Manhood in Gaza

Imperialism

Israel

Palestine


Fig. 1. Graphic by Al Jazeera, May 15, 2022,[1] fair use.

It’s past time Zionists started noticing this:

The cycle of limited battles in recent years against Islamic Jihad, the second-largest terror group in the Gaza Strip, is sounding like a broken record: Time and again Israel has killed senior members of the group after attacks on the country, leading to rocket fire for several days, until a truce is mediated by Egypt.[2]

Now if they would also notice how much these killing orgies resemble U.S. gun nuts’ inability to distinguish between their guns and their penises.

But the bitter fact is that, even with its key leaders dead, weapons stores blown up, anti-tank cells thwarted, and innumerable rocket launchers targeted, the “murderous organization” did manage to muster an “answer” through four full days of conflict, and was still firing rocket salvos at Israel in the minutes before and after a ceasefire finally went into effect on Saturday night.

Speaking hours before the ceasefire was agreed to on Saturday, Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi also stated that Israel had achieved its goals “in the first seconds” of the operation, and then acknowledged rather plaintively: “Everything that’s been going on since requires us to act because they’re firing on us.”[3]

Which is to say that none of this chest-thumping achieves what would be a reasonable objective: stopping the rocket attacks.[4]

With a force estimated at “only” some 10,000 and relatively limited rocket supplies, targeted constantly by the mighty [Israel Defense Forces], Islamic Jihad nevertheless managed to keep up to half of Israel close to or inside sealed rooms and bomb shelters for five days.[5]

When a repeated and sustained policy does not achieve a reasonable objective but is adhered to nonetheless, a question arises as to what objective is being achieved. And far too much of this has the feel of asserting a remarkably toxic masculinity, firing advanced weapons at civilians when the opponent (who is not the same as the civilians) has only crude weapons with which to reply. Israel isn’t solving its problem this way and this should have been beyond amply clear long before now. My question is whether it in fact wants to solve this problem, or instead to thump its chest, to assert its manhood.

Emanuel Fabian, “Operation Broken Record: Israel is already counting down to the next Gaza conflict,” Times of Israel, May 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/operation-broken-record-israel-is-already-counting-down-to-the-next-gaza-conflict/

David Horovitz, “Israel’s Gaza operation met its goals in seconds; trouble is, it went on for 5 days,” Times of Israel, May 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-gaza-operation-met-its-goals-in-seconds-trouble-is-it-went-on-for-5-days/


  1. [1]Mohammed Haddad, “Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948?” Al Jazeera, May 15, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/15/nakba-mapping-palestinian-villages-destroyed-by-israel-in-1948
  2. [2]Emanuel Fabian, “Operation Broken Record: Israel is already counting down to the next Gaza conflict,” Times of Israel, May 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/operation-broken-record-israel-is-already-counting-down-to-the-next-gaza-conflict/
  3. [3]David Horovitz, “Israel’s Gaza operation met its goals in seconds; trouble is, it went on for 5 days,” Times of Israel, May 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-gaza-operation-met-its-goals-in-seconds-trouble-is-it-went-on-for-5-days/
  4. [4]David Horovitz, “Israel’s Gaza operation met its goals in seconds; trouble is, it went on for 5 days,” Times of Israel, May 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-gaza-operation-met-its-goals-in-seconds-trouble-is-it-went-on-for-5-days/
  5. [5]David Horovitz, “Israel’s Gaza operation met its goals in seconds; trouble is, it went on for 5 days,” Times of Israel, May 14, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-gaza-operation-met-its-goals-in-seconds-trouble-is-it-went-on-for-5-days/

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