Avigail Abarbanel, Israeli-born psychologist:

"The Israeli state has always waited for an opportunity to ‘solve the Palestinian problem’ once and for all. Netanyahu’s return to power despite his criminal convictions was no accident. The Jewish-Israeli public brought him back from the brink of prison, because they know that he has what it takes to ‘finish the job’. They know how psychopathic and narcissistic he is. They know he lacks empathy, and has no natural restraints on what he would do for his own aggrandisement. In fact, they are counting on it. Barring a small minority, most Jewish-Israelis are behind their government.

Israel’s military is made out of ordinary citizens. The soldiers committing the destruction and carnage in Gaza, these war criminals, are ordinary people, office workers, solicitors, doctors, plumbers, marketing executives, electricians, procurement officers, teachers, nurses, shop owners, taxi drivers, hair dressers, supermarket workers. They are not paid mercenaries. They are regular, everyday people like you and me.

Israel’s Plans In Context

Israel is a settler-colonial state. Since the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, Israel has not managed to complete the removal of the non-Jewish indigenous people of Palestine. In a modern, post-War world it was hard to commit open genocide, and Israel needed a few decades to build itself economically and militarily, and secure its place in world politics. Israeli Jews were never comfortable sharing historic Palestine with the remaining non-Jewish indigenous people. Why would they, when they are taught from birth that all non-Jews want to kill them?

There are now more Palestinians in and around Israel than Jews and Israel is obsessed with demographics. Because of the belief that Jews are not safe with non-Jews, Israel was always supposed to be an exclusively Jewish state, run by Jews, and for Jews only.

Israel judged the timing and geo-political circumstances as ripe as they would ever be to begin to carry out its plan to add Gaza to Israel. Israel has long coveted Gaza’s coastal location, and the gas reserves off the Gaza coast.

The willingness of the likes of the Saudis to ‘normalise’ their relationship with Israel, helped Israel assess its standing in the world as positive. And it was right.

The ‘existential war against Hamas’ has been a useful ruse. Either Israel had some hand in what Hamas did on the 7th of October, or it just waited for something like this to happen as an opportunity to carry out its pre-existing plans. Either way, the moment came, and Israel pounced.

People in Israel complain about intelligence and military failures on 7th October. But the series of events they see as failures were probably deliberate. In order for Israel to succeed in pleading self-defence, things had to look really bad for Israel, at least for a little while. Israel has no hesitation sacrificing its own people for the ‘greater goal’, of the exclusively Jewish state. We were brought up on the principle that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of individuals. Self-sacrifice is expected in Israel. It is a fine and careful calculation to sacrifice just as many as necessary to create the image of an existential emergency, but not too many, which could lead to a public revolt.

Israel is working as fast as possible to achieve as much of its goal as possible, while international support lasts. So far, as disturbing as it is, this support seems to be holding.

Israel has cultivated this unconditional support carefully for decades. It has infiltrated and influenced the internal politics of many Western countries. Look at what was done to Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Look at the antisemitism ‘scandal’ in the Labour party, and Keir Starmer’s support for Israel. It is not even worth talking about the Tories. They represent the worst of British colonial sentiment and whitewashing.

Israel has never had it better, and Netanyahu and his minions are kicking themselves in disbelief and glee. But it is not luck. Israel has achieved this unprecedented support with a lot of hard work, conniving, and scheming. It has counted on the fact that the world is run by stupid and corrupt people. Israel has no respect for anyone. Everyone is an object to exploit. Anyone who opposes Israel is attacked, and the rest are just ignored. If Israel was a person, it would have the clinical profile of a narcissist and psychopath mixed together. (Clinically speaking, the two are not mutually exclusive).

Israel plans to destroy every human made structure in Gaza, every home, every apartment block, every road, street, every shop, every hospital, every street light, so that the inhabitants of Gaza have nowhere and nothing to get back to. It is a comprehensive destruction of Gaza as the Palestinians used to know it. There has to be no infrastructure left that can enable any Palestinian existence in what is fast becoming the former Gaza. The plan is to Israelise Gaza, and you cannot do it when a distinct culture has left its mark on the territory. You have to destroy and demolish everything to make it your own. Israel hates Palestinian culture, which it has always viewed as inferior. It is typical of colonisers (and all perpetrators) to view their victims as lesser beings than they are.

Israel is already flattening the territory with bulldozers to prepare it for rebuilding by Israel.

Israel is a staunchly capitalist country. I am guessing Israel is already schmoozing with rich Israeli Jews, and overseas investors and developers. It is likely already making deals, and handing out promises of future permits to enable the building of housing, luxury seaside neighbourhoods for the rich, hotels and resorts, all for Jews only. I am guessing Israel is already planning plants and infrastructure to exploit the oil reserves.

Israel is using the age-old and reliable doctrine of ‘creating facts on the ground’. Once Israel starts to build, what is the world going to do, bomb it, destroy it? Creating ‘facts on the ground’ was one of the means used by the original Zionists to take over historic Palestine. This is not speculative on my part. We were taught this at school in history classes as a really clever and correct action on the part of the Zionists. ‘Creating facts on the ground’ has been a successful and proven tactic. Israel has been using it in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, near the Gaza border, and now in Gaza itself.

The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is not an accident of war. Israel is deliberately and systematically creating it. Israel intention is to make the situation so horrific, that the world would have no choice but to step in and take in Gaza's refugees. Israel does not care where they go, whether they live or die, or how they die. It just wants them gone.

Al-Jazeera, or TRT World, (and occasionally even one of the more cowardly news media) report about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza because they are trying to help. But this only plays into Israel’s hands. If the world feels sympathy and compassion for the Palestinians, there is a better chance that at least some countries would welcome them in. Removal of all Palestinians is Israel’s ultimate aim.

Israel is using its destruction of Gaza and the genocide of its people as a blueprint for the West Bank. When the takeover of Gaza has been completed, and the dust, metaphorical and real has settled, Israel will come for the West Bank. Its goal would be to empty it from Palestinians, and free it up for a Jewish takeover. Israel will destroy everything and push people East towards Jordan. You will see the same scenes of human suffering, displacement, death, disease, and starvation, with millions reduced to living in make-shift tents. Israel will create another deliberate humanitarian disaster to turn the refugees into a problem for the international community.

And if Israel is not stopped, it will come for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Bombing will not work there. So I suspect that the removal of the Palestinian citizens of Israel will be carried out with a combination of Kristallnacht-type attacks, followed by bureaucratic and legislative tools. Israel learned well from the Nazis. I can imagine there will be a few dramatic attacks on Palestinian citizens of Israel, on their properties, and homes by groups of unruly thugs, to which the authorities will turn a blind eye. Such attacks might be prompted by some act, real or imagined blamed on a Palestinian, or just by an explosion of the existing and growing toxic hatred, and anti-Palestinian racism. This would leave no doubt in the minds of Palestinian citizens of Israel about the country’s plans for them. Such attacks will be a way of encouraging them to leave the country voluntarily. The Palestinian citizens of israel have always feared they were on borrowed time, and I believe they were right.

Following violent attacks, Israel would use a series of bureaucratic and legislative tools to get rid of Palestinians who have not already left. Israel has plenty of experience using bureaucracy and legislation as tools of ethnic cleansing. I imagine there would be some kind of deadline for people to leave the country and go elsewhere, or else...

Israel will take over existing homes and repurpose public buildings, as it did in 1948. Netanyahu will be a hero. He will have solved Israel’s housing problem, and will have provided plenty of employment for Jewish-Israelis in new developments in Gaza, and across former Palestinians towns and cities within Israel.

I was taught that we were innocent, that we never fought wars except in self-defence, that our military force was the most moral in the world, that our soldiers were noble heroes. I could not wait to join the military when it was my turn to do so. Military service is a right of passage in Israel. I never suspected that anything was wrong. I was brainwashed like everyone else in the Jewish-Israeli cult that we were the biggest victims in the world, and had nowhere else to live except Israel. We had to defend Israel with everything we had, and dedicate our lives to protecting it and helping it thrive. We were explicitly taught that the world was full of antisemites, and that the Arabs around us did not want us to have a state of our own, because they hated us for being Jews. We were taught that everyone wanted to annihilate us. I distinctly remember as a child feeling sorry for myself, and everyone else around me. I had no idea why everyone hated us. It felt so unfair and hopeless.

Readers might find it hard to believe. But as those soldiers prepare Gaza for a Jewish-Israeli takeover, no matter the human cost, they do not just believe they are defending their country. They believe they are fighting for the survival of the Jewish people.

Only cult leavers can understand the extent to which your psyche, your entire self can be possessed by the cult. It is hard for a lot of people who have never experienced anything like this to understand how Israeli soldiers can obey their orders. This is not an excuse for what they do. It is an explanation that I feel I need to give to those who ask me how ‘Jews can do this to others after what the Jewish people have been through’. Jewish-Israeli cult psychology, and its destructive entitlement is, unfortunately, among the most common reactions to trauma. Once again, it is an explanation, not an excuse. There is no excuse for what Israel is doing, regardless of how deluded, traumatised, or brainwashed its psychology is.

What we are witnessing is a textbook, modern genocide, that uses the machinery and technology of the state to remove an entire people, for the purpose of replacing them with the perpetrator’s own people.

If no one stops Israel, the Western world will once again have the blood of millions on its hands. The Western world will have nothing to complain about when angry and disillusioned groups start blowing things up. In fact, that would probably be welcome by cynical sub-human arms manufacturers and dealers, and their allies. Israel certainly does not care if the world is plunged into a Third World War. It would suit Israel quite well. After all, it has profiteered from selling arms to anyone who would buy them. Israel is one of the most successful countries in the world at making money out of armed conflict.

If you still have trouble believing what you are seeing, then remove the last goggles you might still be wearing. This genocide is real, it is devastating and there is no coming back from it. "