More Israeli Blood On Netanyahu’s Hands:
Outrage mixed with grief in Israel on Sunday, with many Israelis directing their anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the news that six bodies found in Gaza were dead hostages.
Advocates for hostages and members of Mr. Netanyahu’s political opposition swiftly accused the Israeli leader of torpedoing monthslong efforts to broker a deal with Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages, further imperiling them.
“For eleven months, the government of Israel led by Netanyahu failed to do what is expected of a government — to bring its sons and daughters home,” a group representing the families of the hostages said in a statement. “Netanyahu: Enough of the excuses. Enough of the spin. Enough of the abandonment.”
The responses to the hostages’ deaths put into focus the stark divisions within Israel over the war. While many hostage families and their supporters have called for a deal with Hamas, even if it leaves the group intact, Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have said a bad deal with Hamas could put Israel’s long-term security at risk.
Palestinian blood. Israeli blood. Doesn’t matter to Bibi if it keeps him in power. He will go down in history as one of the most infamous butchers of all time.
The 19th-century idea that great men – exceptionally talented, courageous, charismatic individuals – direct and change the course of history by the sheer force of their genius and personality is hard to shake. It has persisted despite the rise of egalitarian and Marxist social theory and the advent in the 1960s of EP Thompson’s levelling up school of “history from below”.
The Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle viewed figures such as Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Martin Luther and the prophet Muhammad as standout heroes of their time who fundamentally, permanently changed the world around them. The mass of mankind, he believed, could merely watch, marvel, admire and tamely follow these top-down makers and shakers of “universal history”.
It’s a daft idea, really, but seductive and long-lived. There are still men – and it’s mostly men – who truly believe they have been fashioned in a heroic mould, that they have a special mission, a calling, or sacred duty to lead and act as saviours of peoples and nations. They think they know best, enjoy unique insight. They are ruthless and arrogant enough to impose their views on all.
Except, in the modern era, such “great” men are typically not heroes at all, as the word is commonly understood, but anti-heroes or, more precisely, villains. Like Carlyle’s select few, they wield significant power. But unlike them, they use it unwisely, selfishly and destructively, appealing to people’s worst instincts, prejudices and fears. The greatest anti-heroic villains of the 20th century were mass murderers: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Today, three contemporary anti-heroes command global history-altering influence. Their messianic views, immense egos, disregard for truth, joylessness and cold-hearted inhumanity single them out as headline hooligans of an unheroic age. Step forward Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump – the riders of the storm, the three witches of a hexed, unhappy, warring world.
Worth reading in its entirety.
I was either (a) uninspired and/or (b) hung over this morning. Some days, you get what you (don’t) pay for.
What do you want to talk about?