Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It
© AP Photo / Yousef Masoud
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In 2008, Israel Defense Forces colonel Gabriel Siboni described what would be named the Dahiyeh doctrine. ”In Lebanon, attacks should both aim at [Hezbollah's] military capabilities and should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization… [Israel] will have to respond disproportionately," he wrote.
The collective punishment carried out by the state of Israel on the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon has turned the world against it and could be its undoing. The repercussions of Israel’s indiscriminate and murderous campaign can be seen both locally and across the globe.
"There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed [in Gaza]. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said days after the October 7 attack.
Inside Gaza, Hamas was facing a popularity crisis, with only 20% of the population supporting them before October 7 according to James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute. By launching Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas hoped to change its image and increase its popularity.
“Hamas sought to use October 7th as an attempt to reconfigure its image as an authoritarian militant group into a fighting force protecting Palestinians against Israeli aggression. Hamas believed that by framing October 7th as a revolutionary act of resistance against Israel, Palestinians would see them as protectors of their struggle and see Hamas in a favorable light,” wrote Abdelhalim Abdelrahman in an article for antiwar.com on the anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 56% of Palestinians in Gaza say that armed resistance is “the best means of achieving Palestinian goals in ending the occupation and building an independent state,” increasing from 50% in September 2023.
The same trend is happening in Lebanon with Hezbollah, the editor of The Cradle told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday. “What has been happening in Lebanon I think is actually creating more support for Hezbollah because even among the people who dislike the existence of the Lebanese resistance, they dislike Israel more,” he argued. “You're not all of a sudden gonna start taking the side of the people who are bombing your city, your capital, your country. So indiscriminately cutting off the land route to Syria, threatening to start bombing from the sea, as well as from the air… this is the Dahiyeh doctrine.”
“They were hoping that at some point Palestinians would be like enough is enough, we are going to turn against Hamas, and that never happened. And, it's never gonna happen here in Lebanon as well,” Carrillo continued. “Even if they spark some sort of color revolution, it's gonna fizzle out because Israel, at the end of the day, is the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.”
In the region, Israel’s actions have erased decades of work that its government and the US put into normalizing relations with its neighbors.
“[October 7] sidelined what appeared to be an upcoming, soon to be realized, entente between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That would have sidelined… the notion of Palestinian self-determination. But, with October 7, the opposite is in play with the Saudi leadership now contending that no normalization with Israel is possible unless the question of Palestinian self-determination and statehood is on the table,” Dr. Gerald Horne, a historian that holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.
“You can also say that October 7, 2023, weakened the Abraham Accords. Those are the accords initiated by US President, Mr. Trump, which called for normalizing of relations between Morocco and Bahrain and Sudan,” continued Horne. “We now know that with Sudan’s leadership inking those ill-fated accords, it was greeted with hostility on the streets of Khartoum, leading to what is now [a] de-facto civil war.”
Across the globe, Israel is finding that countries that were previously satisfied with the status quo are no longer supportive of the zionist state.
In May, Colombia severed diplomatic relations with Israel, despite its military’s reliance on Israeli arms imports. In August, Colombian President Gustavo Petro halted coal exports to Israel, saying on X that “Colombian coal is used to make bombs to kill Palestinian children.”
Colombia previously supplied 60% of Israel’s coal imports.
Even France, one of Israel’s most steadfast supporters over the decades, shocked the world when on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron called for an arms embargo on Israel, a comment that Netanyahu called a “disgrace.”
“We see that this Macron initiative is a response to the strengthening of the left in France, a direct result, I would argue, of October 7, because France has one of the most significant and vibrant Islamic populations in Europe, which was altogether outraged, understandably, by the persecution of the Gazans and the Palestinians in the wake of October 7, which led to a surge of the left in the French Parliament,” Horne argued.
But Israel’s actions are not just turning the world against themselves, it is also turning the world against its biggest benefactor: The United States.
“In light of this obvious double standard that basically leads to the North Atlantic countries seeking to excuse Israel's piracy while coming down like a ton of bricks on other nations who are thought to violate this so-called international order. It's quite discredited for the United States, US imperialism, and its North Atlantic allies,” explained Horne.
“[The US is] talking out of both sides of its mouth as usual, supposedly elbowing Mr. Netanyahu to move towards a ceasefire, while supplying multi-tonnage bombs that are dropped in densely-populated areas of Beirut,” he added later.
Inside the United States, people are starting to turn against Israel as well, particularly among the youth. “We also see that in North America itself, October 7, 2023, led to a reinvigorated protest movement on campuses,” Horne said.
According to an April Pew Research poll, younger Americans are becoming increasingly sympathetic with the Palestinian cause, with 33% of respondents aged 18-29 saying that their sympathies lie with the people of Gaza, compared to just 14% who say the same about Israelis.
Meanwhile, the share of Americans who have no or little confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” has jumped to 52% compared to 42% who said the same before October 7.
This is despite the mainstream media in the West and much of the world working for decades to dehumanize the Palestinians.
An investigation by DeclassifiedUK noted the differences in how Palestinians and Israeli deaths are covered in mainstream Western outlets.
“In the UK-US mainstream media, Israelis die actively. They are either killed or murdered by Hamas, or ‘after a surprise Palestinian attack.’ ‘The Palestinians’ stands in for ‘Hamas’ for sloppy or ideological editors, for example in the Guardian on 8 October.
Palestinian civilians, by contrast, die passively – and yet it is they who have done most of the dying since 7 October...
On 8 November, the Times of London noted: ‘Israelis marked a month since Hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240, starting a war in which 10,300 Palestinians are said to have died’, which is of course qualified."
Carillo agrees. “Western media, the major outlets - CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, NBC - you just name them one after the other, have been so complicit in the dehumanization of Palestinians,” he said.
“Now I wonder, are they going to do the same for the Lebanese? Are the Lebanese next to be dehumanized? To be made to live in camps?”
