" open-ended because he knew he did not have to commit. He could let it go on and become a genocide. He knew that there was no satiety to be had. He knew that this consensus ensured his safety. This is his war but he is the the most Israeli PM of them all.
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