1/ The genocide and my medical issues (chemo progressing; waiting on the results of a PET CT to schedule the next operation) have made/allowed me to sever most of my social connections. I find it very difficult to have conversations with most of my countrymen. --->
2/ Our genocide is the product of decades devoted to the willful dehumanization of the Palestinians. The Holocaust was a much quicker process in that sense. The Nazis came to power with an ordely plan and were quick to execute. We never thought we had a plan. --->
3/ I hear about the "Greater Israel" plan repeatedly. I don't think it exists outside settler circles. We pride ourselves on not having a plan. We justify our actions by their "necessity". We are tacticians, not strategists. Our supremacy was upheld one day at a time. --->
4/ But our rough beast was born on 7.10.23. We could no longer fixate on tactics. Our entire system failed, as did our justifications for its existence. We had to choose. We could either end the occupation or we could go full bore genocidal. We chose the genocide. --->
5/ Perhaps it wasn't a choice. Denial is the most effective strategy until it collapses. Our occupation began as a means of oppression. As the years went by it also acquired a second raison d'etre: to allow us to commit the crime without ackowledging it in any way. --->
6/ We dehumanized the Palestinians to such an extent that we could not conceive of the occupation as wrong, certainly not as criminal. Whatever "happened" to "them" was their doing. When they dared to attack us on our own turf, we upgraded to genocide. --->
7/ Here's the thing, though. Genocide is not simply a reflection of a fixed mindset. The occupation made us deceptive and duplicitous. That's what it took to live with the innate contradiction between democracy and apartheid. The genocide has made us callous and stupid. --->
8/ We are not triumphant. We failed by every parameter we set for ourselves. There is no "New Middle East". There is just us on steroids, now verbalizing what we once kept silent - we are secure only when we have absolute impunity to destroy at will. We stand alone. --->
9/ There is nothing more stupid than a life of solipsism. What starts at the collective level trickles quickly down to the individual level. We don't recognize the existence of others. Nobody operates turn signals in cars anymore. Small thing but very telling. --->
10/ An organized scam dispensed hundreds of thousands of fake disabled tags for cars. Disabled people (I am one for now) have no parking spaces. We don't see and we don't care. The genocide has made us in its image, just as we made it in ours.
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