An Experiment in Provocation: Stealing Gaza
Jan 7th, 2009 by jacob
By BRIAN ENO
It’s a tragedy that the Israelis – a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression – are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked “Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it’s the Palestinians”. By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they’ve forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians – with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers – and themselves – with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world – they sacrifice all credibility.
The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly…and, surprise, surprise – they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now ‘under attack’ you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn’t possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
thanks for posting that
January 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
More anti-semitism and anti-americanism. Brian Eno-another no-nothing spouting his hate.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Beetlejucie projecting his own hate, anti-americanism , anti-semitism.
Beetle a true intelligent gentle conservative american man.
A loving guide for the Aryan youth.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
I could not agree more with Mr. Eno….
the almost unbearable reality of Gaza and Palestine.
the ghetto-isation of huge masses of populations into small area’s of land…
then denying basic human rights,resources,utilities,rights of passage..
and as the resentment and resistance grow..use that… fact.. as reason..
to implement violence,death, and destruction on your targeted group of humans.
the real question is not” if” this is happening..but ..
Why?
as it currently stands..Israel mirrors Nazi Germany..
the formerly terribly Oppressed..now have become the terrible Oppressor..albeit
with a much higher technology than the Nazi’s , and sadly, that much more efficient.
how did this happen?
think about it..
and Work for Peace..anyway and eveytime you can.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
yikes beetle…
if i at all felt his statements were anti-semitic, do you think i would have posted this, or that i’m anti-semitic? would my jewish grandmother have approved of that?
this isn’t a black and white conflict. eno’s commentary i felt reflected that.
January 9th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Anti-semites and self loathing Jews are very clever,cloaking their hatred in sophisticate theories ,but, the facts remain, Hamas wants Jews dead. Maybe Hamas should stop their terrorist tactics.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Can you name some of these “sophisticate theories”?
I’d actually like to discuss them and see if they are just a front for hatred.
And if Eno’s is one of these theories, can you provide what you disagree with w/o using the words “anti-semite” or “hate”, because they really aren’t productive.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Antisemitic is the factual term for a Jew hater,I realize the term is harsh-but it is realistic. The sophisticate theory that Hamas is a benign group led by Mr Rogers,instead of a terrorist group whose charter states (in writing) that their goal is the annilation of Israel and the Jews. They are clear in their actions and their words of their goal.Seems fairly straightforward as anything can be!
January 10th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
but did eno say anything in his statement about hamas being a benign group who causes no harm? of course not, such a notion is as laughably incorrect as saying israel has never made bad decisions.
i don’t recognize this ‘be all end all’ reality you’re are talking about. this isn’t a comic book with good guys and bad, nothing is ever that straightforward— especially in the mid east! yes hamas are terrible players in the region who’ve in the end done nothing but harm for their own people, not to mention israel. but what also needs to be considered are the abhorrent economic and humanitarian sanctions thrust upon the people of gaza by israel, with the backing of the US. these types of conditions are oxygen to the flames of the extremism expressed by hamas. you want israel to marginalize hamas? then they should treat the true palestinians with some deserved dignity.
the easy portrayals of this conflict are just that… easy. to hold onto them only further isolates from having any substantive dialogue. this has been the MO of both israelis and palestinians for over half a century now, and it’s gotten them all NOWHERE.
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and i’m sorry, but using the word ‘anti-semitic’ is wholly unrealistic in this context. disagreeing with the policies of the israeli government does not equal a hatred for an entire race of people. that’s just bollocks.