Our governments are complicit in genocide

There is no way to sweeten the pill. The deafening silence of our governments until it was too late, will be forever a stain on what little reputation any of them have left

Image - Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

PREFACE | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE

If it’s one thing we have learned from the Israeli government’s arrogant belief that they can do as they please, it is that no government dares to challenge them; allies will only comply until public sentiment changes. We are no longer talking about a minor shift with the US; we are looking at a literal about-face in public opinion, yet the US government is steadfast. In contrast, the UK, Canada, and European countries seem to have got the memo: recent Pew Research shows that 60% of Americans now view Israel in a negative light. That number rises to 75% among young adults aged 18-29.

Keep one important distinction in mind. The large disapproval numbers are NOT coming from Jews who live in Israel, where we see a totally different picture. Let me begin by saying it’s not surprising that Israeli Jews overwhelmingly support the actions of the US military in Gaza (between 76% and 84%). What may seem even more incredible to many living outside Israel is that, to quote the BBC:

78% of Jewish Israelis believe that the army makes a substantial effort to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to Palestinian civilians in Gaza

If you’re a fair-minded person, with your finger on the pulse of events even during the so-called cease-fire, you could only conclude that the Israeli people are the victims of their own country’s propaganda, to the point where they have become totally detached from reality. The alternative would be to believe that the Israeli Jews are utter monsters. Personally, I’m not prepared to concede that, but I fully understand why many would. The same goes for the fact that, according to the Israel Democracy Institute:

About 70% of Jewish respondents trust the military's reports regarding casualty numbers and operational conduct.

The report containing these figures, written by Tamar Hermann, Dr Lior Yohanani, Yaron Kaplan, and Inna Orly Sapozhnikova, is well worth your time, as it discusses wider issues such as famine and settler violence. The critical point is that just as there is a stark contrast between Judaism and Zionism, so there is a contrast between the perceptions of Israeli Jews and the diaspora. These differences clearly stem from the levels of control they can exert internally as opposed to externally. The Israeli government has a longstanding reputation for narrative control. Indeed, it’s pretty clear that the far right in the US has studied the narrative control model used in Israel.

This matters because domestic support for the Israeli government differs starkly from diaspora support. In 2024, which was just 6 months into the conflict in Gaza, in a piece for the Institute for Jewish Policy Research by Dr Jonathan Boyd, he states:

First, JPR data from summer 2024 show that 70% of British Jews think that Jews who don’t live in Israel should be free to publicly criticise Israel’s government or its policies. And 76% ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ disapprove of Netanyahu; 74% think he prioritises his own personal interests over those of the State of Israel as a whole. 62% feel the Israeli government hasn’t done enough to secure the release of the hostages, 52% feel it hasn’t done enough to provide humanitarian aid to Gazans, and 74% see Israel’s overall situation as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. These are all ‘majority’ views held by over half of British Jews.

It’s easy to assume all Jews share the Israeli government’s position, but nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the diaspora. It is also unfair to say that all Israeli Jews support their government. While it’s clear the majority do, there are a number of Jewish organisations in Israel that condemn what their government has done and support the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people. You have to be pretty brave to go down this route, as many of those who dissent will attest to

To be clear, anti-semitism is VERY REAL, much the same as Islamophobia. It is most unfortunate that the Israeli government has deliberately chosen to conflate dissent and antisemitism, using it as a propaganda tool. They have taken the term hostage, just as the far right in America has taken the word ‘patriot’ hostage. Both have become political weapons of war used to defend abhorrent behaviour. Having written about this conflict extensively on this and other social media platforms, I have felt the wrath of this ‘holy weapon of war’ in the form of vile abuse and death threats; it just comes with the turf of having the audacity to criticise the actions of an out-of-control nationalist government.

In a world of magic-bullet solutions, sound bites, and increasingly narrow attention spans, sensible and legitimate debate is declared dead on arrival. It’s a carefully crafted standard response from supporters of the abhorrent actions of the IDF at the behest of a government that has the sole objective of expelling the Palestinian people from what is historically their land, at least for the past four centuries under the Ottoman Empire. Jews argue that in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants. Historical documents show the establishment of the United Monarchy under Kings David and Solomon around 1000 BCE- yes, that's 1000 years before Christ. Might I be so bold as to suggest that the statute of limitations has long expired; otherwise, it’s time to hand America back to the indigenous population, many of whom, like Gazans, still have no running water.

Once we get into biblical justifications, as is so often the case when it comes to Netanyahu and his hard-right thugs, we’re in la-la territory. The simple facts are that Israel is the very definition of an apartheid state; it has two separate legal systems, for God’s sake. In the illegal occupied territories as defined under international law, Israeli soldiers can walk into a Palestinian home and declare it a temporary army position. The residents have no right to object or appeal their presence. The Palestinian people are quite literally powerless on their own land; they can be arrested and held under administrative detention with no right to due process, and detained indefinitely. The same rules apply to Palestinian children.

The Israeli position is indefensible, but they have long lived under the protection of the US and other European nations at the United Nations. Countries which not only veto any moves to enforce compliance with any number of UN resolutions condemning their actions. They are, in the absence of accountability, encouraged to rule, murder and abuse Palestinians at will with total impunity. The claim is always self-defence. In that light, it’s important to provide context on the casualties on both sides before October 7 2023. As you can see below, since 2008, 5,590 Palestinians have been killed as retribution for the deaths of 251 Israelis. It’s also important not to recognise the highly disproportionate scale of injuries.

The level of imbalance in the numbers is breathtaking and is a testament to the level of total subjugation of the Palestinian population in both Gaza and the occupied territories. Remember, this is BEFORE October 7th, after which the numbers then reflect a rampage of vengeful retribution by the IDF as commanded by the Israeli government.

To support this retribution, the US has since provided direct military aid amounting to over $21 billion since October 7. You can take a closer look at the breakdown of the colossal amount of munitions provided in this Brown University report, published in October 2025, almost a year ago. Based on a median annual worker salary of $36,571, which represents the salary of 574,000 American workers. Or, if you prefer, two and a half months of SNAP payments for 42 million food-insecure Americans.

In terms of loss of life since October 7th 2023, as I noted in my earlier piece in this series, final Israeli fatalities as counted from Israeli social security records indicate that :

The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.

It’s also important to note that at least 13 Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF under the Hanibal Directive when Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram gave the order to fire a tank shell at a Kibbutz Be'eri house where Hamas terrorists held hostages. 13 of the 14 hostages being held on the property were killed along with the terrorists holding them. It’s very difficult to assess other such losses, as obviously it’s the last thing the Israeli government wants to disclose. That said, there has been an admission that the directive was invoked.

These attacks on their own civilians in no way diminish the war crimes committed by Hamas and its allies on that fateful day. However, the truth does matter, and there were no 4o beheaded babies, a story still repeated to this day by those attempting to justify their own war crimes. It is also important to note that almost 100 hostages were murdered by Hamas, with the IDF killing Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim, and Samer Talalka while waving a white flag at the ‘most moral army on earth’, while attempting to escape captivity. The conflict is littered with tragedy on so many levels.

All of the above is dwarfed by the now 73,000 Palestinians murdered. Of these, 38,000 were women and girls, and 70% of the final total were women and children. There can be no justification for that level of wanton murder and destruction, and it’s likely the 73,000 is an undercount because so many bodies remained under destroyed buildings. It should be noted that the Israeli government is determined to ensure the final total is never uncovered, as they have started removing the evidence with bulldozers for when the world’s press is finally allowed to report on the destruction.

What began as a devastating attack on Gaza has now expanded as a result of Netanyahu convincing Trump to go to war with Iran. An ambition he has harboured for decades, but could never convince an American president to fall for, until Trump came along. Now the conflict has widened to Lebanon, Iran, and now Yemen; it’s a geopolitical wildfire out of control with no off-ramp. The Israeli Prime Minister might have believed his dreams had all come true, but this series of actions in Gaza and Iran has literally tanked global public opinion on Israel, which has completely lost control of the narrative.

I think it’s reached the point where Trump would not piss on him if he were on fire; that’s how angry he is that Netanyahu led him up a dead-end garden path. The Iran war is currently looking like it will decimate Republicans in November, and if Democrats take the House and the Senate, Trump is facing Judgment Day for the mountain of corruption he has engaged in while in office.

In the next and penultimate episode in this series, which I’ll post in a few hours, I’ll focus entirely on the largely untold story of the danger Netanyahu was repeatedly warned about regarding the impending attack, as warned by multiple senior sources in the UAE and Egypt. Warnings which, in my view, were wilfully ignored. Then, to add insult to injury, on the evening of October 7th, he was presented with an opportunity to have all the hostages released and turned it down.

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