Time seems to have sped up, and there is so much to process that this writer more practised in ancient grudge is once again working away in the glare of the news-screen.

In recent days we have seen, of course, the continuing genocide in Palestine committed by extremists robed in the gentility that settler colonists always like to pull about themselves. In defending themselves from this undeniable charge, they have been joined by none other than Germany, a state that has perpetrated multiple genocides against European and African peoples. These are the kinds of absurdities to be found in the world in its Present State. Meanwhile, the best defence that the Zionists can offer in a Liberal mode—as distinct from the defence that they can do what they want, as settler colonists—is that Israel is treated exceptionally, being subject to more criticism than it deserves. This is an extraordinary argument: other states can carry out genocides, so why can’t we? In fact, Israel’s exceptionalism is entirely in the opposite direction, there being nothing it can possibly do that will lose it the support of the shameful (but shameless) white powers lined up behind it, passing it the ammunition it needs for its violence, and blocking international bodies from permitting even the shadow of a condemnation.

Mass murder by settler colonists is still however described as a War between the settler state and Gaza, or the settler state and Hamas, not that the media can find any ongoing Gazan or Hamas attack on Israel—they would be grateful to report on it if it existed—but rather as part of the continued cover given to the settler regime. The settlers’ desperate supporters accept and propagate the idea that Palestinian existence itself constitutes an attack on the settler state, and that even in being slaughtered and starved, Palestinians are therefore active Combatants in an anti-settler, and necessarily antisemitic, campaign.

This live-broadcast genocide is a Horror from which our collective humanity cannot hide, but the injury being done to Palestine is insufficient for the settler extremists, who must add the insult—also broadcast live to the world—of desecrating Palestinian homes, mosques, churches, bodies, anything they can seize. There will be books written about the evident Pleasure of the Zionists in stepping into the role of perpetrator of genocide. The soldiers are no longer shooting and crying, in the mindless trope of settler supremacy: they shoot and laugh, they shoot and sing, they shoot and dress up to film videos, they shoot indiscriminately if that will give them a thrill, or on the other hand carefully, if, say, a sniper shot straight to the head of an old woman collecting water will give them a greater kick.

The settler state takes pleasure in violating the borders of western Asia: not only Palestine, but also regular assaults on Lebanon and Syria, including the recent bombing of an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus. This was an obvious attempt to bully, intimidate and provoke, and the Islamic Republic retaliated with a slow-moving and heavily signposted assault that caused the settler state no problems whatsoever. The Iranian UN mission signalled quickly that the matter was over: this whole affair was an evident face-saving move not actually expected to have any major consequences. 

The settler state could have repelled the attack easily, given the extraordinary support it enjoys from other colonialist regimes. But that was not enough: its local Arab friends made a show of shooting down what they could, while the settler lapdog, the USA, and the lapdog’s lapdogs, the UK and France, also rushed to help. Here we see Arab and white states helping a settler state currently committing genocide to repel a minor attack that the settlers, already armed to the teeth, could easily have fought off on their own, and which they had invited by their own actions. The settlers’ supporters proved themselves unable to miss an opportunity to demonstrate their bloody Commitment, even—since this is what has most upset the white regimes during the last six months—when the settler state has just systematically murdered aid workers, continuing its war on those in international organisations who seek to provide some relief to Palestinian suffering. 

Meanwhile, the coverage revealed an astonished Western media confused at Iran’s sudden and inexplicable attack on Israel. Cretinous regime figures in the media environment of the self-described Free World described the attack as unprecedented, no matter that the precedent had been set several days beforehand by the bombing of Iranian territory. To which Macdara would add a suggestion that the violence of the settler state’s very existence in itself provides a kind of precedence for continuing violence in the region.

The settlers may be happy now, but they are stupid in their self-satisfaction. The problem with relying on the largesse of others is that the settler state will find itself struggling for its enablers’ attention in the Coming War. This writer’s fear is that the Zionists will take the opportunity of any such catastrophe to destroy all Palestinian life. We can see that the will is there; the settler state presupposes this action, and its people can see the Pleasure there for the taking. But it is impossible for the present writer to imagine that the righteousness of the anticolonial cause can be defeated if the settlers find themselves isolated in their friends’ distraction.

Meanwhile Jewish people around the world risk becoming victims of those who cannot distinguish between the Jewish people and supporters of Zionist violence. In contributing to the effacing of this distinction, one can describe the Government of Israel, and its supporters—the great majority of settlers—as antisemitic. This is a better application of the word than when it is applied to critics of Israel. The sight of an older Jewish woman being arrested in London for comparing the Zionist State to the Third Reich—a woman whose family were murdered in the Holocaust—is one of the unforgettable images of this miserable period. The police tried the standard line that freedom of speech exists, but that her freedom to speak does not exist; that she is inciting hate. How much more clearly could she respond than what she said: “you know what is hate is to assume that Jews support [the Israeli extermination of Gaza]; that is hate, that is antisemitic for you to even imply that Jews support this holocaust which is happening as we speak in Gaza”. But it is useless to speak such sense. She was arrested by police who are paid not to think, who know nothing about Jewish people, Palestinians, or anything that might complicate their rote support for the regime they serve. This small event is an emblem of the Disorder, the Unworldliness, introduced into our collective lives by settler colonialism. Some of us are made sick by it, while others are killed. The sickness is spreading, the killing will spread. It should be so easy to hope, what could be easier? But in this world hope has come to feel like a crime.