ISRAELI IMPUNITY REVISITED

In a previous substack piece entitled, The Genocidal state that is still accepted as ‘normal’, I asked readers to write to me with their explanations for what I called the phenomenon of Israel’s acceptance as a legitimate member of the world community of nations, despite its heinous crimes.

Since then more Israeli atrocities have come to light. In June, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry put out a harrowing report of Israel’s deliberate killing of Palestinian children. According to this, Israel uses precision weaponry and drones to target newborns, infants and all other children. At 20,000 dead and 44,000 injured, the UN commented that the rate and scale of this child murder were unparalleled in modern global conflicts. Israel’s destruction of schools, orphanages, and paediatric facilities has brought the infrastructure of childhood to the point of collapse. The report’s most sickening aspect is its account of the physical harm, mass trauma, torture and sexual abuse visited on children.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who might well have died by the time this substack is published, was director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza when the Israelis attacked the hospital in December 2024 and took him prisoner. He has been held in solitary confinement and without charge in various nefarious Israeli prisons for the last 18 months, tortured and abused to such an extent his lawyer hardly recognised him on a visit in June. He had bruises on his face and neck, and could hardly breathe. He told the lawyer, “I’m living in hell”, and seemed convinced it was the last time they would meet. Thirteen other Gaza doctors are similarly detained in Israeli prisons without charge.

It goes without saying that these two crimes alone should have disqualified Israel from any sort of acceptance for good. Yet, and despite the growing chorus of anti-Israel criticism at popular level in western countries, it’s business as usual with the Jewish state for western governments and institutions. In fact, even as Israeli atrocities mount, a witch hunt of pro-Palestinian activism is even more frenetic in these countries.

Legal experts have documented hundreds of cases of repression against pro-Palestinian supporters in the UK, including arrests, disciplinary action in the workplace, scrutiny of university academics and NHS medical staff, and cancellations of Palestine events. The proscription of a pro-Palestinian protest group, Palestine Action, in 2025, recently upheld on appeal for the group’s alleged links to terrorism, is an arch example of how pro-Israeli pressure on the UK government works.

All this leads us back to the original question I posed to readers. Why is Israel’s standing so little affected despite this unabatedly deplorable record? You sent an interesting variety of responses, and I sincerely thank everyone who took the trouble to write, sometimes in great detail and at length. I have summarised the main themes to emerge from these explanations, some of them written and others verbal.

1. Pro-Israel lobbies in western countries working indefatigably on Israel’s behalf, especially in the US. That has led to a powerful Zionist hold on governments, politicians and public opinion, aggravated by media presentations of the Israeli view and the exclusion of Palestinian voices.

2. ‘Holocaust propaganda’, where the events of the second world war 80 years ago are constantly kept alive through the frequent airing of holocaust films and documentaries. These measures also help to maintain guilt and culpability for the holocaust.

3. Colonialism and imperial expansionism, of which Israel is a part. Created as a settler colony, it was necessary to produce an ‘architecture of impunity’ protecting the way the new state was created and the manufactured legitimacy using religion, fake history and ethnicity to justify its existence. According to this view, that whole architecture would have to be dismantled in order to end Israel’s impunity.

4. Fear of US reprisals amongst western states if they oppose Israeli policies, and the corollary to that, for states to curry US favour through uncritical support for Israel.

5. The wish to maintain Israeli control of the Palestinians territories as testing grounds for weapons, security and surveillance systems sought after by the west; with the additional advantage of Israel’s expertise in repressing popular resistance as a model for other states facing opposition amongst their populations.

6. Antisemitism, and the desire to find an alternative home for a people Europe does not want. That view was conveyed to me verbally.

One or more, or a combination of the above factors could be the explanation for this phenomenon of what amounts to an international consensus to enable Israel’s crimes and ensure it faces no accountability. The Gaza genocide will soon be in its third year, and despite widespread condemnation of Israel, there is still no serious reprisal. The flow of military aid to Israel is uninterrupted, trade agreements with it are intact, and no end to its political and diplomatic support is in sight.

Perhaps the true explanation for Israel’s continued impunity is not any of the factors cited in our list above, although they are relevant. Perhaps it is that the west cannot relinquish Israel, even if it wanted to. After all, it cannot be in the interest of any western state to be seen condoning and assisting war crimes and the mass slaughter of innocents.

But, like Frankenstein’s monster, the western world, which created Israel, cannot escape from its creation and is driven to sustain it even at considerable cost to itself. And in that unwise, ill-considered enterprise, the west has condemned the rest of us to suffer the consequences.