Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has sparked a diplomatic crisis by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid.
There was a rapid and furious response from countries whose citizens were onboard the boats, including the UK, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, in many cases delivered in person from the top of government.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, one of the country’s staunchest allies, described Ben-Gvir’s behaviour as “despicable” and said the minister had “betrayed the dignity of his nation”.
The video includes images of dozens of men and women kneeling in rows, with their foreheads to the ground and their hands zip-tied behind their back. Ben-Gvir appears waving an Israeli flag, mocking and taunting the detainees, including shouting: “The people of Israel live” in the face of one bound man.
I believe there already is a coalition of people in favour of human rights and hopefully they can make a difference somehow, but the problem is that the country has gone so fascist that the majority of people are in favour of this kind of content and rhetoric. It’s not just bad apple soldiers and prison guards.
There have been many interviews, polls, and other public cultural instances to document that most of the public is largely in favour of ethnic cleansing, prisoner abuse, and even more war. There need to be arrests of war criminals, but also some kind of psychological intervention to get the ones who weren’t actively involved to realize how much of their humanity they’ve been discarding. De-Kahanification, I guess you could call it.