Richard Silverstein

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: The following is a superb article by Richard Silverstein. It explores the history and meaning of the IDF’s Hannibal Directive - an Israeli military protocol designed to prevent IDF soldiers from being captured alive by enemy forces. The directive orders commanders to take necessary measures, including endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil a kidnapping. In practice, the Hannibal Directive orders IDF combatants to kill their comrades in a case of abduction.

Silverstein is horrified by the directive and its ethical and legal implications. He also believes that such a homicidal protocol is inconsistent with the Israeli military’s alleged heritage of caring for its soldiers.

But Silverstein’s perspective may be mistaken. It must be noted that military and civil law are distinctively different domains. While civil law serves to protect societal and individual rights, military law serves the system as a whole. This explains, for instance, why collective punishment is common and even acceptable within the context of a military legal discourse. It serves the military’s interests as opposed to the rights of individuals. The amusing adage “military law is to law as military music is to music,” captures the ethical absurdity that is entangled with military Law.

The Hannibal Directive is consistent with Israeli national and military interests. From the point of view of Israel’s strategic interests, a captured soldier entails compromises Israel would prefer to avoid.

Silverstein writes, “The Hannibal Directive embraces a fascist perspective in which the individual is subsumed within the mass. He has no specific individual value unless he is serving the interest of the nation. And his interests may, when necessary be sacrificed to the greater good.” Silverstein is addressing the issue from an ethical perspective within the spirit of enlightenment. But Zionism and Jewish nationalism are inherently anti-enlightenment ideologies. Zionism denotes the birth of the ‘Jewish people,’ the idea that every Jew is an integral part of a larger collective with clear tribal interests that outweigh the individual. Accordingly, in an extreme situation, the interests of the tribe are far more important than the individual rights. The Hannibal Directive is a glimpse into the depth of the Jewish collective bond and tribal commitment. It exposes the level of commitment and sacrifice expected of tribal members.

Silverstein identifies the directive as fascist, but he should remember that Zionism predates Fascism and unlike Fascism that was largely defeated, Zionism has so far prevailed.

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Khalid Amayreh

The Judeo-Nazi state, known as Israel, continues to resort to “big-lie” tactics in order to justify its genocidal crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. This is not a new phenomenon by all means. Israel and mendacity have always been and continue to be two sides of the same coin.

The Judeo-Nazi state claims that its ongoing blitz in Gaza is directed against Hamas, not the Palestinian people. But this claim is devoid of any shred of truth. The fact that thousands of innocent civilians have been murdered and mutilated beyond recognition and that thousands of residential homes have been utterly destroyed, often right on their dwellers' heads, easily refutes the Israeli canard.

In the final analysis, Hamas itself is an "effect" not a "cause" since the cause is the enduring Judeo-Nazi occupation of the Palestinian homeland. As we all know, modern Jewish Nazism had preceded and predated Hamas by many years. The Nazi-like atrocities of Dir Yasin, Tantura, Dawaymeh, Qastal, etc. occurred decades before the appearance of Hamas.

In fact, one can safely and veraciously argue that Hamas is an inevitable reaction to Jewish Nazism, a nefarious, genocidal doctrine otherwise known as Zionism. Indeed, had Hamas never appeared, another similar Palestinian movement would have appeared. People languishing under a sinister foreign military occupation are bound to resist their tormentors and oppressors. Hamas is hardly the inventor of resistance against foreign occupations.

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Bill Van Auken

Given its track record, today’s human rights imperialism makes the old “white man’s burden” of colonialism’s heyday seem like a noble cause by comparison. Nothing has been more rapidly discredited. When Washington tries to peddle it, people all over the world recognize it for the garbage that it is.

Wednesday saw back-to-back atrocities in Gaza that made it clear to anyone with eyes to see that Israel is carrying out a war of terror against civilians. Its aim is to break the will of the Palestinian people through the murder of children, the destruction of homes, and the driving of an entire population back to Stone Age conditions.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck first at a UN-run school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, where some 3,000 people driven from their homes had sought shelter, killing at least 16 and wounding over 125 more. Then, in the middle of an IDF-announced cease-fire, shells were rained down on a crowded market place in Shejaiya, killing 17 and wounding over 200. As the horrific images of these massacres emerged from Gaza, newspapers carried the report that the Obama administration had agreed with the European Union to impose sweeping sanctions—not against Israel, but against Russia.

The punitive actions by the US and the EU are being carried out in the context of a provocative global propaganda campaign blaming Moscow and President Vladimir Putin personally for the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine and the deaths of its 298 passengers and crew.

While indicting Putin and the anti-Kiev militias in eastern Ukraine as mass murderers, Washington and its allies have kept a stony silence on the killing of over 1,000 civilians in the region, as the Ukrainian regime they installed through a fascist-led coup last February continues to unleash artillery and rocket fire on residential neighborhoods.

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