YOU will appreciate the headline above if you pronounce the ‘t’ softly as Anthony Quinn does in The Guns of Navarone, when Gregory Peck proffers his hand for a goodbye in a way that reflects his fears for Quinn’s life in German-occupied Greece. Quinn understands Peck’s fears and replies with a smile: “Don’t worry. I am not easy to kill.” If Quinn were in today’s occupied Palestine — or beyond, as in Lebanon, Syria or Iran — he would find it is the other way around, because it is easy to kill wherever and whenever Israel wants.
Before me on my breakfast table is Dawn’s issue of the day. One heading that dominates the back page screams, ‘At least 20 killed as Israel continues attacks on Lebanon’. A few inches down is another headline: ‘Journalist among 11 killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza.’
I turn the page and the headline that gives bad news runs across six columns on top. It is about Lebanese environmentalist Mona Khalil. Born in Nigeria to Lebanese parents, she chose to live in Lebanon, where she dedicated her life to protecting sea turtles. She was murdered by Israel in the village of Mandouri. Another headline draws my attention. It is a four-line affair in a bigger font. Another two-line heading informs us of the pleasure the Israeli leadership draws from shedding non-Zionist blood.
While we quote such blood-curdling headlines ad infinitum, the worrying issue is the gradual hardening of the Israeli political and intellectual leadership’s war philosophy. Initially, men like Theodor Herzl (1860 –1904), who believed there should be a Jewish state, didn’t base their ‘ideology’ on anti-Palestinianism. In fact, Herzl, a Hungarian who moved freely in Ottoman lands, never specified any land which could become a home to European Jewry.
We are seeing a move towards the Nazification of Israeli thinking.
The phenomenon we are seeing today is a gradual but definite move towards the Nazification of Israeli thinking. This not only implies mass murders; it also encourages sadism among Israeli soldiers. Notice, for instance, the Israeli defence minister’s orders to his jackboots in Lebanon that there were no restrictions on them in “eliminating threats”. Mind you, these evil instructions concern a foreign country and not Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed his defence minister, saying: “We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary to protect the cherished residents of the north and all the citizens of Israel … Nothing will alter that commitment.”
The point to note is the brazen-faced declaration to “remain” in the “security zone” for a period that has not been specified. In this land thievery, Western powers encouraged the Zionists’ land-grab policy by handing over to them territories — such as Palestine — which had become available to them after World War I. Let us avoid wasting time and space by referring to a British masterpiece of diplomatic jugglery called the Balfour Declaration — “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of ... .” Thus Arab-majority Palestine was handed over to a minority that one day would turn it into a racist state inhabited by people imported from Lithuania, Ukraine and the Caucasus.
Some actions taken by Western powers can be similarly interpreted, for they reflect a desire to find sanctuaries for Jews, while at the same time feeling uncomfortable about it for reasons that go deep into their theological foundations. For instance, in 1903, Britain offered to Herzl 13,000 square kilometres of land in what is now Kenya, but the Jewish leadership rejected it, feeling unhappy over settlements away from Europe.
A shameless example of Israel’s admission of what can be called an act of mass infanticide was revealed by the UN, which said Israeli forces continued to deliberately target children in the Gaza Strip. The declaration was made by the UN Commission of Inquiry, an independent agency. In a statement published in June, the commission found that Israeli military operations had continued to cause “unprecedented death, injury and trauma” to Palestinian children.
The commission said the deliberate targeting of children was “a key indicator of Israeli authorities’ genocidal intent to destroy the Palestinian people”, even after a ceasefire had gone into effect in Gaza. As commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said: “Children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”
The Israeli government’s denial of this crime pales into insignificance because the UN commission used the words “genocidal intent” for Israel’s behaviour.
The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026