Cleon on Gaza

 Thucydides in his ‘History of the Peleponnesian Wars’ lays out the formula for the movement towards genocide caused by collective punishment and general slaughter which does not distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.  (Bk.III:36-50)

The Mytelenians  had joined in a revolt against Athens opportunistically which so greatly embittered the Athenians that they decreed that their defeated foes should all be put to death and their women and children enslaved.  This seemed meet in the heat of the moment and a trireme was despatched to relay that order.  However on the following day they bethought themselves and considered the injustice of punishing both the innocent and the guilty in a hetacomb.  In the assembly  to debate the issue Cleon a man of influence noted for his stern and violent character spoke in favour of the judgment.  To reverse our judgment at this point is to project weakness and lability, he urged, and to be moved by rhetoric and paradox.  Reprisal should be swift, immediate and final and let the defeated know the folly of resistance against our power.

“To feel pity, to be carried away by the pleasure of hearing a clever argument, to listen to the claims of decency are three things that are entirely against the interests of an imperial power.”

He adds in the conclusion of his argument that:

“For he who has suffered for no good reason is a more dangerous enemy, if he escapes, than the one who has both done and suffered injury.”

Diodotus speaking against Cleon makes the usual points about the promotion of good governance, alliance with the moderate parties and supporting democracy.  Good, fine, splendid.  Of course all true and worthy and contrary to conventional political realism.  However he then appeals to common sense:

“But if you destroy the democratic party at Mytilene who never took any hand in the revolt and who, as soon as they got arms, voluntarily gave up the city to you, you will first of all be guilty of killing those who have helped you, and, secondly, you will be doing exactly what the reactionary classes want most.  For now, when they start a revolt, they will have the people on their side from the beginning, because you have already made it clear that the same punishment is laid down both for the guilty and the innocent.”

The Cleon party have their supporters  as they watch the results of collective punishment in Gaza.Lets kill them all and put an end to the ‘mowing of the lawn’.  Let us be hard and cold, cold as ice, our descendants will thank us for it.

Hamas it is noted has increased its support as you have nothing to lose by joining in the uprising. Die a martyr or as an unfortunate collateral victim.

(Trans: by Rex Warner in Penguin Classics)

Iran shows its wares to three airforces.

 Reading the commentary on twitter and elsewhere the significance , it seems to me, is missed,  of the Iranian show of force.  They are demonstrating the palette of weaponry like arms salesment.  We are giving you a small selection of what we have and telling you in advance what they are so that you can be prepared. Today the Israelies will be reflecting that this sample took the airforces of three countries to shoot down which is o.k.as long as they remain willing to continue to do so.  Will their allies stick around?  Genocide is not a good look and the grabbing actions of the settlers alienates.  The Americans will dump them just as they did the Vietnamese, the Afghanies, Iraqis, and so forth.  Consider the cooling of ardour for the Ukraine.  They are not reliable long term allies, AIPAC or not.  The Palestinians will not quit any more than the North Vietnamese did.  Israel is no longer a safe place to ignore the demands of justice.  They should make an equitable peace now or risk losing everything.

Thucydides on Gaza

Reading the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides today I was struck by the speech of Diodotus against Cleon about the fate of Mytilene. His point was that when the innocent are punished just as much as the guilty then at the next revolt the former will join in knowing they have nothing to lose. The complete mobilisation of the people is inevitable. That is what Hamas wants and they will get it. The Israelis knowing this will try to push as many of the Gazans into exile as possible, creating a new Nakba. The openly fascistic Netenyahu has his counterpart in Cleon:

‘Personally I have had occasion often enough already to observe that a democracy is incapable of governing others, and I am all the more convinced of this when I see how you are now changing your minds about the Mytilenians. Because fear and conspiracy play no part in your daily relations with each other, you imagine that the same thing is true of your allies, and you fail to see that when you allow them to persuade you to make a mistaken decision and when you give way to your own feelings of compassion you are being guilty of a kind of weakness which is dangerous to you and which will not make them love you any more. What you do not realize is that your empire is a tyranny exercised over subjects who do not like it and who are always plotting against you; you will not make them obey you by injuring your own interests in order to do them a favour; your leadership depends on superior strength and not on any goodwill of theirs.

.... After a lapse of time the injured party will lose the edge of his anger when he comes to act against those who have wronged him; whereas the best punishment and the one most fitted to the crime is when reprisals follow immediately. Diodotus:

Consider this now: at the moment, if a city has revolted and realizes that the revolt cannot succeed, it will come to terms while it is still capable of paying an indemnity and continuing to pay tribute afterwards. But if Cleon’s method is adopted, can you not see that every city will not only make much more careful preparations for revolt, but will also hold out against siege to the very end, since to surrender early or late means just the same thing?

If we only had old Israel over here

How far can you trust the moral sense of someone who thinks that Israel is a modern and liberal democracy? That is an obvious big lie, the whopper so big the stunned mind thinks there might be something to it. After a cup of strong tea you recover your wits and realise that this is the belief of someone who is so blinded by sectarian interests that the truth is beyond their reach. Like a man lost in a snowstorm they are moving in a circle thinking that they will eventually arrive in a place of safety. I often consider what the situation in Northern Ireland would be today if Israeli tactics as applied to Gaza had been used. Assassinations, razing of the family homes of convicted terrorists, drone bombs and the disregard for civilians that the Israelis attempt to justify. To qualify: their justifications are a function of their contempt in that they are not intended to persuade. 'You need this kind of thing, we don't care. Every now and then the grass needs cutting.' The Israelis are at the Cromwellian phase of dealing with the natives who are offered the choice of 'to Hell or to Connaught (Gaza)'.

At this point even the liberal voices in Israel itself that deplore I.D.F. and settler actions in the Occupied Territories seem to be part of the plan to convince doubters that there is a reasonable element that can be talked to and will listen to reason. Meanwhile expropriation and extirpation can go on. They really don't care.

I once bought by mistake an Israeli product. A packet of razor blades. The good news is that they were useless.