Israel is flirting with the realms of genocide
The disappearance of morality broadcast live on Israeli TV ■ These Palestinian refugees evoke compassion. They are the victims of this war, they are not rodents. The Nazis called the Jews rodents, the Jews who marched in similar refugee processions, with suitcases and blankets and worries. Now an Israeli TV channel calls Palestinians in Gaza rodents.
By Rogel Alpher • Translated by Sol Salbe
A people that rejoices in the demise of the children of its enemy, in the death of its babies, its hunched-over elderly, its weak and its wretched members, is a people that has no moral hope. It’s a people afflicted by a toxic combination of terrible moral depravity and barbarism. Presenter Shimon Riklin is definitely jubilant. Celebrating the fact that the IDF, according to him, has smitten the enemy in Gaza. But it seems that Riklin has also been smitten. The morality department carriage has gone off the rails. “The IDF is defeating Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” announced the large-font caption at the bottom of the screen, and Riklin clarified that in fact “the IDF is kicking the living daylight out of them in the Gaza Strip.” He explained that “it’s part of a covert aim to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip.” It is clear that beneath all the Nakba delight, there is the raging lava of annexation, threatening to erupt and cover the entire northern Gaza Strip with settlements that will bring another disaster to Israel. Riklin informed co-presenter Erel Segal that he had prepared “a number of video clips” documenting “the reaction of the people of the northern Gaza Strip.”
First, a middle-aged woman appeared on the screen, sobbing, “What have we done? What did we do?” surrounded by several men carrying satchels on their backs. Behind her, parents push strollers. A gloomy girl passes through the frame. And here is a rotund toothless elderly woman. Horses, carriages, and their handlers. A father holds his son’s hand and drags him behind him, a mother carrying a newborn baby on her shoulders. A second pushes a toddler in a stroller. In the background there’s the accompanying soundtrack: war anthem Harbu Darbu. The song tells the viewers what they see, as they pass before their eyes, in the caravan of refugees, a father carrying his daughter on his shoulders, his hand holding the palm of his son walking beside him, a heavy bag hanging over his shoulder.
“A nest of mice is coming out of the hole, the fuckers” the song describes the sight. An Israeli TV channel is showing footage of Gazan refugees against the backdrop of a song calling them “a nest of mice coming out of the hole.” It goes beyond the realms of pop music, the passing fades on YouTube, Spotify, the current hit in IDF units. As the soundtrack to this news item, this has reached the stage of explicit, malignant barbarism, and reinforces the contention that Israel, In which Harbu Darbu was for a long time its Number 1 pop song, is flirting with the realms of genocide. The song keeps on being played. The refugees keep on moving, dragging suitcases, pushing bicycles laden with blankets, supermarket trolleys full of bags. More and more women with babies pass behind a woman who asks, “Where shall we go?”
These refugees evoke compassion. They are the victims of this war, they are not rodents. The Nazis called the Jews rodents, the Jews who marched in similar refugee processions, with suitcases and blankets and worries. Now an Israeli TV channel calls them rodents. “I see it and I’m melting in delight,” Riklin declared. For the icing on the cake, to complete the annexation party, an aerial photograph of Shejaiya was used: “You can get an impression of the extent of the destruction,” he marvelled. They are prompting Nausea. You feel like vomiting when you watch and listen to them. Apocalyptic desert visions. Riklin noted favourably that the place is empty of residents, a proud ethnic cleansing. I feel like crying. This broadcast is monstrous, it’s the disappearance of the last vestiges of humanity on live television.
Translated by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service
First published by Haaretz Hebrew original:
