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Unfortunately, an instance of ahistorical analysis. Mr. Grossman's analysis starts at Oct. 7, and then proceeds to tally up which side did which action in violation of international law. This ignores the ongoing position of many of the states around Israel that they want to kill and get rid of all Jews from the Middle East. To write this standard analysis of supposed moral equivalence ignores the blatant fact that Israel wants to live in peace with all around, and cannot do so because of murderous people in many directions.

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Of course “abyss” and “beast” are metaphors. I used them to refer to something ‘pataphysical (referring absurdly to the “science” of metaphors).

None of us knows all that much about the human mind. Like every”Thing” else it’s almost surely a lot of “things”, but one of the “things” we can know about the human mind is that it is a nearly ceaseless generator of metaphor.

SOMEHOW my long and winding response provoked/disturbed/prompted (take your pick) you to use another metaphor “insect” to refer to humanity. You also invoked some cloud of references associated with the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" which just goes over (past) my head making no click or contact. But, it does strongly (not “definitively”) suggest that a big part of your mind (some would say “spirit”) is “possessed” (another metaphor) by the idea of “meaninglessness” (tortured by other ideas like “flourishing”)

It’s also interesting that you refer so metaphorically to some”thing” called “infinity” as if it were some monstrous(?) entity, indifferently passing us by. Your particular version of “infinity” (there are INFINITE versions of self enfolding infinities) is almost certainly better than poor John’s “beast” or poor Fried’s “abyss.” I won’t interrogate it for you. (That would be nearly as impertinent as it would be impossible—and I want to be as minimally impertinent as I can possibly and impertinently be). It’s better because it’s YOUR metaphor.

And “NOTHING” can force you to face up to that metaphor. “NOTHING can force you to interrogate it! (Do you not hear Bowie’s “Heroes” thrumming in the background?) NOTHING can force you to try to explore what *might* be behind that particular “image” of infinity, and no "thing" can force you to imagine what might be generating it. (Could it be something within AND without you? Could that “it” be “nothing”?)

But “NOTHING” can STOP you from doing any of those things!

Have you ever wondered much (or perhaps you have and disagree) about how “infinity” and “nothingness” are two concepts that, each in their own way, generate the largest numbers of metaphors and therefore the largest number of “meanings”????? Of course, you might say that you’re not interested in “meaningS” (plural) and have despaired of MEANING (singular). But if you said that to yourself, would you then laugh in your own face (such a cruel, defensive, cowardly thing to do)? Would you gently smile and patiently wait for your self to respond with something less romantically tragic that *might* be “useful” to our progeny in their creepy crawly, somewhat loathsome, struggle to “flourish? Would you skitter off, like a canny cockroach, away from the burning light and into some dank crevice between the floor and the cellar? Or would you stoically shrug, and proceed with whatever seems immediately pragmatic whether it be designing ovens, testing weapons or dealing in slaves? Would any of that last set of questions suggest to you an acceptable idea of a hero, a monster, or some creepy crawler somehow capable of “flourishing”?

And speaking of flourishing.

Poor Arthur once wrote something like

<<Once, *IF*…. I imagine it well, life was a festival where every heart flourished and every wine flowed

<<But there came a time when Beauty sat on my knee so I could again embrace her.

<< I found her bitter

<<I cursed her

<<I Fled

<<O sorcerers! O hatred! O nothingness! O infinities of misery! To you I have abandoned my treasures…”

“Flourish,” huh????

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All of which is really immaterial where ever you start the body counts and the atrocity timeline.

The only nation that has a "right" to exist is one that can assert and defend its sovereignty. The Palestinians do not have such an ability therefore a free and independent Palestine is simply nonsense.

Israel has two choice. One is to settle the Palestinians in walled in territories under Israel's hegemonic powers. Two would be to compel or expel as many Palestinians as possible and take all the territory and allow those Palestinians who wish to remain heavily policed and living in a perpetual state of second class citizenship at least for a couple of generations.

I know this is bleak but really there is no solution that doesn't involve cleansing one population or the other.

The turning point came when the international community failed to force Israel out of the territories it took in the 1967 war. The justification, as always, was the necessity to maintain security. The occupation of these Arab territories was totally illegal. And it set the pattern for everything that followed.

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Wow!

I won’t “thank” you for putting this into words, but it is important that you did. Very important.

And you are FAR from the only person willing and able to articulate such an idea in an intelligible way. It’s also very understandable why so many of us say so many similar things especially if they have blood relatives living between the river and the sea — or have been inculcated to have passionate attachments and “identifications” with a Jewish “State” which, by the way is not the same thing as either a “nation” or a “homeland” (SORRY! if I’m coming across as pedantic, but remember what the scorpion said to the frog… except it’s not really “my nature,” it’s MORE that this is a hurried response,)

“The only nation/state/PEOPLE/polity that has a “RIGHT” to exist is one that can assert and defend its sovereignty.”

“Ok” (intentionally ironic), but you didn’t stop there.

You also wrote, “The Palestinians do not have such an ability, therefore a free and independent Palestine is simply nonsense.”

It can’t be that you’ve never interrogated such an idea very seriously? It certainly seems like you have, and (sadly with as much humane regret as you can muster) you can’t YET find any alternative. After all, you have the intellectual honesty (is “decency” a better or more appropriate word here?) to recognize that at SOME point the 1967 occupation became illegal. You also seem to regret this “bleak” reality which, like the trumpeting roar of some apocalyptic BEAST, proclaims that there is NO ALTERNATIVE to its rampage.

I’ll bet you know only too full well what Nietzsche said about what can happen when you stare into the abyss.

You’ve definitely stared into it, and seem unafraid (or unashamed?) to accept what it shrieked at you. And AGAIN, you are far from alone in what seems like a courageous(?), pragmatic(?), tragic(?) “conclusion”. But right now, I’m thinking of somebody who might have been named John of Patmos. He was quite likely a “frum” (perhaps an anachronistic term) Jewish member of the (then) small but already quite quarrelsome sect of Jesus followers who railed in metaphorical language against the brutalities and TERRORISM of the Roman occupation that had recently leveled not just the second temple but the entire city of Jerusalem, crucifying many, massacring many more, and sending thousands of the previously more privileged (and educated) members of the Judean upper classes to die gruesomely in Egyptian copper mines. But might makes right, so I guess we should (solemnly and sadly) PRAISE Vespasian and Titus. (If they didn’t do it some other imperator would have.)

THAT same John also seems to have been directing a lot of intense ferocity against the swelling numbers of “god fearing” gentiles who were flocking (uncircumcised and with bacon breath) to join the Jesus crowd. (But that’s an aside).

But I wonder what John of Patmos would say about your response to the abyss? Remember, he didn’t see it as an “ABYSS.” He saw it as the most horrifying abomination of a frothy, blood-soaked, frenzied, wrathful, soul crushing, world shaking, and hateful BEAST he could imagine.

And I think he might say that you bowed down to it. But yes, only very regretfully because you see “no alternative.” I think (because I imagine him as outrageously zealous) that John would say even more to you. I think he might say that not only did you bow down to it, but that you ALSO (ever so regretfully) donned its mark (its colorful tattoos), agreed to carry and wave its flag, AND even help scare up prey for it. (Ok, people like John of Patmos were susceptible to letting themselves be carried away by their own words. That’s why I should probably sign this as “Joe of Patmos”.)

I can’t claim to know how to answer the beast (or abyss) in all of us either. I don’t think anybody can. I probably doubt that there will ever be an answer (Sorry, Paul McCartney*) though we can try to come up with questions *might* in turn yield even better questions.

Another thing you said was something like <<Maybe, JUST MAYBE after a couple or three generations of brutality and terror to enforce second class citizenship or ethnic cleansing a better solution might somehow reveal itself.>> I’m not using the “g” word here, but I am invoking associations with the slaveholders of the antebellum American south. Folk memory in the US CONTINUES to generate teeth gnashing and hot resentment against the “injustice” of the terrible swift sword unleashed by clay footed avatars like Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. Living memory STILL seethes over the “woke” insurgencies of the late twentieth century that so impolitely demanded (and partially secured) equal citizenship and equal personhood for Blacks, women, and others (including Jews). It was just so UNFAIR that circumstances didn’t allow a few more generations of what made US so restlessly “comfortable”.

Maybe the US will continue to support the STATE of Israel’s ability to wield nearly unrestricted terror against its neighbors and its victims. Maybe (I doubt it) the STATE of Israel could continue on its tragic course for a generation or more(? really?) if the US withdrew its support. MAYBE the STATE of Israel could persist in its beastly frenzy for nearly a decade(?) if the US began to actively support international efforts to help that state pull back from its abyss?

I don’t know.

I don’t know. But I do know (as much as I can “know” anything about history) that the PEOPLE of Israel existed long before any STATE of Israel. This is attested to in the Stele of Merneptah where the pharaoh boasts of a failed genocide. (I’ll bet those tribes provoked Egypt’s imperial wrath by raiding vital trade routes on the coast, but a provocation is NOT a justification as I know you, yourself, would assert.) I also “know” that people who claimed to speak for the God of Israel (and maybe they did) were at least somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of setting up a state (or states). That was just as true before 1948, before 1967, and up to today.

I also know that in many ways, it does “feel” very UNFAIR if circumstances are forcing the PEOPLE of Israel, their friends, and their imperial patrons (and exploiters). Actually the word “unfair” is kind of a snidely cruel understatement. I can feel how terrifying and soul shaking it is. But I think it is happening. I think it is happening, not because it’s just or unjust, but for a number of reasons. Perhaps not the least of these reasons is a vital strain that has survived in the PEOPLE of Israel since at least the late pre-exilic period when people like Isaiah spoke their truth to the kingly dependents of David who may well have had (literally or figuratively) nailed between two planks and sawed in half. (One feature of a “state” by the way is an assiduous effort to monopolize violence. That doesn’t mean it’s the only feature of a state. It doesn’t even mean there shouldn’t be a state that must try to monopolize violence. It may mean that every human needs the protections of a state to protect the dignity of their personhood.)

Even Hitler believed that the obnoxious (to him) idea that every human had a right to dignity was a derivation of a Jewish idea. That’s why he wanted to exterminate them. (Try and argue with me there!) It depends on how you define “idea,” but I don’t think this idea was unique to the people of Israel, but in terms of articulating it in WRITING, it can be traced back to those meshuganas who raved about justice, not only to the annoyance of kings but to the derision, incomprehension, and hostility of the people they so desperately loved and whom they so urgently wanted to “save.”

It’s not an answer to the abyss, but it suggests another tribe of responses. Perhaps even some responses that might be more worthy of you, your children, and their progeny no matter their feelings or identifications with the PEOPLE of Israel (a label which is often applied to every daughter of man and EVERY son of woman).

******

Footnotes! (There’s only one!)

*I hope I wasn’t unfair to you. But I’m especially motivated not to be unfair to Paul. “Let It Be” has multiple meanings. One of these is that we should “accept” reality as we find it. But not to acquiesce to it. Not to worship it. Not to contribute to its rampages and injustices so as to bring about its collapse. No. We have to try to “accept” reality (as we can understand it) so that we have better ideas about how to change it. As for the PEOPLE of Israel who are in so much anguish now, I can only share a rather discomforting midrash that was revealed to a friend of mine. Actually, it EVEN might have been a snippet of the Torah script that Ezra tossed onto the cutting room floor before handing it over to Cecil B. DeMill and Charlton Heston. It goes like this:

<<And Moses said to the PEOPLE assembled sheepishly at the foot of the holy mountain, O hear me O Israel and be of good cheer! For the Lord of Hosts loves you so much more than He loves any other nation. Rejoice in this, but then hear me O Israel again already—and then wail and gnash your teeth! For the Lord loves you just the way you are, YET He loves you so very goddamn much that there’s no way in hell He’s gonna let you stay that way! So get out in front of that as you have been commanded! And also get out in front HISTORY as you have also been commanded and cursed by ME to do so… and be a light to all the nations, already! Otherwise, the Lord sayeth to you—and believe me, He ain’t kidding. “Next time you see Me comin’, you’d better run!”>>

It ain’t fair. The crimes of the state of Israel are nowhere near as bad as the crimes of Rome or the crimes of the US. But something is happening even if we and Mr. Jones don’t know what it is.

And then there’s:

<<Yael and Valerie, weeping from the gallery, screech ‘Eichmann must go free.’ Justice does not agree and it tells them so. Oh? Oh oh!>>

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I had a lengthy response which somehow failed to post and I wouldn't dare try to recapture it but it had to do with the anti-Semitism of the writings of John of Patmos... the historical events that led the Jewish sect of Christ followers to be expelled from Judaism and shorn of the protections of Jews in the Empire...the ahistorical Christian misappropriation of Hebrew texts... the failure of the Messianic enterprise of Jesus... Saul's successful rebranding and entrepreneurial marketing of Christianity...the endless repetition of history... sub specie aeternitis... absolute determinism... there are no "crimes" against humanity...the relativity of good and evil and the perseverance that can, and sometimes must, do whatever is required to persist and flourish... there is no abyss stare into or beast to face up to just infinity passing by..."And crawling on the planet's face, some insects, called the human race... lost in time... and lost in space... and meaning" (The Rocky Horror Show)

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Note that the impolite woke demands of the 60s were articulated and promulgated under the colors of nonviolence. That doesn’t mean there aren’t legions of revisionists who might eventually prevail to subsume the followers and fellow travelers of MLK to minor and misguided bit players who mendaciously tried to justify the violence that (with or without provocation) burned parts of Detroit, Los Angeles and other US cities. One or two generations from now, that’s what the history books might say if enough of us hold to a certain way of looking into the abyss or facing up to the beast.

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Netanyahu & Hamas both need each other more than they need their own. Israelis may want peace, but Netanyahu sure as hell doesn't.

Is the Dahiya Doctrine nothing to you? Or does it sound irrelevant to this?

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Your analysis doesn’t take into account the illegal occupation of the West Bank (ever rife with violence from settlers and the IDF) and also Gaza before the IDF pulled out the settlers and established a deadly blockade.

I’m sure the majority of Israelis want to live in peace with their neighbors (do these include the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank). And I’m sure a smaller (how much smaller? I don’t know) actually believes the state of Israel wants to live in peace with their neighbors. I don’t believe that at all, because I believe the Israeli policy is to ethnically cleanse both Gaza and the West Bank to the fullest extent possible—and I don’t believe that can be done while still living in peace with Israel’s neighbors.

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I await the day that the countries around Israel start allowing Jews to live and become citizens in those countries, as has been true of Arabs, in Israel, all along. Until then it is clear to most people, who the actual "ethnic cleansers" are in the region.

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Yeah, maybe. But the death tolls and body counts tell a different story. And the old hasbara is no longer going to cut it. (I fear you have a very long wait.)

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I think the current exchange rate is 3,000 Palestinians for every 1 Israeli.

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“Your analysis doesn’t take into account the illegal occupation of the West Bank”

The occupation of the West Bank by Jewish settlers may indeed be unwise, but you are promulgating a falsehood when you claim that it is *illegal*.

Israel has control of the West Bank because it was attacked by its neighbors.

Jordan today is unwilling to take back sovereignty over the West Bank.

So your claim of “illegal” is simply bullshit.

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What we agree upon is that the occupation is “unwise” (as in no damn good for either the state or the people of Israel) although lots of other modifiers could be used to describe the body counts, the destruction of herds, olive groves, and in Gaza the deliberate devastation of sewage facilities, water facilities, hospitals, universities, schools, ambulances, aid workers, and journalists etc etc etc resulting directly or indirectly in the deaths of so many children and other noncombatants? (So I won’t bother to bandy words or legal briefs by looking into either world opinion or the actual resolutions and bodies of laws associated with international law (The UN, the ICC and the World Court). That would be a distraction and a provocation.

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Well, we don’t agree on much of anything actually.

I respect the opinion of those who say the West Bank settlements are unwise. I tend to agree about many of the more recent new settlements; I tend not to for most of the earlier ones.

Your claims about Gaza I have no respect for whatsoever. But I won’t waste time arguing with you.

Glad you at least backed off of your bogus claim of illegal.

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I never backed off it, the occupation is patently illegal, immoral, dangerous, murderous, and possessed of the spirit of Nazi genocide as well as “unwise”. but I have no interest in arguing the point either.

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The occupation is also suicidal for the state of Israel, and very bad news for the people of Israel. (Disagreeing doesn’t prove a point any more than either of our assertions prove anything either, but… onward we are hurled!)

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This isn't new. The U.S. violated international law in Vietnam 60+ years ago. The USSR violated international law when they invaded Afghanistan, and now, Ukraine. I could go on, but there hasn't been a conflict or a war where one side or both didn't "violate international law." We're only as good (or strong) as the people and institutions monitoring, overseeing and enforcing international legal standards are. That is to say, forget it. When you have 1/5 of the UN Security Council invading a sovereign country, then these laws are nigh near unenforceable.

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Your position claiming that Israel violated human rights laws or principles with the pager attack is illogical, incorrect, and extremely offensive.

I don’t care about your objectives or intentions. You are only providing cover for terrorists with this claim.

Absent a retraction I have no expectation will be forthcoming, I will make a point to never read anything you write again.

You are surely NOT defending liberal democracy with this claim.

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Fortunately, international law on war is not enforceable, so not really law. I say fortunately because it's not the mission of the Israeli army to protect lives in Gaza or Lebanon. The mission of the IDF is to protect Israeli lives. It's the mission of Hamas to protect Gazans and the mission of the Lebanese army to protect Lebanese civilians. The easiest way for them to do that is not to allow attacks on Israel.

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“ It's the mission of Hamas to protect Gazans”

No Hamas has made very clear that its mission is to kill Jews from the river to the sea.

It is decidely not its mission to protect Gazans.

In fact, causing Gazans deaths by using them as human shields is a key part of their strategy and tactics.

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Sep 26·edited Sep 26

This is another one-sided "both sides" piece that deliberately obscures context that would give quite the different picture of which side is violently sociopathic and which side is violently acting in the interest of its liberation and towards an end to it obvious genocide and apartheid conditions. "Both sides" arguments such as this, while in some respects maybe technically correct, and in other respects really wrong by selective omission, are intended to excuse the worst behaviors of the sociopathic actors - which if the author were honest, he would clearly identify as Israel. The Pager Attack was indiscriminate and mostly killed civilians off the battlefield, according to non-Zionist sources, and as such was an act of terrorism and doubtlessly intentional to those actually paying attention (e.g. to Israel's Dahiya Doctrine). If Oct 8 to the present is justified by "security" concerns and "self-defense" and necessity to eliminate an armed opponent, then so is Oct 7 given that Israel has an implemented policy of routine disproportionate aerial assault massacres on Gaza over the last two decades that Zionist supporters of Israel consistently fail to mention. There would have been another of those aerial massacres on Gaza with or without Oct7, so one can justifiably see Oct 7 as just another Palestinian initiated "self-defense" battle and not the commencement of an already ongoing war. This author also fails to acknowledge that Israel had thousands of Palestinian captives on Oct 7 (3 times as many now) when Hamas did deliberately take Israeli prisoners of war during what was primarily a military assault against the Golani Brigade (which is responsible for those prior aerial massacres of Gaza civilians with almost a third of those killed being IDF, armed security, and Shin Bet combatants. Additionally, there were undoubtedly armed Israeli civilians that Hamas encountered that day and that resulted in a "civilian" death toll. Consistently also omitted is that 90% of Israelis have military training, and we don't know how many of those were combatants that day. This author also omits that there was an effective mass Hannibal order that day that resulted in Israel's occupation army deliberately killing Israeli civilians - at least 39 by released visual evidence and Israeli testimony not counting the many that were almost certainly incinerated in seventy vehicles at the Nova festival by Israeli Hellfire missiles. That Hannibal info was from multiple Israeli sources and media. As for those prisoners of war (aka "hostages") taken on Oct 7 that was for the purpose of a prisoner exchange for Palestinian captives taken under apartheid conditions under a decades old illegal occupation without due process of law. To not mention Palestinian captives unjustly arrested and imprisoned by Israel in order to maintain its apartheid system is to attempt to strip Palestinians of its primary justification for Oct 7 as they had no non-violent alternatives to get Palestinians released from Israeli apartheid’s mass incarceration system. Palestinians other than Hamas escaped their concentration camp, and some of those were responsible for taking the civilians hostages which Hamas then tried to release to Israel but Israel refused that release early in those post Oct 7 days preferring to opportunistically use the occasion for a genocide at the expense of the lives of Israeli captives. Let me also note, that genocide is not "self-defense" and Israel's occupation army could have had Israeli captives back in October with a prisoner exchange, and it could have defended its borders with Gaza without doing an eleven month plus genocide if it were not using its occupation forces to help violent colonial settlers expel Palestinians in the West Bank from land that is legally theirs. Also, it should be noted that Hizbollah's attacks, unlike Israel's, have been consistently military and the civilians killed in their attacks were actual unintentional collateral damage. Much of this author's info also seems to come from Zionist sources which are not to be trusted as Israel has a propaganda and censorship machine that reaches into western media that has demonstrated itself to be a repeated purveyor of fascistic fabrications.

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None of the parties involved actually want peace. If there were a genuine move in that direction, both Netanyahu & Hamas would love to prevent that. They both need each other more than they need their own populations.

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If there really was an international will to enforce international law the first thing that would happen is that all the belligerents involved would be forcibly disarmed by the international community. The international community would invade the lands involved and a cease fire is enforced on all sides. The international community would guarantee the security of Israel and the safety of the Palestinians until an agreement, satisfactory to the Israelis and Palestinians, is reached.

Such an international enforcement would require the cooperation of the Arab States, Iran and all of Israel's western allies. Lebanon and Syria would need to be pacified as well. Such a cooperative alliance will, of course, never happen.

"International Law" is an absurd joke without a mechanism to enforce that law. Right now international law exists only as a propaganda tool where victims sit around and compare wounds and justify and rationalize why the laws don't apply to them.. The only people prosecuted in international courts are the small fries and two bit dictators and rogue generals of relatively powerless nations.

So what will happen since there is no will or capacity to enforce international law?

Israel will never have security and the Palestinians will never have safety and both sides will continue to violate "the laws" in order to preserve themselves.

Of course, Israelis and Palestinians who don't want to live in this hellscape of their own making might consider the option to leave.

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