The Children of the Revolution
On reality, humanity and the unshakeable importance of the youth
Summary outline: This piece begins with Israel’s inhumane assault on Rafah, outlines the accusations of antisemitism to excuse Israel’s actions (the pretence of which is bolstered by the west and its imperialist interests in maintaining Zionism) and ends with the right wing media’s dogwhistling about “children” protesting genocide in western nations.
As I write this, the Israeli terrorist militia has begun delivering what is arguably its version of a “final solution” to the citizens of Gaza.
For seven months, the military regime has wrought utter destruction and slaughter against Palestinians trapped in the blockaded territory, using bombs, air assaults, starvation and psychological torture to ethnically cleanse a population that has been denied freedom, sovereignty and fundamental human rights for 76 years.
There is now an estimated 1.4 million civilians trapped in Rafah, with over 600,000 of them children. With Gaza effectively buried under rubble (along with an untold number of the dead, many of them children), there is nowhere safe to go. And of course, this has been Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan since the beginning - well before October 7, when one of the world’s most well equipped militaries, with the most sophisticated surveillance systems, somehow managed to miss picking up any hint of a planned attack, not to mention the risks of condoning the site for the Supernova “peace”* festival (close as it was to the Gaza border) or the choice to add an extra day to the festival’s schedule.
Do I think Netanyahu is evil enough to strategically manoeuvre an attack on his own people, figuring it a necessary sacrifice to allow for his his deranged fantasies of total annihilation of Palestine and its people?
I absolutely do.
He’s never concealed his desire to wipe them out. Here’s a video of him from 2001 hypothesising how it could be done, and here he is again last year ‘reminding’ Israelis “what Amalek has done to you”. He’s a genocidal warmonger and a racist with delusions of grandeur and an unwavering belief in his own supremacy who hides behind the monstrous legacy of the Holocaust to avoid censure and to justify his own psychopathy. His insistence now that it is an “antisemitic hate crime” to hold him accountable for the vast number of war crimes he and his similarly psychotic terrorist government have perpetrated *since well before October 7* is a classic abuser move and simply more evidence of how entirely above the law he considers himself to be.
Despite the bastard narrative we’ve been force fed about “the most moral army in the world” and its judicious leaders, the man at its helm does not value human life. And by that, I mean he values NO LIFE, bar his own, regardless of “sides”. He certainly doesn’t care about retrieving any Israeli hostages. The dangling participle of hostages almost certainly either buried under the rubble of a destroyed Gaza or nowhere near the strip currently being decimated in order to “retrieve” them is just a Trojan horse designed to transport US funding, support and political assurances that his genocide will go unchallenged. Netanyahu wants to be remembered as the man who destroyed once and for all not just the possibility of Palestinian liberation but Palestinian existence. And he will stop at nothing - not even sacrificing his own citizens - to achieve this.
This is the kind of monster he is.
I’ve learned enough about the mendacious tactics of Zionism over the last seven months to know that even suggesting this results in absurd and frankly laughable accusations of antisemitism and ‘blood libel’. It’s a handy little rhetorical trick, dismissing any criticism of the Israeli government, Zionism and the decades long (and successive) assaults on Palestine as “hatred” of Jewish people and the invocation of centuries old, genuinely grotesque canards historically used to dehumanise and vilify them. But Israel is a political state, not a moral one. It acts in its own political and ethnofascist interests, and anti-Zionists - which INCLUDES Jewish people, in rapidly increasing numbers - fight against it on that basis. To use antisemitism and the despicable tropes employed to perpetrate it as a justification for unrelenting military slaughter of a people whose land was stolen from them is a shameful manipulation of the Shoah and everyone subjected to the tyranny of Nazi brutality.
When Benjamin Netanyahu effectively orders that Gaza and its people be completely destroyed, it’s not derived from some Big Daddy Energy but his own power hungry aspirations - and it bears repeating that the violence he’s ordered against Palestinian people under the tenuous authority simply of being a “Prime Minister” began long before October 7. For years, Netanyahu has been the focus of investigation from the ICC (not to mention Israel’s own judicial system).
Following a 2014 military assault on Gaza in which over 1500 civilians were killed, the ICC announced it was launching a probe into Israel’s actions - a move Netanyahu derided as ‘preposterous’. As recently as 2021, the ICC again announced it investigating Israeli war crimes, not just because of its repeated assaults on Gaza but also because of the persecution of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements. Again, Netanyahu declared this probe to be ‘antisemitic’, and called it an “attack” against the state of Israel. (Curiously, it wasn’t an attack that led to Israel launching devastating airstrikes against the Hague - I guess self defence is relative when there’s land to conquer and offshore gas reserves to claim.)
The pretence that there is a Before October 7 and an After October 7 where Israel’s attacks on Palestinians are concerned is an utter fantasy. Netanyahu and his fellow terrorists have been murdering Palestinian people for decades, stealing their land, burning their trees, destroying their farms and infrastructure and psychologically tormenting them. Even more evil is the fact Israel - with the tacit support and FUNDING of a group of nations, primarily the United States - have for decades targeted Palestinian children as a means of destroying Palestinian tenacity and faith. The internationally illegal tactic of imprisoning Palestinians without charge, sometimes for years, is also used against CHILDREN. On September 18, 2023 (and do the math, September comes before October), Save The Children highlighted that it was the deadliest year on record for Palestinian children in the West Bank, with more than one child killed per week** by Israeli militants. The fact that Netanyahu in particular is willing to spill a lot of blood - gallons and gallons of it over years, much of it from children - is simply stating the obvious, having nothing to do with ‘blood libel’ and everything to do with the fact he’s an evil motherfucker.
The global support for this violence has nothing to do with combatting antisemitism or providing safe harbour for Jewish people, and everything to do with supporting western imperialism. Chief Facilitator of the Genocide himself, Joe “Older Than Israel” Biden said as much himself in 1986 when he declared, “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.” He then repeated that line last year in conversation with the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. Biden is not Jewish, yet he has declared himself proudly on more than one occasion to be a committed Zionist.
(FYI, the largest Zionist organisation in the world is made up of American Christian Zionists. In fact. there are more than three times as many Christian Zionists in America than there are American Jews, Zionist or otherwise, the former of whom believe all Jews must return to Israel in order for Jesus Christ to return to Earth, usher in Armageddon and smite all those INCLUDING JEWS who do not accept him as the Messiah. So when pro-Palestinian activists specify being anti-Zionist in regards to Zionism’s specifically white supremacist ideals, it’s yet more mendacious goalpost shifting to pretend what we REALLY mean is “anti Jewish”.)
The continued existence of “Israel” as it stands within imperialist values - which inherently involves perpetuating the view of ‘the region’ as one suffocating with complexities, with the scourge of worldwide terrorism (which this same imperialism never claims for itself, needing us all to believe it’s an Us and Them issue) only held at bay by the necessary continuation of US gifts of bombs to whichever lunatic is at the helm that year - is essential to the ongoing colonialist project that the west has been engaged in for centuries, which in turn is essential to the continued success of various political aspirants and their parties.
How else do we explain the about face of our own shameful Prime Minister, the Coward Known As Anthony Albanese? In 2014, he appeared on breakfast television and denounced Israel’s attacks on Gaza, condemning what he correctly referred to as the “collective punishment” of civilians. One has to wonder what’s changed in the intervening years (aside from his elevation to the Prime Ministership that is, and the resultant desire to maintain whatever power he’s sold his soul for) that sees him now not caring, as he did then, that Israel was killing “one child every hour”.
The Coward Known As Anthony Albanese’s recent censure of Labor MP Jason Clare is not, as the grotesquely right wing trash rag The Australian called it “true leadership” but, rather, true hypocrisy. And the leaked content of his discussion last week with a group of rabbis, in which he described student activists on campus as “Trots” who were unaware of history is such a disgraceful and embarrassing departure from his own previously celebrated history as a student activist that it’s a wonder he hasn’t spontaneously combusted from the shame.
If political expediency is what drives these monsters (and it is), such infantilising is an astonishing dismissal of new voters. Many of these student activists will be just preparing to vote in their first federal election, or have only one under the belt. To be dismissed as uninformed, borderline rabid nuisances by a Prime Minister who, at least once upon a time, knew what being vaguely human entailed is remarkably bad strategy.
The student activists leading encampment protests all over the world are not, as these merchants of establishment bullshit would have it, “ignorant Trots” just looking for a fight. As others have pointed out, these are young adults who’ve come of age in a period of time in which school shootings (for US based students), impending climate collapse and lack of political action (for everyone), Covid 19 and economic crises have rendered many of their futures decidedly bleak.
And yet, still they hope. Still they try. Still they care.
To paraphrase Andrea Dworkin, these young activists believe in our collective humanity despite all evidence to the contrary.
Amidst its various dogwhistles and pretences to care about the safety of Jewish people (as opposed to the imperialist interests of the ruling class), The Ass newspaper is framing these visionary young protesters as ‘children’ (and, in at least one example I’ve found, “young children” - as if they’re pre-pubescent teeny tots having a tantrum on the lawns rather than astute young thinkers whose energy and compassion cannot be squelched by the bloviated self interest of a right wing commentariat grown used to crushing dissent).
In editorial after editorial, the dehydrated gorgons at The Ass have referred to student protesters in such terms, diminishing not just their legal status as adults but also their capacity to understand the ‘complicated’ issue of a western sanction genocide in which, aside from the catastrophic death toll, every single university and educational institution just like their own has been completely destroyed.
In the mendacious fantasy propped up by this cabal of right wing ghouls, these “children” are not thinking humans capable of imagining - and fighting for - a world in which human life is actually granted some kind of sanctity, but easily led infants who are being brainwashed by Khhhhhhhhhhhamas terrorists and Khhhhhhhhamas agents in the form of *checks notes* academics, journalists, aid workers, UN representatives and the International Criminal Court. Their peaceful encampments (in which students are overwhelmingly calling for the divestment of institutions whose services they are paying for from weapons manufacturers whose technology SLAUGHTERS CHILDREN) are not, as former Liberal minister Josh Frydenberg called them, “campus camps of hate” in which antisemitism is flourishing without constraint and students “Jewish and non Jewish alike” are feeling “unsafe”. This is just another smokescreen to deal with the terrifying realisation that Israel’s longstanding impunity against public censure is shattered.
What these encampments are is a global demonstration of collective action, community oriented goals, bipartisan governance and collaboration BETWEEN Jewish and non Jewish anti-Zionist allies.
Crucially, they’re incredible representations of what universities are SUPPOSED to be - which is a place in which people set out to expand their learning about the world, imagine a better vision of what that world could look like and then set about realising it. This is probably why it so deeply terrifies establishment goons like those who appear on Sky News, churn out the garbage in the Murdoch Press, or who’ve ever expressed the idea that “getting a job” is the antidote to caring about the world enough to march for it.
But this is all distraction.
What matters is Rafah, where over 600,000 children who’ve miraculously survived Israel’s bombardment for seven months are now at very serious and probable risk of finally losing their lives. As the western world yawns in its general direction, as “celebrities” draped in the blood soaked garment of their own indifference pose for photos outside a ‘gala’ that means absolutely nothing, as Zionists scream for more complete annihilation and unmitigated support for it, as the media renders previously respected awards for journalism absolutely meaningless by awarding a Pulitzer to a propagandist rag outed for fabricating an ‘investigation’ into October 7 while ignoring the catastrophic number of journalists murdered, while our own industry heavyweights turn away from moral obligation and towards their own comfort and security - while all this happens, a genocide is being completed before our very eyes, and a nation made up mostly of children is being wiped out in “self defence”.
We are a disgrace as a species. Our silence disgraces humanity. Our complicity shames us all. I cannot fucking stand it. I cannot stand the ease with which people will allow for CHILDREN to be slaughtered, and in such monstrous and torturous ways.
I have been called antisemitic so many times in the last seven months, and each time is as absurd as the last. But if people must yell preposterous accusations at me in order to avoid confronting their willingness to sacrifice CHILDREN for their comfort, then so be it. This far into a genocide with that’s claimed so many unmarked, tiny graves for its spoils, I could not care less. The literal shit-for-brains who conduct the media and the government in this country seem to be unaware of how deeply unimportant they are, or how irrelevant their criticism is.
I mean, when you have a non Jewish fuckwit like Andrew Bolt declaring an anti-Zionist Jewish scholar like Anthony Lowenstein a “fringe journalist” and an “unworthy Australian”, you have to wonder how even they believe their pretence at protesting antisemitism holds up.
This pretence makes itself even more clear when you have that same hack trash writer suggesting Lowenstein - again, a celebrated Jewish academic and scholar, not to mention award winning writer - is on par with the kind of anti-Zionist who encouraged Jews to “vote for Hitler”.
We are witnessing a genocide in real time, and also the complete indifference of an empire in rapid decline.
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
- James Baldwin
We must never be allowed to forget what was allowed to play out on our screens and our social media feeds for seven straight months, while those with the power to fucking STEP IN AND STOP IT just sat on their fucking blood stained hands and chanted SELF DEFENCE and ANTISEMITIC and HUMAN SHIELDS and KHHHHHHHHHHAMAS, as if any of these things mean anything any more when they’ve been completely overwhelmed by a mountainous pile of children’s shrapnel filled bodies, decomposing flesh, blown off limbs and piercing cries for relief from the incomprehensible pain of having nowhere to go and no one to fix it all.
Israel and its soulless allies are conducting a Holocaust of children. That is what it is, and that is how it will be remembered. Every single person complicit in this unfathomable evil should be remembered forever as a willing party to the mass slaughter of babies, co-signed and agreed upon because power mattered more to them than humanity.
Power, money and authority mattered more than protecting CHILDREN.
And if a moral state exists for anyone in which protection must be guaranteed, permanently and without opposition, it is children. It is ALWAYS children. As James Baldwin said, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
This is the only true thing I know for certain.
I know it as sure as I know the bombs will continue to fall while we do nothing and I know it as sure as I know we will never scrub out the stain of the blood on our hands, as long as we live and ensure that they don’t.
Do not let these bastards fucking forget what they’ve done.
All eyes on Rafah.
Long live the intifida.
You are literally watching the mass execution of Palestinians happening live on screen and Israhell has a carte Blanche to do whatever it wants as no one can stop or will not stop this beast! In case you haven’t cried yet today…Israel is forcing Palestinians in Rafah to flee as it begins a ground invasion that experts say will result in a “bloodbath.” Over 1.4 million Palestinians, half of them children, are currently living in Rafah after Israel forced them to flee their homes in other parts of Gaza. For weeks now, Israel has been bombing Rafah, killing entire Palestinian families in the very place it told them they would be safe.
Meanwhile, the US continues to back, fund, and arm Israel’s ongoing genocide, despite reports from countless human rights groups documenting Israel’s horrors against Palestinian civilians, including children. In case you haven’t cried yet today…Just take 5 minutes today and try and put yourself in the shoes of a parent in R@fah today. What would you be thinking? How would you try to protect your children? Where do you go when there is no where to go?
The occupation, once again, keeps showing its true colors and plans. The occupation government says it is “studying” the proposal for a ceasefire. Despite international pressure Israel still continues it’s attack on the 1.5 million people displaced in Rafah. The “evacuation” of Rafah is illegal. There are no “humanitarian” or “safe zones.” Civilians are being forcibly displaced to areas totally unsuitable to human habitation. This is a crime against humanity!!!
Just take 5 minutes today and try and put yourself in the shoes of a parent in R@fah today. What would you be thinking? How would you try to protect your children? Where do you go when there is no where to go?
The fear they must be feeling. The disabled community, the parents, the pregnant mothers on their own. The father with no legs and one surviving daughter. The elderly. The graves of the children they have to leave behind, knowing the desecration that will happen. The starvation, ethnic cleansing, nowhere to flee to, after 7 months of living hell & mass murder of innocent children and women, Im beyond angry and upset, Im devastated, in shock still, & NOONE can or is stopping it!! I'm absolutely gutted! 😭😖🤮😥😓😡
FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸 PRAY for them!!
Thank you Clem, for once again articulating so beautifully & adding the weight of your knowledge to what We’re feeling. This is an absolute disgrace & I’m ashamed to be an adult in our society at this time…I’ve spent my life reading/learning about atrocities in history & always wondering how people could sit by & let them happen. And now I know. It’s because of a mass level of apathy & inertia…everyone now so busy focused on the small intricacies of living their soulless life in the machine of neoliberal capitalism, that they don’t have the ability to raise their eyes & take in what’s happening & being sanctioned & supported by their govt’s in their name. And the same thing happened over history, it was just at the hands of whatever imperialist structure was in place at the time. And the masses hid behind that structure & turned their eyes then.
But we have even less excuse for turning our eyes now, as we all have extra eyes in our hands, with stories from actual people (children) living or dying in actual horror. And still we march along being distracted by the mundane trivialities.
It disgusts me…shame on our govt’s, shame on our corporations & shame on us. 😔xx