If Haniyeh doesn’t collapse from grief, what’s the fun in killing his children and grandchildren?
Israeli TV coverage of Haniyeh’s reaction to the assassination of his children and grandchildren by Israeli military in Gaza. ■ The preoccupation with the nature of his parental feelings towards his children and grandchildren stems first and foremost from the need to feel Jewish superiority towards him: Haniyeh, as a symbol, is perceived as representing the indifference of Gazans everywhere to the lives of their children, their basic inferiority as human beings. ■ The irony is that the way his response to his bereavement is covered here reveals Israeli society’s indifference to the killing of Palestinian children.
By Rogel Alpher • Translated by Sol Salbe
Ismail Haniyeh’s reaction to the killing of three of his children and three of his grandchildren is of great interest to Israeli television. Hamas released a video showing the Hamas leader in Qatar accepting the news and responding with what local television here calls “indifference.” There is no telling what Haniyeh’s reaction was when the cameras went off or when he was left with himself. But the Israeli obsession with his “indifference,” whether staged or not, attests to the mindset of Israeli society much more than to Haniyeh. There is no question that the man who fell to his knees in gratitude in his magnificent hotel in Doha and prostrated himself before Allah with the horrors of the massacre in the Gaza border region on October 7 loomed on the television in the background is not worthy of compassion. His suffering is deserved. But the preoccupation with the nature of his parental feelings towards his children and grandchildren stems first and foremost from the need to feel Jewish superiority towards him: Haniyeh, as a symbol, is perceived as representing the indifference of Gazans everywhere to the lives of their children, their basic inferiority as human beings.
The irony is that the way his response to his bereavement is covered here reveals Israeli society’s indifference to the killing of Gazan children. No one in the studio would have thought of questioning the morality of the murder of the three children, Haniyeh’s grandchildren. They are not even treated as so-called “collateral damage”. They are just completely transparent. Deprived of any right to life. Even though they were only children. They don’t even get a discussion revolving around a moral dilemma. There is no moral dilemma. There is no expression of any sorrow over the death of children. They are worthy of death. Why? The answer is clear: because the motive for their murder (these children were murdered) is pure vengeance.
This is also the motive for the liquidation, to use the Israeli parlance, of Haniyeh’s three sons. The assassination advances nothing, no Israeli goal or interest in the military and political spheres. On the contrary. But it does promote Israel’s main objective: barbaric, tribal vendetta as part of an endless cycle of mutual revenge (after all, Haniyeh’s reaction is watched at a time when the country’s citizens are rattled by the fear of Iranian vengeance, which will be met with Israeli/American vengeance, and repeated again and again). Israel has become a tribe imprisoned in an automatic cycle of vengeance against other tribes. The shocking indifference is the indifference in the studios to the murder of children (who are always innocent). And the bitter disappointment of Haniyeh’s response stems from him declining to give Israelis the satisfaction of joy over his grief and heartbreak (if he feels any). What is vengeance worth to us if the reaction of its target cannot be controlled? If Haniyeh does not collapse from grief, it is much less fun to kill his children and grandchildren.
