From the 'human animals' and 'children of darkness': Palestine's appeal to Israel's citizens

The State of Palestine’s official X handle for its UN presence shared a message on the evening of 6 August, Wednesday, that was directed at the “Israeli people” — not the state of Israel or its government, not prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the IDF, but the common people seemingly.

It put forth a video of the message articulated by the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations.

And it was blistering.

“Your government wants you to believe that the whole world is conspiring against you, that the Palestinian people are terrorists, that the UN is filled with terrorist and terrorist supporters, that your closest allies are your enemies,” the message read out by Riyad Mansour began.

“Do not believe them!” he urged.

He went on to speak of the demand from the Israeli radical government — including its foreign minister (currently Gideon Sa'ar, but Israel Katz of the Likud last year was hardly better) — to ‘de-radicalise’ Palestinian society, having already dehumanised a whole people as “human animals” and “children of darkness”.

“They want you to believe that your survival depends on your ability to continuously wage wars,” Mansour continued, “including against a defenceless civilian population — half of whom are children; on their erasure.”

The children in Gaza number 1 million, he reminded his audience.

He went on to ask whether this — the decimation of these children and their civilian families — was what the Israeli people really wanted from their government and their military.

Mansour pointed out that the whole world was watching as the Netanyahu government hoped the citizens of Israel would “filter out, deny or justify” the atrocities.

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Mansour’s remarks come against the backdrop of new concerns around escalations in Gaza — and possibly also the occupied West Bank — by the IDF, though there are reportedly dissidents even in the governmental ranks over the expansion of the war on Hamas at this stage, when much of the Western world too is censorious of the images of children starved to death and people killed while trying to access aid.

The Palestinian statement went on to avow that Palestine still chose peace, despite its suffering:

In the midst of this genocide we are telling you: we choose peace and appeal to you to do the same. We do it for our children and our people. You should do it for your children and your loved ones. Enough bloodshed. Enough wars. Enough suffering.

Ultimately, the statement appealed, Israeli citizens should make the choice to call for peace “not for the Palestinian people’s sake” or “in the name of humanity”, Mansour continued — but “in the name of self-preservation”.

That is a factor much of even the sympathetic Western governments still shy away from admitting — or at least openly stating:

That Israel remains ‘insecure’ in large part because it insists on maintaining and expanding a decades-long illegal occupation of Palestinian territory that it was not even given (even should we allow that Britain had, as a colonial power, any right to offer Palestinian land to the European survivors of the Holocaust).

That Hamas militancy is a resistance of occupation by another nation.

With the state of Palestine on the verge of being recognised formally by several more key Western nations (even if conditionally, even if those conditions seem arbitrary or lopsided), this is a factor that Israelis may indeed have to confront: Will the support for their actions dwindle if Palestine is seen as a sovereign nation with also a right to self-defence against the occupying power that is Israel?

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Of course, that is not to say that the disapproval will take more considerable a shape than verbal censure — the last two years don't suggest otherwise.

Which may, indeed, be why Palestine is appealing to Israel at all, with the rest of the ‘free world’ having done nothing much at all.

Be that as it may, Palestine’s statement also offered a simple — and rather logical — solution to the crisis: “ending this illegal occupation”.

The end to this “disastrous conflict”, the Palestinian diplomat suggested, is impossible through a shift in mindset that recognises the rights of the Palestinian people:

it is the realisation of the independence and sovereignty of the Palestinian state, not its destruction; it is the fulfilment of our rights, not their continued denial; it is respect for international law, not its trampling; it is the implementation of the two-State solution, not a one-State reality with Palestinians condemned to genocide, ethnic cleansing or apartheid.

Notably, Riyad Mansour is not a Hamas appointee or member — and has in the past also spoken of the need for all hostages to be freed.

He was originally appointed an Observer at the UN by the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. The Authority was displaced in Gaza but continues to administer the West Bank (albeit under the restrictions imposed by the occupying power that is Israel).

Hours after Mansour’s appeal at the UN, the X handle shared a set of starvation statistics from Gaza — not those of the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN considers the most reliable available from the region in the circumstances; but those from Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, also known as B'Tselem (a Jerusalem-based Israeli non-profit), which shared a poster of a child who is skin and bones bearing the legend 'Israel Is Starving Gaza' (and in fine print, 'Our Genocide Is Happening Now').

The figures say that as of 4 August, 175 people have died of starvation in the Gaza strip, of which 93 were children. The past 2 weeks alone saw 89 of these deaths, it noted, indicating a uptick in the rate of deepening of the crisis — while over 1,487 people were also killed and more than 10,578 were injured trying to obtain food at ‘aid centres’.

The post added, among other things, that:

B'TselemIsrael has also deliberately destroyed Gaza’s capacity to produce food. It bombed the only wheat mill, forced nearly all bakeries to shut down, killed most livestock, and devastated Gaza’s farmland, greenhouses, and wells. The fishing industry, once a vital food source, has been nearly wiped out. B'TselemThis destruction is not incidental. Israel is targeting the systems that once sustained Gaza’s food supply and undermining the population’s ability to recover and produce food in the future.

Noting that the whole intention of the Israel- and US-backed Gaza humanitarian aid centres seems to be to push the population of Gaza to the southern periphery and into Egypt, the post added: “Consequently, the scope of famine has reached catastrophic levels. Nearly 2 million people — 93 per cen of Gaza’s population — are suffering severe food insecurity. Hundreds of thousands are facing catastrophic hunger — the most severe classification of famine. These figures, based on international assessments, are expected to rise.“

“Israel’s deliberate, systematic, extreme starvation policy leaves no room for doubt. This is genocide. It is happening now, and it must be stopped,” B'Tselem concluded.