A 5 August NBC story, titled \u201cSend President Obama Ebola as Birthday Gift, Some Israelis Say<\/a>,\u201d reports that, according to a recent poll, 46% of Israelis \u201csaid they wanted to give Barack Obama an envelope containing the Ebola virus as a present for his 53rd birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n Note, these aren\u2019t just \u201csome\u201d Israelis, as NBC writes; these are almost\u00a0half<\/em>\u00a0of Israelis.<\/p>\n Vox also ran a story,\u00a0published on 4 August<\/a>, when\u00a048%<\/em>\u00a0of polled Israelis had advocated sending Ebola. (10% more wanted to send Obama a song based on Prime Minister Netanyahu telling Obama to \u201cnever second guess me again.\u201d Never second guess the supreme leader of your totalitarian apartheid ethnostate. Does anyone else smell fascism?)<\/p>\n This is the absurd degree of vehement jingoism in Israeli popular culture today. Almost half of Israelis want to send Obama\u2014the president of the country that gives them\u00a0$3.1\u00a0billion<\/em>\u00a0in unconditional aid per year<\/a>, bankrolling their colonization, dispossession, and genocide of the Palestinian people\u2014a deadly disease as a birthday surprise.<\/p>\n NBC reports that over 2,000 Israelis voted in the online survey. \u201cOther less popular choices,\u201d it explains, \u201cincluded \u2018peace in the middle east\u2019 and \u2018golf clubs.\u2019\u201d Peace has always been a low priority in Israel. Settler colonialism, occupation, and ethnic cleansing tend to much much, much higher on the list.<\/p>\n It should be mentioned that this survey is not scholarly and statistically rigorous and cannot be meant to be an exact representation of the Israeli population as a whole. Regardless of the precise figure, nonetheless, Mako (the site on which the poll was conducted) is very popular, and it is telling indeed that 46-48% of those who frequent this popular website want to murder the president of the country that gives them billions upon billions in aid.<\/p>\n The NBC story (correctly) calls Obama\u2019s moment of vocal opposition to Israeli crimes \u201crare criticism from Washington over the high civilian death toll in Gaza.\u201d For the 50 days that Israel was slaughtering children in Gaza,\u00a0purposefully targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure<\/a>, including hospitals, schools, places of worship, and families\u2019 homes, Obama continuously insisted that Israel supposedly had the \u201cright to defend itself<\/a>\u201c\u2014even though, as international law scholar Noura Erakat pointed out, \u201cNo, Israel Does Not Have the Right to Self-Defense In International Law Against Occupied Palestinian Territory<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Erakat writes<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s ability to frame its assault against territory it occupies as a right of self-defense turns international law on its head.<\/p>\n A state cannot simultaneously exercise control over territory it occupies and militarily attack that territory on the claim that it is \u201cforeign\u201d and poses an exogenous national security threat. In doing precisely that, Israel is asserting rights that may be consistent with colonial domination but simply do not exist under international law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n She continued, eloquently explaining in\u00a0the Nation<\/a>:<\/p>\n The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel\u2019s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to\u00a0self-defense<\/a>\u00a0under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004\u00a0Advisory Opinion<\/a>. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel\u2019s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to defend itself against rocket attacks, but it must do so in accordance with occupation law and not other laws of war. Occupation law ensures greater protection for the civilian population. The other laws of war balance military advantage and civilian suffering. The statement that \u201cno country would tolerate rocket fire from a neighboring country\u201d is therefore both a diversion and baseless.<\/p>\n Israel denies Palestinians the right to govern and protect themselves, while simultaneously invoking the right to self-defense. This is a conundrum and a violation of international law, one that Israel deliberately created to evade\u00a0accountability<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Obama was one of the largest purveyors of this grotesque, farcical lie. After several weeks of reiterating ad nauseam the myth that Israel has the legal (yet alone moral) \u201cright\u201d to \u201cdefend\u201d itself\u2014as Israel brutally bombed Palestinian civilians into oblivion and\u00a0dead Gazan babies were kept in ice cream freezers<\/a>\u00a0because medical supplies had run out and morgues were overflowing\u2014the Obama administration finally took international community\u2019s hint and reached for a better looking PR move. It was only in the final throes of Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza that Obama tepidly said, \u201cHey guys, maybe you should bring it back a little bit. This doesn\u2019t look good.\u201d<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s support wasn\u2019t just rhetorical, however. NBC hints at the irony of this Ebola birthday gift poll, noting that, on his own birthday, Obama gave a generous and hefty gift to Israel: $225 million of\u00a0additional<\/em>\u00a0US citizens\u2019 taxdollars to be used on its Iron Dome missile defense system.<\/p>\n \u201cThe White House has been keen to downplay suggestions of a growing rift,\u201d NBC observes. After all, Obama has made it a\u00a0common practice to emphasize<\/a>\u00a0the US\u2019s \u201cunshakable\u201d \u201ccommitment to Israel and Israel\u2019s security,\u201d its \u201cstrongest ally and greatest friend.\u201d<\/p>\n The US did, after a month of destruction, finally muster up the courage to call Israeli strikes on Gaza schools \u201chorrifying\u201d and \u201cdisgraceful\u201d (they forgot to add \u201cin complete and flagrant violation of international law<\/a>\u201c\u2014but the US has never really cared about international law in the first place, so perhaps we shouldn\u2019t be surprised) yet muffled its already infrequent and quiet moments of hesitation when Netanyahu warned Obama \u201cnot to ever second-guess me again.\u201d<\/p>\n In spite of the US president\u2019s almost indefatigable (\u201calmost\u201d being the operative word, in this case) support, most Israelis are livid that Obama is only 95, not 100% behind their project of systemic settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. As the Vox story points out, a 2013 poll found that \u201conly 10% of Israelis view Obama favorably<\/a>,\u201d and a 2014 poll concluded that\u00a070% of Jewish Israelis do not trust Obama<\/a>. Many cite president\u2019s subdued criticism of the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements as the reason behind this growing antipathy, but Obama\u2019s rhetoric is\u00a0empty<\/a>\u00a0at best.<\/p>\n An important distinction should be made here. These studies should not be taken as a demonization of all Israelis. As in the US, there are indeed in Israel anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-Zionist leftists, who seek peace with the indigenous Palestinians (and with African immigrants), and wish to end their fascist, settler colonialist ethnoreligious supremacist state\u2019s policies of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupation. These leftists, in fact, are enormously brave\u2014surely braver than most of us in the US. Here in \u2018murica, we may be denigrated, ridiculed, yelled at on the street;\u00a0we may be fired from our jobs<\/a>. In Israel, on the other hand, fascist mobs roam the streets\u00a0chanting \u201cDeath to leftists!\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cGas the leftists!\u201d (along with\u00a0\u201cDeath to Arabs!\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cGas the Arabs!\u201d, of course). If you are an anti-racist, anti-Zionist Israeli\u2014or an\u00a0anti-Zionist Orthodox Jew<\/a>\u2014you go to demonstrations well aware of the fact that\u00a0fascist mobs will attack you<\/a>,\u00a0with complete impunity<\/a>, police watching and cheering\u2014or, in some cases, even\u00a0beating you themselves<\/a>. I could hardly respect Israeli leftists more.<\/p>\n Yet the vast majority of Israelis support their\u00a0ethnocracy<\/a>\u2018s crimes. The\u00a0vast<\/em>\u00a0majority. In regards to Israel\u2019s most recent slaughter in Gaza, that number is\u00a095%, to be exact<\/a>. This is about as close to a national consensus as you ever get.<\/p>\n In 2012, in Haaretz, renowned journalist Gideon Levy published the results of a poll that found \u201cMost Israeli Jews Would Support Apartheid Regime in Israel<\/a>.\u201d This study, \u201cexpos[ing] anti-Arab, ultra-nationalist views espoused by a majority of Israeli Jews,\u201d was not based on an internet survey. It was conducted by Dialog and directed by professor Camil Fuchs, Haaretz\u2019s polling expert and head of the Department of Statistics at Tel Aviv University\u2019s School of Mathematical Science, and commissioned by the Yisraela Goldblum Fund.<\/p>\n The study revealed the following unsavory facts about Israeli society:<\/p>\n \u2013 59% want preference for Jews over Arabs in admission to jobs in government ministries.<\/p>\n \u2013 49% want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones<\/p>\n \u2013 42% don\u2019t want to live in the same building with Arabs<\/p>\n \u2013 42% don\u2019t want their children in the same class with Arab children.<\/p>\n \u2013 c. 33% want a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset<\/p>\n \u2013 69% object to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.<\/p>\n \u2013 74% majority are in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians<\/p>\n \u2013 24% believe separate roads are \u201ca good situation\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 50% believe separate roads are \u201ca necessary situation\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 47% want part of Israel\u2019s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority<\/p>\n \u2013 36% support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange for keeping some of the West Bank settlements<\/p>\n \u2013 38% want Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them<\/p>\n \u2013 31% don\u2019t admit that Israel practices apartheid against Arabs<\/p>\n \u2013 58% do admit that Israel practices apartheid against Arabs<\/p>\n At the forefront of our critiques of Israel should be condemnation of the ethnoreligious supremacist state itself, as it is this structural,\u00a0systemic<\/em>\u00a0oppression that in turn influences and creates individual oppressors. In other words, the problem with Israeli, or any other, society, as with the problem endemic in\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0form of oppression, is not with mere individual politicians, with mere individual parties, or with mere individual institutions; the problem is with the structure, the system itself. In the case of Israel, that system is a Zionist,\u00a0white supremacist<\/a>, settler colonialist one.<\/p>\n Yet, as polls like these demonstrate, the ills of this system manifest themselves individually. The structural nature of oppression by no means absolves Israelis of the responsibility for the crimes against humanity their \u201cdemocratic\u201d government commits\u2014after all, Israel is purportedly \u201cthe only democracy in the middle east,\u201d as Zionists so often boast\u2014just as we, as Americans, are absolutely complicit in\u00a0our own<\/em>\u00a0government\u2019s acts of racist, imperialist terrorism, whether that manifest itself in the form of perpetual war, drone strikes, torture, or mass incarceration. We can all be considered \u201clittle Eichmanns,\u201d as some have called us, in allusion to Hannah Arrendt\u2019s opus\u00a0Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil<\/em>.<\/p>\n The silver lining (and I am not one for silver linings\u2014I find them to be quite bourgeois) in these clouds of death, destruction, and despair is that, as Israel lurches further and further to the right, plunging headfirst into what can only be\u00a0accurately<\/a>\u00a0referred to as\u00a0fascism<\/a>, the Western media is gradually waking up. NBC can no longer ignore it when half of Israelis express a desire to kill the US president.<\/p>\n The struggle for just, accurate coverage in the US corporate media\u2014and for the hearts of the minds of the American people\u2014is slowly, but surely, being won. If it were to be awarded a grade, it would still\u00a0get an F<\/a>, as Glenn Greewald insists, yet it is beginning to cover stories that it wouldn\u2019t have touched with a 10-foot pole only a few years ago. The\u00a0Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement<\/a>\u00a0is growing, especially among\u00a0Jewish Americans<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0student activists<\/a>. A vicious,\u00a0McCarthyist campaign of repression<\/a>\u00a0of Palestinian solidarity activism is being waged, one that\u00a0destroys people\u2019s entire careers<\/a>, yet today\u2019s young Americans constitute\u00a0the first generation<\/a>\u00a0to have seen past the ceaseless barrage of propaganda. Support for Palestinian human rights and liberation is increasing. There is still so much to be done, and a long road ahead of us, yet we have good reason to be optimistic\u2014cautiously optimistic, yet optimistic nonetheless.<\/p>\n Ben Norton<\/strong>\u00a0is an artist and activist. His website can be found at\u00a0http:\/\/bennorton.com\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to an August 2014 poll, half of Israelis want to send Obama Ebola for only supporting Israeli terrorism 95, not 100%. In the wake of Israel\u2019s summer 2014\u00a0genocidal\u00a0massacre in Gaza, euphemistically called Operation \u201cProtective\u201d Edge,\u201d the US corporate media … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ci6.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/4yGCQerTOUMuuU1sNkQdrd7ratfMyHm-hD86yFJGzR_sSf8AEukKFsXeBfF3xhrVZGmFOhwK-O5F5WNLZpHQBu4El0pQrc4cxagNyUmG93-dO6moRMRxTjuV_uruN35tXO_T2g4f6Q=s0-d-e1-ft#http:\/\/bennorton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/ebola-israelis-obama-881x1024.png\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n