Meanwhile, in the West Bank, racist fundamentalist settlers are singing Samson’s praises. The biblical womanizer who murdered and robbed to settle bets, who tied torches to the tails of foxes to set Philistine fields ablaze, who served as a judge to his people but mostly showed lack of judgment, who finally saved no one, not even himself, has become the model for Jewish supremacy. Willfully blind to the irony, the settlers sing, “Avenge but one of my two eyes,” as they terrorize Palestinian villages, burn Palestinian orchards, and force communities off their land. Under the fog of war, a faction of these homegrown terrorists amplifies these acts of ethnic cleansing as ministers and government officials. They continue to corrupt the police, the jail system, the judicial system, and the army to clear the way for further ethnocratic fundamentalism and annexation.
The genocidal statements from government officials that are widely reported around the world are not a gaffe. They present Israel’s most incompetent, corrupt, and irresponsible government ever as ideological, determined, intentional, calculated, strategic, disciplined … and nothing could be further from the truth. More than genocide, this is suicide.
Being an Ally
As the country inches closer toward the edge, how can the United States, Israel’s closest ally, assist?