Roger Marshall is a computer scientist, a newly minted Luddite and a cynic.
Credit: DH Illustration
In its single-mindedness to exterminate Hamas fighters, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) has reportedly killed, in Gaza alone, more than 30,000 women and children, and bombed hospitals, mosques and schools. Now, it is Lebanon’s turn to face Israel’s wrath.
The outcome of the war in Lebanon will be much more devastating since it has global implications. By remotely triggering explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies, Israel may have succeeded in killing a few Hezbollah fighters but the collateral damage it has inflicted on the world is incalculable. In this age of the Internet of Things (IoT), every digital device -- smartphones, laptops, security cameras, gaming devices, etc., -- is now suspect. Your wait-time to get through airport security just got infinitely longer.
Incidentally, American inventor and entrepreneur Palmer Luckey was responsible for creating a video game virtual reality headset that kills its human user in real life when the user dies digitally while playing the game, via explosives attached to the console!
The smartphone is no longer your friend, just a landmine that can go off at any time. Thank you, Israel.
The same Israel that allowed one of its software companies, the NSO group, to sell to foreign governments its Pegasus software that allowed them to hack into the smartphones of journalists, protesters and activists in several countries, including India. The same Israel that is now recruiting Indians to serve as construction workers, maids, and mercenaries.
The ‘banality of evil’, a phrase made memorable by the eminent Jewish German-emigre philosopher Hannah Arendt in describing the pogroms in Russia and Germany, has now firmly embraced Israel in its bosom and will not let go.
The actions of IDF should come as no surprise. It was the same IDF which, in the September 1982 Sabra and Shatila camp massacre carried out by a Lebanese Christian militia in Beirut, cordoned off the area and just watched as the Palestinian refugees were slaughtered. Perhaps spurred on by the acute Islamophobia that gripped the US after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, IDF committed a series of atrocities in Ramallah in the early 2000s in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a Palestinian territory.
Just a few weeks ago, the IDF did not intervene when extremist Jewish settlers destroyed humanitarian aid being sent to Gaza refugees. Of the 99 reporters killed last year, the vast majority were Palestinian reporters who, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, appear to have been targeted by the IDF -- a fact that prompted the Guardian to note, “no war has killed so many journalists so quickly.”
When the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought warrants for the arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders on war crimes charges, there was a loud outcry from Israel (with the strong backing of the US) with charges of antisemitism freely bruited about. Why is it that any criticism of Israel, no matter how legitimate, is immediately branded as motivated by antisemitism?
Whether the ICC will prevail in its attempt to convict Israel of war crimes remains to be seen. It is a lot easier to convict black leaders of weak African nations of genocide than it is to prosecute Israel, a powerful nuclear-weapons nation-state with an extensive global public relations machinery. In the eyes of many western nations and their acolytes, Israel can do no wrong. Really?
The playbook adopted by the US in its global war on terror post-9/11 is the same one that is being used by Israel in its pursuit of Hamas and Hezbollah fighters in Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon, irrespective of public opinion. The dust hasn’t yet settled in Afghanistan or Iraq despite tens of thousands of civilian casualties.
When Israel makes public pronouncements such as “We are going after Hezbollah terrorists. We have nothing against Lebanon”, how is it different from the “This is not who we are” mantra chanted by US generals and politicians alike whenever civilians in a war zone are killed by US soldiers or drones?
Holocausts have occurred periodically all across the globe, only the scale and identity of the victims have differed. Sooner or later, the political and social capital that accrues from victimhood gets depleted. Then what, Israel?